“You’re driving too fast.” Detective Sergeant Dan O’Malley muttered as he looked up from reading his text messages. The two detectives were heading north on Highway One and had just passed the lighthouse and naval facility at Point Sur.
Detective Sanchez sighed. “This is getting old, Sarge. I’m going fifty in a forty-five zone. Take a deep breath.”
O’Malley’s phone rang. “It’s Bruno Oliver,” he said.
Sanchez listened to the brief conversation.
“Slight change of plan,” O’Malley said after he ended the phone call. “Instead of going back to Monterey, we’re heading to Salinas. Bruno and his crew finished the autopsy. He says the medical examiner wants to talk to us at headquarters.” The coroner’s department was in the same building as Sheriff’s Department.
“Why is Doctor Hidalgo involved?” Elena Hidalgo was the Medical Examiner for Monterey County.
“Bruno didn’t say, but she wouldn’t be involved unless they found something disturbing.”
“Something that would indicate that Eastwick’s death wasn’t an accident?”
“That would be my guess,” O’Malley said.
“I guess I better step on the gas,” Sanchez laughed.
An hour later, Sanchez and O’Malley parked in front of the Sheriff’s Monterey County headquarters, a modern two-story office building with a solid concrete façade. They took the elevator to the second floor and headed to Bruno Oliver’s office in the east wing.
The door was open. As they entered, Bruno got up and said, “Don’t bother to sit down. Dr. Hidalgo wants to see us immediately.”
Sanchez and O’Malley followed Bruno down the hall to the Medical Examiner’s office. Bruno spoke to her secretary, “Please tell Dr. Hidalgo that the detectives are here.” A few minutes later, they were ushered inside the large office that had two broad tables covered with paperwork. Dr. Elena Hidalgo was a fifty-year-old Hispanic woman with a reputation as someone who worked hard and didn’t like long meetings. She wore a grey pin-striped suite with a white blouse; her black hair with grey streaks hair was cut in a bob. Her wire-rimmed glasses reinforced her sober style. Dr. Hidalgo shook hands with Sanchez and O’Malley and had them sit down.
“Bruno and his guys completed the autopsy on Malcolm Eastwick. As you are aware, he’s a celebrity and we need to be careful how we handle this.” Sanchez and O’Malley nodded. “Our investigation indicates that, at the time of his death, Eastwick was narcotized. It seems likely the assailant drugged Eastwick, interrogated him, and then, after obtaining what he or she wanted, they threw him off the cliff, figuring the waves would carry his body out to sea. Fortunately, Eastwick’s body washed in on the beach, so we were able to recover it and ascertain the circumstances of his death.” Hidalgo looked up from the typed report on her desk.
Sanchez looked at Bruno. “Could you walk us through what you think happened?” Bruno looked to Dr. Hidalgo for permission and, when she nodded, began to speak: “We believe that Eastwick willingly let the assailant into his Satori cabin. They sat in his front room and drank wine. Eastwick’s wine was laced with Rohypnol.”
“A ‘roofie?’” Sanchez asked.
Bruno nodded yes. “The Rohypnol rendered the victim unconscious. “While he was out, the assailant restrained him. Then they woke him up and commenced interrogation.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because they injected him with Scopolamine, a class of drug used by ‘spooks’ for interrogation.”
Sanchez leaned forward. “They injected Eastwick with ‘truth serum’?”
“That’s what we think. They injected him with Scopolamine, he gave them the information they wanted – probably the combination to the wall safe, and then he died.” Bruno looked at Dr. Hidalgo. “Probably due to the interaction between drugs and alcohol. The autopsy indicated that he hadn’t had much to eat that Saturday. He may have had a couple of drinks before the assailant showed up.”
“So, they may not have intended to kill him?”
“We have no way of determining that,” Dr. Hidalgo said. “Whatever their intent they are culpable if they gave him Rohypnol and Scopolamine.”
“Who would know how to do this?” Sanchez asked.
