Cold Lake (17 page)

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

“Wolf.”

“You get my pictures today?”

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

“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.”

Wolf paused for a few seconds. “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 jammed the brakes and stopped on the side of the road. “What did you say?”

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

“The last part.”

“I said your dispatcher tracked down the owner of the plates, and called them on the phone. They assured your dispatcher that they were indeed alive and well, and they went out and checked their car, 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 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. Isn’t worth shit now, though.”

Wolf remembered the shiny black Mercedes SUV from 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.”

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 5 at the latest. An hour and eight minutes was enough time to get in and out with essential info, he told himself.

He stepped out of the SUV and zipped his jacket up all the way. The densely forested hillside they were on was draped in afternoon shade and the temp would be on a 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.

He walked toward the deputy, stopping next to another deputy with a clipboard who stood eyeing him with a suspicious squint.

“Sheriff Wolf, you say?” The deputy held up a hand.

Wolf smiled. “Yes sir.”

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

Wolf ducked under the tape and held out a hand.

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 was in no way apparent. But as they got closer, he could see the three-pointed star and the Colorado plates covered in soot.

“You find a VIN?” Wolf asked.

“Yep. 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 in the same white suit stood from 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. “And the VIN?”

The woman nodded and pointed to the front of the car, which was buckled into a V on a cracked pine tree. The wood was scorched black all the way up to the blue sky above. “Found it on the engine block. Whoever did this didn’t know Mercedes puts the chassis number there, too I guess.”

“Registered to the state of Idaho,” Fuller said.

“Idaho.” Wolf frowned, vaguely remembering seeing a vehicle from Idaho sometime recently.

“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, offering no further explanation.

“I’d like the VIN.”

Fuller nodded, carefully jotting it down and tearing off a sheet of paper.

“And your contact information.”

“You got it.” Fuller stood straighter and handed him a contact card from his breast pocket along with the sheet of paper.

“Any witnesses?” Wolf asked.

“Nope. There’s no one who lives around here for miles. There was a woman who was walking her dog on this road and she saw it. Luckily it’s been so wet lately and it burned itself out without starting the mountain on fire.” Fuller exhaled and 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 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 stepping straight up.

Breathing hard, legs screaming with fatigue, Wolf trailed Fuller over the edge 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 parking in Wolf’s SUV on all sides. An army of uniforms were digging into compartments, pulling out bags, preparing stretchers, ropes and other equipment.

Wolf and Fuller walked down the road and ducked under the crime scene tape.

“I got this,” Fuller said, and walked toward a man near the ambulance. They spoke in low tones, looking back at Wolf. The man, who was apparently the driver of the ambulance looked up and nodded with annoyance, and then opened a side compartment and began pulling out orange bags.

Fuller came back, stepping quickly to Wolf. “They’ll just be a minute.” He stood next to Wolf and folded his arms. “So, how’s the campaign going?”

Wolf nodded. “It’s going.”

There was a loud beeping and a tow truck came into view, driving up the road rear-first.

Fuller nodded, and then stepped away again. “Hey, we gotta move these vehicles out, Ted. This is Sheriff Wolf from Sluice, and he’s gotta get going.”

The crew of men and women ignored Fuller, and any request he made seemed to have the opposite effect Wolf was hoping for.

Wolf turned to the deputy with the clipboard, and was surprised to see the man had a sadistic grin, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

Wolf nodded.

The man looked down at his clipboard and began scribbling.

Eleven minutes later Wolf’s dashboard clock read 4:46 pm, and he was on his way down the dirt road past the idling emergency vehicles when an SUV marked with the Byron County Sheriff logo on it came into view.

Wolf slowed and the SUV did the same.

MacLean’s smiling face rolled up next to Wolf.

“You done already?”

Wolf nodded. “I think I’ve got all I need.”

MacLean leaned back and checked his rearview mirror, as if settling in for a long conversation.

“I’ve gotta get going.”

MacLean smirked. “Yeah. I know. Chama.”

“Chama.”

“Well, he knows what he needs to know about the way you’re runnin’ your department up there.” MacLean’s upper lip was raised, his eyes narrowed.

“Well, then that’s a good thing. I appreciate it.”

MacLean chuckled. “You gonna play it that way?”

“Listen, like I said. I gotta get going.”

“I thought you were a smarter man than that, Wolf. I’m really trying to envision where I might put you in the new department, where you would be a good fit? And I keep drawing a blank. I don’t know, a jailer? You even got experience doing that? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe somewhere a little less taxing mentally. Let’s see … I keep seeing a toilet brush. A mop. One of those big push brooms.”

Wolf lowered his eyelids to half-mast.

MacLean raised his hands. “Easy, Sheriff. I’m just playing with you.” He leaned an arm out the window and tilted his head out. “Listen, it’s as simple as it gets. You end your campaign and I have cushy jobs lined up for you and your two little deputies. Whatever you want, whatever they want. It’ll be one big happy family going forward. Either that, or you three look for new careers.” MacLean finger-combed his mustache in the side-view mirror and looked at Wolf. “And I’m Sheriff anyway.”

Wolf let off the brake, not once looking back as he drove.

Patterson stood next to the tall rookie rescue diver she’d had the privilege to meet the day before and shook her head. “Look, Jeremy,” she pointed up at the cloudless sky, “there was the moon.”

Jeremy looked up at the vacant blue sky and narrowed his eyes.

“The reflection would have been a straight line from the moon,” she continued, “straight at the observer, which is us. Right here.” Jeremy blinked as she pointed down and stomped her foot, shuddering the deck.

“Okay,” Jeremy said slowly, with eyes like a dog in mid-poop.

“Look. Please. Can I just take the radio?” Patterson held out her hand.

