Tahoe Payback (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 15)

by Todd Borg

  I thought about how society handles death.

  When a person with a previously identified health problem like heart disease eventually dies, the people closest to the deceased simply report the death. If there is no close family member or roommate, perhaps the caretaker or gardener makes the discovery and calls it in.

  The mortuary would come to take away the body from wherever it was found. When there is no surprise about the cause of death, there is no substantial inquiry into what happened. A doctor would establish cause but would probably do so without the thoroughness he or she would apply to a known victim of murder. With an anticipated death and no questions about identity, the doctor rarely has reason to check fingerprints or dental records or DNA.

  As a result, if a person who was known to be at risk of death had died, it would be relatively easy to later claim that the deceased wasn’t the person they thought it was. And if the deceased was cremated, there wouldn’t be a body to exhume to run tests.

  If the scientist didn’t have a lock-down grip on his house and finances, nothing could keep his replacement from pursuing the ultimate identity switch, adopting all aspects of the scientist’s life, intercepting the mail, paying the real estate taxes, looking into Giuseppe’s files to get the Social Security and bank account numbers and learn how the real Giuseppe Calvarenna signed his papers. Like many people, Giuseppe probably kept a piece of paper that listed his various computer passwords.

  If the imposter had acted fast, then possibly few authorities or institutions had been notified of Giuseppe’s death. If necessary, the identity thief could file various papers and forms saying that the dead person believed to be the scientist had been misidentified.

  A letter from an aggressive lawyer claiming that the personal items found on the dead body were stolen would probably get them released. Those items might include a driver’s license and credit cards.

  Afterward, the authorities would be puzzled about who the dead body really was. The confusion would cause a minor fuss. But without anyone coming forward and asking about their missing relative or friend whose description matched that of the deceased, nothing would happen.

  The new imposter scientist would go on with his life, and the authorities would wonder just who it was they’d put into the graveyard or the crematorium.

  As I thought about it, I realized that the whole concept was a wild flight of my imagination. Every aspect of it seemed outlandish. But that didn’t make it impossible. I couldn’t reject the possibility. The reward of substantial money and life in a gorgeous house could easily motivate an identity thief.

  While I had outlined an outrageous possibility, I had no evidence. From an article that said that Giuseppe had died, I had conjured up a huge, complicated scenario. And any imagined premise would go nowhere without hard evidence. The only way to get evidence was to go and shake the tree of Giuseppe Calvarenna and see what fell from it.

  FIFTY-SIX

  I started the Jeep and drove down to the intersection where I’d seen Fairbanks walk his bicycle. I turned where he had turned. Nothing seemed familiar until I saw the double bungalow where the watercolorist lived. It took me a moment to remember her name. Aubrey Blackwood. Across the street was an open area that appeared to come to an abrupt end as if there were a dropoff below. In the distance was a great view of Lake Tahoe. The open area also seemed unfamiliar. I realized that the last time I was on the street, I’d come from the other direction. The position of the trees near Calvarenna’s house had given me a different view toward the lake than I had coming from this direction. Now I realized why Aubrey had said that she lived in a perfect place for painting landscapes. She had a gorgeous view of the lake and the mountains.

  As I drove by, I saw that her van was gone. Looking into the drive with the van out of the way, I could see a barn behind Aubrey’s house. I remembered that it belonged to Giuseppe Calvarenna.

  I pulled into Giuseppe’s drive and parked in front of the big garage.

  Spot and I got out. Spot seemed excited to be back at the inventor’s house. He always remembered people who doted on him.

  I rang the doorbell. Waited. Rang it again. Waited. Knocked loudly. Knocked very loudly. Because the garage was shut, I couldn’t tell if anyone was home. I didn’t know what kind of vehicle Giuseppe drove.

  The only windows on the drive side of the house were made of glass blocks. I wasn’t going to see anything through those. When I visited Giuseppe earlier, he had made it clear that he wasn’t easy to contact. He wasn’t inclined to answer his phone. I could, of course, send him an email with my phone. But how many hours or days would it take to get a response?

