by Jeff Carson
“I don’t know.” Rachette wasn’t going to speculate. There was no denying it, though. It wasn’t looking too good. Wolf’s blood had been found on the accelerator, brake pedal, and floor mat of his SUV. Boot prints were found trudging through Connell’s blood at the murder scene. There were five shell casings found at the scene. It would be a simple matter to match any fingerprints on the casings to Wolf’s.
He didn’t like it one bit. But Wolf could still be innocent. Or if he was guilty, he would have had a good reason to do what he did.
Shit. There wasn’t a good reason for murder like that.
Everyone turned toward the gate as a roaring diesel engine and pair of headlights rose into view.
Rachette perked up as Vickers stopped talking to Baine and walked towards the approaching lights. He was straightening his shirt and adjusting his belt, waiting with a solemn expression.
As the large Ford diesel truck thundered closer, Rachette could see the double-horseshoe symbol painted on the door.
Gary Connell cut the engine and stepped out of the truck, or more like fell out of it, stumbling onto his knees, then got up and marched to Vickers. “Where the fuck is he?”
Vickers took off his hat and said some low words that Rachette couldn’t hear, pointed towards the barn, then the hills beyond the half-charred house.
Gary Connell was a mess. His eyes were bloodshot and streaming, and his upper lip was shiny with snot. He wiped both on the long sleeve of his flannel pajama top and walked alongside Vickers.
Rachette noticed that Gary Connell still had slippers on and he felt a twang of pity for the man. Rachette had not had many interactions with Gary Connell over the couple years he had been in town. In fact, Gary hadn’t said a single word to Rachette other than Nice to meet you as they shook hands at some point during the previous summer.
The man’s attitude emanated a power and confidence he hadn’t seen in anyone else but Wolf. And for sixty or so years old, he was in impressive physical shape. Put it all together—the man, the money, and the power—and he was an imposing figure, to say the least. So when Gary locked his wide eyes on Rachette’s, pointed, and marched straight towards him, Rachette’s pulse raised a few BPMs.
“You’re Rachette?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Why didn’t you call this in earlier?”
Rachette sucked in a breath and set his feet, wondering whether he was about to get strangled for the second time in less than eight hours. This time by Dad.
“Sir. We—I didn’t think that—”
Gary waved a hand. “We don’t have any time to listen to your bullshit answer.” His voice quivered as his eyes bore into Rachette’s. “I know who you are, and how you’d do anything to protect Wolf.” He stepped close and finger-pecked Rachette’s chest. “Just know this, Rachette, if anything else goes wrong from now on, you’re out of a job. I’ll see to it personally.”
Rachette nodded and noticed Wilson shuffling into the quiet obscurity of the rest of the men.
To Rachette’s relief, Gary turned and walked on, raising his voice to address the group.
“Sergeant David Wolf killed my only son tonight. Shot him five times.” His head dropped and his body shook, sobbing. “Where did he go?”
Gary stared at the ground for a few seconds, then looked sideways and lifted his head. “That was a question! Where did he go?”
Rachette cleared his throat. “Sir, he was on his—”
“Not you.” Gary’s voice was ice as he pointed a shaking finger at Rachette.
Baine spoke up. “Sir, when we arrived, we witnessed him get on his motorcycle. He had a backpack on, and was dressed in black. He went up the hill around the back of the house. He looked intoxicated, I think. We witnessed him crash the motorcycle into a tree, then he picked up the bike and continued around the mountain on that trail.” Baine pointed. “That trail up there.”
Gary narrowed his eyes, looking to the moonlit mountain covered with burned, skeletal trees. “This is a dangerous man, Deputies. Five shots, two to the head, three to the body.” His voice was steady as he stared into nothing. “That’s what he did to my son.”
