Tahoe deep, p.3
Tahoe Deep, page 3
part #17 of An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Series
Mae’s embarrassment at Callahan’s rude comments seemed to give way to alarm at my statement, which probably sounded combative. She looked at me with wide eyes. I nodded at her and made a little jerk toward the door with my head.
“I saw that movement,” Callahan said. “I may be legally blind, but I saw that. You two are conspiring against me.”
Mae set the mug of tea down on the fireplace mantel next to a framed black-and-white photo of a young woman, then walked around to stand in front of the man.
“Daniel, Owen McKenna may be moving his head and trying to get me to leave. But I’m not conspiring with him. I just called him because I’m worried sick about you. And I’m so afraid you’re hurt really bad. But you’re too stubborn to do anything about it. That poem I told you about, ‘No man is an island’ is true, even if you don’t believe it. You can sit here in this house and die for lack of care. But the result wouldn’t just stay with you. It would probably bring joy to the guy who beat you up. But it would bring great sadness to your neighbors and the people you know. The people who sell you your morning donut and coffee every day. The woman who cuts your hair, and your dentist, and the guy who clears the snow, and the young man who cleans your house. And it would affect me.” Mae’s voice was wavering and cracking. “Greatly. More than you’ll ever believe. More than you want, I know. And I’m sorry about that. But there it is, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
Mae turned, held her head high, and walked out of the house.
Daniel turned his cloudy eyes to me and said, “Mae O’Sullivan is my one buffer zone protecting me from the world. Now she’s working with you. So I’m stuck here with you badgering me. This is what I get after a lifetime of minding my own business. This is what happens when I’ve hurt nobody, when I’ve committed no crimes and caused no strife beyond the trivial nonsense reactions that come from people who don’t like it that my approach is matter-of-fact instead of ingratiating and fawning.” He made a little jerk as if something startled him. He immediately used his hand to feel around his lap and the seat of the rocker. Not finding what he was looking for, he moved his hand to the arm of the rocker and slid his fingers from the end back to where the rocker arm joined the chair back. His hand hit a pair of sunglasses that hung there. He lifted the glasses to his face and put them on. Then he used his hand to smooth his hair.
The effect was surprising and charming. The old blind man was vain enough to try to look good even when the only person who could see him was a pesky intrusive investigator he didn’t invite in or want to talk to.
Daniel Callahan’s hair was white and cut to a medium length. It looked stylish. But the glasses really stood out. They were the metal aviator style favored by pilots and some movie stars, and their lenses were mirrors of metallic gold.
“I better talk to Mae,” I said. I turned and followed Mae as if I were going to talk to her outside. But once I was through the front door, I paused. Mae had stepped past the carpenter and his sawhorses and was heading back to her house. Spot still had his head out the Jeep’s window. He watched her. Then he looked at me. I peeked back into the living room.
Daniel Callahan was bent forward in his rocker, the palm of his uninjured right hand to his forehead. He bounced it against his head, making a muted slapping noise. He seemed to float away from the moment, his attention on something else. He smacked his forehead again. And again. With each blow he made a kind of painful vocalization, heavy exhalations combined with grunting, like a child having a temper tantrum. Instead, it was an outburst of frustration from a man in his 90s who seemed about to lose his sanity. I thought he was going to have a stroke from pressure buildup. Then his repetitive grunts became more like the beginnings of a word trying, but unable, to escape his mouth. Finally, he stopped hitting his hand against his forehead and spoke under his breath, through clenched teeth, his voice a hiss of anger that I only heard because I was close and the room was quiet. “You think you can break me?” he said. “Fine. Just try it.”
I stepped back into his living room. “What’s that, Mr. Callahan?” I asked.
He gave himself a little shake as if coming out of a trance. “What’s what? You’re back. Go away.”
“You said, ‘You think you can break me? Fine. Just try it.’ What does that mean?”
