Tahoe Payback (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 15) Page 16

  Fairbanks opened the door as Spot and I approached. He hugged Spot, then pet his head. “You missed me, didn’t you?”

  Spot wagged, the first sign of happiness since we’d left Kings Beach. His moves and timing were so perfect, I might start charging for his services. But in this case, Fairbanks might charge me for cheering up Spot.

  We sat in the same places, me in the chair, Fairbanks on the couch, Spot on the floor next to him.

  I skipped the small talk. “Isadore’s real name was Dory Spatt.”

  Fairbanks made a little jerk of surprise. “Dory Spatt?” Fairbanks sounded immediately deflated and disappointed. “So Dory was short for Isadore?”

  “No. Dory’s brother Kyle Spatt said that she adopted the name Isadore as a sophisticated affectation.”

  It took a bit for Fairbanks to recover. “Well, it fit with her theatrical nature. Jazz singing and performing.”

  “She was, in fact, a kind of actor who starred in what could be thought of as a type of play,” I said.

  Fairbanks looked confused, not sure where I was going.

  “She ran a fake charity called the Red Roses of Hope Charity for Children.”

  “What do you mean, a fake charity?”

  “She collected millions in donations each year under the guise of using it to help disadvantaged children. But she kept the money for herself, spending it on a lavish lifestyle, a fancy house and swimming pool overlooking Sausalito and the San Francisco Bay, a grand piano that sits in a room the size of your entire condo, fast cars, a condo in Hawaii, vacation travel.”

  Fairbanks widened his eyes as if I’d slapped him. He sat so still it was as if he’d suddenly become catatonic. He stared toward the opposite wall, his eyes unfocused. After a minute, he spoke.

  “You’re saying Isadore was a thief?”

  “Yes. A thief who operated at a dramatic level. She had slick brochures and a charity address on Market Street in San Francisco that looked impressive but turned out to be just a maildrop. She would send her brother to collect the mail, which was heavy with checks, sometimes as many as one hundred per day.”

  “I don’t understand,” Fairbanks said. “There are lots of rules that prevent fake charities.”

  “Rules intended to prevent fake charities. But most of them are easily circumvented. In fact, Dory Spatt had colleagues in the fake charity business. And some of them are currently in Tahoe celebrating at the Tahoe Mountain Bike for Charity festival.”

  Fairbanks was speechless and seemed profoundly depressed. “Do you think she was killed for taking money that wasn’t hers? Killed for punishment?”

  “I don’t know. But if I were to guess, probably yes.”

  “If it was about punishing her, why do you think a murderer would hang Isadore upside down? That’s so excessive.”

  “My guess is that the killer wanted to display her body in a dramatic way so the world would notice.”

  Fairbanks looked confused. “You think that the killer wants to become famous? Like Jack the Ripper or something?”

  “Maybe. Probably not.”

  “Then why?” Fairbanks paused. “Oh, maybe now I see. With all the charity people in Tahoe, some of them might also have fraudulent charities. So Isadore’s death is putting them all on notice.”

  “That’s what makes the most sense. The media has already picked it up. Papers and websites across the country are running stories and photos.”

  Fairbanks was quiet a moment. “With Isadore scamming through her charity, do you think she was scamming me?”

  “It could be a possibility. However, you said you offered money but she didn’t take you up on it.”

  “True. But I…” Fairbanks stopped. His face turned red. “I’m embarrassed to say it. I gave her half of this condo.”

  I tried to hide my shock, but it probably showed on my face. “I thought your relationship wasn’t that deep.”

  “Apparently, I was very stupid. She said she loved Tahoe, and that it was her dream to one day have a place here. I thought, you know, that if I signed over co-ownership in my condo, she would really love me for it. I feel like an idiot.”

  This time it took me a moment to process what he said. I said, “Now that she’s dead, perhaps you’ll have full ownership once again. Unless her share passes to her heirs.”

