by John Dalmas
Then they took me home, and I phoned Tuuli to tell her what happened. She'd been waiting for my call, and worrying because I hadn't. She told me to come over.
I was back at her place in five minutes. She'd been watching for me, and met me at the stairs, wearing her jacket. In her purse, I was willing to bet, was the little .25 caliber Lady Colt I'd given her. It's just a few blocks from her place to Laurel Canyon. Laurel Canyon Boulevard crosses the Santa Monica Mountains, a range of high, rugged hills that divides the L.A. Basin to the south from the San Fernando Valley to the north. From Laurel Canyon, narrow residential streets zigzag their way up among the slopes and draws.
I drove up one of them without either of us saying anything. Finally I parked at a place we like, in a tiny park, on a crest overlooking the basin. It's not the safest place in the world, but I had a gun under my left arm, and my car gun in the door pocket.
Since the internal combustion engine had been banished by the geogravitic power converter and the stringent air protection laws that followed, you can see forever from up there: a vast sea of city lights. To the south is a big unlighted area that I suppose is a golf course. And more miles and billions of lights farther, the hills of the Palo Verdes Peninsula, sparkling in white, red, green, and blue. Amazing that you can see individual lights so far away! And over all, scattered tall clouds side-lit by the city. It's one of the most beautiful sights in the world, another reason I love L.A.
I reached over, took Tuuli's hand, and for maybe the dozenth time asked her to marry me. She leaned against me and said she loved me, but no, she wasn't ready to commit herself. Might never be. "If I change my mind, Martti," she said in Finnish, "you'll be the first one I tell."
How could I argue with that? After a little bit I drove her home, and she invited me up.
18
The next day I slept till ten. Then I called the Hollywood Station to see what they'd learned from O'Connell's apartment. They'd found bundles of Franklins in a dresser, with prints they'd already identified as Veronica Ashley's. They planned to question her.
I asked them if they'd hold off on that for twenty-four hours. Otherwise it might queer a case I was working on. They agreed. There was no hurry. They had all they needed to put O'Connell away for a while.
Why, I wondered, would Veronica get a contract on me? I'd offended her all right, but what had I said and done that might have scared her? I called up the data on her from my files. And stared. Veronica Ashley, nee Pipolli.
Pipolli. Piper. Could be. I called the Data Center again, using the Santa Barbara County contract, and accessed Dairy Delite in Ventura. The franchise holder was Francis Gustavo Pipolli, DBA Frank Piper. His records gave his father's name, and his father's records showed his father's, and his showed a daughter, Veronica. Veronica Ashley was Piper's paternal aunt.
Something else struck me, too, something I'd overlooked before and shouldn't have. GTE's computer records show when a call was made from a pay phone. I checked again. The call to Ashkenazi hadn't been. She had to have called from her nephew's office, so he might very well know what she was up to. And I'd said something to him about "poisoner and poisonee." He'd almost certainly called and warned Veronica.
I laid it all out for Carlos, and his eyes lit up. He'd take it up with Vector Biology right away, and if he couldn't get a contract on it from the state, the firm would cover the cost. And use the case for publicity
Assuming it worked out.
* * *
Carlos didn't ask me what I was going to do next, and I didn't volunteer. I spent most of the day catching up on odds and ends, and working on my Spanish. Then with my pocket recorder and my gun inside my jacket, I headed for Westwood to confront Veronica Pipolli. I'd start dumping my evidence on her now—it might even be enough for a prosecutor to take her to court with—and maybe she'd start saying things.
If she was home.
She was, and unfriendly. When the nurse-housekeeper announced me, Veronica came into the living room like a drill sergeant. Eldon came swinging in too, on his fingers and stumps, looking somehow more formidable than most guys with legs. I started by telling her that Harvey O'Connell botched his contract, and the LAPD had him locked up. Sarcastically she said that was nice, and who was Harvey O'Connor?
