Tahoe Silence Read online

  “Doc Lee has her sedated. She’s awake but depressed and angry and nearly cataleptic with grief. I’ll check back this evening.” I looked again at the jar in her hand. “Are those the specimens you collected?”

  “Some of them. These I put in a solution to preserve them at this stage of growth. The rest I’m growing to maturity to identify the species of fly.” She pointed over to a counter where there was a metal box about the size of a countertop refrigerator. It had a temperature dial on it and a timer and could be set to a range of temperatures that would fluctuate in an attempt to mimic the daily temperature swings where the body was found. There was a window in the front of the device. I had no desire to look in.

  Street said, “I also found some insect evidence in the boy’s hair. Three segments of legs off a beetle that I don’t recognize as native to Tahoe. They probably won’t tell me about Charlie’s death, but if a future suspect has similar insect parts on his clothes or in his home or vehicle, it could help bring a conviction.” Street glanced at the incubator. “Either way, eventually, I’ll be able to estimate the time of death to a fairly narrow time window.”

  “Any unofficial guesses at this point?” I said.

  She gave me one of those looks that showed how much tolerance was required to accommodate my presumption.

  “I know. Scientists do not like to speculate,” I said. “But a guess would help. If Charlie’s body was left in the ditch shortly after the kidnapping, then the kidnappers could have taken Silence anywhere in the days between then and now. But if he was killed much more recently, say just before his body was found, then they couldn’t have gone so far. There would be a greater chance that Silence is nearby. The knowledge would help focus our search.”

  “Based on these specimens and the cold nighttime temperatures I can pretty much guess that the boy was killed shortly after he and the girl were kidnapped. These maggots simply could not have grown to this point with less time. But I’ll have an official opinion in a few weeks.”

  TWELVE

  That evening I left Spot at home and called again on Marlette. Rachael Clarkson met me at the door. She held her finger up to her lips and motioned for us to go back outside. She shut the door behind her and spoke quietly, shaking her head.

  “I just wanted to warn you. Those stages of grief we always hear about? Well, I don’t know how many there are or what’s supposed to happen when, but let me tell you, this woman is all over the scale. Crying, sobbing like you’ve never heard, then explosions. You have to be ready to duck. She throws things and then kicks at the wall and next thing you know she falls to the floor writhing like a snake. After thirty minutes or so she goes limp like she’s in a coma. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

  She turned and preceded me into the house.

  Marlette was sitting on one of the stiff kitchen chairs, her back rigid. She was staring out the black window toward where Pioneer Trail curved through the darkness.

  I pulled out the chair across from her at the table and sat down. “Hi, Marlette.”

  “Owen,” she said in a tiny, airy voice. She didn’t look at me, just kept looking out toward the backyard. “Don’t worry. I can talk. Whatever you want.” Marlette spoke in a monotone voice like a child reading lines in a play. “Tell me what you want. If there is any chance of bringing back Silence, any chance...”

  Then she called out to Rachael, her voice so soft and dream-like it was like a sleepwalker talking. I couldn’t tell if Marlette was suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress or if she was in a trance. She said, “Rachael? I forgot to give Owen one of the videos yesterday. Could you get one of those DVDs?”

  I heard Rachael moving in one of the bedrooms.

  Marlette said to me, “Last spring I had my videos put on a disc. They made several copies, so you can have one. You’ll like it, Owen. My kids are very fun to watch.” Then the tears were back.

  Rachael appeared and set a disc on the wood. “Honey, I’m just going to pop home for a bit and do some things. You’ll be fine with Mr. Owen, here. I’ll be back later, okay?”

  Marlette didn’t answer. Rachael left.

  I said, “You gave me those small photos of your kids. Do you have any of the whole family? You and Shane, too?”

  Marlette walked over to some shelves in the living room and brought back a picture in a frame. “This is from a few years ago. Our last family shot. Shane left a couple months after that.”

