Tahoe Avalanche Page 9

  “I haven’t studied them, so I can only guess. The snails these bugs are after are plentiful in temperate soils. One might find them in the foothills, as high as two or three thousand feet of elevation.”

  “What about the possibility of the bug hitching a ride up to Tahoe?” I said. “Let’s say the murderer kills the girl and puts her in the trunk of a car where this bug has been hitchhiking.”

  “I think it’s possible,” Street said. “If this bug were brought up to the cold of Tahoe, it might not die in a somewhat-warm car trunk. And it might seize the opportunity to get warm inside the mouth and throat of a fresh corpse.”

  I turned to Kylie. “Jack, have you come to any conclusions about the time of death?”

  “The condition of the body suggests she was killed approximately eighteen to twenty-four hours prior to being frozen. The time range is primarily due to not having knowledge of the body’s temperature during that period. I should point out that while her body likely became substantially frozen when it was left in the avalanche path at Emerald Bay, it is also possible that it was very chilled or partially frozen a few days before that.”

  “Couldn’t she have been killed even earlier and her body frozen shortly after that, preserved this whole time?”

  “No, because even a frozen body undergoes dessication. Freeze drying, if you will. I see none of that.” Kylie pulled out another jar with a few white dots floating in a clear liquid. He handed the jar to Street. “I found these in her sinus cavity.”

  “So there was some blow fly activity,” Street said, holding the jar up to the light.

  “Apparently. Although I must confess to being very negligent in how I handled these. I carefully collected every one I found and preserved them.”

  “In a solution that kills them,” Street said, still looking at the jar.

  “Yes. Only later did I remember the importance of keeping some alive so that the species can be identified after they mature. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry,” Street said. “Handling entomological evidence is still a young science. Many coroners are not up to speed on it. Do you have a lens?”

  Kylie found a magnifier and handed it to her.

  Street studied them under the lens. “These are first instar maggots. At eighty degrees, a blow fly will likely lay eggs on a body within ten minutes of death. The eggs will often hatch within ten to thirty hours. The maggots will grow from the first instar stage to the second within another ten to forty hours. At the earliest, first instar maggots can grow to this size in approximately twenty-four hours from the time the fly laid the eggs.

  “Of course, in the middle of winter it is hard to find eighty degree weather anywhere close to Tahoe, but a nice warm winter day in Sacramento can get up to seventy. And the sinus provides a warm environment for several hours after death, quite insulated from the weather. If the body had been down in the Central Valley, and a blow fly had done her duty and got into the girl’s nostrils very quickly, then these maggots could have hatched and grown to this small size in twenty-four hours. Probably not less time. Very likely more time.”

  “Makes sense,” Kylie said. “Then the low end of your estimate based on the maggots and the high end of my estimate based on the state of the body match up at about twenty-four hours.”

  Street nodded.

  “There is one more bit of evidence,” Kylie said. “On the back of the girl’s left hand and on the palm and fingertips of the right was dirt. But her fingernails were clean. The pattern would be consistent with dumping a body on its left side in the dirt. Like this.” He demonstrated a sideways sleeping position, on his left side, with the back of the left hand and the palm of the right hand striking the ground. “If she’d been alive and conscious, she would have clenched her right hand and gotten dirt under her fingernails. With no dirt under her fingernails, I surmise that she was dead when she hit the ground.”

  Kylie pulled a glass slide out of a drawer and slid it into a microscope. “There was only enough dirt on her hands to leave stains, but I collected what I could.” He gestured toward the microscope. “If you could have a look, Street?”

  Street sat down at the scope. “I know what to look for in bugs,” she said. “But I’m not very dirt savvy.”

  “Just tell me what you think,” Kylie said.

  “There are some very tiny grains of what look like crushed granite particles,” Street said. “But most of what I see is much darker and has fibrous components. It looks like humus, decomposed plant and animal material. The portion of the soil that gives it the most nutrients and makes it fertile.” Street turned from the microscope. “Humus is where one finds carabids.”

  “Thanks,” Kylie said. “That confirms my thoughts.”

  “What about the male victim?” I asked.

  “That case is much simpler,” Kylie said. “He died from blunt-force trauma to the chest. The damage to his chest was consistent with hitting a tree. The blow ruptured his aorta. Brain death would occur within a few minutes. The back side of his body, especially his back and the back side of his head, shows a great deal of snow abrasion such as what would happen if an avalanche hurled him into a tree and then continued to flow over him from behind.”

  “So his death appears to be accidental,” I said.

  “Unless someone can play God with avalanches, yes.”

  NINETEEN

  “You think that someone caused the two avalanches?” Street said as we drove back to Tahoe.

  It was raining in the Central Valley, a very light drizzle that had me switching the wipers from a constant sweep of the windshield to intermittent and back again. Spot slept in the back seat, something he often does when it is raining and he can’t see well out the window.

  “It’s possible. Glennie’s caller claimed to have set the first one.”

  “Is starting an avalanche that easy?”

