by M. Z. Kelly
We tried to orient ourselves, but the cave was silent and dark. The only sound we heard was coming from the upper pool. It was the sound of voices, shouting in agony as the uniforms arrived.
I treaded water and felt Pearl push up against me. Kane seemed to have disappeared. Maybe he had been hit? Maybe he had drowned? Maybe not.
I felt Pearl’s hand on my arm. Then I realized it wasn’t Pearl. Something knocked my gun away and pulled me down, deep into the bottom of the swirling water.
I couldn’t see him, but I knew Nathan Kane had ahold of me. He had clamped onto me and was pulling me down. I was drowning. I fought back, pushing and kicking, but I was no match for the muscular madman who was sweeping me down to my death.
Water seeped into my lungs. Panic set in. The world began to spin. My consciousness began slipping away. I was choking, swirling deeper into the abyss.
I reached out as I was pushed to the bottom of the pool, my hands momentarily brushing against something. It was sharp and long. Then I felt the handle. I had ahold of a knife that Kane must have dropped.
My strength was almost gone but I willed myself to sweep the knife up in a slicing motion. It hit nothing but water. Then I swung it again and again and again. The blade struck something solid. I felt resistance and pushed harder. There was a gurgling, screaming sound in my ears.
Above me I saw lights moving over the surface of the water. I said a silent prayer that I hadn’t stabbed Pearl. I found the last bit of energy somewhere in the deepest cells of my body and pushed off, madly swimming toward the surface.
It seemed forever before I finally broke through the water. I came up, choking and gasping for breath.
Light moved over my face.
I was blinded for an instant. The light moved off and swept across the water. I realized it was a flashlight being held by one of the responding officers. I frantically looked around, again searching for the madman, and praying Pearl was still alive. Then I saw it.
Nathan Kane’s body was floating face down in the pool of water. I moved forward and found Pearl. With his help we rolled the killer over. His body was slack, the life force flowing out as blood streamed into the pool of water.
I turned to Pearl who reached out for my hand. He helped me as I used my last bit of strength to swim over to the edge of the pool.
I looked up into the beautiful face of Natalie who was cradling Bernie in her arms.
“Nice work, sistah,” Natalie said as Bernie licked my face. “The ugly gump is tits up.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
A week after the slaughter at Donovan’s estate I was back on duty. It took a dozen stiches to close the wound in Bernie’s hind quarters. The vet said the bullet had just missed an artery, but that he would fully recover, leaving my partner with a lengthy scar and enough bragging rights to end up with a Medal of Valor.
I’d left Bernie at home with Natalie the first few days after I’d returned to work. She was nursing him back to health on a steady diet of bones.
After sorting out the killing cave at Donovan’s estate, it was determined that twelve people, including Kane and the famous actor, had lost their lives in The Cavern, along with six others inside the residence.
Bon Bon had been wounded but had survived the slaughter. Zen wasn’t as lucky. The bodyguard had been killed in the shooting spree.
Donovan’s son was singing like a fat canary about the drug and sex trade his father had been involved in with Conrad Harper and Nathan Kane over the years. As we’d already figured out, Diamond was cooking the books and laundering the drug money through the porn business.
Bon Bon admitted that he had Zen put drugs in Robin’s car and called the police because he was jealous that Clark said he still had feelings for Robin. He also told us that Clark had been cheating on him with his father. It seems the famous actor’s appetite for all things both edible and sexual was voracious.
The charges against Robin had been dropped. My brother was back at work, trying to mend a broken heart.
I called Jack Bautista the day after our confrontation at Donovan’s estate and filled him in on everything. The DA had dismissed all charges against him.
Jack said that he planned to return to work as soon as he was medically cleared. He had asked me to dinner after he recuperated, but I was noncommittal. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the detective and needed some time to sort through my feelings.
After reviewing the scenes from Donovan’s film, we confirmed that the burial vault showing Carmichael’s date of birth and death was in the recently released director’s cut of the film. The scene had not been in the original movie. We could only speculate that Donovan had inserted the scene in a moment of crazed inspiration.
The forensics team was scheduled to meet with us at the cemetery the next day to look for John Carmichael’s body, even though we didn’t officially know who murdered him. Unofficially, I thought I had a pretty good idea.
Pearl was allowed to sit in with Charlie and me as we interviewed Gloria Stallings. Cassie Reynolds’s mother had been picked up by the Pima County Sheriff’s Office at a homeless shelter and held in custody until we transported her to Los Angeles on a decades old warrant we found in the system for embezzlement. She had worked for a dentist in San Diego for a few months before Cassie was born, and a creative accounting system had allowed her to keep half the monthly receipts.
The RHD detectives assigned to the Cassie Reynolds investigation were behind the one way mirror outside the interview room. Baker and Kennedy were none too happy about getting second crack at Stallings, but Jankowitz had called in some favors for us.
As we settled in, I resisted the urge to smile at the glass and give the dragnet brothers the solo sausage salute as Natalie called it. I went into the room determined to close the case.
“Gloria, I’d like to begin,” I said, “by asking about the early years of Cassie’s life. You told us when we interviewed you before that Cassie went to live with your sister. How did that come about?”
