by Todd Borg
“Have you ever noticed anyone over there?”
Gower shook his head. “But I should add that I don’t look out those windows very often.”
“What about lights? Can you see light from any of Lassitor’s windows?”
“No. The few windows he has are small, and my filtered view is mostly of the drive.”
“Would you see the lights of a car pulling in or out of the drive?”
“Yes. Sometimes when I’d be near those upstairs windows, I’d notice Lassitor or one of his visitors coming or going.”
“You haven’t noticed any vehicle since he died?”
Gower shook his head.
“Do you think that Lassitor might have a light on a timer? Something that turns on at night to make it look like someone is home?”
“I never noticed any when I’ve been over there. But I never looked for one, either. Do you have reason to think that someone has been to his house?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m trying to be thorough. I’ve learned that he made some enemies in business.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Gower said.
“Do you leave lights on at your house when you go to bed?”
Gower frowned and shook his head. “I have no outside lights on at night. I don’t want to add to light pollution. One of the nice things about Tahoe is that it is relatively dark. You can see the stars. Why do you ask?”
“It occurred to me that if some of the other people in the neighborhood ever saw a light from this direction, it might help to know that it didn’t come from your house.”
Gower nodded. “If you’re concerned that someone is going into Lassitor’s house, you could go over and check it again. Then you could look for timers at the same time. Would you like the key? I can’t imagine that anyone would care.”
“Yes, I’d appreciate that. It would answer the question.”
Gower fetched the key and handed it to me along with a piece of paper with numbers written on it. “Here’s the alarm code. I can’t imagine that I’m violating anything by giving it to you. I just don’t feel up to going out into the winter weather today.”
“I’ll only be a few minutes.”
He nodded, and I left.
The stone castle was exactly as we’d left it the day before. Dark and cold and heavy, the opposite of a cozy Lake Tahoe getaway. I made a quick circuit of all the rooms, looking at all the lamps to see if any of them were on timers. I also paid attention to all of the windows. There were only three that faced toward the old woman’s cabin, and from them I could only see trees.
I also opened desk drawers, kitchen cabinets, and closets. I found nothing interesting.
Back at Gower’s, I handed him the key.
“Thanks,” I said. “No light timers that I could see.”
“I’m curious why you and Santiago are even interested in the house? Not that it’s any of my business, of course.”
“Lassitor had an insurance policy,” I said. “That always motivates questions in an unusual death.”
Gower made a big nod. “Ah, now I get it. Perhaps it’s possible that the death wasn’t as accidental as it looked.” Gower made just a touch of a grin. “Your job may be more interesting than I first thought.”
I thanked Gower and left.
TWENTY-NINE
I drove clockwise around the lake, not stopping at my cabin but continuing on to my office on the South Shore. Eager to be out of the Jeep, Spot trotted up the office stairs.
I hadn’t checked my email in a while, so I brought it up on my laptop. It looked like mostly junk mail. I scanned the subject lines and checked all of the spam. I was about to click on purge when I paused.
One of the subject lines was A Photo You Should Know About.
It seemed like a classic junk mail teaser. I didn’t recognize the sender. But something made me uncheck it before I deleted the others.
I went back and opened the email.
It had no photo, just a link followed by a short message.
I didn’t recognize the link, so that reinforced my spam sense. Almost as a reflex, I again went to delete it. Then paused again.
No harm in reading the message.
‘I found your email online. I saw a photo Gertie posted. It said your name. It said you were a private detective. Maybe this isn’t the right Owen McKenna. But you might want to know that Gertie didn’t run away like people at school think. If you want to text me, here’s my number. You could even call.’
I clicked on the link. It took me to a website where people post photos. The page loaded with my photo in the center. I was walking across the street, facing the camera. I recognized the area. It was Gertie’s neighborhood. She must have taken it with her phone as I approached her house. On the sides of the photo were soft, white lines. The window drapes. She’d seen me coming.
Under the photo it said, ‘A man came to visit. He said his name was Owen McKenna and he was a private detective looking to protect me from the big, bad wolf. Like Scruff Boy couldn’t do the job? He was sent by my weird mom. First time she ever cared about me!’
I went back to the email with the phone number.
I dialed. It rang five times, then went to voicemail.
A girl’s voice said, “Hey, Emily here. I’m all busy with Justin Timberlake right now. Probably will be all night. Text me. Maybe I’ll text you back.”
It beeped.
“Emily, this is Owen McKenna calling. I got your email about Gertie. Please give me a call right away. This is very important.”
I left my number twice and hung up.
Five minutes later, my phone rang.
“Owen McKenna,” I said.
“This is Emily.” The voice was so soft, it took me a moment to figure out what she said.
“You’re a friend of Gertie’s,” I said.
“Yeah. Something’s wrong. Gertie hasn’t texted or tweeted. She always tweets what she’s doing. I’m, like, her only follower, so I pay attention. I feel like it’s my responsibility to be a friend to her. I haven’t heard from her since she tweeted that a detective had come by and to check out the guy’s photo. So I went to the website and saw your picture and what she wrote.”
The girl must have been nervous. Or scared. I could hear her fast breathing.
