Tahoe Blowup Read online

  I drove past Homewood ski area with its lonely ski lifts waiting for the heavy snows of winter. In Tahoe City I turned left on 89 where the Truckee River spills out of Lake Tahoe and winds down the valley to Truckee, then Reno and on to Pyramid Lake, its final destination before the water ultimately evaporates in the hot Nevada sun. I went past the entrance for Alpine Meadows ski area and, a minute later, the Olympic rings that announce Squaw Valley. When I came to the historic railroad town of Truckee, now brimming with coffee houses, boutique shops and art galleries, I got out my map to find the street listed in the phone book under Jake Pooler Construction.

  The company’s offices were in a small building, up steep, narrow stairs. The thin wooden front door was warped and had peeling paint. Several letters had come off of the company sign so that it read, “Jake Poo Con ruction” A woman in her sixties sat behind a desk typing on a manual typewriter. She looked up at me with eyes that were weary behind a face stretched tight by an aggressive face lift. Her skin looked as if it would rip if she laughed.

  “Good afternoon, my name is Owen McKenna. I’m working with the Douglas County authorities. I understand Jake Pooler is missing. May I talk to you a minute?”

  “Sure. I’m Betty Williamson. Is he okay?”

  “Your boss,” I said, ignoring her question. “How long has he been missing?”

  “He didn’t show up for work the last two mornings. He went home early the day before yesterday, about two-thirty. He isn’t dead, is he?”

  “We’re just trying to track his movements,” I said truthfully, wondering about her conclusions. “You’re sure it was two-thirty when he left?”

  “Two-thirty, quarter to three. I remember because we had a window rep show up for a three o’clock appointment and Jake was already gone. Anyway, he left, apparently didn’t show up at home, and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “Have you spoken to his wife?”

  “Sure. But Lenora doesn’t know where he is, either. She was calling from the get go and demanding to know exactly when he left here. As if I had anything to do with where he’s run off to.”

  “Any idea where that might be?”

  Betty Williamson exhaled forcibly enough that I smelled a mint-flavored breeze. “With one of those young sluts, I suppose.”

  “Do you mean prostitutes?”

  “They may as well be. You know the kind. Rings in their noses. Circles under their eyes so dark it’s anybody’s guess what kind of drugs they’re on.”

  “Where does he meet them?”

  “Who knows,” Betty said. She briefly looked at the ceiling. “Probably waits outside the high school and catches the dropouts.” She scowled at the sheet of paper in the typewriter. “If you want to know more you can ask Winton. Oh, speak of the devil.”

  A door had opened up and a thin young man came into the office. He had long brown hair greased straight back, a pencil moustache and a pointed goatee. The little beard glistened as if it were dipped in polyurethane. His sleeves were rolled up exposing fuzzy tattoos on both forearms. In one hand was a clipboard, in the other a mug of coffee. His slouching posture was so bad that his back, viewed from the side, made a pronounced S-shape.

  “Winton, have either of the crews heard from Jake yet? This man is looking for him.” Betty pointed toward me. “I’m sorry, I’m really bad with names.”

  “Owen McKenna,” I said.

  The skinny kid made an exaggerated lean backward to take in my height, and gestured at me with his coffee. He stunk of patchouli layered over three-day-old body odor. “Hi. I’m Winton Berger.”

  “Winton?” Betty said again.

  The kid shook his head. “No. The Jake brake ain’t been seen or heard.” He had a thin, reedy voice and a slight speech impediment such that he gave the S in the word ‘seen’ a touch of an SH sound. He was a cliché of trailer trash, and yet I had a clear sense of a sly intelligence lurking beneath his dirtball façade.

  “Winton, I’ve told you not to call him a Jake brake. He isn’t part of a truck. He’s your boss. I won’t ask you again.”

  “Your boss, too. You should hear what part of a truck he calls you.”

  “Winton!” Betty Williamson colored a deep red.

