John shrugged. “I won’t, but thanks.”
Ah, youth. “Okay. Here’s how it’s going to go. Henry will be riding in front. He knows the way. I’ll take the sweeper position in back. The rest of you space out between us. Let’s mount up and head out.”
“Yee ha,” Perry shouted.
Trish gave her brother a withering glare, but John laughed.
A few minutes later, the group left the forested perimeter of Park Reservoir, heading single file through a park toward a cluster of rustic cabins known as Spear-O Wigwam. Patrick tilted his head back and drew in a deep breath. This was the life. A mule deer doe and fawn sprinted across the meadow away from them. Magpies cawed as they flew overhead, examining and complaining about the interlopers. The air was crisp and fresh, smelling of pine and loam. Above the trees, snow still clung to the tops of the peaks of the massif. He half closed his eyes, savoring the moment. There was just something about the way late summer sunlight bathed the world in a yellow glow that made him feel at peace. This was the way to do it. And it beat a week of work, trial testimony, and giving statements to police about dead bodies on airstrips—not to mention worrying about keeping his little sister happy when the family was so distracted—six ways to Sunday. It was good, too, to be venturing into Cloud Peak Wilderness with Henry. Henry was born and raised at the foot of the Bighorns, and there wasn’t a more capable man on the planet, unless maybe it was Patrick’s friend and co-worker Wes Braten.
Patrick was so happy, in fact, that he started singing. Mac Davis’s “Hard to Be Humble.” He thought it was a good fit for him.
“Dad, no,” Perry said. His son sounded horrified.
Patrick remembered fondly the recent days when Perry would sing along with him. He ignored his son and kept singing, until he ran out of words that he knew. Then he started over at the beginning.
After they passed Spear-O Wigwam, the group re-entered the forest and turned left up the winding road toward Bighorn Reservoir, with Trish in front of her brother and John following Perry. Henry’s three-year-old Appaloosa gelding Spot was still in training, and he was jumpy compared to the other horses, but he had a nice, ground-covering walk. Trish and John were keeping up well, but Perry was having to trot his stout Paint every few minutes. Reno was steady and even. Happy seeming, although Patrick was hypervigilant about the horse’s stride and ready to give him a break or even turn around if he showed the slightest problem.
For a while, there was no sound except the clatter of horse hooves on the steep, rocky road. Then, the boys started discussing their upcoming football season. Loudly.
“We aren’t going to see a single animal today if you boys keep up that racket.” Patrick wanted them to have fun, but he also wanted to spot some big game. Moose. Maybe a few elk. A bighorn sheep if they were very, very lucky.
Perry didn’t take the hint. He shouted back to Patrick. “Do you think I have a chance at playing wide receiver, Dad?”
It was a sensitive subject. Perry wasn’t blessed with height. Or with a vertical leap that would help him beat a cornerback or safety to the ball. But he did have heart and desire. “If you keep working at it, you’ve got a shot.”
John said, “We just can’t get hurt this year.” He’d suffered from a concussion the previous season. Perry had broken his ankle, once during the season and once after it.
Perry’s voice exuded enthusiasm. “I think when the coach sees our chemistry, he’ll have to put me in with you.”
Patrick smiled. Besides heart and desire, Perry was dogged, which was a great trait on the field, and less so in a conversation when he wouldn’t drop whatever subject he was currently obsessed with.
The boys kept talking, the horses kept walking, and the group reached Bighorn Reservoir, where the wind was tossing up whitecaps on the water.
“Where’d that come from?” Patrick called to Henry.
Trish spoke. Finally. “It was like that last night, too.”
“Where were you that you were in the wind? Didn’t you and Marcy go to a movie?”
Trish mumbled something—Patrick wasn’t sure what.
Before he could ask her to repeat herself, Henry reined Spot around to face the group. “The almanac says it’s going to be clear.”
Patrick scanned the skies. There were only a few wispy white clouds breaking up an otherwise endless blue. “If it stays nice, maybe we can take the Cross Creek trail to catch the Solitude trail further along.”
