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Since the doctors could find no physical reason to keep Senna, they let her go home. Her doctor had visited with her for quite a long time the night before, but she had no memory, other than listening to the Pastor and then waking up there in the hospital.
Blake had come to take her home. He was quite relieved, but still concerned since they still had no idea what had happened.
On the ride home, Blake nervously fiddled with the radio flitting from one station and song to another. He wasn’t sure what to talk about. His natural urge was to shelter her and protect her and he didn’t want to open a discussion that might upset her. Each word he thought to say was filtered through a veil of concern about how it would affect her.
Senna seemed quite fine. She was quiet, but seemed eager to get back home and then back to work at the library. It was as if a slice of her life had just been removed and she was right where she had left off on Sunday.
“Senna...” He started to ask yet another question, but stopped. What more could he ask that had not already been asked?
“Yes,” she replied.
“Nothing. I’m just so confused and concerned about what has happened. Not knowing what caused it has made me concerned that it will happen again.”
The entire thing made Blake curious and he had no basis on which to even develop a theory. He finally decided that there was nothing he could do, but just love her and be there for her. But he had made a mental note to watch a little closer to see if there were signs he had missed before. Signs of something else going on that had just been simply missed.
Senna stepped out to the back porch, closed her eyes and breathed deep. The scent of her neighbor’s fresh cut grass was invigorating, and she took her time to soak it in.
“I love spring,” Senna said.
“I do, too,” replied Blake.
Was it just him or did she sound different? One would have always described Senna as sweet, maybe almost too sweet. He had surmised that her timidity had caused her to repress adverse emotions, so no one ever saw anything but her sweet nature.
“You can go now,” Senna said point blank at Blake.
Her tone was different from just a few seconds earlier. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” There was certainty in her tone and, was he wrong, or was there an edge to it that he had never heard from Senna before?
“I just want some time home alone. I don’t have to go back to work until tomorrow so I just want some time alone to rest.” She held his gaze. Her eyes did not waver. There was something very strong there that had not been there before.
Blake was hesitant to leave her alone, but finally with insistent reassurance from Senna that she was fine, he left.
As soon as the door closed, Senna felt a huge relief. She didn’t know why, but she had to back away from this relationship with Blake. It was just a feeling, not something she could tangibly put her finger on. There had just been a sudden resistance to being with him.
That would also eliminate the issue of having to go back to church with him. Yes, at the moment it had felt wonderful and soothing, but now it was a faint memory. It had to all be a mastery of manipulation, she thought to herself. She returned to her old resolve to set religion aside.
Andrea was another thing. Senna knew Andrea would not push her to go back to church. She felt no risk in continuing to be friends with Andrea and was glad. But there was an unsettled feeling where Andrea was concerned as well.
Was she just too happy? Yes, who was really just that happy? It suddenly left a sour taste in Senna’s mouth.
She pondered recent events and kept going back to her last memory. Why had she blacked out and lost an entire day? Her doctor had said she had no physical signs of anything abnormal in her body.
So, was he saying it was a mental issue? The thought angered Senna. As she lay on her sofa, the quiet of the room left her to meditate on that thought. Soon she was grinding her teeth and feeling betrayed and judged.
Did Andrea and Blake also feel she was a mental case? After all it was Andrea who had given her the info for the psychiatrist. She began weaving threads together to build a case against herself that didn’t exist, and she became angrier.
Resolutely, she decided she didn’t need any of them. Maybe they were all truly like her father and were only concerned about changing her into what they wanted her to be. She had some decisions to make, some changes to make.
Pacing the floor, she wrestled with a whirlwind of emotions ranging from near violent anger to tearful sorrow.
Stopping her pacing as a new thought struck her; she could move from Kachina and get another job. Then she wouldn’t have to see Andrea and there would be no chance of running into Blake. Maybe that was it, a totally new start somewhere else where no one knew her. A devious smile crossed her face. Yes, that would fix it all.
Her thoughts lost steam eventually and, as she lay there, sadness gently pushed the anger aside. She felt broken, betrayed, and alone. Finally, consciousness faded and pulled Senna into a deep sleep where there were no thoughts of anything, only blackness.
~~~
“I’m going crazy in this hospital,” Carrie said to Randy on the phone. “What’s going on with the case?”
“I’m not sure that talking about the case will help you rest and recover,” said Randy.
“Grrrr,” Carrie growled. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
Randy laughed. Carrie was well on her way back. “The tarp sales were like a needle in a haystack. You can get them anywhere off of Amazon or in any home improvement store. If we find a tarp, then forensics can probably match it to the fleck they have.
“The ATV was a different story. Sales nationwide on that specific model was considerably smaller. I have been working my way through the list.”
