Born To Be Wild

TWENTY-FIVE

Before Superman, Christopher Reeve played Ben on Love of Life.

Mary Lisa jumped to her feet. “Whatever are you doing here? Is something wrong? Is my dad okay?”

“Your dad is fine. He sends his love and told me he was going to pin your ears back for not telling him about this mess.”

“I didn’t want to worry him, didn’t want to worry anybody.”

“Yeah? Well, you told John and he told me. I called down here and spoke to Detective Vasquez.”

He walked to her and stopped about six inches from her nose. “You look pale enough to fade out. Something else has happened, hasn’t it?”

Lou Lou said, “The jerk called her a little while ago. Who are you, again?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Mary Lisa. “This is Chief of Police Jack Wolf from Goddard Bay.”

“You’re the rottweiler?”

He grinned, a big one that changed his face entirely. “Yes, it sounds like that would be me.” He shook hands with Lou Lou.

“Sit down, Chief Wolf.” Mary Lisa waved to one of the love seats. “Would you care for something to drink?”

Jack looked about her bright living room for a moment before he selected a green-and-white-striped love seat. “You don’t have to be a hostess, Mary Lisa. Tell me what happened here.”

“But how did you get past Chad?”

“I showed him my badge, gave him your name and a look that clearly translated as official business, and he let me through without a single question.”

Mary Lisa gave him a long look, then turned to Lou Lou. “Lou Lou, would you please take Detective Vasquez out on the deck, point out Big Dume to him?”

“But-”

“Please, Detective. I need a moment with Chief Wolf.”

Once they were out of hearing, Jack said, “Okay, now what would you like to say to me?”

“I’d like you to tell me why you came down here. You’ve never seemed to like me. I didn’t imagine you’d care if some loon ran me down or not.”

“Actually, I was tied up until this morning or I would have been here sooner. I called Lost Hills Station and spoke to Detective Vasquez, and he told me to come on down.” He sat forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “Listen, you’ve got family and a lot of friends in Goddard Bay who care about you, John included, and that makes you my responsibility as well.”

“Whether you like me or not?”

“Liking you has nothing to do with anything, Ms. Beverly. Besides, John couldn’t stop singing your praises. He wasn’t happy about your kissing him off, but he admired you for doing it. He kept going and going until I wanted to punch him out. Then I thought about it awhile and decided that maybe you’ve grown up, maybe you wouldn’t be pouring sugar into anyone’s gas tank anymore if they crossed you.”

Her face turned red as a Malibu sunset, not due for another four hours. “Crossed me? Like that even comes close to what that moron did. Dammit, I found my supposed fiancé in bed with my sister, you jerk! He was engaged to me, and he betrayed me. Thinking back on it, I should have shoved a potato up his exhaust pipe, maybe it would have blown him up!”

Jack tapped his fingertips on his knees. “Okay, so there was provocation, but it was a new Beemer, Ms. Beverly, and you destroyed the engine on that fine machine.”

She threw up her hands. “Men!”

Suddenly, he grinned. “Okay, so the night in jail was a little bit overboard. Let me tell you, your dad climbed my frame up one side and down the other. Does that make you feel better?”

“Was that supposed to be an apology?”

“It’s close, isn’t it?”

“No.”

Jack’s dark brow shot up.

Mary Lisa threw up her hands. “Men and your genetic bond to machines-none of you can get over what I did to his precious car, a stupid machine, dammit. Well, to be honest here, that’s exactly why I did it.” She drew a deep breath. “So did you arrest one of the Hildebrands for killing Jason Maynard?”

“Why do you think it was one of the Hildebrands?”

Mary Lisa said patiently, “The person who did it was obviously very angry. A stranger or a simple acquaintance wouldn’t get that worked up, would they? Who was it?”

“His father-in-law, Milo Hildebrand.”

She nodded. “Milo. What was the motive?”

“It was all about money, not about any cheating Jason was doing on his wife. Jason had embezzled over three hundred thousand dollars from his father-in-law’s company, and Milo found out about it. Milo confronted him in a rage, then followed him back to his house with a golf driver sitting beside him on the front seat. Since Milo stole it the day before the murder, it shows premeditation-lucky for him we don’t have the death penalty in Oregon.”

“Where’d he steal it? How did you find out about it?”

Jack grinned. “In big cities most crimes are solved by informants. In small towns, it’s a matter of talking to people. One of the attendants who works in the men’s dressing room at the club saw Milo take a golf club from a locker that isn’t his. He didn’t really think about it at the time, thought he was simply borrowing it, but he did think about it hard after I interviewed him along with everyone else who worked at the club. He came to me Sunday morning, said he’d seen Mr. Hildebrand take a Callaway driver.

“We matched the murder weapon up to the clubs we found in the locker. Milo surprised me-he kept screaming that his wife did it and ran. I had to shoot him in the leg so we could take him into custody. Unfortunately, he hasn’t confessed. He continues to blame his wife, keeps swearing he stole the club for her but had no idea what she wanted to do with it.”

“That makes a whole lot of sense.”

“Oh yeah. Milo claims his wife found out Jason was sleeping around on their daughter and that’s why she killed him. He claims he kept quiet to protect her. He claims he didn’t know about the embezzlement.”

“You have proof he did know?”

“Oh yes.”

“Poor Mrs. Hildebrand.”

