by Jeff Carson
She flexed her foot, feeling a wicked bruise welling up beneath her laces from connecting her soccer kick to that guy’s face. As she watched another restaurant slide by she wished she could kick it again.
Forcing herself out of her dark mood she looked at Wolf. He was zoned out next to her, still pecking away at the screen of the cell phone. His face was white and shiny.
“Hey, how are you feeling?”
Wolf ignored her. “Listen to these text messages, from a phone number, not a name. Wolf escaped. That was yesterday morning. Then this one that came thirty-five minutes ago: He’s on the run with an FBI agent named Kristen Luke. They found them in Gunnison just now. Where are you?”
She raised her eyebrows. “That sounds like someone in Rocky Points relaying information to this guy.”
He put the phone to his ear.
“What are you doing?” She asked.
“Calling the number. Shh.”
The digital trill of a ringing phone suddenly filled the cab of the truck, blaring from every speaker.
“Hello?” A deep male voice answered.
Wolf grabbed her arm and put a finger to his lips.
She nodded.
“Hello?” the voice said again.
The phone call ended with a loud click.
She reached up and turned down the volume. “Who was that?”
Wolf shook his head. “I don’t know. Did it sound like anyone you know from the FBI?”
“No.” She checked the rearview mirror for the thousandth time. Still no cops. “What about—”
Once again the speakers erupted in sound. This time it was a call coming in.
Wolf raised the phone, pressed the button, and said nothing.
The speakers hissed. The person on the other end breathed into the receiver at a steady rate, but otherwise kept silent.
Wolf pressed the call end button and the speakers went silent again.
“We’re almost at Crested Butte. I’m going to say this one more time. I’m hungry, and I know that I’m currently braless in a scuffed up tee shirt, charcoal on my face, have a knotted bird’s nest for hair, and have not showered in days, but you my friend look like shit. You need to eat.”
Wolf twirled the phone in his hand, then rummaged around on the floor at his feet. He produced a pair of leather gloves and handed them to her.
“Thanks.” She dropped them in the center console.
Then he fished out a fast food bag and held it up in the light, then opened it and dove his face inside.
A rush of teeth clenching frustration passed through her. Jamming on the brakes, she pulled into a supermarket parking lot and parked. “Screw it. I’m going in to get food. Fried chicken? Great. Fried chicken.” She opened the door.
Wolf put his hand inside the greasy bag.
“Hey, are you deaf? I’m going to go get food.”
“Look at the blood on those gloves. The right hand.”
She climbed back in the seat and picked up the right glove with her index finger and thumb. There was blood spatter on the knuckles. She dropped it back in the cup holder. “Ugh.”
“Looks pretty fresh, right?”
“Yeah, sure. I don’t know.”
Wolf pulled a piece of paper from the fast food bag and held it out. “Look at the date, time, and location on this receipt.”
“Two days ago … Tuesday afternoon … Colorado Boulevard, Denver. 2:24 pm.”
Wolf held up the bag. “And this.”
There was a smudge of blood on the outside of the fast food bag. “Shit,” she said, putting the puzzle together.
“When did you say that family was killed?”
“We went to the scene Wednesday morning. It was dark still. 4:30 am.”
“He got this food bag Tuesday afternoon in Denver, then smudged it sometime between then and today.”
She flinched as the vision of the two dead children sandwiched between their dead parents flashed across her mind. She eyed the gloves again, suddenly wanting them out of this truck. She wanted to get out of the seat where the man had sat.
“It was that guy who murdered that family.” She leaned back and exhaled.
“I have to make some phone calls. Go get us some food.”
She watched as he dialed a phone number from memory and pressed it to his ear.
“I hope you’re not calling Patterson or Rachette, or anyone else that the bureau’s going to be monitoring. Remember, they had to have gotten to us through Margaret and her sister.”
Wolf ignored her, completely oblivious to her presence. His free hand clenched into a fist.
She swallowed, remembering the last time she’d seen him like this.
“Is Harold Burton there? Put him on … now!”
She got out and closed the door.
Chapter 21
Patterson sat inside the quiet cab of the SUV and watched Lancaster’s profile in the side view mirror.
The silence was absolute, but she still heard nothing.
What a strange man. No, it was beyond that. Undersheriff Lancaster was giving her the creeps.
He’d just received a phone call and said hello twice into the receiver. Apparently nobody answered him on the other side, because he hung up.
Now, after ignoring her questions about it, he simply stopped the car and got out, and put his phone to his ear.
Patterson watched.
Lancaster’s lips didn’t move. Not only that, it was like he never intended for them to move. He never intended to say anything with the person on the other end of the phone call he was making.
Lancaster pocketed his phone outside and opened the door.
She flipped the radio volume back up and brought her hand to her lap.
Lancaster eyed her as he got in.
“Who was that?”
No answer. Lancaster pushed the ignition button and shifted to drive.
“Because I watched your call, and it looked like you just dialed a number and stared into another dimension.”
Lancaster pulled out onto Main Street.
