Moratorium

by Chuck Sampson

  Cyrus called the special effects guy, who verified that she had showed up early that morning. He hadn’t been with her the whole time though, he told Cyrus he had other things to do besides babysit Deidra. He got her started on her task and then went back to his work. He sounded defensive. Like he wanted to cooperate but not get too involved. Probably didn’t want his wife finding out about him working with the lovely Deidra Jones.

  Even so, the man knew for certain that she had been there the whole time, since the estate was in a gated community with tight security. You needed a code to get in and out. The code changed every day, so even if Deidra knew the code from a previous visit, she couldn’t know what it was for that day. It doesn’t matter anyway; Cyrus said to himself, she didn’t have a motive. Mike gave her her old job back and even made her a staff editor. She didn’t know about him using her to get back at Dana. Still, he thought to himself, she is tall and blonde.

  Rush hour was just starting and before he could make it to the Figueroa St. exit, he got buried in three lanes of gridlock. After starting and stopping every five minutes for more than two hours, he finally got off on State Street and headed for Anderson’s bakery. The stress of driving had stimulated his appetite so he decided to unwind a little with a Danish pastry and a cup of vanilla bean coffee. As late as he was, one more hour wasn’t going to hurt.

  Once he got back to work, he found a missing person’s report filed by Kelsey’s father on his desktop. He read it over and then tucked it into his jacket’s inner pocket. Max sat across the aisle pecking away with two fingers at the keyboard on his computer. The grape colored hickey that covered a large portion of his right cheek and extended halfway down his neck had turned from a dark purple to a mixed brown and fuchsia color. The gory sight made Cyrus queasy.

  “Kelsey Tanner was telling the truth,” Max said.

  Cyrus turned in his direction to see him peering over the top of his PC monitor.

  “She swiped her badge into ICU at 9pm and left next day at 9am,” Max continued, “She couldn’t have killed her brother.”

  “How about her story concerning the will? What did her lawyer say?”

  “She told me Kelsey was telling the truth about her requesting to be disavowed from her father’s will.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, I asked her how Kelsey’s father reacted to her voluntary disinheritance and she said he got violent. He threw an ashtray through her window. Missed the top of her head by an inch, she told me. Then she said Tanner stormed out of her office without saying a word.”

  “Sounds like a violent man used to always getting his own way. What about the heart murmur?”

  “I didn’t bother trying to get a look at her records; it would take too long to get a court order. But I asked her supervisor if she had missed a lot time being sick. She said she came to work every day and as far as she knew she was as healthy as a horse.”

  “What about Auto MD?”

  “The mechanic said he remembered Mike and the bat.”

  “Good memory- you sure he wasn’t just telling you what you wanted hear.”

  “No, turns out the mechanic is a die-hard Dodger fan and wanted Mike to let him have the bat for his kid.”

  Cyrus raised his hand, “Don’t tell me he gave it to him.”

  “No, Mike told him his sister used it for protection and put it in his Cooper.”

  “Sounds like Kelsey may be right about her father. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of Mike inheriting everything and controlling TANOCO. Maybe he decided to disinherit him the easy way.”

  “Oh, I got Tanner’s lawyer to tell me a little something about the will,” Max said while he took out his note pad and flipped through a few pages. “Mike didn’t automatically inherit everything just because Kelsey dropped out,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Tanner’s will stipulates that Mike has to be married before he inherits,” Mike read the notes as he spoke, “If he doesn’t, he only gets ten percent of the TANOCO’s cash holdings transferred to a trust fund and then the company is to be converted from privately owned to publically traded. Mike would also get one million dollars worth of preferred stock. Also held in a trust account. Mike being dead wouldn’t matter to Kelsey. She still wouldn’t inherit.”

  “So she was telling the truth about the will too.”

  “You didn’t believe her?”

  “I have to check, especially when a suspect or a witness is a redheaded beauty like Kelsey.”

  “What about Briana Carswell?” Max said.

