The Frenzy Way (38 page)

Tears streaked Angela’s cheeks. “Noooooo!”

The monster tossed the entrails into the air and gobbled them. It pulled on them with its claws, chewing the flesh until it snapped like a rubber band. Then it locked its jaws on Stalk’s throat, tearing through flesh and cartilage, and clawed at the dead man’s face. With the creature hunched over Stalk, Mace had a clearer shot. His finger tightened on the trigger—

But then he saw a dark shape hurtling toward him. Lowering his gun, he jumped back and gaped in horror as Stalk’s head struck the asphalt where he had just been standing. A loud crunch denoted the crushing of skull, and blood and brain chunks showered his raincoat as he turned away.

“Oh, my God!” a woman said.

Mace looked at Stalk’s head, smashed beyond recognition, then up at the fire escape, where the monster made a show of licking its fingers before it dived into the window behind it, smashing through the glass and disappearing from view.

Spinning on one heel, Mace faced the stunned onlookers. “Call the police. Now!” Without waiting for a response, he surged forward and leapt over the stone steps leading to the building. Rather than step between the boards that blocked the entrance, he ripped them from the wooden frame and threw them onto the sidewalk. Then he marched into the lobby, his footsteps echoing.

A werewolf
, he thought.
A goddamned werewolf!
He had seen it with his own eyes. And the other people outside had seen it as well. They had all witnessed the monster disembowel Stalk.

Gripping his Glock in both hands, he did a perimeter sweep. A black leather coat rested half on the stairs and half on the floor. He looked up but saw no movement on the stairway overhead. With his back against the wall, he ascended the stairs, heart jackhammering inside his chest. On the second floor, he stepped over a black shirt, then kicked open each door before him. The monster could be hiding in any of the deserted apartments. On the next stairway he spotted shoes, socks, and a pair of slacks.

Not an animal, he thought. Came in here as a man.

Creeping forward, he heard his own labored breathing. Every doorway could mean his death. Sweat formed on his brow, and the butt of his Glock felt wet in his hands.

At the bottom of the final flight of stairs, he gazed up at the sky. Mounting the stairs, he realized the door had been removed from its hinges. Outside on the roof, another perimeter sweep revealed that Angela had disappeared.
Escaped or abducted?

Mace stood on the divider and studied the steel traps that had been set and the arrow sticking out of the silver roof.
They tried to take him out.
Hearing sirens approaching, he made his way to the far side of the adjoining roof, where he stepped over Stalk’s bow and peered over the retainer wall. Stalk’s headless corpse lay splayed on the fire escape below, its torso split open and guts spilled out, the rusted metal dripping crimson. A dark splotch on the street marked the head’s impact point.

The spectators scattered as two squad cars screeched to a stop outside the building. Turning to head downstairs, Mace noticed a crushed red rose at his feet.

Mace’s hands shook as he sipped his coffee with Chu standing beside him. Six squad cars had cordoned off the street and uniforms held back the press, but he knew the cameramen were shooting the bloody fire escape with zoom lenses. Hector Rodriguez and his CSU team fanned out, covering the sidewalk, street, and building. The sun set and camera flashes joined the cruiser strobes in illuminating the scene. Flares on the asphalt spat green flames.

“I saw it,” Mace said to Chu. “I fucking saw it. A goddamned werewolf. It was enormous.”

“Don’t say anything now,” Chu said.

They watched Dennis Hackley head their way.

Bad sign, Mace thought. The big brass.

“First one in broad daylight,” Hackley said with a grave expression. “Any other witnesses, Tony?”

“They scattered like jackrabbits.”

“There’s nothing else you can do here. Go back to the squad room and fill out your report.” He raised one finger. “Say nothing to anyone. Lou, I’m making you the primary here.”

Looking displeased, Chu nodded. “Okay, as long as I don’t inherit the entire bag of shit.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Hackley said.

Mace surveyed the scene. “I have to get out of here.”

Neither of his superiors objected.

Mace’s mind raced on the chauffeured drive back to the station. How was any of this possible? And how the hell was he going to report it? The bosses would crucify him if he told the truth, and with a baby on the way, he needed to keep his job.

Four more years until I’m eligible to retire at minimum pay grade
, he thought.
Got to stick it out and protect my own neck.
But what about Patty and the other murder victims? They deserved better than his silence. What about the city?

In the squad room, Landry hurried over to him. “What the hell happened?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He saw Gibbons watching them from inside the command office. “What can I do?”

