Tahoe Hijack

by Todd Borg

  I found Spot about twenty yards out. Despite the ice water, he was still strong. I got his front paws up over the gunwale of the dinghy. Then I raised my thigh beneath his rear feet. He pushed off and jumped into the little boat.

  Spot stood with his head hanging down over the bow as I swam with the dinghy out into the black lake.

  “Anna!” I shouted. “Anna! Where are you?”

  I swam another 20 yards.

  “Anna! Anna!”

  My muscles were beginning to seize from the cold.

  I swung a leg up and over the dinghy. The gunwale of the little boat tipped down toward the water. Spot came close, making it much worse.

  “Spot! Lie down! Lie down!”

  He sat.

  I pulled myself up, got an arm into the boat, kicked hard, and rolled over the gunwale, flopped into the dinghy.

  Spot was all over me.

  “Let me up, Spot!”

  I stood. The little boat rocked. Threatened to capsize.

  “Anna! Anna!” I peered out at the blackness. Shivers wracked my body. “Anna!”

  I heard a small sound off to one side. I turned. Shouted. “Anna!”

  There was a tiny light object out on the slate-black water’s surface. It moved.

  I jumped into the water, bowline in hand. “Anna!”

  I drew close to her. She was sputtering. Arms moving. Thrashing. No focus. Face bobbing in the waves. Choked intake of water followed by gasps of air.

  I grabbed her from behind. Lifeguard carry.

  “I’ve got you, Anna. Take a deep breath. You’re safe. We’re going to get you into the dinghy. Here it is on your right. I’m putting your hand on the boat. Hold on. That’s it. Now your other hand. Good.”

  This time, Spot stayed in his spread-eagle sit.

  “Okay, Anna, grip hard while I get your foot over the edge. Left foot first. That’s it. Now hang onto the boat with your hands while I boost you up and over. Ready? Up we go.”

  I got my right hand under her hip while my left hand gripped the boat. I worried that the boat would tip enough that water would surge over the gunwale and sink the boat. So I gave my strongest kick as I pushed Anna up into the air like I was punching up a world-record shotput.

  Anna flopped into the boat. She coughed and choked and gagged. When she belted out a big crying wail, I knew she’d be okay.

  The ice water was sapping my strength, but I thought I could last another couple of minutes.

  I wrapped the bowline around my waist and knotted it, turned toward the north, and swam the woman and my dog toward the beach at the north end of the Rubicon cliffs.

  EPILOGUE

  Late that morning, Doc Lee came out of the ER to talk to Street and me in the waiting room.

  “Anna’s going to be okay. The wire cutter cut down to the bone on the sides of the finger, but the tendons on the top and bottom were spared.”

  Street shut her eyes and breathed hard.

  “The ring was really tight. But I had to take it off to stitch her up. Had to do the cold hand, warm ring, glycerin trick.”

  He handed it to me. “She said you might like to see it.”

  I nodded.

  “Interesting Chinese writing on it,” he said.

  “Could you make anything out?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Hanzi engraved in gold beats blurry writing on paper any day. The characters were on both the inside and outside of the ring. As best I can determine, it says, ‘As this ring came from rushing water, the source for its sisters is six paces from the Sky Palace toward calm water.’”

  Three nights later, we took a shovel, mallet, chisel, trowel, broom, bag of mortar, and a mixing box. Jennifer Salazar was out of town, but she let us borrow her new little runabout. The rain was cold and steady, but the wind was calm, so we took it straight across the lake to Emerald Bay. We had the nylon top up, but the center windshield panel was flipped open, and Spot stood in the rainy passageway between the two halves of the windshield. His front paws were up on the bow seat, rain-soaked head thrust up and forward like the carved bust on the prow of a square-rigger. Diamond sat in the Captain’s chair on the right side, piloting the boat with a stiffness appropriate to a guy who grew up in Mexico City and never set foot on a boat until he got a job with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department.

  Anna sat in the left seat on the other side of Spot. Street and I took up the rear bench seat. The chop was quiet. Diamond drove at half-throttle, just barely high enough to keep the boat on plane, which kept the engine roar low enough that we could talk in loud voices but without shouting.

  “This boat,” Anna said, “and that monster house where we borrowed it, who do they belong to?”

  “Young woman of substantial means,” Diamond said.

  Street told Anna how we’d met Jennifer Salazar a couple of years before, and how she came to have a huge fortune and practice a personal philanthropy from which my bad-guy pursuits occasionally benefited.

  Street continued, “Jennifer also called several of her friends and told them to put the word out about the cats that belonged to Nick and Melody. As a result, the people at the rescue shelter that picked them up from Nick's house think they'll find homes for all of them.”

  As we approached the entrance to Emerald Bay, Diamond dropped the throttle to the slowest forward speed. We idled our way through the narrow passage.

  Although the main campgrounds were closed for the coming winter season, there were several boats moored in the distance at the boat campground. While rain dampens how sound carries across water, it was critical that we didn’t draw any attention from people who might be on Emerald Bay, so we spoke in whispers. After we were through the narrow opening to the bay and away from the shallow rocks, Diamond turned off the running lights. Diamond had nothing but very dark clouds silhouetting even darker mountains to help him sense the shape of the bay.

