In the Ground (David Wolf Book 14)

by Jeff Carson

  Hammes stared at her, shaking his head slowly.

  Wolf had said he was to be considered armed and dangerous, and not to engage him. Too late. They had engaged. So what now? She thought back to her academy training. She needed to talk, make him calm.

  Down the road there was a metallic ping and a sharp barking noise as the dog rolled over the top of the fence and landed heavily on its side.

  Slowly, looking at first to be stunned, it got to its feet. And then it began running toward them at full speed, saliva-laced growls coming out of its mouth.

  “Whoa! Dex! Heel!” Hammes turned around, crouching into intercept position.

  The dog kept coming full speed, swerving to the other side of the road for a straight shot at her and Chavez.

  Hammes side-stepped to block but it only darted back to the other side.

  “He has a gun,” Chavez said.

  Piper had seen it—a pistol tucked into the rear of his pants showed against the small of his back. “Drop your weapon!” she yelled, pulling her piece from her holster.

  “Drop your weapon now!” Chavez said, aiming his gun at Hammes.

  But Hammes ignored them, still concerned with his dog charging at full speed. “Stop, Dex! Come here, boy! Heel!”

  “Get your dog under control!” Chavez said with rising panic.

  “Heel!”

  But the dog ignored his master, juking at the last second and slipping between his legs. Now through the obstacle, Dex, and his saliva-flinging jaws, looked to be coming right at Piper.

  Shit.

  Chavez fired. The dog spun wildly, a loud squeal coming out of its mouth as it landed in the dirt.

  “No!” Hammes screamed.

  Piper had no time to be stunned. Hammes was reaching into his waistband.

  “You piece of shit!” Hammes pulled the gun into plain sight.

  Time slowed to a stop. Piper felt the tension of the trigger against her finger as she aimed.

  But Chavez beat her to it, shooting again, hitting Hammes in his center mass. Hammes’s gun clattered to the ground as he doubled over, blood spurting through his hands as they clenched onto his abdomen, and he landed like a sack of sand next to his dog.

  She veered her aim and just barely stopped herself from firing.

  Chavez took a step forward.

  “Stop!” she yelled. “Cease fire!”

  Chavez lowered his weapon and let out a primal grunt.

  And then there was only the high-pitched ring in her ears and the tangy scent of gunpowder choking her throat.

  "Shit,” she said. She gingerly put her hand on Chavez’s shoulder and stepped in front of him. The young deputy promptly vomited onto the road. Rick Hammes writhed on the ground, his eyes glued to his dog. “Dex!”

  The dog whimpered, biting at its hind leg where it had been shot.

  She went to Hammes’s gun and kicked it to the ditch on the side of the road. Then she pulled her radio and called for an ambulance.

  Chapter 17

  Wolf climbed out of his SUV far from the flashing lights of the ambulance parked in the center of the road ahead. He walked along the shoulder, Yates and Rachette stepping next to him, all of them silent as they took in the aftermath of the action they had just missed.

  Insects buzzed in the pine trees. It was hot, the air still. Ahead, Deputy Nelson knelt down next to a tree at the edge of the woods. As they grew near, Wolf saw Deputy Chavez sitting down against the trunk, both palms pressed against his eyes as he listened to Nelson talking softly, patting him on the shoulder.

  Yates went to them while Wolf and Rachette continued on.

  Deputy Cain stood near the EMTs crouched over a shirtless, tattooed man strapped to a stretcher. Rick Hammes.

  A pickup truck was parked next to the ambulance bearing the logo of a company by the name of DVS, the words Dredge Veterinary Services beneath it. Two men and a woman were huddled up in the truck bed.

  “It’s okay, boy,” the woman murmured.

  A dog barked, growled, then whined.

  “Give him two more CCs. That should do it.” The woman stood and nodded at Wolf.

  “You need any help?” he asked, walking up to the edge of the truck bed. The dog was on its side, strapped to a miniature stretcher. Bandages wrapped his hind leg. His eyes were half-open, and his lips sagged open to reveal teeth.

