Sawbones

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  Susanne scooted back onto the seat. She rubbed her chest. It hurt, and her heart was pounding a mile a minute. “I’m fine.” But if the roads had been icy or the visibility bad—even if the wind had been worse—things might have gone a lot differently, for all of them. Funny, but every time she made this drive, she worried about animals crossing the interstate. Sometimes about sleepy truckers. But never about crazy station wagon drivers.

  “Dad?” Trish’s head popped up. “What happened?”

  “Sorry, honey. A, uh, deer ran across the road. Go back to sleep.”

  “Okay,” Trish mumbled. Her head disappeared behind the seat again.

  Susanne and Patrick stayed silent for a minute. She expected to hear Perry’s voice, but he didn’t stir.

  Finally, she whispered, “What the heck was that about?”

  “I don’t know, but it was the same station wagon I was telling you about.”

  “I hope she’s just a bad driver.”

  “It’s hard to take anything at face value right now.”

  Susanne nodded. “When you’re worried about your kids, everything seems suspicious.” She lowered her voice further. “If Perry really saw the killer, do you think he’s safe?”

  “If he really did, no. Take that car, for instance. For all we know, that driver was the killer.”

  Susanne’s stomach churned at the thought. She nodded. “Yes. It might not even be something with the Kemeckes, though. It could be anyone.”

  “We have to assume he did see the killer and take precautions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Security, for starters. And, if the court in Johnson county is going to hear this case, we need to renew our request with them to have you guys testify via affidavit. Maybe Judge Renkin will help us out since we helped Jeannie.”

  “It’s worth asking him.”

  “Also, we’ve got to get Perry to the sheriff’s department ASAP with his information.”

  Susanne sat up straight again. “We could ask them for protection.”

  “Funny. I forgot to tell you this, but one of the things that Renkin and his cronies were talking about at the funeral home was security. Sheriff Westbury said he has a plan for keeping the courthouse safe. His department is also going to protect the judge. And Governor Rawlins offered state money for trial security, although he was suggesting it be focused on Renkin.”

  Susanne felt a glimmer of hope. “Maybe they’ll help us, too. It’s all related.”

  “It’s possibly all related.”

  “True. I was thinking, and this won’t be popular, but we have to crack down on Trish seeing Brandon. Especially if Ben might be tagging along.” Susanne knew she would bear the brunt of an angry Trish. Patrick had the refuge of work. Susanne had nowhere to hide from her teenage daughter.

  Patrick nodded. “I think we should keep both kids home anytime they aren’t in school. And be waiting to pick them up when they get out and stick around to make sure they get in after drop-off.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And, if the sheriff won’t help us, I want to consider our own protection.”

  “You mean hire someone?”

  The steely-eyed look on her husband’s face was one of inspired determination. “I have a better idea.”

  Chapter Thirteen: Snoop

  Buffalo, Wyoming

  Saturday, March 12, 1977, 8:30 p.m.

  Patrick

  The walk to Judge Renkin’s house felt great after hours cooped up in the Suburban. Patrick had opted to drop in on the judge rather than call first. He wanted to make sure their conversation would be face-to-face. It wasn’t a long walk—only a quarter mile or so. But the road was slick with packed snow, so he took it slow. He was looking forward to spring thaw and returning to his running schedule. Spring being the muddy season, jogging wouldn’t improve much, but he could at least put on his muck boots for sloppy walks. Then he would train for a half marathon during the glorious summer months. He pinched his waist. He’d gotten a little winter-fat. He’d have to ask Santa for snowshoes next Christmas. Or cross-country skis. Or both.

  Patrick rolled his ankle on something in the road. “Ow.”

