by M. Z. Kelly
We cautiously moved forward, using a large cement fountain in the center of the courtyard for cover. We held our ground there, continuing to surveil the house, which was quiet. One of the deputy marshals got a radio call that officers from the local sheriff’s office were in route, but were still about a half hour way.
“Let’s move closer,” Fiore said after we’d waited several minutes longer and heard nothing from the residence. “I’ve got a feeling everyone’s gone.”
We did as he instructed, making our way up to the porch that extended along the front of the house. Buck went over with a couple of marshals to try the front door, while I hung back with Leo and Darby, providing cover.
“It’s unlocked,” I heard someone say.
I used my hand to shield the sun and watched as the door swung open. Buck and the other officers all moved into the interior of the house. Seconds later a woman appeared from somewhere inside the house and stood in front of them. I was still trying to understand why she was there when I heard her call out, using the same phrase that terrorists had uttered in suicide attacks around the world.
“Allahu akbar!”
As the woman’s suicide vest detonated, I watched in horror as her body disintegrated along with the law enforcement officers that were inside the house. Even as I moved forward, I knew that it was too late.
Everyone was dead, including the man who loved me.
FIFTY-THREE
It was late in the day, four days later, as “Taps" played, and I walked away from Buck McCade’s funeral with Bernie. It had been one of the most heartbreaking days of my life, watching as his brother eulogized him. I’d cried until there were no tears left, as he told the mourners in the memorial chapel on Catalina Island about their boyhood lives and the simple pleasures they’d shared growing up in Texas.
The day had been filled with flowers and prayers, speeches and remembrances, bagpipes and a twenty-one-gun salute, and enough tears to last everyone a lifetime. Even Acting Chief Dunbar had spoken, telling the mourners what a fine officer Buck had been. The service ended as the sun was beginning to set over the small cemetery set on a hillside.
Four lives had been lost during the raid on Nicolai Asimov’s compound. Along with Buck, FBI agents Cather and Sanders, and Deputy Marshal Fiore, had been killed. There had been no sightings of Asimov subsequent to the raid, and a search of the compound had turned up nothing worthwhile. The only hope we had of finding him was to eventually identify the operative he’d used in the Prince case. That hope was slim, given that his associate might be so deep undercover that he or she had been left in place to not draw any attention.
As the mourners headed for their cars, I strolled along the cemetery grounds with Bernie. My canine partner had still not been cleared for duty, but I’d brought him with me to the island, knowing that Buck loved all animals, including my dog. We were on the hillside that overlooked the ocean when I heard a familiar voice behind me.
“Want some company, Buttercup?”
I turned, seeing the familiar face of Joe Dawson. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
“Even a big lug like me can get lost in a crowd of a couple hundred people.” He motioned to a nearby bench. After exchanging hugs, we walked over and took seats.
After a little small talk, we sat in silence for a long time, each of us needing the quiet and solitude after the heart-wrenching day that was finally ending.
When the cemetery was nearly deserted, I quietly said to Joe, “He loved me.”
Joe, who had the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen, turned to me. “Say what?”
“Buck…before the raid, I told him about Noah working for Russell and Ryland…” I drew in a breath and held on his eyes. “He told me that he was still in love with me.”
Even though Joe Dawson was one of the toughest, most hard-headed men I’d ever known, I saw the heaviness in his eyes. He reached over and took my hand. “I’m sorry.”
After a long moment, I said, “I walked away from him, knowing that.”
He blinked back his tears and drew in a breath. “If I remember right, you walked away because of his ex.”
I met his eyes again. “I still walked away. I was wrong.”
“I don’t believe that.” He cleared his throat. “You made a decision that was based on what was happening at the time. Only someone way above our pay grade can decide if that was right or wrong. You need to let it go.”
“But how…” Despite thinking there were no tears left, they spilled from my eyes again. “…how do I go on after…after everything?”
Joe’s gaze moved off and he took a moment before answering. His chest rose, then fell as he said, “I can’t begin to know exactly what you’re feeling, but I lost a partner about twenty years ago. What I felt then was probably about as close as I can come.” He cut his eyes back to me. “All I do know is that loss is the way of the world. To be alive is to suffer loss, and each of us has to find a way out of that. No one can do it for us.”
“But…there’s been so much loss…”
My thoughts became a watery haze as the memories came flooding back to me. I thought about my love-dad, who was shot and killed in front of me when I was a small child. Then there was my birthmother. Judie Crawford had been battered, and later died, at the hands of the same man who had killed my love-dad. Memories of Jack Bautista then found me. I’d been in love with Jack, before Ryan Cooper had also killed him while stalking me. And finally, scenes of all the wonderful moments Buck and I had shared right here on Catalina Island came rushing back to me.
I took a breath and fell against Joe’s shoulder, weeping again. “I just don’t know if I can find my way back from this.”
Joe held on to me, brushing a hand through my hair. After I’d cried myself out again, he said, “You once told me about a guy you worked with. I think his name was Ted.”
I managed to find a breath. “Ted Grady.”
