Tahoe Skydrop (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 16) Read online

  Knowing he was safe, I turned my scope back up toward the summit.

  The remaining two men were moving, nearly running down the trail. After about ten minutes, they’d descended a steep quarter mile and dropped about 400 or 500 feet. I was about to swing the scope down to look at Vince, when the two men did something unusual. They turned off the trail and started moving down toward a hollow, a depression in the area between the two peaks of Job’s Sister and Freel.

  It didn’t make sense. The area they were going to had no trail that I knew of. Because it was in a more sheltered area, the snow was somewhat protected from wind and thus much softer. One can hike down in deep snow, but that same snow may be too deep to hike up. They could easily end up stranded in a wilderness area.

  They were also moving into an avalanche track. While the current snow above them appeared stable, high wind can loosen giant slabs and send them down to take out everything below.

  I stopped looking through the scope to rest my eyes. A sense of movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention. I lifted my binoculars, trying to put my focus on the movement.

  In front of the north side of Freel is a lower mountain called Trimmer Peak. It’s not a pretty or dramatic mountain but a steeply sloped, unsymmetrical lump with rocky outcroppings at the top.

  The movement I sensed was an aircraft flying in from the west, about 1000 feet below Trimmer’s summit. With the backdrop of Trimmer, and Freel behind that, the aircraft looked like a small bug working its way through the air, dominated by the mountains looming above.

  I looked through the scope, moving it around, trying to find the aircraft.

  There it was.

  A large, blue helicopter.

  I’m not very familiar with helicopter models. But it looked like a Bell, a turbocharged machine large enough to carry eight or ten people.

  It was flying in front of the north slope of Trimmer Peak. The helicopter arced across the front of the mountain on a gradual climb. I estimated its altitude at 9000 feet. As it came around Trimmer, it hugged the slope and continued on toward Job’s Sister.

  Because of the day’s high wind, I assumed any aircraft on its general flight path would stay well below the peaks and fly roughly over me on a path to Carson Valley. But this chopper didn’t come toward me at all. Instead, it stayed close to the mountain slope where it presumably had some wind protection. It slowed, still climbing, and headed toward the same depression the men were hiking toward.

  I realized it was a pick-up.

  The helicopter slowed further as it got closer to the men. It stopped its forward motion and appeared to hover. From my distance, I couldn’t see details. But I assumed it was being severely buffeted by the wind. The pilot was no doubt trying to find the most sheltered place to drop down.

  There was no easy landing area, and a helicopter couldn’t be set down in deep snow, crusted over or otherwise.

  I turned the scope toward the men. They were high-stepping their way toward the chopper as it lowered farther.

  I carefully swung the scope back toward the helicopter. It looked like the chopper was landing, although I assumed it was actually hovering just above ground.

  Through the scope, I could see the convergence of men and chopper, but I could not actually see them climb into the bird. The distance was too great for such detail.

  After another minute, the helicopter rose up into the sky, tilted forward, and then moved off to the west, back where it had come from, in the relative safety of the wind shadow from Freel Peak. The chopper arced around Trimmer Peak, then curved south toward Armstrong Pass and Hope Valley beyond the pass. It disappeared from my line of sight.

  I turned my scope back to where I’d last seen Vince.

  It took some searching. I eventually located him hiking down through the snow, a lone figure on a big mountain. He’d done his job. But the kidnappers still had his son.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  With the remaining two men escaping by helicopter, there was no point in continuing along the Tahoe Rim Trail. There would be no one to follow and no license number to find.

  So I returned the way I’d come.

  When Spot and I got back to my Jeep, I tried calling Vince’s cell phone. The cell coverage wasn’t sufficient.

  When we got to the bottom of Kingsbury Grade, I stopped at my office and tried Vince again using my landline. He answered.

  “I’m very glad you made it out,” I said. “You are obviously a pro with your axe on a glissade.”

  “That’s just basic stuff everyone in the mountains should know,” he said.

  “I saw your hand signals. You did a great job. What I don’t understand is why the rappelling man was going down to the body, and what the fight was about?”

  “It seemed like Lucas got something valuable off the body,” Vince said. “Then they were arguing about it. You must have seen the guy who lost control on his glissade?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Brutal.”

  “What was the deal with the helicopter?” Vince asked.

  “I don’t know, but I can maybe track it. I’ll make some calls.”

  “I did what they wanted and took them up the mountain. So they should let Jon go. I already tried calling the number. But no one answers!”

  I could hear Vince breathing hard. “Give it some time,” I said. “They may be heading toward wherever they’re keeping him as we speak.”

  After a moment, Vince said, “I still don’t see why they wore masks to keep me from seeing them. They were willing to push one of their own off the mountain. They could have done the same with me.”

  “True, but you know how to glissade to safety. You’d be hard to kill, Vince.”

  Vince didn’t respond.

  “I’ll see what I can learn,” I said.

  “You’ll call as soon as you know anything?” Vince sounded distraught.

  “Count on it.”

  Vince and I hung up, and I called El Dorado County Sergeant Bains.

