by Jeff Carson
“Wolf?” Rachette was looking at him expectantly.
“Huh?”
“I asked why you think Blackman was drugged? And last night you said he didn’t do it?”
Wolf shifted in his seat, adjusting the rearview. “Did you see the way he was acting when he came to? Looked like barbiturates. Sedatives. There’s only one way to administer fast acting, long lasting sedatives — by needle. When I was brushing his hair out of his face last night, I saw a needle mark on his neck, plain as day. Whatever it was will be in the blood test results.”
Rachette scratched his chin and looked into the distance. “Blanche said that Blackman went to take the trash out and never came back. She said she was going to check on him and take out some more trash, and then she found him.”
“Yeah. Blackman never got a chance to put that trash in the bins. Remember those two bags sitting on the ground next to them? He must have been drugged right then.”
They drove in silence for a few seconds.
Wolf stared at Rachette. “Blanche?”
Rachette raised an eyebrow and looked at Wolf. “Yeah. She’s my lady.”
Wolf drove for a minute and looked at Rachette. “Lady?”
Rachette put the visor up, closed his eyes, and turned his face to the sun. “Yeah.”
Wolf nodded to himself. “How come you haven’t told me about her before?”
Rachette looked at Wolf. “So, where are we going? The Connells’?”
Wolf sipped his coffee. “There were Sasquatch-sized footprints coming out of the truck that made those tire marks up behind the bar. The only guy that could have made those footprints is that guy, Young, our new Navy SEAL friend in town.
“I’d say Young took Mark from somewhere,” Wolf continued, “then to that spot. Then it was all set up to look like he was stabbed there by Blackman.”
Rachette shook his head. “What? Why?”
“With how much Mark bled out in the back of the pub, he must have been stabbed right there. Otherwise, he would have been found dead, and there would have been less blood. Which means he was probably knocked out and kept in the back of Young’s truck until it was time to set it up. They’re going to find the same stuff in Mark’s blood as was in Jerry Blackman’s.”
“But why Jerry Blackman?”
Wolf shrugged. “Young could have been parked on the blind side of that bar for a while looking for the perfect person to set up. Or just any person to set up. He sees Blackman come out with the trash, hits him with the needle, sets up the whole thing in a few seconds.”
Rachette shook his head. “All this is so strange. Why the hell would Young try to kill Mark? What the hell does Mark have to do with any of this?”
Wolf shrugged. “I don’t think we’re going to get any answers from Mark, either. If he isn’t dead already, he’s going to be nearly there for a few days at least.”
Rachette shifted uncomfortably in his seat and shielded the sun with his hand as they approached the gateway to the Connell’s 2Shoe Ranch.
“I- Do you think…Shouldn’t we go over our plan here? You know, before we storm the Connell castle?”
Wolf blew by the gate at sixty-five miles per hour. “We’re going to the Cave Creek construction site.”
Rachette whipped his head, and then turned back to Wolf. “Why?”
“Mark’s been working the project all summer, and was working there all day yesterday.”
Rachette leaned back into his relaxed position again. “Good idea.”
Chapter 18
Wolf parked the Explorer outside the chain link fence next to a Ford F-350 just like Mark’s and walked through the open gate. Rachette was right on his heels, taking another pinch of snuff. He held it out and Wolf waved it away.
The sun was fully up over the peaks and the western slopes of the steep hills were warming in the sun. However, the construction site was still in shadow, and had yet to defrost from the overnight freezing temperatures.
Wolf zipped his jacket high, pushed down his buffalo felt Stetson and shoved his hands in the pockets. The white frost crunched under their boots as they walked through the wide open chain link gate.
A few men were huddling in a circle sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes. Why they weren’t in the sun by the trucks was a mystery.
“Howdy, officers.” One of them tipped his head while the others shuffled their feet.
Wolf extended a hand. “I’m Sergeant Wolf. This is Deputy Rachette.”
The head-tipper stepped forward. “I’m Jesse. Glad to see you guys. We thought you weren’t going to come after all.”
Wolf and Rachette exchanged a glance. “What do you mean?”
The men all swept their eyes to Wolf and Rachette.
Jesse tilted his head to the side. “You- I’m confused. The vandalism?”
Wolf shook his head. “You’re going to have to elaborate.”
“We called you guys about some vandalism yesterday? A few times. And you guys never showed up.”
Jesse looked between Wolf and Rachette and narrowed his eyes. “You guys have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“No, sorry. We don’t. Why don’t you show us what you mean,” Wolf said.
Jesse broke away from the group and started walking, and Wolf and Rachette followed close behind, leaving the other men to their frozen morning smokes.
The ground they walked on was a flat floor of gravel and dirt, and to the right was a straight gouge cut into the distance — sometimes a sheer wall on the side, sometimes a steep slope. The left side was a ten or so foot steep drop-off into the swiftly moving river. On the other side of the river a car passed, gleaming in the sun on the old road.
Jesse led them to a large yellow excavator. It was a massive piece of equipment. The main operator house sat on top of continuous track, like a tank.