  Winton set down the clipboard on a cluttered desk, rummaged around until he found a pencil, stuck it behind his ear and walked back out.

  “Maybe I’ll come back another time,” I said. “I’m off to see Jake’s wife. Can you tell me where they live?”

  Betty calmed and worked at smoothing her skirt under the desk. Then she told me where Mrs. Lenora Pooler lived.

  “What does Jake drive?” I asked.

  “A white Chevy Dooley. With a white topper.”

  “Dooley?”

  “You know, one of those monster pickups with dual rear wheels.”

  “Thanks, Betty. You’ve been very helpful.”

  She gave me a sad smile as I walked out.

  TEN

  To get to the Pooler residence I drove out to Donner Lake, a long finger of water just below the granite crest of Donner Pass. The scene was majestic enough that I wondered if Bierstadt had ever painted it. I reminded myself to check in my books someday.

  The house was a ramshackle affair with a filtered view of the water. Sided with weathered cedar shakes, it looked as if three old lake cabins had been dragged together and mated at odd angles. It seemed a strange house for someone in the construction business. As I approached and parked in front of an enormous Ponderosa pine, I struggled with a moral dilemma. Should I tell Lenora Pooler right off about her husband’s death and risk not learning anything in the resulting emotional upheaval? Or should I ask questions first, hoping to learn anything that might help find the arsonist?

  I decided that a person had a basic right to the truth about all things central to their lives even if that compromised an arson and murder investigation. I left Spot in the Jeep, his huge head hanging out an open window, walked up to the door and knocked.

  The door was opened by a trim woman who, like Betty Williamson, was also in her sixties, but with a normal face. Her short, carefully-brushed gray hair looked soft as cashmere, and when she craned her neck to look up at me I saw pretty blue eyes that looked permanently mournful. A blue cardigan that matched her eyes was draped over her shoulders. Her demeanor showed the same fatigue that imbued Betty Williamson, and I wondered if all the women around Jake Pooler had the same affliction.

  “Mrs. Pooler?”

  “Yes?” she said in a tiny voice.

  “My name is Owen McKenna, calling on behalf of Douglas County, Nevada. I’m very sorry ma’am, I have bad news.”

  “What?”

  “Mrs. Pooler, your husband Jake was found dead yesterday afternoon. He wasn’t identified until this morning.”

  I didn’t know what reaction I expected, but it wasn’t what I got.

  Lenora Pooler looked at me without a change in her sorrowful expression. “You’d better come inside,” she said.

  I followed her into the house. She sat on a peach-colored loveseat, perching on the edge like a bird, her ankles and knees primly together. She motioned me toward a big, leather easy chair where Jake no doubt took up residence when he was home.

  “Where did they find him?” she asked. Her voice, although weak, was calm.

  “In Douglas County. In a ravine just up from the East Shore of Tahoe.”

  “How did he die?”

  “They won’t know for certain until after an autopsy is completed. But the body was burned in the East Shore forest fire, so the fire may have been the cause of death. I’m very sorry, Mrs. Pooler.”

  “Please call me Lenora.” She paused, looking inward. It seemed that whatever emotional parts of her that might have collapsed at the news had already imploded long ago. “What do I need to do now?” she asked.

  I watched her, wondering if she could have murdered him and then lit the fire to cover it up. While it seemed that the news of her husband’s death was not devasta
ting, I realized she nevertheless felt completely lost. That didn’t mean she wasn’t a killer. But it was hard to imagine.

  Of course, most people have the capacity to kill. It is a wide spectrum. Some people kill because someone looks at them wrong. Others would need to have their entire family slaughtered in front of their eyes before they could work up the nerve to pull the trigger. But they have the capacity.

  Now, looking at Lenora Pooler, I wondered if she had the capacity to kill. Her diminutive voice, age and physical stature didn’t mean anything. There are tiny, meek women who can run a piano wire through their husbands’ brains and then sit down for their favorite TV show. But whatever the language is that communicates the potential to kill, it wasn’t talking to me now.

