Wolfwraith (3 page)

“He’s a pervert, your honor. Who knows what more would have happened if I hadn’t come in?”

Shadow quickly removed his hand and got a grip under her arm. He pulled. The waterlogged body seemed to weigh five hundred pounds. Forced to reach down and grab the rain parka with the claw, he could feel the boat tipping to the side. His arms and hand felt numb from the near-freezing water. Slowly, the yellow-clad corpse rose to the surface and, as more of it cleared the water, the effect on the boat increased dramatically. There was no way he could lift the cadaver into the unstable craft by himself.

“Could you give me a hand?” he asked. “Grab her legs and we’ll hoist her aboard.”

Alex slid carefully forward until he could also lean over and grip the body. The craft tipped at a dangerous angle and small amounts of water sloshed in.

“I’ve got the legs,” Alex grunted.

“On three,” Shadow said. “One. Two. Three.”

The rangers rolled the body over the gunwale and into the boat, exposing the girl’s slack and puffy face. Her open, brown eyes reminded Shadow of the dead sea-mammal he had found earlier. She had obviously been quite pretty, but Shadow could only stare in horror. A terrible wound gaped below her once-attractive face.

The girl’s throat had been ripped out.

Chapter Two

What do you suppose killed her?

“Jesus Christ, what the hell did that?” Alex blurted.

The chief ranger’s voice barely registered on Shadow, who desperately held his gorge until he could turn his face enough not to vomit in the boat. His skin went clammy in the cold, damp air as he continued to retch. Every time the spasms began to ease, he thought of what he had recently seen and a new round of heaving began. A sour, rank taste seemed to permeate his entire being.

He heard Alex talking to Mark Wilson, the assistant chief ranger, on a hand-held radio. Alex informed Mark of their find and told him they would be bringing the body back to the Barbour Hill dock. He also instructed Mark to contact the appropriate agencies to set up a search for the other girl.

When Shadow had finished vomiting, still sick to his stomach but with nothing left to expel, he wiped his face with his hand and turned back to face Alex. He kept his eyes on the chief ranger, but, at the edge of his vision, he could tell Alex had covered the torso and head of the body with a blanket from the box of first-aid gear and supplies kept in the back of the boat.

Alex looked at him closely. “You okay? It usually hits people pretty hard the first time.”

Shadow nodded, trying to ignore the bitter taste in the back of his mouth. He swallowed carefully and breathed deeply through his nose. It wasn’t like him to be sick and he was somewhat embarrassed.

“I did the same thing my first time,” Alex said. “And it wasn’t as bad as this. It comes with the job and you get used to it—sort of. Enough to get through it, anyway. You well enough to head back to Barbour Hill?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, I guess.” Shadow spat into the water and wiped a trail of drool from his chin. No need to remind Alex he’d seen plenty of bodies.

He looked around as Alex put power to the outboard engine and realized they had drifted away from shore while he had been vomiting; the wind had carried them out into the bay, nearly to the duck blind. He kept his face forward, glad for the refreshing wind because his lifejacket smelled of puke.

Shadow’s emotions were in turmoil. After all the killings he’d seen over all the years, this was somehow different in a way he couldn’t fathom. Perhaps it bothered him because this death hadn’t happened in the impersonal slaughterhouse of war. This was a wanton killing, and the evil that had washed over him made his stomach knot in disgust. How had he even felt that malevolent aura? Something to do with his Native American heritage, he assumed, without knowing exactly why. Completely wrapped up in his inner unrest, he was surprised when they rounded a point and neared the dock.

This northern landing was their destination, situated a half-mile from the contact station. The small, former hunting cabin had been rebuilt to serve as the park headquarters. Not much farther north, the five-mile-long Back Bay Federal Wildlife Refuge separated False Cape Park from Sandbridge, a resort enclave of houses on stilts. False Cape park visitors could make long hike or bicycle journeys along the refuge’s ‘dike trails,’ packed-sand roads that followed the dikes controlling the depth of large, man-made ponds set aside for wildfowl nesting. Private vehicles didn’t have access because they would disturb the birds.

