Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Wolf followed the dust as the road curved in a long C. A group of uniformed men and women standing out in the meadow flitted in and out of view behind the trees. A blue tarp was stretched out on the ground near them, undoubtedly covering the body.

Brake lights bloomed through the dust ahead as Gantrell and Rachette’s SUVs pulled over near a driveway that led to a red cabin. The cabin was small, one-storied, and squatting in a dense thicket of ponderosa pines that lined the meadow where the rest of the uniforms stood.

No other vehicles were present, but two APD officers milled about by an attached garage at the side of the cabin. Another uniform Wolf recognized as Deputy Nelson of the sheriff’s department stood at the back of the place, looking down at a dark shape on the ground.

Wolf parked, shut off the engine, and got out.

Gantrell led them down the driveway. “Looks like two or three gunshot wounds. The bear didn’t touch this body. But you can see the one in the meadow was here originally. At least, I think so. They’re dressed the same. Bikers.”

Wolf wanted clarification but could sense that Gantrell was unsettled. Walking a few yards further would tell him everything he needed to know, so he nodded and let the man talk.

They reached the two APD officers. They exchanged names and greetings and walked toward Nelson at the back of the cabin. He appeared mesmerized by the dead body.

“Nelson,” Patterson said as she put on some nitrile gloves pulled from her pocket. “You okay?”

The multi-decade deputy of the Sluice-Byron County Sheriff’s Department blinked as if coming out of a deep hypnosis and turned toward them. “Hey.”

“Mind if we take a look?”

Wolf and Rachette followed Patterson as she walked past Nelson and knelt at the body.

“Damn,” Rachette said.

Wolf knew what he meant. The body was twisted in a position that looked to defy the law of physics. The man was leaning against a tree, face-first, with his right shoulder pushing into the trunk of a towering ponderosa, his arms hung down, and his back was arched. Greasy black hair hung limp and past his shoulders, covering his face. His knees were locked, and his heavy motorcycle boots had skidded out behind him until they dug in enough to catch in the soil. He had been frozen in the act of falling.

The man wore a black leather vest that read Sons of the Void on the back. A patch involving a skull and fire was sewn in the middle. He wore jeans and a T-shirt underneath the vest, chains hanging from the pockets.

Wolf counted two holes in the leather, which was streaked with dried blood. The dark liquid had flowed down the tree, over the ghostly white skin of his arm, and across his jeans before pooling in clumps on the dirt beneath him.

Wolf rounded the body to look at his face. The man had a beard almost as long as his hair. His eyes were open, the irises clouded. The mouth in a silent moan.

“James Whitcomb,” Patterson said, looking inside the wallet she’d pulled from the back pocket. She fiddled with the attached chain and handed the wallet to Rachette.

“What’s Lorber’s ETA?” Wolf asked, referring to the county medical examiner and his team.

“He’s on his way,” Patterson said.

Wolf looked back at the two APD officers and Nelson. “Did any of you touch this man?”

“No, sir,” one of them answered. The other two shook their heads.

“Good.”

Patterson touched the other pockets of the man’s jeans.

“Careful,” Rachette said. “Looks like he’s gonna fall any second.”

“I’m being careful.”

Wolf watched Patterson tug out a set of keys. Rachette stepped forward with a plastic evidence bag, and she dropped them inside with a thud.

Rachette looked, then handed the bag over to Wolf. One of the keys had a Harley-Davidson logo stamped into the head and was attached to a small metal keychain ornament, a grenade replica. He handed the bag back to Rachette.

Patterson lifted the shirt, exposing heavily tattooed skin on a hairy back with a sagging belly in front. “One gunshot wound to the back. ”

Wolf eyed the cabin, then Nelson. “Did you check inside?”

“I knocked,” Nelson said. “Rang the doorbell, but nobody answered.”

“We were just talking about going inside,” one of the officers said.

“Your name?” Wolf asked.

“Redman, sir,” he said.

Wolf looked at the other man.

“Barrington, sir.”

Wolf nodded. “Could you two please take a look around and see if you can find the vehicle this guy came in on?”

They nodded and walked away, heading back down the driveway toward the road.

Wolf walked along the garage toward the cabin, passing a patch of weeds sprouting from the corner of the house and up to a front entrance crowded by overgrown aspen branches. The door was shut. Behind the aspen tree was a darkened window. The glass was covered in streaked dust like it had never been cleaned.

He pulled his gun, stepped up onto the small wooden porch, and pressed the glowing doorbell button with his knuckle, hearing the chime inside.

Like rushing water, the wind whipped through the aspen leaves, obscuring any sound that might have come out of the interior. Nobody answered.

“Got your six,” Rachette said, stepping up behind him.

