Conspiracy ignited, p.14
Conspiracy Ignited, page 14
“Clutch?”
“Litter to you, Pistol, and Mister.”
“Got it. And now, with babies on the way, we definitely need to keep this place safer.”
“Which reminds me,” said Jayne, “I forgot to tell you that I arranged for that security alarm system we’ve been talking about since moving here. The installer should arrive in the morning. Alarms on all windows, both sliding glass doors, and the front entrance. Also, two ‘panic buttons,’ one in the front room and one in our bedroom. If we push either one, Redondo P.D. will dispatch a squad car. I’ve decided not to shoot people in the future. I’m sticking with my day job.”
He pulled her into his arms and tucked her head beneath his chin. “Shooting people is no fun. Been there, done that. I don’t want you to ever be in that position again.” He kissed the top of her head. “Remember those bolts I bought at 24-Hour Depot for the sliding glass doors? I’m going to install them before I go to bed.”
Jayne groaned and looked up at him. “I love you dearly, but every time you start a home project, it goes south fast. I was hoping to get some sleep tonight. It’s already nearly eleven.”
Not to be discouraged, Ridge said, “You will. In security. Not to worry. I’ll handle this.”
“That’s what you said last time, and we ended up calling a plumber on a Sunday morning.”
“This is different. Promise. You relax and I’ll take care of everything.”
At two in the morning, Jayne opened the bedroom door and walked into the living room to see Ridge on his knees in front of the glass door. “How’s it going?”
“There’s something wrong with these templates. It’s impossible to line up the holes at the center, so I went back to 24-Hour Depot for larger bolt systems. I re-drilled the holes, but the damn things still won’t line up—on either set of doors.
“Let me look.”
“No, no, no. I’ve got it.”
“Eric, let me look.”
Ridge sighed. “OK already. Be my guest, but—”
Jayne shot him a look, and Ridge stood and went to pour himself a double shot of Anejo Tequila, his favorite. Jayne was right, although he was loathe to admit it. He was shit at home improvement projects. He watched for a few moments as his beautiful, extraordinarily competent, good-at-everything wife studied the problem. Then he took another sip of his drink and headed into the bedroom, figuring he’d check on Mister and kick back until Jayne figured out that the Depot Bolt System template was indeed deeply flawed.
CHAPTER 30
“Good morning, sleepyhead. It’s 7:30.”
Jayne watched as Ridge blinked his way to consciousness and pushed himself up on the pillow. He’d ended up falling asleep on the covers with his clothes on, empty tequila glass in his hand. Jayne had set the glass on the bedside table and slipped in under the covers on her side of the bed. She didn’t think Ridge had moved once all night.
She held out a cup. “Have some coffee.”
“Thanks.” His voice was like gravel. “Must have fallen asleep.”
Jayne laughed. “Ya think?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take the ‘Bolt Systems’ back to the Depot this morning. And give ’em hell.”
She sat on the bed beside him and patted his leg. “No need. The bolts are in and working just fine.”
He groaned and wiped a hand down his face. “How long did it take you?”
“About twenty minutes per door.”
He let his head fall back on the pillow and shook it in resignation. “How about I make it up to you by fixing my world-famous pancakes?”
Jayne laughed and bent to give him a kiss. “A perfect trade.”
Ridge dragged himself into the kitchen and poured a second cup of coffee. Slugging down half of it in one gulp, he pulled out the mixing bowl and utensils and prepared to start his pancake ritual. Then his cellphone vibrated and the theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly filled the kitchen. Terry.
“Been talking to Dan,” Terry said as soon as he answered. “The Millsberg Investigation Report will be out later today.”
“What’ll it say?”
“He wants to discuss the results with us in person. He’s getting off night shift at 8 a.m. Wants to meet in Hermosa at 9.”
Ridge checked his watch. “Where in Hermosa?”
“Where else? The Ocean Café. And this time, he said you pick up the bill.”
“Fair enough. And once Dan is done, you can update us on your Goleta trip. That way, more bang for my buck.”
After ending the call, Ridge found Jayne finishing her coffee on the porch. “Bad news. My world-famous pancakes must wait. I need to meet Dan and Terry at the Ocean Café. The Millsberg report is out. Want to come?”
