The Shop

by J. Carson Black

  Riley stood up. “Well, thanks,” she said, her voice like ice. “I guess I should’ve expected you wouldn’t help me.”

  “Could you sit down for a moment?” Jolie said.

  Riley sighed. “What now?”

  “How close were you to Luke?”

  “We were going to get married.”

  Jolie looked for an engagement ring, but didn’t see any.

  “We were keeping it a secret.”

  Because he was eight years older than you? Jolie thought. Or because he worked for a landscaper blowing leaves?

  Riley said, “I need to be somewhere.”

  “Just a couple more questions. Do you have any idea why Luke would take that woman hostage at that motel?”

  Riley stared at her.

  She looked stricken.

  “Riley?” Jolie asked gently. “You must have wondered about that.”

  “They framed him. He wouldn’t do something like that. Why would he?”

  “Who framed him? The FBI? The police?”

  Riley said nothing.

  “How do you think that happened?”

  “They framed him. They made it up.” She stood up. “I’ve got to go.”

  Jolie said, “You must have thought about this. If they framed him, you must have a theory how they did it?”

  “I don’t know how they did it. That’s your job. We loved each other, and now he’s gone—why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Was he afraid of someone? Did he ever mention that someone was after him?”

  “Am I under arrest? Because if I’m not, I’m going. Come on, Zoe!”

  She walked out the door—clack, clack, clack.

  Zoe rose, purse clutched to her stomach. “I’m sorry, Aunt Jolie. She doesn’t mean to be rude. She’s just upset. She…”

  Jolie stood up too. “Do you think Luke was framed?”

  Zoe looked miserable. “All I know is something was going on.”

  “Something?”

  “What I meant was…” She looked around for help, but there was none.

  “Zoe, if you know anything, you owe it to your friend to tell me. Does Riley know why he went to the motel?”

  “No! There’s no way she’d know.”

  “Why is that?”

  Zoe looked miserable. “Because they broke up Memorial Day weekend.”

  When Jolie got to Skeet’s office, he was standing by the window. “Look at that,” he said. “You’d think the president was just here.”

  Jolie saw the two black SUVs follow Riley’s Boxster Spyder out of the parking lot.

  “Is it true you’re related to those people?”

  “Tangentially.”

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and gazed at the solar system poster that took up one wall of his office. “Hope you’re not planning on getting a security detail for yourself,” he said. “We’d have to move Louis into the cleaning closet just to accommodate them.” He nodded to a chair. He had his copy of Chief Akers’s case file in front of him on the desk.

  “You know we’ve been having budget cutbacks,” Skeet said. “We’re shorthanded. Everybody is, but with Louis out…Tim and I talked early this morning. We agreed that we just don’t have the manpower to keep up surveillance on Maddy Akers.”

  In a way she’d been expecting it. Maddy had done nothing except go to places like the Piggly Wiggly and the car wash for three days. Jolie was disappointed, but it had not been out of the realm of possibility. Jolie wasn’t ready to bring Maddy in for questioning yet—she needed more evidence to make an interview worthwhile. She needed something that would rattle Maddy, trap her into giving something away. But now Skeet had taken away Jolie’s ace in the hole.

  Skeet stood. “I hope this doesn’t put a crimp in your investigation.”

  “Life goes on.”

  Skeet nodded sagely. “Life does go on.”

  Jolie thought of Chief Akers lying on the bed in a hotsheet motel, blood soaking into the mattress underneath his head. Life goes on, she thought.

  Sometimes.

  22

  ASPEN, COLORADO

  When Nick Holloway came back from laying in supplies, the first thing he did was turn on Fox News. He was unloading groceries into the refrigerator when he heard the words, “Brienne Cross.” He looked up in time to see two scruffy men shuffling into the Pitkin County Courthouse in manacles and leg chains. The Pitkin County Courthouse was one block away from where he was staying.

  The Aspen killers had been caught.

  Just like that, Nick’s fear that someone was out there lying in wait for him evaporated.

