The Ghost of Truckee River (A Ham McCalister Mystery Book 1) Read online

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  THE GHOST OF TRUCKEE RIVER

  Brent Kroetch

  DEDICATION

  For Susan, Heather, Kent, Matt and Stacey

  With Love

  DAY ONE

  1

  A DAY IN THE LIFE

  Kyle “Ham” McCalister panicked when a wave of child-like optimism breached his wall of cynicism. His heart danced with nothing short of pure exhilaration, as first it flipped, skipped and flopped, then turned aflutter, akin to a teenage girl who, squealing with joy and abandon, throws herself at her idol, screaming, crying, hoping…take me home!

  Because it actually had come to pass. The Star would be taking him home.

  He shook his head with wonder. Why life had decided he would be anointed today’s pet, he couldn’t fathom. And as cynical as he was, he was disinclined to ask. Perhaps it was just his time. Maybe time for a fleeting encounter, a karmic quickie, then back to the way it was meant to be. No wins, some losses, more regrets, a few highs. A toy for the gods. So, even as he packed, he packed light. The chances of real work here, under these circumstances, were as light as his now spinning head.

  After all, even in his own mind, he personified the Mr. Nobody syndrome. An unknown, even less celebrated, cop retired on a medical pension, a man on the cusp of forty, who, since he couldn’t get a real job, eked out a living as a private detective. Which, truth to tell, fit his scarred personality well, jaded as it was by all those years spent on the seamy side of life, exacerbated by an ex-wife who married his ex-best friend and now lived somewhere with his only child, a son, who had no interest in familial devotion to Dear Old Dad. Still and despite all that, he knew he retained under the cynical and pessimistic veneer an unwelcome child-like sense of optimism and wonder. A kind of “it could happen” attitude that tomorrow would surely bring. An unwanted Pollyanna mind-set that, despite the grim efforts of fate, he’d failed to fully escape, try as he might.

  Then, unexpectedly, life transformed, rose up, bit him on his Pollyanna ass and voila, tomorrow became today. Hired by a rock legend that even he, a man of limited musical knowledge or appreciation, had always admired. Enough so that, spurred by boredom, he’d even read one of those trashy Blake Garrett biographies, the type that seeks to elevate the author above the moral stench of the subject claimed to be admired. Whether any of it, or all of it, derived from truth was of less interest to Ham than the only important facet of Garrrett’s life: the man wrote great music.

  As he packed, these thoughts and more confused his mind. Thoughts of what might yet be, thoughts of what could have been, and the rapid readjustment to that which simply was. Which was, very simply, unbelievable.

  To say that he’d been unprepared for the call that rocked his world would be a massive understatement. Nothing in his past, no fantasies of his future, could have readied him at all. In preparation, he would have been more primed for the literal end of the world than he could ever have been for this.

  Not to mention less surprised.

  The day had started like any other, mostly with an ill defined sense of ennui. Every Wednesday was like that for Ham. Mondays were okay, he could handle getting out of bed, didn’t even mind the twisted lanes of traffic and the anger proffered at the weekend lost. After all, most of the world resented the onset of the workweek and this he understood. In truth, he empathized. Because even though he worked for himself, the boss’ assignments were oft times tedious, which was why he frequently argued with himself as he shaved. That stupid son-of-bitch boss in the mirror had a piss poor appreciation of his employee’s morale.

  As for Tuesdays, not so bad, not so good. One day removed from Sunday, a day closer to Friday, but all in all a loser of a day. Just do what you need to do and get on with it. Work towards Wednesday.

  Ah yes, Wednesday. What could he charitably say about Wednesday? The best that could be said was that it was another day, another dollar—if he was fortunate enough to be on a case. If not, at least it wasn’t Tuesday. Still, Friday seemed a far bit away and hence the ennui. A day in which Friday beckoned, Sunday was long forgotten, and the anticipation of doing nothing haunted the mind.

