by G M Eppers
“Hey, Badger, it’s Billings,” I heard my son say, his voice muffled by the noise of the bus. It occurred to me that the acoustics on the bus were actually worse than those on CURDS1. The engine noise lay under everything like the hum of fluorescent lighting. “We’ve left the lab. We’re following a lead to a clinic outside of Minneapolis. Looks like one of them got bit.” He paused, listening. “We called a bunch of hospitals on the off chance, and found out a walk-in clinic in Inver Grove Heights is holding a guy with an undetermined animal bite.” Another pause. “No, you guys stay put. They might have arranged for someone else to handle the drop. We left Nitro and the twins at the lab to make sure no one leaves. Someone there helped these two pull this off, and they are going to find out who. I want you to stay where you are until 30 minutes past the deadline. If something happens, call the local authorities first, then call me. Got that? If nothing happens, get the suitcase and go back to the Mayo. We should be there waiting for you by then and ready to head home. I’ll check in again later.” He paused again and sat up straighter. “What was that? Damn.” He shook his head slightly in denial of whatever Badger had told him. “Noted. Billings out.” He ended the call and put the phone back on his HEP belt.
I opened my eyes when I heard the call end. He looked at me with a heavy sigh. “My first mission, and I’ve got three fronts. This seemed like such a simple case when we started.”
“Some cases are like that,” I said cryptically. “What was that about at the end?”
“Badger saw Miss Chiff drink from the flask.” He wasn’t looking at me. “Three fronts AND an intervention. I need a break.” He followed my lead and leaned back with his eyes closed.
The bus bumped along, then moved onto a ramp, made a wide circle, and merged onto Highway 52. Knobby quickly maneuvered into an inside lane. “Okay, Knobby,” Trooper Ferguson was saying. “Just stay on this. When you see a sign that says Inver Grove Heights with less than ten miles on it, wake me up. I’m going to get some shut eye.” He heaved himself into the seat behind Knobby with a yawn. “I’ve been up over 24 hours between this case and watching the telethon.” He yawned again. “I’m beat.”
The telethon! I’d completely forgotten about it. It would have ended a few hours ago. I was about to ask Badger to look up the results when I realized he was still at the airport pretending to be Sir Haughty’s boyfriend. Quietly, I pulled my cell phone from my HEP belt and did it myself. After reading a bit, I got up and moved forward, walking carefully and holding onto the seat backs as I approached Ban. “Hey, Ban,” I said softly, not wanting to startle her. “Good news. The telethon pulled in a new record of $59 million and change. That should keep you guys going.”
She smiled weakly. “Yeah, it should last a couple of years.”
“Sorry. I thought this would make you happy.”
“Oh, it does. It’s just…I don’t know. It’s hard to start over. I’ll get over it.” She didn’t sound like she really believed that.
“You’ve started over before. You’re career began because you started over.” I put an encouraging hand on her shoulder, half afraid that she would shrug it off or tell me not to touch her, but she did neither. “You didn’t let a bad experience stop you before and you shouldn’t now. You’re an inspiration to thousands of young people going into the field of science. If you let this stop you, then the Nonegan brothers get what they want. You really want to let them have this?”
“No, of course not.”
I guessed that she, like Trooper Ferguson, was bone tired. Maybe it was a good thing that the walk-in clinic was so far away. She needed down time, too. “You’re just tired. Get some sleep, like Fergie over there.” Fergie had his head all the way back and his mouth open, snoring softly. His head lolled gently from side to side with the rolling of the bus. “Okay, not exactly like Fergie.”
Ban gave me a bigger smile. “I know I’m tired. I don’t want to sleep. But I’ll try. Thanks, Helena.” She stretched out on the seat as best she could and found a relatively comfortable position.
