Chapter Five
Cooper sat at the bar frowning at his phone. His dad had phoned twice, Jefferson had texted asking if there had been any trouble yet and SAC Santiago had left a voice mail asking for an update. He wanted to group-message them all: No. Just no.
The waitress slid his Pied Piper’s Protein Salad in front of him. “Can I get you another one, hon?” She nodded to his neat gin, nearly empty though he’d ordered it minutes ago.
“Why not, thanks.” Cooper winked out of habit and she dimpled back. Forced, calculated. Nowhere close to reaching her eyes, which avoided his just enough to discourage a connection but not a tip. She was pretty, with long legs and long hair she kept swinging forward to cover her chest. He’d watched her read him the minute he sat down. Out of town, thirtysomething, dissatisfied with his day, a chip on his shoulder and an anxious energy boiling his blood. A man with something to prove and no one to prove it to. An ugly, dangerous look. He didn’t blame her for shifting away from him warily. He didn’t find it an attractive look on men, either.
Cooper intentionally softened his eyes and relaxed his jaw. “Actually, never mind. Can you make that an iced tea?”
She returned to the kitchen and Cooper went back to studying his phone. Without that second drink he wouldn’t be responding to his dad tonight. Especially not this late.
By the time they’d checked into the motel, it was after nine and Cooper had considered just staying in his sparse but clean room and going to sleep. It had been a hell of a long day and if dreams really were the brain’s way of sorting shit out, he wanted to start dreaming ASAP. Unfortunately a full day had led to an empty stomach. He was supposed to eat small meals frequently throughout the day to allow his shortened small intestine to absorb the necessary amount of nutrients, but it was hard to do on the road. Cooper didn’t want to draw attention to himself as weak or, god forbid, stopping everything when a boy was missing so that he could get a snack. His guts would just have to deal.
But now, belly aching and head pounding, Cooper had wandered to the main street of town in search of walking-distance nourishment. The Bear’s Den had been the only place open. Illuminated beer signs in the dingy windows called like an oasis in the desert and his salad—a cranberry, pecan, goat cheese and spinach concoction—exceeded expectations. Granted, his expectations had been extremely low. He hoped Santiago’s expectations were equally low. That was the only way he’d be able to impress her.
Cooper worked on a quick email to his boss, trying to find the best way to say they got nothing accomplished without saying the words “nothing accomplished.” What had felt like progress at three in the afternoon—ATV tracks and a mysteriously dead bear—seemed absurdly flimsy at the end of the day with nothing else to add.
Perhaps Park was right and they should have gone to the victims’ homes, or set up base at the station and gone through statements. The best way to find Gould, Cooper was now convinced, was not search parties in the forest but figuring out what connected the three victims. Choosing to join the search party wasn’t necessarily a mistake, but doing so just to exert power over Park definitely had been. He’d overthought it when he should have gone with his gut. What was left of it, anyway.
“Your head’s so far up your ass you’re choking on your own brain” was what his dad would say. Not that he’d ever know the specifics, but it held true just the same. Whatever issues Cooper had with getting partnered with a Trust member was getting in the way of being a good agent.
It also, counterintuitively, had nothing to do with Park, who had been nothing but professional and probably hadn’t wanted to be put on this case any more than Cooper had wanted him here. They were both cogs being ordered to spin. Cooper was the only one getting gritty about it.
Park hadn’t argued with his decision to join the search party. This had felt like a concession to Cooper’s authority at the time, but now he was starting to wonder if Park bothered to argue with anyone. Not because he seemed like a doormat but because he had been beyond even-tempered all day. An almost annoyingly laid-back, Zen sort of person who didn’t so much avoid confrontation as he seemed uninterested in it entirely. Bored by it, even. There was something about that kind of self-control that simultaneously drew Cooper to it and made him want to break it.
But make it work, Santiago had said. He’d let sleeping dogs lie. Or sleeping wolves. Day one was a bust. Tomorrow he’d make an effort.
Cooper was just starting to respond to Jefferson when he heard his name called. “Agent Dayton!” Officer Miller sat down next to him at the bar. “What a coincidence running into you here.”
“It was the only place open,” Cooper said, and Miller laughed like that was a joke.
“What’s good?”
Cooper looked down at his salad. “This isn’t so bad.”
Miller laughed again; at what, Cooper had no idea. “I meant—never mind, man. Keep that green stuff away from me. I’m allergic.”
“To spinach?” Cooper said, nonplussed.
Miller guffawed this time and Cooper wondered if he’d been drinking beforehand. “Nah, just to nuts.” Miller waved his hand between them and what looked like a medical alert bracelet slid down his thick wrist. He scanned the bar as if searching for someone. Probably someone to make better conversation with, Cooper thought. To say he wasn’t great at small talk was an understatement.
Miller ordered beer and a burger and they settled into an awkward silence. Cooper itched to pick his phone up again, but Miller was looking at him intently, like he expected them to have a conversation. Cooper wished he’d ordered his food to go.
“Long day,” he said. Lame, but Miller latched on eagerly, nodding.
“Long, crazy day. I guess you must be used to it. You must see all sorts of wild stuff with the BSI.”
“You could say that,” Cooper said, and shoved another forkful of his salad in his mouth and chewed quickly. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could be out of here and in bed. “Did anything come of those tracks?”
“Techs got a pretty good cast of the tread but couldn’t follow them. Flooding wiped out the trail.”
“Park was right again,” Cooper muttered, more to himself than Miller. The thought that he might need to teach Park anything about crime scenes seemed vaguely ridiculous now. “What about that bear?”
“What about it?”
“Well, did the ME determine—”
Cooper cut off as the waitress brought Miller his beer. He then looked around the bar uncomfortably as Miller attempted to flirt with her, awkwardly asking if she had anything fun planned for this weekend while puffing his chest out so much he was close to falling backwards off the stool.
It was mostly empty, a little too dark to be nice and a little too small to be popular. Still, when you were the only place in town open, you didn’t need too much else going for you and there were a handful of people finishing up meals and drinks. A family all talking over one another, a middle-aged couple arguing, a group of teenage boys all on their phones texting, probably to each other.
Cooper wondered what they were all talking about. The discovered bodies, certainly. The missing Gould, too. Did the town think the two were connected? Or, like Chief Brown, were they hoping with their hands firmly over their eyes that this was just a bad coincidence?
The waitress finally made her escape and Miller turned back to Cooper a little abashed, shrugging. “It’s not easy meeting people in a small town.”
“You’re from Portland, right?” Cooper said.
Miller looked pleased that Cooper had remembered the tidbit. “Moved here a couple years ago. Great place if you’re interested in nature. Not if you’re interested in dating. You have someone?”
“No,” Cooper said shortly. That didn’t stop Miller. What was it about his face that made people think Cooper was interested in being friendly? Miller chattered on and on. Apparently he wasn’t the only Florence transplant. In fact, half the PD seemed to have moved here. Harris had only been here nine months, which explained why he wasn’t higher on the totem pole, and Christie had moved here from out west less than five years ago.
Why? Cooper fought the urge to ask. Not that Florence wasn’t...sweet. But a golden opportunity in law enforcement it was not. Not unless you had big dreams of directing crosswalk traffic. But then again, he was here for a potential serial killer. Death could happen anywhere and usually did.
Miller’s burger came, he ordered another beer and Cooper fidgeted. He didn’t particularly feel like talking about the case but didn’t know how to chitchat. Just one of the reasons he would never have made a good small-town cop, himself. Finding the right words was a struggle for Cooper. He was a firm believer that actions could speak twice as loud as words. If only other people felt the same.
“So that bear,” Cooper said desperately, surprising Miller into choking on a fry. “What was the COD?”
“Natural. Pretty much.”
“Pretty much?”
“Well, wounds consistent with animal attack, so natural for a bear.” Miller snorted.
“Park said black bears didn’t have any predators. And what the hell was it doing so close to the dump site?”
