Tahoe Ghost Boat (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller)

by Todd Borg

  At that moment, the woman I was holding stomped the top of my left foot. She twisted 90 degrees and tried to knee me in the crotch. The foot hurt, but she missed my crotch. She lurched to the side and tried to run.

  I held firm and twisted her back against the concrete wall.

  “You okay?” I said to Nadia.

  “I just hit... I’m sorry. Yes, I’m fine.”

  I pulled back on the other arm of the woman in black and hitched it over the first so that I could hold both of her slender hard wrists with one hand and keep her immobilized. I kept enough upward pressure on her wrists that her shoulder and elbow joints would be screaming and she wouldn’t be able to even think about kicking back or slamming her head back into my chest.

  She made no sound. Impressive.

  With my free hand, I reached around and pulled the weapon from her holster. It was one of the pocket Glocks, Model 26, a small but serious 9-millimeter weapon. It had a round chambered, common for those who concealed-carry. I gently slid it into my front pocket.

  “Gonna pat you down,” I said, assuming this woman would have experience. I continued to hold her arms with one hand as I reached down and around and satisfied myself that she didn’t have a back-up weapon more significant than a fingernail clipper. She squirmed, but I held her in a firm grip. I found a cell phone and car keys, and a leather wallet that was connected by a chain to her belt. I slipped the phone into my other pocket. I couldn’t get the wallet chain unhooked with one hand, so I reached around and unhooked her belt. I pulled the belt off and tossed it on the concrete some distance away. I caught the wallet and chain before it fell to the ground. I let go of her arms and stepped back.

  The woman turned around, rubbing her left shoulder.

  Up close, it was hard to imagine that I’d mistaken her for a man. But she had narrow hips for a woman, and her leather coat hung straight, disguising the curves beneath. She moved like a man, a hard, straight walk with no hip swing.

  She had thick, shiny, black hair cut off like broom bristles just below her earlobes. She glanced right and left, her hair swinging, a feral look in narrowed eyes. It was a look I knew well from my past life on the San Francisco PD. It said that she would try anything regardless of the bodily risk to her except for one condition. That condition was if she realized that she had no chance of escape.

  Without turning from the woman, I said, “Spot, c’mere.” I clicked my fingers and patted my thigh. He appeared at my side.

  I pointed at the woman and said, “Watch her.”

  He looked at her then looked up at me.

  “I know, I’ve never told you to watch a skinny woman before. But trust me, she’s a bad guy.”

  Spot wagged, but he watched the woman.

  “I’ve seen some hard women, but you’re not like most of them,” I said.

  “Yeah, I don’t go for girls,” she said.

  “A straight girl who kicks butt,” I said. “Who woulda thunk?”

  “Screw you,” she said.

  Without taking my eyes off the woman, I pulled her Glock from my pocket, released the magazine, and pulled the slide back to eject the round. I put the pieces back in my pocket.

  “What do you want with Nadia?” I said.

  “Who’s Nadia?”

  “The woman you’re following,” I said.

  “Not your business,” the woman said.

  “Yeah, it is. If you don’t want to talk, I’ll call Commander Mallory at the South Lake Tahoe PD and explain that I’ve got you and your sidearm, which I imagine will not be registered to you. What about a concealed carry permit? You got one of those?” I gestured out toward the highway and her Buick SUV. “Sweet ride, too. You must do well to afford that. Or did you borrow it?”

  She stared at me, her face unmoving.

  “Not good,” I said. “It won’t be hard to find your parole officer. You’ll be back inside as soon as they do the paperwork.”

  She thought about it, making a dismissive head-shake.

  “Nadia,” I called over my shoulder. “You better get your car before it gets towed. Call me later.”

  I heard the click of her heels as she hurried back out toward the gondola and the street beyond.

  I flipped open the woman’s wallet and pulled out the driver’s license. It was a California issue and said her name was Amanda Horner. The birth date put her age at 32.

