The Hollywood Serial Killers: A Mike Kane Mystery Series

by Sands, Jordan

  She finally gets up and slides in behind him, putting her arms around him, and squeezes him with her head pressed into his shoulder. “Why didn’t you wake me? I would have gladly made you something to eat. You must have gotten up pretty early.”

  “I did. It isn’t as good as what you would have made, but it isn’t bad.”

  “Do you want me to make you anything else?”

  “No, I’m fine, this will be enough.” He takes another bite. “You two are leaving today?”

  “Today or tomorrow. We will be gone for only two weeks if that is okay with you?”

  “Why not tomorrow morning? And yes, two weeks will be fine. See, I can even cook.” He says with a fake cough and follows it up with a soft laugh.

  She smiles at the jest that he made. “I’ll miss being here with you.”

  “I may not be here when you get back, but I will let you know where I am so you two can join me.”

  As she gets up and heads to the kitchen, she turns around. “Please let me get you something. At least some fruit.”

  “Okay, slice me some mangos.”

  “The coffee smells real good,” Mark calls out as he and Santane walk down the stairs.

  “What do you want to eat?” Jacinta asks as they are taking their seats at the dining room table.

  “Anything new in the news?” Mark asks while Mr. Tan is glancing at the newspaper.

  “Several of my stocks are up, and a couple of them are down. The Middle East is in turmoil, there are riots in the street of Cairo, my oil well drilling permits were not granted for the Gulf of Mexico. And one of my tankers was attached by some Somalian pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Other than that, no.”

  “Did the pirates board your tanker?” Mark asks.

  “No, they were fought off. Five of them were killed. I have a security force on all of my tankers. No one had better take one.” He moves his paper down to look straight at Mark.

  “Well, at least today they more than paid for themselves. They saved you millions,” Mark says reassuringly.

  “They saved my insurance premiums from going up. I may even give them a bonus for taking care of business.” He raises his paper to continue reading.

  “Sis, we're leaving tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I’m already packed.” Santane looks at the back of the newspaper of Mr. Tan’s. “Okay, tomorrow.”

  “Well, since you are still here for the day, what should we do?” Mark asks Santane.

  “We could go diving again and go to a new site if you wish, or we could just drive around the island, whatever you want to do.”

  “I liked the diving, so let’s check out a new site. That is if it is as good as the last one.”

  After breakfast, they load up the ATV and head down to the boat dock. They transfer the tanks and equipment into the 65 Odyssey yacht and head off for a new sunken ship that is farther from the island. She steers the yacht east of the island about twenty-two miles, then shuts down and releases the anchor. It doesn’t take them long to get into the water and dive down. They search the wreckage for about twenty minutes when Santane notices, up on the surface, another boat had pulled up next to theirs. It's the one she thinks she saw yesterday going over their dive markers. She sees four divers drop into the ocean from the back of their boat and swim down toward where they are located. She swims over to Mark and taps him on the back and points to the divers that are headed their way. She motions for him to start heading towards the surface. Both do so, but before they could reach it, the four intruders are upon them. Three of the divers head for Santane, probably aware of her capabilities. The other one goes straight for Mark.

  She pulls her diver's knife out of the right boot. As they approach, she swipes at one of them and cuts his hand, one of the others she puts a hole in his air hose. He heads for the surface right away. The third grabs her hand and, with the help of the other one, who is bleeding, escorts her to the surface. She is fighting all of the way up until one of them takes off her mask. The fourth diver has no problem with Mark.

  Their unmarked 73 Super Sport Yacht swings alongside where they come up. Mark is the first to be hauled up on the deck. Santane gives them a lot more trouble; as two climbs into the boat to hoist her up, she kicks one that is still in the water in the mask. They finally get her on board and quickly lay her face down while placing a knee on her back, restraining her with plastic ties wrapped around her ankles, legs, and hands. The four divers in the boat keep their masks on to avoid recognition, until they placed black hoods over Mark's and Santane's heads, to prevent them from seeing anything or anyone. The one in charge is in the enclosed captain's bridge, sitting in the driver’s seat, as he monitors what is going on through one of the screens in front of him as they are being restrained. None of them spoke at all while this was taking place. All went well with precise military timing.

