He didn’t move.

  “I know how it all played out. You’ve been pushing to have these wolves reintroduced for the past three years and each year you fell short. Why? Because Governor Ellen Gray strongly opposed wolves. Did you know why? Because one of your buddies over there ate her little fucking brother. Yeah, slaughtered him right in front of her. That’s why your repeal never passed. And you knew with Ellen in the picture the bill would never be overturned. Never had a chance. But you tried to convince people that wolves were harmless. You even took one with you when you went to Pike Place Market.”

  He made no reaction.

  I felt my voice rise. “You know what I think? I think you’ve secretly been bringing wolves here for years now. That’s why the governor would come here every Sunday. She was spotting for any sign of wolves. She just knew. So when you saw her, you knew what you had to do. You put a bullet in her forehead, then you let your friends munch on her, then you threw her body in the river. This starting to sound familiar to you?”

  I thought I saw the tug of a smile on his lips. Or maybe it was a snarl. If there hadn’t been a fence between us I would have knocked his birth defect off his face.

  I took a breath and said, “With the governor out of the way, there was no one to protest the repeal, no one to call attention to the ramifications of wolves on the local ranchers and surrounding communities. And what do you know, the repeal passed.

  “After you got the go-ahead, it dawned on you that somehow, some way, this would be traced back to you. And if it was, it would be so long wolves. So you decided to frame her husband for the murder. You grab the tranquilizer gun, follow Adam from his office, shoot him, rough him up, steal his keys, take his yacht out. You’re familiar with boats; you grew up on a boat. And you knew if Ellen’s body ever does surface, it will have been carried out by the raging river and will surface somewhere in the Sound.”

  I leaned into the fence, the cold steel pressing deep into my cheek. “But you didn’t count on me and when you saw me that day, you knew that I was closing in on you and that I was going to put a stop to you and your little wolf factory. So you decide Riley has to go and you figure you’ll frame me for her murder. Ellen’s dead, Riley’s dead, and I’m going away for two lifetimes. Is that right? Is that how you planned it out?”

  He didn’t move.

  “Well, it didn’t work. ‘Cause here I am. And you’re the one who’s gonna be locked in a cage for two lifetimes, buddy. That’s right, shitbag, locked up. A caged animal.”

  He remained impassive.

  I wondered what he was thinking. Was he thinking about living in an eight-foot by six-foot cell the rest of his life? Could he survive?

  I looked at this frail man who’d had, if not a horrible life, a hard one, and decided he wouldn’t last an hour.

  My options were limited. I could hop the fence, but he was on skis and I wouldn’t stand a chance. If I had the forethought to bring a gun I would be at the advantage, but I didn’t see the guy just putting his hands behind his back and surrendering. He was, at least in his deranged brain, a wild animal, so there’s no telling what he would do. I could see him tame one second, then latched onto my neck the next. But in order to pull off Ellen Gray and Riley Peterson’s murders, not to mentions Adam’s and my framing, he also needed to be cold and calculating.

  It dawned on me that I was glad there was a fence between the two of us. Professor Koble was a different scary than I’d ever come across.

  A deep, hollow echo broke me from my reverie and both the Professor and I turned. The wolves, all eleven of them, were back on their haunches, howling at the spirits above, or maybe they were calling to their buddies who roamed freely.

  I looked back at the Professor. He was gone. Skiing back to the pack. As the Professor neared, the howling subsided.

  The pack jumped up and started for the trees, the Professor just a step behind on his skis.

  It took a moment for it all to register. For the gravity of what I’d just witnessed to sink into the bloodstream, to be sucked into each and every cell in my body. Riley had also said the wolves howl to call the pack together.

  The wolves had been calling to the Professor.

  Chapter 43

  I hadn’t eaten anything all day and I was starving. And to be brutally honest, I needed a drink. In fact, I needed a couple drinks.

  I pulled my car into the dirt lot and stepped out. The taxpayers’ hard earned money followed me into the lot and parked. I saluted my buddies and made my way down the steep hill.

