Transparency: Bio-Tech Cavern Secrets Untold

by Matthews, D. K.

  “Yeah, not much goes on here during weekdays. Tomorrow, things will pick up a bit. Friday a C&W band plays. Saturday, the place will be packed with an NRA group who’ll be in town. I have four girls from Redwood Bluff who come in on the weekends.”

  With an effort he pulled himself up and rested on the side of the bed. “I have to get to the office soon.”

  Her frivolous look pandered to his weakened state. “Sure you don’t want to stick around? I’ll make pancakes.”

  “I have some explaining to do.”

  “Heck, I’ll vouch for you.”

  “No, it’s in regards to something that occurred before I arrived here.” The right side of his face throbbed.

  “You should see a doctor. Your face looks bad.”

  “There’s nothing broken although I could use something for the pain. That Billy owns a rock hard fist.”

  “You want some Tylenol?”

  “Double dose and extra strength if you have it.”

  The mirror didn’t lie. His right eye was swollen, accompanied by a plum colored cheek. He should stop off at the hospital ER. It would have to be later, after he returned to the PD.

  Before he left the Deer Spot bar he ventured out back behind the barn where Gina stood beneath pine trees hefting an axe.

  Halliday watched her split the wood. “You have a good handle on that axe.”

  “Winter will arrive before you know it,” she said. “Electricity costs are going through the roof.” She gave him an amorous look. “Don’t you just love to sit beside a cozy log fire with the snow a’ fallen?”

  They were of similar age. She deserved good company, but he wouldn’t rest until he solved the Laurel McKittrick case. “Where are you from, Gina?”

  “Casper, Wyoming. Father named me Virginia. I prefer Gina. He owns a big ranch outside of Casper. I grew up around horses, farm animals, and honest folks.”

  “Why did you come to California?”

  “Ranch life bored me to tears. I couldn’t wait until the weekend to hit the town. We’d tote a few beers and have some laughs. Dad never understood that. I came out to California seven years ago carrying one piece of luggage. In San Fran I saw an ad in the newspaper titled REDWOOD BLUFF BAR FOR SALE. I paid cash for this place. As they say, I bought it ‘lock, stock, and barrel.’”

  “I bet you’re as good at investments as you are at splitting wood.”

  She gazed out across the expanse of the property. “Billy hit the nail on the head, you know.”

  She brushed her hand across her sweaty brow.

  “The animals have disappeared since Genevive arrived. Before, deer would stop by to eat out of my hand. Never see them anymore. It’s sad.”

  “What makes you think Genevive Labs is involved?”

  “There are rumors of secret experiments involving a menagerie of animals, mostly cattle. The trucks arrive in the morning while everyone’s asleep. I’ve seen tire tracks on the back of my property. Wait a second. Let me show you something.”

  She walked over to the porch and plucked something out of a planter.

  “You know what this is?”

  It looked like a hi-tech tranquilizer dart.

  “It’s a newfangled tranquillizer dart. I found it at the back of my property. I’ve own ten acres that extend back into these woods. There were tire tracks.” Gina added, “They threatened my neighbor down the street, Lester Cates. A few months ago he shot the tail light out of one of their trucks at two in the morning.”

  “Was it a white pickup?”

  “Yep, that’s it. Lester missed. I think he was aiming for the rear window. Anyway, he’s been receiving threatening phone calls since then.”

  “From who?”

  “Oh, they never say.”

  “Anyone ever call the police to report these incidences?”

  “Hell, nothing ever happens. The police come out, we file a report, and they go away. That’s it.”

  “Do you remember the names of any of the cops who came out to investigate?”

  Gina said, “Although uniforms all look the same, I believe it’s usually the same officer, from Santa Reina PD.”

  “Any sightings of large black vans or SUV’s?”

  “Yeah, Sierra Contractors. My neighbor Lester says they’re CIA.”

  Halliday nodded. He needed to involve Rich Gladstone. “Listen, I’ll look into all this. I have to get going.”

  “Do you want to keep the dart as evidence?”

