Tahoe Payback (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 15)

by Todd Borg

  Street’s smile was now full. She handed the photo back to Diamond. Street’s right hand was closed again, but not clenched into a fist. She slowly stood up. I joined her as she walked to my little bathroom.

  “Do you need anything?” I asked in a soft voice before she closed the door.

  She shook her head. “No, thanks.” She paused. “I have to give Diamond a statement, right?”

  I nodded. “Only when you’re ready. It can be tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” She seemed to look off into space.

  Street touched the tip of her left index finger to my lips, then looked down at her bloody right hand, which was still closed but no longer holding anything. She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

  I took four steps back to the living room.

  Diamond was sitting on the rocker, both of his arms out petting the dogs, Spot to his right, Blondie to his left.

  “That was masterful,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Just trying to feel my way to a place where she can tell us what happened and give us the goods on this creep father of hers. Although, I guess she already gave me the goods.” He patted his pocket where he’d put the handkerchief. “Ear flesh is surprisingly lightweight,” he said. “But it looks like she mostly just got the rim, so to speak. So I shouldn’t expect any more heft.” Diamond gave me a serious look. “The woman’s been through hell.”

  “Street is an icon of self-sufficiency and strength,” I said. “But this is going to stress her out for some time.”

  Diamond said, “It would stress out anyone, no matter how self-sufficient. Anyway, John Donne said No Man Is An Island.”

  “The poet, right?”

  “Sí.

  “I know about him,” I said. “‘Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.’”

  Diamond raised his eyebrows. “You surprise me.”

  “I learned it from Street,” I said. “One time when I told her she was beautiful, she protested vigorously saying that she obviously was not. And then, as if to feel better about it, she quoted Donne.”

  “Smart girl,” Diamond said.

  “Who are you talking about?” Street said as she emerged from the bathroom, hands and face looking freshly scrubbed.

  “You,” Diamond said. “McKenna was saying that your awareness of John Donne’s poetry helps mitigate your tendency toward self-critique.”

  “I didn’t say that,” I said.

  “Then you should have.”

  EPILOGUE

  F or all of his obvious awkwardness, Douglas Fairbanks nevertheless understood the basics of how to put on a good private party, even if he went overboard on his decorations and enthusiasm.

  He told us to meet him at Heavenly Village on the South Shore.

  Spot and I picked up Street and Blondie. We parked in the ramp at Heavenly Village and walked over to the gondola base station. We held Spot and Blondie by collar and leash, and they behaved, eager to sit and take time for people watching, and, no doubt, people smelling. Although, because it wasn’t yet July, the summer tourist crush hadn’t yet begun. There were just scattered couples strolling the village.

  The blue-gray gondolas came out of the base station at regular intervals, clamped onto the big cable, and lofted up the mountain at high speed. The passengers inside plastered their faces to the acrylic windows.

  “Are you okay with this?” I asked Street.

  She made a small nod. “It will be a good distraction.”

  Just a few minutes later, Sergeant Diamond Martinez and Sergeants Bains and Santiago all walked up, side-by-side, looking like three scruffy gunmen out of the Magnificent Seven. All three wore cowboy hats, black for Diamond, brown for Bains and Santiago. All three wore cowboy boots beneath their jeans, black for Diamond, and brown for the other two. They stopped together and stood in a line, with Diamond in the center, as if they’d rehearsed like a chorus line.

  “Three counties worth of lawmen,” I said. “Imposing show of force.”

  “Three hombres ready to rumble,” Bains said.

  “Kick some ass,” Santiago said.

  “Recite some cowboy poetry,” Diamond said.

  “Fairbanks is gonna love that,” I said. “You guys got the look, I’ll give you that. You packing to back it up?”

  “Try us and find out,” Santiago said. He didn’t even crack a smile. Impressive.

  Spot and Blondie both turned their heads and looked past the sergeants.

