by Jeff Carson
“I—Do you think … Shouldn’t we go over our plan here? You know, before we storm the Connell castle?”
Wolf passed the gate at sixty-five miles per hour. “We’re going to the Cave Creek construction site.”
Rachette whipped his head, and then turned back to Wolf. “Why?”
“Mark’s been working the project all summer, and was working there all day yesterday.”
Rachette relaxed against his seat. “Good idea.”
Chapter 18
Wolf parked the Explorer outside the chain-link fence next to a Ford F-350 painted with the same construction company logo Mark Wilson had on his truck door.
Wolf pushed down his buffalo felt Stetson, zipped his jacket high, and shoved his hands in his pockets. Frost crunched under their boots as they walked through the wide-open chain-link gate.
The sun was fully up over the peaks and the western slopes of the steep hills were warming in the sun. However, the construction site was still in shadow, and had yet to defrost from the overnight freezing temperatures.
A few men were huddling in a circle, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes. Why they weren’t in the sun by the trucks was a mystery.
“Howdy, officers.” One of them tipped his head while the others shuffled their feet.
Wolf extended a hand. “I’m Sergeant Wolf. This is Deputy Rachette.”
The head-tipper stepped forward. “I’m Jesse. Glad to see you guys. We thought you weren’t going to come after all.”
Wolf and Rachette exchanged a glance. “What do you mean?”
Jesse tilted his head to the side. “The vandalism?”
Wolf shook his head. “You’re going to have to elaborate.”
“We called you guys about some vandalism yesterday. A few times. And you guys never showed up.”
Jesse looked between Wolf and Rachette and narrowed his eyes. “You guys have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“No, sorry. We don’t. Why don’t you show us what you mean,” Wolf said.
Jesse broke away from the group and started walking, and Wolf and Rachette followed, leaving the other men behind.
The valley was tight, with steep hills on either side, the rushing Chautauqua river cutting through the middle. The dirt they walked on was graded flat, where the old highway had been completely removed. The expansion and straightening process was well underway, with a straight gouge cut into the rock and dirt slope.
Jesse led them to a yellow excavator. The main operator house sat on top of a continuous track that reminded Wolf of tank tread. He stopped and pointed at the large boom arm. It was peaked at an angle, with its toothed bucket stabbing halfway into the ground near a sheer rock wall.
On the boom, spray painted in runny black paint, was a penis. Suck my balls was scrawled on the side of the operator’s cab in the same black print.
Wolf nodded. “Aha.”
“Yeah. And it’s the same on the other side, and the other two machines have the same thing on them.” Jesse raised his eyebrows. “And there’s some serious damage to them.”
“You mean, besides the … uh …”
Jesse waved a hand and hopped onto the track with a grunt. Rachette and Wolf followed him up.
There was a gash in the metal tubing that housed the hydraulic piston of the boom.
Wolf bent down to examine it.
“Can you believe that?” Jesse asked, bending down next to him.
The hydraulic piston housing had a gash in it, as if cut open like an aluminum can. But it was thick industrial-strength steel, meant to withstand thousands of pounds per square inch of pressure inside it.
Wolf thumbed the gash. “These kids had some seriously high-powered equipment, I’d say.”
“Like I said: some serious damage,” Jesse said. “If they would have just cut the hydraulic lines, which they also did, by the way, we would have been up and running yesterday. But this is going to need some serious repair. Welding, new parts, a lot of hard labor. There’s no way an axe would go through that. They must have had some hydraulics of their own.”
Wolf nodded. “I agree. Nothing less than a hydraulic cutting tool could do that kind of damage.” Wolf stood up and looked around. There was another excavator parked nearby with the same paint job. Even from a distance, he could see the similar gash in the hydraulic cylinder.
“The other side piston has the same damage. All the other machines are the same.”
They jumped down.
Wolf looked to Jesse. “Please excuse the question, since you’ve already told us, but, when did this happen?”
“Two nights ago. Monday night. We came into work yesterday morning, and it was like this.”
“You have anyone who would want to do this? Any, I don’t know, enemies? Jealous rival firms?”
Jesse laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think so. But you’d have to ask Mark when he gets here.”
Wolf pushed back his hat and cleared his throat. “That’s actually what we came to talk to you guys about. Mark’s been stabbed.”
Wolf watched the genuine reaction of surprise on his face. “What? When?”
“Last night,” Wolf said.
Jesse stared at the ground, then back to Wolf. “Is he all right?”
“He’s in critical condition. He’s at the County General Hospital, about forty miles south of here.”
Slowly, Jesse took off his hard hat and shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Was he stabbed here?” He craned his neck and looked at the men in the distance.
“Why do you ask? Do you know what Mark was doing last night? After work?” Rachette asked.
“We all left at sundown. We just got the new excavator in, and we’d been doing manual stuff all day waiting for it.” He twisted and pointed to the large white excavator—the only one without any vandalism done to it. It was parked near what looked to be a rockslide. “Mark was going to run it for a few hours on his own. He told us all to go home.” He held out his hands. “So we did.”
