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GUT SHOT – Episode 18

Gut Shot Episode 18

© copyright Russell Atkinson 2015

When I got to the group of people I realized they were filming something. From the layout and protective structures I finally realized this was the county bomb range. All our bomb techs had access here for training and experiments, but I never had been on it. No one paid me much mind. I walked up to a youngish Tinkerbell of a woman who was holding a clipboard and running her finger down a sheet of paper.

“Excuse me,” I said, “what’s going on?”

She looked at me in surprise and replied, “We have permission. MythBusters. We’ve been here all week.” She looked cowed and I realized that because of my suit she had taken me for an official of some sort.

I sensed an opportunity. “No problem. I’m not here from the county. I’m investigating the shooting of the FBI agent that happened last Tuesday. I was hoping someone here might have seen or heard something.”

As I expected, she now assumed I was an FBI agent. Who else would be on a controlled law enforcement site on a Saturday in a suit, right? “Oh, I heard about that. I was here but I didn’t see anything. None of us here even knew it had happened until we were leaving and saw the ambulance and all the commotion. You should talk to Ron.” She pointed to a balding fellow with a slight Australian accent who was talking to a colleague nearby.

I thanked her and moved over behind Ron. I knew I didn’t have much time and wanted to get to the big fish before I got kicked out. I tapped him on the shoulder, interrupting him.

“Hey, I’m talkin’ here, mate,” he declared in an irritated voice as he turned toward me. Seeing me in my suit had the same effect on him as it had on the woman. “Is there a problem?” he said in a softer voice.

“I’m investigating the shooting of the FBI agent that occurred earlier in the week,” I announced in my most official-sounding voice. “I’ll need a list of all the employees or others who were present here on Tuesday and their contact information.”

“We all heard about that but none of us saw anythin’. It must be three hundred yards. We were all working here.”

“We’ll have to determine that for ourselves. I need the list. It’s not a negotiation, it’s a murder investigation. Don’t make me subpoena you.”

“All right. We want to cooperate, officer. See Michael. He’ll get it for you. Now can we get back to work? We only have so much daylight for filming.” He waggled a finger at the man who must have been Michael, who headed over.

“Do you still have the film or video from that day?” I demanded.

“Christ almighty! That’s all at the studio. I don’t have that here. We haven’t edited the final episode yet. That’s all goin’ in the dustbin. We were just doin’ tests, checkin’ for lightin’, camera placement, and tryin’ to get the experiment to work. We couldn’t do the final test filmin’ till today because of all the gunshots goin’ on by you guys. We’re supposed to have this place to ourselves today.”

“Don’t toss any video or film from that day until the court says it’s okay. That’s all evidence. You are on notice that destroying it will constitute obstruction of justice.”

He looked steamed and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Finally he just nodded and told me to talk to Michael.

I took Michael by the arm and walked him away from Ron. When I got him alone he asked, “Why didn’t you come and ask us for this stuff on Tuesday when it happened?”

That was bonus info for me. I’d wanted to ask Ron if the FBI had already questioned him or asked for the footage, but I felt he would realize that if I was FBI I would already know that. Now I knew the FBI hadn’t thought to come over to the bomb range. Now we had something that the prosecution didn’t.

“Good point. Sometimes the on-scene investigators don’t always realize all the resources that might be available. It took some research to realize you were here filming. What were you filming, by the way?”

“We’re recreating a scene from a TV show where a car, one with reinforced armor under it, drives over a bomb buried in the dirt and the bomb explodes just behind the rear axle. The car flips end over end and lands on its wheels and keeps going. We’re trying to determine if that’s possible with real explosives and a real car or whether that was all done with computer animation.”

“Sounds like fun,” I said enthusiastically, trying to suck up a bit to Michael. I know a lot of guys think it’s really cool to blow stuff up, but personally I never saw the appeal. Noise, dirt, and a zillion ways for somebody to get hurt. Maybe I’m testosterone-deficient, although Ellen never seemed to think so.

“Can you believe they actually pay us to do this,” he replied, obviously totally into it.

“Okay, so do you have that contact list?” I asked.

He reached into a satchel he had and pulled out a laptop. After a few seconds he found a spreadsheet with what looked like names and time, probably some sort of payroll document. It also had employee numbers and personal telephone numbers. He showed it to me and asked it this would do. I told him it would do fine. “Give me your email and I’ll send you a copy,” he said.

At that moment I saw the sheriff’s car heading over to this site. It was time to wrap this up. I didn’t want to give my personal or business email addresses to this guy since they didn’t have a dot gov domain. He’d realize I was a phony. I whipped out my phone and snapped a quick picture of the screen. I checked it to make sure it was readable and then asked if that was everyone. He scrolled down a half a page and held the screen out to me again. I snapped another shot, checked it, and put my phone away.

“Okay, that’ll do for now. You’ll be getting an official document request when we figure out everything we need. Just preserve everything from that day.” I turned to leave.

The sheriff’s car was only ten seconds away, so I figured the best course was to meet it halfway, out of earshot of the film crew. I started jogging over toward the deputy, hoping it wouldn’t look too suspicious to the crew behind me. Maybe they’d think that was my driver. When I got to the car, the deputy, a florid-faced older man, stopped the car and got out with an angry look.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I saw the film crew and got curious. They’re filming MythBusters, you know? Wow, that’s so cool. It’s my favorite show. I had to see it for myself. Sorry if I overstayed a bit.”

“You were supposed to be out in five minutes. It’s been almost twenty.”

“Sorry,” I said in as sheepish a voice as I could muster. “I’m leaving now.” I pointed in the direction of my car, which was obscured from view from this angle by the line of small trees at the edge of the lot, hoping he’d say okay, get out of here. Instead he told me to get in the back seat. I knew better than to argue or try to leave, so I smiled and thanked him and got in. If anyone from the film crew was watching, they probably would think he was my driver.