Callahan lifted his face and the aviator mirrors toward the ceiling, the details of which he couldn’t see. His face was a map of stress and worry lines.
Callahan reminded me of past times when I’d dealt with innocent victims of violence. A sudden wave of anger went through me.
“I know this is difficult, Mr. Callahan. Having someone use you for a punching bag is profoundly disturbing. Having someone break into your house and threaten you will drive you to do whatever it takes to make it go away. You also want revenge. You want to punish the bastard who assaulted you. I can probably help.”
“No. Go away. I shouldn’t have to repeat myself.”
“No, sir. I won’t go away. You’re going to have to listen to me. I was on the San Francisco Police Department for twenty years. At the end, I was a Homicide Inspector. I put away some really vile, disgusting people. And when I caught them, it was like slaking an appetite. I got the chance to hold them down for a minute, and I felt the power of right versus wrong.
“So when I see your broken front door and, much worse, your bruises... When I see you wince as you move injured joints, it brings back that hunger. I want to track this dirtball down and put him away for a long time. But before I ease up on him, he and I will have an understanding. That he is done being a predator.
“Those are the feelings that drive me into this, Mr. Callahan. You should know that the ones who threaten never let up until you give them what they want. So this man is, no doubt, coming back to torture you some more. But the bigger problem is that after he extracts that last bit of information from you, it will give him cause to kill you because you will be of no more use to him.”
I pushed an upholstered footstool over in front of Daniel’s rocking chair. I sat down on it and leaned toward Daniel.
His face turned left and right. In spite of the sunglasses, he was no doubt assessing the gray essence of my shape and size.
I waited, silent. Daniel didn’t respond. The man had been on his life tour for twice as long as I’d been on mine. Like most old people, he knew more than I did about most things. One of those things would be the balance between patience and action, calm and fury.
“What do you say?” I asked. “Will you let me go after the man who tormented you? All I need is for you to tell me what happened.” I said. “I already know the basics. Someone forced himself into your house. Nothing significant was taken. So that suggests that he demanded you give him information. When you didn’t acquiesce, he hit you, over and over. When you still didn’t bend to his wishes, he threatened you. There are lots of ways to intimidate victims. The easiest is to threaten to maim those you care about. He probably said, ‘Tell me or I hurt your family members. Or your neighbor Mae.’”
Daniel Callahan was shaking with fear. I hated making him revisit the terror. But I knew it might be the only way to save him. “If you don’t do what he says, he will try to do what he’s threatened. Maybe I can prevent that. Maybe not. But the problem is you’re trapped. Even if you do exactly what he says, he’s likely to silence you after you give him what he wants. There’s just too much risk for him. He knows that you may remember something that will allow law enforcement to track him down. And it’s easy to rationalize killing you. You’re old. You don’t have that much time left. Yes, that sounds harsh. But it’s how psychopaths think. They do whatever it takes to get what they want. And they do whatever they can to cover their tracks afterward.”
I expected him to rally his previous bluster and yell at me again to get out of his house.
Instead, he was silent.
I stood up. “You said ‘You think you can break me? Fine. Just try it.’ That implies the man tormenting you will come back to pressure you more. And you’re going to be tough and not give in. But what if he follows through on his threat? You’re probably assuming he won’t hurt Mae or anyone else. You think he’ll come back to pressure you first. You might be right. But what if you’re not?”
Daniel made shallow, fast rocking motions in his chair. His head shook. He didn’t speak.
“I know some techniques for undermining tough guys who want to pressure you. They’re effective, but they take time to put in place. So we can’t dawdle. I’ll come back in, let’s say, two hours. That’ll give you time to gather your thoughts. Okay?”
Daniel Callahan didn’t respond. He lowered his face as if to stare at the floor. He seemed as broken as a person can be. He was likely wrestling with a maelstrom of fear, images of Mae or someone else being beat up or worse. It was a tough dilemma. If Callahan talked to me, he would worry that the retribution on the part of the assailant might be severe. But if he didn’t talk to me and instead told the assailant what the man wanted to know, the guy might still maim and kill to cover his tracks.
