Tahoe Payback Read online

  “Is your mother still around to enjoy your water colors?”

  “Oh, no, she ran off before dad died. I never heard from her again.”

  “I guess I’ve brought up some uncomfortable subjects,” I said. “I apologize.”

  “No worries. That’s life.”

  “Thanks, Aubrey. You’ve helped me a lot.”

  After I hung up, I sat for a bit in silence. Thinking how even though it was a longshot that Aubrey Blackwood could be a killer, she fit what Agent Ramos had told me. He’d related what a murderous Vegas drinker had told the bartender about kids whose mother ran away with a rich charity scammer and whose father died not long after.

  I thought about my previous case and a woman named Evan Rosen. When I uncovered evidence that implicated her in a murder, I did the ethical thing and turned it over to county law enforcement. They pursued it and arrested her for murder even though I didn’t believe she was a killer.

  Now Aubrey Blackwood had just told me something that might suggest taking a closer look at her. It wasn’t evidence like I’d found in the case involving Evan Rosen. But, as with my previous case, I couldn’t see Aubrey for a killer. If I passed the information about her childhood on to other law enforcement, she would have to endure lots of questioning at the minimum. I thought it through, and I realized that the information was much less damning than what I’d learned about Evan Rosen a few weeks earlier. So I decided to keep it to myself. If I later learned something significant, I could decide then to revisit the situation.

  FORTY-ONE

  M y home phone rang at 8 p.m.

  “Owen McKenna,” I answered.

  “You should know about a call that I just heard on the scanner.” It was Diamond. “A body was found in Truckee. Hung from his ankles. I called Truckee PD and said they might want to contact you.”

  “You give them my number?”

  “Yeah. Your home and office and cell.”

  “Then I better get off. Thanks.”

  The home phone rang a minute later.

  “This is Sergeant Trummy from the Truckee Police calling,” a man with a resonant voice said. “I understand you know Sergeant Diamond Martinez at the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “He told me that you’ve been investigating the murder victim that El Dorado County found out on Fannette Island and also the one that Placer County found at Kings Beach. I’m wondering if you and I could talk.”

  “Certainly.”

  “We have a murder victim in Truckee, a guy who was found tied up by his feet. A white male, maybe fifty years of age, about six-two, maybe one hundred eighty pounds. He’s still tied up, hanging from his ankles. The lividity has his head swollen so much it’s hard to tell much about him. The incident commander is an Amtrak Police Inspector. But you could probably help.”

  “Amtrak Police? Why?” I asked.

  “The vic was tied to a train car. The railcar was on the back of an Amtrak train.”

  “Was the victim inside the car or outside?”

  “Outside. The train the car was attached to is the California Zephyr on its way from San Francisco to Chicago. The engineer had stepped off the train to monitor the activities and the passengers. He said he walked down the platform to the end of the train, and that’s when he saw the body hanging from the top of the rear car.”

  “The victim was already dead?”

  “If not already, he was by the time the engineer got a step ladder and climbed up to the body. The engineer knew how to check for pulse and breathing, and there was neither. He also said that his first impulse was to cut the man down, but he didn’t immediately know how, because the vic’s feet were about fifteen feet up, and there is no easy way to get up to the top of the rail car. The victim’s head looked like it could rupture at any moment. I’ve never seen anything like it. Can you come take a look?”

  “I don’t know if I can help. But I’ll come. I’m on the East Shore. It’ll take me an hour or so to get there.”

  “Look for us on the rail siding to the east of the train station.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  I hustled Spot out the cabin door.

  I drove up the East Shore, went through Incline Village and then over the state line into California. When I got to Kings Beach, I turned north and went up and over Brockway Summit, then down across Martis Valley to Truckee.

  The main street of the old railroad town was thick with patrol vehicles, parked in a scattershot pattern, light bars flashing blue and red. At one end of the vehicle group was a fire engine and rescue vehicle, lights off.

  Some officers were directing traffic around the area. Others were taking photographs, making notes, talking on radios.

  I parked, left Spot in the Jeep, and walked up to two men and a woman who were standing next to the train station.

  “My name’s Owen McKenna, here by the request of Sergeant Trummy.”

  “That’s me,” one of the men said. We shook hands. Although we were in the train station shadows, I could see that Trummy was dark brown like Diamond. The other man and woman were white. “Come with me,” Trummy said.

  He walked away from the others, and I joined him. We went past the east end of the train station and headed down the tracks.

  “My name’s actually Trummer,” the cop said. “Sergeant Trummer. But the guys call me Trummy because I’m into swing-era jazz, and Trummy’s the name of my favorite trombonist.”

  “Trummy Young,” I said.

  The man stopped, turned, and stared at me. “I don’t believe it. You’re the first person I’ve met since I left Chicago who knows Trummy Young. So you’re a jazz cat?”

  “Not really. I like the music, but I’m no expert. Didn’t Trummy Young play with Parker and Dizzy?”

  The cop gave me a big grin. “And Louis and Duke and Ella and Benny Goodman and Earl Fatha Hines. He really swung.”

