Fire Mountain

by Vickie McKeehan

  “I’ll go with you,” Lianne volunteered. “Luke seems upset with me.”

  “He’s not, he’s just worried,” Gemma assured her as she took off for the Volvo. On the drive to Peralta Circle to collect Rufus and Rolo, she set a new speed record, going over the limit in double digits.

  Rufus seemed to know he had a role to play in something big as Gemma loaded both dogs into the back seat of the car.

  Once they reached Talia’s house, Lando was already standing in the driveway, waving them down.

  “There’s no one inside. But there’s blood on the kitchen floor. I’ve called for a crime scene unit to come out and collect fingerprints and evidence. Everyone needs to stay in their vehicles to give Rufus a decent chance at picking up Leia’s scent.”

  Zeb ran up with the sweatshirt and thrust it into Lando’s hands.

  Lando took Rufus out of the car, attaching a leash to his collar, and led the Lab into the house where the blood trail began. Holding the sweatshirt in front of Rufus’s nose so the pooch could get a good whiff of it, he told the dog, “Here you go, boy. Go find Leia.”

  Rufus took off to various parts of the house, tracking Leia’s scent from the office to upstairs, and back down again. The canine pawed at the sliding glass door to get outside where he stayed for a few minutes before coming back into the kitchen. Rufus reversed course, trotting off to the garage.

  Lando hit the button to open the garage door, giving the Lab a chance to sniff around the driveway.

  Lando and Zeb watched in surprise as Rufus headed up the street. The two men raced after him on foot.

  “What do we do now?” Lianne asked Gemma.

  “We stay as far back as we can and stay out of the way, let Rufus do his thing without distracting him.”

  As darkness descended, Payce turned on his flashing lights so Gemma could stay close behind the police cruiser as the procession followed Rufus down the road, heading out of town.

  “Looks like he’s trying to make for the foothills,” Lando exclaimed.

  Every so often Rufus would hesitate as if he’d lost the scent, but after circling the area, nose to the ground, the dog would bark and head off down the road again.

  Zeb seemed anxious. “Just to fatten our forces, I’ve got Cody Chato and Jacob Culross out combing the roads for any sign of her. So far, nothing. I won’t lie to you; I’m worried something bad has happened to her.”

  “We’ll find her,” Lando muttered as he kept his focus on the dog.

  Rufus continued to follow the paved highway for several miles until he came to a recently used dirt road that headed toward the foothills.

  Lando raised his hand signaling to halt, quickly pulling on the leash to prevent Rufus from going further down the dirt road.

  Zeb walked past the dog, taking the lead. A few feet into the trail, he bent down to study the tire tracks in the roadway. Several minutes went by before he stood up. “Three different sets of tire tracks, one vehicle came and went I’d guess two hours ago. But these two vehicles are still up ahead somewhere. Does anyone know where this road leads?”

  The leash almost came out of Lando’s hand as Rufus showed his eagerness to get started again. “I think there’s an old apple orchard with a barn at the end, probably hasn’t been used in twenty years or so. It’s maybe a mile or so ahead. Could someone get Rufus some water?”

  Payce obliged, getting out of his squad car to share from a bottle he’d brought with him.

  Rufus gratefully lapped it up, but still strained on the leash, indicating his desire to keep going.

  Gemma came up behind them. “Good boy, Rufus,” she cooed in a whisper as she rubbed the Lab’s head.

  A circle formed around Rufus as Lando and Zeb discussed how best to approach the barn. Finally, Lando came up with a plan. “I’m giving Zeb a ten-minute head start, so he can cover the back. He’s lighter on his feet than I am. Once he’s in place, I’m going to make so much noise at the front to draw them out in the open so he can get Leia out the back.”

  Zeb looked around at the faces staring back at him. “I want all of you to follow me in another ten minutes as a backup in the cars, no sirens or lights. Everybody clear on what we’re doing?”

  When there was nothing more to say, Zeb headed out, walking through a copse of foothill pine.

  Nerves had Lando pacing back and forth as he timed the minutes. Gemma gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek before he started off. “Remember, you’re my everything, so be careful.”

