Dire

by Jeff Carson

  There was strain in the man’s voice. Was he worried she would be found in Frisco overnight? Were the cops looking for her because she’d killed Keith Lourde and this man knew it? Was David looking for her? There was a spark of hope after all.

  “Or Ella and I will be disappointed.” He hung up and the spark died.

  She put the phone down in the center console and looked at her gas gauge. She had a quarter-tank left, which was probably not enough to get to Rocky Points, especially if she had to run the heater all night. Because she was going to have to sleep in the car.

  Chapter 21

  “I should be drunk right now.” Dr. Lorber leaned over the lap of Mr. Mackenna, pulling aside Mrs. Mackenna’s furry white hair and exposing the gaping exit wound in her skull. “Monday’s my drinking night. Football. Drinking.”

  “It’s the playoffs,” Rachette said, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. “Games are on the weekend now and the Broncos suck.”

  Lorber peered over his glasses at Rachette, all the while gripping Mrs. Mackenna’s head.

  Wolf looked away, finding the county ME’s professional nonchalance unnerving.

  “Point-blank. Shot Mr. Mackenna here first, then the missus.” Dr. Lorber pointed a branch-like finger. “You can see how she got hit on the side of her hair by the spray coming out of his exit wound. Her hit’s more in the side of the head, like she was looking at her husband when she got hers.”

  Wolf wondered what that had to do with anything, other than to satisfy some sick curiosity inside that head of long hippy hair. “No shells. Revolver?”

  Lorber stood up, his white forensic suit swishing as he stepped away, looking like a crane with his long, thin legs. “Nope. Not a revolver.”

  “How do you know?” Wolf asked.

  Lorber raised a finger and a smile curled his mouth. “See that evidence tent on the coffee table?”

  Wolf shrugged when he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  Lorber’s pleasure multiplied at stumping Wolf. “The burn mark on the magazine? Hello.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Wolf spotted the hole in the cover of the most recent issue of Knitting for Life. A hole the size and shape of a tootsie roll was curled up at the blackened edges, displaying a browned page underneath.

  Wolf nodded. “The ejected shell burned the magazine. Good eyes.”

  Lorber pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Patterson would have seen that. It sucks not having her up here.”

  Wolf ignored him and stared at the smashed smart phone on the bricks of the fireplace hearth.

  A tired-looking member of Lorber’s team bent down and snapped another photo of the device, the bright flash reflecting on hundreds of tiny shards of glass and precious metal components.

  “It’s all because of this,” Wolf said.

  “Because of the phone?” Rachette asked.

  The front door opened with an explosion of cold air. Sheriff MacLean stepped inside, tracking in a pile of snow with him, and slammed the door.

  “Damn it! What kind of place is this to have a murder scene, and on a night like … ?” He let the words die as he saw the Mackennas on the couch. “Mother Mary …”

  MacLean took off his winter cap and looked at Wolf. “Get me up to speed.”

  “Lorber was showing me the burn mark one of the spent shells made on the magazine here.” Wolf pointed at the destroyed phone. “I was talking about how this has to be Michael Coulter’s phone.”

  “We’ll check the SIM.” Lorber put his hands on his hips.

  “It’s Michael Coulter’s,” Wolf said. “The guy with the burner phone called him. Then Michael Coulter came up from Denver, met Lauren at the gas station. They left Lauren’s car, filled up Michael’s with gas, then drove it up here.

  “When Lauren and Michael arrived, the culprits saw that Michael Coulter’s smartphone was still switched on and would have GPS location-enabled. Lauren’s was already switched off earlier in the morning. The culprits had probably taken it. They knew his phone would be picking up Wi-Fi signals, transmitting to the cell towers, and that we’d be able to track it. They smashed the phone because you can’t take the battery out of a model like this. They were paranoid, and they thought it was too late, we’d be led right here. And they were right. So they killed the Mackennas, and then upped and left.”

  MacLean looked skeptical. “The only way we were led up here was because you saw the nanny’s dead body up at Lauren Coulter’s house.”

  Wolf nodded.

