Double Pass

by David Chill

  DOUBLE PASS

  by David Chill

  © 2016 by David Chill

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons living or deceased, is purely coincidental. The author assumes no responsibility for any errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein.

  Cover art photography provided by Matthew Chill

  For Warren Bayless

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Post Pattern Preview

  Chapter 1

  They say what's past is prologue. Those seminal events that happened so long ago, the ones you think are laying dormant and buried, are really just a prelude to the future. I wasn't convinced, but I couldn't dismiss this either. There were always going to be people from your past who spring magically back into your life, often when you least expected it.

  I was sitting in my office, talking about Noah Greenland. Noah Greenland was a marvelous high school quarterback who had a great arm and precision accuracy when it came to throwing a football. The angry old man seated across from me did not have a high opinion of Noah Greenland. That was okay, since I didn't have a high opinion of the angry man. The man's name was Earl Bainbridge and he owed me four thousand dollars, although I strongly suspected I was the only one who remembered that.

  Earl Bainbridge was old-money Pasadena, and old-money folks decide how much they would pay someone, prior agreements being a minor inconvenience. Earl reminded me of a portly man who recently tried to hire me to dig up dirt on a former partner. That portly man was a real estate contractor, one who typically paid just eighty percent of the agreed-upon fees to the plumbers, carpenters and electricians he hired. It was a sweet deal for him, not so much for the people who did the work. These people found out it was both expensive and frustrating to try to claim the rest of their money, with the episodes sometimes dragging out for years in court. Even if they won, their legal fees made the whole exercise fruitless. It was easier to simply resign themselves to not getting their final twenty percent. After listening to him boast for awhile, I declined the portly man's assignment. I probably should have declined Earl's past request, too, but back then, a near-lifetime of eight years ago, my checking account was advising me that I needed an injection of money, spurious as it turned out to be.

  "I don't like that Greenland family," he declared. "They're not my kind of people."

  "What does that mean?" I asked casually.

  "They don't belong at St. Dismas. The Greenlands are only there because the coaches wanted Noah. The parents have money, yet he's getting a full scholarship. He's sailing along on a free ride. That doesn't sit well with me. Plus, they live up in La Crescenta. They're not even from Pasadena."

  "Noah's what they call a five-star quarterback," I pointed out, drawing upon a reservoir of knowledge gleaned from my recent stint as a football coach. "Next year he'll be playing college ball somewhere, probably starting. Kids like that don't come around often. So they get taken care of."

  "He isn't that good," Earl sniffed. "Bunch of hype if you ask me."

  Actually, Noah Greenland was indeed that good. But it was also true that he was showered with a lot of publicity. As a high school player, some of his games even aired on TV. He was the subject of intense recruiting among college coaches. Even the Los Angeles Times did an article on him, how Noah had led St. Dismas, a school with little history as a football power, to a state title last season. It was a rags to riches tale that was just too juicy for the paper to pass up.

  "So what's your interest in him?" I asked. "And how does that bring you to my doorstep ... again?"

  Earl Bainbridge licked his lips before he spoke. He was now in his mid-sixties, lean, tan, and had a strong, craggy face. He was sporting more wrinkles now, and an ugly expression exuded from his eyes. But he still had a head full of reddish brown hair, unnatural for a man of his advanced years, a feature that had obviously been afforded full professional treatment. The colorful hair did not make him look young; it just made him look strange.

  "There's been fundraising issues for the team. We've raised a ton of money, and most of it's gone now. No one's giving me an honest answer about where it went. But it's gone."

  "You speak with the coach?" I asked.

  "I think he's part of the problem."

  "How about the principal?"

  "Do I look like an idiot? Of course I spoke with the principal. I got nowhere. They're all in cahoots."

  "Maybe you should hire a forensic accountant," I suggested.

  Earl shook his head. "This needs to be on the hush-hush. I don't want to draw unwanted attention to the team. First game is this Friday night. It's football season, opener is against De La Salle, one of the top schools in the state. This is our coming-out party, it's going to be shown live on Fox Sports. Can't get the team distracted by any kind of public scrutiny."

  I considered this. While college football had long maintained a national presence, I was surprised at the media focus that high school football was now getting, an attention that flung far beyond just the student body and college scouts. My perception might change if our son Marcus started playing football a dozen years from now. But that was a big if. My wife Gail was worried about concussions, and was probably not going to be supportive. Fortunately, a dozen years would afford us a lot of time for discussion.

  "And so you want to know where the money went," I said, thinking of my own unpaid bill from Earl. "Money's important to you. I remember from when I investigated your wife way back when."

  A scowl crossed Earl's face. It actually made him even more curmudgeonly. "You mean ex-wife. I divorced that snatch after you found her cheating on me. Don't worry. I made sure she didn't get much in the settlement. Just enough to live on, which is still more than she deserves."