The brass of the knob was worn and cold, loose and unlocked. Wolf pushed, and the door opened, creaking on its hinges.

Raising his gun, he stepped inside onto a cracked linoleum floor. The place smelled of dust. He flipped the light switch on, illuminating a family room with an ancient green velvet couch. The carpet was red shag, and the walls were stacked logs with plaster-filled gaps. Dusty paintings of wildlife in mountain scenes hung on the walls.

“Sheriff’s department! Anybody home?” No answer.

Wolf hung a right, heading into the living room toward a doorway that led into a dark space.

“I’ll take this way,” Rachette said, heading in the other direction.

The floor creaked under Wolf’s feet. The place was sparsely furnished. The end tables flanking the couch were brand new, modern designs that failed to match the rest of the place. It looked like a rental, not lived in.

“Clear!” Rachette said.

Wolf rounded the corner and found himself facing Rachette inside a smallish kitchen.

“Check this out,” Rachette said.

He pointed to a black duffle bag lying on a kitchen table. It was unzipped and open, with a butcher’s knife next to it, along with a dismantled electrical device lying in pieces.

“What’s going on here?” Rachette asked.

Wolf picked up a piece of plastic and turned it over. It was a rectangular housing roughly the size of a USB stick that had been cracked on one side like it was smashed open. A tiny green electrical board lay next to it; the board itself also cracked. Bits of solder, multicolored particles of plastic, and tiny wires dusted the table.

“GPS device,” Wolf said. He pulled open the bag and looked inside, finding nothing.

“Looks like somebody didn’t want to be tracked,” Rachette said .

Wolf turned to a doorway behind them.

“There’s a single bedroom back there,” Rachette said. “Bed’s been slept in. Piss in the toilet of the bathroom. Other than that, it looks uninhabited.”

Wolf walked over to look for himself. “No luggage? No clothing?”

“Nope.”

Holstering his gun, he went back to the kitchen, took out some gloves, put them on, and opened the refrigerator. It was empty. A trash can sat in the cabinet under the sink. He pulled it out and found a wadded-up bag of McDonald’s inside. He unraveled it and found no receipt.

“Here’s a key,” Rachette said.

Gingerly, with gloved fingers, Wolf picked it up off the counter by the edges and walked to the front door. The key fit into the lock and twisted easily.

“So the key goes to the front door,” Rachette said. “The place is all clean and vanilla. Like it’s used for a rental. Maybe it’s a rented place. Or, I guess it could be the owner.”

Wolf pulled the key back out, went to the kitchen, and set it back down on the counter. He toured the bedroom, bathroom, and living room again, then went outside with Rachette.

Officer Barrington came from the direction of the vehicles, slightly out of breath. “We found two bikes. Harley-Davidson’s. Stashed in the trees up the road a hundred yards or so.”

“Plates?” Wolf asked.

“One of them was Wyoming, the other Colorado. Redman stayed up there while I came back to tell you. Deputy Nelson went ahead up the road to see if he could find anything else. ”

“Thank you,” Wolf said.

Patterson was still over by the dead body. She stood up from studying the ground and walked over, taking off her gloves. “Three gunshot wounds total. One in the shoulder, one in the chest, last one in the back. Found some brass on the side of the house.” She dangled a bag tinkling with casings inside. “Five shells total. Hornady 9mm. It looks like somebody else was shot here.” She pointed to a dark spot on the ground, surrounded by a smattering of signs in the dirt.

“That’s blood. And those are bear prints.” She pointed at a large paw print in a soft patch of ground. “Clearly, our other victim was shot here and was dragged out there by the bear.” A long scrape mark streaked over to the trees and disappeared into the long grass of the meadow, which began where the trees stopped—a few yards away.

Out in the clearing, another fifty yards, the group of law enforcement personnel already on the scene watched them with interest.

“Let’s leave the motorcycles for now,” Wolf said. “I think it’s time we go see who the bear drug out of here.”

Wolf led the way, following the signs the bear left without stepping on them. Fresher-looking blood smeared the grass, the stalks bent toward the tarp lying near the four uniforms.

“Still no word from Lorber?”

“I talked to him thirty minutes ago, and he said he was on his way,” Patterson pulled out her phone, looked at the screen, and pointed it at the sky. “No reception.”

Rachette walked next to them, looking ahead.

The air was still, and the scent of death suddenly saturated the air .

“So, how’s living with Piper going?” Rachette asked.

Wolf looked at him, but the detective’s eyes were locked on the tarp ahead. Tom Rachette had never liked the sight, smell, or scent of death and was trying to keep his mind off it.

“Nice,” Rachette said. “She’s what?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh.”

Patterson stopped. “Look at this.” She picked up a vest made of black leather, torn by raking claw marks. “Same vest as the other guy.”

They walked.