“Any suspects jump out at you?” Carrie’s investigative senses were growing excited.
Randy took a deep breath. Should he shut her down now and insist that she rest, or did he dare let her in at this point? Having worked with her as long as he had, he knew nothing would stop her from bugging him until he did.
“Okay, but here’s the deal, if I talk to you about all of this, you have to promise me you will not try to get out of the hospital or go against the doctors’ requests at all, in any way.” Randy was very stern.
Giddy with glee, Carrie agreed. She had a huge smile spread across her face. She knew Randy wouldn’t resist her.
For the next hour, they discussed the leads he had been slogging through. It was true that so much of investigative work was laborious and detailed. Most of the time they were hip deep in a haystack looking for that needle.
When the nurse came in to change Carrie’s dressings and give her a sponge bath, they had to hang up. Randy promised he would keep her apprised of anything new in the case.
Carrie wouldn’t relinquish the phone completely until the nurse gently removed it from her hand, told Randy goodbye and laid it on the nightstand.
“I feel much better, you know,” Carrie told the nurse.
The nurse cocked her eyebrow up at Carrie, quite amused. She knew where this was going. “I bet you do. You are still on a strong morphine drip. But the doctor has given orders to cut that way, way back today. You’ll need a little time to readjust.”
Carrie frowned. She had to show them she was getting better. She decided that she would walk the hall every few hours to build her strength back up. When they saw how mobile she was, they would know how well she was doing and would release her.
As soon as the nurse left from her ministrations, Carrie slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed. A pain lurched through her mid-section stopping her cold. Determined still, as soon as the pain had subsided, she continued moving to get down off the bed and into a standing position. As soon as she did, she realized her IV pole was on the other side of the bed.
She shut her eyes and shook her head at her stupidity. Holding her arm out over the bed, she carefully walked around the end of the bed to the other side. She grabbed the iv pole and removed the clip from her finger which relayed her pulse to the monitor. Immediately an alarm began beeping.
Ignoring the beeping, she proceeded toward the door. When she met the nurse heading in to turn it off, she watched to see what buttons she pushed. It may be necessary information for future use. The nurse was expressing encouragement about walking as Carrie was leaving the room.
By the end of the day she had walked up and down the hallway three separate times. She felt exhausted, but knew it was going to help her in the long run. While she walked, she had thought.
When she passed the room where she’d seen the lady, she noticed that she was gone. The thought that she knew her but couldn’t remember where from, really bugged Carrie. She could never just blow something off like that. Her mind would gnaw on it until it revealed itself to her.
As she walked, she did a mental inventory of all the places she frequented and then thought of the people, she encountered there. It was frustrating because she could be a clerk at a convenience store or a fast food worker. But she didn’t think that was quite right. Those thoughts just didn’t seem to fit.
No matter what, she just could not remember where she’d seen that lady. By the end of the day, she was exhausted from the walking and the reduction in pain meds failed to mask the pain of her injuries. Once again, that hard bed had never felt so good and she committed herself to it for the remainder of the evening.
~~~
Randy missed Carrie even though lately they had been at odds with each other. She was a good partner, and he valued her intuition and insight. Sometimes he wanted to scream when slogging through massive amounts of data, but it was vital and necessary. She was always encouraging, and she seemed to make it go smoother.
He’d been able to eliminate, or temporarily set aside, all the out-of-state ATV owners. Yes, they could have moved here or some other such thing, but he felt it best to focus on local owners first.
Ironically, the Big Horn Ranch had one just like that. He sat and stared at the name on the list thinking. Was it a coincidence? They’d honestly abandoned that line of thinking when the new, actually older, bodies had turned up.
The dumping ground of those bodies was several miles from the Big Horn. He couldn’t quite buy into that connection, but he wrote it down on his list to investigate further.
Once through the list of local owners, he had five he felt he needed to visit and interview. He called Mike and Rick and they agreed to split the list. The owners were all over the place and it would certainly be more efficient to work together.
He kept the Big Horn on his list since he was familiar with it. The route to the ranch naturally took him past the hospital where Carrie was recovering. He decided that he would stop on his way back. He could fill her in on what he’d found. She would love that.
Arriving at the Big Horn, he noticed that things were just as he remembered. Today, though, there seemed to be much more activity. He drove back to the main barn where he knew Pinky’s office to be.
He walked into the barn and on through to where Pinky’s office was located. There was no answer when he knocked. The huge double barn doors on that end of the building were wide open and Randy stood looking out from them at the activity.
A ranch-hand walked by and Randy stopped him to ask where he might find Pinky. The hand pointed toward a large corral and continued on. Randy made his way to the corral.
It was made of welded panels joined together and it was huge. Inside were maybe a fifty cows, not fully grown, but not brand new either. Randy didn’t immediately see Pinky, but was engaged in what he was watching.
