Toxic Gold

By Paul E. Vogelgesang

…was Tommy Scott’s Ferrari crash an accident or was it murder?...

…follow the environmental detective Jake Savage as he travels from gritty industrial East Chicago, Indiana to the ‘Gold Coast’ of Orange County, California to solve this suspenseful thriller…

…from posh Newport Beach to industrial Fontana, EPA Enforcement Officer Savage turns this case upside down looking for the truth about Scott Industries, serious site pollution and the beautiful women of Orange County keeping the secrets from him…

…buckle up as Jake’s Aston Martin races to an FBI deadline before a hazardous waste incident is set to explode...


IS IT ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISM OR JUST SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TREACHERY? YOU FIND OUT!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Feb 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483446486

Paul E. Vogelgesang

Paul E. Vogelgesang is a former registered investment advisor, private placement conservator of the estate, and property/casualty insurance broker. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, he graduated with two degrees from Indiana University-Bloomington and received his Masters in Management from Webster University-St Louis. He currently resides in Orange County and Lake Arrowhead, California. Mr. Vogelgesang is currently writing two sequels to his "Millionaire" series books involving real estate and retirement planning.

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Vogelgesang

Copyright © 2016 Paul E. Vogelgesang.

of Strategic Technology & Research, Inc.

Cover Design By: John G. Coates, Highland, CA

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4649-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4648-6 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 2/11/2016

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Epilogue

TO: FERD, BROOKE AND THE INDIANA ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

ONE

It was a warm, windy October morning in Balboa Island, a small enclave of Newport Beach, California about 50 miles south of Los Angeles. The Santa Ana winds were blowing in over the mountains from Palm Springs and the Mojave Desert, elevating the early morning temperature slowly into the low 80’s. There was not a hint of smog or clouds in the coastal air, but there was a slight brown haze pushed out over the sea in the vicinity of Catalina Island. Other than that, it was shaping up to be an absolutely perfect day, even by the jaded Southern California weather standards. The few leaves that cover the Orange County trees this time of year were turned a slight orange and red and some that dropped danced across the street with dust in a small wind funnel. Who says Southern California does not have a change of seasons?

Million dollar yachts sit in the nearby Newport boat basin waiting for their master’s return, while perfectly manicured yards of the 7000 square foot beach homes sparkle with the remaining morning dew. Despite the glorious weather, what if it wasn’t another perfect day in paradise? Most of the local Southern California Tourist Boards’ want the snow bound midwestern folk to think about days like these each first of January. All the hicks from Iowa and Kansas know about Southern Cal is what the big football bowl game and flower parade tell them each year-an infusion into their dreary, dead cold lives.

In most people’s eyes, no everyone’s eyes-Weldon Thomas Scott truly had it made. He lived in one of the truly posh communities in the United States (or maybe even in the world) and was the President and CEO of Scott Industries, a very successful international brass foundry business, making golf clubs and aerospace parts. Business was booming and there were recent discussions with numerous venture capital firms (vulture capitalists) about starting up a second factory in Tijuana, Mexico near San Diego. His business allowed him to travel all over the world to professional golf events and tournaments. He has played at the finest California golf courses and mingled at several country clubs of tournament champions and ex-presidents. He had a beautiful blonde trophy wife, both second marriages for each-his due to the death of his beloved wife and partner Jannie, and hers a divorce due to spousal abuse. Thomas’s pride and disappointment were his two children. His only remembrance of his first wife was a smart daughter, Suzy and surfer dude son, Billy. Despite his recently updated, revocable living trust documents, they were his only two heirs to the thriving private family (soon to go public) business. Weldon Thomas Scott wanted a Scott to own and run the business he had founded but was torn as to which child it would be. Like other CEO’s of family businesses, he lost many a night of sleep and walked the foundry floor with this constant pending dilemma. Succession Planning 101 without spoiling the kids like all his neighbors had done.

This day, like most other days in the past 15 years, Tommy (as he was known to family and close friends) got up at his usual time of 6 a.m. and went for a 3-mile jog up the street to the grand shopping center of them all-the Newport Coastal Mall. He put on his non-designer running shoes, took his little sack of vitamins and mineral water Mary had set out for him on the kitchen counter, and headed south on Pacific Coast Highway towards the mall. Tommy’s nickname for it was Yuppie City- the young, urban greed center of the Southern California universe. Without a Porsche, Mercedes, Jaguar, or BMW, you had a very tough time of admission. Very few American cars were sighted in their lot or tolerated! Detroit iron was apparently off limits.

