Signature: A David Wolf Mystery (David Wolf Mystery Thriller Series Book 9)

by Jeff Carson

  “I told Todd about Attakai visiting Wilcox’s landlord,” Luke said.

  Wolf stared at his SUV. “I’m heading back.”

  “You’re heading back?”

  “Yes.” Wolf walked over and climbed inside.

  “Wait a minute.” Luke stepped inside his door and blocked it from closing. “What about down here?”

  “What about down here? We’ve seen the truck, we’ve seen the hole, we’ve heard Mary Attakai’s story, we’ve seen where Wilcox slept and worked … Lindsay Ellington is in trouble up there. There’s nothing else for us here right now.”

  “And what happens if this interview with the cousin points us back here again? Then what?”

  “Then we’ll turn around and drive back here.” Wolf pushed the starter button.

  “There are more interviews we could do. We could look into excavators … look into …” She looked at her watch.

  Wolf’s dashboard clock said 2:26. He could get back to Rocky Points before sundown.

  “Shit.” She looked over the roof at Hannigan. “We’re going too.”

  “Great.” Hannigan’s voice climbed a register. “We can go to Disneyland, in reverse, I don’t care. As long as we stop at the nearest drive-thru on the way.”

  Chapter 24

  Why were you at the river where Sally Claypool was found?”

  “I was curious, I guess.”

  “Why were you curious?”

  Jim Brewer’s head was centered in the television screen. His head was wrapped in gauze, a small red splotch seeping through white fabric on his forehead.

  At the bottom right of the display, Agent Todd leaned in and out of the camera shot, his legs crossing and uncrossing, his hands gesturing emphatically as he interrogated the man.

  “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “I have all day.” Todd laughed genuinely.

  Brewer eyed his interrogator warily, and then cracked a smile that looked like it pained him. “Couple years ago a PI came over to my house asking about my cousin.”

  “Was this private investigator a man?”

  Brewer nodded.

  “Could you please use words for the sake of this video recording?”

  Brewer looked at the camera. “Yeah. Sorry. Yes, it was a man investigator.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  He scoffed. “No.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  “I don’t know. White guy. Normal looking, I guess. Like you.”

  Todd chuckled softly off-screen. “Okay. And what color hair?”

  Brewer shrugged. “Dark? Like you? I don’t know. I think he had a hat on. A ball cap.”

  “Tall? Short?”

  “Normal.”

  Todd paused. “What did he want to know?”

  “He asked if I’d seen my cousin, Fred. I said, ‘No.’ Then he asked if anyone else had come over asking about him. I said ‘no.’ The guy seemed like he didn’t believe me. I remember he was all staring me down like I was lying.”

  “Did he tell you why he was looking for him?”

  “Yeah. He talked about that Van Gogh dude down in Durango who was killing girls and cutting off their ears, and then he said they suspected my cousin might be the guy.”

  Todd paused. “This man said your cousin Fred was the suspected killer?”

  “Yep.”

  “And … what did you think about that?”

  Brewer shrugged. “I believed it.”

  “You believed it?”

  “Yeah. Not really a stretch, thinking of Freddie as a serial murderer. Guy was always a scary bastard.”

  “Can you explain?”

  Brewer closed his eyes. “Where to start? Shit … there was the stray dog. When I was a kid I went with my family up to visit them up in Vernal.”

  “Vernal?”

  “Yeah. Vernal, Utah. Anyway, we went to visit them, and you know, I was out hanging with Fred every day while our parents did their thing drinkin’ in the back yard. The kid never talked. Just led me around and showed me weird stuff. Dead birds. Dead snakes. Just a bunch of dead stuff. And then, they had these dogs roaming around that would beg behind grocery stores and stuff, and he called one over, pretending like he was going to feed it, and then he hit it with a big ol’ rock right in the head.