  “So … they knew you were going to see the nanny’s dead body?” MacLean asked.

  “I called Lauren’s phone. Left a message that I was on my way over and looking forward to lunch.”

  “So they listened to the voicemail on Lauren’s phone?” Lorber asked.

  Wolf nodded. “She shut her cell off minutes after I called.”

  “They were really playing phone defense,” Rachette said.

  Wolf nodded and the room descended into silence, save the shutter clicks of the digital camera.

  “All right, what else?” MacLean asked. “I heard there’s evidence the girl was here.”

  Wolf stepped to the back room and MacLean moved to follow.

  “Off with your boots,” Lorber said, pointing at MacLean.

  MacLean left his boots on the sheet of plastic they’d laid out by the front door. He took a pair of blue booties from the bin and slipped them over his socks, then shook the snow from his jeans.

  A few seconds later they were in the room in the hallway.

  “Looks like they had things set up in here to placate the girl,” Wolf said. “The little television looks like it was moved in here from the other bedroom. They had snacks there on that plate. Pillows, blankets.”

  “And what’s that?” MacLean asked, pointing at the other plate.

  “Looks like cocaine.”

  “Cocaine?”

  “The credit card says Michael Coulter,” Rachette said.

  MacLean bent down and took in the scene. “What the hell? Uncle Mikey Coulter comes in here and does a few lines while watching SpongeBob SquarePants with his five-year-old niece?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.” Rachette scoffed. “Some uncle.”

  “The other rooms?” MacLean stood up with a grunt and followed Wolf.

  “Looks like they used this room for storage,” Wolf said, standing aside to give MacLean a look. “And here’s their bedroom.”

  There were more evidence tents strewn on the bedspread inside the Mackennas’ bedroom.

  Lorber appeared in the hall behind them. “Took all of a few seconds to confirm Zeke Jacoway’s prints all over the rest of this place,” the ME said. “The kitchen, bathroom, toilet, all over. Got an immediate match.” Lorber held up his smart phone, indicating he’d used the IAFIS app on his phone. “I also found Michael Coulter’s all over that plate with the drugs and on a water glass next to the sink. And on the snack plate I found Lauren Coulter’s prints.”

  MacLean raised an eyebrow and nodded at Lorber. “So we have three players: Zeke Jacoway, Michael Coulter, Lauren Coulter.”

  “There’s somebody else,” Wolf said.

  “Why?” MacLean eyed him and then pushed past them into the hallway and went to the kitchen.

  Lorber nodded and pointed at the water glasses, which had yellow evidence tents next to them. “Got Michael Coulter’s prints on one glass and Zeke Jacoway’s all over the other. As far as the rest of the kitchen, we’ve only found the Mackennas’ prints so far.”

  MacLean stepped back out of the kitchen and stared at the bodies. Looking at Wolf he said, “And you think there’s somebody else? Because I gotta tell you, right now, I’m itching to find this Lauren Coulter woman. Right now your date from this weekend’s not looking too good, Wolf.”

  Wolf pulled his eyebrows together. “Lauren Coulter? No way. The way I see it, her daughter’s in trouble.”

  “That’s not what the proof is telling us, Detective.”

  �
��The proof died with these two people,” Wolf said.

  “Convenient.”

  “Exactly,” Wolf said. “Think about it. The phones … how did you put it, Rachette? They’re being ultra-defensive with these things. First, somebody calls Lauren at work from an untraceable burner phone. She bolts out of there and comes home. We know that because the GPS data says so. Then they shut off Lauren’s phone, so we can’t track her anymore. Then they call Michael Coulter and shut off the burner phone that called him.”

  Wolf pointed at the destroyed cell. “And then Michael Coulter gets up here with a smart phone and they freak out—smash it, knowing we might be led here if I found the nanny, whose body was out in the trees, still warm and bleeding when I called Lauren. They knew I was coming to her house, so they shut off Lauren’s phone and relocated.”

  MacLean said nothing, the corner of his mouth turning up.

  Wolf waved a hand and rubbed his wire-brush stubble. “What kind of a person goes to all that trouble for the phones? Uses untraceable burner phones. Shuts them off because they know we’ll be able to locate them.”