Jeremy peaked his eyebrows and handed it over. “Yeah. Fine.”

“Thank you.” She took the radio and pushed the button. “I need you to move approximately fifty yards south.”

There was silence. “Who’s this?”

“This is Deputy Patterson. I’m taking over radio contact.”

A pause. “10-4. Moving now.”

The water behind the silver rescue boat below frothed white, and a split second later Patterson heard the distant gurgling of the outboard motor.

Patterson ducked underneath the telescope main body, in front of the mounting tripod and squinted one eye. She backed her head up until it touched the cylinder, and then looked with her squinted eye at the weighted string she’d hung from the lens.

She was winging it, with no help from Einstein who stood on the deck with her, but she had effectively traced the path of the moon’s reflection with the string, as it would have appeared that night. How wide a swath from left to right the reflection would have covered, she could only guess, but the boatmen said the sonar transducer covered a 250 foot diameter circle as it traveled. She hoped that was enough to catch whatever dropped out of Parker Grey’s boat. And that was only if Olin Heeter had been a reliable witness and something had actually been dropped out of Parker Grey’s boat in the first place.

“Such a scientist,” Jeremy said.

Patterson ignored him and pushed the radio button. “Okay, there! Stop.”

“10-4.”

“That’s right on it,” Patterson said.

“All right. We have a bearing.”

The engine of the boat started up again and it inched forward. Patterson squatted again under the telescope main housing and the boat travelled a straight line along the string.

“Here we go,” the voice said over the radio. “Let you know what we find.”

Patterson stood up, satisfied. It had been a grueling hour or so, first trying to figure out how to point a telescope to exact celestial coordinates, with remote help on a landline with Deputy Tyler at the station, who had proved to be one of the least patient men she’d ever known. Then there was tracing the heading of the moon’s reflection using the string, which was actually a thin strip of tee shirt deputy Wilson had offered up out of his SUV. She was sure there was a better way to do all of it, probably some app sitting on her phone that could have helped, but all in all she was satisfied.

“So, listen,” Jeremy’s eyebrows were peaked again, his head tilted, smiling with one side of his mouth. “You live in Rocky Points, right?”

Patterson exhaled. “Yes.”

“What say you and I grab a bite sometime?”

“Sorry. Taken.” Patterson leaned on the railing.

“Well, he’s a lucky man.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean,” Jeremy leaned down and leaned next her to, close enough to smell his dead animal breath, “because I think you’re cute. Shorter than most of the girls I tend to be attracted to, but … cute.”

Patterson frowned. “Thanks. Now don’t you have a boat to catch?”

Jeremy stood up, his eyes darkening. “You don’t have to be a bitch about it.”

Patterson stood up and backed away, startled by the man’s sudden hostility.

“Hey, dickhead. She said she’s taken.”

Patterson and Jeremy both turned to see Rachette standing by the telescope.

“Now get the hell off this deck and off our crime scene, before I throw you off.”

Jeremy smiled as he walked by Rachette, looking down. “Yeah, okay, Napoleon. You two make a good couple.”

Rachette stood flexing his fists as he watched Jeremy leave. He turned back around and looked at the telescope, and then he touched the makeshift string. Stepping to the railing he said, “I see you figured this out. No way I could have. I guess that’s why Wolf told you to do it.”

Patterson stayed silent. Wilson walked underneath the deck, nodding up at them.

“No prints on anything.” Rachette stretched his back. “Looks like the place was wiped clean, top to bottom. That’s why the place smells like a hotel maid’s cart.”

“Look,” Patterson said. “Thanks. I could have kicked that guy’s ass, you know that, right?”

“Whatever. I know.” Rachette looked down at the railing and picked at a sliver with his thumb. “I’ve seen that guy out on the town a lot lately. Always has a bunch of girls hanging on him.”

They stood in awkward silence for a full minute, and she watched the boats meander on the water below, the trees swaying in the wind, and the birds flying by along the cliff face below.

“Listen,” she said. “I’m sorry. I know you think I betrayed you or something.”

“Nah, it’s just that partners are supposed to have each other’s backs, you know? Like, remember that time I got shot three times that night? When I—”

“Christ, Rachette. Of course I remember that.”

“Oh, really? Because when you took those photos straight to Wolf without talking to me first, it was kind of like I was some piece of shit you were scraping off your shoe, and not a partner who’s taken
three bullets
for you.”

Patterson inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. “We’re both going to be lucky if we have jobs next month. Look at it from my perspective, MacLean pulls me aside and gives me those photos, our likely future sheriff if my aunt is telling me correctly, and tells me you and I are both in trouble? I saw those pictures and thought you were going behind my back doing something stupid, putting both our careers in jeopardy. And, oh wait, that’s exactly what you were doing.”

“What? How the hell was I supposed to know that this girl was giving me the run-around. She gave me a backpack and asked me to give it to her friend. What’s so bad about that? How the hell would I have known?”

Patterson shook her head and stared out at the water.

“Oh wait.” Rachette turned to her and squinted. “I get it. You think I should have been alarmed when a cute girl like that was suddenly into me. You think I should have known she was using me. Because I’m just some … Napoleon, who nobody of the opposite sex takes any interest in. Yeah, I should have known.”

Patterson exhaled and turned. “No, I’m not saying—”

“No,” Rachette backed away, “I get it. Hey, I’m sorry, partner. Sorry for screwing up.”

“Rachette.”

He disappeared into the house.

Patterson exhaled and pressed her palms into her eyes. He was probably right, and admitting that deputy Tom Rachette right was her least favorite thing in the world to do.

“Deputy Patterson,” the radio scratched. “Do you copy?”

“Copy, go ahead.”

“We’ve got something. It’s too deep to get to with divers, but we definitely have something.”