by Jeff Carson
Chapter 2
Wolf stood on the dock, listening to the squeak of boat fenders and bumps of fiberglass boats colliding with weathered wood. With his head high he felt the sun warm his skin for an instant before the breeze sucked away the heat. He knew the lake was named for a temperature inversion found at roughly fifty feet beneath the surface of the water, but as he zipped his jacket up he thought that Cold Lake was living up to its namesake.
Taking a deep inhale through his nose, he whiffed gasoline, vinyl seats, and dead fish, a combination that brought back memories of bass fishing with his father.
Lime green in color, the boat in front of him was nothing flashy, just a middle of the line family model with a powerful outboard motor—a set-up that five to ten grand could buy.
The hypnotic movement of the sphere in the black plastic bag slowed as the wake of a passing boat dissipated. Then a combination of waves lifted the back end and rolled the bag over for an instant, revealing a mouth and nose through a tear in the plastic.
Rachette let out a soft whistle. “That’s definitely a human head in a bag.”
Stepping off the dock and onto the rear seat, Patterson snapped on her rubber gloves. At five-foot one inch, she was a year younger than Rachette and had a granite physique that was maintained with strict diet and exercise. Unlike Rachette’s stocky build, she was thin and wiry. As she moved with quick precision, the boat barely swayed under her negligible weight.
With wide blue eyes and bobbed dark hair, she was the definition of cute, and could lull the opposite sex into leering, but as Wolf watched her grip the plastic bag without hesitation and look inside the rip, he, just like everyone who met Heather Patterson, was reminded of the fearless fire within.
Wolf looked down at the head. The teeth were yellow, unnaturally large looking from receding gums. The lips were like mangled worms, and the nose was snow white and waxy, looking like it had melted flat against the face.
Rachette stepped into the boat after her, keeping his distance with his second step.
Wolf turned to the knock of boots coming down the dock.
Sheriff MacLean walked to Wolf and stopped. They both watched as Patterson gingerly rolled the head this way and that, revealing the whole face in the sunlight. A fishing hook was still attached to the eye-socket, which held no eye.
“Eye sockets look mutilated,” Patterson said. “Gouged with a knife.”
“Jesus.” Rachette kept what little distance he could, standing in the middle of the boat next to the driver’s seat.
“That’s interesting.” MacLean pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “Sorry I can’t be any help. I’ve got a … thing tonight. Congressman. Attorney General. Commissioner. DA.” He turned to Wolf. “I can have Lancaster stay if you need, get another few deputies up here.”
Wolf bent sideways to look next to MacLean. Lancaster stood motionless, a head taller than MacLean, clearly staring down at Patterson’s backside and not the grotesque item she was prodding.
“No thanks.” Wolf looked past them to the crime scene tape across the dock entrance. The owner of the boat sat on a pylon talking to Deputy Wilson. “Now if you guys don’t mind.”
MacLean shrugged and then squinted one eye. “Deputy Patterson, right? And Rachette?”
“Yes sir.” Rachette nodded politely.
Patterson gave a curt nod and resumed her examination, snapping some photos with her Nikon DSLR camera.
“You two are going to be interviewing for the new Sheriff’s department next month, correct?”
“You two carry on.” Wolf stepped backwards and walked up the dock toward the marina. “MacLean, Lancaster, follow me, please.”
“I’ll see you later, deputies,” MacLean said, taking his time turning and walking after Wolf.
Lancaster trailed his eyes up and down Patterson one more time and walked after his boss.
Wolf escorted them under the tape and over to their SUV, which sat in the newly paved parking lot of the lake marina. He turned and faced MacLean.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bully my deputies.”
MacLean frowned and took off his sunglasses. “Bully? I’m not bullying your deputies. I’m trying to open a discussion with them about the future. About their future. I would think you might be open to that.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” Wolf looked at Lancaster. “And you, Deputy Patterson is a fifth-degree black belt, so you keep letting those dead eyes of yours wander like that and I can’t guarantee your safety.”