  I reached into my pack and pulled out some bottles of water and passed them around.

  “What’s this for?” Street asked.

  “Fuel. We may have a long night in front of us.”

  “Great fuel,” Diamond said.

  “Not the water. The bread.”

  “You made more bread?” Street was raising her voice. “After your last debacle?”

  “Shhh. And it wasn’t a debacle. It was just a practice run.”

  “Street told me about it,” Diamond said. “Sounded like you developed a new kind of high-tech cement.”

  I pulled the bread out, passed it around and followed it with a camping tin that I’d loaded with sharp cheddar. Everyone broke off a piece of bread.

  “Oh, my God,” Street mumbled through a full mouth.

  “You scored, dude,” Diamond said.

  Anna turned to Street in the dark. “A man who bakes bread this good,” she said. “He must be a wizard in the kitchen.”

  Street started giggling. “Not quite the description I usually use,” she said.

  After twenty minutes of slow cruise, Fannette Island appeared out of the dark off our bow on the port side. I pointed at it, and Diamond nodded. Spot turned his head to stare. What looked like a tiny little bump from the highway up on the mountain above was a looming black butte seen from a little boat down on the lake.

  Diamond made a correction and we went by the island just fifty feet from its shore. The waves lapping against its granite perimeter were loud enough to hear over the sound of our idling motor.

  We beached on the wide swath of sand near where Eagle River entered the lake at the head of Emerald Bay. Diamond jumped over the bow, getting his feet wet in the shallow water. He tugged on the boat and pulled it far enough onto the beach that the rest of us were able to jump off onto rain-wet sand. While I ran a line up to a tree, Spot ran up and down the beach, eager to source all of the night smells that were enhanced by the rain.

  Back in the forest sat the Vikingsholm castle, its windows dark and ominous, its turret looking like a place to imprison medieval princess
es.

  I put my arms around Street and Anna. With Diamond across from us we made a loose huddle.

  I whispered. “At the back of the Vikingsholm, on the side away from the lake, are the original servant’s quarters. After Lora Knight gave the estate to the California Park System, they decided it made sense to have two or three employees sleep in those quarters rather than drive in and out every day. They may be asleep now. Or not. But if we are quiet, they might not hear us on the lake side.”

  All four of us were silent as we walked up the beach toward the forest where the Vikingsholm castle stood hulking under the black canopy of the giant Ponderosa pines and the mountains towering 3000 feet above us.

  I stood with my back to the castle door, took six paces toward the lake and stopped.

  “Your feet tingle?” Diamond whispered.

  Anna made a nervous giggle.

  I got out the mallet and cold chisel and began to cut the mortar joints around one of the granite slabs that made up the large entry patio. The clinking sound of chisel on mortar was loud. But I hoped it couldn’t be heard around the back side of the castle.

  Street had a penlight. By cupping her hand around its end, she was able to shine it now and then without spilling much light to the side. But most of the time, she turned it off for security, and I worked in the dark. I swung the mallet at the chisel by feel, missing my target almost as often as hitting it. The rain slicked the mallet surfaces so that even when I succeeded in hitting the chisel, the mallet often slid off and struck my chisel hand.

  After interminable pounding, I’d cut the mortar from the entire perimeter of the first big slab. Diamond and I got on one end, and Street and Anna each took a side. Anna could only work with one hand, but she was a strong woman, and her help was critical.

  We got our fingertips under the rock and with great effort tipped it up on end. Diamond and I rolled it like a great wheel ten feet away and leaned it against the castle wall.

  I picked up the shovel and began digging. The soil was sandy, and the shovel blade went in with relatively little effort. Three feet down, I stopped to breathe.

  “How deep do you think he would have buried it?” Street asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Maybe we should move sideways.”

  So I got down on my knees and went to work on the next slab, chiseling out its mortar perimeter. It was a bit smaller than the first and we four got it lifted and rolled out of the way like we’d been rolling granite for years.

  This time Diamond dug. He went down, then went sideways, so persistent and energetic that it was as if he thought that trying harder would make the concept of buried treasure materialize beneath our feet.

  “This patio could have been re-laid several times over the years,” Anna whispered in the dark. “Somebody with a backhoe might have found whatever was buried here. Or the total amount of money or gold might be no big deal. Like it could fit in a little pouch that we’d dig right past in the night without ever seeing it. We should have brought a metal detector. Why didn’t we bring a metal detector?”

  “I meant to,“ I said, “but I forgot.“

  “We even talked about it,” Diamond said.

  “I screwed up. Sorry.”

  Diamond’s shovel made a clink in the hole. “Got something,” he said.

  We all kneeled around the hole as he reached down and felt with his fingers. He worked at it for a bit and finally came up with a cobble. “False alarm.”

  We chiseled out another patio slab, and I dug for awhile. We’d excavated enough that I was able to take the dirt I was digging and toss it sideways to the other side of the growing hole. When I found nothing, we stopped to reconsider.

  “How much mortar can you make with that bag you brought?” Diamond asked.

  “Maybe enough to re-seat the slabs we’ve excavated plus one or two more.”