  “Pretty good ID,” I said. “The photo is clear, but the bar code looks like it’s got Vaseline on it. And the stock isn’t stiff enough. Your boss needs to upgrade his provider.” I closed the wallet and put it in my pocket. “What’s your job?”

  She looked at me, thinking. If Spot weren’t at my side, I would have taken a step back to prepare for a surprise move. As it was, I stayed close, which maybe made my height more intimidating. But she seemed a hard case. Maybe nothing intimidated her outside of giant dogs with large teeth.

  “I was just supposed to follow her and report the time and her location,” she said. “I didn’t break no law. You give me my gear and let me go, I won’t tell my boss. You take my stuff, he’s gonna come after you.”

  It sounded like a calculated answer. But it could be true.

  “Consider me warned. Who do you work for?” I asked.

  She didn’t speak.

  “Answer my question or I call Mallory,” I said.

  She gave me the hard look of someone who’d grown up in juvie.

  “I don’t know his name,” she said.

  “How do you get assigned your jobs?”

  She hesitated. “Email.”

  “What’s the address it comes from?”

  “A Hotmail account. Some letters and numbers. I could never remember it.”

  “How do you report your progress?”

  “Email.”

  “How do you get paid?”

  “Cash drop on designated days,” she said. No hesitation now. “Three in the morning. Location changes each time.”

  “Where?”

  “Sacramento.”

  “How does it work?”

  “He puts my pay in trash cans. I wear old clothes, make like I’m homeless. Dig it out.”

  I pulled out the woman’s phone. “I can call your friends. Someone will know how to reach him.”

  “It’s got a pass-code lock,” she said.

  “That’s no problem for law enforcement,” I lied. “The carriers give them a universal digital key. He’s probably called you. After we unlock it, I’ll try getting him on callback.”

  “You don’t want to do that,” she said. “He’ll kill me. You too.” Her voice betrayed fear.

  “You say it like you believe it,” I said. “How would you know that? You said you don’t know who your boss is.”

  “I been around. I can tell he’s connected.”

  “You mean the Mob?”

  She didn’t answer. Her eyes flicked left and right. I wondered if she had a comrade sneaking up on me. I stepped to the side, put my back to the wall next to her. Spot was still in front of her.

  “If you don’t know him, how did he find you in the first place?”

  “I’ve worked for him in the past. Way back. A guy he knew contacted a guy I knew. I do easy jobs for him. No laws to break. He pays regular. It went on from there. I haven’t broken any laws.”

  “Including the piece without the permit?”

  “Except that,” she said. “Anyway, I’m from Nevada.”

  “What’s that got to do with it? You think carrying is a residency requirement for Nevada? Even for ex-cons with California licenses?”

  “Practically,” she said.

  A jacked-up pickup pulled into the garage and came near us. Loud music with a booming bass beat came from open windows and throbbed in the confines of the parking garage.

  “HELP ME!” Amanda shouted. “RAPE!”

  The truck jerked to a stop. Both doors opened and two young men, thick with muscles under tight T-shirts, got out. They looked eager to be h
eroes. They looked at Spot, glanced over at the woman and me, looked back at Spot.

  “Easy,” I said as both guys came close to me and the woman. Their arms hung out from their sides, pushed there by bulging beef. “I’m Detective Owen McKenna. I’m apprehending a sus...”

  The woman bolted so fast that dirt shot back from her shoes as she sprinted away.

  One of the guys took a step forward so that he could grab me if I chased her.

  I thought of sending Spot after her, but that would be excessive.

  “Interfering with a law officer is a crime,” I said.

  “You want us to believe she’s some kind of bad-ass? She’s just a girl.”

  “Git,” I said, “before I call backup.”

  Moving slowly, they got back into their pickup and drove up the ramp.

  I walked to the opening that led to the plaza. Down on the boulevard, a flatbed tow truck was just pulling out with the woman’s Buick SUV on it. The woman who pretended to be, or maybe even was, Amanda Horner was nowhere to be seen. Maybe I could sprint around, check the women’s restrooms, ask passersby if they’d seen her. But my experience suggested that I wouldn’t find her. She’d probably had a lot of experience evading cops.

