Authors: John Bushore
Tags: #ancient evil, #wolfwraith, #werewolf, #park, #paranormal, #supernatural, #native american, #Damnation Books, #thriller, #John Bushore
While he waited, Shadow slowly sucked on jellybeans taken from a bag in his pocket, one by one, while he reflected that Moorcock had surely been responsible for the accusatory tone of the earlier interrogation. The warden had flatly refused to lend credence to Shadow’s story, contending he would surely have seen pig tracks—if they ever existed.
Alex, who had been chewed out by Commissioner Barnett over the phone, had gotten on Shadow’s ass in turn. The commissioner was livid that the park was going to be linked with a death in the news—again. If Shadow had stuck to his own business, Barnett said, it would have been solely the wildlife refuge’s problem since the body was found there.
Shadow pulled at his collar, not used to the restriction of a tie. He was told to wear civilian clothing to the interview. His suit, unused since his last job interview, no longer fit his trimmer physique. He was also overdue for a haircut and his dress shoes were scuffed since he was out of shoe polish and there were no stores in the remote park.
A door along the inner wall opened and a man entered the reception area. He was tall, with a thin waist and broad shoulders. His hair was curly and black and his old-fashioned glasses accentuated his square jaw and serious expression. He strode over and shoved his hand toward Shadow.
“Hubert Fletcher? I’m Special Agent Morrow. David Morrow.”
Shadow grimaced. “People mostly call me Shadow. Pleased to meet you.” They shook hands.
“Come on back,” Morrow said. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve been waiting for my partner on this case, Agent Walker. She was supposed to be here by now, but she called to say she’d be a few minutes more. I figured you might as well come on back and have a cup of coffee while we wait for her. Wouldn’t want you to think the Bureau lacked common courtesy.”
“Thanks. Coffee would be great.”
He followed Special Agent Morrow through a maze of corridors. Shadow wondered what made the man a
special
agent. Was the position a step above a normal agent or did it mean he investigated special cases?
They went to a small room with a pair of tables, a refrigerator and a counter with a coffee machine and supplies. The agent handed him a Styrofoam cup and Shadow mixed his coffee extra sweet with powdered cream substitute, then positioned the thumb of the claw and picked up the cup. Morrow pulled a chair from under the nearest table and swung it around until the back of the chair was against the table. Spreading his legs, he straddled the seat. Shadow sat down across from him.
“We’ll wait here until Walker gets back,” Morrow said, loosening his tie. “Actually, I’m glad for the break. I never thought one of the hazards of being an agent would be Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.” He shook his right hand and wrist, grinning ruefully.
“Too much paperwork, huh?” Shadow asked, wondering if he should loosen his collar too. He decided against it, preferring to maintain a professional appearance.
“Way too much. How about you? The park service keep you bogged down with reports?”
“Not too bad, really. They haven’t figured out how to clear a fallen tree or find a lost hiker with a computer yet.”
“I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until they do.” Morrow shook his head. “To tell you the truth, I envy you. It must be nice to work in such a remote area. Got any openings for a burned-out G-man?”
“It’s not all that great. It’s a lot of work but at least you’re outdoors most of the time. It’s better than flying a desk; I have to admit it.”
Morrow asked about the park and the area around False Cape. He seemed to have a keen interest in nature and camping. Eventually the talk turned to Shadow’s background. Morrow knew Shadow was Native American, which wasn’t surprising since he would have done his research. When he learned Shadow had grown up near West Point, Virginia, he mentioned being from nearby Richmond himself and had done a bit of hunting around West Point. Soon they were swapping stories and Shadow found himself talking about his childhood, something he rarely did.
Shadow rose and, without stopping the discussion, poured himself a second cup of coffee. Sitting back down, he loosened his tie and unfastened the button of his collar. He and Morrow were engaged in a spirited discussion of the benefits of being raised in a small, tightly-knit community rather than in a city, as Morrow had been brought up, when an attractive blond-haired woman walked into the room carrying a briefcase. She wore a dark blue business suit and a serious expression. Both men stood as she came in.
