Unbearably Deadly (Roger and Suzanne South American Mystery Series Book 9) Read online

  “Who do you think you are, a lawyer?” sneered one of the Park Rangers, the one named Corddell who had kicked both of us.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I graduated from UCLA Law School and I’m fully licensed to practice in the State of California. If one of you ‘gentlemen’ would like to take these cuffs off me, I’ll show you the pistol permit I have for the park, properly signed, sealed, and certified by the FBI. Then you’ll apologize and explain what you’re doing and why, or we’ll press charges for something like 10 years of jail time against all three of you.”

  I could see something flicker in Bednor’s eyes. He was beginning to realize he’d stepped into something that didn’t smell any too good and it was time to back off a bit just in case I was for real and not just bluffing. “As you can see, I’m with what used to be The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and is now a division in the Department of Homeland Security. My present assignment has to do with investigating illegal firearms in the National Park, in connection with some unexplained deaths of bears near here.”

  Bednor walked behind me and unlocked one of the cuffs from my right wrist. The pair of handcuffs now dangled from my left wrist, which I could move from back to front. “Let’s see that permit you claim to have.”

  Very slowly and carefully I reached into my pocket with my right hand, removed my wallet, transferred it to my left hand, and removed the folded permit. Wordlessly, I handed the permit to Bednor.

  He unfolded the paper, glanced at it, then read it more carefully. Still not saying anything he handed the permit back to me, finished unlocking my handcuffs and transferred them to a pouch on his belt, and gestured to the Ranger with the key to unlock Suzanne’s cuffs.

  “So you have a legitimate permit for the gun here in the park. That still doesn’t tell me who you are. What you are doing here? What’s your story?”

  I stood up slowly and stretched my arms, trying to look relieved and cooperative. In reality I was still seething with anger, especially for Ranger Corddell, the bear killer who’d kicked Suzanne for absolutely no reason.

  All three of the Feds holstered their weapons. For no reason at all, Corddell walked over to Suzanne and slapped her face hard. “What are you looking so smug about, you stupid broad? Shape up or I’ll wipe that look off your face for good.”

  I turned to face the Park Ranger with the proclivity to kick prisoners when they were down. “Your technique for kicking prisoners, especially women, isn’t very good. If you want to kick someone and really make it hurt it’s all about leg speed. Like this!” And in a blur of motion I kicked one leg straight out, followed by two roundhouse kicks breaking both of the ranger’s arms with loud cracks and one leg with a sickening crunch.

  With a quick turn to the other two stunned Federal police persons, I continued speaking. “It’s over now if you want to relax. Let me give you fair warning, I’m fast enough to break a couple of arms and legs on both of you before you can get a hand on your guns if you want to continue this. Neither of you kicked or hit Suzanne so you can have a pass if you just back off. Your abusive colleague’s career is over, one way or the other. One thing’s for sure, it’s the last time he’s ever going to kick a woman with that leg. He’s either on his way to early retirement or to jail. You can decide which. Given how long it’s going to take medical aid to get here he should have plenty of time to reflect on his sins while he waits for help.

  “I don’t think I should have to say this, but just in case, I will. This ends here. Legally speaking, you have the guns and you attacked us. I just defended Suzanne. If any one of you, or anyone you send, ever decides to come after either Suzanne or me, it will be the last mistake in your professional careers you’ll ever make.”

  The downed ranger moaned and groaned piteously, pleading for medical aid. His obvious pain punctuated my warning.

  I turned back to Bednor. “Let’s see. You wanted to know who we are, what we’re doing here, and what’s our story. Right?”

  Bednor nodded, still not understanding what had happened and how he’d so completely lost control of the situation.

  “I hope I’ve answered all of your questions to your satisfaction,” I continued. “I can’t think of anything else I want to tell either of you now. It’s probably time to call for an ambulance for your friend there on the floor. And I’m sure you won’t mind putting your guns there on the table and letting me put your handcuffs on the two of you so we don’t have any more misunderstandings while we wait for the FBI to arrive.”

  I watched both of them, the Park Ranger and the ATF agent, do a quick calculation of risk versus benefit, look down at their partner on the floor, and make the safe decision. I took another step toward the one Park Ranger still upright and the ATF agent. Both lifted their hands in a surrender gesture. Neither of these federal police officers had ever been a street cop or in a combat unit in the military. They had no real connection to the instantaneous violence of a street fight, especially with an opponent who was better at it than they were. I could see them thinking, ‘what’s wrong here? On TV, when the federal agent hollers freeze, they drop their guns, surrender, and quietly march off to jail. We should have had a SWAT team for this guy.’

  First the Park Ranger, then Bednor, carefully used their thumb and middle finger to draw their guns, ever so slowly, put them carefully on the table, and hand me their cuffs to put on. I waved them over to the chairs we had recently occupied and cuffed their hands behind them. Without even thinking about it, I ratcheted the cuffs so they were too tight and hurt. I was still angry about the way Suzanne had been treated.

