Brouwer sank into the worn seat of her Jeep. Across the Jackal’s compound, a track hoe worked in a junkyard veiled by overgrown grass. The machine’s long arm grasped pipe in a grappling fork, rolled back on its tracks, swiveled and dropped the pipes with a loud clang. Six faded blue doors of a motel enclosed the sunny lot. A low-slung Mack truck idled in front of a heavy truck garage, a tow truck for other semi-trucks, Rocky Mountain Truck Service on the driver’s door. The trucker leapt down from the cab and strode to the garage, and the screen door slammed behind him.
The bikers came out of the Nite Ride. Two were mid-twenties and the other two men were middle aged. One youth, his hair in a loose bun, held a thumb to his nose and blew his nostrils clean. He wore a jean jacket beneath a leather vest, as did the two mature men. The Jackals Outlaw Motorcycle Club had never spread much further than the mountain states, where they held a lucrative, if relatively quiet foothold in the Crystal Meth trade. They managed to keep a low profile in the Rockies for years.
Jackals stood out in bold red letters across the top of a longer haired, gangling man’s vest, beneath that, no club city and no club emblem in the middle of his back. The lack of these crests told Brouwer that the gangly man was only a prospect, a strike, not a full patch member of the club. He was a mere lackey, yet he had an air about him she didn’t like. The other forty-something was clearly in command, a full patched brother of the club, Denver on the bottom of the vest in the rocker portion. He was Travis Vetchoski, also known as “Swindle” also known as “Vetch.” Swindle Vetch was the bookkeeper and dealmaker of the Jackals Club. The full symbol of the Jackals, between the rockers on his back, was a white dog howling at a full moon. One by one, the three junior riders followed the dog’s head as the motorcycles swept out onto the 189, and then blasted down the highway curving away from town.
Brouwer crossed the sunny lot and entered the darkness of the bar.
A heavy woman with spiked red hair and eyes rimmed with black eyeliner stood still when Brouwer entered the room. A vermillion bra boosted her ample bosom above a tank top. There was a tattoo of a boy’s face above her left breast.
“Candy Bear?” Brouwer approached through the empty barroom, her state police badge reflecting neon. Candy Bear lit a cigarette and tucked the pack back under a shirt strap.
“Yes ma’am, what can I do for you?”
“Do you know Lara Mazer?”
“She works here.”
Brouwer told Candy Bear that Lara was dead and that someone had strangled and left her off the main highway into Jackson Hole. Folding her arms, nodding slightly, breathing, Candy Bear was holding pain inside herself and she knew how. She stopped nodding and shook her head side-to-side. Candy Bear was in confused shock and Brouwer kept at her.
“I need to know who was with her last night.”
Candy Bear and Lara Mazer had locked up together, cashed out and cracked a few beers, after hours. They had sat together on the steel chairs scattered around the room.
Lara Mazer left the Nite Ride alone, no men left with her.
Shelves of cigarettes and bottles of bourbon hovered behind the bar, Canadian ryes and well vodka. On the far wall, on a large black flag, the Jackal’s skull barked at the full white moon, Nazi SS in lightning bolt letters, Jackals Denver in red across the top.
“I need you to write down everyone who was in here last night.”
“I can do that,” Candy Bear said. Cooperative, despite working in an outlaw biker bar, Candy Bear would help if it meant finding whoever did this. Lara was her friend, thought Brouwer. They had stuck together working here.
Candy Bear wrote down the names of men who’d been in the bar on a yellow legal pad. Along one side of the room, a large mural displayed an American eagle carrying a thin black snake in its talons, the snake wrapped around the bird, and its fangs sunk into the eagle’s throat. Smaller black birds trailed after the eagle and serpent in their flight.
After studying a photo placed on the bar top, Candy Bear announced that she’d never laid eyes on Catherine Kinderdine.
“No and I’d remember her. That’s not the type of woman we get here, but Lara hung out with a lot of people. She was a social one.”
But when reviewing a photo of Catherine’s social set of young women, Candy Bear had more to say.
“The skinny Asian girl, definitely not, and as for the brown girl: Indians don’t come in here, and I’d remember her.”