  Her question came back to me. “I’m not well versed in these things, Lenora. But I think the thing to do next is to call a good friend, someone who knows your situation. You’ll need help with the phone calls from the authorities and making funeral arrangements. Later, you may need some help figuring out what to do with your husband’s business and such. Do you know someone you can call?”

  Lenora Pooler shook her head. “I don’t have any friends anymore.” Then she bent her head down and mumbled something I couldn’t make out.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I didn’t hear you.”

  She mumbled again.

  “I’m sorry, Lenora, I still didn’t hear you.”

  She lifted her head and looked at me, her sad blue eyes larger and tinged with pink. “I said that he went to bed with all my friends.”

  Such words from this woman were shocking. She didn’t speak in anger, but with resignation. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It didn’t matter who they were, what they looked like or how old they were,” she said. “If they were female, he went after them. And with Jake it was like saying no to a charging horse. Nothing stopped him.” Lenora hung her head. “To make it worse, once he made his conquest it was the women who would come back for more. He’d be chasing the next one while the last one would beg him. I listened in on some of the phone calls. Even my best friend Lucy.” Lenora’s eyes suddenly streamed tears. “So one of them finally torched the bastard,” she said, the first hint of anger in her voice.

  I thought of what Betty Williamson said about Jake Pooler chasing young women, or even girls. “Perhaps you have a male friend or relative who could help you out,” I said.

  Once again Lenora Pooler seemed to turn inward. I had the feeling that she spent a lot of time in this private place inside her mind.

  I decided to probe in a new direction. “Lenora, did your husband have a gas can?”

  Her gaze shifted from her inner world to me. “Certainly. Several. You know, on the truck, for the machines and such. And here in the shed. For the snowblower.”

  “Do you know where the truck is?”

  “No. That truck was the only thing he really cared about. Besides chasing other women. He even had a name for it. Molly. Can you imagine anything more stupid than naming your truck?” She turned and gazed vacantly out the window. The granite of Donner Summit reflected in the blue water of Donner Lake. “He told me that Molly had more curves than I did.”

  It took me a moment to think of something to say.

  “May I see the gas can in the shed?”

  Lenora looked surprised. “I don’t see why not.” She stood up and walked to the door. From a closet nook she pulled out a long coat. I helped her pull it on before we went outside into a day that was bright and warm.

  Lenora took a long look at Spot hanging his head out of the Jeep window. His tongue dangled from his mouth and, with each panting breath, flicked drops of saliva onto the side of my car. “Pretty dog,” she said, not mentioning his size which may have been a first. But then, for a diminutive woman who lived with a big man who had even bigger appetites, maybe nothing else seemed out-sized.

  The shed was around the side of the house. It was built as a lean-to and had a fiberglass roof that joined the house just under the eave of the main roof.

  Lenora unlatched the door and pulled it open. “He keeps the snowblower and some tools in here. And the gas can is right there.” She pointed behind the door.

  There was no gas can.

  Lenora looked elsewhere in the small shed and then turned and looked up at me. “I was wrong. The gas can isn’t here.”

  “Do you remember the last time you saw it?” I said.

  Lenora thought a moment. “No. But it’s been here for years. So perhaps it went missing with my husband.” Words came easier to her now as if problem-solving took her mind off his death. “Makes you wonder if he lit the fire, doesn’t it? Knowing Jake, I wouldn’t put it past him to accidentally burn himself up.”

  Her suggestion was a surprise. Did she know the fire wasn’t from natural causes? I hadn’t seen a paper anywhere in their house, nor was the radio or TV on when I arrived. “Do you have reason to believe the forest fire was caused by arson?” I asked.

  “No, but it seems logical when you asked about a gas can.”

  “Has your husband ever lit fires before?”

  “No, Jake isn’t an arsonist, at least not in the way of someone who gets their kicks out of burning things down. But he is a hot head. Was.” She looked away toward the trees in their backyard. “If someone made him very mad, I suppose I could think of a scenario where he might put a match to something and it got out of hand.”

