Transylvania's Most Wanted (7 page)

“Make sure he doesn’t follow us,” Red
whispered to Sergeant Hightower, gesturing at the reporter as he
helped Pierre into the backseat of his car. Sergeant Hightower
grabbed hold of the photographer, and started asking him about his
camera, while the photographer tried to get away.

“I am indebted to you for saving my life,”
Pierre said as Red drove away.

“Inspector Flynn was the one who shot you
with a dart,” Red told him jabbing his thumb at Tom. “Otherwise you
would have made it to the grandstands.”

“I shudder to think I might have hurt
someone. I can never possibly repay you,” Pierre told Tom, “but you
must let me offer you some token of my appreciation. How about a
new hat?”

“Oh,” Tom said, “that’s not necessary.”

“Please, let me do this,” Pierre
pleaded.

Tom looked at Red who nodded that it was
okay. “Well I could use a new bowler. My last one fell in the
river.”

“Thank you,” Pierre said.

They drove to Pierre’s shop on Guillotine
Street and Red parked just around the corner from it. A few people
were out and about on the streets already, but no one saw them exit
the car and go around the corner toward Pierre’s shop.

“The door should be unlocked,” Pierre said.
“My wife gets up at sunrise and unlocks it for me so I don’t have
to knock and draw attention to myself.” They found the door
unlocked as Pierre said, and all three men slipped inside
unnoticed. “Let me tell my wife I’m home first and then I’ll come
back downstairs,” Pierre said as he headed toward the back of the
shop where there were some stairs that led up to his home above the
shop.

“If you don’t mind,” Red said. “Ask her to
come down too. I have some questions for both of you if you don’t
mind.”

“Very well,” Pierre said.

“Let’s lower these blinds,” Red suggested
and he and Tom began pulling down the shades at the front of the
shop.

“Did you know Pierre was a werewolf?” Tom
asked.

“I did. The department has identified about
half of those carrying the werewolf curse.”

A few moments later Pierre came downstairs
wearing a robe. He handed Red back his raincoat before heading over
by the cash register and pulling out a ledger of some sort from off
a shelf.

“I should have your hat size written down
here,” he told Tom, looking through the ledger then. “It appears
the account balance for the Flying Squad has gotten quite high,” he
told Red.

“Oh,” Red said pulling out his wallet. “Let
me take care of that right now.”

Red shot Tom a look as he crossed the room,
because much of the balance was due to the cost of replacing the
many hats and raincoats Tom had lost or destroyed in the line of
duty the past couple of weeks. Red handed Pierre some bills and
Pierre wrote out a receipt.

“Thank you,” Pierre said and then he climbed
up on a ladder and started looking for a bowler for Tom. As he did,
Red started thumbing through the ledger.

“Here we go,” Pierre said finding a
sharp-looking bowler Tom’s size. As he climbed down the ladder,
Pierre’s wife entered the room wearing a bathrobe. She had missed
removing some night cream off her face and there were a few white
blotches there. “This is my wife Michelle,” Pierre said waving a
hand at her. “We are both very grateful for what you did tonight
Inspector Flynn,” he said, handing Tom his new hat.

“Thank you,” Tom said taking off his fedora
and trying the bowler on in front of a mirror.

“Very nice,” Pierre said looking up, after
making an entry in his ledger.

“Try and make this one last awhile,” Red
told him. “I have some questions for both of you if you don’t
mind,” he said looking at Pierre and then his wife.

“Yes, of course.”

“Other than your wife and myself and now
Inspector Flynn who else knows you carry the werewolf curse?”

“Only the monsignor knows and he would never
tell anyone,” Pierre said adamantly.

“Did anything unusual occur before you left
yesterday?”

“I’m afraid I cannot recall much about
yesterday,” Pierre said shaking his head.

“Did you notice anything different yesterday
before he left?” Red asked Michelle.

Michelle nodded. “Usually he comes upstairs
and has something to eat before he goes, but this time he left
without telling me he was leaving.”

“
Is that
right?”

“Yes,” she said. “In fact I came downstairs
to check on him about four-thirty and found he’d left already. He’d
forgotten to lock the door and put the sign in the window.”

