Tahoe Blue Fire (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 13) Page 8

  “No. She isn’t a big dater.”

  “If I wanted to ask about her at the restaurant, who would I talk to?”

  “I suppose her boss. He’s the owner and also the main chef.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Spooner. I remember because it’s such an unusual name. Kind of cute, actually.”

  “Last name?”

  Sanford shook his head. “She never mentioned it. Maybe he’s one of those one-name types. It’s called a mononym. Like Madonna or Sting or Prince. I wondered if I should get a mononym. Maybe then I could get some traction in the market.”

  “In the pizza business?”

  “Oh, no. I have plans for a microbrewery some day. I could call it by my mononym. That would give it some buzz, don’t you think?”

  “Depends on the name, I suppose.”

  “I was thinking of Bold. Bold Brew. And I could just be known as Bold. When people are drinking my beer, they’d say things like, ‘How ’bout a Bold?’ It would be cool, right? And on the rear label, there could be a little origin story about Bold. Which would be me. What do you think? Origin stories are the latest marketing buzz. Everybody’s got them.”

  “I don’t know. I’m the last person to ask about marketing. Sanford, do you have a plastic trash bag I could have?”

  “Sure.” He opened a cupboard, pulled out a box that held a roll of white bags, and held it out.

  “Perfect. May I also borrow Darla’s pillowcase?”

  Sanford frowned. “That’s pretty kinky.”

  “I want it for her scent. To see if I can track her with a search dog.”

  “Oh, I get it. You mean like a bloodhound. And you would have the dog smell the pillowcase and then look for her.”

  “Yeah.”

  Sanford acted excited. “I’ve seen that on TV. God, I hope it works! But where would you go?”

  “I might start from the cafe where she worked.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  I took the bag from him and turned it inside out so that my hand and arm were inside of it. I went into Darla’s bedroom and gripped Darla’s pillowcase through the plastic bag. I shook the pillow out of the pillowcase and then carefully rolled the bag back over the pillowcase so the pillowcase was inside the bag. Because I hadn’t touched the pillowcase and had only touched what was now back on the outside of the bag, the pillowcase hadn’t been contaminated by my scent.

  The trash bag itself had a lemon scent. But I figured that would be less confusing to a dog than mixing human scents on the pillowcase.

  “Do you have a picture of Darla?” I asked.

  “On my phone, sure. A few. Let me look.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through images. “Here’s one that’s good.” He held out the phone for me to see.

  “Yeah, that would help. Is there a way you can print it?”

  Sanford thought about it. “I could email it to myself, open it on my computer, then print it.”

  “Great.”

  I waited while he did it, and he handed me the print in a few minutes.

  Darla was a slender girl with short hair. There was something notable about her, but it wasn’t her physical presence. It was something else I couldn’t quite identify. Something about her attitude. Confidence? I didn’t think so. Cockiness? No. Then I realized what it was. Ambition. The girl in the photo seemed imbued with a kind of hunger. I expected that she would go far.

  “One more question,” I said. “When Darla left for work on that last day you saw her, do you remember what she was wearing?”

  “Of course. She had on her black velour pants, a lavender blouse, and a purple dress jacket. She wore a necklace with an amethyst pendant and matching amethyst earrings. Her shoes were L.L.Bean hiking shoes, but of course in her bag were her white sneakers and apron that the restaurant has all the waitresses wear. She’s a striking woman, Mr. McKenna. Straight men are always checking her out.”

  I thanked Sanford for the tea, gave him my card, and asked that he call if he thought of anything I should know.

  ELEVEN

  Back in the Jeep, Spot leaned forward from the back seat. He sniffed me all over and reached down to smell the lemon-scented trash bag.

  I pushed it away. “Not now, Largeness. Just wait a few minutes and once again we’ll see what your sniffer can do.”

  I kept watch for any black pickups as I drove over to the snow dump. I pulled over, parked and got out. It was a large open area in the sparse forest. After an entire season of snow removal, the area was covered in countless humps 8 or 10, or even 12 feet deep.

