David Wolf series Box Set 2

by Jeff Carson

  “Where’s that water?”

  MacLean appeared and held out a glass to his right hand.

  Wolf stared at it and raised his left.

  MacLean smiled and walked around the rear of the bed to the other side.

  Wolf popped the pills in his mouth, grabbed the glass, and tipped it back. Some water streamed off his chin, down his chest and onto his crotch beneath his hospital gown, but the pills hit the inside of his stomach.

  “You’re not gonna sit?”

  MacLean shook his head.

  “Can you pick up that bottle of Scotch and put it back on the table please?”

  MacLean snorted and smiled in response.

  Wolf stared at him.

  MacLean walked around the back of his inclined bed and picked up the bottle with a grunt. With deliberate steps that squeaked the floorboards under the carpet, MacLean moved back into the kitchen and rattled around in Wolf’s cabinets. There was the sound of a glass slapping on the counter, a cork being pulled, and the glug of the bottle.

  A second later MacLean strolled back in, put the full glass of Scotch down his throat and slapped the empty glass on Wolf’s plastic roll table.

  “That’s enough dicking around now.” MacLean walked to the front of the bed and assessed Wolf. “How would the voters like it if they saw their favorite candidate now?”

  Wolf felt a drip of water leave his chin.

  “You’ve been ignoring me, Sheriff. And since you garnered the sympathy of the voters with your personal tragedy and”—MacLean quoted his fingers—“heroics of late, your numbers have surpassed mine. And you didn’t even have to speak in front of a podium.”

  Wolf gazed at the television.

  “Well?” MacLean bent in front of him and jutted out his lower jaw.

  Wolf blinked and let his eyes land on MacLean.

  “Fine.” MacLean waved a hand in the air. “That was your last chance. Your time is officially up. I’ve called a press conference today up at the resort, where I’m going to let our voters know about everything—your drug-running deputy, and the way you covered it up. And it’s really a shame what you’re doing. I actually liked Deputies Rachette and Patterson. They’re good kids. Deputy Rachette had the balls to come down and apologize to me about the whole thing. And Patterson? She seemed like she would have been a good addition to my department. But, thanks to you, they’ll both be packing up and looking elsewhere for work. And with that on their record, I doubt they’ll find anything in the field of law enforcement.”

  MacLean turned toward the door and stopped. “Oh yeah, and I’ve decided to add a few more pictures to the mix. I’m not going to show them to you now, but I can describe them if you like.” He raised his eyebrows, and when Wolf kept silent he continued. “They’re of you and that dead serial-murderer woman. A few pictures of you and her coming into your house, and then a few of you two coming out the next day. All within the time period of your investigation. Good stuff.”

  “I’m out.”

  MacLean stood straight. “What?”

  “I’m out. I’m officially out of the race, as soon as you fulfill your end of the bargain. I’m out.”

  MacLean’s laugh boomed in the dark space, and after making a show of forming his hat he wiped his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t care. Any sympathy I had for you or your deputies is long gone, and I think the voters of our new county need to know what kind of fraud you really are.” Pulling his thumb and forefinger down the corners of his silvery mustache, he turned and walked to the front door.

  “I’ll be releasing what I have to Renee Moore,” Wolf said, “from Channel 8, down in Denver. The FBI will also be interested in what I have to say.”

  MacLean stopped and turned. “What are you blabbering about? What do they have you on there? Percocet? Hydrocodone?”

  Wolf lifted a finger and pointed it toward a manila envelope laid conspicuously on the otherwise bare coffee table. “That’s yours.”

  MacLean walked over and looked at it.

  “That’s right.” Wolf smiled. “I have an envelope for you now.”

  “What is it?”

  “Pick it up.”

  MacLean picked it up and pried it open. With a frown he pulled out the single sheet of paper. “What the hell is this?”

  “My demands. I admit my handwriting is less than stellar, but I’ve been barely conscious for almost four weeks now, and when I’m awake I’m usually pretty buzzed on pain pills and Scotch. And since I can’t get up to use my printer, I had to write it.”

