At First Sight

by Stephen J. Cannell

  I paused and turned to look back. When I did, I saw I had another, much more immediate problem than just freezing to death … I was leaving a trail of easy-to-follow footprints in the fresh snow. Chick didn’t have to run very fast to catch me. He could simply follow my tracks and stalk me with that deer rifle until I fell or froze. Unless I could find help fast, I was going to lose.

  I paused every so often, holding my breath to listen. I could hear him somewhere down the hill, kicking an occasional boulder with those steel-toed cowboy boots. How far back was he? I didn’t know. How far does sound carry in a snow-filled night? You got me … All I knew was he was hunting me with a rifle, and if I didn’t keep moving, I was dead.

  I started off again, climbing higher up the slope. The wind whipped my wet shirt, my jaw clamped against the cold. My body was beginning to shiver.

  Then I heard him. “Paige! I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to. If you come back, we can work something out.”

  Right. All we have to get past is two fucking murders.

  His voice sounded like he was further away than I’d first thought. Even so, I knew I couldn’t rest, I had to keep going. I finally realized that my best chance wasn’t to keep climbing, but to double back and head down to the road. Maybe I could try and flag down a passing car or find another house. If I got to the road I could move away from here faster on the flat grade than I could by climbing this thirty-degree slope.

  I traversed several hundred yards to my left before beginning my descent. I was trying to maintain a parallel course to the one I’d used on the climb up. I went slower, trying to be very quiet, because I knew that somewhere along the way I would pass Chick coming up. However, each time I stopped to listen, I heard nothing but the rustling of falling snow in the treetops. I had no idea where he might be.

  Finally the rate of descent lessened and I was back at Chick’s driveway about a quarter of a mile from his house. I crouched low, my own breath and heartbeat thundering in my ears. My teeth were chattering so badly that I couldn’t hear anything else. I couldn’t just wait here. I would freeze to death. I stood, and hugging the tree line next to the drive, headed down toward Interstate 38.

  The snow was in my hair, falling in giant flakes on my face, melting and running down my back, chilling me to the bone. My shoes and feet felt like blocks of ice. Every hundred paces, I started running again to get my circulation and body temperature up.

  Finally, I arrived at the highway and saw that it was a perfect field of snow. No tire tracks marked the surface. No cars had passed by in hours. I turned right and headed toward town. I couldn’t see the road but followed the plow markers.

  I wasn’t going to last much longer. My body was so cold I was already beginning to lose coordination. A half-moon was now peeking through, lighting the undersides of the storm clouds, throwing a soft, silver light on the drifting snow. Every time I looked back, I saw my telltale tracks stretching out behind me, traitorously pointing the way. If Chick figured out my plan, he would have no trouble finding me.

  And then I heard it.

  A high distant whine that sounded like a buzz saw cutting down trees. I paused and listened, then backed away from the road. It was getting louder, coming toward me. I finally identified the high-pitched sound as a gas engine, changing pitch as the throttle changed. I crouched down in the snow and then saw a lone headlight, about half a mile away, moving fast. A snowmobile.

  I prayed it was a neighbor trying to get into town, or perhaps a road crew checking the highway for cars in the ditch.

  The vehicle veered and started coming right at me, following my tracks in the snow. Panicked, I turned and started to run, but there was no way I could outrun a snowmobile. I stumbled and fell, going down face-first in a snowbank.

  Then the headlight was on me. I rolled over, dripping wet, blinded by its glare. As the vehicle pulled to a stop ten feet away, all I could see was the manufacturer’s name vibrating on the front bumper: YAMAHA.

  A man climbed off the idling red machine and came around the front. He was dressed in a three-quarter-length gray parka. The hood was up and he had on yellow-lensed goggles to protect his eyes from the swirling snow. I prayed I was going to be rescued. Then the man kneeled down, crouching over me.

  “Look what you’ve gone and done,” Chick snarled.

  CHAPTER 43

  CHICK

  I FOLLOWED PAIGE’S TRACKS UP THE HILL, SAW that she had made her way over and was coming back down. She was heading toward the main road, trying to get into town.

