In the Ground (David Wolf Book 14)

by Jeff Carson

  Sexton’s version of events was so similar to McBeth’s it could have been rehearsed over a few beers in one of the rooms at the Edelweiss. Or maybe it was just the truth. So far it was tough reading the Jackson Mine’s mechanic.

  “At any point did Eagle McBeth threaten Oakley during that argument?” Wolf asked.

  “No, sir. If anything, it was the opposite way around. Oakley doesn’t go through a day without threatening one of us.”

  “Does he ever harm you?” Rachette asked.

  “No. Not really.”

  “How about anybody from town?”

  Sexton looked up, thinking about it. “No. He was pretty good ever since we came down to Dredge. He used to get in fights all the time up in Jackson, though.”

  “You told us Oakley went down to the cut to start his nightshift after the argument,” Wolf said.

  “That’s right.”

  “And what did you do?”

  Sexton shrugged. “Went to bed. I was beat.”

  “And did you hear or see anything after that?” Wolf asked. “Anybody coming down into the mine?”

  Sexton stared at the table, lost in thought.

  “Mr. Sexton?”

  “No, I didn’t see or hear anybody coming down into the mine. I mean, there’s always so much noise. Could have been somebody came in and I wouldn’t have noticed. If there’s not a lot of noise at night, then something’s wrong. Then I get woken up to fix things. Noise means peace and quiet for me.”

  “But you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, is what the sheriff is asking,” Rachette said.

  “No, sir.”

  “And then the next day?” Wolf asked. “Tell me about your Saturday.”

  “Woke up. Made some coffee. Went outside.”

  “What time?”

  “Like, seven.”

  “And then what did you do?”

  “Saw Eagle was already up, over at the plant looking at the riffles. The place where the plant catches the gold. That’s when he launched into his idea to fix the wash plant. And then we started our weekend of trying to turn around our operation. I could tell Eagle was pretty shaken up about the argument the night before. He seemed…subdued, but determined.”

  “So, what did you do?” Wolf asked. “What was this plan of his?”

  “We changed out the riffles to a bigger set. Changed the drop angle of the chute. Dialed back the water pressure.”

  “And that all took place at the wash plant?” Wolf asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “So who did that work?”

  “Me.”

  “Just you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what did McBeth do?”

  “He got to work bringing up the dirt from the cut.”

  “And what, exactly, is the cut?” Wolf asked.

  “Where we get the pay, the paydirt. Where we take the overburden off the top, so we can get down to the ground that holds the gold. We cut into the ground to get to the pay. The cut.”

  “Ah. Thanks. I get it now. And Eagle was the first to go down there Saturday?”

  Sexton shrugged. “Yeah. The only one to go down there Saturday.”

  Wolf nodded. Rachette wrote some notes.

  They sat in silence for a beat.

  Sexton looked like he wanted to say something.

  “What is it?” Wolf asked.

  “I’m just thinking about how you asked if I heard a noise that night.”

  “Yeah?” Rachette said. “And?”

  “And I just keep thinking that…well…I’m pretty sure I would have heard a gunshot. With all that noise going on, I still think a gunshot would have woke me up. It would have been out of the ordinary. But, not a gun with a silencer on it. I’m not sure if I would have heard that.”

  “Okay,” Wolf said, unsure what the man was driving at. “What makes you bring that up?”

  “Because Chris had a gun with a silencer.”

  Wolf and Rachette looked at one another.

  “It was a whole project that him and Koling did last year. They converted a solvent trap into one. I helped them with the threading.”

  Rachette continued writing, keeping his eyes on the page.

  “You didn’t find it in his trailer?” Sexton looked between them.

  “How many guns did Chris Oakley have?” Wolf asked.

  “Two Glock 21s. One with a factory barrel, and the other he swapped out with a threaded barrel.”

  Rachette folded his arms. “How many guns do you have?”

  “Just the one.”

  “Name it, please,” Rachette said.

