Tahoe Blue Fire (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 13)

by Todd Borg

  “How soon is eventually?” Maybe the question was a bit forward, but it seemed that Adam led me there.

  “Depends on if I have Early Onset Alzheimer’s or if I have CTE. I forget what that means. With one, I’m supposed to last several years before I die. With the other, I have less time. They haven’t decided which I have. Some doctors think I have both. If that’s the case, I’ll probably be dead in less than a year. Maybe a lot sooner than that.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Adam’s words were bracing. But he spoke with casual intonation. It was something he’d come to accept.

  He glanced at me, then looked down as before.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “You were awake when the house fire started.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I believe it was around three in the morning?” I said.

  Another nod.

  “Where were you at the time?”

  “In the kitchen.” His voice was very soft.

  “Why were you up?”

  “I… I couldn’t sleep.”

  “So you went downstairs to get something to eat or drink?”

  He shook his head. Still didn’t look at my face. After a long pause, he said. “I was working on an idea, and I got up to write it down.”

  “Would you be willing to tell me what your idea was?”

  “I’m a poet. You probably wouldn’t understand. It was a poet thing.”

  That was interesting. “I’m still curious,” I said.

  “If I tell you, you’ll just roll your eyes. The big tackle fancies himself a poet.” He picked up the sketchbook, glanced at the open pages, then closed it, holding the book with both hands as if it were precious and sacred.

  “I won’t roll my eyes. Terry Bradshaw is an actor and author. Rosie Grier from the Los Angeles Rams does needlepoint. That old Purple People Eater Alan Page is a Minnesota Supreme Court Justice. Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs writes comic books. The Ravens kicker Justin Tucker is an opera singer. Poetry kinda fits right in.”

  “So you know about football players,” Adam said.

  “A bit.”

  Adam glanced right and left, shifting his weight in the chair. He rarely looked me in the eyes. “Okay. I was working on an issue of prosody,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  He took a long breath. “Prosody is the flow of prose. The rhythms. Cadences. Beats. The meter. It’s also about the sounds of consonants, vowels. Alliteration. Harmonies and dis… Dis…”

  I tried to think of what word he might be searching for, but nothing appropriate came to mind.

  “Discordant phrasing,” he finally said. “I have the most trouble with D words. Anyway, the sensation you get from the cumulative flow of the words of poetry and prose is all affected by the prosody. Think of it as the music of words.”

  “That’s what you were working on in the middle of the night?”

  “Yeah. I call the importance of prosody Langston Hughes’ law. My phrase. Hughes was a minimum daily required vitamin in the grade school where I grew up.”

  “He wrote Dreams, right?” I said.

  Adam raised his eyebrows for a moment, surprised. “I’ve been holding onto my dreams from the beginning. And this poem I’m working on pays homage to Hughes’ broken wing metaphor. Hughes was a master of prosody.”

  “And you were writing down an aspect of prosody,” I said.

  “One doesn’t write an aspect of prosody. One writes something, anything, and then examines it for characteristics of good prosody or bad prosody. I’m working on a series of poems about wildness.”

  “Wildness,” I repeated to make sure I heard him correctly. “Thus the broken wing metaphor,” I said.

  Simms continued, “Wildness is that aspect of the world that is being lost as humans put their stamp on every square foot of the planet. Thoreau said that ‘in wildness is the preservation of the world.’ And John Muir wrote about wildness as where we find hope for the world. There is almost no place where we haven’t walked the ground at best, stomped and crushed the ground at worst. Almost all other species are under stress as a result of us and our lifestyle. Wildness is disappearing, and we can never get it back.”

  “It doesn’t sound to me like you have any kind of brain injury,” I said.

  “It’s like muscle memory. If I’m using the same circuits over and over, I remember. If not, my brain is on fast-evaporate.”

  “Have you written a lot of poems?”

  He looked at the sketchbook in his hands. “I’ve filled ten or twelve of these.”

  I got a sick feeling. “I hope they didn’t burn up in the fire.”

  Adam made a single nod. He held up the sketchbook. “This is all I have left.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  We sat in silence for a long moment.

  “Tell me what happened after you got up,” I said. “Did you hear the crash of the firebomb on your front porch?”

  “No. Blondie heard it.”

  At that, the yellow Lab lifted her head and looked at him. He pet her.

  “And she barked,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yes. She ran to the front room and barked continuously. I followed and saw the flickering light from the flames coming through the drapes.”

  “What happened next?”

  “When I saw the fire on the front porch, I knew the fire would go first into the overhang above the front porch. That’s where my sister Felicite’s bedroom was. So I shouted for her to wake up while I ran out to get the hose. But I couldn’t find the hose faucet because it was buried in snow. I went back inside to check on my sister. She was dialing nine, one, one. Before the firemen could come, the house was de… de…”

  “Destroyed?” I said.

  “Yeah. The kitchen was at the back of the house. If Blondie hadn’t heard the sound, the fire might have gotten into Felicite’s room before I was aware that the house was burning.”

