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

Street frowned. “I know one who teaches at UNR.”

“I just came from Reno,” I said, not relishing a return trip. “Is there no one at the LTCC?”

“I don’t recall the Lake Tahoe Community College having a botanist on staff. But they do have two biology professors. They teach a wide range of biology. They probably know a great deal about botany. It might be worth it to show them this sample.”

“Do you have their names?”

“Let me look.” Street flipped through an address book. “Here is the one I met. Frankie Blue.”

“Sounds like a showgirl’s stage name,” I said.

“Yeah, except not many showgirls have a masters from UCLA and a doctorate from UC San Diego.”

“She must be a very smart Frankie Blue,” I said. “A Dr. Frankie.”

Street picked up her phone. “I’ll see if she’s in. Do you have time to run your sample by if she’s in?”

“Absolutely.”

SIXTEEN

Street got ahold of Dr. Blue and set up an appointment for me the next day at 4 p.m. We said goodbye, and I drove away with the thought that Shakespeare’s sonnets would have been even better had he a storeroom companion like Street Casey.

Spot and I had an early dinner of barbecued turkey breast, squash, and green beans followed by vanilla ice cream drizzled with creme de cacao. I knew that chocolate in quantity could be toxic to dogs, but he was a big guy, and our dessert was more about sugary ice cream than the chocolate flavor. Of course, Spot liked the turkey better than the squash, and the squash better than the green beans. But the most focused look he gave me was after he’d finished licking dry the bowl of ice cream and chocolate liqueur.

“Sorry, Largeness, you’ve already achieved multiples of your full ration of added sugar in your diet.”

He looked back at his bowl, then turned and looked at the freezer door with such intensity that it was as if he had x-ray vision and could see the Ben & Jerry’s within.

After a walk, we went to bed.

I jerked awake cold and with a disturbing thought. It had been almost 72 hours or more since Jonas Montrop’s kidnapping. It’s axiomatic in law enforcement that if a kidnap victim isn’t released or found within 24 hours, the likelihood of a positive resolution plunges to a very low level.

I fumbled my way to the kitchen nook and turned on the coffee maker.

Spot was sprawled across his bed, head on one corner, hips on the opposite corner, tail three feet onto the floor. Maybe there was still enough residual heat from the wood stove to keep him comfortable without having to curl up, nose under a paw. But it felt cold to me.

I looked at the clock. It was five in the morning. I had to leave in less than two hours to pick up Evan and Mia and take them on their cleaning rounds.

While the coffee brewed, I opened the wood stove, stirred the ash until I saw a bit of red glow, then set two Sugar Pine cones on the mostly spent coals. At 24 inches in length and 7 inches in diameter each, they covered the bottom of the fire box. I set two splits on top of the cones, shut the door and opened the air intake. I wasn’t sure that the tiny nuggets of remaining coals were enough to kindle a fire, but it was worth a try.

When the coffee was done, I poured a cup and sat on the rocker next to Spot’s bed. I sipped coffee with one hand, and reached down with the other to pet Spot. I thought about this kid I’d never met. The unfortunate odds were that he was probably dead, his body dropped into the lake or cast away into the woods not to be found for months or years, if ever.

I went back through what I’d seen and heard, from Jonas’s disappearance to the signs of struggle at his house. I thought about David Montrop’s bank withdrawal and the comments the house cleaner Evan Rosen had made about Montrop getting rid of stuff before he died from his cancer.

The Sugar Pine cones burst into flames and made an instant, lively fire with the splits crackling and popping sparks.

As I watched the flames, I remembered the framed photo Montrop had kept on his desk, a picture of an old boat.   I also remembered that the unfinished note on Jonas’s computer referred to a leak and something about transferring a title.

So I played the game, ‘What if?’

What if Montrop had the photo of his boat on his desk because it was an important part of his past rather than his present? What if Montrop had wanted to get rid of his boat? I remembered that it was an older cabin cruiser, a Thompson cuddy, I thought, 17 or 18 feet, what looked like a mid-’60s model. It had what’s called a cuddy cabin, a small indoor space large enough to bunk in and cook a simple meal.

So what if he decided to give it to his stepson Jonas?

A young man might think it was a great party boat if only he could figure out an affordable way to moor it or dock it. But as the maintenance bills grew, many kids would consider converting the boat into a bit of cash.

In Jonas’s unfinished letter to someone named Flynn, he’d written that he didn’t know about the leak and that he’d give him his money back. He referred to Flynn thinking he was trying to kill him. He also said that he hadn’t transferred the title.

The meaning of the letter was unclear. But it certainly could be that Jonas was referring to a boat. The tone of the letter intimated that Flynn was unhappy. Jonas said he swore that he didn’t know about the leak.

Maybe I was building something out of nothing.

I remembered the little scrap of paper I’d found on Jonas’s bedroom floor. It was a bit of a brochure that talked about Mercury sterndrives. I looked on the computer, Googling Mercury sterndrives at Lake Tahoe.

Up popped lots of links that the Google brain thought were relevant. One was Brilliance Marine, a marina on the South Shore, not far from where Jonas lived. I clicked on the link. The website that came up presented itself as a small family marina, west of Stateline, tucked into a neighborhood of homes that occupied a narrow strip between Lake Tahoe Boulevard and the lake. On the first page of the website was the full picture of the boat I’d seen on the scrap of paper at Jonas’s house. The caption said, ‘All of our boats feature Mercury sterndrives.’

Just like on the scrap of paper.

Maybe I was getting somewhere. But first I had to go give Evan and Mia a ride to their house cleaning appointment.

SEVENTEEN

Spot and I went out to the Jeep, headed down the mountain toward the lake, and were at the Rosens’ apartment at 7:30 a.m.

I helped load her cleaning equipment in the back of the Jeep. Evan had Mia sit in the front passenger seat, and Evan shared the back seat with Spot, who was behind Mia.

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.