Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (18 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

I drove back through town, crawling along with no sense of purpose, no desire to move forward, only regrets. Everything was wrong, and I was at the epicenter, the cause. Without seeing it coming, I had become the new agent of Joe’s misery.

When I came to the red light at Sierra Blvd, I remembered what Simone said about Ned’s visitor, the man she believed was paying Ned to spy on Joe. The man had been coming at night every two weeks or so, and she thought that the last time had been about twelve days before.

Maybe this time he’d come a couple of days early. Maybe I should be watching. Having failed to bring Joe the tiniest bit of comfort, I had nothing else to do.

I turned right, headed over to where Ned and Simone lived, and stopped a block short. I parked where I had a sight line to their house. I turned off the lights but left the engine running so the defroster could keep the windshield from fogging up in the cold, winter night. Street’s binoculars were still under my seat. I didn’t remember why I had them, but I did remember that the last time they were used was when the illegal alien kid Paco Ipar looked through them and identified the bad guys who were chasing him.

When I looked through the glasses, it was obvious that Paco’s eyes were much different than mine. I had to spin both knobs to bring Ned and Simone’s cabin into focus.

The downstairs lights were on, upstairs lights off. Simone had said that when the mystery man came, Ned took him upstairs to the bedroom.

I could barely see the front door. If I missed seeing the man drive up, and if I missed seeing him go through the door, I would still notice when the upstairs light went on.

I sat in the dark, watching for a vehicle or any other movement. Nothing happened, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Joe and his distress and my misery over it. I knew that I hadn’t created the situation in the first place, but my self-critique was nevertheless relentless.

I’d arrived at Ned and Simone’s house about 6:30 p.m. By 9:30, I decided that the likely window for an evening visitor was closed. So I drove home to my little, lonely cabin and was miserable there instead.

The next morning, I decided to go to the office to do desk work. But first I parked in one of the big hotel ramps, far from where Ned had watched me a few days ago, and walked to the café where Simone worked.

The hostess named Marilyn came up to me, alarm on her face.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat, and I won’t distract Simone. I just need to ask her a question.”

Marilyn seemed to ponder it. “Just one question?”

“Yes. You can even ask it for me, if you prefer.”

“Okay, what is the question?”

“Does Ned ski, does he know a Jillian Oleska, and where was he two days ago?”

“That’s three questions,” she said, her face serious.

“You’re right. Sorry. But they kind of go together, so I thought of it as one question.”

She hesitated, then said, “Wait here.”

She walked back to the kitchen. I expected Simone to come out. But a minute later, Marilyn returned. “Simone said yes, of course, Ned skis. She added that he’s a very good skier. She has no idea whether or not he knows a Jillian Oleska, but she’s never heard the name, if that makes a difference. And she has no idea where Ned was two days ago. He was gone all day. He wasn’t at work, and he wasn’t at home.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry, but I forgot one more question. Can you please ask her what color are Ned’s ski clothes?”

Marilyn stood there staring at me. I was a pest, and she didn’t know the best way to get rid of me. She glanced at the other diners, then walked away.

She was back in a minute. “White jacket, white warmups. Now will you please go away.”

I got the message. I thanked her and left.

The workers were back on the scaffold at the office building, installing some kind of mesh on the outer wall to support a new layer of stucco.

Once my coffee maker was done and had stopped making its loud noises, I called the numbers for Jillian’s ski companions Gigi and Howard and left messages for both. I pulled out the sticky note on which Joe had written Jillian’s number and dialed it just in case someone else was at Jillian’s home. Her machine answered. In the hope that someone else who knew Jillian would call me, I left a message with my name and phone number.

Then I called RKS Properties in an effort to learn who was now in charge of the Stevies. I worked through multiple voice menus and eventually got a young male secretary who wouldn’t give me any information about Jillian or her ski accident or the Stevies or the name of any RKS managers or managing partners. I said it was important, but he would only take my name and number and pass it on. When I hung up, I realized I was going to have to resort to subterfuge if I wanted to speak to anyone.

