Maxim shook his head. "It's cold blooded. Calculated. Meant to incite emotion."
"Or vomit," said Cole.
Maxim ignored the remark and carefully inched closer to the body. He noticed a blackened section of muscle over the ribcage. The flashlight revealed some yellow-white puss. He would need to wait for the ME to figure that one out. Moving down the body, it was clear that the flesh of the left arm was torn. The bones in the forearm were more exposed, and the thumb was missing entirely.
"These look like animal bites," said the detective.
Maxim knew the three of them were thinking the same thing. Sanctuary wasn't like other American towns. This one had a large population of wolves, present company included.
The older men scoffed. "New moon's not for another two days," said Hitchens. "Besides, you don't think the Seventh Sons would be this stupid, do you?"
Maxim didn't answer. The Seventh Sons were an outlaw club affiliated with criminal activities. They were brash, tough guys who frequented town and had a clubhouse in the woods. They were werewolves, but they weren't stupid, and they knew it was in their best interests to keep a low profile.
As far as the moon was concerned, not a month went by when Maxim wasn't aware of it. Not in Sycamore. Not anymore. The wolves came out every fourteen days. As Hitchens had said, it was too early, and there was no way this body was twelve days old.
"I don't know," said the detective, finally. "This looks ceremonial. Supernatural, maybe. I don't take the motorcycle club that way. But we will need to rule them out. Let's assume the time of death was early this morning until the ME tells us otherwise."
A double chime interrupted Maxim's next thought. Hitchens checked his phone and read a message. "It's Gutierrez... I don't believe this."
The rookie was the best option to translate and it appeared he would be late. "What's he say?"
Hitchens grunted. "Verbatim: 'Shit my pants. Going to Starbucks.'"
Cole let out a bellow. Maxim rolled his eyes. He was past joke-telling time and was getting impatient. The longer it took the rookie and the medical examiner to show up, the later he would be up tonight. The longer before he could settle down with a beer. He stomped over to Hitchens and grabbed the phone from him.
Maxim was stunned to see that Hitchens had not lied about the contents of the message.
"What the fuck?" Maxim exclaimed, tossing the phone back to the sergeant. "What sense does that kid make? Those two sentences don't go together. You can say, 'I shit my pants. Going home.' Or you can say, 'I want coffee. Going to Starbucks.'" Hitchens and Cole started giggling like kids, and Maxim slipped into a smile in the middle of his rant. "What you cannot fucking say is, 'Shit my pants. Going to Starbucks.' That's a non sequitur."
The officers laughed some more, and Maxim imagined Gutierrez walking into the Starbucks bathroom with a load in his pants and couldn't hold back anymore. He joined them. It felt good to release some tension, and they would surely call on this laughter in the future just as often as Cole brought up the s'mores story. The rookie wouldn't live this one down.
"Fuck it," said Maxim, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. "Tell him to meet you at the station. You mind taking our wit down there until I meet you?"
Hitchens strutted away. "Was waiting for you to ask. I don't want to smell this meat market anymore. You all have a good one."
"Wait," said Cole. "Tell him to pick me up a vanilla Frappuccino."
Hitchens and Maxim both stopped what they were doing and turned to the officer.
"What?" Cole asked. "It's getting hot out."
Hitchens shook his head and continued on his way. "You better hope that boy washes his hands."
Maxim turned to the body and felt his smile leave him. Hitchens was right. This vic was a piece of meat. Chewed on as an animal might do, but drained and skinned as only a person could. Of course he had to consider the werewolves. But until he had an ID, ruling anybody out would be difficult.
Maxim kneeled next to the body. He turned the flashlight on again and searched for clues in the grass. Some blood was below the body, of course, so it hadn't been left out to drain for days. The smell was still fresh. This morning was still looking good for time of death.
"Did you get pictures of this blood down here?"
Cole carefully inched closer. "I was afraid of disturbing the evidence." The officer leaned over and took a few shots. Then he turned the digital display to face the detective and scrolled through his pictures. "I got all angles of the body, wide shots with the tree, the rope, the knots, the trunk."