“Assign a team to find Angela Domini.” Then he went into his office, sat at his desk, and took a deep breath. His knees shook as he keyed in his report.

Mace smelled steaks cooking when he opened his apartment door, and a moment later Cheryl emerged from the kitchen. He had phoned her on the taxi ride home.

“Hi,” Cheryl said. “Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Where’s your coat?”

“I need a shower.”

“Yes, you do.”

He kissed her, then went into the bedroom and stripped. In the shower, he allowed the steam to engulf him, burning his skin and opening his pores. He stood still, body absorbing the hot water and clearing his mind. When he sensed that ten minutes had passed, he shut off the water, toweled dry, and changed into sweatpants and a NYPD T-shirt.

Sitting at the table in the dining area, he felt Cheryl’s eyes on him as he poured himself a glass of red wine. He had stopped drinking alcohol when she had given it up because of her pregnancy.

“I think I felt a kick today,” she said.

He mustered a smile. “That’s great.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened? I saw you on the news. I know there was another murder. So why are you only home late instead of at some godforsaken hour?”

He chewed on his food. “I saw it, babe.”

“The murder?”

“That too. I saw the killer.” He summoned the words. “It wasn’t human.”

She held his gaze. “What was it, then?”

“A werewolf, for lack of a better term.”

She said nothing.

“It was some sort of creature that looked like a wolf as much as it did a man. It sure as hell wasn’t a costume.” He described Stalk’s murder without divulging the bloody details.

Cheryl listened to his story wide-eyed, then said, “Were there any other witnesses?”

“Yeah, but most of them took off.”

“And you reported what you just told me?”

He nodded.

She squeezed his hand. “You can’t speak to anyone outside the department about this. In fact, don’t speak to anyone
in
the department about it. The media will eat you alive. It will mean more than your job; it will mean your reputation for the rest of your life.”

“I know that. One true crime book is enough.”

She rose. “I’m going to bed. Coming?”

“In a while. I’m going to take care of these dishes, then watch some TV.”

She kissed him. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” As he watched her go into the bedroom, he wondered if she believed him.
How can she?

Lying on the sofa, he surfed the channels. Cable news. Everywhere he looked, the Manhattan Werewolf’s latest murder rated the top spot and extra coverage. At a press conference, Carl Stokes assured reporters that the killer was human and the NYPD was following leads. On a tabloid news show, artists’ renderings of werewolves filled the screen. On The History Channel, a somber voice detailed medieval European mythology. AMC showed a movie called
Dog Soldiers
. On Fox 5, the ten o’clock news devoted twenty minutes to the story. On nearly every channel, man-in-the-street interviews revealed that fear had gripped the city.

True to his word, Stokes had made Mace the case’s face. More than once, Mace heard the phrase “NYPD hero cop.” But he didn’t feel like a hero.

At 11:35, after the last local news broadcast, he went to bed. Turning on his bedside lamp, he climbed in next to Cheryl and opened Terrence Glenzer’s book. Neither Chu nor Hackley had called him with a reaction to his report.

“We can’t just let nature run wild.”

—Alaska Governor Walter Hickel

“This report is fantasy,” Dunegan said with a scowl as he raised a printed report in both hands and dropped it on his desk. “A piece of fiction. Bad fiction at that. The kind you read on an airplane when you forget your good book at home.”

Mace sat between Chu and Hackley, with Chiles behind him. Stokes stood gazing out the window, his back to the other men in the room.

Mace shook his head. “I’m afraid it isn’t. It’s what I saw. It’s what happened. And every one of us in this room has to deal with it.”

Dunegan drummed his fingers on his desk. “Werewolves don’t exist, Captain. No matter what the more sensationalistic members of the media would have the citizens of this city believe.”

Mace chose his next words carefully. “I didn’t say it was a werewolf. I called it a ‘lupine creature.’”

“Lupine as in—”

“Wolflike.”

“And creature—”

“As in nonhuman. A previously unidentified species, just as the FBI suggested.”

“According to the FBI, that report was given in confidence off the record. Your report is an altogether different breed of animal. What about your previous theory that the killer simply wears a costume?”

Mace didn’t blink. “Having seen it with my own eyes, I find that extremely improbable.”

“More improbable than the Wolf Man taking a bite out of the Big Apple? Whatever you saw, you witnessed from four stories beneath a fire escape. There’s no way you had a clear view. It’s completely understandable that your eyes deceived you under those circumstances, especially with your mind filled with nonsensical press headlines and easily discredited eyewitness accounts.”