Fatal Pose

by Barna William Donovan

  But that wasn’t possible just yet, he knew.

  “I need to look at yesterday’s news,” he said, fishing his phone out of his pocket.

  “Why?” Erika asked.

  “There’s a picture of someone in there. Someone I have to ask Sherry about.”

  CHAPTER 63

  “All right, could you just back up for a second and explain this in a coherent, linear fashion?” Erika demanded as their group finally arrived in the David Freeman Hospital cafeteria. “What was that conversation between you and Sherry just now?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Kelly said. “I second that.”

  “Yeah, and I’m third,” Amy said. “This is completely confusing.”

  “Do you catch my drift?” Gunnar asked and glanced at Diane.

  “Not really,” she said. “I’m with them. Could you just recap everything and make it a little clearer?”

  “Let’s sit down,” Gunnar said and led the four women to the nearest table.

  Luckily, he thought, the cafeteria was nearly empty this early in the day. He didn’t care for anyone overhearing their discussion of a murder investigation.

  “Look, it’s not confusing at all,” he said once they had all situated themselves around the table. “Laura knew exactly what I was doing. She knew we were sitting a stakeout in Lomita because she heard us talking about it.”

  “This was all Laura’s doing?” Diane asked, clearly incredulous. “The whole attack? The whole—”

  “Listen, just let me explain.”

  “Please do,” Erika said quickly, impatiently. “And clearly.”

  “All right,” Gunnar replied. “Let’s all take a deep breath, okay? Now, what’s going on is there’s this David Montgomery guy who worked for Laura and the WBBF at one time. He had also been a surveillance and wiretap specialist in the DEA. That’s what I wanted to check in the newspaper. Yesterday they ran a story on his death in a car accident in—”

  “And that’s where you noticed the fact that he used to work for the WBBF?” Kelly cut in.

  “Yeah. And the story went on to talk about how he had done surveillance work for the DEA. Now he was some security man, a fixer for celebrities and companies like the WBBF.”

  “Yeah,” Amy blurted out. “A really rich and successful P. I., right?”

  Gunnar felt her customary sarcasm now grating on the nerves more than usual. “Thanks, Amy. I need some comic relief right now.”

  “Relax,” she shot back, now noticeably agitated. “This is how I deal with stress.”

  There was a challenging look in her eyes, Gunnar noticed. He supposed he understood. She, after all, had also been targeted by the shooters in Lomita.

  “So that’s why I wanted to check with Sherry,” Gunnar went on with his story. “To see if she might have seen him around the gym. Especially before the attack.”

  “You think that was Montgomery?” Erika asked. “The one who attacked Sherry?”

  “Yeah, I do. Sherry said she saw the guy in the gym earlier that day.”

  “But can she be sure?” Diane asked.

  “Oh, yeah. She’s positive. He was there.”

  “But why?” Kelly asked.

  Before Gunnar could reply, Erika glanced at him and said, “To break into your office.”

  Gunnar couldn’t help smiling at her. He loved her sharp, brilliant mind. “Exactly.”

  Then, she added, “Because if he was a surveillance and wiretap man—”

  “You think he’d want to bug your office?” Amy asked.

  Gunnar nodded. “We gotta sweep the place to know for sure, but I think that’s exactly what he wanted to do.”

  “Okay,” Kelly said. “So you think that’s how she knew you were doing the Lomita stakeout?”

  “I’ve talked about it in the office.”

  “And the location?” Kelly asked.

  “Probably…I don’t know for sure, but yeah, probably. Or he just followed me as well. Aside from bugging the office.”

  “So if he follows you—” Erika began.

  “And realizes what’s going on,” Gunnar said, “who I’m watching, he can just use those people as a weapon against me. He—or Laura—can give them a call and tip them off to what’s happening. Lucky they didn’t make a move on Amy.”

  There was a moment’s serious, contemplative silence around the table.

  Gunnar glanced at Amy. “Isn’t it?”