Maxim nodded. "Get close-ups of the wounds. The tearing in the arm and shoulder. The missing thumb. The puss on the torso." As he spoke, the body spun slightly on the rope, and a flash of the skull caught Maxim's eye. He shined his flashlight at the right side of the suspended head and saw a small indentation between the ear and the temple. "And get a picture of this gunshot wound too."
It was difficult to detect on the massacred body, but there was a tiny hole. A single, long strand of black hair stuck out, glued to the head by matted blood. Maxim leaned around the body to check the other side. The skull had no other anomalies.
"Probably a small round that bounced around in the brain and never came out. I bet it's still stuck in there. Hopefully the slug's in good enough shape for ballistics." Cole silently nodded as he snapped several pictures.
Maxim stood up and shined the flashlight along the rope. It was rough hemp, possibly littered with fibers or DNA, but nothing visible to the naked eye. Maxim allowed his gaze to travel up to the tree and just stared, as if the new perspective would help him. He thought of the common crime scene adage: never forget to look up. Evidence could end up anywhere. It almost made the detective laugh. This was one crime scene where nobody would need to be reminded to check the tree. Almost dizzy, Maxim shook his head and backed away.
The detective peered up and down the corridor between the high school fence and the tree line. To his right, through the football field, was the street. The left was the back of the grounds, where he had come from. Somebody could have skirted the property from either direction to get here. Then Maxim considered the trees. He looked straight into the forested lot and saw how quickly everything turned to piles of leaves and brush. Maxim hated outdoor crime scenes. There was too much to rule out. Some early guesses at this stage, if incorrect, could tank the investigation.
Maxim moved towards the football field, seeing what this path offered in the way of criminal harbor. The field was set off from the school building but directly adjacent. There was no entrance to it from this outside lot. However, a gate at the corner led into the basketball court. Maxim noticed a rusted chain and lock holding it closed. A quick inspection left him confident that it hadn't been opened in a long time.
Maxim turned away from the school, walking along the football field now, parallel to the front street. This was no stadium; it was an open-air arena with bleachers. While it didn't provide full cover from the street, the combination of size and seating afforded a large amount of privacy. Maxim walked the entire length, searching the grass for anything out of the ordinary. At the far corner he made his way to the street. Dirt sat flush with the asphalt, impressed with tire tracks.
Immediately, Maxim imagined the crime as it occurred. The vic was strung up at another location. Skinned. Drained. Shot in the head either before or after. Then he was brought here in a vehicle, likely a truck or van of some sort. The killer pulled to the side of the road, unseen in the early morning hours, and lugged the body along the fence in relative privacy. He strung the dead man up and disappeared, waiting for its inevitable discovery.
But why here? Why Sanctuary High?
Maxim shook his head as he made his way back to Cole. He would tell the officer to rope off the area by the street and take pictures of the tracks. It wouldn't likely lead to anything, but it was worth a shot. Along the way, every twenty feet or so, the detective kneeled, turned on his flashlight, and shone it across the grass. He could barely see the light he cast against the daylight, but he was confident in the technique.
When he was almost back to the body, he made one last sweep with his flashlight and saw a glint reflected back his way. Maxim cocked his head and tried to make out the object in the tall grass. He pushed up against his tired knees and advanced on it, smiling when he stood over a skinning knife. It had a small, stubby blade that was shorter than the handle. Three colors of wood were glued together to decorate the length, but the bottom half of the handle was a carved deer antler. The blade was covered in blood.
"Cole. You'd better get a picture of this."
This wasn't the murder weapon, Maxim guessed, but it was damning all the same. The detective knew the biker it belonged to.
Chapter 2
Diego de la Torre watched as the eight ball bounced between both edges of the corner pocket without sinking. He hovered over the missed shot, but his eyes were on Omar. The kid was a quick study, but he was only nineteen and impetuous.
"That would have been a great shot," assured Diego, lining up his cue down the rail in explanation. "You kept your eye on the eight ball, kissed it with the cue ball nicely, and had enough touch to make it down the table." Diego pulled his cue back and grabbed a square of blue chalk.
Omar butted his cue on the floor impatiently. He wiped his slicked-back hair and regarded the lesson. "I told you I should have hit it harder.
Más fuerte
, man."