  After he disappeared through the trees, it was Gemma’s turn to pace and stare down the roadway, waiting. An antsy Rufus began to pace with her.

  The first thing Lando saw when he rounded the bend were two vehicles parked in front of the old barn, not as dilapidated as he remembered. One SUV was Leia’s, the other he recognized as belonging to Brandt Lewis. Lando scanned the sides of the barn and saw Zeb signal in position. He sucked in a breath, knowing the next few minutes would be crucial to getting Leia out of there.

  Before Lando got to the front door of the barn, though, he made sure to knock on the windows of the vehicles just in case Leia was in one of them. When there was no answer, he took out his Colt Commander and proceeded toward the barn. Keeping low, he made sure to make a considerable amount of racket as he stepped inside the doorway. He spotted Brandt bolting out the back way.

  Knowing Zeb had that exit covered, he watched as Brandt’s departure knocked Zeb to the ground. But Zeb didn’t stay down for long, getting to his feet to give chase.

  Another quick look around and Lando spotted Leia tied to a chair. Tiffany was nowhere in sight. Lando headed directly toward Leia. He was fumbling with the ropes when a brown ball of dog whisked past him, bowling into him and knocking him into Leia. The force sent them both rolling to the dirt.

  As he got to his feet, he spotted Tiffany making her escape out the front, closely followed by Gemma. He watched in astonishment as Gemma made a near-perfect tackle, taking Tiffany down in the process and landing several blows to the woman’s face.

  Lando turned his attention on Leia, untying the cords around her bound wrists. He spotted the lump on the side of her head above the temple that stood out more than an inch. He tried to prepare her for what came next.

  “This might hurt some,” he said, right before he tugged on the duct tape stuck to her mouth. After a few more yanks, the tape finally started to peel off.

  “Ouch,” Leia mumbled, licking her lips for the first time in hours. She began to rub her wrists where the rope had cut into her flesh.

  Lando finished removing the rope wrapped around her legs. He noticed the tears trickling down her cheeks and wiped them away. “Are you able to stand?”

  Leia reached out and took hold of Lando’s face. “I’m okay now. Thank you for coming.”

  “If I hadn’t, Zeb would have come along. He’s out back now, probably putting the cuffs on Brandt. He would have been the one to find you except he went around to the back.”

  Leia instinctively threw her arm around her brother. “But it was you who saved me.”

  “Rufus played a huge part in finding you. So, don’t forget super hound here.”

  She let out a laugh. “You mean the dog who knocked us both over in his enthusiasm? I knew you would come for me. I just knew you would. Maybe because it pays to have a cop in the family who knows what he’s doing, huh? You’re a smart man, Lando Bonner.”

  The praise put a hitch in his stride. “That conk on the head you took must be worse than I first thought. Luke needs to take a look at that. Better still, I think you need the ER.”

  “I’m fine.” She tried to get to her feet on her own but felt woozy and grabbed for her brother’s hand.

  Lando bent down to scoop her up in his arms.

  Leia responded by burying her head in his shoulder.

  That was the picture Gemma saw as she rolled off Tiffany—Lando carrying his sister out of the old building with Rufus trotting next to them.

  L
ando handed Leia off to Zeb, who clutched her to his chest. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”

  “I’m okay,” Leia began.

  “She probably has a concussion,” Lando stated as he headed over to where Gemma stood after yanking Tiffany to her feet. He caught Tiffany’s swollen eye and held out a pair of handcuffs. “Nice tackle, Champ. Be sure to read her, her rights.”

  Gemma slapped the cuffs on Tiffany’s wrists and pulled her over to Payce’s squad car. “Get her out of here.”

  Payce simply tipped his hat to the mayor. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I knew you couldn’t wait a full ten minutes,” Lando told Gemma.

  “It’s not my fault. Rufus ripped the leash right out my hand and charged after you. What else could I do but follow him here?”

  Rufus gave Lando a sideways look and let out a whine.

  Lando shook his head, squatting down to wrap the canine in a hug. “Even the dog won’t cop to that one.”

