He nods. “Lot of people feel that way.”
“But how do you feel?” I persist. “Will you be mad at me if I do something to help Ryan?”
He gives me another quick glance, switches hands on the wheel, and reaches over to squeeze my fingers, which are knotted together in my lap.
“I think whenever we see someone we love do something terrible, we’re faced with an impossible dilemma,” he says quietly. “You can’t stop loving people on the spur of the moment. And if you understand why they’ve done terrible things, it’s even harder to turn against them. So it’s your job, in a sense, as Ryan’s friend, to still believe in him.”
There’s obviously a but coming, and I wait for it in silence while he collects his thoughts.
“But just because a mother loves her son who’s gone out and shot ten people, it doesn’t mean that boy shouldn’t go to prison,” Joe continues. “It’s her job to love him. It’s society’s job to punish him. I understand that you want to help Ryan, and I’m okay with that. But I think he belongs in jail.”
I turn a little in the seat to get a better look at his face. I’m still holding on to his hand with both of mine. “But he’s a shape-shifter. He can’t be in jail.”
“Why not?”
“Because—because—what happens when he changes shapes? The world goes crazy! The sheriff calls in the FBI, and Ryan gets sent to some secret laboratory in Washington, and suddenly there are doctors and government agents and I-don’t-know-who-all swarming all over Quinville, looking for other shape-shifters. We live in terror of being discovered, don’t you understand that? Discovered and—and—” Bonnie’s word comes back to me. “Viewed as monsters. Hunted down and killed, or locked up and experimented on.”
“Pretty scary. I absolutely agree,” he says. “But just because they find Ryan doesn’t mean they’ll find you.”
“I can’t control my shifting! I don’t even know when it’ll happen! When those FBI agents start snooping around Ryan’s life, don’t you think they’ll start investigating me? And I’ll be in the middle of an interrogation and the change will come over me and—oh, you have no idea. This is what my nightmares are made of.”
He squeezes my fingers again then releases me and puts both hands on the wheel. “Maybe it would go a different way,” he suggests. “Maybe the government would protect you. The doctors and scientists would ask permission to study you. They’d see you as—magical. Creatures with phenomenal possibilities. The military would want to hire you to deploy in delicate operations. You could all come out of the shadows and live in the light. Maybe that’s what would happen instead.”
“Maybe,” I say, “but I think it’s more likely that some deranged survivalist would creep out one night and put a bullet in my head because he thinks I’m an abomination.”
“Well, that’s about the worst thing in the world that could happen,” he says in a soft voice. “Makes my heart almost stop to think about it.”
“And that’s why Ryan can’t be in jail,” I finish up.
He nods but doesn’t answer. He’s turning from 159 onto W, and there’s a fresh pothole right at the intersection, which requires a little negotiating. I look out the window and realize with a shock that autumn is almost over. There are a few defiant elms and maples still madly clinging to their scraps of color, but most of the trees have been stripped bare. They stand like grim gray ghosts beneath the unforgiving sky, the wraiths of summer haunting the gloomy season.
Winter soon enough. Winter too soon. But then, I always think it’s too soon for winter.
When Joe speaks, it’s in that faraway voice people use when they’re concentrating on a memory, trying to bring it more clearly into focus. “I never gave it much thought before, but if you were trying to commit the perfect murder, a shape-shifter would be the one to do it,” he says. “There was one time—back when I was on the force—we never could figure out how this crime was committed. How the killer got away. But if the guy had been a shape-shifter—”
I bring my attention away from the trees, back to Joe. “What happened?”
“Couple different people called us one night from the same neighborhood. They’d heard shouting and crashing noises from this one house, like there was a fight going on. Well, my partner and I were only one street away—we got there in, like, two minutes. Kind of a shabby house in a shabby part of town. Bunch of people standing in the yards nearby when we pulled up, pointing at the house in question. We were just going to ask the name of the homeowners when we heard shots fired inside.
“My partner called for backup and I ran up to the house, shouting, ‘Police!’ No one came out, no one answered. We waited until a couple other units arrived, then we all went in at the same time, front and back, guns drawn. I was with the group going in through the front, and the minute we opened the door, a couple of animals came streaking out—a cat and a dog, I think, though they went by so fast I really couldn’t tell you. Figured they were spooked by the gunshots and wanted out bad.
“We didn’t find anything in the house till we got to a back bedroom that had been turned into an office. And there was the body, pooling with blood. So freshly dead you could almost think you could bring him back to life. Gun was on the floor right next to him, but it was clear he hadn’t killed himself, ’cause he was shot in the back.”
Joe’s quiet a moment before he resumes his story. “We looked through every inch of that house, from the basement to the attic, and we never found the shooter. He was gone, but we couldn’t figure out how he could have gotten out without being seen. The back door was chained shut—we had to break it open to get in. All of the windows were locked from the inside. The only way out would have been through the front door—where I was standing from the moment the shots were fired. The shooter was not in that house, but there was no way he could have gotten past us.” He glances at me. “Unless he was a shape-shifter.”
I nod. “The cat. Or the dog. He shoots the victim, he changes shape, he runs out the door when you open it. Why would you think to stop him?”
