“What kind of bid-ness?” I say, all sloth-eyed.
Carol rolls her eyes. “Criminy, woman, am I going to have to drag you out of here?”
“You’re helping the boys, aren’t you?” I say slowly, managing a half smile. I blink with exquisite slowness. “They need money and you help them make it.” I smile broadly at her now. “You’re so nice.”
I’m hoping this appeal to her ego, coupled with my apparently drugged state of my mind, will allow Carol to let her guard down. But no such luck.
“I’ve had just about enough of you,” she says, grabbing both of my wrists and dragging me across the floor.
I’m determined not to make it easy for her, so I don’t try to get up or help her. But I don’t resist her, either. She drags me across the room, grunting with each pull. When she reaches yet another door, she opens it and drags me over the threshold into a hallway. Here the floor is concrete and rough, not the smoother finish I encountered in the other rooms.
“Ouch!” I yell, pouting.
“Well then, get up and walk,” Carol snaps. She stops, panting, hands on her hips. There is sweat dripping from her forehead and a look of major irritation on her face.
I do as she says and stand. Then I start walking in the direction she was dragging me, passing her by in the process. She lets me take the lead and falls into step behind me. For a crazy half second I consider trying to run. But I quickly dismiss the idea for two reasons. One, Carol’s legs are easily twice the length of mine, so it wouldn’t be hard for her to catch me, even if she’s slow. And two, I have no idea what’s up ahead. If there is a door that requires a badge or card to open, I’ll be trapped, and Carol will be very angry. And she’s not someone I want to make mad just now. Better to continue with the drugged façade for the time being and look for another opportunity.
As it turns out, there are no other doors. This hallway is the same one I first entered from outside. As I round a curve I see a dark maw appear up ahead and think I might as well try to run. It’s probably my only chance.
I kick it into high gear, feeling my abused muscles protest loudly. Running as fast as I can, I close in on the opening, wondering if the ladder will still be there or if I’ll have to run along the creek. Behind me I hear Carol cuss under her breath as her footfalls quicken and grow heavier. I’ve only gone about ten feet, and I can tell she’s rapidly closing in on me. By the time I reach the opening, I can feel the heat of her breath on the back of my neck.
I give it every bit of energy I have left, thankful that adrenaline is starting to mask the pain. I dart through the opening just as Carol’s heavy hand clamps down on my shoulder, her grip fierce and relentless. I try to break free, but she doesn’t let go, and I find myself spinning around to face her.
But this time, instead of the world going dark, it explodes with light.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Hold it!” commands a voice from somewhere behind the blinding light. I recognize it as Bob Richmond’s voice. Roscoe’s barking is replaced with a whine, and behind me I hear Carol utter a cuss word. I feel a hand in the middle of my back and I’m thrust forward, falling onto the stone shoreline of the creek. I hear the hard thud of running footsteps behind me moving away, and when I look over my shoulder I see that the entrance to the underground bunker is empty.
Bob’s voice is suddenly by my ear. “Are you okay?” he says, shining his flashlight over my body.
“Yes,” I say, though both my knees and the palms of my hands where I hit the stones are burning and stinging.
“Can you get up the ladder?” Bob asks.
“I think so.”
“Brenda Joiner is up there with your dog. She can help you some, but that dog of yours is champing at the bit to get to you.”
“Roscoe, be still!” I say in a commanding voice. The whining stops.
“Impressive,” Bob says. “What’s inside that door? Was that Carol Barlow I saw behind you?”
“Last question first. Yes, it’s Carol Barlow. And down that hallway you’ll find a doorway that you won’t be able to get past without a key card. But if you do get in, there are lots of people inside. All of Toby’s gaming team comrades . . . and I choose the word comrade on purpose, because our Mr. Belov is also in there.”
“It’s a gaming place?” Bob says, confused.
“No. I’m not sure exactly what they’re doing or how they’re doing it, but I believe they’re extorting people.”
“What?” Bob snaps.
“Something to do with porn, I think,” I say. His eyebrows shoot up at that. “I bet the kids who are on that gaming team are all from poorer homes. And they aren’t practicing whatever computer game it is they play, they’re extorting people. That’s why they never win the gaming competitions, because they never really practice. My guess is they’re earning money doing whatever it is, enough to keep them from talking. Maybe they get other perks, too. I don’t know. Whatever it is, they’re serious enough about keeping it a secret that the Barlow woman was going to ‘make me disappear. ’” I do air quotes around the last three words.
“She tried to drug me,” I say, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the pill Carol tried to make me take. “I’m betting it’s GHB, the same stuff they used on Toby. I think he had a crisis of conscience and wanted out, but they didn’t want to let him. He tried to get the other guys to side with him, but they were too afraid, and maybe too greedy, to do it. They couldn’t get Toby in line, though, so, they had to make him disappear, too.”
Bob looks around with a frown. “I need an evidence team out here. And more officers.” He nods at the pill in my hand. “Hang on to that for now. Did you see any weapons in there?” He gestures toward the entrance to the bunker.
“No, but I wasn’t looking for them, and I don’t know if there were areas I didn’t see.”
