Chapter 12

  

The top headline in Monday’s student newspaper read, “Journalism Faculty Fears Dean was Murdered.” With the blogs and the student paper pushing the story, Elaine would be hard pressed not to publish her reporter’s interviews.

The TV stations showed even less reticence. Ardith was in my office waiting for me when I arrived at school.

“I just wanted you to know, I didn’t leak this story and I didn’t give any interviews to anyone,” she said.

“It’s all right, Ardith. I’m surprised it took the media this long. The police have been talking to everyone in the building most of last week.”

“Have they come up with anything that substantiates murder?”

I shook my head. Joe had cautioned me about discussing the wound in Henry’s back and anything he found during his investigation. I knew I had to keep my mouth shut.

“I appreciate your insights into the faculty, Red. But, you must be careful with what I tell you,” Joe had said. “You can’t ever seem more knowledgeable than anyone else. If someone on the faculty did kill Henry, I don’t want them to be concerned about what you know or don’t know.”

Ardith had no sooner left than a ghost of Henry appeared in my office. I had never met him, but Michael Brooks looked so much like his father I knew who he was before he introduced himself. Tall, with fine fair hair that would someday gray and thin like his father’s, and most remarkable of all, his father’s voice. It was startling to hear him speak. Nell was standing behind him, her eyes wide.

“I’m on my way to the airport, Dr. Solaris. But I wanted to stop by before I left. My sister and I don’t plan to be back until after the police investigation is complete.”

I shook his hand and indicated a chair. I probably looked as stunned as Nell did. “I’m so sorry, Michael.”

“It’s been very hard,” he said. “And Meg and I don’t know what to make of this rumor that Dad was murdered.”

“Neither do I. I do know the police are doing everything they can to bring this to closure, but so far...nothing.”

“They promised to send Dad’s body back to us after the investigation is done. We want to bury him at home. Here’s my card and number, Dr. Solaris. I guess I should say, Dean Solaris. If you hear anything, I would appreciate a call.”

He handed me the card and then reached for the small suitcase he’d brought with him. He rolled the suitcase toward the side of my desk. “Meg and I went through Dad’s papers at home. We put all the journalism school stuff in this suitcase. We thought you would know better what to do with it.”

“I’d be happy to look it all over. If I find anything personal, I’ll be sure to send it to you.”

“Oh, there’s nothing personal in that case,” he said. “Meg was pretty thorough about separating it out.”

“Michael, just this morning I got permission to start cleaning out your father’s desk and bookshelves. I’m not allowed to turn over anything today, but if there’s something you or your sister would like, I could put it aside for you to make sure you get it.”

Michael frowned. “There was one thing we didn’t find at the house, but I’d like to have if it’s around here.”

“What would that be?”

“Dad and I went to the same university. A few years ago, the alumni association gave him a glass trophy, their Alumni of the Year Award. It was the same year his book was nominated for the Pulitzer. I remember going to the dinner and...”

Michael’s eyes closed for a moment. A terrible sadness overcame his face. He looked exactly like his father, but there was none of Henry’s cynical toughness in this man. This was a sweet, stricken son.

I looked down to avoid meeting his eyes. How best to answer him without lying? I leaned toward him and said, “Michael, I will do whatever is necessary to track down your father’s trophy.”

  

Joe and I started our trip to Lake Tahoe late Monday afternoon. The drive to Tahoe takes about an hour with Joe driving. It’s more like an hour and a half for normal people.

In summer, when the landscape is not covered with snow, you can see what the high desert looked like to the first settlers—brown hills covered with mounds of fuzzy sagebrush, punctuated with rocky outcroppings. Where the tree line begins, the brown hills turn to green. In winter the snow blankets the lower trunks of the tall evergreens that cover the Sierra on this side of the mountains. The first “chains required” signs appear, although the day Joe and I drove up, the road was clear and the sky was cloudless.

