Wolftown

On Monday, March 13, Miranda felt well enough to speak with Sheriff Jordan over the phone.

When the wolf had bitten Miranda’s leg, it tore her calf muscles and Achilles’ tendon and exposed an artery. She hobbled through the woods without flexing her foot. A surgeon operated on her over the weekend to remove dead tissue.

           Peter approached the Vasquezes’ campsite the evening before the wolf attack. Miranda felt inexplicably uneasy, and Sergio discouraged company because he and she wanted to be alone. They intentionally chose a remote location for their honeymoon. Although Peter said that they camped in a dangerous area and pointed out a better location, Miranda and Sergio stayed in their campsite. He insisted on the location change, but Sergio ended the conversation. Grudgingly, Peter left.

           In the night, the wolf attacked Miranda and Sergio, and during the scuffle, the campsite caught fire. Miranda scrambled into a tree, but Sergio died.

           She shivered in the tree through the night and sometimes heard an animal or strange rustling. Miranda yelled for help, thinking somebody might hear her. Later, she wondered why she thought to call.

Miranda found a couple of layers of clothes and salvaged part of her and Sergio’s food, water, the outdoors knife, and a handful of other things. She crammed her pockets, made a small bundle, carried the water, and abandoned everything else in their camps.

Although Miranda thought she knew the general direction to the river, which she intended to follow downstream, she drifted away from it.

Miranda encountered Peter again, and he seemed alarmed. Peter said that the river lay in the opposite direction, and he knew a shorter route to civilization. Disorientated and unsure of another solution, Miranda followed him. When she began staggering, Miranda and Peter stopped; he said that the route took so long because she walked slowly.

Peter carried nothing necessary in the woods and wore light clothes, but apparently understood the woods. The day before, Peter said that he had camped for two or three days, but when he found her, he told Miranda that he had hiked into the woods early in the morning.

Eventually, Peter left Miranda in the woods to search for firewood or a better place to camp. She waited for hours.

Deciding he would not return, Miranda limped in his general direction until she collapsed. Derrick Charles and the wolf hunt discovered her.

By the time the Sheriff’s Department responded to the campsite, just before the flood began, somebody had scuffed up the burned ground and laid branches and leaves on top and disguised the footprints and pawprints. The unburned gear disappeared.

The Sheriff’s Department returned to the scene on Monday, checking for anything they missed that survived. They found nothing useful.

Sheriff Jordan and the County Executive had promised Miranda Vasquez that once the flood ended, they would continue searching for Sergio Vasquez, and made the same promise to Erica Block, since her husband, Joel, was missing in the woods. They had not expected Wolftown’s problems to escalate as much as they had—the Sheriff’s Department could not search and respond to the rest of Wolftown’s problems simultaneously. Wilde County (not Wolftown) assisted other places’ investigations as much as possible, and Wilde County crimes rarely resulted in asking for a favor.

Still, the searches restarted early Monday morning, conducted by Derrick Charles, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and police from towns inside Wilde County, other than Wolftown. They searched on Monday with their previous information.

Sheriff Jordan thought Sergio would be within a few miles of the Vasquezes’ campsite, but if necessary, the Sheriff’s Department would expand its search.

Corey described the location of Joel Block’s body on Tuesday. The campsite was so far into the woods, meeting there several nights per week seemed unlikely. Corey said that she, Laufenberg, and Tyler ran as fast as wolves with the endurance of humans and reached the campsite in a couple of hours.

The Sheriff’s Department found the general area, and the county fire department found a campfire that had been covered with dirt. The dirt and ashes contained pieces of black, rigid plastic, melted or warped metal fragments, and charred bone fragments. The Sheriff’s Department excavated the campfire as well as they could and thought they found the remains of Dennis Laufenberg’s hard drive and floppy disks.

Sheriff Jordan asked better-equipped law enforcement agencies if a cadaver dog team could search the campsite. On Friday, a Department of Criminal Investigation cadaver dog team discovered Joel Block’s body, buried six feet underground, in a rectangle almost long enough for him.

One of Corey’s hairs was inside Joel’s collar. As the rainwater soaked into the ground, it destroyed fingerprints and DNA.

