Transparency: Bio-Tech Cavern Secrets Untold (15 page)

When she returned he replaced the ring in his suit pocket. “What happened?”

A leftover tear rested on her cheek. “My dad called,” she said. “Mom’s in the hospital. The results of the biopsy came back positive. She has breast cancer. It’s advanced.”

He placed his hand over hers so the chimes wouldn’t ring. “I’m sorry.”

Now a stream of tears ran down her cheek. “We were having such a divine evening.”

“We’ll have plenty of divine evenings, Judy. Let’s just hope you’re mom gets well soon.”

“Dad said she’s going to have surgery tomorrow.”

The rush to surgery wasn’t a good sign. He held onto her hand while he murmured words that she probably didn’t hear.

At close to midnight, the magic of the evening had faded. Tomorrow the Madam Secretary would visit the Central World Mall. Her fate rested in their hands.

Judy sighed.

“We’d better go get some sleep.” Reading his eyes, she added, “Tomorrow’s a big day.”

Chapter Twenty Four

Halliday walked into the Santa Reina PD at 7:59
a.m. He said to the officer on duty,
“An unknown assailant ambushed me.” The duty sergeant grinned before he took a bite out of an Egg McMuffin.

He couldn’t avoid Rich Gladstone mulling around the coffee machine. “The chief wants to see you
again
,” Gladstone said. “Jesus, what happened to your face, Halliday?”

“I had an accident in the shower.”

Gladstone eyed him closely. “What, the shower head didn’t like your looks?”

Halliday’s aching head overruled casual conversation. He filled his coffee mug. “There’s an alleged missing person named Burt Hooten out of the east county. Does the name ring a bell? I don’t think he’s on the MP list.”

Gladstone rubbed the smirk off his face. “No. Are you sure he’s missing?”

“Billy, the drunken cowboy I ran into last night thought so. Billy and Virgil are a team who haul produce along the San Joaquin Valley. They lost contact with Hooten, their good buddy. He shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“You want I should check into it?” Gladstone replied. “I mean unless you plan to go repay your respects to Billy and Virgil.”

Gladstone’s unassuming humor caused him to grunt. “No, you check into it. I’ll be surprised if Hooten is an MP. He’s in our jurisdiction, not Redwood Bluff.”

Before Gladstone made a trivial comment Halliday said, “Find Burt Hooten. Maybe he’s a teammate of Lamar Festus.”

“Okay, Halliday.” Gladstone saluted.

A few steps down the hall a thought occurred. “Go talk to a charming lady named Gina out at the
Deer Spot
bar. It’s off the main highway five miles this side of Genevive Labs. Tell her you work with me. Tell her that you are investigating the disappearances of Burt Hooten along with local wildlife. She’ll give you an ear full.”

“What does disappearing wildlife have to do with missing persons?”

His gut reaction would have been to say, “They both may have links to Genevive Labs.” Instead he only shrugged as he headed to the chief’s office.

At the end of the hall he glanced back. Gladstone held a nervous gaze that said he wanted no part of investigating Genevive Labs.

Halliday knocked on the glass door. The chief waved him in.

A slight medicinal odor tinged the air, despite an open window. Halliday had assumed all this time that the windows had been painted shut. Halliday sensed trouble or what the chief called “concerns.” The head of Santa Reina PD had stopped confronting issues at the same time Genevive Labs opened their doors.

“John,” the chief said, his eyes drilled into the paper on the desk in front of him. He looked up and cringed. “Jesus, what happened to you?”

Halliday sighed. First name basis usually meant trouble. He decided that he would reveal as little information as possible to the chief. Gladstone would serve as the chief’s conduit, anyway. He placed his coffee cup on the edge of a file cabinet and took a seat. “An angry cowboy blindsided me this morning at an eastside bar.”

“You should stop by ER. Is anything broken?”

He took a sip of lukewarm coffee and said, “It’ll be all right once the swelling goes down.”

“Why’d the cowboy mess with you?”

“He was frustrated over a truckload of rotten tomatoes.”

“Come on, John.”

He wouldn’t mention Burt Hooten. “I mean it. The bartender told me that the skunk drunk cowboy and his pal haul produce. They’ve come across rough times. I’m going over to Redwood Bluff to talk to them later.”

The chief said, “It’s this shitty economy. Good thing we have Genevive around.” He considered what he had said and raised his eyes, “Any news regarding Lamar Festus?”

