by Jeff Carson
“And then what?” Wolf asked. “After she left.”
“Well, he had kind of gotten shown up by Mary Ellen, you know? He had been talking smack the whole afternoon, and we got the sense he had something special in store for her or something. Not like, to hurt her or anything, at least I don’t think. But, like, you know, maybe make her feel bad, I guess? Doesn’t matter. Cause it backfired on him.
“So, he probably felt more than a little awkward about that. He needed somebody to blame, you know? So he came at me. The guy likes to…liked to do that. He got pissed, said he was done with Jackson Mine if we didn’t start putting gold in the box. Ripped into me a bit more, and then…well, he just walked down to the cut and started his night shift.”
“After drinking?” Rachette asked with a chuckle. “I mean, after a few beers I’m ready for bed. Not a few hours behind the wheel of some heavy machinery.”
“It’s seven hours,” McBeth said. “And he didn’t have that many.”
Rachette nodded. “Sorry. Continue.”
“You said that Oakley ripped into me a bit more?” Wolf asked.
“Yeah.” McBeth shrugged. “He was just pissed off.”
Wolf nodded. “And is that the last you saw of him? When he walked off and started his night shift?”
“That’s right.”
Wolf sat back, taking it all in. After a beat he frowned. “So why all the time in between? Weren’t you concerned the next day, Saturday, when he wasn’t around? Or how about the next day? Sunday?” Wolf ticked two fingers in the air, then a third. “Heck, you guys found him Monday morning when Casey Lizotte put him on top of the wash plant. That’s almost three days later. Didn’t you consider filing a missing-persons report with the Dredge deputy any time before that?”
“No.” McBeth unfolded his arms and held them out. “I didn't know he was missing before that."
“How’s that work?” Rachette asked.
McBeth ticked his own fingers. "First of all, he usually sleeps Saturday if he's got the night shift that Friday night. Everybody does that the next day, especially if we were drinking the night before, which we’re always doing Friday night. So I figured he was just sleeping it off on Saturday. When Sunday came around and he never came out of his trailer, I figured, well, then he must be just mad at me. I figured he was sulking. And then when Monday came around, I started getting a little bit concerned, I'll give you that. But before I could do anything about it, that's when Lizotte had dumped him onto the top of the wash plant."
Wolf narrowed his eyes to slits. "I think I’m missing some steps here. Casey Lizotte works with you guys, too?"
“No,” McBeth said. “I mean, he did. But not anymore. I hired him over the weekend.”
“Can you please explain that?”
"Well, the argument between Oakley and me was pretty heated. One of the things I had said was he can go back to Jackson Hole if he didn’t like what was going on here.” McBeth shrugged. “But he still started his night shift. The next day, though, it looked to me like he hadn’t done very much down at the cut. I figured he might have had some time to think and decided he was done with the mine after all. Like he’d quit in the middle of the night.”
Or been shot in the head, Wolf thought.
“When Saturday and Sunday went by and he still hadn’t come out of his trailer I figured he was packing up in there or something. Making a statement. Me, Sexton, and Koling were out there working our butts off all weekend, getting the wash plant tweaked to catch the gold better, and he never set foot out of the trailer.
“I was pissed. I moved on because I thought he had, so Sunday afternoon I went down to Dredge and talked to Casey Lizotte. He works down at the bar in town.”
“The same bar Spritz works at?” Rachette asked.
“That’s right. Anyway, Casey and I are friends, and we all knew he’s had some experience working at mines in Fairplay. So I told him, hey, if you need some extra money, you could work a few day shifts for us. He agreed right on the spot. Said when do I start? I said tomorrow morning would do just fine. I figured I’d send a message to Chris, you know? Get the new guy in there working the tractors, so when Chris decided to roll out of his trailer he’d see that I moved on. That I’m not the slow-moving weakass he said I was."
McBeth’s face blushed. He sipped his coffee.
