At First Sight

by Stephen J. Cannell

  The shot switched to a black woman in her mid-forties wearing a print dress. She was with a heavyset man, who turned out to be her attorney. The anchorwoman’s voice continued over the shot.

  “Delroy Washington’s attorney, David Atwater, had this to say …”

  I was now sitting up straight in bed. I turned up the volume as the attorney spoke.

  “Delroy Washington was at home with his mother when Mrs. Best’s Mercedes was carjacked. This is just another example of police scapegoating. Because my client had a history of carjacking, they’re trying to pin this crime on him, despite his alibi. This case is shortly going to be exposed for the rail job it actually is.”

  I thought of Chick and what he’d said at the funeral, how he had pledged himself to live a better life—use Evelyn’s death to improve his life. I was suddenly ashamed about wanting to duck out. I decided anew to help him through this task in Big Bear. It was only going to take a few hours. I could certainly get through that.

  I shut off the light and turned over on my side. Just before sleep took me, the same subconscious voice I’d heard earlier delivered another warning.

  “Don’t go,” it whispered softly.

  CHAPTER 34

  THE NEXT MORNING CHANDLER’S PARENTS AND I sat in the handsome wood-paneled dining room in their corporate offices at a beautifully appointed table and picked at our food. Chandler’s death was still a wall none of us could get over. After the meal was cleared away, we finally talked about what Peter Ellis called my next life option.

  What it came down to was I had to get off my ass and start moving forward again.

  The real reason the Ellis’s had invited me to breakfast was to propose that I become managing director of Chandler’s learning foundation. Peter said he and Sophia would continue to sit on the board as advisers without compensation. I would have full discretion on how to spend the foundation’s capital distributions. I could manage the fiscal resources, decide what research equipment to buy, what new projects we would fund and develop.

  There was important research being conducted on dyslexia at Yale by Drs. Sally and Bennett Shaywitz using MRIs to determine what part of the brain was activated when reading. Chandler had been excited with Sally and Bennett’s work and had invested foundation money to speed their research. Peter said that I was the natural choice to run Chandler’s foundation.

  I was exhilarated by the challenge but scared to death of the responsibility. I also knew this was just what I needed to kick-start my life.

  I was definitely interested but wanted the rest of the weekend to think it over. I told them that I had promised to go to Big Bear with Chick Best to help him clear Evelyn’s things out of their cabin and would give them my decision when I returned.

  It was noon by the time I left. I got caught in bumperto-bumper traffic and didn’t arrive back at the Langham until after one. I valeted the rental car and walked into the lobby. The concierge stopped me and handed me a fax in a sealed envelope. I was starting to open it when I heard my name.

  “Paige?”

  I turned, and standing there, dressed in black steel-toed cowboy boots, a blazer, and stretch designer jeans, was Chick.

  “Hi … ” I said. “Have you been waiting long?”

  “Just half an hour, but it’s no sweat. I love this place. Evelyn and I used to come here and go dancing when the old Ship Room was still open. That was back at the beginning of time when this was still a Sheraton Hotel.” He smiled.

  “I’m sorry I kept you waiting. I got caught in traffic.”

  “It’s okay. You ready to go?”

  “Guess so,” I answered hesitantly. He took my arm and led me out to the parking lot, where Evelyn’s gold Mercedes SL600 was parked.

  I stared at the damn car.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Isn’t this Evelyn’s car?”

  “Yes … ” He seemed confused.

  “The car she was killed in?”

  “It’s been detailed and cleaned out. I’m getting set to sell it.”

  I didn’t want to ride in a car that, only a week ago, had hosted Evelyn’s death.

  “It’s just … she was killed in this car. I mean, come on, Chick,” I stammered.

  “Oh yeah, right.” Realization finally dawned. “I decided to drive it because the trunk’s bigger than the Porsche and we’ll be bringing quite a few of Evelyn’s things back.”

  Your wife was murdered in this damn car, I thought. How can you even stand to be in it?

