Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (5 page)

SEVEN
 

“Who was it that visited?” I asked.

“A girl. Just twice, here, at the house. But Rell saw her some other times. I suppose she’s a friend of sorts to Rell even though I don’t think of her that way because she’s so young. She’s probably in her early twenties. Younger, even, than Dwight Frankman. Rell first met her when she ate at one of the breakfast restaurants in town. The girl was a waitress there. I think Rell and the girl have a kind of a grandmother/granddaughter relationship. From what Rell said, the girl – I suppose I should say woman – feels free to talk to her without worrying that Rell will judge her badly. In fact, Rell often makes a point about how we shouldn’t judge other people because we don’t know what they’ve been through.”

“What’s there to judge badly? Is this woman friend into something bad?”

“Not from what I gather. It sounds like she has an abusive boyfriend, and she’s afraid to leave him. Apparently, he’s violent. The girl’s neighbors have called the cops a few times, but nothing’s come of it. Rell has seen her with some bad bruises. Rell suspects that they’re nothing compared to what’s under the girl’s clothes. Personally, I can’t understand why the girl doesn’t just leave him. If she’s worried about what he’ll do, then why not just slip out some time when he’s at work and travel someplace else where he won’t know to look? It can’t be that hard.”

“Usually, there are extenuating circumstances,” I said, thinking back on my cop days. “Maybe she has no money. Or no transportation. Or she’s convinced that she can’t manage on her own. Abusers have many ways of keeping their victims dependent. It even has a name. Battered Woman Syndrome. It describes women who are so psychologically compromised by their domestic battery that they can’t function well enough to leave their abuser. Do you know the girl’s name?”

“Yes, because Rell has talked about her at length. Simone Bonnaire. Rell said that she’s originally from France and came here by way of Montreal. I understand that she wanted to pursue cross-country ski racing. Or maybe it was back-country skiing. It stuck in my mind when Rell mentioned it because, well, I still pay a little attention to snow sports. I don’t know if Simone is intending to train for some kind of competition or what. But I saw that girl once when she came to our house, and I can tell you that she hasn’t got what it takes. She has no discernible physicality. And anyone who doesn’t have the fire to leave an abuser certainly doesn’t have the fire to be an athlete. You can’t compete in a physical sport if you’re spineless.”

“I’ve met abused women,” I said. “They’re not spineless. They’re battered to the point that they can’t function.”

“You think my judgment of the girl is harsh.”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Joe said. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Have you ever gotten the idea that Rell might tell Simone personal things?” I asked.

“You mean like confiding in her? Something that could connect to Rell being assaulted on our deck? I don’t think so. But she might have said a few things to make it seem like she’s confiding in her so that the girl will feel freer to talk. Rell has worried about this girl a great deal.”

“Rell must have felt a connection to her to invite her over.”

“Yes. It almost didn’t happen. Simone was worried that her boyfriend wouldn’t approve. So Rell went and picked her up when her boyfriend would think she was at work. A secret visit, so to speak. They talked out on the deck. Later, they came inside, and I spoke to Simone a little bit. She is a tiny thing, smaller, even, than Rell, skinny as a cross-country racing ski, and timid as they come. She’s also very pale, much more so than you would imagine for a person who supposedly skis and is out in the sun.”

Joe got up and walked over to the fridge. “Would you like another beer?”

“No thanks,” I said.

He pulled one out, opened it, and came back to his chair. He took a drink and made more of his mouth movements.

“A few weeks later, Simone and Rell got brave. Rell picked her up at her house when the boyfriend was supposed to be away. But it turns out that this boyfriend is very suspicious. He’d been watching. So he followed them to our house. When I heard a knock and opened the door, he pushed in and nearly knocked me over. He was like an angry bull, and about that size, too. He grabbed Simone’s arm and dragged her out the door.”

My vision darkened a little as Joe Rorvik talked. Back on the San Francisco PD, I’d seen insecure men who beat up on women and children. The mental image, and the disgust, never softens.

“Do you know the boyfriend’s name?”

“No. But the cops must. I’m sure they would have looked it up because Rell went to talk to them. Oh, one more thing,” Joe said. “The boyfriend forbid Simone to ever see Rell again. He even made her quit her job so Rell couldn’t see her during her shift.