  She wasn’t that cocky right now.

  “So, you think Laura’s still coordinating this whole thing?” Erika asked.

  “This is her doing as far as I’m concerned,” Gunnar said. He was certain that if Montgomery’s listening devices were in place, Laura could make all of this happen. Between Montgomery, his surveillance expertise, his sudden death, and the immediate attack by Charlie Crewson’s hitmen, Laura’s handiwork connecting all the elements was loud and obvious. “I was getting close to the facts, and she used Montgomery and those shooters as a weapon. Hell, after Montgomery’s death, she probably tipped off the gunmen. She might just as well have pointed a gun and fired it. Just as well have tried to kill me, then order Amy’s execution, and yours.”

  More chilly silence hung over the gathering.

  “So, what’s the next move?” Amy asked at length.

  “To take her down with everything I’ve got,” Gunnar said. He knew how merciless his tone sounded, despite the mixed feelings he had had about this case since the beginning. Since he started suspecting the connection between Laura and Holt, since he started suspecting her as a killer, he could still empathize with her. Brad Holt was a psychopathic bastard. He was sure of it. Gunnar could imagine his tormenting Laura not just for money but for the sheer enjoyment of it. Gunnar could well understand her being driven to something extreme. But this attack changed everything. It wasn’t a desperate reflex anymore. Laura had tried to kill Erika, and he was going to take Laura down for it.

  “How?” Erika asked.

  “We gotta know if those bugs are there, for one thing. Then—”

  “Search your office right now?” she asked.

  “We can try. But I doubt it’d be that easy.”

  “Why?”

  “This guy was a pro. I’d bet he could make those devices virtually invisible. I’d like to do a full electronic sweep of the whole office.”

  “But you don’t have that kind of gear, do you?” Amy asked.

  “I don’t own that stuff, no. But I think I can get my hands on it. Ask a couple of favors from a few people in the Corps.”

  “Sweet,” Amy said.

  “But if you find the bugs,” Kelly said, “you can’t necessarily implicate Laura. You have to prove she was involved. I mean, you’ve got one hell of a circumstantial case, but almost nothing in the way of physical evidence. By the same token, you have to tie that stuff—if it turns up—to Montgomery. You’ve got a dead surveillance man, some listening devices, and Laura Preston perched nice and safe in her Century City high rise. It’s a tough enough jump from the listening bugs to Montgomery, let alone to Laura.”

  “I know,” Gunnar admitted. And he was glad Kelly was here to point these things out and deflate his impulsive plans. She was thinking like a lawyer. She was presenting the perfect counter arguments any defense attorney would use to acquit Laura of a murder charge.

  Erika suddenly said, “What if you had the stuff Brad…?”

  She paused, and Gunnar knew what the problem was. He tried glancing at Diane without being noticed.

  Erika continued, “…Brad had over Laura. You know, the reason she killed him.”

  “What he used to blackmail her?” Diane asked bluntly.

  Gunnar said, “What he told you.”

  “And what he used to blackmail her,” Diane said. “I can accept that happened.”

  G
unnar nodded. “If we stand a chance of finding it. But there’s something else we can try, too.”

  “Like what?” Erika asked.

  “If the bugs are there and Laura’s listening, let’s see if we can use them against her.”

  “Feed her phony info?” Erika asked.

  “Something like that. Maybe.”

  There was a hopeful glint in Amy’s eyes. “We’ll go for it now?”

  “We can give it a shot,” Gunnar said. “But we have to have one hell of a story worked out to make her fall for it.”

  “If you guys can hold off on that for a couple of hours,” Kelly said, “I could help out. Do some play acting for the bugs. But before we do, I need to find a quiet spot and do a Zoom meeting with some people in Fresno in about an hour. It’s a real crazy case as is, and I don’t want to put this off.”

  “Yeah,” Gunnar said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Any crazier than this one?” Amy asked, the sarcastic edge coming back to her voice.