  Douglas Fairbanks appeared. He wore a formal, black dinner jacket and under it his dayglo road bike outfit, the blue and yellow stripes catching the setting sun, the spandex material revealing every curve of his musculature and his not-so-musculature. He looked gloriously goofy and out-of-place. He was obviously comfortable making a joke with his uniform.

  Next to Fairbanks was Aubrey Blackwood, looking radiant and stylish in a maroon pantsuit with magenta shirt and maroon jacket. She’d tied maroon ribbons around her crutches and curled the ends so they bounced and waved.

  The black-and-blue swelling on her jaw from the blow that Lynn, the Giuseppe imposter, gave her with the two-by-four through the car window had gone down. Aubrey had covered the discoloration with makeup, and the other bruises from her fall didn’t show at all. She looked quite snappy as she worked her crutches, clacking left and right, doing the scissors walk with her stiff legs, moving forward at a good speed.

  As Fairbanks and Aubrey approached and Fairbanks gave us a big grin, I realized I’d never seen him smile. He said, “Men and women and hound dogs, I’d like you all to meet Aubrey Blackwood, someone I think is very special. This party is for her.”

  Street smiled, and the three lawmen all took off their hats and bowed before Aubrey.

  Aubrey made a sudden huge smile, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Please don’t get upset, Ms. Blackwood,” Diamond said. “We respect strength and beauty. And we can see that you have a surfeit of both.”

  “It’s true ma’am,” Santiago said. “We know you’ve been through a tough gig, and we applaud your focus and resolve.”

  Bains put his hat back on, put his hands together palm-to-palm, his fingertips touching his chin, and bowed again, his silence seeming significant.

  Fairbanks said, “I’ll be just a minute.” He trotted away toward the gondola.

  The dogs were very affectionate with Aubrey, and we all chatted. I told Aubrey that she probably couldn’t trust lawmen as scruffy as the three who were with us. The three hombres sneered at me. Then Fairbanks came back and waved us over.

  I don’t know what kind of bribe he paid to the gondola operators, but they stopped the gondola as Fairbanks helped Aubrey approach the loading dock. And when she was ready to board, the gondola that approached was dressed in white roses. They were inserted into the ski compartments. There was a bouquet of white roses attached to the gondola’s front and another attached to its rear. Inside the gondola was a small table and on it a vase of white roses and a bottle of champagne in a cooler and two long-stemmed glasses. I noticed a book next to the vase of flowers. My guess was that it was a poetry collection.

  Fairbanks helped Aubrey inside and helped her sit down. Their gondola began to move forward, then latched onto the high-speed cable and accelerated out of the base station and up the mountain.

  The gondola operators looked the other way as Street and I ushered the dogs into the next gondola. The three scruffy lawmen followed in the next one.

  Once the gondola doors shut, Street said to me, “Aubrey kind of glows, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, she has a warmth you don’t want to turn away from.”

  “Even the dogs noticed.”

  “I saw that, too,” I said.

  We were all whisked up into the sky where we got off at the observation platform at 9100 feet. We walked around to where the deck projected out over the mountain and looked down on the giant blue lake surrounded by a rim of snow-capped peaks.

  Fairbanks had worked more magic
. There was a table spread with white linen and chairs with white cushions, and on the table were more bouquets of white roses surrounded by a large buffet of hors d’oeuvres and champagne and glasses for all of us.

  To one side sat two men in tuxedos, one playing guitar and the other playing keyboards, jazz standards.

  Fairbanks even had doggie bowl treats of de-boned chicken wings, which Blondie chewed appreciatively, while Spot inhaled them and looked around for the next serving.

  As the sun set behind the Sierra Crest, we insisted that Fairbanks pose with Aubrey for photographs, she looking very sophisticated and he, in his garish biking outfit, looking like the stylistic satire of the decade. Aubrey made her beautiful grin, and her eyes crinkled, and we probably all felt a bit plain next to her.

  Later, as we were walking back toward the gondola for the return trip down, I found myself next to Aubrey. We moved quietly through the twilight. The spring songbirds had gone silent. The only sound was the clicking of Aubrey’s crutches on the metal decking. The alpen glow was fading, and the stars were coming out. Three thousand feet below us, the lake was turning black, and the ring of lights around it, 75 miles in circumference, shimmered.

