Wolftown

Wayne accepted John’s help because he had more wild animal handling experience than Kevin and Schuster. He warned John he risked being bitten, but John claimed he did not mind, which flummoxed Schuster.

Schuster would quite willingly move to a state that had eradicated wolves, but instead, he stood guard over Wayne and John. They identified the wolves in the pen and moved them into a secure area. The three of them worried that, as the lady flung sharp objects into the pen, one had injured a wolf. The sharp objects were part of the crime scene, and nobody should examine a crime scene full of wolves. Wayne and John refused to wait for police back-up before dashing outside to save them.

So, Schuster turned slow circles, trying to see everywhere at once.

Probably he and Foster injured the böxenwolf beyond a body’s natural healing. In wolf form, the bleeding might stop quickly, but the other damage affected the böxenwolf. A böxenwolf in human form reacted to injuries like a human.

The böxenwolf in human form had hands with opposable thumbs and, according to the lady, access to firearms. He might sneak to his house and arm himself. While Schuster suspected the böxenwolf killed people and hid their bodies, he doubted that a lone böxenwolf could kill him, Wayne, John, Kevin, and the lady in a developed area and successfully hide their bodies.

The lady said that one accomplice had died, and she did not know what happened to the other accomplice. To protect him from the suspect, she refused to name or describe the other accomplice.

Unless the böxenwolf in human form immediately surrendered, preferably at a distance and before Schuster ordered him to, he intended to shoot the böxenwolf, whichever form he took. He generally gave people more opportunity to cooperate, but, allegedly, the böxenwolf was the most violent criminal in Wilde County history. Also, if Wayne shot the böxenwolf, Wayne might receive a harsher sentence than Schuster. Everybody else seemed defenseless.

If the lady correctly identified the böxenwolf as Police Chief Dennis Laufenberg, Schuster suspected he could detain him in human form. Dennis Laufenberg last took a police fitness exam in 1993, and most of his human-form exercise consisted of walking from the gas pump to the beer cooler, pushing a full shopping cart, and taking an elevator one floor up. The lady claimed he ran well in wolf form, and Wayne said that the wolves attacking Wolftown often galloped between thirty-five- to forty-miles per hour. From experience, Schuster knew three things: first, he could not kill a galloping wolf before it bit a person; second, when arresting an aggressive human individual twice his bodyweight, tear gas and backup helped; third, tear gas hardly intimidated the wolf which attacked him and Foster.

Wayne and John found an injured wolf, Moqwaio, and moved him into the animal hospital. The other wolves remained in the secure area, though Wayne worried about leaving them unsupervised.

Schuster watched them from the wolf hospital’s doorway. “Are all of them yours?”

“Yeah. I have to call Jodi because she cut his side and his—”

“Jodi did?”

“No. The woman who broke Suzanne’s mug. She cut his side and his hip, and he can’t walk well. Luckily, he stopped bleeding on his own.”

“We’ll get him to the vet as soon as possible. Do you notice anything unusual about it?”

“It probably came from a sharp implement being thrown over the fence,” Wayne said.

“What was the lady doing anyway?” John asked.

“She thought if the potential weapons were surrounded by wolves, the suspect wouldn’t get at them, and he would have a lot more trouble killing her,” Schuster said.

“Why wouldn’t he bring a weapon along?” Wayne asked.

He doesn’t have any pockets, Schuster thought, but he said, “I don’t know. How long can the wolves be in the secure area?”

“It’s better to let them back into the pen as soon as possible.”

“Can you move them into an empty pen without mixing their paw prints with the others?”

Wayne thought. “If I have to. Why?”

“You can’t clean the pens until Sheriff Jordan says so, and you didn’t want them in the secure area.”

“There had to be a better place to put the sharp objects,” John said.

“Harming a wolf is illegal, so she will be charged for it.”

When Moqwaio woke up, Wayne, John, and Schuster returned to Happy Howlers, but the fire door had locked behind them.

Wayne and John banged on the door, and Schuster waited at a window to tell Kevin to let them inside. Kevin rushed to the fire door, worried about an emergency.

Then Wayne called the vet, Schuster checked on Kevin and the lady, and from the back door, John watched the secure area through binoculars.