  MacLean shook his head with impatience and reached into the envelope. Burying his arm to the elbow, he pulled out a USB memory stick.

  “My Deputy Baine—you’ll want to keep a good eye on that guy by the way—tracked down your friend, Ms. Gail Olson. He brought her into the station and had a little chat with her, and you’ll see he’s a persuasive guy with his technical and legal jargon, and the way he uses cuss words. He had her spinning, and then shitting her pants, and then spilling everything, about how she was coerced by you to first seduce Deputy Rachette, then to carry out a drug transfer with him in the pre-arranged place and time, where we all know your photographer was in waiting. It’s all there on that USB in your hand, the interrogation video, her confession that she took your payment, everything.”

  There was a thwack as MacLean dropped the USB into the envelope. His eyebrows slid down and one side of his mouth turned up. “Bullshit. It’ll be her word against mine.”

  “And expunging her record? Did you go through the official court procedures for that? Or was it you and your pal, Lieutenant Bentman in the Ashland PD records department, who made that deal happen off the books?”

  MacLean’s eyes darted back and forth.

  Wolf lifted his eyebrows. “You and Bentman will be looking at hard jail time for that little move. Gail Olson put us onto that track. She told us about that carrot you hung on the stick in front of her in addition to the two-thousand-dollar payment. Again, it’s all on the video.”

  MacLean blinked. “Touché.” He looked at the crumpled piece of notebook paper and frowned. “And what’s this chicken-scratch say? Because I can, in fact, not read a single word of it.”

  “That’s just saying that once you’re sworn in as sheriff you’ll hire deputies Rachette, Patterson, Wilson, Yates, and Baine into the department at their current rank or higher. I’ll be adding names to that list as I see fit in the coming two weeks, and the employment contracts will be looked over by my associate, Margaret Hitchens. When I get the word that all has been done, I’ll continue to hold myself back from releasing this information.”

  MacLean shoved the paper into the envelope and dropped it to his side. With a puff of air from his lips he looked at Wolf. “You’ll continue to hold back from releasing this information?”

  Wolf nodded. “And I’ve already told Deputy Rachette that you’ve had a change of heart about the photographs, and you’ll have to tell him the same as soon as possible. He doesn’t know anything about you setting him up, and I don’t want him to know. That would only damage the relationship going forward, and cripple his ability to do a good job for the department. But, as far as I’m concerned, you owe him. You owe him big time. So you’d better tell him something that makes him feel off the hook for good, like he never even made a mistake. I don’t care how you do it, just do it.

  “Deputy Baine, however, can’t unlearn what he’s figured out about you. But he’s agreed to keep silent about our counter-investigation into your activity. Of course, I’m sure it will cost you in the terms of his employment.” Wolf raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, but you reap what you sow there.”

  MacLean’s chest heaved as he wiped his nose. “And what about you?”

  “Me?” Wolf’s eyes glossed over. “I have to take some time to mend things.”

  “Well, no shit. I mean after that, what do you want from me? You clearly don’t want sheriff, so what do you want? Undersheriff? Money? What?”

 
Wolf dragged his eyes back to MacLean. “For now, I’d like you to go into my kitchen, go into the cabinet to the left of the refrigerator, and pour me a Scotch.”

  MacLean stood still, his eyes becoming blocks of ice.

  “And then,” Wolf said, “I’ll let you know.”

  MacLean bit his upper lip, and with a shake of his head he marched into the kitchen. A few seconds later he slammed the bottle next to Wolf and stormed to the front door.

  The hinges shrieked, and a shaft of light burned into Wolf’s retinas, and then the door slammed shut.

  As the sound of tires crackled into the distance outside, Wolf reached over and picked up his phone. There were nine missed calls from Rachette, Margaret, Patterson, Burton, and his mother.

  He ignored them and pushed the voicemail button for the hundredth time.

  “Hi, David. It’s me.” Sarah’s voice was timid, full of tension. “I need to talk to you. Call me back. Okay?”

  Need to talk to you.