  I had two Yamaha snowmobiles in the shed by my garage, one red, one yellow. I stripped off the covers, grabbed some snow goggles and a parka, and then checked the gas tanks. I tried to start each one, but both the batteries were dead. I had to jump the red one with a wall plug to get the damn thing going. Then I got on and raced it down the drive, the treads throwing a white rooster tail high in the air behind me.

  She’d left an easy trail in the snow, her footprints pointing the way. I turned left at the driveway entrance and headed in the direction of town, roaring after her.

  I felt at loose ends, out of control, frightened.

  As I roared down that snow-covered highway, with the undercarriage of the Yamaha eating up Paige’s footprints like a deranged Pac-Man, I knew I had to come up with a plan to end this. It was already a disaster, but before committing a third murder, I had to chart a course. I had to take stock of my options.

  I’d killed Evelyn and Chandler, but how much could the cops really prove? Could they prove I’d run Chandler down? Even though they’d found the Bondoed fender on the Hertz Taurus, would the story about hitting the deer still hold up? It might. And Evelyn’s murder wasn’t exactly a prosecution slam dunk either. I’d certainly framed the shit out of Delroy Washington. His fingerprints were on the murder weapon and in the car. He had half a dozen priors. I still had Melissa as an alibi.

  I was pretty sure Delroy would go down for Evelyn, which meant Paige was my only real problem. I had all but confessed to her. I had to take care of her first and then assess the damages. L.A. juries were notoriously thickheaded. If O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake could walk, why not Chick Best?

  As I zapped along in the darkness, these thoughts swirled, sticking in my head like the snow on my windshield. If I was going to kill Paige Ellis, I knew one thing. It had to look like an accident.

  Then I saw something moving in my headlights up ahead. I slowed and steered the Yamaha in that direction. It was Paige. Her hair was soaked. Dripping ringlets hung in her face. Her blouse clung to her like a second skin. She didn’t look like a goddess anymore. She looked like a halfdrowned cat—cold, wet, and totally at my mercy.

  I pulled the snowmobile to a stop a few yards away, then walked up and crouched over her. She looked up, fear and supplication finally where they belonged, right there on that bitch’s snow-wet face. Chick Best was the victor. The Chickster was finally back in control.

  CHAPTER 44

  PAIGE

  HE GRABBED THE DEER RIFLE OFF THE YAMAHA and pointed it at me. “Get up. Start walking.”

  “What are you going to do?” I stammered through chattering teeth.

  He poked me in the back with the barrel, so I got to my feet and started to walk.

  He followed on the snowmobile, ranting as we went. I could only hear snatches of what he was saying over the whining engine.

  “… hard to find … no way she could have … The bitch … Chandler … ”He was rambling. Occasionally he would stop and shout directions.

  “Right, dammit! You have to go right!”

  We were way off the highway. I was trudging through almost two feet of fresh snow while the Yamaha’s headlamp lit the terrain in front of me. I couldn’t feel my feet. My clothes were sopped, my body shivering uncontrollably. My fingers and toes had gone mercifully numb.

  I didn’t know where Chick was taking me. I stumbled along in front of the snowmobile until he finally yelled for me to stop.
Then he climbed off the Yamaha carrying the rifle. He pushed me forward. I stumbled, unable to even feel my legs now. My jaw was clenched so tightly against the cold that I wondered if I would even be able to open it to beg for my life.

  “That’s far enough,” he growled.

  I stopped and wiped my eyes with a wet sleeve. I glanced around and saw that he had brought me to the edge of a cliff. I was standing on the lip of a deep ravine.

  “You see my problem?” he said, his voice harsh and accusing.

  I dragged my sluggish brain back and tried to focus on what he was saying. I felt like I was in the early stages of hypothermic ataxia.

  “You ruined it. Now I have no choice but to do this.”

  I tried to say something, but my jaw was locked, clamped shut.

  “You … you were everything, y’know? Everything. I would have given it all to you. Evelyn just took, but I would have gladly given everything to you.”

