Full Wolf Moon (20 page)
The report began to rattle in her hands, and Doris set it down, pressing her fists into her lap to try to stop the trembling. Pierce. She didn't understand exactly how or why, but she knew this was all Pierce's doing. And she knew just as instinctively that there was no one at Tulenar that could or would help her. She was all alone. She wanted to scream.
Outside her door she heard a sound like a telephone receiver being slammed down and Shackley, Eisenhower's man, cursed. He asked the same question she had asked minutes before.
"Where in holy hell is Captain Pierce!"
/ / / /
Was he stalking again tonight, Doris wondered as she lay on her couch, watching the full moon through her window. Would someone actually see him tonight?
Someone would, in spite of all the security, in spite of the sundown curfew, sealing the internees into the barracks. Would it be one of the internee police this time, as he made his rounds perpendicular to the M.P.'s in their Jeep, to the soldiers assigned the dreadful duty of walking the barbed wire? Would that evacuee, in one unguarded second, when his military counterparts were not present, just one fleeting moment...would he turn to look into the eyes of his death?
Who would it be? When would it be?
Stop, she told herself. Think this through. Climb out of the grief, climb out of the fear. To think of Arthur as Arthur now will interfere. He is...he is Victim Three. Victim Three in as many months.
Mrs. Tebbe, was the moon full when Mr. Ataki died?
She couldn't remember.
Isn't it staring us in the face this minute?
When Mrs. Tamura was taken, yes, it was. Yes! And it was full now. It was full last night. Once a month. On the first night of the full moon.
Doris pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, raked her fingers through her dark red hair as it lay loose and scattered across the sofa's arm. Good lord, it can't be, it can't be. Terrifying enough to think of Pierce -of Pierce!- as a homicidal mad man. She'd be insane herself to think there were such things as werewolves...
A revelation pulled her upright. Doris sat staring ahead of her as if she could see the logic shining brilliantly before her eyes. The wolf attack at Alderquest, the murder of his wife. Pierce. Pierce thinks he's a werewolf!
/ / / /
Doris had the coroner's report clutched in her hand. "If you'll just let me finish, Mr. Shackley..."
"Mrs. Tebbe, it's almost midnight. Let's discuss this in the morning."
"Will you please just look at this? I know I'm right! The captain was giving me clues all the time without even being aware that he was. Can you explain his disappearance, otherwise?"
Mr. Shackley, his triangular frame blocking the entrance of his motel room, tugged irritably at the tie of his bathrobe.
"Tomorrow," he insisted, his voice devoid of any pretense.
"Damn it, Shackley, we're talking murder here! The man's a lunatic! A damn sharp one, but a lunatic, just the same. Fake tracks, swift abduction, his military mind, it all makes perfect sense. We can't get around the logic! The only part that I'm not sure about is does he know he's doing it. Good lord, he seems so innocent when I talk to him..."
Shackley reached up with both hands and pressed against his thinning hairline, stretching the skin on his forehead and around his eyes. He was clearly vexed.
"Tomorrow," he repeated with emphasis.
Doris clenched her jaw and held the coroner's report on Annie Pierce stubbornly toward him. Shackley's glower slid from Doris's face to the brown envelope, which he snatched irritably from her fingers. What he said then would have seemed compassionate had his tone not been so heated.
"Mrs. Tebbe, you're under immense pressure. You've done an excellent job up to now, but I think the stress you're experiencing warrants a suspension of duties. We'll talk in the morning, goodnight!"
/ / / /
"Relieved" was the official word for it, and Doris was set aside as easily as Shackley had set aside the coroner's report. When she asked what he had thought, he said that he thought she was much too traumatized by the present crisis. The only thing he saw in the report was a tragic accident, with only a fragment of coincidence anywhere in the findings.
Furthermore, procuring such information was unethical and illegal. She was advised to tread lightly and accept the WRA's decision to relieve her.