Watery blue eyes darted in my direction before her gaze swept away. “I left John before Cassie was born. I was unemployed for several months, but got a job with Dr. Carson in San Diego.”
“The dentist?” Charlie asked.
Stallings nodded. “I worked as his receptionist and took payments.” She clutched her sides. A tremor ran through her body. “You know the rest.”
“I can understand how a single mother could give into temptation,” I said. “Is that why you embezzled the money?”
“Yes. But after I got fired, I started drinking too much. I decided Cassie was better off living with my sister. That’s when I moved to Arizona.”
“But you kept in touch with Cassie over the years?”
“I tried.” She looked at me, her eyes filling. “She was my only child.”
“What about Mr. Donovan?” Pearl asked. “According to the woman Cassie was staying with before she died, Cassie spent a lot of time at his estate.”
Stallings’s eyes drifted to the mirror, they were unfocused like she was looking through a window.
“My sister did some catering work. She took Cassie with her when she did parties up on the hill. I think over the years Donovan took an interest in her. He allowed Cassie to stay at his estate from time to time. After my sister died, she needed a place to live and Donovan helped her out.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about Cassie’s relationship with Donovan when we talked to you in Arizona?” I asked, my anger surfacing.
“He’s a very powerful man. I didn’t want to stir up any trouble.”
I leaned closer to Stallings and lowered my voice. My patience evaporated. “I’ve had it with the lies, Gloria. I want the truth. That includes everything you know about what happened to your daughter.”
Stallings’s head slumped forward. She sobbed. I gave her a moment, bringing her some tissues and then water. She blew her nose and swept her thin red-orange hair away from her eyes, finally regaining some comp
osure.
“Cassie called me a few days before she sent me the envelope I gave you. She said she found out who murdered her father from Conrad Harper when he was on drugs and drunk. He showed Cassie and Roger Diamond the movie.”
“Valentino?”
“They saw it in Harper’s screening room. Cassie said that Roger had also gotten the information about the past corporations that Harper and Kane formed. He was planning to blackmail Harper. Cassie wanted me to have a copy of the information, thinking it might offer her some protection. Her watery gaze drifted away. “She was wrong. I think that’s why they were both killed.”
Pearl asked, “What sort of relationship did Cassie have with Mr. Diamond?”
“He was sort of a boyfriend, but Cassie knew he was involved in drugs with the others. He was no good. When she found out about the kind of movies he wanted her to make, she left him.”
More tears flowed. I gave Stallings a moment. She had finally told us some of what she knew, but I was sure there was more—much more.
“Thank you for telling us the truth, Gloria,” I said. “I have just a few more questions. When we talked to you a few days ago, we told you there was a police officer who was arguing with John Carmichael the night before he disappeared. Do you know if that man was Marvin Drake?”
Her voice took on more resolve. “I doubt it. Drake sometimes hung out with John and the others, but he wasn’t part of their group. There was someone else.”
“Someone who was in law enforcement?” Charlie asked.
Stallings nodded. “A man named Carl Brasher.”
I looked at Charlie and then back at Stallings. I remembered seeing Drake and the deputy chief together at the police administration building. “What was Brasher’s role in everything?” I asked.
“He helped Harper and Kane take care of anyone who was a problem.”
“Like John?”
“Yes.”
I took a deep breath and stood up. I glanced at the mirror but my thoughts weren’t on the RHD detectives on the other side of the glass. I saw the reflection of a broken, empty woman next to me who was at least partially responsible for the death of her only daughter.
I turned back to Stallings. “But Carl Brasher didn’t kill John, did he Gloria?”
She didn’t look at me. Her head shook.
“I need the truth now,” I said, my voice resolute. “All of it. Tell me about Cassie’s father.”
Her eyes slowly came up to me. I sensed in that moment she knew what I’d already pieced together. Her head fell back onto the table and she wept. When she finally recovered, Gloria Stallings whispered a secret that she had kept for thirty years.
“I was…raped.”
I was sure I knew the answer, but asked anyway. “By who?”
Her head came up slowly and she exhaled, maybe relieved that the dark secret was finally being spoken. She looked at me and said, “Wolf Donovan.”
I nodded, now giving up what I had already determined. “They had the same eyes—cobalt blue with a hint of green. Donovan was Cassie’s father and he knew it.”
The truth whispered from her quivering lips, “Yes. When my sister began catering his parties...he began asking questions...figured it out.”
“And John Carmichael knew you were raped?”
She nodded, brushing away her heavy tears. “John and I had grown apart. We were no longer...intimate, but he let me stay at his house sometimes because I had nowhere else to live. I told him that Donovan attacked me one night when he came by the house and I was home alone. John was angry and planned to go to the police.”
“Did he talk to Carl Brasher?” Charlie asked.
Stallings nodded. “Brasher tried to convince John not to file a complaint. He said that if he went to the police they would close down the production of his film.”
“Days of Destiny?”
“Yes. He said they would see to it that John never worked again. When he couldn’t talk him out of it, Donovan and Kane came to see John before he could file a formal complaint.”