As for the rangers, the refuge warden allowed them to cross the refuge in vehicles as a ‘courtesy.’ Except while migratory birds were present, from November to March, when even the rangers’ trucks were restricted to the beach route.

When they came close to the pier, Alex cut the engine. Shadow lashed the boat to a cleat, which was at chest height to him, since the tide was out.

“Let’s get her up on the platform,” Alex ordered.

Shadow reached down beneath the blanket to grab under the girl’s shoulders, while Alex wrapped his arms around her upper legs and said, “On three again. One...two...three.”

Shadow lifted the limp body and felt the boat rock down and then back up against his braced legs, threatening to throw him off balance. The girl’s arms and head hung limply, making his task difficult. He wondered if the cold water had kept rigor mortis from setting in or if it had worn off already. Either way, she would have been easier to lift if she had been more rigid. As they hoisted the corpse up onto the pier, Alex nearly lost his grip and had to make a grab to keep from losing her.

With a mighty heave, Shadow shoved her upper body onto the boards. He tried to push her farther in, but couldn’t slide so much dead weight over the rough surface. Climbing up onto the dock, he pulled the sodden, blanket-covered corpse entirely up onto the pier, hauling the dead girl like butchered meat.

“I’m going to uncover her again for a closer look.” Alex joined Shadow on the dock. “What do you suppose killed her?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“It looked like some sort of animal bite to me.”

“It does, but I think she was murdered.”

Alex’s eyes grew wide. “Murdered? Her throat was ripped out, sure, but people don’t kill that way. They shoot their victims or stab them or poison them.”

Shadow shook his head. “When I first touched her, I got the sensation of something awful, something not of this world. It wasn’t an animal—something evil did this. I suppose it could be a person, but maybe not.”

“What do you mean? Like a monster, or something? Come on, Shadow!”

“Well...I...” Shadow searched for a way to state his feelings without his boss thinking he was a nut case. “Do you believe in ghosts?” he finally asked.

“No, I don’t.” Alex shook his head emphatically. “I don’t believe ghosts are anything more than figments of people’s overactive imaginations.”

“But what if you’d seen one yourself? Something you couldn’t explain in any other way?”

“I’d check to see what I was smoking in my pipe. No, seriously, I guess I’d have to reconsider but it’s never happened.”

“I grew up around spirits.” Shadow said, hesitant to mention it, even though Alex knew his background. “My grandmother Min, was a—well, she sometimes worshipped in the old ways and called on the spirits she’d learned of from her
grandmother—and I’ve seen and felt things I couldn’t explain.”

“This was the same grandmother you’ve told me so much about, the old gal who named you?” Alex asked with grin.

“Leave off. I’m serious. Today I could sense a force from the girl’s arm and—I guarantee you this—it was nothing from this world.”

“So you’re saying it’s some kind of Indian thing?”

“Maybe not, but it was the same sort of feeling.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Alex put a hand on Shadow’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “There’s nothing mysterious about this. You’re upset by what happened to the girl’s throat. So am I, but don’t go off the deep end, man. I’m sure the coroner will be able to tell what happened to her and it will be a perfectly logical explanation. Now, let’s check her for something to tell us which girl this is. We need to get out there and search for the other one.”

Alex eased the blanket from the girl’s head and shoulders and pulled it away. Shadow felt no hint of nausea now he was out of the boat, and he studied her intently.

Her eyes were open and her mouth gaped. He would have expected an expression of horror if the throat wound had killed her, but did such a thing really happen, or was it only a contrivance of authors and moviemakers? Looking carefully at the wound below her chin, he decided something had ripped a great gouge of flesh away.

“It still looks like an animal bite to me,” said Alex. “Unless spirits have teeth.”

Shadow grunted, sorry he’d mentioned his feelings.

