Page 20 of The Doctor's Wolf: Part Two
She took one of the larger beanbags herself, managing to fold her long legs into the noisily shifting seat and looking elegant doing it.Adler had never seen a fae sit on a beanbag before.
Adler took one of the least outlandish chairs.To his surprise, the thing was actually comfortable.
“Adler was present when we arrested Miss Pearson,” Maxim began.
The doctor nodded.“I saw the name on the files.”She looked to Adler.“You got the internal investigation into the death investigations of Persons’s parents started.And the one into the accident that killed her foster parents.”She framed the word “accident” in air quotes.
Adler nodded.“Something wasn’t right there.It deserved at least a second look.”
“I agree,” the fae said.“But don’t expect anyone to find out much.”She took a deep breath.“I can’t prove anything, but I would bet money on there being something bigger behind all this.”
“Ah.”
It didn’t come as a surprise, not really.The Pearson case had never felt really finished to Adler even if concluding it had been so easy after Maxim had gotten involved, no trial needed, no waiting for judgment.Something about the case itself just smelled off, rotten, wrong.
Maxim sighed.“What Melissa won’t say because she doesn’t like the word, is that she suspects this is a conspiracy, and I find myself increasingly willing to agree with her.”
Adler blinked.“Say what?You think the humans are conspiring to… what?Murder other humans?”
Dr.Seine shook her head.“First of all, I don’t have problems with words, Maxim, but conspiracy feels inaccurate.And no, this is not human-on-human violence.Pearson was—in my opinion—a cog in a much bigger machine, and she has been pushed toward doing what she did.Some of the way she phrases her responses indicates she has had some type of conditioning in the past.”
“I don’t quite follow,” Adler said.“I mean, to what end?”
“You are aware Pearson’s parents were murdered by a werewolf?”the fae asked.
Adler nodded.“That’s what the report said.”
Seine nodded.“Of course.The murders occurred in the late afternoon.On a day of the full moon.Were you aware of that?”
He hadn’t been.But this cast an entirely new light on that old case.
Wolves turned on a full moon.Some had the ability to turn the night before and—sometimes, in rare cases—the night after, but most wolves needed the sun to set before they could shift.
Only the smallest number could shift when the moon was up in the daytime sky.It was an almost mythic ability, and individual wolves with that skill were usually well-known within a region, not least because a solitary wolf roaming during the daytime could be extremely upsetting to humans, which in turn put all wolves in a difficult position.
If a wolf had murdered the parents during daytime, that was a very small suspect pool.
“I wasn’t.”Adler straightened.“How did the police not take note of that?”
“And how did they not put it anywhere in the file?”Maxim added.“Isn’t that just mysterious?I asked your mate to help me get access to her early psychiatric records.He got me the files, but the contents were not of Pearson but some other patient.Ostensibly, a clerical error, misfiled paperwork, but such a strange one, wouldn’t you agree?”
Adler perked up at that.“So what?You think this is a hate group?”
The fae shrugged.“I don’t know.But when I ask about why she killed the fae, what she would do to me if given the chance or to any other fae, she says ‘they deserve the suffering before death.’I once asked about her parents, and she told me the exact same thing.There are other things too, tics, avoiding eye contact.But that phrase sticks out most.”
“They deserve the suffering before death,” Adler mumbled to himself.The writing on the wall, literally.
Maxim stirred.“I followed up on a few things myself.You see, investigations surrounding Pearson were often dropped.I asked the officers I spoke with in hypotheticals to see how they would judge when to close an investigation, and their answers were sound.Had they acted like they knew was correct, those cases would still be open.”Maxim shifted forward a fraction.“I asked them how they would proceed normally in similar cases, and their answers were to continue investigating.”He tilted his head.“You see, Adler, some of the officers got very distressed when they were confronted with the fact that they had shut down an investigation before it could ever go anywhere.When they realized that was what they had done, that is.”
Adler clenched and unclenched his fists.“Then why did they do it?Distress doesn’t help much when you already fucked up an investigation.”
Maxim shrugged.“They had no idea why.I compelled them to exclude bribery or anything as mundane as that.Which means they either ran into an excellent hypnotist, or into a vampire with quite the powerful compulsion.”
Adler stirred in his seat, which had suddenly become uncomfortable.“That’s not an everyday skill.Did you try to undo it?”
Maxim shook his head.“It is not everyday at all.And as someone who has that skill, believe me, we take note of it as much as the wolves do of a day shifter.The undoing of it…well.It’s difficult and not even possible in most cases.In addition, there’s always a risk of leaving the mind with permanent damage, so weighing those risks, I didn’t attempt it.”
“Right.”Adler frowned, hating the idea that there were potential witnesses but that they couldn’t help them anymore.
