[To Die For 01] - A View to Die For (2012) (21 page)

“Can it wait until tomorrow?” Taylor asked. “He’s still pissed about the coin we tried to sell. I don’t want to go anywhere near that jerk. Mom says he’s going to go on another trip to California tomorrow.”

Megan went back to making scrambled eggs, but she couldn’t keep her eyes and ears from the yarn I was spinning. “Well, you guys can’t stay here during the showing. I suppose you could come with us, but I really need to install that update. There’s a new virus out that can destroy his hard-drive if he gets it before I apply the update.”

“You better tell Dad about it. The tech at his work should be able to take care of it.” That’s the trouble with lying. It seems even a little white lie can grow faster than a vine and kill its host before you know it.

“Damn it!” Meg yelled. “I hope you guys like your eggs black because I can’t make any more. This is the last of the food unless someone comes up with some money to buy more.” She had been so busy watching me dig myself into a hole that she had burned the eggs.

“I know how to make some quick cash,” Kevin said.

“Oh?” Megan asked while she scooped the eggs into Fred’s bowl.

“All that junk in Taylor’s truck, we can take it to the recycle yard and take what they don’t buy to the dump after that. Kill us two birds with one stick.”

“Stone,” I said automatically. Then I realized it was the perfect way to keep Taylor in my sights until I could get to his father’s computer. “But that’s an excellent idea, Kevin.”

Megan played along with my ruse, and said she and Fred would go over to Mother’s, so the realtor could show the house. My guess was she would double back once she saw the truck leave.

* * *

When we made it to the recycle yard in Sedalia, there was a line waiting to unload. Taylor didn’t have air conditioning in his truck, and it was hot and humid. With the wind blowing through the open windows, the drive up from Truman had been tolerable, but now that we were only moving a car length every fifteen or twenty minutes, I was suffocating. I sure missed my mountain air.

“What’s the hold up?” Kevin asked.

An obese, middle-aged man dressed in jeans that hung too low, was at the front of the line, arguing with an attendant. I couldn’t hear what was being said; we were several pickup trucks away. He should have been arrested for indecent exposure. His butt crack was sticking out for all to see.

“Looks like some people have to sort out the stuff they won’t take. See the sign over there?” I said. The sign read in twelve inch red letters: “NO REFRIGERATORS OR AIR CONDITIONERS WITHOUT CERTIFIED FREON REMOVAL CERTIFICATE.” The fine print went on to list all the different appliances they would not accept.

The overweight man finally got back in his truck and pulled over with the other customers, who were trying to separate the metals in their trucks into piles the yardman would accept.

Our load was no exception. When we finally got our turn to unload, the yardman refused our refrigerator. “Sorry, Boys,” he said. “Read the sign. I can’t take those. But if you want to come back with just the coils, we’d be happy to buy the copper from you.”

Then it hit me. I remembered seeing on television how the theft of copper coils from air conditioners had reached such epidemic proportions that some counties had started tracking their sale. “You keep a record of those, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah. We give that to the cops whenever they get a hair up their ass to crack down on copper theft,” he answered.

“Anyway I can get the list for last month? My mother had her outside unit stolen. It might help track down the culprits.”

“Axe ‘em in the office. Maybe they can help ya.”

It took us twenty minutes to sort through the junk in the truck before we were able to go back through the scales and determine how much scrap metal we actually had to sell. The boys waited in the truck while I went in to collect our reward. I was surprised to see a thick glass plate separating me from the clerk. I had seen a setup like this at a few convenience stores in some of the less desirable neighborhoods back in Denver, but it was a shock to see it here.

The girl behind the counter was a female replica of my nephew. It must have hurt for her to speak with the rings in her lips. “Looks like twenty-three dollars and sixty cents,” she said through the speaking disk built into the glass. “I just need a driver’s license and a signature.” She slipped an invoice in the tray on her side of the window then pushed it toward me.

I signed the invoice, returned it to the tray along with my Colorado driver’s license, and pushed the tray back to her. “They told me in the yard that you might be able to get me a copy of copper sellers for the last few weeks. My mother had her air conditioner ripped off, and I was hoping the thief might have tried to sell the coils to you.”

