Sajani Tails

This post is a continuation from here: http://sajanitails.com/index.php?/archives/2-Cici-and-Number-Nine-Prologue.html

Fort Hood, Texas. 8:00AM 2 February 10 A.C.

      The hard part was not letting anyone else know that she was a werewolf. While stationed in Alaska, her MP father had managed to change his working dog for a part wolf. He’d never have been able to train her if it hadn’t been for Cicilia.

      While “talking” to the dog in wolf form wasn’t easy, she’d had an easier time getting things across than her father did. Part of her wanted to be able to tell people that she was a werewolf, but most of her agreed with her parents. They were worried she’d be taken away for research. She was worried that she’d be labeled a freak.

      She already endured enough for the collar her father had her wear. She usually wore high necked shirts and kept it loose to hide it, but most kids found out. Then she had to pretend to like it. The other kids usually thought it was pretty cool once they knew about it. It was an exact match of the one on her father’s working dog. She usually didn’t have to tell the lie about why she wore it. Most assumed it was because she thought that her dad’s working dog was the best and wanted to show it off. The truth was simple though. She wore it so that when she was in wolf form, people would mistake her for the dog.

      Today was the start of something different though. Today she wanted to use that collar to her advantage, but her father was almost as stubborn as she.

      “Why can’t you just come as a person?” he was saying.

      “Why can’t I just come as a wolf? It’s perfect dad.”

      “I’ve already signed the Groundhog shadow day slip for the school saying you’re coming to work with me today. That’s not going to agree with the people at work that’ll say you weren’t there.” He looked sterner than he really was. It was the camouflage jumpsuit and black arm sash that said MP in large white letters that did part of it. Those that could read the rank in the middle of his chest might have been more intimidated knowing he was a sergeant first-class, but Cicilia didn’t care about that.

      “It’s not a murder case dad.” She said. “Who’s going to check?” For a brief moment her dad had on his face the look that their family called “the Chuck.” His mouth was caught half open and his large military cut mustaches was bent down with it. He looked slightly stunned. As his wife entered the kitchen he shot her a last pleading glance that was totally missed.

      “Sbrigati, Lupina, o ti perderai l'autobus.” 

      Cicilia’s mother was a beautiful woman. She often wished she’d gotten her mother’s olive skin instead of the Norwegian paleness of her father, then her dark brown hair would have matched her skin, instead of making her look almost ghost like. Cicilia loved her mother, but her English, while mostly fluent was imperfect still, and so she sometimes missed what was happening. Her parents had married when her father was serving with an airborne unit in Italy.

      “Si madre,” Cicilia answered politely, “ma oggi, mi con padre andara.” 

      “That’s right,” her mother responded. Then her face brightened, her brown eyes almost lighting to gold, “Lupina, you can go as Number Nine! Wouldn’t that be exciting?” She winked at Cicilia in a way her father wouldn’t see.

      She didn’t dare respond. She only watched as her mother turned to her father and said, “Isn’t that a great idea?” Number Nine was her father’s working dog. They’d named her after the legendary Number Nine wolf, one of the first Alphas to be re-introduced to Yellowstone in 1995 AD.

      Sergeant Gillespie knew he was beat. “Ok,” he sighed. “Make sure your collar is straight. And I’m afraid you’ll have to wear the harness.” He turned to his wife who kissed him on the forehead, “You’ll keep Nums in the house then?”

      “Of course,” she said, her Italian accent making it almost sound formal with how she rolled her “r” slightly. She straightened the bottom of the flowery summer dress she was wearing and started towards the dishes.

      Cicilia smiled and then ran up the stairs of their duplex housing and into her bedroom. She tightened the chain collar on her neck and changed awkwardly into the working dog harness. She loved the feeling of changing into wolf form. It was the change back to human that made her feel strange. If only the clothes would work in full wolf form, like they did in what she thought of as the halfsies: the state where she had the ears, snout, senses, and fur of the wolf, but retained a mostly human form. She leaned forward slightly, crouching with her legs, barely allowing her fingers to touch the ground, like a sprinter about to start a race, and began to change. She felt the softness of her fur begin to cover her and her weight shift so that it balanced between her arms and legs. Her fingers shrunk and her feet stretched to form the digitigrade rear legs of the wolf.

      She trotted down the stairs to her father and stuck her nose in his unsuspecting hand. Groundhog Shadow Day was a long tradition in the Army. Children were encouraged to go with a military parent to work for the day. It got the kids out of school, and Cici suspected, helped the Army’s recruiting numbers. Her and her brothers took turns each year, so this was only her third time.

      “Aah” her father said, wiping his hand on his uniform and then quickly checking to make sure that didn’t leave a mark. “Roof.” Cici responded, wagging her tail slowly. It was the closest thing she could do as a wolf to laughing. “Ready?” her father asked, taking a last sip from his orange juice. She nodded and wagged her tail.

