Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (14 page)

TWENTY-TWO

Dwight walked out a few minutes later. He looked frantic with worry. He shook.

“Hey, Dwight, you’re okay. I talked to the doctor. He says you’ll be fine with a little rest.”

“Will you take me home? I’m scared!”

“Easy, Dwight. Don’t overreact.”

I guided him outside.

“You don’t understand,” Dwight said. “He came right toward me. It was either run off the road or get hit head-on! I could have been killed!”

“But you weren’t, Dwight. You did the smart thing. It saved your life. The other driver was probably falling asleep.”

“I don’t know. I saw his headlights coming down the road perfectly straight. On his side of the line the whole time. Then, at the last moment, he swerved toward me. It looked like he was trying to hit me.”

“Could you see his eyes? His face?”

“No, it was early morning. Still dark out.”

“Did you see what kind of vehicle it was?”

“No. All I could see were the headlights. It was big, and it looked black.”

“Could it have been yellow?”

“I don’t know! I don’t think so. But it was dark out, and the headlights were in my eyes. I’ve never been so scared. I jerked the wheel to the right. There was a big snowbank but my car just went through it and down below the highway. I stepped on the brakes, but there was a tree, and then the steering wheel exploded. I was in a haze for a bit. Then I tried the door, and it was jammed. So I climbed out the window. But it was too steep to get up the bank. So I fired flares until a lady stopped and looked over the bank to see me waving. Eventually, the cops came, and the ambulance, and they put me on a stretcher and got me up to the highway.”

“You just happened to have a flare gun in your car?”

“Yeah. I bought my Chevy Tahoe at an estate sale, and it came with the flare gun and a whole box of flares. They were old, but they still worked. Lucky thing, too. I could have been down in that snowbank for days. I would have died.”

We got to my Jeep, and I opened the door for him. Dwight stared at Spot, whose head was reaching forward, panting.

“He’ll sniff you, but he won’t hurt you.” I reached in and put my hand to Spot’s nose. “Pull back, Spot,” I said. Then I walked around and got in the driver’s side. Dwight was still standing outside. Again, I pushed Spot back. Dwight bent down to look in the Jeep, hesitated further. He saw me holding Spot back. He got in and shut the door.

I started the engine and drove off.

“Dwight, where were you going when the accident happened?”

“I was going to meet a business associate.”

“Who?”

“I don’t actually know. A man called last night. He said his name was Robert Carter and he had talked to the professors at Berkeley, the guys I do programming for. They recommended me, and he had a business proposition. He said he was in Carson City. So we agreed to meet at Comma Coffee.”

“Do you think this person was connected to your accident?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. On my way to meet him, the guy called me and asked what kind of car I was driving so he could watch for me to pull up. So I told him I had a blue Chevy Tahoe.”

“It would be hard to tell it was you,” I said. “From the front, a Chevy Tahoe looks like a Chevy pickup.”

Dwight ignored my comment. “The name Robert Carter is probably made up,” he said. “How many Robert Carters must there be in this country? Thousands, no doubt.”

“Dwight, did anything else happen before you went out? Any other unusual phone calls? Emails? A person outside of your house?”

Dwight shook his head. “Wait, there was one thing. I was originally going to take my Subaru because it’s a better snow car. But when I went out to my Subaru to go meet Carter, it had a flat tire. So I called Triple A to come fix it. I didn’t have time to wait, so I took my Chevy Tahoe. That was probably a bad idea because it doesn’t have good tread. But it’s not like I had a choice. And even if I’d been driving the Subaru, the guy still would have run me off the road.”

“Was your Subaru in the garage?”

“No. The Tahoe was in the garage, but I usually leave the Subaru out unless we’re getting a big storm. The Subaru is the car I use the most. God, maybe Carter came in the night, let the air out of my tire, forcing me to take the Tahoe! Maybe he’s been watching me and knew that my Tahoe didn’t have good tires. Maybe he planned it that way so that I’d be more likely to slide off the road!”

“Maybe,” I said in a low, soft voice, hoping to calm Dwight down. He could be right, but he was cranked up and sounding paranoid.

“Let’s just say that this person targeted you,” I said, “and he tried to run you off the road. Can you think of a reason why?”

Dwight shook his head. “I can’t imagine it. I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. I respect everyone. I don’t even hurt bugs. I carry the spiders outside.”

“Dwight, do you know about the Steven’s Peak Ski Resort commission that Joe serves on?”

He nodded fast, still agitated. “Yeah. We talked about it. I told him I thought he should vote it down.”

“Did you get the idea that Joe was interested in how you came to your opinion?”

“Yeah. He asked me why I thought the resort shouldn’t be built. I told him it was bad for the environment. And it’s not like we don’t have enough resorts already.”

“Has anyone else ever talked to you about it?”

“No, why?”

“I’m wondering if someone might have thought you have influence with Joe.”

Dwight paused. “You mean I was run off the road so that I couldn’t influence Joe on the resort?! That’s terrible! But I bet there’s big money behind that resort, isn’t there? Maybe an investor is trying to kill off the people who would have Joe vote no!”

