Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Which way now?”

Brandenburg’s voice came out of Wolf’s radio. They were driving the trail behind the house in their trucks. Brandenburg had come to a stop, contemplating a fork in the road.

“Just a second.” Wolf shifted into park, got out of his truck, and went to the front bumper of Brandenburg’s, looking down at the dirt.

Nichols got out and came up alongside him. “Got anything?”

Little signs of use showed themselves on the rocky, weed-covered trail, but Wolf found some uprooted rocks and a faint wheel impression leading to the right. He pointed them out. “I think it’s this way.”

Wolf walked back, stopping at Brandenburg’s open window, while Nichols climbed back into the passenger seat of his boss’s truck.

“I think they went right,” Wolf said .

Brandenburg said nothing as he rolled up his window and let off the brake, taking the right turn.

Wolf climbed into his SUV and followed, another round of annoyance at the sheriff’s attitude prickling him.

The terrain was relatively flat but thickly wooded with junipers and pines. The way forward revealed itself in hundred-yard chunks, coming around bends and through knots of trees.

Both of Wolf’s windows were down, letting in fragrant air scented by the evergreen foliage. Ahead, Brandenburg moved at a good pace, not too slow or too fast, swerving between large rocks and bushes.

After fifteen minutes of travel, they came into a large clearing, and the trail bent toward a house standing in a field dotted with cattle.

Wolf thumbed the radio and put it to his lips. “Whose place is this?”

The answer took a long time, and just before Wolf was going to ask the question again, Nichols’s voice came on.

“Looks like a guy named Dean Chancellor’s place.”

The truck bounced over some ruts, but the two-track was more well-worn here and smoother, and Brandenburg drove faster. Wolf pressed the gas to keep up.

As they neared the house, they passed a graveyard of farm equipment spread around an outbuilding. The place was one-storied, much like Hunt’s had been.

A man stood outside, eyeing the two vehicles as they drove up. As they passed by, he rounded the side of the house, keeping them in view.

The trail spilled onto a dirt road ahead, and Brandenburg slowed, rolling over a cattle guard as he turned right and toward the house. Wolf did the same, then followed Brandenburg a short distance, parked in front of the place, and shut off his engine.

All three got out and stood at Brandenburg’s front bumper, a cloud of dust washing over them.

“Mr. Chancellor!” Brandenburg said.

“What d’ya want?” the man responded.

Brandenburg smiled, walking up the driveway toward the house. “We’d like to talk to you.”

“Hi there, Dean,” Nichols said.

Chancellor was in his fifties, thin and short, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, a trucker hat cast shadows over a distrustful glare. He remained ten paces away, standing with folded arms.

“About what?”

“Lawrence Hunt,” Brandenburg said.

“What about him?”

“Have you seen him lately?”

“Nope.” The man looked to his right, toward the side of the house, and then back at them, his eyes hard, as if he were now engaged in a staring contest.

It was such a peculiar move that they all looked.

Parked near the house sat a Polaris brand side-by-side. The model had two enclosed seats, and the cargo bed was stenciled with white paint reading Ranger that matched the exact logo they’d found on the cover back in Lawrence Hunt’s shed.

Wolf, Brandenburg, and Nichols exchanged glances.

“Whose is that?” Brandenburg asked, walking further up the driveway toward the vehicle.

“That’s mine. And I’d like it if you’d stay away from it.”

Brandenburg frowned, looking at him. “Why?” He continued walking .

Nichols followed, but Wolf kept where he was, watching Dean Chancellor closely. The man seemed harmless enough, but he hadn’t gotten a look at the full circumference of his beltline.

“You can’t just come barging in here looking through my stuff.”

“I’ve been looking at purchasing one of those myself,” Wolf said in an amicable tone. “Do you like it?”

Dean said nothing, flicking a glance at Wolf, returning his glare to the two deputies.

Brandenburg reached the vehicle and touched the tires. “The tread matches.”

Nichols nodded.

“This is Lawrence Hunt’s side-by-side,” Brandenburg said, walking toward Dean.

Chancellor’s chest was heaving now like he’d just finished walking up a flight of stairs. He swallowed, shaking his head.

“Dean, we know it,” Brandenburg said. “We found the cover to it at his place with the same logo. Ranger. Come on. It’s his.”

“So what?” Dean said. “So, what’s the problem?”

Brandenburg chuckled. “Well, the first problem is, why did you just lie to us?”

“He gave it to me.”

“He gave it to you?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay.” Brandenburg shrugged. “Why did he give it to you?”

“We traded.”

“Traded for what?”

Dean blinked. “My truck. ”

“That wouldn’t happen to be a blue Ford F-150, would it?” Wolf asked.

“That’s right. Why? What did he do?”

“Why did he have to do anything?” Brandenburg asked, chuckling. “What are you hiding from us? What’s with the cagey attitude?”

Dean narrowed his eyes, his hands opening and closing. “If he gave me money from some illegal source for this deal that we had together, do I get to keep it? I mean, I told him, trading straight up like that…that’s not enough. I said I needed something more than that beat-up side-by-side. A mini truck for a full-sized truck don’t cut it. The F-150 only had ninety thousand miles on it. Brand new drive train. All new tires.”

A moment of silence passed.

“Why would you think the money was from an illegal source?” Wolf asked.

Dean shook his head, his stoic face finally cracking, like he’d been holding a secret for ages and finally had somebody to tell. “He was all out of sorts. And he had a bag with him. And he reached in and gave me four stacks of bills this high.” He pinched his fingers. “Looked like something out of the movies.”

“Do you still happen to have these stacks of cash?” Brandenburg asked.

Dean’s eyes went over his shoulder, then down to the ground. A John Deere tractor was parked in the distance. “No,” he said.

“You bought yourself a tractor with the money,” Brandenburg said.

“I didn’t know it was bad money.”

“Nobody said it was bad money yet,” Brandenburg said .

Dean closed his mouth.

“Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened?” Wolf said.

“He came ripping in here on that thing, then knocking on my door…it must have been three a.m.”

“When?” Wolf asked.

“Umm…”

“Saturday morning?” Nichols asked.

“Yeah. Saturday. Anyway, I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ And he just said, ‘Hey, I need your truck.’ And he wanted to trade for it. I told him the truck was for sale for a reason. I gotta get some money for it. And that’s when he went back to his side-by-side, dug into a duffle bag, and handed me forty grand. Four bundles of hundreds, ten grand each.”

Dean fluttered his lips. “And then he told me I can keep the Polaris, too. I said, sign me up. Here are the keys!”

Brandenburg whistled softly. “That’s a pretty good payday.”

“Sure is,” Dean said. He looked at them, his joy fading. “So…what do you want from me?”

“Do you have any copies of the registration we can take a look at?” Wolf asked. “We need to know the license plate.”

“Sure do.”

“Excellent.”