Tangled Thing Called Love (24 page)

Phwwett!
The spud-missile rocketed out at supersonic speed.

Someone yelled in pain. “Goddammit—knock it off!”

Ben’s voice! They struggled through the brush and found him, clutching a tree to hold himself upright. Sam flicked on the flashlight. It was Ben Labeck all right, and he looked deranged.

“Turn that thing off,” he growled.

Sam switched off the flashlight. You didn’t argue with a man who sounded that pissed-off.

Mazie took the flashlight from Sam, playing it over Ben’s body but shielding the light cone so it wouldn’t spear his eyes. He looked awful—his hair was matted with blood and there was a horrible lump on the left side of his head.

“Did
we
do that?” Sam asked, his voice very small.

“Your potato? No, it glanced off my elbow.” Ben’s voice was thick, slurred.

“What happened?” Mazie asked.

“Not sure,” Ben mumbled. “I was down by the creek, setting up some shots—that’s all I remember. I think someone sneaked up and hit me on the head. I woke up a couple of minutes ago, heard you guys, and walked toward your voices.”

“You were unconscious?” Mazie’s heart started beating triple time. Loss of consciousness was serious. Ben needed an ambulance and emergency care, and he needed
it
now
.

“I bet it was the werewolf,” Sam said excitedly. “I bet he hid behind a bush and clunked you with a rock.”

“What werewolf?” Ben asked.

“Never mind about that now,” Mazie said, nervously eying the woods, which had become totally dark. “We need to get you to a hospital. I’m calling an ambulance.”

“No hospital! No ambulance!” Ben insisted. “I’m fine. It’s just a bump.”

“Okay,” Mazie soothed, wrapping an arm around him, supporting him from his left side, and lying through her teeth. “Whatever you say, Ben. We’re just going to walk back to the truck. Joey, get on his other side.”

“Ben said he was okay. I want to go after the werewolf.”

“What werewolf?” Labeck asked again.

“You are not going after him!” Mazie yelled, grabbing Joey by the tail of his shirt.

“But—”

“If you ever want this mask back, then you need to help.”

This worked like magic. Joey got on Ben’s other side and aimed the flashlight ahead while Sam trailed behind carrying the gun and the bag of potatoes.

“Would somebody please tell me what happened?” Ben said.

Talking over each other, interrupting a lot—and giving Ben a headache if he didn’t already have one—the boys told the story.

“We were in the truck because Aunt Mazie made us stay in it while she went to look for you,” Sam began. “All of a sudden this guy comes sneaking out of the bushes. He was wearing this werewolf Halloween mask, but it was totally realistic—”

“This thing.” Mazie held up the mask for Ben to see.

“Yeah, and you were scared.” Joey sneered at Sam.

“I was not!
You
practically peed your pants.”

“Guys!”
That was Mazie.

“And he had a knife in his hands,” Joey said, “so we slinked way down in the seat. He looked in the window but we were real quiet and he didn’t see us. Then he tried the door, but we had it locked.”

“And then he started stabbing the tires,” Sam said.

Mazie groaned. She’d been too terrified to notice the tires.

“I think he was going to cut the tires on Ben’s car, too, but—”

“But then he looked up like he heard something—it must have been Aunt Mazie,” Sam interrupted. “He ran back into the woods. That’s when we sneaked out of the truck and got our potato gun out of the back. We hid in the brush and tried to decide if we ought to go rescue Aunt Mazie.”

“But then she came running out of the woods and the werewolf was chasing her. She tried to crawl under the truck, but he dragged her out—”

Ben made an inarticulate, growling noise.

“Then they both jumped up in the back of the truck and starting fighting,” Sam said. “So we shot the werewolf.”

“We shot him twice!” Joey bragged. “You should have seen it, Ben—it must have been a forty-footer! And the second shot made him catch on fire!”

“How could he catch on fire?” Labeck asked.

“Portable meth lab,” Mazie explained. “He had containers in his pockets. I think the boys’ shot made the bottles explode.”

“This guy was doing a shake ’n’ bake?” asked Ben, who appeared to be familiar with the technology.

“Shake and bake!” the twins repeated, starting to giggle.

Mazie briefly explained to the boys how it worked, keeping the details to a minimum because, although the twins were probably too young to mess with drugs, God alone knew what they could do with Mentos and a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke.

