Tahoe Hijack

by Todd Borg

  “Anyway, Sammy’s loss was serendipity for me. I got the boat in the bankruptcy sale. The original shipyard had designed the bulkheads such that the boat could be cut into multiple sections. One of the divisions was right here.” Georges waved his arm from right to left over his head, pointing at the steel structure. “So we sliced and diced it and put the pieces on trucks to deliver to Tahoe where we had it reassembled at that boatyard over on the West Shore.”

  Georges gestured toward the front of the boat.

  “Of course, you’ve seen the main salon, the dining room, and the various decks. But the best part of the boat is below decks. Come.”

  Georges led us down the grand staircase to the lower level. At the bottom, he opened a recessed panel at the base of the staircase and flipped several light switches.

  “This is the lounge,” Georges said, waving his hand in a sweeping arc.

  The room was decorated like a nineteenth century bordello. The walls were covered with red velour fabric. Each porthole was wrapped with a wide, circular, gold frame done in an elaborate Italian Renaissance style. There were multiple groupings of chairs, all upholstered in red fabric and each with its own small table. On the tables were old-fashioned lamps with red cloth shades. From the perimeter of each of the shades hung a ring of glass beads that shimmered. In each corner of the room was a fainting couch with several chairs arranged around it. I envisioned Manet’s Olympia and three of her sisters as corner focal points for the room, lying back, propped up with red velvet pillows, entertaining the clientele when the weather was too inclement to sit out on the decks, asking the men to buy them another glass of triple-priced sherry.

  “I’ll take you forward in a minute. But first let me show you the engine room.”

  Ford Georges walked to the rear of the lounge and opened a door on the starboard side. The door looked heavy and was thick with foam insulation. “Check it out,” he said. “This was the biggest part of the remodel the Turkish man did.” He flipped on a light.

  Georges walked into a room that was as neat and clean as any engine room on a Navy ship. Spot and I stepped over the bulkhead threshold behind him. Two giant engines, each five feet tall, took up most of the space with the rest filled with pipes and tubing and wiring conduit and gauges and meters and auxiliary generators and motors. Spot raised his snout and sniffed the air, his nostrils flexing hard. Except for a single oil stain on the floor under a hydraulic fitting, the engine room looked clean enough for surgery.

  “Twin Cummins diesels,” Georges bragged. “Built for torque. Eleven hundred horsepower each. The Dreamscape may be big, but she can sprint at nineteen knots if Captain Richards buries the throttles. The former owner also installed bow thrusters, and then Sammy Tuley gave her all new marine electronics. Radar, GPS, auto-pilot, night vision cameras. The Dreamscape is simply the most advanced craft on the lake.”

  I nodded my admiration, realizing that if it were my boat, I’d probably show off the powerplant and techie-stuff, too.

  Georges turned to go. I noticed a ladder and hatch that led up through the ceiling, although I couldn’t place where it would come up into the main level. Perhaps near someplace on the lower aft deck.

  “Lots of passages on this ship,” I said, pointing to the ladder.

  George grinned like a proud parent. “To be expected with three levels on a hundred-foot boat. Four levels, if you count the tender deck. I once counted how many ladders and hatches and stairways there are to get up and down from the various levels. I got to over a dozen, and I’m still not certain I found them all.”

  He led us back through the lounge and into a hallway with multiple doors.

  “These are the staterooms, six in all. We haven’t yet figured out how to put these to proper use. But we’re thinking of doing a circumnavigation cruise. Two or three days. Give it a food focus. We could make ports-of-call at the different lakeside restaurants. Bring on a big-name chef for onboard cooking classes.”

  Ford led Spot and me forward to a small sitting area. A steep, narrow ladder stairway with handrails climbed up toward the salon above. The sitting area had four doors, two on each side, no doubt leading to staterooms. The forward door was open, and Georges walked into the main stateroom. He still hadn’t expressed any reservation about Spot, so I continued in with Spot without asking permission.

