by Jeff Carson
Her phone chimed and vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out. She absently hit the silence button and looked at the screen.
Every nerve in her body fired as she stared at the name on the screen.
She pressed the green answer button and held the phone to her side.
“Sir,” she said. “I can’t see how an anonymous tip on a weapon is enough to move on Wolf.” She raised her voice. “David Wolf is not a killer.”
Agent Frye looked up and exhaled, his face softening. “Look, I know your history with this guy isn’t without a little heartache, so I’ll cut you some slack with your tone, and I’ll explain this once. The first part of the tip was that Gail Olson’s body would be found south of Rocky Points. The Sheriff’s office checked on it last night and they found her, exactly where they were told.
“The second half of the tip told us the location of the murder weapon in Wolf’s shed.” He held up his hands. “It’s enough for me. It’s enough for all of us who’ve been looking for answers for three and a half months. We’re moving.”
“Sounds fishy. An anonymous tip?”
Frye ignored her.
“Sir. There’s no way Wolf did this. This isn’t him. He doesn’t kill people.”
“So you think, because you used to screw him, and that’s exactly why you’re not going to be involved.” Frye closed and latched his brief case, grabbed it and ushered her toward the door. He pulled out his phone and made a call.
Luke turned. “Sir, they’re going to eat him alive. And if … if you’re wrong about the cartel—”Frye’s brief case knocked against her back.
“This is Frye. Keep your post.”
Luke held the phone with the microphone pointed to her rear.
“Nobody, and I mean nobody but us goes in or out of that road … wait until I get there … as fast as we can.”
She went out into the main room and stood still while Frye pocketed his phone and locked his door.
“Report to Samson. There was a quadruple murder in Park Hill last night and it involved a lawyer who does a lot of business with many of us.” Frye shook his head. “Damn nightmare. The whole family was executed. I want you two there.”
Before Luke could tell her boss that she and Tedescu had already seen the carnage first hand, that her partner had inexplicably brought her to the murders that morning, thrust a key into her hand and then ran like the world was about to end, Frye disappeared around the corner.
She considered chasing after him, but her phone seemed to keep her from moving. Like it was planted in space and had some sort of localized gravitational field she could not escape.
In the silent room there were two lone agents at desks, pecking away on keyboards. The rest of the vast room seemed left in disarray.
She twirled full circle to make sure she was alone, then pressed the phone to her ear. “Wolf?”
Chapter 7
Wolf woke to his alarm at sunrise and muscled down breakfast even though he felt no hunger. It was like he was swallowing medicine.
An hour later he’d completed his daily stretches—spending an extra few minutes on his leg—and then was dressed to leave.
He checked his old department Glock and shoved it into his paddle holster. Tucking it on his hip, he put on his fleece jacket, pulled the drawstring on the waist open to let it fall over the pistol, took one last look in the mirror, and left out the front door.
A warm wind buffeted him from the south. By the looks of the crystal clear sky a high-pressure front was pushing up from Arizona. The snow that had dusted the peaks yesterday was a distant memory.
Stopping on the grass, he stretched his back and checked the side of the mountain ahead, and to his surprise the pinpoint reflection was now gone.
Perhaps his spies were looking elsewhere at the moment, or had finally lost interest in him.
Wolf pulled out his phone, keeping his eyes on the spot.
This was go time. If it took fifty phone calls, he was going to get someone in the Denver FO to tell him why they were watching so closely.
He scrolled through the numbers and pressed the number for Special Agent Kristen Luke.
The phone trilled and then clicked.
“Luke,” he was stunned that after so many months of screening his calls, all of a sudden she was picking up after one ring.
There was no response.
“It’s Wolf. Hello?”
Then Luke spoke, but her voice was far from the phone receiver. She had clearly hit the wrong button.
“Luke?” Wolf began to pace with the phone against his ear, and then froze at the sound of his name.
His pulse climbed with each word.
“The second half of the tip told us the location of the murder weapon in Wolf’s shed.”
Wolf twisted and stared at the workshop door on his barn.
Listening to the continuing conversation playing out in his ear, he walked silently.
The padlock was missing. There were no sign of scratches on the latch, just a tiny sliver of metal partially buried in the dirt. He picked it up and rolled it in his fingers. The lock had been clipped off with bolt cutters.
Wolf listened to the remainder of the faint conversation and then there was a loud scratching sound in his ear.
“Wolf?” Luke asked.
“What the hell was that?”
Standing up, he felt a jolt of pain in his spine that vanished by the time he straightened.
“Did you hear what my boss said?”
“If I heard that the FBI is moving on me for suspicion of murdering my wife, then yeah. I heard.” Ex-wife, he corrected himself. He flipped the latch on the shed door and pushed it open.
“Shit.” Luke breathed into the phone.
“An anonymous tip says I killed Carter Willis and Sarah? And what did you say? They found Gail Olson?”
