by Peg Kehret
Sgt. Donald Skyler was on telephone duty at the police station when Rosemary called. She identified herself and explained why she was calling. “I’m pretty sure he’s lying about how his face got scratched,” she said, “and there are bite marks on his arm.”
“I haven’t had any reports of an assault,” Sgt. Skyler said.
“The bite marks aren’t from a person. They look as if it might have been a small dog, or even a cat.”
“Can you get him to stay at the hospital for a while?” he asked.
“He isn’t going anywhere,” Rosemary replied. “He’s waiting for one of the emergency-room doctors to look at his leg wound.”
“Keep him waiting,” Sgt. Skyler said. “I’ll send an officer over to question him.”
12
Bick shifted on the bed in the emergency-room cubicle, trying to get comfortable. His leg hurt, and no matter which way he positioned it, he couldn’t ease the pain. The scratches hurt, too, and his arm ached where the cat had bit him.
I need a Tylenol, Bick thought, or maybe even some codeine. What was taking so long? Once he’d been called in from the waiting room and had donned this foolish shorty nightgown and had seen the nurse, he thought his wait was over. He expected the doctor to come through the opening in the curtain at any minute, but he didn’t come. The nurse didn’t return, either. With the high price of emergency-room care, you’d think the service would be better.
Bick wasn’t used to waiting. For that matter, he wasn’t used to sitting around doing nothing. He drummed his fingers on the edge of the bed. He lay down, then sat up again. Once, he stood and poked his head through the curtain opening and looked out, but all he saw was the nurses station, void of nurses.
At first Bick was annoyed; then he got angry. Was he being ignored because he didn’t have insurance? Was he some kind of second-class citizen?
His anger turned to anxiety. What if they were checking what he’d written on the admissions paper? What if they had figured out that he’d given false information? What if they were calling the cops?
I shouldn’t have come here, Bick decided. Hospitals were no good; the people asked too many nosy questions that were none of their business. Why did they need his telephone number in order to sew up his leg? What did it matter if his family had a history of cancer? He wasn’t here for chemo; he was here to get the hole in his leg closed up. By the time they got around to helping him, he’d have to change the age he’d put on their paper because he’d be a year older.
He looked closely at the wound in his leg. If he cleaned it out good, put some antiseptic on it, then covered it with gauze and held the sides shut with tape, it would probably heal without leaving too big of a scar. He should have done that in the first place. He should have gone straight home and taken care of his own problem.
Never trust anyone. That had been Bick’s motto all his life, but he’d never had to apply it to a hospital before.
Bick picked up his pants, grimacing as he moved. The wound might be treatable on his own, but it still hurt like crazy. Before he could step into his pants, the curtain parted and a police officer entered followed by Nurse Rosemary.
“Brock Thorsen?” the officer said.
Bick looked around, as if wondering who the officer was talking to.
The officer pointed at Bick. “Are you Brock Thorsen?”
“Oh,” Bick said. “Oh, yeah, that’s me, but I’ve decided not to wait for the doctor. It’s taking too long, and I’m tired. I’m leaving; I’ll take care of the leg myself.”
“You shouldn’t do that,” Rosemary said. “Your leg might need stitches. You can’t treat it yourself.”
“Well, nobody around here is fixing it. I got better things to do than sit here and twiddle my thumbs.”
“The doctor will be here shortly,” Rosemary said. “Please lie down and keep your feet up. You make the bleeding worse when you stand.”
The police officer said, “Officer Dingam, Hilltop Police Department. I have some questions for you before you go.”
“You got the wrong person. You must be looking for the guy in the next bed.”
“I don’t think so.”
“There’s no reason to be questioning me; I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Then you won’t mind answering a few questions.”
Bick sat down, not looking at the officer. “About what?”
“How did you get those scratches on your face?”
“What do you care? It’s illegal to get scratched?”
“Answer the question.”
“I already told the nurse. I was pruning some blackberry vines when one of them scratched me.”