  MacLean stared at him.

  “A person who doesn’t want to be caught?” Rachette asked.

  Wolf pointed at him. “Thank you. A person who is desperate to not be found.”

  MacLean held out his hands and shrugged. “Good point, Sherlock. Where we going with this?”

  Wolf pointed at the burn mark on the magazine. “Why would somebody murder these people, then pick up a spent shell?”

  “Because they didn’t want these people to talk, and they didn’t want to leave a shell casing with prints all over it,” Lorber said.

  Wolf nodded. “We have that type of person, the kind that covers his bases, doesn’t want to be caught.”

  They said nothing.

  “Then we have another type of person here. One that leaves fingerprints on the toilet, on the vials of drugs they’re ingesting, the water glasses they’re drinking out of, which are left out in plain sight. One of them brings a phone up here, transmitting the whole way, which leads us straight to this house. There’s that type of person we have in play, here. Right?”

  Rachette and Lorber nodded.

  MacLean stared noncommittally at the table. “I got some news on the way up here about Lauren Coulter.”

  Wolf frowned, annoyed his train of thought had been derailed. “What?”

  “She was spotted in Denver earlier this evening. Got a call from the DPD. Turns out she visited the CEO of her family’s company. A guy named Keith Lourde. She approached him at a bar in downtown Denver. They went back to his office, where she beat the crap out of him and cleaned out his office safe. Turns out she was at her bank earlier in the afternoon, looking to make a big withdrawal.”

  Wolf blinked rapidly, letting the information digest. “Looking to make a big withdrawal?”

  “The bank didn’t have the funds to cover the amount.” MacLean raised his eyebrows. “DPD’s got a BOLO out on this woman. So, Detective, let’s start looking at this whole thing with that set of eyeglasses on.”

  Shaking his head, Wolf started pacing. “So she was desperate for money because her daughter is being held hostage. What’s this Keith Lourde guy saying?”

  “Saying she ripped him off. Seduced him, beat him up, took the money, left.”

  “How much money?” Wolf asked.

  “Hundred K.”

  “A hundred thousand?” Wolf asked. “Of course she was unable to withdraw that amount from the bank.”

  “She was trying to withdraw ten K from the bank.”

  “Ten thousand?” Wolf frowned. “So … she was trying for ten thousand at the bank, then she stole a hundred thousand from this guy?”

  “Keith Lourde is his name. The CEO of their family company.” MacLean nodded, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smile. “Opportunistic actions of a criminal, if you ask me. She couldn’t get ten K, so she goes somewhere else and gets a hundred.”

  Wolf waved a dismissive hand. “What about the threatening email she received? What about the daughter in the room over there? What about the nanny?”

  “That’s what we need to find out.” MacLean put his hands out. “I’m just saying, you went on a date with this woman this weekend and maybe, just maybe, you’re blind to some things because you’re attracted to her.”

  Wolf shook his head.

  “Hear me out.” MacLean raised a hand. “I agree with what you say about somebody else being involved here. But what if she’s this other person? She’s the one acting smart, staying away from us while her brother and druggie friend are acting stupid and leading us to them.”

  Wolf glared at him.

  “Maybe she has some master plan. Maybe that prisoner out in Sterling knew what he was talking about all those years ago, and she’s more dangerous than you think. Tell me, you went on this date with Lauren Coulter—did you see any physical signs of drug abuse?”

  Wolf smiled. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “No. There were no signs of drug use.”

  “You sure?”

  They stared at one another for a few seconds. With Wolf’s ex-wife being hooked on drugs for years, something that had ultimately torn their marriage apart and led to a whole lot of misery, Wolf knew a thing or two about spotting the signs of drug addiction. And MacLean knew it.

  The sheriff lifted his chin in defiance. “This can’t get personal.”

  The room fell deathly silent.

  Staring through the carpet at his feet, Wolf steadied his breath, letting the upwelling rage dissipate before it surfaced. Since the arrival of Adam Jackson and his announcement of running against MacLean, the sheriff had been a changed man, clinging desperately to control at the expense of morale, letting sound reasoning slip by the wayside on numerous occasions.

