Tahoe Avalanche Read online

  While the machines warmed up, we assembled in a group a little away so we could talk without shouting ourselves hoarse.

  “Your plan, McKenna?” Bains said. His breaths were visible in the snowmobile headlights. “You know the map.”

  I squatted down and opened the map across my knees, angling it so one of the snowmobile headlights shined on it.

  “We are here. We’ll ride down the highway, then along this Forest Service road, which gradually climbs up to this meadow at eight thousand feet. Where the road curves here, we’ll angle off to the northeast. We’ll traverse up these shallower slopes, staying on the windward ridges where the snow won’t be so deep. We’ll follow the creek drainage off the south side of Freel Peak. Remember to stay off anything that is steep. If we must go on a steeper slope, we’ll keep some distance between us. If one of us gets caught in a slide, the rest of us will still have a chance to dig the victim out.

  “Up here is Armstrong Pass. Based on the map and what I learned from Josie King, April is probably over on one of these slopes that face northeast. But we can’t know that for certain. And we can’t afford to let the killer hear our sleds, so we’ll go on up to this meadow and stop. Our sound will be blocked by this promontory. We’ll be a quarter mile away from the pass, but we’ll be at the same elevation. After we transfer to our skis, it shouldn’t take too long to follow a level traverse around the promontory.” I saw Bill’s face gritted in the harsh light beam from the sled. “Bill will be able to follow our ski tracks on his snowshoes.”

  “When we get close,” I continued, “our first priority is to stay low and out of sight. We are looking for at least two people. One of them may be the avalanche starter.”

  “You say ‘may’ be the avalanche starter,” Bains said.

  “Right. Claude. Or April, even. April may also be there with an innocent friend, just there to help her search for the coins. The friend could also be the murderer.”

  “If the killer isn’t April and isn’t with April, where do you guess he’d be?”

  “Hiding. Waiting for April to find the coins. Just over a ridge, lying in the snow, wearing white, watching April from a distance, watching us approach, too.”

  SIXTY-TWO

  Bains and Rosten got on their machine. Bains drove, and Rosten sat behind him, their right legs bowed over the bundle of their skis and poles.

  Bill bungie-corded his snowshoes onto the back of his seat, got on his sled and revved the engine.

  I had Spot sit on the back of my seat. He often sits on human chairs, his front feet on the floor. This was similar. I put his front feet on either side of the seat, down on the footrails. I sat in front of him, scrunched up next to the handle bars.

  The machines had small windshields, but the snow blew hard from the side, so we all put on our goggles.

  I started out, slow at first, struggling to handle the snowmobile with one arm. The others followed. As I gained familiarity with the machine, I sped up.

  We went down the highway, following our bouncing headlight beams, and then turned and followed the Forest Service road. The snow was deep, and the machines wallowed in it, spinning their tracks, barely able to stay afloat. Eventually, I angled onto a windward slope that faced west. The snow was more windblown and it supported the sleds better. We climbed up toward Freel Peak, which, at just under 11,000 feet, is the highest mountain in Tahoe.

  For a time the snow continued without relenting, plastering my face with snow so thick I had to continuously wipe off my goggles. I hoped that Spot got some shelter behind my back. I could feel his head against me, pushing this way and that as we followed the curving undulations of the ground.

  Snowmobiles make a lot of noise, but our three sleds seemed strangely quiet, the snow in the air muffling and absorbing the engine noise. Despite my tension and worry, I struggled with fatigue, my eyes closing. I managed to lead the men for half an hour until the snow got so deep in a meadow that our machines bogged down.

  We turned off the sleds and waited for our eyes to adjust to the darkness without the snowmobile headlights. At first it seemed totally black. Gradually, the blowing snow became permeated with a dull gray light, very dark, but sufficient to give depth to the night. We put on our skis and snowshoes. The snow in the meadow was so deep that Spot was hobbled by it. He made leaping motions to move, and I feared I’d made a terrible mistake in bringing him. But it was too late to turn back. He’d have to follow in our tracks as we broke trail. The compressed snow from our skis would give him some support.

  I went first, with Bains and Rosten following on skis and Bill on his snowshoes. Spot tried running ahead into the deep snow, but quickly gave up and followed in our tracks.

  I was aware that our pace would leave Bill behind, and if he got confused and lost it could be life-threatening. But April’s life was probably in danger and Bill’s life was only potentially threatened, so I charged ahead. I also knew that Bill would have it no other way. He would probably be able to follow our tracks even as the wind and snow tried to obliterate them.

  We traversed along a medium slope, possibly steep enough to slide, but there was no other way to the pass. We spread out to minimize the chance that more than one of us would be caught in a slide. The early storm clouds attacked us in waves and sudden gusts. It was the kind of wind that killed winter campers. Even if their tents withstood the assault, the drifting snow sometimes buried the tents and eventually suffocated those inside.

  I couldn’t see far enough in the blinding snow to identify any landmarks. They were all just concepts in a blizzard. But I did have the compass and my sense of up and down. With those two information sources, I could match the slopes to the ones I’d memorized on the map.

