by Todd Borg
The next morning I was up early having laid awake half the night worrying about Smithson and how to ensure Jennifer’s safety. I still wasn’t sure that Smithson was involved, but he seemed the likeliest suspect.
I lounged in bed trying unsuccessfully to come up with a way to put a bodyguard on Jennifer without Gramma Salazar’s permission. If I staked out their driveway or watched the mansion from the woods, I’d eventually be discovered and she’d try to have me arrested. If I knew exactly when, where and how Jennifer was going to be in greatest danger, I could try and squirrel her away to protect her. But that’s called kidnapping and people tend to get upset when children are kidnapped. I could not think of a clear way to proceed.
Spot interrupted my thoughts. He came to my doorway with his big empty food bowl in his mouth.
“You just ate yesterday,” I said. “You’re a carnivore. You’re supposed to binge, then fast for days.”
He thumped his tail against the door jamb.
“All right,” I said, sitting up and stretching.
Spot is too big to about-face in the hallway, so he walked into my bedroom to turn around, then trotted to the kitchen and waited by the closet where I keep the dog food.
“Sit,” I said. Spot dropped his bowl. It’s made of metal and is the size of a hubcap. It clattered to the floor and wobbled to rest. Spot sat down, his front legs splaying slightly on the vinyl flooring. He looked at me.
I got out the Science Diet and chunked about five pounds into his over-sized bowl. A string of saliva dropped from Spot’s lips. No manners.
I waited a minute to give the command. Spot stared at me. His eyes were brown laser beams in a white sea filled with black polka dots. Now there were two strings of drool.
“Okay!” I said.
While I loaded the coffee maker, Spot set another world record inhaling what looks like compressed sawdust. To each his own.
I had my usual breakfast of black coffee and two aspirin and thought about Smithson. I didn’t have a clue how to catch him at anything except being a nuisance. I thought about Sam Sometimes, the missing caretaker.
Was he the climber who found Melissa’s body? If so what did it mean?
Spot finished the last of his food and carefully ran his tongue around the bowl, pushing it down the hallway as he wiped it clean. Then he licked his chops. His out-sized tongue made him look like a Saturday morning cartoon dog. Even the sound effects were the same.
I thought of someone who could tell me about the climber from nine years ago. “Your largeness,” I said to Spot. “Care for a post-prandial ride?”
Spot’s tail banged the dishwasher.
We walked out into the driveway. A tiny yip came from down the road. Treasure came running toward us at full velocity. Her peach-colored hair was tied up in a ponytail with a red ribbon. Spot lowered himself in the crouch of a hunting mountain lion. Treasure bore in. She yipped and jumped into the air. Spot turned his head at the last moment and Treasure bounced off his chest. Then she did her handstand and pranced around on two legs under Spot. He did his own dance of sorts as she nipped at his feet. She jumped around his head, pawing at his face with little red painted toenails. Spot shut his eyes and endured the assault stoically.
“Okay, boys and girls. Time to go.”
Spot came and stood by the Jeep. Treasure did a final pirouette and raced back home.
We drove down the mountain and pulled into the local fire station. There were two men in blue fire department coveralls raking the stones in the landscaping out front. I nodded at them and walked inside.
“Terry in?” I asked the young Hispanic man who was polishing one of the engines.
He stopped, nodded and picked up a phone on the wall. “Sir Terrance. Sir Terrance,” he said. “Jose calling. You have a visitor.” His English was perfect, native-born American. But when he referred to me he pronounced it Vizeetour.
Terry Drier came down a metal stairway. He was wearing a loose baby blue sport shirt tucked into tight jeans. The muscles in his arms were thin and hard and looked like steel cables under his skin.
“No uniforms for Battalion Chiefs?” I said.
“Owen, I thought you were my lunch date.” Terry looked at his watch. “She should have been here five minutes ago.” He shook my hand and leaned in close. “Wait ’til you see her. I met her in the personals. Can you believe it? She’s a volunteer at the Tahoe Historical Society.”
Just then a rusted green Dodge Omni pulled up and a pudgy woman with ratty graying hair got out. Her plain face broke into a huge smile when she saw Terry. Her overbite was severe. “Terry!” she called out. She rushed to meet him and they embraced.
“Hon, I want you to meet an old friend, Owen McKenna. Owen, please meet Emily.”