  Gemma wrapped both man and dog up in her arms. “Did you get a look at all those boxes stacked in there, floor to ceiling? They must’ve used this place to store all their merchandise.”

  The two walked back inside the barn to inspect what was there. “Perfect spot when you think about it, accessible to the harbor, to a boat, near enough to town that they could come and go any time they wanted. They could load up and get underway in a few hours. I’m calling the county out to help with inventorying this place. This’ll probably take days, maybe even weeks to get a dollar figure.”

  “I already see that there’s enough stuff to stock a warehouse,” Gemma said, making her first circle around the inside. The hayloft held more cartons filled with devices like phones, computers, and routers. “Wonder if these work like the real thing?”

  “I doubt it. Try to remember Olson was a first-rate scammer. You don’t pretend to be ATF without a good reason. Which begs the question, why would he sell knockoffs that work as good as the real deal?”

  Payce came into the barn in a hurry. “Chief, you gotta see what we uncovered out back.”

  “Please don’t tell me you found another body,” Lando lamented.

  Payce led the way through the back and out past what used to be a barnyard. “No, no bodies…yet. But when Jimmy busted the lock on the storage shed, he found a cache of weapons and ammo. Russian-made AK-47s.”

  Lando stepped into the small but packed outbuilding. He let out a whistle through his teeth. “Holy crap. This looks like twenty years in the Federal pen for somebody. Get photos of all this, Payce. Start cataloging what’s here before the Feds jump in. I want to use this stash when I question Lewis.”

  22

  Brandt Lewis sat in the interview room, wanting to talk. In fact, he didn’t seem inclined to shut up. He seemed proud of his accomplishments but adamant about one thing. “I did not kill my wife.”

  Lando sat opposite Brandt, arms crossed, glaring at the man who’d abducted and beaten up his sister. “Someone did. After all, you married her for her money, lured her into a marriage with lies and deception. You either murdered her yourself, or you paid someone else to do it for you.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Convince me. Because aside from Talia’s murder, I have you and Tiffany for a long list of felonies. For starters, there’s assault, battery, kidnapping, and false imprisonment. Then there’s the gunrunning.”

  “Gunrunning? What are you talking about?”

  “Russian-made assault weapons.”

  For the first time, Brandt paled. His smile faded into a scowl.

  Lando paused a beat, letting the enormity of that sink in before going on, “As I see it, you’re both looking at twenty-five years to life. And that’s if you plead out. Me? I’m just gonna sit back and wait for one of you to break and testify against the other.”

  Brandt leaned over the table. “Leia Bonner broke into my house, dead set on accusing me of murder. I had to shut her up. I don’t know anything about guns.”

  “Right. I have six witnesses who saw the way you intended to shut her up. Then there’s the counterfeiting. Want to take me down that road just for kicks?”

  “Look, I admit to taking the easy way when it comes to earning a buck. I was pretty good at finding vulnerable women to scam. And then I met Woodson. While he worked out of Coyote Wells, I started out in San Jose. But it became apparent he needed someone to keep him on track, as an assistant. That’s how I met up with Doroski. After we saturated the coin market with counterfeit gold, that dried up pretty quick. Then we hit on how to switch gears. Casino chips were big in China and Russia. Doroski’s uncle had a contact in Moscow who agreed to act as a broker for the fake chips.”

  “And you ran out of gas on that big score because the casino chip angle didn’t work out like you thought.”

  Brandt grinned. “Yeah. That scheme was pretty short-lived.”

  “Enter Claude Bergamot.”

  The smile disappeared from Brandt’s face. “Yeah. How’d you know about him?”

  “Because you killed Bergamot’s daughter.”

  “No way. That wasn’t me. More likely Doroski. He was always the muscle and the guy with a quick temper. Woodson counted on him for a lot of things. What Doroski brought to the table was his connections. What got us in trouble was when Doroski’s man in Moscow got greedy and demanded more of a cut. Woodson was beside himself with anger. That’s when Bergamot got us into an even better deal, more lucrative than anything else we’d tried—fake knockoffs. You name it, we imported all the crap we could get our hands on—sunglasses, shoes, wristwatches, purses, even knockoff earphones, and fake batteries. You know, it’s not actually illegal what we’re doing. I’m not sure what you’re so upset about.”