  Their names were Donny Lee Odell and Ray Marquette, and they were about to be arraigned for the murders of Brienne Cross, Justin Balough, Tanya Williams, Brendan Shayles, Amber Redmond, and Connor Fallon.

  No mention of Mars’s death, but that would probably be tacked on later.

  Donny was the younger one. He had that country-peach face peculiar to Southern white boys and the wispy beginnings of a Fu Manchu. He had long, limp hair and spaced-out eyes. Two tats Nick could see—a teardrop tat in the corner of one eye, and barbed wire wrapped around one stringy bicep. The orange jumpsuit made him look jaundiced. Nick imagined Donny’s growing up years: a single-wide with plenty of siblings. He had no doubt they’d have the same blank look Donny had, as if life had whacked them hard in the face. He’d drive a seventies-era GMC truck with a Confederate flag in the back window and do the majority of his shopping at a convenience store—cigarettes, Slim Jims, and six-packs of beer that would cost twice as much as they would at a grocery store.

  Ray was older and meaner. His eyes weren’t passive like Donny’s. In fact, he had the evil eye thing going on, thought he was Manson. His head was shaved, and a thatch of hair jutted out from his chin, somewhere between a soul patch and the beard on a Civil War general. No mustache. Scars on the face, as if he’d grown up in an era of smallpox outbreaks. Tats crawled across his shoulders and arms, and he had one hoop earring. He was bulky enough to overturn a car, and his jail-house muscles stretched his sleeveless orange jumpsuit to the breaking point. Nick pegged him as the instigator and Donny as the follower.

  Now he could put faces to the killers who haunted his dreams. A couple of white supremacist types with obviously low IQs.

  All his worries had been for nothing. Now he could move on.

  He wondered if, down the road, he could interview Donny and Ray. Unlikely, but he’d discuss it with his agent.

  But first, he walked down to the courthouse and became part of the crowd. Not much to see. Satellite news vans, reporters, cameras, even a staging area where the Pitkin County sheriff gave his press conference. The sheriff had a good time giving the press conference, too—his time in the sun. Nick liked being part of the crowd. Anonymous. He noticed a couple of celebrities behind dark glasses and under ball caps, and felt a kinship with them. No one knows who we really are.

  On his way back from the courthouse, Nick picked up a sandwich for lunch, went home, and called his agent.

  “Let me get this straight,” Roger said. “You want to expand the story to include this guy Mars?”

  “Come on, Roger, he saved my life.”

  “You think he saved your life. But is there any proof of that?”

  Nick sighed. His agent never really trusted him, despite the fact that he’d delivered a bestseller that had surprised everyone. “I’ll find the link. All it will take is a little investigative reporting.”

  “I don’t know,” Roger said. “Sounds like mission creep to me. The story about those kids in the house, as told by the sole survivor—I thought that was what this book was about.”

  “But Mars is the reason I survived.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But I can find out, can’t I?”

  “That’s what I mean. Mission creep. This thing is becoming amorphous. And that means it’s going to take longer to write. We talked about this. The sooner we can get th
is book out the better.”

  “Don’t worry so much. I’ve written on deadline all my life.” He looked out the window at the beautiful day and felt energized. “I’m going out to the house later—I really want to see it again. Now that it’s empty, it might be a good way to start the book. But first, I’m going back to see if I can talk to someone in the sheriff’s office.”

  Roger said, “Think about what I said, okay? Don’t lose focus.”

  “Oh, I won’t, Roger. Don’t you worry about that.”

  As Nick crossed the street to his car, he noticed a man on the sidewalk, his face tipped up to the sun in appreciation of the day. Nick shared his appreciation of the pure blue sky, benign sunshine, and cool shadows. It was as if his life had been handed back to him. He’d been in three narrow scrapes in his life, and he’d come out of them in one piece every single time. The child-killer who tried to get him in his car when he was nine. Nick got away, but another kid wasn’t so lucky—his body was found the following spring in a wilderness area. Then his near-miraculous survival of the Aspen massacre.