I sat there in the back, behind the wire mesh and tested the door handle. It was locked. He was transporting me like a prisoner. For several very uncomfortable seconds I wasn’t sure if he was arresting me, but he would have frisked me if he were. He drove me back over to the parking lot where my car was and opened the rear door and ordered me out. I obeyed and thanked him again for the ride. He didn’t look receptive to the gesture. I got in my SUV as the deputy watched. Ellen was already sitting in the front again, silent. Tommy was quiet in the back. I started the engine and backed out. I drove out with the deputy right on my tail until I was back out on the public street.

As soon as we were free from the tailgating Gestapo, Ellen muttered, “You. Will. Never. Ever. Use my creds or other Bureau property. Say it.”

“I’m sorry. It was wrong, I know. I only …”

“Say it!,” she shouted. “You will never …”

“Okay, Okay, I got it. I will never use your credentials again. I promise.”

“Or other Bureau property. Say it.” She was really shouting now. Tommy began to cry.”

“Okay, okay. Or other Bureau property. Never again. I swear.”

“Cliff, what were you thinking?” she went on. “You could have gotten me fired.”

“No, no. Not true. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t give me permission. It was all me.”

“You know it’s a felony to impersonate an FBI agent. Or have you forgotten everything you learned in twenty-five years in the FBI?”

“I didn’t impersonate an FBI agent. I never said I was an FBI agent or employee. I just said I’d left my ear protectors on the range. That was a lie, but not impersonation of an officer.”

“Holding my creds out was.”

“I beg to differ. I was holding out creds to show that there was an FBI agent in the car, someone authorized to go in.”

“Don’t be a damn lawyer with me.”

Ooh, she just swore. Now I knew I was really in deep. “Okay, you’re right, I was trying to give that impression, and that’s wrong. I apologize. I’ll say ‘I’m sorry’ as many times as you like. But it was to save a fellow FBI agent, a friend of yours and mine from a possible wrongful conviction, maybe even the needle.”

“What were you doing over on the bomb range?”

This was good. She’d changed the subject. “They were filming an episode of MythBusters. They were blowing up cars. I thought maybe someone saw something or filmed something relevant. They were there on the day of the shooting.”

“Did you tell them you were an FBI agent?”

Oops. Back on that topic. “I did not. I swear. I just said I was investigating the shooting of the FBI agent earlier in the week. That’s the truth. If they thought I was an FBI agent because I was wearing a suit, that’s on them. I never said that and never showed the creds or badge because I didn’t have them.”

She sat in stony silence while we waited at a long stoplight. Finally I ventured a question to her. “What did you tell the deputy when he came to the car?”

“He came up to car while I was nursing Tommy in the back seat. He was obviously embarrassed. He asked me where the agent was and I showed him my creds. He apologized and said he didn’t realize we were both agents. I didn’t correct him. When he asked me where you went, I told him you were out gallivanting around somewhere and that you were in big trouble with me. I told him that when he found you, to tell you that you were going to get a tongue lashing from me.”

I thought about making a risqué joke at that last remark, but decided this wasn’t the time. “That’s good. Thank you for not telling him I wasn’t an agent. He probably figured he didn’t need to give me a ticket or anything. My punishment would be bad enough.”

The light changed and we proceeded on to the shopping center where all the restaurants were. I thought about going to the sandwich shop there, but made a strategic decision to go to the expensive Italian place instead. Ellen loved Italian food. In fact, since the baby was born, she loved all food and in massive quantities. As I pulled up and parked, she asked in a sarcastic tone, “So did you crack the case?”

“I got the layout, took a bunch of photos, and got a list of names and numbers of the film crew. You never know what’s going to be helpful.”

“Big whoop,” was her only response.

I could see it wasn’t going to be easy getting forgiveness. We went into the restaurant and were seated quickly. Ellen had Tommy in the Snugli, and the restaurant had no problem with that. As soon as we were seated she started munching on the breadsticks. Tommy started fussing, but he didn’t have enough volume yet to really bother other diners. Ellen announced that it was time for a diaper change and lifted Tommy out to me. I wasn’t about to shirk that duty, although I wasn’t sure there would be a changing table in the men’s room. I picked up the diaper bag and took baby and bag to the rear of the restaurant. As I left the table I told Ellen to order me the lasagna and a Caesar salad if the waiter came.

As it turned out, there was a changing table in the men’s room. This is California, after all. Men and women are equal and all that. I managed the diaper change and washed up. By the time I was back to the table the waiter was there taking Ellen’s order. I heard her say, ‘and the lasagna for my husband’ as I approached. I saw that he had also brought water and a basket of sourdough, which Ellen was already buttering.

“And a Caesar salad,” I added as I handed the baby back to Ellen. The waiter asked what we wanted to drink and Ellen asked for a large glass of milk. When I said I’d have the same, Ellen told the waiter to change mine to a glass of Chianti. He looked at me and I just nodded my assent. If she’d ordered a glass of hemlock for me I’d have agreed at that point.

We sat in silence for a long time while Ellen scarfed down three pieces of the bread, heavily buttered. When I asked her to tell me about the geocache with the good camouflage, she brightened. I think the food was helping her mood. She began to describe all five caches and what was good and bad about each of them. I listened carefully and asked a lot of questions. I enjoy geocaching, too, but I had more interest in keeping her engaged and feeling that I cared about her happiness than about the caches.

The food and drinks came. She dug into her salad like a ravenous beast while I ate mine at a leisurely pace. She stole all the croutons off my salad. The glass of Chianti was also there and she took it in hand for a couple of sips. I realized she hadn’t ordered it to please me. She’d wanted those sips, but couldn’t have a full glass and that was her solution. Fine by me. The rest of the meal went by fine and soon we were on the road home again.

When I got home I uploaded all the photos to my computer and emailed them to Bert. I printed out the two of the film crew spreadsheet, then ran that printout through my scanner. The optical character recognition software got the text about ninety-five percent right. I edited in the corrections, which was a heck of a lot easier than transcribing all those names and numbers by hand.

The rest of the day I babysat while Ellen went out. I put aside all thought of the case and just enjoyed myself. We had leftover blah casserole for dinner, but so what. The Italian food for lunch had been plentiful and delicious.

