Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 02 - Time Is of the Essence

by Catharine Bramkamp

  Was there a class I could take?

  Better, a spa?

  I was not feeling relaxed. Damn, I’ll have to take a vacation from my vacation.

  “Wait for Ben, he’ll come back, I’m sure,” Prue insisted.

  “I can’t. There is no waiting, time is,” I was going to say, time is of the essence, but they wouldn’t understand the reference. “Everything,” I amended. “I’ll be fine, but we need to get the stuff from the Mathew.” And bury the bastard.

  I allowed my anger to propel me forward and squashed my common sense. Common sense will tell you not to drive towards a potentially dangerous situation, but I’m becoming expert at ignoring common sense. Really, you have to work at it, like exercising a muscle, never mind that’s a bad metaphor for me to use, what do I know about exercise? But traveling up that hill was the only direction I could take.

  I bound up my hair in a ponytail, changed into shorts and a tee and headed for my car.

  I jammed out of the driveway as fast as I could. I didn’t want to worry this to death. I didn’t want to discuss it like a calm, adult person. I wanted to act.

  Shouldn’t there have been some mysterious feeling that washed over me telling me that the man I loved was in danger? And if I didn’t sense this, does that mean I wasn’t really in love? At the very least, shouldn’t I have sensed that something was terribly wrong? Shouldn’t I have incorporated the classic, if I had only known …?

  But I didn’t, I’m not that sensitive. I barreled up the hill. Faster is better was my mantra.

  There were no cars ahead of me to impede my speed. I rounded up the hill where Marsh Avenue turns into Red Dog Road. A Jeep traveling the opposite direction screamed by at 60 miles per hour. I gunned my own engine and tore up, up the hill. Two trucks and a very old Camero careened past me, all traveling sixty or seventy miles per hour. Thirty is the fastest a person should drive on this road.

  Unless.

  I leaned my head out the window and sniffed the air, then froze. I didn’t entirely freeze, I did keep driving, but my mind froze for just a second. It had started again, a hot spot had flared and the fire was up, and, in the vernacular, running.

  More cars passed me whizzing down hill. I swerved to avoid one who was passing on the right, solidly on my side of the road. He swerved at the last minute and flipped me off.

  “Excuse ME for driving on my side of the road!” I yelled. But he was already gone, honking his horn and swerving to avoid other drivers just starting to pull into the left lane and drive faster, and faster down the hill.

  I tried to look up, but the sky was wedged between the line of pine trees on either side of the road. There was not much in the way of vistas for me to view the fire’s origin or progress.

  I carried on, buoyed by purpose and frantic insanity.

  As I traveled up the mountain, the scenery did not improve. I passed through part of the scorched line of fire. On one side were abandoned homes, still intact. On the other side, lay smoking ruins. The road and cars blocking the road had worked like a fire break and protected the left side of the road. The earth around the collapsed homes was charred black. The smell of smoke wafted towards me as I careened further up the mountain.

  The phone rang.

  “Did you find him?”

  “No.” I tucked the phone between my shoulder and ear. I could barely hear Carrie but it would have to do. I should really buy a better head set. Or at the very least, use the one I already own.

  “You can call him.” She suggested.

  “I can. But it may not reach him. The reception is spotty here.”

  “I got through to you.” Carrie pointed out.

  “I know.” With only one hand on the wheel, I had to work hard to keep the car under control. The car bumped on the stripped road and jerked into the on-coming traffic every time I hit a pothole. More and more cars raced down. I swerved out of their way too many times to count.

  “Look, I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

  “Oh, now you’re too important to talk?” Carrie shot back. Her voice echoed. “Here I am in a crisis over the steering committee of the Forgotten Felines, Melinda insists we put on a big fundraising event because she thinks you-know-who will underwrite it because he’s sleeping with you-know-who.”

  “That would be you.” I pointed out. “Where are you anyway?”

  “I’m in the ladies room.”

  “You called me from the toilet stall?”

