Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14)

by Todd Borg

  Spot had taken a special liking for Mia, sniffing her neck and ear, which made Mia giggle. Eventually, Spot leaned over Mia’s shoulder and lay his chin down on her chest. Mia leaned her head sideways against his massive head. She reached her arms up and around his neck and seemed to hang on as if he were her lifejacket.

  When we got to the Olmstead’s, Mia wanted to stay in the seat, Spot’s head next to hers. It was only after Evan told her that Spot would be back later that Mia relented.

  Evan told me that they would be two and a half hours and that they would then go home for Mia’s late morning nap. After that, they would eat lunch, and then head to their afternoon cleaning in Tahoe City, which was a long affair that would last until 8 p.m. Even though I hadn’t asked Evan any questions about Montrop, I knew that she saw my presence as part of my investigation into Montrop’s murder. Nevertheless, she seemed to appreciate my chauffeur service.

  After we unloaded the cleaning gear, and Evan coaxed Mia out of the Jeep and away from Spot, I drove off and found a parking lot where I could make some phone calls.

  EIGHTEEN

  As Spot snoozed in the back seat, I got busy thinking.

  Most people think detecting is following people, and eavesdropping on conversations while drinking scotch straight up in dark bars, badgering potential witnesses, and punching out the occasional dirtball who resists reasonable inquiries into his connection to the victim.

  But the truth is that the most important part of detecting is just thinking. Marshal the brain cell troops, and force them to perform calculations about every possible arrangement of the current information available.

  I’d written down Jonas’s driver’s license number and birthdate and put it in my wallet. I pulled out the paper. Dialed Mallory at the SLTPD.

  Mallory’s phone rarely sends you to voicemail. But it does allow you to hold. I held for a long time.

  “Mallory,” he finally said.

  “McKenna calling about the likely kidnap victim Jonas Montrop,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Mallory said. “No word. Nothing. Nada. It looks like a crime, smells like a crime. But that’s all we’ve got.”

  “I noted his driver’s license number at the time. I assumed that the VW microbus in the drive was his. Now I’m wondering if his DMV sheet shows any record of a boat.”

  “We looked it up, but I forget. Hold on.”

  So I waited longer.

  “I knew it,” Mallory suddenly said in my ear. “I remembered that when I pulled the kid’s DMV before, there was something else besides the VW. I was thinking it was a motorcycle, which of course is always the second vehicle for a kid in his twenties. But now I see that his second vehicle was a boat. An old Thompson. Nineteen sixty-four. What we used to call a Thompson Camper because of the bow cuddy. A classic in the same way a sixty-four Chevy Impala is a classic. No serious glitz, but a nice ride with good lines.” Mallory paused. “You think maybe the kid disappeared on the boat? Like it’s out on the lake someplace?”

  “I don’t know. But it seems worth checking out. I believe the boat used to be owned by his dad.”

  “The Incline Village murder victim,” Mallory said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good luck,” Mallory hung up.

  “Next move, McKenna,” I mumbled to no one, “is find the boat.”

  At that, Spot groaned as he got up, in the back seat, turned around, and lay down facing the other direction.

  “You could show some approval of my detecting expertise,” I said.

  He sighed.

  In time, my thinking fatigued my brain. I put my head back where the headrest met the side window, and I snoozed like Spot. My stiff limbs woke me up in time to be back at 10:30 a.m. and pick up Evan and Mia. We brought them home to their apartment so Mia could take her nap. Spot and I went and ate grocery store deli sandwiches, and, two hours later, I drove Evan and Mia to a dental office in Tahoe City.

  “Makes your life easier, having the dental office close for business at one in the afternoon,” I said.

  “Yeah. I get to clean uninterrupted while Dr. Millis has to go skiing or boating. But I’m not complaining. The dentist lets Mia sit in one of those pneumatic chairs and watch TV.”

  “Mansfield Cleaning must have a growing rep,” I said.

  “Yeah. Too bad the work sucks. Anyway, I talked to Mattie. She’ll be back from her doctor’s appointment and can give us a ride home when we’re done here. And Sergeant Lanzen called yesterday to say they’d gotten my car towed to the mechanic, and he thinks he’ll have it fixed tomorrow. So I’m back in business. Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  After I left them at the dental office, I headed to the South Shore, an hour plus away.

