Contest

by David Wood

  “You have to consider the times. Before cell phones and the Internet, it wasn’t unusual to go long stretches without speaking to someone who lived in another part of the country. And in the case of a young person with an independent spirit and a sense of adventure, you might go years without hearing from them, and you might not consider that unusual.”

  Bones understood the logic. These days, packing up and moving to Hollywood was a cliché. Back in the 1940s, it was different, especially for young women who were confined to very specific social roles. He imagined a lot of the parents were so ashamed that they might not have wanted to hear from their daughters again.

  “Most of the time, if an aspiring actor or actress disappeared, the general assumption was he or she had given up the Hollywood dream and gone back home.

  And you didn’t have social media to check in on old acquaintances.”

  “That makes sense,” Grizzly said. “Have you discussed television rights with anyone?”

  “Let him finish,” Bones said.

  Gambles grinned. “I won’t list every person I’ve identified, but one of the more interesting cases is not a missing person, but an actual murder victim. Well, I say she was murdered. She was found in the wilderness in the Joshua Tree area. Scavengers had gotten to her body by the time it was found, but she’d been cut in half at the waist, just like the Black Dahlia. Of course, this was a few years before the Black Dahlia murder, so there was nothing to make a connection to, and the local police treated it as a terrible accident. The official report is that she suffered a fall from a great distance, and the animals did the rest.”

  “But you don’t think so?” Grizzly asked.

  “She was last seen in Flagstaff, hitchhiking to LA. As far as anyone knows, she never arrived. I doubt she took a side trip into the desert to do a little climbing. But here’s what makes it so interesting. One of the reasons police were so quick to close the case was the persistent rumor going around that the victim was killed by a Desert Reaper.”

  “What the hell is that?” Bones asked.

  “It’s a cryptid. It’s sort of like a velociraptor, but it has chameleon-like skin and it has a sickle-like claw on each hand.”

  Bones and Grizzly exchanged frowns.

  “Never heard of it,” Grizzly said.

  “Neither have I,” Bones said.

  “That’s because it only exists in one place—in Kirk Striker’s debut adventure novel. Which very few people read.”

  “Whoa!” Bones said. “So, you think Striker killed her, did his usual number on her, and when the body was found, he put out that story as a cover?”

  Gambles shrugged. “It makes a certain, twisted sense.” He glanced at his notes again. “And then, six months before the Black Dahlia murder, the body of a young waitress was found caught up in fishing nets. She had been cut in two. The authorities assumed her body had been cut in half posthumously, perhaps caught up in ‘anchor lines or some other sort of rope’ was their speculation. Their words, not mine.”

  “And the connection to Striker?” Bones asked.

  “According to her coworkers, her best customer was a flashy guy who was always boasting about his industry connections and promised to get her a job when his adventure movie began production. Those are the connections I was able to make.” Gambles put his phone away.

  “Here is my theory. I think Striker did suffer from the madness that plagued so many men in his family. His father’s death triggered something in his mind, and he began his ritual of taking a victim once every six months, for reasons I haven’t puzzled out. Most of the time, he managed to make the victims disappear permanently. That is easily done in this part of the world. But as his madness grew, he got careless. When Elizabeth Short’s body was found, the media firestorm put the pressure on him. He tried to stop, but he couldn’t.”

  “He took a big risk staying in Hollywood after that,” Bones observed.

  “I think he knew he was getting close to the film deal he’d been working so hard for. He tried to make it work, tried to battle the darker part of his nature. He held on until his movie was finally made. And then, unable to take the pressure, he fled to the desert, leaving his old life behind. Mostly.”

  “Did the killings continue?” Bones asked.

  “I believe they did. I’ve found no other crimes I can connect him with, even tangentially, but there are plenty of disappearances that match the profile. They are few and far between, though. Always in January. I think he battled against the darker aspects of his nature until the very end.”

  Bones ordered another round of drinks and they sat discussing Gambles’ theory. Bones found it persuasive but couldn’t see how it connected to what was happening on the ranch today.

  “Do you think Striker was any kind of treasure hunter, or was it all just a cover for his true identity?”

  “Oh, he was a treasure hunter. Always out in the hills, always collecting stories. Looking at old books and newspapers. It was in his blood. That’s probably why he wrote adventure novels.”

  “That’s unsettling,” Grizzly said. “To think that a fellow adventurer could harbor such a dark side.”

  “Believe me, I’ve met a few.” Bones turned back to Gambles. “Can you give us any idea what he was looking for out there? Any clue at all?”

  Gambles considered the question for a long time. “I’ll go back and review my research, see if anything catches my attention that seemed unimportant before. I remember thinking he was putting heavy emphasis on Spanish gold and treasure fleets. Of course, that’s not surprising in this part of the world.”

  Bones took another drink and tried to view the mystery from an entirely different point of view. He put the treasure aside in his mind and tried to imagine the ranch from inside the mind of a compulsive murderer.

  “The dungeon!” he said. “What if it had nothing to do with the so-called Mojave Monster? Maybe Striker built it for his own reasons.” He hastily described the little cave he and Maddock had discovered.

