Wolf Hour

53 Hunting Trophy, October 2016

‘I made a hunting trophy for Karlstad a couple of years ago,’ said Mike as he folded his hands behind his head. Like someone who’s finished a piece of work, thought Bob. ‘A buck he wanted above his fireplace. I didn’t know then that he was a local big shot in the NRA. I went to his house out in the suburbs to have a look at the fireplace. Wife, three children. Cody Karlstad had everything I didn’t have. In his opinion what we needed to reduce crime was more guns, not fewer. He thought the gun was our foremost symbol of liberty, he thought we should be like certain other countries, have an automatic weapon as part of our flag.’

‘Did you hate him?’

‘No. Actually I quite liked him. He seemed a caring kind of person.’

‘But all the same you shot him?’

‘As I said before, it’s about more than revenge.’

‘The message.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which is?’

‘That one day the gun you make is going to be aimed at you.’

‘And the dead are to communicate this message?’

‘That’s what taxidermists do.’

‘Do you really think people will listen to your message?’

Mike shrugged. ‘The noise level is so high these days you have to shout loudly to be heard. Which is why I hope people will understand my use of such radical methods. But those involved at least died for a good cause. Even that corrupt detective became, in the end, a part of the work of art.’

‘Oh?’

‘I gather an anonymous artist has exhibited him in Arb Park. Minus his head.’

Bob studied Mike’s face, not sure whether he was speaking metaphorically or meant it literally.

‘What happened to the head?’

‘Ah, I wanted to cleanse it of everything it has ever seen or heard. And done. Cleanse it completely.’ Mike turned his innocent blue eyes on Bob.

Bob swallowed. ‘So now the head is...?’

Mike nodded toward his workshop. ‘The leather beetles are busy.’

Bob took a deep breath. Was about to ask the name of the detective but changed his mind.

‘The gun. Who is it pointed at now?’

‘At me.’

And sure enough, Bob saw that the barrel was pointing at Mike Lunde’s own chin. ‘Tell me, Mike — was I ever a part of the plan?’

‘Not the plan. You were a good listener.’

‘But I might have stopped you. Ruined everything. You told me all I needed to know. If I’d only gone a little deeper...’

‘I realised early on that you wanted to keep me to yourself, so that you could get Tomás Gomez on your own. Your hunter’s instinct blinded you, and I counted on you not suspecting me until it was too late. Anyway...’ Lunde put his thumb against the trigger. ‘...we all need someone to confess to.’

‘Because?’

‘Because we’re all lonely.’

Bob stared at Mike Lunde’s thumb. ‘You told me Tomás Gomez once said that he would have liked you to meet the person he once was. That you would have liked the person he once was. But you were thinking about you and me, right?’

‘Maybe. But as I told you, that person died along with his family. So it really wasn’t all that strange to walk around wearing the mask of a dead man. Both of us are ghosts. You understand?’

‘Yes, I think I do.’

Mike Lunde closed his eyes. ‘Bob?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you my friend?’

‘I think I am.’

‘Can you help me this last bit of the way? It’s so hard.’

‘I...’

‘Just put your thumb here, on top of mine. Help me squeeze.’

‘You don’t need to do this, Mike. There are people who can help. Treat your depression. Not just give you pills.’

‘Please, Bob.’

‘I can’t, Mike. I haven’t carried a gun, haven’t touched one, since... since...’

‘Since your daughter died. I know that. Do it for her, Mike. Give meaning to my death. As a protest against everything meaningless.’

Bob looked into Mike’s eyes. The older man smiled gently. It was so quiet and so peaceful here. It was quiet out there too now. Much too quiet. Bob couldn’t hear it, he could just sense the running footsteps, the whispered commands. In a few seconds they would be here.

‘If I hand myself over now, the whole thing will have been in vain. It would no longer be a genuine work of art. It’s all about the eyes, Bob. The eyes have to be right.’

‘But...’

‘You can tell them. Explain about the work. Because you’re another one who has lost what you loved most of all. But you can start a new life. It’s not too late for you.’

Bob knew exactly how it would go down. A window shattered, a stun grenade that paralysed the senses, then a burst of automatic gunfire before Mike had time to turn his rifle against them.

Bob Oz closed his eyes. Then he whispered her name, the name of his greatest joy. Frankie.

Kay Myers had taken out her pocket mirror. Now she was holding it round the corner of the SWAT vehicle and could see four men wearing black protective clothing, two on each side of the entrance to Town Taxidermy. Beside her she heard O’Rourke almost whispering into his walkie-talkie.

‘Ready in five, four—’

There was a single, isolated bang.

She realised it wasn’t someone from the SWAT team who had started too early, and that the sound came from inside the store. Bob. Everything — sound, light, time — seemed to freeze.

‘Go now!’ O’Rourke shouted.

Before his men could react the door opened.

Bob Oz stood in the doorway peering into the sunlight. He was wearing a shirt and holding something that looked like an ID card above his head. Kay slipped the mirror back into her jacket pocket and stepped out from behind the vehicle. Heard the whirring sound of cameras from further down the street — the media had been thronging outside the police tape ever since she arrived on the scene. Bob walked away from the doorway and the black-clad figures swarmed in behind him.

Kay walked toward Bob. It struck her that he looked very tired. And very lonely. Without thinking about it she found herself putting her arms around him.

With her chin resting on his shoulder she saw one of the black-clad men re-emerge and gesture with his hand. Right hand, fingers drawn across the throat: Mike Lunde was dead. The odd thing was that the signal was given not to O’Rourke but to Springer.

‘Can you tell them what they need to know?’ whispered Bob.

‘Me?’ said Kay. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Let’s see if I can give you an answer to that some other day.’

Bob Oz carefully extricated himself from her embrace and crossed the street to where Walker stood waiting.

Kay headed to the store doorway. Pushed it open and went in. The SWAT team was obviously now going through the other rooms on the premises, because the body was still in the chair. The shot had entered under the chin. The top of the head was gone, like a breakfast egg. But the face was intact. And it was a face she recognised. Lunde had not escaped from the Rialto. This was the man she had spoken to inside the theatre, the man who told her he had bought an invisibility dress for his daughter’s birthday. He’d looked like a nice man. And sounded so honest. So maybe it was true, maybe he had bought something for his dead daughter. But wedged down in that bag from the toy store he must also have had his own cloak of invisibility: Tomás Gomez’s face, his hands and his clothes. And in that same instant it occurred to Kay that he hadn’t escaped via the air-conditioning duct at Track Plaza after all, he hadn’t risked breaking his leg on any jump. When they later studied the footage from the security cameras, she knew they would see the man in front of her emerge calmly from the restroom and walk straight past them all.

She looked at Mike Lunde again. Because he resembled someone, didn’t he? Or no, not exactly resembled. But shared something with somebody. With Bob Oz. And now she saw what it was. Even in death, the taxidermist looked lonely.