Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Mondieu

8:35am

All theory is gray, my friend. But forever green is the tree of life.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

A million candles, midnight’s vigil, the moon a brazier bright. The heavens marched an imperceptibly slow procession, galaxies wide, and an eerie wind whistled a eulogy for the damned. A howl pierced the night, feral and savage, and many suffered ill-sleep that night, or discomfiting dreams.

            The inspector slept little, awaiting the alarm-call of crime, his thoughts morbid with possibilities. Eventually, the battle waged between waking nightmares and exhausting reached a compromise in fitful sleep, rife with macabre monsters: imps and devils; a wolfish beast, claws dripping scarlet; ancient evils empty and cruel, devastating and implacable, a prime evil. Nothing but shifting shapes and shadows, and morning came too soon, and not soon enough.

            The crafty alchemy of the night turned the horizon gold, dawn of a bright new day. The sun clambered over the horizon, lighting the tips of trees near the city limits in an orange glow, and piercing the half-closed curtains in the inspector’s room, falling full across his face.  The inspector stirred into waking.

            No crime in the night? Did that mean anything? Had the crime happened and just not been found? Or still undone? Or maybe it was all a scare tactic?

            Mondieu rolled out of bed and walked over to a mirror tacked on the wall, washing his face and rubbing his hands over the bristling shade growing on his cheeks. He opened the window and lit a cigarette, breathing in the ash and fragrant morning air.

            The taproom was filled with patrons, receiving early morning cups of steaming coffee, eggs, and toast. The inspector ate a quick breakfast and headed out into the streets, filled with an early morning amble into the central city.

            Flying on coffee, tobacco smoke, and limited sleep, the inspector marched into the central park. Sometime today he needed to find Horten and ask him some questions, and visit the Doctor at his lab. Might as well start now. He asked around and the general consensus placed Horten at the menagerie. Mondieu asked for directions and found it easily enough. East of the central dome, a forested section of town was separated off by high hedge rows.

            The inspector walked inside and was surprised to find animals mingling with quite a crowd of people. Baboons and small cats, foxes, turtles, chickens, beavers building dams in a creek, birds collecting twigs for nests in the trees, squirrels chattering and receiving handfuls of food, deer nibbling on grass, horses and mules clopping along the cobbles, giraffes crunching on the tops of trees, snakes sunning on stones. Strangely enough, the animals seemed complacent, more, enjoying the companionship.

            The inspector would be surprised if the foxes did not, occasionally, diminish the chicken population, or the snakes steal some eggs, but it seemed a strange harmony. Not all the animals mingled nicely, the inspector noticed. Pens or deep dens walled in certain animals: alligators, lions, wolves. The size of the menagerie was impressive, almost a mile on each edge, and without knowing what Horten looked like, finding him was difficult.

            I’m lost in a strange city, in a menagerie of animals with giant giraffes grazing on the trees, and friendly foxes slipping between my knees. Is this paradise, this mystery city?

            Suddenly, the inspector was inflicted by a dizziness, his head aching and vivid with violent imagery. Full moon, bones dragged in the teeth of silver wolves, ghastly teeth flecked the scarlet and the echoes of cries. Bloodied sands, hands, broken feet, and a strange wilting to the tree, silver leaves flecked with death-dull brown.

            A loud howl pierced the inspector’s eerie vision, followed by high pitched screams. Horses whinnied in fear and shied away, nervous as though a predator was by. The inspector’s instincts kicked in, and instantly he was racing towards the danger.

            The menagerie changed instantly, from a tranquil scene into a cacophony of tense animals, shying away from the northern edge of the menagerie, where the screams originated that echoed around the park.

            A large crowd was collected around a pen, tightly packed such that the inspector saw nothing. A low wail replaced the frightened screams, and children were held by mothers, faces tucked into their sleeves and shoulders, while men whispered or shouted in agonized confusion. Was this, then, the second crime?

            The inspector ran to the edge of the crowd, swimming his way through the bodies to the front. Whispers followed him in his wake, and he reached the front shortly. It was carnage.