  “Another reason I brought it was it has chains in the trunk that fit these tires and the Porsche doesn’t. It could be snowing up there and we may need them.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Would you rather we rented something?” he asked, a perplexed look on his face because I was still standing there, glaring at the damn car.

  It was a logical explanation, I guess, but I was struggling to understand how Chick could be so insensitive. What I said, dumbass that I am, was, “No, it’s okay. This car’s fine.”

  “Ready?” he asked. “We’ll be back by eight or nine tonight.”

  I didn’t answer, so he came around and opened the door, and I reluctantly got in. Once the door was closed, I was engulfed by the sweet, lilac scent of car shampoo.

  Chick got behind the wheel. When he looked over at me he had a wide smile on his face. He started the car and pulled out of the hotel entry.

  As we turned onto Oak Knoll Avenue I looked down and saw a dark maroon speck. It was just above the carpet, on the lower kick panel. I didn’t have to look long to know what it was. A piece of Evelyn’s brains that the car cleaners had somehow missed was stuck in a tiny crack below the radio speaker. A little speck of Chick’s dead wife. A little piece of her DNA was going on this mountain trip with us. I grimaced and pulled my eyes away.

  “Paige, this is so amazing of you.” Chick was still smiling at me. “I can’t tell you what it means.”

  I nodded but didn’t answer.

  “You’ll love Big Bear. It’s beautiful up there. I always feel so close to nature in that cabin. The air is like pine perfume.”

  I nodded again. I was thinking that events had piled up on me too fast and had produced this situation. My own quest to get moving again, the parallel deaths of Chandler and Evelyn. This damn Girl Scout thing that I’ve been doing since I was nine. All of it had conspired to produce a terrible decision.

  I already wanted out of the car, but I couldn’t think of a graceful way to accomplish it. So instead of demanding that Chick stop and turn around right then, I started telling myself to calm down and not overreact.

  But for the next five miles, I couldn’t take my eyes off the little speck of Evelyn’s brains that rode the door panel by my right foot.

  CHAPTER 35

  THE AFTERNOON SKY WAS DARKENING, THREATENING another storm. Chick was chatting about his house up in Big Bear, bragging about what a great real-estate deal it was and how smart he’d been to buy it. I was just trying to keep my eyes off Evelyn’s brain spatter. Somewhere past San Bernardino, he moved on to his land speculation and real-estate philosophy.

  “When the property market crashed with the junk mortgages last year, all the ribbon clerks panicked and started selling. There was more dirt for sale at low prices in Big Bear than in fucking Baja. All that action drove land prices down even further. Of course, I never even considered selling. I plan a strategy, think things out carefully in advance. When I buy something, I’m making a long-term investment. It’s not about short-term profit or loss, like with these other hit-and-run, get-rich-quick guys. For me, it’s about looking for a market opportunity and capitalizing on it. Real estate is where the really great long-term fortunes are made, but you have to have an approach and a long-term philosophy.”

  I was getting very put off by all this, especially while we were taking this grisly mission to clean out his just-murdered wife’s mementos.

  Where was the
abject grief from yesterday, the terror at the looming prospect of having to sort through Evelyn’s belongings? I’d only come along to help him through that trauma, but here he was chatting me up on his long-term business goals.

  “The Internet, where I work, has redesigned everything, all aspects of commerce,” he was saying. “I predict, for instance, that there won’t even be real-estate agents in the future. Everything, all property, will be listed and sold online. Virtual property tours, deals, negotiations in secure chat rooms, all final transactions subject to an actual viewing of the property, set up on the Web by the buyer and the seller. The ten-percenters will all be dust.”

  He was giving me a headache.

  We had left the 210 and were on Highway 18, climbing up toward Running Springs. There were patches of fresh snow on the side of the road, and long mounds of it lay in the center of the highway where the snow plows had left it. Chick kept talking endlessly about money and how good he was at making it. The further out of L.A. we got, the more animated he became. Suddenly, he jerked his thumb at the passing scenery.