The official story? Due to illness, Doris was temporarily alleviated of her position and was expected to return in three weeks. No one was buying it. The staff and the press knew as well as Doris that she would never be returned to duties. But the WRA couldn't allow the appearance of internal disintegration. Shackley would wait for an opportune moment before shipping her off.
Actually, in a literal sense, Doris truly was relieved. Shackley wouldn't have let her work, anyway. Not in any real capacity. She would have sat in her office, a puppet administrator, with only enough paperwork to make her appear in control. There would be nothing to shield her from Arthur's ghost.
But, now she could fill her days. By seven a.m. she'd been bounced. By seven-forty-five a.m. she was at Lakeside Assembly Center pounding furiously at Pierce's front door, but she got no answer. She walked briskly around the cabin, thinking to surprise Pierce at a window if he was hiding inside. But she slowed, the hair at her neck prickling as the back door came into view. It was wide open, flung back against the kitchen wall. The kitchen was in shambles, one chair overturned, another broken, even the table was on its side. A scattered trail of cooking knives led to their wooden holder lying in a corner. And there was blood. Two large smears, one on the tilted table, one on the floor nearby. Hand prints.
Doris was several steps inside when a young, harsh voice came from behind. "Hold right there! This is government prop-- Holy - Mother of --!"
Doris turned to see the astounded expression of a baby-faced M.P. corporal, peering into the kitchen.
"What the hell happened here?" she snapped.
"I don't... don't..."
"Didn't you people come looking for the captain yesterday?"
"Yeah! Yes, they sent me, but I...I was only at the front..."
"What?"
"I just...when there was no answer...I came by a couple three times, but I..."
"You mean no one's seen this until now?"
The youngster struggled to collect himself and asked defensively, "Ma'am, who are you and why are you here?"
"I'm the Center Administrator of Tulenar, kid, that's who the hell I am! Get your sergeant!"
/ / / /
She was back in Shackley's face by nine o'clock, arguing with him from across her desk. Or at least it had been her desk. Now Shackley was sitting behind it and saying to her, "Mrs. Tebbe, regardless of your concerns, the Army and the United States Government are treating the captain's disappearance as a kidnapping. We can only pray he hasn't been murdered."
"Listen to me. He's not the victim, he's the killer. He's the killer! I've told you what he told me, I've told you what Andrew Takei heard him say and I trusted you with the coroner's report. Mr. Shackley, how could Pierce know Mrs. Tamura's heart was taken? We've never found her body. Only the killer would know that."
Shackley held up his hand in a one moment, please gesture. "Precisely as you say. We have never found the body. We cannot ascertain the killer did such a thing because we have no physical evidence that it happened. What we do have is the Takei boy claiming Captain Pierce made the statement. A boy who, no doubt, would say anything if he thought it would get him out of jail. Do you expect us to discount Captain Pierce's reputation on the word of a delinquent and your imagination?"
"This isn't my imagination! At least you could question Pierce."
Shackley looked weary. "Yes we could, Mrs. Tebbe, if we could find him. But he's gone, and all the evidence suggests foul play."
"I tell you that blood is not his, it's another victim's."
"And what victim would that be, Mrs. Tebbe? Who else is missing?"
"It... it could be Arthur's...the Reverend Arthur Satsugai. He could have been murdered there."
"Mrs. Tebbe. Listen to yourself."
Doris realized she was trembling. Taking advantage of her hesitation, Shackley rested his elbows on the desk and tented his hands in front of his chin. "There's an equation of logic I think you will find useful in this case, Mrs. Tebbe. It is loosely referred to as Occam's Razor and, simply put, it states--"
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate."
Shackley dropped his hands, looking chagrined and little confused.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Doris said, "don't you know the Razor in Latin? It 'loosely' translates to 'of competing explanations, the simplest should be preferred, provided it takes into account all evidence.'"