“But one day, Simone called Rell and told her that her boyfriend said she had to get a job on the other end of town where Rell wouldn’t see her. So Simone got a waiting job at one of the Casino cafés. Rell has gone there a couple of times.”

“You said that Rell talked to the police about Simone?”

“Yes, she did. After the boyfriend came to our house and dragged Simone out of here, Rell was so concerned that she went down to the South Lake Tahoe Police Department. She explained what she’d heard about Simone and her boyfriend and what she’d personally witnessed as well. The police said that there is a community women’s organization that could help Simone find a safe house if she were willing to press assault charges. So Rell explained all that to Simone, but Simone was still unwilling to file charges. Simone says she’ll be dead if she takes any action. In lieu of her pressing charges, I understand that somebody has to witness him assaulting her.”

I nodded.

“One time,” Joe said, “Rell went to Simone’s house, but no one was home. So Rell talked to one of the neighbors. The neighbor told Rell that he’d seen Simone get beaten. But he was unwilling to testify because he also thought he’d get killed by her boyfriend. He was apologetic, but he said that he had a wife and two little kids to think of.”

“Joe, you’ve probably pondered this at length, but can you see that guy coming over to teach Rell a lesson for talking to Simone without his permission? Can you imagine him throwing Rell off the deck?”

“Yes, I have thought about it. The answer is that I can certainly imagine that, but I don’t think it happened that way. I’ll tell you why. I have no doubt that this is the kind of guy who could kill an old woman. But a hothead like him exacts vengeance. He wouldn’t just push an old lady over a deck railing. He’d hit her first. Probably multiple times. I talked to the doctor who examined Rell. He is confident that all of Rell’s injuries came from striking the rocks.”

“Good bit of deduction,” I said. “You could be right.” As I said it, I wondered if Simone’s boyfriend would break pattern and simply toss Rell over the deck in order to disguise his involvement. But that would take some forethought.

“Simone’s boyfriend,” I said. “Did you get any sense of his smarts?”

“He just gave me the impression of a dumb thug,” Joe said.

“Think about how he acted. Was he calculating?”

“He was like a wild animal. Feral.”

“Smart feral? Like a wolf? Or stupid feral like a snapping turtle?”

“I see what you mean. Like a wolf. He had an evil self-awareness, like he wanted to be thought of as tough.”

“Do you know where he and Simone live?”

Rorvik shook his head. “No. He drove this big pickup, all rebuilt except that it still needs bumpers. It sits up twice as high as any other vehicle. Rell said they live in Sierra Tract, so maybe you could drive those streets and look for the pickup. But I would warn you that you might get yourself killed. At my age, I’ve become quite a good judge of character. My sense was that this guy wouldn’t hesitate to shoot you if he was mad at you. Or, more likely, he’d beat you up first, then shoot you. Although you don’t look like you’d be too easy to beat up.”

“Everybody can be beat up by somebody. I appreciate the warning.”

I thanked Joe for his time. As he made a little nod, I saw a profound sadness in his face.

I felt bad leaving Joe, but I thought I should stop by to visit Dwight Frankman and Michael Paul.

“One more thing you can help me with,” I said. “Do you have the addresses for your full-time neighbors Dwight and Michael?”

Joe looked embarrassed. “That would be obvious, wouldn’t it? But no, I don’t. I can tell you which houses they live in.”

“That’ll work just as well.”

Joe walked over to the front door. When Spot realized where Joe was going, he got up and trotted over to join him. Doors always represent promise and excitement for dogs.

I realized that Joe wanted to point and such, so I opened the door and stepped outside.

Dwight was gone. The Christmas lights on the abstract sculptures were dramatic, and they lit up the entire entry.

“Do you see the reddish house with the big gable up the street on the right?” Joe pointed. “Just before where the street curves away?”

Spot looked where Joe was pointing, then turned toward me. Probably wondering if we were going to run again.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Michael Paul’s house is – let me think – one, two, three, four houses past it on the same side.” Joe turned and pointed the opposite direction down the street.

