Wolfwraith (19 page)

“Nothing on the Gordon woman?”

“No, but I stopped you because the chief ranger said you live next door, practically. They’ll be interviewing you soon, I suppose, and I was wondering if you had heard or noticed anything unusual last night.”

“Uh-uh. Not a thing.” Not here, at least.

“When did you go to bed?”

“Almost midnight, I guess. I made an after-dark patrol of the False Cape meadow, then turned in.”

“You got back about midnight?” she asked.

“Yeah. Around then. Why?”

“The preliminary guesstimate is the murders occurred between ten and eleven last night. So if you got back after that, you must have driven right by the bodies.”

“Holy shit!”

“You didn’t see anything?”

He thought back. “No. I was—uh—preoccupied. And, besides, I drive by here all the time, why look?”

“She must have been lying in the middle of the yard. How could you have missed her?”

“I didn’t have the headlights on. I was trying to keep a low profile in case someone might be sneaking around.” He snorted. “I guess I was right, huh?”

“Did you notice if Jenny’s house lights were on?”

“On. Definitely on—damn, I should have checked it out, she normally turns in early.”

She gestured toward the Taj Mahal. “What about the lights in the trailer?”

“I don’t know! For Christ’s sake, I had no idea something had happened. How the hell would I know park staff were in danger? I was focused on the campers!”

“Whoa, take it easy.” Her voice was soothing. “I just wanted to know if you’d seen anything.”

“Okay, I didn’t see anything. Satisfied? Get off my ass, would you?”

“Look, I’m sorry.” She persisted. “I realize this is a bad time, but we’re still going to have to talk, sooner or later.”

“I know. Give me some time, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks for what you did give me. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She walked away.

“Shadow,” Alex called from farther up the road, where he stood talking to a man in a suit—a cop, probably a detective, by the look of him. Shadow sized him up as he walked over.

The guy was short, dark-haired, about five-six with a narrow waist and broad shoulders. Christ, Shadow thought. Another one who looks like he eats only salads and fruit. Didn’t anyone else ever pig out on candy bars, ice cream or a big, fatty ham with potato salad? The man’s close-cut hair, pencil mustache and wire-rimmed glasses gave him the look of an accountant, but he didn’t have the pallor of an office worker. There was a barely noticeable bulge beneath his arm, under his coat.

“This is Detective Ronald Ericsson of the state police,” Alex said when Shadow reached the two men. “Lieutenant, this is Ranger Shadow Fletcher.”

They shook hands.

“Hello, Fletcher,” Ericsson said. “I understand you live next door.”

“Yeah. The house over by the bay.”

The detective took out a pen and notebook. “Could you spell your name for me?”

“Shadow. S-H-A-D-O-W. That’s the first name. Do you want me to spell Fletcher?”

“Shadow. What sort of name is that?”

“The one people call me by.” Shadow was not in the mood for explaining himself.

Ericsson glared. “So you were on patrol, checking campers, between nine thirty and midnight?”

“Nearly midnight, yeah.”

“Did anyone see you during that time?” asked Ericsson. “Anyone who could verify you being in another location?”

Christ, Shadow thought. The guy is asking me if I have an alibi. I’m a suspect!

“I ordered him to make a patrol of the park last night, Lieutenant.” Alex broke in, giving Shadow a few seconds to think.

What was his situation? He’d found the first body and the Gordon woman, too. Nobody believed him about the pig. Now two people had been killed right outside his house, and if his guess was right, Amanda Gordon had been raped. So, it looked like sex might be a motive and his only alibi for the time of the latest murders was that he had been sneaking around a tent where two women were making love. If those girls said what had happened, he’d appear to be a pervert and it probably wouldn’t clear him anyway.

The detective ignored Alex’s defense of Shadow. “What about it, Ranger? Did anyone see you while you were on patrol?”

“Well...yes, the campers at site twelve. Two young ladies.”

“And when was that?”

“About eleven, I guess. I wasn’t wearing my watch because it glows in the dark.”

Ericsson gave him a funny look, but didn’t comment. He wrote something in his notebook.

“Okay. No more questions. One more thing, though. Would you mind if we take a look inside your residence?”

Shadow was stunned. What should he do now? If he refused, the detective might think he was hiding something, but he learned, during his brief course in law enforcement, never to let someone search your belongings without a warrant. A search could never clear a suspect, and many innocent things could look damaging.

“Uh, are you saying I’m a suspect?” he finally asked.

“No, you’re not. We’re searching all the other buildings here, though, and I like to be thorough. Do you keep your doors locked?”

“No. Nobody in the park does.”

“As I thought. Look, whoever did this might have gone in your place, too. How about letting us take a look?”

“No. Not without a warrant.”

The detective paused. “It’s your call. I don’t have a reason to seek a warrant.”

Somehow, Shadow felt Ericsson had left a word off the end of the sentence.

“
Yet
.”

Chapter Thirteen

Any idea what happened?

The rest of the day went by in a blur. Shadow felt stupefied by the sleeping pill he had taken the night before and the shock of Jonesy and Jenny’s deaths. He knew he should worry about what would happen when they investigated his past, but his mind couldn’t focus enough to think ahead.

Eventually, however, he began to worry the detective would learn he had been accused of fondling his daughter. If that came out, they would believe him capable of sex crimes, if not murder.

He and the other rangers kept busy shuttling park visitors to the contact station, where they were identified and added to a list of people present in the park when the murders occurred. Most left on buses immediately, but others were kept behind for further questioning by Detective Ericsson or his assistants.

Shadow noticed the two girls, Marlene and Billie, among those waiting near the contact station. Since he figured they would be asked about his alibi, he considered approaching them to ask that they not mention the exact circumstances of how and why he approached their tent, but there was no chance to talk to them privately. The four teenagers from site ten, the Goths, were also waiting.