  The Flounder was still awash with Christmas lights, and its bright neon sign lit up the narrow walkway. High tide would be in the next half hour or so, and the cold black water whished five feet below. A dozen boats of different makes and sizes were tied up to the pier, and my car was one of about ten in the small lot. Eleven if you counted Ace and Gary.

  There was a healthy crowd and it was loud for six on a Wednesday night. I found a table and looked for Josie, but she wasn’t running around in her skimpy little outfit.

  Darn.

  I flagged down a waitress and told her I had a medical condition and if I didn’t get a beer and a shot of tequila in the next minute, I would start frothing at the mouth. She laughed and I started counting.

  Two minutes later I had a shot of Don Julio and half a beer rumbling around in my empty stomach. I ordered three burgers with fries and another beer. The waitress gave me a quizzical glance and I told her I was training for one of those dog-eating contests.

  She said, “Don’t you mean hot dogs.”

  “No, I mean terriers.”

  She left in a rush. To get my beer or call animal control, it was a crapshoot.

  Anyhow, I sipped on the beer and watched the local news, which was mostly weather and football. The Seahawks were playing the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship. The Seahawks had home field advantage and the game would be played in Qwest Stadium come this Sunday. I stared through my half-empty glass and thought about super fan Riley Peterson for a long minute.

  When I looked up, they were doing the weather. Some huge storm was funneling down from Alaska. The storm had already punished parts of Canada with up to three feet of snow, and it looked to be getting stronger as it moved across the Pacific Northwest. According to the annoying man on the television waving his hands at the map, the snow would start sometime on Friday and continue through the weekend. They were calling for parts of the city to get over twenty inches and parts of the high country to get anywhere from three to five feet.

  So much for Old Man Winter getting lost in Canada. I guess someone bought him one of those tracking bracelets.

  My food came and I grabbed two of the baskets and made my way outside. Ace rolled down the window as I approached and I handed the food through. They both thanked me and Gary asked me for some ketchup.

  I told him to go jump off the Seattle Bridge.

  The burger soaked up the beer and the tequila, so I ordered another beer and another tequila.

  I was having a rather difficult time trying not to think about the case. Point in fact, I was now thinking about it in terms of the case.

  I wasn’t sure how I wanted to play this with the Professor. It could get tricky. If I killed him—and don’t think I hadn’t discounted the possibility—I would probably end up in jail. I could always go to the police, but for one, I didn’t think anyone would believe me, and two, they would ask why I was sticking my nose into things I should not be sticking my nose into. Such things as tampering with an official investigation and countless other trivial charges in the general vicinity of jaywalking could be used against me. And I couldn’t forget that I still had a murder charge hanging over my head.

  Of course, I did have one other option. I could pick up and leave. Which just so happened to be my favorite of the options, and the one I was most proficient at. Whenever I had been confronted with something awful, I picked up and left. Parents die. Bon voyage. Get dumped. See ya. My sister called it arrivederci syndrome.

  Speaking of which, that’s where I would go. I could pack up and be in France in less than a day.

  But, I was sick of thinking. I just wanted to turn my brain off for a couple hours. I ordered myself a pitcher and picked up the box of cards sitting on the table. They were old Trivial Pursuit cards, so I spent the next hour playing myself in trivia and guzzling Miller Lite.

  I was in the midst of doing all the history questions when a man approached my table and took the seat across from me. After staring at him for a good second, I said, “What year did Panama purchase the Panama Canal from the United States?”

  He took two or three chomps and said, “1963.”

  “I say 1967.”

  I turned the card over. “1963.”

  Ethan raised his eyebrows.

  I said, “Isn’t that the year you graduated high school?”

  Ethan, who was only a couple years older than me, ignored this remark. Currently, he was flagging down a server. One came over and he ordered a scotch and water.

  He said, “So, what did you do today, Thomas?”

  I had a good suspicion Ethan knew exactly what I did today. I’m sure Ace and Gary had briefed him of my daily activities.

  “I spent the day looking for Seattle Memorial. I wanted to ask Dr. McSteamy a couple questions about my prostate.”

  He showed no reaction to my jest, and come to think of it, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the guy laugh. But then again, maybe he didn’t watch Grey’s Anatomy. Maybe he was a Big People, Small World kind of guy. He smirked and said, “Actually, I heard through the grapevine that you went to the capitol building, had a little sit-down, made a pit stop at the library, then took a little trip to the mountains. That sound about right?”

  “I went to Arby’s too. Got a Beef n’ Cheddar and a Jamoca shake.”

  He ignored this and asked, “Now, what interest could you possibly have in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife building?”

  That, of course, was the million-dollar question. “I’m writing a paper about the mating rituals of the musk ox.”

  He took a sip of scotch, smacked his lips, and said, “Did you know that Riley Peterson—the woman you may or may not have brutally murdered—worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

  “It never came up.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  Outlandish lies usually are. I was starting to get fed up with my buddy Ethan and I said, “What the fuck do you want, Ethan?”

  “I want you to pack up and leave, Prescott. Shit, I don’t care if you did kill that poor girl. You get out of town and I’ll make sure the whole thing disappears.”

  He noticed my reaction and said, “Don’t think I’ve put that case to rest. And if I wanted to, I could arrest you right now for sticking your nose in an official investigation. But I’d rather see you locked up for a while. See you do some real hard time. I spoke with one of the district attorneys not ten minutes ago. He found a case, actually multiple cases, where evidence found in a relative’s house was deemed admissible. You can expect to be arrested in the next forty-eight hours, and there isn’t a fucking thing your piece-of-shit lawyer can do to help you this time.”

  I drained half my beer and thought about what Ethan had said. Now, I did not think for a second I would get convicted of murder. Especially when I knew exactly who had committed the murder. But this was my ace and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play it at all, least of all now, being that I was considering killing the man who killed Ellen and Riley with my bare hands. But I didn’t like the thought of being arrested a second time, or sitting in the interrogation room, or standing trial if it came to that.

  Ethan downed his scotch but said nothing. Then he grabbed for the pitcher and filled up his rocks glass with my Miller Lite. He smiled and said, “I’ll get the next one.”

  Wow. Just like college. Although the thought of splitting a pitcher of beer with Ethan Kates ranked right up there with getting my dick caught in my zipper.

  But the idea of leaving town still beckoned. “So you’re saying if I just disappear, I’m clear.”

  “You’re clear.”

  “Of everything?”

  “Of everything. Wipe the slate clean.” He smiled. “You just have to promise not to come back. Put that house of your sister’s up on the market and never come back. My cousin is a real estate agent; I’ll give you his card.”

  He had quite the sales pitch. I could tell him what I knew about the Professor, let him run with that and be on the next plane to France. Shit, the market was good, the house would go upwards of a million, and I could forget about Washington forever.

  There was an easy solution to this. “I’ll play you eighteen holes for it.”

  “Golf?”

  I cocked my head at the Golden Tee machine in the corner and said, “Eighteen holes right now. You win, I pack my bags and catch the next flight out. I win, I stay. I do my job. You do yours. And fuck all the rest.”

  He knew exactly what was on the line here. I was saying, if I win, I find out who killed Riley and I deal with it myself. And I would. I would go home, clean off my dad’s old shotgun, drive up to the mountains again, shoot the Professor in his gross-ass face, and feed him to his friends. And if he won, I would be on the next flight to France.

  Ethan had a bit of a competitive streak in him. We used to play on an intersquad basketball league on Tuesday nights. Everybody else was just out to have a good time and Ethan was running around like he’s friggin Richard Hamilton.

  He winked at me and said, “You’re on.”

  . . .

  Ethan picked the course. It was somewhere in Maui and there were a bunch of orange spots on all the holes.

  I pointed to one of the orange blobs and said, “What are those?”

  “Lava pits.”

  Great. The third time in my life I play Golden Tee, I’m playing for the right to not move to France, and he picks the course with lava pits.

  The first hole was a long par four that doglegged right. Ethan went first. He hit a perfect drive down the middle of the fairway a good 300 yards. I had a feeling Ethan had played his fair share of Golden Tee.

  Hello, Air France, it’s Thomas. S’il vous plait.

  I noticed that if you cut across the lava pits you could reach the green in one. I took two steps back and hit the ball as hard as I could. My ball landed perfectly on the green, then bounced off, hit the lava rock, then went into a lava pit. The screen notified me of a Two-Stroke Penalty.

  Ethan took a long drink to mask his smile. He went on to get a birdie. I got an 11. Yeah, I decided I wanted to see what the lava was like twice more. For the record, it’s hot. Like magma.

  Over the course of the next seventeen holes, Ethan and I polished off two more pitchers. Ethan went in the lava once. I went in the lava thirty-two times. My player even fell in the lava once, which I didn’t know was possible. I incurred a five-stroke penalty and had to put in another dollar.

  When it was over, I shook Ethan’s hand. He pulled out his cell phone and handed it to me. After about ten minutes, I had booked a flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport. One-way.

  Ethan called his cousin and we spoke briefly about the property. He said he would take care of everything. I knew Lacy would be okay with it. Ethan and I took a shot of expensive scotch and clinked glasses to my departure.

  I’m not sure who was happier.

  Ace and Gary drove me home. They were coming back at eight in the morning to take me to the airport. I flopped down on the couch and passed out.

  Chapter 44

  The knocking was back.

  I pushed myself off the couch with a grunt. I was no longer drunk. And I was yet to be hungover. I was in that limbo period, like when Billy Joel wakes up inside the house. Inside his car.

  I walked into the kitchen and took a long drink from the faucet. It wasn’t quite as satisfying as a blue Powerade with a sports top, but my tongue no longer felt like it was wearing a turban.

  The clock above the stove told me it was four in the morning.

  As I shuffled to the door, the events of the previous evening started to slowly come back. I vaguely remembered playing a game of Golden Tee for my right to stay in the great state of Washington. A game I believe I went on to lose by forty-seven strokes.

  Friggin lava.

  I had a feeling it was either Ace or Gary on the other side of the door. Or both. Ethan had probably sent them over to help me pack my bags.

  I pulled the door open. It wasn’t Ace. Or Gary.

  I gave a quick nod and said, “Hey.”

  Erica gave a little smile. “Heard you were leaving.”

  I pondered asking her how she’d come across such sensitive information, but the odds were that she either called Ethan, or Ethan called her, or she read my blog.

  “My flight is in about six hours.”

  Erica was wearing tight jeans and a gray sweatshirt, as well as her pink ball cap. She had her hands stuffed down in her pockets and her head cocked to the side. My mouth went dry and my stomach churned. Was it her? Was it the alcohol?

  I wasn’t certain what words I wanted to say. Or what words she wanted to hear. I decided upon, “I was going to call.”

  “Were you now?”

  “Yeah, from the airphone.” I mimicked sliding my credit card, then dialing, then wrapping the long cord around the guy coughing incessantly next to me.

  She tried not to laugh, but it was impossible because I am hilarious. The next few minutes were going to be tricky. For one, I was still slightly tipsy and I tended to make bad decisions when I was slightly tipsy. That’s how I’d ended up engaged, that’s how I’d fallen for Alex, that’s how I’d sat though The New World, that’s how I’d ended up with a timeshare in Arkansas, and that’s how I’d ended up with a one-way ticket to France.

  We stared at each other for a couple long seconds. I took a step to the side and said, “Do you want to come in?”

  She hesitated for a second, then walked past me into the house. I said, “Can I offer you something to drink? I have hot water or cold water.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31