Hollywood Murder

by M. Z. Kelly

  Henry’s anger boiled over. He started to respond but caught himself. While he still had the money, and Dawes was probably somewhere close by, he realized he wasn’t entirely in control of the situation.

  “Let’s finish this,” he spat into the phone.

  “Bring the bag to the trail by the river. We’ll be watching. When you get our call, leave it on the bench, and walk away.”

  “What about my family?”

  “The minute you drop the bag and walk away, we release your family. They’ll be coming from the baseball stadium.”

  Henry decided the man was lying, but he had no choice other than to comply. The train was coming to a stop at the terminal as he said, “I’m getting off now.”

  The Anaheim Amtrak Terminal where Henry got off the train was located across from Angel Stadium. The venue was filling with people for an early baseball game. Some of the passengers began walking through the parking lot to the stadium. The station also fronted a trail by the Santa Ana River.

  As Henry walked along the trail, he saw that the cement waterway had only a trickle of water in it. Up ahead, there was a bench where he would likely be told to leave the bag. The trail was nearly deserted, with only a handful of people in the distance.

  Somewhere above him, Henry was faintly aware of the steady thump of rotor blades. He glanced at the sky, seeing there were three helicopters on the horizon. They appeared to be moving in his direction.

  He dismissed the sound of the choppers when his phone rang. Before he could say anything, the electronic voice said, “Leave the bag on the bench, now.” The line went dead.

  When he got over to the bench, Henry stopped and did another survey of the area, turning in a full circle. There was no sign of his family or Jack Dawes. He put his bag on the bench, hesitating. Finally, reluctantly, he walked away, at the same time checking over his shoulder for anyone coming for the bag.

  When Henry was nearing the train terminal again, he turned back to the bench. He saw a man and a woman. They were coming up a hillside from the riverbank below the walkway. The couple was moving fast, and he had no doubt they were involved in the kidnapping. They were headed directly for the bag of money.

  Henry caught sight of another image out of the corner of his eye. The man Henry called The Enforcer was moving toward the couple, converging on the bag at the same time they did. Jack Dawes had a shiny object in his hand that Henry knew must be a gun.

  Dawes raised the weapon as he moved toward the couple. Henry heard a loud popping sound over the increasing hum of the helicopters that were now circling directly overhead. He hesitated for an instant, then began running back toward his bag of money.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Leo and I made better time once we got off the freeway and took surface streets toward the Anaheim train station. The traffic was heavier as we got closer to the station that was across from the baseball stadium, which was filling up with people for an early game. Even as we approached the station, I could hear the steady thump and rumble of the media’s helicopters circling overhead.

  “It sounds like we’ve got lots of company,” I said to Leo.

  “Probably no more than a couple of million viewers.”

  My phone chirped as we slowed down at the far end of the station. It was Nadine McKee. “There’s something happening over by the river that runs next to the terminal. From the news coverage it looks like Montreal’s running toward a couple of people who came up from the river bottom.”

  I didn’t bother to respond, instead telling Leo, “Stop here.”

  Leo parked and I told him what Nadine had said. I got Bernie out of the back seat and we began running along the trail. As we closed in on an area near a park bench, I realized that we were too late. There was a man on the ground, bleeding from a head wound. Henry Montreal was standing over him, clutching his bag of money.

  “What happened?” I demanded when we got over to him and tried to catch my breath.

  “He’s dead,” Henry moaned, looking at the fallen man.

  Leo was calling for an ambulance, but I knew it was too late. There was a sizeable piece of the man’s head splattered on the sidewalk next to his body. I moved closer to Montreal. “Tell me what happened here.”

  “A man and a woman came from over there.” He pointed toward the river. “They were coming for the money when my friend confronted them.”

  “Your friend!” I spat in disgust, realizing that Henry Montreal had double-crossed us and had made his own arrangements to try and stop the kidnappers and keep his money.

  He drew in a breath and nodded. “He was supposed to stop them.”

  I turned, scanning the area, but saw no sign of the couple he was referring to. The roar of helicopters was still overhead as I said, “Which way did they go?”

  Henry pointed across the parking lot. “Toward the baseball stadium. They were running in that direction.”

  Leo and I took off with Bernie, sprinting toward the stadium. My phone chirped again. I fished it out of my pocket and answered it as my dog pulled me forward.

  I heard Nadine McKee, telling me what was happening. “The news ’copters had video of the kidnappers moving through the parking lot toward the stadium. They tried to lose themselves in the crowd, but they got pictures of them moving through the turnstiles. The last images showed them moving inside, toward the stadium’s lower deck.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Always have a backup plan. That was Frank Dyer’s mantra as he and Sasha weaved their way through the crowd moving into the stadium. He hadn’t expected things would turn out this way, but he knew the train they’d put Henry Montreal on would eventually end up at the baseball stadium. He’d even anticipated the asshole wouldn’t toss the money from the train as instructed and that a backup location might be needed. Everything would have worked as he’d hoped if Montreal’s buddy hadn’t shown up. He had no choice but to waste the bastard.

