by Jeff Carson
“Hey, you know where your mom is today?”
“...center…someone.”
“What? You’re breaking up.”
“She’s at the…nity center, said she had to meet someone. To talk. I think she was meeting Chris Wakefield.”
“Oh, really?” The community center. The old bank building. The two were synonymous. “Okay, thanks.”
“She didn’t say, but she gave me this big talk about suicide this morning, and then she said she had to go talk to someone who was having a hard time today. So I put two and two together.”
Wolf nodded, wondering who he was sitting on the ski lift next to, divulging all this information in a voice just below a shout.
“Yeah, okay. Listen, we’ll talk later.” Wolf hung up.
At the bottom of the road, he stopped at the stop sign and took a right. Another block up he slowed to a stop at the four-way, which was the only stop sign on Main Street, which was highway 734, for miles in either direction. He paused, looking at the stop signs, and the freshly plowed roads extending in four directions.
Another truck crunched to a stop on Main and puffed patiently, waiting for Wolf to make his move. Wolf waved the driver on. He was thinking about Deputy Baine, Baine’s nemesis, Matt Cooper, and the traffic stop last night.
As he drove on, he passed bundled people milling around outside the Edelweiss bakery, a Bobcat mini-loader that was scooping off the sidewalk, and Greg’s John Deere, still scooping and swiveling, building the ridge of snow in the center of the street.
Wolf’s truck rocked and slid a little as he pulled into the half-plowed parking lot of the community center. Three vehicles were lined up, all parked along the front of the building – Sarah’s Toyota 4Runner, an older model silver Toyota pickup, and a Ford SUV that was billowing exhaust.
Wolf parked, and the Ford backed out and then drove away. He shut off his SUV and watched the truck leave and saw it was Chris Wakefield inside, the teenaged son of Craig Wakefield, the mayor of Rocky Points, and Jen Wakefield, the woman who was to be buried later today after a closed-casket ceremony.
Wolf knew this would probably be one of the worst days of Chris’s life, having to bury his mother. Maybe second worse only to two days prior when Chris had found out the news. It was no surprise he was seeking comfort from Sarah.
Wolf stepped out of his truck and gave a somber wave, and Chris’s hand rose and fell with a vague gesture as he peeled away.
Wolf walked over the softly packed snow and pulled open the door.
The community center in town was an old bank from the early nineteen hundreds, so it was commonly, and cleverly, referred to as the “old bank building” by the residents in town. Despite the name, there was no indication inside it had ever been an old bank. There were no teller counters, no vaults, and no toiling employees with green visors scribbling in ledgers.
Instead, it had been renovated with short carpet and buzzing fluorescent lights, separating walls faced with cheap wood paneling, and plastic furniture that had probably been ten years old when it was brought in twenty years ago.
Plain wood frames displayed old black and white pictures of Main Street on one wall. On another wall there was a row of color headshots of the employees with brass-engraved nameplates below. Each face looked too bright and washed out, but somehow, despite the flash burning into her face like an atom bomb detonation, Sarah still looked good in her picture hung at the end of the line.
Nobody was inside the narrow room at the front, so he walked into the hallway and made his way back to the big room where the meetings were usually held, and where Sarah was most likely to be.
The wood under the carpet creaked, a clock ticked on the hallway wall, and the lights hummed overhead. As he approached, he heard nothing from the big room, so he was startled when he walked in and saw two faces staring at him, and not just Sarah.
“Oh, hi,” Wolf said.
Kevin Ash looked away from Wolf and stared at his hands. His eyes were red and his cheeks wet.
Sarah sat a few feet away, and there was a vacant plastic chair next to her, apparently where Chris Wakefield had just been sitting. She looked up at Wolf and raised her eyebrows.
“Uh, sorry,” Wolf backed out of the room. “I’ll just wait up front. I was hoping to get a word with you, Sarah.”
“Okay,” she said quietly. “It will be a few minutes.”
