Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14)

by Todd Borg

  We were silent a bit, both wrestling with thoughts about the things humans are capable of. To break the tension I said, “You’ll want to drop your samples off at your lab, right?”

  “Yeah. It will take a little time. I have to sort all the killing vials and the live vials, then measure the maggots, both dead and alive, then feed the live ones.”

  “You say that like you’re feeding the dog. Put out a bowl of maggot kibble, and they’ll come crawling, huh?” I tried to make it a joke. But when I glanced at Street, she wasn’t smiling.

  “I’ve got beef liver in my freezer,” she said. “It’ll take a few minutes to defrost it in the microwave.”

  “How do you feed it to them?” I said, not sure I wanted to know.

  “After it’s thawed, I just divide it up into small containers, one for each group of homogeneous maggots. There were three different sizes of maggots on the bodies. Which means that they may be different species of flies. Or the bigger ones may have simply grown faster on the body in the tent because it stayed warmer at night. Anyway, each group of maggots gets its own bowl. I put the maggots directly on the liver and set them in the incubator. Maggots love that stuff. They squirm with liver lust.”

  “Sorry, but that sounds really disgusting,” I said.

  Street looked at me. “It is.”

  “Do you have any preliminary sense of time of death?”

  Street thought about it. “It’s been cool at night, but warm during the day. Blow fly eggs hatch faster when it’s warm. If the men were killed in the evening, blowflies would have still been active until it got cold. So they would have laid their eggs. But those eggs might not have hatched until the warmth of the next day.”

  I said, “So if the men were killed the same day as the robbery, the soonest the eggs could have hatched would be about forty-eight hours ago from now, soon after the sun shined its warmth into those trees.”

  “Right. Most of the maggots were still in the first instar stage, although a few of the ones from the body in the tent had molted and were in the second instar stage. So my preliminary guess would be that the men were killed roughly in the evening, two days before yesterday evening when you found them. About fifty-six hours before now. I’ll have a more accurate analysis in a few weeks.”

  “In other words, they were probably killed in the evening the same day they robbed the truck.”

  Street nodded.

  I turned up Kingsbury Grade and pulled in front of the building where Street worked.

  “Do you need any help in your lab?” I said as I carried her sample case from the Jeep and into her lab.

  “No. It’s best if I’m alone so I can concentrate and make certain I get everything organized and labeled properly.”

  “Okay, I’ll run across the highway to my office, check messages, and be back in a half hour to take you home.”

  Street nodded but didn’t speak, already focused on the rack of vials she lifted out of the case.

  I left.

  The answering machine was blinking when I walked into my office. I pressed the button.

  “Hey, McKenna, Bains here. I’ve got IDs on the vics. They had Nevada driver’s licenses in their wallets. And the licenses look legit. Give a call when you can.” He rattled off a number so fast I had to replay it twice to make my best estimate and write it down.

  I dialed back.

  “Sergeant Bains.”

  “McKenna returning your call. The dead guys have names.”

  “Yeah. I’m still at the campsite, but I thought you’d want to know sooner rather than later. Ready?”

  I grabbed a pen and pad. “Ready.”

  “Carter Remy, age twenty-six, from Fallon, Nevada and Lucas Jordan, age twenty-five, from Reno.”

  “Both from Nevada,” I said as much to myself as to Bains.

  “I called Val at the office and asked her to look them up and see if they have sheets,” Bains said, “and they do. Both have spent time getting three squares from correctional facilities in the state of Nevada. Between them, they’ve had two charges for battery, one burglary, two DUIs, one auto theft, one carrying a stolen, unlicensed weapon, one receiving stolen property. Who knows what’s in their sealed Juvie records.”

  “But no armed robbery?” I said sarcastically.

  “Right. Taking down an armored truck is good for multiple charges including carjacking. With their records, these guys would have gone away for good. I sure would like to know who their compatriot is. He is some sick piece of work.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It would take a serious personality glitch to spear someone with a ski pole,” I said. “Thanks for the names.”

  We hung up, and I dialed Diamond.

  “McKenna calling,” I said when he answered.

  “Morning,” he said. “I heard you found two bodies that were stabbed with ski poles over by Baldwin Beach. Rumor is they might be my robbers?”

  “Looks like it. Bains and his men found some hockey masks in a gym bag, hoodies hanging up on bushes, some cash in the bushes and a wad in one of the victim’s pockets,” I said. “So it looks like these were the robbers. That leaves two robbers still alive.”

  “One or both of which is the likely perpetrator,” Diamond said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Bains just called with the victims’ names and records. Choir boys they ain’t.”

  “I’ll give him a call,” Diamond said.

  We hung up, and I went back to Street’s lab.

  She was almost done.

  When we were driving home in the Jeep, Street stayed silent. She would probably need some time in the coming days to process what she’d seen.

  We came to the turnoff to Street’s condo. I pulled in and parked. She unlocked her door and let Blondie and Spot out, and they charged around with gusto. I could see that Spot’s time with Blondie had reset his emotions, and he was back to his normal good attitude. As is typical, he was more interested in playing than in reconnecting with his master who’d been gone for hours.

