by Jeff Carson
The irony bounced off Burton’s slack face. He was starting to slur.
“And then I learned that after that trip to Rocky Points, Mike had given up on raising Jesse. I guess there was this woman named Bertha who used to babysit Mike growing up. She took over.
“It was not official, you know, with the state or anything. But Jesse had lived with her for nine of the first ten years of his life, never seeing his father for more than a few minutes at a time, maybe once or twice a month, if at all, until his death.”
Burton wiped tears from his cheeks.
“That’s when something finally clicked inside of me. I started going camping with Jesse. I realized the boy needed a man in his life. That living with old Bertha wasn’t going to cut it. I took Jesse two or three times that first summer. Then I took him fishing that next year, and then we started going to Canyon of the Ancients, and he loved it. It was kind of our thing for a while.”
Burton looked at his hands. “But I couldn’t keep it up.”
“Why’s that?” Wolf asked.
Burton snorted. “There’s no reason why.” He put the cup back to his lips and sucked the liquid out of the ice. “He wasn’t my kid. He wasn’t my responsibility. That’s why.”
“Was it something to do with the teacher stabbing incident?”
Burton looked at Wolf with narrowed eyes. “Who told you about that?”
“Cheryl.”
“Oh.”
Wolf put his feet back on the ground. They throbbed with pain as the blood rushed back in. “What did he try and stab his teacher with?” he asked.
“A compass.”
Wolf raised his eyebrows. The pointy metal tip of the math tool was definitely a step above a sharpened pencil as far as harmful intent goes.
“Shit,” Burton said. “I mean, I wanted to help. I was considering bringing Jesse up to Rocky Points and taking him into our house, but Cheryl was freaked out. Like I said, we’d already decided we weren’t going to have kids. And here’s Jesse. The wild animal nobody wanted.”
Burton shook his head.
“I could have fought her. I could have put my foot down. I could have fought for him.” A tear streamed down Burton’s cheek. “I remember that last time I saw him. Before that incident when we were done with one of our camping trips. I told him to keep me on his speed dial. That we were going to spend more time together. Especially after he got his driver’s license. That he could come visit whenever he wanted.”
Burton pulled the flimsy sheet up to his shoulders and his arms went limp underneath. His head lolled to the side.
“That was the last time we went camping,” Burton said, eyes still closed. “I let him down from that moment on. He was getting too close. I was getting too close.”
The old man took a deep, shuddering breath.
Wolf stood and tucked the sheet around his arms, then pulled a thin comforter to cover his torso.
The sheet moved, and Wolf saw Burton’s eyes were open.
“I lied to his face. He called after that, and I ignored him. I ignored him.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s sure as shit not okay. I ignored him before that incident. Before he tried to stab his teacher. I know if I would have just answered the phone, that would have never happened.”
Burton closed his eyes again. His voice was sleepy. “He knew what he was doing, texting me like that today. He knows what I said after that trip and how I wriggled out of my promise like a slimy rainbow trout.” He opened his eyes. “I have to help him out of this, Dave.”
Wolf stood straight. “We’ll talk about it in the morning. You need to get some sleep.”
“I have to help him. He’s acting like he didn’t do whatever they think he did, so I have to believe him. I have to be there for him, and I have to help him.”
Wolf thought of the gun Jesse was carrying. He wondered what the kid’s past did to his psyche. In Wolf’s experience people’s pain could cause them to do rash, terrible things. A lifetime of harsh words or circumstances could mean certain actions were on the table that weren’t for law abiding citizens.
He thought of Jesse’s shock of flaming red hair. His camouflage pants. His past. His present as a militant YouTuber that disgusted Cheryl. He thought of Cheryl all those years ago, appalled and fearful of the child who had tried to stab his teacher.
“I think you might not know this kid,” Wolf said.
“He’s telling me he didn’t do it. Don’t you get it? I have to believe him, even if he’s not telling the truth. I owe this kid. Because even if he’s a murderer, it’s my fault.” His teeth were clenched.
