“Betty? What did Betty have to say?”
“She used to be a nurse, and she saw Morton Dewart’s body, and she just didn’t think he looked like he’d been torn apart by a bear. She thought it looked more like the work of those pit bulls. And then, the other night, Dad and I went up there for dinner.”
“Up where?”
“The Wickenses.”
“You had dinner with them?”
“Yeah, well, we didn’t have seconds, I can tell you that. But yeah, we did, and everyone went out of their way to tell us how Dewart had seen this bear, and decided to go after it, and how he must have had a run-in with it. It just all seemed a bit rehearsed, you know? Like they were putting on a show for us.”
I glanced in my rear-view mirror, saw Lawrence’s blue Jag following us. Bob stared straight ahead. “So what do you think now?”
“I guess there’s a bear in the woods, Bob. I still don’t know for sure that one killed Dewart, but I’m not going to get anyone to listen to my suspicions, certainly not Orville, who doesn’t give a shit what I say anyway. And the fact is, your description of the bear, with the torn ear, matches the description the Wickenses gave of the bear that Dewart went after.”
Bob nodded tiredly. “I feel kind of sick,” he said.
“You’ve been through a traumatic incident, Bob. We need to get you looked after, and then get you back to the camp.”
“I need to lie down,” he said.
“Just hang in till we get to the hospital. They’ll get you patched up and then you can come back, sack out in the cabin. We’ll have you back out on the lake in no time.”
“The lake,” Bob said dreamily.
“Yeah. Maybe you can take me out with you.”
“Did Leonard, did he have a wife, a family?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Bob put his head back against the headrest and kept his eyes closed until we pulled into the driveway of the emergency ward.
I left Bob with the nurse at reception and went out to talk to Lawrence and Dad, who now was in the front seat. Dad hit the power window. “How is he?”
“Shook up, but he’ll be okay. I better hang in to drive him back. Once they bandage his hands it may be hard for him to steer.”
Dad said he’d have some lunch ready for when I got back, and Lawrence’s Jag pulled away. By the time I walked back into the ER, Bob was already with a doctor. This wasn’t exactly like going to a big-city hospital, where they kept you waiting for hours.
“Hey, Mr. Walker.”
I whirled around. It was Tracy, pen and notepad in hand.
“You’re everywhere,” I said. “I guess you heard about what happened.”
“The bear got another one.”
“Well, yes and no. Looks like Leonard Colebert died trying to get away from him. But you should talk to the chief. This is his thing. I’m out of it.”
“Is there some kind of trouble between you two?” Tracy asked.
I shrugged, not eager to get into it. Tracy presented me with a brown business envelope. “Could you give this to your wife, Mr. Walker? It’s a resumé? My work experience, some clippings?”
“Why don’t you fax it to her directly,” I said. “I may still be up here for a few days.”
“And I heard a rumor the mayor’s getting death threats. Is that true? Is that why you were up talking to her?”
“I’m out of this, Tracy. Talk to the chief.”
I felt I really was out of it. What did my suspicions amount to, really? Betty could be wrong in her assessment of how Morton Dewart died. Tiff, at the co-op, could have been killed for any number of reasons. And all that fertilizer could have been stolen by a farmer looking to save a few bucks.
And the Wickenses might have a framed picture of Timothy McVeigh on their wall because they were nuts. Simple as that. It didn’t mean they were up to anything particularly sinister.
And Alice Holland’s refusal to kick a gay rights group out of the fall fair parade could be expected to produce some nasty crank calls. People were always tough when they were anonymous. It didn’t have to mean the mayor was in any real danger.
With any luck, Dad’s ankle was nearly healed. Maybe, by the next day, or the day after that, he’d be well enough to get back to running the camp on his own.
I was ready to go home.
I grabbed a seat in the waiting room and was glancing through a hunting magazine that I cared nothing about when Bob reappeared. His hands were wrapped in gauze, and he had a couple of small bandages on his cheeks, and a third on his forehead.
“Ready?” I said.
“Ready,” Bob said.
He said nothing the whole way home, and once we were back at the camp, he said a simple “Thanks” as he got out of the truck and walked over to his cabin.
“You want to come over, have a drink, something to eat?” I asked.
Bob shook his head no and went inside.
There were tuna sandwiches on the table when I walked into Dad’s cabin. “I didn’t do a thing,” Dad said. “Lawrence here made lunch.”
I suddenly realized I was starving, and sat at the table and practically inhaled the sandwich.
Lawrence said, “Your father’s kinda been filling me in. The stuff you already told me, plus some other stuff.”
“I don’t know whether there’s anything here for you to do or not,” I said. “I’m sorry if I dragged you up here for nothing.”
“Well, from the sounds of it, these folks renting the farmhouse from your dad are bad news, no matter how you look at it. I think we start by trying to find out more about them.”
I shrugged. I just didn’t know anymore.
“I do know one thing that hasn’t changed,” I said. “And that’s May Wickens, and her boy, Jeffrey. They still need to get away from her father, Timmy. No boy should be growing up, getting indoctrinated in the kind of hate that’s preached up there by that man.”
“So this Timmy, he hates fags and niggers and Jews and probably the New York Philharmonic as well,” Lawrence Jones said thoughtfully.
“Yeah. And he decides what lessons his daughter should teach his grandson.”
He pursed his lips, nodded. “Doesn’t sound to me like a very enlightened curriculum.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked him, taking another bite of my sandwich and feeling a bit apprehensive.
“We’ll see,” Lawrence said.
When I finished my lunch, I went into Dad’s study to see whether Sarah had gotten back to me.
I signed on to the mail program. Bingo.
Sarah wrote:
When are you coming home? Angie and Paul are starting to drive me crazy. No, I take that back. They’ve always driven me crazy, but when you’re home, at least you can take some of the brunt of it. I’ve spent $60 on taxis just so I won’t have to referee all these fights over the car. I don’t want to give you something else to worry about, but the dishwasher is making a really weird noise, it goes chugga-chugga halfway through the cycle, sounds like there’s a cat in there. The dishes are coming out dirty, which means they have to be done by hand, which means I have to ask Paul or Angie to do them in the sink, which sets off World War Three because they each think it’s the other person’s turn. And while I’m on the subject of cats (see dishwasher, above), both the kids are talking about getting a dog. Where did that come from? I don’t want any part of it.
They’re making some noises around the offices about when you’re coming back. There’s a
Now, your requests. I made some calls about women’s shelters. A place where this woman and her kid could go. I’ve got a contact at Kelly’s Place, the one that was named in honor of that woman whose husband killed her with a crossbow. They’ve got a spot, if you think she’s interested.