Congressman Brad Sherman behaves like a boor

Reposted from a facebook post by a friend:

Rant of the weekend. On this edition we’ll not address “professional” behavior at lounges, but on aircrafts.

Last night I had the pleasure of sitting across this gentleman. (I will not even discuss his demeanor towards the flight attendants). As a productive man, he spent half the flight going through his 3-ring binder and highlighting important parts. Those pages that were not that important, he just ripped and threw on the floor/aisle. I had plans to take a photo of the aftermath of his seat once he deplaned. However, he deplaned and forgot his large briefcase on the floor (karma). Between that and the blanket that he also threw on the ground, it covered most of the carnage he left behind.

Of course you are expecting this to be an uneducated person flying for the first time. Nope. This person has a UCLA undergrad (sorry Bruins!) and a Harvard law degree. His name is Bradley Sherman..as in “Honorable” Brad Sherman, US Representative for California’s 30th District.

I’m still in shock by his disrespect to those around him..and specially for the cleaning crew coming after our flight. It’s common to see trash that has fallen unnoticed to the floor after a long flight. But this intentional behavior is reprehensible from any civilized human being – specially from one of our elected officials.

On a side note, I watched the look of disbelief on the old Scottish couple sitting next to me. I’m just glad they didn’t know that this rude man was a Representative of the USA. Because as an American, I was embarrassed.

Armada by Ernest Cline

Armada by Ernest Cline

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Most of the reviews on Amazon marked as most useful are in the 2 and 3 star range. There’s a reason for that. This book is just okay, but more than that, it is a huge disappointment to fans of Ready Player One, which I gave five stars.

If RPO was a lovefest for vintage video games, Armada is an orgy. It’s really more of a storyboard for a huge pure CGI movie than a novel. Eventually a plot of sorts oozes out, but it barely makes comic book grade. The characters could be right from Archie and Veronica except with F- and S-bombs every other sentence.

The plot can be summarized as: aliens invade earth and the main character, a dweebish first person shooter expert, is inducted into the heretofore secret Earth Defense Alliance to shoot down their spacecraft. Along the way he meets a hot, counterculture girl gamer. Battles ensue accompanied by a bunch of mixed tapes of noxious bands that came after my time. The author makes shameless and rather offensive use of the names of many famous scientists such as Carl Sagan. Still, the author writes reasonably well and the action moves along smartly.

View all my reviews

Sneaky People by Thomas Berger

Sneaky People by Thomas Berger

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

What a disappointment. I can’t say I hated it, but I certainly wouldn’t have finished it had it not been chosen for a mystery book group I intended to join. It’s so crude as to qualify as soft-core porn. I realize it’s intended as satire but it just plain fails at that. I haven’t been to this discussion group before but I’ll be very interested to see how this book got chosen. If future books are like this one, I won’t be staying. I don’t think of myself as easily offended, but this book managed to offend me pretty much all the way through.

The book is set in the 1930s somewhere in Bigotsville, USA. Racist terms abound along with the F-bombs and graphic descriptions of the crudest teenage boy sex fantasies. The characters are all cartoons and repulsive ones at that, except for a few pitiable ones. There were a couple of amusing scenes near the end, but that’s as close to a plot as I was able to find. There is no mystery, no murder, no action scene, no detective, and no ending to peak of. I turned the last page expecting to find that the last few pages must have been ripped out since the story just came to an abrupt halt. I suppose Berger just ran out of metaphors and slang terms for erections and gave up.

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GUT SHOT – Episode 17

Gut Shot – Episode 17

© Russell Atkinson 2015

I finally got the story of the shooting straight from the horse’s mouth, but I could see some major holes in it. I didn’t like it, but had to start forcing a number of issues. I decided to start soft and work up to the biggies.

“Woody, there have been things I’ve heard on the news or through the rumor mill that I need you to answer. Don’t take these questions personally, please. Just answer them. I’m on your side and everything is attorney-client privileged.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know how it goes. I’m just so glad it’s you. No one else will believe me. Ask whatever you have to.”

I didn’t like this response because he was already assuming I was going to believe him. I hoped I could, but that’s as far as it went.

“Okay. There are reports that you said ‘Die, cocksucker,’ to Jermaine, not ‘Take that, sucker.’ Do you know for sure what you said?”

“Uh, huh, well, I’m pretty sure it was what I told you, ‘Take that,’ but maybe I said ‘Die.’ It’s hard to remember now.”

“And the rest? Did you call him a cocksucker?”

“Cliff, you know me. I don’t use that kind of language. But, you know, we were all yelling and shouting. Bad language was getting all over. I was trying to sound like a lowlife, this murderer Jones, so maybe I didn’t use my usual kind of language.”

“Does that mean maybe you did call him a cocksucker?”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t think so. Who’re you gonna believe? Them or …”

“Stop it, Woody. Just answer the questions and quit equivocating. There were others there who are going to be testifying, FBI agents. We’re running out of time.”

“Yeah, yeah, OK, I’m sorry. I just don’t know for sure. Maybe I did. What else?”

“You heard the AUSA in court talking about your girlfriend. That’s Connie, I take it?”

“Right. Connie and I are solid. I don’t know where the AUSA got that stuff about her dumping me for Jermaine. I didn’t even know she even knew him. Ask her yourself.”

“I will. So there was no jealousy or personal issue between you and Jermaine?”

“No way. I just told you. He was just another bro, y’know? Nothing to do with Connie.”

The guard rapped on the window at this point and held up one hand with his fingers spread out to indicate I had five more minutes. The guard had been watching the whole interview through the window, but I knew they didn’t listen in on privileged conversations.

“Okay. So tell me more about the gun you shot him with. What was the make and model?”

“It was a five-shot revolver, that much I know. It looked like one of my guns, a  Smith & Wesson 442, but I couldn’t swear it was the same model. I didn’t have time to take a close look. I just reached in the bag and pulled it out as I ran back over near the door. I was watching for someone coming up behind me. I don’t think I ever really looked at the gun until I dropped it.”