Next I called Diamond.

“Sergeant Martinez,” he answered.

“You sound very official,” I said. “Stern almost.”

“Sí. Intimidates bad guys. Is it working?”

“Yeah.”

“You calling on official business? Or did you need help eating another pumpkin pie?”

“I’m trying to eat more vegetables, so I better save it all for myself,” I said. “The official word is that your county neighbors to the north had a back-country ski accident in their territory day before yesterday.”

“Sí. Washoe County. A woman hit a tree about a thousand feet above Sand Harbor. The way you say ‘official word’ makes it sound like there is a differing, unofficial explanation.”

“According to an expert skier who knew Jillian well, yes.”

“What’s the unofficial explanation?”

“This expert says that Jillian wouldn’t have hit the tree by accident, therefore she was pushed.”

“And this has to do with Rell Rorvik falling from her deck,” Diamond said.

“I know it sounds like a stretch, but yeah. The ski victim, Jillian Oleska, was one of Rell’s friends.”

“Like Manuel Romero,” Diamond said. “Like Dwight Frankman.”

“Yeah. I’m wondering if you have a contact you recommend I call at the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office. The last Washoe County guy I knew well retired.”

“Try Sergeant Cal Kimmel. I’ve got his number in my phone.”

“Am I the last guy left using Post-it notes?” I said.

“Yeah. Here’s the number.” Diamond read it off. I wrote it down.

I thanked Diamond, hung up, and dialed Sergeant Kimmel.

“Cal, here.”

I introduced myself and explained how I got his number. “Diamond said that you handled Jillian Oleska’s accident.”

“Yeah, what a mess that was. Getting her body off the mountain was a trick in itself. Trying to boost morale after two of our younger guys saw the body was like being a dad all over again. That tree pancaked that poor girl. Broke most of her ribs. I just spoke to the Medical Examiner. He said her aorta didn’t just rupture, it exploded. He said it looked more like spaghetti than like an artery.”

“I spoke to a friend of the victim. She said that Jillian was an expert skier, ex-racer, etc. It’s the friend’s belief that Jillian wouldn’t have hit a tree by accident.”

Kimmel guffawed. “Oh, that’s a good joke. The young lady was up on the mountain with two friends. Their stories are consistent. They were skiing and noticed that Jillian hadn’t kept up with them. So they hiked back up the mountain and found her dead. How is that not an accident?”

“I don’t know. Were you at the scene?” I asked.

“No, I was down at Sand Harbor when the SARS team brought the body down on a toboggan.”

“Any chance the rescue crew mentioned ski tracks near the accident?”

“No. But even if there were, what would that tell us? That entire mountain is a popular back-country descent. There are ski tracks all over it. Is there some other reason you’re calling? You got motive or something?”

I didn’t want to get into a discussion of other accidents that may not have been accidents, so I said, “No, just expert opinion that Jillian Oleska was unlikely to have that kind of an accident.”

“Expert opinion of a friend,” Kimmel said. “And friends are always crystal clear thinkers when their buddies die.”

“Right,” I said. “Thanks for the info.”

“Any time.”

We hung up.

The phone rang immediately.

“Owen McKenna,” I answered.

“Owen, Joe. Something happened. I think I need help.”

“What?”

“I got a call from the hospital in Reno. Where Rell is. They had some incident early this morning. Some unknown intruder was in the hospital. A nurse was struck and hurt. The intruder was in Rell’s room.”

“Was Rell hurt?”

“Not that they can tell. The intruder ran out. I want to go down there, but I’m pretty shaky. Can you drive me?”

“Of course. When can you go?”

“Now.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

TWENTY-NINE

I got to Joe’s house a few minutes faster than I anticipated. He must have been watching, because the door opened and he came out before I could ring the bell.

