“Talk to you later, Debbie.” He hung up as he reached the area where the killing had taken place.
He hated that tens of thousands of leghold traps and snares were legally set up on Montana’s public lands and along waterways. Reportedly, fifty thousand wild animals were trapped a year, but trappers weren’t required to check traps regularly or report numbers. People and pets could be the victims, as well as any other animal the hunter wasn’t interested in capturing. One of the former vice presidents of the Montana Trappers Association had agreed that trappers cause pain and suffering to animals, but would apologize to no one. Really a sad state of affairs.
Allan reached the murder scene and found yellow police tape roping it off. He left his vehicle, smelling around the area for the scent of the trapper who had set the leghold trap. Allan was careful not to look like he was trying to breathe in scents in case the killer was in the area observing.
He found the victim’s blood splattered all over the fresh snow. Tracks were everywhere from the wolves who found the victim and the humans who had come to retrieve her body. He looked around at the thick pine forest and where the trap had been set near a tree, buried by the snow. He tried to sense if the murderer was in the area. The trappers were a danger to them all. But this guy, even more so.
So many people had been in the area, it was hard to say who might have done this. Allan followed boot tracks in the snow for over a mile, then went back and followed another set of tracks. None of them led him to anything suspicious. Tons of tire tracks were on an old logging trail nearby too—the ambulance and police vehicles for sure. So again, nothing that could help him.
Once he climbed back into his vehicle and shut the door, he called Paul. “I didn’t find anything that stood out to me.”
“I just got the preliminary report on the autopsy. She was shot five times, and all the rounds were silver.”
“He has to be a werewolf hunter then.”
“You know, we’ve been thinking it’s a he, but it might have been a she. Some of the murdered woman’s wolf fur was stuck to the blood on the jaws of the trap, though the coroner believes that a wolf had been caught earlier. Rose and Lori identified it as the woman’s fur by its smell. So the victim couldn’t have been a new wolf or she couldn’t have been in her wolf form.”
“We need to put this guy down.”
“I’d like to, but as long as the killer might be human and the police are involved, we have to let the homicide detectives working the case deal with it. We’ve got to catch the guy before they do to determine if he’s one of our kind now. If we catch him and he’s still human, we turn him over to the police. I’ve let everyone know to be extra vigilant if they think they’re being followed. I don’t want anyone to see our families except for you and me. I don’t want him to identify anyone else as a pack member so no one else will be put in harm’s way.”
“Agreed.” Allan couldn’t believe what a nightmare this could be for all of them.
“We have another situation that arose. Lori went to see Franny and she wants to speak with you about her car crash. Lori thought maybe she was confused, but Franny was adamant it wasn’t an accident.”
“That’s what she told me. She talked to Debbie about it too.”
“Franny knows you’re the only one in the pack available to investigate it right now, but I think there’s something else she’s hiding.”
“From Lori?”
“Yeah. If you’re going to investigate this, she’ll have to tell you what she knows.”
“All right. I’ll drop by the clinic next.” What else could go wrong?
*
“Hey, Debbie,” Rowdy said, meeting up with her as she headed to the clinic lobby. She was ready to get takeout somewhere close by and then work on the accident report back at the sheriff’s office. She was relieved Franny and baby Stacy were doing well.
She was surprised to see Rowdy here, since he was a homicide detective.
“Hey,” she said, disliking the speculative gleam in his eyes.
He glanced around the lobby and, seeing it was empty, said to her, “I heard you were here by yourself and wondered where your partner had gone.”
She shrugged it off. “He had a minor family crisis.”
Rowdy raised his brows.
She suspected then that he knew something she didn’t and that it wasn’t good news. Especially since he was a homicide detective. But if someone in Allan’s family had been murdered, she was certain Allan would have told her. “Well, spill.”
“Allan’s twin sister and Paul’s wife were hiking in the woods when they came across a body near Paul’s cabin. Didn’t he tell you?”
Chapter 4