Stateline (8 page)

The hotel was one of Tahoe’s largest, rising sixteen stories on prime real estate right at the state line. I stared up at the green and gold structure, then traded my ski jacket for a black cotton coat. I pulled a small forensics case and a roll of yellow crime-scene tape from the suitcase I kept in my trunk, and grabbed my generic gold badge, which was mounted on a black leather backing attached to a thin neck cord. Then I strapped on my shoulder holster with the Beretta and went into the hotel lobby.

I walked around the perimeter, checked the restaurant, the lounge, and the men’s room, scouting for uniformed or plainclothes cops. It was almost nine o’clock on a Saturday night, and I hoped the detectives, forensics squad, and coroner would have already cleared out. I didn’t see anyone suspicious around, so I took the elevator to the sixth floor. The hallway was empty, and the door to 672 was sealed with three bands of yellow tape.

I went back down to the registration counter. I waited there for a minute until a pretty Asian girl stepped out from a side door.

“Hi, I’m Rich Conrad, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office,” I said. My coat was unzipped, the badge resting on my chest. “I need to go up to six seventy-two.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, looking around. “My manager should talk to you, but I think he’s on break.”

“I’ll only be a couple minutes, it’s standard procedure. My wife is waiting at home with a movie, so I’d like to get back soon.” I gave her my best “ah, shucks” smile. She glanced around again, then ran a plastic card through an electronic box. “I guess it’s okay. Here you go.”

I went back to the sixth floor. After snapping on a pair of rubber gloves, I used a razor blade to slice the crime-scene tape crisscrossed over the doorjamb of room 672. Then I ran the card key through the reader and went in. It was nine-fifteen. I wanted to be in the room for no more than ten minutes.

I avoided touching anything as I surveyed the crime scene. At the foot of the bed, a large bloodstain on the carpet spread past the boundaries of a taped silhouette of a body. The bedspread was pulled partially off the mattress, revealing a smeared streak of blood on the white sheets. A dried pool of vomit lay near the window, the sickly odor hanging in the air.

I looked underneath the bed and saw nothing. I studied the pillows with my magnifying glass, but it was probably pointless. Forensic evidence can make a case if one has access to a lab, and the time to wait for results. Neither applied to me.

I checked the bathroom and went through the dresser drawers, careful not to touch the white fingerprint powder. I didn’t really expect to find anything, but I felt it was important to check, to get a feel for the room, if nothing else. There was a large walk-in closet next to the bathroom. It was empty except for the non-removable hangers and ironing board. The closet floor had a few muddy scuffmarks, and I knelt down to see if I could make out a footprint. I couldn’t, but I did notice some lighter-color dirt, and I pinched some between my fingers. It was sawdust. I took a small flashlight from my forensics case and studied the floor carefully. There appeared to be a light coat of dust mixed with some fine sawdust, and then some heavier shoe dirt was scattered about. The sawdust could mean anything but was probably meaningless, I thought, and I was about to get up when I noticed an inch-long curlicue of wood shaving hiding in the crevice where the cedar floor butted up to the carpet.

I picked up the shaving, then stood and took a better look at it, and when I raised my head I found myself looking at a neat little hole that had been drilled in the closet door.

“Son of a bitch,” I whispered. The hole was an inch or so above my eye line and about a half-inch in diameter. I stood on my tiptoes, looking through it, then closed myself in the closet and peered out. I could see the bed pretty well, but not much else. I stepped back out, taking a look at the hole from the outside. It was right above a mirror mounted to the wood-grain closet door, and although the hole was visible, it wasn’t obvious. It was a damn peephole—but for what purpose?

I heard voices and footsteps in the hallway. I pressed my ear against the door and listened to the voices pass. It was time to boogie. I opened the door and the hallway was clear. I ripped the three strips of tape from the door, replaced them with new ones, and moved swiftly to the stairwell. A minute later I was walking through the dark parking lot to my car, congratulating myself on a smooth operation but eager to get out of there. Tampering with crime-scene evidence, especially in a murder case, would definitely piss off the locals.

• • •

I sat at the bar at the Lakeside and considered the peephole in the closet door. It was a perplexing find. Possibly it had been there for quite some time, but the sawdust seemed fresh; it wasn’t ground into the floor and pressed into the corners. The hole was probably something a guest or a maid would notice before long, then it would be repaired. My suspicion was it had been drilled recently, maybe even the previous night.

