Whack Job (5 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“The Blaster”

Monday evening.

Crystal sprang to her feet and began rearranging her hair as she headed for the front door. Stella remained where she was and finished off her Scotch. She’d been hoping for a little quiet time with her stepmother whom she hadn’t seen in over a year. Not that she craved Crystal’s company. It just seemed like the right thing to do, and if there was one thing Sam taught her, it was to do the right thing.

Stella heard the front door open, exuberant greetings, a hushed exchange, an awkward silence and then Crystal returned with man in tow. He was short, barely taller than Crystal, and thick, with the wide shoulders and rolling gait of a linebacker. He had a square head, small twinkly eyes, and a very short crew cut. He wore jeans, a black silk T-shirt that bulged over his belt like a feed sack and a gray sports jacket. She hoped he was not another used car salesman.

Stella rose.

“This is Tom Blaine, dear, a very dear friend of mine.”

Blaine was careful not to crush her grip. “Crystal has told me so much about you. I’m only sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”

“Pleased to meet you, Tom.”

Crystal went straight to the bar and mixed Tom a gin and tonic with a curl of lemon. Blaine took the Barcalounger at one end of the sofa, seated at a ninety-degree angle. He wore a diamond pinky ring and a gold chain.

“Crystal told me about your current client. I know you can’t discuss it, but what a case, huh? Right up there with O.J.”

Stella shrugged. “I didn’t ask for it. A judge in Virginia requested me. One of Sam’s cronies.”

Crystal handed Blaine his drink, sat next to Stella and took her hand, which Stella found presumptuous. A little show of family solidarity for the boyfriend.

Stella could restrain herself no longer. “What do you do, Tom?”

“I install audio systems,” he said.

“Tom’s an inventor,” Crystal declared proudly. “Do you know anyone who wants to invest in a surefire hit?”

Blaine blushed, took a slug of the gin. “Crystal, let’s not bore Stella with my big ideas.”

“Such as?” Stella said.

Blaine almost rubbed his hands in delight. “I’ve developed a tiny sound system that can literally replicate the feel, volume, and clarity of a stadium show, include making the earth move. It works on any concave or vibratable object. Would you like a demonstration?”

“Please,” Stella said.

Blaine practically leaped to his feet. “I’ve installed a prototype here.”

“Careful, boy,” Crystal said. “Last time you demonstrated we got complaints from across the lake.”

Blaine crossed to the credenza beneath an oil painting of buffalo and picked up a small gray device the size of a stick of gum. “This is the memory and amp--you can plug in your iPod of whatever.” He pointed to two tiny metal blossoms in one corner, ground level and at two meters, the same in another corner. “These are your speakers. They use the ninety degree angle between walls to amplify sound.”

He pushed a button on the unit and “Bohemian Rhapsody” poured forth like an avalanche.

“SCARAMOUCHE SCARAMOUCHE…”

It was so loud Stella clapped her hands to her ears and watched the glass in the windows vibrate.

“TURN IT DOWN!” Crystal shrieked in a fight announcer’s voice.

Grinning, Blaine turned it down to a throbbing pulse that Stella felt in her calves.

“Wow,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

“That’s not all. What about the dog toys, Tom? He invested in that local company that makes dog toys out of recycled water bottles, oh what’s their name?”

“Rubber Biscuit. I sold my shares last year, but yes, that’s one example.”

“Tom discovered that every health club and karate shop has literally hundreds of abandoned plastic water bottles. Tom recycles them into unbreakable dog toys. He’s really quite ingenious.”

Why the hard sell, Stella wondered. She must be planning to marry him.

“Tom was a star college quarterback, dear.”

“I was a linebacker.”

Crystal rose. “Excuse me, I’ve got to check on something in the kitchen. We’ll eat soon.”

“Do you need any help, Crystal?” Stella automatically asked.

“No. You two just sit and chat.”

The sun dipped below the mountains.

“How much money do you need?” Stella said.

“A mil to get started.”

“I was very impressed. I doubt you’ll have any trouble finding the funds.” He probably already found the funds, right in the house.

“Well we’ll see. Crystal tells me you’re a shooter.”

“Sam wanted a boy.”

“I’m sorry I never met him,” Blaine said.

Crystal bustled around the dining room in the background. They heard the clink of silverware and china.

“Come on, dears!” Crystal sang. “Dinner is served.”

Stella and Blaine stepped up to the dining level. The table was covered with a white linen cloth. Three places had been set, each with a side salad and a steaming squab dead center on the big china plates. A bouquet of sunflowers occupied the center of the table between two sterling silver candlesticks with burning tapers.