Lancaster nodded with a sneer.
Wolf shrugged and looked back at MacLean. “And Sheriff, the election hasn’t happened yet. You’re not anyone’s boss in this county. The Sluice-Byron County Sheriff’s Department doesn’t exist yet. So, I appreciate you asking, but no thanks, I don’t need any help from your department, and please get in your vehicles, and you guys have a nice fundraiser tonight.”
Wolf patted him on the shoulder.
MacLean looked down at the spot Wolf had touched, smiled and put his sunglasses back on. “Oh, you heard about that?”
Wolf shook his head. “The fundraiser? The one you just told me about on the dock?” The lake they stood next to, though being the third largest in Colorado, could not contain Will MacLean’s ego.
“I was serious back there. I have congressman Blake coming. Commissioner Heller, the retiring commissioner of your county.” MacLean started ticking off fingers. “The DA. The ADA. Your old boss, Burton, he’s thinking about coming.”
The last name stung Wolf. But thinking about coming sounded like a bluff. Even if Burton was going, it was for the scotch and food, and not for support.
“If you’d like to join reality and come down to Ashland tonight, it’s going to be quite a party. I sent you an invitation.”
Wolf turned and walked away.
“See you Monday night,” MacLean called after him. “Hope you can prepare all those talking points with all this new action going on.”
Wolf kept his eyes forward.
“Here.” Oliver Chevelier pulled back the throttle.
The boat coasted, riding up as the wake passed underneath it and then bobbed in the water. Wolf’s ears rang in the relative silence of the idling motor and his skin tingled as the cold rushing air became warm and still.
“Right here.” Oliver tapped the electronic screen of his fish finder with a shaky finger. “You can see the depth change right there. Right here we’re at one hundred thirty feet, give or take, then it drops off to three hundred feet plus.” Oliver tipped the paper coffee cup vertical and sucked down the last drops, then poured another cup from his metal thermos.
Wolf stood looking at the screen and rubbed his face to get some blood into his cheeks.
Patterson stood up from her seat behind the glass and looked at Rachette. “I’ll give you shotgun on the way back.”
“Damn right you will,” he said.
“Should have felt it this morning,” Oliver said. “It was damn cold. Every year you forget how cold it still is, all the way into June.”
“Mr. Chevalier, the place where you pulled up the severed human head?”
Oliver Chevalier shivered and shut his eyes. “Yes. Sorry. We … we were trolling the deep parts with this downrigger. Looking to catch some Lake Trout. Caught one”—he raised his eyebrows—“big. Huge. And then later, I snagged something, and I realized I’d run too far. I knew I probably snagged the boulders where it turns shallow. Then I turned around and pulled up that bag. Billy was makin’ fun of me about it. He grabbed it and brought it in, and then he dropped it and started yelling. I still remember that sound. A head dropping into the boat.”
Oliver stopped talking and took another sip of coffee. He set it down, walked to the front of the boat, knelt down on the cushion and vomited over the side. The loud grunt of his expulsion echoed off the rock cliffs and pine- treed land to the west and came back to them a second later.
“Oooookay,” Patterso
n said, turning towards Wolf and Rachette.
Wolf studied the fish finder. “You come here a lot?”
Oliver wiped his mouth and looked up. “What?”
“Do you come here a lot?” Wolf repeated.
“Yeah, the boulders are a marker for me and Jed. We usually start here and troll north.”
The screen of the sonar device was split, with a multicolored image sliding by on the left, and a black and white image on the right. “Can you tell me what we’re looking at here, Oliver?”
Oliver looked over at him and wiped his chin. He wobbled over and leaned over the display.
Wolf caught a whiff of Oliver and held his breath.
“Bottom’s at one hundred thirty-four feet indicated by that number, you can see the boulders there, then the bottom drops out from under at that bright white patch. They say it goes down to four hundred plus feet. The Down Imaging won’t go that deep. This right here is the lowest point between that island,” Oliver pointed to the low-forested island to the east, “and the shore there.” He pointed to the west.