A single boot poking out from the plastic sheet came into view. Buzzing flies grew louder, along with the smell of death and viscera.

Patterson wasted no time, stepping in front of them and folding back the plastic sheet, revealing the mangled corpse.

“Phew,” she said.

Wolf seconded the sentiment but kept silent as he eyed the body. The clothing was torn to shreds, what was left of it. A black T-shirt was ripped open, revealing a chest torn by claws, the rib cage hinged apart by a breaking force, claw marks gouging the cartilage and bone. Organs were exposed, missing, or half-eaten.

The man’s face was turned away from them on a neck wrenched around at an unnatural angle, and Wolf made no move to see better. He was a fellow biker and member of Sons of the Void. And now he was being digested by a bear. That’s all he needed to know.

Wolf looked over at the uniforms. They were holding fast upwind, far from the sight below, making no move to join them .

“Shit,” Rachette said, the word sounding more like a guttural spasm. “I’m out.” He walked away.

Patterson stooped, scanning the body from a close distance. “I can’t tell what killed him. I’m not seeing any gunshot wounds.”

“I’m not sure it’s possible,” she said. She shook her head, then looked at Wolf. “You good?”

“Please.”

She folded the tarp back over the body. They followed Rachette toward the group of men standing nearby—two more Ashland police officers, Deputy Vickers, and a man dressed in flannel and jeans, clearly the civilian that had called in the body.

Immediately, the smell dissipated on the opposing wind, and Wolf felt grateful for the scents of life filling his nose once again.

They did a round of introductions.

“This is Jeb Pontowski,” Vickers said.

“Detective Wolf.” Wolf shook the man’s hand.

Pontowski was thin, dressed in flannel and Carhartt pants, a Patagonia baseball cap covering shoulder-length hair.

“You called this in,” Wolf said.

“That’s right.”

“Do you mind telling us about it from the beginning?”

The man told his story; waking up before sunrise at a campsite down the road and coming out to this meadow to take some photographs.

“I heard the grunts from the bear,” Pontowski said, his blue eyes wide, haunted. “I took a bunch of photos. It’s pretty rare to see a bear, much less one scarfing down on a meal.” He swallowed. “Then I saw the arm. ”

“The arm?” Patterson asked.

“I couldn’t see what it was eating, you know, because of the long grass until it lifted one of the arms of the body. And that’s when I freaked out.”

Wolf nodded. “I’m sorry. That must have been tough to see.”

Patterson approached the camera bag lying on the ground. “You have any of those photographs you could show us?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Pontowski went to his bag, pulled out a large-bodied camera, and presented the LCD screen.

After a few button pushes, a picture came on the screen showing a bear with a human arm in its mouth.

“Here’s what I was talking about.”

“Mr. Pontowski,” Patterson said. “We’re going to have to confiscate this SD card.”

“What? No way.”

“I’m sorry, sir…”

Wolf and Rachette backed away, letting Patterson take the lead on dealing with the now angry photographer, and turned their attention toward the road. Two vans rumbled into view, pulling up to the driveway of the red cabin.

“Lorber,” Rachette said.

Patterson came over to them. “Thanks for backing me up there, you two.”

“Looks like you had it under control,” Rachette said.

“We need to call animal control,” Patterson said.

Wolf nodded, then shook his head with disdain. The bear that had taken advantage of this easy meal could have a newly acquired taste for human flesh, overriding its normal fear of the species. Protocol said the bear would need to be euthanized .

“Right,” Rachette said. “I’ll make the call.”

“And we gotta check out those bikes,” Wolf said.

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“And talk to any neighbors.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lorber and the CSI team took over, processing the cabin for forensic evidence and bagging the bodies.

The two motorcycles parked up the road in the trees were Harley-Davidson Wide Glides, beaten in and used as primary means of transportation like only a biker gang member could. The well-worn leather saddle bags contained tobacco products and ammunition for a.45 caliber handgun, which weren’t found on scene.

A mile beyond the cabin were two houses, both of them vacant. A mile back toward Ashland, an elderly couple living on a ranch had not heard anything as far as distant gunshots but had seen and heard the two bikers drive by, exhaust pipes chuffing loudly three days prior.

Lorber and his tech evidence man confirmed the dismantled and destroyed device on the kitchen table was a GPS unit.

The lack of cell service was hindering their online search for an owner of the cabin.

“And that’s where we’re at,” Wolf said.

Sheriff Waze stood next to Wolf at the end of the driveway, nodding. His mirrored sunglasses reflected the image of Patterson and Rachette as they helped load evidence into Lorber’s van.

Standing downwind of the sheriff, Wolf could smell mint gum and cologne. For the first two weeks in office, after taking over for Patterson, Waze had rolled into work with a visible and smellable hangover.

