Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14) Page 22

  At the next intersection, I went straight, then came to the Mt. Rose Highway. I took a right and headed down toward the lake, accelerating to a high speed.

  A quarter mile ahead was a small silver car with the dull finish of an older vehicle. As I got close, I could see that it was a Kia. Closer still, I could see that the driver appeared to be a male about the size of Kang. I couldn’t tell if it was Kang for certain, but I was reasonably sure, so I dropped back.

  The silver Kia turned west on Highway 28. I followed it around Crystal Bay and through Kings Beach. It turned right on 267. I stayed back several car lengths as I followed it up and over Brockway Summit. The man drove fast, and as the traffic in front of him turned off into Northstar, the Kia accelerated and flew through the Martis Valley and on into Truckee.

  Kang went through the old railroad town at high speed, worked his way over to Donner Pass Road, turned off on Northwoods Boulevard, and drove up into the Tahoe Donner subdivision.

  I had to stay farther back to avoid being seen, and I nearly lost Kang as he wound around the arc of houses that front the circular golf course. When I came to a section with more visibility, he was gone. I didn’t want to slow dramatically and make myself more obvious, so I continued on, following the large loop of Northwoods Boulevard all the way around and eventually retracing my steps. This time I drove a bit slower, but still kept up a pace that would not look suspicious to anyone. I also tried to look in opposite directions from my earlier loop, paying special attention to the side roads.

  After several intersections, I glimpsed a silver car down a road to the left. There was no way I could drive by it without being obvious, so I pulled over and parked in front of a house.

  No doubt it was obvious that I didn’t belong in the neighborhood. So I put two clip pens in my shirt pocket, and I grabbed my clipboard with the pad of paper that has several paragraphs of boilerplate legalese in a small font and short descriptions in a larger font with check boxes to the side. From the glove box, I pulled out my official bureaucrat’s clip-on name tag with an insert I’d made on my computer. It showed my name in red with words underneath in black that identified me as a certified county inspector, badge #69834, my commission expiration date listed as the following February 19th, and, in the really fine print beneath that, two sentences that broadly defined liability limits and two sentences that outlined complaint procedures along with the county website address and toll free phone number to call with further questions.

  I got out in full view of the world. I opened the rear hatch and pulled out my white hard hat with the reflective orange hazard tape and put it on.

  I turned around slowly as if to survey the neighborhood, then held my phone up in the air as if I were taking a Geiger Counter reading. I made several notations on my pad, walked across the nearest intersection, repeated the dance with my phone and pen and paper, then pocketed my phone. Any observant neighbors would never bother me, having seen first hand that I was just another self-important, officious, government didact who was wasting tax dollars while searching out minor civic infractions and code violations by people doing much more important work. Those people would not engage with me for fear that I would pay them even more attention as I wrote them multiple citations.

  I walked with purpose down the road where I’d glimpsed the silver Kia. It was parked on the street between two houses, giving no clear indication as to which house Kang might have gone. I strode on past as if I had no interest in the car.

  Twenty yards farther down, I sensed movement in my peripheral vision. Turning my head a minimal amount, I could see Kang in the back yard of one of the houses. He was standing at the corner of a broad, square patio, putting his key into the lock of an adjacent shed.

  I continued on as if not noticing him. As I walked, I wondered about the house. It wasn’t grand, but it was far nicer than anything a gardener could typically afford.

  When I came to a landscaped area with heavy plantings of manzanita and fir trees that fronted a small forest of young Lodgepole Pine, I took off my hard hat and ducked into the cover. I lowered my head to go beneath branches and walked back away from the street, weaving through the closely-spaced pines.

  Ahead was a large group of boulders, one nearly the size of a house. I went around it, and on the far side found a group of bushes, Chinquapin, I think, that gave me good cover as I sneaked up on Kang’s patio.

