Missing Persons
Page 1
Missing Persons
Michael Brandman
Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Michael Brandman
First E-book Edition 2017
ISBN: 9781464208072 ebook
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.
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Contents
Missing Persons
Copyright
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
More from this Author
Contact Us
Dedication
For Joanna…
…with my love and gratitude for the
amazing first forty years…
Epigraph
“The iniquities of the Father
shall be visited upon the sons.”
—Deuteronomy
“Or not.”
—Burton Steel, Junior
Chapter One
A scorching heat wave blanketed the West Coast, bringing with it record temperatures, rolling blackouts, and a general feeling of malaise that infected everyone.
A fast-moving Mexican monsoon, however, was now gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico, steaming up the California coast accompanied by gale force winds and heavy rain.
It would most likely reach Freedom by late afternoon. I sat staring out the office window, elated that the storm would finally end the stultifying heat, but also apprehensive of the possible havoc it might wreak.
“Global warming,” I thought.
A late model green Toyota Camry pulled up in front of the San Remo County Courthouse. I watched as a middle-aged woman emerged, looked around, then headed inside.
After a few moments, I heard Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Kennerly talking with the woman. Then he appeared in my doorway and stood there, fanning himself with a legal size yellow pad.
“There’s a Rosalita Gonzalez here to see you.”
I swiveled my chair around to face him. “What about?”
“You mean what does she want?”
“Yes.”
“She wants to see you.”
“So you said. What does she want to see me about?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“I’m a Deputy Sheriff, not a personal assistant.”
“You had me fooled. I guess that means a donut run is out.”
Johnny fanned himself faster. “Funny,” he said.
I soldiered on. “So you don’t know why she’s here.”
“Correct.”
“Do you find that at all strange?”
“No.”
“I find it strange.”
“And I should care about that because?”
I gave him my best dead-eyed stare.
“Would you like me to show her in?” Johnny asked.
“Only if it meshes with your job description.”
Johnny stopped fanning himself and grinned. “I’ll have to check my contract.”
He went to get Rosalita Gonzalez, who followed him into my office. She looked to be in her fifties, gray-haired, wearing a tight green summer shift that had once fit her better. She lowered her brow and eyed the surroundings, clearly uncomfortable.
I stood and offered her a seat. “If you’re not too busy, Deputy Kennerly, would you please join us?”
Johnny nodded. He was a big man, six-foot-six, dark-skinned with large brown eyes and a wide mouth—features he had inherited from his African American father. His Romanesque nose was a duplicate of his Italian mother’s. He wore a khaki Sheriff’s Department uniform with a handful of service badges pinned to his shirt. A .357 magnum was holstered on his hip.
“How may we help you, Ms. Gonzalez?” I sat down and smiled, encouraging her to speak.
She got right to it. “Have you ever heard of Barry Long, Junior?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“I work for him. I’m nanny to his son.”
“Okay.”
“There’s something wrong.”
“Meaning?”
“Mrs. Long has disappeared.” She looked quickly at both of us, trying to gauge our response. “Sometime last week.”
I glanced at Johnny who was seated beside Ms. Gonzalez. He had a quizzical look in his eye.
“Reverend Long,” she continued, “told me she had gone away for a while. He said I was to take full charge of the boy.”
“Did he mention where she had gone?”
“No.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“What he didn’t say was when she would come back.”
“How old is the boy?”
“Barely five. He’s very upset. Very unhappy. The Reverend is preparing for his annual revival Celebration and he moves back and forth betwe
en the house and his apartment at the Pavilion. Now he takes me and the boy with him. The boy cries and carries on a lot. He’s always screaming for his mother. When I try to talk about it with the Reverend, he tells me to handle it.”
“What is it you want from the Sheriff’s Department?”
“Reverend Long, he scares me.”
She cleared her throat and went on. “He and the men around him. They’re not good people. There’s something wrong there.”
“And you want us to look into it?”
“I want you to know what’s going on. What you do is up to you. I can’t be a part of it anymore. I’m leaving.”
“You mean you’re quitting?”
