Burn Out

by Marcia Muller

  “. . . You asked me if you could help.”

  “And you walked away.”

  Silence.

  “I don’t think you want to walk away again.” Dusk was gathering outside, so I turned on a lamp. Amy was pale and much too thin; I could see her ribs outlined by her tube top.

  A burning smell from the kitchen. I went in there and took a saucepan I hadn’t noticed before from the stove. Turned a control knob off. Ravioli, courtesy of Chef Boyardee. The empty can sat on the counter.

  When I returned to Amy, she had pulled her legs up onto the chair and was wrapping herself in an afghan that had been slung across its back.

  I tucked it around her, sat in the other chair.

  “You’ve been here since whatever happened at Willow Grove Lodge?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Amy, talk to me.”

  “Okay, I been here since the day after. I was asleep that night when somebody broke in. I fought him, and he stuck me on my forehead with a knife.” She touched a bandage above her right eyebrow. “So I kneed him in the balls and got away and hid in the grove. Next day, when I thought it was safe, I used the pay phone and called Bud. He brought me here. That night he went back to get my stuff from the cabin, but before he could pack it all somebody almost walked in on him, and he had to run off.”

  So it had been Bud Smith, not Boz Sheppard, I’d chased through the grove. But whose presence had I sensed while I was having my picnic there? Not Amy’s or Boz’s; they’d been in his truck on the highway. Probably some trespasser who saw me and thought I belonged there.

  “Where’s Bud now?”

  Amy shrugged.

  “Answer me. We don’t have much time.”

  “Why?”

  “I found Bud’s Forester this morning in the Toiyabe National Forest. The sheriff’s people are searching for his body. When they find it, they’ll come here.”

  “Bud? Bud’s not dead.”

  “Then where is he?”

  She shook her head. “He said he’d come back. I been waiting every day. . . .”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.” She pulled the afghan up to her chin. “He had a phone call and he left in a big hurry, didn’t even unhitch the empty boat trailer from his SUV. Said something about a relative. . . . I don’t know!”

  I considered my options. None of them were good. Finally I said, “You go get whatever stuff you need. Two minutes, no more.”

  Big dark eyes filling with suspicion. “Where’re you taking me?”

  “Home, to Ramon’s.”

  Home is the place where . . .

  Ramon and Sara fussed over Amy, crying and hugging her and bundling her up in front of their fireplace. Sara fetched homemade soup and the four of us sat around the coffee table to eat it.

  After we were finished, I asked Ramon and Sara if we could speak privately. We went into the kitchen.

  “She’s been living in Bud Smith’s mobile home since the day after the attack on her at Willow Grove. It happened the same night her sister was killed. I should’ve figured it out sooner: I sensed somebody was close by when I first went to the trailer looking for Bud. Amy heard my car and hid in the trees. The door was unlocked, so I went in and found clothing in the guest room—Amy’s. At the time I thought it belonged to a roommate.”

  “Poor kid,” Sara said. “Why was she living at the lodge in the first place? She had a perfectly nice room here in town.”

  “From what she told me on the way here, I gather it had to do with Hayley. Amy used to worship her big sister, even though she hadn’t seen her for years. But when Hayley came back to Vernon, Amy found out she was a prostitute. It tore up the fragile new life she’d built for herself. She regressed and, essentially, went home to the lodge.”

  “But after the attack, why didn’t she come to us?”

  “Because it was the logical place for whoever attacked her to look. She was scared, though she didn’t know Hayley was dead till Bud told her.”

  Ramon’s face darkened. “That pervert had our Amy—”

  “Smith’s not a pervert, and he didn’t do anything to Amy but give her shelter. The problem is, he’s likely been murdered up in Toiyabe. When the sheriff’s department finds his body, they’ll go to his trailer and discover somebody else besides Smith has been living there. After that, it’s only a short step to finding out it was Amy.”

  He glanced helplessly at Sara. “What should we do?”