Shackley recovered quickly. "You will have to pardon me if I seemed condescending just now. However, you have just proven my point. Of the two prevailing theories regarding these tragedies, which seems the simplest to you? We have a subversive Enemy National committing unspeakable acts in order to create wide spread panic across our nation's exposed western flank during a time of war. Or the mastermind of the murders is a U.S. Army captain with a sterling record who arbitrarily goes beserk, believing himself to be a werewolf."
She realized for the first time how absurd she, indeed, sounded to Shackley. She looked at him and managed to see not a stubborn, stuffy bureaucrat, but a man who had not experienced what she had experienced. Who would have no reason to connect the dots of Pierce's past, and the strange murders in the remote deserts of an Indian reservation, to the atrocities at Tulenar. He had not heard some strange Navajo medicine man, long gone now, making uncannily accurate predictions of carnage. He had not lost Arthur so violently.
He could not possibly believe her. He had no reason to do so.
Chapter 27
Disjunction Lake
Afternoon. Third Night of the Full Moon.
Disjunction Lake's library was small and solid, a tomb of minimal knowledge squatting in the town square. Its card catalog was sketchy at best, but Doris managed to find two old books on European lore, the largest only three hundred pages, and a tattered copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
It became clear early on that Dracula was the wrong direction. Of the books on European lore, the smaller one centered entirely on Celtic and Irish fairy tales. It didn't occur to her until she pulled the third book across the table toward her to peruse the index. "W". Werewolf.
There it was, page 137. Doris was keenly aware of the knot in her throat as she turned the leaves, then swallowed bitterly when the section entitled Shape Shifting Myths revealed only a single page on the subject, subtitled Lycanthropy. Still, it offered her something:
"Lycanthropy (or werewolfism). Myths of lycanthropy have been recorded in Europe, Scandinavia and the North American continent. These tales persist today. Subtleties vary, but the theme remains amazingly common where ever found.
"The victim becomes a lycanthrope, or werewolf, by surviving the bite of one such creature. Henceforth under each full moon, the victim mutates into a large wolf-like being, fated to slaughter and feed on other humans. Upon the fading of the full moon, the werewolf returns to human form with no knowledge of the carnage he has created.
"According to some traditions, the werewolf is selective in its choice of victims. In these cases, one or both of the victim's palms (depending on the tradition) is said to be marked with a pentagram, which is a star enclosed within a circle (often associated with the Black Arts). The lycanthrope, in human form, is likewise marked.
"A savvy victim would be wise to compare his palm to that of a suspected lycanthrope, as only the werewolf and his victim can discern the mark. In some traditions, those gifted with second sight can also see the pentagram. This same savvy victim would then be wise to have handy a weapon crafted of silver, for only a fatal blow with such a weapon can kill the werewolf.
"Other details and variations on this theme abound. However, these vitals should provide the reader with ample knowledge for his next werewolf hunt."
Doris clapped the book shut, frustrated with the author's glib manner. The thud echoed up to Mrs. Baker, the librarian, who raised her head in annoyance even though she and Doris were the only people there. Doris closed her strained eyes a moment, and it was then she felt the presence behind her. She shifted in her chair a split second before telling herself not to be ridiculous. But Doris was certain she saw something. A shadow against a wall, cast by a soft globe light, a silhouette with the outline much like a braid or a ponytail, doubled upon itself and bound.
The shadow was already vanishing behind the far bookshelves by the time Doris stood and moved toward it. Behind the last shelf was a doorway. It was dark beyond. The small sign above it read STACKS. She approached slowly, and realized she was afraid.
The pale lighting of the main room let Doris glimpse five or six steps leading down into the stacks. She hesitated a moment, then plunged her hand into the dark, hastily tracing her fingers along either wall of the threshold, looking for a light switch. There was none. She was quick to pull her hand back.
Doris thought of going to Mrs. Baker, to ask her to light the room, but when she walked around so she could see the main desk, the woman wasn't there. Doris turned back to the black doorway, bucked up her nerve and entered.
Once she stepped out of the feeble, second hand light, Doris was in virtual night. Even after her eyes adjusted, the best she could make out was the monolithic aisles of books, their musty aroma close against her face. Two steps forward and something spidery wisped across her forehead. Doris gasped, but stifled a cry when she realized she must have walked into the light string. Groping outward, she caught it and tugged.