A few tourists with backpacks and ski poles stood outside the coffee shop and some clearly high on marijuana twenty-somethings played hacky sack in the grass field near Town Square. It was a typical day in tourist-season Rocky Points.
“Hey, pull over here. I want to talk to these kids.” Three teenaged boys wrestled at the next intersection.
Lancaster cleared his throat.
She flicked the lock and pushed open the door. “It wasn’t a request.”
Lancaster slowed to a stop, and she got out.
“Excuse me.”
The three teenaged boys stopped and faced her.
“Oh, yes, officer,” one of them said with a fading laugh.
“Do you three know Jack Wolf?”
They looked at one another.
“It’s a simple question. You know him?”
“Yeah,” the short one said. “We know him. He’s in the grade above us.”
“Why are you three out of school right now?”
The tallest of the three took a defensive posture. “We all have fourth period off, and then it’s lunch. So we’re on lunch.”
She held her hands up. “Okay, okay. I was just wondering if there was some sort of short day at school or something. So, what is it now? Like, fourth period?” She looked at her watch.
They relaxed. “Yeah, like middle of fourth. It ends at twelve, and then it’s lunch.”
She nodded. “Thanks boys. Have a good day. Stay out of trouble.”
“Bye,” they said in unison.
She walked back to the SUV, ignoring the catcall and whistle from one of them, and got inside.
Lancaster stared at her with half closed eyelids. “You mind filling me in?”
She strapped her seatbelt on. “I want to go to the school and find Jack Wolf.”
“And why’s that?”
“I’m sick of driving around here wasting our lives when Wolf is out there o
n the run. I don’t expect you to understand what I’m talking about, because you clearly don’t give a crap about me or anything going on in the lives of the people who live here.” She reigned herself in with a deep breath. “I want to go talk to Wolf’s son. He has a right to know what’s going on, and from me, not an FBI agent, or you, or anyone like you.”
Lancaster raised a corner of his mouth. “Anyone like me?”
She glared at him. “Yeah. People like you, who think he’s guilty until proven innocent, when you have no clue what a good man Wolf really is. His son needs to know that not everyone is like you and the people chasing after him. That the rest of us still believe he’s innocent and we’re getting to the bottom of everything. However slow that might be.” She pointed out the windshield. “Go up to 4th and take a right.”
To Patterson’s surprise Lancaster put the SUV in gear, let off the gas, and drove without protest.
Chapter 22
Pope laid his cheek on the cold concrete and pushed his eye up to the small crack of light at the bottom of the door.
The vehicle engine shut off outside and a car door squeaked open.
A civilian car. A cop car would have been better oiled than that.
“Pepper?”
There was no answer.
“Pepper?” he said again. He knocked on the inside of the door. The sound was like a kick to the head. Not nearly as painful as when he’d been actually kicked a half hour ago. Making that bitch pay was going to be one of the first orders of business.
“Who’s that?” A quiet voice came from the other side of the door.
“Who’s that?” he countered.
A pause. He pictured an idiotic look in Pepper’s bloodshot eyes.
“Pepper? Is that you? It’s Pope.” Doesn’t get clearer than that.
“It’s Pepper. Who’s that?”
Pope closed his eyes and took a deep, relaxing breath. “It is Pope. I’m stuck in the storage unit. Help me out of here.”
A shadow passed in front of the sliver of light and dread locks fell to the ground, and then one of Pepper’s eyeballs was inches from his.
“You’re stuck?”
“Yes. Do you have a crow bar in the vehicle? Any bolt cutters?”
“I think so.”
Pope suppressed his optimism. There was a good chance this moron had no clue what either of those objects were. “Check.”
The shadow disappeared. A minute later it returned and he heard a metallic clank on the door.
Pope stood up in the darkened storage unit. His balance was off, like he was on a ship at sea, so he leaned a hand on the door. Feeling the scrape of metal on metal on the door through his palm, he closed his eyes and hoped.
There was a clank, and suddenly the door was rolling up and light was flooding in.
The door rose all the way.
Pope shielded his eyes against the hammering sun and saw the silhouette of Pepper and his Medusa head of dread locks.
“Hey there, boss. You get yourself in a little trouble?” Pepper stepped inside. His thin, greasy facial hair framed a stupid smile.
“You’re an hour late, Pepper.”
“Sorry ‘bout that,” he said. “Got a late start, and then there’s some serious stuff going on out there. Cops galore. Had to wait until the action died down a little before I drove in here.”
Pope held out his hand.
Pepper reached out to clasp it in a handshake and Pope pulled it away.
“No, give me your cell phone.”
Pepper patted his pockets and pulled out his cell phone. Handing it over, he smiled again. “Lucky I had this truck, ‘cause the bolt cutter from the other day was still in it. What a coincidence, huh? What if I didn’t drive this truck? We’d be screwed right now.”
Pope nodded. “Or what if you had shown up on time?”
Pepper squirmed under Pope’s glare.
“Give me the bolt cutters.”
The stoner looked down at the snipping tool in his hand and swallowed. “Yeah. Sure.”
