by Jeff Carson
It smelled of stale cigar smoke, cleaning agents, and dog. MacLean’s manly office.
“I’m gonna have to take a piss pretty soon.”
Wolf ignored him.
MacLean’s wife came in holding a glass of water. She averted her eyes as Wolf took it.
“Your name’s Bonnie, right?”
Her eyes were frozen puddles.
“Don’t you dare talk to my wife.” MacLean jerked against the restraints.
Wolf sucked down the entire glass in one breath. “Thanks.”
The woman took it and headed for the doorway, but Luke stopped her and motioned her back to the chair.
The dog panted and thumped its tail.
“Okay, now that we’re all here,” MacLean said, “you wanna tell us what the hell is going on? You going to kill us, or what?”
Wolf looked at MacLean. “No. I’m not going to kill you.”
“Is that what you tell everyone before you kill them?”
Wolf frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.” MacLean swallowed and looked at his wife.
His wife began to cry.
Luke shook her head. “They keep acting like this.”
“Like what?” MacLean glared at Wolf. “Like Wolf’s killing a bunch of people and running a drug racket in Rocky Points?”
Luke held up her hands.
Wolf pulled the Beretta from his waist, cocked the hammer back, and put it on MacLean’s forehead.
MacLean clenched his eyes.
Wolf remembered the streak of blood on Sarah’s pale hand as it hung dead out of the BMW door. He felt the drizzle against his face as if he were there again. In his peripheral vision he saw Sarah staring into nothing, her electric blue eyes unplugged.
“Wolf.” Luke put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Wolf aimed the Beretta at the ceiling, uncocked the hammer, and put it back in his waistline.
MacLean cracked an eyelid, then opened both eyes and then the twine creaked as he sagged.
“Please,” Bonnie MacLean said, “Please don’t hurt him.”
Wolf shook his head. “No promises, Mrs. MacLean. I’ll need some answers from your husband before I decide on that. But first, and most importantly, he needs to stop saying that I killed my wife.”
The dog panted eighth notes to the rhythm of the wall clock.
Wolf held MacLean’s gaze. “You’re behind faking those pictures with Gail Olson which made my deputy look like he was, or is, part of a drug racket.”
MacLean smiled. “What?”
“You wanted my whole department to look like one big drug racket. Then you gave the pictures to agents Smith and Tedescu. That’s right. I know all about the two agents. You did all that so you could make us look bad and you could win the election.”
MacLean shook his head. “Bullshit.”
“Did you know you were married to that kind of guy, Bonnie?” Wolf asked.
MacLean leaned his head back.
“Did you really do that, Will?” Bonnie MacLean asked. “You … framed this man’s department?”
“What? Honey, no. I didn’t.”
She narrowed her eyes, studying MacLean’s face.
The dog stopped wagging its tail and stared at him.
“I swear!” MacLean popped his eyes. “This is insane. This guy is a dangerous criminal, honey. Just stay quiet. Let me deal with him, all right?”
“Stay quiet, my ass. Did you use pictures to blackmail this man into dropping out of the race? Is that why he dropped out of the race? Is that how we won?”
MacLean ignored his wife and nodded at Luke. “Agent Luke, you—”
“Answer the question, Will.”
“Well, yes and no. Honey, you have no idea who this guy is. He’s an honest to God drug lord, corrupt to the bone. I had proof that he was, so I used it.”
Wolf took a step toward him. “Proof? Fake proof that you created.”
“No. Proof brought to me by the FBI. I didn’t take those pictures, she did,” he looked at Luke, “the FBI did. How is it Wolf has you duped like this? It’s all him and his deputies. Not me. Wait a minute. You’re in on it, too. That’s what’s going on.”
“I’m in on this? Listen, old man, you—”
“Stop. Shut up, both of you.” Wolf rubbed his temples. “The video interview with Gail Olson proved you were behind the photos with Gail and Rachette. And when I showed you that proof, you figured out that Baine and I had copies of that interview. You stole them both. You stole my copy from my house, and Baine’s from his desk. And now it’s no coincidence that the FBI has never seen that interview. It’s no coincidence that they think you’re someone you’re not.”
“What interview?” Bonnie MacLean asked.
MacLean rolled his eyes. “First of all, I didn’t steal that video from you or Baine’s desk. I have no clue what you’re talking about. And second, that video proves you and your deputy were behind—”
“Oh for Christ’s sake.” Luke launched up from her chair and pointed her pistol at MacLean. “Do you have this video?”
MacLean nodded.
“Then let’s watch it, before I shoot every person in this room and then myself.”
The dog barked and resumed tail thumping.
“Fine by me. Over there in the wall safe behind the desk.”
Chapter 32
The video player on MacLean’s desktop computer showed a split screen—one side showed Deputy Baine sitting at an interrogation table, the other side showed Gail Olson sitting opposite of him. Tiny numbers in the corner of each image ticked off in unison.
Wolf had seen the video before, but the last time had been just after his fall, which hardly counted for a conscious state.
He remembered Gail Olson being stronger, he thought. Now on the screen he noticed makeup streamed from her eyes and her hands shook as she waited for Baine to speak. It was as if Wolf were watching it for the first time all over again.
