Hollywood Quest

by M. Z. Kelly

  “I can’t speak to sentencing issues, but, again, I will talk to the DA,” Olivia said.

  Osgood looked at the clock on the wall. Our suspect was much older than he was in the mug shots I’d seen of him. His dark hair and eyes, and features that had hardened with age, gave him an intimidating air. He looked at Olivia and said, “Time is running out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re looking for the girl, and her time is limited.”

  There was a hard edge to Olivia’s response. “Your time is running out. Unless you cooperate and tell us where the girl is, I’ll talk to the DA and make sure there’s no doubt that your crimes fit the definition of serious and violent.”

  Osgood was handcuffed. He turned his head, wiping his nose on his shirtsleeve. “In that case, I have all the time in the world, unlike your so called victim.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Osgood fixed his dark eyes on her. “Air and water are precious commodities, especially when they’re limited.”

  Olivia moved closer, until she was inches from our suspect’s face. “Where’s the girl?”

  Osgood broke eye contact. “Talk to me when we have a deal, otherwise I have nothing more to say.”

  Olivia mopped her brow with the back of her hand. She motioned for Charlie and me to follow her out of the room. We then met up with Leo and Darby down the hall.

  “He’s asking for the impossible,” Olivia said. “He’s not only facing multiple felony counts, there’s no doubt the charges will meet the legal definition of serious and violent. He knows he’ll be going away for life.”

  “Meanwhile, he’s making it sound like we’re running out of time to find Valerie Weber,” Charlie said. “He’s got us over a barrel.”

  “Why not call the DA?” Leo suggested. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “We know how that will play,” Darby said. “No deal, Osgood lawyers up, and our victim dies.”

  The room was silent for a moment. We all knew what Darby had suggested was likely, even probable. I saw the anguish in Olivia’s face as she considered the options. When she finally spoke, I was shocked by what she proposed.

  “I’m going to release him.”

  We all exchanged glances. Leo gave voice to what we were all thinking. “You can’t do that. He’s a felon, facing multiple counts, and he’s our only chance of finding the girl.”

  Olivia moved to the door. “Watch me.”

  Charlie and I followed her back to the interview room, where she went over to Osgood. “Stand up.”

  “What’s going on?” our prisoner said, rising.

  “You’ve been detained under section 849 of the penal code. You’re free to go after we give you a ride home.”

  Osgood beamed a smile and held up his hands. “What about the cuffs?”

  “I’ll take them off when we get to where we’re going.”

  Olivia turned, tossed me her car keys, and said, “You’re driving.”

  FIFTY

  “Let’s take Highland to Franklin, then head up the hill,” Olivia said from the back seat, where she sat next to Darrell Osgood.

  We were on Hollywood Boulevard, near the block where Osgood had lived off an alleyway. Charlie was in the front seat next to me. We had left Bernie at the station with the desk sergeant.

  “Where are we going?” Osgood demanded.

  I turned my head and saw Olivia out of the corner of my eye as she smiled and said, “You’ll see soon enough.”

  “You can’t just take me...”

  “STOP!” Olivia’s tone was so loud and sharp that both Charlie and I turned toward her for an instant to make sure she was okay. She went on. “You are still in detention, technically my prisoner, so don’t try to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

  Osgood made a couple huffing sounds, but didn’t respond.

  I did as Olivia directed, taking several surface streets up into the hills before turning onto Mulholland Drive. We were on one of the highest peaks of the winding highway, not far from the Hollywood Bowl overlook, when Olivia told me to pull over.

  “I want you to move down the highway about a mile and wait,” Olivia said to me when she had Osgood out of the car. Her prisoner was still in handcuffs. “I’ll text you when we’re done.”

  “What are you going to do?” Osgood demanded.

  Olivia’s beautiful eyes lifted toward the starlit heavens and she smiled. “It’s a beautiful night for a walk.”

  Charlie and I were back on the road, about a hundred yards from where we’d dropped them, when he said, “What do you think she has in mind?”

  I glanced at him. “I’m not sure. All I do know is that I’m glad I’m not Darrell Osgood.”

  We pulled over about a mile from the Overlook and waited. The minutes seemed like hours as they ticked by. My apprehension was growing as Charlie said, “What do you think about our new lieutenant?”

  “I think she’s very driven, maybe because of what happened to her husband.” When he didn’t respond, I said, “And you?”

  My partner was working on a Tootsie Pop as he said, “The woman’s got a pair, and I’m not talking about boobs.” He took the sucker out of his mouth. “She’s the best lieutenant I’ve ever worked for.”

  It was high praise coming from Charlie, and I had to agree with him. While I’d had superior officers in the past who were hard-working and dedicated, Olivia was in another class. She truly cared about the work, and it showed.

  Ten minutes later, we finally got a text from her to return to the Overlook. When we got there, Olivia opened the door, pushed Osgood in the back seat, got in the car, and said, “We’re heading for the Santa Monica Mountains. Code three.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, as I threw the car into gear and glanced back at her and Osgood. Our prisoner was subdued, like he’d been at the scene of an accident.

