Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14) Read online

  Evan looked so stressed that I expected her to cry. But her eyes remained dry. She shook her head. “Everything’s gone.”

  “What’s gone?”

  “Everything I ever hoped for.” She stared at the floor. “I had some plans that...” Evan paused and clenched her teeth. “I’ve never had anyone but Mia. She’s sweet and kind, and I love her to death. But I have to hold her up, and now I can’t.”

  “She really believes in you,” I said. “She thinks you are everything and can do anything.”

  “She’s the only one who does,” Evan said.

  I wanted to protest, but that would sound hollow.

  “Sometimes belief is everything, don’t you think?” Evan said. “And I don’t mean religious belief. I mean the belief another person has in you. If you’ve got one of those people, you can do anything. But if you don’t, life can be… Pretty hard. Mia’s belief is all I’ve got. And if that shatters when she realizes what’s happening to me, then she and I will both be destroyed.”

  “Do you have any other family who can help with Mia? Cousins or aunts or uncles?”

  Evan shook her head. “If I do, I don’t know who they are. Mom rarely talked about her family. I understood that it was painful to her. She mentioned a brother and a few cousins, all of whom are in jail. That left me with no names in my address book.”

  “Close friends?”

  “Mr. McKenna, you should understand that all I do is work. All I’ve ever done is work. My plan was to change the way I work, but I’ve still got Mia to take care of. If I ever get a spare minute, I’m not going to leave Mia someplace while I go out and meet people and hope to find a friend. I’ll either spend the time with Mia, or I’ll take her with me wherever I go. And I’m not making judgments when I say that it’s pretty much impossible to meet people and develop friends when you’re with Mia. It’s just the fact of the matter.”

  “You said that everything you hoped for is gone,” I said. “What did you hope for?”

  FORTY-THREE

  Evan took several breaths. “My plan was a longshot, but I thought it was at least possible. I had to make several things come together, but I believed I could pull it off. At least, I believed it on the good days. Now, the plan is a distant memory. A flight of fancy.”

  I didn’t speak.

  “I’ve been taking classes at the university in Reno. Most of them at night.”

  “UNR’s a good school,” I said. “What classes?”

  Evan paused before answering. “Just basic stuff to fulfill my distribution requirements before I can graduate. This quarter, it’s humanities and math. Trigonometry. I hate trigonometry.”

  “When will you graduate?”

  “Owen, I’m in jail.”

  “Sorry. I was just interested.”

  Evan didn’t speak.

  “Do you have a major?”

  She shook her head.

  “A future career focus?”

  “I’m just considering possibilities,” she said.

  “The main thing is to get a college degree?”

  She shrugged.

  I remembered the card she’d given me. “On your Mansfield Cleaning business card is a picture of a building. I thought it looked like a classic old university building. Is that part of UNR?”

  “No.”

  “But it’s significant in some way because you put it on your card.”

  “Look, this is like you’re my shrink or something. I’m probably going to be behind bars permanently. What’s the point?”

  “I’m trying to get a better sense of you. I’m curious about your interests. I’m impressed that you’re going to school at night instead of sitting at home watching TV or drinking in a bar. You’re putting a large part of your life on hold because you’re taking care of your sister. Your business card doesn’t just have a picture of a mop and bucket. The building on your card, the name of your business. It’s all an unusual combination.” I still had her card in my wallet. I took it out and set it on the counter in front of me.

  “It’s all a stupid combination. It’s a set of hopes that were never going to go anywhere.”

  She paused.

  I waited.

  She sighed.

  “The building on my business card is the Union Block building in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. In eighteen forty-six, a woman named Belle Babb was born in Iowa. She and her older brother were raised by their mother after their father deserted the family.” Evan took a deep breath.

  “So far, her life is similar to yours. Your father abandoned your family, too, right?”

  Evan nodded.

  “Was she one of your ancestors?”

  “I wish. At that time, most women couldn’t get accepted into colleges. What was the point in letting a woman into school when all women were good for was cooking and making babies? But because so many men were going off to fight in the Civil War, Belle Babb got into Iowa Wesleyan College. She graduated in three years and was valedictorian of her class.”

  Evan seemed to look past me as if she were seeing a woman of achievement 150 years ago.

  She continued, “Belle Babb married a young professor named John Mansfield. When she took his name, she changed her first name to Arabella. Arabella Mansfield wanted to be a lawyer, but no state in the country allowed women to be lawyers. So, of course, law school for a woman wasn’t an option. Nevertheless, her professor husband gave her his blessing to pursue learning about the law. Talk about an amazing man.

  “So Arabella Mansfield studied the law on her own. She read all the law books she could find. When she felt ready to take the bar exam, Iowa law only allowed men to take the test. But she somehow managed to take the test. Maybe the examiner was a man like Arabella’s husband, open minded to what women could achieve. Or maybe the examiner wondered just how badly she would fail, and so he let her in so he could gloat. Whatever the reason, she passed with good scores.