  “No, it’s safer hidden in your planter. If I need it I’ll come back.” He handed her his card. “Don’t mention the dart to anyone, including the police, until you talk to me.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Halliday left Gina Rowling to her wood chopping.

  In the security of his car he found his phone lodged in the front seat. There were five voicemails, one an unlisted number. Despite his splitting head, he checked the unlisted voicemail.

  “Detective Halliday, I was worried when they drove you away in the truck,” Laurel said. “Please let me know that you are safe. Leave a comment on my blog under ‘Caving and Canoes,’ as before. I underestimated the security force at Genevive this morning. It put you in danger. I’m sorry. I thought it would be a good test. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

  Halliday grabbed his head. The throbbing pain had returned.

  “Did you inform Brad of my intentions on the 31st of October? Please let me know by leaving a comment in my blog. I look forward to our next encounter. I have an unusual story to relate to you.”

  A loud noise in the background of the recording preceded Laurel’s cautious voice. “I must go. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

  She hung up. “Tomorrow’s a big day.” Those were the exact words Agent Judy Solvano had murmured that evening over three years before.

  # # #

  Bangkok’s Central World shopping complex attracted visitors from across the globe. During the Christmas season locals along with troves of tourists descended on the mall. Tasteful decorations hung from the mammoth Christmas tree that ascended through several floors.

  Halliday knew of the Madame Secretary’s proclivity to shop at the tail end of details. The petite lady from Ames, Iowa treated her DS protectors as family. Last Christmas Halliday had received an assortment of shirts and ties from the Kaufhaus des Westens or KaDeWe in Berlin.

  Tomorrow at Bangkok’s Central World shopping complex the Madame Secretary would go shopping. Agents Halliday and Solvano were the advance team charged with scoping out the venue. As professionals, they made a great team. Personally, they had gotten off to a rocky start. However, true to the saying, love had indeed found a way.

  They addressed each other by their last names during protective details. Neither had ever let their personal life intervene with professional duties. Alone during this advance, they loosened up.

  So what? Halliday thought. They were in love.

  “Halliday, I love that powder blue outfit,” Judy said, standing outside Forever Twenty One.

  “Okay, Solvano, I’ll see if I can get the Madam Secretary to purchase it for your Christmas present.”

  “That would be so sweet of her,” Judy said, eyes fluttering. “It would be a major improvement over this black uniform.”

  He grabbed her around the waist.

  “Agent Halliday, behave yourself.” She gazed around them. “We’re on duty.”

  “Okay, back to work, but you belong to me tonight.”

  He saw her lose her breath. It could have been for a second or an eternity. Halliday imagined the planets aligning while the small breath escaped her mouth.

  They spent the next few hours going over the predetermined routes that the Madam Secretary would take. Solvano chattered into a micro-recorder. Halliday took notes in his memo pad. Together, their observations would serve as the basis for their advance security report. Judy’s attention to detail worked well with his intuitive nature.

  Just as they finished their route, a shiny chi
me bracelet caught Halliday’s eye in a jewelry store window. He walked over to get a closer look.

  She eyed the bracelet with a kind of whimsical skepticism. “What are you up to now, Agent Halliday?”

  “See the tiny bells. I could keep track of you.” Halliday caught the attention of the cashier. He pointed at the bracelet. “May I see that?”

  The Thai cashier’s dancing eyes sensed a sale. She held up the bracelet for Judy.

  Halliday heard the subtle ring of the chimes. He watched while the cashier attached it on Judy’s slender wrist.

  “One hundred percent Sterling silver,” the salesgirl said, smiling.

  Judy flapped her arm.

  “I’ll never lose you when you wear that.”

  “I couldn’t wear it on DS details.”

  “Sure you can.” He said to the cashier, “We’ll take it.”

  After they met with the Thai security team they took a taxi back to the Conrad Hotel on Wireless Road, near the U.S. embassy. When he touched her arm the chimes would ring Halliday would seek solace in Judy’s eyes.

  They finished the advance report by 7:00 p.m. The AIC held a two hour briefing for the DS team at the control room, followed by cocktails at the Conrad Hotel bar. Later they snuck away, allowing a hotel driver to whisk them off to an open air restaurant atop a Bangkok skyscraper.