Diego glanced around the clubhouse. They were alone by the pool table but some of the other Seventh Sons were in the attached living room. They sometimes gave the kid shit when he spoke Spanish because they didn't understand him. The MC wasn't overtly white—being a werewolf was more of a requirement than race was—but Omar was still the lone Mexican.
Diego de la Torre shook his head. Since the kid had a tough enough time being the youngest member, and with Diego being South American, he was a natural fit to watch over him. "Omar, you can do everything else right, but your shot will only ever be as steady as your bridge hand. If the stick is resting on a shaky surface, all that aiming and planning is useless."
The kid swiped his hand in the air as the mistake occurred to him. Diego smoothly strode around the table and leaned in. "You didn't leave me with a great angle, though, precisely because you didn't bang the cue ball to the other side of the table. Speed is about strategy, not flash."
An unexcited breath left Omar's lips. "Now you're just trying to make me feel better. I know you can make that shot."
Diego let himself crack a smile as he tilted his head confidently. The clubhouse bustled with more activity so it was time to end the game anyway. His left hand was a rock. The cue slid over it back and forth in a practiced motion. Then Diego knocked the cue ball, firmly slicing the eight, which headed straight for the pocket. Before it could sink, a large Indian man scooped the ball from the table.
"You ladies done chatting?"
West Wind was an Apache. He was the newest member of the Seventh Sons, having heard of them in the wake of Sanctuary's recent media coverage. The serial killings had been blamed on their ousted leader almost a year earlier. The MC was nearly obliterated. A few of their members were killed. Diego and Maxim had saved them from a CDC crackdown that could have shut the Seventh Sons down for good. Afterwards, only six men strong, all wolves, they welcomed Diego as one of their own even though he could never succumb to lycanthropy because of his vaccination. West Wind came knocking later, reading between the lines, seeing the club for what it was, but annoyed that Diego wasn't one of them.
"Fuck, West," whined Omar. "You can't block shots like that. What if there was money on the game?"
The brown eyes of the large man showed disappointment. "You mean there wasn't? I was hoping I'd messed up someone's payday."
Diego smiled, turned his back on them, and sat against the edge of the table.
"Don't worry, West. If you mess up one of my paydays, you'll know about it."
The Apache ambled around the table slowly, stomping his boots on the floor. He was an imposing figure. Taller than both other men, a little older than Diego at thirty, and in good shape. Although his frame wasn't as wide as his height might've allowed, his lean mass was all muscle. The Indian had long arms and legs that gave him superior reach in a fistfight, a prowess which Diego had personally witnessed.
"What does that mean?" challenged West.
Diego met his eyes, already bored with the man's tough-guy act. "You're just gonna have to find out when it happens."
West exploded into laughter, a little too closely to Diego's face. "I've gotta admit," he said, "for someone who knows he's surrounded by wolves, you've got balls."
"Come on," appealed Omar, "you know he's one of us, West."
"Yeah, that's what the good president says. But ask him this," he said, talking to the kid while staring at Diego. "If he's one of us, why doesn't he ride with us when there's work to be done?"
Diego remained quiet. He knew West was hitting a sore point with the club. When Diego had joined, the president, Gaston, welcomed him with open arms. But Diego didn't want anything to do with the drug running and other illegal activities. He just wanted brotherhood. A sense of camaraderie. And yes, some adventure. But he didn't want to fall into a life of crime. His friendship with Maxim, Sanctuary's only police detective, reinforced that. But as the months passed, the understanding he had garnered with the club slowly waned. Everybody knew Diego was half in and half out—even him.
"Just because I choose not to be a criminal doesn't mean I can't be a brother. Just because I'm not a wolf doesn't mean I can't hold my own."
"That's right," said West mockingly. "You used to be a CDC assassin. You hunted our kind with silver, bullets and blade. It's just a shame you lost your little knife."
"It was a pretty big knife actually. But I can be a help without it. You're ignoring the fact that it was me who found the Mexi van of cash."
West grunted.
A week earlier, while Diego had been riding alone on Interstate 40, he noticed a suspicious black van being escorted by two bikers flying California colors. After following them for a while, the bikers fell off, hoping to lure Diego away from the vehicle. Instead, he'd gotten the attention of his fellow Sons, and they intercepted the van. The contents were... enriching. It had been a drug run, except in reverse—it was cash to pay for the drug run.