He was in excellent shape and took care of his 52-year-old body in much the same way he had run his business- with precision, risk and determination. His Midwestern family heritage (even though they moved here when he was 16) came through the genes into his work ethic. He was lean, tan and muscular for his frame and all his peers admired his daily regimen. Working on a seven-minute mile, he would turn through the big-ticket movie theater and then work his way past the Hotel Newport and the Cove Restaurant north to the Orange County Tennis Club. From there it was a quick sprint up hill to Jamboree Point and then down hill to the Coastal Yacht Club and into his gated Balboa neighborhood. Tommy enjoyed living where he did-close to the ocean, nice restaurants and in a quiet, relaxed community. Most locals knew Tommy and waved to him during this morning ritual. Little did they know that today it would be quite different.

As he sprinted the last 50 yards towards his home, he could see his gorgeous wife smiling and waiting for him in their front-gated courtyard.

Hurry Tommy! she coached.

Beat your best time she giggled, as this was her consistent everyday welcome of Tommy back home. He smiled back with pure delight.

Mary Elizabeth Scott, 39 was a stunning example of a woman. Blond, blue eyed, smart, witty, and stacked to the California hilt. Tommy met her by accident at the Cove restaurant one night, after his first wife died of breast cancer with undiagnosed pneumonia and abandoned him with two children 8 years ago. While most of his friends thought he was just going through a mid-life crisis and trolling for the trophy wife, Tommy saw the intellectual and delicate, emotional sides of Mary, masked by her stunning beauty.

Mary had been married for a short time, but her marriage fell apart when her husband’s abuse of alcohol, recreational drugs and obsession with work betrayed her. Her confrontations and resulting nightly beatings scarred her physically and emotionally, and she gambled it all when she finally walked out on him. Their divorce was ugly even by Orange County standards. Mary Elizabeth obtained one of the best attorneys in the county and held her own in a drawn out legal slugfest with her cruel ex-husband. He really hurled the dirt and accusations. The worst insult was that she was devious and unscrupulous. Wait, weren’t most housewives in Orange County like that?

Through one of the most heated and emotional trials of the year, she persevered and won a record legal settlement. But even in California, money does not buy everything, and Mary Elizabeth was like a wounded dog curled up in the back of her cage. She came out of the Santa Ana courtroom numb, spent and exhausted. Her wounds were bare and bleeding, and she had some serious pent up anger.

Until she met the soft-spoken Tommy nine months later, she confessed that she never knew if she could trust men again. Although she had a few dates, she was a fragile and delicate soul and kept her guard with him. Tommy, on the other hand, had been married for 27 years and after mourning his wife’s death, was searching for new love and female affection. As his team of mental health professionals (shrinks) had told him, he was starving for attention, and after being cooped up for years this widower was finally ready for some fun!

Mary and Tommy started out their relationship very cautious and conservative. Despite their soon to be found physical attraction, it took a long while for Mary to open up to Tommy. As she confessed to him, she was not a very verbal person and was quite independent not wanting to do things with his family and friends most weekends. While Mary rejected most of Tommy’s early efforts to go out on serious dates, as soon as Mary began to trust Tommy and get to know him, he was able to show her that despite his confident businessman acumen, he had a good heart, was very sensitive and a lot of fun. He slowly found her to be a very beautiful and special person and he found himself thinking about her at all times of the business day.

Together, they made up a list of fun things to do and places to go and took delight over the next two years in working their way through the list. It was the most fun either of them had ever had in their entire lives. They both learned that the road to intimacy was found beyond appearance and physical beauty, but through the intellectual and emotional intimacy that follows, giving to one another. They had taken the time to get to know each other, and it was the best time they ever had spent! Mary even began to associate with Tommy’s family and friends and even started to like a few of them. But his kids were tough reads.

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Mary smiled her broad smile at Tommy as he came up the motor court and driveway. She not only had slowly fallen in love with this man, but she greatly respected him. He was the most decent, trustworthy, honest entrepreneur she had ever met. Living and working in Newport Beach for 10 years, she had seen the likes of some real shady fellows. It‘s no wonder they call Newport the boiler room capital of the U.S. There are more con artists and rip off schemes going on here than you can keep track of. Even the Newport Beach police department has a tough time running these bums out of town. While the rich do get richer, the con artists try to balance the books by getting their fair share of money, and they do quite well.

