HYBRID: A Thriller

by James Marshall Smith

  “Satan tries hard to win our souls, Miss Schoonover,” Marilee added. “If Charlene doesn’t return this time, Joseph Vincent says we must pray for her—”

  The hand grabbed Marilee’s knee again.

  “Pray for her blood atonement?” Molly asked.

  “Joseph Vincent warned her before this,” Katherine Belle said.

  Molly leaned back in her chair. “Do you think being raped had anything to do with her leaving?”

  Katherine Belle reared her head back as she slowly drew in air. Marilee’s pale frightened face darted back and forth between her sister-wife and Molly, as if wondering who was going to throw the first punch.

  Helluva time to be without your shotgun, isn’t it, Marilee?

  After Katherine Belle gathered herself again, she spoke. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question, Miss Schoonover.”

  Molly didn’t flinch. “Yesterday, when Marilee caught me snooping through the shed window, I witnessed a beating and rape. I assume the victim was Charlene who was being raped by a man old enough to be her grandfather.”

  Katherine Belle’s face flushed.

  “And it sure looked a lot like you,” Molly said, “helping the scoundrel and humming as if this was just another sorry day at the ranch.”

  The women jumped up from their chairs and grabbed their purses.

  “And you think that condoning the rape of an innocent girl who couldn’t be a day older than fifteen is supposed to be blessed by God?”

  They charged for the door. Marilee wrestled with the doorknob before rushing out past the Judge sitting on the front porch. Both women tried to avoid Toby and Big Mac, but the dogs chased the women, licking at their ankles.

  Molly leaned into the threshold with her arms folded and a sneer across her face.

  The Judge held steady as he watched them speed away in their truck. “Does this have anything to do,” he asked, “with why you’ve been on another p-planet today?”

  “It’s a long story. But I’m planning to change the ending to this one.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “They’re onto us, Josh.” Dieter held the phone close to his ear and spoke softly.

  “What do you mean?” Josh asked.

  “When I took the kids to school this morning I was surprised by a Gallatin County deputy. He said that they got a phone call Friday night about suspicious activity around the funeral home. He asked me questions. Lots of questions. It was the same guy who almost caught us red-handed.”

  “How you know that?”

  “The way he talked about what he saw. I made a stupid mistake, Josh. I dropped Claire Manning’s business card on the floor when we were there. He tracked her down and learned that we had recently met. That along with knowing I found the body on the Madison. He was trying to put it all together.”

  “What did he want from you?”

  “He told me to stay around home and said I was a person of interest. I would’ve stopped by your place, but truthfully, somebody may be following me. I didn’t want to give any impression that we’re in cahoots.”

  “Lay low, partner. I’ll be in touch if and when any of ‘em stops by here.”

  ***

  Thank God, Molly thought, that she didn’t have to drive all the way to Bozeman. The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office was headquartered there, eighty miles to the north. But there were deputies’ offices spread throughout the county and fortunately one was located in Colter. Although close to sundown, she knew Deputy Sheriff Harlan Ward worked late most days and hoped that he wasn’t out and about somewhere around town, struttin’ with his badge and combed Stetson hat.

  Harlan Ward had a visitor when she arrived. Preston Cody, the only patrolman who worked for Ward, invited her to sit while she waited. She’d known Preston since Margie and Allen Cody brought him home from Deaconess Hospital two days after his birth. She remembered it because Margie always talked about how they had to use instruments to take Little Preston out of the womb. Left him with ugly scars over his right eyebrow and under his left cheekbone. Whenever she saw Preston she always paid careful attention to his face, looking for any sign of a remaining scar.

  She tried to hide her surprise when Deputy Ward’s office door opened and Ranger Jack Corey walked out. She didn’t know what to say, but it didn’t matter. He tipped his hat and strolled away without speaking.

  Harlan Ward greeted her with a polite but reserved smile. “Come right on in, Molly.” As he closed the door behind her, he asked, “You see that Bucky Lambert died?”

