The word seemed to hang, vibrating, in the air. I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. I'd been about to say, Werewolves don't do that kind of thing anymore – not outside the movies, then I remembered that case in Denver last year.

  A guy had been arrested for molesting little kids. He'd been doing it for a while, apparently. The victims had kept quiet a long time, for the usual reason: the scumbag had threatened them, their parents, or their pets with terrible deaths if the poor kids talked.

  But one of them finally did. When word got out, the dam broke and more victims came forward. One of them was from a supe family.

  The pederast had made three major mistakes, the way I look at it. The first was giving into his sick desires instead of either getting serious psychiatric help or cutting his own wrists. The second was molesting the six year-old daughter of a werewolf. His third mistake, the fatal one, was somehow coming up with the money to make bail.

  They call them "short eyes" in jail, and pedophiles are often the target of other inmates. Even killers and bank robbers have kids of their own. But this guy would have done better to stay behind bars and take his chances in the shower room.

  What you hear about werewolves is true. The wolf part of their nature means that they tend to form tight social groups, similar to the packs you find in the wild. You think Italian families are close? They've got nothing on your average werewolf clan.

  I don't think the Denver cops ever figured out exactly how many weres had been in the group that cornered the child molester after he left his bail bondsman's office. But there wasn't any doubt about how he died. He'd been eaten alive – and they figured he'd taken over an hour to die.

  But this kind of thing was really uncommon among werewolves these days, and I was about to say so to Mrs. Longworth when Karl asked her, "Is that what the police told you, ma'am? That your son was attacked by... werewolves?"

  "The police? I didn't speak to the police. There are some things a mother just shouldn't have to do. My husband spoke to them. He told me later, because I insisted on knowing."

  "Is that also what your other son, Jamieson, says happened?" I asked carefully. "After all, he was there."

  "He was not there. I wish you police would get that absurd idea out of your heads. Don't you think he would have tried to protect his own brother?"

  Then he could have been eaten by the werewolves, too, I thought – if there'd been any werewolves.

  "Jamieson spent the evening with some friends in Wilkes-Barre, and he had barely crossed the city limits on his way home when the stupid police pulled him over on some trumped-up murder charge. As if my son would have anything to do with a prostitute. It's ridiculous, that's all – it's just ridiculous."

  Her face twisted, but she stopped herself from breaking into tears. That just wasn't done – at least, not in front of the stupid police.

  I gave Mrs. Longworth a few seconds to pull herself together, then said, "Is your son home now, ma'am?" Fat chance of that, since we'd had to call in advance. And there's no way we'd get authorization for a raid on this place – not without a dozen witnesses and a signed deposition from the President. But I'd asked anyway, as an entry to some other questions I had.

  "No, he's not here," she said. "He hasn't been for days."

  "Doesn't he live here with you, ma'am?" Karl asked her.

  "Yes, of course he does, but he's got another place somewhere in town, some kind of bachelor pad, if people still say that. I was against it, but his father said a boy needs to have some privacy."

  The boy in question was twenty-seven years old.

  "Can you give us the address of this 'bachelor pad' of his?" I asked.

  "Oh, I have no idea. Somewhere in town – I don't know. He stays overnight, sometimes. I suppose he brings girls there." Mrs. Longworth looked at me. "Girls, decent girls, not... prostitutes."

  I wondered how the young women who had sucked her son's cock in his 'bachelor pad' got to be considered decent girls, but I suppose everything's relative.

  "Would your husband know where the place is, ma'am?" Karl asked.

  "Perhaps he would, I don't know. You may feel free to ask him – once he gets back from Tokyo. That will be sometime next month, I believe." The tiny smile was back in place now.

  "Can you give us a phone number where we can reach him? Or his email address?" I said.

  "Oh, I'm sure I have all that somewhere, but I can't lay my hands on it right at the moment. Why don't you leave me your card, and I'll have my secretary locate that information and call you."

  I was betting we'd hear from that secretary at about the time they opened a skating rink in Hell, but I took out one of my business cards and handed it to her. She immediately placed it on the nearby coffee table without even looking at it, as if afraid she might catch something.

  "Would it be all right if we took a look at the room your son uses when he's here, ma'am?" I asked. "There might be something to help us find him – just so we can ask him a few questions."

  "Would it be all right?" She pretended to consider it. "Well, I suppose so." The smile widened. "Just as soon as you show me your warrant, or court order, or whatever it's called. I have my doubts that any judge in the city would sign such an order – everyone but the police, apparently, knows what a fine young man Jamieson is. But in the event that you should obtain one, I'll have to have my attorney present, of course."

  Three minutes later, we were being shown out by the housekeeper. Following Karl out the door, I started to say something when I heard Mrs. Moyle's voice behind me.

  "Detective?" She held up a folded piece of paper. "I think you dropped this."

  It didn't look like anything I'd had in my pockets, and I was about to say so when I noticed the intense way Mrs. Moyle was looking at me. "I'm getting careless," I said, stepping back to the doorway. "Thank you."

  Mrs. Moyle didn't speak as she extended the hand holding the paper, but I saw her mouth form words that I'm pretty sure were "I never liked the little prick, anyway." Then she closed the door in my face.

  I waited until we were well aMrsom the house before unfolding the slip of paper. In a careful cursive hand was written "157 Spruce St # 304."