Spot wagged like a puppy when Joe got in the Jeep, and I had to push his head back several times to keep him from being too boisterous.

“Who called from the hospital?” I asked as we headed down Tahoe Mountain Road.

“I forget how she introduced herself. Something like the hospital security officer.”

“She said that an intruder had been in Rell’s room,” I said.

“Yes. A nurse surprised him. He knocked her down, and he ran out.”

“Anything else?”

“Not that I can remember. I said that I was on my way, and she said she’d talk to me when I arrived.”

We rode in silence for many minutes. I tried to imagine what had happened. Every thought I had was ugly.

We took Highway 50 through town, went up the East Shore and climbed up Spooner Summit. As we crested the pass, Joe spoke.

“She’s helpless,” he said. “Her brain is mostly gone. She’s a shell of a person, a body utterly dependent on others to care for her. It’s not possible for a human to be more vulnerable. So what kind of a person would go into her room and do something? Is it possible that the person who pushed her off the deck came back to finish the job?”

“Hard to imagine,” I said. “But yes, it’s certainly possible.”

“If that’s the case,” Joe said, “then it makes me really angry. I’m going to find out from the hospital if they think someone chose Rell’s room at random, or if there is some indication that the person was looking for her room. If the latter, then I will do whatever it takes to bring that person to justice.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Joe. I believe you have a lot of fight left in you.”

Joe didn’t respond.

A few minutes later, I said, “I’ve read about the Rorvik Roar,” I said to make conversation. “Something you did back when you raced. What was that about? Was ski racing like a fight? Was your roar a kind of intimidation like the roar of a lion?”

In my peripheral vision, I sensed Joe turning to look out the side window. In time, he turned forward.

“Maybe my roar seemed intimidating to others, but that wasn’t what it was about. It was about fear.”

“Making other racers fearful?”

“No. Coping with my own fear. Ski racing can be terrifying. You rocket down a mountain at high speeds. Outside of falling from a balloon or a tall cliff, skiing is the fastest way a human being can move without motorized help. Back when I raced, we didn’t go as fast as they do now. But we didn’t have the control of modern equipment, either. You carve your way down steep ice and snow at sixty or seventy miles per hour and try to hold it together. Maybe you hit eighty in a downhill race. There is nothing that keeps you in the course and out of the trees except your guts and your skill. The tiniest mistake, a misjudgment that only lasts a hundredth of a second, and you lose control. If you hit an obstruction, you can be torn in two. If you don’t, the smallest mogul or bump or ridge can still toss you into the air. A skier making a yard-sale crash at high speed is a frightening thing to simply witness. But when it is you tumbling down the mountain like a cartwheeling gymnast, the power of the shock will surprise you. If you live to consider it, that is.”

“So your roar was...?”

“A push-back at my fear. I discovered that if I roared, it helped me to not succumb to the fright.”

We came down to the valley at the bottom of Spooner Summit and turned north toward Carson City. After a couple of miles, and a jog to the east, we connected with the new I-580 freeway and headed north toward Washoe Valley and Reno beyond.

“Ski racing always seems glamorous,” I said. “Up on the mountains, in the sun, in the clouds. Spectacular vistas. People watching, amazed at what you do.”

“It is glamorous,” Joe said. “That’s part of the pull of ski racing. It’s not an ordinary sport like hockey or bowling. Ski racing is more like driving race cars or racing horses. But glamour goes hand-in-hand with fear. You step out in front of a world that expects you to be part sports star and part celebrity. The pressure to perform is huge. And if you fail by falling, you can get banged up in a big way.”

“When you mentioned falling, you referred to a yard-sale crash. Does that happen often to racers?”

“Often enough that it stokes your fear. After a bad, high-speed fall, your equipment ends up scattered all over the mountain. Skis, goggles, helmet, hat, gloves. Maybe even some of your clothes get ripped off as you slide over frozen debris at seventy. The result looks like a yard sale of junk gone bad.”

