by Todd Borg
“The helicopter crash in Kauai.”
Mallory studied me. “Oh,” he said. “What do you figure happened here?” He kept his eyes on me.
“I think we had a shooter out in the woods. Took a shot through the window at the scuba tank valve right as Morella was leaning over the front end. The tank became a self-propelled artillery shell. It lifted her up and...”
“Wait, wait,” Mallory was shaking his head and waving his hand in the air as if to wipe off a chalk board. “What do you mean an artillery shell?”
“The tank was full of air at thirty-five hundred pounds per square inch. The opening in the tank is maybe a square inch of area. So if you suddenly uncork it, you’ve got a rocket with thirty-five hundred pounds of thrust.”
Mallory’s eyes widened the tiniest bit. “Why do you think a shooter?”
“I couldn’t swear to it, but I had a sense that the glass in that window exploded a split second before the tank took off.” I gestured at the window. “I ran outside and saw a vehicle start up down the road, but it was too far away to give chase. Morella got a call about ten minutes before it happened. I’d guess it was the shooter who called.”
Mallory frowned. “The Placer boys will know if your idea is right when they find the valve that came off the tank and examine it. There’ll be marks if it was struck by a bullet.” He turned and looked around the floor. The valve was not in sight. He rotated on his heel, scanning for the valve, and ended up facing Morella’s body. He turned away from her, his breathing heavy.
“You remember when I asked you if you had a cop on the roster named Strict?” I said. “I’d been talking to Morella after she finished searching the bottom for you that day. I saw a note she wrote herself reminding her to call someone named Strict as soon as she was through with the dive you sent her on. When I asked her about it, she said it was about another dive. But I didn’t believe her. I came up here to try to convince her to talk.”
“Did she?”
“She was about to. But it may have been a ploy.”
“Meaning?” Mallory said.
“She mentioned to the person on the phone that I was here asking questions about the search dive she’d made. The caller asked her some kind of question to which she’d answered, ‘twenty minutes.’ After that, she glanced out the window a couple of times. I assumed she was expecting someone. When she believed that person had arrived, she may have been going to start to talk so that I would believe she intended to cooperate. Then the person who arrived would come to the door and interrupt. Morella would get me off her back for a time and she could figure out what to do.”
“But the shooter decided to take her out and eliminate any question about it.”
“I think so,” I said.
“Isn’t the whole thing pretty far-fetched? I mean, hitting that valve would require an amazing shot. And even assuming one could hit it, how would you be sure the tank would kill Morella?”
“I agree it is a reach,” I said. “But a bullet through the heart would be a clear case of first degree murder. Whereas, even a lousy lawyer could get someone off a death-by-scuba-tank charge.”
“But what about the improbability of it?” Mallory said. “The chances of succeeding at what happened must be one in a thousand.”
“True. So maybe the shooter wasn’t trying to kill Morella, but just disrupt our conversation. Maybe the shooter decided he didn’t want to show his face to me and thought this was a way to get her to stop talking to me.”
Mallory was chewing on his cheek. “There is another possibility,” he said. “The shooter may think you wouldn’t guess there was a shot. Maybe you’d think it was just a freak accident. The valve comes off, something flies and breaks the window. Maybe Morella dies. Maybe she doesn’t. But if it looks like an accident, then no one thinks about a shooter and no one looks for a slug. The shooter can even come back when things have quieted down, find the slug and pocket the evidence.”
“You could be right,” I said.
“So what more do you want to tell me before someone else dies?” There was acid in his voice.
“I didn’t think Morella would die over a question about calling someone named Strict. I would have told you if I even dreamed it could come to that.”
“Maybe you ought to start dreaming possibilities regarding other things you haven’t told me.”
“Okay,” I said. “Brock Chambers may be losing his lodge to financial distress. Sounds like he is in receivership.”
“We knew that,” Mallory said.
“And being a hunter he is probably a crack shot with a rifle.”
“Knew that, too.”
“He has a lawyer friend named Lynette McCloud. According to a young man who works behind Brock’s reception desk, she’s also a hunter and is reputed to be willing to shoot anything she feels like.”
Mallory nodded. “Didn’t know McCloud was his lawyer. I did know McCloud was a hunter. We probably could figure she’d play fast and hard with her weapons based on what a hot dog she is. Drives a red Lexus sports car. Wears spike heels to court. Charges four times what the next highest guy charges. Likes male jurors because she can get them to do her bidding.”
“She get results?”
Mallory looked disgusted. “She only just moved to South Lake Tahoe from L.A. eighteen months ago, but she’s never lost a case here. People around the courthouse think she’s pretty ridiculous, but it all gets down to the juries.”
“She specialize in criminal defense?”
“I’m not sure how much of a specialty it is. But she’s had several of them since she moved here. Now she’s got a sugar daddy, a music producer from San Francisco. We booked him on a concealed weapons charge after he and his two bodyguards pulled iron at a disturbance at one of the casinos and then drove across the state line into California. Lusty Lyn was on him like an ambulance chaser. Convinced him he needed local legal talent. He took a chance on her and she got him off.”