  “Then we should be thoughtful about which slab we take out next.”

  We all stood back and looked at the mess. Street shined her light for a moment. Multiple pieces of granite leaned up against the outside of the Vikingsholm. There was a huge hole in the middle of the patio and next to it, a big pile of dark, wet, muddy dirt.

  Street walked over to the grand front door.

  “When a Chinese American says six paces,” she said, “does he mean the same thing as a six-six Irish-Scottish American ex-cop who does everything on a large scale?”

  “I watched Owen pace,” Diamond said. “He was quite modest in his steps.”

  “Modest for Owen might be really large for Ming Sun,” Street said.

  Anna walked over. “I used to have a favorite Chinese restaurant. The owner was a second generation Chinese American and he walked about like this.” She walked with small steps.

  “Okay,” I said. “Do that from the front door.”

  Anna backed up to the door and took six small steps. She was a long way short of the hole we’d dug.

  “Let’s try digging there,” I said.

  I chiseled up another slab, and Diamond dug with energy.

  Five minutes later, we once again heard a sound that was different from digging sand. This time, it wasn’t a clink, but a chunk, and Diamond once again said, “Got something.”

  Diamond kneeled down and dug with his fingers, working his fingertips around the edges of the object. He pulled out a bag that was about the size of a quarter loaf of bread. He set it down.

  “It’s like heavy leather,” he said, “but hardened.”

  Anna felt it. “Like it was coated with pine pitch,” she said.

  “Something that bugs and bacteria can’t attack,” Street said.

  Street pointed her penlight at the top of the bag while Diamond worked at the tie. It crumbled apart in his hands. He pulled open the top. Street shined the light in the opening. Anna looked inside and gasped. “Shiny yellow powder! And a nugget! Unbelievable! I wonder what it’s worth.”

  Diamond hefted the bag. “Little bag, but it weighs about the same as a large bag of charcoal. Maybe twenty pounds.”

  “Last I heard, gold was selling for much more than a thousand dollars an ounce,” I said. “Could be a lot of money.”

  Diamond looked at me.

  “I’m just a private investigator,” I said. “You do the math.”

  “Sixteen ounces to a pound,” Diamond said. “At just a thousand per ounce it would mean sixteen thousand dollars a pound. Times twenty pounds is three hundred twenty thousand dollars.”

  “My God!” Anna shouted.

  “Shhh!” I said. “This is rightfully yours, but if you shout it to the world, someone’s gonna come, and the next thing you know the state of California will take it away from you. They will find some small print somewhere that suggests that because Lora Knight gave this land to the state, the gold belongs to the state.”

  Anna was waving her arms in the dark. “I can do so much with this! I can help those kids. I can start the Reach For The Sky school!”

  “I like the other name,” Diamond said. “The Kick Butt Tech School For Girls.”

  “Me too,” Street said.

  “We gotta put all this dirt back,” Diamond said. He started shoveling dirt back into the hole.

  “Wait,” Street said. “How do we know there isn’t more down there?”

  Diamond stopped. “That bag wasn’t full. Wouldn’t he have filled it if he had more gold?”

  “Yes,” Street said. “But only if he had just a little more. More than that, he might have started another bag so he didn’t stress the seams.”

  So Diamond dug some more and made another chunk with the shovel. The hole was deeper than before, so he lay down on the nearby slab and reached in with both arms and pulled out another bag.

  And another bag.

  And two more after that. Five bags. 100 pounds or more.

  We refilled the hole, jumped on the dirt to tamp it down, re-mortared the granite slabs into place, and used the broom to sweep away excess dirt. We succ
eeded mostly in making a muddy mess. When we were done, we brushed the loose dirt off the granite slabs and loaded the gold bags into Jennifer’s boat.

  I untied our line, and Diamond and I pushed the boat out into the water.

  As Diamond, Street and I turned to get into the boat, we realized that Anna and Spot were gone.

  We turned, peering through the dark night.

  Down the beach, where Eagle River emptied into Emerald Bay, was movement. Spot was easy to see in the sky-lit dark, his areas of white fur tracing circles and arcs, around and around in the sand.

  At the focal point of his loops was Anna. She ran through the rain with a galloping gate, cutting tight turns, doing a dance of leaps and sprints, then twirling like a little girl, her arms held high, reaching for the sky.

  About The Author

  Todd Borg lives with his wife in Lake Tahoe where they write and paint. To contact Todd or learn more about the Owen McKenna mysteries, please visit toddborg.com.

  Dear Reader,

  If you enjoyed this novel, please consider posting a short review on the website where you purchased the book. Reviews help authors a great deal, which enables them to continue to write stories.

  Thank you very much for your time, interest, and support!

  Todd

  Titles by Todd Borg:

  TAHOE DEATHFALL

  TAHOE BLOWUP

  TAHOE ICE GRAVE

  TAHOE KILLSHOT

  TAHOE SILENCE

  TAHOE AVALANCHE

  TAHOE NIGHT

  TAHOE HEAT

  TAHOE HIJACK

  This book is for Kit

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When I write mysteries, I inevitably stray into legal and law-enforcement territory about which I know little. Three people provided enormous help in this area.