His face bleeding and nearly purple, Ted glared at his employer. He aimed the gun at her heart. Someone screamed.
Dayle Sutton spit in his face. “Go ahead and shoot, you lowlife, sorry son of a—”
She did not get the last word out. The loud gunshot silenced her.
Tom Lance had raised his semiautomatic, aimed carefully, and squeezed the trigger. He put a bullet through Ted Kovak’s right eye.
Twenty-six
The police and studio security had a lot of questions for the old man who had wandered onto Soundstage 8 with a concealed gun. But after saving Dayle Sutton’s life, Tom had some leverage. He was a hero, and people wanted to believe him. His story didn’t stray far from the truth. He was recruited against his will to assassinate Dayle Sutton by an extremist group. They threatened to kill him if he didn’t cooperate. He gave a not entirely accurate description of Hal Buckman, hoping his SAAMO contact could elude authorities for a while. As long as Hal was on the run, Tom figured his story was safe. In his telling, Tom had never intended to kill Dayle; he’d shown up on that movie set to protect her. When asked why this group had singled him out as their assassin, Tom explained: “I was very close to Maggie McGuire once. These people were going to pin her murder on me.”
No fake ambulance ever arrived. Tom knew he’d done the right thing. His picture would be on the front page of the evening edition—sans the glasses and fake mustache. Blinding camera flashes went off inside the soundstage while Dayle Sutton thanked him. She didn’t seem to recognize Tom from the failed audition. She shook his hand, and hugged him. The photographers would use that shot for the news story, he knew.
Leaving the soundstage with a police escort, Tom watched members of the press shoving one another to get closer to him. “Tom, over this way, please! Tom, just one picture! Over here, Tom!” He smiled as the shutters clicked. At last they wanted him.
Dennis Walsh arrived at Soundstage 8 in time to see two attendants carrying out the draped corpse of Ted Kovak. He also caught a glimpse of the hero of the hour, Tom Lance, as they escorted him to a police car.
Back in his fraternity days, Dennis had learned how to trap a frat brother in his room by squeezing a penny between his door and the hinge near the latch. The pressure against the latch made it impossible to pull the door open. He employed the same trick on Laurie Anne, incarcerating her in the bathroom—only he raised the ante by tossing out her clothes, the towels, and that ugly pink shower curtain. She was trapped in there, wet and naked. Dennis phoned the police about her involvement in a conspiracy to commit murder, then left the apartment unlocked for them.
Laurie Anne was violent, hysterical, and still quite naked by the time the police were reading her her rights and offering her a robe.
At that same moment, Dennis struggled through the crowd outside Dayle’s trailer. Dayle stood on the steps by her door with reporters firing questions at her. Dennis had only one question for his boss. He wanted to know if he still had a job.
Though still dressed in her “old lady” tweed suit, Dayle must have had someone perform a quick touch-up on her face and hair, because she looked every bit the movie star, standing by her trailer. She saw Dennis in the crowd and waved at him. “Dennis, please, I need you!” she called.
He worked his way up to the steps. She grabbed his arm, then pulled him into her trailer. “Thank God you’re here,” she sighed. “You have to get rid of these reporters for me. I’ll talk to the police, but that’s it.”
Dennis gave her a wary look. “So I’m not fired?”
“God, no.” Dayle said, her voice quivering. “I’m not dumping you just because you made a mistake. You’re my friend, Dennis.” She gave him a quick hug. “Listen, more than anything, we have to track down Sean Olson. She’s in a hospital somewhere around Opal. I need to know if she’s still alive.”
After making his one call, Nick Brock was cuffed to a desk in the Opal police station. He was covered with scratches, dried sweat, and dirt.
He and Sean had been lost in those dark woods for nearly three hours. Her strength and determination amazed him. In the second hour, Nick held her up. The only peep out of her was when she mumbled incoherently to someone named Dan. Limp as a rag doll, she pressed on. But she began falling so many times, he had to carry her the last couple miles.
