Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14)

by Todd Borg

  I imagined what Evan must be thinking. Either she’d been guilty and was caught or she’d been wrongly charged. If the charge was wrong, then either she’d been the victim of an extraordinary set of coincidences or she’d been elaborately framed.

  Regardless of the seriousness of the charge, Evan’s main concern would be Mia. It seemed that Mia could handle the basics of taking care of herself for at least a day or two. But I didn’t know what her state of mind would be. Would Evan’s sudden absence be incapacitating? Would she fall apart or just be worried and scared? I was pretty sure that Mia didn’t drive, but would she walk to the store for food? Did she have money? Evan would have been given a phone call. Would she have called a lawyer? Or Mia?

  I felt at least partially responsible for Mia. Someone should at least reassure her. I would visit Evan as soon as possible, but it would be best if I could tell her that Mia was okay.

  I took Spot, and we drove up to Tahoe Vista. I parked in front of the motel apartments. Mia would recognize and feel friendly with Spot much faster than with me. So I took Spot with me, and we walked up to the end unit.

  I knocked and then stood back so that Spot and I wouldn’t intimidate whoever opened the door.

  There was no response, so I knocked again.

  I heard the sound of a door down the walk. A white-haired woman looked out. The babysitter I’d seen before.

  “Hi, Mattie, I’m Owen McKenna. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but I don’t know your last name. You may have seen me giving Evan and Mia rides when her car was stolen. I’m looking for Mia. Any idea where she is?”

  The woman thought about it. She turned and leaned into her apartment but left her hand on the doorjamb. In a moment, she came out, shut the door behind her, and walked down to me, moving slower as she got close, her eyes on Spot. She came to a stop several feet away. She stared at Spot.

  “Don’t worry, he’s friendly,” I said.

  “Do you know where Evan is?” She tried to make the question sound straightforward, but I could sense the fear and worry in her voice.

  “Yes. As Evan may have told you, I’m an investigator, and I’ve been in contact with the police regarding the murder of one of her customers, David Montrop. I don’t want to alarm Mia or you, but Evan has been arrested and charged with murder.” I didn’t bother to explain that the charge was for the murder of the robbers and not the murder of Montrop.

  The woman raised her hand to her mouth, her open palm against her lips. Her eyes were wide and terrified.

  I said, “Evan is currently being held at the South Lake Tahoe jail. I’m going there to visit her as soon as visiting hours open. In the meantime, I wanted to check on Mia and make sure she’s okay.”

  The woman didn’t speak.

  “I don’t think we should tell Mia that Evan’s in jail,” I said. “At least not right away. Maybe we could just say that Evan’s talking to the police and she’ll be back as soon as she can. Mia likes my dog. Petting him might reassure her.”

  Eventually, the woman spoke. “Mia’s with me. When the cops came to their apartment and took Evan away, Mia became very upset. Very upset,” she repeated. “Let me think,” she added. After a bit, she said, “How long do you think it will take to get Evan out of jail?”

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t want to say that it might not happen. “Could you take care of Mia for a few days? Or at least look in on her or whatever would help? You know better than I do what Mia needs.”

  “She can stay with me,” the woman said. “I have some things coming up that I’m supposed to do, but I can cancel them.”

  “Thank you. Do you need money or anything?”

  She shook her head. “I think you’re right about your dog. I’ll bring Mia out, and you can tell her that Evan will be gone for a bit.”

  The woman went back to her apartment and went inside. A minute later, she came back out with Mia. She’d put Mia’s hand around the back of her elbow so that it appeared that Mia was helping Mattie walk. It seemed a smart move, giving Mia a sense of purpose that would distract from Evan’s absence.

  “Hi Mia,” I said. “Remember me, Owen McKenna? I wanted to stop by so you could visit Spot.”

  Mia’s eyes and cheeks were red from crying. Seeing Spot seemed to immediately distract her. She didn’t smile, but she let go of Mattie and walked to Spot. She bent over to hug him.

