Tahoe Deathfall

by Todd Borg

Across the street was a tiny twenty-four hour gro­cery that devoted half its space to liquor, a quarter of its space to girlie magazines and the rest to an astonishing range of foods from caviar to cantaloupes. Though broad in selection, the inventory was shallow to the point of only one sample for each of hundreds of different items stacked floor-to-ceiling. Some were cooked and kept warm in a glass cabinet. I pulled out a plastic bowl that contained an artichoke. I also grabbed a box of crackers while I kept my eye on the front door of the hotel. I knew my plan had a flaw which was how long could I pretend to look at an artichoke while John-the-body was possibly taking a long hot shower to be followed by a four hour nap.

  “Yes, please, can I help you, sir?” said a Korean man behind the counter.

  I put the artichoke and crackers on the counter and was paying for them, thinking I could sit on the curb and make them last several hours, when Smithson walked out of the hotel.

  The shopkeeper sensed my sudden concern and, fearing he might lose a sale if he weren’t quick, counted my change in record time, slipping into his native tongue. I grabbed the bag and ran.

  Smithson was down the sidewalk, sauntering in the spring sunshine. He’d changed into a white leisure suit. The suit coat swung in the breeze.

  I munched crackers while I followed Smithson down three blocks, over one, and down three more. He turned into a small cafe. I approached slowly, aware that my height made me a bad tail. Smithson quickly came back out. I stopped, turned and studied a doorway that had been boarded up with plywood. It had the grading let­ters CDX 1/2” stamped in several places. Gradually, I turned around and saw Smithson watching the sidewalks.

  He was waiting for someone.

  If he was, then I was.

  We waited, he studying the flow of humanity, me studying the plywood. It was obvious when his date appeared. He straightened up, pulled his shoulders back in his best weight-lifter’s pose and stepped his feet apart. She was an equivalent physical standout coming down the sidewalk. Red knit dress. Hem just below her crotch. Charcoal nylons and black spiked heels. She wasn’t as graceful as Street, but she looked good. Probably had the brain of a brook trout, but Smithson didn’t care.

  John-the-body embraced her with feeling. His left hand went to her butt. They forced themselves apart and the two of them went into the cafe.

  For the next hour I waited outside. Twice I man­aged a walk-by. Twice I saw them swooning at each other over a table covered with omelets and hashbrowns and coffee.

  When they finally emerged, arms around each other’s waists, they were so focused on each other that I could have tailed them in a backhoe.

  They had a penchant for up. Whenever an intersec­tion presented a steeper street, they took it. Having for­feited a night’s sleep, I was tired by the time they reached the top of Nob Hill.

  I followed them across the front of the Fairmont Hotel and over two more blocks to an exquisitely restored Victorian painted in cream, lilac and periwinkle. John-the-body paused with his concubine at the front door while she fumbled for a key. They entered the sugar-plum palace and moments later the curtains were drawn across the downstairs windows. In a minute the mini-blinds were lowered over the upstairs windows. Obviously, Smithson and the woman in the red dress would not be seen again until their hormones had found a new equilibrium.

  This time it was clear I had a long wait, so I moseyed toward the financial district and dialed Street on my cell phone.

  “Hi, sweetie,” I said when she answered. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Not me. But Jennifer is prostrate on the couch with her arm draped over his largeness and they have opened one eye each at the sound of the phone.”

  “Tell them they can go back to sleep after Jennifer talks to me. But first, I need to ask a favor. I want Jennifer to contact her grandmother. Otherwise, you and I are going to be arrested on a kidnapping charge. I’m wonder­ing if you could stay with Jennifer until I get back.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Never let her out of your sight?”

  “Owen, I said I would. I understand.”

  “Sorry. I guess my lack of sleep is stressing me. I’ll talk to Jennifer now.”

  There was a pause and then a sleepy, high-pitched hello.

  “Hi, Jennifer,” I said. “I’m calling from San Fran­cisco. Smithson is here and he won’t be back in Tahoe for some time. We still don’t know where Samuel Sometimes is, so I want you to have Street with you at all times. But it would be good if you went back home and comforted your grandmother. Take Street along and she’ll make certain you are safe. As long as you aren’t left alone, you’ll be safe.”

