Death's Valley

by Roy A. Teel, Jr.

  “I’m sorry, Barb. I didn’t know if you could hear me over the surf.” He took the drink from her with a thank you and threw himself down on the couch. “Where the fuck have I been? I’ve been in a fuckin’ nightmare that’s where I’ve been. We got a killer out there, Barb, and he’s going to be one tough son of a bitch to catch.”

  Barbara sat down on the couch next to him, nude, and asked, “What about the Eagle?” Jim shook his head. “I don’t know. I think the Eagle might be losing his touch. He hasn’t made a move or even attempted one. We all met today, and he doesn’t have a clue.” “What about you, Jimmy? Do you have a clue?” “All I know for sure is that there is a hit man or hit men that are targeting high level LAPD officers and killing them. Don’t get me wrong. So far, none of the people killed were in any way innocent. They all had their own baggage and their own bad stuff.” Barbara took a drink of her scotch and said, “It sounds like the type of people the Eagle goes after.” “Yea…I think that’s the problem. This is internal police corruption, and I think that it has the Eagle stumped. I know I am.”

  Barb took another drink and asked, “Didn’t you tell me that the killings are in some sort of order?” He nodded. She looked at him for a few seconds and then hit him on the top of his head with her glass. “Hey, dumb ass…did it occur to you to stake out the next person on the list?” “Do you think I’m a moron? Yea, it fuckin’ occurred to me. Ouch! That hurt. You might have given me brain damage.” Barbara started laughing. “In order to give you brain damage, you have to have a brain to damage, which, obviously, you don’t. So why are you sitting here? Get your ass out to the next victim’s home and see what’s going on.”

  Jim swigged down the last drink of his scotch. He looked at the clock, and it was half past three. “You’re right, goddamn it, but I’m not going alone.” He pulled his cell phone out and called John. “Swenson.” “Are you asleep?” “Am I talking to you?” “Yep!” “Then how the hell can I be asleep? What’s up?” “Barbara just gave me a brilliant idea. Let’s stake out the home of the next person on the list and see what happens.” “It’s after three a.m.!” “You know what the Eagle once told me? ‘The early cop gets the corpse.’” Jim let out a laugh, and John could hear Barbara laughing, too. “Funny, really fuckin’ funny.”

  John pulled out his tablet while sitting in the living room. Sara was still with Steve. “Okay, next one on the list is Patricia Salazar.” There was a moment of silence, and he heard Jim tell Barbara who was next. There was some murmuring on the other end of the line, and John asked, “Are you talking to Barbara about an active case?” “Yep, and she just told me if it’s Salazar, let the killer have the sick psycho bitch.” John sat up and asked to speak to Barbara.

  “Hi John boy!” “Hello Boobra…you know Salazar?” “Yes I do, and she is one crazy ass bitch with a real mean streak.” “How do you know her?” “Jill and I played a little in the BDSM world; you do know what that is, right?” “Yes, Barbara, I know about bondage and sadomasochism.” “Good. Anyway, Jill and I tried it out, and it wasn’t our thing, but Jill had the misfortune of having Patricia as her dom in a role play a couple of years before she was murdered. The woman really hurt her. She told me that she ignored all of her safe words and beat the living shit out of her. I remember that Jill said when she was freed, before the bitch could put her into another position, she tackled her and beat the hell out of her. She and her lover, Mary Schultz, were into some deep, dark, sick, twisted shit. They were into some under-underground clubs, if you know what I mean.” “Yes. I know exactly what you mean. Human trafficking.”

  Barbara laughed a serious laugh and said, “More like human torture and murder trafficking. The kind of people who never show up on a radar. As I recall, they were really into Asian men…they were both doms in the clubs, but Mary was the sub at home.” John asked, “Do you recall any of the clubs that you went to?” Barbara paused before saying, “We went to several with them, but the club that threw us over the edge was called the ‘House of Pain.’ I don’t remember the name of the bar, but it’s located at the corner of Vanowen and Tampa in Reseda in the San Fernando Valley. Do you know where I’m talking about?” “Yes, yes I do. It’s only a few blocks from the West Valley Police Station.” “Oh yea, that’s right. Patricia is a detective in internal affairs out there. That station was destroyed in the fires, wasn’t it?”