Miller pointed a fry at Cooper, which drooped obscenely. “All the more reason to think there’s an animal not right in the head out there. Rabid or something. Who’s to say that whatever acted abnormally and killed that bear didn’t also kill our two vics?”
“Days apart?”
“They died days apart. Doesn’t mean they weren’t attacked at the same time. Doe buried Bornestein—shallowly, because he was injured himself—and then died soon after, unable to make it back.”
Cooper shook his head but didn’t bother arguing. It was a stupid theory. Possible, but that didn’t make it any less stupid. He was surprised Miller was sticking to it so hard. Maybe he’d moved to Florence to get away from violence and was ready to jump on the first lame explanation that didn’t require them to do any work.
Or maybe Cooper was just being an asshole. He was too edgy today. Too riled up.
The door to the bar opened and he looked over Miller’s shoulder at the newcomer.
Park recognized Cooper the same moment Cooper recognized him. He hesitated in the doorway and, for an embarrassing moment, Cooper thought he was going to turn around and leave. But he let the door swing shut behind him and walked over to them. Miller turned at the last moment and nearly fell off his stool when he found Park directly behind him.
“This is a coincidence,” Cooper said.
“Not when it’s the only gin joint open past ten in Casablanca.”
Cooper chuckled at that, realized he was pulling a Miller, and abruptly stopped. “Would you like to join us?”
“I called ahead an order to go.”
“Smart,” Cooper sighed, and realized that could be insulting to his dinner companion. Miller didn’t seem to notice, but Park’s eyes narrowed in definite amusement. It was the first indication that maybe Park found the young officer just as annoying as Cooper did. Park was good at hiding his feelings. It made Cooper wonder what his hidden feelings about him were. Probably not very flattering.
Cooper felt the smile slide off his face. Miller drank deeply from his beer and looked for the waitress to ask after his second one. She was already quickly moving toward them.
“Shut up. No friggin’ way.” The waitress came around the bar and slapped Park’s arm with a resounding thwack. “The lost Park back in Florence? I don’t believe it.”
“Hello, Jenny.”
The waitress, Jenny, had a legitimate smile on her face now as she bussed Park’s cheek. “What the hell are you doing up here in the summer? Your family’s not in town, are they?”
Cooper eyed Park curiously. Until this moment he hadn’t considered Park might have a family, wife and kids. He’d sort of just assumed...what exactly? Well, whatever he’d thought, he’d been wrong. Cooper pushed his unfinished salad away, his appetite gone, and wished he’d gone for that second drink.
“No, no. Here for work stuff,” Park said, nodding toward Cooper and Miller.
She leaned in close, and her voice lowered as she said, “You mean Robbie Gould?” Park inclined his head, not a definite yes or no, but Jenny straightened with a grim look, crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. “Poor kid. If they’ve got you up looking, at least he’s got a chance, though. Nobody knows the forest better than a Park.”
Cooper looked to Park for an explanation and was ignored. “Did you know him? Gould?” Park asked.
Jenny shrugged. “I wouldn’t say ‘know.’ Just in the Florence way. He came in here drinking with friends a couple of times a week. Came in here drinking solo a couple times a week.” She quirked an eyebrow to emphasize her point.
So Gould had a possible drinking problem. That was a match with what Miller had said earlier that day, and even added a little weight to his theory that Gould’s disappearance wasn’t connected to the others and that he had just gotten lost somewhere. Maybe on a drinking binge.
Cooper looked at Miller expecting a “told you so” expression, but Miller wasn’t paying attention. He had a dark look on his face and was watching the interaction between Park and Jenny closely. Annoyed at being edged out, probably. Now that she was genuinely pleased to see someone, it was painfully obvious how disinterested in him she’d been before.
“Agent Park, I didn’t know you’d been to Florence before,” Miller said abruptly.
Park blinked at him and tilted his head. “I grew up here.”
“Here? In Florence?” Cooper asked, stunned.
Park shrugged and looked away. What, he wasn’t sure now? “Pretty much. On the edge of town.”
There was an odd, casual tone to his voice. Was Cooper supposed to have known this? It certainly fit what he’d seen so far. Cooper could easily picture Park growing up in a small town like this. The sort of place where people knew him and said things like “That Park boy. Damn good kid.” The ease he had with his own body and status in the world, his natural take-charge and take-care attitude. The way he seemed so...untouchable. The whole town had probably knelt at his feet.
Cooper had grown up in a small town like that, too. Except he’d been the kid scowling in the back seat, listening to his father dote on the latest rising star. Why can’t you be more like him, son?
“Surprised you didn’t know,” Jenny said to Miller. “The Parks are one of the oldest families around town.”
Oh. That kind of family. Cooper’s surprise soured to unease. He had known the Trust agent they were pairing him with was familiar with some of the local wolves, but he didn’t realize “familiar” was short for goddamn family reunions.
“The Parks who live out by Hyde?” Miller asked.
“That’s right,” Park said, though he sounded less pleased with it than even Cooper, and Cooper was pissed. He couldn’t believe Park still had immediate family in the area. What if they were involved? Jefferson would have called the whole thing a conspirashit, and Cooper had to agree. Make it work, indeed. Park was making it work for himself, all right.
Park was watching him closely. “My family isn’t here now and haven’t been in town for a while,” he said directly to Cooper, as if they were alone in a room, and then, after a pause, added in a more casual tone, “They always spend the summers and vacations in Canada. But we’d come back for the school in Florence. My nieces and nephews do too now.”
“Woot, woot! Florence High represent!” Jenny said, and jokingly pumped her fist in the air. “I ran track with his big sister Camille. Shit, she was fast. I thought for sure she’d go pro or something.”
Park nodded solemnly. “She absolutely could have, if she wasn’t the laziest person I’ve ever known,” he said, and Jenny giggled.
“I’ll tell her you said that, you little shit,” she said, shoving him, and Park swayed backward believably, as though she didn’t only come up to his shoulder. “Same bratty little brother. You would not believe how annoying this guy was back then. Always trying to stick his nose into everything, get everyone to play with him, read to him, carry him around. Such a middle child, oh my god. And then his little lip would get all trembly when you told him to go away.”
Park cleared his throat. It was the first time Cooper had seen him look distinctly uncomfortable. “I think you’re confusing me with one of my younger brothers.” He glanced at Cooper so quickly he may have imagined it.
“Nope. That was definitely you.” Jenny grinned slyly. “The way I hear it, you’re still a slut for attention.”
Park gave Jenny his most bland smile yet, though Cooper could swear he saw something flash in his eyes and it made the scars across his belly twitch. “Cam better hope she’s still fast,” Park said evenly.
Jenny eventually pulled Park away to pay for his food. Cooper watched them bump shoulders by the register, obviously teasing each other comfortably. Did Jenny still see the kid brother of an old school friend or...what? He jumped when Miller slapped a couple of bills on the bar.
“I’m heading out.” Miller stood, flexing his shoulders, a sour look on his face, leaving his second beer untouched.
Cooper stood too, unwilling to be left behind to watch his partner charm yet more locals. Miller definitely didn’t want to see it and was already heading toward the door. “See you in the morning, Miller,” Cooper said, and Miller raised a twitchy hand over his shoulder in reply.
Cooper gave him a couple minutes’ head start before leaving as well. He didn’t want to get caught awkwardly walking behind Miller down Main Street.
Park was still chatting with Jenny, who was laughing and loading a huge bag of takeaway with multiple food containers. For both of them? Was Park meeting someone else? At this hour? That could be only one kind of meeting. But who knew how many other old friends he had hanging around town?
Cooper left the bar without saying goodbye. He didn’t want to leave so late that he got Park walking awkwardly behind him, either. If Park was even planning on returning to the motel. He glared around the deserted street as if Park’s secret dinner companion was waiting for him out here. But all he saw were a few empty parked cars, including a police cruiser. Miller must have kept walking to clear his head. The idiot was so obviously jealous of the waitress and Park.
Yeah, while the way you’re acting isn’t idiotic at all.
Cooper stopped short. It wasn’t the same. He was not jealous, for god’s sake.
