by Jeff Carson
His father, a respected officer on the Carbondale police force, had been the one who’d made sure of that. Six days a week, his father would come home after dark, too much liquor in his system, and step into the house, enraged by something real or imagined and itching to make someone pay. It had taken every ounce of his and his brother’s wit and strength they had to survive.
Night after night after night the rotation was predictable. First, his mother would take the beatings. And then his father would come after him, and then his little brother. If that didn’t satisfy the old man, he would give the furniture or the walls a once-over. Then, if they were lucky, he would go to sleep.
Tuesdays were the worst, because Monday had been his father’s day of rest. On Mondays, his father would break down crying, apologizing for being such a terrible father. Monday was the day he’d make promises, and give out hugs instead of forearm swings. But Tuesday … that was the dangerous day, because he’d shown his remorse the day before, and let you see his true feelings and his pain, and you were laughing at him now. Weren’t you?
And then they got it.
Well, McCall thought as he inserted the key into the back door of the Mountain Goat, he’d given it to his father in the end. He’d flattened his head with a baseball bat, and they didn’t have to worry about him anymore. The past couldn’t be changed, and he needed to let it lie, just like his father’s body lay under a pile of rocks near the Snowmass quarry.
McCall shook his head and knew there was no way that was going to happen. He would never let it lie—just forget it and move on. Because his past was who he was. Drove everything he did. Was the reason he’d become a deputy, and was the reason he still had his finger on the pulse of the drug trade through this valley to this day. He survived. He did whatever it took to survive, and he wasn’t going to forget it. And they were going to survive this little fiasco too.
“About fucking time,” his brother Tyler said, making no move to get up from his lying position on the couch.
McCall appraised him as he stepped inside the office at the back of the bar and closed the door.
His brother looked bad. He was still lying on the tweed office couch looking at McCall with pinpoint pupils. His skin was pale and slick with moisture, and his brown hair was dark and shiny from sweat.
McCall dug in his pocket and passed him a bottle of pills. It bounced with a rattle and rested on his stomach.
“Percocet. Take a couple.”
Tyler sat up and put the bottle between his kneecaps, then tried to unscrew the cap with his good arm.
“Here, sorry.” McCall grabbed the bottle, unscrewed it, and gave him two pills. “Just a second.” He walked back out into the lifeless bar, filled a glass of water behind the horseshoe counter, and went back into the office.
Tyler threw two pills onto his tongue and sucked down the entire glass of water.
McCall went and refilled the glass, picked up the bag of first-aid supplies, and then sat next to his little brother and redressed the wound on his shoulder.
It looked clean. The doctor they’d used yesterday morning knew what he was doing. For three thousand cash, he’d better had. The through-and-through bullet wound wasn’t deep, but it was deep enough if you were the one with a hole in the arm. He felt for him.
“You want a beer or something?” McCall asked.
Tyler broke a smile. “What is it, nine a.m.? No, thanks.”
McCall looked at the cardboard box on the floor. It was a laser printer, top of the line. He got up and picked up the packet of plastic sheets, the kind you put on an overhead projector.
“Wood glue?” McCall asked.
“Yep. In the plastic bag on the desk.”
McCall sifted through the bag and saw that he’d gotten another packet of plastic sheets as well. He twirled the mouse on the computer, and watched as the screen flicked on. Then he took the USB drive out of his pocket and put it in the port on the side of the monitor.
He opened the finder window and double-clicked the file. A multi-celled window appeared, with a man’s picture, vital statistics, and digital pictures of his fingerprints.
“Here you go,” McCall said, and got out of the desk chair.
Tyler closed his eyes and nodded, then took a deep breath and stood up.
“No time for healing, I’m afraid,” McCall said.
“I know. I’m not bitchin’ about it.”
“I know you’re not.” He watched his brother collapse down behind the computer and grab the mouse.
“So you went back up with them yesterday?” Tyler asked.
“Yep.”
