Nailed (4 page)

Pretty soon, some of the men wanted to beat his secret out of him.

If he hadn’t had his wife and children with him, they might have tried.

But as October approached all but one of the party finally decided they had to push on before they became snowbound. As a farewell gift, Michael Walsh gave them a barrel of his new beer — the kind Hans Koenig had taught him to make. The Masked Man Party was delighted with the brew, said it was the best beer they’d ever tasted. Then they rebuked Michael Walsh for not making it earlier. Such good beer certainly would have made crossing the desert less painful.

The Masked Man Party departed drunk, singing and promising to return. They’d be back to have some more beer, and see if Walsh hadn’t had a little luck prospecting the area.

Michael Walsh never did. It had never been his intention to prospect. But Timothy Johnson, the gold-seeker who had stayed behind, became a legend.

In the dead of winter, in the middle of a howling blizzard, when the Walshes hadn’t set foot outside their cabin for weeks, except to fetch snow to melt for water, and after they’d had to butcher one of their oxen for food, Johnson banged on their cabin door. He’d gone off into the mountains by himself shortly after the others had left, and now he returned covered with snow and in the company of a short Indian woman with a solemn face.

He also had with him a dozen nuggets of gold.

Ranging in size from a raspberry to a baby’s fist.

“She led me right to these,” Johnson told the wide-eyed Walshes. “She’s teaching me her language, and I just know when I understand it better, she’s going to take me straight to the mother lode.”

The Indian woman said nothing. She didn’t speak a word in the four days that she and Timothy Johnson sheltered in the Walshes’s cabin.

Before they left, when the blizzard had finally blown out, Johnson grandly traded his twelve nuggets of gold for all the beef and beer he and his female companion could carry. As the two made ready to leave, Johnson thanked the Walshes for their hospitality.

“The next time you see me,” he said with a farewell smile, “I’ll be a rich man.”

But that was the last any white person ever saw of Timothy Johnson or the short Indian woman. The only trace left of him was the gold he’d given Michael Walsh.

Which was more than enough.

In the spring of 1850, several of the Masked Man Party who’d failed to find gold further west returned. Along with them they brought others who’d been similarly unlucky in their search for riches. All of them thought to make one last stab at wealth by prospecting the mountain lake.

Michael Walsh told them he’d named the lake in honor of his wife, Adeline. Nobody was about to debate the point with the man who made the best beer west of St. Louis. They accepted Walsh’s decision and the name stuck.

Then Walsh told them the tale of Timothy Johnson. And he showed them the nuggets of gold to prove he was telling the truth. He did the same for the newcomers heading west who were among the tens of thousands caught up in the second year of the rush.

He said he had no idea of where Johnson and the Indian woman had gone or where they’d found the gold. The mystery didn’t deter the gold seekers; it fired their imaginations. Just as staring at the twelve nuggets of gold renewed their lust for riches.

The prospectors speculated aloud about what they knew of Tim Johnson, then made whispered plans with favored partners, and then stared some more at the golden nuggets, all while drinking Michael Walsh’s wonderful new beer.

By the fall of that year, three hundred men and fourteen women lived in the vicinity of Lake Adeline. Michael Walsh prospered on their thirst. He built a large addition to the original cabin. He established a trading post that sold durable goods hauled in from San Francisco.

Years later, for his own consumption and that of his sons, he brewed Walsh’s Private Reserve. The dark stout nobody else would drink.

One hundred and twenty-three years later, a former Navy chief petty officer, trying to make a go of it in civilian life as a bill collector decided to take an acting class in Los Angeles. He didn’t aspire to a movie career. He just wanted to improve and diversify his collection technique. Jack up his take-home pay as much as he could.

His name was Clay Steadman.

Steadman had been knocked off his intended career path as a navy lifer after he’d beaten a lieutenant commander to a pulp. He took this drastic action when he caught the officer screwing the wife of one of his men. The sailor had been the first to catch his spouse and his superior in the sack, but had been intimidated by the officer into not filing charges. Instead, the sailor had complained to his chief.

Clay Steadman had never liked the brass in general, and that particular officer was a pustule he’d wanted to squeeze for a long time. In short order, he managed to ambush the officer, timing his entrance to the San Diego motel room to catch the officer and the cheating wife in mid-stroke.

He said to the illicit lovers, “Naughty, naughty.”

The woman screamed. After stealing a pillow from her to cover his flagging member, the lieutenant commander promised to court martial the chief petty officer. He ordered Clay Steadman to leave the room immediately, and to confine himself to his quarters.

Chief Steadman considered the situation. “You’re fucking the wife of one of my men. When he objects, you threaten to court martial him. Now, I catch you at it, and you threaten to court martial me. Have I got all this right?”

The officer arrogantly assured him he had.