  I said, “Do you have a lawyer?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think he’s up to handling something like this.”

  “Well, then, just make sure that she gets a lot of reassurance and a good night’s sleep. Chances are they won’t find Bud’s body till tomorrow—the light in Toiyabe was already bad when the sheriff’s people started searching. I’ll be back here around eight in the morning, take Amy to talk with the deputy in charge of the case. If she needs a lawyer, I can call one.”

  Ramon asked, “What was this business with Boz Sheppard throwing her out of his truck?”

  “On the way here we passed the spot where it happened. She told me he picked her up in town and came on to her, wanted her to go down to Inyo County with him. She refused, things got ugly, and he threw her out. I’d say there’s a good possibility that Sheppard was the one who attacked her in the cabin.”

  “Did he rape her?”

  “No.”

  “But he cut her—the bastard!”

  “If he’s the one who attacked her, he won’t get away with it.”

  Two pairs of hopeful eyes looked back at me; Amy was all they had left of their family, and they needed me to sort this out.

  Please help me. You can make this horrible thing right.

  I don’t know what to do. Please help me.

  I always wanted to say to clients, “Maybe I can, maybe I can’t.”

  I always said, “I’ll give it my full attention. Don’t worry.”

  There were various messages on my machine when I got back to the ranch house: Hy, Ted, Adah Joslyn, Ma, Patrick, Mick. I noted them down and began returning them in order of importance. Mick, since he’d said it was urgent, came first.

  “I did a nationwide sweep on this Trevor Hanover, using some really sophisticated software Derek and I have worked up.”

  “You’ve been creating sophisticated software on my time?”

  “No, on ours. At night and on the weekends. Derek’s between women and, well, you know where I’m at. Anyway, today was the first time I’d put it through its paces and judging by its performance, I’d say he and I are due to make a bundle on the licensing. I’d’ve gotten back to you sooner, but the nurses keep taking my laptop away and telling me I should rest.”

  “Well, you should. What have you got on Hanover?”

  “I concentrated on the gap between when he was born and when he was rewarded with the cushy job for bringing the investment broker’s drunken daughter home. But Trevor Hanover—the one born in Tennessee—never lived in New York City or worked as a bartender. He and his folks died in an apartment house fire in Chicago when Trevor was thirteen.”

  “The old stolen-identity trick. Our Trevor was in his twenties when he surfaced as a lucky bartender. Back then you could still easily get away with that kind of scam. Any details on the fire or the parents?”

  “Typical tenement fire. Too many people, too many appliances, bad wiring. The father worked as a security guard. Mother described as a housewife. Trevor was in eighth grade. There’s not much information.”

  “In short, they weren’t anybody, so no one cared.” Sad, bad truism of our society: we can cry over a movie star’s marital crisis, but we give scant attention when an ordinary family is wiped out in an accident that could have been prevented. “Anything else?” I asked Mick.

  “I’m going to run a nationwide search on Hanover’s personal life as soon as Kelley here will return my laptop to me.” He paused, and then I heard him saying, “Kelley, please.
Please, please, please. I’m going into withdrawal!” He came back on the line and added, “She’s relented, thank God. Talk later.”

  Next I called Adah back. Only the voice mail at any of her numbers. I hoped her message meant she was seriously considering my proposition.

  I decided to call Ma next, reserving Hy—the best—for last. The business calls could wait till tomorrow, after I’d taken Amy to Bridgeport to talk with Lark.

  Thursday

  NOVEMBER 15

  Lark was in her office when I called to say I’d located Amy and was bringing her in.

  “I thought you’d be supervising the search in Toiyabe,” I added.

  “Nope. That’s in good hands.”

  “Anything yet?”

  “No. So what’s the Perez girl’s story?”

  “I’ll let her tell you in person.”

  I left the sheriff’s department after delivering Amy into Lark’s hands, and started back toward Vernon. Halfway there my cell rang. Lark.