I matched her tone. Sarcasm can get people to say things they otherwise wouldn't. "O'Connell," I said, "not O'Connor. I thought you knew him. Or do you give bundles of hundred-dollar bills to people you don't know? Or maybe there's something new in the world: two people with the same fingerprints. O'Connell had three shots at me, incidentally, and all I got was a fragment in the cheek."
I touched my face as I said it, my eyes on hers. She showed no fear. What I was looking at was supressed rage.
"The fingerprints weren't your only mistake," I went on. "That was stupid, using your nephew's phone to set up the date with Arthur. Aldon, that is. Why didn't you use the pay phone?"
With that her face went white, but she didn't look faint at all. The muscles in her jaw lumped like walnuts. "Was that when you hired O'Connell to kill me?" I asked. "After I talked with Frank? The timing's about right. It would have taken O'Connell awhile to learn where I lived. And maybe follow me around until he saw a good opportunity."
She still wasn't saying anything, so I tried another shot. "They've decided Aldon was dead before he was shot," I lied. "I'd never have figured out how you killed him, if I hadn't heard about the killer bee research. Do you keep some of your tricked up meningitis virus around the house? Maybe you plan to use it on your husband next. He's Aldon's twin, after all."
That broke it. "Get out!" she shouted suddenly. "Get out of this house! Now!"
I shook my head. "Not without the rest of the virus."
"All right!" she shouted, "I'll give it to you!"
And stomped out of the room. For the first time that day I turned my attention to Eldon. He was in a state of shock. In ten seconds Veronica was back. But what she had in her hand was not a flask or vial or petri plate, it was a snub-nosed .32, looking bigger because it was pointed at me. All that saved me getting shot was, she was too damned mad to simply kill me. She was going to blast me with venom first, with words.
Before she got any of them out though, Eldon was between us, facing her. I wished he was taller. "You . . . killed . . . Aldon," he said. "And . . . you . . . lied . . . about . . . him . . . to . . . father. How . . . could . . . you . . . do . . . that? You . . . said . . . you . . . loved . . . me!"
The steel and the fire went out of Veronica Ashley as if they'd never been. "I do love you, Eldon," she said, and watching her, I knew she meant it. "I love you very much. I've always loved you."
"No," he said, and moved toward her on splayed and calloused fingers. "You . . . can't . . . love . . . me. You . . . killed . . . Aldon!" Then he launched himself at her, I'm not sure just how, tackling her, scrambling all over her. I ducked out of the room and drew my own gun. She screamed, and hers went off, once, and after a couple of seconds a second time. Crouched and ready, I looked back in.
Veronica sat on the floor against a heavy chair, weeping quietly, her hands on her belly. Her face was already gray. Eldon lay sprawled on the floor, his head a ruin, far worse than Aldon's had been. One way or another she'd been gut-shot, then he'd put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Her eyes moved to me when I stepped back into the room, the hatred gone from them, replaced by shock and something else. Grief.
"Jesus," I said to her. "Jesus, Veronica, I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry." And I meant it.
19
It was all recorded, of course. At the hospital next day, Veronica Ashley told everything, and naturally the papers picked it up. And played hell out of it. They gave Prudential a lot of good publicity and made me sound like Sherlock Holmes. So of course I got promoted. I don't wear junior in front of investigator anymore.
As a matter of policy, I'd phoned Carlos from the Ashleys' right after I'd called the police. When I told him what happ
ened, he said come to the office as soon as I possibly could. He knew what was coming. When I got there, he was waiting with Joe. In my profession it's best not to have your face on the six o'clock news. So Joe gave me a paid vacation as a bonus, and sent me to his place to hide till I could leave town. I phoned Tuuli from there, and she surprised me: She agreed to go with me!
I left Joe's at 4:30 the next morning, picked her up, and we flew to Hemlock Harbor, back in Ojibwa County, Michigan. Where she met my sister Elvi, and my half brother Sulo. Sulo's more than old enough to be my father. Both of them loved Tuuli right away. Now she and I are roughing it in dad's old fishing shack, his hytti, back in the bush on Balsam Lake, where I'm taping this. Elvi said I owe it to my nieces and nephews, and whatever children Tuuli and I might have.