  I said, “Whoever tossed the bomb intended to burn the house down. The question is whether it was an act of arson or a specific attempt on your life or your sister’s life.”

  Adam nodded slowly. “I’ve wondered that, too.”

  “Can you think of any reason why someone might want to cook you and your sister inside your house?”

  “No. Except, wackos target celebrities, right? I’m not that much of a celebrity, but I still get nasty emails from people who said I was too hard on the quarterbacks. So I don’t think Felicite was the target. And there is another reason why I could be a target.”

  I didn’t expect that answer.

  Adam could see that I was waiting for his explanation.

  “I got a call from a woman,” he said. “I only know her first name, which was…” He frowned. He pulled out his phone, tapped a few times, and said. “A woman named Scarlett. She said that she thought I was in danger. She said there were other people who were also in danger and she was going to call them, too. She said I should be extremely careful wherever I went, whatever I did. Then she hung up. I don’t remember ever meeting this Scarlett. It was distressing. A stranger telling you that you and other strangers are in danger.”

  “Did Scarlett say anything to indicate how she knew you? Or knew about you?”

  “No. Maybe she’s a stalker.”

  “Have you talked to her at any other time?”

  “Not that I remember. To my knowledge, we’d had no contact before. And I don’t remember any time before the call when I might have met her. But I can’t constantly make notes of everything that happens. And even when I think to myself that I should make a note about something, by the time I get out my phone, I often forget what it was.”

  “Any idea how Scarlett got your number?”

  He shook his head.

  I said, “There was a woman named Scarlett Milo who was shot and killed at Squaw Valley two days ago.”

  Adam jerked. Blondie lifted her head of
f his lap. He made a severe frown.

  “It was the middle of the afternoon. That night, your house burned down.”

  “What do you know about her?” Adam asked.

  “Very little. She believed she was in danger, and she called me. I was unable to prevent her murder. It’s possible that she knew a young woman from South Lake Tahoe named Darla Ali. Darla Ali is also dead.”

  I watched Adam’s face as I said the name. He looked shocked. “Never heard of her, either,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “Where were you at three in the afternoon two days ago?”

  “Was that when Scarlett was shot?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re wondering if I have an alibi.”

  “Do you?”

  “No. I can’t remember my days. Maybe Felicite would know. But I don’t remember if she was around or not.”

  I continued, “You might have been dead, had you not been up when the arsonist lit the fire. Someone also tried to kill me yesterday evening. Presumably because I’m investigating the crimes.”

  “What happened? Did someone burn your house?”

  “No.” I explained what had happened and pointed to my red, swollen face.

  Adam’s alarm was palpable. “So Scarlett was right about everything she said.”

  “It would appear that way. Do you recall a person named Sean Warner?”

  Adam shook his head. “Is that another person who’s been killed?” He looked about to cry.

  “Yes,” I said. “Do you have any memory of recently meeting a young man or a young woman?”

  “No.” Adam looked sad and frustrated. “You said that Scarlett was shot. And you were shot at. How did the others die?”

  “They were both run over by a rotary snow blower.”

  Adam’s entire face seemed to fold into a mass of deep wrinkles.

  “Were their deaths an accident?” He said it with a touch of hope in his voice, showing that universal belief that even though the result was the same, death by accident was somehow less bad than death by malice. It was what Diamond had said about Thomas Aquinas. Intentions matter.

  “No, their deaths look intentional,” I said. “Let me change the subject,” I said. “Do you know what the phrase medic’s BFF means?”

  Adam turned and stared at the wall. “I’ve heard of BFF. Or maybe I’ve seen it. I can’t remember what it means.”

  “Some people use it as shorthand for Best Friend Forever. Does that ring a bell?”

  Adam made a slow shake of his head. “I’m sorry, no. This is overwhelming. I’m getting very confused.”

  “I’m sorry, Adam.”

  “Me, too.”

  Adam’s phone started playing the Jackson Browne song, Doctor My Eyes. “That’s my timer.” He picked it up and pressed a button. “It’s a reminder for my doctor’s appointment. I have to leave in five minutes.”

  “Where is your appointment?”

  “It’s in South Lake Tahoe. Near the hospital.”

  “Who’s your doctor?”

  He frowned again. “I don’t remember. But I know the building and I know where the doctor’s door is. Down the hall at the end. On the right. He does these tests on me. He says I’m helping the cause of science.” Adam gently set Blondie on the floor, then stood up.”

  “Does Blondie come with you?”

  “She goes everywhere with me. She’s a service dog. I keep her bib in the truck. I put it on her when I go places so she can get into buildings.”

  “Ah,” I said. He didn’t volunteer what kind of service dog. Maybe he just meant it in a general sense. Or maybe his brain injury had given him a kind of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Blondie helped him stay calm.

  I stood up. “Thanks for talking to me.”

  He nodded. “Sure.” He looked at his phone, tapped on it. “Mr. McKenna,” he added.

  “Right,” I said.

