Wild Card

by Michael Brandman

  “Only that it will be a two-headed strike. Once the troops are engaged in the transfer of the narcotics from the mansion to the dock, that’s when we’ll hit them at both sites.”

  “The dock and the mansion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Warrant?”

  “I’ll have one.”

  She sat silently for a while. “What about the killings?”

  “A mystery.”

  “That you’ll solve how?”

  “By the seat of my pants.”

  “Try not to be so obtuse, Buddy. I’m your lawyer and I’m currently hearing from some of the state’s heaviest hitters that you’re not fit for the job. And neither is your father, also.”

  “I’m trying to low-key this thing, Jordy. The killer is way out in front of me. He’s meticulous in his planning and his execution. I believe he’s killed before. At first we were uncertain it was anything other than a random event but we now have an M.O., which I’m researching nationally in an attempt to match it up with other unsolved killings.”

  “So you aren’t stymied by it?”

  “Not in the least. Years of working L.A. Homicide hips you to pretty much everything.”

  “You know a thing or two because you’ve seen a thing or two.”

  “Something like that.”

  She finished her cognac and poured herself a couple of fingers more. I still had most of mine left.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay what?”

  “I can handle this. I’ll fend off the Petrov enthusiasts and I’ll quietly discuss the killings with the appropriate parties.”

  “And Petrov’s bid for diplomatic status?”

  “Trickier.”

  “So?”

  “I’ll need to get back to you on it. Timing will play a key role.”

  “Meaning?”

  “How soon will you be mounting your offensive?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “How about sooner? Without knowing all of the protocols, I can only advise that sooner is better.”

  “Advice taken.” I smiled at her. “Where did we go wrong?”

  “I presume you’ve changed the subject.”

  “Correct.”

  “We each wanted the same thing,” she said.

  “Which was?”

  “Independence. Solitude. Freedom. Oh, and did I mention freedom?”

  “That’s what we wanted?”

  “We sure didn’t want marriage. Or children. We crossed that bridge, saw what was on the other side, then whirled around and raced back.”

  “We did, didn’t we?”

  “I came closer with you than I’d ever been with anyone, Buddy.”

  “And?”

  “It scared the shit out of me.”

  “Not only you.”

  “But we did have a few laughs in the process.”

  “Along with a handful of orgasms.”

  “A whole lot more than a handful.”

  “Sad, really.”

  “What sad?”

  “That we came so close.”

  “Not sad at all,” she said with a sigh. “And if you think so, you’re lying to yourself. We both got exactly what we wanted.”

  “So, what about now?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Now.”

  “You mean should we rip our clothes off and jump on each other’s bones?”

  “Something along those lines, yes.”

  “I don’t think so. And neither do you, by the way.”

  “You think?”

  “I know. We’ve been there, done that. There’s nothing to be gained but anxiety and distress.”

  We were silent for a while.

  Then a sly grin lit her face. “At least we’ll always have Paris.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Something my father told me stuck in my craw. In defining my role in the Petrov affair, he’d dropped the bombshell, “You’re a wild card. It’s your deal. You own it.”

  It hadn’t quite occurred to me in that manner. Not that I mind owning it; it’s that it appears I came to own it without having had any say in the matter.

  This whole coastal issue, public access versus private ownership, had been in my consciousness since I was a boy. A teenaged boy who experienced the issue firsthand.

  My boyhood pal, Petey Brigham, had moved with his family from Freedom to Point Dume, an exclusive enclave of elegant, costly single-family houses located on a promontory overlooking the Pacific on the Malibu coast.

  I had been invited to spend a weekend with the Brighams. Once unpacked and ensconced, Petey and I embarked on an exploratory adventure. We skittered down the promontory to the parking area below and set off for Paradise Cove, arguably the finest beach in the area.

  We were ninth-graders, fourteen, our hormones raging, our bodies filling out. Both of us were athletes, a pair of gym rats and body-builders, each destined to make at least two varsities once we entered our respective high schools.

  Paradise Cove featured a pristine stretch of sand that was shielded by a wooden pier to the south and a windswept breakwater to the north. Its centerpiece was a popular beachfront café just steps away from the surf.

  There had been conflicts regarding beach access and parking by those other than café clientele, which caused a number of demonstrations wherein protesters railed that access was as much their right as it was the café crowd’s.

  Despite Coastal Commission rulings in favor of the protesters, the café owners demurred. They hired attendants who were little more than hooligans, whose job it was to deny access to the parking area by anyone other than café customers. And even more problematic, the job appeared to include denying non-café customers access to the beach as well.

  It was an unseasonably warm spring day when Petey Brigham and I sauntered into Paradise Cove. Our intention was to plop ourselves down on the beach and catch some serious rays. A swim or two was also in our plan.

