by Dakota Kahn
Little did I know Fate had jumped through my open window, and was getting ready to take my weekend, and my life, on a joyride through hell.
Chapter 2
Because the first thing that happened is Miguela Sepulveda burst into my office minutes after I got there, looking like she was ready to punch everybody, my coffeemaker included. She didn’t have her bullhorn with her anymore, which was a small favor because I was sure she would use it on me if she did.
“What are you going to do about your stormtrooper?” she said, hands on her ample hips.
When you are of my generation (I’m between my mid-20s and my mid-none-of-your-businesses) the word “stormtrooper” mean Star Wars, and I was carried away with a vision of a group of men dressed in white uniforms, picking up Ms. Sepulveda and getting her the hell out of my office. And then getting me a mint julep. While playing the Cantina song.
These stormtroopers would be very handy at anything except for shooting stuff. If those movies were any indication, they couldn’t hit the broadside of a bantha. What’s a bantha?
“Well? Are you listening to a word I’m saying?” Miguela said, stepping closer to my desk, heaving herself to full height. She looked like she would burst out of her dress at any minute.
I’m not saying Miguela Sepulveda is fat (definitely not to her face.) Full-bodied is really more accurate. Ample, maybe too ample curves and a way of throwing them around that has scared the hell out of me since I was a regular after-school guest at her house for a couple of weeks, working on a History project with her little sister, Stella. Estellarina, really, but nobody ever called her that.
Like me, Miguela had left Whispering Pines, gone off to do… something, then came back. Stella would never say what it was that Miguela’s adventures had entailed, but she was not a happy camper to be back in Whispering Pines then, and she took it out on anyone she could get her hands on. She was now a local activist, and while she loved the town, she was still rough on its inhabitants. Estellarina was long gone from Whispering Pines now, and I wish I still had her as a buffer between me and her aggressive sister.
Especially her aggressive perfume. It rushed in to the fill all the space around her, and then spread out like a conquering army. I could feel it at the back of my throat.
“Look,” I said—
“He took Rip out of town,” Miguela said, slapping her hand on my desk. “Rip’s as much a part of Whispering Pines as anyone, and he’s been dragged out like… like trash!”
I hadn’t seen that, and doubted I was getting the full story from Mrs. Bullhorn here, but I tried to look worried and sympathetic.
“I know Blake.”
“Blake the stormtrooper. Blake the protector of corporate interests.”
“Blake probably wanted to get Rip out of town for a couple of days so Mr. Wendover wouldn’t press charges against him. He’s just up in Craterton, I bet you. The Baptists have a soup kitchen there, Rip’s been taken there before. It’s like his grown up time out room. Come on, Miguela. Everybody’s on the same side here.”
“They are not! These developers are ripping the town apart. If only the ghost town… If only it’d stayed buried.”
She sighed, and sat on my desk. I don’t think it creaked, but if it did I’m not telling.
But I caught her sigh, and gave back one of my own for good measure. The Ghost Town that everybody was worried about was the site of the original township in this area. This was back, way back in the mid-19th century when there was gold in them thar mountains. The town was called Crestgold back then, though from what I remember in history class the town was built to take advantage of tungsten mining in the nearby mountains, not gold. I guess they named the town before the prospectors really got a hold of what they were doing.
People got excited about things, no matter what era they lived in. They were excited to find gold, and named the town for it. They were excited to build the town, and they put it dangerously close to a fault line. California went and did what it does, earthquake-wise, and a ravine tore open right in the middle of main street, and kept tearing. Half the town collapsed, hundreds were killed.
I couldn’t imagine living through something like that, and most of the town couldn’t imagine it either, so they moved several miles down the road and built up what is now my hometown and the lovely (and fault-free, heh) Whispering Pines, higher up the mountains.
But for years the remnants of old Crestgold lived on, some of it buried in rock, some of it on incongruous outcroppings. For the longest time, if you went to the right point on Mt. Jedediah, you could see the old Episcopal Church through the trees. It was deep in a ravine but from that one vantage point it looked like the church floated in mid-air.
And then there was the one part that was completely untouched, save for a gap that needed a rope bridge and a strong stomach to climb to - the Crestgold Red Light district. Saloons, cat houses, gambling houses. If God were a teenage boy, that would be the part of town he’d keep readily accessible, and it was. A regular rendezvous for teenage dares.
I even went there a time or two… until the huge quake in 1999 finished what the one more than a hundred years before started. Old Crestgold was completely inaccessible to anyone without a suicide mission or a helicopter… and the tree coverage made even that route almost impossible.
But what nature takes away, it can give back. Just two years ago (a month before I moved back into town) another quake cleared away what the last one had left. That, and some judicious digging had made the ghost town mostly accessible again.
Then some jerk tried to shoot a reality TV show there, about people living in a ghost town for real. It didn’t make it all the way to production, but there were magazine articles, some reports on TV news, and suddenly our little Crestgold, one of the secrets of Whispering Pines (and Whispering Pines has more than its share, believe me) became public knowledge. That, and some well placed word of mouth (and promises of tax sheltering) from the mayor brought out the developers.