  I followed him out. From the front door of Baumgarter’s house, Adam turned and walked over toward the burnt house. To the side was a garage that was singed, the paint on the siding bubbled and peeled, but it hadn’t burned. Adam lifted the garage door, walked inside and opened the door of a silver pickup. Blondie jumped inside, then Adam followed.

  He started the engine, backed out of the garage, turned and drove away without seeming to notice me standing nearby. Maybe he’d already forgotten who I was. I watched Adam’s truck recede around the curve.

  I was about to lower the garage door when a black Audi drove up from the opposite direction that Adam had gone. The woman driver stared at me with concern. I stepped back to give her a wide space. She hesitated, then must have decided that I wasn’t dangerous. She parked next to the garage. A tiny woman got out. She wore stylish clothes, brand new as if she’d been shopping. She had unusual black eyes that seemed part Asian and part African. Her skin was lighter than Diamond’s. Her hair was cut very short and straight.

  “Hi. I’m guessing that you are Felicite,” I said.

  NINETEEN

  “Yes, I’m Felicite,” she said. She stared at my swollen face and clutched her purse to her chest as if she thought I might be about to snatch it and run away.

  “I’m Owen McKenna. I’m an investigator looking into your fire.”

  She frowned.

  “You can call Sergeant Diamond Martinez for verification, if you’d like. I believe you spoke to him after your house burned down.”

  Felicite considered me for a moment.

  “I’ve been talking to Adam,” I said, hoping that would make her more comfortable. “He just left for his doctor’s appointment. I’d like to ask you a few questions, please.”

  She looked around as if considering whether we should talk in the street. “Have you met my neighbor, Ronald Baumgarter? He owns the house where we’re staying temporarily.”

  “Yes, we met. He took me in to see Adam, then left. After a bit, Adam’s phone alarm rang, and he said he had to go to a doctor’s appointment.”

  Felicite nodded. “We can go inside. I don’t think Ron will mind.”

  I followed her back inside Baumgarter’s house. Felicite didn’t go to the living room where I’d spoken to Adam, but instead took me to a sun room on the mountain side of the house, opposite the side that faced her burned house. She probably preferred it to the living room because it didn’t have a view of the rubble of her house.

  The sun room projected out and had windows on three sides. There was a small couch on the back wall, and in one corner were two leather chairs arranged in front of a gas soapstone stove. Between the chairs was a small table and lamp. Day or night, it would be my favorite room if it were my house.

  As with the living room’s big windows, the sun room windows had sheer drapes that provided privacy from the outside but allowed views of the forest and the mountain from the inside. Felicite took one chair, I took another, and we both sat facing the stove and the mountain above.

  “Adam told you about the fire,” she said.

  “Yeah. I’m wondering if you have any idea why someone would want to burn down your house.”

  “No. It was a mindless, senseless act. All I can think of is what Adam said. That it was either random arson or some disgruntled football fan who wants to punish him for tackling those quarterbacks all those years ago.”

  “Do you believe it?” I asked.

  “I have no evidence to believe one thing or another. Adam’s idea seems as good as any other idea.”

  “Can you think of any reason why you could be the target?”

  Felicite looked at me with puzzlement. “You need to understand that I’m pretty much a nobody. I work as an accountant for Actuation Tronics, Inc., a tech company that no one’s ever heard of.”

  “What do they do?”

  “ We make electronic actuators.”

  “What are those?”

  “Actuators are devices that turn energy into physical movement. The incoming energy can be electric or wind or heat or wave motion or
anything you can think of. They are used in a thousand kinds of industrial products. They come in every size from huge to microscopic. The kind of actuators that most people are familiar with are remote control door locks on cars.”

  “Ah,” I said. “The world is full of people who earn a living doing something the rest of us have never thought about.”

  “That’s my point. No one cares about what I do. Most people in the company don’t even know me. I earn a decent income, but nothing that would get any attention. Not many people seem to like me much. But the flip side is that no one out there really dislikes me, either. At least, I hope not. I have no close friends, and no enemies, either. The only person who has ever really cared about me is Adam.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “I used to be San Francisco PD. Where in The City are you?”

  “In the Sunset district. The company I work for is in the SOMA district.

  “South of Market,” I said.

  “Right. But even though SOMA is pretty close and I can take the bus, I mostly telecommute.”

  “Do you think that whoever lit your vacation house on fire knew you were up at the lake visiting?”

  “Probably not. I just come up when I can to check on Adam. He has some memory issues, and I worry about him being alone. Adam still gets attention wherever he goes. But not me. So unless someone was spying on Adam, no one would know when I’m up at the lake.”

  “Does the term medic’s BFF mean anything to you?”

  “Well, I don’t know about medic, but BFF is Best Friend Forever, right?”

  “Yeah. Have you heard of BFF in any other context?”

  Felicite shook her head.

  “Do you know a woman named Scarlett Milo?” I asked.

  “No, why?”

  “What about Darla Ali?”

  “No. Oh, wait, Adam said he got a phone call from a woman named Scarlett. The woman thought Adam was in danger.”

  “What about the name Sean Warner?”

  She shook her head. “What’s this about?”

  “They are all people who’ve died recently.”