dangerous than a Mongol hoard and I make Charles Manson look like a choir boy. Good old California where perception is reality and insanity is sanity. I had the idea he was enjoying every bit of the publicity and believed he really thought it was all quite hilarious.
We talked about the likely possibilities about the dead guy. Curt said what some suspect, is that it is connected to Marcy and her drug dealing ex-boy friend. However it just doesn’t seem right and truthfully I don’t have a clue as to who did that job.
After touring the grounds and talking to more of the staff and residents I made some more notes and left for home. So when I put my notes and interview together plus verified the various sources I realized I would never have more than half a story until the murder was solved.
Sometime later there was a story in a San
Diego paper about two murders and an assault at The Sanctuary; I also had a call from Ed. It seems that Marcy’s case had nothing to do with it. It was a concentrated attempt to destroy the lawyers group in the nearby town that often worked for The Sanctuary. Several people were wounded and one innocent person and one criminal died in their ill fated endeavor.
It did have a connection with a woman that had been in The Sanctuary five years ago and George’s wife. Meg Harmon’s ex-husband had a multimillion dollar business in computer software sales. The Wilson Attorney Group nailed him for a sizeable settlement and physical abuse of his wife the trial took place while she was a resident at The Sanctuary. He blamed them, the attorneys and The Sanctuary for costing him millions of dollars and worse yet, humiliation.
George had been a physician with a thriving practice in neurosurgery and wealthy parents that left him more than a million dollars. Phyllis wasn’t too upset with the divorce and actually had initiated it, her attorney told her she would easily get her share, however before any legal papers were handled the IRS stepped in and all was lost. Phyllis had been livid with rage ever since it had been proved that it was her incompetence and her gambling that wrecked their financial situation, she would not accept the responsibility. She never got over the rage of being left with limited resources and endless humiliation.
Phyllis, George’s wife met Charles Harmon of Harmon Software in an attorney’s office and later they had a drink and discussed how they were screwed by the attorney group and that damn cult at The Sanctuary. During the next few weeks they met often and developed a plan to get even. They hired a detective to check out the attorney group and The Sanctuary. That got them nowhere but the detective did give them a contact that would probably rough them up and teach them a lesson.
The contact wasn’t what they wanted either but he lead them to another contact in Miami when they called he said wire me ten grand and I will see you tomorrow to create a business plan. The next day they met Louis and told him they wanted to destroy the Wilson Attorney Group and The Sanctuary. He said do you want them killed or just out of business. They said they didn’t care. He told them he would have his people research the problem and report back in two weeks or less. He estimated the job at half a million. It was at that moment they both realized the money didn’t matter it was about revenge for the intolerable humiliation. They celebrated for several hours and ended up really drunk and happier than they had been for years.
When Louis reported back he said the most effective way to topple The Sanctuary was to kill Curt Turner because everything revolved around him. The Wilson Attorney group was more difficult but what he suggested was to terrorize them over a period of time and kill one if necessary. He thought the attorneys should be dealt with first and after that they would kill Turner. He said send one hundred thousand dollars to five separate banks off shore in escrow accounts. It would take both Charles and Louis signature to withdraw the money.
Nothing happened and in two weeks Louis asked for a meeting. He apologized for one of his men who he said was supposed to be gathering information and was found to be in a bar shooting his mouth off about being in a gang in Miami. He appeared genuinely embarrassed and determined to make this a positive business transaction. Louis said he had taken care of the problem. He said The Sanctuary was having some problems by being implicated in a murder.
One day they read in the paper that a man from Miami was found dead and later other articles reported he was murdered with an ice pick near The Sanctuary.
It was a few more weeks and Louis asked for a meeting and Phyllis said he better not ask for more money but of course it was all Charles Harmon’s money anyway. Louis apologized once again and told them one of his men was gathering information on The Wilson Attorney Group when three women came up and ended up getting him arrested. He thinks the women may have been crazy. He said this is an unusual case and he has always maintained the highest professional standards. He had to send one of his best men back to Miami and replaced him.
In the following days there was an explosion in the lobby of the Wilson Attorney Group a day later one of the younger attorneys was murdered in the parking lot in his car with an ice pick in the heart. Two days after that the Wilson Attorney Group had their entire computer data destroyed in both the local office and their L.A. office. The police in L.A. said that a computer system expert destroyed the data in the offsite backup system also.
