Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (28 page)

FORTY-SIX

I watched for a bit while the firemen came and used their Jaws-Of-Life equipment on the scaffolding and crushed pickup. A half hour later, they still hadn’t exposed much human flesh. I took Spot up to my office. I made some coffee and drank it with aspirin while Spot lay down near my office door and went to sleep.

Diamond came in thirty minutes later. He pointed at Spot sprawled across the dirty carpet.

“He got tired from watching you dodge Veitsi Mies blades?”

“Looks like it,” I said. “I was hoping to get some information from Ned, but no answer. Was he merely reticent, or dead?”

“Ain’t no coroner here when the paramedics finally hauled his ass off. But based on what I saw, not much of him was intact. We each have two hundred and six bones. I’m guessing his broken count was in the high one-fifties.”

“Was he still breathing?” I asked.

Diamond made a little scoffing noise back in his throat.

“They paddle him?” I asked.

“They’re supposed to, but you gotta know where to put the paddles. This was like twisted roadkill. Not clear which end was which.”

“You want to take my statement?”

“Sure.”

So he asked me the questions, and I gave him the answers, and then Street rushed into my office.

“My God, Owen, are you okay?” she asked.

Spot was suddenly awake. He jumped up, wagging.

Street came around my desk and stood next to my chair, holding my head against her chest. “I heard a big crash from down the street. A minute later, Diamond called me at my lab. He said you’d been in a fight. All the scaffolding on your building has come down! The entire parking lot is a disaster zone. I’m so glad you didn’t get caught up in it.”

“Yeah, I was lucky,” I said, not mentioning that the pole I jerked free started the collapse.

“Is Ned dead?” she asked.

“Sounds like it,” I said.

Street looked at Diamond.

He nodded.

“Good,” she said.

“I ain’t complaining,” Diamond said.

“He was going to kill Simone,” she said. “It was just a matter of when.”

“Agreed,” he said.

My cell rang.

I picked it up. “Owen McKenna,” I said.

“Owen! It’s Simone!”

“Hey, Randonnée Extreme trekker girl. How are you and where are you?” I was still dizzy, and my words were a bit garbled.

“Sounds like you’ve had some cocktails,” she said.

“Just the rush of a hard workout.”

“Me too,” she said. “I’m on the very tippy top of Rubicon Peak! I did it! I climbed the steepest, rockiest peak around. I had to take off my boards and pack them the old-fashioned way. No skins can get you up rocks. Now I can see the entire lake. If I had a telescope, I could probably see your office. But I wanted to let you know about a problem,” Simone said.

“What’s that?” I asked. I saw Street and Diamond and Spot all looking at me.

“The solar charger I got for my phone? I can’t make it work while I’m skiing. It’s supposed to sit on the top of my pack, but the velcro straps don’t stick right. It keeps falling off. So I thought, no big deal, I’ll just charge when I stop. But that was stupid because I’m skiing all day until night and then some. Anyway, I really have to make my calls short so I can save power to take photos of me at each peak to document my trip. I’ve already used up a lot of battery power on the mountains I’ve climbed. So I’ll be turning off my phone to conserve power. Not that you’d call me, but I just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks for telling me,” I said. “Can you hang the charging panel around your neck?”

“But then it won’t face the sky.”

“It might face the setting sun. You’re traveling south and southwest. It might work.”

“I never thought of that!” Simone said. “It doesn’t have to face the sky. It can just face the sun. I’ll try it.”

“How’s Street?” Simone asked, and I felt a jolt of happiness that Simone had so transformed in her short escape from Ned that she was suddenly concerned about other people.

“Good,” I said. “It sounds like you’re doing great, Simone.”

“I am,” she said. “I can’t tell you how great this is to be free.”

“No doubt,” I said. “Where do you expect to camp tonight?”

“I’m still shooting for the Ludlow Hut.”

“Sounds good. Call me tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Thanks for your help. Bye. Oh, one more thing.”

“What?” I said.

“On my last peak, I was looking out to the west. From up here, you can see all the way to Mt. Diablo, maybe even the coast. That’s probably over a hundred miles away, right?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“Anyway,” she said. “There are cirrus clouds in the distance. Doesn’t that mean that weather is coming? I thought we were in a prolonged high pressure system. But now I’m wondering. Have you heard anything?”

“There is some talk about the jet stream possibly dropping south. That could bring some weather in a couple of days.”

There was a silence on the phone.

“You remember the escape routes out of the high country that Joe showed you, right?”

Another silence. “Yeah, sure. But hopefully, I’ll be done before any weather gets here. I’m pretty confident about that,” she said.

“Yeah, you probably will,” I said. “I also have some news. Ned attacked me in the parking lot an hour or so ago. He drove into the scaffolding at my office building, and the scaffolding fell and crushed him.”

“Is he dead?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to say it.”

“Oh, wow. That’s... that’s amazing. After all of this. I don’t feel bad that he died. I’m finally free of him. I can’t believe it. I don’t have to worry any more.”

“So I have a question. It’ll just take a minute.”

“Sure.”

“I found a list of names under the seat of Ned’s truck. It had Rell’s name on it. Another name was Manuel Romero and another was Jillian Oleska. Are you certain you don’t know them?”

“You already asked me. I don’t.”

“They are people who recently died in what looked like accidents that were similar to Rell’s fall. Of all the names, Rell’s and Manuel’s and Jillian’s names had lines drawn through them.”

“And you think that Ned arranged these accidents,” Simone said. Her normally small voice was loud.

“Yes.”

“God, that’s terrible. Ned is so evil!”