  In the Bijou neighborhood in South Lake Tahoe, I found the small road that led back to Brilliance Marine. It consisted of a small building, a dock with a gas pump, and a little lagoon made by a breakwater of rocks. Moored in the lagoon were several boats of varying sizes.

  Three of the boats were similar runabouts, probably rentals. Two of them had Mercury sterndrives as featured on their website and, maybe, their brochure, a scrap of which I’d found on Jonas Montrop’s bedroom floor.

  I walked into the building. It was a rustic shell with exposed and unpainted two-by-four studs and an open ceiling showing two-by-six rafters. All of the wood had weathered to a dark brown. With no insulation, the building was chilly in the early summer afternoon.

  The place smelled of motor oil with a hint of gasoline. It was a pleasant combination that brought back memories of when one of my cop uncles took me from Boston up to his cabin on a lake in New Hampshire, there to expose me to the manly art of fishing and all of its miscast-fishing-hook-through-my-earlobe glories.

  There was a counter with an old cash register and a glass display case filled with fishing lures. An angled rack held candy bars and small bags of chips. There was a stack of maps of the lake. Next to the wall opposite the counter stood a glass-topped, 1950s cooler that featured a large Coca Cola logo. It was stocked with soda drinks and plastic-wrapped sandwiches.

  At the far end of the small building was a rack onto which was mounted an antique Evinrude outboard motor. A man sat perched on a high stool next to it, wrench in hand.

  “Help you?” he said.

  “Yes, please.” I walked over. “I’m looking for an old boat I’ve seen in a photograph. I believe it’s a nineteen-sixty-four cuddy cabin Thompson cruiser. A man in Incline may have given it to his son, who lives here on the South Shore. He might moor it nearby.”

  “Well, we’ve got no Thompson here. But any Thompson of that age is going to need regular repairs. The average Joe will be up to scrubbing the brightwork, maybe sanding and varnishing the trim. But real repair needs are going to drive him to the shop. That’s how you’ll track this old tub down. Check the marinas that offer mechanical repair.”

  I refrained from pointing out that I was doing precisely that. “Recommendations?” I said.

  He shrugged. “There are quite a few marinas around the lake. Most are like me. They do some repairs but avoid the major stuff. I’d visit ’em one-by-one.”

  “Do you rent boats?” I asked.

  “Sure. If you want a perky little number to buzz the lake, we’ve got a sixteen foot Bayliner with a Mercury outboard. It’s only sixty horsepower, but let me tell you, that little guy will blow your cap off. If you want something jazzier, you can upgrade to one of our twenty-four-foot Starcrafts, which, of course, have the bow cuddies and Mercury sterndrives.”

  The man paused and looked at me. “This is so you can look for the Thompson. No fishing gear needed.”

  “Correct. I’ll just cruise the shore and have a look. I’m sure your Bayliner will do just fine. Assuming I can bring my dog.”

  He regarded me for a moment. “Sure. Lots of people bring dogs. Dogs like boat rides even better than car rides. We have a four-hour package or the all-day packa
ge. Gas not included.”

  “The four-hour plan will work for me.”

  So he told me the extravagant price, which included what was probably extravagant insurance, and I pulled out the credit card that I save for just such extravagant moments.

  A half hour later, I was instructed in Bayliner runabout basics as well as its nuances. I purchased two prepackaged ham sandwiches, two bags of chips, and a beer. Soon, Spot and I both had life jackets on, were unmoored, and set adrift with engine running.

  “Just remember,” the man called out to me from the dock. “The water is killer cold in June. You wouldn’t want to take an unintended dip.”

  “Got it,” I said. I took him to mean that I shouldn’t try any maneuver that might flip his expensive boat. I shifted into Forward and let it idle us ahead at a stately one mile an hour.

  NINETEEN

  The man at the marina had raised up the Bayliner’s center windshield panel, so Spot had already picked out his place, at the bow, in the open passage between the two captains chairs, front paws up on the forward seat, head projecting out over the bow in his best imitation of a 17th century galleon figurehead.

