The Last Thing I Saw (17 page)

I told Dremel about my meetings with HLM’s disaffected past and present employees and my encounter with the mercurial top management folks.

“Do they know who you are and that you’re investigating them?”

“Skutnik does. He made some menacing gestures and veiled threats. But he can’t fire me, which I’m sure is a source of great annoyance to him.”

“Has anybody out there said anything about Boo being missing? He still hasn’t turned up, and everybody is extremely worried. His cat watcher, Orville, called the police, but I don’t know if they’re doing anything at all. Orville told the cops that Boo was going up to see Bryan Kim, who was murdered, so you’d think they’d fucking
do
something.”

I told Dremel I’d check with the Boston police, and as soon as I hung up with him I phoned Marsden Davis. I told him that Boo Miller was still missing, and he said he’d talked to an NYPD friend about Miller, but these things have a way of falling through the cracks and he said he’d call the New York cop again.

I asked Davis, “Any developments in the Kim stabbing?”

“Nothing interesting. The ex-boyfriends are all in the clear, and so’s the housing authority rip-off artist, and the neighbor is too. I knew Elvis Gummer was lying about that freakin’ ginger cheesecake recipe, and when we re-interviewed him and mentioned that we might have to bring in a voice stress detection specialist—a lot of bullshit, as you know—he told us the truth.”

“Let me guess. It was actually a lemon pound cake recipe.”

“It was sex. They had an appointment at four o’clock for sex in Kim’s apartment. Gummer said he and Kim were actually fuck buddies. I never heard that term before.”

“It’s another gay thing. Like exchanging cake recipes.”

“Who’d’ve thought?”

“It’s an unemotional, uncomplicated practice that works for some people. No fuss, no muss. Just good funky aerobic exercise and blessed relief. It’s like masturbation, but with less sense of aloneness and for Catholics fewer vestiges of guilt.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“So Gummer showed up at Kim’s apartment at four o’clock for sex and instead found Kim stabbed to death. The poor guy.”

“Yeah, but I wish we hadn’t had to drag it out of him. I mean, I’m not fuckin’ Cardinal O’Malley.”

“Sometimes the police are Cardinal O’Malley. I don’t blame Gummer for holding back.”

“Anyway, I was gonna call you, Strachey. If you’re in California, maybe you can help me out.”

“Sure.”

“Bryan Kim’s cell records show a call to a number in Northern California two days before he was killed. It’s to a motel in Mount Shasta, the Pine Cone Inn. I talked to the motel manager, but they have no way of knowing who Kim was calling. They would just have connected Kim to a room extension. It seems weird that Kim would call the motel instead of whoever it was’s cell phone. People don’t do that so much anymore.”

“Unless,” I said, “Kim was calling somebody who didn’t own a cell phone.”

“Possible. You still run into a few.”

“Or there was no cell phone reception in Mount Shasta.”

“The motel manager says reception is good. Another possibility is, Kim tried the party’s cell and he wasn’t getting any response. And him being so anxious to talk to this party, he tried the motel to see if his caller was actually still there.”

“That could be. I’ll find out what I can. I’ll be in Mount Shasta tomorrow.”

“What for?”

I explained to Davis the Hal Skutnik/HLM/Mount Shasta connection and how my search for Eddie Wenske was leading north into the California mountain wilderness.

Davis said, “If you need law enforcement assistance up there, call me. The area is crawling with feds, DEA mostly. That’s a big pot-growing area. It’s where most of the domestic crop comes from.”

I said, “I’ve heard that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Paul Delaney’s apartment turned up little of interest, which I didn’t get. I tossed the place at my leisure but found nothing that seemed to have any direct connection to Hey Look Media or Eddie Wenske’s gay media research. There was a desktop computer that refused to spring to life without a password and some disks with labels that were unrelated to the Wenske project, as far as I could tell.

The master bedroom contained a neatly made queen-sized bed. The bathroom was squeaky-clean, Yolanda’s handiwork. There might have been one piece of luggage missing from a hall closet, but I was basing that on Mrs. French’s report of Delaney getting into an airport shuttle as much as anything. A second smaller bedroom had a single bed in it, also freshly made, and some clothes that I suspected were Wenske’s, not Delaney’s. Delaney’s closet contained middle-aged-grown-up suits, shirts and slacks, and the items in the guest bedroom were shorts, jeans, and t-shirts.

