David Wolf series Box Set 2

by Jeff Carson

  “Hey, you all right?” Deputy Charlotte Munford had snuck inside the bathroom. Damn the perfectly silent new doors in this building.

  Patterson slam dunked the box and pregnancy test into the trash hole in the counter and got busy washing her hands. “I just feel like crap after the food last night.”

  “Oh, yeah. The bridal shower. How was it? Get some good gifts?” Munford smiled with that perfect lots-of-gum-like-a-young-Meg-Ryan smile of hers, her blue eyes alight with mischief, like they were girlfriends or something. “Those in-laws can be tough. My sister got married, and her husband’s mother was a nightmare.”

  Patterson nodded, then dried her hands with a larger-than-needed wad of paper towels and threw them into the trash to bury the evidence.

  “Rachette and I are so excited to go to the wedding,” Munford said. “It’s going to be so beautiful. On the top of the mountain like that? Oh. My. God.”

  Patterson knew she looked disgusted by the conversation, because she was looking at herself in the mirror. A fake smile was all she could muster in response.

  Munford dug inside her bag and frowned. “Shit. You have any more of those?”

  Patterson froze. “What?”

  “Tampons.”

  “Oh. No. Sorry, last one.”

  “Damn. All right.” Munford looked at a loss for a second, then turned to leave. “See you.” Before she got to the door she stopped and turned around. “I hope we can be friends someday.” Then she left out the door.

  The words sailed through the flowery air of the bathroom and jabbed Patterson in the heart. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her mouth was wide open, her eyes staring in shock.

  A minute later she was back in the squad room at her desk, watching a fisheye-view black-and-white video of the customer counter at the Brushing gas station from earlier that morning.

  Hand on her chin, she watched yet another patron, a man, walk into the convenience store. This man wore a wide-brimmed cowboy hat that hid his face. He wandered to the candy-bar aisle, picked one, then grabbed a plastic gas can from the floor and went to the counter. Nothing too out of the ordinary—there had been other men who’d worn ball caps or other hats that obscured their faces—but the time stamp said 9:21 p.m., which was right in the timeline that the perps could have been passing through the gas station after shooting Ryan Frost.

  Twisting to the laptop she’d set up next to the desktop, she checked the exterior footage for the same time.

  She fast-forwarded, then let the recording roll, and saw a Honda Civic parked in front of one of the gas terminals.

  No moving truck.

  She clicked the mouse and let the interior footage play again. The man paid with cash, grabbed something from a counter display, then walked out with the gas can in hand.

  “You got anything?” Barker asked from his desk, not bothering to look away from his computer screen.

  “Still nothing,” she said, hitting the fast-forward button again.

  “Just let me know about anything out of the ordinary,” he said.

  She glared at Barker’s round head of shaved red hair. Let me know?

  Everything that came out of this guy’s mouth was a brand-new WTF moment. Who did he think he was? Wolf? Even Wolf wouldn’t have said “me.” Because Wolf included his deputies, didn’t treat them like employees that fed his all-knowing mind, so that he, alone, could work out the answer.

  “Let me know?” Rachette looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. He was standing with Hernandez at the printout map they’d pinned onto a roll-stand corkboard.

  The map had a red radius circle drawn on it, indicating how far the rental truck could have gone on its journey before fueling up. Rachette and Hernandez were marking off the gas stations with red push-pins indicating which footage had already been studied thoroughly.

  “Yeah, I’m the ranking deputy,” Barker said. “Let me know.”

  Rachette shook his head and pushed a pin into the map.

  “You got a problem with that?” Barker said, his chair creaking as he leaned back and twisted toward Rachette. “When you do the time, like I have, you can take a little more responsibility yourself.”

  Rachette ignored him and pushed in another pin, this time north of Cave Creek. “Patty, you done with that footage?”

  She looked down. “No.”

  He took out the pin. “Let me know when you’re done.”