  We were approaching a single rail car parked on a siding. There were several temporary floodlights set up on pole stands, illuminating the car, which was shiny silver and looked as if it had recently been washed and waxed. The car looked like an Art Deco design, which made it seem 60 or 70 years old. Yet, like a classic Airstream camp trailer, it still looked modern.

  “This rail car doesn’t sit here all the time, right?”

  Trummy shook his head. “Just came in this afternoon.”

  “You said it was on the California Zephyr. That name sounds familiar.”

  Trummy nodded. “Yep. It’s a famous train. Dates back to nineteen forty-nine.”

  “And where is that train now?” I asked.

  Trummy pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch. “It’s ten o’clock, so that train is probably most of the way across Nevada on its way to Salt Lake City.”

  I looked at the big, silver rail car as we approached. “How is it that they left this car behind?”

  “This is what’s called a private rail car, getting pulled by the California Zephyr. When the engineer found the body, he called it in, and they sent out an APD inspector to process the crime scene. He’s right over there, if you want to talk to him.”

  “APD…” I said.

  “Amtrak Police Department. They have jurisdiction at train stations and on trains and on the tracks. Anything having to do with trains across the country.”

  “Who’s the lead investigator?”

  “It was me in the beginning. But when I talked to the APD on the phone, they asked that we not touch or alter the crime scene. When the APD inspector arrived, I handed the investigation over to him. I’ll introduce you.”

  Sergeant Trummer walked over to a man who wore a very dark uniform and had a standard set of police gear on his body. The patch on his shoulder said police in large letters. Below it was the word Amtrak in smaller letters.

  “Inspector,” Trummer said. “This is Owen McKenna. I’ve asked him to help. He’s maybe got information…” Trummer turned to me. “I guess you may as well e
xplain.”

  I reached out my hand to shake his. “Owen McKenna, former Homicide Inspector with the SFPD, now a private cop in Tahoe. I’m working on two homicides where the victims were hung upside down by their feet. I’ve been asked to look at this case as potentially related.”

  “Inspector Howard Humboldt,” the man said. “Good to meet you. With the Truckee PD helping, we’ve documented the scene, photographs and description. We’ve collected, inventoried, and bagged a few items we found that may be evidence but probably are not. We’ve found nothing that appears to connect to the killer. I’ve heard about those other cases, murder victims found upside down. Fannette Island in Emerald Bay and the flagpole victim in Kings Beach, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “How is it that a car from the California Zephyr can be disconnected from the train and the train sent on its way? Were there enough empty seats on the train to accommodate the passengers who were in this car?”

  “This is a private car. We think there was only one passenger in this car, possibly the victim, so taking it off the train wasn’t a problem. After we spoke to everyone on the train, we had the engineer pull the train forward and back this car onto this siding with the body still attached. Then the engineer disconnected this car, and the California Zephyr departed for Chicago.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean about a private car.”

  “This car is probably owned by a corporation,” Humboldt said. “Not too many private cars like it out there. Very luxurious. Anyway, we think the victim may have been riding in that car.”

  As we came around the end of the car, Inspector Humboldt gestured toward the victim. The view was like something out of a Hitchcock movie. The victim dangled upside down in the bright flood lights. His head and neck were purple and dramatically swollen as his blood had pooled under the force of gravity. The blood had puffed out his face and neck enough that I doubted anyone could recognize him.

  “ID?” I said.

  “No. We got a warrant to search the railcar an hour ago. The preliminary search revealed nothing. Truckee PD officers are inside now, doing a full search. But as of now, we have nothing. No ID. No sign of distress in the car. No personal belongings such as wallet or cell phone or keys.”

  I looked up at the victim. “The line that goes from the victim’s ankles up to the top of the train car looks like paracord.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Thin, strong, and smooth,” I said. “It’s the same cord that was used in the Fannette Island murder. Although the cord here looks brown. The paracord used in the first murder was green. The victim in the second murder was tied to the flapole rope.”

  “Is paracord unusual?”

  “It’s common in sporting and camping and hunting activities. But many people are not familiar with it. Do you know what it’s tied to?”

  “It’s looped through an antenna support bracket. The metal is smooth, and the cord is real thin. I can’t imagine how the killer got the cord up there without a ladder when the train was stopped. Any number of people would have seen that.”

  I walked off to the side to see the bracket from a different angle. “One possibility is that the killer had a curved, stiff wire with the cord tied to the end. If he leaned out from one of the rear windows, he could have threaded it through the bracket. Do you think the railcar is connected to the victim?”

  “Maybe,” Inspector Humboldt said. “That would explain how the killer could have been in the railcar with the victim without anyone else on the train noticing. If the victim was in the car, maybe he heard a knock on the door. He let the killer in, and the killer locked the door behind him.”

  “Has the medical examiner determined cause of death?”

  “The ME isn’t here, yet. He was on a fishing vacation in Graeagle, north of here about sixty miles. That’s why we haven’t lowered the victim.”

  At that moment, a man emerged from the shadows. He was carrying a large, dark gray, plastic toolbox.