“He fall for the legal talent or the spike heels?” I asked.
“Who knows. Next thing, she traded in the three million dollar view from her house up on Keller for the twenty million dollar view from the music dude’s spread. So maybe she’s going to retire. He’s got his own little private mountaintop place up above the pass on Kingsbury Grade. Mile-long private drive with a gate house, a mansion at eight thousand feet, a couple three guest houses, views of the Carson Valley and the lake as well.”
“Sounds like you’ve been studying the place,” I said.
“We were up there after his arrest.”
“The employee at the Rubicon Lodge told me I should contact McCloud if I wanted to talk to Brock. What do you think? Does Brock have a secret stash of cash to pay her with? Or is he connected to the music producer?”
“Don’t know,” Mallory said. “I’ve heard that one of the reasons so many celebrities stay at the Rubicon Lodge is Brock’s personal service. Especially for the ladies. Could be Lynette was on the receiving end of some of that fine attention and has stuck around.”
I thought about that. “What’s the music producer’s name?” I asked.
“Algernon Petticock,” Mallory said.
“That’s a name?”
“It is in San Francisco.”
“What’s he look like?”
Mallory chewed on his lip. “Like the type who would date Spike Heels. Six-one, smooth olive skin, black hair slicked back, perfect teeth. He wears Italian suits and his grin makes you think of a barracuda. He looks Sicilian. Like a Sicilian movie star.”
“A Sicilian with the name Algernon Petticock?”
Mallory shrugged.
“One more thing you probably knew about the Thos Kahale murder,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“I saw Brock Chambers arguing with the Viking that day Morella made her first dive.”
“You mean the Viking named Ole Knudson who caused the helicopter crash?”
“One and the same. He and
Brock know each other.”
“Didn’t know that,” Mallory said.
I eventually left Mallory and drove into the night through falling snow, trying to shake the image of Morella dying, wishing I’d asked her one more question. Was she Thos’s email confidant? Someone who went by the name Hermes?
TWENTY-EIGHT
I called Street’s various numbers as I drove back around the dark lake. I found her at her bug lab. “Are visiting hours over?” I asked.
“Not if you bring Spot with you,” she said. “I could use a warm footrest, and his backbones are heaven on my poor feet after standing in one place all day.”
“Does the laboratory contain any libation or should I stop at the store?” I asked.
“I recall a couple of Sierra Nevadas in the ice box right next to my jar of Chrysomya megacephala.”
“Something tells me that’s not a snack even though I’m starving.”
“Actually, they are high protein and low fat. Ants love them. You might, too.”
“I get the picture. A new batch?”
“Yeah. I’m doing a consult for the Placerville police. They called this morning. I went down immediately and retrieved samples.”
“A homicide?”
“They don’t know. The body was found in a sauna out back of an old cabin down in the American River Canyon. I left a hygrothermograph in the sauna, but it may not do any good.”
“Save the details. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said and hung up.
Spot and I drove up Kingsbury and turned off on the side street where Street’s lab was tucked in among several warehouses only two blocks from my office. We walked in and I hugged Street. I was so glad to see her after Morella Meyer’s murder that I didn’t want to tell her about it yet. I just wanted to hold her.
Spot came and jammed his nose between us, wedging us apart with the subtlety of a log splitter. Street gave him a hug while I fetched a beer from her fridge.
I pointed to a jar full of what looked like short white noodles in a clear liquid. “These guys the ones you got from the body this morning?”
“No, that’s another project. The ones from the body are in here, feeding on a piece of liver.” She pointed to another case about the size of a bread box.
Although it had a glass front, I had no desire to look inside. “When they grow up and turn into flies, then you’ll know what kind they are.”
“Right. Once I know the species, then I look at the development of the maggots that I killed and preserved at the scene. That is the first step in determining time-of-death. The question is what the temperature has been while the body has decayed.”
“The hygrothermograph tells you that, right?”
“Normally, yes. But the body was in a sauna. Who knows what temp the sauna was at and how long it stayed warm?”
“If it ever was warm,” I said.
“The cops think it was. The body was naked, clothes on a bench. It looks like he was taking a sauna when he died.”
“Heart attack from the heat?”
“Maybe. Hard to tell,” she said.
“Were there tracks in the snow?”
“No snow. This was north of Placerville. About two thousand feet of elevation, so it is too warm for snow most of the year. There are vineyards nearby, so they probably never get snow to speak of.”
“If the sauna was warm, that would throw off your results, wouldn’t it?”
“Absolutely. I can’t do any kind of rigorous analysis. The sauna had a huge pile of river rock around the wood stove that fired it, and there was a lot of ash in the stove.”
I nodded. “A long fire and rocks that would continue to give off heat long after that. The sauna could have stayed warm for days. Meaning the maggots would develop much faster on a warm body than a cold one.”
“Exactly. There won’t be much hard science on this one.”
“Cops get any clues? A wallet ID?”
“Not that I know of,” Street shook her head. “The pockets of the clothes had been emptied.”
“You said the victim was male?”
