by Jeff Carson
“And from what we’ve been able to gather, it looks like Carter Willis and your ex-wife hugged at that encounter, and you overreacted, causing a scene.”
“I reacted the appropriate amount.”
“Out of jealousy?”
“The guy was a sleaze ball. He was groping my date in front of me.”
Frye nodded. “I’m just going to cut to the chase, maybe save us all some time here. Did you kill Carter Willis and your ex-wife, Mr. Wolf?”
“No.”
“Because it looks like you did.”
“Can’t arrest someone for looking like they might have murdered someone. Listen, I’ve got some Rifleman to catch up on, so if you guys don’t mind leaving and lifting your legs on some other tree? Thanks.”
“What are these?” Frye slapped a manila folder on the plaster cast that covered Wolf’s lap.
Wolf stared at it but didn’t move.
Frye opened it for him and pushed the contents, splaying a stack of photographs.
They were photos of his Deputy, Tom Rachette, and the girl they’d come to know as Gail Olson. They were familiar—Gail Olson handing Rachette a bag, Rachette hugging the woman, Rachette putting the bag in his car, Rachette and Gail driving their separate ways.
They were an innocuous set of photographs under normal circumstances, but Wolf knew Gail Olson had been caught months earlier by the Ashland PD with marijuana and money in her car, lots of both, and these photos were supposed to implicate Wolf and his department being involved in the smuggling of drugs.
Only Wolf knew better.
When Wolf kept silent Frye picked up a photo and studied it. “Sheriff Will MacLean of Byron County told us he brought these photos to you. He knew all about Gail Olson’s past and mentioned that he might make these photos public. He said you freaked out and dropped out of the race. He’s done right by giving the pictures up to us now.”
“Yes,” Wolf said, “these photos were a blackmail attempt by Sheriff MacLean, who set up Gail Olson to make this fake drop while he took these pictures in order to make my deputy and my department look bad.”
Frye straightened with a confused look. “MacLean set the whole thing up, which you figured out, and yet you dropped out of the race? So the blackmail attempt worked? I’m confused. You say it was a setup, but yet, you dropped out of the race in order to keep these photos under wraps.”
“I dropped out of the race because I didn’t want the job.”
“And why’s that?”
“I learned I didn’t fit the job description. MacLean did perfectly.”
Frye laughed. “That’s an interesting angle on the whole thing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that’s not what we heard.”
Wolf leaned back. “Heard about what?”
Frye smirked and walked away from the hospital bed.
“Hey, why don’t you take a look around.”
“Thanks. I will,” Frye said, his voice coming from inside Wolf’s bedroom.
Cumberland stood motionless, gazing at Wolf.
Engines revved and tires rumbled on the drive out front, getting louder as they approached.
Frye appeared next to Wolf and gestured to the window. “The rest of our crew.”
“Why?”
Frye stepped to the window and forked open the blinds with his fingers. “Did you kill Gail Olson, Sheriff Wolf?”
Wolf frowned. “What? No.”
Frye twisted and stared at him.
Wolf looked at Frye and Cumberland in turn. “Gail Olson’s been murdered?”
Both agents held their stares.
Frye blinked first. “She’s been missing since the night of Carter Willis’s and Sarah Muller’s deaths. Vanished.”
The vehicles outside came to squeaking stops and car doors opened and closed. Chattering agents and squawks of radio static filled the silence.
“You guys seriously think I shot my ex-wife, Carter Willis, and Gail Olson?” Wolf counteracted his escalating blood pressure with deep breathing.
Frye gestured toward Wolf’s bedroom. “Could have been with that Walther PPK sitting in your nightstand drawer.”
“The bullets that killed my ex-wife and Carter Willis were nine millimeter parabellum. Since a blown off right hand isn’t one of my current injuries, clearly I didn’t use the PPK to fire those rounds. You got a warrant inside that empty head of yours? If not, then get the hell out of my house.”
“And your department issue Glock 17?” Cumberland asked.
“My deputies already checked to see if my piece was fired the day we discovered the bodies.”
“We discovered the bodies?” Frye asked. “They. Your deputies discovered the bodies. You were supposedly here with a psychotic serial murderer at the time doing hell knows what kind of sick things in that bedroom of yours—or at least, you say you were here. And when your deputy checked your weapon? We heard about that visual check and sniff. That’s not going to cut it. We’ll need to do some ballistics.” Frye slapped a folded sheet of paper on his bed. “And here’s our warrant. We’re going to take a look around now. You just sit here and make yourself comfortable while we do.” Frye pulled a radio from his belt. “All right, let’s move.”
