Wolf Hour

42 The House of Horrors, October 2016

‘I saw this Gomez come walking along the road there,’ the old woman said, pointing.

She and Kay Myers were standing on the upper floor of a fine old timber house that lay on a rise above the otherwise flat landscape of Cedar Creek. From here Kay looked out over dense forest, swamps, meadows and ploughed land. On her drive out Kay had gathered from the signs that this was a protected area for ecological research.

Kay peered in the direction of the narrow, twisting road almost a hundred yards away from the house.

‘How can you be sure it was Tomás Gomez, Mrs Holte?’

‘Because I’ve seen him on the TV, of course. That he’s a wanted man.’

‘Yes, but what I mean is, that’s quite a long way away. I don’t think even I could see so clearly who someone down there was.’

‘Ah, but the older you get, the better your sight gets, I can assure you.’

For a moment the two just looked at each other, then Mrs Holte began laughing, a funny, clucking, little old woman laugh. It made Kay think of a cocoon, shrunken and dried up, with silver-grey hair and dry as an old spider’s web. She’d been standing waiting at the door as Kay parked in front of the house and invited her in without even asking what this was about. Once Kay told her, Mrs Holte explained that she hadn’t answered the calls because she turned her phone off when she wasn’t making a call on it because the only calls she ever got anyway were from telephone sales people.

‘I’m just kidding you, honey,’ said the woman. Then she suddenly reached for something next to the window behind the drape and pulled out a rifle. Kay froze, and before she had time to act the woman had lifted the weapon to her cheek. ‘Like this,’ she said.

She closed one eye and with the other peered through the telescopic sights. The barrel was pointed toward the window. Then she lowered the rifle. And laughed that clucking laugh of hers again when she saw the look on Kay’s face. ‘I just used the telescopic sights. I took this over after my husband died.’

Kay shivered at the thought that she herself and her car had probably been in that viewfinder as she drove up toward the house.

‘So you saw a person you believe to have been Tomás Gomez pass here yesterday morning.’

‘Yes. He parked in the passing space down there.’

Kay took out her notebook.

‘What kind of car was it?’

‘Oh, sweetie, I don’t know much about cars. But it was a big one. Nice car.’

‘Colour?’

‘Mostly wood.’

‘Wood?’

‘Wood-panelling. My husband’s car had the same thing. I’ve seen it here several times.’

‘Really?’

‘Before yesterday it was three weeks ago. He came walking up the road with another man. The other man was white. Probably one of those crazy artists, I thought to myself.’

‘Artists?’

‘Yes. They disappeared into the trees along that track you see there. Probably on their way to that nasty house of horrors they’ve made for themselves in there.’ Mrs Holte shuddered. ‘Uergh.’

The time was twelve thirty when Kevin Patterson stepped out of the SUV in front of the US Bank Stadium. The square was almost deserted, but loud music and cheering could be heard from inside the stadium. Patterson assumed someone was doing a display of trick-shooting, something involving a gun. Four security men accompanied him to the VIP entrance, passing what remained of the line at the public entrance. Some stared as though not quite sure where they had seen his face before, because he didn’t play for the Vikings and he wasn’t a TV preacher either, he was just the mayor. But there were some who did recognise the face, and one voice called out: ‘Make America great again!’

Patterson smiled and waved back even though he knew the man was a Trump supporter and would vote Republican. And that the guy probably didn’t know that the slogan wasn’t invented by the Trump campaign team but had a long history and had been used by both parties at various times.

Inside the VIP entrance Patterson was led past the elevators and up to the private boxes and a large, rather provisionally furnished room. A window with a view of the podium and lectern out on the ground was obscured by a thick tarp.

A man wearing a pinstriped suit and with an accreditation ID around his neck approached and introduced himself as Ted Springer from the Joint Terrorism Task Force. He assured the mayor that everything was under control and he would be able to walk out to the lectern at the time arranged.

Patterson walked across to the tarp, pulled it to one side and looked out. It was a fantastic stadium. In his speech at the opening of the stadium he’d said that even an old cornball like him could get tears in his eyes looking around the place. He’d asked his speechwriter to take some of the best lines from that earlier speech and add them to the one he was due to deliver in twenty-five minutes. Suddenly something dazzled Kevin Patterson, a quick, bright flash. The man who had been the mayor’s chief of security for the last ten years must have registered it, because he leaned close to Patterson and asked in a low voice, ‘Anything wrong, sir?’

‘No, no, it’s er...’ Patterson began. ‘Have the private boxes been checked? I think I may have seen something up there.’

‘They’ve been temporarily closed, sir. Do you want me to double-check with the security man there?’

‘No, no. I’m sure everything is as it should be. There’s so much glass around here. Lot of glass, lot of reflections.’

Patterson looked at his watch. Twenty-four minutes.

There were four of them in the tiny room and the air stank of sweat, hospitals and some men’s perfume that Rooble Isack assumed came from the man in the sickbed.

‘Well, Dante,’ said Rooble, ‘do you want a deal or not?’

