Divided Sky

by Jeff Carson

  Jesse said nothing. Burton’s monitoring machines hummed gently.

  Wolf continued. “You knew Sobeck had been gone from his house, because Hettie and Jill are friends from working at the diner together, and you heard all about Sobeck’s troubles from Hettie. So you got into your Jeep and you drove down to the Sobecks’, and you went into the garage and found the shovel, the tarps, the boots, and a headlamp. You parked far away and snuck inside, but Jill Sobeck’s mother saw you coming out of the garage with the stuff.”

  Jesse narrowed his eyes.

  Wolf nodded. “She saw you. And you walked back down the road, got back into your Jeep and went back up to Kyle’s. Then you made it look like Sobeck did it. You stomped around in Kyle’s blood. You even decided to put your bracelet in Kyle’s hand to make it look like somebody was framing you.” Wolf shook his head. “That was a hedge, because you realized it was really going to look like you did everything, right? So, why not make it over-the-top looking like you did it? It worked on me, I must admit. I thought it looked so nice and tidy like you did it that I started looking for other suspects.”

  “Me too,” said Burton.

  “No.” Jesse’s voice was a whisper.

  “Brilliant stuff,” Wolf said. “And then you wrapped up Kyle and dragged him down, buried him, and left the headlamp in the grass, for a blunt clue for us to follow.”

  “No.” Jesse’s voice had more force. “It wasn’t me. There’s no proof.”

  “When you climbed back up the hill after burying Kyle,” Wolf said, “you had Sobeck’s boots on. You had been stepping in Kyle’s blood, and there was mud on the soles of the boots. You’re smart, you’ve proven that, so you knew that if you got into your Jeep, you’d leave traces of all that blood and mud on your foot pedals, and then you’d be tied to the scene. But you had to transport the boots and shovel back to Sobeck’s garage, right? You had to plant the evidence there. The shovel was clean enough, no blood on that, but the boots were a different story. So you took them off, and you took a plastic bag from the rear of your car.”

  The corners of Jesse’s mouth dropped down.

  “And you shoved the boots in there to transport back to Sobeck’s.”

  Jesse stared blankly.

  “But there’s one problem,” Wolf said, pausing.

  Jesse’s eyes focused on Wolf.

  “There was a receipt in the bag, and it stuck to the mud on the boot.” Wolf pulled his phone and showed the picture of the receipt.

  Jesse made no move to look closer.

  “This item here. It says GTRD. Which I’m assuming is Gatorade. And this third item? JCFG. What’s that stand for, Jesse?”

  Jesse said nothing.

  “Juicy Fruit gum,” Wolf said. “That’s the brand of gum I pulled from your pockets when I frisked you down in Canyon of the Ancients.”

  Roll walked over to Wolf and stepped close. “Listen, there’s no time stamp or address of the store on that receipt,” Roll whispered. “No way of getting surveillance footage.”

  Wolf ignored him. “Did you kill Kyle and Alexander Guild, Jesse?”

  Jesse shut his eyes.

  “Answer the question,” Burton said.

  Jesse said nothing. A tear slid down his cheek.

  “I know why you ran, Jesse,” Wolf said. “Because when you got home after doing all that, murdering Kyle, murdering Guild, burying Kyle and making it look like an innocent cop did it all, she was there. Hettie was waiting for you at your house. And you felt shame for what you did. Because it was all for nothing. Hettie had come back to you anyway. All you needed to do was stand up to Kyle, like you had done. You didn’t have to act out that fantasy you’d been thinking about, planning, for who knows how many months. You didn’t have to kill them and ruin a good cop’s life.”

  Jesse shook his head more.

  “And she probably wondered where you had been all night, right?” Wolf asked. “And you had no answers for her. Then over the next couple days, everything unfolded, and you knew that the cops were going to talk to you and Hettie. You knew she would figure out that you did it. You knew Hettie would reject you again and you knew that Hettie would tell the cops that you were out all night. So you ran.”

  Jesse blinked and another tear raced down his skin.

