Chapter 16: Fustercluck
Max took the cigarette lighter out of the console of her rental and put in a phone charger that was compatible with the disposable burner phone they got out of the storage locker containing all the Arnold Trainor evidence.
They had driven to the Turtle Shell Car Wash in silence, and every glance Chloe could afford to steal at Max showed she had her worry-face on: The upraised eyebrows, the baby-blues darting back and forth, the lower lip that seemed to pout by itself. Chloe hated Max's worry-face. Every time it was deployed, Chloe thought that Max's worry could have been better spent on someone who was more… something than she was.
Chloe didn't want to think about her new memories. She didn't want to think about how they felt as though each new one crowded the inside of her skull and gave her a headache that wasn't actually there. She didn't want to think of the unbidden image of Rachel, wrapped in plastic beneath the dirt of a junkyard: an angel buried under the shittiness of Arcadia Bay.
And she really didn't think about the feeling she'd been having during the drive back into Arcadia Bay. The feeling of finally being aware of a dam surrounding her consciousness, and that dam was finally beginning to break. The memories she had gotten back up to that point had been the first couple of leaks, and this dam would not sustain another. Chloe had the feeling that the next memory to come to her would bring all of the other memories with it. And giving how fried her brain was feeling, Chloe thought that getting all of those alternate memories back at once would scorch it to blackness.
No… Chloe wanted to think about the case.
So, to recap… she thought.
Justin Williams was murdered, and Chloe, being at the two-day-old scene when the cops arrived, was arrested for it.
It turned out that a man named Arnold Trainor was the murderer, as evidenced by both his possession of the gun that killed Justin, as well as that of a disposable phone that had summoned the cops to bust Chloe. Said phone had had only two calls placed from it: the call to police, as well as to a second number that the Arcadia Bay Police Department couldn't (or wouldn't) trace. Max was attempting to look up that second number right now.
But Trainor was dead as well, murdered in the front seat of his car, and Chloe was of the belief that someone hired Trainor to kill Justin for reasons as yet unknown, and then killed Trainor themselves once the job was done to get rid of any witnesses.
To make matters worse, a local drug lord who called himself The Bull made his presence felt in Chloe's life, and didn't want Chloe pursuing the case further. While others might consider a friendly chat or a strongly worded letter to be sufficient means of warning, The Bull liked to blow up cars in hotel parking lots and shoot dirty cops right in front of her.
On the other side of this, however, was Denise Leonard, who was the CFO of Leonard International (the conglomerate that moved into Arcadia Bay four years ago after Prescott Development moved out). She was also of the belief that someone hired Trainor to kill Justin. In fact, she believed it was The Bull, and was willing to pay Chloe an obscene amount of money to prove it, as The Bull was apparently jacking Leonard International shipments and dealing the drugs inside.
Denise also had the hots for Chloe, and couldn't have been less subtle about that fact than if she had hired Superman to use his heat vision to etch the words "GET IN MY PANTS" on the surface of the moon. Denise was face-meltingly hot, though, and whether or not Chloe actually would was… still up for debate.
Making things more complicated was the apparent connection between Justin's murder and the disappearance of a local high school student named Jennifer Healy, whose half-sister Margarita Newman (also missing) was Justin's girlfriend. The disappearances of the two women and the murder of Justin Williams dovetailed too nicely to be a coincidence.
But the complications didn't stop there. According to Max, Jennifer Healy also had Max's old ability of rewinding time. Max's gut belief in this, combined with the vague and irritating metaphors of Samuel the Creepy Blackwell Janitor, the scientific guesswork of Warren Graham, the ancient prophecy of Nathan Prescott, drops of rain falling where they weren't supposed to, and the new introduction of memories from another timeline, meant that Chloe didn't even try to dispute this theory anymore.
