“Bear,”
I whispered.
He
jerked as though I were a terrorist about to lob a grenade at his private
parts.
I
opened the door and stepped out.
“Mazie?”
His voice cracked in disbelief. “How did you—I don’t believe it!” His
face split into a grin. He was a big guy, two hundred pounds on a six-two
frame. He had hazel eyes, short brown hair touched with senatorial silver, a
golf-course tan, and a spattering of precancerous bumps across his nose. He was
wearing a light blue shirt, a tie slung around his neck like a noose, and the
most wonderful smile I’d ever seen.
“Come
to Papa, baby girl!”
His
hug felt wonderful. For the first time in ages I felt warm and safe. Bear
smelled like cinnamon soap and guy sweat. This man had been my rampart, my
staunchest defender, my best friend throughout the whole ordeal of my arrest
and trial. He’d never believed for a single instant that I’d murdered Kip. He’d
paid for my lawyer, protected me from the worst media abuses, and even after I
was sentenced to prison had never abandoned me. He phoned whenever he could
take time out of his frantically busy schedule and always remembered
Christmases and birthdays. He was my big brother, taking the place of the
pathetic excuses for siblings who shared my DNA but who rarely bothered to visit
or phone.
“How
come you’re not wearing a bra?” he whispered in my ear.
“Long
story.” Tears squirted from my eyes. Being held felt fabulous.
“I
want to hear every word of it. My God, Mazie—you’re a folk hero, you’re
Bonnie Parker and Bambi Bembenek rolled into one.”
“Bear—listen!
That video, the nanny cam thing—”
“Aunt
Van phoned me, Maze. She was insane, she was babbling about you
kidnapping her dogs, holding a gun
on her—”
“She
is
insane, Bear! She tried to electrocute me, no shit!”
“What were you
doing there? You know Vanessa is—”
“Missing a few
buttons on her remote control? Yeah, but I wanted the nanny cam tape. The tape
is weird, Bear. I think it’s a
guy
wearing my nightgown, it’s three days
earlier and—”
“Whoa!
Mazie, baby, you know I love ya, but you’re sounding a little—”
“Wacko.
I know.” I laughed. “But with this video I can get a new trial—”
He
held me a little away from him, hands on my shoulders so he could look directly
at me. “Sweetie, the first thing you need to do is turn yourself in. I’ll
arrange everything. We can call from right here, my office.”
Maybe
he was right. Maybe I
should
give myself up. With Bear behind me, it
wouldn’t be too bad.
Girl,
are you on crack?
Suddenly I was channeling Liza Loonsfoot, Taycheedah’s
most outspoken jailhouse lawyer. A Ho-Chunk Indian serving fifteen years for
killing her abusive stepfather, Liza had earned a mail-order law degree from
Marquette University and knew more about the legal system than most Supreme
Court justices.
Once
they toss you back in the can they’ll let you rot!
Liza yelled at me.
It’ll
be months before the State Court of Appeals gets around to considering the
paperwork you filed. Even then you got no guarantee they’ll believe that hairy
toes and some computer shit is spooky enough to give you an evidentiary
hearing. They’ll say you monkeyed with the film. They’ll ask who besides
yourself had a motive to kill Kip and you’ll be forced to answer you don’t
know.
“I’m
not turning myself in,” I said.
I took a deep
breath. Then I said the words out loud for the first time, the words I’d been
thinking but hadn’t dared utter until now. “I’m going to find who really killed
Kip.”
Bear
smiled. “The
real killer
. Like OJ, right?”
“Actually,
I was thinking Doctor Richard Kimble.”
He
gave me a blank look.
“You
know,
The Fugitive
—the guy who hunts down the one-armed killer?”
“Baby,
it’s been four years. You aren’t going to find a one-armed killer, a two-armed
killer, or a guy with three balls after all this time.”
“Listen,
Bear—all kinds of weird stuff is popping up. I’ve found the loose end of
a ball of yarn and I just need to give it a yank and everything will start to
unravel. Like the snapshot. I found a snapshot hidden in Kip’s old bedroom, an
Instamatic—”
“Instamatic?”
“You
know—those cheap little cameras people used before cellphones were
invented. Here, I’ll show you.” I patted through my pockets, trying to remember
where I’d stuck the snapshot.
“Not
here,” Bear said hastily. “Someone could barge in any second. Did anyone spot
you entering the building?”
“I
don’t think so. I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
Bear
grinned. “Mazie, you’re the biggest celebrity this state has produced since the
Fonz. I only hope half your popularity rubs off on me.”
“The
Fonz wasn’t actually
from
Milwaukee.”
He chuckled. His
big hands made soothing circles on my back. “Where did you get this ridiculous
outfit? Who’s been helping you?”
“I
stole them out of a janitor’s closet.”
I don’t know why
I fibbed. After all, Bear would have to know about Labeck sooner or later. I
was about to launch into an explanation when Muffin suddenly woke with a snort,
shot out of the toolbox, and lunged for Bear, snapping ferociously at his calf.
“Goddamit!”
Bear, who’d been a college football star, still had great reflexes; he
sidestepped quickly and I snatched up Muffin before he could do any damage. He
gave one sharp yip before I managed to clamp a hand over his muzzle.
“He
ought to be on a leash,” Bear growled, examining his pants leg and discovering
it was ripped. “Listen, baby, against my better judgment, I’ll do what I can to
help you.”
“I
knew you’d come through.”
