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"Gnawed"

In America of the early nineteenth century when a white man walked in through the front door of an establishment for blacks it was a head turning event. When Detective Ramsey Merchant walked into the Hightails Club circa twenty-one forty he received pretty much an identical reaction. Every head in the place turned, the response rippling outward from his appearance as word spread. Conversations hushed and more than a few of the patrons stood with angry looks and ominous postures offering the hint of imminent violence.

If that black man was not summarily ejected from the club moments later he either Was somebody, Knew somebody, or was just such a Billy Badass that he could fight off all of the patrons single handed. All Detective Merchant had was five ounces of polished brass authority clipped to his belt and the Rancer service pulse-charge pistol under his left armpit, neither of which accorded him much respect in a place like Hightails. He was far from such a fisted badass that he could take on more than one of the patrons in single combat and he knew it. The detective was far from a slouch, but his forty three years had softened his middle and dampened his ready willingness to jump into a fray even between humans. The idea of taking on one Alt, genetically engineered laborers designed for both strength and stamina, was a losing proposition. In comparison to most of the club's attendees, mostly labor class predator Alts, he was not much more than a featherweight.

It was not that they were oversized or muscle-bound, it was just that there was not another human, black or otherwise, in the building. From corner to corner the club was populated by animals. Called many things depending on one's attitude their common reference was Alts or Alters, short for Genetically Altered Service and Labor Animals, and were the creation of the Xeno-Genetics Corporation, X-Gen, which still held production monopoly. Recent laws had removed their indentured status, bringing them into the open labor pool and removing the Enclave borders they had been limited to for the better part of sixty years. Yet few, other than servant class herbivores, ventured beyond the safe limits of their old enclaves. Like America of the nineteen-forties public opinion was stronger than law and Alts were the new Black Man.

And Detective Merchant was human in a club full of Alts.

Four hundred pounds of intimidating Kodiak Brown Bear at the door glaring at would-be challengers was likely the only real reason the Detective was not immediately tossed out, or worse. Arms crossed loosely over his chest Merchant stood near the door and waited until the crowd trickled back to whatever past times his arrival had interrupted. He saw more than a few furtively duck out the rear door, petty criminals he had no interest in tonight. The stench of the place, a combination of animal musk, fur, smoke, and a multitude of masking aromas, brought tears to his eyes but he staunchly suffered them. Only his perceptions, blunt and simple human olfactory senses, called the thick miasma of animal odors a stench. The musk and fur and pheromones his nose could not pick apart were as clear as newsprint to the acute noses of the Alts. Merchant took it in, blinking away the tears and fighting down a burning need to sneeze, purposely breathing through his nose until his brain shut out the excess stimuli.

Shucking his damp department issue long coat he passed it off to the property attendant, along with his unloaded sidearm. The Ocelot, sporting the latest 'I'm shamelessly gay' attire, stared at him as if expecting to be either bitten or shot in the next breath. That was another thing that made humans uneasy around Alts; the ratio of males to females was stark, with only one female for ten males of most breed lines. To prevent unregulated breeding XenoGen had also vastly amplified the latent homosexual tendencies rooted within the genetic lines of both the human and animal strains as a passive reproductive limiter. While there was still a considerable environmental impetus that determined the end gender preference of each individual, the prevalence of homosexuality, and rarity of females, tended to find a greater representation among the Alts.

The rampant and blatant homosexuality expressed by Alts proved to be terribly unsettling to humans, further cementing he separation of the two species. In the latter years of the twenty first century a technology developed by Unity One, a biotech firm firmly geared toward Gay Rights, forced a wedge between the 'straights' and 'gays' that had yet to be remedied. Unity One developed a gene tech that allowed a viable fetus to be created from two male gametes, or two female, removing the requirement of a second gender in conception. This new development set gay rights back centuries, not only for the obviously biased Alts, but pushed humans firmly back into the depths of their Closet.

To be gay was to be a beast, less than human. So much for progress.

