“Yeah, tainted meat, apparently. But not before three of them died. Niko took it hard. The thing is, no one even thought it was that bad. I mean, they’d just sort of been unwell for a couple weeks. Then suddenly within like two hours their systems started shutting down one after another. Animals are like that. They hide stuff well. Their keeper was still sacked, though. Everyone said if he’d caught it earlier, called Dr. Freeman in sooner, all four wolves could have lived.” Ryan’s face twisted slightly.

“You disagree?” Cooper asked.

“Oh, no. I don’t know. Probably. We’re supposed to record every little behavioral change for exactly this reason and it turns out the wolves’ keeper had been slacking. But he totally freaked out on Niko after. Accused her of setting him up. Stealing the records. Intentionally tampering with the meat. There was no basis for it. Just crazy, bitter stuff, really. I thought he was going to hit her, no joke, but she just stood there staring him down like—well, if looks could kill and all that. Niko loved those wolves. If you ask me, that’s the real reason he was fired.” Ryan shrugged. “James was his replacement, actually.”

The dull crackle of a speaker turning on caught Cooper off guard. Genevieve’s voice echoed suddenly through the rotunda, slightly muffled here in the hall, declaring it was time to announce the raffle winners. The first prize of the night...

“Why the interest in Dr. Freeman?” Ryan continued over the speaker, his expression now curious and a little eager. “Is she involved in your case? Is that why you’re asking these questions?”

“No. Not at all.” Cook shook his head firmly. She couldn’t be.

Under other circumstances, he might consider it. Freeman was a gifted pathologist with an expertise with wolves who had spent four months doing who knew what with a dead man’s biological samples. She’d openly admitted to wanting the existence of werewolves to come into the public knowledge.

Now a werewolf was murdered. His body posed in an extremely public way. His face and body affected by some mystery toxin to make his inhumanness obvious, and Freeman’s name kept popping up in odd connections to the coworkers of the victims. Hell, never mind consider it—she’d be Cooper’s number one suspect.

But the woman was in custody. Talk about an airtight alibi. And there were other people who wanted James dead. Arthur Crane, for example, who they still needed to talk to.

“Hey! That’s you!” Ryan said.

Cooper blinked at him. “Sorry?”

Ryan pointed up, and it took Cooper a moment to realize he was referring to Genevieve’s voice, still ringing out over the speakers.

...third raffle winner of the night is Cooper Dayton. Cooper Dayton, congratulations and please come to the stage beneath the elephant to collect your prize.

“I didn’t enter a raffle,” Cooper said, confused.