“What have the police learned about Simon so far?”

Joe glanced over. “As I mentioned, Simon was uncooperative in the two interviews we had. Admitted only to the number of years he had worked at Mountain West and where he lived. No mention of a family. When I pressed, he gave me that arrest-me-or-leave me-alone routine. You know, we can’t force people to tell us what they don’t want to tell us, even if we do arrest them.”

“I know. But you also said it was odd he wouldn’t admit to having a wife.”

“Our investigation reveals he lived in a nice house not too far from yours until a few years ago. Now, he lives alone in a small, cheap apartment in Reno and commutes to Landry. His bank account suggests he lives from paycheck to paycheck, plus Social Security, and has no outside source of income, so he may have a debt problem we haven’t figured out yet.”

Joe glanced over at me. “That might explain why Simon was so angry with you for eavesdropping on his phone call.”

I remembered something Henry had told me. “I may be able to add something to the economic picture of Simon. Last year, Henry told me he’d finally had it with Simon. He called him into his office, told him his teaching was terrible and his behavior was worse. Henry said he was destructive to the school and demanded that Simon retire. Simon threatened to sue if Henry tried to get rid of him and insisted he couldn’t afford to give up his position even though he was well past retirement age.”

Joe worked his jaw. “Hmm. What we know is that Simon once lived pretty well and now he lives in reduced circumstances and may be in trouble. Also, his fear that Henry might actually find a way to get rid of him, tenured or not, might have provided a motive for murder. Might have.”

Simon scared me. So did the Mt. Rose highway. There were too many serpentine curves and, when it narrowed to two lanes, the curves are so pronounced that car passengers could be rocked from side to side.

Past the ski resort we crested the summit at 8911 feet and the mountain meadows came into view. Even on a weekday, the skiers crowded the resort parking lot and the meadows were strewn with cross country skiers and families with kids on sleds.

We rounded a curve and there was Lake Tahoe, shimmering and huge.

At first a blue patch between the tall trees, the lake loomed larger and larger as we closed in on it. There were signs for bear crossings, then a few houses on the outskirts of Incline Village.

Joe and I stopped talking when the lake came into view. It was breathtaking. Vast, gleaming, intense blue surrounded by snow-covered mountains, Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America, twenty-two miles long and twelve miles wide. The border between Nevada and California runs roughly through the middle and just before hitting the border, we arrived at The Cal Neva Casino Hotel at dusk.

The man we were looking for was Terry Bingham, a blackjack dealer. Joe’s source in Carson City told him that Bingham had been friendly with Doris Gorshak at one time.

Joe parked the car near the entrance—cops can do that—and came around to my side to open my door. “Red, remember what we discussed. You can sit nearby and eavesdrop, but no interruptions. I don’t want him to know you’re with me. Okay?”

“Yes, Joe.”

The Cal Neva literally sits on the border, a fact graphically noted inside the larger rooms. One of the oldest casino hotels in Nevada, the Cal Neva was once owned by Frank Sinatra in the 60s and famous for appearances by members of The Rat Pack and Marilyn Monroe. But that was then.

The evening we walked in, only a few people were there. Only three blackjack tables were open and most of the slot machines stood unattended. Two women who must have been in their eighties were sitting side by side at quarter slot machines, chatting amiably and nursing generous glasses of whiskey. A younger woman with a pewter face and stooped shoulders slouched against an empty chair behind them, smoking a cigarette. Her eyes were dull and unfocused. I hoped she wasn’t their caregiver; she looked as if she might not remain conscious long enough to get them home. The casino reeked of cigarette smoke.

Terry Bingham dealt blackjack with hands that darted faster than bird wings. He was slender and well groomed with graying, dark hair slicked back off a sharp-featured face.

As Joe approached his table, Bingham looked up. His dark eyes darted from side to side as if looking for an escape route.

Joe stopped and stood still behind one of the players seated at the table. Bingham finished the hand and motioned to the pit boss standing nearby.