“Well,” she said with a quick, emotionless smile, “I’m glad you’ve been hard at work while I was out pounding the pavement, Dave.”
“Life’s tough all over.” Morrow shrugged. “Shadow Fletcher, this is my partner on this case, Lorene W. Walker. I suspect the W stands for water, but she won’t admit it. Lorene, this is Ranger Fletcher of False Cape State Park.”
Solid looking, in her mid-thirties maybe, Walker had a smooth, tanned complexion. Her wide, serious eyes were blue—and her hair, cut to curl below her ears, accentuated her high cheekbones.
“Hello, Ranger,” she said. “I understand you found the body of the Gordon woman.” She did not offer to shake hands.
“That’s right.”
“We need to ask what you observed when you first arrived at the scene, since you were the only one to see it before it was disturbed.”
“No, Chief Warden Moorcock was there too.”
“No, not before you muddled it up. The Warden arrived after you had been there for a while.” She gave him a flat stare. “Why
did
you disturb the scene?”
“All I did was walk around it.” Shadow could feel his voice going up a notch. This female agent was a real hard-ass.
“Whoa, let’s hold up here.” Morrow interrupted. “Let’s not start the interview before we get back to the office.” He grinned at Shadow from behind Walker’s back. “There are procedures to follow, you know.”
Morrow led them to a small interview room. There was a well-worn table with six chairs and a large mirror-surfaced window on the far wall. A briefcase lay on the table with a yellow legal pad and two pencils beside it. Morrow slid into the chair behind the briefcase and his partner sat down beside him. He pushed the pad of paper and pencils over to Walker. Shadow took the chair opposite the agents without being asked.
Unlocking the case, Morrow extracted a manila file with the name Amanda Gordon and a series of numbers. He opened the file and immediately became business-like.
“Ranger Fletcher, before we start, I need to ask your permission to tape this session.”
“No problem,” Shadow said, but he could not keep himself from glancing at the mirror.
“Just a recording, you have my word on it. The tape is already running, but I can turn it off if you wish.” Morrow indicated a switch on the wall. “This is not an interrogation and there is no one in the next room. We only want your take on the body since you were the one who found her.”
Then he stated the date and time and the names of the people present in the room, and addressed Shadow.
“Ranger Fletcher, would you please state your full name and occupation for the record?”
Shadow complied. Agent Walker glared at him, although her gaze sometimes drifted to his prosthetic hand. He put it on his lap, beneath the table.
“And you are aware this interview is being recorded?”
“Yes.”
Morrow questioned him about his involvement in the search for the missing jogger and his subsequent discovery of the body. They stayed with a chronological sequence of his memory of the events, but interrupted him with countless questions, especially concerning the pigs, with the female agent scribbling away on the legal pad. She asked occasional questions, but left most of the questioning to Morrow. When they had extracted all the information they wanted about the Gordon case, they backtracked and questioned his involvement in the search and discovery of the college girls. When Shadow was through telling of recovering the body from the bay, Walker took over. The focus of the interview changed.
“Let’s talk about what led you to discover the body of the first girl, the kayaker,” she said. “You stated you saw a hand sticking from of the water at a distance of, what would you say, a half of a mile?”
He nodded, thinking she’d be very attractive if she didn’t act like she ate rattlesnakes for breakfast.
“Would you please answer verbally, Mr. Fletcher?” she said.
“Sounds about right. A half-mile. Maybe a bit more.” Shadow wanted to get a jellybean from his pocket, but decided not to.
“And this was on a foggy day, with limited visibility, in early-morning light?”
“It wasn’t foggy, just misty,” he explained. “It’s that way most mornings around Back Bay. It was clear on the cove, though.”
“You must have extraordinary eyesight, Ranger. You saw
and recognized
a human arm, barely out of the water in low visibility conditions, when your supervisor...” She pulled the file over from in front of Morrow and looked into it. “Park Manager, Alex McGuire, stated he could not clearly identify the object when using a pair of binoculars.”