  I worked the slope from map memory, following imaginary topo lines, navigating by finding a level traverse across the face of the slope. I came to a much steeper section and hoped it was the base of the promontory. Once we got around it, we’d likely be in a sightline to April, but for the blowing snow that made it impossible to see more than about forty feet ahead.

  I stopped and let Bains, Rosten and Spot catch up. Bill was nowhere in sight.

  “We’re in a straight shot to our target,” I said in a loud whisper. “The snow is too dense to see that far. Sound carries better than light in this stuff. It’s five in the morning. If anyone is up here, they’re probably asleep in their tent, but we can’t count on it. They may have heard the weather forecast and got up early to try to finish their project before the storm comes. So stay quiet and listen carefully. Even when we get close, we may hear them before we see them.”

  They nodded and I turned back to lead them forward into the dark wind. I hadn’t taken more than two steps forward on my skis when we heard a woman talking, her voice carried on a freak confluence of wind currents.

  SIXTY-THREE

  The voice came from the same direction as the wind. I climbed uphill and upwind, straining to see anything through the dark forest. The snow was so deep that I couldn’t stride on my skis. I could only step up and forward, pushing the soft snow down and compressing it in one motion. It was like jogging through molasses while half asleep.

  The wind pulled at my cap. Blowing snow pelted my goggles. The cloud cover got thicker, a furious gray fog that fatigued my brain. I could see nothing but a vague sense of dull gray, like the mist in the Chinese landscapes, obscuring all detail and hiding the destination at the end of our path.

  The world turned. I tried to ski straight, tried to keep the wind directly into my face. But the wind kept changing. Or my perceptions kept changing. I thought we were skiing up the slope. But now I was skiing down the slope. Going down required more effort than going up. Gravity itself seemed to shift directions. Like a pilot with vertigo, I struggled with confusion. Voices seemed to whisper from the snow, taunting me with promises of revelation, secrets to be exposed. But each arduous step seemed to push the secrets down into the powder snow shroud while the wind sang a fright song that dr
owned the whispers out. Events of the previous days became jumbled. I tried to revisit them, place them back in order as I skied through the dark.

  I focused on the suspects. Nearly anyone could have had contact with someone in the avalanche class, learned of the Double Eagle gold coins and, as a result, had motive to kill. Numerous people could have had an opportunity to acquire explosives and send Lori Simon to purchase detonators.

  It was when I reconsidered my visits to Lori Simon’s parents that I stopped skiing for a moment.

  Clarice and Samuel Simon were so self-focused that they didn’t even know what Lori’s major was in college. But as soon as I thought about it, I realized that the one thing they did say about their daughter’s college was the thing I missed. That realization brought me to the killer.

  I resumed skiing as I considered the implications. I kept the wind in my face, and I kept breaking trail. In a moment the blowing snow and clouds opened up and then raced off to the east, big billowing puffs of white against the black night. We were suddenly in the vast dark universe with a gibbous moon above and uncountable stars filling the sky. The dark shape of Tahoe stretched out 3000 feet below.

  I studied the lay of the land, memorizing the rise and fall of the slopes, the twisting ravine that gouged into the mountain down to the left, the broad swath of a white snow-draped meadow that meandered through the forest. Then came more clouds, rushing toward us like huge nightmare cotton balls, and we plunged back into the world of a night-gray foggy gale, dark as a cave. I kept my direction by always facing into the wind.

  Soon, the slope rotated from high on the right to high on the left, and I realized we had come at an angle through the pass and were now trudging down the other side. We continued ahead, coming upon dark trees in the darker night, walking straight into their boughs, ducking as the needles grabbed at our hats.

  I stopped, got out my compass and studied the glow-in-the-dark face. The slope faced northeast. Based on my memory of the map, we were getting close. I pushed on, then stopped fast as the clouds opened up and I saw a light in the distance. The clouds came back, shutting us inside their clammy grip like a giant clam closing on a wayward visitor stupid enough to come close.

  The other men came up behind me. I pulled my penlight out of my glove, pointed it at my chest and turned it on. I held my finger up in front of my face, moving it to catch their attention. Spot came past both men and stuck his snow-caked head toward me.

  “Light ahead,” I whispered loudly.

  Through the thickness of cloud, carried downwind with the snow flurries, came voices. Spot jerked his head toward the sound and began a low growl. I tapped my finger across his nose, the signal for silence. We couldn’t make out the words, but the voices were both female.

  “Two people,” I whispered. “But someone else may be hiding. My guess would be that the killer is up above them. Spot and I will circle around that way. Bains, I think you should go straight toward the glow, very slow, and get down in the snow to watch so they don’t see you. Rosten, you approach them from below. Be aware of the potential for a slide. The slope is steep and it faces northeast, the most dangerous combination. If you sense movement under your feet, skiing sideways to the mountain is the best way out.

  “If the clouds part, squat down fast and don’t move. Even if they can see your shape against the snow, if you’re motionless, they might think you’re a rock or tree trunk.

