Tahoe Hijack

by Todd Borg

  The Unitarian Universalist Church was on a side street in a stand-alone commercial building that looked like it had once been a small grocery market. I parked and walked in.

  The entry opened onto a large room with two parallel semi-circles of chairs. At the focal point was a round barstool. The back wall of the room was a whiteboard on which was written ‘The 6 Keys to Community’ in dry marker. Below it said, ‘In every demographic, a Socratic Dialogue is one of the best ways to produce engagement and inclusion.’

  Religion meets the Intelligentsia.

  One side of the room had a large counter with an espresso machine and stacks of porcelain espresso cups on paper doilies.

  To one side of the entry was an office. I pulled open the door and let myself in.

  A woman was at a desk. There was an open doorway in the back wall of the office. Through the opening I saw another woman at another desk. They both looked vaguely like Jodie Foster, good-looking but without playing it up. Both were dressed well in business casual, grays and browns. From a distance, neither woman appeared to wear any makeup or jewelry other than small earrings. Both had hair that could only be described as sensible. I smelled no perfume. Both spoke on the phone, articulate voices, lower-pitched than is common, intelligent word choices. No small talk. NPR’s All Things Considered came from a small radio on the top of a bookshelf.

  The women’s desktops were neat, clean, organized. There were no donuts and coffee. No plaques with engraved aphorisms. No heart-shaped stickers saying ‘have a great day.’ No cute little frog sculptures sitting with crossed legs on the edges of the lamp bases or file cabinets. No pictures of children in little plexi frames. No coffee mugs with sports logos being used as pencil holders.

  On the front table were a stack of New Yorkers and another stack of Atlantic Monthlys. In a bookshelf was the complete collection of Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization, the first such collection I’d ever seen that had enough wear to look like the books actually may have been read. The other titles were largely about Humanism and Secularism and Free Will.

  There were no pamphlets or wall-mounted icons or paintings or sculptures or altars or anything else of a religious nature.

  By the voice of the woman in front of me, I could tell that she was the person I spoke to on the phone from Woodside.

  She hung up, made a careful note in her day-planner, and looked up at me. “Yes? How can I help you?”

  “I’m Owen McKenna. I spoke to you on the phone about Melody Sun.”

  “Yes, of course. May I see an ID, please?”

  I pulled out my PI license.

  She studied it. “Please give me a moment.” She stood and walked into the back office. I heard their soft voices but not the words. She came back.

  “Please step back here, Mr. McKenna.” She led me into the other office. “I’d like you to meet Samantha Abrams. She is our director. She will be glad to help you.”

  The other woman stood up, shook my hand. “Good to meet you, Mr. McKenna.” I saw that she was now holding my ID. She handed it back to me.

  The first woman left and shut the door behind her.

  “Mary said that you were inquiring about Melody Sun?”

  “Yes.” I explained my background on the SFPD and how I’d met Melody after her cousin Grace’s death. “I’m trying to locate Melody to give her the news that we have likely found her cousin’s killer. I understand Melody has been having a hard time. It may help her to know that the murderer may finally be punished.”

  Samantha held my eyes for a long moment, then she looked down and fiddled with a button on her blouse. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Mr. McKenna. Melody arrived here in a very bad state. Serious depression, despondent over her circumstances. In the space of a few months she’d gone from being a woman with a relatively happy life to a woman who was homeless and penniless. She lived with us for six days, and each day she seemed to get worse. Our on-call psychologist worked with her. He said that Melody was suffering from serious depression and needed to see a psychiatrist and get on an appropriate drug regimen as soon as possible. He also said what we could all see, that Melody was fiercely intelligent. But of course, intelligent people sometimes have the worst time with depression. So we made an appointment for Melody the next day. But Melody left that afternoon and didn’t come back.

