Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14) (3 page)

“No.”

“Do you have anything to do with concerts or bands?”

“No.”

“Have you ever heard of a company called Big Lake Promotions?”

“No.”

“Can you think of any way that the victim may have known of you?”

“Not in particular. I’ve been in the news now and then in conjunction with some of my cases. But I’m not that well known. Of course, many local law enforcement officers know of me.”

“Do Tahoe LEOs appreciate your presence in the community, or do they resent you?”

“As best as I can tell, most of them don’t think of me as too much of a pest. But as you know, cops sometimes have a pejorative attitude toward those of us who go private. Why do you ask?”

“Because David Montrop made a point of mentioning your cop background. It’s almost as if he has a thing about cops. But when I initially looked him up, I didn’t find a record. Come with me,” she said. “I’ll show you what we found.” She walked across the broad entry, through wide double doors, both open, and into a room with a slate floor. In the center was a pedestal with what looked like a six-foot-tall Remington bronze showing a cowboy on his horse, his arm raised to throw a lasso. I’d never seen a Remington that was that large, so maybe it was just a look-alike.

I followed the sergeant through a grand open living room. On the far side of the room, we went up a step into a study the size of my cabin. The room had one wall of windows that looked up through a Jeffrey Pine forest toward Rose Knob Peak, one of the often-overlooked sister mountains that stretch out to the southwest from Mt. Rose.

The other walls had large bookshelves that held old leather books with embossed gold leaf letters. They were nice decor, but their perfect alignment suggested that they weren’t frequently consulted, if ever read at all. Among the bookshelves on one wall was an area devoted to framed certificates and citations with elaborate calligraphy, some with gold award stickers. On a stand was a glass plaque with acid-etched musical notes and lettering no doubt proclaiming some kind of achievement in the music industry.

In the center of the room was a huge desk with a forest green, inset leather top. The desk was relatively clean. It had a banker’s lamp, a brass and teak pen-and-pencil holder, and a small brass clock. On the corner of the desk was an 8 x10 photo of an old cruiser-type boat in an easel-back frame. As a boat fancier, I leaned in to get a closer look. It looked like a 1960s cuddy cabin design, maybe a Thompson. It didn’t look to be in good shape, but it had probably given Montrop good times at some point in the past. To one side of the desk was a stack of papers. To the other side was a computer printer. On it was a piece of copy paper with printing. The sergeant pointed toward it.

I walked around behind the desk, leaned over, and looked at it without touching it.

The top of the note was dated with the previous day’s date and the time of 10:30 p.m., looking very much as if Montrop had typed and printed the note the previous evening.

If something violent should happen to me, it’s possible the perpetrator is an ex-cop named Owen McKenna. He and I go way back, and I have reason to believe he has angry feelings toward me. I wouldn’t put it past him to attack me in an attempt to settle an old score.

If someone is reading this note, then that suggests it is too late to do anything other than try to catch him or whoever assaulted me.

I don’t want to falsely accuse McKenna, but I will take this information to the police tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m going to bed with a sense of foreboding, so I write this note.

I turned to the sergeant.

“Unusual note,” I said to her.

Sergeant Lanzen nodded. “Do you have a comment?”

“No. I have no idea who he is or why he might think I have angry feelings toward him.”

Sergeant Lanzen’s gaze settled on Montrop’s note.

“Have you any idea why he was murdered?” I asked.

Lanzen shook her head. “No. The gardener found him dead when he arrived this morning. He called nine-one-one and indicated in broken English that Mr. Montrop had died.”

“The gardener carries a house key,” I said.

“Apparently.” Lanzen glanced out the window. There was a smallish man sitting on a decorative iron bench in a small garden near the Mercedes. He rocked left and right as if distraught. “His duties include the indoor plants as well,” Lanzen said. “He communicated in so many words that the place is as he found it.”

“Neat and picked up,” I said.

“Yes. Apparently, the housekeeper was here yesterday. It looks like nothing has been touched since then beyond a few dishes in the kitchen, the clothes and bedding in Montrop’s bedroom, and…” she paused, then gestured at the desk, “this note.”

Lanzen gestured toward the door. “Please come outside and look at the body. You said you don’t know him by name, but we should check that you don’t recognize him.”

“Of course.”

I followed her outside. There were two men who had wheeled a gurney and body bag up the driveway and were waiting for her approval before they removed the body.

She spoke to them. “I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

“You’ve completed your death scene examination?” I said.

“Yes. And because of the peculiarities, the Medical Examiner already stopped by. We’ll know more after the pathologist completes the autopsy, but he said it looks like Montrop died from blunt force trauma to the head.”

Lanzen walked me over to the body, then stepped aside so I could see.

The victim’s head was turned sideways, the wounded temple facing the sky, the other cheek mashed against driveway brick. I leaned in to get a closer look. From my perspective, he was upside down, not the best angle for recognition. I backed away and walked around to see him from the proper perspective.

When the sergeant had first mentioned the name David Montrop on the phone, I didn’t recall the name. But I certainly knew the face.

I turned to Sergeant Lanzen. “I was wrong. I do recognize him. From a long time back. Let me think a moment. It would have been twelve or more years ago. In San Francisco. Probably the reason you didn’t find criminal activity is that he went by a different name. I don’t recall what it was, but David Montrop doesn’t seem familiar. He was a con man who should have spent a decade in San Quentin for voluntary manslaughter. But because of multiple procedural mistakes the prosecution made and some sloppy evidence collection on our part, he got off with just probation.”