“You couldn’t tell from the weight that it was loaded?”

“No, I couldn’t. You know how it is in those scenarios, the adrenaline pumping and all the yelling. I was used to holding my Sig with a full sixteen-round magazine. This was much lighter than that, so it didn’t seem heavy.”

The guard, a Samoan or other Pacific islander from the look of him, knocked on the window again and held up one finger. I nodded.

“Okay, then, answer me this. I heard that it was your backup gun. Explain how that could be.”

“What?!! No way! It looked like my backup, but that was locked in the trunk of my car. Are you shittin’ me? It can’t be my gun, Cliff. Have them check the serial number.” His face was ashen. I never thought a black man could look so pale. Perspiration began pouring from his forehead. If he wasn’t genuinely surprised, he was a very good actor.

“Did you have it in a SWAT bag?”

“Well, yeah, but …” At that moment the guard opened the door and stepped in.

“Could someone else have entered your car? Maybe you loaned someone the keys?”

“Time’s up,” the guard said sternly. “Move it. We need the room.”

I stood. As I turned to leave, Woody called back to me, “No, no one. I still had the keys on me when I got to Oakland. I had to empty my pockets. The gun wasn’t mine, Cliff.”

 

I was escorted to the inner lobby where I picked up my cell phone from the guards and stepped out to the outer lobby. I looked out the windows but didn’t see the SUV, so I decided I had time to call Bert. I couldn’t do it while other people were coming and going so I went outside and walked to the shady side of the building. I called Bert’s home number, which he had given me specifically so I could give him a rundown of the interview. He answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Bert, it’s me. I have good news and bad news.”

“Cliff. You got in okay?”

“Yeah, no problem, but I only had a little over half an hour.”

“It’ll go faster next time now that you’re registered there. So what do you think? Give me the bad news first.”

“The bad news is he didn’t have a good explanation for the gun being his, assuming it is.”

Bert digested this for a minute. Then, “Okay, so what’s the good news?”

“If he’s telling the truth, then it should be easy to prove. He says his girlfriend Connie is in his corner and he seemed genuinely shocked when I told him I’d heard the murd… uh, gun, was his. He said it was one similar to his, but it’s hard to believe he would fail to recognize his own gun and the SWAT bag it was stored in. All agents have to register all their personally owned guns with the Bureau, at least if they’re going to carry them, and have them checked by an FBI gunsmith. They have to qualify on the range with them, too, even the little backup guns like this one. It should be a simple matter to check the serial number of the gun that killed Jermaine. I believe you’ll find it doesn’t come back to Woody after all.”

“That doesn’t prove him innocent.”

“True, but it makes it a lot easier to believe his version.”

“Okay, what else?”

“I got the names of all the personnel in the deadly scenario. If Woody’s telling the truth, one of them, or all of them, will have seen that bag or know who put it there and why.”

“Can you start the interviews tomorrow? Or even today?”

“Do you have the 302s yet?”

“No. Monday if I’m lucky.”

“I don’t want to interview any of them until I know what their official story is. How about a property list, the stuff that was taken from Woody?”

“Not yet. I did get an email. Sheila said there are too many digital photos and the files are too large to send them as email attachments. She doesn’t trust email anyway. She said she’ll provide a thumb drive with the first batch of those on Monday. I’ll want you to look at them as soon as you can.”

“Fine. I’ve freed up Monday afternoon. I have to do some work for another client in the morning.”

“Cliff, we have a lot of work to do. We haven’t waived time. He’s an agent in prison. It’s not fair to make him sit there for months. Isn’t there something you can do today or tomorrow? How about examining the crime scene? You’re right there.”

So Bert was doing it, too, calling it a crime scene. At least he hasn’t called it a murder yet. “Bert, that’s controlled space. They won’t let me in without some kind of authorization. They have a deputy at the entrance booth to the property. I’m not an agent any more. I’ll need a court order or something.”

“Christ, Cliff, I can’t keep going back to the well for every little thing. Every time I get the judge to grant me something, that gives Sheila a chance to argue she should get a ruling going her way out of fairness. You know how the system works. Can you use your retired FBI ID to get in … or your charm?”

I scoffed. “I’ve been called a lot of things in my day, Bert, but charming isn’t one of them. Besides, I have a new baby and I promised my wife I’d give her a break this weekend.”

No sooner had I said that than Ellen pulled into the lot. An idea struck me. “Look, I gotta go. Maybe I can get something done. I’ll see you on Monday.” I hung up before he could wheedle any more.

I walked over to the car as Ellen was climbing out of the driver’s seat. Even from this distance I could see from her body language that she was in a good mood. She climbed into the passenger seat before I reached the car. As soon as I got in she leaned over and kissed my cheek. The engine was still running so I buckled up and put it in gear. Tommy was in his car seat in the back, sleeping. I knew that a lot of babies fall asleep easily in the car. He was one of them.

“How’d the geocaching go?” I asked.

“Good,” she gushed, obviously excited. “I found all five. There was this one with incredible camo. You should have seen it. It took me twenty minutes and it was right there. I had it in my hand at least twice before I realized what it was.”

“That’s great, honey. I’m glad you had fun.”

“Thanks for suggesting this. Tommy was no problem in the Snugli. He cried once and I just opened the snap and nursed him.”

I smiled at her as I pulled out of the lot. Happy wife, happy life. I drove back to the freeway and went east one exit where I got off again. There was a large shopping center to the south with several restaurants in it. Ellen no doubt thought I was going there, but I turned left onto Santa Rita Road instead.

“Where are you going?”

“It’ll only take a few minutes, then we’ll go to lunch. I just want to check something out. It’s only eleven thirty. We have lots of time.”