  The city’s snow removal crew fills the area with snow in a three-step process. First, the graders go down the wide, five-lane thoroughfare that runs the length of South Lake Tahoe. The graders make continuous passes during a storm, gradually pushing the snow into a huge berm that is 5 feet tall and 10 feet wide and takes up all of the center lane, which is normally reserved for turning vehicles. Next, a rotary blower goes along chewing up the snow and blowing it into a continuous line of slow-moving dump trucks that have matched their speed to the rotary. When each truck is full, it drives off and the next truck takes its place. The full dump trucks come to the snow dump lot and dump their load, gradually filling the forest with a monstrous, lumpy blanket of compressed snow.

  Spot and I walked around part of the perimeter. Spot ran up onto the piles, then back off. It was a game. Up, then down. Up, then down. I envied his ability to find great joy in simply running around.

  On the side of the snow dump was an unusual path cut into the piles of snow. It was like a narrow alley, cut by a rotary blower. The path had walls that were quite high, maybe 10 feet or more, and the cut went back about 30 yards into the field of piled snow and then stopped at an abrupt dead end. It was as if a blower driver had tried to chew a path through the snow dump and then gave up part way through.

  “I need you to perform a miracle, boy,” I said to Spot as I held Sean Warner’s glove.

  Spot ran around through the fresh snow, making circles around me. It was his favorite taunt. He knew I wanted him to do something, so he stayed close but kept up a high speed, thinking he’d frustrate me, which was true.

  I waited while he burned off some energy. Then he slowed, picked up a pine cone that had recently fallen, and ran toward me. He did a quick stop ten feet from me and tossed the pine cone onto the icy pavement. It rolled to a point midway between us. It was a game he’d invented a year ago. Dare the slow human to try to grab the cone.

  “Sorry, Spot,” I said. I held up the glove and walked past him. He stayed behind, cranking his head around to watch me go, then turning back to study the pine cone. The sun caught his faux diamond ear stud and sparkled hot rays like those from a disco ball in a nightclub.

  Eventually, Spot left the cone where it lay and climbed up onto the piles of snow to explore, no doubt appreciating that, unlike slogging through deep powder or walking gingerly on frozen crust and periodically breaking through, he could run on the compressed snow. The piled humps made it exciting, and he ran S-turns through them like a kid banking off the ramps and pipes of a skateboard park.

  “Spot, c’mon,” I tried again. “Let’s get back to miracles.” I pulled a dog biscuit out of the zippered cargo pocket where I keep them and held it up.

  He ran over.

  “You help me, you get a treat,” I said. “That simple.”

  He stared at my hand. I put the treat back in my pocket. He stared at my pocket.

  “Spot, I need you to find a scent. Do you smell this?” I pushed the glove up against his nose. “Do you have the scent?” I tried to put excitement in my voice. With one hand holding the glove, I took my other hand and put it on his back, giving him a vibrating shake to help engage his attention.

  “Okay, boy. Find the scent!” I gave him a pat on his rear.

  He ran off, circled around, and homed in on the pine cone. He scooped it up on the run and charged toward me. Spot skidded to a sto
p just in front of me and dropped the cone at my feet. He looked again at my pocket where I’d put the dog biscuit.

  “No, Spot, I need your help. Please.”

  I went through the glove-scenting routine again, giving him the command and another light smack on his rear.

  He took off again, this time at a lope instead of a run. He held his head high, which gave me hope that maybe he was paying some attention to whatever scents were in the air. On his second circular loop, he veered away from me and climbed up onto the snow piles. Like before, he weaved in and around the humps but at a much slower speed. I wondered if that would make any difference, pro or con. Spot slowed further, then stopped.

  He turned around and retraced his steps for a bit, stopped again.

  He pawed at the frozen, compressed snow, stuck his nose on the snow, sniffed, pawed again. Then he used both paws and did a little serious digging, right, left, right, left, shooting snow out between his rear legs. He went down about a foot, then stuck his snout into the little hole, grabbed something and pulled. The object he had was frozen in place. Spot pulled harder. I could see his shoulder muscles flexing. Then it came free.

  Spot turned and trotted toward me. He was in no big hurry. But I knew he was thinking about the dog treat I had in my pocket. I got it out. When he got to me, he dropped a piece of fabric on the snow. I lavished him with praise and pets and gave him the treat. He chomped it once, and it disappeared. He looked back at my pocket.

