Tahoe Ghost Boat (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller)

by Todd Borg

  “I can now say with some expertise that it is not a good time,” I said.

  “Maybe why Mexico City is located where it is,” he said. “A sane climate helps keep people acting sane.” He paused. “Same guys who dropped Amanda in the drink?”

  “Yeah.”

  Diamond reached out and touched my wrists. “They hang you by your wrists before they dropped you in the drink?”

  “From a boat. Drove the boat a little with me dragging behind. The tire weight tied to my ankles made it more exciting.”

  The sauna door was open a few inches, letting cold air in. Diamond was standing next to it. He reached over and shut the door.

  I pointed to a thermometer on the wall. “It’s still ninety degrees in here.”

  “Perfect,” Diamond said. “In Mexico City, my mother turns on the heat when it gets down to ninety. You think those guys know that their plan for you didn’t work out?”

  “If they did, they would have caved my head in and then dropped me in the lake again.”

  “Your Jeep here near the beach?”

  “No. Those men were gracious enough to give me a ride all the way from my cabin. Spot is probably still shut inside the Jeep at my cabin.”

  “I’ll give you a ride. Maybe I should bring you to the hospital for a quick check?”

  I shook my head. “Spot is waiting.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  My Jeep was still in my drive and Spot was still in the Jeep. Cold and no doubt miserable, but very happy to have me let him out. He jumped all over me.

  Because the men had taken all my pocket contents, I had no keys. But I found my hidden house key.

  Diamond came inside with us.

  “You gonna be okay?”

  “Yeah, as long as I don’t walk outside and leave Spot inside, or close him inside the Jeep. He and I are going to be real tight for the foreseeable future.” I remembered my arm. “Oh, one more thing,” I said. “Denell or one of the others pulled off the duct tape that was holding my arms together.”

  I lifted up my left sleeve and showed Diamond my arm.

  “The American Dream,” he said. “You tell Ramos, yet?”’

  “Maybe you could do the honors,” I said.

  He nodded. “Those men will find out that you are alive. They could have been in the area as we pulled up. They might already be planning a more permanent repeat performance.”

  “I’ll be fine. You can go.”

  Diamond hesitated.

  “Thank Denell and your other guys for saving my ass.”

  “Will do,” Diamond said. He left.

  I noticed my answering machine was blinking. It was Street saying she hoped I was okay and that she’d try again in the morning.

  I built a hot fire in the wood stove, drank of couple of Sierra Nevada Pale Ales, and went to bed.

  I dreamed that I was cast to the bottom of the icy lake and had to hold my breath for eternity.

  Dawn came three hours later, and I was up an hour after that, happy to leave my nightmares behind.

  I called Street and gave her the basics of the assault without sharing the worst details.

  She was worried and upset and stressed, and she said all the right things to be soothing and comforting. She made me promise to be more careful.

  I made a hot breakfast and ate it sitting in the rocker, pulled up close to the wood stove. Then I poured another cup of coffee, nuked it until it was boiling, and drank it while again sitting close to the fire. I took Spot out for a walk, a short one because the cold air bothered me.

  Back inside, I put more wood in the stove, stared at the flames through the glass, and appreciated the burning sensation as my jeans seared my legs.

  Through it all I imagined where Gertie was and what she was doing. My imagination can go very dark, and every thought about Gertie was black with foreboding. I’d experienced what Mikhailo – if it really was Mikhailo – could do. I sensed his sadistic pleasure at my torture. The idea that he may be holding Gertie was both nauseating and terrifying.

  After an hour of cooking myself with wood stove heat and miserable thoughts, I found my spare key ring. Spot and I got back into the Jeep and headed north around the lake to the old lady’s cabin.

  This time, as I pulled up, her cabin looked haunted. Maybe it was her previous comments on Satan and evil. Maybe I just hadn’t noticed before.

  As before, when I knocked on the woman’s door, she didn’t answer. There was no indication that she was home. No visible lights on inside, no sounds of TV or radio.

  The last time, she opened the door after I spoke for many minutes.

  “Hello, it’s Owen McKenna again,” I said toward the door, loud enough that she would likely hear it inside. If she was inside.

  “You were so helpful to me the last time,” I continued, “that I wanted to stop back and thank you. I checked Ian Lassitor’s house for the light you mentioned, but I couldn’t find any timer. I also asked Gower if he had any lights that go on at night, and he said no. I really appreciated your help. I don’t know how this case will shake out, but I think your input will make a difference. I wanted to check back and see if you’ve noticed anything else. We still haven’t found Gertie, but we think the person who kidnapped her may be driving a white cargo van. I wondered...”

  I heard the deadbolt turn, then the doorknob. The door opened a few inches. The woman peered out. Her hair was even wilder than before. It would require dipping in motor oil to brush out the snarls.

  She didn’t speak. So I spoke as if she’d said hello and asked how she could help me.

  “When I talked to you before, I asked if there was anything you’d noticed that was strange. You said that, mostly, what was strange was a light that comes on at odd hours.”

  She nodded. “Satan’s disguise,” she said.

