Tahoe Blue Fire (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 13) Read online

  “You can give your statement later,” Santiago said to me. “The medical examiner should be here soon. The evidence team is setting up a perimeter, and they’ll start their search and bag and photo routine.” Santiago looked up at the group of boulders I’d pointed to. “Good cover and not far, either. It wouldn’t take an expert to make that shot.”

  I pointed. “If you move a bit to the left, you’ll see another group of boulders higher up, maybe five hundred yards away.”

  “Hitting a target at that distance would take an expert,” Santiago said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, but a good hunter could do it. Military snipers often work from three times that distance. Even more.”

  Santiago looked out toward the valley below. “Let’s say the shooter was thorough and there’s no shell casing where the shot was fired. What do you think the chances are of us finding the round that hit the woman?”

  “About zero. The only way for someone to hit her in that location on the deck would be from up the slope or from right on the deck. But I think she would have seen someone coming up onto her deck. She was wary. She would have said something while she was on the phone. The entrance wound doesn’t show powder burns, so the shooter wasn’t real close. Either way, the round went through her neck with explosive force. That argues for a high-powered shot, almost certainly a rifle. She was standing near the edge of the deck looking down on me.” I pointed over the deck railing. “Even if the bullet was very deformed from hitting her bone, it would have probably fallen somewhere in those woods far below where I parked to call her. It might even have traveled far past me before it dropped to earth someplace out in the valley. It would take a miracle to find it.”

  “You think a search dog could find it?”

  I looked over at Spot, whose prostrate form suggested depression. “My dog could maybe find a spent round if it was in a small area. But out there in the valley? No way. A professional dog would have a better chance, but it would still take a miracle.” I waved my hand at the expanse of valley below us. “That round could be anyplace in two square miles.”

  Santiago glanced at Scarlett Milo’s body, looked like he was about to say something, then hesitated. “Truth is, McKenna, I’ve never seen a gunshot wound like this. When you did that long stint in San Francisco, you probably saw some major stuff. It looks like her vertebrae shattered. You got an idea what caliber would do that to a person?”

  “I’m no expert, but I don’t think it would need to be anything really big. A thirty caliber could blow apart a woman’s neck vertebra and barely slow down.”

  Santiago looked at Spot. “He looks weary.”

  “Human death does that to many dogs,” I said. “Even if they don’t know the victim.”

  “Why is that?” Santiago asked.

  “It’s a dog thing,” I said, not eager to talk about it. I’d witnessed Spot’s and other dogs’ stress many times.

  “Tell me about it,” Santiago said.

  “It’s not a three-word answer.”

  “I’m just waiting for my men to report back after their searches.”

  So I told him. “Ever since we first began domesticating the gray wolf thirty thousand years ago, our efforts created what became the new species of Canis lupus familiaris. All of its sub-species, what we call dog breeds, evolved to be hard-wired to care more about people than even their own dog brothers and sisters. In exchange for guarding our camps from other tribes and large predators like bears and tigers and wolves, and helping us hunt, and keeping us warm on cold winter nights, we gave them what they needed. Food, protection, a place to sleep. To dogs, humans are gods. When the gods die, it’s an emotional blow.”

  Santiago stared at me. “You sound like someone on public TV. One of those nature shows.”

  I walked over, bent down, and gave Spot a pet. “He’s seen a fair amount of death. Always has the same reaction. His experience is not on the same level as what some of those military dogs or earthquake dogs go through, but it’s hard for him nonetheless.” Spot lay on the deck, his jaw propped between his front paws.

  “Any chance you’ve got a shell cartridge?” I said. “Something from a round that was discharged recently?”

  Santiago frowned. Then he made a small nod. “You want to send your hound on a search? You just made it sound futile.”

  “Trying to find the round is probably futile. But I was thinking of a spent shell casing up near those boulders.”

  “Ah.” Santiago nodded. “Like you said, maybe he’d be good at searching a small area.”

