Crazy Blood

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Wylie found Beatrice and Belle at the dining room table, bent over their studies. Kathleen and Steen were still at Let It Bean, tangling with a plumbing issue in the kitchen drain, which had been aggravated by the freeze the night before. Outside, it was snowing lightly and the house was cold. Wylie brought in wood and kindling and got the stove going.

“What’s with twelve Madrone?” he asked as the flame crept up the logs.

Belle looked at him briefly, but Beatrice did not. “Isn’t that a street?” asked Beatrice, more to her book than to her brother.

“A street up by Canyon Lodge.”

“So what about it?” asked Belle.

“I asked you what you know about it,” he snapped.

A beat of silence, then Beatrice said, “I’m kind of trying to keep my GPA up in the stratosphere, Wyles. And you’re talking about a street I’ve barely heard of.”

He watched them attempt casual eye contact and saw the worry on Belle’s face, played off as boredom.

“I drove by twelve Madrone today,” he said. “For sale. Looks empty. Maybe I’ll just call the Realtor and get a tour.”

“And buy it with what?” Belle asked. “We lost money again last month, if you haven’t heard. Lots. Third month straight.”

“Fall is tough in Mammoth,” said Wylie.

“Unless you start dating April Holly,” said Beatrice.

“We’ll be bankrupt by March,” said Belle. “Mom does the numbers. We don’t make them up.”

Wylie took away Belle’s American Experience textbook and set it on the breakfast counter. Then Beatrice’s The Tortilla Curtain. “I can smell your bullshit from across the room, sisters. Now talk to me.”

“We know nothing about that house,” said Belle.

“Totally nothing.”

“Fine.”

“Who told you what?” asked Beatrice.

“Anonymous tip. I’ve got a Realtor friend who can let me in. I can check it out my own. You know I’m not bluffing.”

This time, their anxious faces met Wylie’s without any pretense at casualness. Belle turned to her sister. “No.”

“It’s time,” said Beatrice.

“Be strong,” said Belle.

“We’ll show you,” said Beatrice.

“We’re doomed,” said Belle.

They stood in tall pines beside the garage of 12 Madrone Street. The house was part of a small development that shared a common patch of forest, with a tennis court, pool, and barbecue area scattered within the trees. Several had FOR SALE signs out front. Light snow fell from a gunmetal gray sky. Beatrice took the key from the fake rock hider, set the hider back among the decorative river rocks arranged along the driveway, then slid the key into the side door of the garage.

“You’ve done this before,” said Wylie.

“Kristy and her family moved out last year,” said Belle. “She told me about the key. In case we needed to get in.”

Wylie’s imagination went a little south. “Why would you need to get in?”

“We didn’t know why until later,” said Beatrice.

She pulled open the door and Wylie stepped inside, followed by his sisters. The windows were small and the light was dim. It was a big garage and empty, the floors stained with motor oil and tranny fluid and coolant. A gas can and snow shovels sat in one corner. Large plywood cabinets had been built along one wall. Wylie saw that they were secured with the cheap combination locks used by high schoolers, the pink ones favored by some girls.

Beatrice went to the cabinet nearest the door of the house, turned the dial of the lock, and pulled it off the latch. She swung out both doors and hung her head. Wylie saw the neatly arranged skis, ten pairs — expensive skis in good condition. Beatrice opened the adjacent cabinet. Ten more pairs.

“There’re six cabinets with ten pairs each,” said Belle. “Sixty pairs.”

“Wow. From the lodges,” said Wylie. His heart beat heavily, seeing how his sisters had fallen, knowing that so much had changed. He’d foreseen drugs and alcohol and maybe early sex for them, anger and truancy and rotten grades. Growing pains. Not grand theft.

“Do you carry snowboards and bikes, too?”

“Right this way,” said Beatrice.

She unlocked the door to the house and stepped in and found a light. When she turned to him, Wylie saw the resigned expression on her face.

“Go ahead, Wylie,” said Belle.

