The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

FOUR

Lily Pine took one look at the sheriff and said, “You look like you’ve gone fifteen rounds with Sonny Liston.”

For the first time Dwight noticed his blood-stained uniform — a casualty of the wrestling match in Vera’s kitchen — and shrugged. “It’s a long story, Lily.”

“I’m sure it’s one of many.” The undertaker’s daughter left no room for a reply before adding, “And I’m equally certain that neither of us has time for it today.”

She started across the cemetery, a thin little thing with pale skin, delicate features, and a bouffant hairdo stiff with Hi-Style hair-spray. Her hair was jet-black, as was her loose turtleneck sweater, her tight toreador pants, her gleaming leather boots… and the barrel of the shotgun locked in her thin-fingered grasp.

“Do you really think we’re gonna need that thing, Lily?”

She stopped short. “The word is that you’ve got a werewolf locked up in your jail, Sheriff.”

“Well… that’s the guy’s story. But, Jesus, Lily, you’re just a tiny little thing. Firing a shotgun would launch you from here to tomorrow. And if you’re worried about werewolves, a scattergun isn’t going to do you any good, anyway. Unless you’ve got silver pellets in those shells, of course.”

The sheriff tried a smile, but Lily Pine cut it short with a grin both knowing and confident. “Okay,” she said, ‘‘now I see what this is about.”

“Huh?”

The undertaker’s daughter thrust the shotgun into the sheriff’s hands, pulled the revolver from his holster, and once again started across the lawn, the handgun cocked and ready.

“Men.” She shook her head. “It’s almost a biological need. They’ve always got to have the biggest gun.”

They stood near the open graves. Five ragged holes in sacred earth. Broken coffins, torn shrouds, shredded clothing. Desecration was too clean a word for it.

And the bones… Dwight was sure that Lily could have identified each one of them. She’d taken her degree in mortuary science, after all. But Dwight didn’t need to know their scientific names, because he could read what they said.

LET HIM GO. There it was, a message spelled out on the green grass, defiling hallowed ground. Letters made of leg bones, and arm bones, spines and fingers and broken ribs still caked with bits of dry flesh…

Lily’s pale lips were a tight line of anger. “Horrible, isn’t it?” She motioned toward the big house where she lived with her father, just fifty yards distant. “Father says that he didn’t hear a thing last night. But to think that they were so close, that they might have broken into the house… I don’t care if they’re not werewolves. Even if they’re only men — ”

“Don’t torture yourself.”

“I can’t help it.” She looked at him, her eyes dark wells of pain. “Guilt is a terrible thing. My mother died while I was away at college. If anything were to happen to my father… well, I just couldn’t deal with it.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I guess I’m not so tough after all.”

“Shhh.” Dwight waved her off. “Listen.”

In the distance, they heard a low rumble.

Engines.

Motorcycles.

“I told you to let me drive,” Lily said. “You drive too fast.”

Dwight tossed her the keys. “Get the jack out of the trunk for me, will you?”

“It’s faster to walk back to the house. We could take the hearse.”

“Damn potholes.” Dwight kicked the patrol car’s flat tire. “Damn ditch.”

Lily said, “I’m driving, of course.”

“Of course.”

The undertaker’s daughter didn’t crack a smile. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can hold the shotgun.”