  “Even so, it was still against the law for a woman to be a lawyer. But Arabella Mansfield was tough and stubborn. She challenged the law in court, and the court eventually ruled that a woman could be allowed into the bar.” Evan pointed her finger at the building on her business card. “She took her oath at the Union Block building in Mount Pleasant Iowa.” Evan took a deep breath. “Arabella Mansfield became the first woman lawyer in the United States.”

  Evan’s chained hands were clenched into fists in front of her. Her eyes were teary but they were the tears of determination not sadness.

  “Arabella Mansfield is your role model,” I said.

  “So that’s why I put that building on my card. That building is a sacred place. And Arabella Mansfield is a goddess. I always thought that if she could come from a fatherless household and fight the system that made it illegal for a woman to do practically anything...” Evan broke off.

  Eventually, she spoke in a very small voice, “I thought maybe I could do some little version of that. Maybe I could get past my family and my circumstances and get a college degree and then go to law school and make something of myself.”

  I looked at Evan, taking in the depth of her passion, but stayed silent. I didn’t dare disrupt the situation that had gotten her talking.

  Evan took several deep breaths. She had a small look of wonder in her eyes, a look that reminded me of Mia when Mia spoke about fairy dust.

  Evan continued, “The percentage of legal professions that are made up of women is growing fast. Women in corporate law, private practice, teaching law, working as judges, all of these have undergone enormous changes. Women now make up over half of all law students, and over half of all law degrees go to women. This is a profession that used to be run by men for men, the same men who made it illegal for a woman to be a lawyer. It’s all different now, and Arabella Mansfield started it all.”

  “I’m impressed,” I said.

  “With Arabella?”

  “No, with you.”

  Evan looked away.

  “Has anyone else in your fa
mily gone into one of the professions?” I asked.

  “No one else in my family has even graduated from high school.”

  “I don’t want to sound judgemental, but when you finished high school, did your mother ever consider ways you might have gone to college?”

  “We were broke. Mom was not real together. Our whole life was just about the logistics of making sure that someone was always home to take care of Mia.”

  I felt at a loss. Maybe the woman across from me was a murderer, or maybe not. But she was impressive in her focus. I’d certainly never met another murder suspect remotely like her.

  FORTY-FOUR

  “Here’s a little thought experiment,” I said, trying to keep Evan’s thinking in her world of dreams for just a bit longer.

  “Let’s say you beat this rap,” I said. “Let’s say you continue your classes and graduate from UNR. Have you thought about law school? Are your grades good enough to get in?”

  “I’ve done enough extra credit that my GPA is better than four-O. But that doesn’t matter much. I have to take the LSAT, at which I’ll probably do okay. But the problem is that law schools don’t want someone like me. There are exceptions, but in general they prefer younger applicants who went to college in four years, not cleaning women who’ve been squeezing in classes at night. Law schools prefer people who fit their picture of the kind of person who will do well as a lawyer. A person who’s well connected in their community, a person who’s fluent with the contemporary world, a person who will easily get hired by companies who need lawyers. They also want legacy admissions.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A legacy admission is when they admit someone who has a family member who graduated from the same law school.”

  “Nepotism?” I said.

  “Sort of, but with a specific financial aspect. If mom or dad was successful in a law school and went on to be a successful attorney, that suggests that their kid might do well, too. However, what they don’t talk about is that law schools, like all other schools, need as much money as they can get. If they admit the offspring of their successful former students, those parents are very likely to give more money.”

  “Are you saying that admissions officers are in bed with the people soliciting financial support for the law school?”

  “Not directly. But studies have shown a huge connection between donations from wealthy patrons and the admission of their kids into the school.”

  “Surely, law schools must have some openings for kids from less advantaged backgrounds,” I said.

  “Yes, and they always talk about those students when they get a chance. And they mention those students in their brochures. But the relatives of those students mostly don’t donate to the school at all. And those students as a group never do as well in school or out in the business community as do those students who came in under the legacy umbrella, students who have a huge support network from day one.”

  It was a lot to absorb. I now understood that Evan Rosen had a great deal more intellect and ambition and knowledge than I’d previously thought.

  “You said Arabella Mansfield was raised by her mother, that her father abandoned the family. Your father abandoned your family, and you were raised by your mother.”

  Evan nodded. “Yes to both.”

  “You’re currently taking college classes, so you must have done well in high school.”

  Evan’s voice was so soft I could barely hear it. “I was valedictorian of my class. But that’s not saying much when forty-five percent of my classmates dropped out before graduation.”

  “It’s still a major accomplishment. But you didn’t immediately go off to college because…” I stopped.

  “My mother had Type Two diabetes. At that point she was almost constantly under medical care.” Evan’s voice was a low monotone, without emotion, like a person in some kind of hypnotic state. “I had to stay home to take care of Mia.”

