“Not to go all LAPD on you,” Terry said, “but where we come from, there are no right reasons.”
“Hey, if we catch them,” Victor said, “do I get the hundred- thousand-dollar reward?”
“Your agent already has a claim on that,” I said.
“Myron?” Victor said. “That old coot sold me out. He gave you my script because he thought I was the killer. I’m not. How does he get the money?”
“Technically, he led us to you.”
“But you already knew me.”
“Victor, we don’t make the call on who gets the reward,” I said. “But he’s your agent. This is Hollywood. Just shut up and split it with him.”
“Split it? You mean like fifty-fifty? No way. He gets fifteen percent tops. That would leave me with eighty-five thousand. I could live with that.”
Victor lit up another cigarette while he entertained the thought. “Wow,” he said, getting the word and a lungful of smoke out in the same breath. “Do you guys know what I could do with eighty-five thousand bucks?”
Terry turned his head from left to right, slowly scanning the room. “Hopefully,” he said, “you’d buy some disinfectant.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
We turned on Victor’s radio and TV. The radio hit first. “This just in,” the announcer said. “A KLAJ exclusive on the Hollywood Bloodsucker.” He laid out the details, making it sound like the station and the police had been working together around the clock on a citywide vampire hunt.
KLAJ-TV was slower to get the word out. They were in the middle of a pod of uninterruptible commercials, and the station manager must have decided that peddling Pine-Sol, Metamucil, and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter was more important than tracking down serial killers.
Victor was loving every minute of it. “This is too cool,” he said. “I may write it into my next movie.”
“Let’s see if it works first,” Terry said. “Of course if it backfires, we can always sell it as the sequel to Dumb and Dumber.”
“You guys have a lot at stake,” Victor said. “If you screw this up, you’re gonna make LAPD look really bad. And if Roger and Aggie kill Halsey, your whole movie career is in the toilet.”
“It won’t do a hell of a lot for Halsey’s career either,” Terry said.
After the fifth commercial a card came on that said ‘Bulletin,’ and an announcer wasted more time by explaining that they were interrupting their regularly scheduled programming for a bulletin.
Finally, they cut to a newsroom. The guy behind the desk had removed his jacket. Nothing says Urgent News like an anchorman in shirtsleeves. As he described the pickup, the trailer, and the Texas plates, a card came on-screen spelling it all out for the viewers.
“Oh good,” Terry said. “Now we can also count on the civic-minded hearing impaired.”
“How long do you think it will take for someone to spot them?” Victor said.
“Five bucks says we get the first phone call in three and half minutes,” Terry said. “Lomax, you want the over or the under?”
“Under,” I said, looking at my watch.
“You guys are betting on when the tip is going to come in?” Victor said.
“We’re not betting,” Terry said. “Betting is against the law.”
“Freaking cool, man,” Victor said. “This is so gonna be in my next movie.”
“Don’t wet your pants,” Terry said. “And if you write it into a movie, make it fifty bucks. Five sounds too lame, but it’s all I can afford.”
My cell phone rang two minutes and forty seconds into the bet. “Pay up,” I said to Terry and took the call.
It was Big Jim.
“Hey Mike, I just caught that bulletin on TV,” he said.
“Dad, I’m working here. Don’t tie up my phone.”
“I didn’t call the hotline,” he said. “I’m just calling you. Can’t a guy with a bad heart call his son?”
“Not when I’m in the middle of a crime wave. Call your other son.” I hung up.
“Three minutes and counting,” Terry said. Thirty seconds later, he grinned. “Now you pay up.”
I barely had the fiver out of my wallet when my phone rang. This time it was Wendy Burns.
“I think we got them,” she said. “I got a call from a woman at the KOA in Pomona.”
“Damn,” I said. “It’s an RV campground. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“I didn’t realize LA was a hot spot for campers,” Wendy said. “You know the place?”
“It’s across from the Fairplex,” I said. “I used to go to the LA County Fair as a kid. I just haven’t thought about it in years. Are they holed up there?”