  A rock, ice, or even a hunk of wood? Luckily, he wasn’t hurt, but he was sorry he’d forgotten to bring a flashlight. On his own property, there was plenty of outdoor lighting. The road to the Renkins’ house, though, was dark, with only a quarter moon in the sky. He flipped up his collar, then shoved his hands deep in his pockets. A truck cruised by. As it passed, he saw the light column on the top and the sheriff’s department markings on the door. Johnson county was making its presence known. That was good for the judge and the Flints. Nearby, coyotes started their evening yipping and howling. They didn’t bother him. He was respectful of the mountain lion and cubs that had been making incursions into the area, though. The thought of them made him search the darkness for movement. Lions didn’t make noise. They stalked and pounced, something he could confirm after one attacked his horse, Reno, a few months back, while Patrick was riding him. It was something he’d never, ever forget.

  He turned into the entrance to the Renkin’s place. There were no lights on, inside or out. He tromped the unshoveled walk to their front door and rang the bell anyway. He gave it a full minute, but no one came to the door. Just to be sure, he walked to the garage on the side of the house. It had roll-up doors at three bays. The first bay was open and empty. The others were closed. He glanced around. There was no one there to tattle on him, and he’d always believed it was better to ask forgiveness than permission, so, he poked his head in the open bay. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  The first thing he noticed was movement in the dark recess of the third bay. He yelped and jumped back, his heart in his throat. Mountain lion. The second thing he noticed was that an animal was perched on the hood of Jeannie Renkin’s Cadillac. Patrick pulled out his pocketknife, just to be on the safe side. He’d had occasion to use it for self-protection before, and it was effective. Sturdy, with a six-inch blade. A real Wyoming knife. Wes had given it to Patrick to replace what he called Patrick’s “Minnie Mouse” knife, and he’d had SAWBONES engraved in the handle. Patrick was glad he had it now.

  “Go away, kitty.”

  There was a thump as the animal leapt from the car and landed on the ground. Then footsteps padded toward him at a slow, slinky pace. Patrick tensed. He couldn’t outrun a mountain lion. He’d have to stand his ground. Just as he was about to go on the offensive, a large black house cat came into view.

  He laughed.

  “You scared the squat out of me, cat.” It wended its way through his legs, and he reached down to pet it. Its fur was long and thick. A Maine Coon, he figured.

  He was about to leave when he realized the vehicle in the center bay was a snowmobile on a metal trailer. Patrick had never seen Renkin riding a snowmobile. He couldn’t tell for sure, but this one looked sort of yellow. His curiosity got the better of him again, but this time he decided he needed light. He walked to the door and searched on the wall for a light switch. As he fumbled for it, several items clattered to the ground. He cursed softly. Finally, he found the switch and used it.

  The overhead light was brighter than the sun. Patrick shielded his eyes. What kind of bulb did Renkin have in there? His eyes took longer to adjust to the light than the dark. When he was no longer blinded by glare, he went to check out the snow machine. It was a dandy one. A Rupp Yankee—a luxury brand. Patrick would have been happy with a cheaper Ski-Doo. But they were still expensive, and so was gas, so he was holding out. Someday.

  The cat jumped onto the seat and tested its claws on the black upholstery. Patrick trailed his hand along the yellow chassis. The judge had treated himself to the 40-horsepower version.

  The cat jumped down and scratched its head on Patrick’s foot. It purred like a smaller version of the Rupp.

  “So, fuzzball, where’s your owner?”

 
The cat didn’t answer. Goosebumps rose on Patrick’s arms, and he suddenly had the sensation someone was watching him. He needed to get out of there. He was trespassing after all. He hung up everything he’d knocked to the ground earlier—a flashlight, a fly swatter, and an ice scraper—then turned off the light and skedaddled. As he walked away, he scanned in all directions, looking for movement, light, or a human shape, but he saw nothing.

  He turned toward his own house at the road, but got the sensation that he’d glimpsed something out of place. He whirled around. A beat-up van was parked about a hundred feet down the road. Had it been there earlier? He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t remember for sure. Again, he searched the darkness, but he saw nothing else. He shrugged. He would have been a lot more concerned if it had been a gold station wagon. He hunched his shoulders against the cold and walked back toward his own place.