  “All of the property up here is gonna be for sale soon. It’s mostly parkland now but we’re gonna be seeing the Fed cutting loose big parcels of this stuff. All the CC&Rs are going to vanish.” He looked over at me. “That’s Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions. It’s why I wanted you to see how beautiful it is, ’cause once that happens, I’m set to pounce.”

  I was seriously beginning to wonder what on earth this trip up here was really all about.

  Then he actually said it. “I’m planning on taking my considerable assets from the sale of bestmarket.com and sticking them in a long-term, high-growth project, like this raw land here. I know just about everybody who’s anybody in L.A. Got a bunch of state contacts to help with zoning changes. All the serious insiders are watching me, because they want to take a ride on the Chick Best Express. Lotta people, right now, are waiting to see which way I’m gonna jump. The people who end up with me are gonna make a fortune. The people close to me, my ‘investment family’ so to speak, they’re gonna do very well.”

  Then he looked over and gave me what I’m sure he thought was a sexy smile and added, “That could be you if you want it to be, Paige.”

  My heart sank, because in that instant, I pretty much knew I’d been played. In that moment, only twenty miles or so from his cabin in Big Bear, I was absolutely convinced Chick had invited me up here to see if he could get something started. I sat there, looking at that tiny speck of Evelyn’s brains, and tried to choke down my anger.

  As we kept winding up Highway 18, my mind focused on how to get the hell out of this car and down off this mountain. How could I have been such an idiot? I had ignored the warning voice in my head. I had projected my own feelings onto him. Not the first time in my life I’ve made that mistake.

  Shortly after we turned onto the highway, huge snowflakes began to fall. They stuck on the glass and drifted like large pieces of white confetti past the windows. The heavy sky was gunmetal gray, and dropping ever lower. As an army brat, I’d lived in enough cold climates growing up to know that this was the beginning of a big storm, a heavy dump.

  During the next half-hour, we slowed because it was hard to see through the falling curtain of white. Soon the road was covered with snow. Chick stopped at a gas station in Fawnskin and paid the attendant twenty bucks to put the rear chains on the car for us.

  I asked to use the phone, but the attendant told me that the storm yesterday had taken down the lines and cellpod communications. The phone crews were working on it, but it wasn’t back in service yet. I was now feeling very cut off and uneasy.

  We got the chains on and pulled out. The cold air was freezing the snowflakes on the side window. The landscape was quickly becoming a Christmas card of white jagged mountain peaks and snow-covered pines. I could hear the chains crunching and ringing on the concrete under us as we cut through the wet, drifting snow, always moving further up toward the mountain summit.

  The cabin wasn’t in Big Bear proper, but in a smaller, more remote area called Sugarloaf, a few miles off Highway 18 on I-38.

  Finally, around three-thirty, we turned left off the interstate and pulled up a long drive.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Casa Best,” he grinned. “This is my driveway. The cabin’s about two miles up ahead. It’s nice up here. No neighbors, real peaceful …”

  Great, I thought, no neighbors, what a break.

  I finally saw the outline of his cabin in a shard of afternoon light that was streaming through a hole in the clouds, lighting the curtain of fast-falling snow. It was an A-frame at the end of a line of snow-covered pine trees facing back toward the narrow road.

  “There she blows,” he said with hearty good cheer.

  He pulled up in front of the cabin and turned off the engine. Then while I sat in the car, not wanting to get out, he hurried up the walkway to the porch, opened the front door, and went into the house.

  My next thought chilled me. Now I’m stuck with this asshole in the middle of a blizzard.

  CHAPTER 36

  THE PASSENGER DOOR WAS YANKED OPEN. I ALMOST shrieked, but managed to choke it back.

  “What’s wrong?” Chick was saying, standing over me.

  “I, uh … look, Chick, I think it’s a little remote up here with all this weather coming in. Maybe we should go back to L.A. and tackle this another time.”

  “We’ll never make it down the mountain. That road will be closed soon.”

  “Then we should go back to the Bear Mountain Lodge in town.”