  Wolf closed his eyes and lowered the phone. He cursed the political game he’d been roped into over the past few months, because it was so clear to him now—Sarah was dead because of that game. If he hadn’t been so pissed off about Chama’s visit that night, Wolf would have answered this very phone call. He would have helped her. She would be alive.

  Wolf reached over and picked up the bottle of eighteen-year-old Glenlivet he’d gotten from Burton on his fortieth birthday. A twinge of pain arced up his back as he twisted the cork, but the paper seal gave way and the stopper slid up with a squeak and then popped.

  He poured a few fingers in the water glass and scrolled to Jack’s phone number. He swallowed and stared at it, once again pulling forth the fuzzy memory.

  He knew it was a memory now, but for weeks Wolf had thought it had been a bad dream. One of many of late. But now he was certain. Through the haze of pain killers and agony of healing wounds, Wolf had only recently realized that Jack had not once been to see him. And he wasn’t answering Wolf’s phone calls, either.

  And then the truth had settled on him like a pile of rocks.

  It hadn’t been a bad dream. It was a memory.

  After one of Wolf’s hip surgeries in the county hospital, he’d cracked his eyes and Jack had been there waiting for him. Jack had gotten up from his cloth-covered chair, stood next to his bed, leaned over so close that he could smell his son’s breath, and said those words.

  “It’s your fault she’s dead.”

  And then Jack had left.

  Wolf’s breath caught at the vague recollection; then he gritted his teeth and pressed Jack’s phone number.

  After a single ring it went to voicemail.

  “This is Jack, you know what to do.”

  Wolf inhaled and shuffled the right words in his brain.

  When the beep sounded in his ear, he said, “Hey, Jack.” His voice wavered. “It’s Dad.”

  After a few breaths, he screwed his eyes shut, then opened them, staring at black and white credits as they flashed on the TV screen. He pushed the call-end button and dropped the phone on the bed.

  “One of these days you’ll answer,” he mumbled to himself. “I’m not giving up.”

  With a numb motion, he took a sip of the warm liquid, feeling the burn slide down his throat. Sloshing a dollop onto the cart table as he replaced it, his body sank into the hospital bed as if he was pulling five g’s in a fighter jet.

  As his eyelids drooped, he saw Sarah’s beautiful blues, and her wide smile. Then he saw Jack next to her with a big grin of his own. And then their images swirled and vanished.

  Wolf would find justice for Sarah and his shattered family.

  Through this whole ordeal, at least Margaret Hitchens had been right about one thing.

  “I never give up,” Wolf said, closing his eyes.

  Smoked Out

  David Wolf Book 6

  Chapter 1

  Two thumps ripped Wolf out of his sleep.

  Or so he thought. The silence in his ranch house living room was absolute save the ticking clock. The walls flickered in the darkened space as muzzle blasts puffed out of an actor’s revolver on the muted television.

  With a slow breath, he tried to blank out the throbbing in his limbs. Every time he woke, the pain seemed to have multiplied anew from the previous conscious moment; of course, being drugged up on Percocet and a smattering of other pills, adding doses of Scotch to the cocktail of medication, made it hard to remember those previous conscious moments.

  This must be what it’s like to have Alzheimer’s. How many times had he repeated that thought in the past few days? What day was it?

  He craned his neck as crunching footsteps approached his house outside, and then a knock on the door echoed in his skull, making him cringe.

  He cracked his lips and peeled his tongue from the top of his mouth. “Come in.”

  There was no response.

  “Come in!” Pain shot through his pelvis.

  The knob turned and the door opened, letting in a burst of light that assaulted his eyeballs.

  “Mr. Wolf?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My name is Special Agent Cumberland with the FBI.”

  Two men were silhouetted in his open doorway, holding square ID wallets in his direction. He lay back and closed his eyes, staring at their after-image burned into his retinas. “I’ll have to take your word for that. Come in.”

  “This is the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Denver field office, Steven Frye. We’re here to ask you a few questions.”

