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I slept Sunday otten ho There was no way to make a ten o&039;clock service Surely God understood the need for sleep, even if he didn&039;t have to do it hiton University I was in the office of Dr Louis Fane, Louie to his friends The early-winter evening was filling the sky with soft purple clouds Strips of sky like a lighted backdrop for the clouds showed through his single officeHe rated aMost doctorates didn&039;t Doctorates are cheap on a college campus

Louie sat with his back to theHe had turned on the desk laht We sat in that last pool of light, and it seeainst the dark God, I was melancholy today

Louie&039;s office was suitably cluttered One as ceiling-to-floor bookshelves, filled with biology textbooks, nature essays, and a complete set of James Herriot books The skeleton of a Little Brown Bat was laid behind glass and hung on his wall by his diploma There was a bat identification poster on his door like the ones you buy for bird feeders You know, "Common Birds of Eastern Missouri" Louie&039;s doctoral thesis had been on the adaptation of the Little Brown Bat to human habitation

His shelves were lined with souvenirs; seashells, a piece of petrified wood, pinecones, bark with dried lichen on it All the bits and pieces that biologyup

Louie was about five foot six, with eyes as black asa little below his shoulders It wasn&039;t a fashion stateh Louie had just not gotten around to cutting his hair in a while He had a square face, a slender build, and looked sort of inoffensive But ers and looked at ht not have offered to arm-wrestle him

He had come in specially to talk to me on a Sunday It was my day off, too

It was the first Sunday that Richard and I hadn&039;t at least talked to each other init was pack business I hadn&039;t been able to ask questions because you can&039;t argue with your answering machine I didn&039;t call hiht

I felt like a fool thisI&039;d said yes to a proposal from someone I didn&039;t know I knehat Richard had shown me, his outward face, but inside was a whole neorld that I had just begun to visit

"What did you and the rest of the professors think of the footprints the police sent over?"

"We think it&039;s a wolf"

"A wolf? Why?"

"It&039;s certainly a big canine It isn&039;t a dog, and other than wolves that&039;s about it"

"Even allowing for the fact that the canine foot is "

"Could it be Peggy Sy could control herself really well Why would she kill someone?"

"I don&039;t know Why wouldn&039;t she kill someone?"

He leaned back in his chair It squeaked under his weight "Fair question Peggy was as much a pacifist as the pack would let her be"

"She didn&039;t fight?"

"Not unless forced into it"

"Was she high in the pack structure?"

"Shouldn&039;t you be asking Richard these questions? He is next in line to the throne, so to speak"

I just looked at hi

"I snored the hint Business, we had business to discuss "Peggy&039;s husband came to see me He wanted me to look for her He didn&039;t know about the other y have told him?"

"A lot of us survive in relationships by pretending as hard as we can that we aren&039;t e are I bet Peggy didn&039;t talk pack business with her husband"

"How hard is it to pretend?"

"The better you control, the easier it is to pretend"

"So it can be done"

"Would you want to go through your life pretending you didn&039;t raise zo your husband embarrassed by it, or sickened by it?"

I felt my face burn I wanted to deny it I wasn&039;t embarrassed by Richard, or sickened, but I wasn&039;t coh to protest "It doesn&039;t sound like a very good way to live," I said

"It isn&039;t"

There was a very heavy silence in the roo When all else goes to hell, concentrate on business "The police were all over the area where the body was found today Sergeant Storr said they didn&039;t find anything but a few more footprints, a little blood" Truth was, they had found sos in the trees near the kill area, but I wasn&039;t sure I was free to share that with the lycanthrope co to both sides It didn&039;t see-person case

"If the police and the pack would share inforht be able to solve this case"

He shrugged "It&039;s not my call, Anita I&039;m just an Indian, not a chief"

"Richard&039;s a chief," I said

"Not as long as Marcus and Raina are alive"

"I didn&039;t think Richard had to fight her for pack doht"

Louie laughed "If you think Raina would let Marcus lose without helping him, you haven&039;t ht her helping Marcus was against pack law"

He shrugged again "I don&039;t know about pack law, but I know Raina If Richard would play footsie with her, she ht even help him defeat Marcus, but he&039;s made it very clear that he doesn&039;t like her"

"Richard said she had this idea about lycanthrope porno movies?"

Louie&039;s eyes widened "Richard told you about that?"

I nodded

"I&039;m surprised He was embarrassed about the whole idea Raina was hot and heavy to have hi to seduce hied her boy Richard is too private to ever have sex for a camera"

"Raina&039;s starred in some of the movies?"

"So I&039;m told"

"Have any of the wererats appeared in the flicks?"

He shook his head "Rafael forbid it We&039;re one of the few groups that refused it flat"

"Rafael&039;s a good ood rat," Louie said

I smiled "Yeah"

"What&039;s up with you and Richard?"

"What do youyou When I saw hi What happened?"