  Like a trained therapy dog, he wagged but didn’t move. He was happy to have her weight on his back.

  “Mia,” I said, “Spot and I came to tell you that Evan will be gone for a day or two. Mattie said you can stay with her. If there’s anything you need from me, Mattie can call me. Will that be okay?”

  Mia didn’t respond to me. She kept hugging Spot.

  “Mia, I’m going to be seeing Evan. Is there anything you want me to tell her from you?”

  Mia’s eyes were shut. She didn’t appear to hear me.

  I looked at Mattie. She made a little nod. She pointed down at Spot’s head and mouthed the words, ‘This is good.’

  We waited a bit, then Mattie tapped Mia on the shoulder. “Come, Mia, we have to let Owen go back to work.”

  Gradually, Mia released Spot and stood. She pet Spot on his head, making precise careful strokes between his ears.

  Mattie spoke, “Mia, Owen wants to know if you have a message for Evan.”

  Mia seemed to chew on her cheek. “I’m going to ask TB for fairy dust, and I’ll sprinkle it for Evan.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell her.”

  “Say goodbye to Spot,” Mattie said. Mattie took Mia’s hand, placed it inside of her elbow, and had Mia walk her back to her apartment. After they were inside, Mattie came back out. She handed me a piece of paper.

  “Here’s my phone number. Call when you learn something?”

  “Will do.” I handed Mattie my card. “Thanks,” I said. “Evan will really appreciate that you’re looking after Mia.”

  Mattie nodded.

  “One question about Mia’s message,” I said. “What does TB refer to?”

  “Tinkerbell.”

  “Ah.” I gave Mattie a smile, and Spot and I left.

  FORTY-TWO

  When I got home, I called the El Dorado County Jail in South Lake Tahoe.

  “My name is Owen McKenna,” I said when a young-sounding man came on the line. “I’m a private investigator working on the case of one of your inmates, Evan Rosen.”

  “I know about you,” the jail commander said.

  “Evan Rosen is charged with murder. The District Attorney’s case against her is largely based on information I provided to El Dorado County Sergeant Bains. I have new questions I need to ask her that are critical to the case. But I assume I’m not on her active visitor list.”

  “I’ve got it here,” the jail commander said. “No one’s on her list. But if you want access, I can change that,” the jail commander said. “When do you want to come in?”

  “You’ve got evening visiting hours. I was hoping I could come this evening at seven.”

  “Okay. I’ll put you down.”

  “Thanks.”

  Spot and I had an early dinner, then drove down to South Lake Tahoe. I pulled into the parking lot off Al Tahoe Boulevard, left Spot in the Jeep, and walked into the jail. I went through the security protocol, signature on the form, boxes checked, statement of intent, questions answered, keys and pocket knife and all of my dangerous pennies and dimes in the storage tray.

  “Gun?” the guard said as he opened one of the gun locker doors.

  “I don’t carry,” I said.

  “I thought you were an ex-cop.”

  “I am. I probably should carry. But I don’t.”

  The man frowned as he looked at me. “Whatever,” he said.

  He gestured toward the metal detector, and I walked between the vertical detector posts.

  “Come with me.” He turned and walked through a heavy door with a lock that could only be opened w
hen a video observer hit the buzzer. I followed him into the visiting area. He pointed to a chair. I sat.

  “Give us a few minutes,” he said.

  I nodded and waited among other visitors and inmates.

  It was an eye-opener to see this facility with 150 bunks for criminals set in the midst of the Tahoe Basin. It was hard to reconcile the beauty of the lake and mountains with life inside these jail cells.

  A guard brought Evan in. Her hands were cuffed in front, locked to a chain around her waist. Her feet were shackled. She might be a petite woman, but they were playing by the book. We sat on opposite sides of a counter with a heavy plexi divider. We could see each other and talk.

  “Owen McKenna,” Evan said. Her voice was lifeless.

  “How are you doing?” I said.

  She looked down at her handcuffs. “Not good.” Her voice sounded lifeless.

  “I’m sorry about this,” I said.

