Snaggle Tooth

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  Trish heaved a sigh of relief. “Mom?”

  “No. This is your Aunt Patricia. I’m sorry, Trish, but she’s not here.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Honey, I think I should just tell you all about it when you get home.”

  Trish’s mouth went dry. The warden seemed to pick up on her distress. He straightened and cocked his head at her.

  “I can’t come home. We’ve had . . . a problem. Perry and I need someone to pick us up in Sheridan.”

  “Sheridan? What? And why can’t your dad drive you home?”

  “He’s still in the mountains. Can you come get us?”

  “I would, but I don’t have a car. Your mom took it.”

  Trish squeezed the receiver tight in her hand. “Where’s my mom?”

  Her Aunt Patricia sighed. “I don’t want to worry you.”

  “Then tell me where my mom is!”

  The warden’s eyes widened. Trish knew she sounded snappish and disrespectful, but she needed to know where her mother was, and she needed to know right now.

  “Oh, honey. Earlier today, Barbara Lamkin escaped from the courthouse. She came here and took her baby. Your mom went after them.”

  The receiver slipped from Trish’s grasp and clanked against the phone booth. She scrambled to pick it back up.

  “Are you okay?” the warden asked.

  Trish put her mouth up to the phone. Her voice was hoarse. “Is my mom okay?”

  “I’m sure she is. It’s just that, well, no one knows where she went. She’ll probably call any minute with good news, but, right now, that’s all I know, Trish. I’m sorry.”

  Trish hung up on her aunt.

  “What is it?” the warden asked.

  Around her, the sky seemed impossibly large, the moon heavy with gloom. She felt lost in the vastness of the Wyoming night. As lost as her mother appeared to be.

  She pressed her hands against her temples. “My mom is missing. Both of them—both my parents—are missing.”

  Chapter Forty: Tail

  Ranchester, Wyoming

  Friday, August 12, 1977, 10:00 p.m.

  Susanne

  Without a turn signal, Barb’s truck exited the interstate on Highway 14, west toward Ranchester, Dayton, and the Bighorn Mountains.

  Susanne pounded the steering wheel. “Yes!”

  Her gas gauge was hovering a hair above empty. She estimated she had thirty miles left before she’d be stranded. She’d have to fuel up in Ranchester. That was all there was to it. If Barb didn’t stop, Susanne would try to catch up with her later—and pray she didn’t pull off somewhere before then. Because there was no way Susanne was letting the Suburban run out of gas on a mountain road in the middle of the night. That wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  But before Susanne reached a filling station, Barb made another turn. A left, into a parking lot in front of an L-shaped building. Susanne squinted at the sign, heart pounding in her throat. THE WESTERN MOTEL.

  Thank you, God!

  If Barb was getting a room, Susanne could go for gas, call the cops, get food. First, though, she had to park where she could watch Barb. To make sure she knew what the woman was doing. She sussed out her choices on either side of the road. They were sparse. It came down to a church or a bar. The last place Susanne wanted to be seen was the parking lot outside a skuzzy bar.

  What better place to pray for the safe return of Will than a church?

  The church it would be, then. She spun the steering wheel to the left. Her wheels squealed, which worried her—she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. She pumped the brakes on the Suburban, pulling it to a stop. Her ears rang in the sudden stillness. She rolled down the window to let cool air in on her face. The migraine had made her dizzy, but she was determined to ignore it out of existence. She looked at the building. It had a large cross on the roof. A sign above the entrance read RANCHESTER CHURCH OF CHRIST. Not her denomination, but she felt sure God didn’t discriminate.

  As much as the pain in her head made her want to close her eyes, she kept them open and on the exit from the hotel parking lot. She prayed aloud. “Dear God, please let that heinous woman check in and take care of Will. And while you’re at it, please help me figure out how to get him back.”