Blaine held the chair for Crystal. Crystal and Stella sat at opposite ends with Blaine between them. Stella reached for one of several bottles of salad dressing when Blaine folded his hands and bowed his head. Crystal did likewise. Stella sheepishly complied.

“Dear Lord,” Blaine said, “for this food we are about to receive we thank you. Amen.”

“Amen.”

Stella snagged the hot dish--it was the dread canned green bean and mushroom soup casserole. Stella dished a ceremonial amount onto her plate. Blaine refilled Crystal’s glass from a wine bottle on the cabinet behind him. He got up to refresh his gin and tonic.

“Freshen your drink?” he said to Stella.

“No thanks. Alcohol interferes with my sleep. I’ve been on the go since four a.m.”

“You poor dear,” Crystal said. “You must be exhausted.”

“I’m going to have to make a short night of it, folks,” Stella said, secretly relieved. Now she wouldn’t have to listen to Crystal’s litany of complaints. Blaine had filled that position for which Stella was grateful.

The squab was underdone. Stella passed on the Sarah Lee Frozen Cheesecake and excused herself. She pecked Crystal on the cheek and shook Blaine’s hand. Down the hall she went leaving her stepmother and her beau to get on with the serious business of getting sloshed. Stella glanced out the front door. Blaine drove an older 911. She hoped it wouldn’t be repossessed while he was visiting.

At the end of the hall Stella opened the door to Sam’s home office and went down three steps to the burgundy pile rug. Man cave. Leather furniture, mahogany paneling, the inevitable hero wall bearing photos and testimonials. Sam with Bush the Elder. Sam with Clinton. Sam with Bush the Younger. Rustic/modern woodstove jutting from one corner. Expansive view of the lake. A stunning Jerry Bingham Western landscape. And of course the gun cabinet.

Certificates of Achievement from Rotary, The Boy Scouts of America, Benevolent Protective Order of Elk, Lions, Colorado Sheriffs’ Association, Larimer County 4H. With the troops in Afghanistan.

Stella sat in the deep leather chair behind the desk. She loved the smell of leather, just a lingering touch of Sam’s Brut. A wave of exhaustion rolled over her like a Greyhound bus. She had to get some sleep. There was a pamphlet on the desk. She picked it up.

A Guide to Pawnee Grove
.

***

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Samisms”

Monday night.

Stella’s Blackberry chirped. It was Gabe.

“How you doin’, sweetheart? I just got back to LA. We were on location all day.”

“Hi Winner. I’m in Fort Collins at the family manse.”
“Not too gruesome I hope.”

“Crystal’s got a new boy toy. Come tomorrow morning I’m outta here. Next week’s Lester’s competency hearing. They’re going to find him crazier than a shit house rat.”

“Wasn’t he a war hero?”

“Bronze star. Survived a shot to the head which may have led to his actions.”

“How much time do you have off? Want to come out here? I’ll send you a ticket, pick you up at John Wayne.”

“I’d love to, Winner, but I can’t. I’ve only got three days and tomorrow I have to find a crazy man in the mountains and convince him to go back to work for the government.”

“Otto?”

“Yes.”

“Well good luck with that. Maybe you ought to take someone with you.”

Stella trilled. “Oh Winner. Otto would never hurt me. He’s not psychotic.”

“Good to know. Maybe you could make some time for me next weekend.”

“Depends on who’s traveling,” Stella said.

“A-huh. Well let me see how the week goes. I’m on location through Thursday but you can always reach me.”

“Good night, Winner.”

“Good night, babe.”

They’d met at a fundraiser in Miami two months ago. Republican Congresswoman. Stella stood at the edge of the pool looking out on Biscayne Bay wondering what she was doing there. Favor for Sam. She hadn’t the slightest clue who Winner was when he approached her, standing silently for a minute gazing out at the evening lights on the yachts and across the bay.

“Nice to be out there,” he said after awhile.

“Boats are holes in the water into which you pour money,” Stella replied by rote, one of many Samisms.

Beat.

“It’s better to have a friend with a boat than a boat. Could I get you something to drink?”

“How about a Cuba Libre?”

He went for drinks and returned, expertly ferreting out Stella’s work and where she was from. Finally it was her turn. “And what do you do?”

“I act.”

“Really. Have I ever heard of you?”

