"Mrs. Butterfield? This is Sheriff Conklyn at the substation. I need to talk to your husband," he said.
"Just a minute." Her voice sounded puzzled.
So far, so good. She didn't seem to know Conklyn personally. Chances were her husband didn't, either.
"This is Leo Butterfield. What is it, Sheriff?" a baritone voice said.
From his tone, Butterfield didn't seem to know Sheriff Conklyn. "Mr. Butterfield, sorry to bother you at home, but I'm trying to run a trace on a classic reproduction wooden Chris-Craft. You deal in that line of boats, I understand."
"That's right."
"I can't be too specific, but I'm looking for somebody who lives up here who may have bought one of those classic designs in, say, the last two or three years."
"We got a few of those boats on this lake. It's a rare item. They're beautiful, but not for everyone. I service most of them myself."
"Can you give me the owners' names from memory?"
"Think so… Let's see… Carl Nickerson bought one last June.
Shane made a writing sign in the air, and Alexa grabbed a pen.
"Carl Nickerson," Shane said. "Go on."
She jotted it down on the back of the phone book.
"Bert Perl has one"
"Bert Perl," Shane repeated, and she wrote it down.
"Logan Hunter," Leo said. "The movie producer."
"Logan Hunter," Shane said, and Alexa closed the book and looked up.
"Does he have a dock? Where's he keep it?" Shane asked.
"It's the old mansion on Eagle Point Drive on the Shelter Cove side. The one built by Clark Gable in the forties, looks like a Transylvanian castle."
Chapter 48
THEY PARKED off the road and got out of the car. The house was down by the water, two blocks away.
Shane and Alexa walked down Mallard Road to Eagle Point Drive, where they found the public dock that accessed Shelter Cove. They walked out on the wooden float and stood on the blue and white platform, looking back across the moonlit waters to the huge house that loomed majestically against the distant snowcapped mountains. Its slate roof was glistening in silver light, its four roof turrets, each crowned with metal spikes, punching holes in the cloudless sky. The twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion had been designed in the forties and resembled a medieval castle, complete with stone arches and dormer windows.
The lights were on downstairs, and from the distance, across the cove, they could see occasional movement inside. From time to time people passed in front of the first-floor leaded-glass windows. Parked on the grass, near the water, was the same Bell Jet Ranger that had brought Shane up to the lake after he'd been kidnapped in front of an entire movie company on Spring Street.
Tied to the dock was a classic reproduction wooden Chris-Craft.
"Sandy told me that Logan Hunter was a closet gay. This must be his getaway house. Good place for slam-dance weekends."
"Boy, do I hate this layout," she said, still studying the mansion carefully. "The house sits on high ground, acres of grass all around. Porches and too many windows… Tactically, we're fucked."
"Come on… don't be so negative. We lickety-split across the lawn, slip through an open window, find Chooch and Brian, make the rescue, bust ass, and we're gone zim, zam, zoom."
"Shane, we need backup."
"Who did you have in mind, the Power Rangers?"
"If Chooch Sandoval and Brian Kelly are being held here and we get them out, they make the kidnapping case for us, and we're halfway off the hook. If we get caught, we're dust anyway. I think we need to call in a Code Six Mary." She was referring to the LAPD radio designation for officer assistance required due to extreme militant activity. "We'd have to time it right, but once we know Chooch and Brian are there, let's just dime ourselves out, let Sheriff Conklyn sort the frogs from the princes."
"What if Chooch and Brian aren't here," he said, "and we don't get killed, but arrested? Then we're sitting in jail, trying to talk our way out of four killings in Florida."
"No plan is without some operational deficiencies."
He shot her a withering look.
"Okay, let's go in, scout it, then back out to a safe spot and do a nine-one-one," she said, revising her idea.
He thought about it for a long moment, then said, "I'd rather take it one step at a time and see what develops. But, either way, I think we should tee up the Code Six Mary before we call it in."
"Good idea… but how?"
"Gimme your phone."
She handed the cell phone to Shane. He got Information, then called the Arrowhead Sheriff's Department. After asking for Sheriff Conklyn, he was transferred, then got the tall, balding man on the phone. "Guess who?" Shane said.
"I don't have the faintest idea…"
"Turn on your TV. I'm starring in every newscast."
"Shit… Scully?"
"I'm looking for you to take me in, Sheriff. I want you to make the bust. You'll be famous. It's probably at least good for a shot or two on Oprah, but I have a few conditions…"
Conklyn paused, and then Shane heard a click, so he knew the rest of the conversation was being T and T'd taped and traced.
"Why me?" Conklyn asked.
"If you're tracing this call, it's just gonna come back to a cell station in Arrowhead. I'm up here now, but I'm not quite ready to turn myself in yet. I want you to make the arrest because I've got problems with some of my brother officers in L. A. and I don't want to stop a stray bullet by mistake."
"Not to mention all the dead bodies you left in Florida."
"There's a story that goes with that, Sheriff. Extenuating circumstances."
"If you're smart, Scully, you'll tell me where you are now. Otherwise, this will go down hard."
"I want you to call Bud Halley, my old CO in L. A. He's a good cop. Tell him what's going on. Tell him I need to see him and to get his ass up here."
"Where are you, Scully?"
"Stick by your phone. I'll let you know." Shane hung up and looked at Alexa.
"Pretty good," she said, nodding. "He'll have his flak vest buttoned and be ready to roll."
They moved off the dock and skirted the water's edge until they got to a wire fence that went ten feet out into the lake and separated the castle's property from its neighbors. Shane climbed out on the fence, U-turned around the end post, then came back toward shore, and dropped off onto the sand inside the grounds.
After a minute Alexa repeated the maneuver, landing on the sand beside him.
They crept away from the shoreline and ran up toward the house, both silently cursing the full moon as they sprinted under its silvery glow. They hurried across the vast expanse of lawn, then hugged the wall, moving around the castle house slowly. They could see a row of ground-level windows throwing streaks of light out across the dew-wet lawn. They moved in that direction. Once they got to the windows, Shane dropped to his stomach and looked through a narrow glass pane into what looked like a huge billiards room.
"Uh-uh," he whispered, rising again and moving on. Alexa followed quietly in his footsteps.
On the south end of the house, he found the ground-level window he was looking for. When Shane glanced inside, he saw that it opened into a basement laundry room. He took out the.38 S amp;W and tapped loudly on the window with the gun butt.
"Whatta you doing?" Alexa hissed. "Why don't we just ring the fucking doorbell?"
"If somebody's down here, I'd rather find out now. Better to be outside than trapped down there in the basement. I'm gonna break the glass. If we get a ringer, get small."
She nodded, then watched as he slammed the gun butt hard into the pane, breaking it. The sound of tinkling shards hitting the cement floor froze them. They lay prone on the grass for several long minutes, waiting.