“Well, if you’re going to court martial me,” Clay Steadman said, yanking the man upright by his hair, “let’s make it for something worthwhile.”

The court martial never took place. CPO Steadman let the base commander know that if he was charged with assaulting an officer — breaking the man’s nose, jaw, and six ribs — he would file an adultery complaint against that officer. A deal was struck: the adultery charge would go away, and so would Steadman. He was given an honorable discharge.

In the civilian work force for the first time, Clay joined the EZ Does It Collection Agency in North Hollywood. The policy of his new employer was not to browbeat their deadbeats, but to speak to them in tones of such cold, quiet menace they’d think if they didn’t pay up immediately, someone from EZ would creep through their bedroom window that night and repossess all their vital organs. Clay Steadman was a natural.

But after a couple months on the job, he began to feel his delivery was getting stale. He thought that, as a collection technique, quiet menace was so … expected. The only thing more obvious would have been giggling-lunatic menace. The Richard Widmark bit that had been done to death. What Clay thought might be interesting was
woeful
menace. Tell the deadbeat assholes
his
sad story, imply how it would truly pain him to work them over with a baseball bat, but he had bills to pay, too, or people would be coming after
him.

The thing was, he didn’t know if he could bring it off, be believable enough that the freeloaders wouldn’t laugh at him. Still, he wanted to try, so he signed up for acting lessons.

He’d had all of six lessons, at a workshop in the Valley, for God’s sake, when he landed the second-lead role in his first movie. His acting coach, who knew greatness when he saw it, had a cousin who knew the movie’s casting director from high school. The coach sent Clay to the casting director on a flier, after explaining to his student that while most actors did in fact starve, the ones who got lucky made somewhat more money than people collecting on unpaid toaster ovens.

The casting director said Clay’s reading just about made him cream his pants — and he was straight. Clay was given the second-lead, the part of the arson investigator in
The Fire Within.

The lead was supposed to be Terry O’Dare, who played the giggling lunatic arsonist. All the reviews said O’Dare gave a fine, nuanced performance … given the limitations of his cliché-ridden part. But the actor who stole the show was newcomer Clay Steadman, whose dogged investigator pursued the villain with a sense of menace that was made human by his almost palpable melancholy.

Nobody had ever seen a good guy bare his soul to the bad guy before, explaining how things had been tough for
him.
And when the arsonist laughed at the good guy’s vulnerability, as the bad guy’s character dictated he must, that made it all the more satisfying when Clay pitched him into a blast furnace for the finale.

From the very first screening, the buzz was about Clay Steadman. He was the guy who got the word of mouth. He was the one people came to see in droves. He was the one who got the best supporting actor nomination.

He was on his way.

As part of his compensation for
The Fire Within,
Clay was given five net points of the profit. A novice, he didn’t know that a studio’s job was to keep a movie from ever showing a profit, no matter how many millions of dollars it took in at the box office. He learned.

When the studio asked the picture’s producer and director to take Clay on a deep-sea fishing trip off Baja California, in the hopes of getting him to sign a multi-picture deal, Clay was only too happy to accept. The trip lasted only one day, and nobody caught any fish. But when the three sportsmen returned to port in Cabo San Lucas, Clay Steadman’s five net points in
The Fire Within
had been miraculously converted to five
gross
points. Starting from the first dollar of box office receipts.

The gross points came equally out of the director’s and producer’s pockets, and nobody ever revealed the reasoning — or threat — that Clay used to bring about such unprecedented generosity. But in Hollywood circles, it conferred an immediate sense of awe upon the new actor that only helped his legend grow over the years.

The other thing that day at sea conferred upon Clay Steadman was a taste for a brand of stout he’d never had, or even heard of, before. Walsh’s Private Reserve.

The producer told him he had the stuff flown in from a little place up in the Sierra.

A town called Goldstrike.

Chapter 5

After the body had been taken down and the crime scene taped off, Ron and Oliver drove back to police headquarters.

“This is the first homicide in my two years here,” Oliver said. “I thought I was leaving this shit behind in L.A. Come to think of it, I can recall just about any kind of killing you can name in L.A.
except
a crucifixion.”

Ron replied, “It’s my second homicide here in three years. The other was a domestic.”

“A
domestic?”
Oliver asked incredulously. “What the hell would anyone have to fight about up here? Somebody serve the wrong wine with dinner?”

Ron shook his head. “Wounded pride. Can happen anywhere.”

“Somebody steppin’ out on somebody else? Hanky panky?”

“In a manner of speaking. He was a director and she was an editor. He had the contractual final cut on a film they’d both worked on, but she went back in on the sly and did a little more cutting and splicing. He found out and went ape. They yelled and screamed, and he summed up his argument by hitting her over the head with his DGA award. She died the next day.”

