David Wolf series Box Set 2

by Jeff Carson

  Wolf turned to Rachette and Yates. “Get Lorber and his crew up here ASAP. You guys stay and give him any help he needs.”

  Rachette and Yates nodded and walked back into the house.

  “And me?” Patterson asked.

  Wolf handed her the packet and then pointed an arm into the sky above the lake. “Figure out exactly where that moon was, and let’s get the sonar guys in the boat looking there.”

  “Okay, wait. Who says Olin Heeter could even identify the boat as Parker Grey’s from this distance? It says his telescope was pointing at the moon.”

  Wolf looked out at the lake and pointed. “It’s a coincidence, and one my father was willing to invest five days of his life diving into the water to check out. So it’s good enough for me.”

  She sighed, wondering how she was going to accomplish such a task.

  Wolf squeezed both her shoulders and gave her a reassuring smile. “Figure out where that moon was.”

  “Is that …”—she looked at the telescope and then the lake—“even possible?”

  “For you? Yeah.”

  “Wait.” When he went back inside she followed after him. “I need a computer. Internet.”

  He kept walking. “Check and see if Heeter has one. If not, call the station and work with Tammy.”

  “There’s no cell service up here!”

  Wolf disappeared out the front door.

  A landline phone hung on the wall next to her. She plucked it off the cradle and heard a dial tone.

  She hung up and stared at the telescope through the sliding glass door.

  “Fine,” she said to no one.

  Chapter 36

  When Kimber Grey answered the door in a wet towel, Wolf couldn’t help but glance down the length of her body, and then he couldn’t help but think about her naked body underneath, the image of it still fresh in his mind from seeing the picture twenty minutes ago.

  “Sorry.” Wolf averted his eyes. “I just came over … I heard you were back here, and I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Please,” she opened the door wide, “come in. I’m just getting dressed. You can wait in the living room.”

  Before Wolf could say, No, I’ll just wait out front, she was already gone and the door was swinging open.

  He stepped inside and shut the door, turning just in time to see Kimber’s naked backside for an instant as it disappeared into the hallway and out of sight.

  Wolf wondered how imperative it was for Kimber to pull her towel off and dry her hair an instant before she was back in the privacy of her own room.

  He stepped to a bookshelf and studied the contents, cutting off any angle for a further view into the hallway.

  A washed-out color picture of Kimber and her family perched at eye-level. Her mother and father were standing arm in arm, Kimber next to them, all genuine smiles in the throes of laughter. They stood in front of a lake on a sandy beach, pine trees in the background. Kimber was young in the picture, no more than eight years old, with sun-bleached pigtails and a black void for front teeth.

  Wolf saw the door to the room was open to his left, and he walked toward it and peered inside. Though he could only see the edge of the single bed from his angle, it was clear that the sheets were tousled, like it had been slept in.

  “What are you guys doing up at Mr. Heeter’s?” Kimber’s voice came from down the hall.

  Wolf cleared his throat. “That’s what I’m here about. When exactly is the last time you saw Olin—”

  Kimber walked in front of him and leaned on the wall between him and the room. She was fully clothed now in jeans and a button-up shirt.

  “What happened to you?”

  Wolf pulled his eyebrows together.

  She pointed down. “Your leg?”

  He looked down at the bloodstain on his thigh. “Oh. Swimming accident.”

  She looked confused.

  “When’s the last time you saw Olin Heeter?”

  She shrugged, brought her towel back up to her damp hair, and walked out of sight back down the hall. “I don’t know. A couple of weeks ago? He comes and goes a lot. I don’t remember him coming up this weekend, though. He usually comes up on the weekends.”

  Her footsteps came closer and she stepped around the corner again. “He’ll do that until winter hits, then he winterizes his place and stays away until the next spring. Sometimes he stays for longer than the weekend. Doesn’t have anything to go home to, with his wife being dead. Not sure why he even goes home, actually.”