“You’ll have to get that from the police. We only give that information to law enforcement,” she answered, then after looking at my license, “Do you have a Missouri ID? I can’t accept an out-of-state license.”

“No. I’m just visiting.”

She pushed the license back to me through her tray and nodded toward Taylor’s truck. “How about one of them?”

“Sure. They both live here. Hold on, and I’ll go get my nephew.”

I returned a minute later with Kevin. “Phat lookin snake bites, Sharene,” he said when he saw her.

“You guys know each other?” I asked, looking at her lip more closely. Then I saw the connection. The holes from the rings looked like a snake had bitten her.

“Yeah, Uncle Martin. Me and Sharene used to hang together.” Then turning to his old girlfriend, he said “What you doin workin here? Who’s watchin the kid?”

“My mom. Hey, hold on, and I’ll see if I can get your uncle what he needs.”

The twenty-three dollars and change didn’t even pay the dump fees when we eventually made it to the landfill. The place seemed even hotter than the recycle yard. And the smell was a lot worse. They wouldn’t take the refrigerator either. It was looking like we would be stuck with a white elephant until the gal in the office gave me a number of someone who would take appliances for a price. I saw a McDonald’s soon after leaving the dump and offered to buy the boys lunch.

The cool air of the restaurant was a welcome relief. I ordered six McDoubles, three fries and three large cokes. It was cheap, but it nearly broke me. “I’m sorry, Uncle Martin. I really thought we could make some money doing this.” Kevin said when we sat down at a table by an older couple with their grandkids.

“It’s okay. I still have a little put aside. We’ll stop off at an ATM before we get home. Just don’t tell your mom. Let her think we got it selling junk.” Then the couple and their grandkids got up and moved to the far table. Either we smelled worse than I thought, or they thought the boys were vampires seeking new recruits.

“Do you think the disk will help catch the guy who trashed your mother’s house?” Taylor asked after scarfing down his two burgers faster than Fred ever did.

“With a little luck, I might be able to find him. But it might take a while. Kevin’s girlfriend copied the last two months of copper sellers to a floppy disk. My computer doesn’t have a floppy drive.”

“Don’t look at me,” Kevin said with his mouth full of fries. “I ain’t seen one of them in years.”

“You could buy an old computer at the Goodwill,” Taylor said. “It’s right on our way home.”

“Great idea. But first we need to hit that ATM and then get rid of the refrigerator,” I answered as I reached for my cell. “Finish up while I get the address of the appliance store. We need to get home before it gets dark.”

The boys had to use the restroom before we left, so I amused myself by people watching. Only the old couple with grandkids seemed to be interested in us. They were probably wondering about the hygiene of vampires and wondering why the boys didn’t use the restroom before eating. Once the boys joined me to leave, I waved to the grandparents on the way out. I swear I saw the grandmother grab the nearest grandkid.

After dropping off the refrigerator at the appliance store, we stopped at the nearest ATM. I withdrew a couple hundred, and we headed for the Goodwill Taylor had mentioned. I struck out again. They didn’t have any computers – new or old. They no longer accepted electronic donations because there was no market for the stuff, and it cost them money to get rid of it. They suggested I could try one of the many so-called flea markets that lined Highway sixty-five on the way home, but I didn’t want to waste my time. I would order a floppy drive online and wait to read the disk until it came. I had more urgent tasks at hand. There was still the matter of getting my hands on Hal’s computer.

It was nearly dark by the time we left the SuperMart in Truman. I had stopped to get some groceries. The bill would have cleaned out my wallet, so I paid with my debit card. A quick mental calculation said I better get some money in the bank soon. “Think your father has left town yet, Taylor?” I asked as we left the parking lot and headed toward Highway Sixty-Five.

Taylor took out his cell phone and touched a single icon. “I’ll check with my mom. She’s probably wondering where I am anyway.”

I pretended not to listen while he got his mother on the line and answered her questions on how he was and if he had eaten lately. I couldn’t actually hear her, but it was obvious from his responses what she had asked. Then he completely surprised me and handed me the phone. “She wants to talk to you, Jake.”

“Hi, Amy,” I said, hoping the boys didn’t notice my red face. “What’s up?”