Joe nods. “The perfect crime.”
“Did you ever figure out who he was? The shooter, I mean? If he left the gun behind—”
“We lifted his prints, but they weren’t a match for any we had in the system. And they’ve never turned up again.”
“So you never found out who killed that poor man.”
Joe makes a sound something like a snort. “Well, if ever anyone deserved killing, it was him. We found the most god-awful setup in his basement. Horrifying. Some blankets and some water bowls and a terrible smell of piss and shit and rotted food. There was a chain wrapped around one of the weight-bearing poles in the middle of the basement, with a collar on the end of it. On the floor there were a couple of belts, and a whip—like the kind of whip you’d see in an Indiana Jones movie. There were matches and cigarettes and something that, I swear to God, looked like a cattle brand.
“You know, your first thought is, ‘What’s all this shit for? Is he keeping animals down here?’ And then you start looking at the size of that collar, and you realize that the food on the floor is in McDonald’s wrappers, and you see a pair of blue jeans that are way too small for the body upstairs, and you think, ‘Was he keeping a person down here?’ And pretty soon the forensics guys are there and they start taking evidence and looking at samples, and they say, Yeah. Yeah, there was a person down here. And you start talking to neighbors and they say, Yeah, used to be a kid who lived here, but they haven’t seen him around for a while—a boy, maybe ten or twelve years old. Gosh, it’s been a couple of years since they’ve laid eyes on him.”
By this time, we’ve traveled all the way down W to the edge of my property. Joe makes a smooth turn onto the gravel, cuts the motor, and twists in his seat to give me a serious look. “And you think—you think—it can’t be possible, but this motherfucker was keeping his son chained
in the basement for years. And somehow that kid got free and he killed the son of a bitch and he got out of the house before anybody saw him, and you’re glad. You hope he never gets caught. You only wish you could have gotten there sooner, so you could have shot the prick yourself.”
I am staring up at Joe with so much horror on my face that he instantly dissolves into remorse. “Christ, I shouldn’t have told you that story. It’s a shocker, I know. Worst thing I ever saw when I was on the force—and I saw a lot of bad things.”
I shake my head, but I can’t answer. I can’t speak. I almost can’t breathe.
I suppose there could be two stories so awful, so similar, but I don’t think so. I think that was Alonzo’s house. I think that was Alonzo’s father.
I think it was Ryan who shot him.
He’s not just a murderer. He’s a serial killer.
* * *
I tell Joe it might take me a couple of hours to mix up the drugs for Ryan, and he agrees to confer with Helena and the girls to see what needs to be done around the house. I head back to my lab, Scottie at my heels, and when I shut the door behind us, I throw the inset lock.
Then I stand in the middle of the room and stare sightlessly at the silver-toned refrigerator that holds my samples and experiments.
Ryan killed Alonzo’s father. After somehow learning of Alonzo’s existence, he gained admittance to the house, freed the boy and shot the father, probably right in front of Alonzo. That certainly explains why Alonzo has always been so wary of Ryan. Sure, Ryan rescued him, but he hadn’t presented himself as any less brutal than his dad.
Maybe murder had not originally been on the agenda. Maybe Ryan had just planned to rescue Alonzo, hoping the two of them would simply vanish into the night, but the dad had come home unexpectedly. There had been an argument, Ryan had snatched up the man’s gun—
That doesn’t make sense, though. If they’d found Alonzo’s dad in the basement, or the hallway, maybe you could make the case that he had arrived inopportunely and Ryan had been forced to kill him just so they could get away. But they found the body in a back room, which argues that Ryan went looking for him. And if I ask Joe, I’m betting I’ll learn that the victim didn’t own the gun used in the shooting.
I’m betting that Ryan came to the house armed and intending to kill Alonzo’s father. Because he thought the man deserved to die.
For the crime of abusing a shape-shifter.
For which he also believed Bobby Foucault deserved to die.
I have no way of knowing if Ryan has encountered other humans that he also brought to justice for similar crimes. But it seems very, very possible to me.
I put a hand to my mouth, because I don’t want to be making that sound—that slight whimpering that could build into a full-fledged sobbing if I don’t hold it in. Scottie comes over and presses against my legs, offering a wordless comfort for distress that he can sense, though he can’t understand it. I drop to the floor and wrap my arms around his neck, burying my tears in his rough fur.
God, if I could do it, right now, I’d shift to animal shape and never shift back.
* * *
I don’t come out of the lab for the next three hours.
Most of that time I’m sitting on the floor, my back against the wall, my legs straight out in front of me. I stare out the window, but I don’t register much beyond weak sunlight slowly fading over bare trees and dying grass. Scottie lies beside me, his head in my lap, my hand stroking his ears.
I’m trying to think it through.
I can mix up potions that will allow Ryan to stay human until he chooses to shift. If he’s transferred to the prison in Madison County, there will surely be a day when he’s out of his cell, perhaps in a prison yard with access to a delivery truck or with knowledge of some small break in the fence where a cat could squeeze through. He could be gone in five minutes. He’d never be able to return to Quinville, of course, but he’s a clever man; he’d be able to make a life for himself somewhere else.
