An Open Case of Death

by James Y. Bartlett

  “Don’t know,” I said.

  Meyer and Chin chatted for a few minutes, then Strauss returned and said something to Meyer. He and Chin stood up, collected their drinks and they all followed Strauss as be began walking through the lobby.

  “Shit,” I said. “They’re going somewhere else to talk.”

  “That wasn’t in the plan,” Sharky said.

  “It is now,” I said. “You go after them. I’ll stay here and watch for Harwood to come back.”

  “Right,” he said and disappeared into the crowd.

  The woman, who had returned to the bar, watched the men walk away. She smiled at the bartender, spoke to him, and watched as he filled a tall glass with ice and poured a soft drink of some kind for her. She thanked him, picked up her glass and glanced out the pane glass windows, toward me. She went to the door and came out on the crowded balcony.

  I watched as she did a quick scan of the people milling about. Was she looking for someone? I couldn’t tell. She walked out into the sunshine—the morning fog had burned off just after lunch—and went to stand by the railing about fifteen feet away from me, on the far side of the staircase that fanned downwards to connect with the grassy lawn that ran down toward the green, smiling pleasantly at some of the other fans nearby.

  That’s when I remembered where I had seen her before. The Harvard Club, New York. Just before I had met Jake Strauss for the first time, for lunch. She had come into Harvard Hall with him. Probably his personal assistant. Given what I had just seen, that made sense.

  I was congratulating myself on my eidetic memory when a strange figure walked up the stairs from the lawn, which was filled with people watching the golf, and made a beeline toward the woman, Strauss’s assistant. He was dressed in a puffy-sleeved pinkish shirt, a rawhide leather vest with all kinds of leathery straps dangling here and there, some flared black trousers that were pretending to be gaucho pants, shiny black cowboy boots and an odd flat-topped cap of black, with vertical stripes all around in every shade of the rainbow.

  Who else, but America’s fashion-plate sports columnist, Andre Citrone? He went up to Strauss’ assistant, gave her a big hug and a kiss on her cheek and began talking to her animatedly. Her face lit up when she saw him. She rested her hand on his shoulder while they talked.

  Well, well, well, I thought, This here looks like a clue. It suddenly occurred to me that this was how Drey Citrone had known all about my business. How he had known I was about to sign a book deal to write about Pebble Beach. How he had known about Huckleberry Hills. It had been Jake Strauss’ assistant who told him.

  I walked over to where they were standing.

  “Drey!” I said, clapping him on the back like we were best buddies. “Wassup bro? Nice vest.” I turned to the woman. “Oh, hello,” I continued. “I’m Hacker, from Boston …”

  Neither one of them spoke for a few beats. I did see them exchange a glance with each other. Guilty? Couldn’t tell.

  “Oh, hi Hacker,” Drey finally said. “This is my aunt Chrissie.”

  “Very nice to meet you,” I said, giving her my best friendly smile. “Say, I’m looking for Jake. Have you seen him?” Letting her know, letting both of them know that I knew the relationship.

  She hesitated and then smiled back. “He’s in a meeting,” she said. “Upstairs in the conference room. He should be finished in a few minutes.”

  “Okay, great,” I said. “I’ll just hang out here for a while. Turned out nice, didn’t it?” I waved at the crowded scene between the Lodge and the 18th green with the seawall beyond. The sun was now shining brightly. The ocean out in Stillwater Cove had turned a magnificent shade of deep blue.

  I glanced at Andre. He was standing there with a foolish smile on his face. Busted.

  “H-how did your book signing go the other night?” he said finally.

  “It went pretty well,” I said. “We sold a bunch of books.” I turned to Aunt Chrissie. “What was the final count?”

  “I think it was forty-three copies,” she said. “Mr. Strauss was quite pleased.”

  “Forty-three!” I said. “How about that! I’ll bet I can afford to buy a round of drinks. Anybody interested?”

  “Uh, thanks, Hack,” Drey said. “I’ve got to get back to work. Got a deadline in an hour. But thanks.”

