Tahoe Skydrop (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 16)

by Todd Borg

  I shut the file drawer and moved to the bottom one.

  That drawer was mostly empty. It had a few files with more pages of fine print. It all appeared to be boilerplate, with inscrutable terms that only a lawyer specializing in contract law could understand. I flipped through the pages and was about to shut the drawer when something caught my eye. I flipped back until I found the page.

  It was one of the pages dense with fine print. But there was a section at the bottom that said APN. I thought about my own cabin and tax records and wondered if APN could refer to Assessor’s Parcel Number.

  Printed next to it were three groups of three numerals, all in six-point type.

  Without making a show, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and took a close-up picture. It wasn’t critical that I be surreptitious. But I didn’t want to advertise that I’d found something that might be significant.

  I put my phone away and continued to look through file drawers. I found nothing else of note.

  I moved away from the file cabinets and went through Yardley’s desk drawers. The only stuff to see was some desk detritus. A calculator, some pens, three yellow pads of paper, an old iPod and ear buds, a box of paper clips, a mechanical pencil, a spiral notebook with only a few pages left, a coffee cup with the Squaw Valley logo.

  I stood up and saw that the other man I’d intended to talk to, Andy Strom, had left.

  I walked over to where Sal was working in front of an oversized Mac screen. It had an image of a tree-type flow chart.

  “Andy Strom left?” I said.

  Sal nodded. “Yeah. Was I supposed to make him wait? Sorry if that screwed you up. He’ll be here tomorrow morning if you want. But I don’t know how long. Would you like his phone number so you don’t waste a trip?”

  “Yeah, please.”

  She wrote it down on her business card and handed it to me.

  “Thanks very much for your help. By the way, if Tapper comes back with the cavalry, he can contact me through Lucy.”

  “Or,” she said, thoughtfully, “I might not even be able to remember your name or if Lucy was the person who told me about you. I’ve been working very hard recently, and my short-term memory has been failing.”

  “Thanks, Sal.”

  I left. Back in the Jeep, I called Street.

  “You run a marathon?”

  “No. My meter says we’re only at nineteen miles.”

  “Wow. Sounds like exercise to me. Where should I find you?”

  “I’m here in downtown Truckee. I found a coffee at Dark Horse Coffee Roasters. Now I’m at Word After Word bookshop,” she said. “Pull up in front.”

  “I know where that is. See you there in a few minutes.”

  I drove down the short hill and paused in front of the store. Street and Blondie pushed out of the door and climbed into the Jeep.

  Street held a book in her hand.

  “Find a good story?” I asked.

  “I hope so. Some mystery that takes place in Tahoe of all places. I’ll let you know if it’s any good.”

  Spot seemed interested in various scents he could divine from Blondie’s travels. But after 19 miles, Blondie would have none of it. She curled up on one end of the back seat and immediately went to sleep. I drove us all home, telling Street about my visits with Lucy LaMotte and Bill Lindholm and a robot named Marie.

  After dropping Street and Blondie off, I went up the mountain to my cabin and called Vince.

  “Any communication from the kidnappers?” I asked when he answered.

  “None. What about you?”

  “Not yet. But I had a question. You mentioned the robotics guy who came to Jon’s school. Did Jon say what the man’s name was?”

  “No. He just said he was kind of a wild man, interesting and smart.”

  “What school does Jon go to?”

  “It’s in Truckee. You want the number?”

  “Yeah.”

  Vince gave it to me, and I said goodbye.

  As I dialed the school, I thought it would be best if I didn’t start them talking about a missing student. Schools are extremely wary of anyone other than parents showing much interest in students. It was probably a moot point anyway, as I didn’t expect anyone to be at the school in the evening.

  I was wrong. A woman answered.

  So I approached it from the standpoint of the missing Truckee businessman.

  “My name’s Owen McKenna,” I said to the woman who answered. “I’m an investigator looking into what I hope is the temporary absence of the owner of Tahoe Robotics, which is not far from your school. The man’s name is Yardley LaMotte. His wife Lucy says that he recently gave a talk at a local school, but she couldn’t remember which one. We’re trying to retrace Mr. LaMotte’s steps over the last week or so, and I wonder if it was your school he visited.”

  “Why, yes, it was just a little over a week ago. The kids loved him. I hope there is no connection between his disappearance and our school?”

  “No, not at all. This is just routine legwork, mapping out a person’s movements. This information helps. Thanks much.”

  It was getting late. I thawed out part of a leftover pizza, broke up one piece into little bits, and stirred it into Spot’s chunked-sawdust kibble. When I gave him the okay, he lowered his head and looked down into the bowl, his eyelids drooping and his jowls hanging. Then he raised his head and looked at my pizza on the table, large solid pieces.

  “What, you feel guilty? I’m forcing myself to eat pure, boring pizza unenhanced by delicious dog food?” Spot furrowed his brow. “I always give you the best in the house because I’m selfless.” I pointed at his dog bowl and snapped my fingers. “Go ahead and eat. Don’t feel guilty. I’ll manage.”

  Despite his guilt, Spot finished before me.