“I mean I’m leaving. I’m going somewhere to hide and pray they never find me.”
She stood and stared at me and at Johnny for several moments before picking up her purse and walking to the door.
Then she turned back to us.
“I think they killed her.”
Chapter Two
Freedom wasn’t the future I had in mind for myself. At age thirty, I had been faring quite well as a ranking LAPD homicide detective. I stand six-three in my bare feet, a former point guard, weighing in at one-seventy. I have blue eyes and dark blond hair, which I tend to haphazardly.
I worked out of the Hollywood division and lived within walking distance of the Cole Avenue Station. I was unmarried, with a promising career in law enforcement that impressed at least some of the women at my fitness club who believed, as did I, that hooking up was a satisfactory alternative to commitment. I was feeling as if I’d arrived, for whatever that was worth.
Then my father took ill. He hadn’t felt well during his re-election campaign and once he claimed victory, he paid a much-delayed visit to his GP.
He was quietly admitted to a private clinic where he underwent a battery of tests. One of the state’s leading neurologists consulted on the findings and confirmed the initial diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
For the popular Sheriff of San Remo County—a coastal area located north of Santa Barbara—about to begin his third consecutive four-year term, this finding was nothing short of catastrophic.
He summoned the family. My sister flew in from Chicago. I drove up from L.A. Our stepmother, Regina Goodnow, herself the estimable mayor of Freedom Township, fluttered about the house doing all she could to ease the tension and make us comfortable.
My father, Burton Steel, Senior, was uncharacteristically subdued, his oversized personality deflated by the collapse of his heretofore robust health.
I’m Burton Steel, Junior. I hate the name Burton. I dislike the Junior part even more. Naming me after himself, in my estimation, was the ultimate in Burton Senior’s egocentricity, one of his innumerable character flaws. To differentiate us, I’m called Buddy.
My relationship with my father is complicated. I can’t say we’re friends. He’s autocratic to a fault and I could hardly wait to graduate from high school and get the hell out of his house.
I fled my life in Freedom and moved to New York where I studied criminal justice at John Jay College. I graduated near the top of my class, and when the offer to join the LAPD popped up, I grabbed it.
Now the family was gathered in the living room of the home I grew up in, an English-style manor house located in the hills above Highway 101.
When the old man broke the news, he spoke haltingly, already exhibiting the effects of the disease on his vocal cords, his voice rough as gravel, and suffering a loss of velocity.
“I’ve been given a death sentence. I’ve got fucking Lou Gehrig’s disease.”
My sister, Sandra, gasped.
“It’s in its early stages,” he went on. “But I’m a goner, sure as shit.”
Her Honor, my stepmother, chimed in. “Burton, please watch your language. You know how much I dislike all this swearing.”
“Shut up, Regina.”
“What can they do for it?” I pulled myself back from imagining the worst, hoping instead to hear some kind of optimistic prognosis.
“There’s no cure. They’ve put me on steroids. Prednisone. I can already feel the difference.”
“You mean you feel better?”
“I feel worse. Steroids slam the weight on you. It won’t be long before I look like fucking Oprah.”
“Burton, please,” Regina snapped.
Sandra leaned forward. “Is there anything we can do?”
My father shifted his eyes to fix his stare directly at me.
“I need you, Buddy. I’m likely to fade pretty fast. I want you here as my chief deputy. I’ll teach you the ropes. Train you to succeed me.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, but I knew better.
Chapter Three
“So, what do we know about Barry Long, Junior?”
I was in the squad room, huddling with Johnny Kennerly and Captain Marsha Russo.
The three of us were seated at Marsha’s desk. She and Johnny were in full regalia, their milk-chocolate-colored Sheriff’s uniforms clean and sharply pressed.
I, on the other hand, was casually dressed. Blue jeans, plaid work shirt, a cream-colored corduroy jacket, and Filson work boots comprised my wardrobe of choice. As was the case with my time in the LAPD, I was a plainclothes guy, preferring to conceal my position as a law enforcement officer and producing another bone of contention between my father and me.
