by Jeff Carson
Lorber bent down close next to the corpse. Craning this way and that, he studied the head and neck; next, he leaned toward the dead woman’s crotch, and then ran his eyes up and down her contorted legs. Finally he stood back up.
“Strangled,” he announced. “At least it looks like it.”
Wolf had seen the bruising on the woman’s neck, and how the tongue protruded, but he’d also noticed the body’s unnatural twist, and it was so mangled, he had to admit that the cause of death wasn’t as obvious to him. “She’s pretty chewed up. Are you sure?”
“The plow got her good. She was probably originally back there”—Lorber pointed at the line of department SUVs—“and then she was pushed up the road by the plow and deposited here. Who knows how far she tumbled against that steel.” He turned and glanced at the upturned plow truck. “None of these flesh injuries happened before she died. She was frozen stiff when these happened, and long dead.”
Wolf nodded.
Lorber looked down at the truck, teetering on its side, then up the road and back to Wolf. “I take it this guy plowed her and didn’t notice, then noticed on the way back down the road and crashed?”
Wolf nodded. “You’ve solved the traffic accident. Now what about her?”
Lorber smiled and looked back down. “I’ll get her back to the hospital, thaw her out, and do an autopsy. On this leg, it looks like the fabric has frozen straight onto the skin. I think that’s urine. Along with the ligature bruising, that’s why I’d put my money on strangulation. I’ll check what the hell that is on her forehead. You’re right, though—she’s torn up, and I could be wrong about the strangling. I’ve got myself a puzzle here.”
Wolf looked at him and narrowed his eyes, swearing he’d heard a hint of excitement in the medical examiner’s voice.
“You ID her?” Lorber asked.
“We found her coat with her wallet in her pocket right there.” Wolf pointed at the jacket half dug out of the snow bank, a yellow evidence marker next to it. “ID inside. A local girl named Stephanie Lang.”
Lorber nodded, apparently not recognizing the name. “You get a cell phone?”
“Yeah, dead and damaged though. We’re working on it.”
Rachette walked up behind Wolf and cleared his throat. “Sir, we found the current address for our vic.”
“Yeah?” Wolf asked.
“What,” Lorber said, “the license not current?”
Wolf shook his head.
“She lives right up the road.” Rachette pointed. “A half-mile up on the right. Tammy just called me with the address. Says she’s been renting with two other roommates.”
Wolf turned back to Lorber.
“Go,” Lorber said, bending down to study the body again. “Joe and I have this.”
Wolf nodded and followed Rachette underneath the tape.
“Patterson, Rachette, with me,” Wolf said. “Baine, secure the scene with Yates. Wilson, you can head back to the station. And I’m sorry I snapped earlier. There’s a lot of death lately, and it’s—”
“No problem, sir,” Rachette said. “I was out of line and I apologize.”
Wolf nodded and walked away, certain that in his twenty years in the department he’d never once heard his former boss apologize like that. Burton would have disapproved if he were here. But he wasn’t here. He was at home, undoubtedly in bed, waiting for the Scotch to metabolize out of his system while he watched fishing shows on TV.
Chapter 7
Wolf pulled up to the address for Stephanie Lang and got out of his SUV. Rachette and Patterson pulled up behind him.
Thirty years ago, a man named Walt Wiggit had built six identical one-story ranches, and to this day he still owned and rented them out.
The house in front of them, sitting at the end of a long, narrow, shoveled walk, was the first in the row. It was painted dark brown and featured a front-facing picture window, through which Wolf and his deputies had an unobstructed view into the living room. Inside there were a few young people shuffling around, looking outside with wide-eyed glares as they urgently talked with one another.
“Anything on that cell phone?” Wolf asked Patterson.
“No, sir. It’s damaged. Tammy is getting records from the phone company, but as far as looking at the phone itself, it’s toast.”
“The plow didn’t help.” Wolf looked at Rachette. “You know her roommates?”
