Authors: John James Gregory
“Watch this.”
Tom raised his hands and the timber wolves and the gray wolves all sat up. Elizabeth was shocked. None of the wolves made a sound and seem to be responding to her brother’s hand gestures.
“Seen enough?’
His sister nodded.
“Come on. Let’s leave before we get thrown out of a zoo for causing an inmate riot!”
They held hands as the raced for the exit. Elizabeth could hear and see every animal on the way becoming raged at the presence of her brother. She reached in her pocket and pulled out her phone.
“Carl we are leaving now. We are coming out the east gate!”
The pair raced through the growing crowd of visitors and out into the lot. Carl was there with the limo and it sped away with Elizabeth still looking back in shock. There was no need to see the reaction of bats after all they had seen.
Elizabeth was still looking back at the zoo.
“Well now do you believe me?”
“I find it hard to accept that the next time there is a full moon, my brother is going to change into a werewolf!”
“It is a good thing I planned our route in and out of the zoo. Could you imagine what might have happened to the children at the petting zoo if I just casually strolled by?”
“I will continue to help you resolve this but I will keep struggling to believe this… what’s next?”
“Try and find out if there is a cure!”
The buzzer went off and it was Carl.
Tom picked up the limo’s phone.
“Detective Wiggins wants to see the both of you. Are we returning to your father’s estate?”
“Yes Carl.”
“Good. I’ll let him know and I believe he will want to meet the two of you there.
***
As the limousine pulled back on to the private drive way, a ‘K-9’ unit could be seen on the side of the road.. More ‘K-9’ units could also be seen as Carl made his way back up to the house. Detective Wiggins was leaning over the hood of one of the cars giving instructions to another officer while pointing to a map as the vehicle stopped at the main entrance. It was apparent that the detective had ordered a complete search of the grounds. Elizabeth looked at her brother as he reached for the door handle.
“You are not going to say anything about your…. Theory are you?”
“No, of course not… He wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
The pair got out of the car and went over to the detective.
“Carl said you wanted to see us?”
“Yes… Give me a minute.”
The detective gave some additional instructions to his officer in charge of the scene. Elizabeth saw a black FBI mobile truck lab near the garage area. The detective now escorted the couple to the back door of the mansion.
“Well the good news is that last night we did find some animal tracks and made molds of them for identification. Also, by the end of the day, we will be done at the front entrance and Talbot will be back here tomorrow to repair and reinstall the chandelier.”
Tom looked at the detective as he reached for the backdoor now held open with a piece of wood to prevent the necessity of entering the entrance code.
“When someone starts a conversation by saying there is good news, usually bad news follows.”
“Not really bad news, more of an interesting development.”
They walked in and the detective noticed Elizabeth was carrying her laptop.
“Could you turn that on…? I want to show you something.”
The trio took seats at the breakfast nook and Elizabeth did as the detective requested. The detective removed a DVD and handed it to her.
“I didn’t notice your people searching the woods yesterday.”
“Yesterday I only had two teams and they were examining the kennel area. Six hundred and forty acres is a considerable area of land. Today, I have extra teams to continue searching the forest areas of the properties.”
`
The door opened and Elizabeth inserted the DVD and waited for it to run.
“Yesterday, Margaret your cook made a statement that caught my interest.”
“And that was?”
Tom could see that Margaret could hear the detective as she continued her kitchen duties.
“She said that she thought it was unusual for Mr. Henry Barton not to be here by six-thirty in the morning and that she noticed that the dogs hadn’t been feed or given water when she looked out back. She also said she would have expected the dogs to be locked up in the kennel and not roaming the grounds.”
The DVD started to display the images of the security cameras that night.
“Pause that for me please.”
Elizabeth paused the ‘playback’ feature.
“Now watch the woods in this area.”
The playback continued and a large seven foot hairy creature emerged.
“What is that? Is that a bear?”
“We have no idea what that is… It might be someone dressed in a costume to look like Bigfoot or maybe a gorilla. We can’t improve the resolution of this shot well enough to know exactly what that is.”
