An Open Case of Death by James Y. Bartlett

Author:James Y. Bartlett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: A Hacker Golf Mystery
Publisher: Yeoman House Books
Published: 2018-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Nelson was motoring pretty damn fast as we went down the main drive. He blew past the gatehouse entrance doing about 40 mph. I was going fast enough to keep him in sight, and as we approached, I watched the uniformed guard come out and yell something at the speeding Nissan as it disappeared in the distance, screeching its tires as it turned right with a nice little fishtail maneuver onto the main road.

I slowed down as we went past the gatehouse, dropping my green visitor’s pass out the window as we went through. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the guard chasing the paper as it blew around in the air currents.

“Where do you think he’s going?” Sharky asked as I picked up the pace on the main road.

“Dunno,” I said. “I just hope he makes it. He keeps driving like this, he’s gonna end up wrapped around a tree.”

I managed to get within about two hundred yards of the speeding Nissan. I kept that distance as we descended down the long valley. I don’t think Nelson was paying too much attention to what was going on behind him—he was bound and determined to get where he was going as soon as possible.

I was beginning to think we were going to trail him all the way back to Carmel Valley, when he suddenly slammed on his brakes and swerved onto a dirt and gravel access road that branched off to the right. The Nissan disappeared in a cloud of yellow dust that swirled up behind it.

I slowed down as we approached the spot where he had turned, pulled ahead of the dirt road and stopped. The access road dropped downward on a nearly parallel angle to the main road, and ended after a hundred yards at a double-wide trailer at the bottom. The trailer rested in a shady spot along the bank of a rocky creek that flowed behind it. Across the creek was a flatland of golden grass and a few bushy shrubs.

“Casa Nelson,” I said. “Out here in the boonies.”

“Very peaceful,” Sharky said.

The Nissan had stopped in front of the trailer. The driver’s side door was open. There was no sign of Mike Nelson. The cloud of yellow dust had mostly dissipated, with just a few swirls left in the air.

The door to the trailer flapped open with a bang and we watched as Nelson came out, holding a phone to his ear. He was waving his other hand around wildly. He paced back and forth forcefully as he spoke.

“Who do you suppose he’s talking to?” Sharky wondered out loud.

“Dunno,” I said. “But he doesn’t look happy.”

“No, he does not.”

“What do you think set him off?”

Sharky chuckled. “Well, if I were a betting man, I’d guess that somebody calling him ‘Mr. Newell’ might have done the trick,” he said.

“Yeah, he did kinda react to that, didn’t he?” I said. “That, and he wanted to know if we were cops.”

“You think he’s the one who wrote the letter?” Sharky asked.

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