  Wolf reached over and grabbed the handle of the oversized plastic cup of water and sucked from the straw. He was vaguely surprised that it was so full, cold, and rattling with ice. He drew a blank trying to remember who had filled it. It could have been any number of people who came in and out of his house as of late. Probably the big nurse.

  “Open those shades,” one of the agents said.

  His living room brightened and Wolf tried to straighten in his reclined hospital bed, sending another bolt of pain from his pelvis up his spine. He broke into a sweat and pulled off his sheet, letting the relatively cool air caress his damp gown.

  Fumbling at his sides for the bed controls, he found the plastic box next to his leg cast and pushed the incline button.

  As the bed whirred, one of the agents stepped in front of the television. He was tall and wide, and filled out his suit with muscle underneath. Holding mirrored sunglasses in one hand, his badge wallet hung in his other.

  “Let me see those badges and IDs again.”

  The big agent glanced at his partner and handed it over.

  The badges were real, and the ID cards looked genuine enough. Cumberland was the tall guy in front of him, and ASAC Frye was the other man to his left that he’d yet to look at properly.

  Both men had military cuts in their pictures and no-nonsense blank facial expressions. They wore white dress shirts and black ties cinched around muscular necks.

  When Wolf looked up, the two men were identical in dress and presentation to their IDs. But from each other they were different in every way. Cumberland was tall and imposing, while Frye was short and wiry. It looked like Cumberland had to endure a grueling physical routine to hold his shape, while Frye had to eat to hold his.

  He handed the wallets back. “What questions?”

  Cumberland tilted his chin up. “We need to ask you about the night Sarah Muller and Carter Willis were murdered. Straighten up a few things.”

  Though he spent most waking moments thinking about Sarah and her gut-wrenching demise by the hand of an unknown coward, the mention of her by these agents startled him to the core. “Straighten up a few things? What’s there to straighten up?”

  Cumberland clenched his fists and spread his hands while gazing around Wolf’s living room.

  It was a reflexive move for the big man, Wolf thought, like the agent was trying to contain anger.

  Agent Frye cleared his throat. “What were y
ou doing the night of Sarah Muller and Carter Willis’s deaths?”

  Wolf took a deep breath, suppressing upwelling rage at the direction the conversation had steered. “I was out having a drink.”

  “With a woman who was a suspect in your murder investigation up at Cold Lake, correct?” Frye asked.

  “At the time, she was a person of interest.”

  “Until what time were you two having a drink?”

  “I don’t know. Nine-thirty? Ten?”

  “You’re not too sure about this because?”

  “I left under extenuating circumstances.”

  Frye blew air from his mouth. “And I guess what you mean by that is you were in a fight with a man named Carter Willis, knocked unconscious, and dragged out of there by this woman of interest?”

  “Something like that.”

  Cumberland squeezed his hands into fists again.

  “Have you heard that said woman of interest, Miss Kimber Grey, aka Rachel Kipling, has just committed suicide at County Hospital?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Ah. Well she has. So, there goes your alibi right there.”

  “Actually, you don’t have your facts straight. I don’t think I was having drinks with Rachel that night. I think it was her twin sister, Hannah Kipling, whom I pulled off a cliff and killed. So, actually, my alibi was long gone before Rachel offed herself.”

  Frye smiled without teeth. “So, you have no alibi for your whereabouts for the rest of that night. We talked to the bartender at the Pony Tavern. You were dragged out of there at closer to nine p.m., so you had the whole night ahead of you to recover from your fight and take care of whatever you needed to.”

  Wolf ignored the bait.

  “You’ve got motive like nobody else,” Frye continued.

  “What’s this guy here for? To stand and flex? You mind moving away from the TV there, Hulk?”

  Cumberland’s face darkened, and then he turned and poked the off button.

  The flat screen squeaked as it rocked back and forth on its stand.

  Frye smiled again, this time displaying teeth that seemed to glow. Clearly a fan of whitening agents. “We’ve been checking on your recent movements, specifically before the murders of your ex-wife and Carter Willis. Turns out you and Carter had a little run-in at Antler Creek Lodge, the restaurant at the top of Rocky Points Ski Resort?”