  “The dog got away, but not before my cousin went after him with more rocks. He was snarling like he was the feral dog. And he didn’t laugh or smile about it afterwards, I remember that was the craziest thing. He was just angry that he didn’t get what he wanted, which was apparently to kill the crap out of this dog. Then I realized he’d been showing me stuff he’d been killing himself all day. Hell, I ran back to momma after that. Never left my mom’s side on that trip again.”

  The recording went silent for a moment while Brewer contemplated.

  “And that incident when you were a kid was enough to convince you your cousin was the Van Gogh killer?”

  Brewer shrugged. “Then there was the time he came with his family and visited us. He was older then, and when he left a few days later there was a lot of dead stuff on our property that wasn’t there before. Squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks. Guy was like the grim reaper. I’m telling you, you’d have to meet him to know he was a sick son of a bitch that was going to be a serial killer when he grew up. Yeah. I believed it.”

  Agent Todd cleared his throat. “I’m still a little confused here, Mr. Brewer. Sorry. So please explain to me, because of this private investigator visit two years ago, you decided to come see the crime scene?”

  Brewer shot a hard glare at Todd. “Well, yeah. I talked to this PI two years ago. He comes in talking about how my cousin might be this Van Gogh Killer, cutting off women’s ears and putting them on display like that. And then I was watching the news that morning when that girl here was found killed, and the next day they were saying on the news her ear was chopped off, and I put the two together. My cousin was at it again. I was freakin’ out, to be honest. Thought he might really come visit me. So, I don’t know, I was just driving up on the scene, you know? Checking it out, like you said. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Just looking.

  “Ever since I saw that on the news, I’ve been staying with my friend up in Cave Creek. I didn’t want my cousin coming to look for me. That’s where them cops picked me up—at my friend, Sheila’s.”

  “Those two cops,” Todd said, “were with the sheriff’s department. That’s another point I’m a little confused about. Why did you drive at them with your car?”

  “What? I was driving around their car, not at them. They got out and aimed their guns at me. I was just trying to self-defend myself. Get the hell out of there.”

  Todd said nothing for a few moments. “When Sally Claypool’s body—”

  “Sally who?”

  “The woman who was killed. The crime scene you went to go see?”

  “Oh, right.”

  Another pause. “Why didn’t you tell law enforcement about your suspicions about your cousin being the killer at that point?”

  Brewer blinked. “Why would I do that? You guys sent some guy to talk to me about it. I figured you were already looking for him. Haven’t you been looking for my cousin for years?” He smiled like agent Todd was a moron.

  “You said it was a private investigator who came and talked to you,” Todd said.

  “Yeah.” Brewer looked confused for a second, then pointed toward Todd. “Like you guys. Plain clothes. Not like a cop uniform.”

  “Did he show you a badge?”

  “No. It was like a certificate or something. A piece of paper.” Brewer stared deadpan for a few seconds. “Why?”

  ASAC Todd walked to the television and pressed the stop button on the DVR. “Guy’s dumb as a sack of dirt. That’s the last of his intelligible answers.”

  Wolf, Luke, Hannigan, and MacLean straightened in their chairs.

  MacLean stood and walked back around his desk. He was a silhouette i
n front of a neon-orange window, the tail end clouds of a rainstorm glowing from the sun dipping below the peaks. Picking up a manila folder, he opened it and read. “Jim Brewer—lives on Third Street in town.” He looked at Luke. “You guys ever talk to him?”

  Luke shook her head. “We were concentrated down south. And he’s a second-cousin. There was no reason for us to come up here looking for him.”

  “Obviously somebody was on a trail which led to the guy,” Wolf said.

  “Yeah. Attakai,” Hannigan said.

  “Attakai? MacLean asked.

  Wolf told MacLean about Attakai showing up at Fred Wilcox’s place weeks after the Mary Attakai and Rose Chissie attack.

  MacLean stood with a solid line creased into his forehead. “So Attakai knew the identity of the killer, right after the attack on his sister.”

