Jonathan Kellerman - True Detectives

Ahead of them, six officers borrowed from the twelve-person Fugitive Warrant Squad rumbled along in a reconditioned military Humvee, experts in the art of surprise.

Bringing up the rear, fifteen sheriff's deputies, including two lieutenants and a captain. All those khaki uniforms because Malibu was sheriff's turf.

All that khaki brass because now that the deal was set, everyone wanted to rub up against celebrity.

Celebrity had almost screwed the deal, sheriff's honchos arguing for a “comprehensive interdepartmental planning session,” “strategic delays,” the need to be careful with this “high-profile family.”

That translated to a butt-covering snail-trail pushing the raid well past daybreak, initiating entry to the property with a phone call from the gate, offering the Dements or one of their employees a chance to drive down from the ranch and spring the padlock.

John Nguyen said, “Oh, sure, and let's have O.J. supervise the search.”

Nguyen's boss made a call and restored logic.

As a face-saving gesture, the sheriff's captain, a man named Carl Neihrold, got to cut the lock.

That took a while because the bolt was heavy-duty and Neihrold had been desk-jobbing for years, hadn't used cutters since his rookie year doing dope raids.

Several grunts later, the steel gave way and the gate swung open.

“Forward,” said the chief fugitive cop, a man named Juan Silva. “Headlights off, five miles per.”

Sounding confident, but no one knew what lay ahead.

The entry road was over half a mile of dirt meandering through high grass, the occasional oversized clump of rosemary, thatches of poppies, wind-dwarfed sycamores, drought-loving California oaks.

No sign of guard dogs, no alarm bells.

Fifty yards from the road's upsweep to a broad plateau, Aaron noticed tiny blinking lights in the boughs of a large oak. Short-lived, then gone. As if stars had plunged to earth and died on contact.

Seconds later: more pinpoint strobes, this time from a nondescript clump of sage.

“See that, Moses?”

“What?”

“Infrared cameras-they're all over the place.”

Moe radioed Juan Silva. Silva said, “We saw it, were just gonna call you. We're putting on helmets. Tell everyone we could encounter some preparedness. And let's lower it to a crawl-two m.p.h. No action whatsoever until I say okay.”

♦

The Hummer came to a stop at the mouth of a broad plateau, leaving just enough room for Moe to inch his Crown Vic in.

Beyond an open wooden arch was empty dirt turned silver-gray.

According to the county assessor, Lem Dement's spread was sixty-three acres but from what Moe could see only three or four of that was flat, the rest a repeating pattern of overlapping hilltops that bled into darkness.

Just left of the entry to the plateau, maybe twenty yards back, was a corral. What used to be a corral-two sides of collapsed fencing shouted nonfunctional. So did the absence of horseshit perfume.

Moe lowered his window another couple of inches. The place smelled of nothing.

As the Humvee sat there, Moe's attention shifted to right of the arch-deeper in than the corral.

The nearest structure was a substantial house-the large rectangle that had showed up on Aaron's Google Earth aerial. Farther back sat several smaller outbuildings-shacks or cabins peppering the base of the foothills. Moe counted four but darkness could be concealing others. A field the size of a baseball diamond separated the house from its satellites. Three oaks sprouted haphazardly in the dirt, twisted branches and sere foliage cookie-cutting chunks out of the sky.

No sign of any church, no construction vehicles. But the dirt patch on the aerial map was obvious: off to the far right, thirty or so paces from the main house.

Big stretch of dirt ringed by taut string on wooden stakes.

Preliminary layout for some sort of project, but no groundbreaking.

That said nothing about hand-digs.

As the Hummer continued to idle, Moe wondered about engine noise. But no lights had gone on in the house or the outbuildings.

That could mean anything.

Weird place to raise your family-talk about isolation. And nothing Hollywood about it. Lem Dement had squirreled away a fortune from his alleged faith flick but you'd never know it from his homestead.

The main house was generous enough, but not fancy. Low-slung, log-sided, with a swooping roof hosting a satellite dish that listed sharply and a full-length covered porch furnished with a few folding chairs.

The property had once been a summer camp. This had probably been the administration building/dining hall.

Hundred bottles of beer… no short-sheeting tonight.

Several cars were parked in front, but the Hummer blocked them from Moe's view.

Aaron whispered, “Not exactly Hearst Castle. More like your basic shitkicker hunting lodge.”

That filled Moe's head with pictures. Heads over mantels. Trophies no decent person would want to look at. He kept silent.

Half a minute passed before Juan Silva radioed, “We're going to park up by that horse corral, but you guys stay in place.” As he spoke, the Humvee rolled to one of the battered fences, came to a halt, switched off its engine.

Now Moe could see the entire front of the house and there, parked dead-center, was a prize: Ahab “Ax” Dement's black Ram truck, a likely source of forensic treasure.

Eight other vehicles were lined up, perfectly parallel to one another. As if precision mattered to someone.

Aaron identified the black X5 as Gemma Dement's ride. The others conformed to the reg info Moe had obtained: Lem Dement's Mercedes coupe with LEMDEM plates, the director's Escalade truck tagged LDTOO , three baby Benzes that were the designated wheels for son number two/Ax look-alike Japhet, and teens Mary Giles and Paul Miki. Last and quite least, an old Jensen Interceptor on four flat tires, some serious dents highlighted by heavenly glow.

Time chugged along as the fugitive guys sat and planned in their armored vehicle.

Dark windows everywhere, still not a peep. Did the infrareds feed somewhere useless? Was Dement security-whatever that meant- falling down on the job?

Was the entire family peacefully beddy-bye and about to have the worst nightmare of their collective lives?

Juan Silva radioed, “I'm getting out to check.”

Moe watched the tall helmeted figure glide silently around to the back of the log house. Silva emerged moments later and got back in the Humvee.

“There's another porch out back and we've got two back doors, nothing serious, crappy locks. I saw kids sleeping in the back, so that's a complication. Any idea who or what's in those cabins out back?”

Moe said, “No.”

“Well, I saw three kids in one room with bunks, two more in singles. That leaves two more kids plus the parents, and the house is several rooms deep, so they could be anywhere. We're going to want max manpower to ensure quick control. That means us six leading and the rest of you uniforms as backup. Okay, Captain Neihrold?”

Neihrold said, “Sure.”

Silva said, “I know we never found any records of live-in staff, but it's logical there'd be some with a place this big. Maybe they're unregistered, that could be who's in those cabins. At this distance, we'll consider them medium-risk, so you detectives can keep a watch. Should be boring unless someone's got long-range military hardware.”

Moe said, “Don't see any missile launchers.”

“It's what you don't see that can bite you, Detective.”

Aaron mouthed, Funny guy.

Silva said, “Use those trees for cover, keep your eyes and your radios open. We're hoping for a smooth one, but once we start popping the tab on this can it could get interesting.”