by Todd Borg
“The victims in the Emerald Bay avalanche were March Carrera and Lorraine Simon. Did Astor ever mention them?”
Josie King shook her head.
“March had some friends he used to ski with. Will Adams, a computer guy, and Packer Mills, a poet.”
“Never heard of them,” she said.
“How about a cocktail waitress named Carmen Nicholas?”
Josie shook her head.
“A contractor named Paul Riceman?
Another head shake.
“Bill Esteban? April Carrera?”
“Sorry.”
I was thinking about the acid look that the butler gave Josie when she was swimming in the pool. “Your butler,” I said. “How did he and Astor get along?”
“I would say they were cordial, not particularly friendly. One time when I was looking for Jamesie it turned out he’d been over talking to Astor for some time.”
“Jamesie lives here?” I asked.
“He has the third floor.”
“What about time off?”
“Yes, of course. He works a 40-hour week, with flexible hours. I give him the schedule three weeks in advance so he can make plans. If I don’t have a gathering in the evening or some other special occasion, then he is on nine to five and eats his lunch while he’s on duty.”
“So he is free to go out in the evening.”
“Absolutely. He doesn’t even have to stay here over night, but I like advance notice from him in case he’s planning to be gone.”
“Did Astor have hours?” I asked.
“No. He paid rent, albeit much below market. Our arrangement was only about work required, snowblowing, some shoveling, some yard work next summer. As long as the work is done, his hours were his own.”
“So he could have had a significant relationship off premises with Jamesie or anyone else if he wanted.”
“Well, yes, I suppose,” Josie said.
“What did Astor do for a living?”
Josie looked down and seemed to study her fingers. She held her hand out, fingers spread. She wore four rings, two on each of her index fingers. “I actually don’t know. When he moved in he said his parents were paying all of his expenses until he finished college. But later, when I asked about his parents, he was vague. A couple of times I’ve seen him around this town with a range of people, people who didn’t act like his friends. Once, at the gas station, I saw him with two other guys and they exchanged something. It looked like he handed them a small bag and one of them gave him some money. So I’ve wondered if he sold drugs.”
“Did it look like a bag of pot or like a bag of pills?”
“It was dark and bulkier than what you’d think with pills. So I thought it was probably pot.”
“Would you mind if I spoke to your butler?”
“No, but why do you ask about him and Astor?”
“I’m only filling in blanks. Astor lived with you and your butler. You would both be good sources of information.”
Josie nodded.
“Have Astor’s lodgings been changed since he died?”
“No. Several cops from the sheriff’s department came through. I don’t know if they moved anything. But I haven’t even been over there.”
“Any news from Astor’s family?”
“His father called. Said he’d been told by the cops. He asked me to send him anything personal. I assured him I would, but that is too much for me to cope with right now.”
“What about Jamesie? Has he moved any of Astor’s things?”
“I wouldn’t think so. I’m sure he would ask me before he did anything to Astor’s things.”
“But he might neaten things up a bit?” I asked.
“He might neaten up, yes.”
“May I look at where Astor lived?”
“The cottage? Certainly. Jamesie will show you there.” She reached over to the table between the lounge chairs in which we sat, picked up a remote and pressed two buttons.
The door opened in a minute and the butler said, “Yes, Mrs. King?”
“Owen would like to see where Astor lived. Would you please show him?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I stood up to leave. “May I call or visit you again?”
“If you bring your hound.”
Spot and I followed Jamesie through the house to the front door. “It is snowing hard,” he said. “Would you like to use an umbrella? Or perhaps you’d care to drive to the cottage?”
I looked at the caretaker’s house, which was just a doggie bone’s throw through the trees. “Walking will be fine. I have an umbrella in the car.”
While Jamesie took a red umbrella out of a large pottery floor vase, I pulled a card out of my pocket. As he turned to the door, I dropped the card behind a side table that was draped in a long red cloth. I heard the small sound of the card hitting the floor, but it was not visible behind the floor-length cloth.
We stepped outside. While Jamesie opened his umbrella, I fetched mine from under the passenger seat of my Jeep. I made a lot of movement as I popped my umbrella open, action designed to obscure my search for security cameras.
I saw only two. They peeked out from above the large crown moulding that ran around the inside of the portico roof. One was trained toward the drive and would record anyone approaching. The other faced the opposite direction and pointed toward the front door.
“Ready,” I said to Jamesie. He nodded and stepped out into the snow.
When we got to the cottage, I was careful to be behind and to his side so I could memorize the key combination when he punched it into the electronic door lock. Seven, six, five, one, two three. He pushed on the door. The weather stripping was so tight it made a whooshing noise as it opened.
“Okay if I leave Spot outside?”
Jamesie frowned. “I presume you mean he now needs to perform restroom duty. I should like to know where so I can pick it up.”
“If you would be so kind, you could watch him,” I said. “If there is anything to pick up, I’ll take care of it after I take a quick look around the cottage.”
The butler looked concerned. “Some dogs become agitated when their owner is out of sight. Will yours mind being alone with me?”
“No. He will love you but not lick you.” I shut the door behind me.