He wondered what concerned the chief most. His job? His family? Halliday discovering Genevive’s secrets? Were Genevive and Palmier blackmailing him?

“Well?”

“We’ve found nothing substantial.”

“Rich told me there’s confusion about a body they found in Fresno. I don’t recall the others. I want you to take the lead. We don’t want this MP issue snowballing out of control. Jesus, a mutilated body. If the media gets wind of it, they’ll take up headlines of ‘serial killer.’”

The chief gave Halliday a stern look. “You don’t think that’s a possibility? I mean, a serial killer on the loose?”

Halliday shook his head. “Not from what I’ve seen. There’s no common thread between any of these men other than they are vagrants, except for Festus. There have been two bodies found, in Fresno and Madera. In the case of Madera the vagrant died of natural causes six weeks ago. The recession hits that lower strata of society the hardest. You can’t get much lower than these transients.”

The chief nodded, “I had another conference call this morning with Gartner and Palmier. Do you have anything else to lend to the Laurel McKittrick case before I hand it over to them?”

Halliday hid his surprise. “I have a lot of open issues. I’d prefer to stay on the case until it’s resolved.”

Brayden eyed him suspiciously. “I can’t let you do that.”

Halliday wouldn’t give up. “I believe Genevive security is overstepping their bounds. The ranchers allege that they’ve been running around abducting animals in the wee hours of the morning.”

The chief, unimpressed, pinched fleshy cheeks with fat fingers. “John, you sure you’re not the one overstepping bounds? You breached Genevive security this morning? Had a run-in with their security supervisor?”

“Yessir.”

“Goddammit John, what the hell are you thinking?”

“Just doing my job, chief.”

“Tell me what happened at Genevive Labs this morning.”

He had to continue the fabrication. “With those environmental activists heading to town, I had to check Genevieve’s security, especially along the perimeters. It stunk.”

Halliday saw the chief’s eyes sink.

“I breached Genevive’s perimeter at 1:00
a.m.
this morning. Security nabbed me atop the hill above the campus. I told Genevive’s Sam Waylen to straighten up security after it failed miserably.”

The chief gave him a long hard stare before he said, “You sure you’re not holding anything back?”

Genevive Labs owned all the secrets. The chief knew it. Halliday had nothing else to say. He shook his head.

“You’re a good man, John,” the chief said, shaking his head. “Frankly, your concern over the deceased woman, Miss McKittrick, baffles me. Somebody’s trying awful hard to bring her back to life. Slim chance it’ll be a group that’s on our side.”

What’s
our
side? “Don’t worry about me, chief.”

“Who else will?”

The chief squirmed in his chair. He gave Halliday a hangdog look that he had never seen. It made him feel more uneasy.

After a long pause the chief said, “John, I always thought you were too
worldly
for Santa Reina. You need to be in a more dynamic environment.”

He didn’t know how to reply to the chief’s statement so he didn’t.

“I wanted to give you a heads up. With the upcoming budget cuts, I was required to send yours and Gladstone’s resumes out to various PDs.”

The chief slid a card with a phone number at him.

“Last night a Detective Faulkner at LAPD called. He was impressed by your background with Diplomatic Security. I told him I didn’t want to lose you. He insisted you go down to L.A. for an interview.”

Halliday had always believed his days were numbered at Santa Reina PD. Everyone was always suspicious of experience beyond a pay grade no matter how many times you told them you were tired of life in the fast lane. Still, he hadn’t expected this to come so soon. “I’ll give it some thought,” he said.

The chief stared off in the distance. “Rich Gladstone could never replace Leo Bergman. Although Leo’s eligible for retirement next year, he’s not the retiring type. Hell, the only way Leo’s leaving here is on a gurney.”

Halliday lowered his head out of mutual respect. Leo, a lifetime smoker, had been receiving treatment for throat cancer.

“Let’s be clear, John. You concentrate on the missing person issue. Let Brad Palmier and Genevive security track the woman down. Understood?”

Halliday nodded. “I’ll continue to support Palmier and Genevive security regarding the upcoming demonstrations at Genevive.”

“Yes, of course.”

That’s all he needed to hear.

“Rich Gladstone will eventually step on his own feet,” the chief said. “I’ll have to move him to a desk job upstairs. He’s not a bad kid.”

The chief signified the end of their meeting by returning to the stack of papers on his desk.