  Halliday ordered a bottle of wine. They devoured a sumptuous Thai meal recommended by the waiter. He gave the waiter a five dollar bill for a request that a songstress sing, Fly Me to the Moon. The only thing they had in common was their love of the classics.

  Halliday had placed the ring in his inside suit pocket when he left Washington D.C. ten days ago. During their dinners in Tokyo, Manila, and Jakarta he had felt his jacket to ensure its presence. Tonight there was magic in the air. The opportunity to pop the question shone with possibility. The sparkle in Judy’s eyes told him to go for it.

  Her phone rang. Judy hurried to a quiet corner to answer it.

  When she returned he replaced the ring in his suit pocket. “What happened?”

  A leftover tear rested on her cheek. “My dad called,” she said. “Mom’s in the hospital. The results of the biopsy came back positive. She has breast cancer. It’s advanced.”

  He placed his hand over hers so the chimes wouldn’t ring. “I’m sorry.”

  Now a stream of tears ran down her cheek. “We were having such a divine evening.”

  “We’ll have plenty of divine evenings, Judy. Let’s just hope you’re mom gets well soon.”

  “Dad said she’s going to have surgery tomorrow.”

  The rush to surgery wasn’t a good sign. He held onto her hand while he murmured words that she probably didn’t hear.

  At close to midnight, the magic of the evening had faded. Tomorrow the Madam Secretary would visit the Central World Mall. Her fate rested in their hands.

  Judy sighed.

  “We’d better go get some sleep.” Reading his eyes, she added, “Tomorrow’s a big day.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Halliday walked into the Santa Reina PD at 7:59 a.m. He said to the officer on duty, “An unknown assailant ambushed me.” The duty sergeant grinned before he took a bite out of an Egg McMuffin.

  He couldn’t avoid Rich Gladstone mulling around the coffee machine. “The chief wants to see you again,” Gladstone said. “Jesus, what happened to your face, Halliday?”

  “I had an accident in the shower.”

  Gladstone eyed him closely. “What, the shower head didn’t like your looks?”

  Halliday’s aching head overruled casual conversation. He filled his coffee mug. “There’s an alleged missing person named Burt Hooten out of the east county. Does the name ring a bell? I don’t think he’s on the MP list.”

  Gladstone rubbed the smirk off his face. “No. Are you sure he’s missing?”

  “Billy, the drunken cowboy I ran into last night thought so. Billy and Virgil are a team who haul produce along the San Joaquin Valley. They lost contact with Hooten, their good buddy. He shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

  “You want I should check into it?” Gladstone replied. “I mean unless you plan to go repay your respects to Billy and Virgil.”

  Gladstone’s unassuming humor caused him to grunt. “No, you check into it. I’ll be surprised if Hooten is an MP. He’s in our jurisdiction, not Redwood Bluff.”

  Before Gladstone made a trivial comment Halliday said, “Find Burt Hooten. Maybe he’s a teammate of Lamar Festus.”

  “Okay, Halliday.” Gladstone saluted.

  A few steps down the hall a thought occurred. “Go talk to a charming lady named Gina out at the Deer Spot bar. It’s off the main highway five miles this side of Genevive Labs. Tell her you work with me. Tell her that you are investigating the disappearances of Burt Hooten along with local wildlife. She’ll give you an ear full.”

  “What does disappearing wildlife have to do with missing persons?”

  His gut reaction would have been to say, “They both may have links to Genevive Labs.” Instead he only shrugged as he headed to the chief’s office.

  At the end of the hall he glanced back. Gladstone held a nervous gaze that said he wanted no part of investigating Genevive Labs.

  Halliday knocked on the glass door. The chief waved him in.

  A slight medicinal odor tinged the air, despite an open window. Halliday had assumed all this time that the windows had been painted shut. Halliday sensed trouble or what the chief called “concerns.” The head of Santa Reina PD had stopped confronting issues at the same time Genevive Labs opened their doors.