  “No problem, my friend,” I said. “Next time. Aunt Chrissie, it was very nice to meet you! See ya later…”

  I turned and walked away, going back through the door and into the Terrace Lounge area. Inside, I ran into Sharky, who was looking around for someone. Probably me.

  He looked at me, then did a double-take.

  “What?” I said.

  “If you had a dictionary and looked up the word ‘shit-eating grin’ there would be a picture of your face right now,” he said.

  “Oh,” I chuckled. “I just solved a mystery.”

  “Nice work, Sherlock,” he said. “Meyer and Strauss have Mr. Chin up in the Lobos Conference room. I couldn’t hear anything through the door, but it doesn’t sound like they’re working him over with brass knuckles.”

  “Naw,” I said. “They’re taking his measure. See if he has enough money to contribute to their little scam.”

  I led Sharky over to the bar and ordered us a couple of beers. I figured we should look like ordinary fans, and most of them around us were drinking something. The TV screens that were set up all around the room told us that the second round was nearing its end. The Kansas Flash, Freddie Hollister, had not folded, yet, and was leading by a couple of strokes, chased by the usual suspects.

  Jack Harwood came back into the lobby, saw us, and walked over. We pretended to be seeing each other for the first time in a while and I bought him a beer. We were standing there talking and drinking when Meyer, Strauss and Mr. Chin came back down. They saw us standing there with Harwood and came over.

  “Ah, the great author!” Jake said. “Jack, remind me to send you over a copy of Hacker’s book. It’s really wonderful.”

  “Thanks, Strauss,” Harwood grumbled. “He’s already given me one.”

  “Oh, great,” Strauss said. Somebody waved at him from across the room and he excused himself.

  “Ready to go, Chin?” Harwood said.

  He nodded. The two of them left, heading for the main door.

  Harold Meyer watched them go, his eyes locked on the backs of their heads. He turned back and looked at me, eyes narrowed.

  “You two good friends?” he said.

  I laughed. “Me and Jack Harwood? Oh, yeah,” I said. “Like this.” I held up one hand with my fingers twined together. “C’mon, Shark.”

  We left, following Harwood and Chin.

  When we got outside, Sharky let out a long breath in a rush.

  “That guy scares me,” he said. “Watch your back, Hack.”

  We all went back up to the House of Harwood to debrief Mr. Chin. When Sharky and I arrived, Chin had shucked off his suit coat and was sipping some iced tea.

  “It was all rather straightforward,” he said when we had all gathered around him. We were sitting on Harwood’s expansive outdoor deck. The sun was low over the Pacific and shadows lengthened across the expansive lawns of Jack’s wealthy neighbors.

  “They wanted to know about my company in Taiwan,” he continued. “How I was involved with Jack here. How much money I was thinking of investing. How fast I was ready to move.”

  He paused, thinking, remembering.

  “The older one…Meyer? He wanted to know how quickly I could raise the capital. He was the more forceful of the two. Mr. Strauss was quieter, did not ask so many questions. I think Meyer is the boss, for sure.”

  “Good observation,” Harwood said. “Harold Meyer controls every room he is in. Always has.”

  “What did they tell you about the deal?” I asked.

  “They were not forthcoming,” Mr. Chin said. “Mr. Strauss spoke in general terms. He said that he and
Meyer had both had many Asia-based clients over the years. He said they had helped many people successfully move money into the U.S.A. and make that money work.”

  “Did they mention Huckleberry Hills? Getting an EB-5 visa?”

  “No,” Chin said. “It was more general. They said they could put my funds into some growth platforms. That is what they called it: ‘growth platforms.’”

  “What’s the next step?” I asked. “What do they want you to do next?”

  “I told them I am staying here with Jack until Monday,” Mr. Chin said. “Meyer said they would give me a call before then. He said he had a particular platform in mind that might be good for me.”

  We all sat there and thought about that. Harwood’s man Friday came out with a tray of cocktails. Bourbon Old Fashions. Harwood winked at me. The cocktail I was handed had five maraschino cherries in it.

