The Omicron Legion by Jon Land Read Free Book Online

and plunging over the cliff. In the front seat the Hunsecker’s female Japanese house servant and her father’s business assistant, Shimada, flailing frantically with the wheel. In the back her father’s face glued against the window. Her father was waving at Patty.
    Waving good-bye.
    Patty climbed out of bed and nearly tripped on the boots discarded at its foot. She did not remember taking them off, did not remember giving herself up to sleep, either. She had been in the study earlier—her father’s study—lost in the pile of press clippings that littered the desk. Clippings accumulated over the past day and a half that had turned her grief to terror since the funeral on Friday, the day after a Thanksgiving that left her nothing to give thanks for.
    “Thank you for seeing me on a Sunday,” she had told Captain Harold Banyan of the Los Angeles Police Department that afternoon.
    “You said it was urgent, Miss Hunsecker. I knew your father. For what’s it worth, I thought he was a great man.”
    “It may be worth a lot, Captain.”
    It was then that Banyan noticed the manila envelope Patty was clutching beneath her arm. He had seen pictures of her in the stories that cluttered the news about Phillip Hunsecker’s tragic passing, but they did not do her justice. Her body was athletic and shapely, her skin bronzed, and her blond hair cut stylishly short.
    “I’d like you to take a look at these,” Patty said as she unclasped the envelope and handed a small stack of photocopied press clippings across the desk to Banyan. “I’ve got more, but these are the most clear-cut.”
    Banyan had begun fingering through them. “Clear-cut what, Miss Hunsecker?”
    “Examples, Captain Banyan. My father isn’t the only one, Captain. In the past five days, nine men like him have been killed; three others have disappeared. Five of the nine perished in ‘accidents,’ as well.”
    Banyan looked up from skimming the tear sheets. “By ‘like him,’ you mean…”
    “Rich, powerful, influential. I spent most of yesterday in the library, going through out-of-town newspapers. I didn’t get through them all. There could be more.”
    “More victims, you mean?”
    Patty nodded.
    “Then you’re suggesting…”
    “That my father and the others were murdered, Captain Banyan. That the deaths are connected, part of a pattern, some sort of conspiracy.”
    “I see.”
    “Do you?”
    “Miss Hunsecker?”
    “You haven’t read the tear sheets. You just skimmed them. I made those copies for you. I’ve got another set. You can read them in detail and call me back when you’re finished. If you want, I can wait out in—”
    “Miss Hun—Can I call you Patty?”
    “I’ve been calling you captain,” she answered, trying for a smile.
    “Patty, what led you to the library on this…search?”
    “A feeling.”
    “That’s all?”
    Patty swallowed hard. “The skid marks at the scene of the accident. Something about them was all wrong. Something suggested that…”
    “Go on.”
    “Suggested that my father’s car was forced off the road.”
    “Our forensics unit spent half a day on the scene and disagrees with that conclusion.”
    “I’m well aware of that, Captain.”
    Banyan smiled curtly at her. “Your specialty is the sea—the ocean—is it not?”
    “It was.”
    “Then I would say you were stepping out of line to make conclusions better reached—or not reached—by the police.”
    “If I hadn’t found out about the others, I would accept that judgement.”
    Again Banyan fingered through the tear sheets. “Yes. And was your father acquainted with any of these others?”
    “I’m sure he met a few of them.”
    “Any business dealings, political contacts?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “And do you have any reason to believe that these same men bear any direct connection to one another?”
    “Besides the obvious, no.”
    “And just what is the obvious?”
    “Their stature. The kind of influence they