“Why do I think this SOB’s not on death row?”

“He copped to manslaughter. He’s at a medium security facility teaching theater arts.”

Oliver Gosden shook his head. “People are fucked.”

“Must be why the courts are, too,” Ron opined.

“I want in on this one,” the deputy chief told his boss bluntly.

The chief looked at his second-in-command with an air of assessment.

Oliver Gosden’s interest in the case might have been purely professional, a desire to expand his base of experience. Or his feelings could be a lot more personal than that. You didn’t have to be Joe Friday to see the anger in those dark brown eyes. In either case, Ron knew he’d have to trust him.

“I didn’t bring you up here to ride the bench,” he said.

“Good.”

“But insofar as possible, Oliver, you’ve got to keep an open mind about the case. You prejudge things, you might step on your dick.”

The deputy chief chose to remain silent.

The two men pulled into the police garage at the Municipal Services Complex. The Muni was the mall for governmental services in Goldstrike. One stop shopping. Located in a campus setting on the shore of Lake Adeline, the police and fire departments anchored the ends of the complex. The mayor’s office, the town council chamber, and the municipal court formed the centerpiece. The health department, building department, parks and recreation, and street maintenance all had offices there. The public library and the center for the performing arts had the best views of the lake. The mayor and town council were considering the addition of an outdoor ice skating rink.

All of the buildings were connected by tree-shaded paths and an underground complex which included spaces leased from the town for private restaurants and shops.

The whole idea — Clay Steadman’s idea — was to make town government as accessible and welcoming as possible. His philosophy of governance was to make sure the people who paid the taxes got the biggest bang for their buck. The motto for all municipal employees was:
Be citizen friendly.
The
Or else
was clearly implied.

Police headquarters was carpeted, furnished in gleaming oak, provided with all the latest communications and computer technology, and nearly as quiet as the town library. The chief’s office had a view of the lake, and if the ice skating rink went in, he’d be able to watch the skaters, too. Rumor had it that the striking shade of blue of the tailored police uniforms was the result of the designer matching the color of the mayor’s eyes. There were six holding cells that smelled of fresh, unmarked paint rather than urine, vomit and despair. Prisoners were rare commodities.

When Ron first took Oliver on a tour of the facility, the police officer who had worked inner-city L.A. was agog. “Man, Disneyland don’t have a cop-shop this nice,” he said.

Now, as Ron and Oliver entered the chief’s office, it was time to see if a twenty-four officer police department that worked in such genteel surroundings, in such a gilded community, had the smarts, stomach and will to solve a truly vicious murder. Probably the town’s first since local prospectors stopped settling claim disputes with pickaxes.

Ron took a seat behind his desk, buzzed his secretary, and asked her to send in Sergeant Stanley. The door opened immediately and Stanley walked in like he’d been standing there all along, just waiting for his cue like some kind of comedy gag.

Casimir “Caz” Stanley was fifty years old. He was the longest-serving officer in the department, a man entirely sure of himself, and not about to be bothered by two younger outsiders being brought in to fill the two top slots.

But then, while Ron and Oliver set policy and made command decisions, Sergeant Stanley was the one who ran the department on a day-to-day basis, and the boys from the LAPD were smart enough to let him do it. He nodded politely and greeted his superiors.

“I was just on my way in to see you, Chief.”

“You heard?” Ron asked.

The sergeant’s reputation for omniscience, regarding both the department and the town, was the stuff of legends. Clay Steadman had once told Ron that Caz and God drank at the same bar. Caz bought the drinks and God dished the dirt.

But Stanley was smart enough to admit the occasional development that slipped past him. “I have big news, Chief. But I’ve got the feeling you have some of your own.”

“We had a homicide, Sarge,” Oliver said. He plugged the digital camera into Ron’s computer and brought up a full-body shot of the crucifixion victim.

Sergeant Stanley blinked once as he absorbed the gruesome image. Then he nodded briefly to himself. “I recognize that tree. It’s on Highway 99, about a mile down from the Tightrope. Got hit by lightning last summer, went up like a torch. Only reason it didn’t char half the mountainside is because rain swept in right behind the lightning. Came down in buckets.”

Oliver clicked his way through several more images of the victim. He stopped on a close-up of the victim’s face. “Use this one?” he asked the chief.

Ron nodded, and Oliver started the image printing out. The deputy chief handed the first sheet to Sergeant Stanley and he looked at it.

“You recognize him, Sarge?” Ron asked.

“No, sir.”

“Can you think of anyone in town who might do this?”

Sergeant Stanley rubbed his hand across his face and thought. Then he shook his head. “The thing that bothers me — other than that poor sonofabitch getting killed — is that a guy twisted enough to kill someone like this should stand out like he’s wearing a neon hat. But I can’t think of anybody. And I know just about everybody.”

