She rounded the edge of the building. “Sir, it's Deputy Cain. I’m at Lonnie’s Market in Dredge, and I think I just figured something out. Please give me a call—”
She noticed a form in her peripheral vision, and turned in time to see the dark brown coat, realizing in a flash it was the man she’d seen inside the store.
For a fleeting instant, a fraction of a heartbeat, she recognized him. And then something hit her on the back of the head with a dull thud. Her vision contracted, nothing but stars swimming in from all sides. The last thing she saw was her phone drop onto the ground, falling from her fingers, and then everything went black.
Chapter 29
“She said ground floor…” Wolf pulled the phone away from his ear and checked what the vibration had been.
Piper Cain was calling.
His thoughts went back to her porch the previous night. Just when he’d pushed that out of his mind, here she was calling him, reeling him back in. He would return the call in a minute. He declined the call and pressed the phone back to his ear.
Patterson was still talking. “…three rooms. There’s no—”
“Sorry,” Wolf interrupted her. “I just had another call. Can you repeat that, please?”
“Yes. I said I went to the Edelweiss Hotel and spoke to the owner.”
“I heard that part,” Wolf said. “You went to the hotel, the owner said McBeth checked them in using his credit card. And then I missed what you said.”
“I said that even though we paid for it, they put McBeth’s credit card on file, but there were no charges made to it by the motel when they checked out the next day. All three of the men had single rooms on the ground floor. They all filled out a registration form for the parking lot. But that’s about as far as I got for information. She did not know if any of the trucks left, or if any of them left. And besides asking her, she was on duty that night, there’s no way of knowing.”
“Security cameras?” Wolf asked. His phone dinged, notifying him of a voicemail.
“No, sir.”
Wolf stood and stretched his free arm overhead. His clock read 3:30. It had been a long day jockeying behind the desk.
“If we could find a financial transaction for Monday night up in Dredge around the time of Mary Dimitri’s murder,” Wolf said, “we could prove one of them left the hotel in Rocky Points and went back up there.”
“I’ll work on getting the records.”
“I know you’re working on it,” he said. “Thanks. Talk to you soon.”
Wolf hung up and yawned, looking out at the bleak weather pressed down on Rocky Points outside. His muscles hurt from the workout he’d done that morning, just as he’d predicted. Maybe a brisk walk to the coffee shop would loosen him up.
He put his phone onto his desk and hit the voicemail button, putting it on speaker while he slipped on his jacket.
“Sir, it's Deputy Cain.” She sounded excited, out of breath and higher-pitched than he’d remembered. “I’m here at Lonnie’s Market in Dredge, and I think I just figured something out. Please give me a call—”
The phone call cut out in a blast of static. She said something else but it was distorted by the wavering signal, a single syllable coming out of her mouth drawn out into a haunting wail. Then the call ended.
He pressed her number and put the phone to his ear as he walked out of his office, smiling as he heard her voice. “Hello, this is Piper Cain, please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a great day.” Though the words themselves were ordinary, the musical lilt in her voice made it worthy of a Grammy. “Hi, this is Sheriff Wolf, I got your message. Give me a call back.”
Seeing he had a text from her as well, he opened it as he entered the elevator. A picture, and nothing else.
The image was of a computer screen. The flash had washed out the middle of the photo, though he could make out a jumble of numbers on a spreadsheet.
The elevator doors opened at the ground floor, but he stood frozen, staring at the screen. The numbers were coded, accompanied by abbreviations and the occasional complete word.
She had come across a financial transaction at Lonnie’s Market up in Dredge. Did it involve the miners? She’d been excited.
He stepped out of the elevator and called her again, again getting her voicemail.
She wasn’t answering. She would certainly call back. But he’d also been handed a perfectly legitimate excuse to make the drive up to Dredge now. To see what she’d gotten firsthand.
To see her again.
He walked down the hall to the back of the building and out into the parking lot. The rain swirled down in sneeze droplets. The sky was low enough his head was leaving a wake in the clouds. It was already almost four o’clock and he was dead tired. But he decided it was going to be a decent day after all.
Chapter 30
Someone tapped Rachette on the shoulder. He snorted awake and wiped a stream of drool from his chin. “Hey, yeah.”
The blurry form standing in front of him solidified into Yates. Hanson was standing next to him.
“He’s awake now,” Yates said. “Let’s go.”
Rachette stood up from the row of plastic chairs in the Sluice-Byron County Hospital waiting room and stretched his limbs, checking his watch. He’d been sleeping for an hour.
Deputy Hanson had been tasked with guarding Hammes’s room overnight up on the third floor, and also letting Yates and Rachette know when the big man woke up again so they could question him.
“You guys want coffee first?” Hanson asked as they passed the vending machine.
“Nah,” Rachette said, allowing the deputy to escort them through double doors to the main hallway.
They
