Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(80)

“Then we should introduce your passenger to his new family,” said Probert. “Did your lady friend mention how reliant we are here on donations?”

Without thinking, I reached for my wallet and removed three twenties, leaving myself with a few ones.

“Thank you.” The old man crushed the bills in his tight fist. “Kara, can you help the warden get that kennel out of his truck?”

“I can do it,” I said.

I jumped up into the bed and unlashed the cords that held the plastic box in place. Shadow had begun to grow restless. He was twitching his tail and making a strange noise that reverberated from deep inside his powerful chest.

“He doesn’t sound happy,” I said.

“He’s just excited,” said Probert. “He knows this is the first day of the rest of his life.”

I squatted on my haunches and stared through the grate at the wild animal inside. Ever since I had arrived here, I had begun to think of him that way: not as a wolf dog or a wolf hybrid. Shadow was a wolf.

I rubbed my chin and then my eyes. I shook my head as if in disagreement with someone I alone could hear.

Probert was the self-professed wolf whisperer. What did I know about these animals? Once again, Shadow and I locked eyes. His irises were streaked with dark flecks I hadn’t noticed before. His pupils were as black as Pleistocene tar pits.

I climbed to my feet. “You know, I think I am going to take him with me.”

“Huh?” said Probert.

“I don’t mean any offense, but this isn’t the best place for him.”

“I can’t imagine where you think he might be better off,” said the old man. “This refuge is the best of its kind in the world.”

I certainly hoped that wasn’t true.

“He’ll be happy here, you’ll see,” said Kara. “Come visit him in a few weeks.”

“He belongs among his own kind, Warden,” said Probert. “Your lady friend told me he would be euthanized unless we gave him asylum. Perhaps you’ve grown too attached to him and are not thinking through the consequences of your actions.”

I laughed out loud.

“Excuse me?” he said indignantly.

“It’s nothing,” I said. “It’s the story of my life.”

*

Driving down out of the mountains, I was overwhelmed by the foolishness of what I had just done. I had lied and connived to rescue Shadow, and then, when I had finally found a sanctuary for the wolf, I had upended my plans, and for what? Because he had communicated telepathically that he didn’t want to be imprisoned in one of those sad pens with a wrongfully accused collie?

The idea of becoming one of those people who projects their personal emotions on animals depressed me. Even more so when I reflected on the death sentence the wolf still faced if I didn’t succeed in finding an angel willing to care for him. It seemed like every possibility had already been exhausted.

I’d even paid Probert sixty dollars for the privilege of changing my mind. The old man would undoubtedly put the money to good use. Buy some more pig heads or renew his subscription to Sports Illustrated.

For the moment, I had more pressing concerns.

If Clegg had gotten no response when he phoned Foss’s office, it suggested multiple casualties might be waiting for the first responders. The cops arriving on the scene would have to assume the presence of an active shooter. It was every police officer’s worst nightmare.

Before the Columbine shootings in 1999, police had been taught to respond to active shooters by securing a perimeter around the scene and waiting for a tactical team to arrive. The folly of that approach only grew more and more apparent as massacres began to multiply at high schools, on college campuses, in churches, and outside women’s health clinics.

At the Academy, I had been taught the new standard: immediate action rapid deployment. The term was fancy jargon for swarming the shooter. Don’t sit around waiting for a negotiator. Mass murderers don’t negotiate. Sure, SWAT teams are highly skilled, but how many more innocents might die while the first officers on the scene sit on their hands? Pulsifer and the others would have no alternative but to rush into gun sights, while all I could do was say a silent prayer and do my best not to collide with a deer.

Light snow had begun to fall. It sparkled like broken windshield glass from the patches of bare pavement. I drove fast along Route 16, well over the posted speed, until a light came on my dashboard telling me I was close to running on fumes. I stopped for gas in Errol, New Hampshire, the last town of any size between Berlin and Rangeley.

I leaned over the side of the truck bed to have a look at Shadow. He was adapted to live in subzero temperatures, but I hated the thought of keeping him cooped up in that cramped box. Every time he opened his mouth, steam escaped from between his fangs.

“Are you going to run off if I let you out?” I asked him.

That old geezer in the Green Beret shirt had told me he’d seen Shadow riding in Carrie Michaud’s truck. I decided to risk it.

I found a bag of beef jerky in my rucksack and waved it outside the kennel gate so he could get a whiff of the dried meat. Shadow began to whine and saliva dripped from his ragged black lips. As I opened the gate, I wondered if he would snatch the bag from my hand—or my hand from my wrist—and sprint away into the nearby woods. But I managed to lure him out with scraps of jerky. I led him from the bed, around the side, and into the passenger seat.