by Dave Stanton
Jack was quite for a moment. “Maybe hate,” he said. “But that’s your job to figure out, not mine.”
The bartender brought more drinks, but I had a busy night ahead and couldn’t afford the luxury of a three drink buzz. Fifteen minutes later, Jack ordered another and I left the bar, my glass still full. A drizzle of snow had frosted my windshield, and I drove slowly on the slick roads. When I got back home, Candi was in bed playing with the kitten.
I went to my office and spread a clean sheet of Candi’s sketching paper over a folding table. I removed and photographed every item from Valerie’s purse. Keys, makeup, credit cards, sunglasses, condoms. In her wallet, I found a business card from the Suave Gentlemen’s Club with a phone number handwritten on the back. I copied the number, then reassembled the purse with each article, including the baggie of cocaine in the inner compartment. The only thing I left out was her cell phone. It had died, but fortunately it used the same charger as mine. I plugged it in, and it came to life.
In the address book were thirty-six entries. It took half an hour to type every name and number into my PC. One of the names was Mike Zayas, owner of the Suave. The only others I recognized were the three friends she traveled to Tahoe with, and her ex-boyfriend, Max, from Sacramento.
I stood and stretched, then sat back down and began typing a progress report for the General. Twenty minutes later, Candi called for me, and I said I’d be there in a minute. The report grew lengthier than I planned, and I realized I was using it as a means to organize and track every detail I’d uncovered. I continued, knowing I’d have to reduce the version I’d e-mail. Another twenty minutes passed before I heard Candi walk up behind me. She leaned her head down next to mine, her perfume fresh and vaguely tropical.
“Almost finished?”
“Yeah, just about.”
I felt her flesh on my face and turned to see she was naked.
“Come to bed,” she said.
That concluded my work for the day.
7
When the sun rose in the morning, the sky looked sandblasted clean, the blue massive brilliant and without error. The horizon was so sharp I could make out individual trees on the ridge a mile away. I went outside to get the newspaper, and along my eaves rows of silver icicles sparkled in the early light.
After Candi left for work, I stood staring out the large window looking over the meadow. There was a path running across the white flats and up the mountainside to a waterfall that was now iced over. The trail wasn’t passable past a certain point in the winter, but in the spring, I’d put on a weighted pack, jog the couple miles up to the waterfall’s base, and watch the snowmelt gush from a slick granite ledge a hundred feet above.
I put my coffee cup in the sink and went to the garage to a storage cabinet, where I kept a climbing rope and carabiners and a pair of crampons. The rope hung neatly coiled on a peg. I took it and wrapped a length around my fist and jerked it taut, the nylon chafing my skin. I stood there for a while, my hands clenched around the rope, then went back inside.
The information I’d gathered so far on the murders of Valerie Horvachek and Terry Molina had grown to the point where I needed to make decisions on where to focus the investigation. The possible involvement of biker gangs in Valerie’s murder, if not Terry’s, was something I could not discount. But the more tangible evidence led in a different direction, to a prolific womanizer who was also the chief of detectives for Douglas County PD.
Marcus Grier hadn’t been thrilled with my request he share whatever Nick Galanis said about his time with Terry. Although I considered Grier a friend and even an ally, I couldn’t blame him. The relationship between the police forces on either side of the border was awkward. The two sides cooperated out of necessity, but because priorities and loyalties rarely lined up, conflict often resulted.
The fact that Galanis was with Terry the night before she died meant the South Lake Tahoe police had to consider him a suspect. Add to the mix Galanis’s history of corrupt activities, and the implications became even more serious. If Galanis was somehow involved in Terry or Valerie’s murder, the potential for fallout was enormous. Those with allegiances to Galanis might find their careers in jeopardy, while others stood to benefit. As for Grier, he would tread cautiously—it was his nature.
To compound things, I was now in possession of a critical piece of evidence; Valerie’s purse. I suppose I could simply hand it over to Grier, or take it directly to Nick Galanis. But the purse had value, and I wasn’t about to give it up without something in return.