  The forward stateroom was under the foredeck where I’d engaged with the hijacker. Although it narrowed to a point at the front, it was very large and closer in size and style to a luxury hotel suite than any boat cabin I’d ever been in. Paneled in shiny dark wood, it had a king-sized four-poster bed to port, two chairs and a loveseat to starboard, a charming woodstove and near it a circular rack that held split wood. There were three more doorways, all closed. One, no doubt, was the private head, the other perhaps a walk-in closet, and the third was probably another ladder stair passage to the foredeck.

  In one corner, a woman sat at a large desk looking at a columnar pad and punching numbers into a calculator. She telegraphed smart, high-school cheerleader in her mid-forties. Short, bouncy blonde hair, a round face that was more cute than pretty, and a shapely, trim figure that could still handle tight sweaters without embarrassment. She wore a pink sweatshirt that said ‘Go Giants.’ On the front corner of the desk lay a large tabby cat. He had a front leg up and turned in, and he was licking between his toes. When he saw Spot, he stopped mid-lick and stared, his paw still turned to his mouth.

  “Teri, this is Owen McKenna,” Ford said.

  “So glad to meet…” She looked up, saw Spot, gasped with pleasure. “Oh, my God, what an amazing dog!” She came around from behind the desk. “What’s his name?” She squatted down in front of him.

  “Spot,” I said.

  At the sound of his name, he lifted his head and looked at me.

  “That’s perfect!” she said. “Spot!” Still squatting, she ran her hands all over Spot’s face, and down his chest. He endured her attentions with his standard reaction, a steady wag, medium-slow speed. The woman rocked forward from her ankles onto her knees and hugged him, her face against the side of his neck, her arms reaching up and over the back of his neck. Spot’s head went down her back. His panting tongue flipped little drops of saliva onto the back of her pink sweatshirt.

  The cat on the desk hadn’t moved. His paw was still lifted, frozen, toes to his nose. I saw the face of another cat peering out from behind a file cabinet. Above the cabinet was a little curved indentation in the wall of the boat with a porthole window at its focal point. In the curve sat another cat, staring intently at Spot.

  Ford reached over to a sideboard that had a small fridge below and various bottles above. “What would you like? I have several ales, Jameson, and as I mentioned, Moet Chandon champagne.”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  He reached for the Moet. As he began untwisting the wire, he gestured toward his wife who was hugging Spot.

  “Do all women respond to your dog like this?” Ford Georges asked.

  No,” I said. “I can think of at least three women who haven’t thrown themselves on him.”

  “Be nice if we had some of his magic, huh? Women throwing themselves at us.” He popped the cork and poured a healthy splash into three tall champagne flutes that he’d set out. He set one on Teri’s desk, handed one to me, and raised his to mine. We clicked glasses. The stream of bubbles rising from the bottom of the stem sparkled in the light from the overhead cans. In the quiet of the insulated stateroom I could hear the hiss of the bubbles popping.

  We sipped as the woman continued to grope my dog. She eventually stood up and began cooing to Spot.

  “Look at this! He’s so tall, all he has to do is lift his head up and he can sniff my chin!” She leaned toward him and touched her chin. “And he has an ear stud! I didn’t even see it before. Oh, you big handsome brute! Gimme a kiss.”

  Spot licked her chin. The woman giggled.

  “Never tried licking a woman’s chin,”
Georges said. “Maybe that’s the secret.”

  Finally, the woman turned toward me. Her sweatshirt was speckled with short dog hairs, black and white. She shook my hand and said, “Hi, I’m Teri Georges, chief assistant to every crew member. You’ve already met Ford, assistant to the chief assistant. It’s good to meet you, although I wish it were because of different circumstances.”

  I nodded. One of the cats, large, orange and tiger-striped, walked bravely across the floor toward Spot. Although Spot would never hurt a cat, I gripped his collar to prevent any moves that might scare a feline.