Outside her door she heard a sound like a telephone receiver being slammed down and Shackley, Eisenhower's man, cursed. He asked the same question she had asked minutes before.
"Where in holy hell is Captain Pierce!"
/ / / /
Was he stalking again tonight, Doris wondered as she lay on her couch, watching the full moon through her window. Would someone actually see him tonight?
Someone would, in spite of all the security, in spite of the sundown curfew, sealing the internees into the barracks. Would it be one of the internee police this time, as he made his rounds perpendicular to the M.P.'s in their Jeep, to the soldiers assigned the dreadful duty of walking the barbed wire? Would that evacuee, in one unguarded second, when his military counterparts were not present, just one fleeting moment...would he turn to look into the eyes of his death?
Who would it be? When would it be?
Stop, she told herself. Think this through. Climb out of the grief, climb out of the fear. To think of Arthur as Arthur now will interfere. He is...he is Victim Three. Victim Three in as many months.
Mrs. Tebbe, was the moon full when Mr. Ataki died?
She couldn't remember.
Isn't it staring us in the face this minute?
When Mrs. Tamura was taken, yes, it was. Yes! And it was full now. It was full last night. Once a month. On the first night of the full moon.
Doris pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, raked her fingers through her dark red hair as it lay loose and scattered across the sofa's arm. Good lord, it can't be, it can't be. Terrifying enough to think of Pierce -of Pierce!- as a homicidal mad man. She'd be insane herself to think there were such things as werewolves...
A revelation pulled her upright. Doris sat staring ahead of her as if she could see the logic shining brilliantly before her eyes. The wolf attack at Alderquest, the murder of his wife. Pierce. Pierce thinks he's a werewolf!
/ / / /
Doris had the coroner's report clutched in her hand. "If you'll just let me finish, Mr. Shackley..."
"Mrs. Tebbe, it's almost midnight. Let's discuss this in the morning."
"Will you please just look at this? I know I'm right! The captain was giving me clues all the time without even being aware that he was. Can you explain his disappearance, otherwise?"
Mr. Shackley, his triangular frame blocking the entrance of his motel room, tugged irritably at the tie of his bathrobe.
"Tomorrow," he insisted, his voice devoid of any pretense.
"Damn it, Shackley, we're talking murder here! The man's a lunatic! A damn sharp one, but a lunatic, just the same. Fake tracks, swift abduction, his military mind, it all makes perfect sense. We can't get around the logic! The only part that I'm not sure about is does he know he's doing it. Good lord, he seems so innocent when I talk to him..."
Shackley reached up with both hands and pressed against his thinning hairline, stretching the skin on his forehead and around his eyes. He was clearly vexed.
"Tomorrow," he repeated with emphasis.
Doris clenched her jaw and held the coroner's report on Annie Pierce stubbornly toward him. Shackley's glower slid from Doris's face to the brown envelope, which he snatched irritably from her fingers. What he said then would have seemed compassionate had his tone not been so heated.
"Mrs. Tebbe, you're under immense pressure. You've done an excellent job up to now, but I think the stress you're experiencing warrants a suspension of duties. We'll talk in the morning, goodnight!"
/ / / /
"Relieved" was the official word for it, and Doris was set aside as easily as Shackley had set aside the coroner's report. When she asked what he had thought, he said that he thought she was much too traumatized by the present crisis. The only thing he saw in the report was a tragic accident, with only a fragment of coincidence anywhere in the findings.
Furthermore, procuring such information was unethical and illegal. She was advised to tread lightly and accept the WRA's decision to relieve her.
The official story? Due to illness, Doris was temporarily alleviated of her position and was expected to return in three weeks. No one was buying it. The staff and the press knew as well as Doris that she would never be returned to duties. But the WRA couldn't allow the appearance of internal disintegration. Shackley would wait for an opportune moment before shipping her off.