  Gambles perked up right away. “I would love to see it.”

  “We can arrange that,” Grizzly said.

  “Hold on,” Bones said. “Do you know anything about Bryce Shipman?” he asked.

  “Not really. I interviewed him briefly when I first started my research, but he didn’t know much about Striker, aside from his novels.”

  “That’s not true,” Grizzly said quickly. “He’s fascinated by Striker. Just ask around.”

  Gambles nodded, scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I wonder why he lied to me.”

  “I just think it’s interesting that he shows up, buys Striker’s land, learns all he can about him, follows his career path, and now he’s out wandering the same hills Striker did.”

  “When you put it like that,” Gambles said, “that certainly casts things in a darker light.”

  Chapter 17

  The folds of the cliff sheltered a shallow cave. The walls were soot-stained from centuries of campfires, miners and Native American hunters, probably. Steven Segar made a show of examining every inch, although he could tell right away that it was a dead end.

  “No garbage, no graffiti,” he said for the benefit of the camera. “I think it’s safe to say this place has gone untouched by modern man.”

  “Do you think this might have been a stop on the way to the gold mine?”

  Yoshi, his cameraman, prompted. Without a script, Segar had struggled to keep up the kind of narrative expected in this sort of show. There was no time to stop and write everything out for him, so the crew had taken to nudging him in the right direction from time to time.

  “Absolutely.” He began inventing wildly. “This is the sort of place a miner always looked for. It’s high up on the mountainside, safe from predators. It’s also the kind of place that could hide a secret passageway. Perhaps an entrance to a lost mine.”

  He began a circuit of the rock shelter, scrutinizing every inch, pressing on every bumpy surface until his hands we
re blackened with soot. Then he scanned every inch of the floor, pacing back and forth, covering every inch like a treasure-hunting ship working a grid out on the sea.

  “What are you looking for?” Yoshi asked. “Anything specific?”

  “A secret door, a symbol that might be a clue, a trapdoor hidden in the floor.”

  “How would you locate something like that?”

  “If I fall through the floor, I’ll know I’ve found it.”

  There was no trapdoor, and Yoshi finally stopped filming. “Mister Segar, we’ve got to give them something better than this. We haven’t turned up a single clue.”

  Segar understood. The reality of treasure hunting wasn’t as exciting as viewers might like. He looked around, searching for inspiration.

  “Give me five minutes.”

  He moved to the deepest part of the rock shelter, took out his knife, and gouged a rough map into the wall. Mounds to represent hills, a jagged peak that probably matched no mountain in the area, and an arch with an X marking the spot. Next, he rubbed some ash and dirt into the grooves. Finally satisfied, he washed his hands, smoothed his hair, and called to Yoshi.

  “I found something. Let’s take it from the top.”

  He cleared his throat, found his mark, and waited for Yoshi to give the word.

  “In 1848, while searching for water, Jim Fish and his partner, Crocker, took shelter in a place very much like this one. Let’s take a look.”

  He repeated his examination of the cave, this time doing a better job of making it interesting. He talked about hidden clues and secret passageways. And then he reached the back of the overhang.

  He let out a gasp, clutched his chest, then dropped down to his knees.

  “According to the story of a priest who gave Fish his last rites, the miner carved a map on the rock wall, but he was never able to find the rock shelter again.” It was all nonsense, but Segar had written a few screenplays that he someday hoped to produce and had even penned a novel that was an Amazon bestseller in Native American Action Thrillers, or something like that. “That might seem hard to believe, but look at this.”

  He moved aside so the camera could zoom in. He drew his Bowie knife and used it to point to the lines on the map.

  “This is clearly an arch.” He tapped the image with the tip of his knife. “And X marks the spot. The question is, how do we get there from here? There’s no com- pass rose, so we can’t orient ourselves in the traditional way. This means we’ll have to find one of the spots on this map.” He pretended to consider the conundrum. “This hill,” he tapped a low mound with a few oddly shaped boulders at its base, “looks like a turtle to me. The hill is the shell, these boulders are the head and legs, and this jagged mark is the tail.” He turned and gave the camera his most thoughtful look. “Legend has always placed the Arch Gold Mine in the Turtle Mountain area. That’s not especially close by, which is why we are among the first to ever seek it in this part of the Mojave. Perhaps this rock is the reason the treasure became associated with that place.”

  He stood, walked slowly back out into the sunlight, and stood on the ledge, staring out at the hills. “I find that meditation helps me focus.” He sat crosslegged, closed his eyes, and took a few cleansing breaths.

  “Do you want us to film you meditating?” Yoshi asked.

  Segar opened one eye. “I’m not actually going to meditate. Just stop talking and let me work.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Segar practiced meditation on a daily basis. He’d invented his own technique: an amalgam of the practices of his Native American ancestors and the various martial arts disciplines he’d studied. For the sake of the camera, he opted for the stereotypical “Ohhm!” After a few repetitions he opened his eyes and stood. The studio would edit the footage to make it look like he’d spent time in reflection.

  “As I look out on this forbidding landscape, I can’t help but wonder how Fish and Crocker felt, standing in this very spot, knowing they had to cross all of this or perish. And knowing that they were leaving behind the treasure of a lifetime.”