The playback continued and they watched as this creature approached the dogs, seem to talk to the dogs and point to the woods. It then examined the kennel, found the door and opened it. The dogs ran out in the direction this creature was pointing and then left and reentered the woods.
“I have one team out trying to track where that thing went and another following a second set of tracks found where that thing was pointing. When my people examined this footage in relation to the height of the chain link fence, they would estimate it as around seven feet tall.”
Elizabeth ejected the DVD.
“You can keep that copy.”
Tom looked at the detective.
“I don’t understand.”
“Off the record, this Bigfoot imitator let the dogs out to attack whatever was the wild animal it was pointing at emerging from the woods. It could mean that there was a fourth individual or another suspect for us to try and track down... Of course, we cannot really consider the possibility that something like ‘Bigfoot’ was in any way involved, but the time of this footage would place it very close to the time of death of your father and the others.”
Elizabeth was now very concerned. First, her brother thinks he is infected and will turn into a werewolf at the time of the next full moon but this development. She is starting to breakdown and actually believe her brother’s concern. She put her head in her hands and cried.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to upset anyone just show you what we have learned.”
Tom put his arm around his sister as the detective stood up.
“Detective, after the funeral, my sister and I will be making several short business trips later this month. You don’t have any objection to that do you?”
“No. Just keep me caught up on how to reach you should I have any additional questions or information to share with you.”
“We will officer. Uncle Joe, our dad’s brother, will constantly know our location.”
The detective again apologized for upsetting Elizabeth and left the nook. Margaret came over with some tissue and asked the children if they wanted anything. They asked for coffee as Elizabeth tried to compose herself.
“Now what Tom?”
Tom removed the paper note from his pocket.
“Now I will call this person and the first chance we have after the funeral to see this woman, we will. After we have some coffee, I am going to copy this DVD and give it to Doctor Deckard and see what he thinks of all of this.”
Tom was on the phone in the study when Elizabeth entered with several sheets she had printed off. She waited for the call to end.
“I was talking with Deckard. Carl is going to deliver the DVD to him at his office. What do you have there?”
“These are the results of the blood tests and urine tests I gave you… Everything appears to be normal.”
“I’m sure they don’t cover any tests for ‘werewolf-idis’ “.
“No but they are promising. Everything looks good. I am going to want to repeat this each week until the next full moon.”
“If you think it will help.”
“Have you called that person yet?”
“I’m going to call now. Have a seat.”
Elizabeth could see a look of disappointment on her brother’s face while trying to make the call.
“What is it?”
“Answering machine...”
“Leave both our names and my cell number.”
“Why should I leave your number?”
“So you can go see Deckard. I’ll be here all day.”
“Okay.”
Tom did as his sister suggested.
***
Tom watched the reaction on the Doctor’s face as the DVD played. Deckard watched the video from one end to the other and finally sat back in his chair and ordered his computer to eject the disk.
“Well, what is that? Bigfoot?
Sasquatch?”
“Yes I believe it is. I do not think it was a bear or a man in some get-up to hide his identify from the police.”
“So why was he there on that night of all nights?”
“I believe he or it was trying to save the others from a werewolf coming to your property.”
‘But if we follow that theory and assume that the animal was a werewolf, then we know it was
Henry Barton. Why would he be coming back from the woods? Barton in his changed form was already on the grounds.”
“I do not know. Maybe he started to transform in the moon’s light and ran into the woods and returned. Maybe he just tried to run away rather than hurt someone… the police did say they found the bedroom window of your cook’s residence tampered with… Maybe Mr. Barton loved her. A werewolf would first attack those he cared the most about. Maybe it was the dogs that forced him to the front of the house thus saving your cook’s life. It’s hard to say and we can only guess.”
The senior veterinarian returned the DVD to the case and handed it to Tom.
“Have you tried to contact Ms. Arachne Corrick yet?”
“Yes but all I got was her answering machine.”