Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14) (28 page)

“Where is your mother? Could she help out?”

“She died when I was little.” Jonas was breathing hard.

I waited a minute for him to calm down. “Where do you normally keep your boat? Flynn’s boat.”

“At the house that belonged to the band. On the South Shore.”

I asked, “Has the doctor said how long you need to be in the hospital?”

“She said I can go as soon as my shoulders heal enough that I can take care of myself. I don’t know when that will be. I still can’t reach my hands up to my face. I have to be able to take care of myself because there’s no one to help. You’ll probably find this hard to believe, but my stepdad has never visited me here. He hasn’t even called. That tells you what a close family he and I are.”

“Jonas, do you have siblings?”

“No, why?”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but your stepfather was found dead four days ago, the day you were kidnapped.”

“What?!” Jonas was shocked. His eyes moistened. “I knew his cancer was… terminal. But I didn’t know he was that close to death.”

“He didn’t die from the cancer. He was killed in his driveway. Someone threw his paddle board at him. The board struck him in the head.”

Jonas stared, his face a mix of confusion and horror. “I don’t understand. He was murdered? Why?”

“We don’t know.”

Jonas’s eyes went back and forth, focused on some distant idea outside of the hospital room. Tears filled his lower lids. Jonas turned his head again, trying to wipe the tears on the pillow. He turned away from me, embarrassed at his emotion.

“I’m sorry about the news, Jonas. It’s a hard thing to absorb.”

“Who did it?” Jonas said, angry. “He was a miserable jerk. But he didn’t deserve to die like that. Who killed him?”

“We have no idea.”

“Do you think that his murder was somehow connected to my kidnapping?”

“We don’t know that, either. We learned that your kidnapper ransomed you for twenty-five thousand dollars. David Montrop withdrew that amount from his bank in Incline Village. After that, we have no idea what happened. Some time later, Montrop’s gardener found him dead in his driveway. The money was gone.”

“I never trusted Kang,” Jonas said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I get from him.”

I took out my card and set it on the table next to Jonas’s bed. “When you’re ready to go home, call me. Maybe I can help.”

“What do I do next?” Jonas was pleading.

“Rest. Heal. Then we’ll talk some more.”

Jonas’s face changed. I couldn’t identify his look exactly. Wonderment, maybe. After I said goodbye, nodded at the cop, and walked away down the hall, I had the sense that Jonas had rarely if ever experienced someone being nice to him.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Back in the Jeep, I thought about what I’d learned. I couldn’t make a clear picture out of the case or even convincingly connect David Montrop’s murder to the robbers’ murders. Complicating the case were the multiple jurisdictions involved. Montrop was murdered in Washoe County, Sergeant Lanzen’s territory. The armored truck robbery was in the county where Street and I live, Douglas County, which is Sergeant Diamond Martinez’s turf. Jonas Montrop had been kidnapped and tied up in the city of South Lake Tahoe, SLT Commander Mallory’s grounds. I’d found the murdered robbers in Sergeant Bains’ El Dorado County. The only person I’d found with connections to all of the murder victims was Evan Rosen, and she lived in Placer County.

I knew I’d be talking to Diamond soon, so I first called Sergeant Lanzen and told her about my conversation with Jonas Montrop. My next call was to the SLT police, and I said nearly the same words to Mallory. After that, I dialed the El Dorado Sheriff’s Office and got put through to Sergeant Bains’s voicemail. I left a message saying I had some things to go over. He called back in a minute.

“I’ve got a meeting in five minutes at D.L. Bliss State Park,” Bains said. “It won’t take long.”

“I’m on the South Shore. How ’bout I come out there?”

“That works. Meet me at the trailhead to Rubicon Trail. Twenty minutes or so.”

Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the park, drove out near the trailhead, and parked.

Spot and I walked over to an overlook and stared down at the water. Just out from the Rubicon Trail, the water hides a cliff over 1200 feet straight down, one of the grander underwater drop-offs in the world. The result of such deep water is a mesmerizing indigo blue. Even Spot seemed entranced.

