Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (24 page)

THIRTY-NINE

There was a young cop I didn’t know at Simone’s closed door.

“Glad to see you here,” I said. “Mallory told me he was short on staff.”

“I brought her in. Seemed like I should hang around for a bit.” I was pleased to sense a bit of chivalry in his manner. A young woman gets beat up, a young male cop feels protective. At least until he acquires the jaded perspective of some older cops.

“I’m Owen McKenna, this is Street Casey. We’d like to see Simone.”

He pulled out his cell and dialed. “A guy named Owen McKenna and a woman are here,” he said. “Okay to let them in to see the victim?” He paused. “I’m not playing bodyguard. I was supposed to escort her to the hospital, right? Well, they just brought her to the room.” Pause. “No one gave me another assignment, so I’ll be here when you need me.”

He hung up, nodded, and we opened the door and walked inside.

Simone’s shirt sleeve had been cut from the cuff up to the shoulder. There was a large purple bruise on her upper arm. Her forehead was covered with a large bandage, and there was a small bandage on her left cheekbone. Her eyes darted from us to the door and back. She looked terrified.

“Don’t worry, Simone,” I said. “Ned is currently at the police station. There is a cop outside your door. You are safe.”

“I won’t be as soon as I leave here.”

“You will if you agree to press assault charges against Ned.”

“He will kill me if I do! Don’t you understand that?”

“If Ned is arrested and if you stay hiding in a safe house, he won’t be able to find you. You need only see him when you testify in court. Once he is convicted, he will be sent to prison.”

“The trial would last more than a day or two, right?” Simone said.

“Probably.”

“Then he won’t immediately go to prison. There would be evenings after I testify when he could follow me, find me, and kill me.”

“I can detain him. There are ways of making certain that you get to your safe house without him knowing where it is.”

“You don’t know Ned,” she said, and looked away from us.

Street said, “It’s my fault, Simone. I came to your house, and that’s why Ned got angry. I am so sorry!”

“Don’t be sorry,” Simone said. “Ned doesn’t need any reason to get angry. He probably would have hit me anyway.”

Street looked at me, a question on her face. I shrugged. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror,” Simone finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t feel real bad, but the bruise on my face is pretty bad. I peeked under the bandage. My head is the color of an eggplant. Not that I’m not used to it. You probably think I look horrible.” She turned and gave us an expectant look.

“You look bruised, that’s all,” Street said. “The parts that aren’t bruised look beautiful.”

She paused. “Nothing about me is beautiful.”

“Your eyes are,” I said.

“You think my eyes are beautiful?” The surprise in her tiny voice was heartbreaking.

“They remind me of Liz Taylor’s.”

Another pause. “I saw her in A Place In The Sun,” Simone said. “I guess part of it was filmed here in Tahoe.”

A change of subject. I’d seen it before, an insecure woman who changes the subject when complimented.

“Parts of it were filmed here, yes,” I said.

Simone gazed off as if seeing the film set. Eventually, she said, “Have you ever had a dream about something that you would give anything for, and then you realized that it was out of reach? That it was never going to happen?”

“Sure,” Street said. “What’s your dream?”

“That I can run fast. Ski fast. I think it’s about escape. I’ve spent a lot of my life wishing I could escape.”

“From Ned,” I said.

“And my stepfather before Ned.”

Another difficult silence.

“I’m sorry,” Street said.

“My mother married him when I was ten. She was excited that he was going to take us from rural France to Montreal. But she didn’t know that he was more interested in me than in her.”

Street had been lightly holding the back of my arm. At Simone’s words, Street’s fingers dug into my forearm.

Simone took several deep breaths. “I never had many friends in France, but I didn’t know anyone in Montreal. Not that it would have made any significant difference. But I think the loneliness made me even more vulnerable. I had nowhere to turn.”

I waited, thinking that it was better to say nothing than risk saying the wrong thing.

“And I had no way to fend him off,” she said. “Ten is awfully young.”

My turn to wince.

“You’re the first people I’ve ever told,” she said. “I never even told...” she cut herself off. After a moment she said, “My therapist.”

“You didn’t tell your mother?” Street said.

“She wouldn’t have believed me. She thought I lived in a make-believe world, which, I suppose, is true. If I had told her, she would have thought I was making it up to punish her for leaving my father and marrying another man.”

Street said, “Is your father still in France?”

“He died a year after my mother left him. They said it was from some kind of blood disease, but I think it was from a broken heart.”

“What kind of man was your father?” I asked.

“A good man. Plain and unpretentious, but good. He was a stone mason. He did stone carving for buildings. He even worked on a medieval church once. Like a lot of artisans, he was often unemployed. My mother hated that, hated not having money. She wanted a more exciting life. My stepfather was a salesman. He sold real estate in Paris and then in Montreal. My mother loved finally having nice clothes and a fancy car and traveling. Although she had to travel alone or with friends because he didn’t want to travel.”

“Did your mother take you on her trips?”

“She didn’t like traveling with a kid.” Simone’s tone wasn’t angry, but matter-of-fact. “She left me home with him.”

