Tahoe deep, p.18
Tahoe Deep, page 18
part #17 of An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Series
I walked over to the mantle and picked up the same picture I’d looked at before, one that showed Mae in her diving gear. “This turquoise water is amazing,” I said. “It looks like there’s an underwater cliff that goes down very deep.”
“It does. It’s not as deep as Tahoe’s underwater cliff at Rubicon Point. That drops one thousand feet. But Roatan has warm water, and it still goes down over one hundred fifty feet.”
“Did you go that far?”
“Oh, no. My goal is to one day go one hundred feet down. In Roatan, I started doing shallow dives. At the end of the first day, I was up to ten meters, which is a little over thirty feet. The next day, the guides gradually set the marker deeper and I eventually went down to twenty-five meters, which is eighty-two feet. I was scared to death. I almost chickened out. But it helped that the water was so clear and blue. I could almost see my goal marker from up in the boat. So I did my preparation breathing like a meditation. Eyes closed, getting very calm. Then I went. It was… spectacular. I hit the marker, pulled my vest cord, and shot back up to the surface. The entire dive only took one minute, forty seconds, so I had air in my lungs to spare.” Mae grinned. “Honest, Owen, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life, going that deep just holding my breath. I’m going back next winter. I hope to go to thirty-one meters, which is one hundred feet.”
“And that would be what you called a transformative experience.”
“Right. It’s something I read about in the Monterey library. For an experience to be truly transformative, you have to experience something new. You can’t just learn about it and think about it and take classes about it or watch videos. Skiing, ziplining, skydiving, childbirth, mountain climbing, skydiving, performing on stage, whether singing, acting, or standup are all transformative experiences. There are mental ones, too, writing a novel, composing a song or a score, making a scientific discovery, painting a landscape or still life or portrait. All these things have to be experienced to make their mark. You can’t just imagine your way there.”
Mae’s enthusiasm was infectious.
“You’ve thought about this a lot,” I said.
She nodded. “All the time. And even though you have to have the experience to get the full level of transformation, you can still plan for it, visualize it in advance.” She held up her wrist with the large high-tech watch.
“That looks like one of those fitness watches, heartbeat monitor and such.”
“Actually, it does some of that stuff. But the main reason I have it is because it’s a depth gauge.”
“For when you dive,” I said. “It tells you how deep you go.”
“Yes. Records it, too.” She pointed to the watch face. “I keep visualizing thirty-one meters. One hundred feet. I’ll do it eventually. And it will be forever displayed on the face of this gauge.”
“Until you go deeper.”
She smiled. “Right. Who knows? Maybe I’ll go to a hundred feet and then deeper still.”
“What drew you to freediving?”
Mae thought about it. “I think it was the fact that it’s something where you test yourself, discover your limits. And while you can compete with others, the main drive is to see if you can best your previous experience. You’re mostly competing with yourself. It’s completely internal. There is no reward for freediving other than your own sense of accomplishment.”
“Which fits with being a loner scientist?” I said.
Mae made what seemed like a small grin of embarrassment. “I suppose so. Street Casey and I talked about that at lunch. We each pursue work that is primarily about our relationship to a science, not to other people. At one point we were talking about movies we like, and Street said something I found interesting. She said that she likes a medium where you observe people on the other side of the movie screen. In other words, a carefully edited version of people with all the non-essential minutia taken out.”
“Yeah, I’ve witnessed that with Street.”
“I realized that I feel similarly, except that my preferred medium is books. Novels, especially. Instead of dealing with people in person, I like them once removed, characters in stories. Characters in books go through the full range of human experience without the gossip and the kinds of activity that serve no obvious purpose, activity that, in hindsight, seems like wasted time.”
“You sound just like Street,” I said.
“I suppose I am.”
We were silent for a moment.
I said, “I was thinking I’d like to try to get Daniel to spend some time talking to me. If I can get him in a new environment away from the recent stress, I might learn something. I wondered if you thought he’d be amenable to coming with me someplace else? And I wondered if I might need you to help facilitate it.”
“I think it’s a great idea. No, he won’t be amenable to it. Not at first, anyway. But I’d try it. And while I might be a good facilitator, I think he relies too much on me. I think you should try to approach him when I’m at the library.”
“When is your next work day?”
“I’m on tomorrow morning at nine. It would be good if he doesn’t know in advance. That way it’s harder for him to get his defenses up. So I won’t tell him you’re coming.”
“Thanks. May I ask my earlier question again?”
“I forget what it was.”
“Can you think of any scuba divers who stand out. Anyone I should talk to about Daniel or the Steamer?”
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next morning, I stopped by Daniel Callahan’s house at 9 a.m.
Mae had previously explained that Daniel wouldn’t answer the door.
As I walked up to the door, I saw that the living room window had been replaced with attention to detail. The moulding and adjacent siding had all been painted. The window caulking bead was very smooth. Ed Filusch had done a professional job.