Rachette shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Wolf, with Rachette and Patterson in tow, walked to the porch. The cold froze his nostrils for the hundredth time that day. He pinched the zipper on his jacket with his gloved fingers and pulled it to his chin, careful to not catch any beard hair.
They stepped up onto the porch and Wolf pushed the bell.
There were frantic noises coming from inside—fast footsteps on hardwood floors, a dish slamming against a countertop, the hissing of voices to shush one another, and then silence.
Wolf sniffed and wiped his dripping nose once again, catching a whiff of marijuana smoke from inside.
“Oh, here we go,” Rachette said, smelling the same thing.
Wolf reached up to push the bell again, but the door rattled and the doorknob turned.
A red-eyed man in his early twenties peeked out, opening the door only enough to reveal his face “Hello?”
“Good morning. I’m Sheriff Wolf. These are Deputies Rachette and Patterson. Does Stephanie Lang live here?”
The kid’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Yes. What can I do for you, Officers?”
“We need to ask you a few questions. May we come in?” Wolf asked.
“Uh,” the kid said. “I don’t know. I …”
Hot air streamed out of the door, wafting the thick stench of marijuana smoke outside.
“We-we-we—”
Rachette put a hand on Wolf’s shoulder. “Hey, if you guys are smoking weed in there, well, guess what? It’s legal. So quit freaking out and let’s talk, huh, John?”
Wolf stepped aside. Rachette’s time off spent at the local bars was finally paying dividends.
“Hey, Tom. Uh, okay.” He opened the door wider and looked down. “What’s this about?”
“We just said,” Rachette said, walking into the house. “Stephanie.”
“She’s not here,” he said, looking at Rachette.
“We know,” Rachette said.
John frowned and ruffled his thick head of sandy-blonde hair. He was dressed in baggy blue ski pants, suspenders hanging off his waist, and a zip-up sweater on top.
Wolf stomped his feet against the doorstep and walked in after Rachette, Patterson taking up the rear.
“Of course, driving while high is not legal,” Rachette said, looking into the house.
Wolf looked into the living room and saw why Rachette had said as much. There were two more people in the house—a woman and another man, both in their ski pants and underclothes. Soft music was coming from the television, and there were skiers jumping off cliffs on the screen. It was clear that they were gearing up to get a late-morning start on one of the biggest powder days on the mountain in recent memory, and it appeared that a bong-load each was to be their final step before piling into the car.
“And you two are?” Wolf asked, nodding to the young man on the couch and the young woman on the chair.
The guy on the living-room couch was in his late teens or early twenties. He wore black ski clothing five sizes too big, plastered with duct tape covering rips in the fabric. He had a long ponytail of knotted hair draping over his shoulder and a wispy beard that made Rachette’s facial growth look downright GQ. The guy’s eyes were narrowed—whether from the weed or defiance was unclear.
“Tyler,” he said, shaking his head. “Tyler McClellan.”
Defiance, Wolf decided.
The woman sitting on the chair looked up at Wolf with chocolate-brown eyes. Her hair was greasy blonde and hung behind her ears, looking like it hadn’t been washed for days. She wore a beaded hemp neckl
ace that draped onto a pink fleece; black ski pants and pink socks completed her outfit. She was probably attractive after a shower, Wolf thought, which looked to be a rare occurrence.
“Jamie,” she said. “Jamie Bancroft.”
Patterson had her notebook out and was writing furiously.
“John,” Wolf said. “What’s your last name?”
“Cameron,” he said. “What’s—”
“Was Stephanie here last night?” Wolf asked.
The guy on the couch blew air out of his lips and looked out the big window.
“Did I say something interesting to you?” Wolf asked.
The kid put his elbows on his knees and scratched the back of his head. “Nah.”
Wolf looked at them and held up his hands.
“Uh, she didn’t come home,” John said. “She texted me and said she was getting a ride home from some guys, so we didn’t go pick her up. But she never did show up here.”
“Pick her up from where?” Wolf asked.