“Miss Olson, can you please state your name for the record.” Baine’s voice sounded like he spoke into an aluminum can.
She cleared her throat and sniffed. “Gail Olson.”
“And Miss Olson, can you please tell me what these are?” Baine pushed some pictures in front of her.
She lowered her eyes but was otherwise unmoved. “Pictures of me and Deputy Tom Rachette of the Sluice County Sheriff’s Department.”
“And what are you doing in this photo here?”
Gail leaned forward and then sat straight. “I’m handing him a backpack.”
“What’s in the backpack?”
“A few pieces of clothing, and … two pounds of marijuana.”
“Two pounds of marijuana?”
“Yes.”
“Can you please speak up so the recorder can hear you?” Baine tapped the microphone on the desk and the computer speakers thumped.
“Yes.” Gail sniffed and glared at Baine.
Baine leaned close to the picture. “Did Deputy Tom Rachette of the Sluice County Sheriff’s Department know about what was in this bag when you handed it to him?”
“No.”
“What’s that?”
“No.”
“Aha.” Baine stood up, scraping the chair back.
Gail Olson leaned back.
“Why did you do this? Were you using Deputy Rachette as a runner for these drugs without his knowledge?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. That was good volume on that answer. I appreciate it.” Baine paced behind his chair, a shot of his torso only. “And you knew this man, Tom Rachette, before you handed him this bag of drugs, correct?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Did you know he was a Deputy of the Sluice County Sheriff’s Department?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Then again, I have to ask, Miss Olson. Why? Why would you so brazenly test your luck and target a Sluice County Deputy Sheriff? What could you possibly gain in using this man to run drugs for you? Why not
choose some other random shmoe?”
She swallowed.
Baine sprung forward and slapped the table, and his angry face filled his side of the split screen. “I asked you a question.”
Gail Olson closed her eyes. “I w-was put up to it. They—”
“Put up to it? What does that mean?”
“I was told to,” she looked up at Baine, “get to know Deputy Tom Rachette, and then ask to meet him at this exact spot. At this exact time.”
“This exact spot in the photos, at the time of the photos,” Baine said.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“By who? Who told you to do this?”
Gail Olson’s eyes welled up.
Baine sat down and folded his arms. “Let me be more specific. Did Sheriff Will MacLean of the Byron County Sheriff’s Department put you up to this?”
“Pssh, this is BS,” MacLean said from his chair.
“Be quiet.” Luke pointed her pistol at him.
“…was. Yes,” Gail Olson said on the screen.
“What did she just say?” Luke asked.
“She said yes,” Wolf said.
“Why did you do this for him?” Baine asked.
“Because he …” again she looked up at Baine, this time narrowing her eyes.
“Come on, honey. Spit it out.”
“…he paid me.”
“How much? One thousand? Two thousand?”
“Yes.”
“Which?”
“Two thousand.”
Baine placed his hands flat on the desk. “And what else? That’s pretty risky for just a couple thousand dollars. There has to be more.”
She kept silent.
“That’s it?”
She held up her hands. “And he … expunged my record.” She acted like she was pulling the words out of thin air.
Baine frowned. “Really? He did that, too?”
“Yes.”
Baine stood up again and paced behind his chair. “Intriguing. He must have had some inside help for that. Do you know anything about how he did that?”
“What? How would I know that? He said he would expunge my record, and paid me two-thousand for the photo shoot, and I did it. End of story.”
Picking up a remote control off the table, Baine pushed a button and the video went blank.
Wolf leaned back on the leather couch.
Bonnie was giving her tied up husband the evil eye.
“Not exactly the most professional interview I’ve ever seen,” Luke said.
“I asked Baine to get the facts,” Wolf said. “I wasn’t looking to bust MacLean, I just wanted ammo to fight back against his blackmail attempt. I wanted Rachette and my deputies in the new sheriff’s department, and that’s what I used this video for. I knew Rachette wasn’t running drugs and MacLean was behind the whole thing somehow. I just needed the proof for the careers of my deputies. Forget actual charges against this rat.”
MacLean shook his head.
“But, like I said, he ended up nabbing all other copies of this interview.”
“And you had a copy, too?” Luke asked.
Wolf nodded.
“Where?”
“In my desk, in my office at home.”
Luke raised an eyebrow. “The FBI would have found it. We didn’t.”
Wolf nodded. “Like I said, this guy had already nabbed it.”
“And how would I have gotten that?” MacLean asked. “By breaking into your house while you were sitting there right in the middle of the living room in that hospital bed of yours?”
Wolf shrugged. “You knew how bad I was after that fall. You could have walked in in the middle of the night—that night after our meeting—and searched the whole place without me knowing.”
MacLean dropped his head. “Okay, let me know when it’s my turn.”
Luke looked at Wolf and shrugged.
Wolf stood up and went to the window. “Fine. Explain away.”
“I hope you can explain,” Bonnie said, “or you’ll be looking for a new wife by the end of the day.”
MacLean ignored her and glared at Luke. “Like I said, you guys brought me those photos.”
Luke said nothing.