  “John,” the chief said, his eyes drilled into the paper on the desk in front of him. He looked up and cringed. “Jesus, what happened to you?”

  Halliday sighed. First name basis usually meant trouble. He decided that he would reveal as little information as possible to the chief. Gladstone would serve as the chief’s conduit, anyway. He placed his coffee cup on the edge of a file cabinet and took a seat. “An angry cowboy blindsided me this morning at an eastside bar.”

  “You should stop by ER. Is anything broken?”

  He took a sip of lukewarm coffee and said, “It’ll be all right once the swelling goes down.”

  “Why’d the cowboy mess with you?”

  “He was frustrated over a truckload of rotten tomatoes.”

  “Come on, John.”

  He wouldn’t mention Burt Hooten. “I mean it. The bartender told me that the skunk drunk cowboy and his pal haul produce. They’ve come across rough times. I’m going over to Redwood Bluff to talk to them later.”

  The chief said, “It’s this shitty economy. Good thing we have Genevive around.” He considered what he had said and raised his eyes, “Any news regarding Lamar Festus?”

  He wondered what concerned the chief most. His job? His family? Halliday discovering Genevive’s secrets? Were Genevive and Palmier blackmailing him?

  “Well?”

  “We’ve found nothing substantial.”

  “Rich told me there’s confusion about a body they found in Fresno. I don’t recall the others. I want you to take the lead. We don’t want this MP issue snowballing out of control. Jesus, a mutilated body. If the media gets wind of it, they’ll take up headlines of ‘serial killer.’”

  The chief gave Halliday a stern look. “You don’t think that’s a possibility? I mean, a serial killer on the loose?”

  Halliday shook his head. “Not from what I’ve seen. There’s no common thread between any of these men other than they are vagrants, except for Festus. There have been two bodies found, in Fresno and Madera. In the case of Madera the vagrant died of natural causes six weeks ago. The recession hits that lower strata of society the hardest. You can’t get much lower than these transients.”

  The chief nodded, “I had another conference call this morning with Gartner and Palmier. Do you have anything else to lend to the Laurel McKittrick case before I hand it over to them?”

 
Halliday hid his surprise. “I have a lot of open issues. I’d prefer to stay on the case until it’s resolved.”

  Brayden eyed him suspiciously. “I can’t let you do that.”

  Halliday wouldn’t give up. “I believe Genevive security is overstepping their bounds. The ranchers allege that they’ve been running around abducting animals in the wee hours of the morning.”

  The chief, unimpressed, pinched fleshy cheeks with fat fingers. “John, you sure you’re not the one overstepping bounds? You breached Genevive security this morning? Had a run-in with their security supervisor?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Goddammit John, what the hell are you thinking?”

  “Just doing my job, chief.”

  “Tell me what happened at Genevive Labs this morning.”

  He had to continue the fabrication. “With those environmental activists heading to town, I had to check Genevieve’s security, especially along the perimeters. It stunk.”

  Halliday saw the chief’s eyes sink.

  “I breached Genevive’s perimeter at 1:00 a.m. this morning. Security nabbed me atop the hill above the campus. I told Genevive’s Sam Waylen to straighten up security after it failed miserably.”

  The chief gave him a long hard stare before he said, “You sure you’re not holding anything back?”

  Genevive Labs owned all the secrets. The chief knew it. Halliday had nothing else to say. He shook his head.

  “You’re a good man, John,” the chief said, shaking his head. “Frankly, your concern over the deceased woman, Miss McKittrick, baffles me. Somebody’s trying awful hard to bring her back to life. Slim chance it’ll be a group that’s on our side.”

  What’s our side? “Don’t worry about me, chief.”

  “Who else will?”

  The chief squirmed in his chair. He gave Halliday a hangdog look that he had never seen. It made him feel more uneasy.

  After a long pause the chief said, “John, I always thought you were too worldly for Santa Reina. You need to be in a more dynamic environment.”

  He didn’t know how to reply to the chief’s statement so he didn’t.

  “I wanted to give you a heads up. With the upcoming budget cuts, I was required to send yours and Gladstone’s resumes out to various PDs.”