The wolf with three eyes
22Oct
“I said, he’s not here,” the nurse stressed.
I motioned back to the narrow waiting room, whose handful of occupants were watching me out of the corners of their eyes like school kids afraid to be called on in class. “So none of these patients are his?”
“Dr. Caldwell has taken Dr. More’s patients while he’s on sabbatical.”
She was around 60 and work no makeup. Her hair was parted in the middle and fell below her ears in curves. There were three thin, parallel scars on the side of her face near her right eye.
“Funny, he never mentioned a sabbatical. That kind of thing takes some planning, doesn’t it? Seems to me a professional psychologist might let his patients know if he were planning an extended absence.”
“All his patients were made aware. Perhaps he told you and you didn’t listen.” The implication was that I still wasn’t.
“I’m sure I would’ve remembered,” I said.
“Then you’ll have to take that up with Dr. More when he gets back.”
“Is he coming back?”
“Your questions have been patiently answered, Detective. This is harassment.” She picked up the receiver to the phone like she was going to dial 911 or something. “Please leave.”
“If he’s not here, then you won’t mind me looking in his office.” I started around the desk.
She replaced the phone quickly and stepped in front of me. “This is private property. You can’t just walk in.” She pointed to one of the younger assistant nurses, who was staring at the confrontation in disbelief. “Kay, please dial the police and tell them we’re being harassed.”
The young woman picked up the phone but hesitated.
“You keep using that word,” I said to my adversary. “Is it supposed to scare me? What’s wrong with a quick peek? If you have nothing to hide, I mean.”
She crossed her arms and planted herself.
I turned to the younger colleague. “Well? What are you waiting for? Call.”
The elder nurse sighed and turned for the door to Dr. More’s office. It was already shut. She pulled a mass of keys from the waist of her scrubs and locked it. I caught the sign on the next door down. It said DR. ALAN CALDWELL, same last name as the couple who moved into More’s house, according to the neighbor.
I walked forward and opened it over the nurse’s objection.
The interior was more or less the same as More’s: a nice glass-topped desk, some chairs, fancy framed degrees with giant matte borders, a sofa to one side, a credenza at the back. There were tribal masks on the wall, and when I turned my head to look, I caught a glimpse of a wasp. It crawled through the eye of a faded Balinese mask and disappeared.
The nurse moved me back and shut the door. She shouted something. I couldn’t hear it, but I saw her lips move. I saw her brow crease in anger. And then I saw her breath.
“Shit.”
I looked around the waiting room at the shocked faces, staring at me in confusion and fear. I looked at the pair of uniformed security guards who walked. as if in slow motion, through the office door. I couldn’t hear any of them. The whole room was silent. But their breath puffed from their mouths like they were standing in the dead of winter. I could see it billow from their nostrils like steam.
I started shivering. I could see my own breath, too.
“No . . .”
I could feel it coming. I could feel it out there. Waiting.
The dire hunter.
I pulled free of the first guard’s grasp and stormed through the door, room still shrouded in silence. I skipped the elevator and went right to the stairs. I made it two flights before I was shivering so bad that I couldn’t walk. It was like I’d been sleeping in snow. I was chilled to the core. I fell back against the block wall and slid down until I was sitting with my back to the corner of the stairwell landing, shaking. Teeth chattering. I couldn’t hear it, but I could feel them rattling against each other.
I stared ahead at a tree line. White-barked birch trees with bands of black stood in an irregular row, marking the boundary of the forest. The interior was dark. It was nighttime. The only light was the moon reflected on the snow. I was squatting in a clearing, staring at the silent forest. Everything was still. There wasn’t even a hint of a breeze. I squinted into the darkness, between the branches. It was in there. I knew it. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew it was in there, looking back at me. The wolf with three eyes. I knew it had been stalking me through the still forest. I couldn’t see it. But I knew. I caught glimpses of its footprints in the snow from where it had walked out of the clearing and into the forest, which was still lush, despite being under a blanket. Here it was seemingly the dead of winter, yet none of the leaves on the trees have fallen. In fact, they were still green as spring. The branches were topped in puffy white, but the leaves were full. It was quite a sight—incongruous and beautiful. I think it meant it’s not too late.
But not too late for what?
23Oct
When you have a potentially dangerous suspect, there’s always a bit of a judgment call on whether it’s better to talk to them first or go right for a warrant. As far as I knew, this guy Étranger had no idea who I was or what we were after. It was probably our only advantage. Once we questioned him, we’d be giving that up.
