Latitude Zero

by Diana Renn

  “What about product failure? Could Juan Carlos have been riding a defective bike?”

  “Probably not. Racing bikes are ruthlessly inspected both in and out of the factory, and by the team mechanic before they go out on a race. Anyway, I’ve studied this crash picture for days. It doesn’t seem right. At a relatively low speed, under thirty, his bike shouldn’t have completely blown out like that. If I could only see the damage myself, I could get a better idea.”

  “So what’s your theory?”

  She hesitated. “I think somebody didn’t want him to finish that race.”

  I squeezed the arms of the desk chair as I let Mari’s words sink in. For days I’d been totally focused on the bike theft. That was important to figure out because Darwin was demanding I hand over that bike. But I hadn’t been thinking about the bike that crashed, or the possibility that there might have been two separate bike crimes. A theft and a sabotage.

  And if Mari’s sabotage theory were right? This was huge. It meant I wasn’t to blame for his death. Although it didn’t bring Juan Carlos back, I could live with myself.

  But who would do something so awful? And why? “We have to see that damaged bike from the crash,” I said, standing up fast. “We have to get over to the Cabot Police station.”

  “It’s with Dylan Holcomb,” Mari said. “The police didn’t keep the bike because it was just an accident, not involving a car. Dylan stores all the bikes at a bike school he runs on the side.”

  I followed her out of Gage’s office, back to the bikes we were cleaning. “How do you know that?”

  “Gage called over there yesterday, wanting to see the busted frame, and Dylan was really rude. He said the damage was consistent with what you’d find in an accident. End of story.”

  “If you found evidence that it was tampered with, would that be a game-changer?”

  “Well, yeah,” said Mari. “If there were signs of foul play, the police would have to keep the investigation open. Because then it’s not just a bike accident. Then we’re talking homicide.”

  Murder.

  Unlike the bike theft situation, where I was implicated, the possibility of sabotage had to get reported to the police. And Darwin couldn’t be mad about that, since it was a whole separate issue. I started pacing, thinking out loud. “So we could take the frame to the police and—”

  “Whoa. Slow down, Dora,” said Mari. “This isn’t a TV show. You can’t just make a three-step plan and have a happy ending in thirty minutes. First of all, we can’t take the frame. It belongs to the team. And I’m sure Dylan Holcomb wants to keep that busted bike under the radar.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if there are questions about its performance, he’s going to have some explaining to do. Those team bikes are his responsibility.”

  Dylan Holcomb. The new team mechanic had had unobstructed access to both Juan Carlos’s main bike and spare bike. Could he be a suspect in either of the bike crimes?

  I didn’t know enough about him. It didn’t seem like he could be working for Darwin, or else Darwin would have gone straight to Dylan to find Juan Carlos’s spare bike. He wouldn’t be bothering me. And I couldn’t imagine a motive for the team mechanic to harm the star cyclist.

  Still, even if Dylan had nothing to do with either theft or sabotage, it was his responsibility to safeguard the bikes. “We have to talk to Dylan,” I said, my voice rising with excitement. “Maybe he knows more than he’s letting on. And you have to look at that bike from the crash.”

  “When? Team Cadence-EcuaBar leaves for Colombia to start the Pan-American Cycling Tour on Friday.”

  “Tomorrow, then?” I still had a day to get Darwin a lead.

  “No, tomorrow’s the container load here. I’ll be busy with that all day. Then I’m leaving for Ecuador on Saturday.”

  “So we have to go talk to Dylan today. How soon can you get out of here?”

  24

  IN THE neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, Mari parked in front of a bodega around the corner from Dylan Holcomb’s bike school. We didn’t want to park too close to the school. The Compass Bikes van Mari had borrowed would surely make Dylan suspicious of why we were visiting him.

  Mari turned off the ignition but made no move to open her door. “I’m not so sure about this,” she said. “Dylan’s seen me before, at the bike shop. He might think we’re up to something, poking around here and asking questions. He’d probably think someone put us up to it.”