  “Right. He’s not a professional, but he’s got the same sniffer as other dogs. It’s more a question of…” I paused.

  “Whether he wants to,” Santiago said.

  “Yeah. Great Danes are lovers and loungers. They aren’t as eager to work as the other working breeds.”

  “I could fire my sidearm to get you a fresh shell casing,” Santiago said. Then he turned and looked down from the deck at his sheriff’s patrol vehicle parked off to the side of Scarlett Milo’s house. “Wait. I picked up some large shell casings at the range the other day and put them in the change compartment of my patrol unit. I forgot about them until now. You think that would work?”

  “Depends on how recently they were fired. Let’s try it.”

  We trotted down the stairs to his vehicle. He reached in and pulled out three long shell casings.

  “I was thinking they were two-seventy Winchester,” he said, a questioning tone in his voice.

  “Looks like it,” I said. “Or maybe two-sixty-four magnums.”

  Santiago smelled them. “I still smell the gunpowder, so maybe these will work to scent your dog.” He handed them to me. “The way the dispatcher phrased it, it sounded like you heard just one shot,” Santiago said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So there might not be a shell casing.”

  “Right,” I said. “It may be that the shooter was using a bolt-action rifle. Or if he used a semi-auto and the casing was ejected, he could have picked it up.”

  “Worth having your dog look,” Santiago said.

  FOUR

  I took Spot down to the street. I got my snowshoes out of the back of the Jeep and carried them as we headed up the south-facing slope. I didn’t need them at the elevation of Scarlett’s house, but I’d need them when we got up higher.

  The soil was mostly grus, finely eroded granitic pebbles that slid underfoot as we walked up, making the climb a two-steps-up-one-step-back hike. Spot’s claws are like studded snow tires, so grip was no problem for him. But he was lethargic with melancholy, and he lagged behind.

  We climbed up through a forest that was heavy with scents of pine pitch from several species of conifer. We meandered between earthy aromas of impenetrable manzanita thickets and snow patches that lay four feet deep under the thick shade of fir trees. Snowmelt seeped and trickled and gathered into temporary creeks that gave the forest a backdrop of water sounds to go with the humidity of spring. The sun was dialed up to full wattage, and early-season songbirds flitted about, gossiping at high volume. The vibrant springtime renewal of life was on high speed as Spot and I hiked up to look for clues to Scarlett Milo’s death.

  When we got to the first group of boulders, I paused to look around. The air was cool, but the sun was hot. Spot immediately walked over to a patch of tree shade and lay down in the snow beneath it. He panted for a bit, blowing off heat, then calmed his breathing, put his jaw down on top of crossed paws, and appeared to sleep.

  The boulders were grouped as if put there to create a shooting blind. There were multiple places a shooter could sit or squat or lie and get a sight line to Milo’s deck. There was even a rock that would make a perfect rifle support.

  Everywhere, the ground was marked with indistinct footprints, the most information that grus can deliver. Somebody, the shooter, or cops, or previous hikers, had tromped the ground since the snow retreated.

  I lay down and sighted down through the rocks. About a
third of Scarlett Milo’s deck was in view, including her body with what looked like three more people nearby. Two wore uniforms. One - probably the medical examiner - was in plain clothes and was bent over the body.

  “Okay, Your Largeness, time to perform your search magic.”

  Spot didn’t move.

  “I know, boy, life is hard, and people die. But you can help.”

  Maybe some really smart dog like an Australian shepherd would understand my words, but Spot slept on.

  I could cajole and lift up on his collar, but you can’t force a 170-pound dog to perform if he doesn’t want to.

  So I pulled out my emergency dog cookie, the kind that comes sealed in a smell-proof wrapper, has a pocket life of two years, and is warrantied to go through at least one laundry cycle without degradation.

  I held it up and called Spot’s name again. He ignored me. I walked over and held the dog treat in front of him. This time he opened his eyes, looked at the treat, and put his head back down.

  This was worrisome. My dog was depressed. I needed to distract him, to get some joy into his heart. The best way to do that was to get some levity into my words and actions.