  THREE

  I took Spot out of the parking garage and over to a bench near the gondola. A small patch of low winter sun came through. Spot stood broadside to the hot sun, and looked at me. His faux diamond ear stud sparkled. I sat on a bench. People in ski suits stopped to hug him. Mostly women. They didn’t hug me.

  I turned on Amanda’s phone and looked at the pass-code screen. It looked very locked.

  I turned it off. Spot looked at me, his brow furrowed.

  “What?” I said.

  He shook his head, jowls flapping. Saliva flew. A woman who’d just hugged him wiped her cheek.

  Spot shifted next to the end of the bench where I was sitting and leaned against my side. A woman with huge purple goggles over her eyes was heading toward the gondola. She stopped a safe distance away, pointed, and said, “Did he hurt his foot?”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “He’s leaning on you.”

  “Oh. Danes do that.”

  She stared some more, then headed into the gondola.

  I stared again at Amanda’s phone, wishing I knew a twenty-year-old geek who could hack it, when it rang.

  The display said the number was blocked. But there was an answer button. Apparently, you could receive calls even when the phone was locked. I tapped the button.

  “Hello?” I said.

  There was no response from the other end. Maybe I heard faint breathing.

  Spot leaned harder. Why carry your entire weight when you can get someone else to support part of the burden.

  I spoke into the silent cell phone. “I picked up Amanda Horner while she was following Nadia Lassitor. Amanda’s pretty good, so don’t blame her for getting caught. She told me all about her jobs and your pay system in Sacramento trash cans. Are you the pay master?”

  There was no response. Maybe I could provoke one.

  “Pretty stupid, hiring a tail who is sloppy. Not only do I have her phone, I have her wallet and ID and keys. Oh yeah, she had this neat little pocket Glock that is now mine. Of course, I’ll give all this to Commander Mallory, SLT PD.”

  The phone still had an open-air sound in my ear. The person on the other end hadn’t yet hung up.

  “If you want to meet, I’d be willing to sell this phone back to you,” I said. Still no response. “Of course, it won’t be cheap. If you don’t want to meet, I turn Amanda in along with this phone and the Glock. Incidentally, you should know that they’re pretty good these days with cell phone forensics. If you don’t talk to me, maybe you can look forward to a visit from the FBI or whatever law agency you’d like to ignore you.”

  “You’re gonna die, McKenna,” a man with a deep voice mumbled, then hung up.

  It was a pompous statement, but that didn’t make it untrue. It corroborated what Amanda already said. The fact that the caller knew my name was McKenna when I hadn’t told him gave his threat some gravitas. Not that there was much I could do about it. It was unlikely that I could find her without a lot of work. It was also unlikely that her real name was Amanda Horner. It would be more difficult to find the man who called. His voice had some kind of accent that I couldn’t place.

  I had seen the name of the local company that towed her vehicle. I gave them a call.

  “I saw one of your guys tow a black Buick SUV at Heavenly Village a few minutes ago,” I said to the guy who answered. “I’ve got a friend with a car like that. I tried to reach her to ask if it was hers, but haven’t been able to get through. I wonder if you can tell me the plate. I’ll recognize the number if it’s hers. It’ll speed up the recovery time, and you’ll get paid faster.”

  “Hold on,” he said. I waited. He came back and read off the number. I wrote it down.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll call my friend and double check.”

  “Tell her it’ll be at the city impound lot out by the airport. Tell her to bring some bank ’cause the fees have gone up.”

  We hung up. I dialed SLT PD and asked for Commander Mallory. He was unavailable.

  “Maybe you can help me,” I said to the woman who answered. “This is Owen McKenna.”

  “The private cop.” The woman said it with a judgmental tone.

  “I’m at Heavenly Village,” I said. “A woman just pulled a Glock Twenty-six on me. I relieved her of it. Her driver’s license says Amanda Horner. She doesn’t have a carry permit, her ID looks fake, and the gun is probably stolen. She got out of a black Buick SUV that was just towed out of the bus stop. I have the plate for you. My guess is it’s stolen. I’m hoping you can check on that.” I read off the plate number.

