by Jeff Carson
“Did you see her last night?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He nodded and put on his gloves. “I took her over to the gondola, just like half of the rest of the people here. We had two cats going last night but, yeah, I remember taking her. She left early. The snow had just started.”
“Was she with anyone?” Patterson asked.
“Like, what do you mean, with someone? I remember … there were probably like seven or eight other people on the cat, and a ski patrolman sitting up front with me.”
“Do you remember if she was conversing with two men?” Rachette asked. “Like she was leaving with them.”
Scott raised his eyebrows and looked to be starting a grin, and then looked at Patterson’s serious expression and scrunched his face in thought. A light went on, and he closed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah, she was. She was with a guy.”
“One man?” Rachette asked.
Scott nodded.
“How do you know they were together?” Patterson asked.
“I remember them cuddling and laughing, trying to keep warm against the blowing snow as they got into the cat. And then they sat just behind me and to the right, and I remember watching them kind of groping each other.”
“They were kissing?” Patterson asked.
“No. Just acting super friendly, you know? All smiles and,”—he shook his head—“I don’t know, just all up against each other.” Scott pantomimed cuddling up next to a person, and then looked down at Patterson.
Patterson stared with half-closed eyes. “Can you describe the man?”
Scott swallowed, flicked a look at Rachette and Wilson, and cleared his throat. “No, sorry.”
“Are you sure?” Rachette said.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. No, I can’t remember what he looked like. I shuttled so many people last night, and everyone was bundled up, and there was blowing snow … I’d just be making stuff up if I gave you any sort of description.”
Patterson stepped past Scott and got into the snow cat. Before she could stop herself, the words were already out of her mouth. “We wouldn’t want you making stuff up,” she said as she sat down on the rear bench.
“Uhh.” Rachette looked at Patterson and then Scott. “I guess we’re ready to hit it. I’ll sit up front with you.”
They bounced and swayed in silence on the short ride back to the gondola.
When they stopped, Patterson jumped out and walked to the front of the cat.
Scott met her halfway with an outstretched hand and a smile.
“Who was the gondola operator last night?” she asked, giving a quick and lifeless shake, not bothering to take off her glove.
“It was … Victor. Victor Peterhaus.”
She took off her glove and pulled out her notebook. “Can you spell that?”
He did.
“Do you have his number?” she asked.
He did and pulled out his cell phone and gave it to her.
“Thanks,” she said, and walked into the gondola terminal, and into the first vacant gondola.
A few seconds later Rachette and Wilson came in, wobbling the car as they sat breathlessly, a wary look of concern on their faces. And zipped lips.
Chapter 9
After sending Rachette and Patterson up to the mountain, Wolf drove up the road to check on the crime scene once again. They were clicking pictures, writing notes, and bagging evidence. Satisfied that Lorber, Blank, and the four deputies were processing the scene with expert efficiency and didn’t need any help from him, Wolf turned his truck around and headed back down into town.
On the way he called Sarah. When it went to voicemail, he hung up and dialed Jack.
“Hello?” Jack said, his voice cracking, like it did so often these days.
“Hey man, what’s going on?”
Wolf heard nothing. The connection was shoddy, as it was so often in the area.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yeah.” Jack’s voice was an old, scratched record.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“Good. How are you?” A flutter of wind hit his phone mic, and Wolf realized that Jack was probably on the mountain.
“You riding today?” Wolf asked, careful to use Jack’s proper term for skiing.
“Yeah, I’m on the lift. It dumped huge. It’s so epic.”
Wolf nodded, picturing his son on the ski lift, his legs, lanky after a growth spurt that had hit him painfully that past few months, dangling with wide skis designed for deep-powder days, long hair poking out from under his cap, probably wearing way too little clothing for how cold it was.
“Hey, you know where your mom is today?”
“... center … someone.”
“What? You’re breaking up.”
“She’s at the … nity center, said she had to meet someone. To talk. I think she was meeting Chris Wakefield.”
“Oh, really?” The community center. The old bank building. The two were synonymous. “Okay, thanks.”
“She didn’t say, but she gave me this big talk about suicide this morning, and then she said she had to go talk to someone who was having a hard time today. So I put two and two together.”
Wolf nodded, wondering who Jack was sitting next to on the ski lift, divulging all this information in a voice just below a shout.
“Yeah, okay. Listen, we’ll talk later.” Wolf hung up.
At the bottom of the road, he stopped at the stop sign and took a right. Another block up, he slowed to a stop at the four-way, which, for Highway 734, was the only stop sign on Main Street for miles in either direction. He paused, looking at the signs and the freshly plowed roads extending in four directions.
Another truck crunched to a stop on Main and puffed patiently, waiting for Wolf to make his move. Wolf waved the driver on. He was thinking about Deputy Baine, Baine’s nemesis, the helicopter pilot Matt Cooper, and the traffic stop the previous night.
As he drove on, he passed bundled people milling around outside the Edelweiss Bakery, a Bobcat mini-loader that was clearing off the sidewalk, and Greg’s John Deere, still scooping and swiveling, building the ridge of snow in the center of the street.