  “No,” she replied matter-of-factly.

  “Jennifer, if you are, in fact, in danger, that danger will only be present if you are alone. I’m convinced of that.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you are convinced that I’m in danger at all.” She sounded wounded.

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I was referring to dan­ger right now because Smithson is in San Francisco and I’m watching him. My guess is that Smithson is who we need to be concerned about. Whether Sam is dangerous or not, he has disappeared and has probably run away to a different part of the country.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not going home,” she said.

  I ignored the comment. “What I’ll do is call you when Smithson does leave. That way you’ll at least know of his whereabouts. Maybe Street can stay with you at your house. Your grandmother never prohibited her from seeing you.”

  “No,” she said.

  “Look, Jennifer. I’m worried about your grand­mother. Not about her feelings, but about what she will do. If she gets rough with the police then they will be forced to get rough with me and Street for harboring a fugitive.”

  “I wasn’t here. I don’t even know where Street lives,” Jennifer said. “I think you know about my resolve,” she continued. “No matter how they interrogate me I won’t betray Street’s confidence and help.”

  I didn’t know what to say. The kid had her mind made up. “They won’t interrogate you. But they will fig­ure out where you are. They’ll find you and come to pick you up. It’s only because they are concerned about your safety.”

  “Then they should leave me alone. I’ll stay here with Street and Spot. Street said I could. As long as I want.”

  I must have breathed heavily.

  “Please don’t sigh, Owen. I know I’m safe here. I know I’m not safe at home. I think we’ve seen enough evi­dence of that.” She sounded testy.

  “Then you might at least call your grandmother. Tell her you’re all right.”

  “Maybe,” Jennifer said.

  “May I talk to Street again, please?”

  I heard the phone being handed over.

  “When are you coming back?”

  “Don’t know. Probably when Smithson does. I’ll keep following him. If he makes any kind of move toward Jennifer then that might be enough to get the D.A. to move on him. I’ll lay odds he killed his wives. It would be a nice coincidence to nail him on those murders while catching him making an attempt on Jennifer.”

  “Well, good luck. Speaking of coincidences, remember the green beetle I couldn’t identify that was dig­ging in my soap in the bathroom and the same soap in the hall closet?”

  “I’m trying to remember.”

  “Well, I caught it in the bathroom and put it in a jar. The next day I saw one in the closet. Turned out it was two different bugs after all. Rare insects. But the same kind. Same activity. Just goes to show that coincidences do happen now and then. Thought you’d be interested.”

  “You keep watching those bugs. Never know what you will learn. What about the maggots you got off of the body? Figure out a time of death, yet?”

  “No. I need more readings on the hygrothermo­graph. Another day at the minimum.”

  We exchanged I-love-yous and said goodbye.

  I walked back to Nob Hill, vaguely hoping that I would find a bookst
ore that might distract me from the gumshoe task at hand.

  I found a newsstand, but it specialized in scandal rags. I wasn’t interested in Burt Reynolds’ toupee or top­less photos of the movie star of the week or the one-legged Florida woman who gave birth to identical twins whose father was an alien from Mars. So I hiked back up Nob hill.

  Nothing had changed at the lilac and periwinkle Victorian. The main-floor curtains and the second and third-floor blinds were still drawn. I wandered around the nearby grassy boulevards and found a tiny park with a statue and a memorial plaque that told of the great contri­butions a Nineteenth Century silk importer had made to San Francisco society. Above the plaque stood a bronze statue of the man. He wore flowing robes. One hand touched his chest and one arm reached out as if he were declaiming his own virtues. I sat down on a concrete park bench underneath his outstretched arm and noted that by craning my neck to the left I could spy on the front door of the woman with the red dress.

  Was she rich? Was she Smithson’s next victim? Or was he truly finding happiness this time? Maybe she had been the goal of his plan all along. Marry a wealthy woman and then kill her for the money with which to entice and seduce the young nymph in red. Maybe there wasn’t enough money? No problem. Find another rich woman and do it again. Eventually, there would be sufficient dol­lars to buy the nymph her own Victorian with a view of the Bay. But if that was the plan, why stay in Tahoe? Was the Lycra Lady in Incline Village his mountain girl? Did it take two nubile young women to keep him satisfied?