  “We’ve located Bud Smith’s body,” she said. “Few hundred yards from his vehicle, in a ravine. Told you it’d be that close.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Shot in the back. Same as Tom Mathers.”

  “Estimated time of death?”

  “A week at least, probably longer, the ME says. Body was badly decomposed. We tentatively ID’d it from a backpack that was lying next to it. Thing is, Smith’s wallet and a bottle of water were inside, but not his car keys or any of the other stuff you’d take along if you were hiking in such an isolated area.”

  “I’d say whoever killed him wanted him identified and tried to make it look like an accident. He may have been shot elsewhere, then driven to Toiyabe and dumped.”

  “How’d the killer get back to wherever he came from?” Lark asked. “It’s a long way out of there on foot.”

  “An accomplice, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  Lark switched tacks. “The Perez girl was forthcoming about what happened to her. My guess is that Sheppard waited around till after dark, then broke in thinking she wasn’t there.”

  “And tossed the cabin after she got away?”

  “Probably. Before he came on to Amy in his truck, he was asking her about something Hayley might’ve given her for safekeeping. He didn’t know what it might be, but insisted it had to do with her sister asking him to clear out of the trailer that night.”

  “She have any idea what it was?”

  “She said no. That’s the only point where I felt she wasn’t being candid with me.”

  “So now what?”

  “I’m driving down to Inyo tomorrow morning, and taking my best interrogator along.”

  “Good-cop bad-cop, huh?”

  “Yep. And that interrogator is you.”

  “Then you’re flying down.”

  “McCone, I hate small planes!”

  “As I recall, you appeared at the crime scene in the lava fields in a chopper.”

  “I keep my eyes closed when I’m in one of those things. Really, we can drive—”

  “You want to get this job done soon, or what?”

  “All right, I’ll keep my eyes closed . . . again.”

  When I got back to Vernon, I drove to Willow Grove Lodge and sat down at the end of the dock to think.

  Remembered a night years ago when Hy and I had drifted there in a rowboat, sipping beer while I confessed to things I’d never told another living soul.

  This past year, I almost blew two people away. . . . Each time I really wanted to do it. . . . I wanted to act as an executioner.

  Our relationship, then so new and fragile, had saved me from those dark feelings. And given rise to the dedicated resolve to quell any and all such inhuman urges. To maintain control. To let go of the idea I could right every wrong and instead settle for righting only a few. So far I’d been able to keep my promises.

  But at this moment there were a large number of wrongs that needed righting.

  Hayley, all dressed up, offering a martini to her visitor and being shot in return.

  Amy, brutally attacked.

  Tom Mathers, left dead in the desert.

  Miri, a suicide, as the inquest in Sacramento had determined, but equally a victim of the person who had killed her firstborn.

  Bud Smith, decomposing in a ravine in a national forest.

  Yes, quite a few wrongs.

  Time to go see T.C. Mathers, a woman who had free access to guns.

  The parking lot of the wilderness supply looked the same as when I’d first visited it. I was about to take the driveway to the Mathers’ residence when I saw that the OPEN sign in the window of the store was lighted. I parked and went inside.

  T.C. sat on a stool behind the counter, going over some pages in a thick binder. Her face was haggard, her eyes bloodshot—but she appeared to be sober.

  “McCone—just who I’ve been wanting to see,” she said, but without rancor.

  “How you doing?” I asked.

  “Terrible. I think I know what the d.t.’s feel like.”

  “And what’re you doing?” I motioned at the binder.

  “I thought maybe Tom had something on one of his clients that he was using for blackmail. He kept a log on each trip he guided. But there’s nothing here.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t necessarily have written it down if he planned to cash in on it.”

  “True. These logs go back years, so I started reading the most recent ones first. Most of the entries are trips with longtime clients. I know them; a lot had their entire families along. I can’t imagine . . .”