  “I put our names on the title as joint ownership with right of survivorship, so full ownership passes to the surviving owner. So it will all be mine again. I almost can’t believe all of this. What a risk I took.”

  I realized that this new information gave Fairbanks motive in her death. His condo was worth a lot of money. If, after he signed over half the condo title to Isadore, he had discovered that she was a charity thief, he might have considered killing her to return full title to the condo back to him.

  Spot was sitting next to Fairbanks, leaning against his leg. Fairbanks reached out and touched him softly. “When Isadore showed me attention and affection, I think I knew in my heart that it was partly false. But she was like a drug I couldn’t resist. The little voice of reason in my head ran through all manner of disparaging thoughts. Like, how could a homely, middle-aged man like me lose his senses and act irrationally when confronted with a beautiful and much younger woman? Of course, I realized that men have succumbed to beauty from the beginning. I suppose knowing I wasn’t the only one helped me rationalize it. Older men, touched by beautiful youth, so often lose control. I suppose older women do as well. But I don’t know many women. Even if the older person realizes that they might not have been chosen for their physical or mental attractiveness, but for their bank accounts, they want to think that they are the exception. My lover loves me for me, not for my money. Maybe it actually happens now and then. But how stupid and myopic is it to think that?”

  Fairbanks still had his hands on Spot, leaning on him for support.

  He said, “John Keats wrote about how beauty pulls the curtain off our dark spirits. Thus the attraction of beautiful people. I know all of these things intellectually. Yet I’m as foolish as any man there is. I see now that I was blind.” His voice was monotone and not much louder than a whisper. “I saw attention and confused it with love. I saw beauty and confused it with value. I wanted meaning, but I thought it could only come if other people approved of me. I’ve made a complete mess of my life. I was vain and stupid, loving her attentions. I ignored the obvious. I ignored my own good sense.”

  I didn’t respond. It is often characteristic of despondency that it is not only pointless to try to reassure, it often makes the person feel worse.

  Fairbanks cleared his throat. “It makes me want to disappear. It reveals to myself what a fool I am.”

  Fairbanks looked over at the window. The light caught the brimming tears in his eyes. “I don’t mind that others think I’m a fool. I’ve been dealing with that my entire life. When I was little, they picked on me for being the fat, clumsy kid. When I got older, they picked on me for being awkward and wearing the wrong clothes and always saying the wrong thing. When I was in high school, they picked on me for reading poetry instead of comic books. When I was in college, they picked on me because I never had a date. But I learned to live with all of that. I found some small comfort in accepting that it was okay to be different. I realized that I was unlike every person I’d ever met. I didn’t think anything about me was great. But being just okay was enough. I worked hard, learned how to earn a living, became adjusted to having no friends. I even learned to cope with the fact that, when I asked my bride to tell me the truth about why we never consummated our relationship, she admitted that she preferred women to me. And when I asked why she didn’t have the bravery to tell me before we got married, she said that it wasn’t until she actually visualized going to bed with me that she realized she didn’t want to.”

  “That would be very hard,” I said.

  “Harder still was coming to the realization that I would never attract a woman in the usual way, and that the wife I had was
as good as I was going to get.”

  I thought about what Fairbanks said. “Maybe you’ve just been unlucky and have missed the beauty in older women.”

  Fairbanks looked confused.

  “Here’s a mental experiment,” I said. “Imagine that instead of meeting Isadore, you’d met a woman your own age or older. Same place, same party. Maybe even the same exotic name. Also imagine that this older woman said the exact same words as Isadore said, looked into your eyes the same way, showed the same interest in your life.” I paused, letting the thought soak in.

  I continued, “If that had happened, would you have been touched by her manner and her caring and interest in you? Would you have seen that the older woman was wiser, had a better grasp of the world, knew more about those things that really matter? Would you have had more shared experience with the older woman, more to talk about, similar dreams?”

