The Saint of Wolves and Butchers Read online

  He went back to the first office. As he lowered the blinds back into place, something shiny caught his eye, a smudge of red on the white sill. He squinted at it, moved his head this way and that, watching it reflect the light, then took out his leather pouch again and selected a flat pick. He scraped the red dot off the windowsill and smiled when he saw that it flaked away, rather than coming off in one piece. The tiny bits left behind sparkled in the overhead fluorescent lights. He deposited the flakes in a tissue from a box on the desk behind him and folded it up inside the pouch.

  He made one last circuit of the visitor center without seeing anything else unusual. He turned off the lights, locked the door behind him, and trekked back out to his Jeep. The windows were fogged, but it was warm inside. He pulled off his gray leather gloves and called his mother at the Foundation. After reassuring her that he was all right and filling her in on his arrest, he asked for a quick bit of research from her, then hung up and found Skottie Foster’s cell number in his recent calls log. He turned on the Jeep’s defroster and listened as the phone automatically dialed.

  2

  Maddy was in the kitchen. Skottie could hear her in there, banging cupboard doors, opening and closing drawers. Bear padded through the living room, past Skottie, and on into the kitchen as if he belonged there. Her phone rang and she glanced at it, saw it was Travis Roan. She was mildly surprised that Goodman hadn’t held him longer and was curious to hear details, but decided to call him back later. She started to follow Bear, but Emmaline caught her arm.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine, Mama.”

  “You’re gonna let Maddy go with him?”

  “He’s her father.”

  “You should take his keys. Make him leave something here so you’ll know he’s not gonna leave. Disappear with Maddy, you never see him again.”

  “Mom, please.”

  “I don’t trust him. I told that man he could not come in my house.” Emmaline’s voice cracked and rose as she grew angry all over again at the memory. Skottie saw that her mother’s fine dark hair had all been replaced by silver wire. There were deep grooves beside her mouth, and crooked little lines circled her eyes. Skottie wondered when all these changes had occurred. How had they crept in so quietly?

  “I told him,” Emmaline said, “and he went and sat on my porch anyway. That porch is part of my house. Told him I was gonna call the police, he didn’t move.”

  “Brandon is the police, Mom. That’s not gonna worry him.”

  Emmaline blinked at her.

  “And, Jesus, you don’t have to call anybody anyway. I’m the police.”

  “Who I would’ve called is policemen.” Emmaline emphasized the last part of the word, making it clear that her daughter could not possibly be an effective officer. It was an old insult, but it still stung.

  But Skottie shrugged. “Too late now, I guess.” She meant that Brandon had gone, that there was no longer a reason to call for help. And she meant that she was already a police officer. She had taken that decision out of her mother’s hands long ago.

  “Well,” Emmaline said, “I don’t want that man here again. You see him, you tell him that. He comes back here, I’m gonna dial the operator then and there.”

  “You shouldn’t call the operator anymore, Mom. Call 911 if you need help.”

  “I know that—”

  “And don’t worry. I’ll deal with Brandon myself from now on.”

  She walked away, proud of herself for not taking the bait, not rehashing the ancient argument about what she did for a living. But she was angry, too. She and Maddy had needed a place to stay, and she had been grateful to Emmaline for taking them in. But it meant she couldn’t be herself, couldn’t risk offending her mother, and she wasn’t sure whether she had refrained from fighting because she was taking the high ground or because she was afraid Emmaline might kick them out.

  She felt like she was losing on every front.

  In the kitchen, Maddy was standing on the counter, straddling the sink. She had moved the drainer with last night’s dishes to the small Formica-topped table in the corner and had dragged over a chair to help her climb. She was holding the handle of an open cupboard door for balance. Bear sat in the middle of the floor watching her, and when Skottie entered the room, the big dog stood and turned his sad brown eyes to her. He looked worried.

  “Get down from there,” Skottie said. “This instant.”

  “I can’t find any bowls big enough. I don’t know where anything is here.”

  “I said get down.”

  “Bear’s thirsty, Mom.” She looked like she wanted to stamp her foot. “At home we have that big silver bowl, but there’s nothing here.”

  Skottie brushed past the dog and lifted her daughter off the counter and set her on the floor with a thud that shook the cabinet door shut. She hadn’t meant to be rough, but Maddy was getting heavier. Everybody around me is changing, she thought, and I haven’t been paying attention. Maddy spun around and surprised Skottie by wrapping her arms around her and burying her face in Skottie’s stomach, cutting off the lecture Skottie had ready about the dangers of climbing on the kitchen counter. Skottie hesitated for a moment, then hugged her daughter back. Maddy’s shoe had left a smudge on the chrome faucet, but she decided not to mention it. She would clean it later, hopefully before Emmaline noticed.

  She waited until Maddy let go, then knelt in front of her and took her daughter by the shoulders.

  “What did you and your dad talk about? Before I got here?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t want you to—”

  “Bear’s so thirsty.”

  Skottie took a breath. “Look at me. I want you to have fun this weekend, okay? But this is our home right now. You know that, right? Me and you.”

