The Second Goodbye

by Patricia Smiley

  Her shoe got a toehold in the uneven stones and she hefted herself up. Her shoulder ached as she climbed. Her fingers felt scratched and raw. She stopped. If he was waiting on the other side with a gun, he could pick her off once she poked her head over the top. She hesitated for only a moment and then dropped back down into the night-blooming jasmine bushes below. She extricated herself from the vines and called 911. The call was directed to the California Highway Patrol’s central communication division in downtown L.A. An operator asked her name, her location, and the nature of her call.

  “I’m an off-duty LAPD detective,” she said, adding the other information. Before they could transfer her to LAPD Communications, an arm wrapped around her neck and squeezed.

  She awoke in darkness. Sensed movement. Smelled rubber and motor oil. Heard the hum of a vehicle engine. She was in the trunk of a moving car.

  Davie had no idea how long she’d been unconscious or where she was, but her tongue tasted of lighter fluid, her eyes burned, and she felt nauseated. She assumed Mushroom Ears had used a chokehold to render her unconscious but didn’t know what he’d done afterward to keep her that way.

  Her hands weren’t tied. Big mistake. She patted the carpet around her, careful to avoid cutting herself on any sharp objects. She touched plastic—a grocery bag—and smelled sweet and chocolate. Oreos. She wondered if Mushroom Ears was still driving Raoul’s 2005 Honda Civic.

  Back when she was a boot fresh out of the academy, her first training officer had told her if she was ever abducted she should fight like hell at the beginning, even at the risk of dying quickly, because what came later was often much worse. She had no idea what this dipshit had planned for her. Maybe he’d just drive to the desert and shoot her. She didn’t intend to wait around to find out.

  There had to be an emergency release for the trunk. Those had been in cars for decades. But she didn’t know the location of the one in her Camaro much less where it was on a Civic. She swept her hand across the lid of the trunk, hoping to find a lever or a loop. Sharp twisted metal raked her fingers where the release might have been. She felt for a latch on the back of the seat to see if it folded down but hesitated. If he knew she’d regained consciousness, he’d kill her for sure.

  Davie pried loose the carpet, looking for an emergency tool kit. She felt around the tire well but found nothing. In the darkness her hands brushed across several cables that led from the trunk to the vehicle’s interior. She didn’t know what they controlled but one of them might be attached to the driver’s-side trunk release.

  It was dark inside the trunk but not airless. She kept her breathing steady to avoid claustrophobia. The first cable yanked free. The road noise covered the sound. The trunk didn’t open but she heard a click on the side of the car. Gas cover. Tick tock. She had to get away. She tugged the second cable. It was almost free when she felt the car stop and the engine go silent.

  A door opened and closed. Gravel crunched under shoes as he walked around to the rear of the car. Davie’s heart pounded as the vehicle began to rock back and forth. Her body slammed into the back of the seat as the Honda began to roll downhill. The car picked up speed. She yanked the second cable hard. The trunk lid released just as the car lurched into a nosedive, bouncing Davie against the rear of the backseat. There was a splash. Cold water surged in around her.

  57

  FUBAR.

  In his haste to recover the St. Christopher medal he hadn’t noticed Detective Saffron’s Camaro parked by the main house and was surprised to find her at home. To make matters worse, he hadn’t killed her in the house when he had the chance. Those were the mistakes of an amateur. He’d planned to retire when he turned forty, still a couple of years away. Now he had to consider moving up that date. He’d just have to make do with the money he’d saved.

  He watched as the Honda sank below the waterline of the reservoir, knowing she’d be dead soon. Even Houdini couldn’t have escaped this. He had mixed emotions about her demise, but she’d seen his face. Could identify him. He had to eliminate the threat. The chokehold was just enough pressure for her to lose consciousness, but he’d known that wouldn’t last more than a minute or two. Someone would be coming for her. He’d had to move the body.

  She didn’t weigh much, so he’d thrown her over his shoulder and carried her down the drive through the gate to the Honda. Touching her for the first time made him feel powerful and more excited than he’d wanted to admit.