  Cyrus’s face turned red. Reaching into his top desk drawer, he pulled out a DVD and said, “I screwed up. I saw Dana hop up the stairway. His left leg hardly bent at all. I guess I am a prejudiced old fart.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t know about the bat and Dana didn’t help matters by lying.”

  “He was trying to protect Kelsey. He really is a superhero, almost to a fault. Take a look at this DVD.” Cyrus slid the disk across the top of his desk. Max walked over, picked it up, and then walked back to his computer. He brought up the image of the female Black Bloc protestor waving her fist in the air and shouting.

  “Does she look familiar to you?”

  Max studied the screen for a few moments. “Briana, maybe, it’s hard to tell for sure.”

  Cyrus picked up his water and took a big swallow. He set it down hard on the desk and said, “She never told us about her past activities.”

  “And I never asked her. I should have been more careful vetting her.”

  “Maybe she does have a motive for lying about what happened.”

  Max shook his head. “Just because she was crazy when she was young doesn’t mean she is lying now. She just made a mistake.”

  “She belonged to Black Bloc, an extremist anarchist group, just like Jeff Moon.” Cyrus said.

  “Who’s Jeff Moon?”

  “The eco-terrorist the FBI is searching for. Mike Tanner ran a feature about him in his paper. Actually Dana finally admitted to me he was at Rincon Beach the day Mike Tanner was killed. It was early, around 7 am.

  “So Briana wasn’t lying about seeing him there.”

  “She could have just been mistaken about the running part. But we know Dana didn’t have the bat. So it couldn’t have been him. Probably someone Jack Tanner hired that looked like Dana.”

  “You think he killed his own son?”

  “Maybe, he was the only one besides Kelsey and her brother who had access to Kelsey’s car and access to the blue bat.”

  “That we know of.” Max stood up from his chair and walked around to the front and sat down on his desktop. “And besides, he has an alibi. He was playing golf with three people at the time of the murder.”

  “So he didn’t do it himself. Probably hired someone. Briana gets to the beach around half past six. Mike and Dana show up around seven. She sees them struggle. The fight ends with no one being harmed and both of them leave. So she goes for a swim thinking everything is O.K. She gets back from her swim and naps for about twenty minutes. So now it’s about eight am. When she wakes up she sees a tall, blonde-haired man with a long scar on his back standing over Mike Tanner’s body covered in a wet suit. The man runs to the large piece of driftwood and hides the bat and then he runs up the stairs on the north end of the beach.”

  “Dana corroborated the first part of her story. He admitted to being there and struggling with Mike.”

  “So, in between the first episode and the second, while Briana is swimming and napping, that’s when our Dana imposter kills Mike, dresses him up in a wetsuit, and then takes him back to the beach to make it look like a drowning accident.”

  “He probably hung around until Briana woke up and made sure she saw him.”

  “Jack Tanner hired someone to do the job who looks like Dana.”

  “What about motive?”

  “Kills one bird and puts the other bird in jail, to paraphrase an old proverb. Mike wrote a lot of negati
ve articles in The Messenger about TANOCO and his father.”

  “Mike’s been writing those columns about his Dad’s company for the last five or so years. Why kill him now?”

  “Maybe until now, they didn’t matter. Mike was getting in deep with the eco-terrorist movement.”

  “You mean his association with Jeff Moon?”

  “Something else,” Cyrus said, “Tanner’s company was the target of a hostile takeover.”

  “But if Jack Tanner had his own son killed and framed Dana, why’d he bother to try to kill him by sabotaging our patrol car?”

  “It’s a good way to tie up all the loose ends. Dana’s arrested for the murder and then conveniently dies on the way to the police station before anyone can ask him a lot of questions.”

  “You got it, Cyrus.”

  “Got what?”

  “The connection we needed between the car sabotage and Mike Tanner’ murder.”

  “We need to get out of here and go find some more answers.”

  “Who’s first, Briana or Jack Tanner?”

  “Tanner filed a missing person’s report with our office. Let’s follow up on it and see where it takes us.”

  They got up and walked down the hall over to Bailey’s desk. Cyrus asked for keys to an available unmarked squad car. She grinned at him and sat there for a moment, and then a blank expression replaced her grin. She acted as if she hadn’t heard him.

