Web of Evil

by J. A. Jance

  “I’ve never been to Palm Springs,” Dave said, studying a map Easy had handed him. “We’re going to a street called Via Hermosa.”

  Via Hermosa was a name-brand Palm Springs address, and Ali remembered visiting several of the venerable old mansions there years earlier as part of various charitable functions. She took the map from Dave long enough to point to the general area.

  “Old Las Palmas is part of old Palm Springs,” Ali explained. “Big houses. Big lots.”

  “Big bucks?” Dave asked.

  “That, too, but I would guess Lucia Joaquin can afford pretty much anything she wants.”

  Ali thought about the other massive old places she had seen in old Las Palmas—the eight-or nine-bedroom luxury homes with their many-car garages, their lush furnishings and equally lush grounds. She didn’t know which house Lucia lived in, but it had to be one like that.

  And the more Ali thought about it, the more the whole idea of Lucia Joaquin offended her. She resented the idea that a woman, clad in pink from head to toe and closeted in absolute luxury, could sit at home in total comfort and safety while sending her minions off to do her bidding—up to and including committing acts of cold-blooded murder. While one of her worker bees had left a trussed and helpless Paul Grayson—who she merely suspected might go to the cops—to die on the train tracks, Lucia had been a few miles away, probably sleeping peacefully in her bed.

  “Where do people like Lucia come from?” Ali asked Dave finally.

  He shook his head. “They’re vermin,” he said. “They crawl out from under rocks.”

  They had turned off I-10 and onto Highway 111. As they sped through the night with the blue and red lights pulsing overhead but with no siren, Ali tried not to look at that particular part of the desert, but she couldn’t help it. Her eyes were drawn to the black pool of unrelieved darkness where she knew the train track ran. What a desolate place it was—what an awful place to die.

  Easy returned his radio to its holder. “Okay,” he said, “here’s the deal. We have yet to locate Amber, the granddaughter, but we’re pretty sure Lucia is inside the Palm Springs house. It’s possible she’s there alone, but it’s also possible there’s a caregiver with her. The place sits on an acre and a half, and the whole thing is surrounded by a twelve-foot rock wall with only one gate. Since Lucia isn’t in the best of health these days, she’s not going to be climbing over that fence. As long as we control the gate—which we do—we also control access.”

  Dave nodded. Ali said nothing.

  “I’ve got a trained tactical team in place and primed to do the heavy lifting,” Easy continued. “These are guys who know what they’re about and we’re going to let them do it. I’ve put my second in command in charge. Since the two of you are here on my say-so, I’m not letting either one of you out of my sight for even so much as a minute. And you’re not going any closer to the action than I say, got it?”

  “Got it,” Dave said at once.

  “Ms. Reynolds?” Easy asked. “I don’t believe I heard a response from you.”

  “Got it,” Ali said.

  “Good. I know you’re anxious to see the takedown. Considering the circumstances, I can’t say that I blame you, but you’re not to go near that woman until my guys have the situation under control.”

  “Yes,” Ali said. “I understand.”

  She looked at Dave. He sat there alert but seemingly at ease, with the palms of his hands resting squarely on his knees. If he was concerned about the coming confrontation, his impassive face betrayed none of it. But then, Ali realized, he was a Marine. Clearly he would be accustomed to going into potentially dangerous combat situations. She was not. Her heart pounded in her chest. Sweat dribbled down the back of her neck and soaked her shirt under the arms. Despite the fact that she had said she wanted to be here and see Lucia taken into custody, it was clear to Ali that she wasn’t ready at all—and probably never would be. And she missed having her Glock, missed it more than she could have imagined.

  “How long before it all starts?” she asked.

  She had aimed her question at Dave, but Easy Washington was the one who answered. “Depends on how long it takes us to get there,” he said.

  Ali had always been under the impression that it took approximately forever to drive from the Palm Springs turnoff on I-10 into the city itself. Tonight it seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. Long before Ali had managed to prepare herself, Easy was already turning off Palm Canyon and headed toward Old Las Palmas. Ali closed her fists and let her fingernails dig into the flesh at the base of her palms. She may have been petrified about whatever was coming, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to show it.