She looked at me quizzically, but said nothing. She was happy enough to be driving around rather than cooped up at home. Tommy was still sleeping. I continued up until I got close to the entrance to the range. Ellen was squirming a bit and had a concerned look on her face. “Cliff,” she hissed, “you aren’t going to … ”

But before she could finish, I had already turned into the entrance and pulled up to the booth where the deputy guarded the compound. The booth is elevated so the deputy can look down at drivers coming in, see their hands, and so forth. I rolled down my window and pulled as close as I could to the booth. I’d already grabbed Ellen’s FBI credentials from the top of the center console. She had a habit of leaving them there with the badge showing, face up, in case she got pulled over by a cop during a surveillance, or, like today, otherwise. I held the credential case up to the guard with the badge showing and told him I’d left my personally owned ear protectors there on the range. He asked me to open the cred case so he could see the credentials. I hadn’t expected that. I opened it up but put my thumb over Ellen’s picture. He couldn’t read the name from that distance but the “FBI” in big blue letters and the DOJ seal were easily recognizable.

This was a critical moment. Ellen was seething, I could tell. She hadn’t given me permission to use her creds. I hadn’t asked because I knew she’d say no. She had her left hand on my right thigh and was digging her nails deep into the flesh. It hurt like hell. The deputy looked over at her, but said nothing to her and she didn’t rat me out when he made eye contact. He seemed to buy my story, assuming I was the agent and this was my wife. From his angle he couldn’t see the baby seat in the right rear.

“Okay, but be back out in five minutes. The range isn’t open today.”

“Will do, unless I have trouble finding them. Ten at the most.”

He frowned but nodded and opened the gate for me. I drove on in, made a right on the stretch of pavement that leads to the parking lots and continued on in to where I used to park when I did my firearms qualifying. By this time Ellen had snatched her creds from me and was berating me with a ferocity I hadn’t heard in a long time. Any hope I’d been harboring of resuming our sex life any time soon went out the window. I apologized profusely and put the blame entirely on Bert Breen’s insistence I check out the shooting scene, but it didn’t do much to mollify her.

As I pulled into the lot I immediately noticed that it had changed since I was last here as an agent. The small lot faced north, that is, when you pulled in on the east end you’d make a right and pull up to one of the logs that served as a tire stop so your car was facing north. The gun range was directly ahead of you at that point, to the north, but there was a line of scraggly trees separating the lot from the range, intended as a windbreak, I suppose. Just beyond the trees were several covered tables where agents picked up ammunition and cleaned their guns. Beyond that was the range. The trees had been planted back when I was an agent, at least eight years earlier and the saplings had been nothing but sticks then, but they’d grown and fleshed out quite a bit since then. They now largely obscured the range from the parking lot and vice versa. I pulled out my smart phone and stepped out of the car, taking photos of everything. Ellen climbed into the back seat and took Tommy out of his baby seat to hold him since he’d begun to fuss. I tried to ignore her scowls.

Ahead and to the left was the target shack, a large shed where they stored the paper targets and their wooden frames. When I’d first been an agent targets were pasted onto the frames using a mop, a bucket, and some kind of flour and water paste. After you shot up a target with one course you’d go forward on the whistle, score your target, paste over the holes with little black Post-it type papers and repeat the process a few more times. By the time I’d retired, the wet paste had gone by the wayside and new targets had their own self-adhesive backing. Otherwise the process was the same.

The shed was padlocked and there was no sign of anyone around. To the right was the classroom, where the agents would sit and listen to lectures about gun safety, recent shooting incidents, defensive tactics or new gear, and so forth. Sometimes training films would be shown. I tried to look inside the classroom, since it had windows, but the blinds were closed and the door was locked. I kept taking photos of everything. Attached to the classroom was a unisex bathroom with an outside entrance. Agents had to leave the classroom and walk around to the opposite side of the building to do their business.

 

I walked out onto the range, but there was nothing much to see, just lanes of concrete and some wooden barriers to the side of each lane, one at fifty feet and one at twenty-five feet from the target area. There were no targets set up. Behind that area was a soft dirt hillside, where all the bullets ended up. It rose gently to a height of perhaps thirty feet before leveling off. Beyond that was a strip of scrub forest, fenced off from the gun range, of course, and even farther beyond was residential housing.

I hurried on over to the barracks, which were situated to the far right, on the other side of the classroom. There were two of them. I didn’t know which one had been used for the arrest exercise since there was no yellow tape or other indication of the forensic work. I went into the closest one snapping photos of everything. I didn’t see any blood stains, fingerprint powder or anything else that could confirm I was in the right place, just a bare wood-frame building with empty window frames and wood plank floors. At least the layout was as I had remembered it and Woody had confirmed. I photographed everything. I proceeded to the next barracks building and as soon as I stepped in, I could see the layout was slightly different, so I was sure that was not the shooting scene. I photographed that one, too, though, just in case.

I stepped outside and looked around once more. There was nothing more to the east besides an empty field and chain link fence along the access road. To the west, way beyond the target shed, I noticed some activity. There were people there, but I couldn’t tell what they were doing. That was not part of the gun range and I’d never been over there. Then I saw a sheriff’s car in the distance headed toward the parking lot. I looked at my watch and saw that I’d been there nine minutes so far. Shit! It was going to get to my car before I could get back, so Ellen was going to have to deal with the officer while sitting there nursing Tommy in the back seat. She wasn’t going to be happy. I started to jog back toward the SUV but realized I probably wasn’t going to get another chance here and wasn’t going to be able to help the situation with the approaching deputy anyway. He wasn’t going to arrest Ellen for nursing her baby and he couldn’t make her leave since I had the car keys in my pocket. As the old saying goes, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, so I changed direction and headed across the gun range.

When I got to the other side of the shed I noticed that there was now a gravel parking area there at a right angle to the lot where my car was. That hadn’t been there when I was an agent. Parking had always been tight on firearms days so I guess they’d expanded the area. This was good, since from this side of the shed I couldn’t see my car and the deputy couldn’t see me. I snapped more pictures and kept jogging to the west across open ground to see what was going on in the adjacent area. As I got closer I realized there was a man carrying a large shoulder-mounted camera and several other people milling around. Well, it looked to me like they were milling around, but I’m sure they were doing something they considered work.

