The Rock awoke around us, with most of the shops on Main Street beginning to open. From the little mail and shipping place across the street, where you could send packages and keep your own post office box, to the little coffeehouse down on the corner, signs slowly flipped from closed to open, as summer songbirds fluttered from tree to tree, their singing mingling with the all-weather tires rolling down the road.
Jessica and I both parked on Main about a block apart and walked up to the front door of the gallery together. Resting on the sidewalk in front of the entrance was a medium-sized, plain cardboard box with only the address for the Curious Turtle printed on one side.
Jessica bent down to pick it up as we approached, but I stopped her from grabbing it.
“What's wrong?” she asked.
“No return address. No postage paid mark. Someone must have dropped this overnight.”
She bit her lips and took a step back. “Do you think it's, like, a bomb or something?”
I sniffed the air, careful so she wouldn't notice, but only smelled a deep hint of coffee and some kind of strange spiciness, like black pepper or cayenne. It didn't smell like any bomb I'd ever encountered or read about, so I just shook my head.
“What is it, then?”
“Dunno,” I said, reaching down to pick it up. I straightened up and hefted it in one hand, feeling the contents shift in a decidedly non-mechanical way. “I really have no idea.”
Just then, we heard a car door open across the street, and we both turned our attention to it.
A young woman who looked to be in her late teens came bustling out of a little blue Subaru parked in front of the mailbox storefront. A military surplus backpack was slung over her shoulder, and her bright red hair was in full crazy mod, sticking out all over with bangs covering an eye. She was taller than average, especially with her old Doc Martens on. Silver rings pierced her left eyebrow and lower lip, and she wore jeans with one black and one white pant leg.
“Hey,” she said in a little-girl pixie voice as she crossed the street and came up to us, her voice slurred with sleep. She dragged a hand back through her wild ginger hair as she came to a stop in front of us. “I'm here, Richard. Where's that fax machine you wanted me to look at?”
Jessica glanced up at me, then back to our IT person. “Excuse me? Can I help you?”
“This is our resident computer geek,” I explained with a little smile. “Lacy, meet Jessica Long, our client. Jessica, this is Lacy Richter. You met her grandmother, Gen, yesterday.”
“I'm here for that fax machine of yours,” Lacy said with a tired grin, followed by a deep yawn and a smack of her lips. “And anything else we need to do.”
“Uh, sure,” Jessica said with a bewildered shake of her head, pushing open the door and letting us both in behind her.
It wasn't that Lacy was completely out of place in a town like Enchanted Rock, it was that she looked so out of character outside ski season. Plenty of kids like her hit the slopes every year, but they tended to be the ones who were working the different resorts in the area. This time of year, it was mostly camping, hunting, rafting, and hiking that made up the tourist season, and those were usually a different crowd.
“Sorry, I didn't realize you worked with Richard,” Jessica said to Lacy as we crossed the gallery and headed for the back office. “Guess I just haven't had enough coffee yet.”
“S'alright,” Lacy said with an easy smile and another yawn. “I'm used to it, especially in this business.”
“We keep trying to tell her she needs to follow some sort of dress code,” I added, giving Lacy a look. “But she won't listen since she's mostly in the office and clients generally never meet her.”
“I really just don't want to wear slacks to work,” she whispered to Jessica with a sly grin. “Or heels.”
Jessica grinned back at her as she let us into the office. “Don't worry, I know the feeling.”
I just rolled my eyes, my nose twitching at the package still in my hands.
“This it?” Lacy asked as she went over to the fax machine.
Jessica nodded. “Yeah.”
“Mind if I take a look at the printout?”
My client gave her the faxed printouts with the same phrase repeated over and over.
Lacy looked over the paper, frowning. “Friggin' nutjob, huh?”
I shrugged as I set the package down on Jessica's desk. “Looks that way, I'd say.”
Lacy pulled out her laptop, took a seat in one of the chairs, and began booting up the computer as Jessica went around and took her seat at the desk.
“Well,” Lacy said, stifling another yawn, “I went over the call records, like you and Peter requested. Turns out the calls did start right after Blake Axelrod died. The day after, to be exact.”