  He applied ether to a cloth and placed it over her nose and mouth, just as he’d done with Blasdel. That would keep her unconscious for a while longer, but he had to move quickly.

  Raoul Hice wouldn’t be getting the Honda back. The last retainer he’d left should cover the replacement cost. If there were hard feelings, it didn’t matter. Hice had no idea of his real identity, and he wouldn’t be using his services again. Soon he’d disappear. Nobody would ever find him, including either of Detective Saffron’s clueless partners.

  He reached for the chain around his neck and clutched his grandfather’s St. Christopher medal. All his bad luck had happened when it was out of his possession. It was a miracle he’d found it. He wouldn’t be that careless again.

  The airline tickets were in his jacket pocket, but he couldn’t use them now. Once the car was completely submerged, he checked his phone to summon one of the ride-share services he’d used in the past, but there was no cell service. In the distance he saw a light and headed for it.

  58

  Davie struggled to open the Honda’s trunk, but the weight of the water forced it closed. The car was sinking and she was trapped. Bear had always told her panic killed. He was probably right: at the moment, it was squeezing all the air from her lungs. She fought terror as she sucked up the last remaining air. She held her breath and waited as water closed in on her.

  In her mind’s eye she saw her father’s face. Wondered if she was about to die and how sad he’d feel about that. An eerie calm came over her as she waited for the vehicle to fully submerge and the pressure to equalize. She kicked off her shoes. They would only weigh her down. When she applied pressure to the trunk, it opened.

  The water was black. Davie couldn’t see the surface or tell which way was up. She blew out some air and followed the bubbles. Her lungs felt as if they were about to explode as she swam upward until she broke the surface, gasping for air, choking. Water entered her nose and mouth. Fresh water. She looked around and saw nothing but blackness.

  It was a short swim to shore and a fifteen-yard crawl up a dirt bank. She fought her way through brush and reeds to a narrow dirt road sheltered by an umbrella of pine and sycamore trees. She walked for what seemed like miles, carefully avoiding potholes and uneven pavement on the dark road. In the distance, she saw the familiar flashing blue lights of a police cruiser. Shoeless and dripping wet, Davie staggered toward the car.

  59

  Davie stumbled up the street and found a Beverly Hills patrol car and two officers, one sitting in the black-and-white and one standing on the front porch of a McMansion, talking to a man in his fifties. She padded up to the car and identified herself.

  The officer stared at the soggy socks on her feet, her stringy red hair dripping water, and her sodden clothes. “You got some ID?”

  Davie brushed chunks of mud from her clothes. “Call my partner. He’ll vouch for me.”

  “Wait here.” The officer walked up to the porch and pulled his partner aside, pointing to Davie standing on the street. Then he beckoned for her to join them.

  When the homeowner saw Davie’s condition, he invited all three of them into the house. His wife offered her towels to dry her hair. As it turned out, the couple had reported a suspicious man walking back and forth in front of the house and had called the police. The officers responded but the man had left the area. Davie suspected Mushroom Ears had used the couple’s address to hail a cab or a ride-share and was just waiting
for his transportation.

  She ran her fingers through her wet hair. “Where am I?”

  “Franklin Canyon. Beverly Hills.”

  “I need to use your phone,” she said.

  One of the officers handed her his cell.

  Vaughn answered the call. “Are you okay? The whole effin’ department is looking for you.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “When you lost contact with 911, all hell broke loose. Cops swarmed your house and the neighborhood looking for you. Where are you?”

  “Somewhere in Beverly Hills.” She gave him the address and told him to have somebody check ride-share and cab companies for a recent pick up. “I’m with a couple of Beverly Hills patrol officers. They volunteered to drive me to Pacific. I should be there in about twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll tell Striker.” He chuckled. “Boy is he pissed at you.”

  “What’s happening with the wildfire?”

  “It changed direction. The evacuation notice was lifted in Bel Air. People can go home, at least for now.”