  “Why don’t you let me borrow the log? Look it over from an outsider’s perspective.”

  She sighed, shut the binder, and pushed it toward me. “You’re welcome to it.”

  I set it aside, leaned on the counter. “T.C., I spoke with Kristen Lark. She says your alibi doesn’t look so solid.”

  “Oh, Christ, she’s probably been talking with Cullen Bradley. I need a drink.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself all day. Last night I promised myself I’d stay off the stuff, concentrate on running this business. But it’s like people think the plague lives here; nobody’s come in.” She paused. “I guess I’m the plague. Everybody thinks I killed Tom.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  Her eyes looked candidly into mine; she didn’t display any unusual body language. I believed her.

  “Tell me about Bradley,” I said.

  “That night I was furious with Tom. So I stomped out of here and had myself a big evening, went to the motel with Bradley. I must’ve been insane. But then he passed out, so I left his fat ass in bed and came home.”

  “Was Tom here?”

  “No. Right away when I drove in I saw his truck was gone.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Took three aspirin and went to bed.”

  “You weren’t worried about Tom?”

  “No. We fought a lot. One of us would leave, then come home and act as if nothing had happened. That’s the way it was with us. We just never thought one of us would leave and never come back.”

  After I left T.C. I called the number in the 510 area code that Cammie Charles had left with her friend Verna. On the third ring, a familiar voice picked up.

  “Cammie? Sharon McCone, the private investigator—”

  “I know who you are. Who gave you this number?”

  I ignored the question. “I found Bud Smith’s SUV in Toiyabe yesterday. And today the sheriff’s department found his body.”

  “Oh, God. When we saw the Subaru I recognized it. I told Rich we should report it.”

  “And he didn’t want to get involved.”

  “No. Rich, there was some problem between him and Bud. He said it looked like Bud had been killed and he didn’t want anything to do with the cops. I told him we couldn’t just walk away f
rom this . . . thing. But we did.”

  “Why didn’t you report it?”

  Silence.

  “Because Rich said not to?”

  “. . . Yeah. I didn’t want him to get in trouble.”

  “But you left him.”

  “I thought if I did, he’d shape up, take responsibility for his life, and then we’d get back together.”

  Verna had been right about Cammie’s motives. “So what was this problem between Rich and Bud?”

  “I don’t know. You’d better ask Rich.”

  “I’ll do that. Any message you want me to pass along?”

  “. . . No. Well, yes. Just tell him I love him.”

  I drove to Elk Lake, but Rich Three Wings wasn’t there. Finally I caught up with him at Hobo’s around eight o’clock that evening. He was sitting at the bar, the two stools to either side of him vacant, as if the other patrons feared the aura of gloom he exuded might be contagious. I sat down to his right.

  “Rich, I spoke with Cammie tonight.”

  He started, his eyes jerking toward me. “Jesus! You scared me.”

  “Sorry. As I said—”

  “You talked to Cammie. Where is she?”

  “Some friends’ house in the East Bay.”

  “That would be Kendall and Dan Clark. They visited up here a couple of times. How’d you get their number?”

  “Verna, from the flower shop.”

  “Is Cammie okay?”

  “Yes. She asked me to tell you she loves you. I think she’s waiting for you to call and make nice.”

  “Yeah, that’s her style. She knows I’ve got the phone number.”

  “Are you going to?”

  He considered, turning his glass between his hands. The bartender looked questioningly at me, but I shook my head.

  “I don’t think so,” Rich finally said. “Cammie’s better off without me. I’m an asshole.”

  “Because of what happened in Toiyabe?”

  Silence.

  “She told me about it.”

  “Then you know why she’s better off. Bud Smith was probably out there struggling to survive, and I didn’t want to get involved. What kind of a shit does that make me?”

  “It makes you human. And you couldn’t’ve done anything for Bud; he was long dead by then. The sheriff’s search party found his body today; he’d been shot in the back, probably somewhere else.”