Claws Read online

  “Heard anything from Ed?”

  When Mandy shook her head, wisps of blond hair fell across her face. She brushed them aside. Tiny squint lines etched her eyes. Mandy was only twenty-eight, but three children and a hardscrabble country life can age a woman quickly, thought Jackson. “Maybe Josh’s seen him,” Mandy said. “His bedroom overlooks the back. He went up there to watch for Chief Stevens.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry. I know you’re Chief of Police now. It’s just –”

  “Hey, I still call him chief too,” Jackson said and, despite being worried about Ed, he managed to grin.

  “I’d yell for Josh to come down, but I don’t want to wake the baby,” she said. “Maybe you could –”

  “Which bedroom?” Jackson asked.

  Mandy told him, and Jackson climbed the stairs and knocked on the door of Josh’s bedroom. When nobody responded, he knocked again. “Josh.” He waited. “Josh, this is Chief Hobbs,” he said in a calm voice. “Son, could I talk to you a minute?” He waited and listened.

  When he didn’t hear any sound in the bedroom, he tried the knob. The door opened, and Jackson stepped inside. The bedroom was empty. Jackson looked in the other two bedrooms off the hallway and then the bathroom, where he opened the shower curtain to see if Josh was hiding there, mistakenly playing hide-and-seek with him.

  “Josh isn’t upstairs,” he told Mandy when he returned.

  “Oh god no!” she said. “He’s outside. What if that monster –” Her hand capped her mouth as she yelped.

  Despite emergency lights mounted inside and computer equipment below the dash, Jackson wanted the Jeep to seem as much like a regular car as possible, so he did not have a security grill of any type. Because of that he did not keep his shotgun up front. The rear storage area held his M4 tactical carbine, a Stoeger P-350 shotgun, and a nylon bag with body armor, Taser, and other equipment. He selected the 12-gauge, a short-barreled pump action with a pistol grip. He filled the magazine with four slugs.

  He pointed the shotgun at the ground as he skirted the house and circled around the sheets flapping in the wind. “Ed,” he yelled. “Ed.” He waited a few seconds and heard nothing and then shouted, “Josh? Josh, this is Chief Hobbs. Remember? We talked on the phone.” When the boy didn’t answer him either, Jackson knew nothing good was going to come of this. “Aw Christ,” he muttered.

  Jackson skipped the buildings with closed doors and instead headed toward the open barn. “Josh. Ed,” he called as he neared it. He stopped outside the barn and listened. He heard noises inside, but he wasn’t certain what he was hearing or what they meant. He set the rubber-padded gunstock against his shoulder. With his left hand on the grip and his right index finger on the trigger and the barrel of the shotgun leading him, he stepped inside.

  He swept the gun left to right until he had covered the entire width and length of the barn. Then he reversed his movement until he returned to the starting point. The noises that Jackson began to recognize – the rustle of dry hay and some peeps – were coming from deeper inside the barn. He crept toward the sounds, his eyes and the shotgun sweeping from side-to-side, passing stall after stall empty of horses and cows, until he ended up at a larger pen in the back of the barn. The noises were louder here.

  Whatever it had been intended for, most likely sheep or goats, he imagined, the pen now was used for barley straw. Bales were stacked tall and deep, and the ground was carpeted with last year’s straw. Some of the stalks had turned brown; most remained golden. Jackson moved his gaze up and down and left and right, but he didn’t see any mountain lion or tiger. Then he realized how little he knew about how the animals would hide and hunt. The way the bales were stacked, there were dark crevices where anything smaller than a cow could hide out and attack.

  As Jackson continued to examine the pen, he realized that the dark hole he saw along the floor where some straw mounded up was not a hole at all. It was a black shoe.

  He inched forward until he could see dark blue cloth beneath gaps in the bales. He knew what it meant, but he didn’t want to believe it. He felt his heart pound. His finger was damp against the trigger. The burn scar on his neck and shoulder itched from perspiration. He blinked rapidly. Then he saw a long, pink tail sticking out of the straw and followed it to the hairy body of a grey rat.

  “Sonofabitch!” he said loudly and rushed ahead.

