It's basically just a big, open platform with a roof on it, but the thing is built in the middle of an immense oak tree. The trunk shoots up right through the middle of the thing, and the designers put holes in the roof where the branches go. The tree house overlooks Nay Aug Gorge and the Roaring Brook, which runs through the middle of it. If you were crazy enough to jump over the railing, you'd have a 150-foot drop straight down before you hit the water, and that creek isn't nearly deep enough to dive into with any hope for survival. The tree house is as steady as the Sphinx, but it might not be the best place to visit if you're nervous about heights.

  There's been a couple of suicides over the years – lovelorn teenagers looking to make a romantic final exit. I'd seen the aftermath of one of those idiotic gestures when I worked Homicide, and the result didn't look romantic at all.

  That hasn't been a problem in a long time, though, ever since they closed the park after sunset. If you're some emo determined to make a dramatic exit, I suppose you could sneak in there some night. But the odds are you'd run into a werewolf, and the results of that encounter might make the remains of a jumper look positively dainty by comparison.

  The city lets the weres have the use of the park at night as a public service – both to the weres and the rest of the city's population. Wolves need to run, it's in their nature.

  Back when the city council was composed of sentient beings, they realized that it would be better for everybody concerned if the weres had a big, open space to do their collective thing, instead of doing it in their backyards. Less risk to the neighbors that way – and to the weres as well. Every human knows about silver bullets, and although the cartridges tend to be pricey, they're not exactly hard to find. I'm pretty sure that I saw some for sale in Vlad-Mart last week.

  To get to the park tree house, you walk up a gently sloping ramp that makes a sharp right turn about halfway up. I'm sure there's some principle of engineering that explains that, although nobody has ever bothered to enlighten me.

  It was the usual homicide scene: flashing red and blue lights, yellow crime scene tape, obnoxious yelling reporters – and Scanlon. He was waiting for us at the base of the ramp, along with a couple of uniforms that I knew.

  "I would've been inclined to call you guys anyway," Scanlon said, "considering that this place is Were Central after dark. But once I laid eyes on the vic, I was pretty damn sure it was something you'd be interested in."

  "Where's the body – up there?" I nodded toward the tree house.

  "Uh-huh."

  "Then let's go have a look," I said.

  Scanlon took the lead up the narrow ramp, with me behind him, followed by Karl.

  "Who called it in?" I said to Scanlon's back.

  Without stopping, he said over his shoulder, "Anonymous call to 911. They've traced it to within the park, but the number isn't getting us anywhere. Probably a disposable phone."

  I wondered if Christine had been the operator to take the call, and if she'd known it would bring her old man to the scene. Then I decided that I'd better stop thinking about Christine.

  There was more crime scene tape across the entrance to the tree house. Scanlon produced a pocket knife and cut it loose. Must have been a sharp blade – it went through the plastic tape without a snag.

  The naked man lay on his side, what was left of his mouth frozen into a snarl. Weres have to undress before transforming, or they'd just have to fight their way out of the clothes with teeth and claws once the change is complete. And as everybody knows by now, a werewolf returns to human form post-mortem. So if you kill a were, you end up with a dead, naked human – like the one we were looking at now.

  I heard Karl draw in his breath sharply – a good trick when you no longer need to breathe. He was reacting to the pool of blood under the corpse's head. There wasn't much of it, though, compared to some other crime scenes I've been at. Bullet wounds to the head often bring instantaneous death, and corpses don't bleed much. But there was another, larger pool of blood a few feet beyond the corpse.

  "What do you make of the other blood pool?" I asked Scanlon.

  "Don't know yet," he said. "It's not consistent with the head wound. Maybe the vic managed to hurt the killer before dying."

  "With a bullet in his brain?"

  "I mean before the perp got a shot off. Maybe some human idiot got into the park, the were attacked him, and the guy was defending himself. Could happen."

  "Not unless the shooter was a goat," Karl said.

  Scanlon and I looked at him. Karl was kneeling next to the second blood pool, and I saw that his index finger was dark from where he'd dipped it in the blood for a sniff, and maybe a taste.

  "This is goat blood," he said, looking up at us. "Not human, not were. Just your basic old-McDonald-had-afarm goat."

  "There's an expert opinion for you," I said to Scanlon.

  "I don't doubt it," he said. "But that raises an interesting question, the same one that I often find myself asking at murder scenes."

  "You mean 'What the fuck?'" I said.

  "That's the one."

  Karl was looking closely at the section of railing that overlooked the gorge. He wasn't using a flashlight, but then I guess he didn't need one.

  "There's a couple of blood drops here," he said, "and the smell of goat is pretty strong." He turned to look at Scanlon. "I'm betting that if you send some guys down into the gorge tomorrow, you'll find a dead goat, probably with its throat cut. Even if it went into the creek, it won't have traveled far downstream. Water's pretty shallow, this time of year."

  "You're on a roll, man," I said. "Care to tell us what you think it all means?" I was beginning to get an idea myself, but Karl deserved a chance to shine, especially in front of Scanlon, who'd voiced his doubts about vampire cops to me once, over a beer.

  "I think it was a set-up," Karl said. "The perp led the goat up here, killed it – and waited. He knew that weres were gonna be in the park, and they have a powerful sense of smell, better even than… some other kinds of supes." I think he'd been about to say "vampires," but thought better of it.

  "He knew the blood smell would bring a werewolf up here, sooner or later," Scanlon said. "And it would probably be strong enough to mask the shooter's scent, as well."