The pit boss walked over to where Bingham stood behind the table. The two men whispered for a moment. Then Bingham told his table in a soft-spoken voice that there would be a brief pause while a new dealer came in.

“They told me you would come at the end of my shift,” Bingham said as he approached Joe.

“Sorry, this was the only time I could make it,” said Joe, extending his hand. “Detective Joe Morgan, Landry Police. Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

“I don’t know what help I can be,” said Bingham.

“Let’s go somewhere quiet,” said Joe, indicating a group of bar tables. I strolled to another table near enough to hear but not be obvious and busied myself looking for a pad and pencil in my handbag.

Joe leaned forward, his elbows on their table. “Mr. Bingham, I am investigating a possible homicide in Landry and need to know more about someone you may have known a few years ago.”

“Call me, Terry,” he said. “I don’t think I know anyone in Landry.”

“I’m told you may have been acquainted with a woman who used to live in Landry, Doris Gorshak.” Joe leaned in further.

“Doris? She in trouble?” Bingham’s thin face became serious. He ran his fingers over his hair. His hands trembled just a bit.

“Not that I know of,” said Joe. “But her husband, Simon, is a person of interest in an investigation at the university and I need to know more about him.”

Bingham lowered his voice. “Look, I never met the guy. I knew Doris. She was a regular at my table. Nice lady.”

“Please tell me what you can about her.”

Bingham ran his hand over his hair again. His right eye seemed to develop a minor tic. “Doris was, like I said, a nice lady. Nice-looking, too, in a skinny sort of way. Always wore sharp clothes. Not a great blackjack player but polite, even sweet.”

“Did she lose at blackjack often?”

“Yeah, she lost most of the time. But she came back every week, sometimes twice a week. Played from early evening until the boss told the cocktail waitress to stop bringing her drinks. Tequila was her favorite. Lots of it. All night.”

“What happened when she ran out of money?”

Terry sighed. “She’d head for the bar. Sometimes she’d get some guy to buy her more tequila.” He hesitated. “Usually she would leave with the guy.”

“Different guys?”

“Always different guys. Probably guests of the hotel. Me, I didn’t judge. She was usually too drunk to drive so maybe that was her way of getting a bed for the night.”

A question crossed my mind and came out of Joe’s mouth. “Were you ever one of the guys?”

“Hey Detective,” Bingham bristled. “I got a good girlfriend in Reno. I don’t need to get into any trouble about Doris. She was just a friend. I let her crash on my sofa a couple of times. But that was years ago and that was it. Nothin’ between us.”

“I’m sorry, Terry, I didn’t mean to say there was. I do need to know if Doris ever told you about her life in Landry.”

Bingham calmed down. “She told me she was married to some big shot at the university, that she lived in a nice house and her husband gave her money whenever she asked. At least he did until the last time I saw her.”

“Tell me about that last time.”

Bingham leaned back. Clearly he was tired and hesitant, but it was also clear he wanted to be rid of Joe. “The last time I saw Doris, she’d stayed at my place overnight. I made her some coffee in the morning and she looked up at me with tears in her eyes and thanked me for ‘being kind,’ as she said. Then she said she was meeting her brother at the Cal Neva that morning and her brother was going to take her home to Buffalo. I must have looked surprised because she said she was leaving her big shot husband because he wouldn’t give her money anymore and he was talking about having her committed to rehab for gambling and for drinking. So she was getting out.”

“Was that all she told you?”

“That was about it. I drove her back to the casino and, sure enough, some skinny guy who could have been her twin was waiting in valet parking with his car. She got out of the car, thanked me for being her friend and said to say goodbye to Nevada for her. Then she walked over to her brother’s car and got in. That’s the last I saw of her.”

“And nothing more about her husband?”