  John was quiet for a second and then answered, “Um…yes, but they are rebuilding, and they have some mobile buildings on the land, so they can operate out there.” “Well, I hope that helps you.” “It does, Barb, it does. Put Jim back on.”

  Jim got on the line, and John said, “You go to Salazar’s home. I’m going to check out this club that Barbara told me about.” Jim asked, “Are you checking it out or is the Eagle?” “I will know when I get there.” Jim hung up and looked at Barbara and said, “You sure know how to light a fire under a man’s ass.” “Well, I’ve been fucked up the ass enough by you. I should know by now!” He kissed her on the lips and told her he wasn’t going to be getting any sleep. She looked at him and said, “You sleep less now than when you were a detective. When is this sheriff shit over with?” “The election is the end of this year, and once the people decide, I am so fuckin’ out of there.” Barbara had a nervous look on her face and sound to her voice, “That’s a long way off, Jimmy. Just don’t get killed before your term ends.” He walked out the door headed for Salazar’s home.

  John walked back to the lair and took out a couple of gym bags of equipment and his body armor. Sara saw him in the office putting things together. “Is the Eagle on the prowl?” “I don’t know yet. How’s Steve?” I have him on oxygen. I want to bring Gail over to be with him. Is that all right?” “Can you take him back to his house? I don’t want her knowing my alter ego.” “He’s comfortable. I would rather let him rest here for a few hours before he moves. I don’t think you have anything to fear from Gail. Remember what her ex does?” John nodded and said, “The Hudson River Killer. For a few moments, I forgot. Yea, it’s fine. Bring her over but keep her out of the conference room. If she asks why, tell her it’s for private patients.” Sara laughed. “Yea, she’ll buy that.” She kissed John on the cheek and told him to be careful. He looked at her face and asked, “Is Steve in any immediate danger?” “No…honey. He’s just winded. The ALS is progressing. This is going to get more and more frequent until he has to make the call to end his life.” John looked on and said, “I hope he gets to go out his own way and not from that damn disease.” She nodded and watched as he walked out the door.

  Patricia woke just after six, a few minutes before Chris’s alarm was to go off. It was still dark with just a hint of sunlight on the horizon. She sat up in bed. Neither had anything covering them, and she nudged Chris and told her to go down on her. Pat spread her legs while Chris did as she was told. Pat lit a cigarette while Chris ate her out. Chris looked up and saw the cherry of the smoke in Pat’s mouth as she took a drag off it in the dark room. Chris spoke as she licked, “Pat, please don’t put that out on my back.” Pat took another drag off the cigarette and said, “Did I give you permission to speak? Eat!”

  Chris did as instructed and worked hard to get Pat off, but she watched Pat’s body language as the sun began to rise and light the bedroom, and she could see that Pat wasn’t even paying attention to the pleasure she was trying to give her. She watched as Pat took the last hit off the cigarette, the red hot tip ablaze, and as she expelled the smoke from her lungs, she reached forward and stubbed out the cigarette on Chris’s back. She winced in pain but said nothing and just kept licking as Pat lit another cigarette. The room was well lit by the time Pat was through with the second smoke, and she looked down into Chris’s eyes and saw the tears and the hopeless surrender to the continued and inevitable pain. Pat smiled as she stubbed out the second one on her back and lit another.

  Jim pulled up near Salazar’s home a little after five a.m. He
looked around, but there was no car there and no lights on. He looked for any other cars, but there were none. He took a cigarette out of his left top pocket and flipped open his Zippo and lit it. He took a deep hit of the smoke and waited for movement.

  John pulled his Silverado into the parking lot of Pete’s Place, the gay bar that Barbara had told him about, and pulled out his tablet. There was one car in the lot, and he ran the plate. It came back as being an LAPD unmarked car. The LAPD had a long standing radio transmitting code, KMA-365. It was common for staff and family members to have it on a license plate frame to show they were affiliated with the LAPD. But most people don’t know that LAPD officers have their own unique KMA call sign, which is used for internal identification of an active duty officer. John ran the car and its VIN number through the federal database, which can ID any vehicle in the national databases, and he got the person assigned to the car, Detective Patricia Salazar of the LAPD West Valley Division.

