Bee Conspiracy, page 10
“You get that in Iraq?” Duke asked.
Kelso nodded. “1-227 Helicopter Attack Battalion. We were shot down outside Tikrit. Everyone else onboard got waxed except me. The Haji took me to a POW camp. I was in solitary for three weeks. The insects were my only friends. Especially the spiders. I was constantly getting bitten and buzzed by flies in my cell. But black widows would spin webs and eat them.”
“You weren’t scared they’d bite you?” Peters asked.
“No. I was so grateful when one would show up. I didn’t even care that they were venomous spiders. They watched over me.”
Duke rolled his eyes. “The shrink thinks I got PTSD issues? I got nothing compared to you. Talking about how some black widow is your guardian angel.”
***
The tree-lined street of the San Fernando Valley neighborhood where Howard Skulberry had been stung to his death had been quiet the last few days. But today a TV news van parked across the street from Skulberry’s house. Hester Lynne popped out of the Channel 12 News van and placed herself in front of the house, facing the camera. She primped and applied a little make-up foundation as Jerry the cameraman adjusted the lens and exposure. “We’re good,” he told her as the image through his camera viewfinder balanced out to a nice even color palette.
“This is Hester Lynne for Channel 12 News reporting from the scene of an Africanized Killer Bee attack that ended the life of Howard Skulberry. Mr. Skulberry was mowing his lawn in his backyard when he accidentally came too close to a beehive nearby. The historically aggressive killer bees reacted swiftly and descended upon him in a swarm of biblical proportions, stinging him hundreds, if not thousands of times. It was to quote a Roman phrase, death by a thousand cuts, or in this case death by a thousand stings. Again, authorities caution people not to panic as this appears to be an isolated incident, but please be aware of your surroundings and if you are near any beehives steer clear. This is Hester Lynne, reporting for Channel 12 News Live at Five .”
“Wow, that was poetic,” Jerry offered.
Hester beamed. “I wrote it myself,” she said. “I’ve started writing my own copy.”
“Brilliant,” Jerry praised.
“I should get a bump for that, right Jerry? I mean if they don’t need a copywriter for me then they save money, right? They’re getting a deal.”
“You bet, Hester,” Jerry agreed.
“Something tells me this is not the end of this story. You and me, Jerry. I’m telling you, we can ride this story to the top.”
“I know you’re telling me,” Jerry said. “Why do people say I’m telling you when they’re already telling you? You should know they’re telling you because they’re the one talking.”
“Oh, Jerry. It’s just a figure of speech. Stop being so literal,” Hester chided. Jerry packed up the camera and placed it in the back of the van. Hester hid behind the van door and took off her expensive blouse, emerging with a designer t-shirt on instead.
“How did you hear about this story anyway?” Jerry asked.
“Anonymous hot tip,” she said.
***
The tie-dyed denizens of Topanga Canyon walked in and out of the trendy boutiques on Topanga Canyon Boulevard. They purchased eco-friendly vegan shoes, organic cotton blankets and soy wax candles for prices that would make any hippie of the 1960s blanch. Duke, Detective Peters and Kelso watched the comings and goings of these shoppers as they waited for their suspect to pick up his mail. They were parked in the hot sun outside the Topanga mailbox rental shop. The guys were sweating bullets. “You couldn’t have parked under a tree?” Peters asked.
“Nope,” Duke replied. “Too obvious. That’s the first place he would look, under that nice leafy oak tree over there.”
As if on cue, a 1970’s Ford pickup drove past them and pulled over at the hitching post in front of the mailbox shop. Mitch Gonklin, a bearded man in pastel tie-dye t-shirt hopped down from the truck and walked inside the shop. Kelso and the detectives slumped down low so as not to be seen. A few moments passed and Mitch walked out of the shop with a handful of mail in his hand. He looked up and down Topanga Canyon Road as if something the shop girl had said spooked him. He got back in his truck and sped off. Duke waited for a few cars to pass and then took off in quiet pursuit. He kept the Charger well back, behind the pickup so as to minimize any possibility of detection.