Henry laughed. “And have to navigate through the woods cross country? Let’s live to die another day, cowboy. We’re sticking with the marked trails the whole way.”
“Never hurts to ask.” Patrick gave in with a smile. “All right. The horses should be warm now. Let’s speed up and make some time.”
Henry clucked, and Spot spun around on his back hooves, heading out in slow, bouncy trot. The other horses followed at the same speed, but with less energy expenditure. Reno sighed, a commentary on the folly of youth. Patrick relaxed and looked around them. The trail ringed the east side of the reservoir on a finger ridge. Below it, a wide strip of sand abutted the water. He’d hiked part of this trail with Wes in July, and, back then, the water had lapped almost to the tree line. As with Park Reservoir, the low August waterline at Bighorn was due to irrigation of the ranch and farmland at lower elevations. Arid Wyoming made the most of the water resources from its mountains.
Fifteen yards ahead, Spot suddenly snorted, threw his head down, and started bucking. His gymnastics caused a chain reaction down the line of horses. Goldie did a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree rollback with Trish sticking to her saddle like she was glued to it. Plug jumped backwards so far that he crashed into Duke. Duke crow hopped away from him, all four feet coming off the ground, if only by an inch or two. Both boys hung on.
Patrick expected a mild reaction from his normally calm horse, but Reno went bananas. He reared, wheeled, and tried to bolt. He wasn’t as nimble as the youngster, Spot, but he was all muscle, and when he decided on a course of action, it was hard to dissuade him. By the time Patrick had him back under control and returned to the group, a bull moose was crossing the trail and crashing through the trees, heading away from the reservoir and toward a smaller pond on the other side of the ridge. How the massive animal made it through the trees without catching his wide span of antlers was a mystery, but he did it without so much as knocking one against a branch.
Patrick murmured soothing sounds to his horse, holding him tight and patting his neck, which was frothed with sweat. Now he understood the animal’s panic. Reno hated moose more than anything in the world.
“Everyone all right?” Henry called.
“I’m fine,” Trish said.
Perry shot him a thumb’s up.
“I-I-I’m good.” John’s voice was shaky. He doesn’t sound good.
Patrick walked Reno in a circle, testing the horse’s gait to see if he’d injured himself in his dramatic flight. He seemed fine. “We’re good, too.”
“Sorry about that. Spot is still a bit of an overreactor, but he’s learning. This ride will be good for him.” Henry lowered his reins and urged Spot forward.
Patrick squeezed Reno with his heels, and they fell in line behind the group. Patrick blew out a forceful breath to expel the lingering stress from the moose encounter. A jumpy young gelding and a nervous teenage boy. Patrick was still in his happy place, but the dynamic was something to keep an eye on.
Chapter Seven: Shock
Flint Residence, Buffalo, Wyoming
Friday, August 12, 1977, 10:00 a.m.
Susanne
Balancing grocery bags on both hips, Susanne looked out the back door to the deck. Patricia was enjoying a hot mug of something, thanks to the kettle of water Susanne had boiled on a Coleman stove earlier. Ferdinand was stretched full-length in the sun beside Patricia. With Patrick at work and the kids at school and in activities, he was usually Susanne’s dog. Fickle beast.
She called, “I’m back from the
store.”
Patricia’s voice carried through the screen door and open windows. “I thought that electrician was coming this morning?”
Susanne winced at the mention of the electrician. She was painfully aware of the passing time and continued absence of George. Luckily, her migraine medicine had worked last night. She’d woken up this morning a little lethargic, but with only a mild headache and no aura.
She started unloading the bags onto her beautiful dining room table, her most prized piece of furniture, and the first one she and Patrick had ever bought new. “I hope he’ll be here soon. But I’m going with things that don’t have to be refrigerated or cooked for the party, just in case.”
Patricia leaned her head on the seat back and closed her eyes. She looked completely relaxed, without a care in the world. “That’s smart.”