  I tore at the little notch in the wrapper, but it would not open. I used my teeth. But the wrapper was some kind of spacesuit material, impervious to any alien weapon. I opened the blade of my pocket knife, put the dog cookie on a rock, and stabbed it through the heart.

  Now the material tore easily. The cookie broke into multiple pieces.

  Spot was finally interested.

  I took the two largest intact cookie pieces and put them in my shirt pocket. Then I scraped up the rest of the crumbs and brought them over to Spot.

  “A taste, Spot, a temptation of what’s to come should you help me.”

  I held out my palm. He sniffed, unsure if he wanted the crumbs.

  “Spot, this magnificent gourmet doggie cookie is like a Big Mac to a starving man.” Spot’s eyes drooped, unimpressed. “This is a Red Bull to a teenage boy. This is a ten-thousand-dollar, forty-year-old Macallan single malt to a Scotch connoisseur.” That sold him. Spot licked the crumbs off my palm.

  “Tasty, huh? C’mon, boy, let’s do a little search and I’ll give you another bite of heaven.”

  I lifted up on Spot’s collar. He resisted, then gradually pushed out his front paws and walked them back until he was in a sitting position. I shifted my tug from up to forward, and he stood.

  I pulled out the shell casings Santiago had given me and held them out to Spot.

  “Smell these, Spot? Do you have the scent?” I held them near his nose, then reached out with my other hand, put it on his back, and gave him a vibrating shake. I wanted to make him understand that this was a special task, that I needed his attention.

  “Smell these, Spot! Now find the scent!” I pulled the shell casings away from Spot and gave him a pat on his rear.

  “Go find the scent, Spot!” I gave him another light smack.

  He took a step forward and stopped.

  “C’mon, Spot!” I pulled on his collar, trying to get him to at least make a pretend inspection of the area around the group of boulders. Spot took another step forward. He lifted his nose as if detecting some small scent on the breeze, turned to the side, and lay down in the dirt.

  I squatted down and held out the shell casings once again, sticking them under Spot’s nose. “Do you have the scent, Spot?!” I said, exuding enthusiasm, trying to tap into our past training efforts. Spot had to know that if he found the scent, he’d get more of the fabulous cookie treat.

  But he didn’t move.

  Maybe his mood was not up to it. Maybe Scarlett Milo’s death was too debilitating.

  Then again, maybe there was no scent of spent shell casings anywhere nearby.

  I turned and walked away from the boulders.

  “C’mon, Spot. We’ve got more hiking to do.”

  I glanced back as I angled up the slope. Spot lifted his head and watched me go, then slowly got up and ambled after me.

  I took a zigzag path up the slope, once again picking my way through the manzanita and around the snow patches. As we went higher, there was more snow coverage, and the snow patches were deeper. I found it harder to stay out of the snow and was forced to walk across the snow in places, stepping carefully to not punch through. The spring freeze-thaw cycles had hardened the surface. Every afternoon, the hot sun of late April had melted the snow’s surface, and every evening and night, the high-altitude cold had refrozen it. The result was a firm snowpack with the top two inches turned by the sun into soft corn snow. Now and then, my foot broke through the crust, and I sank in past my ankles. I sat down in the snow and strapped on my snowshoes.

  The microclimate of altitude change was noticeable after just a short hike. I hadn’t gone up more than three or four hundred feet when the snow coverage became significantly deeper, despite the south-facing slope. Spot spread his toes to give more support, but he still broke through the crust. He began following me, stepping in my snowshoe tracks. I tried to make each step a hard marching stomp to compress the snow enough to help Spot.

  The second, higher grouping of boulders was packed with snowshoe footprints and ski tracks from the cops who’d already searched the area. As before, I sighted through the boulders, checking the view down to Scarlett Milo’s deck. Just as with the area closer to her house, this higher one was perfectly situated for a sniper. The only two differences were that this grouping was farther away, enough so that the shooter would have to be a relative expert. But the extra elevation and its snowpack would give a shooter the ability to ski away on a shallow traverse and travel a long distance very quickly.