My little town was growing up. And I decided, sitting there with Miguela, I didn’t like it one bit, either.
“Do you wish they’d just go away?” I said to her, trying my darnedest to sound polite and not too interested - I did not need to get roped into her organizing.
“I don’t even know if that’s possible anymore,” she said, standing up. “I wish I could just get rid of them, but… Mayor Reynolds is right, the town council did vote. If there was something to force another vote. Some major shift in circumstances… It could even be this stupid gallows that Wendover built, completely illegally.”
“Yeah, that part I don’t get at all,” I said.
“Here’s an idea. Come tonight to Pike’s Peak Pizza. We’re having a meeting where we’ll discuss our strategy. I’m going to have at least two members of the council. Now, if I can get Gail to…”
And she kept talking as she let herself out of my office, without ever finishing what it was she had come in to talk about. Nobody was ready to give me business. I had a half-dozen ideas about what I could do for her side. Injunctions, checking about zoning laws, frivolous lawsuits. Anything that meant billable hours for me and the five minutes of my air conditioning that she’d just enjoyed… But her perfume still lingered behind her like a stern reminder to me not to get involved.
The only thing I was sure of right then was that, for some reason, Blake owed me a night out, and I knew the one place we were not going to go.
We arrived at Pike’s Peak just after the sun had gone down, and on the ride from my house, where Blake had picked me up, to the front door I had neither uncrossed my arms nor said a word. We were later than usual, since Blake had come straight from Craterton where, like I’d guessed, he’d dropped off Rip Chiaki.
Blake held the door open for me, and my bratty side (an always justified bratty side, I might add) was not ready to come in.
“Pizza is terrible date food,” I said, taking a tentative step toward the door. “I don’t even l
ike pizza.”
“I’ll get the court reporter to read back the minutes if you need me to, Madam Attorney,” Blake said, his voice as calm as ever, “but I think I can remember exactly what you said, right from memory, on the first date I took you on when you came back to town.”
He cleared his throat theatrically, while I tried to look unimpressed. I couldn’t keep a straight face, though, when his voice suddenly jumped a register and became cartoonishly girly:
“’Sure, Blake, I could use a night out. But it better be Pike’s Peak. If I had to make a list of 10 things I miss most about Whispering Pines, six of their specialty pizzas would make it.’”
“Mm-hmm,” I said, fighting my laughter. “But you forget the case of Eve v. Adam, wherein it was shown that at any moment a woman has the right and duty to change her mind.”
“Just get your cute butt in the door,” he said in his normal voice. I complied without so much as a grimace.
I did get us a table (Pike’s generally lets you seat yourself) as far as possible from the raised banquet dais in the middle of the restaurant. It was essentially a separate room that split the enormous dining hall of Pike’s in two, with windows that looked in on it. Usually, the windows were open, and the banquet room was just another part of the restaurant. Tonight it was closed off, and most of the blinds were down except for a couple near the front, where I could see a crowd of people including the substantial form of Miguela Sepulveda, waiting like a spider for more flies to feed her ego.
Or maybe that was unfair. It could be she really cared about keeping Whispering Pines what it had been for both of us growing up - a little place with little dreams.
“Which pizza?” Blake said.
I looked at him, knowing I was about to get a fight, and said “The one with the ton of olives and the genoa salami and prosciutto. Not the stupid pepperoni.”
“Hmm, so we’re getting two pizzas,” he said, with a scowl in his tone that wasn’t on his face.
“Oh, come on, Blake. Your palate has to move beyond mac and cheese and pepperoni pizza and… you’re getting a coke, aren’t you?”
“I am getting a coke. And a medium pepperoni to go with your snob-top pizza. And you’ll probably get some microbrew beer that tastes like medicine.”
“Argh,” I said. “Sometimes the finer things in life are really finer. And it makes you feel good to have someone to share them with, to have a conversation with. So I’ve decided… I’m going to quit being a lawyer and go into exotic dancing. And I’m marrying Mayor Reynolds. And we’re going to move to Alaska and become Eskimos.”
“Hmm,” Blake said. He wasn’t looking or listening to me, but staring at something just to my left. I shifted in my seat, saw a mirror that reflected the banquet hall, saw just who was reflected there, and turned back to him to give him a big open-mouthed stare.
“If you,” I said, very slowly, “are not listening to me because you’re gawking at Miguela Sepulveda, I’m going to take your pepperoni pizza and… and… snob it up with arugula. So you starve.”
“Huh?” he turned and regarded me, seriously. “I was listening, I just wasn’t paying attention. There’s a difference. And they’re called Inuits these days, not Eskimos.”
“Don’t you out-politically correct me, Mister,” I said. “And don’t you go back to staring at that woman.” Then I caught on. “This is why you insisted on Peak’s. You’re working!”
The accusation stung, because it was true. Blake looked at me like a guilty cat standing next to an empty bird cage. “Well… With all the trouble we’ve been having Sheriff…”
“Don’t say it. You know, this is exactly why you don’t marry a cop. How many TV shows have you seen where cops break up with their wives because they’re always at work?”