Calls and responses echoed outside and the front door blew open. Two male agents entered in full stride.
“Go ahead, make my day,” Wolf leaned back, his confident words sounding not so confident to his ears. Because the truth was, he remembered little of that fateful night a few weeks ago, when Sarah and Carter Willis were shot dead and left in a BMW sedan.
There were still unanswered questions about that night—as in all of the questions.
“Agent Frye.”
Frye paused in mid-conversation with an agent and stepped close to Wolf. “What?”
“Carter Willis.”
“What about him?”
“I’ve been looking into him. Who the hell is he? Aren’t you guys worried about that? He’s not in any of the databases, no public record, nothing. He doesn’t exist. He’s a ghost. And you guys are worried about me?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“Not my concern? He was found dead with my wife.”
“Your ex-wife.” Frye squinted and tilted his head. “Is that all Mr. Wolf?”
Wolf leaned back and closed his eyes. “Is Special Agent Luke here?”
Nobody answered. When Wolf cracked his eyes open Agent Frye was gone.
Wolf looked on his bedside roll-table for his cell phone, and it was gone. A young-looking FBI agent was dropping it in a plastic bag.
“Is Special Agent Luke here?” Wolf asked the agent.
The agent kept silent, but after a quick glance around the room he gave a nod.
“Tell her to come talk to me,” Wolf said quietly.
The agent ignored him and stepped away.
Wolf sat back and pulled up his bed sheet, feeling exposed in more ways than one. There was nothing he could do but breathe and remain calm.
He leaned back and racked his brain again, like he’d done in every waking moment between pain-pill and scotch induced sleeps the last couple of weeks.
He’d relived every memory from the night of Sarah’s and Carter’s deaths countless times, but the problem was that the memories were few. Wolf had been with a woman he thought to be Kimber Grey having drinks when Carter Willis had come into the bar with two of his cronies. It had been only a few minutes, when Carter Willis had approached Wolf, leaned close, and told him his ex-wife was an unforgettable piece of ass. He remembered that clear enough. And then Wolf had attacked him without hesitation.
Wolf had gotten some good shots in, and taken a few, too. But the lights went out when he’d taken a pool cue to the head from one of the two men with Carter.
From that blackout moment onward, Wolf had been at the mercy of a woman who had murdered an unknown number of young men, mutilated their bodies, and dumped them into Cold Lake south of
town. The rest of that night was a complete blackout.
Then there were the memories of the last few weeks since his plummet off a cliff. Those were chopped and jumbled, and trying to remember anything in any order was like trying to put together a thousand-piece puzzle with the pieces turned upside down.
“David.” The voice in his ear was feminine and full of concern.
Wolf opened his eyes.
“You look like shit,” Special Agent Kristen Luke said.
Luke’s brown hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, her face chiseled, yet soft. Her wide cinnamon-bark eyes were bleary but still as stunning as ever.
“You look good,” Wolf said. “Tired, but good.”
She darted a glance to the nearest agent and waited for him to move on. “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you. I can’t really … talk to you.”
Wolf leaned back and nodded. “Deputy Baine has proof that MacLean was behind those photographs with Rachette and Gail Olson—a video interview Baine conducted with Gail Olson. Which makes me think MacLean might be behind the disappearance of Gail Olson. Get to Baine, and get that video file he has.”
“Of course I…” she stopped talking and stepped away.
A few seconds later she came close, this time avoiding eye contact with him. “Go ahead.”
“MacLean also said he had photos of me and Hannah Kipling here at the house that night. Those photos might be my alibi.”
She walked away as if he’d said nothing.
Agent Frye appeared next to Wolf, his eyes trailing Luke. “She tells me you’re innocent.”
“She’s a smart agent.”
“So am I. That’s how I became ASAC. And I know when emotions get involved investigations go sloppy. So I’m not listening to a thing she says.”
Wolf closed his eyes. “Let me know what you find. I’m confident I’ll see you again soon, and you can apologize to me then, okay?”
When Wolf opened his eyes Agent Frye was gone, back in the bustle of agents ransacking his home.
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