  “Okay, perhaps not the right choice of words,” Kelly replied. “I think this case’s got mine beat for craziness as of right now. The one I’m doing is a nice, plain and simple one involving alleged theft of automotive stuff from an army base.”

  “I thought you did mostly family law,” Amy said, not looking at Kelly anymore but scanning the menu above the lunch counter across the cafeteria.

  And not a bad idea, Gunnar thought. He hoped they had decent coffee in this place.

  “Not mostly,” Kelly told Amy. “Just a lot. But after this, I think I’ll seriously consider it.” She then pushed her chair back and got up from the table. “So, Gunnar, just keep me updated on the rest of the day.”

  “Wait!” Gunnar found himself blurting out. It was some impulse, some instinct that made him stop Kelly. It was something she had said a second ago, he was sure of it.

  “What?”

  “A mistake,” he mumbled. There was something important in Kelly’s words just a moment ago. Something here had a bearing on the case, he knew. His mind was desperate to register a crucial clue right now. “A mistake,” he mumbled again, free forming phrases. “Oh, my God! Why didn’t I see this? Why didn’t I see this from the beginning?”

  “What is it?” Kelly asked.

  Gunnar could feel all eyes on him now.

  “Yeah, what’s going on?” Amy asked.

  Gunnar turned to Kelly. “You made a mistake.”

  “Come again.”

  “Post! Army post. You have navy bases and air force bases, but army posts.”

  There was a blank, somewhat frustrated and uncomprehending look on Kelly’s face. “So?”

  “I’ll be damned!”

  “What is it?” Erika asked sharply.

  “I think I know where it is. I think I know where Brad kept his blackmail materials.”

  CHAPTER 64

  “R-D-O-C-K. See that?” Gunnar asked, pointing at the half crest on Holt’s old picture.

  “You know where that is?” Diane asked.

  “Yeah. Camp Murdock Marine Corps weapons storage depot. Closed seven years ago.” Gunnar also knew it would take a decent three hours, if not more, to drive there from Big Bear Lake. The old weapons depot should have been thirty miles northeast of San Luis Obispo. But after he announced he knew where Brad’s hidden blackmail materials might be located, both Erika and Diane agreed to drive up to Holt’s cottage immediately. “I should have remembered when I was in that production company’s office,” he added and placed Holt’s picture back on the desk. “They had a TV on with a story about—you guessed it—local base closings.”

  “But do you mean bases or posts?” Erika kidded.

  “I mean an abandoned area Holt would know in and out after having been stationed there. This place should be full of underground storage facilities.”

  “You’re right,” Diane agreed. “That would be a great place to hide blackmail materials.”

  “And quite a place to search,” Erika said.

  “So let’s get motivated,” Gunnar said.

  CHAPTER 65

  Once the terrain of mountainous vegetation and forestland north of L.A. had long been left behind, and the surroundings became a glaring, blistering dry desert, Gunnar and the two women found the abandoned stretch of highway leading off the 5 and connecting with the Camp Murdock weapons depot. All that revealed they were in the right general area was a ten-foot-high stretch of chain link fencing that appeared to crop out of nowhere in the rock and sagebrush wasteland. Driving a little further, they caught sight of the abandoned constructions of the base. What appeared to be the white-painted outlines of barracks and administration buildings loomed in the distance, standing in protest against the passage of time, much like the dilapidated remnants of a ghost town or abandoned barns along the side of a highway.

  “We should have brought sleeping bags.” Diane pointed out an oversight in the haphazard planning that had gone into this expedition when they were standing at the side of the road.

  They had stopped off in a Pasadena mall to gather a quick expeditionary cargo of food, flashlights, a wire cutter, bright spray paint, a compass, a backpack—and the new issue of Muscle Quest. Erika argued that the Sun State photos might jog some memories, and Gunnar didn’t feel like arguing with her.