Back in his room Cooper felt too twitchy to go straight to bed. He waited, pacing behind his closed curtain, until he saw a tall, broad shadow pass his room on the outside walkway. For just a moment the shadow seemed to hesitate outside his window and Cooper held his breath. But the shadow moved on and Cooper wondered if he had imagined it.
He waited, watching, but no one followed. Park was alone.
Cooper told himself his relief was because he didn’t want to have to confront Park on code of conduct.
That lie kept him up for hours.
* * *
Cooper downed the last dregs of his second coffee and resisted the urge to crush the flimsy paper cup in his hand. He’d had a dissatisfying night’s sleep and it had been an equally dissatisfying morning reading through statements and looking for connections between the victims. Any hope he’d had of Florence PD already assembling a clear timeline or solid groundwork investigation was shot. Nobody liked doing paperwork, but that was no excuse for the sloppiness here.
Park, who had been frowning at the same page for five minutes—not that Cooper was watching or anything—sighed and tossed his folder onto the conference table they’d taken over that morning. He had already looked through Bornestein and Gould’s known associates for names he recognized as wolves, to no avail. Not a single friend or acquaintance in common, wolf or not.
“I think we should check out the vics’ homes,” Cooper said. His voice sounded uncomfortably loud after hours of near silence. They’d hardly spoken six words that morning. Cooper, still unsettled by the knowledge that there were multiple Parks in this town, had been more than a little standoffish when he’d found Park tucking into an absurd amount of carbs in the motel’s buffet room that morning. Park, either picking up on Cooper’s mood or with his own shit to think about, hadn’t pushed conversation.
But now Cooper felt oddly anxious to talk to Park. Odd not because he was so used to company and chatty partners—god knew Jefferson was no social butterfly—but because he usually hated having to talk it out with anyone. Ever. But he was getting tired of watching the wolf out of the corner of his eye and not knowing what was going on behind that unflappable façade. It wasn’t often Cooper couldn’t get a clear read on someone.
“What do you think, ah, of doing that?”
Park looked at him like he was just as puzzling as the papers they’d slogged through for the past two hours. “I think it’s a good idea.”
I think it was my idea yesterday, Cooper mentally filled in Park’s hesitation. He nodded and went to look for the chief. He sensed Park following on his six at a slightly wary distance.
Brown had her desk phone pressed between her shoulder and ear. A spread of maps covered her desk. “I got to go. Call me back. Please.” Chief Brown hesitated and then hung up the phone. She looked exhausted, new lines spider-webbing around her mouth and a painfully tight jaw.
“Well, the public’s officially named the killer the ‘Swamp Slasher,’” she said, and Cooper winced. “Tell me you got something from the statements.”
“Nothing concrete.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to complain about the sloppy state of the files. “Any progress on identifying John Doe?”
“No. No prints on file, no matching missing person reports across the county. Hell, we even checked dental records locally. Nothing.”
“Agent Park and I want to check out the victims’ homes.”
“Bornestein’s?”
“And Gould’s.”
“Robbie Gould lives with his mother...” Brown trailed off. She sounded reluctant. What did she expect Cooper to say? Oh, never mind then?
Dealing with a victim’s family was never pleasant, but that was the job. If it wasn’t a bad time, the bureau wouldn’t be there. Avoiding Gould’s house to spare his mother would be insane. Was the chief seriously still hoping the two were unrelated? Or was something else going on?
Cooper said, “It wouldn’t hurt to talk to her as well. There are some gaps in the timeline.”
“If you think so.” The chief sighed and picked up her phone again. “Delano, send Tim in to my office, please.” She hung up. “Officer Harris can take you out there.”
Harris entered the office a moment later. He looked as exhausted as Brown but still smiled that same bulldog grin. “Morning, boys. Chief, you wanted me?”
“I need you to take the agents to Gould’s and Bornestein’s.”
Harris scratched at his face, rough with blond bristle this morning. “I was just heading out to the search site, Chief.”
“I need you to make introductions to Kelly. Gould’s mother,” she explained.
Harris’s normally cheerful face seemed forced, his eyes tired. Cooper understood it was frustrating for a man like Harris who wanted to be on the front lines to be demoted to babysitter. Cooper said, “Miller can take us.”
“Miller’s out sick this morning,” Brown said.
Out sick? What was this, middle school? “Is that like him?”
“No. And it’s damn shitty timing to start,” Brown said, and exchanged a pointed look with Harris.
Cooper thought of how edgy Miller had been last night. How quickly he’d rushed out of there. Perhaps he’d been ill rather than jealous last night. He’d also been acting odd, sticking to those stupid theories, and tossed back his beer rather quickly. He couldn’t possibly be calling out because he was hungover, could he?
With a young man’s life on the line, it was damn irresponsible. Surprising too, given how eager to impress his superiors Miller had seemed. Though now that Cooper thought about it, it was those types of people who made the most foolish mistakes of them all. As a recovering people-pleaser himself, he should know.
* * *
Park and Cooper followed Officer Harris’s dark green pickup in the rental down more pothole-littered roads that gradually gave up pretending to be paved and turned right to dirt. Kyle Bornestein lived by himself in a mobile park at the edge of town, so they’d decided to go to the Goulds’ first.
Cooper tried to discreetly watch Park drive in his peripheral, without staring directly at him. “So. Family in the area. I didn’t know.”
Park hummed.
Cooper pushed. “‘Family’ meaning...?”
“The normal stuff,” Park started slowly, and seemed to consider Cooper for a moment. “My five siblings and their respective families, a few aunts and uncles, my grandparents.”
“What about you? Do you have a ‘respective’ family?”
“No.”
“And they all live together?”
“Pretty much.”
“Parents?”
Park hesitated. “No,” he said. “I lost them.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged. “It was years ago. We were all raised by my grandparents.”
“Here in Florence.”
“Seasonally. Everyone’s in Canada now. Have been for over a month.”
“Already establishing alibis?” Cooper said, which was maybe unfair but they were dealing with a wolf serial killer here. Between the two of them, Park wasn’t going to be the one with a critical eye for investigating his own family.
Park didn’t even blink. It was like he’d been expecting this. “Yes, Agent Dayton. That was the plan we all hatched together. They’d murder people and then I would specifically request to be put on the case so the BSI would be sure to know the Parks are werewolves. You got us bang to rights, guv’nor.”
Cooper smiled despite himself. “Why did you ask to be put on this case?”
“I grew up here. I didn’t like the idea of someone hunting here on my land.”
Cooper studied him. “Nah,” he said. “I don’t buy it.”
Park looked amused. “You’d prefer to think I requested this case because one of my family members is the killer?”
“No, no,” Cooper said. “You’re right. That would be stupid. And regardless of everything else, you’re obviously not stupid.”
“Just when I think you can’t get any sweeter, Special Agent Cooper Dayton, you add another coat of sugar,” Park said dryly. “You tell me then, why am I on this case?”
“I don’t know why,” Cooper said honestly. “But I know it’s not some bullshit territorial wolf no-hunting-on-my-land thing.”
“Oh? I didn’t realize they taught wolf psychology in your criminology master’s program,” Park said.
Cooper felt a brief jolt of surprise that Park had looked into his background and responded a little huffily, “You don’t need to know wolf psychology to pick up on the obvious. Your grandparents, your siblings, your nieces and nephews are all living here together or—” he held up his hand to cut off any protest “—traipsing over the border for the season, I know. Multiple generations all sticking together and you’re the only one plane-distance away? You’re not part of your family pack. Thus you have no...primal urge to protect their land.” It was a total shot in the dark, but as he said it Cooper felt confident he was right.
Park was looking at him with a curious expression on his face. “What?” Cooper said. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Not wrong,” Park said finally, and Cooper grinned, absurdly pleased with his off-the-cuff analysis. “You’re a lot more sensitive than you like to pretend to be,” Park continued, and the grin slid off Cooper’s face.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Sensitive? As in weak?
