Blood Money

by Doug Richardson

  4

  8:28 A.M. Ridgecrest City Hall and Sheriff’s Substation.

  It was like walking on eggshells. The normally upbeat sheriff’s office had turned darkly somber. Like an angry blanket had been dropped over the entire building. Word of the young deputy’s death spread wildly through the glass and tile postmodern building. The emotional wound was fresh on nearly every face, from the parking attendants to the vice mayor. All were stunned and eager to hear more. It was still too soon for real grief to have settled in.

  Outside the captain’s office, a small crowd had gathered. Deputies, on duty and off, along with a scattering of civilian personnel milled about, barely communicating, awaiting news and further instruction. The office blinds were squeezed shut.

  There were four people in Captain Bernardo’s office: the captain himself, Under-sheriff Shepherd Van Pelt, Duty Sergeant Ron Mayfair…and Lucky Dey, sitting in the captain’s desk chair, rolled all the way back against a corner shelf unit chock-full of labeled binders. Lucky appeared to need more space than the small office provided. Instinctively, the other three kept what distance they could in the cramped room.

  “We can see the tags there on the SUV,” said the captain as they reviewed the black and white dash cam video from Anthony Dey’s sheriff’s vehicle. “Registered to Patrick Watts, C.P.A. Don’t know if he’s one of the vics in the car or just the name on the registration. Still checking on that.”

  The captain’s computer screen was turned sideways in order for Lucky to squarely see the video replay. And though Lucky was mostly stoic as he watched frame after frame of the dash cam footage, his hands gripped the armrests as if hanging on for dear life.

  The grainy image was from a slightly wide perspective, shot from a tiny lens mounted on the rearview mirror. The stiff suspension of the vehicle broadcast every bump and ripple in the road. At screen center, pictured squarely through the windshield, was the speeding Porsche Cayenne SUV, occasionally drifting across the center line before jerking back into the right lane. The telltale sign of a drunk driver. The reflections from the sheriff's cruiser’s lighting array pulsated across the hood. Then the cruiser began to accelerate to close the gap between the two cars.

  “Not too close, T,” mumbled Lucky, as if anticipating the immediate danger. “Fuck, they don’t see him—”

  Lucky cut his own words as a nightmare moment unfolded on the computer screen. Upon being lit up with those blazing red and blue xenons, drivers under the influence have been known to panic and sometimes over-apply their brakes. Cops are trained to hang back a safe distance to avoid a sudden collision. According to the dash cam, Deputy Tony Dey’s training momentarily escaped him. The acceleration of the police cruiser. The sudden recognition by the drunk driver and the SUV he was chasing suddenly slowed, its brake lights flaring. The framing of the mounted camera dipped downward in a sure sign that the doomed young deputy had applied his own brakes, sending the front end of the sheriff’s cruiser closer to the pavement. Then came the brief shudder of locked tires chattering across the pavement, followed by the inevitable collision. What followed was a staccato of video frames with plastic lens casings shattering and scattering into the night, dust from the road shoulder spewing from the cruiser’s undercarriage in a breathy plume, and the faint picture of the luxury SUV sparking ahead as it tumbled over the pavement. Three and a half crumpled turns before it finally came to rest.

  “Christ Almighty,” breathed the under-sheriff.

  More video followed. The cruiser shot ahead, skidding to a stop only yards from the wreck. There was a slight movement as the vehicle unweighted.

  “Okay,” said the captain.

  “’Kay. Freeze right there,” said the duty sergeant, Ron Mayfair. “Here’s where he gets out. Now you’d think he’d be running up to check for survivors.”

  Ron Mayfair keyed the video to freeze. Pictured was a partial view of the Porsche SUV as it had come to a stop on its crushed roof. The headlights of the police cruiser as they reflected off the shiny white surface of the SUV created a hot spot in the center of the screen, blowing out the video’s definition.

  “Can anybody tell if the victims are responsive at this point?” asked the captain.

  “Just play the Goddamn vid,” said Lucky.