  We slipped into the parking lot and lagged behind a quartet of adults who were headed for the café. As we neared the beach, we kicked off our shoes and walked barefoot onto the sand.

  I felt the hand grab the back of my shirt before I realized the assailant was one of the parking attendants, a burly young man in his late teens, mean-looking and angry.

  “Fuck you think you’re going?” he spit out as he whirled me around.

  I shook myself free. “What business is it of yours?”

  “This here is private property. Scram.”

  I made eye contact with Petey Brigham, then turned away from the attendant and headed for the shore.

  This time the goon tripped me and I fell heavily to the sand. “I guess you don’t hear so good,” he bellowed. “I said fuck off. You’re not welcome here.”

  “I have as much right as anyone to be here.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says me, is right. It’s the law. You could look it up.”

  “You think?” He took a step in my direction. “I already looked it up. Scram.”

  Holding my hands up preventively, I said, “You’ll be making a big mistake if you start anything cute.”

  “I’m shaking in my boots.”

  He moved more insistently toward me, which is when I grabbed a handful of sand and flung it directly into his eyes. He grabbed his face as if he’d been shot. I kneed him hard in the nuts. He dropped like a stone.

  “Come on, Buddy,” Petey said. “Let’s get outta here. This isn’t going to end well.”

  We both took off running but not before I threw another handful of sand at the downed thug.

  We had caught the attention of the head parking attendant who started screaming to another member of his staff. “Don’t let those guys get away. I’m calling th
e cops.”

  We shot past the attendant’s post and headed away from Paradise Cove, followed at a distance by the other staff member. Once on the coast road, we turned north, in the direction of Point Dume.

  Sirens could be heard coming from the south. The staff guy still followed us. I quit running and turned to him. He stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Unless you want the same thing your friend got, I’d advise you to quit following us.”

  Despite the difference in our ages, the boy clearly feared me, daunted by my crazy behavior. He fled. Petey and I made it safely to the Point Dume trail and vanished.

  It was then that I came to understand that the interests of private business superseded the rights of the public. Despite the so-called dictates of the Coastal Commission.

  What I had yet to learn about was chicanery and bribery.

  But in due course I would.

  THIRTY-SIX

  I had chosen five members for my team: Al Striar, P.J. Lincoln, Dave Balding, and Buzz Farmer. Marsha Russo would be in charge of the command post.

  A meeting was scheduled for us to discuss our game plan in detail. I wanted to be fully operational in a matter of days. I summoned Marsha to go over the logistics and determine the materials we would require.

  I was seated at the small conference table in the corner of my office when she shuffled in, closed the door behind her, dropped a stack of files on the table, and sat across from me.

  “This is about the raid on the Petrov mansion?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a raid.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “An operation.”

  “A raid by any other name.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Have you time for another subject before we start?”

  “Is it relevant?”

  “Of course it’s relevant. Why else would I bring it up?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Okay.”

  “It involves Buzz Farmer.”

  “Go on.”

  She resettled herself in her chair and planted her elbows on the table. “You know I’ve been researching unsolved serial killings.”

  “I do.”

  “There are a number of places where cases are still open, some more recent than others. It’s the recents that caught my eye. Hartford, Connecticut. St. Louis, Missouri. Atlanta, Georgia. Chicago, Illinois. It was Chicago that got my attention.”

  “Because?”

  “As you taught me, Buddy, I trusted my instincts. I made a cold call to Chicago Police headquarters and reached Captain Art Schimmel, commander of the violent crimes section, Central Division.

  “He seemed nice enough, although clearly overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of his job. He termed it Dozens of unsolveds. Murder rates through the roof.”

  She stared at me for several moments, deep in thought, uncertain how best to proceed. “He knows Buzz Farmer. Brought his name up without my having to ask. Wondered how Buzz was doing here in Freedom. How he was dealing with the separation.”

  “Separation?”

  “Apparently his wife left him. Took the kids and returned to Rockford.”

  “Rockford, Illinois?”

  “That’s where she’s from.”

  “When?”

  “You ready?”

  “Go on.”

  “About six weeks after they moved here.”

  “What?”

  “Approximately three months ago.”

  “How could we not have known?”

  “Good question. There’s another fact I haven’t yet grappled with.”

  “That being?”

  “If what the commander said is true, she left him nearly coincident with the first killing.”

  She stared at me, then looked away.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Marsha?”

  “There are a string of unsolved serial killings in Chicago central.”

  “And that’s relevant because?”

  “One of the primary detectives was Buzz Farmer.”

  “So?”

  “The killings stopped after he left.”

  “You’re not suggesting he’s the killer, are you?”

  “Not at all. I know it’s not unusual for time gaps to occur between serial killings. I’m just noting an odd coincidence is all.”