Halliday left the office, disturbed that Brayden had given up on Rich Gladstone. That, and the chief’s eagerness to remove him from the Laurel McKittrick case had hit him like Billy Haskins’s sucker punch.

In the break area Halliday was relieved to find his battered face in second position to Rich Gladstone’s surprise birthday party.

Betsy had laid out a white cake instead of breakfast doughnuts. Several of the personnel huddled around the birthday boy hoisting coffee mugs. The receptionist’s smoking match left gray streaks that contradicted the odor of fresh laundered uniforms. Track lights reflected off polished steel buckles.

“Everyone listen up.” Betsy’s voice twanged above the others, “Hap-py Birthday to you… Happy…”

Halliday smiled at the hapless attempt of over a dozen officers, mostly male, to celebrate Rich Gladstone on his twenty-sixth birthday.

“Did you make a wish?” Betsy said, after Gladstone blew out the candles with one mighty blow.

Whether he had made a wish or not, Gladstone tore into the gift wrappings like a lion that had downed a wildebeest on the Serengeti Plain.

“Winter will arrive before you know it,” Betsy said, reminding Halliday of the exact sentiments of the charismatic woods woman, Gina.

Gladstone lifted a heavy sweater. “I’ll wear it on Thanksgiving Day.”

The unseasonable eighty-five degrees outside had the air conditioners rattling on the walls. The weather was subject to change at a moment’s notice.

Halliday remained for the small talk for a change. Gladstone cornered him with a plate of cake, pointed the fork at his face and said, “You never did explain how that happened?”

“I got blindsided by the cowboy, Billy Haskins.”

Gladstone’s eyes widened. “I’ll arrest the bum.”

“No, he’s worth more to us on the street. Use the threat of arrest to corral him. Persuade him to be our eyes and ears in regards to the MP’s and missing animals. Play up his ego. You know the routine.”

Gladstone was feasting on the words and the cake. He stopped chewing. “Yeah, Halliday, I’ll use that angle.”

The young man stuffed another huge forkful of cake into his mouth. He got along well with people. Gladstone possessed a cleverness that belied his ‘aw, shucks’ looks. Halliday admitted that he had underestimated the lad. With some polish Gladstone could grow into the role here.

“Do you have any other words of wisdom Halliday?”

The shuffling of feet accompanied loud voices coming down the hallway. Halliday and Gladstone’s surprised expressions mirrored the other dozen or so PD officials. The trio of individuals approached with serious intent.

Chief Brayden’s death mask canceled the birthday party. Leo Bergman stood at his side with none other than Sergeant Garcia. The chief said, “The manager out at the hot springs apparently committed suicide this morning.”

Jillian Andrews.

The chief looked at Halliday. “I’m taking Leo with me, John. You and Rich investigate Miss Andrews’s residence. We need to confirm the suicide.”

Halliday, speechless, nodded at the chief. Did Brayden know that he had questioned Jillian yesterday? If so, he knew that Jillian Andrews was linked to the Laurel McKittrick case.

The chief barked out names who would accompany him. Betsy, who had befriended Jillian after organizing the company picnic last year, looked up at Halliday with mournful eyes.

The chief and his entourage continued down the hallway. The rest of the officers dispersed. Halliday instructed Gladstone to go check out a vehicle at the motor pool. He offered Betsy soothing words while walking her back to her desk.

“Jillian wasn’t the type to commit suicide,” Betsy said.

“I talked to her yesterday,” he replied. “She seemed in good spirits.”

Betsy wiped away the tears. “What’s going on John? You should be heading to the hot springs with the chief. Even Leo would agree. You should lead the investigation.”

The chief had moved him out of the picture. “I can’t say, Betsy. It’s complicated.” Isn’t that what he had said to Jillian yesterday?

Halliday returned to his office. He checked his voice messages with the Bluetooth device hanging off his ear. Three messages from Brad Palmier requested that he return his calls.

He played the last message, from Jillian Andrews, first.

“Detective Halliday, what happened last night?” Jillian’s frantic voice pleaded. “I received a call from the Santa Reina fire department this morning. They said a fire had ravaged our main office. I don’t know what I’m going to do. The fire department is claiming negligence on our part. Please call me.”

Why hadn’t the chief mentioned a fire out at the hot springs? According to his phone the call had come in from Jillian at 6:57
a.m.

He wrote the time of her call down on a pad.

Gladstone leaned in at the door. “I’m ready anytime.”

