by Todd Borg
“I meant treats for me,” I said.
Diamond pointed at the coffee.
Spot had been sleeping, but when Diamond bent down in front of him, he opened his eyes. He made a big yawn without lifting his head. His giant tongue flopped out.
“He just got sand in his mouth,” Diamond said.
“Helps abrade the plaque off his teeth,” I said.
Diamond held out the biscuit and gave it a little toss.
Spot caught the biscuit and chewed it up fast.
Diamond lifted up on the creases of his trousers, then sat down on the sand.
I sipped my coffee. “You been siesta-ing? It looks like you just got out of the shower.”
“Been on a long, sweaty hike.” Diamond pulled out a map, unfolded it. “Yesterday afternoon, two hikers found human remains up by Genoa Peak. This morning I went up with two of our deputies and had a look. Felt like I should get cleaned up after that.”
“Any thoughts on how recent the death was?”
“No idea. The body was quite desiccated, and the skull and neck bones were dragged some distance away, probably by a bear or coyote.”
“You get up there on one of those Jeep trails?”
“Yeah, part of the way. We had to park and hike the Tahoe Rim Trail for a bit, then make a long, steep descent down into a canyon below. The return trip was way worse. My hiking motto is always go up first, then the return trip is easy.”
“You pack out the bones?”
“Not yet. Wanted to see if your sweetheart had time to go up and collect samples. There wasn’t much insect activity, but I did see some flies buzzing around. The remains have been there some time, so I figured one more day wouldn’t hurt, especially if Street could make an estimate of time of death. We took photos, and hiked back. I called Street when we got back, and she said she’d be willing to go up tomorrow morning.”
“Any indication of the cause of death?”
“Nah,” Diamond said.” There wasn’t anything but stinky leather and bones. Some of the skin remaining on the skull had long hair. And the body seemed small. So maybe it was a woman. We’ll bag the bones after Street’s done. But I’ve only got one free deputy. We’ve been running a lot of overtime the last few days. Lots of stuff keeping us busy.”
“Like the climber who fell off Cave Rock last week,” I said.
“Yeah. Don’t they know it’s illegal to climb there now? Talk about stupid. He dies, and we get stuck cleaning up the mess. We had to close the highway for three hours.” Diamond picked up a pine cone and threw it down the beach. Spot watched it go, but didn’t move. “Anyway, I wondered if you might come along with Street and me. Help me out.”
I looked at the lake. A big motor yacht was rumbling by, a group of people already drinking beer up on the flying bridge.
“I’m pretty busy,” I said.
Diamond looked at me, held his hands out gesturing at the beach, decided not to respond. He bent over the map and pointed at the topographical lines that showed the contour of the land. “The body was found here, down a canyon on the Carson Valley side of Genoa Peak. Street says her tool box is a bit heavy to carry a long way, and this site is pretty remote.”
“I’ll carry it.”
“That’s what she suggested. But I had a better idea. I called Maria. She’s got a friend, Lana Madrone, who lives near Hidden Woods. Pretty much straight down from Genoa Peak on the Tahoe side. Lana’s got a stable and some horses. You can haul Street’s gear in on horseback.” Diamond grinned at me.
“And you’re grinning because you’re pleased with the idea of seeing me on horseback?”
“Possibly. Anyway, I want to preserve the bones in their current position. Like on an archaeology dig. I thought I could get them onto a foam-covered board, then put more foam and another board on top. Strap them all together and carry the package out on a horse. I figure I’ll go up with a deputy. We’ll do like we did today, take a Jeep to the saddle, then hike down to the body. You and Street can ride the entire way. After we pack up the remains, you and me and the deputy can walk, and your horse can carry the remains. Once we get back up to the saddle, we can transfer everything to the Jeep. Then you and Street can ride back down.”
I thought about it. “I don’t remember any stable near Hidden Woods.”
“It’s private. Lana took early retirement from Intel. She runs a program for battered women. She has a friend in Chicago who runs a shelter there. Three or four times a summer Lana brings small groups of women from Chicago out to Tahoe to learn to ride. It’s about building self-esteem through acquiring new skills. She takes them in for a week at a time. Pays all of their expenses.”
“So she’s a nice lady. Doesn’t mean that I can’t hike and carry Street’s stuff.”
Diamond looked at me. “You’re not excited about the idea of riding a horse. I understand. Big, macho guys don’t want to do anything where they look like a neophyte.”
“Just because I’ve never been on a horse, you think I’m a neophyte,” I said.
“Right,” Diamond said. He pointed on the map. “You probably know this Jeep trail. The closest it goes to the place with the body is this saddle at eighty-six hundred feet. From there you have to traverse this slope on the Tahoe Rim Trail, then descend down toward Carson Valley. This circle here is my best estimate of where the body was. I wrote down the GPS coordinates. The elevation is about seven thousand. So that’s about sixteen hundred vertical down and then back up.”
“The town of Genoa is over here,” I said. “Not too far. Could we come up from there?”
“Probably, but Genoa’s at, what, forty-eight hundred feet. That would be even more vertical, coming up from below. It was one of my guys who said that we should have gone in on horses. As soon as he said it, I realized he was right.”
