by Jeff Carson
Baine raised an eyebrow and looked up from his paperwork.
Wolf walked Kevin Ash through the door into reception, through reception, and then propped open the outside door with one hand. He waved Kevin out, sending him into the cool early June morning, and out of his life.
“Thank you so much Sheriff Wo—“
The door clicked shut and Wolf walked to the glass enclosed reception desk where Tammy Granger sat glaring.
“Tammy. If you let another—“
Tammy coughed loud, pointing a discrete finger toward the seating area behind Wolf.
Wolf glanced behind him and saw a woman in her early twenties sitting stiffly, gaze fixed straight ahead out the window. Wolf noticed her feet weren’t touching the ground, and estimated her at no more than five-foot two-inches tall. Unlike Kevin Ash, she wore business casual, dressed in dark slacks and jacket.
She turned to him and smiled with a curt nod, a gesture that portrayed confidence and poise, and then went back to staring outside, looking like she was doing a particularly tough calculation in her head, and solving it.
Wolf turned back to Tammy and gave another glance over his shoulder, intrigued by the interaction.
He caught Tammy’s scowl and felt his face flush. He shouldn’t have kicked Kevin Ash out of the building like he did. But the process of hiring a new officer was getting to him, and the presence of Ash’s son was a flick in the ear he hadn’t needed from the Town Council Chairman. It was one thing that they were pushing him with an unreasonable deadline to decide on a new officer to hire, and it was another to force him to look at candidates like Kevin Ash—complete wastes of his time.
Wolf leaned a forearm on the reception counter and raised an eyebrow.
Tammy kept a blank face and scooted a manila folder across.
He didn’t grab it, and kept staring. She wasn’t giving any tells. Wolf shook his head. He liked Tammy. She was the forebrain of the force, manning the phones and any walk-ins, and she was also a motherly presence on the force. She looked out for all the officers, keeping abreast of their personal lives, as to make sure they were living right. If an officer came in hung over, she’d know about it, and browbeat said officer into promising better behavior in the future. If an officer had wronged a spouse, or a town member, they would have Tammy to answer to when she heard about it through the grapevine.
At two hundred pounds, she was built like a mountain woman who’d spent as much time cooking as chopping wood to heat the fires she cooked with. She was imposing, but smart, and also compassionate. In Wolf’s estimation, it was a combination that made her one of the best employees on the force. He likened her to a worthy assistant football coach.
And since Wolf was the head coach now, having been sheriff for a little over eight months, he valued his assistant coach’s opinion. Wolf knew she had an opinion of the candidate sitting behind him. Tammy had studied the applications harder than he had, and the all-important first impression rating was in the books, no doubt supporting what she had gleaned from the resume.
True to form, she wasn’t letting on anything. Maybe Tammy was too disappointed in the entire process to play the game. They both knew the woman sitting in the lobby was Wolf’s final interview, and then time was up.
He needed to choose a new officer by Thursday, in two days, or the money wouldn’t be coming from the state of Colorado. The town council had made it clear to Wolf—they needed that money. Either he made a choice, or they would make it for him.
As the days of Gary Connell, the deceased former town council chairman, and his bottomless pockets, receded in the rear-view mirror, the council’s money grabbing was beginning to take on the personality of a hungry bear. They were ripping through town, upturning every opportunity to get any sort of funding, every cent from every source.
First they had concocted the idea of the Rocky Points Music Festival, which was going to be this weekend, kicking off Friday, and now there was the new hire.
It was clear that Wolf and his force were being proactive, and were ready, for the upcoming music festival. But as far as the new hire went, the council thought Wolf was dragging his feet. He wasn’t. He just wasn’t going to hire some lackey to fill a quota. And he wasn’t going to hire Kevin Ash, the new Town Council Chairman’s moronic son just to fill the position and to score some political points.
Only, what Tammy knew just as well as Wolf, the seven candidates he’d seen so far had fallen woefully short. And now, here was the final candidate. She was also a “recommendation” by a Town Council member, Margaret Hitchens.