  “Glock 21.”

  “And Koling?” Rachette said.

  “Same thing. Glock 21.”

  “And McBeth?”

  “Glock 21. Same thing.”

  Rachette leaned forward. “And that’s all the guns. No more suppressed models? No more hunting rifles, or AR-15s?”

  “No, sir.”

  They sat in silence for a while. The man looked like his pulse was low. Like if he closed his eyes he would have been asleep.

  Wolf pushed his chair back. “Thank you for coming in to talk to us, Mr. Sexton. We’d appreciate it if you’d stay accessible and not leave town, in case we have more questions.” Wolf nodded toward Rachette, who pulled out a card and handed it over. “And if you think of anything else important, please don’t hesitate to give Detective Rachette a call. His cell number’s on that card right there.”

  Wolf opened the door and let him pass through.

  When Sexton had exited the observation room, Yates joined their huddle, arms crossed in front of him. “Why didn’t McBeth mention this suppressed weapon when you asked him about hearing noises Friday night?”

  Wolf shrugged. “That’s a good question.”

  “I called Mary Ellen Dimitri,” Yates said. “She didn’t answer her cell number, so I called the Motherlode Casino, where she works in the cocktail lounge. They say she didn’t show up to work today.”

  Wolf cocked an eyebrow. “And Hammy?”

  “No answer on his cell phone, either. And here’s an interesting fact. Parole work papers have him employed at the same Motherlode Casino. Supposedly in the restaurant.”

  “The same casino Mary Ellen Dimitri works at?” Rachette asked.

  “Yep.”

  “You said supposedly,” Wolf said. “Why does he supposedly work in the restaurant?”

  “Turns out he hasn’t been working there for the last two weeks. He quit.”

  Wolf led them out of the observation room and into the hallway.

  The big miner named Koling sat on one of the chairs in the hallway leading to the squad room. He was looking up at Sexton, talking in a hushed tone. They both stopped talking at the sight of Wolf, Rachette, and Yates.

  Wolf checked his watch. It was only 11:05 but it felt like the afternoon with all the talking they’d been doing.

  “Let’s get this over with, I’m hungry as shit,” Rachette said, succinctly voicing Wolf’s next thought.

  “Mr. Koling,” Wolf said. “We’re ready to talk to you now.”

  The man stood up, towering over Sexton. He fist-bumped his fellow miner and walked towards them.

  As the big man walked past into the observation room, the tang of alcohol ingested the night before streamed in his wake. “In here?”

  “Yes, sir. Rachette, if you would escort Mr. Koling in, please? Would you like some coffee, Mr. Koling?” Wolf asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Rough one last night?” Rachette asked.

  Koling looked down at Rachette. “We just found my best friend lying dead on the wash plant yesterday. So yeah. You could say that.”

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Rachette said, doing the best impression of sympathy Wolf had ever seen as he walked the big man into the interrogation room.

  Wolf turned to Yates. “I want you to get on the phone with Deputy Piper Cain. Have her get eyes on Mary Ellen Dimitri, and
if she can, Rick Hammes. But I want to be clear,” Wolf raised his eyebrows to hammer home the point. “I don’t want her engaging either of them.”

  Chapter 8

  Piper Cain knelt down next to the bathtub, averting her eyes to anything below the waist on her father’s naked form. “Okay, Dad. Are you ready?”

  “I’m cold.”

  “I know, that’s why we have to get you out.” She stood and put her hands under his arms. “Let’s go. Up.”

  Her father was tall, and even though he’d deteriorated with age, his large frame still carried some of the muscles from his hay days in the Summit County Sheriff’s Department, where he’d frequented the exercise gym six days a week.

  “Geez, help me.” She grunted, her hands slipping on the soapy film under his armpits. “I’m going to drop you! Stand up!”

  Her father shrugged his shoulders, making it harder. Sometimes she wondered if he was doing it on purpose.