      The MPs were in formation. Cici had learned about what was expected of Number Nine when she’d been helping her father train her. With his unit, there were three platoons; they stood in blocks roughly eight soldiers long and four or five deep. Before each platoon stood its platoon sergeant. Sergeant Gillespie, with Cici to his right, stood before the third platoon, with the rest of the K-9 MPs and support soldiers. Directly in front of the second platoon sergeant, stood the First Sergeant.

      Captain Grant, the company commander, came out the door of the command center. He was a tall lean man with black skin and a casual command presence. “Sergeant Gillespie, I’ll need to see you and Number Nine after formation.”

      For a moment Cici was worried he noticed it wasn’t really Nums standing there, because he seemed to do a double take before standing to face the First Sergeant.

      The First Sergeant saluted and the captain raised his arm in salute. “Receive the report.” Both then dropped their salute. The First Sergeant turned and about faced sharply. “Receive the report.”

      As one, the platoon sergeants turned to face their platoons, Cici walking casually behind her dad to still stand on his right.

      “Report.” The platoon sergeants said in unison.

      The squad leaders then saluted and reported their squad’s attendance in order. Sergeant Gillespie returned each salute, and then snapped back to face the First Sergeant. The other two platoon sergeants finished as he did. Cici again moved to stay on her dad’s right.

      “Report.”

      Each platoon then reported one at time. Cici knew the other platoon sergeants. She’d met them a few times before. All three, including her dad, saluted and reported “All accounted for” one at a time. The First Sergeant turned to face the captain, saluted and talked briefly with him. The captain said only a few words back and the First Sergeant faced the formation again. “COB at seventeen hundred. Report to your stations. Dismissed.”

      Captain Grant didn’t even wait for the formation to disperse but called Cici’s dad over to him again. “Sergeant Gillespie.” Her dad didn’t seem slighted at all by the apparent lack of confidence in his memory. She followed her dad over to the captain and watched him salute. “There’s been a suicide over at 1-22 Infantry. 4th ID side. I want you to go and relieve the night shift.” Captain Grant finally returned her dad’s salute.

      “Yes, sir.” Sergeant Gillespie said quickly. “I realized as I pulled in that I left a few things at home, can I stop by…” Cici realized her dad never forgot anything like that. He probably was just looking for an excuse to take her home, rather than a suicide scene. It would have been exciting.

      Captain Grant came to her rescue. “No need. Those soldiers have been there since oh-five-thirty. I just need for you to finish things up. It shouldn’t take long.”

      Cici and her father turned to leave. “I bet you’re glad you didn’t bring one of your kid’s this year for shadow day, huh?”

      The sergeant turned and smiled slightly. “Yes sir.”

      “Roof.” Cici said quietly, trying to laugh, but not able.

      Captain Grant laughed though. “See, even Nums agrees.”

      They were a few more steps away before her dad dared speak to her. “I’m sorry.” He said simply. He opened the door of his truck and let her jump in before closing the door behind her. He got in and buckled his seat belt. “Normally it’s not a problem to have you kids come with me. I’d sneak you home despite what the captain said, but there’s not time.”

      She wasn’t sure what he meant by that and, fortunately, there wasn’t anything that she could say in return. Sometimes a single word vocabulary was convenient.

      The ride wasn’t long. 1-22 Infantry was just straight east on Hell On Wheels Avenue, named for 2nd Armor Division that used to be stationed where 4th Infantry Division was now. The other one-way road across from it, Old Ironsides Avenue, was named for 1st Armor Division, which ironically was not stationed there either. It’d been in Germany until recently, when it’d been dissolved.

      The buildings on this side of the post were newer than the ones on the 1st Cavalry Division side. Two story rectangles with barracks rooms that opened to the outside on top and the command offices opening on the inside on the bottom. They all looked alike. Color variety provided by only shades of brown. The one they wanted was almost all the way down near the large cylindrical water tower near a bend in the road. It made an ostentatious landmark and would have looked impressive if it’d been painted another color besides what Cici thought as dull military beige. The green diamond with four green ivy leaves pointing out inside it almost made it look less bland.

      The symbol for 4th Infantry division was one of the few things she’d heard of that showed a sense of humor in military iconography. Ivy leaves for the I-V (roman numeral for fourth) division. Shallow pun. A feeble effort, but at least an effort.

      There was a small crowd near the northern side of the building. What was obviously a body under a white sheet was near them. An ambulance in the far parking lot had its lights on. MP vehicles were parked in the median parking between Old Ironsides and Hell on Wheels. Sergeant Gillespie parked next to one and went to let his daughter out the other side. He stopped short though and decided to just roll the window down a little. He ran carefully across the street leaving Cici alone in the truck. He muttered something almost incoherent as he left—something about it maybe not taking more than a few minutes.