  “Suzanne, why don’t you call Gretchen and explain what’s happened here tonight. Ask her to send Jason Culpepper out to the Lodge to give us some backup and decide which of these guys need to be arrested. I think the National Park may be out of ATF’s jurisdiction, but the FBI can figure out if any of the crimes these three clowns committed here tonight warrant further legal action without our help.”

  I handed her the cell phone. She stepped outside to make the call. The two thoroughly cowed Federal employees sat dejectedly in their chairs, their bodies slumped forward, stunned by how quickly the tables had been turned on them and their lives had changed for the worse. The Ranger nodded over at the phone on the night table by the bed, silently asking my permission. In response to my nodded yes, he watched as I picked up the phone, dialed the emergency number taped to the phone, and requested an EMT team to evacuate a seriously injured Park Ranger who had suffered an accidental fall.

  We all settled down for a long wait, Suzanne joining us a few minutes later.

  I turned towards Bednor, who sat in the chair, shoulders slumped, a portrait of defeat. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me before the FBI arrives? Right now, I’m the best friend you’ve got.”

  No response.

  I looked over at his buddy, the still functional Park Ranger sitting cuffed in his chair. “How about you? The timing of this attack and phony arrest is awfully close to Suzanne and my finding the dead bear. Is that what this was all about?”

  He started to say something.

  Bednor looked directly at the Park Ranger. “Shut up, stupid! Anything you say will only make this worse!”

  Silence reigned. Suzanne sat in deep thought. I carefully watched them both while we let the pressure increase.

  Chapter17. The FBI arrives

  The now familiar throb of the FBI helicopter sounded loudly through the night. In less than a minute it was almost directly overhead. Suzanne went out to meet Culpepper while I stayed behind to babysit the bad cops. The injured Ranger was still moaning softly, but was apparently unconscious. Bednor and his other Ranger buddy sulked. Both slouched in their chairs in classic postures of defeat as the realization of how bad a predicament they were in became more and more real to them.

  The cabin door opened to admit a small crowd, Suzanne in the lead. Jason Culpepper, Barbara Kaufman, and Gretchen Kaufman followed her into the now crow
ded cabin. Culpepper whistled softly as he surveyed the scene in front of him. One uniformed Park Ranger and an ATF agent sat handcuffed in chairs, while another uniformed Park Ranger lay apparently unconscious on the floor with both arms and a leg bent into positions normal limbs never experienced.

  Culpepper looked at the Ranger on the floor and the two in the chairs. He whistled softly again before turning to me to say, “Please remind me to call you sir, Roger. I guess my partner Ed Barclay is lucky he didn’t piss you off enough to get you really mad. It looks like you really are as tough as Gretchen warned me you are.”

  Suzanne had explained enough to Gretchen on the telephone so the other FBI agents had been briefed on who the good guys and the bad guys were. That way, we could hope nothing awkward would happen when they arrived.

  Gretchen took over as the senior agent on scene. “Have you called the Park EMTs yet about the mess on the floor, Roger? Or should we plan on flying him out to the hospital in Anchorage?”

  “He’s the one who kicked Suzanne, Gretchen. He also killed a bear out in the woods. We saw him loading the carcass of the dead bear on an ATV to hide it deeper in the woods. Don’t waste any pity on him. Yes, I called the National Park emergency number to report an accident to one of their Rangers about the same time Suzanne called you. They promised to send an ambulance.”

  “What’s going on here?” Gretchen asked Bednor “And spare me the ‘I’m an ATF undercover agent’ crap. Roger and Suzanne are working with the FBI on this case.”

  “I have nothing to say at this time,” he replied in bureaucratic jargon. “Except that I want a lawyer.”

  “Arrest him and read him his Miranda Rights, Barbara,” replied Gretchen. “For now the charges are felonious assault, assault under color of authority, breaking and entering, and attempted murder.”

  She turned to the Park Ranger sitting across the table from Bednor. “Your turn. Do you want to tell me what’s going on here or do you want to take your chances on about 20 years in a federal prison? The first one to talk gets a break. And I can pretty well guarantee you that our friend here from the ATF will start singing like a bird when his lawyer explains the mess he’s in to him and his agency swears they didn’t know anything about his being here tonight.”

  The National Park Ranger hesitated a moment, then began speaking directly to Gretchen. “I’ve got two kids and really don’t want them to see me in jail for the rest of the time they’re growing up. You’ve got us dead to rights here. I’m going to trust you about giving me a break if I talk.

  “It started about six months ago. My colleague Dallas Corddell, the Ranger on the floor, got assigned the task of getting an accurate count of the bears in the National Park. Apparently the hotshots in Washington got their hands on some software program that calculated the maximum number of bears that can be sustained per square mile of forest. They figured they could raise money for Denali Park maintenance and improvements by selling special licenses to fat cats to cull the bears if there were more grizzlies than the computer told them were sustainable here in sections of the Park.”