Thus it was that Hightails was an unmistakably gay establishment, much like most other Alt businesses. Merchant, to his credit, was commendably straight. His homophobia was generally limited to the occasional irk at homosexual behavior in public. What went on behind closed doors, of a person's private residence or a private club like Hightails, was not his business to get into unless laws were broken. Mechant did not flinch at the incidental brush of furred feline fingers against the back of his own when he accepted the property key. They were the way they were, by whatever design, and Merchant could accept that their choices were limited in many regards. He dropped the key into his pocket. The only reason he came to this club, as opposed to some other more conventional establishment, was in the number of employees he was familiar with.

Familiar with, and able to intimidate with his badge. Barley, the bear at the door, Merchant had arrested twice for drunkenly singing ballads in a park. Of course Barley stood by the assault charges Marshal had slid into his file. By protecting the overgrown teddy bear's fierce image the detective had earned some favors. And then there was Seth, the boar tending bar, for solicitation and a host of other annoyingly petty misdemeanor charges. The tusked monstrosity was as ugly as the south end of a northbound garbage truck but made a very good Manhattan.

Merchant made his way along the periphery of the club toward the bar dominating one entire wall. Sound discriminators gave each of the many tables, and the individuals on the dance floor, private audio of whatever they wished to listen to and at whatever volume they wanted. Their conversations were likewise rendered obscure by the periphery of their local fields so Merchant's only perception was of the deepest base throb filling the air and vibrating through his shoes. The patrons went bare of paw and many of them went mostly bare of anything that the detective would wager was clothing. Some sported considerably less than hints of fabric covering their various bestial anatomies but they were workers plying their trades, dancing at more or less private tables. Merchant ambled to the end of the bar and secured a stool. A pair of ferrets seated in a single lounge nearby in a rather overly affectionate tangle gave the detective's badge a panicked stare before hastily vacating for a more private area, leaving Merchant with a small radius of privacy. The barkeep thumped stout hands, thick fingers tipped with hoof-like nails, upon the bar and leaned toward Merchant with a snort of hot breath.

"We don't serve skinjobs 'ere." Seth huffed irritably. "Get ya gone." It was all a charade, of course. The boar was a good informant who played the balance on both sides with amazing facility. Merchant leaned back slightly and raised one eyebrow, meeting the boar's dark eyed glare blandly. This was not the first time Merchant had ambled into his club but it was the first time he had ever done so while it was open.

"Bullshit." The detective countered, "I'm not here with bracelets you ugly swine. I've got questions." Seth grunted dubiously but did not take his hard porcine eyes from Merchant's own green-tinged gray gaze.

"We don't serve answers, neither." Seth's eyes hardened at Merchant's gall, coming to the club with questions where everyone could witness. With another angry snort he turned to resume his duties.

"Even for one of your own?" The Detective called after him. Seth glowered over his shoulder briefly before filling a handful of orders too specific for the feline working the bar with him. The spotted cat was lithe, pretty, middle age, and clad in enough to rate 'barely dressed' despite working at the bar. Just Seth's type, Merchant mused as he waited. A burly wolverine with a ragged looking pelt and wearing a simple blue drape paused a moment to give Merchant a half angry, half spooked snarl before moving on. Alts, due to their only partially human physiques, were unable to wear human styled clothing. Instead they chose simple loose clothing such as coveralls or wraps similar to traditional Greek, middle-eastern, or Japanese cultures.

Seth returned a few minutes later and set a drink down in front of the detective; coffee. Not the cellulose cultured biocaff that was the common staple but true, vine grown coffee from some distant country. "My own?" The boar grunted, crossing his short arms over his broad chest.

Merchant picked up the mug with one hand, raising it to his nose to savor the intricate aroma. With his other hand he negligently made a flick of his fingers to take in the crowd. "Aye. There's a witch hunt brewing and I recon their aim's a bit flawed." He took a slow sip of his coffee and let the flavor infuse his mouth. Seth twitched his coarse whiskers and gave the patrons a glance.

"What witch? Alts or cocksuckers?" he asked bluntly. Not that the two were very different in modern times.

"Alts." Merchant clarified, "Preds, to be specific, leaning heavily toward canids." The canid subgroups were always popular targets for scapegoating.

"Yer not here t' bracelet anyone, then, eh? Why come?" Seth asked and gave Merchant a moment to form an answer while he filled more orders. The Detective watched the room, letting the throbbing discordance of low frequencies pulse against his chest and vibrate the soles of his feet while he savored his overpriced mug of organic whole-bean coffee. Seth slid back to his end of the bar without any further pretense, making it clear he was talking with the cop.

