Page 109 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
The younger guard shifts uneasily, casting a quick look our way that says he understands how we know … and it’s kind of embarrassing that his boss missed the obvious.
“If he was wearing the skin, it would have been much more difficult to stab him,” I say. “The pattern would have been different, and there’d have been hair in the wounds. The blade would have passed through the skin first and carried trace into the wounds.”
“You’re saying Sandy knew his killer, which implies…?” Rogers says, though he must know full well what it implies.
I ignore that and say, “The boy that Sandy kidnapped used the opportunity to escape. Yet someone came after him. He presumed it was Sandy, not knowing he was dead. He lost his pursuer for a while, but he was grabbed the next night. Grabbed and strangled. He managed to escape by stabbing his attacker in the thigh.” I meet Rogers’s eyes. “Is anyone in your camp suffering from a wound like that?”
“The young man you helped,” he says. “But as you know, it was a newly inflicted wound.”
“Also it was in the back of his leg. This was in the front.”
“You think someone from my camp killed Sandy? And then tried to kill your boy? Why not someone from your town?”
“Because no one from our town has been gone long enough to have done it. We are on a strict lockdown with round-the-clock patrols. Whoever tried to kill our boy said something to him as he was strangling him. ‘Sorry, kid. I hate to do this, but you’re too big a risk to—’ He didn’t hear the rest.”
“Risk?” Rogers frowns. “What would the boy know?”
“Presumably they thought he knew they killed Sandy.”
There’s a long silence. I think Rogers is preparing his argument. My theory isn’t bulletproof, and I’ve fudged facts to get where I need to be. After a moment, he yanks out a satellite phone and makes a call.
When someone answers, Rogers says, “Have you treated any leg wounds in the past two days?”
Silence from the other end, as whoever he called—doctor? medic?—must be trying to figure out where this question came from. When he answers, I can’t make out more than the murmur of a male voice.
Rogers hangs up without even a goodbye and says to us, “The only leg injury was to the young man you met yesterday.”
I think he’s going to say that proves the man Max stabbed isn’t from his camp, but he turns to the two guards. “Drop your trousers.”
The older one stares at him as the younger one says, “Uh…”
“Just because someone was stabbed does not mean he sought medical attention. This is the easiest way to prove that. Drop your trousers.”
Both men’s jaws set, but before I can say I’ll step aside, they do it. Neither has a stab wound on his thigh. Rogers then takes Dalton into the bushes and does the same, and the two guards don’t fail to notice he took advantage of an alternative he didn’t offer them.
When Rogers returns, he says to the younger guard, “Go to camp. Send two of your colleagues out. We’ll start with the security staff.”
Dalton glances at me. I roll my eyes slightly, conveying the pointlessness of this exercise, but I don’t say anything.
Rogers is putting on a show. It seems like a surefire way to find the culprit, but he’s in control here. He can summon whoever he likes and then claim he’s shown us everyone. I don’t think he’ll even get as far as the miners, given his reluctance to let us meet them. He’ll bring a few guards, pretend that’s all of them, and then promise to check the miners himself.
I don’t argue because I don’t see the point. He’s never letting us into his camp. My only hope is that he’ll check everyone, and when he finds the culprit, he will deal with them.
As much as I dislike Rogers, it would be the same if he said someone from our town kidnapped one of his miners and got stabbed in the leg. We wouldn’t let him into Haven’s Rock. We’d find who had that wound and deal with it, and as for Rogers … Well, we’d feel terrible if one of our residents hurt one of his, but if he thought we were turning that person over to him, he could go fuck himself. Same principle here.
I see no reason why Rogers wouldn’t deal with it. He won’t let Sandy’s murderer stick around to kill someone else.
They bring out two more guards, and I step aside and play with Storm while they’re checked. Once I hear them leaving, though, I’m back in a flash to question them first. Rogers doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t interfere either.
One of these two had been in charge of Sandy’s work detail the day Sandy apparently saw the bear-man. He confirms that he didn’t see anything himself, nor did anyone else. That was why Sandy was being mocked. No one could verify his story.
The two guards are sent away, and we are back to uncomfortable waiting.
“Do we…?” The remaining guard clears his throat. “Not to tell anyone how to do their job, but do we know that whoever killed Sandy is the same person who chased the boy and tried to strangle him?”
“We do not,” I say. “That’s the working theory because it makes sense. But if we find evidence to suggest we’re dealing with separate actors, we’ll pivot. The problem with that…”
“Is that it means we’re looking for two killers,” Dalton says. “One successful and one not. Add Sandy to the mix, and we’d have a pedophile and two murderers out here.”