They emerged into the turnaround. Joey played the flashlight over the pickup and they examined the damage. Three of the pickup’s tires had been slashed and the truck was sagging on its rims, undrivable. Now that Mazie thought about it, it didn’t make sense to call an ambulance. The emergency personnel might wander around the swamp for hours and never find Skifstead Road. Staying here felt dangerous. The creep might return, bent on revenge, maybe with an automatic weapon this time.

Mazie set the boys to work in the truck bed searching for her keys, then turned to Ben. “We’ll take your car,” she said. “I’ll drive.”

Ben dug his keys out of his pocket and reluctantly dropped them into Mazie’s palm.
It was clearly killing him to admit he might not be up to driving.

Joey gave a cry of triumph and emerged from the truck bed with the Ford’s keys. Mazie had him open the truck cab and retrieve her purse, then they all piled into the Jetta. It was a tight squeeze for the boys because of all the photography equipment in the back, but their bodies were flexible as cats and they managed it.

Before they took off, Mazie locked the mask in the trunk, because the last thing she wanted was to look in her rearview mirror and suddenly see a werewolf rising out of the backseat.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Dr. Ringwalla had dark eyes and hair so black it had a crow’s-wing sheen. An exotic in the blandness of Coulee County, she spoke flawless English with a musical lilt.

“No concussion, I think,” she said, “but we shall know when the X rays are back.”

“I don’t have a concussion,” Ben said. “I’ve had concussions and this isn’t one.”

The doctor’s eyebrows rose. “Nevertheless, we will wait for the X rays. When unconsciousness occurs for any length of time it must be taken seriously, Mr. Labeck. A blow to the skull such as you suffered can cause swelling in the brain. It’s wise that you immediately sought medical attention.”

Mazie shot Ben a told-ya-so look. He was lying on a cot in the Platteville Community Hospital Emergency Room, being fussed over by a pretty young nurse who was taking his blood pressure and a pretty intern monitoring a machine hooked up to his heart. He seemed to be enjoying it.

The doctor’s pager beeped and she answered her cell phone, listened a moment, then said, “I shall permit you to talk with Mr. Labeck in a very few minutes.”

She hung up. “That was an official from the county sheriff’s department. Do you feel up to speaking with them, Mr. Labeck?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Mazie had made the 9-1-1 call while en route to the hospital, reporting the attack to the dispatcher. The response had been fast; they’d seen two county cop cars flying past, heading toward the coulee, before they’d even turned onto the main highway. She’d phoned the emergency room at the Platteville Hospital too, to report Ben’s injury and to let them know she was bringing him in. Dr. Ringwalla had been ready when they’d walked in. Sam and Joey had disappeared the instant Mazie let them out of her sight—she had no idea where, but hoped the hospital’s oxygen tanks were securely locked up.

A technician came in and handed Dr. Ringwalla a sheaf of X rays. She studied them carefully, then finally said, “There appears to be no fracture; however, X rays do not always reveal the full extent of damage. I would like for you to be monitored for the next
forty-eight hours, Mr. Labeck, and to be very gentle with your head.”

“Gentle?” Ben repeated, smiling.

The doctor smiled back. “Keep quiet, rest, avoid strenuous activity.”

“So I’m discharged?” Sounding hopeful, Ben swung his legs off the side of the cot, scratching his arms.

“You shall be shortly. The discharge papers are being printed.”

“Good. Thank you.” Ben scratched his neck.

“I am concerned about this rash.” Frowning, Dr. Ringwalla bent to study Ben’s neck. “How long have you had it?”

“I don’t know.” It was the first time tonight Ben had exhibited signs of disorientation. The rash clustered in galaxies of microscopic, slightly raised, rose-colored blotches.

“Rash sometimes indicates fever,” the doctor said. “Perhaps we should take your temperature again.”

“That’s a nettles rash,” Mazie said.

Everyone in the room turned to stare at her. She knew she wasn’t an impressive sight. Her hair was a wreck, her arms were thorn-scratched, and her dress was unspeakable. “Stinging nettles,” explained Mazie, who’d had several unpleasant encounters with the plant as a child.

“Is that some kind of bug?” asked Bonaparte Labeck, clueless city slicker. “This isn’t the kind of sting where people have to pee on you, is it?”

Mazie laughed. “No, Nature Boy—nettles are a plant. You probably landed in a nettle patch when you fell.”