Progress, however, was being made. Using a key provided by Denise, Chloe and Max entered a storage shed that contained all the ABPD evidence in the shooting of Arnold Trainor. They found a Leonard International ID badge with Trainor's picture and name on it (likely making him the mole that enabled The Bull to get at the drugs inside the Leonard International shipments), the afore mentioned disposable phone, and a photo on the side of a coffee mug that not only indicated that Trainor and The Bull knew each other and were almost preciously tight, but also implicated Max's old classmate Logan Robertson, at whose place of employment Chloe and Max were parked outside at the present moment.
Most distressing of all, however, was the presence in the storage shed of over a dozen pictures of a very clearly drugged Jennifer Healy. In each photo she was wearing a different set of rather nice clothes, and in each photo, she was standing next to a red digital clock that placed the time at 11:59 PM. All of these photos were dated, and said dates occurred after Jennifer Healy was reported missing.
Got all that? Chloe asked herself. Good.
Max clicked a few buttons on the disposable phone. "I have it," she said.
"Have what?" Chloe asked, grateful at the opportunity to stir to life.
"The second number," Max said. "The area code is… 703."
Max didn't need to be asked to find out where the 703 area code was. Out came her phone.
"703…is in…"
Max looked confused. She looked from her phone, to Chloe, back to her phone.
"It's in Virginia," Max said.
"What's in Virginia?" Chloe asked.
Max shrugged. "Virginians?"
Max waited for a laugh that wasn't coming before picking up the disposable phone and hitting the redial option. She put the phone up to her ear, and…"
"Fuck," Max said. "The phone's out of minutes."
Max put the phone on the dashboard and appeared to be disoriented for a moment, like she remembered the awkward situation she was in before the burner phone provided a temporary respite.
Then the worry-face came back.
"You know Rachel would be proud of you, right?"
"Max," Chloe said. "Don't."
"You have to know that, don't you? I mean, I know I didn't know Rachel…"
"Right," Chloe said. "You didn't."
Chloe got out of the car, leaving Max to follow her.
Chloe figured that the Turtle Shell Car Wash was as nice as a car wash could be while still being, well, a car wash. The carpets were inky in their blackness, the imitation marble tile shone like mirrors. The glass of the framed nature photos on the wall (including a Max Caulfield lighthouse print) gleamed without a speck of dust marring their surface.
They did not have to look far for their quarry. Logan Robertson may have gained a few pounds, his hairline may have receded a bit, but he still looked like the same entitled douchebag that Chloe had only tangentially known since her teens. In fact, were Chloe to recall Logan at all before today, she would have referred to him internally as "Baron von Shitstain," so visceral was her distaste for the man.
He saw them coming from his spot behind the counter. He leaned on it and turned on the greasy repulsion that must have been confused in his mind for charm. His smile couldn't have been more unappealing than if it had been plastered on the face of a moray eel.
"Well well," Logan said. "Max Caulfield and Chloe Price. To what do I owe your eventual pleasure?"
"Logan," Max said. Chloe had never heard her voice sound so cold.
Chloe didn't bother with playing nice.
"How's The Bull?" Chloe asked. "He treating you okay?"
The smile couldn't have fallen off of Logan's face faster than if Chloe had waved a magic wand to make it disappear.
"Oh shit," Logan said. He picked up a walkie-talkie that was next to the cash register and pressed the button to talk.
"Pepe," Logan said. "I'm going on my break."
They convened near the dumpster at the back of the car wash where, intermittently, a newly scrubbed vehicle would leave the facility on its way to God knows where.
Logan had a cigarette in his mouth. He patted the pockets of his jeans.
"You got a light?" he asked.
"Fuck you," Chloe said. "I'm not giving you shit. Rub a couple of sticks together and light it that way."
"Chloe, man, don't be a dick."
"My first question," Chloe said. "My first question. Why would anyone want Justin Williams dead?"
Logan took the cigarette out of his mouth and placed it behind his ear. "Fuck if I know."
"Oh, fuck if you know? Arnold Trainor killed Justin. That's not a theory, that's a fact. You and Trainor and The Bull were tight…"
"How do you know the three of us were tight?" Logan asked. It was pathetic, really, as though he were playing for time.