Bob undoes the clip on his holster and then yells up to Brenda, “Hey, Joiner. Get on the horn and get us some help. We need all the officers we can get. Hit up county and state if you need to. And get forensics out here, too.”
“On it,” she yells back.
I stuff the pill back into my pocket and smile at Bob. “I’m glad you showed up when you did.”
“I confess, you had me intrigued with that photo you sent.”
“It finally went through?” I say with surprise and relief.
“It came through, but to be honest, I couldn’t tell what it was at first. And then you didn’t answer me when I messaged back and tried to call. I checked the location of your phone and it came up here, and that’s when I realized what the picture was. I didn’t have a way to get here without Sheffield’s permission, but I realized you didn’t, either. I’ve seen Sheffield’s property, at least the area around his house. It’s got more cameras than a group of Japanese tourists.”
“Inappropriate and racist,” I say, gently chastising.
“Whatever. Anyway, I knew you couldn’t easily sneak onto Sheffield’s property from the road because it’s gated and fenced, and there are all the cameras. And I was pretty sure Sheffield wasn’t going to let you just go roaming around if you asked. So I started thinking about how you might have gotten out here. That got me to looking at the areas surrounding the property, and that’s when I saw the dog park.”
“That’s where we were,” I say, trying to look and sound innocent. “P.J. couldn’t walk Roscoe tonight, so I brought him to the park. And after his playtime, I decided to walk the trails in the main park area to get my muscles loosened up better. They’re really stiff from the gym, you know.”
I smile at Bob, but he’s stony-faced. I’m glad I have P.J.’s note to back up my story—that and the false stories I told the other dog owners about Roscoe’s recent desire to run off.
“Anyway, while we were walking the back trails Roscoe took off after a rabbit, and his leash got all tangled up in some shrubbery. I had to unhook him to get it untangled, and when I did, he just took off. He doesn’t usually do things like
that, but, he is a dog.” I shrug and smile some more.
“I went after him and ended up wandering in the woods. Eventually I came out here and found him running around the property. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the footbridge.”
I’m looking at Bob with what I hope is wide-eyed innocence. He’s looking at me with an expression that says he isn’t buying a word of it. “And how is it you discovered the hidden entrance?” he asks.
His cheek pouches out as his tongue patrols the inside of it, and I get a strong sense from that and the look of skepticism on his face that he isn’t going to believe anything I tell him. Technically I haven’t lied to him yet. I just haven’t shared the whole truth. And I don’t intend to.
“It was purely accidental,” I say—still the truth. “I’d crossed the bridge to this side and was about to step off it when Roscoe came running over it. I think he was spooked, because he slammed into my legs and knocked me off balance. I grabbed the top of one of the newel posts to try to catch myself, and the finial turned. And then the bridge just started going up.”
Bob sighs and looks up at the raised bridge. “Quite the setup. No wonder Warren Sheffield didn’t want us out here looking at his property.” An oddly satisfied smile creeps over his face. “I bet he’s going to be real mad.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Not surprisingly, I’ve had a sleepless night, in part because I didn’t get home until five in the morning, and in part because of all the excitement. It’s now just before seven on Tuesday morning and I feel wide awake. I called Crystal when I first got home and left her a voice mail telling her I wouldn’t be in. I was relieved that I didn’t have to speak to her. If she’s been offered the job at the police station, I don’t think I could bear to hear her gloating about it.
Bob kindly excused me from my gym time this morning, given that I walked the extra miles last night and all. Plus, he missed gym time, too, because he’s still out at the footbridge processing the scene.
And what a scene it is. I had a front-row seat to the whole thing. Warren Sheffield’s money and influence protect him from a lot, but now that the bunker has been discovered and Bob has the state and county police involved, it was a simple matter to find a judge to authorize the necessary search warrants.
There was a bit of a standoff at the bunker, with all of those inside refusing to come out and those outside unable to get in. I thought there might have been a back entrance, an escape route that the bunker inhabitants could have used, but it turns out there isn’t. One had been planned, but Sheffield apparently decided to put it on hold, impressed with what he had in place already, arrogant enough to think it would never be discovered, and tightfisted enough not to want to spend the money on it. Thus, it seems only fitting that Sheffield was the one who had to access the locked door to the bunker and let the police inside. Later, when both Sheffield and Belov were standing around outside in cuffs, they got into an argument about the escape route, or rather the lack thereof. Apparently, Belov had tried hard to convince Sheffield to put one in, and now he was in full-blown, ticked-off I-told-you-so mode.
When Carol was brought out, a few questions verified my earlier suspicion about her relationship to Sheffield. She is his daughter, though an illegitimate one, and she was also the overseer and supervisor for the blackmail operations that have been going on.
It was the frat boys who gave away most of those details, despite the malicious stares and glowers they got from both Sheffield and Carol. The boys, and their female counterparts, had been approached by Belov, who scouted them out when they were in high school. He was looking for kids who were IT savvy and poor. He offered them full-ride scholarships, the sourcing and true nature of which were well masked—the funding came from Sheffield—and in exchange they had to work for Belov, though technically everyone involved was working for Sheffield.