I went back to my seat in front of Roxy and sat down again. I was a little worried. I was beginning to realize that the morning meds I’d taken yesterday afternoon were beginning to wear off. My muscle aches were manageable, but I was starting to be conscious of the broken ends of my ribs rubbing against each other. They were held in place by hardware, but it still felt like they were moving around. I took slow shallow breaths. Nitro didn’t like to keep us on meds any longer than necessary anyway. If I tried, I thought I could get through the rest of this recovery on Zen meditation. Maybe he’d give me a lollipop. Then the bus went over a pothole. My lips popped open in a soundless gasp and my eyes popped open in surprise. I blew out air and pushed myself up straighter. Slouching made it hurt more. This injury just might do wonders for my posture, I thought.
I heard someone slide into the seat in front of me. “You okay?”
It was Butte, with what sounded like genuine concern in his voice. “I’ll be fine.” I told him, hoping he’d go away. He had a knack, though. When you wanted him, he’d disappear, and when you wanted him to go away, he stayed put. The Nanny McPhee Syndrome.
“You’re not fooling me. I know you have two broken ribs. I was there. Remember? How did you even get cleared for this mission?”
The twinge caused by the pothole was fading. “I didn’t.” I probably should have lied to him, but I couldn’t think of anything that would fly. “I’m here strictly in a supervisory capacity. Billings is in charge.”
“I noticed. He’s doing well.” Butte glanced over, but Billings still had his eyes closed and appeared to be sleeping. “So when we catch up to these guys, you stay in the bus?”
I hadn’t thought of that, but he was right. Any takedown had the potential for combat. If I didn’t offer to stay on the bus, Roxy would be obligated to insist on it. “Yes. Knobby, too.”
“Knobby. What’s his story?”
I gave Butte the short version. Not as short as the version Knobby had given to Trooper Ferguson, but still very brief. “He’s here as backup wrangler. Miss Chiff’s idea. He has experience with animals. Turns out he’s also the only one with a CDL, so that was convenient.”
We hit another bump only slightly less severe than the pothole and I winced a little.
“You’re in pain. They didn’t give you any meds?”
“Tramadol. But my last dose was yesterday afternoon. It kind of slipped through the cracks what with the raccoon-napping and all. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. We’ll pick up the injured party, torture him until he tells us where Clara is, get Clara, tie the Nonegan brothers to the bumper and head back to the Mayo Clinic. Nitro will be there waiting for me with two shiny new Tramadol in his hands. Four hours, tops. I don’t have to do anything but sit here. Piece of cake.”
At that moment, Ban suddenly screamed, “Oh my God! Stop the bus! Stop the damned bus!”
Knobby, probably thinking he was about to have an accident, and possibly having one anyway, poured on the airbrakes and pulled the bus onto the gravel shoulder, narrowly escaping traffic. Horns blared. Ban was already at the door, pounding on it. “Open the damn door! Jesus Christ!”
She’s about to be sick, I thought.
But she jumped off the bus and started running south on the shoulder. Butte looked at me, then went after her. I pushed myself up and followed as quickly as I could. “Everyone else stay here,” I ordered. While everyone’s face registered concern, there were no objections to my order. I figured the last thing Ban needed was a crowd of people hovering over her even if they had the best of intentions. I climbed off the bus and looked south.
Ban was crouching at the side of the road and Butte was approaching her at a walk. It felt like it was getting colder, and I zipped my jacket up to my throat and followed. She’d gone back about a quarter mile. Butte caught up, but just stood looking down at her, waiting patiently. I trotted a little to catch up. Cars zoomed past us, no one stopping to ask if we need
ed help.
In front of Ban was a furry bundle about the size of a large cat. When I got closer I saw the reason she had gone berserk. It was a raccoon. The animal had obviously been hit by a car. One side of its face was a red pulpy mass. I could hear Ban’s voice as I got closer. “Oh God, please, please please.” Gingerly, she examined the animal, then heaved a huge sigh. “It’s not her.”
“Are you sure?” I asked gently. I was afraid she would be insulted, little me questioning her knowledge of animal physiology, but she was much too distraught to take offense.
“It’s a male,” she said. She took a deep breath, let it out in a little cloud, and said it again. “It’s a male.”