 

Google Earth satellite view of Christian Science church

Christian Science Church in Dixon, IL

I will refrain from comment.

Anagrams on the News

Twin rapist caught without DNA, then confesses. Brother freed. = Wow! French cops hunt, detain nastiest thug, deter his bro after.

See news story.

I made The Anagram Times again with this one. I love wordplay.

Cached Out to be an audiobook!

Cliff Knowles fans, you have something new to be excited about. Cached Out, the second Cliff Knowles mystery, will soon be an audiobook, available from Audible.com, Amazon, and iTunes, read by experienced voice actor Joe Hempel. Stay tuned here for the progress.

Cached Out, the first geocaching mystery

GUT SHOT – Episode 16

Gut Shot – Episode 16

© Russell Atkinson 2015

“So I ran into the house. I was going to turn left into the kitchen to get my gun from the drawer, but as I looked over my left shoulder I could see that Ricardo was running to the kitchen window. I thought that he could get to the open window before I could get into the kitchen and open the drawer. If he saw me in there reaching into the drawer, he’d shoot me. So I made a right instead. There was a bedroom there. I was planning on jumping out a window on that side, but when I got into that room I could see out the window that Bobu was right there with his weapon trained on the window. So I looked around and there was the SWAT bag on the floor. I figured it was put there as part of the scenario.”

“SWAT bag? Your SWAT bag?”

“No, man, not mine. Just a SWAT bag. I don’t know whose it was. They all look alike. You’ve seen ’em. The big, bulky ones for all the protective vests, boots, ninja suits, billy clubs, extra magazines, big flashlight, flex cuffs, the whole works.”

This gave me pause. This was the first I’d heard about a SWAT bag. Bert had told me that Woody had spied a gun in a bag, but I hadn’t realized it was a SWAT bag. I knew Woody had been on a SWAT team earlier in his career and I’d seen him with his SWAT bag when I was working in the San Jose office, but I also knew he wasn’t on one any longer. If Porillo was right that Woody had killed Jermaine with his own gun, then I would assume the bag that he pulled it from was his bag, too. I didn’t see how Woody could have pulled his own gun from his own bag without knowing it. I decided not to ask him about that yet as I wanted the story straight as he remembered it before I gave him any hard questions.

“Sure, Woody, I’ve seen them. Go on.”

“Well, those bags have an end pocket, a smaller zippered section separate from the big section. I could see the outline of a gun in the end pocket, so I just unzipped it and reached in. There was a gun, a small revolver. I grabbed it and ran back toward the hallway. Just as I got there I heard scuffling and shouting in the hall just outside the door. I flattened myself to the left of the open doorway.”

“You were still inside the bedroom?”

“Right. Then I could hear Watkins and Jermaine right outside my door. Watkins must have bolted down the hallway when he saw me make my escape, but Jermaine caught up to him fast. He can outrun anyone in the division, I think, including me. So I could hear them thumping against the wall right on the other side from where I was standing. They didn’t know I was in there, I don’t think. I could hear Jermaine order Watkins down on his knees, then I heard him cuff ’im. I could actually hear the ratchets as the cuffs went on. Then Jermaine ordered Rodney to stand, and they started to walk back toward the front, past the bedroom doorway.”

At this point I stopped him again and asked him to indicate on the diagram where everybody was. He drew a small circle to indicate Bobu on the outside and a question mark in the back yard by the kitchen window, explaining that he thought that’s where Garcia was at that point, although he might have moved. Then he drew three tight circles representing Jermaine, Rodney, and himself. He neatly penciled in ‘JL,’ ‘RW,’ and ‘SB,’ his own legal name being Sherwood Braswell. Watkins was in the hall right at the open doorway and immediately behind him was Jermaine Logan. Woody was just on the other side of the wall from Jermaine, neither able to see the other. I nodded for him to continue.

“So as Watkins passed the doorway, I reached my gun hand, that’s my right hand, around the door frame, pushed it into Jermaine’s body and pulled the trigger. At the same time I yelled ‘Take that, sucker.’ That’s when the gun went off. It was so loud in there. We didn’t have ear protectors on because there was no need. I just remember my ears ringing and people yelling. I know I dropped the gun out of total surprise. Jermaine was slumping to the floor and I couldn’t understand what was happening. Bobu came rushing in, I think. Watkins was down next to Jermaine. I didn’t see any blood, but I could smell the gunpowder. I knew I’d shot him, but nothing made sense. Somebody, Bobu, I think, grabbed my arm and walked me into the front bedroom away from everything and told me to stay there, then he went back to try to help Jermaine. I could hear him telling Ricardo to call an ambulance, I think, but I couldn’t see what was going on and my memory is all hazy after that. I remember sitting down on the floor there and putting my head in my hands, wondering what I’d done. After a while more agents came over from the other area, where the front office brass were shooting. I could hear the SAC’s voice outside talking to Bobu and some voices on cell phones. Then there was an ambulance and some paramedics. The next thing I knew Bobu and another agent were arresting me. They said the SAC ordered it.”

“Did you make any statements? Did they question you?”

“Bobu read me my Miranda warnings without questioning me. I just kept asking if Jermaine was going to be okay but they said they didn’t know. I said something like ‘It was an accident, I swear,’ but Bobu told me not to talk, just to shut up and get a lawyer. He was trying to protect me, not get a confession or anything. I think I stopped talking when he put the cuffs on me, but in the car I might have been saying something, babbling about it being an accident. I just don’t remember exactly now. They took me to the Oakland R.A. for fingerprinting and photo. They let me walk in without the cuffs so it wasn’t too humiliating, but everyone already knew what had happened by that time. Nobody talked to me except when they gave me instructions to place my hands for the prints or where to stand for the photos. Then they took me over to the city jail on a courtesy hold.”

“You keep saying ‘they.’ Who were the other agents with Bobu?”

“There was only one, George Mossberg. He was one of those who came over from the range, one of the instructors running the front office personnel through qualifying.”

I jotted Mossberg’s name on my pad. I remembered him slightly, but I’d never worked closely with him. That’s one more person I’d have to interview, if he’d let me.