Yep, Tuuli and I got the license the second day there, and got married in Hemlock Harbor's Trinity Lutheran parsonage. She says I'll have to improve my Finnish now, speak it as well as Elvi, or better yet, Sulo. Next week we'll go back to L.A. and find a security building in a good location. One where she can rent an efficiency apartment in the same building we live in, for her consulting office.
And that's all there is to the story, so I'll go split some wood for the stove. I'm not missing L.A. too much yet.
THE PUPPET MASTER
a novel
PART ONE:
Church of the New Gnosis
PROLOG
Actually it was a bedroom in a private home, but it looked like a large, private hospital room in baby blue, with vases of varied, freshly cut flowers adding indigo and white, violet and butter yellow against the delicate green of ferns. The bed was a hospital bed, and a private nurse sat beside it in a chair. Next to her stood a cart, an instrumented, stainless-steel life-support system on wheels, with LEDs displaying the patient's critical biofunctions. A telescoping rod extended upward from it, topped by a pivoting arm that dangled wires and a tube to disappear beneath the bed cover.
The nurse was reading a paperback novel—one of the New Age novels that were popular then. Just enough daylight filtered through the thick drapes to show it was morning.
The figure in the bed was male and elderly. He appeared to have a glandular disorder; his face was like raised bread dough, puffy and pale. It was also drawn down on one side by stroke, leaving the wide mouth twisted. Just now the muscles were slack and the eyes closed, their lids thick.
Given the puffy face, one might have expected a great swollen body. Actually, its bulk beneath the soft cotton sheet was not particularly large, but it seemed to spread, as if its bones were cartilage, not rigid enough to support it.
The eyes opened. Their blue was faded, their whites yellowish. They shifted to the nurse, not in an invalid's drugged or helpless or apathetic gaze, but coldly. As if feeling the touch, she set the book aside.
"Ten twenty-six, sir," she said as if answering a question, and stood up. She pressed two keys on a small control box at the foot of the bed, and slowly the bed took a shape suited to reading.
Nothing more was said. She didn't ask if he was hungry or wanted an alcohol rub or to relieve himself. Instead she took the eyeglasses from the bedside table, made sure again that they were clean, and carefully set them on the puffy face. Laser surgery could have corrected his astigmatism, but he'd declined it. He intended to correct it himself one day, along with much else.
Next she swung a hospital reading screen on its arm and positioned it, looked questioningly at him, then sat down at a small table and keyed in instructions on a small console. The masthead for the L.A. Times wire edition lit the screen for a moment. The date was 2008 August 13, and the edition, 1000 hours. A menu screened. One of the selections was scan, and touching, she activated it, controlling the speed with a knurled knob. Page one scrolled up too rapidly for all but the swiftest readers.
From where she sat, to watch the screen would have been awkward, and she didn't try. Her eyes stayed mostly on the old man. Now and then she slowed the image for a moment or for several, as if sensing his wishes and his reading rate. As one of the items brought a change of expression to his face, she slowed the scrolling nearly to a stop. It read:
Ex-OSS Official's Daughter Weds Gnostie
Gloria DeSmet of Pacific Grove, 21-year-old daughter of retired OSS Deputy Director Alex DeSmet, has married Fred L. Hamilton, a counselor for the Church of the New Gnosis in Los Angeles, according to a friend of the DeSmet family.
A student at Stanford University, Gloria DeSmet was employed for the summer at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Monterey. Hamilton, who'd concealed his affiliation with the Gnostic cult, had also been employed there, as a psychiatric assistant. (Supp A). Hamilton and DeSmet had been dating.
Hamilton's use of Gnostic counseling procedures on patients at Holy Redeemer was discovered, and he was discharged. Last Friday, after telling her parents that she would spend the weekend near Grass Valley with friends, Gloria DeSmet followed Hamilton to Los Angeles. She was not missed until she failed to show up for work on Monday. She and Hamilton were married in Los Angeles on Tuesday. She then notified her family.
The old man began to chuckle.
1
DEBRIEF
2012, July 5
It was a UCLA project. Its purpose was to record "the anatomy of selected investigations."