Butte said, “All right, then. Let’s get back to the bus. It’s cold.”
“No,” she said. If there’d been any wind it would have taken her words away. Gingerly, she started to lift the animal.
“What are you doing?” asked Butte.
She looked up at us as if she shouldn’t have to explain. There were tears sliding down her cheeks. “I’m not leaving him here like this. I’m going to bury him. Poor little guy.”
“We don’t have time for that,” said Butte. “And the ground is too hard.”
She stood, her tears drying up quickly. “I’m not leaving him here like this.”
Butte was silent for a couple of beats. “Okay, I’ll take care of it. You go back to the bus, the both of you.”
“Promise?” Ban was insistent.
Butte crossed his heart, kissed two fingers and put them in the air. “Promise.”
I saw Ban’s tongue move to one side of her mouth as she considered it, then, as if only now feeling the cold, she wrapped her arms around herself and walked back toward the bus. I waited, watching Butte. He wiped his hands on his pants, then bent down and picked up the corpse in two hands, cradling the undamaged side of its head. “What are you doing?”
“Taking care of it. Like I promised.” He took the body into the grassy field next to the road and set it down, then produced a switchblade and popped it open. He bent and began stabbing at the hard-packed earth.
I was stunned. I stood there, unable to comprehend it all. He turned to me, little puffs of breath coming out of his open mouth. “Go on. Get on the bus. Tell Knobby to crank up the heater. I’ll be there in a minute.” He went back to stabbing the ground.
I looked up at the oncoming traffic. Cars continued to speed by, four lanes on each side with barely anything in between. Each side of the road seemed to have miles and miles of flat, neglected fields. There were a few sporadic shrubs, grassy patches, sparse trees in the distance. What if, I wondered. What if Clara had bitten her captor and gotten loose? What if she had run away into that wilderness? Obviously, that idea had occurred to Ban or she wouldn’t have had such a strong reaction to seeing the dead raccoon. The raccoon Butte was burying could easily have been Clara. The little camera in my head zoomed out and I felt small and insignificant, standing on this busy, but isolated, roadway, conscious of the size of the Earth and its spinning path through light years of empty space. As I stood there, tiny white specks fell slowly to the ground and I shivered. If Clara had escaped, we’d never find her.
Even if Ban knew that, she hadn’t voiced it. And neither would I. Vowing to keep this thought to myself, I turned and went back to the bus.
Chapter Three
When I got to the bus, I rapped on the door, trying not to shiver while I waited for Knobby to open it. “Everything all right, Helena?” he asked as I climbed the narrow steps.
“Fine. Butte will be back in a few minutes. He says to crank up the heat.” I went down the aisle and surprisingly Fergie was still sound asleep. I watched him a moment to make sure he was breathing, saw his chest rise and fall. He closed his mouth, smacking his dry lips and tongue, gave a little snort, and continued sleeping. Knobby hit some controls and I heard the heater change pitch.
I moved down the aisle, casually checking on everyone. Ban was sitting near a window, staring at the side of the road. Sylvia was tapping on her cell phone, her one green eye darting back and forth across the screen. “Cold front coming,” she said. “We’re driving right into it.”
“We’ll survive. The bus will warm up soon.” We had all worn warm clothing, but we hadn’t planned for this. Trooper Ferguson was the only one dressed properly, with a quilted coat and fur-lined hood. That was probably why he could sleep so soundly.
Billings met my gaze as I passed his seat, where he still leaned against the outer wall, then closed his eyes again, satisfied.
I returned to my seat in front of Roxy, who was kneeling backwards and staring out the rear window, her red stiletto heels poking the metal back of my seat. “What’s he doing? Helena, did you know it’s snowing?” She turned to look at me without sitting down, then looked back out the window. “What’s he doing?” she repeated.
“Burying the dead raccoon.”
“Ah.” She turned around then and sat with a bounce. “Was it --?”
“No. Ban said it was a male.”
