“She’s up!”
Beth finished her coffee and promised herself there’d be another one. Then she stood up, sighed, adjusted her belt, rubbed her face, ran out of simple ways to stall and walked the seventy thousand miles to the county jail cell one room away.
Inside it was Hannah Thorne, who was currently wearing nothing but blood and a patchy woolly blanket.
Again.
“Whoops,” she said, a little sheepishly.
“No, Hannah,” said Beth.
“I’m sorry?” she tried.
“No, Hannah.”
“I’m REALLY sorry?”
“No, Hannah.”
“I apologize for saying last time was the last time?”
“No, Hannah.”
The embarrassment was starting to fade into annoyance. “What is it then?”
“It’s ‘I’ll cooperate with the murder investigation, Officer Gubbin,’” said Beth.
Hannah’s entire face froze while her brain rebooted. Except for her mouth, which reflexively said “murder?”
“You had someone’s leg in your mouth, Hannah. Mostly down to the gristle, but pretty fresh. Now we have to go find out who didn’t come back home last night, which means I’m spending all morning driving. With you. Put some pants on, we’re going for the long walk of shame here.”
Beth Gubbin didn’t consider herself prejudiced, and in fact prided herself on personally getting her last co-worker fired for being two hundred pounds of bigotry with a badge. But some days she was pretty sick and tired of the mayor’s daughter being a werewolf.
***
They did town first. That took about six minutes. Nobody was missing, which Beth had more or less figured. Hannah was an outdoorsy sort of girl, no matter which skin she was wearing, and the last six (six? How had it turned into six?) times Beth had done this dance with her she’d been off frolicking in the countryside, turning someone’s livestock or pet into hamburger.
“I’m sorry,” Hannah mumbled.
“Mmm?”
“I’m sorry for-”
“It wasn’t you.”
“It WAS, I was just-”
“No, I’m blaming Bart for this. I’ve told him over and over he needs to invest in a proper silver chain, but your idiot father thinks you’re still six and a little cast iron necklace can hold you in your room all night. The chump. The dolt. The absolute imbecile.”
“Hey, he-”
“Next time eat HIM, okay? I’ve never voted for him anyways.”
“Uh,” said Hannah. And that was that until they pulled up to the Mason farm, knocked on the door, and were immediately led round the back to the fields, where a tractor sat lonely under a big blue sky.
Next to the tractor was about half a woman.
“Urgh.”
“Yep. Need a moment?”
“I did that?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“Look closer here, at the edge?”
“Hurrrklh!”
“Okay, step back again, never mind, breathe, breathe. Point is-”
“Bluuugh.”
“-point is that there aren’t any teeth marks.”
“Maybe I…used my… claws?”
“No. I’ve seen carcasses left by your little adventures half a hundred times: you’re a gnawer, Hannah. And besides, no scratches either. This looks like a Fargoing.”
“A what?”
“You ever seen the movie Fargo?”
“The WHAT?”
Beth sighed. “Before your time. Okay, look, I think what happened here is Peggy finally lost her shit at May’s drinking and clocked her one, then fed the body through the rotary tiller a bit. The blood doesn’t look fresh, so she probably hung onto it until full moon rolled around and she could plausibly blame it on you.”
“We’re standing on a murderer’s farm?”
“Yeah, pretty much. I’m going to phone in Danny to come around and do the legwork; you can go sit in the car if you’d like.”
Hannah did that, which meant Beth could swear as much as she liked when Danny gave her the news.
“Something wrong?” asked Peggy, trailing after her.
“Bad news is all. You’re a murder suspect, by the way. Danny’ll be by; don’t try to run off or anything because I know for a fact that hunk of junk you own wouldn’t last four minutes on the highway. Thanks for having us. C’mon, Hannah.”
“We’re going back?”
Beth peeled out of the driveway slowly and begrudgingly as Peggy shouted something unintelligible at them. “Nope. Going down to the Harner place.”
“Why?”
“Dead guy in their driveway.”
***
A very, very dead guy in the Harner driveway. Unlike May Mason, most of him was still there. But it had been considerably rearranged.
“Horlph!”
“Breathe, breathe, breathe. And point over there, away from the crime scene. You okay?”
“No.”
“That’s alright. Now, this one pretty obviously isn’t your fault.”
