Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (10 page)

FIFTEEN

The next morning, I was at Lucy Romero’s house at 9 a.m. Katia had gone to school. We sat at a small table in the kitchen. Lucy looked like she was in shock. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her hair wasn’t brushed. She stared vacantly at the salt and pepper shakers.

Lucy’s black hair was cut straight and short and was as thick as the hair of a horse’s tail. She had sapphire eyes that shimmered against skin as white as marble. I guessed her to be classic Black Irish. Probably had an Irish maiden name.

“How is Katia?” I said.

“She is devastated, of course. We were both up most of the night, crying, coming apart. But having you visit helped a lot. And Diamond knows what it’s like to find one’s way in a new country. Manuel never spoke of it, but I could sense the struggles. It helped me to talk to Diamond, to know that Manuel wasn’t alone in that. Thanks. Oh, and you should know that Katia now wants a dog like yours.”

I smiled.

Lucy said, “This morning, I told her that she could stay home from school. I was thinking about distractions. I told her that she could go online to look up Great Danes. But you know what she said? She said it would probably be better if she went to school. It would force her to continue on. How is that for maturity? She is stronger than I am, a hundred times.”

“I understand that you are relatively new to Tahoe,” I said. “Up from Davis in the last year or so, right?”

She nodded.

“If you need anything, I probably know people who can help.”

Another nod. She started to speak, then stopped.

I waited.

“I want to tell you something,” Lucy said, staring down at the table surface, “but I’m worried that you’ll think I’m crazy, like I can’t accept Manuel’s death.”

“You can say anything you want. I won’t judge.”

Lucy jerked her head to look straight at me. “That’s what Manuel says.”

“What?”

“He always says he won’t judge. It’s a thing with him. That we shouldn’t judge others.”

I nodded. “I guess it depends on the circumstances. What did you want to say?”

Lucy clenched her jaw. “The cops think that Manuel’s death was an accident. Of course, they would think so. It looks like it in every way. But I don’t think Manuel’s death was an accident.”

When Joe had said it about Manuel, I thought it was an over-reaction based on what happened to Rell. To have Lucy say it was a surprise.

“Why?” I said.

“Because Manuel wouldn’t accidentally drive off the road. He was a careful driver. A slow driver. So slow that my nickname for him was Pokey.”

“It was the middle of the night. Couldn’t he have fallen asleep?”

“Manuel could barely fall asleep in his own bed.”

“You don’t think it’s possible that he could fall asleep driving?”

Lucy shook her head. “In all the times I’ve ridden with him, he never once got drowsy. The car was his thinking time. Once, when the girls went on a sleepover at friends, I rode with Manuel on his night route. It was like being with a young scientist all excited about his discoveries. He was so engaged, so involved in this project.”

“What is this project, this night route?”

“It’s part of Manuel’s job with UC Davis, studying Lake Tahoe. He has pollution monitors around the lake. He collects samples twice every week. Once during the day, and three and a half days later, at night. It turns out that day pollution is a little different than night pollution. Manuel has made some discoveries about this. And when we went, he was excited like a kid. He talked about it continuously. No way would he fall asleep.”

“Then what do you think happened?”

“Somebody must have caused him to crash.”

“Caused in the sense of a purposeful crash?” I said. “Or caused it accidentally?”

“I have no idea how something like this could happen. I just know that Manuel would not drive off the mountain. The policeman told me that his car was a long way down, that he was going fast. That’s not Manuel. Not Pokey.”

“Then how could he be driving fast enough to go far down the mountain?”

“Somebody must have made him go fast.”

“Lucy,” I said slowly, “what you’re saying implies manslaughter, or even murder. Have you considered that possibility?”

“No. The very idea of murder is ridiculous. No one would want to... to kill Manuel. He was good to everybody. I’m only looking at the situation. Manuel wouldn’t have driven off the mountain, and he wouldn’t have driven fast. If that means murder, then it must be murder.”

“Did you tell this to the police?”