“McKenna,” a voice called out. Sergeant Bains walked over, shook my hand, pet Spot. “You want to find a place to sit? Or we could make it a walk-and-talk and let your hound run.”

“The park has a leash law like every other place in Tahoe.”

Bains pointed to his sheriff’s badge. “Somebody complains, I’ll assure them that law enforcement is going to find the responsible culprit and exact an appropriate punishment.”

So we headed out the Rubicon Trail, the beginning of which follows a cliff ledge with vertical dropoffs straight down to the water. Spot never seemed to be respectful enough of the dangers, but he’d been here before, as well as on many cliffs, so I wasn’t worried.

“What you got?” Bains said as we walked.

“You recall the murder of the man in Incline Village.”

“Right,” Bains said.

“I have evidence linking the man’s house cleaner to the robbery suspects. The evidence is circumstantial. And my gut instinct tells me that it is misleading. But I told you I’d report whatever I learned about the case.”

“Ready to be misled,” Bains said.

“The house cleaner, Evan Rosen, lives in Tahoe Vista. Nine years ago, she went to Wilson High School in Reno, the same high school as the two dead armored truck robbers. I cannot directly connect her to the robbery, however I recently saw her pay her neighbor for rides. She peeled the bills off what looked like a large wad of cash. And I saw her picture in a Wilson High School yearbook. In the photo, she’s wearing a shirt with buttons on it very much like the one we found in the robber’s hand. She still has the shirt, and she showed it to me. It has a button missing.”

“That’s certainly compelling.”

“Unfortunately, there’s more. When I showed Evan the pictures of the dead robbers, she got upset just seeing them. She said she was glad they were dead.”

“Whoa,” Bains said.

“I asked her why. She wouldn’t explain, but she said they didn’t deserve to live. She wouldn’t say why. It seems obvious that these guys did something to make her hate them.”

“Like…” Bains broke off.

“No idea. Maybe they hurt her sister Mia or something.”

“Yet, despite this circumstantial evidence, you think it’s misleading,” Bains said. “All because of your gut instinct. Perhaps you can elaborate?”

“I don’t think she committed those murders.”

“Why?”

“She doesn’t seem like the type. I will say that she admitted that she is a bit of a hothead. That can lead to impulsiveness, and some people who murder exhibit impulsiveness. But you know that it takes more than that for a person to murder. Murderers are amoral or stupid or devious or mean, or all of the above. Evan doesn’t seem like any of those things. Also, the paddle board murder as well as the ski pole murders would require a lot of strength, and she is a diminutive person.”

“But the evidence points to her,” Bains said.

“‘Points to her’ is too strong a phrase for this situation. Nevertheless, this information is what I wanted to tell you. Doing my duty against my desire. I believe that after you investigate, you will agree with me.”

“Do you have an address?”

I gave it to him. “End unit on a converted motel. I should let you know that she takes care of her sister Mia, who has some kind of disability. So if you question her, maybe be gentle, okay?”

“Gentle? Wow, you must have been a tough cop back in the day.”

“Yeah. That’s me. Tough.”

THIRTY-NINE

After Bains and I finished talking, I was thinking about Montrop’s gardener Kang, the man who supposedly didn’t speak English but whom I’d seen talking to the Reno Armored receptionist Rita.

I drove north around the lake and parked on a side street a half mile down from Montrop’s house. I left Spot in the Jeep and walked up toward Montrop’s neighborhood. I didn’t turn up the street that led to his driveway. Instead, I walked along the next street down. When I thought I was nearest to Montrop’s house, I turned into the forest and made my way up toward his street. When Montrop’s house came into partial view through the trees, I shifted to the side until I could get a glimpse of the steep driveway.

As I got close, I realized that I couldn’t remember if this was one of the days when Kang was scheduled at Montrop’s house. Might as well wait and find out.