  And now Donny Lee and Ray were safely locked up. They couldn’t come after him now.

  The biggest dividend from the Aspen massacre had been completely unexpected: Nick was now magically free from fear. The idea that death was out there waiting for him, waiting for one slipup, one lapse in judgment or awareness—that was gone. Just like that.

  The reaper had three cracks at him and couldn’t get it done. He was pretty sure there wouldn’t be another, not for a long time. The ultimate irony? If he died in his sleep at a hundred and three.

  Nick got the runaround at the sheriff’s office. After an hour of waiting, he went back to the officer behind the Plexiglas window and told her he was the sole survivor of the Aspen massacre and needed to talk to Detective Sloan. But the woman must have been in the job for a long time, because she just blinked at him and looked bored. “You’ll have to wait your turn, sir. There’s a lot going on today and everyone is out.”

  So he gave up and drove to the Aspen house.

  He didn’t expect to see a realtor’s sign outside. And he really didn’t expect to see the “SOLD” panel hanging from two short chains underneath.

  The house looked like something out of a magazine—the stacked stone entrance and solid pine construction, the mowed lawn, the flowers nodding in their beds. Under the peaked roof, the massive expanse of glass was dark, reflecting only a couple of clouds in the deep blue sky.

  He knew nobody lived here—at least not yet. And the house looked empty.

  What he’d really like to do was get in and look around. Photograph it for his book. See if there were any traces of the mass murder. Of course there wouldn’t be—not if the place was already sold. The heavy-duty cleaners would have come in and hosed the place down and replaced what needed replacing. They’d make it sterile and generic again. As if they could wipe out the house’s psychic history.

  He wondered who had bought it so quickly. There were always the nuts out there who wanted to live in a murder house, people who got off on it. Like those women who wrote to Charlie Manson or the Night Stalker.

  The smell of cut grass took the edge off his nerves, reminding him of baseball games when he was a kid. Through the trees he could see Castle Creek, gold in the shallows, dark under the trees and undergrowth. A couple of hundred yards downstream, a fly fisherman cast his line backwards and forwards like a coach whip before settling it on the water in a bright line.

  Hands in his pockets, looking more casual than he felt, Nick walked down the driveway to the empty garage.

  He saw right away how the guy had stashed him there. The garage was a sub-story, cut into the hill. A flagstone walkway ran down the hill alongside. It would have been easy for Mars to roll him down the walkway and push him over the lip of the retaining wall into the garage. There was a three-foot drop to the plastic garbage and recycle containers, which would have broken his fall. From there it would be a simple thing to shove him under Brienne’s black Escalade.

  What he didn’t understand, though, was why. Why me?

  He stood in the coolness, staring down at the immaculate concrete. Not one oil spot marred the garage floor.

  Why was I spared?

  Nothing came to him.

  Finally, Nick walked back up the walkway to the deck above. The deck cantilevered out over the rushing water. He remembered drinking beer that night—quite a lot of it—and the incredible feeling of well-being it generated. A warm, rosy feeling.

  “Hey there.”

  He looked around. A man climbed the steps from the creek below, the fisherman he’d seen earlier. Tan vest and waders, aviator sunglasses, fly rod, and an old-fashioned wicker creel with a trout tail sticking out. He couldn’t say for sure, but everything looked top-of-the-line—even the trout.

  Abruptly, Nick felt foolish. The guy must live here. He’d been wrong that the house was still empty. He put on his best smile. Inclusive, winning, the way he greeted people on tour. Stepped forward and held out a hand, even though the man had his hands full.

  As he framed his welcoming sentence, the man said, “You’re Nick Holloway.”

  He found himself grinning foolishly. Had the guy read his book?

  “You’re the survivor. I saw you on the news.” The man set his creel down. “I can’t believe it. The sole survivor.”

  “Guilty,” Nick said. “This your place now?”

  “Name’s Cyril,” the man said. “Just closed on it a week ago yesterday, as a matter of fact. Thought I’d kick things off with a fish supper. So how did you get so lucky?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You must have friends in high places, that’s for sure.”