“I would, except the alarm guy will be here within the hour. I’ll settle for cereal and the L.A. Times. By the way, I know Terry has a surprise for you about Goleta, but he swore me to secrecy. You’ll have to ask him.”
“Great, keeping secrets from your husband?”
Jayne blew him a kiss. “Every marriage needs some.”
When Ridge arrived at the Café, Terry was waiting. They walked in together and took their favorite booth in the far corner. That way they could each sit with their back to the wall, looking out at who comes and goes at the restaurant. Old habit. Defensive posture. Like gunfighters of old. And, yup, they all knew it was a bit paranoid. But it was always best to see who’s coming at you.
The Ocean Café was a favorite meeting place. And a time machine. With its long counter, red booths, refrigerated glass enclosure by the cash register where homemade cakes and pies teased customers on the way out, the place was a snapshot of the 1950s. The walls were decorated with ads for tiny-screen TVs, transistor radios, phonographs, box cameras, ringer washing machines, and tank-like Detroit cars. The shelves fixed near the ceiling held vintage toasters, waffle cookers, mixers, and other cooking utensils.
A big white board featuring daily specials in grease pencil hung behind the counter. And the specials actually changed each day. Best of all, everything on the board or the menu was always fresh, homemade, and delicious. As soon as Terry and Ridge sat, Robert, one of their regular waiters, brought coffee, OJ and ice water. When Dan arrived shortly afterwards, they ordered. Ridge decided on Jack’s Omelet, with diced turkey, feta cheese, garlic chunks, salsa, and flour tortilla. Terry ordered a garden-vegetable omelet. Dan, who announced he was finally cutting down on donuts, ordered coffee and a piece of lemon meringue pie.
After a fork-full of pie, Dan began. “Look guys, more than ever, everything I say here is confidential. Krug is on the war path again. All 6-foot 2-inches, two-hundred and fifty pounds of pure ornery.”
“OK, OK,” said Ridge. Both he and Terry knew what a bear Lieutenant Krug could be. “Mum’s the word.”
Just then, Terry nudged Ridge’s left arm and glanced pointedly toward the door. Two white guys, 20ish, athletic builds, with similar dark glasses and black baseball caps, sauntered into the café. Each about six-feet-tall, each wearing brown shirts, jeans, and black boots. Faces, clean-shaven. No tatts. They slowly scanned the café, left and right, as if looking for someone. Ridge and Terry smiled and focused on their food.
Dan said, “What?”
Terry squinted both eyes. “Car chase?”
Ridge raised the right side of his lips, as if chewing on something. “Or Goleta twins?”
“That too,” said Terry, slowly dropping his right hand. Below table. Closer to his leg piece.
They watched as Robert walked over to the two men. “Guys, sorry. Tables full right now. Want to wait outside? I’ll send free coffee out to you.”
“No sweat man,” said one. They turned and walked toward the door.
Robert said, “Black right? They turned again, both nodded, and went outside. As Robert walked toward Ridge’s table to get coffee from the nearby stand, Ridge motioned to him, “Hey Robert, those two regulars?”
“Every Thursday morning. Like clockwork.”
“Thanks.” Ridge exhaled and turned to Terry. “False alarm.”
Dan looked lost. “What?”
Terry said, “We thought both looked like the guy from the car chase. Or maybe two hombres Eric met in Goleta. But no go. So, tell us. The Millsberg Report.”
“OK. Here goes. The report comes out at 11 a.m. today. But as part of the CSI team, I got briefed yesterday. Bottom line: Accidental Death. But the background I got later from a buddy on the OC team proved a lot more interesting.”
After a bite of his omelet and a swallow of coffee, Ridge said, “How interesting?”
Dan swallowed another fork-full of pie. “The word is the Assistant D.A., Rob Jones, rushed to judgment on this one. But not before he and Dr. Sanchez got into some long, intense arguments. The good doctor wanted a continuing investigation because of open questions he documented in the draft report about injury patterns, CO saturation levels, and physical evidence. In fact, the draft report had concluded: ‘Death by Suspicious Circumstances. Possible Accidental Death or Suicide.’”
