SEAL Wolf In Too Deep(32)
He was surprised she was mentioning that now when they hadn’t talked about the bullets in over a week.
“The nutcase is a werewolf hunter—has to be, because he killed a woman he thought was one, and he killed two wolves, all three riddled with silver rounds,” she continued. “And the bullets were all from the same gun. As for the dead guy in the lake—if the unregistered gun was his, what does that mean? He can’t be the woman’s killer because we found him before the woman was murdered. And the ballistics for the murdered woman and the dead wolves didn’t match the gun in the lake. But it was also filled with silver rounds.”
Allan took a deep breath and let it out. “Right. What if there are two werewolf hunters?” He figured there wasn’t any sense in trying to treat this like a normal case because it was anything but—even for lupus garous. So he might as well play along for a bit, fill her story full of holes, and hope they still could find the murderer soon. But initially, he hadn’t considered the possibility of two hunters and the Van Lake murder being connected to the leghold trap murder.
“Okay. So a werewolf killed the hunter before he could kill any more werewolves. But the werewolf didn’t want to take him down as a wolf, because that would prove they exist,” Debbie said.
“That’s assuming that werewolves exist and the wolf that killed him wasn’t a genuine wolf.”
She gave him a small smile as if she thought he was teasing her. “Right. But a wolf couldn’t stage a car accident. Or”—Debbie paused dramatically—“he wasn’t his mad-wolf self when he went to kill the werewolf hunter.”
“A werewolf has a mad-wolf self?” Now Allan was amused.
“Sure. In some of the old horror movies I watched, the werewolf would go on a rampage. He no longer could have any thoughts as a human and was a total beast of prey. And then he wanted to die because he didn’t want to hurt the ones he loved.”
“So a werewolf couldn’t have a conscience when he’s a wolf,” Allan said. That kind of thinking was one reason why lupus garous never wanted to expose what they were to the human population. Even if some humans accepted them for what they were, lots more would be afraid of them—afraid because of the fictional myths and legends perpetuating the evil wolf and werewolf scenarios—and want them dead.
“Well, not according to legend. Or at least one of the legends,” Debbie replied. “I guess for the sake of argument, one could say they still had their human awareness when they were a wolf.” She took a moment to gather her thoughts on where she was going with this. “Oh, and there was no full moon when the man in the submerged car died, so the werewolf probably couldn’t even turn into a wolf. So he had to take down the hunter before the full moon was out because he wouldn’t have any control over his wolf half after that. And the werewolves have to hide their wolf half or people would think real wolves were on the attack and kill every wolf they saw.”
“So you’re saying the man in the car was a werewolf hunter—that the gun with the silver bullets were his—only the werewolf killed him first.”
“Right. A werewolf wouldn’t have a gun with silver bullets. The werewolf’s concern would be to protect his werewolf pack. All of them would be running as wolves during the full moon, so the pack leader would want to ensure they remained safe. The werewolf discovers this guy is hunting his pack and kills him, then stages an accident.”
Which sounded damn plausible, Allan was thinking. Except that no one in his pack had killed the man in the lake. “We have a problem with that scenario. If the woman was supposed to be a werewolf that the other man killed, there was no full moon then either.” At least that could be a problem in Debbie’s werewolf world.
“Right. She wasn’t a real werewolf, Allan. Just work with me here. But he suspected she was. Maybe she was into werewolves, like she was part of a pretend pack online. I checked to see if anyone was professing to be a werewolf hunter. What I found was a website run by a blogger who claims to have spotted a werewolf. A lot of people chimed in to claim they were part of werewolf packs—all in good fun. Some responded that they would join the packs; others that they’d shoot a werewolf on sight.
“Maybe our guy was following a thread like that. A real nutcase, he believes one of the ‘werewolves’ is truly a werewolf, gets to talking to her off the loop, and he tells her he’s a wolf too. She is so into playing the game that she convinces him she really is a wolf. He wants to meet her. Of course, he might not be a werewolf hunter, per se, but just some predator that lures women online to his lair and he’s acting out this werewolf hunter fantasy.
“So our werewolf hunter chases her into the trap and waits for her to turn into a wolf. But then he realizes his mistake. She can’t shift because the full moon isn’t out yet. So he shoots her with silver rounds and that’s the end of her—which would be the end of anyone—but he’s convinced that the rounds have to be silver to kill a werewolf. Then when real wolves visit the crime scene, he’s confident they are part of her pack. He shoots them with silver rounds, but they turn out to be bona fide wolves. No human genetics at all.”
“So you’re saying he really believes werewolves exist?” Allan asked, trying to sound incredulous. Two werewolf hunters, and one werewolf hunting them. So was the man in the black sedan a werewolf who killed the hunter and then the other hunter found his friend dead?