“Right.”
“They were big prickly vines; got me right in the face.”
“More than once,” the officer said. “You’d think after one deep scratch like that, you’d stay away from the blackberries.”
Bick glared at the man but said nothing.
“Who bit you on the arm?”
Bick looked at the teeth marks, still clearly visible on his arm. “I was playing with my dog, wrestling around, you know, but he got a little carried away. No harm done.”
“A dog’s teeth are bigger than that.”
“It’s a little dog,” Bick said.
Officer Dingam nodded. The bite wounds clearly had not been inflicted by a person, but he doubted any dog was that small. Looked more like cat bites to him, which would make sense given the scratches.
He’d never heard of a cat defending its owner against an attacker, although he supposed it was possible. But what about the gunshot? No dog or cat could have done that. This man’s story did not compute. He was lying about the blackberries and lying about the dog. The question was, why? What was he hiding?
Frustrated by the man’s attitude and the lack of information, Officer Dingam said, “Thanks for your time,” and left the room.
While Officer Dingam had been questioning Bick, Sgt. Skyler received a call from Mr. Kendrill. An experienced officer, Sgt. Skyler had heard his share of wacky reports from the public, but he didn’t remember ever getting a call regarding a kidnapped cat. He was about to suggest that the caller contact the humane society when Mr. Kendrill got to the part about hearing a gunshot.
“Within a minute or two of the gunshot, we saw the man we were looking for go past us in his truck,” Mr. Kendrill said. “He was headed back toward town, driving erratically, and there was blood on his face. We yelled at him to stop, but he kept going. We went farther up the road and found blood splattered on the shoulder. We looked for our cat there, but we didn’t find him.”
Sgt. Skyler sighed. He detested animal cruelty cases almost as much as he hated to hear about abused children. What was wrong with people who took out their anger on little kids or helpless animals? They were sickos, that’s what they were. Sickos.
It made his ulcer flare to think of somebody snatching a family’s pet cat, driving off with it, and then shooting the cat in cold blood. He wrote down the truck’s license number, the location where the man had been seen, and the cat owner’s name, address, and phone number. He also took a description of the truck’s driver.
“I’ll get back to you as soon as I have anything to report,” he said, but realistically he didn’t think it was likely to be anytime soon, if ever. There were so many crimes committed every day and the police force was stretched so thin that he knew no one would have time to devote to a kidnapped cat.
Sometimes Sgt. Skyler thought he was in the wrong business. Maybe he should quit and find work that didn’t get him emotionally churned up.
He was still fretting over the missing cat when Officer Dingam checked in. “I’m leaving the hospital,” Dingam said. “The man in emergency is lying about how he got hurt, but I don’t know why. I can’t pin anything on him. He gave his name as Brock Thorsen; see if you can find any record on him. I don’t know how he got shot. He has scratches and bite marks that look as if he tangled with a cat, but
he won’t admit that. There’s something fishy about the whole scene.”
When he heard the word “cat,” Sgt. Skyler stiffened. “What’s this guy look like?” he asked.
As Officer Dingam described the hospital patient, Sgt. Skyler looked at the notes he had jotted down from Mr. Kendrill’s phone call. Medium height, fiftyish, in need of a shave and a haircut. Looks as if he rarely showers.
It was him, all right. No doubt about it. Sgt. Skyler would bet last month’s salary that the man at the hospital had been scratched and bitten by the kidnapped cat. Quickly he told Officer Dingam about Pete and about the gunshot that the Kendrills had heard.
“I ran the truck’s license number through the computer,” he said. “It’s registered to a Bick Badgerton.”
“I’m returning to the emergency room,” Officer Dingam said.
Rosemary saw him approach the entrance to the cubicle, and waved him in.
“Not you again,” Bick said.
“I want another look at those bites,” Officer Dingam said.
“Haven’t you got any criminals to track down? You got nothing to do but harass law-abiding citizens?”