Marsha was focused on her computer, scouring websites until she found what she was looking for and then proceeded to read aloud.
She was a formidable woman, strong-willed and feisty, in her early forties, a veteran of fifteen years with the department. She pre-dated my father, and when he appointed Johnny Kennerly as Undersheriff, he’d asked her to join the command unit as a staff Captain.
She was short and thickset, forever fighting a battle with the scale. She had once been considered cute, but age and stress had taken their toll. Her trenchant wit and sharp tongue kept people on their toes.
“Here it is,” she said. “Barry Long, Junior. Born March 6th, 1984, LaGrange, Tennessee. Father: Barry Long, Senior. Mother: Selma Hickham Long, deceased. Brother: Hickham Long. Sister: Margaret Long. No other siblings.”
“Go on.”
“Graduated LaGrange High School, class of 2002. Graduated South Tennessee Seminary College, class of 2006. Performed missionary services in Montevideo, Uruguay, 2007. Founded the Heart of Our Saviour Ministry in 2008.”
“When did he go on TV?”
“His first broadcast was July 4th, 2010, on WTWV in Memphis, a Christian broadcasting service. They still carry him, by the way.”
Marsha continued to scroll and read aloud:
“The Long Ministry television broadcasts are currently seen in fifteen countries. They are reputed to gross more than twenty-million dollars annually. The Heart of Our Saviour revival Celebration is held every year during the first week of October and televised in those same fifteen countries.”
“Is there any mention of a Mrs. Long?”
“There is. Mary Catharine Morecombe Long. Born: July 2nd, 1994, Memphis, Tennessee. Married Barry Long, Junior, June 29th, 2012. One child, Barry Long, the third. Born: November 20, 2012.”
“Which means she was pregnant when they got married,” I interjected.
“And she was eighteen years old,” Johnny added.
“That’s a ten-year difference in their ages,” I said. “When did they move to Freedom?”
“It doesn’t say.”
“Check the real estate records.”
Marsha clicked onto a different site.
“They live in the old Schuyler estate,” Johnny said.
“I found it,” Marsha said. “The Horace B. Schuyler estate in San Remo County was sold to the Barry and Catharine Lon
g Family Trust on September 14th, 2012, for a purchase price of three million, five hundred thousand dollars. Wow.”
“Wow, indeed. Have you ever seen the Schuyler estate?”
Johnny shook his head.
“I hear it’s amazing,” Marsha said.
“Shall we?”
“Shall we what?”
“Have a look.”
“You mean actually visit the Schuyler house?”
“It’s the Long house now.”
Johnny watched as I picked up my pad and pencil and stood. “If we leave now, we can beat the rain.”
Chapter Four
The Long house sat on sixty acres of prime oceanfront property, separated from the sea by ten-plus acres of federally protected sand dunes.
The imposing mansion maintained its original nineteenth-century facade, despite the fact that it had been upgraded and modernized on several occasions over the years. Newly added floor-to-ceiling picture windows looked out onto the bay and the Pacific beyond. Its magnificent views remained impeded on the upper floors by sloping dormer windows that constricted the home’s sight lines but maintained the architectural integrity of the original design.
After announcing myself at the call box in front of the estate’s massive wrought-iron gates, I navigated the winding driveway that led to the rambling house. The grounds were immaculately tended. Rolling lawns were dotted with a variety of indigenous cacti and succulents. Acacia, palo verde, and live oak trees provided shade and character.
I parked in the circular motor court in front of the house beside a number of vans loaded with luggage and gear.
Johnny, Marsha, and I climbed the five steps to the wraparound front porch where we were greeted by a neatly groomed, efficient-looking young man dressed in a black suit, white shirt, black knit tie, and dark Ray-Ban sunglasses.
“Welcome to Long House.”
The young man flashed a smile that revealed a mouthful of the largest and whitest teeth I had ever seen. I was mesmerized by them.
“How may we help you?” His smile reflected a forced sincerity.
“We’d like to see Mrs. Long.”
The young man hesitated for a moment. “Mrs. Long isn’t here.”
“When do you expect her?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”