by Janet Dawson
When I’d finished loading the car, I called Dan on his cell phone and told him what I’d learned since our lunch together in Graton. “Things are starting to happen. It looks like the detectives are going to raid the pot plantation tomorrow. I’m hoping I’ll be able to go up with them. If I’m right, Brian’s up there.”
“I was planning to hike Armstrong Woods Park anyway,” Dan said. “So I’ll be in Guerneville. I’ll be ready to help, any way that I can.”
Thirty-Four
A few years ago, his sister had taught him how to pick a lock. She knew about such things. He thought it would be a lark to learn how.
He never figured he’d have to use the knowledge.
The cot he’d been sleeping on had a thin mattress covered with a plain sheet, a pillow, and a blanket. He pulled off the mattress and took a look at the frame. It was plain metal, with flat linked springs. He set to work, loosening one of the coiled springs that held the flat springs to the frame. It took him a while, but finally he worked one free.
He’d been saving food from the ration they brought him, and saving water in one of the bottles as well. He’d be ready to go, as soon as he picked the lock.
He maneuvered the spring into the lock, hoping he could escape before someone decided to kill him.
Thirty-Five
I waited impatiently in my Toyota, parked on the shoulder of Sweetwater Springs Road, where a narrow dirt road led up to Tony Busto’s marijuana plantation. Earlier this Friday morning, a team of Sonoma County law enforcement personnel and Fish and Wildlife agents had executed the search warrant. The minutes dragged by. Fifteen minutes, half an hour. Finally Donna called my cell phone.
“We’ve got Rick Newman and Tony Busto in custody,” Donna said. “Along with a bunch of workers.”
“What about Brian?”
“Not here. At least so far we haven’t found him.”
I slumped back against the passenger seat. “I’m coming up. I want to talk to Rick.”
I ended the call, not waiting for her reply. I started my Toyota and headed up the dirt road into the woods. It was a mile of ruts, furrows, and twisting turns, gaining in elevation. Both sides of the road were bordered by trees—oaks, California buckeyes, and manzanita.
I emerged into a small meadow, where I saw two buildings, one of them an old house that looked as though it was falling down, and behind that, an old barn that appeared to be in the same state of repair. “Appeared” was the operative word. Solar power collectors had been fastened to the roofs of both buildings. I wondered if they were powering an indoor grow.
I recalled what Harris had said that morning. His check of county property records showed that someone named Boland had purchased this land earlier this year, but we were all guessing that Boland, whoever he or she was, had been fronting for Busto.
All around me were vehicles and people in uniforms. I got out of my Toyota and looked around, shaking my head. Donna’s earlier comments had prepared me for the destruction, but what I was now seeing with my own eyes was appalling. The pot growers had clear-cut this meadow, removing the smaller trees and planting marijuana. Larger trees had been girdled by removing a wide strip of bark from the entire circumference of each tree. This meant that those trees would die and eventually fall, clearing more land for pot cultivation.
The slope above the house had been graded and terraced. To the west of the house and barn was Redwood Creek. Busto and his growers had built a crude dam. Plastic tubing spread out like spider webs, diverting water to the grow. Below the dam, the creek was a mere trickle. Between the house and the barn I saw tents where the growers had been living. Trash was everywhere I looked. I saw hundreds of containers—insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides.
To my left, I saw the remains of several small animals, squirrels, a raccoon, who had fallen victim to the toxic chemicals. The growers had shot several animals. To my disgust, a bobcat had been used for target practice. A dead wild turkey hung from a hook outside the barn, presumably destined for the same fate as the wild pig whose remains littered the ground near a propane barbecue. The carcass of a black-tailed mule deer lay on the bare ground near the front porch of the old house.
Donna walked to meet me. She got there at the same time as one of the Sonoma County deputies, who approached me, hand on the gun at his hip, wanting to know who I was and why I was there.
“She’s with me,” Donna said. The deputy nodded and turned away.
Donna waved her hand around, eyes flashing with indignation. “Look at this mess. Anything that runs off into this creek heads downstream and winds up in Sweetwater Creek.”
