Tahoe Payback (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 15)

by Todd Borg

  “Sounds mysterious.”

  “I would feel better about it if you were there.”

  “I can’t come if I don’t know where the party is.”

  “You can hang with me near the appointed hour, then come with me when I find out where it is.”

  “How does one find out where the party is?” Diamond said.

  “Matt said that some people will get email invitations and that maybe one of them would be willing to tell me when they get the email. I think Douglas Fairbanks might be on their list. So maybe I can find out from him.”

  “They probably announce it at the last minute so cops can’t bust them,” Diamond said.

  “That’s what Matt told me, yes.”

  “But if I’m alert and prepared, I could bust them anyway.”

  “I always knew you were a fearsome cop,” I said.

  After we hung up, I didn’t want to pay bills, so I checked email. There was a message from Giuseppe Calvarenna.

  It read, ‘Happy to talk. Call me.’ It was followed by a phone number.

  I wanted to refamiliarize myself with who he was before I called. I looked him up and found an article on him. The piece was titled, Parking Places in Space.

  It began by explaining that Professor Calvarenna’s main accomplishment was having solved an obscure theorem that had eluded mathematicians for two centuries and that the theorem solution was being used in space exploration, especially with regard to Lagrangian points, the so-called parking places in space. On a lesser level, Calvarenna was also an inventor who held numerous patents, the most significant of which was for developing a chemical process that is apparently used in the manufacture of computer chips.

  I picked up the phone and dialed.

  “This is Joseph,” a man answered. By his rough voice, I guessed him to be in his 70s.

  “This is Owen McKenna calling for Giuseppe Calvarenna.”

  “Speaking.”

  “I’m sorry, I thought you said Joseph.”

  “Giuseppe is the Italian form of Joseph.”

  “Oh, of course. Thanks for picking up. I’m the investigator who sent you the email. I assumed I’d have to fight my way through secretarial defenses.”

  He made a little chuckle. “I’m just a scientist. Nobody in the world is clamoring to speak to me. What can I do for you?”

  “May I come by and talk with you about Lagrangian points?”

  “I suppose. But I don’t do drop ins. If we pick a time, I’ll look for you.”

  “I’m open,” I said.

  “I’m about to have lunch. Would two o’clock work?”

  “I’ll be there if you’re close enough for me to get there in two hours. Where do I go?”

  “I live on Tahoe’s North Shore. Are you familiar with Incline Village?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m off Ski Way, the road up to Diamond Peak Ski Resort. Do you have a pen? I’ll give you the number.”

  “Ready.”

  He read it off. “My house is easy to drive past. Look for a stone arch and a portico over the front door.”

  At 1:45, I pulled off the street at an open arched gate set in a stone wall. Unlike many large houses designed to look imposing as you drive up, this house didn’t present much of a facade to the street. It did have a substantial entry with an arched portico and a large front door. But most of the structure seemed to drop down the mountain on the lake side of the road. The lake was maybe a mile distant and 500 feet below the house.

  I parked under a heavy tree canopy in front of a three-car garage on a stone parking area that wasn’t large by large-house standards but was still big enough to handle five or six vehicles. The shade was complete, so Spot would be okay in the Jeep. I cracked the windows, and got out, and saw movement in my peripheral vision.

  At a diagonal across the street was a double bungalow house, two side-by-side apartments. From a distance, I could see that it was run down, unusual for a building in upscale Incline Village. Each of the two units had its own small driveway. In the right driveway, I saw a woman leaning into the back of her old minivan, struggling to remove some kind of large, white, rectangular board and hold it with the same hand that held a couple of bags of supplies. She had crutches under both arms, and one of them seemed caught on the hydraulic support for the van’s hatchback. I ran across the street.

  “I saw you wrestling with your stuff. Can I help?”

  She turned her head to try to see me but had trouble because she was very stiff as if her legs were locked up with spastic muscles.

  “Sorry, I’m making things worse.” I stepped farther forward so she could see me.