After a moment, Street spoke, her voice wavering, “Do they still live in Montreal?”

“She does. My stepfather died a couple of years after we moved to Canada. A heart attack.” Simone swallowed. “He made my life hell on earth. I wish there were a literal hell, so he would know what it’s like.”

I wanted to learn more about Ned. I said, “How did you meet Ned?”

It was several seconds before Simone spoke. “After high school, I was determined to change my life. I was afraid, of course. Since my stepfather took over my life, I’ve always been afraid of everything. But I looked at the map and decided to apply to colleges that were a long way from Montreal. After my stepfather died, my mother had no money, so I also had to get financial aid. I found both distance and financial help in a little college in Colorado. That was when I first tried skiing. I was no good, but it was exciting, and scary, to try something where you go fast. It’s the opposite of me. I’m not a fast person. I’m not exciting, either.

“Last summer, after my senior year, I went to a high-altitude ski camp. A group of us stayed for three weeks in yurts on a snowfield at thirteen-thousand feet in the San Juan Mountains. The camp’s mission was to teach us ski mountaineering. Ned was one of the instructors. All the girls were crazy about him because he was rough and impossibly good looking. But he singled me out. I couldn’t believe that he was paying attention to me. But I was too naïve to be suspicious.

“I now know, from talking with Rell, that the reason he singled me out was that I fit the personality type that he could dominate. I was meek, so he could take total control over me. Once we started spending time together, he took ownership of me. I had to do everything exactly as he wanted or he would beat me. I feared for my life almost from the first moment. But I was powerless to do anything about it. It was like my stepfather all over again. My life is ruled by fear.”

Simone was breathing hard, traumatized just talking about it.

“I want to leave him,” she said. “I can’t say how much I want to just slip out in the middle of the night and disappear. But I know he would track me down and kill me.”

She looked at me. “You’re probably thinking that I’m being melodramatic, but I know it to be true.”

“Simone, I’m an ex-cop. I know how it works, and I know you are right. If you believe that he would find you and kill you, you are probably correct about it. However, if you make a plan to kick Ned out of your world, perhaps you can start to rebuild your life.”

 Simone made the smallest of nods.

FORTY

“The doctor says that you can leave the hospital tomorrow,” I said to Simone. “Would you like us to pick you up?”

“Yes, but what about Ned? He’ll find me here tonight.”

“There’s a cop outside your door. I’ll tell the nurses at the front counter to keep your room number a secret and to call the police if he shows up. Do you have a picture of Ned?”

She nodded. “In my purse. There’s a little photo holder. I wanted to throw his picture away, but I thought he would be enraged if he ever noticed.”

Street said, “Ned looks into your private places?”

“I have no private places. Ned always looks everywhere.”

We got the photo, said goodbye, and left.

“Any chance you can stay the night?” I said to the cop.

He shook his head. “But I can get Greg to stop by.”

“Mallory won’t mind?”

“No different than checking bank windows at night.”

“Thanks.”

We left Ned’s picture at the nursing counter and explained that if he showed up, they should call the police. I also requested that they not release Simone’s room number to anyone. They understood the importance.

The next day, Street was buried with work, so I picked up Simone at the hospital.

 She looked nervous when she saw Spot in the back seat of my Jeep. He wagged vigorously at our approach.

“Don’t worry,” I said, quoting my standard refrain. “He won’t hurt you, but he will want to sniff you. And he will do anything for pets.”

“I’m scared of dogs.”

“You don’t need to be. Here, let me show you something.” I opened the back door of the Jeep and took hold of Spot’s collar as he stepped out.

“Spot, sit.”

He sat, his tail stretched out behind him, sweeping the parking lot.

I reached for Simone’s hand. She looked suspicious and pushed her hands into her jacket pockets. So I put my hand on her shoulder and gently walked her toward Spot.

“He’d love to sniff your hand,” I said.

Simone’s eyes got wide.

“Don’t worry. The last time he ate someone for lunch was over a year ago. He hasn’t done it since.”

Simone cracked a little grin. She took a baby step forward and held out her hand about eighteen inches from Spot’s nose. He looked eager, but didn’t move, apart from his continuous wagging. Slowly, Simone inched forward until Spot could sniff her hand.

“You can pet him like this,” I said, giving him a delicate little pat between his ears. “Or like this.” I bent over, put Spot in a head lock and wrestled his head back and forth. When I was done, he still looked at Simone and kept sweeping the pavement with his tail.

Simone gave him a pet so tentative, I didn’t think Spot could feel it. But I wasn’t getting her to do it for Spot’s sake. Once past that hurdle, we got into the Jeep.

“Where are we going?” Simone asked.

“If you have a preference, we can go there.”

“I already missed work, so I’ve probably been fired.”

I shook my head. “I called Marilyn and told her that you had another incident with your boyfriend and were in the hospital as a result. She said that you could take a leave for as long as it takes to press charges and get him out of your life.”

“You did that on purpose, right?” Simone said. “You manipulated the situation to get Marilyn to join in pushing me toward filing charges, which will get me killed.”

