Not to mention their $79,000 in arrears gambling debt and unpaid card balances of $55,000.
“Do they have assets?” I asked. “Real property, IRAs, cash, art, jewelry — anything?”
“Nothing,” said Burt. “Their home is for sale.”
“It hurts just looking at this,” I said. “How are they coming up with enough money to live?”
“They aren’t,” said Burt. “They’ve buried themselves to the point where the basics aren’t being covered.”
“Then where are those payments coming from?”
“Exhibit three.”
I leafed through pages from the State of California’s campaign finance Political Reform Division website, a dizzying array of information on the Strait Reelection Committee. Clearly listed were contributions and expenditures.
The committee had taken in contributions of $317,855 year-to-date, and had expenditures of $280,514.
Which caught my eye. “That expenditure is very close to what they paid down on Natalie’s gambling debts. And of course, campaign funds used for personal expenses is a felony.”
“So is conspiracy,” said Burt. “If it’s a team effort they’re looking at four to six years in federal lockup.”
I pictured Dalton Strait sitting in my Main Avenue office, massaging the stump of his leg while his plastic calf lay on the desk in front of him. A burly young man with a smile on his face and an old-fashioned glass of bourbon in one hand.
“But there’s no trail from the Strait Reelection Committee to their purchases and debts,” I said. “No trail on the campaign finance forms. Expenditures are just expenditures. If they’re covering gambling, restaurants, and USC tuition with campaign money, they’ve hidden it.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
I read through Burt’s notes, seeing that wire fraud and falsification of records were two more crimes that Dalton and Natalie Strait might well also have committed en route to the misuse of campaign funds.
I straightened the papers on my desk, groaned and sat back. “I’d like to see the reelection committee books,” I said quietly. “Natalie’s real books — not the whitewash they’re reporting to the state.”
“Well,” said Burt. “You could break in like a Watergate burglar.”
“I wonder if Dalton might give me a look at his uncooked reelection committee books,” I said.
“Ask him,” said Burt. “Your war buddy isn’t the sharpest pin in the cushion.”
I nodded.
“I assume the state, the FBI, and possibly the sheriffs are onto this by now,” said Burt. “And some of the progressive Dems and media go-getters.”
“Howard Wilkin of the U-T is,” I said.
I imagined the rough consequences for Dalton Strait’s reelection, should discrepancies between contributions and expenditures prove criminal. Scrutiny and scandal. An immediate drop in donations and votes in November, just six months away. Enough time for an indictment, then later, a nasty, high-profile trial. All of this as the Democrats were pushing hard for young, bright Ammna Safar in the 82nd district.
“I’ll see Dalton in the Assembly Chamber on Monday,” I said. “He’s introducing a bill and he wants me to be there. I’ll fly Hall Pass up there, bright and early tomorrow.”
“My regards to Dalton,” said Burt. “We’ve met more than once on the fine San Diego links, as you know. He’s powerful, but a terrible hook off the tee. Tough pivot with that leg of his, so he overcompensates. Good mid-game and surprisingly deft on the greens.”
“A betting man,” I said.
“Carries a wad just for that. By the way, Natalie Strait’s campaign admirer, Brock Weld, told the campaign people that he missed work the day Natalie disappeared because he was home sick with the flu. None of his neighbors saw him that day. He’s got a dog that barks when he’s away. A yapper named King. King barked all day until evening, when Mr. Weld came home.”
“Where’s he work?”
“He works security at the Tourmaline Casino.”
My flight over the local mountains and the eastern flank of L.A. was scenic and uneventful. Always gets me how the earth seems counter-intuitively larger from the air, not smaller. The morning was clear and cool and there were still pockets of snow on Mount Baldy, often used as a snowy backdrop in photographs of greater Los Angeles.
I named my Cessna 182 Hall Pass II, after Justine’s original pink Hall Pass, her pride and joy. I bought mine, well used, a few months after she crashed in the ocean near Point Loma. Painted mine classic Cessna yellow. Hall Pass II was intended to honor her memory, and the devout enthusiasm she brought to flight. I love it, too.
As was Hall Pass, my plane is powered by a venerable Lycoming engine, a grumbling powerhouse identifiable even from the ground when the plane is flying low enough. Sometimes when I fly Hall Pass, or hear a Lycoming-powered Cessna from the ground, I think of her and for a moment we touch hands across space and time.
As California’s Central Valley came scrolling slowly under me, the vast horizon frowned over miles of amber grain and vegetable green, tomato red and spring corn yellow. Two-thirds of the fruits and nuts grown in the U.S. are raised right down there under the moving shadow of my wings. Land of fruits and nuts indeed. Fifty billion dollars a year of agricultural output, baby. They didn’t name it California and croak out Eureka! for nothing.
Eleven
In contrast to California’s enormous Central Valley, the state Assembly Chamber is patterned after the proper British House of Commons, a handsome blend of dark hardwoods, brass, and green carpet. Eighty-two seats for eighty-two legislators. You feel important just waddling in.
I sat in the Assembly gallery, with a nice view of the proceedings below. Only a few citizens in the gallery this late morning, each of us ushered in under the baleful eyes of the sergeant-at-arms. Security had been tight as I knew it would be. The Chaos Committee’s influence had been swift. My weapons and phone were locked in a pistol case stashed in the trunk of my rental car.
Dalton Strait looked up and waved shortly after I sat down. He was seated on the right side of the chamber floor, on the Speaker’s left, along with a few of the Republicans still left in the assembly. He wore a trim beige suit on this spring morning. Even from the gallery he looked to be intensely focused.
Today’s session was a “third reading” on the floor. Which meant that bill AB-1987, authored by Dalton and narrowly having made it out of his own Committee on Veterans Affairs, now needed an assembly majority to send it to the California State Senate, where the process would repeat. Should AB-1987 pass both houses of the legislature, it would be sent to the governor to sign, veto, or allow to pass into law unsigned.
I’d read the bill in my hotel room the previous night: “Increased Funding for Veterans’ Home Mortgage Programs, Counseling, and CalVet Scholarships.” It carried a massive price tag.
Then I’d read the Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego newspaper analyses of AB-1987, and downloaded a collection of TV and radio pieces — including one of our governor — opining on the bill. AB-1987 wasn’t a front-page or top-of-the-hour story. But the consensus: “taxpayer dollars could be used in smarter ways. Health care industry and bankers may rejoice, but Vets deserve better.” Only the Union-Tribune, Fox News outlets, and conservative talk-radio stations were in favor.