  “The bullet grazed him,” the woman said. “I’ve already cleaned the wound, but I have to take him into the office to sew him up. He’ll be fine.” She looked over at the EMTs huddled over Rick Hammes in the middle of the road. “Not sure about him, though.”

  Wolf backed away and looked toward Deputy Cain, who stood a few paces from the action, staring down at Rick Hammes.

  “A little help here,” one of the EMTs said, turning to Wolf. “He’s heavy, may as well have the extra hands.”

  Wolf walked over and grabbed the handles on one side of the spine board. Deputy Cain rushed to the other side, but Rachette was already there. “I got it.”

  “One, two, three,” the EMT said, as they lifted up.

  “Is he … dead?” Rachette asked, looking down.

  Hammes’s eyes were closed, mouth open and streaming drool. With all the ink painting the man’s skin, it was difficult to tell where the tattoos ended and the blood began.

  “Not dead, though his vitals are weak,” the EMT said. “Okay, easy now. He’s lost a lot of blood,” the EMT continued as they set him inside the ambulance. “The surgeons will have their work cut out for them.”

  Wolf and Rachette turned toward Cain, who had moved to a patch of shade on the side of the road.

  “How are you doing?” Rachette asked.

  The look she gave Rachette said she had no response for that question.

  When Yates came up and joined them, Wolf said, “Why don’t you two head down to the house and begin the search. I’ll be right there.”

  Rachette and Yates walked down the road, leaving Wolf with Cain.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She told him.

  “Where’s his weapon?” Wolf asked.

  “I bagged it and gave it to Nelson. It was a Beretta M9, nine-millimeter.”

  He nodded. Clearly not the .45 Glock 21 equipped with a silencer his two detectives were down at the house looking for.

  “If Chavez hadn’t shot the dog,” she said. “I would have. I was just about to. And he shot Hammes first. I was just about to do that, too. I feel like …” She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “What?”

  “I feel like I failed.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess, like I put it all on Chavez. I didn’t react fast enough, and now that rookie has to live with shooting a man and his dog.” She looked toward the young deputy, who was still sitting in the trees. Nelson remained standing watch next to him.

  Wolf put a hand on her shoulder, and Cain looked down at her hands. They were covered in blood.

  “Can we get something over here to wipe her hands with, please?” Wolf asked a passing EMT.

  The man returned with a towel, a water bottle, and a container of antibacterial wipes.

  “Thanks.” Wolf took them, and then he took one of her hands, poured some water on it, and gently wiped away the dried blood. It was caked under her nails and into the cracks and crevices of her hands, but he managed to get most of it.

  When he couldn’t get any more without scrubbing too hard, and after realizing that she probably could have been doing this herself to far better effect, he looked up and saw that she was staring at him. “There. I’ll, uh, let you finish.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  He nodded. “You didn’t fail. And there’s sure as hell no winning in the situation I put you in. I jumped the gun. I should have had you two stay where you were and let us take care of it.”

  Her eyes flashed, and then she looked into the forest. “I’m sorry I said anything. I’m just fine doing my duty, sir. I’
m not looking to be coddled.”

  “I know. And don’t be sorry for telling me what you’re feeling. I’m glad you did.”

  She said nothing, her gaze locked on the woods.

  He gave her the wipes and looked toward Hammes’s house. Yates was already over the fence and at the front door, his purple-gloved hand probing something on the doorjamb as he disappeared inside the house.

  “I’d better head down there,” Wolf said.

  “Right,” she said.

  “We’ll have to get an official report from you, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Wolf walked over and knelt down next to Deputy Chavez. "How are you doing?"

  His eyes flicked to Wolf. "Not very good, sir."

  Wolf nodded. "Shooting somebody is tough business.”

  “And a dog.”

  Wolf nodded again. “And a dog. I know you're feeling some pain and doubt. That’s what happens. You're going to think about this day for the rest of your life, I'm not going to kid you about that," he said. “But you’ll get through it. You acted quickly. You protected yourself and your fellow deputy. You did good. He had a gun. He’s shot at innocent civilians before. If you wouldn’t have shot, it would have been you or Deputy Cain out there on the road right now.”