  It was six fifteen, still pretty dark, and the lot was not lit. He got out of the truck and walked up to the vehicle. There was nothing out of the ordinary, and he was about to walk back to his truck when he heard a faint beeping sound. It was really, really light. Most people would not even hear it. It took a trained ear, and he had one. He had his tablet in his hand, and he bent down beside the driver’s side of the car and placed the tablet with its infrared camera on it under the frame. He ran the length of the car, pulled out the tablet, and looked at the images. Near the rear of the driver’s side frame, he saw a larger than usual GPS transmitter, and he knew that it was not LAPD. It had been placed there. He typed several commands into his tablet and was able to triangulate a reverse directory of the signal and identify that it was being picked up by a receiver a half-mile away.

  The Eagle pulled his black body armor from the truck and dressed quickly. He took off following the green blip until he passed it on Tampa. He looked around the now slightly lit street as the sun was rising and the streetlights were going out. He parked on the other side of the street from the blip on his tablet, grabbed a GPS tracker from his bag, typed some coordinates into it using a split screen, and left the truck. He followed the green icon until it showed he was standing in front of the vehicle. The Eagle could see a head laying on the head rest of the car, and he slipped the GPS unit under the car frame until he felt it grab. He held it tight as not to allow it to make the sharp clicking noise that the magnet usually makes when attaching. With the GPS in place, he took a picture of the license plate and moved back to his truck. He ran the plate, and it came back as an LAPD unmarked car. He ran the KMA number, only this time it came back classified.

  The sun was rising, and he could see the person in the car. He backed up his truck and took several photographs of the occupant. He knew he could not process and analyze them on scene, but he could at the office. He was just getting ready to pull out to leave when the car started moving. The Eagle sat and watched as the car pulled out and began to move down the street in the direction of Pete’s Place. When the car was out of sight, he turned his truck around, without lights, and followed the car slowly down Tampa. The car parked at the corner of Tampa and Vanowen on the opposite side of the street from the bar. The Eagle drove on past swiftly and turned onto the first street directly across from the bar’s parking lot. He watched as a female approached the car and then entered. He saw her motion to turn the key, and, instantly, there was a violent explosion.

  Jim was only two blocks away and half asleep in his car when he heard the explosion. He looked around and saw a fireball rising into the air. He pulled onto the street and headed for the source of the blast. The concussion from the blast blew out windows and set off car alarms for blocks. He called in a code to dispatch, but he heard the sirens in the distance before he ever got the call out. He got out of his car and started to cross the street when a dark sedan gunned its engine and headed straight for him. He moved as quickly as he could to get out of the way, but the car was veering in his direction. He realized that the car was trying to hit him. He dropped to the ground and rolled toward the gutter when he heard another vehicle screeching its tires in his direction. The sedan was racing up Tampa toward the 101 Freeway, and hot on its tail was a Silverado pickup truck.

  He pulled himself up on his hands and knees just as firefighters, an ambulance, and police arrived on scene. One of the officers recognized Jim and got to him and helped him up. “Are you all right, Sheriff?” Jim was wiping small pieces of glass out of his hands from the street near the bar as he answered, “Yea…yea…fuck…I’m fine. Whoever’s in that car is dead. Clear the building.” The firemen were dowsing the flames of Patricia’s car as he called for his CSI team. The street cop looked at him and asked, “Why do you want to clear the bar? It’s closed and no one’s around.” Jim took out a cigarette and tapped it on his wrist then put it in his mouth and lit it. “The bar might be closed, but I guarantee you it ain’t empty.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I promise you will beg for death

  long before you will ever taste it.”

  The race was on as the sedan ripped up Tampa headed for the 101 Freeway with the Eagle in hot pursuit. The earliness of the morning made it easier as there was little to no traffic. “I’ve got to cut him off before he gets to the freeway!” the Eagle said as he raced down Tampa. The LA River basin ran alongside the street, and the Eagle knew if he could do a pit maneuver on the sedan at Victory, he could push him right over the side of the basin. He was right on the sedan’s tail as the two entered the intersection, and the Eagle turned the wheel hard to the right and caught the sedan’s rear bumper perfectly. It slid sideways, and the Eagle stayed against the bumper until the sedan made an evasive maneuver and crashed through the gates of the LA River basin.