“That’s Avina Zadeh. By her name; I believe she’s Iranian in ethnic origin.”
“Well, I know an Indian when I see one, but the answer is still no; no Indians and for damn sure no women from Iran in the Nite Ride. This ain’t a McDonald’s.”
Again, Candy Bear had no recognition of Catherine Kinderdine. She’d never seen Lara with her, but she began tapping a finger, heavy with rings, onto Helen Hearne.
“Yeah I’ve seen that bitch. Attitude for ten miles, she came in with Lara, they’d been doing a tour of every bar in town, flirting with men and then laughing them off. Being cock-teases, excuse my French, not a good idea in here. It wasn’t like Lara.”
“Not like Lara how?”
“Lara got away with her good looks in here because she treated everyone straight. She was an honest kid, and down to earth. She was a looker for sure; she got her share of attention and then some, but she didn’t play boneheaded games. That is, until she met this blonde thing. We didn’t like her falling in with a bad crowd but we thought she’d be okay. She was protected.”
“Protected?”
“Look, nobody screws with the staff here unless they want to be screwed with. Legit, patched-in Jackals are getting older and they take care of girls here, so it was safe for Lara here. I mean, it was supposed to be. No one bothered her.”
“So bar patrons would know enough not to harass her, or it would piss off patched Jackals?”
“Exactly, these guys are protective of us; they’re actually really great; they just get a shitty rap because they’re Jackals. They ride bikes, so what, what do you drive? This isn’t a Jackal move, killing a girl here, it’s hard to explain. It’s just not Jackal. All kinds of pieces of shit come through town and most of them stop here, but they have nothing to do with the Jackal’s club. No patched Jackal did this to Lara.”
Nodding that she understood, seemed to put Candy Bear at ease. “So, you can think of no man who acted inappropriately to Lara?”
“Men have acted inappropriately to Lara her whole life.”
Their eyes met and Brouwer held her gaze.
Candy Bear said, “You need to take a good look at this blonde bitch Lara was hanging with. She’s trouble if there ever was.” Candy Bear took a drag of her Winston and smoke pooled out of her red-lipped mouth.
“Was Helen Hearne with Lara last night?”
“No. She wasn’t in here, not last night, but I saw her not long ago. Lara was hanging around her more and that arrogance started to rub off. She was getting cocky.”
“When did Lara begin to change?”
“When she got together with your picture women I guess. She was becoming someone else, sloughing off shifts to go to rich kid, weirdo parties. Shit like that. If she went with anyone after we closed up last night, it would’ve been with this bitch Helen.”
Again, Candy Bear tapped Helen’s image on the bar top. “I’ll bet you any money, that Lara is dead, because she started hanging with this blonde thing.”
She hates Helen enough to implicate her, and is loyal enough to the Jackals to cover for them. Brouwer held up two photos of Nathan Petrie, one from the sex offender database, and an image taken as he walked by the White Buffalo Café.
“Caitlyn, has this man ever been in the Nite Ride?”
“You bet.” Candy Bear said. “That’s Nathan Petrie. They call him the calf roper, ’cause he choked that young girl. Lately he’s been coming here all the time.”
10.
The trailer park hid behind a crust of outbuildings that sheltered the
town from wind-blasted sage. Splayed along the alleys were a dozen mobile homes, tin roofs shining in the sun, antlered by satellite dishes and bent antennas. To Brouwer’s right, a German shepherd leapt against a chain link fence, forepaws rattling against the wire amid a torrent of barks. Moving along the fence with her hand on her government .45, she commanded Deputy Ridge to take his position. He did. A small blonde haired girl stood in the frame of a yellow trailer’s screen door eating a Mr. Freeze. Behind her, a woman’s thin legs stood in the shadow.
Brouwer approached a blue and silver trailer and rapped her knuckles on the aluminium door. In the sandy lane at the trailer’s rear, Officer Newberry was still photographing the tire tread of Nathan Petrie’s mini-van. She stepped off and signalled to Newberry that she was entering. She knocked again, hard.
“What is it?” A voice asked from behind the screened window.
