Cypher throws back his head and howls a laugh. “Oh, that is good. You just forgot to follow it up with ‘and that’s not surprising, considering where it’s coming from.’”
“That’s another of those things that goes without saying.”
Cypher grins at me. “The boy’s real good at learning his lessons. When I was sheriff, sometimes, I’d give guys the option of skipping chopping duty by going a few rounds with me in the town square. You know how many lacked the brains to refuse? Small brains. Big egos. Plenty of entertainment for all. Now, boy, if you’d given me a second, you’d have seen I wasn’t making a move on your cute detective. I was just going to point her in the right direction.”
“Up,” I say.
“What?”
I squint into the treetops. “The right direction is up. Silas is somewhere…” I trail off as I walk, my gaze fixed on the trees until I see a shape. It’s so high I need my binoculars. I look through and see what is definitely a man’s hand dangling from a branch.
Cypher says, “If you think I put him up there, you’ve got a very generous opinion of a big man’s agility level. I can tell you what happened, but you’re going to need to take my word for it, ’cause that’s one crime scene you’re not reaching without wings.”
Dalton hands me his pack. Then he unzips his jacket.
“You’re seriously going to climb up there?” Cypher says. “Guess you really are part ape.”
Dalton ignores him and hands me his jacket. He’s wearing a T-shirt, and as he grips the tree trunk to scale it, his muscles flex. Cypher whistles.
“You got some guns, boy. Not exactly my .45 Specials, but you’re not as skinny as I remember. You sure you don’t want to take me on? I’m getting to be an old man. You might actually win.”
Dalton snorts.
Cypher laughs again. “You really did grow some brains, didn’t you?”
Dalton starts to climb. It’s not easy—he has to scale the lower trunk like a fireman’s pole before he reaches branches thick enough to support him. Once he’s up there, across from Cox, he calls down, “Tell me what you need in situ, and then I’ll have to bring the crime scene to you.”
I ask him to make note of Cox’s position along with a preliminary assessment of injuries. He does and then says, “I’m bringing him down.”
He manages to lower Cox about ten feet before he runs out of decent branch steps. Then he says, “He’s coming express,” and I step back. He lowers the body as best he can and then lets Cox fall.
The corpse hits the snow face-first. Resisting the urge to turn him over, I assess his back. He’s wearing a parka. Boots, too. One at least. The other is gone, along with the leg that once occupied it. I brush snow away from the severed leg. It’s been pulled off, not cut. The flesh is mangled and decomposed enough to tell me Cox has been in that tree for about a week. Which means he’s not our man.
Dalton hops down as I move to checking the only other obvious area of injury I see from the rear—Cox’s neck. It’s been bitten from the back, with perfect puncture wounds on either side of his spine. Bitten and broken, his head at an impossible angle. Dalton confirms the neck was like that before he moved the body.
When I give the sign, he flips Cox over. Here’s where I see the real damage, his parka ripped open, chest ripped open, the two mingling in a mess of feathers and fabric and shredded flesh.
“Eaten,” I say. “Something stored him in that tree for later. The only tree-climbing beast out here with the power to do that would be a cougar. Which is consistent with the bite marks. That’s how they attack, right? Like a cat. Pin and bite the neck, rather than rip out the throat like a canine would.”
“Yep,” Dalton says.
“And the caching? Is that normal?”
“It is. They’ll use deadfall sometimes, but a tree will do the trick, too. Any place to hide their prey.”
“So unless I can shape-shift into a big cat, this ain’t my fault,” Cypher says as he rises to his feet. “Agreed?”
“You knew what happened to him,” I say. “You knew where he was. But you had to toy with us.”
“Out here, you take your amusement where you find it. And you two were so cute. Hot on the trail of the killer cougar. You gonna go arrest her?”
“You gonna tell us where we can find her?” Dalton says. “This is at least the second person she’s killed in the last few years. She’s learned we’re easy prey, which is no joking matter.”
“Nope, it’s not,” Cypher says. “Which is why you don’t need to worry about this particular she-bitch. I’ve been out here every day, watching for her to come back.”
“How long exactly?” I ask.
He eyes me. “That important?”
“It might be.”
“I was out checking my traps six days ago when I heard Silas scream. By the time I got here, she was hauling him up that tree.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
I’m preparing to leave when Cypher steps into my path and says, “You do realize I used to be sheriff in Rockton, right? Whatever this boy’s daddy thought of my methods, I kept the law in that town. I know a few things about police work. Had a lot of experience circumventing it in my former life, if you know what I mean.”
I have no intention of walking away without questioning him. But I can’t let him know I want something, or it’ll be another invitation to a game.