  “I think it may be time to call in the cops,” I said. “Tell ‘em what we know, what we don’t know. Let them decide what to do with the next meeting. They might want Mr. Chin to wear a wire. They might want to arrest all of us for obstructing justice. But I think we’ve got reasonable evidence that something fishy is going on. Let’s let the experts take over.”

  Harwood sat there and listened. When I was finished, he nodded.

  “Hacker is right,” he said.

  Sharky held up his phone. “I can call Johnnie Levin,” he said. “Set up a meeting.”

  “Let’s do it,” Harwood said. “See if he can meet in the morning. Tell him he can come over here if he wants.”

  Sharky went out to call his friend with the Monterey Sheriff’s department. The rest of us sat there and drank our cocktails. I ate one of my cherries. And wondered what would happen next.

  Lt. Levin told us all to meet him at his office in Salinas at nine the next morning. I brought a box of a dozen doughnuts as a bribe. Sharky knew Levin’s favorite kinds. I bought a half dozen cups of coffee, too. In my long experience, cop house coffee is always execrable.

  Mary Jane and Vickie said they’d spend the morning horsing around the pool at Spanish Bay, and maybe take the short drive over to Seal Rock to look at the hundreds of lazy seals sunning themselves on that rocky outcropping just offshore. The churning surf kept humans off their rock, so the seals had free reign. Most of them spent their time sleeping in the sun. But others—mostly the young ones—would flop around and bark at each other, so there was always a fascinating din echoing back onto the mainland.

  At the police station, we met up with Jack Harwood and Mr. Chin. Levin came out to greet us, and walked us back into the bowels of the building, escorting us into an interview room with a metal table in the center, and chairs set against the windowless walls. He grunted with satisfaction when he saw the doughnuts, and cracked open one of the containers of coffee.

  “OK,” he said, leaning back and taking the four of us in. “Talk.”

  Harwood took the lead. He and Levin knew each other, as Jack had long been a friend of the local cops. He had donated funds for injured police, appeared at fund raisers and generally did what he could to help the local men in blue.

  For about thirty minutes, Harwood unspooled the story. I noticed he presented it as a narrative whole, with a beginning, a middle and an end. I figured that was how an experienced Hollywood actor and director mentally arranged things. Levin sat there silently, occasionally sipping his coffee and once reaching in to the box for another doughnut.

  Harwood finished his story with the meeting we had set up the day before with Mr. Chin, who smiled when his role was described.

  “And that’s what we got,” Jack said, bringing it to a conclusion, albeit not a blockbuster with a last-reel shoot-out and the guy getting the girl and riding off into the sunset. “Meyer and Strauss seem to have cooked up this investment fraud, using the now-dead Huckleberry Hills project to siphon big bucks from foreign investors in return for those EB-5 visas.”

  Levin stood up and stretched. He stood behind his chair, hands on the back and thought for a minute or so.

  “Well, let me see,” he began. “I think I heard about seven violations of the laws of Monterey County, the state of California, and, bugger me if I’m wrong, the United States of America, too.”

  “Now, wait a minute…” I started to protest. Levin wheeled on me.

  “You!” he said. “When did you meet this Mike Nelson fellow in Boston?”

  “About a month ago,” I said. “He’s still there. My father-in-law, sort of …”

  “That’s interference with a police homicide investigation,” Levine interrupted. “Keeping a material witness under wraps. I’ll have to ask the D.A. if the fact that you didn’t tell us about him for four weeks is an acceleration of the original offense.”

  He turned to Harwood.

  “And you, Jack…you should know better, for Christ sakes. Sending this gentleman…” He nodded at Mr. Chin … “in to speak with alleged miscreants who may or may not be conducting a fraudulent act against the visa laws of the country. Jesus H. Christ on a pickle. What were you thinking?”

  Finally, he turned to Sharky.

  “And you, Duvall.” He shook his head sadly. “All the times I bailed your sorry ass out of trouble over the years. And all the time this shit was going down, you never once thought it was smart to give me a call? I’m disappointed in you, son. Very disappointed.”