“Wyoming State Police, Mr. Petrie, I have a few questions for you.” Brouwer pressed her Wyoming Division badge against the screen.
“Oh my,” the voice seemed genderless. “What are you doing in my backyard?”
“Mr. Petrie, Jackson Police is in the laneway; he’s not in your backyard. He’s on town right-of-way and he’s legal to be there.”
Deputy Ridge joined her on the sagging wooden steps and peered in through the screen. Nathan Petrie opened the door and stepped back into a dark room.
“I have a few questions for you, Nathan,” she said. “May I come in?”
Petrie stepped back and Brouwer entered the trailer. Deputy Ridge followed closely behind her. Petrie moved to a paper-heaped coffee table and Brouwer stepped quickly behind him. As though to hide his interest, he picked up the Jackson Liberty, with photos of both Kinderdine and Mazer and Killer Hunts Jackson Women, blazoned in inky print across the front, and held the paper behind his back. His forest green bathrobe hung loose over turquoise swimming trunks and a pinkish belly. Soft red hairs stood out in large curls from his sunken chest. He wore the same thick wire rimmed eyeglasses from his arrest photo and file, reviewed at the task force table.
Brouwer edged into the small living room space with Deputy Ridge close to her side. Petrie’s voice wavered in a thin calm. “Surely, you must know I have no appointment with police or parole.”
“Yeah I know that.” Brouwer scanned the room. Papers stood in piles on end tables. The smell of ashtrays dulled the stinging scent of cat piss. A tube style television reflected the scene, stacks of DVDs to each side, Hollywood blockbusters and hardcore pornography. The porn looked commercially licensed.
She came toward him.
“Ma’am, my obligatory meeting with my unqualified case specialist was last week. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve not violated the terms of my parole. You must explain this belligerence immediately.”
A calico cat leapt from the back of an orange love seat and ran out of the room. Another cat followed from beneath a faded yellow armchair. On the wall hung a large poster of a woman in a bathing suit, shoulder straps covered the nipples of enlarged breasts. Beside her was a print of Jesus Christ among the Aztecs at a jungle temple. Jesus presented the Aztecs with golden tablets.
A short, round woman stepped out of the bedroom doorway, her Mickey Mouse tube top squeezing rolling flesh. Recognizing Agent Brouwer, she hesitated, suspended in the doorframe. She was Robeitha Deeks, Petrie’s common law spouse. She became his girlfriend while he served his time in the penitentiary in Rawlins.
“Mr. Petrie, are you and Robeitha the only ones in the home right now?”
Petrie held both hands out, as though stopping Brouwer and Deputy Ridge, he said, “I’m in the middle of something. What do you want?”
“We need you to verify your whereabouts over the weekend, Nathan.” Deputy Ridge held a clipboard to take notes.
From the bedroom doorway came a humming noise. Robeitha had begun to step in place and shake her head. She was humming a TV theme song, out of nervousness. Brouwer had not wanted to rile Petrie or Deeks and they were excited. She mirrored Petrie’s movements; her palms open to him, hands to her sides, to calm him. She spoke slowly, “Nathan, we just want to talk to you about where you were over the weekend.”
“The man in the back is going through my garbage again. You’re always going through my garbage.”
Moaning from the doorway, Robeitha’s humming grew louder.
“Why is there a policeman in my backyard?”
“Do you have access to any vehicle other than the mini-van out back?” Deputy Ridge asked.
“The police listen into my calls and monitor my internet. I’ve served my time. Why let me out of prison, if I’m never free again?”
“Nathan, no one is monitoring your internet,” Brouwer said.
“The Federal government monitors everyone’s internet, you brainless woman.”
Robeitha hummed more loudly from the other room.
She tried again, “Nathan, can we sit down together and discuss a few things? Can Robeitha come in here and join us?”
Petrie was agitated, “I’ve been harassed by the state to where I can’t leave the damn county without telling you where I go. I had to announce to every neighbor foul lies about myself and I have to see a state appointed hypocrite twice a month. Why are you here? Are you here because those girls were . . . hurt?”