Marco Dante looked over at his lawyer, Al Gill. Rooble had heard about Gill. He was the type who would sell his own grandmother if the hourly rate made it worth his while. Until yesterday Rooble and the Aggravated Assault Unit had been concentrating on finding out who shot Marco. Then JTTF entered the fray, asking that no stone be left unturned in the Gomez case, and suddenly search warrants they would normally have had to beg for were being thrown at them. The Aggravated Assault Unit had found enough in Marco’s garage to charge him as a front man for the extensive sale of illegal weapons. On conviction he faced a possible four-year sentence.

‘We want you to drop the charges relating to the front-man activity,’ said Gill, shifting his gaze from Rooble to Rooble’s colleague and then back to Rooble again. ‘But if you want my client to provide you with information about Tomás Gomez you’re going to have to drop illegal possession of weapons and the sale of weapons too.’

‘You mean you want us to drop everything?’ said Rooble.

‘Gomez is a killer,’ said Gill. ‘He has already made one attempt on the life of my client and is certain to try again if it becomes known that he has provided you with information that could lead to his arrest. As a free man my client will probably be able to deal with this, but given Gomez’s gang connections he would be an easy target in jail.’

‘Gang connections?’ said Rooble. ‘Is Gomez a gangbanger?’

‘Think of it as a foretaste of the kind of information my client will be able to provide you with. Do you want the rest, or don’t you?’

Rooble sighed. ‘OK, all charges are dropped.’

‘On whose authority...?’ Gill said.

‘It’s already been cleared with Superintendent Walker of the Homicide Unit. Let’s hear you, Dante.’

Dante looked at Gill, who gave a short nod.

‘Tomás Gomez came in and bought a gun a while ago,’ said Dante.

‘You know it was him?’ asked Rooble.

‘He didn’t exactly show me his ID, but I’ve seen pictures from the security camera on the TV news and yeah, it was him all right. He bought an M24 with telescopic sights and the whole shebang.’

‘Including this holster?’ Rooble Isack asked. He held up a photo.

‘Yes.’

‘Carry on.’

Dante shrugged. ‘There’s isn’t a lot more to tell. He didn’t say much. In fact, he didn’t say a single word. Just pointed to what he wanted, paid and left.’

‘Had you seen him before?’

‘How do I know? The guy was wearing sunglasses, he had a hoodie pulled up.’

There was silence in the room.

Rooble leaned forward to Gill.

‘Explain to your client that this isn’t worth what we’re offering to pay. And tell him I agree with you, Gill: if we drop the deal and have him sent to jail then he’ll be a sitting duck for Gomez’s gang.’

‘Now listen here, Detective Isack—’ the lawyer began, but was interrupted by Dante.

‘OK, OK. Like I said, I’m not certain who Tomás Gomez is, but he reminds me of a guy who disappeared a long time ago and no one knew what happened to him. A cold-blooded, brutal killing machine. They called him Lobo. I sold an Uzi to him a long, long time ago. Must have been back in the eighties.’

‘I remember people talking about a guy called Lobo when I was in Homicide,’ said Rooble. ‘It was before my time, but I understood that he was either dead or had gone back south of the border again.’

‘What you mean is, you never found him, right?’ Dante laughed bitterly. ‘So, I’m not saying this was Lobo, I’m just saying this Gomez guy looked like him. And he had the same tattoo on the back of his hand. One of those five-pointed stars drawn with just one line.’

Rooble exchanged a look with his colleague and leaned closer. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah, he had the same, like... scars on his face. But...’ Dante seemed to be searching for the right words but couldn’t find them.

‘But what?’ Rooble said impatiently.

‘But Lobo had this, like... this very expressive face. This guy here, his face was dead. He was like a walking dead man, if you get my meaning. And then his hands...’

‘You already told us about the tattoo.’

‘Yeah yeah, but that wasn’t all.’

Kay was walking along the rough track. The trees had taken on the shading of autumn, but still clung on to their leaves. She stopped at a decaying sign which related that the forest around her was a so-called white cedar forest, and that some of the trees were over 250 years old. The place was also home to a unique fauna. Here, she read, one could encounter the red-shouldered hawk, the red-headed woodpecker, coyotes, badgers and deer. Depending on the season one might also see bison, black bears and wolves. Kay shuddered, hoped it wasn’t the season for any of them, and continued along the track. Gradually it began to narrow, the trees on both sides grew thicker, and she noticed that the wild sound of birdsong that had accompanied her walk so far had now stopped, the way sound stops when a stranger enters a local bar. Or, she thought, when those living in an area watch in tense excitement as someone walks toward a danger that only they can see.

She pushed aside the branches that dangled across the path and hindered her view, then heard a rustling sound that told her she was approaching a stream. Another sound carried from deep in the forest, like a machine gun. That’s the type of association you get from growing up in Englewood, she thought, and concluded it was probably a woodpecker. Suddenly the track ended. Or rather, it divided at a T-junction, with the two forks turning left and right and following the stream in front of her. A mailbox had been lashed with wire to the top of a rusty iron pole driven into the ground. It was difficult to imagine a mailman making his way all the way out here, but at least the box had a name on it in white paint: RT CLUB. Across the nine-foot-wide, murky-green stream she saw planking that had once formed a primitive bridge but was now broken in the middle. Mrs Holte had explained that the house lay a few hundred yards away once you crossed the stream, but the forest was too thick for Kay to see anything. She glanced down at her shoes. Trainers. Made for city walking. New and expensive and dazzling white. She edged her way out along the planks, jumped, making it with her right but not her left foot, which splashed down and sank into the revolting, squelching bed of the stream, before she was able to pull herself up and reach the other side.