Chairman Ash’s nepotistic hopes were certainly going to be denied by Wolf. If he had to disappoint two council members — well, that was probably going to make things sticky for his future.
Wolf took a breath and slapped the manila folder on his leg, and then turned with a smile. “Heather Patterson?”
She scooted forward until her feet were flat on the ground, and then stood up and faced Wolf. “Yes, sir.”
Wolf was startled by her short stature, and he knew he was showing it.
Her glacial pool blue eyes were unwavering as she stepped forward with an outstretched hand. Her shoulder length dark brown hair had a tint of auburn in it, and it was pulled back on one side, fastened with a series of silver hair clips.
Her handshake grip was small, firm, and confident, like the rest of her seemed to be.
“Nice to meet you.” Wolf said.
“Likewise.”
Wolf waved a hand toward the door. “This way.”
She stepped past Wolf, wafting a soft, flowery aroma into his nostrils. The smell of Kevin Ash was finally a memory.
The door clicked and they entered into the squad room.
Chapter 3
Every officer in the room stopped what they were doing and stared like dogs. Wolf cringed and barely stopped himself from screaming at the top of his lungs for them to get back to work. Instead, he ignored them and walked, and she did the same, bouncing fast alongside him. Her hair swayed side to side as her legs did double time to keep up. She held her chin up and didn’t blink as the persistent glares burned into her.
“This way,” Wolf led her down the hall and into his office. “Take a seat.”
She sat down and eyed the sparse contents on Wolf’s shelves, and then the framed CSU football pictures hanging on the wall.
Wolf followed her eyes and slapped the manila folder on the empty desktop. “Heather, thanks for coming in today.”
She looked him in the eye and sat still and straight. “Thank you for having me, sir.”
He pulled the manila folder closer and opened it. “I’ve taken a good look at your application and resume. Tell me why you want this job.”
Her confident look wavered for an instant, and she furrowed her eyebrows. “You mean, why do I want this particular job? Or why do I want to be a cop?”
“Let’s start with why you want to be a cop,” Wolf said.
She didn’t blink. “I come from a long line of lawyers. My grandfather was a lawyer. My father is a lawyer, my mother, and my two older brothers are lawyers. To say I’ve been raised with an intimate familiarity of the law would be an understatement. I’ve always been fascinated by it. My father is a corporate lawyer in Aspen, works in entertainment, but my grandfather was a public prosecutor. And he used to tell me County Court horror stories, as he liked to call them, about how this guy got off for murder, or this guy got off for raping a woman…all because of technicalities that lawyers exploited to get their clients off scot-free.” She narrowed her eyes and shrugged. “Usually things that were done wrong during the investigation by the police. Preventable stuff.”
Wolf nodded.
“Anyway, I realized early on that the way to combat this is to make sure the police investigations are done more thoroughly, and intelligently. Then one wouldn’t have such holes in cases to be exploited by some scumba…” She widened her eyes and straightened, “by a lawyer who is out to bolster their rep
utation and willing to do anything to win a case, no matter if justice is served or not.
“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve just known I wanted to be a cop. An investigator. I’ve always been fascinated with forensic science, and putting together the pieces of the puzzle, and it’s a lot more exciting than being a lawyer, in my opinion.”
Wolf nodded and smiled nonchalantly, but the truth was he hadn’t interviewed a candidate yet that had sparked his interest like this young woman. Her passion was as infectious as her confidence.
He tilted her resume and gave it a glance. “Tell me about your qualifications.”
“I graduated third in my class at Aspen High School,” she rolled her eyes when she said third, “and then went on to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where I trained in criminology — DNA analysis, fingerprinting, and the like — getting my Bachelor’s degree in Forensic Science with a specialty in investigation.
“In Boulder, I interned with the Boulder County Police Department under the tutelage of the CSI department’s Sergeant Jim Duclon. I gained a ton of experience in the field and the lab. The whole internship exceeded my expectations. By the end, I had zero doubt I was headed in the right direction.”
