Schuster had not told Stephanie or Megan about proof of böxenwolves, and Megan did not understand why Kevin switched from their side to Corey’s, who confessed to being Dennis Laufenberg’s accomplice. Wondering if their knowledge might affect the investigation, Schuster asked Sheriff Jordan for permission to tell them.
Sheriff Jordan said, “No, they won’t believe you, and it will just upset them. Footage and photographs can be faked, so they need to watch it through the two-way glass.”
“Will Ms. Brown even agree to transfigure again?” Schuster asked.
“Yeah, because she thinks she looks too crazy. She passed a polygraph test. I didn’t encourage her to be hypnotized, but she was anyway. In them, she gave the same account she gave me. A polygraph test and hypnosis can’t be used in court, so maybe she thinks a public transfiguration can. It probably won’t. Also, I want you to see her transfigure and say whether or not it is what you saw on March 12.”
“Okey-dokey.”
“Have you found another job yet?”
“No one in Wisconsin is hiring right now, but I’ll keep looking.”
“Deputy Terry says he is going to retire in July.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“We need another deputy with all the investigations, and Wolftown doesn’t have much to do on desk duty. You know Dennis Laufenberg, so you could be useful to his cases. You can apply now if you want.”
“I appreciate the offer.”
Stephanie told Schuster to apply, and the next day, Schuster quit the Wolftown Police Department and became a Wilde County Deputy. Within days, Stephanie relaxed.
“I’m still involved in the cases,” Schuster said.
“Yeah, but the deputies responded when you requested assistance, twice,” Stephanie said.
Schuster’s arms were healing, but they prevented him from patrolling. He completed some training.
Somewhat dubiously, because of the contents, Sheriff Jordan told Schuster to type up one of Peter Angua’s journals. He warned Schuster that Peter Angua wrote about him and Stephanie, but Schuster completed the work anyway. The journals disturbed him, which motivated him; sometimes in the worst passages, he typed out of hate or anger.
Sheriff Jordan told Schuster to ask his contacts about Stephen Horn’s connection to Laufenberg—sometimes people preferred speaking to him and Foster over other law enforcement officials. Schuster found one lead, but it resulted in nothing.
Although Corey confessed to serious crimes as Dennis Laufenberg’s accomplice, Sheriff Jordan considered her a victim of Dennis Laufenberg. He investigated her accusations. The journals provided evidence, but many of the crimes occurred in wolf form. Dennis Laufenberg denied participation, but long ago, he abandoned the red herring that Corey committed crimes against her.
Kevin wondered how to describe the crimes in court, and he assured Corey he would.
Finally, Schuster was allowed to patrol, his favorite aspect of law enforcement. He soon patrolled alone, which intimidated him, but he adjusted to it. He and another deputy in the same area were zone partners and, if necessary, responded to each other immediately. Their vehicles ran well, and Wilde County had enough vehicles for the number of patrolling deputies; Wolftown police officers partnered or walked because of a lack of functional vehicles.
Handwriting analysis of Peter Angua’s journals and Dennis Laufenberg’s known handwriting showed that he wrote the Peter Angua journals.
Schuster, Foster, Sheriff Jordan, and other people knew that Dennis Laufenberg journaled, but they found none about his human, unboxenwolf life. Sheriff Jordan suspected they contained incriminating information, and he burned them.
When Kevin noticed Sheriff Jordan considered böxenwolves a distinct possibility, he told Lang, and they alerted the böxenwolves. Some of Wolftown’s law-abiding böxenwolves offered their anonymous assistance to the investigation.
Officer Danny Lang suspected that Dennis Laufenberg owned a wolf strap, possibly stolen when böxenwolves turned them in during the Satan Panic. Through the wolf attacks, Lang monitored the problem as well as he could, although officially, the police did not investigate böxenwolves. The official stance conflicted with Corey’s idea that Laufenberg intended to blame the attacks on a böxenwolf. When she pointed out the contradiction to him, he objected to her objection and refused to elaborate.
Lang began surreptitiously gathering evidence about böxenwolves when Suzanne Giese brought in a wolf strap, which she found tangled deep in a boxwood bush. She had photographed the bush before removing the strap. Lang and Sheriff Jordan believed somebody placed it in the bush because boxwood bushes’ stiff, thick leaves prevented entanglement, but the wolf strap wrapped around the bushes, and one end was next to the trunk.