  Bucky Lambert was a popular kid who played football at Lakeview High where she and Harlan went to school. Harlan and Bucky had graduated in 1976, but she never finished her senior year. Taking care of her dad after his stroke was a full-time job.

  She took a seat in front of his desk and they proceeded to discuss the status of former classmates, like those who had died an untimely death, moved out-of-state, attained a parcel of land that equaled a kind of rancher’s wealth, or performed some deed, good or bad, that got one of them in the newspapers.

  “Does the chief park ranger visit you often?” she asked.

  “Jack stops by occasionally. Sometimes we have to coordinate our duties with the Park. How’s the Judge doing these days?”

  “He sends his regards.”

  “We could use him back in the courtroom, you know.”

  “An awful lot of people would go along with that.”

  They both sat for a moment and nodded agreement with each other. “I don’t have a lot of time, Molly. What’s on your mind?”

  “There’s a girl missing, Harlan.”

  “Missing from where?”

  “Colter.”

  “Nothing’s turned up here,” Harlan said.

  “That’s because I’m just reporting it now. Do you know the Loudermilks from down on Duck Creek?”

  She told him everything that happened—witnessing the rape and the strange follow-up conversation with the two Loudermilk women in her living room.

  “How come old man Loudermilk hasn’t reported her missing?” he asked.

  “That girl is just another piece of . . . property for the SOB.”

  He pushed back his chair and leaned on his desk. “Look, Molly. What a family chooses to do in the privacy of their own home is none of my business. And, frankly, yours neither.”

  “It’s against the law, Harlan.”

  “Beating your wife is against the law, too, Molly. But there’s nothing I can do if it’s not reported by one of the victims. I need evidence. Or at least a court order to go after lawbreakers. Now you can check that out with the Judge.”

  “But the Loudermilks live and breathe among us. They’re our neighbors. That poor girl could be—” She slumped back in her chair and closed her eyes.

  Harlan was right. It was the damn world that was wrong.

  “Remember the missing Sweet Grass County girl?” he asked.

  She vaguely recalled the strange case. Harlan said that it began four years ago. The missing girl’s face was posted everywhere in the tri-state region. In time, a local handy man reported to him that he caught a glimpse of the girl. Or at least someone who looked like her. It happened on the Loudermilk farm, right after he was hired to help the old man repair the roof of his barn.

  At first, Harlan blew off the account and forgot about it. But an off-duty deputy from Madison County reported seeing a girl who resembled the one in the picture wandering near the highway. When he stopped to question her, she became suspicious and ran. He turned his truck around to follow as she disappeared across a field in the direction of the Loudermilk ranch. The deputy reported it to him, and the next day Harlan showed up at the Loudermilks with a search warrant that the Judge had signed.

  He searched every square foot of the ranch for two hours. When he questioned old man Loudermilk, he claimed he knew nothing about the missing girl. The way the other family members responded to his questions, it was as if they had all rehearsed their storie
s before he arrived.

  Except for one of the women.

  He remembered asking if she ever saw anyone who looked like the girl in the picture he showed her. “She took one look at it and shouted back at me. Stop! Yelled at me like I was attacking her. Then she started doing the weirdest thing.”

  He paused and shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “She started pulling her hair out. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

  “In heaven’s name, what for?”

  “Who the hell knows. Kept yanking her hair out one clump at a time.”

  “What eventually happened?”

  “Nothing. The missing girl was never found. But I’ll always remember the sight of that woman standing there, shaking and plucking her hair out by the roots.”

  “I hope for the love of God, Harlan, you’ll look out for this other Loudermilk kid. Would hate to see her end up missing . . . or worse.”

  When Molly returned to her truck, she sat with her head mashed against the steering wheel and her arms clutching her stomach. She jerked up when someone walked up to the open window.