We went over times and what else to bring. Diamond was standing up to go when my phone rang.
“Owen McKenna,” I said.
“This is Ryan Lear. Thanks for calling me back. I really need to talk to you. But I can’t get to Tahoe for another day. Can you meet me tomorrow night?”
“On my machine, you said that you’re in trouble.”
There was a pause. “I think someone is planning to kill me.”
“Why do you think this?”
“I got a threatening note. Then my friend Eli Nathan fell and died at Cave Rock.”
“Climbers fall and die all the time.”
“Sure. But I can’t believe Eli would fall off of Cave Rock. He was very skillful, very sure of himself. Someone must have done something to make him fall. I know that as much as I know anything.”
“Is his death why you think you’re in danger?”
“Partly, yes.”
“I don’t mean to sound impertinent, but if someone wanted to kill you, why kill your friend?”
Diamond turned to stare at me, frowning.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said.
“You said your friend’s death was partly the reason you think you’re in danger. What is the other reason?”
“My other friend has gone missing. Jeanie Samples. I haven’t heard from her in two weeks. I’m worried to death. I went to her house in Palo Alto. I called all of her friends and her parents. Nobody’s heard from her. Last I talked to her, she was packing for her summer vacation. But I don’t know if she ever even left the Bay Area.”
“Where was she going on vacation?”
“Her plan was to go up to Tahoe and hike the Tahoe Rim Trail.”
TWO
I saw no reason to speculate on the phone about Ryan’s missing friend. Despite the coincidence, the body up on the mountain could be anyone.
“Where do you want to meet?” I asked.
“Can you come to my house? I’m on the East Shore, about a mile south of Cave Rock.”
“What time?”
“I’ll call when I get there tomorrow night. Eight or nine o’clock.”
“Okay,” I said.
&nbs
p; “Since I’ve never been up on the Tahoe Rim Trail, is there cell phone coverage up there? Would it be possible that Jeanie could still be hiking and camping her way around the basin and not be able to call out?”
“There are dead spots, but there are many more live spots. Especially on the prominent high places with good views. When you can see a long way, your cell phone can see a tower and get reception. She wouldn’t be able to hike any serious distance without getting reception. Unless her phone broke, or she lost it. She could have been checking it and dropped it off one of those viewpoints or something.”
“Now I’m even more worried. I was hoping her silence was just because she was camping.”
“Have you or her family filed a missing persons report?”
“Yes. Her parents and I both made reports at our local police stations. That was ten days ago.”
“So she went missing before Eli fell climbing.”
“Yes.” Ryan sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth.
“Maybe she was up here at the lake and she found out that Eli died,” I said. “Would the shock and distress cause her to go silent? Hole up in a hotel or something?”
“No. If she’d heard about Eli, the first thing she would have done would be to call me and her other friends. Jeanie would have wanted to be with us at Eli’s funeral.”
“There are some things I’d like you to bring when you come.”
“What?”
“A picture or two of Jeanie and Eli. Also, do you have access to Jeanie’s house or apartment?”
“Sure,” he said. “We’re like siblings. Water each other’s plants.”
“Look around and find a hairbrush or comb or something similar, but don’t take the hair out of it.”
“I don’t understand,” Ryan said.
I didn’t want to say that I wanted her DNA for comparing to the body. “Scent,” I said. “I probably won’t need it. But in case we need to send out a search party. We would scent search dogs on the hair brush.”
“Got it.”
“Okay, Ryan. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
I hung up.
“You make out the gist of it?” I said to Diamond.
“I think so. Guy you were talking to knows the guy who fell from Cave Rock. He also knows a missing woman who may or may not be our body.”
“Right.”
“And he thinks these deaths aren’t natural.”
“Right.”
“Hard to imagine that Eli Nathan’s fall wasn’t natural. We’ll know more about the body up on the mountain after we get the remains to the coroner.”
THREE
Street, Spot, and I left early the next morning, went south through the Cave Rock tunnel, and found Lana Madrone’s driveway down around the next big curve, just south of Hidden Woods on the southeast side of the lake. We turned off onto a curving ribbon of asphalt that crawled up away from the highway on the mountain side of the road.
The drive crested a rise, wound past a large, silver horse trailer, then widened in front of a large house, done in a modern mountain lodge design. We all got out, and Street pressed the doorbell. I held Spot’s collar as we waited a couple of minutes, but no one came. In the distance, we heard the sound of someone laughing. We walked around the house.
“Look,” Street said, pointing.
Up in the trees was a small barn painted like a Mondrian, with vertical and horizontal black stripes dividing the barn walls up into rectangles of varying size. The rectangles were filled in with brilliant yellows and reds and oranges and blues.
“What a delight,” I said. “I hope the Tahoe Color Police never see it.”
Just outside of the open barn door stood three women, two black and one who was white a few days ago but now sported one of the most painful-looking sunburns I’d ever seen. One of them had her hand on a canted hip, thumb forward, elbow waving. Her other hand was up in the air, a long index finger tracing circles as she talked. She saw us approach and spoke to her friends in a strong South-Side-Chicago accent.
