Perfect Tales of the Were - Bianca D'Arc Page 0,14
friend to a death match to see who would be top dog.
Shane was too powerful in his own right to be a subordinate in a small Pack, but in a place like Big Wolf, with a large, thriving Pack and multiple areas where an authority figure was needed, he fit right in. Joe Villalobos was Alpha of the entire Pack, but he ceded authority over different segments of the much larger group to several trusted lieutenants. Shane was the newest of these, and one of the few that hadn’t been born and raised in the Big Wolf Pack.
Cody was still trying to get to know the new guy, but his own wanderlust had kept him away from home a lot in recent years. Still, he’d heard good things about Shane, and the fact that the sheriff was newly mated made him a stable choice for a position of great power as the Pack’s primary enforcer. Cody was looking forward to getting to know the man a bit better while working with him on this situation.
That thought in mind, Cody approached the site cautiously, scanning the area as he walked. Shane was standing near the pig’s carcass, his hands on his hips as he looked all around.
“Shane,” Cody spoke the man’s name as greeting, as he drew near.
“Cody,” Shane replied in the same fashion. “Looks to me like two perps,” he said, pointing to some scuffed footprints left in the sandy soil. “They tried to brush away their tracks with that tree branch over there, but they missed a few.”
Cody came closer, being careful where he stepped, and looked at the evidence the sheriff had spotted. Cody nodded. “I see what you mean.”
“I suppose it’s too much to ask if you recognize anything from this?” Shane looked at Cody with not much hope in his expression.
“Well, obviously, they’re man-sized, but other than that, they could’ve been made by any of the workers on the ranch, or even complete strangers,” Cody related.
“Yep,” Shane agreed. “Two males, each about one eighty to two hundred pounds based on tread depth,” he added. Cody hadn’t thought of that.
“Well, I suppose that narrows it down a bit. If we look among the ranch hands, there are only a half-dozen in that range. Two or three of the ranch hands and about the same number of carpenters working on the restoration crew,” Cody supplied.
“I think it’s more likely someone working on the ranch, but I’ll keep an eye out for outliers,” Shane told him. “You’re the inside man on the ranch, so I suspect you’ll have your work cut out for you keeping tabs on all six of those. If you text me their names, I’ll run background checks. Might help narrow things down a bit.”
“I appreciate the help, Sheriff. I’ll do that.”
“This doesn’t look like any sort of organized rite that I’ve ever seen,” Shane commented, walking carefully around the animal carcasses. Cody noticed that Shane, like Cody himself, was being cautious not to leave any tracks.
“Yeah, it seemed odd to me in the dark, and it looks even weirder by the light of day,” Cody admitted, scratching his head. “If they’re trying to do magic up here, they’re sure going about it in an odd way.”
“And why leave the carcasses?” Shane asked. “It almost looks staged, in a way, but I’m certainly no expert on dark magic.”
“Could it be misguided human kids playing at devil worship or something?” Cody ventured.
“Possible, but there are no new scents that stand out. The only scent trails are familiar ones to the area, layered over time, which would point more toward someone who works on the ranch or someone who comes out here often,” Shane said. Cody was gaining respect for the new sheriff. He certainly sounded as if there was concrete reasoning behind his deliberative process.
“That sounds plausible,” Cody allowed. “I’ll send you that list as soon as I have a minute. I don’t know all the last names, but I know where I can get them.”
“If you can snap a few discreet photos of some of them while you’re at it, that could help, as well,” Shane said.
“I’ll do my best,” Cody agreed. Though, how he was going to unobtrusively take photos of his coworkers remained to be seen.
“I’m going to leave this untouched and see what happens. Could be the perps will come back and leave us some more clues. I’ll arrange for a few of my deputies to rotate duty watching the area, though Cal