“I thought about it for the last three days,” Emily said. “When she still hadn’t texted or tweeted, I knew something must have happened. So I Googled your name and found your contact email.”
“Thanks for getting in touch with me. I’m sorry to tell you this, Emily, but Gertie’s been kidnapped.”
She gasped. “You haven’t found her?”
“No. We have no clues about where she is. Do you have any idea of how it happened?”
Emily was quiet for a bit before she spoke. “Well, it’s a pretty out-there idea, but maybe she went with the other man.”
“What’s that mean, the other man?”
“The other guy she posted. The other photo.”
“Is there a way for me to see that photo?” I said.
“’Course. It was the last one she posted. Right above yours. Just scroll up.”
I went back to the photo website and scrolled up on my computer. Another photo came into view above mine. It was of a big guy, buzz-cut dark hair, heavy brow that obscured his eye color. He wore a brown bomber jacket that rose at an angle from his shoulders to his neck, lifted by thick webs of muscles. He had on faded jeans and running shoes. The man was smiling, but it looked to my jaded eyes like the fake grin of a predator. Like that of the Dock Artist. I looked at the photo, trying to see the Dock Artist in the face. It was a possibility. But not a certainty.
To the sides of the photo were the same white curtains as in the photo of me.
Under the photo it said, ‘This could be the wolf the detective told me about, ha, ha. But he’s a hunk, that’s for sure.’
“It looks like she took this photo from the same place as mine,” I said. “Looking out
her living room windows.”
“‘Course,” Emily said. “I recognize the neighbors’ cars.”
“All of them?”
“All the cars, yeah. But not the van. That must be the man’s.”
Behind the man, at the left side of the photo was part of a white cargo van facing out of the picture. It looked like a standard, generic cargo van. Just like the one that belonged to the Dock Artist. Just like the one that was in the convenience store security tape. Just like tens of thousands of other white cargo vans.
“Have you ever seen that van before?” I asked.
“Na, uh.”
“Do you think Gertie may have willingly gone with the man in the photo?”
“Well, it would be unlikely. Gertie likes to make others think she’s kind of reckless. But she’s pretty much a quiet kid who lives low.”
“What’s that mean, lives low?”
“She stays out of the light. Away from attention. Partly, she’s kind of embarrassed about her cleft lip scar. Maybe you noticed. Other kids sometimes make fun of it. They call her ‘Lip.’ She acts like it doesn’t bother her. But inside, she’s real sensitive about what people think. Anyway, that man would need a real good story to convince her to go someplace with him.”
“Is it possible she knew him?”
“I don’t think so. She would have mentioned it. She would have already posted his picture before. She tweets about all of her postings. I’ve seen every picture. So I don’t think she knows him. Do you think he’s the one who kidnapped her?” Emily’s voice was shaky-worried.
“I’m not thinking anything, yet,” I said. “I’m just wondering the same things you are. Did you tell the police about this photo?”
“I thought you were a detective. I just told you.”
“I mean the Sacramento police.”
“No. I... I wouldn’t know how. What would I do? Would I dial nine-one-one? Would they investigate me? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’ll call them. And no, they wouldn’t investigate you. But they will ask you questions just like I did.”
“That sounds kinda scary.”
“It isn’t. If they contact you, just tell them what you told me. You know Gertie pretty well?”
“I’m her best friend. But it’s not like we’re real close. I should probably say I’m her only friend. We stay pretty – I don’t know what word to use – casual. It’s not like she confides her secrets.”
“Who would she tell them to?”
“Nobody. That’s the thing about Gertie. She’s self-contained. Even if she has something burning her up inside, she’s the only one who’s ever going to know.”
“Is there anyone else I could call who knows Gertie well?”
“Nobody knows Gertie well. All she cares about is movies. It’s her escape from the real world. That’s why she’s going to be a director. So she can live in that made-up world.”
“Right,” I said. “Can I call you back if I have any more questions?”
“Yeah. But it’s better if you text. I don’t always take calls.”
“Thanks for contacting me,” I said. “I hope we talk again.”
“Okay. Bye.”
I was about to hang up when she said, “Oh, Mr. McKenna?”
“Yeah?”
“Something else you should know? Gertie’s not a slut.”
The statement made me pause. “Why do you say that?”
“You saw how Gertie wrote that the other man was hunky, and I just wanted you to know that she wouldn’t hook up with him or anything like that. Gertie’s got good dreams.”
“What’s that mean?” I said.
“It’s what Gertie and I say when someone isn’t, like, after bad stuff. I don’t know how old people would say it. What Gertie wants is all about good stuff. Some kids want to drink and do drugs and get in trouble and back-stab their friends with gossip. Gertie just wants to make movies. She says a movie is telling a story with a camera. She has this video app on her phone, and she showed me a little movie she made. It was good. She’s got good dreams.”
“Thanks, Emily. I appreciate that.”
I hung up.
I called Agent Ramos and told him about Gertie’s friend Emily and the photo she’d seen.
“I’ll forward the link to you,” I said. “The photo that Gertie posted on the website shows a man who vaguely looks like the kid pic you showed us of Mikhailo, although that’s a reach.”