“Good question,” Dr. Hidalgo answered. “Someone in the medical community, a psychiatrist or pharmacist, or someone who had conducted high-priority interviews for the intelligence community.” She looked at Bruno and he nodded agreement.
“To recap: Eastwick let someone into his cabin, probably someone he knew. They drugged him and likely got the combination to his safe. At the end of the interrogation Eastwick died, so the assailant dragged him to the old conference center deck and then pushed him into the ocean.”
“Yes,” Dr. Hidalgo and Bruno said.
“What was Eastwick’s build?”
“He weighed 191 pounds,” Bruno said.
“So, it would have taken an effort to move him from his cabin to the deck?”
“Yes,” Bruno said. “We believe they used a garbage cart to move the body.”
“The kind of cart used to move big garbage cans?”
“Yes,” Bruno said. “We think we located the cart used near the old conference center. We believe the assailant left Eastwick tied to the chair. They hoisted him up with the garbage cart and rolled it to the conference-center deck. Then, they untied Eastwick from the chair, pushed his body off the deck, rolled the cart back to where they found it, and replaced the chair in his residence.” Bruno glanced at Dr. Hidalgo and then looked back at Laura Sanchez. “We found rope particles, that might have been used to tie him up, in Eastwick’s room and on the conference-center deck. We also found cart tracks leading from Eastwick’s cabin to the porch of the conference-center.”
“So, Eastwick could have been murdered by a man or a woman?”
“That’s right,” Dr. Hidalgo answered. She turned to the detectives. “Did you have any suspicion that Eastwick might have been murdered?”
“We had a gut feeling that he had,” O’Malley said. “Then this morning we learned the FBI has been to his San Francisco office.”
“Why?”
“We’re not certain,” Sanchez said. “But we suspect that it has to do with irregularities in the Satori Institute accounts.”
“What kind of irregularities?”
“There’s a million dollars unaccounted for.”
“Hmm. What does the FBI say?”
“Because there was no cell reception at Satori, we didn’t follow on this until an hour ago,” O’Malley said. “I contacted Lieutenant Perez and asked him to contact the San Francisco FBI office.”
“So, you think the assailant was after the money?”
“Eastwick had a wall safe at his Satori cottage,” Sanchez said. “Perhaps the assailant forced Eastwick to divulge the combination and removed the money.”
“Did you examine the safe?”
“It was locked,” Sanchez said. “We couldn’t find the combination, but we did find Eastwick’s laptop. Bruno has it.”
Dr. Hidalgo turned to Bruno Oliver.
“Eastwick’s Mac laptop is password protected,” Bruno said. “I gave it to Julius, but he’s been preoccupied with the trafficking website.”
“Tell Julius to make Eastwick’s laptop his number one priority,” Hidalgo said. She folded her hands in front of her and turned to O’Malley and Sanchez. “I talked to Sheriff John, and he agreed that the two of us should handle the press. We’ll have a briefing this afternoon. In the meantime, I probably don’t have to say, don’t talk to any reporters; you know that.” O’Malley and Sanchez nodded. “Work through your chain of command and report new developments directly to me.” Hidalgo frowned. “Do you believe the assailant left the Satori campus?”
“That would have made sense,” O’Malley said. “But on Saturday and Sunday there wasn’t much movement off the campus. So, he or she might still be there.”
“We should warn them,” Hidalgo said.
“We’re in luck, in that regard,” Sanchez said. “There’s a US Marshal, Kate Swift, on the campus.”
“What’s a US Marshal doing there?”
“She’s taking a psychological workshop,” Sanchez said.
“And she knows about our investigation?”
“I informed her,” Sanchez said. “Do you want me to keep her in the loop?”
“Yes. We’re always shorthanded,” Dr. Hidalgo said. “It will be good to have a continuous law enforcement presence on the Satori campus.”
“I’ll leave a message at the Institute front desk,” Laura said. “I’ll ask them to have Marshall Swift call me.”