“Just what I told you. I figure Doris was a real looker when she was younger, but I also figure her big shot husband ran out of patience. I mean once or twice a week she was up here drinking and gambling and whatever instead of being with him.”

Poor Simon, I thought, forgetting for a moment that he scared the hell out of me.

Joe thanked Bingham and gave him a card, asking him to call if he remembered anything else. Bingham shook Joe’s hand and returned to his table. Joe signaled me to head out. As we approached the front door, I glanced back at the casino section. The old women were gone, but the young woman with dulled eyes was still leaning against a slot machine, still smoking a cigarette. Television ads portray slot players as happy, surrounded by friends, nearly hysterical with the joy of winning. I’d never seen that.

  

It was dark by the time Joe headed out of the Cal Neva driveway. “I’ll take you to that restaurant you like.”

The place was in Tahoe City with good food and a view of the lake from a table by the window. A full moon illuminated the enormous lake; the waters were still and the mountains old and white in the distance.

“I hate Simon, but I sort of feel sorry for him,” I said.

Joe looked at me intently, green eyes even darker than usual.

“I grant you his wife treated him badly, but who knows how he treated her. What we know now is Simon was probably broke because of his wife’s gambling. We also know Simon was afraid he might lose his job and hated Henry. What we don’t know is if all of this means Simon had motive to go to Henry’s office, pick up that trophy and try to ram it into Henry’s back, and then watch Henry stagger down the hall and maybe give him a push down the stairs...and then go back and wipe the trophy clean and leave Henry to die in that stairwell.”

I was quiet. Joe was right. Tragedy may beget crime but doesn’t excuse it. We ordered our dinner and ate slowly. We tried to talk about more comfortable topics, Joe’s other cases, my classes, but the memory of what we had learned intruded and kept us sober and reflective.

“Red, there’s something I want to tell you,” Joe said. We were just starting our coffee. “I didn’t leave Chicago purely because the Landry chief wanted me here.”

“Joe, it’s okay. I don’t need to know everything about...”

“Let me finish, Red. It’s important to me that you know this. So listen because this is hard.” Joe swallowed and looked out the window at the lake, then back at me. “I loved doing police work in Chicago and I loved Chicago. But one very hot day in the summer, I walked into a store where there was a robbery in progress. I saw a short guy in a big, puffy coat with a ski mask on. The woman behind the counter was screaming her head off and the guy was pointing a gun at her. I called him out. He turned, aimed his gun at me and I fired mine. I shot right through his chest and killed him.”

“That must have been awful, Joe. But he was committing a crime.” I reached for Joe’s hand but he pulled back in his chair and looked away.

“Yes, he was committing a crime. His first crime, as it turned out. With an unloaded gun.” Joe’s breathing was short and shallow.

“But you didn’t know that the gun wasn’t loaded,” I said, wishing he would look at me instead of the lake.

“No, I didn’t at the time. When I took off the ski mask, I saw he was a kid.” Joe’s gaze returned to me. His eyes were liquid. “Thirteen years old, no record and an old gun of his father’s that didn’t even work anymore and had no bullets.”

“Oh, Joe. And there was an investigation and news stories I suppose.”

“You suppose right. It was awful. The kid’s mother had cancer and lost her job. The kid was trying to get money for his family.”

His head was bowed and I sensed his sorrow. We stayed that way, silently for several moments. Then he lifted his head. “I was cleared, but I couldn’t stay in Chicago. I keep seeing that kid lying on the floor in the middle of the heat with that big coat on. I should have figured out he was a boy trying to look grown-up. Now, I think about his mother and wonder if she’s still alive. I wrote her a letter but I never had the nerve to actually see her.”

Joe was looking directly at me. “If we are going to keep working together on this case, I want you to know why sometimes I get moody and distant. I’m not an easy guy to be with.”

“I think you’re a terrific guy to be with.”

“I think you would have made a good cop.”

“I don’t want to be a cop. I want to be a cop’s friend.”

“Deal.”