  One of the men takes the winding steps up from the galley and approaches the captain and whispers “What do we do with the girl?”

  “Put her below with him; we still have to go get the others. Two of you get on board and bring their yacht and follow us.”

  The captain turns the yacht around and navigates back towards Mr. Tan’s portion of the island. Once there, he maneuvers his yacht into position on one side of the pier as the other men are tethering Mr. Tan’s yacht on the opposite side. All five men place black ski mask over their faces, and wearing camouflage uniforms; they take the trail up to the compound. They see Mr. Tan and Jacinta are sitting out on the veranda. One stays outside to guard against any mishap or anyone fleeing. The captain and the other three slip in the front door, creep silently across the floor and approach the opened sliding glass doors where Fred and Jacinta are.

  As Jacinta sees a foot step out onto the deck, she stands up and wheels around and places a kick to the midsection of the intruder. Fred gets up and tries to run past them and into the main lodge, only to be quickly detained by the captain. The second man blocks the next kick that she is sending his way, as he follows up with a frontal one of his own, only to have her tumble back over the rail and fall two stories to the ground below. She lands on some freshly cut shrubbery that Alex had cut and placed there earlier in the day, breaking her fall. The third man pounces on her immediately and subdues her as she is almost unaware of what hit her.

  They walk the two back towards the yachts with restraints and gags. Before stepping into the clearing and onto the white sandy beach, they place hoods over each to keep them from seeing anything or anyone. They've put them on board, placed them together into a separate stateroom, away from Mark and Santane, who are moved out onto the lower deck.

  With all four in hand and under restraints, the Captain backs away from the dock. He turns the yacht towards the east, pushes on the levers and powers the yacht to full throttle. Using all 2000 horsepower diesel, with their twin 16V2000, he heads back to where they had come from the day before.

  Unaware of what has just taken place, Alex is walking up the hill back to the compound with a shovel over his shoulder, whistling as before. He is coming from a spot where he had just dug two fresh graves.

  Chapter 60

  The Ocean 73 Super Sport runs smoothly over the waters. Three of the four others go down to the lower deck where there are four staterooms available. Two each share a single room and crash; the third takes the one remaining stateroom and does the same. The fourth joins the Captain, who is in the enclosed flybridge, sitting in the helm chair, and for a brief time, he takes the second companion seat. Three large screens with all the controls are right in front of the Captain. One of the screens shows where they are relative to a larger map of the United States; another shows an accurate detail of the size to which islands are around them and where they are among them. The third is a depth finder, letting him know the water's depth along, with a fish finder, not that this group has any time for fishing. This particular yacht has been equipped with extra auxiliary fuel tanks, just for this type of mission. Initially, this was owned b
y a drug cartel that was running illegal contraband from Cuba to Florida. The Coast Guard and the DEA seized the yacht and the CIA now utilize it for clandestine operations. Martin has used this particular yacht on several different missions. He makes one call. “Mission accomplished.”

  The yacht, even though it can push 30+ knots, takes approximately 11 hours to arrive at their destination, U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay. On the way, each man takes a couple of hours at the helm. This was a training trip for these four new recruits.

  The four prisoners, Mark, Fred, Jacinta, and Santane, all have to relieve themselves a couple of times along the way. Their hoods were never taken off. Mark keeps yelling that they can’t do this to him, he’s an American citizen, and do they know who he is. Towards the end of the trip, he is pleading for them to take off the hood and let him go, sounding like he was almost in tears. Martin makes another call.

