Drifted

by Jeff Carson

  “Why?”

  “Probably something to do with the heart attack yesterday.”

  Rachette nodded. “Good. He needs to rest. He shouldn’t even be here today.”

  She eyed him. There was no hint of irony in his voice. He was speaking sincerely.

  Both he and Yates seemed oblivious to the truth, but she could spot a panic attack clear as day, having watched two occur in the mirror. Just recalling of those moments in her life sent a ripple of fear up her spine.

  “So what’s gonna happen next week?” he asked.

  “Next week? What?”

  “The party.”

  “Oh, shit. Yeah. I don’t know.”

  Rachette scoffed. “Really? I’d say a surprise birthday party for a man who just had a heart attack is definitely a bad idea. Let me save you some deliberation there. Cancel it.”

  Rachette was right, though she hated to say it. So she said nothing.

  She hoped MacLean had slapped some sense into Wolf just now, and he was going home. He needed to rest. He needed to speak to a professional. What was that look on his face she’d just seen?

  “Patty!”

  “What?”

  “Wake up. We going or what?” Rachette was walking down the hall with Yates in tow.

  “You okay?” Wilson stood next to her and put a beefy hand on her shoulder.

  She looked up. Wilson was a bear of a man, standing well over six feet and weighing somewhere north of two-fifty, but his expression was as soft as his belly.

  “Yeah.”

  “He’ll be okay.”

  An insincere smile cracked her lips. “Yeah.”

  Patterson bounced in the passenger seat as Rachette pulled through the chain-link gate entrance to Preston Rock and Supply.

  It had been a couple of months since they’d put the company probe on the back-burner, and her first impression was that the place had gone downhill. Unattended equipment sat parked in the middle of the internal roads. The building looked run over by weeds, but it was now June and perhaps that’s how the place looked when things were just starting to pop.

  “Place looks jankier than before, right?” Rachette asked.

  He parked, and they got out into warm air heated by the sun lancing through a break in sporadic low clouds overhead. Down south, the sky was darkening near Williams Pass, and Patterson remembered hearing there was a good chance of afternoon thunderstorms over the next few days.

  Patterson eyed the office they’d parked next to. It had been Chris Alamy’s the last time were there. The windows were dark, no movement inside.

  “His truck’s not here,” Rachette said.

  “We’re looking for red flagstone, not Alamy.”

  “Right.”

  Wilson’s SUV rocked to a stop behind them, and Yates and Wilson climbed out.

  Wilson raised his sunglasses to his SBCSD ball cap, eyeing the interior of the rock yard.

  Betsy Collworth stepped out of the front door. “Is it true?”

  The question was directed at Patterson. She hesitated.

  “Is it true that you found him up on Huerfano Pass? It’s been all over the news since yesterday.” She shot looks at all four of them. “Speak.”

  “Yes. We did find him. I’m afraid the news is correct.”

  Betsy’s face became somber. A tear slid from one eye.

  Rachette stood nearest the woman. He looked over both shoulders and backed away.

  Patterson walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

  The breeze picked up, bringing with it the sound of the Chautauqua howling through the bottom of the valley a short distance away. The scent of fresh water mingled with the smell of upturned earth and Betsy’s perfume.

  They stood in mute respect, waiting for Betsy to process the news.

  Finally, the woman looked up with wet eyes. “I have to tell you guys, I think it was Chris.”

  Patterson straightened. “Why do you say that, Betsy?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve just always suspected that something bad happened, you know? He wouldn’t run away. He wouldn’t ditch out on his business like that. He wouldn’t leave me …” She began crying again.

  Patterson rubbed her soft shoulder. “Is there something that Chris has said or done that makes you think he had something to do with this?”

  “He was never going on vacation.” Her voice was a whisper. “He would have told me.”

  Patterson lowered her hand and pulled the sheet of paper from her back pocket. “Ma’am, we have a warrant to search this property for a certain type of rock.”

  “Okay.” She blinked, and her curiosity looked to win over the grief. “What type of rock?”