Gonklin turned his truck on Angel Hair Road, a windy, bendy road with hairpin curves that went up the side of the canyon. Duke slowed at the intersection as the two cars in front of him went straight towards the beach. He held back another few seconds before turning. He sped up to catch a glimpse of Gonklin’s Ford pickup. Then he backed off again. He realized he did not have to stay close on Gonklin’s tail because there were no connector roads to Angel Hair. It was one-way in and one-way out.
Duke hung back on the road so as to remain out of sight. In the distance he could no longer make out any vehicles on the road. Had he lost Gonklin? The presence of a dust cloud to the left of the road heading down a narrow dirt driveway indicated he hadn’t. He pulled the Charger over and parked behind some scrub brush. “What? You got to take a leak or something?” Peters asked.
“Shhh,” Duke said. “He went down that fire road.” He pointed to the dust cloud that rose from the embankment below them. Duke ran across the road behind a large oak tree and Kelso and Peters followed. They looked down into the canyon to see a rag-tag compound of wood structures with corrugated aluminum roofs and a dilapidated miners’ shack that looked like it had been there since the 1930’s.
Kelso whipped binoculars out of his kit bag. He surveyed the area. If an eco-terrorist were to have a haven, this would be it: there were stacks of tree spikes used to cause damage to lumberjacks’ saws. There were crates filled with caltrops designed to impede the encroachment of vehicle tires, horse hooves or other potential invaders. There was also a stash of circus bullhooks, forked rods commonly used by elephant tamers. Had these been snatched during a raid on some traveling circus? Kelso could only speculate. There were no visible signs of other weapons, but there were several camouflage jumpsuits hanging on a clothesline.
Gonklin got out of his pickup and traipsed over to the other side of the compound. There was a beekeeping area underneath a roof with stacks of hive boxes. He placed a beekeepers’ veil on and opened one of the hives. He pulled a large piece of honeycomb out of one of the frames. He walked over to a table with a large washing machine-like device and placed the honeycomb inside it. He turned the device on and its centrifuge rotated, spinning the honey off the combs and collecting it in a reservoir.
“I don’t think we should go in there without backup,” Peters whispered.
“We’re three!” Duke said. “He’s one.”
“We don’t know who else is in there!” Peters replied.
“Nah. The rest of his cell is away, somewhere else,” Duke answered. “Now is the time.”
Duke found a coyote path into the gorge and trod down it. Detective Peters whisper-yelled at Duke. “Stand down Detective! You are on ad leave! I don’t want you escalating the situation! We’re just here to question him.”
Duke ignored the warning and kept going.
Chapter Ten
The coyote path was a narrow trail through the coastal scrub brush that dotted the Santa Monica mountain range at the western side of Topanga Canyon. Duke looked down at his Bruno Magli leather-soled shoes and wished he had worn his New Balance. But he was undeterred, even as he slid down the trail like it was a ski run.
Kelso was hot on his tail, gaining quickly. The Bruno Magli’s were no match for Kelso’s Merrell hiking boots. “I’ll handle this,” he whispered at Duke as he took the lead down the hillside. The coyote trail merged with the ranch driveway and Kelso emerged on crunchy gravel. Gonklin heard the sound and was alerted to his visitors. Kelso assumed a completely amicable posture, acting like there was not a thing wrong. He waved at Gonklin. “Hey there! Is this the honeybee ranch? I’m with the Department of Fish and Wildlife and have a couple of questions!”
Gonklin froze in his tracks with another honeycomb in his hand. He was obviously not used to visitors way up here. Kelso walked towards him with an unintimidating skip in his step. But Duke felt the need to join in. “I’m Detective Wayne with the LAPD.”
This spooked Gonklin and he spun around and ran. “Goddamit Duke, I told you to let me handle this!” Kelso yelled as he took off after Gonklin.
Duke started to pull his Glock 22. Detective Peters placed a hand on his shoulder. “Put your weapon back in its holster. You’re on ad leave, remember?” Duke thought about this. Peters was right, he didn’t even have his badge. He held back and let Kelso and Peters run towards the suspect.