  Deputy Preston Cody leaned down and said he really wasn’t eavesdropping, but what with the thin walls in the old building and his boss’ deep voice—”

  “Are you trying to tell me something, Preston?”

  “Does the woman you’re looking for have long braided hair? Is she kind of on the skinny side?”

  Molly nodded. “Yes. Both.”

  “It might interest you to know, Mrs. Schoonover, that I believe I saw the young lady around noon. She was eating lunch down at the Bar and Grille.”

  Molly switched on the ignition. “Thank you, Preston. Thank you very, very much. And you remind your mama that I told her you’d grow up to be a fine-looking man. Yes, siree. A fine looking man.”

  She gunned the engine and raced away.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Bantz Montgomery gawked at Dr. Matthew Wallace—rumored to be the country’s foremost wildlife detective—as he opened a thin burgundy briefcase. His reputation as an investigator of animal attacks around the country was just shy of legendary.

  Dr. Wallace’s long bushy sideburns revealed a tinge of gray. He wore Wrangler jeans held up by a tattered leather belt with an oversized silver buckle with an engraving of an Aztec eagle. A veterinary pathologist, he served as Chief of Special Investigations with the National Fish and Wildlife Forensic Laboratory in Ashland, Oregon. For years the Lab had provided analytical services and crime scene investigations in support of wildlife-related crime. The lab’s forensic specialists identify species from animal parts and make every possible attempt to match illegal wildlife activity with a victim, suspect and crime scene. Their goal: conviction in a court of law.

  Montgomery had learned that what Corey told him earlier was spot on—Park Superintendent Gilmer had called Dr. Wallace on the day the photographer’s body was found on the Madison. At that time the superintendent charged Wallace with flying to headquarters and going out into the field to determine what was going on. Not with just the photographer’s death, but with the livestock kills as well.

  The meeting convened that morning at the Park’s Lamar Valley Conference Center, thirty miles from headquarters and near where the first wolves were released in Operation Wolfstock. Corey began the session by reminding everyone it was officially “Confidential Restricted” and would follow federal guidelines for classified discussions and reports.

  Montgomery was stupefied. In all of his years at Yellowstone, he’d never been in a meeting like this. Classified? Some kind of Top Secret government meeting about wildlife? He’d received earlier a two-page memo about the other visitor at the table, Professor Ian Hornsby. It was evidently the superintendent’s idea to bring in Hornsby and the professor’s job was to advise on wildlife behavior. Hornsby was on the faculty at Cambridge University in England, and wolves were his specialty. Wearing an open-neck dress shirt under a navy-blue blazer, his commanding frame and British accent gave him a highbrow air that announced expert. According to the memo Montgomery read, the professor had just finished a project at Colorado State in Fort Collins. He agreed to postpone his return to England to be there for the meeting. The memo made it clear that the wildlife world knew Ian Hornsby for his pioneering research on the wolf in Wood Buffalo National Park of northern Alaska.

  At the far end of the table sat Greta McFarland, the deputy park superintendent and the only African American working on headquarters staff. A petite woman with penetrating eyes that advertised a studious demeanor, she was also the only one who didn’t wear a uniform. That was a habit that added to her aloofness, along with her preference for always taking her place at the far end of tables during meetings. She told the group that Superintendent Gilmer sent his apologies that he couldn’t be there to hear from them directly. Montgomery knew that to be nothing but bullshit.

  After the introductions, Dr. Matthew Wallace tossed a stack of eight-by-ten color photos onto the conference room table and began his spiel. The top photo showed the scene of the Arizona photographer’s death with the body sprawled on the bank, half in the water and half on shore in a pool of blood. Wallace said that the Gallatin County Medical Examiner ruled that spine had been severed and that death was due to blood loss from the carotid artery. The fatal throat injury was the result of shredding and tearing . . . definitely not from a knife or sharp object.

