Bad Moon Rising Read online

  “Any description on the guy?”

  “He was an Indian, a Native American.”

  “Well, well, well,” I said.

  “Does it mean something?”

  “It’ll help.”

  Hondo, the old party pooper said, “If it’s the correct Rolls.”

  I said, “I’m gonna start calling you Debbie Downer.”

  Hondo grinned, “Like you weren’t thinking the same thing.”

  “I know, but I wanted to sound superior.”

  Amber squeezed my hand and looked at me with complete and total adoration. She said, “You goofball.”

  Hondo barked a laugh and fist bumped Amber. I tried to recover some dignity, “At least I’m trying to stay upbeat on this case.”

  Amber said, “There’s one other thing.” She had our attention. “My friend saw the same Rolls yesterday evening, parked near the Santa Susana Pass above Chatsworth. He drove by it, and saw several people getting out and crossing the road to where the old Spahn Ranch used to be. They disappeared into the brush, and the Rolls drove away.”

  Hondo said, “The Spahn Ranch, that’s where Charlie Manson and his followers lived back in the sixties.”

  Amber said, “The very place. Most people our age don’t even know about it.”

  I said, “I went out there once. Nothing left, no buildings or anything.”

  “My friend said one of the women from the Rolls didn’t want to go, but the others pulled her along.”

  “When did your friend tell you all this?”

  “Right before I called you.”

  “Hondo and I’ll go there and check it out. Tell your friend thanks.”

  Amber rose with us and hugged Hondo, then me. “When you finish today, give me a call. I’m off tonight.” She pushed her hands against my chest and nudged me toward the door, “Go out there and do hero stuff. Come by the apartment when you’re done.” My lord, she looked beautiful.

  Hondo and I drove to the Santa Susanna area, having an easy time in light traffic, and parked across the road at a church. We crossed the pavement and walked through thick brush and down into a wooded draw. We passed the small cave where forty years ago Manson’s disciples posed for a black and white photo that appeared in Life Magazine. The photo showed them looking happy, innocent, and harmless.

  A small rust-colored inscription showed on the back wall and appeared to be written with a finger: Manson the prophet. One of Manson’s fans, I thought. We stepped closer, and Hondo said, “That’s not paint.”

  It was dried blood. The whole place gave off an uneasy vibe that made me check behind us more than once. We started up the slope to the area where Spahn’s Movie Ranch once existed.

  It’s the place where crazy ass Charlie Manson hatched his plan to start Helter Skelter by sending his young followers into the night and into bloody history, murdering several people before those August nights when Manson’s LSD fueled disciples butchered Sharon Tate, her friends, and the next night, the LaBiancas, leaving bodies and notes on the walls written in the victim’s blood.

  Archie lived in Venice when the murders occurred, and had been a friend of Sharon Tate. I once asked him about Sharon.

  He said, “I saw her the first time on the pier at Santa Monica. She was the prettiest young woman I’d ever seen. And this was in the land of beautiful women. She wasn’t wearing makeup or anything special, just someone enjoying the day. She wore tight jeans and a blue shirt that showed her midriff. She had her hair in a ponytail. She was the sexiest thing out there, and everyone knew it, except her. People stopped what they were doing just to look. I was a few feet from Sharon and when she looked at me with those cactus-green eyes, I had to look away, she was that stunning. Even the Muscle Beach guys stopped playing, and so did their beach bunny followers. They were all looking at Sharon, wondering who she was, aware that they were looking at someone very special.” Archie grew quiet after telling me. He walked away and stayed by himself the rest of the afternoon.

  Hondo and I emerged from the draw onto a grass and dirt flat where the movie set buildings had been before burning down in the seventies. We walked on the flat area, and Hondo spotted fresh tire tracks and some footprints, but no cars and no people anywhere around. We worked the area in ever-larger circles, not finding anything noticeable until Hondo crossed into an area outside the park. At the edge of disturbed earth someone had written in the dirt and gravel with their shoe. It said: HEL–, and the rest had been scuffed away, like someone scraped a shoe across the dirt to erase the letters.