            Blood covered the inside of the exhibit, as though bodies had been dragged, bleeding, over the rocks and sands. The bodies of four wolves, bloodied, mangled, torn into pieces, and two bodies, once human, from the looks of it, also inside the pen, clearly devastated by the wolves. A single wolf still stood, dragging its hind legs behind it, but creeping towards the bodies, spit dribbling from its mouth in a ravenous desire to feed, to crunch bones still, even in its final breath.

            The inspector leaped into the center, and a loud intake of breath sounded behind him, a collective gasp, and the inspector pulled a thin knife from the folds of his cloak. Golden eyes, it sees the dawn of death, and welcomes it. Sickly, though still fierce, and feral.

            Mondieu strafed alongside the wolf, and it tried following him, but could not drag its legs quickly enough. Quickly, with grace, he dispatched the last wolf. In the back of the den in the cave just out of view of the onlookers was a sign, written in blood: “It is done” without any signature, and the inspector knew, without a doubt, this was no accident.

            Ten minutes later, the police arrived, now a bolstered force of three.  Simon, who, oddly enough, arrived at the scene just before the police, was sent by the Inspector to find the Doctor as swiftly as possible, while the inspector talked with the policemen.

            “Inspector?” Seth started, arriving breathless with his men in tow. “This is DuMont, an out-of-state policeman vacationing here with some experience, and this is Vespars, who fought fires before moving to the city years ago.”

            “Very good,” said the inspector, glancing over the two new policemen. Both were large men, but after that almost opposites. DuMont was dark of skin, and carried a dangerous grace, like a panther. His head was shaved and face were shaved, and he had dark, almost black eyes, and an unsmiling face – not unhappy, just as though smiling was foreign, unimaginable. He was solemn, and didn’t appear concerned by the bloody scene. It seemed as a sort of comfort, as of familiarity, settled over him.

            Vespars was of the lightest skin, red-headed and violently freckled. Both were as tall as the inspector, and more muscled by half. Both wore the same, aged uniforms that Seth wore, and Mondieu briefly wondered where they found such dated apparel, let alone in such large sizes.

            “Welcome, gentlemen. DuMont, can you cordon off this area and retreat the crowd a fair distance from the scene? Vespar, will you mingle with the crowd and find some witnesses. I want to know who these bodies belonged to and what they were doing. Seth, when the doctor gets here, bring him to me. Until then, I want no one to interrupt my study of the scene. Understood?”

            “Understood,” replied DuMont for each of them, his voice a resonating baritone. Vespars nodded and they each walked off to their tasks.

            Now to the murders. The first body appeared to be a female’s, closer to the wall. Her entire body was prostrated towards the males, and did not appear to have been dragged any distance since death. Her hair, where visible beneath the matted wounds, was greyed. Jumped in, after the man, seeing him injured and no one leaping to his rescue. The fight was already ensued, the bloody mess, and the wolves ignored her once finished.

            The other body was not as lucky. It seemed the woman likely died instantly, though the man suffered longer, though did not seem to have put up a fight. It looks like all the damage was dealt by the wolves. The man and woman put up nothing in the way of aggression or defense. Likely, the man survived longed as the wolves threatened each other. But why would the wolves suddenly consider each other as threats? What were the man and woman doing in the pit in the first place?

            The man was scarcely recognizable as such, though he appeared to be elderly as well. Clothing ripped, he looked to have been wearing overalls and maybe a straw hat, now trampled into the ground.

            Seth approached with the Doctor and Simon. The inspector nodded in their direction as they approached. “Doctor Evatt, I wish it were under more pleasant circumstance that we found each other.”

            The Doctor nodded grimly in reply. “Shall I inspect the bodies, Inspector?”

            “Yes. Seth, go find Vespar and see if he’s found any witnesses worth investigating.”

            When they left, Simon walked over to the inspector’s side. “What happened?”

            “Were you not here to see?” the inspector asked, his eyebrows rising.

            Simon shook his head. “I arrived shortly after the event. I heard the shouts, and raced over. By the time I arrived, you were already on the scene. Was it a murder? Or just an accident?”

            The inspector did not reply, holding back on what he’d seen at the back. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

            Vespars walked over with Seth and a shorter man in tow. “This man saw the whole thing.”

            “Thank you, Vespars, Seth, Simon. I’ll take it from here,” the inspector said with a meaningful glance. They each retreated, and the inspector turned to the man. “Tell me what you saw, Mr….?”