“It’s a far-fetched idea, Dwight, but yes, that’s what I’m wondering. If you think of anyone who’s talked to you about Joe or about the resort, let me know, okay?”

He nodded again, multiple times.

I drove him home. His hands gripped the armrests the entire trip.

Dwight’s Subaru was in the driveway. On one side of the car, there were lots of boot tracks in the fresh snow near one of the tires.

Once inside Dwight’s house, I said, “Do you want me to stay for awhile?”

Dwight seemed to have calmed. “No thanks. I’m going to take an Ambien and go to bed.”

TWENTY-THREE

After dropping Dwight off, I paused to think about what he’d said. His crash seemed like an accident. But Manuel’s death looked like an accident, too. As did Rell’s fall. Dwight exhibited all the signs of paranoia. And the recent events fed that. But someone could still have tried to run him off the road.

I cruised by Simone and Ned’s house. Ned might recognize my Jeep if he paid attention, but Spot’s head hanging out the window would be an advertisement he couldn’t ignore. So I kept the rear windows up. Spot, frustrated, hung his head.

Neither Ned’s truck nor Simone’s Corolla was at the house. So I headed over to Stateline and drove to where she’d parked before. No Corolla.

I crawled through all of the hotel lots in case she’d parked elsewhere in an effort to avoid me. Still nothing.

So I tried to think like someone who was desperate to never see Owen McKenna again.

I wouldn’t just park someplace else. I’d park where you couldn’t even see my car. In the far corner of an upper floor in one of the ramps.

It was better to forget about her car and explore the cafés nearest to where she’d parked before. I started in the casino hotels.

Casinos are designed to make it hard to understand the layout, the better to keep people at the slots and tables. It had been a few years since I’d wandered the spaces. They all looked different. Cafés were hard to find. The big name restaurants were hard to find. The bars and nightclubs were hard to find. But the slots and gaming tables were ubiquitous. Probably, the rents paid by restaurant owners were nothing compared to the take on gambling from an equivalent square footage.

But even the most dedicated gamblers need to eat, so the food vendors were still a necessary part of the casino equation.

I was in my third casino, looking into its fourth restaurant, when I saw Simone. All the waitstaff were women. All wore the same orange uniform with white accents on the shoulders and the cute white apron. The other women filled out their clothes. But Simone was so tiny that her uniform flapped. They probably gave her the extra small, but her 95 pounds were still lost in swaths of fabric.

Seeing her again without winter clothes on gave me two immediate thoughts. Like Joe Rorvik had said, I couldn’t imagine her in an athletic pursuit. She looked like physical activity would break her in half. Yet, she supposedly skied in some capacity. My second thought was that she was so small, the idea of Ned beating on her seemed that much more unfair.

Of course, no woman of any size should ever have to endure a man’s assault. Yet Simone’s diminutive size put her closer to the category of children. My blood pressure rose thinking about it.

I walked over to the little podium near the door. A woman wearing the same orange outfit but without the white accents and apron approached me, smiled, reached a menu off the stack, and said, “Table for one?”

“Yes, please. May I have Simone as my waitress? Last time, she was so charming that I came back for a repeat meal.”

The woman frowned. “Charming,” she said in a flat voice. She glanced over at Simone, working across the room, and frowned harder. “I believe I can find a table for you.”

She took me to a small table next to a little railing that separated the restaurant from the casino floor. It came up just above table height, ensuring that I would never be very far from the excitement of the slot machines beeping and chirping and making robot noises just six feet away. It was obviously one of the least desirable tables in the restaurant, punishment for my requesting the waitress the hostess liked least.

I sat down, and she handed me the menu and said something I couldn’t hear above the cacophony of the slots. I smiled and looked at my menu. The menu selections were standard diner fare but in a restaurant without the diner charm.

I sensed a person walk up to my side.

“Are you ready to order?” she said in a small voice with a slight French accent.

I kept my head down and told her eggs, scrambled, sausage links, and hash browns. At the last moment, thinking about Street’s recent remarks about healthy eating, I added, “Whole wheat toast. Dry.”

“You mean no butter?” The small voice revealed disbelief.

“No butter,” I said, thinking that this would give me ammo in convincing Street that I ate healthy. I could get some doughnuts later.

I looked up at the waitress for the first time. She was so short that her head wasn’t much above mine.

Simone recognized me and gasped.

“What are you doing here?!” Her voice was part hiss, part fear.

“Hi Simone.”

“You came here because of me! You’re going to get me killed!” Her voice was loud. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“Probably the opposite,” I said. “I might save your life.”

“No! You’re just like all men. I hate men! I hate you!”

“Why me? I’m trying to help you.”

“No, you’re not. You’re disgusting. You men prey on women. You prey on anyone smaller than you. The whole world is like a jungle. The bigger you men are, the more people, the more women, you can beat up on. You big men prey on other men, too. You make us all do whatever you want.”

I noticed that she had a bruise on the inside of her forearm and another just poking out above her collar.

“Not all men are like Ned.” As I said it, I realized that her previous reaction had been so broad that Ned was probably not the only abuser in her life. “Neither are all men like your father or your stepfather or your uncle or your neighbor or any other men who have assaulted you.”