  I wasn’t sure if any of it made sense. My mind wandered to Street and then to Glennie and from there to the woman in Hopper’s painting, New York Movie. Hopper was exploring loneliness. Looking at the painting, it was clear how powerful loneliness is. The young woman’s future was going to be shaped by her iso­lation or her efforts to prevent it.

  But is the desire for companionship enough to drive a person to murder?

  On first thought, it appeared that Smithson killed his wives out of lust for money. But no one murders because it’ll be easier to pay the electric bill. Instead, isn’t murderous money lust often part of a dream of finding true happiness with a perfect companion, possibly some­one in a red knit dress whose attentions come at a high price? In other words, the ultimate escape from loneliness?

  Or maybe Smithson killed because his affairs were found out. Rather than risk divorce and the elimination of his allowance which he used to support his habit, he mur­dered to maintain his access to those women with tight clothes and periwinkle houses. Women who kept him from feeling the crush of being alone physically if not spir­itually.

  Of course, some people murder out of jealousy. His wives may have devoted their attentions elsewhere. But what is jealousy other than the fear of losing the com­panionship that we all desperately desire? Again, fear of loneliness seemed a principle motivator in our actions.

  What about anger? Many of the murders I’d inves­tigated in my past career were borne of anger, often the quick anger of a barroom brawl. But just as often the anger was fomented by the onset of loneliness. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl to another boy. Boy might not even like the girl enough to be jealous. But boy is angry enough, lonely enough, to murder.

  Hopper was asking me to focus on loneliness. I munched more crackers and ate the last of my artichoke, flicking the leafy detritus into a nearby trash bin as I thought about Smithson and loneliness. Some­thing wasn’t right. Smithson and loneliness weren’t natu­ral companions. Instead, if I asked myself the question, where is the most loneliness in the Salazar mix, the answer would be the caretaker, Sam Sometimes. This confused me. Hopper pointed to loneliness and that pointed away from Smithson.

  Then I remembered what Street had said about the bug eating the soap that turned out to be two bugs after all. She said they were the same rare species, pursuing the same rare activity.

  I sat up straight.

  Were two murderers working at the same time? Could both John Smithson and Sam Sometimes be closing in on Jennifer? Was there some other connection to the Salazar family that I’d missed?

  I’d limited myself to thinking that there was only one killer in any given situation. If John Smithson killed both his wives, then he was a premeditating killer. I’d seen him follow Jennifer on her bike, and he was gone from his house at precisely the same time we’d seen someone turn­ing on lights in the Salazar mansion. Further, the distance from his house to Salazars was enough that the engine of his BMW would have been very hot, just as I’d estab­lished. The combination made him my number one sus­pect. Yet, like Street’s bugs, Sam Sometimes could also be killing in close proximity to Jennifer. First Melissa, now Maria, and possibly others in between. Which meant that just because Smithson was in the house down the block from me didn’t mean that Jennifer was safe.

  And I’d just told her to go home. Maybe it was bet­ter for Street and me to take our risks with the police.

  I dialed Street on my cell phone, but my battery died just as it started to ring. I sprinted down the block looking for a pay phone. Of course, there were none in sight. I finally found one in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel.

  “Street!” I nearly yelled when she answered. “Is Jennifer still there?!”

  “Yes, Owen, what’s the matter?”

  I stood there panting. “Good. Thanks. I’ve changed my mind. I want you both to stay put. Don’t go out at all.”

  “Owen, talk to me.”

  “I might be wrong.” My breath was labored. “What you said about the unusual beetles. Same kind. Same activity. But different bugs.”

  “Oh, my God,” Street said. “You mean there are two murderers after Jennifer?”

  I could hear Jennifer exclaiming in the back­ground. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. Keep Jennifer there. I’ll call you back before you leave for work. In the meantime I’ve an idea about how to find out about the missing caretaker.”

  TWENTY-THREE