  Another car zipped by, followed by Danny’s red truck, followed by Jimmy’s truck. Neither man noticed me. Each man gripped his steering wheel, grimly focused on the road ahead, and careened down the mountain so fast I thought Danny’s truck would flip on the turn. But with a screech of tires and cursing I could hear, he made it. Jimmy looked a Roman pursued by Boudicca herself.

  Through the open window I could smell the pine pitch and hear seeds popping open.

  “Well this was an emergency and I had to call you!” She hissed.

  I could hear the echo of her voice in the background.

  “Well, what do you need from me?” I asked.

  I swerved around another abandoned car, this one only a burned shell. The fire had jumped the road up here. Matthew had said it was close. And I assumed the scorched landscape would act as a fire break, if it came to that. I didn’t think it would come to that.

  “Should I go ahead with the event and talk Patrick into it?” She asked more quietly.

  “That depends.”

  But I didn’t spend that much time contemplating the abandoned cars and homes. I found the turn off for Matthew’s house, it was just past the mailbox marking Jimmy’s house. Wrinkled balloons trailed on the ground.

  “On what?” She demanded.

  I dropped the phone on my lap to use both hands to make the next turn. The tires hit the deep ridge between the road and the dirt drive. The wheel jerked in my hand. Hot air started to blow through the window.

  I picked up the phone, she was still breathing, waiting for my answer.

  I headed towards what I assumed was Matthew’s house. The Manzanita bushes smacked against the car, damn, but I couldn’t be persnickety about the paint job when I had to focus on my goal. The bushes were still green, the fire hadn’t hit here, just on the other side of the road. I really didn’t have time to consider what that meant. I only have a rudimentary knowledge of fire, only what I know from the one time Uncle Steve took me camping and admonished me to never again fling a flaming marshmallow into the dense, dry foliage of August.

  “On what is more important, Patrick or the cats?” I finally gasped out.

  The phone connection waved, I heard two words disconnected by silence. Then my phone went completely dead.

  Finally.

  Now I could blame bad reception. I pulled up to the house. The driveway was empty, the house was exactly as Matthew had described it – belonging to a friend, their hide away. Yes, the house was settled firmly on a foundation of cement, but the rest didn’t seem to be constructed according to any code I recognized. The roof was covered in wood shingles. The paint on the siding was peeling and cracked in artistic waves on the rough wood.

  I only briefly considered that Matthew would be at his house, but smart people had already left the mountain. Would Matthew come back and find me? Probably not, he struck me as a guy interested more in saving himself than saving anything else.

  The hills were hot under the rising late summer sun, a feeling that I recognized in my bones and summarily dismissed. I was focused on retrieving any information that could be linked to Grandma: stealing it back and getting the hell out.

  A gravel and dirt drive hooked around the house. No cars. No garage. I parked in the driveway and cautiously picked through the dust and pine needles to the back of the house figuring if Mathew picked up any habits from the locals, leaving his back slider door open would be one of them.

  I stepped up to the deck when something caught my eye. Blue. Bright, silver sp
arkly blue. Not a color combination found in nature.

  I glanced around, nothing, no sign of anyone or anything else. I carefully knelt next to the steps (boards balanced on concrete blocks) and peered into the narrow space between the deck and the dirt conscious of all the bad scary movies I saw as a kid where the mysterious hand suddenly lurches up and grabs the poor sap who leaned over for a closer look.

  I squinted trying to adjust to the contrast between the hot sun outside and the gloom under the deck. Lines of light striped the red dirt and an inert body. I could make out a dark stain that matted her hair. Her eyes were closed. There were dark patches on her arms, not tattoos but bruises. She was fully clothed.

  Shit, Prue was not going to be happy about this news. Neither was my uncle Steve. The hand was attached to Tiffany. My first impulse was to reach out and touch her, comfort her. But that was not a good idea. Poor thing.