During Corey’s daily interview, Sheriff Jordan said, “You’ve been confessing a lot, and it’s important you continue. You’re the only person we can connect to Joel Block’s dead body. Did you kill him?”

“No. Dennis killed him.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw Dennis bite him and shoot him, and Tyler and me buried him. I tried to be respectful about it, but Dennis was pretty upset, and I had to calm him down. I put one of my hairs in Joel Block’s collar.”

“Are you sure that you are the one who placed your hair on Joel Block’s body and in David Turner’s duffel bag?” Sheriff Jordan asked.

“Yeah,” Corey said.

“Most people deny putting forensic evidence on people. People have put forensic evidence on victims to blame somebody else for the crimes.”

“I did it. Laufenberg threatened me to not leave evidence on them.”

“So, you wanted to be linked to potential homicide victims with who you had possibly criminal dealings at the time they were killed?”

“Yeah.”

“On purpose? Were you coerced? Was it a suggestion from somebody?”

“No, I did it so the police would talk to me first. Then I could tell them what happened and tell Dennis Laufenberg they forced it out of me.”

Sheriff Jordan always thanked Corey for her cooperation. Just before leaving, Sheriff Jordan turned to Kevin. “Is your client paying you well enough?”

“Pro bono, but there are more important things than money,” Kevin said.

“I don’t listen to him much about the police questionings,” Corey said. “Just about the courtroom stuff. I want Dennis Laufenberg to go to jail.”

“Well, you’re keeping us busy.”

Miranda’s injuries required hospitalization for weeks in Madison. On Thursday, a deputy drove to Madison and showed her a photo line-up. She identified a photograph of Dennis Laufenberg, taken before the wolf attacks.

If Miranda identified Laufenberg correctly, Sheriff Jordan thought he transfigured into a wolf and attacked her and Sergio, who accidentally approached the böxenwolf camp. Her survival surprised him. Pretending to be concerned, he lured her down a confusing path and abandoned her in the woods.

Sheriff Jordan thought Dennis Laufenberg could have intended to hide her body by making her die as an unfortunate hiker. If someone found her months later, a medical examiner might not find a cause of death.

Corey knew very little about Sergio and Miranda Vasquez, but comparing Laufenberg’s mood on March 7 to his mood after killing Joel Block, she believed he killed them. Miranda did not recognize Corey and Tyler, and, after a great deal of questioning and examining timelines, Sheriff Jordan doubted that Corey and Tyler participated in the killing or disposal of Sergio Vasquez. Dubiously, Corey guessed Sergio’s potential burial site, and the area overlapped with the location where the wolf hunt found Miranda.

After being re-arrested for violating his bail conditions, Laufenberg claimed to be on an undercover assignment, investigating Corey and Tyler. He accused them of kidnapping him, then added that David Turner assisted them, and reworked the story to fit him in.

Sheriff Jordan thoroughly investigated the claims but found nothing with which to charge Corey, except biting Dennis Laufenberg, who refused to admit he was a böxenwolf at any point and claimed that Corey and Tyler sicced a wolf on him weeks ago.

For weeks, the Sheriff’s Department investigated anything that remotely indicated his claims, but there was no evidence for them. Sheriff Jordan searched everywhere for his medical records, but Laufenberg said Corey and Tyler threatened to bite him again if he found medical attention. Nobody except Laufenberg thought he seemed injured.

The wolf response ruled out rabid wolves.

Deputy Zimmer and members of animal control and the Department of Fish and Wildlife took paw print, bite, fur, and DNA samples from the Happy Howlers wolves.

Happy Howlers’ data had been sent to wolf experts in America, asking if they thought the wolves could be trained, wild, or sick with something other than rabies.

Eventually, the wolf response ruled out Wayne’s wolves as suspects in the wolf attacks.

           As the days passed, the wolves did not return, and on March 17, the County Executive and the Sheriff’s Department considered the wolf attacks over. However, they asked people to report wolf sightings. There were no more verified wolf sightings.

Sheriff Jordan noticed that during the wolf hunt, Happy Howlers collected more forensic-like evidence and witness statements than the police. The police rarely requested data; Wayne offered it, and he wasted his time in meetings, waiting for someone to listen to him. He briefed patrol officers occasionally.