  “I’m so glad to have met you,” I said to Aubrey.

  “I’m so glad Douglas Fairbanks asked me to join you all,” Aubrey said.

  We walked a bit without talking.

  “I think he’s a good man,” I said. “Kind of different. But he’s into poetry, which is a lot like art. Trying to find meaning in a world that’s focused on shallow ideals and silly priorities.”

  “Like many of us,” Aubrey said.

  “You think you’ll see him again?” I asked.

  “If he’s interested,” Aubrey said.

  “He’s interested,” I said.

  The next afternoon, Street and I took the dogs and drove up the East Shore. We parked on the highway, put on packs with food and barbecue supplies, and hiked down to one of the secret beaches that are popular with nudists during warmer weather. In the cool weather at the end of June, we had the place to ourselves.

  When we got to the beach, Blondie immediately waded into the lake. Spot walked over to the water and drank some of it. Street threw a stick out into the lake. Blondie leaped in and swam out to get it. Spot stepped far enough into the water to get his paws thoroughly wet with ice water, then decided that Blondie should have the stick to herself.

  Spot came to watch me as I pulled out the miniature folding barbecue, put in charcoal, and lit it. He knew what barbecues meant. And much as sticks had their own special attraction, he knew that the allure of grilled treats was an order of magnitude greater.

  When the charcoal was ready, I put a six-pack of pork brats on for me and the dogs and a single turkey wild rice pretend brat for Street.

  Street opened the Tusk ’n Red wine I’d gotten from Trader Joe’s. It was produced in Ukiah and seemed appropriate because what I’d learned in Ukiah had helped in solving the case. Street poured a generous inch and a half into the repurposed jam jars. They had embossed grapes on the surface and were relatively indestructible compared to the long-stemmed, large-bell, singing glassware favored by sommeliers and not favored by backpacking beachgoers.

  Although we missed it by three squares on the calendar, we toasted the summer solstice.

  “To Helios, the Sun god on the summer solstice,” Street said.

  “To Helios,” I said.

  We clicked glasses. I drank. Street tasted.

  The sun on the water was like an arc-welding light shining through blue diamonds. The flickering waves scintillated as if to stop the world and proclaim Tahoe the center of the Earth and Helios the center of the universe.

  Soon, we ate. The food was as good as Spot and Blondie’s enthusiasm indicated.

  Afterward, they lay in the sand and snoozed as the sun lowered behind the mountains across the lake. Street and I leaned back against a giant, angled boulder, our knees up, and looked out at the turquoise water that was fast becoming shades of purple gray.

  After a period of quiet, I could tell by Street’s breathing that she was tense. I put my hand on her knee.

  “Your father is in jail. Diamond assured me that they are giving him no privileges, no opportunities. I think you can relax.”

  “You’d think,” Street said. She sounded tentative, worried, stressed.

  “Will you be okay?”

  She paused before answering. “I don’t know. It seems there’s a cumulative effect with periods of major stress. Each time you fight your way through a big problem, it leaves an ugly residue. Like successive waterlines after repeated floods. Every time it happens, you realize that things can never go back to your previous innocence. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yeah. For many people, much of the time, the world isn’t an easy place,” I said. “Some people, some lives, the stars don’t line up and make it simple. You’ve gone through your entire life never making a problem for anyone, never doing anything to make someone think that you stand between them and what they want. You’ve always just done your very best in every situation you were dropped into. I can understand that other people, failing by the same measure, might resent that. But those who hate people who’ve never done them wrong are sick. When we’re presented with their hate, we’re tempted to put up barricades in front of the castle gate, tuck-point the loopholes, sharpen the arrowheads, load the cannons, and double check that the black powder is dry. But it won’t succeed in doing anything other than locking us inside the tower.”

  “Precisely,” Street said. “I can’t have a worthwhile life if I seal myself off from every possible threat.”

