by M. Z. Kelly
There was a knock on his door. Vince checked the time on his phone. It was probably the police. That female detective had called, telling him that she was coming by with a few more questions. He steadied his nerves and put on his best husband and father in mourning face as he walked to the door.
Vince almost fainted when he opened the door and saw the woman standing there. “You. What are you…”
“Move inside, now,” the woman said.
She stepped inside the room, motioning him back with the gun he now realized was in her hand. “What’s going on?” he demanded. He slipped back into his role of grieving husband. “Where’s Allison and the kids? I don’t understand any of this.”
“Of course you don’t,” the woman said. “I’m afraid there are a lot of things you don’t understand.”
Vince’s eyes grew wider as she held the gun up. His voice pitched higher as he pleaded with her. “What are you going to do?”
“Turn around.”
“Please don’t…”
“Do as I say,” she demanded. “Turn around.”
Vince did as she instructed. Seconds later he felt the muzzle of the gun brush against his temple.
“Hold still, now,” the woman said. “This might hurt a little.”
EIGHTEEN
Vince Marsh had told us he’d rented a hotel room in Santa Monica. It was a place to stay while the department and the coroner’s office processed the murder scene at his house. Even though the residence had been released back to him, Marsh had said that being in the house where the maid had been murdered and his family had gone missing left too many bad memories, so he’d continued living in the hotel.
“Nice place,” I said to the others as we parked in front of the Windward Hotel. “I’ll bet the rooms go for three hundred plus a night.”
“What’s a little more debt when you’re already on the verge of bankruptcy,” Darby said.
“Speaking of that,” Mel said to me. “Did we ever find out if Marsh had a life insurance policy on his wife?”
Leo answered. “He denied having a policy and SID found nothing in the house, but it’s always possible something will still turn up.”
“Maybe he’s got another source of income in mind,” Darby told his partner. “Somebody with deep pockets.”
After checking in at the front desk and getting a room number for Marsh, we took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. We soon realized that the grieving husband’s room overlooked the interior of the hotel on one side and the ocean on the other. I made a mental correction to my earlier estimate for the cost of the room, deciding it was probably in the five hundred a night range.
We knocked on the door several times, calling out, but not getting a response. Leo contacted the front desk again and arranged for a manager to come up and let us inside. The moment the door swung open, Leo called back to us. “One down in the living room.”
We drew our weapons, following him inside, and seeing the blood on the carpet. We then saw Vince Marsh’s body on the floor. There was blood and brain matter splattered against a wall.
“He’s been shot through the temple,” Leo said, after I made a cursory search of the room with Darby and Mel and came up empty. “The gun was in his right hand.”
I realized that Leo had removed the weapon for safety purposes when he’d first examined the body. “Suicide?” I asked, looking at my partner as he stood over the body.
“So it would appear.”
Darby came over to us. He looked down at Marsh’s body, put a stick of gum in his mouth, chewed, and said, “Why the hell would he off himself here? If he was going to blow his brains out, why not do it in the living room or maybe the bedroom?”
He had a point. The body was between the front door and the living room. “It’s possible he answered the door,” I said, “then moved back inside before the fatal shot was fired.”
“Somebody put the gun in his hand, after the fact,” Mel said, adding to our belief it wasn’t a suicide.
Leo made calls to the lieutenant, SID, and the coroner’s office. While we waited for the teams to arrive, we did another search of Marsh’s hotel room. We found nothing out of the ordinary, but we did find his cell phone on a table on the patio. I spent a few minutes, going through the text messages and call history. I went over to the others, telling them what I’d learned.
“Most of the calls look like they were made to friends and his office, but he made a call a few minutes before we arrived. There’s nothing similar in his call history.”
“Let’s call it and see who answers,” Leo said.
I did as he suggested, but no one picked up and there was no voicemail message.
“Let’s see if the techies can get a ping on the phone,” Leo said.
While I waited for a call back on the phone from Nadine McKee, one of our technical support staff, we gathered on the patio and discussed what happened.
“I’ve got my doubts, but if this was a suicide it could mean that Marsh put a kidnap scheme in place and got cold feet,” Leo suggested.
“I think he was double-crossed,” Darby countered, displaying his customary cynicism. “Marsh was partnered with someone who was working a set-up all along.”
“Somebody didn’t want to share the ransom,” Mel agreed, playing along.
“There’s still been no contact with Marsh’s father-in-law,” I said. “If this was a kidnap for ransom case he should have been contacted by now.”
“Unless Montreal has been contacted and we don’t know about it,” Leo said. “It might even be that he’s playing his own game, arranging to pay the ransom without telling us.”
We spent another half hour spinning scenarios. The deputy coroner and SID teams had arrived when I got a call back from Nadine McKee. “The phone is probably a burner. It’s been turned off. The call Marsh made pinged to a location not too far from Terminal Island. I Googled the area and it shows up as Simon International. It’s basically a warehouse and storage area for overseas shipping containers.”
