Crazy Blood (27 page)

“Do what I told you with Jolene,” said Wylie. “And never say anything about this again. Even in the privacy of your own home. Never, anyone. You know what this would do to Mom and Steen?”

Beatrice sighed hugely and hung her head again.

“How are we going to keep Let It Bean going and keep a roof over our heads?” asked Belle.

“We'll figure something.”

“I've already
figured
that double the lease and a new roof will bankrupt us by March,” said Belle. “It's pretty simple math, Wylie.”

“We'll figure something,” he said. “My first idea is to send you two idiots to Mammoth PD and let you explain the whole mess. Mercy of the court and all that.”

“After all this effort? Go ahead, Judas!”
Belle threw open the side door and slammed it behind her. A moment later, Wylie saw her through one of the small garage windows, trudging down Madrone toward town. He watched her, seeing himself—the same strong body and will, the same talent for escalating a bad idea into a worse one.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he checked the text from April: “Took Snowcreek cuz you liked the view. Gate code 1015.”

Bea gave him a knowing look as he put the phone back in his pocket. “What are you going to do, Wylie?”

“I don't know yet.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“We'll find a way.”

“It started with the skis, like, can we get away with this pair of Head five twenties? It looked so fun and easy. And it was. Then it got out of hand.”

“Way of the world, Bea.”

“I don't want to grow up.”

Wylie looked after Belle again, but she was long gone. He wished he could run her down and hug her, make it all go away. His head and heart hurt. The snow fell harder. He saw a white Mercedes SUV coming up Madrone in the snow. The asphalt was black where the tires rode and white on the edges and the middle. The SUV pulled into the development entrance and, to Wylie's mounting anxiety, came down the street toward 12 Madrone.

“Stand away from that window,” he said.

“Nobody ever stops or looks.”

Wylie yanked her to the wall with him. The Mercedes pulled up behind his truck and parked, and the exhaust lingered in the heavy air. Looking through the tinted, snow-dusted windows, Wylie could make out a driver and a passenger. The driver got out and Wylie recognized him as the Mammoth councilman/Realtor, Howard Deetz. His apparent client, Jacobie Bradford, dropped from the passenger seat to the ground, looked up from his phone, then gave 12 Madrone the executive once-over. Howard noted Wylie's truck and trailer. He motioned to Jacobie and headed toward the front of the house.

“That perv Jacobie,” said Bea. “You wouldn't believe the crap he pulls at Mountain High.”

“They'll use the lockbox on the front door,” whispered Wylie. “As soon as I say, I want you out that side door and lost. I mean lost
fast.
Do you understand?”

“Not without you!” she whispered back.

“You obey me, Bea, or I swear you'll regret it. Okay,
go
!”

He watched Bea zigzag through the tall, dense pines. She ran up a gentle rise, down into a swale, and then vanished, footprints dark ovals in the white.

Wylie waited, imagining the entrance that Jacobie and Howard were likely making. When he thought he'd allowed the right amount of time for Howard to open the lockbox, unlock the door proper, hold open the door for Jacobie, who would then enter and pause in the entryway for an oh-wow moment before beginning the tour, Wylie slipped quietly out, shut the door, and strode to his truck, keys in one hand. His fingers touched the door handle.

“Yo! Wylie Welborn!” called Jacobie. He stood at the railing on the near side of the porch, holding his phone out from his ear. “What are you doing? Burglarizing this home?”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“I'm bottom-feeding, Jacobie, just like you! Looking to buy up some recession-blasted Mammoth real estate.”

“These puppies are a steal, aren't they?”

“From what I've heard.”

Jacobie lowered the phone. “I thought you were shacked up with April Holly.”

“We're good friends, and that's absolutely untrue.”

“Don't get violent again.”

“Don't make it so tempting.”

Howard Deetz came to the porch railing, holding up both lockbox and house key. “Finally! Wylie? What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for my Realtor—what's it look like?”

“Oh, hell, come in out of the snow. I'll split the commission with your agent if Jacobie doesn't buy it first.”

“She's late. I'll try her again.”