  Maddy rolled her eyes. “I guess so.”

  Skottie realized she had squandered her two days off. She might have taken Maddy to a park, or taken her shopping for new jeans at the outlet mall. Instead, she had put a couple hundred miles on the Subaru and gotten herself in trouble with Lieutenant Johnson. And she had given Brandon an opportunity to manipulate their daughter. “Okay, let’s get Bear some water.”

  Maddy looked back at the counter. “You didn’t need to be worried. If I did fall, he would cushion me. Bear’s a big fluffy pillow.”

  Skottie glanced at the dog and he closed his eyes, then opened them slowly as if mildly insulted. Skottie reached out and scratched him behind his ear. He wagged his tail and came closer, and Maddy sank her fingers into his mane.

  “Can we take him for a walk?”

  “Sure, we can do that. I need to make a quick phone call.”

  “We need to get food for him,” Maddy said.

  “We’ll go down to the Dollar General. Except, looking at this big boy, he probably eats steak all the time. Maybe we better go to the IGA.”

  “Can I bring my phone?”

  “No. You can play that game on your own time. I need you to pay attention and help me with Bear. I’ll make my call while we’re on our walk, okay?”

  “Where does Grandma keep the big bowls?”

  “Let’s find out. But this time, I’ll look high and you look low. And put that chair back where it belongs. We don’t want your grandma to yell at us.”

  Maddy hopped to it and Skottie opened a cupboard over the stove, grateful, for the moment, that they had a project.

  3

  Travis’s phone vibrated on the console between the seats and he pulled over to the side of the road before picking it up. The sun had suddenly come out again and the snow was already melting, turning into sludge that spewed up from beneath the Jeep’s tires. He checked the caller ID and smiled.

  “Skottie Foster, thank you for returning my call.”

  “I take it you’re out of jail, Dr. Roan?” She sounded a li
ttle out of breath, and Travis could hear ambient traffic noise near her.

  “I am free now, thank you. And the sun has decided to grace us with its presence. Surely a good sign. Where are you?”

  “About a block from my house. It’s still overcast down here. Tell me, what does Bear eat?”

  Travis leaned back against the seat and smiled up at the mottled sky beyond the Jeep’s roof. “I was quite worried, but I trusted that you would find Bear and take care of him. He will eat whatever you are eating. He likes people food.”

  “So we shouldn’t get him dog food?”

  “Oh, my lord, no. Would you eat dog food?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’m not a dog.”

  “No, you are most definitely not.”

  “What?”

  “You are not a dog.”

  There was a long pause, and he wasn’t sure what to say to fill the silence. He reflected on his statement and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. He sat still and waited.

  “I wasn’t getting dog food anyway,” she said at last. “I thought maybe he’d eat a steak.”

  “Oh, yes. He likes steak very much.”

  “That’s what you ordered for him the other night. At the Roundup.” He heard her breathing hard and he waited. Finally she spoke again. “He was hiding that whole time out at the lake. There were tons of people tramping all over there and nobody found him. But he came right out when I called him.”

  “Yes, he is a good boy. Trusting when there is reason to trust.”

  “Esperanto, right? I mean, the language you use with him. That did the trick.”

  Travis heard another voice, high and excited. “I’m the one . . .” The voice trailed off and there was a rustling sound, followed by a muffled exchange. Then Skottie came back.

  “My daughter did some research online and figured out a little more about that language. We’re trying it out on Bear. He knows a lot of words. Sidiĝu.”

  It was Travis’s turn to be quiet. He closed his eyes and thought.

  “Dr. Roan?”

  Travis opened his eyes and smiled again. “Please, I asked you to call me Travis.”

  “Is something wrong, Travis?”

  “No. But that is my private language with Bear.”

  “Why Esperanto?”

  “My father taught me. It was my first language.”

  “Like German shorthand.”

  “No. Nothing like Ruth Elder and her daughter. My father was not encouraging some special bond with me; he was simply testing my ability to learn and adapt. My brother, Judah, was to follow in his footsteps while my . . . while I provided research, linguistics, and weapons. I hope you will not misunderstand. I am extremely grateful to you for rescuing Bear. I only—”

  “No, no, I do understand, but we had to—”

  “Yes, of course. Please, I should not have said anything. Skottie, I have a question that might be perceived as odd.”

  “Ha! Sorry, I mean what is it?”

  “Would you tell me, what color of fingernail polish do you use?”

  “Fingernail polish? I don’t wear colors. I use a clear coat.”

  “Really?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “No, but that is a nice bit of synchronicity. I use a clear polish on my own nails. It strengthens them.”

  “Um, yeah, it does. Why are you asking me about fingernails?”

  “I promise to explain when I see you next.”

  “When will that be? We’re on our way to the grocery store right now. For the steak. I think maybe we’ll all have steak tonight.”

  Travis heard a happy squeal in the background.

  “That’s Maddy again,” Skottie said. “My daughter.”

