The chief eyed Lloyd. The lieutenant gave a quick, definitive headshake. Nope, no CB.
“Well, we better take a look around,” Hicks said.
Hicks, Lloyd, and Lundstrum headed toward Main Street. They walked down the middle of the street, three abreast. The quietness, normally an attraction of Mammoth View, had begun to weigh on them like sickness. Almost every door stood open. Lights burned unnaturally in empty rooms. The men popped their heads into storefronts here and there. The five-and-dime had been ransacked. Same with the liquor store. Hicks’s stomach plummeted. He had screwed up. Really screwed up. How could he leave Marco on his own? Dammit, where was Marco? The kid probably ran like everybody else.
Reaching Main Street, they paused, Lloyd and Lundstrum looking east, toward the mountain, Hicks gazing west: at the hotel, the barbershop, the dry cleaner. He spotted the bank beyond, at the fuzzy edge of his vision. The broken glass glinted and swirled in the sunlight. Lloyd noticed it, too. The lieutenant ran toward the dazzle. Hicks, with Lundstrum in tow, took his time, knowing that whatever had happened in there had happened quite a while ago. Hicks had long wondered when someone would realize the bank was easy pickings. It employed a guard during business hours—tubby, slow-witted Vernon Dumar—but no security cameras. The twenty-year-old alarm system was only turned on when the bank was closed. He’d talked to Jim Ferguson, the president, about upgrading security, but Fergie liked to think of the place as just a sleepy little savings and loan, even though he obviously knew that a fair amount of cash passed through it every ski season. Jim Ferguson was a fool, Hicks thought. Almost as big a fool as Hicks himself.
“Chief,” Lloyd said from inside the building.
Hicks kneeled down and eased his way through the broken door.
“We’ve got two dead,” Lloyd said. “One’s Mister Towson. James Towson. Gunshot to the head. Not sure about the other one. Oh. Christ. It’s Alice Krendel. Shit.” He looked up at Hicks. “It’s Alice Krendel,” he said again.
Hicks nodded. He took his hat off, pressed it to his chest. As Lloyd bent down for a better look at the teller’s body, disappearing from view behind the counter, Hicks felt his eyes fill with tears. He blinked hard. No phone or police radio or CB. No giant voice system, no emergency-preparedness plan. In his nearly two years as chief—the first police chief ever of the newly incorporated town—he’d done nothing to be ready for this moment. Nobody had done anything. He couldn’t recall any discussion with the mayor or the town councilors about something like this. It was the county’s job. Now here he was, right in the middle of the impossible. He had no idea what he should do. Except run. That was his urge. He could admit it to himself; he wanted to run just like everybody else. Though he wouldn’t be running for his life. He would be running from his responsibility. From his incompetence.
Go West, young man—that was the famous saying. Everybody knew it. They taught the kids in school that the pioneers were courageous men, taming the wild country. But plenty of them went West because they had no choice. Because they were failures in civilized society. Because they were losers. That had been the real lure of the West. The romance of it. But where were the failed old men supposed to go? And where did you go when you were already West? Hicks wasn’t Jack Lord. His America stopped at the ocean. He touched the gold badge on his shirt, tapping it lightly, letting the pads of his fingers bump over the impressions. “Chief of Police,” it said. Chief of Police. He figured he’d be given his walking papers by the end of the week. Lloyd would be made interim chief. What was he, twenty-eight years old? Hicks rubbed his head, rubbed away the self-pity. No time for that right now. He spotted the boots lying on the floor and immediately recognized them. Next to the right boot, a bloody footprint simmered on the marble floor.
“Don’t touch anything,” he said to Lloyd, who was slowly circling Alice Krendel’s body like a photographer searching out the best angle.
The Johnson brothers. The goddamn Johnson brothers. Hicks never would have guessed they had it in them. He supposed that was the problem. He underestimated people and the things they were capable of—not a good trait in a cop. Melvin and Gordon Johnson had been a problem for years. They lived out at the old Sky Flower commune that had gone belly up a few years back, before Hicks was hired. He’d heard about the hippies—everybody in town had a story about them. They built a large, modern building, with meeting rooms, individual works spaces, and dorms. They laid out a soccer field and a vegetable garden, erected a playground for all the children they were going to have. They had grand plans for an international headquarters, like the Maharishi had in India. Some former A&R man at Capitol Records funded the whole effort after turning on and dropping out.