  Ron Mayfair didn’t wait for a nod from the captain or the under-sheriff before rekeying the video back into play mode.

  “We have audio?” asked the under-sheriff.

  “Not yet,” said the duty sergeant. “Dunno if it’s a glitch in the transfer or if it’s just not there at all.”

  “Where the hell’s my deputy?” asked the under-sheriff. “Two vics in the car and he still hasn’t even checked them yet?”

  “There’s why,” said Lucky.

  “There’s what?” asked the under-sheriff. He couldn’t see the light shifting at the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

  “Second set of headlights,” pointed Lucky. “See there? That’s Tony’s shadow. Probably flagging it down.”

  The captain leaned closer to the screen. He saw the slightest shadow crossing the wreck, back and forth.

  “Can’t be certain,” said the captain.

  Once again, the duty sergeant stopped the video, then tried to frame it backwards and forwards to isolate the moving shadows.

  “Restart the video, will ya?” urged Lucky.

  “Just wanna confirm—”

  “Stop the video again and I’ll twist your fingers off at the knuckle,” said Lucky, his voice a whisper above a growl.

  “Right,” said Ron Mayfair, restarting the video.

  The headlights’ reflection on the left-hand side of the screen slowly increased in intensity until it leveled off. The haunting forty-eight seconds that followed seemed to last an hour to most in the room. All but for Lucky. It would later play in his head in a mix of speed and slo-mo. Fast forwarding and reversing, playing over and over and over with zero satisfaction.

  “There he is,” barked the under-sheriff in a moment of excitement.

  Yes. There was Deputy Tony Dey, sneaking in from the left edge of the frame on his knees, flashlight in hand, at last attending to the crash victims. The under-sheriff’s brief thrill was stunted by the sudden ignition of a flare off-camera, followed by the entrance of a baseball capped figure standing over the prone Deputy. The figure, whose features were bleached unrecognizable from the brightness of the flare, was seen slowly bending at the waist and easily unholstering the young deputy’s Beretta.

  “Fuck no,” said the captain.

  Lucky merely leaned forward, steeled for what he knew was about to happen on the computer screen. He saw his brother’s face turn innocently toward the figure. The pyrotechnic mix of the flare’s chemicals—potassium nitrate with magnesium—flushed Tony’s face white in an angelic glow. Then came the single frame of muzzle flash, and Tony’s neck reflexing with a deathly spasm.

  The room was silent. As if all air had been sucked backward through the air conditioning vents. All that was left to watch was the off-camera ignition of the gasoline leaking from the SUV—assumedly from the flare—and the following conflagration. The heat signature was so hot on the Kelvin scale that the only detailed information left on the digital video was contained in the far corners of the frame. Whatever vehicle Tony had flagged, whatever vehicle carried the cold murderer, was utterly unseen.

  “Okay,” said the captain, hoping to break the silence gently. “Our one witness is a farm veterinarian. He was northbound on his way to some kinda horse thing. ’Bout five minutes before he showed up on our crime scene, he passes a southbound vehicle. Best recollection is that it was some kinda big rig. Tractor-trailer or moving truck. Passed in a flash so…”

  “Right,” said the duty sergeant. “So we also got this from a gas ’n’ gulp in Adelanto.” He slipped the DVD into the tray and waited for the computer to recognize it. Shortly another video played. The screen was divided into four equal quadrants, each pixelated rectangle assigne
d to a different exterior camera for the open-all-night filling station/mini mart. Ron Mayfair got instructions for the correct time code from the Post-It note attached to the jewel case. He entered in the numbers and the DVD instantly skipped to the correct hour, minute, and second.

  Lucky leaned forward, as did the other three men. For eleven seconds there were the same four images. Two views of the gas pumps, one of the entry to the mini-mart, and a fourth, wider shot that included a seventy-yard stretch of highway 395. It may have well been a frozen image but for the time code ticking off in a box at the bottom of the screen.

  Then it happened. Movement. Headlights entered the top left frame of the wide shot, followed by the outline of an eighteen wheeled truck rolling smoothly through.