  “I’m Doctor McCarthy, Medical Examiner. Sorry it took me a bit to get here.” He had on his camping clothes, blue jeans and hiking boots and heavy green jacket with a half dozen zippered pockets. His baseball cap was red flannel.

  Humboldt and I introduced ourselves. “The victim’s around the back of this train car,” Humboldt said.

  We walked the doctor over into the floodlights. The ME was a small thin man, all jutting angles. McCarthy looked up at the body, his head tipped back so that the harsh floodlights lit up the baseball cap, the color as intense as fresh blood. McCarthy swallowed at the sight, his adam’s apple protruding just enough to catch the floodlight as it bobbed in the glare.

  “How long has it been since you arrived here?” the doctor said without turning.

  The Amtrak inspector said, “I was down in the Central Valley when I got a call at about five to three. The engineer said he’d just found the body. That fit the schedule, because the Zephyr arrives in Truckee at two-forty. I left almost immediately and got up the mountain to Truckee in ninety minutes. After parking and walking over here, it was not quite five. Now, it’s almost eleven p.m. So that’s about eight hours from the time the engineer first found the body and called me.”

  The doctor gestured toward the body. “The lividity we see now, swollen head and neck, purple with pooled blood, how far had that progressed by the time you arrived?”

  The inspector thought about it. “I would say the body looked very much like it does now. Maybe it’s darker purple now.”

  “I was told that the engineer was certain the victim was dead when he found the body?” the doctor said.

  “Yes. The engineer has had EMT training. He said the lividity made it obvious that the victim was dead. That’s why he didn’t attempt to climb up and cut the cord and get the body down to try resuscitation. How long does it normally take for a body’s head to turn purple and swollen?”

  The doctor paused. “Being dangled upside down would accelerate the pooling of blood in the head and neck. But the blood wouldn’t begin to turn purple for some time.”

  Inspector Humboldt’s eyes were wide in the floodlights. “Which means the victim was probably killed before the train pulled into the station.”

  The doctor nodded. “And because the lividity is in the head and neck, we know the body was hung upside down around the time of death.”

  Doctor McCarthy reached into his toolbox and pulled out latex gloves and pulled them on. Then he pulled out what looked like a rectal thermometer. He said, “Some people would likely survive many hours upside down. If a person is fit and has no vascular disease, being upside down would not, in itself, be a reliable cause of death. We won’t know why the victim died until after the autopsy.”

  The doctor started up the ladder. He unhooked the victim’s belt, unzipped his pants, then pulled at the victim’s boxer shorts. He reached around and inserted the thermometer. “This victim has his hands bound behind his back. As the train turned and shook and the victim swung around, his bound hands would make it hard for him to cushion any blows to the head. His only defense against head injury would be to twist and turn his head to avoid blows against the side of the train. Suspension upside down might eventually have brought on unconsciousness. At that point, the head would sustain injuries from bouncing against the train. Combined with the increased fluid pressures in the head and brain, that might accelerate death.”

  The Amtrak cop said, “So it looks like the victim was strung upside down while the train was running. If the victim had been dead for an hour or more, then death occurred while the train was climbing up into the Sierra. If the victim had been hung up while the train was still in the populated areas near Sacramento, someone probably would have seen it and called it in. So the victim was likely strung up as the train drove into the mountains where there are fewer chances that someone would witness the murder. That almost guarantees that the killer was on this train car with the victim.”

  Doctor McCarthy made a small nod. He p
ulled a small flashlight out of his belt pack and was shining it at the shadowed areas that were unlit by the floodlights. “There are a variety of bruises on the body. The trauma indicates that they occurred while the victim was still alive. And they match up with this horizontal ridge near the train’s windows. Post mortem tissue damage doesn’t bruise the same way. That suggests that the victim received substantial bruising while he was still alive. That doesn’t give us cause of death, but it allows for the possibility that the victim died of exposure, banging about the back of the train until the injuries and trauma from being upside down took their toll.”

  The doctor removed the thermometer and shined his flashlight on it. “The victim’s core temperature is eighty-five degrees, which means the victim’s temperature has cooled about thirteen and a half degrees. Using the Glaister equation, a victim of this size would probably lose one-point-five degrees fahrenheit per hour. That is very rough, as many factors influence how fast a body cools. Nevertheless, I’d estimate the victim died approximately nine hours ago. Which would be about two o’clock.”

  Inspector Humbolt said, “If that’s accurate, that means he died about forty minutes before the train got to Truckee. That would suggest he was tied up as the train began to climb into the foothills east of Sacramento and before it crested Donner Pass. That’s country where fewer people might see the body. I’ll put the word out for anyone working near the tracks on the route. Maybe someone saw something unusual.”

  The Amtrak inspector paused, frowning, and looked at the doctor. “If the man was banging around and getting bruised up for an hour, would that be enough to kill him?”

  “There are a lot of variables,” Dr. McCarthy said. “But this man doesn’t look especially out of shape. If I had to guess, I would think it would take longer than an hour to kill him. Now if I find signs of serious contusions under his hair, then brain trauma could certainly hasten death.”

  FORTY-TWO