  Barker stood up. “You making fun of me now, asshole?”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  Barker walked over and squared off with Rachette.

  Patterson rolled her eyes and leaned into her computer screen. She’d seen so much friction between these two that it now bored her.

  “Hey, boys.” Deputy Charlotte Munford’s voice appeared out of nowhere. “Greg, please calm down, okay?” she said in a soft tone.

  Barker puffed up even larger. At six foot one, he towered over Rachette’s five-foot-seven frame, but Patterson had to hand it to Rachette—the guy never backed down an inch.

  “Hey.” Munford pulled Barker away gently by the arm and Barker backed up without resistance.

  The way Barker slobbered over Munford was so glaringly obvious it was comical. And Rachette had Munford sleeping in his bed. Real daytime television stuff. Patterson hated daytime TV.

  “What the hell’s going on?” MacLean’s voice echoed in the squad room.

  Patterson sat up straight and turned around.

  MacLean stood outside his office with his hands on his hips. “Where’s the moving truck?”

  Nobody answered.

  “I asked a question!”

  “Sir, Patterson hasn’t found anything on the gas-station videos yet,” Barker said.

  “And that’s all you got?” MacLean wore the same face that he’d had after smelling Jet’s gas. “Where’s the truck?”

  They stood in silence.

  “And what are you doing here?” MacLean pointed at Munford. “I want every deputy out on CP, except for these four, who are supposed to be finding a goddamned moving truck.”

  Munford’s shoes squeaked as she hurried out of the squad room.

  Patterson cleared her throat. “Sir, it’s true. We’ve scoured just about every bit of footage and there’s no sign—”

  “Just about? It’s nearly ten and you haven’t gotten through all the video?”

  She wondered why 10 a.m. was the cut-off between diligent and lazy work.

  “There was no sign of the truck at any of the gas stations,” she said, “and now I’m looking at the stores’ interior recordings.”

  “Why?” MacLean shook his head. “If it didn’t show up on the exterior footage, then it didn’t refuel. So what are you going to look for on interior footage?”

  Patterson opted to remain silent.

  “Since it didn’t refuel,” MacLean said, “not in town, not anywhere within our agreed-upon radius, then they must have ditched it somewhere. So I’ll tell you how to find this truck, okay? Listen close. Ready?”

  They stood frozen.

  MacLean’s face turned red. “Get in your goddamn cars and start driving!”

  Barker marched out of the room at full speed. “Hernandez, let’s do it.”

  Hernandez shuffled after him.

  Patterson powered down her computer tower and looked at Rachette.

  Rachette pushed his pin into the map and went to his desk.

  “I’m not feeling impressed by your enthusiasm right now,” MacLean said.

  Patterson shut the laptop and shoved her chair in, banging it loudly into her desk. It was much, much more of a ruckus than she’d meant to cause, but something had snapped inside her, releasing anger through her limbs.

  “Is there a problem, Deputy Patterson?” MacLean walked over.

  Patterson shook her head. “No.”

  “No. Tell me, what is it? You have a problem with following orders?”

  MacLean leaned in close. His breath reeked of coffee. />
  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Now get your asses out there and find me a UrMover truck. Preferably with a pile of bones inside.”

  Patterson followed Rachette out of the squad room.

  “And, Deputies?”

  They slowed and turned around. MacLean had a finger pointing at the ceiling. “Do not come back until you’ve found it.”

  The sheriff’s eyes meant every word.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter 16

  “How did you know?”

  Wolf leaned toward the windshield and squinted. Shumway’s and Boydell’s trucks had kicked up a cloud of dust. There was no way to tell how far ahead they were, but it looked like they were going fast.

  The dirt road twisted with the occasional straightaway, all the while descending back off the plateau’s top.

  “How did I know what?”

  “That I’m the sheriff’s daughter.” She was preoccupied with rubbing something on the inside of her propped leg.

