Copp In Shock, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series)

by Don Pendleton

  The note from Lancer read, in bold, flowing script, "The South Tufas, any hour on the hour. Come alone or not at all."

  I could not call this paranoia, not in view of all that had gone down over the past few days, but it did seem to be a bit more dramatic than necessary. What the hell, it was his life at stake and perhaps that of the woman he loved—so how could I fault it?

  Problem was, I was having a bit of trouble deciphering it. The "Tufas" no doubt referred to the large, towering formations at Mono Lake, which is in the same general region where the two cops from L.A. had died just hours

  earlier. The lake itself is approximately thirteen miles long by eight miles wide. The tufa towers dot the shoreline primarily along the west and south shores in an essentially wild, uninhabited area.

  Mono Lake's landscape has been shaped over millions of years by volcanic activity that also produced many craters in and near the lake, and the tufa towers dramatically enhance the sense of its ancient past. The last of these craters erupted only six hundred years ago, and the numerous hot springs and steam vents in the Mono basin show us that volcanic activity is still present.

  The tufa, or sinter, as it is sometimes called, is produced as a concretionary sediment of calcium carbonate. The unusual formations occur when calcium-bearing freshwater springs well up through the alkaline lake water, which is rich in carbonates. Calcium and carbonate precipitate out as limestone. In time, a tower forms around the mouth of the underwater spring. The lake level has dramatically receded, exposing these ancient towers far above the water line.

  The level of Mono Lake has dropped approximately forty feet and doubled its salinity in the past several decades. This is due to the city of Los Angeles, several hundred miles away, diverting the Sierra streams that feed the lake. It is perhaps worth noting that this has grown to be an increasingly unpopular diversion by local citizens and environmentalists alike.

  Throughout the lake's long existence, salts and minerals have washed into the lake from the several mountain streams, and because it has no outlet, as the freshwater evaporates the salts are left behind. The lake is now about two and a half times as salty and eighty times as alkaline as seawater.

  Though called a "dead sea" by some, it abounds with life, and the lake is ecologically vital to several important species, which take much of their sustenance from the food chain originating in the lake—green algae, brine shrimp, and the brine fly. An estimated four trillion shrimp commonly swim in Mono's water. They are thought to belong to a unique species that has particularly adapted to the special conditions there. The shrimp and flies provide food for more than eighty species of migratory birds, many of which nest at the lake.

  Of course my earlier characterization of this lake as a "moonscape" refers only to my impression of the strange landscape features and the eerie quality of the surroundings. One could even imagine such a time during the youth of our Moon when it could have looked exactly this way, had life been present there.

  I was not looking forward to another run up the highway in this steadily worsening weather, and certainly I had no desire to invade unfamiliar territory at such a time. I was feeling a bit cranky, too, over Lancer's theatrics, which seemed to be creating an unnecessary problem. But I also could not abandon the guy and especially not Janice Sanford's problems, real or imagined.

  I was a bit testy, too, over Lancer's desire to exclude John Terry's participation. Not that I was feeling particularly uneasy about the meeting but because I felt like a "stranger in a strange land" and I would have preferred to have the assistance of an expert guide. But let me lay it out level; I was aggravated, really, because Lancer seemed to be impugning Terry's reliability and I had bought this cop all the way. Not that I had accepted the Chief unquestionably all the way, but I had not really been that ambivalent about the man and I guess I saw Lancer's comment as theatrics rather than caution.

  Also, of course, let's be realistic about this, I would not be much of a cop if I had not been aware throughout this experience that my life was in jeopardy, and perhaps extreme jeopardy. If I was going to be blindly skulking about on a stormy night, I would have felt a lot more comfortable with John Terry backing me up instead of Tom Lancer. Lancer had shown himself to be a ready enough man with a gun but I sure as hell would have preferred the demonstrated expertise of John Terry if the need arose.