  As they approached Via Hermosa, cop cars and roadblocks seemed to be everywhere—all kinds of cop cars from all kinds of jurisdictions. But Easy and his Suburban had the secret code or maybe it was a magic charm. Every time the Suburban came close to stopping, they were waved on through the barricade.

  When they finally came to a stop, it was on the far side of a wrought-iron gate with a massive wall on either side that seemed to stretch out of sight in both directions. The sky was starting to brighten almost imperceptibly on the far horizon while the view in through the gate was nothing short of idyllic. A lit fountain, spilling water, was the centerpiece of a bricked courtyard. Curtains of blooming bougainvillea framed a pillared front porch. The massive double doors, made of some kind of metal, gleamed in the light of equally massive sconces. It was an impressive entryway, one that made a statement. It also looked like a fortress.

  Motioning for Dave and Ali to stay inside, Easy stepped out of the vehicle. Once again he had a phone clapped to one ear and an earpiece in the other. “Okay,” Ali heard him say. “We’re in place now. If everyone’s ready, it’s a go. On your say-so. Right.”

  What followed seemed to Ali like a moment of anticipatory silence. Then, as if on cue, all the officers standing outside the Suburban—all the ones she could see, Easy included—seemed to glance in the same direction at the same time, looking off over their shoulders, back toward downtown. And then, through the open car door, Ali heard the sound that had obviously captured their attention—the distinctive rat-ta-tat-tat of an approaching helicopter.

  Ali’s first assumption was that the aircraft was some kind of support vehicle brought in to serve as backup for the officers on the scene, but as it flew directly overhead, it laid down what sounded like a spray of automatic gunfire. At the sound of it, the officers on the ground all dove for cover.

  “Holy shit!” Dave exclaimed. “We’re taking fire.”

  The helicopter dropped to the ground on the far side of the gate, easing down beside the lighted fountain. Behind it, one of the massive double doors flew open and two women emerged—Amber and a white-haired woman, dressed all in pink and leaning on a cane. Amber hurried her forward. The two of them walked under the churning helicopter blades without ducking their heads, as though they were totally accustomed to them. As they approached the cockpit, Amber pulled herself inside and then reached back to help the older woman.

  By then Easy’s assault team was moving forward. Weapons at the ready, they crouched behind a growling Hummer that paused for only a moment before ripping the gate off its hinges and clearing the way for the team to spill inside the compound. As they surged forward, though, the helicopter had collected its passengers and was already lifting off. As it rose from the ground, another spray of bullets came through the craft’s open door.

  Instinctively, Ali and Dave ducked as bullets smashed into the front of the Suburban and whined past them in the empty air. The windshield splintered. And then there was another sound—an ugly, guttural groan of pain—the sound of someone hit and badly hurt. Outside the open front door, Easy Washington seemed to spin in place. Then, slowly, he fell backward.

  Over the roar of the helicopter engine, Ali heard a group of shouted commands followed by yet another blast of gunfire, this one from the officers on the ground. At first it se
emed as though it made no difference. For a time the helicopter continued to rise unimpeded. Then it seemed to hesitate slightly. The blades stopped spinning abruptly as the craft tilted drunkenly over to one side. Then, slowly to Ali’s fear-fueled mind, it began to fall to earth.

  Ali saw two somethings, one pink and one not, spill out onto the ground and land, like limp rag dolls, on the hard brick of the courtyard. And then the helicopter crashed down there as well—smashing almost silently and eerily in the exact same spot. Immediately it burst into flames.

  As the flames rose in the air, Dave vaulted out of the Suburban with Ali right behind him. By the time Ali reached the ground, Dave was on his knees lifting his friend’s dreadfully limp body. Already drenched in Easy’s bright red blood, Dave was cradling the man and doing his best to apply pressure to a wound at the base of Easy’s chin.