It wasn’t quite 9:00 A.M. I called Cody, and when he didn’t answer I left him a message saying I’d come by Pistol Pete’s later in the morning. Then I picked up the plastic bag containing Valerie’s purse and drove to the South Lake Tahoe Police station.
I parked next to a wall of dirty snow, left the purse in my cab, and went into the lobby. “Hi, Helen,” I said to the receptionist, a hard-looking woman on desk duty after injuring her leg while chasing a shoplifting suspect. “Is Marcus in?”
She looked up with blunt eyes. “I’ll see,” she said.
A minute later, Grier opened the door and motioned me in.
“What is it?” he said.
“What happened to “good morning?”
“Not much good about it so far,” he muttered.
“Maybe I can change that. I’ve found Valerie Horvachek’s purse,” I said to the back of his head as we walked down a hallway, then into his office.
He turned before he sat, his eyes bulbous. “Where?”
“In the woods, near where she was found.”
“That’s a crime scene.”
“Give me a break, Marcus. I didn’t see any sign Douglas County has been there since I found the body.”
“Where’s the purse?”
“In my truck.”
Grier pushed a button on his phone. “Bill, would you come in here?”
I heard the knock of heels on tile, and Bill Worley’s craggy face appeared in the doorway. He wore a blue jean shirt and a bolo tie.
“You remember Dan Reno?”
“I surely do. Howdy, Dan.”
“Hello.”
“Bring in the purse, please,” Grier said to me.
“You gonna let me in on what Galanis said?”
The two cops looked at each other. “Don’t see the harm,” Worley said.
“Hmmph,” Grier snorted. “Get the purse.”
I walked out through the lobby, and when I returned, the receptionist hit a buzzer and let me back into the squad room. Grier and Worley halted their conversation when I entered the office. I set the purse on Grier’s desk. Worley lifted the bag by the corner and looked it over.
“You already went through it, I take it?” Grier said.
“Everything’s still there,” I replied. Grier looked at me for a long moment, then nodded to Worley.
“Nick Galanis said he took Terry Molina to his place, where they engaged in consensual sex until about two in the morning,” Worley said. “Then he called her a cab. Said she went outside to wait for it.”
“Why would she go wait out in the cold?” I said.
Worley sat with his boots flat on the floor and his veined hands on his knees. “Galanis said they had words, and she stormed out.”
“Words about what?”
“He said she asked for money. Said he told her he’d never have touched her if he knew she was a whore.”
From behind his desk, Grier said, “The lovey-dovey basically came to a halt at that point.”
“I imagine it would.” I lowered myself into the chair opposite Worley. “Did you call Tahoe Taxi?”
“First thing we did. They confirmed the call. The driver showed up at 2:20 A.M. He waited ten minutes, reckoned he’d been stood up, and left.”
“Someone must have been lying in wait for her,” I said.
“What kind of nut would kidnap a woman from in front of a policeman’s house?” Grier said.
�
�Someone not afraid of the police,” Worley answered.
Grier’s phone rang, but he hit a button and muted it. “Or maybe someone taunting the police,” he said.
“Could be someone who wants to get caught,” I said. The two cops looked at me like I was crazy.
“Is Galanis considered a suspect?” I asked.
Grier opened his mouth, but Worley spoke first. “I consider him one. He could have killed both women in his condo.”
“What would be his motive?” I looked at both men and neither responded. The room grew silent.
“Are you going to get a warrant to search his home?”
“If it comes to that,” Grier said.
“Marcus, Nick Galanis is a crooked cop. He may not be a murderer, but I’d say he’s in this up to his eyeballs. Valerie, and maybe Terry, were somehow involved with a biker gang called the Blood Bastards, who deal coke and meth. These bad boys were at Pistol Pete’s for New Year’s, and Cody saw them again just the other night.”