  I pulled my iPhone and snapped a half-dozen photos of the message, and the tire and foot impressions. It took some doing to angle the phone enough to catch the imprints, because snapping a photo straight down showed nothing. I held the phone a foot to the side and at a slight angle and snapped them that way, and the prints showed.

  We started toward Shamu, and I noticed a slender man high on a boulder-strewn hill watching us. I waved for him to come down, but he dropped over the back of the hill and disappeared. I looked at Hondo and we both sprinted after him.

  I showed Hondo I was going to circle the base and he nodded, then went straight up the incline. I made a little better time and rounded the hill a few seconds before Hondo reached the crest. I saw the man jump into an old pickup, start it up and come straight at me.

  I pulled my Sig and aimed at his windshield. He swerved in a panic and high-centered the pickup on a granite boulder, leaving the rear wheels spinning in the air. I kept my sights on him and saw Hondo reach the pickup and stick his .45 in the man’s ear.

  The man’s hands went up so fast the tips of his fingers hit the roof with a metal plonk. He winced, but kept them up. I holstered my pistol and pulled him out of the cab, sitting him on a low rock. He appeared to be Hispanic. “What the hell do you think you’re doing trying to run me over?”

  “I thought you was La Migra, the Immigration.” His hands were still in the air. Hondo did a fast pat-down.

  “He’s clean, not even a driver’s license.”

  I asked him, “What’s your name?”

  “Juan Luna.”

  “Where’s Bodhi?”

  “I don’ know. She was here, then…” He shrugged his shoulders.

  Hondo said, “So you know who she is.”

  “Yes, because of the reward.”

  I looked at Hondo, then back at Juan, “What reward?”

  “A hundred thousand dollars, to the person finds thees Bodhi womans.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  He said, “The paper, she’s in my sock, I din’ want to lose it.” He dug deep in there, pulled out the paper. He unfolded it and held it out to me.

  The paper looked damp.

  I eased my hand away and wiped my fingers on my pants even though I hadn’t touched it. I said, “Hold it up so I can read it.”

  He displayed it like a tiny banner, and there it was. Reward: One hundred thousand dollars to the person or persons who return Bodhi Artell to Sylvia Artell. There was a photo of Bodhi and the phone number was Franco Torelli’s.

  Hondo asked him, “Where did you get this?”

  “They are all over the place, hombre, like hundreds of theem. An amigo brought thees to our day labor camp, and I took it. I told my friend I would chare the moneys.”

  “You’re undocumented?” Hondo asked.

  “Seguro. Soy mojado. You don’ stay in a labor camp with thirty other people unless you don’ have a choice.”

  Hondo said, “Did you follow Bodhi here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you first see her?”

  “Where the family wass staying in the old houses below Clear Springs Road, maybe a mile from here.”

  Hondo asked, “Where your family was staying?”

  “No, not my family. They call themselves the family. Bunch of young guys and girls, living in some old houses at the base of the big granite hill. The silver car was there, an’ I saw her, this Bodhi, stumbling aroun
d like she wass drunk.”

  I said, “What were you doing there?”

  “Some of us guys, we go there when we get paid. The girls are friendly if you have enough moneys.”

  “Was a guy named Moon there?”

  “I don’ know thees Moon, but plenty of peoples are in and out of there, so maybe he iss there. The Kiowa was there, but he is in and out all the time. He’s Indian,” Juan used his hands to show braids on each side of his face, “A real Indian.”

  “Does he have a real name, something other than Kiowa?”

  “No, thass all I hear.”

  “Who was in charge of the family?”

  “The Kiowa most of the time, but thees time was two black guys, big like the football mens, how you call theem, the linesmens.”

  “The Kiowa wasn’t there?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No one I see.”

  “And what about Bodhi?”

  “I didn’t know who she was until my friend brought the paper, then I remembered her. So I went there.”

  “What were you going to do?”

