Poker-faced, she turned her wrist again. Her watch crystal was smeared with blood, but evidently she could still read the time.
“It was Carson’s job to monitor my progress on Carl’s case,” Michael went on. “If I got too close to the truth—that you had Razin and Kincannon murdered in the marble pit after luring them there, then dumped the Iranian’s body in a mine where it’d soon be found and buried Carl’s in a salt pan where it might never be found—at that point, Carson was to go into damage-control mode. Somehow, he had a past link to Edna Boskovich, Dulcie Kincannon’s co-worker at the brothel—and yes, Joanna, the FBI verified that the marriage was legal...” Her lips thinned over her teeth in disgust. “So, Carson had Edna keep track of Dulcie, in case I told her anything, while he personally watched me. Hell, he even ran a check to see how airtight your lies were by steering me toward AEI and you. If I found nothing in Inyokern, good. If I found something dangerous to the enterprise, I was dead. That’s what happened to Dulcie when Edna told Carson I was headed to Eureka Valley last Monday. You and he couldn’t chance me finding Carl’s body, so the way to guarantee that was to kill Dulcie, Edna and me. Two out of three wasn’t bad for a day’s work, though I doubt Carson imagined winding up a casualty himself. Was he a close friend...?”
Joanna ignored the question and instead checked on the pilot, who avoided eye-contact in a new effort to draw no attention to himself. Then she stared past Michael at the empty tarmac, before asking, “And who were the other two who knew you were headed to L.A.?”
“My own sheriff. But it turns out he was even more worried about Carson’s true identity than I was. I’m sure you already know of Gorman’s past history with the governor of Nevada—your research was thorough. No, it wasn’t the sheriff who told Carson I was coming to L.A. to learn about Razin.”
“Then who, Michael?”
“David-Four, can you get her to delay the deadline?” the incident commander asked on the radio handset. “We need time to attach a tracking device to the Hummer. Respond when you can— one click for negative, two for affirmative.”
Michael didn’t hesitate: He punched the button once.
“Joanna,” he suggested, “it’d go a long way in helping your cause if you volunteered the identity of the man who shot me.”
“You’ve been shot?” the pilot asked, as if it might be something infectious.
Joanna jammed the muzzle of her semi-auto harder into his ribs, and he gasped. Her right sleeve rode up slightly from this effort. For a second time, Michael had a partial glimpse of an armband tattoo, a reptile of some sort, possibly a dragon. It fit now.
“Eight minutes, Michael,” she said in a flat tone of voice. That it had turned so emotionless now concerned him. “You know me,” she went on. “Go back to your radio and tell these stupid bastards what I’m capable of. I want to see a Hummer on the tarmac no later than seven minutes and forty-five seconds from now. The driver, unarmed, is to approach the tarmac with all four side doors propped open and the tailgate down. He’s to make a three-sixty turn on the tarmac so I can see inside the vehicle from all angles. Then he is to park it exactly fifty feet from this airplane and walk away. I don’t care if the driver is a cop. The important thing is that he walk away as soon as he parks. Any questions, Michael?”
“No.”
“Go.”
As soon as he reached the cover of his cruiser, Michael said angrily into his handset at the incident commander: “Don’t play any green light-red light games with me, no two steps to the right so our long rifle can take her out. I’m not sitting back in the command post with you. I’m the one on the scene, with his ass hanging out. And there has been no chance since this started in the motor pool that I could’ve taken her down without endangering hostages. Given her mental state, I can tell you that unless you park a Hummer fifty feet from the Cessna before twelve-nineteen, this hostage has longevity problems!”
“Copy,” the incident commander said tersely.
Michael then relayed Joanna’s instructions for the delivery of the vehicle.
After which, the Kern commander asked, “If our deputy has to walk off, who’s going to drive it up to the plane?”
“I’m hoping she’ll let me.”
“And what do we get in exchange for the Hummer?”