  As we cleared the marina’s breakwater, I edged the throttle up a bit, but kept the boat slow enough that we didn’t get an appreciable bow rise. I had no clue where Jonas might have kept his boat. From the unfinished note to Flynn that was on his computer, his reference to a leak and giving the money back suggested that he’d sold the boat to Flynn. Although he also said that he hadn’t transferred the title, it could be that Flynn had already taken the boat out of Lake Tahoe.

  But I was hoping that the boat might still be wherever Jonas had been keeping it. Because it was registered with the California DMV, I assumed that meant the boat was moored on the California side. The line between California and Nevada went through the middle of Lake Tahoe. Brilliance Marina was near the state line, so I turned west toward California.

  As I motored along the shore, it was hard to distinguish make and model of all the boats. But it was easy to see that nearly all were modern in design, constructed of fiberglass. It was also easy to see that most were bowriders and deck boats and ski boats and runabouts. Very few were small cabin cruisers. It seemed obvious that a ’64 Thompson would stand out.

  My path took me past El Dorado Beach where dozens of tourists and locals alike were enjoying the new facilities built in the last few years. Next came the Al Tahoe neighborhood and Regan Beach with a sudden density of boats at mooring buoys, tied up at docks, and hidden inside of boat houses.

  I couldn’t imagine Jonas having the kind of money to rent a boathouse. So I didn’t pay attention to those structures. I focused on the buoys and docks. There were lots of boats, but it was easy to see that no old Thompson was among them.

  After the Al Tahoe neighborhood, I came to the Truckee River marsh and meadow. This was a protected area with no docks or buoys. Next came the Tahoe Keys. The first canal led to the Tahoe Keys Marina. It contained lots of moorings in a protected lagoon. I knew that their moorings were relatively expensive, so I didn’t expect Jonas to have his boat there. Nevertheless, I turned the wheel, slowed to idle, and cruised in at no-wake speed.

  It took only fifteen minutes to circle the lagoon and cruise close enough to the docks to see that there was no Thompson cuddy cruiser in the place. Back out on the lake, I went west again. The next passage was the main canal into the Tahoe Keys. There were perhaps a dozen miles of inland canals. With 1500 houses and condos, there could be a thousand boats or even two thousand boats.

  I knew several Tahoe locals who boarded their boats at vacation homes owned by people from out of town. The usual relationship was to act as caretaker and routinely check on the property in exchange for a berth at the dock.

  So I began a counterclockwise pattern through the main lagoon and then idled my way into the first canal on the right. I’d been to houses in the Keys many times, but I never realized how complex the maze of canals was. I went by countless houses, through intersections with other canals, and when I came to dead ends, I found myself turning around only to go by boats and houses that looked unfamiliar but which must have been on my route heading in. I decided to concentrate on the old maze trick. You don’t try to figure out where you’ve been, you just keep your hand on the right wall and never lift it up. When you come to an intersection, your hand dictates that you turn right. When your passage terminates, your hand requires you to stay attached to the wall and thus come back out the passage but tracking the opposite side from when you came in. If I remembered correctly from the maze puzzles of my youth, the right hand rule would make it so that you explored every part of a maze except – and it was a big “except” – if there was an island to your left. But as I thought about the Keys, I didn’t think that any part of it was technically an island.

  So I cruised the Keys, in and out and around and back and forth, through every little watery nook.

  Two and a half hours later, I came back to the main canal, which led to the main lake. I’d seen only a few older cabin cruisers, none of which was a mid-’60s Thompson. Spot had long since curled up on the back seat and gone to sleep, lifting his head to look out with sleepy eyes only twice. Once when a boat honked and once when teenagers in a yard were playing volleyball and shrieking at each point scored.

  When I came back out to the big body of water, I again turned west.

  Demoralized, I thought it time for a lunch pick-me-up. So I gently beached the boat at the close end of Pope Beach. Spot and I jumped out, which made the boat more buoyant, and I was able to pull the boat up a bit onto the sand.

