Victoria Nelson - Blood Trail Part 12

"The Heerkens ..."

"Yes?"

"... the whole family ..."

She leaned forward herself.

"... are ..."

Their noses were practically touching.

"... nudists."Vicki blinked and sat back, momentarily speechless.

Frederick Kleinbein sat back as well and nodded sagely, his jowls bobbing an independent emphasis.

"They must keep clothes on for you so far." Then his entire face curved upward in a beatific smile. "Too bad, eh?"

"How do you know this?" Vicki managed at last.

The sausage ringer waggled again. "I see things. Little things. Careful people, the Heerkens, but sometimes there are glimpses of bodies. That's why the big dogs, to warn them to put on clothes when people come." He shrugged. "Everyone knows. Most peoples, they say bodies are bad and go out of way to avoid Heerkens but me, I say who cares what they do on own land." He waved a hand at the raspberry bushes. "Kids are happy. What else matters? Besides," this time the smile carne accompanied by a decidedly lascivious waggling of impressive eyebrows, "they are very nice bodies."

Vicki had to agree. So the surrounding countryside thought the Heerkens were nudists, did it? She doubted they'd have been able to deliberately create a more perfect camouflage. What people believe defines what people see, and people looking for flesh were not likely to find fur.

And it's a h.e.l.l of a lot easier to believe in a nudist than a werewolf.

Except that someone,she reminded herself, feeling the weight of the second silver bullet dragging at her bag,isn't following the party line.

Although his nephew's jeep was still in the driveway, Mark himself appeared to be nowhere around.

Carl sat down at the kitchen table and leaned his head in his hands, thankful for the time alone. The boy was his only sister's only son, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, and the only family he had remaining.

Family must be more important then personal opinion.

Wasit asin, he wondered, that he couldn't findit in his heart to care for Mark? That he didn't even like him very much?Carl suspected he was being used as a refuge of some sort. Why else would this nephew he hadn't seen in years suddenly appear on his doorstep for an indefinite stay? The boy - the man - was a sinner, there was no doubt about that. But he was also family and that fact had to outweigh the other.

Perhaps the Lord had sent Mark here, at this time, to be saved. Carl sighed and rubbed at a coffee ring on the table with his thumb. He was an old man and the Lord had asked a great deal of him lately.

Should I ask Mark where he goes at night?

Do I have the strength to know?

Seven.

"These are our south fields, this is the conservation area, Mr. Kleinbein lives here, and here's old man Biehn's place." Peter squinted down at his sketch, then dragged another three lines into the dirt. "These are the roads."

"The Old School Road's crooked," Rose pointed out, leaning over his shoulder.

"There's a rock in the way."

"So do it here ..." She suited the action to the words, smoothing her palm over his road and drawing in a new one with her fingertip. "... and you avoid the rock."

Peter snorted. "Then it's at the wrong angle."

"Not really. It still goes from the corner down. ..."

"Down the wrong way," her brother interrupted."Does not!"

"Does so!"

They both had lips and fingers stained with berry juices and Vicki marveled at how easily they could switch from adults to children and back again. She'd decided on the drive back from Mr. Kleinbein's - who had parted from her with a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" adjuration to keep her eyes open - not to tell them about the local belief that they were nudists. She hadn't quite decided whether or nor she was going to mention it to their Uncle Stuart; mostly because she doubted he'd care.

"You've got to bring the crossroads up here!"

"Do not."

"Do so!"

"It doesn't matter," Vicki told them, stopping the argument cold. The wer, she'd realized while watching them draw the neighborhood on a bald patch of lawn, had very little sense of mapping. Although they probably knew every bush and every fence post on their own territory, the dimensions Peter had drawn were not the dimensions Vicki remembered. She frowned and pushed her gla.s.ses back up her nose. "As near as I can tell, here's the tree. And here's where I ended up coming out of the woods."

"Butwhy didn't you just follow your back trail?" Rose asked, still confused on that point despite explanations.

Vicki sighed. The wer also had a little trouble dealing with the concept ofgetting lost.

Before they could reopen the subject of noses, a small black head shoved itself under Vicki's hand as Shadow crept forward, trying to get a better look at what was going on.Peter grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him back. "Get out of there you, you'll mess it up."

"No, it's all right." Vicki stood, dusting off the seat of her shorts. The gra.s.s on the lawn was spa.r.s.e and bare dusty patches were common. "I think I've seen as much as I can here." She should be inside making phone calls; this really wasn't helping.

Shadow squirmed in his cousin's grasp and, when Peter released him, turned into a very excited small boy. "Show Vicki your trick, Peter!"

Under his tan, Peter turned a little red. "I don't think she wants to see it, kiddo."

"Yes she does!" Daniel bounced over to Vicki. "You do, don't you?"

She didn't, but how could she say no in the face of such determined enthusiasm? "Sure I do."

He bounced back over to Peter. "See!"

Peter sighed and surrendered."All right,"he reached out and tugged at the lock of hair falling into Daniel's eyes. "Go and get it."

Barking shrilly, Shadow raced off to the front of the house.

"Is he talking when he does that?" Vicki wondered aloud.

"Not really." Rose's ears p.r.i.c.ked forward toward the sound. "Fur-form noises are kind of emoting out loud."

"So Shadow's barking translates into 'Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy'?"

The twins looked at each other and laughed. "Close enough," Rose admitted.

Shadow raced back silently, but only, Vicki suspected, because the huge yellow frisbee he carried made barking impossible. He dropped it at Peter's feet - it looked more than a little chewed - and sat back, panting expectantly.

Peter skimmed out of his shorts and scooped up the plastic disk. "You ready?" he asked.

The entire back end of Shadow's body wagged.