Wolf said nothing.
“I want to thank you for being here for me now.” Burton’s words ran together. “You’ve always been the best of the bunch, you know that? You’ve always been my best go-to guy. My right-hand man, when I was young and spry enough to be out there in the field.” Burton smiled. “You remember that?”
Wolf pressed his lips together.
“And I am sorry. I’m sorry for what I said earlier about you breaking down last year.”
“It’s all right,” Wolf said.
“No, it’s not.”
“Okay. Go to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“I’m not dumb, Wolf. He looks like the type of hoodlum who just might shoot and kill somebody. He’s got the history. But if he didn’t, if he’s telling the truth, I want to make sure they’re giving him a fair shake up there. We need to be part of that investigation.”
Wolf nodded. “Sleep.”
Burton’s arm shot out from under the bedsheet. He poked a finger into his own chest. “I was the Sheriff of Sluice County, damn it. You’re the chief detective of the department now. They’d be happy to have two people like us lending a hand.”
Wolf waited for the redness to subside in Burton’s face, and said, “I’m not sure if I would welcome an outsider into an investigation involving a murdered resident of Rocky Points, and I wouldn’t blame Sheriff Roll for thinking the same way.”
Burton tucked his hand back under the sheet and a sly smile stretched his lips. “I have a history with Sheriff Roll. He’ll let us in.”
“What does that mean?”
“You let me worry about that. I just need to know about you. What do you say, Wolf? You in? For old time’s sake?”
“We’ll go up there tomorrow. Sleep.”
Burton’s lips curled in a sly smile and he closed his eyes.
Wolf picked up the duffel bag and left.
“Where are you going?”
Wolf twisted the knob. “To sleep.”
“You can sleep right here.”
He had heard the impaled rhinoceros sounds the man could make during a deep snooze. “No thanks.”
“Wolf!”
He stopped, poked his head inside. “What?”
Burton nodded seriously. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Wolf nodded and shut the door.
Chapter 12
“Go see them now, then,” Scott said.
Heather Patterson considered her husband’s words. “I don’t know.”
“You got no sleep last night because of it. Go see them.”
“It’s not just them that kept me up. It’s Wolf.” Patterson opened the front door and stepped onto the porch.
Hummingbirds swarmed the feeder. Down the hill from their townhouse, the valley north of Rocky Points spread out in peaceful silence. Steam rose off the Chautauqua River. A trio of deer nibbled grass near the bushes lining the water.
She loved these early hours, when Tommy and Lucas were still asleep. But she loved when they were up, too, breaking the peacefulness of the Rocky Mountain nature with demands of cartoons, breakfast, and attention.
She deemed the air too frigid to leave for work in only her flannel, so she stepped back inside to get her fleece.
Scott stood inside, sipping his coffee.
She sighed and stopped in front of him. “You�
�re right. I’ll go to their house this morning on the way to work. I can’t take the suspense. When I did sleep last night, I had a dream that Minnie buried her husband alive in the back yard.”
Scott nodded. “Not a bad dream.”
She leaned into him, her head reaching his chest.
He wrapped a long arm around her and rubbed her back. “You know where they live?”
“I was there once, years ago. Do you know how to get there?”
“Take Wildflower and hang a right just before the hill heads down. Dirt road. County 187, I think it is?”
“Oh, yeah.” She wrapped her arms around him, and they squeezed each other.
“Tell Carl he’s a crazy bastard for me.”
She snorted a laugh. “Will do, if he’s not dead already.”
“Don’t worry. She’s just psychotic, not a murderer. At least, I think.”
She tilted her chin up and he kissed her on the lips.
“Sorry to leave you with the kids again.” She grabbed her fleece off the hook and put it on.
“Tina will be here at nine. The kids don’t wake up for another hour. I’ll survive.”
She looked up the stairs. “Another two days straight of not seeing the kids. Asleep when I come home, asleep when I leave.”