Every time Schuster checked on the lady, she revealed more details about the wolf attacks. She attempted to be an anonymous witness, but, finally, Kevin convinced her she lost anonymity hours ago. The lady told Schuster her name, Corey Brown. Schuster recognized her from her aunt’s unofficial missing persons report, and he had correctly guessed her name.

“Do I have to turn into a böxenwolf again?” Corey asked.

“I said you wouldn’t have to,” Schuster said.

“Did whatshisface fall over, pee himself and stuff when he turned into one?”

“You mean John Dalton? He didn’t lose complete control.”

“And if that’s what people see, nobody will believe that a first-time böxenwolf can kill anybody.”

“The point of that was to prove to Wayne that transfiguring into a wolf was possible.”

“The evidence has to be as clear and understandable as possible, and Corey can give it,” Kevin said. “Some experienced person has to turn into a böxenwolf, and the jury has to believe the defendant can. And someone has to prove the wolves were using human reasoning. Wayne could, but he won’t want to. Before that, the judge has to allow transfiguration to be given as evidence.”

“Dennis is going to jail or an insane asylum, right?” Corey asked.

“I’d say yeah, but the legal system isn’t used to böxenwolves,” Schuster said.

“He could be sent to jail for other crimes,” Kevin said. “Isn’t it better than nothing?”

The wolves tolerated the cramped secure area, and a few still gnawed on part of a deer killed in a car accident. Local people often reported roadkill to Wayne. One lay by the gate, expecting it to open soon. Over several seconds, the wolves’ ears rose or flattened, and their tails raised or tucked. Completely unconcerned with each other, the wolves barked, growled, howled, and whined.

John propped the fire exit door open with his foot and leaned outside to look around.

“What are they doing?” Wayne asked.

“Vocalizing about something not in the pen,” John said.

“Switch with me. Look out the window.”

John did.

“Whatever it is, the birds and squirrels don’t like it, either.”

“Wouldn’t the wolves scare them away?” John asked.

“No, they know if they stay out of the wolf pens, the wolves can’t hurt them.”

Schuster yanked Wayne inside, closed the door slowly, and held it shut.

“It locks from the outside,” Wayne said.

“Oh yeah.”

Wayne moved to the window, asking, “Statistically, it’s probably a wild animal. We get bears, coyotes, and wolves. Why can’t we look outside?”

“Because the lady says the wolves sounded like that when she got here,” Schuster said. “Stay away from the windows. Whisper. What did they look like?”

John and Wayne described the wolves.

Schuster unlocked the restroom door and repeated the description, which Ms. Brown said matched the wolves’ reaction to her. She also said that the birds and squirrels ran away from her.

Kevin and Schuster barricaded the front door. Kevin, John, and Wayne tied twine and paracord between the doorknobs. Wayne waited with his gun drawn outside the breakroom and Schuster outside the doorway to the communal office, in which the lady had broken a window. Because she ran out of rope and furniture, and the breakroom and communal offices were the easiest entry points. The communal office’s broken window would be obvious.

Reasonably, the böxenwolf already knew people were inside Happy Howlers. He could track their footprints or consider the wolves’ locations abnormal. The lady said that in wolf form, a böxenwolf’s sense of smell increased, but interpreting the scents required quite a bit of practice. She considered enhanced hearing more important.

The phone rang, and everybody jumped. Kevin almost answered it, but Schuster gestured for him to stop. If they answered, and the subject was outside, he would know they were inside.

Kevin ducked and took the phone to Schuster anyway. Schuster called back and whispered.

“Are you getting bitten by a wolf again?” Sheriff Jordan asked.

“No, sir, they’re the Happy Howlers howling at something else.” Schuster reminded himself, “They aren’t the problem right now. We don’t know what they are howling at. Wayne, is it an animal?”

Wayne shrugged. “They scare off animals by now.”

Something howled oddly, provoking the wolves. Schuster hoped it was a regular wolf howl he had not heard before. John turned on his tape recorder.

Schuster said, “It might be an animal. It might be about the suspect I told you about in the message. “Please don’t involve the Wolftown Police Department.”

“I won’t until we figure out if it is actually involved in the wolf attacks or not. What’s the animal or whatever doing?”

“Maybe he is looking for the lady here, but if he is, he won’t get her.”