  She strained to see. Her eyes were bad, and it was so dark out. How she wished she had her glasses. She saw someone walking into the motel office, but not carrying a baby. Her mouth dropped open. Barb hadn’t just left Will alone out in the truck, had she? Then she remembered Patrick kept binoculars in the Suburban, for wildlife spotting. She fumbled for the latch on the glovebox without taking her eyes off Barb. The hatch fell open—the compartment was overstuffed—and binoculars tumbled to the floorboard along with the owner’s manual, a wool cap and gloves, a flashlight, and miscellaneous papers.

  “Spit in a well bucket!” Susanne ducked down, grabbed the binocs, and jerked herself upright. She adjusted the focus on the lenses.

  A woman was clearly visible through the office window, talking to a stoop shouldered man with wispy gray hair sitting behind a counter. The woman was Barb, but if Susanne hadn’t expected it to be her, she wouldn’t have recognized her. She was wearing one of Ronnie’s Johnson County Deputy uniforms, including a ball cap with her hair tucked into it.

  “Gotcha!” Susanne whispered.

  But that meant Will was outside in the truck. Susanne was torn between who to watch—Barb or Will—but opted for the baby. Barb had escaped to get him. She wasn’t going to leave without him.

  Susanne switched the binoculars to the truck. No one was near it. A few minutes passed, then Barb entered her field of view. The disguise was still jarring a second time. Barb opened the passenger door and grabbed a duffel bag, which she slung over her shoulder, then a brown paper bag. She set that on the ground. Lastly, she scooped something out of the floorboard. It was small and swaddled in blankets.

  “Will!”

  With Will tucked into the crook of the arm that was acting as a hook for the duffel, Barb picked up the grocery bag in the other hand and strode across the parking lot, disappearing from sight behind the building.

  “No, no, no!”

  Susanne needed to know which room was theirs. The blinding pain from her migraine made thinking difficult, so she acted on instinct instead. She wrenched the door open and ran across the dark parking lot in front of the church, past the office to the motel, then slowed to a walk. She peeked around the side of the building, the binoculars still in her hand, breathing hard. She was sure she was too late. They would already be inside their room.

  But Barb was walking back to the truck.

  Susanne gasped and retreated, running with her hand along the siding back to the other side of the building. From a safe distance, she watched through the office windows. Barb started the truck and backed it out.

  Susanne whispered, “Where are you going without that baby?”

  Her outrage gave way to a hopeful thought. If Barb left, maybe Susanne would have a chance to snatch Will back herself. She didn’t know their room, but she could knock on doors until she got to one no one answered. Then she could smash out the window. With what, dummy? Your bare hands? She looked down at them and smiled. With my husband’s binoculars. Now she willed Barb to leave. All Susanne needed was a few short minutes.

  Barb turned the truck around and drove toward the back of the motel. Could she get out that way? Susanne crept to the corner of the building and peeked around it. If Barb circled the building to come around front, Susanne was exposed. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. As she stood frozen in indecision, Barb appeared, walking from the rear of the building.

  Susanne exhaled, the sound too loud in the quiet night. Barb had hidden the truck in back of the motel. She stopped at the last room, farthest from the road, and let herself in.

  Susanne was lightheaded. She hadn’t had a chance to take Will, but Barb was staying at the motel. That bought Susanne some time. But what should she do fir
st? Get gas, to be ready in case Barb took off again? Call the police in Buffalo? Whatever it was, she needed her Suburban and she needed to move quickly, so she jogged back to the church parking lot and got in the vehicle. Her panting was loud in the closed space. She had a moment to gather herself, if only just one. She closed her eyes.

  “God, thank you for bringing me this far. Help me not mess things up. And please help Ronnie forgive me for letting Barb take Will.”

  Tears burned her eyes. Could she have stopped Barb? It had happened so fast. In the choice between Patricia’s life and Will’s, Susanne had hesitated. Yes, she’d fought, but too little, too late. Her moment of indecision had lost Will but bought time with no one getting harmed.

  Except for Ronnie and Jeff. Pain stabbed Susanne through the left eye. How must they be feeling right now? No. She couldn’t think about that. She had to remain at her best. She had to focus on getting Will back.

