by Bart Paul
VanOwen watched the guy squirming and turning white. “You’re outliving your usefulness, Tiny,” he said.
Tiny made a little gaggy sound in his throat, and bubbles popped out of his nose. I heard a clatter on the floor like the guy had dropped something. I glanced quick. A Winchester Model 12 pump lay there between his boots, but I didn’t linger on it. I could hear more snot bubbles and I let him go before he passed out.
VanOwen straightened up in his chair. He clamped a big hand on Audie’s leg and just looked at me.
“It’s time you tell me what I want to know.” He squeezed Audie’s leg till she squealed.
I heard a wooden barstool squeak on the wooden floor and heard the cop in the Hawaiian shirt moving up behind me slow. I half-squatted and scooped up the 12 gauge with my left hand. When I did, I caught a quick look at the bartender coming, too. Once he got out in front of the bar I could see an automatic on his belt. I got up slow and careful. I turned sideways so I could see both rooms and gripped the fore-end of the shotgun and jerked it skyward, jacking a shell into the chamber. Then I turned to the two guys coming up on me.
“Easy, Carl,” VanOwen said.
The cop stopped. The bartender faded to the side out of my line of sight.
VanOwen nodded to the cop he called Carl, then turned to me again. “You look tweaked, dude,” he said. “Like you’re about to have a freakin’ aneurism.”
I looked at Audie and jerked my head just so. She squirmed away from VanOwen and scampered across the room to me, keeping scared eyes on the guy in the palm-leaf hat the whole time. I put an arm out and pushed her behind me.
“You ain’t takin’ the kid,” VanOwen said. He looked mad as hell all of a sudden, then tried to make light of it. “Why, that’d be kidnapping—a no-shit federal crime.”
I took a step back, the shotgun still in my left hand, my right on Audie’s shoulder.
VanOwen kept looking at me like I was crazy. “How the hell do you think you’re gonna get out of here alive?”
The bartender was right behind me then. I turned and pushed Audie out of the way and pointed the 12 gauge at the ceiling and squeezed. It sounded like a grenade going off in such close quarters, and left about as big a hole. Folks dove for cover. Dust and splinters and bits of cardboard and mattress floated down from the attic in a puff of plaster dust. Then I brought the shotgun to port arms and held it there like I was on the parade ground, not in this dump. The bartender’s eyes followed the shotgun. I lowered my left hand and raised my right till the weapon was horizontal across my chest. Then I snapped my right arm straight out and drove the stock into the bartender’s face. He dropped without a word, slipping on his own blood as the cop behind me took a step closer, but real careful-like now. I gripped the barrel like a ball bat and smashed the stock as hard as I could against the doorjamb—hard enough that the stock cracked. The cop flinched and ducked. I stepped in tight enough to jab him in the chest with the splintered stock and smell the lasagna on his breath. VanOwen started up from his chair. The guy in the palm-leaf kept staring at me but never moved. I dropped the 12 gauge and grabbed Audie. We walked on out of that place, and nobody tried to stop us.
I shoved her in the truck cab and fired up the diesel. She jumped up with her knees on the bench seat so she could watch the front door of the restaurant through my back window as I hauled ass on out of there. In my rearview I could see Carl and the oily guy who’d been sitting across from VanOwen step out to the sidewalk, then into the street. They didn’t look like they had much appetite to follow me. Tiny stumbled out last like he had even less appetite. Audie turned back to me when I’d headed down a side street and she couldn’t see Mama’s anymore.
“That was hella scary,” she said. “At first I thought you were mad at me. How come you didn’t say nothin’?”
I just shrugged. I didn’t have an answer myself. I looked down and tapped the buckle on her seat belt. She buckled herself in and kind of smiled. She reached over and touched some of the bartender’s blood on my shirt.