            “Pavloh, sir. I saw everything. It was a nightmare, a grisly, terrible, nightmare.” As the man began, it was clear he was almost breaking down. Probably knew the victims. This was not where the inspector was most comfortable.

            “Take is slow. If you need time, take a deep breath and just get it straight. I need to know,” the inspector replied in a quiet, calming tone.

            Pavloh inhaled sharply and began again. “It was feeding time, and Horten was preparing to feed the animals-”

            “Horten?” asked the inspector incredulously. Thrice damned day, was Horten the man in the cage? “Apologies. Continue, Pavloh,” the inspector instructed.

            “Horten saw that the wolves were agitated with something, snarling in a peculiar fashion. He climbed down into the pit and the wolves went mad, feral. They growled and all assaulted him at once. He hunkered down, protecting his head with his arms, but the creatures kept on mauling him.

            His wife, she screamed and leapt into the exhibit after her husband, and a wolf left to attack her as well, leaving the other three still fighting over Horten.”

            “Once they were finished, the wolves began ripping at each other, tearing each other’s throats and fighting over the bodies.”

            Pavloh broke down into a sob.

            What a disaster. About what the inspector had imagined, as well.

            “Why did no one come to their aid?” Even as he asked, the inspector hated the question. But he had to know. A whole crowd of people, four wolves, and two of their kin, their close friends, mauled to death before their eyes – and no one helped.

Chapter 5: Mondieu

8:35am Wednesday

All theory is gray, my friend. But forever green is the tree of life.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

            Pavloh looked bewildered through his puffy, red-rimmed eyes, and the thought’s foreignness was apparent. The inspector waved it away, and motioned to Simon to walk the man off.

            The inspector sighed and walked over to the doctor, now kneeling on the ground beside the male’s corpse. Mondieu crouched beside Evatt, feeling the heat of the sunlight bearing down, and the swirling winds choked him with sands and the angry stench of blood and death.

            He waited for the doctor to speak. For a few minutes, the doctor continued, diligent in his study of the bodies and taking of samples. Eventually, he wiped his forehead with the elbow of his sleeve, unconcerned that his gloves were covered in scarlet. “Well, inspector. I’m guessing this isn’t an accident, is it?”

            The inspector shook his head and, subtly, pointed to the back of the wolf’s cave den.      

            “Ah,” replied the doctor. “I’ll need to return these to my lab to study them more. There is little I can discover here, without my instruments, and I suspect we should clear this away as quickly as possible.”

            “Agreed,” said the inspector, rising to his feet. He motioned over Seth, who hurried over.

            “I need these bodies cleared away and this place cleaned up. If you could bring the remains: wolves, bodies, some dirt, everything, to the doctor’s lab, that would be perfect.”

            “Yes, inspector. Is there anything else you require?”

            “Not at the moment. Thank you, Seth.” They each nodded, and turned their separate ways. The timid, nervous man from a few days ago was gone, replaced by this willing, diligent man. By no means great, but willing. It was almost not the same man.

            Unfortunately, Horten was one of the victims, his main connection to the first crime. There had to be other people who saw that first clue. Maybe Seth had witnessed the first clue? Or Simon? Simon seemed everywhere at once, though the inspector had been in the menagerie and near the central park last night, also.

            The inspector ambled over to the sign at the back of the cave, written in what appeared to be scarlet ink, not blood, though the lack of subtlety was not wasted on the inspector.

            A death in front of a crowd of people, and not one, save Horten’s wife, jumped in to help. A second vivid dream, also involving the tree, and pieces of the murder he could not have known. Then, an accident prepared, somehow, beforehand – but where was the murder?

            Before leaving, the inspector watched as the two new policemen cleaned up the scene.

            The animals watched the inspector warily, no longer trusting of these strange bipeds walking in their midst. This was their fault, the violence. The sun rode high in the sky, sending a line of sweat trickling down the inspector’s back.

            Two days, four murders, and not a hint of a suspect. He felt numbed, slowed, as though the pace of the town inhibited his process, and every step he took, was backward.

            And what purpose these atrocities? What motivation the death of these people?

            The inspector had a long day ahead.