  Fairbanks was silent. He frowned, his eyes searching. “I understand what you’re getting at. Maybe I was blinded by Isadore’s looks so that I couldn’t even see where she might fall short. Maybe I might have noticed indications that she wasn’t honest if only I’d been actually listening to and noticing her – the real inner person – not the model looks and the practiced gestures designed to show off beauty.” He paused.

  I didn’t respond.

  “I once asked her if she liked the romantic poets like Blake and Wordsworth and Byron. It was clear she didn’t know what to say. She eventually said that, yes, she thought poetry was very romantic.” Fairbanks put his hands to his temples and pushed in as if to keep his head from coming apart.

  “I think you’re right,” he said. “If Isadore had been an older woman, if she’d said the same things, paid me attention the same way, I might have…” he trailed off, thinking, perhaps, of a world that might have been.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  F airbanks wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “In every basic manner of connecting to people on an emotional level, I’m a failure.” He stood up, walked over to the kitchen, grabbed some tissues from a box, and blew his nose. “I misjudge. I always go overboard. I never see the world as it is, only as I’d like it to be.”

  “Sometimes,” I said, speaking slowly, feeling my way through the words, “I think that when things are very tough, the best thing to do is to try to stop thinking about the big stuff that bothers you and just focus on what single task you should do next.”

  Fairbanks stared at the wall. “What, like don’t think about how worthless I am, and just go and do the dishes?”

  “Something like that, yeah. Then at least you’ll be able to think, good, the dishes are done. Then you move on to another task. Gradually you’ll feel less worthless.”

  “That’s a very bleak life.”

  “You’ve already described your life as bleak.”

  “Point taken,” Fairbanks said.

  “So, for the sake of the process, what if you consider those activities that are a step up from doing the dishes? What do you think should be your next move?”

  Fairbanks walked over to the window and looked out. Then, speaking to the glass, he said, “I had wanted to sign up to bike the Grand Tour, the final mountain bike event of the festival. But then Isadore disappeared, so I forgot about it. I suppose it’s possible they are still taking late signups. They say that the entry fees go to charity. But after what you’ve said, I doubt that’s the truth. But I should still maybe try it. No way can I imagine finding the energy and stamina to participate. But maybe I’ll do it anyway. Prove to myself that I can do it. That my life isn’t over.”

  “I think that’s a good idea.”

  “Of course, I’d look like a cartoon in my day-glo road race uniform. The mountain bikers would laugh me off the mountain.”

  “There’s still time to go out and get some mountain bike togs.”

  Fairbanks looked at his watch. He walked over to the little bowl on the kitchen counter and pulled out his car keys.

  “What’s the route?” I asked.

  “It starts at Spooner Lake. We bike up the canyon to Marlette Lake. There’s a loop route that we take up to around nine thousand feet by Marlette Peak. Then we come to the Flume Trail and take that to Tunnel Creek Road. From there it’s back down toward Tahoe. There’s a connector trail that heads over to Diamond Peak Ski Resort. I forget the total length. Something like thirty miles.”

  “That’s a serious ride,” I said. “I remember the views from the Flume Trail, looking down at Sand Harbor and across the lake to Squaw Valley. Mostly, I remember the ride along the edge of the mountain, nothing below you but water fifteen hundred feet down.”

  “And I have trouble with heights. But I’m not too proud to walk my bike if I get too freaked out.”

  “Do they run a shuttle from the finish back to Spooner Lake?”

  “Actually, one shuttle runs from around the West and North Shores. And another runs from here on the South Shore. I can catch it right here outside my condo. They drop us off and pick us up when the race is over.”

  “Sounds like a good event. Good luck.”

  Fairbanks nodded. “Thanks for encouraging me. Maybe there will be life after Isadore.”

  We left the condo, and Fairbanks pet Spot before he got into his orange BMW.