"Because here's where I knew someone would listen before they bite." Merchant gave a small salute with his mug, briefly matching gazes with some manner of feline at a table near the dance floor before the curious cat looked away. "Two corpses turned up at Wild End chewed up pretty bad." He set the mug down and leaned a little toward the porcine barkeep, "Eaten." Wild End, or just the Wilds, was a heavily forested parkland at the furthest edge of the old Enclave. It was popular with Alts gone 'back to their roots' and become feral as well as criminals trying to hide.

"Humans?"

"Think the department would move if a couple poor Dollys got munched?" Referring to the popular derisive term for sheep Alts. Dollys, from historical reference, or Dolls because they were popular images used by Alt-sensitive image conscious public figures. They were also often just called fucktoys. Finding a dead Dolly, chewed or just carved ear-to-ear, hardly raised a stir half the time. Alts had few legal rights and, as little more than property belonging to X-Gen, killing one would only get the perpetrator sued if they were caught. The corporation had a massive legal department that had made a lucrative business out of suing those responsible for property destruction. Alts were not cheap to produce and train.

"Naw shit." Seth shook his head morosely, he liked his rams, too. "So what're you thinking?"

"Sliced, dumped, munched by wild animals. Big wild animals." He swirled the coffee lazily in his mug and caught the barkeep's beady eyes with a brief sidelong glance. "Big carnivores not native to Wild End, likely not native to this entire region."

"Who were the corpses?"

"Carl and Wilheim Markon." Merchant downed the remnants of his coffee and set the mug down, giving it a push across the bar with his fingertips.

Seth blinked in surprise and winced at the names. The Markons were popular, moneyed socialites. They stood among the elite cadre of people who were very outspoken proponents of Alt rights with their human creators. Proving that they had been predated by the very Alts they strove to liberate would set rights back decades. "Fuck all, that's going to be a big pile of shit." Seth snatched up the mug irritably, "You don't think Alts did them in?"

Merchant shook his head, "I'm only sidelining the investigation, but the primaries are stuck so deeply into a single track they're not looking at other possibilities."

"They're letting you investigate their case?"

"Half of the department is investigating the case, the other half is helping out." Merchant shrugged helplessly, "With evidence material moving all over the precinct house it's not difficult to stumble over it. I've got scarce little to go on, that's why I came down here."

Seth wandered away briefly, leaning over the feline's shoulder to whisper something in his ear, and returned with a fresh mug of coffee. The backup barkeep looked across at Merchant curiously for a few moments before returning to his orders. "So, what do you have, then?"

"Bone images, holographic scans, dental impression images." Standard evidentiary collection made during high resolution post mortem scans and subsequent autopsies, all of which reinforced the opinion being pushed as rote: An Alt killed and then consumed the Markons. The mere fact that it was being so firmly pushed, from the highest levels of the department, rankled Merchant to no end. Even cursory review of the evidence he had seen pointed to a more broad range of possibilities.

"Wha're you lookin' for here, then, if not a scapegoat like everyone else?" Seth waved off his partner with a curt flick of his hand, letting the orders the feline did not know how to prepare build up. Merchant noticed that they had a number of watchers among the crowd. Many were merely curious at the presence of a human among them who was not there slumming while others were furious at the intrusion. That the boar, who owned the place, was amiably chatting with the invading human irked still more who embraced the separation between human and Alt.

Picking up the fresh mug of coffee Detective Merchant leaned against the bar to peruse the crowed with another slow scan. His eyes never settled in one place for long, not even the person he was conversing with. "Inspiration." He said at length and took a slow draw from his mug. "Dental distinction, how the muzzles of Alts differ from unaltered wild animals." With one hand he flicked an index finger toward a fox sitting at a nearby table, "So I came to the source, as it were."

"Hah!" Seth slapped the bar smartly, giving Merchant a slight start at the unexpected motion. "You're in luck, then, skinjob. I've got just your inspiration." Taking a laser pointer from his apron pocket with remarkable dexterity considering his clumsy looking, blunt fingered hand, he neatly pinpointed a beer bottle across the dance floor. Upon striking the bottle, held in the hand of a pale colored wolf Alter, the laser refracted and reflected from the glass and its contents, lighting it up like a light bulb. The brilliant gleam immediately caught the attention of the wolf holding it, the others seated at the table, and at tables nearby.