Evan had said that she thought he knew more English than he revealed. If that were true, and I tried to talk to him, he would play the same role as before. But if I waited until he left and followed him, maybe I’d witness him going someplace where he might speak to someone else. If I caught him in that contradiction, I might be able to pressure him into telling me what he knew about Montrop or Rita and the Reno Armored company.

I knew that if I went up to the house, he might see me before I saw him. So I waited in the trees down below, hoping that I would see him when he left.

Kang came walking down the drive 45 minutes later. At the street, he turned left. I waited until he was 30 yards away, then stepped out of the trees and followed him. If Kang turned, he’d see me. But at this distance, I thought he probably wouldn’t recognize me.

Kang went up over a rise, then down out of my sight. I jogged up the same rise. When I got to the top, Kang was nowhere in sight. I strode down fast, looking into the woods. Nothing.

There was an intersection ahead, where a road came from below and made a T with the street I was on. I heard the whine of a starter motor. The engine fired, the small, soft sound of a 4 cylinder. The sound appeared to come from the side street. The engine made just the slightest revving sound, then went silent, consistent with a driver giving a car enough gas to get it off the shoulder but then taking his foot off the gas as he turned downslope and let the car accelerate on its own under the force of gravity.

I turned back the way I’d come, sprinting back over the small rise, turning into the woods, and running as fast as I could for the Jeep.

I had my key out as I got close. In a practiced motion, I was inside the Jeep, got it running, and drove away fast.

The road I was on went vaguely toward the road Kang was on, but how or if it connected was not clear. There was an intersection ahead. I guessed that turning down the mountain would be the likeliest direction Kang was going. I cranked the wheel and skidded around the corner, barely slowing. The road made an S-turn through the forest and went by scattered homes. I came to another intersection and again turned down, figuring that it was unlikely that Kang, a gardener, lived in such a luxurious neighborhood. All of the roads out of the neighborhood went down.

At the next intersection, I went straight, then came to the Mt. Rose Highway. I took a right and headed down toward the lake, accelerating to a high speed.

A quarter mile ahead was a small silver car with the dull finish of an older vehicle. As I got close, I could see that it was a Kia. Closer still, I could see that the driver appeared to be a male about the size of Kang. I couldn’t tell if it was Kang for certain, but I was reasonably sure, so I dropped back.

The silver Kia turned west on Highway 28. I followed it around Crystal Bay and through Kings Beach. It turned right on 267. I stayed back several car lengths as I followed it up and over Brockway Summit. The man drove fast, and as the traffic in front of him turned off into Northstar, the Kia accelerated and flew through the Martis Valley and on into Truckee.

Kang went through the old railroad town at high speed, worked his way over to Donner Pass Road, turned off on Northwoods Boulevard, and drove up into the Tahoe Donner subdivision.

I had to stay farther back to avoid being seen, and I nearly lost Kang as he wound around the arc of houses that front the circular golf course. When I came to a section with more visibility, he was gone. I didn’t want to slow dramatically and make myself more obvious, so I continued on, following the large loop of Northwoods Boulevard all the way around and eventually retracing my steps. This time I drove a bit slower, but still kept up a pace that would not look suspicious to anyone. I also tried to look in opposite directions from my earlier loop, paying special attention to the side roads.

After several intersections, I glimpsed a silver car down a road to the left. There was no way I could drive by it without being obvious, so I pulled over and parked in front of a house.

No doubt it was obvious that I didn’t belong in the neighborhood. So I put two clip pens in my shirt pocket, and I grabbed my clipboard with the pad of paper that has several paragraphs of boilerplate legalese in a small font and short descriptions in a larger font with check boxes to the side. From the glove box, I pulled out my official bureaucrat’s clip-on name tag with an insert I’d made on my computer. It showed my name in red with words underneath in black that identified me as a certified county inspector, badge #69834, my commission expiration date listed as the following February 19th, and, in the really fine print beneath that, two sentences that broadly defined liability limits and two sentences that outlined complaint procedures along with the county website address and toll free phone number to call with further questions.