“The hostage, if everything goes well, but I don’t want to give her time to think about this choice before I pull up in her only means of escape. I’ll try to get her to leave the pilot behind in the plane.”
There was a pause of several seconds, then the incident commander said, “Psychologist here in the C.P. wants to know if she is freely discussing crimes she may have committed.”
“Not yet. However, advise your shrink she’s made no last will and testament.” A hostage-taker turning suicidal gave no thought to self-incrimination. Sometimes, he or she even offered his possessions to the negotiator, particularly if they’d built a rapport. Joanna was nowhere near that point.
“David-Four, this is Adam-One,” Gorman’s voice boomed over the airwaves, his siren yelping in the background. “Under no circumstances are you to exchange yourself as a—!”
“Adam-One,” the Kern incident commander overrode the Inyo County sheriff, “would you stay the hell off this channel with your non-emergency—?”
A sharp squeal followed as the competing transmissions collided. “This is very much emergency traffic, Ridgecrest, and David-Four, I will terminate you if you at any time surrender your weapon. You are to do nothing ‘til I get down there!”
Michael said into his handset, “Cole, you can fire me later. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Then he went forward to the Cessna again.
Joanna roused herself, flexed her grip on her pistol. But in the unguarded moment before she felt his eyes on her through the window, she’d looked weary, disoriented, frightened even. “What’d they say, Michael?”
“I think they’re going to comply with your demands.”
“You think?”
“Come on, guy,” the pilot said, “you can do better than that.” The Stockholm Syndrome was starting to kick in, the hostage beginning to link his captor’s cause with his own. “Let’s get a freaking Hummer out here, already.”
Michael had to resist a tired laugh. “Joanna, please, let’s resolve this here and now. Before the confusion takes over. These things always get confused. Live to fight another day. Not with a gun but with your brains. Live to sic some brilliant defense attorney on me. It’ll be interesting.”
But at that instant, she looked past him and announced, “Finally.”
An AEI Hummer was approaching. The doors and the rear hatch had been propped open with what appeared to be metal rods. The driver—a female deputy sheriff who had shed her gun-belt —made a complete circle the designated fifty feet from the Cessna, showing Joanna that no SWAT team was crouching inside the vehicle. Then she braked, shut off the motor, got out and strode self-consciously toward the hangar complex.
Michael said to Joanna, “I’m assuming you want me to close the doors now and bring the vehicle over to the plane.”
“Do it.” Fresh blood dribbled out from under the compress —her heart was apparently beating harder now that the moment had come. “Park with the passenger side of the Hummer close to me.”
“Sit tight, I’ll be right back.” Before he set off for the vehicle, Michael tucked his pistol in his waistband against the small of his back, concealing it from Joanna. The sniper was covering him as he crossed the runway, should she try the unthinkable.
Significantly, he hadn’t promised to follow her parking instructions. Instead, he would stop at least twenty feet shy of the Cessna and tell her that he would come nearer only if she left the pilot in the plane. The man was in no condition to operate a vehicle. He’s served his purpose, let him go. With this goal achieved, Michael would then turn to the next one—disarming Joanna without resorting to his own pistol. This was best done at close quarters, such as in the c
onfines of the Hummer while her attention was divided between maintaining control over him and passing through the cordon.
Reaching the Hummer, Michael batted away the rods so he could shut the rear hatch and doors.
He sat behind the wheel, taking a moment before restarting the engine. He gazed through the windshield at the plane. Heat shimmers were rising off the tarmac, distorting the view somewhat, but everything in the cabin seemed as he’d left it, captor and hostage locked in stony silence, peering expectantly back at him. But then, inexplicably, Joanna flopped over to the side as if someone had shoved her. Simultaneously, a hole appeared in the Plexiglas on a direct line with where she’d been sitting, followed closely by the roar of a high-powered rifle in the distance.
The pilot tumbled out his door and lay on the runway.
Michael believed that he’d been struck by the same bullet. But then the man scrambled to his knees and clasped his hands behind his neck without being ordered.