  During the trip, Fred said about the same as far as do they know who he is and that he is an American citizen, but other than that, he didn’t press the issue. He remains calm as he was pretty sure who it was he was dealing with, or, better put, who was dealing with him. Jacinta doesn’t make too much of a fuss; she doesn’t have a clue about who or what happened, or for the matter why. Santane puts up as much of a fight as she can each and every time she has to be taken to the head. They're all given something to eat, but only with their hoods lifted up to their noses and no farther, and were hand-fed. None of them complain about the cooking, with two exceptions: Jacinta mentions the meal needs a little bit more oregano, and Santane spits the food out at the person who is feeding her.

  Coming in from the south, Martin pulls into the bay. Staying on the left side of the bay, he pulls around the point and eventually crosses the outflow of GTMO River. He goes a bit farther west and pulls up next to the Leeward Landing. Throttling down, he maneuvers into position, and two of the men jump onto the dock and tie the yacht off. They are greeted by a van where they load all of the prisoners into the back, still with their hoods on, with Mark still pleading to let him go. Still, no words are spoken. Even the surrounding personnel know that when they see a hooded prisoner, they should not speak.

  They are taken down the road to Leeward Point Airport where an unmarked Learjet 60 is awaiting them. They board, placing Mark and Fred onto a leather cushion couch towards the front of the plane. The two women are placed apart and across from each other on the back of the aircraft. One of the four agents boards with Martin, with the other three staying behind. Within a few minutes, it is taxiing down the runway which is right on the most southern edge of the island, right on the water’s edge. Soon it lifts off and makes its bearing due north, heading to Florida.

  Chapter 61

  Earlier I receive a call. “Great news, mahalo. I owe you one, hoapili.”

  I look over to Sharon, as Paul just walks into the office. “We have them.”

  “Who?” Paul asks, still wiping his mouth from a late lunch.

  “Mark. We have Mark, and Mr. Tan.”

  “How who and where?” asks a puzzled Sharon.

  “Remember Martin, my CIA friend?” they nod their heads. “He has a friend at AMOC, a government agency that covers the whole of the United States for air traffic control, a part of Homeland Security. Even though Corpus Christi lost Mr. Tan’s plane, AMOC kept them on their surveillance and saw where they were headed to. They picked them up.” I look over to Sharon. “We need to take a flight to Florida to take them into custody and escort them back.”

  Martin Corboy has been a friend of mine since we were in grade school at Punahou back in Honolulu. We both went to the University of Hawaii and studied criminology together. We both had a short stint with the FBI. We went through their training as roommates, but we both decided they were not the ones we wanted to work with for the rest of our lives. A lot of it was where we were assigned had a great deal to do with us staying or not. He was assigned to North Dakota, and I was assigned to Minnesota. We both decided cold weather was not for us. The CIA approached both of us; he chose to go with them and I went with the Honolulu CSI. In every sense, we have always kept in touch.

  “Let’s go speak to Martha.” I motion for Sharon to follow.

  Sharon escorts her into our interrogation room. We all take a seat.

  “I just thought you would be interested to know, we have your son,” I say, looking into her eyes to see her reaction.

  She looked stunned. “How in the hell did you do that?” she yells out at me. “He was out of the country. You got him illegally.” She was still yelling at us. “You won’t be able to make it stick.”

  You could just see the hatred in her eyes; in Hawaii, one would say she is giving me the hu hu stinkeye.

  “Just thought you would like to know, just trying to be nice.”

  Now, almost foaming at the mouth, she lets out a tirade. “I’m so glad you are so fucking stupid because you just got my son off with your stupid little antics.”

  “Well, we will see. By the way, who said he was out of the States?”

  “I know he was. I just know it.” She sits back straighter in the chair and trying to compose herself.

  “Let’s talk about you.” I look straight at her. “We know you are the one who killed the ladies. What we don’t know is why and where.”

  “I’m not saying a thing without my lawyer.” She takes her fingers and motions as if zipping her mouth shut.