“I doubt it,” he said eyeing her with a gleam in his eye and an irresistible dimple in his cheek. “Perhaps you saw my Dinosaur Meat dog food ad?”

Stella bemusedly shook her head.

Winner found the fact that she’d never heard of him was a turn-on. An hour later she still wasn’t sure he was telling the truth when a pack of teenage girls approached giggling with pens and cell phone cameras.

She ended up spending the weekend with him.

While other publicists flooded the media with breathless accounts of their clients’ virtue, interviews, proof of good deeds, Winner kept a low profile and was extremely generous. Stella found out from an acquaintance that Winner regularly visited children’s hospitals, signed photos, and went from room to room, bed to bed, joking, cheering and handing out comic books.

Maybe her luck was changing. But seriously. An actor?

She stretched in Sam’s high zoot teak chair, leather and springs squeaking. How she would love to see Winner that very minute! If only her job weren’t so demanding, but she had meetings with clients all day Tuesday and then she was in court for the rest of the week.

She rose, already snuggling between the sheets in her mind. As she was about to leave Sam’s office she paused next to the vertical walnut and glass gun cabinet. It contained Sam’s bird gun, a 12-guage Remington, his coyote gun, a .22 Ruger revolver, his elk gun, an RMEF X-Bolt Special Hunter, and his show gun, a commemorative edition Sharp’s recreation with 24-carat gold scrolling, all visible through the quarter inch smash-proof glass.

Beneath the rifle section two deep drawers held Sam’s handguns, ammo, cleaning kits, holsters and other accoutrements. A Schlage padlock kept it secure. Stella twirled it open. Sam had given her the numbers years ago.

Releasing the drawers via a catch, she pulled open the top drawer. The pistols were in their original boxes, some cardboard, some plastic. She reached for the Sig Sauer P-290, a nine small enough for a fanny pack or a pocket. Setting the box on Sam’s desk she picked the pistol up, released the magazine into her hand and chambered it, insuring it was empty.

Samism #16: Always assume the weapon is loaded.

She took a box of Wolf nines, closed the drawer and locked the gun cabinet. Putting pistol and ammo in her Gladstone, she hefted the heavy bag and went down the hall and up the stairs to her room.

She hadn’t been able to bring her .38 on the plane.

Before she went to bed she loaded and reinserted the magazine and placed the pistol beneath the pillow next to her.

It was the best sleep she’d had in weeks.

***

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Tank Trap”

Tuesday.

Wiped on oxy and wine Crystal slept long and deep. Stella was up at seven. The Porsche was gone. Stella hoped Blaine had survived the drive.

Fixing herself breakfast from muffins, cream cheese and fruit, Stella spread her
Colorado Atlas and Gazetteer
on the dining room table. Her finger traced the serpentine path of the Poudre northwest to Walden. Otto’s place was southwest of Kinikinik, the trailhead little more than two ruts following the jagged contours of the land.

Stella transferred her things from the Mustang to Sam’s old Cherokee. Trying to reach Otto’s place in a flatlander vehicle was futile. Only the most rugged four-wheel drives could make it. Or she could hike in. She used a tire gauge and a hand pump to bring tire pressure up to 35 psi. Samism #57: “Proper tire inflation is the key to good fuel economy and handling.” A bumper sticker said, “SAVE THE POUDRE--STORE IT IN THE GLADE!”

Sam’s positions had made life difficult for Stella in middle and high school. Her classmates had been taught in the womb that you can’t hug a child with nuclear arms. And that we all must coexist. And that hate is not a family value. That corporations weren’t people until Texas executes one. It was a mystery to Stella how Sam ever got elected. Not that he was any of those things, but the press hated him.

It was no mystery. He was good with people. He had genuinely liked people. He kissed babies with gusto and petted dogs.

The bumper sticker was an invitation to vandalism. She used a putty knife to scrape it off. She found an old knapsack in the garage into which she stuffed bottled water, jerky and trail mix. She made herself a ham sandwich with deli fixings from the fridge and left Crystal a note thanking her for her hospitality and promising to get in touch soon.

By inviting Blaine Crystal had instinctively avoided any intimate conversation about Sam or his death. Crystal wasn’t fooled by the bullshit cover story, nor was she interested in what really happened. Crystal was interested in how it affected Crystal. Fine with Stella. She put the hand pump in the back with her knapsack and suitcase. She stopped in town to gas up. Gas was at an all-time high. It cost her sixty-five bucks to top off the Cherokee.

