by Matt Coyle
“We go to press tomorrow. Unless you can give me something more, my editor is going to run with the drug angle.”
“He can run with whatever the hell he wants.”
The drug angle wasn’t the truth, but I didn’t care about other people’s truths anymore. I’d thought I’d known the real truth about Trey’s and Buckley’s murders right up until now. But I didn’t. I knew where to find the man who did. And I was going to make him tell it to me.
By any means necessary.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
At ten-thirty p.m., I climbed the fence outside Dianne Wilkens’ house on Candlelight Drive. The December moon shined a crescent spotlight on the night. The house looked empty, like the owner was still away on vacation. I didn’t care whether she was or not. I wouldn’t be there long. Teetering on top of the inch-and-a-half-wide wooden fence, I grabbed the eaves of the house, pushed off with my legs, and smeared my torso on the edge of the roof. I slowly brought my right knee up onto the roof. Same with my left and then I was on. Up to my feet and quickly over to the small chimney vent where I’d hidden the gun. I pulled off the vent cover and found what I needed but still feared.
I put the Ruger .357 Magnum in the pocket of my bomber jacket.
I parked on the street in front of Alan Rankin’s home. I pushed the intercom button on the piled-rock pillar that connected to the wrought-iron gate then looked up at the closed-circuit camera staring down at me.
“Yes.” A voice that sounded like it came out of a bass drum. Not Rankin, his muscle. That’s okay. I was ready for the muscle.
“I’m Rick Cahill.” I continued to stare at the camera. “The cops are all over me about the Eric Schmidt murder. They think I had something to do with it, but they know you’re involved too. Disposing of the body and all that.”
Long silence. Then the gate swung open.
I left my car on the street and walked the fifty yards down the winding flagstone driveway. A mansion loomed at the end of it. Tuscan style, if homes in Tuscany took up entire blocks. Crime paid well and being a criminal lawyer paid even better. At least, in La Jolla.
I rang the doorbell to a teak door that rose to the clouds. The door opened and the silhouette of a giant blotted out the light trying to leave the house. A Gold’s Gym rat, if they made rats six-foot-three, two hundred-thirty pounds of flexed muscle and no hair.
He sneered. I hit him with the blackjack on the forehead. His legs folded like a cheap card table, and his ass then his head hit the marble floor in the foyer. Out cold. I jump-straddled him, cinched-cuffed his hands behind his back, and patted him down for a weapon. I pulled a Glock 9mm out of a holster above his ass. Ejected the magazine, put it in my pocket, and threw the gun out the front door.
The whole event took less than ten seconds. I moved past Gold’s Gym into the massive house. The sound of a TV suddenly went silent.
“Buck?” A hint of anxiety echoed down a long hallway.
I ran to the voice down the hall into the living room. Alan Rankin dressed in a silk bathrobe, stood with his phone to his ear, eyes wide. I knocked the phone out of his hand and shoved him down into a puffy leather recliner. I grabbed the phone off the floor and hit the end button.
Rankin calmly eyed me from his chair. He crossed one leg over the other. In control, despite my invasion. I grabbed the lapels of his robe and yanked him up to my face. Still no fear in his eyes. I needed fear to get answers.
“Who did you call?”
“Do you know who I am?” Aristocratic with an edge.
He wasn’t the first La Jollan to ask me that. The rich ones all thought they were someone and that you should already know it.
I slapped him in the face hard enough to leave my handprint. “Who did you call?”
“Adding battery to breaking and entering.” He winced, then gave me the calm eyes. “Why don’t you threaten to kill me and we’ll make it a triple header?”
I slapped him again and he cowered, then caught himself and straightened back up. “Who did you call?”
“More like the one who answered the door.”
“Will they call back or just show up?”
His phone rang in my hand before he could answer. I looked at the number. The same one he’d just dialed. I handed him the phone, took the gun out of my pocket and let it dangle at my side. I hoped Rankin didn’t notice the slight tremor of my hand.
“Tell them it was a false alarm.”
He hit answer on the phone. “I want you to pick me up tomorrow at seven. Buck’s not feeling well.” He hung up.