He’d been splattered by Joanna’s blood and was sobbing.
Chapter Twenty-five
The detective sergeant from Kern County Sheriff’s Homicide was going on about how broken up their sniper was after killing Joanna Wallace, so anguished that his own lethal force interrogation had been postponed until he could receive medical attention for blood pressure readings that had shot through the roof—when Michael interrupted the investigator. “Hold on a sec,” he said, getting up to grab an empty chair from across the room and using it to elevate his left leg. The calf muscle had been pounding like a toothache for at least thirty minutes. “That’s better.”
“Do you need your own medical attention, Long Shore?”
“I’ll see,” Michael waffled, even though he knew that the bandage was too juicy for his sutures to have held through the afternoon. “Where’s your sniper right now?”
“Regional Hospital.”
“And who is he? We’ve got a thing or two to discuss.”
The sergeant shook his head. He was a thin-faced Latino whose shaved scalp and goatee gave him a slightly Asian look. “Once again, we don’t want his identity splashed all over the media yet. You can appreciate that. AEI is a powerhouse in the east county. Our man’s going to be under the microscope for a long while to come. So how about we give him a little breathing space? He just had to drop a woman, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I’m not the media. I’m the cop who was out there when he dropped her. As far as I could see, nothing had changed in the Cessna’s cabin between the time I last talked to Wallace and I reached the Hummer.”
“And I’m taking that into account, okay? But minutes after all this happened, I debriefed the incident commander, who gave the green light, and I can tell you this much—he says it was clear to our shooter on the hangar catwalk that Wallace was set to snuff her hostage.”
“How?” Michael demanded.
“Body language.”
“Was the IC in a position to see this for himself, or did he give the green light because of what your shooter reported to him over the radio?”
The sergeant exhaled, loudly. “It’s been a bitch of a day, okay?”
“Tell me about it.” But Michael hammered on, “What’d the hostage have to say?”
“Not much that was coherent. A woman’s head had just been blown to pieces all over him. He hadn’t known Wallace had already shot the mechanic, otherwise he would’ve been even more scared. At the end of the day, I believe he was grateful for what our man did. Wouldn’t you be...?” A plopping noise drew the sergeant’s attention to the linoleum under Michael’s leg. Once more, he was bleeding through his Levi’s. “Now, I insist, Long Shore,” he said. “I’ll get a patrol deputy to swing you by ER.”
“No need. Higgins from the bureau is hanging around for me. I’ll hitch a ride with him.” Michael rose and tested his weight on his leg. It was now a habit.
“Appreciate your help, Long Shore. I think it’s safe to say we have no problem with your conduct.”
The feeling wasn’t mutual.
Michael found R.J. Higgins down a side corridor of the substation, browsing a corkboard in boredom. “There you are,” he said, his face brightening before he noticed Michael’s halting gait. “You’re limping worse than before.”
“Yeah, the second reason to go by Ridgecrest Regional.”
“What’s the first?” Higgins asked, falling in beside him.
“Let’s talk outside. The boys here are circling the wagons.”
The agent checked over his shoulder. “Tell me about it.” But then he added generously, “The guys in our own agencies would do the same for us. Kern’s an okay outfit. I’ve never had any problem with them.”
Michael was surprised to see that it was twilight beyond the front glass doors. He’d lost track of time during his grilling in the windowless room. Higgins had arrived around three o’clock from L.A., already on the road an hour when Michael reached him by cell phone. For once, he had looked forward to the arrival of the FBI. As the mopping-up phase of the incident got underway, Higgins would be useful on the scene. Kern County would lack the same pretext with Higgins it was using on Michael to keep him in the dark, that the principal witnesses to the shooting were to be kept apart until they’d been questioned. Understandable. The policy was meant to keep witnesses from meshing their stories and alibis, but it was hindering Michael.
Once out in the parking lot, Higgins said, “Their shooter invoked his right to have his attorney present. That’s why the delay in questioning him, though I’m sure he’s in rough emotional shape. Any of us would be.”