They stumbled upon the highway at around three-thirty in the morning. Nick covered her with his jacket, then sat by the road and waited for a car. In two hours, he counted only six cars—each one speeding by. He tried flagging them down. But who would be dumb enough to stop at this hour—in the middle of nowhere—for a crazy man covered in blood? It became light out. Sean’s face had a blue tinge, and her every gasp for air was a death rattle.
Somebody in one of those automobiles must have called the cops, because two patrol cars came up the timberland road at seven in the morning. The policemen were from Opal: a gaunt, old sheriff, and his deputy, a tall, big-boned kid who seemed like a pretty dim bulb.
Nick told them his girlfriend had been shot by someone in the woods, and their car had broken down. The sheriff took a look at Sean and radioed paramedics. Nick helped him move Sean into the warm police car. They covered her with a blanket. She didn’t regain consciousness.
It was another forty minutes before the paramedics arrived. Once they’d loaded Sean in back of the ambulance, Nick pulled one of them aside, and asked about her chances. The medic frowned. “She’s in bad shape, and the hospital’s fifty miles away in Lewiston. Doesn’t look good.”
Once the ambulance sped away, the old sheriff asked him for more details about the shooting. Nick reluctantly forfeited his gun, showed him his private detective credentials, and explained that he wasn’t answering any questions without his attorney present. However, he did volunteer to lead them back to where he’d left the car.
They found the original trail and, eventually, Larry’s Honda Accord. The backseat had been kicked through from the trunk, and Larry was gone. The sheriff sent his deputy to look for him.
When he finally hauled Nick into the Opal police station, the sheriff was greeted by a chorus of ringing telephones. Once a line cleared, Nick was allowed his one call to Dayle. The phones kept the old sheriff busy, while Nick remained cuffed to the desk. Over the police radio, the deputy reported that he’d located Larry Chadwick, staggering along a forest trail in his undershorts. With a bullet wound to his left hand and a gash on his forehead, Larry explained that he’d been kidnapped and assaulted.
Two hours later, he marched into the police station as if he owned the place. The dim-witted deputy was on his heels. Cleaned up, and with his wounds bandaged, Larry now wore an aviator jacket, an Izod sport shirt, and pressed blue jeans. “There’s the scumbag!” he declared, stabbing a finger in the air at Nick. “He’s the one! Asshole….”
With his free hand, Nick snuck Sean’s tape recorder from the pocket of his jacket. He let the tape rewind for a moment, while Larry continued his tirade. “You’re gonna get yours, prick….”
The sheriff and his deputy restrained Larry. They gently guided him to the other desk, then sat him down.
Nick pressed play on the recorder, then slowly increased the volume to compete with Larry’s diatribe. “…close-knit group,” Sean was saying. “You and your hunting buddies had a real time of it in those woods outside Portland back in September, didn’t you?”
“Yes, it felt good,” Larry answered on the recording.
Larry stopped yelling as he listened to the sound of his own voice.
“It felt good murdering Tony Katz and his friend? It felt good torturing two fellow human beings?”
“Faggots aren’t human beings. And right now, those two deviates are burning in hell….”
“Turn that off!” Larry barked. “You can’t use that, you son of a bitch. You had a gun to my head the whole time….” Red-faced, he glared at Nick. He didn’t seem to notice that the sheriff was pulling out another set of cuffs. The old man locked one cuff ar
ound the desk drawer handle, then slapped the other around Larry’s wrist. “What is this?” Larry let out a stunned laugh. He yanked at the handcuffs, and the heavy desk moved a bit. “Hey, what gives?”
The tired-looking sheriff shook his head. “Sorry, Larry,” he said. “The feds are on their way. Within the hour, they’re gonna have a net over this whole town. You and the guys are finished.”
“Goddamn it!” Larry shouted. “Let me go! You can’t do this! What the hell is happening here anyway? Son of a bitch, LET ME GO!”
Nick Brock shut off the recorder. He sat back and smiled at him. “Hey, Lare. You know, you have the right to remain silent.”
One of the nurses at Lewiston General Hospital showed Avery the bullet they’d extracted from his thigh. Stored in a small glass jar, the tiny, dark-gray projectile couldn’t be kept as a souvenir just yet. It was part of the state’s evidence against Officer Earl Taggert, now charged with two counts of attempted murder and a growing list of misdemeanors.