  “Stand!” She stepped her bare foot inside the tub, reassured that the grip tape on the base would give her good purchase. But there was a thin film of soap there, too, enough to shoot her and her father’s feet out from under both of them with one wrong move.

  “I’m standing,” her father said with ultimate disdain. One foot got under him, then the other.

  They both shook as she flexed everything and heaved her father’s weight upright.

  Damn it, they needed to install one of those bathtubs with a door. Or at least a handrail. This was the last straw, she was going to order one online, no matter the cost, and install it herself. That is, if they both survived this ordeal.

  He yelped. “Your nails are digging into my skin!”

  Good, she thought. Maybe that would prod him to use his own muscles.

  “Okay. Turn slow.” She kept both hands on him.

  They clenched hands, and it was now that she felt the weakness inside her father. He used to have a bear’s bite grip, and now it was a puppy’s nibble.

  “Are you ready to step out?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She braced herself. The towels on the floor were in position, it was now or never, when the momentum was going their way.

  “Okay, step.”

  Her father teetered, raised a foot, then dropped it down immediately. “It’s too hard.”

  She had gone all her life never hearing her father say that, and now it seemed it was his mantra.

  “Come on! One! Two! Three!”

  He raised his foot, slowly put it over the edge of the tub, and put it on the towel.

  “Good.”

  Her phone rang on the bathroom counter. It vibrated and chimed the Naked Gun theme song, which she had put on there to indicate phone calls forwarded from her on-duty phone.

  “It’s my day off,” she said under her breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Okay, step the other leg over.”

  “What’s that racket? Is that your phone?”

  “Forget about it. Just step your other leg over.” Her legs were shaking now. Even with all the yoga and hiking up the mountains surrounding the Dredge Valley, there was only so much she could take. “Come on!”

  Her father leaned forward and raised his back foot.

  The phone stopped, and then the song repeated.

  His back foot returned to the water. His momentum hadn’t quite made it to his forward foot.

  “One more—”

  Just then her father’s rear foot slipped and his body went down. She held her breath as a knocking noise echoed off the vaulted ceiling.

  “Ah! My knee!”

  “Shit.” She doubled her efforts, wrapping her arms around her naked father’s waist.

  With a loud grunt she heaved him back upright before he went all the way down with her landing on top of him. The next few seconds were a blur as she gritted her teeth, flexing every fiber of muscle in her body to the tearing point. Like those stories of mothers lifting cars off of their trapped babies with the aid of adrenaline, she helped get her father out of the bathroom, onto the soft padding of the carpet of the hallway, into his bedroom, and onto the edge of his bed.

  She collapsed against the wall and sat down, forearms on her knees.

  Inside the bathroom the phone dinged, indicating a voicemail.

  “Is that one of your boyfriends calling?”

  She frowned, looking up at her father. Even given all the trials and tribulations due to the onset of her father’s dementia, that was a strange comment. He sat, shoulders hunched, his hair plastered to his forehead.

  “Boyfriends?” she asked.

  “Your mother and I don’t want you seeing that boy anymore,” he said.

  “What boy?” She was genuinely curious. Where was he? When was he?

  “Jonathan.”

  A spark of electricity sparked through her at the thought of Jonathan. In her mind she was back at Summit County High, her afternoons spent hiking the trails in the woods, alone with him, her body intertwined with the only boy she’d ever truly loved.

  “Me and Jonathan don’t date anymore, Dad. Haven’t for almost twenty years.”

  The confusion on his face was heartbreaking, so she closed her eyes and raised her chin to the sky. “I need help,” she said.

  “With what?” her father answered.

  She stood up and went to the bathroom, plucked her phone from the counter and walked down the hallway to the living room. Sunlight speared in the windows from the east, illuminating the spacious house her father had spent his golden years building. Outside the panoramic windows the Dredge Valley spread out in spectacular glory, but it may as well have been a brick wall.

  Her chest was heaving, and she sucked in a breath to try and calm herself.

