To the Bone (David Wolf Book 7)

by Jeff Carson

  Wolf closed the door and walked to Shumway on the other side.

  Shumway had his beam pointed at a duffel bag tucked against the aluminum wall. On the floor next to it was a shovel with a yellow handle.

  “And now we have a murder weapon,” Shumway said. “Looks like the same size as those cuts on Levi.”

  As if there was any doubt. Blood painted the blade and had spattered up the handle and smudged where the person had gripped it.

  Wolf unzipped the bag and parted the opening, revealing stacks of cellophane covered bundles of hundred dollar bills. Each stack had a blue $10,000 band on it.

  “Jesus. There it all is,” Shumway said.

  Shumway was referring to the other items in the bag: Two purple Converse All-Star high top shoes, Purple with huge dollops of blood on them, a Smith and Wesson four-inch barrel revolver, and a pair of leather gloves that were stiff with blood stains.

  Shumway sniffed. “Reeks like the rest of Steven’s shoes.”

  Wolf nodded.

  “Well,” Shumway gingerly picked up the shovel and studied the smudge marks. “No prints by the looks of it. Obviously they wore these gloves. These gloves are going to be the nail in the coffin. We can scrape DNA out of these, check it for a match against Steven, Felicia, and Molly.”

  Wolf crouched down and pushed aside the stacks of money.

  “You listening?”

  “There’s only twenty stacks here. Two hundred thousand. Where’s the rest? What’s the point of all this being here?”

  “They’re in jail at the moment.” Shumway smiled. “They haven’t had the chance to deal with all this.”

  Wolf stood up. “They …”

  Shumway put down the shovel. “I gotta tell you, I’m liking Mo and Felicia doing this. Let’s say Steven is telling the truth, and his shoes were stolen. They come back from loading the bones, and Steven leaves for some reason, to do something else. Felicia, or Molly strap on Steven’s shoes, take the gun off the tent, and drive down into Rocky Points and … shit, but then how’d they get past Dig One? How did they even drive down to Rocky Points?”

  Shumway held up a finger. “Wait a minute … the Dig One people said that Mo didn’t leave with the rest of them that afternoon. Is that something? Did they use this truck? And Mo said Steven left and came back late that night.”

  Wolf raised his eyebrows.

  “Well?” Shumway sagged and his face turned red. “You have any thoughts? Or are you just going to sit there and stare at me some more?”

  Wolf looked at the duffle bag. “I think I agree—if it was Mo and Felicia, then how did they get down to Rocky Points? And there was a second set of shoes that were sized ten or eleven. Way too huge for those two women, who are both short with small feet.”

  “One of the two women and Levi?” Shumway paced. “Is that it? Maybe this here is Levi’s cut of the money. Brought here after the perp killed him. It was a double cross.”

  Shumway stopped and held up a finger. “Maybe all three of these students were in on this, but little did Steven know that Mo and Felicia decided they were going to kill Professor Green. Maybe Steven stayed back Saturday night at the camp, and Felicia and Mo drove down to Rocky Points, telling Steven, ‘Hey, we’ll be back in a few hours, with our cuts of the money.’ But they had other plans—they killed Professor Green, putting it all on Steven and making it look like someone else was with Steven. They had Steven’s shoes, they had the revolver …”

  Wolf stared at him and pulled down the corners of his mouth, because despite the wild look on Shumway’s face, the theory fit. “I think I desperately need to go to sleep. And more importantly, I think you desperately need to go to sleep. I think there’s a lot of evidence to process and we need to get your crime techs here, so you’d better get on the radio.”

  Wolf rubbed an eye and yawned.

  Shumway eyed him. “Where are you sleeping?”

  Wolf shrugged. Like always when he left town, he had the essential camping gear in the SUV.

  “Let’s get CSU down here and we’ll go crash. We need to sleep, and we need to eat. Either that or I’m gonna start murdering people.”

  Wolf conceded with a nod.