“Are there any hate groups in town?” Oliver asked.

The sergeant gave his superior a tight grin. “Come on, Deputy Chief. An
organized
hate group? That shows its face? You really think the mayor or the chief — or I — would stand for that?”

“Even racists have constitutional rights.”

“The thing about rights is how they’re interpreted,” the sergeant shrugged. “I can tell you for a fact, though, there are no known hate groups in town. Never have been. Never will be as long as Clay Steadman is mayor.” The sergeant gave the chief an inquiring look, and Ron nodded. “Now, I can’t say there aren’t some people who don’t like it that Goldstrike isn’t as lily white as it once was, and maybe they’d like to see it that way again, but if people want to be assholes in the privacy of their own homes, so to speak,
that
is their right.”

“Sarge, how many of our people are out sick,” Ron asked, “and who’s on vacation?”

“Nobody’s sick. Hopkins, Mulroy, Barzov and Tall Elk are on vacation. Per our contract with the sheriff’s department, four deputies are available to cover for vacationing personnel at the agreed upon per diem, should the need arise.”

“Skip the sheriff’s people for now. Leave four officers on patrol. Everyone else, have them here within the hour. The mayor says he wants the bastard who nailed this man to that cedar tree.”

“I bet he does.”

“So do the deputy chief and I. Patrol function goes on skeleton staff until further notice. The homicide gets top priority.”

Ron saw unexpected hesitation in Sergeant Stanley’s eyes. “Something wrong, Caz?”

“Remember I said I had news, too, Chief?”

Ron nodded. “It’s important enough to bring up now?”

“Yes, sir. This morning, a woman by the name of Mary Kaye Mallory was jogging out on Highway 38, about two miles northwest of town, when she was attacked by a mountain lion.”

Ron knew that only five years ago a female runner had been killed by a lion in the foothills of the Sierra. That death had frayed a lot of nerves in the nearby resort communities. And, now, the idea that there might be
two
fatalities in his town on the same morning stunned the chief.

“Is she dead?”

“No, sir. She fought off the attack. I was at Community Hospital with her. Maybe that’s why I didn’t hear about the homicide.”

“A woman fought off a mountain lion?” Oliver Gosden asked in disbelief.

“Pepper sprayed it, Deputy Chief. But the cat slashed her belly and legs pretty bad. The wounds aren’t life-threatening, but … ” The sergeant looked at his watch. “She’s due to be airlifted out to San Francisco in thirty minutes. The docs at Community said her best chance for scar revision is to get her to the specialists right away. I thought you might want to talk with her before she left, Chief.”

“I do. But I still want everybody here within an hour. I’ll be back. Oliver, you get the troops organized as they come in. Sarge, walk out with me.”

Ron and Caz Stanley walked quickly toward the police garage.

“Do we have anybody in the department with hunting skills, Sarge?”

“Barzov says he hunted wolves in Siberia as a kid, but Barzov says a lot of things.”

“Is he vacationing close by?”

“Tahiti.”

“Due back when?”

“Not for 10 days, Chief.”

“And there’s nobody else?”

“Maybe forty years ago you’d have had a chance of finding a hunter or outdoorsman in the department. Nowadays, leisure time activities for our personnel run more to mountain biking and snowboarding, depending on the season. Weightlifting and tanning are year ‘round.”

“Anything to catch the eye of a passing producer, huh?” Ron asked.

The sergeant just grinned.

Ron said, “Okay. We have to report the incident to the state fish and game people, anyway. Tell them the mayor and I would appreciate it if they could send out one of their best people right away.”

Sergeant Stanley saluted and left the chief at the doorway to the parking structure.

Clay Steadman was going to love this, Ron thought as he got into his Explorer. A mountain lion attack on top of a crucifixion. He tried not to wonder how things could get worse. Then he snorted to himself as he nosed the patrol unit onto the street.

One way he could have made things worse would have been to voice the idea that had immediately occurred to him back at his office. A mountain lion attack? Call Tall Elk back from vacation. Who could track a wild animal better than an Indian? Except he remembered Donald Tall Elk was only half Native American and would probably do better tracking a stock fraud than a mountain lion.

Oh, what grief Oliver would have given Ron had he opened his mouth.

A little more than four years ago, a lawyer Ron had hired to defend him in a wrongful death suit had described then-Lieutenant Ketchum of the LAPD as a “recovering bigot.”

The label had shocked Ron the first time he’d heard it. Then he came to realize the characterization had a grain or two of truth to it. Possibly several grains of truth. And at moments like this, he wondered just how far his recovery had progressed. But he didn’t have time for introspection right now.

He had to talk to the woman who was 1-0 versus a mountain lion.