Otherworld Nights (23 page)

A search through his filing cabinet gave me a lot more. The guy was a meticulous record keeper. A high school diploma showed he was originally from North Bay, about three hours north of here. There was something in the dossiers about a werewolf living up there with two sons. Probably Eaton’s family. I’d have to get Jeremy to take a look.

Eaton had gone to college in Toronto. After that, he moved around, judging by his Records of Employment. I wrote down all the towns, so I could check for bodies, but if I found any, they’d be old. The deed to his cottage was dated twelve years ago. He’d settled here and seemed to be staying. He’d paid off his mortgage years ago and had bought several surrounding properties when the land went up for sale. Expanding his privacy buffer. Smart move.

He drove a 2007 Dodge Ram. Bought used this year, paid cash. I made a note of the vehicle and the license plate number.

“I found something on the brother,” Noah said.

I looked up from the desk.

He walked over and put down an open photo album. “This was in the closet.”

He’d opened it to one of the last pages. It was dated five years ago, likely when Eaton—like many people—switched to digital. There were a few pictures of him and a guy who had to be his brother. They looked similar, except for size—his brother was a couple of inches shorter and maybe fifty pounds lighter. Noah took the photo from the page and flipped it over. On the back was written “Me and Mark. Trout Lake. July 2004.”

“We have a name, then. Excellent. Thanks.” I put the photo in my jacket pocket. “For the dossiers, since I doubt he’ll willingly supply a more recent shot.”

Clay appeared in the doorway.

“Find anything?” I asked.

“Nah. Got a cubbyhole under the floor, but the hatch is in plain view and it seems to be all camping stuff inside. No attic. No smells of decomp anywhere. Even searched the couch. Only found a fishing lure.”

He put it on the desk. I picked up the hook. From the other end dangled a couple of squares of hammered metal and a small blue feather.

“That’s an earring,” I said.

He frowned at it. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Looks like a lure to me, too,” Noah said. “Bet it’d work with fish.” He stopped smiling. “Wait. An earring? That could be a trophy, right?”

“Possibly,” I said. “But a trophy should be kept someplace safe. This was between the sofa cushions, which sounds more like one of the brothers had company.” I pocketed the earring. “If it was a local, she might be a good source of information. I think we’re done here. Time to head to town.”

“Elena Michaels,” I said as I shook the hand of the local physician, Dr. Woolcott, who also served as coroner. “I’m a freelance journalist working on a series of articles on wolf encroachment into human territory. Have you heard of the North American Society for Lupine Relocation?”

The gray-haired man shook his head. Not surprising, since the “society” didn’t exist. At least, not as far as I knew.

I continued. “They advocate a clearer delineation between humans
and wolves. Namely, forced relocation of wolves living too close to human settlements. They claim that wolf attacks are on the rise and that, contrary to popular belief, wolves do kill people but the attacks are mislabeled as scavenging. I’m putting together a series to investigate that claim, by looking into cases of canine scavenging near known wolf populations.”

He nodded. “The Mitchell boy. Tragic. Very tragic.”

He walked to the filing cabinet and pulled out a folder. When he returned to the desk, he hesitated. I prepared to rattle off some of the publications I’d worked for, even provide references if necessary. I had my ID in hand. All very legit, except for the part about writing the story, but that’s the beauty of being a freelancer—if I haven’t presold the series, the only person “assigning” me the job is myself.

He looked at Noah. “And this is …?”

“Noah. He’s interning with me on his school holiday.”

“Ah.” A grandfatherly smile. “Are you enjoying yourself, son?”

“I am.”

“Well, you may not enjoy these photos. They’re a little …” He leaned over to me and lowered his voice. “Graphic.”

“I won’t look,” Noah said.

Woolcott thumped him on the back. “Good boy. I know kids these days have probably seen worse in horror movies, but this isn’t special effects. Real death can be hard to take, first time you see it.”

Nine months ago, Noah had watched his grandfather be tortured and murdered. I doubted anything in those photos would be new to him, but his expression was perfectly solemn when he nodded. Then he retreated to the patient’s chair across the room.