The work, as it turns out, was blackmailing customers who stayed in one of Sheffield’s many hotels and who accessed certain pornography videos from their rooms. These are not your run-of-the-mill pornos, but rather socially unacceptable ones that feature kiddie porn, bestiality, and some hard-core S&M stuff.
When the videos loaded, a brief screen with what looked like a copyright infringement warning appeared, but it also contained language that gave WIS Productions the right to bill the customer for several thousand dollars’ worth of additional pornographic videos, a subscription of sorts, the charge for which would appear on the credit card used to book the hotel room and access the original porn video.
When the customers called WIS Productions to question the charge, it was explained to them that if they didn’t approve the charge, it would be made public to their employers or family members what they had paid to watch at the hotel. Then similar types of videos would start to arrive via the mail at home and at work without any plain brown wrappers. And to make matters worse, the customers then learned that while they were watching their porn, WIS Productions was watching them. All the TVs in Sheffield’s hotel rooms have hidden cameras in them that were activated whenever one of the target porn videos was purchased. If the humiliation of having employers and loved ones learn of your perverted sexual proclivities wasn’t deterrent enough, the threat of having a video released that showed what you were doing during the video was enough to convince the resisters.
In exchange for manning the phones, relaying the blackmail terms to customers, and handling the necessary computer programming and networking, the college kids were offered their school scholarships and a little spending money on the side. If all went well and the students kept their mouths shut, they would graduate with a degree and free of debt.
At one point during these revelations, Bob took me aside and told me he suspects Sheffield has been doing this for years, but they might not be able to prove it. For one thing, WIS Productions is a valid business engaged in the creation and distribution of all kinds of legitimate videos, from popular movies to self-help titles. Secondly, getting people who would be willing to come forth and admit to the extortion, much less testify to it, would be hard, given the nature of the blackmail.
I learned that there were security cameras hidden in the bridge part of the property, so I was glad I hadn’t lied outright to Bob. In fact, by the time I was given a ride home this morning, he told me he had obtained and viewed the footage of my escapades and that the video supported my version of events . . . for the most part. Technically I am still guilty of trespassing, but given the fact that Sheffield has bigger problems to deal with, it is unlikely that it will come to anything.
By the time Roscoe and I got home, I was feeling quite good about myself and what I did. But now, after two hours of insomnia and restlessness, my spirits have taken a dive. They get a brief boost when my phone rings a little after seven and I see it’s Bob.
I answer without any greeting. “Anything new?”
“You weren’t asleep, were you?” he says.
“Heck, no. How could I sleep with all that’s happened?”
“Are you at work?”
“Nope. I’m taking a personal day. I have a lot of comp time built up, so I might as well use it. Besides, I understand my boss applied for the position at the police station and has had an interview already. Might as well get as much out of her as I can while she’s still at the hospital.”
Bob says nothing to this, and my spirits start tanking again. I was hoping for some encouragement at the least, or an outright denial of Crystal’s chances at the most. “Have you learned anything new?” I ask Bob, eager to change the subject.
“I have. It turns out that little bedroom setup they have in the bunker is where they sometimes shoot their own videos. There are some college kids who are willing to do porn for money. And when Toby started balking at the blackmailing scheme, Carol tried flipping it back on him by drugging him with GHB and having him involved in a porno of his own, with him as the star. And guess what they use for lube during these sessions?”
It’s an unexpec
ted question, and I have no answer.
“Coconut oil,” Bob says with obvious satisfaction.
I make the connection. “That’s how it ended up on Toby’s shoes, and the other footprints where his body was found.”
“Yep.”
“Poor Toby,” I say.
“Yeah. The day he broke up with Lori, Carol had shown him the porn video and told him she would release it to his mother and girlfriend if he didn’t shut up about the blackmail.”
“That explains why he broke up with Lori. And why he quit school and came home.”
“Yeah,” Bob says again. “I think the kid tried to live with it but couldn’t. Carol’s son couldn’t, either. He did himself in to escape it.”
“That’s why he killed himself?” I say, shocked. “They were doing this back then?”
“Apparently so. And other than Carol’s son, Toby is the first participant to go rogue, or at least the first one we know about. Who knows what we might dig up in the past? Anyway, when Toby emailed the other guys with his doubts, one or maybe all of them told Carol and Belov what was going on. That text message Toby got on the night he died was to get him out to the bunker so they could silence him once and for all.”
“So Sharon Cochran was right all along,” I say. Somehow, I don’t think the knowledge will help her much. Her son is still dead. But at least his reputation will be exonerated. “Does this mean our ride-along is over with?”
“It does,” he says. “But there will be more to come.”
“How so?”
“When you start the new job.”
“Do you think I stand a chance?” I say with little hope.
“Nope,” Bob says, and despite my own pessimism, I’m devastated by his blunt reply. Then he adds, “You don’t need a chance. The job is yours.”
My fuzzy, sleep-deprived brain struggles to figure out what Bob really said, because I know it wasn’t what I think I heard. “What did you say?” I ask.
“I said, the job is yours. I’ve been talking to the chief regularly since you and I had dinner the other night, telling him you’d be perfect for the job. And then the résumé and letter you sent him convinced him I was right.”
Needled to Death Page 29