“Hal wanted to call you. But he has to be in San Diego tomorrow, so he didn’t have time. He was wondering if you could come over and take a look at his computer. He says it has slowed down to a crawl since you fixed it for him.”

“Really? That’s odd. Maybe he got a virus somewhere. I was just telling Taylor I needed to update his virus program, so I’d be happy to come over.”

“Oh, thank you, Jake. I know it wasn’t anything you did. It’s more likely the fool downloaded it himself from some porn site.”

I didn’t know how to respond. Should I agree or try to defend him? “Jake? Are you still there, Jake?” she asked.

“Must have passed a dead zone,” I answered. “What time should I come over?”

“Oh any time. I have to work, but Taylor can let you in. He knows how to turn off the alarm, so come on over whenever he gets out of bed.”

We continued to chat for a few more minutes about how my sister and mother were doing before I returned the phone to Taylor. He held the phone to his ear and rolled his eyes while she talked. It wasn’t lost on Kevin. He made a motion with his hand that imitates someone who won’t stop talking. I wanted to say something in Amy’s behalf, but I thought better of it.

Taylor finally spoke: “Love you too, Mom,” he said and hung up.

When I finally got into Hal’s house, it was well past noon the next day. It wasn’t Taylor’s fault. He was up and ready to go before ten. We had waited for Kevin to get out of bed and finally gave up and went on without him.

Once in the house, Taylor hurried over to a very expensively framed mirror in the foyer, and to my amazement, he opened it like a medicine cabinet. Then he punched in a code on a keypad that was hidden behind the mirror to disarm the alarm. I tried to act uninterested by looking past the foyer into the great-room.

The house made my sister’s look like a shanty. There must have been at least six thousand square feet, and it had been designed without regard for cost. The foyer was larger than my cabin back home. It had a marble floor with a mosaic medallion I would expect to see in a Roman palace. The foyer led into a great room with a window three stories tall that had been situated to catch the view of the lake. This was no tract house; it was designed as a one-of-a-kind work of art. The entire house smelled of money, and it made me wonder if I’d gone into the wrong profession. Then I noticed a small camera with a blinking light pointing at us.

“Is that thing on?” I asked, pointing toward the camera.

“Yeah. Dad had them all over the house until Mom made him take them out,” he answered while leading me toward a set of ten-foot tall French doors off the foyer. “She said only a pervert would want to watch our every move.”

I didn’t comment. I was awestruck by the rich mahogany doors and trim. It must have cost more than I could make in six months.

“Here’s where they installed the main system and DVR,” Taylor said once we were in Hal’s office.

“Where are all the wires, Taylor? You must have at least six different cameras outside, but I don’t see any wires.” I said, pointing to the large LCD monitor on the wall with six different camera angles, including the dock.

Taylor opened a hidden door in the massive wall unit surrounding the monitor. The door led to what must have been a large walk-in closet at one time, but it had been converted to house the electronic equipment and, I assumed, a hidden safe for Hal’s coveted coin collection.

“This box here is for the burglar system,” he said, pointing out a small unit on top of a file cabinet. “It’s hooked to the security company by satellite. It also has a backup power supply over here, so if we lose power, it still works.” I was impressed with Taylor’s knowledge of the system.

“And I take it this is the video surveillance system in this rack.” The box said Surveillance Net 1000.

“Yeah. Cost more than he paid for my truck.” He said with a note of sarcasm. “Nothing is too good for my father. It has a terabyte hard drive and can record up to sixteen cameras. The damn thing is set to record only when the cameras detect motion, so it can store a couple months of data on the hard drive before overwriting it. It even has a DVD recorder to backup data.”

I did a quick mental calculation. “That would take a truck load of DVDs. Even with double sided recording, it would take at least a hundred disks to back up a terabyte.”

“It only backs up what you want. You know if Dad wants a permanent record of something, he can put it on a DVD or copy it to a flash drive with the USB port. He never even bothered until a few weeks ago.”

In less than a second, I knew how to find Born2fish. I tried my best not to show Taylor my revelation by making small-talk. “So there’s that bad boy,” I said, tilting my head in the direction of the computer. I had brought my laptop along as part of the charade and placed it on Hal’s desk, and then sat in his leather office chair. “Guess I better get to work and see what’s slowing it down.”