Actually, in a literal sense, Doris truly was relieved. Shackley wouldn't have let her work, anyway. Not in any real capacity. She would have sat in her office, a puppet administrator, with only enough paperwork to make her appear in control. There would be nothing to shield her from Arthur's ghost.
But, now she could fill her days. By seven a.m. she'd been bounced. By seven-forty-five a.m. she was at Lakeside Assembly Center pounding furiously at Pierce's front door, but she got no answer. She walked briskly around the cabin, thinking to surprise Pierce at a window if he was hiding inside. But she slowed, the hair at her neck prickling as the back door came into view. It was wide open, flung back against the kitchen wall. The kitchen was in shambles, one chair overturned, another broken, even the table was on its side. A scattered trail of cooking knives led to their wooden holder lying in a corner. And there was blood. Two large smears, one on the tilted table, one on the floor nearby. Hand prints.
Doris was several steps inside when a young, harsh voice came from behind. "Hold right there! This is government prop-- Holy - Mother of --!"
Doris turned to see the astounded expression of a baby-faced M.P. corporal, peering into the kitchen.
"What the hell happened here?" she snapped.
"I don't... don't..."
"Didn't you people come looking for the captain yesterday?"
"Yeah! Yes, they sent me, but I...I was only at the front..."
"What?"
"I just...when there was no answer...I came by a couple three times, but I..."
"You mean no one's seen this until now?"
The youngster struggled to collect himself and asked defensively, "Ma'am, who are you and why are you here?"
"I'm the Center Administrator of Tulenar, kid, that's who the hell I am! Get your sergeant!"
/ / / /
She was back in Shackley's face by nine o'clock, arguing with him from across her desk. Or at least it had been her desk. Now Shackley was sitting behind it and saying to her, "Mrs. Tebbe, regardless of your concerns, the Army and the United States Government are treating the captain's disappearance as a kidnapping. We can only pray he hasn't been murdered."
"Listen to me. He's not the victim, he's the killer. He's the killer! I've told you what he told me, I've told you what Andrew Takei heard him say and I trusted you with the coroner's report. Mr. Shackley, how could Pierce know Mrs. Tamura's heart was taken? We've never found her body. Only the killer would know that."
Shackley held up his hand in a one moment, please gesture. "Precisely as you say. We have never found the body. We cannot ascertain the killer did such a thing because we have no physical evidence that it happened. What we do have is the Takei boy claiming Captain Pierce made the statement. A boy who, no doubt, would say anything if he thought it would get him out of jail. Do you expect us to discount Captain Pierce's reputation on the word of a delinquent and your imagination?"
"This isn't my imagination! At least you could question Pierce."
Shackley looked weary. "Yes we could, Mrs. Tebbe, if we could find him. But he's gone, and all the evidence suggests foul play."
"I tell you that blood is not his, it's another victim's."
"And what victim would that be, Mrs. Tebbe? Who else is missing?"
"It... it could be Arthur's...the Reverend Arthur Satsugai. He could have been murdered there."
"Mrs. Tebbe. Listen to yourself."
Doris realized she was trembling. Taking advantage of her hesitation, Shackley rested his elbows on the desk and tented his hands in front of his chin. "There's an equation of logic I think you will find useful in this case, Mrs. Tebbe. It is loosely referred to as Occam's Razor and, simply put, it states--"
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate."
Shackley dropped his hands, looking chagrined and little confused.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Doris said, "don't you know the Razor in Latin? It 'loosely' translates to 'of competing explanations, the simplest should be preferred, provided it takes into account all evidence.'"
Shackley recovered quickly. "You will have to pardon me if I seemed condescending just now. However, you have just proven my point. Of the two prevailing theories regarding these tragedies, which seems the simplest to you? We have a subversive Enemy National committing unspeakable acts in order to create wide spread panic across our nation's exposed western flank during a time of war. Or the mastermind of the murders is a U.S. Army captain with a sterling record who arbitrarily goes beserk, believing himself to be a werewolf."