“No problem,” Wolf said, and walked back down the hall and into the front room.
No more than a minute later, he heard the squeaking of footsteps coming down the hall and then Kevin came out with Sarah close behind.
Kevin’s cheeks were dry, but he stared at the floor with a drooping mouth. His blond facial hair was a few days grown, and he had straw colored hair peeking out from his black winter hat with a Rocky Points Ski Patrol patch sewn to the front of it. Despite his scraggly appearance, he looked strong, healthy, and fit from spending so much time on the mountain.
Since Wolf had interviewed Kevin Ash for what had ultimately become Patterson’s position, they hadn’t exactly been on speaking terms in the few times Wolf had seen him around town. Last summer, Wolf had dismissed the county council chairman’s son as a terrible candidate for a sheriff’s deputy – an assessment he still stood by – and that had hurt the young man. Wolf knew Kevin worked for the ski patrol now, and it was proving a much better fit.
“Hi Kevin,” Wolf said.
“Hi,” he said, avoiding eye contact.
“Not up at the mountain today? I would have thought Duke would be working everyone to the bone with this dump we had last night.”
Kevin looked at Wolf for the first time, and Wolf thought he saw real hatred simmering inside his blue eyes.
“I took a personal day today,” he said, and then walked away toward the door.
Wolf’s mind was cranking. Was Kevin upset because he’d somehow just heard about Stephanie Lang? If so, how?
“Hey, Kevin,” Wolf said.
Kevin stopped and looked up at Wolf with drooping eyelids, like he was about to be reprimanded by the school principal.
“Do you know Stephanie Lang?” Wolf asked, being careful with his verb tense.
“Yeah, she’s in the group with us.”
Wolf was surprised. “Oh, you’re in Sarah’s group?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“Nothing,” Wolf said eyeing him. Then he realized it was clear Kevin didn’t know about Stephanie. Something else was upsetting him, and Wolf’s line of questioning needed to stop.
Kevin lifted his hands and then dropped them at his sides.
“Sorry, I was just wondering,” Wolf said.
Kevin shook his head and zipped up his coat. Without another word, he walked out, got in his truck, fired it up, and drove away.
As he drove out of the lot, Wolf noticed Sarah was looking at him with wide eyes.
“What the hell was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We need to talk.”
She parted her lips and squinted. “What the hell? You just start interrogating him like that, and then stop?”
“Sarah, we need to talk.”
She sighed and walked down the hall to the big room.
He followed close behind. When they reached the main meeting room, he sat in the cheap plastic and metal chair Kevin had been sitting in. It was still warm.
Sarah shook her head and sat down across from Wolf. “Chris’s mother killing herself has put a lot of strain on these kids.”
Wolf sat quietly, watching Sarah pull her aspen-bark blonde hair behind her ear. She wasn’t wearing makeup today, which was a look Wolf liked on her. It showed her beauty as God had given it, which was ample. Her face was darkly tanned on the lower half, goggle-eyed from skiing the last few weeks in the sun. Her blue sweater was snug against her body, accentuating the perfect bulges on her chest and athletic arms. Her jeans were old and frayed, tight against her taut legs. Underneath a tear in her jeans Wolf could se
e the fabric sheen of long underwear, a staple piece of clothing for winters in Rocky Points.
“What’s up?” she said, finally meeting his eyes with her fiery blues.
Wolf took a deep breath and let it out.
“That’s not good,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“No, it’s not,” he said. “We found a dead body this morning.”
Sarah sat rock still and closed her eyes.
“It was Stephanie Lang,” Wolf said. “That’s why I was asking Kevin about her. I thought you guys might have been talking about her for some reason.”
A tear dripped down her cheek and she sniffed. Her lips parted and quivered. “What happened?”
“She was killed. Murdered. We’re looking for two men who might have been with her. You saw her last night, right? At the party?”
Sarah wiped her eyes and looked at him. “Yeah.”
“Did you happen to see her leave? Or, looking like she was going to leave with someone?”