Blake nodded, absent-mindedly, still watching the big Miguela jiggle around the conference room. “Same thing with lawyers. They work too long, the spouse is always at home complaining. What we need are some kids, so they can complain neither of us are ever at home.”
“You want to have kids?” I said, hands on the table, feeling a sudden worried, excited quiver.
“Whoa,” Blake said. “I’m on duty, not under oath. Nothing I say or do can be… look, the word is there’s going to be a final vote in the town council Monday night. Whether that’s a vote for who to go with, Wendover or Sparks, or to scrap the whole thing, nobody knows yet. But I’ve got to keep official eyes on everything. That assault on Wendover—”
“Assault? Oh, come on, Blake. Rip couldn’t assault—”
“I’m talking legal terms, lawyer. That assault has put a lot of people on edge.”
“Well, didn’t he provoke it? He built something already when there aren’t contracts signed or approvals or anything. He created a hostile environment where a sensitive individual like Rip could be easily influenced.”
“Or he’s taking away one of Rip’s favorite sleeping holes to get drunk in,” Blake said.
I stared at him, waiting for him to drop the cynical take on a beloved member of the local community. He had the temerity to just stare back and not be impressed.
“Well? You see him in the park and during the day. I’ve put that guy in cells, I’ve picked him up off the street. He’s… he reminds me why I left Seattle. What I came to Whispering Pines to get away from.”
“Just because you want to hide away from trouble doesn’t mean… something. I almost had a good saying there.”
“Yeah, I had high hopes for it. You’re not the only one worried about the old drunk, you know. One of the developer’s women…”
“Their women? What are you, a caveman?”
“On weekends. Anyway, one asked me what was going to happen to him.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Soup kitchen, Craterton. Even if he wandered the highway by himself back to town, it would take him all weekend.”
I didn’t think I liked that at all. Rip felt like my responsibility, in a completely abstract way I couldn’t quite defend.
“And what if they asked you so they knew where to find him to get revenge?” I said, looking a little self-righteous.
“I think the developer camp will stay away from the town camp until this weekend is over. And barely a second after I say that, I’m proved wrong. Look at this,” he said, turning to look at his menu and give me a be discreet look. So I gawked like an Amish boy getting his first eyeful of a Victoria’s Secret catalog.
And then I gawked for real. Gerry Sparks of Sparks Realty and Development, and his small, crew-cut creepy bodyguard was there behind him, wearing a completely black suit with a dark shirt underneath it, like he was becoming a ninja on the installment plan.
“This has the makings of trouble. I’m going to head in there and just… watch. Do you want to come with?”
“No, I’m going to stay back here and order pizza,” I said. “And a microbrew.”
I did both things while he followed Sparks into the room. I saw when he opened the door, Miguela was saying something about “integrity” then she dropped dead silent when the enemy developer came in.
I waited for a couple minutes for pizza, then swore under my breath and followed my man into the conference hall.
Blake was right on the periphery, and I slipped in under his arm, creeping quiet as a mouse. Not that anyone would have noticed me. They were all hostile eyes on Sparks, who smiled and talked like they were old friends.
“And yeah, we’d have a big building. It’s a modern resort and hotel, of course it’s going to be a big building. But it’s not going to destroy a single place left over in old Crestgold. It’s going to complement the buildings that can stand on their own, reinforce the ones that are barely holding on. Safety first, with respect a very close second. That’s the Sparks guarantee.”
“Nice words, Mr. Sparks. But why should we trust you to do a single thing you say?” Miguela said, talking as much to get the crowd to say, “Yeah!” as to hear his response.
“A clown who has beat out Sparks in three major resort towns in the last decade,” Linda Rapp’s voice was in my ear.
I almost shrieked. I hadn’t seen her come up.
“Wow,” I said, more at her presence than her information.
“Mm-hmm. We’re a small piece of the puzzle.”
“Come here hoping for another fight?” I whispered.
“Free pizza,” Linda said, grinning toothlessly.
I wondered if it was too late to cancel the pizzas I’d already ordered, looking at the several half-eaten pies sitting in the middle of the table.
“Give us one reason we shouldn’t throw both of you out by your ear,” some old lady from the crowd shouted.
Sparks put on a very serious businessman face and looked around the room. “Because, ladies and gentlemen, this is getting done. The town council approved the development, the mayor will be picking one of us at Monday night’s meeting, and the Landowner has promised to give over the lease.”
A hush fell over the room, so palpable my heart started beating faster, and I felt guilty at the noise it made in my ears. The Landowner. A silent partner, a secret known only through his intermediaries at Barker, King and Hill.
He might have been somebody in this room. Or she, for all anyone knew. Secretly watching the town go nuts, laughing all the while. Some people in this room would kill to find out who the Landowner was.
But nobody was saying a thing.
Chapter 3
Blake left me on my doorstep at the end of the night, going back on duty for a night shift that I regretted almost as much as the eight slices of dumb old pepperoni pizza he left in my freezer.
“Don’t go,” I said, looking all cute and turning my ankle in and out. It made me look all coy and wonderful to spend time with.