Signature: A David Wolf Mystery (David Wolf Mystery Thriller Series Book 9)

by Jeff Carson

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Tom. I had no idea.”

  He wiped his eyes and checked the side view mirror, then turned and looked backwards to hide his face. When that failed he opened the door and stepped out onto the dirt road, slamming the door behind him.

  Christ. What was happening to him? This! This is why she needed to stay away. This is why she needed to get her own life in Nebraska, and stay the hell out of his. And especially now.

  Patterson sat in the SUV, not bothering to come outside to apologize further. She knew when to leave him alone, he’d give her that.

  After a minute he got back inside.

  “Rachette …”

  Pulling back onto the road, he was taken by a numb calmness that shut Patterson up. He rarely blinked, rarely had a thought. Just drove, and scanned the woods for any sign of Fred Wilcox or the maroon sedan Wolf had taken pictures of.

  More futility. They had been driving for hours, taking every single road in town that was passable with the Adrenaline Games crowd, then they had spiraled their way outwards. Searching every road out here was an impossible proposition.

  “I’m hungry,” he finally said after an hour of wandering the side roads in town for the third time of the day. “So I’m going to stop at Burger Shack.”

  Her voice cracked, “I’m uh, going to meet Scott and Tommy on Main Street for dinner. You can drop me at third. If you see MacLean, tell him I’m taking a shit or something.”

  The defiance in her voice was a little off-putting.

  “You all right?”

  She looked at him and nodded. “Yeah. I just need to spend more time with my family, or I’m not going to have a family anymore.”

  Main Street was two blocks to the east, so he pulled onto third and made his way there, stopping at the traffic barricade and letting her out.

  They exchanged a glance; hers saying “I’m sorry,” and his saying, “Whatever. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’ll be back at the station in an hour or so.” She closed the door and disappeared into the crowd.

  After a quick stop at the Burger Shack drive-through he went to the county building, made his way up to the squad room and ate at his desk, watching the orange light of the sunset fade in the windows.

  His thoughts bounced between his father, his kid sister, and his failed attempt at starting a family before it had begun. Every waking thought was a reminder how he was too much of a pussy to even try and be a better man than his father had been.

  He’d left her at the altar. That was movie-type stuff.

  He pulled out his cell phone. There were three missed calls from his sister today. Five yesterday. There would be more. But he wasn’t in the mood to talk to her yet. There was no sense pouring salt in his wounds.

  Screw it. He dropped the cell phone on the desk and leaned back, sucking the cool Coca Cola, washing down the last of the French fries down his throat.

  His stomach was bulging to the point his leather belt was painfully digging against his belly. Taking another sip, he pinched the small roll of fat that billowed over. His gut had definitely grown since the wedding.

  “Hey fat ass, Tammy says you’re not answering your desk phone.” Deputy Yates appeared at his desk.

  Rachette leaned forward and studied his desk phone, then pushed a button, rendering it usable again. “Oh yeah, I had a woman on hold … yesterday.”

  Deputy Yates waited with raised eyebrows, looking for more explanation that wasn’t coming. “She says you have a guy downstairs who needs to talk to a detective.”

  Rachette sat forward and let out a long burp, pointing out the floor to ceiling windows at the darkening silhouettes of the peaks. “Now?”

  Yates shrugged. “You want me to tell him you’re busy jerking it?”

  “Okay, okay. I’m on my way.” He gathered up the remnants of his food, scraped them into the bag and tossed it on the way out of the squad room.

  Riding the elevator down to the first floor, he walked to the front reception area of the building and eyed Tammy, who was behind the reception desk and standing with a phone pressed to her ear. She turned to him, said a few words and hung up, like she had been talking to somebody about him. Pointing to the waiting area, she sat down and dug into some task on her computer. Probably ordering a new assault rifle.

  Over near the windows there was a detention deputy dressed in full khakis talking to a civilian male. They both turned in his direction at the same time and he noticed it was Deputy Hartman, a grunt from the prison downstairs who talked way too much when he drank.