“No. I only realized it last night when you were here. Yesterday, I was in such shock that I couldn’t think.” Lucy stopped for a moment. “You know how you can get a sudden idea in the shower? Something about disassociating yourself from what you’ve been concentrating on? Well, when Street served us dinner, I was able to step back a bit from the situation. I’d been so focused on what I needed to do next that I hadn’t thought about the big picture. Suddenly, I realized that Manuel’s accident didn’t make sense.”

“What would you like me to do?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. I just wanted you to know.”

We sat in silence for a minute.

“Did Manuel have any enemies?” I asked.

“Of course not.”

“When he last got promoted, was there anyone who wanted the job he got?”

She shook her head. “It was a new job. Created out of the blue just for him after they got the big grant. And Manuel wrote the grant application. It’s possible that someone else would be envious, but they wouldn’t feel cheated.”

“Did Manuel have any disagreements with anyone?”

“No. He got along with everyone.”

I thought about the familiarity of what Lucy was saying. Her words about Manuel were a repeat of Joe’s words about Rell.

“Was Manuel a smoker?” I asked.

Lucy scrunched up her face as if the question were ridiculous. “No. Why do you ask?”

“There was an empty pack of cigarettes in his car.”

“That’s not possible. It must be a mistake.”

“I was there when they pulled the wreckage up the mountain. I’m the one who first saw the cigarette pack. It was on the floor.”

Lucy was shaking her head.

“Maybe someone dropped it into his car at an earlier date,” I said. “Where are these pollution monitors that Manuel used?”

“In the woods. They are mounted in places where people wouldn’t normally see them.”

“What if Manuel found a pack of cigarettes near one of his monitors. He would pick it up, right? He wouldn’t leave it in the woods.”

“True, but he wouldn’t toss it in his car. He would put it in his pocket. That’s what he did with car trash. He didn’t like a trash container in his car. Too messy. He was very neat.”

“Besides his work and family, what else did Manuel do with his time?”

“Our girls were his life. Between them and his job, he had little time left.”

“What did he do with his little time?”

“He skied a little. He hiked. And he golfed. He was a very good golfer. Joe Rorvik could tell you. Manuel golfed with Joe sometimes. As you know, they were good friends. Sometimes they ate lunch together.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really. His job had him involved in a few different groups. He served on several boards. I asked him not to because they take up time he could spend doing more fun things. But he said he had to because of his work. It was a way for him to test-drive his social environmental principles.”

“What are those?”

“He’s been developing some new ideas about how to change people’s attitudes about pollution and development. It goes back to his masters thesis on social environmentalism.”

I remembered Joe mentioning it.

“Which boards was Manuel on?”

“Ski and golf. We had a joke. Everything in life outside of work came down to skiing and golfing. Of course, hiking was important to Manuel, but there are no hiking boards. It didn’t matter whether the subject was helping lake clarity or going out to have fun. The answer was always ski and golf. So let me think, the main board was for the local race team foundation. Raising money and such. Then there was the ski resort development board. And there was the one about golfing and water quality impacts. There’s a fourth, but it escapes me for the moment.”

“Did you ever visit any of those meetings?”

“Oh, no. You must know that they are the most boring things on earth. Even Manuel thought so.”

“Did Manuel ever talk about friction on any of these boards?”

“No. The thing to know about Manuel is that he got along with everyone. And if ever there was a problem with bruised egos, Manuel was the one who smoothed things out.”

I thanked Lucy, told her that I’d be in touch.

SIXTEEN

From Lucy Romero’s house in the Keys, I drove down Tahoe Keys Blvd, took a left on Lake Tahoe Blvd, and drove toward Stateline.

Joe Rorvik had told me that Rell first met Simone Bonnaire at a breakfast café on the southwest end of town. Then, when boyfriend Ned forced her to quit, Simone found a new job waiting tables in one of the hotel cafés.

I cruised the big hotel parking lots, hoping that Simone was working. There were lots of cars, tourists in town to ski. I wondered where anyone would park when the massive holiday crush of tourists arrived.