He paced in front of the deputies, looking at the ground, then stopped. “I just want to remind you men that David Wolf is an ex-army ranger. A trained killing machine. Don’t be fooled for one second. The man you have gotten to know over the past few years is gone. The smiling face, the friendship you may have garnered with him over the years.” He looked pointedly to Rachette. “That is long gone. You saw what he did to my son last week, and now he’s finished the job.” He shook his head. “He’s snapped.”
The men surrounding Rachette glanced at one another. They were shaking their heads, looking like they disbelieved how far one of their own had fallen.
What he did to my son last week? Were they really believing this?
Gary looked to Vickers and nodded.
Vickers took the silent cue and stepped forward. “There’s more, guys. We’ve got a positive match on fingerprints taken from the knife found at the stabbing last night. They’re Wolf’s.”
Rachette’s stomach twisted.
“Deputy Rachette, can you tell us all who Mark Wilson is?” Vickers asked.
“Uh … excuse me?”
“I asked you, can you please tell us who Mark Wilson is, Deputy Rachette?”
“I’ve … I’ve never met him, sir.”
“I didn’t ask that. Can you tell us who he is, please?”
Gary was glaring at Rachette with a snarl on his face.
Vickers held his determined stare.
“Mark Wilson is now lying in a critical condition in County General,” Vickers said. “And who do you think is there to comfort him as he sits on the brink of death? His girlfriend, Sarah Muller. Formerly known as Sarah Wolf.” Vickers let his glare linger on Rachette for a few more seconds, and then turned to the others.
“We have a killer on the loose. He’s stabbed his ex-wife’s boyfriend, and now he’s killed our sheriff. We need to stop this man before he kills again.
“I have K-9 units on the way from Summit County, and we’ll have a chopper at our disposal tomorrow morning. Right now, I want every deputy down at the station in fifteen for a briefing.”
“If I may say something here, Sergeant Vickers.” Gary sniffed and wiped his eyes, stepping forward.
“Of course, sir.”
“I think he may be coming after me. He called me yesterday, after this happened,” he pointed to the charred remains of the ranch-house kitchen, “on Derek’s phone. I don’t know, you guys might have seen it. He seemed pretty angry. Then I heard that fight break out from over the phone.” He breathed a heavy sigh. “I don’t know why, but I just think it may be a good idea to check the trails that lead north to my ranch. Or any of the trails behind the ranch as well. He’s out for blood. And I have a feeling his sights are on me.”
Rachette studied Gary. Was Gary behind the explosion yesterday? Was Wolf right? Rachette looked at the tinted windows of Gary’s Ford truck. Was that big ex-navy SEAL that Wolf was talking about in there?
“Thank you, sir.” Vickers finger-combed his stiff hair and bowed his head. “We’ll find him, sir. Words cannot express how sorry we are for your loss.”
Gary sniffed, looked to the stars as a tear streamed down his cheek, and then walked to his truck.
“All right! Let’s get going!” Vickers twirled his hand above his head and the men scrambled to their vehicles.
The front of Wolf’s property exploded into the sound of engines firing, lights bathing the grass and surrounding trees. Over it all, Rachette heard Gary’s diesel roar to life as it reversed into the field. For a moment, its headlights stopped on Rachette.
Rachette stood still, squinting into the blinding beams.
“Rachette, let’s go!” Baine’s voice was barely audible over the erupting engines.
Rachette stood unmoved.
The diesel rolled slowly forward for a few feet, like
a bull beginning a charge. Then the front wheels turned and it thundered down the way it had come.
Chapter 27
Gary watched Buck scale the side of the large excavator and shove his head into the open compartment that exposed the inner workings of the machine. Slivers of light escaped from the engine housing as he dug around with his flashlight. Then he jumped down and went to the rear, opened another compartment, and put on the screw cap.
When he was done, Buck climbed into the cab and fired it up.
The excavator jumped from the torque of the roaring engine and spewed a cloud of smoke from the exhaust.
And right there was the reason he kept Buck around.
Earl was high on the hill keeping watch—a less impressive, but just as vital role.