  Except that it wasn’t a patio. It was a mat of some kind, square-shaped, about twenty feet on a side. The shed door was open. Kang came out of the door. He was barefoot and wearing sweat pants and a hoodie. He began doing stretches. After five minutes, Kang started making a series of martial arts moves, slow and methodical, his arm and leg positions seemingly more about the art and esthetics of martial arts than exercise. Where other men came home after work, popped open a Budweiser, opened a bag of chips, put their feet up, and turned on the TV, Kang came home and exercised.

  Next, Kang reached into the shed and pulled out a brown staff three or four feet long, close to the length of a ski pole. It seemed about an inch and a half in diameter, possibly made of rattan. He held it out in front of him and spun it the way a baton twirler spins a silver baton, but using both hands flipping the pole over and over at high speed. The stick blurred like an airplane propeller, and he made it jump to his side and behind him and then to his other side. Periodically, he would stop the spinning and thrust the stick like a sword or swing it in elaborate ways as he began to do physical moves like a gymnast.

  I’d only been exposed to formal stick fighting a few times, but as I watched Kang, it struck me that an accomplished stick fighter might have an advantage over an equally accomplished sword fighter because the stick fighter can grab the stick from either end or in the middle. The stick fighter can stab and lunge and block. A stick fighter can wield his weapon with two hands much more easily than can a sword fighter.

  Kang was clearly an expert, and he built his workout to a frenzy of explosive moves that would make me want the protection of an Army tank should I be his foe in a conflict.

  I heard a phone chirp. Fortunately, it wasn’t mine.

  Kang stopped his workout, stuck his stick in a small hole in the ground so that it stood, easy to pick up without bending over. Kang walked into the shed, and came back out with his phone in his hand. He was breathing hard, and he took several quick breaths before pressing the answer button.

  “Hello?” he said.

  There was a pause.

  “No,” he said, “I told you I’ll have the money soon.”

  From my place in the bushes, I could hear him clearly. Gone was any pretense of a struggle with language. His English was perfect, his accent standard American English as if he’d grown up in any of a hundred cities across the country.

  He continued, “It’s practically foolproof. The money is untraceable. Better still, when I take it from the person who has it, there will be no protest. They will not be able to utter a word. Untraceable cash is like bearer bonds. Whoever possesses it, owns it.” He paused, then said, “Okay. Bye.” Hi clicked the phone off.

  I thought it might be a good time to make an appearance.

  Kang was facing away from me.

  I stepped out onto the mat and cleared my throat.

  Kang spun around. I expected him to recognize me, realize that he’d been caught in a compromising situation, and possibly flee.

  Instead, he stuck his phone in his pocket, got into a fighting stance, and advanced on me.

  His stick was close to me, not him. I pulled it out of its holder.

  He came toward me like a cat making little sideways steps. His reaction disturbed me. I’m a fit, sizable guy, halfway between six and seven feet. I held a sturdy fighting stick, and I had the moral high ground on my side. Kang was a fraction my size.

  But I felt like I was facing an alien being who considered me a troublesome bug that would need to be squished.

  I raised the stick and held it like a baseball bat
, ready to put one far into left field.

  Kang took a running step, then launched himself toward me.

  Whatever happens, hang onto the stick, I told myself.

  I swung at him. It was an awkward move, probably the kind of thing his martial arts buddies would joke about. His foot shot out and struck the stick in the middle. Behind the loud smack of foot flesh on rattan, I heard the splintering of fibers. Fortunately, the rattan split its sides, but didn’t snap in half.

  Despite the severe blow, I could still swing the stick even if it was now a bendy weapon.

  He came at me again, and I swung it again. He blocked the stick with his forearm, deflecting it up into the air.

  The fractured stick flexed in an unpredictable way, moving in a wobbly arc, the bendy end coming down like a knuckleball in an improbable drop, making a loud smack against Kang’s cheek.

  He staggered backward, more stunned than hurt. I took advantage and lunged forward with a well-aimed gut punch, my left elbow going back as I rotated my upper body, which helped to propel my right arm forward, fist clenched.

