“I saw how you handled him with that kid!” he said. “And you’re female. I’ve never heard of him striking a woman. So you can probably arrest him without getting beaten up or killed. Maybe. Almost certainly.”
Erika shot him a look of disgust.
“Do not hit him again,” Chelsea said to Erika, who was balling her fists. “Can you go check on Pepper, please?”
“Fine,” Erika sighed, and headed off to Chelsea’s office.
“Has he killed anyone?” Chelsea asked the mayor.
“Well, a few Death Matches here and there, plus someone who came in guns blazing to try to arrest him and shot and injured one of his pack members. But that idiot didn’t use a silver bullet, so of course he didn’t stand a chance against them. We can give you silver bullets. I was going to give you ’til tomorrow to get settled in and then stop by with an assortment of weapons for you to use.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve called in the Council for Shifter Affairs on this?”
The mayor grimaced in distaste. “Good God, no.”
Not surprising. No shifter called in the council unless it was a last resort.
In an instance of serious shifter versus human crime, or vice versa, the council would be called in, but when it came to shifters having problems with other shifters, that was left entirely to the respective tribes and packs and prides. A shifter had to obey the laws of whatever pack he or she belonged to, and if they visited another pack, they had to obey those laws.
“The council’s already been out here enough recently,” he added, wincing in disgust.
“So they know about Roman’s pack?” Chelsea asked.
Mayor Winkleman shook his head. “No, no, it’s just that sheep have been disappearing from the Rodgers Ranch for the last few months, fences torn down, and there were wolf paw prints in the area. Our pack lands border the ranch. Mitch Rodgers, the ranch owner, has been lobbying to have a couple hundred acres of our property annexed, because he says that our pack members are the ones killing his sheep. He claims he needs the land as a buffer between his property and ours.”
At her look of surprise, he added, “It’s odd. He’s never had problems with us before. I mean, we don’t associate with the human town a lot, of course, but we do know all the major players over there. We do some business with them from time to time. Once a year we have a human-shifter social, and we visit each other’s towns to check out the Christmas decorations. In all the years I’ve known him, Mitch has never seemed prejudiced against shifters. Our people buy livestock and feed from his ranch. And yet all of a sudden, he’s insisting that we’re coming on to his land and stealing his sheep.
“Is the land valuable for any reason, the land that he’s asking for?”
“No, it’s just more forest land. He already owns a huge spread. Nobody’s clamoring for our property—we’re out in the middle of nowhere, not near any major roads or towns. However, we’re not going to shrink our territory and hand over a big tract of land just because he says so.”
“Well,” Chelsea mused, “I hate it say it, but times have been tight economically. And it sounds as if it’s out of character for him to just randomly accuse shifters of something without cause. Is it at all possible that he’s right, that it’s somebody from here stealing his sheep?”
“Not from here,” the mayor said, then flinched. “Don’t tell Roman I said that.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well,” the mayor said slowly, “the attacks started right after Roman’s pack showed up. But the council actually sent a shifter investigator out here twice because Mitch complained, and both times the investigator scented real wolves at the site where the sheep had disappeared. Not shifters. So the council declared the case closed.” He looked at her hopefully. “Maybe that problem will go away once you arrest Roman. Not that I’m saying Roman had anything to do with it,” he added hastily.
Of course you’re not saying that, Chelsea thought. Because it would take a set of testicles to say that, and clearly you’re lacking those.
Chapter Six
It was pitch dark out, the woods illuminated only by the silver crescent of the moon. Chelsea was sprayed head to toe with Wolf’s-naught, provided by Lorena, who had an herbal section in her store. The concoction would prevent her from being scented by the pack so she could sneak up on them.
She’d left Pepper at Erika’s house, and Erika had promised to take care of her until Chelsea got back. She’d also offered to go with Chelsea, but Chelsea had refused. This was Chelsea’s mess, she’d gotten into it herself, and she wasn’t going to risk anyone’s life doing it. Also, if she died during her attempt to bring Roman to justice, she needed someone to take care of Pepper.