Wylie went into a laundry room that smelled faintly of detergent, then passed down a hallway into the darkened great room. The blinds were closed and Bea hit the lights. His heart fell further. The bicycles stood in rows — good bikes, Wylie saw — and the girls had wiped them shiny and sprayed the tires with dressing and arranged them by type: road bikes in back, then mountain bikes, then various hybrids and specialties. Snowboards were propped up casually against the great room’s walls.

“How many boards, girls?”

“Forty-two,” said Beatrice.

“Bikes?”

“Forty-six,” said Belle. “That white Colnago C fifty-nine with the disc brakes went for sixteen grand new. The S-Works Epic was ten grand retail. It’s all either good or great stuff. Total bike retail is thirty-nine thousand, not counting those two. And fifty grand more in boards and skis.”

“Did you steal them yourselves?”

“Every single unit,” said Belle.

“How many have you unloaded so far?”

“Not one,” said Beatrice. “That’s the beauty of our plan. The deal goes down Sunday morning. One transaction and out. Clean.”

“How much are you getting?”

“Fifteen thousand for the lot. As is. We just have to get everything down to Bishop.”

“Who’s your buyer?”

“A friend of a friend who does this kind of thing,” said Belle. “A pro. He started at twelve thousand, but I was extremely firm.”

“You two have truly fucked up,” said Wylie.

“We don’t see it that way,” said Belle. “At least I don’t.”

Wylie looked at each in turn. “First off, this stuff cost people hundreds of dollars. Some, thousands. Dollars they probably earned, like we do. Maybe they get up at four-thirty in the morning, too. Maybe they work overtime. Did you ever think of that?”

Belle looked down, tapping something invisible on the floor with her boot toe. Then she turned back to Wylie. “We did it for rent, heat, insurance, and a new roof. We did it to keep Let It Bean alive. Not for clothes or makeup or drugs or a custom trailer to go fishing in. Don’t get holy on us. We did it for us. Which includes you. Fifteen thousand, Wylie. That’s a good roof over our heads. You have any better way to get that money?”

“I’m working on it.” Wylie walked between the rows of bicycles, his mind bouncing from one dire thought to the next. All it would take right now was a Mammoth cop to see his truck parked in the driveway of this empty house and follow his curiosity. Grand theft. Both juveniles. Detention, expulsion, lawyers, court, bargains, punishment. God knew.

“Is Jolene Little Chief the Bishop friend in question?”

“No,” said Belle.

“No,” said Beatrice. “Actually, could be.”

“Fuck!” Belle snorted. She kicked over one of the hybrid bikes, which toppled down three more. “Why don’t you just hold your hands out for the cuffs, Bea?”

Beatrice went to the nearest wall, slid her butt to the floor, and buried her face in her hands.

“Wylie?” asked Belle. “Maybe you truly fucked up. Without you, we’d have fifteen thousand Sunday morning and nobody’d know squat about squat.”

Beatrice sobbed. “I’m so unbelievably... exhausted.”

“Shut up, Bea. Who ratted us out, Wylie? Who knew?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Does to me.”

“To take these bikes, you had to make some changes in your appearance. Can you show me to wardrobe, Beatrice?”

“It’s back in the garage,” she blubbered.

“You two pick up these bikes and meet me there.”

Wylie stood in the middle of the garage, trying to think, watching the shadows of his sisters moving faintly over the floor stains. From one of the cabinets, Bea brought him a big plastic storage bin containing two costume beards, two pairs of overalls, assorted hats and beanies. A pair of long-handled bolt cutters lay on top. She set it down at his feet. Belle put the pink combination locks back on the two open cabinets, spun the dials, and gave Wylie an unreadable look before coming over to him.

“Whose car were you using?” he asked.

“Claire Hobbs’s,” said Beatrice.

“I thought she’d died,” said Wylie.

“She’s ninety-nine and doesn’t mind us borrowing her car once in a while,” said Belle. “She can’t drive it anymore anyway. We sort of trade out for pastries, delivered. She fiends on the whiskey/apricot and Brie Danish.”

