Wipe Out

by Jeff Shelby

  I was sitting in the lobby, waiting for Wellton to come down, when she did a double take after glancing at me, then froze in her tracks.

  I didn't smile or wave.

  Her black hair had grown fractionally longer and her glasses were rimless and sleek, rather than the thick black ones I'd seen her wear before. She was in a pantsuit that matched the color of her hair and a red blouse that made me think of the blood she'd tried to squeeze from me when I'd worked on a case involving her son when I'd returned to San Diego. We hadn't parted on good terms, both of us threatening the other, two sharks circling, and I felt like it was inevitable that our paths were going to cross again.

  I just wasn't sure who would win.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” she whispered, tapping a manila folder against her thigh.

  I chuckled. “Nervous?”

  “Hardly.”

  She'd leveraged a young college student to save her son's ass on a rape charge and used me to do it. I hadn't seen it until it was all said and done. She thought she could keep me quiet by threatening me with what she'd promised to overlook in the first place, my role in the death of a man named Landon Keene. I'd shocked her when I'd turned the tables and told her I might tell the whole world about what she'd done. She'd miscalculated how little I felt I had to lose. I hadn't done anything about it, but I'd held onto it, not knowing if I'd ever need that card.

  I laughed again. “You look nervous.”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” she growled again.

  “Chill out,” I said. “I'm meeting Wellton about something.”

  “About what?”

  “About what kind of kitten I should get. Siamese or Maine Coon. Thoughts?”

  “Fuck you,” she said. “You aren't funny.”

  The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and Wellton took two steps toward us before coming to a halt. He looked like he wanted to throw up and run back to the elevator.

  I stood up. “Gotta go. My date's here.”

  The corners of her mouth twitched. “I don't like seeing you here.”

  “And I don't like your new fucking glasses,” I said, walking past her. “Doesn't hide the asshole in you.”

  Wellton's face paled. “Jesus Christ.”

  “No, it's just me,” I said, stepping past him to the elevator. “Let's go.”

  “I'm warning you,” Benavides growled.

  “About what?” I said, getting into the elevator. “Poor eyeglass choice? My eyes are fine.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Wellton whispered as he stepped into the elevator next to me.

  “Great to see you, Christina,” I said, louder than I needed to. “Hope your son's arm is doing better.”

  She glared at me as the doors closed.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  “You had to do all that?” Wellton asked as we stepped off the elevator.

  “No. She just brings out the best in me.”

  “That wasn't your best, I hate to tell you.”

  “Fine. Brings out the asshole in me.”

  “Well, there's plenty of that,” he said, guiding me down a hallway toward a small, windowless conference room. “I'm working in here today. I needed space to spread out on something else I'm working.”

  I closed the door behind us and sat down in the empty chair adjacent to his.

  “Seriously,” Wellton said, staring at me. “I wouldn't fuck with Benavides. She can still take you down if she wants.”

  “And I can still tell the world about what her kid did,” I said. “I'm fine.”

  He shook his head, like a parent frustrated that their toddler just couldn't learn. “Anyway. What do you need? I really am working something else.”

  “The thing I asked you about the other day,” I said. “The car accident?”

  He nodded.

  “Couple more wrinkles,” I said.

  He tapped at the laptop computer in front of him for a moment, then closed it up and pushed it to the side. “Wrinkles.”

  I told him about talking to the developers and the break-in at the motel.

  He made a face like he wasn't terribly convinced I'd brought him anything new. “Okay?”

  “Here's what's bothering me,” I explained. “The guy dies in an accident and now all of sudden everyone is swimming around that motel, ready to take it. The only person who doesn't want it is the person who it now belongs to and she's being threatened.”

  “You have spray paint in a closed motel,” Wellton said. “I'm not sure the threat is as great as you think it is.”

  “You don't think it was directed at her?”

  “I think it was directed at her, but it doesn't mean that it's all that nefarious,” he said, frowning. “It could've been some surf kooks down there. It could've been some kids messing around. Lots of possibilities.”

  “But how would all of them know the motel now belongs to Anne?”

  He shrugged. “I don't know. Word gets out.”

  I didn't say anything.

  He sighed and threw his head back dramatically. “What exactly do you want from me?”

  “Take another look at the accident.”

  He groaned. “I already did.”

  “Look again,” I said. “Take a look at the highway cameras. The accident report. Just poke around a little more. It's just starting to feel weird to me.”

  “It's starting to feel weird to you because she's your friend,” Wellton countered. “I saw the report. Dude went off the road in shit conditions. It happens.”

  “Come on,” I said. “People clearly want to get their hands on that property. There's some motive here. You can connect some dots.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “There are random dots and you are forcing the connection. That isn't connecting the dots. That's seeing what you want to see.”

  “So show me otherwise.”

  “I thought I already had.”

  “There are more fish tacos in it for you,” I said.

  He made a face. “I haven't even gotten the first ones you promised me.”