Wylie dug out his cell phone and got into his truck. His heart was pounding hard in his ears and he was having trouble coming up with any solution other than the lame bluff he'd begun. He called an old high school friend who sold real estate. She happened to be at her desk at Century 21, with really not much going on. He told her he'd been interested in 12 Madrone for quite some time, would love to look at it.

“Set you back a million six,” said Dawn.

“I still want to see it. Can you be there in five?”

“Okay, okay. Hey, is that true about you and April Holly being an item?”

“Just friends, Dawn.”

“Hmmm. See you in five.”

Wylie got out and crunched across the driveway to the front of the house. It was a large Craftsman style with timber columns footed in river rock and a big front porch. He climbed the steps, feeling as if he were about to enter a prison, which, it occurred to him, might well be in his future.

He entered the great room, in which Jacobie Bradford and Howard Deetz stood slack-jawed and speechless amid the warehouse of bicycles and snowboards. “Jesus,” said Wylie. “The stolen ones?”

“What else could they be?” asked Jacobie. He was shooting video with his phone, sweeping down one row and up the next. He wore a fleece-lined flannel jacket and shearling boots and a knit cap in Rasta black, red, and green.

“This is the weirdest damn thing I've ever walked in on,” said Howard, taking out his phone, too. “I've found homeless families and drunks and fornicating teenagers, even a bear, but never an entire bike and board shop.”

“These are good products,” said Jacobie. “Those bearded bike thieves know their stuff.” With this, Jacobie lowered the phone, looked at recently shaven Wylie, then back at the bikes. “So, who's your Realtor?”

“Dawn Loe.”

“Yes, hello, Officer, this is Howard Deetz, town council. Can you put me through to Sergeant Grant Bulla?”

“Where is your professed Realtor?” asked Jacobie, walking down the first row.

“Running late, she said.”

“You've been here awhile, then?”

“Grant, Howard Deetz—hey, you gotta get someone over to twelve Madrone. You won't believe what's in the living room!”

“I was early, waited in the garage, out of the snow.”

“My NielPryde!” said Jacobie, running a hand along the top tube of a beautiful road bike. “Oh, baby, baby, I missed you.” He stopped caressing the frame, as if interrupted by an idea. “You look good without the beard, Wylie.”

“You look like Mr. Clean with that shiny head.”

“Here we go again.”

Jacobie positioned himself defensively, with two rows of bikes between him and Wylie. “Humor me, Wylie. I watch too many TV cop shows, I admit it. Helps me escape. But they always tell you that in a crime, there's no coincidences, you know?
No coincidences.
So, the sharp cop arrives on the scene and you're already here. No biggie, but of all the houses for sale, why are you at this particular one? Then the sharp cop goes inside and sees the loot. So he has to figure it's at least possible that you knew the stolen goods were here. After all, you're a local, and the sharp cop knows the criminal tendencies in you. Then he thinks, Heck, this yokel might have stolen the damn things. So he thinks that maybe when the Realtor, Howard, and the legitimate house hunter, Jacobie, pulled up, you were already right here in this great room, maybe adding to your latest haul. And you heard them and sneaked out to the garage and tried to get to your truck and out without being seen. Fail. In fact, you didn't look happy a minute ago when I called out to you, as captured on my phone. You still don't look happy. Of course—and we learn this at the beginning of the episode—a few weeks ago you shaved off your beard
after
witnesses described the bike thieves as bearded. So that's my plot. Think I can make it in Hollywood?”

“If someone doesn't pinch your head, just for the fun of it.”

“There you go again, like you're stuck in the sixth grade or something. Don't you think anything's funny? Can't you use your words, like an adult?”

Howard's voice drifted through the silence. “How would I know how they get in and out? All I know is the lockbox was locked, just like it's supposed to be.”

“Maybe a local Realtor is in on it, too,” said Wylie. “The key to the lockbox, right? Maybe it's Howard.”

“Maybe what's Howard?” asked Howard. “Grant's on his way.”

“Wylie here was conjecturing that you're part of the bike thieves' ring, Howie,” said Jacobie. “Because you have the lockbox key.”

Howard shrugged with apparent disinterest, started taking pictures with his phone.

“Sorry, Wylie,” said Jacobie. “I'm not a bad guy.”

“You're annoying and insignificant.”