There was a third possibility, which was that Daniel Callahan might not have the information or whatever it was the assailant wanted. Callahan might think he could convince the man of that fact. But Callahan would eventually realize the folly of that idea.
Each of the choices was as dark as a person can face, the knowledge that their actions could lead to murderous violence. It would take time.
“See you in a couple of hours,” I said. “You and I will talk. Then we’ll make a plan to take this guy down.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I walked back out through Daniel Callahan’s front door. Ed, the carpenter, had the replacement panel fitted into the door. He was holding the door up into the door frame. I paused to help him position the door. He leaned in very close, his eyes just an inch from the top of the three hinges, trying to see the position. His glasses were as thick as ashtrays.
When the door came into alignment, he slid the pin down an inch or two until friction stopped it. Then he bent down to fit the bottom hinge, again almost touching the hinge with his nose in order to see what he was doing. Once all three pins were positioned, he started tapping them down with his hammer.
Ed straightened up, glanced very briefly at me, his eyes magnified by his glasses. He made a nod of acknowledgment but didn’t speak. As he turned back to the door, I noticed that his right knee seemed very thick inside of his jeans. His leg was a little bent, and he hobbled a bit. Maybe his knee had been damaged at the same time his vision was compromised.
I stepped onto the small landing and walked down the three front steps.
I glanced around at the yard and saw the broken wood panel that had been shattered by the intruder’s well-placed kick. The panel had been just below the doorknob. An easy height to kick in, and it was close enough to the doorknob to reach in through the opening to open the door.
The wood used for the door panels was plywood with beveled edges. Because of the alternating plies, the broken piece hadn’t split into separate pieces, but had folded at a 30-degree angle, bent where the shoe had stuck and gone through the panel. From the damage, it seemed the person kicking the door had succeeded in plunging his shoe most of the way through the panel. Maybe all the way.
I leaned over, picked up the broken wood, and held it up to the daylight. On the splinters of broken wood were some white threads and fuzz. Maybe it was nothing. But I visualized the assailant’s sock catching on the wood splinters as the man kicked through the door and then pulled back to extract his foot. Or the fibers could have come from the man’s sleeve when he reached in to unlock the door. Maybe Mallory’s crew had already processed it. Maybe not.
“You don’t need this broken wood, right?” I said to the carpenter.
Ed turned toward me. It didn’t seem that he could see what I was holding up.
“This piece of broken wood was on the ground. It’s not useful for anything except as kindling. Mind if I take it?”
He frowned at me for making a strange request, but shook his head no, he didn’t mind.
“Thanks,” I said. I walked to the Jeep, thinking about the carpenter’s silence. It could be he was just focused on his job and didn’t feel the need to talk. Or maybe he was mute. Either way, it seemed fitting that Mae had given work to a hobbled carpenter who had trouble seeing and the work was to fix the door at a blind man’s house.
Spot was wagging, his tail thumping the confines of the back seat as I opened the tailgate. I lifted up the rubber cargo mat, slid the broken plywood under it, and lowered the mat over it. “Sorry I couldn’t bring you in, Largeness. But the resident has a problem with dogs. I know, hard to imagine.” I gave Spot a rough rub. I shut the tailgate and walked to the matching house where Mae lived.
She answered the door a moment after my knock. “I was watching for you. It’s not like I can relax with tea after that jerk was so rude.”
“Not the easiest guy to get along with,” I said.
She made a big sigh of frustration. “I try to tell myself that he’s old and I should give him a break. But the truth is that while he sometimes plays the role of an ornery old man, he’s very sweet most of the time. But when he’s stressed, it feels like he takes it all out on me.” She paused for a bit as she looked at me. “Now that you’ve talked to him, do you agree that he wasn’t just the victim of a random assault? That someone targeted him for a specific reason?”