  At that moment, I was wishing he’d go ahead and push me over this cliff or put a bullet in me, whatever his plan was. I was so bone-freezing cold that anything was better than standing here listening to this lovesick drivel while my body and brain were going dead, inch by paralyzing inch.

  Then as I stood waiting to die, I heard the same voice that had warned me not to go when I was back at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena. It was close to my ear, or even inside my head this time. The strange thing was, this voice wasn’t a memory or a thought, it was a clear voice and it was speaking directly to me.

  “Paige, you can take this guy,” it said.

  It was so real that I actually glanced behind me. There was nothing there but a snow-filled ravine that dropped down hundreds of feet.

  “You can take him, Paige. Forget the pain. Just do it.”

  I know it’s crazy. But that’s what it said. And then, with the next sentence, I knew the voice was Chandler’s.

  “It’s not your time yet,” he whispered. “You can take him, babe. You’re at the twenty-mile mark, just like last year. Do it! You can make this finish line, too.”

  It sounds nuts, I know, but it was him. He was talking about the Boston Marathon last year. By the twenty-mile mark, I was so spent I didn’t think I could take another step. But I had. I had pushed myself beyond my endurance and had finished the race with my best time ever. Chandler was telling me to do the same thing now. Only this time my life depended on it.

  “I loved you,” Chick was saying, “but I can’t go to jail. I can’t pay for all this.”

  He raised the rifle and pointed it at me.

  Without thinking, I lunged and grabbed for the gun with numb fingers. We struggled on the edge of the cliff. I yanked on the barrel, pulling the rifle toward me. The muzzle ended up buried in my stomach. Call it luck or fate, but for some reason the gun didn’t fire. I shoved it aside. Chick and I fought on silently, two or three feet from the lip of the ravine.

  With no feeling in my arms and legs, I wasn’t doing much damage. But I managed to hang onto the gun, trying without luck to pull it out of his hands. I could smell his hot, sour breath on my cheek as we fought for control. But I was weakening rapidly. I was losing.

  He finally wrested the rifle from my grasp and pushed me down at his feet. It was finally over. I had nothing left.

  Then I heard the gun cock … the sharp ringing sound of steel against steel. Time slowed. I waited for him to fire. Waited for the end.

  But Chandler wasn’t finished. He wouldn’t leave me alone. “You can still win! Do it now, Paige. Do it!”

  Somehow, with strength I didn’t know I had, I lunged at Chick, rolling and twisting as I dove, trying desperately to take his legs out from under him. At first it was like crashing up against two solid tree trunks. He didn’t move at all. But then I sensed him tipping. His knees buckled and he fell forward over my body, landing on my ribcage. Pain shot through me.

  Suddenly, Chick let out a panicked shriek and I felt him roll over my back. He hit the ground on the far side of me and I heard the snow crunch as he began to tumble. I was too spent to get to my feet or even look, but I heard him scream—loudly at first—but slowly the sound fell away from me until it stopped abruptly with a distant thud.

  I struggled to get my arms under me, but nothing would work. Total numbness. I couldn’t feel any of my extremities.

  I finally managed to get into a sitting position and pulled myself to the edge of the cliff. There, fifty feet below, lit by a sliver of intermittent moonlight, I saw him. His arms and legs were sprawled out at bizarre angles. Chick had landed on a small ledge that stopped his fall halfway to the bottom. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead.

  “Chick?” I called out.

  He didn’t answer.

  I knew I had to get on that snowmobile and get the hell out of there before hypothermia shut me down completely. I dragged myself over to the red Yamaha and tried to climb on. At first, I couldn’t even pull myself up onto the seat, but I finally managed to roll onto the saddle and fumbled for the key, which was thankfully still in the ignition. Just then, I thought I heard a faint voice calling to me from far away.

  I hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was really him, or the wind, or just my imagination. Should I go back? As it was, I’d be lucky to get to the cabin before I froze to death. If he was alive, the only way I could help him was to call mountain rescue, get somebody out here who could rappel down with a stretcher and get him off that cliff.

