by Jeff Carson
Wolf nodded. “It’s probably a good idea. Let’s talk about the neighbor, Olin Heeter.”
Patterson raised a hand. “I checked property records this morning. Olin Heeter was the original owner of the land and structure the Greys bought. Olin Heeter quitclaimed it to Parker Grey twenty-five years ago. There’s a cash transfer on record of one hundred thousand dollars. I’m not an IRS agent, but that sounds fishy to me. There’s over sixty acres and a house on the land. Seems worth more than that, even twenty-five years ago. But I could be wrong. Otherwise, Olin Heeter also has a primary residence down south, in Ashland.
“His phone number was listed so I called it. No one answered there, either. The guy is seventy-one years old. Vietnam veteran. Wife is deceased, died of a heart attack three years ago.” She upturned hands. “I can’t find him.”
“And no sightings up at his place in Cold Lake?” Wolf asked.
Yates cleared his throat. “I’m headed back up after this meeting. I’ll ask around and report back ASAP.”
“Good.” Wolf nodded. “All right. Let’s talk about Kimber Grey.”
“I think she’s fishy,” Baine said.
“More like bat-shit crazy,” Rachette said.
Patterson fluttered her lips.
“What?” Rachette asked. “Looks to me like she’s the only one left standing. Dad’s dead. Mom’s gone. She’s sittin’ pretty.”
“We have no evidence.” Patterson shrugged. “And I know what I just argued before, but if Nick Pollard was killed the night of the fourth, before that payphone call was made, we have plenty of witnesses that put Kimber at the marina all night. And it’s not her fingerprints in Nick Pollard’s blood on the phone. The rest of her story, being locked up in a room all night, I could take with a grain of salt, but facts are facts. If Nick Pollard died that night, she didn’t do it.”
Rachette picked up his packet. “Says here that Olin Heeter told Burton and Wolf’s father that he was”—Rachette flipped a page— “quote: ‘Painting the moon on the sixth of July and saw Parker Grey out in his boat dumping something in the water. I saw it clear as day, because it was right in the reflection.’ End quote. Parker Grey, according to Kimber and her mother, was supposedly gone on the sixth. The same day.”
Wolf folded his arms. “Olin Heeter might have assumed it was Parker Grey just because it was his boat. If Kimber and her mom were telling the truth about Parker leaving, on that same day, then that means they could have been the ones out there dumping something.”
“Yeah, and now we’re pulling up bodies,” Baine said.
The room went silent again.
“So what does all this mean?” Yates asked.
“It’s what I like to call a whole lot of nothing,” Lorber said through the tinny laptop speaker.
Wolf put the pen down and looked at the dejected faces. “We’re not going to solve the case in here. We’ve gotta get out there and work it. It’s been sitting dormant for twenty-two years, and it’s cold.”
Baine shrugged. “And what do we do? Just go through the same leads your dad and Burton did? They were pretty good cops, and they never found anything.”
“But we have something they didn’t. Like you said, we have bodies. In the end, my father and Burton were stumped. A crew of rescue divers couldn’t find anything. The sonar wasn’t as advanced back then, the bodies were down deep, and apparently my father was diving in the wrong spot. In the end, they had to assume Nick’s blood was on that phone because,” Wolf shrugged, “because who knew why. But we have Nick Pollard’s body.
“But, like we said, we have no time of death for any of these bodies.”
“I’ll keep working on it,” Lorber said through the speakers.
Wolf rolled his neck, stretching a kink that tightened by the second. “I’m meeting Chad Frehauf, the Pumapetrol gas station clerk who worked the night the phone call was made. Yates, make your way back up there to Heeter’s place on the lake. Wilson, you’re going up with him. If there’s no answer, I want you to check the surrounding woods, check out his boat.”
Wolf forked his fingers. “Patterson and Rachette, you’ll go to Heeter’s other place in Ashland.”
“Does that mean we have to work with Byron SD?” Rachette asked.
Wolf nodded.
“Oh. Great.”
“I’ll call MacLean and tell him you’re on your way. Let’s move, people.”
