Tahoe Ghost Boat (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (35 page)

“Not really,” Gertie said. “But I’m learning about how it works. Storytelling. And camera stuff. So far, I’ve just done a couple of videos with my phone. Pretty amateur. I uploaded them to YouTube if you want to take a look. But maybe you shouldn’t. I’d probably be embarrassed.”

“Okay, you think about it. If you decide you don’t mind, then I’d love to see them.”

Street and Gertie talked nonstop while I responded to emails on Street’s computer. I’ve seen Street do it before, the social magic trick performed by the introvert woman who spends nearly all of her time alone with her bugs. And like all sleight of hand, I’m always focusing on the wrong thing if I want to see how it’s done.

In less than an hour, Street knew Gertie better than I ever would.

I moved from email to the Paiute Deadfall trap that Diamond had set up with a few sticks. Street’s large dictionary was still poised at an angle, ready to fall on any little critter that touched the trigger twig.

Soon, Street had taken a page of notes about movies. Later, she was showing Gertie bugs in jars and on display boards. She opened up some books and pointed at images. Through it all, Gertie laughed and smiled and got excited as if Street was an old friend.

Twice I’d gotten up to look out the window blinds and see if Diamond was still there. He was. Or at least, a sheriff’s vehicle was.

After another 10 or 15 minutes, I said, “I’m thinking we should continue this discussion in the car while you drive me up to fetch Spot and my Jeep. Then we could plan an early dinner.”

We went out. Diamond was talking on his phone. He looked at me through the window, then held up his finger. In a minute he hung up and rolled down his window.

“I have to head down to Minden. If you want to wait a bit, I can get a deputy to drive you someplace.”

“Actually, we need to go up to Santiago’s office in Tahoe City. We’ll be in Street’s car. Mikhailo and his boys probably don’t know where we are or what her car looks like. What do you think?”

Diamond paused. “You could hide forever, or you can be alert and take your chances. Street has her phone, right? You can drive her car, and she can dial nine-one-one if need be.”

“Yeah. What about tonight? They know where my cabin is, so maybe we should all crash at Street’s. But a chaperone would be good.”

“Call when you’re back there for the night.”

Diamond waited while we all piled into Street’s bug. I had Gertie get in back where it would be harder to see her. After I pulled out, Diamond left.

Street and Gertie had another animated conversation while I drove.

There was one deputy at the Placer County sheriff’s office. He’d been told I was coming.

Spot seemed excited to see me, although as we were leaving, he strained to smell the waste basket where the empty McDonald’s containers were stuffed.

I drove my Jeep with Spot, while Gertie rode with Street. I had Gertie hold Street’s phone in case a sudden emergency call was necessary.

Our trip was uneventful.

When we parked at Street’s condo and got out, Gertie froze as Spot walked up to her.

“I saw him come out with you and get in your Jeep. I could see he was big, but I didn’t know he was that big!”

Spot reached up his nose and sniffed her chin. Gertie was rigid.

“He’s just like Scruff Boy. If you give him a pet, he’ll be your best friend,” I said.

Gertie pet him between his ears. He broke into a pant. Gertie ran her hands down his neck. Then she hugged him.

We walked through Street’s front door, Spot pushing ahead of us, showing us the way. Street’s phone started ringing. She answered it, then turned to us. “Sorry, but I have to take this. It’ll take me a few minutes.”

“No problem,” I said.

She carried the phone into her bedroom and shut the door.

Gertie and I moved into Street’s kitchen. Spot came with us, then went back and stood at the closed door to the bedroom. He stood facing the door, his ears turned forward. After a bit, he turned back to look at us, then listened to Street’s door some more.

“Like something to drink?” I said. “Although Street is pretty health-focused, so the choices are limited. She has tea and coffee. There might be other options in the fridge.” I opened it up. “Nope. What’ll it be?”

“I’m not a coffee drinker, so tea it is.”

I put on water to heat up.

Gertie said, “Before we went to Street’s lab, did you say anything to her about my cleft lip?”

“No, why?”

“Because she didn’t react at all. She didn’t stare at me. Everybody stares at me. But she just acted normal. Like she was looking at me the person, not me the person with a cleft lip.”

“That’s just the way Street is. And it’s not like you’re so bad to look at.”

FIFTY

“A cleft lip is a pretty big deal,” Gertie said. She seemed to be a confident kid, but these talks about body image revealed the insecurity beneath her self-assured demeanor.

