Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14) Read online

  When I’d completed the circumference of the tree island and not found anything out of place, I moved back toward the tents.

  The door flaps to both tents were hanging down, but they weren’t zippered. I approached the first tent from the side, stepping through bushes, and bent down near the corner of its door. I reached my phone through the opening and pushed the door flap aside without leaving prints or disturbing anything.

  There was nothing there but two rumpled sleeping bags and a small open pack from which spilled clothes.

  Moving over to the second tent, I did the same thing, opening it in such a way that I didn’t disturb the dirt in front of it, in case there were identifiable footprints. Shining my phone light, I looked in, realizing at the last minute that there was a buzzing sound coming from within.

  I saw a second body. This one, like the others, was speared from his upper front, down and out the middle of his back. He lay facing the tent door, curled on his side. It looked like he’d been lying in the tent, his head toward the wall opposite the door. He likely sat up and was crawling toward the tent door, got himself skewered, then fell over to the side.

  It appeared that he hadn’t been sleeping in his bag because he was still wearing all of his clothes except his boots. There was money spilling from his right front pocket, like stuffing coming out of a torn mattress.

  Unlike the other body, this one still had eyeballs. The tent flaps didn’t keep out the flies, but they kept out the crows. My past experience with bodies suggested that a crime victim’s eyes relaxed after death and did not reveal the terror of their experience. But this body’s eyes still appeared to show shock.

  Sirens sounded in the distance.

  I left the tent, stepped through brush out of the tree island and back to the marshy grass. I walked toward where I’d last seen Spot.

  “Hey, boy,” I said softly. “Where are you? C’mere, Spot.” I shined my phone, the light from which seemed almost non-existent out on the open meadow. Something moved off to the side. I turned the light.

  Spot stood some distance away, his head hung low, ears back.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I said, walking over.

  He didn’t move as I pet him. “It’s okay,” I said again. “Let’s walk around the tree island to the other side where the cops will come with their lights. You and me’ll answer some questions and then go home and sit by the fire. Okay?”

  I pulled on his collar, and Spot came along, slowly, with lethargy that I knew was depression.

  When we got to the other side of the tree island, I stopped because I didn’t know if the El Dorado men would come from the highway to the south or the beach road to the west. I guessed that the beach road access would be closer and faster. But that would require that they had keys to the gate. The gatekeeper locked everything up at night.

  I turned off my phone to conserve battery power, and we waited in the dark. Lights came through the distant trees and then started across the meadow. I heard some men swear as they stepped into the wet, soggy marsh grass. There were several lights in the group, and they bounced and danced toward us but a bit to our side. Flashlight beams shot out across the meadow toward us.

  “McKenna?”came a shouted voice.

  “Out here,” I shouted. “Look for my phone light.” I turned it on and held it up.

  “He’s over there,” one of the men shouted. “More to the left.”

  I saw the lights change direction toward us. Eventually, the group become distinct men in the darkness. They got to us a minute later.

  “Hey, McKenna. Sergeant Bains, here. Sounds like you stumbled onto a nightmare. I assume you were looking for it.”

  “Long story. I found some pine pitch on the tire of the Reno Armored truck that was robbed two days ago. I came out here looking for a connection between a Western Pine Beetle and a piece of Tahoe Yellow Cress that was in the pine pitch. I didn’t expect to find the camp of the robbers. And I certainly didn’t think I’d find two dead men with spears through their chests.”

  “Two dead? Whoa. You think two of the robbers killed their companions?”

  “Logical guess.”

  “Hey, Sergeant,” one of the men said. “Should we set up a standard perimeter, even way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Yeah. McKenna, have you met Dr. Sender? He’s our new Medical Examiner.” Bains gestured toward a skinny young guy who wasn’t wearing an El Dorado sheriff’s uniform.

  I reached out and shook his hand. “Owen McKenna,” I said. “Sorry to meet under such circumstances.”

  His hand was cold and shook. Maybe he was cold. More likely, he was shaken by the situation. He didn’t speak.

  Bains said, “You want to say what we’re about to find, McKenna?”

  “Borrow a flashlight?” Someone handed me one. I used it to point at the trees. “The little tree island in front of you is where they had their camp. Think of it like a baseball diamond. The tree over there is home plate. There’s a body leaning up against its trunk. There are two tents near shortstop. The tent closest to third base has the second body. I tried to step in places they wouldn’t. On brush, in the tallest grass. Their footprints should still be mostly untouched. If everyone is careful not to mar the existing prints, we can cast them and figure out which ones match the boots on the bodies. That will tell us which prints don’t fit and likely belong to the killers. We can maybe even track them out of here, whether to a car or truck or boat.”

  “Okay, men, careful where you walk,” Bains said. “Only step where these victims wouldn’t. Swing from the trees if you have to. We’ll do the basics tonight. We can wait until dawn to haul the bodies out. Remember, look, don’t touch.”

  Bains turned to the ME. “Dr. Sender, we’ll stay away from the bodies until you’re done. The truck robbery was in the early morning two days ago. So, assuming these vics are two of the robbers, these murders happened within the last two-plus days or about sixty hours ago max. Probably less.”