“Y’all think horses only come black or brown like me and Belle, check out the polka-dot pony approaching.”
The others turned to look at us, gasped at Spot, and laughed hearty bellows.
“Afternoon,” I said. “The pony is Spot, who will be pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The first woman said, “That’s the biggest hound dog I’ve ever seen. He isn’t going to bite us, right? Where we come from, any white folks who walk the neighborhood always have a dog. And we know to keep our distance. But no one ever had a dog that big.”
The white woman said, “I’m white and I walk the neighborhood, and I ain’t got a dog.”
“Yeah, but you’re one of us.”
I said, “The only danger with Spot is that he might slobber on you as he licks you. Or if you sit down, he’ll try to climb on your lap, and he’s not light.”
They made cooing sounds, and each bravely reached out to pet him.
“We’re here to meet Lana. Is she around?”
One of them shouted into the barn. “Lana, hon, you’ve got company!”
A muffled voice came back, “Soon as I get this hay out of the loft!”
While we waited, I said, “I’m Owen McKenna, and this is Street Casey.” We shook hands all around.
“I’m Janelle, she’s Belle and she,” she pointed at the white woman, “is Chanelle. You can call any of us Elle, and we’ll all answer.”
“Have you been riding?” Street asked.
“Yeah!” they said in exaggerated unison.
“Tell them about Paint,” Chanelle said, giggling.
“No way,” Belle said. “You tell ’em. I’ll tell ’em about Prancer. She’s my kind of girl.”
“Yeah, but Paint, he’s got this huge...”
“Shut up. I rode Peppy, and she’s so sweet.”
“Good,” I said. “If Peppy’s sweet, that’ll be perfect for a greenhorn like me. Street’s done the horse thing, but the last time I sat on an animal, it was the donkey ride at the amusement park when I was ten years old.”
All three of them looked at each other.
“Should we tell him about Peppy?” Chanelle said. “Hate to bring him down.”
“What?” I said.
Belle spoke up. “We should let Lana tell him.”
“What?” I said again.
“Tory will tell him. It’ll be better, one man to another.”
Street said, “I’m guessing that there’s some kind of a counterpoint to Peppy’s sweet side.”
“You listen to her,” Chanelle said.
“Counterpoint is good in music,” I said. “Gotta be good for a horse.”
“Not this counterpoint,” Janelle said.
“She doesn’t like men,” Belle said.
“Who?”
“Peppy. She bucks them off.” Belle didn’t seem all that disappointed about it.
“All men, or just the guys who are jerks?” I said.
“There’s a difference?” Belle said. They all exploded in laughter.
Lana came through the barn door. She was a big, strong white woman in her fifties. She had huge hands and a red face. She smiled so sweetly, I could see how she could convince a city-dweller that climbing up on a thousand-pound animal and galloping through the forest was a reasonable activity.
“You must be Owen and Street.”
We introduced ourselves.
Lana said, “I’ve heard about you from Maria and Diamond, and they both extol your virtues.”
“Extol your virtues,” Chanelle repeated. She turned to her friends. “You’re right. Some white folk do talk funny.”
Lana grinned as Belle and Janelle laughed. It was obvious that they had a great relationship.
“We’re not taking your horses away at the wrong time, are we?” Street asked.
“Not at all,” Lana said. “Chanelle has a blister on her hand and a sunburn that might as well have come from a frying pan
, and Janelle and Belle said they need a day off to unstiffen their legs.”
“I don’t know why you say that,” Belle said. She walked a slow, pained circle, keeping her feet at least three feet apart from each other.
Janelle and Chanelle shrieked.
“You Elles are a riot,” I said. I turned to Street. “Maybe you should do the ride, and I’ll hang with them. That way I don’t have to worry about Peppy throwing me off the mountain.”
“Oh, oh,” Lana said. “They told you about that?”
“No problem. What was the other horse’s name? Prancer. I’ll ride her.”
“She doesn’t like men either,” Janelle said.
“Lot of that going around,” I said.
More laughter.
“Let me call my nephew,” Lana said. “He can help us saddle up.” She pulled a walkie talkie off her belt. “Tory, the couple I told you about are here. Can you come chip in?”
“Be right there,” came a voice.
Lana clipped her walkie talkie back on her belt. “We’re in a cell phone shadow,” she said.
An electric golf cart came humming up the drive. The driver, a rugged looking guy with a shaved head, was about twenty years younger than Lana. He jumped out of the golf cart.
“Hi. I’m Tory.”
We shook hands. He smiled at Street, but his look to me was more of a grimace. Spot appeared from the woods.
“That your dog?” Tory looked alarmed.
“Yeah. He’s friendly.” A phrase I’d said a thousand times.
“While I show Street the map,” Lana said to Tory, “you could go over the saddles and such with Owen.”
Tory looked at me, up and down. It was the look a coach gives a player who’s destined to sit on the bench. “You ever ridden before?”
“Nope. Street’s a competent rider, but I’m a greenhorn.”
“Okay, come with me.”
I followed Tory into the barn. We went past the horse stalls and into a tack room. Tory looked at me, looked at the various items of tack, and held his finger up.
