Linwood Barclay - Lone Wolf

“What happened?” he asked when I walked up onto the shoulder of the highway. I brought him up to speed, including Orville’s theory, which, it pained me to realize, seemed to make a lot of sense. Leonard had been looking for what was behind him, instead of what was in front of him, and taken a header over the edge. The bear must have decided it was too much trouble to go down there and make a meal of him, and maybe had gone looking for Bob instead.

One of the ambulance attendants came up to us, a backpack hanging from one hand, and said, “This was Mr. Colebert’s.”

I reached out to take it as Dad said, “We can take that back and put it with his other stuff. I don’t know what family he has, but I guess they’ll be coming up to claim his things.”

The attendant said, “We think Mr. Spooner should come to the hospital to have those cuts and scrapes looked at, but we don’t want to make him ride in the ambulance with the deceased. Would one of you be able to take him in? We don’t think he should drive his truck.”

I offered to take Bob, in his own pickup, into Braynor. I made this proposal to him as he stood at the back of the ambulance, watching them load Leonard. He still appeared to be in a mild state of shock.

“I think I’m okay,” he said, looking numbly at the palms of his hands.

“You should go have those cuts checked,” I said. “You might get an infection if they don’t treat them. Why don’t you get in the truck.”

Chief Orville Thorne strode up to me, his finger pointing. “Not so fast with the smart remarks now, are you?”

I said nothing.

“You come up here from the city, bring along your fancy smart friends”-he nodded in Lawrence’s direction-“because we don’t know anything, we’re just a bunch of hicks, right? You think Dr. Heath and me don’t know what we’re doing, you have the nerve to cast doubt on his conclusions, suggesting he didn’t know a bear attack when he saw it. You tell me how to do my job. You really take the cake, you know that? You have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused? You probably got this man killed, telling him there really was no bear. Maybe, if he hadn’t listened to you, he’d still be alive.”

“I never told him anything,” I said.

“Yeah, well, whatever,” Orville said.

I said, “I’m going to drive Bob into town. Nice talking to you, Orville.”

I got Bob into the passenger seat and got myself back in behind the wheel. The keys were still in the ignition. The steering wheel was smeared with blood, and I tried to wipe most of it off with a tissue from my pocket. Once we were on the road and heading into Braynor, Bob said to me, “What was he talking about?”

“Nothing,” I said. “He just thinks I’m an asshole.”

“What did he mean, that you questioned the findings of the coroner, Dr. Heath? That he was wrong thinking it was a bear that killed that man at the camp?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Bob. It’s just, I always had my doubts, because of those damn dogs. And how weird the Wickenses are, and what Betty had to say.”

“Betty? What did Betty have to say?”

“She used to be a nurse, and she saw Morton Dewart’s body, and she just didn’t think he looked like he’d been torn apart by a bear. She thought it looked more like the work of those pit bulls. And then, the other night, Dad and I went up there for dinner.”

“Up where?”

“The Wickenses.”

“You had dinner with them?”

“Yeah, well, we didn’t have seconds, I can tell you that. But yeah, we did, and everyone went out of their way to tell us how Dewart had seen this bear, and decided to go after it, and how he must have had a run-in with it. It just all seemed a bit rehearsed, you know? Like they were putting on a show for us.”

I glanced in my rear-view mirror, saw Lawrence’s blue Jag following us. Bob stared straight ahead. “So what do you think now?”

“I guess there’s a bear in the woods, Bob. I still don’t know for sure that one killed Dewart, but I’m not going to get anyone to listen to my suspicions, certainly not Orville, who doesn’t give a shit what I say anyway. And the fact is, your description of the bear, with the torn ear, matches the description the Wickenses gave of the bear that Dewart went after.”

Bob nodded tiredly. “I feel kind of sick,” he said.

“You’ve been through a traumatic incident, Bob. We need to get you looked after, and then get you back to the camp.”

“I need to lie down,” he said.

“Just hang in till we get to the hospital. They’ll get you patched up and then you can come back, sack out in the cabin. We’ll have you back out on the lake in no time.”

“The lake,” Bob said dreamily.

“Yeah. Maybe you can take me out with you.”

“Did Leonard, did he have a wife, a family?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Bob put his head back against the headrest and kept his eyes closed until we pulled into the driveway of the emergency ward.

I left Bob with the nurse at reception and went out to talk to Lawrence and Dad, who now was in the front seat. Dad hit the power window. “How is he?”

“Shook up, but he’ll be okay. I better hang in to drive him back. Once they bandage his hands it may be hard for him to steer.”

Dad said he’d have some lunch ready for when I got back, and Lawrence’s Jag pulled away. By the time I walked back into the ER, Bob was already with a doctor. This wasn’t exactly like going to a big-city hospital, where they kept you waiting for hours.

“Hey, Mr. Walker.”

I whirled around. It was Tracy, pen and notepad in hand.

“You’re everywhere,” I said. “I guess you heard about what happened.”

“The bear got another one.”

“Well, yes and no. Looks like Leonard Colebert died trying to get away from him. But you should talk to the chief. This is his thing. I’m out of it.”

“Is there some kind of trouble between you two?” Tracy asked.

I shrugged, not eager to get into it. Tracy presented me with a brown business envelope. “Could you give this to your wife, Mr. Walker? It’s a resume? My work experience, some clippings?”

“Why don’t you fax it to her directly,” I said. “I may still be up here for a few days.”

“And I heard a rumor the mayor’s getting death threats. Is that true? Is that why you were up talking to her?”

“I’m out of this, Tracy. Talk to the chief.”

I felt I really was out of it. What did my suspicions amount to, really? Betty could be wrong in her assessment of how Morton Dewart died. Tiff, at the co-op, could have been killed for any number of reasons. And all that fertilizer could have been stolen by a farmer looking to save a few bucks.

And the Wickenses might have a framed picture of Timothy McVeigh on their wall because they were nuts. Simple as that. It didn’t mean they were up to anything particularly sinister.

And Alice Holland’s refusal to kick a gay rights group out of the fall fair parade could be expected to produce some nasty crank calls. People were always tough when they were anonymous. It didn’t have to mean the mayor was in any real danger.

With any luck, Dad’s ankle was nearly healed. Maybe, by the next day, or the day after that, he’d be well enough to get back to running the camp on his own.

I was ready to go home.

I grabbed a seat in the waiting room and was glancing through a hunting magazine that I cared nothing about when Bob reappeared. His hands were wrapped in gauze, and he had a couple of small bandages on his cheeks, and a third on his forehead.

“Ready?” I said.

“Ready,” Bob said.

He said nothing the whole way home, and once we were back at the camp, he said a simple “Thanks” as he got out of the truck and walked over to his cabin.