I put the gun back in my pocket. “Very nice. I won’t hit you again if you cooperate just like that.”
“You can play tough guy all you like, Mr. Cahill, but you’re not tough enough to deal with some of my other friends.”
I slapped him harder than the first two times and he stumbled over the chair and fell to the floor. I kicked him in the stomach, then pulled him up and threw him down into the chair. He balled up again and fought for air.
“Your other friends are why I’m here.” I stood over him, fists at my sides. “The next one won’t be a slap. Nod if you agree to play nice.”
He nodded.
“How is Rock Karsten involved with Randall Eddington?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He covered up, chin into his chest, left hand protecting his flushed face and right arm guarding his belly.
I pulled out the blackjack and hit his left elbow. Not hard enough to dislocate it, but hard enough to keep him from playing golf for a couple months. He yelped and his face went crimson. He grabbed his elbow and rocked back and forth. I grabbed his chin with my left hand and held the blackjack over his head with my right.
“How is Rock Karsten involved with Randall Eddington?”
Tears streamed out of Rankin’s eyes from the pain. No sobbing. He was tough and determined, but not unbreakable.
“Randall saved Rock from getting shivved in the cafeteria in San Quentin right after he transferred there. Rock took the kid under his wing after that.”
“Where do Brad Bauer and Trey Fellows come in?”
He kept rocking, but didn’t say anything. I showed him the blackjack.
“Rock got word to Trey that Bauer would be killed unless Trey went to the kid’s lawyer with the confession from Lunsdorf about murdering the kid’s family.”
“Got word to Fellows, meaning you told him.”
“Yeah.”
“How did Karsten know about the confession?”
Rankin raised his eyebrows like I was the slow kid in class.
I was.
My knees wobbled and my breath left me like I’d made it leave Rankin. I took a step back, then regained control.
“There was no confession.” My throat went dry and the words were jagged in my mouth. “Randall murdered his family and he and Karsten made up the confession.” I’d helped free a murderer from prison. A monster who’d slaughtered his own family.
Rankin nodded.
“So Rock Karsten concocts a story about Lunsdorf murdering the Eddingtons just to do Randall a favor and get back at Lunsdorf? Seems pretty far-fetched.” I shook my head. “Who’s to say Lunsdorf doesn’t have a solid alibi for the night of the Eddington murders? And why go to so much trouble to frame the guy when Karsten could have just put out a hit on him?”
Rankin went quiet again. Sharp, intelligent eyes staring daggers at me. I grabbed his elbow and squeezed. He screamed and I waited. He rocked like a Hare Krishna in mid-chant. I slowly moved my hand toward his elbow again.
“Rock and Lunsdorf were down in Mexico setting up a meth connection the week of the Eddington murders.” He spit the words out fast between ragged breaths. “Rock is Lunsdorf’s alibi. When Rock learned that, he and the kid concocted the plan.”
“But why not just hit Lunsdorf?”
“Rock would much rather torture him in prison. The Mexican Mafia, the Raptors, and Aryan Brotherhood run the California prisons o
n the inside. They also control the outside crews from there.” He tested his arm, then groaned through clenched teeth. “Lunsdorf took over the local Raptors when Rock went inside. Didn’t wait his turn. Rock loved the idea of getting Lunsdorf in the system for a crime he didn’t commit, and have him know that Rock put him there. Once he got tired of having him tortured, he’d put him down. Plus, he and the kid had worked out a way to launder money through Eddington Golf when the kid takes over the company.”
“If you lie to me, I’m going to take the blackjack to your other elbow, both wrists, your knees, and your ankles. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” The fear returned to his eyes.
The look made my stomach turn over. The malevolence of my actions finally caught up to me. I’d acted like the kind of person I’d reviled my whole life. Take what you wanted through force and intimidation. I felt justified. Those with the power always did.
Too late to turn back now.
“Why did you set up Trey and Timothy Buckley to be murdered by the Raptors?”
“Hear me out before you hit me again. Please.” His eyes begged me.
I’d broken him. Nausea tugged at me. I nodded.