  Her brother smiled from a picture frame on the end table next to her.

  She made a fist and struck it as hard as she could, sending it flying across the room. It smacked the wood floor and the glass shattered into a thousand pieces.

  “Are you okay?” her father asked from the other room.

  “Yeah.”

  This was what she was now. A caretaker for her father. A cop who’d veered a one-eighty degree turn off her career path for this second-string bench-warming position in the middle of the woods in nowhere, Colorado.

  Why had her father just mentioned Jonathan? Was this a sick joke, pulling that memory out of the cloud of his mind and shoving it in her face, reminding her that to top it all off, she was alone in this, devoid of anything close to resembling romance in her life?

  “Shit.” She looked at the glass sparkling on the floor and went to the kitchen to get a broom, quickly sweeping it up.

  When she was done, she went back to her father’s room, surprised to see he was fully dressed, pulling a sweater over his head.

  “You’re dressed.”

  “Yeah,” he said, turning toward her with a smile that contained all the light in his eyes.

  She smiled back. “Good.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be dressed? I’m a grown man.”

  She shook her head. “No reason.”

  She walked back to the living room, pushing the marvel of her father’s condition out of her mind. She pressed the voicemail button on her phone and put it to her ear.

  “Hi, this is Detective Yates over here at Headquarters in Rocky Points. I have a request from Sheriff Wolf for you. He wants you to, quote, ‘get eyes on Mary Ellen Dimitri and Rick Hammes if you can. It’s in connection to the murder up at the mine yesterday. Anyway, I was hoping to get hold of you...’”

  Yates talked some more and read off some addresses, and Piper wrote them down on a piece of paper in the kitchen.

  Sheriff Wolf had a request, and he wants her to get eyes on Mary Ellen Dimitri and Rick Hammes? What did that even mean—get eyes on them?

  She hovered her finger over the button to call Yates back, thinking about Wolf.

  When Piper had moved down from Bozeman she had originally been hired by Sheriff Ma
cLean. After a few months in the forgotten outer reaches of the county, she had decided to relocate with her father to somewhere with more social interaction, with more support available should they need it. Five months ago, back in February, she had applied for the two deputy job openings over at the Rocky Points headquarters. She had heard absolutely nothing in response. Which was strange. Sheriff Clegg up in Gallatin County had given her a shining letter of recommendation. Her history was spotless, and she was a damn good deputy if she said so herself.

  When she had followed up with a call to the Rocky Points receptionist, she’d been told she would be considered by the sheriff himself and contacted either way within the month. That was five months ago.

  As far as she was concerned, Wolf had forgotten about her back then. And now he’s specifically requesting her to do something? Now he’s calling her, by name, to go get eyes on someone? What did that even mean?

  Situations are what you make of it. Her mother’s words echoed in her head.

  She watched her father enter the kitchen and pour himself a bowl of cereal. He picked up the remote control off the coffee table, turned on the TV, and sat back in his favorite chair, munching his Kix cereal.

  “What am I supposed to make of this situation, Mom?” she asked herself.

  “What?” her dad said.

  “Nothing.”

  Maybe this was her opportunity to involve herself. Her in. Back in February she’d allowed herself to dream while her resume was being vetted. She had driven into Rocky Points and seen the thriving Main Street economy. The walking paths. The parks. The trails. The ski mountain.

  She could see herself living among it all. Right now Piper had the help of her mother’s former best friend, Stacy Armistead. Stacy did a good job helping with her father here in Dredge, but she had her own problems, her own life with three grandkids and a son who needed help raising them. As far as professional help beyond Stacy, there was none available here in Dredge, at least not of the caliber Piper sought for her father.

  With a full deputy salary and benefits down in Rocky Points, she could afford professional care during the day while she was at work.

  And what about work? Just like back in Bozeman, she’d be rubbing elbows with dozens of other men and women. Skiing in the winter. Mountain biking in the summer. Friends. Bars. Restaurants. Maybe even a romantic life.