“No, I didn’t mean sensitive in that way,” Park said.
“In what way?”
“In whatever way that’s got your fur up, Dayton. I mean sensitive like you’re in tune to things around you. You pretend to be this act-first, think-later guy, but you pay attention. You’ve got a knack for noticing the little things.”
Cooper relaxed a little. “Reading cues is part of the FBI training. We’re all trained to do it.”
Park smiled at him. Clearly it was a “whatever you want to tell yourself” smile. “I don’t notice that much,” Cooper mumbled, bizarrely self-conscious all of a sudden. The hell was he doing? Was he so bent on arguing with Park that he couldn’t even take a compliment?
Cooper tried to shift the conversation. “I don’t even know your first name.”
“That right?” Park said seriously.
Cooper waited for him to say something else. When it was obvious he wasn’t going to tell him his name, Cooper muttered, “Fuck you.” He looked out the window as Park laughed. He had a nice laugh, warm and low. Cooper shifted in his seat. “Christ, how far out is this place? I thought Florence was a small town.”
“Small population,” Park said. “Lots of—” He stopped when Cooper’s cell vibrated. Sheriff Dayton, the screen said. Some people thought it was odd he had his dad listed like that, but they had never met the sheriff. Warm and fuzzy, he was not. Cooper let it ring and put it back in his pocket.
“So. Robert Gould. Twenty-three. Lives with his single mother. Works part-time doing trail maintenance for the Forest Service,” Cooper said, reciting the bare facts that had been in the vic profile. “What else do we know about him?” He hesitated, remembering something Miller had said yesterday. “Is he a wolf?”
Park raised his eyebrows at that. “Gould? No. I would have told you by now if he was. He’s a big guy, though. Got into a lot of, ah, physical altercations. He was the Florence High School wrestling team’s star. Everyone thought wrestling was his ticket out, including Robert. He’d walk on the mat and the crowd would chant, ‘Go for the Gould.’”
Cooper snorted. “That doesn’t even make sense unless they were rooting for his opponents.”
“And you say you don’t notice things. With insight like that I’d say we’re close to cracking this case wide-open.”
“You’re in a chipper mood today.”
“You’re in a talkative one,” Park replied, as if that explained it. Maybe it did. Cooper thought about what the waitress, Jenny, had said last night. About Park being a middle child and...the other thing. He shifted in his seat. Had he really been so standoffish yesterday? He winced.
“Okay, okay. So what happened to Gould’s dreams? His big ticket out?”
“Life happened. Ticket out didn’t have sufficient fare for the big, bad world. Dropped out of school. Disillusioned and destitute, he returned home to live with Mom after a couple of years. Did a lot of drinking. Did a lot of fighting. Ranger Christie got him a part-time job maintaining trails about a year ago.”
“How did Christie know him?”
“I don’t know. Sorry.”
“You knew a lot more than I did.”
“He was only a year behind one of my brothers. When I heard the name, I made a phone call. He filled me in on what he could.”
“What’s your brother’s name?”
“Park.” The wolf blinked at him innocently.
“Asshole,” Cooper said, but he couldn’t help smiling.
They followed Harris’s truck into a short driveway leading to a small white house. A big, beat-up SUV took up most of the drive, and Harris pulled partially onto the front lawn to make room. “That the vic’s car?” Cooper asked.
“No, Robert drove a Yamaha. They haven’t located it yet. That must be Mom’s ride.”
Cooper winced thinking of driving a motorcycle on roads like this. “Are we sure Gould and his bike aren’t in a ditch somewhere?”
“They did a trace on his cell. It was deactivated at 2:34 p.m. and hasn’t been on since. Presumably we can assume Gould was definitely taken by that time.”
They got out of the car and Harris smiled and waved, the picture of cheer, like it was some kind of fucking surprise them meeting up here like this. An assortment of small stone angels were placed around the house like a guard. Park eyed them with interest while Officer Harris knocked on the front door. It opened immediately and a middle-aged woman looked at them anxiously from the shadowy house.
“Robbie?” she said.
“No news yet, Mrs. Gould,” Harris said with an apologetic face. Thank god he’d tamped down that smile. “I’d like to introduce you to these gentlemen helping with Robbie’s investigation. They have a few questions for you.”
Cooper noticed Harris didn’t say “assisting with the search for Robbie.” Despite his cheerful attitude, the man didn’t seem to have any more doubts of how this was going to turn out for Gould than Cooper did.
“Mrs. Gould, my name is Special Agent Dayton with the BSI and this is my colleague, Agent Park. Do you mind if we come inside and ask you a couple of questions?”
Mrs. Gould nodded and stepped back to let the three of them into the house. They followed her down a narrow hall and into an outdated but clean kitchen. The house smelled faintly of old cigarettes. Someone here had once been a smoker, but not anymore.
As his eyes adjusted to the room, dark compared to outside, Cooper examined Mrs. Gould. She was thin, very thin, and looked exhausted. She had dry blond hair and dark circles under eyes that currently looked more red than blue. Despite the warm wet of the day, she wore a heavy sweater wrap over her tank top and her whole body had a slight but constant tremble. She stumbled a little sitting on one of the kitchen chairs. Cooper didn’t need a wolf’s enhanced senses to figure out Robert inherited his drinking problem from his mom. Of course, if his only son was missing or dead, you could probably find him on the bad-news end of a vodka bottle, too.
“Mrs. Gould, I know this is a very difficult time and that you’ve already talked to the police about this, but I would really appreciate it if you could walk us through the day you last saw Robbie.”
She rubbed a hand over her face. Her knuckles were cracked and red. “Robbie left the house around seven in the morning. He was working a half-day on the trails. That meant he was supposed to be back by two. When he wasn’t, I didn’t get too worried. I know he was planning on asking Ranger Christie for extra shifts. I thought... I thought maybe Christie gave them to him and he was starting today. When he wasn’t home by eleven that night, I started to get scared.”
“You called the police then?” Cooper asked.
“No, I still didn’t think anything was wrong. I was worried he’d gone to the Pumphouse.”
“Bar,” Harris offered. “Out of town a bit, off Route 35.”
“Did Robbie often go to the Pumphouse?”
“No, never,” Mrs. Gould protested.
Right, Cooper thought. “Why were you worried that he went there that night?” he asked as gently as possible.
“I’m not stupid,” she said. “I know Robbie likes to go out and have fun. I’m not saying he doesn’t. And when he has a couple drinks, sometimes he can get a little rowdy. Typical boy stuff.” Her voice was coming on real earnest. Too earnest.
“Sure,” Cooper said. Again, soothing, agreeing. “I know what it’s like at that age.” Unless Robbie was getting wine-drunk over his textbooks and blowing his “straight” roommate, Cooper did not in fact know what it was like at that age, but Mrs. Gould relaxed a little.
“He got into a few...disagreements. Roughhousing, you know. He didn’t talk to me about it. Didn’t want me to worry. But there was this one recently. A week ago Robbie came home really upset. I, ah, overheard him talking about it on the phone.”
Nothing like a landline for eavesdropping, Cooper thought. “Do you know who it was?”
She shook her head. “On the phone? No. But he mentioned someone named Sammie. He said he was going back to the Pumphouse to convince Sammie. I thought maybe it was a girl he liked or something and I tried to ask more, but Robbie got angry. Said he was a grown man who didn’t need his—” she swallowed dryly “—his mom butting into his business. I made him promise me he wouldn’t go there. No more fighting, I said. No more trouble. He promised me.” A small animal sound escaped her.
“Do you have any idea what Sammie’s last name is?” Mrs. Gould shook her head, lips pressed tight. “Did Robbie ever mention a Kyle Bornestein?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. Is Kyle a suspect?”
“No, ma’am.” If she didn’t know about the bodies found in the woods, Cooper wasn’t going to tell her. “What about a girlfriend or friends?”
“He doesn’t have a steady girlfriend. Not that he’s not handsome enough for it,” she added hastily. “A lot of Robbie’s friends are all at school now or moved away. I gave the officer a list of names—” she glanced at Harris, who smiled encouragingly “—but no one’s seen him. They didn’t even know he’s missing,” she whispered, and her voice cracked.
