Wolf Hour

46 Enter, October 2016

Brenton Walker was looking at Kevin Patterson’s back as he stood by the opening of the drape, ready to mount the podium and be greeted by the cheers and the sunshine. He was going to be introduced over the loudspeaker as soon as the next musical offering ended. Patterson raised and lowered his shoulders, he rolled his neck like a boxer getting ready for a fight, fastened a button on his suit jacket, unfastened it, fastened it again. Walker’s seething sense of disquiet had started to abate, perhaps because there was now no way back and it was too late to do anything about anything they might have overlooked. That was a lesson Brenton’s father had taught him: the need to accept things you cannot change. It was advice his father himself never followed, and that caused his downfall as a local politician.

The band was still playing out there, the crowd singing along.

‘Ten seconds please,’ said a man wearing a headset. ‘Break a leg, Mr Mayor.’

Springer was standing next to Walker. His walkie-talkie crackled into life and a grating voice spoke: ‘Foxtrot, I see a male, white, age around fifty, about five foot nine, entering one of the private boxes.’

Walker saw Springer’s face turn pale as he picked up the walkie-talkie and spoke quietly into it: ‘Do you have a sighting on him, Foxtrot?’

‘No, he disappeared into the back of the box, into the darkness.’

‘Listen up!’ Springer shouted into the room. ‘There is someone up in one of the boxes. Does anyone know how this happened or who this person is?’

There was silence all around Walker. All that could be heard was the sound of the band and the crowd singing. And the man in the headset who was talking into his microphone:

‘Norma? Be a sweetie and see if you can get the band to do one more number. Something has, er... come up back here.’

47 Red Light, October 2016

Bob drove as fast as he dared — and as fast as the Volvo managed — along the highway to the city centre.

He drove with one hand and held his cell in the other. Yes, he wished he had a pistol. Yes, he wished he had a Kojak light. Yes, he wished he had a better brain and had deciphered the writing on the wall earlier. When she took the call he could hear she was running.

‘What’s happening, Kay?’

‘I’m headed for my car. I’ve made a few calls and done some checking and it looks like the house in the forest is owned by a group of artists who practise something they call rogue taxidermy. I just spoke with one of them and she told me that after they rented new premises in the city the place out at Cedar Creek has hardly been used. I asked about the refrigerated room, and she said a number of the artists used it, including this Emily Lunde, the woman who owns the booth with the body in it.’

‘Emily Lunde?’

‘Lives out in Chanhassen. I’m sending a patrol car out there now.’

‘Don’t do that. Not... yet anyway. She probably isn’t involved.’

‘Oh?’

‘She’s the sister of the man we’re looking for. His name is Mike Lunde. Emily Lunde is confined to a wheelchair, she can’t have been out in a forest with no tracks through it in years. Mike Lunde is the one who’s been using that booth.’

‘Who is Mike Lunde?’

‘A taxidermist. He’s been wearing a Tomás Gomez mask.’

Bob waited and let that sink in, let her brain trace the line from the flayed body and Tomás Gomez on the security videos.

‘Jesus,’ Kay whispered, as though not daring to say it out loud. ‘Are you saying that—’

‘Yeah. He’s been using Tomás Gomez’s face and hands.’

‘But... where is he now?’

‘He’s not at home, his sister says he’s gone to work. Unfortunately he’s left his cell behind so we can’t track him that way. And he’s taken his rifle with him.’

‘God. He’s at the stadium. Gomez... or, yeah, the guy the cameras picked up there yesterday while he was doing reconnaissance. He’s going to shoot someone there.’

‘Someone?’

‘The most obvious target would be Mayor Patterson. Any minute now he’s going to be speaking in front of 60,000 people, and it’s going out live on TV.’

It was Bob’s turn to join up the dots.

‘It is Patterson,’ he said quietly. ‘His masterpiece.’

‘What?’

‘He told his sister he was going to unveil his masterpiece today. I thought he was referring to this Labrador he’s been working on.’

‘What?’

‘Mike Lunde is going to crown his work with the unveiling of his last masterpiece. And an unveiling needs an audience.’

Bob heard a change in the acoustics around Kay and realised she must now be sitting in her car.

‘Give me a description,’ she said. ‘I need to ring Walker and warn them they’re looking for the wrong man.’

Bob gave Kay a quick description of Mike Lunde and the few bits of personal information he had about him. She repeated after him, he confirmed it, then she hung up.

Saturday traffic was light and Bob had already reached the city centre. He stopped at a red light. Hesitated. A left turn would take him to the store, a right to the stadium. Kay hadn’t queried why Bob hadn’t mentioned this Mike Lunde before. Maybe because there wasn’t time. Maybe because she didn’t want to know. No matter which way he turned now, he would still have a lot to answer for. But right now he didn’t care a damn about that. Right now all that mattered was to make the right choice, chop the tree down from the correct side and let the splinters fall where they would.

The light changed to yellow.