The boom raised, the stick extended, and the bucket dug in high on the scree pile and then pulled down. He lifted a pile of the big rocks, twisted the cab, and dropped them to the ground with a thud that Gary could feel in his feet.
Gary took a Cohiba Behike out of his pocket, cut it, and lit it with a wooden match. He only ever smoked the ultra-expensive brand of cigar on occasions when he’d accomplished a major feat, completed tasks that had particularly drained him such as a successful bear kill with a bow, a lucrative land deal, or a profitable merger. Whatever the occasion, in order to smoke one of these, it had to be an incredibly difficult task that took all his skills and pushed him to the limits of his will power and determination.
He puffed gently, walking away from the deafening diesel, rolling the soft cylinder between his fingers, knowing he’d earned every molecule of the fragrant smoke that streamed out of his nostrils.
Gary sucked in the delicious vapor and narrowed his eyes, watching Buck shovel rocks in the distance.
Sure, Young had pulled the trigger and done the dirty work, but Gary’s acting job in front of the men of the sheriff’s department had been a thing of beauty to top it all off. And that was putting it mildly. That performance was a final act of an entire life’s work. Looking at it that way, he deserved more than this four-hundred-and-fifty-dollar rolled-up piece of junk for what he had just endured.
And what he had just endured was playing a part for the past twenty-five years. Jesus. Had it been twenty-five years since he had learned that that muscle-bound weak excuse for a human being was not even his own son?
His wife had paid immediately for the lie. And ever since her untimely death, he had been paying for it a thousand fold.
For twenty-five years he’d been putting on the act of his life, pretending to care about that worthless sack of muscles in order to deflect any suspicion of his involvement in Derek’s mother’s death. Well, he was finally done paying. It was like selling off a toxic asset. No more pretending.
He relaxed his grip on the Cohiba and puffed it gently again.
A husky voice warmed his ear. “Gotcha.”
Gary turned, flipping the cigar out of his mouth and onto the ground in a shower of sparks. “Jesus Christ! Don’t do that!”
Young stood back and stared towards the excavator.
Gary was beginning to think there was something supernatural about this guy. “Did you drive here? Where’s your car?”
“It’s down the road.”
Gary eyed him as Earl’s voice scratched through the radio. “You okay, boss?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Gary put the radio back on his belt, picked up the cigar with a quick brush and lit it again. Young was smiling at him. “What?”
“Nothing.” Young was studying him with a slight look of … was it respect? “I just didn’t think you’d be so … normal. You know, after your son was so brutally murdered tonight and all.”
“He wasn’t my son.” Gary’s voice was almost inaudible. He puffed a few times and flipped ash onto the ground.
Young raised his eyebrows.
They stood in silence, watching Buck work the machinery.
“So?” Gary gave him a sideways glance and held out his hand.
“So what?”
He turned to Young. “What do you mean, so what? Where is it?”
Young smiled again. “Relax. He didn’t have it on him. It’s probably at his house. I obviously couldn’t get it last night.” His eyes bore into Gary’s. “I’ll get it.”
“Shit.” Gary put the cigar in his mouth. “What about Wolf?”
Young’s eyes were half closed. “He’s headed towards us, just like we thought. He stopped about halfway, probably to pass out for the night. I’m heading to your house now to get some rest, then I’ll get him in the morning.”
Gary glared at Young. “I’m telling you, this guy isn’t a pushover. You’ll have to watch your ass with him now. He knows you’re coming.”
Young’s face didn’t move a millimeter. Did he even breathe?
“Pretty slow going,” Young finally said, nodding towards the excavator.
“Well, good thing you have plenty else to worry about besides what goes on here.”
Young stared at Gary. “Oh, I’m not worried about what happens here one bit.”
A chill crawled up Gary’s spine as he thought about that. “If this doesn’t work out, you’ll be out of a job, for one.”
“And that’s all I’ll be. Out of a job.” Young slapped Gary on the shoulder, hard, then turned to walk through the gate.