Avery and Deputy Peter Masqua had shared an ambulance to Lewiston General. Earl Taggert had ridden behind them in a police car. After doctors had treated his broken nose, split lip, and other bruises, the soon-to-be-ex-cop had been escorted to jail. His cohort, an unemployed timber-mill worker named Don Sheckler, had pulled up to the old train depot in his new Cadillac to find three state troopers waiting for him in the station house.
Officer Peter Masqua was in stable condition. Confined to a wheelchair, Avery kept trying Sean’s cellular. No answer. He called her hotel, but she wasn’t in her room. He knew something had to be wrong.
After all of Taggert’s talk about the impending arrival of the “federal guys,” the real FBI had shown up at the hospital early in the morning. Both Avery and Officer Pete had given them enough information to expose the Opal Chapter of SAAMO. The FBI clamped a tight lid on the hospital to keep the information contained and the press oblivious about what was happening. No more outside calls for Avery. Rumors spread among the Lewiston General staff about a gag quarantine of hospital personnel for the next twenty-four hours.
“You’re the biggest thing to hit this little hospital since the Chichester quadruplets were delivered here in 1987,” said Judy, the nurse who had shown Avery his bullet. A petite redhead, she had freckles and a cute face that belied the fact that she had a son in college. She was pushing Avery in his wheelchair down the corridor after a visit with Pete Masqua.
Avery liked Judy. On her morning break, she’d dashed out and bought him pajamas and a flannel robe. “K-Mart’s best,” she’d joked. But it was a big improvement over his skimpy hospital gown. He made a point of telling Judy how grateful he was.
“Well, as an Idaho native and a Christian, I’m on a mission here,” she said, steering him down the hall. “I want to prove to you that we aren’t all hate-mongers. A tiny fraction of nutcases have given this beautiful state a bad rep. And most real Christians are very tolerant, good people.”
“I know that,” Avery assured her.
Judy patted his shoulder. “Okay then, end of sermon. Did you hear? The FBI is now monitoring all calls going in and out of here. Visiting privileges are temporarily suspended. There’s even talk that none of us on staff will be able to leave today.”
“I’ve really screwed things up for everybody, haven’t I?” Avery said.
“Oh, I think it’s kind of exciting,” she said. “But maybe you could use your influence with the warden to release me in time for Thanksgiving.”
Avery managed to smile at her over his shoulder. “I can’t promise anything but an autographed eight-by-ten glossy.”
“Just the same, maybe you can offer me some inside information. I seem to be the only one around here who sees a connection with you and Pete Masqua—and this third gunshot case who came in this morning.”
Avery shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, that’s my point. The paramedics brought in a woman at eight o’clock. She’s upstairs in intensive care, practically in a coma. She has an infection, and her temperature’s a hundred and five. Apparently, she was wandering around with a bullet in her shoulder for seven hours. I heard it was a hunting accident in a forest outside Opal. But snoop that I am, I checked her admission chart and she’s a lawyer from Los Angeles….”
Tom watched Entertainment Tonight in his hotel suite. Bracket, McCourt & Associates had put him up for the night at the Beverly Hills Hilton, hoping to sign him with their talent agency. He’d agreed to meet them for breakfast downstairs in the morning.
Tom sat on the bed, wearing one of the hotel’s terrycloth bathrobes, sipping champagne and snacking on some foreign crackers from the honor bar. The night final of the Los Angeles Times was at the foot of his bed. The photo of Dayle hugging him had made the front page, with the headline: ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON DAYLE SUTTON FAILS, CONSPIRACY EXPOSED.
By the time the evening news came on, several arrests had been made, including seven of Opal’s most solid citizens. But Howard Buchanan—a.k.a. Hal Buckman—had eluded authorities, and so far, Tom’s story still had no detractors.
Everyone wanted to quote him, and take his picture. Suddenly Tom Lance mattered. Several video companies were now vying for the rights to his old films. At last he’d be in video stores. There were job offers too: playing Tom Hanks’s guardian angel in a comedy-fantasy and as an aging mob boss in a Harrison Ford movie. His dreams were coming true.
