Cruel Vintage

by Huston Michaels

  “Hey, Arch, did Hensley by chance go back through the tunnel?”

  “She did,” Arch replied. “Said she was looking for another set of clubs. I told her not to bother, but she went anyway.”

  “What am I missing?”

  “I don’t think the woman was here to play golf, and I don’t think she’s his daughter.”

  “I would certainly hope not,” Kaye said.

  “But you gotta wonder if he was getting up and down and if she was counting strokes,” Arch said, grinning broadly.

  Movement in his peripheral vision caught Kaye’s eye and he turned to see another cart headed their way. Carol Soares was driving and had two passengers.

  Soares pulled up and the windbreaker-clad crime scene techs piled out. Kaye didn’t recognize either one.

  “Hang on a minute,” he said to Soares before turning to the techs. “Two dead by GSW. Get what you can, but it probably won’t be much. Doctor Archuleta thinks they were shot from a distance, so the chance of trace is probably about zero. Another foursome found them, but did not walk into the scene. Two uniforms, Archuleta and I have tromped around.”

  “Okay,” one of the techs said. “We’ll get what we can.”

  “Thanks,” Kaye said. “Call me if you get anything unusual or probative. Otherwise, just e-mail me the report and the photos.”

  “Will do, Detective,” the second tech said.

  Kaye turned back to Soares.

  “Ms. Soares, do you recognize the victims?”

  “I haven’t really seen them,” she replied. “The woman officer kept me away.”

  “She was just protecting the crime scene. Are you up to taking a look?”

  “I…I suppose I could do that.”

  “Thank you. Leave the cart here.”

  The techs had already started taking pictures and consulting with Arch by the time Kaye and Soares got to the mouth of the tunnel.

  “Oh, my God,” Soares whispered as soon as she was close enough to get a look at the male victim.

  “Do you recognize him?” Kaye asked.

  “Avi Geller.”

  “Is he a member?”

  “Of course,” Soares said. “Only members and accompanied guests are allowed on the course.”

  Kaye guided her around to the other side of the cart.

  The female victim was face down, her head toward the mouth of the tunnel, right side on the cart path and left side on the grass. Her right arm was caught beneath her, her left splayed out to the side.

  “Do you recognize her?” he asked Soares.

  Soares studied the woman for a moment, then said, “I don’t recognize her like that, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.”

  Kaye took Soares’s elbow and steered her away from the cart.

  “What can you tell me about Avi Geller?” he asked. “Has he been a member for long?”

  “Quite a few years, I think. I’ve been here almost four years, and he was a member when I started.”

  “What does…did… he do?” Kaye asked.

  “I think he’s a producer,” Soares said. “You know, movies and TV.”

  “Are members required to sign in their guests?”

  “Yes. There’s a log at the Starter’s desk. You have full access, of course.”

  “Thank you. Officer Hensley said you told her there wasn’t a group right ahead of the victims. Is that right?”

  “That’s what I understand, but you can check that with the Starter, too.”

  Soares’s gaze went past Kaye and he turned to see Arch standing a few feet away.

  “What do you need, Arch?”

  “Actually,” Arch said, “I have a request for Ms. Soares.”

  “What can I do for you, Doctor?” Soares asked.

  “I’m assuming the club groundskeepers have some of those carts that are like little pickup trucks?”

  “They do,” Soares said.

  “I’ll need one…no, make that two, please,” Arch said. “I’ll need to transport the victims back to my van, and the techs will need a ride out.”

  “I’ll have them brought down,” Soares said. “Will you need to keep the cart Avi was using?”

  “I don’t think so,” Kaye spoke up. “I’ll bring it back when I’m done.”

  “Thank you,” Soares said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She turned and headed back to her cart.

  ***

  Carol Soares’s mind raced as she headed toward the clubhouse.

  When she rounded the shoulder of the canyon near the 8th hole dogleg, where she knew there was cell service, she stopped in the shade of a large eucalyptus and pulled out her cell phone.