Sarah looked through the wall behind Wolf, and then clenched her eyes tightly.
Wolf leaned forward and put a hand on her knee. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s my worst nightmare for her come true.”
“What do you mean?”
“She used to do drugs a lot. Then she quit, but she…she was still an addict. Sex.”
Wolf put his elbows on his knees.
“I was real worried about her, going around with all these strange men.”
“So, she told you about these men?”—he sat up straight—“talked about it in the group here?”
“Well, yes and no. She broke down once and told the whole group about it, and she stayed after once and told me about a man. A man that had roughed her up a little bit. She was a little freaked out.”
“When was this?”
Sarah stood, walked to a table near the window and retrieved a tissue. “It was a long time ago. Like months. And ever since that night, she’s never told me much. She kind of just goes through”—she shook her head—“went through the motions at these meetings. I knew she was still out doing her thing with men, though. I’ve seen her. Even the other night at the party, she was, just…slutty. I hate to use that word, but she was just so confused, and she just latched onto men, let them do whatever they wanted. It seemed like the worse she brought out in men, the better for her … or something.”
“You said the other night at the party?” Wolf stood up. “What do you mean?”
Sarah blew her nose. “She was at Charlie Ash’s party. The whole thing was catered by Antler Creek.”
“And she was with specific men that night?” he asked.
“No. Not really, I just mean it was the way she was acting. Grabbing arms, and rubbing lower backs, and pressing her boobs,” Sarah sucked in a breath and looked up at the ceiling, and then she shook her head.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Wolf stared at her.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “She did come over to our table last night, and she said hi to me, and then…”
“Sarah, come on. She’s dead. Strangled. We believe two men are responsible. If you know anything, I need to know.”
“All right. Well, I remember when she came over to our table, she leaned down to talk to Klammer’s assistant, like talk in his ear, and he kind of pulled her down by the arm and whispered something back. It was close, and it was a long whisper, so I remember thinking maybe they knew each other from earlier. I remember that she was blushing when she stood back up. But she”—she shook her head—“she never came back. Never talked to him again. It was nothing. He was probably just asking for a fork and tried to hit on her or something.”
“And what’s this guy’s name?”
Sarah slumped her shoulders. “Oh, come on, David. You can’t…don’t go roughing this guy up and telling him I told you anything. If Klammer Corp gets the contract, and they’re pissed at me, and they don’t choose Margaret’s firm to sell the units—”
“Relax,” Wolf stepped close and rubbed her shoulders, a gesture he didn’t realize would be so intimate until he was suddenly doing it.
She looked up at him with sad eyes. She smelled like memories of days making love in bed.
He dropped his hands.
“Jonas Prock,” she said. “That’s his name. Just, be discrete.”
Wolf nodded and looked down at her. “Are you sure about the drugs? I mean with Stephanie. She was off them for sure?”
Sarah nodded. “I’m sure. She stopped. I can spot those things better than most. Why?”
“We searched her room, and she had twelve hundred dollars in her drawer. All crisp hundreds, straight from the bank.”
“Well, could have been a big tip? Or she cashed a check?” But Sarah was staring through Wolf again. “Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or she was selling herself.” Sarah sighed and another tear fell down her cheek. She stepped forward and gave him a hug, putting her ear on his chest, and then she shook with sobs.
He returned her embrace, and the butt of his pistol dug into his hip.
“What kind of world are we raising Jack in?” she asked.
Wolf stroked her head.
After what seemed to be a full minute, the hug seemed to turn from comforting one another to the beginnings of something else, and Sarah pressed into him even harder, and then just as abruptly, she pulled away and looked down at the floor.
“We have to talk one of these days, okay?” she said.
“Yeah,” Wolf said. “Okay.”
She sniffed and looked at her watch. “Shit, I have to go to the office before this funeral. I’ll see you up there.”
Wolf nodded and pulled down the waist of his jacket. “What about Jack?”
“He’s coming to the office, and we’ll go from there. I’ve got his suit and everything in the truck.”
