Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) Page 6

  “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.”

  Dwight’s sudden, thoughtful analysis surprised me. “And Michael is like that,” I said.

  “Yeah. He’s still a nice person, but his style gets in the way of communication.”

  “When you’ve talked to him, has anything ever come up about Joe and Rell?”

  “Not that I remember. The only things we’ve ever talked about are computer hardware and software.”

  “Joe said that Michael’s retired,” I said.

  “Yeah. He’s real smart. He quit college at nineteen when Oracle made him a good offer. Then a couple of years later, he quit and started a company that produced finance software. He sold the company to American Bank Central. So he’s set for life.” Dwight made a little jerk of his body, raised his eyebrows, and said, “I should have asked you if I could get you a drink or something. I’m so bad at social things. I have tea and sparkling water.”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine,” I said. “Let me change the subject. Even though you think Rell is sweet, in your talks with her, have you ever heard anything that would suggest that anyone had a problem or disagreement with Rell? Or Joe, for that matter?”

  Dwight shook his head. “Not really.”

  “I’m looking for anything. Think back on your conversations. Life is not always smooth, not even for the kindest of people. I need to know about the bumps that Joe and Rell experienced.”

  Dwight looked puzzled. “Once or twice I saw Rell and Joe get upset with each other. But it was nothing. Joe’s kind of a hermit, and I think that got on Rell’s nerves. Not that she’s a social butterfly or anything. She’s pretty solitary, too. But I’ve seen her express her frustration that Joe never wanted to go out and see people.”

  “Did either of them ever say anything about other people?”

  “Not specific people.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Just that one time I was in their garage carrying their recyclables out to my car. I could hear Joe through the kitchen door. He was raising his voice saying something about how some of the people in the group were idiots.”

  “Did
he sound mad?” I asked.

  “No. I thought maybe it was about a meeting. You know how meetings can be frustrating? Well, it was like Joe was just being a curmudgeon who was ranting about having to participate at all.”

  “Did he say what the meeting was?”

  “No.”

  “Any other thoughts about what happened to Rell?” I said. “I’m interested in anything at all, no matter how unlikely the connection might seem.”

  “No. Sorry. But I’ll call you if I think of anything.”

  I stood up and handed him my card. “Thanks, Dwight.”

  Dwight stood and walked over to the door, undoing the chain and deadbolt. “If someone did push Rell off their deck,” he said, “I’d do anything to catch him. If not, I’d still do anything to help ease Joe’s pain. I know it is hell for him to have her in the hospital like this. I can see it on his face.”

  I nodded. “I’m curious about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  I pointed over toward the kitchen counter where the t-ball bat lay. “What’s the bat for?”

  Dwight looked embarrassed. “I told you that I was a bit paranoid. The bat’s for protection. I used to live in a bad neighborhood. Things happened. So when I hear a knock at the door, I get scared.”

  “Is there anything in particular that gives you reason to worry about your safety?”

  “Just me and my neuroses,” he said.

  I thanked Dwight and left. I heard the deadbolt and the chain slide behind me.

  NINE

  Spot and I headed back through the dark town of South Lake Tahoe as the intermittent snow showers grouped together into a comprehensive blanket of steady, silent snowfall. The flakes got bigger over a short period of time, and soon the air was filled with huge light flakes, drifting down so slowly it was as if they were weightless.

  I turned off Lake Tahoe Blvd onto Sierra Blvd and drove through the Sierra Tract subdivision. Although Sierra Tract has its share of vacation homes, it’s a working class neighborhood, with many year-round residents who teach at the schools, work for the Forest Service, or run South Shore businesses.

  Except for the perimeter streets, most of the streets are laid out on a grid pattern. I cruised the up-and-down streets first, looking for a bright yellow pickup. Then I toured the back-and-forth streets.

  I saw two pickups that qualified as yellow, but they were old, darkened yellows. Joe had said that Simone’s boyfriend’s truck was bright yellow and very tall, and nothing I’d seen fit that description.

  As the snow increased, the traffic diminished. By the time I’d driven all of the neighborhood roads, some of the streets were swaths of untracked powder four or five inches deep, glowing white in my headlights. Snow is the ultimate sound absorber, and all noises other than the Jeep’s defroster fan and the windshield wipers disappeared as I glided on the hush-soft carpet of white back out to Lake Tahoe Blvd. I turned right, drove through the quiet town that would be inundated with holiday traffic in a little over two weeks, and headed up the East Shore.

  I hadn’t noticed how much the snowfall had increased until we entered the Cave Rock tunnel and were plunged into sudden, snow-free darkness. Immediately, I was aware of the tires on wet asphalt, the splashy noise reflecting off the tunnel walls. A few moments later, we popped back into the world of white silence. A couple of minutes later, I turned off the highway and drove up the private drive that I share with my vacation-home neighbors. With all four tires churning under four-wheel-drive, we ground up one thousand vertical feet, and I pulled onto the parking pad in front of my little log cabin.

  As I got out of the Jeep, I heard from up the street the shrill, eerie voice of Mrs. Duchamp floating through the quiet snow, falling so thick that I couldn’t even see the lights of her house, the closest house to mine.

  “Treasure! Oh, Treasure! Come to mama right now!”

  I let Spot out, and he galloped toward Duchamp’s, looking for his Toy Poodle friend. As he disappeared into the whiteout of giant flakes that filled the sky, I could imagine Mrs. Duchamp – the only woman in Tahoe who apparently wore a housecoat and strapless heels 24 hours a day – quivering on her front doorstep, petrified that her precious little dog had run into the snowy night and been consumed by a waiting pack of coyotes.