Stallings’ tears came again, harder now. She finally regained some composure and went on, “I was upstairs, hiding. I heard the gunshot...saw them drive away...John’s body was wrapped in a blanket.”
“And that’s why you left Hollywood?” I asked.
She nodded. “I knew if they ever found me I would also be killed.”
“Do you know where John is buried?” Pearl asked.
Stallings shook her head. “Maybe in the cemetery like Cassie thought after seeing the movie. I don’t know for sure.”
I bent over the table and waited. Stallings finally looked up at me.
“Cassie’s relationship with Wolf Donovan,” I said. “It’s time you told us everything, Gloria.”
A torrent of tears flooded down her face again. When they finally stopped, Cassie Reynolds’s mother gave up the last of her dirty secrets.
“He molested Cassie.”
“From the time she was a little girl?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
I leaned in closer to her. “And you knew about it?”
Stallings pounded a clenched fist on the table, tears gushing. “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry.”
“And Donovan and Kane had Marvin Drake kill her,” I said.
Stallings broke down again, losing all control of her emotions.
I pushed away from the table, took a deep breath. While Drake had pulled the trigger, I knew who had really killed Cassie Reynolds. I was looking at her. I was disgusted and couldn’t hold back. I moved back to the prisoner and leaned forward, my gaze narrowing.
“You said it before, Gloria,” I spat. “Cassie was your only child. She deserved her mother’s protection. You gave her nothing.”
Stallings’s body shuddered in waves of deep, racking sobs that seemed to come from the center of her being. I shook my head as I walked away. Before closing the door on her, I stopped and looked back at her for a final time. I felt nothing but revulsion.
I joined Charlie and Pearl in the hallway outside the interview room. My partner’s gaze came over to me.
Charlie said, “You mean the son of a bitch not only molested his only daughter but he had her killed?”
I nodded, trying to find the words to respond. There was nothing left. I walked away and felt something on my cheeks.
Chapter Fifty-Five
The day after my interview with Cassie Reynolds’s mother I decided to take Natalie with me to Hollywood Forever Cemetery. My friend had earned the right to see if John Carmichael’s body was interred there.
We decided that Bernie was well enough to go with us. I think my partner was getting antsy staying home.
Natalie put it less delicately as she brushed a hand under Bernie’s muzzle when we stopped at my mom’s house to reimburse her for Olive’s repairs. “The mutts nuts are gonna pop unless he gets the rust outta his thrust.”
As Natalie and Bernie followed me into the house, I said, “I think I’m going to put you in charge of Bernie’s love life. I’ve done my time playing love referee.”
We found my mother in what she calls her Spirit Room. There were hugs all around. I noticed that Mom, or Miss Daisy, as she calls herself when she’s in one of her psychic states, was finally losing the Cat Woman look. The bandages were completely off and there were only a couple of fading scars.
Mom didn’t waste any time commenting on my new hairdo. “You don’t even look like my daughter. Where are your curls?”
“It’s called a Brazilian Blowout, Mom. And my frizzies are history.” I made a little primping motion. “Robin says it will last about three months before I have to do it again.” For the first time in my life I had straight, thick hair, and I loved it.
“I think she looks like a vampire,” Natalie said.
I turned to my friend. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Don’t go off your trolley, now. I’m talkin’ ‘bout that actress, Kristen Stewart. She played in that m
ovie with the hunky vampires. I think you look bloody ridiculous.” Natalie smiled, punched my shoulder. “That means really cool in American, case ya didn’t know.”
The critique went on for five minutes before Mom said, “There’s something I need to ask you both. I’m doing a reading on Saturday night and need some energy in the room.”
“What kind of energy?” I asked.
“The female kind. I was thinking you and Natalie might help out.”
Natalie was on her feet, clapping her hands. “We’ll be here. I’ve always thought I had a connection to the spirit world. One time during the Big O, I had an outta body experience. Saw this bright light and me grandmum.”
“You saw your grandmother during an orgasm?”
“I think maybe she was jealous. Clyde had just gotten his Viagra and…”
I held up a hand. “Enough.”
Mom said, “I’ll be doing the reading for…” She lowered her voice. “Karma.”
Natalie jumped in the air. I thought she might be having a mini-orgasm. “Yes, yes, yes. I love her green outfits.”
My brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, who?”
“Karma only wears the color green,” Natalie said. “Has somethin’ to do with the earth’s energy. She’s got that hit song called, ‘Zipwalla.’”
It registered. Karma was a celebrity and well-known singer. Still, I had my reservations. “I don’t know. It sounds…”
“Karma thinks her fiancé is cheating on her,” Mom said. “She wants to find out before the wedding. She’s planning to marry Love Dawg.”
Natalie was saying something about dirty, cheating dogs and then apologizing to Bernie before Mom added, “Everyone is supposed to wear green at the reading.”
“Huh?” I said, still trying to catch up. “Love who?”
“Do you live under a rock?” Natalie asked. “Love Dawg is only the biggest rapper on the planet. This is our civic duty, Kate. We can’t let Karma marry a cheat freak.”
I surrendered. Maybe my decision had something to do with my own experience with a cheater.