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

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.”

“Here? In Tahoe?” Felicite’s voice was shrill. She gripped her purse as if to crush it.

“Yes.”

She breathed fast and hard. “Did they die in a fire?”

“No. But they were murdered.”

“Oh, no.” Felicite paled. “And someone tried to kill Adam and me. Are you thinking it could be the same person who killed them?”

“We don’t yet know, but yes, it could be that there is just one perpetrator. Unusual clusters of murder are often related,” I said. “So I’m looking for a possible connection between them.”

“Did you ask Adam about the phone call from Scarlett?” Felicite asked.

“Yes, and he couldn’t remember much. He had to consult his notes.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Felicite said. She looked depressed. “Of course, Adam might have met those people and even spent time with them. But with his memory going, he might not remember their names.” Felicite stood, still holding her purse close to her like it was a security blanket, and walked over to the sheer drapes. She pulled the cord and they parted. She gazed out at the mountains.

Felicite frowned and looked down at her purse. “Oh, my phone is vibrating.” She pulled it out of her purse, slid her finger on the screen, tapped a few times. “My boss. She’ll leave a message.” She tapped again and was putting her phone back into her purse as the window in front of her broke. The tempered window made a loud crumpling sound as it fractured into thousands of diamonds, raining onto the floor.

“Move!” I shouted.

Felicite was frozen.

I rushed her as a rifle crack snapped in the air. It had been maybe a second or more since the glass broke. I wrapped my arms around Felicite from behind, lifted her up, spun her around, and ran with her into the center of the house. I set her down in the interior hallway.

“What’s happening?” she said, her voice weak with terror. She stood with her back to the wall, raised her hands to her mouth and started shaking violently. Her knees buckled. I lowered her slowly to the floor.

“Sit still,” I said as I got out my phone and dialed 911.

“Nine, one, one Emergency,” a woman’s voice said in my ear. “Please tell me your name and address.”

“Owen McKenna. I’m in Zephyr Heights at Ronald Baumgarter’s house. Hold for the address.” I spoke to Felicite, “What’s the address here?” She told me. I repeated it to the dispatcher. “The house is next door to the one that burned down two nights ago. Someone just shot out a window in Baumgarter’s house. No one is hurt.” As I looked back into the room where we’d been sitting, I realized that another window had also been shot. “Make that two windows. But I only heard one shot. From the lay of the land, I think the shooter must have been on the mountain to the east of the house, and the bullet went in one window and out another.”

“Please stay on the line. I have officers en route.”

It was a phrase that was getting very old.

“Call Diamond Martinez. He was the incident commander on the fire next door and the shooting at my cabin yesterday evening. He will want to know immediately.”

“Will do,” she said. “Please sit tight.”

I handed my phone down to Felicite where she sat on the floor, her back to the wall. She looked at it like it was a grenade.

“Take it,” I said. “The dispatcher may have questions for you. I’m going to make a quick check outside.”

“No! You could get shot!” Her voice shook as she began to sob.

“The shooter is probably already gone. Even so, he was a long distance away, and his view through the trees is limited.”

She took my phone. “You just said there was a shooting at your house?”

Felicite’s pronunciation was so thick with fear that I could barely understand her words.

“Yeah. That’s why I have bits of glass in my face.” I didn’t want to think that the shooter had followed me, that my presence had put Felicite at risk. But it seemed obvious. I unlocked the door and went out before she could protest. I ran to my Jeep.

Spot had his head out the window, ears up, no doubt curious at the rifle shot. He wagged as I approached.

“You okay, boy?” I grabbed his head, then opened the door.

I took his collar and ran with him back to the house. We rushed in the front door and back to where Felicite cowered on the floor.

She made a gasp as Spot and I approached.

“This is Spot,” I said. “He’s friendly. He will guard you.” I pointed. “Spot, lie down.”

He resisted and instead leaned toward Felicite to sniff her. I pushed down on his collar. He finally lay next to Felicite, reaching his head over to sniff her.

“Pet him,” I said to Felicite.

She looked at me with wild eyes. She was breathing fast, her nerves on edge.

“I’m serious. Give him a pet so he knows you’re friendly, too.”

She slowly reached out and touched her hand to the top of his head.” Her hand was tiny between his ears.

“Don’t just touch. Give him a real pet.”

She drew her hand over his head and down his neck. Spot began panting.

“Perfect. Now he’s happy, and he’ll stay with you.” I reached for my phone. “Put your hand in his collar and hang onto it. I mean it. Hold his collar.”

She did so.

“He likes that,” I said, which was true. But more importantly, I could see that she was calming. All people under severe stress find a giant friendly dog to be a comfort. “Stay here with Spot,” I said. “I’ll be outside. You’ll hear sirens coming. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to the cops. We’ll keep the shooter away, and Spot will protect you.”

I left them on the floor.

As I stepped outside, I heard the first siren.

While it was nearly impossible to see someone at a distance in the mountain forest, I watched for any sparkle or flash of metal catching sunlight or any movement as someone skied away from the shooting location. But there was no clear shooting location, just a broad mountainside of trees.

I saw nothing.

It was like Scarlett’s shooting at Squaw and the shooting at my cabin. A distant sniper who has an escape plan is nearly impossible to catch. The only difference is that this time the sniper was less accurate than he was with Scarlett. Less, even, than he’d been with me the evening before. It had been impossible to see where the bullet struck because tempered glass is designed to shatter into harmless pieces. Perhaps the round came as close to one of us as it had with me the night before.

The houses in Zephyr Heights were at a lower elevation than my cabin. Here and there on the mountain were bare areas where the sun had gotten through and melted the snow pack. But the mountain still had lots of areas of snow. The shooter could ski down to any number of areas where he could have left a vehicle. He also could have trekked south toward the neighborhood above Round Hill. And if he was in good shape, he could do a gentle climb to the south, bypass Round Hill, and head for Upper Kingsbury. There was no way anyone could predict where he’d come out.

More sirens became audible. I walked out into the middle of the road where there was heavy tree cover between me and the shooter’s probable location. As the first Douglas County patrol vehicle came into view, I stood in the middle of the street.

The vehicle came to a stop and a door opened. I heard someone say, “That’s McKenna.” Two deputies got out.

“I believe the shooter was somewhere on the mountain.” I pointed. “Although he’s probably long gone by now.”

“A sniper like the other shootings, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m guessing the same guy who killed the woman at Squaw and took a shot at me from up behind my cabin yesterday. But of course I don’t know that.”

“Who’s inside the house?”

“Felicite Genoveva, a step-sister of Adam Simms. He was here earlier, then left for a doctor’s appointment.” I pointed toward the burned rubble. “They’re the ones whose house was torched two nights ago.”

Another patrol vehicle raced up behind the first and stopped fast with the scrape of tires on grit. Diamond got out.