That was enough questioning. They wouldn’t get anything else useful out of Mrs. Gould. Cooper had already reviewed the list of Gould’s drinking buddies in the file who were not quite close enough to be good friends and were a definite dead end. There was no mention of a Sammie or Samantha there. “That’s very helpful, Mrs. Gould. Thank you. Could we take a look at Robbie’s room?”
“Yes, of course. It’s—”
“Please, don’t get up. If you could just tell me which door, you can stay here with Officer Harris. Maybe he can help you remember more about this Sammie that Robbie was upset about, okay?” He looked at Harris, who nodded. Park had resumed his closed-off and thoughtful look. But when Cooper headed down the hall to the bedroom, Park followed him.
Gould’s bedroom could have been that of a twenty-three-year-old man or a fifteen-year-old boy. Ripped posters hung all over the walls—Boston sports teams’ logos and various motorcycles with busty women dressed to risk the worst road rash ever. The bed was unmade and smelled stale. Dirty laundry littered the floor in clumps, like weeds.
“Well, this brings back memories,” Cooper said, and Park snorted. Cooper hadn’t been joking, though. His childhood bedroom hadn’t been so different from this, crusty socks and underdressed ladies included. The more it became clear he wasn’t going to be the son his father expected, the more he’d fought it.
Cooper glanced through the closet and bedside table. Finding nothing, he joined Park at the dresser covered in wrestling trophies, ribbons and framed photos. A faded homemade banner with gold spray paint hung on the wall above it.
“‘Go for the Gould,’” Cooper read out loud. “Well, he was clearly not ready to let go of the glory days.”
Park picked up one photo of five guys cheesing it up in front of a campfire and showed it to Cooper. He pointed to a hulking blond dude on the left. Not handsome exactly, but striking in his size. Huge, strong and laughing.
“That’s Robbie Gould,” Park said. He pointed to the boy Robbie had in a friendly headlock. The boy was more slender than Robbie, but then so were some redwoods. He had dark brown skin, big eyes and, despite being in a choke hold, appeared to be having even more fun than Robbie was. “That’s Samuel Whittaker.”
“You think he’s the Sammie that Robbie was fighting with?”
“I don’t know,” Park said slowly. He lowered his voice a little. “But the Pumphouse is a werewolf bar. And Sam Whittaker—” he tapped the smiling boy’s face again “—is a werewolf.”
Cooper clapped his hands together. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Park tilted his head and frowned, a gesture Cooper was quickly beginning to recognize as his “I think you’re wrong, but I won’t waste my breath saying it” face.
“You don’t agree?” Cooper said.
Park eyed him skeptically. “Does it matter to you if I agree?”
Cooper paused and struggled to find the right words. “I should have listened to your opinion yesterday. So I’d like to hear what you think now.” That didn’t quite cover it, but Cooper wasn’t entirely sure why he cared if Park didn’t agree. Of course the guy wasn’t happy the trail was leading to one of his own. But they had known it would ever since they saw the crime scene photos. It was why BSI was here.
Park opened his mouth to respond when Harris walked into the room. His face had hardened, making him look more like a bull than ever.
“They find Gould?” Cooper guessed. He thought of having to walk back into that dingy kitchen and tell Mrs. Gould her only son was dead and suppressed a wave of nausea.
“No,” Harris said. “I’ve got to head back to the station. Possible missing person.”
“Shit.” Cooper looked at Park and saw the same grimness he felt. “Another kidnapping doesn’t bode well for Gould.”
Harris looked startled and then shook his head. “No. This isn’t related.”
“How can you know?” Park asked.
“Female victim. Thirty-eight. Didn’t return home from her late shift at work last night. Her boss reports obvious signs of a struggle.” Harris grimaced. “Different victim, different M.O. You’re the experts, but I don’t see how this could have anything do with the dead men.”
“No. Probably not,” Cooper agreed. He looked at Park. “In that case, I think you and I should go on to Bornestein’s residence. You good with that?” Park nodded. “And Officer Harris, you’ll update us if anything comes up that ties the cases together?”
“Right,” Harris said, tiredly. He thumbed at the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache. “This used to be a nice town. A safe town. Now you can’t catch one devil before running into another. When did this world become overrun with sin?”
They bid an uncomfortable goodbye to Mrs. Gould, and after giving them directions and the keys to Bornestein’s house, Harris sped back toward town, leaving very deep, muddy grooves in the Goulds’ front yard. With the small stone angels standing by, Cooper couldn’t help but think they looked like dug graves waiting to be filled.
Overrun with sin.
He looked away and followed Park into the car.
“Do you know where Sam Whittaker lives?” Cooper asked once they’d driven a couple of miles in silence.
“Approximately. I know the neighborhood,” Park said. “I could figure it out from there,” he added with a significant look.
Cooper nodded. He had to admit the wolf partner thing had certain advantages.
“You want to track down Whittaker after Bornestien’s,” Park said. It was not a question.
“Uh, let’s see. An investigation where young men are being chewed up by wolves and a wolf known to have been fighting with Gould shortly before his disappearance? Damn right I want to have a chat with Whittaker.”
The way he said chat sounded ominous and threatening, like he was some ’70s crime show cop talking about helping a suspect remember what happened. The assessing look Park gave him made it clear he had picked up on the tone, too.
Cooper felt a twist of guilt in his stomach. But this was the way he was used to talking on a case. Jefferson always said they had the hardest jobs in the world. There was no precedent for what they were doing. On virgin ground, justice was sometimes a gray area. Had to be. He’d never had to think about what it sounded like to a wolf before.
Sometimes it was hard to remember Park was a wolf himself. He was just so...stable. Controlled. Self-contained.
Of course, it was obvious how dangerous Park could be if he wanted to. He was ripped as hell and nearly as big as Robbie Gould. But unlike Gould, it was a relaxed, effortless sort of strength. Cooper guessed Park was someone who had always been the most powerful guy in the room, had always known it, and felt no pressing need to prove it.
Cooper wasn’t envious of being a wolf, of course, but he did crave that sort of comfort in your own skin.
His phone rang again. Sheriff Dayton.
“You’re popular,” Park remarked lightly. “You want to take that? I can pull over, if you want,” he said, offering privacy.
No. Cooper really did not want to take it. He already knew what this was about. He was not ready to have this conversation, and he was certainly not interested in having this conversation in front of Park. But apparently his dad could not take a fucking hint and figure out he was busy. Or more likely, he just didn’t believe Cooper was busy.
“It doesn’t matter,” Cooper said brusquely, and accepted the call. “Dayton,” he said into the phone.
“Coop.” His father’s voice rumbled through the phone. The voice that always made him feel like a skinny little boy again. Hard and unwavering. Just like everything else about Sheriff Ed Dayton. His leadership, his political views, his parenting.
Of course, his father was a good man who’d done his best by his sons, and Cooper admired the hell out of him for it. It couldn’t have been easy becoming a widower and a single parent to two boys under fifteen.
But it wasn’t easy being one of those boys either and sometimes, as he’d gotten older, Cooper wondered if the sheriff’s “no weakness allowed” attitude was what he had really needed when he was eleven and had just lost his mom. There was no sense dwelling on that now.
He cleared his throat. “Dad. How are you?”
“Fine, son, fine. ’Cept I’ve been angling to get you on the line for two days.”
“I know. I’m on a case.”
“Sure,” his father said. “They don’t give you coffee breaks between meetings anymore?”
Cooper bit back a sigh. There was no point in explaining he wasn’t in meetings. Ever since he had chosen not to come home after college and instead pursued his master’s and applied to the FBI to work as a profiler—an apparently unforgivable show of elitism—his dad and brother seemed to think he wasn’t real law enforcement. Like the fact that he was required to own at least one suit now meant he must wear them all the time while sitting around boardrooms talking crime spikes and drinking espresso. It hadn’t helped that his descriptions of his job had only gotten more vague after joining the BSI.