Kelso approached from the front and Peters on the flank. Duke observed Gonklin hide behind several stacks of hive boxes. He tried to warn his compadres as Gonklin kicked over the cardboard hives, releasing several swarms. Peters was caught and swatted bees away from his face as he retreated. Kelso was not deterred. He spotted a bee smoker next to the honey centrifuge and opened its lid. It was loaded with pine needles. He grabbed a lighter laying on the table and quickly lit its flame, igniting the contents. Then he squeezed the bellows several times. He ventured into the maelstrom of bees and spread clouds of pine smoke.
Duke noticed Peters smacking right and left while bees stung him. “Run!” he yelled and Peters complied.
Kelso noted an onshore breeze filtering through the canyon. “Head that way! Into the wind! It will slow them down!” Peters did so.
Duke did not let his eyes off the location of Gonklin, who was now climbing a nearby oak tree. “Heads up!” Duke called out. “Suspect is climbing the tree!”
Gonklin shimmied up the tree trunk with aplomb. He had obviously done this before. Kelso continued to spray smoke into the bees. He uprighted their hive boxes. Many of them swarmed back inside their homes.
Gonklin perched on a branch above the roof of the supply shed and jumped down onto the corrugated metal. He hopped off onto the ground, entering the shed. “Bagley! Suspect is in the shed behind you!” Duke shouted.
But Kelso couldn’t hear much over the droning noise of the bees. He kept pumping the bellows, emitting as much calming smoke as he could for the swarm. Gonklin meanwhile emerged from the shed carrying a can of gasoline and a spray bottle. He poured some of the fuel into the spray bottle and began spraying it at Kelso.
The bee smoker burst into flames, igniting Kelso’s sleeve. He did a “drop and roll” to put the flame out. As Kelso lay prone on the ground damping out the flame on his arm, Gonklin grabbed one of the circus bullhooks. He lunged at Kelso with the long, forked rod. Kelso dodged the jab of the elephant tamer’s tool, but he was backed into a corner. Gonklin raised the bullhook again, about to dig the hooked ends into Kelso’s flesh.
The bees were slowly dissipating, the smoke was definitely taking effect. Kelso noticed a cattle prod in a crate and grabbed it. He turned it on. Nothing. He fiddled with the switch. Gonklin stomped towards him with the bullhook. Kelso jiggled the cattle prod switch again. This time it sizzled to life. Bzzzz. He raised it above his head like a light saber and parried Gonklin’s bullhook. The prod slashed across Gonklin’s arm. He dropped to his knees from the shock, temporarily immobilized.
Kelso pulled the cuffs from his belt and approached Gonklin. But a bee stung him in the eye. He swatted at the bee and Gonklin rose back to his feet. Rather than come back at Kelso with the bullhook, Gonklin turned and ran. He hopped onto the roof of the shed and grabbed the lowest branch of the tree. Then he shimmied back up its trunk. “Get down here!” Kelso yelled. “You’re not going anywhere!”
But Gonklin definitely was going somewhere. Duke glimpsed a rope hanging from one of the upper branches of the tree. Gonklin swung from this rope like Tarzan and landed on a treehouse platform the next tree over! “He’s getting away!” Duke exclaimed. Kelso looked towards the adjacent oak tree and sure enough there was Gonklin. He ran over to the trunk of the tree and proceeded to climb it. At that moment Gonklin revealed a grenade. He dangled it above Kelso.
“You don’t want to do that,” Kelso said. “We can talk this thing out. I’m on your side.”
“Haha right. You?”
“Why do you think I joined Fish and Wildlife?” Kelso asked. “I’m trying to save the planet too.”
“Just like your partners in the Forest Service? They exist only to protect loggers. We chained ourselves to old growth trees and what did they do? They pepper-sprayed our genitals.”
Seeing that the swarm of bees had mostly dissipated, Duke felt confident enough to enter the area. He noticed that an oak tree across the gully was connected to Gonklin’s tree via a suspended rope bridge.
“I have nothing to do with that! I’m an insect specialist!”
“To-ma-to /to-mah-to,” Gonklin replied.
“You realize that if you pull that grenade pin you will kill not only us but this tree. And likely the explosion will kill the bees too. You really want to do that? How old is this oak? A hundred? Maybe a hundred and fifty?”
Gonklin hesitated. “A hundred eighty years old!” he said.