“I knew you’d come and get me,” she said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A fast couple of hours later I cruised along the reservoir in sight of Paiute Meadows. When I had service, I tried to reach Jack at his desk at the sheriff’s office but only got his voicemail. A half hour before he’d texted me to keep rolling and stay out of Mitch’s way. When I pulled into the pack station, I saw agent Aaron Fuchs’s US government Chevy sitting under the lone Jeffrey pine along the corral next to Sarah’s Silverado. Sarah sat on the cabin porch with Lorena, watching Aaron cutting and nailing 1-by-4s to replace the closet doorframe trim. It was hot in the canyon, and he was sweating and coated with sawdust from Harvey’s table saw, but he seemed to be enjoying himself. When they heard Audie and me, Aaron turned off the saw and took off his safety glasses.
“Nothin’ better to do, Aaron?”
“Just trying to keep my mind off the mess you’ve made,” he said.
We both watched Audie run up the steps and wrap her arms around Sarah and Lorena. Things got teary and quiet for a minute. Even Aaron looked pretty relieved. He walked over to me as he brushed the sawdust off.
“You’re a difficult guy to be friends with, friend. Mitch thinks you crossed the line and I ought to haul you in.” He looked up at Audie on the porch. “You okay, young lady?”
She nodded and looked to me to see if she should answer.
“Did Tommy hurt anybody in Reno?”
“Oh, totally,” Audie said. “You never seen nobody so freakin’ mad.” She laughed and turned to Sarah. “His face was all stony, and he smashed a guy’s nose with a humongous gun butt then broke the gun all to crap almost in another guy’s face, then we walked out of that place just as chill—like we’d ordered takeout. It was awesome.”
“Terrific,” Sarah said.
I looked at the carpentry. “Nice work.”
“My grandfather had a furniture shop in Boyle Heights,” Aaron said. “East LA. But don’t change the subject. Tell me what you thought you were doing with a possible kidnapping of this girl and assault on a Reno vice cop. I know you’re certain VanOwen is responsible for killing the woman in the motel, but this morning you kind of muddied the waters.”
“Hadn’t thought that far.”
“That would be apparent.”
“But we did run into VanOwen last night after we found the woman’s body.”
“Where?” he said.
“Here. Just up the road. Two of his bunch were riding dirt bikes up the canyon and only one came back. VanOwen was waiting for them at the gate.”
“Maybe the other one got stuck or ran out of gas,” he said. “Did your partner, Harvey, see the other guy?”
“Couldn’t say. I was too busy muddying the waters.”
“What do you figure they were up to?” he said. He looked worried.
“I know what he’s up to.”
“How, babe?” Sarah said.
“He told me. He said he’d been plotting with Erika Hornberg. That she was getting that million bucks for him.”
They both just stared at me.
“Now he thinks I got it. And if I don’t, that I can get it.”
“Oh, shit,” Aaron said. “You better know what you’re dealing with.”
I went inside and got us two beers and a couple of Gatorades and we sat out on pack platforms in the shade. Audie curled up on her sleeping bag next to Sarah, her eyes on Lorena. Aaron fiddled with his tablet.
“His name is Sebastian VanOwen, but you probably know that, and that he goes by Sonny or sometimes Snake. Like he told Jack, he was a CHP motor officer for eight years, and a pretty good one,” Aaron said, “at least in the beginning.”
“From what I just saw, the guy still seems to have law enforcement friends.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And now one of them is your sheriff.”
Audie’s eyes were on Aaron now. His were on his tablet. “After a couple of years VanOwen’s CHP
file started to fill up with accusations of sexual harassment, shakedowns, bad companions,” Aaron said, “but nothing actionable because folks were afraid to testify against him. Then he got in a hellacious motorcycle wreck one night out on Coast Highway by the Ventura county line and almost didn’t make it.” He fiddled with his screen. “CHP thinks his wreck might be crime-motivated. A turf war between officers on the take. After he was disabled, the LAPD picks up his story.”
“Doing what?”
Fuchs scrolled down. “Once he’s back on his feet, VanOwen surfaces down by LAX, running a string of girls out of a bowling alley on Century Boulevard called the Alabama Lanes, specializing in black prostitutes for out-of-town business dweebs. Plus loan sharking, stolen goods—anything where intimidation and muscle can help you score. Folks were afraid of the guy, and big city law gave him a wide berth. Apparently worried he’d rat out some higher-ups. Even to the bad actors down there, VanOwen was unique—a truly scary guy—like something out of the old west. You cross him, then one night a crew of big dudes with ski masks and baseball bats and blowtorches visits your family. Word gets around.”