Sarah shut off the lights as they walked out of the room.
“Was Kevin Ash at his father’s party the other night?” Wolf asked as they walked down the hall.
“No. Why?”
Wolf didn’t answer. “And Chris Wakefield today? You were talking about his mother’s suicide with him and Kevin?”
“Kevin and Chris are pretty good friends in the group, and Kevin’s been helping Chris since his mother’s death. Kevin’s mom died a couple years ago, so this is bringing up a lot of sad memories for Kevin, too. It’s a whole mess. I feel so bad for these kids. This news about Stephanie is going to … oh.”
Wolf stopped. “Kevin’s mom died? In Tahoe?”
Sarah stopped and turned around, and then narrowed her eyes, “Yeah. Before they moved here. Why? What?”
“How did she die?” Wolf asked.
Sarah fluttered her eyelids. “I … he doesn’t like to talk about it, but I think a bad car crash. I don’t push him”—she tilted her head—“and David, you need to use a little compassion here. Pull back from the cop routine a little bit with these kids, okay?”
Wolf nodded. “Sorry, I’m just wondering is all, I guess. Just trying to figure out what the hell is happening around here, and I’m not sure where the lines are all drawn yet.”
Chapter 10
“I’ll take two eggs, over easy, bacon, and hash browns. Wheat toast.” Charlie Ash looked up at the waitress, “I’m still feeling like breakfast.” He gave her a dismissive smile and looked out the window before she could chat him up anymore.
“Sh-should I wait for your two other guests to arrive?”
The cowbell on the door jangled, and Ash watched the two men he’d been waiting for enter through the front entrance. They stomped their feet and looked around. Ash raised a hand and waved them over.
He looked up at the waitress. “You can put my order in. These guys won’t be eating lunch with me.” Ash put his menu down and stacked the other two on top of them.
She nodded and picked them up with a small hesitation, and then left. She did have a great ass. No wonder w
hy that helo-pilot Cooper was all hot and bothered about her. Too bad she was a simple moron who couldn’t be taken out in public like ninety percent of the rest of this town.
Elias Klammer walked in front of his bodyguard, or assistant, or whatever the hell he was, all the while staring at Ash with narrowed eyes. Ash ignored what was surely meant to be a threatening glare and looked out the window at the trees piled with crumbling snow.
“Charlie,” the man said, sliding into the booth across from Ash. Chawley it sounded like with his ridiculous accent.
Ash did not answer, and he shook his head when that freaking smell hit his nostrils. No matter how many times he smelled it, the cologne these two Austrians chose to wear was offensive to Ash’s nose every time. It was like Polo cologne mixed with ground beef.
“Jesus, you guys bathe in cologne before you leave the hotel?”
Klammer relaxed his eyes and looked out the window. The bigger, younger guy known as Prock, more like Prick, sneered and put an elbow on the table. He clenched his fist and stared at Ash.
“Give me a break,” Ash said rolling his eyes, careful not to give the underling any satisfaction by looking at him in the eye.
The waitress came back up to the table.
“What did I say?” Ash raised his voice a few decibels. “They’re okay, thanks.”
She popped her eyebrows and leaned back on her heels, and then scurried away.
Klammer kept quiet and motionless while his assistant took off his leather gloves, tucked them into his hat and set the hat on the table.
“We are paying you a large amount of money to get what we want”—Prock said in his thick Austrian accent, not even knowing how comically similar he looked and sounded to a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger—“and it is obvious we are not going to get it.”
Ash glared at Klammer and pressed his lips together. “Why is your thug talking to me right now?”
Prock slapped the table, clanking the knife and fork in front of Ash and spilling some coffee over the edge of his mug. Ash looked down at the sloshing liquid, and waited for the sudden silence in the restaurant to ramp back up to a murmur.
“Okay,” Ash smiled easily at the big guy. “Now that you have everyone’s attention. I’m sorry, did you have something to say?”