by Jeff Carson
It was dumb, but Wolf felt jealous for the first time in years. Jealous of the smile she’d given that harmless old man. Probably because she’d been ignoring his calls all day. He considered dialing her number right now to see what she would do with his own two eyes. Look at the phone and shove it back in her purse with a disgusted look on her face?
He blinked and shook his head, dismissing the thought. It was amazing the difference a few hours could make. They had made love in bed this morning with such insatiable desire for one another, and then she had gone cold. Flash frozen.
He knew it was Sally Claypool. It was having to face her own troubled past because of what was happening here and now.
Lauren had meandered through the crowd and was now talking to a good-looking man Wolf failed to recognize. He wore a short-sleeved shirt despite the post-rain nip to the air which had everyone else dressed in jackets, and his arms were well tanned and muscular. He was pointing at Ella while Ella smiled and hugged her mother’s leg, and Lauren was bright eyed and smiling, like she did when she and Wolf were having a particularly good time on a date.
“Hey,” Rachette was standing with Patterson at his door.
“Feds’ve got deputy Attakai in interrogation,” Patterson said. “Sally Claypool’s car’s getting worked by the feds forensic team.”
“So I heard. How about the interviews with the campers?”
“There were three camps set up within a quarter mile of Sally Claypool’s … resting place,” Rachette said. “They all saw nothing. I sent you an email with the report.”
“Okay,” Wolf said.
Rachette walked to the window and looked down. “And with that, that means there ain’t shit for us to do.”
“Go home.”
“Done,” Rachette said, his eyes lighting up. “Well, I’m gonna head down and get a beer. You guys in?”
Patterson shook her head and looked at her watch. “I’ve got just enough time to go put Tommy to bed, kiss my husband and go to karate class.”
Rachette scoffed. “Why not just stay home? Have a beer and relax after a day like that.”
“With Scott’s mother? No thanks. I’d rather go punch some stuff.”
Rachette eyed Patterson.
“What?”
“Is she going to be there?” Rachette asked.
“My mother in law?”
“What? No.” Rachette went red in the face. “Never mind.”
“You mean Munford?” Patterson shrugged. “Normally is. She’s a blue-belt now. Moving up fast.”
Rachette stared out the window with unfocused eyes.
Wolf slapped him on the shoulder. “You go ahead. Drink yourself silly, but be ready bright and early. Seven a.m. sit room meeting. I’m going down to meet Lauren and her daughter.”
“Right.” Rachette blinked. “Right. See you guys tomorrow.”
***
Steam rose from the black top of Main Street, thickening the normally thin mountain air. On it rode the smells of cooking meat and fried dough, and it made Wolf’s mouth water. Breakfast had been cut short from the call, and the rest of the day had been without any food.
With a clear mission in mind—buy Lauren and Ella some dinner, stuffing his own face in the process—he made his way through the crowd toward the last place he’d seen her from his office window.
He smelled her before he saw her standing right next to him.
“David! Mommy, there’s David!”
Wolf turned and saw Ella first. Her arms were out as if she wanted to charge him with a hug, but Lauren had a firm grip on her jacket. Ella stopped and looked up at her mother, and then settled back into leaning against her leg.
“Hi David,” Lauren said.
Wolf leaned in and kissed her cheek, and he thought he felt her pull away.
“How you doin’, sport?” Wolf said, channeling his deceased grandfather, who used to say the same thing to him growing up.
“Good,” Ella said. “Have you seen those skateboarders doing those tricks up the street?”
Wolf smiled. “No, I haven’t. What kind of tricks are they doing?”
“Like, super huge ones. One guy was like, flipping and twisting in the air, and then he came down and just, shoom, went down the ramp, and then he went up the other side, and did more tricks …”
Wolf couldn’t help but smile wider at her enthusiasm, but his smile dropped when he saw Lauren was staring at him with a blank face.
When Ella paused to take a breath, losing her train of thought, Wolf took advantage of the opening. “You guys want to get some food?”
“No thanks.”
“Yeah!”
Lauren looked at Ella. “We have to go, honey. We’re going to Aspen for a while.”
Wolf blinked. “Okay. What’s going on there?”
“What’s going on there is what’s not going on here.” She raised her eyebrows. Got it?
Wolf got it. The relief that he knew what was troubling her instantly relaxed him. “I tried calling you today a few times. I wanted to let you in on what was going on.”
“Hey!” Margaret Hitchens appeared out of the crowd, butting into their conversation. She was outgoing, probably the most outgoing of any person in the town of Rocky Points. It’s what had made her tens of millions of dollars as a real estate magnate. She was also a good friend of Wolf’s and had always been. And ever since he’d started dating Lauren, she’d taken to being their biggest fan of them as a couple. “Hey, Ella!”
“Hi Margaret!”
“Hey, let’s go get us a funnel cake. Let your mom talk to David here, okay?”
Ella’s broke into a smile, and then dropped it so suddenly it was comical. “Mom? Can I go get a funnel cake?”
Lauren smiled despite herself. “Yes. Go ahead. Thanks, Margaret.”
Margaret ignored her and disappeared with Ella into the crowd.
