by Jeff Carson
“Some guy. Didn’t leave a name. Tammy says it didn’t hit.”
Meaning the phone number wasn’t associated with a known person in the dispatch computer system. The people in and around Rocky Points and its surrounding Rocky Mountain boonies often carried prepaid anonymous phones.
The vehicle’s interior looked empty and clean through the windows. The only anomaly was the dent in the felted ceiling from the hundreds of pounds of tree lying on it.
“What do you think?” Yates asked.
Wolf shrugged. “I think it’s a strange place to park your car.”
He studied the slope above. His and Yates’s fresh tracks gouged the hillside. Otherwise, last night’s rain had carved a web of erosion channels into the ground, erasing any other clues.
“Doesn’t look like anyone climbed up,” Yates said, following Wolf’s gaze. “But it rained like shit last night so it could’ve erased the footprints. When I was pulling over up there, my SUV almost slid over the edge.” Yates turned downhill. “That water’s really flowing. The driver could’ve walked down, I guess.”
“You see any blood inside?” Wolf asked, donning some latex gloves.
Yates lifted his cap and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “None that I can see. Registration and insurance in the glove compartment show the vehicle belonging to Pat Xander, with an X.”
“How about the trunk?”
“It’s jammed shut. Big dent in the side where it hit a tree so I couldn’t get it open. And that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Now you’re here.”
Wolf lifted the handle on the rear door. It swung open, bouncing hard on its hinges, and he caught the scent of vanilla, along with something much less pleasant.
“You smell that?” Wolf wrinkled his nose.
“The vanilla? No shit, the guy has three air fresheners around his stick shift.”
Wolf leaned in and reached behind the headrest of the rear seat. He found a button and pushed, but it was locked.
“No keys?” Wolf eyed the steering-wheel column.
“Nope.”
The smell had become a stench now.
“Geez. You step in dog shit?” Yates asked.
“We have to open this.”
“Why? What?”
Wolf ducked out and gave Yates a grim look.
Yates took his hands off the car door and stumbled back. “Oh shit. Are you kidding me?”
Wolf dug his toes into the slope and began to climb. He slipped immediately on some mud and landed on his knee. Using his hands, he continued upward at a fast clip, muddying his gloves in the process.
By the time he’d clawed his way to the top and reached his SUV door, he was breathing heavily. Not because he was out of shape; rather, it had been a steep climb.
Lately, he’d been proud of his fitness level. He was no Yates but he’d been hiking regularly with Lauren and Ella, and his trips to the department gym had become a three-day-per-week habit. He’d flex his muscles for Ella and the seven-year-old would gawk in awe. Or at least she’d pretend to. She was easily readable, though, and he believed she was sincere. He’d also flex them for Lauren, who openly pretended.
Wolf popped the SUV’s hatch, dumped his muddy gloves inside, and pocketed some new ones. Then he unzipped a backpack—a waterproof design filled with extra cold-weather clothing, protein bars, water, lighters, a flint, multitool, and other necessary accoutrements in case of emergency.
He fished around inside the pack and pulled out a jackknife pick set. Designed like a pocket knife, the tool had seven tempered stainless steel picks and could open many basic locks.
He pocketed it, then closed the door and skidded back down the slope.
Yates was well away from the sedan now and looking pale.
Wolf ducked back inside and inserted a pick. He tried to open it, then switched to the next one in line.
Yates shuffled closer and watched.
After a minute of jiggling and twisting inside the lock, the seat flopped open onto Wolf’s knee.
Daylight bore into the darkened space behind the seat, illuminating brown, neatly combed hair, along with bone, gray matter, and blood.
Wolf held his breath, his eyes fixed on the sickening display. When his lungs screamed, he backed outside the door.
“What?” Yates stumbled out of the way. “What’s in there?”
“Dead male.” Wolf turned to the trees and sucked in mountain air. “Shot in the head.”
Yates snuck a peek and then walked away from the vehicle, looking like he might be sick. “Shit. Can’t un-see that.”
CHAPTER 4
“Pat Xander.” Sheriff MacLean spat on the shoulder of County Road 18. He glazed his steel-gray eyes and shifted the Copenhagen snuff to the other side of his bottom lip. “I know the guy’s mother. Mary Xander. Owns that vitamin shop in town.”
Wolf nodded. He’d met her before.
Another vehicle rolled down the road behind them and parked, adding to the line of trucks from multiple county agencies.
Down the slope, Dr. Lorber, the county medical examiner, and his team of white-clad crime-scene investigators swarmed the vehicle below. A camera flashed inside Pat Xander’s trunk, which had since been pried open with crow bars.
“He’s a driver,” Undersheriff Wilson said. “One of those Uber guys.”
MacLean looked up at his undersheriff like the man had spoken Mandarin Chinese.
Wilson was tall and muscular underneath a thick padding of perpetual winter weight. Though much bigger than MacLean, he looked down at his boss like he might get punched. “Uber? The car-ride service?”
MacLean blinked. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Normal people giving taxi rides with their own cars. Uses an app on the phone.” He frowned. “You think I live in a box?”
“Yes. Of course you’ve heard of it, sir.”
MacLean turned his gaze toward the vehicle below and petted his goatee. “Looks like Pat picked up a psycho last night.”
“We can check easily enough.” As if taking a cue from his boss, Wilson stroked his own facial hair, a thick blond cop mustache. “Soon as Lorber gets the phone back to the station.”
Sheriff MacLean looked at Wolf. “Get on that.”
Wolf nodded.
“Shit. I’m beginning to think this town’s pipes are made of lead.” MacLean spat again and raised his eyes to the waves of blue mountains above the trees. “I’ll head into town and tell his mother.”
Wolf was somewhat taken aback, assuming the sheriff would’ve pawned that terrible deed on one of the two men standing next to him. Sheriff MacLean delegated well and often.
Wilson seemed equally surprised and flicked a glance at Wolf.
“On another note.” MacLean turned to Wolf. “You have the go-ahead to hire. It’s official. I was going to tell you when you came in this morning. So, now’s a good a time as any to pull the trigger on that stack of résumés. Looks like you’re gonna need the help.”
Wolf raised his eyebrows and nodded. There had been a hiring freeze after last year’s Van Gogh Killer case. The sick-minded culprit had become official county personnel, which had spooked the council and elected officials. For months, they’d been vetting every step of every department’s hiring practices to make sure it never happened again.
Wolf’s best detective, Heather Patterson, had quit the department to go work for a law firm. Wolf and Rachette were the entire detective squad now.
“So cram that into your schedule and smoke it,” MacLean said.
“Right,” Wolf said, not enjoying the thought of picking one of ten underqualified potential hires that had put their names in the hat.
Down the slope, the body was still in the trunk and Lorber reached inside to take some samples. Standing at six foot seven inches tall, the medical examiner towered over his team when he straightened up to his full height. After doling out orders to the man holding the camera, he turned and waved a long arm at Wolf.
Wolf raised a hand in greeting
and hooked a thumb on his belt.
“This is going to be a bomb.” MacLean took off his cowboy hat and rubbed his forehead. Turning on his boot heels, he walked down the road, uttering obscenities.
Wolf and Wilson followed silently.
A dozen people from various county departments spoke in hushed tones. Vehicles lined the opposite shoulder and squawked with radio noise.
“All right, I’m heading out.” MacLean walked to his SUV, climbed in, and fired it up.
“He spends a couple of hundred bucks a month on vitamins from Mary Xander,” Wilson said.
“Aha.”
“He’s always trying to get me in that shop. Won’t shut up about the regularity of his bowels.”
Wolf blew air from his nose. Watching the receding SUV, he didn’t envy the man his duty. Wolf’d had the unenviable job of telling parents that their children were dead, and he could scarcely think of anything worse.