There were only wolves at that table, Merchant observed, a pack of eight looking momentarily startled and then warily angered. The one holding the illuminated bottle set it down slowly and turned to say something to his companions. Most of them made vigorous negating gestures and heated words were exchanged. One of them, not the largest at the table but certainly impressive for his specie, actually caused the targeted wolf to lower his head and lay his ears back momentarily. Seth's laser flickering at his muzzle brought the angered wolf's fierce words to a halt as he turned to snarl in the boar's direction. The wolf glared across the room at Seth and mouthed a few choice words before sitting back down. With a curt wave of one hand he released the summoned wolf.

Where the alpha was stocky, broad shouldered, and the typical gray of most wolves and five of the others at the table the one Seth pointed out was taller, more slender though hardly weak in appearance. His fur was white shot with bluish gray highlights of the Arctic phenotype. Not a terribly uncommon breed turned out by X-Gen, but certainly one of their more striking wolf archetypes. He wore only a light safik drape to cover his midsection loosely leaving much of legs and upper body bare. Like most Alts he wore no covering on his feet.

Merchant couched his mug of coffee between his hands, one elbow propped up on the bar, as he watched the wolf approach. The Alt's body bespoke his great irritation at being singled out and separated from his pack; his shoulders squared and body drawn up in an aggressive posture with the long gray-shot white tail held horizontally behind him. The fur across the wolf's shoulders was bushed giving his already solid physique a sense of excessive mass. Even with many of their animal genes twisted about with human they retained that epoch-old habit of posturing. Of course, humans postured as well but Alts merely did it far, far more impressively, Merchant had to admit with a quirk at one corner of his mouth. Alt body language still held a lot of their wild forms, modified with human influences. Merchant cast a glance briefly toward Seth, "I need ideas, you dirty old swine, not a bedamned boyfriend." he hissed as the wolf neared.

Seth snorted at the detective's banter. Merchant did not stand when the wolf reached the bar to glower down at the boar. "Stormy," Seth said with wry aplomb, "Meet Detective Merchant. Fifth ward." In other words Merchant was out of his official jurisdiction and not looking to make an arrest. On the same token he was not out slumming for a bit of Alt sex. The wolf spared Merchant a golden-eyed glance and a rumbling growl before returning his stare to Seth. The boar rolled his small, dark eyes and sighed irritably. "Not all the skinjobs are out for a pelt! Damn!" He thrust a thick nailed finger toward a nearby stool and glared up at the wolf with his beady porcine eyes.

After several seconds of hard staring Stormy let a chuff of breath out past his teeth and moved to sit on the indicated stool leaving a single empty one between himself and the human. Merchant noted that he was immaculately groomed, eartip to paw, with polished claws neatly trimmed. There was no immediate animal musk about him either, only a hint of sandalwood. Seth crossed his arms and leaned his elbows on the bar, "Stormy, lad, tell the detective what you do."

The wolf looked over at Merchant, those piercing gold predatory eyes boring into the detective with surly distrust. Merchant found the direct intensity innerving but refused to waver. "I am a student." Stormy said at length with a growl so deep it was almost difficult to distinguish as words. Seth made a small noise of disgust and rapped the bar with his hoof-like fingers.

"Of?" he prompted.

Stormy's whiskers twitched irritably and he did not drop his stare. Nor did Merchant. Twenty years dealing with petty thugs and their penchant for hard stares left him well prepared for the wolf. "Dental surgery." Again the growl that Merchant had to spend a moment translating in his head. If the club had lacked the audio discriminators any understanding at all would have been impossible.

Once he understood what the wolf said Merchant blinked and leaned back in surprise, his jaw hanging. "Huh." He grunted, casting Seth a sidelong glance. The boar grinned hugely around his tusks and, with a wink and jaunty salute, snatched up Merchant's empty mug before withdrawing. Without the boar to focus on the detective turned his attention back to the wolf who looked similarly confused. One ear was up and forward, though, indicating pensive curiosity. "What year?" Merchant asked.