  When he reached the driveway, Reno nickered at him. The shadows of three horses loomed behind the pasture gate. The house flood lights reached to the old two-story wooden barn, but not all the way to the pasture. Even in the dim light he could see how badly the barn needed a new coat of red paint. It would have to wait for summer.

  “Hey, boy,” he called to his horse. He walked over to give Reno’s forehead a brief scratch.

  Reno looked awfully good for a horse that had nearly died on a mountaintop in Cloud Peak Wilderness only six months before, when he’d broken the splint bone in one of his hind legs in his mad scramble to get away from a mountain lion. If Reno had been just any other horse in an outfitter’s string, he would have gotten a bullet between the eyes and a rock cairn as his resting place. Reno’s rescue—a lengthy, difficult, and dangerous procedure—had taken an army. People had been determined to help the Flints and the special horse, especially after what the family had been through on the mountain with Kemecke and his gang. Patrick’s gratitude to the people who’d saved him and to Joe Crumpton, the vet who had nursed him to health, was profound. Now the big horse was retired, fat, and happy, with barely a limp.

  Reno tolerated the affection for a moment, then, because Patrick hadn’t brought him food, he ambled away. The other horses followed him. Patrick chuckled and went his own way, too.

  At the house, he stopped at the woodpile. Before he’d walked to the Renkins’ house, Susanne had asked him to fill the fireplace bin. Unfortunately, he discovered he was out of split logs. He set a log on his chopping stump and grabbed his splitting ax from a wall hook inside the woodshed. With the blade poised on the wood, he bent his legs and drew in a breath, then hauled the ax around and swung it. The log split cleanly in two. He dropped the pieces into his carrier. There was something strangely satisfying about splitting logs. He blew out a frosty breath and repeated the process. When he had enough split wood for a full load, he was a little bit disappointed. He turned to go in and stopped short.

  The mountain lion he’d worried he’d seen at the Renkin’s was standing at the front corner of the house, crouched low, completely silent. The animal looked mature, but small enough to be a female. A female in the winter, needing to feed her cubs? If game were plentiful, she wouldn’t be a threat. But it had been a long, hard winter.

  “Shoo,” he said. His voice came out softer than he’d intended. He raised it. “Get on, now.”

  The lion didn’t move. Didn’t look away.

  A peculiar feeling came over him. This was the second lion he’d seen that week. Once—maybe—up at Meadowlark. Now there was one here at his own house. Both sightings had occurred when he was by himself. In his research about American Indians for a term paper in college, he’d been fascinated by their belief in spirit animals. Some Indians believed that an animal would reveal itself to a person through physical and symbolic encounters, maybe more than once over the course of the person’s life, to guide, protect, teach, and provide balance. Was the lion revealing itself to him? And, if so, what was the message it was passing? He would have to worry about that later, though. Right now, there was a live, meat-eating lion staring him down, and he had to figure out how to encourage it to depart.

  “Thank you for visiting, Ms. Lion. If you’re bringing me a message, I want you to know, I am listening, even though I don’t understand what it is yet.”

  Her tail twitched, and she made a sound that was part growl, part yowl.

  He’d never had the occasion to study an uncaged lion up close like this before, not for this long. She was majestic, and truly fearsome. Even in the dark he could see the musculature under her winter coat. He felt blessed, although he would prefer that she go where she wasn’t a threat to pets, livestock, and humans—and thus, herself.

  “Run along now. Get far away from here. People are no good for you.”

  She took a step toward him. Her feet didn’t make a sound.

  He tensed. “Easy, girl.”

  She moved closer.

  “Okay, Mother Nature, I’m going to have to cut this short before she does something she’ll regret.” He took a log from his hauler and threw it at the cougar.

  She snarled and ducked her head, but she didn’t run away.

  “Yah, girl! Yah, yah!” He chunked two more in quick succession.

  That finally did the trick. In a blink, she disappeared into the inky dark. Patrick released a shaky breath. That had been something else. He decided to leave the wood he’d thrown until he could pick it up in daylight. Just because he couldn’t see her didn’t mean she’d gone far.