Wolf wasn’t sure what Patterson had said, but it was something effective. She had gone in and shut the blinds. He’d heard the yelling. Wolf suspected it was something like: I dropped out of this race to give the sheriff’s job to a good man, and right now, you’re not it. Sober up, or get out. She had probably added a threat in there that she wasn’t going to sit back and watch the people working inside that building that she cared about so much be taken under the wing of a checked-out drunk.

Whatever it was, it worked. And going on seven months now, the man seemed to be dead dry.

“Sons of the Void,” Waze said. “What kind of history do we have with these guys?”

“None,” Wolf said. “They’re thick up north, near Walden. Wyoming, Montana, up in Idaho. But they’ve generally steered clear of here.”

“Until now.” Waze pulled out his phone, read something on the screen, and shook his head. “Damn it,” he said under his breath. “Is it always like this when something happens?”

“What’s that?” Wolf asked.

“The governor’s up my ass on this.”

“Sounds about right,” Wolf said.

Waze jammed the phone back into his pocket, lips moving.

Wolf had spent a few years as sheriff himself and felt for the man. Initially wanting the role, Wolf had backed himself out of the position. Sliding back into detective had been like putting on an old, comfortable shirt. One that he was sure he would wear until the day he either retired or died. Hopefully, the former before the latter.

Lorber approached. “We’re wrapping up here.” The county ME pulled off his circular lensed glasses and wiped them on the tie-dyed shirt underneath his monkey suit.

“So, what does it look like?” Waze asked. “Did you get any prints inside the place?”

“The occupant feasted on fast food, which might help us with identification. We’ve pulled a bunch of partials, and it looks like we have three different sets.”

“You said occupant, but there were three sets?”

“I’m saying there’re three sets,” Lorber said. “But it looks to me like there was one person there.”

Wolf nodded. “I agree. The three sets could be the owner of the place, the occupant, and somebody else entirely unrelated.”

“A cleaner or something,” Lorber said. “Hell, none of the prints might be who you’re looking for.”

“Right, right.” Waze waved a hand. “Time of death of these two outside?”

“I’d go with two days. Maybe three.”

Rachette walked up.

“You spoke to the people down the road?” Waze asked.

“Yes, sir,” Rachette said.

“They definitely think three days ago they saw the bikers?”

“The old guy said it was Saturday. The two males he described match those of our deceased: hairy bikers. He heard the bikes go by his house and looked out his window.”

Waze scoffed. “And he didn’t hear a bunch of gunfire after that and think something of it? ”

“The guy wears hearing aids,” Rachette said.

“But he heard the bikes.”

Rachette shrugged.

Waze pulled out his phone, shaking his head as he read something on the screen. “Sounds like he needs his hearing aids adjusted.”

Patterson walked up. “You guys are all loaded.”

Lorber nodded. “Thank you.”

One of the forensic vans fired up, turned around on the road, and drove away.

“So what are we thinking here?” Waze asked.

“Looks like whoever was here figured out he was being tracked when he smashed that GPS tracker,” Rachette said.

Waze nodded. “And these two guys found him.”

“But that guy got the jump on these two,” Rachette said. “And shot them before he could be shot.”

“Probably something to do with loud motorcycles,” Waze said. “Kind of tough sneaking up on somebody when your Vance and Hines pipes give away your position.”

“These guys had no weapons,” Patterson said.

“But there’s ammo in their saddle bags,” Rachette said.

She shrugged.

Waze looked at his watch. “Alright, I’m heading back. Secure the scene, and we’ll let APD keep an eye on it. I’ve already spoken to the chief about that. Keep us posted on your report,” he said to Lorber.

“We’ll get started on the autopsies this afternoon.”

“Thank you.” Waze walked away, mumbling to himself.

“I’ll keep you posted, too.” Lorber broke off, leaving Wolf with his two detectives.

“What’s next?” Rachette asked.

Wolf eyed his watch, which read 3:25 p.m. They’d been there for five and a half hours, and he was ready to get behind the wheel and then put his feet up on a couch somewhere. He stifled a yawn.

“You two head home,” he said. “It’s been a long day, and by the time we get back, it will have been even longer. Let’s let Lorber do his thing. I’ll do the database checks and then see you two tomorrow first thing.”

“I’ll check on the bike plates and the man with the wallet,” Patterson said. “We’ll be driving by your house on the way back. You may as well turn off and head home. Besides, you probably have a lot to do with Piper moving in and all that.”

Wolf considered the offer.

“Seriously. It’s no big deal,” she said.

“Thanks. I guess I’ll take you up on that.”

“How’s that going with Piper’s move anyway? I haven’t had a chance to ask,” Patterson said.

“She’s almost all in.” Wolf smiled. “It’s nice to have her there.”