  “Detective Rachette,” Deputy Hartman said. “This is Mr. Ellington. He needs to speak to you.”

  “I need to speak to you,” Mr. Ellington said.

  Rachette started to smile and smothered it when he saw the dread on the man’s face. “Right. Thanks deputy Hartman.”

  “Detective Rachette will take care of you now, sir.” Hartman patted his shoulder and left to the elevator bank.

  “My name’s Tom,” Rachette said shaking the man’s beefy hand.

  “I’m Bud Ellington.”

  “What can I help you with, Mr. Ellington?” Rachette asked, eyeing the windows. Patrons streamed by, sipping yellow beers and eating meat in various forms. A group of laughing women passed by, all of them dressed in zip up jackets and tight jeans.

  In contrast, Mr. Ellington was dressed like a lumberjack. He wore dirty overalls with a checked red and black shirt underneath. His graying beard reached his chest, rounding out the image. But contrary to the manly rest of him, his eyes were red and moist, like he’d been crying.

  “My daughter’s missing,” Mr. Ellington said.

  Rachette pulled his eyebrows together and nodded, like the man had said something mildly interesting, and not butthole-clenching terrifying in the current state of everything that was going on in town.

  “Okay,” he said. “Please, let’s take a seat here.”

  The huge man followed his prompt and sank into a chair. He removed a trucker hat, revealing a shorn scalp, and began rubbing it with both palms.

  Swallowing, Rachette looked out the windows again, willing Patterson to materialize out of the crowd and come walking inside, but there were just more unnamed faces streaming by.

  He tried to remember his training in situations like this.

  He didn’t want to fan the flames of any negativity going through the man’s mind, but blowing smoke up his ass would be worse.

  “Tell me, when is the last time you talked to her?” he asked.

  “Yesterday. Uh, last night.”

  Rachette nodded. He wanted to tell the man to not worry, that there was a waiting period of twenty-four or thirty-six hours and then he could worry, but he knew that was bullshit. There was no waiting period in the real world. If someone’s missing, time is usually of the essence. Especially now. Especially here. “Tell me what happened? Why exactly do you think she’s missing?”

  “Because she’s not answering her phone or her text messages. And this is since last night. She lives in town, in the Rocky Points Condos.”

  “Wait, is your daughter Lindsay?”

  Mr. Ellington’s eyes widened. “Yes. Why? What? You know where she is?”

  “No … sorry, I just. I live in the Rocky Points Condos, too. I know her.”

  Mr. Ellington closed his eyes and despair took over again.

  Rachette felt like he’d just swam to a drowning man and dunked his head underwater. “Okay. Listen. Let me have her phone number.”

  With the monosyllabic tone of a zombie, Mr. Ellington rattled off his daughter’s phone number while Rachette fed it into his phone.

  Putting it to his ear, he listened to ring. It immediately stopped and went to voicemail. Lindsay Ellington’s high-pitched voice came on and told him she wasn’t there and to leave a message.

  He hung up and stood. “I’ll be right back.” He walked across the floor, over the terrazzo seal of Sluice-Byron County, to the half-moon recepti
on counter where Tammy sat a foot above him.

  She was on the phone, her eyes wide and locked on her computer screen. She held up a finger at Rachette. “I need it right now.” She looked at him. “I don’t care, give me a location right now.”

  The intensity of her tone, he realized her words for his benefit. He showed her his phone with Lindsay Ellington’s phone number on it and she nodded. She was already trying to locate her phone through the local cell carrier dispatch.

  Rachette slowed his breathing and stood coolly with his elbow on the counter, resisting the urge to wring his hands and pace.

  The automatic front doors slid open, letting in a blast of music and the scent of corndogs.

  He turned his head to look, but it was nobody, just a toddler who had wandered underneath the infrared sensor of the automatic doors outside.

  Mr. Ellington was staring at them. His mouth was moving, his eyes going skyward, looking like he was saying a silent prayer.

  Rachette turned to Tammy. With clenched teeth, he whispered, “What the hell is going on? Talk to me, Tammy.”

