Tahoe Avalanche Read online

  Carmen jumped up. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize what I was doing. I know I’m heavy. I must have hurt your knees bad.”

  Bill murmured that it was okay, and she bent down so they were cheek to cheek. She held his head and they made clucking sounds.

  “It’s nice of you to stop by, Owen,” Bill eventually said as Carmen stood up. “Unfortunately, I have to get Carmen back from our little breakfast soiree. Was there anything you needed?”

  “No. I was just in the area and thought I’d stop by and say hi. I have to get going as well.”

  Carmen went back to Spot and wrapped her arms around him and lay her head against the back of his neck. It didn’t look like I’d have much luck separating them, but eventually I pried them apart. We all said goodbye and Carmen blew Spot little kisses as we left.

  It was hard to watch Esteban’s house and not be seen. His windows looked out from above and provided a good view of the street.

  So I pulled into the lot of the Tahoe Keys commercial center several blocks away. I found two other Jeeps near each other and parked in the space between them. When Bill and Carmen left, they’d have to come down to where Tahoe Keys Boulevard crossed Venice. As long as I didn’t fall asleep, I’d see them go by.

  I figured it wouldn’t be long. I turned on NPR and listened to political discussions, part of my attempt to get smart. When Bill and Carmen hadn’t gone by in an hour, I ate my lunch. Later, I used my art book to get even smarter, careful to hold it so that any Escalade going by would register in my peripheral vision. At 4:00 p.m. I turned on All Things Considered, listened to the first hour, then gave up and left.

  I stopped at my office to check messages. There was another envelope on my office door. It looked identical to the one that was on my cabin door the previous evening. I realized it could have been put on my office door at any time during the preceding 24 hours. This time I used gloves to open it.

  You obviously don’t believe how serious we are, McKenna. Consider this a cease and desist order. I talked to Street about the notes over dinner.

  Street got pale. “Two notes in a row scares me,” she said.

  I nodded as I chewed pizza. I washed it down with a Crane Lake Merlot, cheaper than Fat Cat cab and about as good, thus 8.5 on the taste-to-cost scale. “Scares me, too.”

  “But you won’t quit,” Street said.

  “I’ve provoked a murderer. That may help me catch him.” I ate more pizza, drank more wine. “All I can do is pay attention and be careful.”

  “Somebody’s watching you. Somebody who has killed three people. I need you to not be so casual.”

  “Sorry. I will watch and listen and stay alert.”

  Street made a little nod, but she did not look happy.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The next morning, Spot and I picked up Mariposa Pearl at her condo building a couple blocks from Heavenly’s Stagecoach Lodge. Mariposa’s rented home was in an old tacky 6-plex. It perched on a steep slope with half of the building propped up by warped, peeling posts held together with flimsy X-bracing. It was an eyesore that would eventually be torn down. But it provided cheap rent, a rare commodity in Tahoe, and something Mariposa desperately needed.

  Mariposa’s mother had large medical bills. Because Mare had arranged for her to come across the border for surgery in San Diego, Mare had signed a guarantee of payment. It was a debt that would take decades to pay off.

  Street and I had talked about setting up some kind of fund, but when Street ran the idea by Mariposa, she wouldn’t hear of it. I asked Diamond about it and he just shrugged and said, “Mexican pride. Nothing you can do.”

  Mare came out with a pack and boots over one shoulder and her skis and poles over the other. I put the skis and poles on the roof rack while she tossed her gear in back.

  We ate donuts as I drove down the Grade and out through South Lake Tahoe toward Emerald Bay. Spot leaned over the seatbacks, wondering if we were going to eat all the donuts. Caltrans had opened the highway to Emerald Bay a short while ago, but it was snowing again. They might close it at any time.

  I found a wide spot in the road near the Bay View Campground and parked next to the vertical wall of snow left by the rotary plow.

  Mariposa and Spot ran to the lake side of the highway. They found a place to scramble up the snow embankment and look down at the slide below. I heard Mare whoop with amazement.

  “Like stunt driving in a movie!” she said when she got back to the Jeep. “Park your truck in a tree. It would take some cojones to take that ride, no? I saw it in the paper, but had to see it myself.”

  I unlatched the ski rack, lifted our skis and poles off the roof and stabbed them into the snow. Mariposa put on her boots and her pack with the folding shovel strapped to it. She stood waiting.

  I was ready in another minute.

  “I brought electronics,” she said. “This is your transceiver.” She handed me a device about the size of an old cell phone. “You know how it works?”

  “Got a lesson a few years back.” I worked the controls. “This switch is off and on. This is transmit, this is receive, right? We leave them on transmit when we ski. If you were to be buried, I’d set it to receive. The readout will point the direction of your transceiver, and the beeping will get faster as I get closer to you.”

  “Correct,” she said.

  I put my transceiver in its cloth pouch, pulled the support straps over my shoulders and adjusted them so the transceiver was in the center of my chest.

  “How do you want to do this investigation?”

  “I want you to think about how you would set off an avalanche that would bury the highway,” I said. “Which way would you go up the mountain. What would you look for. Where would you toss a charge to trigger the slide. That sort of thing.”