  “What are we going to do now?” Sasha asked as they made their way inside the stadium where the concession stands were located.

  “We’re going to sprout wings.”

  “What?”

  Dyer reached into the duffle bag he’d brought. He handed his companion a hat and jersey, then motioned to the restroom. “Get rid of the hat you have on. Put on the jersey and push your hair up under the baseball cap. Meet me back here in five minutes.”

  While Sasha dressed, Dyer did the same. His outfit consisted of a shirt, a cap, and a long brown wig. When he was finished, he decided that anyone passing by him would think he was just another fan.

  A few minutes later, they were making their way out of the stadium when a security guard called over to them, “You can’t leave.”

  Dyer stopped and fingered the weapon in his waistband. “Why is that?”

  “The game hasn’t started. You need your hands stamped to get back inside.”

  He walked over to the guard with Sasha, giving him his best clueless smile. “Thanks. I don’t know what we were thinking.”

  The guard stamped their hands and said, “You forget something?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at Sasha. “She brought a glove, hopes to get a foul ball for her nephew.” Dyer had heard the roar of a half dozen helicopters hovering above the stadium as he spoke. He looked back at the guard. “What do you suppose is going on?”

  “Not sure, but I heard somebody got shot and it had something to do with that family that was kidnapped. I sure hope they find the bastard that did it.”

  Dyer nodded. “I hope he gets everything he has coming to him.”

  As he and Sasha made their way out of the stadium and through the parking lot, they saw there were a half dozen police cars converging on the stadium. There was even a woman with a police dog on the other side of the parking lot. From where Frank Dyer stood, he couldn’t be sure, but he thought she might even be the cop that had been following Montreal.

  Ten minutes later, they boarded a train headed for Union Station. He reasoned they cou
ld get a rental car there and head back to the mountains.

  Sasha sighed, removed her ball cap, and rested her head on his shoulder as the train rumbled back into the city. “What happens now?”

  Dyer didn’t hesitate to answer her, having thought about his backup plans for days. “We kill one of the kids.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  We spent half the night screening people who were leaving the baseball stadium. We had no idea who we were even looking for, other than grainy images from the TV news helicopters that had shown a man with short dark hair and a woman wearing a hat entering the stadium. We finally gave up, realizing that the kidnappers must have slipped out of the stadium in the crowd and were long gone.

  After questioning Henry Montreal further, he admitted that he’d gotten rid of the tracking device in the ransom money and had hired a man named Jack Dawes to follow him and confront the kidnappers. His plan was to have Dawes use his considerable persuasive powers to get the kidnappers to give up the location of his daughter and grandchildren, while keeping the five million dollars in ransom. Even though Dawes had been shot and killed by the kidnappers, Montreal was unapologetic, blaming him for losing his edge as the reason things hadn’t gone as he’d planned.

  As Leo drove Bernie and me back to the station to get my car, I heaved out a long breath, exhausted by the day’s events. “So where do we go from here?” I asked.

  Leo yawned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to bed and forgetting about things until tomorrow.” He glanced at me. “Then we start over.”

  “Do you think they’ll make good on the threats they made to Montreal to kill the family?”

  He shook his head. “You can’t catch a fish without bait.”

  What he’d said made sense, but I wouldn’t want to put myself in the place of Allison Marsh and her children after everything that happened. The kidnappers would likely retaliate in some way for what Allison’s father had done, and we knew they were violent and unpredictable.

  Leo changed the subject as we turned off the freeway in Hollywood. “I updated Ozzie on our case earlier this evening. During the conversation, he mentioned that the captain and Mel want to meet with us in the morning about what you learned about Kellen Malone and the Revelation. It sounds like the department has finally come to a decision.”

  “Mel? What does she have to do with this?”

  He met my eyes again for a moment. “It seems that she’s been working her magic on the brass in her spare time. She’s been reassigned to MRS as an interim replacement for Rob Nelson until a permanent candidate is chosen.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  Nelson had been killed recently while covering the story involving Janice Taylor and The Swarm for the department. I’d heard they were looking for a replacement, but had no idea Mel Peters was interested.

  “I think Mel’s planning to use her new position as a stepping stone to further her own interests,” Leo said, glancing at me again. “And I doubt that she’s going to be on our side.”

  I sighed. “Charlie, my former partner, warned me about her before he retired. He said she was a rung humper, someone who would do whatever it took to work her way up the promotional ladder. I should have listened to him.”

  Leo nodded, but otherwise didn’t respond. We drove in silence the rest of the way to the station. The more I thought about Mel Peters being involved in the department’s decision about whether or not to investigate Jean Winslow and my father’s murder, the angrier I became. I remembered her recently asking about the details of my father’s death and Malone’s possible involvement, probably at the same time she was trying to work her way into her new job. It was a betrayal that I promised myself I wouldn’t forget any time soon.

  Bernie and I got home just before midnight. I’d recently become convinced that Natalie and Mo had an alarm system that went off whenever I got home, and tonight was no exception.

  Natalie popped out of their door and said, “Come over for a few. Mo and me got us some news.”

