Tahoe Blue Fire (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 13) Page 25

  “It’s routine investigation procedure. It’s my job to look for information.”

  “What if I don’t show you?” Adam didn’t look defiant. He looked confused.

  “Then we’ll get a search warrant.”

  “I could lose my phone before then. I could delete all my photos.”

  “True, but how would that look?”

  “I could call a lawyer.”

  I wondered about the best response. “Yes, you could,” I said.

  Adam thought about it. His eyes went back and forth like those of a guilty criminal.

  Adam reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He leaned forward and handed it to me.

  I turned it on and opened his camera roll.

  There were 1814 photos. I couldn’t give them all proper attention without a great deal of time. But I wanted to get a feel for them, so I started with the most recent one and scrolled back through them.

  They were a strange collection. Faces up close, full figures at a distance. There were pictures of food, asparagus and onions in a refrigerator drawer, milk and orange juice, canned beans, a jar of spaghetti sauce, toothpaste, deodorant, a box of Kleenex. There was a picture of a road sign, a picture of car keys, a picture of a door with letters that spelled a doctor’s name. There were pictures of all manner of prosaic objects. But there were no pretty pictures of scenery, no pictures similar to what other people had in their phones.

  I clicked fast through all of the ones that were obvious memory helps or grocery lists and slowed for a close look at all of the ones of people’s faces. Most of the people meant nothing to me. Eventually, I came to a picture of myself. Later, I came to a picture of Diamond and a closeup picture of his sheriff’s name tag that he pins to his shirt.

  Adam sat patiently while I continued to click through his photos.

  Quite often, there was a picture of people that included a shot of Adam. I showed him one.

  “This shot of you with these men, what was that about?”

  He looked at it and frowned. “I don’t know. I try to have people use my phone to take pictures of me with other people. It’s supposed to help me remember what I did, where I went. Doctor’s suggestion.”

  I kept scrolling through his photos. “Here’s another one with you in a group of people.” I held the phone out so he could see it. “Ring a bell?”

  He shook his head. “I guess photos don’t really help my memory.”

  After a couple of minutes, I came to a photo that stopped me.

  It was a picture of a rotary, the big kind with two engines. On the door was the South Lake Tahoe city logo. The rotary was chewing its way down a snow berm, shooting a giant arc of snow into the forest.

  “Do you know when you took this photo?” I held out the phone.

  Adam grinned. “That one I do remember. I saw that rotary when I was going to the doctor. I was walking into the office as it came down the street. It was blowing the berm. It was amazing and louder than a full-speed freight train engine.”

  “And you took the photo just because you liked it.”

  He nodded, his eyes crinkling with excitement. “I’ve seen them with engines running, but I’ve never seen them up close while they were blowing snow.”

  I’d never seen Adam look excited.

  “I once worked at the yard where they store them,” he said. “I got to look inside the auger and impeller and the discharge chute. And one time, one of the drivers let me climb up into the cab, and he showed me how it worked. But I never got to actually drive one.”

  That gave me pause. “Where was this yard where you worked?”

  “The City of South Lake Tahoe. After I moved up to Tahoe to stay at Felicite’s house, she thought I should try to get a job. She said it would be good for my brain. The doctor agreed. So I applied around town. I tried for a bagging job at the supermarket, a valet park at the hotels, a general grunt job at a construction company. It was the city that took me on. They put me out at one of their equipment yards in the industrial area. The place where they store and work on the rotaries. I liked it. Those machines are awesome.”

  “But you didn’t keep the job?”

  Adam’s face lost its cheer. “I kept forgetting where I put stuff. Some of those tools are real expensive. After I lost a wrench set, I decided to quit.”

  “Do you remember the name of the guy in charge of the yard?”

  Adam shook his head.

  “Does Brann Crosen sound familiar?”

  Adam frowned. “I don’t remember.”

  “About five-eight. Bodybuilder.”

  “Oh, yeah. I didn’t like him.”

  “Why not?”

  Adam shrugged. “I didn’t think he could be trusted.”

  “You might be right.” I gestured with the phone. “Mind if I email some of these photos to myself?”

  “Help yourself,” he said.

  When I was done, I handed Adam’s phone back to him.

  THIRTY-NINE

  After I was done talking to Adam, I drove over to the industrial yard where the city stored the rotary blowers, let myself in the gate, and left it open.

  Emilio came over to me. He held what looked like a sealed bearing assembly that had the seals removed. The bearings were caked in dirty grease as were his fingers.

  I nodded at him.

  “Te recuerdo. I remember you,” he said. “You are to see Brann?”

  “Please. He in?”

  The man nodded, then tipped his head toward the little metal shed I’d previously visited. Then he walked back to his project.

  I walked under the pole building, over to the shed, and pulled open the door without knocking.

  Brann Crosen was sitting at a desk that faced the door. He was staring at a laptop screen that only he could see. He looked up at me, startled, his face instantly reddening. He quickly tapped several keys, then shut the laptop.

