Bones of the Barbary Coast (Cree Black Thrillers)

  Over the years, most of the larger port-related industries had moved across the bay to deeper channels and more modern facilities, and now his neighbors were smaller warehouses, auto body shops, small-scale steel fabricators, low-end commercial printers, and a scattering of artists. Many of the buildings were empty, surrounded by rusting steel sheds and decrepit hoist equipment, creating a postindustrial wasteland atmosphere that Ray cherished. He liked the way Dimension Intermodal's abandoned, forbidding exterior masked the secret oasis of comfort and beauty inside. Sort of a metaphor for the guy who lived there.

  He backed up the van, got out, unlocked the steel-clad man door, and came back to hoist a couple of sacks of dog food onto his shoulders. The dogs heard him coming and made yips and howls of anticipation.

  Inside, the building was as big as an airplane hangar, one large room with brick walls cut by tall windows of milky glass, an expanse of cement floor, a flat, iron-trussed roof forty feet above. Cut into the space against the bay-facing wall were the former administration offices, which he had appropriated as his living quarters. On the ground floor he'd set up his living room, kitchen, and bedroom, and then on the flat roof above them he'd built his studio, just a big hollow7 box that housed his enlarging equipment, computers, and private gallery. The rest of the building he'd left as he'd acquired it: a huge, empty, littered cavern. Pigeons nested in the roof superstructure and their shit gave sections of the floor a Jackson Pollock look.

  Home.

  He crossed over and unlocked the interior door and the three dogs came around him. Confiding trusting gazes, noses in the crotch, leaps and licks to the chm, great olfactory interest in the dog food bags. Alpha dog was bringing home the bacon.

  Family.

  "Okay, you guys," he scolded. "Okay. Let me through. Down, Fritz." He dropped the bags and squatted to give the three of them some mammal time, roughing up their coats, tugging their ears, enduring their mouthings. After a few minutes, he broke away to pour kibble into their bowls. Nothing like a fresh bag; they went at it as if they'd been starved.

  He called Horace's lab phone, got his voice mail, then tried his cell phone.

  Horace answered immediately. "What can I do for you, Ray? I'm walking into a meeting at this very moment."

  "I ran into that woman, Cree Black, downtown. Told me she's all the way from Seattle to look into the wolfman skeleton. I wondered why."

  "Oh, Ray," Horace said, vastly weary. "What."

  "What's the deal? Just curious. You hired her?"

  "No."

  "So Marchetti hired her? From Seattle?"

  "She volunteered—she's the daughter of an old friend of his. She's also an extremely bright woman and a skilled researcher. Bertram's in the same position I am. He wants very much to ID the poor fellow, but he doesn't have the time or resources. I'm very glad to have her on board for the effort."

  Ray felt disappointment and behind it a surge of anger and bitterness. He didn't say anything.

  "It's not your concern, Ray."

  "You'll need work on the sternal rib ends. There are developmental anomalies all over those bones. You'll never age him without more work on the palate and teeth."

  "You're right. In fact, you're prescient. I'm planning to messenger the skull and some ribs over to you first thing tomorrow. But so what? Why—"

  "I can't work with anybody connected to Marchetti."

  "Nobody's asking you to," Horace said. "Just do your job, send me the bill. Why should you care? Now I really have to go."

  Ray didn't say anything.

  Horace didn't hang up. Ray heard him sigh, and then he said softly, sadly, "Oh, Ray. Cameron. What's different about this? You've worked on Bertie's cases before, you've never crossed paths, we've managed just fine, haven't we? But more important, speaking as someone who admires your talents, who considers you a friend, I have to ask, Doesn't there come a time when—"

  "Don't try to play the diplomat here," Ray snarled. "You're a sweet guy. Not everybody is a sweet guy like you."

  The rage mounted and he would have gone on, but he heard the sound of Horace disconnecting. Ray pitched the receiver at the wall so hard it exploded into pieces, then swept the counter with his forearm so that cans and dishes scattered, shattering and rolling. The dogs scrabbled to the far end of the room and looked at him with terror in their eyes.