She gave me a quick nod and turned back to Terry. “You ready? I brought a picnic lunch that is going to make you swoon!” She pinched his stomach.
Terry beamed at her. They ignored me and hugged like teenagers. Finally, Terry turned to me. “Guess I better be going, Owen. Nice of you to stop by.”
“Just a quick question?”
“Oh. Uh, sure.” He walked Emily to her car. “Just give me a minute, darling. I’ll be right back.” He trotted back to me. “Isn’t she great?” He smiled back at her, then gave her a little wave with his fingers. “Can we make it quick, Owen? Don’t want to keep her waiting.”
“Sure. I know you help coordinate search and rescue. I wondered how long you’ve been doing it?”
“Gosh, I don’t know. Ten, twelve years I suppose.” He stole a peek at his sweetheart.
“Nine years ago a little girl named Melissa Salazar fell off the rock slide above Emerald Bay. Ellie Ibsen’s dog found the body and one of your climbers brought it up. Do you remember who the climber was?”
Terry screwed up his face in thought. He turned toward Emily in her car, then turned back. “Nine years is a long time,” he said. “I remember the incident. But the climber? Been a lot of them over the years. Volunteers, you know. Most of them are just taking a year off from college. They come up to Tahoe to have some fun, stay a few months and then split.”
“He was in his early twenties,” I said. “Had blond hair. Was a devoted rock climber. He possibly went by the name of Samuel Sommers.”
Terry was looking back at Emily. His head turned at the name. “Yeah, sure. I remember him. Good climber. Did a daring rescue for us out at Kirkwood earlier that summer. A young woman was climbing the palisades near the Cornice Chair and fell. She hung on her safety rope for most of a day. Sam went up that rock like Spiderman. He made a sling out of webbing and lowered her down. There was a big fuss at the time because they don’t allow climbers up there and they wanted to haul the girl in. I don’t know how, but Sam talked the ranger out of arresting her. Mostly, though, he was real quiet.” Terry looked off in an unfocused way and smiled.
“I’ve always remembered the girl’s name,” he continued. “Maria. They did a TV story on the rescue and when the reporter did an interview with Sam and the girl, they played the song as background music. The one from the musical. ‘I just met a girl named Maria.’ Isn’t that weird the way music makes things stick in your mind?”
“Yeah, music does that. How long did Sam stay with your group?”
“Just that summer. Then he disappeared right after he brought the little girl’s body up the rock slide. Someone said he got a job care-taking around here. But I never saw him again.” Terry leaned close again. “Just between you and me, there was something funny about him. Like the way he was so protective of that young woman at Kirkwood. He kind of attached himself to her. But no one ever said anything bad about him because he seemed to be a good guy. Doing volunteer work. Saving lives. Can’t be too picky about that, can we?” Terry looked again in Emily’s direction. His eyes twinkled at her. “Look, is that all you needed? I gotta go.”
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
I drove back home, dialing Diamond on
my cell phone. “I’ve got a possible lead on your body,” I said. “I connected the name with the missing caretaker.”
“You’ve got my attention,” Diamond said.
“You said the bracelet had the name Maria on it.”
“Right.”
“I just talked to Terry Drier, Douglas County Battalion Chief. Terry’s search and rescue group at the time that Melissa Salazar died had a climber named Sam. The description fits that of Samuel Sometimes, the missing Salazar caretaker. Terry told me that Sam was the one who brought Melissa Salazar’s body up the rock slide. Sam also rescued a girl who got stuck climbing on the Palisades at Kirkwood. According to Terry, Sam became quite attached to the girl which, I suppose, isn’t uncommon when you save someone’s life. Terry remembered the girl’s name because of a TV report that used a song from West Side Story.”
Diamond broke in, “‘I just met a girl named Maria.’”
“I didn’t know you were a fan of musicals.”
“I’m not.”
“I’ll see what else I can find out about Sam,” I said. “You might want to use your official leverage to see if there is a tape of that TV report, maybe get an ID on the girl.”
“I already made a note of it,” Diamond said, irritated at my suggestion.
I hung up and drove home thinking about Sam the caretaker. He worked for Salazars, and probably was the climber who brought up Melissa’s body and saved Maria on the cliffs at Kirkwood. Now Maria was possibly dead, and Sam disappeared about the same time that Jennifer began stirring up the past.