“Which ultimately drains into the Russian River,” I said, “which then drains into the Pacific Ocean.”
“Yeah. Watch where you step and don’t touch anything. The whole damn place is toxic.”
Donna led the way toward the house, where several deputies had collected the growers. I counted nine men in handcuffs.
“That’s Busto.” She indicated a short, tough-looking man with a shaved head and a goatee, gold rings in each earlobe. He wore a white athletic T-shirt, black jeans, and hiking boots. Tattoos ran down his bare, well-muscled arms, now handcuffed behind his back.
Busto must have recognized Donna from his arrest last year. He glared at her, venom radiating from him as he snarled at her. “You bitch. I’m not on state land this time.”
Donna glared back and gestured at the deer carcass. “I’ll bet whoever shot that deer didn’t have a license.”
Detective Harris loomed in the doorway of the old house. He beckoned us inside. We entered the building. Its outward ramshackle appearance was deceptive. Inside, it was far from falling down. It had been modified so that someone, probably Busto, could live here, overseeing his pot-growing enterprise. It looked as though the wall separating the living room from the dining room had been knocked out. The living room had an assortment of old, stained furniture and the dining room held a scarred table and several mismatched chairs. Behind the dining area I saw a small walk-through kitchen, with a back door. A hallway led back to a small bathroom and there were a couple of doors that must lead to bedrooms. No wonder Rick Newman thought of this place as a second bolt-hole. It had more comforts than the rough cabin on his grandfather’s land.
Just this side of the dining room table, Griffin and another deputy stood over a man seated on a low-backed chair, his wrists cuffed behind him. Rick had grown a beard, but I could see an echo of his father’s face in his features. He wore faded blue jeans, a T-shirt, a pair of dirty white sneakers.
“I want to talk with Newman,” I said.
“We asked him about your brother,” Griffin said. “Busto, too. Neither one of them would say anything.”
“Maybe he’ll talk with me.”
Griffin shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”
I walked over to Rick. He looked up at me with red-rimmed hazel eyes.
“Your sister will be glad to know you’re alive,” I said.
He stared at me. Then he snorted derisively. “No, she won’t.”
“Why do you say that?”
He shook his head. “I just complicate her life.”
“Still, she’s your sister. She was upset when you supposedly died. She told me so.” He didn’t say anything. “That’s the thing about brothers and sisters. No matter what happens, you’re still family. My name’s Jeri. My brother Brian is the man you surprised at the cabin at the Hargis ranch. I’ve been looking for him for days. I’d sure like to find him. Did you bring him here?”
Rick didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he sighed. “I was going to let him go. Just leave him there at the marina while Harry and I took the boat. Then things went to hell in a handbasket. I never expected things to go down the way they did. I couldn’t go back to the cabin. So yeah, I brought him here. We had him locked up in the pantry back of the kitchen.”
“What were you going to do with him?” I asked. “Did you have a backup plan?”
/> He shook his head. “Get away from here, that was my plan. Tony was working on something, to get me down to Mexico.” He hesitated. “Your brother, he must have heard us talking about...”
I leaned in closer. “Heard you talking about what?”
Rick looked out the door, then back at me. “Tony wanted to kill him. Tony was royally pissed off when I brought the guy up here. Said he was a liability, knew too much. I didn’t want to do that. I got enough on my plate as it is.”
I’d suspected this was a danger, that Brian’s life might be in jeopardy. But it was another thing entirely to hear him voice it. Thank God, Brian had gotten away from these guys before getting a bullet in the back of the head.
“I said no,” Rick continued. “I figured when I left, we could let your brother loose somewhere. Then yesterday, he got out of the pantry and took off.”
“Any idea when? What time did you discover him gone?”
“Shit, I don’t know when.” Rick shook his head. “It must have been after lunch. One of the guys took him some chow around noon. Went back to give him some dinner. I don’t remember what time it was. Maybe six, six-thirty. He was gone. We went looking for him, but we couldn’t find him. It was evening. It gets dark later this time of year, but up here in these hills, once the sun gets low... It’s pretty dark. We gave up the search. I just didn’t think he could get far with that head...” He stopped.