  “Find a phone!” Dave yelled at Ali. “Call nine-one-one. Hurry!”

  Without knowing how she found it, Ali’s fingers closed around the telephone Easy Washington had dropped when he fell.

  “Nine-one-one,” the operator said. “What are you reporting?”

  “A man’s been shot,” Ali shouted into the phone. “A man’s been shot and there’s been a helicopter crash.”

  “What is your location?” the woman wanted to know. “You’re calling on a cell phone. I need the exact address.”

  “Somewhere on Via Hermosa in Palm Springs,” Ali returned. “Right next to the burning helicopter.”

  Three people died last night and three DEA officers were wounded, one critically, when gunfire erupted and a fleeing helicopter crashed in the normally quiet Old Las Palmas neighborhood of Palm Springs during a DEA-led task-force operation targeting a highly sophisticated network of alleged drug traffickers.

  After a month long investigation and after staging numerous arrests all over Southern California, officers turned their attention to the home of a longtime Palm Springs resident thought to be the ringleader of the group. Both the unidentified woman and her granddaughter along with their pilot perished when the helicopter in which they were attempting to flee crashed during take-off. One unidentified DEA officer is hospitalized at Eisenhower Memorial Hospital with what are thought to be life-threatening injuries.

  The gun battle came at the end of a long day of stunning high-profile arrests that netted several members of L.A.’s media elite along with some people thought to be highly placed members in law enforcement circles. Much of the operation centered around a trendy Beverly Hills topless club known as the Pink Swan.

  One suspect was arrested and two carjacking victims were rescued at the Morango rest area on I-10 when officers, alerted by one of the hostages over a cell phone, managed to throw down nail strips, which disabled the fleeing vehicle. One of the two victims, both of them Arizona residents visiting in California, was slightly injured during the operation. The other was released unharmed.

  It was almost noon that same day when Ali looked up from reading the online news report and considered those words, the understated and dispassionate journalese that toned down the very real drama of the story.

  “One was slightly injured.” That would have been Chris and his sprained ankle. The one who was released “unharmed” was Ali herself. And the “critically injured” officer was Dave’s friend Easy Washington, who had been struck in the neck by a stray bullet. The theory was that one of the bullets fired from the helicopter had ricocheted off the Suburban’s engine block. It had glanced off Easy’s Kevlar vest and had slammed into his inferior thyroid artery.

  The other thing the words didn’t do justice to was the frantic lifesaving effort that had ensued. Dave had been in the thick of the action and only his knowledgeable application of pressure to the wound had saved his gravely injured friend’s life. Ali’s last glimpse of a blood-spattered Dave had been as the EMTs helped him into the waiting ambulance along with Easy.

  A little past noon Edie Larson emerged from the pool house. Carrying a cup of coffee, she set it on the patio table next to Ali’s computer and then she sat down next to her daughter.

  “How are things?” Edie asked. “Any word about Dave’s friend?”

  “No,” Ali said. “At least they’re not updating his condition anywhere here.”

  “And you haven’t heard from Dave?”

  “Not so far.”

  “You will,” Edie said confidently.

  Ali studied her mother. Edie’s face looked far more worn than usual. “You never let on that you knew about the whole thing when I was talking to you on the phone,” Ali observed.

  “No, I didn’t,” Edie agreed. “I was afraid I might give something away. I knew Dave and the others were working hard with Dad and Chris to get the two of you out of there, but I wanted you to hear the sound of my voice. I wanted you to know that you weren’t all alone out there.”

  Ali had pictured her mother standing outside the gate of Robert Lane during what she had thought might be their last-ever phone call. Now she knew that, in actual fact, Edie had placed the call from the safety of an LAPD squad car.

  Ali reached out and covered her mother’s hand. “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” Edie returned. “But knowing you were out there with all those bullets flying…” Edie shook her head. “Oh, my. I was terrified.”

  “So was I,” Ali admitted. And with good reason, she thought.

  Edie stood up. Her freshly poured cup of coffee was already gone. She could drink coffee hotter than anyone Ali knew.