They story in the paper speculated that it was doubtful if the Wilson Attorney Group would ever recover. Phyllis and Charles were ecstatic and it was time to hit the bar again.
Curt was in his the office which seemed like a dumb thing to be doing late on a Saturday night, particularly in spite of the public’s perception of his exciting lifestyle. Many of the residents were down town to the mall even George went along. Susan called Curt and reported that security had alerted her that a BMW was parked about a block from the entrance. There were six men in the car and one was wearing a dark suit moving in a zigzag pattern towards Curt’s office. Curt said don’t worry about it and said I will be OK.
Sooner than he expected someone crashed through his door with a small caliper gun with a silencer. Curt hit the gun with his hand but the gun went off and he felt a sting in his left foot. Curt was too late to retaliate, Ellen had him, there was a faint cracking sound next, he was out in mid air and his head hit the desk with a sickening thud, but he didn’t feel a thing.
Six females with nine millimeter pis
tols filled the office then they turned the lights out except one that was dim, Curt stood back so anyone from the outside would only see his shadow. The women stood outside in the dark shadows in perfect silence, all dressed in dark clothes with three to each side of the office and a security guard stood in the dark in front of the adjoining offices on each side with semi automatic assault rifles. Curt always liked the dramatic and Dirty Harry was his favorite movie, so he carried a forty four magnum.
The five remaining men in the car started heading for Curts office all armed with assault weapons. The poor bastards had no idea that it was all but over. They came to within fifty feet of the office and then when it was way too late they saw laser lights on their legs and they all went down in a heap. One fired several shots in the air other than that they were silent; a nine millimeter slug tends to settle things at a close range. They heard what sounded like one long loud shot. All nine millimeter pistols had gone off almost at the same time. Later they inventoried the ammunition and discovered less than twelve cartridges had been used and quite possibly each one had hit its mark. Curt never bothered to fire a shot. He said maybe you are bitches from hell, he admitted they scared him a little. They laughed and engaged themselves in relating to the police Curt’s heroic stand. The only shots the security guards fired was at the tires of the BMW. They didn’t need to bother no one was going anywhere.
No one died but one of the gang came close to bleeding to death. Curt tried to interrogate them but had little results not because they wouldn’t talk but because they knew very little.
It must have been mind boggling to hear Curt tell the story to the police and later to the press. He never really lied but he was a genius at helping them come to a conclusion. I have ever reason to believe they told me the real story which was a one sided gun battle that lasted at most a few seconds. To hear Curt tell it to the press it was a John Dillinger shoot out and in spite of his near fatal wound he kept on fighting. The truth was he had a very minor wound in the foot from a twenty two caliper bullet and he never fired a shot. When George returned from town he took Curt to ER where the nurse shook her head and put on a band aid.
The stories in the papers were much better than reality. The Sanctuary figured they may not need to bother to lock their doors at night. The assault on The Sanctuary was not connected for several weeks and it took law enforcement several months to connect the whole plot to Phyllis and Charles and start prosecution. And The Sanctuary was flooded with applications and donations.
This should have satisfied my curiosity, however I left with more questions than I came with. Time was short I had to leave, other deadlines must be met.
I had the feeling that I still knew only very little about Curt. I had noticed books on Alexander the Great, Hannibal and the Greek philosophers. He had an autographed picture of a tattooed man who was wearing gang clothes. I didn’t ask any of these questions or about his past personal life or his childhood. With his tendency to ramble on I might never have finished the story.
I wondered about Susan and Lettie and suspected each may have a story more fascinating than the one I wrote. There were so many stories here that a group of journalists would have enough material to last a lifetime, but much of it would be too unusual to believe. I wonder if those that encounter a flying saucer feel like I do now. George was a neurosurgeon that looks like a Gomer and fights like Bruce Lee. He seems content to live at The Sanctuary permanently and should have every reason to have left some months ago.
There had been rumors of the residents engaging in witchcraft and when I asked them they said it wasn’t true but they didn’t deny the stories publicly because it freaked people out and they enjoyed that.
But the real story that keeps me awake at night is about Ed Hauser, who the hell is he? I only had enough information to fire up my curiosity. Is Ed dead or did he just leave? And why does he still have this presence at the Sanctuary and there presence at the Sanctuary and there is so much talk about him in the present tense?
Some day I just have to know and it annoys me that I can’t forget about it.