Up 287 to Ted’s place where she turned west onto 14. Poudre Canyon wound up and through Cameron Pass, 10,276 feet above sea level. Radio reception was mostly nonexistent in the narrow canyon and the old Jeep lacked a CD player. The Poudre was unusually fast for this time of year due to the heavy snowfall of the previous winter. The narrow, serpentine blacktop clung to the canyon walls occasionally opening up for the odd homestead. She passed vacationers in Winnebagos, bikers towing trailers with teddy bears bungeed to the sissy bars, huge trucks hauling wood and hay, pick-up trucks and bicyclists tricked out in primary colored spandex and teardrop-shaped helmets, all streaming up and down the mountain. The bicyclists rode with their heads down and their rumps in the air.

Mishiwaka, the notorious music bar that loomed over the rushing water, was still shuttered at this hour of the morning. Stella had been to the Mish often while attending UC Boulder. She’d dropped Ecstasy and grooved to Phish, Drag the River, Leftover Salmon. She smiled ruefully at the memory and a Samism popped into her head.

“Stella, you think about what you do now if you ever plan to run for public office. You don’t want your opponent telling people you dealt grass or banged the Rams’ starting line-up.”

Her minor experimentation with drugs had ended long ago and she would’ have rather pulled her own teeth out with pliers than run for office. Even before he sought office, Sam hadn’t been around much to which he attributed the demands of his job as CSU fundraiser but which Stella later realized were due to his relentless hound-dogging.

Sam was great when he was there. He never bitched that God hadn’t dealt him a son. He taught Stella how to ride horse, shoot a rifle, ride a bike and field-dress a deer. Martha appreciated none of these things so father and daughter had time to themselves. Sam hadn’t had the greatest taste in women. Stella loved Martha but Stella wasn’t blind.

Like Crystal, Martha was a drunk and a pill popper. Stella had been made aware of various other poopsies and one-night stands through friends, gossip, the occasional tabloid, but Sam was beloved by his constituents and could do no ill. Sally Crandall, Pendragon’s girl in D.C., had been the best of the bunch. Stella had met Sally at some soiree six months ago and liked her immediately. She instinctively knew that Sally was Sam’s latest squeeze.

Well who could blame him, with Crystal’s wild mood-swings and days in bed for fibromyalgia. Stella was glad Sam had Sally. He should have married her in the first place. Oh well. Hindsight was 20/20, as Sam endlessly told her.

Samisms #1 and #2 were: Attitude is everything. Character is destiny.

“Yes, Sam,” she said to the gray rock. Out of the city it was cooler and she had the windows open, noting the subtle change in the air itself with the first hint of pine sneaking in. On this sunny Tuesday in late June, the river was a rolling party, blue helmeted rafters battling rapids with yellow paddles, kayaks rushing by. Most of the riverside picnic grounds, Ouzel, Dutch George, had already begun to fill with fugitives from the city setting up their barbecue. Anglers stood knee deep in the furious water, casting flies.

Stella found the turn-off to Otto’s place just past Pingree Park. A plank bridge lay over the river. On the other side was a line-up of seventeen mailboxes affixed to a stand made of two-by-fours, and a chain suspended between two steel poles sunk in concrete deep into the ground, held shut with a padlock.

Stella turned the engine off. She got out, took a drink of water, and looked at the mailboxes. Twelve of them had names. None said White. She looked around. The mountains rose steeply to the southwest, covered with a mottled mantle of Kelly green and bark beetle brown. The land retained enough moisture so that the fire level was moderate. Overhead an eagle circled pursued by several ravens. Otherwise not a soul.

Stella wondered what to do. She could leave the Jeep and hike in, but it was about six miles and none of it was easy. She wasn’t certain she was up to that kind of challenge despite her daily rigorous workouts at Gold’s in Silver Spring. She heard the sound of a transmission grinding gears and seconds later a blue Ford 150 with some kind of lab mix in the bed pulled around the curve up to the chain and stopped.

The gnarled homunculus who stepped out looked like a stick figure on whom someone had draped coveralls and a John Deere cap. The old dude went up to the padlock and looked at Stella.

“Mornin’. Help you?”

“I’m looking for Otto White. I’m Stella Darling.”

The man proffered a hand that seemed to belong to a larger man. “Wayne Winslett. White. White. I know just about everybody on the mountain but our mystery man, drives some sort of Transformers truck, got a German shepherd. That him?”

“That’s Otto.”

“Never said word one to me. Friendly enough, but like many people up this way, they live up here for a reason. However, you don’t look like a Fed or a lawyer.”