“How’d he end up in our nightmare?” Sarah said. The color had just drained out of her.
“So-Cal bad guys had enough. Somebody tried to cheap-shot him at his house in Tujunga in the hills outside LA,” Aaron said. “Filled it with a ton of lead one night. Sonny got away without a scratch, but somebody torched the place. It went up like a rocket with his wife inside. Or at least they thought it was his wife.”
I looked at Fuchs. He looked at me.
“LAPD just thought a bad cop crossed one guy too many. So he decides on a change of scene and shows up in Reno,” Aaron said. “Then a year later, some hikers find the real wife with a bullet in her head in a shallow grave out at Joshua Tree. VanOwen’s a guy who covers his tracks.”
“Who got shot in the burned house?” Sarah said.
“I don’t know if they ever found that out,” he said.
“Same MO up in Reno?” Sarah said.
“Similar,” Aaron said. “Now he’s added underage girls right off the bus from little towns in Idaho and Utah.”
Audie sat up and pulled the sleeping bag over her head.
“It’s okay, sweet pea,” Sarah said.
“And the usual ancillary stuff,” Aaron said, “like stolen car-parts. He seems to operate a custom chopper shop in Sparks.”
“That’s what Jack told me.”
“Any arrests?” Sarah said.
“Zip,” Aaron said. “A hardnose Sparks homicide detective heard about him and paid him a visit when he first settled in. Told VanOwen he’d checked him out and didn’t like what he’d found. The detective must have put a scare in him. Out there he behaves like a model citizen.”
“Because he doesn’t have to look over his shoulder?”
“And because he doesn’t have the allies he did down south,” Aaron said. “Now it’s like he doesn’t exist anymore. Besides no known residence, no cars or bikes or property or taxes in his name. Burner phones. It’s like he’s a total phantom.”
“Until now. He keeps one of his Harleys in Buddy Hornberg’s equipment shed with a lot of chopper parts.” I showed him the picture of the license plate on my phone. “So those two clowns are connected.”
“And somehow connected to this child’s faked disappearance,” Sarah said.
I watched Audie’s head poke out from under the sleeping bag.
“Which makes Audie a material witness.”
“And a target,” Sarah said.
“So you’re not going to arrest me for kidnapping her?”
“Not today,” Aaron said. “The guy could still bring charges. Sarah said you weren’t armed. I just wonder why VanOwen let you take her?”
“’Cause Tommy looked like he wanted to cut ’im a new one,” Audie said.
“Audie!” Sarah said.
“Maybe since VanOwen thinks I have this connection to Erika Hornberg, he needs to keep me alive.”
Aaron held out his tablet for us to look at something. “Agents Castile and D’Angelico, the forensic pair we left in the canyon? They found a couple of intriguing—”
He stopped talking to watch a car pull out of the aspen from the bridge. We could see it was another FBI Chevy. It pulled up next to the saddle shed. We could see right away that Aaron wasn’t expecting any of his people. He put down his tablet and stood up.
“Gimme a sec,” he said. “He may be here to arrest you, Tommy.”
I sipped my beer and watched him walk across the dirt out of the trees. The guy in the car hadn’t got out, but he handed Aaron a piece of paper. I couldn’t see Aaron’s face as he leaned down and talked to him. Audie mumbled and stirred and moved my way. I tried to scoot over but she curled herself around my knee, half asleep. Aaron and the agent talked for a long time, then the guy circled his car and drove off the way he came. Audie raised her head and opened her eyes. We watched Aaron just stare at the ground. After a minute he walked over to the pack platform and sat down next to Sarah.
He was staring out at the pasture, sweat on his forehead. He kept staring when he started to talk.
“Evidence Response Team Special Agent Vincent D’Angelico. Age thirty-seven,” he said. “Shot dead last night.” He didn’t say anything for another minute. But he looked down at the paper in his hand.