There was one man’s dress shoe under the bush, and it had a wolf bite mark in it, but nobody reported a shoe-related wolf or large dog incident. The marks matched Corey’s böxenwolf bite impressions, and DNA on the shoe matched Laufenberg. He had told her to plant the wolf's strap in the bush, but she hoped somebody would keep the shoe as evidence and identify it.
Vernon Luedtke refused to take the wolf strap as evidence and told Suzanne Giese the shoe was Happy Howlers’ problem. Wayne considered the shoe useful data, but Happy Howlers could not process it. He claimed law enforcement ignored the shoe.
Corey said that a supervisor asked Laufenberg if the shoe was important. He wondered where it came from and angrily suspected she had left it. Before Laufenberg seriously hurt Corey, Tyler Wilson said he had menaced somebody and stolen the shoe. Corey thought he saved her life.
Lang thought Laufenberg had motive to wreak havoc and kill, and that he could successfully disguise the attacks as wolf attacks or blame a böxenwolf, or muddle the case beyond a reasonable doubt, or possibly confuse the matters so much, the charges were dropped.
Every encounter with Abel, which Lang knew about from inside the police station and in a position to observe Dennis Laufenberg, occurred when Dennis Laufenberg was not in the police station and was unavailable.
So, Lang secretly requested böxenwolves to shelter in City Hall, under the condition nobody said he warned them; being inside a police station was the best alibi he could think of. Laufenberg hated their presence but did not evict them.
Lang and Kevin never told the böxenwolves knew who Lang suspected, and Kevin and Lang had not discussed it amongst themselves until Sheriff Jordan managed the wolf hunt.
The böxenwolves hesitated to assist Sheriff Jordan, but recent events in Wolftown concerned them. Kevin became the anonymous böxenwolves’ spokesmen, and Lang became an unofficial, secretive liaison between the Sheriff’s Department and the böxenwolves. Lang had never transfigured into an animal, but Kevin transfigured once into a wolf. They simply knew who to speak with.
The information from the böxenwolves made sense to Sheriff Jordan, but he struggled to verify it. From Peter Angua’s journals, Sheriff Jordan possibly learned the böxenwolves’ identities, but he did not mention it. Dr. Paulsen studied the details and considered them reasonable.
The böxenwolves Sheriff Jordan questioned stated that most people considered the monstrous böxenwolf form socially unacceptable.
Dr. Paulsen thought that the form could explain the Beast of Bray Road or the Michigan Dogman, to play a practical joke. Sheriff Jordan did not investigate whether or not Dennis Laufenberg was connected to them. Years later, John found no connection between them and Dennis Laufenberg, but also found nothing that ruled him out.
If the böxenwolf case failed, Schuster thought Laufenberg would spend years imprisoned on some charge. He considered it better than nothing, temporarily. Schuster worried he would re-offend.
Sheriff Jordan and Dr. Paulsen scraped together their own money for a trip to Wolftown; Dennis Laufenberg’s journal excerpts convinced them. Dr. Paulsen and a German-English interpreter stayed at Sheriff Jordan’s house.
Dr. Paulsen and Sheriff Jordan spent days in the sewers timing events of the wolf hunt, with Dr. Paulsen transfiguring between human and wolf forms. Their timings reasonably matched the wolf hunt.
Sheriff Jordan worried the böxenwolf theory would cause Megan, Miranda, and the family members of other victims to doubt the investigation. Of the relatives, Megan and Miranda already had more data about the attacks than the other relatives. Megan and Miranda would notice strange details or omitted information.
Schuster predicted that Megan required evidence—if she saw a böxenwolf transfigure, she would consider the idea that a person, instead of a wolf, killed Foster.
Sheriff Jordan thought Miranda might have seen a böxenwolf transfiguration and not reported it.
John returned to Wilde County to identify Corey, and Miranda visited for the first time. She stayed with seven-months-pregnant Megan, while John would drive hours home the same day.
A deputy sat behind Megan’s chair to catch her if she fainted, and Miranda sat in a wheelchair, and John and Schuster stood behind them. Again, Schuster looked tense.
Miranda shrieked. Between the shock of Corey’s transfiguration and Megan’s pregnancy acid reflux, she vomited. John looked for a trash can, and the deputy grabbed it, but Megan retrieved a motion sickness bag from her purse.
“Megan, I’m supposed to watch her,” Schuster said, but he gathered Megan’s hair back.
“It’s fine,” she coughed.