  I went back to the Jeep and got my large-sized bags out of the glove box. I opened one, reversed it, and picked up the fabric, sealing it inside. The fabric was shredded and frozen stiff. But it looked like it had been torn from a pair of blue jeans, and, according to Spot, its scent matched Sean’s.

  I felt discomfort in my gut. A man who parks his car and walks away for whatever reason doesn’t tear off a portion of his clothes and bury it in the snow.

  I praised Spot again and sent him on another search. This time, fueled by the actual taste of a doggie treat, he possibly felt more expansive. He went back up onto the piled snow but took a much wider arc and then zigzagged over a large area.

  Once again, he found a promising place, did some more digging, and pulled a larger piece of fabric out of the compressed snow. He trotted back to me and dropped it at my feet. This time he had less enthusiasm.

  I praised him and gave him another treat and reached down with dread to pick up a larger chunk of denim. It was folded over and bent and frozen stiff. I got it into another bag. Manipulating the fabric through the plastic, I untwisted it. I could feel something long and stiff inside, as if the fabric had been used to wrap a knife blade. But when I unwound the fabric, what felt like a knife was a gray, pointed object. On one side, it was stained a light brown. I realized I was holding a broken piece of bone.

  TWELVE

  I didn’t want to believe what it meant, but the meaning was obvious. And while Spot got depressed when he found dead bodies, this was such a small portion that he didn’t realize what he’d found. Not yet, anyway.

  I called Mallory.

  “I’m going to have to put you on the spam caller list,” he said.

  “Sorry for bothering you, but you’ll want to see what my dog just found at the snow dump.”

  We talked for a half minute, and Mallory said he’d be over in a few minutes.

  I hung up and waited for Mallory, my thoughts preoccupied with the enormity of what appeared to have happened.

  A few minutes later, Mallory drove up in an unmarked, parking near my Jeep. He got out and came over. He held a can of Coke.

  I reached out with the pieces of fabric and bone. With practiced precision, Mallory put the Coke between his forearm and his side so that he could use both hands. He held the bagged items and turned them over with both hands.

  “Christ, McKenna, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I hate it, but yeah.”

  “Could a rotary even do that? Chew through bone and such?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. The drivers couldn’t make any progress if the shear pins broke every time a small branch got into the mix. Branches come down in storms. It wouldn’t take much of a branch to be stronger than bones.”

  “But rotaries aren’t like wood chippers, with sharp little blades,” he said. “They’re snowblowers. Sure, they’re big as hell, but they’re still snowblowers.”

  “I’ve read that simple little driveway snowblowers are responsible for more amputations than anything else,” I said. “Extrapolate out to what a machine with one or two thousand horsepower can do, and it seems believable.”

  “Can your dog do another search?”

  “He gets depressed when he finds dead bodies, but I don’t think he’s put this together, yet. We’ll give it a try.”

  I went through the routine and sent Spot toward the piled snow. He climbed up on top and wandered without energy. What once was eagerness was now drudgery. Eventually, he went close to the deep cut the rotary had made in the center of the lot. Spot found a place that got his attention. He dug at the snow, sniffed some more, dug again. He made one more swipe with one paw then walked away and turned to look at the place from a distance. His ears were back and down. I recognized the meaning, the vivid mood change. He was somber. It made me feel guilty to have sent him on such a depressing mission.

  “We’ll need something to dig with,” I said. I opened the back of the Jeep and pulled out my tire iron.

  Mallory and I clambered up onto the snow piles and walked over toward Spot, slipping on the snow mounds.

  Spot was standing listless, looking away from his find, hanging his head.

  “Sorry, Largeness. I didn’t see this coming.” I rubbed his neck, but his ears were down and his eyes drooped.

  Mallory took the tire iron from me and walked over to the place where Spot had pawed the snow. He stuck the iron in the snow and pried it back and forth. “Damn,” he said as he looked down at the snow. He got on his phone and gave a long list of orders. I pet Spot some more, then left him to see what had Mallory so upset.

