I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep;
I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), Greek king
Amber Watson and Tracey Lexcellent drove out of downtown Detroit, west on Michigan Avenue toward the leafy suburban community of Dearborn, Michigan. Home to the Ford Motor Company headquarters—the famous Glass House—Dearborn’s former claim to automotive fame had been eclipsed by the overwhelming influx of Middle Eastern and now Somali immigrants who flocked to the neighborhoods seeking a better life.
Not all of these immigrants sought a better life from their American hosts. Ever since 9/11, the FBI had blanketed Dearborn with undercover agents and confidential informants seeking terrorist plots, and sometimes finding them. Inevitably, a lot of what these people found ended up being nonsense.
An informant will often tell a cop what he thinks the cop wants to hear, especially if he is getting paid to say things. Nevertheless, there certainly were terrorists hiding in plain sight among Dearborn’s population, lions navigating among the sheep.
“Who are we meeting with?” Amber asked. Her Corvette pulled up to a red stoplight at West Outer Drive.
“Dave Lovato is the name Jeff O’Brien gave me. Lovato works traffic for Dearborn PD. He was in motorcycle school with my academy buddy Jeff.” She looked down at the Google Map displayed on her cellphone. “Hang a right here. We could have turned back there at South Military Road, but I wasn’t paying attention, I guess. We’re meeting Lovato at the Dearborn Country Club.”
“Really?” Amber said. “Country club. He’s making too much of that sweet overtime money.”
“Jeff said in his off time, Lovato is the club golf pro.”
The Dearborn Country Club wasn’t the swankiest golf course on Earth, or even in Wayne County, but it was nice, and on this nice day it was buzzing.
Nearly every parking space was filled, often with an expensive sports car, Mercedes sedan or high-end SUV. When they reached the clubhouse sidewalk and approached the main building, they saw the pro shop humming with customers. Tracey flagged down a course groomsman zipping past on a golf cart.
She dropped a practiced hand casually on the man’s shoulder when she spoke. It never hurt to pre-load the prospect’s cooperation.
“Dave Lovato, hon.” Tracey said. “Seen him around this morning?”
The man squinted toward the building and pointed to the large glass windows of the pro shop. “In there, yellow sweater.”
Tracey patted his shoulder in thanks, the groomsman smiled and half saluted, then puttered off.
The women entered the pro shop and stood for a moment just inside the doorway, taking in the surroundings. The air conditioning might have been blowing crushed ice.
Dave Lovato was across the room earnestly discussing the merits of expensive Callaway golf clubs with a dark-skinned man about five-feet three-inches tall, dressed in what you expect a golfer to wear in a Bob Hope comedy, all contrasty plaids and colorful polka dots, complete with knickers buckled just below the knees and tall orange socks. The man was a dumpy pear shape, wide in the butt and narrow in the shoulders. He paid rapt attentive as he took in Lovato’s sales pitch.
Lovato noticed the two attractive women standing nearby watching him and he thanked the man, doctor-something, for coming in. He handed doctor-something his business card and encouraged him to come back when he decided to buy those Callaways. The doctor assured him most earnestly that he would do just that. They shook hands and the doctor departed.
Lovato turned and strode directly at the women, expectation painted on his round, possibly spray-tanned face.
“And how can I make your days better today, ladies? Who needs lessons?” he asked with a wide, duplicitous grin.
The yellow sweater around his neck was tied with its arms in a loose knot. He wore a white Polo shirt and blue plaid shorts with a yellow pattern that matched the sweater. He smiled so broadly that his acutely bronzed face pulled back into shallow pleats on either side of his mouth, like a Shar-Pei puppy.
Tracey and Amber discreetly displayed their credential holders. “Jeff O’Brien said we could talk to you?” Tracey said.
Lovato’s mood changed when he saw the two badges.
“Yeah, sure. Of course.” His happy grin slipped a little.
Lovato had been expecting a visit by two cops, but it seemed like he hadn’t been expecting these two women. He looked crestfallen that this promised to be more official business than monkey business.
“Let’s go into my office.”
Zig-zagging around chrome carousels of golf shirts, wild and mild golf pants, and a huge display of golf shoes, Lovato led them through the pro shop to a side door marked employees only and into office spaces behind the retail area. He closed the door behind them as they entered.
“Okay, so how can I help the infamous Joint Task Force today? Here t’help, and all that. Never turn down a request for assistance from a brother officer, I say.” He paused for a moment, walking around them to sit at his desk. “Or sister, either, of course. You know what I mean. I gotta say, you two took me by surprise. When Jeff texted me you were coming, I guess I was expecting ... oh, I dunno. Men, I guess.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot,” Amber said.
Like children will, cops sometimes lie for no reason at all. They recognized Lovato already wasn’t being truthful with them. First, he offered up that they were JTF. This was no secret in law enforcement, so if he had not known it beforehand, Amber knew Jeff O’Brien would have told the Dearborn cop that the two officers coming to see him were females. He might even have bragged about how great looking the task force was, probably with descriptive physical characteristics.