  “I'll order them while we sit here,” I said. “Come on. Can we pull up the footage from the highway cameras? If there's nothing, I'll back off.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” he said. “You'll back off when you think you're wrong. Which is almost never.”

  “Come on. Please.”

  He sighed. “You need to do this now?”

  I shrugged. “I'm here. I figure you're important enough to be able to access the footage while we're here and I'm ordering you tacos. Better than me calling you every hour on the hour, isn't it?”

  “That'd be worse than Ebola,” he said, grabbing his laptop and flipping it open.

  “No. I'm not that bad.”

  He peered at me over the top of the computer. “Yes. You're worse than Ebola.”

  “I thought they were pretty close to eradicating that.”

  “I'd like to eradicate you.”

  “That's rude,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I'm gonna ignore that comment and order you your tacos anyway.”

  He grunted, sat up in his chair, and tapped away at the keyboard.

  I logged into the food delivery app on my phone and ordered eight fish tacos from Rubio's to be delivered. The order went through and a message came up telling me they'd be there in twenty minutes.

  Technology was amazing.

  Wellton leaned forward, staring intently at his screen, still tapping at the keys.

  I waited.

  Five minutes later, he leaned back. “Okay. I got it.”

  I stood and walked over to stand next to his chair.

  “It's all archived footage,” he said. “The quality isn't great because the weather was so crappy that night. Normally, this would've taken an hour to find, but it had already been pulled when they were investigating.” He glanced at me. “And they didn't see anything then.”

  “Sure,” I said, leaning down.

  The video was on full screen and the vi
ew was from an elevated camera, slightly on the diagonal, maybe twenty feet above the roadway. It was black and white and the headlights on the cars looked like small, glowing eyes in the dark.

  “This is about five minutes before,” Wellton said. “I'm gonna fast forward to about a minute before he goes off.”

  He moved the cursor over the video controls on the bottom of the screen and tapped the touchpad. The film sped up and it looked like a video game. After about 45 seconds, he tapped the play indicator and the video slowed down.

  “There's a pickup right there,” Wellton said, pointing to the screen. “Now we've got a Honda Accord. And here comes your friend. He's in an older VW Jetta.”

  The Jetta came on the screen and it seemed like it was going faster than the others that had preceded it. Water splashed up on the road and the taillights flared, bright white dots on the screen. The car didn't slow, though, continued straight ahead. It reached the turn and the nose of the car never seemed to move to the right to follow the road. Instead, it plowed into the low guardrail, which gave way easily. The car disappeared over the edge and a piece of the railing followed the car over the side. Three seconds later, light flared in the canyon.

  “So there you see him go,” Wellton said. “Pretty definitive.”

  My stomach tightened. “Yeah.”

  It didn't feel good watching someone I knew plunge to his death. It felt helpless to be watching, know what was going to occur, and then not be able to do anything to stop it.

  “Not fun to watch,” Wellton said.

  “No.”

  Cars came into the frame. A Ford pick up. A Honda Pilot. Some sort of Mercedes sedan. A Porsche SUV.

  The pick up and Pilot moved near the guardrail and stopped. The Mercedes stopped in the middle of the highway, the Porsche right behind it. The driver of the Pilot got out, phone to ear, peering over the now destroyed guardrail. He turned around to say something to the driver of the Mercedes. The driver of the Ford got out and was looking over the side. The Mercedes crept forward. The Porsche waited for a moment, then followed the Mercedes out of the frame.

  “The cell phone call from that guy right there was the initial call,” Wellton said, pointing at the screen. “He confirmed that the Jetta seemed to be traveling a little faster than he should've been, given the conditions. He'd just come around a curve there and saw the car go over.”

  I frowned at the screen. I wasn't sure what I was hoping to find, but whatever it was, it wasn't there. Mitchell had gone over the side. People had stopped to help. They'd called it in.

  There was nothing weird about it.

  “Alright,” I said. “I appreciate you pulling it up.”

  “I'm sorry there isn't more there.”

  “Me, too.”

  My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out. Carter's name was on the screen.

  I tapped the glass. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I'm at Anne's house. You should come over.”

  “Why?”

  “Something you should see.”

  “She's there with you?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She was still weirded out after the motel, so I offered to go to her house with her.” He paused. “Just get here, dude.”

  “Yep, on my way,” I told him and hung up. I looked at Wellton. “Thanks. I gotta go.”

  “Something up?”

  I headed for the door. “Isn't there always?”

  TWENTY EIGHT

  On the porch of Anne's house, a small model of The Blue Wave smoldered.

  I'd driven straight there from Wellton's office and made it in about twenty minutes. Both she and Carter were outside in the driveway. I saw the small swirls of smoke rising from the steps when I pulled to the curb.

  “Was on her doorstep when we got here,” Carter explained. “Pretty good likeness. Was just doing a slow burn. I was gonna hose it off, then thought better of it in case there's anything left.”

  I nodded and squatted down for a closer look.