  “I’ll climb up above, searching for anyone who’s hiding. If I don’t find anyone, I’ll come down to where the voices are coming from. If I do find someone, I’ll try to disarm them and then come down. Bains, you should come forward as soon as I make my appearance or start talking. Rosten, you should stay hidden the entire time. There could be someone else out here who I can’t find. In which case, you will be our backup. We want any unseen person to think there’s only Bains and me. Don’t make any move until we call you.”

  Both Bains and Rosten nodded.

  “I’m off,” I said. “Come on, Spot.” I again put my finger across his nose for silence. He followed, stepping in my tracks, sometimes stepping on the tails of my skis.

  I climbed a rising arc around the lightness in the cloud below. I kept a good distance above the women, staying in the dark, looking for another person, an amorphous shape in the snow or behind a tree or a rocky outcropping.

  The light dimmed, then flashed bright as the clouds cracked open. I saw two figures down below, digging with avalanche shovels. There was a lantern stuck in the snow nearby and another perched in a nook in a rock face that rose up to the west of the people. Next to a jog in the rock face was a tent. It was low and rounded, designed to handle high wind. The placement was smart. If the slope above them slid, the jog in the rock face would tend to protect the tent and force the snow to the side. A supply toboggan was propped up between some rocks. A line went from the rock to the toboggan. Stretched from the line to the snow, like a sheet on a clothesline, was a tarp pulled tight by the breeze but protected from the worst of the wind by the rock wall. The tarp provided some shelter for the people digging.

  The cloud swirled around us, and for a moment it was darker than ever. I waited while my eyes readjusted.

  I made a circuit far above the light-glow and the people digging, then another circuit down closer. I saw no person or any sign of recent tracks.

  Spot stayed directly behind me, and we descended closer to the light, moving very slowly. I stopped skiing forward when I was directly above them, about a hundred feet up the slope. I could hear the voices, but I still couldn’t understand the words.

  I took a sidestep down, and then another.

  They were both breathing hard. Their words were faint, but by cupping my ears and listening carefully, I could now understand most of them. Both voices sounded vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t identify more than that.

  “The last radio report said the storm will hit by early afternoon, so this is our best opportunity.”

  “I didn’t realize that you know Claude Sisuug, our avalanche class teacher? How did you meet him?”

  “Through Paul before Paul died. We saw him in a bar in Tahoe City. He creeped me out. It was dark, but I could see that he had one brown eye and one blue eye. Like on a Husky dog. And Paul told me he had a record. I’ll be honest, Claude really scared me.”

  “Did Paul say what he did wrong to get in trouble with the law?”

  “He said it was some kind of an assault charge. I guess he beat a guy to a pulp. And some woman got a restraining order on Claude because he smacked her around. I wouldn’t be surprised if he reacted violently if he found out we were up here.”

  “So we won’t tell him. No one knows we’re here. The secret is safe.”

  There was a pause.

  “Yeah. We’ll split the money and never say a word.”

  “How well did you know Paul?”

  “Like I said, we were close.”

  “You were in a relationship?”

  “More or less.”

  “What does more or less mean?”

  “We had sex, we confided some things, but no way would I ever have married him. It was just a date thing.”

  “I thought you seemed pretty nonchalant when Paul died.”

  “I thought you were nonchalant when March died.”

  “I was devastated! But what was I going to do? Feel sorry for myself? Go crawling back to my suffocating uncle? Or come back here and finish March’s plan? This was his passion! This was what got him excited. He went from not caring about anything but skiing to having a focus.”

  They had turned and I missed more words in the howling wind. I reached down with my right hand and wadded up snow against my legs, packing it so it was shaped like a large roll of paper towels. I aimed it carefully and gave it a push toward the bright fog below me. It slid a few inches, then rolled over. It rolled again and, picking up speed, it gathered more snow into a bigger ball and rolled faster directly down toward the light in the cloud.<
br />
  As it disappeared into the foggy whiteout, it was the size of a basketball and moving fast. A moment later I heard a woman say, “Shsss!” Then one light went out followed by the other.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  “April, this is Owen McKenna,” I yelled out through the dark wind. “Get away from Carmen. Move quickly while the cloud is here and the lights are off. Her plan is to kill you as soon as you dig up the gold.”

  There was a pause.

  “Mr. McKenna,” Carmen called out of the darkness, her voice high and sweet. “What are you talking about? I would never kill anybody.”

  “Keep moving April. Don’t speak.”

  “Don’t listen to him, April. He’s confused.”

  “I should have known a long time ago, Carmen,” I said. “Lori Simon went to Humboldt State in Arcata, right next to Eureka where you’re from. Such little twin towns, it makes sense that you could have known her. You said you don’t ski, but there are downhill skis sitting outside your apartment door. And here you are up on the mountain, a trek that requires significant ski experience. Your neighbor lady also told me that you were up in Eureka to drive your father to Redding for his medicine.”

  “The coins belong to us, April,” Carmen said. “You found them. Now I’m helping you find them a second time. We’re going to split it just like we talked about. You know you can trust me. It’s McKenna you can’t trust.”

  “April, I can prove that Paul killed March and Lori and Astor. Then Carmen killed Paul.”