The beast lifted her up. As she bent at the waist, the beast heard cracks. To its otherworldly ears, they sounded like firecrackers. It smelled the putrid fumes of chemicals and death rise from her like angry phantoms. Her dress fell away to one side, exposing a dead breast. The wolf groaned low, and hunched up, almost as if it were ashamed of itself, or sad for what had happened.
Its left hand sliced the dress away from the body, exposing rows of thick stitches along the chest and lower regions, forming a Y, as if it was a question branded into her so she could remember to ask God that, just in case she happened to run into him.
More dank smells, almost too powerful for the wolf. It wanted out of that grave, but it would not go. It smelled her down there, privately, up along the blackened stitch holes, and up further still to the eyes, or, more accurately, the sockets where eyes used to live and swim and dart. Where beautiful eyes used to see, to know, to wonder, to radiate joy and love, and watch the rain come down.
The eyes saw the killer. Could that be why he took them?
The holes had been stuffed with cotton and glued shut, heavily caked with makeup, giving the impression that nothing had been done to the face. With the grace and precision of a surgeon, the beast, with one gleaming nail, plucked through the gunk sealing the eyeholes and opened them up. It brought its nose up close, close enough to leave wet marks, and smelled there in the dried and putrid pits. Nothing.
The beast crawled out of the hole and screamed. Before taking off into the night, the beast laid the lid back down and filled in the hole by kicking the dirt in, like a cat in a litterbox. The beast was now in a rage. It had struck out twice, unable to get a lead on its target, and it was now getting close to seething. It felt … denied. The anger was rising, and it was running out of options.
With nowhere else to go, the wolf came back to Evelyn, racing through the darkness of the woods along the northern edges of the town. A million animal eyes watched it dart past them, unafraid. They knew. There was a communication there. There was only one prey for that night. No substitutes.
When the beast reached the perimeter of the Crowley property, it slowed down to a careful, silent stalk, kept low to the ground, all senses focused out on the horizons. It smelled the ground, the occupants of the great house many, many yards away. It heard the occupants, sleeping, breathing deeply and slowly. To the south, it heard the low rumble of a car engine, tasted the grainy tang of gasoline fumes on the air. It heard a cough. Picked up the scent of meat loaf.
It was crawling now, down on its hands and knees. With its nose twitching, it came up to the spot where she died. It could at least smell her there, the scent left behind of Gloria Shaw, but nothing else. No one else. The beast was … lost.
And that was it. It knew it. The scent of its prey was gone. It had vanished to such a degree that not even the wolf’s otherworldly senses could pick it up. The target was gone, and without a target, the beast was without anchor, without guidance. It cried. It roared.
The beast heard a twig crack behind it, and it turned. Pearce was there, standing right there, his gun drawn and pointed. He did not fire. His eyes were wide and filled to the brims with fright. With its uncanny hearing, the beast heard a rumble in the man’s belly as loud as a passing train. The man spoke.
“Don’t,” Pearce said, stepping back slowly. “Get back. I’m not the one you want.”
The wolf rose up, towering over Pearce by a foot, if not more. Its veins, its teeth, its very being called out for blood.
“We’re in this together,” said Pearce. “Don’t come closer.”
The lust could not be denied. That’s what it was.
“Don’t make me,” cried Pearce. “Don’t fucking move.”
The beast howled in his face. There was no more mission. No more target. Just the core-deep cry of its purpose. To kill. That’s all there was inside it. Everything else, in that moment, was gone. The beast felt nothing but the need for blood, nothing but hunger, and the flesh in front of it that could satiate that calling. Pearce was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been anyone.
The beast got into a striking stance and lunged. Pearce yelled my name, “Marley,” and his finger tightened around the trigger. “No!”
The sound of metal moving inside the gun was like a spring being compressed in a mattress. He was not fast enough to fire a single shot. He died quickly.
The beast bit into him and drank as the life force evaporated from Pearce’s body. In its bones, the beast could hear—feel—his dying pulse. The smell of shit filled the air. The beast gnashed, lost in it, and when it drew back its head to catch the moonlight in its scarlet eyes, it moaned with what I could only call sadness. It did what its nature made it do, but it knew somewhere in its hide that it had done wrong. Still, it could not stop. Like a glutton, it lapped at the hot blood around the corners of its mouth and went back to work on the body.
The spell broke. I was shocked back to reality as if I’d been hit by lightning. I was shaking, and I couldn’t stop. I needed a drink, but there would be no more of that. I lit a smoke to calm my nerves.
Why couldn’t the beast get the scent? It certainly had tried. It had something to do with those church break-ins, I was sure of it. I needed those police files, or at least a man on the inside, like Pearce was. Someone who could feed me the information I needed. Someone to check back and go through all those Rose murders to see if a church break-in coincided with all of them and if anything was ever boosted from any of these places. Maybe nothing was stolen, but maybe something was left behind at one of these churches, some clue as to who this man was. Maybe someone had been caught at some point busting into a church. Maybe it was the Rose Killer.
The church angle was a lead, as was this Polaroid box that was found up at the Crowley property. I couldn’t count on the beast with this next full moon, that much was clear, and it wasn’t even the monster’s fault. This target was a wraith. A fog. A ghost. He had some kind of trick up his sleeve that protected him from the wolf. I wasn’t used to being proactive—Lord knows I wasn’t good at it—but for me, for the girls, and for Pearce, I was going to get the Rose Killer. The only question was how.
I put my cigarette out, lit another, and came up with a plan. Just like Nancy Drew.
I tore the envelope, the pictures, and reports to shreds and put them in the fireplace. I lit a match and watched it all burn.
TWENTY-TWO
Detective Van Buren arrived at the Evelyn Police Station just after nine. It was a two-story building erected in the forties, and up on the second floor was where the Rose Killer Task Force was situated. That’s where he was off to, I supposed. I was watching him from across the street, blended into the crowd of television and radio reporters who had set up tents outside the front of the building. When they were on the air, it was from the “frontlines.”
I watched Van Buren get out of his car and go in. I had no idea where he lived—he wasn’t in the phone book, and after riffling through Pearce’s memories I couldn’t come up with it—but I needed him, so I at least had to know which car was his.
It was a maroon-colored Ford hatchback with a bumper sticker that read “Life’s a Beach.” Just for that and that alone I wanted to punch the guy in the stomach until I broke all the bones in my hand. But again, I needed him, and in order to get him to help me, I was going to have to lie through my teeth.