“Trey got a phone call and went into the other room. He came back and said he was going to meet Randall and Buckley. He looked afraid. I told him to take Buck with him, but he said he couldn’t.” Rankin shook his head. “I should have figured it out.”
Three people met at Trey’s and only one left alive. “Randall killed them both.”
My face flashed hot then cold. Icy sweat clung to the back of my neck. Bile climbed my throat. I’d helped free Randall only so he could kill again. A harmless druggie and a man I respected who had become my friend.
“The kid is a stone killer. I’ve defended plenty like him, but none nearly as smart. Rock told me the kid had ice water in his veins. Trey Fellows was a loser, but a decent guy. He didn’t deserve to die like that.”
Neither did Buckley.
“You think Karsten told him to do it?”
“No. Randall’s cleaning up loose ends.”
“You’re a loose end, Rankin.”
“I know.”
“You can’t call the police because you’re in too deep. Possible accessory to murder. Best-case scenario is you do some time and never practice law again. Worst case, you share a cell with your boss, Rock Karsten. And LJPD is not going to touch Randall Eddington again without a locked-down case. And you can’t have Randall killed without Karsten’s say so. That’s not going to happen. You put yourself in a shithole and got a friend of mine murdered. A good man.”
I handed him his phone. “Call Randall and tell him you need to meet him tonight. Make it for midnight at La Jolla Recreation Center.” I’d head right over there and get the jump on Randall.
Rankin did as he was told. He did more listening than talking at the end of the call. “He says he’ll be at Windansea Beach beneath the Surf Shack in an hour. I think he knows something’s up.”
“He may, but he doesn’t know what it is.”
I told Rankin to give me his cell number. He did. I called it to make sure. His phone rang.
“You better answer that phone if I call, or I’ll come back and finish what I started.” I waited until he looked at me. “You send your boys after me, I’ll still come back. But I’ll be in a bad mood when I get here.”
Rankin nodded, but his eyes were on the muted flat-screen TV on the wall opposite him. I followed their gaze and saw Chief Moretti standing in front of reporters.
“Turn it up.”
Rankin grabbed the remote off the side table next to his chair and unmuted the television. Moretti continued to speak.
“…known to be armed and dangerous. La Jolla Police Department is working hand in glove with other law enforcement agencies to pursue Mr. Lunsdorf, and we will not relent until he is apprehended.”
The shot cut back to the studio and the anchor summed up: Steven Lunsdorf was on the run and the main suspect in the murders of Trey Fellows and Timothy Buckley. Unspecified incriminating evidence was found at the murder scene and in his house.
“Looks like LJPD has wrapped the murders up in a tidy bow.” Rankin hit the off button on the remote. “You still going to meet with Randall?”
“Yep.”
Gold’s Gym struggled to get to his knees as I went into the foyer. I kicked him over onto his side, then went out the front door.
Back in the car, I pulled out the mini-recorder that was wirelessly connected to the microphone I’d taped to my chest before I left my house. I rewound a few seconds and hit “play.” The end of my conversation with Rankin was crystal clear.
That was just the preliminary.
Randall Eddington was the main event.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Windansea was a small but famous surfer’s beach in La Jolla. Many local surfers had made their name on the waves rolling off a reef break. I drove past the small parking lot above the beach. The lot was empty. I parked two blocks past and took the stairs down to the beach from the Westbourne Street entrance. The Surf Shack was an open, four-poled hut with no side walls and a palm-frond-thatched roof.
The Shack had been made famous in literature and local lore, and was now a San Diego landmark. Tonight, the meeting place for a five-time murderer.
The moon slashed a silver triangle down on the whomping shore break. The tide was low and I stayed up against the sandstone cliffs and slowly made my way toward the Surf Shack 200 yards away. My eyes peered through the shadows made by the night, moonlight, and crevices of the cliffs. No Randall yet. I’d driven to Windansea directly from Rankin’s house and arrived forty minutes early. Enough time to get the lay of the land and find the right place to lie in wait.
I inched along the beach, flush against the sandstone walls, the Surf Shack still 100 yards away. Waves crashed thunder every thirty seconds. Residual foamy white water of the last wave sucked back out into the ocean. A sound behind me. I whipped around and saw a hulking shadow, backlit by the moon. Larger than Gold’s Gym back at Alan Rankin’s house.