  CRACK. A sharp sound on the window by her head seemed loud enough to shatter the glass. Susanne screamed. Barb. Had she seen her? Followed her?

  Fearing the worst, she turned and was blinded by the high beam of a powerful flashlight.

  Chapter Forty-one: Defend

  Base of Black Tooth Mountain, Cloud Peak Wilderness, Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming

  Friday August 12, 1977, 10:00 p.m.

  Patrick

  “Careful!” Elvin’s shout cracked with strain.

  “Sorry.” Patrick was doing his best, but he couldn’t figure out a way to transport Elvin down the mountain pain-free. For either of them.

  He set one end of the travois on the horizontal surface of a boulder, balancing the opposite end on another, then examined the ruptured blister in his palm in the bright moonlight. It smarted, no lie.

  No one has ever died from a blister. And no real man ever got one so quickly. Unless those real men work fifty hours a week as doctors. Real men had hides like rhinos. Patrick envied the layers of calluses on Henry’s hands. The hands of a rancher. But Patrick’s mostly smooth hands couldn’t be helped. And, unfortunately, a little thing like a blister could eventually render Patrick unable to carry the travois.

  He’d have to do something about it. The saddle bags were balanced around his shoulders. He lifted a flap and pulled out his gloves. He hadn’t wanted to wear them. The weather had warmed up, and the weight of the travois made it hard to keep them on. Now he didn’t have a choice. He slipped them on, then rotated the upper end of the travois to the next boulder and repeated the process, holding on tighter than before to keep the gloves in place. Eddie had carried one end when they were on the dirt path—which had started and ended right where the odd climber had said it would. With only one arm, he’d been too unstable to continue after they’d reached the boulders, though. They’d nearly dumped Elvin twice before Patrick had come up with the rotation idea. His new method had turned out to be more effective and faster than carrying the travois together.

  Only about twenty yards left to go until they were out of the rocks.

  “Ouch,” Elvin shouted again.

  Eddie stumbled and kicked a few rocks in the direction of Patrick’s head. Patrick whipped around. He’d been fighting off a recurring image—Eddie with a rock clutched in his hand above his shoulder, leaping from a ledge above him, legs splayed, lips drawn back in a scream—since they’d started their descent. It couldn’t be lost on Eddie that Patrick was on edge about him. Frankly, Patrick didn’t care.

  “What’s that at the bottom of the hill?” Eddie whispered.

  Patrick stared down the hill. He’d been hyperaware of the threat Eddie posed behind him, but they were vulnerable from the front as well. The brilliant moon illuminating their path and bathing the park in a soft glow spotlighted them against the black rocks.

  He whispered back. “Where?”

  “Almost to the trees.”

  When Patrick couldn’t find anything out of place by scanning, he slowed his eyes down. It was a trick he sometimes used. By keeping his gaze steady, movement would draw his eyes to it. This time, it worked immediately. Two large shapes were making their way along the line where the rocks and trees met, from north to south.

  At first, Patrick was hopeful it was a few elk heading for the grassy park under the cover of the relative darkness, as they often did. There were plenty of them around. He’d seen fresh scat when he was highlining the horses.

  But these shapes were too big to be elk.

  Moose, then?

  But moose were unlikely at this elevation.

  Plus—and this was the clincher for Patrick—neither elk nor moose had camel-like humps on their backs. These animals were carrying riders.

  No one needed to send him an engraved invitation. Patrick sank to the ground, minimizing his profile. “Men.”

  Eddie crouched near Patrick. His breath came out in a hiss. “I see them. Headed this way.”

  Patrick nodded. His palms started sweating inside his gloves. “This changes things.”

  Elvin said, “Hello, guys, what about me? I’m kind of exposed. Man, we should have just driven the money to Chicago.”

  Eddie sneered. “But we couldn’t, could we? The Feds expected us. They would have been all over us.”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “You brought him in on the deal.”

  As much as Patrick wanted to know what the heck was going on, now wasn’t the time for them to argue about the past. But Elvin didn’t respond. Then Patrick heard the unmistakable noise of someone working the action on a gun. And it was close. His skin felt like it was on fire. Eddie has a gun.