Homer Johnson bought the place at auction in ’73 or ’74, but just a few months later cancer got him. His boys didn’t have the wherewithal to do anything with the property. They tried to start their own commune, but they couldn’t find anyone who would believe that two mouth-breathing good old boys had the secret to enlightenment. They’d leased it as a corporate retreat a few times, until the rot started to set in. Now they simply burned through their daddy’s money and caused trouble around town—hassling the tourists, shooting at raccoons and cats, that kind of thing. It had gotten worse lately.
Over a handful of months, three vehicles driving on Renton Road near the Johnson compound had been hit by buckshot, though Hicks couldn’t prove it was Melvin and Gordon. A teenaged girl on vacation with her family last year accused Gordon of assaulting her on the slopes—he’d grabbed her after she’d fallen and lost a ski—but the girl’s father decided not to pursue charges. When the time came to pay taxes on their land, the Johnsons became ardent anarchists, spouting off in court about their right to govern themselves.
Now it looked like they were murderers. Hicks sent Lundstrum running to the hardware store one block over. When Lundstrum returned with canvas sheets, Hicks and Lloyd covered the bodies. The chief pushed Alice Krendel’s right arm under the canvas, and something behind the flesh crackled. The beginnings of rigor mortis, he supposed. That done, the three men returned to the street and started walking.
Hicks took the lead, his head down. His hands felt like catcher’s mitts. He wondered if he was in shock. He figured he should be.
James Towson and Alice Krendel. Dead on his watch.
He didn’t know either of them well. He’d seen them at Benny’s now and again. Never together. Towson was not the kind of man who’d socialize with his subordinates. Certainly not the kind to fool around with them. And Alice . . . she had to be nearly thirty, but he’d bet a month’s salary she was a virgin. He shut his eyes against the thought, but there was no stopping it. Now she would be innocent forever: no husband, no kids or grandkids. Alone in eternity forever.
Christ, Towson had two teenagers, he remembered. He couldn’t think of their names. He was going to have to break the news to Olivia Towson. And to Alice’s mother. What a day.
“Crime of opportunity,” Lloyd said from behind him. “Had to be.”
Hicks, his head still down, watched his boots flashing against the pavement, one after the other. “You figure?”
“Yes. Definitely. Too messy to be planned.”
“Melvin declared that he was in charge,” Lundstrum said.
“What’s that now?”
“Yelled it at the top of his lungs. He and his brother were standing in the middle of the street.”
“Marco might have gone after them,” Lloyd said.
Hicks nodded. “Maybe.”
The three men reached the police station. They hadn’t seen a soul over the two blocks. Lloyd climbed into the Bronco.
“You best stay here,” Hicks told Lundstrum, retrieving the storeowner’s shotgun from the front seat and handing it over.
“You sure, Chief? I don’t know.”
Hicks slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Frank. Whateve
r’s happening, it’s already moved on. You can lock yourself in the office, if you want. There’s a piece of almond cake in the fridge.”
Lundstrum avoided eye contact. Terry’s almond cake was a temptation, but not if it meant being alone again.
“It’d be a good idea to have someone here to answer the phone, if it starts working again,” Hicks said. “We sure would like to get ahold of the state police as soon as possible.”
The appeal to civic duty did the job. Lundstrum put his hand out, and Hicks clapped the keys into his palm.
Lloyd started up the Bronco. He’d never been to the Johnson compound, but he’d heard about it. “All right,” he said, “let’s go find these guys.”
Chapter Fifteen
Billy closed his eyes and tried not to think about Becky. The rumbling of the car’s engine and the shaking of the seat lulled him. He’d tried to move on, he reminded himself. He’d had serious girlfriends. One, at least. He met her in Tahoe, where she was a dealer at the Cal Neva, Sinatra’s casino. Billy spotted her about two minutes after entering the casino floor, when she stepped out from behind her table and sashayed toward him. A leering imaginary trombone accompanied her; every man in the place felt it, deep in his groin. Oh, baby, I want you, it groaned. Oh, baby, just like that. She strode past him, and Billy turned to watch, just like everyone else. She continued on to the end of the long room before disappearing through a side door. And she did this—held the room in suspended animation—in black slacks and a ruffled, buttoned-up white shirt that offered not a smidgen of cleavage. This was a girl Billy had to get to know.