  The garage doors were shut. So I couldn’t tell if there were vehicles inside. Garage doors are easy to jimmy, but causing property damage left me with few options. If I broke in, maybe I’d find evidence that the Giuseppe I’d met wasn’t the real Giuseppe. Knowing if that was true would be nice. But without a search warrant, the evidence would be inadmissible in court. I would also risk being caught and convicted of burglary. From my last visit, I already knew that Giuseppe had a good security system that included hidden cameras. A jury wouldn’t grant me any leeway if they saw me on video, smashing windows and crawling in.

  Another option would be to stake out the house and wait for Giuseppe to come home. But he might be on a long trip hanging out with Stephen Hawking and his physicist colleagues in Britain.

  Or maybe he had walked back to the barn he owned, the one behind Aubrey Blackwood’s house.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  I took Spot’s collar, and we walked up the street and back toward the open grassy area. When we got to the grass, I veered toward the edge just to see the view. The ground dropped abruptly away toward big boulders sixty or eighty feet below. The lake was in the distance. It was a spectacular view very much like the one from Giuseppe’s deck. Spot and I turned back toward the street.

  Across and down a bit was the watercolorist’s bungalow. I mumbled her name. “Aubrey Blackwood.”

  Spot looked up at me, curious about why I was speaking when no one was around.

  “I think Aubrey is most commonly a female name,” I said to no one. “But it is also given to boys.” I kept walking. Thinking. Talking to myself. “Agent Ramos described a Vegas bar customer who talked about a woman who left her poor husband and kids to run off with a rich charity scammer. The customer seemed especially focused on the kids. But when asked their names, he said that he couldn’t remember them, but said that they had the kind of names that were used for both boys and girls.”

  Spot seemed fine with me talking to myself. He’d be the perfect dog for someone whose dementia led them to announcing baseball games to no one.

  “It would be highly unlikely that the story of the bar drinker from Vegas could link up to a Tahoe watercolorist with the somewhat-androgynous name of Aubrey,” I said.

  Normally, I would dismiss such thoughts about Aubrey Blackwood. But for one recollection.

  When I first went to help Aubrey carry her supplies, it was because she used crutches. As we talked, she referred to being skillful at living independently because she’d been dealing with MS all of her life, a challenge that was possibly extra difficult because her mother had abandoned her when she and her brother were young.

  It wasn’t much, a woman who could loosely fit the description given by a bar customer who described children with unisex names, children whose mother had run off with a charity scammer. But it made me reconsider my conversation with Aubrey. I looked for any other possible connection to the killings, the victims. Then I remembered something even more obvious.

  When I’d asked Aubrey if she had any experience with charities that helped people with MS, she’d said that a nurse had once put together a list of needy kids who had multiple sclerosis. Aubrey’s name was on that list. The nurse sent that list to charities asking for help. But none of the kids on the list ever heard anything from any charity.

  Was it possible that Aubr
ey felt burned by being ignored by charities that purported to help kids like her? When her mother ran off, could it have been with a rich charity scammer? When I asked her about charities, it sounded like she dismissed them as largely worthless.

  To imagine Aubrey as a killer, I had to consider how she would function with her crutches. It would certainly be difficult. But that didn’t make it impossible.

  Just past Aubrey’s empty driveway was the trail to the barn back in the woods. Spot and I headed up the trail.

  The trail went through a stand of trees and came to the old barn. I guessed the barn to be built in the 1940s. But modern windows and a stone chimney suggested that it had been renovated into a lodge of sorts 30 years later. I knocked on the door.

  After some wait, Giuseppe opened it. He was leaning on his cane, looking more unsteady than Aubrey did with her crutches. When he saw Spot, he grinned widely.