  Almost as though to echo my own dark thoughts, as I left the airport I noticed a car parked beside the road just above the point where the airport proper joins the Owens River Road, which is where I had intercepted one of the gunmen following the attack on the plane. The rain was beginning to pelt down and my visibility was not that sharp, but I thought on reflection moments later that I recognized that vehicle.

  It looked, I decided in afterthought, very much like one of the cars used by the Mammoth police.

  Sure, I had just been complaining that I would have liked to have Terry along for the ride. But not, I think, this way.

  The lousy suspicions surfacing inside of me were all I needed to make my night complete.

  As I peeled out onto Highway 395 and began the run north toward Mono Lake, I was positive that I saw that same car slip discreetly behind me.

  So okay. The more the merrier.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  According to my map, access to the South Tufa area is gained along State Highway 120, which intersects U.S. Highway 395 about five miles south of Lee Vining. The turnoff eastward at that point is a well-marked road. Actually, Highway 120 provides direct access westward from Highway 395 to Yosemite National Park via Tioga Pass and is a popular route during summer, often impassable during winter. The eastern leg of this state highway ends about forty miles later at Benton, where U.S. 6 winds on through Nevada. It is a lonely and little-traveled road, almost like a route to nowhere.

  I felt as if I had already been "nowhere." Even U.S. 395 was sparsely traveled at this time of night. If someone indeed was tailing me, he was skillfully concealed, which could not have been too difficult under the circumstances. The rain had slackened off but it was being replaced by a penetrating fog that alternately raised and lowered in a sometimes disturbing pattern—which simply means that now and then I was encountering dense fog at "ground zero."

  I had really begun experiencing slow going at the point where I left Highway 395 and started the incursion into the South Tufa area. This is a lonely road at best; in the dense fog, it was almost surrealistic at times, even to the point that I was experiencing occasional periods of vertigo. If someone was following me now, I could only wish him luck. The guy would almost have had to know my destination to be keeping up with me under these conditions.

  Actually I had not been sure at any point that I was being followed from the airport. As the night wore on, I found myself growing less and less sure of anything. The weather was doing a number on me, and I was becoming more and more irritated with Lancer for setting the meeting in this impossible spot. Surely, I thought, he could have come up with a more reasonable place to meet.

  Time has a way of getting out of sync when the physical perceptions are clouded. I had become quite an expert on that kind of shaded reality because I had been living, more or less, in that particular mode throughout this experience. So my railing against the problem was something like a blind man complaining that his glasses were dirty. The sensation here was the equivalent of finding yourself completely cut off from everything that is real, yet knowing that you must not give in to panic if you intend to prevail.

  What should have been an easy half-hour run from the airport had now consumed more than an hour and I was still battling the night. That realization was no doubt responsible for my lousy frame of mind. My map was showing a distance of something like five miles to the South Tufa turnoff and then less than a mile to the parking area near the shoreline. So it was roughly the same as trying to land an airplane onto an unknown, unlighted, and fog-shrouded landing strip, with nothing more than an odometer to measure my progre
ss.

  The only consolation, if you could call it that, was the realization that it would be just as difficult for Lancer to find the place as it was for me. I almost felt like yelling aloud into the night, "There, damn you. Set it up better next time." But of course I didn't do that. I was supposed to be a responsible person involved in a possibly life-threatening situation, so I was trying to keep my cool.

  So it was a great comfort when my difficult progress was finally rewarded by a dim marker along the road pointing the entrance to the South Tufa area. I almost missed it, and maybe I would have eventually wound up in Nevada if I had not been diligently counting the ticks on my odometer.

  I was not sure that I had found the right spot until I nosed into the parking area. Another car was there. A personalized license plate identified the owner as "SKYJOCK."

  It was Lancer's car, sure.

  But where was the "Skyjock" himself? Except for a few prairie dogs, there was not a living soul in evidence.