  Then I heard him again. His plaintive wail was clear in the still night. “Paige! Paige, please don’t leave me! I still love you!”

  Right. I struggled to turn the ignition key. The snowmobile coughed to life. I pressed the hand throttle slowly, afraid my numb fingers would not work properly and I’d shoot the Yamaha out over the edge and fall to my own death. But it finally started moving. I managed a U-turn and headed back the way I’d come, leaving Chick behind.

  Half a mile down Highway 38 I saw a snowplow approaching, its headlights cutting holes in the curtain of snow. I pulled alongside and told the man behind the wheel my problem. He helped me into the cab where it was warm. Then he bundled a blanket around me and radioed for help. I knew it was going to be up to me to lead the rescue team back to the spot where Chick was stranded.

  An hour later, Emergency Services hoisted that sorry son-of-a-bitch up off the ledge where he had landed. Two broken legs, a broken right arm, a crushed elbow, and two fractured ribs. As they rushed him to the hospital he was howling in pain.

  Not long after that I was sitting at the Bear Mountain Lodge in front of a fire, with my hands and feet wrapped in bandages. The paramedics assured me I wouldn’t lose any fingers or toes.

  I was celebrating that fact with a blended scotch when Bob Butler walked in along with LAPD detective Apollo Demetrius. When he wasn’t able to reach me, Bob had called Chandler’s parents, who told him where I was. He had arrived only four hours late. Not bad. If I’d played my hand more carefully and not foolishly let Chick see his letter, Bob might have actually made it up there in time to save me.

  My sad, dogged detective just looked at me with those friendly gray eyes and carefully held my bandaged hand. He was my real hero in all this. He never gave up. He had finally proven that Chick Best killed Chandler. It had taken him more than half a year working weekends and nights, but Bob Butler solved my husband’s murder, just like he promised he would. Between the two of us, we now had enough evidence to prove it.

  A few days later in L.A., Chick confessed to Evelyn’s murder as well. His status-heavy Cavalli jeans had been trumped by an orange prison jumpsuit.

  The story went wide. All the national news outlets picked it up. “Killer of Chandler Heir Arrested.”

  Two weeks later Chick finally got his feature story in People magazine.

  He made the cover.

  CHAPTER 45

  CHICK

  WHAT IS IT THEY ALWAYS SAY ABOUT REAL ESTATE? It’s Location—Location—Location.

  That fact has co
me crashing home as I sit in my new residence, an eighteen-by-eighteen-foot square box on Death Row at California’s Pelican Bay Prison.

  The house on Elm had status. It had views of my perfectly landscaped yard. This little box I’m currently residing in has almost no view. The corridor that runs by my cell is less than inspiring. Concrete walls and two colored lines on the floor. The red line leads to the exercise yard, where I rarely go. The green marks what is known around here as The Last Mile. It’s not a mile, however; it’s more like fifty feet, but you get the idea. It leads to the execution chamber.

  While the vistas in this place are far from great, the status attached to being a condemned man is a fucking head trip. They treat you like a celebrity, which I guess I finally am. My time is short now. I have only a few days.

  This morning I went for my last physical, because for some reason, the state of California doesn’t want to kill me and then find out I have a toenail infection or bleeding hemorrhoids. All the way to my physical and back, the guards called out, “Dead man walking,” which is a hell of a lot more respect than I got at bestmarket.com, where I actually was a dead man walking, but nobody had the decency to tell me until it was too late.

  I’m sure after reading this, you fully realize that women have always been a huge problem for me, and the events of this journal plainly attest to that fact. I wouldn’t be here in the first place if it weren’t for a woman. Or two women, if you count Evelyn. Three, if you want to add in Melissa, who, by the way, is no longer a Best. She’s a Sheridan now, taking her mother’s maiden name.

  I always wanted to impress women, and for most of my life, that need only produced a lot of disappointments, along with an occasional head slap.

  But now that I can’t do anything about it, I’m finally a big deal on the cock market. I get tons of mail from lonely, half-crazed females who want to talk to me. They want to hold my hand. They fantasize about having sex with me. Last week I got two proposals of marriage.