“Vinnie and Alicia were eating dinner around the campfire. Their work all done. Not dark yet. Crime scene photographed and logged. Body of the bog lady bagged and tagged. They hear motors way in the distance. They’re on alert, but then it’s quiet for a long time, so it’s probably nothing. They go back to eating. Later they hear rustling close by in the brush and panting like a bear or something. Vinnie grabs a flash and scouts the perimeter—which he shouldn’t have done, because he’s basically a lab and crime scene guy, not a field agent. He stumbles on a couple of guys hiding in the trees spying on them. Alicia tells Vinnie to stand down, but he’s nervous and orders the guys to show themselves. One is a huge fat guy in biker leathers holding a shotgun. He was so close they could hear him wheeze, then he crashed off through the trees. Alicia pulls her weapon and tries to control the situation, but all hell breaks loose. The fat guy fires the shotgun from somewhere in the dark and Vinnie is hit in the leg. Just a couple of pellets. A second guy pops up close. Vinnie thinks he’s unarmed and tells him to step into the light. The flashlight makes Vinnie an easy target. The guy has some kind of small caliber pistol, and he puts a round in Vinnie’s chest. He drops. Alicia runs for the light and grabs it and Vinnie’s pistol, too. She dives for cover in the dark, firing with both weapons. The shotgun fires a second time, but even farther away this time and misses her. The pistol shooter disappears in the dark, but Alicia lights him up with the flash. He raises his arm to shoot again. She drops him. Three or four rounds. She doesn’t remember. He’s a skinny guy in biker leathers, too. Not very handy with the pistol but still good enough to …” Aaron looked at me, unable to get the words out. “Anyway, does this sound like the guys you told me about from last night?”
“Yeah. I saw the fat one with VanOwen this morning in Reno. And he had a Winchester Model twelve.”
Aaron just nodded like he was trying to reconcile the thinking part with the talking part. He’d taken it hard.
“When I debrief Alicia, I’ll know more,” he said.
“VanOwen sends two of his guys back into the canyon to spy on your crew and only one of them came out. Wonder what they thought they’d find out?”
“It must have been pretty important to kill a federal agent,” Sarah said.
“It doesn’t seem like a firefight was part of the plan,” Aaron said. “This sounds like a screw-up on all sides.”
“Where’s your lady agent now?” Sarah said. “Where’s Alicia?”
“Still up there securing the area,” Aaron said. He held up the paper. “This rundown is all second hand info from the chopper crew. She hunkered down against a gr
anite wall all night and sat there watching the shadows. If anybody showed …” He was quiet a minute. “Alicia’s fierce.” He said it so soft we could barely hear him. Then he told us the rest.
Agent Castile was out of communication range, so she waited there till morning, her back against the rock with a pistol in each fist just a few feet from her dead partner as the fire died down. It was just coals by dawn and another two hours until she heard the chopper. There wasn’t room for her and what was now three bodies—the one from the bog, Vinnie, and the guy who killed him. She was too much of a hard case to fly out leaving an unsecured crime scene. She told the chopper crew to take the dead and she’d fix herself breakfast while she waited.
Harvey and May would’ve got to the campsite with the mules before the chopper came back. Knowing her, Aaron said, Agent Castile would have coffee ready. Knowing Harvey, he and May would wait with her until she could finally fly out, which is why we hadn’t seen any sign of them yet. Aaron stood up. Audie stood up too, never taking her eyes off him. She took Sarah’s free hand, and we all walked back up to the cabin.
“Alicia and D’Angelico found more cash scattered in the area,” Aaron said, “but it only added up to another couple hundred. No sequential bills, which is consistent with just glomming the occasional fifty from the teller’s drawer. Alicia said it seemed bogus since some of the bills were hardly weathered at all.”
“And the bog lady?”
“No surprise. They found a gunshot wound.” He looked back at me again to see how I’d react. “A twenty-five caliber round to the temple.”
“Who uses something like that, anymore?” Sarah said.
“When we interviewed him last fall,” Aaron said, “Buddy Hornberg told us his dad collected old pistols. Since folks launder money buying and selling collectibles, we asked for an inventory. He had a little vest-pocket 1908 Colt twenty-five cal.”
“Don’t tell me,” Sarah said. “It’s missing, right?”