“If you go down this other way and take the first two right turns in a row and drive down the hill a bit, there’s a modern glass house on the right. The house right after it is Dwight’s house. Kind of a greenish gray.”

I was trying to visualize. “That would be down in the forest below your deck,” I said.

Joe thought about it. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“I’ll be in touch,” I said. Spot and I were half way to the Jeep when I realized that I had one more question. I went back and knocked again.

“You mentioned Simone’s boyfriend’s pickup,” I said when Joe opened the door. “Do you remember the color?”

“Yellow,” Joe said. “Bright yellow.”

EIGHT
 

I drove to Michael Paul’s house first. It was dark. Nevertheless, I got out and rang the bell.

There was no response. To be expected when the place was dark.

I tried again, waited again. Still no response.

I drove to Dwight’s house. Light spilled out several windows.

He too had some Christmas lights near the front door, but none so high that he needed to risk his life on a step ladder to install them.

The wide entry door was made of beautiful wood with inset panels. Around each panel was a thin stripe of inlaid wood, darker, reddish. Rosewood, maybe. The door probably cost more than my used Jeep.

On the wall to the side of the door was a knocker made of a two-foot length of ski with a ski binding mounted on it. It was an interesting bit of ski country kitsch next to such an elegant door.

I lifted the hinged portion of the ski binding and dropped it down against the ski. It made a loud thwack. Three times was enough to wake any sleeping neighbors and send non-hibernating bears rushing back to their dens.

After a minute, I knocked again. There were no cars in the driveway, but the three-car garage could still allow for lots of people in the house.

In another minute I heard a faint noise. I smiled at the peephole.

“Who is it?” a tentative male voice said at a high pitch.

“Owen McKenna. I just met you at Joe Rorvik’s. Wondered if I could ask you a question.”

 I heard the deadbolt turn. The door opened to the length of a door chain. Dwight looked out at me as the alarm warning started beeping. He shut the door. I heard faint beeps as he punched in the code to turn off the alarm. He unhooked the chain, and pulled the door open. He was wearing one long, blue, rubber glove. With his other hand he held a baseball bat. It was the junior size, made for young kids who need an easier bat to swing when playing t-ball. Around Dwight’s neck was a dust mask, the white gauzy portion pulled down below his chin. On his feet were old-fashioned leather slippers.

“Sorry for the glove,” Dwight said. “I was cleaning the sink. I’m sure I look like something out of a bad movie.”

“You must be using strong chemicals,” I said.

“Just regular cleanser,” he said. “But that stuff is bad for you. It can get in your lungs and get absorbed through your skin.”

I nodded. “Is this an okay time, or should I come back?”

Dwight’s pause was probably long compared to how most people would react, but for someone who obviously spent time and energy considering the dangers of cleaning the sink, to be expected. “No, this is okay. Please come in.” He pointed toward a large rubber tray next to the door. “You can put your shoes there. I don’t think any of the slippers to the side are as large as your feet, but they’re open-backed, so they should still work.

Dwight stepped aside. I walked past. I saw him look out the open door, turning to look both ways down the dark street. Then he shut the door behind me, turned the deadbolt and slid the chain into its holder. I stepped into the tray next to a pair of Hush Puppies and began removing my shoes. I’d often been to homes where shoes were discouraged, a fine idea in snow country. But Dwight went a step further. He didn’t want my stockinged feet on his floors any more than my shoes. I found the largest pair of leather slippers and slid my feet into them. My heels hung out the back ends.

Behind the door were four pairs of skis hanging in holders mounted on the wall.

“You are an avid skier,” I said.

Dwight shook his head in a dramatic way.

 “Oh no. I bought this house furnished. I didn’t want any of the stuff. But the sellers were getting divorced, and they said the low price was dependent on the buyer taking the house along with its contents. Apparently, they had been fighting about stuff and they both wanted to make their exit and start fresh without anything. But look at what I have had to put up with.” He made a sweeping gesture at the living-dining-kitchen area. “Hard, Scandinavian furniture, sporting equipment, exercise bicycle, wine bar. My God, what would I ever do with all of that. And that door knocker. What were they thinking?” He pointed at the exercise bicycle. “I like to take walks. But not real long. And when the weather is nice. This stuff is so... so excessive. It just makes you sweaty. I believe in moderation.”