  Instantly he regretted worrying them. He got his breathing under control and made reassuring noises as he retrieved pieces of the handset, looked them over, threw the thing away The dogs calmed a little. He realized he'd have to hurry to pick up the mess if he was going to get to his appointment on time.

  Given its small size, Ray figured the wolf was a female. Her yellow eyes flicked at his, and from the way her body stiffened he could tell the animal had gone into high alert. She no doubt smelled the dogs on him.

  The wolf moved over as Judd LeGrand swung the door all the way open and appraised Ray from the hallway. He looked just the way Ray had pictured him from their phone conversation: mid- to late-fifties, maybe five-eight, with a tanned, deeply seamed face and red hair cut bristle-short and going to gray. His T-shirt and black jeans were snug on a tense, hard body. Unlike the wolf, he met Ray's eyes and didn't look away.

  "Mr. Raymond, I take it. I'm Judd LeGrand. And this is Reba. Come on in—she won't bite unless you provoke her."

  The house was a one-story stucco ranch surrounded by acres of mostly open land, a mix of suburban estates and older farms scattered widely among the hills above Lafayette. LeGrand led Ray back into an open-plan living and dining room, where windows gave long views to the northwest, arid downward slopes that yielded in the far distance to flatter ground, trees, a few tiny rooftops. The sliding rear door opened to a large yard occupied by a wooden barn with an attached mesh-fenced kennel at the rear. Ray didn't see any of the kennel's occupants, but as he was looking a woman came around a corner, kicked open a door in the barn, and disappeared inside.

  "So," Ray began, "I take it you've been working with wolves for quite a while?"

  "About twenty years. We started with just rehabbing an individual animal now and again, and then got involved with reintroduction efforts. I do some lobbying and teaching, but mainly I'm in it so I can hang out with the wolves. You want to see the setup?"

  "You bet," Ray told him.

  LeGrand blocked the rear doorway so Reba couldn't get through, let Ray out, then followed and shut the door. From the redwood deck, Ray could see that the whole compound was surrounded by a high chain-link fence. Toward the front, a wooden palisade fence blocked views of the road; against the gray boards stood a long row of smaller cages that Ray realized were rabbit hutches. A wolf-food farm.

  LeGrand gave him an overview of the operation. They owned twelve acres, but only about a third was fenced. There were six kennels, so that was the limit of the wolves they could handle at any time. Moeris Foundation was one of a network of facilities that took in wolves that had been injured or trapped or that had been bought as pups by people who thought they wanted an unusual pet but found they couldn't manage an adult. Some were reintroduced to the wild, some brought to zoos or teaching programs. Right now there were three besides Reba.

  LeGrand spoke in a gruff voice, informative but not warm, and his gestures were tight as he pointed out various features. Definitely former military and a guy who made it plain he could take you or leave you. Out here in the sunlight, his eyes slitted and seemed suspicious and appraising. Ray liked his style.

  They were still on the porch when the woman emerged from the barn, carrying a couple of big plastic pans back toward the house. She was Judd's age, had the same leathery skin, and wore faded jeans and a plaid shirt tucked in to reveal a busty, narrow-hipped figure. When she got to the deck, she raised her eyes and smiled, but Ray noticed the tick of reaction as she saw his face.

  "Mr. Raymond, this is my wife Emily. Sugar, this is Cameron Raymond. He's the one who called earlier."

  Emily said hello, carri
ed the pans past them, and went into the house.

  "So," Ray began, "tell me how you got into this. Why you wanted to save wolves."

  "I don't save wolves. They save me."

  "How so?"

  "I don't make a secret of the fact that I had a hard time in Vietnam and a hard time when I came back. Wolves turned me around. I cite my experience because I figure it shows the benefit of working on behalf of a good cause. Helping restore wolves allows me to give something back to the world. To preserve one of God's noblest creatures. It helped me get on my feet again, and it helps others, too. One of our most successful programs is geared toward putting veterans, prisoners, and juvenile offenders in contact with wolves. Alcoholics and substance abusers, too—just being around a wild animal helps them get outside the spiral of their own problems."