I finally got the story of the shooting straight from the horse’s mouth, but I could see some major holes in it. I didn’t like it, but had to start forcing a number of issues. I decided to start soft and work up to the biggies.

“Woody, there have been things I’ve heard on the news or through the rumor mill that I need you to answer. Don’t take these questions personally, please. Just answer them. I’m on your side and everything is attorney-client privileged.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know how it goes. I’m just so glad it’s you. No one else will believe me. Ask whatever you have to.”

I didn’t like this response because he was already assuming I was going to believe him. I hoped I could, but that’s as far as it went.

“Okay. There are reports that you said ‘Die, cocksucker,’ to Jermaine, not ‘Take that, sucker.’ Do you know for sure what you said?”

“Uh, huh, well, I’m pretty sure it was what I told you, ‘Take that,’ but maybe I said ‘Die.’ It’s hard to remember now.”

“And the rest? Did you call him a cocksucker?”

“Cliff, you know me. I don’t use that kind of language. But, you know, we were all yelling and shouting. Bad language was getting all over. I was trying to sound like a lowlife, this murderer Jones, so maybe I didn’t use my usual kind of language.”

“Does that mean maybe you did call him a cocksucker?”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t think so. Who’re you gonna believe? Them or …”

“Stop it, Woody. Just answer the questions and quit equivocating. There were others there who are going to be testifying, FBI agents. We’re running out of time.”

“Yeah, yeah, OK, I’m sorry. I just don’t know for sure. Maybe I did. What else?”

“You heard the AUSA in court talking about your girlfriend. That’s Connie, I take it?”

“Right. Connie and I are solid. I don’t know where the AUSA got that stuff about her dumping me for Jermaine. I didn’t even know she even knew him. Ask her yourself.”

“I will. So there was no jealousy or personal issue between you and Jermaine?”

“No way. I just told you. He was just another bro, y’know? Nothing to do with Connie.”

The guard rapped on the window at this point and held up one hand with his fingers spread out to indicate I had five more minutes. The guard had been watching the whole interview through the window, but I knew they didn’t listen in on privileged conversations.

“Okay. So tell me more about the gun you shot him with. What was the make and model?”

“It was a five-shot revolver, that much I know. It looked like one of my guns, a Smith & Wesson 442, but I couldn’t swear it was the same model. I didn’t have time to take a close look. I just reached in the bag and pulled it out as I ran back over near the door. I was watching for someone coming up behind me. I don’t think I ever really looked at the gun until I dropped it.”

“You couldn’t tell from the weight that it was loaded?”

“No, I couldn’t. You know how it is in those scenarios, the adrenaline pumping and all the yelling. I was used to holding my Sig with a full sixteen-round magazine. This was much lighter than that, so it didn’t seem heavy.”

The guard, a Samoan or other Pacific islander from the look of him, knocked on the window again and held up one finger. I nodded.

“Okay, then, answer me this. I heard that it was your backup gun. Explain how that could be.”

“What?!! No way! It looked like my backup, but that was locked in the trunk of my car. Are you shittin’ me? It can’t be my gun, Cliff. Have them check the serial number.” His face was ashen. I never thought a black man could look so pale. Perspiration began pouring from his forehead. If he wasn’t genuinely surprised, he was a very good actor.

“Did you have it in a SWAT bag?”

“Well, yeah, but …” At that moment the guard opened the door and stepped in.

“Could someone else have entered your car? Maybe you loaned someone the keys?”

“Time’s up,” the guard said sternly. “Move it. We need the room.”

I stood. As I turned to leave, Woody called back to me, “No, no one. I still had the keys on me when I got to Oakland. I had to empty my pockets. The gun wasn’t mine, Cliff.”

I was escorted to the inner lobby where I picked up my cell phone from the guards and stepped out to the outer lobby. I looked out the windows but didn’t see the SUV, so I decided I had time to call Bert. I couldn’t do it while other people were coming and going so I went outside and walked to the shady side of the building. I called Bert’s home number, which he had given me specifically so I could give him a rundown of the interview. He answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Bert, it’s me. I have good news and bad news.”

“Cliff. You got in okay?”

“Yeah, no problem, but I only had a little over half an hour.”

“It’ll go faster next time now that you’re registered there. So what do you think? Give me the bad news first.”

“The bad news is he didn’t have a good explanation for the gun being his, assuming it is.”

Bert digested this for a minute. Then, “Okay, so what’s the good news?”

“If he’s telling the truth, then it should be easy to prove. He says his girlfriend Connie is in his corner and he seemed genuinely shocked when I told him I’d heard the murd… uh, gun, was his. He said it was one similar to his, but it’s hard to believe he would fail to recognize his own gun and the SWAT bag it was stored in. All agents have to register all their personally owned guns with the Bureau, at least if they’re going to carry them, and have them checked by an FBI gunsmith. They have to qualify on the range with them, too, even the little backup guns like this one. It should be a simple matter to check the serial number of the gun that killed Jermaine. I believe you’ll find it doesn’t come back to Woody after all.”

“That doesn’t prove him innocent.”

“True, but it makes it a lot easier to believe his version.”

“Okay, what else?”

“I got the names of all the personnel in the deadly scenario. If Woody’s telling the truth, one of them, or all of them, will have seen that bag or know who put it there and why.”

“Can you start the interviews tomorrow? Or even today?”

“Do you have the 302s yet?”

“No. Monday if I’m lucky.”

“I don’t want to interview any of them until I know what their official story is. How about a property list, the stuff that was taken from Woody?”

“Not yet. I did get an email. Sheila said there are too many digital photos and the files are too large to send them as email attachments. She doesn’t trust email anyway. She said she’ll provide a thumb drive with the first batch of those on Monday. I’ll want you to look at them as soon as you can.”

“Fine. I’ve freed up Monday afternoon. I have to do some work for another client in the morning.”