“The tip was called into Sluice-Byron Sheriff’s Department last night and said you killed Gail Olson. The person gave the location of the body, and the location of the weapon, which I’m assuming is at your house. Apparently SBSD just found her, and now we’re coming up to bring you in.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. I can see right here that my workshop’s been broken into. You guys should have seen everything. This place was crawling with your surveillance yesterday, and now it’s gone, and now I’m being framed?”
Studying the wood plank floor, he regretted cleaning the place a week ago, because now there were no signs of footprints. He stepped in and gazed down on the dirt outside the door and saw it looked freshly smoothed over.
He stood motionless, scanning every inch of his workbench and the surrounding shop area. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
“… men.”
“What?”
“Are you listening to me?”
“No.”
“I said Vincent and Buntham? That’s hardly a surveillance operation. They were just keeping tabs on you while you left your house.”
Wolf stood straight. “What are you talking about? You had at least eight men on me yesterday.”
“They weren’t us.”
Wolf froze.
“Wolf, are you there?”
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“You had men watching you?” Luke asked, her voice just above a whisper. “Are you sure?”
Wolf ignored her. He stepped to the first drawer of his workbench and pulled it open. Then he moved to the next one, and the next.
He knew exactly what he was looking for: a 9mm pistol.
Shaking his head, he grabbed his hunting binoculars and walked outside. He pressed the cold rubber eyepieces against his cheeks and studied the hillside to the west.
“Wolf, talk to me.”
The surveillance set up was definitely gone. The dark SUV that usually sat parked behind the copse of trees in the saddle was not there. There were no more men milling about, with their plumes of cigarette smoke drifting on the breeze.
“Does the Bureau use black
SUVs, dark SUVs, for surveillance stake outs?”
“What?”
“Answer.”
“No. They’re in a fleet of Crown Vics coming up right now. I’m sure we have some SUVs in the motor pool, but I’ve never used one down here in Denver.” She paused. “Wolf?”
“Yeah.”
“I have to tell you something else.”
“What?”
“That … Carter Willis was ours.”
The workshop floor seemed to tilt a few degrees.
“He was FBI. Undercover.”
Wolf switched phone hands. “You’ve been screening my calls for months. Ignoring that one question I asked over and over—Who’s Carter Willis? I asked you dozens of times if your databases turned up anything, if your contacts had any info. Patterson’s been asking you.”
“Wolf. I was under orders to not speak to you about it.”
“Fuck your orders!” Wolf’s chest tightened. “That’s a pretty big clue you were keeping from me, Luke.”
She exhaled into his ear. “Wolf. I’m sorry. But whether or not I told you about him is not important right now.”
“Not important?”
“No, it’s not. From what I’ve learned this morning, I think you just had a very dangerous element watching you. It wasn’t us. I know for certain, because I’ve been all over this case from the beginning, and the only two men we had up there were Buntham and Vincent. That’s it.”
Wolf slowed his breathing. “Then who? A dangerous element? Start using simpler words. I’m not in the mood.”
“There was a dead family this morning down here, and then my partner said you were being framed and you’re innocent. Whatever the connection, this dead family spooked him and he just drove away with squealing tires. He was freaked out, and he used to be partnered with Agent Smith.”
“Who the hell’s agent Smith?”
“Carter Willis. Smith is his real name. Crap, Wolf, there’s a lot you don’t know. And you have less than two hours until we get there.”
Wolf squeezed his upper thigh and his femur protested beneath his bruised muscle. “I’ll get a good lawyer. This is bullshit and everyone knows it.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Okay, let’s say you’re taken into custody and eventually charged. Tonight or tomorrow you’ll be put in with general population in Quad-County. These guys just killed an entire family down here. They’ve got my partner spooked. By the looks of it, they’re responsible for Sarah’s death. Something is clearly going down. Some sort of plan. You think it’s a stretch that they might have someone on the inside at Quad-County?
“Think about it. They’re framing you. After that, keeping you alive would be a major liability. Like you said, what if you get a good lawyer?”
Wolf stepped outside.
“Wolf. I’m right. Get out of there, and then call me when you do.”
He hung up and took the battery out of his phone, pried out the SIM card with his fingernail, and pocketed all of it.
Luke had his attention.
She was as sharp an agent as they came, and he had to admit her argument made sense. No matter how unlikely her assessment seemed now, or how disloyal she’d been to him over the last few months, his instincts were telling him to listen to her.
MacLean’s laughing face flashed in his mind.
Wolf had a lot of questions, and he would surely fail to get answers from behind bars. Justice for Sarah would be locked up right with him, he was sure of it. And Luke was right; prison could be a dangerous place, especially for a cop.
His watch said 7:45.
The gun that killed Sarah was here. Feet from him, tucked away somewhere inside his barn. Laughing at him.
He walked back inside the workshop and stepped along the plank floor to the dirt. His dirt bike, his father’s old tractor, some rusted farm equipment, a canoe, and an ill-working snowmobile slept unmoved and untouched, still blanketed in months of dust.
No footprints anywhere.