  “Oh, hello! What a nice surprise. And my favorite Great Dane, Mr. Spot!” He leaned toward me and spoke softly as if he didn’t want Spot to hear him. “Actually, he’s the only Great Dane I know.”

  He rubbed Spot with enthusiasm. Spot wagged.

  “Where’s Blofeld the cat?” I asked.

  “Oh, he refuses to leave the house. If I even pick up my car keys, he runs and hides. Plus, he does that feline sleep marathon in the afternoon. How any animal can sleep so much, I don’t comprehend. Although, I’ve read that male lions sleep seventeen hours a day.”

  Giuseppe turned away from us and started moving back into the barn. “Did you go to my house? I have to say I’m glad you stopped here at my barn, because I’m excited to show somebody my discovery about iron pyrite. So you’ll be my test audience. Come over to my workbench and have a look.”

  He led the way through stacks of boxes. The spaces between the piles were dark, and Giuseppe placed his cane carefully. I followed, watching him move. He had a quality of minimizing his cane movements as if he were hiding significant pain and discomfort. Spot wandered elsewhere.

  “Perhaps you’re familiar with fluorescence?” Giuseppe said over his shoulder. “The absorption of short-wavelength light energy – wavelengths invisible to us – and re-emission of that energy at longer, visible wavelengths. Many materials exhibit it. Some living creatures fluoresce, too. Anyway, I’ve been experimenting with different wavelengths of light. Sometimes the simplest investigations provide the biggest reward.”

  The barn was dimly lit with natural light coming in through windows on either side of the door and either side of a large stone fireplace. Apparently someone had decided to turn the barn into a ski lodge-type place that still had the rustic characteristics of a barn but with the addition of modern conveniences.

  Along one wall was a long workbench, obviously old but with a row of modern fluorescent light fixtures above it. The workbench held a large vise and a chop saw with dust vac and a set of what looked like rock hammers and another set of chisels. To one side of the bench leaned a variety of thin pieces of wood, each about eight feet long. Some looked like dark, tropical wood. Some were light-colored. One appeared to be balsa. Another bamboo. They looked old, and several of them were substantially warped. Giuseppe saw me looking at them.

  “You probably think that science moves forward with the aid of complex electronics and super precise measuring devices and reams of paper filled with inscrutable math equations and computers running complex software.”

  “Yes, actually, that is the way science seems to me.”

  Giuseppe gestured toward the various kinds of wood. “Well, behold basic science. If you undertake to study the most basic things, you can add to man’s knowledge base.” He pointed to the bent bamboo pole. “For example, do you know that by some measures, the lowly bamboo pole has a greater strength-to-weight ratio than all other woods? Greater, even, than steel?”

  “I didn’t know that, but I believe it,” I said. “Tough stuff, bamboo. And it weighs almost nothing.”

  Giuseppe turned to the workbench. “Anyway, this fluorescing phenomenon was a two-part discovery,” he said. “I know that what scientists think is terribly important often seems like nothing to the layman. But this is pretty cool, so maybe you’ll think so, too. First, take a look at this big chunk of fool’s gold.”

  He picked up a sizable rock, hefting it in his hand. It was clearly heavy. The rock sparkled under the workbench lights just like gold, although perhaps more greenish than real gold.

  “You’ve probably seen this stuff before. Iron pyrite has often been confused with real gold. Now watch what happens when I turn on this light fixture, which has light-emitting-diodes that produce a particular wavelength of light.”

  Giuseppe reached across the workbench toward the LED cord. On it was one of those little rotating switches. It was just out of his reach. He shifted his cane, leaned on it, and reached over the bench again. He missed it again.

  “Here, I can reach it.” I took a step to the bench, reached out, and flicked on the light.

  In my peripheral vision, it seemed that Giuseppe reached a different direction, toward the bamboo pole.