  Ray decided that the story explained the seamed faces, the rough voices, the dulled edge just behind the sharp: Judd and Emily were exalkies, no doubt met each other in recovery, found wolves instead of Jesus.

  "Yeah, I saw that on your Web site. Buy why wolves? Why not, oh, raccoons? Or squirrels."

  LeGrand frowned. "Trying to be funny?"

  "No, no. Rhetorical. I can think of a lot of ways wolves are special, but I want to hear your take on it. How contact with a big predator is different."

  LeGrand turned another notch toward Ray and made no move toward the kennel. In the bright sun, his eyes were almost lost in the shadows of his brows. "You know, we didn't talk much about you. Why you're interested. What you're after here today."

  They locked eyes but were interrupted when a snarling came from the barn, followed by the sound of a scuffle. A big gray wolf came into one of the runs, trotted its length, pivoted, trotted back, disappeared inside.

  "What I'm after is, I want to know more about wolves. And, frankly, I'm just as interested in you. I want to know what you went through and what you found in working with wolves that helped you pull your shit together."

  For the first time, LeGrand's eyes moved to the scarring on Ray's face. He sucked his cheeks and seemed to deliberate, then tipped his head toward the kennel. "Let's go take a look."

  LeGrand went on past the barn to the far end of the kennel runs, where he stopped and whistled. Ray could see indistinct shapes moving in the darkness of the low doorways, but no wolves came out.

  "They come when you whistle?" The thought disappointed Ray.

  "No. They come out when they're curious. But something's throwing them off today. That growling, that's fairly unusual. I don't know what's up with them."

  "Do you ever have more wolves than there are slots in reintroduction programs?"

  "Rarely."

  "Rarely, but sometimes. What do you do then?"

  LeGrand's eyes went to Ray's again, studying first one eye and then the other, back and forth. "They have to be put down."

  "I don't believe you'd do that. If it was me, I'd pack them in my van and take them someplace and start my own private reintroduction project. Don't you ever—"

  "No, Mr. Raymond. We don't. That would be illegal, wouldn't it." LeGrand's look made it clear he didn't like the question, and Ray guessed it was time to change the subject.

  "So . . . Moeris Foundation. An unusual name."

  LeGrand had started toward the barn, but the question put a hitch in his stride. He answered in a flat voice, "It's from a poem by Virgil. A nice classical wolf reference, sounded legit. Dignified."

  "No. Moeris was a werewolf. From Virgil's poem "Alphesiboeus," written in 39 BC. Why a werewolf, as opposed to any of the famous wolves of history? If it's personal for you, the wolves-saving-your-ass theme, why not Luperca? Or Romulus and Remus?"

  LaGrand spun back to face Ray. "Listen, I don't know what you got going, but I don't need it around here."

  "I told you. I wanted to meet you and learn more about the foundation. And I'm considering making a substantial donation."

  "No you're not. People who make substantial donations don't come here in three-year-old minivans. I got a radar for creeps, Jack, and you're dicking me around. So you got two choices, you can tell me what's up, or you can leave. Which is it?"

  The drilling, suspicious eyes and macho tone got Ray's juices going—his arrogance, his assumption he knew enough to make a judgment of Ray. LeGrand looked fit, but Ray had no doubt who would come out ahead in a fight. For a few seconds he debated provoking him further, forcing a showdown right now. Then he decided to do things differently.

  "Maybe I caught you at a bad moment. I'll go now. I'll come by again another time."

  "Oh, you'll go. But you're not coming back." LeGrand pointed to the side yard of the house. "Go around the outside. I don't want you in my house."

  It required a lot of self-control to walk away. LeGrand followed him to the driveway, watched as Ray got into his car, and stood there glaring as he drove back down the hill.

  A headache had begun during the confrontation and as Ray drove away it threatened to blossom into a full-blown supernova, the kind that fuzzed the edges of objects with jittery rainbows of light. It was the pressure. He was never sure whether the pressure made him think a certain way and get into a certain mood, or whether certain kinds of thoughts and feelings brought on the pressure. Whichever, he decided to return later to take the edge off LeGrand's hubris and make him answer some questions. LeGrand's behavior made it all the more evident he was a good person to get to know.