  Juan looked at us, “For a hundred thousand dollars? Hombre, I wass bringing her with me if I had to drag her. But I didn’t get the chance. I parked on the road and walked up to see where she was, and saw her run from two of the girls. She ran away, an’ I saw her goin’ through the brush. The silver car chased her, but couldn’t follow when she went into the brush. So the car, she circled on the roads. I followed the car and parked behind the hill where you see me. I went to the top and saw them catch her and put her in the silver car and drive away.”

  “You didn’t chase her again?”

  “I saw you two coming, so thought I would wait, maybe see what you would do. You two look like cops, then when you got closer, not exactly like cops, but a leetle different. You look more…vaquero, more cowboy, like the Border Patrols, so I theenk you are immigration. ”

  Hondo said, “So we were close to Bodhi?”

  Juan held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Four, maybe five minutes. They saw you and left pronto. One of them said to the others, ‘Cops!’, I’m pretty sure.”

  Hondo motioned for me to come to the high-centered pickup, and we both rocked it until the vehicle slid off and was on all four wheels again. Hondo said, “Come with us, you can show us where the family’s camp is. Maybe they’re taking her back there.”

  He didn’t argue and we retraced our tracks through the draw and by the cave to Shamu.

  Juan looked at it and said, “That truck, she looks like the beeg fish at Sea World.”

  I said, “It’s not a fish, it’s a mammal.”

  He looked puzzled, “A mahmahl? Like some different kind of fish?”

  Hondo ushered him into the truck, “You two can talk about it while we drive.”

  Juan pointed us to the turns and which side road to take. When we got there we saw the Rolls canted at an angle in a ditch. Yellow flames poured out of the windows and black smoke boiled into the air. Hondo slid out of the truck and trotted to it. He yelled back at us, “There’s a body inside.”

  Chapter 3

  We waited by the burning car for the Sheriff’s Office and fire department to show. There was no one else around. Hondo made a quick pass through the house and the area before rejoining us, “Nobody. And it’s been sprayed down with bleach, so forensics isn’t going to get anything. Looks like several vehicles left out of here.”

  I asked Juan, “Do you know where they would go?”

  “No. I only saw theem here.” He looked at us and said, “I don’ want to be here when the policia come.”

  I gave him our card, with both Hondo’s and my cell numbers and said, “Call us if you turn up anything else on Bodhi. We’ll help you get the reward. Okay?”

  “Seguro, sure. I keep my eyes open.” He cut across the cleared area and into the brush to walk the mile to his pickup as we heard the sirens coming.

  Our friend, Sergeant Vick Best, led the convoy. He slid his sedan to a dusty stop in front of us and killed his blue lights. He glowered at us as he stepped out of the vehicle.

  I said, “Greetings Sergeant Best. Always a pleasure to see your smiling face.”

  “You two are like bad pennies that just keep popping up to cause me misery.”

  I said, “I thought you’d stay at the desk, doing important things like planning the annual Bobbing for French Fries contest.”

  “I’m here because of you two, and you know why, Ronny. As soon as the call mentioned the Rolls, The Sheriff yelled at me to get my butt out here because he said you were working for Sylvia Artell, and this had top priority.” He softened a moment, “I don’t blame you, Hondo, I know who the real troublemaker is.”

  “Hey,” I said. “My feelings are hurt.”

  “Just wait, they’re gonna get more hurt before long.”

  I nodded my head, “Uh huh, we know what this is all about, don’t we, Hondo?”

  My best friend since childhood didn’t say a thing, just let me hang there. I gave him my squinty-eyed mean look and said, “Like Hondo told me minutes ago, the packages of Julio’s chips should be in the office today.”

  Vick looked at Hondo, “That true?”

  Hondo said, “Our friend said she mailed them a few days ago, so they should be here today. She even sent you an extra bag, a big one.”

  “And the Julio’s salsa?”

  “Yes sir, an extra one of those, too.”

  Vick smiled, “She is a wonderful person, knows how to take care of her friends.”

  I said, “Just like us, huh?”

  We watched as the fire department finished extinguishing the fire and backed from the vehicle, their work done.