“Hello, Mr. Cahill.” Randall’s voice came out of the massive shadow. “Are you here on behalf of Mr. Rankin?”
“I’m here on behalf of Timothy Buckley and Trey Fellows.” I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket and onto the handle of the Ruger .357 Magnum.
“That’s an odd thing to say, Rick.” A taunting laugh in his voice. “You don’t mind if I call you Rick, do you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Seems like we’re past the formalities. If you’re here on behalf of your dead friends, God rest their souls, you’re in the wrong place. Didn’t you hear the news? Chief Moretti said Steven Lunsdorf killed your friends.”
I slowly moved my right foot back to position a shooter’s stance. “You met Trey at his house yesterday evening so you’d have an explanation if the crime lab techs found your DNA there, right?”
“I’m afraid you’re not quite up to date.” Jovial. Enjoying himself. “The techs found some rolling papers at Trey’s house with Lunsdorf’s fingerprints on them, and a pair of socks with Trey’s and Mr. Buckley’s blood on them at Lunsdorf’s house. Socks. Kind of ironic, huh?”
“You didn’t intend on killing your sister, did you? Your tears for her were real when I visited you at San Quentin.”
“I miss my sister very much.” The joy left his voice. “Please don’t mention her again.”
“That helped sell me on your innocence during my visit. I wasn’t quite convinced when you talked about your parents, but you convinced me with your tears for Molly. I wish I’d been smart enough to realize that you were crying because you’d killed her, not someone else.”
“You’re a cruel man, Rick.” Menace.
“From you, that’s a compliment.” I kept my eyes on the shadow that was his right hand in the front pocket of his dark, hooded sweatshirt. “Molly walked in when you were butchering your parents and you had to kill her. If she
just hadn’t woken up, she’d still be alive, right?”
A blur from his left side. I yanked the gun free from my pocket, then something hard exploded onto my right wrist. My gun dropped to the sand and pain screamed along my arm, my right hand dangling immobile. His arm moved again. I spun to my left and ducked my head. The iron crowbar bounced off my shoulder and banged my head behind the right ear. I splatted face-first down onto the sand.
“You didn’t know I was ambidextrous, did you, Rick?” He chuckled. A reverb from hell. “Gun in my right hand, crowbar in my left, snug against my leg. Old magician’s trick. You watched the wrong hand, Rick.”
I tried to push up off the sand but collapsed back into it. Crippling pain swelled in my head. The world tilted on its axis, spinning me off its edge. I sensed Randall next to me and caught him swiping my gun off the ground. He shoved it in his waistband behind his back. I fought the spinning in my head and tried not to pass out.
“Make a move and your life ends now, Rick.”
Randall grabbed my jacket and yanked me up into a sitting position. The back of my head slammed against the sandstone cliff. The pain vibrated in my ears. Randall put the barrel of a gun to my temple and checked my jacket pockets with his free hand. He pulled the blackjack out of my left pocket and the moon caught his grinning teeth.
“Old school, huh? Nice, but just a bit behind the times, Rick. Just like you’ve been a few steps behind me the whole way.” He patted down my pants and found the wireless recorder. He shoved it and my cell phone into his jeans pockets. “Must be a microphone here, somewhere.” He stuck his hand down inside my coat and shirt and ripped out the microphone taped to my chest.
“Thought you were going to get me to confess and take the recording to the police?” The devil’s laugh again. He took the gun from my head and stepped back. “Never would have thought of that.”
I was going to die on the beach tonight. The cops weren’t on the way. Neither were Rankin’s men. Bob Reitzmeyer wasn’t backing me up. Unless I somehow stopped armed, prison-fit Randall Eddington—without a weapon, with a broken right wrist, and a spinning head—he would pound my skull jagged like he had Trey Fellows’, Timothy Buckley’s, and his family’s. I wouldn’t be able to trick him. He was smarter than me. The fact that he wanted me to know just how smart was the only thing I had going for me. All I could do was try to prolong my life and hope for a miracle.