“Let’s look for I.D.,” Alex said, examining the yellow parka. “Nope, no pockets and those jeans are so tight anything would show in those pockets. Help me roll her over so we can check to see if there’s a wallet or something.”

Shadow knelt down beside him and helped pulled one side of her up.

“Nope, nothing,” said Alex, and they laid her back down.

Alex put the blanket back over the top half of the body, tucking it in because of the wind, and then said, “Okay, I guess the coroner will have to establish her identity. I’m going over to my place to make some phone calls. Get a tarp from the boat shed and cover her up. You’ll probably have to weight it down in this wind. Stay here until someone comes to take over the body. If I’m not back before then, walk up to the contact station. I’ll get hold of you there.”

Shadow went with him to the base of the dock, where they separated, Alex turning left toward his residence, a fairly new doublewide trailer he shared with his wife, Lillian. Shadow went to the nearby boathouse and removed a padlock with a key from his ring. Once inside, he opened a locker and started to select one of the faded tarps, but decided against it. Instead, he unlocked a supply closet and grabbed a new tarpaulin, still in its plastic wrapping. He threw the tarp in a wheelbarrow and added a couple dozen bricks from a pile in the corner of the boathouse.

When he got back to the pier, he had difficulty getting the fluttering tarp anchored down around the body, but finally managed it. Sitting down on a piling to wait, he began to shiver, so he went back to the boathouse, bringing the wheelbarrow with him. Finding an old, tattered, foul-weather coat, he put it over his uniform jacket, and then returned to his vigil on the dock. He tried to ignore the lump under the tarp.

A chocolate bar was what he needed. Sugar always seemed to calm him down, especially chocolate. Even a jellybean would have helped, but he hadn’t put a bag of them in his pocket this morning.

He unsnapped a pouch on his gun belt and took out his boatswain’s knife, which he’d bought many years ago from a ship’s store. Unlike a regular clasp knife, it had a long, pointed metal bar that folded out opposite the regular blade. He dug in his pocket for a small, half-carved piece of soft pine. Snapping the knife open, he held the pine in the claw and began to carve it using the knife in his good hand. He’d taken up carving as an enjoyable way to get used to being right-handed. Pausing occasionally, he stroked the grain of the wood, to see if he was carving true. Shadow never knew what he would create when he began carving; each particular piece of wood would tell him as he fingered it. This one was assuming the shape of a bear. Now, after the emotional upset of handling the body, the feel of the slick wood and the pine-resin scent soothed him as he brought out the spirit of the bear in the wood.

He’d only been at it for a few minutes when a beige sedan with a Virginia State Park logo on the doors emerged from the trees. Tires crackled on the gravel road as the car pulled up next to Alex’s pick-up truck. Shadow dropped the bear into his pocket, put away his knife, and stood up. A small man in a business suit emerged and headed toward him. Shadow assumed this must be the State Parks Commissioner, Joshua Barnett, whom he’d never met.

The commissioner was a thin, eagle-nosed man; in his early forties, perhaps. The wind was blowing wisps of sparse hair from the top of his head, exposing the baldness he obviously attempted to conceal by careful combing.

He looked down at the covered cadaver as he approached, and then his gaze shifted to Shadow, regarding the ranger with a stern glare. Shadow was well aware his uniform was a mess and he was wearing a rag of a jacket, but this wasn’t an inspection and he had no idea why the man had such an attitude. Jonesy often said the commissioner was a bit of an ass and Shadow had a feeling this would soon be confirmed. He noticed the man’s suit was expensive looking and his shoes were highly shined. A stickler for detail, most likely.

“Wilson, up at the contact station, said two girls were missing and a body had been found,” he said. “I came down here to find McGuire. Where is he?” His voice had a hint of a whine in it.

“He walked over to his trailer,” Shadow answered. “He had to make some phone calls.”

Barnett nodded down toward the lump in the tarp. “This the body?”

Shadow had to stop his eyes from rolling in disbelief. What did Barnett think it could be?

“Yes, sir,” he said, deadpan.