A life that very easily could include more murders.
If I don’t give him the potion and he transforms while he’s in a small cell under constant surveillance, my life—Alonzo’s life—Celeste’s and Daniel’s and Juliet’s and that of every shape-shifter I have ever treated—all careen into danger. Is it more urgent that I protect the secret of all the people under my care, or that I ensure a killer stays in jail?
If I don’t give him the potion, he will know that I have set myself against him. He will know that I no longer trust him, and he will no longer trust me. If he somehow gets free without my assistance, will he exact some kind of vengeance?
Maybe that’s what I should hope for. Maybe I should pray that he takes cat shape this very night when the camera is not turned his way. Surely he’ll manage to slip through the iron bars and sidle out of the police station before anyone notices. Let him come for me, let him kill me. At least whatever happens next won’t be my fault.
My hand freezes on top of Scottie’s head. He lifts his muzzle to give me a questioning look.
Is it my responsibility to stop Ryan? To make sure he never harms anyone again?
I could do it, I think. Mix up a lethal potion and swap it for whatever drug the legitimate pharmacist supplies. Ryan would inject it without hesitation and die within hours. I could even pick something that would cause him very little physical suffering.
I see huge logistical problems with this plan, of course, the primary one being that the pharmacist himself would instantly be under suspicion if Ryan mysteriously died. And if he could prove his innocence, Alonzo would be the next one under investigation. But surely there is some other way to slip Ryan the fatal dose, even if I merely smuggle it in past the police guards at the station.
But if I execute Ryan for the crime of murder, how am I any better than he is?
Who does have the right to decide who lives and who dies?
Displacing Scottie, who scrambles up to a sitting position, I draw my knees up and rest my head on top of them. I don’t know the answers to any of my questions. I have spent the past eight years of my life healing people, helping people; I have dealt in life, not death. I don’t want to turn my gifts to other uses.
But I don’t know what to do.
* * *
In the end I call the one person I can always count on for clarity. Aurelia’s assistant tells me she’s on the phone, but she’ll call me back within the hour. I’m still sitting with my back to the wall, Scottie stretched out beside me. There’s nothing to see out the window now, since it’s past six and night has already fallen. But I don’t move from my spot on the floor. It seems like the safest place to be when the world is rocking off its foundations.
Barely five minutes pass before Aurelia returns my call. “I’m on my way out the door,” she says. “What’s up?”
“I think Ryan killed Alonzo’s dad two years ago. Which makes me wonder if he’s killed other people, too.”
There’s the briefest of silences while she processes this information. She doesn’t ask how I know. “What method did he use to commit the crime?”
“Handgun. Left on the scene. There were fingerprints, but they were never identified.”
“Because he wasn’t in the system—but he will be now,” she says.
This hadn’t even occurred to me, but of course I am not the only one who will make this connection if the connection exists. “I don’t know what to do,” I say. I can hear the hysteria rising in my voice. “It’s even worse than I thought. I don’t want to help him—but if he changes while he’s in jail—Aurelia, what do we do?”
“We focus,” she says quietly. “We determine what course of action serves the most people.”
I press my fist to my forehead. “I think—I think more shape-shifters will come to more harm if Ryan is discovered. I think the greater evil is Ryan changing shap
es in a public place.”
“I think so, too,” she says. “So you mix the potions.”
“But if he goes free—and he does it again—”
“We will deal with that eventuality when it arises.”
“I haven’t told anybody else,” I say.
“Good. For now, keep it that way. Where are you?”
“At my place. Joe’s here.”
“Maybe you should stay there tonight. Come back in the morning with the serum. Alonzo already picked up the order from the pharmacy and it’s ready to be delivered.”
“I can’t think straight,” I say.
“No,” she says. “It’s been that kind of day.”
* * *
I emerge from the lab around seven, having spent the last hour finally carrying out my appointed task. I’ve mixed up three vials for Ryan, enough to get him through a couple of weeks, I think. Surely by that time he’ll have been relocated to the prison in Edwardsville. He’ll have found his chance and shed his human shape and slipped away.
Joe has made dinner, but before we sit down to eat, I take a few minutes to tour the animal cages, pausing longest at the enclosure holding the puppies. Even the smallest ones, the ones abandoned at my door one cold night, seem to be gaining weight and thriving. I have been so wrapped up in human affairs that I have had no energy to spare for these tiny creatures entrusted to my care. I scratch their heads and tug gently on their ears and promise I will be more attentive in the coming days. I only hope I can keep my promise.
Then I join the others inside the house. Joe has invited Helena and Juliet to eat with us, but the human contingent is matched by the canine one, since Scottie, Jinx, Jezebel, and Desdemona share the supper hour with us. As you’d expect, Desi is the most well-behaved of the lot, followed closely by Jezebel. The two of them don’t bother begging for food, but curl up on the floor nearest the people they love the most—Juliet and Joe, respectively—and are rewarded for their patience with some of the best scraps from the table. Jinx and Scottie both focus on me, since I’m clearly the easiest mark.