  He hauled the carrier into the house and emptied it in the bin by the massive stone fireplace that was the centerpiece of a living room, which was noisy with the sound of the television. During daylight hours, the room had a great view of the banks of Clear Creek and the mountains in the distance. It opened onto an eating area adjacent to their kitchen. A hall to his left went to the master suite, and a staircase near the front door led up to the kids’ bedrooms on the second floor and down to a basement with a playroom and indoor shop. They’d moved into the house two months before, and he hadn’t found a thing he didn’t like about it except the monthly mortgage payment. Susanne professed to love the house just as it was, but she was systematically changing everything about it. New curtains. New furniture. And, when it warmed up outside, new paint.

  Their clumsy Irish wolfhound, Ferdinand, galloped down the stairs. He charged through the living room furniture like an obstacle course, running into nearly everything he passed. Then he slid to a stop on the wood floors. His big body rammed Patrick in the knees. Patrick laughed and gave his ears a good rubbing.

  “Where were you when I needed you a second ago, Ferdie?” But he was actually glad the dog hadn’t been outside. If he had, the lion might never have showed herself.

  Susanne walked in from the master suite. She was carrying an overfull hamper of laundry. Ferdinand trotted over to inspect the trail of socks and underwear Susanne was leaving behind.

  He told her about the lion, omitting his secret belief that it might be a spirit animal with a message for him. Susanne didn’t put much stock in mysticism.

  When he finished, she looked a little flustered. “Should we do something about it?”

  “Nah. She left. She won’t bother us.” I hope. He changed the subject. “I’m thinking about taking Perry in to give a statement at the sheriff’s department now,” he said.

  “You’re just trying to keep your beard away from me and my razor.”

  He laughed.

  “Do you think anyone is there this late on a Saturday night?”

  He stoked the fire, then added a log. Susanne insisted they keep the living room fireplace lit at all times, and the one in their bedroom almost as often. She had a few conditions for living full-time in Wyoming. A lit living room fireplace was one of them, as was the house it was in. She also required a generous long-distance budget so she could chat with her mother and sister. “I’ll call Ronnie and see what she thinks.” Ronnie—Veronica at birth—Harcourt, their friend and former neighbor, was a deputy for Johnson
county.

  He stood, noticing a coffee mug on the mantel of the fireplace. He picked it up. It was cold. There was a film of mold over the old coffee. He held it out. “One of yours,” he said to his wife. She had a propensity for leaving multiple cups a day around the house, then not being able to find them. The moldy surface in the mug was a common sight, too.

  She shook her head. “Finders keepers. And I agree about Ronnie. But, before you go anywhere, we have to talk to Trish.”

  On the TV, a male announcer intoned, “Tonight at ten, tune in for an update on the capital murder trial of convicted murderer Billy Kemecke, scheduled to begin this week in Johnson county.” Beside the pomaded head of the newscaster, a picture of Billy Kemecke appeared. Dark hair and eyes. Wearing a jumpsuit and shackles. Medium build, but radiating strength and menace. Patrick glanced at his wife. Her face had lost all its color.

  He hurried over to the TV and turned it off. “Tonight?”

  Susanne drew in a deep breath, then seemed to re-center. “She asked to take the Suburban to pick up Marcy and see a movie. I stalled her by saying we’d wait for you.”

  “She wants to go out this late?”

  Susanne shifted the laundry to her other hip and winked at him over her shoulder. “They do run second shows at the theater. You were young once, too.”

  Patrick harrumphed. Other than his thinning hair, he didn’t think he looked a day over thirty. He was as physically fit as a twenty-five-year old. And he was young at heart—that’s what counted most. He lifted the mustard-colored phone receiver from its wall base in the eating area, dialing Ronnie’s number from the list of important contacts taped to the side of the cabinet near the phone. Then he walked into the kitchen and leaned against the big butcher block island, holding the curled cord away from him with one hand.

  Ronnie picked up after the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Hello, neighbor. It’s Patrick Flint.”