Duke skulked across the suspension bridge to the other side. He stood lockstep still.
Gonklin gripped the grenade in a moment of vacillation. At that moment Duke leapt from his perch and knocked Gonklin off his branch. The grenade flew out of his hands and Kelso hit the deck. He braced for a blast, but the only thing that came was a screen of reddish-brown smoke. It was a smoke grenade. Kelso coughed and tried to make out Gonklin’s position. But it was for naught. He could not see through the curtain of smoke.
Gonklin could not see either. He turned in circles trying to find an escape route. He groped his way towards the dry creek bed below. Duke tracked him from his perch on the tree branch above. As Gonklin passed directly beneath, he dropped down and tackled him. He slammed Gonklin’s face into the dirt and cuffed him.
***
Los Angelenos were fairly tough people – they endured earthquakes, heat waves, crime waves, droughts, mudslides and other disasters of that ilk. It was part of the price of living in sunny Southern California, with easy access to beaches for sun-bathing, mountains for skiing and hiking and of course the glamorous boulevards where the rich and famous paraded themselves on red carpets. But one thing Angelenos did not take well to was the news that Africanized honeybees could deliver a fatal blow to a person mowing the lawn in his own backyard.
Hester Lynne’s Live at Five broadcast had created a sense of unease and malaise amongst her loyal fans. They went out and purchased screened-in tents to place in their backyards for outdoor barbeques and parties. They purchased spray-on insecticides to have handy and ready at a moment’s notice. They placed citronella candles on their patio tables and kept them lit. Bee and wasp traps were placed in trees to attract prey with the promise of sweet sugar-water. They also called the mayor’s office.
“Is everything okay?” they asked whatever aide was unlucky enough to be on phone duty.
“Can’t the mayor do something?” they asked.
“How is he going to protect the public?” was another refrain.
The aides were each instructed to reply to the caller with the carefully worded, “There’s nothing we can do. It’s a result of climate change.”
When the mayor saw the number of callers who had reached out to his office about the issue he was unnerved. This was an election year after all, and regardless of whether or not something could be done about it, he needed to give the impression that something was being done about it. So he called together some staff members and suggested a committee be convened to study the issue.
Meanwhile the calls kept coming in as other news stations picked up on the untimely death of pesticide executive Howard Skulberry as a result of excessive bee stings.
***
The glass on the Los Angeles Police Administration building reflected high clouds in the sky. No one there had much time to admire the clouds though, as most of the city staff were buried underneath mountains of paperwork, both digital and printed. A clean-shaven Mitch Gonklin sat in an interrogation room facing Duke and Kelso. The captain was softening and had allowed Duke to participate in the inquest. Duke was very good at playing the “good cop/bad cop” card.
Duke threw down Gonklin’s rap sheet on the table. “Two McMansions burned to the ground, four SUV dealerships torched...”
“They were Hummer dealerships,” Gonklin replied.
“I don’t care if they were Stanley Steamer dealerships. You burned them down.”
“Yeah but think of how much CO2 I saved from going into the atmosphere,” Gonklin said.
“Six hundred trees spiked, resulting in five injuries to logging company employees,” Duke went on.
“This is all so ten years ago! It’s all behind me now. I found God,” he said.
“Is that the God that told you to clobber my partner over the head with a circus bullhook?” Duke asked in a rare moment of solicitousness for Kelso.
“I didn’t know if you guys were legit or not!” he answered.
“Sure. It was pure self-defense. You released all your bees to protect yourself. You’re as innocent as the driven snow,” Duke teased.
“Why are you breeding Africanized honeybees?” Kelso asked.
“They’re the only ones immune to colony collapse!” he answered, defensively. “I’m interbreeding them with Europeans so the new hybrid will be less aggressive but still survive.”
Duke scrubbed through some pictures on his phone. He froze on one and showed it to Gonklin. “Do you recognize yourself?” The photo was set outside the Las Vegas convention center. A sign read:
PestFest 2017
Banners promoted the event’s sponsors such as Con-Termite, Ag-Guard, Bauxer and other chemical companies. Several picketers protested outside the event hall with picket signs. The picketer front and center was none other than Mitch Gonklin, with a sign that read:
