by Jeff Carson
“I’ll get the wood,” Rachette said, taking off his backpack and clunking it at Patterson’s feet. “You go inside. Dump this stuff in the fridge.”
Dump this stuff in the fridge. “All right. You okay?”
He walked away through the thick snow to the side of the house.
“May I come in?” Patterson asked.
Edna stepped aside for Patterson, and she walked inside.
“It’s cold in here,” Patterson said. Her breath was still visible.
Edna shut the door, locked it with two latches, and then walked down the hallway toward a darkened kitchen.
“Uh, can we keep that unlocked? Deputy Rachette needs to…”
Edna disappeared around the corner. Patterson could hear canned laughter coming from a television somewhere in the depths of the house.
Patterson unlocked the door, opened it again, and stuck her head out. Rachette was headed back with an armful of logs. “Just come in when you’re done,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Just walk in when you’re done,” Patterson said louder, and then she shut the door and walked into the kitchen.
It was filthy, but in mind-boggling ways. A dead mouse lay next to the scratched-out floorboard near the refrigerator. There was a broken ceramic bowl underneath the kitchen table from which four beat-up wooden chairs were pulled out at all angles. Junk mail covered every square inch of the tabletop. Dead mice, chunks of mud, old straws, wires hanging out of the ceiling…grass clippings? Where was the food mess? The empty cans of soup, spent packages of pasta?
Patterson stood still, letting her eyes pass over each piece of the mess, putting a sad explanation to every element. She felt her eyes tear up and her breath constrict, and then she cleared her throat.
The front door opened all the way and bashed into the interior wall, and Rachette stumbled inside with an armload of lumber.
He kicked the door closed and then walked down the hall toward Patterson. He gave her a double take and then stopped, looking around the room.
“Where is she?” he asked quietly.
Patterson nodded to the flickering room where Edna went.
“This is a nice place,” Rachette said as he made his way past her.
Patterson felt her face redden with anger at Rachette’s insensitivity, but then she guessed she didn’t expect him to tear up like she had been about to. She’d long suspected Deputy Rachette’s tear ducts secreted dust.
Patterson took off the backpack and set it on the table, which shifted the leaflets and flyers and envelopes, and a few dropped on the ground. She turned and walked into the room after Rachette and Edna.
Rachette was already digging in the black stove in the corner, making no attempt to talk to the woman at all.
Edna sat on a recliner chair, nibbling out of a bag of potato chips that sat next to her, and she was watching an episode of Seinfeld. At least she was eating.
“Have you had any food today, Edna?” she asked. “I mean, besides the potato chips?”
She looked at Patterson with that same look of confusion as on the front porch.
Patterson backed away and went into the kitchen, unable to take whatever was about to come out of the sad old lady’s mouth. She shook her head and unzipped the backpack and began unpacking it. Everything went on the counters, which were relatively clean compared to other surfaces. Canned veggies, beans, bread, peanut butter, pasta, soup, a six-pack of soda, and a bag of fried chicken – it all went on the counter in plain view, so Edna would know it was there when they left.
She took a deep breath and held it, then opened the refrigerator. Six bundles of blackened bananas, no, seven, were stacked on the shelves amidst a clutter of condiments stacked two high on each shelf. Bread bags with science experiments growing in them. Eggs. At least four dozen eggs.
She shut the door and exhaled, then caught the stench she’d unleashed on her next inhalation.
She opened a cupboard and pulled a plate off the stack, thankful she opened the right cupboard on the first try, and thankful it didn’t look more depressing inside. No dead squirrels.
She put a chicken drumstick on the plate, pulled off a soda from the six-pack, and walked back into the room.
Rachette was kneeling down in front of the open furnace door. His eyes were narrowed and his face glowed orange as the fire crackled and popped inside.
Patterson walked to Edna, who was oblivious to the life-giving heat now filling the room, and held out the plate. “Okay, Edna. Here’s some chicken, eat up.”
Edna looked up and smiled, and then took the plate. She set it down on her thin stomach, tipping the bag of potato chips over, and started devouring the chicken.
There was a framed picture on the wall of a tanned couple with three children, all lounging on the deck of a yacht with different colored drinks in hand. She narrowed her eyes and walked closer to it. It was definitely a yacht, not a cruise ship. The man had a gold watch on and a dangling gold chain around his neck, and his eyebrows were arched up and he smiled with one side of his mouth, like Hey, you seein’ all this?
“That’s my daughter’s family,” Edna said with a dreamy smile. “They live in Miami.”
“They ever come visit?” Patterson snarled her lip, and Rachette looked over at her. She hadn’t meant to make the question so loud.
Edna put the chicken back in her mouth.
Patterson sighed and closed her eyes, and then went back into the kitchen. She went to the sink and turned on the water faucet, letting out a breath of relief when the water came out in a steady stream.
Opening the cupboards and checking underneath the sink, she saw that someone had wrapped the pipes in blankets and duck tape, and it looked to be keeping them above freezing. Maybe Sheriff Wolf had done this on an earlier visit. Now if they could do the same for Edna – wrap her up and keep her from freezing. Rachette seemed to be doing that part well, so Patterson decided to do what she saw fit to improve Edna’s situation.
For the next thirty minutes, Patterson went on a cleaning and tidying rampage. There simply was no way she was going to leave this woman in this place looking like it did.
She found a few trash bags and doubled them up, and then dumped all the bad food out of the refrigerator, then she got started on the rest of the kitchen. When she finished—the strange debris cleared and vital things set out on the counters for Edna to find later—she moved on to the other rooms. She vacuumed with an old Dirt Devil she found in the closet, and she scrubbed, swept, wiped, threw away, and organized. Patterson went into machine-mode, doing the necessary job that needed to be done for this woman without an ounce of emotion, like she was cranking out a particularly tough cross-fit workout and kicking its ass.
Rachette took the same time to re-educate Edna on the workings of the stove. When Patterson finished her work and saw that Edna didn’t look like she’d been paying attention, another tinge of concern hit Patterson in the gut like she was on a bumpy boat ride on the ocean. On a yacht.
By the time they left, however, the air inside Edna’s was sauna-like compared to before, and Patterson felt good that they’d set her up for at least a few days.
“I’ll check up on you in a couple days,” Patterson said to Edna as they shut the door, and she meant it.
Rachette two-fisted the wheel of the SUV, sticking to the ruts they’d made on the way up as they crept down County Road 15 that led into town. The dashboard heater was working overtime, sounding like a jet engine, and the sun flickered in between the trees into Patterson’s window, making it a comfortable ride after enduring the elements outside for so long.
“You got pretty emotional in there,” Rachette said.
The comfort was short-lived.
She turned and glared at Rachette. “That didn’t disturb you? That a resident of our town lives like that? Barely clinging to life, completely helpless? And did you see that picture of her daughter’s family? They’re loaded, hanging out on a luxury yacht.”<
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Rachette smiled and shrugged. “There’s a shit-load of people like that in the world. You can’t save everybody, Patterson. It’s gotta be like, eighty percent of people living like that. And look at the mayor’s wife. Just because you have a boatload of money doesn’t mean you’re happy and don’t off yourself.”
Patterson twisted her face and looked at him, then turned away and shook her head.
“Easy,” Rachette said. “I’m just saying, some people choose to live differently than others, and it’s not up to you to save them.”
“You think Edna lives like that by choice? She doesn’t know what the hell is going on around her. She can’t even light a fire. Can’t even see that there’s a dead fucking mouse on the ground that needs to be scooped outside. And her shit-bag family ignores her from life in paradise. And as far as the mayor’s wife goes…just shut up about that.”
Rachette held up a hand. “Hey, hey. Okay.”
Patterson rolled her eyes. Sometimes she wondered why she talked to Tom Rachette.
Up ahead was a little mound that ran across the road, and beyond was freshly plowed the rest of the way down. Rachette slowed, broke through the snow, and then let off the brake and coasted a little faster on the packed powder.
“Listen,” Rachette persisted. “We’ll go check on Edna again in a few days.” He curled his lips down and nodded. “Yeah, get her fire goin’ again, you can cook her some…ramen noodles.”
Patterson laughed in spite of herself because Rachette was ribbing her, and doing a good job of it. What he knew was that Patterson was a self-proclaimed terrible cook, and had proven so on two occasions to the entire department. The first time was when she’d made a seven-layer Mexican dip for the Sheriff’s Department Halloween party, accidentally adding relish instead of green chili, and catching some serious flack from everyone. The second time was when she’d brought a pasta salad to the Christmas party, and the pasta was chewy-to-rock-hard, thus solidifying her reputation as the worst cook in Rocky Points.
Patterson looked at Rachette. His cropped blonde hair stuck up in back, there was a glint on his face where five days of blonde stubble had grown in patches, and he wore his confident “dreamy” look that worked on no woman, ever. She rolled her eyes and looked out the window, and suppressed a smile for fear of encouraging him. She had to admit, he’d gotten better at steering conversations away from the yelling matches they used to have early in their partnership. Just a little.
“Shit,” Rachette said.
The SUV began shuddering, anti-lock brakes struggling to keep the truck from skidding on the packed snow.
Patterson sat up and gripped the ceiling bar as she watched the pines twirl past the windows. As the truck stopped spinning at three quarters of a revolution, exactly why they were spinning became clear to Patterson.
She looked out the window and gasped. They were headed straight for the black underside of a truck that had upturned on its side on the right snow bank.
The tires of the SUV squealed as they continued gliding on the slick road.
Patterson leaned toward Rachette as the truck got closer and closer to impacting her door. They were slowing, but it looked like they were going to connect. She pulled on the seatbelt to get away from the door as much as possible, but it locked itself in place.
Just before they hit, Rachette revved the engine and the SUV lurched forward, narrowly avoiding the collision. Rachette overcompensated, jerking the wheel to the right. They spun the opposite direction and rammed into a waist-high snow bank beyond the upturned truck, abruptly stopping the SUV.
“You okay?” Rachette asked with wide eyes.
“Yeah, you?”