      Well, she didn’t think that was very fair. “Roof.” She said quietly.

      Her father almost looked at her over his shoulder but continued across and started to talk to one of the MPs.

      “Roof,” she said. “Roof. Roof,” each time getting louder.

      The other MP, whom she didn’t recognize, pointed at her and she barked one more time and wagged her tail at him. Her dad started back towards her with a slight frown under his mustaches. “Ok, now I have to let you out or get in trouble. Thanks,” he said under his breath as he let her out and grabbed her leash.

      Cici had often wished that she kept her wolf sense of smell when in human form. It was hard to explain, but it was almost like smells had a substance, like a 3-D image in her mind when a wolf. Not only could she tell what direction the smell was coming from, but her mind could identify it again later, sort of like matching up a name and a face to someone you knew. On the other hand, she often wished that she could keep her human sight in wolf form. In her halfsies form, she could see as a human and smell as a wolf, but she could only do that when she was alone with family, unless she wanted the world to know she could change.

      As they approached the group by the barracks, she could smell about ten different people, and under that smell was one that she’d never liked. She could smell death. Not the rotten smell a human would have thought of in such an instance, but rather a sickly metallic coppery smell. It was the scent of old pennies and bad plumbing. She started smelling around. It would have been expected of Number Nine, but she also wanted to know more.

      Her father had once said that he liked his job because it was a constant unknown that he faced. He might be directing traffic, doing paperwork, or facing off a thief on any given day. And even though he had mastered most of those parts of his job, he never knew from one moment to the next what was going to happen. It didn’t get dull to him and now Cici was pretty sure she could understand why.

      Out of habit mostly, she was sure, her dad loosened the length of the leash to allow her to roam the site a little bit. She sniffed once under the white sheet and almost growled, though she wasn’t sure why. It was a little like something had jumped out with the scent to attack her, although that didn’t make much sense.

      Some sound must have escaped, because her dad stopped as he was about to start talking to one of the other MPs and turned to look at her. He ran his hand quickly over her head as if to soothe her and then said, “Specialist Pole, you almost through here?”

      It sounded to Cicilia that he was still anxious to get her away from there.

      “Yes, sergeant.” Specialist Pole stood at a very loose form of parade rest: one arm behind his back and his feet apart. His other hand held an already open green notebook, the kind the military had been using since about World War II her father had once said. She wasn’t sure if he’d been serious. “They found Sergeant (E-5) Carpenter at 0400 this morning. He’d apparently had something to drink and hung himself off the second-floor balcony. Battalion Chaplain and the Commander both say they suspected he might be depressed and were watching him. Guess he was about to be court marshaled for sodomy with a minor and they were worried the embarrassment of it might be too much for him.”

      “0400? Why’s the body still here?” Yes, Cici thought. He’s trying to keep me away from it. She almost wanted to laugh to herself. He talked about his job all the time with his family, but now faced with what was happening, Cici did have to wonder a little bit if maybe he was being over-protective. She would have to learn things soon enough. Specialist Pole stammered slightly but recovered fast. “I… I’m not sure sergeant. I was under the impression we needed to keep it here until the company sent a detective. Now that you’re here…” “There isn’t one already? Ug.” Sergeant Gillespie was a little chagrinned. He turned to the radio receiver pinned to his shoulder and pressed on its face. “HQ This is unit niner tree fife, over.”

      No one could hear the response, since it went straight to his ear.

      He seemed to wait a moment. “There isn’t a detective already assigned to 1-22 Infantry over?”

      Another pause, this one a bit longer.

      Cici was still sniffing around the body, trying to figure out what that edged aggressive smell she’d encountered earlier was. She was having trouble picking it up again.

      Her dad’s voice intruded on her search. “I’m not sure what Colonel Sherman meant by that. I’ll clear it, over.” After a very short pause he said, “Roger. Niner tree fife out.” Sergeant Gillespie turned back to Pole and said. “Miscommunication. Battalion commander said it wasn’t necessary since it was so clearly a suicide. I’m not sure why they listened to him.” He knelt over the body and lifted the sheet covering it. Cicilia looked away almost immediately. There was nothing gory about him, but there just seemed something a little out of place about staring at someone’s body like that. He’d been dressed in uniform, like he was ready for just another day. As she looked away, she came across his boots, not quite covered by the sheet. They would be tan, she knew, if she could see color. They looked like they’d been brushed clean recently. She took a quick sniff in that direction and her nose verified it: horsehair and soap powder. Sergeant Carpenter must have taken cleaning his boots very seriously.

      Sergeant Gillespie had finished his search of the body. “Any personal effects?” he asked.