The cottage could be a spread in Country Home magazine. The furnishings had no doubt been chosen by a designer, and Josie had rented it out furnished. Thick upholstered furniture was arranged in front of the gas fireplace. There were woven blankets on the arms of the couch and thick rugs on the slate floor. The kitchen was large and open to the dining and living areas. There was a short hallway that led to a half bath on one end and a luxurious bedroom to the side. Inside the bedroom was a large bath with separate tub and glassed-in shower.
I glanced around, saw nothing personal to Astor, then climbed the steep shipboard ladder to the second floor loft.
There were two bedrooms with sloped ceilings and between them a large tiled bath. One bedroom was used as an office. He had books on the shelves and desk things on the desk, and there were files in the file drawer.
I looked for any items that weren’t common to all offices. There were two things that caught my attention.
The first were several histories of the Sierra Nevada. They were stacked on a corner of the desk. I flipped through them, looking for notes in the margins or pieces of paper stuck in the pages. There was nothing. They looked like something to augment a standard college class. The books appeared to have been read, but they didn’t look worn. Like many books intended for class, they may have been purchased used and never read at all.
The second item that stood out was a roll of paper. I unrolled it across the desk and saw that it was a topographical map of Tahoe, showing detailed elevation lines, which revealed all the mountains and passes and valleys in fine detail to anyone who was familiar with such maps. It appeared to be identical to the topo map I’d seen in March Carrera’s bedroom. Like
March’s map, this one had no extra markings.
I climbed down the shipboard ladder and let myself out.
Spot was bounding around the deep snow. He ran across the drive and jumped into the snow on the other side. At the focal point of his movement, in the middle of the creamy brick road, stood Jamesie, his arms stiff at his side, his legs locked, his body frozen. Spot leaped toward him, stretched out his front legs and sank his chest into the snow. His butt was in the air and his tail wagged at high speed. Then he bounded up into the air, jumped past Jamesie again, flew across the drive and dove back into the snow.
I walked down the creamy brick road toward Jamesie who stood motionless.
“He’s just playing,” I said. “He hasn’t touched you, has he?”
Jamesie didn’t move. He spoke through clenched teeth. “No. Please call him off. I have to go inside and lie down.”
I called Spot over. Jamesie waited until I had my hand on Spot’s neck. Then he walked stiffly toward the portico and disappeared inside.
THIRTY-THREE
Spot and I got into the Jeep and left. After I pulled out of the gate I stopped and took an empty Starbucks coffee cup from the cup holder. I used my pocketknife to slice the bottom off the cup, leaving me with a conical tube. Then I sliced the tube lengthwise so that it opened into a gentle arc of paper. I folded it and slid it into my jacket pocket.
The snow was falling thick enough that it was hard to see as I shifted into reverse and slowly cruised backward into the drive. I stopped where the drive began to curve around into the portico. Anyone wondering why I didn’t continue into the shelter of the portico would assume that I couldn’t easily see through the snow on the rear windshield to navigate the curve in the driveway. They wouldn’t realize that I only did it to justify pulling out my umbrella again. I turned off the engine and got out, closing the door as soundlessly as possible.
I knew the security cameras had recorded my movements. But unless someone rigorously kept track of the time, my movements would seem benign. They would just record me getting out of the car, popping open my umbrella and walking up to the front door. The camera would show that I stayed at the front door for some time, but anyone viewing the recording would merely think that the extended time frame meant I had a long wait before someone came to the door.
The umbrella stayed between me and the camera that pointed at the door. I pulled out the modified coffee cup and re-rolled it into a pronounced cone. The small end went into my ear. The large end went against the door. It was a primitive but effective sound amplifier. While the shouted voices from far within the house were hard to hear, I could still make out the words. Josie was the one yelling.
“...because anyone with half a brain would have thought to say I was out of town. How could you be so dense!”
“If he’d been watching, he would have seen you come in,” Jamesie said, his voice loud and sounding righteous. “If he’d looked in the garage, he would have seen your car. Nothing would arouse his suspicions faster than if I’d appeared to be evasive. He probably knew you were home before he knocked on the door.”
“Then why didn’t you tell him I was in the shower or taking a conference call?”
“I didn’t think of it! And anyway, you were the idiot who gave him details about Astor! You should have just said that the boy got his money from his parents. Telling that detective about Astor selling pot will only raise his suspicions further. He’s a goddamn cop!”
“But he did sell pot!” Josie shouted. “You think McKenna’s stupid? When he asks around and finds out that I told him the truth, he’ll think I was completely forthcoming because I revealed something uncomfortable, that we had a suspected drug dealer living in our house. If a cop has to squeeze you to get that kind of information, he will assume you are hiding something worse. But if you offer it up, he’ll assume you have nothing to hide! Now get out of here and let me think!”
I heard a door slam. With the umbrella still hiding me from the security camera, I folded the cup, put it in my pocket. I still had to justify my second appearance on the security camera. I worked the door knocker.
I heard footsteps approach. The door opened. Jamesie stood glowering at me. He looked past me toward the Jeep.
“What is it now?” he said, forgetting his composure.