He followed her, out the door, around the corner, down the corridor. She was being seated at the coffee shop, in the front window. He suspected the manager always insisted on seating her there, that he kept the table open for her. Billy convinced her to move to a back booth where they couldn’t be seen. He bought her a meal and let her bum a post-bacon-and-eggs cigarette. It immediately proved to be a mutual—and a mutually beneficial—crush. She saved him from a big loss at the blackjack table later that night; she made a card disappear and replaced it with another one, without a moment’s hesitation. He would have married her that night if he hadn’t blacked out from the Cutty Sark.
Jillian Bingham was her name. Jilly. Billy and Jilly, she liked to say. She thought that was hilarious. Fucking hell. He let it go. How could he not? She had a wop nose—her mother was Italian—but it didn’t matter. Everything else was perfect. Almost six feet tall. Broad shoulders. Legs up to here. Ta-tas floating in space like planets. Every man at her table hit on her, over and over. No, the schnoz didn’t matter. Men’s eyes rarely got up that far.
She knew it, of course. She wanted to go to France so she could strut on the topless beaches. Oh, bébé, I want you. Oh, bébé, just like that! Billy wasn’t interested. A trip to Europe cost an arm and a leg. And he didn’t want a bunch of frogs looking at his girl. Her naked ta-tas were for him and him alone. But that conversation happened later, months later, near the end of things.
She came to Bakersfield with him after a weekend of gambling and sex. Because of her, he came out ahead in both, a first. They walked into the house at two on a Monday morning, exhausted from a lack of sleep and too much bad coffee. He sent his stepmother home without introducing her to Jillian. What would have been the point of an introduction? Jillian didn’t look like marriage material even in the best light. And this wasn’t the best light. It was dim, tawdry. Jillian had taken something, some kind of pill to stay awake on the long drive. She was blinking furiously, humming to herself. Mom could formally meet her another time, when Jillian was rested and wearing a straightforward dress. Billy peeked in on Tori. His daughter was sound asleep, curled up on her side, her fists clenched under her chin. He expected Jillian to be behind him, peering over his shoulder at little Tori, but she wasn’t. She’d headed straight for the master bedroom, thrown her clothes off, and climbed under the covers.
Billy joined her in bed. He let her snuggle in close, let her reach into his drawers. Jillian loved the idea of shacking up with Billy. She’d never lived in an actual house. She’d grown up in used Dormobiles and shabby little apartments with carpeting that stank. She told him all about it during the drive, her whole childhood. Her drunk, degenerate-gambler father. Her drunk, showgirl mother. Her sister who died at six years old after falling out a window. Her bit part as a go-go dancer in Viva Las Vegas when she was seventeen. Her apprenticeship on the casino floor at Caesar’s. Her marriage to a pit boss that lasted eighteen months, the implosion of which forced her to flee to Lake Tahoe.
Now, finally exhausted and out of the car, she didn’t want to talk anymore. She wanted to do it, in her new home, with her new man. Billy didn’t argue. Here’s to swimmin’ with bowlegged women, he thought, diving in. Jillian immediately lost herself in the sex—she couldn’t help it, she was that kind of girl. She squealed and thumped her palms on the bed. Arched her back and bucked, again and again, until she felt him spasm. That done, she shoved him over and swung her legs off the bed. “Lordy, I’m parched,” she said, putting on an accent of some kind. She got up and flung open the door.
There, standing in the doorway, was Tori, riveted in place, her flared-match eyes surely the prelude to a scream. She gripped her pajamas at the thighs with both hands. Jillian, naked as a jaybird, barely paused. She patted Tori on the head and strode toward the kitchen. Billy watched this scene, strangely fascinated. He had no idea what to do. Would an eight-year-old girl realize what had been going on? Nine. Christ, she was nine. He knew that. When Tori’s eyes shifted and landed on Billy’s, he snapped at her to go to bed. It was all he could think to say. She pivoted as if on skates and hurried back to her room.