  But was MacLean right this time? Was Wolf letting this get personal? Was Wolf’s judgment clouded by a spilled beer on his lap? A wad of paper towels pressed against his inner thigh?

  MacLean inched closer and squeezed his arm. Then he walked to the front door and said, “I need to speak to you. Right now, down at the station. Because there’s something else going on that we need to talk about.”

  Wolf narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  “Not here. Not now. But we need to talk tonight. Do you hear me?”

  “Yeah.”

  MacLean clapped and pointed at Rachette. “I need you to call Hernandez and tell him to meet us at the station. We need to get a plan of action on this thing before tomorrow morning hits. As for the rest of you—sorry, folks. It’s a long night, I know, but sometimes duty dictates. Leaving in five minutes, people. We’ll be following the plow back down, so don’t miss the train. Dr. Lorber, you and your team keep us posted.”

  “What about Barker?” Rachette asked. “You want him to come into the station too?”

  “I sent Barker home.”

  MacLean shoved his feet into his Sorel boots, booties and all, put on his hat, and looked at Wolf. “My office.” He disappeared out the front door.

  Rachette turned to Wolf. “What the hell was all that about?”

  Wolf shook his head.

  Lorber slapped a garbage-lid-sized hand on Wolf’s back. “You’re right, of course. This shit doesn’t add up. I don’t know what it’s supposed to add up to, but I can tell you one thing: I’m afraid that before we find out there’s going to be some more dead people in my morgue.”

  The county medical examiner walked away, leaving Wolf to stare at the Mackennas one last time. Like a photo flash right in his face, like a scream in a silent room, the memory of Sarah’s dead body made him flinch and shut his eyes. He opened them, forcing himself to look again, this time using a lens of cold professionalism.

  The next time he blinked he thought about Lauren’s light touch to his jaw. He thought about her studying him, the way she’d captured the sadness in Wolf’s eyes in her drawing.

  A pers
on so finely attuned to others could never press a gun into someone’s head and pull the trigger.

  “Sir?” Rachette asked, opening the door and letting the cold in. “You ready?”

  Wolf stepped out the door and into the whipping wind and snow.

  Chapter 22

  Matthew Bristol leaned back in the unfamiliar office chair and stared at a red dot on his laptop screen. It was blinking in a parking lot in Frisco, Colorado, next to an apartment complex and hotel.

  He rubbed his eyes. He envied the cocaine addict in times like these, because he could’ve used a pick-me-up right about now.

  Nothing had gone to plan so far, but he’d learned long ago that nothing ever does. But he was still a planner. He’d come up with five different ways this whole thing could go wrong, and then he’d trusted in himself to deal with any obstacle as it came.

  That’s where he was now—trusting in his dogged ability to get things done no matter the setback, thinking on the fly to avoid them.

  Who would have known she’d be a gifted artist? He’d seen the sketches in her studio, the artwork on the wall, and he believed her when she said she could draw him any way she wanted.

  He smiled, thinking about how he’d dealt with that particular obstacle. She was shitting herself now, thinking he was borderline suicidal. A lie that could not be further from the truth.

  With a deep inhale, he closed his eyes and hoped the bluff had worked. If she did draw his face? Then the subterfuge, the misdirection, the careful preparation—it had all been for nothing.

  As he exhaled, he saw his mother laughing over him, pointing her dirty finger down as he sprawled across the filthy carpet of their single-wide trailer, and he slapped himself on the cheek, hard enough to numb his skin, ejecting the weak-minded thoughts along with the memory.

  There was a tiny ping and a window opened on his computer screen, indicating an incoming email.

  He furrowed his brow at the subject line: Hello from your sister and her son.

  Clicking on the email, the room twisted around him as the picture came up.

  She was heavier than the last time he’d seen her, which was over a year ago up in Fort Collins. She lived only an hour’s drive from his downtown condo, but it might as well have been in Tibet for the few times they’d seen one another.