  “Just thought you might like to get something off of your chest,” I look back at her as I get up, “I feel that you would like to tell someone, just to explain why you did it and who you did it for.”

  “What do you know? You don’t know anything. You don’t know how I feel and you sure the hell don’t care how I feel.” She darts her eyes back to me, with her arms still crossed.

  “Now, how can you say that? Wasn’t I kind enough to let you know we have your son safe and sound? I would think as a mother you would appreciate that and like to know. But maybe I was wrong.” I'm still trying to get into her head.

  “Let me ask you this. Why was Jacobs killed? What did he do?” Sharon asks.

  “He was an idiot just like you two; he deserved to ….” She finally caught herself, with a laugh she looks straight into my eyes. “You think you're so damn smart. Well, you’re not.”

  “I can see, with the mouth that you have, why Mr. Tan never married you.”

  “You son-of-a-bitch, what right have you got to say that? I was too good for him, and he knew it,” she snaps back.

  “Well tell me, why John Jacobs? He helped you move the bodies. Why kill him?”

  “All right I’ll tell you; he brought you to us. If he hadn’t been so damn stupid, he’d still be alive.”

  “Martha, I hate to tell you, but we were onto them before he did that. I think it was when you killed the first one, Gracie Tan.”

  “That slut, she was a he and tricked Fred into marrying him. I was too good for him, but she wasn’t even close to being good enough,” she said, almost spitting out the words.

  “Then why the others?”

  “Ha, you want to know, you’re the detective, you figure it out,” she said slowly and deliberately. “Besides, I had already asked for an attorney, so what I’ve just said is not admissible.”

  “Well, see about that. But you did confirm what I felt I already knew. And besides, I don’t think you know that what you say after you're read your rights is admissible.”

  She doesn’t say any more, still giving me a dirty look. Her attorney arrives, Jonathan Peters, but by then I had already heard what I wanted to know and probably all I was going to get.

  Sharon and I leave her alone, waiting for her attorney to finish speaking with her and to come see us. We already know she is not getting out on bail.

  “Did you check and see how David is?” I ask, “Is he awake for questioning?”

  “Hold on; I will.” Sharon dials the number, finds out he is awake.

  We drive over and head up t
o the ward where he is. A policeman is still stationed outside his room. He stands up as soon as I walk up to him.

  “He seems all right now.”

  “You can take a short break,” I say, as I lean down and pick up his chair and take it into the room.

  We walk in; he is handcuffed to the bed, with I.V.s and several monitors attached to him.

  “The doctors said it was almost a miracle that you are still alive,” I mention.

  “Yes, and I hear I owe my life to you,” he said with a smile that hurt.

  “I thought I would let you know we have Martha in custody and have Mark to be transported back to L.A.”

  “That bitch, she tried to kill me. Why? I did everything they asked of me.”

  “I think they wanted to tie up loose ends and were afraid to leave you alive just in case.”

  “They could have taken me with them, instead of fucking killing me,” he says, as he is still unsure why they would have wanted him dead.

  “Who killed John? Was it you?”

  “Hell, no. It was Martha. She took a gun with a silencer and shot him in the pool house shower, right after you and she left.” He glances towards Sharon.

  “First, wasn’t that a bit risky? Knowing we were just there and saw John run into the back next to the garages?”

  “Mark and I didn’t know you had seen him or even knew he was on the grounds.”

  “When we saw Stephen tear through the gate, after John’s body was found, I take it he was not privy to the fact you decided to kill him?”

  “I didn’t decide to kill him; it was Mark and Martha’s idea.”

  “Did you know the gun Sharon took off of you was the same one that killed John?”

  “That damn bitch.” He pulls at his handcuffs. “What, they were going to try to frame me for that?”

  “Suppose so,” I say, almost feeling sorry for him. “I have some more questions for you. I think I know why John was killed; it’s because of his lack of common sense. Especially using his name to come back to L.A. But why even have him come back? “