  He kept his voice calm. “Have you had that thing this whole time?” He stood and rotated Elvin down to a lower rock, did the same with the other end, then crouched beside the travois.

  Elvin spoke for the silent Eddie. “He has. And I have one, too.”

  “I saw yours,” Patrick said. “Chest holster. But Eddie didn’t have one.”

  “He carries on his ankle. Help me get mine out.”

  Eddie had refused to let Patrick examine his lower extremities earlier. He’d been trying to keep his firearm a secret. Patrick felt foolish.

  He seethed but tried to keep his voice light. “Don’t forget, guys, I’m on your side.”

  Reaching inside Elvin’s button-front shirt, he retrieved the gun, an old but well-maintained .44 Magnum. He handed Elvin the heavy revolver, then rebuttoned the shirt.

  “Is it them?” Eddie said.

  Patrick retrained his eyes on the moving figures. “I can’t tell. Weren’t there three of them when we saw them on the Little Goose trail?”

  “I didn’t stick around to take notes.”

  “There were three. Cardinale, the boss man, and two muscle heads.”

  Elvin groaned. “That would be Juice and Luke. His guard dogs.”

  What kind of man needed guards up in the wilderness? And why would Chicago mobsters be mixed up with two ne’er do well Shoshone from the res? Patrick intended to find out. But first he had to survive the night. He wondered if their group had been spotted from below. The plane, he felt sure, was shining like a beacon in the moonlight. He didn’t care about the plane, though, other than his friend Bruce. He really didn’t want the goons to desecrate the man any further than the crash had already done.

  He focused on the riders. “It could be anybody. Two people from my group. Two strangers.”

  “Two from Orion’s posse, with the third hiding and pointing a rifle at us right now,” Elvin suggested.

  Patrick didn’t like Elvin’s grim line of thinking.

  Eddie, ever the cheerful team player, said, “Yeah, well, we’re like dumb mule deer. Nothing but targets. I’m outta here.”

  He crawled past them, heading downslope, but to the right, in the opposite direction from the two men down below.

  “Friends like him, I don’t need no enemies,” Elvin said, low enough that only Patrick could hear.

  Patrick couldn’t agree more. Except he was har
boring no illusions that Eddie had ever been his friend.

  Chapter Forty-two: Score

  Ranchester, Wyoming

  Friday, August 12, 1977, 10:15 p.m.

  Susanne

  “Roll your window down and put your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them,” a woman’s voice commanded. The kind of order a cop would give.

  Susanne hesitated. Barb. It had to be Barb, even though it didn’t really sound like her. Dressed as a deputy and impersonating one, maybe disguising her voice, too.

  Susanne had a score to settle. Not just because of Barb taking Will, but what she’d done to Susanne and her kids. If only Patrick hadn’t been so infuriatingly principled that he had saved Barb, Susanne wouldn’t be in this situation right now. But then there would be no Will. The unborn child would have died, too. Everything happens for a reason.

  Susanne rolled the window down as slowly as she could. Her hands were shaking but she put them on the wheel. It was time for her to fight. Or was it? If she got herself killed, Barb would get away with Will. Maybe forever. Buying time had worked earlier. It was the smart thing to do now, even if it wasn’t what she wanted to do.

  The flashlight inched closer to her face. Susanne blinked and squinted. The light was making her head hurt even worse.

  The woman’s voice was harsh. “Who are you, and what are you doing watching people from the church parking lot?”

  At first Susanne was confused. Barb wouldn’t be asking who she was—she knew Susanne. Then she realized it wasn’t Barb standing beside the Suburban. But if it wasn’t Barb, who could it be? Someone with the appearance of authority. And the upper hand.

  Susanne inhaled deep and long. “My name is Susanne Flint. I’m following a woman named Barb Lamkin. She kidnapped my friend’s baby. She’s a dangerous fugitive, and she’s just checked into a room at the motel next door.”