"Third?"

"Veterinary?"

Stormy rolled his eyes and exhaled an exasperated growl, both ears backing. "Uh, duh? Of course veterinary. Do you think some skinjob wants these poking around in their mouth?" He held up his hands, as well proportioned as Merchant's own, but backed by fur with fingers tipped by stout black claws. Calloused black pads adorned the palm and fingers.

"Since it's usually done remotely using robotics, who's to care?"

Stormy shook his head. "No, no. I said oral surgery, reconstructive work, not remotely assisted basic hygiene." His hands lowered to his lap. "And why do you give a rat's, chewtoy?"

Seth returned, depositing two mugs of coffee, and as swiftly retreated favoring Merchant with another sly grin and wink. The wolf blinked at the exchange. "Get off the angst, pup, I'm not here slumming. I'm here looking for -" he paused and picked up his coffee, "I'm looking for knowledge I lack, some inspiration or, hell, just some observations that I can glean something from."

Stormy stared after Seth, his lupine ears twitching, "You're with -"

"No!" Merchant barked, half affronted and half out of the hilarity of the assumption, "And no, I'm not." he interrupted with a quick shake of his head. Fates only knew what the wolf's pack, watching from their table across the room, made of their conversation through the confusing body language. "He just makes damn good coffee, and he's not stupid."

"No." The wolf growled introspectively as he sampled his own coffee from a mug designed for the architecture of his muzzle. "No, he's not that. Just butt damned ugly." His attention returned to the detective. "Where do I fit in?" Now both ears were forward.

"I've a couple cadavers with bite marks."

Stormy's brows drew down and his ears backed in distrust, "I'm not going to finger any Alt for you." He snarled warningly, fur bushing in the same alarming defensive posture he displayed previously. He slammed the mug down onto the bar with such violence that its contents splashed over the rim to soak his hand. Merchant quelled the atavistic fear response crawling up his spine with only a tightening of his lips and a more firm grip upon his own mug. Reflexively he yearned to reach for his sidearm but it was secure in a property locker thirty paces away. Merchant took a breath and studiously raised his mug to take a slow sip while he pushed down his purely limbic fear response.

"I believe the bites are from wild animals, not an Alt." He forced out after a moment, the looming predator awakening animal fears no training could easily quell. "I just need to prove it."

Stormy blinked, taken aback by the unexpected reply. His fur settled slowly and his ears came back up. "Oh." he said after a pause, ears coming forward and then turning rearward as he ducked his muzzle abashedly. "I'm sorry, I -" With a sigh he snatched some napkins from a nearby dispenser and distracted himself by dabbing his coffee soaked hand.

"Yeah, relations aren't the best." Merchant offered as he waited for the wolf to compose himself.

"Yeah." Stormy gingerly dropped the napkins beside his mug to soak up the spin and ran a hand over his head, ears lying back briefly. "Why do you think it's a wild animal?"

"X-Gen altered the shape of your heads when they manipulated your genetics, over almost all breed lines. Alt dentition has been changed to a more broad diet, more omnivorous. Especially among carnivores." He shrugged slowly and glanced around the room again, a reflexive crowd scan looking for potential threats or criminal activities he was only passingly conscious of. "Things like that."

"Not many would care." Stormy said slowly, settling once more onto his stool and taking up his mug again. "Not if they can lay the blame on an Alt." He watched the detective while Merchant's gaze flicked across the room and returned.

"Many don't, or only care when it suits their goals." Merchant sipped his coffee to get his jangled nerves to settle. "Maybe even I wouldn't have, either, except the evidence is just a touch... well, just a touch off." He met the wolf's curious golden stare, the predatory intensity strangely absent though the creature's eyes had not physically changed at all. "Personally I don't give a damn where it points, but it points somewhere , and that's the truth I am trying to follow."

Stormy tilted his head slightly, "And if it does point to an Alt?"

"If it does, I'm sorry about his luck." Merchant shrugged expansively, "But it won't."

"What makes you so sure?"

Merchant gave his gut a slap. It was not as fit as the young wolf's but it was still solid enough. "Twenty one years under the shield, pup, and good honest gut feeling."