  “I remember the moment we told you that Hettie said you were with her all night. I remember looking at you in the rearview mirror and seeing the light return to your eyes. You ran because you thought she was going to tell everyone you did it. But then she lied for you. She gave you an alibi. And you felt like you’d been given a second life.”

  Jesse wiped his eyes.

  “So, I ask you again. What do you think she’s going to say now when she wakes up? You think that after four more deaths she’s going to continue to lie for you? Are you going to make her do that for you? Are you going to keep kicking and screaming? Or are you going to be a man and ‘fess up?”

  Jesse moved with lightning speed, picking up something from the lunch tray and darting behind the hospital bed. A machine crashed to the floor as Jesse pulled it off its mounts by getting tangled in its wires. He wrapped his muscular arm around his uncle and lifted him clean up.

  “Freeze, Jesse!” Wolf pulled his gun and aimed.

  Roll pulled his, too.

  Burton grunted in ultimate pain.

  Jesse, ducking behind his uncle, let go of the headlock and clamped his hand over Burton’s mouth. He twisted Burton’s head to expose the neck and put a fork to his jugular vein.

  The hospital room door flew open and the nurse came in. “Is everything—oh my God!”

  “Get out!” Jesse screamed at the top of his lungs. “Now!”

  She did, and the door clicked shut.

  Wolf held his aim out the window behind Jesse. There was no shot.

  “Jesse,” Wolf said.

  “He wasn’t a good cop,” Jesse said.

  “What?” Roll asked.

  “Sobeck! He’s an asshole piece of shit. He hit his kid and ditched out on his family. He’s a piece of shit.”

  Roll nodded. “Okay, okay, Jesse.”

  “Just shut up … just shut up.” It looked like Jesse was trying to destroy reality with each blink. Finally, his gaze landed on Wolf. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t shown up.”

  “What do you mean, Jesse?” Wolf asked.

  “I mean I was going to shoot my uncle and shoot myself.” Jesse’s voice bounced with emotion. “Down there in Canyon of the Ancients I was going to blow his head off and then my own. None of any of this would have happened.”

  Wolf lowered his gun. “Please, Sheriff. Lower your weapon.”

  Roll eyed him. “I don’t know about that, detective.”

  “Please.” Wolf holstered his gun. “Jesse. Please. Your uncle’s really hurting right now.”

  “I don’t care! I’ve been hurting my whole life and he didn’t care!”

  Burton clawed at Jesse’s arm, struggling for breath, his eyes wide. He was trying to get his legs underneath him, probably to alleviate the stretching of his chest.

  “Please, Jesse.” Wolf watched Burton struggle. “Jesse, I don’t think that’s what you were going to do. I mean, that’s what it seems like, but … sometimes things aren’t what they seem, you know?”

  Jesse sobbed. “What are you talking about!”

  “I mean, to me, it looks like you called your uncle down there to help. To help you. You knew the jig was up, you knew you’d messed up, and that you’d made a big mistake. And you wanted your uncle’s help. You wanted him to be there for you while you confessed everything.”

  Jesse’s head was down, so Wolf was unable to see his face, but it looked like Jesse’s grip was letting up.

  Burton’s eyes were like a trapped animal’s, tracking Wolf as he walked slowly toward the bed.

  “Jesse. You didn’t want a bunch of lawmen you didn’t know to bring you in. You wanted your uncle. You wanted him by your side while you to
ld them all exactly what happened. That it was all a big mistake, and that you were sorry.”

  Jesse relaxed the fork’s pressure on Burton’s neck.

  “That’s what it looks like to me,” Wolf said.

  He reached out, and he pulled Jesse’s hand away from Burton’s skin. Jesse let go of the fork, and then his uncle’s face.

  Chapter 40

  “Dah! Dah!” The tiny hand gripped Wolf’s upper lip and twisted.

  “Ahh!” Despite the sharp pain, he resisted pulling the appendage away.

  After an agonizing few seconds, the hand released and slapped Wolf’s forehead.

  “What are you doing? You’re beating me up!”

  Ryan giggled until he was breathless, and then slapped Wolf again on the head. “Dah!”