  “Early the next day, we got a call from the Golden Gate Bridge Patrol. Melody’s pickup had been found at four in the morning parked in the middle of the bridge. The truck was sitting at an angle as if she’d jerked it to the side and stopped. The front door was open, and the engine was running. Melody was nowhere to be seen. There was a sticky note on the steering wheel that said, ‘Sorry, I can’t take this life anymore.’”

  “She committed suicide,” I said.

  “They never found the body. But they told us that they often don’t. Even when jumps are witnessed and the witness continues watching, the body often sinks and is never recovered.”

  The news stunned. Maybe Melody’s death wasn’t connected to Grace’s death, but the coincidence seemed too strong. When Grace was killed, I’d seen the devastating effect on Melody. It was impossible not to think that Grace’s murder had started a cascade of events that culminated in Melody taking her own life three years later.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Yes, it is hard. Several of the other residents at The Connection have been very upset. They felt for Melody. They understood her pain. We are being extra vigilant with them.”

  “Were you able to contact her next-of-kin?”

  “Melody told us that, other than the husband who disappeared months ago, she has no family.”

  I stood. “Thank you for your time.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  TWENTY

  Agent Ramos called as Spot and I were just starting up the first big slope in El Dorado Hills that marks the beginning of the foothills.

  “Sergeant Santiago told me about Watson saying that Nick O’Connell was the hijacker,” he said. “We got O’Connell’s booking photo. It’s better than the artist’s sketch, but not much. I showed it to Street. She can’t make a positive ID, but she says it’s a good possibility. I’d like to bring you a copy. I can be at your place in fifteen minutes.”

  “Great. I’m coming up Fifty, but I’m only at Cameron Park, so I’m still about an hour and twenty minutes out.”

  “Okay, I’ll come in an hour and twenty minutes,” he said.

  Ramos was in his Suburban in my driveway when I pulled up. He was talking on his cell. I waved at him and took Spot on into my cabin.

  He rapped on the door five minutes later.

  When I opened the door, he took a step back and frowned at Spot, who was pushing out between me and the doorjamb.

  “I have on black pants,” he said. “Your hound has white hair.” There was no expression on his face, but his voice was tight.

  I pointed at Spot. “All of those spots are black hair,” I said. “So some will blend in.”

  Ramos gave me a dead look.

  I pushed sideways with my hip so that Spot was squeezed against the door opening and couldn’t easily get to Ramos.

  “Spot, you wouldn’t shed on Agent Ramos, would you?”

  Spot looked up at me. His tail thumped against the closet just inside the front door.

  “That Beatles song Love Me Do is on the radio,” Ramos said. “His tail is beating the same tempo as the song.”

  “I guess you passed his love test.”

  “Probably just wants me for lunch.”

  “I doubt it. He hasn’t chewed on anyone with a law degree in a week or more.”

  “Maybe we don’t taste good,” Ramos said. It was the first time I’d ever heard him attempt humor.

  I took Spot’s collar and held him back as Ramos carefully stepped through the door.

  Ramos walked past the rocker and hitched a hip on one of my two barstools that sit on the front side of my kitchen-noo
k counter. He hooked a heel on the bottom cross support. His black shoes were as polished and shiny as his black hair and moustache. The creased fronts of his pants made sharp edges.

  I had Spot lie down on his cedar-chip bed.

  Ramos reached out the photo, expecting me to walk over to get it. Could be condescension. Could also be he was afraid to walk near Spot.

  I took it from his hand.

  The shot of Nick O’Connell was a study in what a photo can’t reveal.

  “The big hair and beard and eyebrows go with my memory of the hijacker,” I said. “But I can’t recognize anything else about him. His eyes and nose seem average. If you Photoshopped in different eyes and nose, nothing would change. This guy was probably the hijacker. But that means it could be anyone. The hair and beard are suggestions, nothing more.” I handed the photo back.

  Ramos held up his hand, palm out. “That’s an extra copy I made for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  I filled Ramos in on the remaining details of the events since I spoke to Watson.