Lauren stood with crossed legs and looked at the ground.
Wolf reversed their day together in his mind. For the life of him he could not find what he’d done wrong, but he knew it was lurking there somewhere.
“Hey, David.” A man came up and slapped Wolf on the shoulder. It was Mark Ponsford, a man who made his living as a ski patrolman in the winter and a ranch hand in the summer. “So what’s going on with this thing from this morning? Is it true that it was Sally Claypool?”
Wolf was surprised at the amount of fear he saw. Mark Ponsford had an eleven-year-old daughter who roamed freely around town on her scooter. His concern was a punch to Wolf’s belly.
Lauren had lifted her eyes and was watching Wolf’s response.
“We’re working on it, Mark. I promise we’re working on it.”
Mark stood nodding. Clearly unconvinced, but wanting to be. “Okay.”
Swiveling his gaze to the crowd, Wolf realized there were ten people surrounding him looking at him the exact same way Lauren was.
If he were a man in a movie, he would have held out his hands, raised his voice over the music, and given a reassuring speech, but the truth was he felt ill-prepared to tell them anything of substance, and now he felt completely out of place at this fair when he should be out there finding a vicious killer. Wherever there was.
And what if the guy was here?
A few people looked like they were reading his thoughts, and they saw the uncertainty in his eyes, only magnifying the uncertainty in theirs.
“I’ll talk to you later, okay, Mark?”
Mark nodded and left.
“Could we please walk so we could talk?” He grabbed Lauren’s hand.
She pulled her hand away. “Look, we do need to talk. But not here. Not now.”
He frowned. Her talk definitely had a different meaning than his talk. “You also want to talk.”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“Us.” Her eyes started to water.
“Okay.” They stared at one another for a while. Could have been a few seconds, or an hour, he wasn’
t sure. “But you can save your breath. Cause I get it.”
A tear slid down her cheek.
He eyed the crowd, and the sight of Lauren’s discomfort seemed to move most of them along.
He leaned in close to her and lowered his voice. “I’ll uh … I’ll see you around. I think it’s a good idea what you’re doing. Get the hell out of town, because the truth is, we don’t know who this guy is yet, and he’s a sick individual. Definitely get out of here,” he turned and left, making his way through the crowd.
Every time he looked up from the litter-strewn, wet street, there were people looking at him, so he kept his eyes down.
“Detective Wolf?” The voice was high pitched and familiar.
Looking up, he saw a petite, spandex-clad body before the bubbly smile of Lucretia Smith. Her long blonde hair was pulled straight back, and it seemed to pull her lips off her teeth, her eyebrows back on her head, and her eyelids up along with it. It was like a shark wearing a thin mask.
Wolf continued snaking through the crowd.
“Detective Wolf, I just want to talk to you about Sally Claypool.”
Wolf stopped and she ran into him.
“Oh, geez.” She stumbled back and looked up. “Can I have a second?”
He lowered his voice and bent to her ear. “This is hardly the time or place to be discussing the corpse of a murdered woman. Do you see the children right over there? The parents?”
Her wide, enthusiastic eyes narrowed into knives. “Then let’s go somewhere where we can talk. Like up in your office?”
He grabbed her bare elbow and led her off the street, past a tent, and behind a pine tree next to the sidewalk. “What do you want?”
“I told you, you owe me.”
“I don’t owe you anything.”
Her smiled disappeared. “I want to know about the ear. I want to know why I saw a deputy being escorted into the back of the building by other deputies. What’s his name? Attakai?”
Wolf felt his face flush.
Her smile returned. “Yes. I know about it all.”
“Then why are you talking to me?” He left her next to the tree.
“I want to know about the truck they found in Durango.”
He wanted to keep walking away, but the comment was so out of left field he had to pause. How the hell was she getting information he didn’t have? He wanted to ask her that, but he didn’t want to see the shit-eating grin.
“What’s with the truck, Detective Wolf?” she asked to his back.
Wolf turned around and walked back to her. “This is what I’ll tell you.”
She pulled out her cell phone, pushed a button and put it in front of Wolf’s face. “Go ahead.”
“If you interfere with this investigation, print anything, or type it on a webserver or whatever the hell you do, and somebody gets hurt, then I’ll …” Wolf looked at the cell phone inches from his mouth and stopped himself.
“I’m just looking for the truth.”
“Me too. So back off, all right?” Wolf walked away.
“Wait, wait.” She stepped up to him and pulled out the waistband of her spandex.
Wolf stared confusedly for a second, and then watched her reach in with purple fingernails, fish a business card out of her panties and hold it up. “Can you call me if—”
Wolf turned and left, back through the sea of scared faces, and into the automatic doors of the County Building.
“Hey, honey,” Tammy said from behind the reception desk. “Looks fun out there.”
Wolf nodded absently, pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Agent Luke.
She answered after two rings. “Yeah?”
He walked to the waiting area near the windows. “Find a way to get me on that task force, or we’re done.”
Luke blew air into the phone. “You’re threatening your friendship? A little full of ourselves, are we?”
“You heard me.” He pushed the call end button.
Chapter 10
Kiai!”