Stella blushed and smiled. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me in, Mr. Winslett. We’re old friends. I would have contacted him if there were any way, but Otto doesn’t have a phone. He doesn’t have a computer. I don’t think he even has electricity.”

Winslett unlocked the padlock and let the chain fall to the ground with a clank. “Go on ahead. I’ll lock up.”

Stella gave Winslett her jury-winning smile. “Thank you.”

She got in the Jeep and drove through the steel poles following the rutted rocky trail as it wound upwards. She shifted to lower case four-wheel drive, grateful for the seatbelt that prevented her slamming her head into the headliner as she clambered

over gully-wumpers and hassock-sized rocks. It was slow going. The trail switch-backed up the mountain and now the scent of pine was everywhere.

“You smell that, honey?” Sam asked her on one of their hikes. “That’s the smell of money. That’s what a rich neighborhood smells like.”

It was true. In the water-starved west only the wealthy or original settlers got the land with the trees. Uphill. The richer you were the further uphill you moved. By those standards Otto was a millionaire. She remembered when he’d showed her around the place two years ago. His land was mostly flat rock snugged up against a red rock shelf, low ground cover of juniper, prickly pear, mountain rose, yucca, a stream, if you could call it that, winding through the rocks, several clumps of aspen. The remains of an old cabin with a stone foundation lay in shadow beneath the rock.

That was where he planned to build the main house, tucked under the shelf like an Anasazi dwelling. Where he’d put the rain basins and holding tanks, and where he planned to build a tank trap for anybody foolish enough to drive in uninvited.

Stella assumed the tank trap was hyperbole. Otto said a lot of things in an inflectionless voice that might lead people to think he was insane.

She was climbing now through ponderosa, stalks of brown kindling where the bark beetle had done its work. She came around a bend and a wall of meat filled the narrow space between the trees. The moose regarded her with disinterest and ambled off into the forest. Even from within the Jeep she could feel the animal’s bulk and power and it had made her afraid. This was not the park and concrete jungle she routinely roamed.

This was the wild. And as Sam always said, the wild could rear up and bite you in the ass when you least expected it.

Pikas scolded her from boulder tops. A coyote slinked across the trail. Through the trees she could hear the burble of the creek as it tumbled down the mountain. The air was rich now with the scent of pine. You could bottle that air and sell it by the quart, she thought. She checked the odometer. Coming up on six miles. Any second now. The entrance to Otto’s land was unmistakably marked by a red pole gate swung shut and latched. There was no lock. There were no casual visitors up here.

She wallowed around a tight bend and there it was jammed between two granite formations that looked like the aftermath of a giant baby’s building block tantrum. She stopped the Jeep and got out. It was at least fifteen degrees cooler up here than back in the city. There were two signs affixed to the gate: “PRIVATE PROPERTY--STAY OUT” and “PROTECTED BY SMITH & WESSON.” Although the gate was unlocked Stella decided to leave the Cherokee there. She opened the tailgate and hoisted the backpack over her shoulders, cinching the belt tight around her waist. A water bottle hung from a carabiner affixed to her belt. She found a Water Valley ball cap in the rear seat and put it on over wrap-around shades, threading her hair into a ponytail through the back of the cap. She put a piece of jerky in her pocket. In her multi-pocketed khaki shorts, Adidas hiking boots and scout shirt she was indistinguishable from the Standard Issue Colorado Woman.

Stella climbed over the gate and followed the cratered trail which curved out of sight around another granite outcropping. Stella looked up. A few fluffy white clouds scudded overhead. The wind whistled through the pine. It felt good to be out here on the mountain, far removed from the pressure of her job and the tension from living in a pressure cooker with millions of others. She could feel her shoulder muscles relaxing.

Stella walked around the bend and paused to enjoy the view. Spreading her arms she inhaled deeply. Pure ambrosia. City stress exited with each exhalation. One minute she was looking at a red rock outcropping over a peculiar stone wall, the next she realized she was looking at Otto’s house. True to his word he had built it out of stone and tucked it under the red rock shelf. It looked deserted.

Stella took a step and stumbled. The rock she stepped on rolled a few inches and disappeared. Disappeared into a hole in the ground.

Stella got down on her hands and knees and discovered the edge of a tarp stretched tightly across an excavation. “What the hell?” she said. In a rush of fury and disgust she realized what it was. Crouching, she found the corner, untied the concealed anchor rope, and bent it back enough to reveal an SUV-sized excavation with a series of metal spikes mounted at the bottom.

***