Tall ears flicked and twitched while the wolf contemplated the veracity of Merchant's words, peering at him intently while that gleaming black nose twitched. Stormy weighed the out-of-place human's confidence against his own all too necessary distrust of humans. At length he took a slow draw from his mug and licked the whiskers along both sides of his muzzle. "Tell me, then, why you think that way?"

Merchant also sipped but had no whiskers to lick. "Showing is better than telling, I lack the schooling you have to even describe it." He took a pocket projector out of his pocket and set it on the bar between them. "These are holo-reproductions of high resolution wound scans taken from the victims." Tuning the emitter to vicinity limited mode he called up the first holograph. "To me they just don't look... right, not like the muzzle of a carnivore Alt." he glanced up at the wolf who had leaned slightly forward now with both ears alertly pinned forward, "I've never attended an alt autopsy to get a good look at the anatomical distinctions."

The pulses of converging light resolved into a highly detailed holograph of the upper and lower dentition of what was clearly a mammalian predator. Merchant leaned back slightly to watch the wolf scrutinize the holo. With golden eyes slightly narrowed and white ears backing in concentration Stormy pondered the image. With deft flicks of one finger through the field he rotated, flipped, and scaled it repeatedly for several seconds. "So what is it your detractors are saying?" He asked at length with a quick glance over the holo close-up of one tooth.

"My detractors?" Merchant cocked an eyebrow, "Pup, I'm it. I am the detractor." Merchant scowled, "And bet your tail I've got some heat for not towing the party line."

Stormy twitched one ear forward and then back, "No doubt. What's the party line?"

"A pred Alter, with heavy emphasis on canidae."

Stormy shook his head slowly and growled a low sigh, "Yeah, it's a pred after a fashion, but not a canidae or, as you assume, an Alt. They'd never get a dental impression match from any Alt line, much less one limited to canid phenotypes."

Don't put it past someone to manufacture a match, Merchant thought angrily to himself. "Why? What kind of teeth are those?"

"Well, most notably they're ursidae. Ursus Americansus, to be exact, the North American Black Bear." Stormy leaned back slightly and crossed both hands in his lap, "But they're not native to this region any more. Where were these victims found?"

"Wild End."

Stormy's jaw muscles twitched as he chewed that revelation over, "Sure as hell no wild bears in the city, detective."

Detective Merchant felt a flash of triumph at the proper identification of the animal's teeth, he was finally on the right track. "That's great, pup, great. Now how do I prove my allegation? I'll have to take this to my superiors. I'm pretty confident that they'll do everything they can to dismiss my findings."

Gleaming white predatory teeth flashed in a beastial smile that looked all too much like a snarl. "Give me your link and five minutes. I'll put together a presentation that'll stop their arguments dead." Merchant made a small motion toward the projector with one hand to indicate that Stormy could do what he needed. With a lick of his whiskers Stormy drew it a little closer and glanced through the image. "Give me a night and I could teach you enough to make it look like you figured this out for yourself."

Merchant took a draw from his coffee and settled back to let the wolf work. He quirked one corner of his mouth in a good-natured smile as he met the wolf's golden eyed look. "Among other things. Wouldn't work out, pup, no one'd believe me on all accounts." Stormy's ears twitched for a few moments while he weighed the various levels of the detective's statement. Understanding the underlying message made the wolf's ears back and his whiskers drop in a motion of profound embarrassment. The acute golden eyes dropped down to focus on the holo.

"Yes, well, sorry." The young wolf rumbled, "I've highlighted comparison points, here and here." With the tip of a manicured black claw he touched the holographic fangs and molars. With deft motions he accessed the datanet via Merchant's projector and pulled another, very similar, holograph from some archive. "This is a dental image of Jane, one of the Black Bears at the Mid-Appalachian Institute of Zoology. I work remotely with many captive specimens. You can see in a point by point comparison how closely they are related."

"Related?"

"Conformational characteristics of the species." Stormy corrected. "I could not determine breed line similarities without a tissue sample." He defined a dozen points between the two holographs with a deft economy of motions while he spoke. "They took culture samples?"

"Culture swabs? Of the victims? Yes, I'm sure they did. I don't have those records on hand, though." Merchant watched the presentation being put together, interweaving the two holograms with points and simple explanations. "Why?"