"So you were going to pay this man to come in as a temporary worker?" Rachette said. "But you're not paying the current workers that you're with.”
"They get paid. It's different. They're co-owners of the mine. They might not get paid that much when times are tough, but anytime we’re shopping for food or beer, it’s my credit card that’s getting zapped. They don’t pay for shit. Not lodging, or eating, or nothin’.”
“Then Monday morning,” Wolf said, “when Chris didn’t come out of his trailer, weren’t you the least bit concerned?”
“Yeah. Like I said, Monday I was worried. I did start getting concerned. I asked Koling if he’d talked to him. Koling was always way closer than I was with Oakley. That’s when we went and knocked on his door. When Oakley didn’t answer we went inside and saw he wasn’t there. Koling said he hadn’t been answering his phone or texts, either.
“ At that point we were like, what the hell, you know? His truck was still there. And we realized maybe he hadn’t been there the whole time. It was freaky, to tell you the truth. We called Mary Ellen, and she said she hadn’t spoken to him at all since Friday night. Koling called around.”
“This is Monday morning you’re doing all this calling around?” Wolf asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep going,” Wolf said. “What then? Who else did you call?”
McBeth shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe just Mary Ellen, actually. Basically right at the same time, that's when Lizotte dumped his body up on the wash plant. I'm telling you it happened one, two. Just like that. That's when we called you guys. And then, man. I was sick to my stomach, thinking he was sitting dead in that dirt the whole time."
“You asked if it was suicide before," Wolf said. "He was buried in the dirt, wasn’t he? Wouldn't that be a clear indication that he was killed by somebody else and then buried?"
McBeth rubbed his forehead. "I don't know. We’d moved all sorts of dirt on Saturday and Sunday. I was just thinking. Shoot. I don't know. I thought I might've moved his body or something. As much as I hated hearing Chris tell me all those things Friday night, it really lit a fire under my butt. I realized we weren’t getting it done at the mine. He was right. I was being lazy. We needed to fix the plant settings and re-run some of the dirt we’d already run, because we might have missed out on a lot of gold in the box.
"Moving all the tailings, I just figured maybe I accidentally scooped up his body or something and brought it up there. Without even noticing or something.” When he opened them again, his eyes glistened with tears. “I was just wondering.”
They sat in silence for a beat, watching McBeth suppress sobbing. It was either a good act or the real deal. Maybe they were staring at regret disguised as grief.
"After that argument with Oakley, what did you do?” Wolf asked.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“I went to bed.”
“Just like that. Straight to bed?”
“We work hard during the day. I’d had a few beers. I don’t have much trouble getting to sleep. Even after a run-in with Oakley, I guess.”
“Did you hear anything later that night?”
“Well…yeah,” he said with a chuckle.
“What did you hear?”
“Geez, there’s so much noise that happens at night around our trailers. Whoever’s working the night shift will be down on the excavator in the cut, loading the rock truck. Then they drive up the rock truck, dump out the dirt. Repeat that a few times. When they have enough to run through the plant, they fire it up and load it for a couple hours with the front-end loader. That’s a lot of rock hitting steel. Then
whoever’s on duty repeats the process.”
“And you sleep through all that racket?” Rachette asked.
“You get used to it. But I use earplugs. Every once in a while a good rock hitting the wash plant will wake me up for a second or two. But, yeah. I sleep through it.”
“Did any big rock wake you up that night?” Rachette asked.
“No sir.”
“No sounds at all that were anything out of the ordinary?” Wolf asked.
“I don’t know.”
Wolf waited for more explanation but none came. “Can you think of anybody that would have wanted to hurt Chris Oakley?” he asked.
McBeth smiled. "You mean besides me and half the people that ever met him?" He laughed without mirth, then his face went somber. "Sorry. I mean, Chris Oakley was not an easy guy to get along with. The guy was loud, obnoxious, and antagonistic, to say the least.”