I called the Crown on my cell, identifying myself again as a cop from Douglas County, and asked for the most recent registration records for room 672. The clerk told me Sylvester Bascom had checked in last night at ten-thirty. Brad had said Sylvester and Sven Osterlund left the bachelor party last night to try to get laid, which I assumed meant hookers. Did they bring a hooker to the room at the Crown? Had the Lake Tahoe police talked to Osterlund yet?

I sipped on my drink and decided to call my old buddy Cody Gibbons, a detective with San Jose PD. It had been a couple weeks since we’d talked, but he’d had the same phone number in San Jose for years. I dialed it from memory, and he answered on the second ring, his voice gruff and loud.

“What? What? Dirty Double-Crossin’ Dan? Thanks for returning my call.”

“What call?”

“I left you a message at your house.”

“I’ve been in Tahoe since yesterday. You should have called my cell.”

“Oh,” he said. “Hey, they gave me another paid vacation. Can you believe it?”

“I hate to say so, but yes. What happened?”

“What? I was in pursuit of a car-jacking suspect over near King and Story. This asshole’s driving like a complete maniac, he’s blowing through red lights in crowded intersections, he’s driving on the sidewalk and takes out a hotdog cart, it’s amazing he didn’t kill anyone. So he finally loses it around a corner and slams into a curb and breaks both axles and folds the tires under the car. By the time he gets out of the car we’re right on him, but he takes off anyway. My new partner—I call him Fast Eddie, he’s a black dude who used to run the hundred in college—he catches him, but this dude is jacked up on PCP, and it’s like he’s Superman. He knocked out Eddie with his first punch then grabbed his piece.”

“Sounds like trouble.”

“Fuckin’ A. I was caught in the middle of the street with no cover. Lucky for me the guy couldn’t shoot straight. He got off two shots before I drew on him. I hit him between the eyes with my first shot. I’m serious, can you believe that? Right between the eyes.”

“DOA, I imagine.”

“And then some. It took the top of his head off and splattered his brains all over the street. I’m suspended with pay for the time being, pending the investigation.”

“What is there to investigate?”

“They suspect my ammunition might have been non-regulation, but shit, half the force is packing hollow-point cutters.”

“It never occurs to you to play it by the book, does it, Cody?”

“Play it by the book? That gets you nowhere except dead, maybe. Come on, Dirt. Anyway, it’s not uncommon to go SWP after a killing. They won’t give me too much heat unless it gets political. He would have bought it no matter what kind of bullet I used. It may have been the greatest shot of my career.”

“In the meantime you’re on vacation with a pay check coming in.”

“You got that right, Dirt. So, what the hell are you doing?”

Cody Gibson and I had known each other since we played football together in high school. Cody was our star defensive lineman. Sometime after high school, he began calling me Dirty Double-Crossing Dan, the result of a forgotten, drunken episode at a pick-up bar. The nickname had survived the years. Cody was like that—on impulse he would nickname people, and the names tended to stick for life. His mom was Old Glory, he called his dad The Big Guy, and one of our old running buddies was No-Morals Andrew. He called Wenger “The Sniveler.”

I quit football after I blew out my knee in my junior year and took up wrestling, but Cody went on to play on the defensive line for Utah State, despite being expelled from high school for throwing his coach in a Dumpster. By that time Cody was six-foot-five, 270, and still growing, and was wearing the trademark red beard he grew every winter since. He came back to San Jose after college and worked for a private security firm for a few years before hiring on with the San Jose Police Department. They promoted him to plainclothes detective three years ago.

“I’m working a case up here freelance,” I said.

“Yeah? You going to be up there for a while?”

“Could be.”

“What’s The Sniveler have to say about that?”

“I haven’t told him yet.”

Cody laughed. “You think you could run a couple names through the system for me?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Fast Eddie owes me.”

“Right. The names are Sylvester Bascom and Sven Osterlund. Bascom’s a murder victim, and Osterlund’s a suspect.”

“I’ll have their records pulled. Call me in twenty-four hours,” Cody said, still chuckling.

“Thanks, buddy.”

