Kitty Takes a Holiday

We took my car, and in forty minutes arrived at the sheriff's department and county jail in Walsenburg. Marks had booked Cormac by the time we got into the building, and the hunter was ensconced in a back room, out of sight.

Marks glared at us over the front desk. 'He's already asking for his lawyer. You want to get back here so we can take his statement?'

Ben was tense. I knew him well enough by now that I could tell without touching him.

'You'll be fine,' I said. 'Just breathe slow and think about keeping it in. Stay calm.'

'Easier said than done.'

'Yup.' I tried to make my smile encouraging.

He straightened his shoulders and stalked forward like a man preparing to go into battle.

I'd seen him talk down cops before. I'd seen him face a panel of senators and hold them off. In those cases he'd had this hawk's stare, the fierce-eyed glare of a hunter that had always instilled confidence in me, because he was always on my side.

The hawk was gone. I should have seen it, but it wasn't there. Instead, he looked like he'd been cornered.

I watched him go, wringing my hands on his behalf. Then all I could do was wait in the lobby on a hard plastic chair, leafing through copies of news magazines a month out of date. I wanted to climb the walls. The place was clean, not terribly old or worn out. But it smelled of sweat and fatigue. It was not a good place. People ended up here when they'd hit bottom, or were about to hit bottom.

My wounds still itched. They should have been almost healed. Cursed, Tony had said. I hadn't realized how much I took the quick healing for granted. Then again, if I didn't have rapid healing, I wouldn't go around inter­cepting attacking wolves.

I watched the clock. Hours later, after midnight, Ben came back to the lobby. He was pale, ill-looking, and sweat dampened his hair. He looked like he'd run a race, not talked with the cops. I stood and met him.

He smelled musky, animal, like his wolf was rising to the surface. I took hold of his hand. 'Keep it together, Ben. Take a deep breath.'

He did, and it shuddered when he let it out. 'I don't know what Cormac did earlier, but Marks has it in for him. He already called the prosecutor. They want to file charges. Six eyewitnesses saw Cormac save your life, and they want to press charges. They won't set bail until the advisement hearing tomorrow. And I just sat there and s tored at them.'

'How does this usually work? You make it sound like this isn't the way things normally go for you guys.'

'Usually I have plenty of evidence that Cormac had a good reason for doing whatever he did, and the charges don't even get filed. But we have a couple of problems this time. Somebody around here wants to make a reputa­tion for themselves.'

'Marks?'

'Marks and George Espinoza, a very earnest prosecu­tor who's probably never encountered anything more seri­ous than trespassing.' His tone was harsh.

'And?' There was an 'and' in there.

'She was already dying when he killed her. It was excessive force, even for Cormac. That's the argument Espinoza's going to use.'

This was going to be about splitting hairs. Cormac did what he had to—I could convince myself of that. A hun­dred horror movie climaxes said he did the right thing.

But how would a judge see it?

'How's Cormac?'

'Stoic. He's Cormac. There's something else. They've ID'd the body. The skinwalker. Miriam Wilson. She's the twin sister of John Wilson, the werewolf that Cormac shot. The one that got me. A missing person report on her was filed three months ago.'

As if we needed the situation to be any more compli­cated. I tried to imagine a state of affairs where a brother and sister would become the things they were, and wreak the havoc they had.

'Brother and sister? One of them a werewolf and one of them a skinwalker. What's the story behind that?'

'I wish I knew.'

'And her family reported her disappearance to the police, but they hired Cormac to hunt down the brother?'

He shrugged. 'We don't know that it was her family that filed the report. I'm guessing they didn't send Cormac after her because she wasn't a werewolf. We don't know if they knew what she was. We don't know anything. Christ, I'm going to have to go buy a suit. I left all my clothes in my car back in Farmington. I can't go to court without a suit.' He was currently wearing his coat over jeans and a T-shirt, like he'd been wearing for the last week.

'We'll go buy you a suit in the morning. Is there anything else you need to do? Can we get out of here?' I wanted to get him out of this place, with its unhappy smells and atmosphere of confrontation.

'Yeah, let's go.'

That started a very long night. Ben used my laptop and spent hours looking through online legal libraries for precedents and arguments that would spring Cormac. He scratched out notes on a notepad. I watched, lying on the sofa, wondering how I could help. He grew more agitated by the minute.

'Ben, come to bed. Get some sleep.'

'I can't. Too much to do. All my work is back in my car, I have too much to review, I have to catch up.' He glared at the screen with a frantic intensity.

'How much are you going to be able to help him if you're falling asleep in the courtroom?'

He took his hands away from the keyboard and bowed his head. I could see the fatigue radiating off him. When he came to the sofa, I sat up, made room for him, and pulled him into an embrace. My body was healing, finally, but still sore. I didn't complain. He needed me to com­fort him, however much I wanted someone to comfort me. We stayed like that a long time, his head pillowed on my shoulder, until the tension started to seep out of him. I got him out of his clothes, into bed, and held him close, curled up in my arms, until he finally fell asleep. He never fully relaxed.

The next morning, we went to buy a suit. We weren't going to find anything fancy in Walsenburg. This put Ben even further out of sorts. But we managed, somehow.