“It’s either that or cancel, and I can’t do that. Vangie and I mailed the invitations a month ago.” Of course, at the time, they hadn’t expected Barb’s trial to be happening this week. It had been scheduled to start three weeks earlier but was postponed when the new judge had an emergency appendectomy.
“Sorry to ask again, but what time does it start?”
“3:30.”
“Could I borrow your Suburban until then? I’ve been dying to explore the Main Street shops in Sheridan.”
Susanne gritted her teeth. Patricia’s role as the significantly younger baby sister in the Flint family meant that her every need had been attended to since birth. She was sweet. Loving. Kind. Lots of fun. And completely oblivious to the amount of work that went on around her. But, on the bright side, with Patricia in Sheridan, she wouldn’t be underfoot, slowing Susanne down. And, to be fair, Patricia didn’t even know Ronnie. It wasn’t her responsibility to prep for the party. Even if her help would have been nice.
She said, “The keys are hanging on the hook by the door to the garage.”
The screen door opened and thwacked shut. If one of Susanne’s kids had let it slam like that, she’d have reminded them how to shut the door properly. But Patricia wasn’t one of her kids.
“Thanks. I think I’ll do my nails first. Only one more week of vacation!” Patricia set her coffee cup down by the sink and walked out of the kitchen, Ferdinand on her heels.
Susanne set to cutting and chopping and didn’t bother answering her sister-in-law. Soon, she started making decent progress. Salami slices and cheese cubes tooth-picked to green pimento olives, with Ritz crackers to be arranged in a wheel around them. Sweet-smelling strawberries and cantaloupe for a fruit tray with some store-bought poppy seed dressing. Carrots, celery, and radishes for a colorful veggie platter. She’d whip up some buttermilk ranch dressing right before the guests arrived, never mind that the rest of the quart of buttermilk would probably go to waste. A platter of Vienna sausages, which she hated. A bakery cake—chocolate with cream cheese icing—she cut into dainty squares, stopping a few times to scrape excess icing off the knife and lick her fingers. Vangie was bringing punch, coffee, and ice cream. The menu wasn’t as elaborate as Susanne had envisioned, but no one would miss the barbecue smokies and cheesy tuna casserole with crumbled crackers on top, except for her.
About the time she’d finished, Patricia walked through the kitchen toward the garage. “See you at 3:30.”
Susanne waved. “Have fun.”
The door closed behind Patricia. Ferdinand made a mournful sound and joined Susanne in the kitchen. Susanne covered her creations to protect them from the late summer flies, then went outside to arrange the tables and chairs on the deck. With his new best friend gone, Ferdinand wouldn’t leave her side, and she tripped over him more than once.
“I don’t know why I thought I needed you around,” she told him, but she patted his rump.
He wagged his tail.
When she was satisfied with how the furniture looked, she decorated the deck railing and tables with blue and white crepe streamers and balloons. She rubbed her nose. She’d always hated the rubbery taste and smell of balloons, and she usually left it to Patrick to blow them up, but today it was her job. She cocked her head, evaluating the colors. Vangie had promised to bring daisies, which would add a needed punch of yellow. Then she brought out her enormous baby gift—a rolling walker, its seat covered in cheerful ducks with big orange beaks—and placed it on top of one of the tables. It was too big to wrap, but she’d taped on a card and tied a pair of baby-sized cowboy boots to the tray with a jaunty red bow.
Back in the kitchen, she looked at the clock and was aghast. Nearly noon already. She still had to shower and beautify herself before Vangie arrived at two-thirty. She headed to her bathroom, turned on the shower, and undressed. She loved the room with its claw foot tub and dark green and brown curtains. She and Patrick had redecorated it to match the forest-themed bedroom. Ferdinand flopped down on the mat with a weary sigh. He thought shower time was boring. But before she could step under the water, the phone rang.
One foot in the shower stall, she paused. It could be Vangie. Or Ronnie.
She wrapped herself in a towel and ran to the extension on Patrick’s bedside table, a necessity for a doctor on call at all hours. Clutching the towel with one hand, she lifted the receiver to her ear with the other. “Hello?”