“You said something that made a lot of sense to me at the time. You said that Ted once told you that working in law enforcement was about finding love in the form of justice for the victims in this world.” He met my eyes. “That’s the way you go on, Kate. You go on by doing what you were put on this earth to do. You honor that gift.”
What he’d said about honoring my gift resonated with me. He then said something that, for the first time in days, filled me with renewal and hope. “Lindsay deserves that you do the same thing for her.”
I brushed the stream of tears off my cheeks. “What are you trying to say?”
“We heard from your sister, Kate. She’s on the inside and she’s on our side.”
FIFTY-FOUR
Three days later, I managed to pull myself together and go into the station. Joe Dawson’s words, remembering what Ted Grady had once said about finding justice for the victims of crime, resonated with me. I also remembered some of Buck’s last words about never giving up on life and him telling me when the road turns and all seems lost, you have to keep moving forward.
I still felt like I was stuck in molasses, but I decided I would find a way to keep moving forward, at least until we solved our cases. After that, I knew it was time to try the other thing that Buck and I had talked about. It was time for me to put my foot in a different stream. I knew that both the stream and the woman I’d become had changed, but it was time to try another course. I would find justice one more time for the victims in our cases, then I was planning to quit my job.
The only good news the past week had brought was that my sister had made affirmative contact with the feds. Joe Dawson was now convinced that she had gone undercover to expose those working for the Swarm. They had decided to give her some more time, before hopefully moving in and taking down the terrorist organization and extracting her.
The other positive news was that Brie was now out of the hospital and being considered for a clinical drug trial. She had regained some of her strength and hoped to hear something in the next week about whether or not she wou
ld be accepted into the program.
As for Nicolai Asimov, the feds were convinced that he’d gone to deep cover. They’d vetted everyone connected to both the Prince and Abrams cases, but hadn’t come up with anyone who they suspected was an operative working for the terrorist. Their official line was that Paulina Kristoff was working for Asimov and must have also been working with Marisha Dole in the embezzlement scheme. Their theory was that Asimov’s people, or Kristoff herself, had murdered both Bert Prince and Cole Abrams to keep the thefts covered up, before Kristoff planted the murder weapon in Addison Blaine’s car to frame her.
I didn’t believe a word of it and was happy when Molly Wingate had called, telling me that she and Selfie had come up with something interesting. Breaking our cases was my top priority as I walked into the stationhouse with Bernie and took a seat across from Leo.
“Welcome back,” he said. His eyes lingered on my furry partner. “Has Bernie been medically cleared?”
“Back on duty and ready for action.”
“With the acting chief’s blessing?”
“Let’s just say that I had a few words with Dunbar before Buck’s funeral. I explained to him the wisdom of keeping Bernie on duty.”
“Did that wisdom have anything to do with Dunbar’s past issues in vice?”
I smiled. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”
His gaze remained on me as he also smiled. “How are you doing with everything?”
“Just between you and me, I came back to finish our cases, then I’m done.”
His smile was gone and his forehead tightened. “What do you mean?”
“I’m turning in my resignation once we close our cases.” I exhaled. “I’m empty, Leo. I have nothing left to give.”
His lungs deflated. “You sure?”
I nodded. “I’ve never been more sure about anything.”
He took a moment, then said, “I understand, and I’ll miss you.” He blinked several times. “A lot.”
“I appreciate you saying that, and the feeling’s mutual.”
Twenty minutes later, the remaining original members of our taskforce on both the Prince and Abrams cases had gathered in Lieutenant Edna’s office. After everyone said they were happy Bernie was back on the job, a little small talk, and lots of platitudes about honoring the memory of Buck, Edna got down to business.
“Despite what the feds have decided about Kristoff being good for both murders, Dunbar has authorized us to take another look at everything.” His gaze found me and lingered. “He seems to have suddenly become a man with an open mind and a changed attitude about a lot of things.”
I kept quiet, not wanting to give up any details about the meeting I’d had with Dunbar. Agreeing to let Bernie return to duty was part of the package deal I’d struck with him. The other part of the deal was that I would resign and take Bernie with me into retirement once our cases were closed. Neither Edna, nor my co-workers, knew I was working my last case.
As Bernie ambled off to a corner of the office, Edna looked at Selfie and Molly. “It’s my understanding that you’ve come up with something on Prince that’s worth telling everyone about.”
Selfie brushed yellow hair from her eyes and put on a pair of pink glasses with rhinestones on the frames. “As we all know, Carlyle Waggoner is the producer of The Princes of Beverly Hills, along with dozens of other TV shows and movies. Molly and I were going through the call history on Bert Prince’s cell phone the other day and realized that he had lots of contacts with Waggoner through his assistant, Morgan Hathaway.”
“That’s no surprise,” Darby said. The pudgy detective had on a red and white plaid shirt that reminded me of a tablecloth at a picnic. “Waggoner was the money behind the TV show.”
“I remember my friend, Mo Simpson, also saying that Prince and Waggoner had lots of contact,” I said, “According to her, much of it involved heated conversations.” I looked at Selfie. “Go on.”