“No… teeth…marks?”
“Yep. And also buddy here still has both legs. You’re cleared. Now, what’s the first thing you noticed about this body, Hannah?”
Hannah turned even paler. “Well… the purple bit. I think it’s the liver?”
“Yep. Pretty striking. But let me be more specific: what’s the first thing you noticed about this body besides its physical… state, Hannah?”
“I’m uhm. Not sure I got past that.”
“That’s fair. Well, I noticed that I have no idea who this is.”
“Should you?”
“I’m half of the full-time police force of this county, Hannah. I know everybody.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’ve got a pretty good excuse for not getting out much. Anyways, this guy’s wearing pretty beat-to-shit clothing and besides the mangling – which I think was done with a kitchen knife – the actual death itself probably came from the bullet through the chest, which I’d wager will match to Mickey Harner’s favourite shotgun. Paranoid old bastard probably blew away a tramp asking to stay the night or trying to sleep in his garage, then tried to pin it on you.”
“So. Uhm. What do we do?”
“I phone Danny, you get back in the car and start brainstorming where we have lunch.”
***
It was McDonalds.
“Really?”
“Dad never lets me come here.”
“Bart’s a damned health nut.”
“No, he just doesn’t like Mr. Durham much.”
“Oh. He’s still holding a grudge over that?”
“Over what? He just complains about him a lot.”
“Yeah, he would. Tim Durham slept with Tracy Gilmore back in ’85.”
“Mrs. Gilmore dated my dad?”
“No, but he really wished she did.”
“Oh.”
Beth sighed. “Sorry, Hannah. I wish there were a more delicate way to put it, but your dad’s sort of a shithead.”
“Yeah,” she said, head bowed.
“Have the rest of my fries.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank YOU. I can’t afford the cholesterol. Sit tight, I’m going to the restroom. If I’m not back in six minutes here’s my phone, call Danny.”
Eight minutes later Hannah knocked on the bathroom door.
“C’mon in. Did you call Danny?”
“No.”
“Teenager. Mind your step.”
Hannah walked in, minded her step, stepped in someone’s kidney, and threw up in the sink.
“The toilet was RIGHT THERE, Hannah.”
“Eurururublugough.”
“Fine, fine. Jesus what a mess, there must be like six people in here. In and around.”
Hannah raised her head for breath and was eye to eye with one eye on the sink counter.
“Haaaaglorf!”
“Maybe just don’t look at anything for a little while. Shut your eyes, okay?”
“The… smell.”
“Oh yeah. Okay, maybe plug your nose too. Yeah, this is real fresh. I’d say it happened in the last hour or so so you’re clear again, no worries. I’d say the new shift manager did it; he looked awful nervous when we walked in the door and this looks like Jason Mayhew’s torso over here – got that missing nipple. He must’ve come in early for his shift and found him chopping up the other five.”
Hannah threw up again.
“As for motive…mmm. Not sure. Sometimes people just have one little thing too many happen, and god knows fast food gives you enough of those. I’ll phone Danny and then I’ll get out there and cuff the guy to something, you can just-”
“YORKGH!”
“-not move for a few minutes.”
***
Later, in the car, Beth saw something other than nausea on Hannah’s face.
“Something on your mind?”
She shook her head.
“Like hell. Come on, spit it out.”
“How did you know Jason Mayhew had a missing nipple?”
Beth shrugged. “There’s only one beach in town. You notice things.”
“Oh.”
“That, and I slept with him in ’88.”
“OH.”
“He’d just lost it that year; his ex bit it off.”
“Why?”
“Throes of passion, I think. Nobody you know; she got picked up for car theft after that and moved out of town.”
“Sorry.”
“About what?”
“Him. Jason. Dying.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. Stuff happens around here. And just between you and me? He was a pretty lousy boyfriend. He earned that missing nipple fair and square.”
Beth rounded a curve in the road and slammed on the brakes so hard Hannah almost threw up again.
“Sorry about that. Road’s blocked.”
Very, very blocked. The car was upside down and backwards and in the wrong lane and its windshield had been turned into a fine glittery shrapnel that coated the asphalt for a hundred feet.