“Sometimes we’ll pick her up from the shuttle stop at the bottom of the road, in town. She works up at Antler Creek Lodge,” John said.
Wolf realized where he’d seen Stephanie Lang before. She’d been walking the room last night, waiting on tables.
Jamie looked up from the cloth chair and lifted a finger. “Why are you asking about her? Did something happen?”
Wolf turned to John. “Could I see that text message, please?”
John unzipped a pocket on his ski pants and produced his cell phone. After a few taps on the screen, he held it up.
Wolf read the last incoming message from Stephanie: I got a ride from two dudes tonight. You don’t need to pick me up.
John had replied: Okay. You have to bring more beer if they want to drink anything.
Wolf nodded. “Who was here last night?”
John gestured to the couch. “Just us three.”
“And how long were you guys here? From approximately what time to what time?”
John shrugged. “All night. From sundown on. We were just riding out the storm with a few beers, chillin’ out, you know?”
Tyler scoffed and shook his head again.
“Is Stephanie seeing anybody? Dating anybody in particular?” Wolf asked.
This was the last straw for Tyler, who leaned his head back and started laughing.
Wolf watched the display, then asked, “Why’s that funny, Tyler?”
“Oh, sorry. Yeah. It’s just funny because you asked if she was seeing or dating anybody in particular.”
“Why’s that funny?” he asked again.
The kid put up finger quotes. “Anybody in particular. No. She isn’t seeing anyone in particular.” He sat back and concentrated on a fingernail.
“Um,”—John looked in between Tyler and Wolf—“no, she wasn’t seeing anyone in particular.”
“What’s going on?” Jamie asked, this time with more conviction.
“Yeah,” Tyler stood up from the couch and swiped his ponytail with a hand. “This is straight BS. You have to tell us what’s going on. You’re, like, entrapping us into making Stephanie look guilty for something, and we don’t even know it.”
“We found Stephanie’s body a half-mile down the road this morning,” Wolf said.
Tyler’s face dropped, and he sat back down on the couch. Jamie smothered her face with her hands and started whimpering.
“What? Her … body?” John said. “Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry,” Wolf said, studying their three faces as they withdrew into their own worlds of shock. Although they were all high as cirrus clouds and had been hard to read up until then, they seemed to be reacting genuinely to the news. No acting like they were concerned; it was the real deal.
Wolf cleared his throat. “Tyler, why did you laugh and say that about her seeing someone in particular?”
Tyler swayed his head back and forth a few times then looked up at Wolf with glassy eyes. “I … I, she … she just sees a lot of different guys.” He sniffed and a tear rolled down his cheek.
“Were you dating her, Tyler?” Patterson asked.
Tyler looked up at Patterson, his eyes now streaming, his teeth bared, and Patterson offered a sympathetic gaze in return, which seemed to soften his contorted face.
“Like I said, she doesn’t really date anyone … didn’t really date anyone in particular. But, yeah, we were kinda seeing each other. We were getting pretty close. So you can see that I was kind of pissed this morning that she was out with a couple of guys all night last night.” He shook his head and shut his eyes. “Oh my God. What happened to her?”
“We’re looking into it,” Wolf said.
“Was she killed?” Tyler pointed at the phone in John’s hand. “It was those two guys. Whoever those two guys were, it was them.”
Wolf pointed down the hall. “We need to search her things. Is her room back there?”
John nodded. “Yeah.” He went over and crammed himself next to the girl known as Jamie and put an arm around her.
Wolf looked at Patterson and then flicked his head toward the three kids. Patterson nodded and took out a pen and paper notebook from her pocket.
Rachette pointed at a door in the hallway and looked at John.
“It’s the last door on the right,” John said.
“Thank you,” Rachette said, and started walking.
Wolf followed him down the hall and into the room. It was completely dark inside, the window covered by a thick blanket fastened to the wall with screws.
Rachette flicked on the light and whispered to Wolf, “What do you think?”
Wolf shrugged. “Not sure yet.”