“Just be grateful they’re sleeping and let’s leave it at that,” he said.
“Okay, yeah.” They had gone through a year of Lucas not sleeping well, waking up at all hours of the night. How quickly she had forgotten such a hellish twelve months. She opened the door and turned around. Then she stepped back inside and closed the door. “What if I have to take Wolf’s job and be his boss?”
Scott shrugged. “I think he’d agree there are worse people to have as a boss.”
“Such a ringing endorsement.”
He smiled. “You know what I mean. I truly think he wouldn’t mind. Rachette? Now, that’s another story.”
She opened the door and stepped outside. “Bye. Love you. See you tonight.”
Fifteen minutes later, she slowed to a stop in front of Carl and Minnie Yorberg’s house and shut off the engine to her department-issued Ford Explorer.
It was early, the sun still not risen above the eastern peaks, but the lights in the Yorberg’s windows were on.
She shut off the engine and got out into cold, damp air. She zipped up her fleece all the way and walked, her feet swishing through grass matted down by dew, and then crunching on the gravel driveway.
The single-story structure stood in a meadow, surrounded by the occasional pine tree. Movement caught her eye, and she saw a deer wandering at the side of the house.
She noticed a cloud of smoke rising from the front porch and saw Carl was outside.
“Mr. Yorberg?”
“Who is that?”
She walked along the dirt path toward him, passing garden gnomes half-buried in weeds and wildflowers on the way. “It’s Heather Patterson.”
Carl squinted, sitting in a cross-legged stupor on the concrete step. “Oh.”
“I just came to check on you two.” She walked up, eyeing the windows. “How’s Minnie doing?”
Carl held a pack of cigarettes in one hand, a lighter in the other. A steaming mug of coffee sat next to him.
“She’s fine. Why?”
“Just wondering if she was, you know, still upset.”
“Why would she be upset? She was the one bashing the computers. Anyone should be upset, it’s me. Gotta buy us new computers now.”
Minnie Yorberg came to the front door. “Oh, hi, Heather, how are you today?”
“Hi Minnie.”
Minnie Yorberg wore a floral nightgown that looked decades old.
“How are you doing?” Patterson asked.
Minnie opened the screen door. “What are you doing here?”
“Just came to check on you two. See how you were.” And to make sure you didn’t bludgeon your husband to death, she thought.
Minnie looked at Carl and scoffed. “Ask him. I’m doing just fine.”
“Shut up, woman!”
“You shut up!”
Their shouts echoed in the still air.
Patterson stepped onto the porch and put up her hands. “Please. Okay, thanks, Minnie. I just wanted to check on you. Listen, do you think you could give me a minute so I can have a private word with Carl?”
Minnie eyed Patterson, like a batter eyes a lob in the strike zone.
“I’m just making sure everything went okay with our detectives yesterday.”
The screen door slapped shut and she closed the interior door, too.
O-kay. Patterson stepped off the porch, clearing out of the cloud of smoke.
“So, Carl.”
“What?”
“Detective Rachette says he’s still not sure what happened between you two yesterday morning.”
“Yeah?”
“He says you never explained it to him.”
“Nope.” Carl sucked on his cigarette.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep mixed with the fresh coffee buzz, but Patterson decided to improvise. “You know I double-majored at the University of Colorado?”
“That right.”
“Yeah. Law enforcement and finance.” She felt her face go red at the lie, but Carl was studying his cigarette and failed to notice.
“Good for you.”
“Thanks.” She nodded. “So, Detective Rachette said that you said there was a disagreement between you two about finances. That Minnie thought you were getting scammed online or something, and she was trying to stop you.”
“It’s too complicated for an outsider to hear. That’s what I told Rachette and Yates.”
“Yeah. That was it. But I majored in finance. I can handle it. Come on.”
They sat in silence for a beat while Carl finished one cigarette and started another. “Okay. Fine.” He sounded like he was taking an impossible challenge.