  Wolf nodded.

  “And he told nobody?” MacLean looked at Luke.

  Luke shook her head.

  “And then Attakai came up here,” MacLean said. “And then I hired his ass, and he was hiding this information the whole time. He was up here looking for a serial killer and he didn’t tell us.” MacLean stood and went to the window. He turned around with narrowed eyes. “But Jim Brewer just said that PI was a white guy. Attakai’s dark skinned, dark hair. Kind of tough to describe Attakai as a white guy.”

  Luke snorted. “Yeah. Jim Brewer also thinks Magnum P.I. worked for the federal government.”

  MacLean petted his mustache.

  Wolf walked to the window and looked outside. A single pickup truck passed by below, stopping at the four-way stop sign before accelerating up Main.

  The Adrenaline Games had been erased from Rocky Points memory a full five days before the official end of the games had originally been scheduled to end. The town had cancelled the event out of respect for the Claypools and Ellingtons, but the event had officially been over before that because everyone had left.

  MacLean looked at his watch. “It’s time.”

  ***

  The squad room was more packed than Wolf had ever seen it. Wolf took a seat in the middle of the room next to Luke while Hannigan walked to the front to talk to ASAC Todd.

  At the front of the room Rachette was telling an animated story to Yates and a couple other smiling deputies, turning an imaginary steering wheel and pointing his finger like a gun.

  Patterson was next to Munford a few rows away, Dr. Lorber and Gene a few rows from them. On the other side of the room DA White sat next to his assistant, who was leaning into his ear.

  There were all of the elected officials from the prior meeting and then some, including Margaret Hitchens, who faced the front of the room with a blank stare.

  Wolf counted nineteen men and women seated in a cluster at the front of the room—more FBI agents up from Denver.

  “All right everyone! Listen up!” MacLean stood at the front of the room and held up his hands. “Sit down and shut up!”

  The room did.

  “Lindsay Ellington.” He clicked a laser pointer and a picture of Lindsay Ellington came up on the screen. She had brown hair past her shoulders. Her smile was tight-lipped, her blue eyes berating the person behind the camera for taking the photo.

  “Twenty-two years old. This was a photo taken last year, and the most recent we could get. She’s not into social media, but from accounts from her father and roommate, her hair is much shorter. Above her shoulders.”

  “Same color?” Somebody asked.

  “Yes. Same color.” MacLean pushed another button and a map came up on screen. It was zoned with dotted lines, within each zone was a number. “Deputies and special agents, you have been given a slip of paper with a number on it on the way into the room. Has everyone got a number?”

  MacLean looked around the room.

  Every deputy and agent in the room nodded, some of them holding up their slip of paper.

  “Good. I’m going to adjourn this meeting within the next few minutes.” He gestured to the windows. Outside the light was fading fast. “It’s already getting dark. When this meeting is over, I want you to pair up with the person with the same number. Need to trade numbers with somebody? Fine. Do it, I don’t care. That’s your partner for the night.”

  Wolf held his piece of paper out. Luke had the same number.

  “Each number corresponds to a zone up here. We have the same map in the packet of paper you will need to pick up on the way out of the room. Not too hard to figure out—find your zone on the map, patrol it and find Lindsay Ellington within it. Keep vigilant. Keep alert.” He looked around the room, as if searching for something to say, and the he settled for a single nod. “Let’s go.”

  The room exploded into movement.

  Chapter 25

  The glow of Wolf’s phone lit up the cab interior like he’d switched on the sun. There were no messages. No missed calls.

  “So you broke up with Lauren, eh?” Luke asked.

  Wolf hit the side button on his phone, submerging the interior of the SUV into darkness again. “I never told you we broke up.”

  “I’m an FBI agent.” Luke said. “I can read people.”

  “Right.” He nodded. “Patterson told you?”

  “She might have said something. She lets me in on the gossip. Speaking of, we haven’t talked about how that dipshit Rachette didn’t show up at the wedding. I’m glad I ignored that invite.”