One item in a stack of odds and ends on Delaney’s desk did look as if it would be more than useful. It was a printout of a motel reservation in Delaney’s name with an arrival on March 22, eight days earlier, at the Pine Cone Inn, in the town of Mount Shasta.

After a night of restless sleep, I checked out of the hotel and made my way to the airport for my nine thirty-five flight to San Francisco. It took only two and a half hours to get to LAX this time, and my GPS complimented me before I returned the rental car.

I had an hour and a half layover at SFO before my flight to the North. I phoned Timmy from a United Express gate and caught him in his office. I told him where I was on my way to, and he was of course unhappy. I had considered not telling him, but it was better that he received a phone call from me that made him worry than his getting a call from someone else saying I had been badly injured when I was run over by an ATV.

He said, “So you think Wenske is up in the California pot-growing region? I mean Wenske or his decomposing corpse.”

“It makes sense for him to have gone up there. It’s the center of the Skutnik family enterprises, and it’s the apparent source of much of HLM’s income these days. It’s also the chief lair of Martine and Danielle Desault, the two sisters who are the Skutnik family financial wizards who most company people think keep HLM from collapsing in on itself.”

“And you think these two über capitalists will talk to you? You’re quite the charmer, I always tell people, Donald, but your wiles have their limits.”

“There’s evidence that the sisters might have been spilling the beans on company malfeasance to Wenske, so if they talked to him maybe they’ll talk to me, his mother’s representative. Or maybe I’ll find Wenske alive, and he’ll introduce me to the salt sisters, as they’re called, and we’ll all join together and see to it that Hal Skutnik ends up behind bars. That’s my hope.”

“That would be great. Good luck.”

“There is some unsettling business about Wenske’s main information source—presumably the Desaults—freaking out about a month ago and shutting off all contact. I’m concerned about that. Also, Wenske’s old
Boston Globe
friend Paul Delaney apparently went looking for Wenske in Mount Shasta last week and hasn’t been heard from since. Anyway, I just wanted you to know where I am.”

A significant pause. “Right. So I won’t worry.”

“I thought about not telling you.”

“Uh huh.”

“But I figured that on balance you’d rather know.”

“On balance, you’re right.”

“Good.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

“Okay.”

“But I’m sorry I know.”

“Yeah, well, now I’m a little sorry I told you.”

“Oh, swell.”

“But I guess I can’t un-tell you.”

“No, but you could—where did you say you are?”

“San Francisco airport.”

“You could take a cab into town and have a nice—what time is it there? Lunch?”

“I just had a veggie wrap.”

“Dinner then. And I could fake a serious illness at work and fly out to San Francisco, and we could have a nice couple of days and then come on home where we have such a good life together. How about that?”

“Sounds lovely, but what about Eddie Wenske? What about his mother, who loves him and aches for him and is paying for my plane tickets?”

“She could—hire somebody else.”

“Timothy?”

“Okay, okay.”

“It’s always like this. I know.”

“Just—stay in touch, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Call me twice a day.”

“If I can.”

“You can.”

I had another incoming call, and I saw it was from Marsden Davis.

“Gotta go—love you,” I told Timmy and rang off.

It was good that I took the call. Davis was calling to tell me that Boo Miller had been found dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Miller’s body had been found by hikers on the edge of a swamp on Cape Cod, near West Yarmouth. He had been bound and gagged and then stabbed. Davis said it appeared that Miller had been dead a little under a week, and was probably killed the same day Bryan Kim was stabbed. So far, there was no helpful forensic evidence, Davis said, but the Massachusetts State Police were working on that.

I had brought along my Smith & Wesson. It was in my checked airline bag along with my permit to carry it. More and more, it seemed as though I was going to be dealing with people who were not merely obnoxious but a danger to life and limb. The hard job would be sorting out the murderous people from the mere assholes. If I were going to successfully finish the job I was hired to do—or finish any more jobs at all—it was going to be an important distinction to make.