Chapter 28
Wolf crouched in a hole on a bare mountainside high above treeline. At over twelve thousand feet, it was still well below freezing in the shaded southwestern slope. Just a few feet away, the eastern side of the mountain was bathed in the warmth of the rising sun. But he didn’t want to risk any reflections so he kept inside the shadow.
He tucked his chin underneath the neck of his frosty jacket, and with as little movement as possible scanned the terrain below through his high-powered binoculars.
It had been an hour since the first rays of light had risen over the eastern peaks, and Wolf could now see shimmering pinpoint reflections off windows and rooftops in town far below to the west.
There didn’t seem to be any action out of the ordinary in town—not that he could see much from such a distance—but he knew the manhunt would be well underway by now.
Wolf sat up a little as he heard a faint rumble of a four-stroke engine. It sounded like a motorcycle—like his Yamaha or an ATV. It grew louder below, and finally he could sense it was coming from the right.
He pointed the binoculars as a four-wheeler slowly came over the hill and stopped. Its engine at an idle was almost inaudible from the four-hundred-yard distance.
The image of Young on a parked ATV bounced gently in Wolf’s binoculars. The big guy was digging for something in a pack on his lap, looking down. Then he unshouldered his rifle and pointed it towards the group of bushes where Wolf had ditched the motorcycle.
Wolf narrowed his eyes.
Young seemed to think better of taking the shot, and shouldered his rifle, then accelerated fast down the hill.
Wolf followed with the lenses.
A few seconds later the sound waves of the thumping engine hit—a long sustained acceleration that ended in scraping tires.
Young jumped off and walked to the lone clump of foliage on an otherwise desolate-looking high-mountain landscape.
There was no way he could have seen the bike from the top of the hill, or could see it at all now. Wolf had made sure of that the night before.
Wolf had ridden hard for over three hours, leaving scent decoys, doubling back on his trail numerous times, ultimately ending up in a place that was as nondescript as any.
He was nowhere near Gary’s 2Shoe ranch, miles away in fact, and he’d hidden the bike completely. Nonetheless, here was Young. And Young walked straight to it, bent down, and threw back the limbs Wolf had placed over it without a second’s hesitation.
Soon it made sense. Young dug around for a few seconds, as if looking for something on the bike, or underneath it. When he stood up, he had a small white object in his hand. He pu
lled another item from his pocket and looked at them both, then walked to his four-wheeler and dug in the pack on the back of his seat.
He had retrieved a GPS tracking device.
Wolf began taking mental stock of all the gear he’d taken from his house the previous night, all the while keeping the big man in the bobbing view of his binoculars. Wolf was reasonably confident that there were no more devices on him. More likely, Young had attached them to Wolf’s vehicles, keeping track of him all last night, and then getting an early start this morning.
Wolf swung the binoculars back to the crest of the hill where Young had come from. There was nobody else. Certainly not any cops. Wolf cursed himself for not bringing a rifle.
Young was obviously out for blood, and at this point he would be praised as a hero if he came back with Wolf’s head in a duffle bag. He was alone, so he could say it was self-defense if he killed Wolf. Or maybe there were strict shoot-to-kill orders for Wolf right now straight from Vickers, the acting sheriff.
Wolf shivered. Not because he was still covered with overnight frost, but at the thought that Gary Connell had murdered his only son. Why? To create this chance to kill Wolf?
Or had he? Maybe this Young guy was working alone with his own agenda. If so, why?
Wolf swept the binoculars back downhill.
His stomach lurched as the distant image filled his view. Young was standing dead still, pointing his rifle straight at him.
Wolf held his breath and didn’t blink. Every muscle on his body tensed, ready to duck at the first sign of a muzzle flash, knowing that the bullet could reach him faster than the sound of the shot.
After a few agonizing moments, Young slowly swung his rifle to the shadowed slope to Wolf’s right, then back and forth a few times.
Wolf stayed still, taking slow breaths into the neck of his coat, hoping his breath was invisible at such a distance.