  “You can sleep at my place.” Shumway walked to the door as if it was settled and pulled his radio off his belt. “Deputy Etzel come in …”

  Chapter 32

  Wolf woke from a dead sleep to the sound of a phone ringing somewhere in the distance. He sat up and momentarily had no clue where he was. The spring cushion couch squeaked underneath his butt.

  Jet stood and stared at him from two feet away.

  “Huh?” A gruff voice said.

  Only then did Wolf fully snap out of his sleep and realize he was in Shumway’s Windfield home.

  “All right … fantastic … we’ll be in.”

  Wolf opened his sleeping bag and pushed his bare feet into the soft yarn of a mid-length shag carpet. His watch said 6:20 a.m.

  Standing up and stretching his arms high, he bent over and pressed on his lower back, feeling like he’d slept folded in half.

  Jet whined and walked to the front door and stood expectantly. Wolf opened it and a cool breeze smelling like cut grass and sagebrush fluttered inside and Jet squeezed his way out and squatted on the lawn.

  Shumway walked out of his bedroom and put his hands on his hips. He wore boxer shorts and a white tee shirt that were both twisted on his body. His gray hair that usually stood in a box was crushed to one side, and his face had a red line where the pillow had pressed into his cheek all night.

  “Just talked to Deputy Etzel. The techs were busy all night. Matched the blood on the shovel to Levi, got the ballistics going on the revolver. Found all four of their prints on the shovel—Felicia, Steven, Molly, and Green’s.”

  Wolf nodded. “But not in the blood.”

  “Nope.”

  “So it proves the shovel came from their camp, and nothing else.”

  Shumway smiled with one side of his mouth. “They’ll have the DNA match test done early this morning. They took the gloves and the three student’s cheek swabs down to Grand Junction overnight. That’ll get us the perp. Coffee?”

  Shumway walked down the hall.

  “Sure,” Wolf said, smelling the coffee already brewing.

  “Sleep all right?”

  “Yep.”

  Wolf followed him into the kitchen.

  Shumway sat down at a table in front of a window and sipped. “Cups to the left of the sink.”

  Opening the cupboard, Wolf dug out a World’s Greatest Dad cup that had years of swirling scratches inside of it and filled a steaming cup of jet-black coffee.

  He sat and sipped the hot liquid. It was a hazelnut blend, sweeter than Wolf would have liked but the caffeine started doing its job. “Hell of a view,” he said.

  “Yeah. Not bad.”

  A neatly trimmed lawn glistened with dew outside the window, ending at a barbed wire fence. Beyond was vast open sage country and shadowed hills lit by the morning sun.

  Jet walked in front of the window outside with his nose to the grass.

  Shumway reached out and touched the side of Wolf’s coffee cup and smiled. There was deep sadness in his eyes.

  Wolf suddenly wished he had chosen a different cup.

  “I did lie to you,” Shumway said.

  Wolf said nothing.

  “About the sale of my Grandfather’s land.”

  “Okay.”

  “My brother and I didn’t sell it.” Shumway stared out the window. “I sold it without my brother’s permission. I mean, I didn’t really need my brother’s permission. My dad left it all to me in his will … but … I did need his permission. At least that’s what the other people around me thought. Especially my wife. She hated me for it, and she and I got into a huge fight over it all. I sold it to this guy from Washington, and I took the money and ran for the sheriff’s office with it.”

  Shumway took a long slurp of his coffee. He hung his
head and then chuckled to himself.

  “I spent that money wisely. Bought a television and radio ad campaign. It was for the future of my family, for God’s sake. Got myself into the minds of the people in Windfield County, and then … my opponent died of a heart attack before the polls even opened. In the end I won unopposed.”

  Wolf was unsure of what to say, so he sipped his coffee.

  “My wife flipped out and left. Left her daughter and her husband and went to California or Las Vegas. Or somewhere, who knows.” He looked at Wolf. “Can you believe that? Leaving your daughter high and dry?”

  They sat in silence for a beat.

  “And ever since, my daughter’s blamed me. And now she lives her life trying to hurt me in bigger and bigger ways. And right now she’s stabbed me and she’s twisting the knife.”