  “Do you remember what the gas can looked like?”

  “Oh, you know, normal, I guess. A small, red can. It was circular and had a flexible spout.” She had described the can that Ellie’s dog found.

  We backed out of the shed and Lenora shut the door. She led the way back to the front door.

  “Did Jake ever have any disagreements with the forest service?”

  Lenora turned on the front step and looked up at me. “Mr. McKenna, if you want to understand Jake you need to know that he had disagreements with everyone. I mean everyone he ever met and everyone he never met.” Lenora’s eyes narrowed. “Jake was the orneriest son of a bitch you could have ever known. If you never knew him, count yourself lucky.”

  I nodded understanding. “Did Jake have a computer?”

  Lenora opened the door and led me inside.

  “Actually, he just bought one. He used to think that computers were part of a United Nations conspiracy to take over America. He’d heard of computer viruses and he was convinced that they would come out of the machines at a certain pre-arranged time and kill us all off. Then brown-skinned men in turbans would rise up and take over the world.”

  “But he bought a computer anyway?” Jake was beginning to sound like a true nutcase.

  “Yes. He had started to imagine that there might be something he could use one for.”

  “Which was?”

  “Nothing of any substance that I could see. I said he should give it to Betty at work. My God, she still types on a manual typewriter. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He kept it in his office where he could watch porn movies or whatever it is that comes from the internet.”

  “I stopped by the construction business, but I didn’t see any computer.”

  “Oh, no. He is much too private to have his office at work. He uses the back room here at home.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Sure. But I’ll warn you that it is an awful mess.” She led the way through a door in the corner of their living room. Inside was a desk piled high with papers and vendor notebooks. On one corner was the computer, still running. The screen saver was a naked woman cavorting through a forest.

  “May I?” I asked, my hand poised above the mouse.

  Lenora Pooler nodded from the doorway, watching me, not from suspicion but from curiosity. I guessed that she’d never worked one.

  I clicked and the Windows format came up. I looked through his files for any obvious file names that would indicate a note saying that “the first fire would take only trees.” Nothing came to my att
ention. I loaded Word, typed a few words and clicked on the print icon to see what the default font would be. The laser printer hummed and out came the paper. The font looked like the same size and style as on the note delivered to Terry Drier’s fire station. None of it meant that Jake Pooler typed the note and lit the fire that burned him and half the mountain. But it appeared to be a possibility.

  “Lenora,” I said as I left Jake’s home office and stepped back into the living room, “do you have any children?”

  Her eyes were painful to look at as she answered. “I don’t,” she said, pausing. “He may.”

  I thanked her, told her I’d be in touch and then left with the paper from Jake’s laser printer in my pocket.

  ELEVEN

  After leaving Lenora Pooler, I went and made a report to the Truckee police. It turned out that Diamond had already called them and the Placer County Sheriff’s department. He explained that I was on the case and that I was informing Jake Pooler’s widow of Jake’s demise.

  I told the sergeant on duty about Pooler’s missing gas can and showed him the paper I’d gotten from Pooler’s computer printer with the type font that looked like the arsonist’s note. All of this was just professional courtesy because the crime of arson had taken place on the Nevada side of the lake and was out of their jurisdiction. Nevertheless, I knew that all people in law enforcement appreciate shared information, and they are less than happy with those agencies, like the FBI, who often dispense information only on a need-to-know basis.

  When I rejoined Spot in the Jeep I wasn’t sure of what my next move should be. I thought about a matinee and popcorn. Yet I was being paid by the Tahoe Douglas County Fire Protection District and they deserved fair value. Maybe I could consult with Street Casey. I drove back around the lake, stopping at the store for a baguette, cheese, wine and a rose.

  Although I have a key to Street’s condo, I knocked and held the single red rose behind my back. Spot sat like a gentleman dog next to me. Maybe he’d learned some manners after hanging around Natasha.