  She was a small woman, maybe in her sixties, black as people come, with flawless skin and beautiful eyes.

  “I’m just being foolish, trying to carry everything in one trip,” she said. “These legs keep getting worse, so I hate to make multiple trips. Going up the steps to my apartment is hard. Coming down is worse.”

  “Let me get this crutch untangled,” I said. “The fabric pad cover caught on the hatch support when you leaned into the van.” I separated cloth from a sharp edge of metal. “Now I’ll get your things.” I reached for her bags and picked up her board. It was lighter than I expected. The writing on the surface said Arches Watercolor Block. I remembered that they were special pads of heavy paper with the paper edges sealed on all four sides.

  “I see you are a watercolor painter,” I said. “My favorite is Mary Cassatt.”

  “You know watercolorists?”

  “Not really. I like painting of all types. But Cassatt’s paintings have always struck me.”

  “Well, you know enough to torture me by mentioning one of the watercolor goddesses. Every time I paint, I think, if only I could create that Cassatt charm.”

  The woman reached up and shut the minivan hatch. She started walking toward her front door. I followed her up a short series of steps to her duplex apartment. She went slowly, working her crutches with much effort, her stiff legs swinging awkwardly. She leaned her right crutch against the wall of the house, fished keys out of a shoulder purse, and unlocked the door.

  “Once I get over the threshold without tripping, I’m good,” she said.

  “Looks to me like you manage well,” I said, holding the door, following her inside.

  “A lifetime of dealing with MS. Practice makes one good at anything.”

  Her living room was set up as an art studio. She had an easel designed for water colors. On it was another watercolor block, held in a horizontal position. There was a small table covered with tiny tubes of paint. To one side was a mixing palette, a white plastic tray with depressions holding dozens of dabs of paint that had been mixed into every color imaginable.

  One wall was covered with dozens of watercolors pinned in place by push pins. The paintings were all landscapes. Several were obviously of Tahoe, but there were also images of other mountains and lakes as well as some urban settings.

  “Wow, you are a serious artist,” I said.

  “If you mean that in the sense that I’m accomplished, the answer is no. If you mean that in the sense that I’m constantly focused on artistic qualities – shape, value, color, and beauty, power, pathos, emotion – then yes, I’m a serious artist.”

  I set her things down, then leaned over to look at some paintings up close. In the lower left corners, they were signed, ‘Aubrey Blackwood.’

  “Well, I never thought about what specifically makes an artist serious. But I can see that you don’t need any Cassatt charm,” I said. “You’ve got Blackwood Beauty.”

  “Oh, stop. I’m just a gimped-up woman living on a pension.So I have to find meaning in an activity that isn’t too expensive and doesn’t require me to move around much. When I heard from a friend that there was an apartment available on a long-term lease in Tahoe that I could afford, I thought, ‘Aubrey, you’ve always wanted to paint landscapes, so get your butt up to landscape heaven and do it.’ So I moved up from the East Bay
. The MS keeps getting worse, and the spastic gait issues can overwhelm me at times, but I can do the scissors walk as well here as in the city.”

  “Looks to me like you made a good choice.”

  “How is it that you come to know about watercolorists?”

  “Actually, I don’t. I just like paintings, and I have some books on painters. Cassatt has always caught my eye. Recently, I’ve been admiring Sorolla. But I think he painted in oil.”

  Aubrey grinned. “Yes, he did, primarily. But he also did some wonderful gouache paintings, which is a type of opaque watercolor. You should check them out. They are scenes of New York.” She glanced out the window. “ I saw you come from across the road. Are you new in the neighborhood?”

  “No. I’m just visiting your neighbor, Giuseppe Calvarenna. I’m an investigator working on a case, and we had a science question. His name came up as a science expert.”