So that was it.
Demanding this right wasn’t an admission of anything, and it was guaranteed by the peace officer’s bill of rights. But most shooters waived it when talking to their own detectives. “Anything on that other front we discussed?” Michael asked.
Higgins jingled his car keys in his hand. “The trainer from my office went through his roster for the advanced SWAT course he put on at Fort Irwin earlier this month. He says the Kern sniper was—”
“Scott Tiffany.”
Higgins frowned. “Why’d you have me run this down if you already knew the answer?”
“I didn’t know. Just a hunch. When I met Tiffany that morning near Indian Wells, he mentioned he’d just gotten back from FBI training at Irwin. He didn’t get into what spot he held on his team. Did you find out if he drove himself to the hospital?”
“Yeah, he insisted on taking his private vehicle. But I couldn’t wheedle anything on make or model out of the deputies.”
“What about a call into the Kern coroner’s office?”
“Done by our Bakersfield resident agent, but no answer back yet.”
“The R.A. didn’t let on I was behind the request, did he?”
“No, no—but do you really think two body bags are going to wind up missing from their storage facility out here?”
“Maybe. Where’s your car parked?”
“Over this way.”
But they hadn’t taken more than a few steps when an all too familiar unmarked sedan cut them off. Cole Gorman powered down his side window, letting out a gust of cool air reeking of Jack Daniel’s. Maybe Higgins could smell an ass-chewing on the way in addition to the whiskey, for he excused himself and continued on to his car, leaving Michael alone with his boss.
“Where you headed right now, Long Shore?”
“Hospital.” He pointed at the blood stain on his Levi’s.
Gorman ignored it. “Just had a chat with the Kern sheriff. I can’t say that I envy him. Nor the sheriff in Nye County. Nor the Federal Bureau of Incompetence...” He thrust his chin toward Higgins, who was just getting inside his vehicle. “But other than a cruiser that now has Cessna for a hood ornament and a hole in your left leg, our damages have been minimal, and none of these homicides, legal and extralegal, occurred in my county. Yet, somehow, one of my lesser detectives managed to crack the riddle. It doesn’t get any better than that. Inyo Count
y’s violent crime statistics stay low, while we clear cases for our less-adept brethren.” He gave a sly, gratified smile. “Makes me look forward all the more to the coming of fall.”
The election, he meant.
“However,” he went on sternly, “you are to call the Olancha deputy and advise him when you’re ready to be picked up at the hospital here. He’ll transport you to Independence, where you may spend the night in the Winnedumah Hotel at public expense, refreshing yourself so you and I can talk in the morning about your future. While you haven’t exactly redeemed yourself, Long Shore, you haven’t dug your pit any deeper these past days.” With that, Gorman depressed the gas pedal and crept off into the evening shadows.
But, standing there, Michael knew that the sheriff was wrong.
It wasn’t over.
Higgins pulled alongside in his sedan, and Michael got in. “How much time does Tiffany have on us?”
“At least an hour,” the agent replied, “but I never saw him at the substation. Which way?”
“Just across the boulevard.” As they sped toward the hospital, Michael lifted his pant leg and then a corner of the bandage to inspect his wound by the dashboard lights. He was not encouraged by the sight, but the problem now was time. He didn’t have enough of it to convince Tiffany’s fellow deputies that it had been an execution, not a justifiable shooting, and Higgins and he would have to handle the takedown on their own. That mean they couldn’t cast a wide net for the sniper. Instead, they would have to gamble on Tiffany’s next move.
Michael’s best guess was that the man would use the coming hours to tidy up some loose ends, dispose of that which had not been permanently disposed, and otherwise batten down the hatches against the legal assault that was coming his way. His fellow cops would defend him only to a point. Their covering for him thus far was tribal, but that loyalty would fray as they learned what Tiffany had done for Joanna Wallace over the past several months.
Under the Killer Sun: A Death Valley Mystery Page 24