“Yes,” I said. “That seems clear. Nothing about the house would tempt an ordinary burglar. So I assume the assailant wanted something specific to Callahan.”
“When you were acting firm with him, that was just an act, right?”
“Yeah. I wanted him off-center. I wanted him to realize that he couldn’t have everything his way. Having me crowd into his space was unsettling for him. It may be that something will eventually come of it. In the meantime, I’d like to talk to you a bit, if you have time.”
“Outside of my daily swim and working four days a week at the library, I have nothing but time. Except in the evening. I’m a big reader.” She walked into a living room that was, in shape and size, a replica of Daniel’s living room but in reverse orientation. In front of two walls were bookcases filled with books, mostly hardbacks, mostly older, probably a high percentage of first editions. She gestured toward two chairs that faced a small couch.
I followed Mae in past a coat rack that was similar to the one in Daniel’s house. Instead of canes, Mae’s coat rack held a neoprene wetsuit and two face masks of the type that scuba divers use.
“Have a seat,” Mae said. “Would you like some tea or coffee?”
“No thanks.” I sat. Next to my elbow was a techy-looking reading light that had a heavy chrome base on the floor. Hanging on the top arm of the lamp was another face mask. I touched it and set it swinging. “You are obviously a diver.”
“Diver and swimmer. Pools and lake. When I got serious about swimming, I wanted to always have a face mask so I could see. It hangs there as a reminder to me about my focus. My purpose. Instead of watching TV, I read and I dive.”
“This is a good neighborhood for it,” I said, “with the rec center pool a block one way and the lake a block the other way. Is there a reason you have more than one mask?”
“There are advantages to each type of mask. But the multiple sets is just because I’m kind of a diving freak. I buy every new model that comes out.” She gestured over to a set of clothes hooks behind the front door, hooks I hadn’t seen when I came in. There were more face masks on the hooks.
Mae continued, “I always carry a face mask in my day pack just in case I end up at a different part of the lake.”
“I only see face masks. No swim goggles.”
“That’s because I’m a freediver. I need to be able to blow into the mask to equalize pressure when I go deep. You can’t do that with goggles.”
“What’s a freediver?”
“There are lots of variations. But basically, freediving means diving while holding your breath.”
“No scuba tanks.”
Mae nodded.
“Like pearl divers or sponge divers,” I said.
Mae made a sudden smile, the first I’d seen. “Exactly!” she said.
“So when other people are searching out a new beach on the lake, you’re looking for the perfect dive spot instead.”
She nodded.
“How did you meet Mr. Callahan?”
Mae took a seat opposite me. She sat primly, back straight, and ankles and knees together. “It’s a long story. But I’m paying you for your time. So if you think it’s worth it...”
“The more I know about Daniel, the more likely I am to find out what motivated the assault on him.”
Mae nodded. “I ended up meeting him because of freediving. I started freediving in Monterey near the Bay Area. I heard about a group of scuba divers who’ve been exploring the big sunken ship in Tahoe. You’ve probably heard of the Tahoe Steamer.”
“Sure. The longest boat to ever cruise Tahoe. But it’s at the bottom of the lake. Do the divers go that deep?”
“Actually, the Steamer was sunk in Glenbrook Bay back in nineteen forty. So even though it’s around four hundred feet down, that’s nothing compared to the bottom at sixteen hundred feet deep.”
“You said this led you to Callahan.”
“Yeah. I got to thinking that it might be cool to get involved with high-altitude divers. Of course, there’s a big difference between the divers with air tanks and the divers who just hold their breath. But there are similarities, too. So I came up here on vacation and went to a talk that was hosted by some divers who were focused on the Tahoe Steamer. These were some of the first guys to actually dive down to the wreck. It was very cool hearing about new diving experiences while seeing pictures of a boat almost no one’s ever seen before. Later, three of the guys were talking about an old guy who had actually witnessed the sinking of the Tahoe Steamer.”