  “Hey, McKenna,” he said when I identified myself. “Always a pleasure. Unless of course you’re reporting a crime.”

  “Kind of.” I told him about watching some climbers who found what appeared to be a dead body on the cliffs of Job’s Sister, which was followed by the climbers fighting and one of them blowing off the summit and down the west slope.

  “The first body appears to be stuck on the cliff face just north of the summit. The person who blew off is in a ravine to the west of Star Lake. No doubt he is dead as well, or will die from exposure shortly. Technically, that would put both bodies in El Dorado County. I thought you should know.”

  “Do you know the names of these guys?”

  “No. I watched them from about two miles away.”

  “Lucky for me they didn’t go off the summit the other direction. Then it would be Alpine County’s problem. Now I get to have all the fun. When was this?”

  “This morning at about eight a.m.”

  “There’s a gale at high altitude. What were climbers doing up there in this weather?”

  “My question, too,” I said. “One more thing. Two remaining climbers hiked down to a hollow between Job’s Sister and Freel Peak, where they were picked up by a blue helicopter.”

  “Interesting. When the weather clears, we’ll have one of our volunteer citizen spotter pilots fly by and take a look. I’m curious what you were doing two miles away when you saw this. It would be hard to see men from such a distance.”

  “I was out hiking with a spotting scope.”

  “Looking for birds?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Meaning something else,” Bains said. “When will you tell me?”

  “As soon as my client gives me permission.”

  We clicked off.

  Next, I called Douglas County Sergeant Diamond Martinez. He answered.

  “Any chance you’re on patrol?” I asked.

  “Sí. I see from the readout, you’re at your office. I’m not fa
r. Should I stop by?”

  “Please.”

  Spot and I went out to the parking lot and waited. I didn’t want to request a visit and then make the visitor run up my office steps.

  I saw Diamond’s patrol vehicle come up from down on the highway. He pulled into the office lot and rolled down his window. I leaned my elbow on the sill. Spot pushed his head in next to me so that we were both encroaching on Diamond’s space.

  There was a Starbucks coffee in the dashboard cup holder and a paper bakery bag on Diamond’s lap. Diamond was reaching into it.

  “It’s good to give yourself a treat occasionally, no?” I said.

  Diamond lifted out a huge cinnamon bun.

  Spot stared at the bun, his nostrils flexing.

  Diamond lifted the bun. “Isn’t a treat. It’s a scientific experiment,” he said, his voice excessively serious.

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m going to use Skinnerian psychology to attempt behavioral modification.”

  “Skinnerian?”

  “B.F. Skinner. Famous psychologist. He formulated the principles of operant conditioning.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “The way reward and punishment influence behavior.”

  “How does the experiment work?”

  “My question is this,” Diamond said. “If a cop does a really good job, and then the cop gets a reward, will that cause the cop to do an even better job?”

  “And the cinnamon bun will be the reward in this experiment,” I said.

  “Sí.”

  “Have you chosen a subject for this experiment?”

  Diamond said, “I was worried about a potential risk to someone’s ego if it went badly, so I thought it would be safest if I put myself at risk first.”

  “So if you do a really good job, you will reward yourself with that huge cinnamon bun.”

  Diamond nodded. He still looked very serious.

  “All in the name of scientific inquiry,” I said.

  He nodded again.

  “And you will subject yourself to this experiment without complaint or compensation just because of your moral virtue?”

  “Something like that.” Diamond took a big bite out of the bun.

  Spot was watching the way all Great Danes look at cinnamon buns. He ran his tongue around his jowls.

  Diamond leaned away just a little. “Hound is close enough that he could grab this bun out of my hand. But he won’t, right?”

  “Dane owners know to never say won’t when it comes to stealing cinnamon buns.”

  “What if I gave him a piece?”

  I shook my head. “He knows it’s not his, so he’s not drooling. As soon as you break that boundary, the drool will flow like Yosemite Falls until the bun is gone. You’d have to get your sheriff’s vehicle steam cleaned.”

  Diamond looked at Spot. “Sorry, Largeness.” He put the bun back in the bag and set it on the passenger seat.

  I said, “I’ve got a question.”

  “Sí.”

  “I have a client and a case that I can’t talk about specifically. But the general concept is that a guy is in big trouble. Someone close to him is at risk in a threatening way. The threatening agent says that if my client goes to the cops, the person close gets killed.”

  “You’re talking about a kidnapping,” Diamond said. There was no question in his voice.

  “I’m wondering if you’ve heard of any bad guys using a blue helicopter for a getaway vehicle? Possibly a Bell? Something with enough oomph to do a pluck-and-lift of two men off a mountain at ten thousand feet in a major windstorm?”

  “Did you say oomph?” Diamond asked. He frowned.

  “Yeah, that would be a technical term referring to a combination of horsepower and pilot chutzpah.”

  “Shakespeare, you ain’t,” Diamond said.

  “So when your Skinnerian conditioning needs you to earn another cinnamon bun, you could work on your helicopter getaway merit badge.”

