C. Box - Endangered

Curious, Marybeth stepped out into the hallway after they’d gone by.

“Hi,” she said to the night nurse at the station. “What’s going on?”

They’d gotten to know each other since Marybeth arrived. The nurse was named Shri Reckling. She had three daughters, and a husband who worked for the state of Montana. Because of their similar families and situations, Marybeth and Shri had bonded instantly.

“Emergency landing,” Reckling said. “A gunshot victim in critical condition. He’s from Wyoming, just like you.”

“Really,” Marybeth said. “My husband says that because the state has such a low population, there is only one degree of separation. If you don’t actually know a particular person, you know someone who knows him or her.”

“Montana is the same way,” Reckling said with a sly smile. “Is that your way of asking who is in the helicopter?”

“Yes,” Marybeth said.

“I don’t have a name yet,” Reckling said. “When they do the admittance paperwork, we’ll know more. All I know at this point is the FBI is involved somehow.”

“So he’s with the FBI? Or a fugitive?”

She knew Joe had worked closely over the years with the FBI, particularly a special agent named Chuck Coon. So the one degree of separation would likely come to fruition.

Nurse Reckling leaned back and shrugged. “I’m not supposed to release the names of patients, you know.”

“I know,” Marybeth said. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

Reckling looked up and down the hall, then whispered, “Stay in the lounge. I’ll drop by when I know something.”

Marybeth winked at her. Waiting would give her something to look forward to besides deciding what kind of wine to buy on her way to the hotel.

—

LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES LATER, the team of emergency doctors rushed the gurney back down the hallway from the elevator. Marybeth looked up from her magazine—which she was reading again—to see a scrum of alarmed men and women clatter by. All she saw of the shooting victim was a glimpse of a man’s large and lifeless hand hanging down from under the sheets.

The hallway went quiet again when the double doors to surgery wheezed closed.

She waited another half hour, checking her watch every few minutes.

Finally, Nurse Reckling leaned in the doorway.

“He’s in emergency surgery,” she said. “He’s likely to be in there for hours.”

Marybeth arched her eyebrows, as if anticipating more.

Reckling raised an electronic tablet and said, “It says here ‘N. Romanowski.’”

Marybeth went cold and the magazine slid from her hands and dropped to the floor.

“Nate Romanowski?”

“No first name given,” Reckling said. Then: “Oh no. Do you know him?”

“God, yes,” Marybeth said, standing up unsteadily. She reached out for the back of the chair to steady herself. “Is it bad?”

Reckling took a deep breath. She said, “I’m not in the ER.”

“Please.”

“I heard one of the doctors talking to somebody with the FBI,” Reckling said with a sigh. “Special Agent Dudley was his name. He insisted I put him through to surgery. The surgeon there told him it doesn’t look good. The injuries are massive and he doesn’t think Mr. Romanowski can make it. I heard the FBI guy on the other end screaming at him until the doctor just hung up on him.”

Marybeth was stunned.

The phone rang at the nurses’ station, and Shri Reckling said, “That’s probably him again. I don’t really want to answer it. Are all those FBI types so pushy?”

10

The arraignment for Tilden Cudmore began at nine-thirty on Wednesday morning in the Twelve Sleep County courthouse, Judge Hewitt presiding.

Joe sat in the third row from the back, his hat crown-down next to him on the bench. His mind was still reeling from what Marybeth had told him about Nate the night before. He would miss his friend. Joe had a lot of questions Marybeth couldn’t answer—like when did Nate get out of federal lockup? And why was he in Twelve Sleep County?

He hoped she’d have more information when he picked her up in Billings later that day, after the preliminary hearing had concluded. She was as ready to come home as he was ready for her to. Marybeth said the doctors recommended she leave. April’s condition was stable and they’d keep her that way. The question wasn’t bringing her out of the coma—that could be done at any time. The question was April’s recovery or lack of it when they brought her out from under the propofol. She could be healed or she could be brain-dead. Marybeth’s voice had broken when she said it.

Lucy had been a good sport while her mother was gone, but there was no doubt she was sick of frozen pizzas and elk steak. Plus, Joe had learned that morning that he didn’t know how the washing machine worked. He hoped no one would comment on his rumpled uniform shirt.

The judge was still in his chambers. The gallery consisted of Joe, a bandaged-up Deputy Boner, and an older woman with steel-gray hair, who was sitting in the front row and knitting, by the looks of it, a garish afghan. She didn’t seem to be connected to the case in any way, he thought. She was likely one of those people who just liked attending court.

Cudmore sat with his back to Joe in an orange county jumpsuit. His hair was tousled and there was a four-day growth of beard on his face. Next to him was the public defender, Duane Patterson, who was intently scribbling something on a legal pad. Cudmore turned his head and sized up his attorney and seemed to regard him with sneering contempt.

At the prosecutor’s table was County Attorney Dulcie Schalk. She sat completely still with her hands clasped in front of her on the table, staring at the closed door of Hewitt’s chambers like a cat poised over a gopher hole. Joe recognized her dark gray pin-striped power suit, as she called it. She once told Joe she had never lost a case while wearing that suit. If she was wearing her blood-red ruffled blouse—which he couldn’t see because she hadn’t turned around—it meant she was going for the kill. Or in this case, the maximum sentence possible.

He’d heard Cudmore would be charged with aggravated assault, attempted murder, and kidnapping. That was just for starters. Joe knew Dulcie well enough to surmise that an indictment for first-degree murder—if April didn’t pull through—was already written and in her top desk drawer.

Joe felt a breeze on his neck as the courtroom door opened and he looked over to see Sheriff Reed wheel himself in. He stopped at Joe’s row and beckoned him over. Joe slid to the end of the bench so they could talk softly to each other.

“I had a dream about that damned tank last night,” Reed said. “In my dream, it drove across my front yard and a bunch of idiots playing army were behind the wheel. It made me so mad, I called Williamson at home and yelled at him again. Woke him up.”

Joe nodded.

“I heard about your friend Romanowski,” Reed said. “What a hell of a run you’re having.”

“Not as bad as the run April and Nate are having.”

“Both at the same hospital at the same time? Who would have put odds on that?”

Joe shook his head. He’d wondered that himself during his sleepless night.

“Why was he at that ranch?” Joe asked. “Any ideas?”

Reed said, “I talked to the owners of the HF Bar and they’re clueless. They’re still at their winter home in Arizona and they weren’t even planning to come back until next week. Apparently, that’s when they traditionally start opening up the guest ranch. They’ve never heard of Nate Romanowski and they don’t know why he was there.”