“What about me?” Baine sat up straight.
“You stay in town and keep an eye on Kimber Grey.”
Baine raised his eyebrows and nodded.
“An eye.” Rachette got up and the room burst into motion. “And that’s it.”
Chapter 28
Wolf pulled into the parking lot of Pumapetrol Gas and got out.
Rachette honked twice as he and Patterson coasted by toward Ashland.
He waved without looking and shut his door. Twisting on his heels, he felt the warmth of the morning sun on his back. Maybe June would finally make an appearance today. He stood tall and stretched his arms overhead, and then reached into his cab and picked up the Nick Pollard file folder from his passenger seat.
Slamming his door, he turned and stared at the skeleton of a payphone mounted on the cinderblock south wall of the gas station. The phone book had been ripped off, the handset had been severed and taken by SCSD twenty-two years ago, and the body of the phone looked like it had been beaten to death with something blunt. The file in Wolf’s hand reported that the last person to use this phone in working condition had Nick Pollard’s blood on their hands. Twenty-two years ago, they failed to identify a person to the fingerprints, and even with the exponential growth of the databases since, the prints yielded no further explanation now.
What did that mean?
The person, a woman, killed Nick Pollard and then came and used the phone to call Parker Grey? Or the woman—or teenager, or young woman, or boy—injured Nick Pollard, used the phone to call Parker Grey, and then Parker came to pick said person up and finished Nick off with a mutilation ritual killing? Then brought his body up to the lake and dumped it in? Or perhaps the person had gotten blood on their hands trying to help Nick Pollard.
A rumbling engine came up from the south and pulled Wolf from his thoughts. A beat-up mid-eighties full-sized Chevy pickup lumbered in and rocked to a stop next to his SUV.
The door squeaked open and slammed shut, sounding like a muffled gong. A man walked up with a dirty trucker hat twisted sideways, covering a head of long, greasy hair, his thumbs tucked into grease-stained and ripped jeans. The rest of him was covered in denim that looked like it had never touched a bit of soap.
“Mr. Frehauf?” Wolf asked.
Frehauf reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of Marlboros. In a practiced move, he tipped one into his mouth and lit it, took a deep drag, and kept it dangling from his lips.
Wolf held out a hand, and shook Frehauf’s thin and sweaty grip.
“You remember the Fourth of July, twenty-two years ago?” Wolf asked with a wry smile.
Frehauf exhaled and pinched an eye shut against the rising smoke. “Nope.”
His chest rattled rhythmically, like rocks in a coffee can, and Wolf took this to be a laugh. “Just kiddin’. I do remember. Cause I remember that deputy comin’ and talkin’ to me about that night. I’m not sure how helpful I was. Or how helpful I can be now, though.”
“Says here you talked to a Deputy Burton from our department.”
“Yeah, I guess. What do you need to know that I ain’t already told that deputy?”
Wolf shifted, turning his back to the sun, eying the crossroads a couple of hundred yards to the north. A car came into view down County 74 from the direction of Cold Lake and slowed to a stop at the junction before turning away north on 734 towards the forested Williams Pass and Rocky Points beyond.
“My report says you stated someone in a black Chevy Blazer drove down County 74, from Cold Lake, and into the gas-station parki
ng lot that night.”
Frehauf pursed his lips and jetted a plume. “Yeah. Pulled in right here.”
Wolf consulted the report. “Says here it was about 10:30 p.m. Probably kind of difficult to remember that with all the people coming in and out of the station that night. After all, it was the Fourth of July … wasn’t it busy?”
Frehauf shrugged. “Half and half. Half the night it was dead. Busy before the fireworks show though. A whole mess of people came in from both directions, buyin’ beer, snacks, stuff like that, before they made their way up to the lake. A lot of young folks. Then it was dead for a spell, up until about midnight when they started comin’ back down.