  I swung my pack and shovel up on my back.

  “You really believe that the slide was set on purpose?”

  “It’s looking like that.”

  We carried our skis up the embankment on the mountain side of the highway. The road below looked like a tunnel, crawling around the bay. The cars on the highway had nothing to look at but ten-foot walls of white ice.

  We dropped our skis off our shoulders and clicked into the bindings.

  “A few instructions,” Mariposa said. “Maybe you know them already.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “We stay off all slopes that like to slide. Those are everything between thirty and forty-five degrees. Shallower than thirty is usually okay because the snow doesn’t slide. Steeper than forty-five is usually okay because those slopes constantly sluff the snow off.” Mariposa made a motion like she was shaking a jacket off of her back. “Everything in between is suspect.

  “We also stay off all of the leeward slopes. That’s everything that faces between north and clockwise around to the southeast. The prevailing winds are from the west and southwest. They blow snow off the west-facing slopes. As the wind comes over the mountain the snow drops out onto the leeward slopes. The snow-loading on these slopes after a long wind is huge. Southern slopes are also a concern when the sun comes out. Sun-warming loosens adhesion between snow layers.” Mare looked up at the cloudy sky. “But we obviously don’t have to worry about that now.”

  “Couple days ago I watched a steady plume of snow coming off the top of Tallac,” I said. “It occurred to me at the time that it would add up to tons of snow in a small spot below.”

  “Yeah. Those plumes are like a dozen snow-making guns. The cross on Tallac can grow to thirty or fifty feet deep. When that snow releases, it makes one big-ass slide.” She grinned. “I’ll break trail. You follow. When possible we stay in the trees. Tree cover is no guarantee of avalanche protection, but standing trees indicate areas where strong avalanches are rare. The trees also help pin the snow down and inhibit slides. But you often find small slides in the trees. It only takes a couple yards of snow to completely bury a person. Guess how much a single cubic yard of snow weighs after i
t’s been compressed in an avalanche?”

  “I’m not going to like the answer, huh?”

  “Over eight hundred pounds. Often a thousand pounds. Get a couple of yards over you and you’re not going anyplace.” Mare looked up at the mountain. “On any questionable slope we also keep some distance between us.”

  “Got it,” I said. “Nothing more stupid than both being buried in the same avalanche.”

  Mare winked at me. “Now that I’ve given you the rules, I have to tell you that we are going to break two of them.”

  “Which ones?”

  “The main ones. Our first slope is steeper than thirty degrees. And it faces east.”

  “No other way up?”

  “No. Both north and south Maggies are too steep. But I’ve been here before. There is a lot of lumber on the slope. I think it will hold the snow.”

  She strode off at a fast pace, her bindings set for free-heel motion. Backcountry gear is a blend between cross-country equipment and downhill gear. In free-heel mode, you can kick and stride your way up the slope. Then, for descent, you lock your bindings down and they give you the same control that regular downhill equipment provides.

  Mare demonstrated a hint of Pearl Power as she went up through the Bay View Campground, which was now buried under ten feet of snow. She got to the base of the mountain and began to traverse up through the heavily forested slope. She didn’t race, but her pace was strong, and she was breaking trail in ridiculously deep snow. Spot stayed with her. I fell behind. Mare switch-backed here and there, never pausing. She seemed unaware that her traveling companion was older and less fit. Eventually, she and Spot stopped and they waited for me. When I finally caught up, she said, “Are you tired?”

  “You said we shouldn’t be too close lest we get caught in the same slide,” I said, huffing.

  “Right. That was for down below. But this part of the slope is shallower. You can stop worrying.”

  When we were well up on the mountain, she turned into an area where the trees were more sparse, and I recognized that the summer hiking trail was ten or twelve feet below our skis.

  Soon, we came out to an overlook above the rockslide where the mountain gave way a half-century before. The area was bare of trees and very steep. This was where the avalanche had slid five days before. But it was hard to see exactly where because so much snow had fallen since. Clouds swirled around us and below us and occasionally opened up to give us a clear view down to Emerald Bay below. I got out my camera and took several pictures.

  “Like a tourist, you can’t resist?” Mare said.

  “No. Just documenting a potential crime scene.”

  Mare nodded. “I want you to lock your bindings into downhill mode,” Mare said. “Then ski to just above that tree.” She pointed. “If you and Spot stay there you will be safe from any slide. I’m going to ski across here, above the point where snow would normally release. My skis will make a cut and I can feel how the snow acts.”

  “What will you feel for?”

  “Settling, cracking, whumping noises, any sensation of movement.” She pointed again. “As I crest the bulge right there, I’ll be able to see farther down. I’ll stop at those other trees on the far side of the rock slide.”

  “And my job...” I said.

  “You should stay put until I make an assessment. Unless, of course, something goes wrong and I end up buried. Then come and find me and dig me out.”

  I locked down my bindings and skied to the tree. Then Mariposa skied across.