  “Working hard?” I said, unable to combat my prejudice toward him. If a guy embezzles five thousand bucks, we put him in jail. If a guy uses a lawsuit to scam his employer for a hundred thousand, we happily pay out hoping he goes away. Then his lawyer uses the award for bragging rights to get more business. And if our conscience or fury causes us to make the mistake of saying anything bad about either of them, they can sue us for defamation. I knew that the legal system protects and helps many honest people, but I was confident that this guy wasn’t one of them.

  “Still pursuing your death-by-snowblower idea?” Crosen’s grin had a touch of sneer. His face color was shifting back to normal. The light caught his face. His front teeth were capped. In the light, his eyeliner and eyebrow edges looked more like tattoos than makeup. Probably used the lawsuit money for all three. Good to know he had his priorities in the right place.

  “I heard you changed your name when you lived in Southern California,” I said. “What was that about?”

  Crosen’s face began to redden again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You were given the name Brann Crosen at birth?”

  “Who else would I be?”

  I thought about Mario Montana, the man who tried to kill Street and me in Italy, and Montana’s friend Scozzari, who Speranza had said was a Cosa Nostra soldier who grew up in L.A. “How about Scozzari?” I said.

  Crosen paused as if wondering where I’d gotten that information.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. He opened his laptop. “I have work to do.”

  “You had an employee here named Adam Simms,” I said.

  “We sure did. That was an interesting experiment.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You try to train a big, dumb football player, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  “He’s not dumb,” I said, feeling instant anger.

  “Right. He walked around here like an old man who can’t find his pants. He’d talk to himself, always looking for something but not remembering what he was looking for. Once i
n awhile he’d act like he had half a brain. But that was rare. About one to four, most of the time.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “One good day for every four bad days. We could tell each morning when he showed up. Norman would usually see him first. Then he’d let us know. He’d say, ‘up day,’ if Simms had his half brain on. Or, ‘down day’ if Simms’s brain was absent. Sometimes we’d place bets at night about whether the next day would be up or down.”

  “You bet on the state of his dementia?”

  “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

  “Yes, I do.” I was gritting my teeth.

  “So that’s, like, some politically incorrect thing? Guys can’t joke around?”

  “No, it’s a decency thing. Joking about someone who’s struggling with a severe disease is rude and obnoxious.”

  “Like I thought. You’re politically correct. Like Emilio out there. He doesn’t like to joke, either.” Crosen picked his nose, watching me watch him. Then he flicked his finger so that whatever was on it flew onto the floor. “Simms could lift stuff, though, I’ll give him that. I’m told he could play football twenty or thirty years ago.” Crosen guffawed. “Imagine that. The guy’s so big, no way could he move fast.”

  I tried to suppress my anger. “I’m here to ask if he ever drove one of the rotaries.”

  Crosen stared at me, frowning, then got a knowing smile. “Oh sure. I showed him, and he cruised it across the yard. He was like a little kid. He even crabbed it left and right. I let him eat one of the snow piles in that corner over there.” He pointed. “The guy was a natural.”

  “Would you say he was good enough driving the rotary that he could have borrowed one?”

  “Absolutely. In fact, if I had to guess who might have done your victims, I would have said him. All the other guys in the yard have ethics. But Simms, I don’t think he knew the difference between right and wrong. ’Course, I wouldn’t normally say that, but you asked. Anyway, it was too bad we couldn’t keep him.”

  “Why not?”

  “We had to let him go for incompetence. Big is good. Dumb is not. We have standards.”

  “What was your official reason for letting him go?”

  “Like I said, incompetence.”

  I walked away without saying another word, my blood pressure pulsing in my temples. Crosen had irritated me in every way a person could. As I headed out of the yard, I walked by Emilio. “You ever see Adam Simms drive a rotary when he worked here?” I asked.

  Emilio glanced over toward the shed where Crosen was. He turned a bit so he was facing the opposite direction. “Not that I have saw,” he said.

  “You think he maybe drove it when you weren’t working?”

  “I don’t think. He love big machines, so powerful. If drove, he would be talking about all the time.”

  When I was back in the Jeep, I called Adam Simms.

  When he answered, I said, “McKenna, here, at the city yard where you worked. Brann Crosen told me he fired you.”

  “I told you, I quit. He didn’t fire me.”

  “Crosen said they let you go,” I repeated.

  “No. I quit. I realized that I was starting to lose it. It wouldn’t be fair to keep working under those conditions.”

  “Crosen also said you drove the rotary,” I said.

  Simms said, “I never drove one. I looked inside the cab. I imagined driving one. They are amazing machines. I wanted to drive one, but I never did.”

  “Why would Crosen want to spread lies about you?”

  “I don’t know. He had it in for me from the beginning.”

  “Why?”

  “One of the guys was trying to start the forklift so he could move the salt shaker.”

  “What’s a salt shaker?”

  “Oh, sorry, it’s the salt and gravel spreader they put on the back of the dump trucks. So Leroy said, ‘why not just have Simms move it?’ And Crosen said, ‘no way could Simms move a salt shaker.’ And Leroy said, ‘wanna bet?’ So they started placing bets on whether I could move it, like they were betting on the horses or something. Crosen got dug in on his position, betting something like two hundred dollars that I couldn’t move it. So I just walked over, picked it up, and put it where they wanted it. Crosen hated me after that.”

