Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Brandenburg drove a few miles per hour slower than Wolf would have liked on the way to Green River, even with the flashers on.

It had taken just over two hours to get to the town off I-80 that sat across the border in Wyoming.

Conversations between Wolf and the sheriff had been brief and clipped. Brandenburg seemed preoccupied with something other than their destination.

Wolf had spent the silence listening to the soft country music coming out of the radio and ruminating on Dolores, her son Mitch Russell, the unknown daughter Savannah, and their potential connection to Lawrence Hunt. It all fit. Dolores’s black eye and the way that biker came to watch Wolf. Or had he been watching Mitch? Making sure the guy didn’t tell Wolf too much?

Then again, maybe none of it mattered. Maybe they were about to find Lawrence right now.

“Coming up on the right,” Wolf said, looking at the GPS on his phone .

“Gotcha,” Brandenburg said.

They had exited the highway a few minutes prior and coasted into the town, which was a little like a bowl, rimmed by white buttes, plateaus, and cliffs. Boxy one-story houses with siding and chain-link fenced yards lined the residential roads, the inhabitants a blue-collar population drawn to work the shale oil deposits, natural gas, and mining operations in the area.

Four-wheel drives and sedans lined the streets, old clunkers mixed with new models. Up ahead, a cluster of police officers congregated around the elusive blue Ford F-150, parked facing away from them.

“You can see the dent in the side,” Brandenburg said, parking his truck.

“The license plate is different,” Wolf said, noting a Minnesota plate attached to the rear.

“Must have switched it.” Brandenburg shut off his truck.

They got out into the hot air, made hotter by the rising air off the neighborhood tarmac.

A woman in uniform broke off from a group of five men and walked their way.

“Lieutenant Gifford,” she said in greeting, holding out a hand to them.

Wolf took the woman’s firm grip and shook. “Wolf.”

“Sheriff Brandenburg.”

“What’s happening?” Wolf asked.

“A patrol officer found it this morning,” she said. “The plates don’t match, but it’s definitely the vehicle in question. I checked the registration in the glove box and found Dean Chancellor’s name on the paperwork.”

“Has anybody touched it?” Wolf asked .

“I have,” she said. “But I gloved up. Just to get into the glove box.”

Brandenburg gestured for Wolf to take the lead and Wolf walked the half-block up to the truck, Lt. Gifford following them.

“Mind if we take a look?” Wolf said, pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves.

“Be my guest.”

He went to the passenger door, opened it, and ducked inside. It smelled of old leather and aftershave. The keys hung from the ignition. A bag of McDonald’s was wadded up on the floorboard.

He checked the center console, finding it completely empty—ready to sell. The glove compartment contained the registration and an insurance card with Dean Chancellor’s name on it; otherwise, nothing else.

“Have you talked to the neighbors?” Wolf asked, looking under the seats. There was nothing there except a few stray coins.

“I spoke to every neighbor you can see from the vehicle,” Gifford said. “Which is those three houses, here, here, and here.”

“Those people said the truck has been there since yesterday.” She pointed at the nearest house, where an elderly couple stood watching from a window. “They couldn’t tell me what time.”

“And the others?” Brandenburg asked.

“They didn’t know anything.”

Wolf ducked out of the vehicle and shut the door. “Nobody got a look at him?”

She shook her head. “Nope. ”

Wolf looked around. “This parking spot’s not in front of a house. Not near any one of them specifically.”

Brandenburg grunted in agreement. “Looks like it’s been ditched, if you ask me.”

“If he ditched it,” Wolf said, “he would need another vehicle.”

“We know he’s flush with cash,” Brandenburg said. “Maybe he bought another vehicle. He switched the license plates already. He must have guessed we were looking for this truck.”

“Maybe he knows somebody here in the neighborhood,” Wolf said.

“A former army buddy,” Brandenburg said.

Wolf nodded. “A former Special Forces buddy.”

“How is this guy flush with cash?” Gifford asked.

Brandenburg explained how Hunt had stolen cash from the motorcycle gang.

“Oh, wow,” she said. “How much?”

“He paid the owner forty grand for this one.”

She whistled, then pointed. “So, is that why those bikers are watching us?”

They followed her gesture. Two motorcycles gleamed in the sun at the corner a few blocks away. Two men with long hair and beards, wearing denim and leather, stood smoking cigarettes. One of them was on the phone.

“Yeah,” Brandenburg said. “That would be the reason.”

“We’re going to need to talk to more neighbors,” Wolf said.

“Okay,” Gifford said. “We’ll pound the pavement. We’ve got his picture from the APB update yesterday.”

She walked away toward the other men in uniform.

Wolf and Brandenburg turned and eyed the bikers .

“What do you think?” Brandenburg asked.

“I think they’re just as in the dark as we are. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be staring at us.”