When Jillian found out what Billy did for a living, she made noises about reforming him, about getting him into some kind of legit business. But her heart wasn’t in it. For starters, she’d known from the moment she met him what kind of man he was. He had the smile of a conman. She’d seen it before, had always liked it. So the bookmaking, the various forms of robbery—these things did not shock or surprise her. It was a core part of his charisma; it helped make their life together exciting. Sure enough, she soon started helping out with the Spanish Prisoner scam, just for kicks. A beautiful woman always made it more likely that a man would fall for what was obviously a trick.
It was wonderful for a while. Billy thought hard about popping the question. A new marriage would make his parents happy. And Tori liked Jillian—she was in awe of her. Tori followed her around the house, helped her with the laundry and the grocery shopping. In return, Jillian showed her yo-yo tricks, walking the dog and shooting the moon and whatever.
Jillian wanted to get married, she made that clear. She wanted to be a wife to Billy and a mother to Tori. Have a kid of her own with her man. She believed she could be an excellent mother. She figured all she had to do was the opposite of everything her own mother did.
The problem was that as the newness of the sex wore off, Billy grew bored. His dissatisfaction bewildered him. Jillian Bingham should make him happy, he told himself. She should make him ecstatic. A nice girl. A beautiful girl. Helpful and kind and full of life. Of course, Jillian wanted him to be different, which was a problem. She wanted him to open up. She wanted to know him, to relate and share. She was always seeking meaning in their conversations, in their meals and their lovemaking. Billy didn’t understand what she was trying to achieve.
His thoughts turned to the girl in the bank, the one Sam had punched in the face. Billy was worried about her. She didn’t move again, not even a twitch, after Sam hit her. Her head had banged hard against the floor. Could be bad. Internal bleeding. He hadn’t had the time to take a good look at her. Plain face, he remembered that. A librarian’s face. He couldn’t recall seeing a wedding ring on her finger. He figured she had to be married, though. She was young, but she was the type to marry the first boy who cupped her breast. He s
tarted to convince himself that he did see a ring. A little thing, cheap but cute, bought on credit at the St. Vincent Jewelry Center in L.A. before she and her man had lunch at the deli next door. Los Angeles would be a big outing for them, like going to New York or Paris for regular people. They probably had a couple of kids by now. They always started young out in the sticks.
Listen to yourself, he thought. Billy blinked hard, shifted his gaze to his right. The mountain rocketed past him, an endless wall of rocks and trees climbing into the sky. He had the girl’s life all worked out when, in truth, he didn’t know a thing about her. She was fine, he decided. A bump on the head. A concussion, at worst. A broken nose. She’d remember that a black man hit her, but she’d be foggy on the details. It would all work out. Her husband—a lump of a guy but sweet, a lumberjack or a skimobile operator—would nurse her back to health. She’d live a long and happy life, with a great story to tell her grandchildren.
He returned his eyes to the road, to the long hood of the car eating up the white lines in the asphalt. He knew what the problem was. She wasn’t Becky. Jillian couldn’t make him laugh like Becks had. She wasn’t curious about the world like Becks. She didn’t have Becky’s talent.
He remembered Becky going to the library to read about Carole Lombard. That’s who Becky wanted to be, the next Carole Lombard. She showed him black-and-white pictures from a book, and true enough, Lombard was something. Platinum-blond hair that rolled along the side of her head like a barrel wave. Pale, almost translucent eyes that forced you to look deep into them until the whole page went blank. And the body: she wore gowns that clung and eddied in all the right places. How was that allowed back in the 1930s, when everyone was a prude? But she wasn’t just beautiful and glamorous, Becky said. She was funny. Really funny.
Becky saw My Man Godfrey at a second-run theater with a girlfriend, and that was it. She was hooked. “I’d like to sew his buttons on sometime,” she would say whenever Billy was getting dressed. It was from the movie. A double entendre, she said. Whatever it was, she made it sound dirty, not funny. Which was fine with him. Shortly before she got pregnant, she cut her hair like Carole Lombard. It looked kind of funny in real life, in color, but she liked it. She told him Lombard came from a wealthy family but she never acted like she was better than people. Just like in My Man Godfrey. Billy never did see the movie. He remembered Becky scanning the movie ads in the paper for revivals and flipping through the TV Guide when they were at the newsstand. No luck.
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