  He drove to a gas station in Lafayette and while his tank filled he dosed himself with a mix of dexamethasone and epinephrin, which reliably eased the head pain and gave him a charge of euphoria and energy. He also bought a county map and studied it as he had a BLT and a milkshake at the attached diner. When he was done eating, he got out his checkbook, went over his finances, and wrote out a check for five thousand dollars, which he folded and tucked into his back pocket. He read the newspaper and killed time until the sun had set, then drove back up the hill.

  He parked at a turnout two miles below LeGrand's house, went up a brush-lined ravine until he was out of view of the road, then cut ewer the hill. With his practiced night vision, w his way to the far end of the fenced area, about a hundred yards from the kennel.

  He scaled the fence and dropped down on the other side. He stayed in a crouch for half a minute, listening, but heard no reaction to his arrival other than the increased agitation of the wolves. Shapeless dark forms moved in the kennel runs, up and back, spinning, swaying.

  Ray appraised the layout of buildings and selected the shadowed corner of the barn on the left side. The chain-link of the first run began about six feet short of the corner around which LeGrand would likely come, leaving a place for Ray to stand, invisible even if Judd brought a flashlight or there was a yard light on the house.

  First he'd say hello to the wolves. He slipped down silently, but of course they anticipated him. Two came uneasily to the ends of their runs, but the third slunk into its door, the tip of its muzzle wagging side to side in the black doorway. The two outside grew more excited, swaying, growling, lifting heads to scent the air. As he got closer, he could see that their ruffs were up.

  "Hey, creatures," he whispered. "Hey, wolves. Hey, gorgeous beings." Being so near to them in the night exhilarated him and felt very intimate.

  Both wolves were snarling and whining, and in the dim light their bared teeth were the brightest things about them, two savage mouths. But in fact they weren't gorgeous. From this close he could see the weakness in them. The big one was old, hair going tufted, long teeth missing on one side, hindquarters stiffening. The smaller had a pale bald patch on its shoulder, mange or a shaved area left over from some surgery Their smell was not a good animal smell but the musty, sick scent of dirty fur and sawdust, shit and dog food.

  Creatures of the cage. Ray's heart broke at the realization.

  He rattled the mesh violently and the urgency of their growls increased. He kept rattling until a light snapped on above the deck of the house, throwing the sha
dow of the barn across the yard and the kennel runs. So stupid, Ray thought. Now you can't see in the dark. Moeris, my ass. Now the terrified wolves were flinging themselves at him, hitting the mesh and staggering back. When he heard the aluminum door open and shut, he moved into position at the corner of the barn. He hoped it wasn't the wife.

  Footsteps crunched on the gravel and then stopped, someone pausing to assess the situation. In another moment, LeGrand's voice came: "That you, Mr. Raymond? If it is, you should know I'm coming out with my gun and I'll blow your ugly head off."

  LeGrand couldn't be sure, Ray thought. He had to be wondering if it wasn't just a tussle between the animals, or a deer come around and setting them off.

  The footsteps resumed. A second later LeGrand's shadow stretched past the corner, shadow arms at its sides, hands at the ready but carrying no gun. The instant LeGrand came abreast of him, Ray snapped out of his crouch and tackled him at the knees. LeGrand's legs went up and his body rolled off Ray's shoulder. Ray toppled him onto his face, then dropped himself onto LeGrand with one knee on the smaller man's back. LeGrand's breath coughed out of his lungs, and Ray exploited the shock to bring his arm up behind him. He levered the arm until LeGrand's back stiffened, then used it to drag him into the deep shadow at the corner of the barn. He put his knee into place again and with his free hand pushed the bristle-cut head down against the gravel.

  They held the position and panted in the darkness. The wolves had retreated inside and were moaning eerily.

  "Where's your wife?" Ray whispered.

  "You touch my wife, better kill me first. Because I'll hunt you down and tear your guts out. Believe it."

  "I don't want to hurt either of you. I just want to ask you some goddamned questions. We need a few minutes. If your wife calls out looking for you, you just tell her everything's okay and you'll be inside in a minute."