  Wolf laughed just as intensely, taking the beating. As he stared at the boy’s beautiful green eyes, Wolf could see why they were so often called windows to the soul. He couldn’t shake the feeling of déjà vu he got with this kid, like they’d known each other for a long time.

  “You guys having a battle of wits?” Jack walked up with a heaping plate of food.

  “He can’t get enough of you, I swear,” Cassidy said as she joined them.

  “That’s cause I’m his gram-pa! Gram-pa!”

  Ryan giggled some more and put his head on Wolf’s shoulder, a simple gesture that instantly melted his heart.

  Then Ryan grunted. And vibrated a little.

  “Oh.” Cassidy wrinkled her nose and put down her meal. “Poopies. Here, I’ll take him.”

  Wolf gladly handed him over and picked up his soda from off the deck. “My God I love that kid.”

  Jack smiled, watching Cassidy swish into the house with a now crying boy over her shoulder. “I know the feeling.”

  They stood watching the crowd gathered on Wolf’s front lawn. Bluegrass music streamed from speakers on his front deck, just audible beneath the excited chatter of three dozen people.

  Smoke rose from two barbecues, the one nearest the keg manned by Rachette, who was laughing hard as Yates grabbed his crotch and screamed the punchline to a story, one that made Patterson bust out laughing as well.

  The mayor was there, playing cornhole with three children and a dog who pranced after the beanbags.

  “This is great,” Jack said.

  Great was not the word. There were no words for the mist of gratitude, relaxation, elation, and fulfillment swirling in his body.

  “How’s it going in Carbondale?” Wolf asked.

  “Oh, yeah. That.” Jack sipped his beer. “I haven’t told you yet.”

  Wolf eyed his son. “What’s that?”

  “I’ve decided to become a fireman.”

  “Really. What about the job in Carbondale? I thought mineral exploration was treating you well.”

  Jack shrugged. “It’s just not me, you know? I’ve figured out I need to be helping people. Not helping companies. But people.”

  Wolf slapped his son’s back. “That’s great.”

  “I mean, I still have the job. I’ve just been working hard in my off time. I got my EMT cert from the Carbondale Fire Department, and they know I’m gunning to be part of their team. Or wherever I can get. As long as it’s in the mountains, I guess. Cassidy’s on board with this.”

  Wolf smiled. “That’s really great.”

  “The chief there’s a cool guy. He says there’s going to be some openings in the next year, and I think he likes me. So we’ll see.”

  “Who’s the chief?”

  “A guy named John Lassiter.”

  “I know him.”

  “I’d rather you not talk to him,” Jack said. “I think it would be weird.”

  Wolf nodded and gripped his son’s shoulder. “That’s great.”

  “You’ve said that a few times already.”

  There was a commotion as Rachette dropped a hamburger on the lawn.

  “Okay, I’m getting a beer,” Jack said, and left.

  Wolf smiled, musing at the adult conversation with his son. It was only minutes ago Jack was a floppy-haired ten-year-old sneaking sodas from the cooler at events like this.

  “Where’s Ryan?” Patterson appeared at Wolf’s side. “And why’s Rachette eating meat off the ground?”

  “He’s inside getting a diaper change, and because he’s Rachette.”

  Patterson looked up at Wolf. “I’m really glad you’re going to be sheriff.” She slurred just a tad.

  “Yeah. We’ll see about grooming the next person to take over after me. Because that’s the last job I want in the world.”

  “Really?” She sipped her beer. “I guess that makes sense. You’re an investigator at heart, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Who would you groom? Wilson’s pretty adamant about not taking the job. Not sure what his problem is on that.”

  Wolf nodded, looking her in the eye. “We’ll figure it out.”

  She crinkled her forehead and lowered her beer.

  “Speaking of sheriff,” Wolf said, eyeing the crowd. “Where’s MacLean?”

  “I saw him earlier,” she said. “But I don’t remember where. Damn, I’m getting drunk. But we have the babysitter tonight, I’m off tomorrow, and Scott’s driving, so I’m getting another beer.”

  Wolf watched her swerve away toward the keg. He turned to the house, walked up onto the deck, and went inside.