  I dialed Santiago on my cell phone.

  “Sarge,” I said when he answered. “I’m up at the second, higher, boulder grouping. It is snow-covered, and the area is trampled with footprints. I’m wondering if the cops who came up here found any footprints.”

  “Hold on, let me ask Forman.” He clicked off, then came back a minute later. “None,” he said. “Forman said the entire area was untracked when they got there. They took pictures just in case, and then they walked freely over the snow to inspect around every boulder.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and hung up.

  “Okay, Spot, time for another search!” I radiated enthusiasm because, I hoped, that even depressed dogs might respond to enthusiasm.

  Just as before, I pulled out the shell casings, had Spot sniff them, and gave him the command and the pat on his rear. Just as before he took one step forward, sniffed the air and stopped.

  “Spot, find the scent!” I repeated, almost pleading.

  Spot started to turn a circle in that manner that meant he was about to lie down, when he stopped. He lifted his nose, paused, nostrils flexing, then walked forward, slowly and deliberately. He angled a bit to the right, took several more steps and approached one of the big boulders.

  I scrambled to be near as he homed in on the scent. He lowered his head and moved closer. I could see that whatever he smelled was likely in the small, dark crevice where the boulder rose from the snow and the snow had melted away from the rock.

  I worried that Spot would paw at whatever he smelled and it would drop down into a gap to never be found. So when he reached out his paw, I was ready and grabbed his collar. I pulled him back.

  “Good boy!” I said. I didn’t want to lose the good behavior and reward connection, so I pulled one of the pieces of dog cookie out of my shirt pocket and gave it to him.

  “Good boy!” I said again, petting him as he ate it without energy. Then I got down on my knees in the snow and knee-walked to the boulder, lowering my head to see into the little crevice.

  In contrast to the brilliant sun on the snow, the area between snow and boulder was dark. I took off my sunglasses and lowered my head farther, putting my forehead against rock and my chin against snow. I peered down and to the left, down and to the right, hoping that a shiny brass shell casing would catch the lig
ht. Instead of a shell casing, I saw a dead mouse. I squinted, moving to get a better angle. Maybe it wasn’t a mouse.

  My thin gloves were in the cargo pocket of my jacket. I pulled them on and dug my hands into the snow, pulling back, digging a little trench to the mouse-like object. Gradually, I made a bigger opening, which allowed more light to shine in. The mouse morphed into a cigar butt.

  It was a classic example of how dogs think. Ask them to look for a gunpowder smell and they will understand that gunpowder is the focus. But they will also understand that out in the woods, gunpowder is very foreign. So in the absence of gunpowder, they will alert on other foreign smells. Like a cigar butt where there should only be snow and boulders.

  Careful not to bump the cigar butt deeper down into the crack, I plucked it out and held it up.

  The butt was cold but had white ash on the perimeter, not yet spoiled by snowmelt moisture that would certainly wick into it in the next hour or two.

  I held it out to Spot. “Is this the shell casing you were looking for?”

  He sniffed it and made a single slow wag of his tail.

  I got Santiago back on the phone.

  “Your men who came up to the higher grouping of boulders. Any of them smoke cigars?”

  “Cigars? Of course not. None of my men smoke.”

  “Are you sure? Can you check?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because Spot found a fresh cigar butt. Someone left it here within the last couple of hours.”

  “You gotta be kidding me. Hold on.”

  Santiago came back a minute later. “No. No cigars among the Placer County men.”

  “Our shooter ain’t so healthy,” I said.

  “Forman said there were no tracks in the snow,” Santiago said. “He was adamant about that.”

  “Then our shooter was adamant about not leaving tracks.”

  “Except the cigar butt,” Santiago said.

  “Except the cigar butt.”

  FIVE

  “How could someone not leave tracks on the snow?” Santiago said on the phone.