Hondo grinned, “Like you weren’t thinking the same thing.”
“I know, but I wanted to sound superior.”
Amber squeezed my hand and looked at me with complete and total adoration. She said, “You goofball.”
Hondo barked a laugh and fist bumped Amber. I tried to recover some dignity, “At least I’m trying to stay upbeat on this case.”
Amber said, “There’s one other thing.” She had our attention. “My friend saw the same Rolls yesterday evening, parked near the Santa Susana Pass above Chatsworth. He drove by it, and saw several people getting out and crossing the road to where the old Spahn Ranch used to be. They disappeared into the brush, and the Rolls drove away.”
Hondo said, “The Spahn Ranch, that’s where Charlie Manson and his followers lived back in the sixties.”
Amber said, “The very place. Most people our age don’t even know about it.”
I said, “I went out there once. Nothing left, no buildings or anything.”
“My friend said one of the women from the Rolls didn’t want to go, but the others pulled her along.”
“When did your friend tell you all this?”
“Right before I called you.”
“Hondo and I’ll go there and check it out. Tell your friend thanks.”
Amber rose with us and hugged Hondo, then me. “When you finish today, give me a call. I’m off tonight.” She pushed her hands against my chest and nudged me toward the door, “Go out there and do hero stuff. Come by the apartment when you’re done.” My lord, she looked beautiful.
Hondo and I drove to the Santa Susanna area, having an easy time in light traffic, and parked across the road at a church. We crossed the pavement and walked through thick brush and down into a wooded draw. We passed the small cave where forty years ago Manson’s disciples posed for a black and white photo that appeared in Life Magazine. The photo showed them looking happy, innocent, and harmless.
A small rust-colored inscription showed on the back wall and appeared to be written with a finger: Manson the prophet. One of Manson’s fans, I thought. We stepped closer, and Hondo said, “That’s not paint.”
It was dried blood. The whole place gave off an uneasy vibe that made me check behind us more than once. We started up the slope to the area where Spahn’s Movie Ranch once existed.
It’s the place where crazy ass Charlie Manson hatched his plan to start Helter Skelter by sending his young followers into the night and into bloody history, murdering several people before those August nights when Manson’s LSD fueled disciples butchered Sharon Tate, her friends, and the next night, the LaBiancas, leaving bodies and notes on the walls written in the victim’s blood.
Archie lived in Venice when the murders occurred, and had been a friend of Sharon Tate. I once asked him about Sharon.
He said, “I saw her the first time on the pier at Santa Monica. She was the prettiest young woman I’d ever seen. And this was in the land of beautiful women. She wasn’t wearing makeup or anything special, just someone enjoying the day. She wore tight jeans and a blue shirt that showed her midriff. She had her hair in a ponytail. She was the sexiest thing out there, and everyone knew it, except her. People stopped what they were doing just to look. I was a few feet from Sharon and when she looked at me with those cactus-green eyes, I had to look away, she was that stunning. Even the Muscle Beach guys stopped playing, and so did their beach bunny followers. They were all looking at Sharon, wondering who she was, aware that they were looking at someone very special.” Archie grew quiet after telling me. He walked away and stayed by himself the rest of the afternoon.
Hondo and I emerged from the draw onto a grass and dirt flat where the movie set buildings had been before burning down in the seventies. We walked on the flat area, and Hondo spotted fresh tire tracks and some footprints, but no cars and no people anywhere around. We worked the area in ever-larger circles, not finding anything noticeable until Hondo crossed into an area outside the park. At the edge of disturbed earth someone had written in the dirt and gravel with their shoe. It said: HEL–, and the rest had been scuffed away, like someone scraped a shoe across the dirt to erase the letters.
I pulled my iPhone and snapped a half-dozen photos of the message, and the tire and foot impressions. It took some doing to angle the phone enough to catch the imprints, because snapping a photo straight down showed nothing. I held the phone a foot to the side and at a slight angle and snapped them that way, and the prints showed.
We started toward Shamu, and I noticed a slender man high on a boulder-strewn hill watching us. I waved for him to come down, but he dropped over the back of the hill and disappeared. I looked at Hondo and we both sprinted after him.
I showed Hondo I was going to circle the base and he nodded, then went straight up the incline. I made a little better time and rounded the hill a few seconds before Hondo reached the crest. I saw the man jump into an old pickup, start it up and come straight at me.
I pulled my Sig and aimed at his windshield. He swerved in a panic and high-centered the pickup on a granite boulder, leaving the rear wheels spinning in the air. I kept my sights on him and saw Hondo reach the pickup and stick his .45 in the man’s ear.
The man’s hands went up so fast the tips of his fingers hit the roof with a metal plonk. He winced, but kept them up. I holstered my pistol and pulled him out of the cab, sitting him on a low rock. He appeared to be Hispanic. “What the hell do you think you’re doing trying to run me over?”
“I thought you was La Migra, the Immigration.” His hands were still in the air. Hondo did a fast pat-down.
“He’s clean, not even a driver’s license.”
I asked him, “What’s your name?”
“Juan Luna.”
“Where’s Bodhi?”