Wolf stepped to the barn doors, unlatched them, and pulled them open, letting the morning light flood inside.
He stepped out. A black tassel-eared squirrel stood staring at him on the path to his right. A tree trunk creaked as it swayed back and forth in the wind.
He walked to the motorcycle and pushed it upright off its kickstand. The gas tank sloshed, still full.
Swinging his leg over the dusty seat, he winced as his hip protested in pain. Bending over, he swung out the kick-start lever and gave it a try.
Nothing.
He tried once more, and the motion of loading his weight, jumping, and slamming down on his right leg was excruciating on his hip and it felt like his femur was about to crack again.
Stepping off, he dug his thumb into cramped leg muscle. Leaving on foot was a ridiculous thought in his condition. The road south dead-ended two miles away in the middle of remote forest.
That left one option.
Wolf’s breath echoed in the canoe as he balanced it upside down on his head and walked down his dirt driveway.
Reaching the bull horned head-gate, he stopped and dumped it on the ground. The fiberglass boat crashed hard and bounced, sounding like a timpani in the still morning air.
For the last month the two FBI goons had parked about a mile down the road and thankfully today was no different.
Dropping the paddle inside, he grabbed the rope on the front of the boat and pulled it down the inclined drive to the dirt road and then crossed.
Boat scraping behind him, he stopped at the steep drop-off on the other side.
The Chautauqua was flowing high on the banks, fed by the recent ample rain.
Pulling until the boat teetered over the edge, he gave it a shove and then grabbed the side to prevent it from going over too fast.
His footing gave out and he slipped onto his ass and slid down the embankment alongside the boat, scraping his back what felt like to the bone, all the while the booming vessel bouncing against him.
The bow jabbed into the water and started drifting down current fast. The keel slid and connected with his back, pushing him toward the water.
“Shit,” he said, realizing he was now leaning out over the water and about to go in.
With the most athletic move he’d accomplished in over three months, he twisted and grabbed the boat and jumped up. The boat slid underneath him, and he landed inside, belly down.
He landed on his thighs on the bow seat, and he crashed head and elbow first into the floor of the canoe.
Rocking back and forth, the boat scraped along the rocky edge and then was adrift.
Wolf blocked out the pain of the sledgehammer blow to his femur and rolled onto his back. After a wrestling match with himself, he managed to pull his legs in, roll back over and balance on his knees in the wobbling boat.
He was flying down the river, bouncing up and down on the rapids.
With a thud the canoe slammed into a rock and stopped, and Wolf went face first into the stern thwart, the cross beam that kept the hull sturdy in front.
With barely an inch to spare, Wolf put his hand up just in time to soften the blow.
“Damn it.”
He righted himself, grabbed the paddle, sat on the bow seat and began paddling.
Thinking two, three, four moves ahead, he picked his lines and steered the boat with adrenaline charged muscles.
Looking up to his right, he could see nothing but the steep embankment, and then suddenly the slope was not there anymore and he was looking all the way to the mountains to his right.
Mountains, and the dirt road.
Still, there was no sign of the FBI vehicle.
Again he slammed into a rock, and he cursed himself for taking his eye off the water for too long.
Crouching low in the canoe, he felt alive for the first time in months. The pain in his hip was screaming, but barely registering in his mind. His femur throbbed, but he didn’t care
.
As he rounded a bend to the right the unmarked came into view and he saw the two familiar agents Luke had called Vincent and Buntham milling around next to it. A puff of cigarette smoke blew from one of their mouths, and the other was stretching his arms above his head.
Wolf crouched lower, but knew simply getting lower in the boat would be of no use. In fact, to do so would probably bring more suspicion on him.
The only consolation was that the two men were parked on the crest of a hill, and there was an embankment blocking their view of the river below.
Maybe he could pass completely unnoticed. His only chance was to hug the right side shore as closely as possible.
He paddled and got into position in the right hand rapids, and sure enough the slope grew higher and the vehicle disappeared from view above.
The last he saw of the two agents, they looked preoccupied in the down river direction. They were anxiously awaiting their colleagues.
Wolf’s stomach dropped.
The road ahead came back down to only a few feet above the river, and Wolf was going to be in plain view until the next bend which was well over a hundred yards away.
The two agents would be looking right at him for ten, maybe even twenty seconds.
Shit.
He searched the shore for a place to land. Maybe he could stop below them and try to create a diversion, and then slip by unnoticed.
Before the options had finished running through his mind he was out in the open.
With slow, deliberate paddles, he pumped twice on the starboard side, then once on the port. He sat straight, high on the seat, a man out for a leisurely morning paddle. No hurry.
“Yeah. This’ll work,” he said under his breath, dodging another rock with a precise swing of the stern.
He could feel the eyes of the Bureau Agents on his back. He could imagine their conversation, deciding what to do about the man in the boat. Should they come after him? Should they keep their posts?
Did they even notice him?
Of course they did.
Wolf passed around the next bend and exhaled, and then he paddled hard.