  She lowered the phone and spoke in a low, controlled tone. “They’re locating her phone now. I’m on hold with Summit Wireless, and now they’ve finally got me … yes? Okay.” She pulled a piece of paper off her notepad and jotted something down. “Thank you.”

  She hung up and handed the paper to Rachette.

  It said, 1503 Main Street, Rocky Points. The Pony Tavern.

  Rachette nodded and pocketed the piece of paper.

  The walk back to Mr. Ellington was ten paces at most, but felt like a mile. His legs felt like a separate entity to his body. What the hell was he going to tell this guy?

  Chapter 17

  Patterson and Yates pulled into the parking lot of the Pony Tavern and parked. Rachette was parked a few spots away milling around the rear of his SUV with a burly looking man.

  “There he is,” Yates said.

  To say Rachette looked relieved to see them was the understatement of the month.

  She had gotten the call from Rachette a few minutes ago and had to haul ass back to the station and hitch a ride here with Yates. She had hardly shut the door when Rachette was right next to her, hissing in her ear.

  “About time.”

  “Hey, what’s going on? You said Lindsay—”

  “This is her father.”

  “What?”

  “Her dad. Lindsay Ellington’s dad.”

  The full situation came into focus, and now Rachette’s over-excited tone on the phone made sense.

  “Yeah, he followed—”

  “You her?” The burly man was right next to them.

  “Hello, sir. My name’s Detective Heather Patterson.”

  “Bud Ellington.” The man had tightly folded arms across a barrel chest. He was searching the night beyond them. “They don’t have her phone inside.”

  Patterson glanced over her shoulder, seeing the man was looking at nothing in particular. The trees. The unknown.

  Two more vehicles drove into the lot, Gene Fitzgerald in his dirty white Honda Civic followed by Charlotte in her Jeep Cherokee.

  Rachette’s face dropped at the sight of Munford, and then his eyes narrowed at the sight of Gene. “What the hell are they doing here?”

  “They were at the station, too. They’re here to help,” Patterson said, directing the words at Rachette as much as the missing girl’s father.

  “Shit … help with what?” Mr. Ellington had a hand on his forehead now and was pacing back and forth.

  “Sir,” Patterson said. “We’ll be right back.” She clamped onto Rachette’s arm and they walked to Munford and Gene, who were talking with Yates.

  “Hey, what’s happening?” Munford asked Rachette, looking him directly in the eye.

  The words looked like they stunned Rachette, like she had hauled off and punched him rather than asked him a basic question.

  “Uh …” Rachette looked at Gene, letting his sentence die.

  “Mr. Ellington,” Patterson said. “Her missing daughter.”

  “Yeah.” Rachette blinked, snapping out of it. “We have a misper. Lindsay Ellington. She’s not answering her phone. She came here last night for ladies’ night. Her roommate says she never came home. I just called her phone. It goes straight to voicemail.”

  “But you pinged it?” Patterson asked.

  Rachette nodded. “Yeah. The last GPS signal was registered right here.”

  Patterson eyed Mr. Ellington, who was a few yards away with his own phone pressed to his ear. “Why’s he here?”

  “He followed me.” Rachette got in her face. “What the hell was I supposed to say? ‘Sir, I’ve traced her phone, but I’m not going to tell you where it is. Here, take a seat on this shitty plastic chair while I go look for her. Would you like a soda while you wait?’ The guy’s …” Rachette lowered his voice and looked over his shoulder. “The guy’s a freaking wreck.”

  Munford stepped up and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  Rachette closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay. Thanks. Thanks for coming.”

  “Did you check on the ground?” Patterson asked.

  The parking lot was a large, simple square, surrounded by hip-high grass singing with crickets. On the west side, about a stone’s throw away, was the Chautauqua River, quietly bubbling in the still night air.

  “No, not yet. We were just inside talking to the bartender. She says she was in here last night. I had her pull her credit card slip. Looks like she paid it at 11:22 p.m. The bartender doesn’t remember her. Says it was real crowded last night. More Adrenaline Games crowd.”