Wolf’s truck rocked and slid as he pulled into the half-plowed parking lot of the community center. Three vehicles were lined up, all parked along the front of the building—Sarah’s Toyota 4Runner, an older-model silver Toyota pickup, and a Ford SUV that was billowing exhaust.
Wolf parked, and the Ford backed out and then drove away. He shut off his SUV and watched the truck leave. At the wheel was Chris Wakefield, the teenage son of Greg Wakefield, the mayor of Rocky Points, and Jen Wakefield, the woman who was to be buried later today after a closed-casket ceremony.
Wolf knew this would probably be one of the worst days of Chris’s life, having to bury his mother. Maybe second worse only to two days prior when Chris had found out the news. It was no surprise that he was seeking comfort from Sarah.
Wolf stepped out of his truck and gave a somber wave, and Chris’s hand rose and fell with a vague gesture as he peeled away.
Wolf walked over the softly packed snow and pulled open the door.
The community center in town was an old bank from the early 1900s, so it was commonly, and cleverly, referred to as the “old bank building” by the residents in town. Despite the name, there was no indication inside that it had ever been an old bank. There were no teller counters, no vaults, and no toiling employees with green visors scribbling in ledgers.
Instead, it had been renovated with short carpet and buzzing fluorescent lights, separating walls faced with cheap wood paneling, and plastic furniture that had probably been ten years old when it was brought in twenty years previously.
Plain wood frames displayed old black-and-white pictures of Main Street on one wall. On another was a row of color headshots of the employees, with brass-engraved nameplates below. Each face looked too bright and washed out, but somehow, despite the flash burning into her face like an atom-bomb detona
tion, Sarah still looked good in her picture hung at the end of the line.
Nobody was inside the narrow room at the front, so he walked into the hallway and made his way back to the big room where the meetings were usually held, and where Sarah was most likely to be.
The wood under the carpet creaked, a clock ticked on the hallway wall, and the lights hummed overhead. As he approached, he heard nothing from the big room, so he was startled when he walked in and saw two faces staring at him, not just Sarah.
“Oh, hi,” Wolf said.
Kevin Ash sat on a plastic chair in front of Sarah. The young man looked away from Wolf and stared at the floor. His eyes were red and his cheeks wet.
Sarah sat a few feet away, and there was a vacant chair next to her, apparently where Chris Wakefield had just been sitting. She looked up at Wolf and raised her eyebrows.
“Uh, sorry.” Wolf backed out of the room. “I’ll just wait up front. I was hoping to get a word with you, Sarah.”
“Okay,” she said quietly. “It will be a few minutes.”
“No problem,” Wolf said, and walked back down the hall and into the front room.
No more than a minute later, he heard the squeaking of footsteps coming down the hall and then Kevin came out with Sarah close behind.
Kevin’s cheeks were dry, but he stared at the floor with a drooping mouth. His blond facial hair was a few days grown, and he had straw-colored hair peeking out from his black winter hat with a Rocky Points Ski Patrol patch sewn to the front of it. Despite his scraggly appearance, he looked strong, healthy, and fit from spending so much time on the mountain.
Since Wolf had interviewed Kevin Ash for what had ultimately become Patterson’s position, they hadn’t exactly been on speaking terms in the few times Wolf had seen him around town. Last summer, Wolf had dismissed the county council chairman’s son as a terrible candidate for a sheriff’s deputy—an assessment he still stood by—and that had hurt him. Wolf knew Kevin worked for the ski patrol now, and it was proving a much better fit.
“Hi Kevin,” Wolf said.
“Hi,” he said, avoiding eye contact.
“Not up at the mountain today? I would have thought Duke would be working everyone to the bone with this dump we had last night.”
Kevin looked at Wolf for the first time, and Wolf thought he saw real hatred simmering inside his blue eyes.
“I took a personal day today,” he said, and then walked away toward the door.
Wolf’s mind was cranking. Was Kevin upset because he’d somehow just heard about Stephanie Lang? If so, how?
“Hey, Kevin,” Wolf said.
Kevin stopped and looked up at Wolf with drooping eyelids, like he was about to be reprimanded by the school principal.
“Do you know Stephanie Lang?” Wolf asked, being careful with his verb tense.
“Yeah, she’s in the group with us.”
Wolf was surprised. “Oh, you’re in Sarah’s group?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“Nothing,” Wolf said eyeing him. Then he realized it was clear that Kevin didn’t know about Stephanie. Something else was upsetting him, and Wolf’s line of questioning needed to stop.
Kevin lifted his hands and then dropped them at his sides.
“Sorry, I was just wondering,” Wolf said.
Kevin shook his head and zipped up his coat. Without another word, he walked out, got in his truck, fired it up, and drove away.
Sarah was looking at him with wide eyes. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We need to talk.”
She parted her lips and squinted. “What the hell? You just start interrogating him like that, and then stop?”
“Sarah, we need to talk.”
She sighed and walked down the hall to the big room.
He followed close behind. When they reached the main meeting room, he sat in the cheap plastic and metal chair Kevin had been sitting in. It was still warm.
Sarah shook her head and sat down across from Wolf. “Chris’s mother killing herself has put a lot of strain on these kids.”