"Of the wounds, specifically." Stormy rotated the holo to examine his work. "Bacterial spectra in the wounds, specifically the deeper ones made by the longer canines, can be used to determine point of origin of the animal. Salivary residue can be used to create a genetic profile that we, those of us studying captive animals, could use to narrow the identification down to specific breed lines and perhaps even a single animal if it came from any facility on the continent." Pushing the paired holograms slightly to one side of the holo field he called up a third image. "Whatever animal that caused the injuries would have had to have been introduced." Without looking up he began defining comparison points with the third image.

"Seems like a damn lot of dangerous work just to finger a few Alts." Merchant mused aloud, "Why not just hire, bully, or starve a few Alts to do the job?"

The wolf rumbled a rueful growl, "Alts can talk, chewtoy." He glanced up with a momentary half grin and ear flick to denote humor at the appellation. "Starved, tortured, or even ferals can be made to talk. Their saliva can establish direct culpability. That's suicide for a pred, gnawing on a human, but a wild animal is easier to manage and it won't talk." He leaned back and pushed the projector toward Merchant. "Third image is a dental scan from a middle-age Ursus Alt killed in an industrial accident. All of the relevant features have been compared."

Merchant pocketed the projector, "And if it can be proven a wild pred is the cause, and it can be found, it'd be a lot easier to dispose of."

Stormy retrieved his coffee and frowned upon discovering that it had cooled. He swirled it a couple of times and drank anyway. "Bears are not, by and large, predators though." He pointed out. "In the wild they primarily scavenge. It'd be unlikely that a small bear like a Black would attack a single healthy human, much less two."

"Eat, not attack, which is another hotly disputed piece of the case. The victims were pretty well eaten by the time of discovery, so badly done in that determining cause and time of death is proving problematic." Merchant quaffed the last of his coffee and set his mug back down upon the bar.

Stormy winced with a backing of ears and whiskers, "Ouch. That explains the detail of your holos; a lot of imprints." He worried his lower lip between two gleaming ivory fangs. "Any hair left behind? Tracks? I'm no zoologist but I can learn a lot from paw prints."

"I haven't examined the trace evidence in detail as yet, and I recall that rain wiped out all but a single salvageable print. I don't have those images on hand." Merchant stood and stormy did likewise, his lanky lupine frame equaling Merchant in height though the detective had a good fifty pounds of added mass. Only the tall triangular ears put Stormy's height greater than Merchant. "There's a lot about this case I don't like, pup, and you've shed a lot of light on my misgivings. It's going to make whole bunch of people already unhappy with my investigation even less so." The wolf paced him toward the door with an easy stride of his long, oddly jointed lupine legs. Merchant turned over his key at the property booth and waited while the ocelot retrieved his equipment.

"You'll be in trouble, rocking the boat with this information?" asked the wolf.

Merchant grunted with a nod, "Oh yes, I'll probably get my ass chewed right thorough for dashing common consensus." He took his sidearm, gave it a cursory examination by reflex, and slipped a charge clip into the handgrip. Stormy watched silently, eying the weapon. Alts were barred from owning firearms of any sort, except for their own law enforcement personnel. "Look, with tensions like they are between labor Alts and humans there's no telling what sort of shit this is going to stir up." He drew on his long coat and fished his card wallet from one of the many pockets. He slid one of the cards, a simple paper stock one with nothing more than his last name and a number printed upon it, from the wallet and offered it to the wolf. "Call me n a week, that's my private number, and I'll let you know how things are going. You never know, I may need your expert testimony when this case goes to trial."

Stormy took the card and secreted in some concealed pocket of his safik. Then, unexpectedly, he reached out both hands to grasp Merchant's shoulders. Leaning in he touched one side of his muzzle to the detective's cheek. "Thank you, Detective Merchant, for all of us." Merchant accepted the uncharacteristic formality, the equivalent of a hug between close friends, stoically.

Barley the Kodiak bear favored him with a bemused stare as he stepped back out into the cool late night air. A heavy fog hung with lazy stillness in the air, obscuring the dark bulk of his department sedan parked at the curb. With his unbound long coat sweeping about his legs Merchant glanced to the left and right at the door to the club before stepping out of its well of welcoming light to be swallowed up by the mist.