“No, I didn’t. I merely told her that Ned had assaulted you once again. Marilyn made the generous offer of giving you a leave from your job. Her suggestion that you kick him out of your life didn’t come from me.”

“Everyone is against me.”

“No, everyone is for you.”

We rode in silence. I turned northeast on Lake Tahoe Blvd and pulled into the parking lot at El Dorado Beach in the middle of town.

“What are we doing here?” she asked.

“Just a place to park until we figure out your next move.”

“You have your job to do,” she said. “Why don’t I get out here, and you can go help Joe Rorvik find out what happened to Rell.”

“I think I should focus on you until we sort this out.”

“Why? You have no investment in me. What happens to me has no bearing on you.”

“I want to focus on you because it’s the right thing to do.”

“So this is an effort to help the little wounded woman.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“What’s in it for you?”

“Nothing other than doing the right thing.”

“Tell the truth.” Her words were both biting and pleading.

“I am.”

We didn’t talk for a minute. Spot got up in the back seat, struggled to turn a circle and lay back down. An old man walked by close to the Jeep. I saw his expression change to worry when he realized that Simone’s face was half covered in bandages. He sped up to get away.

“You probably can tell that I don’t have a very good opinion of men,” Simone said.

“With good reason,” I said.

“At times I’ve hated all men.”

“That’s understandable.”

“But you seem different than the kind of men I’ve been around.”

“There are many others like me,” I said.

“I’ve told myself that, too. Like when I met Rell. I thought, if she is so nice, maybe her husband is nice. But when I met him one day, Rell told him that I was interested in the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme challenge, and he was dismissive. Like he didn’t believe someone like me could ever do such a thing. He actually made a scoffing sound. It’s really rude when someone dismisses you.”

“I agree.”

“Even if I could never become a good skier, it is still okay for me to want to try.”

“Absolutely. Tell me more about the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme challenge. Is it a competition?”

“Not against others in any specific way. It’s more a challenge to yourself. The challenge is, can you do it? Can you bag every peak on the course? Then there is the solstice version, which is like the worst of the worst.”

I waited for her to explain.

“The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. That means that the solstice is also the longest night of the year. So, the Solstice Randonnée is done with the least amount of daylight.”

“They don’t ski at night, do they?”

“Most do, yes. But even if you don’t, you have to know how to survive the cold weather at night. You’re up at eight or nine thousand feet camping in a tent. It gets really cold. I heard about one guy who decided to camp near the top of Steven’s Peak. That’s ten thousand feet. Just to stay warm enough means you’re packing a really big sleeping bag plus your tent and a lot of high-calorie food. Carrying enough food for a forty-plus mile journey and then doing it at night makes the challenge that much harder.”

“Randonnée is a French word?” I said.

“Yeah. It means trekking and walking. But it’s been used for ski trekking, too. The Tahoe Randonnée Extreme event combines back-country skiing with ski orienteering.”

“Ski orienteering is where you find your way with a topographic map and compass?”

“Yeah. No GPS allowed. The difficulty with the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme is that it goes through the back-country where the snow is deep and largely untracked. Each person gets a different route through the check points so that no one can follow anyone else. Some routes are a little easier than others, but there is a handicapping system to adjust for that. Compared to normal ski orienteering races, the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme is less about how fast you ski and more about the challenges of extreme terrain. Much steeper slopes than most, some rock and ice climbing where you take off your skis and carry them on your back, and exposed mountains where any weather is more extreme as well. Just finishing the Randonnée Extreme is considered to be a huge accomplishment. If you can document every peak with your phone camera, then you get featured on the website.”

“It sounds like there is a risk of getting lost and stranded.”

“Yes. That’s part of the challenge.”

“You said it goes from Donner Pass to Carson Pass?”

“Yeah, roughly. It starts at Sugar Bowl, and it ends at Kirkwood. But hitting all the peaks means that you go a good way off the main route. Like that guy at Steven’s Peak. That’s a major side trip, but the whole point of the trek is to get our photos from every peak.”

I tried to visualize the course. “The course must go through the Desolation Wilderness? Pyramid Peak and those mountains?”

“Right. You have to be in really good shape. If you have a problem in Desolation, there’s no easy rescue.”

“Have you done anything like this before?”

“Other than the high-altitude ski camp in Colorado, no. That was higher up, but there was a bunch of us, and we lived in heated yurts, and we only went out during the day. This is about going solo, with long nights. So it’s kind of crazy for me to be thinking about it. But I’ve been training for it. Not training like professional racers. But I go out with my gear and try to ski up the mountainside. It’s incredibly difficult. Just to participate in something so difficult would be a brand new experience. I’ve never done anything like it. If I could actually pull off the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme, it would be the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. I would go from thinking that I’m a loser to thinking that maybe I could do anything.”

I sensed Simone turning and looking at me, the big white bandage moving in my peripheral vision.

“It might be true,” I said, turning to look at her. “Maybe you could do anything.”

Simone’s eyes were wet. “Yeah,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be something.”