I knocked on the door, and, as predicted, Daniel didn’t answer. I could hear Ray Charles singing Georgia. I knocked again. And again. When Ray was done, Boz Scaggs came in with Sophisticated Ladies. The volume was turned up loud, but I thought Daniel would still hear me knocking. I knocked again. Several times.
After a couple of minutes, I decided I’d given him fair notice. So I began knocking continuously. Queen Latifah pushed out Scaggs with Lush Life. The volume went louder. I knocked harder. Hard enough that I had to switch hands after a few minutes to keep from permanently damaging the knuckles on my right hand.
The thing about knocking is that if you don’t stop, and if there is someone inside who is not deaf, you’ll eventually get a response. It might be a shotgun blast through the door. But it’s more likely that the frustrated resident will finally throw open the door in exasperation and yell at you.
I knocked for ten minutes. The music shut off, the door finally opened, and Daniel, shaking with frustration, yelled at me.
“What is wrong with you! Don’t you realize how rude you are being! I have a right to privacy! Go away and leave me alone!” I couldn’t see his eyes behind his aviator glasses. But his body language was so aggressive, it seemed he might try to hit me.
“Hi, Daniel. Owen McKenna, here.”
“I know who you are! The manly cowboy walk is as clear an ID as there is.”
“I’m sorry to bother you. But I need to talk to you.”
“No. I don’t like agitation. I need calm. Doctor’s orders.”
“Talking can help bring calm. You will recall that when we met before, things weren’t very calm. I may have saved you and Mae from being shot to death. You owe me for that. And now you’re going to repay me by answering questions.”
Daniel swung the door shut. I stopped it with the toe of my hiking boot, then gently swung it back open.
“This is an illegal intrusion! I’ll call the police!”
“Please do. They consider you an obstructionist crime victim, unwilling to help them do their job. They’ll be very glad to find out that I’m intruding into your life.”
“You are infuriating.”
“Your grand nephew is dead. Years ago, it appeared that your sister’s boyfriend was killed, which is probably what set all of this off. Mae was nearly killed in your living room. She can rightfully consider that you have an obligation to help law enforcement find the shooter. And right now, my sympathies lie more with her than you, in spite of the fact that you were assaulted.”
“You are a pest!”
“Yes. And I’m going to pester you into talking to me.”
Daniel’s chest was rising and falling with the effort of breathing and raising his voice to me. I felt bad that he seemed so unhappy. But I’d been in this situation enough times to believe that his best chance of reducing his stress was to let me help him.
Daniel backed up across his small living room, reaching one hand behind him until his palm landed on the arm of his rocker, an impressive feat of navigation. He sat down.
I stepped inside the entryway and shut the door behind me. I stayed where I was. I didn’t want to encroach on Daniel’s space any more than I already had.
Van Morrison started singing Brown-Eyed Girl. Daniel picked up a remote and dialed it down to a soft volume. He leaned his head back against the top rail of the rocker. He took a deep breath, his small chest rising. He exhaled slowly. Repeated. It was a good relaxation exercise.
As he calmed, I noticed how his house was very neat. I understood that a blind person would need items all put in their place so they could be easily found again. But Daniel’s house went beyond that to a kind of visual neatness, with everything lined up just so. Like his vanity about his personal appearance, his home’s neatness seemed ironic considering he couldn’t see the results.
In time, Ella Fitzgerald started singing It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.
“You like the classic jazz standards,” I said, hoping it could be a conversational opener.
Daniel nodded. “Forties, especially. Obviously, Van Morrison’s songs don’t fit the bill. But he’s Irish, so I make an exception.”
“I like mix tapes,” I said.
“This is something different. I told Mae what songs I liked, and she put them on one of the new players. She did this thing where I can hit shuffle, and it plays them in a different order each time.”
“How do you know about these new artists like Queen Latifah?”
“You think I just sit around and watch reality shows on TV in my spare time?” Daniel said, without trying to be funny. “I listen to NPR. They have interview programs with musician guests.”
Eventually, I said, “I have several questions I need to ask you if...”
He interrupted, “No, I don’t want to talk here. We should go somewhere else.”
At least, that was an improvement. Now he was willing to talk.
I said, “Mae said that you walk to the supermarket every morning. Why don’t we talk while we walk? We can head over to the Bijou golf course. There are nice walking paths.”
“No. I got hit by a golf ball there. Someplace else.”
“Your choice,” I said.
“Take me out to Emerald Bay. It’s always been my reset place.”
“What’s that mean?”
“When I need to clear my head. You stand on the beach with the castle behind you and the roar of the falls behind it. It makes your problems seem small.”
“I’m happy to take you there. But my dog is in the car. I know you are afr…” I caught myself. “I know that you prefer not to be near dogs.”
“Is he in the back seat?”
“Yes.”
“Can you make him stay in the back seat?”