  “I’d like to get all the footage you have available on that Wi-Fi camera up there.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Okay. Sure. I don’t have much, though. The video is loaded onto an external hard drive every seventy-two hours, and then I go over it and erase it to leave room for the next seventy-two hours, or the whole thing shuts down.”

  He watched her, noting the way she brought her hand up to her neck. The vulnerable gesture was listed in textbooks as an indication of lying.

  “What?” she asked.

  “How much footage do you have now?”

  She shrugged. “A couple of hours? I just did the memory dump earlier when I got home.”

  Wolf nodded. “Okay. I’d like to see it.”

  “Okay. I’ll get it.” She disappeared into the back rooms again.

  Wolf twisted slowly on his heels, taking in the rest of the space. Paintings hung on the wall depicting mountain wildlife scenes: deer, elk, and bear foraging for food. The framed artwork was dusty, and add the pile of lint tucked in one corner and he saw she rarely cleaned.

  She returned, holding out a memory stick. “Here you go.”

  Wolf took it. “Did you check the footage before you erased it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was there anything?”

  She shrugged. “Just a lot of you coming and going.”

  “Thanks. I’d like you to come back into town tonight, where we can more easily keep an eye on you. With cell service being shoddy up here, and our radio relays not reaching, it would be better.”

  “Keeping an eye on me, eh?”

  He shrugged. “What we found up at Olin Heeter’s house suggests it may be dangerous for you up here at the moment.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  She pulled back her wet hair and twisted it into a knot. Then she stepped into the room and pulled the sheets off the bed, piling them on the floor.

  “You sleep in this room?”

  “I take naps in here.” She wadded the sheets, came out, and stepped out of sight down the hall. “What are you doing tonight?” she asked.

  Wolf frowned to himself and didn’t answer. He walked back to the bookshelf and looked at the picture in front of a row of worn paperbacks.

  Once again she appeared at the wall and leaned against it.

  He saw her studying him from his periphery. “I like this picture. Where was it taken?”

  Stepping close, she moved silently and put her hand on the small of his back. “Oh, that? I think in Tennessee. Near the commune.”

  “Oh yeah. The hippy commune. Must have been a fun time growing up there.”

  She pulled back and folded her arms.

  Wolf looked at her. “I’m just saying it’s an interesting way to grow up, is all. How many people were living there?”

  She stared suspiciously at him, then seemed to relax. “Lots. It was the biggest commune in the world at one time.”

  He nodded, looking at the pine trees in the background of the photo. “I’m not too familiar with geography east of Colorado. What is that, the Appalachian Mountains?”

  “I think so. I don’t remember when or where that was taken.”

  He nodded.

  “You want some tea?” She walked away to the kitchen.

  “No thanks.”

  He set down the picture and looked at his watch. 2:45. He calculated he’d be back into the office at 3:30 p.m. if he left now, which would give him a coup
le of hours before the meeting with Senator Chama, a meeting that was making him more nervous than he was used to being on the job. And what if Senator Chama wanted to talk about the pension? The development projects of the resort village base? The future budget concerns of the bigger, consolidated Office of the Sheriff in the next four years?

  Suddenly the urge to read through Margaret’s packet sitting in his desk drawer trumped any and all work he had to do otherwise. Rachette, Wilson, Yates, and Patterson, even if some of them weren’t speaking to one another, could handle Heeter’s.

  “Sheriff?”

  Wolf looked at Kimber standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Listen, I think it’s a bad idea for you to stay here tonight. I’d like you to come down to Rocky Points, where we can keep an eye on you.”

  “You already said that.”

  “It bears repeating.”

  “I tell you what. You meet me for a drink and I’ll do it. I’m sick of sitting in that hotel room and watching shit TV.” She blushed and pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. “So?”

  “All right. Eight o’clock. I’ll meet you at the Pony Tavern. You know it?”

  She nodded and opened the front door. “Okay then. Sounds good.”