Wolf tilted his hat against the sun finally peeking over the hill and looked at the excavator. Walking over to it, he asked, “What are you guys doing here?”
“Well, we’re expanding the highway—”
“No, I mean here. With the excavator. What have you guys been specifically working on?”
“We were taking away that scree pile. We started that last week. Then they came and did this on Monday night, and we’ve been sittin’ on our hands ever since.” He pointed at the side of the hill. “It looks like Mark didn’t get much done here last night.”
Wolf noticed two gaping holes in a sheer cliff face forty or so yards down the road.
Jesse saw Wolf looking toward the caves. “Cave Creek. They don’t call it that for nothing. This section of the valley has a lot of corridors carved out by water millions of years ago. Some of them have caved in.” He pointed back up at the rocks. “A lot of erosion happening here over the years. This was a big rockslide fifteen or so years ago. We’re just pulling away the rock from the bottom until it’s gone, then putting up a permanent wall to stop it from happening again.”
Wolf nodded.
“Are environmentalists pissed off about this expansion?” Rachette asked.
Jesse shrugged. “They’re always pissed off at everything we do. But we’ve never had any issues with them before. They didn’t really make any noise with this particular project either.”
They turned to the sound of gravel popping under tires outside the fence.
A department Ford Explorer bounced to a skidding stop next to Wolf’s, and Connell got out of the driver’s side while Vickers stepped out opposite.
“Howdy, gentlemen.” Connell tipped his cowboy hat as he strode through the fence gate. Vickers was close behind, nodding to the men.
Wolf, Rachette, and Jesse walked towards them.
Connell’s eyes quickly swept the scene, then locked on Rachette. “Deputy Rachette, what are you doing here? I remembe
r assigning you to PT for the rest of the week.” He smiled to himself and then glared at the circle of men. “Who’s in charge here?”
Jesse looked from Wolf to Connell. “Hello … uh, Officer.” He stepped forward with an extended arm.
Connell tapped his badge. “Sheriff.”
“Sorry, Sheriff. Nice to meet you.”
Connell shifted his expression to somber. “I take it you boys have heard about your boss?”
“I was just getting done telling Jesse here about it, Sheriff.” Wolf gestured to the other men. “We haven’t had a chance to tell everyone else.”
Connell glared at Wolf, then looked to the group of men. “Your boss was stabbed in town last night.”
Wolf motioned to Rachette, tipped his hat to Jesse and the men, and walked away quietly while they talked.
Rachette shuffled up next to him. His voice was low. “We’re just gonna leave them with Connell?”
“Yeah. Why, you wanna stick around?”
“Sergeant Wolf, Deputy Rachette!” Vickers jogged up from behind.
Rachette stopped and turned around and Wolf kept walking.
“Sergeant Wolf.”
“What is it, Vickers?” Wolf slowed and turned around.
“Look, I didn’t mean to start any beef with you last night, all right?”
Wolf said nothing.
“I’m just trying to follow procedure. I don’t want anybody in trouble. I was looking out for everybody.”
Wolf walked to his door and opened it. “Is that it?”
Vickers hooked his thumbs on his belt and stepped forward. “I don’t know where you were yesterday, and I guess it’s fine, with all you got going on lately and all, but we’ve got a meeting at the station at ten a.m. Lots to cover after last night.”
Wolf got in and shut the door, fired up the engine, and rolled down the window. Rachette scurried around the bumper and got in.
“We’re not going to be at the station today, Vickers. I can think of a thousand better things for us to be doing with our time than listening to that guy pretend like he’s leading this department. And Rachette’s not going to be bringing you any parking tickets later.”
Vickers stepped back and glared as Wolf backed up and sped away.
Chapter 19
Gary sat high on the hill in the shade of the pine trees. He twirled the black, shiny piece of tubing in his right hand, made of an inner rubber hose, sheathed with a metallic braiding. In his left was a heavy-duty twist-on cap—two pieces taken from the new excavator before dawn, rendering it useless, or so Buck had insisted.
Buck and Earl stood silent behind him as they all watched the final truck leave to the south in a cloud of dust.
The construction crew hadn’t even tried to start the thing up. And why would they? The owner of the company was in the hospital on his deathbed. They had to pay their respects, and they would be wondering if they even had a job.
But they might be back.
And watching Wolf snoop around with that little shit—Rachette was his name—had made him uneasy. Wolf had looked long, right at the spot.
Then Derek had shown up. Seeing him only added to the acid build-up in his gut. In fact, the sight of Derek crippled him with what he could only describe as panic. It was something he’d never felt, and hoped to never feel again. He was glad Buck and Earl were well behind him as they perched on the hillside.
In the end, he’d fought back the foreign bodily reaction with a steeled mind. Just like he’d done in Africa, facing down that charging lion—facing certain doom, shouldering his rifle, aiming, and making the perfect shot. Just like that, he would execute the plan laid forth, tying up all the pesky loose ends of his life in one fell swoop.
Decision time.
“I just hope the state don’t bring in another crew and start workin’,” Buck said.
Gary laughed and looked down at the construction site, now littered with derelict machines. “You’re worried about the government coming in with a crack team of workers to finish the job? That, boys, is not one of our worries.”