“What kind of dog did you say you have?”
“A little one.”
“Those look like cat bites to me,” the officer said.
“I don’t have a cat.”
“Maybe it wasn’t your own cat.”
Rosemary saw a flicker of fear in her patient’s eyes, and she knew the police officer was on the right track. This man had been scratched and bitten by a cat, but he didn’t want them to know it.
“Did you know that cat scratches can be dangerous?” Rosemary asked.
“Huh?”
“Cat scratches are full of bacteria, and a bite is even worse. There have been several cases where people got bit by a cat, and the bite became badly infected. I know of one patient who died.”
“Someone died from a cat bite?” Bick looked closely at his wrist.
“It would surely be too bad if a person walked out of a hospital without getting treatment for something that’s potentially lethal,” Officer Dingam said, “just because that person didn’t want to admit he’d been bitten by a cat.”
Bick was silent, thinking it over. “What makes you think I got scratched and bit by a cat?” he asked.
“Cats scratch their adversaries, but dogs don’t usually defend themselves with their toenails,” Officer Dingam said. “Also, those marks on your arm look more like cat bites than dog bites,” he said. “You want to tell me about that cat?”
“Look, I came in to get help for a leg wound,” Bick said, “not to get questioned by the cops.” He glared at Rosemary. “You must be the one who called the cops. Why’d you do that? Where’s the doctor?”
“He’ll be in soon,” Rosemary said, ignoring his other question.
“If you don’t want to discuss the bites, tell me about that leg wound,” the officer said, but Bick shook his head.
“I already told the admitting clerk,” he said, “and I told the nurse. If a doctor wants to come and stitch me up, right now, I’ll tell him. Otherwise, I’m out of here.” He stood and reached for his pants.
Officer Dingam turned to Rosemary. “Would you please see if the doctor is ready to examine Mr. Thorsen?” he asked.
She hurried out, returning almost immediately with a doctor.
“I’m Dr. Fleming,” he said. “While I take a look at your leg, Mr. Thorsen, suppose you tell me exactly what happened to you.”
Bick sighed loudly, as if this were a huge imposition, then lay back on the table again. While the doctor probed the area on Bick’s thigh, Bick repeated the story about accidentally shooting himself while he was putting the gun in its holster.
“I need to clean this wound,” the doctor said.
“Then do it,” Bick said. “I’ve been here too long already.”
“Are you right-handed or left-handed?” Officer Dingam asked.
“Right-handed. What difference does that make? It’s my leg that’s hurt, not my hand.”
Rosemary handed the doctor some peroxide and gauze pads for sterilizing Bick’s thigh. The doctor began wiping the area around the wound.
“What did you do with the cat?” Officer Dingam asked.
“What cat?”
“The one you stole from a backyard in Valley View Estates?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I have a witness who saw you drive out of Valley View Estates with his family’s pet cat in your truck. The cat was yowling and scratching at the window, trying to get out.”
“The witness was mistaken. I didn’t steal any cat.”
“You didn’t accidentally shoot yourself while putting away your gun, either,” Officer Dingam said. “I can tell the bullet’s angle from the wound. When the gun went off, it was held at shoulder height, aimed from right to left across your body. If you had been putting the gun in the holster when it fired, as you say you were, it would have been pointed straight down and you’d have held it much lower.
“Since you’re right-handed,” Officer Dingam continued, “the gun would have been in your right hand, and if it went off when you put it in the holster, the wound would have been in your right leg. Either someone else fired the gun or you were aiming it elsewhere when it went off.”
Bick scowled and said nothing.
“Who were you aiming at?” Officer Dingam asked. When Bick didn’t reply, he said, “Maybe it was a person who scratched you. Who’d you fight with?”
“I was alone. There wasn’t any other person.”
“Then you must have been aiming at the cat,” the officer said. “You were trying to shoot the cat, weren’t you, the one you stole?”