  “That was perfect,” Yoshi said. “Now, there’s one more thing I’d like to do before we leave here.”

  Just then, Segar heard a shuffling sound behind him. He turned around and saw a man in a black suit and mirrored sunglasses appear from the rocks. He strode toward them, a pistol in his hand.

  His heart leapt! His crew had hired an extra to play a man in black. What a brilliant idea.

  “Hands in the air!” the man ordered.

  Segar knew this was the time he should utter a memorable line, something wise but also badass. They should have forewarned him so he could plan some- thing suitable for the occasion, but he supposed that would have impacted the authenticity of the moment. That was fine. They wanted to see the real Steve Segar in action and that’s exactly what they would get. As a lifelong practitioner of martial arts, he was trained to remain calm in any situation, especially one that wasn’t real.

  “You are making a big mistake, friend.” He began to walk calmly toward the armed man. “I know everyone sees me as a sex symbol, but I’m so much more. I’m a writer, an actor, a martial artist, a spiritualist, but most of all, I’m a warrior.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” The man leveled his pistol at Segar’s head.

  “I’m going to help you find the right path. And you can take that to the bank; the blood bank!”

  “Listen fat man...”

  He should have pulled the punch so it just missed. The camera couldn’t tell the difference. But he was not about to let a disrespectful little punk ad-lib like that.His fist caught the man full on the jaw and he went down in a heap.

  “Never go off script with me.”

  In a flash, two of his team had the fellow pinned to the ground. Segar calmly picked up the fallen pistol and tucked it into his belt.

  “The safety,” Yoshi whispered. “You might want to check it before you lose a little something down there.”

  Segar laughed. “Like you guys would have given him a real gun.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  A cold flash turned Segar’s skin to ice. He felt a fluttering in his pelvic region and prayed his bladder wouldn’t release. It had been real? All of it?

  “What should we do with him, sir?” one of the crew asked.

  Segar thought fast. He couldn’t kill the guy, nor could they afford to stop filming while they hauled him out and dealt with law enforcement.

  “Let him go,” Segar said.

  They did as they were told, and the bewildered man climbed slowly to his feet and dusted himself off.

  “We don’t want any trouble, friend, but if you bother us again, we’ll be forced to take steps.”

  “You got me on camera? What the hell is this?”

  “This is your chance to turn your life around. I advise you take it.” He spun the young man around and gave him a shove. The fellow hurried away, muttering something about “losing another one.”

  “Shouldn’t we have at least asked him what he was doing wandering around out here armed and dressed like that?” Darren, one of his crew mates, asked.

  That probably would have been the wiser course, but it was too late now.

  “I gave him a clean slate. The past doesn’t matter.”

  Segar grinned. The gravity of the situation was finally dawning on him. He’d taken down an armed enemy with one punch. On camera, and not in a movie. It was for real. He really was a warrior.

  “Somebody’s coming,” Darren warned.

  Everyone took cover while Segar took out a pair of binoculars and zoomed in on the group that was making its way along an arroyo far below them. He recognized the leader’s angular face, lean build, long stringy hair, and trademark cowboy hat.

  “It’s Terry!” he said.

  “Should we hide until he’s gone?” Darren asked.

  “No. Let him see us but pretend we don’t see him.”

  Segar
stood and scanned the horizon with the binoculars. One by one the others stood and pretended to be in the middle of filming a scene.

  “They saw us,” Darren whispered. “They just ducked down out of sight. Wait, I see a flash of light. Somebody’s got binoculars on us.”

  Segar grinned. “Perfect!” He tucked his own binoculars away and turned to the camera. “I think we’ve learned all we can from this place. Let’s resume our search before any more trouble finds us.”

  “Before we go, do you have any thoughts on what just happened?” Yoshi asked him. “That was a dangerous situation we were in and you dispatched the guy like it was nothing.”

  Segar cupped his chin and nodded thoughtfully. When he spoke again it was in the husky voice he used when imparting wisdom on screen.

  “Hurting people is easy. It’s healing them that makes a man a hero.”

  Chapter 18

  ––––––––

  Maddock rose early the following morning and went out for a jog in the cool dawn air. He and Bones had compared notes and felt they were no closer to whatever treasure, if any, Striker had been searching for. Both felt that the Arch Gold Mine just didn’t fit, although neither was willing to dismiss the possibility out of hand. They also agreed that the parallels between Shipman and Striker merited further investigation.

  He followed the racecourse, bypassing the obstacles and following the winding trail through the hills. It didn’t take long for him to regret that decision. Later today, he and Bones would be guiding Gambles to the iron door and possibly explore the caverns. No sense in wearing himself out. He came to a halt at the top of a steep defile that sliced down the cliff like an aqueduct. In a rainstorm, it would be the last place he’d want to be. Right now, it looked like the quickest way down. Bracing his hands against the sides, he worked his way down, stepping, slipping, and skidding in fits and starts. As the sun began to rise and the morning mist cleared, he realized the way down was a lot further and the way more precarious than he’d initially believed. His footing became less sure and he struggled to control his descent.