“How do you usually go out to the woods?”
Tom asked causing Pierre to look curiously at him.

“I always walk down to The Fountain Hotel
and hire a cab there. I have them drop me off at the end of Queen
Anne’s Way and then I walk from there out into the woods to the
same spot every full moon.”

“Which end of Queen Anne’s Way?”

“The east end.”

“That’s a long way from Goblin Park,” Red
said. “Ten or eleven miles and besides it’s on the other side of
the Blood River. Are you sure that’s where you came from?”

“That’s where I go every time,” Pierre said
shrugging his shoulders, “but I have never ended up near Goblin
Park before,” he said, shaking his head like this puzzled him
also.

“How do you pay for the cab?” Tom asked.

“
I take some bills with
me,” Pierre said like this should be obvious.

“Yes of course,” Tom said. “I imagine you
empty your pockets out and stash your billfold somewhere before you
leave. I mean I’m sure you wouldn’t want to take anything with you
that you might lose.”

“That’s right,” Pierre said, seeming to
understand what Tom was getting at. He opened the drawer next to
the cash register. “I always put my wedding ring and pocket watch
here,” he said looking into the drawer. He looked there a moment
before placing his hand inside the drawer, searching for the items.
When Pierre did not find them there he opened another drawer and
then when he still did not find them he started searching around
the counter, even opening up the cash register, but still he did
not find his ring or watch. “They’re not here,” Pierre said shaking
his head looking at his wife then. “Did you put them
somewhere?”

“No,” Michelle said shaking her head.

“That’s very strange,” he said. “I don’t
know where I could have put them. I always leave them here,” he
said, clearly at a loss.

“I was just noticing you made a note in your
ledger,” Red said pointing at the book set out on the counter.

“That’s right,” Pierre said tapping it with
his finger. “We make an entry in the sales ledger whenever a sale
is made. Why do you ask?”

“What was the last sale you made
yesterday?”

Pierre opened the ledger and flipped to the
last page. “Looks like I sold some fabric,” he said looking at it.
“This is odd,” he added.

“What is?”

“
My handwriting,” he said
looking at it. “It is very sloppy, that is not like me.”

Michelle went over and looked. “He usually
writes so neat, but this entry is written poorly,” she said holding
the ledger up for Tom and Red to see. Pierre’s last entry looked
like it had been written by a six year old. “You must have not been
feeling right,” she told her husband.

“Can you show me the type of fabric you
sold?” Tom asked.

“Certainly.”

Pierre looked at the ledger again and then
stepped around the counter. He walked over to some rolls of fabric
on shelves in the corner and pulled one down. It was a very shiny,
red silk.

“What would someone use this fabric for?”
Tom asked.

“A dress possibly,” Pierre said.

Tom took the picture of Pandora out of his
pocket and showed it to Pierre. “Have you ever seen this
woman?”

Pierre looked at it. He nodded. Tom expected
him to say she’d been here the day before, but that was not what he
said.

“I saw her the day after the last full moon.
She was watching me as I came out of the woods. Who is she?”

Red and Tom exchanged glances.

“Her name is Pandora,” Red said. “Keep that
to yourself.”

“
What would she want with
me?”

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Red
said. “We’ll let you get some rest now. If you think of anything
else out of the ordinary that happened yesterday, let us know will
you?”

“Of course inspector,” Pierre said. “If my
ring or pocket watch is found somewhere out in the woods, could I
have them returned? The pocket watch has a picture of my wife
inside the clasp. I must have forgotten to put them in the drawer
before I left and they are probably lying on the ground
somewhere.”

“I’ll let you know if they’re turned in,”
Red said opening the door and then he and Tom left. “Tell me what
you’re thinking,” Red asked as they headed for the car.

“I’m thinking Pandora discovered that Pierre
was a werewolf after the last full moon. For some reason she came
in his shop right before he was about to close up and head out to
the woods. She bought some fabric, but that’s not really what she
was there for. I think she placed some kind of spell on him.”