  Chavez nodded, closing his eyes.

  Wolf patted his shoulder. “They say the dog’s going to be okay.”

  Chavez kept his eyes closed, tilting his head away from Wolf slightly.

  "Deputy Nelson will take you back," he said, standing up.

  Wolf walked down to the house, feeling a knot forming in his neck. He rolled his head in a circle, gripping his shoulder with one hand.

  “What are you searching for?” Cain asked, walking up next to him. She acted as if nothing had just happened, marching in step with him down the road, her eyes forward, her chin tall.

  "We have a search warrant.”

  “Did you tie him to Mary Dimitri’s death?”

  “Yes. We found his fingerprints on two beer bottles inside her house yesterday. Dr. Lorber confirmed the match this morning.”

  “So you’re looking for a weapon,” she said. “But it’s not the Beretta up there.”

  “Correct.” He told her about the .45 caliber Glock with sound suppressor that was supposedly missing from Chris Oakley’s trailer at the mine.

  “And you think Hammes took it and shot Chris Oakley with it?”

  “That’s the idea,” he said. “And Mary Dimitri.”

  They walked down the road to the front gate in silence. The neighbor, Ned Larson, was outside his own fence line, watching them.

  “You don’t need to be here,” Wolf said to her.

  “He was yelling at us,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Hammes. Before the dog jumped the fence and all hell broke loose. He was saying,” she shook her head in thought, “he was asking what Mary told us he did. I keep thinking about that. He said, ‘what is Mary telling you I did?’ Like we were in the process of talking to her or something.”

  Wolf narrowed his eyes. “Like he didn’t know she was already dead, you’re saying?”

  “Yeah. Exactly. It was just…he talked about her in the present tense, like he was completely in the dark, if you ask me.”

  Wolf let that information settle. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

  They walked up the dirt driveway to the side door. At the top of the drive sat a Dodge 4x4 truck, its rear bumper bent into a V from a collision.

  “I’ll be out here,” Cain said, as Wolf gloved up and entered the open side door of Hammes’s house.

  He stopped inside, assessing the kitchen he’d just walked into. Three ripped vinyl chairs surrounded a tiny table. Two dog bowls sat on the floor near his feet. A dozen eggs sat on the counter, along with a bowl and a fork. A pan sat on the burner.

  “The burner was on, but I turned it off,” Rachette said from the next room.

  Next to the eggs stood at least a dozen empty brown beer bottles matching those they had found in Mary Ellen Dimitri's house. The place smelled of beer, stale cigarette smoke, and rotting food.

  Wolf joined Rachette in the living room. Framed drawings and paintings of different satanic symbolism pulled his eyes to the walls.

  “Guy is devout,” Rachette said. “A devout freak.”

  Wolf scanned the rest of the place. Hammes’s belongings were scattered about, seemingly at random: a dirty ashtray, more beer bottles, a remote control fought for space on the table; stacks of vinyl records, a laptop computer bag, a pair of dirty boots encrusted with flecks of concrete and mud, and a duffle bag lay discarded on the carpet.

  “You looked in the duffel bag yet?”

  “Not yet,” Rachette said. “I was heading to the bedroom.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll take this.” Wolf bent over and unzipped the worn canvas bag. Inside was an array of dirty clothes: jeans muddied at the knees and crusted at the hems with the same color dirt that was on the boots, dirty socks and t-shirts, and a yellow reflective vest.

  “Work clothes," Wolf said. “Construction work clothes. Where’s Yates?”

  “He’s outside,” Rachette’s voice came from down a hallway.

  Wolf checked the pockets of the jeans, finding a single crumpled receipt for a twelve-pack of beer purchased at a liquor store in Eagle, Colorado on Thursday, June 24th. The night before Chris Oakley’s murder up at the mine.