  Street and I walked for an hour while the dogs ran. Then it was time for me to go.

  Street said, “If you can learn something about the money at the campsite, I bet that will tell you if these crimes are all connected.”

  “How is that?” I asked.

  “What if there is a way to identify the ransom money the Incline man withdrew from the bank? Or the money from the robbery? You could see if by any chance the money from either or both events was in those bills blowing around the campsite.”

  “The manager at the armored truck company told me that the money was unmarked.”

  Street nodded. “Even so, there might be some other qualities about the money that would be useful. For example, was there anything notable about the denominations? Sometimes an assortment of cash will only include twenties and under. Or maybe just hundreds. What if the money that the bank gave Montrop was all hundreds and the armored truck money was all smaller bills? Or maybe one group of bills was newer and the other was quite worn out.”

  “Street, that’s brilliant. There could also be differences in the way the money was bundled. I’ve seen rubber bands and paper bands. I’ll check it out.”

  Street nodded. She looked very weary. I could tell that her father’s parole board decision was weighing on her, and I wanted to cheer her up.

  Before I could think of something to say, there was a metallic clunking sound from outside. Both dogs turned and looked at the walls, ears perked up. In the distance, a vehicle accelerated. Street frowned and got up to look out the window.

  “That sounded like a fender bender out on the highway,” I said. “Or maybe like a pine cone falling and hitting a car roof.

  “I don’t see anything,” she said. She came back to the couch and sat down.

  “Before I leave, I have something for you if you’ve got a moment,” I said.

  “What is that?”

  I pulled out a little gift I’d gotten from the Artifacts store on the South Sho
re and handed it to Street. She opened it and made a little gasp.

  “Owen, it’s beautiful! A butterfly in amber!” She lifted the necklace up and set the small oblong of amber in the hollow of her palm. The delicate chain snaked through her fingers, swinging beneath her hand. “This is probably a type of metalmark butterfly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The name refers to the metallic markings. See the yellow stripes against the deep blue patches? It looks metallic. And the surrounding coral color is gorgeous. This species is from the Riodinidae family.”

  “That means butterfly?”

  “Actually, lepidoptera is the order of insects we call butterflies. The Riodinidae family is just a small portion of all the butterflies.” She held the amber up to the light and rotated it.

  To my eye, the yellow amber was as pretty as the butterfly within.

  “Thank you, sweetheart. I love it. I’m going to call it my Metamorphosis necklace. It will be a symbol for how complete transformation is an important aspect of life.”

  “That’s the essence of what butterflies do, right?” I said. “The transformation from caterpillar to butterfly is a metamorphosis.”

  “Yes. In fact, scientists are currently doing a lot of new research on the process.” Street put the necklace over her head, and looked down at the butterfly. “We’ve always known that when the caterpillar transforms, it pretty much dies by the usual definition of life and death. It ceases all normal functions, and its organs dissolve.”

  “When that happens to us, we certainly call it death,” I said.

  “Exactly! It is death, by every traditional measure. Yet somehow, some DNA that was never active in the caterpillar now becomes active and triggers the growth of an entirely new animal, a butterfly, which grows from the proteins that remain after the caterpillar dissolves. We don’t understand how it works. And we don’t have a precise vocabulary for describing it. One scientist says that the word reincarnation is the best descriptor for what happens.”

  “Wow, that is pretty cool. I can see how studying bugs could sometimes be interesting.”

  “Owen!” Street gave me a severe frown. “Studying bugs is always interesting. Many important things that we know about biology and evolution and life itself have come from studying insects.”

  “Right.” I pointed to the amber in her hand. “The butterfly is actually not very perfect,” I said. “If you look at the right wing and the right legs, it shows some damage.”

  “That’s great! That indicates that it is the real thing. Perfect specimens are nearly always somewhat artificial. People catch butterflies and pour an amber-like resin over them. In the natural world, when an insect lands on a fresh drop of amber and gets stuck or has amber drip on them from above, they struggle mightily to escape, often damaging themselves. And after they die, the wind and other insects or passing animals may damage them further before more amber can drip down and fully encase them. So this looks to be the real deal. This sample could be tens of millions of years old! It’s like a time machine, preserved from eons ago. In fact, this could be from the Eocene Epoch.”

  I touched the amber. “I thought this baby was probably from the Eocene days. A hot time, the Eocene, right?”

  Street’s look of tolerance reminded me of how my third grade teacher used to look at me.

  It pleased me that her mood had changed. She was now thinking about butterflies from millions of years ago, and thinking about the complexities of biology. It was a great transition from moments before when she was struggling.

  “I’m a lucky guy that I can give my girl a bug for a present.”

  Street gave me a very serious look. “Bugs are very important.”

  “So I see.”

  I thought that made it a good note on which to leave.

  We kissed, and Spot and I left.

  When we walked across the condo lot to the Jeep, I found a ski pole spear plunged through the Jeep’s roof. Its open rear end was filed into a notch, with the remaining wings of metal flared out. The flared end stuck up about eight inches above the Jeep’s roof. The point of the pole was buried into the rear seat, slightly to the left of center.

