“Sir?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you talk to Hammes’s boss at the casino restaurant?”
Wolf flipped a page. “Uh. No. I actually didn’t get around to it.”
Rachette frowned, looking at Patterson. Patterson shrugged.
“I thought you and Cain went to the casino,” Rachette said.
“We did. We talked to Mary Dimitri’s boss, though. We found out she was working until seven P.M. Monday night. She left alone. So she was killed Monday night, or early Tuesday morning.”
“We have to track down Rick Hammes,” Patterson said. “And… why, exactly, didn’t you talk to his former boss at the casino restaurant?”
Wolf sat back, finally looking up at her. “Deputy Cain’s father had…an episode. I had to go help her with it. When it was over, it was late. I was tired. I came home. I slept. I’ll go back up today and finish the interviews.” Wolf dug back into the file.
Rachette popped his eyebrows and mouthed the words, Deputy Cain.
Wolf turned around. “What?”
“Nothing, sir. Yates is down talking to Lorber.”
“You already said that.”
“I did. Yes, I did.”
Yates came into the office, knocking. “I was just down talking to Lorber.”
“So we’ve heard,” Patterson said. She put her foot up on the chair, savoring deflation of pain out of her ankle again. “What did he have?”
Yates held up a piece of paper in his hand and fluttered it. “He found prints on the two beer bottles matching Hammes.”
“Okay,” Rachette said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Yates read from the paper. “The bullet hole in the top of her skull was the same size as the one through the top of Chris Oakley’s head. Same stippling on her chin. As Detective Rachette and I ascertained yesterday, none of Mary Dimitri’s neighbors heard any gunshots Monday night, or the night before.”
“The Sheriff just told us he spoke to Mary Ellen’s boss at the casino,” Patterson said. “She was working Monday night until seven p.m. So, she would have been shot Monday night, or early Tuesday morning.”
Yates nodded, pointing at the paper. “Lorber’s report puts the time of death around midnight, Monday night.”
Yates put the sheet of paper on Patterson’s desk, still holding another couple of sheets in his other hand.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The warrant you were going to ask me to get for Hammes’s arrest.” He slapped it on the desk.
“And?”
“The search warrant for his house.”
Wolf scooped them up. “Let’s go.”
The three men walked out of the room at full speed, leaving a swirl of their aftershave and, in Rachette’s case, cheap cologne, in their wake.
With a sigh she got up, the blood thumping back into her foot, hammering down with an explosion of pain with each hop as she went to her door and closed it. Once back to her desk she sat again, put her foot up, and gripped her computer mouse.
She clicked over to her email and saw a new one from Margaret Hitchens, her aunt and mayor of the town of Rocky Points. It was a reply from an original email from Wolf to Margaret including the report and spreadsheet. The County Treasurer, Leo Helms, and the other members of the county council budget committee, Mike Barrish, and Jack Herschel, were CC’d along with Patterson.
She clicked it open.
Excellent work Heather and David! I’ve already spoken to everyone and we like it. Looks like we will be able to move forward with this. We’ll stay in touch if we need anything else, but really this is above and beyond. Excellent job.
Patterson stared at the words, pride welling up inside her.
She had to admit. She could get used to this.
Chapter 16
The road to Dredge looked different under a morning sky devoid of clouds. Wolf cracked the window to test the air and was rewarded with a chill swirl to the face.
He rolled it back up and sipped his coffee, checking the rearview. Rachette and Yates, followed close behind, rounding the bend behind him.
His thoughts returned back, for the what seemed like the thousandth time, to Deputy Cain squeezing his arm the night before. Not in a very long time had a touch sent so much electricity flowing through his body. The way she’d held the sustained pressure, and swirled her fingers as she let go.
And then there was that brushing of their legs in the casino at the bar. That had been something, hadn’t it? At first it had been a clear mistake, but not pulling her leg away was no error. Of course, he’d kept his leg still, too. It had been like a mini game of chicken, and for a few moments neither of them had backed down.
Or it had been two innocent, incidental contacts with Deputy Piper Cain. My God, he head to get ahold of himself. He rolled down the window again, this time all the way, dousing any heat coming off his body with a roiling blast of frigid air.
He took the wheel with both hands and let the air clear his head for a full few minutes.
As he came around a bend the valley opened up. Aspens shimmered along the river, the sunlight poking through, and he could detect the scent of the river. Another good day to be out on the job and not behind the desk if there ever was one. With MacLean’s triumphant return from his battle with cancer he was bound to have many more of these days.
His phone vibrated in the center console, bringing him back to the present.
He picked it up and saw a missed call from a phone number he didn’t recognize. There was a voicemail, so he pressed the button and put it to his ear, rolling up the window so he could hear.
“Hey, it’s Ned. He’s back. Out petting his dog right now. You said call, so I called.”
Wolf frowned and lowered the phone, momentarily confused by what he’d just heard. And then he remembered Ned Larson had been the neighbor and he was talking about Rick Hammes.
Wolf slowed to a stop on the side of the road, hoping he was
