Page 93 of Three-Inch Teeth

Marybeth took a deep breath to calm herself, then jabbed her finger at a circle around Rawlins in the bottom center of the map.

“Two things happened on October 15,” she said. “That’s the day you found Clay Junior’s body after he was attacked by a grizzly bear on the Twelve Sleep River. The second is that Dallas Cates was released from prison. No one seems to know who picked him up or where he was headed.”

Her finger slid eastward along I-80 and then north to Hanna. “October 16, a body is found at the scene of a local museum that was burned to the ground. The body is later identified as Hanna town marshal Marvin Bertignolli. That’s the same day Bill Brodbeck was attacked up here right in front of you and the Predator Attack Team.”

“How are they related?” Joe asked.

“I don’t think they are, on the surface,” she said. “Except the second attack in as many days made a lot of news, as you know. Everybody in the state went on high alert.”

“This museum fire,” Joe said. “Why bring it up?”

“At first, I didn’t see the significance of it,” she said. “But when I dug into it just a few minutes ago I found something really interesting.”

“What’s that?” Joe asked.

Marybeth called up a previous window on her screen and read from the Cowboy State Daily news item. “‘Another victim of the fire was the twelve-foot mounted grizzly bear known as Zeus that had been a prize in the collection for decades.’”

“I don’t understand,” Joe said.

“Just stay with me here,” she said, her eyes wild. He knew that when she looked like that it was best to listen and keep quiet, so he did both.

Marybeth ran her finger in a backtracking motion to Rawlins again.

“October 23, a full week later, Corrections Officer Ryan Winner is attacked by a grizzly bear outside his home. No one can explain how a bear got there or where it came from. You said that yourself.”

She slid to the right again along I-80 going east. “October 25, two days later and a hundred miles away, Dulcie Schalk is killed on her ranch.

“Then,” she said, drawing a long imaginary line to the north and west, “on October 26, yesterday, a high school student and part-time attendant is found murdered at Hellie’s Tepee Pools in Thermopolis. Again, according to the Cowboy State Daily, the murder appeared to be a random act and no suspects have been identified. The cash register was not looted, and the murder weapon appears to be some kind of long daggerlike knife.”

Joe sat back confused. He saw five hastily drawn circles with no obvious conclusion.

As if reading his mind, Marybeth’s finger landed north of Thermopolis on the town of Saddlestring.

“Seven violent incidents in a matter of days,” she said. “That alone is unusual in Wyoming and completely outside the norm.

“Which brings us to today,” she said. “This morning it was Judge Hewitt. All of these incidents in a row lead to here, Joe. We couldn’t see it or connect things in any logical way because we were blaming the mind of a grizzly bear. But what if it wasn’t a bear? What if it has been Dallas Cates all along?”

Joe felt the hairs prick on the back of his neck and on his forearms. His belly went cold.

“Dallas had a list, Joe,” Marybeth said. “We all know that. Dulcie was on that list, and so was Judge Hewitt. Sheriff Reed is out of the picture. But you’re not, and neither is Nate.”

“Clay Junior wasn’t on any list,” Joe said. “Brodbeck, either. And how does the CO fit into this? Or the pool guy?”

“Winner and Cates didn’t get along in prison,” Marybeth said. “Weber confirmed that. I think he was added to Dallas’s hit list recently.”

“What about the pool guy? And what about the marshal?”

“I’m not sure about the pool guy,” she said. “His murder may not be related at all except that it falls within the pattern of movement. He might just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or seen something he shouldn’t have seen. Or somebody. But I think your other question shouldn’t be about the Hanna marshal, unfortunately. I think it’s about Zeus.”

“Clay Junior? Brodbeck?” Joe asked again.

“Think of Clay Junior and Bill Brodbeck as totally unrelated. Start with Hanna and Zeus instead, because I think that’s what Dallas did. I don’t know how he contrived this, but somehow he did.

“As you know,” she said, “the bear attacks up here generated a lot of attention. They were all over the television, statewide radio, and the internet. There is no way Dallas wasn’t aware of what happened, especially in his old hometown. We know how Dallas thinks and how cunning and opportunistic he can be. I think he saw the news about the bear attacks and somehow figured out how to take advantage of them for his own purposes. He had a week to prepare. I’m not sure how he’s done it, but I think Zeus figures in somehow.”

“Or Zeus’s teeth and claws,” Joe said.

They stared at each other for a moment, and both of them came to the same thunderous conclusion at the same time.

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