“And did they figure out where he came from?”
“No, not yet, but they will. So I need to head up there ASAP.”
“Who’s they?” Tyler asked.
“So far, they are the FBI agent, Luke, and Wolf.”
Tyler stared at the wall for a second, like he was re-calculating the outcome of their plan. “All right, set that thing up, and I’ll start printing.”
McCall bent down and cut open the box with a key.
“After this, then what?” Tyler asked.
“Then we have two more people to get rid of.”
“How? Where?”
McCall pulled out the laser printer, and began explaining the plan.
Chapter 25
They stopped on the side of the road in front of Brian Richter’s house, and Wolf stepped out of Luke’s truck and followed her lead to the front door.
Brian Richter’s house, or rather the house Brian Richter grew up in, was an early 1900s design on the outskirts of town, now occupied by his mother, Bernadette Richter. According to Wolf’s research into public records, Richter’s father had quitclaimed the house to Bernadette fifteen years ago. Wolf assumed that meant the father was out of the picture.
Perhaps somehow that fatherly absence contributed to Brian Richter’s motivation to join one of the most dangerous divisions in the army, playing with explosives day in and day out.
The house was a square with an A-frame roof, and a set of stairs in the dead center of the property that ran up to the wrap-around covered wooden porch. There were a few flowerpots sprouting green plants, a wind chime made of brass tubes, and a porch swing held up by chains red with rust. The trim was blood red, and the house was painted white.
Luke rang the bell, and a minute later they heard faint footsteps and the clicking of locks from within.
An old lady peeked out—one eye, then two—then she slowly pulled open the door, revealing a happy smile that was bright with enthusiasm. She wore a flowery nightgown and slippers.
“Hello,” she said. “It’s you again.”
“H-hi,” Luke said, and held up her ID card. “I am Special Agent Luke, of the FBI, ma’am.”
“Oh, the FBI,” Bernadette Richter said with awe.
“And this is Sheriff Wolf of the Sluice County Sheriff’s Department.”
Wolf nodded. “Hello ma’am.”
“We’d like to ask you a few questions about your son, if you don’t mind.”
Mrs. Richter looked at Luke like she was waiting for her to say something more.
“Do you mind if we come in and ask you some questions?” Wolf tried.
“Ah. Yes, come in.” Mrs. Richter stepped aside and opened the door.
There was a stairway that led upstairs on the right, a family room on the left, and a kitchen straight ahead that was bright and airy. The old wood floors shone in the morning light that streamed in from the kitchen ahead, and it smelled like pine cleaner.
The place was immaculately clean, except for a lone bowl full of what looked to be soggy cornflakes on the kitchen table. There were small piles of the cereal surrounding it, and an open gallon of milk. The box lay on its side on the otherwise immaculately clean kitchen counter a few feet away.
“Come in. I was just having some breakfast. Do you need some?”
Luke and Wolf looked at each other.
“No. No, th
ank you,” said Luke.
Mrs. Richter continued into the kitchen and stared at the table, then looked back at them and flinched, as if they were strangers who’d just snuck up on her.
“Uh, do you mind if we sit down here, and talk about your son, Mrs. Richter?” Luke asked quickly.
Mrs. Richter’s face relaxed and she led them to the family room.
Wolf took a look around. There were old paintings of mountains, and black-and-white photos of long-gone relatives. There was crochet art on the walls with various flower patterns of green, brown, yellow, and red, but no recent photographs of the immediate family.
He stopped and ran his finger along the wall at a spot that was discolored. It looked like a painting had hung there for years, but had recently been moved, and a square of dirt still remained.
Luke sat down next to Mrs. Richter and looked up at Wolf.
Wolf took a seat in a wood-framed chair with a cloth cushion near the front window. There were lacy drapes clouding an otherwise great view of the red mountains in the distance.
“Have you talked to your son lately, Mrs. Richter?” Luke asked.
She smiled. “Oh, yes. I talk to him all the time.”
