Wolfsbane by William W. Johnstone

recalled. Rich, too. Met her in Paris, the captain had said.
    Pat laughed in the night, remembering how they’d all gotten drunk together after the successful mission.
    He wondered whatever happened to Lyle Simmons.
    Pat relit his pipe and puffed contentedly, as memories of his ex-wife drifted into his sober brain.
    He felt no malice toward her; never did, really, he recalled back over the years. She was marrying a war hero, a famous—or infamous—mercenary . . . and she felt that would bring her no small degree of fame. Pat tried to tell her differently.
    â€œWar heroes don’t mean much to young Americans,” he had tried to warn her. “And Americans don’t understand mercenaries. Don’t think marrying me is going to bring you lots of fame and glory. ’Cause it’s not going to happen.”
    She had not believed him.
    With the marriage deteriorating almost from the start, Pat began turning to the bottle and the brawls. Now, sober, he looked out into the darkness.
    â€œFive years gone,” he muttered. “Five years lost and I can’t remember, clearly, a year of it.”
    But, he promised, I’m going to do better from now on.
    He was still wondering why this sudden change had swept over him as he went to bed.
    He dreamed of the rescue mission, bringing back Captain Simmons. And he dreamed of Simmons’ wife. But he could not put a name to her, or a face to her body.

Chapter Six
    It was as if a sudden pall had fallen on the small town of Joyeux. Nothing tangible; no horrible tragedies occurring. But it seemed to Sheriff Vallot that the spirit had gone out of many of the town’s residents.
    Not so much the young people, Edan thought, as he sat in his office, boots up on his desk, gazing out the window at the main street of town—although some of them did seem unusually listless and surly—but the older residents of Joyeux, almost to a person, seemed depressed.
    Why? he pondered.
    And petty crime had increased while church attendance was down . . . at all the churches. And married people seemed to be having an undue amount of problems: family disturbances were on the increase. Nothing major, just a lot of little things that kept his people on the run and the small local police department as well.
    Why?
    And those damned sightings of monsters roaming around the edge of town and in the swamps. But it was far too early for them, so why were they cropping up now?
    Unanswered questions.
    Edan looked at the leather pouch on his desk, sighed, and shook his head. He picked up the bag and tucked it in his pocket as he walked out the door of his office to his patrol car.
    The heat hit him in the face like a hot, damp rag and he hurried to his car, quickly turning on the air conditioning. He drove the main street of the parish seat. One of the largest parishes in the state, but with the smallest population because so much of Ducros was swampland and bayous. Rice, sugar cane, and beans planted on the good land. Four towns in the parish, Joyeux the largest. Population: five thousand. Parish population: eight thousand. And it was a mixed population: Indians, blacks, Creoles, Redbones, Cajuns, four Jews, and a bunch of plain old WASPs.
    Ducros was an old parish; one of the first settled inland, and much of the land had been in the same family for two hundred years. No industry. Some abject, dire poverty, and a handful of people worth millions. A few oil wells.
    Edan Vallot drove the parish roads, his mind racing, nibbling at . . . He cursed. Whatever in the hell was wrong in Joyeux?
    He passed Eddie Guilbeau’s fishing lodge. The entrance had a chain across it and there was no sign of life in or around the camp. Something was wrong, Edan thought. He slowed the car and turned around, heading back to the camp. He honked the horn at the chained drive.
    No reply.
    Sheriff Vallot got out of the car and climbed the chain, walking up to the lodge, a feeling of alarm building