“I agree with that,” Red said as he went
around the car to the driver’s side door. They climbed inside and
Red started the engine. “Pandora wanted something from him while he
was a werewolf. I guess that’s why she broke Stone out of jail.
Only Stone or Rollo could possibly wrestle control of a
werewolf.”

“Maybe she wanted some of his hair or one of
his teeth to use in a potion,” Tom said.

“
Maybe,” Red said. “I know
you’re tired right now, but how about we drive down Horseshoe Road
and just have a look around. Pierre was coming from that direction
when he entered Goblin Park.”

“All right.”

Red headed for the west side of the valley,
crossing over the Black River on Dracula’s Bridge and then driving
out of the city. Just a little ways past the bridge, pumpkins farms
appeared, where many of the jack o’ lanterns sold around the city
were grown. Past them were some corn fields that supplied the
Vamp’s Mill. And then they came to Horseshoe Road. Red turned north
driving alongside a forest so thick Tom could hardly see fifty feet
into it. They passed the road that led to Pendle Hill, drove
another couple of miles and looking down a gravel road, Red spotted
a farmer herding his dairy cows back toward his farm.

“Seems a little unusual,” he said stopping
the car. Red backed the car up until he could turn down the gravel
road. “This is probably his farm here,” he said jabbing his thumb
toward a farmhouse just off the road, “but I wonder what he’s doing
with his cows out on the road?”

Red drove up to the first cow and stopped.
He opened the car door and got out as a couple of cows walked past
him.

“
Hello,” Red said, showing
the farmer his badge. “Moving them to another pasture?” he asked
waving a hand at the herd.

“No,” the farmer said. “Some of them escaped
last night,” he said as he reached the spot where Red had parked in
the middle of the road. “Some werewolf was prowling around my place
last night and tore a hole in my fence and they got out. I was
afraid to go out and round them back up until the sun came up.”

“Is that right?” Red said looking toward the
wire fence surrounding a cow pasture and seeing where a couple of
wood posts had been pulled out of the ground.

“Did it attack any of your cows?” Tom asked
and the man shot him a curious look.

“Werewolves don’t bother with dairy cows,”
he explained shaking his head. “Sheep and chicken they’ll eat like
my wife does popcorn, but they don’t care for dairy cows. If they
did I couldn’t make a living out here. That’s why I round my
chickens up and keep them in the barn come a full moon,” the farmer
explained. “That’s what it must have been after. I guess I should
have expected trouble the way the bats were acting last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“They was landing on my cows and biting
them. Seems anytime someone or something enters their cave out
there,” he said pointing toward the cliff wall a couple of miles
away, “that riles them up something fierce. I’ll bet the werewolf
prowling around here last night must have been out there bothering
the bats earlier.”

“Really?” Red said.

“Yeah, nothing riles a bat colony up like a
werewolf swatting at them,” he said. “Would you officers be
interested in a cup of coffee?”

“Next time for sure,” Red said climbing in
the car. “I think we’ll drive over and have a look around the
cave.”

Red turned the car around and got back on
Horseshoe Road headed north. Just a quarter mile up the road was a
sign indicating the turn-off for the Mouth-of-Hell cave.

Red turned down the gravel road, drove a
mile until the road ended not far from the cliff wall. There was a
small parking lot there and from it a boardwalk that led to the
entrance of the cave. Red pulled into the parking lot and parked
and they got out and started down the path.

At the end of the boardwalk were some
benches for people to sit and watch the bats flying out of the cave
every evening just after dusk. No one should have been out there
the evening before, because the area was closed to the public any
night there was a full moon. Tom spotted something lying on one of
the benches and pointed at it. They walked over and found, folded
neatly on the bench, a suit jacket, a pair of shoes with socks
stuffed inside and lying on the ground nearby, was a torn shirt and
pair of pants, also ripped.

As Tom picked up the coat, he felt the
weight of something in the pocket. He reached in and pulled out a
pocket watch on a chain and showed it to Red. Red took it from him
and opened it. Inside was a photograph of a Pierre’s wife. Tom felt
around in the other pocket and found Pierre’s wedding ring.