Wolf had talked to Sergeant Duclon on the phone last Friday. The words the man had used were “Pattie kicked ass. She’s as smart as they come. If you don’t hire her, you’re an idiot. I don’t know why she doesn’t want to work here.” Duclon had seemed genuinely upset about the whole situation. Couldn’t shut up about her.
Wolf flipped to her fitness test page. Despite her physical stature, her fitness test score was outstanding — 95th percentile across the board. Her scores on run, pushups, sit-ups, and pull-ups could beat out pretty much anyone on the force he had now. Her broad jump would have been remarkable for a man a foot and a half taller than her. And then there was her bench press. She had the relative strength of an ant, able to lift well over her body weight.
She narrowed her eyes and shifted in her chair. “I…know I’m not the largest woman on the planet, but my fitness test score is satisfactory, which you can see. I’m a black belt in Karate, and I’m more than capable of defending myself.”
Wolf had noticed that. Most of his men were well versed in self-defense and hand-to-hand combat, but not many had taken it to the level she had.
That, however, wasn’t what was most exciting about the firecracker sitting across the desk. It was her forensic lab experience that distanced her from the other candidates. For years, any time the force needed lab work done, they’d farm it out to Summit County crime lab. . Heather Patterson had the experience to change that.
Wolf also noted that Heather had not mentioned her relation to Margaret Hitchens, a prominent member of the town council. And, unlike many of the other council members, Wolf liked Margaret Hitchens. Heather would have known that, yet she was relying on her own merits to get her through the interview.
So far. She hadn’t heard the next question.
“All right. Now tell me why you want this job? Why Rocky Points?” He asked. “We aren’t big. We don’t have the high crime rates of a city like Boulder. So, why here?”
“As you know I grew up in Aspen, and I absolutely love the mountains, and Colorado. I’ve actually spent some time here in Rocky Points with my family over the years. We have relatives here in Rocky Points, and we used to ski here. I really love the town, and the ski resort.” Her eyes glazed over as she chuckled. “I still remember when I was young how we used to come here during Christmas time. We loved the festival, and my oldest brother, who’s a really good skier used to do the horse-drawn skier race.”
Wolf smiled and nodded. “The Ski-Joring race.”
Every year the town gathered to watch the fastest horses in town sprint down Main Street with a skier on a rope behind it. He and his brother had raced it many times. Wolf had broken a pinky finger one year doing it. He’d also won it, twice.
“Yeah, the Joring!” she said, “Anyway, I have great family memories here, and when I saw there was a job opening for the RPPD, and I got the call to interview I was very…” she snapped back to the present moment and regained her job-seeker composure. “I was excited for the opportunity to interview for the job. I realize this may not be a high crime area, but I also know I have a lot to learn.”
Wolf smiled.
There were three loud knocks on the door.
“Yeah,” Wolf said.
The door opened a crack and Officer Tom Rachette poked his head in. He took a double take and his eyes popped wide at the sight of Heather. “Hey, uh, sorry, I’ll come back.”
Wolf waved him in. “Heather, this is Officer Tom Rachette. Rachette, this is Heather Patterson.”
She stood up and held out a hand. “Hi, nice to meet you.”
Rachette stood tall, stretching his stocky build as much as he could without getting on his toes. He took off his RPPD baseball cap and ruffled his closely cropped blonde hair underneath, sending something that looked like piece of dried leaf on the floor. He looked her up and down, narrowing his eyes to unseeing slits, and then pursed his lips.
“Hey,” he breathed more than said, as he gently grasped her hand.
She furrowed her brow. “Hi.”
Wolf flushed and stared across the desk. Wolf wanted to meet the guy who taught Rachette how to talk to women, and give him a punch in the nose.
“You’re not from here, are you?” Rachette asked.
Heather Patterson gave a small snort, and then mimicked his tone. “No.”