  Then came, “Oh Treasure! Don’t you let that big dog hurt you! Treasure, I can’t see you in the dark! Treasure, I’m afraid.” I knew that with Spot cavorting in the darkness as Treasure traced circles around him, the little dog would be safer than at any other time in her life.

  I left Spot and Treasure to cope with Mrs. Duchamp while I went inside, opened a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and called Sergeant Bains of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office.

  “McKenna calling,” I said when he answered.

  “Wow, calling during the wine hour,” Bains said. “I didn’t know you private cops worked so late. I’m guessing you’re calling about Joe Rorvik.”

  “You’re practically a psychic,” I said.

  “I use the same technique. Deduce something logical about my mark, then reveal it as if it came from psychic powers.”

  “I’m your mark?” I said.

  “Sure. Except I forgot to get your credit card number.”

  “How did you deduce that I was calling about Rorvik?”

  “Partly because I’m the one who recommended you to him. But more so because he called me an hour or so ago to ask if I had any news about our investigation of the assault on his wife. In the process he told me he’d hired you and that you just left his house.”

  “Did you have any news for Rorvik?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately, no evidence means that we still think it was an accident. What do you think about Mrs. Rorvik’s fall?”

  “No idea, yet,” I said. “Joe told me that his wife had a young waitress friend who’s been over to their house.”

  “The abuse victim,” Bains said.

  “You know about it,” I said.

  “It probably came up the same way it did with you.”

  “Any idea what the abuser’s name is?” I asked.

  “He was a logical look-up, beating on his girl the way he does. Never know what other craziness he’s into. His name is Nedham Theodore Cavett. Goes by Ned. Works at an auto parts store. I found out that he’s taking up more than his share of space in the computers at the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office. Of course, juvenile records are sealed. But I spoke to a Sergeant Gramercy. He’s known Ned since he and his brother were little boys. Ned was the sick and twisted one, the other was normal. Said they grew up in a single-wide out on a patch of desert scrub at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada. The mother beat on them, especially Ned, and she started calling the cops on him when he was about eight. So all the deputies got to know Neddy Teddy.”

  “Neddy Teddy,” I repeated.

  “That’s what mama called him. Can you imagine her calling him Nedham Theodore Cavett? So she’d call nine-one-one and say things like, ‘Neddy Teddy came home with a new F-One-Fifty pickup last night.’ Sergeant Gramercy and his buds’d go out and collect the truck and return it to its owner. Young Ned spent a good part of his youth in Inyo County Juvie. Then his mom died, and he went to foster care, then to L.A., then eventually ran away to Nebraska.”

  “The dream of young men everywhere,” I said.

  “He met an Omaha gang leader who was recruiting in L.A. where Neddy had tried pimping. Ned didn’t have pimping skills, so he followed the gang leader to Omaha. He used a knife to jack a Mercedes from a little old lady, then hustled it to a chop shop. For that he enjoyed ten years getting three square a day on the Bureau Of Prisons expense account.”

  “And then he came to Tahoe,” I said. “Lucky us. What happened to the brother?”

  “Once a cop, always a cop, eh? I wondered the same thing. A good sibling can be a good handle on a degenerate. So I asked Gramercy if Ned was close to his brother. Gramercy said that Peter William Cavett was in fact close to Neddy T
eddy when they were very young. They were good athletes, played ball together. He said that Peter also went into foster care after the mom died. A couple of years later, he disappeared. They never knew where he went. Gramercy’s read on it was that Peter wanted to get as far away from Ned as possible.”

  “By their names, it sounds like mom dreamed of aristocracy.”

  “Yeah,” Bains said. “Didn’t quite work out that way.”

  “Any idea where Ned’s girlfriend came into the picture?”

  “Simone Bonnaire? No. I assume the usual applies. Introverted girl, probably an abuse victim as a child, falls for a handsome guy who knows exactly how to control her and take over her life. If she strays from his rules, the punishment is severe.”

  “Do you think Ned could have assaulted Joe’s wife?”

  “Sure. But I still think her fall was an accident. I have no evidence to suspect otherwise. I could come up with a pretense to go roust Ned out of bed, but he lives in the city of South Lake Tahoe. I wouldn’t want to interfere on Commander Mallory’s territory.”

  “El Dorado County, too, sergeant,” I said. Once in awhile, cops want to take on matters that could be handled by another agency with the same jurisdiction. More often, cops want to let the other agency handle it. Rare is the case that makes a cop feel great.

  “You got Ned’s descriptors?” I asked.

  “Six-three, two-twenty, brown and brown, medium mustache, mono-eyebrow. Think Clarke Gable with muscles. Even his mug shot makes him look like a model.”

  “Rorvik is also confident that Ned is capable of murder,” I said, “but he doesn’t think Ned pushed his wife off the deck.”

  “Hmmm,” Bains said. “I never thought to ask him that. What’s his reasoning?”

  “Joe thinks Ned couldn’t just kill somebody. He’d insist on beating the victim first. The doc says Rell wasn’t beaten, so by Rorvik’s logic, Ned didn’t do it. I think Rorvik may have a valid point.”

  “Rell?” Bains said.

  “Sorry. Cynthia Rorvik. Rell was Rorvik’s nickname for her. Short for Cinderella.”