She realized for the first time how absurd she, indeed, sounded to Shackley. She looked at him and managed to see not a stubborn, stuffy bureaucrat, but a man who had not experienced what she had experienced. Who would have no reason to connect the dots of Pierce's past, and the strange murders in the remote deserts of an Indian reservation, to the atrocities at Tulenar. He had not heard some strange Navajo medicine man, long gone now, making uncannily accurate predictions of carnage. He had not lost Arthur so violently.
He could not possibly believe her. He had no reason to do so.
Chapter 27
Disjunction Lake
Afternoon. Third Night of the Full Moon.
Disjunction Lake's library was small and solid, a tomb of minimal knowledge squatting in the town square. Its card catalog was sketchy at best, but Doris managed to find two old books on European lore, the largest only three hundred pages, and a tattered copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
It became clear early on that Dracula was the wrong direction. Of the books on European lore, the smaller one centered entirely on Celtic and Irish fairy tales. It didn't occur to her until she pulled the third book across the table toward her to peruse the index. "W". Werewolf.
There it was, page 137. Doris was keenly aware of the knot in her throat as she turned the leaves, then swallowed bitterly when the section entitled Shape Shifting Myths revealed only a single page on the subject, subtitled Lycanthropy. Still, it offered her something:
"Lycanthropy (or werewolfism). Myths of lycanthropy have been recorded in Europe, Scandinavia and the North American continent. These tales persist today. Subtleties vary, but the theme remains amazingly common where ever found.
"The victim becomes a lycanthrope, or werewolf, by surviving the bite of one such creature. Henceforth under each full moon, the victim mutates into a large wolf-like being, fated to slaughter and feed on other humans. Upon the fading of the full moon, the werewolf returns to human form with no knowledge of the carnage he has created.
"According to some traditions, the werewolf is selective in its choice of victims. In these cases, one or both of the victim's palms (depending on the tradition) is said to be marked with a pentagram, which is a star enclosed within a circle (often associated with the Black Arts). The lycanthrope, in human form, is likewise marked.
"A savvy victim would be wise to compare his palm to that of a suspected lycanthrope, as only the werewolf and his victim can discern the mark. In some traditions, those gifted with second sight can also see the pentagram. This same savvy victim would then be wise to have handy a weapon crafted of silver, for only a fatal blow with such a weapon can kill the werewolf.
"Other details and variations on this theme abound. However, these vitals should provide the reader with ample knowledge for his next werewolf hunt."
Doris clapped the book shut, frustrated with the author's glib manner. The thud echoed up to Mrs. Baker, the librarian, who raised her head in annoyance even though she and Doris were the only people there. Doris closed her strained eyes a moment, and it was then she felt the presence behind her. She shifted in her chair a split second before telling herself not to be ridiculous. But Doris was certain she saw something. A shadow against a wall, cast by a soft globe light, a silhouette with the outline much like a braid or a ponytail, doubled upon itself and bound.
The shadow was already vanishing behind the far bookshelves by the time Doris stood and moved toward it. Behind the last shelf was a doorway. It was dark beyond. The small sign above it read STACKS. She approached slowly, and realized she was afraid.
The pale lighting of the main room let Doris glimpse five or six steps leading down into the stacks. She hesitated a moment, then plunged her hand into the dark, hastily tracing her fingers along either wall of the threshold, looking for a light switch. There was none. She was quick to pull her hand back.
Doris thought of going to Mrs. Baker, to ask her to light the room, but when she walked around so she could see the main desk, the woman wasn't there. Doris turned back to the black doorway, bucked up her nerve and entered.
Once she stepped out of the feeble, second hand light, Doris was in virtual night. Even after her eyes adjusted, the best she could make out was the monolithic aisles of books, their musty aroma close against her face. Two steps forward and something spidery wisped across her forehead. Doris gasped, but stifled a cry when she realized she must have walked into the light string. Groping outward, she caught it and tugged.
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