  “But we’ve come this far,” I reasoned. “This is our big chance to get some answers about how Juan Carlos died and how his spare bike got stolen.”

  “Maybe. But this is a storage facility, not a museum,” said Mari. “Dylan doesn’t have to show me anything. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, I’d love to see Juan Carlos’s busted bike? And by the way, can I take a really close look at it to make sure you’re not lying?’”

  “I see your point. But I can find a way to get Dylan outside. When he’s out, you run in and look for the bike frame.” I took my video camera out of the case. “Put this in your pocket.”

  “Sounds ambitious, Dora,” said Mari, though she slid the camera into the wide front pocket of her gray hoodie.

  I frowned. “Hey. Stop calling me that. Look, you cared about Juan Carlos, right?”

  “Of course I did. I do.”

  “Me too. So let’s find out what really happened to him. Okay? Are you with me on this?”

  She gave me a long look. “You know, I can fix bikes. That’s what I’m really good at. I don’t know if I can fix what happened to Juan Carlos. You know, figure out this puzzle, about how he went down. But you’re on this path to finding some answers. You feel confident about this? About looking around on our own?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying not to let my voice waver. “I’m confident that crashed bike will tell you something, and I’m confident I can get you in there to see it. I’m a good talker.”

  Mari looked at me a moment longer, her long lashes blinking slowly. She bit her lip. “Okay, then. I’m on your ride. Let’s get in there and see what we can find out.”

  We hurried down the street and came to a white building with an auto body shop sign out front. A sculpture garden took up much of the parking lot. The sculptures were made out of rusting bicycle parts. Frames were welded together to look like stems and leaves, sprouting wheels for blossoms. Handlebars, fenders, wheel spokes, and other bike parts were bent into shapes, transformed into animals, dancers, robots, and bugs.

  I left Mari in the sculpture garden and jogged around to the side of the building, where a handmade sign was tacked to a purple door:

  Open Road School of Bicycling

  (& Sculpture Garden/Gallery)

  Find your balance—on a bike!

  Free spiritual advice. Cheap tea.

  Open by appointment and at whim.

  Peace!

  The sign might as well have read WELCOME TO CRAZYTOWN. Team Cadence-EcuaBar was rolling in money, compared to most cycling teams. Preston Lane was rich from his energy bars and his family trust fund. Cadence was a high-end bike manufacturer. Between Preston Lane and Chris Fitch, the team should have been flush with cash. So why was this the new guy they’d hired to keep the team’s bikes safe? How was he an improvement over the über-professional Gage Weston?

  I went inside. More bike sculptures, animals, were displayed on shelves and plant stands. The walls were filled with a gallery of framed photos of international cycling legends and photos of Team Cadence-EcuaBar. I stepped closer to one of the pictures. It was a computer printout, tacked to a bulletin board instead of matted and framed like the others. It was the photo I’d witnessed being taken just before Chain Reaction. The one with Preston Lane and Chris Fitch.

  The one with no Juan Carlos.

  I stared at that picture, as if willing Juan Carlos into the shot. So
it was true. He’d never made it there after we talked. Where, then, had he gone?

  “You like them?”

  A woman with messy black hair and bright blue bangs came in from another room; as the door closed behind her I could see a room filled with Cadence bikes, spare tires, and other gear.

  I started. Dylan’s website and Twitter feed had made the place seem like a one-man operation. I hadn’t expected this woman. Now I had to get two people out of the building so Mari could come in and inspect the damaged bike frame.

  Then I realized where I’d seen this woman before. The blue bangs. The thick, black, men’s-style glasses sliding down her long nose. The heavily tattooed legs. This was the photographer who’d been working with the team right before the race.

  “The sculptures,” she prompted. “Do you like them?”

  “Um. Yeah. They’re great.”

  She smiled. “Thanks. Everything’s for sale. Great gifts for the cyclist in your life. I love sculpting people’s spirit animals. What’s yours?”

  “Actually, I’m looking for Dylan.”