“Then Phelps got impatient, but I told them it’s because they didn’t want information until the briefings,” Wayne said. “I could have spread it out through the day, but I didn’t have an opportunity.”

Wayne recommended second opinions since the beginning of his involvement, but Laufenberg and Mayor Dwyer said Happy Howlers was sufficient.

On March 8, the Sheriff’s Department received a non-emergency call from Glenn Malone. He said that a man called him and threatened him and his family unless Glenn stopped responding to the wolf attacks. His voice sounded familiar, but Glenn could not name the caller.

During Sheriff Jordan’s investigation of the wolf hunt, he spoke with all Happy Howlers employees and Calvin Kowalski, who quit. Calvin said that a man also threatened him, hence quitting his job. The man spoke a few words, and Rebecca Austin said, “You have a wrong number,” and hung up, then took the phone off the cradle for two hours. The man did not call again.

The three calls were collect from “Peter.”

A deputy traced the phone calls to payphones, although Sheriff Jordon wondered where a böxenwolf kept his quarters.

Corey did not know about the calls, but said that Dennis Laufenberg told the böxenwolves to pack quarters in their backpacks.

Dennis Laufenberg refused to give a sample of his voice.

Karl Henry identified Corey’s voice as the young woman who warned of a wolf attack on Suzanne Giese. Considering that three other members of law enforcement and one secretary could have answered the phone, and Karl Henry was preparing to leave the station, Sheriff Jordan and Suzanne Giese believed Karl Henry had miraculously saved her life.

Sheriff Jordan thought Wayne’s work ethic scared a human culprit behind the wolf attacks.

           Since Calvin refused to return to work, Wayne temporarily asked to hire John, but he asked Paula if he could volunteer for two weeks. The Nature Protection Society provided volunteer labor in emergencies. Paula agreed, but worried more than John. He thought that without further wolf attacks, the danger ended.

Daily, Sheriff Jordan spoke with Corey Brown. He asked follow-up questions or listened to her elaborate on a particular crime.

“Do you know anything about the names Peter, Lupa, and Buck?”

“They’re from books, I think. Peter Stumpp is probably Peter, but he was real. Lupa is a Roman story about a wolf raising kids, and he uses it as a reason to form a wolf pack. Buck is in a modern book about discovering how to be a wolf. Tyler liked Buck better than White Fang. I didn’t have a choice.”

According to Miranda, Peter had not given his surname.

Sheriff Jordan called Happy Howlers and asked Wayne about wolf history, literature, or other media with Peter, Lupa, and Buck. Wayne hesitantly hummed Peter and the Wolf, but he firmly named Lupa in the founding of Rome and Buck in The Call of the Wild.

“In fiction about wolves, do wolves have names that can be used as a last name?” Sheriff Jordan asked.

“Maybe. Akela and Fenris. Maybe someone from the Werewolf of London, but I haven’t seen it in years. I can look up my myths about wolves. Angua would be ironic, but he’d better not.”

“Why Angua?”

“Angua is a werewolf police officer in Discworld.” He spelled her name. “I have all the books. Maybe Laufenberg remembered it.”

Schuster returned to unpaid administrative leave on Thursday, March 16. With Laufenberg out of power and authorities investigating his corruption, Schuster’s stress lowered, in a way, and he knew it would continue. Sometimes he expected to see or hear Foster.

As much as Schuster disliked desk duty, he worried about patrolling again. Wolftown citizens generally committed minor crimes, and officers normally requested back-up preemptively or as a precaution and used minimal force. Sometimes, they encountered a dangerous citizen. Officers preferred patrolling in teams, but they often patrolled alone. Schuster knew four or five officers with whom he would feel uncomfortable patrolling, but everybody involved would be forced to cope with it. The idea that Schuster might not have a partner or backup concerned him.

Still, Schuster felt more content in his job and in some ways, happier at home. But before and after every shift, but less as the weeks passed, Stephanie behaved as if she would not see him alive again. She encouraged him to continue a career in law enforcement.