  “Freeze it!” said Lucky.

  The duty sergeant’s fingers weren’t fast enough. The semi rig had cleared the frame before he was able to stop the image. Then his nerves took over and he skipped the video backwards a full minute and eight seconds. Lucky wasn’t moving, still leaning forward in the chair. But the way the sergeant worked the keyboard and mouse, Lucky might as well have been standing, imposing himself right on top of the nerve-wracked man.

  “No worries,” said Ron Mayfair. “I got this.”

  And he did, slowly rolling the video forward until, once again, that semi-rig appeared in the upper left of the security cam quadrant. Next, as the image was advanced frame by frame, the eighteen wheeler reached an area where the spill from the filling station’s lighting painted the vehicle with maximum definition. Yet the maximum wasn’t quite optimum. There wasn’t enough information on the video to identify a license tag or any distinguishable features of the driver. The best anybody could deduce was that the tractor was a new model Peterbilt painted black with chrome trim. And because the equally black trailer sported its own topside compressor unit, it was probably refrigerated.

  Lucky was on his feet with his car keys jangling, swinging on his San Pedro High School letterman’s jacket. Black and gold. On the back was a faded pirate emblem embroidered into the wool that was thinning like the owner’s hair.

  “Whoa, now,” said the captain. “Where you think you’re going?”

  “That truck’s got a five hour jump on me,” announced Lucky, not a decibel of nonsense in his voice.

  “First off. This isn’t your deal. It’s your brother and we’re awful sorry. But ten’ll getcha fifty that truck’s not even in Kern County no more.”

  “No shit?” said Lucky. “That’s some kick-ass detective work. Must be why they made you cappy.”

  “Luck—”

  “Truck’s goin’ to L.A. or further south. If it goes into Mexico I’m on its ass.”

  “Gotta say no, Lucky.”

  “So say ‘no.’ Won’t make a difference. I’m going.” Lucky’s hand was already on the door handle.

  “That was an order from your captain,” said the under-sheriff.

  Did Lucky hear him? Probably. But he didn’t respond to the calls after him. The small pond of hangers-on outside the captain’s office parted as Lucky made the short distance to the exit. He knew nobody had the stones to chase after him. These were Ridgecrest folk. Cops, for sure. Good cops, even. But they hadn’t seen what Lucky had seen, done what Lucky had done, or experienced the violence Lucky was capable of imparting without so much as a second thought. The most the captain would or could do was order a sheriff’s unit to follow Lucky as far as possible and make certain he didn’t do anything that would cause embarrassment to the department.

  Lucky climbed into his 2011 Dodge Charger which quickly became a metallic gray streak, busting past ninety miles an hour down Highway 395. He didn’t stop or blink as he blew through the crime scene. By the time he picked up the southbound Highway 14 at Rancho Seco, Lucky had lost his ground tail. All that was left to record his progress was the county sheriff’s air support helicopter which, despite its cruising altitude of fifteen hundred feet, reported back to the Ridgecrest captain that Lucky’s car was moving like a Ginsu knife through fresh yellowtail. The captain thought of alerting California Highway Patrol. But what exactly would he say to them? To pretty please watch out for his runaway detective with a lead foot? As far as the captain was concerned, Lucky careening south meant he was headed home. Where the hell else should Lucky go after losing his last living relative?

  All in all, it took Lucky less than ninety minutes to cross the demarcation line between Kern County and his old stomping grounds, Los Angeles County. Home of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Nine thousand deputy cops strong, covering four thousand and eighty-three square miles of all kinds of badass. Indeed, Lucky was going home.

  5

  Modern news in America seems to run at two speeds. There’s the normal and relatively quick twenty-four hour cycle, fed by both cable news and the advent of so many vehicles in the field with on-camera reporters, all designed to give the illusion of “happening now” to the viewers. Television generally sets the pace, leaving print media, both Internet and conventional, and let’s not forget the blogosphere, to follow with the detail and depth that the TV newsbytes were incapable of imparting.

  That is speed number one.