“Forehead’s looking normal,” Wilson said.
“Yeah? Good. What happened with those two?”
“Apparently, they were fighting over some broad in the car.”
“Crystal,” Wolf said.
“You know her?”
“Nope.”
Wilson gave him a puzzled look. “Anyway, I know what it’s like to be her. Women are always fighting over me.”
Wolf smiled. Wilson had three kids and was happily married. He’d never seen the guy out in a social setting without the whole family in tow.
Gazing up the road, Wolf pulled out his cellphone. “Well, looks like Rachette will have to work through a hangover.”
“God knows it won’t be his first time,” Wilson said. “See you in a bit.” The undersheriff melted into the crowd.
Wolf dialed and checked his watch—9:38 a.m. At this time, there was a chance Rachette was still asleep. His detective tended to drink enough alcohol to kill an elephant on Thursday nights, then sleep like a teenager on Fridays while Charlotte went to work.
The phone rang until it went to voicemail. Music filled Wolf’s ear: Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Rachette spoke loudly over the soundtrack. “Hey, you’ve reached Thomas Reginald Rachette. I can’t get to the phone right now because I’m probably screening you. Leave a message and I’ll consider calling you back.”
Wolf hit the call-end button, knowing a note strapped to a pigeon’s leg had a better chance of reaching Rachette than a voicemail.
Staring at the screen, Wolf remembered the last time he’d seen Pat Xander alive. Wolf had been with Rachette inside the coffee shop on Main, and the two men had acted like more than acquaintances. Hangover or not, his detective would want to know about this sooner rather than later.
He started tapping out a text message, then decided a personal wakeup call might be better.
CHAPTER 5
Rachette’s new Chevy Colorado pickup was parked in the driveway and gleamed in the overcast morning light.
Sparky, his black Lab, barked incessantly in the backyard at Wolf’s arrival. That the dog could make such a racket without a scolding told Wolf that nobody was home, but he went to the door and knocked anyway.
Knee-high wildflowers and grass swayed in the breeze in front of the house. Apparently, Rachette had yet to buy that riding lawnmower he’d talked about.
Wolf took a step back from the front porch and appraised the paint job Rachette had been bragging about for two weeks. A house that had once been covered in flaking forest green was now gray with white trim.
When Wolf had first seen the one-story structure, it had looked droopy and sad. Now shorn up and sturdy-looking, it was a perfect place to raise a family, which he knew was Charlotte and Tom’s precise intention.
He knocked a few more times and got no response, then remembered Rachette mentioning that Charlotte had a doctor’s appointment this morning. He’d thought it probably had to do with the pregnancy he wasn’t supposed to know about.
After her morning rounds at County Hospital one day, Lauren had stopped in to visit her friend in pre-natal when she saw Charlotte emerging from the ultrasound room. It took a second for the nurse to figure out what was going on, and Charlotte had admitted she was pregnant and asked her to not tell anyone. Which meant, of course, that Lauren had told Wolf at dinner that night.
Rachette had been silent about it for more than a month after that incident; and under threat from Lauren, Wolf had been playing dumb ever since.
He stepped off the front porch and pulled out his cellphone. After deciding against another call, he shot off a message to Rachette, telling him there was an emergency and that he needed to talk to him right away.
Sparky barked harder than ever, so Wolf walked around the house to the back and stuck a hand through the fence. The dog wagged its tail and eagerly received a scratch behind the ear.
“Tell your dad to call me,” he said.
Sparky barked again and ran away at full speed, then returned with a tennis ball.
Wolf smiled and pulled the sopping-wet ball through the wire, then tossed it back into the yard.
“I’m leaving,” he said, walking back to his SUV.
CHAPTER 6
Heather Patterson knelt on the damp ground inside the trees flanking the multi-million-dollar mansion. Aspen leaves ruffled on the breeze, casting a green glow on the forest floor.