  “A red flagstone. Do you have it?”

  “Yes.”

  Rachette cleared his throat, adding a meaningful grunt.

  “Why?” Betsy asked.

  “Can you please show us where that is?”

  Betsy wiped her eyes, slathering mascara across her cheeks, and turned. “Over there. Here, follow me.”

  They followed her around the building, past a dumpster, across an internal road, and down a line of concrete dividers that held piles of rock.

  They passed white gravel, remnants of maroon volcanic rock, then a rectangular space that held a haphazard stack of red stone slabs. Patterson was well-acquainted with the rock—the CU Boulder campus, her alma mater, was made of the stuff. Red flagstone.

  “Here we are.”

  Rachette bent over and picked up a slab the length of his forearm, wielding it like a club.

  It took all of Patterson’s willpower to refrain from yelling at him.

  Rachette dropped the rock and wiped his hands on his jeans faster than Betsy could notice.

  “Got your five-inch Bacon Strips,” Betsy said, gesturing to a row of stones. “Named for the white stripes. Got your five-inch Red Naturals. This is called the Hood Five-Inch Natural and this is the Hood-Bacon. Five inches as well.”

  Most of the stones were large and flat. Few could be picked up with one arm, but as Rachette had demonstrated, some made for perfect weapons.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” Betsy asked.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Again. Why?”

  Wilson cleared his throat. “Mrs. Collworth, I’m Undersheriff Wilson. Is this where the flagstone has always been stored?”

  Betsy blinked. “Yes. We’ve never moved it from here.”

  Patterson eyed the ground, knowing there was fat chance of finding any blood residue in the soil after ninety days of Colorado mountain weather.

  Rachette was studying the ground like a hawk, which caused Betsy to look down, too.

  “What’s so special about storing it in this spot?” she asked.

  She was a perceptive one, but with Rachette around, it didn’t take much.

  “We’re just wondering if this is where the stones were kept at the time Mr. Preston went missing,” Patterson said. “The flagstone itself is a part of—”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The flagstone wasn’t kept here when Mr. Preston went missing. The flagstone was kept one bay over. Right here.” She gestured to the next concrete bay in line.

  They all shuffled to the next place, which was full of tan gravel.

  “I thought you just said you never moved it,” Patterson said.

  “No, we never moved it. We changed vendors from the Suskeet quarry in Lyons to the Hood quarry up in Brushing. This bay used to be the Suskeet quarry. This bay over here”—she pointed to the flagstone—“is the Hood quarry.”

  They eyed one another.

  Patterson scratched her forehead. “Okay, so at the time of Mr. Preston’s disappearance, the flagstone was here.”

  “Yes.”

  They eyed the ground again. “But then you changed storage areas because you changed vendors.”

  “That’s what I said.” Betsy shook her head. “Wish we wouldn’t ha
ve, but that was one of Chris’s first changes that took hold. Oh, I guess it was about a month after Warren …” She began sobbing again. “When Warren was killed. My God. He was killed and his body was dumped up there on that pass. Is that what happened? I’ve been thinking, how did he get from his house, where his vehicle was found, and brought all the way up there? He’d have to have been killed and taken up there.”

  Patterson hooked her thumbs in her belt and walked to the flagstone bay again. “Can you tell me more about this flagstone?”

  “Yes. Sorry.” Betsy wiped her eyes again. “Comes from up north outside of Brushing. It’s good stone, but the problem is that the quarry owner’s a jackass. Warren had never liked doing business with the Hood quarry. There’s a bit of history there. Anyway, when Chris came in, he had a different history with the quarry, so he went back to them. They’re cheaper, but about as unpredictable as the Colorado weather. That’s why Warren dropped them in the first place.”

  “There’s history there?” Patterson asked. “What do you mean by that?”

  “The quarry used to be owned by a man named Ben Hood. Guy was dishonest as the devil, and about as reliable too, so Mr. Preston stopped using him years ago. Then Ben died of a heart attack last year and his son, Zack, took over and has been trying to get in here ever since.” She shrugged. “Chris is from Brushing and used to be friends with Zack. So, hey, what do you know? We’re using the Hood quarry again.”