  “What’s wrong Bailey, are you deaf? I’d like to have the keys to a squad car.”

  “I bet you would, but Captain Rudy says not to give you any squad car, he told me to direct you to his office whenever you decided you had to go somewhere.”

  “O.K. fine, I’ll use my own car.”

  “Wait a minute, you old grump!” She blurted out. “Go and see Rudy, you won’t regret it, I promise you.

  Followed by Max, he walked over to Rudy’s office, knocked on his door. After a moment of silence he opened it a few inches and stuck his head into the office.

  “Cyrus, come on in,” Rudy said, he sat facing the window behind his desk, “How’s the investigation going, got any leads?”

  Rudy’s unusually pleasant tone of voice perplexed Cyrus.

  “We were on our way to visit Jack Tanner in Half Moon, Rudy. I have a couple of men tracking down the owner of the black pick up that side swiped us on the freeway just before the wreck.”

  Holding a newspaper in his right hand, Rudy turned around in his chair to face Max and Cyrus who were standing in front of his desk. The smile on Rudy’s face was radiant.

  “I guess congratulations are in order for Senior Detective Sergeant Cyrus Fleming!” Rudy said handing Cyrus the copy of the Santa Barbara Independent he was holding. The headline read Cop Saves Murder Suspect.

  “I think he’s exaggerating my role in rescuing Max,” Cyrus said as he handed the newspaper back to Rudy.

  “Don’t get humble on me now,” Rudy said. Cyrus noted Rudy’s tone of voice returned to its normal sarcasm and irritation. “The force needs some good publicity. The Mayor is talking about a medal.”

  Max covered his mouth to suppress a laugh and Rudy cut him a stern look.

  “It’s about a six hour drive to Half Moon Bay from here,” Cyrus said, “Can we get a squad car now?”

  “Sure. But what are you doing going all the way up there?”

  “We have to talk to Jack Tanner.”

  “You don’t have jurisdiction, at least not primary,” Rudy sat back in his chair and waved the paper like a fan.

  “That’s fine we’re not going to arrest him, just ask some questions.”

  Rudy put the paper down and scooted up to his desk, “I saw Jack Tanner with one of his many lawyers this morning. Very cross individual. I guess he has a right to be after all he’s been through. Poor man, did you know his daughter has gone missing?”

  “Yes, I saw Kelsey last night. Well I mean she came to see me. Anyway we need ask him some questions and tell him his daughter is all right. He might give us a lead on who torched our cruiser.”

  “Tanner’s a busy man. You might run into some county detectives while you’re up there. Remember that oil rig incident on Platform Irene?”

  “Three roustabouts got slammed into the platform’s helipad. That’s why County had us take the Mathers case.”

  “Platform Irene belongs to TANOCO.”

  “How’d they rule, homicide or an accident?”

  “The FAA seems to think the crash was an accident. County hasn’t made up its mind according to the paper.”

  “What’s holding them back?” Cyrus asked.

  “They don’t have any physical evidence, but it looks like Jack Tanner had a strong motive for trying to kill the pilot of the helicopter, Maverick Duncan.”

  “What motive?”

  “According to the paper, Duncan was trying to organize a union. He claims Tanner sabotaged his chopper. The union is putting a lot political pressure on the DA to bring charges.”

  “Kind of a small company for a union to worry about. They only have five rigs and probably five hundred employees at the most. It’s hard to believe the Steel Union would waste time on organizing a union there.”

  “Duncan didn’t work for the Steel Union. He was sponsored by the Santa Barbara Wobblies.”

  “Wobblies, they’re not a real union.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There a bunch a sissies is what I mean. They don’t have any normal trade unions. They’re just a group of communists who go after companies like Starbucks over petty stuff.”

  “As I recall, Starbucks bent over backward to make those guys go away.”

  “Yes, but they didn’t murder anyone over it, either.”

  “Why do you think Tanner can give you a lead on the sabotage of your police cruiser?”

  “He might have been trying to kill Dana Mathers.”