He stopped and pointed at the large boom arm. It was peaked at an angle twenty or so feet high with its toothed bucket stabbing halfway into the ground near the sheer rock wall. On it was a penis spray painted in black. Suck my balls was scrawled on the side of the operator’s cab in the same black paint.
Wolf nodded his head. “Aha.”
“Yeah. And it’s the same on the other side, and the other two machines have the same thing on them.” Jesse raised his eyebrows. “And there’s some serious damage to them.”
Wolf furrowed his brow. He couldn’t see any damage. “Mechanical?”
Jesse waved a hand and hopped onto the wheel track with a grunt. Rachette and Wolf followed.
There was a gash in the thick metal tubing that housed the hydraulic piston of the large boom. Wolf bent down and tilted his head.
Jesse bent down next to him. “Can you believe that?”
The hydraulic piston housing had a gash in it, as if cut open like an aluminum can. But it was thick industrial strength steel, meant to withstand thousands of pounds per square inch.
Wolf thumbed the gash. “These kids had some seriously high powered equipment I’d say.”
Jesse’s breath billowed in a sigh. “That’s some serious damage. If they would have just cut the hydraulic lines, which they also did, by the way, we would have been up and running yesterday. But this is going to need some serious repair. Welding, new parts. A lot of hard labor. We have no clue how they did it. There’s no way an axe would go through that. It was like a Jaws of Life did it or something.”
Wolf nodded. “Yep. That’s probably exactly what did it. Nothing less than a hydraulic cutting tool could make that kind of damage, don’t you think?” Wolf stood up and looked around. There was another excavator a little ways down with the same paint job. Even from a distance, he could see the similar gash in the hydraulic cylinder.
“The other side piston has the same damage. All the other machines are the same.”
They jumped down.
Wolf looked to Jesse. “Please excuse the question, Jesse, but when did this happen?”
“Two nights ago. Monday
night. We came into work yesterday morning, and it was like this.”
“You have anyone who would want to do this? Any, I don’t know, enemies? Jealous rival firms?”
Jesse laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think so. But you’d have to ask Mark when he gets here.”
Wolf pushed back his hat and cleared his throat. “That’s actually what we came to talk to you guys about, Jesse. Mark’s been stabbed.”
Wolf watched the genuine reaction of surprise on his face. “What? When?”
“Last night.” Wolf said.
Jesse stared at the ground, then back to Wolf. “Is he all right?”
“He’s in critical condition. He’s at the County General hospital, about forty miles south of here.”
Slowly, Jesse took off his hard hat and shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Was he stabbed here?” He craned his neck and looked at the men in the distance.
“Why do you ask? Do you know what Mark was doing last night? After work?” Rachette asked.
“We all left at sundown. We just got the new excavator in, and we’d been doing manual stuff all day waiting for it.” He twisted and pointed to the large white excavator — the only one without a penis spray painted on it. It was parked near what looked to be a rockslide. “Mark was going to run it for a few hours on his own. He told us all to go home.” He held out his hands. “So we did.”
Wolf tilted his hat against the sun finally peeking over the hill and looked at the excavator. He walked over to it. “What are you guys doing here?”
Jesse looked to Wolf. “Well, we’re expanding the highway—”
“No, I mean, here. With the excavator? What have you guys been specifically working on?”
“We were taking away that scree pile. We started that last week. Then they came and did this on Monday night, and we’ve been sittin’ on our hands ever since.” He pointed at the side of the hill. “It looks like Mark didn’t get much done here last night.”
Wolf noticed two gaping holes in a sheer cliff face forty or so yards down the road.
Jesse saw Wolf looking to the caves. “Cave Creek. They don’t call it that for nothin’. This section of the valley has a lot of corridors carved out by water millions of years ago. Some of them have caved in.” He pointed back up at the rocks. “A lot of erosion happenin’ here over the years. This was a big rockslide fifteen or so years ago. We’re just pulling away the rock from the bottom until it’s gone, then putting up a permanent wall to stop it from happening again.”
Wolf nodded.
“Are environmentalists pissed off about this expansion?” Rachette asked.
Jesse shrugged. “They’re always pissed off at everything we do. But we’ve never had any issues with them before. They really didn’t make any noise with this particular project either.”
They turned to the sound of gravel popping under tires.
An RPPD (?)Ford Explorer bounce to a skidding stop, and Connell got out of the driver’s side while Vickers stepped out opposite.
“Howdy, gentlemen.” Connell tipped his cowboy hat and looked no one in the eye as he strode through the fence gate. Vickers was close behind, nodding to the men.
Wolf, Rachette, and Jesse walked towards them.
Connell’s eyes quickly swept the scene, then locked on Rachette. “Deputy Rachette. What are you doing here? I remember assigning you to PT for the rest of the week.” He smiled to himself and then glared at the circle of men. “Who’s in charge, here?”
Jesse looked from Wolf to Connell. “Hello…uh, officer.” He stepped forward with an extended arm.
Connell tapped his badge. “Sheriff.”
“Sorry, Sheriff. Nice to meet you.”
Connell finally remembered to put on a somber expression. “I take it you boys have heard about your boss?”
“I was just getting done telling Jesse here about it, Sheriff.” Wolf looked to the other men. “We haven’t had a chance to tell everyone else.”