  I wasn't worried, nor was I surprised. People like Earl, aging layabouts, who had never done any hard work in their lives, had simply inherited their oversized nest eggs and then spent a portion on attorneys who would protect it. Earl had enormous wealth, but was an enormous tightwad, too.

  "You ever remarry?" I asked.

  "Of course I did. I'm on my third trip to the plate," he replied.

  "So you're in-between divorces."

  Earl gave me an annoyed look. "You don't need to put it that way."

  "All right," I said, and tried to temper my annoyance with him. I looked out the window. It was a hot, sunny morning, the type of morning that often foretells the end of summer in Los Angeles. It was a day that came complete with a bright blue sky, but there were also some streaky clouds off in the distance.

  "So your interest here is because some of the funds in the fundraising were yours," I continued.

  "More than some. A lot more than some, in fact."

  "Sounds like you've acquired a generous streak," I said.

  "I'll take that as a compliment."

  "Well, it's possible that I said it wrong."

  "Look," he said. "I donate to causes that are worthwhile."

  "And this one is worthwhile because ... "

  "Because my son plays on the team. Austin's a senior. You mean you haven't heard of Austin Bainbridge? I thought you were a college football coach once."

  "Once," I confirmed, although it was r
eally not that long ago. My tenure coaching defensive backs at USC had ended this past New Year's Day, fittingly in the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena. Ironically, the Rose Bowl itself was only a short walk from the Bainbridge Estate, located in a now-dry creek called the Arroyo Seco. That neighborhood was also close to where Jackie Robinson had grown up. Pasadena was, and in many ways continues to be, a very eclectic community. It was a bit like Santa Monica in that regard; the city was home to the very rich and the very poor, as well as a few who were in-between.

  It was very unlikely Austin Bainbridge would ever get to play in the Rose Bowl, but stranger things have happened. I knew a little about Austin Bainbridge because I knew about Noah Greenland. At USC, we recruited Noah hard, the same way we recruited all top prep football players in the Southland. But Austin was just another kid, good but not great. And in the world of big-time college football, good just wasn't good enough. Not anymore.

  When Johnny Cleary was head coach at USC, he wanted to erect an invisible fence around the Southern California region, corralling the top football players and keeping them from committing to far-flung schools like Alabama, Michigan or Notre Dame. So we did a full-court press on every five-star recruit, pursuing them the way the hottest girl in a school might be pursued. By the time we were done, most of these players had seen every one of our coaches at their doorstep; by National Signing Day, a lot of them had come onboard. Noah committed to the Trojans over a year ago, right after the Nike Combine, where high school players get their athletic skills assessed. But when Johnny left USC this past January for a job in the NFL, Noah Greenland decommitted. He said he wanted to explore other offers, of which he had many. A player like Austin Bainbridge had fewer scholarship options to fall back on.

  "I'm supporting my son," he told me. "By donating to his team. But I don't like what's happening there. Never liked that school, really."

  "So why did you send Austin to St. Dismas?" I asked.

  "Oh, heck, I wanted him to go to Westridge, where my other kids went. But Austin said he wanted a crack at playing big-time football. Okay, sure, he's got that right. It's just that the more I look at this football program, the more problems I see. And I want the people in charge held accountable."

  Any situation having to do with money going from Earl's wallet to someone else's would certainly not sit well with him. And he was going to do something about it. But apparently he didn't recall our last encounter.

  "So how do you know there's money missing?"

  "Because I asked," he snarled. "And I have a contact at Crown Bank, where the school has a number of accounts. My friend down at the club, his nephew works there. Told me that a boatload of money came in and went out very quickly. Wouldn't give any details, says he could lose his job. Little turd. Coach Savich said they were going to buy all new equipment. New tackle sleds, punting machines, flex chutes, that sort of thing. Put in field turf. Get new uniforms for the kids. Helmets, too, the kind with real gold in the paint."

  "Oh, yeah, the real gold kind," I repeated. USC's long-time rival, the University of Notre Dame, started this trend. It wasn't enough that their team managers spray-painted the Fighting Irish helmets the night before each game. They needed to keep pushing the envelope, so they introduced gold helmets that contained real gold flakes. The result was they more resembled Christmas ornaments than anything a tough football player from years past might want to wear. But the style caught on, and soon, many programs wanted something similar. Even high school teams.

  "And now they can't buy the kind with real gold, because the money's all gone," I said.

  "You catch on quick," he responded dryly.

  "And what do you want me to do about it?"

  "Whaaa...? I want you to find out who did it, for crissakes!" Earl sputtered, reminding me once again I was weary of being hired by people who come equipped with an inch-long fuse coupled with a bloated sense of entitlement. "I want justice! That's why I'm here!"

  "Oh, right, justice" I said, sighing to myself. "So if you suspect theft, why don't you go to the police?"

  "My goodness, man! Haven't you been listening to me?!" he practically shouted. His agitated tone had become more akin to what one reserves for shouting a late-night burger order into a scratchy drive-thru speaker.