"You mean besides the shade of pale you turned when I mentioned The Bull? The three of you are in a picture that was screened onto the side of a coffee mug. A coffee mug. That's something someone's mom does, or something someone's BFF does. Arnold Trainor didn't look like anyone's mom to me."
"Wait," Logan said. "You still say 'BFF?'"
Even Max laughed at that one.
"I'm beginning to think," Chloe said, "that Trainor wasn't bright enough or ambitious enough to act on his own. Someone hired him to kill Justin. Who? Why?"
"I repeat," Logan said, "fuck if I know."
"Was it The Bull?" Chloe asked, hoping something would stick.
At this, Logan looked genuinely surprised. "No! It couldn't have been!"
Chloe rolled her eyes.
"We know Trainor worked at Leonard International," Max said. "He had a really important job. The Bull sold the drugs that got stolen from Leonard International shipments…"
"Wait, wait, wait," Logan said. "You're saying Arnie was playing both sides against the middle?"
"Well," Max said. "It's as good a theory as any."
"Arnie wouldn't have done that," Logan said. "And The Bull wouldn't have had Arnie killed. I mean yeah, he's been acting kinda weird lately…"
"Why's that?" Chloe asked.
Logan sighed and straightened his shirt out. "You said that The Bull has been jacking drugs from Leonard International shipments. And yeah, that's true, but the past couple of weeks… someone's been jacking the shipments back."
Chloe and Max looked at each other. "Who?" Max asked.
"Do you two honestly think that The Bull is the only guy in Arcadia Bay who wants to sell drugs? For my money, someone inside Leonard International wants to get in on the action too. Someone high up. The Bull's guys are getting stuck up, like, an hour after they get the drugs. No one knows how, except that someone in The Bull's inner circle is ratting him out."
The two women looked at each other again. "You do realize this backs up our theory, right?" Chloe asked. "The Bull finds out that his mole is moling for the other side too, and he gets killed for his trouble."
"Except Arnie wouldn't do that," Logan said. "Arnold Trainor and The Bull have known each other since way back. They came to Arcadia Bay together. Jesus, they probably held up kids for their lunch money together in the third grade! Arnie wouldn't rat, and The Bull wouldn't kill him. It's impossible!"
"And you still don't know how Justin ties into all this? Because he does tie in."
Logan laughed. "I expected this from you, Max. You don't know how shit is done around here. But I'm surprised at you, Chloe. I know what you do, and who you do it with. Do you have any fucking idea how long the chain is between a street dealer and the source of what he deals? I doubt Justin knew he was working for The Bull. I'd even go so far as to doubt that The Bull knew Justin was working for him! Lots of luck, ladies, but your guess on this one really is as good as mine."
As soon as she heard him say it, Chloe knew he wasn't lying. Dead end.
"Any guess on what Trainor wanted with Jennifer Healy?" Chloe asked.
Logan scrunched up his face. "Who the fuck is Jennifer Healy?"
They drove back to the Blue Cove in their now almost-ritual silence. Max pulled up to the curb in front of the entrance and reached for Chloe's hand. Chloe left the car before they could touch. She didn't look back to the car as she made her way into the building. She knew the look of heartache that would be on Max's face, and she didn't want to feel worse.
As soon as she got into her apartment, she began the task of rounding up all her dirty clothes from her bedroom. She wadded them into a laundry basket and took them downstairs to the Blue Cove's laundry room. She shoved the clothes into the washer, poured some of the detergent that some poor, generous soul in the building kept providing over her mess of a wardrobe, and set the machine to the Heavy/Warm setting.
She was sick of the case. Sick of Max. Sick of the memories coming back. Sick of the dam around her brain, holding back all those old alternate recollections and was threatening to burst at any moment. She needed a magazine. A book. Something to take her mind off of… everything.
She left the laundry room to go back upstairs and…
WHAM!
The punch to the face both knocked Chloe on her ass and shattered her glasses. She moaned in pain, curled up into the fetal position, and removed the broken remnants of her glasses from her face. She picked a small piece of lens out of the soft flesh beneath her lower eyelid. She felt a warm stream of blood beneath her palm.