I nodded. “I’ve done that a few times myself,” I said.

After a moment, I said, “Did Rell ever ski?”

“No. She was afraid of speed. She was very delicate. Like a flower. I often called her my hummingbird.”

“She didn’t do any sports?”

“No. She often said that sailing looks so beautiful, but when people would invite us out on their boats, she’d decline. She’d tell me, ‘Your little hummingbird is afraid of the wind and water. I’ll have to go sailing in my next life.’”

We pulled into the hospital parking lot a few minutes later.

“I can drop you at the door and then go park,” I said.

“No. I’ll walk from the parking lot like anyone else. If I didn’t walk, how would I stay in shape?”

“I just thought you might be in a hurry,” I said.

“I am. I’ll walk fast.”

I parked, and we left Spot in the Jeep. I had to walk at a good pace to keep up with Joe. When we got inside, I thought that if Joe was too upset, I could be his interface and spokesperson, but it was a foolish notion.

“My name’s Joe Rorvik,” Joe said as he walked up to the counter. “My wife is Cynthia Rorvik, and she is in a coma here in this hospital under your care and protection, and I got a call from your security person saying that someone violated that protection and accessed her room, for what nefarious purpose I cannot imagine. Please have someone take me to her room.” His impatience was palpable.

The woman behind the counter was visibly shaken and had no doubt been informed of the situation.

“Yes, Mr. Rorvik, I’ll have someone here in a moment.” The woman picked up her phone, pressed some buttons. “Mr. Rorvik is here,” she said, and hung up. She looked up at Joe. She was obviously intimidated by him. “Ms. Morrison will be here in a minute.”

Joe nodded, turned, and looked around as if he expected the woman to be there already.

When a woman walked up a minute later, he started walking in the direction from which she’d come before she could even introduce herself.

“Hi Mr. Rorvik, I’m Jeanine Morrison.” She began to reach our her hand, but had to do an about-face. She began walking next to Joe. “I’m so sorry about this trouble, but I want to reiterate that your wife is okay. I mean, the intruder didn’t do anything to her. Her doctor, Dr. Wells, will be joining us. Oh, Mr. Rorvik, the elevators are this way, please.” She pointed to the left. People were getting off one of the elevators. Joe pushed in to their side. Jeanine Morrison and I followed.

“Hi Jeanine, I’m Owen McKenna, a friend helping out.”

She turned and shook my hand.

“I can’t remember her floor,” Joe said, his voice stressed. “I can’t seem to think.”

“Five,” Jeanine said. She reached over and pressed the button.

Jeanine spoke as we rode up several floors.

“The intruder came at four a.m. The nurses on duty were Gail Prescott and Marie Rodriguez. Gail and Marie heard a noise like someone bumping into a cart. They looked down the hall, and saw movement at the doorway of Mrs. Rorvik’s room. The hall lights were on the low setting, and the main light in Mrs. Rorvik’s room was off. All visitors coming from the elevator have to go by the nurse’s station, so they knew that no one other than another patient could legitimately be in that part of the floor.

“Gail ran down to the room while Maria dialed security. As Marie watched, Gail went to the doorway. There was a thudding noise. She fell to the floor. A man in dark clothes stepped over Gail and ran to the exit stairwell, presumably the same way he accessed the floor.”

“Rell is okay?” Joe asked.

“Yes.”

“Is Gail okay?” Joe asked.

“She has a nasty bruise on her face where the man hit her, and she is a little dazed, but she’ll be okay.”

“Did Gail or Maria get a look at the intruder?” I asked.

“No. They both just said that he wore dark clothes. Neither of them got a look at his face.”

“Was anything disturbed in Mrs. Rorvik’s room?”

“Nothing appeared to have been touched including Mrs. Rorvik. Gail is a fast runner. She got there in time to scare him off.”