  Which was a bit of a mental stretch, he had to admit. For an unemployed private detective on pension from the Las Vegas Police Department, suffice it to say Wednesday was just another weekend day. An unofficial weekend in the calendar of his life. Until today, of course, when the call came in, the life altering call that arrived just before twelve, on an otherwise normal almost afternoon.

  The disembodied voice at the other end of the line sounded polite but insistent. Almost petulant. “Is this Mr. McCalister? Ham McCalister?”

  A little put off at the tone but not wanting to be cursed for not being the Ham he was supposed to be, he automatically replied, “Yeah. McCalister here. Who’s this?”

  “My name is Lindsey Galey. I’m calling on behalf of Blake Garrett. He’d like to speak to you. If you’ll hold on a second, I’ll connect you.”

  “Wait, no, wait, wait, wait. What did you say?”

  “I asked if you were Mr. McCalister.”

  “Yeah, uh huh, I know. What’s this about Blake Garrett?”

  “He’d like to talk to you. I’ll put you through now, if that’s all right.”

  Ham inhaled deeply, more a gasp than a deep breath, while an uncertain hand brought a sip of coffee to his mouth. “We’re not talking about the Blake Garrett, are we? Truckee River and all that?”

  He could almost hear the smile in her reply. “Yes, that Blake Garrett.”

  Holding the phone with one hand and using the other to close his jaw, he was about to acquiesce.

  And then it hit. He got it.

  Drew Thornton, his old buddy from homicide and childhood, the one who called him once a Wednesday every year just to drive him up a wall and otherwise harass him. Must be that time again.

  “Okay, sure, put him on.” He could play this game just as well as Drew and, ego aside, most of the time much, much better. “I’ve got a couple of minutes, though, and that’s all. I’m pretty important in my own right, so tell Blake to get straight to the point. My time is a bit more valuable than some washed up rock star’s.” Stick that, Drew.

  Maybe twenty seconds passed before he heard the distinctive click of a new connection. “Ham. Blake, here. Lindsey tells me you have little time for a washed up has-been, so I’ll get right to the point. I want to hire you.”

  Ham smiled into the phone. Whoever “Lindsey” was, she’d done a fine job by Drew. And Drew herself, with her gift for mimicry, could pass nicely for a voice he’d seldom heard. “Well of course you do. No doubt you’ve heard a lot about me what with me being a famous detective and all. So what can I do for you? And when do I get paid?”

  The pause on the other end of the line in turn gave pause to Ham. That, and a first touch of uncertainty and a tingling of nerves. It wasn’t like Drew to not have her lines lined up. She ad-libbed far too well for amateurish gaps.

  When it came, the voice at the other end of the phone dripped acid. “You get one time, McCalister. One, and you just had it. So here’s the deal. I either hire you today, right now, for a boatload of money—money I’m aware that you do not have—or I hang up and that’ll be the end of it. Your choice. Make it a good one.”

  Confusion clouded him as never before, and by Ham’s own admission that was saying a hell of a lot. Confusion had been his constant friend over the course of many years and way too many days. Head spinning, he simply grasped for hope, or at least for the least possible worst outcome he might achieve. Better to make a complete jac
kass of himself than to make a larger mistake than that.

  “Look,” Ham began, “if you are who you say you are, you need to forgive me. I would have reacted the same way if the President of the United States was purportedly on the line. You have to understand. These kinds of calls just don’t come my way.” Ham blew out a deep breath as he added, “So help me out here. Are you really Blake Garrett? And, if so, why call me, of all people?”

  Ham could barely hear the small chuckle, but the voice rang loud. “Yeah, it’s really me. And the reason I called you is because of the Hollister case. Pretty impressive, I must say.”

  The Hollister case. Charlene Hollister. Charlie. Even Drew knew nothing about her. Or at the very least, if she’d somehow divined the retroactive obvious, she still could not have known how hard and how fast he’d fallen. And for a simple reason. Ham himself hadn’t figured it out for more than a year. A year of mental isolation in which he’d avoided anything deeper than idle chitchat, even with the few he called friends. Including and especially Drew.