“Good point.”

“I’m going to make a call.” Wolf dialed Patterson’s number and put the phone to his ear.

“Hi.”

“Hey. We’re here in Green River.”

“And?”

“We have the truck, but it’s not telling us much. We’ll go door-to-door and ask if they’ve seen anything.”

“How can I help?” she asked.

“I’m wondering if you can see if there are any vehicles for sale around here.”

“Shouldn’t be too difficult. Give me your location, and I’ll search within a radius.”

He gave her the address.

“Also, he could be here to see somebody he knows,” Wolf said. “You learned he was former Special Forces. Maybe you can see if there’s anybody living around here that he knew.”

“You mean former Green Berets?” she said.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

She tapped keys in the background. “Okay. It’s going to take me some time.”

“I know.”

“I’ll let you know ASAP.”

“Wait a minute,” he said.

“Yeah?”

He eyed the bikers down the street again, thinking about Dolores and Mitch Russell. “I might have met Lawrence Hunt’s girlfriend—a woman named Dolores Russell. Her son’s name is Mitch. Why don’t you look them up while you’re at it, please.”

“What happened there?”

He told her about the night before.

“Okay, I’ll add that to the list and keep you posted.” She hung up.

Pocketing his phone, he stared at the bikers.

“What are you thinking?” the sheriff asked.

“I think it’s interesting he moved south of Doyle to us, and now he’s north.”

“In what way?”

“He’s hovering around home. He’s not running.”

“Why?” Brandenburg asked.

“Maybe he’s not willing to leave her high and dry. Maybe he knows he’s put her in danger.”

“Dolores?” Brandenburg asked.

“Yeah.”

“If you’re right about Dolores.”

“I think there’s no other explanation there.”

Brandenburg grunted. “What now?”

“Let’s help them canvass this place.”

Brandenburg huffed. “Fine. I guess it doesn’t hurt that I get some exercise today.”

The next two hours were spent traveling door-to-door, covering every house within the immediate neighborhood and then across a busy main road into another development.

No one had seen or knew anything about Lawrence Hunt. Wolf had been keeping a special eye on any men who answered the door in their early sixties with military tattoos, flags, or visible memorabilia. Plenty of military men answered their doors, but none of them admitted to knowing or meeting Lawrence Hunt, and they seemed to be truthful.

“Damn it, I gotta exercise more.” Brandenburg’s uniform shirt was streaked with sweat in all the wrong places.

They were standing two blocks from their starting point when Wolf’s phone rang. They both stopped. Brandenburg perking up at the sound.

It was Patterson.

“Hi.”

“I got a couple hits. I’m sorry it took so long, but there was quite a list and no mapping feature when it came to vehicles for sale. And then the whole former Green Beret thing…”

“What did you find?”

“Well. I couldn’t find any former Special Forces men who fit the description, what with deployment area and timing, but I did find what car he purchased last night.”

Wolf raised his eyebrows and looked at Brandenburg. “Which car did he purchase?”

“A 2011 Honda Civic. Forest green.” She read off an address. “It’s two miles from where you found the truck. Clear on the other side of town.”

“Good work.”

“And as for Dolores Russell and her son Mitch, she’s a squeaky-clean citizen as far as I can tell. She’s been in Doyle for the last thirty years, where she’s owned and operated the diner for the last twenty-one, according to the restaurant’s website. ”

“And her son?”

“Mitch Russell,” she said. “Twenty-eight years old. He has two traffic citations, one failure to appear in court back when he was twenty. His wife is deceased. He has a private Instagram account, and it looks like he runs the D’s Diner account, where he has a bunch of pictures of him and his daughter, Savannah, eight, both of them mostly posing with food.”

“Okay,” Wolf said.

“But back to Dolores,” Patterson said. “She has a Facebook account where she has posted three photographs of her and her significant other. And guess who that is?”

“Lawrence Hunt?”

“Yep. There are two photos of them down in Mexico on vacation. Another of them out in the woods somewhere. They seem happy,” she said. “A cute older couple.”

“I need you to update the APB for the new vehicle,” he said. “And please send me links to her Facebook, and any photos of the vehicle.”

“Already done, done, and done.”

“Thanks. Keep me posted. I’ll do the same.”

He hung up.

“What vehicle?” Brandenburg asked. “What Facebook?”

Wolf told the sheriff about the Honda Civic, Dolores’s Facebook account, and the pictures of her and Hunt on the account.

Brandenburg looked more annoyed by the news than interested. He held up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, but he’d already lost the war. His skin was beet red.

“Where?”

“Two miles from here. ”

“We’re not walking.” Brandenburg turned and walked toward his truck. “And then food, damn it.”

“Yes, sir,” Wolf said, thinking of the measly gas station donuts he’d had six hours prior. “I’m not going to argue with you there.”