“Anyway, son, are you coming home for Don’s retirement party next weekend?”
“Unless something with work comes up,” Cooper said, giving himself an out for later. His dad’s oldest buddy on the force was retiring and had invited Cooper to the send-off weeks ago. No matter how much he hated those kinds of events, he hated saying no to his dad even more. Better to just agree and make his excuses the day of. He did it so often Cooper sometimes wondered if his dad just expected it by now. This call wasn’t about that, though.
“All right, just wanted to make sure. I figured you could crash in your old room, unless you’d rather stay at your brother’s.”
“Either way,” Cooper said tiredly, looking out the passenger window. They were driving past a sparkling lake nestled between pine trees and cliffs. What was it about Maine water that made it look freezing no matter how warm or sunny the day was?
“You thinking of bringing somebody? We’d love to meet your girlfriend. I’m sure Don wouldn’t mind an extra guest.”
I’m sure he wouldn’t either, Cooper thought, remembering loud, nosy Donald. “You know I’m not seeing anyone,” he said instead, resisting the urge to glance at Park. God, he regretted answering the phone.
“Sure, sure.” His father chuckled. “A handsome young guy like you. I remember how it was. You’re not seeing any one.”
Cooper was unpleasantly reminded of Mrs. Gould talking about Robbie. Not that he’s not handsome enough for it. Like she was worried her son not having a girlfriend was a direct reflection on her. Why did parents feel like their adult children’s sex lives had a single goddamn thing to do with them?
He tried to imagine, not for the first time, telling his family he was gay. Then his dad wouldn’t be pushing him to bring anyone home. Not that he wouldn’t still have no one to bring anyway.
“Dad, I got to get back to work, okay?”
“Sure, sure. You know, with Don retiring, there’s a position opening up back here on the force.”
And here we go, Cooper thought. The real reason his dad was calling.
“I have a job. I like my job,” he said, trying to speak low. He glanced at Park, whose expression was blank, looking like he wasn’t paying any attention to their conversation. But how could he not? It was human nature. Or...whatever.
“’Course you do,” his father said. “But if you’re getting bored and want to get your boots back on the ground—”
“I’m not bored with the BSI, Dad.” That lost, unbalanced, sick feeling wasn’t boredom, was it?
“It’s a good opportunity here. You could work with your brother and me. I’m not far from retirement myself. I’d rest easy knowing there’d still be two Daytons taking care of Jagger Valley when I’m gone.”
“Dad—”
“Here you could think about settling down, having a family. No more traveling. A good, stable life with—”
“I really got to go, Dad. Can we talk about this later? Next weekend.”
His father sighed and Cooper could picture him leaning back in his desk chair, in an office a lot like Chief Brown’s, pulling on the graying hairs of his mustache, his face disappointed. “’Course, Coop. You think about it.”
After he hung up the car seemed oppressively silent. Cooper wanted to say something, anything to move past the moment and stop thinking of the phone conversation. To stop Park from thinking of the phone conversation.
Had he sounded as pathetic as he felt? He tried to imagine Park sidestepping, avoiding and lying to his own father. Not fucking likely.
“Parents, right?” he said weakly. “No one knows you better and no one understands you less.”
Park regarded him from the corner of his eye with an odd look, and Cooper nearly bit off his tongue realizing his mistake. “Shit, I didn’t—That was a dick thing to say.”
“It’s fine,” Park said. His face remained expressionless, but the tone of his voice, dismissive acceptance, seemed to imply it wasn’t anything less than what he expected.
“No. It’s not,” Cooper said firmly. “My mom died when I was a kid, so...” He didn’t know where he was going with that. He had just suddenly wanted Park to know he wasn’t alone. Or whatever. “So, I mean, I know it’s not fine,” he finished lamely.
Park glanced at him again. His gaze softened slightly and he looked almost puzzled and unsure before shaking his head and staring back at the road. After an awkward pause, he thankfully changed the subject. “So...your father wants you to follow in his footsteps.” Well, at least he had the decency not to pretend he hadn’t heard anything. It would have been hard for a human not to catch his dad’s reverberating voice in the closed car. Never mind a wolf.
“Yeah, law enforcement, three generations. I’m sort of the black sheep.” Cooper laughed, then stopped when he realized how bitter he sounded.
“You’re still in law enforcement.”
“Not like them, apparently.”
“Does he know what the BSI is?”
“That it’s an offshoot of the FBI? Yeah. The rest of it? No. We’re not allowed to talk about it, obviously.”
Park hummed. Cooper realized he did that a lot. A deep grumbling sound that was almost a response in itself. “No, not supposed to. But I’m sure some do. With their loved ones, anyway.”
Cooper shrugged. He didn’t doubt it. But he’d never told his dad or Dean about what the BSI really did. It had never even crossed his mind. Sure, he wished they respected him more, but telling them about wolves wasn’t the effective way to go about it.
“They—my dad and brother—wouldn’t want to know,” he said.
“No? I would have thought you were an advocate for full disclosure,” Park said, referencing the controversial movement that wolves come all the way out. To the whole public. The idea being that everyone had a right to know that werewolves lived amongst them for their own safety.
Cooper heard a lot of whispering about it around the office and thought the whole thing sounded like a recipe for disaster. Why would Park think he’d be a full-disclosure supporter? He doubted the answer would be flattering and wasn’t sure he was up for asking.
“They’re the sort of guys happy believing what they’ve always believed. Most people are. I’m not saying it’s a good thing to be. But disrupting that would just start a panic. Panicked people do stupid, violent things. No one would be happier. Or safer,” he added.
Park had on that slightly surprised and thoughtful expression again, and Cooper became uncomfortably aware that he sounded a lot like a fucking Trustee, choosing wolf safety and right to privacy over his own family. It was an uncomfortable thought to have. He certainly didn’t know why he was discussing it with Park of all people. How had they started talking about this?
“Tell me why you don’t think Sam Whittaker is our guy.”
“I didn’t say that, did I?” Park said, easily accepting the abrupt change in topic.
“No. But you were thinking it. I’m sensitive, remember?”
Park flashed a rare full smile. The scar on his upper lip disappeared. “I’m just not ready to jump to any conclusions before we find a connection between Whittaker and Kyle Bornestein.”
Cooper shrugged again. He was sure they’d find a connection between Whittaker and the other victims soon enough.
Finally, they pulled into the mobile park and located Bornestein’s trailer. It was a bit more ragged than the other homes around it. No tiny gardens or porch ornaments for #32. Cooper got the distinct feeling they were being watched as he fit the key into the door under the yellow crime scene tape. He glanced over his shoulder but didn’t see anyone.
“Nosy neighbors will be nosy,” Park said, and twitched an eyebrow to confirm they were being observed. He wasn’t looking over his shoulder but, Cooper supposed, he wouldn’t need to.
They walked into the trailer and Cooper’s eyes took a moment to adjust. Then he saw all the eyes looking right at him.
“Jesus fuck.” Cooper stumbled back and slammed into a very warm and solid Park.
Park steadied him with one hand on his hip and flipped the trailer light on with his other. “S’okay. They’re dead,” he said.
Cooper shivered, which could have been a reaction to Park’s voice, close enough that it tickled his ear, or the number of stuffed animals all staring in various degrees of horror at them. Not the cute and cuddly kind—the taxidermy kind.
He realized he was still pressed firmly against Park, back to chest, ass to crotch. He felt blood rush to his face and yanked away. “I know. I just don’t like...” Dead animals, he was going to say but realized how wimpy that sounded. “Fuckery like this.”
“Not many do,” Park said, eyeing a snarling raccoon with vague distaste. “Shall we split up?”
It was a pretty standard single-bedroom home with the bedroom and bathroom to the left, a kitchen to the right and a living area taking up most of the middle. It was a lot dingier than Gould’s house. Dingier than Gould’s bedroom, even. Where there weren’t dead stuffed critters on display, there were muddy boots, fishing poles, crossbows and rifles stacked neatly in a gun case. Unloaded, thank god. Cooper checked each one. Florence didn’t need any more tragedy if it could help it.