“What are you guys doing?” Randy asked one of the hands standing nearby.
The hand looked up at him and simply said, “Workin’ cattle.” He looked back down at the rope he was coiling up feeling his explanation had been sufficient.
Randy frowned and mulled over the phrase, ‘working cattle’. What on earth did that mean? Walking farther around to where the hub of the activity seemed to be, he saw a chute leading from the corral to another, smaller corral.
As he stood and watched, he saw a man single out a cow, no, a young bull Randy realized, and pushed it into the chute. The chute was an odd contraption about the length of a cow. It had steel bars on the sides and levers that moved the sides in to squeeze the cattle firmly and another lever which closed a door in the front around the animal’s neck.
In what seemed like lightning speed, one ranch-hand injected the bull with a hypodermic needle, another one clipped a tag on his ear, and another hand was... What was he doing, Randy couldn’t quite see.
Randy’s stomach flipped as the ranch-hand stood up after a swift movement with a strange-looking knife and came away with testicles. The chute was opened and another ranch-hand ushered the once-bull out to another, larger corral.
Randy stood slack-jawed watching this process. They were all working in tandem, quickly and efficiently. He noticed not all were bulls, and those only received vaccinations he assumed, and tags, if necessary.
“What cha want?” It was Pinky’s voice that broke Randy’s fascination with what he was witnessing. He turned around to find Pinky standing there, frowning.
“Oh, hi, Pinky,” said Randy. “This is fascinating.”
“Good to know. What cha want?” Pinky was not happy that his work had been interrupted. “This ain’t really a good time to talk.”
“Yes, I can see that. I really have only one question.” He pulled out a picture of the camouflaged colored ATV and showed it to Pinky. “Do you guys have one of these?”
“Did have. Got stolen.”
“Was a report filed?” asked Randy.
“Yep,” Pinky was trying to hurry this along so he could get back to work.
“We called Darren, filed a report. That’s all I know, now I gotta get back to work.” Pinky turned and walked off.
There wasn’t really much else he could ask Pinky. He would visit Darren to see when the ATV was reported stolen and see if there were any other details that might help him with their current case.
He walked back to his car, still visualizing the entire ‘working cattle’ process. Once back in his car, he shuddered, and was thankful he was not a ranch-hand or a bull.
~~~
“Yep, about a year ago, I think,” replied Darren to Randy’s inquiry about the ATV theft. “Let me pull that for you.”
Darren shuffled through a series of files and pulled one out. His chair squeaked loudly as his large frame sat down. He had opened the file and was thumbing through it as he sat.
“Seems like there were several things stolen. The ATV for sure, then some other small equipment.” Darren looked up and handed Randy the file open to the list of stolen items.
Randy read through the list of about twenty items. Most items he had no idea what they were. Another item caught his eye in addition to the ATV. “I see here that a castrating knife was stolen.” Randy looked up to see Darren’s reaction.
“Hmmm, I’d forgotten about that,” said Darren. Randy could tell he was thinking and remembering back to taking the report.
Randy shut the file and thought for a moment. Tell me about a castrating knife. He had just witnessed first-hand how sharp they must be in order to castrate a bull’s testicles in one swift movement.
Darren leaned forward placing his forearms on his desk. “Well, they are generally made from tempered high-carbon steel, incredibly hard and rust-proof. They’re very sharp and hold their edge. I think the ones the Big Horn uses are custom made from a knife making company. I was told the one that was stolen had a blunt tip and a trigger guard to protect them from getting cut when they used it. The guard keeps a person’s hand from sliding down onto the blade. The Big Horn’s knives all have their brand on the handle.”
Randy sat and thought for a minute. “Could that type of blade have been used to cut a throat like in our murder victims’ cases?”
Thinking for a minute, Darren then replied while nodding his head, “Yep, I don’t see why not. The medical examiners would be the best judge of that.”
“I need a knife like the one stolen from the Big Horn. Are all their knives the same?”
“I don’t know. They probably have some old knives they used way back, but I am sure they have more than one like the one that was stolen,” Darren said.
“I need one of those knives to take to the medical examiner. I was just out there, though, and they were working cattle. I hate to rile Pinky any more than I already have today. Would you go out there as soon as they are done and get me one?”
Randy really didn’t want to have to go back out there right then. He knew it would be best to wait until they were done with the cattle.
“Sure thing. I’ll call Pinky this evening when they’ve cleaned up and see if I can head out to pick one up. I’ll call you as soon as I do.”
Randy stood to go and heartily shook Darren’s hand. He felt energized. Going to the big Horn to see about an ATV was turning into a much bigger possible lead. Just as Randy reached the door to Darren’s office he thought of something and turned back to look at Darren. “Did you ever have a suspect?”
