FOLLOW THE LEADER - Chapter 20

Chapter 20



When I first heard about the headless corpse I immediately flashed on the Death Valley Gang.  During their killing spree, there had been two beheaded bodies. Apart from the four women and one male whose throats were slashed. Everyone guessed there were others, since Death Valley is huge. Some in the media did not connect the two headless corpses with the others.  Then and later I thought the opposite.  Rangers and visitors to the park had found them at different campsites. Blatant. No attempt to hide the bodies. It seemed to me that the killers were aiming for shock value.

I thought two things were likely now:  For reasons unknown, the gang had started up again; secondly, they had moved to Northern California.

I called Colin and asked for the location of the murder site.

“The Feds are there,” he said. “You can’t get close.”

“Let me worry about that.”

After another back and forth he gave me the general location.

Before I went, I had to decide about Terry. If I had to do some snooping, I might be better off without him. Maybe Colin was right, though. I would be blocked from the get-go.  It wouldn’t matter if he came or not.

Meanwhile Terry had been sleeping on my couch. One night I heard him leave. Probably thinking I was sound asleep. The next morning I didn’t question him about it, and he never mentioned it.

What the hell did I care if he went out at nights? Colin had told me that he had some priors. Besides one arrest for driving without a license, it was mostly drug stuff.  Possession, Selling to a minor, which was dropped. However, there was one arrest for Breaking and Entering. That one got my attention. He spent some time at juvenile hall for that. There was little worth stealing in my “cottage” (to use Rollin’s word.) But what about a big house in Cow Hollow or Pacific Heights?  He could be planning a big job right now, for all I knew.

Still, I had to admit that his locksmith skills could be put to good use in my newly adopted line of work. But it would be tricky. The risk factor for both of us would be off the charts.

For now he had free room and board. I paid him a decent sum for his computer assistance.

“You never seem short of money,” he said one day. “How does that work?”

Shit.

“Don’t ask me where it came from,” I said. “Not if you want to stick around.”

But he asked anyway.  Maybe he knew I wasn’t going to kick him out—yet.

There was no escaping it. I finally had to tell him how I “inherited” my dead friend’s stash.

The short version.

“Sweet,” he said, when I was finished.

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “I can’t be caught with drug money. I can’t be caught possessing a firearm. Hell, I can’t be caught for any kind of crime, even a minor one. One fuck-up and I return to Folsom Prison.”

I spent the next hour telling him about prison. I got up and walked over to the window.

“What?”

 “Let’s take a drive,” I said.

“Where to?”

“Northwest of Santa Rosa.”

“No address?”

“That’s right,” I said.