Mary had worked in the insurance and legal side of real estate with some of the top developers in the county. She had experience with pollution and commercial insurance for their projects. She saw pay offs, rip offs, bribes, sex for permit deals, extortion, and other crooked deals. On top of the unethical dealings, many of the developers later went bankrupt leaving workers, suppliers, bankers, contractors and the like literally holding the bag. Most of these businesses went under due to the developer’s excessive expenditures, poor or delinquent management practices, drug and alcohol abuse, marital problems, bad investments, dishonesty or just plain stupidity. In her short time in business, she had seen plenty. Her Tommy was an altogether refreshing change.

As he approached her, she eagerly kissed him in spite of the fact that he was sweaty from his run. She loved seeing him with his hair all messed up, slight growth of beard and chest heaving. Besides, Tommy was one of the best kissers she had ever met. He had wonderful lips and knew how to use them. As he began to grab and kiss her slightly more passionately, she stopped him and gave him her stock line.

Hey, mister, wait till I get you inside.

She first said this to him one of the first times they kissed in a small intimate restaurant in South Laguna Beach, CA, and they had been using that line ever since. Tommy always smiled his boyish Midwestern smile at Mary when she said this to him. He thought he knew her, but could never be quite sure. He just hoped he did in his ever-positive manner.

Tommy quickly showered in one of the six bathrooms in their $3.5 million Balboa estate home. Even though it was only 9:55 a.m., the mid-morning sun was shining through the downstairs bathroom window and into the mirror of Tommy’s freshly shaven face. He felt great and was ready for the day. As he got dressed and ready to leave the house, Mary brought him a cup of fresh ground coffee and a lightly toasted bagel. He quickly scanned his daily copy of the West Fontana Business Journal lying on the table in their master suite. His eye caught the headline stating that metallic hazardous waste had been discovered in the newly graded master community of Mountain Vista Estates near Rialto, CA. As he finished the last few sips of the coffee, he fumbled for the keys to one of the cars in the garage.

Weldon Thomas Scott loved his cars-and being in Newport Beach only exaggerated that passion. Tommy wasn’t into showing off his collection (like so many of his floor flushing neighbors were). No, they were his art collection, and the benefit of his type of art was that he could drive and experience their complete beauty daily.

Tommy had owned just about every major brand of sports, muscle, exotic, luxury car you could name. From his early days with Chevrolet Camaro’s to various Porsche, BMW and Jaguar models, Weldon Thomas Scott has had an affair with cars. Even Mary Scott knew after they were shortly married, that there was nothing she could do to interfere with his mistresses.

On this specific day, with Tommy being in such a great mood and having no meetings to haul people to, he decided to drive his prized exotic 1986 Red Ferrari 328 GTS to his foundry and offices in Fontana, CA. He had a 2012 BMW 5 series that Mary mostly drove along with his 2009 Bentley Continental four-door sedan. He mostly drove the Ferrari GTS in and around Newport, but wanted an excuse to open it up and clear out some of the carbon on one of the new toll roads near Newport. One of Tommy’s few vices was speed, but he has greatly reduced his thrill rides since turning 50 and his wedding to Mary. Tommy flings his briefcase into the passenger side foot well and slides in the Recaro driver’s seat to fire up the Ferrari. A few environmental Chain of Custody sheets and laboratory report forms edge their way from the opening of the case, but Tommy is too busy grinning with delight at the purr and awesome power from the roar of the engine. Mary comes to the garage to see what all of the noise is coming from and frowns at Tom as she sees which car he is taking to work this day. She curls her lips downward in a playful frown and crosses her fingers at him indicating, Tommy is a very bad boy. In reply, he just revs up the motor a little louder, smiles his famous boyish grin at her, and touches the garage door opener as he puts the car in neutral gear.

As he slips the five speed manual transmission into reverse and engages the clutch, he notes that he would be in Fontana in 55 minutes or less given the traffic on the infamous Highway 55/91 interchange. As the 328 GTS purrs up Jamboree Road, Tommy turns on the radio and clicks the CD button.