“As a matter of fact, we did. There was a ranch-hand that went missing about the same time. We hunted all over and never could find him or the stuff. We never could figure out where he might have gone off to,” replied Darren.
“Can I have the file you have on him?” asked Darren.
“Sure.” Darren pulled out another file and motioned for Randy to head to the copier with him.
Once the file was copied and Randy was headed back out the door. Pieces were falling into place in his mind and he couldn’t wait to tell Carrie.
~~~
When Randy arrived at the hospital, Carrie was sleeping. He stood there for a while, not wanting to wake her. He was eager to share with her what he had found, but knew she needed her rest. He finally decided to sit down for a bit and wait.
In about fifteen minutes, a nurse walked in. “She’s pretty out of it,” she whispered. “She was determined to walk the hallway today until she recovered. I think she quickly realized it would take more than her sheer will to make that happen. It was good, though, to see her walking. It does speed up recovery if one doesn’t overdo it.” The nurse was checking the IV drip and the monitor as she spoke.
Carrie stirred and opened her eyes some. She felt like she had been hit by a truck. Maybe she had overdone it. Seeing Randy though, sitting on the chair behind the nurse brightened her spirits.
“Randy,” Carrie said. She raised the head off her bed and attempted to scoot herself up, wincing in the process.
“You overdid it, didn’t you?” he asked.
“I just want to be well and out of here. You know I can’t sit around, I have to be doing something.” The disgruntled look on Carrie’s face made Randy smile.
He grabbed his chair and pulled it up close to the side of Carrie’s bed. “Hey,” he said in a conspiratorial voice, “I have something.” He pulled out the file he had gotten from Darren and his notepad.
“You won’t believe this but I’ve been back at the Big Horn Ranch today.” He stopped to let that sink in.
Carrie’s face screwed up. “Huh, why?”
“They were on that list of ATV owners. There were five total I felt should be followed up on. I took the Big Horn Ranch and another that I will go to tomorrow. Mike and Rick took the others.
“Go on,” Carrie was eager to hear more.
“Seems like their ATV had been stolen before the first of the five bodies were found. And before you ask, yes they filed a report with Darren. I went by his office and he copied the file for me.
“That’s not all. There was a list of items stolen at that time, one of which is a castration knife,” he paused and looked up to see Carrie’s reaction. He chuckled at her round eyes.
“Just so happens my timing was just right to witness one in action today,” said Randy. “When I got to the ranch, they were working cattle.” He felt slightly proud that he had gained the ability to sling that term around, hopefully impressing Carrie.
“Working cattle...” Randy began.
“I know what that is,” interrupted Carrie.
“You do?” Randy was surprised.
“Of course. I’m surprised you don’t. How long have you lived in Oklahoma? For-ev-er, and you don’t know what working cattle is?”
“Well, anyway,” Randy continued deflated, “Darren agreed that it was a possibility that the knife would be sharp enough to slit a man’s throat the way our victims’ throats were cut. He didn’t want to say for sure and we both agreed the medical examiner would be the one to confirm or deny.
“He’s going back to the Big Horn this evening to get another one just like it so we will have one to compare it to. But that isn’t all,” he was gaining excitement again.
“They had a suspect in the theft,” Randy paused to get Carrie’s response.
“Well, go on,” Carrie was excited to hear.
“A ranch-hand at the Big Horn went missing about the same time as the thefts occurred. They never found him or the stolen items.” Randy let that sit there and stew for a minute.
Carrie's mind was churning. She was assimilating all the new pieces into what they already knew. Randy let the process play out because it usually produced productive results.
“You know, we have never gotten an id on the fifth victim. We were checking missing person reports, but if he left the Big Horn and it was assumed that he left because of the theft, no one would have filed a missing person report,” Carrie’s eyes glowed.
Randy hadn’t put that together quite yet, but it made perfect sense.
“Do you have info on him?” Carrie was reaching toward Randy to hand her what she already knew without asking that he had. He handed it over and she eagerly read.
“Randy you have to get this into the system and see what turns up. The age, everything fits with the other victims.”
“I know, but I want to run right back out to get the knife from Darren as soon as he has it and so I thought spending time here at the hospital with you was the perfect solution since it’s about half-way between Kachina and our office.”
Carrie nodded, deep in thought. Ideas were rolling around in her head and for the next hour, she and Randy tossed around theories and possibilities to explore. When Randy’s phone buzzed in his pocket, it startled him. It was Darren.
Hanging up the phone he stood and gathered the paperwork they had been reviewing. “I’ve got to go, but I will keep you in the loop.”
Carrie wanted more than ever to get out of that bed and go with him.