The right front knuckle punch came at Patterson. His weight shift had telegraphed the move, so she had no trouble dodging it with a quick step to the left.
Her opponent’s glove whooshed past her ear with the uncontrolled force of a low-rank belt.
Zach Herring was a forty-nine year-old with plenty of facial hair and the body-type of a man who kept warm in the winter. He was an averaged height man, which was to say he was much taller than her, which meant it was easiest to go for a hammer strike on his ribs.
So she did. Her padded glove tapped against his ribcage before he knew what hit him.
“Up!” Sensei Masterson stiffened and raised his hand nearest Patterson. “This fighter.” He punched the air with a hammer strike. “Punch to the,” patted his side, “ribs. Two points to zero.”
Zach’s face was a mask of anguish and disgust for losing two points in a row. She knew the real source of the scowl on his face was she was a girl half his size kicking his butt, even if it was a girl who’d been studying martial arts for over ten years of her life.
“You okay?” Patterson smiled.
Zach’s eyes flashed behind the full-caged facemask and he forced a smile. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Ready!”
She took left half-moon stance and raised her guard.
He mirrored her position.
“Fight!”
Zach came in fast this time, as she knew he would. Shuffling forward, his eyes widened and his lips stretched with concentration.
Staying right where she was, she kept her gaze on his torso, letting him charge, entering her into the fight.
His right leg craned, and he thrust his foot forward. The front-ball kick came hard, again, too hard for sparring conditions.
Sidestepping, she simultaneously dodged the kick and was instantly in position to hit a number of open targets. In a real-life situation, with an opponent actually attacking her—without a spar helmet, a protective cup, gloves, and foot protectors—she would have gone with an elbow to the ribs, followed by a devastating knee to the groin, followed by an elbow to the nose, followed by a crippling, sadistic, thrust kick to the front of the knee, which would have probably put a real assailant in the hospital for a month and given him a lifetime limp. But instead, she threw a lightning fast back two-knuckle punch, tapping him on the chin.
“Up!”
The word failed to register in Zach’s brain. She’d seen it before. The man had a combination already in mind, and his mind had already given the command to his body to carry it out. The second command—to make his body stop—was a full second behind and was going to show up to the party late.
Patterson’s guard was up.
“Stop!” Sensei Masterson saw it coming.
So did Patterson. At least, half of it. He came in with a left, and she deflected it high with a forearm block, and then he came in with the second half—a right thrust punch which connected squarely somewhere between Patterson’s nose and upper lip.
Instinctively, she closed her eyes and jerked her head back to lessen the impact, which sent her whole body arching backwards to the point she left the ground. Twisting, she landed on her hands and feet and bounced forward like a cat, coming up a few paces from Zach at the ready for more action.
Zach pushed his helmet up onto his forehead, revealing horrified, wide eyes. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
Patterson softened her face, flashing a mouth-protector smile. Sniffing, blood shot down the back of her throat and she gagged at the sudden flow.
Lifting her head back, she ripped off her gloves and wiped a finger under her nose, feeling the numbness of her slick upper lip. Her finger was bright red under the humming lights of the now silent dojo.
“Are you okay?” Gene Fitzgerald had been lined up against the wall. Now he stood next to her gripping her shoulder. “You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding, bad.” Munford came up next to Gene.
&n
bsp; “What was that, Zach?” Gene said, squaring off with Zach. “Didn’t you hear Sensei Masterson?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Patterson said. “He didn’t mean to, did you Zach?”
Zach was blinking with an open mouth. “No. No, sorry. Geez, I’m sorry.”
“Is it broken?” Munford was in her face now.
“Back, step back,” Masterson said in a relaxed tone, like he was quelling excitable ten year-olds. He pointed a finger at Zach. “You need to learn to control your force.” He snapped to a pencil position and raised an arm over Zach’s head. “Fighter disqualified!”
It was a mock-tournament sparring match. Nothing to get too worked up about, but Patterson saw the utter disappointment in Zach’s face. “I’m sorry.” He mouthed the words, but no sound came out. The earlier fire in his eyes was replaced by shame.
The fresh coppery taste worked its way under her mouth guard. She took out the shaped piece of plastic. “It’s okay. Really. Getting hit is part of the training.”
Zach nodded and stepped in line at the side of the room, looking like he was trying to disappear into the wall.
“Gene and Charlotte, you’re already out here. You’re up next. Patterson, go get that washed up.”
“Yes, sensei.” Patterson bowed on her way out of the dojo and went into the tiny bathroom at the rear of the building.
With paper towels doused in mountain-cold tap water, she cleaned herself up, jammed a couple wads of toilet paper up each nostril and went back out just in time to catch the final point of Munford and Gene’s fight.
The dojo was alive, the other nine members of the dojo laughing at some turn of events she had just missed.
Gene and Charlotte were circling one another in the middle of the room, both of them giggling, both trying to look serious.
“You’re going down,” Gene said with a laugh.
Munford stepped in and kicked him in the gut.
“Oh!” Gene did a nice job of deflecting the kick downward, but into his own groin.
The dojo erupted in raucous cheering.
“Up!” Sensei Masterson snapped to pencil position with a hand over Munford’s head.