  "Sadly, yes."

  Earl continued to seem flustered, but continued on. "Then you know St. Dismas is a religious school. A private school. And this is a private matter. Filing a police report makes it a public matter. And we can't air our dirty laundry in public. Certainly not now."

  No, of course he couldn't. Or wouldn't. Earl Bainbridge wanted me to comb through the dirty laundry quietly. Discreetly. "And if I find out what happened," I asked, "just what do you plan to do about it?"

  "What do you think I'll do?!" he asked, practically yelling.

  "I can imagine a few things," I responded sharply. "And none of them sound good. Or legal."

  "Look," he said with his own sigh of exasperation. "No one's going to get hurt. We only want to find out what happened."

  "We?" I asked, raising my eyebrows for emphasis. Maybe I was making a little progress. Let someone talk long enough and they'll start to reveal things.

  "Yeah, we. The directors. I sit on the board of that school. They invited me, they like having big donors on the board. If a school employee was siphoning funds, they'll be fired."

  It would have helped if Earl had passed on that little tidbit voluntarily. Having a board of directors presented some legitimacy. If it were merely Earl on a lone wolf mission, I might have turned him down. Might have. There was still the matter of his age-old debt.

  "I can look into it," I said, leaning back in my chair and glancing up at the tiled ceiling in my office. Time to play some poker with Earl.

  "Fine."

  "But I won't."

  "Won't?" he said incredulously. "And just why not?"

  "Because the last time you hired me to do something, you didn't pay me what you owed me."

  "Of course I did," he declared. "I remember writing you a check in this very office."

  "I just moved into this office in March," I pointed out.

  "Well, wherever you were. I know I did."

  I reached into my desk and pulled out a manila folder. Opening it up slowly, I pretended to peruse the paperwork. I had already gone through it yesterday, when Earl had called to set up the appointment. Earl had initially been referred through an old colleague at the LAPD. My tenure as a police officer had just ended in spectacular fashion, and my struggling private investigation business needed some clients. At the time I was charging five hundred a day, and Earl had paid me for two days up front, although even getting that took some haggling. But the investigation of his young wife took a lot longer than two days.

  "You had me look into your ex's infidelity. I followed her around for a good two weeks before I caught her with another man. They were having quite a good time, if I recall."

  "You don't need to remind me of the details. That's uncalled for."

  "I do need to remind you that you only paid me a two-day retainer. I was never compensated for the other eight days. Or did you change your address and not get the six invoices I sent you?"

  Earl took a deep breath. "You never finished the job."

  "I finished the job I was hired to do. I found out your wife was cheating, who she was cheating with, along with where and when. I just wasn't going to be a full-fledged peeping Tom."

  "I wanted video evidence. You refused."

  "That wasn't part of the deal," I said. "You hired me to find out if she was having an affair. I did and I gave you the details. I don't do that other stuff. Directing porno films is not the way I earn a living."

  "I wanted a snoop. I only got part of the job, so you only got part of the fee."

  I took a good look at Earl. He represented everything I disliked about my line of work. He was a client who was arrogant, demanding and unappreciative. The Bainbridge family was part of what amounted to landed
gentry in these parts. Earl's great-grandfather was one of the pioneers who helped move the West into the modern world. He was from Oklahoma, departed during the drought, and brought the family out here with nothing more than a background in farming wheat. As Los Angeles grew, he saw an opportunity and opened a bakery. It did well, so he opened another and then another. Pretty soon, Bainbridge was churning out the brand of white bread that generations of Angelenos grew up eating.

  The Bainbridge Bakeries had been a family business, handed down through the generations. But by the time the mantle should have been passed to Earl, his family had turned it into the Bainbridge Corporation, a publicly traded entity, and Earl was simply a very large shareholder. Earl didn't need to run the business, all he needed to do was oversee the massive wealth that had fallen into his lap. And protecting assets was one thing Earl did remarkably well. Especially from people like me.

  "And that's why I'm not doing business with you," I countered, pointing to the door. "I work for a living. I need to get paid for what I do."

  Earl took a deep breath. Instead of getting up and leaving, he slumped deeper in the chair. His defiance was humbled and he looked frustrated. He thought for a moment and then spoke.

  "Look," he said, "I need someone like you."

  "That's funny. I don't need someone like you."

  "I ... I need someone with a background in football. Someone who can do an investigation properly. There aren't a lot of snoops out there for this kind of job."

  "And you can stop calling me a snoop. I'm a private investigator. And I charge fifteen hundred a day now."

  Earl's eyes widened when he heard the figure. My normal fee was now a thousand a day, but I sometimes lowered it if the client was not financially secure. For people like Earl, the fee was jacked up accordingly.

  "All right," he said finally, his mouth tightened, as he drew a checkbook out of his pocket. "But I want you to turn that football program at St. Dismas upside down. I want to know everything about everything."