Lori Handeland - Blue Moon

"Tell it to Karen Larson," I muttered.

Bozeman’s glare was a replica of the first one. The man had no originality.

"What are we dealing with then?" Clyde asked.

"Kind of hard to tell without the bodies ." I batted my eyelashes at Bozeman and his itty-bitty secretary.

She seemed to have nothing to say at last. In fact, she appeared a bit guilty. I guess I would, too, if dead bodies had gone missing on my watch.

Bozeman shrugged. Clyde made a disgusted sound.

Mandenauer cleared his throat. "I have an idea."

"Let’s hear it."

"Rabies."

Everyone in the room gaped. I wondered if Manden-auer had all his eggs in the carton, his beans in a bag, his wheels going round and round.

"Sir—" I began.

He held up one pale, slim hand and I shut my mouth.

"It would be better if there were bodies. For proof. But based on what you’ve told me, I will make an educated guess on what we have here."

"Educated?" Bozeman sneered. "What kind of education do you have?"

"Shut the hell up, Prescott." Clyde rounded on him and the ME stumbled back, knocking into his secretary and sending her skinny ass flying about two feet. While the two of them got untangled, Clyde and I listened to Mandenauer.

"I do not have the education of the good doctor."

"Lucky for us," I said.

This time Mandenauer smiled. I was sure of it. However, Clyde didn’t, so I zipped my lip. Again.

"This is not for public knowledge, you understand. There would be a panic."

"Something I’d like to avoid," Clyde mumbled.

"Therefore, what I am about to say must stay in this room until we have the problem under control."

Mandenauer glanced at each of us in turn, and we nodded.

"There is a new strain of rabies that matches what you seem to have here. The incubation period is hours instead of months. The level of aggression is intense, and the spread of the infection is beyond anything we have ever known."

"I’ve never heard of this," Bozeman interjected.

"Why am I not surprised?" I murmured; then a sud-den chill rode my spine. "Was this genetically engineered?"

Mandenauer turned to me and in his usually distant gaze I saw a spark of interest. "Perhaps."

Clyde cursed. He was spending way too much time with Zee. Weren’t we all?

"You’re saying that terrorists have infected the wolf population with genetically engineered rabies?"

"Did I say that? I do not think so."

Clyde scrubbed a hand through his short, dark hair. "Then what are you saying?"

"Evil has come to your town."

"How can a virus be evil?" I asked.

Mandenauer glanced at me. "How indeed?"

"Do you always answer a question with a question?"

"Do I?"

Clyde, who must have sensed I was near my boiling point, stepped between the two of us. "What should we do?"

"Exactly what has been done. You have the best hunter there is." Mandenauer slapped his chest with his palms. "I will kill anything that looks at me crosswise. Once ail the infected animals are dead, there will be nothing more to worry about."

"Except the people," I muttered.

Mandenauer let his hands fall slowly back to his sides and gazed at me with a curious expression. "What about the people?"

"If someone gets infected, are you going to shoot them, too?"

"No, they will use the rabies vaccine."

"That’ll help?"

"It cannot hurt."

In my experience, whenever someone said that, it hurt.

After Clyde reamed out Bozeman one more time for the road, he beckoned to me. Leaving Mandenauer with a map of the area that the teeny-tiny secretary had found—I really needed to ask her name, or not—I joined him in the ME’s office.

He closed the door. "Jessie, you wound me."

"I’m sorry?"

Clyde frowned, uncertain if I was apologizing or asking what in hell I’d done to disappoint him now. Since I’d never been much for apologizing, he chose the latter, and he was right.

"You have information about this case, which is now on the front burner for all of us, and you don’t tell me?"

"Clyde, I—"

"What else do you know?"

His black eyes were intense, and his jaw pumped up and down even though he had no tobacco. I resisted the urge to point out that he shouldn’t bother with the mouth cancer aid if he could get the same relief with phantom chewing. Clyde wasn’t in the mood for my wit.

Quickly I told him everything I knew. When I got to the part about Professor Cadotte, he interrupted. "William Cadotte?"

Hell. I should have left the guy’s name out of it.

"Yeah. That’s him."

"He’s trouble, Jess. Big trouble."

I frowned. When Clyde called me Jess, he was serious. "He seemed harmless enough to me."

Not really. He’d seemed very, very dangerous. To my celibacy.

Clyde paced the room, tense, edgy. He reminded me of a caged animal, and that just wasn’t like Clyde.

"He’s an egghead. An activist."

"He’s Ojibwe, just like you."

"He’s not like me. I’m Lac du Flambeau. He’s Grand Portage. That’s as different as the Welsh and the English."

Okay . I knew each band considered themselves separate from the other. I hadn’t realized how separate. Or maybe that was just Clyde’s point of view.

"I’d think you’d approve of someone who stood up for the Indians."

"There’s standing up and stirring up. I just want to live my life. Do my job. Be myself. I don’t need some pretty boy smart-mouth getting everyone angry at me on principle."

Cadotte had certainly stirred me up, but I had a hard time believing he would spend time stirring up the community just for the fun of it, and I told Clyde so.

The last part. Not the first.

"Maybe he’s changed. But I doubt it. Stay away from him, Jess."

"I’ll do my best."

And I would. Cadotte made me nervous in more ways than one, something I did not need when all hell was about to break loose in Miniwa. Then I remembered.

"I will have to see him one more time."

"What for?"

"To get the totem back."

"You gave him the totem?" His shout rattled the windows in Bozeman’s office. "Are you nuts?"

I was getting mighty sick of being yelied at. "I was doing my job, Clyde."

"By giving evidence to a convict?"

"Convict?"

"William Cadotte has been arrested more times than he’s been laid."

"‘And how would you know how many times he’s been laid?"

"■‘With a face like his, it’s no doubt daily."

Since I had to agree, I let that one pass.

"What’s he been arrested for?"

"Disturbing the peace. Inciting a riot."

"Nuisance stuff."

"Breaking the law isn’t a nuisance."

"You know as well as I do that half the folks above the age of fifty have those charges on their records. It was called protesting if I remember my history books correctly."

"Cadotte isn’t over fifty."

"I noticed."

His gaze had been intense before, now it went sharp and suspicious. "You’d better watch yourself. Associating with a known troublemaker will not improve your career options."

My heart gave a sharp thud. All I had was my job, and I loved it. Being a cop was what I did, who I was. It was the only thing I’d ever been any good at.

"Are you threatening me, Clyde?"

"No. Just givin‘ you good advice."

I knew a threat when I heard one, having given enough of my own to know the difference.

"Get that totem back, Officer. Now."

I executed a military salute, then clicked my heels and goose-stepped out of the office. From the expression on Clyde’s face, he did not find me funny.

My thoughts turned to the professor, and I sighed, then pulled out my cell phone. Best put an end to any contact with him before 1 lost my head and my job.