  “Is there any food in the house?” Edie asked, nodding toward the big house where none of them had stayed. “The pool house fridge has coffee and a bottle of ketchup but that’s about it.”

  “Probably,” Ali said, “but I don’t know for sure.”

  “I’ll go check,” Edie said. “Chris was still asleep on the couch when I came through the living room, but I know we’ll all feel better if we have a decent breakfast under our belts.”

  Vintage Edie Larson, Ali thought.

  Once Edie was in the house, Ali continued scanning the various online news Web sites. There were three that included pictures of Dave dragging her away from the Alero during the rest area confrontation. The captions on two of those identified her as an “unidentified carjacking victim.” In the third, the usual suspect and journalistic busybody LMB, the blogger at socal copshop.com, identified her by name in the caption of a particularly unflattering photo. In it, Ali looked downright ghastly.

  Knowing that some of her cutloose fans were bound to see the photo and worry, Ali decided it was time to face up to her blog and write something about what had been going on.

  CUTLOOSEBLOG.COM

  Tuesday, September 20, 2005

  Years ago I remember reading a poem by Rudyard Kipling in which he said “the female of the species is more deadly than the male.” In the last few days, I have seen this statement borne out on several different fronts.

  In recent days I had the misfortune of seeing my former husband’s fiancée choose to end her own life and that of her unborn child rather than face the consequences of her own murderous actions. April Gaddis took her mother’s life. Then she threatened my life and my mother’s as well. Days earlier, someone had referred to me as a “Black Widow.” April Gaddis may not have been married prior to her death and she may not be directly responsible for Paul Grayson’s murder, either, but I still believe the term applies—to her.

  Yes, my husband, Paul Grayson, was murdered, and it turns out his death was merely the tip of the iceberg. Because there’s been another Black Widow at work in Southern California for a very long time. Lucia Joaquin was in fact a widow—the widow of a known drug kingpin—and a successful drug trafficker in her own right. I’m not sure how Paul got caught in her web of evil, but he did. She’s dead now, too, as is her only granddaughter. They both perished when the helicopter in which they were attempting to flee crashed and burst into flames.

  I owe the fact that I am writing t
his today to the heroic efforts of a friend of mine, a guy named Dave Holman, who has come to my rescue more than once in the last few days. Dave is a police officer in Sedona, Arizona. He’s also a member of the Marine Corps Reserves. Last night I watched him work frantically to save the life of a friend of his, a wounded DEA officer, who is also in the Marine Reserves. In the past I don’t believe I’ve ever spent much time wondering about the Marine Corps motto Semper fidelis. Now I’ve seen it in action.

  I’ve looked at my new e-mail list. It’s stuffed to the gills. In fact, my server is probably rejecting e-mails as I write this, claiming my mailbox is full and my bandwidth is over its limit. As I’ve indicated, I’ve had my hands full for the last few days. I’ll get around to answering the mail when I can. Please be patient.

  Posted 1:05 P.M., September 20, 2005 by Babe

  P.S. Amazing!! My attorney just called. My former employers have settled my wrongful dismissal suit! For an undisclosed sum. The terms of the settlement dictate that I’m not allowed to discuss the amount. What I can say, though, is that it’s generous enough that I won’t be having to look for a day job anytime soon. cutlooseblog.com will continue indefinitely.

  Ali was starting to slog her way through the mail when Chris, still limping, ambled out onto the patio. His hair was standing on end. The way he looked reminded her so much of how he had looked as a child that it made her heart melt, and it took real effort on Ali’s part to keep from leaping up and hugging him.

  “Where’s Grandma?” he wanted to know.

  “Making breakfast,” Ali answered.

  “Great. I’m starved.”

  Chris stretched and headed for the kitchen. As soon as he opened the back door, Ali caught a whiff of her mother’s baking coffee cake wafting through the air. Ali followed her son’s lead. Then, once she was inside the house, she heard the sound of a hair dryer coming from the living room, and she followed that as well.