      “No.” said Pole. “Nothing in any of his pockets.”

      “Ok, Pole, take it away now.”

      “Yes, sergeant.”

      It? How could he call the body an it? Cici didn’t understand. Sergeant Carpenter might be dead, but he was definitely still a he, not an it. The smell was male. Any wolf could tell that much. She sniffed around a little bit more, taking note of some of the people near her. The stinging smell hadn’t returned.

      Specialist Pole had been about to turn back to his work when he stopped quickly and turned to face his sergeant. “Oh, Sergeant Gillespie, there’s a Sergeant Taylor in there wanting to talk to you. I’m not sure what about.”

      “Chaplain’s Assistant?” he responded.

      “Yes, through that door. Second door in the hall on the left.” The other MP pointed vaguely at the building and started writing in his pad quickly.

      “Haven’t seen him in what? A day?” Cici heard her dad say under his breath as she followed the slight tug he gave on her leash. She turned her head back once hoping he’d let her keep searching for the smell. He did seem to notice but kept her moving towards the building. “Come on Nums,” he said, intentionally emphasizing what wasn’t her name. “Let’s go see what our old buddy, the eternal E-5 Taylor, wants from us.”

      Cicilia knew Sergeant Taylor as Uncle Nick. He wasn’t really an uncle, but he’d been a part of the family for a long time. He and her father had attended basic training together in the same platoon at Ft. Jackson. Most MPs didn’t attend training there, but he had. Most chaplain’s assistants did, since their school was located on the post. For some weird reason they both ended up in Korea together right afterwards and followed each other miraculously around. The only exception was for one year where Uncle Nick had been in Hawaii while her dad was in Alaska, but then they both met up again after that. Fourteen of fifteen years had seen them together.

      It wasn’t far to his office. The building reeked of floor wax, a common problem for a wolf on a military post. The office wasn’t too bad though. Uncle Nick wasn’t the best at keeping his own floor clean. He blamed it on spending too much time on chapel floors. That and now he said it wasn’t proper for a sergeant to be seen “swabbing like a sailor.”

      It was a small place with just about enough room to have both desks facing each to make a row from the door to the computer on the far side. There was a refrigerator on the other side of Uncle Nick’s desk. “Hey Lou!” Nick said, greeting her dad. He’d stood up and shook hands with the MP and patted him on the back.

      “Nick,” her dad returned. “You still coming to the barbeque a week from Saturday?”

      Cici had been looking forward to that for a while. A few times a year, they’d meet up at the lake and spend the day. Nick had a son a little older than she, a daughter about her age, and two sons that matched the ages of her brothers.

      Nick himself looked, as always, kind of crumbled. No matter how much starch he used on his uniform, it always seemed to bend in odd places. His hair was sandy colored and just a little longer than normal. He didn’t keep a mustache, which was probably just as well, or it’d have looked crumbled too, somehow.

      “You know it,” he responded. He paused for just a moment and his face seemed to crumble a little more. It was like he suddenly aged and had new lines appear on his cheeks and forehead. “I don’t understand it, Lou.” Cici came up and nuzzled his hand sympathetically. He had no way of knowing it was her. The Gillespies liked the Taylors a lot, but they figured the fewer people they trusted meant the fewer chances to make mistakes. It was hard enough to keep her brothers quiet at times. No one outside the five of them knew.

      Nick looked down at her and gently placed his hand on her head. Sergeant Gillespie had gone quiet, waiting for his friend to recover. “I just don’t understand it,” he repeated.

      “You don’t blame yourself for something like that do you?” her dad said in an astonished voice.

     “’course not,” came the answer with a slight smile. “Third rule of being a chaplain’s assistant. Right after CYA and STFU.”

      Cici had heard many “third” rules from Nick, although the first two stayed the same. He always said that CYA stood for Cover Your Rear and STFU stood for Shut The Heck Up. She’d never heard Nick swear.

      “We knew, that is Chaplain Jones and I knew, he was in trouble.” He shook his head slowly and patted her head some more. “Oh Nums,” he said, hugging her head to his lap and pulling his head down over her.

      She glanced at her dad, who stood motionless and then appeared to come to a resolution. “I have to finish this up Nick. I’ll be back.” He pulled slightly on Cici’s leash and they both turned to the door.

            Uncle Nick released Cici. They were almost to the door when the verbal explosion went off behind them. “I know I did my job right! Lou, you find the…” Nick then let loose a string of profanity so strong even Cici’s slightly numbed Army brat ears burned. “…that killed Sergeant Carpenter! You find him and then…” Nick started sobbing heavily. “I want… I want to hang him for what he did!”

The story continues in Chapter 2: http://sajanitails.com/index.php?/archives/4-Cici-and-Number-Nine-Chapter-2.html