  I remembered that I still had Dory’s pajama top. I waved at Fairbanks to stop, fetched the bag with the pajama top, and walked over to his car.

  He rolled down the window.

  “I forgot to mention, when we were out at the island, I scented Spot on this pajama top, and he found a little plastic necklace that depicted three roses. Does that sound familiar?”

  Fairbanks shook his head. He looked worried and confused at once. “Do you think that’s something Isadore… Dory brought with her to the island? Or something the killer brought?”

  “I don’t know. Spot also alerted on a little roll of paper that was floating in the water. It had a little three-line poem about red roses of deceit. Does that bring anything to mind?”

  Again, Fairbanks looked stressed. “No. What did it say?”

  “I forget the exact wording. Red roses of hope and false promises and wicked deceit.”

  “Do you think the killer left it there?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but it kind of fits. The poem was in haiku form.”

  “Do you mean the seventeen syllable aspect? Or did it have two images with a cutting word between them?”

  “I was thinking more about the syllables. A line each with five, seven, and five syllables. Do you think the fact that the poem was in haiku form means anything?”

  Fairbanks shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t know anything about haiku. Of course, I studied Basho in college. And we spent some time on the kireji, the division that stops the stream of thought after one of the images. But modern haiku masters are changing it away from the rigorous metrics and away from the images of nature. If the killer was trying to communicate something with a haiku, I couldn’t help you.”

  I thanked Fairbanks, and he drove off to go shopping.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  S pot and I stopped by Street’s condo, knocked on her door, and asked if she was available for a dinner date.

  “Do you mean a romantic date?”

  “Whatever suits you,” I said. “Although I haven’t yet been home to shower.”

  “And I have to get up early in the morning. So maybe we could just eat in. It’s supposed to be a chilly evening. A fire in your wood stove would be nice.”

  “I always keep the essentials for when we get snowed in and lose power,” I said.

  “Essentials meaning Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, hotdogs, and charcoal,” Street said.

  “Of course,” I said. “But you don’t eat hotdogs.”

  “Right. We’ll roast them for you and Spot and Blondie. I have a zucchini in my fridge. I can roast that.”

  “And eat it on a bun like a hotdog?”

  “Do you have whole grain buns?” she asked.r />
  “No, sorry.”

  “Then I’ll eat it naked.”

  “That’s not enough calories even for you,” I said. I reached out and put my hands on her waist, appreciating her curves. “These hips are perfect, but it’s not like you’ve got any extra padding. However, we could work on that. I’ve got a dozen donuts in the freezer.”

  “You think I’m too skinny?”

  “You’re not too skinny. You’re just really thin, which allows you to eat donuts with impunity. And anyway, you could eat them on a bed of kale. Of course, you’d have to bring that, too.”

  “Zucchini and Sierra Nevada will do fine,” she said. “I’m not driving, so I might drink a whole bottle.”

  I turned to Spot. “Look out, Largeness, we’re in for a big night.”

  He wagged.

  When we got up the mountain to my cabin, I built a fire in the wood stove using the political news section of the New York Times, with three big Jeffrey Pine cones, and three splits on top. Street went out on the deck with the dogs. They ran down the short stairs to the ground and raced around the cabin.

  I opened two beers, carried them out, and set them on the railing near Street. Because it was close to the summer solstice, the sun was only just setting despite the late hour. We watched it lower into a few clouds near the Sierra Crest on the far side of the lake. The blue-black water was calm enough that we could see the wave patterns of individual squalls moving in different directions.

  “Hard to reconcile this serene beauty with the violence that goes on among people,” Street said. She picked up her beer and took a microsip.

  “Indeed.” I hadn’t yet told Street about the murder in Kings Beach. I didn’t want to bring more news of violence into her world when she was already grappling with the lurking threat of her father. But I also knew from experience that she very much disliked any sense that I was protecting her from reality. So I told her about the victim found hanging from the Kings Beach flagpole, a tennis ball in his mouth.