He went to the window, pulled aside the blanket, and saw there was a hook on the wall to hang it on, so he did so. The room faced east, and the blazing, snow-reflected sun lit it up like stadium lights on a football field.
Thick brown shag carpet covered the floor, and the boards underneath squeaked with every step. The unmade bed was centered against the wall opposite the window.
Wolf eased open the top drawer of the chest of drawers set under the window, and saw neatly folded socks and underwear. The second drawer held T-shirts, and the third, miscellaneous stuff: a leather folder, a notebook, various letters, and credit-card statements including some charges by merchants Wolf didn’t recognize. Sex toys. A half-empty box of condoms. Massage oils and candles.
“Hey,” Rachette said, pointing in the top drawer of a small desk set in the corner.
Wolf walked over and looked inside at a stack of hundred-dollar bills. He picked up a pencil and pushed them with the eraser, fanning them out. They were crisp and had successive serial numbers, looking like they had never seen the inside of a wallet.
Wolf counted the money by sight. “That’s twelve hundred in cash.”
“Yeah,” Rachette said, “and that’s not from waiting tables. No way.”
Wolf nodded. “Could have brought a stack of smaller bills and traded them in for fresh hundreds at the bank … I guess,” Wolf said, but not believing his own words.
“Drugs?” Rachette asked.
Wolf shrugged. “Bag it,” he said.
A thorough search of the rest of the room revealed nothing significant; nothing like twelve hundred in crisp cash.
Wolf and Rachette walked back into the living room. Patterson looked up, closed her notebook, thanked the three kids quietly, and nodded at Wolf.
“Did Stephanie sell drugs?” Wolf asked no one in particular.
They looked at each other and shook their heads.
“No, she didn’t,” John said.
“She was clean. Didn’t like drugs anymore,” said Tyler.
“What do you mean, anymore?” asked Rachette.
“She used to do all sorts of stuff, like weed and other stuff, and then she quit. Cold turkey. It was like a big deal for her. She went to a counseling group about it and everything,” Tyler said.
“Where did she do that?” Wo
lf asked.
“At the old bank building,” Tyler said. “Mondays and Thursdays.”
Rachette, Wolf, and Patterson exchanged glances. They all knew that was where Sarah—Wolf’s Sarah—counseled a group of troubled young men and women, and they knew those were her nights. It had been a memorable quip by Rachette—Mondays and Thursdays? Those are football nights. I’d just have to stay an addict—and Wolf knew his fellow deputies were remembering the same thing right now.
“Thank you, guys,” Wolf said. “Deputy Patterson?”
Patterson nodded and waved her notebook. Yeah, I have everything we need here—names, phone numbers, addresses.
Wolf pulled a stack of business cards out of his pocket, peeled three off and handed them out. “Please stay available for us. We’ll probably be back soon, but we’ll call first. And in the meantime, if you need to talk, remember anything of importance, please either call us or come down. Any time, all right?”
They nodded, and Wolf ushered Rachette and Patterson out.
The sun was a little higher in the eastern sky, but it was still nostril-freezing cold out, and they walked in silence to the cars, all zipping and pulling on fabric to stave off the invading air that jabbed at their faces, necks, ears, and wrists.
“You get the next-of-kin info?” Wolf asked, holding out a hand.
Patterson shook her head. “There is none.”
Wolf frowned. “No parents?”
“Nope. No one, as far as the kids knew. They said her parents were killed when she was a child, and they didn’t know about brothers or sisters. Nothing about grandparents. Nothing.”
Wolf nodded. “Okay. I’m going back by the scene. You two make your way up to Antler Creek and find out who she left with last night.”
Rachette nodded and opened his mouth like he wanted to ask something, then thought better of it.
“You going to see Sarah?” Patterson asked, looking up with a curious wince.
Wolf looked at her and narrowed his eyes, thinking about his earlier conversation with Special Agent Luke, and how she had been so in the know about Sarah’s breakup with Mark Wilson, and how her source of gossip must have been Patterson. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll talk to her about Lang.”