Woolcott showed me the photos. Dillon Mitchell had been found at the bottom of a ravine, only a few hundred feet from the house of a friend, where he’d partied the night before. He was discovered by a neighbor taking his dog for an early morning run. Investigation revealed that Dillon had left the party at one-thirty in the morning. Woolcott guessed he’d fallen over the edge of the ravine and died.

“There was trauma to the back of the head. Whether that was the cause of death or …” He glanced at Noah. “Son?”

“I’ll step out.”

When Noah was gone, Woolcott said, “He may have just been knocked unconscious. There was a lot of bleeding—the scalp was sliced open, and if you’ve ever cut your head, you know what that’s like. It’s possible that whatever … ate him smelled the blood.”

“And the scavenging actually killed him.”

He nodded. “I didn’t tell the parents that. I was even hoping to spare them the scavenging part, but they insisted on seeing the body. If you do write your article …”

“I won’t mention the possibility that he wasn’t dead yet.”

“He may very well have been. The blow seemed strong enough.”

“Did you recover the rock he struck?”

Woolcott shook his head. “He’d been dragged a ways by the scavengers. We found where he’d fallen, from the blood. Lots of rocks. Some had blood on them.”

I leafed through the photographs. The boy had definitely been eaten by something. Damage to the stomach—the usual starting point. It hadn’t gone much beyond that, which was consistent with a werewolf. Wild animals will eat as much as they can. Whatever ate Dillon Mitchell took only a few bites.

I picked up another photo. Paw prints in the snow.

“Canine,” I said.

“Yep.”

I flipped through the file. It wasn’t just the coroner’s report. The police had apparently given him all the scavenging evidence as well.

“I don’t see a size for the paw prints,” I said.

“Oh, he was big. Over a hundred pounds, I reckon.”

In other words, no one had measured the prints. Guessing at the size was extremely unhelpful. There are two kinds of wolves in the Algonquin Park area: gray wolves and the smaller Eastern Canadian wolves. The latter averages about seventy pounds. The
grays are closer to a hundred. Dogs and hybrids can be much bigger. Werewolves are larger still, because we retain our mass when we Change. Without a measurement, I had no idea if this could be one of the Eatons.

“Any hairs found?” I asked.

“Nothing obvious.” In other words, if there’d been a tuft caught in a tree, they’d have grabbed it, but otherwise they hadn’t looked.

“Only one set of tracks?”

“Hard to tell. The snow was pretty trampled by the time the officers arrived. Some was from the man who found Dillon, and his dog.”

Right. The dog. “Any possibility the dog found the body sooner …?”

He shook his head. “She’s a Lab. The prints were bigger. I know there’s not much there to help you, but we really weren’t interested in what ate him. Bad enough something did. As for whether it could have been wolves, I’ve got a theory of my own, and I don’t know whether it supports the direction you’re leaning.”

“I’m not leaning either way. Just collecting data.”

“Good, because I think what ate him looks like a wolf but isn’t.”

“Sled dogs.”

His brows lifted. “Very good.”

“I saw that someone around here owns a team.”

“That’s right. Bobby Walters. Runs his team professionally, and makes extra cash with the tourists when he isn’t racing. Bobby’s a great guy. Really good with his dogs. But they get away from him every now and them. Damned canine Houdinis, those huskies. And when they get free, they go looking for food. When they’re in training, the best way to get them to obey is to hold back on dinner until they’ve done the work. Meaning if they get loose …”

“They’re hungry.”

“And they aren’t pets. Chow’s cheaper, but whenever Bobby can give them meat, he does. Hunters around here shoot more than
they want to dress? They take the extra to Bobby. Same with road-kill. He pays them, hauls the carcass out back. Dogs do their thing.”

Meaning they might have done it with Dillon Mitchell.

Noah and I were heading out when Woolcott’s nurse stopped us.

“You’re investigating the Mitchell boy’s death?” she whispered.

I nodded. Didn’t clarify the exact nature of my story. Just nodded.

“I have information,” she said, leaning forward, gaze tripping around, like she was about to turn in a Mafia kingpin. “Can I speak to you outside?”

“Sure.”

“Go around back,” she whispered. “I’ll come out the rear door.”

W
hether you’re playing journalist or private eye, there are two common types you encounter: the steely-eyed “I ain’t tellin’ you nuthin’ ” ones and those who can’t tell you their story fast enough. Sadly, neither type usually knows anything useful. They just think they do.

