Tahoe Ghost Boat (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (12 page)

My cell rang. It was Nadia.

“I got a rental car delivered to my hotel.”

“Great,” I said. “How ’bout you meet me at the Sheriff’s office. It’s near my office. I’ll drop off Diamond’s pickup, and you can drive me to my Jeep.”

She agreed, and I told her where to go.

I drove over to the Sheriff’s lot and parked the pickup in the far corner to be out of the way. While I waited for Nadia, I called Diamond and told him where to find his wheels.

“If that doesn’t work for you,” I said, “then I can deliver it back down to Carson Valley just before the next time you come back up the mountain, and I’ll catch a ride with you.”

“No problem. Our guys are always going back and forth. I can make arrangements.”

“Gracias very much,” I said.

Nadia pulled up in a bright red Mustang.

I took the tire anchor from Diamond’s pickup and put it in the Mustang’s trunk.

It took some coaxing to squeeze Spot into the micro space they call a back seat. Nadia drove off fast. I had to hang onto the door handle.

“Hard to stay incognito in this red color,” I said.

“Isn’t it pretty?” She sounded delighted.

I wondered how someone could be so clueless. I reminded myself that some people get a burst of neurotransmitter feel-good chemicals when they see bright colors. The desire overwhelms any common sense about the benefits of drab.

Nadia took me to the underground hotel lot where she’d left the Jeep.

“Please watch where you park,” I said. “If someone wants to accost you, the most likely time is as you are leaving your car or coming back to it.”

She’d turned on the radio and was nodding her head to the beat. She gave me a smile, still nodding, but I don’t think she paid any attention to what I said.

I grabbed the tire from her trunk, and Spot and I transferred back to my Jeep and drove home.

A romantic idea had been bouncing around in my head. I found Shakespeare’s sonnets online. I scanned several of them for the most notable two lines, found a good example, and memorized the words. I was about to call Street and whisper them into her ear when my cell rang.

I hoped it was Street calling, but the number was blocked.

“Hello?” I said.

“Mr. McKenna?” A big deep voice I’d heard before but couldn’t immediately recognize. Then I realized it was Merrill O’Leary. “Gertie’s gone,” he said.

EIGHTEEN

Spot and I got back in the Jeep and headed west over Echo summit. There was light snow, but the road was open. It was late enough that there was little traffic. The sky went dim with twilight, and the American River Canyon was lonely and dark. By the time we’d dropped down to Kyburz at 4000 feet, the snow had turned to drizzling rain. By Placerville, the rain had stopped.

We were in Sacramento two hours later.

The broken sidewalk up to the O’Leary house was dark, and there was no light outside the door. Blue light danced on the window drapes. TV voices came through the wall. A sportscaster. People cheering.

I knocked to an immediate response of high-pitched barking.

Merrill opened the door. With no light outside the door, I could only see the sides of his face, back-lit from behind. It was enough light to see beads of sweat on the skin of his cheeks and temples.

Scruff Boy was at his feet, his tail wagging.

“Come in,” Merrill said. He turned and walked into the house.

I stepped into the entry, past the posters of Dietrich, Dean, and Grant. We went into the living room.

There was another man sitting on an old couch.

The big TV was turned up loud. The Heat were playing the Warriors.

“This is my bro Ellison,” Merrill shouted over the TV. He gestured at the other man on the couch. Ellison was taller and narrower than Merrill, with obvious shoulder muscles. He had the kind of good looks that girls like Gertie might notice.

“I’m Owen McKenna,” I said, reaching out.

Ellison leaned forward in his chair and gave me a quick handshake.

While I stood, Merrill sat next to Ellison on the couch, picked up a remote off a low table in front of the couch, and turned off the TV. Merrill put down the remote and lifted a lit cigarette off the top of a beer bottle where it balanced on the narrow opening. He took a drag and set it back down on the bottle. The bottle sat on a stained white plate, which caught the ashes. At the base of the bottle were multiple butts. There were other bottles on the table. Merrill picked one up and held it in front of his face as if to see if it contained beer. It was empty. He set it down and tried another. That one was half full. He took a long drink. Then he leaned back on the couch and set the beer bottle between his legs.