“He shouldn’t.” Sheriff Jordan paused. “A deputy will be there pretty quick.”

Schuster worried that the dispatcher had already revealed the location. Although he warned Sheriff Jordan in his message, Schuster said, “He might be listening to police radio.”

“We’re calling it a breaking-and-entering, nothing to do with the wolf response or corruption. Do you know why else he might be there?”

“Maybe he thinks he can rest here. The lady I told you about said there was another accomplice, and I don’t know if he is with the suspect or not. We haven’t seen a person yet, but we’re having trouble looking outside.

“Do you think it is an animal or a person?”

“A person, but I don’t know why. We might be overreacting.”

“You will have back-up, and law enforcement has to respond. They are using extreme caution. What else do you know?”

The roar repeated, but in the same general direction, and probably out-of-human-sight.

“Is that an animal?” Schuster asked.

Wayne and John shook their heads.

“Wayne and John say the roar isn’t an animal. Something else is roaring. It isn’t just the wolves. Sometimes the suspect tries to intimidate people by looking like an animal.”

“Is the wolf response chasing a person?”

Schuster said that the roar sounded near the parking lot and, therefore, closer.

“Yes, sir, but we didn’t know. If it is the suspect, lights and sirens and any police presence will make him disappear or it will make him hostile. He might have guns, but he mauls victims. He is very good at hiding from authorities, and he finds unusual places to hide that are very hard to access. He is very likely to kill witnesses or people he thinks can catch him, and he thinks killing is fine and a good idea. He’s justified it to himself.”

“Just a second.”

Schuster waited.

Sheriff Jordan said, “It sounds like I’m going to the scene, too, but I’ll stay on the phone for now. All the deputies will be there in a while.” He told Schuster the frequency that the sheriff’s department would only use while investigating the suspect. “Anything else about the suspect?”

“If he gets much closer, the lady says he will definitely be able to hear us. We’re inside with the doors shut, but he has better hearing than most people,” Schuster said.

“Stop talking if you have to,” Sheriff Jordan said.

“Kevin Miller knows as much as I do, so if I can’t talk, he can.”

“I don't want to be liked by people like him,” Kevin said, while Sheriff Jordan said, “Okay. Can you move somewhere else?”

“The others can, kind of.”

“How can he hear you? Like surveillance equipment or something?”

“The lady says he is better prepared than it looks like he should be. The lady barricaded herself in Happy Howlers, so we set up the barricades again just in case. Arresting him without a clear, very planned, coordinated plan will be very hard or luck. But I don’t know as much as you.”

“So far, you know more about him than me. I’ll try to get a SWAT team. What’s the layout?”

Schuster passed the phone to Wayne and told Kevin to take both sets of keys. “If I give you the phone, lock him, you, and her in, turn off the light, be quiet, and don’t open the door. Get ready for it.”

Kevin unlocked the door, turned off the light, and gestured for John to enter. He and Kevin stood in the doorway. The lady whispered, “He’s looking for me and yelling for help.”

“Go tell Officer Schuster,” Kevin whispered to John.

During another roar, further away and to the museum side of Happy Howlers, Wayne held the phone out, but Sheriff Jordan could barely hear it.

“The lady says the bad guy is looking for her and yelling for help,” John whispered, and Schuster repeated it to Wayne, who told Sheriff Jordan.

Wayne gave the phone to Schuster as the roar came from the back of Happy Howlers, the side with the broken window and the fire door. The boxenwolf seemed far away.

“How does he behave?” Sheriff Jordan asked.

“He tries to use wolf tactics, and the wolf response hasn’t been able to catch him. There is evidence that he caused people to be bitten by wolf teeth. It’s a weird situation here.”

“I was asking Wayne, does the suspect have wolves with him?”

“Maybe, but I haven’t actually seen him.” If Schuster said, He is a böxenwolf, Sheriff Jordan might ignore everything else he said. In wolf form, even Wayne identified the böxenwolves as ordinary wolves.

The böxenwolf’s roar came from the back of Happy Howlers and too close.

“Please talk to Kevin.” Schuster handed Kevin the phone, the evidence bag containing the wolf belt, and the box cutter, whispering, “Wayne, go with them.”

“No,” Wayne whispered.