“That’s how I remembered the Blazer, because it came down early, before the rest of the crowd. It was the only truck I seen for an hour, right in the middle of the dead spell. It pulled in all slow, and parked on the side of the building. Right here where we’re standing, I guess. Only nobody got out and came inside. He just drove into the lot. I remembered seein’ the headlights flashin’ around. Course I couldn’t see him from where I was inside”—he sucked another drag— “and then that same Blazer just went past the windows and headed up 734. That way.” Frehauf pointed north towards Williams Pass.
“You don’t remember seeing anyone inside the vehicle?”
“Nope.”
“I notice you keep using the word him.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I guess it was kind of a manly vehicle. And it was drivin’ around like a man. I don’t know. Guess it could have been a woman. Shit.”
“You’re sure it was a Blazer?”
“Yeah. A Blazer. You know, all boxy and big. Chevy.”
“And what about outside before the Blazer came in? Did you see anyone in the parking lot hanging around? A girl or a woman?”
Frehauf shook his head. “Like I told that deputy back then, I didn’t see anyone hangin’ around. I woulda’ been spooked and remembered that. I was working alone on my second night on the job. Middle of nowhere. Middle of the night, know what I’m sayin’? Spooky. Specially for a rookie.”
Wolf pulled out a picture of Nick Pollard’s beat-up yellow Toyota pickup. “How about this truck?”
“I’m tellin’ ya, it’s like I said back then, I don’t remember anything but that Blazer comin’ down. I remember it because it was during the dead time. Anything before that or after, when it was hoppin’ with kids buying beer and hotdogs, I was like a chicken with my head cut off. Tryin’ to learn the register, tryin’ to bag hotdogs and taquitos. Them kids were rippin’ me off, a whole mess of ’em in here.” Frehauf shook his head and chuckled. “But I do remember that Blazer.”
Frehauf took a deep drag down to the filter and dropped the cigarette on the ground. “That all? I gotta do some grocery shoppin’.”
Wolf nodded. “Yeah, go ahead. And thanks for your time.”
Frehauf pointed at Wolf and clicked his tongue, then walked around the front of the store and went inside.
Wolf twisted his heel on the smoldering filter, burying it deep into the dirt. He walked to the payphone. Then he walked along the edge of the building toward the front. Countless cigarette butts, pop-tops, cellophane pull strips from cigarette packs, and other crap was strewn on the ground—decades of convenience-store litter blown into a drift against the wall.
He rounded the corner and peeked in the windows, which made up the entire front of the building.
The cash register was right on the other side of the glass. Frehauf would not have been able to see someone hanging out by the payphone, Wolf deduced, because his back would have been up against the interior of the concrete wall. The man behind the register looked over his shoulder at Wolf and widened his eyes. With a sheepish grin he saluted Wolf, and Wolf returned the gesture.
Inside, Chad Frehauf was bringing a case of beer to the register and he set it down, nodding at Wolf through the window.
Wolf backtracked and went to his SUV, opened the passenger door and set the report on the seat.
Frehauf came around the corner, lighting another cigarette, juggling the case of beer as he did so.
Wolf picked up the report, closed his door, and walked to the edge of the road and studied the stop sign terminating County 74, and then up Highway 734 until it bent out of sight.
“Mr. Frehauf. It says here in this report that you told the deputy you saw the Chevy Blazer drive away up County 74.”
Frehauf blew out a puff and frowned. He shook his head, then pushed out his lips again. “What? No, I said he went up 734.” He twisted and pointed straight up the highway towards the north, like he had done minutes earlier, not up the road to the west towards Cold Lake.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I mean … I remember he didn’t go back up the road the way he came down. Went up 734 towards Williams Pass.”
Wolf looked at the report again.
Burton’s handwriting said, Mr. Frehauf pointed in the direction of the junction of County 74 and Highway 734 and told me “I saw the Blazer (vehicle in question) take off up County 74.”
“Mr. Frehauf. You said it was your second day on the job that night?”
“Yep. I was fresh into town from Mississippi. My sister lived in Ashland down the road. Got me this job. Her friend used to own this joint. Mississippi was gettin’ to me, know what I’m sayin’? Hot as shit down there.”
