Part I Part 25 (1/2)
”The point, Dresden, is that you lied to me. You refused to give me information that I needed to do my job. When I bring you in on one of my investigations, I am trusting trusting you. I don't just go around trusting people. Never have.” She took a grip on the steering wheel, her knuckles whitening. ”Less than ever, now.” you. I don't just go around trusting people. Never have.” She took a grip on the steering wheel, her knuckles whitening. ”Less than ever, now.”
I winced. That stung. What's worse, she was in the right. ”Some of what I knew ... It was dangerous, Murph. It could have gotten you killed.”
Her blue eyes fixed on me with a glare that made me lean back against the car door. ”I am not not your daughter, Dresden,” she said, in a very soft, calm voice. ”I am not some porcelain doll on a shelf. I'm a police officer. I catch the bad guys and I put their a.s.ses away, and if it comes down to it, I take a bullet so that some poor housewife or CPA doesn't have to.” She got her gun out of its shoulder holster, checked the ammo and the safety, and replaced it. ”I don't need your protection.” your daughter, Dresden,” she said, in a very soft, calm voice. ”I am not some porcelain doll on a shelf. I'm a police officer. I catch the bad guys and I put their a.s.ses away, and if it comes down to it, I take a bullet so that some poor housewife or CPA doesn't have to.” She got her gun out of its shoulder holster, checked the ammo and the safety, and replaced it. ”I don't need your protection.”
”Murphy, wait,” I said hastily. ”I didn't do it to p.i.s.s you off. I'm your friend. Always have been.”
She looked away from me as an officer with a flashlight walked past the car, s.h.i.+ning the light about on the ground as he looked for exterior evidence. ”You were my friend, Dresden. Now ...” Murphy shook her head once and set her jaw. ”Now, I don't know.”
There wasn't much I could say to that. But I couldn't just leave things there. In spite of all the time that had gone by, I hadn't tried to look at things from her point of view. Murphy wasn't a wizard. She had almost no knowledge of the world of the supernatural, the world that the great religion of Science had been failing to banish since the Renaissance. She had nothing to use against some of the things she encountered, no weapon but the knowledge that I was able to give her-and last spring I had taken that weapon away from her, left her defenseless and unprepared. It must have been h.e.l.l for Murphy, to daily place herself at odds with things that didn't make any sense, things that made forensics teams just shake their heads.
That's what Special Investigations did. They were the team specially appointed by the mayor of Chicago to investigate all the ”unusual crimes” that happened in the city. Public opinion, the Church, and official policy still frowned at any references to magic, the supernatural, vampires, or wizards; but the creatures of the spirit world still lurked about, trolls under bridges, cradle-robbing faeries, ghosts and spooks and boogers of every kind. They still terrorized and hurt people, and some of the statistics I'd put together indicated that things were only getting worse, not better. Someone had to try to stop it. In Chicago or any of its sprawling suburbs, that person was Karrin Murphy, and her SI team.
She had held the position longer than any of her many predecessors-because she had been open to the idea that there might be more than was dreamt of in Horatio's books. Because she used the services of the country's only wizard for hire.
I didn't know what to say, so my mouth just started acting on its own. ”Karrin. I'm sorry.”
Silence lay between us for a long, long time.
She gave a little s.h.i.+ver, finally, and shook her head. ”All right,” she said, ”but if I bring you in on this, Harry, I want your word. No secrets, this time. Not to protect me. Not for anything.” She stared out the window, her features softened in the light of the moon and distant streetlights, more gentle.
”Murphy,” I said, ”I can't promise that. How can you ask me to-”
Her face flashed with anger and she reached for my hand. She did something to one of my fingers that made a quick pain shoot up my arm, and I jerked my hand back by reflex, dropping the keys. She caught them, and jammed one of them in the ignition.
I winced, shaking my stinging fingers for a moment. Then I covered her hand with mine.
”Okay,” I said. ”All right. I promise. No secrets.”
She glanced at me, at my eyes for a breath, and then looked away. She started the car and drove from the parking lot. ”All right,” she said. ”I'll tell you. I'll tell you because I need every bit of help I can get. Because if we don't nail this thing, this werewolf, we're going to have another truckload of corpses on our hands this month. And,” she sighed, ”because if we don't, I'm going to be out of a job. And you'll probably end up in jail.”
Chapter Four ”Jail?” I said. ”Jail? ”Jail? h.e.l.l, Murphy. Were you planning on mentioning this to me anytime soon?” h.e.l.l, Murphy. Were you planning on mentioning this to me anytime soon?”
She shot me an irritated scowl, headlights of cars going the opposite way on the highway flaring across her face. ”Don't even start with me, Harry. I've had a long month.”
A dozen questions tried to fight their way out of my mouth. The one that ended up winning was, ”Why didn't you call me in on the other killings, last month?”
Murphy turned her eyes back to the road. ”I wanted to. Believe me. But I couldn't. Internal Affairs started riding me about what happened with Marcone and Victor Sells last spring. Someone got the idea that I was in cahoots with Marcone. That I helped to murder one of his compet.i.tors and took out the ThreeEye drug ring. And so they were poking around pretty hard.”
I felt an abrupt twinge of guilt. ”Because I was on the scene. You had that warrant out for me and then had it rescinded. And then there were all those rumors about me and Marcone, after the whole thing was over ...”