I thanked her, ended the call, and told the others what she’d said, adding, “I might be wrong, but I’d be willing to bet Allison Marsh and her kids are being held in a cargo container. Let’s roll.”
***
The traffic was a nightmare and it took us close to an hour to make the trip down the 405 Freeway, to the 110 Freeway, and on to Terminal Island. The area was home to the Port of Los Angeles, one of the busiest container shipping ports in the western hemisphere. We found Simon International a couple of blocks from the harbor. The area was fenced off and looked abandoned; the perfect place to hold a family hostage.
“How do we get inside?” Mel asked after we met up on the street outside the gate.
The fence was at least ten feet high, the gate padlocked. I said, “Maybe we look for an opening in the fence, go in on foot with Bernie.”
We were walking along the fence line when a man crossed the street from a nearby welding business. He came over to us and said, “There’s another entrance on the port side, but both gates are always locked.”
“What about a pedestrian entrance?” Leo asked.
He shook his head. “Just the main gates.”
“You must have a welding torch over there,” Darby said, motioning to his business. “What would you charge to cut the lock?”
He smiled. “My son’s in law enforcement in Nevada, so it’s on the house. Let me get my equipment.”
Fifteen minutes later, we made our entrance into Simon International. The place was a couple of blocks long, and in some areas the shipping containers were stacked four high. We were at the back of the property, near another fenced off area when I spotted a container that was open. The interior gate that sectioned off the area was unlocked, so we made our way inside and over to the cargo carrier.
When we entered the rusted out shipping container, we knew immediately that someone had been living inside. There were blankets, pillows, and fast-food wrappers on the floor.
“It looks like they left in a hurry,” Darby said.
Mel reached down and held up what I realized was a child’s toy. “A stuffed bear,” she said.
Bernie was sniffing his way along the back of the container when I stopped and noticed a slip of paper that had been wedged between the floor and an iron support column. I picked it up and saw there was a handwritten note.
“What is it?” Leo said, coming over to me.
I released a breath and looked at him. “It’s a message from Allison Marsh,” I said, showing him what I’d found.
The slip of paper contained a simple message, one that broke my heart. It was a mother’s plea to save her children. I read it aloud to the others. “My name is Allison Marsh. My family is being held prisoner. I’m afraid they’re going to kill my children. Please help us!”
NINETEEN
We spent the rest of the day at Simon International, processing the shipping container and searching the area. Nothing turned up, except a witness at a nearby business who said she’d seen a white van coming and going over the past twenty-four hours. We had no doubt that the Marsh family had been moved to another location. We speculated the decision to move them might have been made in response to Vince Marsh’s phone call. Leo had contacted Henry Montreal, but he’d adamantly denied having any communication with the kidnappers.
Lieutenant Oz arrived late in the day. A few patio chairs had been left near an abandoned office building where we took seats and discussed what we knew about the case.
“There’s a BOLO out for the family, mentioning the white van, and, of course, the press is all over what happened,” Oz said. “With Vince Marsh dead and having been involved with the maid, the speculation is running rampant that whoever else is involved turned on him and is now running the show.”
“But why no ransom demand?” Darby said. “We’re almost seventy-two hours out on this and we’ve had no contact.”
“Maybe they were taking care of business internally,” Leo suggested. “It might even be that Vince Marsh, and whoever else is involved, had a disagreement. With Marsh out of the way, it could move things along now.”
“What has SID turned up?” Oz asked me.
“Just some prints in the shipping container belonging to Allison and the kids. Nothing in the way of other prints or evidence.”
“And the Marsh murder scene?”
“I talked to my friend Brie earlier. It was a single shot at close range to the temple. There was no blowback or GSR on Marsh’s hand, so it looks like a murder that was set up to appear to be a suicide. No one saw anything suspicious or unusual near the hotel room, and no one heard the shot.”
“Security cameras?”
“The hotel is reviewing their footage, but, so far, nothing looks unusual. We plan to go over there later and take a look.”
“We’ve got a big bunch of nothing,” Darby complained.
“Except a dead body and a missing family,” his partner added.
“What about Marsh’s activities in the weeks leading up to the family going missing?” Oz asked. “Have we backtracked, talked to his office staff, and canvassed the area around where he works?”
“We’ve taken a look at everything going back about six months,” I said. I glanced at Leo. “We took a cursory look at the businesses around his office. There’s a coffee shop that he stopped at every morning. One of the waitresses said she remembered Marsh because he was handsome. She doesn’t remember him being there with anyone else.”
“Let’s take another pass at the restaurant and the entire area, maybe cast the net wider.”
We spent another half hour with the lieutenant before leaving Terminal Island. With nothing breaking, Darby and Mel were sent to the area near Vince Marsh’s office in downtown Los Angeles to re-canvass the area. Leo and I went back to the Windward Hotel in Santa Monica to review their security tapes.
After arriving at the hotel, I saw that Brie was packing up her equipment. I told Leo I’d meet up with him later and went over to her. “Calling it a day?” I asked.
She smiled and exhaled. “I wish. I’ve got a couple of cases back at the shop waiting on the table. I’ll probably wrap up around nine tonight.”