The track ahead was now almost invisible, but in a while she saw the outlines of a house through the trees. It was so quiet she could hear her own heart beating, and the thick foliage above her blocked most of the sunlight. She came to a halt where the track ended. In front of her was a meadow of long grass with a red-painted, single-storey wooden building behind it. Though there was no approach road and the building lay in the middle of a forest her first thought was that it looked like some kind of garage or warehouse. The tall grass, the paint that was flaking off the walls and the lack of any well-trodden path leading up to it all suggested that the place had not seen visitors for several years. Kay pulled out her gun and held it before her as she stepped out into the open. Moving quickly to avoid being an easy target, all senses alert, she saw no visible sign of movement, heard no sound. She saw something fastened above the door. It looked almost like the kind of heraldic device families in stately homes have hanging above the entrance. Kay had to approach closer to confirm that it really was what she thought it was.

A squirrel holding a deer-hunting rifle.

The squirrel’s fur was torn, probably by some bird of prey. Kay walked to one of the windows. She brushed aside the cobwebs, cupped her hands and tried to peer inside but found herself staring at a wooden shutter that must have been nailed across on the inside. The other windows were covered in the same way. Maybe the idea was to discourage thieves, or to stop people seeing what was inside. Or maybe it was both.

Kay put her back against the wall beside the door, gripped her pistol hard.

‘Police! Open the door!’

The total silence that followed did not give Kay the feeling she was alone. Instead she felt as though a thousand ears were listening. She held her breath. No sounds from inside. She studied the lock on the door. It was shiny, new-looking.

Kay hesitated.

She didn’t have a search warrant and the lock looked pretty solid. And there was something about the place that gave her the feeling that anyone who went in there alone would regret it. Best to pull back and return later with backup and a warrant.

So then why was she still standing there, staring at the door?

Was it because of how she’d run through the backstreets of Englewood with her father chasing after her, and how she had promised herself that if she got out of there alive she would never be afraid of anything ever again? Because the way to escape from her father, from Englewood and from that whole life that waited for her there was to be braver than she really was? Because breaking free meant breaking the rules?

Kay Myers turned and walked quickly back the way she had come. This time she timed the jump from one broken half of the plank to the other just right. She braced herself and jerked the mailbox and the rusty iron pole up out of the ground, took off the mailbox then headed back toward the house carrying the bar on her shoulder. She noticed the sound of birdsong had returned. Now it sounded hysterical. As if all the tension was too much for them and they were warning of danger.

Kay wedged the sharp end of the pole into the gap between the door and the frame. Leaned her body weight against it. Heard the creak of the woodwork and saw the door move slightly. She could still stop. Because wasn’t this exactly what Walker had been talking about when he signalled ‘don’t trip up’? Don’t mess it up for yourself just before you break the tape? Kay hesitated. Then, with a tormented screeching sound, the wood around the lock split and the door flew open.

Kay breathed out. Then she stepped inside. Held the gun in front of her with both hands.

Dust whirled up in a little snowstorm in the sharp sunlight falling through the open doorway and it took a moment for her eyes to adapt to the dark inside.

She stopped breathing.

Blinked as her brain tried to deal with the sight that met her eyes. She mustn’t panic now, mustn’t let fear take hold. So the first thing she told herself was that they couldn’t harm her, they were all dead. That it was only the poses in which they had been arranged that made them look as though they were alive.

It worked. Slowly panic released its hold and she started to breathe again.

Directly in front of her a fox was standing on its hind legs and holding in its forepaws a saw with which it was cutting itself in half. Next to it was a two-headed coyote with the teeth of one head sunk into the throat of the other. Behind them, a massive elk holding a broken toy pedal car in its antlers. Beside it a white unicorn, its side pierced by a swordfish dangling in mid-air.

Behind the stuffed animals hung a banner: THE ROGUE TAXIDERMY CLUB.

Kay looked around. There were small, closed studios lining the walls. Carpentry workshops, she thought, because through doors that were ajar she could see lathes and tools. In one she saw a kind of mannequin in the shape of a hare made out of wire. She counted eight of these booths. Each had a nameplate. Only one was locked, secured by a large padlock. Kay read the nameplate: Emily Lunde, RT Club. The name meant nothing to her. Peering between two planks into the interior she could see the walls of the booth were lined on the inside with some kind of insulation. She located a light switch by the door and the neon tubes in the ceiling blinked a couple of times before coming on and lighting up the whole room. She picked up the metal spike and wedged it into the crack in Emily Lunde’s booth door. Pushed hard on it. Instead of the padlock snapping off the soft wood of the plank bent outward. Soon it was so far out she was able to see inside.

She saw light reflected in a pair of yellow eyes.

She saw the man in the chair.

The spike fell from her hands and clattered to the floor.