  “But you have suspicions.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “I’d like to interview the wife. Kelly.”

  “You mean phone her out of the blue?”

  “I mean I want to go there.”

  “To Rockford?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Something’s not kosher. If I can look in her eye, woman to woman, maybe I can learn what it is. I don’t like this, Buddy.”

  “You don’t like it enough to drag yourself all the way to Chicago?”

  “What is it you call it, coply intuition?”

  I sat quietly for a while, mulling over her request. “He can’t know.”

  “I understand. Nobody but us can know.”

  “Okay.”

  “I wish I felt better about this.”

  “Me, too.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  We set up shop at a family-run motel in the northernmost coastal corner of Santa Barbara County, just south of the San Remo County line. The Friendly Inn was located less than three miles from the Petrov mansion.

  The command post was now headed by Wilma Hansen, filling in for Marsha as our logistics coordinator. A longtime veteran of the Sheriff’s Department and its current dispatcher, Wilma was a raven-haired dynamo whose caustic wit and infectious laughter provided a welcome relief from the omnipresent stress level of police work. A handsome mother of three, married to a man who owned a highly regarded mechanic’s garage. Wilma was a town fixture and a great asset to the department.

  Dave Balding was in charge of our transpo contingent, which included a number of different make and model cars and trucks so that members of our team could roam the mansion’s exterior without calling attention to themselves by appearing frequently in the same conveyance.

  The first order of business was for our resident photographer, P.J. Lincoln, to surreptitiously set up spy cameras in key locations so we could monitor the activity around the mansion and the boat dock.

  The plan was for him to enter the grounds as if he were a tourist. Access to the beach was now unhindered. He was to arrive in the late afternoon, as if he were there to watch the sunset.

  The Petrov security detail had been seriously diminished by the removal of so many illegals. A Los Angeles-based security firm had been engaged to replace them. They provided enough personnel to monitor the comings and goings of the visitors to Petrov’s beach. But they were far less motivated than the Russians had been, and likely to pay less attention to the exact whereabouts of beachcombers who might wander off.

  On day one, after slipping through the mansion’s main gate along with a pair of other visitors, P.J. Lincoln meandered away from the approved pathway and ambled through the abundant forest-like grounds, invisible in the late afternoon shadows, making his way to the points we had previously identified as those of prime interest.

  In his backpack were a number of tiny battery-operated security cameras that he secreted on various tree branches and verdant shrubbery limbs, each providing unimpeded views of the mansion and the boat dock.

  Back at The Friendly Inn, Wilma Hansen and Al Striar peopled a virtual video village where each of P.J.’s cameras fed a corresponding monitor.

  Once that was done, we were ready.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Nothing much happened until the night of
day three. Buzz Farmer had drawn the video village midnight to six a.m. shift and my cell phone jangled me awake at around four.

  “There’s activity at the mansion,” he said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “A Range Rover arrived a few minutes ago. A short man emerged, mature, well dressed, and imperious-looking. Has to be Petrov. He stretched, took a few deep breaths, and stood looking around for several moments. Then he entered the mansion.”

  “Let me know if he reappears. Or if anything changes.”

  “Copy that.”

  Having been startled awake, I realized getting back to sleep wasn’t in the cards.

  My thoughts turned to Buzz Farmer. Marsha Russo had bundled herself off to Rockford, Illinois, to interview his wife.

  As for Buzz himself, he continued to tirelessly and professionally assist with the Petrov surveillance. But Marsha’s revelation disturbed me.

  I tried to reconcile the fervent appeals he made on behalf of his candidacy for the job with the knowledge that his wife had left him. Three months ago.

  I now had misgivings regarding Mr. Farmer. Nothing specific. Nothing I could put my finger on. But I found his dispassionate nature odd. He made all the right moves and said all the right things, but he did and said them mechanically.

  I was hoping that Marsha’s interview would prove benign and that his behavior was nothing more than idiosyncratic.

  But he bothered me. More so than I wanted to admit.

  I readied myself for the day, then headed to The Friendly Inn dining room where I joined Wilma Hanson for an early breakfast.

  We reviewed our plans for the deployment of each member of the team. Positions would be manned at dusk, after Petrov’s rented security forces had departed for the day. Back and shoulder packs were to be checked and rechecked to make certain the correct weapons wound up in the right hands.

  We established three main staging areas inside the compound.

  The first was at the outer edge of a heavily forested foothill that opened onto a section of beach that fronted the dock and the boathouse.

  The second was amid the Japanese privet hedges and the tall Northwind and Prairie Sky switch grasses that combined to surround the mansion’s immaculately manicured front lawn with its three-hole putting green, fishpond, and redwood gazebo.