“Not anymore,” Wendy said. “Hang on. I’m going to patch the tipster through. Her name is Shirley Klinghoffer. Go ahead ma’am, you’re on with Detective Lomax.”
I hit the speaker button and a woman’s voice came on. “My husband and I heard the bulletin about the Chevy pickup and the Sunline with the Texas plates. The people you’re looking for were parked in space number 179. We’re in 182.”
“And you saw them leave?” I said.
“Hard to miss,” she said. “They had a canopy carport next to their trailer. They went tear-assing out of here so fast, they sideswiped it on the way out.”
“How long ago was that, Mrs. Klinghoffer?”
“A few minutes before we saw the bulletin on the TV.”
“Did you see which way they went?”
“We’re at the far end of the campground. We can’t see the front gate from back here, but we can see the road. A few minutes after they left, you could see them heading south on White Avenue.”
“This is very helpful, ma’am. Is there anything else you can think of?”
“No. Except, I’d be willing to haul out their garbage if I could keep that canopy carport. Ours is getting kind of ratty.”
I got that gnawing feeling in my gut. I asked the question I really didn’t want to hear the answer to. “What garbage, ma’am?”
“Before they left, they dumped a load of trash and covered it with a tarp. Did they think nobody would notice? There’s a strict no-dumping policy here.”
“Ma’am, don’t go near that trash pile,” I said. “We’re sending some police officers out to investigate. Detective Burns is going to put you on hold for a minute. Don’t hang up.”
Two clicks later and Wendy said, “She’s off. Let me get some units out to Pomona.”
“And a bloodmobile,” I said. “I’m betting whoever’s in that trash pile is going to need a transfusion. And get us a chopper.”
“Where?”
“If the Dingles are making for the border, they’ll have to go west on the 10 and south on 57. Start the chopper up there, then have him follow 57 toward the Santa Ana Freeway. Terry and I are in West Covina, maybe five miles from the KOA. We should be able to head east and cut them off.”
I hung up.
“We can take Amar to Grand Avenue,” Victor said. “It cuts southeast toward Diamond Bar. It runs right into 57. They’re pulling a trailer. We can catch them easy.”
“We?” I said.
“The three of us,” Victor said. “I should go. I know them. I can talk sense to them.”
“Are you crazy?” Terry said. “Do you want to wind up back in the morgue? It’s not as much fun when you’re horizontal.”
I don’t know how many civilians dream about riding in the back of a speeding police car, chasing down a pair of mass murderers, but I’m sure Victor is one of them.
“But—” he said.
“Butt out,” Terry said. “Now sit down and drink your Pepsi or I’ll handcuff you to the chair.”
Victor’s head dropped and his expression went from wild anticipation to a pitiful pout. “Fine,” he said and sat down.
Terry and I raced out the door.
In hindsight, we definitely should have handcuffed Victor to that chair.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
“Put you
r prom dress on, honey,” Terry yelled as we ran for the car.
He popped the trunk. “Would you like the chiffon, the taffeta, or we have a lovely crepe de chine,” he said as I peeled off my jacket and grabbed a vest. “Ah, I see you’re going with the Kevlar. Excellent choice.”
“Are you ever serious?” I said, putting an LAPD windbreaker on over the body armor.
“I figure Roger Dingle will be serious. One of us should keep it light.”
We headed east loud and fast. I checked my weapon. Then I checked Terry, who was staring straight ahead, both hands on the wheel. His usual look-Mom-I’m-in-a-high-speed-chase demonic grin wasn’t there. He looked humorless. Never a good sign.
Neither of us said a word till we crossed Lemon on our way to Grand. Finally, Terry spoke. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda.”
“Don’t go there,” I said.
“Shoulda gave Tyler protection. Woulda kept him from getting snatched. Coulda saved his life.”
“I thought you’re the designated Keep It Light Guy,” I said.
“Hey, if Marilyn can have mood swings every five minutes, so can I.”