“These guys with their piece-of-shit trucks and their piece-of-shit plows.” Rachette pushed on his door, unable to open it against the snow. He looked over at Patterson. “I gotta climb out your side.”
Patterson opened her door and got out.
Rachette climbed over the seat, kicking the dash computer in the process. “Shit. Ah!” As he stepped onto the ground outside of Patterson’s door, he cried out and clenched his leg.
That was real pain.
Rachette slammed the door and marched toward the truck.
“Make sure everyone’s all right,” she said, half warning him to keep his cool.
The truck was an older model Chevy, painted sky-blue and rusted out brown near the window wells. On the front was a large yellow plow that now stood straight up in the air, and it looked like the crash had wrenched and bent it to a wrong angle. The old Chevy lay on its passenger side, leaning toward the roof with all four tires off the ground. The deep snow looked to have saved the truck from flipping onto its top.
The wheels still rotated lazily.
Rachette jumped over the snow bank and waded past the plow to the cracked windshield. “Jeff, you all right?” he asked.
There was some movement inside and Patterson couldn’t make out what she was looking at for a second, and then a scraggly-looking man she didn’t recognize peered out of the glass. He was standing on the inside of the passenger door, with his head stooped against the driver’s side.
“You okay in there?” Rachette asked.
“Yeah,” Jeff’s voice was muffled. “No!” he yelled.
Rachette and Patterson exchanged looks.
“Roll down the window above your head and climb out,” Rachette said.
Jeff reached up and hand-cranked the window open.
“Just a second,” Rachette said, and then he high-stepped over to the roof and put both hands on it. “Patterson, get over here.”
Patterson took a step and plunged down, the snow reaching her hip, and not for the first time in her life she wished she was a taller human being. A few seconds later she waded into position and placed her hands on the roof.
“If this starts tipping, move fast,” Rachette said.
Damn right, she thought, but just nodded.
Jeff was scrambling around inside the cab, and they could feel the truck moving, but he hadn’t climbed out the top.
“What are you doing in there?” Rachette asked.
“I gotta get my…” said the voice, fainter this time.
“What?”
Patterson looked at Rachette. “I think he said, I gotta get my smokes.”
Rachette pounded on the roof. “Get out of there, now! This thing could catch on fire, damn it!”
Jeff climbed up and out of the window with the help of weak-looking arms judging by the shaking they were doing underneath his camouflage jacket. He wore a hunter-orange winter cap and his greasy long brown hair protruded over his ears. He grunted, hoisted his butt to the shelf provided by the driver’s door, and then kicked his legs over the roof toward them.
The truck wobbled a little, but held steady under Patterson’s gloved hands.
“Jump!” Rachette grunted.
Patterson flexed every muscle and pushed against the roof with all her might, wary that the beast could topple onto them, and then she would be shorter than ever.
Jeff jumped down between them and landed with his face buried in the snow, but neither Rachette nor Patterson made a move to help him up. After a few seconds, he pushed his way to his feet, his once brown wispy beard now caked in snow, and scrambled through the snow and back up to the road.
Rachette and Patterson let go and followed him, reaching the road as fast as they could.
“What the hell happened?” Rachette demanded.
Jeff was turned away from them and walking up the road.
“Hey! I’m talking to you!” Rachette said, marching after him.
Jeff wasn’t having any of it. He was acting as if Rachette and Patterson weren’t even there.
Rachette began jogging and Patterson was close on his heels. After a few steps, they caught up and got in front of him.
Jeff stopped and stared past them. His lips parted and his chest heaved.
Patterson and Rachette followed his gaze.
A frozen corpse was lying partially submerged in the snow bank with impossibly-twisted legs. Her torso was striped with maroon, which further inspection revealed to be cracks in her skin showing dark red flesh and guts below, like she was frozen and then ripped open…which was exactly what had happened, Patterson realized. If that wasn’t enough to take in, her neck had rotated independently of her body so she faced them, tongue sticking out and bugged-out white marbles for eyes.
And on her forehead was what looked to be a painted maroon X.
“Oh my God,” Patterson said.
Chapter 5
“Line one!” Tammy yelled just before the door clicked shut.
Wolf shook his head and walked through the squad room.
“Everything okay?” Wilson asked, looking up from his computer screen.
Wolf nodded. “Yeah. You?”
Wilson shrugged and looked back down at his computer.
Wolf shut the door of his office and sat at his desk, then took a deep breath and picked up the phone. “Wolf,” he said.
“Wolf? That’s how you answer the phone now?”
Wolf smiled and swiveled the chair to look out the window. “How are you? How are things in Denver?”
“They’re going well. I can’t complain. A lot more action than Glenwood Springs field office, that’s for sure. I hear it’s been rough up there lately for you guys in Rocky Points.”
“Yeah,” Wolf said. There was a beat of silence, and Wolf realized she wasn’t talking about the weather.
“Did you go to the call?” she asked quietly.
Wolf took a deep breath, remembering the sight of the mayor’s wife sitting in an office chair, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. It was something that had robbed him of sleep the last two nights, and something he would vividly remember for years to come.