I recalled the blood spots I’d seen at the cabin, on the mattress ticking and the knob on the old iron bedstead. I’d guessed that it was Brian’s blood. I didn’t see any wounds visible on Rick. “What about his head? Is he hurt?”
Rick seemed reluctant to answer. Then he nodded. “He hit his head.”
“How did he hit his head? And how badly was he hurt?”
“When Harry and me tackled him at the cabin. He fell and hit his head on that old iron bedstead. It bled some. When he came to, he had a headache, said he was dizzy. After that, he didn’t have much appetite. Couldn’t keep much on his stomach. We kept him doped up so he wouldn’t give us any hassles. Maybe that was upsetting his stomach.”
“Doped up with what?”
“Some sleep stuff, Tylenol PM and then later, some Xanax. So that kept him kinda mellow, he slept a lot. But he must have figured it out. He picked the damn lock and went out the back door. We found a bunch of those tablets jammed inside the mattress. He was putting them in his mouth and spitting them out.”
Rick was getting downright loquacious. Maybe he figured to make the case for treating Brian well during his captivity.
Brian must have a concussion. Headache and dizziness were symptoms, and so was nausea. And based on what Rick had told me, he’d ingested some serious sedatives. The Tylenol contained a painkiller and a non-prescription sleep aid, mostly harmless. But the Xanax was heavy-duty stuff, with serious side effects.
But I had a more immediate worry. Brian had escaped his captors yesterday afternoon. So he had spent the night out in these hills, in rugged country. It was hot, and I was guessing he hadn’t had much to eat or drink. Unless he’d managed to take some food and water with him, he was in trouble.
Where had he gone? I considered the terrain and the location of the pot plantation. The grow was located here along Redwood Creek. He could walk downstream along the creek. But that would be an obvious route, no doubt one of the first places Tony Busto and his men had looked. But they hadn’t found him. If he’d gone east, he would have intersected with Sweetwater Springs Road. Again, a route that Busto would check.
I recalled the brochure I’d found on Brian’s desk, the one about Armstrong Redwoods and Austin Creek. He’d been researching the two state parks as places to camp and hike. If he recalled something about the trails and terrain, he might have headed west, toward state land.
If he knew where he was. That was the caveat. Did Brian, with a head injury and some disorientation, know where Rick had taken him?
“We’re taking him in now,” Griffin said. He and a deputy pulled Rick to his feet. “We’ve got people searching the immediate area. If they find your brother, we’ll let you know.”
“What about a helicopter, searching farther out?”
“Getting one in the air would take some time,” he said.
As they led Rick away, I looked at Donna. “I don’t want to wait for a chopper. I’m betting Brian’s gone west.”
“That’s what I’d do, if I knew where I was.”
“You’ve got topo maps for this area, and the state parks?”
“Sure.” We left the old house and walked to her truck. She opened the rear door and took out several rolled topographical maps. “The Guerneville topo shows where we are now. And the Cazadero topo shows the parks.”
I studied the maps and the elevations showing the changes in topography, as well as Sweetwater Springs Road and the boundaries of the parks. A narrow finger of the Austin Creek area pointed south. Immediately west of this was the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve.
I pointed at the map. “Here’s where we are, roughly. If he crossed Redwood Creek and then continued west, he could connect with Fife Creek and come down the creek bed into the park.”
If, if, if. Brian was injured and out there in rugged terrain. It was August, summer, hot outside. The creeks were running low. That would make following the creek bed easier. But he was without food or water, unless he’d managed to take something with him.
Donna had another map open, this one showing Armstrong Redwoods and Austin Creek. “Fife Creek enters the park here, close to a fire road. And that leads down to Armstrong Woods Road, which goes through the park all the way to the Bullfrog Pond Campground. The creek also intersects with the East Ridge Trail, here.”
“So he could go several directions,” I said. “The creek bed, the fire road, or the trail.”
