Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14)

by Todd Borg

  THIRTY-FIVE

  It was late when Spot and I got home. I checked in with Street. She seemed okay. I still didn’t tell her about the ski pole spear through the Jeep. I wanted to give more thought to potential repercussions.

  The next morning, I called Sergeant Lanzen and arranged to meet her at the Incline Village Substation.

  We stood outside in a parking lot and talked next to the Jeep. She rubbed Spot’s head.

  I said, “Yesterday, when I was in Reno, I talked to El Dorado Sergeant Bains. He said that one of the murdered truck robbers had an old newspaper clipping in his wallet. The clipping was about a football game. I tracked it to Wilson High. Just as I got there, they had a bomb scare. I got out before they locked it down.”

  “Wilson High drives the Reno police crazy. Some crank caller does this every month or two. Nothing ever happens, so they wonder if it’s a student who’s just trying to disrupt class. But, of course, they have to treat it seriously.”

  “I ended up going to the Reno Library and looked at Wilson High School yearbooks. I found photos of the two murdered robbers. I also found a picture of Evan Rosen with another boy.”

  “They all went to the same school?” Lanzen said. “There’s an interesting bit of information.”

  “Evan was a year or two behind the boys,” I said. “So I drove up to Evan’s place and asked her about it. When I told her about the robbers and showed her their pictures from the yearbook, she got visibly upset.”

  “Upset that they died?”

  “No, upset at just seeing their photos. She has some traumatic memory associated with the robbers. She was glad they died.”

  “Being glad they’re dead is a strong emotion,” Lanzen said. “She gave you no indication of what this memory was?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think it could have been strong and bad enough to give her motive for killing them?”

  “Maybe. But as I’ve gotten to know her a bit, she doesn’t seem like the killing type. Aside from my belief that the killer would have to have much more size and strength than a petite woman.”

  “Okay, let me know if anything else turns up.” We said goodbye, and she drove off in her unmarked.

  I drove to Tahoe Vista and went into the ski shop I’d seen behind Evan’s motel apartment the evening before.

  “Hey,” the young salesman said.

  “I’ve got an unusual question about the history of ski poles,” I said.

  “Try me.”

  “Do you know when manufacturers stopped making sharp ski pole points and switched to the square and circular ice tips that are less dangerous if one were to fall on the sharp end?”

  “That would require knowledge of ancient history. Let me get our resident ancient history expert.” He walked behind a counter, leaned in through an open door and called out. “Hey, Michael, do you know when they stopped making sharp ski pole points?”

  I heard movement, a chair being slid, a filing cabinet drawer sliding shut. A man in his sixties emerged from the doorway.

  “You mean the pointy version of sharp?” he said. “Because new ski pole tips are very sharp. They grip ice better than the pointy ones ever did.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’m curious about the pointy ones, the ones that are dangerous if you fall on the point.”

  “Well, it’s funny you ask. I was actually thinking about that very question a couple of weeks ago because we decided to clean out the storeroom before summer gets into full swing. And in the way back, where it’s so dark you can’t even see, there are these bins. And in the bins were a bunch of old, used ski poles. These would have been from our rental program back when I was a kid. And sure enough, those poles had the old pointy tips. So I was thinking about how long the industry used such points. We’re talking fifty years ago.”

  “What did the poles look like?”

  He looked puzzled. “Like regular ski poles, absent the fancy colors and graphics of today. Silvery aluminum. All scratched and bent here and there.”

  “Could I look at them?”

  “Sorry, we tossed them. Later, I thought maybe I should have found a recycling company to take them. I don’t know that they could be reformed into beer cans or anything like that, but I’m hoping the trash company didn’t just toss them into a landfill. Why the curiosity?”

  “Sorry for all the questions. I’m an investigator on an El Dorado County crime, and we found some ski poles at the scene. Do you know how long your poles sat in the dumpster?”

  He frowned. “I hope I’m not in trouble for tossing poles.”

  “Not at all.”