She heard someone say "Ow!"
Even through one blurry eye, she knew who they were. The First Guy and The Second Guy. The Bull's henchmen.
"That really fuckin' hurt," The First Guy said.
"You hit a lady," said The Second Guy. "You hit someone with glasses. The two people you aren't supposed to hit, and you did it with one punch."
"Hey," The First Guy said. "She's still moving."
Chloe tried to get to her feet.
"Dude," The Second Guy said. "If you wanna knock someone out, you line up the first two knuckles on your hand and aim for the temple. See? Like this."
The Second Guy punched Chloe in the side of the head. True to his word, the world slipped away from her.
The cold sea air brought her to.
Even with her blurry vision, Chloe knew where she was. Max's favorite spot.
"The lighthouse?"
She heard a familiar voice say "I told you I was a dramatic motherfucker."
She got up to a sitting position to face The Bull. As soon as she did, she felt the boot of The Second Guy land a hard kick to her kidneys. Her entire torso exploded in a pain that Chloe was not too proud to articulate verbally. She fell to her side.
"Logan Robertson is a shithead," The Bull said. "But he's a loyal shithead. And the only reason he's still alive is because he had nothing to tell you. You know that third warning I told you about last night? This is it."
It was at this moment that Chloe figured that the recurring memories from her alternate teenage self may have rubbed off on her more than she'd realized. The twenty-four year old Chloe would have resigned herself to her impending doom beneath the lighthouse at Koch's Folly… but the nineteen year old Other Chloe would have thought to herself "I bet I can make it out of this!"
"So I'm asking the wrong questions," Chloe said. "What are the right ones?"
She saw The Bull nod to someone she couldn't see. The First Guy came around and landed a hard kick to her abdomen that robbed her of all her breath.
"You should be flattered," The Bull said. "Not everyone's life gets to end with such a pretty view. I myself hope I'd get to die somewhere as pretty as this place."
Chloe got her breath back. "Why did Trainor take Jennifer Healy?"
The Bull looked between his two henchmen. "Who the fuck is Jennifer Healy?"
Well, that was one theory shot.
The Bull crouched to get closer to her. "I loved Arnold Trainor like a brother. See, you running around doing shit I told you not to do is one thing, but you're planting ideas in people's heads about how my best friend in the world is playing me and Leonard against each other, well… now it's kinda personal. But the question isn't about what you know. The question is what do I know… about Max Caulfield?"
Chloe's blurry vision flashed red.
"Oh yeah," The Bull said. "The two of you have history. I can see it now. Local celebrity Max Caulfield abducted on the way to Chloe Price's funeral. Found a week later on the lawn of Leonard International's Arcadia Bay headquarters. Crucified with her eyes cut out. Y'know, since she takes pictures, I thought that last part would be kinda poetic."
"If you so much as write her name down," Chloe said, "then I will burn the world to get to you."
The Bull stood back up again. "I don't think it's sunk in yet, Chloe. In less than a minute, you are going to fucking die!"
He shook his head and reached under his sports jacket, producing the same pistol he used to kill Detective Finch.
"If anything is gonna bring this world to ruination," The Bull said, "and I do mean anything, it's gonna be duck-ass little bitches like you."
Chloe noticed that The Bull was standing with his legs apart.
The Bull pointed the gun at her.
"Say good night, Chloe."
Chloe smiled as wide as she could, said "Good night, Chloe!" and kicked The Bull in the nuts.
The Bull doubled over and dropped the gun. Utilizing a speed that even she didn't know she had, Chloe grabbed the gun, pivoted in her sitting position, and fired two shots into the darkness behind her. She wasn't trying to hit anyone (and given that she didn't have her glasses anymore, she most likely couldn't have if she'd wanted to), but those two bullets had the desired effect. She heard The First Guy and The Second Guy scatter.
She got to her feet and started running. She heard The Bull behind her.
"SOMEONE SHOOT THAT FUCKING WHORE!"
Too late.
The Bull's gun in hand, Chloe made it to the cliff's edge, and jumped.