  It was a fairly detailed model built from foam board. It had mini-doors and windows with a piece of black construction paper taped to the side where the parking lot would've been. Most of it was now a smoldering, charred mess, but the bones of the structure were very clear. Someone had taken the time to build a small-scale model of the motel and then set it on fire.

  At Anne's house.

  I stood up. “So the flames were just going?”

  Carter nodded. “Yeah. Nothing else was at risk.”

  I looked at Anne. She was pale, and her body sagged as if she hadn't slept in weeks.

  “I assume you've never seen the model before,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Never.” Her voice was quiet, weak. “Never.”

  “You should get this reported,” I told her. “If there's a link to what happened at the motel, you need to get it on record.”

  She nodded, but it didn't seem like she was paying much attention. Her eyes were focused on the burned out model.

  “Why don't you do that now?” Carter said. “I already checked the house, so you're fine to go inside.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  She walked slowly to the steps, then stopped. She moved up them, staying as far as physically possible from the model. She disappeared inside the house.

  “Fun,” I said.

  “She's pretty rattled,” Carter said. “I told her I'd stick around for a while. Not sure whether that means an hour or a day, but whatever.”

  I eyed him. “Anything going on there?”

  He shook his head. “Nah. Strictly friends. I feel bad for her. I think she's had a fairly rough go of it and Mitchell leaving her this motel should've been a good thing. Now it's got her spooked.”

  “Can't blame her.”

  “Nope. You get anything from Wellton?”

  “Not really. Not sure there's anything to get. We watched footage of the crash.”

  “You actually saw it?” Carter asked.

  “Yeah. I don't recommend it.”

  He let out a low whistle. “Yikes.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So now what?”

  “So now we need to figure out what the hell's going on,” I said.

  “I forgot you were a professional at this.”

  “I saw Rose Henderson this morning, too.”

  “What'd she have to say?”

  “That I was an asshole for thinking she might've had anything to do with what happened at the motel,” I said.

  Carter adjusted his sunglasses. “You believe her?”

  I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, I think so. She was pretty pissed and it seemed pretty genuine.”

  “Maybe that's part of her plan,” he said. “Coerce Anne into selling and then clutch at her pearls when anyone suggests she's a part of it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But how would she benefit from the sale? It's not hers. If Anne sells to one of these developers, how does she win?”

  “I think this is where you being a professional part comes in,” he said. “You have to connect the dots. Find the missing link. A whole bunch of other clichés like that.”

  “Right.”

  It had bothered me since I left Rose's home. How would she stand to gain if the motel sold at this point? Anne owned it free and clear, so there was no financial benefit for Rose, which, in theory, meant she had no reason to care one way or another if Anne held onto the property or sold it. She'd been adamant in her displeasure over Mitchell's leaving it to Anne and in forcing the financials on me, but none of that really explained what her motive would be for threatening or bullying Anne into a sale.

  “I'm gonna go inside and check on her, make sure she's okay,” Carter said, pointing at the house. “What are you gonna do?”

  I turned and headed for my car. “Go try and figure out how to do professional investigator things.”

  “You think today's the day you finally unlock that puzzle?”

  I held up my middle finger as I walke
d to the car.

  TWENTY NINE

  As I drove away from Anne's, I kept going back to Rose.

  I really did believe her when she said she hadn't had anything to do with the break-in at the motel. It didn't really fit. But I was stuck on the fact that she was so clearly angry about the motel now being Anne's and about getting me to look at the financials so I'd have a better understanding of where the motel stood.

  The threats to Anne had clearly been a coordinated attempt to get her to let go of the property. It wasn't a coincidence that the motel had been broken into overnight and then they'd found the burning model on her front porch. Someone had not only taken the time to cause damage at the motel, but they’d also built the small model of the motel simply so it could be set on fire. All of that had taken some time and thought, and would only be done by someone who was determined to scare Anne into selling. It was premeditated, it was methodical, and it was a shitty thing to do to someone.

  My stomach rumbled as I drove, reminding me that I'd eaten only the two granola bars hours earlier for breakfast and then skipped lunch. I swung through a taco shop off Mission on my way home, grabbing a California burrito and a quesadilla. I got home, pulled a Pacifico from the fridge, and sat down at the kitchen table with my food and Rose Henderson's file.

  I looked first at the original offers from both Henry Nixon and Eric Gentry. Both seemed legit. They were both offering eight figure sums, with Gentry offering more. The numbers were both eye-poppingly large and I shook my head as I ate, a bit bewildered that Mitchell Henderson had been able to say no to them both. I knew he loved the motel, but seeing those numbers on paper confirmed that his love for that place was greater than most people had for anything in their lives.

  Each of the offers described the terms of the deal. Nixon was looking to break the sum up into four payments over several stages of the purchase. Gentry was offering the whole amount upfront and had even provided a letter from the bank, confirming that the sum would be available 48 hours after the deal was agreed to. There was lots of legal mumbo jumbo attached to both offers, but the bottom line was that it appeared that both men were serious about buying the property from Henderson.