  “Oh yes, Mr. G, the absent-minded science professor. I’ve barely met him. Don’t tell him this, but I sometimes think he’s got it worse than me. I struggle with body issues. He struggles with brain issues. I see him come and go from over here. He comes back from the grocery store, opens the trunk to get his groceries, then carries a bag inside and forgets the rest of the groceries sitting in the sun while the trunk of his car is open wide. I hobbled over there once and rang his bell to tell him. I also got his phone number so I can call him. Since then, I’ve called him about unattended groceries and mail that he left on the roof of his car. And another time when he left his front door standing wide open. The bears could have moved in, and he never would have noticed. And just yesterday, I saw him come home, unlock his front door, and then carefully shut the door behind him. But his keys were in the outside of the door lock when he went inside. Now that’s security for you!”

  Aubrey gestured toward her living room wall. “On that side of my house, there’s an old barn back in the trees. Mr. G owns it. But one thing’s for sure. He might be out to lunch, but he’s one smart man. You should hear the way he talks.”

  “I guess I’ll find out shortly.” I turned to leave. “Good luck with your paintings.”

  “Mister, you know my name, but I don’t know yours.” She handed me a card.

  “I’m sorry. How rude of me.” I exchanged cards with her. “I’m Owen McKenna. I live on the East Shore, and my office is on the South Shore. It was a pleasure to meet you, Aubrey Blackwood.”

  She reached out and shook my hand with a firm grip. “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Owen McKenna.”

  She smiled, and her eyes crinkled in the most delightful way.

  I said, “Maybe I can visit with you someday, and you can teach me about watercolor.”

  “Any time,” she said.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I left Aubrey Blackwood and went back across the street. Spot was sprawled on the back seat, probably asleep. He didn’t even notice my comings and goings.

  The large front door had an alarm keypad and near that a doorbell button. I pressed it and waited.

  After a minute came a voice. “Be there in a minute. But let your poor hound out of the car. He’s welcome to join us if he doesn’t mind a very particular, prima donna cat.”

  So I woke Spot up and let him out of the Jeep. He trotted around, nose to ground, investigating. I looked around for the video cameras that revealed Spot’s and my presence, but I saw none.

  It’s an interesting dichotomy. If you have an ordinary abode, you make the cameras and the alarm components obvious, the better to ward off intruders. If you have a rich abode, you can hide the sensors because everyone knows they are there anyway. Most burglaries and other home invasions take place where regular folks live. Predators usually pass up the rich because they believe their chances of being caught are high.

  The door opened. For some reason, I expected a secretary or a manservant to the mad scientist.

  I got the mad scientist.

  He was five-nine or five-ten and skinny as a telephone pole. He had a white walrus moustache and an untamed shock of equally white, Albert Einstein hair that lofted above his head. He looked to be in his late sixties.

  Calvarenna’s glasses had thick, black frames that had slid down and rested on the bulging knob of his nose. His left hand held a cane. In the crook of his right arm, held like a football, was a white, long-haired cat. It looked like the Persian cat that belonged to the Blofeld character in the James Bond movies.

  “Mr. Calvarenna?” I said. “I’m Owen McKenna.” Spot came trotting up. “And this is Spot.”

  “My, what a sweetheart,” Calvarenna said. He leaned his cane against the wall so he could pet Spot.

  Spot was wary of the tiny cat in the man’s other arm. The cat’s expression didn’t change as Spot approached. The cat yawned. Shut his eyes.

  Spot reached forward slowly, sniffing, his movement tentative and informed by past memories. He knew that even if a cat was smaller than a decent lunch, never underestimate what it can do to your nose.

  The cat ignored him, indicating that he’d had enough dog experience to know that it was the small dog breeds that were dangerous to felines.

  “A beautiful fellow,” Calvarenna said, one hand on my dog, the other holding his cat. “I’ve read a bit about dog olfaction,” Calvarenna said. “Ten thousand times more sensitive than what we humans have. Our specialty is vision. As we evolved and developed sophisticated tools like bows and arrows, the information available in visual stimuli allowed us to hunt, which suited our relatively fast evolutionary development and led to our dominance of this tiny planet. Wolves, and their dog derivatives, didn’t have tools that benefited from great vision. So their hunting consisted of chasing down their prey, often at night or in poor light conditions. For that, having a good nose on the ground was much more important than trying to see through the brush. Dogs have an olfactory that compares to ours as my computer compares to the slide rule I grew up with.”