I glanced over at the restaurant adjacent to the hotel. “How about we get a cup of coffee?”
She smiled. “Only if you let me buy.”
I found Leo again and he offered to watch Bernie. Brie and I then settled in at a table in the restaurant and placed our orders. We took a moment, chatting about the death of Vince Marsh.
Brie gave me her best guess as to how the murder went down. “I think he answered the door and was immediately confronted by someone with a gun. He probably took a few steps back. Based upon the angle of impact and blowback, I think he was told to turn around before the fatal shot, a contact wound, was fired into his temple from behind.”
“Probably by someone who is holding his family hostage,” I said.
“You think he was in on the kidnapping and was double-crossed?”
“That’s our working hypothesis. Of course, without a ransom demand, it’s all just conjecture.”
We went on for a moment, spinning scenarios about how things might have happened before things turned personal.
“I’m thinking about taking another leave until I get things sorted out with my health,” Brie said. “It’s tough keeping up with the physical demands of the job while going through chemo and radiation.”
“I can’t imagine how you’ve managed this long.” After the waiter brought over our drinks, I reached across the table and took her hand. “How are things with Lily and Phyl?”
Lily was Brie’s five-year-old daughter. Brie and her firefighter husband, Joe, had divorced a few months back after he’d cheated on her. Phyl, or Phyllis,—mom wanted a girl and had already settled on a name—was Brie’s larger-than-life boyfriend. He was a behemoth of a man, with a gentle soul.
“Despite everything, Phyl and I are good,” Brie said. “Lily…” She took a moment and I saw her emotions surfacing. “She’s such a sweet child. We’ve had several talks about my illness. I think she’s still trying to come to grips with everything.” She chuckled. “She told me the other day that she’s going to take care of me until I get better. In some ways she’s wise beyond her years.”
“I think she’s a lot like her mommy. Sweet on the outside, both practical and caring on the inside.”
I saw her tears coming harder. “I just don’t know what I’ll do if…”
I squeezed her hand. “You’re going to get through this, sweetheart. And both Lily and I will be here for you.”
She brushed her tears. “I appreciate that.” After a moment, she drew in a breath and changed the subject, asking me about Noah.
I again mentioned our trip to Hawaii and said, “It’s a strange thing. We’ve only known one another for a short period of time, but I already feel like in some ways we’ve been together for years. He’s the most compassionate, understanding person I’ve ever known.” I sipped my drink, thinking about our relationship. “Maybe it’s because of what happened to him during the war.”
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
I nodded. “It’s something to keep in mind.” I thought about what Noah had gone through losing his leg and Brie’s illness, and then about my family circumstances and my past relationships, adding, “For all of us.”
Brie then asked me about my meeting with Collin Russell. She already knew all about my family background, including Collin Russell having acted with my mother at one time. She also knew about Russell’s son, Kellen Malone, and that he had possibly been involved in the death of Jean Winslow and my love-dad. She had previously reviewed the medical file on Winslow at my request and had determined the deceased actress had injuries that were consistent with domestic violence.
I then told Brie about Collin Russell holding me at gunpoint, adding, “He said his son basically disowned him several years ago. He suspects Kellen
was involved in the death of his partner. He also told me that his son is involved in the Revelation.”
“You’re kidding?”
“He claims Malone is part of their inner circle.”
Brie’s beautiful chocolate eyes blinked, her gaze moving off. I had the impression what I’d said triggered something. “What do you know about the group?”
She looked back at me. “A few years back when I was just starting out as a medical examiner, I helped Earl Mumford out on a case.”
“Lucky you.” Mumford was also a deputy coroner that I’d crossed paths with on a couple of cases. He was arrogant and lazy.
Brie went on. “The death involved a man named Dallas Walberg who had fallen, or maybe was pushed, from a three story building.”
“Were there any suspects?”
She nodded and held on my eyes. “Walberg worked for Wallace Studios.”
Brie knew that Donald Regis had been the head of the studio at one time. “Do you think Regis might have been involved?”
“I can’t say. All I do know is that Walberg was the CFO for the studio. He knew about all the accounting practices that went on there.”
Brie’s unspoken message was that, as the studio’s chief financial offer, Walberg might have known if Regis had ties to the Revelation. I remembered Collin Russell saying that the secret society was all about money because money was power—especially in Hollywood.
“Whatever happened to the investigation into Walberg’s death?” I asked.
She shrugged. “You might ask your new partner. I can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up in your department’s version of open, unsolved cases.”
My phone had chirped as she talked. I made my excuses and took the call. It was Leo. “I just got a call from Nadine McKee. She’s been monitoring the phones at the Montreal’s residence. Henry was just contacted by the kidnapper. He wants five million dollars or the family will be dead in twenty-four hours.”
TWENTY
Leo and I made the drive from Santa Monica to the Montreal estate in Beverly Hills in record time, covering the distance in just over twenty minutes, despite the traffic. Along the way, Leo told me he’d gone through the security video at the Windward Hotel, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