  Davie’s clothes were still damp when she arrived at Pacific station, so she went upstairs to wash up and change. She always kept a uniform in her locker in case of a tactical alert or UO—an unusual occurrence such as a fire or flood that required maximum deployment. But her badge was at home, so she put on the only other clothes available to her: running tights and shoes, along with a blue sweatshirt, logoed with a cartoon shark and the words PAC-14. Her personal weapon was missing, but the department-issued Smith & Wesson was in her locker. She hooked her uniform belt around her hips, slipped the gun into the holster, and twisted her damp hair into a knot on her neck.

  Ten minutes after returning to her desk, Davie was talking to Vaughn when Striker burst through the door of the squad room. His face looked pale and drawn and dark circles were visible under his eyes. She guessed it had been a stressful past few hours for him, too.

  He walked to her desk and leaned on the partition wall. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Any luck with the taxi companies?”

  Tension drained from his face. “Not yet, but while we were in the BVIs, your facial ID request came back. The man wearing the suit on that street corner is a Miami billionaire named Al Benito. I assume he’s the guy Jack Blasdel claimed to freelance for. The other person is Roland Ducey—at least, that’s the name on his military records. We also got warrant returns for Sara Montaine’s phone records and those for Black Jack Guns & Ammo. The day before she was killed, she called the gunstore and spoke to someone for fifteen minutes. That had to be Blasdel. Five minutes after that conversation ended, Blasdel called a number in Miami that belongs to a business controlled by Al Benito. I’m guessing he told Benito that Sabine was alive in exchange for a finder’s fee. Loyalty meant nothing to him. It was all about the money.”

  “Except June Nakamura claimed Sabine was afraid in the days before she died,” Davie said. “Doesn’t that suggest somebody had already tipped off Benito and that’s why she needed a gun?”

  Striker drummed his fingers on her desk. “Good point. Blasdel’s recent cell records show he called Benito again the day you interviewed Gerda Pittman, so they were definitely still in touch.”

  “Blasdel admitted Pittman told him I was looking into Sabine’s death,” Davie said.

  Vaughn had been standing in the background, listening, but jumped into the conversation. “If he was still working with Benito, that might explain how he could afford to buy all those businesses.”

  Davie nodded and turned toward Striker. “Any of the bank records come back?”

  Striker grabbed a chair from a J-Car cubicle and sat. “No, but remember my contact at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement? I called him an hour ago. He confirmed Valerie Ferrick is Benito’s chief financial officer. Apparently, they launder money through their own enterprises, but they also target willing partners in the business community. FDLE has been investigating both of them for multiple felonies, including online gambling, racketeering, and money laundering. The case is before a Grand Jury right now. I asked if the Seaglass Cafe was part of the mix. He said no, but he asked me to send him details of our investigation.”

  “So, who is Roland Ducey?” Davie asked.

  “Benito’s hired gun,” Striker said. “My contact believes Benito would have paid Ducey to kill Nate Gillen, Sabine Ponti, and Jack Blasdel if they threatened his business. One of our detectives is knocking on Arman Nazarian’s door as we speak to show him Ducey’s photo. If we catch a break, he’ll ID Ducey as the guy he saw running from the gunstore after Ponti was shot.”

  Davie had started this investigation vowing to look at every piece of evidence no matter how obvious or farfetched it seemed. That’s how she’d discovered Sara was Sabine. Harebrained as it seemed, there was one thing that hadn’t been checked—the Four Paws email list. It was a long shot that it would produce any relevant information, but she felt compelled to look. She located the USB drive and slipped it into the computer monitor.

  Vaughn watched over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “Being thorough.” She clicked on the newsletter mailing list file. First, she plugged in the names of all former employees of the Seaglass Cafe who were listed on Detective Brooks’s witness statements. One of them might have been an animal lover, recognized Sabine’s photo, and told the wrong person. Nothing. Next she typed Lacy Gillen, Nate Gillen, Valerie Ferrick, and Al Benito. No hits. It was difficult to imagine a conman was also a cat lover, but she searched Jack Blasdel’s name, but he wasn’t there. As a last resort, she typed in Roland Ducey.