  “Valerie Weber and about a half dozen other girls are there. They’re buried alive.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  Trust me, Valerie. I only want the best for you, always.

  I know. It’s just that I’m scared, Adrian. I’ve never felt this way before.

  Neither have I...until now. It feels like, for the first time, my life finally matters.

  What are you trying to say?

  I love you.

  Oh, God. I love you, too, with all my heart.

  Valerie coughed and turned her head, the images of her dream scattering as the dim light of her underground prison found her again. Adrian, or the boy she’d imagined was Adrian, had gone away, pushed back into the dark recesses of her imagination. The messages they had shared seemed like a long time ago. She knew there would never be a real Adrian, someone who loved her and wanted to share her life.

  The underground chamber was hot now, and it was hard to breathe. The other girls had cried until there were no more tears left. Most of them were asleep, or maybe just dreaming like she had. Maybe there was another world somewhere, a place where your dreams came alive. She knew this world was nothing but a lie; a place that made you believe love was real.

  Valerie sat up. Her throat was dry.

  Water.

  She would give anything for water, but there was nothing here. She rose and walked over to the ladder. Each girl had gone up the ladder and tried to budge the steel plate that held them prisoner. It had been useless. There was no way out.

  She sank back into the shadows of her prison as her breath became shallow and the dim light of the chamber began to fade. The darkness and the silence enveloped her like a thick fog. She realized there was a visitor here; a dark hand that was reaching out for her, pulling her away from the world.

  Just as the unseen visitor took her hand in his, Valerie heard something. It was a thump, then a grinding sound. She found the strength to lift her head. The grip on her hand loosened and the silent visitor drifted away.

  FIFTY-TWO

  “Mr. Osgood passed off Valerie and the other girl
s he took,” Olivia said as I drove up into the Santa Monica Mountains. Leo and Darby had been alerted to what was happening and were following us. “Jessie Martin employs a guy he calls The Keeper. His job is to take care of the girls until they’re sold to the highest bidder.”

  “I thought you said they’re buried alive,” Charlie said.

  Olivia glanced at her prisoner, whose eyes remained downcast. “They’re in a box, a storage container, that’s buried underground. Mr. Osgood thinks they’ve been without food or water for over a day.”

  The area that Darrell Osgood directed us to was in a remote section of the Santa Monica Mountains, not too far from the Paramount Ranch. The property, now part of a land conservancy, had been a working movie ranch, going back to the 1920s. Everyone from Bob Hope to Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert had practiced their craft there. The hills and woods surrounding the area was now being used for a very different purpose.

  The sun was setting as we stopped on a dirt road. Olivia got Osgood out of the car and said, “Show us.”

  Our prisoner led us to a remote area, down a ravine, and past a stand of sycamore trees, where there was a clearing.

  “There,” he said, pointing to a dirt mound. “The entrance is under the brush.”

  We hurriedly removed a pile of branches and logs that had been piled on what we now saw was a metal covering leading into an underground container. Leo had a flashlight and illuminated the steel plate. Darby then reached down and pulled it back. Charlie gave him a flashlight, and he took a moment, looking inside.

  He then stood up, the artificial light illuminating his fleshy features. “It’s empty,” he said. “The girls are gone.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  “What did you say to Osgood when you were at the Overlook?” I asked Olivia when we got back to the station.

  Our lieutenant had modified Osgood’s custody status from detention to multiple counts of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and sex trafficking, before we booked him into jail. She had established that Osgood was involved in a three-way relationship with others involved in the scheme. Osgood was known at The Finder. His responsibility was luring girls over the Internet by engaging them in the false belief that he was a boy who had fallen in love with them. He then handed the girls off to the man he knew only as The Keeper. The Keeper’s job was to hold the girls in a secure location, pending financial arrangements. Once an agreement to sell the girls had been struck, Jessie Martin, The Dealer, provided the product. Olivia was convinced that Osgood didn’t know the whereabouts of the other parties, and he believed the girls might have already been sold.

  “There are some things you shouldn’t ask a superior officer,” Olivia said with a smile as she responded to my question. “Let’s just say that Mr. Osgood realized it was in his best interests to cooperate.”

  “You got chops,” Charlie said to her, as he put on his coat. “Where do we go from here?”

  “Home,” Olivia said. “We pray the girls are safe and have been moved to another location, and we pick this up in the morning.”

  Olivia and Charlie had left the station, and I was finishing up some paperwork when I looked up and saw Woody Horton. The youthful detective had previously been assigned to Section One, but had been moved downtown to work what the former chief had called “special interest” cases. One of those cases was the murder of my adoptive father.

  “Don’t tell me they let you out of the tower and reassigned you,” I said.

  Woody, who had blond hair and blue eyes, looked like he belonged on a surfboard rather than in a cop shop. He smiled. “No such luck. Have a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  We found an interview room, where Bernie trotted off to a corner as Woody and I settled in. I had previously updated Woody on the message Pearl had left with his sister. “Is there something new on Pearl?”