  “Anna must wish she’d never contacted her birth mother,” Ramos said when I was done. “Grace got murdered, and Anna acquired a murderous stalker who wants a journal that she knows nothing about. Now Melody has jumped off the Golden Gate.”

  Ramos stood up and, moving in an arc to keep his distance from Spot, walked to the sliding door and looked through the glass out toward the perimeter of mountains encircling the lake.

  “How did Anna escape the bedroom attacker?” he asked, still facing the lake. “She some kind of commando?”

  “I don’t think so. She’s just thorough. She made a point about how Grace taught her to be a careful planner. Apparently, Grace emphasized that you can confront any scary possibility by simply preparing for it very well. If Anna had had military experience, she almost certainly would have focused on arming herself with weapons. But from her description, it doesn’t sound like she even considered weapons. All she wanted was an escape path.”

  “Good point,” Ramos said, turning from the sliding glass door. “Maybe Grace suspected that harm might come to Anna, and the preparation lesson was because of that. What do you make of it?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been uncomfortable with this case since the beginning. We have supposedly caught Grace’s killer. But it doesn’t feel right. Catching a murderer doesn’t answer the question about why Watson – or someone – murdered a woman who seemed no threat to anybody. Until we understand what the connection was between Watson and the hijacker, I won’t feel better.”

  Ramos frowned. His face was a study in extreme focus. I wondered if he ever relaxed. Probably he applied the same intensity to that, too.

  Ramos said, “Anna told you that her attacker twirled a knife. Sounds like what Street said about the hijacker.”

  I nodded.

  “Watson opened up to you,” Ramos said, “and you’re the guy who caught him. He wouldn’t even talk to us.”

  “Maybe you wore him down, and I got a lucky break,” I said.

  “Don’t bullshit me with false modesty, McKenna. You obviously knew how to open him up.”

  I waited a beat. “Watson referred to O’Connell as a knife man. I asked what he meant, and he described this man as being something of an artist with how he used a knife to do his violent deeds. He also mentioned that O’Connell did a twirling stunt with his knife.”

  Ramos said, “The way that Anna’s stalker made a demand that she follow his instructions, it’s just like what the hostage taker did when he called you. Acts like O’Connell. Sounds like O’Connell. Works a blade like O’Connell.”

  “Right. Here’s another puzzle that makes no sense. Anna said that Grace took her to the San Francisco Library and showed her a book on the Gold Rush. In it was a mention of something called the Mulligan War.”

  “Meaning?” Ramos said.

  “Some land dispute back during the Gold Rush that involved a person named Mulligan and a person named Gan Sun.”

  “What does that have to do with Anna and Grace?” Ramos asked.

  “Just that Grace’s great, great grandfather had violent struggles. The Mulligan person tried to lynch him. It’s like trouble runs in the family.”

  “Quite the coincidence. But it’s a real stretch to imagine that all of this has any connection to a dispute that took place a hundred fifty years ago.”

  “I would agree,” I said, “except Anna said that Grace mentioned that someone named O’Connell was involved with Mulligan and Gan Sun.”

  “It sounds like the journal is at the center of this.” Ramos reached over to the toothpick holder on the kitchen counter, pulled one out. He looked at it up close, turned it around, and worked it into a place in his teeth. Upper right side. Three o’clock. He levered it back and forth, then pulled the toothpick out of his mouth. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wiped the tip of his tongue. Next, he wiped the toothpick off, set the pick on the counter, folded the handkerchief three times just so, and slipped it back into his pocket.

  I had no idea if Ramos had ever studied the Grace Sun case. If he had, he would know about the journal being found on Grace’s body, and he would know that I knew about it. Not mentioning it would be obvious.

  So I said, “When Grace’s body was found, she had a journal tucked under her shirt.”

  “The journal Anna’s attacker was looking for,” Ramos said, nodding.