I left my drink half-finished and walked out of the casino. If Osterlund wasn’t already being held as a witness, I wanted to talk to him. But first I needed to sit down with Whitey and Brad. I drove back down 50, to the Lazy 8 Hotel. The light was on in their room. It had been about five hours since I dropped them off, and I imagined they were sitting around watching TV before revving up for another long night of partying. Hopefully they had got some sleep. Whitey parted the drapes and looked out the window when I knocked.

“Dan, what’s up?” he said, opening the door. He was wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt.

“You guys rested up?” I said. “You ready to go do some drinking?”

“Shit, I’m dying for a beer,” Whitey said. The room smelled like pot, and his bong was smoldering on the nightstand. “Brado’s in the shower, he just woke up. I’ve been up for about half an hour. I’m freakin’ starving, I’m ready to split and get some fast food. You want a bong hit, man?”

“No, thanks. But let’s go out and I’ll buy you guys dinner.”

“No way!” Brad yelled, walking out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

“Yup,” I said. “I’m up a hundred at the casinos. Come on, get your asses dressed. I’m buying.”

“Right on,” Whitey said. They threw on their clothes and we were on the street in two minutes flat. The Lazy 8 was one of a number of cheap hotels on the California side of the state line, across from the casinos. We crossed the street over to Buffalo Bill’s Casino, which had a good all-night restaurant. The joint was raging with a rowdy Saturday night crowd. Rock n’ roll blared from the speakers, blending with the ring of slot machines, the clatter of dice, and the buzz of cards being shuffled. A couple of girls in tight jeans were trying to dance at the craps table and knocked a guy’s beer all over him. We wedged our way through the masses over to the restaurant. I steered us to a table toward the back, away from the noise.

“Brad, you’re looking a little better than you did earlier today,” I said.

“Shit, man, I felt my temperature shoot up, and I was pouring sweat, and then it started going black all around the edges.” He waved his hands around his head. “I felt like I was gonna freakin’ die.”

“That’s because you’re a pansy,” Whitey said.

“But that sleep did me right,” he went on. “I’m fine now, just a little hung over, and I need to eat. But give me a few beers, and I’ll be a hundred percent.”

The waitress came by, and I ordered a pitcher of beer and a round of tequila. Brad ordered a bacon cheeseburger with fries and onion rings, and Whitey went for a pepperoni pizza with a Mexican fiesta plate as an appetizer.

“No food for you, Dan?” Brad said.

“I’m just drinking. You ever catch up with your buddy Osterlund?”

“No. He’s probably still at Caesar’s. He had a room there,” Whitey said. “I haven’t heard from him. Shit, can you believe Bascom’s dead? I mean, on his freaking wedding day? I wonder how he croaked.”

“Bascom took off with Osterlund from the bachelor party last night, huh?”

“They split after that stripper told Osterlund to fuck off,” Brad said. “Osterlund got it in his brain he wanted a blow job, and if he didn’t get one last night he’s either still looking or blowing himself.”

“What about Bascom? Did he want to get laid too, the night before his wedding?”

“I think Osterlund gave him a couple lines, and Bascom was probably into it after that,” Whitey said.

“That core can make you freakin’ horny,” Brad added. “I had a rod the whole time the strippers were there.”

“Osterlund was probably looking for one whore for him and Bascom to tag team,” Whitey said. “He’s into that kind of shit.”

“What, you mean two on ones?”

“Yeah, that, and also he likes to watch and jerk off. I’m serious, he’s perverted. Did you ever hear the story about him and Wayne Majors?”

“Yeah, yeah, check it out,” Brad interjected. He was on his second beer, and his shot glass was empty. His eyes were bright, his voice energetic.

“Dude, it’s my story,” Whitey protested.

“No, come on, let me tell him,” Brad said. The waitress brought the appetizers and Whitey started eating, so Brad jumped into the story.

“Get this. Remember Wayne had that girlfriend with the big tits? She wasn’t that good-looking, but she had a nice body and a pair of jugs that wouldn’t quit. I don’t remember her name, this was maybe a year ago, but Osterlund and Wayne and this chick are sitting around one afternoon getting wasted, and Wayne and her decide they wanna screw. So Osterlund begs them to let him watch, but she won’t go for it.” Brad grabbed a
quesadilla
from Whitey’s plate, folded it in half, and shoved it in his mouth. I waited for him to continue.