  “Never get in during ski season. It’ll be booked solid. Come on inside.”

  “It didn’t look too full to me, when we passed. Almost no cars. Why don’t you call? Maybe the lines are back up now.”

  “Look, Paige, if you’re feeling funny about being here alone with me, I’ll try and get us some rooms in town. In the meantime, come on in. I’ll get a fire going. You look like you’re freezing, sitting there. At least you can get warm.” He was holding the door open, as the cold, snowy air whipped around my shoulders.

  Reluctantly, I grabbed my sweater and purse, got out of the car, and followed him into the cabin.

  The house was impressive. Chick turned on the gas fire in the huge stone fireplace. The flames crackled, licking the edges of some preset pine logs. The living room was decorated Southwestern style with rough-hewn furnishings and lots of Navajo rugs. A few stuffed heads of mountain lions, deer, and Kodiak bears hung on the walls, their sightless glass eyes flickering in the reflected firelight. Chick saw me looking at the animal heads.

  “Shot most of those puppies myself,” he bragged.

  Great, I thought.

  “Close the door there. I’ll see if I can get through to the lodge.” He crossed to the phone and picked it up. “Good deal, I got a dial tone.” Then he punched in a number he seemed to know by heart, and waited for an answer. “Yes, may I speak to the front desk?” He smiled at me while he was waiting. “Reservations, please.” Then: “Yes, this is Charles Best. I live up on Sugarloaf. It’s a little blizzardy up here right now and a lady friend of mine and I were wondering if you have any space in the lodge?” Then he looked right at me to emphasize his next point. “Since the road just got closed I guess we’ll need two rooms for tonight.”

  He listened, frowning before he spoke again. “I see. Well, when will you know, exactly?” Another long pause. “Can I give you my number so you can call me if they don’t get up the mountain? Okay, good … I’m at 555-3769. In an hour then.” He hung up and turned to me.

  “They’re sold out. They have two rooms reserved for a family of four coming up from L.A., but they said the county plow team just lost the road, so those people probably won’t make it. If they don’t show up in an hour, the rooms are ours.”

  I sat there trying to figure out what else I should do. I was getting so many mixed messages I still didn’t have a real sense of how much jeopardy I m
ight be in.

  I decided that the best way to get through this was to turn to the job at hand. Find the things that Evelyn’s sister wanted for her mother, get them out of storage as fast as possible, and then get the hell out of here. If the storm lightened, or the roads cleared, we might still be able to drive back to Los Angeles tonight using the chains. Failing that, we could stay at the lodge and drive down tomorrow.

  “Why don’t we go get a look at the storage room, see how big a project this is going to be?” I suggested.

  “Wouldn’t you rather have a glass of wine first?” Chick countered.

  “If we get this done now, maybe we can still drive out of here tonight. I really have things to do in L.A. If we drive slowly, I’m sure we can make it back to Fawnskin. The roads are probably still okay from there on down.”

  “Good idea,” he said, but he was frowning slightly. “I have a nice red Bordeaux … My wine broker is the same guy who sells to Jack Nicholson. This Château Gruaud-Larose is very rare. Supposedly only five cases in L.A. I got three bottles at two thousand apiece. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not too oakie … Got a nice little smoky quality to it. What do y’think? Or, I have two bottles of 1997 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon. Right now, it’s some of the hottest wine on Planet Earth. Cost about three grand a bottle.”

  “Whatever you want, if we can drink while we work.”

  “Deal.”

  He went to the bar and started looking around in his built-in wine cooler for the bottles. Then he pulled one out and uncorked the Screaming Eagle Cab. “You’re supposed to let it breathe for half an hour first, but let’s cheat and have a glass now.” He poured some into two wine goblets, then picked his up and swirled it around, watching it hang on the side of the glass, doing the whole wine connoisseur thing. “Good consistency.” He sniffed the glass. “Great nose, not too sweet or acidic … A great little wine for three grand a pop.”

  He handed me a glass and clinked against mine. “To new beginnings.”