  Hitting Kang’s abs was like hitting a leather-padded board. My knuckles didn’t shatter from the blow, but it felt like they could have. Kang bounced back hard, going down on his butt. He rolled sideways, came to his feet as if by levitation, and sprinted away, still barefoot. He went around the side of the house and out toward the street. I ran after him, jumping over a low fence and scraping turf as I careened around a grouping of Aspen trees. As I got to the street side of the house, I angled hard, thinking that his silver Kia was to the left.

  A car door slammed to my right. I turned and saw that I’d misjudged. His car was to the right. The starter cranked. I didn’t think that his sweats had pockets, so he must have kept the key in the car. The engine fired. It was obvious that I couldn’t get to him. He revved the engine as he shifted into Drive. The tires squealed, and the car raced away.

  I turned the other direction and sprinted back toward my Jeep. But it was a quarter mile away. By the time I got there, Kang could have been well on his way to Reno or heading up Donner Summit on his way down to Sacramento or cruising up Highway 89 next to the Truckee River as it flowed down from Lake Tahoe, or even going the other direction and heading north out of Truckee toward Graeagle and Quincy and on toward the wilderness around Mt. Lassen. There was no way I could catch him except by unusual luck.

  I thought of getting on the phone and alerting local law enforcement, but Kang had committed no crime.

  Instead of getting into the Jeep, I walked back to his house. It was probably empty. But one never knows. I knocked on the door. I heard sounds of movement. The door opened. An old man with white hair that stood up as if under permanent electric shock looked out at me, frowning hard. He wore a baby blue terry cloth robe. His legs were bare, his varicose veins like river tributaries against white skin, and he wore leather slippers over his sockless feet.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “I was hoping to speak to Mr. Kang,” I said.

  He made a fist with his thumb sticking out and pointed the thumb over his shoulder, gesturing toward the wall behind him. “Lives in back. You can go around the side of the house.”

  “You mean I should knock on your back door?”

  “No.” The man shook his head vigorously. “Kang lives in the shed out back. He has a key to get into my bathroom. But the shed is his domain.”

  “Oh, I see. Can you tell me if he’s around much? I don’t see his car.”

  “What, he owes you money, too?”

  “Not much,” I said.

  “Well, you better get in line. The last guys who were looking for him would kick your butt if you tried to collect before them. I used to be a dealer in Reno. Twenty-five years. So I recognize those kind of guys, and I know how it works. I told Kang, you want to gamble beyond your means, you’re gonna get involved with some mean-ass men.”

  “And they came to your door?”

  The man looked at me. “I told them that Kang was my renter, not my buddy, and to leave me the hell alone.”

  “Did they?”

  “Yeah. The thing is with sharks, if you owe them and you don’t pay up, they’ll cut your wife into pieces if they think it will motivate you to pay. If they don’t think you’re ever going to pay, they’ll cut you into pieces. But if they can’t see how to use another person like me to get their debts paid, they’ll leave me alone. I won’t say it’s like a code of ethics. More like a matter of practicality. Saves time sharpening their knives if they minimize their butchering.”

  “Mind if I go back to the shed and leave Kang a note?”

  “Be my guest. But if the door’s locked and you bust it down, I’ll get a picture of you doing it, and I’ll call the cops.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  I walked back around the house and entered the shed. It was like any other shed, small and stuffy, with a barn door to make it easier to get lawnmowers and snowblowers in and out. But this shed had no yard equipment. The walls of the shed were lined with insulation. In one wall was a single window. There was a bed made from a piece of plywood on two-by-four legs. It had a thin mat on top. A sleeping bag had been rolled up and secured with a belt. A rod held some clothes on hangers. There was a single plastic chair and a wide shelf that served as a table. On the shelf was a single-burner propane cook stove and a cookpot. Next to the cook stove was an open coffee can that served as a holder for a few pieces of tableware, a can opener, a tin of black pepper, a tall, narrow jar of spicy Szechuan sauce. Under the table was a flat of plastic water bottles. Above were two shelves loaded with canned goods.