  Bains turned back to me. “Your girlfriend still doing the insect thing?”

  “Forensic entomology? Yeah.”

  Dr. Sender spoke for the first time. “Are you speaking about Street Casey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve heard she is good on time of death analysis,” Sender said.

  “Would you like a consult?” I asked.

  “Yes, please. This may be a clear case, but it never hurts to have as much evidence as possible when it comes to time of death.”

  “I’ll give her a call.”

  “Sergeant!” a voice called out from the tree island. “There’s some money here.”

  “It goes in an evidence bag!” Bains shouted back.

  “I’ll join them,” Bains said. “You gonna stay here?”

  “Yeah. My dog doesn’t like death. I’ll give Street a call.” I had my hand on Spot’s back. I rubbed him.

  “I remember you telling me that about search-and-rescue dogs,” Bains said. “Holler if you need anything.” He and Dr. Sender walked into the trees.

  I still had 15% of battery power. Enough for a quick call.

  Street answered on the second ring.

  “I’m almost out of battery, hon, so I’ll have to be quick. I’m sorry to tell you that we’ve got two bodies out on the meadow near Baldwin Beach. The ME is requesting that you do a time-of-death estimate. Any chance you can do a forensic inventory, soon?”

  Street was good. No gasping or shocked questions. Just total professionalism. “It’s very hard to collect samples in the dark,” she said. “Is it okay if I’m there shortly after dawn?”

  “I’m sure it would be. Anything I should tell them?”

  “Yes. Tell them not to move the bodies. And if by any chance they’ve got temp data loggers they could set up by each body, that would substantially increase the accuracy of my estimates.”

  “I’ll tell them.”

  “In the meantime I’ll collect past temp data estimates from the NOAA web
site. How far back do you think I should go?”

  “Sixty hours would certainly cover it,” I said. “It appears that the bodies are two of the men who robbed the Reno Armored truck two mornings ago.”

  “Got it,” Street said. “I’ll get my gear ready. Call me when you’re back home?”

  “Will do.”

  “Be careful?” Street said.

  “Yeah. You too,” I said. We hung up.

  “Stay, Spot,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few.”

  I left Spot in the dark, where he preferred to be as opposed to on the tree island of death. I used my remaining phone battery power to light my way back toward the men. “Sergeant Bains?” I called out.

  “Over here near home plate.”

  I worked my way around. I saw him and Dr. Sender in the light of one of two big camping lanterns that they’d set up. He was bending down near the body.

  “Street needs to wait until daylight to collect samples,” I said. “We’ll both be back out here at dawn. Will you have someone here?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Two men for sure.”

  “She asked that the bodies not be moved.”

  “I already told the men.”

  “She also wondered if you’ve got temp data loggers in your evidence kit?”

  “Hey, Don,” Bains called out. “Did we ever get those temp data loggers we talked about?”

  “Yeah,” a voice called back. “We got six of the eighty-hour units with the USB interface. You just plug them into the computer to download them when we’re done. You want me to set some up?”

  “Yeah,” I heard Bains say. “Hey, McKenna, one near each body, right?”

  “Right,” I called back.

  “You hear that, Don?”

  “Got it,” came his voice.

  “Okay, sergeant,” I said. “I’ll be back with Street at dawn. Dr. Sender, how should Street contact you?”

  He handed me his card. In the glow of the lantern, Sender’s face looked pale.

  “Everything okay?” I said, thinking that for a new medical examiner, this might be the ugliest death he’d seen yet.

  “Fine,” he said, sounding tense. “The body is past rigor, so we can expect that the deaths happened longer than twenty-four hours ago. Possibly more than thirty-six hours ago. Dr. Casey’s estimate will help.”

  “She’ll be here around dawn,” I said. “Oh, another question,” I said to Bains. “Any chance one of your men could spare a flashlight? I don’t have one, and my car’s back at Camp Rich. It’s a long walk in the dark.”

  “I’ve got a spare LED headlamp. Will that work?”

  “Perfect.”

  He handed it to me.

  “See you in the morning,” I said. I left and rejoined Spot in the dark meadow.

  I strapped Bains’s headlamp across my forehead.

  “Okay, boy, things get better from here on out.”

  Spot walked with me across the meadow to the beach road, where we turned south toward the highway. Each time a vehicle came, we stepped well off the road. The air was cold, and our proximity to the lake made it humid. Spot usually acted extra alert at night, as if the loss of illuminated inputs made him step up his olfactory awareness. But tonight, he was quiet and restrained. He didn’t turn his head to investigate sounds, and he didn’t lift his head to sniff the air. He just kept his head low and walked as if life were miserable, and he had no choice but to accept that humans kept dying.

  It took a half hour to get back to the Jeep and another forty minutes before we were up the mountain road above the East Shore and pulled into our driveway.

  Once in the cabin, Spot immediately lay down on his bed. He didn’t go to sleep but was motionless, his eyelids drooping. I fetched a beer, then dialed Street.

  “Not a good evening, huh?” she said.

  “No. But maybe I don’t need to tell you about it now. We can talk when I pick you up in the morning. Let’s say four-thirty a.m.?”

