Grant Hudson leans forward, taps the desktop computer keyboard, raises his eyes to the monitor, and slides his mouse. “Aha! Dinner at the Grove with the boss and a Tesla factory relocation team. Food was fantastic. Sorry you guys didn’t get an invite.”
“No Tarlow there, I take it,” says Daniela. “Maybe heading out after an early cocktail.”
Hudson shakes his head. Gale’s been to the Grove Club just once, as the guest of his boss, Sheriff Kersey, and Bennet Tarlow. It’s where Gale and Tarlow first met, and what led to Gale moonlighting as security for the developer. Insiders call it the Grove, never the Grove Club. The Grove is a late 1800s mission-era hacienda main house, repurchased, restored, and converted to a private club by the secretive Paladin Society — conservative businessmen and women, politicians and right-wing Hollywood movers and celebrities.
As Gale got to know Tarlow through his bodyguarding, he began to see him as an affable libertine not fully synchronized with the Grove at all.
“Where do they want to build the factory?” asks Gale.
“Oh, come on, kids! I can’t tell you that. Somewhere in the great County of Orange.”
“Help us with your alibi,” says Mendez. “Two names from your alleged night at the Grove.”
Hudson pushes back with open hands. “I’m not going to sic you mutts on my friends. You want that, charge me with something and take me downtown.”
“We asked you a simple question,” says Mendez. “So why won’t you answer?”
“You are wasting my time. And yours.”
“You called Bennet Tarlow one of the most powerful man in the United States,” says Gale. “Do you know anyone who would want him dead?”
Hudson scoots rearward in his wheeled chair, locking his hands beside his head. “Not a one.”
“Do you think Tarlow was honest?” asks Gale.
“I think the powerful play by different rules than you and me.”
“What about his politics?” asks Mendez.
“Weird enough, a liberal,” says Hudson, pedaling back to his desk. “He always played superior to us. Suspicious of government overreach. Big on personal rights.”
“Abortion, LGBTQ rights?”
“Sure.”
“What about environmentalists, the EPA, Department of the Interior?”
Hudson gives Mendez a look, then Gale. “Lots of disagreement over Wildcoast. Years of it. Some of it hot.”
“Tarlow doesn’t sound like Grove material,” says Gale.
“My dear policeman,” says Hudson. “Everything in this country begins with money and power. Even the Grove.”
“Some names would be nice,” says Gale.
“Nope. No specific individuals that I know. I’m being honest here. Talk to Tarlow’s people if you want names.”
“You called him ‘famously popular with the ladies,’” says Mendez.
“So?”
“Does that reputation follow him into places like the Grove?” she asks.
“It was never a secret.”
“Did Tarlow have an interest in men, in that way?” Mendez asks.
“Not that I know. Kind of doubt it though, with all his female company.”
“Yeah,” says Gale. “Mr. Hudson, what kind of car do you drive?”
Hudson taps his fingers on the desktop. “A Lexus.”
“Do you have a second vehicle?”
“Got a vintage Bronco I take off-road now and then.”
“Know anyone who drives an older Econoline? White?”
Hudson shakes his head and stands. “Look, I didn’t like Bennet Tarlow III. But I really don’t like that he got shot dead. I can’t help you with his enemies. I’m not in a position to know. But any Grove bartender might point you in the right direction, if you can get yourselves in.”
“It’s called a badge,” says Gale.
“Grove security is tough.”
He knows two fellow OCSD deputies who freelance as Grove security.
“Ask for John Velasquez,” says Hudson. “You can use my name if you make it that far, but I’m not sure what it will get you. He’s there most of the time. Sorry, now, but you need to go.”
“Can you pave our way into the Grove as guests?” asks Mendez, with a look to Gale.
“Only members can do that,” says Hudson.
“How many times have they turned down your application?” asks Mendez.
“Once. I’m fattening up the bio before I try again.”
“You’ll get in someday,” says Mendez. “People like you always fail up.”
Back in his Explorer, Gale’s phone rings.
“Owls in a tree,” says Glen Osaka. “An adult and two fluffy owlets. Twenty-six exposures taken at ten o’clock in Caspers Park, the night Tarlow was killed. The mom looks pissed. Next most recent were taken two months ago in Tahiti — a whole lot of exotic birds and a woman with red hair and a pretty smile. The camera’s a digital, so easy to open up and loaded with information. I googled Tarlow and sure enough, one of his hobbies is bird photography. He’s had pictures in the Audubon magazine over the years, some in National Geographic, too.”
“Can you send me the owls?”
“I’ve never seen such big ones. Even the owlets. Bigger than our great horned owls, by a lot. Weird face. On their way, Gale.”
“Any prints on the camera gear that aren’t Tarlow’s?”
“Not a one.”
“Thank you, Glen. You’re more than good.”
Gale looks at the owl pictures, all twenty-six of them.
It’s a weird-looking owl alright, regal and powerful and haunted.
Lit brightly against the darkness, a phantom.
9
At the bottom of blue tile steps leading to the front door of the Grove, Gale’s fellow sheriff’s deputy — fingers laced at his beltline, dressed in a navy suit, white shirt, and red tie — notes Gale and Mendez with a curt but respectful nod.
“Detectives,” he says. “What a nice surprise.”
“Thought we’d ask around about Bennet Tarlow,” says Gale.
“This is the right place.”
“But what we’d really like is a drink in that bar.”
“Of course. The mood around here has been subdued since what happened.”
The young deputy nods again and the detectives set out on the long steep rise of steps. Before them stands the former hacienda manor house, now the Grove Club, bathed in the outdoor mission-bell lamps, its interior alive behind white curtains. Two elderly men in tuxedos descend from above, escorting two much younger women in evening wear.
Standing at the immense front door, a second OCSD deputy, gray buzz cut and a mustache, and dressed almost exactly like the first, gives Gale and Mendez a stony look and pulls on the wrought-iron handle.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” says Mendez. “You look sharp in that suit.”
“Shucks, Dani.”
Gale leads them into a dark brassy bar just off the balconied, two-floor dining room. Black leather booths with privacy curtains along two walls. Another wall is a floor-to-ceiling triptych oil painting of Mission San Juan Capistrano, beautifully lit: the mission proper in the center panel, flanked by a pastoral scene of Indians at labor in an abundant cornfield, and a third panel table depicting Father Junípero Serra pouring water over the head of a full-grown man on his knees in the mission baptistry.
Two television screens are discretely hung over the busy bar, high enough up that the drinkers have to crane their necks a bit to watch.
Gale notes that CBS Channel 2 out of LA is showing Sheriff Kersey’s press conference, and he’s just now stating the cause of death of the celebrity businessman Bennet Tarlow III.
Two young patrons move down for them and the detectives squeeze in. There are three bartenders — a sleek, silver-haired man; a beefy, bald Black guy; and a pretty Vietnamese woman — all in black slacks, white shirts, black bow ties, and red vests.