“You could have a garage sale,” I said.

“Absolutely. It’s on the top of my list come summer. Once I get this place cleaned out, I can make it cozy and comfy.” Dwight pointed toward the closed door. “Is it okay if I don’t invite your dog in?”

“Of course. I would never expect that.”

“I like dogs in principle,” he said. “But the shedding and the dander, well, I’d have to pretty much wear this mask with my inhaler under it until I’d thoroughly cleaned the house.”

He pointed toward the living room. “Please have a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

I walked into a living room with maple furniture that looked stylish but had very little upholstery. I sat on an upright chair. Dwight went into the open kitchen. He laid the t-ball bat on the kitchen counter, then peeled off his glove. He tore off two lengths of paper towel, laid them on the counter next to the sink, then set his glove on the towels.

Dwight looked out the dark kitchen window just as he had the front door, then walked down a hall out of my sight. I heard water running in a bathroom. After a long time, he came back, waving his hands in the air, fingers spread wide. He saw me noticing.

“The only way to get them completely dry,” he said. “If I don’t, my skin gets very chapped.”

I nodded.

Dwight sat on a chair across from me, perching on the edge, his knees together, hands folded in his lap. He was skinny and angular, like he was assembled of two-by-fours. Although he appeared tall, it was largely because of his narrowness. He was shorter than my six-six by a half foot and lighter than my 215 by 50 pounds. He glanced toward the windows.

I turned to look. The windows had sheer, white window coverings that allowed one to look out but would be impossible to see through from the outside during the daytime.

“Are you expecting someone?” I asked.

“I’m just…” Dwight swallowed. “Would you mind if I take a moment to shut the blinds? I was so busy in the kitchen that I didn’t notice it had gotten dark. It won’t take me but a moment.”

“Of course. Want help?”

“No, thank you.” He stood up and went around the living room pulling on cords to drop custom blinds.

“Thanks for waiting,” he said when he sat back down. “I’m sort of paranoid about people seeing into my house at night.”

“Understandable after what happened to Rell. I’m curious, Dwight. You are, frankly, very young. How do you happen to have such a nice house? Or does it belong to your parents?”

Dwight shook his head. “I never knew my parents. I was raised by my great aunt Vera on my mother’s maternal side. Whenever I asked about my parents, she would say that she was my parent. As I got older, I came to realize that I was born out of wedlock and handed off to aunt Vera. We lived in her apartment in Redwood City. She was poor, but I never lacked for anything important. Vera died when I was seventeen, the same day I got accepted to Stanford. I’ve been on my own ever since.”

Dwight seemed to relax a little as he talked.

“Luckily, I got through Stanford on a couple of scholarships and some student loans. Fortunately, I’ve done well, so I’m in good shape financially. I bought this house three months ago.”

“Didn’t you come to Tahoe to ski?”

“No. I’m not into sports. But it’s a beautiful place and much safer than the communities where I could afford to live in the Bay Area. I’m pretty security conscious as you can probably tell.”

“Joe says you work in computers like Michael Paul down the street.”

Dwight frowned. “Well, I’m a software engineer. I specialize in nano-structure computer modeling. Michael was an entrepreneur, more of a money guy. He put together a startup, then sold it.”

“He didn’t write code,” I said.

“He obviously knows his way around code, and that helped him with his venture. But he’s more of a businessman, not a geek like me.”

“What is nano-structure computer modeling?”

Dwight made a little sigh. I took it to indicate that once again he was going to have to explain a tech field to a naïve layman, and that frustrated him. He took a little breath.

“Have you heard about nanotechnology?”

“Not really,” I said. “Techy small stuff? Super small stuff?”

“Yes. Super small would be an appropriate description. Nano design is working at the molecular level. The atomic level. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. To put that into perspective, a nanometer is to the head of a pin as a small boat is to the Pacific Ocean. When you work with something that small, the effects of quantum mechanics intrude on your device, whatever it is. And if you know anything about quantum mechanics, we’re talking about some really weird effects.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Quantum mechanics is something I’ve heard of, but it is obviously over my head.”