  Chapter 37

  Thirty minutes later, Wolf’s phone vibrated in his center console just as he was starting up Williams Pass. Not recognizing the number, he hesitated and hit the answer button.

  “Wolf.”

  “You get my pictures today?”

  Wolf switched phone hands and turned down the radio. “Yeah. And I have a few questions about them.”

  “I bet you do … like what?”

  The sound of wind buffeting MacLean’s phone scratched in Wolf’s earpiece. “Like what’s the Byron County Sheriff’s Department doing conducting an investigation in my county without my permission?”

  “That’s a delicate topic. We had a man deep under, and I had to make a call on the fly.”

  “You’re conducting an illegal investigation. Those pictures of yours aren’t going to do you any good.”

  A chuckle. “Aren’t they?”

  Wolf clenched his jaw.

  “Listen, I’ll let you think about those pictures some more, but I’m actually not calling about that. I’m calling because I’ve got two dead bodies sitting in a burnt-up SUV with Sluice County plates. Only, when I checked up on the plates, they came up stolen. I just got off the phone with your dispatcher, Tammy. She’s informed me the plates were taken from a car in the marina parking lot last night. At least that’s what … me.”

  “What?” Wolf slowed and stopped on the side of the road. “I didn’t hear that.”

  “Which part?” MacLean scoffed. “Damn cell phones.”

  “The last part.”

  “I said your dispatcher tracked down the owner of the plates, and called them. They assured your dispatcher that they were indeed alive and well, which was good. But when they went out and checked their car, they realized that their plates were missing. They swear it must have happened the night before, up at the marina. They said they were up at that Tackle Box place.”

  Wolf shook his head. “This is the first I’ve heard of this.”

  “That’s because you guys have all been incommunicado up at the lake. So instead of waitin’ for your asses, me and Tammy had ourselves an investigation. Nice woman. Glad someone up there knows the score.”

  “What kind of car was it?”

  “The burnt?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s an SUV. Mercedes Benz. One of those real expensive jobbers.”

  Wolf remembered seeing a black Mercedes SUV pull into the marina parking lot the night before. “Damn.” He looked at his dashboard clock—3:15. “Where are you?”

  “Me?” MacLean paused, and there was the sound of a door shutting. “I just got to my office. I’ve got a meeting with Senator Chama in a few minutes.”

  Wolf remained silent.

  “But if you want to know where the vehicle is, I’ve got some deputies up there. I’ll let them know you’re on your way. Hello? You still there?”

  “Yeah. Tell me where.”

  Chapter 38

  Wolf pulled up behind the Byron County Sheriff’s Department vehicle, turned his keys, and looked at the dashboard clock—3:52. He did the mental math and figured he had about a fifty-minute drive back to Rocky Points. If Senator Chama was keeping his appointment, that meant he had to be out of here by five at the latest.

  He stepped out of the SUV and zipped up his jacket. The densely-forested hillside he stood on was draped in afternoon shade and the temperature would be in steady free fall until the next morning.

  “Sheriff Wolf?” A middle-aged deputy came marching down the dirt road beyond a bouncing line of crime-scene tape.

  Wolf walked toward the deputy, stopping next to another deputy holding a clipboard near the tape.

  “Sheriff Wolf, you say?” the clipboard holder asked, writing his name.

  Wolf nodded.

  “Come on, go ahead,” the other deputy called, waving an arm.

  Wolf ducked under the tape.

  The other deputy was shorter than Wolf with a brick-house build. His cop mustache was full and blond, so thick Wolf wondered if the man could breathe out of his nose. He took Wolf’s hand and his grip was firm and energetic.

  “Deputy Fuller. Nice to meet you, sir.”

  Wolf nodded. “Sheriff Wolf. Nice to meet you.”

  “This way.” Fuller marched up the road at a blistering pace, which Wolf was grateful for. “Twice in one day our departments work together. That’s definitely a record. Guess we should get used to it.”