  “Not to worry about Edgar,” Ford said. “Any thoughts I might have had about being the alpha male around here were dashed when he got to be about one year old and slashed my chin into strips of flesh all because I attempted to move him off my lap one evening. He is afraid of no animal except the vacuum cleaner.”

  Edgar walked toward Spot and then cruised on past, just two feet away and below Spot’s head, as if Spot didn’t exist. Impressive.

  “Now, Rosalind and Celia, they are a bit more typical,” Ford said, pointing at the two cats over by Teri’s desk. “They’ll hang back for awhile, take a measure of the situation and then decide if they want to engage or not. If they think Spot is acceptable as a heat source, they’ll eventually curl up next to him.”

  “Three cats, none of whom are afraid of dogs. Impressive.”

  “Oh, they’re the outgoing ones. The others won’t even show their faces.”

  “You have more cats?” I said.

  “This is just the beginning,” Teri said. “There’s Portia, Jessica, Nerissa, Hortensio, Kent and Viola.” She turned to Ford. “Have I forgotten anyone?”

  “Only Lucentio, but he’s forgettable.”

  “Imaginative names,” I said.

  “That’s Teri’s doing,” Ford said.

  Teri looked up from the cats and Spot, a little embarrassed grin on her face. “You’re here to ask about the hijacking.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Standard stuff, really. Can you tell me anything about it or the two men involved?”

  She shook her head. “We’ve talked about it, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Of course, we weren’t on the boat that day. We almost never are. But nothing unusual presented itself, if that makes sense.”

  “Was there anything unusual that happened regarding your business or your personal lives before or after the hijacking?”

  They both shook their heads, Ford Georges slow and thoughtful, Teri faster. “I even looked at our books,” she said. “Like, did our sales figures change or did our payables jump one way or another? Of course, what would that have to do with a hijacking, but I just thought, look for something different.”

  “But you didn’t find anything different,” I said.

  “No. I went through our purchase orders, wondering if we’d taken on any new vendors. I checked with the crew to see if we changed any routines, bought fuel someplace new, changed caterers. But everything was the same as always.”

  “Business as usual until the hijacking,” I said.

  “Business as usual.”

  I pulled out the photo of Nick O’Connell. “I wonder if you recognize this man.”

  She took the picture and frowned just like Ford had. She stared at it for fifteen or twenty seconds.

  “Yes, I kind of think I’ve seen him before. See how his eyes are – what would you call it – intense, I guess. This picture is washed out, but you can tell he’s got really light eyes. That’s what I recognize. Do you think he was the hostage taker?”

  “We have some reason to think so, yes.”

  “God, that’s really creepy, isn’t it? To look at his face and realize that he perpetrated such a crime. Maybe it sounds brutal, but I’m glad he fell overboard.”

  “Anything come to mind about him?”

  She shook her head. “No. But the longer I look at this, the more I think I’ve seen his face before, especially those eyes. But I can’t remember where. You know that feeling when you’ve met someone before and then you see them out of context? Like you’re standing in line at the DMV or something, and you recognize the guy in front of you, but you can’t place him because you usually see him behind the meat counter at the supermarket?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, that’s this guy,” she said. “I’ve seen him. I wouldn’t swear to it in court. But I’m pretty sure.” She handed me the photo.

  “Call me if you think of when and where?” I said.

  “Yes, of course. And if I do, will that earn me more face time with Spot?”

  Spot looked at her.

  “Absolutely.” I turned to Ford. “Has either of you noticed anything else out of place, before or after the hostage taker? Strange customers, unusual phone calls, any sign of tampering on the boat, anything missing or moved?”

  “Not that comes to mind,” Ford said. “But Teri did.” He looked at her. “What was that you said, hon, about the gate?”