  As the sedan slid down the side of the wash and into the basin, the Eagle kept hitting its rear end. The driver was definitely well trained and recovered after each hit. They headed toward a bridge abutment, and the Eagle took full advantage, driving the truck hard into the sedan and sending it into an uncontrollable spin. The car hit the concrete abutment on the passenger side door then spun to the right, flipped, and rolled.

  The Eagle followed until the car stopped rolling and ended up on its tires. He could hear the driver trying to restart the car. The Eagle drove his truck into the driver’s side door, pinning the driver inside. The Eagle pulled on his mask and stepped out of the truck. The driver of the sedan let out a volley of bullets. Two struck the Eagle in the chest, but he didn’t flinch. The sedan’s windshield was partially intact, so the Eagle smashed out the remaining glass and reached for the occupant. He got a hold of the dark figure and pulled him from the car. The driver was wearing a ski mask. The Eagle swatted him on the back of the neck, dropping him to his knees, zip tied his hands, pulled out a tranquillizer gun, and shot the driver in the shoulder. Seconds later, the driver fell over. The Eagle picked him up and threw him in the back of his truck. He walked over to the car and removed the GPS transmitter and grabbed a black case that was on the floor of the sedan. He jumped into his truck and made his way out of the basin and on to Malibu.

  Karen woke a little after nine a.m. She walked through the house, but it was empty. Her mother and father had gone off to their offices, both were in private practice. She went to the kitchen to make breakfast. She threw a couple of eggs into a bowl and covered it with a paper towel and microwaved them with some bacon. She walked out onto the patio and sat down near the pool at the picnic table that her folks used for entertaining and ate her breakfast and drank a Coke, a habit she had picked up from her godfather, John Swenson. She was just settling in for a little rest when her phone rang. The caller ID was unidentified, and she was going to ignore it but decided she better answer. “Hello!” “Hi, Karen, it’s Sara. I’m sorry to bother you on your day off, but I wanted to let you know that the autopsy report on the detective that came in yesterday is in.”

  Karen took a drin
k of her soda and asked, “So did we kill him?” “No, of course not. He was poisoned. I’m sending the reports over to John for Jade, but I wanted you to know.” There was a moment of silence and Karen asked, “What kind of poison could do that kind of damage without the person knowing they ingested it?” “It’s not anything I have ever seen before. The poison is sulfuric acid, and the way it was ingested was through a breakfast food.”

  Karen looked down at her eggs and asked, “What kind of breakfast food?” “The detective was able to get the word burrito out before he died. I can only guess that he ate a breakfast burrito, but from where I have no idea.” She put the paper towel back over her eggs and said, “Um…thanks for the call. You just killed my appetite.” “Sorry about that. Enjoy your days off.” Sara was going to hang up when Karen called out to her, “Sara, before you go, can I ask you a question?” “Sure. What’s up?” “I’m being courted by a police officer who was in the ER yesterday at the same time that that detective came in. He’s a nice looking man but at least ten years older than me.”

  Sara asked quite clearly, “Does he know that you’re seventeen?” “No!” “Well, you look older, you act older, and you are educated far beyond other women your age. But my dear, you are still under eighteen, and that makes physical contact with you illegal. You are not emancipated, and you still live with your folks.” “So, if I tell him my age, will he go away?” Sara laughed. “You can tell him your age, but I doubt that it will make him go away. Just let him know. That way he’s informed. And don’t have sex with him. You and he will get into a lot of trouble.”

  Karen burped from the Coke, and Sara said, “Please tell me that you’re not taking after John?” “I can’t help it. It’s what’s for breakfast. Some people have coffee or tea. I have Coke!” Sara laughed and asked, “Oh…did you get the officer’s name?” “Yea…Marco Estrada. Do you know him?” “No, but John might. You might want to give him a call and let him know. You know how protective he is of you.” “Will do. Don’t work too hard.” They said quick goodbyes and hung up.