Linwood Barclay - Lone Wolf

“Your dad says you might be questioning whether that’s really necessary,” Orville said, a hint of a smirk on his lips. I wanted to take his hat and subject the top of his head to a noogie attack. “And I heard you had a few words with Dr. Heath. He’s not very happy with you.”

“Look, he’s a nice man,” I said, “but I don’t think he conducted a very thorough autopsy on Morton Dewart. Betty Wrigley doesn’t think it was a bear killed him. But it might have been dogs.”

Orville rolled his eyes. “And what’s she, a nurse or something?’

“Yes,” I said.

That caught him off guard, so he adjusted his hat while he figured out what to say next. “Well, if I listen to you, and do nothing, and it turns out you’re wrong, and that bear kills again, then I’m gonna end up with egg on my face.”

“Do what you want,” I said. “Just let me know when you and your friends are combing these woods so I can run into town and get fitted for a Kevlar vest.”

“Zachary,” Dad said, “would you stop being an ass? Orville’s just doing his job.”

“I’ve got work to do,” I said, lifting up the bucket of fish guts.

Dad pointed into the woods beyond the fifth cabin. “Back in there. You’ll see a mound of dirt, a shovel, and a board. An old cottage shutter. Make sure you cover it up with lots of dirt. That’s really important.” He paused, and smiled. “Okay, chum?” He started laughing. He turned to Orville. “You get it? Chum?”

“No,” said Orville.

The scene was just as Dad described it. I set the pail down and hooked my fingers under the shutter that lay on the ground. It revealed a round hole, about two feet across and two feet deep. I’d expected to see maggots feasting on guts, but there was nothing visible in the hole but dirt. I dumped in the bucket’s contents, which slid out with a gag-inducing sloosh . Then I grabbed the shovel, buried the guts with an inch of dirt, and slid the shutter back over the hole.

Orville was nowhere in sight but Dad was still perched on the tractor seat as I did my return route with the empty bucket. “You got it, right?” he asked. “Chum?”

I was thinking, he better get well soon, before I kill him.

It wouldn’t have been a long walk up to the Wickens place, but with Dad on crutches, it wasn’t hard to talk him into letting me drive us up there. I got him into the passenger seat of my Virtue, the hybrid car I’d bought at an auction some months ago, and even though we weren’t traveling more than a couple of hundred yards on a gravel driveway, and wouldn’t even get anywhere near the main road, Dad buckled his seatbelt.

“Are you kidding me?” I said.

“It doesn’t seem to offer the same kind of protection as my truck,” he said.

“Your tractor can outrun a Porsche and it doesn’t have a seatbelt.”

When we got to the gate of warning signs, I got out and waved at the Wickens house, figuring someone would probably be watching for us. One of the Wickens boys came running down and unlocked the gate, blond-haired, shorter than the one I’d seen when I’d walked up here with Orville and Bob.

“Wendell,” Dad said. “The less stupid one.”

As we pulled in, Dad cast a disapproving eye at the abandoned appliances, bits of furniture, bits and pieces of junk. “If I ever get them out of this house, there’s going to be one hell of a cleanup to do.” I glanced over to make sure his window was up, not eager for any of the Wickenses to hear that kind of talk.

Timmy strode out onto the porch, took the two steps down, and opened the car door for Dad, even reaching into the backseat to grab his crutches. Dad handed him a six-pack of Bud we’d brought along as a gift.

“That was a nasty fall you must of took,” Wickens said, handing Dad his crutches.

“Yeah, it was pretty stupid,” Dad said. I came around, took Wickens’s hand when he extended it. He introduced me to the boy-not a boy really, but a young man in his twenties-who’d opened the gate for us. He was broad shouldered, with blunt, angular facial features. “This is Wendell. His brother, Dougie, is around here somewhere.”

I shook Wendell’s hand, which, while huge, was strangely limp and doughy in mine, like he couldn’t be bothered to squeeze. “Hi,” I said. Wendell only nodded.

Timmy led us inside. I was looking around nervously beyond the open door, and Timmy sensed something was troubling me. “What’s the problem?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m just a little worried about the dogs.”

“Gristle and Bone?” Timmy grinned. “They’re just playful, is all. They’re in the kitchen. They spend most of their time in there, waiting for scraps when they’re not snoozing.”

I laughed nervously. “They, uh, gave me a bit of a scare yesterday.”

“Tell ya what,” Timmy said. “I want you to be able to relax, so I’ll have the dogs put out in the barn.”

“I’d be most grateful,” I said.

“Wendell,” Timmy said, “take the pups out, okay?”

“Sure thing, Timmy,” he said, and disappeared toward the back of the house.

A heavyset woman, about Timmy’s age I guessed, appeared. She was dressed in a dark T-shirt and stretch slacks, her graying hair pulled back with pins. Her neck was jowly, her nose red and splotchy. “I’m Timmy’s wife, Charlene,” she said, motioning for us to take a seat in the living room, which was littered with mismatched chairs, plaid couches, coffee and end tables buried in car and sporting and gun magazines.

Dad settled into a chair and I was about to take a spot on the couch when I was distracted by something.

Hanging above the fireplace mantel, slipped into a cheap black frame, was a military dress photograph of Timothy McVeigh. The Oklahoma City bomber. The man convicted, and ultimately put to death, for murdering 168 people when his rental truck, loaded with explosives, destroyed one side of a federal government building on April 19, 1995. I instantly recalled that less formal shot of McVeigh, in his orange prison jumpsuit, being paraded before the press on his way to a police van while an angry mob screamed out what they wanted to do with him.

The very idea that someone would frame that man’s picture and put it on a wall left me numb.

For a moment, I didn’t realize Timmy was attempting to make another introduction. “I want you to meet May,” Timmy said, and I turned around to see, standing shyly next to him, the young woman who’d fallen, weeping, into his arms the day before. If it weren’t for her tired and vacant look, she would have been a lovely woman. Her dirty blonde hair half hung over her eyes, which probably suited her at that moment, since she didn’t seem to want to look me or Dad in the eye. She tried to force a smile as she was introduced.

“I’m very sorry,” I said. “I understand you and Mr. Dewart were close. He was your boyfriend?”

Her smile cracked. “We were friends,” she said.

“Awful, awful thing,” said Charlene, and Timmy nodded along with her. “Just awful. Terrible for his family.”

“Daddy says he was looking for a bear,” May said, without, it seemed, much conviction. “It just, it just doesn’t seem possible.”

Timmy Wickens slid an arm around his daughter’s shoulder. “Honey, why don’t you go help Mom with dinner.”

She turned obediently and sleepwalked her way to the kitchen, Charlene following her.

“She’s very upset,” Timmy said, once the women were out of earshot.

“I can imagine,” said Dad.

I was about to sit down on the couch for a second time when another man, the one Timmy had referred to as Dougie the day before, strode into the room with a young boy.

“Well, now you can meet everyone,” Timmy said. “Charlene’s son Dougie, and May is my daughter, and this here is my grandson Jeffrey, May’s boy.”