Second, O’Brien most certainly would have provided a brother officer the heads up that Amber was FBI, just in case it mattered to the quality of his answers.
And third, O’Brien definitely would have told Lovato he had seen Tracey naked, better for Lovato to fuel his own imagination and envy when the women arrived.
Amber wondered whether Lovato was hiding anything else.
They had decided on the way there that Amber would throw her federal weight around as the lead interviewer, better to underscore to a local cop the importance of his cooperation with a serious case. That sometimes backfired on local police with self-esteem issues, making them indignant, but it seemed to be working all right with the effusively cooperative Lovato.
“We’re looking into the homicide of a DHS agent,” Amber began, drawing Lovato’s attention to her. “This has the highest priority. We hope you can answer a few questions for us, maybe help point us in a direction.”
“Sure, anything,” Lovato said. He tried to be subtle when his eyes flicked back and forth from Amber’s face to Tracey, but failed. Lovato thought he would be completely cooperative, of course—he had nothing to hide—but he also thought this smelled a little like freelancing.
If such an important federal case needed his official input, he wouldn’t be providing it on his own time in the golf pro shack with a pastel yellow sweater tied around his neck. His Chief would have his Captain have his Sergeant have him in the Chief’s office to talk with the FBI. In any case, Lovato kept these thoughts to himself.
“What was the guy’s name?”
Amber produced a composite photo of the DHS agent’s business card and his driver’s license photo. She had the postmortem photo for a backup. The medical examiner had done a passable job pushing al-Taja’s features back into a close resemblance to his former look, but it was never again going to be very good for identification.
“Mohammed al-Taja. DHS confirmed he was one of theirs, but either he was deep undercover and not telling his bosses what he was up to, or we don’t have the Yankee White security clearance to know about it, or it isn’t Thursday with my head held just right. Jeff O’Brien seemed to think you might be able to shed some light on this. Did you know him? Al-Taja?”
“Jeff is talking out of school a little,” Lovato said. He looked at the photo only for a moment. “Be that as it may, yeah, I knew Jerry a little. He asked everyone to call him Jerry. He was sensitive about being called by his first name out here in Dearborn. A lot of the long-time, shall we say, ‘European-heritage’ members who golf here aren’t crazy about the whole Arab thing, though more of them are out here all the time. They’re good golfers, too, the Arabs. Decent tippers.”
Amber rolled her hands over horizontally a couple times. Get to the point.
“Jerry used to golf here every so often with a group of guys. He took a few lessons on a cop’s professional discount. I haven’t seen him in months, though.” He frowned. “Guess I won’t be seeing at all him this season, huh?” He feigned a weak laugh at the lame gallows humor, but no one joined in.
“So when was the last time you saw him?” Amber asked.
Lovato made a body language move Amber recognized, his eyes defocusing and looking slightly off into space. He was dredging up a memory.
“Um, I think it was early spring. I only work here when I’m not on the road, so I’m not here every single weekend. I can check the records to see if he had tee times or bought anything when I wasn’t here. But the last time I personally saw him was about late April, I think. Remember how warm it got so early this year? People were coming out for their first rounds. I think he came out with his usual group and they did eighteen holes. I can look it up.”
Lovato turned to his computer and performed a search. “Yeah, here it is. Saturday, April 17. I didn’t work that day. He was here, had a zero-eight tee time, the big cart, and they played eighteen holes.”
“They?” Amber said. “Who was he with?”
“Well, you just missed one of them.”
“One of who?” Tracey interjected.
“One of Jerry’s group, one of his regular foursome. Doctor Malhotra, that guy I was talking with when you came in? He’s looking at buying some nice Callaway golf clubs. That’d be a nice commission for me. He’s a cardiologist down at Henry Ford Hospital. Teaches in the med school downtown at Wayne State. Lebanese, I think. Nice guy, though.”
Tracey leaned in a bit more so that her red hair draped over her face, as if what she was about to ask was a big secret. Maybe even a sexy one. Lovato’s attention was sharply focused as he leaned his ear in toward her lips, as if to receive a whisper. His gaze was fixed on the swell of Tracey’s cleavage and his head was clouded by the slightest hint of her perfume.
“Perhaps, big Dave, in your records there, you have a club member phone number for good Doctor Malhotra?”
Cops were sometimes even easier to cow than civilians. Lovato swallowed hard.
“Why, um, yes. I believe I do have that.”
Amber and Tracey walked toward the Corvette in its far parking spot and Amber punched Doctor Malhotra’s phone number into her cellphone. As she touched the last digit, Tracey laid a hand on Amber’s arm and nodded ahead.
“Twelve o’clock,” Tracey said.
Parked two empty slots down from Amber’s Corvette was a steel gray Mercedes S550 four-door. The vibrant Doctor Malhotra was just loading his golf clubs into the spacious trunk when the two policewomen approached him.
“Doctor Malhotra?” Amber said. He turned with a start to face two sets of police credentials thrust into his face, one from the FBI. “Could we ask you a few questions please, sir?”