  It was a portrait with Marlette on the left, Shane on the right and the kids in the middle. All but Silence had big smiles.

  “Have the kids changed much since this was taken?” I asked.

  “Just like those school photos you got yesterday. Charlie’s bigger and his hair is blacker. Silence still looks similar, a little more mature is all.”

  “May I borrow it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Tell me about your ex-husband Shane,” I said.

  Marlette wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, pushed her chair back and stood up from the table, her back straight and her footsteps light and graceful and assured like the dancer she’d obviously once been. She walked across the kitchen, almost gliding. She got out two glasses, filled them out of the faucet and returned, carefully setting one glass directly in front of me and the other in front of her. She took such care in positioning them, it was as if there were an invisible chessboard and the glasses had to go in the right squares or the queen would be lost to the enemy and the king would be in check.

  I waited, took a sip of tepid water, waited some more.

  “Shane Ramirez,” she finally said in a wistful voice as if remembering a sweet dream. “If only he wanted to be a husband and a father. If only he wanted one good woman. If only he could appreciate the God-given beauty that surrounds him instead of always searching for greener grass. If only he could be rooted in a community and go to church with his family.”

  Maybe I looked judgmental at Marlette’s sentimental reverie. Or maybe this was just one of the mood swings Rachael warned me about, for she paused and suddenly gave me a hardened look.

  “I gather that you are not married, Mr. McKenna.” Her voice was harsh.

  “Please call me Owen. No, I’m not.”

  “So you don’t have children?”

  Normally, I do not let a client pigeon-hole me with such questions. But I saw no problem with it other than my loss of privacy to a woman who was on the verge of fracturing into pieces.

  “No,” I said.

  “Have you ever been married?”

  “No.”

  She thought about that for a moment. “Do you go to church?”

  Again, I would normally ignore such an inquiry and try to redirect the conversation. Instead, irritated, I said, “My church is the piney woods and the moonlit mountains and the impossibly blue and sparkling lake and the night sky thick with stardust and, yes, I am there as often as possible.”

  Marlette’s breathing became labored. For a fraction of a second her eyes flamed. Then she crossed her arms and slid them onto the table and lowered her head onto them, her face turned away from me. Her black hair had just enough loft and heft to shiver a little and drop down like it was melting. I guessed she was one-third Native American, one-third African-American and the rest a mix of Mexican, Caribbean, and Brazilian with seasoning from people who arrived on boats from Polynesia a thousand years before. The result was rich, brown, perfect skin. Maybe her ancestry also produced the mercurial temperament with eyes that could light afire at the tiniest strike of emotional flint.

  In time her breathing slowed and she spoke. “I’m sorry I judged you. I’ve always been too quick to draw conclusions, too quick to find fault. The reason is, I was a heathen child. I never had a father and I ran away from my mother in the barrio in L.A. at the age of fourteen, the same age Silence was when she went to Jersey’s house. I suppose that’s why I wanted to think she was kidnapped. Because I co
uldn’t bear to think she was like me.

  “I ran in a pack for awhile until a sleazy scumbag in a shiny car gave me money and a place to sleep and made me do horrible things to earn my food. Two years I was trapped in that world. One day a customer took me away, kidnapped me, really, and brought me against my will to Santa Barbara. He dragged me to a church and delivered me into the hands of Sister Caroline. Sister Caroline fed me and clothed me in proper respectable clothing and made me go to Bible class and showed me how I could find His grace and forgiveness.”

  She paused a long time, so I asked. “How did you find it?”

  “From working in the kitchen. And from dance. Sister Caroline took me to a dance studio run by the very scary and very focused Madam Descartes. Madam Descartes taught me positions and steps and rhythm and music and physical discipline while Sister Caroline taught me cooking and how to serve others.

  “I lived in the convent for two years. I behaved perfectly. I was their model for other girls who came later.”

