Hemlock (25 page)

“What does Derby have to do with it?” I did the math in my

“What does Derby have to do with it?” I did the math in my head. “The Trackers didn’t show up until last week, and the note said you were taken off the case in June.”

He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. “The police chief had Derby evaluate the investigations into the werewolf kilings months before the Trackers officialy came to Hemlock. Derby read my recommendation that they bring in the FBI and didn’t like it. That’s the real reason I was yanked off the force.”

I stared blankly at him. “Why would Derby care about the FBI?”

“The Trackers don’t play wel with the Feds,” said Kyle. I glanced back. His eyes were locked on Bishop. “They get along great with cops at the local and state levels—and with the LSRB—

but the FBI hates them.”

“How do you—”

“I’ve been doing a lot of reading.”

Bishop nodded. “Your boyfriend is right.” His eyes narrowed.

“The department wanted to write off the Amy Walsh murder—al of the murders and attacks—as the work of a werewolf suffering from bloodlust. I didn’t think it added up and submitted a detailed recommendation to cal in the FBI.”

“That wasn’t in the file—at least not the file I got.”

Bishop frowned. “Do you have it with you?”

I shook my head.

He grunted. “Maybe you’d better tel me what
was
in the file you got.”

After I’d listed everything I could remember, Bishop whistled.

“Over half of it is missing. Which means one of two things: either

“Over half of it is missing. Which means one of two things: either half the file is stil safely at the department and someone just didn’t want anyone outside the force looking at it . . .”

“Or?” prodded Kyle.

“Or someone’s destroyed the other half of the file. Probably for the same reason I was put on leave.”

“Because you wanted to bring in the FBI?” I tried to connect the dots and came up short. The FBI didn’t handle werewolf attacks

—they dealt with stuff like kidnappings and serial kilers. I stared at Bishop, the pieces clicking into place. “You thought the werewolf was a serial kiler?”

My world tilted on its axis. I felt Kyle’s hand on my hip. A light touch that was just enough to anchor me.

Bishop watched my reaction. “Before Hemlock, I worked in Miami. Every couple of years, we’d get a wolf suffering from bloodlust. It gets so that you can recognize them real fast.

Bloodlust attacks have a distinctive look.”

Kyle cleared his throat. “And the attacks in Hemlock didn’t match that?”

“Sure they did—if you wanted to believe the easiest explanation.” Bishop turned and rummaged behind a stack of plywood. After a minute, he came up with a crumpled pack of Marlboros. “Knew I had some hidden back here.” He dug in his pocket until he found a lighter, and then lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag and exhaled a puff of smoke. “Wolves suffering from bloodlust are like rabid animals. They can’t think or process, and when they kil, it’s messy.”

when they kil, it’s messy.”

Kyle’s hand tightened on my hip, his fingers gripping the bit of extra fabric where my jeans were just a little too big.

“
Bloodlust
is a good name for it because they mostly use their teeth—it’s like they get a rush off the taste of the blood. The attacks in Hemlock were
efficient
. In each case, the medical examiner figured the wolf went for the neck or the abdomen at the beginning of the attack, like it was trying to kil the victims as quickly as possible. With bloodlust, they’re not thinking about anything but the taste of the blood. The kilings take longer and are messier.”

My stomach roled. It was cool in the shed, but I felt hot, like I had a fever. “I saw the pictures of Amy. Her whole upper body was torn apart.”

“You didn’t tel me there were photos.” Kyle’s voice was soft and pained.

“Trust me,” I said, “you didn’t want to see them.” Kyle already had enough issues with being a werewolf. No good would have come from him seeing pictures of what had been done to Amy.

Bishop tossed the remains of his cigarette into an empty coffee can. “The wolf did a good job of messing up the previous victims, but the ME thought it was done after they had already died from a single wound. And there were hardly any bite marks. It mostly used its claws to tear them up. It was almost methodical.”

There was something strange about the way he stressed the word
previous
, but I was more concerned with the methodical bit.

“So the wolf didn’t just lose control?”

Bishop shook his head. “And in the case of your friend, it was Bishop shook his head. “And in the case of your friend, it was an easy kil.”

I opened my mouth to ask what he was talking about, but he cut me off.