  “You don’t need to be sorry,” she said.

  The words were painful to hear. At some point in the future I might tell her that I was the person most responsible for putting her in jail. But I didn’t think it would be helpful to tell her now.

  “When I heard you were in jail, I drove to your apartment to reassure Mia.”

  “You saw her?” Evan’s words were a bit more alive than before.

  “Yes, a few hours ago. She was at Mattie’s apartment. I told Mattie what had happened, and she’s clearing her schedule to look after Mia.”

  “How was Mia?”

  “She was sad and worried about you being gone, but otherwise she’s okay. She said to tell you that she’s going to ask Tinkerbell for fairy dust so she can sprinkle it for you.”

  Even closed her eyes for a moment. “What did you tell her?”

  “I just told her that you’d be gone a few days, and that you were coming back home as soon as possible.”

  Evan frowned. “It ripped my heart out to see Mia’s face when they hauled me away. I never should have touched that cop. It was just a slap on his shoulder. But it was wrong. I have no impulse control. He pushed all my buttons and I snapped.”

  She looked at me as if I might comment, but I didn’t know what to say.

  “What’s going to happen next?”

  “Have you talked to a lawyer?”

  “No. It’s not like I can afford a lawyer.”

  “Have you been arraigned, yet?”

  “No. They say that happens tomorrow morning. What should I expect?”

  “You will be assigned a public defender. That person may be coming to see you yet this evening or early in the morning. He or she will discuss your options. At the arraignment, the judge will inform you of the charges against you and ask how you plead, guilty or innocent. The judge will then deny bail because the charges will be murder with special circumstances. That’s a term that means you were…”

  “Lying in wait for the victims,” she interrupted.

  “Right,” I said, surprised. “It’s considered the most serious kind of murder, so they won’t let you out. The public defender will consult with you and prepare to defend you in court.”

  “Which doesn’t make for a good prognosis,” she said.

  Once again, she was using a word I wouldn’t have expected.

  I continued, “My guess is that the prosecutor will attempt to find out what you know about the other robbers or the robbery. If they believe you have valuable information, they may offer you a plea bargain in exchange for giving up that information.”

  “But I don’t have any information about them.”

  “Then there’ll be no plea bargain.”

  “I wouldn’t plead guilty to lesser charges anyway because I’m innocent.”

  “Right. In answer to your question about how long you’ll be held, it will be until you’re acquitted.”

  “If I’m acquitted,” Evan said.

  “Correct.”

  “Is there no other option?” Evan asked. Her eyes seemed heavy and dull with what seemed like depression.

  “The only other way out would be if the District Attorney decided to drop the charges.”

  “What would that take?”

  “If we can prove you are innocent, then we may get him to consider dropping the charges. Although I won’t mislead you. It doesn’t look good.”

  “I don’t understand. If you could demonstrate my innocence, they would still prosecute me?” Evan was appalled.

  “The unfortunate reality is that the justice system isn’t especially good at identifying every innocent person and then freeing them quickly. They generally leave that decision to the jury. I’ve never met a District Attorney or prosecutor whose primary career driver is a Mother Teresa-like sense of charity and fairness.”

  “But what’s fair should always come first!”

  I shrugged. “In most states, District Attorneys are elected. That makes them politicians even though they’ll dispute the characterization. As an elected official, a DA works for the public, and a DA rarely suffers in the public eye for appearing hard on criminals.”

  Evan looked off to the side, toward a wall. “And of course, I’m an evil, wicked criminal.”

  “Are you innocent?” I asked.

  “Of course. It’s a stupid case.”

  “Stupid in your eyes, no doubt. But the button in one of the victim’s hands matched the missing button on your shirt. The robbers were killed with spears made from ski poles. Sergeant Bains and Deputy Russo found a matching ski pole spear in the back of your closet.”

  “What?! That’s what they brought out in the plastic bag and put in the trunk? That couldn’t be! They must have planted it there. They…” she paused. “Someone else planted it there. The real murderer. To frame me!”