Employees are usually told to park in the far lots to leave the closer spots for customers. I found Simone’s old Corolla at the rear of the lot behind Harrah’s, parked under some big Jeffrey pine trees. Several pine cones were scattered on the icy pavement around her car. Some locals avoid parking under the trees because the big cones will put a serious dent in your vehicle. But it wouldn’t matter to Simone’s tattered Toyota. It already had several pine cone dents.

I parked nearby. It was noon.

Simone came out at 2:10 p.m. I got out and met her as she approached her car.

“Hi, Simone. I’m sorry if my presence yesterday caused you stress.”

Simone looked shocked and worried as she realized who I was. She looked around, searching the parking lot for danger signs. She did a double take, then stared at a treed area at the edge of the parking lot.

She crouched, looked both ways, then ran around the far side of her car as Ned came running from the trees.

I stepped forward to intercept him. I thought of letting Spot out of the Jeep, but I worried that Ned might have a gun.

“That’s right, Mr. Detective!” he yelled as he got close. “I was staking you out just like you were staking Simone out.”

He carried a large pipe wrench, and threaded onto his belt was a leather knife holster with five throwing knives.

Ned stopped ten feet from me, the wrench out and waving, ready to cut my head off. The man was panting from his run and his adrenaline, but he looked in good shape with hard muscles layered over harder muscles. His run didn’t slow him down. He feinted right and left, then did something I didn’t expect. He sprinted a wide arc, went around the Corolla behind me and grabbed Simone. She screamed.

He held her with one hand and brandished the wrench with the other. He was giving me my opening to engage. But he might kill one or both of us if I attempted to intervene.

He yelled at Simone, “I told you, bitch! I told you not to talk to him! I told you why. But you didn’t listen. You never listen. You’re going to pay the price as soon as I’m finished with this jerk.”

Simone’s terror was complete. She twisted in his grip, but he held her tight.

Ned advanced on me, dragging Simone, his wrench held high. He telegraphed a deadly earnestness as if he wanted to kill me, as if he needed to kill me.

I didn’t know how to play it. A strong man with good coordination is unlikely to miss with a metal club. My best and most reasonable choice was to keep my distance and hope any witnesses were summoning the cops. But Ned shifted his arm around Simone’s neck. She began choking.

I bent a little at the waist like a shortstop ready for the pitch. There was no easy way to miss a club swipe, even when it is wielded by a man holding a woman. The best I could do was try to misdirect him and dodge the result. Maybe I could get him to make a stupid move.

He came toward me. Simone was gagging, choking, desperately trying to dig her fingernails into Ned’s arm. Her eyes were beginning to lose their focus. I backed up. Saw a Jeffrey pine cone to my side. The cone was fresh and heavy with resin, maybe a pound. At eight or nine inches in length, it was too big to throw easily or accurately. But it was all I had.

I ducked and spun, grabbed the pine cone, ran a circle around the man.

“Hey, Neddy Teddy! You get your kicks beating up Simone? Hitting a little woman makes you feel like a big man, right?” I wanted to throw the cone, but Simone, trapped in front of him by his necklock, was a bigger target than he was behind her.

Ned looked psychotic when I called him Neddy Teddy. His eyeballs appeared to shake. He lurched forward, dragging Simone. He took a hard, awkward swipe with the wrench. I sprinted away before he could connect. I did a quick stop and spun. He was twenty feet from me, bent forward, swinging the wrench back and forth the way I imagined the cave men swung a club in front of an advancing pack of hyenas. His face was purple with rage. Simone’s face was blue from lack of oxygen. I saw an opportunity that might work or might get Simone or me killed.

 I took a three-step sprint directly toward him, winding up with the cone. I was close enough that he could easily take a step toward me and cut me in two with the wrench. But he was startled, hesitating at my bold move. He turned so that his body was a bit sideways to me. For the first time, he presented a bigger target than Simone.

