Wolfwraith (15 page)

Once the boy was securely shackled, Lorene patted the girl down—ignoring the inevitable protests—and put her pistol back inside the compartment on her belt.

“What now?” she asked.

“We’ll walk them back to the meadow. It’ll only take Alex a few minutes to get here and we’ll have to pack up their gear, if they have any.” He turned to the boy. “You
are
camping here, aren’t you?” He guessed they were since neither wore a backpack or any hiking gear.

“Yeah, but we just got here. We ain’t even set up our tent yet.”

As Shadow and Lorene escorted them to the campground, the couple seemed to resign themselves to the situation and stopped complaining. It occurred to Shadow that being arrested was no big deal to kids like this.

“You don’t look to be the camping type,” he said.

“We’re not,” the girl, Whitney, answered. “We’re just here for the kicks, dude.”

“Kicks?”

“Yeah, Whitney gets off on danger,” Dave replied. “We saw in the paper about the killings and Whitney wanted to come down here. Makes her hot thinking there might be some pervert out in the woods lusting for her body—but I’m putting my money on a werewolf.”

“A werewolf!” Shadow said, noticing a small snicker from Lorene. “Where’d you come up with that?”

“The newspaper, dude. Said the first girls had their throats bit out and I looked back at the calendar and saw there was a full moon that week, same as when the latest girl died. Adds up to werewolf to me.”

Shadow had no idea if the kid was right about the moon, but it didn’t really matter. The idea was ludicrous.

The handcuffed boy continued. “Shit, if we really came up on some wolfman, I’d waste him, dude.”

“In that case, you fucked up, dude,” Shadow said.

“How’s that?”

“I think you’re supposed to have silver bullets in your gun.”

Chapter Nine

What sort of dumbshit would believe in werewolves?

Shadow mentally kicked himself in the ass during the solitary boat ride back to the Barbour Hill dock. He wished there were some way to tell Lorene that he had been so inept because everything had happened so unexpectedly. There hadn’t been time for him to shift out of months of being the friendly ranger and into the role of a professional law officer. Besides, this had been his first arrest ever. He knew he had no excuse and explanations would only make it worse.

Alex had brought Mark along to take the two young people into custody, and Lorene had decided to ride back to the contact station with them, disappointing Shadow. He’d begun to hope she would come to think of him as a sort of liaison between agencies, maybe even include him in some of the investigation. Instead, she’d left saying, “Thanks, Shadow. I’ll let you know if I need your help again in the future.”

Reflecting on his performance in the whole affair, he couldn’t blame anyone but himself. He had stuck his nose into an investigation that was none of his business, disturbed a crime scene outside of his jurisdiction, and handled an arrest with less than professionalism. Oh, well, if they were going to close the park, what did it matter anyway?

He tied the johnboat to the dock at Barbour Hill and drove the half mile to the contact station. There was a unisex pit toilet behind the visitor kiosk and he needed to use it. Accustomed to the privy, Shadow didn’t even notice the strong smell as he thought about what it would mean to him if the park closed. Sure, he could transfer to another park, or get another job entirely, but he liked it here.

After relieving himself, he went up the steps to the contact station and was nearly bowled over as Jonesy slammed out onto the porch.

“Whoa, where’s the fire?” he asked. He regretted his flippant tone when he saw the anger on the volunteer’s face.

“Come on, let’s take a walk.” Jonesy said, with a snarl. ”There’s something I have to tell you and I need to cool off.”

Shadow followed Jonesy down the steps and across the yard, where they turned left, toward the ocean. Walking silently alongside his friend, he wondered what could have happened to make such a carefree person this angry. He didn’t have long to wonder.

“You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve been fired.” Jonesy spat out the words.

Shadow missed a step. “They can’t fire you! You’re a volunteer.”

“Tell
them
that. Alex got the word from Richmond. At the end of June, I’m history.”

“Why would they do that? You don’t cost the state a dime! You and the other volunteers free the rangers of a lot of chores. Not to mention the volunteer committee puts on all kinds of fundraisers to buy new equipment for the park. It makes no sense.”

“They say the Taj Mahal is deteriorating—needs to be condemned—and they don’t want to put any money in it. I can still help in the park, Alex said, but I have to hike or bike in and out every day.” Jonesy snorted. “They say they won’t let volunteers use park vehicles anymore, either. Insurance reasons. They’re canceling the tram service, too.” He paused and pointed. “Oh, boy, look what’s coming.”

A group of about ten teenagers approached from the opposite direction. Jonesy and Shadow stopped talking as they passed. The kids looked like a bunch of cult-movie vampires, wearing black clothes, platform boots—both boys and girls—and hair colored several different hues. The two men greeted the youngsters and were answered by bored gestures and replies.

“I saw them come in on the tram this morning,” Shadow said after they had gone by. “They’d better hurry or they’ll miss their ride.”

“Why are we getting so many weirdoes all of a sudden? I overheard one saying there might be werewolves in the park,” Jonesy said sarcastically. “What sort of dumbshit would believe in werewolves?” He looked back at the kids walking the other way. “Oh, yeah.
That
bunch of dumbshits. Well, it’d be funny if they had to walk out in those boots and warm outfits.”

They walked in silence for a few moments before Shadow said, “That reporter—you know, Helen Parsons—says the park service might close False Cape. If they’re canceling the tram and getting rid of you, do you think it might be true?”

“You figure it out; I don’t know and I don’t give a rat’s ass. I don’t cost anything and all I wanted to do was offer my services to a good cause, now that I’m retired. They won’t even let me do that.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What can I do? Even if the park stays open, I’m not up to biking five miles in, pedaling around all day in the park and then doing five miles back. Why bother? They’ve made it quite clear my services are not wanted.”