He gestured to the only other chair in the small room, a big easy chair that was partway reclined. I lifted my leg up and over the raised footrest and sat down. Scruff Boy jumped up on the footrest and stood looking at me. I grabbed the arms and tried to raise the chair to the upright position, but it didn’t want to go.

“Chair’s broke,” Merrill said, smoke still drifting out of his mouth. After a moment, Merrill said, “Gertie’s still gone. I was hoping that she’d come home after I called you. Like maybe I was just jumping to conclusions. But I haven’t heard anything.” His voice was tense and worried in a way that made me not sure that he was actually tense and worried. Maybe it was an act. Or maybe he was just so awkward that nothing about him seemed sincere.

Ellison stared vaguely ahead toward the darkened TV screen as if he wasn’t listening to his brother.

“The last time you spoke to Gertie,” I said, “did she say anything out of the ordinary?”

Merrill shook his head. Then he looked up at the ceiling, which was spray-textured. The white paint was mottled by a thin, fuzzy coating of spider webs and cigarette smoke. “I don’t remember exactly when the last time was I spoke to her.”

“This morning before you went to work?”

He shook his head. “I leave for work at seven. She’s still in her room.”

“What time does she go to school?”

Another shake. “I don’t know. Eight, maybe.”

“So the last time you saw her was last night?”

He thought about it. “I didn’t see her. I came home kinda late. Her door was already closed.” He pulled the beer from between his legs, drank the rest of it, and leaned forward to set it on the low table. The balancing cigarette wobbled. Merrill picked it up and sucked it down to the butt, the end glowing bright. He stubbed it out on the plate.

“The night before, then. Was that the last time you saw Gertie?”

Merrill shrugged. “Maybe. I really don’t remember.”

“Nadia got hold of you, right?”

He thought about it. “She left a message on the machine saying that Gertie was to take taxis if she couldn’t bum a ride and that she’d pay for the taxis. Like she’d ever voluntarily pay for anything other than her designer clothes.”

Scruff Boy lay down on the footrest, his chin between his paws. He watched me carefully.

“What about you, Ellison?” I said. “When was the last time you talked to Gertie?”

He reacted slowly as if thinking carefully about how he should respond.

“I, uh, don’t really remember. Gertie and I are close, you know, like good buds.” He gave me a grin. “But I don’t keep track. I’m around here and there. I stop by to say hi, maybe give her a lift to the mall. She likes my wheels, so that’s always fun. Get her in the ol’ Stingray, she lights right up. You know what I’m saying?”

“No, I don’t.”

Ellison flashed a quick frown and then went back to a grin. “Girls are impressed by cars. And I’ve got an impressive car.”

“Give me a guess, then?” I said.

“About what?”

“About when was the last time you spoke to Gertie?”

“Oh, that. Let me think. About three days ago. Yeah, that would be about right. I stopped by to pick up some DVDs that Merrill borrowed from me. We played catch in the driveway. You maybe don’t know this, but Gertie’s an awesome softball pitcher.”

“You go to her games?”

“Heck yes. Five, six times I’ve been. Gertie loves me for it, an uncle that pays attention to her life.”

“What about you, Merrill? Do you go to her games?”

Merrill gave me the same mean look he used at the warehouse. “I can’t. Some people have to work.”

I looked at Ellison. “What do you do for work, Ellison?”

“What’s this, like an interview with the police?” He pronounced it like ‘poe-lease.’

“Yeah. That’s exactly what it is.”

“And you are?”

“Detective McKenna. Former Homicide Inspector SFPD.”

“Ah,” he said, his tone heavy with condescension. “And now you’re a private cop. Which technically means you’ve got no authority.”

“Is there something about you that would make it matter whether I have authority or not?”

Ellison shrugged.

“When I talk to the Sacramento police, they will act on my recommendations.” It was a statement that may not turn out to be true, but Ellison didn’t know that. “Back to my question. What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a businessman.” Again, he looked at the blackened TV screen.”

“What kind of businessman?”

“General purpose. I look for opportunities. I have investments. Just three months ago I met a guy who was onto a great new supplement vitamin that helps old people’s memories. All he needed was some capital to set up a sales network into old folks homes, and he was willing to give me a huge return in exchange for investing.”