“How about the people in the town of Dredge?” Rachette asked. “Did he have any enemies down there?”
“Not that I know of.”
“What’s the bar called where Spritz and Casey Lizotte work at?” Wolf asked.
“The Picker.”
“And Chris Oakley was a friend of this guy named Spritz?” Wolf asked.
“Yeah. Spritz has a bunch of dirt bikes. Oakley used to do motocross growing up, so they would hang out every once in a while. Oakley would ride with him.”
Wolf sat back, pulling himself out of the quagmire of the Jackson Mine lives for a moment. He stretched his neck then dove back in. “How many guns do you have?”
“Here? At the mine?”
“Yes.”
“Just the forty-five.”
“And, for the record, what is that weapon?”
“A Glock 21.”
Rachette nodded, pointing at his notebook. The same one they’d found inside Oakley’s trailer.
“Listen, when are we going to be able to mine again?” McBeth asked. “This is…I mean, I get we have to figure this out. But I’m under a lot of pressure to get that mine back up and running.”
“The mine will be a crime scene until we’re done gathering clues,” Rachette said. “There’s really no telling when the case will be solved.”
McBeth frowned, his gaze moving between them. “And our stay at the Edelweiss? Are you going to continue to cover that for us?”
“I can get you guys a deep discount with the hotel,” Wolf said. “We have an agreement in place with the owner.”
McBeth chuckled. “Yeah. How much is that a night?”
Wolf shrugged. “I’m not sure what their going rate is for a night right now. Is there anywhere else you guys can go? A friend’s place?”
“Yeah, up in Jackson.”
“We’d really appreciate it if you could stick around in case we have more questions for you,” Wolf said.
“Yeah, I bet.” McBeth put both hands on his forehead, now exposing another ring of scar tissue, interlocked like an Olympic ring, further up his left forearm as the shirt fell down.
“What happened to your arm?” Rachette asked.
McBeth dropped his hands, putting the scar away again. “Well that’s rude of you to ask like that, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry.” Rachette held up his hands. “I was just curious.”
“Maybe you should just mind your own business.” He glared furiously at Rachette. Then he blinked, as if catching himself, and he flushed a deep red. “I don’t need to be here anymore.” He stood up and walked to the door. “I know enough about the law to know that. What the hell? It’s locked? Open this up.” He pounded on the door.
Wolf got up, pulled his key ring and opened it. “If we have any more questions—”
“—If you have more questions, you can talk to my lawyer, who I’m going to get right now.” McBeth walked out through the observation room, Yates holding open the door to the squad room for him.
Rachette sat motionless, hands still up in the air. “Sorry.”
Yates let the door close. “Nice work, you nosy bastard.”
“Let’s take five,” Wolf said. “Then who’s next?”
“Whoever you want. We have Koling and Sexton next door,” Yates said.
“No Lizotte?”
“He called and said he couldn’t make it. Had to work.”
“Send in James Sexton. And then find Mary Ellen Dimitri and this Rick Hammes guy. And anything we have on him and his shooting up a truckload of teenagers. Have you heard of him?”
Yates tilted his head in thought. “It’s not ringing a bell for me. Must have been taken care of by the Ashland office and it didn’t filter up to us? I don’t know.”
“Anyway, get on the phone with Oakley’s girlfriend and this Hammes guy and tell them we’ll be coming to talk to them this afternoon.”
Yates nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Chapter 7
“Thank you for coming to speak with us,” Wolf said, shaking James Sexton’s hand. Every one of the man’s fingernails was in some stage of growing back from being ripped, split, or peeled off altogether.
“You’re welcome.” Sexton was of average height and build, with a clean-shaven face. His lack of facial hair was in stark contrast to his fellow miners.
Sexton sat down, his clear blue eyes flicking between the camera mounted on the ceiling and the recording device on the table.
“We’ll be recording this interview for our investigation,” Wolf said.