Cooper started in the bedroom. Flannel sheets, a stack of porn DVDs by the bed, a couple of empty cans of beer on the floor and, of course, more animals.
Most were small game like fox, rabbits, birds, a couple of big fish mounted on the wall. But there were buck heads too, and what looked like a coyote in the corner. In Cooper’s opinion the amount of taxidermy had crossed the line from that of an enthusiastic hunter into Norman Bates territory.
He wandered into the living room. Taking up most of the space was expensive, top-of-the-line weight-lifting equipment. Against the wall was a bureau with a stereo, the old sort with no AUX plugin for an mp3. The CD tray was empty. Cooper turned the stereo on. Talk radio blasted through the room.
He left it on and sat down on the weight bench.
“I’m a twenty-eight-year-old male,” Cooper whispered, hoping the radio was loud enough to cover his voice from Park. “I live alone. I don’t clean because I don’t get visitors. But I’m neat with what I care about, my guns. They’re important to me. The most important thing I have here. Why?”
Cooper lay back on the bench. The faux leather smelled fresh and new. More chemical, less dried sweat. He reached up to wrap his hands around the barbell. Large seventy-five-pound weights had been left on. One hundred fifty pounds in total.
“I work out at home. No one here to spot me. Because I’m not good with people. Considered a loner. But I am good at hunting. Thus the guns, thus the dead animals. Trophies. Trophies equal respect. Need to be surrounded by them always. Because I crave respect. I don’t get it anywhere else. That would make me angry. Frustrated.”
Cooper sighed and let the argumentative voice on the radio wash over him. Yelling at no one. Something about change. Change is bad. Who’s changing our country? A dour-sounding woman phoned in to suggest “those people.”
Cooper shook his head, stood and turned the radio off. And some people thought full disclosure of wolves’ existence was a good idea. The world was struggling to protect marginalized peoples from ignorance, hate and fear as it was. How would the hysterical masses ever accept werewolves who could legitimately hurt them?
He followed the clawing scent of rotting food to the kitchen.
Park was standing over a small table covered in open mail with a frown on his face. Cooper wondered if having enhanced senses was ever actually a negative thing. If so, this kitchen could certainly qualify as a trigger.
“Judging from the open display of porn and cleanliness of the sheets, I don’t think Bornestein had company that often. I couldn’t find anything connecting him to Gould. Or Whittaker,” Cooper added a little grudgingly. Not that that proved or disproved shit. “You got anything?”
“Looks like Bornestein went on a bit of a spending spree recently,” Park said, tapping the mess of receipts and bills on the table, a credit card statement on top.
“Any sign he bought a TV or computer?”
“Nope. Just gym equipment and lots of hunting gear. Why?”
“I couldn’t find either in the house. But he’s got DVDs. That’s weird, isn’t it?”
“Maybe he watched them at a friend’s.”
“Sluts R Us? What kind of aperitifs do you serve with that?”
“Pigs in a blanket?” Park suggested with a blank face.
Cooper rolled his eyes. “Are you done here?” He was anxious to get out, back into some fresh air. All the sightless eyes and glorified death was making him jumpy.
“Something bothering you, Agent Dayton?”
“Nope. Just want to solve this case. And go home and hug my very live cat.”
“Should have known you were a cat person.”
“Why, because I don’t like you?” Cooper muttered as Park left the trailer.
Park called over his shoulder, “Because you’re an antisocial asshole.”
Cooper laughed despite himself. He followed Park out and locked up Bornestein’s house. When he turned, Park was knocking on the home facing Bornestein’s.
Cooper hurried to catch up. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
“Canvassing.” Park blinked at him with faux innocence. “Nosy neighbors will be nosy. Remember?”
“Canvas—we don’t even—”
The door opened and a scraggly-looking man in his late twenties looked out suspiciously from behind the screen door. “What do you want?”
Cooper shook off his aggravation. “Sir? My name is Special Agent Dayton with the BSI, and this is my colleague, Agent Park. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions about your neighbor Kyle Bornestein?”
“BSI? Yeah, right. You think I’m stupid? The hell is that? Bull Shit Incorporated?” The man crossed his hairy arms.
“We’re a branch of the FBI,” Cooper said patiently.
“Oh really?” The man laughed, looking him up and down.
Cooper struggled not to fidget. He was sure he looked like a mess. It had been a long morning of drinking bad coffee in the evidence room with no air-conditioning, too many car rides and rooting through Gould’s pungent closet. Christ. Never mind Bornestein’s kitchen—what the hell must he smell like to Park now? Stupid thought.
“Yes, really,” Cooper said forcefully.
“Well, I’ve never heard of you,” the man snapped, and started to close the door.
“Mr. Montgomery?” Park interrupted, and the man froze. “Mr. Thomas Montgomery?”
“How do you know my name? Wiretapping? Going through my mail? That’s a federal crime, which you’d know if you were really FBI,” he said.
“Not at all, Mr. Montgomery. I promise you, your name came up through a...different avenue.”
Cooper raised an eyebrow. He had no idea what Park was talking about, but it sure sounded ominous and Montgomery was looking nervous.
“Now, we’re not here to follow up on your homegrown pot business,” Park continued in a pleasant but commanding voice that somehow sounded more menacing than if he’d been yelling. “We simply don’t have the time.” He gave a big shrug. “We’ll be too busy pursuing all the information you’re going to give us. At least, I think we will be,” he added, looking between Montgomery and Cooper with an exaggerated expression of confusion.
It was over-the-top, almost campy and so unexpected Cooper had to bite down a smile. To cover it up he gave his best bad-cop sneer and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know, Park, I got a lot of free time opening up.”
“Ruh-roh,” Park said, face twisted in worry. Cooper coughed.
“All right, all right. You don’t have to be assholes about it. What do you want to know?”
“Tell us about Kyle Bornestein. What was he like?”
“He was a fuckin’ freak,” Montgomery said. “When I moved in I thought, ‘Okay, cool, here’s a dude my own age. Should be more chill than Mrs. Osteoporosis McGlover next door.’ Uhh, wrong.”
“What made you think he was weird?” Cooper asked.
“Dude, I saw you go inside his place. What the hell do you think? Give me prune juice with Mrs. M. any day over one second over there in Death Valley. And it wasn’t just that. He was, I don’t know, intense. About everything. Running around with weights on at six in the morning. Working out. Hunting. Politics. Taking potshots at fucking chipmunks. Chipmunks, man. C’mon.”
“Did you notice anything different about him before he disappeared?”
Montgomery shrugged. “Uh, maybe he got more intense? Field Start fired him a few months ago.”
“Field Start?” Cooper asked.
“Sporting-goods-slash-hardware store. That gave him more time to be more weird, I guess?”
“He say why they fired him?”
“According to Kyle, he left them because he had something big in the works. ‘Sitting on a mine,’ he kept saying. Yeah, right. Everyone knows he was fired for stealing shit. Guess his gold mine needed fencing he couldn’t afford to buy.”
“Did Kyle talk about having any friends or family in the area?”
“I don’t know. A couple guys he would hunt with used to come around. But I think even they thought he was a nut job. I haven’t seen anyone for a while. Not until the cops started showing up anyway.”
“Do you have any friends or family in the area?” Park asked.
“What the fuck? Is that a threat? Is he threatening me?” Montgomery asked Cooper.
Cooper wasn’t sure what he was doing. “Answer the question, Mr. Montgomery.” He sniffed the air dramatically. He couldn’t smell anything, but he figured Park hadn’t been bullshitting about the pot.
Montgomery shook his head. “No, I don’t have friends or family in this area. Or any area. But Mrs. M. would notice if I was gone, so don’t get any ideas.”
“Has anything out of the ordinary occurred in your life recently? Any fights or strange run-ins? Have you felt threatened at all?” Park continued.
“Besides this charming encounter? No.”