The house she was staking out stood like a metal-and-glass sculpture. Nestled in Aspen’s southeastern hills, it wasn’t far from where she’d grown up. But this homecoming was a job and she felt little nostalgic. With that thought in mind, she shifted to the next aspen tree over, getting a better view through the forest to her target’s windows.
She’d already photographed the cherry-red Porsche approaching the property, the woman parking and getting out, her picking a wedgie—which surprised her as she’d assumed that such an occasion would merit going commando—and then some more photos of the woman walking up to the giant wooden front door.
Patterson had held down her breakfast, though only barely, as Chandler Mustaine’s fat, hairy, gold-adorned form opened the door and wasted no time grabbing the woman’s breasts with both hands.
Squealing in delight, the woman had laughed as she was reeled inside nipples-first.
Of course, Patterson had clicked off at least a dozen pictures of that little gem of a moment.
Now she put her eye to the Nikon D7100 and twisted the 300 mm zoom lens, pulling Chandler’s bedroom bay windows into focus.
She steeled herself for worse, certain she’d need electro-shock therapy to scrub her memory after this morning’s mission was done.
Chandler Mustaine, the owner of this house, thirteen other properties around the world, a movie distribution company, two television production companies, one music label, and a warehouse full of vintage cars—as well as a few hundred million dollars in other assets—stood on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling bedroom-window glass.
Standing side-on in his underwear, his silk boxer shorts tented underneath a gut that hung off him like he’d swallowed a medicine ball. Curly black hair, dense as a Christmas sweater, covered his chest and back.
Mistress Three, as they were calling her in the firm, was already naked, kneeling, and looking ready to go spelunking underneath that belly at any moment.
“Aaaaand there it is,” Heather said to herself as Mistress Three pulled off Mustaine’s boxer shorts.
Heather clicked away as Mistress Three went to town. Could one feel sick to their soul? They could, she decided, because that’s what she felt.
Her cellphone buzzed in her pocket, indicating a text message. She lowered the camera and ducked around the tree, taking the opportunity to catch her mental breath.
As she leaned against the smooth bark, movement drew her eye to a deer standing a short distance away. Adrenaline shot through her system, and the next thing she knew she was crouched in a tactical fighting position.
The deer twisted an ear and continued walking.
“Jesus. Take it easy, Heather.”
She propped herself against the tree again and normalized her breathing.
Ten months ago, she’d been bested in hand-to-hand combat, drugged, stuffed into a trunk, driven up into the mountains, and almost become the next victim in a long line of murders.
Days after her physical recovery from the ordeal, she’d begun a higher-intensity training regimen with Sensei Masterson, determined never to be put in that situation again.
The training had kept her sharp, just in case. And the time spent at the dojo seemed to be the only thing that could fight the bad memories.
Her new routine had worked out fine for seven months, until Sensei Masterson had refused to train with her anymore. He’d told her she was running from something and that the dojo was in the wrong direction; moreover, she needed to stop fleeing and breathe.
Of course, he’d been right. She was skittish, there was no denying it. And, it seemed, there was no stopping it. But she’d be damned if she was going to sit on a couch and talk things out with a head shrink. Speaking to a notebook-scribbler was not her idea of working through a problem.
Sometimes she wondered what would’ve happened if she’d stayed with the department. Maybe things would’ve worked themselves out and her mind would’ve been at rest by now. Assignments like these, not homecomings to Aspen, stirred nostalgia within.
She reminded herself that she no longer worked shifts and could see her son, Tommy, every night. She was making a comfortable six figures and, after this, she’d be done with work for the rest of the day and could spend the afternoon with him.
Of course, Tommy napped in the afternoon. He would be asleep at one thirty, which was right about when she’d be back after the long drive from Aspen. He’d wake up at four or five, the way he’d been sleeping lately.
In actuality, the afternoon would be spent catching up on emails, then probably reading for a couple of hours on the back deck.
But … she would still be seeing Tommy right when he woke up.
That was something.
Now she was snapping photos of fat rich-guy stiffies.