  The door to his study was closed and he popped it open. There was no one in the room, but he walked to the window and looked out onto the back lawn.

  MacLean was out in the fading light by himself, lounging on a padded lawn chair.

  Wolf walked through the house to the kitchen, and out the rear entrance. The door hissed shut, the silence deafening compared to what was happening out front. Crickets sang nearby, while an owl hooted somewhere in the woods.

  “Hello, sheriff,” MacLean said, hidden by the chair’s high back.

  Wolf padded on the grass and found MacLean staring up at the night sky.

  “Hello, sheriff,” he said back. “You’re not out front.”

  “Nah.”

  Wolf sat down on the vacant seat next to him, facing the darkened forest. The mountain above was still glowing faintly.

  MacLean was wrapped in blankets taken off of Wolf’s couch, a disturbing reminder of Kyle Farmer bound in the black tarps under that Ridgway earth. He raised his eyes to the sky and saw what MacLean was staring at—a spray of stars growing brighter with each second the sun set further behind them.

  “Is Bonnie okay?” MacLean asked.

  “Yeah.” Wolf recalled seeing MacLean’s wife chatting in a circle out front a few minutes earlier. She had seemed subdued, not okay.

  MacLean grunted and looked up again.

  Wolf sat in the chair and felt the tension in his back melt away, the coolness of the padding penetrating through his fleece.

  They sat like that for a while, until MacLean said, “I didn’t want to come, but Bonnie thought it was a good idea. I didn’t want to talk to a bunch of people.”

  “I understand.”

  The owl hooted again.

  “It’s such a strange feeling, knowing you’re gonna die,” MacLean said. “I mean, really, when you think about it, there’s absolutely no difference in my life now than from a month ago. Back then, I was oblivious, but there was still a hundred percent chance I was going to die. There’s no change today. Still a whopping sure bet I’ll be leaving this world soon. Only now I’ve got odds it’s going to be the cancer that takes me down.” MacLean sighed. “What are you thinking about?”

  Wolf pulled down the corners of his mouth. “I guess now I’m thinking about when I’m going to die.”

  “Shoot, I’d say sooner than later. You have a grandchild now. You’re an old man.”

  Wolf grinned.

  “Are you feeling up for the job ahead?” MacLean asked.

  Wolf considered the question as he stared at Orion’s belt. The rest of
the week at the station had gone smoothly. As far as the physical move from Wolf’s office to MacLean’s went, he’d had to carry two cardboard boxes worth of material down the hallway.

  The official swearing in with the County Council had been quick and easy. Wolf got the sense that some members were less enthused by the change than others, and that the unanimous sentiments within the department had won out over opinions within the council.

  MacLean had spent two days relaying enough behind the scenes action from the last few years to fill a book and had walked Wolf through some of the new duties he’d be accountable for. From what Wolf could gather, he could decide for himself how he’d run the department, which was good, because the detail of MacLean’s day-to-day routine, sitting behind his desk and making phone calls, was less than inspiring. Wolf planned on being out in the field more, where his father had done most of his sheriff’s work, and where Wolf had done his during his short stint as sheriff years ago.

  Then again, in those days he and his father had run a much smaller ship than the behemoth behind the glass walls in Rocky Points today.

  “If I have to be honest,” Wolf said, “I’ve spent a few hours staring at the ceiling of my bedroom the last few nights.”

  MacLean chuckled. “That’s part of the job description.”

  “So I remember.”

  “If you’re not worried, you’re not the right man for the job.” MacLean sat up and scooted to the end of the chair. He turned and looked at Wolf. His eyes were dollops of oil in the moonless night. “You’re the best cop I’ve ever known. Don’t let that get to your head, now. Mind you, I haven’t known that many cops. Well, a building or two full of them…but it’s the truth.”

  Wolf nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  “And you’ll do just fine.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so.”

  Wolf scooted forward and joined him at the edge of the chair. “You could have waited until I accepted the position before you gave away mine.”

  “If I thought you would have refused, I wouldn’t have done it.”

  “I could have. Wilson did.”

  “Wilson’s not a dumbass.”

  Wolf smiled. “You’ve been talking to Burton.”