  “I thought you said that Mia lived with your mother while you were cleaning houses up here in Tahoe. So your mother took care of her at a later point.”

  Evan nodded. “Mom had a kind of remission for a few years. When she first got the diagnosis about the seriousness of her situation, she started walking every day. Mia and her together. A half mile at first. Then one, then two, three, and four. It was like a born-again religious fervor. She changed her diet. No more sugar, no more refined foods with high fructose corn syrup. She went weird for spinach and carrots and kale. She said she felt like a cow, eating nothing but greens and veggies. But she lost sixty pounds, and her diabetes nearly went away. Then Mia tripped and broke her ankle. She had to have it pinned. She was down for over six months. Mom had to stay home with her. She fell off the wagon. No more walking, and back to her old eating habits. She put the weight back on, and the diabetes came back. She got a foot infection that wouldn’t heal. They amputated, but the infections had spread elsewhere. She died not long after. That’s when I had Mia move in with me. Now I’m in jail, worthless to Mia. I’ve failed in every way.” She gave me a hard look. “Why are you even here? What’s in it for you?”

  “I was hired by the armored truck company to look into the robbery. From there I’ve segued into concerned-citizen territory. I’m concerned about your case. It must be scary being in jail.”

  “Yeah. But it’s not as bad as some things.”

  I didn’t expect that answer. “What could be scarier?”

  “The Night Swim.”

  “The swim you wanted to do in Lake Tahoe,” I said.

  “At night, yeah. I think I told you I couldn’t do it. I still have nightmares about it. I’d rather sleep in this noisy jail than do a Night Swim.”

  “McKenna,” a loud male voice said. “Time’s up.”

  I looked at Evan. Her brow was furrowed with worry. I felt I hadn’t done anything helpful. “Your situation may not look good,” I said. “But there are some possible ways out of this.”

  She made a tentative nod. “When Mia is in a bad way, she believes she will find some fairy dust that will make everything better. That doesn’t work for me. Nevertheless, whenever I begin to have doubts, I remind myself of what J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, said. ‘The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease to ever be able to do it.’”

  “A good rule,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She made a small nod, and I gave her a little wave as I turned to leave. As I was going out of the room, I glanced back.

  Evan had lifted her elbows to the counter and dropped her head to her hands.

  A guard came and tapped his fingers against her shoulder.

  FORTY-FIVE

  As I drove home, I thought about what Evan looked like as I left the jail, her elbows on the counter and her head in her hands. Her last words to me were brave. But her posture was a picture of despair.

  I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. It reminded me of a Van Gogh painting. I remembered it as an old man sitting on a chair, elbows on his thighs, his head lowered into his hands. I didn’t remember the title, nor did I remember any information about when Van Gogh painted it. But I recalled that the man was rendered in blue pants and blue shirt, and the painting had always stood out to me as a masterful depiction of depression and despair.

  After I got home, fed Spot, and got a fire going in the wood stove, I fetched a couple of Sierra Nevada Pale Ales from the fridge, went over to my shelves of art books, and pulled out my monograph on Van Gogh. I scooted the rocker up to the wood stove, set the beers on the floor next to it, and flipped through the book until I saw the painting.

  It was called Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity’s Gate). Van Gogh painted it in 1890, two months before he committed suicide.

  I stared at the painting as I drank one of the beers. The subject’s face was not visible, just his head in his hands. The impact of the image was almost as potent and undeniable and heartbreaking as my memory of Evan at the jail, her head in her hands.

  I took a
long pull of beer as if to bring myself back to the here and now, as if to force a redirection of emotion, a negation of the pain of depression. But the painting still seared. And as I drank beer and stared at the painting, the Sorrowing Old Man morphed in my mind into Evan Rosen at the jail, despondent at a situation that offered no escape.

  I closed the book, sat, and finished the beer.

  Spot was sprawled sideways on his bed nearby. For some reason, he wasn’t snoozing. He rolled up onto his chest, elbows spread wide, right front paw crossed over the left, and looked at me with droopy eyes.

  “Sorry if I’m telegraphing stress, Largeness,” I said. “That girl you met is in big trouble. I’m worried about her, and I’m powerless to make it better. Worst of all, I put the trouble onto her. Probably, some bad guy somewhere set it up for her to take the fall on a couple of murders. But I brought in the cops and pointed them at her like I was aiming artillery at a helpless child. Now she’s in a place with no cover and no serious hope of defense. They’re going to come and tie her to the stake and light the torches while they call for her to confess her witchcraft. It won’t matter whether she professes her alliance to evil or refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing. When they touch the torches to the pyre, she’ll go up in flames. At the last moment, I’ll probably try to intervene. But it won’t be like in the grand stories, Lancelot riding in on his steed to rescue Guinevere while the rejected King Arthur secretly hopes for his success. No, I’ll fall off my mount, and the king’s knights will throw a line around my neck and drag me off behind galloping horses. The girl’s going to burn, and there’s nothing I can do.”