To Ellison’s side, Merrill was gritting his teeth.

“There are opportunities all over if you know where to look,” Ellison said.

It was the kind of line that scammers and schemers and con-artists use, white-collar dirtballs one step up from corner drug dealers.

He pulled out a card and handed it to me.

I read the card. “O’Leary Enterprises. A phone and website but no address. Sounds like a catch-all name,” I said.

Ellison acted affronted. “It’s the real deal. I even have a website and a blog.”

“Good for you,” I said. “You live around here?”

“Yeah.” Non-committal. Wary.

“Where?”

“Got a great deal on a nice two-story a couple of neighborhoods away. But I’m... if you want to reach me, I’m rarely at home. Best to call my cell. It’s on the card.”

I looked at Merrill. He was looking at the wall. His jaw muscles clenched.

“Merrill, when you got home tonight, was there any note from her?”

“No.”

“What makes tonight different from last night?”

“What do you mean?” He frowned.

“You came home last night, you thought she was in her room. You came home tonight, you thought she was gone.”

“Last night her door was shut. So I knew she was in her room. Tonight, Scruff Boy was at the door when I walked in. And Gertie’s door was open, and she wasn’t there.”

“Was the front door unlocked when you came home?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s always unlocked.”

“Don’t you tell Gertie to lock it when she’s home alone?”

“No. We live in a safe neighborhood. There’s no gangs here. Just families.”

I gave him a hard look and tried to squelch my desire to go over to him and rip his nose off his face.

“Is everything here the same as always? Nothing out of place? No indication of struggle?”

“Everything’s pretty much like before. I didn’t really look around. I just saw that she was gone, so I found your card and called you.”

“Could you look around now?”

“What would I look for?”

“Anything out of place. Anything different.”

He sighed, leaned forward to put his hands on the edge of the couch, pushed down and heaved himself to a standing position. He breathed hard from the effort. Scruff Boy jumped to his feet and watched.

Merrill walked down a short hall. I got up and followed. He walked into one of two bedrooms and flicked on the light.

He leaned into the doorway and looked around. Then he did the same with the other bedroom.

“Nothing’s different,” he said.

“May I look in Gertie’s room?”

“Sure.” He pointed. “It’s that one.” Merrill was big enough that he filled the hallway. He had to back up so that I could step into Gertie’s room.

It was a small space, maybe eight by ten feet. There was a single, narrow mattress on a box spring along the wall. At one end of the room was a small closet and next to it a four-drawer dresser. At the other end of the room, a small desk with a metal fold-up chair. The desk was neat and orderly with a stapler and some pens and a pad of paper on the left side. On the right side was an old desk lamp. There was an impressive stack of books about movies, all used and tattered. A guide to classic movies, two books on how to write screenplays, books on directing by David Mamet and Sidney Lumet, a collection of interviews with Francis Ford Coppola, and several books on Tarantino including his screenplays for “Pulp Fiction,” “Reservoir Dogs,” and “Natural Born Killers.”

Merrill saw me looking at them. “I give her an allowance, and she pretty much spends it all at this used bookstore she likes. Everything they have about movies. I guess they order books, too. Gertie also finds the books on her phone. Used books. I don’t have a credit card. So the store orders the used books from Amazon.”

“Does she have a computer?”

“They have computers at school. And her phone is actually a computer, right? She can use it for everything. Homework, even.”

“Texting her friends?” I said.

Merrill looked down. “She doesn’t really have any friends.”

“None?”

“Pretty much. I’ve seen her text people. But I think that’s more school related.”

“Does she ever go over to anyone else’s house? Or does anyone come and see her here?”

He shook his head.

“Has she ever mentioned a boyfriend?”

“No. I even asked her once. She said boys only care about two things.”

“Sex and video games?” I said.

Merrill looked surprised. “Yeah. That’s exactly what she said.”

“So she doesn’t do anything social with boys? No dates?”

“No.”

“What does she do for fun?”

He hesitated. “Well, I’m always at work, so I’m not real, you know, tuned into what Gertie does. But as far as I can tell she just reads her books and watches movies.” He pointed at the stack of books on the desk. “It’s pretty weird, if you ask me.”