  Wolf was stuck on thinking about how Sarah had checked out of his and Jack’s lives for years. “Was your wife on drugs?”

  Shumway looked at Wolf for a long time. “You know what? You’re the first person to ever ask me that.” His took a sip of his coffee with a quivering lip and then looked at Wolf again. “Thanks.”

  They watched Jet half-assed chase a squirrel outside.

  “What was the second file on your desk?” Wolf asked.

  “What?”

  “When I first came up here yesterday morning, you had a second file on your desk. You and Etzel had something else going on.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I was … just checking on some of the local men. The whole my daughter screwing Steven Kennedy thing.”

  “How were you checking on them? Why?”

  “Financial records. Looking for specific charges, ATM withdrawals.”

  Wolf frowned. “Explain.”

  Shumway stood up and went to the coffee maker. “There’s a little more to the whole Steven and Megan story I’m afraid.”

  Wolf set down his coffee cup.

  Shumway took his time stirring some sugar into his cup and sat back down. “She was pregnant, with Steven’s baby, and had an abortion.”

  Wolf blinked.

  “I was looking for men who’d paid with a credit card at a clinic, or made an ATM withdrawal for large sums … I was grasping. That’s what that file was—eight men in town and their recent financials.”

  “You didn’t know who it was?”

  “I figured out with you yesterday it was Steven who’d gotten her pregnant.”

  Wolf stared at his coffee. “I need you to start from the beginning of all of this. Why were you looking for this guy who’d gotten Megan pregnant now? This weekend?”

  Shumway leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes with his palms. “I told you Levi Joseph and Bradley Boydell used to be good friends.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well I guess Levi came to Bradley the other day and told him a little secret he’d been keeping—that Megan had been pregnant with someone’s baby and had gotten an abortion.”

  “And how did Levi know about this?”

  “Levi took her down to the clinic in Grand Junction to do the procedure.”

  “And Levi didn’t know who had gotten her pregnant?”

  “No.”

  “And Levi told Bradley just recently?”

  “Yeah. A few days ago.”

  Wolf shook his head. “And you didn’t think of telling me this yesterday, when we were looking at Levi’s corpse?”

  “Why? What would that have to do with anything?”

  Wolf sat silent for a moment. “When did this pregnancy and procedure happen?”

  Shumway shrugged. “I guess it was a couple months ago. I don’t know when exactly.”

  “And you learned about it this weekend.”

  “Yeah. Why? What?”

  “What did Megan say about the whole thing?”

  Shumway sipped his coffee.

  “You haven’t talked to her about it?”

  “Hell, no. It’s not a conversation I’m looking to have with my daughter. It’s enough I learned about it and know the bastard who did it. I don’t need to hash it out with her, get in a big ol’ fight and have her hate me more.”

  Wolf thought about Jack and Cassidy’s camping trip and how he needed to get a handle on that before this exact situation became a possibility. With a shake of his head he erased the thought and stood up to pour some more coffee.

  “What?” Shumway’s voice was low. “Was that judgment? You judging me?”

  “No. I’m not. Like you said, it’s tough raising a kid by yourself. But I think you should talk to her about it, that’s for sure.”

  “Oh you do, do you? Well, thanks, Dr. Phil.”

  Wolf swirled the final sip of coffee in his mug and thought better of the idea of refilling it. “Maybe I’ll head up to the University myself this morning. It’ll give us—”

  “Sounds like a fuck-all of a good idea.”

  Wolf set down his mug and walked out of the kitchen. “Call me the second you get those DNA match test results.”

  Cradling his mug to his lips, Shumway stared out the window and grunted in response.

  Chapter 33

  Wolf walked to the SUV and put Jet in the back seat. The air was warm and the light breeze carrying the scent of juniper did little to dry the sweat building in his armpits already. Wolf wondered if Rocky Points would be getting relief from the heat today.

  He felt bad for steering the conversation with Shumway into a brick wall like that, but he also felt the insatiable desire to catch the murderer of Ryan Frost, so if some people got their feelings hurt in the pursuit of truth, so be it.

