by Jeff Carson
The tears welled up again. This time Wolf let them pool and stream down his cheeks.
Jack collapsed onto Wolf and started crying on his shoulder.
The cast twisted under the weight of his son and pressed into the tender bone of his femur. With clenched eyes and teeth, Wolf hugged Jack as hard as he could, feeling none of the pain.
Chapter 51
Two Months Later…
“About time you showed up.” MacLean stood up, a shadow among the gleaming glass and wood of his office.
Wolf shuffled his crutches and shook his hand. “Good to see you, Will. Nice view.”
The floor to ceiling windows framed the western skyline, from the low hills of Cave Creek to the north, to Rocky Points Ski Resort to the south, and all the blazing white peaks in between.
“Yeah, isn’t this a beauty office? Sit, sit. Cold as crap out there, huh?”
Wolf lowered himself gently into the chair, and shifted until the pain dissipated enough to sag his entire weight down.
“Geez, you okay?”
Wolf nodded. “I’ll live.”
“I sure hope so, we need you here in the department.” MacLean opened a folder and pushed a stapled stack of papers forward.
Wolf eyed the Sluice-Byron County official seal on the top of the page. “Cutting right to the chase, huh?”
MacLean bridged his fingers. “It’s what I do.”
“You haven’t come to visit me,” Wolf said. “Not once.”
“I couldn’t. Been busy. You’re one to talk.”
Wolf nodded. “I wanted to wait until I could come in under my own power, without the help of wheels.”
“Ah. Yes. I’m glad to see you’re up and around.”
A metallic crash came from somewhere outside the office, like someone had dropped a metal bowl or platter.
MacLean stood up and looked through the glass wall behind Wolf. “I take it you’ve heard about the Christmas party we’re having at lunch today? Not gonna be much. Just some food everyone brought in. Hope you’ll be joining us.”
Wolf cleared his throat. “I haven’t had a chance to say thanks for saving my life.”
“You want coffee?” MacLean walked to his door. “I’m going to get coffee.”
Wolf stared at him for a moment. “Yeah, sure. Black.”
MacLean left and walked past the windows, and a few moments later Patterson poked her head in.
“Hey, welcome back,” she said with a smile.
Wolf nodded.
“Come say hi when you’re done. We’re in the squad room.” She left.
Wolf shifted onto his left butt cheek, cringing at the dull ache in his other leg.
“Here you go,” MacLean entered and handed him a steaming Styrofoam cup.
Wolf nodded. “Thanks.”
“So?” MacLean sat with a sigh. “What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Shit, you haven’t even looked at the contract?” MacLean picked up the packet of paper off the desk.
“No, sorry.”
MacLean smiled and sipped his coffee. “You’re such a bastard. I put a lot of time and thought into this offer. And you don’t even look at it?”
Wolf sipped his cup.
MacLean walked to his windows and gazed out. “I have a dinner scheduled with Senator Chama this evening in Ashland, a Gala I have to attend this Saturday night, a council meeting on Monday discussing the budget allocations of the upcoming year, and, oh yeah, I’m going skiing with Margaret Hitchens and a colleague of hers who’s some sort of big-wig in a real estate development firm. Guy’s no idiot, knows I’m a voting member of the council when it comes to most county projects so he wants to meet me and make sure he takes me to the Antler Lodge for lunch.”
Wolf watched a pair of deputies walk by the office windows.
MacLean slapped down the packet of papers. “And as I can see by the way your eyes glaze over when I talk about that kind of stuff, that ruling you out for my undersheriff position was the right move. Naturally my undersheriff will be expected to attend many of these social events with me. I’d rather have that man be all there, if you will. Check me if I’m on the wrong track, here.”
Wolf shrugged. “Sound logic to me so far.”
“I also have some nut job walking around town flashing his private parts to women, and I’ve got a string of car robberies in the parking lots at Rocky Points Ski Resort. It seems my deputies can’t find their own buttholes on this, and I’m going to get reamed for it all at the council meeting on Monday if I don’t make some progress.