  Patterson froze, staring into the pile of stone. “Thank you for your time, ma’am. If you don’t mind, we’d like some time alone to take a look at these rocks.”

  Betsy nodded. “Yes. Of course. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “And Betsy.”

  “Yes?”

  “Where’s Chris now?”

  “He went home yesterday afternoon. Right after we saw on the news that they’d found Preston’s body.”

  “Thank you. We’ll let you know if we have any more questions.”

  They watched her leave.

  When she disappeared around the front of the office, Rachette scoffed. “You hear that shit? How much you wanna bet Zack Hood’s fingerprints match that partial on Preston’s car handle? And we have to look at the phone records closer now. Zack Hood. His name has to show up on Chris’s call records.”

  “They do,” Patterson said. “I remember. Hood Rock Quarry. It was among the thirty-five other numbers that looked work-related, but he spoke to them, as well as a personal cell phone owned by Zack Hood.”

  The wind picked up while a cloud slid in front of the sun, dropping the temperature.

  “Let’s get some samples of this stone,” she said, breaking the silence. “One of each of the four types.”

  Rachette picked up his club-rock and hit the edge of another slab, breaking off a chunk.

  “And then we need to get our asses to Alamy’s house,” Yates said. “I want to know what he’s up to.”

  Patterson couldn’t have agreed more.

  Chapter 16

  Wolf sat in his SUV, staring out the windshield at the Old Bank Building.

  The clock read 10:05, but he had no intention of moving any time soon. A ghost would be roaming the halls inside the hundred-and-fifty-year-old building, and it wasn’t one of the original bank tellers. Memories of one of the last times he’d visited Sarah here floated in his mind. It had been cold. Just after the discovery of Stephanie Lang’s body alongside County 15.

  Five minutes later, the memory of MacLean’s raised eyebrows made Wolf lift his hand and pull on the handle, letting in the pine-scented breeze. He twisted in the seat, and then he was outside, shutting the door.

  He made his way to the sidewalk, up onto the wooden landing, and walked inside.

  The reception room was just as he remembered, down to the last detail, save Sarah’s picture was now fifth-to-last in a line of headshots that hung on the wall, rather than last. His heart jumped at her beautiful smile.

  My God.

  “Hello. David?” A middle-aged woman with dark curly hair sat at the desk to his right.

  He opened his mouth, recognizing the face but coming up blank with a name.

  “I’m Cheryl. We haven’t met,” she said. “I just saw the badge, the gun, knew you were scheduled for ten o’clock.”

  He smiled. “Good detective work.”

  She laughed, revealing a dark window where she’d lost a tooth.

  The old floor squeaked under his feet as he stepped to her desk. There’d been a time when he’d known everyone in this building, including the night janitor. Now he avoided the place like the ski resort on Christmas day.

  “I’m here to see a Dr. Hawkwood.”

  “Hello, Detective Wolf.” A male voice came from the hallway beside him. He must have been stepping down the corridor at the exact same time Wolf had been walking because he hadn’t heard him. Or maybe he’d been standing on the other side of the wall the whole time. Either way, Wolf distrusted the sneakiness of the man’s arrival.

  Wolf took him in at a glance. Barely thirty years old, wearing a carefully ironed button-up cowboy shirt tucked into slim designer jeans. His shoes gleamed in the florescent lights, polished recently. A blond beard, groomed like something out of GQ magazine, framed a kind smile. His eyes were sky blue, his eyebrows as blond as the beard, giving him a perpetually surprised look.

  “I’m Dr. Cyrus Hawkwood,” he said in a gentle voice. He stepped forward with an outstretched hand. “Please. Call me Cy.”

  Wolf took it with more force than necessary, but Hawkwood matched every foot-pound without flinching.

  “Dave.” Wolf stepped back and hooked his thumbs in his pockets.

  “Please. Let’s head down to the main room at the end of the hall, and we can chat.”