Corey transfigured into a human again, and staring at her, Miranda said, “I can’t watch.”
“Did you identify her?” Vice Deputy Swan asked John and Schuster.
“I didn’t see it all, but it’s what she did,” John said.
Schuster gave a more detailed answer, then knelt by Megan. “Sorry, I had to watch.”
“I know. It’s fine,” she said.
John thought Schuster had the same expression and body language as on March 10.
“She hates transfiguring into a böxenwolf, so I had to pay attention the first time.”
“That’s what it’s called?” Megan asked, as John coughed awkwardly and stared at his shoes.
Schuster nodded.
Miranda and Megan checked on each other, and Vice Deputy Swan left and re-entered the room.
“What’s it called?” Megan asked.
“Transfiguring into a böxenwolf,” Schuster said.
“She’ll do it again. Watch, please, sir,” Vice Deputy Swan said.
“Did you see that when Zach died?” Megan asked.
“Laufenberg had already transfigured into a wolf at the time. It makes him heal quickly. He healed before I could kill him. I tried.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Kevin needs to talk to you about the transfiguration into a böxenwolf.”
In the hall, Stephanie asked Schuster, “Did something happen to you?”
“Nothing. I’m okay. The evidence is just unpleasant to watch again,” he said, trying to smile. “You’ll see the photographs in a while.”
Stephanie fussed over Megan for several seconds, and she and Miranda made small talk until Megan returned from the restroom.
“Feel better?” Miranda asked.
“Yeah, thanks,” Megan said. “It’s the pregnancy.”
Sheriff Jordan asked Miranda into his office.
At Megan’s and Sheriff Jordan’s request, Schuster accompanied Megan to the discussion with Kevin. Sheriff Jordan hoped Kevin’s explanation would restore Megan’s respect for Kevin.
Kevin explained that he defended Corey because of his experience with böxenwolves and because he thought her testimony would convict Laufenberg. Megan compared it to the United States allying with the Soviet Union, but she accepted Kevin’s decision.
“What if it isn’t enough to convict him?” Megan asked.
“He won’t be charged until we have extremely strong evidence,” Sheriff Jordan said. “Unfortunately, there’s a chance we won’t be able to charge him for homicide, but I’m convinced he is guilty, and we will continue the investigation.”
Later, Miranda said, it was the same thing he had told her.
Unlike Megan, Schuster thought Stephanie required a warning before seeing a böxenwolf transfiguration; he accurately predicted a still photograph from the footage would disturb her too much to watch the video. Stephanie believed in Schuster due to her complete trust in him.
Soon after Laufenberg’s arrest, Schuster and Stephanie decided to wait one year to apply for adoption. They felt too busy and stressed, but tried to cope with it well.
Adoption agencies asked about Schuster and Stephanie’s jobs and interviewed coworkers. In theory, a deputy might be a good father, but Schuster’s overtime could indicate overwork and inattention to home life. Stephanie thought he would find another serious problem later and continue working.
Schuster and Stephanie worried that because of their opinions about böxenwolves, the foster parent process and adoption agencies would consider them unsuitable parents. However, they became foster parents, and across eighteen years they adopted four children, statistically less likely to be adopted, and had two biological children.
Megan delivered her and Foster’s son on July 13, 2000, with Stephanie in the delivery room and Schuster on patrol or in the waiting room. She named her son Mitchell, a name she hated and Foster loved, with Zachary as a middle name. Other than the doctor, Megan asked Schuster to be the first man to hold him.
On August 24, 2000, the Department of Criminal Investigation filed its charge sheet of Laufenberg’s corruption. Megan heard the news on the radio, whooped, and startled Mitchell awake.
The reporter said, “Off-duty police work done by former Wolftown Police Department Officers Billy Schuster and Zachary Foster provided the initial information necessary to begin a formal investigation.”
Megan soothed Mitchell and told him to listen to the news about his father.
The report mentioned Zachary Foster’s death, but no connection to the böxenwolves; the media and public rarely connected them.
The lead investigator from the Department of Criminal Investigation, Captain Judy Beck, told Schuster that he and Foster followed most leads accurately, which surprised him. He felt like he and Foster normally guessed. Captain Beck considered their methods thorough and sensible, and their office verified most of the evidence Schuster and Foster collected.
“It’s because of Foster,” Schuster said.
“You held your ground, too. Be sure to tell his baby about him,” Captain Beck said.
“Okey-dokey.”
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