  I crouched there for another minute, debating. I could call the police from inside the house, but could they get up here? And would it do her any good? I was already a considered a suspicious person in terms of the Spring Street house and the missing Debbie Bixby. I did not relish the idea of being wanted for questioning in two counties, that was just too many obligations. And how to explain what I was doing up here? Tom Marten and I may go back, but not that far back.

  I heard the borate bombers overhead as I let myself into the unlocked sliding door. The ash drifted over me. This was possibly not a great idea.

  The ash dimmed the light inside the house. I glanced around the kitchen and noticed the tomatoes growing on the windowsill – tomatoes? I moved closer, having already made that mistake once. Not tomatoes, of course, but four healthy pot plants, and in the same cut down recycled plastic liter bottles that grandma liked to use. I paused and listened, now it was eerily silent, which meant a host of terrible things: eye of the storm, menacing presence, background music in a minor key. But it was silent outside and inside. And I wasn’t willing to wait it out like a heroine in a bad B flick.

  I gathered up the pot plants and pulled them out of the containers. I dashed back outside in less time than it takes to describe and threw the pot plants over the side of the deck away from Tiffany’s body. I threw the plastic liter bottles off the other side of the deck, now all three sides were tainted with evil – bad Feng Shui. Katherine would not be pleased. But I was not listing the house, so I didn’t care.

  I picked up the phone, meaning to call the police. But it was dead.

  So much for good intentions. I reverted back to my original plan. I had no idea if the man had fifteen flash drives on his person at all times and this was futile on my part, or if he had burned a disc and labeled it blackmail, just to help me out. I correctly assumed the office was in at the back of the house. I slowed on the way for just a second to register the ambiance of the place. Despite the un-auspicious front elevation, the interior was decorated. Martha Stewart decorated. The curtain fabric complimented the two chintz covered easy chairs. A riot of tiny antique tables were scattered around the room. I headed down a narrow hall filled with black framed photos by Mapplethorpe. I glanced into the first room, bedroom, painted dark red, Mission furniture, bedspread a tasteful red and purple Indian print. Next, the bathroom decorated with huge photos of half naked cowboys. Oh baby.

  The den was decorated in black and white with colorful art prints and mercury glass candle sticks. Those candle sticks were probably the best collection I’ve seen outside of Pat and Mike’s dining room.

  I was a bit overwhelmed by my own misconceptions, but I stayed focused. A big old CPU hummed under a glass desk. Easy to see, thank you Matthew. I know, there were probably drawers filled with actual files but I didn’t have time to search for those. Those would be back up, the real, first things would be on the computer. I pulled out the cables and detached the CPU. The computer was an old Dell, not light, but manageable.

  I pulled off a half dozen sticky notes from the computer screen – a likely source for access codes, that’s where I keep mine. I had just opened a drawer, to check for a couple CDs when I heard the sound of a car door, a familiar car door, slam. An engine – my engine - started up. Shit.

  I grabbed the black CPU, shoved the sticky notes into my pocket and dashed back down the hall knocking against two Mapplethorpes on my way.

  I carefully poked my head out the front door, but I didn’t see anything. Cautious now, I cradled the CPU like one of my solid, two year old nephews and tip toed out to the sagging porch.

  My car was nowhere to be seen. It took me a second or two to register that it was not where I left it. Like when you exit Safeway and one hundred people have parked while you were inside to just get milk and finally emerged with a cart full of last minute necessities, and now you can’t find your car.

  “It’s just around the corner.” Mathew emerged from around the back of the house, “I didn’t want you to leave without offering you something to drink, it’s so hot.” His hair was smooth. He was dressed in a pale green polo shirt and long shorts. What to wear during a forest fire.

  “No thanks, I’ll just be on my way.” I balanced the CPU more firmly on my hip.

  “With my computer.” He noted calmly. “I can call the police, that’s breaking and entering.”

  “Yes it is.” By all means, go inside and call.

  He didn’t move. And neither did I.

