Crazy Blood

Chapter One

Sit down and I’ll tell you a story.

I shot my husband, Richard, twenty-five years ago, right here in Mammoth Lakes, California. It was the first homicide in twelve years in this peaceful little town, and the only one for thirteen years after that. A justifiable killing, in my opinion, but not in the judge’s. I shot five times. The prosecutor argued that I didn’t fire the sixth cartridge because I’d planned to use it on myself, which by some loopy legal reasoning meant that I was sane and knew what I was doing. That lawyer badly wanted me sane because he was out for my blood, and they can’t spill crazy blood. Only the healthy stuff. But he couldn’t prove a “plan.” I never considered using that sixth shot on myself. Not once. I told them so.

That’s all behind me now, as much as anything is ever behind anybody, the past’s not being even past and all that. Especially if you have children, which I do. Life’s three great labors are to see what you’ve done, face the consequences, and adjust. People get stuck on those.

They will not look their acts straight in the eye.

They will not accept what they have coming.

They will not change direction.

I publish a weekly newspaper here in town, The Woolly. Woolly is our town mascot — a woolly mammoth, of course. I was a part-time winter-sports stringer when I was young. Even after all these years I still get a little thrill every time I see my byline: “Story by Cynthia Carson.” This current work doesn’t pay much, but the investigations and interviews, writing and photography, editing and layout (mostly electronic now, done right here on my red laptop) put me exactly where I want to be: in the real world. Which — being in the real world — is another thing that people have trouble with. They spend their whole lives trapped inside their own heads.

I’ve finished writing this week’s edition of The Woolly. I’ve got the coffee poured and waiting. It’s two degrees outside, but there’s a strong fire in the stove and I’m going to sit close by that fire and edit my articles, then proofread and make them perfect before I put the paper to bed. That’s what we used to say years ago at the Mammoth Times — “put it to bed.” Which meant get it to the print shop. Always on Wednesday, so we could circulate early Thursday mornings. Now I just push a key or two and the printer starts to whir. This is my favorite time of the week, when I get my last look at what I’m about to publish. When I can change things to make my stories right. When I can think about what’s been going on in town lately.

This week, my lead story is about the wave of ski and snowboard thefts — already up 300 percent this winter season over the last one, and it’s only January. The thief/thieves are hitting all three Mammoth Mountain lodges, blending with the crowds, walking off with the rarely locked and often unattended items as if they owned them. He/she/they have a keen eye for quality. They do not take cheap gear or beat-up rentals. Last week’s stolen skis and boards had a combined retail value of nearly eleven thousand dollars. The fact that six stolen pairs of skis and eight stolen snowboards are my lead story gives you some idea of what this town is usually like — a quiet village most days, a bit of Eden hanging on to a dome of volcanic rock ten thousand feet in the air.

I actually had to go to the Mammoth Lakes Police Department to get those stolen property stats for The Woolly — not easy for me to do after the unhappy hours I spent there, as you might imagine. They were courteous. I taught one of the sergeants to ski forty years ago, when I was fifteen, the year I was number one on the Mammoth girl’s junior downhill ski team. I advised a detective to keep an eye on the Internet to find those skis and boards. Arrange a buy and you’ve got the criminals. He seemed to like the idea.