“Are you going to hang around until July? Or tell them where to stick it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll take an Alaskan cruise. I’ll have to think about it. Look, you go on back to the station and let me walk this off. Thanks for letting me get things off my chest.”

They separated and Shadow walked back to the contact station alone, glum at the thought of losing his friend and neighbor. He wondered if he should start looking for another job.

Chapter Ten

The ones who were, like, murdered, y’know?

On the way back to the station, sweating and occasionally slapping away some of the first biting flies of the season, Shadow wondered if the park’s existence was really in jeopardy.

Several weeks ago, he had overheard Alex and Mark discussing the under utilization at False Cape, and how the park service was concerned about it. Tourist traffic had dwindled over the years as people had become used to ‘roughing it’ in SUV’s and motor homes. Most wouldn’t bother biking for many miles to see a park. Some parks with motor home campgrounds actually made money for the park service, but False Cape was a drain on the state’s coffers. At the time, Alex had only been worried about a cut in staff, not being shut down. The twelve campsites were still usually booked all summer; there would always be hardcore campers who enjoyed roughing it and the boy scouts continually arranged outings here.

Since Shadow had heard about the park closing, he wondered if he had misjudged Commissioner Barnett’s reaction to the first death. If he’d already been worried about the possibility of shutting down the park, no wonder the man had become so concerned regarding bad publicity. Now the killings were out in the open and he wanted everything solved as quickly as possible, so perhaps he was trying to minimize the negative impact on the park’s reputation.

Looked at like that, the firing of Jonesy made a little more sense. Maybe Barnett was trying to cut costs by reducing the park’s insurance premium. Shadow could see where not running the old electric tram would save money spent on keeping the thing running. That must be what the commissioner was up to. Maybe he wasn’t such a flaming asshole, although Shadow still couldn’t stomach him.

When he walked into the contact station, he greeted Betty and then poked his head into Alex’s office.

“Hey, got a minute?”

“Of course. Come on in. I need to talk to you anyway.”

“I just talked to Jonesy and he said you, uh...fired him.”

Alex made a sour face. “Yeah, that’s basically what I had to do. I hated it, but it came down from Richmond, so I had no choice. He’s really upset and I don’t blame him.”

“What about the park closing? I talked to that reporter, Helen Parsons, and she said she asked you about it.”

“You know as much as I do, which is zilch,” Alex said. “I asked the commissioner and he denied knowing anything, but something’s up. He seemed pretty upset I’d even heard a rumor.”

“What if it’s true?”

“Don’t worry. Even if they do close us down, which I doubt, you wouldn’t lose your job. You’d be transferred to another park.”

“Yeah, showing campers how to hook their motor homes up to the sewage lines.” Shadow grimaced. “I don’t want to go to another park. All of the others are full of mansions on wheels—complete with satellite TV dishes.”

“I know. I worked at some of the other parks before I came here and this is the best duty by far. I’m glad I’ll be retiring next year. Hell, if they close the park, I’ll probably put in my papers early.” Alex leaned forward. “But we have a more serious problem on our hands right now. We need to ensure the safety of the people visiting the park, both hikers and campers. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.

“We’ve always tried to blend into the background so the campers get the experience of primitive camping without feeling like they’re being wet-nursed, but now we’re going to drastically increase our patrols throughout the park, especially at night. I want it done unobtrusively, though.”

Shadow grinned. “So we’ll wet-nurse them, but we won’t let them know we’re doing it.”

“Right. I want you to check on the two False Cape campgrounds a couple of times a night. Catch up on your sleep in daytime if you have to. Mark will cover the two northern camping areas, Steve will patrol the beach and I’ll rove the whole park. The wardens up on the refuge will be patrolling too, and they’ll let us know if they see anyone suspicious coming our way.”

“Okay, boss.” Shadow began to get up. “Is that it?”

“Not quite. I want you to keep a record of anyone you see in the park that you’re not familiar with. Carry a notebook. If you can, get their names and where they’re from—except the campers, we have their names already, of course—if you see someone odd, write down a description. The F.B.I. agent, Lorene Walker, is hoping something might come of it, especially if anything else happens, God forbid. She said most cases like this are solved by plain, old-fashioned police work.”

“Makes sense to me,” Shadow said. “More people are coming to the park than ever before, but not our usual clientele. The campsites are filling with weirdoes who want to see where a murder happened. From what I’ve seen driving through, the wildlife refuge has even more freakazoids running around than we do. At least they don’t have to put up with campers, and they can close at sundown.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve seen more purple-haired kids today than I’ve ever seen in my life. It worries me, especially since you caught that one kid with a gun. Just what we need, a bunch of doped-up thrill seekers packing weapons and hunting werewolves like the kid you arrested.” He gave an unexpected smile and chuckled. “The cops picked him up and they’re taking him to town in a patrol car, but they made the girl walk out alone.”

Shadow had to grin. “I’ll bet she cussed the cops to high heaven with that foul mouth of hers.”

“Sure did but the whole incident makes me worried some kid will start shooting at phantoms in the night. One of those phantoms might be a camper—or a ranger.”

“Have you considered closing the campgrounds?”

Alex shook his head. “If we do that, we might just as well shut the park and go home.” He shrugged. “Just go around and check on the visitors. Remember there’s no rule—even now—that the campers can’t hike around at night. Every campsite is booked for the weekend and there’s a whole troop of boy scouts who’ll be camping oceanside. They scheduled the trip months ago and decided not to cancel since there’ll be plenty of adults along. If someone’s wandering around in the dark, for all you know, he might be going down to the beach for some stargazing.”

“Right, or hunting for bogeymen. I won’t shoot until I see the whites of their eyes.”