Tahoe Payback (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 15) Read online

  “I think the same reasoning applies to me.” Street pet Blondie as she spoke. Blondie shut her eyes as if to better focus on the sensation. “I’ve read the statistics many times. Some people, some of the time, save their lives and their family’s lives by shooting a home invader. But the vast majority of gunshot deaths from homeowner’s guns come from suicide and accidents and even murder where the home invader, more alert than the sleepy resident, gets the gun from the homeowner’s hands and shoots him. And even if I were to successfully shoot a home invader at four in the morning, if I later found out it was the neighbor kid looking to steal money, I would never recover.”

  Street turned and gazed down at the lake, a view as spectacular as any on the planet and sufficient to distract anyone from other subjects. But the evening light on her face showed intense seriousness.

  She continued, “If I wanted to use a gun to protect myself from a home invasion, I’d have to have it out and loaded and close to me. But whenever my friend Sally brought her boy Cassidy over for a visit, I’d have to remember to unload and lock up my gun. Or he might find it as he runs around exploring. And then, if I forgot to unlock it and put it back under my pillow before bed, it would do me no good, right? And what about when I go to work and bring my gun along in my purse? I could never let a child in my car or I’d worry about it. I couldn’t let a kid into my lab without worrying about it.”

  “Such is the life of a responsible gun owner.”

  “And if an attacker surprises me, and I don’t have time to grab my gun, I’m out of luck anyway.”

  “Which brings us to eyeballs,” I said.

  “So what do I need to know?”

  “There are two things to remember about popping out eyeballs,” I said.

  Street winced at my casual words. But I’d chosen them on purpose in order to start her thinking that the subject wasn’t as sacrilegious as people think.

  “We value our vision above all our other senses,” I said. “That makes it very hard for us to imagine destroying it in anybody. There is also the yuck factor. There’s a hierarchy to the wounds we can inflict on others. It’s relatively easy to shoot someone with a gun. It’s very much harder to stick a knife into them. Popping out eyeballs is most difficult of all. But what I want you to visualize over and over is Tom Casey crashing into your house or lab, or breaking into your car when you’re at an intersection. If he comes, he’ll have spent years considering the ways to get at you when you are least prepared.”

  “You mean he might break in when I’m in the shower.” Street’s voice was small.

  “Exactly. He will choose a place and time when you are most vulnerable, when his sudden presence will make you scream and jump and lose control and stop thinking. So the most important aspect of your response is that you stay in control.”

  Street was making a slow nod. “And I practice that by visualizing a potential assault. Over and over.”

  “Right. Now imagine Tom Casey with his hands around your neck. He’s shouting at you. His face is red with rage. His breath reeks of alcohol. He is determined to strangle you and break your neck at the same time. You will have to do anything you can to make him stop. Anything.”

  “You’re implying that the best way to stop him is to pop out his eyeball.” Street was shaking her head slowly, as if she couldn’t quite accept the idea.

  “In a deadly mano-a-mano attack, yes. Not only is it relatively easy to do, it is psychologically devastating to the attacker. The strongest man loses his strength and resolve, and nearly loses his mind, when he loses an eye.”

  “I just can’t imagine doing it.”

  “The biggest hurdle is visualizing the act often enough that the concept becomes second nature.”

  “So how exactly do you do it? And does the eye actually pop out?”

  “First, the answer to your second question. No, it doesn’t pop out like a grape and fly across the room. There is a bunch of connective tissue holding it in place. But it will pop sideways enough that it tears the optic nerve and the blood vessels, and the person goes blind. It is quite painful. But the reason the person screams in agony is not just because of the physical pain but because of their sudden realization that you’ve blinded them.”

  I let the thought hang for a bit.

  “As for how to do it, you simply put the tip of your thumb on the person’s eyeball and jam it hard back into the eye socket. It doesn’t require great strength, but plan to put a real effort into it and make the move as fast as you can. As your thumb dives into the eye socket and you feel it bottoming out against the back of the socket, you hook your thumb behind the eyeball and attempt to tear the eyeball from the person’s head. It works from any angle. And if the person scrunches up their cheek to protect their eye, you can still jam your thumb in there.”

  Street’s eyes were open wide.

  “It even works when the person is behind you. Let’s say your attacker is choking you from behind. You simply reach back with both hands if possible and use your thumbs to feel across his face. When you contact an eye, he’ll naturally blink the lid shut. But that doesn’t matter. The moment your thumb contacts an eye – either eye – you make the movement as explosively as possible.”

  Street looked appalled.

  I said, “Probably, the person will jerk away hard. But if you’ve made the move fast enough, you will be successful in destroying his eye even if he jerks away.”

  Street was holding her thumb out, rotating her hand, moving it behind her head, trying to feel how it might work.

  “Let’s do a little practice,” I said. “I’ll get behind you and put my hands around your neck so you can get a sense of it. I’ll move slowly so that it won’t be alarming and so you can feel the position of my face behind you. Turn like this, away from me,” I said. “You don’t know I’m coming up behind you. The first sensation you have is my hands around your throat. We’ll pause at each step on this practice run.”