“We don’t even know that Tyler is dead.”
“One of them is under that tarp at the campground. Maybe both. I guarantee you the Dingles weren’t dumping their recyclables.”
“Just because somebody kills two Hollywood assholes, it’s not our job to offer a safe haven to all the rest of them,” I said. “The last thing Tyler said to me was ‘I’m getting the hell out of Dodge.’ He could have asked for police protection, but he didn’t. His choice, not ours.”
Terry twisted up the corner of his mouth. “Whatever,” he said.
Translation: technically I was right, but that didn’t make it any easier for him to deal with. If Terry has one flaw as a homicide detective, it’s that sometimes he thinks he could have prevented some of the murders we have to solve. I think it has something to do with having two aunts who were nuns.
We were headed south on Grand when my cell rang. It was Wendy. She gave me the bad news. I repeated it for Terry. “Cops on the scene at the KOA found a body under the tarp,” I said. “It’s Tyler.”
He nodded. “What about Halsey?”
“No sign of him.”
“So it’s just the one dead guy,” he said. “Kind of a slow day at the old campground.”
I gave Wendy our location and asked about the chopper.
“Twelve minutes out,” she said. “We got another sighting from a motorist. You called it. They’re headed south on 57. Male behind the wheel of the pickup matches Roger Dingle’s description. The female suspect wasn’t in the cab of the truck. She’s probably in the trailer with the other hostage.”
We had to make a hard left across four lanes of northbound traffic on Grand to pick up the Orange freeway on-ramp. Fortunately, Terry had the lights, the siren, and the balls.
“And you thought Damian Hedge was good at car chase scenes,” he said. “Hey, there’s the Diamond Bar golf course. Kilcullen plays there.”
There were cars on the freeway, but for LA it was light. Traffic was moving at a good clip. We cleared the left lane and about five minutes later we could see a trailer about a mile ahead.
“I think I see them,” I said to Wendy, and gave her the mile marker. “I know this road. There’s a Boy Scout reservation to the west of us. I used to go camping there as a kid. There’s about a five-mile stretch of undeveloped county land just south of Diamond Bar. Dingle is armed, and I’d rather take them out where there aren’t any civilians. You have any units up ahead of us?”
“I’ve got backup headed north,” she said. “I can put them in the southbound lane in front of the camper, and we’ll box him in. Just hang back till all units are in place.”
Terry pulled into the right lane and slowed down, keeping about a quarter of a mile behind the camper. We were close enough now to confirm. It was them. I let Wendy know.
“Intercept units are about two miles ahead of you,” she said.
All signs of civilization disappeared, and I looked around at the familiar LA topography. Brown-gray hills and brown-green vegetation. Henry David Thoreau himself would be hard-pressed to find inspiration. I’m a native, but as far as I’m concerned, without its ocean, Southern California is downright ugly.
“What the hell?” Terry said.
A car whizzed by us on the left. It was a green Mitsubishi Eclipse with a yellow door on the passenger side.
“It’s Victor,” I said.
“What the hell does he think he’s doing?”
Whatever he was doing, he was doing it fast. He sped past us and was barreling down on the trailer. Terry sped up, but somehow the little piece-of-crap Mitsubishi was outrunning us.
As the road ahead angled downhill, the trailer picked up momentum. The Eclipse picked up even more.
“He’s passing him,” Terry said.
Roger was in the right lane. Victor passed him and kept on going in the left lane. He was now about twenty feet in front of the trailer. The gap widened to fifty feet.
“What is that crazy bastard doing?” Terry said.
It didn’t take long to get an answer. Victor was about a hundred feet in front of the trailer when he pulled sharply into the right lane. And then his taillights went cherry red.
Roger slammed on his brakes, but the laws of physics weren’t on his side. The heavy load was moving downhill too fast, and the little Eclipse was stopping too soon.
I felt like I was watching it in slow motion, and all I could think of was the irresistible force is about to meet the immovable object.