Luke looked at Wolf. “I’m talking about Brian. Your son, Brian? Have you seen him?”
She nodded and didn’t blink. “I saw him today. He came over, and he mowed the lawn.”
Wolf pulled the drapes open with a finger, and saw that the lawn was freshly mowed, probably within the last day.
“And I saw you, too.” She nodded her head at Luke with wide eyes so filled with wonder that she reminded Wolf of a little girl. Then she looked over at Wolf and scrunched her face in confusion. “Did I see you? You were here, right?”
Wolf shook his head. “No, I wasn’t here.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and Wolf racked his brain for something he could ask a senile woman that might help their investigation.
“How about your husband?” he asked. “Is he nearby?”
“He’ll be back when the war is through,” she said with a serious expression.
Wolf nodded. “Is he in the Middle East?”
She frowned. “Vietnam.”
Wolf stood and took her hand. “Thank you. Do you mind if I look upstairs?”
She smiled. “Go ahead.” She looked over at Luke. “You can go see her room.”
Luke blushed. “Thank you, Mrs. Richter. I think I’ll go up with him and see that.”
Wolf walked upstairs and Luke followed closely.
When they reached the top, Luke sighed. “Jesus. She doesn’t know where or when she is. Or who apparently.”
The wood squeaked underneath Wolf’s work boots as he walked down the hall, and Luke padded lightly behind.
There were three doors in the main hallway upstairs, all wide open. They went to the first on the right and walked in. The walls were pink, and on one of them hung a mirror and an impressionist painting of a meadow full of flowers. There was a single bed in the corner, made up with sheets and a comforter.
The dresser was empty and had nothing on top of it.
They moved to the next room—there were two single beds within, but the room was just as barren in terms of décor.
The third room had a queen-sized bed, and a standing-length mirror on a swivel stand. Again, there were no pictures in sight.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Wolf said.
“What?”
“The house. It’s so well maintained, so clean. But it’s like it’s cleaned out, too. No pictures. Nothing personal.”
She frowned and nodded. “Yeah. There aren’t many family portraits.”
“There aren’t any family portraits. None.”
“Yeah …” Luke let her voice trail off and she went to the window and looked out. “The lawn is freshly mown. Probably her son, the deputy in the Sheriff’s Department, comes and mows it.”
“You know the brother in the department?”
“Dan Richter. I’ve heard of him, and his picture looked familiar. I think I’ve met him before on an investigation, maybe when I was at the Sheriff’s Department headquarters in town. But I never knew him growing up or anything.”
She turned and looked at Wolf with raised eyebrows. “Well? Ready for a drive to Delta?”
Wolf looked around the barren room one more time, and nodded.
Wolf and Luke said goodbye to the old woman and got back in the Tahoe. As they drove away, Bernadette Richter waved with a bright smile.
They both waved and didn’t speak for the next few miles.
Chapter 26
They stopped at a gas station and Luke gassed up the Tahoe, got some sodas, and headed out west on I-70.
She drove cautiously at a consistent five miles per hour over the speed limit, which put them at a steady eighty miles per hour.
Wolf watched her fiddle with the dial of her radio and smiled.
“What?” she asked.
“I was just thinking about the first time I got in this vehicle. And how my ears are still ringing.”
She laughed and then shrugged. “I like my funk.”
“Loud,” he added.
“Yes. Loud.”
They drove in silence. It was a tense silence, and it seemed that all the moments had been between them since they’d met. She was reluctant to work with him, and, as Wolf figured it, that could only mean one thing—that she was hiding something. So until she wanted to open up, the tense silence could stay. And he needed to remember that his job—to make sure his son was out of danger—was much more important than camaraderie with a beautiful FBI agent.
