Free The Frenzy Way by Gregory Lamberson Page B

them there’s a maniac running around this city who believes he’s a werewolf. He tears his victims to pieces and runs off with their heads. You don’t think that’s going to start a panic? No matter how I downplay these gruesome details, they’re what any sensible reporter is going to glom onto. I need to convince the press—so they can convince the public—that we’ve got this situation under control. I can’t do that with Detective Lane. I can’t sell a rookie Murder Police. But I can sell you, Mace. You brought in Gomez. You’re a bona fide hero. Because of that damned book, you’re famous.”
    Certain that Stokes had a similar book in him just waiting to get out, Mace ignored the remark. “I’m a captain. I supervise detectives. I don’t work cases.”
    “Then give this to someone else. Someone with a little experience and some
cojones
between their legs.”
    Mace stepped closer. “That’s what’s bothering you, isn’t it? You don’t care that Lane is green. You care that she’s female.”
    “It does present a certain image problem. The press is made up of children. I know this because I used to play in their sandbox. And on a big murder case like this, they need to see that Daddy is in charge, not Mommy.”
    “Lane stays in charge, Diega assists her, and I back her. End of story. Public Affairs doesn’t dictate how I run my unit.”
    “
Greaaaaat.”
Stokes raised both arms in a gesture of futility. “If this backfires, we’ll both be missing heads.” Turning on one heel, he left the office.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    “The Indian’s nature can no more be trusted than the wolf’s. Tame him, cultivate him, strive to Christianize him, as you will, and the sight of blood will in an instant call out the savage, wolfish, devilish instincts of the race.”
    —1862 petition to President Abraham Lincoln by citizens of St. Paul, Minnesota

    John Stalk drove his black Jeep Wrangler Golden Eagle over the bumpy dirt road to the tribal police station located on the Chautauqua Reservation, part of the Seneca Indian Nation of New York’s Iroquois Confederacy. The reservation stretched from Lake Erie to Canada Way Creek and had a population of 2,412, living mostly in single-family homes. Several businesses operated within its borders, including a tobacco shop, a grocery store, a bookstore, hunting supply store, and a bingo parlor.
    Stalk had served as a member of the tribal police force for over a year. He worked part-time, which allowed him to study with Tom Lenape, a self-proclaimed shaman. Pulling into the flat brick building’s parking lot, he switched off the engine but continued to listen to his CD: Billy Childish, a poet, author, and musician who chronicled the downfall and plight of the American Indian. He listened to Billy whenever he grew tired of U2 and Alicia Keys.
    As a boy he had visited the reservation with his father but had never dreamed he would one day live there. “Chief” Dan had been the head of the very tribal police force on which Stalk now served, until he had met Sylvia Lyons, a Caucasian teacher who performed volunteer work for the reservation’s children. Dan and Sylvia married one year later, and Dan left the poverty-stricken reservation for what he hoped would be a more prosperous life in Niagara County. When the Niagara Falls Police Academy rejected his employment application outright, without explanation and despite his experience, he turned to welding at a local factory to support Sylvia and their unborn first child.
    Stalk grew up the youngest of three siblings and had been Dan’s only offspring to show interest in his Indian heritage. He’d enjoyed accompanying his father on day trips to the reservation and on weekend excursions to the family retreat in the Adirondacks, where they hunted and fished together. Dan taught his son to respect nature and wildlife and entertained him with tales of tribal police work. After graduating from high school, Stalk had enlisted in the