by Jeff Carson
A quarter mile up the road the cabin loomed up on the right, dark and deserted looking, perched at the top of a hill that overlooked much of the lake below.
Wolf pulled in front, angling the SUV toward the house and saw that all the windows were covered with pulled curtains.
He shut off the lights and engine and got out.
There was little sound save a few crickets and the rush of wind through the pines, like a distant waterfall that rose and fell in strength.
The lake, a silver pool in the light of the moon, was visible on either side of the house, and to the right and down Wolf could see the pocket of light from Kimber Grey’s cabin tucked in the trees.
Wolf studied the exterior of the house in front of him. It looked unkempt—overgrown with weeds and wildflowers.
No lights were on. No sign of life, but still, he stepped to the front, climbed onto the squeaking wood porch and pushed the glowing doorbell button.
A classic ding-dong chime sounded within.
There was no answer, though Wolf could have sworn he heard a thump and then the creak of a floorboard.
He knocked. No answer.
Wolf turned and looked into the surrounding forest behind his SUV. The moon passed beneath a cloud, lighting it up around the edges, dropping the ambient light.
He flicked on his flashlight and did a sweep behind his ticking SUV, passing the powerful beam over the edge of the virgin forest, seeing nothing beyond the first tree trunks. He turned to peer into the front window next to the door. It was no use; the drapes were shut tight.
Stepping off the porch, he kicked something. A rock, he realized when he swung the light down into the grass. He reached down and picked it up. It was a geode, cracked in half, with exposed purple crystals on the inside. He set it back down on the porch next to the support beam of the deck and walked along the front of the property to his right, bobbing and swiping the light beam ahead of him and against covered windows as he went. The land inclined down as he walked around the side of the house, revealing a lower level with walkout sliding glass doors in the rear. They were covered as well.
Looking down the rear wall of the house, a low whoosh of wind came from his left, and he swung his flashlight towards it. The beam showed long grass, and then a row of rocks that had been stacked in a three-foot high straight line, like a rear perimeter fence one might see in the rural Irish countryside. Beyond it was nothing but the mercury-pool lake far below.
He walked towards it and the noise grew louder.
Reaching the rock wall, he leaned forward and shone the flashlight, and saw swirling moths and a bat fly past, both riding on a steady wind that climbed up the sheer cliff.
Craning his hand out, he pointed the beam down and saw nothing. He remembered seeing this cliff from the boats on the lake, and knew the drop was more or less straight down and higher than the back of the house was tall, which made the drop at least thirty feet high in his estimation. Though invisible with the flashlight beam now, he remembered the base of the cliff was a steep incline with the shoreline some distance down from that. He peered harder and noticed the end of a dock with a bobbing fishing boat moored to it, looking like a miniature toy from this height.
With a start that raised his pulse, Wolf sensed someone behind him. He lurched back and twisted the beam to his rear. Sweeping it back and forth, he saw nothing but a vacant rear lawn of the house.
He exhaled and shook his head. His history with cliffs was clearly playing with his mind.
Another look at his cell phone confirmed there was still no reception. The screen showed 9:09 pm, and he was now longing for home. Sarah had said this morning that she would come to stay at his house again tonight, and he had the sudden itch to get the heck off this lake and back down to Rocky Points.
He looked down at Kimber Grey’s home, still lit brightly, but obscured somewhat by the trees from his angle, and then he exhaled and headed back across the lawn.
In the corner of his eye he thought he saw movement towards the house. He jabbed the flashlight beam toward the spot, and could have sworn he saw the corner of a drape lower in one of the windows. Now it hung perfectly motionless.
“Hello?” Wolf called out. “Anyone in there?”
His heart was pounding a steady clip.
Wolf took a deep breath and marched toward the window, flashlight beam locked on the lower left corner of the window.
“I’m with the Sheriff’s department! Mr. Heeter?”
He let his eyes wander across the other windows, thinking if the person inside suspected they were spotted they might go look from another vantage.
“Hello?” He called out again. “Sluice County Sheriff. Mr. Heeter? I wanted to talk to you.”
No answer, and no movement.
Wolf flicked the beam to the next window, careful to aim it in the small crack between the two drapes.
Nothing.
He stood stock still, breathing quietly out his mouth.
No sounds from inside.
He flicked off the flashlight and stood silent for three full minutes, listening to the pulsing whoosh of fish-scented air cresting the cliff behind him. Between gusts he heard crickets chirping in the surrounding woods.
If there was someone inside, they were determined to stonewall him, and he had no business making them do otherwise. Defeated by either the person inside, or his own imagination, Wolf exhaled and walked around the house and back up to his awaiting SUV.
He got in and started the engine, and then when he flicked on his headlights he lit up the front of the house once again. The drapes were still and the door was closed.
He reversed out and started to drive when he slammed on the brakes.
The geode rock he’d placed back on the front porch was not there.
With lightning speed he shut off the engine and jumped out. Keeping his hand on his pistol, he pulled his flashlight and pointed it forward, carefully walking to the front porch again.
The rock was sitting burrowed in the grass, the violet crystals reflecting Wolf’s flashlight beam.