“Ever since I closed the pawn shop, I’ve been dabbling in online trading. Making a little cash here, a little there. You know, penny stocks, all that.”
“Good,” she said.
He eyed her. “You women, you’re always nagging for more cash, but when it comes to ponying up to make the money, you get all emotional. Freaked out.”
She put up a hand. “Hey. I’m just like you in my household. My husband is the emotional one, I’m the cool-headed one who sees opportunities and acts. That is, if the opportunities are good.”
She pictured Scott staring at her with raised eyebrows right now.
“It…sounds weird to a person who’s, you know, fresh off the street. Doesn’t know the situation.”
“Try me.”
Minnie’s voice appeared in the doorway. “Tell her about how much cash you were going to send to some guy you met in a chatroom.”
“Shut up, woman!”
Patterson walked toward the porch. “Please, Mrs. Yorberg.”
Minnie disappeared and shut the door.
Damn it. Now she had to get the momentum rolling again. She stepped away from the smoke. “Dang,” she said. “I see what you mean.”
Carl’s eyes twinkled. “You know about cryptocurrencies?”
She nodded. “Sure.”
“Well. You can trade these things. You know, buy low, sell high.”
“Right.”
“Super volatile stuff. But done right, and you can make a fortune because of this volatility.”
“Like the stock market,” she said.
“Nope. Not like that.” Carl sucked another drag. “This is different. This is currency.”
She nodded. “Right. Please, continue.”
Minnie walked by the window.
“Well, I’ve been talking to people online,” Carl said. “You know, in forums, online communities, etcetera. We help each other get going in the different systems. Anyway, I’ve met a friend, and he’s been giving me tips for a few months now.”
She nodded, trying to hide any skepticism.
<
br /> Carl read her. “But I’m not stupid. I’m not listening to the guy. He could be a fraud for all I know, could be blowing smoke up my ass for his own gain. So I’ve been, you know, just talking to him. That’s it.”
“I hear you. Go on.”
Carl looked at her, trying to read her. She waited out the silence.
“Anyway. This guy is spot on with picks. Picks that you couldn’t be spot on with, unless you’re spot on. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She did not, but she nodded.
“I mean, you have to be able to rig the price of Bitcoin to predict what this guy knows. And I don’t know if you know anything about Bitcoin, but that’s impossible. Anyway, there’s really not much software out for trading cryptocurrencies yet. It’s fresh. It’s new. But this guy has it, and he’s been selling it. But it’s not cheap.”
She said nothing.
“Like, really not cheap. But, if you had it, you could make a shitload of money in weeks. It would be a drop in the bucket cost in the long run.”
Patterson ignored the gaping hole in logic, namely why the guy was selling the software if he could just sit back and watch money roll in. She nodded instead.
“So, I told Minnie about it. Told her about the predictions this guy has been making for the last three months.” He looked sideways at her, his eyes glittering in the rising light. “Months of correct predictions.”
“And Minnie didn’t like the sound of this?”
“No. She wonders if it works so good, why is this guy selling it to me?”
“Valid concern.”
“Yeah. But she doesn’t know this guy. He’s nice. I have a sense with people, and she’s never talked to the guy in her life.”
“And you’ve spoken to him?”
“Online, yeah. I’ve messaged with him.”
Patterson looked up and saw a jet leaving a glowing contrail in the sky. “Okay, so, you met this guy online. Sounds reasonable enough in this day and age. But how exactly did you meet him?”
He looked annoyed by the question. “Personal message in a forum.”
“And he was spot-on with some predictions.”
Carl nodded. “He introduced himself, said he’d been following my comments, wanted to reach out. And he didn’t really come off like Nostradamus and tell me some predictions. He was like, ‘Here’s what I’m banking on to happen in the next four days.’ And then, bam. Four days later it happened exactly like he said he was banking on. Made him a healthy five figures in four days.”