  I turned a fast rotation looking at the condo parking lot and into the woods and out toward the highway, watching for any movement. There was nothing.

  I opened the front passenger door and reclined the seat back as far to the rear as it would go. “Okay, Spot, today you need to squeeze into the front seat.”

  He jumped in and reached his nose back to sniff the spear that spanned from roof to seat. I held his head away.

  “Sorry, Spot. We don’t want to smear any prints.”

  Spot took up an awkward position on the reclined front seat, and we managed to get up the mountain without bumping the spear.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I’m a rational guy, and I’m well into my third decade of chasing bad guys. I’ve seen every kind of psycho, sicko, and weirdo. It takes a lot to unnerve me.

  But the spear through the Jeep roof creeped me out. Partly, it was the boldness, a ski pole that was no doubt the brother of the ones that were thrust through the robbers’ bodies.

  I called Diamond and told him. He said he could come by in half an hour.

  Next, I called Street. I needed time before I decided to reveal the exact nature of a threat that might produce nightmares, but I needed to warn her. So I said, “I just realized that I never said that you should be really careful. This killer probably knows that I’m involved in the case. If so, you could be at risk.”

  “It’s okay. I always know to lock my doors, and I always check the peephole before I open them. I keep Blondie with me, and look outside before I leave home or the lab. Don’t worry, Owen, I’m aware of the risk. I never forget the things that have happened because someone’s tried to get leverage on you.”

  “You’re kind to just call them ‘things,’” I said. “They were horrific events. I want to make certain that nothing like that ever happens again.”

  “Me, too. So continue with your investigation. Don’t worry. If I can deal with the stress of my dad, I can deal with an ordinary psycho, crazy killer who merely sticks spears through people. That’s no big deal.”

  “Like I said earlier, you’re tough.” We said goodbye.

  While I waited for Diamond, I called Washoe County Sergeant Lori Lanzen.

  I told her, “I think I told you that Reno Armored called and asked me to investigate their armored truck robbery. So I’ve been looking into it. Last night, I tracked the robbers to a makeshift campsite on the South Shore near Baldwin Beach. I found two murder victims, who appear to be two of the four Reno Armored robbers.”

  Lanzen said, “We heard. Everyone is talking about it.”

  “The victims had been speared by ski poles. Most likely, one of the other robbers was the killer. I just found a similar ski pole slammed through my Jeep roof.”

  “A warning.”

  “Yeah. One of the victims had been speared from up high, so the killer was tall and strong. You’d have to be tall and strong to put a spear through a Jeep roof.”

  Lanzen went silent as if the image took her voice away. I was about to say something when she spoke.

  “I’m guessing you suspect this somehow relates to the murder of Montrop.”

  “Yes. I have no evidence of connection. But the robbery, the murder of the robbers, the murder of Montrop, and the kidnapping of Montrop’s son Jonas seem like too many violent crimes in a small area. It would seem an amazing coincidence if they weren’t related. So I’m considering that they are connected.”

  “I agree.”

  “What did you find out about Evan Rosen’s car?”

  “It had something broken on the right front wheel, but the mechanic said it would be easy to fix. She’s probably got the car back by now. The most interesting thing was that the seat was adjusted to her short stature, and there was dust in the track rail that would have been displaced had someone moved
the seat.”

  “So if someone stole it, either they were short, or they drove it with their knees scrunched up to make it look like Evan drove it. Any prints?”

  “None other than Evan’s.” Lanzen said.

  “Someone could have used gloves. If they didn’t slide their hands on the wheel, Evan’s prints would be preserved.”

  “Yes. Nothing is clear. And whoever threw the paddle board must have worn gloves. The only prints on it belong to Montrop. Because the car and paddle board were both clean, this killer will be hard to catch. If the killer didn’t touch anything at Montrop’s house, we’re unlikely to find DNA. And if Evan was the killer, well, her DNA is already all over the car and Montrop’s house, so that circumstantial evidence is of no value.”

  Lanzen paused. “What’s your next move?”

  “There was some money in one of the victim’s pockets,” I said, “and there were a few scattered bills as if they’d blown around the campsite. I’m exploring how to discover if the money came from the Reno Armored or possibly even from the withdrawal that Montrop made from the bank in Incline. I’m wondering if you could call the bank manager and explain that I’m investigating the kidnapping of Montrop’s son, and that you’d like her to answer my questions.”

  “Sure,” Lanzen said.

  “Great. Do you remember her name?”

  “Hannerty. Jean Hannerty. I’ll call her right now. If you don’t hear from me, you can assume I contacted her and told her about you. Give me ten minutes.”

  I thanked her, and we hung up.

  Diamond drove up five minutes later. After he looked at the spear in the Jeep, he dusted it for prints. There were no marks on it of any kind.

  “Hard to thrust a spear without touching it,” Diamond said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oily, too. I suppose that’s to make it easier to stab through bones and organs.”

  “That’s what Bains and I thought.”

  “Help me remove it? Maybe we can grab it by the rear end.” He leaned in close to look at the notched, flared opening. “Looks like a staff of Hades,” he said.