  “The ski poles were originally taken from a dumpster behind the ski shop the next street over. The dumpster is directly behind your apartment.”

  “My God! This is a perfect frame. Someone’s been planning to set me up all along! But almost for sure I have an alibi. I’m always working. Or else I’m home taking care of Mia. If you can find out when the murders took place, I can go through my calendar and find out where I was.”

  “That probably won’t help,” I said. “The bodies were found a long time after they were killed. We’ve established their approximate time of death, but it’s not accurate enough for an alibi defense. The prosecutor will claim that the victims were murdered at night. He or she will pick the night closest to the time-of-death estimate and claim that you drove to the South Shore in the middle of the night and found the men where they were camping. So an alibi is out unless you could prove you were out of the country for a period of days near the time of the murders.”

  Evan looked devastated.

  “When the cops searched your house,” I said, “they found two thousand in cash hidden under your kitchen garbage. Where did you get it?”

  Evan looked desperate, like anyone would whose life was unraveling.

  “If you want even a slight chance at being acquitted, you will have to answer all questions they put to you. And if you entertain any dream that the murder charges could be dropped, you will have to be more than forthcoming. You’ll have to be cheerfully helpful to everyone.”

  Evan looked away.

  “That starts with this question about the source of your cash. Or consider the possibility that you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail. If they take Mia away and put her in a home of some kind far away, you might never see her again.”

  Tears formed in Evan’s eyes. “There’s no law that says you can’t have cash. My mother always told me to keep a little stash tucked away. That way if everything goes south, you’ve always got that cushion. So every now and then, I add a hundred dollar bill to my stash. I think of it as insurance for Mia. If I were to break my arm or something so I can’t clean houses, I could still provide for Mia, at least in the short term. And in case they’re wondering, I report all my cash income.” Evan’s eyes were wide
. “They left the money there, right?”

  “No. The law allows officers to seize assets if they suspect it might have been acquired through unlawful means.”

  “No! No! That’s not fair!” Evan shouted. “That money is for Mia!”

  The nearby guard gave me a stern look. “Keep it down, or the meeting is over!”

  I nodded at him, then spoke to Evan. “They can’t keep assets worth less than twenty-five thousand unless you’re convicted,” I said. “If we can get you acquitted, you will eventually get the money back.”

  “What else is there besides the money?”

  “The ski pole spear is very compelling. A person can’t just go out and find an easy source for such poles that are so old they have sharp points. They haven’t been manufactured for almost fifty years. The ski shop behind your apartment threw a bunch of old poles out not long ago. The poles match those that were used as murder weapons. They sat in the dumpster for several days. The fact that they all came from near your door is compelling. The ski shop owner will no doubt identify the pole found in your closet as coming from the batch of poles he threw away.”

  I continued. “More circumstantial evidence comes from the fact that you went to the same high school and at the same time as the two dead robbers. You demonstrated fear and animosity when I showed you their high school yearbook photos.”

  Evan was shaking her head in what looked like shock and disbelief.

  “I’m sorry, Evan, but even Mia’s presence works against you.”

  “How could that possibly be? Mia would bring out the sympathy in anybody.”

  “Right. A caring jury would easily see how you loved her and would do anything to secure her future. In the jury’s mind, Mia becomes your motive, the reason you killed robbers to get money for Mia.”

  Evan frowned so hard that it wrinkled her entire young face. “And once I killed the robbers and took their money, what did I supposedly do with it?”

  “The jurors will be wondering that as they convict you. They will assume that you stashed the money someplace and are waiting until things calm down before you do anything with it. The prosecutor won’t be looking for boats or diamonds that you bought with the robbery money. He’ll just be presenting you as someone who needed to work a little less and have a little more money, all so you can better provide for Mia. As the prosecutor paints you as someone who murdered to get money to help support her sister, he will also paint the murder victims as evil robbers. That will make it easier for the jury to buy the story that you killed them. Once they think there were good reasons attached to what you did, they will convict you of murder.”