  “Right. It was written in Chinese and it was mostly blurred by water. A Berkeley prof couldn’t get anything useful out of it. The fact that the attacker told Anna he wanted the journal,” I said, “suggests that it contained something valuable. Maybe Watson and O’Connell were both after the journal and they developed a plan. Watson chatted Grace up and got invited over for tea. He brought O’Connell in the door with him. Tensions rose. Grace and Watson fought, and she scratched him, to which O’Connell responded by caving her head in with the frying pan. That would explain how both of them were involved, and it would explain why Watson sounded sincere when he said he didn’t kill her. If O’Connell killed her, then O’Connell would save himself by getting Watson sent up for the murder. Yet Watson wouldn’t want to accuse O’Connell because, without DNA evidence, he’d have to admit that he was part of the crime. He’d be convicted as an accessory.”

  “An awkward reconstruction,” Ramos said. “But possible. And the hijacking? How do you explain that?”

  “More awkwardness. Whatever goodies the journal describes, Nick the Knife wanted them for himself. With Watson out of the way, he could have gone after them. So he concocted a way to get me to bring in Watson.”

  “The question remains,” Ramos said. “Why didn’t O’Connell just kill Watson instead of getting you involved?”

  I shook my head. “Got me.”

  “Any idea where the journal is?” Ramos asked.

  I reached over next to the toaster, picked it up and handed it to him.

  “I thought the Grace Sun murder is still an open case,” he said as he flipped through the journal.

  “It is.”

  “Wouldn’t this be evidence in the case?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Does your possession of this raise a concern that you might be breaking the chain of custody?”

  “It does.”

  Ramos looked at me.

  “But at each step we documented and signed and crossed our hearts and swore fidelity to the law.”

  Ramos tossed the journal onto my counter. “Can’t even read it, it’s so blurry.”

  “You read Mandarin?”

  “Never tried, so I can’t say definitively that I don’t.”

  More humor. I was impressed.

  TWENTY-ONE

  After Ramos left, I dialed the Dreamscape.

  “Tahoe Dreamscape, where you ride your Tahoe Dream,” a young woman answered. She put a little edge of huskiness into her voice. It probably increased sales to men a little and decreased sales to women a lot m
ore.

  “My name is Owen McKenna. May I please speak to the owner?”

  “I’m sorry, the owner is not available. But I can forward you to the voicemail of our managing cruise consultant Darren Fritz.”

  “If the owner isn’t in, I’ll speak to Captain Richards.”

  “I’m sorry, but Captain Richards’ voicemail box is full. The last few days have been…” she stopped talking, suddenly realizing that the reasons for Richards’ sudden hectic schedule were not something she should talk about.

  “May I speak to whoever’s currently in charge?”

  “Like I said, I can put you through to Darren Fritz’s voicemail. Otherwise, all I can help you with is ticket sales.”

  I realized that it was her job to keep callers like me from getting past the gates. I didn’t enjoy being rude, but I needed to save time.

  “And your name is?” I asked.

  “I’m Traylynn, sir, and I have incoming sales calls to answer, so I’ll have to put you on hold while you decide if you’d like to leave a…”

  “Traylynn,” I interrupted, “if you put me on hold you’ll be getting a personal visit at home from local law enforcement.” I can lie as well as anyone else. “I’m the detective your hostage taker put on his little show for. Two men died, which is not an insignificant event on your boat. Now you can either connect me to the owner of the boat, or to Captain Richards, or you can give me the owner’s personal cellphone number.”

  “But…”

  “I understand that you’re under orders to do none of those things. So you’re going to have to make an executive decision, Traylynn.”

  “I’ll get in so much trouble. If I ring his phone, I’ll lose my job.” The huskiness was gone. Her voice was now a high-pitched squeak. If I pushed her, she’d start crying.

  “Then tell me his cell number. I won’t say where I got it.”

  I waited. Her breathing had a little whimper in it. I heard pages turning.