I took a logic course in college. On the first day our professor, Dr. Herbert Sontz, asked the class what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Lots of theories popped up, the most popular of which was the title of that song by Frank Sinatra. Something’s Gotta Give.
But Dr. Sontz shot them all down. He then spent the rest of the hour explaining that it is logically impossible to have these two entities in the same universe. “You can’t have a force that cannot be resisted,” he said, “and an object that cannot be moved by any force.”
I had always agreed with Professor Sontz’s logic. I assumed that some whimsical, totally illogical poet came up with the concept, but in the real world there’s no such thing as an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.
But as I watched the Chevy pickup with its twenty-eight-foot Sunline plow into Victor’s little Japanese tin can on wheels, I had one thought. This car wreck comes pretty damn close.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
If you’re going to force a vehicle twenty times your size to ram you at ninety miles an hour, it helps if you’re a good driver.
Victor Shea was the Richard Petty of morgue attendants.
Just as he was rear-ended, Victor hit the gas pedal. The net effect was that he managed to pull away just enough so that the back half of his Eclipse got accordioned but he managed to avoid being completely flattened.
Roger’s rig wound up getting the worst of it. Like a drunk at the top of a staircase wearing oversized clown shoes, he went camper over teakettle, careening across the highway in several directions.
The trailer sparked along on its side in the left lane, while the pickup gouged a trench in the right shoulder before it finally came to rest. The peppy little Eclipse rolled once, then hung tough till it skittered to a stop against a guardrail.
It was a spectacular crash, worthy of a NASCAR highlight reel. And miraculously, as the TV sportscasters love to say, nobody was hurt.
Well, not badly. The real hurting came after the crash.
Victor staggered out of the Eclipse. His head was bleeding, which could only mean that his brain was even more scrambled than when he decided to play Junior Crimestopper.
His walk was loopy as he made his way toward the pickup. At the same time Roger leaped from the cab with a forty-five in his hand.
“Roger,” Victor called out, “we need to t
alk.”
Terry and I were out of our car, screaming at Victor to hit the dirt.
Victor kept walking, only slowing down long enough to yell out his faulty logic in our direction. “I can help. Let me talk to Roger.”
But apparently Roger was not in a talking mood. He was more in a shooting mood. He fired once. And thanks to the quality firearm training he had received from the United States Marine Corps and the Houston Police Department, one shot was all it took.
Victor went down.
We were next on Roger’s hit list.
Luckily, we had a big ass car to hide behind. And guns.
We crouched behind the car and fired.
Roger fired back, zigging, zagging, rolling to the ground, and finally diving over the side of an embankment and into the thick brush.
We ran to the edge of the tree line. A bullet splintered a branch barely an inch from my ear. We dove to the ground.
In the movies when a bullet just misses a cop’s head, he rolls, gets up, and keeps firing. Not me. Not Terry. Our bodies were pressed hard against the earth.
“Jesus, that was close,” Terry said. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, there are no bullet holes in me, but I’m probably gonna have nightmares for a few weeks. If my ears were as big as yours, he’d have shot one of them off.”
“We are definitely not going in after him,” Terry said.
“No sense of adventure?” I said. “Or are you just too lazy to break in a new partner?”
“I saw Rambo,” Terry said. “This guy is in the same league. Only an idiot would follow him into those woods. And since Victor’s already been shot, we don’t have any idiots left.”
He was right. Besides, we had plenty of cleanup work to do. Victor was lying in the road bleeding, Halsey was hopefully in the camper with some blood still coursing through his veins, and Aggie Dingle was a wild card.
The last thing I had said to Wendy before the bullets started flying was “there’s been a collision. Suspect vehicle hit a civilian car. Send paramedics and a couple of wreckers.”
I called her back. “Still need paramedics, and if you’re keeping score, the civilian in that car wreck is now a gunshot victim. Male suspect escaped on foot through the woods. He’s armed. Female suspect still in the camper. We’re going in. That chopper is now the designated MedEvac unit. Tell him to fly faster.”
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