I reached up to tap the observer officer on the shoulder and yelled, “What’s our ETA?”
He half-shrugged and loudly replied, “Twenty minutes or so.”
Ahead and in the distance was the grayish-brown bulk of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was just after 6:50 P.M. when the helicopter began to descend into a narrow valley hemmed with forested hills. Raising myself slightly so that I could look out the windshield, I saw the red-and-blue flashing lights of two police cars marking a high school football field as the LZ. We were on the ground less than a minute later. The Air Bureau cops wished Gregg and me good luck as we clambered from the aircraft.
A lanky and gray-haired Amador Country Sheriff’s captain met us as we hurried toward the patrol car. Shaking hands with us, he introduced himself as Mitchell Tewksbury and told us that he was in command of the hostage rescue operation. There wasn’t any fresh news. The SWAT team was in position, but they’d seen no activity around the cabin.
Once we were clear of the rotor blast, I realized how warm it was in Jackson. It had to be in the mid-eighties and I took my jacket off before getting into the patrol car. Gregg insisted I take the front passenger seat, which I appreciated. My left leg was stiff and achy from the cramped conditions in the helicopter.
Tewksbury slid behind the wheel of the cruiser and appeared to notice for the first time that I was carrying a teddy bear’s head in my hand. “What the devil is that?”
“Believe it or not, it’s a robot teddy bear’s head. Patrick was his name and he was a sweet little guy.” After a moment, I added, “And it’s also ironclad proof that the damn human race can turn anything into a motive for murder . . . including something as lovable as a teddy bear.”
Twenty-six
The other patrol car remained at the football field, awaiting the arrival of the second chopper. Meanwhile, we sped through Jackson with emergency lights and siren on, although that didn’t seem necessary. There weren’t many vehicles on the road in the small and charming Gold Rush town. Then we turned east onto State Route 88. Once we were clear of town and racing up into the piney hills, the sheriff’s captain switched off the overhead lights and siren.
Tewksbury glanced over his shoulder to tell Gregg, “Your department emailed us the photo of Lauren Vandenbosch. We’ve already had copies made and distributed to the SWAT team.”
“Excellent,” said Gregg. “And did they also pass along the clothing and physical description of the hostage?”
“Better than that. Your Detective Aafedt sent us her DMV photo, too,” said Tewksbury. “Now, it’s your homicide investigation, but my tactical operation. How do you want to work this?”
“Not that I’m trying to be pushy, but I’m the one you need to talk to,” I said. “After all, it’s my wife that’s been kidnapped.”
“You’re the victim’s husband?” Tewksbury asked incredulously. “Inspector Mauel led my watch commander to believe that you were his partner.”
“I used to be until I got shot and needed this,” I said, holding up my cane. “It’s true I’m not a cop anymore, Captain Tewksbury, but I
am
going into that cabin to rescue my wife.”
“Like hell.” Tewksbury’s jaw tightened. “We’ll do this operation by the book.”
“Nine times out of ten, I’d agree with you. But this time the book solution is the wrong one. For starters, Lauren Vandenbosch isn’t your typical brainless killer. She executed a man in cold blood and set up an innocent woman to take the fall. Meanwhile, she had us completely fooled into thinking she was being victimized by a thug whom she’d actually hired,” I said.
“So, how does that connect with the hostage rescue operation?”
“Once Lauren realizes her son isn’t coming back to that cabin, she’ll turn into a suicide-by-cop looking for a place to happen.”
Tewksbury squinted. “But her son is alive.”
“He is, but Lauren isn’t going to believe anything a hostage negotiator says. She’s going to assume we offed him. Then she’ll murder my wife and come out guns blazing so that you guys can finish her off.”
There were several seconds of silence and I could tell that Tewksbury was processing this new information. At last, he said, “Let me make this clear in advance that I’m not agreeing to anything . . . but, what exactly are you proposing?”
I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I think there’s a chance that if I walk in there unarmed and basically offering up my life, she might believe me when I tell her what happened to Kyle.”
“And then?”
“I’ll give her the chance to surrender and go to the hospital to be with her son before she’s booked into county jail.” I glanced back at Gregg. “Do you see any problems with that?”
“None,” said my old partner.