“That’s the truth. From all I can find out, Milo’s controlled her for all of the thirty-five years of their married life, told her what to spend, where to spend it, how to dress, how to behave. And now he’s trying to implicate her in the murder.”

She shook her head. “I can’t imagine that. And it was all for money, only money.”

Jack shrugged. “Everyone has a different breaking point, and for Milo, it was rank betrayal by his son-in-law, the ultimate sin. The fact remains that he did it. It’s over.”

“So you solved the first murder in Goddard Bay-in well under a week.”

Jack shrugged again, but Mary Lisa could swear she saw a stain of red on his cheekbones. It humanized him.

He said abruptly, “If you’ll let me, I’m here to help you now, Ms. Beverly.”

“Since you’re here to help me, why don’t you call me Mary Lisa?”

He nodded. “Tell me about this phone call, Ms.-Mary Lisa-exactly what he said, what he sounded like to you. Was he excited? Enraged? Did you hear anything in the background?”

Mary Lisa held up her hand. “Okay, you’re in cop mode.”

He grinned, and again it surprised her. All she’d ever seen on him was a hard, detached face, as if he didn’t want to be in the same room with her, or in the same room with most people. She wanted to smile back, but she thought of the man on the phone and simply couldn’t. “He said, exactly, ‘Shame on you, sleeping with a married man. Maybe next time you won’t be so lucky.’ That was all. He hung up. His voice was whispery, sort of hoarse. I’m sure it was a guy, but he didn’t sound familiar, and he didn’t sound particularly angry, sort of world-weary, like he’d expected all this, which sounds odd, but it’s true. I didn’t hear anything in the background. I couldn’t tell how old he was-not real young and not real old either, I guess. I might recognize his voice if I heard it again, though. The only thing I’m sure of is that he wasn’t an orangutan.”

“Okay, that’s good. Do you have any ideas on what you might have done to draw a crazy like this to you?”

“What I might have done?”

“You’re an actress, Ms.-Mary Lisa. A celebrity. Most young women can kiss off a guy at a party, or spend lots of cash shopping on Rodeo Drive, and no one notices. For you, it’s different. Someone has been watching, and that someone went over the edge.”

She shook her head, her lips tightly seamed, until she interrupted him, her voice as cold as her mom’s. “You’re right, Chief Wolf-”

“Since I’m trying to help you, I guess you’d better call me Jack.”

She couldn’t say why, but it simply stunned her. How could this man possibly be simply Jack to her? “Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

She waved her hands in his face. “Like you’re human, like you might consider me human too.”

“All right, you’re angry with me. Go on. I believe you were about to pin my ears back.”

“Yes, I am. You’re acting as if I’m a party girl, without any morals or sense. Most actresses, myself included, work hard, enjoy their friends, spend most of their time at home. None of my actor friends go boozing at wild parties and I think I’ve only been on Rodeo Drive one time-to buy myself a real pearl necklace for winning my second Emmy.”

“So, cutting through all that, you mean to say you haven’t a clue who’s doing this and you can’t think of any way you could have brought it on.”

“Would you like a soda? Lower your blasted eyebrow, Chie-Jack. I’m thirsty.”

Venting at him had helped her get her balance back, he thought as he watched her walk to her kitchen. He followed her, and stopped dead, blown away by the magnificent view. Her cottage sat right on the beach. Not fifty feet away the Pacific waves lapped gently onto the sand, and a brilliant sun shone through the few wispy clouds that dotted the sky. He saw a few teenagers, her neighbors, he supposed, since this was a gated community, mostly lolling about, some playing volleyball, others simply stretched out on towels, sunning, the girls dressed in little designer swimsuits.

He said, “I love the ocean, always have. Unfortunately, my house is a bit too far inland to hear the waves. I love that sound, don’t you?”

Again, she stared at him.

“Mary Lisa, I’m just a guy, like any other guy, and I like the ocean. I’d like it if I could sit beside Daniel and Lou Lou, feet up on the deck railing, just basking like they are.”

She didn’t look happy and so he said simply, “I also happen to be a cop. It’s my job, like yours is being an actress. We need to get past what happened in Goddard Bay-you did something stupid three years ago and I’ll admit it, I got the wrong impression of you.”

“You treated me like a juvenile delinquent, a stupid teenager.”

“Yep, I did. Even your father couldn’t make me see you were so hurt you’d lashed out. Okay, the truth here-I’d just come to Goddard Bay and been elected chief of police. Then this ditsy girl comes along who destroys a valuable vehicle, and isn’t at all sorry about what she’s done. It’s no real excuse, but I was coming off a really miserable divorce.” He looked like he wanted to shut up and not say another word.

“Go ahead, spit it out, Jack.”

“I guess I put you in the same boat with my ex-wife. She burned me bad, Mary Lisa. No excuse for what I did to you, but there you have it. I’m sorry.”

She gave him a brilliant smile. “Now that’s an apology I can live with.” She handed him a Diet Dr Pepper, opened one for herself. She clicked her can to his. “Thanks for coming down to help me, Jack.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome. You really did kiss off John because of Kelly, didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t about to hurt her like Monica had hurt me. No way.”

He nodded, drank more of his soda.

“Ah, so John made you think I’m selfless? Noble?”

“Nah, but he made me see you’re okay.”

“Nice to hear that from a yahoo chief of police from the boondocks.”

For the first time, they smiled at each other.