  “Nothing in this first bedroom,” Rachette called out. “Checked all the drawers. Personally, I’m doubting we’ll find anything. If he had any sense, that is. You don’t hold onto the weapon after shooting two people. I’d go dump it in an old mine, a river, or a lake if I were him.” Rachette’s voice receded deeper into the house. “Maybe that’s why he was gone when we came over yesterday. He was out dumping evidence.”

  “Hey!” Yates’ voice came from somewhere at the front of the house. “Out here!” He waved from the open front door. “Over here. I found it.”

  “Found what?” Rachette asked, coming around the corner.

  Wolf walked out, following Yates around the corner of the house to a stack of firewood piled waist high against the siding.

  “Look. Right there.”

  Cain stood up against the other side of the fence, leaning on her elbows, her eyes wide with anticipation as she watched the action.

  “What are we talking about?” Wolf didn’t have to wonder for long. Following Yates’ pointing finger, he spotted the matte black finish of a handgun shoved into the gaps in the firewood logs, barrel-first.

  Wolf reached in carefully and pulled the weapon out. Like some sort of magic trick the gun kept coming, because about five inches of sound suppressor was screwed onto the end of the barrel.

  He dangled it between thumb and forefinger, reading the stamps in the slide. “Glock twenty-one. Forty-five caliber.”

  Rachette opened an evidence bag. “I’d say that’s our gun.”

  “That was easy,” Yates said.

  Wolf lowered the gun into the bag and met Cain’s eyes. She turned away, looking into the trees and taking a breath, as if wrestling with the recent memories still rattling in her mind.

  “I stand corrected,” Rachette said. “The guy is a dumbass after all.”

  Chapter 18

  “My ass hurts,” Rachette said, landing hard on Wolf’s office couch. “Too much driving. Too much standing. Too much everything.”

  Wolf sat heavily onto his desk chair, feeling much the same.

  It had been a long day. After finding the silenced Glock 21 in Hammes’s woodpile, they’d spent the rest of the morning going through his house with a fine-toothed comb, then returned to Mary Ellen Dimitri’s to walk the crime scene once more. After that it was back up to the Jackson Mine to walk those grounds.

  A team of crime scene techs at the mine had nothing new after searching for two straight days with their K9 units and metal detectors. The claim covered over a hundred acres. Finding ev
idence, K9s or not, was proving to be a tough task.

  Patterson creaked into the office on her crutches and shooed Rachette to slide over on the couch. “Your butt hurts? Boo-hoo,” she said, sitting and propping her leg up.

  “How’s the ankle, Patty?” Yates asked, next to come inside.

  “It’s fine.”

  Wolf saw she was lying. She had that permanent crease in her forehead that showed up whenever she was agitated. That, and she had been avoiding eye contact with everyone since they’d walked into the building.

  District Attorney Sawyer White strolled in with his deputy Dan Wethering in tow. White was in his late forties, in good physical shape, and wore a crisp blue suit with a cream-colored shirt and a pink tie. His numerous rings and Rolex sparkled under the overhead lights.

  Deputy DA Dan Wethering, younger than White by a decade, dressed in stark contrast to his boss, wearing a pair of khakis and a simple button up shirt. He nodded a greeting at everyone in turn and stood at attention in the corner. Wethering had nine children at home, all of them adopted from an orphanage in Denver.

  Wolf nodded back, wondering again just how the man did it. Suddenly Wolf’s sore backside and fatigue felt like less of an issue.

  “You people have been busy the last few days,” White said, taking one of the seats in front of Wolf. Yates took up a standing position next to Wethering, against the windows.

  “Is the party in here?” Lorber walked into the office next, rapping on the door. Daphne came up behind him and stopped dead in the entryway. “Wow, standing room only.”

  “Come on in,” Wolf said, “grab a piece of carpet.”

  Thunder rumbled outside, shaking the building. Another afternoon storm had rolled down from the north and was spitting rain against the window outside. Although it was only five o’clock, it was very dark.

  “Did you talk to McBeth’s lawyer today?” White asked Wolf.

  Wolf shook his head. “We’ve been out in no-cell-service territory all day.”