Swallowing some broccoli, Terry said, “Suicide? Where’d that come from?”
“With the permission of Judge Millsberg’s family,” Dan went on, “the lab guy stripped out the data on the hard drive from her home computer. Turns out she had something of a gambling problem. First on-line, then Vegas. She owed nearly $100K at the time of her death.”
Ridge broke in. “Judges make good money. A hundred grand is plenty to owe, sure, but no reason for suicide. Not for someone like Juliet Millsberg. Don’t believe it for a second.”
“That’s what ADA Jones said,” replied Dan. “He used prosecutorial discretion to slam the book shut on the whole case, replacing the draft report with a final that concluded: ‘Accidental Death.’ No mention of suspicious circumstances. Not a word about suicide.”
“OK,” said Terry, “but that doesn’t answer Dr. Sanchez’ open questions, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Ridge, “and I hope the ADA didn’t throw out the proverbial baby with the dirty bath water. I agree with Sanchez. Something’s not right here.”
“Terry, let’s talk about Goleta,” Ridge said, “Jayne tells me you have a surprise for me. By the way, I’m assuming you’ve been keeping Dan up to date on our adventures?”
Dan chuckled. “Assault. Break-ins. Shootings. Car chases. Aerial reconnaissance. You guys certainly keep busy.”
Terry washed down the last of his veggies and eggs with orange juice. “First, I talked to a lot of realtors and came up zero. So, I called Jayne, our resident computer expert, for help. She searched Santa Barbara County property records back to the beginning of time. And that did help, big time. She discovered that Sixteen Road divides federal land that Teddy Roosevelt set aside for public use in the early 1900s. In the ’80s, part of that land was sold to a private company, Coast Development, Inc., who subdivided it into fifty lots centered on Sixteen Road. But that’s as far as Coast got, before going belly up in the recession of the early ’90s. The land reverted to the feds and, except for hunters and squatters, remains untouched today. Virgin forest, including the areas north and east where you found the old cabin and dilapidated barn.”
“Where does that leave us?” Dan asked.
“Turns out,” Terry said, “I took a trip out to the old barn and found, well, what Eric found. But because it was a second look, I searched deeper.”
Ridge, thinking about how wonderful his wife was, perked up. “And?”
“I scrutinized the dog-cage room. Sure enough, no visible dog hair in the cages, on the nearby cot, or imbedded in the corner chair. Then I lifted the large wooden box which looked like a table near that chair. It hid a trap door.”
“A cave or passageway?” asked Dan.
“Neither. An outhouse. A huge hole in the ground with shit at the bottom. It seems to be where someone threw dog dung over the years, although I’ve got to say—it looked big enough for use by people.”
Just then, Todd Valentine entered the café. A reporter for the L.A. Times, Todd was a distinguished-looking Black man in his 60s with a short beard, penetrating brown eyes, and a medium build. Ridge had known him since the late ’80s when Todd reported aerospace stories from Southern California, including cutting-edge stuff about Hughes Aircraft Company, Rockwell International, McDonnell Douglas, Northrop, and others. Then in the ’90s, when aerospace slowed down, Valentine switched to investigative reporting and never looked back. Today, Todd was the quintessential investigative reporter. In fact, he was everything a reporter should be—a knowledgeable, crackerjack thinker with relentless focus. Ridge’s type of guy.
Ridge waved Todd over. Being less paranoid than the three of them, Todd sat opposite Terry, with his back to the crowd. Ridge introduced him to Dan and Terry, and communicating silently with knowing looks, Ridge asked them if they should bring Todd into their 66 Sixteen Road mystery. Getting agreement, almost imperceptible head nods, Ridge asked Todd if he had time to help out with a little problem.
During the rest of breakfast, Ridge brought Todd up to speed on the Hulk, the license plate, the cabin, the barn, and the attacks on Jayne and Terry. As Ridge knew he would, Todd soaked up the information and immediately agreed to help. As the meeting broke up, Ridge thanked Todd and “officially” welcomed him to the team.
With the Fourth Estate—power of the press—on our side, Ridge thought, you can’t hide much longer Hulk, baby. We’re coming at you. And bringing fire and brimstone with us.