  The remaining photos in Dr. Wallace’s cache were close-ups of livestock kills from farms and ranches along the western border of the Park. All of the pictures showed abrasions and lacerations about the head and neck. For three, blunt force injuries had apparently occurred because of severe shaking and twisting following the initial bite. The slain animals had a common characteristic—throats ripped open with no evidence of any victim serving as a meal for the attacker. Strange, Montgomery thought.

  With a felt-tip pen Dr. Wallace highlighted areas on the photos where hide or fur showed bite marks. “We can get a decent idea of the attacking animal’s identity from the shape of the bites,” he said. “The arc of front teeth for all members of the dog family is deeply curved. Just like the obvious imprint on the carcass in this picture.”

  On one photograph with a dead calf he pointed to a spot near the open neck wound. “We saw this bite pattern on several victims. In five cases, we took caliper measurements of the distance between the tips of the long cuspids . . . the fangs, if you will. They were all approaching three inches.”

  “And if you’re dealing with a member of the dog family,” Professor Hornsby broke in, “it had to be one of unbelievable size.”

  Greta McFarland spoke up. “I wonder if we could cut to the chase. We’re talking about Yellowstone wilderness. So isn’t this a no-brainer? The park’s known for its Grizzly population. Now we have wolves. It seems an open-and-shut case of one or the other.”

  “The Grizzly leaves unmistakable tracks and scat,” Dr. Wallace replied. “And I’ve been told that only four grizzly killings occurred in Yellowstone the last twenty years.”

  “So that leaves wolves, right?” McFarland said. “I would guess they’re attacking—for whatever reasons—anything that’s easy picking, like sheep and cattle on ranches around the boundary. Maybe even someone who drifted alone into their territory. So, you capture the wolves and take them back to Canada. It seems our experiment with wolf restoration in Yellowstone didn’t work out.”

  “Wait a minute, Greta,” Corey broke in. His face was flushed. “Don’t jump ahead so fast. We haven’t determined yet that wolves are responsible for any of this.”

  Montgomery knew what his boss was thinking. She couldn’t recognize a wolf if it came up and bit her on the ass. Corey was searching for the right words to respond to someone he considered an idiot.

  “Miss McFarland,” Wallace said, “in my twenty-six years in this business, I’ve never known an animal attacking with the kind of ferocity we see here.”

  “If I might make a point,” Professor Hornsb
y said. “The wild dogs of the Serengeti can even be more ferocious than wolves. They’ve been known to disembowel prey on the run.”

  Corey glanced at Montgomery and rolled his eyes.

  Dr. Wallace peered over the top of his rimless glasses and slid another photo across the table. “Here’s a forepaw print. It was found fresh near the body of the photographer. For perspective, note the flashlight next to the track.”

  Professor Hornsby reached for the photograph and held it close to his nose, squinting. “My God,” he muttered.

  “That,” Wallace said, “is a classic print for the North American gray wolf. But look closely at the paw print.”

  Corey sat slouched in his chair, both feet stretched out under the table. He tapped the fingertips of each hand together in front of his face. “How can you be sure those aren’t cougar tracks?” he asked.

  “Good question,” Dr. Wallace replied. “The primary difference between cougar and wolf tracks are the claw marks. The cougar’s print rarely shows any claws. Like all cats, they retract. But what strikes us about this track is that the paw is actually larger than my hand.”

  “I’m puzzled,” interrupted Professor Hornsby. “The largest wolves in North America have paws half that size and they’re males in the one hundred thirty pound range.”

  “No doubt about it,” Wallace said, “these paw prints are the largest I’ve ever encountered by a long shot.”

  “But they suggest a wolf of perhaps—”

  “More than two hundred pounds.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hornsby said. “That’s not possible.” He sat back confidently in his chair.

  “But that’s not all we have, Professor,” Wallace replied. “To back up our observations, we examined further the tracks near the photographer’s body. The animal was on the run—attacking. We set white markers square in the middle of each track and measured the distances between them.”