  We had the east end of the beach to ourselves, no small thing when you’re in one of the most beautiful places on the planet. The sun was hot, the air cool, the water was clear as glass. Mt. Tallac and the West Shore mountains loomed close, and a Disney package of squirrels, songbirds, and waterfowl lingered for our viewing pleasure. But Spot ignored all as I opened my pack and pulled out our sandwiches.

  He knew he had to maintain a bit of distance until I gave the okay, but his nostrils were flexing as he scented the air nearby. He stared at my pack, and as my hand reached inside, it seemed that his eyes got wider.

  I unwrapped his sandwich and broke it into four parcels so that there was less chance of sandwich components falling onto the beach. I set the first on a rock so it wouldn’t get sandy.

  When I gave him the okay, I heard the clink of fang as he devoured it. By the tone, I couldn’t tell if it was a tooth-on-tooth clink or the sound of tooth enamel scraping rock. So I moved to a log for each of the remaining pieces. When he was done, he licked his chops and then looked at my bag of chips.

  “Sorry, Largeness. These ain’t for them that don’t chew.”

  Spot looked disappointed. He turned and walked over to the lapping waves to satisfy his thirst. I ate my lunch, drank my beer, and we continued on our boat search.

  Back in the Bayliner, we continued west past the houses on Jameson Beach Road. After that, it would be a long way to the first houses on the road out to Emerald Bay, and my instinct told me that because they were mostly vacation homes for wealthy people, I’d be unlikely to find the old boat I was looking for.

  So I gave up, and we headed back to the marina. I punched the throttle on the way back. The outboard Merc roared, the boat jumped up onto plane, and we were across the southern end of the lake in eight minutes.

  As I approached Brilliance Marina and pulled back on the throttle, I looked at the short distance to Edgewood Golf Course, which was on the Nevada side of the stateline.

  There were a few houses that came before the state line, California houses in the private Tahoe Meadows area, some of which had boats. I thought I could see them all. But I realized it would be foolish to have done all this searching and then stop before I’d finished. So I cruised past the marina and continued my search.

  As with all of the other houses I’d seen, there were docks and buoys and boat houses. Some had no
boats, the owners waiting, no doubt, for the warm weather of July. A few had runabouts and sailboats that were much newer than what I’d been looking for. As I got near Edgewood and the last of the houses on the California side, there was a lone cruiser at a dock. It was a big Chris Craft, maybe 36 feet.

  So I turned the wheel away from the dock and made a slow curve out toward the open water. When I’d come most of the way around, I glanced back at the cruiser, a beautiful boat that would draw attention wherever it went.

  But something else caught my eye. From my perspective farther out in the lake, I could see past the big Chris Craft. There was another, smaller boat nearby, the view of it partially blocked by the bigger boat. From my earlier position, it would have been completely blocked.

  So I brought the Bayliner around yet again and idled my way closer.

  As I got closer, it appeared that the other boat was moored to a buoy, but the buoy seemed too close to the shore on the far side of the dock and the big boat. The boat was partially submerged, stern down, and sitting at an angle in front of a vacant portion of beach. It was a sight that many seasoned boaters would recognize. The buoy that held the moored boat was insufficiently anchored. Waves and wind had dragged the boat and buoy toward the shore.

  The boat had run aground on the bottom, become damaged enough to spring a leak, and then took on water until it settled into the sand.

  The neighbors would have reported it to the Coast Guard or the police, and everyone who saw it would think how lucky they were that it hadn’t happened to them.

  Meanwhile, the boat owner, whether local or from the Bay Area or from overseas, would be sweating it until the boat could be pumped out and the damage assessed.

  When I got closer still, I became much more interested.

  It was an old Thompson cuddy, twenty feet long or less, and it looked just like the photo I’d seen on David Montrop’s desk.

  I dropped the shifter into neutral as I coasted closer, gave it a tiny bit of reverse to slow our approach further, then cut the power. I steered so that the Bayliner was coming alongside the Thompson, approaching from the rear of the partially sunken boat. I leaned over the side and grabbed the gunnel of the Thompson, and pulled us to a stop. There was a coiled line in the Bayliner’s side stowage. I used it to lash the boats together, cleat to cleat.