“Cliff, we have a lot of work to do. We haven’t waived time. He’s an agent in prison. It’s not fair to make him sit there for months. Isn’t there something you can do today or tomorrow? How about examining the crime scene? You’re right there.”

So Bert was doing it, too, calling it a crime scene. At least he hasn’t called it a murder yet. “Bert, that’s controlled space. They won’t let me in without some kind of authorization. They have a deputy at the entrance booth to the property. I’m not an agent any more. I’ll need a court order or something.”

“Christ, Cliff, I can’t keep going back to the well for every little thing. Every time I get the judge to grant me something, that gives Sheila a chance to argue she should get a ruling going her way out of fairness. You know how the system works. Can you use your retired FBI ID to get in … or your charm?”

I scoffed. “I’ve been called a lot of things in my day, Bert, but charming isn’t one of them. Besides, I have a new baby and I promised my wife I’d give her a break this weekend.”

No sooner had I said that than Ellen pulled into the lot. An idea struck me. “Look, I gotta go. Maybe I can get something done. I’ll see you on Monday.” I hung up before he could wheedle any more.

I walked over to the car as Ellen was climbing out of the driver’s seat. Even from this distance I could see from her body language that she was in a good mood. She climbed into the passenger seat before I reached the car. As soon as I got in she leaned over and kissed my cheek. The engine was still running so I buckled up and put it in gear. Tommy was in his car seat in the back, sleeping. I knew that a lot of babies fall asleep easily in the car. He was one of them.

“How’d the geocaching go?” I asked.

“Good,” she gushed, obviously excited. “I found all five. There was this one with incredible camo. You should have seen it. It took me twenty minutes and it was right there. I had it in my hand at least twice before I realized what it was.”

“That’s great, honey. I’m glad you had fun.”

“Thanks for suggesting this. Tommy was no problem in the Snugli. He cried once and I just opened the snap and nursed him.”

I smiled at her as I pulled out of the lot. Happy wife, happy life. I drove back to the freeway and went east one exit where I got off again. There was a large shopping center to the south with several restaurants in it. Ellen no doubt thought I was going there, but I turned left onto Santa Rita Road instead.

“Where are you going?”

“It’ll only take a few minutes, then we’ll go to lunch. I just want to check something out. It’s only eleven thirty. We have lots of time.”

She looked at me quizzically, but said nothing. She was happy enough to be driving around rather than cooped up at home. Tommy was still sleeping. I continued up until I got close to the entrance to the range. Ellen was squirming a bit and had a concerned look on her face. “Cliff,” she hissed, “you aren’t going to … ”

But before she could finish, I had already turned into the entrance and pulled up to the booth where the deputy guarded the compound. The booth is elevated so the deputy can look down at drivers coming in, see their hands, and so forth. I rolled down my window and pulled as close as I could to the booth. I’d already grabbed Ellen’s FBI credentials from the top of the center console. She had a habit of leaving them there with the badge showing, face up, in case she got pulled over by a cop during a surveillance, or, like today, otherwise. I held the credential case up to the guard with the badge showing and told him I’d left my personally owned ear protectors there on the range. He asked me to open the cred case so he could see the credentials. I hadn’t expected that. I opened it up but put my thumb over Ellen’s picture. He couldn’t read the name from that distance but the “FBI” in big blue letters and the DOJ seal were easily recognizable.

This was a critical moment. Ellen was seething, I could tell. She hadn’t given me permission to use her creds. I hadn’t asked because I knew she’d say no. She had her left hand on my right thigh and was digging her nails deep into the flesh. It hurt like hell. The deputy looked over at her, but said nothing to her and she didn’t rat me out when he made eye contact. He seemed to buy my story, assuming I was the agent and this was my wife. From his angle he couldn’t see the baby seat in the right rear.

“Okay, but be back out in five minutes. The range isn’t open today.”

“Will do, unless I have trouble finding them. Ten at the most.”

He frowned but nodded and opened the gate for me. I drove on in, made a right on the stretch of pavement that leads to the parking lots and continued on in to where I used to park when I did my firearms qualifying. By this time Ellen had snatched her creds from me and was berating me with a ferocity I hadn’t heard in a long time. Any hope I’d been harboring of resuming our sex life any time soon went out the window. I apologized profusely and put the blame entirely on Bert Breen’s insistence I check out the shooting scene, but it didn’t do much to mollify her.

As I pulled into the lot I immediately noticed that it had changed since I was last here as an agent. The small lot faced north, that is, when you pulled in on the east end you’d make a right and pull up to one of the logs that served as a tire stop so your car was facing north. The gun range was directly ahead of you at that point, to the north, but there was a line of scraggly trees separating the lot from the range, intended as a windbreak, I suppose. Just beyond the trees were several covered tables where agents picked up ammunition and cleaned their guns. Beyond that was the range. The trees had been planted back when I was an agent, at least eight years earlier and the saplings had been nothing but sticks then, but they’d grown and fleshed out quite a bit since then. They now largely obscured the range from the parking lot and vice versa. I pulled out my smart phone and stepped out of the car, taking photos of everything. Ellen climbed into the back seat and took Tommy out of his baby seat to hold him since he’d begun to fuss. I tried to ignore her scowls.

Ahead and to the left was the target shack, a large shed where they stored the paper targets and their wooden frames. When I’d first been an agent targets were pasted onto the frames using a mop, a bucket, and some kind of flour and water paste. After you shot up a target with one course you’d go forward on the whistle, score your target, paste over the holes with little black Post-it type papers and repeat the process a few more times. By the time I’d retired, the wet paste had gone by the wayside and new targets had their own self-adhesive backing. Otherwise the process was the same.

The shed was padlocked and there was no sign of anyone around. To the right was the classroom, where the agents would sit and listen to lectures about gun safety, recent shooting incidents, defensive tactics or new gear, and so forth. Sometimes training films would be shown. I tried to look inside the classroom, since it had windows, but the blinds were closed and the door was locked. I kept taking photos of everything. Attached to the classroom was a unisex bathroom with an outside entrance. Agents had to leave the classroom and walk around to the opposite side of the building to do their business.