  I watched him for what seemed like minutes but I knew my brain was on hyper speed so it was really seconds. He had a look in his eyes that I had only seen once before, it was the same look that over came my mother when she was ranting about how terrible Claim Jump is. I know you can hate a place. And I know you can fall in love with a place: it’s why we buy houses, it’s why people re-build after a fire, flood or earthquake. You can’t imagine living anywhere else. Oh, that and post proposition 13 tax increases on a new purchase will wipe you out, it’s cheaper to re-build.

  But this was the reverse. He wanted to do harm, not help. And I still didn’t have a clue why.

  “Your grandmother is growing pot.” He said.

  “In a locked greenhouse.” I countered.

  “Didn’t matter.”

  “Breaking and entering.” I pointed out.

  “It was seizure.”

  “You should know, you’re an attorney.” I spit it out like an expletive.

  “Without a warrant?”

  “I don’t need a warrant.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “She killed my brother.” He took a step towards me. I held my ground, or at least my piece of the front porch. The boards sagged under my weight, there was probably some dry rot issues.

  “Not my grandmother, it was probably my Uncle Steve. He was in charge of sales.” Even as I said it, I knew it was true. Grandma was a woman on a mission, ending pain and suffering, the Mother Teresa of cannabis. But Uncle Steve was in it for the money, because to him, it was just a commodity, something he had that someone else wanted, like betel nuts. Simple.

  “Give me the computer.” Matthew said as an answer, but it wasn’t really an answer, it was diversion.

  “CPU.” I corrected.

  “I don’t care what the fuck you call it, give it to me now.” he snarled.

  He was not enduringly attractive when he was angry.

  “No.” I held it closer. The fact that he even wanted it was a good sign. The wind whipped stands of hair in my eyes but I couldn’t risk releasing my hold onto the CPU to clear my face.

  “Now, Allison.” Mathew changed tactics and became lawyerly, which made me like him even less. “Look, this has nothing to do with you, just give me my computer and I won’t press charges.”

  “Press charges?” I wasn’t behaving in my usual fabulous, controlled, sophisticated manner. I was reduced to repeating everything he said. Muscle memory implanted from growing up with two bullying brothers.

  The wind picked up and began howling over the tops of the trees it carried a sickly sweet smell that was very fa
miliar. I stepped back from Matthew. I did not know if he could take me in a fair fight. I out weighed him, but he worked out. But I did know he could very easily knock me over, especially since I was over balanced with the computer in my arms.

  I was on my own and it was my own fault.

  I stepped back again. He stepped forward, still in the attorney, still righteous. I was not going to let him knock me down, or knock me senseless. I was up vacationing in Claim Jump in the first place to recover from being knocked senseless and I was not in the mood to repeat the pattern. They say that admitting you have an addiction is the first step.

  He took another step forward. I took another step back, clutching the unit, which was bulky and not easily cuddled, to my soft chest. I was wearing flats, just when I needed sharp heels. With those, I could have stabbed him. I also could have gotten a heel stuck in the rotted deck, so it was just as well.

  He paused in his approach and sniffed the air. “Is that?”

  Breathe deeply, I mentally commanded him. Me, I was not going to breathe, or count to ten. The fire had hit one of the pot fields scatted around the mountain and was roaring through it like, well, dry grass. Most of the pot would be above us. Not a problem because fire runs up the mountain.

  Unless the wind shifts.

  Holy Shit.

  He was still trying to discern the smell. Obviously he did not grow up with the same fortuitously degenerate uncles that I grew up with. His brother must have indulged after Mathew moved out of the family house, that much I knew. I had a moment in time, so to speak, and only a moment in which to act. So I did the one thing I could, I yelled as loudly as I could and threw the CPU directly at Matthew. The impact surprised him just enough and he fell backwards. I didn’t wait to see if the unit was damaged. I wasn’t going to retrieve it anyway. I needed to slow him down and speed up my own plan B, which was to get out no matter what the cost.