  “I’ll be ready,” she said. “I hope you can get some sleep.”

  “Yeah. Hey, Street?”

  “What?”

  “Thanks for being so understanding.”

  “You’re welcome. Give His Largeness a hug. Are you going to bring him tomorrow?”

  “He wouldn’t like that.”

  “Then maybe he could stay here with Blondie.”

  “That would be good.”

  “Okay. See you in a few hours.”

  We hung up.

  I was too tired to cook. I made two peanut butter sandwiches, crumbled one of them up, and stirred it into Spot’s chunk-sawdust dog food. He watched from his bed but didn’t get up to eat.

  I ate mine, drank my beer, and went to bed.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  When the alarm went off at 4 a.m., I let Spot out for a quick run in the dark while I drank my coffee. I refilled my mug before we drove down the mountain and pulled into the lot at Street’s condo. He was glad to trot inside and be with Blondie, but it would take a lot more time away from the dead bodies before he regained his natural enthusiasm.

  This time, I’d brought my rubber overshoes and had Street grab hers as well. She also brought her pack with an extra windbreaker and mugs and a thermos. She poured each of us more coffee as we cruised through the Cave Rock tunnel and headed toward the South Shore.

  When we got to Stateline, I turned up Kingsbury Grade and pulled into her lab.

  Inside, she pointed to a large plastic tool box. “That’s my sample case. You could bring that out.”

  Back in the Jeep, I told her about the previous day, giving Evan and Mia a ride, finding the kidnap victim Jonas Montrop tied up in the boat, learning about Tahoe Yellow Cress from Frankie Blue, and then finding the bodies of what appeared to be two of the robbers.

  “Wasn’t the murder victim in Incline Village named Montrop? The guy who thought you might kill him?”

  “Yeah. Jonas Montrop is his stepson. The kid was still alive, but barely.”

  Street was silent a moment. “Do you think his kidnapping is connected to the armored truck robbery and the bodies you found?”

  “I have no evidence of that, but such violence in Tahoe is rare. First, Jonas Montrop is kidnapped, then his father is murdered, then an armored truck is robbed, then there were two more murders. The confluence of violence makes me think they are likely related.”

  We drove in silence awhile.

  “I should let you know that the bodies are hard to look at,” I said. “They were killed brutally, and the crows were feeding on one of them.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I always know that on any maggot mission, the host bodies are in really rough shape. But thanks for your concern.”

  “You’re a tough woman,” I said.

  “All women are tough,” she said.

  I turned off Highway 89 at Baldwin Beach Road, and drove in and parked in the lot before the gatehouse. I carried her sample case, and she carried her pack. We each wore headlamps as we walked through the roadside trees out onto the meadow.

  “You weren’t kidding about wet marsh,” she said as her boots sloshed through watery grass.

  Tahoe often gets freezing cold during summer nights, especially in June. There was a frost on the marsh grass, and it made a crinkly, scraping noise as our boots went through it. A fog lit by the approaching dawn hovered over the meadow and wetlands. The tree island emerged from the mist like an apparition from a medieval fantasy. Light from one of the camp lanterns threw shadows through the trees.

  I led Street up toward the home plate tree. “Morning,” I called out. “Owen McKenna and Street Casey here.”

  “Oh, hey, Mr. McKenna. We’re waiting on you.” A man appeared at the edge of the trees. “I’m Deputy Don Jones. We spoke last night. Sergeant Bains had to leave but will be back soon.”

  “This is Street Casey. She’s the entomologist who will be taking samples.”

  Street and Deputy Don nodded at each other.

  “Has
Dr. Sender left?”

  “A couple of hours ago. He seemed pretty shaken. Not that I blame him. You didn’t bring your dog,” he said.

  “No. He had enough last night.”

  “Sarge said he doesn’t like the smell of death.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Me neither,” Don said.

  “Did the temp data loggers work?” I said.

  “Probably,” he said. “But we won’t know until we plug them into the computer. Should I turn them off, now?”

  “No,” Street said. “Let’s leave them running while I collect samples. The more complete the temp log, the better. We can turn them off when I’m done, which will be a couple of hours or more.”

  “Right,” Don said. “Anything you need? Any way I can help?”

  “Sure. Even though it’s getting light, it would be good if you could bring one of your bright lights over to each body as I work on it.”

  “Sure. Where would you like to start?”

  “Doesn’t matter. You set up the light. When I’m done collecting samples from one body, I’ll let you know, and you can move the light to the next. Will that work?”

  “Of course.” Don turned.

  They’d set up crime scene tape to preserve areas of footprints and create paths for law enforcement to walk. Don walked along a tape corridor and over to one of the bright lanterns. He picked it up and carried it over near the home plate body, propping it up near the body’s waist so it would illuminate most of the body.

  I set Street’s sample case near the lantern. “Anything else I can do for you?” I said.

  “No. This will be fine. Thanks.”

  I was grateful to move away. There was nothing about science that was interesting enough to overcome my revulsion of maggots eating their way through bodies.

  I wandered over near Don and Jorge, the other deputy who’d spent the night hours with him. The three of us watched as dawn came, the sun rising in the northeast.