  “I’ll ask around,” Diamond said. “Put my investigation skill set to work.”

  “Investigation skill set,” I said. “Sounds impressive.”

  “Give me a chance to use my secret decoder ring,” Diamond said. “I’ll call when I learn something.”

  I gave the top of his vehicle a soft smack with my open palm, and he gave the old Douglas County SUV enough gas to make the wheels scrape sand on the parking lot as he drove away.

  Spot and I got in the Jeep and drove home.

  I’d just walked into my cabin when the phone rang.

  I picked it up. “Owen McKenna.”

  “Found it,” Diamond said.

  “No wonder they made you sergeant.”

  “Got a report here says the chopper went AWOL from a Reno charter company three mornings ago and was found an hour ago on a ranch just out of Markleeville in Alpine County. A kid was out on horseback checking fence lines for downed trees.”

  “That’s cool. Ranch work on horseback. The Markleeville location fits, because after the chopper lifted off Job’s Sister, it flew them around the north side of Trimmer Peak toward Armstrong Pass. It makes sense that they would head to Hope Valley and maybe continue on to the more deserted territory of Alpine County. Where’s the pilot?” I asked.

  “No one knows.”

  “No passengers, either?” I asked.

  “Empty as a showroom model. The sheriff’s office report said it was in perfect condition except for one of the leather seats in back had torn stitches and a seam had been pulled open. A stress tear of some kind.” Diamond paused. “Tell me about the men on the mountain.”

  “Except for my client, I don’t know who they are or what they were doing. But one of them rappelled from the summit of Job’s Sister. It looked like he found a body on the cliff below.”

  “That’s El Dorado County, right?”

  “Yeah. I told Bains.”

  “Ready to reveal your client?”

  “I can’t say anything about him, yet. Client-detective privilege. But soon. I only saw these guys from the Tahoe Rim Trail a mile or two away. When the bird went AWOL from Reno, what was it doing?”

  Diamond said, “The charter log showed that the chopper was under hire by the owner of a Truckee company called Tahoe Robotics,” Diamond said. “The wife of the owner reported him missing two mornings ago.”

  “A computer company,” I said absently, thinking about how Vince and Brie had said that Jon was into computers and writing software.

  “Yeah,” Diamond said. “I guess any robotics company would involve computers.”

  “Did anyone reveal why the robotics guy was chartering the chopper?”

  “There’s some other details in the flight log. Something about digital scanning of a cliff face. There is also mention of something called density altitude. But that’s probably just pilot stuff, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Density altitude is a measure of atmospheric pressure that helps a pilot determine how much lift they will have. It lets them know how high they can fly. When the helicopter disappeared, was the original destination Job’s Sister as well?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any chance you got names?”

  “Sí.” I heard him flip another page. “Missing Tahoe Robotics founder is Yardley LaMotte. His wife is Lucy LaMotte.”

  “Contact numbers?”

  “I don’t see that here. I ain’t your secretary, either,” Diamond said. “Already did most of your job for you.”

  “An important part, yes. Thank you very much, honorable and distinguished sergeant. Before you go, does the report say anything about the make of the chopper?”

  “Let me read. It says it’s a Bell Four-Thirty model. Oh, here’s one more thing that’s a bit interesting.”

  “What?” I said.

  “One of the deputies had a crime scene kit when the sheriff’s team went to look at the helicopter. Apparently, she’s quite the expert with fingerprints and such. Turns out the chopp
er was wiped down. No prints anywhere.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Gotta go.” Diamond hung up.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I Googled Tahoe Robotics and found that the company had a minimal website. The home page showed a picture of a cartoon robot. In the balloon above its head were the words, “To be human, or not to be human. That is the question.” Below the cartoon was a P.O. box number in Truckee, a phone number with a 530 area code, and a form for sending a message to the company without being able to access the company’s email address.

  I dialed the number first.

  “Good afternoon, Tahoe Robotics, Marie speaking,” a young woman said. She spoke with crisp elocution. Or maybe it was just a well-spoken robot outfitted with a young woman’s voice.

  “This is Owen McKenna calling to speak with Lucy LaMotte, please. I misplaced her home number, so I thought I would try Yardley’s office.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. LaMotte can’t be reached at this number.”

  “What if it’s important?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have Ms. LaMotte’s number.” There was an edge of frustration in her voice.

  “I wondered if you were a robot,” I said, hoping to provoke her into helping me. “But you are a bit brusque and hence not very robot-like. In any case, Lucy will want you to break the rules and connect her to me.”

  “Sir, I’m just doing my job.” Now she was upset. Good strategy for the robot designers.

  “Can you send her a message, please?”

  “No, not really.”

  I wasn’t getting anywhere with this woman. “Not really?” I said. “Another good response for a robot. Imprecise, and thus it makes you seem very human. Or what would robots call it? Humanoid? Anyway, you seem quite real. Well done. However, a real person would send Lucy a text while we’re talking. So if you want to really nail reality, text Lucy and tell her there’s a law-enforcement guy on the line who has information about Yardley. Information she will want to know.”