  “Please tell her hello for me. And thank her for figuring out how to talk to Bear.” He looked around him at the bare trees and the mottled fields, brown stalks jutting pointlessly up through the thin layer of snow, waiting to be plowed under in the spring. “I am not entirely sure where I am, but I believe I can be in Hays within the next two or three hours.”

  “Hays isn’t that far from you. Shouldn’t take that long.”

  “I am running out of time to complete my mission here, so I decided to prioritize and make good use of the daylight I have left. I was on my way to the church.”

  “What church? And why are you running out of time?” She sounded more engaged than she had been. She had a police officer’s curiosity about people’s movements and motives. He realized she might still be suspicious of him.

  “The Foundation is going to send someone else soon. I have not made the progress that was expected of me. But I asked them to run a background check on our mutual friend the sheriff.”

  “Goodman?”

  “Of course. I believe Mr. Goodman became sheriff because his father arranged it.”

  “Who’s his father?”

  “A man named Rudy Goodman. In the 1970s, he founded something called the Purity First Church.”

  “Oh, crap,” Skottie said. The background sounds had changed. There was a hollow echoing quality to her voice, and Travis guessed that she was now inside a building.

  “Where is Bear? Is he still with you?”

  “Yeah. I mean, sort of.”

  “You have arrived at the grocery store?”

  “Yup. Gotta hurry. Maddy’s waiting outside with the dog.”

  “Bear would never let any harm come to her.”

  “Which is why I left her out there,” Skottie said. “But I still need to hurry.”

  “Very well. A minute ago you cursed. Why?”

  “That church you mentioned is weird and famous.”

  “Famous?”

  “At least locally. They travel around with some kind of recruitment drive inside a tent that they put up in parking lots. At the mall, at Walmart, sometimes out by the movie theater. They go all over the place. Did you see those signs coming in? On the highway? ‘Repent unless you’re a bad seed.’ Stuff like that.”

  “‘Unless ye be of impure stock.’”

  “Right.”

  “One sign said ‘Their breed fears the storm.’ Another said ‘Lesser men are but cattle.’ That one included a citation that does not match anything I remember from the Bible.”

  Skottie didn’t say anything, and Travis thought the call might have been dropped.

  “Skottie? Are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “So those people put the signs up? The Purity First people?”

  “They like to sit down in front of temples and synagogues, movies and concerts, too. Keep people from going in and out so they have to listen to their spiel. They show up anywhere there’s something they don’t like, and they don’t like much of anything. Or anyone.”

  “It seems quite clear whom they dislike.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And our sheriff is one of them.”

  “That explains a thing or two.”

  “And creates another mystery or two.”

  “It fits the Nazi profile, doesn’t it? Let me know what you find out. I plan to check on the body you found. Maybe forensics can tell us something useful.”

  “Good. Skottie, is Bear doing well? Is he happy?”

  “He seems okay. Can he eat cookies? I’m getting cookies.”

  “Are they oatmeal?”

  “Oreos.”

  “Ah, he likes Oreos even more than oatmeal, but chocolate will make him sick.”

  “They’re the vanilla kind.”

  “Not as tasty, I think, but much better for him.” Travis thought about his dog sitting outside a grocery store in western Kansas, like some pet. At least he wasn’t chained to a signpost, and he had Skottie’s daughter for company. Travis shook his head, though he knew Skottie couldn’t
see him. Bear was not used to being treated like a dog.

  “I could come get him now if you like,” Travis said. “I can wait and visit the church tomorrow.” He hoped she would ask him to come right away, even though the roundtrip would take the rest of his afternoon. He missed his canine friend more than he missed his books and the silk sheets on his own bed.

  “Hang on a second.” She apparently covered the phone with her hand, but he could hear her talking to someone. A moment later, the quality of the sound changed again. He heard wind and cars and he guessed she had rejoined her daughter in the parking lot.

  The phone hissed and Skottie was back on the line. “We can keep him a little longer.”

  Travis heard another squeal of delight in the background and assumed Skottie’s daughter was campaigning to keep Bear in their home.

  “He’s pretty low-maintenance for a dog,” Skottie said. “But I really don’t want Maddy to get too attached. So if you can still pick him up tonight . . .”

  “That should pose no problem for me.”

  “It’s probably better if you get to the church today anyway. I’m guessing they’d be closed tomorrow for the holiday.”

  “You think a church would be closed on a holiday?”

  “That church might.”

  “I see. All right. Expect me before eight o’clock.”

  Skottie gave him her address and he memorized it. “I’ll leave a light on for you,” she said.

  “Skottie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you for taking care of him.”

  “My pleasure. Maddy’s really taken to him.”

  “Of course. He is extremely personable.”

  Travis ended the call and set the phone down with a sigh. People were messy and complicated, with needs and motivations Travis sometimes found confusing. Bear was easy to understand, easy to rely on. Still, he had confidence in Skottie, and his separation from Bear served a dual purpose. He needed an ally in Kansas, and looking after his dog would bind Skottie to him in subtle ways. It was a big step forward on the road toward mutual trust.