Rachette gave a warm smile and placed his other hand on top of hers. “Well, good luck. It was great to meet y—”
Rachette squinted and gritted his teeth. He sucked in a breath and pulled on his hand, which was now white in Heather Patterson’s grip.
After a few tense seconds, his hand slipped free and whipped back with a thump against his stomach.
“It was great to meet you, too.” She turned to Wolf with raised eyebrows, and Wolf gestured for her to sit back down.
Rachette’s face was brick red and trending toward purple. He stuck out his lower jaw and glared down at her. “You’ve got a lot—“
“What is it, Officer Rachette?” Wolf asked.
Rachette looked at Wolf with genuine confusion.
Wolf sighed. “Why did you come here to my office?”
“Oh, yeah.” Rachette put his hat back on and flexed his hand. “I just wanted to talk about the team assignments today up at the festival grounds, it can wait until after your interview.” He backtracked to the door.
“Stick around,” Wolf said, then looked at Patterson. “Ms. Patterson, you’re hired if you want the job.”
She smiled wide and stood, thrusting a hand at Wolf. “Yes! Thank you.”
Wolf hesitated for a second after seeing what she’d just done to Rachette, and then smiled and took her hand. “You’ll be a great addition to the force, Officer Patterson.”
It was her turn to blush now. “Thank you, Sheriff Wolf,” she said.
Wolf nodded. “As you probably know, Officer Patterson, we have the first annual Rocky Points Music Festival coming up this weekend. Putting on such a big event is stretching us to the limit, to the point we’re bringing officers in from Vail, Glenwood Springs, and Summit County to help out. In other words, we need boots on the ground. So, I hope you understand when I ask, can you start today?”
“I…yes, I could.” Her eyes sparkled and she took in a shaky breath.
“Yeah, okay. Easy.” Rachette said.
She flicked a glance at Rachette, and then looked up with narrowed eyes.
Wolf smiled. “You’re staying at Margaret’s, right? So you have a place to stay until you find a place of your own?”
Her face went red again, and then she nodded. “I didn’t know you knew I was related to Margaret.”
“If you need to take a few days, and go back to Aspen to get a few things, I understand. But we’re really going to need your help late
r this week, and it would be nice to get you up to speed for the next couple days, then have you working the festival this weekend.”
She nodded and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m packed for weeks if need be. Consider me on the job right now.”
“Great. Rachette, send Baine with Wilson for the rest of the week. You’re with Patterson.”
Rachette went wide-eyed and pale. “Uh, yeah, okay.” Rachette cleared his throat. “Are you still going up to Grimm Lake with Jack?”
Wolf pushed in his chair and walked around his desk. “Yep. I’m outta here, in fact. I’ll see you guys tomorrow afternoon.”
Rachette turned to Patterson. “Jack’s his son. They’re going camping today.”
Patterson gave a large nod. “Aha.”
Wolf opened the door and ushered them out. The squad room was completely empty except for Officer Baine, who squinted at his computer screen, pecking at his keyboard with his index fingers.
Patterson smiled at the sight of Baine, and so did Wolf. It was rare in this day and age to see such a display of computer ineptitude. Even Wolf could type circles around Baine, who was a couple years younger than Wolf.
“Hey Bill Gates,” Rachette said, “you’re with Wilson today.”
Baine looked up. “Wilson already left with Hughes.”
“I guess we need to call him back then.”
Baine gave Patterson a quick nod, and looked up at Wolf.
“This is our new officer, Heather Patterson,” Wolf said, and Baine stood and shook her hand.
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “That your son?” She pointed down at a few pictures on Baine’s desk.
“Yep. That’s my little man,” Baine said.
Rachette sniffed. “You want to call Wilson? Or me?”
“I’ll call him. He’s on the parking team. We’re on traffic. Which team are Wilson and I gonna be on now? Which team are you guys?”
They all looked at Wolf. Wolf slapped Rachette and Patterson on the back and walked away. “You guys have this covered. See you tomorrow night.”