“Amy Walsh was drugged.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I GRABBED KYLE’S HAND, SQUEEZING SO HARD THAT I probably would have hurt him if he hadn’t been a werewolf.

“What did you say?”

“When we found Amy Walsh, she had a clump of white fur in her hand, but there were no fibers or tissue under her nails.”

I shook my head. Tess would probably know what that meant

—she was addicted to al those cop and crime scene shows—but I was lost.

Bishop sighed and looked down at his pack of cigarettes, like he was wondering whether he needed another smoke to have this was wondering whether he needed another smoke to have this conversation. “She didn’t fight back. If she had grabbed the fur—

like someone wanted us to think—there would have been something under her nails. It was too neat, like it was planted. And there was almost no bruising on her arms or legs. She didn’t hit or kick or struggle. Rigor didn’t set in as soon as it would have if she had fought back. I had them run a toxicology report. The results showed extremely high levels of GHB in her system. High enough that her heart probably stopped just as the wounds to her body were made.”

I swalowed. GHB. The date rape drug. The reason you never took your eyes off your drink at a party. “Was Amy . . .” I cleared my throat. “Before she was kiled, was she . . .” I struggled to make myself say the word as the wals of the shed pressed in.

Kyle carefuly pried his hand free from my iron grip and asked the question I couldn’t. “Was Amy raped?” he asked, voice quiet and strained.

“No. There were no signs of sexual assault.” Bishop’s voice was surprisingly gentle.

I remembered what Serena had said in the coffee shop. “Was it Cecil Bel? Is that why the police were interested in Trey Carson?

Because they thought he might know if Cecil drugged her?” Was that why Serena had been protecting him? My head throbbed and my chest ached. I knew Trey was Serena’s brother, but would she realy try to cover for him if he was hiding something so horrible?

Bishop gave in and lit another cigarette. “Cecil Bel was in prison when Amy Walsh was murdered. A few people on the force thought Carson might have drugged her himself, given his thought Carson might have drugged her himself, given his association with Bel, but there was no way he saw the Walsh girl that night.” He tossed the rest of the pack into an empty crate. “I shouldn’t be teling you any of this, you know.”

“Why are you?” asked Kyle. “If you realy think Derby has your house bugged, why risk teling us anything?”

Bishop sighed and looked at his hands. The cigarette shook slightly between his fingers. “I’ve seen a lot of ugly deaths, but every once in a while, one stil gets to you. It gets to be that it’s al you can think about. Something about Amy Walsh reminded me a bit of my daughter, Jessica.” He glanced up and met Kyle’s eyes.

“Branson Derby cared more about keeping the Feds out than about solving that case. When I let him buldoze me out of the force, it was like I let that little girl down.” He flexed his hands.

“And he took my job from me. It was the one thing I had left and Derby destroyed it.”

His words only half registered. I couldn’t get past the idea that Amy had been drugged. “A werewolf wouldn’t have needed to slip her anything,” I said softly. A wolf’s body was practicaly a lethal weapon—that’s why people were so scared of them. If one wanted to kil Amy, it wouldn’t have needed to slow her down first. “Could the werewolf have stumbled onto her after someone else slipped her the GHB? Maybe it was just a horrible coincidence.”

Bishop watched me for a moment, like he was debating something. He took a drag on his cigarette and then asked, “How wel do you know Jason Sheffield?”

wel do you know Jason Sheffield?”

I blinked, taken aback by the question. “We’re friends.”

“Been friends long?”

An alarm bel went off in my head and I instinctively moved closer to Kyle, so close that my back was against his chest.

“About three years. Ever since I moved to Hemlock.”

Bishop glanced at Kyle. “And you?”

I felt Kyle shrug. “Since third grade,” he said guardedly.

“And you knew he was having problems with anger?”

“Of course,” said Kyle. “Who wouldn’t after their girlfriend was kiled by a werewolf?”

“One week before Amy Walsh’s death, Jason Sheffield was picked up after a fight with a student from the community colege.

Several witnesses said Jason threatened to kil the kid. The guy ended up in the ER with a broken arm and a busted nose. And Jason was picked up twice before that. Each time, Matt Sheffield stepped in and the incidents just went away.”