  Wolf kept his eyes out the windshield. “You two have the same blue eyes. Identical. And you have the same inflection in your voices, the same pronunciation of certain words.”

  “Really?” She leaned back and laughed. “You are so cute.”

  “I’m forty years old. What are you, twenty?”

  “Bingo. Right again. I bet you think I’m a lot better looking than my dad, though. Right?”

  He saw her staring at him in his peripheral.

  “I was going to say I’m old enough to be your dad.”

  “My dad’s fifty.”

  Trying to comprehend her logic, Wolf leaned forward and slowed the SUV. The cloud of dust seemed to get denser, more immediate, but he saw no brake lights.

  Then the cloud dissipated, and he broke into clearer air, so he pressed the accelerator again.

  She laughed. “You might want to slow down.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you just passed them.”

  Wolf saw the two trucks in the side-view mirror. They had pulled off and Boydell was out of his truck, staring after him. Behind his truck stood Shumway’s, close on his bumper.

  Wolf skidded to a stop and turned around.

  As he drove back to them, Boydell was swinging open a wooden gate set in barbed wire, before Wolf had reached Shumway’s bumper they were already on the move again.

  “See?” Megan said. “I told you you’d need me.”

  Like a hole in the head.

  The SUV drove spongily as they followed in the caravan, sliding in a sandy wash meandering through boulder-strewn terrain. The rocks were cinnamon-colored and streaked with black watermarks, some of them dwarfing the SUV. Canyon walls towered on both sides, with layers of white on top and maroon underneath.

  With the dust now settled, the scent of juniper flowed through the window, mixing with the dog fur and coconut oil inside.

  The curves were tight and Shumway’s truck rarely came into view, so Wolf concentrated on the well-worn tracks in the sand.

  “Just go along this wash. I’ll tell you when you need to turn. It’ll be a right in about a half-mile.”

  “Okay … thanks.”

  She smiled, and Wolf regretted encouraging her.

  “So … what’s this all about?” She bounced her eyebrows.

  He ignored her.

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Is that why you’re here?” Wolf asked. “To get the inside scoop?”

  She shrugged. “I want to go visit Dig 1. I have a friend there.”

  They rode in silence for another beat.

  “And I want to help. Feel free to ask me any question you want to.”

  Wolf twisted the wheel and they turned a tight corner.

  “So, what about you?” she asked. “How’s Sluice … what county are you from?”

  “Sluice–Byron.”

  “And how’s that?”

  Wolf raised an eyebrow and sighed. “It’s nice.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Town called Rocky Points.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of that. Skiing. I’ve never been, but I bet I’d love it.”

  Wolf plucked his cell phone out of the center console and checked it. It said No Service in the corner of the screen.

  “No service except for in town. Doesn’t matter which carrier you have,” she said. “Okay, turn up here.”

  They climbed out of the wash. It was steep, and they were pressed back in their seats, looking at blue sky. He pressed the gas and the tires spun in the sand, but they ascended without stopping, and then the landscape swung back up into view as they dropped down the other side of a hill.

  The other two trucks were in the distance, meandering through trees and rocks, approaching a rise on the left. Above the vehicles stood the flat plateau, and the route started making sense to Wolf. They were going to the dig they’d seen from the visitors’ center, but along a circuitous route off the plateau and back onto it.

  To their right, rolling hills and plateaus dotted with more juniper stood like frozen waves.

  “Pretty beautiful,” Wolf said.

  She looked at him with a bashful smile.

  He resisted rolling his eyes and concentrated on tire marks ahead of him.

  “The other dig is down there.” She pointed down the valley.

  He craned his neck, and for an instant he saw a blue spot—a tent or a tarp—and then it was gone behind a hill.

  “Dig 2?”

  “Well, you missed it,” she said. “But we’ll be able to see it again from the top of the plateau.”

  They bounced in their seats as he cranked the wheel and feathered the gas, avoiding the twisted overhanging wood of the pinyons and junipers, and any rocks that looked too jagged to roll over.

