Small Town Monsters. Craig Nybo

said Danny was his son and confirmed that Danny had committed the murders.”

       “If you ask me, they did the world a favor when they put this one in the chair.” Clay said.

      Kurt looked up at Clay suddenly, as if the boy had struck a nerve. “He said one other thing.”

      “Yea, what’s that?”

      “He said you can’t kill a werewolf by shocking it. You have to separate its brain from its heart.”

      “So he thinks Danny is still alive?”

      “He’s crazy, but smarter than I expected.” Kurt went silent for a thoughtful moment. “Listen, I need you clearheaded. Don’t buy into the madness. It’s like your mom always told you; there’s no such thing as monsters. And by no means discuss this case with the likes of Larry Uriarte or Buren Peoples.”

      “You have to admit, it sounds pretty menacing.”

      “I don’t care how it sounds. I don’t want you to say the word werewolf outside this office. Remember, no crime has been committed.”

      “Then why are you so defensive?” Clay asked.

      Kurt paused and looked over his dark framed reading glasses into Clay’s eyes. “No crime has been committed; that is our story. Is that understood?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Good. Now go bust some speeders.”

      Clay smiled and snapped off a mocking solute.

      After Clay left the station, Kurt flipped through Artemus’s leather bound book again. He stopped on a ghastly illustration of a scholarly looking man with a passive expression. The man

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      was in the act of cutting the head from a werewolf with an oversized carving knife.

      •••

      The front door of the station opened, startling Kurt from his reading. He had spent the afternoon pouring over Artemus’s arcane book, though there were piles of paperwork to which he should have been focusing his attention.

      Kurt looked up from his reading to see Harmon Bently darken his office entrance. Harmon wore a perfect grandfatherly smile, thin-lipped and lined with a salt and pepper pencil mustache. The old man clutched an old fedora hat in his wrinkled pale hands, a relic from a lost time when men were rarely seen without them. He wore the fedora everywhere he went; but he hadn’t forgotten the courtesy of removing it when indoors or in the presence of a lady. He smelled of strong after shave.

      “Harmon, what brings you to the station?” Kurt asked, using a manila folder to cover up the array of photographs and forensic evidence of Danny Slade’s case lying on his desk. He stood and gestured towards a comfortable seat.

      Harmon sat down. Kurt looked over the old man. There was something misplaced in Harmon’s countenance.

      “How’s that boy of yours, still set on attending Berkely?”

      Harmon smiled. “My grandson, Tory, is a good boy. He’s planning on leaving right away to establish residency in the state of California. I have to admit, I will miss him. Raised him like my own, you know, since my Marilyn died back in ’95.”

      “Well, I’ll be the first to admit that DePalma Beach will miss him; that kid is a wiz.”

      “Thank you. But I didn’t come to discuss Tory.”

      “What can I do for you,” Kurt said, settling into his chair and resting his hands on his desk.

      Harmon looked off in a random direction for a moment, composing his thoughts. “I don’t know exactly how to proceed.”

      “Why so anxious? Has something happened?”

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      “I don’t expect you to understand, Mr. McCammus.”

      “How many times have I told you to call me Kurt?”

      “I don’t expect you to understand it at all, Mr. McCammus.”

      Kurt planted his elbows on the desk on either side of Artemus’s book. “I’m listening.”

      “I and the rest of the city council are wondering, just what it is you plan to do about … it?”

      Kurt’s eyebrows netted. “To what are you referring?”

      “About … you know … what has happened.”

      “I’m afraid you will have to refresh my memory; nothing has happened in DePalma Beach short of the occasional speeder or maybe a good old boy getting drunk and picking a fight.”

      Harmon cleared his throat. “You can hardly say that what you witnessed on Mr. Peoples’s ranch is nothing.”

      Kurt pursed his lips. Here it goes, he thought. “Harmon, what I saw on Buren’s ranch was nothing more than the work of a pack of wolves coming down from the mountains.”

      “That is how it always starts. The animals are the first to go.”

      “Nothing but wolves, Harmon.” Kurt wasn’t used to an anxious Harmon Bently. Harmon taught violin lessons and gave candy to children.

      “Might I remind you that you are the chief-of-police.”

      “No crime has been committed. An animal attack is a matter for the rangers, not for me.”

      “Do you know what he did?”

      “What who did?”

      “That boy: that creature.”

      “I’m not following you.”

      “You know who I’m talking about, Danny Slade. Do you know what he did?” Harmon squeezed down on the brim of his fedora until his knuckles showed white moons.

      “I know about Danny Slade; his case is unrelated.”

      “We were eighteen. Rather, I was eighteen and she was seventeen. It would be my last year at DePalma Beach High School. She had my ring; she wore it on a little gold chain

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      around her neck. She also wore my jacket. I lettered in football, track, and wrestling, you know. Her name was Marilyn Moore, but I just called her Mare. She was beautiful, with silk hair and pale skin, just like a satin doll. We were going to be married after I graduated.”

      Harmon drew a deep breath and glanced away from Kurt at the wall. “We planned to go to prom. I was a senior and it would be my last dance. But two weeks prior, Mare went missing. We searched for her, but she wasn’t the first to disappear in those days. Folks were thinned out, tired of looking for lost children. I knew bad things were afoot, but I was young and naive. In those days I thought that nothing could ever happen to me or to the people I loved. I was wrong.

      “They found her, Mare I mean.” Harmon swallowed a developing lump. “And do you know where they found her?”

      Kurt stayed silent and let the old man speak.

      “They found her at the Slade ranch. They found her torn to pieces. Much of her had been eaten, as if scavengers had gotten to her. She was still wearing my jacket. She was still wearing my ring.” Harmon paused, striving to keep his composure—he succeeded. “Now I ask you again; you are the chief of police; just what are you going to do about it?”

      Kurt took a moment to consider very carefully what to say next. “Harmon, I’m sorry for your loss—I really am. But at this stage my hands are tied. If it makes you feel better, I am looking into it. We sent a few of the slain sheep down to Butte—to the college. We’ll hear from them soon. I know about Danny Slade. I’ve read his file. But nothing has happened other than a wolf attack on