  The only redeeming feature of this desolate night was the realization that somewhere up there the day was beginning to dawn, evidenced only by a somewhat lighter cast to the darkness. The fog here was exhibiting a peek-a-boo effect as it swirled in almost rhythmic patterns around this ancient landscape. It was windy and cold enough to encourage me to seek warmth from an old leather jacket that I kept folded into the rear of the van.

  As I was donning the jacket, a gust of brightness in the fog attracted my attention to Lancer's car. The right side had been splashed with fresh road tar. A closer look revealed that the front tire was covered with that gunk. I tried to look inside the car to investigate further but both doors were locked and I could discern nothing of special interest through the windows in the darkness. The guy could have picked that stuff up anywhere, of course, but I make a living by noticing such seemingly innocuous things. I returned to my van and belted on the holstered Beretta beneath the jacket.

  The path from the parking area to the lakeshore was enveloped in billowing fog carried by the gusty wind, and though I had visited this area some years back, it had been brief and memorable only because of the weird limestone formations present; the rest of it was essentially forgotten. I did recall the long walk from the parking lot to the water, and this time I was happy to have the jacket because the combination of the fog and still-threatening rain could have been quite uncomfortable without it.

  I presumed that Lancer and Janice would be expecting me to meet them somewhere in the vicinity of the tufa, though this was making less and less sense as I went along. I would have thought that they would be waiting for me in the car. But with the guy so obviously into theatrics, perhaps that would explain their willingness to wait for me in a less desirable spot. I could not imagine even the prairie dogs enjoying this enshrouding gloom.

  Someone was walking ahead of me on the trail. I did not see anyone or otherwise encounter any other human presence except for a muffled footstep now and then, obviously pacing me at a steady distance. I did not like this game. I called out softly, "Lancer!"

  The footsteps paused when I did, advanced when I did, and kept the game going all the way along while the only response to my call was the barking cries of the nearby prairie dogs.

  It is a long walk along that path. The visibility was not all that bad, except in fast-moving patches of fog. The skies were gradually becoming lighter and even drier. Though still not entirely ideal, at least there was some continuing improvement over the night. The wind remained a problem, though not severe, due to its effect on the fog. In this case the fog was actually moisture-laden surface-based clouds, which were being driven horizontally by the wind.

  I could see enough to know that I was advancing into the dry, ancient lakebed itself. The tufa is spread throughout this area, some fully exposed on dry land, here and there, but also many standing in spires rising high above the waterline, like so many sand castles or wrecked ships forever waiting for rescue by forces beyond the memory of modern man.

  I spotted a fog-shrouded figure moving behind a field of tufa as I neared the beach area. Almost as a warning, I heard the screeching of the gulls flying above me. I called out again, "Lancer!"

  "Over here," a female voice replied faintly.

  Well, that was not Lancer. Janice, maybe—but where was Lancer?

  I heard it again. "Joe," softly.

  I was advancing on the sound, but it too seemed to be elusively shifting with the wind. That voice—it sounded like Janice, but then again maybe not. It was a voice I knew, yet one from some dim recess of my mind.

  What was giving me trouble here was an almost strobelike effect produced by the rapidly alternating rise and fall of the shifting fog, as though the fog itself was a living presence superimposing itself upon the movements and the sounds of this stark environment.

  The woman called to me again, almost as though summoning me like a chorus of sea sirens of antiquity, luring unsuspecting seamen to their doom.

  I did not feel like an ancient mariner but I knew I was in trouble. It scared the hell out of me and gave me a shiver when I unsuspectingly stepped into a shallow lagoon and a small animal, which I never actually saw, skittered against my ankle. I froze, one foot in the lagoon and maybe the other on the moon for all I knew.

  The "Harpie" called me again and this time I saw her clearly for a split second.

  My heart froze.

  This was not Janice Sanford.

  This woman wore short-cropped dark hair, taller than Janice, younger than Janice.

  It was not Janice.

  The fog-shrouded figure was my own dear Martha— unless I was totally crazy, and I was not so sure that I was not.

