by Dave Stanton
“Take a swing, champ,” I said.
He looked at me for a second, struggling to decide if my intrusion on his day would become something worse than it already was, or if perhaps this was an opportunity to reclaim the pride and machismo he may have enjoyed in his younger years, but had been systematically stripped from him by an unfair world.
Or maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe he was just deciding how to go about kicking my ass.
He feinted with a left jab, light on his feet, then threw a big roundhouse with his right. If he landed the punch, it probably would have probably knocked me out cold. But I ducked under his fist and caught him with an uppercut just below his ribcage. His breath left in a whoosh, and he doubled over. A nasal wheeze escaped from his throat as he tried to catch his wind. I kicked his legs out and he fell face down, then I dropped a knee on his back. In ten seconds I had him hog-tied, plastic bands binding his wrists and ankles behind him, one band looped between the two. He lay writhing until his breath returned with a gasp.
“You lousy cocksucker,” he panted. “You let me go or I swear you’ll pay.”
“I can leave you like this, maybe duct tape your mouth so no one can hear you yell,” I said pleasantly. “Or, you can stop acting like you got something to prove and answer my questions. I know it’s a tough choice. I’ll leave it up to you.”
He lay on his side and looked up at me. He had a cut on his lip and his teeth were red with blood.
“What the fuck you want to know?”
“Where’s Marty Nilsson?”
“He said he was driving to Utah to visit his mom.”
“When did he leave?”
“Two days ago. Three days ago. I don’t fuckin’ remember.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“I don’t know. By Friday night, ’cause he’s working.”
“Where?”
“The Rusty Scupper. He’s a cook, like me.”
“How well do you know him?”
“Barely. Met him about three months ago. We work the same place but never together. So I don’t see him a lot.”
“Where’s his room?”
“Down the hall, door on the left. But it’s locked.”
“You got a key?”
“No.”
“Too bad.”
I went down the hall and tried without success to jimmy the door with a credit card. I saw no reason to damage the property unnecessarily, especially given that I didn’t want to alert Marty Nilsson he was a suspect. But the roommate would tell him anyway, so there was no point. With a sigh, I hit the door with my shoulder and splintered the frame.
The room was too neat for a twenty-one-year-old male. Hell, it was too neat for me, and I could barely remember twenty-one. The bed was made military crisp and the bookcase and small desk were free of clutter. A blank pad of paper and a pen rested on the desk beside a keyboard and a monitor. There was no PC. He probably owned a laptop—probably took it with him.
I went through the desk drawers, the dresser, and his closet. In the closet, a snowboard leaned against the wall next to a ski coat on a hanger. Beneath the coat was a pair of boarding boots and a plastic crate stacked with mountaineering gear. Crampons, an ice pick, a collapsible shovel, an avalanche beacon, and underneath it all, a coiled rope. I ran my hand along the coils until I found one of the ends. It was cut cleanly and not sealed with black, as new ropes are.
I checked under the bed, then spent a few minutes fanning the pages of his books and a half-dozen Snowboarder magazines, hoping Valerie and Terry’s driver’s licenses might fall out. No such luck.
“Hey fuck-face, you done yet?” came the voice from the hall.
I went back out to where the man lay on his side. His eyes were bulging and the tendons in his neck stood out.
“What kind of vehicle does he drive?”
“You gonna let me go?”
“Answer the question.”
“A gray Ford Ranger.”
“What year?”
“How would I know? Older, like ten years old. This is getting pretty uncomfortable, man.”
I looked down at him. “It’s supposed to be uncomfortable. You brought it on yourself, my friend.”
“Guys like me never learn. My old man used to say that.”
I unfolded my pocketknife and slit two of the plastic ties, but left his ankles bound. He sat up and rubbed at the dried blood on his lips and jaw.
“You keep proving him right, huh?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“You want to do something smart? Repair the busted door, and don’t say a word about this to Marty when you see him.”