“Did Kyle ever mention a Robbie Gould?”
“The missing guy? Nah, I don’t think so.”
“What about Sam Whittaker?” Cooper said.
“Never heard of him.”
“What about this guy? Has he ever been around?” Park pulled the photo he’d shown Cooper at Gould’s out of his pocket and pointed to Whittaker. Cooper’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t even noticed Park snag the photo. The wolf was slick.
“Nope. Don’t recognize him.”
“Okay, thank you, Mr. Montgomery.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Be safe,” Park said, and smiled cheerfully.
They started to walk back to the car when Cooper turned. “Just one more thing. Did Bornestein ever bring movies over to watch at your house?”
“What? No. Hell no.”
“Maybe he asked to borrow your computer then?”
“No way. I told you we weren’t friends. Besides, he had his own.”
“His own computer? Are you sure?”
“Oh yeah. He was on it all the time. Mrs. M. was always complaining he was stealing her Wi-Fi. Slowing her down.” He gestured at the trailer immediately next to Bornestein’s.
“What happened to the computer?”
“The cops came and took all that stuff. Duh.” Montgomery frowned. “What did you say BSI was again?”
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Montgomery.”
“Did you get anything out of that, Columbo?” Park murmured as they got into the car and pulled out of the park.
Cooper shrugged, still piecing it together, and, as usual, Park didn’t push. They slipped into silence. The rumble and bump of the car on the pitted road the only sound between them.
Cooper should be grateful for the space, or at least used to it. As good a partner as Jefferson was, he did have the tendency to go AWOL sometimes and leave Cooper to play catch-up. But he and Park had had a rhythm going back there. It had been, well, nice. The silence was not. More than that he realized he was curious to hear Park’s opinion. So maybe the guy was just a politician for the Trust, but he’d still asked some good questions.
And he had a way with people. Winning over Christie, soothing the lost local from the search party, joking with Jenny. Even while getting Montgomery to talk to them he’d been charming, in a way. Park seemed to be able to read people and slip into whatever role they expected. Being what people expected made them more likely to relax their guard around him. It wasn’t a bad trait in an agent. Or partner.
Cooper frowned at that. What if Park was doing it with him as well? Playing the role he thought Cooper wanted to see. But he dismissed the worry. Park was far from what Cooper expected. And Cooper wasn’t getting comfortable with him...he was just trying to make it work, like Santiago said.
He cleared his throat. “So. What was all that about having family and friends in the area?”
Park tilted his head. “Why do you think our unsub took Bornestein and not Montgomery?”
“What do you mean?”
“Everything we’ve found so far indicates that our two victims, Gould and Bornestein, didn’t know each other, right? In which case would you say we’re probably looking for a serial killer?”
“It’s looking that way,” Cooper conceded. Serial killers were a lot more rare than network television made it seem, but with no links or overlap of acquaintances of the victims so far, it was a theory that needed to be considered.
“The only thing the victims have in common is that they’re all men in their twenties,” Park continued. “Montgomery’s also a man in his twenties, and he’s a lot lower-risk than Kyle Bornestein. Bornestein was strange, but he had some friends. He even went hunting with a police officer who noticed when he went missing. Montgomery doesn’t have that. Bornestein’s obsessed with keeping fit and his house is packed with weapons he knows how to use to defend himself. Montgomery’s 140 pounds, tops, and a stoner. If you’re looking for a young adult male victim, why Kyle and not the more vulnerable Montgomery? What is it about Bornestein that makes him our unsub’s type?”
“Maybe in this case not being vulnerable is part of the victimology,” Cooper suggested, remembering his alpha-male theory. He immediately felt stupid for saying it, but Park was looking at him with avid interest.
“Go on,” Park said.
“Just that if Bornestein and Gould have anything else in common, it’s that they’re both fighters in a way. The ME report indicates our John Doe was in peak physical condition as well. Maybe that’s important to our unsub.”
“So you agree these aren’t personal crimes. We’ve got a serial killer hunting down fit men who can fight back.”
“That doesn’t rule out Sam Whittaker,” Cooper argued. “It may have been personal with Gould and the others were just substitutes for his rage. I still want to talk to him tonight.”
Park surprised Cooper by agreeing.
They drove in silence until Cooper said, “What you did back there getting Montgomery to talk—” He paused. “It was—you know. I’m glad it worked. I guess you, ah, sniffed out the weed?”
Park nodded.
“But how’d you figure out his name? Super hearing? Was he on the phone or something?”
“Nah, I actually did take a peek in his mailbox,” Park admitted bashfully. And then, looking a little concerned, added, “I mean, it’s only a crime if you open the mail, right?”
Cooper was still smiling when they got to Whittaker’s house.
Sam Whittaker was not at home. Park said so as soon as they’d arrived, and after ringing the bell with no answer for a couple minutes Cooper agreed and got back in the car with Park to wait. They had found his little bungalow easily enough at the end of a quiet little street, though Park didn’t do the nose-to-the-ground tracking Cooper had been expecting. He just sort of breathed deeply and looked around as if trying to spot a friend in a crowded room. Cooper felt stupid for expecting anything else. He’d almost been hoping Park would transform. It was really rare for wolves to shift while agents were pursuing them, which was probably part of the reason Syracuse had turned into such a disaster.
Cooper wondered why they didn’t shift more often. Did it hurt? Was there some kind of rule against it? He thought about asking Park but nipped that in the bud. It seemed too...personal. He’d already talked way more about himself than he’d ever planned. Keep the conversation on the case and your head in the game.
Cooper realized Harris hadn’t phoned to update them on the missing woman. Not that he’d promised he would, but in a town this size and a series of crimes this unclear, it was good not to rule anything out as irrelevant no matter how unlikely it seemed that they were connected.
“I’m going to take a walk around the perimeter,” Park said, opening the driver-side door and stepping out. The sounds of the late afternoon poured into the car. Crickets and birds talking shit about one another at top volume. The push-and-pull of predator and prey everywhere you looked. Park leaned into the car. “Would you like to join me?”
Cooper shook his head. “I’m going to call Harris about that missing woman.” He paused. “Unless, you think—do you need backup?”
Park smiled a little wryly. “No. I don’t.” He closed the door and strolled around the front of the car.
“Well, excuse me for breathing,” Cooper muttered to himself, and saw Park smile as if he’d heard. Maybe he had.
Cooper dialed Harris. As the phone rang, he watched Park meander down the sidewalk toward Whittaker’s place, hands shoved into his pockets, as casual as you please. Cooper half expected to see him start whistling.
The officer finally picked up, voice gruff and tense. “Harris.”
“Officer Harris, this is Dayton.”
“Agent Dayton.” Harris’s voice lightened and relaxed. “Is something wrong?”
“No. We’re just waiting on a lead. What’s the story with your missing person?”
“Waitress didn’t pick up her kid from the sitter’s last night. When her boss showed up to open the bar this afternoon, he found she’d never locked up. Signs of a struggle on scene.”
“Any possible connection to our case?”
Harris hesitated. “We’re still looking into that.”
Cooper checked his watch and frowned. “Still?”
“Believe me, I know,” Harris commiserated. “But with the search parties and Miller out, we’ve been a little shorthanded over here. We don’t have the resources you folks in Washington have.”
Park reappeared on the other side of Whittaker’s place and paused on the street corner.
“Okay. So why didn’t the sitter report her missing last night?”
“Her shift ended after 1 a.m. So as not to wake the kid, the sitter said it wasn’t abnormal for Mom to come by for pickup in the morning instead.”
“After one? I didn’t think anything in this town was open that late.”
Harris laughed. “They’re not. Bear’s Den is the exception to that rule.”
Cooper’s gut tightened unpleasantly. “Bear’s Den?”
“Yeah, that’s where our waitress worked. Kind of a dive bar and food.”
“What’s her name?”
“Jennifer Eagler.”
“Shit,” Cooper said. Jenny. The waitress at the bar last night. Park’s friend.
“What, do you know her?”
“I know someone who does.”