  “Yeah … it wasn’t something fun to endure live. Especially being part of the ceremony. Still, he’s a good kid.”

  She made a sound like a sputtering hose. “Right.”

  Wolf lowered his eyelids and looked past the floating reflection of the FM radio into the night. They drew zone three, which put them on the northern outskirts of town. There was one road in their zone—highway 734—and they’d been driving up and down their section for an hour and a half and decided staying put for a few minutes made as much sense as driving a four-mile groove in the pavement.

  An almost-full moon hung over the eastern peaks, spraying the oak trees lining the Chautauqua with light, deepening the inky shadows at their base. The river glimmered, its low roar filling the cab through Luke’s open window.

  She had one black-socked foot on the dash and leaned against her door looking at him. “So what happened with Lauren?”

  “Does it look like I want to talk about this?”

  “No. But I know you, and you’re kind of clueless when it comes to women. So I figured I’d lend my services.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Now who’s thinking highly of themselves?”

  “Come on, what happened?”

  Wolf watched a car pass by, its headlights aura shrinking in the side view mirror.

  “Okay, fine,” Luke said. “Don’t get it off your chest. Has she called? Obviously not or you wouldn’t be checking your phone every three seconds.”

  “What about you?” Wolf asked. “I recognized Special Agent Brian Todd’s name the first time I met him. Then he referred to you by your first name, which got me thinking. Then I realized he was from Chicago. I did some talking to Patterson, too. Your ex-husband is your new boss?”

  She stared into the night.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t want to talk about it?” Wolf leaned his head back with a satisfied exhale.

  “He used to screw hookers.” She said. “Yep. Used to travel to DC a lot, and apparently he had an affinity for young Latino women while he was there.”

  Wolf sat frozen, trying to choose a response.

  “I’m okay to talk about it.” She shrugged. “I am over the guy. Didn’t take me long to realize there’re much better guys out there.”

  Wolf eyed her.

  She stared at the river.

  “And now he’s your boss.”

  “Yep. And not only that, I got passed over for ASAC so this hooker screwing dickhead can take the job.”

  “That’s …”

  “Yeah. Not exactly how I wanted things to end up in Denver,” she sai
d. “Anyway. I have my options open.”

  “What, you quitting the bureau?”

  She smiled. “No. Hell no. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am to start fresh. I’m just looking elsewhere, where they’ll appreciate a beautiful, strong woman who can kick some serious butt.”

  “That a girl.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  He smiled and checked the mirrors. The highway was empty to the rear. “I’m not checking my phone every three seconds.”

  “I know, but for not checking every three minutes you’re very defensive about it.”

  He leaned his head back again and they sat in silence for a minute.

  “Probably not feeling any better about it, huh?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “About Lauren. Not talking about it like that. Just letting it build up inside, like a … I don’t know, a pot full of steam. The lid’s rattling, the pressure’s building.”

  He rolled his eyes and started speaking in a monotone voice. “We were doing fine I don’t know what happened she gave me the ‘we have to talk’ speech I could read between the lines. There, you happy?”

  Luke pulled her foot off the dash and tucked it underneath her. Turning toward him she said, “She told you that you guys had to talk? So … then what?”

  He shrugged. “I left.”

  She blinked. “Check me if I’m wrong, here. But if somebody says they want to talk, that usually means they want to talk about something. If you didn’t give her a chance to say what she wanted to say, then …”

  “It was the ‘We have to talk’ speech. You’d have to know the context of things that happened that day for my actions to make sense.”

  “And what happened? Fill me in on the context.”

  He watched a saucer shaped glowing cloud slide toward the moon.

  With a defeated exhale he said, “Nothing out of the ordinary. We woke up, we were fine. And then later … she was distant. Cold. And now she’s avoiding my calls and not answering any texts.”

  “What day was this?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “The day Sally Claypool’s body was found?”