“Special Agent Smith came into my office one day and told us he’d been working undercover up in Rocky Points. He started talking about the county merger and you and me running against each other. He gave me those photos and said that I was free to do whatever I wanted with them. Naturally I asked him what he meant, and exactly what I was looking at.
“He said it was what it looked like, that a Sluice County Deputy was running drugs with the girl who had been the biggest drug bust we’d had in Ashland in ten years. He told me they were watching your department closely and had reason to believe you were at the helm of it all.”
Wolf said nothing.
MacLean shifted. “Can you loosen these ropes? I can’t feel my left arm.”
Nobody moved.
MacLean cleared his throat. “So, yes. I brought those photos to you.”
“Blackmailed me.”
“Look at it from my point of view. You’re a drug dealer, running millions of dollars worth of drugs as far as I know through your sheriff’s department. You’re the scum of the earth. Hell yeah I took those photos and ran with them. I warned you to step off or I’d expose you for what you really were.”
Wolf narrowed his eyes. “But you took the pictures.”
“I did not take the pictures. I just told you, Agent Smith brought me those photos. How else do you want me to say it, in Spanish?”
“But I told you to stop running the illegal investigation in my county and you admitted you had a guy undercover who took the photos.”
“I was lying about that … but I never said I took the photos. I never said he did, either. I was careful with my words.”
“Slimy bastard,” Wolf said.
“You slimy bastard. You’re the one running drugs through your sheriff’s department. I was thinking on the fly. I couldn’t say the FBI gave them to me, that wasn’t part of the deal.”
Wolf wished MacLean was untied so he could see his body language.
“Then when I gave you those photos of Rachette and Gail Olson, you stonewalled me,” MacLean said. “You were cool as ice, and the evidence was right there, staring you in the face. Hell, I got the photos from the FBI, and you were just pretending that I was a rat trying to screw you over. Just like you are doing now.
“I have to admit I knew you as too good a man to believe the photos, but when I saw how cool you were about the whole thing, how unfazed, I kind of got the creeps.
“And then, bam. Agent Smith and your ex-wife are dead, found shot up in a car. I put out the feelers and heard they were dating one another. So I thought, holy crap, who is this guy Wolf? And you still hadn’t dropped out of the race for sheriff.
“Then the FBI came to talk to me, right after your ex-wife and Agent Smith were found, but it was confusing as all hell. It’s like I was talking to a completely different FBI. They had the same pictures, with Rachette and Gail Olson in them, and they started asking if I’d ever met the girl. I said no, which was the truth. But I knew they were talking with Rachette about those pictures, hell he was in them, so I had to fess up that I’d used them. Used them with your encouragement, that is.”
He pointed his chin at Luke.
Luke cleared her throat. “I think the important thing to realize here is that Agent Smith was a scumbag, and that you were, in actuality, talking to two different FBIs—one represented by a corrupt agent who dangled a carrot in front of your greedy face, and then afterwards one real FBI comprised of Special Agents who abide by the law. That is, if you’re even telling the truth about all this.”
MacLean darted his eyes around the room.
“Continue,” Wolf said.
MacLean closed his eyes. “Like I said, The FBI confused me. I had no clue what to think. They were looking at me like you’re looking at me, like I was b
lackmailing you to get out of the race. But like I said, it was the FBI’s idea in the first place, and I told them that. ASAC Frye told me they hadn’t signed off on that, and that they didn’t sign off on that type of thing. I said no shit?”
MacLean shook his head. “Then I just kept wondering what Agent Smith was playing at by misleading me, and then he shows up dead?”
Wolf watched two crows hopping outside. “Keep going.”
“When you finally dropped out of the race. That day when we met at your house, you presented me with that Gail Olson interview tape and your demands to hire your deputies, and then said congratulations, you’re now the sheriff. I’m dropping out.
“After that, I was wondering what the hell I’d just walked into. I was wondering if I was now the dummy man up front while you ran this drug ring with your list of corrupt deputies on the inside. I was wondering if you were somehow working with Agent Smith, and you’d offed him. Then I started wondering if you and he were setting me up from the beginning—dangling these photos in front of me.”
MacLean was telling the truth. At least a version of it he truly believed.
“And let’s talk about that video,” MacLean said. “If you look at that video from my point of view, it looks like your deputy is strong-arming her into saying whatever the hell he wants her to. She’s crying at the beginning of the interview for Christ’s sake. Who knows what they were discussing before the cameras started rolling. Probably something like, say that MacLean was behind this whole thing or else.”
Wolf walked behind MacLean’s desk. There was no chair, and Wolf realized that’s what MacLean was sitting on. Pulling open the center drawer, he found a pair of scissors and walked to MacLean’s rear.
“I showed Baine the photos of Rachette and Gail Olson, and I told him my suspicions that you were behind the pictures.” Wolf cut the twine. “I told him to confirm my suspicions. Baine followed orders my orders to a T. I hadn’t seen that interview in some time, and when I did see it the first time my brain was spending more effort blocking out pain than noticing Gail’s behavior.”
The loose twine fell from MacLean and he massaged his wrists. “Okay. What does that mean?”