“It’s just a little scar,” I said. “It’s not like it was when you were born. It was fixed up.”

“It’s a big scar with a little notch in my lip. I should know. Everybody stares at it.”

“Do your teachers stare?”

“No. But the kids do.”

“Does your friend Emily stare?”

“No, but that’s Emily. She’s got her own weirdnesses.”

“I think when you grow up, you’ll find that not so many people stare. You’ll meet more people like Street and your teachers.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Do you stare when you see someone in a wheelchair? Or when you’re in the supermarket and you see someone in one of those riding carts?”

“Of course not. But wheelchairs are everywhere.”

“Can you remember when you were very young? Did you stare then?”

Gertie made a slow nod. “Yeah, I did. My mom would hiss at me, ‘Don’t stare!’”

“So you adjusted. When you get older and the people around you are older, you’ll find they’ve adjusted.”

 I put tea bags into three cups and poured water. I carried one to the bedroom where Street was still on the phone. I tapped on the door, opened it a bit, and held up the cup. She nodded. I stepped in and handed it to her. She smiled and kept talking.

Back in the kitchen, Gertie said, “I suppose I could do like mom says. Get more surgery.”

“You could,” I said. “Probably, a lot of people would. Or you could decide that it’s your personal mark.”

“Like Harry Potter and his forehead mark,” Gertie said.

“Right. You have lots of options.”

“Maybe I’ll ask Street what she thinks.” Spot had come halfway back to the kitchen where he stood watching us. At the sound of Gertie saying Street’s name, Spot turned again and looked at the bedroom door.

“I can tell Street’s really smart,” Gertie continued.

“Smarter than me,” I said.

Gertie paused, then made a little shiver.

“You okay?” I said.

“After they put me in the van, the guy I call Max bent down and talked to me. I could tell it was him because I recognized his voice and his awful cologne. He said that if I made any noise, he would cut out my tongue. I could tell he meant it, so I didn’t move. I’d already figured out that they were probably going to kill me, but I didn’t doubt that he would cut out my tongue first.”

“Had he made other threats like that?”

She nodded and took a deep breath. “It was Max who mostly talked. He had a thing about tools. He said he would do things with his tools that would make me scream for mercy. He said whenever he used his tools, people begged to die. It terrified me because not knowing what he meant about tools was worse than knowing. That first night after they kidnapped me, I never slept because I kept imagining what kind of tools he had and what he would do with them.” Gertie was upset.

I reached over and squeezed her forearm. “I’m sorry to bring up the memories, Gertie.”

“No, that’s okay. I know you have to ask.” She sniffled. “I’ve just seen too many movies.”

“What kind of food did they give you?”

“Some kind of tuna salad that came rolled up in a tortilla.”

“A tuna wrap?” I said.

“That’s what you call it? Yeah, a tuna wrap. They gave me that, like, three different times.”

The only ready-made tuna wraps I knew of came from Trader Joe’s. There wasn’t one in Tahoe, but they were everywhere else.

“They also gave me a couple of apples. And donuts.”

“What kind of donuts?” When I said the word donuts, it seemed that Spot looked at me with more intensity.

“I don’t know,” Gertie said. “Just regular glazed donuts. Kind of a brown glaze. Maple syrup flavor. Like you get in any supermarket.”

Street came out of her bedroom.

“Sorry,” she said. “A potentially big client. They’re interested in having me visit their vineyards and develop a natural way to control insect pests. So it was hard to tell them that I can’t talk.”

“No problem,” Gertie said.

“I’m thinking you two might like some dinner,” Street said.

“That would be great,” I said. “How can we help?”

Street orchestrated a group production like she was Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony. She put Gertie and me to work on various projects, and when we were done, we had a gourmet dinner of wild rice, broccoli, chicken with a secret sauce, a salad of kale, spinach, tomatoes, and carrots, and a chocolate parfait-type dessert that she claimed was healthy but tasted as good as any chocolate sundae.

When we were done, I brought up sleeping accommodations. Gertie hesitated, then asked if she might be able to stay with Street. “You and Spot are great,” she said to me in front of Street. “But Street is... Well, I could probably get some good film ideas from her.”

“Of course,” I said. “Let me see what I can do about some reinforcements.” I picked up Street’s phone and dialed Diamond as I carried the phone into Street’s bedroom as Street had done earlier.