“Prince and Waggoner’s assistant were on the phone together almost daily, some of the conversations lasting half an hour.” She looked at Molly. “Here’s where things get really interesting. We also found a link between Carlyle Waggoner and Cole Abrams.”
FIFTY-FIVE
They now had everyone’s interest. Molly picked up some paperwork in front of her and said, “As we know, Cole Abrams was a high tech inventor. After his murder, as part of the investigation, we asked his assistant, Jimmy Dietz, for a list of the projects that he’d been working on. Dietz said Abrams was very secretive and couldn’t really tell us anything specific.
“Dietz called a couple of days ago and said he’d come across some paperwork showing that Abrams had rented some private office space. It was the first Dietz knew about it and he went over there to check it out. He found information about the secret projects Abrams was working on.” Molly held up what I assumed was what Dietz had given them. “Some of this stuff is highly technical and difficult to understand, but one of the items has to do with the way movies are made.”
She now really had my interest. “Can you give us a description of what he was working on?”
“Not really. Most of what I have consists of equations and algorithms. All I really can make of it is that it was some kind of software that was an interface for the digital production process involved in the making of a movies. I think maybe it’s some kind of 3-D process, but much more sophisticated.”
I looked at Darby. “It must be related to the process Morgan Hathaway told us about.”
Darby said to the others, “Waggoner’s assistant told us he was involved in the development of some kind of movie technology. Didn’t make much sense to me.”
“She called it AII, or Augmented Immersive Intelligence,” I said. “It’s supposed to immerse the moviegoer interactively into the film that’s being watched. Hathaway said something about it being like virtual reality. It makes the viewer seem as though they’re on stage with the actors, as part of the action. It’s supposedly state of the art, cutting edge stuff that will change the movie industry.”
We all went on for a moment, speculating about the possible relationship between Carlyle Waggoner and our two murder victims. Neither Selfie nor Molly were able to give us anything further about the technology Abrams had invented, but I now had a feeling that is was central to what happened to both of our victims.
“I’d like to backtrack and summarize what we know about both cases,” I said, after turning everything over in my mind. “Maybe it will help put things into perspective.”
“That’s a waste of time,” Darby groaned. “We all know what happened.”
“I’d like to hear it,” Leo said. “There’s a lot of pieces to this puzzle, and we need to see how they fit together.”
“Lay it out,” Edna said to me, “but let’s not take all fucking day.”
I took a moment to gather my thoughts, forcing myself out of the emotional quagmire that continually threatened to pull me back into an abyss. I then began laying out what we knew.
“More than a week ago, Bert Prince, the patriarch of the reality TV show The Princes of Beverly Hills, was murdered. The show featured Bert, his wife Lady, her two daughters, Paris and Monaco, and their adopted daughter, Florence. Bert also had a son named Bruce by a previous marriage. The show was successful, making them all extremely wealthy. But, at some point, Bert and the rest of the family had a falling out about financial matters. His wife and daughters hired an agent named Marisha Dole to handle their money.”
I then went back to what we knew about the murder. “Our victim’s body was found in his den by a maid after he’d been shot. The COD was a .22 caliber round that pierced his aorta. The coroner subsequently determined that Prince had semen on his pajamas. DNA analysis later showed that he’d been engaged in a sexual act with Marisha Dole shortly before his death, something that Dole later admitted to.”
Leo offered to help out with the summary. “Our investigation revealed that our victim had been secretly diverting mil
lions of dollars from his wife and daughters’ accounts, money that was laundered through dummy corporations and put in overseas tax shelters. We eventually realized that Marisha Dole was part of the scam, using her agency to falsify bank statements and financial documents to cover up the theft.”
“But Dole denies that,” I said. “She insists that she was set up by another party.”
“She had GSR on her blouse,” Darby said. “She’s a bigger liar than a politician.”
“Maybe,” Leo said. “But that doesn’t explain how the weapon used to murder Bert Prince ended up in Addison Blaine’s car.”
“We’re getting ahead of things,” Edna said. He looked at me. “Let’s talk about the Abrams case.”
I took a sip of coffee and began laying out that case. “Cole Abrams was found shot to death in his penthouse condo by his assistant, Jimmy Dietz. Abrams was a wealthy inventor, who made about a half a billion dollars from a computer chip he developed and sold to another company several years ago. Dietz said that after discovering Abrams’ body, he told the victim’s girlfriend what happened. Addison Blaine had been asleep in the bedroom next to where the body was discovered.”
Darby yawned. “Let’s cut to the chase. Blaine was in a secret room adjacent to the bedroom, screwing Abrams’ prostitute, Paulina Kristoff.”
I confirmed what he’d said, adding, “Both Blaine and Kristoff claim that Kristoff’s relationship with Abrams involved far more than sex. Blaine’s mother, Deidre, operates—for lack of a better word—a companionship service, and arranged for Kristoff to be Abrams’ companion, something that she referred to as a ‘Beta’.”
Leo chimed in. “According to both women, the relationship was mutually satisfying to all parties. Cole Abrams lacked certain social skills that Kristoff assisted with, along with meeting his emotional and physical needs.”