“So for the love of all things good and cuddly, sign the damn papers and take your ten percent raise and head up my detective bureau already.”
Wolf took the packet of papers and studied them.
“I’ve offered Undersheriff to Wilson. He’s refusing to make a decision until he knows if you want it or not.”
“I think we’re clear on that.”
“I’ll let him know today. You think he’s a good choice?”
“I do. Wilson is a fine man.”
MacLean put both hands on the desk. “So? You’re killing me with suspense here. Head Detective? You’re basically second in command laterally with Wilson, but don’t tell him I said that. Or the County Council.”
“This says I start tomorrow.” Wolf poked at a page.
MacLean shrugged. “It’ll give you something to do while you heal to come in here a few days a week.”
Wolf tossed the packet back onto MacLean’s desk. “Twenty percent.”
MacLean leaned his head back and laughed. “You kiddin’ me? This is a ten percent raise from your previous salary as sheriff. As sheriff.” He pushed the packet forward. “Come on, let’s go, Wolf. I can’t bring that demand to the County Council. I’m already feeling more heat from them than a blow-torch. Sign the papers.”
Wolf scooted forward and teetered up onto his good leg. “I happen to know the new budget figures you’re working with, Will. You won’t get heat for securing a high-value employee by giving him an offer he can’t refuse. Not with that budget. I’ll see you later.” Gathering his crutches, he hobbled to the door.
“Come on,” MacLean stood and shook his head. “Well, I guess that’s the way it is. I really can’t be paying my head detective that much. I’ll just have to start looking elsewhere. I have an eye on a good man from my old department.”
Wolf paused and looked over his shoulder. “Just a heads up about Chama before your dinner tonight. He came to me with a USB drive before the election. I never saw what was on the drive, but he all but told me it was a video of you caught in some sort of risky business, if you know what I mean.”
MacLean’s face went whiter than the peaks behind him.
Wolf planted the crutches. “Oh, and they’re related.”
MacLean blinked rapidly. “What?”
“Your flasher and the car thefts.”
“What? How?”
“Only the flasher’s not really showing his genitalia to women, is he?”
MacLean tilted his head. “How did you know that? Oh, right. One of your loyal minions out in the squad room.”
“No. It wasn’t. There was a guy in our middle school, named Matthew David. He used to walk down the hallway with his ... genitalia in between his legs, chasing girls, shouting at them. He did that, I don’t know, fifteen, twenty times a year for two years in sixth and seventh grade. Everyone called him Tuck.”
MacLean laughed. “You’re kidding me right now.”
Wolf shook his head. “He was developmentally challenged. Whatever was wrong with him, he couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t stop. They eventually kicked him out of school, and he was home-schooled by his mother for his high school years. Ever since, his mother seemed to keep his urges reigned in, or at least, kept them in the privacy of their home.”
“So it’s him.”
“And he had another quirk. He used to break into lockers, and teacher’s desks, and offic
es, and steal things.”
MacLean set down his coffee, spilling some on the top of the desk.
“Not just anything, though. Only eyeglasses. Reading glasses. Sunglasses. Yesterday’s paper said the Sheriff’s Department was not divulging what was stolen out of the cars, but I take it by the look on your face that it was eyeglasses and sunglasses. Busted out windows, cars rummaged through, all for that one specific item in each and every instance.”
“My God. You’re right. So what? This guy’s having some sort of relapse?”
“His mother died nine days ago. That was also in the papers. Obituary section. There’s been no mention of the flasher yet, so I hadn’t had the opportunity to make the connection until just now.
“His older brother still lives in town, but clearly he isn’t too excited about the role of caretaker he’s inherited. His name’s Bill David. Lives on Central and 4th.
“And you’d better be quick about whatever you’re going to do, and delicate about it, because two of the eleven council members know the whole story of Matthew David as well as I do. And they weren’t ones likely to call him Tuck growing up.