  Wolf smiled politely at the banter and concentrated on the surroundings. The land on either side of the dirt road was steep, higher on the left and plunging down to the right. Chipmunks chittered from the trees and there were blasts of static coming from distant radios ahead and below.

  “Here we are.” Fuller stepped to a widening of the road and went over the steep edge on the right side without slowing.

  Wolf followed, digging his heels into the pebbled earth covered with inches of brown pine needles. He eyed tire marks off to their left, marked with yellow numbered evidence tents. There was no skidding on the forty-degree slope, which would have been a double black diamond if they were skiing it.

  “Why didn’t we hear about this earlier?” Wolf asked.

  “We got the report a few hours ago. We just figured out the plates.”

  Wolf nodded.

  Down the slope another fifty feet was the SUV, bent severely in the front and burned to the frame. At first glance, the make and model were in no way apparent. But as they got closer, he could see the Mercedes Benz three-pointed star and the Colorado plates covered in soot.

  “You find a VIN?” Wolf asked.

  “Yep. But had to get it from the engine block. Someone scratched out the driver’s doorpost VIN, and the windshield one was clearly destroyed by a blunt object before they dumped it down here.”

  “Dumped it?”

  Deputy Fuller stopped at the rear of the SUV and put his hands on his hips. “Yep. We’ve got multiple gunshot wounds on each of the victims inside the vehicle. The teeth have been destroyed on both bodies. Someone was definitely trying to hide these two men’s identities.”

  Wolf walked to the driver’s-side door. It smelled like burnt plastic, gasoline, and cooked meat.

  A woman clad in a white suit stepped back and pointed into the seat at a twisted, shriveled black body. The head was torqued back, mouth open in a mute scream.

  “Got a gunshot to the head. African American male. Early twenties, I’m estimating. Next to him a Caucasian male. Mid-fifties. Autopsy will confirm. Tougher to tell with this one in the passenger seat, but I think he has multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. Massive trauma to the ribs that the fire damage failed to hide completely.”

  A man, clad als
o in a white suit, stood on the other side of the vehicle and nodded.

  “Slugs?” Wolf asked.

  “Gotta wait until the autopsy, but I’m guessing they’re all through-and-through shots. High-powered rifle?”

  Wolf nodded in thought.

  “Vehicle’s registered in the state of Idaho,” Fuller said.

  “Idaho.” Wolf frowned.

  “Yep. Registered to one William F. Van Wyke. Resident in Boise, Idaho. Coroner will start there with trying to ID the Caucasian. There’s no telling who the African American is.”

  “Where’s the coroner?” Wolf asked, looking up the steep hill.

  “On his way,” Fuller said.

  “I’d like the VIN.”

  Fuller nodded, jotting it down in a pocket notebook. He tore off the sheet and handed it over.

  “And your contact information.”

  “You got it.” Fuller handed him a contact card.

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Nope. No one who lives around here for miles. There was a woman who was walking her dog on this road and she saw it. Lucky it’s been so wet lately and it burned itself out without setting the mountain on fire.” Fuller looked around. “Lot of beetle kill around here. Of course, that’s most places now.”

  Wolf narrowed his eyes. “So when do you think this happened?”

  “Our fire investigator said there were accelerants. Gas poured inside. He says it probably happened early a.m. He’ll be back in a few minutes if you want to talk to him.”

  Wolf held up the card and the sheet of paper with the VIN and nodded. His watch said 4:25. “I’ve actually gotta get going.”

  Fuller nodded. “Okay, yeah. I can keep you posted with any developments. Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks.”

  Fuller turned around and started the climb.

  Breathing hard, legs screaming with fatigue, Wolf trailed Fuller over the edge and back onto the dirt road a minute later. Looking down toward his SUV, Wolf paused. A circus of activity was underway below, with two ambulances and three more police vehicles surrounding Wolf’s SUV. An army of uniforms were digging into compartments, pulling out bags, preparing stretchers, ropes, and other equipment.