  “You’re confident in saying that Crosen’s a liar.”

  “He is,” Simms said.

  “How ’bout we talk to him about it. I could come and pick you up.”

  “What’s the point?” Adam said. “Crosen’s a jerk. So what?”

  “He’s spreading false information about you. He should know we’re onto him.”

  The phone was silent a moment. “I have to go to the supermarket. We could meet.”

  “Okay.”

  I told Adam where I’d be and then hung up.

  We met, and Simms got in his pickup and followed me as I drove to the yard. We parked on the street and walked past Emilio who was outside of the gate looking under the hood of a pickup that was parked on the street. It had a city logo on the doors and a custom utility body.

  Simms and I walked into the yard and over to a workbench where Crosen was leaning. His arms were crossed. He had a smug look on his face.

  “You’re a liar,” Simms said to him.

  Crosen unfolded his arms and moved his feet apart into a wide stance. “Nobody calls me a liar. I’ve got principles.”

  “You didn’t fire me, I quit,” Simms said.

  “Sugar coat it all you want, but we fired you.”

  “No. I told you I was leaving before the end of my probation. And I told you why, because I thought my memory problems were making me ineffective.”

  “Ineffective,” Crosen said. “Big word for not doing your job.”

  Simms took a deep breath as if to calm himself.

  “And I never drove the rotary.”

  Crosen made a half smile. “Sure, you did. You don’t remember? Must be like all that other stuff you could never remember.”

  Simms said, “I’m the first to admit when I can’t remember stuff, but I can tell if an experience is familiar or not. I never drove a rotary. I looked inside. I asked about the controls. I remember being interested in the joystick for crabbing the rear wheels. But I never drove one.” He leaned toward Crosen and said, “You lied.”

  “I told you, Simms. I don’t lie. You’ll pay for that.” Crosen looked ready to throw a punch. He was a muscle-bound kid with hormones and attitude. Adam was a giant in his fifties. Whatever the result of an altercation, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  “C’mon, Adam,” I said. “We’ve established that he’s a liar. Time to go.”

  I reached my arm out, touched Adam’s shoulder, and gently steered him away. We walked back across the yard. As we turned to go through the gate, I saw that Crosen was on his cell phone. He was gesturing with his free hand, stabbing his finger toward the ground, anger emanating like smoke. I could guess what he was saying, and it felt bad.

  Emilio had the air filter off and was spraying WD-40 on a corroded metal component.

  “Is Crosen always a hothead?” I said in a low voice as we approached. “Is he dangerous?”

  Emilio looked out from under the hood, leaning so that he might glimpse Crosen back in the yard. His face showed fear, and I immediately felt bad for asking him. “I don’t know to say hothead,” he said in a low voice. “Señor Crosen is boss. I work hard, he gives me good schedule, gives me good lunch.”

  “Lunch matters,” I said.

  “Sí.”

  Adam and I walked down the street to his truck. When Adam was inside, Blondie tried to squeeze between Adam and the steering wheel, wagging vigorously. I leaned in the open driver’s window.

  “Don’t look now, Adam, but I can see that Brann Crosen is mad. He’s talking on the phone. Maybe it’s nothing. But my cop warning lights are flashing. I could be wrong, but I think he might follow you. Worse, I think he might be calling some buddies.”

  �
��What, like he wants to rough me up?”

  “Yeah.” As I said it, I noticed the smell of cigar smoke in the pickup. Adam’s ashtray was open. A half-smoked cigar protruded from it. I thought about the cigar butt that Spot had found on the mountain where Scarlett’s shooter had targeted her. I felt confused.

  “I could drive to the cops, right?” Adam said.

  “You could,” I said, thinking about the cigar.

  Adam said, “But if I do that, Crosen and his buddies will go away and find me later, won’t they?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “What would you do?” he asked.

  “I’d like to catch them. It would involve some risk. But I think it is less risk now when we sense they might come after you than it would be to wait and have them show up when you least expect it.”

  “I don’t want them to come to the safe house, that’s for sure. Felicite could be visiting. Where should I go?”

  “I’d like you to drive out of here and go to the college. Drive slowly and take your time. Pull into one of the most distant parking lots and park in a space that is farthest from anywhere. That way they’ll feel that they can come after you with little risk. I’ll be following at a distance. I have my phone. And Commander Mallory at the police department is only a couple of blocks from the college.”

  “So the cops could come at the first sign of trouble.”

  “Yeah. But Adam, I want to be very clear about this. If Crosen really does come after you, now or later, the risk could be substantial. You don’t have to do this now.”

  Adam stared at the dashboard. He put his hands on the steering wheel. “But like you said, if not now, then he might come some other time. I’m not a liar. He should have to recognize that. I’d rather get it over with. I’ll see you whenever.” He started his truck.

  I reached in through the window and put my hand on his shoulder.

  “I’ve got your back,” I said, worrying that I’d set in motion something awful. But maybe some truth would shake out of it.

  FORTY

  I turned and walked to my Jeep, which was the other direction down the street.