The problem is, most judges, and therefore most DAs, want to see good evidence that a warrant is—well, warranted. It’s embarrassing for everyone, and a waste of a lot of time and money, to charge into somebody’s house or business only to find they had a verifiable alibi the whole time. But here the question of an alibi was moot. No statement by the suspect could contradict the photographic evidence, which linked him to two missing persons on the very dates of their disappearance. Any reasonable person would call that grounds for suspicion.
It would have been a slam dunk if not for the fact that the chef’s face was obscured in all of the security footage. Hammond and I knew a judge would want to see positive evidence—maybe not definitive proof, but certainly probable cause—that the man on both tapes was not only the same man but also our guy.
Enter forensics. It’s a fascinating discipline. People really specialize. There are guys who know all about carpets, for example. They can look at some fibers under a microscope and tell you not only how old they are, but who the manufacturer was and at what retail outlets they were sold. You might think a fiber is a fiber is a fiber, or that all of them are round like a hair, but it’s not so. Some have a diamond-shaped cross-section, others a cross. And even the simple round ones have larger and smaller diameters. Some carpets use all one type, others weave a specific ratio of different shapes and widths. Then there are the dyes—not just the color and chemical makeup, but how long the fibers were steeped and so how deeply the dye penetrated.
All that to say, there’s a gal who specializes in forensic fashion. And after looking at the security footage and the color pictures I’d snapped of the chef leaving the restaurant, she told me that his coat is a Chinese adaptation of a Tibetan chuba, that the Chinese stopped making them centuries ago, and that that one is not only really old, it’s almost certainly one of a kind. Something about the fraying, apparently. And the buttons. Definitely custom. And definitely enough for a judge to feel confident that the bald man in all the pictures, including the ones I’d taken, was the same.
I turned to Hammond. “You ready?”
He nodded and we got out of the car, which was the cue for the others to do the same. Three squad cars emptied and ten uniformed officers followed Hammond and I across the street to the bistro. He held up the folded warrant and directed two patrolmen to stay by the side exit and make sure no one left with anything. Another pair went around to check the back. We walked into the restaurant and I explained to the hostess that we had a warrant to search the loft above, as well as the offices and work space of the restaurant, and she needed to unlock the side door immediately.
People are usually a little flustered in those kinds of situations, for obvious reasons. But she didn’t flinch, like this wasn’t the first time they’d been searched. Or even the second. Without a word, she led us around to the side and opened the door.
My phone rang as I followed Hammond up the stairs to the loft. I ignored it. He stopped abruptly at the giant head with stitched-closed eyes and I stepped around him into the apartment. The high brick walls displayed a menagerie of tasteless art.
“Search this room,” I ordered one of the patrolmen.
I went right for the double doors on the opposite of the room, but they opened on their own. The chef stepped out, bald head and all. I saw a hall on the other side.
“Can I help you?”
“Please step aside.” I moved toward the space behind him.
He politely held out his hand to stop me. “May I see some identification?”
I held up my badge.
“The police?” he asked, as if surprised.
“Would you please wait downstairs, sir?”
“Of course. But first may I see the warrant?”
I pointed him to Detective Hammond, who was answering his phone. I had the sense that the chef was stalling, like he was delaying me just enough for something to happen. I moved him to the side with both hands. He didn’t resist.
I strode down the hall toward a pair of block stone doors. I put my hand out to open them, but there were no handles. I pushed. They didn’t budge. I pushed harder.
I turned back to the chef, who was waiting for my colleague to finish what looked to be an urgent call. “Sir, I’m gonna need you to open these doors.”
“Of course,” he said and started toward me. “May I ask what this is about?”
Fucker was so calm. That’s when I noticed the tattoos on his palms, like some kind of gang ritual.
“Just please open the doors.”
“Of course,” he repeated. He raised his palms like he was going to start an incantation.
“Wait!” Hammond called.
We both turned to see him walking down the hall. He handed his phone to me.
I listened patiently as Lt. Miller explained the situation. My face started getting red.
“Change of plans,” Hammond said to the others. “Let’s go. Everybody out.”
I hung up. I lingered.
“Hari!” Hammond said. “You heard the lieutenant. Let’s go.”
“Where’s Alexa?” I asked him.
The chef looked at me, expressionless. “I’m afraid I don’t know who that is.”
“I’m going to find her,” I said.
He nodded once, emphatically. “Of that, I am certain.”
“I’m gonna finder her,” I repeated.
Hammond grabbed me and pulled me out the door.
I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery, FEAST OF SHADOWS, in order until the book is released. A blend of hard-boiled whodunit and contemporary urban fantasy, it’s been described as “Tolkien meets Dashiell Hammett for dinner in the present day.”
You can sign up here to be notified when the book is released.
You can start reading in order here: The old ones are patient.
The next chapter is: (not yet posted)
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