  Next, I pulled out my phone, and looked at the photo I’d snapped of Yardley’s real estate file. I expanded the tiny picture until I could see the numbers. I wrote them down and opened my laptop. It took some digging, but I eventually found a property search page on the website for Nevada County, the county that includes Truckee. The search page showed a parcel number pattern that didn’t match what I had. It allowed seven digits. My number had nine.

  Just to be sure, I typed in the number I’d photographed in Yardley’s file.

  It produced nothing.

  The county just south of Nevada County was Placer County.

  After more searching, I found a website page where I could search on parcel numbers. This one took nine digits, just like what I had.

  I typed in my number.

  It came back with an unusual address:

  Rural Route Creek View Terminus

  Placer Tahoe Station

  Tahoe City, CA 96145

  I pulled up a Google Maps page and plugged in the address.

  It came up with a message that said it couldn’t find the address.

  I tried to search for a map on the Placer County website, but there was nothing. I explored every other option I could find but with no success.

  It seemed I’d have to drive down to Auburn, the county seat.

  Maybe I could eventually find a piece of property that connected to the number I found in Yardley’s file. But that didn’t seem especially promising.

  Instead, I thought it would be better to see what I could learn about the gang members who took Vince’s kid.

  The Brödraskapet gang.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I dialed Diamond Martinez.

  “Sí,” he answered.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  “I’m making tacos, drinking beer, listening to old Santana records. Of course you’re interrupting.”

  “May I pick your brain about Swedish gangs?” I said.

  “If it’s okay that I continue working on this taco filling.”

  “The criminal who is causing my current case…”

  “The kidnapper,” Diamond interrupted.

  “He mentioned a Swedish gang. I’m curious how
a Swedish gang could end up doing anything in Tahoe. Naturally, I thought I’d call you.”

  “Because if I were pale instead of brown, and tall instead of not so tall, and talked with a funny accent, and had an unhealthy desire to eat lutfisk, you’d think I was Swedish, and that, combined with my perspicacity about all things criminal, would make me seem like an information source on Scandinavian crooks.”

  “Is the lutfisk you mention like the lutefisk Norwegians eat?” I asked.

  “Ja, korrekt,” Diamond said. “The same, smelly, gelatinous, lye-dissolved fish slime. The Scandinavians beat out even the Scots for worst foods ever invented.”

  “Wait. My ancestors were Scots and they invented Scotch. How could you slam their tastes?”

  “Haggis sausage.”

  “Oh, that,” I said. “Well, what would you do with leftover eyeballs and ears and lips and other such animal parts that don’t look so good on a plate compared to a Porterhouse steak?”

  “Throw it out,” Diamond said.

  “Good point. Anyway, only because Mexican cuisine is the best do I forgive your attitude toward my great grandpa’s breakfast. So any clue how Swedish gang members could end up in our little mountain paradise?”

  “In specific, no. In general, yes.” He paused.

  I waited.

  “Sorry, these cherry tomatoes are slippery,” he said over the phone. He made another grunt, which was followed by a loud metallic clink. “There, that’ll teach ’em to lie still. Does this outfit have a name?”

  “Yeah, although I don’t know how to pronounce it. I’ll try. They’re called The Brödraskapet, with one of those umlaut things over the O.”

  “I know about them,” Diamond said. Then, “Hold on, gotta open this bag of shredded cheddar.” In another moment, “I put the phone on speaker. I seem to recall that the Brödraskapet is a prison gang in a maximum security Swedish prison. Bad dudes, from what I hear.”

  “Anything in particular I should know about them?”

  “Just another group of loser guys trying to find direction and making bad choices. These guys set themselves apart by carrying karambit knives.”

  I said, “Having gone private just a few years ago, I guess I’m already out of touch with the latest trends in nastiness. What’s a karambit knife?”

  “A wicked weapon developed in Indonesia, illegal in most places, and used by certain military forces. It has a quality that makes it very difficult for a forensic pathologist to identify any cut made by a karambit. I learned about them at a seminar for cops who deal with deadly gangs. The end of the karambit knife’s handle has a circular opening that fits over the index finger like a ring. The handle is squeezed in the fist, and the short blade comes out from the fist next to the little finger. So you can stab with it the same way you’d pound your fist on a table. The blade is curved like a four-inch claw. If you hold your fist down at your side, the blade points to the rear and curves down. In many situations, a person can hold it in their fist and no one notices the blade.”

  “That certainly sounds dangerous.”

  “No kidding. Like all knives, it can be stabbed into a victim, the power intensified by the finger hole in the grip. But what makes the karambit horrific is that the design is such that one can hold it while punching. And if a punch is modified into a sweeping arc, the trailing blade will cut deeply through whatever it strikes, the most common target being an opponent’s neck. There is no practical purpose for a karambit knife beyond killing humans. At the seminar, they showed us some disgusting videos and, afterward, most of the cops who’d watched it looked ill.”

  “So The Brödraskapet get their tricks from Indonesia.”