The elevator came to a stop. When the door opened, Joe recognized his surroundings and immediately began walking fast. We matched his pace, Jeanine struggling in her pumps. A man and a woman at the nurse’s station watched us go by.

Joe seemed to accelerate until he got to Rell’s door. He came to a quick stop as he turned and looked in. He walked into the room and shut the door behind him. We came up behind him.

Jeanine turned to me. “He’s very stressed,” she said.

“He’s got a good reason.”

“He walks fast. Faster than young people.”

I nodded.

“He really loves his wife, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, he does.”

“How long have they been married?” Jeanine asked.

“I’m not sure. Around sixty years.”

“Wow,” she said.

We waited in silence. We could hear nothing through the thick door.

After a long minute Jeanine said, “I’ve burned through two marriages. Twelve years on the first, and six on the second. I’m too old now to have a long marriage even if I found the right guy.”

I didn’t know how to respond.

“Of course,” she continued, “maybe the problem is that I’m not the right girl. I’m pretty self-focused. My career. My friends. My travel plans. My movies. My restaurants. My home decorating preferences.” She looked at the closed door. “Sixty years. She was obviously the right girl.”

A man in a white coat came down the hall. Under the coat, he wore a purple dress shirt and a blue tie.

“Mr. Rorvik is in the room with his wife, doctor,” Jeanine said.

The man glanced at Jeanine and turned to me. “I’m Tom Wells, Cynthia Rorvik’s doctor.”

“Owen McKenna,” I said. “I’m a private investigator Joe has hired to look into Mrs. Rorvik’s injury.”

Wells stared at me, his eyes intense. “Which suggests that her fall may not have been an accident? Does that mean that our intruder may have been targeting Mrs. Rorvik?”

“Yes,” I said.

The door opened, and Joe came out.

His agitation seemed gone. Spending a few minutes alone with Rell had helped. “She seems the same as before,” he said. He looked at the three of us. “Hello, doctor. Am I interrupting?”

“We were just discussing what you and I talked about earlier,” the doctor said. “Mr. McKenna says that there is a possibility, however remote, that the intruder in Mrs. Rorvik’s room could be the person who pushed her off your deck.”

“And?” Joe said.

“The assumption being that the intruder may be thinking that Mrs. Rorvik could come out of her coma and identify him.”

“What is your thought?” Joe asked.

Wells looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps you and I should discuss this in private.”

Joe said, “Please say what you think. I want Owen McKenna to hear what you have to say.”

“Then let’s go to my office.” He looked at Jeanine Morrison. She smiled and left.

We walked the other direction, went through a series of doors, and entered a small office messy with books and periodicals and multiple computers and other specialized equipment I didn’t recognize.

When we were sitting, Joe said, “A week or so ago you told me about Rell’s injury. You were being gentle and you talked about it in generalities. Obviously, you know from experience that spouses do not take these things well. I’ve had some time to adjust. I’d like you to tell me again with Owen here to hear it. Please give me the details.”

Dr. Wells took a deep breath as he rubbed his eyes. It was the kind of moment that made me thankful that I was not a doctor.

Wells began, “People who have miraculous recoveries from persistent vegetative states or even comas always have some higher brain function. We often believe that these people will never recover, and usually we are right. But sometimes they do, and we are as pleased and mystified as anyone else.

“Unfortunately, Mrs. Rorvik doesn’t have the type of brain function she would need in order for us to even hope for such a recovery. She scores a three on the Glascow Coma Scale, which is a basic kind of measurement of how comatose patients respond to stimuli. Three is the lowest score and means that she has no verbal, motor, or visual activity. Her lack of brain function is consistent with the scope of her trauma, skull fracture, massive intracranial hemorrhage, brain edema, and brain shift. Her EEG also shows little activity. She exhibits several of the other characteristics that we look for on the brain death exam such that I and my colleagues expect her to progress to brain death. In short, eventual recovery from a deep coma is very rare, but there is no potential recovery from brain death.”