Grier walked from behind his desk. “What are you saying? That Galanis is linked to these bikers?”
“They could be paying him off to deal drugs in the area.”
“Do you have any evidence of this?” Worley said.
“Not yet I don’t.”
“Listen,” Grier said, stepping forward and standing over me. “Our deal is you would back off from Galanis if we shared what he had to say.”
I looked up at Grier. His face was shiny, his eyes wide in their sockets.
“So it is.”
“Good. Whatever Galanis’s role, we’ll get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, I don’t want you in his face. Understood?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Then we’re done here.”
“I take it you haven’t found any witnesses?” I said.
“Not so far,” Worley drawled.
“Have you?” Grier said.
“A homeless man named Saint Alphonso—”
“I know who he is,” he said.
“He was camping near Kiva Beach, and said he saw a pickup stop between two and three, and a man dragged a body out to the beach. But it was too far for him to make out any detail.”
Grier sighed. “If you’re still waiting for a ‘good morning’ from me, forget about it.”
• • •
I drove away from the police complex and headed east on a two-lane lined with columns of spruce and fir, each tree as different as they were the same. I called Cody and this time he answered.
“I need to get back to San Jose, Dan. I got called for a deposition tomorrow.”
“You’re heading back right now?”
“Soon as I pack and check out.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes. Meet me at the coffee shop near the elevators.”
“All right.”
We hung up, and I waited at the stoplight where Pioneer Trail intersected Highway 50, a block from the state line. Fancy resorts had recently been built at the border, one boasting a gondola rising to the ski slopes. Smaller, less expensive hotels were razed to make room for the new developments. Despite the recession, South Lake Tahoe was rapidly transforming into a high-end tourist destination. With the increase in visitors came more money and more crime.
Marcus Grier had spent his early years as a peace officer in a medium-sized city in the Deep South. It was a place where flying the confederate flag was commonplace, and the status of the black population had not evolved much since the early 1960s. The whites were content to have the blacks serve as cab drivers, cooks, janitors, bellmen, and clerks. Mobility beyond that level was rarely available. Grier’s job as a patrolman was granted as part of a plan for the white police force to have at least one “inside man.”
The ghettos Grier patrolled were caldrons of crack and heroin addiction, prostitution, and every form of sordid violence. Street walkers infected clients with AIDS, pimps slit the throats of their girls and left the bodies in gutters, abandoned babies were found in Dumpsters, and drug gangs shot children during drive-bys.
Grier quit after his two daughters reached school age and moved out west to Tucson. He spent some years there as a deputy sheriff before landing his job in Tahoe. He confided to me after we became friends that, as a young man, he had wanted to join the ministry, but took a job as a cop because he needed the money. He said he moved to Tahoe to escape the rampant crime that plagued the cities where he’d worked. This conversation occurred over a long night of drinking after the murder of an elected Tahoe official concluded a case that left four local criminals dead.
Originally seduced by the natural beauty of the Lake Tahoe region, Grier assumed South Lake Tahoe’s crime rate would be on a lesser scale than he was used to. What he didn’t know was that, for years, Pistol Pete’s Casino had been run by a Mafioso who’d exploited the demand for recreational drugs among both the residents and the hard partying weekend visitors. Under mob management, the drug trade around Lake Tahoe had flourished to the point that coke and meth traffickers now recognized Tahoe as a key dealing and distribution hub. Of course, this would not have developed without payoffs to certain cops.
Eventually though, the mob got too greedy, and the Nevada Gaming Commission forced them out of Pistol Pete’s. That left a vacuum in the drug trade, one that was currently filled by rogue Mexican gangs and, possibly, bikers.
I parked and went into Pistol Pete’s. I found Cody sitting in a booth at the casino diner, an unopened newspaper and a cup of black coffee on the table. He was staring at his cell phone.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I just got a call from Terry’s brother. He sounds like a real dipshit.”
“Why?”