  “Selling knockoffs is one thing; gunrunning and murder are in another category altogether. You killed Talia because she found out about your past, selling counterfeit gold coins.”

  Brandt scrubbed his hands over his face. “That was Tiffany’s idea. To get rid of Talia. She talked Doroski into doing it. The guy didn’t need much convincing since Talia confronted us all about the counterfeiting. And afterward, after Talia was dead, I discovered Tiffany had been carrying on with Doroski, that she’d been having an affair with him ever since he moved to San Jose.”

  “But you still let Tiffany stay?”

  “Yeah. I still let her stay.”

  “Tell me more about this Doroski. Where is he now?”

  “What? Don’t you know everything there is to know about him already? I mean, he runs the shipyard, has lived in town for the same amount of time that Woodson was here. You know the salvage operation business. It’s a front. That guy’s your gunrunner.”

  Lando sat back in his chair. “Are you telling me that Doroski is Darby Berwick?”

  Brandt’s smug grin was back. “You didn’t know, did you? Yes, Darby Berwick’s real name is Borya Doroski. His father is a powerful man in Moscow.”

  Lando chuckled. “Is that right? Moscow? Then what is he doing here in Coyote Wells selling fake goods and killing people who cross him?”

  A puzzled look crossed Brandt’s face. “I don’t know. It’s just his thing. He runs the West Coast operation.”

  “The West Coast operation? You really believe that? Why set up shop in Coyote Wells?”

  “Get real. Coyote Wells is such a sleepy little town that the only thing going on here is watching grass grow, sometimes if it’s a real exciting year you can catch the fireflies come out on Fire Mountain. It was the best possible place to fly under the radar. And let’s face it, we did plenty of research on which town would give us the best cover. You guys aren’t exactly the brightest law enforcement types in the county. Besides, you had a corrupt mayor at the time who could be persuaded to turn a blind eye to just about anything with a hefty campaign donation.”

  Lando’s temper rose. But he tamped it down, trying to show a bravado that he didn’t feel. Part of the act though was to keep up the stoic demeanor. Instead of anger, it
was Lando’s turn to smile. “Maybe you’re right. That’s why you’re sitting in that chair on your way to a cell.”

  “After years of yanking your chain,” Brandt bragged. “I just moved here to be closer to Woodson. Talia was my way in. Of course, I had to marry the woman to keep up the ruse.”

  “But you still had Tiffany on the string.”

  “Side benefit, man.”

  Having gotten all the information he needed, Lando stood up. He’d had enough of listening to this asshole. “I wouldn’t count on ever seeing that fat life insurance check if I were you. This stupid cop plans to notify the agent as soon as I leave this room. Tonight. You have a nice day, Mr. Lewis. Someone will be in shortly to take you to the county jail. And I’m recommending to the judge that you don’t get bail because of your history of flight.” With that, Lando turned and walked out.

  He found Jimmy first, waiting outside the door. “Start the process to get a warrant for Borya Doroski.” After rattling off the spelling of the name, he added, “Also known as Darby Berwick. Get both names on the paper. Then go stake out his house until it comes through. Don’t let him out of your sight to board a boat or try to leave under any circumstance.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Gemma and the dogs were waiting in her office. “How’d it go with Lewis?”

  “Well, you were right about him not being the one to kill Talia, but he certainly knew it was going down.”

  “Then he should be charged with conspiracy.”

  “That’s coming. But first, I need to get Darby Berwick in custody.”

  “Darby? The salvage guy?”

  He went into the details of what Brandt had told him.

  Hearing it spelled out, Gemma let out a low whistle. “Wow, this town needs some cleaning up, doesn’t it? And you think Darby is the one who killed Talia and the others? He seemed like such a nice guy whenever he would come into the shop. He had a major sweet tooth. I guess you never know. Look, I’m heading to the hospital to check on Leia.”

  “Send Zeb back here while you’re there.”