“Measurements differ on how and who you ask, but researchers with digital bite meters have done testing and discovered that adult humans have a narrow range of bite force between one twenty to two hundred twenty pounds per square inch, or p.s.i., of bite force.” My voice sounded dispassionate, reasoned, and almost pedantic. Maybe even bored. And not at all nauseated. Go, me. Keeping my eyes on the photos, I continued. “Wild dogs, German shepherds, pit bulls, and Rottweilers can have a bite force from three-twenty to five hundred p.s.i. Hyenas, by contrast, have a p.s.i. of a thousand, and wild male crocodiles have been measured at around six thousand, by far the highest bite force on the planet. Wolves at play measured in at four hundred. Wolves eating have, rarely, measured in at fifteen hundred and can snap their way through an elk femur in less than eight bites.”
I turned the shot of the shattered femur to Nadine. “I’m guessing this wolf bite was upwards of twelve hundred p.s.i., maybe even higher than fifteen hundred p.s.i., because I’m not seeing but two bite marks, which means he snapped it like a twig.”
I pushed the skull pictures to her. “The orbital bones are cracked, the jaw was forcibly removed in what looks like a massive wrenching motion, and the skull itself was cracked open.” I turned to another shot. “Brain removed.” I pushed a photo of the torso toward her. “All internal organs eaten.” I pointed to two what looked like puncture marks. “Wolves and dogs share a similar canine tooth length and have the same number of teeth—forty-two—but this one bite mark”—I indicated a set of score marks on a meatless bone—“looks deeper than dog canines. What did the medical examiner say?”
Grudgingly, Nadine said, “He suggested the canines of the predator were longer and sharper than dogs. Maybe two and a quarter inches long.”
That was big even for a werewolf. “And?”
“He says there’s no animal in the state that has teeth that long except the Florida panther.”
She was testing me. Nadine smelled of challenge. Which meant she was holding back on something and was wondering if I’d catch it. I paged through the photos and realized what was missing. Inside me, Beast huffed with amusement. Alpha woman is playing cat-games. Hiding paw prints in mud. Inside me, she yawned to show her canines. Beast killing teeth are longer than small cousin called Flo-ree-da.
Still mostly toneless, I asked, “Where are the photos of the footprints?”
Nadine relaxed suddenly and blew out a breath. “Okay. You know your way around. I wasn’t sure Rick—never mind. Here.” She handed me another folder, this one much thinner.
I chuckled dryly and opened the file to expose prints in the mud, cracked and partially dried, several full of dried blood. Without looking up, I said, “You weren’t sure if he sent you some ditzy woman he was sleeping with or a real expert.”
“Yeah,” she said, her tone as dry as mine. “Women seem attracted to my cuz.”
I separated out and placed three different paw prints on the desk. “He is a pretty boy, not saying he isn’t.” I pointed from print to print. “All these photos have claws in the prints. Puma concolor coryi, like all pumas, have retractable claws and most prints display clawless, meaning claws retracted. Yours?”
“All with claws exposed. So. Not a lion.”
“And Florida panthers have been extinct in this state for a century or more,” I said. “It would be astounding to have three in one place.” I tapped the smallest print and spread my hand over it. According to the ruler beside the print, the paw pad was over four inches across. “This wolf or dog is the smallest of the three, and while the density and water content of the substrate makes a difference in the size of the paw prints, I’d estimate this one weighed in at one twenty. Big for a gray wolf.” I pointed to the larger print, which was more than five inches long and more than four inches across. “Maybe three hundred pounds. Gray wolves in this country are big, very big, at one fifty. That medical examiner?”
Nadine shook her head. “He said something about a dire wolf.” She shrugged. “An extinct wolf. He’s an amateur paleontologist and archeologist.”
I went back to the photos and handed her shots as I explained them to her.
“The limbs were disjointed by wrenching, pulling, and biting, the tendons twisted and snapped. The femurs were well gnawed but also cracked open for access to the marrow, indicating that strong bite I mentioned. The pelvic cavity was wrenched apart. I need to see the site to be sure, but I’m inclined to say werewolves, at least three, and one of them a freaking monster.”