He pushed himself to his feet, working to keep his balance, and snorted a laugh. “You’re dreamin’, pal.”
“My free advice might keep you out of jail.”
“For what?”
“Aiding and abetting a murder suspect.”
His lips moved silently, and one eye shrunk in his skull while the other protruded. “Bullshit,” he spat.
“You want to risk doing time for a roommate you barely know? That could be quite a learning experience.”
“Get out of my goddamn house,” he said.
• • •
I called the number for South Lake Tahoe PD as I drove off, and the receptionist told me Marcus Grier was out on patrol. Grier had told me not to call his cell during working hours unless it was an emergency, or at least urgent. Whether he would view my new information as such, I wasn’t quite sure.
“What is it, Dan?” Grier said, after about ten rings.
“I just identified a strong suspect for the murder of Valerie Horvachek.”
“A strong suspect?”
“He drives a Ford Ranger. He’s into mountaineering.”
“Hooray.”
“I’m not done, Marcus. He’s a student in Candi’s art class. He’s working on a painting of the exact scene where Valerie’s body was dumped. Plus, in his room there’s a climbing rope, cut at one end. I think the piece he cut off is the murder weapon.”
Grier made a huffing sound, then said, “I’ll call Bill Worley. We’ll call you back. Keep your phone with you.”
I drove back through town, cursing at each light. The highway was busy with tourists pulling in and out of shopping areas and restaurants. Over the lake, the sky had settled into a shifting porridge of gray and white globules, as if in some kind of meteorological purgatory.
When I got home I went to my PC and checked flights from Reno to Salt Lake City. If I could get in and out of Utah quickly, I’d visit Marty Nilsson’s mother. If I was lucky, he’d be there. But there were very few direct flights, and most of the connecting flights involved layovers that were impractical. There was a 6:00 P.M. flight today that would get me there at midnight, through Las Vegas. The next option was an 8:15 direct departure tomorrow morning, arriving at 10:15, with a return flight at four in the afternoon. That might work.
I looked again at the flight leaving tonight and briefly considered driving to Reno to get on the plane. I’d have to leave right away. But that would mean leaving Candi alone overnight, and that was not something I was willing to do.
As I weighed my options, my cell rang. “Dan, I’ve got Bill Worley on the line,” Grier said. “Repeat what you told me.”
I told Worley the details surrounding Marty Nilsson. When I finished I said, “Can you get a warrant to search his house tonight?”
“Possibly,” Grier said.
“Might be awkward, being that Douglas County’s already arrested a man,” Worley added.
“That arrest is bogus, and Galanis and his dream team know it,” I said.
“I know this is a lot to ask, Dan, but I’d really appreciate it if you could keep your sarcasm to yourself.”
“I’ll work on it. In the meantime, I’m planning to fly to Salt Lake tomorrow morning and drive out to Ogden to speak with Nilsson’s mother.”
“What if he’s there?” Worley said.
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br /> “I’ll make a citizen’s arrest, secure him, and call you so you can arrange for the local police to hold him.”
“Save yourself the trip,” Grier said. “If we decide it’s the right thing to do, we’ll call the police in Ogden.”
“Forgive me, Marcus, but there’s too many ifs in that equation. If you get a search warrant tonight and find enough to issue a warrant for his arrest, I’ll back off. Otherwise, I’m going. Nilsson murdered those girls. It all adds up.”
“I could order you not to go.”
“I’m going, Sheriff.”
Grier sighed. “Whatever you do, you better not break the law.”
“Call me if you get the warrants.”
• • •
When I left my house at dawn the next day, there was no moon and no hint of light on the horizon. The neighborhood was quiet and shrouded in an eerie darkness, as if a black hood had been pulled over the valley. I drove around the block twice, then headed out to the deserted highway, out toward Spooner Pass.
Last night I’d set up Candi’s smartphone with an emergency alert. If she pressed the designated button my cell would ring and the GPS function would show me her location. That, and the fact that she was still carrying her loaded pistol, provided a certain comfort.