Murphy's lips compressed, and she nodded. ”Yeah.”
”And if you'd have tried to tell me about it, it would have been throwing gasoline on the fire.” I rubbed at my forehead. And it would have gotten me looked at harder, too, by whoever was investigating Murphy. She had been protecting me. I hadn't even considered what those rumors Marcone had spread might do to anyone besides myself. Way to go, Harry.
”One thing you're not is stupid, Dresden,” she confirmed.
”A little naive, sometimes, but never stupid. IA couldn't turn anything up, but there are enough people who are certain I'm dirty that, along with the people who already don't like me, they can screw me over pretty hard, given the chance.”
”That's why you didn't make an issue out of what Agent Benn did,” I guessed. ”You're trying to keep everything quiet.”
”Right,” Murphy said. ”I'd get ripped open from a.s.s to ears if IA got word of me so much as bending the rules, much less tussling with one of the bureau's agents. Believe me, Denton might look like a jerk, but at least he isn't convinced that I'm dirty. He'll play fair.”
”And this is where the killings come in. Right?”
Instead of answering, she cut into the slow lane and slowed to a leisurely pace. I half turned toward her in my seat, to watch her. It was while I did this that I noticed the headlights of another car drift across a couple lanes of traffic to drop into the slow lane behind us. I didn't say anything about it to Murphy, but kept a corner of my eye on the car.
”Right,” Murphy said. ”The Lobo killings. They started last month, one night before the full moon. We had a couple of g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers torn to pieces down at Rainbow Beach. At first, everyone figured it for an animal attack. Bizarre, but who knew, right? Anyway, it was weird, so they handed the investigation to me.”
”All right,” I said. ”What happened then?”
”The next night, it was a little old lady walking past Was.h.i.+ngton Park. Killed the same way. And it just wasn't right, right, you know? Our forensics guys hadn't turned up anything useful, so I asked in the FBI. They've got access to resources I can't always get to. High-tech forensics labs, that kind of thing.” you know? Our forensics guys hadn't turned up anything useful, so I asked in the FBI. They've got access to resources I can't always get to. High-tech forensics labs, that kind of thing.”
”And you let the djinni out of the bottle,” I guessed.
”Something like that. FBI forensics, that redheaded kid with them, turned up some irregularities in the apparent dent.i.tion of the attackers. Said that the tooth marks didn't match genuine wolves or dogs. Said that the paw prints we found were off, too.
Didn't match real wolves.” She gave a little shudder and said, ”That's when I started thinking it might be something else. You know? They figured that someone was trying to make it look look like a wolf attack. With this whole wolf motif, someone started calling the perpetrator the Lobo killer.” like a wolf attack. With this whole wolf motif, someone started calling the perpetrator the Lobo killer.”
I nodded, frowning. The headlights were still behind us. ”Just a crazy thought: Have you considered telling them the truth? That we might be dealing with a werewolf here?”
Murphy sneered. ”Not a chance. They hire conservatives for jobs at the bureau. People who don't believe in ghosts and goblins and all that c.r.a.p out there that I come to you about. They said that the murders must have been done by some sort of cult or pack of psychos. That they must have furnished themselves with weapons made out of wolf teeth and nails. Left symbolic paw prints around. That's why all the marks and tracks were off. I got Carmichael to check up on you, but your answering service said you were in Minnesota on a call.”
”Yeah. Someone saw something in a lake,” I confirmed. ”What happened after that?”
”All h.e.l.l broke loose. Three b.u.ms in Burnham Park, the next night, and they weren't just dead, they were shredded shredded. Worse than that guy tonight. And on the last night of the full moon, an old man outside a liquor store. Then the night after that, we had a businessman and his driver torn up in a parking garage. IA was right there breathing down my neck the whole time, too. Observing everything.” She shook her head with a grimace.
”That last victim. All the others were outside, and in a bad part of town. Businessman in a parking garage doesn't fit that pattern.”
”Yeah,” Murphy said. ”James Harding III. One of the last of the red-hot industrialists. He and John Marcone are business partners in some development projects up in the Northwest.”
”And tonight, we have another victim linked to Marcone.”
”Yeah.” Murphy nodded. ”I'm not sure what's scarier. Thinking that these are just regular animal attacks, that they're being done by a bunch of psychos with knives edged with wolf teeth, or that they're organized werewolves.” She let out a strained little laugh. ”That still sounds crazy, even to me. Yes, Your Honor, the victim was killed by a werewolf.”
”Let me guess. After the full moon it got quiet.”
Murphy nodded. ”IA wrapped up with inconclusive findings, and nothing much else happened. No one else died. Until tonight. And we've got four more nights of bright moonlight left, if whoever they are sticks to their pattern.”
”You sure there's more than one?” I asked.
”Yeah,” Murphy said. ”There's bite marks, or bitelike marks, according to Agent Denton, from at least three different weapons. As far as all the lab guys are concerned, it could be multiple perpetrators, but there's no way for forensics to be sure.”
”Unless it's real werewolves we're dealing with. In which case each set of marks goes with a different set of teeth, and we're looking at a pack.”
Murphy nodded. ”But there's no way I'm going to just come out and tell them that. That would put the nails in my career's coffin.”
”Uh-huh,” I said. ”This is the part where you tell me about your job being in danger.”