  We were all silent. He was right, of course. Even though we could all claim that stuff was happening in real time and we were just doing what we thought best, we didn’t do things “by the book,” and now he was threatening to toss that book right at us.

  Levin exhaled, loudly.

  “OK, here’s what I’m gonna do,” he said. “I’m gonna make a few phone calls, talk to a few people. Once I get done with that, I’ll feel better about knowing what we’re gonna do.”

  “Can I make a suggestion?” I said.

  I watched as Levin’s knuckles grew white as he grasped the back railing of his chair. His face began to redden dangerously.

  “I know, I know,” I said, holding up my hands. “You should take me out back and work me over with the brass knuckles for an hour or two. But my suggestion is to contact the U Cal San Francisco Hospital and ask to review any security cameras on the ward where J.J. Udall died.”

  “And why in the name of Jehovah would I want to do that?” Levin asked, his voice tight with held-in emotion.

  “Udall was visited by several people in the day or two before he died,” I said.

  “I was one of ‘em,” Jack Harwood chimed in.

  “Will Becker, another co-owner of the Pebble Beach Company told me that he, too, visited Udall in the hospital,” I said. “I think there was at least one more visitor. I’d like to know who it was. Because there are questions about whether Udall died of natural causes, or was helped along.”

  “And do you have any evidence of that?” Levin said. “Because if you do, that’s another charge of interference with a police investigation.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “But the hospital report on Udall’s death noted the presence of a clip on his IV tube. That might be important.”

  “Or it might just be a clip,” Levin said. “Hospital rooms are full of them.”

  “Be good to know,” I said.

  Levin looked like he wanted to throw his chair across the room. But he didn’t.

  “You all are free to go,” he said. “Thank you for coming in.”

  We all stood up and left.

  Sharky and I went down to the golf course. There wasn’t much else we could think of to do at this point, and besides, it was Moving Day at the Open!

  Freddie Hollister, playing in the last group, made the turn out at nine clinging to a two-shot lead. He had made three early birdies on the front side, as one must at Pebble Beach, but gave back two of them with a double-bogey on eight when his approach shot drifted right into the deep grass just above the beach. His drive
on nine found the fairway bunker, but he managed to get up-and-down from the front of the green for par. Shaky, but still alive.

  Hollister had become the story of this Open, this young, unknown kid from America’s heartland, his cornstraw-blond hair blowing in the Pacific breezes, a big happy smile on his face. He was playing in that metaphysical Zone that appears out of nowhere, hangs around a while and, usually, disappears with a sudden, gut-wrenching crash when the weighty importance of the moment strikes home.

  But so far he was surfing the wave and enjoying the ride. Hot on his heels, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Willie Franklin were two back, and ten other golfers were bunched three and four shots behind. The afternoon promised high drama, with Sunday’s nail-biting round yet to come.

  Sharky and I walked out to the sixteenth green, just below the tee box on three, and found a shady spot under the canopy of trees to watch for a spell. Sixteen is an odd hole which runs straight downhill towards the sea, then turns hard right. The green is fronted by a deep, sand-filled barranca and is surrounded by an ocean of deep rough and a couple of bunkers. And the green itself is small and slopes hard from right to left.

  Most of the players hit long irons or fairway woods over a big round island bunker in the middle of the fairway, then have maybe an eight or nine iron into the green. Nobody hits driver, since the downhill slope of the fairway would kick the ball on through the fairway and into horrible trouble beyond.

  But standing around the green was a good place to watch them hit their laser-like approach shots, or, failing that, try to make a tough up-and-down recovery. Plus, it was shady and, just across the way and back up the fairway, there was a concession stand selling beer.

  “What do you think Levin is going to do?” I asked Sharky as we watched the next group getting ready to hit into the green.

  “I’ve known him for years,” Sharky said. “He’s a pretty fair guy for a cop. Lots of bluster but he usually does the right thing.”

  “So we won’t get arrested?”

  “Not for anything we did here,” he said with a smile.