  “He’s teaching right now.” She pointed out a different window.

  “He teaches? I thought he just owned this place.”

  “He doesn’t teach as much these days, because he’s busy with another job. But he still takes on students when he can. Boston’s an expensive city. We’re finding out the hard way since we moved here. Nothing like Oregon, that’s for sure. We do what we can to get by.”

  Odd. Again I wondered about Preston Lane and Chris Fitch. With their combined resources, and all these fancy new bikes, couldn’t they pay their mechanic enough so he didn’t have to moonlight?

  I looked out the window. At a school parking lot across the street, a guy—Dylan, I presumed—jogged after a boy on a bike. The boy, swathed in all kinds of padding and a bright yellow helmet, was hesitantly pedaling, then slamming his brakes. Dylan wore baggy shorts, a black T-shirt, and a baseball cap backward, and tattoos twining around his arms and legs.

  “Dyl’s four o’clock lesson canceled,” the woman said. “And those two out there are wrapping up soon. Do you want the slot?”

  I looked at the class rates posted on a wall sign. Thirty dollars would buy me a half-hour lesson. Worth it? Totally. This was the perfect way to question Dylan, under cover, so he might feel free to talk. I’d play the role of a curious student. I handed over the cash.

  “Great. I’m Amber, by the way.” The woman shook my hand. “You are . . . ?”

  “Tessa.”

  “What’s your level, Tessa?”

  “My level?”

  “Are you an out-of-practice intermediate? A lapsed learner? A semi-beginner? A total newbie? If you’re a newbie, we can loan you knee pads, elbow pads, anything you need.”

  “Oh. Um, newbie, I guess. Would you mind introducing me to him? I’m a little nervous.”

  “Sure. Not a problem.”

  As Amber went off to gather my gear, I glanced outside at Mari, who was lurking in the sculpture garden, watching Dylan’s lesson across the street. I telepathically signaled to her to give me just five more minutes before she burst in here. I hoped she got the psychic message.

  25

  SIX MINUTES later I was waddling over to the school parking lot with Amber, pushing a clunky upright bike with straight handlebars, a low seat, and padded pedals. I wore elbow and knee pads, hip pads, padded gloves, and a round helmet that seemed better suited for spelunking. All I needed was a mouth guard, goggles, and earplugs to complete the Total Newbie look. But at least all the padding would cover my bandages and prevent Amber and Dylan from asking tough questions about why I happened to have them.

  Mari, hiding behind a robot bike sculpture, gaped at me as I passed. I gave her a thumbs-up sign and mouthed “Go,” pointing to the door that Amber had left wide-open.

  Dylan’s current student was practicing in slow, wobbly circles. Dylan jogged over to meet me, and Amber introduced us. He held out his hand for me to shake. As he grinned, various face piercings moved: an eyebrow ring, a stud in his chin, black metal disks in each earlobe.

  “Wayne here was going to practice on his own a few minutes more, but he’s had a lot of time. We can get started,” said Dylan.

  “Oh, let him practice a little longer. I don’t mind,” I said.

  “I’ll watch Wayne,” said Amber. “It’s the end of the day. There’s no one in the gallery.”

  That’s what you think. I glanced at the building. Mari was in there somewhere.

  I gave Wayne a big thumbs-up, remembering how much Juan Carlos liked working with kids. “Go, Wayne!” I cheered as the kid wobbled by.

  The boy looked up in terror and crashed. His face crumpled. He burst into tears.

  Once Wayne was up and running again, with Amber’s help, Dylan returned to my side.

  “I always like to see where we’re starting from,” he said. “Any bike experience?”

  “Nope,” I lied. “I got through my entire childhood without learning to ride. I blame my parents. I was raised on TV.”

  Dylan laughed, not getting my double meaning. Good. He didn’t know who I was.

  “You wouldn’t be the first. Lots of people are late bloomers. No problem! We’ll just have to start at the very start. Good a place as any.”