  Without thinking about whether it was dumb or not, Jackson used the shotgun barrel to part the blanket of straw, for it was clear to him that someone or something had piled up the loose straw to cover a body. Once he removed the straw, he saw that Ed’s neck was nearly severed, and then he saw the open stomach cavity where a dozen rats were feeding. His mind rapidly began shutting down to try to keep him from losing it. He heard a rustling noise behind him, and he swirled around and brought up the shotgun. Jackson was already fingering the trigger when he found himself looking down the shotgun barrel at Josh Placett squatting in a dark corner. The boy’s mouth hung slack and his eyes were wild and wide and staring at the horror of the rats feeding on Ed. All the time the boy was rocking back and forth.

  There was a pitchfork sticking in a pile of straw. Jackson set the shotgun aside, grabbed up the pitchfork, and swung it at the first rat he could reach. The one he hit shrieked. Half of the rats scurried off, but the other half was unwilling to leave. He raked the pitchfork over them, and one rat tumbled off and onto the floor by Jackson’s foot. He stepped on its tail and raised the pitchfork. With all of his might he pinned the sonofabitch rat to the earth. The animal shrieked once and died.

  When he turned back to Josh, Jackson saw that the boy hadn’t moved anything but his eyes, which were now watching him. Tears ran down the boy’s face and snot clotted below his nose on his lip. The peeps Jackson had heard were coming from Josh. It was all the sound he could muster.

  Four

  Officer Brian Patterson accompanied the gurney with the body bag to the ambulance. The vehicle was parked between Mandy’s Chrysler minivan and Wade’s ten-year-old Chevy Silverado. Jackson and Angie Kuka watched Patterson talk to the emergency medical team and then tack toward the Jeep. Jackson was sitting sideways in the drivers seat, feet resting on the sill, while Angie stood beside the open door of the black SUV. The small radios they both wore on their shirts crackled with law enforcement chatter.

  Jackson’s 10-74 call – officer needs assistance – to the county communication center in St. Anthony had brought all of the Buckhorn police, three Fremont County Sheriff vehicles, Ronnie Greathouse and one other State Police trooper, the ambulance, and the coroner. The area had been photographed, videotaped, sketched, secured, and processed for evidence by a county sheriff’s detective.

  “Where do you want them to … where do they take Ed?” Brian asked Jackson in a calm voice. Brian had long lashes for a man and a soft, round face but was semper fi tough.

  “The county prosecutor will want an autopsy,” Jackson said. Eileen Stevens, he knew, wouldn’t like that. He didn’t relish trying to explain to her that under the circumstances it wouldn’t much matter. “Take Ed to Madison Hospital, and we’ll have Morris pick him up.” Morris Mortuary had served Buckhorn for fifty years. Ed didn’t deserve to be a toe-tag among strangers, Jackson thought.

  While Brian Patterson returned to the ambulance, Angie said, “Tucker already went to tell his aunt Eileen so you don’t have to … I mean, Tucker’s family and all.”

  The “and all” meant that Ed and Eileen Stevens had raised Tucker Thule after his father died in a roadhouse brawl and shootout, and his mother, a few months later, dropped the eight-year-old off for a visit while she spent the weekend with a rodeo clown and never returned.

  “Christ! I almost shot that boy,” Jackson said and then looked surprised to hear his thoughts spoken aloud.

  “He’s fine.” Angie knew something but not everything about Colorado. She knew a little girl had been killed. She knew Jackson had left Fort Collins after it happened. She knew with that history, he w
as not just thinking about today. “Josh wasn’t shot, and he didn’t get eaten.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s fine.”

  “Maybe not, but it means he’s alive.”

  Jackson lapsed into another long silence before saying, “The gal from the county mental health office –”

  “Becky Rebo.”

  “Yeah. Let’s have her talk to Josh and Tammy.”

  “What about you, Chief? You gonna talk to her too?”

  A door banged, and Wade Placett came out of his house carrying a hunting rifle. Jackson didn’t bother to respond to Angie as he climbed out of the Jeep. He watched Wade approach them. At five-six, Wade was a few inches shorter than Jackson. He also was wider and more muscular. “How’s your family doing?” Jackson asked once Wade drew closer.