  He’d known the attraction at the time, had recognized and admitted it as such. She was, after all, drop dead. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but certainly to Ham. But drop dead didn’t matter, not when he was being paid to keep her out of prison, to keep her life from turning into the nightmare she’d been set up to live. For set up she had been.

  The case in most respects looked open and shut. The driver of the Mercedes had run over and killed a homeless man who was only trying to wend his way back to the alley and cardboard shelter he claimed as his own. A poor down on his luck nobody who was a threat to no one, who happened upon the wrong place at the wrong time. A loser at the game of life snuffed by a rich and indolent party girl, a latter day unrepentant hippie, whose wants and desires superseded a poor tramp’s needs. At least, that’s how the newspapers portrayed it. Though Charlie herself lived a Spartan life, this mattered not. She drove a Mercedes, after all.

  Except that she did not. That had been misinformation easily disproved, since the car was titled to a man that Charlie met on the evening in question, and she herself owned a Volkswagen Beetle. More difficult had been the proof that he spiked her wine with a date rape drug and that he’d had every intention of reaping the illicit benefits once he’d got her home. Killing a man had not been among his plans, nor was accepting blame. Being drunk himself, he’d decided not to stick around the accident scene, and it had been a rather easy matter to put Charlie in the driver’s seat and he himself at home. He’d been clever enough when the police arrived the next morning to continue his groggy hangover and claim that his car, parked last night in his drive, should still be there, and what were they talking about?

  Ham labored day and night for the few weeks it took to perform a background the police were too otherwise occupied to carry out. Turned out this was not the first time, or even the third, the guy had tried this little trick. It was, however, the first time he’d killed someone.

  Once Ham had taken his information to his old buddies in homicide, they expedited the blood work, found the drug and dropped the charges. He’d neither seen nor heard of Charlie since. But forgotten she was not.

  “You know about the Hollister case? How would you know that? My part wasn’t exactly played up by the police department. They’re not into sharing credit, especially for rectifying a screw-up they made in the first place.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s my daughter, so I know the real facts.”

  Blood pounded his forehead in a bid for attention, while his heart skipped a few beats in response. “Charlie? She’s your daughter? What do you mean she’s your daughter? If that’s true, why didn’t she ever tell me? Why didn’t she ever tell everybody, or even anybody at all? That might have made the whole thing a little easier you, know. A whole lot easier,” he snapped. “They would have taken her a bit more seriously instead of doing up the flower power thing. So what is this all about? Why the secrecy, why call me, and what do you want?”

  A small chortle came through the line. “Well, for starters, I’d like you to take it easy. It’s only me.”

  “Right,” Ham sighed. “Only you. Only you and Charlie and the press and your fans and the world and music and history and—”

  “This is exactly why she told nobody, including you. Can you imagine the circus that would have caused? And think of those clowns in the D.A.’s office. They’ve had their fair share of setbacks when it comes to celebrities and even so they write tell-all memoirs to make up for it, to keep themselves famous and make a killing. So they’d have gone for Charlie’s throat just because she was the daughter of Blake Garrett. They would have had to do that to cover their political asses.” After a pause, he added, “And I mean that term both ways.” He paused again before concluding, “Anyway, be that as it may, make no mistake about it, I would have stepped in, come forward if it looked like it was going to trial. And I would have used all the power at my disposal to take them on. Because she is my daughter. But at the time she hired you my part was just to foot the bills. Which were dirt cheap, by the way. You don’t sell yourself too well.”

  “Why didn’t the press play on that? Surely they must have known. If she’s your daughter...”

  Blake laughed softly, a chime that Ham would come to know well and that he would forever after relate to the rock star’s image. “She’s illegitimate. I didn’t even know myself until a half dozen years ago. We’ve kept it well hidden, with her mother’s help, naturally. Carla—her mother—and I agreed that I’d need some time to get to know Charlie first, before the world did. And for Charlie to know me, too, of course.”