  Another thing he felt an insatiable desire for was enough food to fill a garbage can lid.

  He started the engine and tried to remember which way to go, then consulted the GPS and drove down the road, looking forward to a plate of eggs and bacon before he started on the road to the University.

  He had yet to get in touch with Dr. Talbot and was getting eager to know some particulars about what exactly what the head of the paleontology department knew about Dig Two’s specimen, or specimens. Because it was a good question that Dr. Mathis had raised last night: How did Green hide that second skeleton from Dr. Talbot?

  “What the hell?” He swerved left and jammed on the brakes as a pickup truck pulled off the side of the road right in front of him.

  It was Megan, he realized, in her DOI pickup truck. She was waving her hand out the window, motioning for him to follow.

  Wolf steadied his breath and pulled behind her.

  After a few turns to the right and left, she finally pulled over.

  Jet poked his head out the window and whined.

  Wolf got out and she met him at his bumper.

  “What’s going on?” Wolf asked.

  She looked spooked, averting eye contact and clutching a cell phone in a white-knuckle fist. “I talked to Bradley Boydell and Deputy Etzel last night about what happened to Levi.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And I heard you guys are thinking it was Steven.”

  “How did you hear that?”

  She folded her arms. “I just saw Deputy Etzel this morning in town. He told me about all the evidence you and my dad found.”

  Wolf shook his head. What kind of training had Shumway given his deputies that they go around discussing open murder cases with civilians?

  “I have a piece of evidence that proves he didn’t do it.”

  Wolf raised his eyebrows.

  She was staring at her cell phone, twisting it in her hands. “It’s on here.”

  “What is?”

  Her breath quickened and she was rubbing her lips together. “Shit. Just get inside, okay?”

  Wolf walked to the passenger door and opened it. It smelled like coconut oil inside, just like Steven’s truck had. The leather bench seat creaked under him as he climbed in. He left the door open and stared at her expectantly.

  She cradled her phone and stared at it, as if she were waiting for an update from the starship Enter
prise. Checking her mirrors, she pointed at the door. “Can you please close that?”

  He closed the door and the cab went silent except for her labored breathing.

  She was shaking, all the while holding up her cell phone.

  Wolf felt the overpowering urge to pull out his own phone, because all this staring at a cell phone reminded him he wanted to check again for the video clip from Patterson he was expecting. Instead he let the urge pass and asked, “What’s on the phone, Megan?”

  She tapped the screen and thrust the phone into Wolf’s lap.

  She put her hand over her mouth and slid over to the driver’s side window and stared outside.

  “Hey, baby,” a male voice cooed from her phone’s speakers.

  Wolf looked at the screen and there was such a pulse of blood that rushed to his face his skin prickled, because he was looking at a video of Megan’s naked, spread-eagled body. She was smiling and reaching for the camera, her skin illuminated by a yellow light. The shaky video hovered over her, pushing close to her face and then her breasts, and then it backed away to display her entire form again.

  Megan giggled on the video.

  “You ready for this?” Wolf recognized the voice of Steven Kennedy.

  Wolf tapped the screen and set the phone on the bench seat between them. “Oh, I wish I could un-see that.”

  Megan reached over and took the phone. She pressed some side buttons and muted it, and then studied the footage, tapping and sliding her fingers on the screen. “Here. Look again. I won’t press play.”

  He closed his eyes for a breath and then opened them.

  Megan was holding up the phone, which had a still shot of Steven’s face twisted in pleasure. “It’s Steven. With me.”

  “Yeah. I get it.”

  “Look at the time stamp. On the top of the video.”

  Wolf blinked. “Saturday, 9:37 pm.” He looked at her, then back at the time stamp. “You were with Steven on Saturday night?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “In the back of my truck.”

  “Where, exactly?”

  “Just out in the sticks. He met me.”

  Wolf nodded. “He drove? You drove?”

  “We both drove. We have a secret spot where we meet.”