The Seventh Sons were a small motorcycle club. They didn't have the kind of reach that the cartels or international outfits had. But they were a small core of men with a powerful secret: they were wolves, nearly unkillable without specialized means. Whether people believed the rumors or were ignorant of them, the Seventh Sons owned the Interstate in Arizona and everybody knew it. They commanded their toll for safe passage and someone had tried to skirt that arrangement. Now, the entire MC was gearing up to meet with the Cali gang. That was why Diego was playing pool. Omar was still a kid, no matter his affiliation, no matter his condition, and he was nervous. Diego had just wanted to put him at ease.
West didn't budge. "I know what you lucked into. I also know that you're not coming with us. If you want to help the club, then prove it and back us up. Ride with us."
Diego averted his eyes and saw Gaston standing in the living room. The president heeded them with interest. Gaston had allowed Diego to keep away from the illicit activities thus far, but he was no doubt hoping that West made a convincing case.
Diego was afraid to check if other club members were watching as well. He returned West's stare and removed any trace of joviality from his voice. "You're asking me to be involved in a drug deal."
"I'm asking you to shit or get off the pot," said West, raising his voice.
Clint stormed over as the bickering came to a head. "Shoot me in my hairy ass! How many times have I asked you to keep it down in the mornings? You thick-headed sasquatch."
Clint was a mess. He was the oldest club member in age and tenure. His brown beard was thick and mangy and always had pieces of dirt or slobber in it. His large belly was a record of his excesses, but his breath was a more overpowering indicator. He had a hangover. An especially bad one, Diego thought, because he looked much worse than usual. He was scratched up and had a welt under his left eye.
"What the hell happened to you last night, bro?" asked Omar.
"You know I was over at the Lodge. More of the same. But my head feels like a firecracker, and you all are lightin' the fuse."
Diego smiled. Clint was a bit of a hillbilly, a perfect example of the type who would have sassed Omar for speaking Spanish, but he was mostly harmless. He disappeared for days, visited his family in New Mexico, and drank at every available opportunity. But he was steadfast and mostly reliable, and had come into town last night for this very meet.
The heavy man trudged to the beer fridge next to the pool table and grabbed himself a bottle. "Don't worry, Pres. A little hair of the dog will straighten me up. And you three should come over and take a seat, too." With that, he chugged the beer and passed through the archway that led to the living room.
Diego slid his cue onto the table and followed. The whole club was in attendance. Clint sat down on a couch next to Curtis and Trent. Omar did the same. Diego flipped the recliner around and made himself comfortable. West Wind chose to lean in the corner, towering over everybody except Gaston, the only other club member who could match his height. He was also standing.
Gaston was an imposing figure himself. A big man with a wide frame, his stocky features were considered handsome by many. His spiked fauxhawk, blond highlights, and abundance of earrings showed that he took great pride in his appearance, but it had surprised Diego to discover that the man cared more about the MC. Despite his hotheadedness and other faults, he was willing to sacrifice himself for his brothers, and none of them could ask for a better leader.
"West is right," started the president, addressing the entire MC. "This is an important meet. Business hasn't been too rough since I was voted in but we were bound to be tested. Maybe some other gang gets new leadership too. Wants to make an impression with their bosses and gets big ideas to cut us out as middlemen. We need to meet them in force and show them we're not backing down."
"Damn straight!" said Clint. "They need to go through us or don't go through Arizona."
Gaston nodded. "That's right. And you know how it is with these new gangbangers. They won't stop charging ahead until they slam straight into a wall. Well, they've never dealt with us. We need to show them that we
are
the wall around this state." Gaston hesitated and glanced at Diego as he spoke. "Now, our numbers are still a little low after last year. We need all hands on deck."
"You said this wasn't going to be a firefight," said Diego. From Gaston's tone, he was expecting things to go bad.
"It won't be—if we don't look weak. And act like pros."
"How many of them will show?" asked West from his corner.
"If they bring too many it will make them look scared."
"How many?" demanded West.
Gaston bit his lip. He didn't know the answer, but his message was clear: Diego was letting his brothers down by not going.