Crystal Creek

by Malmborg, William

  Thoughts on Marlon Gibbs arrived.

  "He was in your house when I got here," Beverly said.

  "What?" Cheryl asked, turning.

  Beverly wiped at her face and said, "I came to see you but then saw his vehicle parked here, so I thought maybe he was inside talking to you, but then I realized your Jeep wasn't here, so I ducked into the trees to see what exactly was going on."

  "And he was inside?"

  "Yeah."

  Cheryl didn't know what to make of that.

  "And then Brendon showed up while I was watching and then you did too, and then Brendon pulled the gun, maybe to go kill Chief Parker, I don't know, but I grabbed it from him, and he knocked me down and charged at you two."

  "But why did you kill him?" Cheryl asked, still shocked.

  "Aren't you listening to me? He knew what was going on and was here to arrest you."

  "But how did he know what was going on?"

  "I don't know. I think the Bigfoot guy talked to him. All I know is that Quinn was asking me all kinds of questions earlier today about you and Brendon and Marlon and whether or not I thought you were enticing Brendon to go around killing people so that you could write stories about Bigfoot and whatnot. It was really fucked up, but he was certain it was accurate."

  Cheryl didn't even know how to reply and simply said, "But that's bullshit."

  "I know, but it also cuts a little too close to the truth, wouldn't you say?"

  "Um…I guess." She was too startled by everything to really piece it all together. "Now what do we do?"

  "Well, right now it looks like this was self-defense. Brendon attacked the chief, who shot him just as you tried to shoot Brendon as well, only you accidentally shot the chief and Brendon."

  "Wait, what? You shot him."

  "Yeah, but it makes more sense if it was you since it was your gun. My being here would just confuse things and bring about too many questions."

  "Oh." It did made sense.

  "Of course, none of this will work if we don't figure out why Quinn felt you were responsible for all this, so what we need to do is take a look at his place and see what he has there, if anything, that points at you."

  "Do you think he really has something?"

  "I don't know, but something made him come here."

  This was getting way too complicated.

  "You know, maybe we should just—" Cheryl stopped.

  "Maybe we should what?" Beverly asked.

  "I was going to say come clean about what has been going on, but that won't work."

  Beverly simply stared at her.

  "Yeah, no, that won't work at all," Cheryl added, wishing she hadn't said anything at all.

  Beverly continued to stare.

  "Forget I even mentioned it," Cheryl continued, worry over Beverly's silence edging its way into her thoughts. "I'm just all over the place right now given what has happened."

  "Me too, but what's important right now is that we focus on making sure nothing points toward you or us. I'm pretty sure I'm in the clear with all this, but you…not so much. I suggest we head over to his place now so that you can make sure nothing points the finger at you." She took Quinn’s keys while saying this and handed them to Cheryl. "You can walk from his place back to yours, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "Okay, so what I think we should do is this. I'm going to drop you off at his place so you can check things out. I'll then head up to make sure there's nothing in the cave that Brendon has left behind that points toward either of us. Once you're sure there is nothing at his place, you come back to your place and call the police and report that Brendon attacked you and Quinn while you two were talking and you accidentally shot Quinn while he was shooting Brendon."

  "And then?"

  "Everything should be fine. Brendon will take the blame for everything, just like we planned anyway, and we will find the rest of the gems that Margaret found and live happily ever after."

  "Except you still have no idea where the rest of the treasure is."

  “But it can’t be that far, not if she discovered it.”

  “We’ve been looking for two months!”

  “We’ll find it."

  Cheryl was having doubts about that, but she decided not to push it right now. "Where's your car?"

  "At your neighbor’s place."

  "What if someone comes by and sees all this?"

  "Are you expecting anyone?"

  "No."

  "Then who would come by?"

  "Brian and his wife."

  "I thought Brian was leaving today."

  "Yeah, well, his wife showed up last night, and now it seems like they are really suspicious of everything and might be staying longer than anticipated."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "They were here earlier today, wanting to talk about Marlon Gibbs and the lack of blood. And once they pointed it out, I have to say, it is pretty odd to see his head completely busted open, but no blood on the rock. Are you sure Brendon killed him right then and there, or was he killed somewhere else and taken there for us to find?"

  "Fucked if I know," Beverly said.

  "Why did you want me to take Brian up there to begin with?"

  "We went over this the other night. So that you could keep him occupied and away from the area where Margaret was killed just in case he found something."

  "But would he really have found something? Search parties were all over that area and they never found anything."

  "Hey, if I had known Brendon would do what he did, I would have said let him explore the mountain and look at whatever the fuck he wants, but I thought this would keep him away from Brendon's typical hunting grounds and less likely to see something that could fuck everything up."

  Cheryl nodded.

  "But if you want to blame me for all this, go ahead. It wouldn't be the first time I've taken the blame for something he did." She directed her hand toward Brendon's body.

  "Sorry, I'm not blaming you. This whole thing just has me completely shaken. I mean, fuck, there are two dead people in my yard right now, one of them the chief of police."