  I said, “I’ve always been amazed when I really watch him explore his surroundings with his nose.”

  “I suffer a bit of anosmia, myself.”

  “Anosmia?” I said.

  “Oh, sorry.” He touched a fingertip to his nose. “The ol’ sniffer doesn’t do the job as well as it should. Unfortunately, they haven’t yet developed the olfactory equivalent of eyeglasses or hearing aids. Perhaps one day an enterprising scientist will.”

  “Why do you suppose you have – what did you call it – smelling loss?”

  “Anosmia? Age is the primary cause. A lifetime of insults to the nasal equipment takes its toll. We all get colds and the flu. Those viruses and others get into the gears and gum up the works. Viruses also get into our brains and damage the nerve cells that process how we smell. By the time people are eighty-five years old, the majority have significant olfactory decline. It is similar to age-related hearing and vision loss. I’m still a long way from my eighties, but I’m ahead of the normal curve on olfactory loss.”

  He rubbed the side of Spot’s neck. “I’m sorry, I already forgot this guy’s name.”

  “Spot. He also responds to His Largeness. Spot, say hello to Professor Calvarenna.”

  “Please call me Giuseppe. Or Joseph. Spot will like my deck. Come. We’ll sit out there.”

  Giuseppe turned and walked inside. Spot and I followed. The entry had a small gurgling fountain with some mossy plants growing in it and sending plant tendrils dangling down over the side. Light came from skylights above.

  Giuseppe went down a large spiral staircase with broad, varnished stone steps. It felt a little like descending into a cave. He moved at a slow pace, holding the spiral handrail with the same hand that held the cane. It looked awkward, but he was obviously practiced at holding the rail and cane while carrying the cat.

  Giuseppe’s wild white hair bobbed a bit with each of the man’s steps. The skin of his scalp was blotchy, suggesting the man was in ill health.

  After we’d made a single but complete spiral revolution, we cam
e to a broad, wide room filled with tall tables like those that one would work at standing up. The far wall was all windows, and the view beyond was all lake with the mountains of the South Shore 25 miles distant.

  “This is my workshop,” Giuseppe said with a wave of his arm.

  “This looks like a college classroom,” I said as Spot wandered about the workbench tables, nose high, investigating a room that was unlike any he’d ever been in. There was a microscope, a white board with inscrutable math equations written across it, a paper cutter. On one counter was a Bunsen burner and a test tube rack. On a shelf at the back of the counter were beakers, vials of chemicals, liquids, and powders. Over by the door to a small deck stood a telescope.

  “Some of this stuff I recognize,” I said. I pointed. “Nice incubator.”

  “You know incubators? I’m surprised.”

  “I recognize it because it’s similar to the one my entomologist girlfriend has.” I gestured at the room. “You have stuff that doesn’t normally go together. What exactly do you do here?”

  He paused and gave me a long look. “You want the glossy magazine answer, or the truth? I think you’ll want the truth. What I do here I think of as arbitrary and random accretion, then thoughtful destruction, then recombination of disparate elements. Of course, that sounds excessive. But it’s actually quite an accurate description.”

  “I understand,” I said even though I didn’t at any serious level.

  Giuseppe continued, “Of course, I’m speaking primarily of thought processes. However, my world of physical objects somewhat mirrors my thoughts.”

  “So this is the creative lab of a scientist who works in a variety of fields,” I said.

  “Yes, you could say that. Let’s go down another level. We can talk out on the deck.”

  Spot and I followed the white puff clouds of human and feline hair down another spiral. There we came to a standard, large living room with a window wall like in the room above it. The floor was stone with several large, colored rugs that looked new. The fireplace was large with a fire laid of logs but no ash beneath the ash grate. There were artful groupings of furniture arranged for views of the fireplace and the landscape out the windows.