Button shook his head. "They wouldn't listen to anything I had to say."
"I think you're wrong. My bet is that they consider what you told them extremely important. In fact, it told them what not to look for-in this case, they can rule out the possibility that any of those people could have been killed by an animal. They're hunting a serial killer, Button. Count on it."
Nate Button stared at me for some time, breathing noisily through his mouth. He looked thoroughly bewildered. "That's insane," he said at last. "You're telling me the FBI is searching for a human killer precisely because I told them all the evidence points to a lobox?"
"You've got it."
"Are you mocking me, Frederickson?"
"No. You have to understand that the bureau people aren't for a moment going to take seriously the possibility that the men were killed by an extinct animal from prehistoric times, and you helped them rule out the possibility of any other animal-boars, bears, rabid dogs, what have you. What that leaves is a human- but a human with very specialized knowledge of paleontology and zoology. How many people would even know about a lobox, much less leave a corpse that could make another specialist like yourself believe a lobox had done the killing? Do you see?"
The cryptozoologist slowly shook his head, but I couldn't tell whether he was indicating that he didn't understand what I was getting at, or simply rejected it.
"They questioned you very closely about your colleagues, didn't they?"
He looked surprised. He licked his lips, closed his mouth, swallowed. "As a matter of fact, they did. They even demanded the subscription list for the journal I edit. At the time, I thought they wanted it just so that they could consult other experts. . Oh, my God."
"Now you're beginning to get the picture, Dr. Button. Their first and foremost suspect would have been you after you laid all this business about the lobox on them, but you must have had an airtight alibi at the time of the Missouri killing and when the second victim was found. Still, you can bet they know what you've had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on every day since then when a victim has been found. So you're no longer a suspect, but they are hunting someone else with your same interests and expertise. They bar you from the sites because they don't want to be associated with you, but also because they now want to keep as many details secret as possible; it helps them screen out false confessions."
"I hadn't thought of that," Button said distantly. "Perhaps you're right. It's just that. . Why would a killer go to the considerable trouble of making his murders look like the work of an extinct prehistoric creature virtually nobody outside a small field of specialists has ever heard of?"
"Well," I said with a shrug, "that's certainly a good question, and a debating point for your side. I do know that you can never tell what's really going on inside the mind of a serial killer. This one's apparently an academic, scholarly type who's using his deep grounding in paleontology to amuse himself while he thinks he's baffling the experts."
"Frankly, your theory doesn't sound any more plausible than mine," Button said tersely, and sniffed. "In order to create paw prints, fang marks, and body wounds like those I observed at the Missouri site, a man would have to go to considerable trouble; even then, he would have no guarantee that an expert like myself would come along, recognize the signs, and say that the killing was the work of a lobox."
Harper brushed a strand of gray hair back from her eyes, said to Button: "You don't think that Robby's scenario is more credible than the notion of an extinct creature suddenly coming back to life, popping up out of nowhere in the middle of the United States?"
The cryptozoologist took a handkerchief out of one of the pockets in his safari jacket, blew his nose loudly, carefully wiped it, put the handkerchief back in his pocket. Then he looked at Harper. "Maybe it didn't 'pop up out of nowhere,' Miss Rhys-Whitney."
"Then where did it come from, Dr. Button?"
"Perhaps from the north-Canada, Minnesota, perhaps even down from Alaska. It could be a throwback, a single mutant. There is a phenomenon known as 'reverse breeding.' It's a practice usually indulged in by scientists or specialist breeders, but it's possible that it could have happened naturally, in the wild. In upstate New York, at a place called the Catskill Game Farm, there's a large herd of small, striped horses. They're members of a species that was extinct for close to a hundred thousand years before some scientists began a reverse breeding program with a selected group of modern-day horses. They bred for hidden, submerged genetic traits; when there were offspring that showed even a partial trace of the traits they were looking for, they matched those offspring. The result is a herd of 'prehistoric' horses, which you can see with your own eyes.
"It's just possible that a lobox was created in this manner by accident, a wolf breeding with a dog-perhaps a kuvasz. One offspring in the resulting litter was this animal, a freak of nature; it may not be a purebred lobox, but the genetic inheritance was strong enough for it to have developed the lobox's distinctive claw at the rear of the footpad. It was born far to the north, then migrated south, away from the cold, and only recently settled into this pattern of hunting and killing its. . natural prey."
Harper shook her head, rested her elbows on the table, placed her fingertips together to form an arch. "The killings have taken place hundreds of miles apart."
"Ah, but we don't know what a lobox's natural hunting range is, Miss Rhys-Whitney. If this creature has inherited the speed and intelligence we believe was possessed by its ancestors, then it could range over an extremely broad area, and it would be very wily. Even if it were sighted, it might be mistaken for a large dog." Button paused, took a deep breath through his open mouth, shuddered slightly. "If it's a lobox, or anything like a lobox, it is a most formidable creature. Perhaps the only natural enemy humankind has ever had. And if it's able to breed successfully with wolves or dogs …"
Nate Button turned back toward me, and for a moment the reflection of candlelight danced in his eyes' dark depths. Suddenly, I felt sorry for the man, as I realized how much emotion the cryptozoologist had invested in his quest to be the first to unmask this ultimate in hidden animals, a prehistoric creature rambling over the Great Plains, stopping on occasion to rip up and eat some unfortunate human.
"The prehistoric horses you mentioned are the result of years of work by humans, Dr. Button," I said quietly. "The herd represents generation after generation of offspring that are the result of very careful reverse breeding. What do you suppose the odds are against the spontaneous mutation that would create a lobox?"
"Astronomical, to be sure," Button said with a small sigh as he gathered the photos and sketches off the table and shoved them back into his worn leather briefcase. He made no effort now to hide his deep disappointment at my total lack of enthusiasm for his idea. "Perhaps you're right, Dr. Frederickson; perhaps the killing thing will turn out to be human after all. I've very much enjoyed meeting the two of you, and now I won't take up any more of your evening."
As Button rose from his chair, Harper rubbed her foot against my leg under the table. It felt like an electric shock, and I barely managed to stifle a groan.
"Good night, Dr. Button," Harper said evenly as she looked at me and raised an eyebrow provocatively. Her shoeless foot was working its way up my leg, past my knee, wriggling against my thighs. "Good luck with your search."
Button merely waved with his free hand as he made his way toward the exit.
"Well, Robby," she continued in her low, husky voice, "I think he was an interesting fellow, don't you?"