“In fact, one of them felt the school had been cruel to kick him out, and he used to visit Matthew all the time at home. Good thing the paper hadn’t picked up on the flasher yet. Otherwise half the town would have had the whole thing solved before you.”
MacLean made a fist. “Not one deputy knew about this guy.”
Wolf shrugged. “They’re all too young, or transplants from elsewhere.”
“Which council member was it that used to visit him?”
Wolf smiled and walked out. “Twenty percent.”
“Okay, okay, okay.” MacLean strode next to him. “Twenty percent it is. Christ, you’re killing me.” He laughed and flourished the contract. “Here.”
MacLean flipped to the page that dealt with salary, crossed out the number with his platinum pen, added ten percent, and then handed it to Wolf.
Wolf studied it for a few seconds, and then shook MacLean’s hand. “Thanks, Sheriff. It’s going to be a pleasure working with you.”
Wolf pressed the contract against the wall and signed it, and then found another line and crossed it out and wrote in something else.
“What’s this?”
Wolf left, crutches creaking in rhythm, down the polished hallway.
“Wait a minute. This says you’re starting a month from now. Over a month.”
Wolf smiled.
“And which freakin’ council member?”
He slowed to a stop. “Trust me, you’ll look better if you don’t know. Just be nice to Matthew David.”
MacLean lifted a finger. “You said he earlier. It’s a man.”
Wolf left.
“What are you going to do for another month?”
“Heal.”
MacLean made a disgusted noise and his shoes clicked away behind him. “You’re killing me.”
Chapter 52
“There he is,” Patterson said as Wolf entered the squad room.
Wolf stopped outside the circle of deputies that included Patterson, Rachette, Wilson, and Munford.
“Hey.” Rachette lifted a cup of coffee and took a large bite of donut, leaving a chunk of blue icing on his lip.
Wolf noted Rachette stood shoulder to shoulder to Munford, and she seemed to welcome the closer than normal proximity, despite the food dangling from Rachette’s face.
Wolf gave a round of handshakes.
“Congratulations on Undersheriff,” he said to Wilson.
Wilson’s mouth fell open. “Really?”
“I told MacLean he made a good choice and you’re the perfect man for the job.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re the sir, now.”
“Wait a minute,” Patterson said. “What are you going to do?”
“I still can’t handle being on my feet for very long. Jack and I are heading down to Arizona with his grandparents for the holidays. I think I’ll sit by the pool. Work on my tan.”
Patterson blinked. “No. I mean about working here. At the department.”
“I’ll be heading up the detective bureau when I return.”
Patterson sagged with relief.
“You have your detectives picked yet?” Rachette failed to hide the eagerness in his voice.
Wolf nodded. “I’ve had the job for about forty seconds. But, yeah. I have a couple of them picked out already.”
“I hope one of them is me,” Rachette said.
“And me,” Patterson said.
“And me.” Munford stood straight.
Wolf nodded and eyed them in turn. “I’ll see you guys in a month. We’ll talk then.”
Patterson smiled wide with sparkling eyes. “I’m so … so …”
“Oh, no,” Rachette said. “Here we go. Easy, fruitcake.”
“Hey, Thomas.” Munford slapped Rachette in the shoulder. “Watch it.”
Rachette looked at Munford. “Yeah. Okay, you’re right. Sorry.”
“And wipe the frosting off your lip,” Munford said, “you look like you just blew a Smurf.”
Rachette and Munford exploded in laughter as he wiped his mouth with a napkin.
Everyone else waited in silence as Rachette and Munford finished their laughing fit.
“Well, I have to go,” Munford said with a red face. “I’ll see you when you get back, sir. I look forward to working with you.”
A snap echoed off the walls as Rachette backhanded her behind.
“Ah, geez!” Munford’s face went red and she giggled uncontrollably as she walked out of the room.