“Right.”
“Cup of coffee?” Rachette asked.
“No, thanks.”
Wolf put on a smile, noting Sexton’s eyes still on the recorder. “So where did you learn to drive a tractor like that? Formula One school or something?”
Sexton cracked a smile himself, although it was short-lived. “No. Just…had a lot of experience, I guess.”
“You grew up mining?” Wolf asked.
“No. Not really. Just, used a lot of tractors up on the ranch in Wyoming.”
“Oh, really?” Wolf asked. “What ranch is that?”
“Place up in Jackson. Actually, the McBeth family ranch.”
Wolf nodded. “Really.”
Sexton sat stone-faced.
“Right. Well, we’ll visit that subject later I guess. Right now I’d like to talk about your work history at the mine. You’ve been working there with McBeth for three years now?”
“That’s right. I’m the mechanic.”
“Is that right.”
“Yes sir. Among other things.”
“Like what?”
“Like, everything. We all do everything. The digging, the rock trucks. Night shifts.”
Wolf nodded. “I understand. And how do you feel about how the mining operation is going right now?”
Sexton shrugged.
“Could you please answer for the recording?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. We’re not finding much gold right now. But we did pretty good the first year. It’s just a matter of time until Eagle puts us back on the gold.”
Wolf nodded. “You have faith in Mr. McBeth’s operation.”
“Yeah. He knows what he’s doing.”
“So, you’re not upset about not getting paid right now.”
“No.” Sexton shrugged. “More important things than money.”
“I agree,” Wolf said. “And what about Chris Oakley. Was he upset about not getting paid?”
“Yeah. He was. What’s that gotta do with his death, though?”
“We’re just trying to get to the bottom of what happened to him,” Wolf said.
“So he was murdered?”
Wolf chose not to answer for a beat. Sexton stared at him without blinking.
“What makes you think he was murdered?” Wolf asked.
“Not sure why you’d be talking to us like this if you didn’t think he was.”
Wolf tilted his head. “What happened after Lizotte dumped Chris’s body up on top of that wash plant? Who climbed up and looked to see who it was?”
Sexton’s eyes narrowed, then blinked. “We knew it was Chris.”
“Okay. But he could have been hurt. Did you go up and see if he was okay?”
“Eagle did.”
“And not you, Kevin, or Casey?”
“No, sir.”
“So Eagle climbed up, looked at him, and came back down to relay the information?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“What did McBeth say had happened to him?”
“He wasn’t sure. He said he had blood on top of his head and on his neck.”
“And you guys weren’t interested in investigating any further than that?” Wolf asked. “To see for yourself?”
“Heck no.”
“How about Koling? Did he go look?”
“No.”
“Did you suspect it was murder?” Wolf asked.
“I didn’t know what to think.” Sexton’s eye contact was unwavering. “So what happened to him?”
“Gunshot wound,” Wolf said. “The bullet went in through his chin and out the top of his head.”
“Suicide?”
Wolf shook his head. “He was found in the dirt, right? You can’t shoot yourself and then bury yourself.”
The eye contact wavered. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“But he could have inadvertently been buried,” Wolf said.
Sexton nodded.
“But we found no gunshot residue on his hands.” Wolf shrugged. “So had to have been somebody else shot him.”
Sexton nodded, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
“Were you close to Chris Oakley?” Wolf asked.
“Not really. He was close to Koling. Those two have been inseparable since high school. I never really got along with him.”
“Why don’t you tell me about Friday night,” Wolf said. “From that afternoon, when you guys were done with work for the day, up until whenever you saw Oakley last, could you please tell us exactly what happened?”
Sexton crossed his arms over his chest and began his recounting of events. He touched on all the same points that McBeth had: the text message from Spritz about Mary Ellen and Rick Hammes, Mary Ellen coming up to the mine, the argument between her and Oakley, ending with Oakley and McBeth getting into a heated argument.