  “Maybe. I’ve read that avalanche victims cause most of the slides that kill them. Their ski tracks cut the slope and release the snow. But that doesn’t mean it would be easy to start a slide whenever and wherever you wanted. You’d have to have a slope that was ready to slide. And if you wanted to increase the odds of starting a slide, you’d have to use explosives the way ski patrollers do at the ski areas.”

  “The victim at Sand Harbor was in his car,” Street said. “In theory, the killer need only force the car to stop, then trigger the avalanche. But how would it work? Does the killer wait up on the mountain, shoot out the victim’s tires to make him stop, and then toss the explosive to start the slide? Shooting the tires on a moving car would be difficult. Getting a slide to be so precise that it buries the stopped car seems equally difficult. And that still wouldn’t explain how March Carrera died, out of his truck, wrapped around a tree.”

  We were silent, thinking.

  Street continued, “Doctor Kylie’s discovery that the girl was killed by suffocation and later positioned to be in the avalanche breaks the pattern. Why would that be? If Glennie’s caller were telling the truth, that the slides he is causing are some kind of eco-terrorist payback, then it would imply that March Carrera was accidentally caught in the slide. But the suffocated girl suggests that whomever triggered the Emerald Bay avalanche was the girl’s killer, which suggests that murder rather than eco-terrorism was the goal. In which case, you need to find a connection between March Carrera, Lorraine Simon and Astor Domino.”

  Street drew a shape in the condensation on the inside of her side window. It looked like a mountain. Then she used the palm of her hand to sweep a big path down the center. “Unless the girl’s death and the mens’ deaths were caused by two men,” she continued. “The girl’s death would be unrelated to the others, and her killer just happened to dump her body where the second perpetrator set his avalanche.”

  Street turned to me. “What do you think?”

  “I’m trying to keep track of your ideas, but I ran out of neurons.”

  “That’s a guy problem, huh?”


  “No doubt,” I said.

  “You should ask Mare about the avalanches,” Street said.

  “I’ll do that.”

  I dropped Street off at her condo and headed up the long private drive to my cabin. There was a plain envelope push-pinned to my front door. I went inside, fed and watered Spot, then opened the envelope. There was a single sheet of paper inside, computer printed, Times Roman, double-spaced.

  McKenna – Our dispute with the people destroying Tahoe doesn’t concern you. Stay out of it. If you don’t you will find yourself in the center of future battles.

  I called Diamond and told him about it.

  “Did you ask your neighbors if anybody saw the person who delivered it?”

  “They’re all gone at their primary homes.”

  “You sure?” Diamond asked.

  “No tire tracks on the road going past my cabin for two weeks except the guy who plows.”

  “You want me to send the note to the crime lab?”

  “It’s your call to spend taxpayer dollars,” I said. “I’d bet there are no prints or any other evidence on it. Looks like standard paper and envelope and push pin available from any office supply store. I’ll hang onto it.”

  “Okay,” Diamond said. “Keep your head down.”

  TWENTY

  Street had reminded me about our avalanche-expert friend.

  Mariposa Pearl had been a ski patroller at Heavenly Ski Resort ever since she moved up from Big Bear, outside of L.A., six years ago. Her friends knew her as a sweet, feminine, 29-year-old kid with a sophisticated sense of humor.

  But to the rest of the world, at six-two and one hundred ninety pounds of solid muscle, she was Pearl-The-Powerhouse. Once, when Street and I were skiing with her, we saw two skiers recklessly speeding on one of the beginner runs. They ran over the skis of some little kids taking a group lesson. They came so close to those children, it was a miracle none of them was hit, a collision that could have been fatal.

  When Mariposa caught up to the speeders at the base of the chair, it turned out they were college-aged and linebacker-sized and they’d had more than a few beers. They were as belligerent as they were big, but after Mare gave them a dose of Pearl Power, they meekly handed over their lift tickets, red-faced, embarrassed, and possibly even chagrined at their stupidity.

  I dialed her number at eight o’clock that evening. She answered on the third ring.

  “Mmm, mello?” she mumbled through a full mouth.

  I remembered that her hobby was cooking. “Owen Mc-Kenna calling to make sure you’re getting enough vegetables in your diet.”

  “Owen! How long it has been? Hold the phone. I can swallow if I drink milk.”

  I heard drinking sounds, then a glass banging on the counter.

  “Okay,” she said. “If I count the beans and rice and onion stuffed in the green pepper, that makes four vegetables.”

  “Rice is a vegetable?”

  “After my day on the mountain, toothpaste is a vegetable.”

  “I thought ski patrollers were just in it for the free skiing.”

  “If it would stop snowing for five minutes, I could do that.” I could hear her fork clinking on a plate followed by the sounds of eating. “But this year, all I do is work, clearing snow, digging snow pits, doing avalanche control. It never stops. A week of blue sky would be like a vacation back home.”

  “You working tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Yeah. But I’m off the day after that. I’m going to sleep late, then lounge around and drink tea all day.”

  “What kind of fee would get you out for a backcountry ski trek?”

  “On my day off?”

  “On your day off.”

  “Where would we be going?”

  “Up Maggie’s Peaks, the north mountain, to do some forensic avalanche analysis.”

  “Forensic like on TV?”

  “Yeah. Figure out the past snow by studying the present snow.”