  Great. He followed, eyeing the office on the right that had been Sarah’s on the way by. He swore he caught a faint whiff of her scent. The desk was the same, but there were two framed pictures of a blonde-haired girl of about five years old standing at one corner … in the same spot where a framed picture of Jack had once stood.

  He recalled Jack’s smile in that photo, his green eyes squinting in the sunlight, his hair a flop. Where had that picture gone when Sarah died? It was probably in her parents’ new house up in Avon.

  Hawkwood eyed him, clearly noting his interest in the office as they passed. “That’s my daughter.”

  Wolf read a bit of hurt in the man’s profile as he upturned his bearded chin and walked to the back room.

  The large space was just as Wolf remembered: Carpeted, multi-color painted shelves covered in worn books and pamphlets, two warped glass windows looking onto the underbrush of the forest outside, plastic seats arranged in a circle in the center of the room, drawings done by kids of all ages adorning the walls.

  A shaft of light streamed through the skylight in the center of the ceiling.

  There were also photographs on the wall, and he double-took one and felt a pulse of shock as he recognized himself standing with his arm around Sarah’s shoulder. He was wearing a cowboy hat, dirty jeans, and a soiled flannel. Smiling like someone had just cracked a joke he thought was ridiculously funny. Sarah wore a matching cowgirl outfit, minus the grime. Sunlight spilled through the holes in her hat, illuminating her wide smile. The day of the cattle branding. He remembered it like it was yesterday—the scent, the temperature, the aching in his muscles from wrestling animals to the ground for hours on end.

  She’d died that year.

  “Sir?”

  Wolf turned, saw the young doctor studying him.

  “Please. Take a seat.”

  Wolf sat at Hawkwood’s four o’clock, wanting neither to be next to him, nor staring straight across the circle.

  The skylight dimmed overhead.

  “Here.” Hawkwood pulled a business card from his pocket and held it toward Wolf. “Before we start with anything, I want you to know you can call me anytime.”

  Wolf pocketed it with a nod.
/>
  “I’ve spoken with Sheriff MacLean, and also to Dr. Bancroft in Vail.” He gestured at the picture of Wolf and Sarah. “I’m new in town, but I’ve familiarized myself with your history. At least, as much as I could. It’s quite extensive.”

  Wolf said nothing.

  “I know that what happened to you comes as a surprise, especially given your past. From what I’ve heard, you have an action-packed career. You’ve handled pressure in life-or-death situations better than most people handle burning their toast or dealing with a phone gone screwy. I know how difficult this must be for a person like you.”

  Wolf pulled down the corners of his mouth and nodded.

  Hawkwood picked up a folder from the chair next to him and opened it. “I have a full write-up here. It says you served six tours in the army as a Ranger. You excelled and were eventually promoted to lead your own squad. Upon your return, you were immediately hired by the Sluice County SD, where you worked your way up to sheriff.”

  Hawkwood paused, then lowered the folder and slapped it shut. “You obviously know your own history.”

  “I do. And now you do, too. Great. What are we doing here, Doc?”

  “We’re talking.”

  “For how long?”

  “This session is scheduled for an hour.”

  Wolf eyed the wall clock. “What brings you up to Rocky Points? I haven’t seen you around.”

  Hawkwood smiled. “A change of scenery. It’s pretty nice scenery up here.”

  “Where’s your wedding ring?”

  Hawkwood’s smile faded.

  “You’re not married anymore,” Wolf said. “The only daily contact you have with your daughter is that picture on your desk. What happened?”

  Hawkwood swallowed and his face reddened.

  A clock on the wall ticked.

  “You have your folder there with my history. You know about Sarah. You’re sitting at her old desk. Her pictures are still on the walls. You talked to MacLean, which means you probably know about Lauren and Ella and my botched wedding last fall. So I want to hear about Dr. Cyrus Hawkwood. What’s he doing moving from Denver to Rocky Points, Colorado?”

  Hawkwood looked at him. “Touché. I guess you’re a detective so of course you would have checked up on me first.”