An hour later I parked at the Reno airport and went through the rigmarole required to check the case containing my pistol and stun gun. After that, I killed a few minutes playing slots until the flight boarded.
It was not a crowded plane, and I had a row to myself in the back. We climbed over Reno and I watched the city fall away, then we were over the high desert, the sun low and white on the horizon. Brown flatlands spread from the shadow of the Sierras, the land scarred with sinkholes and buttes and fissures. Thin roads led off until they faded from sight or terminated part way up snow-covered ridges. Then new mountains rose, white-capped and foreboding, the terrain uninhabited for a hundred miles in any direction. As the jet continued eastward, the ridges receded and were replaced by the salt flats.
I filed out of the plane and left the Salt Lake City terminal in a compact class rental car. It was as cold in Salt Lake as it was in Tahoe, but evergreens did not grow here, and the surroundings were void of color. Skeleton trees lined the roads, and the grass looked dead. Every building was brown or gray, as if mandated by some misguided legislation.
I got onto the freeway and headed upstate on 15, Utah’s main north-south artery. To the south were Bryce and Zion national parks, home to some of the most spectacular natural scenery in the world. But there wasn’t much to look at heading north, except for the formidable granite faces of the Wasatch Range, which ran parallel to the freeway off to the east. There were eight or nine world-class ski resorts tucked back in those canyons. I suspected Marty Nilsson was intimately familiar with them.
Thirty miles later I exited the interstate and found the neighborhood where Anne Nilsson lived. The streets consisted of small, pastel-colored homes on small lots, each home well-kept and consistent with the next, the architectural style from the post-depression 1940s housing boom. I drove up her street and back again. There were patches of snow here and there and little piles of leaves in the gutters. If it wasn’t for the cars parked in the driveways, I imagined the neighborhood would have looked almost identical sixty years ago.
On the curb in front of Anne Nilsson’s address was a late model Ford Mustang with black racing stripes on the hood. Parked in the driveway was a silver Chevy sedan. The house was a faded pink and Christmas lights were strung along the eaves and shutters.
I followed an old brick walkway to the door and knocked. When no one answered, I rang the doorbell, then knocked again. “Shit,” I mumbled. Two cars in front, somebody had to be home. Maybe she worked a late shift and was asleep. Maybe she’d taken her dog on a walk. Or maybe she thought I was a solicitor.
I knocked one more time, banging my knuckles hard against the wood. Then I tried the doorknob. A click, and the door eased open. I stuck my head in.
“Hello? Police business. Hello?” No one was in the front room. I stepped inside and looked at the modest kitchen visible from the doorway. To the left was a hall. “Police! Is anyone home?”
There were three doors in the hall, and all were closed. I felt the hair on the back of my neck tingle, and I reached into my coat and pulled out my Berretta.
The first door was to a bathroom. Empty.
The second door opened to what looked like a guest bedroom. Also empty.
I crept toward the door at the end. My heart thudded in my chest, and I felt a trickle of sweat begin down my side.
I knocked on the door. “Police business. Open up!”
Nothing.
I turned the knob and pushed the door open, panning the room with my pistol.
“Oh my god,” I said.
A naked woman lay face up on the bed. Her legs were straight before her, her bare feet splayed, her hands rested at her sides. The sheets were streaked with blood. She had long blond hair and her eyes were sky blue and her pubic hair was as blond as the hair on her head. When I reached to check her pulse, her wrist was ice cold. She’d been dead for hours.
Aside the bed a man was curled in the fetal position. He was covered in blood and the carpet surrounding his torso was crimson. I could see two puncture wounds in his neck, and one clearly had found the jugular vein. He was naked as well, short dark hair and an athlete’s body, brown eyes wide and staring. About twenty-five years old.
I looked at the woman again. Her toned curves were those of someone who spent considerable time at a gym. Her nipples pointed at the ceiling, the breast implants oblivious to her death. Purplish ligature marks circled her neck, and her mouth was open, as if in protest. Estimated age, forty. A box of condoms sat on the nightstand, next to an opened wrapper.