“Ahh,” Dr. Ringwalla said. “Nettles, of course—small, spiked leaves whose sap contains histamines and formic acid. Perhaps I should administer an antihistamine shot.”

Ben squirmed. He hated needles.

“Baking soda paste works really well,” Mazie said quickly. “I can make one when we get home.”

Ben shot her a grateful look.

“Very well,” the doctor said. She regarded Mazie. “I take it you are husband and wife?”

“No. We’re just—” Mazie felt as though she had a stinging rash of her own that was spreading from head to toes. What
were
she and Ben—friends with benefits? If so, the benefits were mighty thin on the ground.

“Sweethearts.” Ben reached out and took her hand. “Mazie and I are sweethearts.”

Then he spoiled the romantic effect by vigorously scratching his elbow.

“Sweethearts. I like that.” The doctor got a little starry-eyed for a moment, before turning back into a crisp professional. “Are your tetanus shots up-to-date, Mr. Labeck?”

Ben swallowed. “Sure. I had one just last week. Two, as a matter of fact.”

Boy, did this guy have a lot to learn about fibbing, Mazie thought.

Before the doctor could pursue the matter there was a rap on the privacy screen, then a man and a woman in uniform—Coulee County sheriff’s deputies—entered the cubicle and asked permission to speak with Ben and Mazie. The doctor said it would be all right as long as they didn’t tire out Mr. Labeck.

They spent the next hour going over what had happened in the swamp, explaining about the Fawn Fanchon documentary, describing how Ben had been knocked unconscious and how Mazie had been chased through the woods by a man in a werewolf mask who’d burst into flames when hit by a supersonic potato.

“Shake ’n’ bake, huh?” said the woman, whose name was Dee Hartmann. She was an attractive redhead in her mid-thirties who didn’t seem to mind a bit that Ben was shirtless. “Seeing a lot of that around here lately.”

“You didn’t get a look at the guy’s face, the one who attacked you?” asked the other deputy, a beefy man with a freckly face named Rogers. He was taking notes on an electronic tablet with fingers so big and clumsy it was remarkable he could tap the keys.

“He kept his mask on the whole time,” Mazie explained. “But I think I know who it was.”

They all looked at her, surprised.

“I think it was Derek Ralston.”

The deputies looked at each other, trying to disguise grins. “We’ve had, uhh … dealings with the guy,” Dee Hartmann said. “But why do you think it was him?”

“The smell. Sort of like cat pee, only more chemical. I think it was meth. I happened to run into the guy a couple of days ago. He had meth sores on his arms.”

She described her experiences with Derek Ralston as the deputies carefully listened, occasionally taking notes. Suddenly the deputies’ shortwave radio crackled to life. Mazie couldn’t decipher the static-ridden codes, but it apparently made sense to the deputies, who became very alert, then stowed away their gear, said they would get back to Ben and Mazie again soon, and hurriedly left.

Mazie looked at Ben. “Did you get any of that?”

He nodded. “You listen in on enough police transmissions, you pick up the lingo. The Quail Hollow cops just found a body in a van.”

“A body! Whose? Where did they find the van?”

“I’m not sure I heard right, but something about a grain elevator.”

“There might be a connection with Ralston,” Mazie said excitedly. “Derek Ralston has a van. I wonder if—”

“Mazie, where are the kids?” Ben asked.

The boys! She’d completely forgotten about them. Mazie’s stomach plunged sickeningly. World’s worst babysitter. She should never have let them out of her sight; by now they could be into anything. “I better go find them,” she said.

“I’ll go with you,” Ben offered. “You may need reinforcements.”

“Are you kidding? Dr. Ringwalla would have my head if I let you walk around before she discharges you. You rest. I’ll be right back. I hope.”

She hurried through the halls, calling the boys’ names in a loud, urgent whisper. Not in the lobby. Nowhere in the emergency room area, or in the entryway, or waiting in Ben’s car. She switched her focus to the hospital. Everything was closed down for the night, but that wouldn’t deter the twins, who might have mastered shape-shifting and flown into rooms through keyholes. Or they might have pried open the car’s trunk, filched the werewolf mask, and run around scaring unsuspecting hospital staff.

Mazie went up to the third floor and peeked into Emily’s room, in case the boys had decided to go to see their mother, but Emily’s room was dark and both she and the baby were sleeping. After checking every floor, Mazie finally went to the information desk on the first floor, where she asked the tired-looking woman on duty to make a public-address call for Sam and Joey Maguire.