For evidence of Laufenberg’s involvement in the wolf attacks, Sheriff Jordan and deputies carried out another search warrant of his house, car, computer, and storage unit, and found nothing. Corey said that there would be evidence in his storage unit, although Laufenberg never let her or Tyler visit it.

A deputy asked all storage units in an expanding radius of Wolftown if any of the wolfish surnames rented units, and found Peter Angua in Oneida County. Sheriff Jordan returned with a warrant to search the locker.

It contained wolfish items, including an ID for Peter Angua and eleven journals detailing Peter Angua’s böxenwolf experiences. The handwriting matched Dennis Laufenberg’s.

Along with masses of dead flies and a complete wolf skeleton, deputies found a complete, tanned wolf hide processed according to the wolf strap instructions. He thought transfiguration with a complete hide would make him much more wolfy; he failed to transfigure. The locker contained paraphernalia for tanning hides and preserving skeletons.

An orderly shelf held copies of German, English, and Polish works about böxenwolves and Germanic werewolves.

“The unit smelled real bad once in a while, but he said it was dead rats,” the storage unit’s owner said. “He would be in there for hours sometimes. He said he couldn’t find any quiet at home, so he came here to tinker.”

The owner identified Dennis Laufenberg as Peter Angua, though with a photo taken before the wolf attacks.

The Sheriff’s Department found Dennis Laufenberg’s fingerprints on every surface suitable for fingerprinting. A few items also had partial fingerprints from Corey and Tyler, or the fingerprints were smudged, as if Dennis Laufenberg wiped them clean and missed a spot.

Dr. Paulsen thought Peter originated in Peter Stumpp, and his story unnerved Sheriff Jordan.

When Wayne heard Dennis Laufenberg’s alias, choosing Angua affronted Wayne.

It’s just a book, John thought.

On Sunday, March 12, Megan had asked matter-of-factly if Sheriff Jordan thought she should delay Foster’s funeral; he would want to assist their investigation, however long the investigators required him. The idea baffled her family and two-thirds of her in-laws. Sheriff Jordan told her to arrange his funeral whenever she thought best.

           Megan scheduled the funeral for Saturday. The Wolftown Police Department was so small, Megan could not completely avoid the members of the police force who generally disliked Schuster and Foster. The Family Liaison Officer, Danny Lang, minimized the contact between them. Schuster had also overheard Lang preemptively scold one of them in the police station.

Megan dragged Schuster to her in-laws and proudly said, “This is Billy Schuster and his fiancée, Stephanie McCann. He was Zach’s partner. Zach saved his life during the wolf attack, and Billy wouldn’t hide from the wolf as long as it kept attacking Zach.”

By Saturday, Sheriff Jordan and the Division of Criminal Investigation found gaping holes in Dennis Laufenberg’s movements from March 5 through the afternoon of March 10, and no definite evidence that Laufenberg was in City Hall or Wolftown from the morning of March 10 through his arrest. Laufenberg rushed to urgent scenes, such as the wolves running around Holy Trinity’s playground, after the action ended. He particularly could not be placed confidently during the murder victims’ times of death, March 1-2, and when Miranda estimated she interacted with Peter.

People reported that Dennis Laufenberg seemed irritable on March 1, the date Corey said he killed Joel Block, and irritable and shaken on March 6-7. However, he could rapidly change moods without committing murder.

Also, Sheriff Jordan believed that Laufenberg balanced a role in the wolf attacks with a role defending the town from wolves. For instance, when Laufenberg fired his gun at a wolf, he intentionally missed—the bullet embedded in a house’s wall twelve feet from the ground, over three times higher than Corey’s height in wolf form. Corey said he promised to miss her, and she hardly believed him.

           It was difficult to determine if the Wolftown Police Department mishandled the wolf hunt because the events were so unusual.

Sheriff Jordan thought that, during the wolf attacks, the Wolftown Police Department either knew of a human culprit and protected him or acted utterly incompetently. Wolftown was a larger catastrophe than he realized, and reasonably, the issues involved local government. He hoped the chaos would resolve law enforcement’s problems and lead to resolving the others.

The Wolftown Police Department also mishandled the two murders.