I let go with the cone. If it hit Simone, it was heavy enough that it could kill her if it struck her head or throat. But I focused on Ned.

He made a sudden ducking motion.

The cone caught him behind his ear. He jerked, a bit stunned, then turned, anger radiating from him like a burst of fire. His eyes widened at my charge.

I kept up my forward momentum, plunging forward, and hit him on the shoulder as I grabbed the wrench from him.

The blow made him loosen his grip on Simone. She pulled away, gasping for breath. She staggered, then broke into a run.

I tossed the wrench far across the parking lot.

Ned’s hand went to his throwing knife holster. But he must have been too tempted by his rage and my proximity. He took three running steps toward me, then leaped as if to tackle me.

It was the strange, irrational move of a brawler who’d never had any professional fight training.

I flashed on a memory from decades before when a sergeant who knew some judo taught moves to us rookies.

“If you deal with an enraged thug,” he said, “you will sometimes get some amazing opportunities.” He then proceeded to teach us the clown toss, so named because circus clowns do it for laughs.

The goal is to grab a charging attacker by the front of his shirt, then drop down onto your butt pulling him with you. Using his momentum, you roll backward as you raise your knees and get your feet into the attacker’s gut. Then it is a simple matter of kicking out hard as you continue pulling him over your head. With some practice and a lot of luck, the attacker is launched through the air like a clown.

My grip on Ned’s jacket wasn’t good, and when I dropped to my butt, I hit at an angle, sending shocking pain up through my back. But I was able to get my shoes up against his hard, six-pack stomach, and I kicked out hard as I continued my backward roll.

My body was a little turned, and Ned didn’t come off my feet in a straight line. But the less-than-perfect angle of launch was more than made up for by my lengthy legs.

I kicked up hard.

Ned went into the air on a rising arc, his trajectory impressive in both its height and length. He did a slow flip over his head as if to land flat on his back. But because of my angled launch, he also performed a half twist so that his front side faced the ground.

He hit in a feet-first belly flop. Although he must have been disoriented, he got his arms most of the way out in front of him to cushion the fall like the down-motion in a pushup. Nevertheless, his chin slammed into the pavement, his head bouncing a little. Then he was still.

I pushed up, electric pain shooting down my left leg. I did a rotating stretch, trying to realign my back and hip bones. When the pain lessened a bit, I hobbled over to where Ned lay, still breathing, but unmoving.

I grabbed his belt and rolled him over onto his back. He groaned but made no resistance. His chin was badly scraped and bleeding. I knew that his jaw could be broken, but I didn’t care. He was wheezing the tiny breaths of an unconscious person whose wind had been knocked out from a blow to the solar plexus.

I unbuckled Ned’s belt and pulled it off. The knife holster came loose, and I tossed it and the belt a good distance away, out of his reach.

It took only a moment to pat him down, checking for other weapons. There was nothing but the usual keys and wallet, which I left in place. I took off his shoes, then unsnapped the front of his pants, pulled down his zipper fly, and jerked his pants down. With another jerk, they came off his feet. I tied his shoes together by the laces, then tossed them and his pants up toward the lowest branches of one of the smaller Jeffrey pines. The shoes stayed but the pants came back down. They stayed up on the second toss, his keys still inside the pockets.

A groan came from behind. I turned. Ned was trying to move but without much success. He hissed at me.

“You’re a dead man, McKenna.”

I grabbed one of his arms and pulled until he flopped back onto his stomach, his other arm tucked underneath him. Then I squatted down, putting my knee and shinbone across the back of his neck. I gave it some weight, grinding his bloodied face down into the asphalt.

Ned tried to scream, but the sound came out garbled.

I leaned over and whispered in his ear.

 “You hit Simone again, you’re the dead man.”

I stood up and walked back to pick up his belt and knives.

I turned to scan the parking lot.

Simone was nowhere to be seen. Nor was her Toyota.

I could call the police, but there were no witnesses other than Simone. In fear for her life, she would refuse to testify against Ned, and instead, she would dispute my account of Ned’s attack.