I waved to Clay in the truck, giving him the two-minute sign. He nodded.

The nurse was already at the back door. She didn’t come out, just opened it and talked, which made me wonder why the hell we couldn’t step inside. I suppose this way felt more clandestine. To me, it just felt cold. I pulled my jacket collar up and hunkered down, trying not to stamp my slowly freezing feet with impatience as she gave us Dillon Mitchell’s life story. It could be summed up as “he was a good kid.” Which is pretty much the same story you’d get in every case like this.

“I think he was murdered,” she said finally. “Everyone’s saying it was an accident, but I don’t believe it. He only had a beer or two, I heard. Not enough to fall off a cliff.”

Actually, according to the coroner’s report, his blood level had been 0.11, meaning he wasn’t plastered but he’d had more than a couple of beers. Of course, his friends at the party were going to claim otherwise—no one wanted to be responsible for letting him leave drunk.

“I think it was that Romero girl. They’d been fighting something awful since he came back from college. She’d been seeing that other guy, and apparently didn’t bother to tell Dillon.”

“This is Dillon’s girlfriend?”

The nurse nodded. “She’s doing a victory lap at high school. Grades weren’t good enough for college. Poor Dillon comes home and hears she’s been spotted with this new guy. She says they’re just friends, but I don’t think so.”

“Who’s the new guy?”

“He’s not a local. His brother is, and he’s bunking down with him while he looks for work.”

This sounded familiar. “Do you know his name?”

“Mike, I think. Or maybe Mark. Doug Eaton’s his brother. Works at the pharmacy. Such a nice guy. His brother seems like a sweetheart, too. Just got mixed up with the wrong girl.”

I called Clay and told him we were going to hike over to the coffee shop. It was a two-block walk through the center of town, which was busy with holiday shoppers. There was some advantage to Noah and me being seen, as I was sure the nurse wasn’t going to keep news of this “murder investigation” to herself. If we were spotted around town, more witnesses might come forward.

As we walked, I used my phone to search the Internet for “the Romero girl.” Lori was her first name, according to the nurse.

“Got a Facebook hit,” I said. “Matches for name, town, and school.”

“Sweet.” Noah took the phone as I held it out. He flipped through tagged photos of the girl. “Makes it easy to find someone, huh? That’s why I figured you guys wouldn’t want me having one. A Facebook profile, I mean.”

“Is that a problem? We could figure something out if you really wanted one.”

“Nah.” He gave me back the phone. “I just tell my friends I don’t have time for that shit. Sure, they bitch, but the alternative …” He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t want to be
found. It’s not just the probation thing. I’d finish that if I could. I just … I don’t want to be found.”

When we’d taken Noah from Alaska, there’d been no easy way to do it. We didn’t have a custody claim, and he was still on probation. So we just took him. He’d called his mother from Vancouver and said he was with his dad and wasn’t coming back. She didn’t care. It just gave her something to tell the police.

We’d gotten him new ID—the Pack has centuries of experience with that. We were claiming he was Antonio’s nephew, so Noah had decided to take the Sorrentino name. A few weeks ago, he’d bought a Christmas card for his mother and we’d had Lucas and Paige mail it from Portland. I’d thought he
wanted
to send that card, that he missed his mother. But I realized he only wanted to make sure she knew he was safe and happy, in case any maternal twinges made her consider looking for him.

“Whatever happens, you don’t ever have to go back,” I said softly as we turned the corner.

He nodded, his gaze fixed on the snow being kicked up by his boots. We passed a middle-aged couple and exchanged Merry Christmases.

“You like being a journalist?” Noah asked.

“I do.”

“It seems cool. I’d like the investigating part, but then you have to write the stories, and I’m not good at that. I’ve been thinking …” More snow kicked. “I might like law enforcement. As a career. But I suppose I can’t, with the fake ID and all.”

“You’d be surprised,” I said. “I’m sure we could back up the paper trail enough, if that’s what you wanted.”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Everyone says you need to be at least five foot ten, and I don’t think I’m ever going to get there.”

“You’ve still got time. Besides, there isn’t a height restriction in most places these days.”