  He shook his head. “Not directly, but what he said about being in Brazil has helped our investigation. We think it’s likely that those behind your father’s death have a direct connection to that country.”

  “As in drugs?”

  “We’ve been working with the DEA, and they’re pretty confident narco-terrorism is behind both what happened to your father over thirty years ago and the recent developments involving the merger of the Swarm and the Tauists.”

  “And where there are drugs, there’s money.”

  He nodded. “Brazil is the largest economy in Latin America. There’s an economic boom happening in the country, because of the drug trade, and the export of iron ore, soy, and sugar to China. All that has given rise to the narcos. The drug dealers have opened cocaine supply routes through Costa Rica, aimed at supplying consumers in the US.”

  “And the Rylands? How do they figure in all this?”

  “We believe Collin Russell and Harlan Ryland were instrumental in developing relationships with the drug cartels in Brazil back in the 1980s. They amassed a fortune importing cocaine, while using the Tauist religion as a cover. Ryan Cooper was one of their front men, opening the supply routes in the country at the same time Russell and Ryland were using the movie studios as a cover to launder the fortune they were making.”

  “I’d been led to believe they were working with Donald Regis, the owner of Wallace Studios, to embezzle from the studios. When my father, and the actress Jean Winslow, found out what was happening, they were murdered.”

  Woody shook his head. “I’m afraid it might not have gone that way.”

  “Tell me what you think was going on.”

  Woody folded his arms and looked away. When he looked back at me, I could tell he was struggling to find the words to tell me what he suspected. “There’s no easy way to say this, but we think...there’s a possibility that your adoptive dad was involved in the drug scheme.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “We’ve been talking to a guy named Jerry Steinman. He was basically a jack of all trades, a fixit guy, who worked at different studios over the years. He made some statements about your dad.”

  “What kind of statements?”

  “Steinman claims he was working at Wallace Studios back in the 1980s. He remembered your dad working security there, along with Ryan Cooper, who, at the time, did some part-time work as a makeup artist. He claims Cooper had close ties to Harlan Ryland. He told us the studio was a cover for Harlan’s real motivation—to launder money.”

  I remembered what Leo had speculated. “I guess that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Steinman said one night, when he was closing things up, he happened to see your dad and Cooper. They were in a heated argument. He listened to what they were saying from a hallway. Steinman told us your father said something about wanting a bigger piece of the action—meaning the drug trade. Cooper was angry and told him Ryland would never agree to his demands.”

  I was stunned. I’d always believed that my father was murdered because he learned about the embezzlement scheme and planned to go to the authorities. Had I so desperately wanted to believe my dad was one of the good guys that I’d ignored the possibility that he could have been in league with Cooper and Ryland, and they’d eventually turned on him? I felt sick to my stomach, even thinking about the possibility.

  “What about Jean Winslow?” I asked. “Did Steinman think she was involved?”

  “He said she was an addict. Her interest was in the drug supply, not stopping what was happening.”

  “Then her death could have been a suicide, after all.”

  “I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure.”

  I dragged a hand through my hair and exhaled, trying to process everything.

  Woody continued. “I’m sorry, Kate. I know this is difficult to hear.”

  I looked away, shaking my head. “I don’t want to believe any of it.”

  He took a moment, then said, “I’m afraid there’s something else.”

  My gaze came over to him, and I held my breath.

  “Steinman said he saw your mother at Wallace
Studios several times. It’s possible she knew about everything that was happening.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Monica Linville closed the door behind her, locked it, and looked around the room. There were six subjects already seated at the table. All of them had either worked for Agrasom at one time or were government regulators who knew about the Z-91 research and had been instrumental in keeping the documents covered up.

  After taking her seat and an exchange of pleasantries, Linville took a few minutes summarizing the events of the past few days and what she knew about Aaron Miller. “As you know, he blackmailed Agrasom after the murder of Bratton’s stepdaughter three years ago. That payoff apparently wasn’t enough. He’s behind the most recent murders and is demanding millions.”

  “What do we know about him?” Jacob Lauer asked. With his pasty skin and thinning gray hair, the former accountant for Agrasom looked the part of an elderly numbers cruncher. Linville knew that beneath the placid exterior was a ruthless mercenary who would do anything to protect the company that had made him a fortune.

  “Miller was part of Agrasom’s inner circle in recent years. He had access to their servers, even those that were off the main grid. He knows about all of us and each of our roles in making the company a multinational empire.”

  That comment raised the level of anxiety in the room to a fever pitch. After convincing a couple doubters that their identities and involvement in the cover-up had indeed been compromised, there was a demand for immediate action.

  “What about Bratton?” Daniella Wexler asked. The assistant to the secretary of agriculture had helped falsify documents and convinced lawmakers that Agrasom’s products were safe, in return for a big payday. “Does she know it was an independent operator, out for his own gain, that murdered her family?”