The squirrel’s fur was torn, probably by some bird of prey. Kay walked to one of the windows. She brushed aside the cobwebs, cupped her hands and tried to peer inside but found herself staring at a wooden shutter that must have been nailed across on the inside. The other windows were covered in the same way. Maybe the idea was to discourage thieves, or to stop people seeing what was inside. Or maybe it was both.
Kay put her back against the wall beside the door, gripped her pistol tightly.
“Police! Open the door!”
The total silence that followed did not give Kay the feeling she was alone. Instead she felt as though a thousand ears were listening. She held her breath. No sounds from inside. She studied the lock on the door. It was shiny, new looking.
Kay hesitated.
She didn’t have a search warrant and the lock looked pretty solid. And there was something about the place that gave her the feeling that anyone who went in there alone would regret it. Best to pull back and return later with backup and a warrant.
So then why was she still standing there, staring at the door?
Was it because of how she’d run through the backstreets of Englewood with her father chasing after her, and how she had promised herself that if she got out of there alive she would never be afraid of anything ever again? Because the way to escape from her father, from Englewood and from that whole life that waited for her there was to be braver than she really was? Because breaking free meant breaking the rules?
Kay Myers turned and walked quickly back the way she had come. This time she timed the jump from one broken half of the plank to the other just right. She braced herself and jerked the mailbox and the rusty iron pole up out of the ground, took off the mailbox then headed back toward the house carrying the baron her shoulder. She noticed the sound of birdsong had returned. Now it sounded hysterical. As if all the tension was too much for them and they were warning of danger.
Kay wedged the sharp end of the pole into the gap between the door and the frame. Leaned her body weight against it. Heard the creak of the woodwork and saw the door move slightly. She could still stop. Because wasn’t this exactly what Walker had been talking about when he signaled “don’t trip up”? Don’t mess it up for yourself just before you break the tape? Kay hesitated. Then, with a tormented screeching sound, the wood around the lock split and the door flew open.
Kay exhaled. Then she stepped inside. Held the gun in front of her with both hands.
Dust whirled up in a little snowstorm in the sharp sunlight falling through the open doorway and it took a moment for her eyes to adapt to the dark inside.
She stopped breathing.
Blinked as her brain tried to deal with the sight that met her eyes. She mustn’t panic now, mustn’t let fear take hold. So the first thing she told herself was that they couldn’t harm her, they were all dead. That it was only the poses in which they had been arranged that made them look as though they were alive.
It worked. Slowly panic released its hold and she started to breathe again.
Directly in front of her a fox was standing on its hind legs and holding in its forepaws a saw with which it was cutting itself in half. Next to it was a two-headed coyote with the teeth of one head sunk into the throat of the other. Behind them, a massive elk holding a broken toy car in its antlers. Beside it a white unicorn, its side pierced by a swordfish dangling in midair.
Behind the stuffed animals hung a banner: THE ROGUE TAXIDERMY CLUB.
Kay looked around. There were small, closed studios liningthe walls. Carpentry workshops, she thought, because through doors that were ajar she could see lathes and tools. In one she saw a kind of mannequin in the shape of a hare made out of wire. She counted eight of these workshops. Each had a nameplate. Only one was locked, secured by a large padlock. Kay read the nameplate: Emily Lunde, RT Club. The name meant nothing to her. Peering between two planks into the interior she could see the walls were lined with some kind of insulation. She located a light switch by the door and the neon tubes in the ceiling blinked a couple of times before coming on and lighting up the whole room. She picked up the metal spike and wedged it into the crack in the doorframe of Emily Lunde’s workshop. Pushed hard on it. Instead of the padlock snapping off the soft wood of the plank bent outward. Soon it was so far out she was able to see inside.
She saw light reflected in a pair of yellow eyes.
She saw the man in the chair.
The spike fell from her hands and clattered to the floor.
43
Lobo, October 2016
“Well, Superintendent,” said Ted Springer as he stood next to Walker and picked up a slice of watermelon, “not hungry today? Not thirsty?”
Springer gestured with his free hand at the table in front of them and the coffeepots and bottles of water, the fruit along with a few simple sandwiches.
“Thanks, I ate before I left,” said Walker. He was watching Mayor Patterson as the mayor stood by the coffeepots talking with someone from the NRA. Someone important, judging by the body language and the facial expressions; two men who could be useful to each other. Walker glanced at his watch. Five minutes until Patterson stepped up onto the podium. The speech would last a maximum of ten minutes. Then it was home to the family. There was still a lot of weekend left.
The phone in his pocket vibrated. It wasn’t Hanson this time either.
“Yes, Rooble?” said Walker.
“Dante says that Gomez is Lobo.”
“What?”