“Let’s go,” Donna said.
Donna conferred with some of her Fish and Wildlife colleagues. Then we headed down the dirt road, me in front and Donna following in her state pickup truck. I got out my cell phone and called Dan. “Where are you?”
“Guerneville, at the Coffee Bazaar. Where are you?”
“Heading for Armstrong Redwoods. Brian got away from the bad guys. I think there’s a chance he headed into the park.”
“I’ll meet you at the visitor center,” Dan said.
Thirty-Six
When Donna and I drove into the parking lot at the Armstrong Redwoods Visitor Center. Dan was waiting for us, leaning against his Subaru. I parked my Toyota in a nearby slot and Donna pulled her state truck in next to my car. Dan had already collected park brochures from the visitor center. I introduced them. Then we opened a brochure and spread it out on the hood of the Subaru, map side up.
I briefed Dan. “Brian picked a lock and got out of the house where they were keeping him. He took off sometime yesterday afternoon, no idea when, so he’s been in the woods all night. We think maybe he’s headed west into the park. If that’s the case, at some point he’ll connect with Fife Creek.”
Dan studied the map. “I see what you’re thinking. He could follow the creek down into the park, then take the fire road or the trail. But if he’s on the trail, he could go either way.”
“It’s likely he’d go south,” I said. “That’s the way to the visitor center. In fact, the trailhead’s right over there.”
As I spoke, two hikers came out of the visitor center and started toward the trailhead. Surely if Brian was on the trail and he met any hikers, they’d help him. I just hoped I was right, that he was heading for the park, and that he wasn’t lying hurt—or dead—at the bottom of a hill. Just in case, I jogged over to the hikers and told them we were looking for a missing man, showing them Brian’s photo. Then I returned to the car.
“If he went northeast,” Dan said, “he could get close to the road here.”
He pointed at the map, a location marked Pond Farm Pottery. According to a note on the other side of the brochure, the pottery had been used by cerami
c artist Marguerite Wildenhain, who moved to the area after World War II and lived and worked at the farm until her death in 1985. Now the property was part of the Austin Creek reserve.
“Agreed.” I tapped the map. “All right, let’s go up to this parking area and I’ll start hiking the East Ridge Trail. You go up to the pottery and access the trail there. Donna’s going to the fire road.”
“According to the map,” Donna said, “there’s a locked gate across the entrance to that fire road. I’ll find a ranger so I can get access.”
The visitor center was staffed by a volunteer, but there was a ranger’s office across the road. Donna walked over there. While she was gone, I unlocked the trunk of my car. Dan, too, had brought hiking gear. We put on our boots and checked the contents of our packs. I slathered on a layer of sunscreen and put on my hat. I tied a bright red bandanna around my neck, and then put on my binoculars.
Donna returned to the parking lot, accompanied by two state park rangers. They introduced themselves. The woman was Lori Ellis, the man Tom Balsinger.
“I’ll start up East Ridge Trail from here,” Ranger Ellis said. “One of you can head north on East Ridge where it intersects with the Waterfall Trail. Tom here will help Agent Doyle check the fire road.”
“Agreed.” We traded cell phone numbers and made sure everyone had plenty of water, replenishing our bottles from a faucet and taking extra water, just in case any of us found Brian. Ranger Ellis set out for the trailhead just beyond the visitor center. The rest of us got into our vehicles. We left the parking lot and drove past the entry kiosk, heading up Armstrong Woods Road.
The valley floor was cool and dark. Fife Creek meandered alongside the road. Here and there I saw people walking on one of the hiking trails. Tall first-growth redwoods were interspersed with other trees—tanbark oaks, California bay laurels, and big-leaf maples—all of them filtering the sunlight and the August heat. Under the forest canopy, the ground was covered with moss, redwood orchid, lichen and mushrooms. A side road led to the Colonel Armstrong Tree, a massive old first-growth redwood named for the man who had preserved these redwoods from logging. We drove another half mile up the road, to an area with picnic tables and a rest room.