“Yeah, but he likes to sniff a little. Especially when strangers come into his space. He has a cold, wet nose. I’m pretty sure you won’t like it. But I can guarantee that he won’t hurt you. He’s very friendly.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“I see your point. It’s good to be skeptical of other people’s claims. I’ll open the front passenger door, and you can get in without confronting Spot. He’ll sniff the back of your head, but I’ll try to hold him off.”
Daniel thought about it. “Okay,” he finally said.
I waited while he put on a pair of hiking shoes. He lifted a floppy cloth sun hat off the coat rack. It had a large brim and a safari-style neck flap that draped the sides and back of his neck.
Then he lifted a windbreaker off the coat rack. I helped him pull it on. He took both the white navigation cane and the heavier support cane off his coat rack.
Just before he walked outside, he walked back to the fireplace mantle, kissed his index finger, and used it to touch the framed picture of the young woman.
Outside, he stopped some distance from the Jeep. Spot had his head out the back window. He seemed to stretch himself out toward Daniel.
Daniel faced Spot from ten feet away, his head covered by the hat and his face obscured by the aviators.
Beyond Daniel, half a block down, a maroon Chevy pickup pulled to a stop, and its running lights turned off. I would never have registered its presence but for the fact that no one got out and Mae had talked about a maroon pickup cruising the neighborhood. But it could very well be someone who was pausing to hear the last of a radio program. Or someone who had arrived early to meet one of the Bijou residents.
I focused on Daniel and said, “If you reach out your hand and give my dog a pet and let him sniff you, he will think you’re wonderful. Dogs become less curious when they get familiar with your scent.” As I said it, I thought that Spot would not lose his curiosity about a man shrouded in a hooded hat on a warm summer day, especially if the man would not even hold out his hand for a sniff.
Daniel didn’t react. I thought that perhaps he, too, was sniffing the air. “I can tell he’s very large. What’s his name?”
“Spot.”
Daniel made the smallest of nods. “Just let me into the car. I don’t need to get cozy with your dog.”
“Okay. You have your hat with its neck flap. That will keep you from too much contact.”
Daniel nodded, reached up and snugged the neck flap around the top of his shoulders and around to his cheeks. He did a little sweep with his white cane and took a step toward the car.
I opened the front passenger door and told Spot to stay back, holding my hand out as a barrier. I got Daniel inside, ran around and got in the driver’s side. Spot was putting his nose all over the back of Daniel’s Safari hat. Daniel was hunched forward. His hands gripped the edges of the hat brim and pulled them down. He was no doubt worried, if not terrified. I pushed Spot back again.
I started the Jeep, and we drove away.
Daniel stayed hunched most of the way to Emerald Bay. When Spot gave up and lay down on the back seat, I told Daniel so he could relax a bit. But he remained tense.
The Vikingsholm parking lot was full of summer tourists. There was an attendant to prevent people from trying to squeeze in. I stopped and explained that I was dropping off a blind person and that I would park down the road and come back. The attendant was very concerned that I was adding to the traffic overload.
So, moving very fast, I helped Daniel out and directed him over near a large boulder where he would be protected from drivers who weren’t paying attention as they jockeyed in and out of tight parking spaces. I told him I’d be right back.
As I drove away with Spot, I glanced back at Daniel, standing in the sun, jacket zipped, safari hat cinched down tight, one cane in each hand, waiting for me, a relative stranger, to return. It was likely a familiar situation for blind people. But it demonstrated the dependence on others that people with disabilities sometimes have. It also reminded me that there is more than one kind of loneliness. People like me think of loneliness as an unfulfilled desire for companionship. But for blind people, there is another version. He was standing in one of the world’s most beautiful places, but was unable to see it. I thought that must produce a powerful longing. To not be able to access that most fundamental perception - to look at your surroundings - would be very sad for me. For those of us who weren’t blind, if we suddenly experienced it, it might be heart wrenching.
Because most tourists try to find parking at the head of the bay, I went the opposite direction and drove up the slope to the northeast. Every available place off the side of the road had a parked car. I continued on the highway. About a half-mile up, I found a steeply-sloped place between two trees. I shifted into four-wheel-drive and ground up the embankment until I was off the highway.
I let Spot out, and we jogged back toward the Vikingsholm lot, a half mile away. As we ran, a maroon Chevy pickup cruised past us, coming from the direction of the Vikingsholm lot. The truck’s windows were smoked, so I couldn’t see the driver. Just after the pickup went past us, I heard the sliding grit of hard braking. I turned and saw that the pickup was turning around in the middle of the highway. It made an abrupt K-turn, then raced past us, back down the slope toward the parking lot where I’d left Daniel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
There was no way to know if the maroon pickup was the same one that had pulled up near Daniel’s house. But its actions suggested the possibility that the driver was following us at a distance, saw us pull off the road, and realized that we must have dropped Daniel off someplace, like in the parking lot.