  “I agree.” I propped my jam jar in the sand so it wouldn’t tip, reached for the bottle, added a tiny bit to Street’s glass, then refilled mine. “But having said that, if you ever want, short term or long term, the security of Spot nearby or even me, you know what the answer is.”

  “I know,” she said. “Thanks. Don’t ever think that’s not important and appreciated.”

  “But,” I said.

  “But there is great value in being independent, being able to fend for yourself. Having others to depend on is a huge gift. But having to depend on others is very difficult. Imagine it for yourself. You’re as independent as a person can be. If that weren’t the case, it would permanently alter your worldview in a debilitating way. You need no help from others. Physical, financial, psychological.”

  “Emotionally,” I said. “I need you emotionally.”

  “I believe you want that, but not that you need it. You may not always want to manage everything by yourself, but you can if need be. There’s tremendous value in that. I want that, too. I demand it of myself. I don’t expect others to see things the same way. And I don’t always see it that way as applied to others. But it’s okay for me to see it that way regarding myself. I don’t ask for other people’s approval. I just want my own approval of how I go through life.”

  She paused to take a deep breath, sipped a bit of wine, reached out and ran a fingertip down the top of Blondie’s nose.

  “We both knew these things about the other before we got close, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “So you understand my need to be independent.”

  “Indeed,” I said. “I expect it.”

  “And you understand why I probably won’t ever live with you on a full-time basis.”

  I nodded.

  “But you know I love you.”

  “And I love you, too.”

  She held her glass up and looked through the wine toward the lake. The last of the sunlight flashed rose-colored beams across her face. “We’ll still spend time together. Dinner. Hiking. Skiing. Vacations sometimes. Occasional sleepovers.”

  “I like that last part. Sleepovers.”

  She raised her glass again. “To sleepovers,” she said.

  We clicked our glasses.

  About the Author

  Todd Borg and his w
ife live in Lake Tahoe, where they write and paint. To contact Todd or learn more about the Owen McKenna mysteries, please visit toddborg.com

  A message from the author:

  Dear Reader,

  If you enjoyed this novel, please consider posting a short review on Amazon. Reviews help authors a great deal, and that in turn allows up to write more stories for you.

  Thank you very much for your interest and support,

  Todd

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE DARK

  “ONCE AGAIN, BORG HITS ALL THE RIGHT NOTES FOR FANS OF CLASSIC DETECTIVE FICTION in the mold of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, and Robert B. Parker.” - Kirkus Reviews

  “I CAN’T RECOMMEND THIS SERIES HIGHLY ENOUGH... THEY. ARE. THAT. GOOD.” - Kittling: Books

  “TAHOE DARK IS PACKED WITH ACTION AND TWISTS. THE SURPRISES JUST KEEP ON COMING...THE FINAL SCENE IS ANOTHER TODD BORG MASTERPIECE.” - Silver’s Reviews

  “A COMPLEX, INTRIGUING, NAIL-BITING THRILL RIDE TO THE VERY END.” - Tahoe Mountain News

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE BLUE FIRE

  “A GRIPPING NARRATIVE...A HERO WHO WALKS CONFIDENTLY IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF SAM SPADE, PHILIP MARLOWE, AND LEW ARCHER” - Kirkus Reviews

  “A THRILLING MYSTERY THAT IS DIFFICULT TO PUT DOWN ...EDGE OF YOUR SEAT ACTION” - Elizabeth, Silver’s Reviews

  "TENSION-FILLED AND FULL OF SURPRISE" - Gloria Sinibaldi, Sierra Sun

  "VERY ATMOSPHERIC, THIS IS ANOTHER EXCELLENT THRILLER BY TODD BORG" - Harvee Lau, Book Dilettante

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE GHOST BOAT

  “THE OLD PULP SAVVY OF (ROSS) MACDONALD...REAL SURPRISE AT THE END” - Kirkus Reviews

  “NAIL-BITING THRILLER...BOILING POT OF DRAMA” - Gloria Sinibaldi, Tahoe Daily Tribune