“He says he talked to a detective at SJPD about Terry’s murder, and when he brought up my name, the cop brought in my ex-boss.”
“Landers?”
“Right. The brother said Landers told him I should be considered a suspect and SJPD wants to talk to me as soon as I’m back in town.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him he needs to pull his head out of his ass, because Landers is on the take and the police in Lake Tahoe have already cleared me.”
“And?”
“Then he goes off on a tangent, saying his sister was bipolar and not responsible for her actions and needed stability instead of a douchebag like me who obviously just wanted to get his dick wet. I told him he’s wrong, and he said bullshit, I’m just the last in a long line of assholes who used her and now she’s dead and she didn’t deserve it and he hopes I feel warm and fuzzy about the whole thing and on and on. I finally hung up on him.”
The waitress came by and I told her I wasn’t hungry. When she left I looked at Cody and his eyebrows were creased in a V on his reddened face.
“Sounds like Terry’s brother is looking for a scapegoat. Don’t buy into his bullshit, Cody.”
“I’m not. Before I hung up I told the prick to find some other outlet for his grief.”
“Good.”
“When I get back to San Jose, I’m going to interview a few friends of hers. Find out if there’s anything to the biker and blow angle.”
“Yeah? I was thinking of heading to Sac and looking into that myself.”
“Oh?”
“You got any free time this afternoon?” I asked.
“Sure, why not? I think I can carve out a few hours.”
“You ready to roll?”
Cody smiled. “Let’s go.”
• • •
It was early afternoon when we came off the freeway. We’d driven separately, and Cody followed me into the Suave Gentlemen’s Club’s parking lot. The spots nearest the entrance were taken, but the bulk of the lot was empty. Next to the black Corvette that belonged to club owner Mike Zayas was a line of Harleys. The weather was beautiful for winter, sunny and nearly seventy, a perfect day for a ride. The bikers inside apparently preferred the scenery in the strip joint over the open road.
In
stead of parking in front, Cody drove to the side of the building. I followed him and stopped behind his Dodge.
“What are you doing?” I said, walking to where he sat in his cab. He was shrugging his arms into a bulletproof vest.
“What’s it look like?” On the passenger seat, the butt of his .357 protruded from a shoulder holster.
“Slow down, Cody. We’re just going to ask some questions, not start World War III.”
“Just a friendly conversation with the law abiding citizenry, huh?” He looped the holster over his shoulder, pulled up his pant leg, and began securing a sheath holding a survival knife.
“We’ll get nowhere if we front these dudes. How about a little restraint, okay?”
“Are you going to suit up?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
He chuckled. “And you’ve been in this business how long?”
“Too long. Why don’t you relax, have a cigarette?”
“I just had one.”
“Give me one, then.”
“You quit, remember? Look, no worries, Dirt. I just like to be prepared. These guys are supposed to be the genuine article. They throw around their weight, we need to be ready.”
“Promise me you won’t stir up a shit storm.”
“Scout’s honor.” He saluted with two fingers. “Now go get your gear. You’re not doing yourself any favors walking in there with your dick in your hand.”
I turned and looked out toward the freeway. Above the rush of cars the sky was a benign blue laced with wisps of orange and white clouds. For some, it would be a day for picnics on the grass, tossing a football, or just a quiet stroll in a park. But I was working and probably deluding myself if I thought I could waltz into a biker hangout and get anywhere with a smile and a handshake. On the other hand, bringing Cody was a dangerous tactic, and not one that guaranteed results.
“Fuck it,” I muttered. Valerie Horvachek and Terry Molina were both potentially involved with the Blood Bastards, and now they were dead. It was time to get some answers.
I opened the steel box behind my cab and strapped on my body armor and snapped a ten round clip into the freshly oiled Beretta .40 cal automatic I’d owned since I got into the business. I fit a three-million-volt palm-sized stun gun into my vest pocket, along with a spring-loaded sap, and put on my black coat, its roomy fit hiding the hardware.