Nadine shook her head and rubbed the back of her neck as if to massage away tension. Her skin was tanned, but above her sleeve line her skin was pale olive and very much like Rick’s. She gathered up all the photos and shuffled them into the order she liked and set them in the proper folders. Then she sat in one chair on the supplicant side of her desk and pointed again at the other chair. It put us sitting side by side. She crossed her legs, to reveal a pair of fancy cowboy boots, which I wanted to inspect, but I figured it might be rude for me to grab her foot and haul it up. She tapped the folders on her knee, staring off into the distance.
“Ricky said you have a contract with PSYLed to identify the animals and/or perpetrators and attempt a general location.”
I guessed where this was going. “And kill it or them only if necessity or emergency or exigent situation requires it. At which point I get paid a flat kill fee per head. All liability to be covered by the federal government.”
“How about if I get the governor to one-up that?”
Ah. Negotiation. I was getting good at negotiation. Innocently I asked, “Meaning?”
“What if the state government and the governor agrees to pay for any liability over and above what the feds pay, but you agree to per head cost for kills?” She met my eyes, hers cold and hard and mean. “Those things killed Mason Walker. He was a harmless, homeless war vet with enough medals to decorate a good-sized Christmas tree. He lived under one of the overpasses in town that cross over the canal. There was no reason for him to be down in Chauvin, or none that I could see. He didn’t have transportation, he didn’t have money, he didn’t have anything to offer anyone.”
Except sport, I thought. And didn’t say it aloud because sometimes the truth is unnecessary and cruel. Instead I said, “So someone picked him up. Drove him south. Into the woods or the marsh.”
“And chased him. And killed him. And. Ate. Him.” Her words were harsh, her tone vicious. Okay, so she got the sport part.
“And you liked him,” I said gently.
“He was nice. Would give you shirt off his back. Nice people are few and far between in this world.” She slapped the folders onto her desk with a sound like a gunshot. “I want them dead. Not in a jail where I couldn’t keep them. Not in a court system that would just as likely let them loose because they can’t help it if they are this way. I want them dead.”
“And the way to get the governor to do this?” Because in my experience the governor of a state had a dearth of both money and compassion.
But Nadine smiled, and it would have looked good on an alligator, all teeth and killing intent. “Because I used to be married to him. And because I asked. And because he owes me more than money can ever repay and he knows it.”
Ah. Blackmail of a sorts. Nadine had something on her ex and wasn’t above using it. I gave her a figure and her eyes didn’t bug out, which I thought was a good start. “Per head.” Still unbugged. “Not including all expenses, hotels, ammo, food, lost or damaged weapons to be replaced, all medical costs or burial costs in the event one of my men is injured or dies, all liability costs, and a nice fancy piece of paper that waves any chance of litigation should someone innocent or collateral get injured or killed before, during, or after the takedown. Your ex will be expected to sign a contract and get it witnessed.”
“I’ll call and get the contract faxed.”
“Ricky Bo might get riled at you taking this away from PSYLed.”
Nadine suggested that Rick could do something anatomically impossible with himself. I left the sheriff’s office laughing, with a promise of a call about the governor’s agreement. And the promise of the contracts to be faxed once that agreement was reached. I could probably have gotten the promise of her firstborn if the kid was a big enough of a pain in the butt, but I had the Kid. I didn’t need another. I promised her nothing, except to read any contract the governor marked up and sent back to me. I didn’t expect it to happen, but it would be interesting if it did.
Twenty miles later I checked the time and the GPS Rick had sent me. The crime scenes and two wolf sightings were south of the small burb of Chauvin. I made the ride through the small town—mostly a fishing and sports enthusiast locale—and continued down Highway 56 another few miles. By then it was getting close to sundown and I had things I needed to do, like check out the hotel that had been donated and see if it was someplace I was willing to stay.
I checked in at the Sandlapper Guesthouse, the mom-and-pop hotel owned by Rick’s family, which usually catered to fisherman—if the fish-cleaning stations and the fenced gear lockers on the grounds were anything to go by. Clara and Harold were nice people and welcomed me like family. I was pretty sure they’d been contacted by Nadine before my arrival, because they didn’t even look surprised when I walked in, though it was off-season and the place was deserted.
The rooms were up on stilts and offered a view of the marsh and open water across the street. It was lot better than a box hotel. It had ambience. And oddly, a small granite boulder near the front steps. It was painted white with the word WELCOME on it in red, but it was granite and it was possible that I might need some mass, if I had to go after a giant werewolf.
I got adjoining rooms, hoping Eli’s eggy gas problem would be over by the time they arrived. I really didn’t want to have to apologize to Clara and Harold for the stench.