That’s what the dream had told him, wasn’t it? He could sense it. Jack was in danger. Wolf took a deep breath. The dream. Wolf couldn’t remember having had that dream in at least ten years, and now he’d had it twice. It was a dream he’d moved on from. A memory. One that’d driven him away from serving his country and pushed him home to Rocky Points. To serve his son, Jack, and his wife, Sarah. And to serve his hometown, rather than some larger ideal that meant he killed little boys for a living.
Of course, life with Sarah hadn’t worked out, had it? He’d failed there. Didn’t have Sarah to call his wife anymore. She was off loving another man, one who apparently understood her pain better than Wolf ever could. That was a loss he didn’t like—not one bit—but it was something he could live with. Could move on from, no matter how difficult.
But Jack? He still had Jack.
“You okay?” Luke asked.
Wolf turned and relaxed his jaw, not realizing he’d been clenching his molars. “Yeah.”
He turned to look back out the window.
“So.” She took a sip of her Coke and set it back in the center console. “Army ranger, huh? Why didn’t you stay in the army?”
Wolf gave her an ironic smile and didn’t answer.
“Ah. Okay, how about …” She let her question fade.
“How about you tell me what you’re hiding?” Wolf asked. “Until then, let’s just forget the small talk.”
She swallowed. “What are you talking about?”
Wolf nodded and kept his gaze on the passing sedimentary layers of the mountains.
“I’m hiding your involvement in our case from my boss. That’s what I’m hiding,” she said quietly.
Wolf didn’t reply.
“I could be out of a job for bringing in un-approved outside consultants on this,” she said.
Wolf stayed silent for a moment. “How about the other two guys that went MIA? Quinn and Hartley? Hartley is from Boise, and Quinn is from Reno. Have you looked into them?”
Luke nodded. “I’ve got calls in to the nearest field offices, and boots are on the ground, going to talk to the families.”
“Right now? Today?”
She nodded.
“So how long have you guys been on this case?” Wolf asked.
Luke hesitated. “Why?”
“I’m just wondering why all this is happen
ing now. Haven’t you already talked to Jeffries’s family in Delta? Haven’t you already talked to our friend Mrs. Richter? She was right in Glenwood Springs; all you had to do was go down the street to talk to her.” Wolf looked at her. “So? Had you already been to her house? Have you already been to Delta to talk to the Jeffrieses?”
“Why do you think we would have already talked to them?” she asked.
“You had a picture of Jeffries with you yesterday.” Wolf took a sip of his soda and watched Luke. She kept her eyes on the road. “I’ve just been assuming my description raised a flag with you guys,” he said, “like it was an ongoing investigation.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed, and she took a breath before answering. “It was, but we didn’t know these guys were back. We knew they were missing in Afghanistan, and your description tipped us off that it was one of them, and that they’re now in the country.”
“From my description”—Wolf looked at her—“you figured out it was one of the four missing men? Not one of the other hundreds of thousands of soldiers either enlisted, or on leave, or once enlisted?”
She nodded. “Well, there was the neck tattoo.”
“But that’s not enough to single the guy out, is it? There’s gotta be thousands of guys with neck tattoos. It’s only recently they’ve starting cracking down on that in the military.”
She held up a hand. “Fewer than you think, and it’s a little more complicated than that. Your description raised our flags because of some … recent developments I can’t talk about.”
“So, like I said, let’s cut the small talk until you want to explain. Until then, I have an investigation I’m working here, and you’re just inking it up for me with your bullshit.”
She looked back to the road, he to the passing hills, and the tense silence returned.
Chapter 27
Rachette looked up the grassy ski slope and cringed at the speed of a mountain biker rolling down the dirt trail above. Nothing was more gut wrenching to Rachette than to see a person disregard his own safety like the maniac kid flying down the narrow path. It was why he stuck to enjoying the mountains on his two feet, rather than on bicycles, or skis, or a snowboard. He’d even seen a kid strap his feet into an off-road skateboard, with four thick rubber wheels, and no brakes. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen that caused such moronic behavior in the population of the mountains. Maybe they needed a few days on a farm in Nebraska.