THREE

“You know David Montrap as a former manslaughter suspect,” Sergeant Lanzen repeated as if to be sure she understood correctly.

“Correct. I was a Homicide Inspector when he was charged and prosecuted,” I said. “Although I don’t think Montrop ever knew my name. I had no direct dealings with him. The cop who brought him in was Bill Riley, a colleague of mine who is still with the SFPD.”

Lanzen was frowning. “If Montrop didn’t know your name back then, do you think it’s a coincidence that Montrop names you as someone threatening him?”

I shook my head. “No. In this business, a good default position is to assume there are no coincidences.”

Lanzen said, “You said Montrop was a con man. What do you mean by that?”

“He ran a music swindle that began when he discovered a great new band with a great song and a really good demo video. He convinced the band that he was an agent and that he could sell them to a big record company. Of course, the band got excited. Two weeks later, he came back to them with the great news that one of the biggest record companies had made an offer and believed the band was going to become the next big thing. They were supposedly offering a contract that would give the band a little advance money but no royalties until the band became a hit. Of course, he made it all up. Then he told the band that the recording label was also starting a new producing and publishing program where they’d allow certain, special bands to become co-investors. In return for the band putting up a sizable amount of cash, the label would give them a much bigger royalty percentage and a generous sliding scale of bonuses if they hit certain sales targets.”

“So the band members coughed up money,” Lanzen said, shaking her head.

“Yeah. A lot. Two of the band members had families with money, and Montrop got them to invest two hundred thousand in return for a contract that he said would possibly give them huge returns, potentially ranging into the tens of millions if they became a hit.”

“Let me guess,” the sergeant said. “He kept the money and never even contacted any record company.”

“Worse. He did contact a record company, played them the demo, said it was by a different band, the name of which he made up, and told them that the band was his creation.”

“What does that mean?”

“He told them that he created the entire package, hired the band members and the songwriters and even paid for and produced the music video.”

“Does that really happen?”

“Often, yes. Famous bands like The Monkees and NSYNC and the Spice Girls were fabricated from scratch by ambitious managers. Montrop got a record company so excited about this fake band of his that they offered a traditional contract with a large signing bonus.”

“Which Montrop also kept,” Lanzen said.

“Right. But one of the band members suspected the truth and tracked Montrop down and accosted him at Montrop’s high-rise apartment by the Embarcadero in San Francisco. They scuffled, and the singer fell off Montrop’s balcony to his death. The fight was witnessed by people in an apartment in a high rise across the street.”

Sergeant Lanzen looked sad, an unusual expression for a cop.

“I’m sorry to say that we botched the case,” I said. “His lawyer knew it, and Montrop was able to plea bargain and get off with parole only. During the case, the music scam came out, which led to multiple civil suits, which Montrop lost. Unfortunately for the fraud victims, Montrop’s money appeared to have disappeared.”

The men finished tightening the gurney straps and wheeled the body down the driveway.

“You’re saying that Montrop claimed to have lost all of the money he stole,” Lanzen said.

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t believe it,” she said.

“No one close to the case believed it. He demonstrated financial skill in putting together his swindle. Those same skills would have been useful in hiding the money.”

Lanzen looked up at the grand house. “You’d need a big bank account to own a place like this. This house must have cost three or four million, don’t you think?”

“I’m no real estate expert, but I bet you’re in the ballpark. Any idea if he lived with anyone? Did he have family?”

“We just got the search warrant a half hour before you came, so we’ve made only the briefest search of his things. It appears he has a son named Jonas. In his top desk drawer, we found one of those cartoon birthday cards addressed to Jonas. On the front, it says, ‘For my favorite son.’ On the inside it says, ‘Okay, so you’re an only child, but you’re still my favorite.’ And stuck to the front of the card was a Post-it note that said, ‘Remember to get Jonas a birthday present.’”

FOUR

“Have you contacted Jonas?” I asked.

The sergeant said, “I called the number in Montrop’s book and got Jonas’s voicemail. I left a message asking him to call me about his father. I said it was important.”

“Any indication of his son’s address?”

Lanzen looked at me. “You’re interested in the case.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Being accused by the murder victim piques my curiosity. If I’m not actually a suspect, maybe I can help.”

“After I called Sergeant Diamond Martinez, I knew you weren’t a suspect. I’d be happy to have help. And you would no doubt like to find out why you were mentioned on Montrop’s note.”

I made a single nod.

Lanzen said, “The son’s address wasn’t clear. Montrop abbreviated the street in his book and left off the town. I suppose he didn’t need it to remember where Jonas lived, so he just wrote down the number. Maybe it will make sense to you.”

She led me back inside the house to the study, pulled on latex gloves, and opened the top drawer of the desk. She opened the address book, turned the pages until she found the one she wanted, and pointed to the left side of that page. Montrop had written Jonas’s name, a street number, and then the letters TKB.

“Does it give you any ideas?” she said.

“Possibly. One version could be Tahoe Keys Boulevard.”

“Oh, very good. South Lake Tahoe, right?”

I nodded.

She got out her cell phone. “I’ll Google that address and see what comes up.” She tapped on her phone, waited a bit, tapped some more.

After another minute, she showed me the phone.

“Looks like an actual address,” I said. “If you like, I can call Commander Mallory of the SLTPD and give him the news. He could send out one of his people to inform Jonas of his father’s death. Or I can go myself. My office is on Kingsbury Grade. That’s just a few miles away. Now that I’ve been pulled into the periphery of this case, I’d like to meet the son.”