I knew Jason had been getting into fights, but I hadn’t known the police had gotten involved. I struggled to keep the surprise from showing on my face.

“Jason Sheffield was the last person to see Amy Walsh alive. By his own admission, they’d broken up earlier that evening. He has no alibi for the time of her death.”

“Because he was out looking for her.” I baled my hands into fists. “He found her just after the police did. He—”

“I don’t think a werewolf kiled your friend.”

My mouth dropped open as Kyle said, “Of course a werewolf kiled Amy.”

kiled Amy.”

“A werewolf wouldn’t have bothered drugging her. Maybe whoever did drug her didn’t mean to kil her. Maybe they just meant to knock her out. Maybe whoever they got the drug from screwed up the dose. Regardless, Amy Walsh would have died with or without being mauled.”

He flicked the ash from his cigarette. “If you murdered your girlfriend in the middle of a werewolf kiling spree, wouldn’t making it look like a wolf attack be a pretty good way to cover it up?”

“What, exactly, are you saying?” Kyle’s voice was sharp, almost threatening.

There was an odd look on Bishop’s face, eerily similar to pity.

“I think Hemlock had, or has, a serial kiler infected with LS. I just don’t think that’s who kiled your friend. Two perpetrators, one using the murders of another to hide his own. I think Amy Walsh was kiled by Jason Sheffield.”

Bishop’s words hit me with the force of a tsunami, and only Kyle’s presence at my back kept me from staggering. The meager glow from the lamp seemed to pulse on and off like a strobe light, echoing the pounding of my heart as it beat against my rib cage. It was ridiculous. Insane. Ludicrous with a side of laughable. He couldn’t be serious.

Kyle stepped around me. His whole body radiated tension.

“Jason can’t even remember the rules to
Clue
. He isn’t smart enough to think of that.”

“Maybe not. But Matt Sheffield is. And he would clean up after his son.”

Bishop began ticking off items on his fingers. “Jason Sheffield Bishop began ticking off items on his fingers. “Jason Sheffield was with Amy Walsh before her death. He has a history of anger problems and the breakup gives him a potential motive. If your inventory was correct, half the file—including the toxicology report and my recommendation to bring in the FBI—is missing. Not to mention the fact that I was put on leave shortly after openly questioning whether or not your friend realy was kiled by a werewolf.” He shook his head. “There are only a few people in Hemlock powerful enough to do that, and one of them is that kid’s father. Another is Branson Derby—who, according to local gossip, has taken quite a liking to Jason Sheffield. I think the word
protégé
is being tossed around.”

A thousand thoughts crashed through my mind, leaving me slightly off balance. Bishop was insane and Kyle and I were leaving

—just as soon as I was certain my legs wouldn’t give out on me.

“If Jason hurt”—I couldn’t say
killed
—“Amy, he wouldn’t have gotten me the police report.”

“The report with pages missing?”

“There’s no reason to think Jason took those pages,” said Kyle.

“There’s no reason to think he didn’t.”

There were plenty of reasons. I just couldn’t think straight enough to list them. I shook my head. Crazy. It was al crazy.

“Jason couldn’t have done it.”

“Jason didn’t do it,” said Kyle. “And I’m not listening to any more of this garbage.” He turned and strode past me, walking across the lawn and disappearing around the side of the house.

I swalowed and turned to folow him.

I swalowed and turned to folow him.

“Can I offer you a piece of advice?” Bishop asked.

I paused, one foot on the overgrown lawn, the other stil inside the shed.

“You should let al of this go.”

How could he tel me everything he just had and possibly think I could do that? “Is that why you told us? Because you’ve let it go?”

I didn’t give him a chance to answer.

Kyle was waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of the house.

“The guy’s insane.” He started walking back the way we had come, his pace too quick for my shorter legs. Each word like a smal explosion, he said, “I can’t believe we listened to
anything
he had to say.”

“You don’t think he was teling the truth?” I struggled to keep up while sidestepping broken glass and the debris of the Meadows.

“About the drugs and the fur?”

“I don’t know. Yes. No. Maybe.” Kyle pushed his hair back with both hands as he walked. “The guy’s obviously got a screw loose or some grudge against the Sheffields. You heard the way he accused Jason’s father of covering for him.”