He selects button #4 and downloads one of his favorite CD’s from John Mellancamp. Having grown up in the Midwest, Tommy can relate with the local work ethic and culture, much the same way Mellancamp does in his Bloomington and Southern Indiana inspired songs. That culture was one of the main reasons Tommy chose Fontana to keep his family factory. He did it for all the local people around Fontana like Bloomington, California. Besides, there aren’t too many metal foundries in Newport Beach. Newport kids don’t get their hands dirty doing real work. They just surf, eat fish tacos and figure out ways to spend mommy and daddies trust fund money. What a waste of time and talent.

As he cruises up Jamboree and on to MacArthur, he entered the 55 Freeway at about 70-mph without too much traffic. With the Targa roof removed, he quickly shifted to the fifth gear and pointed the GTS north for the 91 Freeway. Tommy hated this interchange, not so much for the traffic, but those damn trucks throwing stones and gravel. He didn’t want any pit marks on the seven hand rubbed coats of Italian lacquer paint on the Ferrari! As he makes the easterly turn from the 55 onto the 91, the midmorning sun is slightly in his eyes. As he instinctively puts down the visor, a large gravel truck moves into his lane. For a moment, Tommy is sure that the driver sees him, and avoids honking his horn. But it was too late. He is distracted by the rustling Santa Ana winds on the environmental papers dumping from his case on the car floor and at the same time is trying to down shift and accelerate out of the pending collision. In a last desperate move, he pumps the brakes and yanks on the hand brake. No response. The truck does not see the low-slung 328 and as it merges over, it absorbs the GTS like a great white shark. The Ferrari is now trapped and wedged between the truck cab and the trailer and is immediately twisted from front to side in an s-shaped pattern. Before Weldon Thomas Scott could even turn the steering wheel, the massive 10-ton trailer runs over his $80,000+ exotic sports car smashing the driver’s compartment violently, completely and catching it on fire. Tommy Scott had enjoyed his last day on earth. He died instantly, without any reflex or suffering and without a doubt- the memory of his favorite CD, car and blonde wife all fresh in his mind.

Would all those cold, snow bound Midwesterners want to trade places with Tommy this warm beautiful sunny Southern California morning?

TWO

Jacob Jake Robert Savich rolled out of his crusty double bed that same East Chicago, Indiana morning with a severe headache and the beginnings of a nasty head cold. He had left his apartment window partially cracked open last night and had probably paid the price for it. God, he hated getting sick. As he was reaching for the government issued I phone to call his office and report in sick, it beat him to the punch. At 38 years old, what was he doing this all for?

Savage, this is Troyanovich. I suppose you are wasted as usual, barked his civil servant boss of 3 years. Jake was sick not drunk. Did everyone think that all Polish people drink vodka every night?

Get to the office by 9 am, the big boss wants to see your Polish face for some sort of cross town assignment. Details were obviously lacking in this short, curt, derogatory and hostile one-way conversation.

No lame excuses he stammered before Jake could utter a word.

Donald Troyanovich, GS-13 Environmental Compliance Supervisor clicked the end button with not even a simple sigh of disgust, utterance or goodbye. Jake mumbled some type of inaudible early morning obscene phrase and thought Donald T. was going to get his someday and it would be well deserved. He didn’t even like the way he said his name. His family name was Savich not Savage. Jake had been explaining that to people his entire life. Apparently nobody was listening. Every document kept spelling it Savage. After 20 years he gave up and took the wrong spelling.

By 9:15 am Jake found out he was wanted in Gary, Indiana for an environmental inspection of a coke oven and battery at a local steel plant beginning on the second shift at 4 pm until 2 am. As he slumped down in the squeaking 30 year old government office chair, he wondered why me? Who had I pissed off to deserve such a shit assignment as this? As one of the Sr. Compliance Inspector’s with both civil and criminal top-secret investigation credentials, he still wasn’t sure why he got dumped on by this office brass. He received 4-star performance evaluations from his former boss before his transfer to Pittsburgh. Were they still upset with him that he lost his past female Junior Inspector while she was assigned to him for on the job training at the Hammond Steel Mill at 2 am? Or was it for the $25,000 office van that he rolled into the Chicago River last January with a couple of grand of new air pollution stack sampling equipment on loan from the U.S. EPA, Region 5? Hell Jake, wasn’t perfect!

What did they want from him? The roads are icy in Hammond and Gary. He got a bad rap, as some kind of misfit-which he was not. He