He stood up and bounced the parts in his hands. “No, I think we’ve just cleared out this here construction site for at least a week. That crew’s not coming back. Their jobs are hanging in the balance down at County General. And if Young completes his task tonight,” Gary turned away and swallowed, “there’s going to be a hell of a lot of distraction, and we’ll have the time to get this godforsaken mess over and done with.”
Chapter 20
Wolf squinted to see through the windshield into the night outside. Slowing to a stop, he pulled the SUV off the dirt road. A few miles back he’d killed the headlights, and his eyes were now well adjusted, allowing him to squeeze into a jet-black copse of trees without scratching paint.
He switched off the cab light, got out, shut the door softly, and listened. There was no sound, save the faint tick and hiss of his SUV’s oil pan and a few crickets.
His feet scraped softly on the smooth dirt road as he walked in the pale light of the waxing almost-full moon. As he passed a dimly lit property on the left, his pulse jumped at a faint rustling. A deer brought its head up and stared at him, snorting and twisting one ear before resuming its evening stroll.
Wolf lowered his Glock, only then realizing he’d pulled it. He slotted it in the less bulky belt-holster—a piece of equipment he’d gotten earlier from home, along with the dark outfit he wore now.
He took a deep breath and continued up the road. It had been a long day on top of a long week and sleep deprivation was beginning to dull his reactions.
Earlier that afternoon, the arson investigator from Frisco had confirmed his suspicions, finding traces of spray-in insulation on the interior door and flash powder at the entrance. Wolf had known what he’d seen, but hearing it officially declared arson felt like validation for insisting so harshly that Sarah’s parents take Jack out of town.
Wolf had then made the drive to see Mark at County General, where Sarah stayed glued to his bedside, unable or unwilling to speak much to Wolf.
The doctors seemed hopeful for the man’s recovery, as his steady decline had ceased. More than Mark’s health, Wolf was concerned for Sarah. Just to make sure she was safe, he’d called in a deputy and made sure that security kept an eye out for any abnormally tall muscular men, and then moved on with his day.
Now he walked along the dark deserted road through the dense forest—in need of some answers, and ready to do whatever it took to get them.
He traveled a further quarter-mile along the quiet road and reached another property. Once there, he stopped, turned a slow circle, and ducked into the woods.
Wolf knelt on one knee at the edge of a manicured lush green backyard lawn surrounded by dense pines and shoulder-height underbrush. Derek Connell’s home squatted completely dark in the otherwise bright night. He turned his head slowly, looking and listening for movement. Through a bare gap in the trees, Wolf could see a sliver of twinkling yellow and blue lights of the town below.
He shifted his weight and pine needles crackled under his boot, barely audible over the symphony of crickets. He touched the back of his hand to a tree trunk, coming away with a dollop of sap on his skin. Wiping it on the leg of his cargo pants, he moved closer toward the darkened house.
Chapter 21
Young waited.
The second he saw, the second he knew what he was seeing, a wash of endorphins flooded his entire body. The movement was subtle, but once he saw it, the unmistakable shape took form.
He opened his mouth in an O and took a slow, deep breath.
It had just been so long, and the past two nights had given him some serious action, and here was more coming.
He looked down at the motionless form on the floor and tongued the split on the inside of his lip. The taste of blood injected another batch of hormones into his veins.
The stabbing last night had given him such a thrill, then seeing her. And now tonight. This was going to be i
nfinitely more fun. He could hardly contain himself. He wanted to scream. His body zinged with anticipation.
He blanked his face, wiping any emotion from his mind, and then he darted into action.
Chapter 22
Wolf waited motionless next to a tree at the edge of the lawn for twenty minutes. His vision was finally fully adapted to the dark, but no matter how long he stared, he saw no movement within Connell’s house. Connell’s SUV was parked at the side of the property. Maybe he was out with a friend who had come to pick him up, like Vickers, or a woman. Wolf couldn’t picture, and decided he didn’t want to picture, the type of woman who would date a man like Connell.
Then, finally, a light went on at the far right end of the house, then a fainter light just to the left, and then yet another light.
Wolf felt like he was grasping at straws with the simplicity of his plan, which was to get Connell on record saying something; but then again, Connell was just the type of person who would say something incriminating in a fit of rage. If anything had been proven about Derek Connell over the years, it was that he acted in the heat of the moment, always letting quick emotional reactions win out over better judgment.
Wolf swiveled one hundred eighty degrees to face the dense forest behind Connell’s property, and took out his cell phone. He hunched low to block any visible light emission that might be coming off the screen and scrolled through the menus. After a little navigation, he started the recording function on the smartphone. The timer in the corner began ticking. He locked the phone and shoved it in the breast pocket of his Carhartt jacket, and zipped it shut.
Now he needed some luck.
Wolf turned back and focused on the windows at the rear of the house. A few of them were obscured by now glowing drapes, and one single bay window was unobstructed, giving the only clear view inside. He needed to get closer.
He slid to his left a few yards inside the tree line, keeping an eye on the windows for any movement, then crept through the manicured lawn to the back wall of the house.