  Mr. Ellington pocketed his phone and came over. “What’s next? What are you going to do?”

  “Sir,” Patterson said.

  Gene stepped out of the powwow and put a hand on Mr. Ellington’s shoulder.

  Mr. Ellington looked down at it, an aggressive bulge of his eyes, but Gene was unrelenting, pulling him gently away from Rachette, Munford, Yates, and Patterson.

  “Sir, these are deputies with the Sheriff’s Department …” They retreated toward the front door of the Pony Tavern, Gene talking in a soothing voice.

  Munford eyed Gene with something akin to awe, and then stepped away from Rachette, leaving Patterson’s partner looking like a pathetic dog sitting in the rain.

  Patterson punched him in the shoulder. “Let’s get moving.”

  Rachette’s department SUV was equipped with two Maglites and Yates’s had two as well. Mr. Ellington stood in solemn silence with Gene in the parking lot.

  A few minutes in, they joined the search, using the flashlights on their cellphones.

  The grass was thick and high, reaching up to Patterson’s elbows, or everyone else’s waists. The beam of her flashlight swept back and forth, covering just a few feet in front of her. The ground was muddy at the stalks, holding the moisture from rain two days ago.

  Fanned out in a straight line, just over an arm’s length from one another, the six of them made three passes back and forth.

  Patterson saw mice and crickets, but no telltale flash of glass or plastic.

  Another pass later Munford raised her hand. “I have something. I have it.”

  Swimming through the grass, they huddled around Munford.

  Illuminated by her flashlight beam sat a shining cell phone screen burrowed in some grass.

  “That’s it,” Mr. Ellington said, bending over.

  “Don’t touch it,” Patterson and Rachette said in unison.

  Mr. Ellington ignored them and picked it up. “This is it. Why would it be here?”

  He looked at them for answers. They had none.

  Chapter 18

  Molas Pass climbed out of the west side of Silverton. It was too beautiful in the sunset light to try and keep up with Luke’s suicidal driving, so Wolf sat back and enjoyed the Les Paul tune pumping out of the speakers.

  He’d cracked a window, letting in the pine and grass scent, but
had to roll it up to keep out the cold and the bugs, which were so uniformly splattered on his windshield it looked like the sneeze guard at Rocky Points Ice Creamery on the fourth of July.

  The road wound tightly around curves, ascending and descending, and then finally straightened out as it dove down south toward Durango.

  Following a green line on the GPS function of his dash mounted laptop, he pulled into a motel called the Pine Bark Inn and parked underneath the covered drive-up.

  The motel attendant was a skinny young man with tight clothes and a greasy Mohawk, and his eyes lit up at the mention of Kristen Luke’s name. Handing over a key he said, “She said to tell you they’re at the restaurant across the street.”

  Wolf looked out the window.

  “Shocker’s sports bar,” the man said. “Not the other place.”

  “Thanks. How long ago did they get here?”

  “Must have been about fifteen minutes ago?”

  Wolf nodded and took the key. “Thanks.”

  He parked the SUV next to Luke’s bug-encrusted Tahoe and went to his room. Unlocking it, he tossed his toiletries bag onto a floral patterned queen sized bed and shut it again, and then made his way across the highway to Shocker’s Sports Bar.

  The place was decidedly un-shocking. Just another bar—two pool tables, a juke box in the corner, a sparsely populated cluster of tables, and a row of booths along the neon adorned windows and a big screen television above the bar.

  “Hey, over here!” Luke called out.

  Hannigan and Luke sat at a booth along the windows just digging into a meal. Hannigan had a burger that looked too small in his oversized hands with fries, and Luke had a plate of salad with a breast of chicken dropped on top of it.

  He slipped in next to Luke, because that was the option that was given to him.

  “What took you so long?” she asked.

  “Yeah, right. I’m still not sure how I beat you to Silverton.”

  “Oh that. We stopped for gas, and this guy had some sort of bathroom emergency.”