  “You’re investigating the slide at Emerald Bay? Is the truck still in the tree?”

  “Yeah and yeah,” I said.

  “And you’d pay my regular wage plus a forensic bonus?”

  “Depends on the bonus. Would donuts cover it?”

  She was silent for a moment. Thinking, maybe. Or eating more stuffed pepper. “Just to be sure I understand, you want me to analyze the slide?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But it’s snowed another foot or two since the slide. How would I see anything?”

  “You do avalanche control at Heavenly.”

  “Me and the guys.”

  “So you’re an expert,” I said. “I could go up myself and stare at the snow and think about the view. But you might see something else.”

  “Under two feet of snow.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  She ate some more. “I think the donuts will cover breakfast, but dinner at Evans would complete the bonus nicely.”

  “They serve beans and rice?” I said.

  “They serve the whole rainbow of vegetables plus a filet mignon medium rare. And Street will join us?”

  “I always bring her along. What time do I pick you up?”

  “Seven? Day after tomorrow?” she said.

  “I’ll be there.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  I woke up hard from a dream about Bill Esteban following a girl. I didn’t like the dream, and I didn’t like wondering about Bill.

  After I coffeed up and took Spot out for an early morning run, I prepared for a stakeout over in the Tahoe Keys. I made a bag lunch, a thermos of coffee, took my cell phone so I could do some business phone calls and my book on East Asian Art in case I wanted to get smart.

  I didn’t know if Bill was even home, so I drove over to his house. The garage door was shut. I couldn’t see the Escalade. Only way to tell was to knock on the door. Maybe a surprise visit would shake something up.

  A woman who looked like the photo of Carmen Nicholas answered the door.

  “Hello,” she said in a pleasant voice and cheerful demeanor. She was short and round and poured into a tight yellow summer dress that showed off her substantial chest. On her feet were summer sandals, thin little straps that bit into pudgy flesh.

  “Hi, I’m Owen McKenna, here to see Bill, please.”

  “Oh, of course. I’m Carmen Nicholas. Bill has told me all about you. He is so glad you are helping him.” She lowered her voice. “This has been so hard on him, but he won’t talk about it much. I’m just glad he has you to lean...” She looked past me and saw Spot with his big head hanging out the window. “Oh, my God! That is the most beautiful dog!” She ran out into the snow and immediately hugged him. No fear. No hesitation. She ran her hands up and down his neck, and when he unburied his face from the depths of her bosom, he looked rapturous.

  “What is his name?” Carmen shouted back toward me.

  “Spot.”

  “Oh, Spot, you gorgeous creature! Come out of there and play with me.” She opened the back door without asking permission and Spot jumped out. He didn’t even try to walk away, but just stood still, tail wagging, loving Carmen’s hugs and kisses.

  “Spot, you have to come inside,” she said. “I can’t believe that Mr. Owen is such a meany that he leaves you in the car when you should be eating cookies with us!” Carmen turned and beamed at me. Spot often had a magical effect on people, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone happier with him than Carmen was at that moment.

  Carmen kept her hand around his neck and he walked at her side to the door. “Bill?” she called out when she was inside the front door. “Owen McKenna is here and I’m bringing his dog in. Is that okay? You’ll love him, I’m sure.”

  She went up the stairs with Spot, and I followed, and when I saw Bill’s face I knew that he wasn’t wild about the idea of a dog in his nice house. But it was equally obvious that he was eager to keep Carmen happy. When he looked at her it was like he was a nervous kid beholding the girl of his dreams.

>   “Bill, meet Spot,” she proclaimed. “The most handsome dog in Tahoe.” She bent over just a little so that her head was next to Spot’s and hugged him again. His eyes went half shut with bliss.

  I looked at Bill and shrugged my shoulders. “Not my fault,” I said. “I left him in the car.”

  Bill made a sweet smile. “It’s fine.”

  “Can I feed him a treat, Mr. McKenna? Please?”

  “Owen, please, and yes, if you are nice to Spot, he will sometimes eat a cookie just to be polite. But I should warn you, I just fed him. Don’t be disappointed if he is too full.”

  Carmen turned her back to Spot, held her hand at her chest so only I could see and pointed at the plate of scones that she and Bill had been eating. She mouthed words at me. ‘Would it be okay to give him a scone?’

  “Sure, but I don’t know if he likes them. He’s very picky. He might just sniff it and walk away.”

  Carmen picked up a scone and turned to face Spot. He immediately understood her intentions and his sudden focus on the scone in her hand was so intense it unnerved her. She started to hold it out to him, and then, fearful of losing her fingers, gave it a little toss.

  None of us actually saw him eat it. There was a blur of movement, the clicking snap of teeth and the scone went from being in the air to being gone, replaced by a drop of saliva that arced through the living room and landed on the carpet near the fireplace.

  Carmen’s eyes got as wide as eyes get and she started giggling, then sat in Bill’s lap and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Bill, we should get a dog like that. Did you see him eat that? It was magnificent! Let’s go puppy shopping!”

  “Yes, Carmy,” Bill said. “He’s a nice dog. Maybe we’ll get a dog someday.” Bill winced. “My knees. I... “