  “Wish I knew who they were. I’d hit them up for a loan.”

  “No idea? That seems strange.”

  Nick shrugged. Nick had made the decision to keep whatever he learned about Mars to himself. It was his story, his exclusive, and you never knew who might try to capitalize on his hard work. He’d been the one shoved under the Escalade, and he was going to be the one to write the story.

  “Nice day, isn’t it?” The man pushed his baseball cap back. The cap was tan, too, like the rest of his clothing. The words Chernobyl Ant were written across the front.

  “Chernobyl Ant? What’s that?”

  “A fishing fly—a terrestrial.” The man told Nick that he tied his own flies, went on to explain what a terrestrial was, and then gave him a list of the places he’d caught fish with the fly. Went into too much detail for Nick’s taste. Then he nodded toward the garage. “That’s where they found you, right? Hey, if you’ve got time, I’d like to hear your story. I’ve got Rolling Rock in the house, and I can cook up this trout. Care to join me?”

  Nick realized he was famished. It was the mountain air. Guy seemed a little anal-retentive, but what the hell. There were worse ways to spend an afternoon. This was his opportunity to get into the house again. If the fisherman wanted to hear the story about his brush with death, if he wanted a vicarious thrill—fine with him. “A beer would be nice,” he said.

  They stayed out on the deck. The water rushed underneath. The sunshine at this high altitude felt good but was probably deadly. Nick wished he had sunscreen, but he put it out of his mind.

  The conversation turned—as it always did—to Brienne Cross. Nick was bored with Brienne Cross, but he understood the interest. She was a big star.

  “What was she really like?”

  “To be honest? She was boring.”

  “Boring?” Cyril straightened. “I would have never guessed that.”

  “You’re right, it doesn’t quite do her justice. Let’s see…she was also shallow, vapid, and dull. But incredibly good-looking.”

  Cyril stood up. “You want a margarita? I made a pitcher earlier today.”

  They went into the house. Cyril suggested Nick dice some tomatoes, avocado, and scallions for guacamole.

  The kitchen was the sam
e as Nick remembered. Cyril said he’d bought the place lock, stock, and barrel. Nick looked into the big living area. The same furnishings he remembered, maybe a couple of them conspicuous by their absence. Brienne Cross was found lying on the couch. That was gone. The other furniture was sheathed in opaque plastic. It gave the place an otherworldly feel, as if it was not quite there. He had escaped. The gratitude he felt was overwhelming; it sang through him like a tuning fork, reverberations running through his soul.

  He was alive. They were dead, the people from this room, but he was still here. Still here to walk along the Aspen Mall lined with trendy shops, still here to appreciate the aspens and the sunshine and the good food and his chance encounter with the know-it-all fly fisherman.

  He wanted to photograph the big room. He liked the idea of the indifferent plastic, the understated quality to a place where four people had been murdered. Patience, he reminded himself.

  He started cutting vegetables while Cyril grilled him about the show, Soul Mate. So he went into it: How Brienne would sneak her boyfriend in, even though there was a rule against that. How reality shows were really scripted, which was why there was so much narrative tension and outright fights among the players.

  He talked about the little field trips to Nobu’s, to J-Bar, to Caribou. Picking out jewelry, clothes, dining out, clubbing, all of those kids trying to prove they were most like Brienne. That they could be her soul mate. All the hoops the young people jumped through to be Brienne’s best friend.

  Nick felt a twinge of regret. He realized he’d been uncharitable. Brienne was just muddling through life like anybody else, even if the cross she had to bear was gold-plated. Conscience made him say, “She was nice enough, don’t get me wrong. But the business turned her into a shark.”

  “A shark?”

  “You stop moving, you die. If you’re a celeb in this day and age, you can’t just tread water and expect to remain viable.”

  Cyril looked confused. Apparently, he didn’t know everything.

  “Stardom today has to be maintained. If you’re not in the headlines, the public forgets about you. So you have to work harder—incredible pressure. That’s why she took drugs.”