  “Oh, just that a few days ago – I think it was the day before the hostage situation – I had to run to the hardware store for some WD-Forty spray. Our galley door had developed a terrific screech when it shut. It was early in the morning, and I was the only one on the boat, so when I left, I locked up. But I didn’t lock the gangway gate because it is unnecessary when everything else is locked. Kind of like leaving the picket fence gate unlocked after you lock the house. It’s not like someone is going to steal an old two hundred pound anchor off the deck, right? Anyway, even though I didn’t lock the gate, I know I latched it. But when I got back from the hardware store, it was unlatched, and the gate was open. It’s not the kind of latch that can accidentally come unlocked. So I know someone opened it when I was gone. Nothing was missing or damaged. Nothing was wrong. But I noticed because, even though people have occasionally come onboard outside of cruise hours, it is rare. Even more rare to leave the gate open. People just naturally shut it behind them, especially when they find it latched when they arrived. I looked around for a business card stuck into a door or something, but I didn’t find anything. It wasn’t a big deal. I wasn’t scared or worried. But I noticed, that’s all. Do you think it could have anything to do with what happened?”

  “Hard to tell. Maybe the hostage taker came onboard to check the layout of the Dreamscape. Or maybe it was just a neighbor kid. In addition to the doors, did you lock the windows?”

  Teri looked alarmed, then went pink in her cheeks.

  “Well, no, I didn’t think of checking them. But they shut with latches. So if they’re shut, they’re latched. If not, you can usually see some space at the edge. An inch of light coming in the side. I don’t remember seeing anything like that. But no, I didn’t go up and down the boat and check every window. My God, I don’t even know how many of them there are.”

  “What about the hatches?”

  The pink deepened toward red. “Well, I… I guess it’s like the windows. They are latched most of the time. But I didn’t verify that every hatch was latched. I’d never be able to leave the boat if I had to check every opening.”

  “If a window is unlatched, can you climb through it?”

  “Anybody but a real big guy,” Ford said.

  Teri’s frown deepened as her eyes widened.

  “Let’s say one of the salon windows was unlatched,” I said. “If someone crawled through, would they be able to obtain access to any other interior part of the boat?”

  Teri nodded. She looked sick.

  “What part?”

  “The swing doors to the galley and the dining room don’t lock. At the corner of the dining room, there is a hatch and ladder that leads down to the lounge. From there you could get to most of the lower level.”

  “Including this stateroom where you have some office files and such,” I said.

  “But I do keep this stateroom door locked. The only other access is the ladder stairs and hatch to the foredeck. But we never use it, so that hatch stays locked. He couldn’t
have gotten into this room.”

  “But an intruder could have gotten to most of the rest of the boat. That is, if a salon window were unlatched.”

  “Even worse,” Ford said, looking pale. “Captain Richards never locks the hatch up to the bridge.”

  “Where does that come down?”

  “The salon. The ladder stairs on the wall, midway down, port side.” Ford swallowed. “Christ, the guy could have stolen the boat. Not like he could hide it for very long on Tahoe. But still. Think of the liability.”

  “Where do you keep the ignition key?”

  “In the bridge. It hangs in a hidden place just in case a tourist has drunk too much during one of our pier parties.”

  “Pier party?” I asked.

  “It’s actually the best business idea we’ve had yet,” Ford said, a bit of a grin coming back onto his face. “We only need one deckhand and the catering service. No captain or chief mate or dock boy. No fuel or operating costs beyond a little electricity. Turns out that landlubbers love to hang out and party on a boat. Some like it even better than the cruises because there’s less wind and no fixed amount of time you have to stay on the boat.”

  “With fewer crewmembers, a wayward guest could poke around the boat quite a bit without getting attention,” I said.

  Ford Georges looked at me hard. “What you mean is, the hijacker could have come on board during a pier party and scoped out the boat’s layout and whatever else he needed to plan his hijacking.”

  “Yeah. Did you have a pier party before the hijacking?”

  “Goddammit!” Georges shouted. He made a jerk as he said it. Champagne slopped out of his glass and hit the carpet. One of the nearby cats snapped his head around at the sound and stared at the carpet as if looking for a mouse. “Three days before. A big party. Any number of people could have wandered the Dreamscape without calling much attention to themselves.” Georges turned a quarter turn, staring at the door to the stateroom, clenching his jaw.