I shut the bedroom door. Diamond answered.

“We’re at Street’s,” I said.

“And you still have the girl,” Diamond said.

“Yeah. They are going to sleep here. I haven’t had more than a nap the last two nights, so I thought I’d head up to my cabin. Or do you think that’s a bad idea?”

He paused. “I’ll see about getting two of my guys over there and tell them to keep their hands on their sidearms. Let me put you on hold.”

“Thanks.” I waited.

Diamond was back on the line a few minutes later.

“Cory Denell and Joe Galant will be there in twenty minutes.”

“Great,” I said.

“I told Denell that you’d be back by two a.m. You can check on things, get them coffee. Okay?”

“Okay. Gracias.”

We hung up, and I went back out to Street’s kitchen.

Gertie was telling Street about Scorsese and how he handled suspense. I didn’t have anything meaningful to add, so I just listened. From what Gertie had told me earlier, it might be that she didn’t have anyone in her life with whom she could talk about such things. Street asked Gertie if that’s the kind of movies she wanted to make.

“Maybe,” Gertie said. “Mostly, I want to be able to tell stories where the problems are like real life but there’s justice in the end. Which isn’t like real life very much, you know? But I think that people are drawn to stories where there is justice. It’s like, in telling stories, you can remake the world, make it better, make things turn out the way they should.”

There was a knock at the door. I looked out Street’s window and saw a sheriff’s car in the lot. Then I checked the peephole. Two men in sheriff’s uniforms. I opened the door.

 “Hey, Mr. McKenna,” Cory Denell said. “Sergeant wants us to hang here for the night.” He gestured toward his partner. “This is Joe Galant.”

“Owen McKenna,” I said, shaking Galant’s hand. “Thanks for coming. Come on in.”

They came into Street’s, and I introduced them all.

Spot sniffed Denell and Galant. Galant was clearly uneasy but he made a hard grin and spoke through gritted teeth, “Sergeant Martinez told me that you had a big dog. But this guy is really big.” He gave Spot a pet. I took Spot’s collar and pulled him away.

Gertie looked scared.

“Gertie, Street, Officers Denell and Galant are going to park outside this door tonight, just to keep an eye on things.”

Gertie looked at the officers, then back at me, then at Street. For most fifteen-year-olds who haven’t grown up with cops in their families, having an armed, uniformed officer in the room was unsettling.

“It’s okay, Gertie,” Street said. She reached over and put her hand on Gertie’s shoulder. “It’s just precautionary. If you’d rather, we can go and stay at one of the big hotels.”

Gertie shook her head. “It’s easier for bad men to move around hotels. If they come here, at least they’ll stand out and be obvious.”

Gertie turned to Denell. “Where will you be?”

“We’ll be in the patrol unit.” He pointed toward the door. “We’re parked in the closest space. No one could get to this door without brushing up against our vehicle.”

“Okay,” Gertie finally said.

“You want me to leave Spot here?” I said to Street.

“No. I love him, but he snores worse than you.”

I gave Street a kiss goodbye and said I’d be back by two a.m. I tried to make it seem casual to put Gertie at ease.

Denell and Galant and I went back outside. Spot came with, hesitating for a moment at the door, considering, no doubt, that the likelihood of treats would be greater if he stayed. I waited until I heard Street turn the deadbolt. I thanked the officers. Then Spot and I got in the Jeep to drive up the mountain to my cabin.

FIFTY-ONE

A thousand vertical feet later, the air was noticeably colder, and there was a sense of ice mist on the breeze. I took Spot for a short walk. When we were inside with the door locked, I opened a beer. The phone rang. I picked it up.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Santiago here. I can’t remember if you’ve met our deputy Rudy Marceau? Our dive enthusiast?”

“Haven’t had the pleasure,” I said.

“After talking to you this afternoon, I mentioned the boat that almost hit you and then collided with the moored boat. Rudy is one of the eager divers. So he popped his gear into his little skiff, and he putt-putted down to the area you described. He’s got this glass thing he holds over the side so he can see the bottom. Kind of like a glass-bottom boat. Sure enough, he spotted the wreckage of boats on the bottom, and he saw some debris floating there, too. It looked too deep for his anchor line, so he went closer to shore, then dropped anchor. He pulled on his dry dive suit, put on his air tank, and went overboard.”