  "Just remember, soon this will all be behind us and we will be living the good life somewhere, richer than we ever imagined we could be. So let's get this all taken care of."

  Cheryl nodded again, even though she was starting to doubt that they would ever find the source of the stones, and followed Beverly into the woods toward the neighbor's house where her car was waiting.

  20

  Brian's indecision about what to do next led the two toward Marlon Gibbs's place, his thinking being that there had to be something within that area that had resulted in the man being killed.

  "But then why would Cheryl have brought you up to his house?" Alice asked.

  "I don't know."

  "And why would the death scene have been staged?"

  Once again, he didn't know.

  Silence settled within the car.

  "Maybe this was a stupid idea," Brian said after nearly a minute.

  "Why's it stupid?"

  "I don't know. I just can't figure out a reason why he would have been killed, and, like you said, why Cheryl would have taken me up there in the first place."

  "Which is why we're heading up there now, to see if we can figure something out."

  "And if there isn't anything?" he asked.

  "Then we head back to town and try to figure out a different approach. Obviously something is going on, so if we ask around and turn over enough stones, we'll uncover something."

  Brian nodded while rounding a corner, silently hoping this was the correct way up to Marlon Gibbs's place. It hadn't seemed like a difficult trek the day before, just straight up the mountain really, but having been a passenger, and having talked quite a bit during the journey, there was a possibility that he had missed an important turn.

  Fifteen minutes later, he let out a silent sigh of relief as he came upon the old dirt road that led to the path that would take
them to the cabin and the clearing where his body had been found.

  "It was right over there where I saw it," Brian said, pointing. "It ran right across the road and then eventually attacked the chief and Cheryl."

  "Wow," Alice said. Then, "Where's the house?"

  "There's a path over there. We have to walk a bit."

  "Okay, let's go then."

  Brian opened his door, once again wondering whether or not this was a wise decision, only this time it was due to the fact that they were all alone and unarmed in an area where one person had been killed and another two attacked. While in the car, traveling at nearly fifty miles an hour, this hadn't seemed like such a big deal, but now that they were on foot, surrounded by trees, and an hour from any form of civilization, it seemed pretty foolish.

  "This way?" Alice asked, hand indicating the path.

  "Yep," Brian said and tried to step around to lead the way.

  She cut him off with a "ladies first" statement and started into the trees.

  Brian did not argue.

  "How far is it?" she asked after a few minutes.

  "Not much farther," he said.

  21

  "What exactly am I looking for?" Cheryl asked as Beverly pulled to a stop on the road outside of Quinn's house.

  "Anything that indicates he knew what was going on," Beverly said, her patience wearing thin.

  "But wouldn't he have kept that at his office downtown?"

  "Not necessarily."

  "What do you mean?"

  Beverly took a deep breath. "Okay, I didn't want to worry you earlier given everything that's happened, but I'm pretty sure that Quinn not only knew what was going on, but that he wanted in on it, which is why his arresting you wasn't going to be official, but more of a kidnapping to take you up the mountain so that he could get information from you on where the gems were."

  "What?" Cheryl asked, face twisting with concern. "Why do you think that?"

  Jesus Christ, would you just go into the house? Rather than say that, Beverly calmly said, "Brendon saw him meeting with Marlon quite a bit, and said that Marlon had kept notes on what we were doing up there. I think that's why Brendon killed him. He was worried about being discovered."

  "But why would you have me go up there with Brian then?"

  "I didn't know this until I confronted Brendon about killing Marlon." Tears started to fall. "This is such a mess. All I wanted was to find out where the rest of the treasure was, because Margaret obviously found it, and could have told us about if Brendon hadn't…if he hadn't…" She simply shook her head.

  Brendon had thought it was funny when he told her about the gems that Margaret had offered in exchange for him not fucking her. At first, Beverly didn't think much of it, her excitement over the gems that Brendon had brought her in the tiny sack and how much they might be worth the focus of her attention, but then Brendon had said that Margaret had told him there were more and offered to tell him where she had found them if he let her go. This led Beverly to think about the legend of Jethro Black and the fortune he had supposedly buried somewhere on the mountain. Had Margaret found it? After all these years?

  “And you didn't think to find out where that was?” she demanded.

  Brendon hadn't, his mind only having been thinking about his pathetic penis and his desire to stick it inside the girl while wearing his stupid Bigfoot costume.

  Beverly had taken a rod to him and then chained him in the cave for two days.

  Not that it had done much good. He was an animal, one that never learned. Today was evidence of that. His sudden attack on the chief showed how unstable he was. It had also fucked everything up, and her attempt to salvage things wasn't going so well. All she wanted was to get Cheryl into the house, yet here they were, outside of it, having a fucking heart-to-heart.

  I should have let Brendon have her all those years ago.

  But no, instead she had thought it would be fun to toy with her, all so that Brendon would be jealous. Then, later, as she got to know Cheryl better and discovered how insecure she was, especially about losing her, Beverly had realized it would be fun to have a full-on relationship with her, get her to think she loved her, and then bam, let Brendon have her while she watched.

  And now that was all fucked up.

  Everything was fucked up.