  In a shallow depression in the snow was the major portion of a large hand, its three remaining fingers frozen into curved hooks, a gesture of high tension. I’d never considered that a partial hand, all by itself, could communicate terror. But as I looked at it, I felt chilled. My upper back and neck prickled with fear.

  THIRTEEN

  Whatever Mallory said into his phone created a big reaction. Within minutes, four black-and-whites appeared, sirens off but light bars flashing blue and red strobes. Two unmarked cars followed. I recognized one of the men who got out as the Chief. Mallory spoke to all of the cops. One of the sergeants gave some orders, and cops spread out over the snow piles. Two walked into the snow canal that had been cut by a rotary.

  A road grader came up Sierra Blvd., making a loud roar and throwing out black diesel smoke. It pulled to a stop when the driver saw Mallory beckoning him. The driver got out and walked over to Mallory. They spoke. Mallory took him over to the snow canal in the center of the snow dump. They spoke and pointed and gestured. The grader driver shook his head and turned his palms toward the sky as if to say, ‘I don’t have any idea.’

  I stayed back with Spot, petting him, reassuring him.

  When confronted with a problem, dogs don’t have our kind of linear thinking ability. They aren’t as smart as chimps or gorillas or dolphins or elephants when it comes to problem solving. But they get a clear sense of the big picture. And their emotional intelligence with regard to what people want is far beyond that of any other animal. Dogs are the only animals that study a human’s face. Dogs can tell what a human wants by the smallest of looks or actions. The most casual glance or concern on a person’s face causes a dog to respond. If a dog sees the human look toward their leash or a treat, the dog jumps up in excitement. But if a dog sees grief or fear or sadness, the dog comes to nuzzle and give comfort or, if necessary, turn toward the door or window and growl. Dogs want not
hing so much as to please people.

  I’d given Spot the task of looking for a particular human scent. Which led him to a bone with the same scent. Bones and scents are both familiar experiences for dogs. But soon the discomfort set in as Spot realized that bones aren’t supposed to have human scents. Add in the master’s reaction - a quiet but obvious change in my manner and, no doubt, a huge, negative change in my own scent, the odors of horror and disgust - Spot realized that another human had died. Worse, he understood at some level that it was his discovery that brought the realization to his owner. He’d made the worst of discoveries, and it made him seriously depressed.

  Over the next two hours, other city cops showed up as well as three CHP officers and a couple of El Dorado County deputies. One of the local cops had a K-9 unit, and, using Sean’s glove for a scent source, the cop put his German Shepherd through multiple searches. The dog was a trained professional, much more focused than Spot, and he alerted over and over at multiple places. The dog and the officers dug out dozens of bits and pieces of body and clothing. Some were found in the snow piles, while others were found far out into the forest.

  Mallory came over to me. He pet Spot as he spoke. In his other hand he held another Coke.

  “Here’s what we’re thinking. You tell me if this seems wrong. The path cut down the center of the snow dump didn’t go all the way through, as you noted. It looks like the killer cut it in advance as a trap. Somehow, he enticed the guy to walk into the cut in the snow. What he used for bait, I have no idea. Once the vic was in there, he came in with a rotary plow, the auger and impeller on high speed. The snow walls were too high for the vic to climb out, and he was trapped.

  “Looking at the pattern of dispersal of human remains, it looks like he aimed the discharge chute a short distance directly in front of him. After he’d first chewed through the body, he continued forward and plowed through the remains again, re-processing the pieces so to speak, breaking them up into much smaller chunks. And on the second pass, it appears that the driver directed the discharge chute far out into the forest, oscillating it left and right as he drove. If you and your hound hadn’t found this, it’s entirely likely that when the snow melted over the course of the summer, nothing would have been noticed. The odd piece of fabric a hundred yards over there would have blown away. The odd pieces of bone or flesh a hundred yards the other way would have rotted and dried and been inconsequential. As for bigger pieces like the hand, coyotes would have carried them off. I’m guessing that when the killer was done with his evil deed, he probably blew a lot of fresh snow through the rotary, cleaning the equipment so to speak. Once the rotary was back at the yard, the rotary might not have shown any sign of what it had been used for. It would have been the perfect crime but for your hound dog.”