Simone’s face was red with anger and hate and frustration. She stared at me, frozen in place.

“Simone, I’m going to tell you something that you might not believe, but it’s true. I have never struck a woman in my life. Not even a slap. Not even when I was a kid, although I suppose that if I’d had a sister, I might not be able to say that. But I didn’t, and so it is. Yes, I’ve said many things that I regret, said them to both women and men. And, yes again, I’ve struck men. Almost always it was necessary. But I’ve never had physical contact with a woman that wasn’t affectionate or at least caring. There are lots of men like me.”

Simone looked at me, not hearing. She looked a bit like a cartoon figure. Her eyes weren’t clamped shut, but they were narrowed almost the same. She had a set to her face as if nothing could get in. Then, without uttering a word, she turned and walked away at high speed, the little white accents on the shoulders of her orange uniform dancing in sequence, left, right, left, right. She rushed across the restaurant, through the door to the kitchen, and disappeared.

Maybe ten minutes after I should have gotten my food, she came back, her eyes red and puffy. She pulled out the chair across from me and sat in it. She looked down at her lap.

I waited.

Her tiny shoulders went up and down with her heavy breaths. A minute went by. Her breathing slowed. Then she looked up.

“Do you swear that you’re telling the truth? That you’ve never hit a woman? Because I don’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it of any man.”

It was hard to hear her doubts because of the implication.

“Yes, it’s true,” I said.

Simone’s nostrils flared. Her eyes twitched and watered. She looked down and sideways. I couldn’t see her hands below the table, but I could tell that she was getting some isometric arm exercise.

“Then why do other men hit women?” She looked up at me. Her eyes were wet and wide and red and very sad.

“I don’t know, Simone. I think it’s because some emotionally-immature men have never felt that they are in control of their world. They feel powerless. If those men weren’t raised with any clear sense of right and wrong, then they lash out without thinking. As they grow up, they realize that if they lash out at other men, they eventually get themselves killed. So they go after women and children. I’m sure that psychologists have complicated explanations for it, but that’s my simple explanation.”

Her eyes teared further, and her mouth started to shake. “Then why have I always been around men who hit?! Why?” Her voice was suddenly loud. “What does that say about me?!” She was shouting. “What is wrong with me?!!”

The nearby diners were all staring, their faces showing shock and distaste.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Simone.”

The woman who brought me to the table rushed over.

“Simone!” she shouted in a loud whisper. “Shut up! You’re making a scene. I want you to leave right now!”

“No,” Simone said.

“Yes. You’re disturbing the other diners. If you don’t leave, I’m going to let you go.”

“Look, ma’am,” I said in my calmest voice. “Please understand that Simone is upset. She is trying to cope with something bad that happened to her. I’m sure you understand what that’s like. She is calmer now. She won’t raise her voice again.”

“Who are you, anyway? Her father? And Simone, where is his meal? What is going on, here? I have a restaurant to run, and you have neglected your customers. Either you get back to work right now, or you’re fired.”

I stood up. “Ma’am, I’d like to explain. But this is uncomfortable. Please let me talk to you for a moment.”

The woman suddenly went from looking mad to looking fearful. I was afraid I had made things even worse. I stepped away from her to give her space, turned and smiled, waiting, trying to put an expectant look on my face.

She came over.

I spoke in a soft voice. “I’m Detective Owen McKenna. I’m investigating domestic abuse. Simone has a bad situation at home. You’ve probably noticed the bruises. Local law enforcement has a plan to arrest her abuser. But until that happens, I’d like to ask you to go easy on her. Battered women undergo stress unlike anything we can imagine. I understand that this little scene has made other diners upset.” I pulled out my credit card. “Please charge all their meals to me. Then you can go around and tell them that their meals are on the house.” I stuck my credit card into her hand. She reluctantly took it.

“Simone will get past this,” I said, “if you can give her a little flexibility and understanding.”

The woman looked at me for a few seconds, then walked away, gripping my credit card. If, in fact, she charged the meals to my card, it wouldn’t amount to a great deal. And it would go on Joe Rorvik’s bill, anyway.

I went back to my table. Simone was standing behind her chair.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Sit down.” I sat.

Simone seemed to think about it. Then she sat.

“What did you tell Marilyn?” she asked.

“Your boss? I just asked her to give you a little space. I told her that things would be calm from now on.”

“And she believed you? She just walked away?”

I nodded.

Simone looked at me, then at the table, then at her hands, which were red and still shaking.

“I’ll go get your meal.”

She left, came back a minute later with my plate. The food looked a little dry but otherwise okay.

I ate. Simone sat across from me.

After a moment, she said, “You think that Rell Rorvik’s fall off the deck wasn’t an accident?”

“It’s not clear. I have doubts.”

Simone chewed on her lip, swallowed, looked around the room as if she was avoiding looking at me. Finally she spoke. “I don’t think it was an accident, either.”

“Why?”

“Because Ned has a side job as a spy, and he is paid to spy on Joe Rorvik.”