  In the middle of the single room hung a lightbulb that was plugged into a thick, black extension cord that went out through a hole at the top of the wall. It must have been plugged into an outlet on the main house. On the floor was a space heater, also plugged into the extension cord. There was no plumbing or other amenities. In one corner was a small porta potty designed for primitive RVs. In another corner was a footlocker made of metal. I opened the lid. Inside were various food stores. Dried goods, pasta, rice, cereal. Things that didn’t need refrigeration but that would be vulnerable to mice if they weren’t in the locker. I lifted several items to the side to see if anything had been hidden at the bottom. There was a stack of plastic bags of rice filling one end of the locker, four five-pound bags. I lifted the corners of them up.

  Underneath was a bit of white plastic. I moved the rice. It was a hockey goalie mask like what the truck robbers wore. Even in such a benign hiding place, the mask, with its angry eyes and sneering mouth, looked wicked.

  I covered it back up, putting the food items roughly back the way I’d found them.

  The shed seemed to me like refugee housing in a third-world country, a huge step up from being homeless, but very primitive. I couldn’t imagine that the rent Kang paid the old man was worth it. More likely, the main value the old man provided was that Kang was able to live off the grid, hiding in plain sight. Kang’s name wouldn’t be on any utility bills or IRS computer records or Post Office box. He could pay the old man with cash received from his gardening customers. Kang could communicate using burner phones bought from Walmart, no phone company account necessary.

  There were millions of people like Kang across the country, living a cash existence. In that sense, Kang and Evan and Mia were all similar. Maybe the robbers, too.

  Did Kang run from me because he was undocumented, or because he worked for a man who’d recently been murdered, or because I now knew that he’d made an elaborate charade of not knowing English, which, like the hidden hockey mask, suggested that he might be hiding many other things?

  There were several possible reasons. But as I drove away, the lasting image I had was the skill and strength with which he manipulated and thrust the stick that was about the length of a ski pole.

  FORTY

  The next morning, I remembered the San Francisco psychologist who’d given me valuable informatio
n a few years before when an arsonist was murdering people by setting the forests of Tahoe afire. The psychologist was a former consultant for the FBI, his name was George Morrell, and he was the uncle of my favorite waitress at The Red Hut Café. I looked up George’s number and dialed.

  I got an answering machine and was leaving a message when he picked up.

  “George Morrell,” he said. He was winded, panting hard. “Sorry, I was just coming in the front door when I heard the ringing. Give me a moment to catch my breath.”

  “Hello, George. Owen McKenna calling. I’m an investigator in Tahoe. We’ve spoken in the past.”

  He was still blowing air, trying to catch his breath.

  I continued, “I came to your house, and I recall trotting several hundred steps up Russian Hill to get to your gate, and I was more winded than you are now.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” Morrell said. “You wanted to know about the psychological profile of a firestarter. We spoke of the homicidal trinity.”

  “Wow, you have quite the memory,” I said.

  “A quirk of us shrinks. The twisted, the perturbed, and the disturbed stay with us. Maybe I should say, haunt us.”

  “Haunt us investigators, as well.”

  “No doubt it is another case that brings your call,” he said, puffing a little less.

  “Yes. Would you have a few minutes to talk?”

  Morrell chuckled. “You forget that I’m retired.”

  “As you were the last time we spoke,” I said.

  “Ah, now you are the one demonstrating feats of memory.”

  “If you won’t charge me a fee for services rendered, I can simply return the favor with a case of your favorite wine.”

  “Okay, sold. I’m now sitting down, feet up, looking out the window at the Coit Tower and the Bay Bridge in the background. The Bay, in case you’re wondering, is about as blue as Lake Tahoe. So this crime you’re dealing with... You’ve got a bad guy who doesn’t fit the typical mold.”