Wolf sat quietly, watching Sarah pull her aspen-bark blonde hair behind her ear. She wasn’t wearing makeup today, which was a look Wolf liked on her. It showed her beauty as God had given it, which was ample. Her face was darkly tanned on the lower half, goggle-eyed from skiing the past few weeks in the sun. Her blue sweater was snug against her body, accentuating the perfect bulges on her chest and athletic arms. Her jeans were old and frayed, taut against her slim legs. Underneath a tear in her jeans Wolf could see the fabric sheen of long underwear, a staple piece of clothing for winters in Rocky Points.
“What’s up?” she said, finally meeting his eyes with her fiery blues.
Wolf took a deep breath and let it out.
“That’s not good,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“No, it’s not,” he said. “We found a dead body this morning.”
Sarah sat rock still and closed her eyes.
“It was Stephanie Lang,” Wolf said. “That’s why I was asking Kevin about her. I thought you guys might have been talking about her for some reason.”
A tear dripped down her cheek and she sniffed. Her lips parted and quivered. “What happened?”
“She was killed. Murdered. We’re looking for two men who might have been with her. You saw her last night, right? At the party?”
Sarah wiped her eyes and looked at him. “Yeah.”
“Did you happen to see her leave? Or looking like she was going to leave with someone?”
Sarah looked through the wall behind Wolf, and then clenched her eyes tightly.
Wolf leaned forward and put a hand on her knee. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s my worst nightmare for her come true.”
“What do you mean?”
“She used to do drugs a lot. Then she quit, but she … she was still an addict. Sex.”
Wolf put his elbows on his knees.
“I was real worried about her, going around with all these strange men.”
“So she told you about these men?” He sat up straight. “Talked about it in the group here?”
“Well, yes and no. She broke down once and told the whole group about it, and she stayed after once and told me about a man. A man who had roughed her up a bit. She was a little freaked out.”
“When was this?”
Sarah stood, walked to a table near the window, and retrieved a tissue. “It was a long time ago. Like months. And ever since that night, she’s never told me much. She kind of just goes through,”—she shook her head—“went through the motions at these meetings. I knew she was still out doing her thing with men, though. I’ve seen her. Even the other night at the party, she was, just … slutty. I hate to use that word, but she was just so confused, and she latched onto men, let them do whatever they wanted. It seemed like the worse she brought out in men, the better for her or something.”
“You said the other night at the party.” Wolf stood up. “What do you mean?”
Sarah blew her nose. “Charlie Ash’s party. The whole thing was catered by Antler Creek and she was there.”
“And she was with specific men that night?” he asked.
“No, not really. I just mean it was the way she was acting. Grabbing arms, rubbing lower backs, and pressing her boobs.” Sarah sucked in a breath and looked up at the ceiling, and then shook her head.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Wolf stared at her.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “She did come over to our table last night, and she said hi to me, and then …”
Wolf waited, then said, “She’s dead, Sarah. Strangled. We believe two men are responsible. If you know anything, I need to know.”
“All right. Well, I remember that when she came over to our table, she leaned down to talk to Klammer’s assistant, like talk in his ear, and he kind of pulled her down by the arm and whispered something back. It was close, and it was a lon
g whisper, so I remember thinking that maybe they knew each other from earlier. I remember that she was blushing when she stood back up. But she”—she shook her head—“she never came back. Never talked to him again. It was nothing. He was probably just asking for a fork and tried to hit on her or something.”
“And what’s this guy’s name?”
Sarah slumped her shoulders. “Oh, come on, David. You can’t … don’t go roughing this guy up and telling him I told you anything. If Klammer Corp gets the contract, and they’re pissed at me, and they don’t choose Margaret’s firm to sell the units—”
“Relax.” Wolf stepped close and rubbed her shoulders, a gesture he didn’t realize would be so intimate until he was suddenly doing it.
She looked up at him with sad eyes. She smelled like memories of days making love in bed.
He dropped his hands.
“Jonas Prock,” she said. “That’s his name. Just, be discreet.”
Wolf nodded and looked down at her. “Are you sure about the drugs? I mean with Stephanie. She was off them for sure?”
Sarah nodded. “I’m sure. She stopped. I can spot those things better than most. Why?”
“We searched her room, and she had twelve hundred dollars in her drawer. All crisp hundreds, straight from the bank.”
“Well, could have been a big tip. Or she cashed a check.” But Sarah was staring through Wolf again. “Or …”
“Or what?”
“Or she was selling herself.” Sarah sighed and another tear fell down her cheek. She stepped forward and gave him a hug, putting her ear on his chest. Then she shook with sobs.
He returned her embrace, and the butt of his pistol dug into his hip.
“What kind of world are we raising Jack in?” she asked.
Wolf stroked her head.
After what seemed to be a full minute, the hug seemed to turn from comforting one another to the beginnings of something else, and Sarah pressed into him even harder; then, just as abruptly, she pulled away and looked down at the floor.
“We have to talk one of these days, okay?” she said.
“Yeah,” Wolf said. “Okay.”
She sniffed and looked at her watch. “Shit, I have to go to the office before the funeral. I’ll see you up there.”