Tewksbury said, “But why do you think she’ll listen to you?”
“Because I’m going to make Lauren understand that if she surrenders, she stands a fighting chance of walking for the murder,” I said, “by providing her with a version of events like what her defense attorney will present in trial: She’s a sweet middle-aged woman, who’s made teddy bears for over twenty years. A jury is going to want to believe—”
“That she was led astray by her greedy son, who designs violent computer games,” Gregg cut in.
“Precisely.”
“It might work,” Gregg mused. “She
has
had Kyle doing all the dangerous stuff. Call me a cynic, but Lauren might elect to throw Kyle under the bus and then feel good about herself because she comes to visit him in prison.”
“But what if she doesn’t take the deal and then goes sideways?” asked Tewksbury.
“Then I’ll make sure I’m the first and only person she shoots. Your SWAT team will make dynamic entry and smoke her.”
“Look . . .” Tewksbury began.
“Before you tell me no, what would you be doing if it was your wife in there?”
The sheriff’s captain sighed. “The same damn thing. You gonna want a ballistic vest?”
“No. I’ve got to go in there looking completely defense-less.”
“Do you think you can keep her diverted while we move the entry team as close as possible to the front door?”
“Count on it. I’ll sing all three verses of the Monty Python ‘Lumberjack Song’ if that will keep her attention, but I want your promise that you won’t delay making entry—not even for a second—if she begins shooting,” I said.
“You have my word,” said Tewksbury.
“And Gregg, if this goes south, I’m depending on you to explain what happened, to Ash and my kids.”
“You have
my
word,” said Gregg.
We rolled through Pine Grove, which was the proverbial wide spot in the road. A few moments later, we turned left onto Pine Grove-Volcano Road—the roads don’t have real imaginative names up in the Gold Country. It was a narrow two-lane highway that ran upward through the increasingly steep pine-covered hills. When we reached the top of the ridge, I understood how Volcano had gotten its name. The town lay nestled at the bottom of a bowl-shaped valley that looked a great deal like a volcanic cone. Back during the Gold Rush, thousands of people had lived in Volcano, but the highway sign said the population was now ninety-seven.
We drove down into the valley, through the picturesque old mining hamlet, and then turned onto Rams Horn Road, which began to take us back up the other side of the basin. Once we reached the top, Tewksbury made a right turn onto a dirt driveway. Another quarter mile brought us to an angular contemporary house with huge plate windows and surrounded by pines. The gravel driveway was full of sheriff department SUVs, CHP cruisers, and a Department of Forestry paramedic van. Obviously, this was the incident command post.
Parking the car, Tewksbury said, “Wait here for a minute, while I tell the SWAT team what’s going to happen.”
“Where is Lauren’s cabin?” I asked.
“On the other side of the ridge.” The sheriff’s captain pointed to the hillside behind the house. “We’re going to go back to Rams Horn Road and I’ll drop you off at the end of her driveway.”
“How long a walk to the house are we talking about?”
“Not bad. Maybe a hundred yards.”
“Well, hurry up and make your arrangements, before I decide I’ve lost my nerve.”
Tewksbury gave me a wry smile. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s real likely. I’ll be back soon.”
“Soon” turned into ten minutes, but I’d expected that. I suspected that Tewksbury was arguing with the SWAT team commander, who probably thought the plan was insane. To be fair, the plan
was
crazy, but sometimes that’s what the situation demands. In any event, there was nothing I could do to influence that debate; I could only hope that Tewksbury didn’t change his mind.
Gregg said through the metal mesh screen, “Ash is going to be there and everything is going to work out all right.”
“Yeah, but just in case . . .” I got out of the cruiser and dug my wallet-cum-badge-case from the back pocket of my slacks. Opening the back door, I handed the billfold to Gregg. “My old inspector’s badge is in there. Tell Heather that I want her to carry it when she finally gets promoted to the homicide bureau.”
“I’ll see to it.”
“And if I do come back, I’d better not find any charges on my credit card to some Internet porn website.”
Gregg chuckled. “God, I miss working with you.”
Finally, the sheriff’s captain returned to the patrol car and got in. Firing up the cruiser’s engine, Tewksbury said to me, “Everybody in the command post admires the size of your
cojones,
but they also think you’re nuts.”