“Susanne?” a male voice asked.
“Yes. Who’s speaking?”
“This is Max Alexandrov.”
Susanne tensed. Max Alexandrov was the young county attorney prosecuting the Lamkin case. A verdict. He had to be calling about a jury verdict. She crossed the fingers holding up the towel. “Hello, Max.”
He cleared his throat. “We’ve had a development this morning, and I wanted to let you know about it before you heard it from someone else. Or on the news.”
She put her hand on her chest. “Oh, no. Did the jury find her not guilty?”
Ferdinand walked to the door into the bedroom, his eyes intent on her, his head tilted to the side.
“It hasn’t gone to the jury yet. But, uh, well, Barb disappeared.”
Susanne frowned. “What do you mean disappeared? Like she was taken by a UFO?"
“Uh, no.”
“Prisoners don’t just disappear in the middle of a trial.” Her voice was strident.
“A guard took her to the ladies room, and she never came out.”
A hole of light shimmered in Susanne’s vision. No. “I don’t understand.”
Ferdinand sidled up to her, pressing into her legs.
“We don’t either. We’re not sure if she went out the window, or if the guard helped her escape, or if she traded identities with someone and snuck out under his nose, or—”
“No. I mean I don’t understand. Where is she?”
“We don’t know.”
“So, she escaped. She didn’t disappear. She escaped.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Perry saw her murder Mrs. Renkin. She tried to kill us. My family. And we testified against her. She was in jail because of us.”
“I know. I’m very sorry.”
Susanne’s brain spun in circles. Barb, out. Barb, out. Barb, out. She moved to the window between the bed and the bathroom. Part of her expected to see Barb staring back in at her, murder in her eyes. But no one was there. “She’s coming for us, isn’t she?”
“No. She’s long gone by now, Susanne. It’s a small town, and we were searching for her within minutes. But we did put a patrol in your neighborhood.”
“Wait. When did this happen?”
“On a break from the trial this morning.”
“Which was when?”
“About an hour and a half ago.”
“And you’re just now warning us.”
“We’ve been handling it, I promise.”
“Then how did she get away in the first place?”
“Could I speak to Patrick?”
Susanne went silent, trying to form rational thoughts. She was scared. Barb was dangerous. But Max was right. It was a small town. If Barb
had been headed to the Flints, she’d have already come and gone. Susanne jammed her fingers into the lid of her left eye. Sometimes it helped stave off the pain, if she could find exactly the right pressure point.
“Susanne, are you there? I’d like to speak to Patrick, please.”
“Patrick and the kids are up in the mountains.”
“Do you have anyone there with you? I know this is upsetting.”
Susanne slumped onto the edge of the bed. Ferdinand put his jaw on it and laid his head against her thigh. My dog. “My sister-in-law.” Sort of. Just not right at that moment. “Later today I’m having friends over for a . . . get-together.”
“Can I do anything for you?”
“Catch her. Catch her now. And put her away for good.”
“We’ve got every law enforcement officer in the state on the lookout. We’ll find her.”
Susanne thought about Wyoming. Four hundred thousand people, give or take, in a wild and rugged state covering more than sixty million acres. Barb had the advantage. “She’s from Laramie.”
“Yes. We’re going to be looking there. And everywhere.”
An intense longing for Patrick made Susanne feel weak in the knees. But if he were home, he and the kids would have to learn about Barb’s escape, too. Patrick would be furious. Perry would be worried. Trish’s sense of betrayal would flare back up. Feelings they had all thought they were past. Feelings they deserved to be past.
She took a long, slow breath. “Okay.”
“I’ll let you go then.”
“Wait. The guard. What happened to the guard? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. Embarrassed. In a lot of trouble.”
Susanne said goodbye and hung up the phone. She slid her hand across Ferdinand’s wiry coat. Her head was crashing fast now. She needed to go take her pill, but she couldn’t make herself get up. Her family’s testimony had done no good. Reliving the memories of Barb terrorizing them had been for nothing. The woman had escaped.
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