Wolf nodded patiently. “Do you think that you may have said the wrong road all those years ago? I mean, County 74 and Highway 734 … kind of sound the same, don’t they? Maybe you accidently said 74 instead of 734.”
Frehauf narrowed one eye and then looked at the ground, trying to access a memory. With a start, he pointed a finger at Wolf and then bounced it up and down. “You know, my sister … oh man.” Frehauf took a drag. “I remember my sister and I got into it once back then, because I gave her directions to a … shit, I’m just gonna tell you, seein’ it’s legal and all now … a weed hook-up.”
Wolf nodded.
“I told her directions off of 74, but I meant 734. Got her all sorts of lost. She was pee-issed. So yeah, I guess I could have done that same thing.”
Chapter 29
Patterson watched Rachette squirm in his seat to get a better look in the side-view mirror.
She unbuckled her seat belt. “Here goes nothing.”
“Do you think it’s him? I hate that we have to work with him.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Patterson stepped out onto the dirt road and shielded the sun with her hand. She watched the Byron County Sheriff’s Department SUV blow past them, turn into Olin Heeter’s driveway, and park.
As the vehicle passed she caught a glimpse inside the windows and confirmed it was MacLean, along with that creepy undersheriff who was latched to him all the time.
She closed the door and looked around the rural country on the outskirts of Ashland. Ashland and Rocky Points, and it’s surrounding terrain, were as different as cross-country and alpine skiing. The town of Ashland was bigger and more populated but, to Patterson’s taste, infinitely less appealing with its vast expanse of flat land in between the north–south oriented mountain-range strips that ran the length to Williams Pass in the north and out of sight into a haze to the south. Rocky Points was quainter among trees. Here there were none; only low sage brush and other fragrant foliage that made her nose itch.
A university town, Ashland had a thriving population of young people who tended to inhale as much marijuana smoke as oxygen on any given day. It was a short distance from Rocky Points Ski Resort over the pass to the north, so students with a hunger for mountain living flocked here from every corner of the country. Liquor stores and take-out restaurants thrived, and houses were generally drab and utilitarian, owned by out-of-towners who rented to the students. Properties with any money dumped into them were few and far between. And looking at Olin Heeter’s place, he’d dumped his money into his lake house, not here.
“Nice abode,” Rachette
said, hitching his duty belt up and smoothing out his shirt. His eyes were anywhere but on Olin Heeter’s place.
“Deputies.” MacLean stood by his passenger door, appraising them. “Sheriff Wolf couldn’t make it?”
“No, sir.” Rachette stepped in front of Patterson with an outstretched hand. “Deputy Rachette, sir.”
Patterson moved in next, wondering why they were introducing themselves by name. MacLean had already called them by name at the lake, but she did it anyway. “Sir, Deputy Patterson.”
MacLean smiled and looked between the two of them. Nodding in silence for a few moments, he seemed to reach a conclusion.
Patterson gestured to the one-story ranch house, ignoring the tall man staring at them on the other side of the vehicle. “Thanks for meeting us here, gentlemen. We’d just like to speak to Mr. Heeter. Ask him a few questions.”
MacLean turned toward the house. “This isn’t our best area of Ashland.”
She decided to not respond to that and focused on the house. The front porch was cracked concrete, sinking on one side. The siding was cream-colored, warping and deteriorating, and the roof fit the same bill—canoeing big time in the middle. A single-car garage in front of MacLean’s vehicle was covered by an off-kilter roll door.
“Okay. Let’s do it. I’ll let you two do the talking.” MacLean walked quickly to the front door.
“Sounds good,” Rachette said, walking on his heels.
“You two ever met my undersheriff?” MacLean asked, not breaking stride. “A good man to get to know. He’ll be my right-hand man moving forward.”
Patterson suppressed her revulsion as she noticed that the undersheriff was staring at her.
Rachette paused and looked up at the man. “Hi. Undersheriff Lancaster, right?”
Lancaster looked at Rachette like he was an annoying dog and shook his hand. His gaze slid off Rachette and slathered up and down Patterson.
She narrowed her eyes and shook his hand, keeping contact with the man’s ape-like grip to a minimum.