“No problem,” Dwight said. He was more relaxed now, finding comfort in talking about something in his area of expertise. “Suffice to say that we’re now designing useful materials made up of nanometer-sized pieces. As scientists design these things, they need to model them in computers. That’s my specialty. I write custom software that predicts how certain materials behave in certain environments. All at the nano level, of course.”

“Of course,” I said. “And you do this from here?”

He nodded, still sitting primly in his chair, his hands folded on his knees.

“I assume this work pays well,” I said.

Dwight’s face reddened a bit. “Yeah. It’s kind of embarrassing. There is a group of professors at Berkeley who use me now and then. We have a little joke about money. Our unit of currency is the nano GDP.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “A billionth of the Gross Domestic Product.”

“Right. The GDP of the U.S. is about fifteen trillion dollars. Which makes a nano GDP a billionth of that, or about fifteen thousand dollars. So they’ll call me up and outline a project they’d like me to do. Then they’ll say, ‘What do you think? Will it come in under a nanoGDP?’ And I say, ‘maybe,’ or ‘yeah, just barely.’

“So they send me the specs. I write the code and send it back. It usually takes me about five or six days. Sometimes a week.”

“You make fifteen thousand a week.”

Dwight nodded. “But not every week.”

“Stanford turns out students who do well,” I said.

Dwight nodded. “I pretty much spent my childhood working with computers while the other kids played ball. When I started at Stanford, their computer courses seemed pretty remedial to me, so I got the department head to let me into some grad-school courses, and I began to focus on nano design modeling in my freshman year. After school, I worked at a couple of startups, then went out on my own as a consultant.”

“You met Joe and Rell after you moved here?”

He nodded. “They’re pretty much the oldest people in the neighborhood. I saw them on my walks. We talked. Rell especially. She’s very nice.” He made a little smile. “Actually, I sort of forced myself on them. I could see that they could use help now and then. And outside of my work colleagues, I don’t have friends. They’ve been very nice to me.”

“Do you think that Rell could have fallen by herself?”

“I don’t know. If you asked me before her fall, I would have said no. Rell is not uncoordinated and, considering her age, very steady on her feet. But after her fall, I thought about it, and I can’t imagine anyone pushing her. She’s so sweet. So it’s a conundrum.”

“Your neighbor, Michael Paul. Do you know him well?”

“Not well, but yeah, we talk in the street. He’s often polishing one of his cars when I walk by. So I always try to say a few things. I don’t want him to think I’m weird or anything.”

“What’s Michael like?”

“He’s kind of a glam boy.” Dwight’s tone was pejorative.

“You don’t like him,” I said.

“No. It’s more like I don’t understand him. He seems to care about style more than substance.”

“Meaning...”

“Everything about him is shallow. He puts a lot of energy into how he looks and sounds. You know the cliché, ‘clothes make the man?’”

“Yeah,” I said.

“That’s Michael. Appearance rules. He has several cars, and they are always washed and polished. He has several girlfriends, and they always look like models. His house has lots of mirrors, and I’ve watched him check himself out in them.”

“He’s into clothes,” I said.

“Yeah. And his tattoos. He’s got them all over like he’s a walking art project.”

“Joe told me that he didn’t like tattoos. Sounds like you and Joe have that in common.”

“No,” Dwight said, shaking his head. “I like tattoos when it is a personal expression of individuality, when it’s a small thing like a hair style or a different kind of earrings. But when a person makes their tattoos their brand, like they are a product and the tattoos are their packaging, then it’s distracting. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it.” Dwight pinched his lips. “You must think that I’m a really conservative conformist. And maybe I am. But I’m sure you’ve had this experience. You meet someone, and you talk a little, and you each find that the other person is intriguing. It’s always a nice discovery to find another person who is interested in the same parts of the world as you, whether it’s poetry or Nascar racing or Middle Eastern politics or rock and roll. But if that person sports a big nose ring or has a purple mohawk or their entire body is covered in tattoos, their looks hijack the conversation. A certain level of conformity allows us to concentrate on substance over style. But in-your-face nonconformity gets in the way. No matter how important anything is to that kind of person, it is a lower priority to them than how they look.”