Three-Inch Teeth

Alerted about the attack, Joe arrives at the club, which is full of media persons and officials. When he finds out the name of the deputy who found Hewitt, he heads over to meet Carroll. Carroll’s reveal about the disappearing taillights puzzles Joe, as does the trail of blood that Carroll found leading away from Hewitt (the blood spilling from the teeth of the steel jaws of the mechanical bear). He is also surprised that the bear caught Hewitt on the neck, shoulders, and chest. 

He asks Carroll to retrace his steps from where he found the judge. The duo is joined by forensics technician Gary Norwood and Jackson Bishop, Hewitt’s son-in-law. When they reach the spot, Joe can see that the trees are a perfect place for a bear to hide. Norwood hopes that the bear is gone. Bishop winks and says that they think it is.

At that very moment, all the law enforcement officers in the area get an emergency call. There has been a drive-by shooting at a middle school playground. A 13-year-old schoolgirl has been shot dead. The officers immediately leave for the school. Joe decides to meet Judge Hewitt before he is airlifted to Dallas for treatment. On the way to the hospital, he calls Jennie Gorden about the most recent grizzly attack. This time, even she is confused at the distance that the bear has covered from its last attack.

Joe angers many nurses and hospital attendants by rushing into Hewitt’s room. He asks the barely conscious man about what he remembers from the attack. Hewitt seems not to hear Joe and is wheeled out by a physician attendant (PA). As the PA gets him into the helicopter, Hewitt whispers in his ear. Joe asks the PA what Hewitt said, and the PA replies, “red dot” (236).

Cates is in a panic at his former home, cursing himself for the “epic screw-up” of the morning (238). He wonders if the deputy in the truck saw his car and if the jaws fatally injured the judge. He thinks that he should have backed away the minute he received Johnson’s text, aiming to get the judge some other day. 

Johnson approaches Cates and tells him that she has discovered Britney’s and Rob’s bodies in a bedroom. She knows that Soledad is the one who killed them. Johnson wants Cates to break away from Soledad, who is out of control. Cates hugs Johnson and lies to her, saying that he will separate from Soledad the moment he has killed all his enemies.

He asks Johnson about Soledad’s whereabouts, and she tells him that Soledad took off in the deceased couple’s car. Cates thinks that Soledad may have gone to get breakfast. As if on cue, Soledad returns with burgers for everyone. He asks Cates to come with him to the car to help carry the coffees he has brought. When they’re alone, Soledad tells Cates that he wanted to distract the law enforcement officers from the site of their attack on Hewitt. So, Soledad passed by a schoolyard and shot a student. With the police distracted, Soledad and Cates can go to the club that night and remove the tracks of their car from the site.

Although the breakfast that Katy Cotton has cooked for her and Leon Bottom is delicious, Sheridan is discomfited by the elderly woman scowling at her as she brings in the dishes. When Bottom goes out to answer a call, he asks Cotton to keep Sheridan company at the table. 

Cotton sits across from Sheridan and eats. Something about Cotton’s features and her manner of eating the pancakes seem uncannily familiar to Sheridan. Suddenly, she realizes that Joe eats pancakes the same, unusual way, using egg yolks to soak the pancakes. When Sheridan asks Cotton about the recipe for the pancakes, Cotton recites the exact recipe that Joe uses. Sheridan asks Cotton about her sons. The older woman replies that she cut them out of her life when she left their father, who was a terrible man. The younger son is dead, while she doesn’t speak to her firstborn. Annoyed with Sheridan’s questions, Cotton tells her to leave and never return.

Sheridan acts on her hunch and calls Marybeth to ask about Joe’s mother, who left him when he was 10 years old. Marybeth tells Sheridan that her name was Katharine, though she also went by Katy. Sheridan tells Marybeth that she just met her paternal grandmother.

When Joe and Marybeth meet at her office in the library, Marybeth gives her husband the news that Sheridan may have found his mother. Joe is stunned at the turn of events. However, he does not want to reach out to her. He doesn’t remember much about his mother but does recall that she would slap him often to vent her anger against Joe’s father, George, who had an alcohol dependency. Joe tells Marybeth that he is happy with the family they have raised together and has no plans of revisiting the past.

Marybeth drops the topic. Joe discusses the recent findings about the bear attacks with Marybeth. It is now clear to him that there is a human element to the attacks, but he cannot figure out the logistics. It seems like someone is driving around Wyoming with a grizzly in their car and unleashing it on people, but this makes little sense. Bears do not obey human commands to kill. He also wonders about the “red dot” that Hewitt mentioned. Such a dot is associated with a laser or the scope of a gun. Marybeth ponders over the information and suggests that perhaps, instead of focusing on the bear, they should pay attention to the victims. It is strange that she and Joe personally know three of the people killed in the attacks. However, Joe reminds her that they did not know Winner. 

Marybeth wants to find out more about Winner to see if he is connected to the Picketts in any way. She plans to reach out to Dick Weber, the deputy warden at the prison where Winner was posted, for more information. She also asks Joe to take Nate along when he visits the site of Hewitt’s attack. Nate knows how to get into the mind of an apex predator and can be useful in uncovering clues that Joe and Norwood might miss.