“That’s pretty much our assessment of him at SFPD, too,” said Gregg.
“Are you sure you don’t want a hideout gun?” Tewksbury asked. “I’ve got a little five-shot Chief’s special . . .”
“I’d love one, but no. If Lauren finds that I’m armed, she won’t listen to anything I have to say.”
We went back to Rams Horn Road, turned left, and Tewksbury drove about a half mile down the hill before pulling over next to a rutted one-lane dirt road with such a dense canopy of pine boughs overhead that it looked like a tunnel. I got out of the car and shook hands with Gregg. Then, carrying the robot’s head in one hand and my cane in the other, I began walking down the driveway.
It was cool and shady on the road and the air was redolent with the aroma of pine. As I limped down the road, I tried to decide just how I was going to initiate the conversation with Lauren. Then I tried to figure out what I’d do if it turned out that Ash was not inside the cabin.
Die, probably,
I thought.
I rounded a slight curve and there was Lauren’s house. It was one of those tall, redwood A-frame cabins so popular in the 1960s. However, it also looked as if that was the last time anyone had performed any serious maintenance work on the home and property. The redwood boards were in dire need of refinishing, one of the porch rail beams was missing, and the yard was overgrown with tall weeds.
There was a light on inside the cabin. Lauren had parked the Subaru so that the station wagon’s back hatch was almost flush against the topmost of the three wooden porch steps leading up to the front door, which told me that Ash must’ve still been unconscious when Lauren arrived in Volcano, and that she’d dragged my wife from the car to the cabin. Envisioning that scene, my hand tightened involuntarily around my cane and I roughly commanded myself to stay calm.
I reached out to touch the hood of the Outback. The metal was cool, which meant the vehicle had been parked here for hours. Then I began to mount the wooden stairs, knowing that the sound had to be audible inside the house.
“Kyle, is that you?” Lauren nervously called from the other side of the decrepit front door.
“No, Lauren. It’s Brad Lyon. I’ve come to get my wife.”
“If you take one step closer to the door, I’ll kill her right now.” I heard a round being chambered into a shotgun. Lauren wasn’t bluffing.
I froze in place, while experiencing dual surges of joy and terror. My wife was inside the cabin and alive, but if I made even a tiny error in judgment, Ash would die.
“Lauren, it’s all over, and Kyle needs you very badly,” I said in a weary and regretful voice.
“I want my son released from jail and brought here, right now!”
“Your son isn’t in jail. We can’t bring him here. He’s in the hospital in pretty bad shape.”
There was a tiny pause as Lauren digested the news. Then she shrieked, “The police shot him! You shot him!”
“No, Rhiannon found him and hit him with her car. I was there. I saw it. She ran him down like a dog,” I said, hoping to subtly channel some of Lauren’s rage toward the woman she already loathed.
“Don’t lie to me. I’m not stupid!”
“That’s the last word I’d use to describe you. In fact, you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. And if I was lying, do you think I’d have come up to the front door like this?”
“Where did Kyle supposedly get run down?” Lauren’s voice was no longer just angry. She was frightened for her son.
“At Monster Stadium, right after I’d given Patrick to him.” The answer was like a docudrama movie: mostly imaginary, but based on real events. I added, “The robot was destroyed, too.”
“Even if that’s all true, you’ve got the police out there!” she snarled.
“Of course, the police are here. In fact, the only reason the SWAT team hasn’t already filled your house with tear gas and come inside to play submachine-gun hide-and-seek is because I convinced them that you
aren’t
a merciless killer.” I paused for a second before continuing with my fantasy interpretation of the events, “You’re just a very loving mom who was trying to help her son and things got out of control.”
“Oh yeah, as if you believe that. I’m supposed to accept that you
really
understand, and have forgiven me? You must think I’m an idiot.”
Realizing that Lauren’s emotions weren’t going to be manipulated as easily as I’d hoped, I switched tactics. “Hell, no, I haven’t forgiven you. If I had the chance, I’d kill you like a cockroach. However, we’ve both got something the other wants.”
“What’s that?”
“Let me in and we’ll talk. The longer I stand out here, the more likely it is the SWAT commander will decide I’m not getting anywhere and order an assault,” I lied.