  “We get a pickup each Tuesday and Friday, and we were doing our spring cleaning on Sunday. So a couple of days.”

  “Could someone other than the trash company have taken them out of the dumpster?”

  “Well, sure. But why? People care about style and things looking new. It would be a rare person who’d want a fifty-year-old ski pole. Now, if you wanted to barbecue a goat on a spit or something, I suppose you could use a pole for that. Of course, you’d have to cut off the basket.”

  “How many poles do you think you tossed?”

  “Lots. Several dozen.”

  “Where is your dumpster?”

  The man swung his arm around and vaguely pointed at the back wall. “It’s just behind the shop, right near the back of the motel apartments.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate your time.”

  “Either that or I go back to paying bills,” he said.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Spot and I headed to the South Shore, where I drove to the hospital.

  The woman at the hospital reception counter was in her mid sixties. She was plump and white haired and wore silver reading glasses that matched her spare, dangly, silver earrings. She emanated comfort and professionalism.

  “Good afternoon,” I said. “I’ve come to visit Jonas Montrop, a young man who is a crime victim and apparently has a police officer guarding his door.”

  “Right here in this very hospital?” She widened her eyes as if in surprise, yet I was certain that she was aware of it.

  “Right here, indeed,” I said. I pulled out my investigator’s license. “And I’m involved in the case.”

  “Oh, my,” she said, raising her eyebrows as she looked at my license. “I was an accountant in my past life, and I never thought there could be an occupation more exciting than that. But a real-life detective must come close!”

  “I don’t know. If I even think about doing the books or taxes, my heartrate goes up, my breathing goes short, and my fight-or-flight impulse kicks in. Intentionally going into battle with numbers? Wow, you’d have to be made of strong stuff.”

  “Well, of course, that’s how I always thought about it. You want me to do an audit? How thrilling! Let me get my sword and shield!” She looked at her computer screen, clicked the mouse, tapped some keys. “Please give me a moment to check on one little thing.” She reached for my ID, then picked up the phone, and pressed some buttons. “Officer Cronin? Betty Jean at the reception desk.” She angled my ID so she could better read the tiny print. “I have a Mr. Owen McKenna here. He’s an investigator and wants to visit Mr. Montrop.” She paused. “That’s okay? All right, I’ll send him up.” Like a well-trained hotel receptionist, she didn’t say Jonas’s room number out loud. Probably, discretion about patient privacy is even more important than discretion about hotel guest privacy. More so for someone who is under armed guard. She wrote a room number on a pad, tore the sheet off, and handed it to me. “This is his room, and the elevators are over there.” She pointed. “If you need anything else, please let me know.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  She grinned as I left. Personable. Understated. Elegant, if not beautiful. If Street ever took her youthful, vibrant, sexy, vivacious, irresistible self off to a life without me, I might call this kind, older woman and plan a lifetime of fireside chats with her. She could even help with my taxes.

 
; I could tell where Jonas Montrop’s room was when I got off the elevator and turned down the hall because there was a uniformed cop dressed in city blues standing by a door.

  “Owen McKenna?” he said as I approached.

  “Yes. Have we met?”

  “Nope. But I’ve heard Commander Mallory say stuff about you.”

  “That sounds intimidating,” I said.

  “No, it’s not bad. I mean, I’m not saying he was, you know, crooning your virtues. But I sensed some respect.”

  It was a decent recovery. “Ah,” I said. “Is Jonas up for having a visitor?”

  The cop shrugged. “He’s pretty out of it. And I have to stay in the room while you’re in there.”

  “Mallory say that in case I showed up?”

  The cop grinned. “That’s Mallory’s rule for any visitor.” Then he lowered his voice and turned so that no one, Jonas or otherwise, could hear. “Maybe you know this, but the kidnapper strung the kid up expecting that he would die. So now Mallory’s worried that the kidnapper might come into the hospital to finish the job.”

  I nodded. “I think Mallory’s caution is smart.”

  “You should also know that Jonas Montrop isn’t what you’d call communicative. I heard a doc say he wasn’t in a coma, but let me tell you, he is one sleepy kid.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  I turned and walked into the room.