“I’m sorry to bother you. When I got out my keys as I was leaving earlier, I think a card fell from my pocket. It had a phone number on it that I need. When I didn’t see it on the floor, I assumed I was wrong and that I’d left it in my Jeep. But it’s not there. Do you mind if I have another look here?”
Jamesie stared at me, then stepped back, looking at the floor. “Well, I don’t see anything on the floor. Could it have flipped into the umbrella vase?” He glanced down into the group of umbrellas and canes.
“Maybe,” I said. I leaned my umbrella against the wall of the house as I stepped inside. I made a little show of looking in the corners, then squatted down and lifted the tablecloth. “Oh, here it is.” I reached under the table and pulled out the card. I stood up and put the card in my pocket. “Very glad I found that,” I said. “Sorry to bother you. Thank you for your time.”
The butler nodded at me and shut the door behind me.
THIRTY-FOUR
“I had several errands to run today, from a meeting at UNR to a library in Auburn,” Street said during dinner at her condo. “So I took my tools and sample jars.”
“Bug lady on patrol?” I said.
“The Carabid Sherlock,” she said.
“And the result?”
“Initially, not good. First, I shoveled away the snow behind my lab where there are some bushes at the base of a group of Lodgepole pines. Like most of Tahoe in a good snow year, the ground doesn’t really freeze because the snow insulates the ground from the nighttime cold. I dug around in the dirt and found a good bit of humus. A good place for Carabid beetles. Beetles live everywhere and leave behind lots of evidence. But I didn’t find anything like Doctor Kylie’s sample. Only a single specimen of a much different species, and an abandoned carabid larval tunnel, dating from last summer.”
“People must wonder about a woman digging in the dirt in the middle of winter,” I said.
“No one saw me here, in Tahoe. But I was quite the attraction at the park in downtown Reno. There were three little kids who kept following me around as I scratched at the ground and studied the dirt with my magnifying glass.”
“Any luck?”
Street shook her head. “Reno is only forty-four hundred feet of elevation, but it is nearly as cold as Tahoe, so I wasn’t surprised. After I was done at UNR, I headed up Interstate Eighty. I pulled off before I got into the Truckee River canyon and drove to a field that is used for ranching. The soil was much richer than in the Reno park, and I found several species of beetles. But they were mostly dung beetles.”
“None like the little guy who took refuge in that girl’s lungs,” I said.
“No. From there I went through Truckee, up over Donner Pass and stopped on the West Slope when I got down to about the same elevation as the ranch land outside of Reno. I’m guessing it was maybe five thousand feet. Because the West Slope of the Sierra gets so much precipitation, the soil is completely different. More beetles, and plenty of Carabids, but still nothing quite like Doctor Kylie’s.”
“You did all this driving just to help me? I’m touched.”
“Actually, no. The library in Auburn has an out-of-print entomology title that doesn’t circulate and I’ve been meaning to look up something in it for years. But I got close in Auburn. I walked over to a vacant lot where there are a couple of Black oaks and a Knobcone pine or two. Under there I found something very similar to Kylie’s beetle.”
“But not the same,” I said.
“Not the same, but a Ground beetle with the same morphology, mouth parts adapted for eating snails and other similar traits. Close enough that I think it serves as a model for Kylie’s beetle.”
I�
��d nearly finished my stir-fried beef and peapods while Street had been talking. “By model, you mean that Kylie’s beetle could have been found in the foothills at a similar elevation?”
“Yeah. What is Auburn, anyway? Twelve hundred feet?”
“Something like that,” I said. “Highway Forty-nine runs from Auburn south to Placerville and on toward the foothills below Yosemite. So our beetle could have been found anywhere in those vicinities.”
Street seemed hesitant. “Maybe. Let’s just call it a hunch.”
We spent the evening in conversation, making detours around the subject of the snow-dog sculpture with the bomb inside, trying to stay with cheerful subjects. But always, the vision of Spot or me walking into a bomb haunted the room.
Eventually, I said goodnight, feeling awkward as always about living in separate quarters from the woman who knew me so well and loved me so deliciously and yet still had enough childhood baggage that she couldn’t give up her independence.
Street got up and fetched her purse. “I almost forgot. I stopped in a store in Auburn and they had a counter display with studs.”
She handed me a small piece of jewelry like what kids put in their noses and lips.
“It’s just a rhinestone, but I think it will make Spot look very hip, don’t you?”
I held it up and looked over at Spot. “For his ear?”
“Of course. His ear has mostly healed, and if I wash the stud well, it should be safe.” She took it from me, washed it with detergent and walked over to where Spot snoozed on Street’s thick floor rug. He was so out of it that he barely lifted his head when she put it in the little hole left by the bomb shrapnel. He flicked his ear a couple of times. The pretend diamond caught the light and made a twinkling sparkle an inch back from the tip of his ear.
“Come on, boy,” I said. “Time for bed.”
He reluctantly got up to accompany me home, his ear still flicking a little, the diamond making little curlicue tracer sparkles.
“Pretty stylish, huh?” Street said.
“Yeah. He looks like a rap star.”