  “You’d think,” Diamond said. “But the reality is they probably get their tricks from the same place as most other gang members. It’s a terrible blight my people have to face, but almost half of all gang members are Hispanic. Drives me and my Hispanic friends crazy. It’s probably the same craziness that good Italians experience when they try to understand why a majority of mafia members are Italian.”

  I said, “You’re saying that the worst gang stuff going is invented by Hispanic crime lords. Other gangs all over the world pick it up from them.”

  “Right.”

  “Is this because the Hispanic gangs are so good at what they do?” I asked.

  “No. The thing to remember regarding those who adopt other people’s behavior is that the appeal of taking on the behavior of a distant and discreet group seems to exist independently of whether or not that behavior has any redeeming qualities.”

  “You mean, Swedish gangs adopt characteristics of South Central L.A. gangs because they’re cool, not because they have any practical value?”

  “Yeah,” Diamond said.

  “Then what about the stolen funds and payoff money that accrues to those who violently intimidate people?”

  “Ah, the usefulness of theft. Hard to dismiss that,” Diamond said. “But no. It’s more of a copycat situation. See it. Copy it. Spread it. Look what that gang over there does. We could do that, too, and then we’d really be scary. Never mind if it’s useful or stupid. In fact, as is often the case, the more stupid the behavior, the more it seems to appeal.”

  “You think gangbangers are stupid?” I asked.

  “Sí. Clever, but stupid. If some intelligent alien species ever makes an assessment of humanity, they will focus on the stupid as in, ‘Why in the world would such clever creatures do such stupid things?’ But of course, it’s not just crooks who engage in stupid behavior.”

  “Is this a dark-thought moment?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Diamond said. “But I have some bright-looking taco shells almost ready to come out of the oven. I think they need me.”

  “Spot would like you to be his keeper,” I said.

  “When you’re done with him, I’ll take him. But only if you provide an endowment sufficient to cover his food bill in perpetuity.”

  “And why would this gang come to Tahoe?” I asked.

  “Same reason they go anyplace. It’s a ripe new territory.”

  “So what is my takeaway regarding the Brödraskapet?” I asked.

  “Assume the Swedish gang has chosen the worst Hispanic gangs as role models. Conclude that they are therefore very dangerous, very demented, and very lacking in any morality.”

  “A cheerful thought to take to bed,” I said.

  “No thought about gangs is cheerful. Not even locking them away, because they organize in prison and take over. Prison wardens everywhere have their hands tied by gangs. In some cases, they work for the gangs and are on their payroll, and the lives of their spouses and children are dependent on their complicity.”

  “A reassuring thought,” I said.

  We said goodbye and hung up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I got on my computer and Googled “Brödraskapet gang Northern California.”

  There were multiple websites on prison gangs. One listed the “Top Ten Badass Prison Gangs in California.” The Brödraskapet gang was on the list. The website detailed their main focus. Murder, Kidnapping, Extortion, Arms Trafficking. A usual list of fun activities for violent dirtballs. But there was no mention of the gang leader, whether at the international level or the Tahoe level.

  I skimmed through some of the websites. Several had links to gun websites where they proclaimed that sales of any weapon were available “no background check and no questions asked.”

  But if Jon Cooper’s kidnapping was connected to the disappearance of Yardley LaMotte, it seemed my case might be about computers or software.

  Could the Brödraskapet gang be that sophisticated? Could this entire thing involving Yardley LaMotte be about computer crime? Because Yardley’s business was computer-focused, it made sense as a possibility.

  The glitch in my comprehension was still that this all required organization and maybe even smarts on the part of the criminals. And what I’d seen and heard of the men who made Vince take t
hem up the mountain revealed a certain discipline but no identifiable smarts. Then I remembered that, during my art forgery case, there was a gang leader who was very bright, never mind the men who did the gang’s dirty work. It could be the same with this case, a smart leader manipulating gang members into doing his bidding. But that didn’t give me any more useful information. And it didn’t seem that there was an official website for the gang.

  I drank a beer to clear my head, pacing back and forth across my tiny cabin. Spot looked puzzled at my motion for a bit, then went back to sleep.

  Maybe the gang wasn’t using the word Brödraskapet. I searched on the English version, The Brotherhood.

  Presto. Just to check, I searched the page for Brödraskapet. The Swedish word was down at the bottom in a sentence that said, ‘We salute our Swedish Spirit Brothers, the Brödraskapet.’

  I went back to the top of the page.

  There was a big banner across the top.

  THE BROTHERHOOD PRINCIPLES.

  Superimposed on the words was the silhouette of a military rifle.

  The principles were listed down the left side of the page. There were just four.

  1 - Resist Authority: The one-world government is coming. They have already taken your freedom. Next, they will take your guns.

  2 - Ready Your Weapons: You will need many, and you will need lots of ammo.

  3 - Stockpile Food and Water: Visit survivalist websites for details.

  4 - Identify Your Brothers: They are the only ones you can trust when the government soldiers come for you.

  The principles were followed by several paragraphs about the evils of government. The focus was partly on survivalist preparations for the coming apocalypse and partly on how criminal activity was the moral obligation of Spirit Brothers.