  “It’s done, I saw the body,” she said without preamble when the call was answered. “But what the hell happened? Both of them?”

  She listened.

  “This is going to cause a lot of trouble,” she said a second later. “I didn’t sign –"

  Obviously interrupted, she listened again.

  “Okay, but you’d better keep your end –” She stopped and stared angrily at her phone. The other end of the conversation had hung up on her.

  ***

  Kaye watched and waited while the techs worked.

  They were thorough, but there wasn’t much to find. After a fairly short time, one of them approached.

  “Detective, we need to know how far out you want us to go,” he said.

  “I think you’re good,” Kaye said. “I’m with Arch on this one. I don’t think our shooter was ever close and I don’t expect you to process the entire great outdoors.”

  “Thanks,” the tech said, clearly relieved. “Can we move the bodies?”

  “Hey, Arch,” Kaye called out. “Okay to move the bodies?”

  “I’ve been waiting on you,” Arch replied. “They’re all yours.”

  Kaye started with Avi Geller. He went to glove up, and rummaged around in Arch’s box of tricks.

  Arch saw him. “Sorry, I don’t think I have the super-giant size gloves in stock today. I don’t think it will matter if you go without just this once.”

  Kaye nodded, walked over and stood next to the cart, reached around Geller’s shoulders, pushed his hands under the dead man’s armpits and lifted him out of the cart like he was weightless.

  Arch was waiting with a body bag and laid it out on the ground. Then he grabbed Geller’s ankles and together they gingerly lowered the body onto the bag, face up.

  Kaye quickly took a close-up of Geller’s face, then rolled the body onto its side, felt the back pockets, and extracted a wallet. He opened it and came face to face with 56-year old Aviram Lemuel Geller of Bel Air on a much better day than he was having today.

  The wallet wasn’t thick. It held the driver’s license, some cash, a couple of the same credit cards Kaye carried, a few photos Kaye assumed were of family and several business cards proclaiming Avi Geller the President of AZG Productions. He patted the other pockets looking for a cell phone or car keys and found nothing.

  “I’m going to keep this,” Kaye said, holding up the wallet for Arch and the techs to see.

  “It’s your case,” Arch said. “Keep whatever you want to keep.”

  “You want to verify the cash?”

  Archuleta almost burst out laughing, but stifled his reaction. He knew Kaye was loaded thanks to his late wife’s ongoing book and film royalties and residuals.

  “Like you need the money badly enough to steal it?”

  “Procedure,” Kaye said. “Normally a job for a partner, but, as you can see, no partner.”

  “How much is there?”

  “One hundred and twenty-one dollars.”

  “Consider it verified,” Arch said, still grinning as he leaned over and did a quick gross examination of the body now that it was out of the cart.

  “Like I expected,” he told Kaye. “No injuries or trauma other than the gunshot wounds. I think this smells like a hit.”

  “Thanks, Arch. I already got that.” />
  “That must be why you’re the detective and I’m just the country doctor. Okay, on to the little lady.”

  The techs began the process of fingerprinting and photographing Geller while Kaye and Arch moved on to the female vic.

  There was no wallet, keys or phone in the back pockets of the shorts she wore. Kaye rolled her over and the cause of death was immediately evident: One round to the center chest. Her front pockets were also empty.

  “If she got out to run, how’d she get shot in the chest?” Kaye asked, more of himself than Arch.

  “Good question,” Arch responded. “Two shooters, maybe?”

  “I don’t think so. Look at the terrain. If there was another shooter he, or she, would’ve had to be in the tunnel to hit her from that direction, and given the witnesses’ accounts, I doubt that.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” Arch said. “But remember, even with the wound location she would have still had several seconds mobility, more than enough to swing off the cart and try to run before she went down for good. The bad news is one entrance wound and two exits. The bullet broke up. No ballistics even if we found the fragments.”