Martti Seppanen watched the young woman adjust her camcorder and other gear, skeptical that anything useful would come of it. To him it smelled like academic/bureaucratic barn waste. The case was already thoroughly documented in his taped debriefs, and in case and court records.
Also it would end up in UCLA's security archives, because Martti would be freeflowing, and some or much of what he said would be about persons not guilty of any crime, persons whose privacy had to be protected. It would be seen only with hard-to-get approvals, mainly by candidates for advanced degrees in law enforcement.
Joe Keneely didn't think much of the project either, because confidentiality prevented using it as promotion. He could have refused, of course, but the California Department of Justice had pushed, and the state was a major client of Prudential Investigations and Security, Inc. Within the limits of ethics and the law, it was desirable to humor them.
Why video? Martti wondered. All it would show was him sitting with his eyes closed or unfocused, talking. Maybe it had something to do with the aura analyzer she'd set up beside the camcorder. Presumably it would be monitoring his frame of mind while he talked.1
The aura analyzer was more than just a lie detector. According to articles in the Journal of Law Enforcement Technology, they were more reliable than polygraphs, and gave broader information.
They're not going to believe everything I say anyway, Martti told himself, regardless of what my aura shows.
It occurred to him that some of what he might say could surprise him, too. He'd read that with a Veritas injection, you remembered a lot you otherwise wouldn't, and in detail. Supposedly even stuff you'd psychologically suppressed after it happened. And while you could hold back under Veritas, you'd rarely feel an impulse to. Normally you just freeflowed. Probably the aura analyzer would show if you were withholding.
He decided he'd view it himself when they were done. There might be insights for him.
The woman removed a syringe from a small, flat, velvet-lined box. "All right, Mr. Seppanen," she said cheerily, "I believe I'm ready. How about you?"
He'd eaten a pizza half an hour earlier, so hunger wouldn't distract him, had avoided caffeine with its diuretic effects, and had just been to the restroom. He took a deep breath and let it out. "Yeah, I'm ready."
"Good," she said, and stepped over to his chair. "You don't need to speak loudly. Just murmur. It's easier on the
1 In 2009, President Douglas Ishimatsu declassified a number of mood- and mind-altering devices previously withheld under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or by the FDA, while legalizing private research and the publication of results. Why most of the devices had been withheld in the
first place is difficult to imagine, beyond the bureaucratic dictum: "Cover your rear." Legalization has brought a flurry of new research on the mind and neuro-electrical fields.
throat, and my corder will get it. Now if you'll just give me your hand . . ."
He laid a thick hand on the corner of his desk. She took it, held the syringe against the back of it, and pressed the trigger. The hiss reminded him of the adjustment valves on the exercise machines at Gold's. "It'll take a minute or so," she said, and sat down across from him, her laptop open in front of her on the folding laptop table she'd brought. Bit by bit he felt his mind relaxing. The room blurred, and though he found he could bring it back in focus, it didn't seem worthwhile to. It was easier just to close his eyes. His lips opened, and he started to speak.
2
GNOSTIES
In a way, I got involved with the Christman case in May of 2010, a year and a half before Christman disappeared. I was an investigative assistant here, with an MS in Law Enforcement from Northern Michigan University and four years of experience on the Marquette, Michigan, police force. I'd just spent five months apprenticing under Carlos—that's Carlos Katagawa, Supervisory Senior Investigator here at Prudential. He'd told Joe—Joe Keneely is president and majority shareholder—that I was ready for a case of my own, and Joe said go ahead. So when I came in that day, Carlos called me down the hall to his office and played a cube for me.
They'd recorded it late the day before. It showed a handsome, well-dressed woman in her forties, telling Carlos and Joe what it was she wanted, and answering their questions. Her name was Angela DeSmet. Twenty-one months earlier, her twenty-some-year-old daughter, Gloria, had "run away" to L.A. and married a guy who worked for the Church of the New Gnosis. The mother had tried to get in touch with her, but the church is—impenetrable, the papers have called it.