The Wolfen Read Free Page B

they’d have to be fast.”
    “Why so fast?” Becky asked.
    “Look at DiFalco’s right wrist. Torn. He was going for his pistol when
something with teeth hit his arm hard. That means whatever it was, it was damn
fast.”
    Becky Neff thought immediately of the dogs her husband Dick often worked with on the Narcotics Squad. “Attack dogs,” she said, “you’re describing the work of attack dogs.”
    The Medical Examiner shrugged. “I’m describing the condition of the bodies. How they got that way is your business, Becky—yours and His Excellency’s.”
    “Screw you too, Evans.”
    Becky tried to ignore Wilson—she was used to his sour disposition. As long as people like Evans kept working with him it didn’t really matter. Sometimes, though, it was nice to see that others disliked him as much as she did.
    “If we can establish that attack dogs did this,” she said, “then we can narrow our search considerably. Most attack dogs don’t kill.”
    “If the good doctor says they were able to do… that, then you might have a point. Let’s talk to Tom Rilker, get ourselves a little education on the subject.” Rilker trained dogs for the department.
    Becky nodded. As usual when they got going, she and Wilson started thinking together. They headed back toward their car. The first step was now clear— they had to find out if attack dogs were involved. If they were, then this was a first—policemen had never been murdered with dogs before. In fact, dogs were an uncommon weapon because it took the work of a skilled professional to train them to kill human beings. And skilled professionals didn’t train up dogs for just anybody. If you had gotten a dog trained into a killer, the man who did it would remember you for sure. Most so-called “attack dogs” are nothing more than a loud bark and maybe a bite. The ones that actually go for the throat are not very common. A dog like that is never completely controllable, always a liability unless it is absolutely and essentially needed.
    Back in the car, Wilson began to recite what he remembered about cases involving killer dogs. “October, 1966, a pedestrian killed by a dog in Queens. Dog was untrained, believed to have been an accident. I worked that case, I always thought it was fishy but I never got a decent lead. July, 1970, an attack dog escaped from the Willerton Drug Company warehouse in Long Island City and killed a seventeen-year-old boy. Another accident. April, 1973—our only proved murder by dog. A hood named Big Roy Gurner was torn apart by three dogs, later traced to the Thomas Shoe Company, which was a front for the Carlo Midi family. I got close to netting Midi in that one, but the brass removed me from the case. Corrupt bastards. That’s my inventory on dogs. You got anything?”
    “Well, I don’t remember any dog cases since I’ve been a detective. I’ve heard about the Gurner thing of course. But the scuttlebutt was you got paid off the case.” She watched him pull his chin into his neck at that—it was his characteristic gesture of anger.
    And she realized that she shouldn’t have goaded him; Wilson was one honest cop, that much was certain. He hated corruption in others and certainly would never bend himself. It was a nasty crack, and she was sorry for it. She tried to apologize, but he wouldn’t acknowledge. She had made her mistake; there was no point in continuing to talk about it. “My husband works with dogs all the time,” she said to change the subject. “Some attack dogs, but mostly just sniffers. They’re his best weapon, so he says.”
    “I hear about his dogs. All of them are supposedly trained to kill despite that ‘sniffer’ bullshit. I’ve heard the stories about those dogs.”
    She frowned. “What stories?”
    “Oh, nothing much really. Just that those dogs sometimes get so excited when they sniff out a little dope that they just happen to kill the jerk they find it on… sometimes. But I guess you husband’s