  Just as they laid the corpse onto the second body bag and Kaye got his photo the groundskeepers showed up with the two mini-trucks. Kaye dealt with them while Arch did a quick gross.

  “Just like Geller,” Arch said when Kaye returned. “No other damage other than the fatal wound. But no ID on this one.”

  “I’ll get Geller’s keys from the valet,” Kaye said. “If there are phones or a purse, they’re probably in the car.”

  “I never would have thought of that,” Arch said.

  “That’s why I’m the detective, Arch.” He smiled.

  Twenty minutes later there was a consensus that the crime scene work was done. Arch had wiped all of Avi Geller’s bodily fluids from the golf cart seat and put the rags in the body bag with the corpse. He turned to Kaye.

  “You coming back with us?” Arch asked.

  “No,” Kaye said. “I’m going to hang here for a bit. I want to check a couple things.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you know if I find anything unusual when I do the posts. Otherwise I’ll just e-mail you the final reports.”

  “Thanks, Arch. And, hey, good to see you again. Glad you didn’t bail during all the trouble.”

  “That’s why I’m the doctor,” Arch deadpanned, then broke out laughing.

  Kaye watched the little caravan disappear around the shoulder of the canyon beyond the 8th tee, then walked back to the mouth of the tunnel and slid into the seat formerly occupied by Avi Geller.

  The shooter, by definition, had to be able to see his targets. He, or she, Kaye reminded himself, might have risked a timed, pre-sighted shot through the trees if Geller had been partially visible, but nobody can hit a running target they can’t see without laying down a withering field of fire, and he still thought the woman had been trying to escape. Based on the fact that she’d only made it a few feet, Kaye presumed the shooter had eyes-on the entire time.

  He studied the surrounding terrain and sight lines for nearly ten minutes, sketching a rudimentary map and marking reference points before sliding out of the cart and heading for the hillside.

  Might as well take the easiest one first.

  On the way, he turned frequently to maintain his location reference, traversing the hillside as he climbed. After ten minutes of slow climbing, during which he saw nothing useful, he reached an elaborate wrought iron fence, beyond which was a swimming pool and meticulously landscaped back yard.

  It was only five minutes back down. After a quick visit to the cart to confirm landmarks he started up again on another line.

  About two-thirds of the way up he rounded a large clump of native vegetation and almost tripped over a rock about the size of a suitcase.

  Looking down, he noticed that the top of the rock was dirt-free, but had a rim of crusted dirt on its edges. Below that the rock was still lightly coated with soil.

  He looked around. About seven feet away he saw the spot where the rock had been pulled from the dirt beneath a clump of tall native grass.

  He studied the ground around the rock closely. The smaller grasses had been trampled. Just to make sure, he sat down on the rock’s relatively flat surface. The sight line to the tunnel mouth was clear and the surrounding brush was tall and dense enough to shield him from view from either side or above.

  He hefted the rock. For him it was an easy lift, but he knew the shooter had to be reasonably stout to get the rock out of its resting place and move it.

  Next, hoping for either a lazy, nicotine-addicted shooter or a stroke of luck, he carefully searched the surrounding area looking for anything that might have been left behind.

  Nothing.

  Convinced he’d found the shooter’s perch, he looked around and asked himself out loud, “Okay, so how did you get here?”

  Kaye was no outdoorsman, but his father had been an avid deer hunter and had introduced Kaye to the chase at an early age. Hunting hadn’t captivated him, but he still remembered a lot of his Dad’s lessons.

  On the climb he’d watched for, but not seen, any signs of recent passage. The ground was mostly covered with grasses, either untended native or mown as part of the golf course, and the ground on all but the steepest pitches was firm enough to hold even his weight without crumbling. Climbing the steeper spots, though, had caused small dirt slides when the slope gave way and his foot slid slightly downhill.

  That was what he looked for now.

  Almost immediately he was able to pick out the shooter’s path down and back up the twenty feet above where he stood before it disappeared around another clump of vegetation.