  Dylan explained the basics of balancing on a bike and showed me how to get on. He held the bike steady while I pretended to find my balance. I felt sick for a moment, remembering my attempt to mount my Bianchi back in my driveway at home. This bike’s seat was so low, and the frame so sturdy, I wasn’t as afraid. Then again, I wasn’t really a novice.

  “I think you’re ready to try gliding,” he said, “just to get your balance while moving. No pedals yet. We’re going to use this slight downhill grade. Think of gravity as your friend. Now glide along, lifting your feet up for as long as you can. Squeeze the brakes or put your feet back down if you really need to. Try to go in a basically straight direction. Think you can follow this line?” He pointed to a yellow line down the center of the basketball court.

  I pushed off with my feet and glided, my feet splayed out on either side and not touching the pedals, ready to catch me. Fear surged again—then ebbed again. It actually felt okay to be on a bike again, moving slowly. Then again, there was no one right by me to crash into. Or kill.

  “Hey! You’re a natural!” Dylan exclaimed, jogging beside me. “Look at you go!”

  I wobbled a little to look more convincing. I put my feet on the ground on either side of the bike and pretended to mop sweat off my brow. “Whew. I need a moment.”

  “Sure thing. Collect yourself.” He grinned. “So. What made you want to learn to ride?”

  “Oh, I’ve been watching some bike racing. And following Team Cadence-EcuaBar.”

  “That’s my team!” He puffed out his chest. “I’m their mechanic. You’re lucky you caught me here today. My teaching hours are really erratic these days since that’s my main gig.”

  “Sounds like a fun job.”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s been awesome for me and Amber.” He pointed to the woman, who was jogging alongside Wayne now. “She got a gig as the official team photographer. We were lucky. It’s hard for married couples to get jobs together. Best part is we get to travel with the team. We’re headed to South America on Friday. Even though . . .” His eyes welled up.

  “El Cóndor, right? I heard,” I said.

  He sighed. “Great guy. Supertalented. He was going to change the whole image of pro cycling. If anyone could have conquered the Pyrenees in the Tour de France without EPO doses, without blood transfusions, without all the funny stuff, it would have been Juan Carlos.” He cleared his throat and coughed, the way guys do when they’re trying not to cry. “Okay, break’s over. Ready to glide?”

  I resumed gliding, with Dylan loping beside me. Dy
lan seemed truly broken up about Juan Carlos. And he seemed like a careful and thorough guy, despite the appearance of this bike school. He paid such close attention to the way I sat on the seat, how I gripped the handlebar—his eyes didn’t miss a thing.

  “What made him crash so badly?” I asked Dylan.

  “It’s still under investigation.”

  “Any theories? What does the team think about all of this?”

  Dylan hesitated. “Well. Just between you and me? Basically, some of the team managers want to blame Cadence Bikes and file a defective product claim. I sure hope they don’t.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “We need Cadence as a co-title sponsor. So we need to show the public that Cadence bikes are safe and reliable, not just fast.”

  “Are they?” I asked, all Bianca Slade now. I even had the head tilt and the pursed lips down. The only problem was my head tilt sort of threw off my glide.

  “They’re the best bike on the market these days,” Dylan said. “And if we start accusing them of a faulty product—even questioning them—Chris Fitch will freak.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “When people see a champion win on a nice bike, they want to buy that bike, too. Lance Armstrong did it for Trek. Sales shot sky-high after he won the Tour de France on a Trek. And the funny thing is, he didn’t even ride a real Trek the whole time!”

  “He didn’t?”

  “Nope.” He grinned. “It was painted to look like one, to satisfy his sponsor. But Lance had his own opinions about what he wanted to ride.”

  I could see why some people on the team weren’t eager to get that crashed bike properly inspected and pursue the faulty product angle. But if someone had sabotaged Juan Carlos’s main bike—if the crash wasn’t due to a factory error—that was a whole different story. Chris Fitch, as well as Preston, would surely want to explore that. And wouldn’t sabotage make Cadence look even less to blame for what happened? It certainly made me feel less to blame.