  “Tammy wet herself again,” Wade told him. “And Josh, he won’t talk about none of it. Not even to Mandy.”

  Jackson told Wade about his idea to involve Becky Rebo, and although Wade was skeptical, he didn’t say no. “You going hunting?” Jackson then asked, nodding at the rifle held in the crook of Wade’s arm. It was a Remington 770 Sporting Rifle with a black synthetic stock and a mounted scope. The 770 Sporting Rife was not fancy or glamorous, but slam in 7mm Remington Magnums 160 grain, and it could bring down any normal game in North America.

  “Got a barley field to cut,” Wade explained. “But after today, I ain’t going nowhere without protection. That’s for damn sure.”

  A few minutes later, Wade drove off. Once he was gone, Jackson said, “Officer Kuka, I’d like you to see what you can dig up on Ted and Dolly and Safari Land for us.”

  “So you don’t think it’s a mountain lion?” Angie said.

  “I think we better find out what we’re dealing with.”

  Sixteen-year-old Shane Tapper slid the black Tacoma 4X4 X-Runner to a dusty stop. The pickup truck had an extended cab, chrome exhaust tips and running boards, black overfenders, hood scoop and matching bumpers, roof-top spot lights, eighteen-inch alloy wheels, and the biggest V-6 with manual transmission the Toyota dealer could deliver. Jesse thought it was simply a Hot Wheels for teenage boys. While the dust swirled, Shane pulled Jesse toward him and nuzzled her neck. “Know what you smell like?”

  “If you say horseshit, you’re dead.”

  “Cotton candy. Remember? Pink and sticky and …”

  She felt his hand slide up her thigh. She was supposed to be excited. “Shane, don’t,” she said when his other hand brushed her breast. “Deborah might see us.”

  “So? Bunch of guys probably touched her boobs all at once.” The joke was that the name Double-D Stables didn’t come from Deborah Dawson’s initials, but from her bra size.

  It was probably funny to a ten-year-old, Jesse thought. “See you tonight, huh?” she said. She opened the door and scooted out. “I got this new shampoo from Missy. I bet that’s why my neck smells like cotton candy.”

  “You use it anyplace else?”

  “Is that all you ever think about?”

  “Duh?” He smiled. He had sleepy gray eyes and an Elvis mouth. Being cute and popular and rich meant that a lot of girls were willing to do ‘whatever’ to be with him.

  “Duh!” Jesse repeated. She shut the door, and Shane gunned the Tacoma. The rear end fishtailed. The dust it kicked up made Jesse cough. Shane always had to show off.

  The Double-D Stables was known for its herd of small, sturdy pintos, a good trail horse, and Jesse stopped at a corral and gave each of the two pintos in there a carrot taken from her backpack. Afterwards, she went to the barn to begin mucking stalls. While she sat on the bench in the tack room and swapped out her riding boots for Wellingtons, she again read the notice on the wall. It offered three rules for how to train and care for horses:

  -Have the right horse for what you intend to do.

  -Establish a trusted relationship.

  -Both the rider and the horse must be well trained.

  It didn’t seem that different from dating, thought Jesse.

  She slipped on soft leather gloves before grabbing the wheelbarrow and wheeling it to the first stall. A single horse can drop up to forty pounds of excrement a day. As Jesse grabbed a shovel and started scooping manure, she heard the farrier working outside the barn. In addition to the Double D’s herd of pintos, Touie, her dappled gray Arabian-Appaloosa gelding, was here getting shod.

  Touie’s name had started out as Two-A, for Arabian-Appaloosa, but it soon became the easier Touie. Horses are creatures of habit, and the gelding had been off his feed since they had brought him over in the trailer. When the shoeing was finished, Jesse would ride him home. Home?

  Touie lived at the half-section farm her dad owned. Jesse had her bedroom there but spent most of her time in town with her mother. Touie had the better deal, she felt.

  One pile of manure was wet and heavy, and Jesse bent at the waist to fill the shovel. As she did, a white iPhone slid out of her pocket and plopped in the muck.