  “Used to be our land, you know,” she said.

  He eyed her. “What used to be your land?”

  She put her hand out the window. “That whole thing, thousands of acres. Until my dad lost it.”

  He blinked. “What do you mean? Where?”

  “The private land that Dig 2 is on used to be our family’s land.”

  Wolf kept his face neutral, but his mind was racing.

  “And when my grandfather died, somehow my dad screwed up the whole transfer of land … or my grandfather did … or whatever—nobody will tell me what happened. But, anyway, we lost it. Some other guy got it.”

  She clamped her lips shut and looked out the window. She was blinking a lot. Fighting back tears?

  “Watch out!” She pointed out the windshield.

  He jammed the brakes, stopping just short of a boulder.

  Jet let out a squeal from the back seat as he fell on the floor.

  “Oh, are you okay?” Megan pursed her lips and reached back to scratch Jet’s head.

  Jet shuffled back into his comfortable position with Megan’s help.

  “Megan.”

  She turned around. “What?”

  “Can you please finish your story about the land your family lost?”

  “I thought I did.”

  “Not really.”

  “Yeah, I did. Dad lost land. Done.”

  They sat silent in the idling car. Sun rays cooked his arm through the open window.

  “Are we going to go?” She looked over with a devilish grin. “Or just stay here?”

  He backed away from the boulder and drove on.

  Chapter 17

  Just short of the crest of the plateau, they passed a red tent and a full-sized Dodge pickup off to the left side of the two-track.

  “Who camps here?” Wolf asked.

  “That’s Levi’s camp. One of the grad students at Dig 1. Levi Joseph. See? Aren’t you glad I’m here to answer all these questions for you?” Megan smiled.

  Wolf slowed to a stop next to the truck and peered at the tires. They were the wrong brand.

  “Hello?” Wolf called out.

  No one answered.

  “Proba
bly up—”

  Jet barked, and the sound filled the interior of the cab with the volume of a jackhammer.

  Megan screeched and plugged her ears.

  “Jet!”

  Jet was standing on the rear seat, staring out the passenger-side rear window and barking with snapping jaws. Saliva stuck to the glass. After every second or third bark he shut his mouth, looked at Wolf, and whined.

  He shoved the truck in park and got out. When he opened the rear door, Jet leapt down, almost barreling him over.

  With ears raised, Jet trotted around the rear of the SUV and turned, barking and staring at Wolf again.

  He looked at his watch and shrugged. “Go!”

  Jet took off down the steep slope, weaving his way through the brush rocks.

  “What the hell?” He stepped to the road’s edge and watched the dog trot halfway down the mountain before he stopped and started barking again.

  Megan got out and stood next to Wolf. “What’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know. Hey! Let’s go!”

  Jet ignored him, preoccupied with something. Whines floated up on the breeze.

  “Probably chasing an animal,” Megan said. “Growing up, we had a dog that would chase jackrabbits. He would go crazy, just like this.”

  Wolf nodded. Jet looked like he had an animal cornered.

  “Jet! Come! Now!”

  Jet hesitated for another few moments and then trotted back up the slope, weaving in and out of the trees, stopping every few yards and looking back.

  “Now!”

  Finally, Jet reached them with a lowered head and followed Wolf’s prompting back into the truck.

  Slamming the door, Wolf turned and surveyed the valley below. It must have been five hundred feet to the valley floor. A lone blue tent stood amid the foliage and rock.

  “Oh, yeah. There’s Dig 2.”

  She stared intently below.

  “You know them?” he asked.

  “What was that?”

  “The students at Dig 2. Do you know them?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She shrugged, looking nonchalant, but Wolf sensed she was putting on an act. “I know everyone. Everyone knows everyone.”

  “Is there anyone here that wears Converse All Star shoes?”

  She swallowed and looked at him, perplexed. “Converse All Stars?”