I nodded as I sat down in the seat next to her. “Anything else you found out?”
“Started putting together some info on his nephew, Ms. Long's new partner.”
“And?” Jessica asked before I had a chance to.
“Gonna be honest, Ms. Long-”
“Jessica, please. Ms. Long makes me sound like I could be your mom.”
Lacy grinned, glancing back and forth between us. “Fair enough. Well, this new Axelrod is not the same as the old Axelrod. Super sleazy. Got an arrest record longer than the Enchanted Rock phone book. Trouble throughout Colorado, down into Texas, and even New Mexico.”
“We still have a phone book?” Jessica asked, raising her eyebrows.
“I know, right? Well, this guy's got one that's almost a page long. Fights, aggravated assault, even a stalking charge.”
“How's he not doing time, then?” I asked.
“I said arrest record,” Lacy replied as she began to type. “Not convictions. He doesn't have a single one.”
I shifted in my chair, crossed my legs. “And no warrants or anything?”
“Not that I could find, but I've only gone through five or six state databases. He might have ones out there, but so far there's nothing in Colorado.”
I nodded and glanced over to Jessica, who had gotten up to find a box-cutter for the package that was still sitting on her desk.
“So, Wyatt Axelrod isn't exactly someone I want to be in business with?”
“I sure as fuck wouldn't,” Lacy said with a shake of her head as she picked up her laptop and went over to the printer. She attached a USB cord to connect the two. “But, that's just me. Maybe you like your business partners on the wild side.”
“Thanks,” Jessica said as she found the box-cutter and began to slice through the packing tape on top, “but no thanks. I prefer mine silent and ordinary, like Wyatt's uncle.” She sliced through the package and pulled open the lid.
Immediately, a foul smell filled the office. It was so foul, I was astounded I hadn't been able to smell it when it was just sitting on the front steps of the gallery.
“What the hell is that?” Lacy said, disgusted. The box-cutter tumbled from Jessica's fingers and clattered on the tiled floor beneath her desk, as she brought a hand to her mouth.
I jumped to my feet, pushing the chair back with my sudden movement as I leaned in to see what was in the box. I looked down, my stomach roiling as I caught a glimpse.
A strangled sob escaped Jessica's lips as she took a step back and went running from the room, her face tinted green like she was about to lose her coffee from this morning.
Inside the box was a turtle, flipped over on its back, a butcher knife stabbed through its softly scaled belly.
“Holy shit” Lacy said, cringing. “Who the fuck would do this?”
They must have vacuum sealed the thing in to keep the smell of rot from escaping somehow, and now it filled the room. It was a kind of stink that almost had a tactile sensation, even to a human.
“I don't know,” I replied as I grabbed the box and looked down into it, breathing through my mouth to try and keep the scent from overpowering all my other senses. “But, whoever it is, Peter was right. This is definitely escalating.”
Out in the hallway, I heard Jessica heaving in the restroom, filling the toilet bowl as she sobbed, gagging.
I glanced to Lacy. “Go check on her? Please?”
With her hand covering her mouth, a look of foul disgust on her face, she nodded. “What are you going to do with that poor thing?”
“I don't know,” I said with a sigh. “Take it out back for now? Maybe later Peter or I can get a scent off it.” Immediately, though, I realized they'd covered the whole thing in peppers and other spices intended to defeat a dog's tracking ability. It would probably do the same to me.
Lacy just nodded and headed out into the hallway, knocked on the bathroom, and asked Jessica if she was okay.
Alone in the office, I stared down into the box.
Did they somehow know I was a shifter? No, that was crazy! Who would have that kind of information and not confront us with it? The stalker had probably just been trying to prevent Sheriff Peak from using his K9 unit from tracking the source. I wrinkled my nose at the corpse inside, the smell of rancidity, black pepper, and capsaicin filling my nose.
Whoever had done this, they'd certainly just thickened the plot—to kill a turtle for their own sick games? What kind of piece of shit psycho would do that? Well, probably the same kind who would go through this much trouble to scare a small business owner who was just trying to get by with her art gallery.
One thing I knew, though, was that I was going to find this bastard. And I was going to teach him or her a lesson about stalking and threatening innocent people.