C. Box - Savage Run

Reining Lizzie to a stop, Joe pulled his notebook from his shirt pocket, and flipped it open to a fresh page. He drew a crude outline of the United States. Then he drew stars and dates at four locations: Saddlestring, Wyoming, June 10; Bremerton, Washington, June 14; Washington, D.C., June 23; and Choteau, Montana, June 29. There were four days between the deaths in Saddlestring and Bremerton; nine days between Bremerton and Washington, D.C.; and six days between Washington, D.C. and Choteau.

If a killer or killers were responsible, Joe thought, then they had been criss-crossing the country by air or road for almost a month. And there could possibly be two, three, or even four of them, each with a separate assignment. That seemed unlikely, he thought, simply because it was too complicated, with too many factors and possibilities where something could go wrong. But if it were one killer or a team of killers, they were having a hell of a busy month. He thought about the time lapses between the incidents and concluded that it was possible, although unlikely, that one team could have done all of the killings. The longest span of time between incidents was between Bremerton and Washington, D.C., which was also the longest distance by car, which meant it was possible the killer or killers were traveling by car.

He stared at the drawing, thought about the dates.

He was getting nowhere.

Joe turned Lizzie back into the trees. He planned to work his way up to the summit and back down toward his pickup and horse trailer through a drainage on the other side of the mountain. He expected to find, and count, additional elk calves. He might find some fishermen as well near the road, or campers setting up early for the weekend. He would take the long way.

He remembered to lean forward in the saddle and stroke Lizzie’s neck and tell her what a good horse she was. He didn’t used to do that.

Sheridan Pickett answered the telephone Thursday during breakfast, listened for a moment, made an unpleasant face, and then handed the receiver to Marybeth.

“It’s that man again,” Sheridan said with distaste.

Joe and Marybeth exchanged worried glances and Joe mouthed, “Keep him on the line.” He pushed back from the table to go upstairs to get on the other extension.

“Can I talk to him?” Lucy asked through a mouthful of breakfast cereal. Lucy wanted to talk with anyone who called.

Joe bounded up the stairs and closed the door in the bedroom. He sat on the unmade bed and gently lifted the receiver to his ear. The conversation had already begun. The connection was poor and filled with static. The baritone voice of the man sounded drugged-out, slurred. The words came slowly as if through a mouthful of pebbles, the tone distorted.

“This is Stewie again, Mary,” the man said. “Please don’t hang up again.”

“Who is this really?” Marybeth demanded.

Through Marybeth’s phone in the background, Joe could hear Lucy asking again as if she could talk on the telephone and Sheridan telling her to be quiet.

“Stewie. Stewie. Come on, Mary, you know who it is.” He paused for a long beat. “I’m trying to think of how to prove it to you.”

Her name is Mary beth, Joe thought.

“That would be a good idea,” Marybeth said, “since Stewie Woods is dead.”

The man chuckled. “The old Stewie might be dead, but not the new one. Hey. I know. I wish I would have practiced for this quiz, but it looks like I have to do it off the cuff.” His words tumbled out and ran into each other. Joe guessed that the caller would be easier to understand if he could see him gesticulate. He imagined hands and arms flying through the air, the telephone pinned in place between jaw and shoulder, and determined pacing.

“Anyway, in high school you drove a yellow Toyota. Whenever it got cold, it wouldn’t start, and I figured out how to get it going by taking off the air cleaner and opening up the intake valve with a screwdriver. Who else could possibly know that?”

Joe felt his face go slack.

“Just about everybody in high school,” Marybeth answered, but her voice was tentative. “And it was a Datsun, not a Toyota.”

“Whatever,” the caller said, then bulled ahead with the confidence of a telephone solicitor trying to get as much across as possible before the phone went dead in his ear: “Okay, here’s another one. Our football team, the Winchester Badgers, once played in Casper and you and Hayden Powell drove down on a Friday to see the game. After we won-I think the score was 27 to 17 and I intercepted a pass and ran it in for a touchdown-the three of us drove up on top of that hill on the east side of Casper and pulled up all of the survey stakes for their new mall. Remember?”

Marybeth was silent. Joe could hear Sheridan and Lucy squabbling at the kitchen table, and Marybeth’s breathing.

“Who would possibly know that happened except you, me, and Hayden?”

“Maybe you told someone about it,” Marybeth said, her voice weak. “Or you wrote about it in your newsletter or something.”

Joe, Marybeth, and the caller all realized at once that Marybeth had said “you.” Joe was stunned.

“Did you just hear yourself?” the caller asked.

“I. I did,” Marybeth answered.

“Do I need to go on?”

“I’m just too shocked to answer right now,” Marybeth said. Joe wished he were with her. He hoped she wouldn’t hang up the telephone.

“Mary, I just want to see you again,” his voice was kind.

“I’m married,” Marybeth stammered. “I have three children eating breakfast at the table right in front of me.”

“Everyone’s married,” Stewie said slyly, “but the big question, the one I’ve learned to ask is: are you happily married?”

You bastard, Joe thought. I can’t wait to punch you right in the nose.

“Of course I’m happily married. To a wonderful man named Joe Pickett.”

Stewie sighed. His voice changed. “I kind of figured that would be the case but I guess I hoped it wasn’t.”

Stewie was distancing himself. Now Joe hoped Stewie wouldn’t hang up. Joe quickly buried the receiver in blankets from the bed so Stewie wouldn’t hear the click of him hanging up, and scribbled a note in his spiral pad. He descended the stairs and handed it to Marybeth. Her face was pale and her eyes were vacant.

Joe had written: Keep him talking-Ask him where he is.

Marybeth read the note and frowned, and looked to Joe for confirmation. Joe nodded yes. Faintly, Joe could hear Stewie talking to Marybeth again.

“How can it possibly be that you’re still alive?” Marybeth asked.

Now Joe could only hear one side of the conversation.

“What do you mean when you say that?”

The school bus honked outside the house and all three girls scrambled as if an electric current had been simultaneously shot through their chairs.

They were suddenly grabbing backpacks, sack lunches, jackets, shoes. Joe signaled to Marybeth that he would take care of things. He opened the front door, waved at the driver, and shooed his girls toward the front gate. Sheridan gave him a look to indicate that she was getting a little old for shooing. The driver, a retired lumberjack named Stiles, leaned out of the door and asked Joe about the mule deer count in his hunting area.

“I’ll have to talk with you tomorrow,” Joe said, trying not to dismiss Stiles out of hand. “I’ve got a little bit of a situation inside I need to handle.”

Stiles waved him off and Joe literally ran back to the house. Marybeth, with wide, disbelieving eyes, was gently replacing the receiver on the cradle.

Joe and Marybeth simply stared at each other.

“Did that actually happen?” Joe asked.