He sighed. “Didn’t you know that the second someone snapped a picture of the license plate—”

“We got Nevada plates off a junker up in Bridgeport,” said Belle. “We strap them on with rubber bands, then take ’em off when we’re done.”

Wylie nodded. “Tell Jolene the deal is off. Don’t explain, don’t apologize, don’t negotiate, and do not change your mind.”

“But we—”

“Zip it, Belle. I give the orders and you follow them.”

“What are we going to do with all this stuff?” asked Beatrice.

“I’ll handle it.”

“What if you get caught with it?”

“I’ll blame it on you two.”

“I doubt you would,” said Belle.

“I know you wouldn’t,” said Beatrice.

“Do what I told you with Jolene,” said Wylie. “And never say anything about this again. Even in the privacy of your own home. Never, anyone. You know what this would do to Mom and Steen?”

Beatrice sighed hugely and hung her head again.

“How are we going to keep Let It Bean going and keep a roof over our heads?” asked Belle.

“We’ll figure something.”

“I’ve already figured that double the lease and a new roof will bankrupt us by March,” said Belle. “It’s pretty simple math, Wylie.”

“We’ll figure something,” he said. “My first idea is to send you two idiots to Mammoth PD and let you explain the whole mess. Mercy of the court and all that.”

“After all this effort? Go ahead, Judas!” Belle threw open the side door and slammed it behind her. A moment later, Wylie saw her through one of the small garage windows, trudging down Madrone toward town. He watched her, seeing himself — the same strong body and will, the same talent for escalating a bad idea into a worse one.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he checked the text from April: “Took Snowcreek cuz you liked the view. Gate code 1015.”

Bea gave him a knowing look as he put the phone back in his pocket. “What are you going to do, Wylie?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“We’ll find a way.”

“It started with the skis, like, can we get away with this pair of Head five twenties? It looked so fun and easy. And it was. Then it got out of hand.”

“Way of the world, Bea.”

“I don’t want to grow up.”

Wylie looked after Belle again, but she was long gone. He wished he could run her down and hug her, make it all go away. His head and heart hurt. The snow fell harder. He saw a white Mercedes SUV coming up Madrone in the snow. The asphalt was black where the tires rode and white on the edges and the middle. The SUV pulled into the development entrance and, to Wylie’s mounting anxiety, came down the street toward 12 Madrone.

“Stand away from that window,” he said.

“Nobody ever stops or looks.”

Wylie yanked her to the wall with him. The Mercedes pulled up behind his truck and parked, and the exhaust lingered in the heavy air. Looking through the tinted, snow-dusted windows, Wylie could make out a driver and a passenger. The driver got out and Wylie recognized him as the Mammoth councilman/Realtor, Howard Deetz. His apparent client, Jacobie Bradford, dropped from the passenger seat to the ground, looked up from his phone, then gave 12 Madrone the executive once-over. Howard noted Wylie’s truck and trailer. He motioned to Jacobie and headed toward the front of the house.

“That perv Jacobie,” said Bea. “You wouldn’t believe the crap he pulls at Mountain High.”

“They’ll use the lockbox on the front door,” whispered Wylie. “As soon as I say, I want you out that side door and lost. I mean lost fast. Do you understand?”

“Not without you!” she whispered back.

“You obey me, Bea, or I swear you’ll regret it. Okay, go!”

He watched Bea zigzag through the tall, dense pines. She ran up a gentle rise, down into a swale, and then vanished, footprints dark ovals in the white.

Wylie waited, imagining the entrance that Jacobie and Howard were likely making. When he thought he’d allowed the right amount of time for Howard to open the lockbox, unlock the door proper, hold open the door for Jacobie, who would then enter and pause in the entryway for an oh-wow moment before beginning the tour, Wylie slipped quietly out, shut the door, and strode to his truck, keys in one hand. His fingers touched the door handle.

“Yo! Wylie Welborn!” called Jacobie. He stood at the railing on the near side of the porch, holding his phone out from his ear. “What are you doing? Burglarizing this home?”