Connell glared at Wolf, then looked to the group of men. “Your boss was stabbed in town last night.”
Wolf motioned to Rachette, tipped his hat to Jesse and the men, and walked away quietly while they talked.
Rachette shuffled up next to him. His voice was low. “We’re just gonna leave them with Connell?”
“Yeah. Why, you wanna stick around?”
“Sergeant Wolf, Deputy Rachette!” Vickers jogged up from behind.
Rachette stopped and turned around and Wolf kept walking.
“Sergeant Wolf.” His voice was insistent.
Wolf reached the SUV and turned around. “What is it, Vickers?”
Vickers slowed, glaring at Wolf. “Look, I didn’t mean to start any beef with you last night, all right?”
Wolf stared silent.
“I’m just trying to follow procedure. I don’t want anybody in trouble. I was looking out for everybody.”
Wolf turned around and opened the door. “Is that it Vickers?”
Vickers hooked his thumbs on his belt and stepped forward. “I don’t know where you were yesterday, and I guess it’s fine, with all you got going on lately and all, but we’ve got a meeting at the station at ten a.m.. Lots to cover after last night.”
Wolf got in and shut the door, fired up the engine, and rolled down the window. Rachette scurried around the bumper and got in.
“We’re not going to be at the station today, Vickers. I can think of a thousand better things for us to be doing with our time than listening to that asshole pretend like he’s leading this department. And Rachette’s not going to be bringing you any parking tickets later. If you’ve got a problem with any of that, well, you can blow it out your ass.”
Vickers stepped back and glared as Wolf backed up and sped away.
Chapter 19
Gary sat high on the hill in the shade of the pine trees. He twirled the black, shiny piece of tubing in his right hand, made of an inner rubber hose, sheathed with a metallic braiding. In his left was a heavy-duty twist-on cap — two pieces taken from the new excavator before dawn, rendering it useless, or so Buck insisted.
Buck and Earl stood silent behind him as they all watched the final truck leave to the south in a cloud of dust.
They hadn’t even tried to start the thing up. And why would they? The owner of the company was in the hospital on his deathbed. They had to pay their respects, and they were wondering if they even had a job.
But they might be back.
And watching Wolf snoop around with that little shit — Rachette was his name — had made him uneasy. Wolf had looked long, right at the spot.
Then Derek had shown up. Seeing him only sent more acid shooting through his body. In fact the sight of Derek crippled him in what he could only describe as panic. It was something he’d never felt, and hoped to never feel again. He was glad Buck and Earl were well behind him as they watched from above.
In the end, he’d fought back the foreign bodily reaction with a steeled mind. Just like he’d done in Africa, facing down that charging lion — facing certain doom, shouldering his rifle, aiming, and making the perfect shot. Just like that, he would execute the plan laid forth, tying up all the pesky loose ends of his life in one fell swoop.
Decision time.
“I just hope the state don’t bring in another crew and start workin’.” Buck said.
Gary laughed and looked down at the construction site, now littered with derelict machines. “You’re worried about the government coming in with a crack team of workers to finish the job? That, boys, is not one of our worries.”
He stood up and bounced the parts in his hands. “No, I think we’ve just cleared out this here construction site for at least a week. That crew’s not coming back. Their jobs are hanging in the balance down at County General. And if Young completes his task tonight,” Gary turned away and swallowed, “there’s going to be a hell of a lot of distraction, and we’ll have the time to get this godforsaken mess over and done with.”
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Chapter 20
Wolf squinted through the windshield and pulled the SUV off the dirt road. A few miles back he’d killed the headlights, and his eyes were well adjusted by now, allowing him to squeeze into a jet-black copse of trees without scratching paint.
He switched off the cab light, got out, shut the door softly, and listened. There was no sound, save the faint tick and hiss of his SUV’s oil pan and a few crickets.
His feet scraped softly on the smooth dirt road as he walked in the pale light of the waxing almost-full moon. As he passed a dimly lit property on the left, his pulse jumped at a faint rustling. A deer brought its head up and stared at him, snorting and twisting one ear before resuming its evening stroll.
Wolf lowered his Glock, only then realizing he’d pulled it. He slotted it in the less bulky belt-holster – a piece of equipment he’d gotten earlier from home, along with the dark outfit he had on now.
He shook his head, took a deep breath, and continued up the road. It had been a long day – hell, a long week -- and sleep deprivation was beginning to dull his reactions.
Earlier that afternoon the Arson Investigator from Frisco had confirmed his suspicions, finding traces of spray-in insulation on the interior door and flash powder at the entrance. Wolf had known what he’d seen, but hearing it officially declared arson felt like validation for insisting so harshly that Sarah’s parents take Jack out of town.
Wolf had then made the drive to see Mark at County General, where Sarah stayed glued to his bedside, unable or unwilling to speak much to Wolf.
The doctors seemed hopeful for his recovery, as his steady decline had ceased, which was apparently good news. Wolf couldn’t bring himself to care much either way what happened to him, but it seemed a safe enough spot for Sarah. Just to make sure, he’d called in a deputy and made sure security kept an eye out for tall muscular men, and then moved on with his day.