After they’d taken care of moving the people, Alex sent Shadow and the other rangers to truck kayaks, bicycles and other gear out to the refuge headquarters’ parking lot. When Shadow got back, the last vanload of park visitors was leaving.

He finished work a bit after nine and drove home down the interior road. As he approached the turn to his cottage, he slowed down because of several police officers moving around on the road. The investigation was continuing by flashlight and a generator-powered spotlight on a trailer.

When he finally entered his house, he didn’t even bother to turn on a light. He grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and slumped down in a kitchen chair.

* * * *

It was quiet in the house when he awoke. He had been awakened by his bladder complaining of insistent pressure due to the several beers he had consumed before falling asleep at the table. His arms were numb from cradling his head. Bleary-eyed, he stumbled to the bathroom, switched on the light and fumbled with claw and fingers to open his fly.

It was only as his stream splattered into the bowl that he remembered what had happened. Somehow, the brief sleep had cleared his head enough to recognize emotions again. Grief for the two murder victims, especially Jonesy, overwhelmed him. Jonesy had seemed as permanent a part of the park to him as the sea. Yet, now Shadow realized life was as capricious as the dunes. They seemed to be such massive accumulations of sand that nothing could move them, but they were actually at the mercy of any nor’easter or hurricane coming through.

While he urinated, he looked out of the bathroom window, which faced away from the bay, toward Jonesy’s trailer and Jenny’s cottage. The flashing lights were gone now and nothing moved between the few pines separating the houses. Although there was probably a police officer guarding the crime scene, no one was in sight. Through the screen, he could hear the usual night sounds, frogs, insects and the occasional splash from the nearby bay as some creature jumped in the waters. A lone bullfrog’s voice sounded every ten seconds or so. To Shadow, it was saying, “Fuck it…fuck it,” in a deep, who-gives-a-shit monotone.

He tucked himself back into his pants and walked around the house, locking all the windows and doors, and turning on the porch light. As an afterthought, he went through the house again, turning on the lights and checking to see if it had been searched. He found no sign of disturbance.

Finally, he went into his bedroom and locked those windows. He stripped, took off the claw, put on a pair of pajama bottoms, and climbed into bed. He looked at the nightstand clock. A few minutes after one-thirty. Knowing it was set for five, he turned the alarm on and rested in bed for a few minutes. Then he got up, checked his pistol and put it on the nightstand.

* * * *

The Terra-Gator was bearing down on him and he was stuck in the swamp, unable to run. Jonesy was behind the wheel, with a macabre hole in his throat, grinning while he sounded the vehicle’s horn. The resulting noise, however, was that of a bicycle-bell from Shadow’s childhood, a rounded dome with a thumb-lever mounted on the handlebars. A spectral Jenny Ostrowski was trying to rescue Shadow from the mire, but several naked, dead women were holding him down from beneath the mud. On and on the bell rang, until Shadow jerked into wakefulness and realized his alarm had gone off. Drenched in sweat, he reached over and shut it off.

During the drawn-out night, his grief had turned to anger. Someone had stolen the life of his best friend and Shadow wanted the murderer to pay—not only to be brought to justice but also to suffer.

These latest killings must have been intended to slap the faces of the authorities in the park. Whoever the killer was, he must think himself far too devious to be caught. There were several new twists here. The first three victims had been tourists, but the latest two had been park staff. Jonesy was the first male to be killed; also this was the first incident where the victims had not been found in remote locations and the bodies had been discovered right away—almost, anyway. There was no doubt in Shadow’s mind it was the same killer, though, because of Jenny’s throat wound.

He showered while a pot of coffee brewed. Looking through the cupboards, the only breakfast food available was a couple of packets of instant oatmeal. He ate some stale cupcakes instead, washing them down with sweetened coffee. Then he dressed and walked over to Jenny’s cottage with a pair of Styrofoam coffee cups.

The bright yellow tape of the police barrier gleamed in the pre-dawn glow like a barrier between life and death. Sure enough, there was a Virginia Beach cop parked nearby, who scowled suspiciously as Shadow approached.

Shadow strolled over to the police car and held out a cup to the pudgy-faced black man sitting inside. “Hi,” he said. “I thought you might like some coffee.”

The cop immediately accepted. “Thanks. I’m not due to be relieved for a couple of hours, and I was getting a bit sleepy.”

“I’m Ranger Fletcher. Shadow Fletcher. Here, I brought creamer and sugar.”

“Dan Watkins.” The cop nodded toward Shadow’s cottage as he accepted the sweeteners. “You live back there?”

“Yeah, I’m the only neighbor who survived.”

“I hear you weren’t home when it happened, huh? Lucky, I guess.”

“Maybe but Jonesy didn’t carry a gun. I do.”

“Jonesy? Oh, the male victim. Friend of yours?” Watkins stirred the condiments into his coffee.

Shadow took a sip of his own coffee and tried to act casual. “Yeah. They both were. Any idea what happened? I was working to get the park visitors interviewed yesterday and nobody’s filled me in yet.” Not quite a lie.

“I have a buddy in homicide,” Watkins said, “and he told me that, from the marks in the sand, your friend was coming to the rescue of the lady when he bought it. The killer ambushed him as he came around the corner of the building and there was quite a scuffle.”

“How so?”

“The guy was all slashed up, clothing torn, shit like that. I saw the bodies briefly.” Watkins grimaced. “Pretty damn gruesome.” He took a sip of his coffee. “They’re figuring the girl was dead before her throat got ripped open. Hardly any blood beneath her.”

Shadow shook his head. “Sounds like we’re no further along than before.”

“Nah, your buddy, Jonesy, might have nailed his own killer.”