Wolf bent down and picked it up, studying the grass around it. He could see a few spots where the grass was flattened. Someone moving toward his SUV? Or were they his footsteps from earlier? Wolf swept the beam back and forth and decided, no. His earlier steps were to the left.
He followed the disturbances to the gravel road. The ground was hard pack rock and gravel, such that stepping on it left no shoe indentions, but there were rocks kicked over, leaving depressions, and a scrape of a shoe or boot.
Wolf shone his light into the forest and listened.
“Is anyone there?” Wolf asked, feeling like an exposed idiot.
He turned full circle and then pulled his pistol and shone the light through each of his windows into his vehicle.
Heart still walloping, Wolf got back in his SUV and drove back down the hill, crawling at under ten miles per hour and keeping a close eye on the forest to the right. It was no use, the trees were too dense, and Wolf wasn’t about to stop and hike in after some unknown person that could be armed and dangerous for all he knew.
At the base of the hill he looked left at the T-Junction. His dash clock said 9:15. He exhaled and took a left back towards Kimber Grey’s.
He was surprised to see her squinting against his headlights, standing halfway up her porch steps as if she was expecting him. He made a wide loop and pulled up with his driver’s side window down.
“You okay?” He asked.
She gave him an expressionless look and a single nod and shrug, as if saying, “Yeah, why?”
“I was just up at your neighbor’s, and thought I saw someone up there. I think there was definitely someone up there. They went off into the woods.”
She lifted her chin to look into the trees and then shrugged.
Wolf waited for a response that never came.
“You … get any alarms on your motion sensors?” He asked.
“If I do, I have a pisto
l and a rifle. Don’t worry about me, Sheriff.”
Wolf studied her calm expression for a few seconds and then nodded. “Be careful,” he said, shifting into drive.
As he drove away up the steep incline, he studied his rearview mirror, and saw Kimber Grey keep a motionless vigil on her steps until she disappeared out of sight behind the trees.
Wolf shook his head. Who was this woman?
The dash clock read 9:20. Well, she’d survived this long on her own, and she’d survive another night. He hoped.
Shaking his head, staring into the dark forest on either side of him, he used his high beams and kept his speed just south of unsafe through the woods, thoroughly creeped-out by the mystery encounter at the Heeter residence.
When Wolf finally got to the county road 74 junction he checked his phone. Still no reception, and now it read 9:31.
Damn it. As he began driving along the northern edge of the lake back east, he knew there was still one more stop he needed to make. He was up here, and the marina bar was hopping. Who knew if someone would be there in the morning—a Sunday morning. He’d bet his pension against it. They would have a landline at the bar, the same one that transmitted the mystery call to Kimber’s father all those years ago. He would call Sarah from there and she would just have to wait. But would she?
He pressed the gas a little harder, took the gravel turns with a little more slide, hoped no wildlife stood around the next corner.
Chapter 15
Deputy Heather Patterson and Scott sat across the table from his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Reed, at the Red Ruby Café, a jeans and tee-shirt kind of place with some of the best American Cuisine in Colorado that money could buy. It was a small building with a ski lodge atmosphere right off Main Street in Rocky Points. Scott had chosen the venue, making sure his father got a view of the television screens that were in the bar area when they’d sat down, giving his father an “out” at all times.
Patterson ignored the hand under the table caressing the inside of her knee and answered the question. “I went to the University of Colorado. In Boulder.”
“Oh, you’re kidding! I went to grad school in Boulder.” Scott Reed’s father sat across from Patterson and Scott. “That’s where I got my Masters of Aerospace Engineering. Scott threatened to go to college there back in the day, but as you know he ended up at Metro State.”
Scott’s caress abruptly stopped. “And my father hasn’t let me hear the end of it since.”
His father shrugged and took a sip of his wine. “Nothing is wrong with Metro, son. It’s not CU, but … nothing’s wrong with Metro.” His tone said otherwise. “So, how’s work going with you, Scott? The, uh, snow cat running well?”
Patterson could see Scott’s breathing quicken, and his face was turning red behind the water glass pressed against his lips.
It was Patterson’s turn to reach over and place a hand on his leg.
Scott looked over and his face relaxed.
“You two are so good together,” his mother said.
Patterson smiled and looked at her. “Yeah. We kind of are.”
His mother smiled warmly.
The waiter came over, providing a welcome distraction. “Here we are,” he said, placing three plates of appetizers on the table.
“The wings here are the best in Colorado,” Patterson said, feeling her face go red as she realized she’d already said as much when they had ordered the food. Damn, she was nervous, and Scott’s father wasn’t helping the situation one bit. The man seemed to feed and grow stronger on discomfort, and every word out of his pompous mouth made sure there was plenty of discomfort to feed his cruel spirit. It was amazing Scott was related to this man at all.
Scott’s father’s face was heavy with unmasked disappointment, which was a shame. Scott didn’t waste any energy defending himself against his father, either, which Patterson admired. If it had been her father across the table she’d be standing up and shaking a fist in his face right now, dropping f-bombs and causing a scene. She didn’t take shit from any of the men in her family—not from her father or any of her three brothers. In fact, she’d once thrown a beer in her middle brother’s face at a restaurant.