  She went through the clearing fast and sure and didn’t stop until she reached the trees on the other side. She did a 180-degree kick turn, then side-stepped up the mountain. I was struck by how easily she did it. I’d always found that side-stepping up was nearly impossible in bottomless powder.

  When she’d gone straight up far enough to traverse back, she skied back toward me and stopped halfway. She stuck her pole down into the snow a couple of feet in several places, then skied the rest of the way to me.

  “Did you notice what’s wrong?” she said.

  “The snow isn’t very deep.”

  “Right. There’s about two feet of fresh snow on top of hardpack. I was on the slide residue. Which means the slide didn’t break off at the logical point where the slope gets steep. It must have come from up in those trees, gathering strength when it burst out into the open. Then it grew to a massive slide by the time it hit the highway below.”

  “Unusual for it to start in the trees?” I said.

  “Yeah. Common avalanche tracks won’t let trees grow to any size. You can spot them when you look up at treed mountains. They are always the vertical stripes without trees.”

  “Looks like your forensic skills are pretty good even after two feet of new snow.”

  Mariposa smiled. “We’ve got more climbing to do.”

  I followed her up into the trees. She traversed back and forth, feeling with skis and poles for where the snow was only two feet deep. When she hit a drop-off into bottomless powder, she knew she’d found the edge of the slide.

  We’d gone up a long ways when she stopped. She studied the landscape, skied back and forth and poked around with her poles. Then she unfolded her shovel and began digging. Spot ran to her, sniffing, wondering what Mare had alerted on.

  I skied up. “Unearthing clues?”

  “I think you are right. Someone did start this avalanche. With explosives.”

  She was tossing the fresh light powder snow to the side, gradually making a dish-shaped hole. She felt with her shovel, going slowly, taking care about what snow she scooped up.

  “A crater from dynamite?” I asked, snapping more pictures.

  “Yes. I took out all the new snow. What remains is the pit that an avalanche bomb leaves. About six feet across and several feet deep.” She brushed at the snow with her glove. “You can see where some of the snow was darkened from the dynamite.”

  “If someone tossed an explosive here, they’d never be able to see their victim on the highway below.”

  “Right. All three of the bombs were set off by remote control.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Three bombs?” I said.

  Mariposa pointed to the left and right. “See the other pit over there by that tree and that one by that boulder? This guy used three bombs. If you look at the lay of the land you’ll see it makes a steep funnel. He figured out that even though this area is in the trees and doesn’t make big slides, he could put three bombs up here and start a slide in three places at once. The bombs would bring the snow in this funnel area down on converging paths.”

  She pointed below us. “Down there where the trees stop, the snow would burst out, all its energy focused by the shape of the land.”

  I said, “And it would give the slide a big head-start by the time it got out into the open above the rock slide.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How would this guy place these charges?”

  “He’d just ski up here like we did and drop them in.”

  “What kind of triggers could be done remotely?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Some kind of transmitter, a garage door opener or something, that could be rigged to a receiver that fires off the detonator, which blows the charge.”

  “Garage door opener,” I said. “You’ve got a good mind for this stuff.”

  Mare put her hand on her waist and cocked her substantial hip. “You said you wanted avalanche forensics. I could get a business card. Mariposa Forensics. Sounds pretty good, huh?”

  “It does. Anything up here that we could use as solid evidence? Something I could take to the sheriff’s department?”

  Mare held up her gloved hand. She had a little piece of brown paper between her thumb and forefinger. “This looks like part of the wrapping off a three-by-eight.”

  “Which is?”

  “The bombs we toss in avalanche control. It’s three short sticks tied together.”

  “And a short stick is what?�
��

  “In mining they use a long stick of dynamite. In avalanche control our three-by-eights are shorter sticks. The pack of three is great for tossing some distance by hand.”

  I got pictures of several pieces of the wrapping that were scattered in the snow where Mare had dug, then collected them in a zip lock bag to give to Sergeant Bains.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Spot and I dropped Mariposa off with two leftover donuts, a check for services and a promise of dinner at Evan’s.

  It was still early in the afternoon, so I stopped by my office. The phone was ringing as I walked in. It was Glennie.

  “The slide up at Sand Harbor,” she said. “I got another call from the avalanche psycho. Claims he triggered that slide as well. I told him he should be proud that he’d killed three people. Want to know what he said?”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘good,’ and hung up.”

  “Nasty guy,” I said.

  “I’ll say.”

  “Same number on the caller ID?”

  “No,” Glennie said. “So I called George Clooney meets Pierce Brosnan and gave it to him. He’s running a trace as we speak.”

  “Thanks for the info.”

  “You got something to trade?” she said.

  “Yeah. But first I gotta clear it with Bains. If he says yes, we’re good to go.”

  “He’ll say yes. I told him he sounded cute. He practically melted and flowed right out of those speaker holes on my phone.”

  “He might be married, Glennie.”

  “Might is a word with a lot of room in it.”

  We said goodbye and I dialed Bains.

  “The slide at Emerald Bay was set with three dynamite charges,” I told him when he answered. “They were placed up above the rock slide and designed to focus the avalanche energy.”

  I heard Bains slurping on a drink at the other end of the line.