  There was a level of insanity and disbelief closing in

  on me and I had to wonder if my mind was playing tricks on me—or was Janice, Lancer, or even Martha herself truly present and playing deadly games with me?

  Deadly, for sure. The "Harpie" had a small pistol trained on me.

  Had I, in my obsession to find my own truth, placed myself in ultimate jeopardy in this surreal "human-scape" of shifting realities?

  Dante's infemo? Not really. Copp's inferno.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The conflicts within me were enormous. On one subtle level of stark truth, the real Martha had a real gun pointed at me. On another level, all was suspect and I was having trouble discerning the real from the unreal during this time-compressed moment in that strangest of strange lands.

  She called softly, "Joe, we could have had it all. Why did you have to be such a damn fool?"

  This was sort of like a conversation with a being who did not really exist. I recognized the voice, sure—it was Martha, okay—and even the words sounded like something that I may have heard her say to me before, but the whole thing was hitting me with such devastating authenticity that I could not deny the reality of the experience.

  I had lived through this scene before.

  I croaked, "Do you want to kill me again, Martha?"

  She replied hollowly, "You should have stayed dead, Joe. Look at the mess we're all in now."

  "Speak for yourself, kid. How many people have you killed this week?"

  She was moving again with the goddamned foglike strobes playing a tattoo across my face. But her gun had not wavered. It seemed that she was trying to get a better angle on me as she said, "Nobody would have had to die except for your overpoweringly sanctimonious police mentality. Who ever told you that you were supposed to protect the world from sin? I didn't kill those people, Joe. You killed them."

  I was thunderstruck. I remembered this girl, now, and her special talents with firearms. She had been a champion in college on the rifle range. To quote her own characterization, she could "shoot a flea off a dog's butt without touching the dog." I had seen the trophies that proved it. I asked her, "So why didn't you just get it over with the first time and save us all this trouble?"

  "I tried to, Joe. Why didn't you cooperate?"

  "Did Harley
cooperate?"

  "That was difficult, yes, but he started it all. He was going to leave my mother broke and humiliated."

  At last I was coming alive again. I knew her game, now. She was trying to set me up for a clear, killing shot. I knew how to play that game, too. I kept warily circling like a wounded wolf reluctant to abandon his prey. I said, "That doesn't wash, Martha. You didn't do this for your mother. Unless you want me to believe that you gave her a hotshot just to salve her pride. Where is she, by the way?"

  "She's safe. Do you think I'm some kind of monster that I'd be willing to kill my own mother?"

  We were still playing the waiting game—and I was still worried about Lancer. Could she have already decided that he had become too dangerous a liability—like me? Or was he lurking about the tufa waiting for an opportune shot, too?

  The sudden roar of her gun was not even enough to totally dislodge my sense of suspended animation. I just stood there and blinked as a piece of tufa, shattered by her bullet, hit me in the face like a razor cut. Still I was frozen as the blood trickled down my cheek. I suppose I would have died there if John Terry had not snapped me out of it by a shout from behind.

  "Joe, dammit, wake up!"

  Terry's warning not only woke me up, it shocked me out of my stupor and also distracted Martha enough to give me an opportunity to defend myself. In the freeze-frame unfoldment of the moment, I instinctively flung myself behind a clump of grotesque limestone. Finally, the realization was exploding all over me—a hundred million clip-flashes of Martha trying to take me out in L.A., and the reenactment now of that murderous intent.

  Almost as a sequence in slow motion, Tom Lancer rose up out of the fog like a murderous apparition with his pistol raised and ready, no more than ten yards from Martha's position. Had he been backing her up all the way through this charade? I was clawing for the Beretta even while Lancer's pistol was taking my range. John Terry, standing ankle-deep in the shallow lagoon, beat me to the punch. His big .357 roared once, eclipsing the lighter reports from Martha's now-frantic fire. Lancer was out of action. Martha was not and she was still trying to bracket me.