“Come on, let’s check it out.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yep. Your stomach’s been getting a good toughening-up this morning, a little more won’t hurt. And you can pace out the skidmarks for me.”
Hannah paced out the skidmarks for her while Beth poked around the car.
“Wow. You don’t see this every day. Hey! Hannah! Come and take a look at this.”
Hannah didn’t come and take a look at that.
“Oh come on. It’s not that bad. Besides, you don’t get to see something like this every day.”
“I just saw six disassembled bodies in a fast food bathroom.”
“Yeah and I found you with someone’s leg in your mouth, it’s been a busy morning for everybody. Now C’MERE.”
Hannah c’mered. The woman inside the car was more or less in one piece and had both legs, which was a relief, and had a ribcage that had been nearly reduced to a flat surface, which was less of a relief.
“UGH.”
“Hey, no vomit! Good going, you can take over for me in ten years.”
“No thanks. Isn’t Dan going to do that?”
“I wouldn’t let him take over the coffee maker. Now, what do you think happened here?”
“Car crash?”
“Yep, but that happened post-mortem. See this fur?”
“She has both legs!”
“Well, you could have killed more than one person, but that’s not what I was getting at – ease up. This isn’t from a wolf anyways. Moose! Betty here ran into a moose and it went right through her windshield and into her chest. Instantly fatal – not for the moose, mind you; poor bastard probably wobbled off into the woods to die.”
“Is that what left the blood on the road?”
“Probably. Unless it came from the passenger.”
“What?”
“The side door’s open and it wasn’t wrenched; someone got out of here. I’m guessing there was no phone or it was broken, since there were no emergency calls. You know what road we’re on here, Hannah?”
“No. Dad doesn’t let me out much.”
Beth patted her arm. “Sort of a shithead. Don’t worry about it. But you SHOULD worry about where we are, because we’re on Hillmoore’s Line. I think the poor bastard limped out of the wreckage, went looking for help, and stumbled right into one of the Hillmoore boys that had spotted the lights and was looking for a midnight snack. Not much we can do about that but get a search warrant going and hope they got sloppy this time. Usually they’re pretty careful about hiding the bodies – the fuckers own their own pig farm.”
“What if I got him instead of them?”
“You’re a strong girl, Hannah. I read the paper, I know about the school track team. But even gone full-moon-furry you aren’t going to pick a fight for a corpse on Hillmoore’s Line without starting something you couldn’t handle. Those kids are maniacs. More pertinently they’re well-armed maniacs.”
Hannah muttered something.
“No. And besides, there’d be more blood anyways. You’re a messy eater, and I’m not talking about the French fries.”
***
Danny called on the way back into town.
“Shit,” said Beth as she hung up.
“You aren’t supposed to use a phone when you’re driving.”
“It was just a call; it’s texting that kills people.”
“Distracted driving is –”
“We’re going back into town; someone’s left your P.E. teacher’s head on the school roof.”
“Oh no!”
“You liked Jim-Bob?”
“No! Nobody did!”
“Yep. Going to be a lot of suspects. Mind you, fewer of them could get onto the roof.”
“Was it me?”
“Who knows? We’re dropping you off at home first anyways; there’s going to be reporters there already and your dad’ll never stop bugging me if I drag you near a camera like this.”
“What?”
“You’re wearing my old work clothes, you smell like vomit, and you broke out of your house and removed someone’s leg last night. Some of those things are more obvious than others.”
“Oh.”
“Yep.”
Bart’s car was still in the driveway, meaning he’d probably been too angry to go to work. Beth was going to owe Danny a few more donuts this week if he’d been dealing with the mayor in between calls all morning.
“Right, we’re here. I’ll come inside and talk him down before I go, okay?”
“…thanks.”
“No problem.”
Two minutes of waiting at the door disproved Beth’s statement.
“Oh come on,” said Hannah, and she shook the handle a particular way three times and it popped open like old Tupperware.
“Surprised he hasn’t fixed that.”
“He doesn’t know about it. You won’t tell him, will-”
Beth gave it a moment, then stepped inside a room that had been turned inside out twice over, except for Bart Thorne, who had been turned inside out four times and then put back together for good measure.
Exactly one of his legs was missing.
“Hmm,” said Beth. “I’ll phone Danny. You want to come with me to the school? Don’t see why not at this point.”