  "What're we going to do about Brian and his wife?" Cheryl said. "They know something is going on."

  Beverly gave a mental shake of the head. Cheryl obviously didn't want to go into the house and was stalling like a child who was up next for a shot at the doctor’s office. "Maybe we'll have to eliminate them as well, put them in the cave or something so that they're never found."

  "What?" Cheryl demanded. "No, we can't kill them. Fuck."

  "Yeah, I know," Beverly said. "Let's worry about them after we figure out if Quinn had some dirt on us."

  "Maybe you should help me," Cheryl said. "Two sets of eyes are always better than one, and you might have a better idea of what we're looking for."

  Beverly wanted to argue this but really couldn't—not convincingly—and said, "Okay, but the last thing I want to do is have my car sitting near here, so what I'll do is meet you inside after I bring my car back over to your place."

  "You sure you know the way? Maybe we should both go back and walk over together. I'm better in the woods than you."

  Jesus Christ! "No, we've already spent way too much time with all this. I'll meet you back here in like twenty, thirty minutes."

  Cheryl was silent for several seconds and then finally said, "Okay."

  "Oh, and don't forget to leave the front door open for me. The last thing you want to do is have to check to see who is at the door if the bell rings."

  "Oh, right! Okay, see you in a bit."

  "Yep."

  A click echoed as Cheryl unlatched her seatbelt, followed by the door opening.

  "Good luck," Beverly said. "See you soon."

  Cheryl simply nodded and closed the door.

  Beverly waited as Cheryl headed up to the house and then pulled away until she was out of view, at which point she twisted the wheel hard to bring the SUV around so that she could head back to Cheryl's place, her foot pressing the gas harder than was typically advised on the roads between the two houses.

  22

  "I'll never understand why anyone would want to live away from society like this," Alice said as they approached the cabin that Marlon Gibbs had called home. "I mean, it's one thing to want to distance yourself from the masses, but why distance yourself from technology as well? It's like backtracking on progress."

  "People are weird," Brian said. It was the only answer he could think of.

  "So…what're we looking for?" she asked.

  "I don't know."

  Alice stared at him for a moment and then walked up to a window, hands cupped around her face so she could peer through the glass.

  "Anything?" Brian asked.

  "Not really," she said, pulling away. "Looks like a fairly simple living setup—almost like a studio apartment in cabin form."

  Brian looked around, the initial comments that Beverly had made the day before coming back to him. She had said that there would be animals hanging up, waiting to be butchered, as well as leftover parts from those that had already been butchered, and pelts drying, yet he didn't see anything like that. He also noticed what appeared to be a garden area about thirty feet from the cabin, one that looked to have been left to rot.

  Why would someone go from being a doctor to living like this?

  Was it because he had been disgraced somehow, or did he simply decide to leave society?

  A click echoed, followed by the sound of hinges squealing.

  He spun around and saw Alice standing by the front door—an open front door.

  "What're you doing?" Brian asked.

  "Um…it was unlocked," she said.

  Brian approached.

  Alice waited, head cocked a bit so she could look through the open doorfr
ame.

  "Was it locked when you came up before?" she asked.

  "I have no idea," he said with a shake of his head. The only thing he could remember was Cheryl walking toward it, calling the man's name, and then the gunshots.

  "Well, it's open now," she said and started to take a step.

  "Wait!" Brian snapped and took hold of her arm, stopping her.

  "What?"

  "This guy was a crazy 'off the grid' right-wing survivalist. He may have booby-trapped things."

  "Wouldn't the trap have been sprung from the door opening?"

  "I have no idea."

  Alice waited for several seconds, looking between him and the doorway, and then, without saying a word, stepped through it.

  Nothing happened.

  "I think it's safe," she said, smile appearing.

  Brian sighed and stepped inside.

  "Dusty," Alice noted.

  "Yeah," Brian agreed.

  It literally hung in the air, the sunlight from the windows illuminating it. And the surfaces were caked.

  Stepping carefully, Alice headed toward the bed, hands behind her back as she leaned in to look at the bedspread, which had been pulled up in a half-assed attempt to make the bed at some point.

  While she did that, Brian headed over to the kitchen corner, a tin coffeepot that one would put over a burner on the wood stove catching his attention.

  "This hasn't been slept in for a while," Alice said.

  "Yeah, and someone is going to want to clean out the coffeepot before using it again."

  Alice came over to look and said, "Oh, disgusting," when she saw the layer of mold that had grown from the sodden grounds at the bottom.

  Brian put the lid back on the pot.

  "There is no way he was here yesterday morning before he was killed," Alice said. "And if I were to bet on it, I'd say he wasn't even killed yesterday, but sometime before that, which would explain why there was no blood when they busted open his skull on the rock."

  "And why they didn't want his body found," Brian added.

  "Exactly."

  "But why kill him?" Brian asked.

  Alice didn't have an answer for that.

  Brian wandered over to a sitting area in the corner of the room, a large square rug marking its unofficial boundary from the rest of the living space. Like all the other parts of the house, the chair and side table were covered in dust, the only exception to this being a rectangle-like smear.