  “I wondered if you’ve seen other strange things besides the light.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Nothing else is unusual about the Lassitor house?” I said.

  “Lots of things are unusual.”

  Her circuitous way of speaking frustrated me. “But you just said that you’ve seen nothing else unusual.”

  “That’s true. But I’ve heard things.”

  Immediately, I realized that despite her strangeness, it was me who was frustrating her. If I’d been listening carefully, I wouldn’t have been confused. “I’m sorry. You’re right. The light is the only strange thing you’ve seen. What have you heard?”

  She looked behind me to one side, then to the other, as if checking to see that no one had sneaked up to listen.

  In a quiet voice, almost a whisper, she said, “The ghost boat.”

  “What’s a ghost boat?” I asked, using a low voice myself.

  “The ghost of a dead boat,” she said.

  “You mean... a boat that has sunk?”

  She nodded. “A boat spirit.”

  “Is it like the golden light that you said was a fallen angel?”

  She shook her head. Very serious. “That was Lucifer. This is different. The Bible says that dead people can’t come back as spirits. But the ghosts of dead boats come back to haunt those who sank them. It is a crime against the oceans to build a boat, give her a name, then cast her to the bottom forever.”

  “And you’ve heard these ghost boats?” I asked.

  Her eyes grew intense. “Every night. A low moaning.”

  “Where does the sound come from?”

  She raised her arm and pointed to the south. Then she swung her arm in a slow, dramatic sweep toward the north, her long index finger just missing my chest.

  “The sound goes from south to north,” I said.

  “Then back,” she said. “Over and over.”

  “Can other people hear it?” I asked, aware that she might be insulted by the question.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is there any light on these boats?”

  She shook her head. “Ghost boats don’t have lig
hts.”

  “Is there more than one ghost boat?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see it. I hear it. If it stopped and then started, would it be the same boat? Or two boats?”

  “Right,” I said. “Do you have an idea where it comes from or where it goes?”

  “It’s on patrol. That’s what ghosts do.”

  “They patrol.”

  She nodded.

  “The sound you hear, is it like a typical boat motor?”

  She seemed to think about it. “Softer.”

  “Could it be a boat going slow?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you heard the difference between an outboard and an inboard? Could you guess which one it is?”

  She shook her head. “Ghost boats have their own kind of motor.”

  “Oh.” I wanted to change the subject. “I also visited Craig Gower again,” I said. “I think his paralysis seems pretty real.”

  She nodded.

  “But you thought he was faking it,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Maybe not,” she said.

  “You seemed pretty sure before. You acted like he was evil.”

  “I don’t think that now.”

  “Why? Did something happen to change your mind?”

  “When I was a little girl, my uncle had a wheelchair. He was evil.”

  “And that affected how you thought of your neighbor?”

  She shrugged.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I thanked the woman and headed home. That evening as twilight descended and I was stressing about Gertie, my phone rang.

  “Owen McKenna,” I said.

  “Oh, hi.” A high-pitched man’s voice. Tentative. He spoke softly, almost a whisper. “I’m calling because we got an email from the Chamber of Commerce about a missing girl in a white cargo van? Well, I’m in Homewood. We run one of the cafés here? Anyway, a white cargo van pulled off the road into our lot. It’s got a flat tire. Three men got out. From where I’m standing, I can see that they’re working on getting the jack set up. But what’s funny is there’s a utility light near our door. Yet they didn’t park near it. Instead, they parked in the corner of the lot, away from everyone else. So they’re working in the dark. That got me to thinking. What if they had that girl that’s on the email flyer? And what if she’s, you know, tied up in the van or something? They wouldn’t want anyone to hear her, right? So they might park like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the girl is there, or anything. I’m just saying it’s possible, right? So I thought I’d call and let you know.”

  “What’s your address?”

  He gave me the number and then said, “Oh, I better go. One of the men is coming across the parking lot toward the café. Maybe he wants takeout coffee or something.”

  “I’ll be over. Try to delay them any way you can, as long as possible. I’m an hour away. Can you keep them that long?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Thanks much,” I said, and hung up.

  “C’mon, Spot. We’re not having any dinner just yet.”

  I drove around the lake to Homewood. Homewood sits just south of Hurricane Bay. It, too, is in Placer County, so I put in a call to Santiago to ask if he could send a patrol unit over to check out the van. I got his voicemail. I left a message, then dialed the sheriff’s office. As I expected, I got a recording stating the office hours and saying that if I had an emergency, I should call 911.

  With no other options, I called 911 and told the dispatcher who I was and why I was calling.

  “It’s not necessarily an emergency and I’ve got nothing but a white cargo van and a report of unusual parking while they change a flat tire, but if you could send a patrol unit to check it out, that would be good.”

  “I’ll put in the request, but I may as well let you know that a big rig jack-knifed on eighty-nine west of Tahoe City. Two cars hit it and we’ve got reported injuries. So all of our units are on the scene. It could be a while.”

  I thanked him and hung up.

  Despite the snow, the traffic was light, and I got to Homewood just 50 minutes later.