I backed out of the room and called 911, then went outside to wait. A gust of wind sent a scattering of leaves across the street, and the cold cut through my jacket. A cat sauntering across the shingled roof eyed me with distrust, and down the street two children rode their bikes in circles, their distant voices tiny. I walked to either side of the house and peered into the side yards. There was no sign of forced entry, no broken windows, no damaged doors. The house looked calm and peaceful and no more remarkable than when I’d first seen it, as if the dead bodies inside were snapshots out of a nightmare fabricated solely by my mind.
In less than two minutes, a pair of squad cars pulled up, followed by an ambulance and an unmarked sedan. I gave my ID to an older uniformed cop with a meaty face and a nose crisscrossed with threadlike veins. Two plainclothesmen went into the house, and I leaned against my rental car and answered questions I knew I’d be asked again when the detectives were ready to talk to me.
It took twenty minutes for the plainclothesmen to come back outside and tell the medics to remove the bodies. The uniformed cop passed my driver’s license to one of the detectives. I handed him my PI license.
“You’re a long way from home,” the man said. He wore slacks, a tweed jacket, and a long black overcoat. The garments did little to hide his powerful build. His dark hair was neatly combed and probably hair-sprayed, and he had a five o’clock shadow even though it wasn’t yet noon.
“I came here looking for a man named Marty Nilsson. He’s suspected of two murders in Lake Tahoe. I heard he was visiting his mother.” I pointed to the house with my thumb. “But it looks like I missed him.”
“She doesn’t look like anyone’s mother,” the other detective said, a taller man with a round head and a complexion as pale and cratered as a full moon.
“Marty Nilsson’s twenty-one. My guess is she’s forty.”
“You don’t think he killed his mother?” the swarthy cop said, and I couldn’t tell whether he was skeptical or just perplexed.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I think,” I said.
“Why?” Moon-face said.
“I think he came home to pay her a visit and found her in bed
with a younger man.”
“You’re losing me here,” the swarthy cop said. “You think he killed his mom just because she was getting it on with some young buck?”
“The marks on her neck were identical to the two women strangled in Tahoe.”
“You have any evidence on him for the Tahoe murders?”
“Sheriff Marcus Grier in South Lake Tahoe is working on getting a search warrant for Nilsson’s house. Grier knows I’m here. You should call him.”
I gave Moon-face Grier’s cell number, then said to the other cop, “Was the man wearing a condom?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Jesus, what a way to go.”
Moon-face began speaking and after a minute he hung up. “They searched Marty Nilsson’s house and found a rope. They’re testing to see if it’s a match for the ligature marks on the victims.”
“Did Grier issue an arrest warrant, or at least put out an APB for Nilsson?” I said.
“No, they’re waiting for the test results on the rope.”
I put my palm to my forehead. “You got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Watch your language, please,” Moon-face said.
“Listen, this guy is like a nuclear plant in meltdown mode,” I said. “He needs to be contained, and fast. What do you guys think? You want him roaming free in your town?”
“Back up for a second,” the swarthy cop said. “Why the heck would he kill his mom?”
We stood there facing each other. The medics came out the front door, wheeling a corpse on a gurney. They struggled as they maneuvered through the doorway, and from the profile of the black plastic bag, I could tell it was Anne Nilsson’s body.
“Find him and maybe he’ll tell you,” I said.
• • •
On the way back to the airport, I called Grier.
“You need to go tell the judge that Marty Nilsson’s mother was killed last night,” I said. “Strangled, probably with the same rope used to kill Valerie and Terry.”
“So I’ve been told. As soon as we confirm the rope in Marty’s room is a match for the one used on those girl’s, we’ll issue an arrest warrant.”
“He could be anywhere in Utah by now, Marcus. Hell, he could be in Colorado or Idaho. Or, heading back to Tahoe.”