My flight landed in Redding just before two, and I was soon in a rental Honda for the hour’s drive up to Mount Shasta. The ride along Interstate 5 was lovely, with hilly pine forests on either side, gauzy fair-weather clouds in an azure sky, and high rocky peaks in the distance. I was glad to see that I had good cell service along the route and then as I approached the town of Mount Shasta, in case I needed to call 911.

The GPS found the Pine Cone Inn on Mount Shasta Boulevard, the main drag. I’d called ahead from SFO and arranged for a nice woody clean room at what in Albany would have been considered a good rate. When I checked in, I told the desk clerk I was meeting a friend who was staying at the motel, Paul Delaney, and was he around anywhere? The clerk, a leathery woman in a bandanna, said she didn’t know, that she hadn’t seen Delaney all day. So far, so good.

The magical GPS led me out to the edge of town and the headquarters for MS Enterprises, the Skutnik family logging business. The two-story frame building abutted a good-sized lumber yard and a saw mill that didn’t look busy. I assumed that this was where the salt mine was situated, the lair of Martine and Danielle Desault, the Skutnik business empire’s financial geniuses. I didn’t go in, but instead sat in the car and did a BlackBerry search for the Skutnik family home. Again, I was led by the electronic nose to a street that ran along a ridge on the west side of town with a dazzling view of the actual Mount Shasta off to the east. Vast and majestic, the old snow-capped dormant volcano dominated the horizon making me and everybody and everything beneath it seem satisfyingly puny.

The old Skutnik house, now the home of the salt sisters according to my HLM informants in L.A., was a rambling two-story frame structure with big windows for the great eastern view and a three-car garage with all the doors closed. Two vehicles were in the driveway, a forest green Hummer—the Desaults didn’t seem to be Sierra Club members—and a red Ford pick-up.

The sun was low in the sky now behind the Skutnik manse, and I drove on by and back down the hill and into town. The names of many of the businesses had a New Age ring: Yin Yang Yoga, Remover of Obstacles Massage, Metaphysical Hand-me-Downs. Others were of the more immediate world: Gussie’s Eats and a place that was just called The Bar. The last one was a short walk from the Pine Cone Inn, which was good. Because when I got back to the motel and asked again for Paul Delaney, the desk clerk said, “It’s after four. Try the place down the street called The Bar. It’s a bar.”

I knew right away which one was Delaney. He was alone at a table in a corner with a bottle of Whitbread next to him, a glass half empty and a laptop computer up and running. None of this quite went with the Patsy Cline on the juke box, or so it seemed to me with my Eastern marginally-elite one-track mind. Delaney was tall with a long face, a beard that needed trimming, and big gray eyes behind rimless glasses. He had on khakis and what looked like a Brooks Brothers shirt that needed laundering and maybe the collar turned.

I walked over and said, “Paul, your friend Jane Ware is worried about you.”

Looking up at me blankly, Delaney said nothing. Then he began to cry.

I seated myself in the empty chair across from Delaney. I said, “Is Wenske dead?”

Delaney nodded.

“Oh shit,” I said.

He took out a rumpled handkerchief and wiped his eyes and mouth. “I know I should call Jane,” he said. “And of course Eddie’s family. And the police, I suppose. For what that’s worth.”

I explained who I was and that I had been hired to find Wenske by his mother. I told Delaney my investigation had taken me from Albany to Boston, to New York, back to Boston, to Los Angeles, and then to Mount Shasta. I said, “What happened to him?”

“The cartel got him. They found out who he was.”

“Meaning the author of
Weed Wars
?”

“Somebody told them.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. He was undercover, one of the local narcs told me. Eddie had actually been working with one of the mules under the name of Wes Parker. He was staying over at the Pine Cone, registered there as Parker. I figured this out from getting friendly with Glenda, the desk clerk. She let me look at the register. About three weeks ago, Eddie disappeared. He’d paid the motel through the end of the week, and then he just didn’t come back. I have his clothes and other things in my room.”

“Ah, jeez.”

“The narc I met in here, Joe Willard, heard from one of his informants that the cartel found out that Eddie was a rat whose reporting got several networks shut down in New England. Somebody either recognized Eddie from back there or somebody knew he was here undercover and they told the bosses this. So the enforcers shot him and buried him up the canyon somewhere.”