  It was easy to follow, even when he entered the densely planted buffer between the native plants and the house above.

  It didn’t take long for him to reach a stacked block retaining wall that reached about ten feet in height. Above that he could see the elaborate pointed gold tips of yet another wrought iron fence.

  He went up the wall with ease, looking through the fence at another swimming pool and an expansive back yard that looked like a miniature version of Versailles.

  He scanned up and down the fence and saw a gate. It was latched, but not locked, which he thought was strange.

  “Hello in the house!” Kaye shouted. “LAPD. Anybody home?”

  No response.

  He waited for a minute, watching for movement, before trying again.

  Again, no response.

  He debated letting himself in and decided against it. Not only were the odds of a random encounter with a citizen pissed off that the cops were in his back yard high, it would also probably negate the evidentiary value of anything he might come up with.

  He made careful note of the house’s roofline and the few trees visible on the front side of the property, knowing he could find it again from the street.

  He didn’t climb down, he jumped. Just as he stepped off the top of the wall he caught a glimpse of something metallic in the plantings below.

  It was a padlock, and it had been cut.

  Kaye carefully put the padlock in his pocket and made his way back down the hill to the now forlorn looking golf cart. Always thorough, he checked the two other possible sight lines, but found nothing.

  When he was finished he turned the cart over to the attendant outside the clubhouse.

  “Hey, can you point me to the Starter’s Desk?” he asked the kid.

  “Sure can.”

  Lon Burridge was easy to find. Half a foot taller than Kaye, fit, with a golfer’s tan that didn’t include his forehead, Burridge sat at a shaded kiosk between the clubhouse and first tee.

  “Mr. Burridge, Detective Kaye, LAPD.”

  “Carol told me to expect you,” Burridge said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to see your log from earlier today. I’m interested in the woman who was with Avi Geller.”

  Burridge laid a ledger on
the counter and pointed at the 11:15 a.m. start time. It had Geller’s name in the member’s column. Kaye noted that the most recent start time before Geller was 10:30 a.m.

  “Really?” Kaye asked, putting his finger on the name next to Geller’s in the guest column. “Jane Smith?”

  “I know,” Burridge said. “But you have to understand. Mr. Geller is…was…a member and members can bring guests. I don’t check identification or ask questions.”

  “Did you have questions?”

  “Of course I had questions. I’m not stupid. That girl wasn’t even half Geller’s age and she wasn’t carrying clubs. Besides, Mr. Geller is a married man.”

  “Married?” Kaye asked, not remembering a ring on Geller’s hand. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” Burridge said. “He always came to club functions with the same woman since I’ve been here and she was… What’s the term? Age appropriate?”

  “Had you ever seen Jane Smith before?”

  “Never.”

  “What can you tell me about Geller?”

  “Not a lot,” Burridge said. “Decent golfer, probably a fifteen handicap, and a good tipper. More so lately.”

  “Why do you think that was?”

  “He must’ve had a big deal coming together. It’s almost predictable around here, based on the tips.”

  “Did he tell you what the deal was?”

  Burridge laughed. “Detective, I’m an employee here. They, the members I mean, don’t talk business with us. To most of them, we’re furniture.”

  “But you hear things, right?”

  Even through the deep tan Kaye saw Burridge blush as the starter looked away.

  “So,” Kaye prodded, “what did you hear?”

  “I could lose my job.”

  “Lon, somebody shot Avi Geller in the chest, twice, a couple hours ago and they shot the young woman, whoever she is, when she tried to run. It’s my job to find out who did that to them, and if you can think of anything that might help me do that, I need to know.”

  “Off the record?” Burridge asked, looking around nervously.

  “Sure.”

  “Okay,” Burridge said. “Carol told me what happened, you know, and it made me think. I don’t know if it means anything, but, yeah, I did hear Mr. Geller arguing with another guy a while back, before all the plague shit.”