He changed clothes in the car on the way to the Huerfano County Courthouse, where Cormac's first hearing was scheduled to take place. The suit didn't fit quite right, it didn't make as slick a picture as he might have wanted. 1 brushed his hair back with my fingers, straightened his tie, smoothed his lapels. Like 1 was sending him to the prom or something.

Ben looked like 1 was sending him to an execution. He was still holding himself tense, shoulders stiff, like the raised hackles on a nervous wolf.

'You going to be okay?'

'Yeah. Yeah, sure. This is just a formality. The judge will look over his statement, the witness statements, and throw out the case. That's all there is to it.'

He headed into the building alone to meet with Cormac before the hearing. I made my way to the courtroom. In other circumstances I might have admired the hundred-year-old building, made of functional gray stone and topped by a sim­ple decorated tower. They built them to last in those days.

1 didn't know what I expected—some kind of dramatic, busy scene like in a courtroom drama on TV. But the place was almost empty. Marks stood off to one side. A couple of people in business suits conversed quietly. Fluorescent lights glared. The whole place gave the impression of dull bureaucracy. I sat in the first row behind the defense side. I was sure this would be educational if I weren't so ner­vous on Ben and Cormac's behalf.

Without any preamble, a couple of bailiffs guided Cormac into the courtroom. He'd had a chance to shave, which made him look slightly less psychotic than he had last night. A point in his favor, and that was probably part of the strategy. It was a shock, though, to see him in an orange prison jumpsuit, short-sleeved, baggy, unflatter­ing. It gave me a terrible sense of foreboding.

Ben followed, and both of them positioned themselves behind one of the podiums before the bench.

The whole procedure followed in a kind of haze. The judge, Heller, a middle-aged woman, brown hair pulled into a bun, wearing a no-nonsense expression, came into the room and took her place. Ben and Cormac remained standing before her. Across from them, one of the busi­ness suits, a surprisingly young man—no older than Ben and Cormac—shuffled papers on the desk in front of him. George Espinoza, the prosecutor. His suit was neat, his dark hair slicked back, his expression viperish. A cru­sader. No wonder Ben was worried.

The prosecutor read the facts—and just the facts, ma'am. The time and place of Cormac's arrest, the nature of the crime, the probable cause. The charge: murder. Not just murder, but first- degree murder. That was serious, way too serious.

Espinoza explained: 'The accused was heard to say that he had tracked the victim, had in fact been focused on her for quite some time with the intent to kill her. He was seen in the area of Shiprock, New Mexico—the vic­tim's hometown—on several dates over the last month. He was, in fact, lying in wait for the victim's appearance. This presents a clear display of deliberation, meeting the requirement for a charge of first-degree murder.'

Cormac had been tracking her. He had meant to kill her. Which made the whole thing murky. I was glad I wasn't the lawyer.

This wasn't a TV show. Nobody shouted, nobody slammed their fists on the tables, nobody rushed in from the back with the crucial piece of information that would free the defendant, or pound the final nail in the prosecu­tion's case.

They might have been lecturing on economic theory, as calmly and analytically as everyone spoke. It made it hard to concentrate on the words.

The judge spoke: 'Mr. Espinoza has requested that Mr. Bennett—' Cormac Bennett. I'd never heard his last name before. Even such a small detail as that made the scene surreal. It was like Cormac should have been beyond something as mundane as a last name.'—be held without bail, on the basis of his past associations and the belief that he is a flight risk.'

Ben argued: 'Your Honor, my client has dealt with law enforcement agencies in several jurisdictions, and has always been cooperative. He's never once given the indi­cation that he's a flight risk.'

'Perhaps his past association with the Mountain Patriot Brigade hasn't been an issue until now. It is the experience and opinion of this court that members of such right-wing paramilitary organizations are, in fact, flight risks.'

Again, the world shifted, becoming even more surreal, if that was possible. I'd heard of the Mountain Patriot Bri­gade: it was one of those militia groups, right-wing fanat­ics who ran around with guns and preached the downfall of the government. When they weren't actually blowing things up.

That didn't sound like Cormac at all. Not the Cormac I knew. Well, except for the running around with guns part. The number of backstories I didn't know was getting frustrating.

Ben's hesitation before responding was maddening. Hesitation meant uncertainty. Meant a weak position. Maybe even guilt. Which made me wonder: Where had Cormac learned about guns? Where had he become such a great shot?

Ben said, 'Your Honor, Mr. Bennett's association with that group ended over a decade ago. It hasn't been an issue because it isn't relevant.'

'Mr. O'Farrell, I've granted the prosecution's request that Mr. Bennett be held without bail.'

'Your Honor, I'd like to lodge a protest. You've got his record—he's never jumped bail.'

'And don't you think it's just a little odd how often your client has been arrested and had to post bail? Don't you ever get tired of standing with your client at these hearings?'

'Frankly, that's not your concern.'

'Careful, Mr. O'Farrell.'

'Your Honor, I'd like to move that the case against my client be dismissed. Miriam Wilson's attack was so brutal, lives were at risk. Katherine Norville's attempt to stop her without lethal force