Doctor Malhotra’s lips trembled just a bit and they could see the color drain from his dusky face. Then his eyes rolled up into his head and, with a convulsive moan, he dropped slowly to the asphalt as if he was deflating.
“Hmm,” Amber said. “Was that a yes or a no?”
Tracey saw the groomsman from before rolling up to the group on his golf cart. They could use that to get Malhotra into Lovato’s office.
“Yo!” She yelled and waved him forward. “We got a clean-up on aisle three!”
Doctor Malhotra sat in Dave Lovato’s office chair and sipped Fuji water from the bottle. Condensation collected in the plastic ring left around the top once the cap was twisted loose, and as he drank, a steady drip of water droplets landed on his golfing attire.
The man’s color had returned and the sweat was mopped from his face, and his faculties were restored. Tracey and Amber explained why they were there. No, they assured him. He certainly was not in trouble.
“I apologize, officers. I taught eleven hours yesterday and I was in surgery until nearly two a.m. A bad one, that. Traffic crash on the Lodge. Nearly lost the woman, but we pulled her through. I really should be in my bed sleeping, but this was such a glorious day and I couldn’t wait to get out on the course. Do you golf here as well? It really is quite highly recommended, absolutely splendid in all respects.”
He nodded at Lovato.
“Excellent staff here as well, of course, Mr. Lovato. Excellent indeed. Only nine holes today. Very tired and dehydrated. I think I experienced a slight vasovagal or neurocardiogenic syncope when you surprised me with your identification. Well, you saw the rest.”
His diction was precise, pronunciation perfect, English a second language that he mastered with enthusiasm and skill. The women looked at him. This was a talker.
“Again, forgive me.” Dr. Malhotra smiled. “I am a teacher and I will rattle on from time to time.” Malhotra placed the water bottle on Lovato’s desk and returned his hands to his lap. “Now then, the doctor is in. Tell me, how may I help you?”
Amber leaned forward.
“Tell us what you know about Mohammed al-Taja.”
Amber drove the Corvette into the small expanse of parking lot at Michigan Avenue and Middlesex, found an empty slot close to and facing the side street, and shut down the car. Tracey handed her a small cardboard pouch of deep-fried chicken items and a Diet Dr. Pepper.
“What did you think of the good doctor?” Amber asked Tracey. “I think he was fairly informative, don’t you?”
Tracey unwrapped a bacon double-cheeseburger and took a small nibble. “He sure was. I don’t know a lot about golf, though. Before today, I thought a foursome was something else entirely.”
Amber snorted into her drink straw. “Christ! Don’t make me laugh when I’m drinking!” She covered her mouth while coughing up Diet Dr. Pepper that had tried to go into her lungs.
“Yeah, information-wise, ol’ Doc Malhotra, the King of Cardiac Surgery, was what we call in my business a fucking gold mine.”
It was Tracey’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, we call it that my business, too.”
She slipped off her shoes and raised both bare feet to rest on the dashboard, then took a more serious bite of the burger and chewed thoughtfully. She peered out across busy Michigan Avenue, seeing no one was noticing them. Directly off the nose of the car was the Red Flag Chinese Restaurant.
“I’m going to have to add ‘Jerry’ to the case file as an alias, I guess,” Amber said. She pulled a misshapen chicken tender from the cardboard sleeve and took a bite that severed the piece in half.
“Me too, in mine,” Tracey said. “Don’t forget to add the narrative of Doc Malhotra’s interview, and the golf partners.” Tracey took a short pull on her Diet Pepsi. “Dem golf partners, doh. ‘Curiouser and curiouser, cried Alice.’ I just emailed you the recording from my phone.”
“Thanks. So yeah, ol’ ‘Jerry’ and Doc Malhotra were half of the golf foursome. The good half, Lovato said. ‘Jerry’ was a power hitter, ’cause he was big. Doc Malhotra is small and stubbier, but he has the finesse, the real golf skills.”
“I looked up ‘Muslim golfers’ while we drove over here,” Tracey said, scrolling the oversize screen of an iPhone Xs Max. “You know what? Islam has a ton of rules about sports. What body parts must be covered, by whom, what can be uncovered, in the presence of whom. Yeah, lotta rules. Not even one of them prohibits golfing, though, at least for men. Islam says sports are good because they make strong bodies twelve ways.”
“That was the Wonder Bread slogan.”
“Okay, same difference, though. So there is no religious prohibition for a Muslim leader—say, Imam Sayid al-Waheeb, only the most prominent Muslim cleric in the Midwest, maybe all of America, and your buddy—to play a few holes with Doc Malhotra and, oh, I don’t know, maybe an undercover agent from the Department of Homeland Security.”
“No, heck no, why not?” Amber said. “And since we need a fourth, how ‘bout we just grab this 80-year-old Asian cat who runs a Chinese restaurant?”
It was Tracey’s turn to giggle. “Please don’t say ‘cat’ and ‘Chinese restaurant’ in the same sentence!”
“No, really, he’s wiry as shit. You should see his drive. Man hits a golf ball so hard it goes back into time.”