Rachette smiled wide and bounced his eyebrows.
Patterson rubbed her eyes. “Uh. You know when two dogs start sniffing each other’s butts and everyone kind of just stops and watches it happen?”
“Whatever. You’re just jealous.”
She stood with closed eyes, clearly practicing breathing techniques to calm herself.
“How’s Burton doing?” Wilson asked.
“He’s fine,” Wolf said. “Wound’s healing nicely. He raves about how he’s lost forty pounds in two months.”
“So that’s the secret?” Wilson asked, patting his ample belly. “Just get shot?”
They laughed, and underneath the vaulted ceilings of the brand new squad room, with floor to ceiling windows that framed snow covered mountains carpeted with pine forests, Wolf felt a calm that had eluded him for over five months.
And, he realized as he looked at his watch, it had nothing to do with the contract he’d just signed. It had nothing to do with the certainty of his future as a cop being re-chiseled in stone.
“I’ll see you guys in a month.”
Chapter 53
Wolf and Jack stood in silence underneath the cloudless December sky. The air stung Wolf’s nostrils with each inhale, and froze their exhales into plumes of smoke.
Here lies Sarah S. Muller. A Beloved Mother, Daughter, and Wife.
Ex-wife, Wolf thought, but knew the headstone needed no editing. The text had been deliberately written that way months ago, chosen by Sarah’s parents, and it didn’t bother him in the least.
“You know, I told Grandma and Grandpa to write the headstone that way,” Jack said, apparently reading Wolf’s thoughts.
Wolf adjusted his numbed his right hand that was perched on Jack’s bony shoulder. “I like it.”
Jack sniffed and exhaled through wet lips. “Do you?”
“Yeah. I do. That’s how I remember mom.”
A tear dripped off Wolf’s chin, adding to the frozen glaze of tears already on his jacket. It was the truth. He’d never once been comfortable referring to Sarah as his ex-wife before, knowing in his heart that one of these days they were going to pick up where they’d left off all those years ago.
The truth was that he and Sarah had never been separated, but at the same time never given life together a chance. After they had said their vows, Wolf had joined the army
and left her high and dry. When he returned, she was a changed woman, and they had struggled and ultimately given up on their relationship.
He had to reach back all the way to high school and college years to find a snippet of memory when they were a normal and happy couple.
After that they had split into two entities, destined to drift in the same system but on different, crossing, orbits—only passing close to one another in fleeting moments that took way too long between.
And what were they orbiting? This boy, this young man, at Wolf’s side.
“What are you thinking about?” Jack asked.
Wolf looked at him and wiped a cheek. “You.”
“What are we going to do?” Jack asked.
Wolf was taken aback by the question, but managed to keep a strong face. “We’re going to carry on, but we’re never going to forget the great person your mother was. She’ll always be with us. She’ll be there to talk to when we want, or when we need. She’ll always be in our hearts.
“And you’re going to come live with me if you want, or you’re going to live with your grandparents if you want. And whether you want it or not I’m always going to be there for you.”
Jack looked down and fresh tears spattered onto his jacket. With a nod he sniffed and then laughed.
“What?”
“I feel sorry for mom.”
“Why?”
“She’s gotta sit here with your dad and John. They’re going to annoy the crap out of her.”
Wolf laughed and blew a bubble out of his nose, and then they laughed even harder.
Ten minutes later Wolf hobbled down the ice-laden pathway with the aid of his son into the parking lot.
Jack stopped next to the driver’s side door. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Wolf tossed the crutches next to the bags in the truck bed. “My leg hurts too much when I do it.”
“But it’s like a twelve hour drive to Arizona, isn’t it?”
“If you keep your foot on the gas.” Wolf climbed into the passenger seat.
Jack shuffled in behind the wheel and with wide eyes remembered to put on his seatbelt. “Am I allowed to do this with a learner’s permit?” He adjusted the rearview mirror. “And between states?”