“I do have good eyesight. You can check my military records.”
“Perhaps, but how is it you knew exactly where to look? You found the body within minutes of beginning your search.”
“It was the obvious place to look. If the girls left by kayak, they would have used the dock.”
She changed the subject. “There’s something else. Why did you believe the girl was murdered, based solely on a superficial examination?”
“I never heard of any animal, at least not around here, that goes around savaging people’s throats.”
“Most murder victims are not killed in that manner either.” She glared at him. “They get shot or strangled or stabbed or run over. I don’t think you could base any conclusion on such evidence.”
Shadow decided not to tell this nice-looking ball-buster he suspected it was something other than a human being who had murdered the girls and he omitted any mention of the evil aura he had felt from the first body. He found himself hoping Alex had not brought it up either.
“I guess it was more of a feeling than a conclusion. I didn’t analyze it; it just seemed that way.” Shadow also decided not to bring up the marks in the mud he had noticed under False Cape dock. He had no real basis for connecting those marks to the case. Besides, if he mentioned them at this late date, they might think he was covering something up.
“But the coroner determined the marks on the wound were consistent with the teeth of a canine.”
“And then the second girl ended up having the same type of injury,” Shadow reminded her. “We don’t have wolves or coyotes in the park and no one will convince me a fox did that.”
“What about a feral dog?” she countered.
“I thought of a dog, but it would have had to swim into the bay and pull two girls out of separate kayaks. Unless, of course, he killed them on shore and then dragged the kayaks and the girls into the bay. Impossible. Anyway, there are no wild dogs around the park that I ever heard of.”
“I’m not talking about a dog, or animal, killing the girls. The coroner established the bite wounds did not cause death. Apparently, the dog or whatever found the bodies and mutilated them.”
“Animals don’t act that way. They certainly might feed on human remains, but not mark it and leave it.”
“But it is possible, isn’t it?”
“Two girls with exactly the same wound? You’d have to allow for a hell of a lot of coincidence. And how about this latest girl—the one I just found—was she killed the same way?”
The two agents looked at each other and then Walker turned back to Shadow. “That’s still under investigation,” she said. “Let’s get back to the two kayakers. Why are you so sure those girls didn’t die accidentally?”
“Only a hunch, I told you. It bothered me.”
“So we’re back to that.” She sighed. “Do you always act on hunches?”
Shadow squirmed, wishing for a chocolate bar. “No, not really. Actually, I’ve never been involved in anything like this before. I couldn’t believe those two girls died in a kayaking accident, though.”
“And was it a hunch that led you to the body you found on the wildlife refuge?” she asked. “Oh, no, that’s right. You were led there by a pair of little piggies, one of which was carrying the woman’s hand.” She sneered. “Your ability to find bodies seems almost mystical.”
Shadow came part way up out of his chair. “Hold on a moment,” he protested. “You can’t—”
“Yes, hold up, Lorene.” Morrow jumped in. “Ranger Fletcher is here as a courtesy, to bring us up to speed. He’s on our side, remember?”
“I’m sorry.” Walker apologized, obviously without contrition. “It’s merely that I’m finding it a bit hard to swallow the tale that a pig led him to the Gordon woman.”
“The pigs didn’t lead me.” Shadow corrected her. “I followed the tracks back to the body.” He’d about had it with this bitch.
“Then why didn’t the Chief Warden, Moorcock, see any pig tracks? He was following your trail, looking down at the ground. Wouldn’t he have seen any animal tracks you were following?”
“Not if he didn’t know what he was looking for.” He felt his fists clinch beneath the table. “A running animal doesn’t leave much of a print, even in soft sand. Certainly not a clear impression anyway. Also, a strong wind fills them in fast. That’s the main reason I had to follow the trail right away. The signs were there; Moorcock just didn’t notice them.”