  At Giuseppe’s touch, the bamboo pole snapped straight as though it had been under great tension. I sensed the snaking zip of a line I hadn’t seen. A snare of thin rope encircled my legs at knee level. I tried to leap away, but the snare was already tightening around my legs. At the same moment, some kind of lasso loop dropped over my head. Giuseppe had stepped behind me. The lasso jerked tight around my torso, pinning my elbows to my side.

  I yelled, “Spot! Find the suspect. Take him down!”

  But Spot was exploring over by the fireplace. The takedown command requires me to be next to him, vibrate his body, and drop my arm next to his head to point toward the suspect.

  Spot looked at me, wagged, and trotted over as the whine of a winch filled the room, and the rope around my calves jerked my feet so close together it was difficult to stand. I struggled to stay balanced and vertical. That was a mistake because it gave him a moment to work some type of ratchet device that tightened the line around my chest to the point that it was hard to breathe.

  Next, Giuseppe shoved me hard, which knocked me off balance. I fell over, my shoulder bouncing off the floor.

  “Spot, take him down!” I said again, knowing it was futile. We like to think that dogs understand our words. But words are just part of a command, and they need body language and hand motions to be understood.

  “Hey, boy,” Giuseppe said to Spot in a cheery voice. “Look at Owen. He’s having so much fun!”

  He reached out and rubbed Spot.

  The line tightened on my legs. The winch continued to reel in the line. The paracord drew tightly around my ankles, lifted them into the air, and I was hoisted up toward the roof of the barn.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  T he line was thin and bit into my ankles like a wire. The workbench where I’d gotten trapped by his snare was along one side of the barn. The paracord hoisting me extended up to one of the timber frame roof trusses, one that was in the center of the barn. As soon as the lifting motion brought me clear of the floor and the stacks of boxes, it caused me to swing wildly across the room in a big looping oscillation.

  Despite my upside-down vision, Giuseppe suddenly looked more athletic. He set his cane aside and rubbed Spot. “Hey, boy, look at your master. It’s like the Cirque du Soleil.” The words were mocking, but the voice had the weariness of years of pain.

  “I hadn’t wanted it to come to this, McKenna,” he said. “But you are too tenacious and I can’t have that. But unlike the scammers, your body will never be found.”

  Spot seemed to lean into Giuseppe, gaining comfort from him while his owner was performing dangerous tricks in the air.

  The winch kept hoisting me up. When my head was eight feet above the floor, the winch stopped. As my swinging traced a big ellipse above the barn floor, I could see that Giuseppe was no longer bent but now stood up straight without the aid of his cane. He looked strong and ag
ile. Earlier, I’d thought he was in his late 60s. Now he looked closer to my age, mid-40s. I now realized that his wild, white hair and the skin problem on his scalp that I’d noticed when we first met were probably both part of a wig. Take it off, he would look even younger.

  There was nothing I could do to command Spot to help. Dogs are as reasonable as people. They take everything in context. You can’t tell them to believe something dramatically different from what they know. It would take highly specialized training to use a voice command from a distance to get a dog to decide that a person formerly thought to be a friend was now a foe.

  Spot knew this man was a good guy. This was the second time he’d met the man, and both times the man had been affectionate. And the way I’d acted on both occasions made it clear that we were friends. The only way I could tell him otherwise was if I could be down on the floor next to Spot, talking to him, giving him a certain tone and using physical motion as I spoke about the man. I had to think of another approach.

  I called out as I swung through the air, “My guess is that you aren’t Professor Giuseppe Calvarenna, but Lynn, the man Dory called Larcenous Larry. You and the man she called Hustler Harry started the Red Roses of Hope charity, right? Harry died on the sailboat with Dory, so that leaves you, the man who was entranced by Lagrangian points.”

  I felt sick, hanging upside down, swinging wildly across the open interior of the barn. I focused on talking.

  “Your mother left your father to take up with a charity scammer. Your father died of a heart attack, a literal broken heart. Then the scammer molested your sister. You wanted to lash out at the world. Anyone could understand that. So you and your equally larcenous pal Harry started the Red Roses charity.”