  I saw the café and the cargo van. Its lights were on, engine running. One man was using a windshield brush to clear snow off the glass. I slowed as I drove by. I saw what looked like an All-Wheel-Drive insignia on it, but it looked just like any other cargo van. I continued a couple of blocks, pulled over, and turned out my lights.

  Watching in my review mirror, I could see the van pull out of the lot and turn south toward me. I realized they would be able to see me and Spot through the windows.

  I shifted into Drive, moving the lever fast so it would minimize the flash of my back-up lights as it went past Reverse. Without touching the brakes, I drove forward and turned into a parking lot. The Jeep rolled past some parked cars and two large trees.

  The van went by on the highway. I kept rolling in a circle, came back out to the highway, and turned out behind them. My lights were still off. I let the van increase its distance in front of me.

  The moonlight was low and intermittent as the cloud cover flowed by overhead. The road was dark with tree shadows, but it was enough to drive by. I aimed for the middle of the road. Any approaching vehicles would almost certainly have their lights on. I could turn mine on when I saw them. Because it was the middle of the night, there would likely be no one out walking.

  The lake was on my left, a black plate of steel bordered by distant white mountains. Then the road veered away from the water, and we cruised through Tahoma.

  Oncoming headlights appeared ahead. I turned on my lights and slowed. I went by a sedan, sped up, and shut off my lights once again.

  The van sped up as we drove through Sugar Pine Point State Park and the speed limit changed to 55 mph. I stayed far enough back that their taillights disappeared whenever they went around a curve. They reappeared in the straighter sections. Then they disappeared at the end of a long straight stretch.

  The tree shadows over the road became thick, so I had to turn on my headlights. That allowed me to speed up. If I eventually saw red taillights, I could turn off my headlights. Maybe any driver ahead would think the vehicle in his rear view mirror had simply turned off the highway.

  The red taillights didn’t reappear.

  Either the van driver was a maniac, or they’d turned off, and I missed them. I could start driving down turnoffs. It would take days to explore all the roads. Or I could drive ahead, hoping they were still in front of me.

  I braked for a tight curve. With only the moon for illumination, I carried too much speed for the icy road. The Jeep slid. I corrected, but the Jeep continued sideways until it hit the snow wall. I hit broadside. Spot hit the door, but it was a soft blow, and the Jeep bounced back, the tires regaining footing. I’d probably have a shallow dent on the right side doors, but I’d lucked out. Driving slower, I came out of the curve and saw red taillights flash ahead where the road crested a hill and made a curve.

  There was no way to tell if the vehicle ahead was the van, but it gave me hope. I powered back up to an unreasonable speed and raced up the slope. At the top, the red lights came back into view. I sensed a large vehicle, but it was in the shade of trees. Not wanting to get too close, I eased off on my speed.

  The vehicle came out of the tree shadows and popped into full moonlight. A white van. There was a sharp curve ahead of the van. Its brake lights came on. The van went into the turn. Before it went out of sight around the snowbank, I got a glimpse of its side.

  No windows. A cargo van.

  I kept my distance.

  We went through Meeks Bay, climbed up the grade, and came around the sharp curve that leads to a long straight stretch of road high above the dark lake. In the distance was the necklace of lights that line the southern half of Tahoe’s East Shore.

  The van’s taillights went bright once again as it went around the next set of curves. I sped up to try to keep it in view. When I next saw the van, it was slowing. It turned west on
Scenic Drive and climbed up into the neighborhood that stretched up the mountain above Rubicon Bay.

  I went easy on the accelerator to minimize engine noise. The van was visible above me, turning to the north and heading along a group of vacation homes. I turned up the same road. It was so steep that my wheels still slipped even in four-wheel-drive. It was an area that demanded one have four-wheel-drive with chains or at least studded snow tires or, better yet, stay out of the neighborhood until summer.

  The van kept climbing. It must have had studded tires.

  As I watched the van above me, it turned onto another street. I followed. After another block, it turned again, climbing higher. I slowed to let it get some distance up the mountain.

  We came to the highest part of the neighborhood, a road that ran along the ridge line. The van turned along it.

  As I approached the turnoff, I had to swerve a bit to avoid a stop sign that had been broken off by someone who’d come down a sloped section of the road and was unable to stop. Just past the sign, I turned where the van had gone, my headlights still off.

  The van pulled broadside to a snow wall and stopped in front of a dramatic vacation home that perched on the edge of a steep slope. I used my parking brake to stop well back so that my brake lights wouldn’t turn on.

  I pulled out my binoculars and studied the van.

  As I looked, I felt Spot beside me, thrusting his head forward from the back seat. He was tense, staring through the darkness at the men down the street.

  The van’s right side was facing me. The van’s left front corner seemed to touch the snow wall. The only window on the right side was at the front passenger seat. Behind the passenger seat, the cargo van had two windowless side doors.

  Through the passenger window, I saw movement. The driver’s door had opened. Then the passenger door opened. Two men got out. They met at the front of the van and appeared to talk. One of them pointed at the slope below the house. The other nodded, pulled out a large handgun, and racked the slide. The first man turned and pointed toward the snow wall at the far side of the van. They moved around the far side of the van, out of sight. They must have stopped between the van and the snow wall.