“Continuing with our top story,” the handsome, sporty E.T. anchorman announced. “The man who saved Dayle Sutton’s life and blew the lid off an extremist conspiracy is a seventy-six-year-old film-acting veteran named Tom Lance. According to Lance, an organized hate group used extortion and intimidation to get his cooperation….” Tom watched the same clip of himself from all the other evening newscasts. It was taped outside the police station. The seersucker suit didn’t photograph well, and he looked a bit tired. Still, he relished seeing himself on TV.
The telephone rang. It was the hotel operator. She’d been screening his calls. He’d taken only a handful since checking into the hotel: a couple of talent agents, someone from People magazine, and somebody at The Today Show. With the remote, Tom muted the TV, then picked up the phone. “Yes?”
“Hello, Mr. Lance. Do you want to take a call from an Adam Blanchard?”
Tom frowned. “Who’s he with?”
“No, I’m sorry, Mr. Lance. He didn’t say.”
He sighed. “Well, I don’t know this Blanchard fella. Take a message and…” He trailed off. Blanchard. Maggie’s first husband. Adam was the son.
“Mr. Lance?”
“Um, yes. On second thought, put him through. Please.”
He heard a click, then: “Hello, Tom Lance?”
“Yes?”
“Tom, you don’t know me, but I’m Maggie McGuire’s son, Adam.”
“Oh, well, hello,” Tom replied, feeling awkward.
“I want to thank you for helping put a stop to this hate group. They killed a lot of good people—including my mother. If it weren’t for you, they’d have gone on killing. Anyway, I’m very grateful to you.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say. I don’t deserve any gratitude, son.”
“Just the same, thank you, Tom. I’ve always wanted to meet you. I’ve seen Hour of Deceit several times. I know you helped my mom get her start in films, she told me.”
“She did?”
“Oh, yeah. Anyway, you’re probably swamped with calls. I don’t want to keep you.”
“How’s your health?” Tom suddenly asked, remembering his HIV status.
“Good, thanks. I’m taking a new drug. It’s supposed to help.”
“Son, I wish more than anything your mom was still alive.” Tom struggled to say the right words. “I—I wrote a letter to the L.A. Times, and they’ll probably print it in tomorrow’s night edition. You should know, I meant what I said in that letter.”
There was a dubious chuckle on the other end of th
e line. “Well, I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand.”
“You will tomorrow night,” Tom said. “I’m glad you called, son. Thanks.”
“Thank you, Tom,” he said. “Take care.”
Tom hung up. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow. In the past few hours, he’d basked in the knowledge that they wanted him again. He was important, a hero to millions of people. But by tomorrow afternoon, his letter—with its full confession—would reach someone at the Los Angeles Times. That letter was supposed to be read after his death.
Tom tossed back his glass of champagne, then poured another. Grabbing the remote, he channel-surfed for more news coverage of the assassination attempt, another story about Tom Lance. He had only tonight to savor the glory—before it turned bad.
On one of the movie channels, he paused to watch Robert Duvall walking with another man around a chain-link fence. Tom turned up the volume. It took him only a moment to identify the older, raspy-voiced actor as Michael V. Gazzo from The Actors Studio. The movie was The Godfather, Part II. Duvall was explaining to his old Mafia chum how in Roman times, some generals, accused of plotting against the emperor, chose to die with dignity. They’d draw a warm bath, then slash their wrists and bleed to death.
Frowning, Tom switched channels. One of the news shows had a clip of him with Maggie in Hour of Deceit. With a sad smile, he watched and drank his champagne. Only two weeks ago, he’d been a forgotten film actor, ready to shoot himself by the Hollywood sign. His death would have gone unnoticed. But by tomorrow, his suicide would make headlines.
Another movie scene came to mind: George C. Scott’s speech in Patton, about how—again, in Roman times—during a victory parade, the general would have an aide-de-camp whispering in his ear: “All glory is fleeting.”
Tom had the speech in a book of movie monologues. He’d read it aloud a few times. But he’d never fully understood what it meant until now.
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