Gayle shoots Larry at Flying C Ranch

Gayle’s shooting of Larry Stryker at the Flying C Ranch turns their long-running partnership into an open confrontation. The encounter begins when Larry tries to secure the notebooks he has hidden from her, and ends with Gayle shooting him and leaving the study as he calls after her.

The Hidden Notebooks

Larry had decided to take the notebooks and flee, fearing that Gayle would not destroy the evidence against him. He had kept them in a wall safe in the study, concealed behind a large oil painting; because Gayle did not know the safe existed, he had considered it a secure hiding place. His attempt to retrieve the notebooks was part of his plan to get away to Pinal Air Park, where he believed no one would think to look for him.

Larry hurried through the house, opened the safe after three attempts at the combination, and put the notebooks into a briefcase. As he turned to close the safe and replace the painting, Gayle appeared and asked what he was doing. Startled, he dropped the painting, breaking its heavy gilt frame on the Saltillo floor. When he turned toward her, she was pointing a chrome-plated pistol at his chest.

The Confrontation and Shooting

Larry understood that Gayle might shoot him. He had known for more than thirty years that she was the natural-born killer between them, though he had believed himself safe from her. With the pistol still trained on him, he pretended to comply with her demand to show what was in the briefcase, while deciding that his only chance was to resist.

Instead of opening the case, Larry seized it and hurled it at Gayle. She dodged, and her first shot missed; the next struck him in the chest and knocked him backward. As he slid down the wall and behind the desk, he watched for another shot, but Gayle moved out of sight. He called for her not to leave him, pleading as he lay wounded. She did not answer. The study door slammed, the final sound he heard from her as she left.

The Charity as Infrastructure

The shooting followed a partnership sustained not only by marriage but by a system Gayle had built around Medicos for Mexico. The cross-border charity gave Gayle and Larry salaries and public respectability, while weak outside oversight let them divert funds through vaguely labeled expenses. Gayle was skilled at fundraising, and money from the organization also helped finance an expensive mansion under construction in a gated compound outside Cabo San Lucas.

The charity also gave Gayle access to girls held in detention centers it served. She could arrange for a new girl to be brought in within days or weeks, while Larry’s control over the girls remained subject to Gayle’s veto: she could remove one and replace her with another. This structure helps explain the imbalance that shaped their partnership. Larry exercised power in the basement, but Gayle controlled the supply and could redirect it; the same alliance that had protected their shared life left Larry exposed when their interests diverged.

The Reversal of Control

The confrontation turns on a sharp reversal in what each spouse possesses: Larry has the notebooks that could expose him, while Gayle has the gun and the immediate advantage. When he throws the briefcase instead of surrendering it, the container of concealed records becomes an improvised means of resistance, but it does not change the balance for long. The exchange also strips away the appearance of a partnership organized around secrecy. Larry’s appeal as Gayle leaves receives no answer, and the study door closing ends their conversation without reconciliation or explanation. The scene’s final emphasis is therefore not on what the notebooks might prove, but on the collapse of the trust and mutual protection that had kept their shared crimes hidden.