“I've done okay in life, for having no talent and an abrasive personality.”

“You'll learn the hard way.”

“I wish I'd served my country.”

“But you have a reason you couldn't. People like you always do.”

Jacobie nodded and glanced over at his bike. “You know what's interesting, though? Back on the ‘no coincidences' theory? I saw Belle trekking down Madrone in the snow when we drove up. That is to say, heading away from this house. Walking fast and determined, like she was upset. Or maybe in a hurry. Or both.”

“She's at home doing schoolwork right now.”

“I can certify that she is not. Think I should tell the sergeant my theory?”

“What exactly is the theory?”

“You and some bearded buddy are the bike thieves. Belle does the cleanup here, gets the product ready for market. Somehow you guys got yourselves a house key for this place. You keep the beater car somewhere out of sight when you're not using it. You shaved because you'd been spotted. Probably your partner shaved, too. So now you think you're one step ahead of Johnny Law. But you've got a flaw in your alibi. Namely, that a doughnut shop employee/ski bum gigolo is in the market for a house listed at a million six. Unless April Holly wants somewhere to play house with her boy toy.”

Words failed Wylie. He gauged the pleasures of strangulation against the consequences, kind of liked the way it penciled out.

Jacobie eyed him with a small smirk, as if he'd spotted a stain on Wylie's trousers, or a weakness in him. “Maybe I'll just tell the sergeant what I saw and let him figure out the details.”

Wylie's old friend Dawn Loe pulled up a moment later in a silver Suburban. Wylie parted the blinds and watched as one of the vehicle's side windows went down and the heads of two curious golden retrievers filled the frame, snouts lifted to the air. Next came a Mammoth PD slickback from which plainclothes Sgt. Grant Bulla stepped. He stopped to pet the dogs. Howard came from the house to greet him.

“I'm not going to say anything about my theories, Wylie,” said Jacobie. “At least not yet. I'm still putting the pieces together.”

“Let me know what you come up with.”

“You can bet I will.”

*   *   *

Wylie sat in the living room of April Holly's furnished rental in the Snowcreek development. It was a spacious town house, richly appointed, with views of the mountain. April had a fire going by the time he got there. It was mid-evening. Wylie looked out to the fading profile of Mammoth Mountain, the stilled lifts rising like toy structures, their cables bellied between them.

On late evenings like this, anywhere in the world that Wylie happened to be—in Mammoth or Solitary or in Kandahar or the Tegernsee monastery or the Great St. Bernard Hospice—he always tried to leave the lights off and the lanterns and candles unlit to enjoy the simultaneous fall of outside and inside darkness. Such a slow and subtle transition from day to night. A reminder to slow down. To reflect and maybe give thanks. But that was impossible right now, because April was buzzing from room to room, doing what someone always did—cranking up house lights in advance of sunset. Let there not be light, he thought.

But this was her home. Wylie shook his head at his own pissiness, told himself to put one foot in front of the other. Be cool anyway, he thought, house lights or not. He'd been nearly silent for an hour. He felt stymied and useless and wanted to be alone and was only here now to please April, who delivered to him another light bourbon on ice. He took it without looking at or thanking her.

He thought of Robert and his eternal stillness. Would he ever move again? Was he aware at all? Did he want to be alive?

He thought of Belle and Beatrice running off into the snow. He thought of the diminishing returns from Let It Bean and the snow soon to be melting through the ceiling into plastic buckets at home, and the fourteen thousand dollars it would take to replace that decaying roof, and the rent going up another $2,200 a month in January if they signed the new lease. He finally decided to list his MPP on eBay—the proceeds could pay for something, even if it was only the balance for the MPP itself. He'd thought long and hard about selling it just the other night, and now he saw no real alternative. He felt small and horrible.

And he saw himself here, holed up in this tidy luxury chalet with America's darling—a beautiful girl who was momentarily stuck on him for whatever reasons, who just also happened to be the most gifted aerial snowboarder the world had yet seen. A millionaire several times over. Which made him feel even worse. It might simplify things just to walk out on her right here and now. Let her get on with her career, and him with his. Pop the fantasy and get real again. Back to Earth. He turned and looked at the door. Where will I go when my plans betray me?