Looking not unlike an ancient Greek discus thrower, Peter whipped the frisbee into the air. Shadow took off after it and a heartbeat later so did Storm. Muscles rippling under his russet coat, he raced past the smaller wer, drew his hindquarters under and flung himself into the air, jaws spread, ready to clamp his teeth down on the rim of the disk.

Only to have it s.n.a.t.c.hed out of his grasp by a larger black wer who hit the ground running with both Storm and Shadow in hot pursuit.

Rose giggled, thrust her sundress into Vicki's hands and Cloud took off after them. They raced around the yard for a moment or two then, working as a team, Cloud and Storm cut the larger wer off and jumped it. Shadow, still barking whenever he managed to find a spare breath, threw himself on the mix of tumbling bodies.

A moment later, Nadine looked up out of the pile of multicolored fur, tossed the frisbee to one side and grinned at Vicki. "So, you about ready for lunch?"

"We found tracks, not five hundred yards from the house." The words were almost an unintelligible growl. The silence that followed them took only a few seconds to fill with answering anger.

Nadine crossed the kitchen and clutched at her mate's arm. "Whose?" she demanded. "Whose tracks?"

"We don't know."

"But the scent. ..."

"Garlic. The trail reeks of nothing but garlic."

"How old?" Peter wanted to know.

"Twelve hours. Maybe a little more. Maybe a little less." Stuart's hair was up and he couldn't remain still, pacing back and forth with jerky steps.

If Ebon had been shot from that tree in the woods, as all evidence seemed to suggest he had, five hundred yards and twelve hours meant the a.s.sa.s.sin had come within range of the house sometime last night.

"Maybe you'd all better stay at a hotel, in town, until this is over," Vicki suggested, knowing even as the words left her mouth what the reaction was going to be.

"No!" Stuart snapped, turning on her. "This is our territory and we will defend it!"

"He's not after your territory," Vicki pointed out, her own voice rising. "He's after your lives! Take them out of his range, just for a time. It's the only sensible thing to do!"

"We will not run."

"But if he can get that close, you can't protect yourselves from him."Stuart's eyes narrowed and his words were nearly lost in his snarl. "It will not happen again."

"How do you propose to stop it?" This was worse than arguing with Celluci.

"We will guard. ..."

"You haven'tbeen guarding!"

"He has not been on our territory before!"

Vicki took a deep breath. This was getting nowhere fast. "At least send the children away."

"NO!".

Stuart's response was explosive and Vicki turned to Nadine for help. Surelyshe'd understand the necessity of sending the children to safety.

"The children must stay within the safety of the pack." Nadine held a solemn looking Daniel very tightly, one hand stroking his hair. Daniel, in turn, held tight to his mother.

"This coward with a gun does not run this pack." Stuart yanked his chair out from the table and threw himself down on it. "And his actions will not rule this pack. We will live as we live." He jabbed his finger at Vicki. "You will find him!"

He wasn't angry at her, Vicki realized, but at himself, at his perceived failure to protect his family. Even so, the heat of his gaze forced her to look away. "I will find him," she said, trying not to resent the strength of his rage.Let's just hope I find him in time.Lunch began as an a.s.sault; meat ripped and torn between gleaming teeth, an obvious surrogate for an enemy's throat. Fortunately for Vicki's piece of mind, things calmed down fairly quickly, the wer - especially the younger wer - being incapable of sustaining a mood for any length of time when distracted by the more immediate concerns of who forgot to take the b.u.t.ter out of the fridge and just where exactly was the salt.

The entire family ate in human form, more or less in human style.

"It makes it easier on the kids when they go back to school," Nadine explained, putting Daniel's fork into his hand and suggesting that he use it.

The cold mutton accompanying the salad was greasy and not particularly palatable, but Vicki was so relieved it was cooked that she ate it gladly.

"Ms. Nelson went to see Carl Biehn this morning," Peter announced suddenly.

"Carl Biehn?" Donald glanced over at Stuart, whose ears had gone back again, then at Vicki. "Why?"

"It's important I talk to the neighbors," Vicki explained, shooting a look of her own at the dominant male.

"I need to know what they might have seen."

"He hasn't been around here for years," Nadine said emphatically. "Not since Stuart ran him off for frightening the girls. Jennifer had nightmares about hisG.o.d for months."

Stuart snorted. "G.o.d. He wouldn't know a real G.o.d if it bit him on the b.u.t.t. Old fool's a gra.s.seater."

Vicki blinked. "What?"

"Vegetarian," Rose translated."Did he tell you that?"

"Didn't have to." Stuart cracked a bone and sucked out the marrow. "He smells like a gra.s.seater."

Donald tossed a heel of bread onto the table and dusted his hands off against his bare thighs. "He stopped me in town once and pointed out the evils of giving life to animals only to kill them."

"He did it to me once too but I pointed out that killing animals was easier than eating them alive." Peter tossed a radish up into the air, caught it between his teeth, and crunched down with the maximum possible noise.

"Like majorly gross, Peter!" Jennifer made a disgusted face at her cousin, who only grinned and continued devouring his lunch.

"You don't think it's old man Biehn, do you, Vicki?" Rose asked quietly, pitching her voice under the general noise level around the table.

Did she? Living so close, Carl Biehn had opportunity to both accidentally discover the wers' secret and access the tree the shots had come from. He was in good physical condition for a man his age and deeply held religious beliefs were historically a tried and truemotive for murder. He had, however, expressed an abhorrence for killing that Vicki believed and, besides a sneaker tread he shared with all and sundry, no evidence linked him to the crimes. The fact that she'd liked him, as subjective as that was, had to be considered. Good cops develop a sensitivity to certain personality types that, no matter how carefully hidden, set off subconscious alarms. Carl Biehn seemed like a decent human being and they were rare.