  He stepped away from the Dodge Charger parked at the side of the road. He and Erika had taken his car up here, and Diane followed in her Acura. As he looked at the overwhelming sprawl of the abandoned Marine Corps installation, he realized Diane might have been right. However, he wasn’t about to feel bad for not thinking of every single detail.

  “It’s immense,” Erika exclaimed.

  Gunnar pulled a final drag on the cigar he’d been smoking and dropped the remains into the dirt before exhaling the smoke. “Well,” he said, crushing the cigar with the cowboy boot he’d donned for the trip, “if you think this is something above ground—”

  “Just don’t say it,” Erika cut him off.

  “Okay.”

  The apparel all three of them wore for questing into the subterranean warren of storage facilities on the old base consisted of denim pants all around and lightweight shirts. Gunnar had a Foundry Gym T-shirt. Erika and Diane both wore airy, oversized cotton shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Although this search should not have brought them into contact with anyone, Gunnar still gave the Beretta with two extra clips to Erika, and Diane was given a quick rundown on the use of the Smith and Wesson.

  “You don’t think Brad could have known all this terrain, do you?” Diane asked.

  Gunnar shook his head. “Probably not. Although he could have hidden his loot in any old place, then familiarized himself with that area.”

  “Oh, dear,” Diane exclaimed.

  “Come on,” Gunnar said. “Let’s get moving.

  The goods they’d procured in Pasadena were packed in the backpack, then Gunnar advanced on the gate with the wire cutters. A simple lock-bound chain holding a movable section of the fence was compromised with a forceful squeeze of the cutter.

  “So, where do we start?” Erika asked after she and Gunnar got back in the Charger. Their car rolled along the irregular surface of the desert on the abandoned federal land.

  Diane’s car followed behind.

  Gunnar said, “I doubt anyone left maps to the place, so let’s start at the closest spot.”

  That spot was a six-by-four-foot square of metal grating they noticed five minutes later. It must have been a ventilation shaft for the underground facilities, Gunnar surmised, and he pulled the car to a stop next to it. After they all peered inside a shadowy chasm below the grating, he snapped the lock off the covering. With Erika’s help, he hoisted the metal mesh open, and they took advantage of a ladder built into the side of the shaft to descend into the desert floor.

  What they fou
nd at the bottom of the ladder was a corridor in the underground tunnel system. It was a forbidding, lightless labyrinth stretching away for unknown distances in either direction.

  “Which way do you think?” Erika asked as she turned on her flashlight and palmed a can of yellow spray paint. To keep from losing their way in the complex, they thought it would be helpful to leave markers of their path at any turn they came to.

  “That way leads to the outer perimeter,” Gunnar replied, pointing one way. “The place most intruders would enter. Therefore, Brad might want to put his things someplace they would least likely go.”

  So Erika pointed in the opposite direction. “Back that way. The inner reaches of the base.”

  “Let’s go,” Gunnar recommended, and they followed Erika’s guess at the path to the central portions of the tunnel system.

  For the next fifteen minutes, they walked straight ahead, down an unwavering corridor that on occasion passed large, empty inlets which at one time must have housed crates of military surplus. When Gunnar and his companions scanned these spots, they realized why that lock was placed over the grating. The inlets were strewn with garbage in every instance, with some of the walls marked by sometimes obscene and most often indecipherable graffiti denoting the identities of the painters in some private coding system. There had been intruders in these abandoned catacombs, and the evidence of their whereabouts left Gunnar with the uneasy feeling that he might have made a mistake guessing at the hiding place of Holt’s blackmail ammunition.

  But after another ten minutes passed, a sudden yelp of terror announced by Diane let them know they were not alone. As she shrieked in panic, Gunnar and Erika, too, noticed movement in the stream of her flashlight. Aiming at the same spot, they saw a dark form, compact and close to the ground, scampering away into the darkness.

  “It’s only a rat!” Erika exhaled in relief after recognizing the creature.

  Diane let out a nervous chuckle, hesitant to step forward for another few seconds.

  “Come on, it’s an adventure.” Gunnar patted her on the back.