  Jonas looked more like a dead body under the white covers than a vital young man. His slight build looked even scrawnier than when I’d pulled him out of the boat. The only parts of him that were exposed were his right arm and head. His right wrist had a nasty burn ring from where the rope had chafed. An IV was taped at the inside of his elbow.

  Jonas’s eyes were closed. His eyelids made a dramatic bulge over what seemed like large eyeballs. The appearance was probably created from losing weight over the three days he was tied up. Beneath his eyes, the skin was dark gray-blue.

  “Mr. Montrop,” the cop said to the motionless form. “You have a visitor. A man named Owen McKenna is here to talk to you.”

  “Hi Jonas,” I said to the motionless form. “Sorry to bother you. I’m hoping you can answer some questions. Can you hear me?”

  I sensed movement. A foot twitched. A leg bent at the knee. The left arm flexed, a hand emerged from under the covers. Fingers gripped the edge of the sheet and blanket. He didn’t tug at the blanket, just held it.

  He didn’t open his eyes, but his eyeballs moved beneath the lids, left and right, like he was having an intense dream. It was similar to what I’d seen with dying people, movement in response to spoken words, but the stimulus wasn’t enough to bring them to consciousness.

  “Can you hear me, Jonas?” I said again. I reached out and touched the fingers gripping the blankets.

  His hand jerked, and his grip intensified, knuckle skin going whiter than before.

  “They’re coming!” His voice was high and frightened. His eyes were now clenched tight, a frown creasing his forehead.

  “It’s okay, Jonas,” I said. “You’re safe now.”

  He turned his head sideways on the pillow, the frown more intense. His eyes started to open, wavered, closed again. His left arm started to reach up toward his face, then stopped.

  “Ow! My shoulder...”

  The rope burn on the left wrist was even more pronounced, with areas of crusted scabs. He’d have scars after it healed.

  He opened his eyes, stared at me for a moment as if I were a monster, then looked past me, elsewhere around the room. “Who are you?” he said, his voice shaky with fear.

  “Owen McKenna. I’m the guy who found you tied up on the boat.” In my peripheral vision, I saw the cop at the door turn his head toward me.

  “What? How did you find me?” His voice was less worried as if fear was replaced by curiosity.

  “I’m an investigator helping the cops. I found you three days after your kidnapping.” I didn’t want to immediately tell him about his stepfather’s death for the same reason that Sergeant Lanzen didn’t want to give the news to Evan until after we’d asked most of our other questions.

  Jonas reached up his other arm, stopped as before, then moved the side of his face against his pillow as if to wipe away an invisible spider web filament that was tickling him. Or maybe he was trying to clear the fog from his brain. He blinked hard several times, like a person waking up.

  “A nurse told me I was tied up,” he said, his voice clearer. “I can see pictures in my mind. But I can’t tell what are memories and what are the things she said. I was in my boat. I remember that.”

  “Where did you get the boat?”

  “My stepdad gave it to me. I just sold it to a friend. But the boat got a leak, and he didn’t want it anymore.”

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “Flynn.”

  “What is Flynn’s last name?”

  “I never knew. He just went by Flynn. Like Prince or Sting. It was always just Flynn.

  “How did you know Flynn?” I asked.

  “I’ve always known Flynn. He goes all the way back in my memory.” Jonas frowned. “He was a kid in the neighborhood. We were both outcasts, so we kind of hung together.”

  “What neighborhood?”

  “We lived in the projects.”

  The reference didn’t fit for where his stepfather David Montrop lived in Incline Village, because the entire town was upper middle class or richer.

  “What city?” I asked.

  Jonas had turned his face to rub his cheek on the pillow again, up and down like a horse scratching its cheek on a fence post.

  “Incline Village. That was my stepdad’s joke. We were up off Mt. Rose Highway. There was a townhouse project that went in. Smallish units. My stepdad thought it was funny to call it the projects.”

  “Why were you and Flynn outcasts?”