“Why would I steal a cat? I don’t even like cats. Snoopy creatures, always poking their noses where they don’t belong.”
The officer shrugged. “We already have a complaint against you for trespassing and theft. I can always add lying to an officer.”
“Okay, okay,” Bick said. “I got scratched and bit by a cat, but you can’t pin any theft on me. I can’t help it if a cat got in my truck and I didn’t notice him until I was a few miles down the road.”
Bick started to sit up, but the doctor said, “Lie still, please. I’m putting Novocaine in that wound so you’ll be comfortable while I clean it.” Bick lay back down, frowning.
Using cotton balls saturated with disinfectant, Rosemary began dabbing at the scratches on Bick’s face. Bick winced, gritting his teeth. “You got no proof of trespassing or theft,” Bick said. “You got no proof of anything.”
“We have a witness who saw you drive off with his cat who was yowling and trying to get away, and you have multiple cat scratches and bite wounds. If the cat had been in your truck by accident, all you had to do was open the door and let him out.”
Rosemary continued to clean the scratches.
Bick closed his eyes.
“Four people heard a gunshot,” Officer Dingam said, “and saw your truck racing away from the area immediately afterward. They got the license number, then drove a short distance and saw blood on the side of the road. My department is checking that out as we speak. If you weren’t shooting the cat, who were you shooting? Are you saying instead of theft, you could be held for attempted murder?”
“No! There wasn’t anybody with me. You can’t commit murder when you’re alone!”
“If you were alone, then you’re the one who pulled the trigger.”
“That’s right. I already told you that. I didn’t shoot anyone else, and I didn’t shoot a cat, either. I accidentally shot myself.”
“Whose blood was on the side of the road?”
“Mine. From my leg.”
“We can check that. DNA makes it easy to prove or disprove.”
“So check it,” Bick said. “It’s my blood, all right.”
“If nobody else was there, and the gun didn’t discharge as you put it away, what did
happen?” Officer Dingam asked.
“Maybe the cat shot him,” Rosemary said.
The officer looked at the ceiling, as if to say, Oh, sure.
“Really. I read about a case where some guy was shooting a litter of puppies he didn’t want and the last puppy struggled, and his paw hit the trigger. The guy’s gun went off and he shot himself in the arm. The puppy got taken to a shelter, and dozens of people tried to adopt it. Too bad the man had already killed the other two puppies, or they would all have found good homes.”
On the examining table, Bick squirmed, looking away from the officer.
“Don’t move,” the doctor said. “I’m putting on the dressing.”
Officer Dingam said, “I suppose the cat could have done it, if he kicked hard enough and caught the trigger exactly right.” He stared at the patient, waiting for him to deny that he’d been shot by a cat, but the man was silent, refusing to meet his eyes.
For a moment nobody spoke. Then the incredulous officer said, “That’s what happened, isn’t it? You were trying to shoot the cat, and somehow he got you instead.”
“Stupid cat,” Bick sputtered. “He fought like a wild tiger! I thought he was going to put my eye out with those claws. We struggled, and next thing I knew I heard the gun go off and felt the bullet hit my leg. His foot must have hit the trigger.”
Rosemary swabbed disinfectant on the bite marks.
“Where’s the cat now?” asked Officer Dingam.
“How would I know? I dropped him when the gun fired, and he took off, hightailed it into the woods with his fur puffed up like he’d stuck his tail in an electrical outlet. Last I saw him, he was streaking away faster than a shooting star. He’s probably crossed the state line by now and is still running.”
“Change Mr. Thorsen’s chart, Nurse,” the doctor said, “to show that the gunshot was inflicted by a cat.”
It was all Rosemary could do not to laugh out loud.
“Perhaps you should change the name on the chart, too,” the officer said. “I believe your patient is Bick Badgerton.”
Bick’s jaw dropped, but he did not deny the statement.
“Why didn’t you tell the truth to begin with?” Officer Dingam asked. “You could have saved us a lot of time.”