“I asked you once before, but I want to ask you again. Do you still believe that Ned is capable of planning and carrying out murder. Not something impulsive, but something premeditated.”

“Yes. I have no doubt.”

“Simone, I can close this case if I can find a solid connection between Ned and Manuel and Jillian. Is there any chance you know them by face but not by name?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Like when you go to the supermarket. You recognize the checkout clerk or the person behind the meat counter, but you don’t know their names.”

“I see. I could know them by face in that sense. But they could be anybody to me. How would I know that I knew them?”

“I think that if you did, it would be in connection to Rell.”

Simone didn’t respond.

“Simone, are you there?” I said.

“Yes. I’m just thinking.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Simone, please tell me whatever you know. Anything you know could be helpful.”

“What I know has nothing to do with Ned. And it doesn’t matter now with him dead.”

“It matters in closing the case. We owe it to Rell and Manuel and Jillian.”

Again, she was silent.

“Something is on your mind, Simone. Please tell me what it is. Rell is in a coma. Two other people are dead. If you are in any way connected to all of these people, your information is the one thing that could clear up all the confusion. Tell me, please.”

“It’s just... Rell and I were part of a group. But I can’t talk about it.” There was a beep in the background. Her cellphone battery getting low?

“Yes, you can talk about it,” I said. “Rell is near death. She would want you to speak.”

“No. It would be a violation of the rules.”

“Simone, the rules are gone. Rell is near death. It’s time to break the rules.”

“But I swore an oath.”

“Simone, an oath doesn’t matter when the people involved are dead. Please tell me. It’s the only way I can tie up the loose ends.”

More silence. I waited. Street and Diamond stared at me, both frowning.

“It’s called No Judgment,” Simone finally said in my phone. In the background I could hear the wind whistling. I could visualize the Granite Chief Wilderness, a vast expanse of frozen, high-elevation landscape, covered in snow eight months of the year.

“Is No Judgment the name of the group?”

“Yeah.”

“What is the group’s focus?”

“Not to judge. I... I told you that I was abused as a kid.”

“Right. No Judgment is an abuse group,” I said.

“It was beyond horrible,” Simone said, not responding to my statement, continuing her thought. “It took away my honor, my dignity, my strength, my sense of self. The group doesn’t judge me for what I’ve been through. None of us judges the others.”

“I understand. What was Rell’s role?”

“She’s the glue for the group. She holds it together. Rell saved me. I could talk to Rell. Anybody could talk to Rell. She had a kind of magic that makes people feel comfortable. People say things around her that they wouldn’t otherwise say.”

“She made it okay,” I said.

“Yeah. Rell was the one who asked if I wanted to join. She started the group. We go hiking. That’s our way of meeting. It’s about the only thing that Ned let me do. We hike, and we talk about whatever we want. We talk about what happened. When no one is judging, it’s easier to talk.”

She paused. Again, the wind howled in the background.

“I can’t say any more,” Simone said.

I shut my eyes and tried to think back. Manuel’s wife had talked about how he said that people shouldn’t judge. She also said that Manuel liked to hike. Joe had said that Rell tried not to judge. He also said that Rell was a hiker.

“Simone, when you talked about your abuse, you probably focused on what happened when you were a child,” I said.

“Yeah.” Simone’s voice made a little hiccup.

“Did you tell the others about Ned? How he beat you up?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did any of them react? Did any of them know Ned?”

“No, they didn’t react. We don’t judge, and we don’t react. That would spoil it and make it so that no one would talk.”

“Did the group have anything to do with the Steven’s Peak Resort?” I asked.

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Is it possible that Manuel and Jillian were part of the group?”

“I suppose.” Simone’s voice sounded distant, like she was traveling back in time. “We weren’t allowed to say our real names. Only Rell used her real name because the others knew her from other times. The rest of us only knew each other by face and our fake names. We had to pick fake names. I was Serena. Rell also told me that I could disguise my look if I wanted.”

“Did the others talk about their abuse?”

“Yeah. We were all abuse victims. Rell, too.” I heard another beep. I knew I should hang up, but a deep sense of foreboding was growing in my gut.

“Did Rell say what happened to her?” I asked, suddenly undergoing one of those mental shifts where everything seems different. I didn’t want to think about Joe as an abuser.

“Yes. She had to deal with stuff as a little girl. At the same age as me.”

My heart made a small thump. “So Joe wasn’t an abuser?”

“Joe? Not at all. He may be a jerk sometimes, but as far as Rell ever said, he was an angel to her.” Then, after a pause, “But I shouldn’t be saying any of this. I’m betraying a confidence.”

“The people who joined No Judgment were able to talk about what happened to them,” I said.

“Yeah. Rell made it easier. You could say anything to Rell. She made us feel that we could finally tell the truth. Tell what we’d been through. It was cathartic. For me. For the others.” Simone’s voice was more distant.

“Simone,” I said, thinking about the photograph that was on the mantel in Romero’s house, “Manuel Romero was a handsome man in his forties with a strong nose and thick, wavy, black hair. He looked Spanish. His eyes sparkled. Was he in the group?”

“Wow. Yes, I think so. Only, we knew him as Robert.”

“Jillian Oleska was about thirty, vivacious, pretty smile, very fit. She was a ski racer in college and was still an expert skier. Was she in the group?”

“She went by Miranda. I didn’t know about the skiing. But fit. We could all tell that she was fit. That was obvious. If I’d known about the skiing, I could have talked to her about it. But she only talked about...” Simone cut herself off. “So two of the people in our group are dead. And Rell is almost dead.”