Smiling to herself at the sudden memory, she picked at her food in silence with her other three companions.
After a few more agonizing seconds she cleared her throat. “You know, Scott has written a novel and he’s working on a second?”
“Oh my goodness.” His mother set her beer down. “Are you serious?”
Scott gave Patterson a rueful glance and nodded. “Yeah. I am … I have.”
“Oh really?” His father said. “What’s it about?”
Scott wiped his fingers with a napkin. “It’s a mystery about a man who is an avid outdoorsman. He comes across a murder victim in the woods and…”
Scott’s father set down his drink and straightened, looking past Scott as if he’d just seen something terrible.
Patterson and Scott followed his gaze and saw he was focused intently on the highlights of the Boston Red Sox on the television.
“They paid way too much for that asshole,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, son. What’s it about?”
Scott shook his head and picked up a chicken wing. “Forget it.”
“No, I want to know. Have you been looking for a publisher?”
Scott ignored him.
“John,” his mother said in a whisper.
“What?”
Scott threw his napkin on the table and scooted his chair back. “We’re going to take off. It was good seeing you mom.”
Patterson looked up in shock at Scott as he left, then across the table. His mother was slack-jawed and his father was concentrating on a hot wing with indifference.
“Oh no, Scott. John, tell him not to go.”
Scott was already gone, swerving his way around tables in the bar and heading to the door.
Patterson wiped her hands and scooted her chair back. “Ummm, I guess we’re going.”
“It was nice to meet you,” Scott’s father said with a quick smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
His mother’s lower lip was quivering and her eyes welled up. “I’m sorry.”
Patterson scooped up her rain parka and purse off the back of the chair and nodded to them. “It was nice to meet you.” She walked away. “What an asshole,” she muttered to herself.
She stepped quickly through the tables toward the exterior door, now swinging shut, Scott waiting with his back turned to the windows.
Making the final push to the door, she stopped dead in her tracks. It was a reflexive move, because she’d just seen Sarah Muller—just looked right at her and then kept walking. Wolf’s ex-wife (and current lover if she’d been reading the situation correctly) was one of those women that always demanded a second look. She was stunning. Electric blue eyes, thick true blonde hair, and a figure that made men stop and stare every time.
But it wasn’t just that Sarah was a stunner that stopped Patterson dead in her tracks, it had been the large man next to her, and the way that man was grabbing her leg, which was clearly visible to Patterson since it was a tall bar table and she was short.
Wasn’t she dating Wolf again? She thought.
Sarah met Patterson’s gaze and she visibly flinched. Her leg whipped to the side, and the man’s hand was now grabbing air under the table. The man followed Sarah’s eyes and saw Patterson. Sarah looked like a frightened animal, but the man was cool and confident.
Patterson’s blood was already boiling with the botched dinner and the father from hell, and before she could even think about it she was right next to them thrusting out her hand.
“Hi Sarah,” she said.
Sarah reached out and grabbed her hand with a timid claw.
Patterson shot her glare at the other man. “And you are?”
He smiled and his hand swallowed hers. He squeezed with increasing pressure and Patterson met every foot-pound of force. “I am Carter.”
“Carter who? Don’t think I’ve seen you before.”
The big man’s smile vanished and he let go of his grip. “Carter Willis.”
He was a good-looking man, but if he got up from his chair, Patterson was sure there would have been slime on it. He was dressed impeccably, polished platinum jewelry on his wrists peeking out beneath a crisp expensive shirt and blazer. A politician or important businessman, if Patterson had to guess. Perhaps too muscular for something as simple as that, though. The man was dangerous looking, she decided.
“Ah.” Patterson looked back at Sarah, who was stirring her drink with a plastic straw. “Okay, see you later.” She turned without waiting for a response from Sarah and marched out the door.
“Who was that guy with Sarah?” Scott said in greeting.
It was cold outside, a steady pin- pricking drizzle blowing from the north, so she burrowed against Scott and wrapped an arm around him. “I don’t know. Some asshole.” They turned their backs to the blast of weather and walked to her car.
She looked up at Scott and it was heartbreaking. His eyes were vacant, his face expressionless and sagging, his walk slow.
“I want to go back to my place.” She said.
He nodded.
She burrowed deeper against him as they walked, shaking the image of Carter Willis’s disgusting face out of her mind, and then a sympathy for Sheriff Wolf pushed its way in.
Chapter 16
Bass notes pumped out of the brightly lit Tackle Box Marina Bar.
Wolf walked across the parking lot and a couple of young men stared at him from a darkened nook near the trees, clearly hiding something in their hands behind their backs.
Wolf sniffed the air. “Marijuana is legal now. As long as you’re not driving, I don’t care.” He continued past them and down a wooden plank entryway, which hovered a few feet above the shimmering water.
Boats bumped and creaked on small waves generated by the wind that replaced the rain and clouds. The air was crisp and cold next to the water.
The door wrenched open before Wolf could reach for it, and loud music and a couple dressed in weathered denim poured out. Walking arm in arm with unlit cigarettes dangling from their mouths, the couple stopped short. The man stepped to the side and held the door for Wolf.