  Jackson leaned against a locked metal gate that blocked the narrow dirt road to Ted and Dolly Cheney’s house. To the left of the gate was a large and garishly painted sign advertising Safari Land. It featured lions and tigers and a giant cat that looked a little like both. Jackson had seen Ted’s cats once or twice but didn’t recall a monster cat. He always had figured the image was just an advertising gimmick. He dialed the phone number listed on the sign and got voice mail. He did not leave a message.

  It occurred to Jackson that Ted and Dolly might be in town. A lot of country people did their grocery shopping, banking, and other errands on Saturday. He backed out of the turn off and pointed the Jeep toward Buckhorn.

  Angie and Sadie were head-to-head when Jackson entered the station. Their conversation ended as soon as they saw him. He told Sadie to contact all the officers, including off-duty and reserve officers, and have everyone available report to his office. “Got anything yet?” he asked Angie.

  “Working on it, Chief,” she said.

  “Brian out on patrol, Sadie?”

  Sadie nodded. It was clear she had been crying.

  “Have him drive around town, cruise the parking lots of the stores and the banks. Tell him to look for Ted Cheney’s Dodge pickup and to call me if he sees it.”

  Without saying anything about Ed, Jackson went into the small office he occupied as Chief of Police. He sat down at his desk and stared at the computer on it. He had to write a report about what had happened today, and there were a thousand things that he would rather do than relive his actions of the past few hours. He could always relive his actions of a few years ago, he thought. So a thousand things better and one worse. He booted up the computer.

  Angie opened the desk drawer with the file folder. A week ago she had found a provocative picture tucked in the drawer where she stored her gun while in the station. When she went home, the drawer was left empty and unlocked. The picture had been cut out of a magazine. It showed a large can of beans called Bush’s Best, and above it were two girls kissing. Not exactly subtle, thought Angie.

  She always explained her lack of a boyfriend by telling people that he had been killed in Iraq, but the picture in her desk was her second ‘message’ in a month. Who in the office knew the truth? And how? Who would enjoy harassing her: Brian, Tucker, Skip, John? The reserve officers were three men and one woman. Maybe one of them? Sadie? Jackson? Neither of them, she thought. Whoever it was, she was pissed at the picture and at herself. She had let it distract and upset her all week.

  Eight people squeezed into Jackson’s office while he went over the events of the day beginning with the phone call from Mandy Placett. He skipped the details of the gore he had found. He told himself he was doing it to spare Tucker, but he knew it was really to spare him. When he finished, he asked for Brian’s report – nobody in town recalled having seen Ted or Dolly since Thursday – and after that he dismissed everyone except for Tucker Thule. “Close the door,” he said. Tucker did. “You doing okay?”

/>   “I still can’t believe it, I guess.”

  “I didn’t really plan for Sadie to drag you in for this, but I forgot to tell her.” Ed’s nephew didn’t say anything. “How’s Eileen doing?”

  “About like you’d expect, I guess.” Tucker pawed the worn carpet. Although twenty-eight and experienced, also having served as an MP in the Army, Tucker still looked like a big kid. He had his father’s East European features. “I know Uncle Ed’s the one that hired me –”

  “Ed hired me too.”

  “I guess what I’m asking is if you’re gonna make any changes right off? I sort of heard you were.”

  For the first time in hours Jackson remembered the town council meeting. How did Tucker know what had been decided there? “No,” Jackson said. “No changes.”

  Someone tapped softly on his door. Jackson said, “Take some time off, Tucker. Whatever you need.”

  Tucker thanked Jackson and opened the door and bumped chest to chest into Angie. She yelped and jumped back. Tucker laughed as he slipped past her.

  Angie blushed and studied the papers on her clipboard for longer than necessary. She finally said, “I didn’t find much on Safari Land or Dolly, but Ted’s real interesting.”

  Jackson nodded and waited for her to continue.

  “Safari Land’s an Idaho LLC that was delinquent on fees until recently. Bank of Buckhorn holds the mortgage, and Ted and Dolly are still way behind on payments. I checked with Sharon Sheffield at Re-Max. She says they owe more than the place is worth unless they get their business going and make a profit. Electricity, phone, insurance, everything was overdue, but these all got paid up two months ago. The Cheneys found some money somewhere. Don’t know where.” She stopped and studied her notes.