  Speed number two is, at a glance, no different from speed number one. Same networks, news outlets, reporters, remote camera trucks, microwave dishes, Internet. What sets speed number two apart from speed number one is the addition of one extra component. Celebrity. Adding the “famous” ingredient to the news recipe is like putting a fuel injector on the average internal combustion engine. “Celebrity” is all it takes to supercharge the speed at which a news story travels through all wires, cables, Internet carriers, and broadcast frequencies. “Celebrity” not only determines how fast a story breaks, but also which organization breaks it.

  In the case of young Pepper Ellis? Her story broke on TMZ.

  Within moments of identifying the registered owner of the Porsche SUV, Kern Sheriff’s Department left a message on C.P.A. Patrick Watt’s office voicemail, kindly asking him to return their call. When his office assistant retrieved the message shortly after her arrival at work, she was quick to relay the message to her boss, who was inbound to his West Los Angeles office from the Pacific Palisades. He asked his assistant to dial for him and while he was stuck in traffic on Sunset, Patrick Watts was given just a few of the details of the accident and crime. After he overcame the initial shock from the bad news, he informed the Kern County Sheriff’s Department that though his name was registered on the lease, the true owner of the Porsche was a business management client of his. Actress Pepper Ellis. Though the Sheriff’s Department couldn’t confirm that Pepper Ellis was the driver of the Porsche SUV before the local coroner had received dental records and DNA, they were able to tell the accountant that there were two deceased people in the car. One man and one woman.

  As Patrick Watts and the representative from Kern County Sheriff’s Department continued to exchange pertinent information, the accountant’s assistant sat gobsmacked, silent, and still connected to the call via her muted headset. Before her boss had hung up, she was able to transmit the tragic news via instant message to three of her best friends. One of those friends possessed a Twitter account. Then faster than somebody could say 4G, in one hundred and forty characters or less, the “Twitterverse” was informed…

  Nickelodeon Star Pepper Ellis has died in a car accident near Ridgecrest, California.

  * * * *

  “Ah, shit!” said assistant United States attorney Graham McDonald. He was looking for his glasses on the nightstand of room 1046 in the downtown Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel.

  “What’s that?” asked the woman’s voice from the bathroom.

  “What’s that girl’s name? Pippa Ellis? Pepper—”

  “Not a clue what you’re saying,” she said.

  Graham sat up in bed, fixed his glasses to his face, but instead of returning his attention to the television, caught a glimpse of himself in the wall-mounted mirror
behind the credenza. His curly hair was badly tousled and there were red creases across his face from one of the bed pillows.

  “Pepper Ellis,” said Graham, repeating what he heard again from the television.

  The KTLA morning news team was reporting the presumed death of Pepper Ellis. They had no sources other than the celebrity gossip website, TMZ. So, in essence, the KTLA morning crew was reporting the report. Not exactly journalism. But it was a celebrity story. Rocket fuel had just been injected into the news machine.

  “Who’s Pepper Ellis?” the woman asked as she crossed naked in front of the TV. Her name was Lilly Zoller, and she was carrying a portable blow dryer. Lilly plugged the blow dryer into the outlet nearest the mirror and began blasting hot air through her inky black hair. Through the mirror, she could see what Graham was more interested in—this Pepper-whatever-her-name-is or Lilly’s tool-and-dye-cut rump. Lilly was proud as hell of her thirty-eight-year-old body. She was tanning-booth brown from head to toe with a healthy minimum of body fat.

  And Graham wasn’t looking at her. He was glued to the TV.

  “Did you eat paint chips as a child?” asked Lilly.

  “Did I what?”

  “I asked you who was this Pepper blah blah blah.”

  “Yeah, I heard you. Can I listen to this, please?”

  Lilly turned to face her Department of Justice fuck-buddy, giving him her full frontal best. But Graham barely glanced her way.

  “My baby girl’s gonna be really upset,” said Graham.

  “Your daughter knows this Pepper Whosit?”

  “Ellis. Pepper Ellis. And no. It’s like they’re friends. She just watches her every day on TV.”