  Marlette stood up and walked around the kitchen, then circled again, pacing, almost stomping. “But I failed! I broke! I met a man and came with him to Reno. He said I could be a showgirl, that I had the look and the dance skills. And he was right. I got a job as a chorus girl in a revue. It was scandalous. We wore almost nothing for the ten o’clock shows and then danced naked for the midnight shows. It’s disgusting what that attention does to a young woman. The men, the money, the glamour, the famous people wanting to meet you.

  “But one night – it was about three in the morning - I called Sister Caroline back in Santa Barbara. I woke her up. I was crying and scared. I knew I was going to hell. She talked to me for hours. She talked about what I could do to come back to a pious life, to a life of meaning.

  “So I did what she said. Not all the way. Not back to Santa Barbara. But I quit the dance life and moved to Berkeley because another girl was going there and she said I could stay with her for awhile. I got a job working at a cleaning service. The service had a contract to clean some buildings on the university campus. We also cleaned some houses. It wasn’t fun, but it’s good honest work. I still clean houses now.

  “I met Shane at one of the houses in Berkeley. I was twenty-one. Shane was a friend of the homeowner and they were there one day when our crew showed up. They were funny and gracious and left to get out of our way.

  “But the next day a delivery from a florist came to the room where I was living. It was a single pink carnation in a vase. The note said that the cleaning service wouldn’t give him my address but they agreed to forward a note and a flower. The note also said he was performing at a club and that he would like to invite me and one of my friends if I so desired. Enclosed were two tickets. So I took my girlfriend. He was a good rapper. After the show he and his drummer came into the audience and asked if they could take us to a late-night coffeehouse. We all had a great time and ended up talking most of the night.

  “Shane and I saw each other every night after that, and I fell in love with his flash and humor.” Marlette stopped, a vacant look on her face.

  I waited.

  She said, “I suppose I’m not the first woman to marry someone without ever first wondering if the man would make a good husband. We moved to Tahoe because Shane and I both love the mountains, and we were married just one month later.

  “Shane was a great romantic. He read poetry. We hiked a few times and he’d recite a poem at the top of the mountain.

  Shane could be a real charmer.

  “But he turned out to be continuously distracted by what he didn’t have. He didn’t have a Mercedes. He didn’t own his own house. He didn’t have a powerboat. He didn’t have a recording contract.

  “It was that last thing that made the most trouble. Shane wanted to be a rapper. He wrote quite a body of work. He had a style and developed a look. The whole No Shane No Gain thing had a lot of potential. And he was good! But trying to become a famous rapper is like trying to become a movie star or a rock star. The worst odds in the world. There are only a few rappers who can get to the top. But there are millions of young men and women trying to get there. Add to that the fact that he is getting old. He’s thirty-nine, now. It’s just not going to happen. But tell that to him. Charlie had been born and was the greatest kid ever, but Shane didn’t really care. Charlie was eleven when Shane left.

  “Shane’s been down in Southern Cal since then, still trying to put it together. I’ll give him that. He tries hard.” Marlette looked up at me. “They always say you should follow your dream. Did you ever notice that? Well, so what. Shane has pursued his dreams with such focus you wouldn’t believe. But it got him nowhere. Dreams are like fairy dust. They look so great in the movies. But they don’t come so easy in real life, do they?” She waited, wanting a response.

  “No, they don’t,” I said quietly.

  Marlette walked over to the window and looked out at the backyard. “It was eighteen years ago when I married him. He hung in there for fifteen of those years. But the truth was he wasn’t a good husband. And he wasn’t a good father.”

  I watched Marlette’s head from behind, three-quarter’s profile. Her jaw muscles bulged in and out.

  “The teacher you mentioned the other day,” I said. “The one who thinks Silence is smart. What was her name again?”

  “Henrietta Johanssen. I’ll write down her number for you.” She wrote on a Post-it note and handed it to me.

  “Thanks. I’ll give her a call and be in touch.”