“A guess based on size. The corpse wasn’t desiccated yet, but it was quite decomposed and unrecognizable.”
“Are flies that efficient at laying eggs that the maggot development can always tell you time of death, assuming of course you know temperature and such? Do flies always get to a body right after death?”
“Think of when you barbecue,” Street said. “If you left your meat uncovered and untended before you put it over the coals, how long would it be before you saw a fly land on it?”
“If it’s warm out, about ten seconds.”
“Well, there’s your answer.”
“You are implying that when a fly lands on your meat they are there to immediately lay eggs on it.”
“Many flies, much of the time, yes.”
“I may never barbecue again,” I said.
“I’ve heard of entomologists who don’t,” Street said.
I hung around Street’s lab while she finished her work. She eventually pulled up a chair to where Spot was lying, sat down and opened a Sierra Nevada. She worked her stockinged feet over Spot’s back bones as she sipped her beer. I told her about Morella’s death, but left out the terrible details. Facing our second night of being separate, we both sensed it was better not to get too morose over the violence done to the poor woman.
It was late in the evening by the time Spot and I left Street. The wind was fierce. As clouds raced across the moon it was like flipping a light switch. On. Off. On again.
I turned on the radio as we drove home up the east shore. The Pacific system was intensifying. We were expected to get lots of snow in the coming days.
Once inside my cabin, I opened a Sterling Cab and pondered another dinner alone with just my dog.
“Spot,” I said. I snapped my fingers and he trotted over. He looked up at me, his pointy ears quivering with excitement. I pointed at his dog bowl which was still full of food from the last night. “What’s up with this? You on a fast?”
Spot looked over at the microwave, then back up at me. He wagged, his tail thumping the dishwasher.
I pointed at the microwave. “Human food,” I said. I pointed at his dog bowl. “Dog food.”
Spot looked back at the microwave.
“Suit yourself. Diamond’s gone,” I said, feeling the way Amish parents would feel if the baby-sitter had squirreled the kids off to Disneyland for the first time in their lives. “Sorry, pal, you’re stuck with me again.”
I usually keep some of those miniature pizzas in the freezer. Desperate measures for desperate times. I popped one in the microwave, then poured myself some wine and made a fire in the wood stove. Spot lay down on the rug and watched the microwave. When the microwave beeped signaling that my pizza was done, Spot jumped up. He looked at me and wagged and I decided I was going to let the air out of Diamond’s tires at the first opportunity.
Despite the wine before I went to bed, I had trouble shaking the image of Morella’s grisly death from my mind. I lay awake most of the night thinking I should have figured out that the visitor she was expecting was, in fact, coming to kill her. Had I been more alert I might have saved her life.
I finally nodded off around 5:00 a.m., exhausted from my self-recriminations.
TWENTY-NINE
I awoke and saw snowfall out the windows. The wind from the night before had subsided, and large, gentle flakes floated slowly to the ground. Although we’d already received six inches overnight, it didn’t seem like anything serious. It certainly wasn’t like the howling, blowing snow that typified the normal advance of a large storm.
While I drank coffee and Spot ran around outside investigating olfactory secrets hidden under the white stuff, I dialed the Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village. I asked for Avery Ginsberry, the antiques contact mentioned by one of Thos’s email correspondents.
“Avery here,” he answered shortly.
“Hello, Avery
. My name is Owen McKenna. I’m a...”
“Oh, sure, I’ve heard of you. You’re the one with the spotted dog. I read about you during last fall’s forest fires. Terrible business, those fires.”
“Yes. Avery, I’m trying to find out information about Mark Twain during the time he spent in Kauai. Somebody gave me your name. I was hoping you could give me some direction.”
“Hmmm. Not really my area. Better to speak with Hillary Addison for all things Twain.”
“She teach with you at the college?”
“No, no. Hillary is a Mark Twain archivist. Runs a Twain library of sorts, serves as a comprehensive Twain scholar.”
“Where do I find her?”
“Her office is in Virginia City. Not too far from where the Territorial Enterprise was published.”
“The newspaper Twain wrote for?”
“Yes.”
Avery gave me Hillary’s phone. I thanked him and dialed her number. I got a pager, punched in my number and hung up.
The return call came before I’d finished my third cup of coffee.
“Owen McKenna,” I answered.
“Hillary Addison returning your call.” She had a tiny voice that cracked like a broken Oboe reed. I visualized a thin, bespectacled woman with unkempt hair.
“Thank you,” I said, then proceeded to introduce myself and explain my interest in Twain. “I’m trying to learn about his visit to Kauai. Avery Ginsberry at the Sierra Nevada College said you were a Twain expert. I was hoping you could give me some direction.”
“I can try. Have you read the letters he wrote to the Sacramento Daily Union during his Sandwich Islands tour in eighteen sixty-six?” As she spoke, her voice wavered up an octave, then cracked and went back down. She sounded very much like the sweet woman who used to work counter duty at one of the San Francisco precincts I frequented when I was a homicide detective. She’d been confined to a wheelchair and I now pictured the same for Hillary.