  “And I’ll not pop your eye out. I’ll just feel for it.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  I stepped behind Street and slowly put my hands around her neck.

  She reached her hands up and behind, feeling my face. I held her farther away. She strained to reach farther back.

  “Some attackers will hold you close, and some will hold you far,” I said. “If your attacker holds you from behind and keeps his arms straight, you won’t be able to reach him. But few will worry about what’s coming. And even the ones who hold you far will often lean in close to say something nasty in your ear. Especially if this is a crime they’ve been planning, they’ll want to leave you with some last words before you pass out. So you’re ready. The moment they get close, you feel with both hands and get ready for your explosive movement.”

  I leaned my head closer and whispered into Street’s ear. “We all have an instinctive desire to avoid touching the face of someone we despise. So it’s best just to think of it as a simple task. Find the eyeball. Take it out.”

  Street reached her hands back. Her left hand touched my face. The fingers of her right hand touched my temple. Immediately, her thumb found my eyeball.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Remember this isn’t the real deal. Move your thumb until you find the edge of my eye socket. Yeah, just like that. Now imagine how you would plunge your thumb into the eye socket. And when you hit bottom, you squeeze your grip hard, thumb in the eye and fingers grabbing against nose or temple.”

  I felt Street’s hand tense, her thumb trembling against my eyelid.

  “Perfect,” I said. “You’ve done exactly what you should. Your attacker thinks he’s got complete control over the situation. Yet you are about to take out his eye, which will destroy him.”

  Street and I went over the self-defense strategy again. Then she and Blondie went home. I felt the pang of loneliness and worry as they drove away. I might be a big, tough, ex-cop, but my emotions were always a bit on edge when it came to Street. She was the life in any room
, and when she left, things got very empty very fast.

  Spot and I ate dinner and went to bed.

  NINE

  T he next morning, I made a small fire in the wood stove, sat with Spot, and drank two cups of coffee.

  I needed to tell Fairbanks that Isadore was murdered. I thought that it should be in person and ideally at his condo so that he was in familiar territory when I crashed his world down around his head. Another aspect of law enforcement is the maxim that a law enforcement officer should observe the reaction of next of kin when they are told of tragedy. You can’t do that over the phone.

  If I wasn’t thoughtful about how I contacted him, he’d figure it out. I didn’t want that.

  I picked up the business card Fairbanks had given me and dialed.

  “Douglas Fairbanks,” came the answer after one ring.

  I said, “Owen McKenna calling. I’m sorry I upset you at my office yesterday. I have some questions about Isadore. I can come to your place if you like.”

  There was a long pause while he apparently considered whether he would have anything to do with me. Eventually, he said, “Okay.”

  “I’m running errands across town. You said you had a condo in town. I could stop by.”

  “Um, sure. I’m at Lakeland Village.” He gave me the number. “Feel free to bring your dog in. He’s such a sweetheart. You might get some looks from my neighbors, but ignore them.”

  “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  I hung up, brought Spot with me, and headed for Fairbanks’s condo.

  I turned sideways in the seat after I parked at Lakeland Village and said to Spot, “You want to make a house call? Douglas Fairbanks requests the honor of your presence in his condo.” Spot was lying on the back seat. With his droopy bedroom eyes, he looked like a sultry movie star. He reached his head forward and stuck his wet nose on my cheek. I wiped my sleeve across my face, mopping it up some, wishing I had a bath towel.

  “Yes, I love you, too,” I said, getting out of the Jeep.

  I opened the back door, and Spot got out. He had a lightness in his step. He’d never been here before, and new places are a rich source of new smells.

  We found the building, went down the walk and up the stairs. Fairbanks opened the door as my knuckles were about to strike the third time. Maybe he’d been watching out the window.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” I said.

  He nodded, held out his arm in a welcoming gesture, and ushered me into his place. As Spot pushed in, Fairbanks bent over a bit and hugged him long and hard. Like so many people, he seemed to sense in Spot a refuge and safety zone. Spot didn’t just endure these sudden and extravagant displays of affection, he loved them. I walked into the living room.

  It was a standard upscale condo, new carpet, nice abstract wall art, granite counters in the kitchen, a spacious deck with a view of one of the swimming pools and what realtors call a filtered view of Lake Tahoe in the distance.

  Eventually, Fairbanks and Spot joined me.

  “Have a seat,” Fairbanks said.

  I sat on a big leather chair. He sat on the leather couch. Across from the couch was a video screen so big that I wondered why he even came to Tahoe. If your focus is the latest entertainment technology with resolution that allows you to count the pores on the actors’ noses, you don’t need to leave Las Vegas. Tahoe is about lake and mountains and hot sunshine and melting snow and wildflowers. The more indoor distractions, the less point in coming here.

  Fairbanks was wearing brown jeans and a tan sweater, a major change from his garish biking outfit from the day before.

  Spot, recognizing a source of endless pets, sat on the floor next to Fairbanks and leaned, slightly, against Fairbanks’s knee.

  “You said you had questions,” Fairbanks said. His face was earnest, his manner was sincere, and his voice cracked a tiny bit.

  I paused. “I’m very sorry to say that I’ve got bad news.”