“So you thought you snagged one of those boulders?” Wolf tapped the screen.
Oliver stood up and nodded. “Well, yeah. Had to be. There’s nothin’ else down there. Of course, it wasn’t a boulder.” He lunged back to the front of the boat and bent over, his grunts echoing once again.
Wolf, Rachette, and Patterson huddled in the back of the boat and Wolf studied the surrounding landscape. To the east was a wooded island the size of a football field, opposite the island to the west was the western shore, a steep wooded embankment with a line of cliffs above that that stretched to the north and south. The granite cliff line varied in steepness, and the few people who had decided to build cabins on this rugged shore hugged the back of their properties up to the precipice, and then built wooden staircases that zigged and zagged down the rocks, teetering on stilts, down to the shore where docks jutted out into the water. Behind the whole scene lay thousands of acres of virgin forest, with snow-covered peaks as the distant backdrop.
Rachette tapped a finger on the screen, turned his back to Oliver, and lowered his voice. “Yeah. Those are dead bodies.”
Chapter 3
“What are you guys going to do for jobs?” The search and rescue rookie talking to Rachette was grating on Deputy Heather Patterson’s nerves.
“Do you have to re-apply?” Tall, muscular physique, and a nice set of eyes, the guy was cute and meant well, but he was poking the bear. Either he was a quasi-moron or he knew what he was doing and trying to rile them up, and that made him an asshole.
No, Patterson thought. The guy was a dumbass rookie who didn’t know when to shut up. The apologetic glance from his superior told her as much.
“Yep. Gonna have to re-apply,” Rachette answered, unfazed by the guy’s upfront question. “Bullshit. But necessary bullshit, I guess. They say there should be minimal cuts. I’m confident we’ll have our jobs in the end.”
“Good luck,” the rookie continued, “my sister works for the town of Rocky Points and she says that MacLean’s a real dick, but he’s gonna win. I guess he’s been coming into town, walking around like he already runs it. Made my sister get him a cup of coffee across the street, like she was some sort of—”
“Can we talk about something else?” Patterson glared.
The rookie blinked. “Yeah. Sure.”
Patterson turned and looked at Sheriff Wolf sitting out in one of the ASIS rigid inflatable boats. He was staring at the western coastline in deep thought, up at one of the houses on the cliffs. She followed his eyes to the house on the hill, and then she ran her eyes alongshore left to the next property, which must have been a good half-mile away to the south. Then she looked past it to a bend, where the tip of a dock protruded from the shoreline pines, aluminum edges gleaming in the sun.
Patterson took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The fishy lake air smelled exhilarating. She always liked spending time near or on freshwater, whether kayaking the Roaring Fork near Aspen growing up, or the time she’d spent right here at Cold Lake, waterskiing behind her uncle’s boat. The sound of lapping waves against boat hulls triggered memories of fishing with her father, uncle, and brothers. The rushing air against her face when the boat had come out to this spot had triggered vivid memories of sitting next to her late grandfather, who used to sit on top of the chair back and let his wispy comb-over flap in the breeze. She remembered doing the same, peeking over the glass, the wind rushing up her nose and over her hair.
“Hey, uh, deputy?” Oliver Chevalier cleared his throat. “I really have to use the bathroom. Like. Now. Number two.”
Patterson opened her eyes and exhaled.
“Hey sheriff?” Rachette said into his radio. “We gotta take Mr. Chevalier in.”
Wolf looked over and held up a thumb. “Okay, let’s get someone to take him into the marina in his boat. Whoever does, they can stay on shore and wait.”
“10-4.” Rachette looked at Patterson with raised eyebrows.
She nodded at the rookie. “You take him in, we’ll stay here.” Her tone left no room for arguing.
The Sheriff’s Department fleet boat pulled alongside Oliver’s boat, and as Patterson and Rachette climbed onto the solid 1987 model equipped with two powerful outboards, Patterson felt like her legs were shaking. She realized it was her racing thoughts. It was what Rachette and the rookie had been talking about—their uncertain future.