Brouwer said again, “Nathan we need you to keep your voice down, you have to calm down. Don’t make this go any worse for you than it has to.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do in my own home, you little hick. You lied about me in court.”
Brouwer had testified at his arrest for violent sexual assault. He’d stewed in fear of her in this tiny room; she felt the dread coming off him. She walked into his nightmare and he was panicking. Sweat stood on his pink forehead. She advanced toward him slowly.
“Nathan, where were you on Friday night?”
“I was with mom. Your state police flunkies should know that since I have to tell them everywhere I go. Mom lives down in Alpine.”
Your mother will confirm you were down in Alpine all weekend?”
“Even a simpleton hillbilly such as you could verify my whereabouts—I’m under constant state surveillance. How could you not know this you ludicrous woman?”
“Nathan, were you in the Nite Ride Saloon last night?”
“This is about the girl with the tattoos down her arms.”
“Did Lara Mazer ever serve you at the Nite Ride?”
Robeitha entered the room, her face reddened.
“Robeitha I need you to remain calm.”
Robeitha barreled past Petrie, Deputy Ridge put an arm across to stop her bowling into Brouwer, and the two came together knocking Brouwer back onto the stained armchair. Nathan Petrie fled the room, his bathrobe flapping at the doorframe as he left. Robeitha grabbed a chunk of Brouwer’s cotton sleeve, ripping it open as Brouwer tried pulled herself free.
The muzzle of the hunting rifle entered the little room with Petrie behind it, the rifle stock on his shoulder, the barrel level at Brouwer’s chest. A big game rifle, open sighted and heavy, its borehole was a yard from her body.
The room rose as the air sucked out of it, as though a tornado was pulling the flimsy aluminum trailer from its wooden pallets to hurl it into the sky. Petrie pointed the big game rifle at the roof and then pushed its stock toward Brouwer. As if connected by secret mechanics to her own movement; her hand came from her holster with her .45 alongside her ribs and out front of her in one motion pointing at Petrie. The muzzle of the rifle entered Petrie’s mouth, the stock toward her. He grasped clumsily at the rifle’s trigger guard, grabbing at the length of his arm.
“Don’t you pull that goddamn trigger,” Brouwer yelled and Petrie’s finger went still across the trigger guard. Brouwer held her .45 a yard from his chest.
“Hold your fire for Crissakes, both of you please, hold your fire!” Deputy Ridge shouted with his forearm across Robeitha’s neck, pinning her to the floor of the spinning ro
om.
11.
Sheriff Hargrove parked his truck across the street from Helen Hearne’s mountain modern condominium. The townhouses were a showcase of log and stone and glass, designed to evoke their natural setting. Casual restaurants sparkled along streams below the ski lifts. In winter, she could put on her skis and be carried up the mountain in minutes, chalet spas and luxury villas rolling away below.
In a folder on the passenger seat, the title office confirmation that the condominium was in her name and had been in her possession coinciding with her eighteenth birthday two years ago. The condominium in the Rockies, a birthday gift purchased from a home office in a gated Seattle enclave. In a file photo of Helen Hearne on the seat of his truck, taken in a nightclub, she hugs both victims, her lips curve wryly. He got out of his truck, crossed the empty street, and tapped lightly on the door of her suite.
Helen Hearne opened the smoothed timber door and the sheriff took off his Stetson hat. As they entered, she offered to take his jacket. “Can I get you a coffee or water?”
She held herself close to him. He entered but she did not move back. She wore an oversized camel cashmere sweater draped across her body exposing her right shoulder and collarbone; her small breasts pushed its soft material. When she turned into her kitchen, he followed.
A French press dark with espresso sat on the counter. “I think I’m about coffee’d out” he said. “Helen, I’m here to understand the deaths of Catherine Kinderdine and Lara Mazer.”
The clean scent of shampoo rose from her wet white hair. Floral, but with strong musk, her fragrance brought to mind the colognes Yolanda used to buy him, expensive with fancy names. He had joked that she spent a lot of money to make him smell even more like a saddle blanket. A petite darker girl entered the open kitchen.
Dream of the Wolf Page 6