  Fairbanks looked alarmed. “About Isadore?” His voice wavered and croaked.

  “Yes. She was found dead yesterday.”

  Fairbanks stared at me. The shock on his face, in his eyes, on his brow was profound. Then he began to melt. If he’d been a sculpture at Madame Toussad’s Wax Museum and put into the fire, it wouldn’t have been much more dramatic. His face collapsed and his shoulders dropped and he lowered his head into his hands and sobbed.

  Spot turned his head and looked at me. His brow was furrowed.

  After a time, Fairbanks leaned over and wrapped his arms around Spot. The sobbing went on without pause. Then came high-pitched groans. I finally thought to stand up and go over and sit next to him. I put my hand on his shoulder. At that, his melting tipped him sideways away from Spot, and he slowly fell onto my lap.

  If anyone were watching, they would think the scene was excessively melodramatic. A director in a stage play would have said that the emotion should be dramatically scaled back in order to be believable. But it seemed that Fairbanks had collapsed into a pit of despair.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I put my hand on his back and rubbed him.

  It took long minutes before his sobbing caught and sputtered, and he coughed. He began to get ahold of his emotions enough to slow the crying. When he finally pushed himself up off my lap, his red, swollen eyes showed a touch of surprise as if wondering how he and I had gotten into such a position.

  When he was sitting without support, I went into his kitchen, found a glass, and came back out with water. He took it and drank, making little noises in his throat as he swallowed.

  Spot was now lying on the floor next to Fairbanks. He had his head up so his jawbone could rest on Fairbanks’s thigh. I’d never considered training Spot to be a therapy dog. But he had the moves and the instincts. Fairbanks put both of his hands on Spot’s head, and Spot sighed a deep breath. If this was work, Spot was happy to sign on.

  I did what I do best and waited. To those who are patient comes much. I didn’t have to wait long.

  “Did she suffer?” Fairbanks asked.

  “I don’t think it was severe, and I don’t think it lasted long.”

  “How did she die?”

  “She died of hypothermia, outdoors in that snowstorm two nights ago. I’m sorry to say that she was tied up. So it was murder.”

  Fairbanks jerked as if struck by a stun gun.

  He didn’t speak. He was waiting for me to explain.

  “She was found on Fannette Island in Emerald Bay.”

  “What? Oh, my God! How’d she get out there? What was she doing?”

  “We don’t know. I’m hoping you might know something that would give me an idea of where to look next.”

  Fairbanks was shaking his head. “I don’t know! I have no idea! Isadore was my… you know…” he stopped. He lifted one hand off Spot’s head and raised it into the air, holding it without apparent awareness. Levitation of the distraught.

  “Douglas,” I said. “You said you didn’t know what Isadore did for a living or where she lived. But we need to learn something about her if we are to have a clue about where to start looking for her killer.”

  “I’m embarrassed to admit that I know almost nothing about her.” Fairbanks found a tissue, blew his nose, reached for another tissue, wiped, blew, and then wiped again. “Like I told you before, she told me she worked in finance. That’s such a catchall term. But I didn’t question it. I should have. I suppose I was just so smitten that I didn’t want to put her off with qualifying questions. I didn’t want to say anything that might make her, you know, be uncomfortable with me.”

  I waited, having learned that if you give people verbal space, they will often fill it.

  Fairbanks took some time to calm himself. “Isadore was an engaging, wonderful woman. Very smart. Quick with words. She made me laugh, and, believe me, that’s not an easy thing to accomplish. And she was physically beautiful as well. Like one of those Greek statues of the perfect idealized woman, Aphrodite. In the beginning
, I thought that she wasn’t something I could ever aspire to touch or have. In fact, the first time I saw her, I thought of that Yeats poem where he says that beauty is indifferent to the solitude of an old man. That living beauty is for younger men.”

  Fairbanks took several deep breaths. “But after much more time together, I began to hope that I could do what I’ve never done, that I could touch beauty. I dreamed that my solitude would be broken if only for one night.”

  Fairbanks clenched his jaw as if steeling himself. “You said she was tied up and died from exposure. How was she tied up?”

  “Her body was hanging from the corner of the tea house.”

  “Hanging! Oh, my God! Do you think it could have been suicide?”

  “It doesn’t appear to be. She was hanging by her ankles.”

  Fairbanks looked astonished. He shook his head. “I… I don’t understand. She was upside down?”

  “Yes.”

  “But that wouldn’t kill her. At least not for a long time.”

  “It was at night, and it was cold and snowing,” I said.

  “That’s horrible! Why would someone do that?”

  “We don’t know. We’re hoping you can give us an idea. Can you think of anyone who may have wanted to hurt her?”

  Fairbanks shook his head. “I didn’t really know people in her circle. The few times I was with her and people recognized her, they were always warm and friendly. I got the feeling that people really liked her.”

  I made a perfunctory nod. “Earlier, you told me that you believed she just went by the single name Isadore and that you didn’t know anything that would shed light on why she disappeared. Now that you know she was killed, does anything else occur to you? Were there any animosities that Isadore spoke of or hinted at? Any tensions or problems in her past?”