J. Wachowski - In Plain View

Technically, there was no crime here-a broken heart, a soiled reputation, the hell of a public shame. Nope. That’s no crime.

Could Tom Jost have arranged for someone to be looking through binoculars when he kicked that box out from under him? Or did he figure his father would want to check it out after the fact, when the commotion of police and fire trucks arrived on the scene?

Rachel told us her father wouldn’t let her watch. Was that because her father knew exactly what she’d see? Nothing quite made sense.

“Let’s make one more stop, College.”

There might have been a sigh but it was a small one. The Boy Wonder was getting used to me.

“Where?”

“That sporting goods store up ahead, where 355 meets Butterfield.”

A plan started percolating, based on my curiosity and a chink of suspected guilt. There’s more than one way to squeeze info from a situation. Sometimes it’s a question of the right tool.

Ainsley parked but left it running. Swearing I didn’t need a lot of time, I slipped into the store as the manager was locking up. Nobody remembered Jost. I found what I needed and was out in less than ten.

The sky had already faded to twilight-black. I opened my car door. Ainsley and Jenny hit the mute button. They’d been talking, I could hear the silence in Ainsley’s sudden smile.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked.

“Project for tomorrow morning.”

All the stores were closing and it took a while to maneuver through the glut of cars in the parking lot. Ainsley was watching his mirrors closely. I should have known something was up. Boys don’t check their mirrors when they drive; everything important is in front of them.

At the second stop light, he leaned toward me, speaking softly, “What sort of car was it gave you trouble?”

“This morning? Silver SUV.”

“Crap.” Ainsley jerked his chin, toward the rearview mirror. I twisted to look out the back window.

One lane over, one car back, hummed a silver SUV with tinted windows.

“How long has he been back there?”

“First noticed him when we left Jost’s place.” Ainsley was watching the guy in the side mirror. “I didn’t think anything of it, except he followed us into the parking lot. I never saw anybody get out of the car and then when we pulled out of the lot, suddenly he’s behind us again.”

The left turn arrow went green. I had half a minute, maybe.

Something happened to me a long time ago, wires got crossed that were never meant to be crossed. When most people are frightened of something, they back away. I run straight at it.

“Maddy-” Ainsley called. “Jee-zus. Wait!”

Too late. I’d flung open my door and started stalking my way through the traffic. The headlights of the cars I crossed in front of flared like spotlights. A horn blew.

“Okay! You little shithead,” I announced, loud enough the old lady in the Bonneville rolled up her window, speedy quick. “You want to conference with me? Let’s do it. Right here. Right now.”

Another horn blew, longer this time.

“Maddy, no!” Ainsley stood in the gap of the open driver’s door.

Jenny’d crawled out of her seatbelt and had her palm pressed against the glass at the back window of the station wagon as if she were trapped inside. Her small pale face had no expression in the white glare of the headlights; nothing but stillness and round eyes.

The SUV’s passenger windows were tinted and the early night shadows made it impossible to see more than the shape of a head behind the steering wheel. I pointed at him and then reached for the passenger side door handle. Suddenly, the asshole cut out of the waiting line of cars straight into the oncoming lanes, then gunned a U.

Gone.

The riot of horns and Ainsley waving come on! snapped my attention in line. I threw my hands in the air and forced a smile. Must have been a fairly scary-looking smile; the guy in the car next to me stared like I was some kind of zoo exhibit.

“What?”

He pulled in his chin and faced the traffic ahead.

I walked back to the Subaru and got in.

Ainsley and Jenny were giving me the same look.

“It’s fine,” I told them. “We’re fine, okay? Drive.”

“Where to?” Ainsley asked, the words clipped hard.

“Office. I got stuff to pick up,” I snapped back. I caught a glimpse of Jenny in the rearview mirror. She was staring out her window without blinking, tearing at her fingernails with fast, nipping motions.

My knee started throbbing like a son of a bitch. “Give me a sip of your pop,” I ordered Ainsley, using it to swallow another pain med. I shut my eyes and waited-for pain to pass and temper to cool.

I needed time. I needed more time than I had. As usual.

“Was it the same guy?” Ainsley asked, his voice low.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I just terrorized some unsuspecting SUV driver who happened to have an errand at the mall the same time we did.”

“How could anyone have followed us? We didn’t plan to go to Jost’s place.”

I looked at him. “I’d say they’d have to have followed us from the sheriff’s party.”

“You don’t think-?”

“I don’t know. Jack-Curzon-seemed awful hot for me to make a report, so I doubt he had anything to do with it, but his cousin? I don’t know. Too much I don’t know here.” I looked back into the back seat. Jenny was half-asleep, slumped against her door. Adrenaline does that sometimes.

“But why?” Ainsley sounded as mystified as I felt. “What do they want?”

“Hell if I know.”

After the office stop, Ainsley decided to talk to me again. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?”

I couldn’t resist a high drama sound. “What kind of bullshit question is that?”

“No bullshit. I’m really asking.”

“Fox News.”

Ainsley blew a gust of exasperation.

“Look College, it’s a personal-fucking-question. Ask me my cup size, I’d be more inclined to answer.”

“Really?”

“Every man in the television business I’ve ever met can estimate stats on a woman within fifteen seconds of meeting her. What’s your problem?” After five minutes, I couldn’t take the pout. “Fine. What do you mean by worst? Worst destruction? Worst suffering? Worst smell?”

Ainsley’s face crunched tighter with each question. Obviously, he hadn’t considered all the possible permutations.

“First thing that comes to mind, I guess,” he answered.

“I don’t feel like doing an ugliness Rorschach for you, College. What’s your point?”

“Okay. I’ll tell you the worst thing I ever saw. There was this guy I knew in school who used to-” he caught his breath before saying it, “-cut himself. On his hands, arms, chest, everywhere.”

“How?”

“Razor blades. Pens. Push pins. Everybody thought he was psycho. Once he did it with a fork in the lunch room.” His pretty face wrinkled with disgust and he shagged a hand through his hair, smoothing everything back into place.

“That’s it? That’s your worst? ” Now he was depressing me.

“Well, no.” He got defensive. “One night, it was late on a Saturday night, I walked into the bathroom in the dorm, you know-”

“I know what bathrooms are, yes.”

Ainsley coughed. “Anyway, he was in there. On the floor. With blood. Lots of it.”

Long breath. I finally understood where this was going. “Dead?”

“Just about. He died at the hospital, I guess.”

“What did you do?”

“Puke,” he admitted with a grimace. “Then, I called somebody.”

Silence, except motor sounds and the wind, the sound of time passing.

“Here’s the thing,” Ainsley continued with a reasonable imitation of backbone, “since I was the one that found him, it always seemed like maybe, if I’d have gone to the bathroom sooner, you know? He wouldn’t have died.”