  “The usual reasons. We’re skinny, awkward kids who don’t know how to talk to girls. We always got pushed around by the bigger kids.”

  “How old are you, Jonas?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “And Flynn?”

  “I don’t know. Older than me. Twenty-seven, maybe.”

  “I was told that Flynn lived in Reno during high school.”

  “Yeah. His mom moved down there for some job.”

  “Where does Flynn live now?”

  Another frown.“I don’t know. Someplace on the West Shore, I think. He’s never told me where. Flynn keeps getting more secretive as he gets older, like he’s turned into a spy or something.”

  “Why did you sell him your boat?”

  “Because he asked me to. He said he’d always wanted a boat. And I needed the money. My stepdad said I could have the boat. The house where it was moored was owned by one of his bands.”

  “You refer to the bands like they were your dad’s bands,” I said.

  “Well, they weren’t really his bands. He just managed them. Booked their venues. Watched over their houses. He told them he was like a caretaker, making sure everything stayed in good shape. But the reality was that he used their houses for his own purposes.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Why don’t you ask him? Three that I know of. West Shore, South Shore, and East Shore. He parties at those houses. Uses their cars. Goes out on their boats. That’s why he got sick of his own boat. Why hassle with a boat that was old and leaked when you have use of a new cruiser?”

  “These bands that own the houses and boats, they must be really successful.”

  Jonas’s eyes got wide, and he nodded. “You have no idea. But I can never tell anyone the names of the bands because then their houses would be vulnerable. My stepdad says that if people knew about the houses in Tahoe and then they saw the band on TV performing a concert in London or something, they might break into the houses. So everything was designed to obfuscate. That’s my stepdad’s buzzword. He always says obfuscation is fortification.”

  I asked, “When did yo
u move to the South Shore?”

  “When my stepdad kicked me out of his place in Incline.”

  “You say that like you’re still angry at him.”

  “Of course I’m angry. I hate him. He’s the biggest jerk I’ve ever met. When I was little, we lived in San Francisco for a year. Then he got in trouble with the cops. You know what he did? He blamed me. He said that having me around made it impossible to be a businessman, that I tied him down. How was I responsible for him breaking the law or whatever he did? He was always a cheat. I knew it from the time I was a young kid. All my life I’ve been trying to distance myself from him.” Jonas frowned. “Why are you asking me all these questions about my stepdad? And why am I saying all of this private stuff? It must be these drugs they’ve got me on.”

  I said, “Can you tell me what happened when you were kidnapped?”

  Jonas jerked as if the memory were searing.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “I don’t remember much about the kidnapping,” he said. “I was sleeping. There was a crash. Somebody grabbed me and pulled me out of bed. There were two guys. They were wearing hoodies and hockey masks. That was the scariest moment of my life. They didn’t say anything. I tried to grab at the bed and the chair I keep nearby, but I couldn’t get a grip. They were really strong. Of course, probably any guy would be strong compared to me. They put duct tape over my mouth and dragged me outside. I had my underwear on, but nothing else.”

  Jonas was breathing hard. He turned and reached for a plastic cup by his hospital bed, groaning at what I assumed was shoulder pain. The cup had a lid and a straw. As he picked it up, he shook so hard, I worried he’d drop the cup. But he managed a sip.

  “What else do you remember about your kidnapping? They took you away in a vehicle?”

  Jonas nodded. “They had an old van. A third guy got out of the van. He wore a mask, too. They threw me inside the back door, and two of them sat on me. Then they taped my wrists and ankles together. One of them leaned down and whispered in my ear. He said he’d cut my throat open if I made another noise. So I went silent. I just lay there and shivered. It was really cold. I felt like I would freeze to death. The van started up. So I guess the third guy must have gotten in the driver’s seat. They drove awhile. I couldn’t see anything. After a few minutes, I realized that I should have been paying attention to their turns. But I didn’t have the focus to notice. They looked like aliens with their hockey masks. It was terrifying. And I was shivering. Lying on the metal floor of the van was like lying on ice.”