“Gladstone, I want you to find out the time of Miss Andrews alleged suicide.”

“I just talked to Leo. He called the officer who arrived on the scene, Sergeant Dan Garcia. She blew her brains out with a hunting rifle. Garcia told Leo that an employee’s statement gave time of death between 7:30 and 7:45
a.m.
unless the coroner determines otherwise.”

Garcia had a talent for showing up at the wrong place at the right time. “Thanks, Rich.”

“Did you know Jillian Andrews?”

The phone vibrated on his desk. “Come back in ten, okay? I’ve got an incoming call.”

The young detective shuffled off.

“Halliday,” he barked into the phone.

“Detective Halliday, this is Laurel. Don’t say anything. Please listen. Jillian is in extreme danger. The office complex at the hot springs had a fire this morning. I don’t have evidence. I’m sure Brad gave the order. Genevive scientists showed up after you left yesterday. They wanted to take samples of the hot springs water. Jillian refused to allow them on the property. She threatened to report to the media that the spa water was contaminated.”

Laurel needed to be told. “Where can we meet this morning?”

A long pause preceded Laurel’s quivering voice, “Please, detective, go out to the hot springs. Help Jillian, she’s my dear friend. I’m worried sick. Her life is in grave danger. Please don’t delay.”

“Laurel, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“They’re coming. I’ll call again.”

Who are
they
? “Wait, Laurel—”

The line was dead.

He had another call.

“Halliday, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you,” Palmier’s voice complained in his ear. “What were you doing on Genevive property at one o’clock in the morning?”

Palmier’s petty gripe made his head ache. “Genevive has a leaky security network.”

“You were performing tasks way outside your job description.”

“It’s your life that’s in jeopardy.”

He paused to let that set in.

“A fire broke out at Santa Reina Hot Springs this morning,” Palmier said. “Too bad about the spa manager. Terrible.”

How did Palmier find out? The headache pulsated. “What?”

“Jillian Andrews committed suicide,” Palmier said. “The poor thing shot herself in the head with a hunting rifle, which I understand is no easy task. Starting the fire must have pushed the despondent woman over the edge. Bad relationships can lead to people’s undoing, too. I’ve been there, done that one.”

Halliday felt out of synch. “What bad relationship?”

“You’re the detective here, Halliday. Miss Andrew’s human resource gal mentioned to one of my employees about a bad breakup. You know how it goes.”

Halliday filed the fact away. He didn’t commit an opinion.

“A group of our scientists went out there to talk to her this morning,” Palmier said. “They notified Chief Brayden.”

Halliday’s head spun, like it had at the end of the Asia detail three years before.

“The place will be shut down for a few weeks,” Palmier said. “That’s the best course of action. Let everyone heal. Regarding your unannounced visit last night, do I need to report this to my CEO, Bob Gartner? I don’t want to see you lose your job. On the other hand, your actions didn’t make much sense. Have you been under too much stress? Do you need medical help?”

We should have lunch with the head-doctor Epstein up in San Fran, huh?

“Halliday?”

“You don’t need to report anything to your boss. You’re a shrewd exec, Palmier. You’ve learned that you’re better off taking care of matters on your own. No use bothering the boss with the trivial things. Besides, I learned nothing. No harm, no foul. Isn’t that what they say?”

“When people mess around in other people’s business, there are always consequences.”

Palmier’s threat caused anger to swell in his throat. “That works both ways, Palmier,” he said. “I talked to Jillian yesterday. She said she was afraid for her life. She said Genevive security men had threatened her. They had been following her 24/7.”

“Wow that surprises me. Although I’ve never talked to Miss Andrews, I know people who knew her. I promise you no one else holds that theory. Sure, Genevive is concerned with security at the hot springs. We account for a large part of their customer base. To think that our security force has been harassing the poor woman is preposterous.”

“I’m conveying the facts as she told me.”

“Given that the woman had planned on blowing her brains out the next day, maybe her mind wasn’t all that clear, Halliday.”

Palmier’s acidic reply slapped him in the face. “What else does your crystal ball tell you? Does it say that Genevive will close down the public spa across the street from Jillian’s spa?”

Halliday hung up the phone before he said something
really
stupid like “Isn’t it true that Jillian discovered that Genevive Labs had been dumping animal carcasses and human remains down a well beneath a science lab?”

He dropped his aching head in his hands.

They murdered Jillian Andrews.