  Vick narrowed his eyes, “Some of you are on more thin ice than others. I haven’t forgotten you stole my donuts.”

  I raised my eyebrows, “Do you have evidence to those charges? No you don’t, so Ipso Facto, I’m innocent as the driven snow.”

  One of the Forensic Investigators approached Vick, “We have the fire extinguished and did a prelim on the body. It’s a woman.”

  My heart sank, and Hondo said softly, “Damn.”

  Vick put his hand on my shoulder, “There’s nothing you can do here. Go to your office and I’ll come by when they get the body out and can ID it. It’s all too hot right now.”

  As we drove to the office, Hondo said, “We might have gotten Bodhi killed.”

  “By them thinking we were cops? Maybe. But that’s crazy desperate, don’t you think? Especially now, with the hundred thousand dollar reward right there in front of them.”

  Hondo said, “I guess we’ll find out.” We parked in front of Archie’s gym and walked to our office. Archie had delivered the mail, as usual. The large cardboard box from Texas sat on my desk. It was open. A big, empty bag of chips lay on my notepad. Bits of broken chips lay scattered like tasty yellow shrapnel across the desk surface. Two empty jars of Julio’s salsa looked lonely amid the carnage. A tablespoon of salsa, shaped like a two-inch amoeba glistened in the center of my desk, so I knew the culprit had to be close.

  We heard the toilet flush and the door opened. Archie stepped out holding an almost empty bag of chips. “Hey, boys!”

  “You’re stealing our supplies?” I asked.

  “Nope,” He popped another chip in his mouth, “I’m eating a snack.”

  I said, “A snack? A giant bag of chips and two jars of salsa? You are an evil man.”

  Archie ate another chip, “Uh-huh.” He held out the bag to Hondo, who took several from it.

  “Et tu Brute?” I said.

  “Look at the name on the box,” Hondo said.

  I glanced at it, and then looked closer. It was from our friend, but to Archie.

  Archie said, “Feel like a little turd now?” He held the bag out to me. I took a handful of chips to ease my embarrassment. “Leave us some,” Arch said. “And Ronny, your box is in the storage room. Unopened.�
�

  “Thanks, Arch. I’m a little off right now.”

  Archie sensed it and said, “What?”

  “We found Sylvia’s Rolls. It was on fire, with a woman’s body inside. They haven’t identified her yet.”

  Archie paled and sat on my desk. “Oh no.” He put the chips down and rubbed his forehead with his fingers, “I’ve known Bodhi since she was born.”

  Hondo said, “When he gets the results, Sergeant Best is coming by to tell us.”

  “Do Sylvia or Derek know?”

  I said, “Not yet.”

  Archie said, “They’ll want to know.”

  Hondo said, “You don’t think it would be better to wait until we hear from the Sheriff’s Office?”

  “No. Don’t hold this back from them.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Will you wait here for the Sergeant?”

  “Vick and I go back a long way. Sure, I’ll wait for him.” He put another chip into his mouth and patted the box, “I’m good, long as it takes.”

  ~*~

  Wilson had the gate open before we reached the mansion grounds. He waited for us in the parking lot and walked beside us to the front door, saying, “ Derek Pozza’s here for the meeting, too. Sylvia called him.” He looked at us, “Think it would help if I sat in?”

  Hondo said, “It might.”

  “Bodhi’s not dead, is she?”

  “We don’t know, but Ronny will explain inside.”

  I said, “No need to tell it more than once.”

  Wilson said, “Roger that.”

  We entered the home and went to the same large room as before, where Sylvia sat on the couch with Derek. He held her hand in both of his. Franco and Troy sat in separate chairs. Franco glowered at us. Troy looked like a puppy that had been put outside and didn’t know what it had done wrong. He continually glanced at Derek holding his fiancé’s hand. Sylvia pointed at two chairs and said, “Please, sit down.” Her face was pale, but she had steel in her, too. This was no meek woman.

  Wilson moved to the wall, leaning his back against it as Hondo and I sat. I said, “Has the Sheriff’s Office called you?”