  “Hold on,” the woman said.

  I waited on hold for five minutes. From all directions, skiers streamed toward the gondola station. When people stopped to pet Spot, he sniffed at their backpacks, no doubt determining what kind of lunch they carried. Periodically, he wagged. I’m pretty sure that meant roast beef.

  The phone line clicked.

  “McKenna? Mallory. Just got in. Edith said you gave her the plate off a Buick? It was taken at a gas station in San Rafael last evening.”

  “Like I figured,” I said. “I’ll swing by and turn in the thief’s sidearm and fake ID.”

  “Maybe turn in the thief, too?”

  “Wish I could. She saw an opportunity to claim I was assaulting her, and two young guys intervened, allowing her to run away.”

  “She,” he said, his voice flat.

  “ID says Amanda Horner,” I said. “I assume it isn’t her real name.”

  “You let a woman get away.”

  “I could have sent Spot after her, but he’s reluctant to chase down women.”

  “Obviously takes after you,” Mallory said. “Then again, maybe you figured you weren’t fast enough to catch her.”

  “Probably true,” I said.

  “I’ll be here if you swing by soon.”

  Ten minutes later, I parked at the police department on Johnson. I told Spot to be good, walked in, and asked for Mallory. He came out holding a can of Coke, switched it to his left hand so he could give me the shake that could crush river cobbles. He took me to his office. I gave him the gun, its magazine, the cell phone, and the woman’s ID. He set them all on his desk, then pointed to the gun.

  “Did you check this for prints?”

  “I was kinda busy removing it from the wannabe shooter. She wasn’t wearing gloves, so it probably has prints. But they’ll be mostly covered up by mine.”

  Mallory picked up Amanda’s driver’s license.

  “Photo look like her?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “She certainly doesn’t look like most car thieves,” he said. “You got any idea if this woman is working solo or if she hires out?”

  “The woman said she has a bo
ss and that messing with him was going to get her and me both killed. After she ran, the phone rang. I talked awhile with no reply. Eventually, a guy spoke, and he knew my name. He mumbled and had a bit of an accent. I’ve been trying to think of where it was from. It seemed like Russian mixed with the way they talked in the movie “Fargo.” He repeated what Amanda Horner said. That I was gonna get dead.”

  “You think it was bluster?” Mallory asked.

  “Hard to say. The woman also said that she thought her boss was connected.”

  “The Russian Mob has moved to Fargo?” Mallory said. “I’ve heard stranger. Either way, he might be serious about killing you.”

  “I’ll try to stay alert,” I said.

  “How’d you get involved in this gig?”

  I told him about the call from Nadia Lassitor, how she said she was being followed, and how she led her tail to me in the Heavenly Village ramp.

  Mallory sipped the last of his Coke, making a slurping noise. With his left hand, he tossed the empty can into a waste basket as he reached his right hand into a mini fridge and pulled out another and popped the top.

  “You’re like a smoker who lights a new cig off an old butt.”

  “All that new info about sugar being bad,” he said, “makes me crave it that much more. This lady you’re working for, do you know about her husband?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “That’s the name of the guy who drowned in Hurricane Bay last week,” Mallory said. “His name is Ian Lassitor.”

  I thought about it. “Hurricane Bay is West Shore, right?”

  “It’s the one that isn’t on most maps. The first bay south of the one with the Sunnyside restaurant.”

  “This guy was swimming?” I said, trying but failing to pull up a memory.

  “Boating. He was wearing all his clothes along with a flotation vest. He was attached, more or less, to the front half of his boat. The rear part was missing. From what Sergeant Santiago of Placer County told me, it looks like he was struck by another boat. But that boat is nowhere to be found. Maybe it sank. There were no witnesses.” Mallory drank Coke and then pointed at the pocket Glock. “You gonna pursue this thing with Lassitor’s wife? Because I’d like to be in the loop on anything that connects all this to South Lake Tahoe.”