Pope reached out and took one of the long red handles.
Pepper held firm for an instant, and then let go.
Pope took the other handle and jabbed upward into the smelly, dreadlocked moron’s neck while he clamped the jaws shut.
A spurt of warm blood shot onto Pope’s arms and he jumped back.
The hippy gurgled and clamped both hands on his neck, trying to staunch the life pouring from his body.
Pope raised the cutters above his head and brought them down onto his nest of hair, and then again, until Pepper slumped all the way to the ground. One more blow for good measure, and the man who caused this whole storage unit mess was motionless and certainly would never move again. Not many people lived with brain showing through a hole in their skull.
Looking down at his arms, a surge of panic travelled through him. They were covered in red streaks. His palms were slick on the handles of the cutters, his left foot standing in the blood.
He peeked outside and saw no one, then ducked back in. The corrugated steel walls were covered with oozing blood spatter. His shirt was like a Jackson Pollack painting. So were his jeans. His face must have been a mess.
Quickly he took off his shirt, turned it inside out, and began wiping his face and arms.
He found a half-full bottle of water and dumped it on his skin and the tee shirt, and finished cleaning himself, but no matter how hard he scrubbed, his skin seemed stuck with a semi-permanent pink hue.
His fingerprints would be on the plastic box and the bolt cutters, so he put them both in the truck cab, rolled the storage unit door shut, and got in the truck.
Shirtless, with bloody jeans, red arms, an angry red face, and one red shoe, he drove away.
Outside the Trout Creek gate, he took a right and followed the hand-signals of a pig waving traffic around a cluster of other pigs that were focused on a silver truck.
With an affable grin he nodded at the gutless clones and sped out of town north.
Dialing a phone number from memory, he held the phone to his ear.
After a ring it went to voicemail.
He dialed again.
Again his call was screened.
“Come on.” He dialed again, and this time the deep voice answered.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, Pope. Listen to me very carefully.”
Chapter 23
For a small town in the middle of the mountains, Rocky Points Middle and High School was a quite a large building. Built of red bricks and brown painted steel, it was a sprawling one story, surrounded by flat fields and beyond that, forest.
Boys and girls kicked soccer balls in the field to the south, and they looked to be about Jack’s age.
A trip to the administrative offices would tell Patterson quickly enough where Jack was.
She and Lancaster walked up the long sidewalk toward the school.
Patterson took the lead, once again not caring whether or not Lancaster decided to join her. This was her gig.
Lancaster’s phone rang again, and again Lancaster screened it.
When it rang a third time she stopped and turned. “For Chrissakes are you going to get that?”
He pushed the button. “Hello?”
True to form he turned away from her and walked in the opposite direction.
Her curiosity piqued, she listened closely.
He slowed and looked at her, listening intently. “Yes, sir … We’re actually in the process of doing that right now,” he said.
A few seconds later he pocketed the phone.
“Who was that?”
“MacLean. Apparently he’s on the same page as you. He wants us to find Jack Wolf and for you to inform him of everything that’s going on.”
She tilted her head. “And you didn’t know MacLean’s phone number when he called the first two times?”
“He was calling from a number at the new building. I didn’t recognize it.”
Nod
ding, she turned around and walked into the school.
Inside was an entryway with a trophy case housing brass statues, pictures, and ribbons.
Perusing the plaques and pictures on the way by, she stopped at the sight of a familiar face beaming a smile in a line of fully uniformed football players.
It was a much younger Wolf with wavy black hair. Handsome as ever. Downright hot, really. He stood in shoulder pads with his helmet under his arm. The plaque said State Champions, Division 4A, 1993.
She continued down the hall to what looked to be administrative offices, and then walked inside.
“Hello officers,” the woman nearest them said from behind a wooden desk.
“Deputies, ma’am. With the Sluice Byron Sheriff’s Department. We are here to locate and speak with a student named Jack Wolf.”
“Okay.” She punched some keys on her keyboard and then did some navigating with her mouse.
Patterson turned to Lancaster. “So MacLean had the same idea as I did? To locate Jack and tell him about his father?”
Lancaster shrugged. “That’s what he said. He thought you were the best for the job. You know Jack well, right?”
Perhaps MacLean had a brain after all. It was tough getting a read on the man. He’d been treating any and all Sluice County deputies like spoiled fruit so far, never including them in anything. And now he was saying she was best for the job?
“Miss … uh … deputy, I found him. He’s in room 183. Earth Science class. We can call him over the speaker and have him come down, or you can go to him. Which one would you like?”
Patterson always liked moving better than waiting. “We’ll go to him. Thank you.”
The woman exhaled. “Excuse me, but what’s this about? Do we need to contact family?”
Patterson shook her head. “No. His father is with the department, too. Sheriff Wolf?”
“Oh, really? I thought he wasn’t Sheriff anymore.”
“He’s not. My point is, we’re just relaying some important news from his father.”
“Ah.” She nodded and winked. “All righty. Have a good day. I can get someone to show you the way. Maybe pull him out of class for you, so it’s not a couple of cops doing it?”