CHAPTER 31
Joshua Censkey sat brooding at his desk. It was late afternoon, and he wished he had a Westside office. Sure, the views from this office were great, but Westside had cleaner air, closer ocean, and the streets didn’t roll up at 6 p.m. like downtown. But the insurance companies, funding banks, and central courts, at the heart of his business, were all here, and so downtown he stayed. At one point, he’d contemplated opening a satellite Westside office, but unknown to everyone, he couldn’t take on extra overhead. Everyone thought he was filthy rich, but no one knew about all his recent losses. Damn Hollywood.
A few years back, flying high with his judge-network business, Joshua had decided to diversify. Being from L.A. that naturally meant the movie business. But Joshua, not being an idiot, knew he needed a special angle. L.A. is full of losers who put their own money into legitimate productions and ended up broke. And Joshua was no loser. So, he invented “ghosting”. The basic idea: Make a low budget movie. A couple of million max, using his hedge fund dollars. Guarantee one million to a fading star—someone with a name everyone recognized from years of stand-out work—but whose phone had stopped ringing because of drug use, alcohol abuse, advanced age, or all three.
Joshua figured the Fading Star would only have to shoot one or two scenes. A still from that best scene would then be used on posters and a DVD cover box, with Fading Star’s name, in big letters, plastered all over them. The movie itself would always be a formula flick, with no-name actors, maybe some vampires or zombies, and of course sex and murder. That way, production costs would always stay below an additional million. Joshua called the process “ghosting” because the Fading Star was on the cover and in a scene or two, but the film itself had no substance. A ghost, so to speak. The genius of the idea was using the Fading Star’s name and image to sucker people into watching the movie, or at least buying or renting the DVD. Then when sales and rentals tapered off, Joshua could pull the movie off the shelves, and repackage it for Europe and Asia. Profit after profit, with few additional expenses.
For his first film, he selected Stan Diller as the Fading Star. Diller had had a promising career. Early reviews likened him to Brando or DeNiro. He won several New York Film Critic Awards. Then, a terrible agent and too many drugs took Diller down. He dropped out for five years, made a come-back in two or three “A” films, and then started settling for second-fiddle roles in “B” grade movies. Even though he had a loyal fan base, who dug his anti-hero persona, Diller’s phone stopped ringing. That was, until one day, when Joshua Censkey called.
Diller’s agent, of course, told Diller to go for it. And sure enough, Diller made a million, minus his agent’s ten percent, for a couple of days of work. The film, released in only eight theaters nationwide, went to DVD almost immediately. But Joshua brought in two million from DVD rentals in America alone. Then two million from sales and rentals in Europe and Asia. And so, the hedge fund got its two million back, plus forty percent, and JFC pocketed most of the rest. Economics at its best.
With success in hand, Joshua did two more ghosting productions with Diller. But then the internet reviews on all three DVDs caught up with the actor. With his career in shambles, Diller ended up shooting himself one night in a dark lonely Hollywood bar. Yes, it was tragic, but Joshua reminded himself Diller had been unstable from the beginning. Anyway, by then, Joshua had located four other Fading Stars, and productions continued. The idea was to double production, double profits, and everyone would be happy.
Then, streaming internet movies started killing DVD sales and rentals. At the same time, the word spread throughout Hollywood, then Europe, then Asia about what they called “less-than-stellar work at JFC Productions.” Soon, the whole scam tanked. Joshua, who then had twenty ghosting films at various stages of production, had no market, and no choice but to cover thirty million in hedge-fund investments already sunk in those films. If not, the hedge-fund masters would have cut off their funding for his day job, the judge network. And no matter what, Joshua couldn’t let that happen.
And so, Joshua’s Hollywood career ended, leaving him light on cash and heavy on brooding. But, worse, he now had Chesterfield all over his ass. If he lost the insurance company account, how would he pay off the judges? And if the network broke down, well, he’d be toast.
Joshua hit the intercom. “Ryan, can you come in for a moment?”
Ryan had barely shut the door before Joshua started in. “I haven’t mentioned it before, but Monday night was a disaster. Chesterfield is mad as hell at us for not keeping the lid on the Silent Conflict case in Santa Ana.”