He
rubbed his forehead. His hair had receded a lot since I’d last seen
him—were those implants on his scalp? “All right then. We’ve got to do
this fast. Your clock is ticking away here. I want you to drive out to my
summer place. You remember where it is?”
I
nodded. The westernmost suburb of the city, out near Moon Lake.
“The
cottage is closed down now—Charlene’s in California, and I’ve been
staying at our condo downtown, so the place will be empty. You’ll be safe
there. I’d drive you there myself, but—”
“No,
forget it—you’re sticking your neck out as it is.” I started getting
teary. I couldn’t help it; I was a big, brimming bag of hormones. I didn’t
deserve this guy.
Bear
flashed his smile, each shining tooth worth twenty thousand votes. “It’s been a
long time since I had to do anything riskier than miss a roll call vote. I
forgot how much fun it can be flouting the law.” He handed me a set of keys
with an attached card. “Take my car. And stick to the speed limit. Every
trigger-happy cop in the state will be gunning for you. I’ll get out there as
soon as I can.”
Escape tip #17:
Get connected.
When he was in
DC, Bear drove a Mercedes, but in Wisconsin he was careful to be seen driving
an American-made vehicle. I had no trouble finding his car in the parking
garage: a large, black, testosterone-injected Chrysler with a sheen like lights
on dark water. Power steering, power brakes, power shifting, power
everything—it practically drove itself. All I had to do was vaguely aim
it in the right direction. Exiting the garage, I didn’t even have to worry
about a ticket taker; just slide Bear’s parking card into a reader slot and
wait for the gate to go up before floating out onto the street.
Muffin
was in heaven. He bounced back and forth between the front and back seats and
rolled around on the upholstery, trying to soak the rich leathery aroma into
his fur, even giving it a couple of exploratory licks. My favorite part of the
car was the tinted windows. I could see out, but no one could see in.
More
police patrols than usual seemed to be out on the street. Traffic snarled and
then stopped. A motorcycle cop swarmed up next to me and rapped sharply on my
window. My heart stopped beating. How had they found me so quickly? Were they
using see-in-the-dark scopes that could pierce through tinted windows? The cop
jerked his thumb toward the right, indicating that I should pull over.
What would Doctor Richard Kimble do?
Smash through a ring of cop cars, weave
through traffic, and lead a whole squadron of pursuers on a high-speed chase.
Then he’d drive off a dam.
What
was Mazie Maguire going to do? Get out, spread ’em, and beg for mercy.
I steered toward the curb. Wait!
Mine wasn’t the only car being nudged off to the right. There was some kind of
disturbance up ahead, near the public museum. People were milling around
angrily as though they’d just learned that scalpers had snapped up the last
ticket to the Bon Jovi concert. Protesters were marching along the sidewalk,
spilling into the street, chanting and brandishing hand-lettered signs. They
seemed to be riled about an upcoming museum exhibit.
Opening
soon
—
BodyWorks!
read a giant banner draped across the museum’s
faux-Grecian columns. It depicted a thirty-foot-tall man with skin cut away to
expose his muscles and tendons, a creature that would stomp through your dreams
on nights when you’ve snacked on jalapeño peppers and peppermint schnapps
before bedtime.
The
police moved in, the demonstrators gave way, traffic started flowing, and I
began breathing again. What had
that
been about? Going with the flow, I
cruised west over the long viaduct that straddled the Menominee Valley, Milwaukee’s
industrial underbelly. The aromas of roasting malt from the Miller Brewery and
the rising bread smell of the Harvest Queen Yeast plant crept in even through
the car’s closed windows.
Soon the
landscape began to change from city to suburban. Houses got larger, lawns got
greener, streets got wider. Traffic dwindled, kids pedaled along on bikes,
mothers pushed strollers along the sidewalks.
The
Chrysler drove like a winged chariot; even the biggest potholes felt no bumpier
than a pea beneath forty layers of mattresses, unlike my old Ford van, which
had ridden like a municipal toilet being dragged across the Rockies by an ox
team. Still, I’d kept on driving it even after I’d married Kip, because
marriage had not improved my financial situation enough to buy a new car. Kip
drove a natty Lexus convertible, a gift from his mother. But the Lexus had wear
and tear around the edges, its air-conditioning didn’t work, and Kip was always
talking about trading it in for something sexier.
A used Beamer or
Porsche—Kip might have been able to swing one if he’d lied on his credit
application. But a
Maserati
? Auctioning a lung, kidney, and testicle to
the highest bidder, he’d only have been able to afford a Maserati’s front
bumper. What bank had he robbed to obtain that
paid in full
from the
Maserati dealership? And what had happened to the car? Shouldn’t the dealer
have refunded the money when he’d heard of Kip’s death?
Preoccupied, I
missed the Brenner driveway. I braked sharply, reversed, and made a left turn,
halting in front of the iron scrollwork gates that guarded the entrance to the
drive. The gates swung open with a click of a dashboard button and I followed
the winding driveway up a wooded slope until it ended in a turnaround in front
of the cottage.
What Bear called
a cottage was three million dollars’ worth of glass, redwood, and fieldstone.
It had four bedrooms, a sauna, a library, and a living room with a view of the
lake from every window. The grounds were a tad scruffy, the grass in need of
watering, and the shrubbery overgrown, clear indications that the place hadn’t
been occupied for a couple of weeks. I parked the Chrysler in the garage,
remoted the door closed, and used Bear’s keys to let myself into the house.
Muffin scurried ahead, delighted to have a new place to explore, his tail stub
wagging like a metronome.