Then there was John Smithson, whose wife Penelope died from a fall a day or two after Melissa died. It was of note because falls were an unusual way to die and because Smithson inherited from Penelope. He also inherited from his first wife Alexandra, who died in a drowning accident. Smithson was connected to the Salazars in that he’d been following Jennifer the day she first contacted me.
None of this made either of them killers. I needed another connection.
When I got home, I called Street.
“I was just going to call you,” she said.
“Hmmm?”
“I think I might have figured out how Smithson did it!” she said. She sounded breathless.
“You mean John-the-body?”
“One and the same.”
“Should I get a beer and sit down?” I said.
“Absolutely. You’re going to love this.”
I fetched a Sierra Nevada from the fridge and carried it out to the deck. I sat on one of the deck chairs and propped my feet up on the railing. Below me stretched 150,000 acres of deep blue water with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. I took a swig of the beer. Detecting was hard work. “I’m ready,” I said.
“Okay, here we go. You might want to take notes. Let’s say that John-the-body and his wife Penelope go hiking up Maggie’s Peaks. When she gets to the top of the rock slide she pauses to drink some water and enjoy the view. Smithson sees his opportunity. He sneaks up and gives her a push and she falls to her death. Are you with me?”
“Street, my sweet, I’ve never left you since we met.”
“Great. So John-the-body turns around and what does he see? Little Melissa Salazar. He realizes that the girl saw him do the evil deed. Maybe he advances on her. Maybe she runs. Either way, he chases her down, grabs her and throws her off the mountain.”
“You’re saying Penelope and Melissa both died by his hand on the rock slide. How did they find Penelope up on Mount Rose?”
“Easy. Smithson knows that both of the bodies are out of sight somewhere down the rock slide. He knows they won’t find them for a day or so. He hikes down the mountain, drives home and waits until dark. He realizes the sheriff and the search and rescue people would notice any vehicles stopping in the area. So he gets in his boat and goes across the lake and into Emerald Bay at night.”
“Wait,” I said. “How do you know he has a boat?”
“Didn’t you see?” Street said. “When we were up at his house? The canopy over the dock shades one of those cigarette boats. The kind with the huge prow that look stupid and go a hundred miles an hour?”
“I was too busy trying to keep from getting vivisected by that steroidal maniac to notice any boat.”
“Well, trust me. He’s got a big, fast boat. So he goes across the lake at night and beaches it at the Vikingsholm castle. Then he hikes up the mountain and climbs up the rock slide to retrieve his wife’s body. He carries her down and puts her in the boat.”
“That’s a big, steep climb to go down at night with a dead body on your shoulders,” I said.
“Sure. But he’s got the muscles for it.”
“So you’ve pointed out,” I said. “Let me guess. He pilots his way back across the lake at night, puts the body in his BMW and drives up the Mount Rose highway.”
“Exactly. When he gets up to the meadow, he parks, carries her up the mountain and drops her off a cliff, making it look like an accident.”
“But the meadow is only at eighty-five hundred feet,” I said. “From what I read it sounded like she fell up on the trail to the summit. Are you proposing that he carried her body up two thousand feet? Even if she had been very slim, that’s quite a physical accomplishment.”
“Who better to do it?” Street said.
“John-the-body.” I said.
“You got it. Aren’t you pleased? I’ve practically solved your entire case.”
“So why are you studying bugs?”
“How else am I going to meet rich entomologists?”
“Sorry, I forgot that every girl’s dream is to fall in love with a wealthy bug collector.”
After I hung up I thought about Street’s scenario. Would it be possible to carry a body that far? As for the boat connection, it made sense as long as the weather was not too stormy. Even in August, when Melissa and Penelope died, one didn’t go across the lake in a big wind. The water was too cold, and a capsized boat would lead to death from hypothermia. But the reports from that distant time said the weather had been calm. A perfect time for taking a body across the lake at night. If Smithson could carry a body down a mountain and load it into his boat, it would be easy to transport it to his car on the opposite end of the lake and drive it up Mount Rose. Although it seemed a bit far-fetched, it was nevertheless a possible explanation for Smithson’s involvement in the case. And I’d learned over the years that people did much stranger things while committing their crimes. But could it all be done in the short time of an August night?
It would be easy to test.
SIXTEEN