Because it was clear as day. In the end, Sheriff David Wolf was not going to win the upcoming election for Sheriff of the merged counties. Her aunt Margaret had told her as much in confidence. But it was no secret, not to anyone. Wolf was dead in the water.
She looked back at Wolf. He was staring again at the lake’s edge, immersed in the case, on another dimensional plane. She’d seen him look like that before, and it was a sight to see. A formidable sight at times. She’d never seen such sheer determination in any one man like David Wolf. But in the two years she’d been on the force, she’d also seen that he was a ruthless realist when he needed to be. That is, he was quick to see when determination became delusion, and he would act accordingly with sometimes dizzying speed to cut losses.
So what was he thinking about with this election? What was his plan? At the moment it seemed he was ignoring the inevitable outcome. He’d been appointed to the job of Sheriff of Sluice County last time. Elections were something he was clearly not comfortable with. Or good at.
And now Rachette and Patterson were being put in a tough situation. They were loyal to Wolf, that was never a doubt, but were they supposed to ignore MacLean? Were they supposed to be standoffish? How do they look good for present and future employers when those men are fighting one another to the death?
“Patterson.” Rachette slapped her shoulder.
She turned, annoyed. “What?”
“What, me? What’s going on with you? They’re back up.”
Patterson turned back to Wolf’s boat and saw that the divers had surfaced.
Rachette leaned a hand on the side of the boat. “Holy crap.”
There were four divers, and they all seemed to be carrying at least one black plastic bag. Two of them carried two bags, one in each hand.
Wolf pulled one dripping bag over the side of his boat, and Patterson could see it was similar shape and size to the head at the marina, but these bags had another something inside; a rectangular sag that streamed water as they were lifted. It looked like brick inside of each one.
The late spring sun suddenly felt hotter and she rolled up her sleeves.
“Six.” Rachette said. “Six more.” He stood up and looked at the inky water. “Dang, there could be a lot more than that down there.”
A whining engine came around the corner of the island and cut down to an idle, then continued crawling into the cluster of boats. It was the Sluice County Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Lorber. At six foot six-inches tall, his pole-thin frame was easy enough to spot, swaying with the wa
ke like a pine in the wind, sticking up head and shoulders above the others in the boat next to him. His ever-present assistant, Dr. Joe Blank, was with him looking cold as he rubbed his hands.
There was a sharp whistle and the boat turned toward Wolf and the emerged divers. A deputy waved the red and white dive flag as if the driver needed reminding.
Lorber’s boat slid by, the Mercury outboard engine gurgling as the water frothed behind it, and Patterson held up a hand at him. Lorber pointed a long finger and nodded.
“Nice ‘stache.” Rachette murmured.
Lorber had shaven his usual five-day beard into a bushy caterpillar mustache, but that’s where the grooming stopped. His uncombed hippy-hair was as long as ever, flapping against the center of his back in the breeze.
“Is that jealousy?”
“Psh. I could grow a ‘stache like that in a week.”
“You’d be happy if you grew a map of the Galapagos Islands on your face after a week.”
Rachette glared at her, but had no comeback.
Chapter 4
Wolf got up from the bench seat of the ASIS inflatable as it slid alongside the SCSD fleet boat. He steadied himself as the pilot gave a quick burst in reverse and held out a hand to Patterson. Climbing aboard, the boat rocked under his weight.
“What’s the news?” Rachette asked.
“The news is, we’ve got at least eight bodies down there. They just pulled up six heads. Add that to Chevelier’s catch this morning and we’ve got seven. Then there’s an extra bag down there. No head accounted for with that one. It could be a full body inside.”
“What do the bodies look like?” Rachette asked.
“They say they’re all wrapped in plastic. Same as the heads, they’re weighted with bricks inside.” He pointed down and made a circle with his arm. “Apparently they’re spread out, covering a hundred feet from one end to the other.”
“So there could be a lot more down there?” Patterson asked. “Visibility can’t be that good down there.”