  THIRTEEN

  When I got home I made a quick sandwich for dinner, then plugged Marlette’s DVD into my laptop and sat down in my rocker to watch. It opened with an image of Lake Tahoe as seen from somewhere on the East Shore. It was a long telephoto shot so that Pyramid Peak and the Crystal Range on the west side of the lake filled the background.

  Super-imposed on the water portion of the image came a fade-in title and background music started playing, a jazzy version of the piece that Bob Hope had always used as his theme song.

  The title said, My Sweet Children, and underneath in smaller type it had the song title, Thanks For The Memories, and underneath that it said, Starring: Silence and Charlie Ramirez; Director: None; Cinematographer: Marlette Remmick.

  The writing and the view of Tahoe faded away and were replaced by a shot of a young Charlie blowing out five candles on a tall chocolate birthday cake. Eight-year-old Silence stood off to the side looking absent from the festivities.

  Charlie’s grin was predictably huge with excitement as he stabbed his right hand into the frosting and then stuck it into his mouth. The video then cut to a close-up of Silence standing rigid, her left hand holding a sketchbook at her side and her right hand delicately holding a fork on which was a small piece of cake. She gracefully ate it without getting any chocolate on her hand or face. She didn’t look at the camera. Neither was she particularly focused on the cake. A casual and perhaps crass observation would be that there didn’t seem to be anyone behind those averted eyes.

  As she turned to reach for another bite her face was vacant, apparently registering nothing. Nobody was home.

  A more generous observation would be that she was looking inward, reflecting on some thought that she was unwilling to share with others. But I couldn’t make myself believe it.

  Then Charlie stuck his head into the picture, mugging for the camera, holding up his hands, palms out, which were brown with chocolate as was his face. He stuck out his tongue, grinning like a crazed monkey clown, then turned back to feast with gusto.

  The screen faded to black, new music started, an old Lovin’ Spoonful standard called “Summer In The City.” The picture that came up showed Silence and Charlie down in Reno during the Hot August Nights celebration. They stood at the side of a crowded street where dozens of spectacular hotrods were parked, doors and hoods open, people crowding around. Charlie again stole the show with his antics and mugging and dancing, while Silence stood to the side, holding her sketch
book in a white-knuckled grip as she reached up to plug her ears.

  This time, her face didn’t seem vacant. Rather, she appeared to be in pain, as if the noise and lights were an assault on her senses. I couldn’t tell what she was looking at because the ambient light was too dim. Then the camera zoomed in and I could see that she had her eyes clamped shut. Suddenly, the young Charlie appeared and wrapped his arms around her. He seemed to squeeze her hard and he held the position for many seconds, rocking her back and forth until the screen went dark.

  On it went, Marlette’s production displaying the typical subjects of home videos. Holidays, toboggan parties, the arrival of a surprise puppy, the kids in new clothes ready for the first day of school. The pattern in each scene was similar to every other.

  There were only a few scenes of perfunctory domestic life. One showed Charlie and Silence brushing their teeth. Charlie clowned around, dabbed toothpaste on the mirror and grinned so the camera could capture just how foamy a mouth could get.

  Silence was the opposite. She stood in the corner facing the wall, brushing with her left hand in precise mechanical strokes, her lower arm moving like a machine.

  The scene shifted to another birthday party, this one for Silence. She stood rigid most of the time and Charlie opened her presents. She finally became animated when Shane came in carrying the last present, a puppy with a red bow around its neck. Silence immediately reached for the dog, held it tight to her chest, her sketchbook pinched between her and the dog. She rocked her upper body back and forth and the camera jerked as Marlette tried to keep her in the frame. The camera zoomed in and the dog looked terrified. It became apparent that Silence was squeezing the puppy too hard for it to breathe. Shane rushed in and pried the dog from Silence’s hands and he set the dog down on the floor. The dog sprinted away. Silence burst into tears and the scene cut off.

  In every scene, Charlie was exuberant, bursting with energy, in love with life, overflowing with personality and always protective and guarding of Silence who stayed to the side, looked away, didn’t show interest in anything except her sketchbook.