In a conspiratorial whisper, Roxy said, “But it could have been. Helena, what if?”
“It wasn’t,” I said firmly.
“But-“
“But nothing. It wasn’t Clara and that’s that. It doesn’t change anything. Go back to your glarf.”
She dug in her crochet bag. “It’s snowing. I’m going to need…where is it? Ah, here it is.” She pulled out her red velvet muff and hung the cord around her neck. She put her hands inside it to see how it fit and seemed satisfied.
“Very stylish, Roxy. What if you guys see some action at the clinic? You going to muff them into submission?”
She smirked, and pulled her revolver and stun gun from her HEP belt. It took a little maneuvering, since it was hard to reach underneath the CURDS vest and velveteen jacket she wore in the confines of the bus seat. The revolver fit into the muff on the right side, and the stun gun tucked into the left. I had to admit, it was a clever arrangement. Even though we were nearly an hour away from the clinic, she wiggled into place with an air of superiority and took up her crocheting. “I hope I remember how I did this. I’ve got requests from five of the techs at the Mayo Clinic.”
“You could have said no.”
“I didn’t have the heart. They were so excited.”
“It’s your funeral,” I said with a shrug.
The bus bobbled as Butte climbed quickly aboard, shivering and brushing both dry dirt and snowflakes from his shirt. “Okay, Knobby, I guess we can get back on the road now.” He came to the rear of the bus and sat across from me as Knobby guided the bus back into traffic. “Let’s get this done and get back to the Mayo Clinic before we all freeze to death.” It was mostly a joke. It was uncomfortably cold, but the snow was light and sparse. The temperature was probably slightly above freezing actually and the bus was already warming nicely. I think my seat was close to the heat vent and I had no objections. The bit of running the others would do between bus and building would be inconsequential, and I was expecting to stay on the bus, whether I wanted to or not. I’d been in far worse spots, as a couple of my ribs could attest.
In short order we were back on an inside lane northbound on highway 52. The rest of the trip went quietly, with a fairly steady murmur of small talk and the occasional snort from Trooper Ferguson. Roxy actually tired of working on the glarf and tucked it away, watching the scenery for a while. Finally, in the far distance, we could see the Minneapolis skyline approaching us. Knobby shouted back at us, “Someone wake up Fergie. We’re getting close and I don’t want to miss the exit.”
Ban was closest. She pushed herself out of her seat with both hands and crossed the aisle, giving Fergie a brief shake. At first, he didn’t stir. She shook him again. “Mr. Trooper, sir, wake up!”
Fergie came to attention quickly, and looked at Ban. “Ferguson. Fergie if you want.”
“Sorry, I forgot.”
Fergie rubbed the sleep from his face and w
ent up to hover over Knobby, one hand on the divider wall behind the driver and the other on a support pole. “Okay, Knobby, we’re looking for Exit 118, 117th Street.”
The clinic was a single story yellow brick building about half a city block long. There was a very small parking lot, but Knobby didn’t want to maneuver the bus through it so he parked at the curb, taking a couple of spaces between a blue Prius and a maroon Mazda hatchback. He cranked open the door. Nearly everyone rose to disembark. Despite the cold air already stealing the heat from the bus, after the long ride it was a welcome change. “Wait, Billings,” I said before he could get far. I took out my walkie talkie and flipped it on. “Open your channel. I want to hear what’s going on.”
I expected him to hesitate and he did. Even though it made sense, it also meant that I might be tempted to come running if something went down. I’m not sure if he was aware I’d missed my pain medication. I was in no better shape to come running than Knobby was, but it probably wasn’t obvious. I’d seen Butte catch my eye before he left the bus, but I didn’t think he would mention it either. Billings looked me in the eye, his hesitation lasting only a moment. “Okay, Mom. You got it.” He turned on his walkie, leaving it on his HEP belt. “Testing, testing, one, two, three.” I heard his tinny voice coming through, then a short whine of feedback. He knew standing so close would cause that and he grinned.