  I already had my key in the lock. “I’m pretty beat. Can this wait until tomorrow?”

  Mo, who was wearing a red nightcap, had been standing behind her. She poked her head around her roommate and said, “No, this can’t wait. Get in here.”

  I surrendered to my fate and went next door with Bernie. Natalie immediately went into the kitchen and brought over a frothy drink, something she called Midnight Madness. She clinked her glass that held the same concoction as mine and said, “Bottoms up. My M&M’s are guaranteed to make you sleep like a drunken monkey.”

  I sniffed the drink. It had a faint odor that reminded me of lime and coconuts, bringing my trip to Hawaii with Noah to mind. “Just promise me I won’t wake up feeling like a drunken monkey.”

  “Not to worry,” Natalie said as I sipped the drink. “You might swing from a tree and beat your chest, but otherwise you’ll be fine.”

  I laughed after setting the glass down. The drink was delicious. “I’m sure that will go over great at work tomorrow.”

  Mo, who had a serious expression, asked me about my evening. I filled her in on everything and said, “I guess we start over tomorrow.”

  “That reporter buddy of yours went live with the coverage all evening,” she said. “She thinks everything is gonna escalate ’cause of what happened today. All I know is, I wouldn’t wanna be that woman who was kidnapped, or her kids.”

  “Maybe instead of a finger, they’ll cut off her foot this time,” Natalie suggested. “Or maybe even her head.”

  I took another sip of my M&M, and said, “I hope not.” I looked at Mo. “And the reporter is no friend of mine.”

  Mo shrugged. “She acted like it when she was on the air tonight, kept saying how you two was working together and you were her inside source on everything.”

  I released a breath in frustration. “Great.”

  Natalie moved on, bringing up what was apparently on her mind when she’d intercepted me earlier. “Mo and me got us some details ’bout that upcoming fashion show you signed up for. “’Fraid you’re not gonna be happy about it.”

  I took another sip of my drink, hoping it would take the edge off my frustration. I sighed, “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  Mo took over and lowered her voice, maybe sensing my despair. “The original plan called for us all to wear a pair of them wings like you see on those upscale fashion shows.”

  “What? Why wasn’t I told about this?”

  Mo regarded me with one eye. “’Cause we knew you’d throw some kind of hissy fit ’bout it.”

  “You do got a few hissy fit priors,” Natalie agreed.

  I finished off the last of my drink, bracing myself for the rest of what they had to say, at the same time realizing my Midnight Madness had already made me tipsy. “The next thing you’re going to tell me is the show is for a gynecologist’s convention and I’ve got to wear a surgical gown.”

  Natalie looked at Mo. “Why did you tell her? It was supposed to be our secret.”

  “Very funny,” I said. “Out with it.”

  Mo released a breath, her chest sagging. “Nana’s worked something behind the scenes with the people puttin’ on the fashion show. She convinced them it should be both a fashion show and performance art.”

  “I should have known anything she got involved in would be a disaster. What kind of performance art are you talking about?”

  “The four of us are supposed to strut down the runway and do a performance as Sistah Slam,” Natalie said. “It actually might be a lotta fun. I think we could even do it old school, like a bunch of OG’s.”

  “Huh?”

  “Original Gangstas. Each of us gets to do a rap line.”

  I had a meltdown at the point, going off on Nana, my friends, rap music, gangsta rap, fashion shows, and the rest of the free world. I rubbed my forehead which was throbbing and making me feel like a drunken monkey.

  “Told you she’d have a hissy fit,” Mo said to Natalie. “We
shoulda kept our mouths shut ’til the performance.”

  Natalie looked at me. “It’ll be okay, Kate.” She looked back at Mo. “Maybe we should all take rapper names. Kate could be P. Hissy.”

  I stood up. “I’ve had enough for one night. I’m going to bed.”

  “Hold up there a minute,” Mo said as I was heading for the door. “We got one more thing to tell you.”

  I stopped and turned back to them. “Don’t tell me. Tomorrow will mark the end of civilization as we know it and dinosaurs will again rule the earth.”

  Mo looked at Natalie. “Told you she’d already heard.”

  My head was still throbbing and I said, “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “We gotta move,” Natalie said.

  My brows came together. “Are you kidding me?”

  Mo shook her head. “Bub, the manager of the apartments, came by today. He said since the renovations on the building are almost done, they’re gonna double everybody’s rent. We got thirty days to be outta here.”

  I kneaded my brow, at the same time I had an errant thought about having to move in with my adoptive mother. We were barely speaking because of our past family issues.

  I finally mustered the energy to say, “What are we going to do?”

  “Maybe Nana would let us stay at her place again,” Natalie suggested.

  The thought of living with Nana and her posse gave me suicidal thoughts. “I’d sooner live on the streets.” I tugged on Bernie’s leash, deciding I’d been cursed by gypsies as a small child. “See you both tomorrow.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Bernie and I got to work a few minutes late the next morning. I hadn’t slept well because I had a band of drunken monkeys playing a drum in my head all night. Maybe they were practicing for my upcoming gangsta rap performance.