  She was elated when she found him. Trevor Lofaro had told her Four Paws purchased names from other lists. Ducey’s was among them. She looked forward to finding out why.

  Vaughn sat on the edge of her desk, staring at the screen. “You think Ducey saw her picture in that newsletter and recognized her even with the plastic surgery and the dyed hair?”

  “It’s plausible,” Davie said. “Benito may have hired Ducey to kill Sabine for stealing his hundred grand from the restaurant, but cancelled the contract once he thought she’d died in that boating accident.”

  “Why would Blasdel rat her out?” Vaughn asked. “He helped her disappear.”

  “Gerda Pittman said Blasdel had a crush on the woman he helped disappear,” Davie said, “but she told him to go pound sand. His Don Juan image must have taken a hit, because Pittman said he was bitter about the rejection.”

  “So, when Sabine called him again to ask for his help,” Striker said, “he figured he could monetize her troubles and also get a measure of revenge.”

  “Ducey may have already been following her, but I’m guessing Blasdel negotiated with Benito to stage her death as a suicide in his gunstore.” Davie closed the file and removed the USB drive. “I wonder where Ducey is now,” she said.

  “We distributed his photo,” Striker said, “and alerted border patrol, train stations, the Coast Guard, and airports, including Ontario and Long Beach.”

  Davie stood to relieve her stiffness. “Flying out of a major airport is a nonstarter. He’s smart enough to know he’ll never make it on a flight. He’s got money. There’s nothing stopping him from paying a taxi driver to take him all the way to Patagonia.”

  Striker’s cell buzzed. He glanced at the screen and walked into the hall to take the call.

  “Ducey’s not actually under pressure to leave town,” Vaughn said. “He thinks you’re dead. That gives him some breathing room. He may be holed up nearby waiting until it’s safe to get away.”

  Striker returned to the squad room. “I assigned Detective Presser from Homicide Special to call ride-share services and taxi companies. He just got a hit. A cab driver picked up a fare near Franklin Canyon Reservoir. He said the guy paid him a thousand dollars to take him to a street corner in Oxnard. From his descriptio
n, we think it was Ducey. Presser is on his way. Should be here in a few minutes.”

  Even given how little she knew about Ducey, Oxnard didn’t make sense. It wasn’t exactly a Southern California transportation hub. There were private yachts but no major port or international airport. It was possible he had a safehouse there, but it still seemed an odd stopping point for a man on the run. Davie plugged the cross-streets into her phone map but found nothing of interest in the area. She adjusted the map with her fingers so she could see the broader picture. The only landmark nearby was the US Naval Air Station at Point Mugu.

  She held out the map for Striker to see. “What do you make of this? It’s an air station. That means flights are going in and out of the base, right? Ducey was in the service. Any idea what it means?”

  Striker’s eyes widened. “Space A, space available. If you’re retired military and you qualify, you can take any open seat on any Department of Defense aircraft. Mugu moves people in and out of there for training, so Ducey might be able to find a flight.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “My dad is retired Navy.”

  “Seal?”

  A man Davie didn’t recognize entered the squad room and looked around the room. Striker stood and walked toward him. Over his shoulder, he said, “Admiral.”

  That was the last thing she’d expected to hear. Striker had told her his mom, not his dad, taught him how to sail and that she’d dismissed his dad from the Striker Navy early on because he was a busy man. There was definitely a story behind that but there was no time to discuss it now, because Striker led the man to Davie’s desk and introduced him to the group as Detective Presser from Homicide Special.

  “Everybody vest up,” Striker said. “I’m going to interrupt some judge’s dinner to get an arrest warrant for Roland Ducey—Abduction and Attempted Murder of a Police Officer. We’ll put the rest of the case together once we have him in custody. Let’s take two cars. I’ll drive the unmarked. Vaughn, can you get the keys to a black-and-white? I’ll meet everybody in the parking lot.”