  “For killing his son?”

  “No, to shut him up.”

  “About what?”

  “About Jack Tanner having access to the murder weapon a week before his son was killed.”

  “You think Jack killed his own son? What about the eyewitness?”

  “She said she saw Dana running. Dana can’t bend his left leg more than an inch or two.”

  “Wait a minute, Jack Tanner is a short, redhead. How’s that work?”

  “Tanner is a very rich man. He hired someone who looked like Dana to kill Mike and then framed him. Then he tried to kill him to tie up the loose ends.”

  “What are trying to do, ruin the DA’s conviction against Mathers?” Rudy slammed the newspaper he was holding on the desktop in front of him.

  “You asked me before if I thought Mathers was innocent. At the time I really didn’t know. But now I do. Someone else killed Mike Tanner.”

  “Jack Tanner?”

  “We’re not sure yet, Rudy, that’s why we have to go ask him some questions.”

  “Are you trying to get us all fired? How’s this going to look to the DA? Have you thought about that? We keep sending them cases and then we screw it up for them.”

  Cyrus could feel the blood pumping through his temples. He put his hands on the Rudy’s desktop and leaned toward him, “I could care less right now about anybody’s career, even my own-especially my own. All I care about is that Dana Mathers is innocent and there’s a killer out there with a mission and I don’t think he’s finished. So if we don’t find him, more people are going to get killed.”

  “The Mathers case is officially closed.” Rudy sat back in his chair and put his hands behind the back of his head.

  Cyrus stood up, folded his arms, and said, “I’m not working the Mathers case.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We still have to find out who killed that truck driver and nearly killed us, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “We’re pretty sure it’s the same person. When we catch him, the DA will still get their pound of flesh and Dana goe
s free.”

  Rudy leaned back in his chair and sighed. The he said, “I’ll let the police in Half Moon know you’re going to be up there asking him questions.” Rudy frowned and then narrowed his eyes. “Don’t arrest anyone or shoot anyone without contacting the Half Moon police first, understand?”

  “All right. But how are we going to get there? Our cruiser’s been totaled.”

  “I managed to get you a replacement for your old Monte Carlo,” Rudy picked up a set keys off the desk top and tossed them to Cyrus, “I think you’ll get a kick out of it. And Cyrus, try to keep this one on the road.”

  “Thanks Rudy.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  In their new Dodge Charger, Cyrus and Max made the six hour trip up to Tanner’s mansion in a little less than five. Tanner’s mansion was just outside of Big Sur, on the outskirts of the town of Half Moon Bay. Twelve stories high, it reminded Cyrus of a factory building. Sitting to the west of Highway 1, a vast field of red and gold tinged ice plant surrounded the base of the skyscraper for several hundred yards. Beyond, Cyrus could see the black edges of sea cliffs and the misty, grey, hue of the Pacific Ocean.

  They made the next exit off the freeway, turned south and then took the next right down the mansion’s long dirt road of a driveway. At its end, the setting sun appeared as a pulsing red mist, hanging just above the horizon.

  Cyrus had always wanted to meet Jack Tanner, the wealthiest oil man in California. He had read a lot about him in The Messenger. Most of it was unsubstantiated character assassination written largely by his own son.

  The oil baron possessed an oil company which consisted of five of the twenty six offshore oil rigs off the coast of Santa Barbara. He wasn’t that big of an oil producer, but his company bested everyone in the oil business for their expertise in advanced drilling techniques.

  According to Jack Tanner’s great grandfather’s published memoirs, he dropped the O’ to keep from being identified with the Irish railway workers. One day he planned to dominate the high society of wealthy Protestants who feared and rejected men of Irish Catholic descent. Having finished work on the great railway that connected the east and west coasts of America, Jack Tanner’s great grandfather sought land and cattle, while his brothers took their earnings and headed back east to become policemen and politicians. It was Jack’s grandfather and then his father who turned from ranching to oil. Land, oil, and hard work had made all the Tanners strong and resourceful. They were a tight clan and to each generation of Tanner was passed the duty to expand and grow and do more than the generation before them.