  Oscar Franchesi, the now talkative Park Ranger, was doing fine once he started confessing. “Dallas told us all about his assignment one night at the party here while we were all standing around drinking beer. Bednor suggested we could kill a few bears ourselves and perform a public service while we made a few bucks. He had an informant with contacts in the Chinatowns in San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle, and Vancouver who’d give us something like $1,000 for each gall bladder we could sell him from a grizzly bear, even more if we also included the liver.”

  “Shut up!” exclaimed Bednor, a furious look on his face. “You’re just making things worse for all of us.”

  Franchesi ignored his former partner. “Tonight at the party, these two,” the Ranger continued, indicating Suzanne and me, “told Forrest over there about finding a dead bear that my partner on the floor had shot out in the woods. He was just getting an ATV big enough to haul it deeper into the woods where nobody would ever find it when these two found the bear’s body. Bednor suggested we could shut the two of them up by putting a good scare into them and getting them to go home and keep quiet about what they’d seen in return for our dropping the charges he’d make about them having an illegal gun in the National Park.”

  Gretchen looked intently at the Park Ranger. “There were a couple of tourists killed near here a week or two ago. Was that your group’s doing?”

  “No, I swear it, we wouldn’t have killed anyone even if they caught us in the act. We argued a lot tonight about even going this far to try to cover things up. I can vouch for the three of us. None of us had anything to do with whatever you’re talking about.”

  “Is anyone other than you three involved in these grizzly bear killings?” Gretchen asked the Ranger.

  He hesitated perceptibly before answering. “No.” He wasn’t a particularly good liar.

  Suzanne, who’d been thinking deeply until now, interrupted, “Excuse me, Gretchen. Can I ask him a few questions, please?”

  “Sure, go ahead Suzanne,” replied the FBI agent.

  “How about Ed Barclay, the FBI special agent out of Anchorage? Was he part of this scheme?”

  The Park Ranger looked startled. Then, with a resigned expression, he nodded affirmatively. “Yes,” he answered, “Ed was the only other one involved with us. He was at the party the first night and told us he wanted in. In return, he promised us protection from any investigation involving the FBI.”

  “Where did that come from, Suzanne?” Gretchen asked admiringly.

  “Nobody could really be dumb and innocent, and at the same time as determined to sidetrack an investigation as he was,” Suzanne replied. “The pieces fit better here than with the murder case as I thought about everything we’d seen. It seemed like the right time to ask.”

  “OK,” Gretchen continued. “It’s late, and we should all try to get some sleep tonight. How about I take these two suspects back to Anchorage with me. I can keep them in custody without any chance to talk to anyone else including lawyers for about 48 hours. Tomorrow morning I can arrest Ed Barclay as soon as he comes in and add him to the list of people out of circulation for 48 hours.

  “I’ll leave Jason and Barbara with you two so we have enough room on the helicopter for me with our two additional passengers. Jason can stay here on indefinite loan, even though you can probably protect him a lot better than he can protect you. You may need his official status to speed things up. I’m afraid our window of opportunity for the two of you to be convincing as just plain tourists is going to close after 48 hours when these guys lawyer up and start inventing whatever story they plan to tell. Barbara can rejoin me tomorrow or stay here, whichever she thinks is best for the official FBI investigation.”

  Gretchen turned back to the handcuffed Park Ranger. “I’ll give you another chance to earn a few more points. Where do you stay here at the Lodge if you’re too drunk or tired to drive back to town?”

  The Ranger looked startled for a second or two before he replied. “There’s always a cabin or two being repaired or renovated. They let us use those, strictly off the books.”

  “Which cabins are they tonight?”

  “Number 5 and number 11,” he replied.

  “Does Chief Ranger Fleming know about this arrangement?”

  “Yes, he does. He often takes advantage of it for himself.”

  Gretchen looked over at her two agents. “Jason, why don’t you take Cabin 11 tonight and do some loose bodyguard work to make sure nothing happens to our two undercover agents. Barbara, you take Cabin 5 and get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll need to explain two missing Park Rangers to Chief Ranger Fleming and the staff here at the Lodge. Why don’t you take that job, Barbara? I suspect when the two Rangers don’t show up on time tomorrow morning Fleming will call one of the two cabins to check up on them.

  “If he calls, you can tell him there was a car accident last night that involved heavy alco
hol use and possible DUI charges. One of his Rangers is in the hospital getting fixed up for some broken bones and won’t be allowed to see or speak to any guests until the legal formalities are completed in the next day or two. The other Ranger is in jail in Anchorage while he sobers up and should be available for work or facing criminal charges in 48 hours. Tell the same story to a couple of the staff over breakfast and it should get around pretty fast. Hopefully, it will give us enough time to arrest Ed Barclay without any fuss and get on with our investigation.”

  Gretchen and two of our unwelcome houseguests climbed into the helicopter and flew back to Anchorage shortly after she’d given some additional instructions we didn’t hear to Barbara and Jason Culpepper.

  Jason came up with a bottle of Scotch just in time to fill four plastic glasses with ice cubes Barbara had scrounged up somewhere. We talked to the two FBI agents over our drinks as we sipped the whiskey.