  With more shakiness of voice than he’d have liked to offer, Ham acquiesced. “Okay, well, what can I do for you? What could you possibly need from me?”

  “Somebody’s trying to kill me. I want to keep that from happening. That’s what I need from you.”

  And just like that, Ham thought, it’s over. “I wish I could help, I really do. But the truth is, you don’t need me, you need the police. And a bunch of bodyguards, I’d say. And unfortunately, I can’t do bodyguard. Got a bad hip.”

  “The police can’t help me with this. As for bodyguards, I use them when I need them, usually just to keep from being overrun at my house at Tahoe. They’re not investigators and they’re not infallible. I’m looking for a bit lower key help here anyway. I’m not anxious for this to hit the tabloids, know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, sure, but…who’s trying to kill you? And why?”

  “If I knew the answers to that, I wouldn’t need you.”

  Ham rubbed the ache from the back of his neck as he replied, “Okay, let me start with this. How do you know someone is trying to kill you?”

  “My psychic told me. Someone’s going to kill me in a less than a week. Actually, it’ll happen Saturday, which means we’ve got exactly four days, including today, to stop this thing from occurring.”

  “Your psychic told you. I see. That’s interesting.”

  “Ham, I know how this sounds, man. But just come out here and talk to me. It’ll be worth your while, I promise you that. I need help and I’m willing to pay very well for it. Very well indeed.”

  Blake had hit his target, dead on. He knew his man. “I’ll need expenses.”

  “I’ll arrange a first class ticket, roundtrip, open ended. You’ll leave today. Lindsey will call you with the details. That okay with you?”

  Of course it was okay with him. In truth, he had little else to do. “Sure. So where is here? Where am I flying to?”

  “Honolulu.”

  “Honolulu? I thought I’d read that you live in the Reno/Tahoe area. You know, Truckee River and all that. Or was that for public relations?”

  “Tahoe’s my main residence, yes, but I’ve got a small condo here in Hawaii that I run to when I get snow fever. And after the winter we’ve had, I’ve got it bad. Here, it’s eighty-four degrees, sunny, balmy and bright. So pack light.”

  Ham thrilled to the concept o
f balmy weather, miserable as he’d been for the past couple of weeks in Vegas. Though the world’s perception of Las Vegas was sunshine and heat, February could be—and was this year—quite miserably cold. A look at the weather tables would claim that the average low temperatures for the month sat in the mid-thirties, with average highs barely reaching the sixties. But this year, those averages sounded pretty good. It would be a heat wave. He couldn’t wait to escape the cold snap, trade his parka for a Tee, shoes for sandals, and gloves for a little sun screen. Which, by the way, he’d have to pick up.

  “Right, then, you got a deal. I’ll at least come out and hear what you have to say. No promises, though.”

  “That’ll do,” Blake replied. “Lindsey will make the arrangements and call you back. Meantime, get packing.”

  Lindsey was quick. She called back before he’d finalized the task of packing his lightest Vegas clothes. “You’ll need to get moving since you fly out of McCarran today at 12:32 p.m., change planes in Seattle and on to Honolulu. Total travel time is about eleven hours with the layover, which puts you into Honolulu about 9:30 p.m. our time. I hope that’s all right. The only direct flight is on Hawaiian Airlines and first class was booked. Unless you’d like to fly coach?”

  “No! I mean, no this is fine. Give me the flight numbers.”

  “No need, the ticket is arranged. Pick it up at Alaska Airlines at the airport. You need to be there about an hour and a half before your flight.”

  A bemused smirk crossed his face. “Alaska Airlines? I’m flying Alaska Airlines to Hawaii?”

  Her giggle told him she agreed. “A bit of an oddity, yes, but actually I’ve flown them in my work for Blake and it’s the best first class service in the sky, in my opinion. You’ll enjoy the flight. And remember, when you’re exhausted and anxious to be off that flying tube, at least you’ll know that once you are, you’ll be in Hawaii, so it will have all been worth it.”