“Does it look like the Dock Artist man you told me about?”
“Yeah. Kinda.”
“Is that a precise legal term?” Ramos said.
“Kinda. Also, the background of the photo shows a white cargo van on the street behind the man who may or may not be Mikhailo or Dan the Dock Artist.”
“I’ll check it out,” Ramos said.
“Because this case is Tahoe-centric, whoever grabbed Gertie may have brought her to Tahoe. I’d also like to disseminate this information to local businesses with a request for no public posting or Amber Alert. I’m worried that the perpetrator would see such a posting and flee. But if we keep it private, he has no reason to think we know about his van behind his picture on the website. Because Tahoe is small, I think the advantages to not posting an alert out-weigh the disadvantages. I’d like your permission on that.”
“I don’t believe you need my permission.”
“Agreement, then,” I said.
I heard Ramos breathing. I don’t think it was frustration, just thinking. “It is true that Amber Alerts can send a kidnapper into hiding and impede an investigation. It’s a hard call. I think your idea of a partial notice, just to Tahoe businesses with a request for privacy, is a good compromise in this situation.”
“Thanks. I’ll get this over to you as soon as possible.”
We hung up.
I got Sergeants Diamond and Santiago and Commander Mallory on the phone in a conference call and gave the same information to them.
Then I emailed Emily’s link to all three of them.
THIRTY
The time was 4 p.m., still some time left before businesses closed.
I’m the opposite of tech-fluent, but I brought up the image program on my computer and struggled for a long time. Eventually, I created a graphics file and managed to paste the picture of the man and the white van. Underneath I typed my flyer message.
KIDNAPPING ALERT
PLEASE DO NOT POST THIS
ONLINE OR ON ANY PUBLIC FORUM
LAW ENFORCEMENT – PLEASE NO AMBER ALERT
15-year-old Sacramento resident Gertie O’Leary has been abducted. Indications are that she may be held in the Tahoe area. Suspect pictured above is believed to be driving a white cargo van. Suspect may be watching the news and Amber Alert notifications. If he sees this information, he will flee. If you see a suspicious, white cargo van, please call or email Detective Owen McKenna, Douglas County Sergeant Martinez, Placer County Sergeant Santiago, SLT Commander Mallory, or FBI Special Agent Ramos ASAP. Thank you very much for your help.
I put contact info at the bottom of the flyer.
I dialed the Stateline Chamber of Commerce.
“This is Detective Owen McKenna,” I said when a young man answered. “FBI Special Agent Ramos and I are sending you a notice about a kidnapped child. As the notice explains, it is important that this doesn’t result in an Amber Alert because we believe the kidnapper will see it and go into hiding. I would like to email this to you and have you send it to your membership immediately. Can you do that?”
“I’ll have to check it with our director, but I imagine we can do that.”
“What email address should I send this to?”
He gave it to me. I thanked him and hung up.
I repeated the call to the South Lake Tahoe Chamber, the North Lake Tahoe Chamber, and the Truckee Chamber of Commerce.
They all cooperated, and I had the flyer emailed to them before 5 p.m. With luck, most of the businesses in the Tahoe-Truckee area wou
ld be on the lookout for white cargo vans within the next day.
On my way home, I stopped by Street’s lab once again and told her of the developments.
While the news that we now had a photo of the suspect gave her hope, the seriousness of the situation seemed to make her even more upset.
“Would you like to come up to my cabin for dinner? Make the evening a little better? It’s already getting dark. Time to call it a day?”
“I’d love to,” she said. “But I’m sorry. The lobbyist the beekeeping trade group hired needs my results tomorrow. I’ve still got a lot to do on my toxicology report.”
So I kissed her goodnight, left her with her honeybees, and headed home with Spot.
After I parked in front of my cabin, I got out, shut my door, and turned to open the back door and let Spot out. He barked and growled. It took me a long half-second to realize it was a warning, a half-second too long. I never got the door open.
A guy with the size and speed and strength of an NFL tackle came out of the dark at a run and hit me, his shoulder to my middle, one arm wrapped around my waist. He drove me back toward my log cabin as if I weighed ten pounds. A dump truck would’ve had more trouble moving me.
My ribs hit the outside corner of the cabin a fraction of a second before my right temple bounced off the end of one of the protruding logs. I went down, my mental world immediately darker than the Tahoe night.
THIRTY-ONE
I became vaguely aware of someone holding my wrists inside-to-inside in front of me and then taping them. The tearing tape sounded like duct tape. It could be torn edge-to-edge, but it couldn’t be broken by pulling. With multiple loops, the tensile strength was probably thousands of pounds. My lower arms were next. My shirt sleeves were pulled up, my elbows squeezed together, and tape was pulled around my lower arms in a spiral from wrists to elbows. Even though my fingers were free, my forearms and palms were held so tightly together that I was unable to do anything.
Next came my ankles. Then a piece of tape over my mouth. Despite the darkness, he put a cloth bag over my head and tied it tight at the back of my head. The fabric was so heavy that I wouldn’t be able to grip the edge of the tape through it, even though my fingers were free. There was movement at my wrists, the hot burn of a rope being yanked over wrist bones and then knotted.