Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller)

by Todd Borg

  It was clear that Jillian’s concept was genius. If these young people had even a fraction of the charisma while talking that they displayed while dancing down the slopes, it would be a powerful, subliminal endorsement of the Steven’s Peak Resort. People would instinctively want to go and check out whatever resort gave birth to these perfect-looking ski ambassadors.

  “Nice moves,” I said as they flew past us.

  “All Stevies candidates have to apply as if for any other job. If they get through the interview cut, then they have to do an extensive onslope audition. They have to ski or ride by us on the bunny slope, on the steep moguls, and in deep powder. We’ve since learned that a majority of those who get chosen to be Stevies have professional ski or boarding backgrounds. Many have worked as instructors at major areas across the West. Many have race backgrounds from the time they were little kids. Some were freestyle competitors. We even have two ex-Olympians. An even dozen Stevies have endorsement contracts from ski and clothing manufacturers. And one of those clothing companies designed and produces the Stevies uniform. It’s actually kind of thrilling to see Stevies on the slopes and hear people call out their names as they recognize them from race posters and ski magazine ads.”

  “How did you get these kids to sign on as Stevies when some of them are already making a good living as professional skiers?”

  “Two things. One, we pay them a ridiculously high fee to simply ski and be ambassadors for the coming resort. Believe me, it was a battle to get the development bean counters to go along with it. But I knew what would happen. As soon as the word started getting out in the professional skier community that these positions were high-paid, everyone began to think that the job was the coolest thing going. The spin-off from that was huge. Young professional skiers tend to come from families who introduced them to skiing and boarding at a young age. Those families are heavily invested in snow sports, both psychologically and financially. The people who own the vacation homes and businesses at the major resorts across the country tend to be connected to each other. They are also the investors in the resorts. So once you create the buzz, large numbers of people in that community are practically lined up, ready to invest in the next big resort.”

  Jillian drank the last of her beer, and put the can back in her pack. I took my last swallow, and she reached for my can as well.

  “I’m not privy to the financial side of the Stevens Peak Resort,” she said, “but I’ve heard some things here and there, especially from one of the Stevies’ fathers. It sounds like people with money want in. They want to buy condos and build ski-in, ski-out vacation homes. And the people with a lot of money want in on the development end. RKS is a private equity group, and they don’t release their numbers. But this one father – who is some kind of big shot in Hollywood – made it sound like RKS isn’t going to have to put up much money to build this monster resort. The package looks so good that investors are lining up.”

  The offload ramp at the top of the mountain was approaching. Jillian and I pulled our poles out from under our legs and were ready as the chair slowed. We skied off. I followed and stopped at the edge of a clearing where Jillian had stopped.

  “Should I just follow you?” I said.

  “If you can,” Jillian said with a grin. Then, “That was a joke. I’m sure you’ll be waiting for me at the bottom.”

  “Which run do you want to take?”

  “This morning I cruised the front side of the mountain and had my meeting. So I can free-ski for the rest of the day. I’d like to do the backside this afternoon. It’s mostly Black Diamond, though. There’s even a section I like that approaches Double Black Diamond. Are you okay with the steeps?”

  “I’ll give it my best,” I said.

  “Great. Let’s start with Burnout. It’s usually good for turning my thighs into rubber.”

  I nodded. “I’m curious what your mission is and if I can be of help.”

  “Actually, you can. As you ski, think about the Stevies and how other skiers will see them. What I want is to find the terrain with the most exposure where the greatest number of other skiers and riders will see them. Of course, that suggests that the Blue Square intermediate runs on the front of the mountain are where to go for an audience because that is where the greatest number of people are.

  “But I also want the kind of challenging terrain where the Stevies can really show their stuff. It’s a display, a performance, and Black Diamond runs are the best for that. But if they’re mostly deserted, then they do us no good.

  “So keep your eye out for where the skiers are and where the challenging slopes are. If we can find the best intersection of those two concepts, then we have Stevie heaven.” Jillian winked at me, reached up to pull her goggles over her eyes, and pushed off with her poles.

  I followed.

  I’m a decent skier, somewhat expert but not great. I never bomb the slope but usually keep some pretty good speed onboard unless the moguls are big. I thought I’d have no trouble keeping up. But Jillian dropped down Burnout like a cannonball. I stopped carving big turns and took the fall line, making only slight turns in my effort to speed up. By minimizing how much I used my edges, my speed increased until I was up near my limit in just five seconds. Yet Jillian’s distance from me grew fast.

  She wanted me to observe the slope for both challenges and other ski traffic to judge what size audience any given skier would have. But I had all I could handle just concentrating on my line. I was going fast enough that if I caught an edge, I would make a spectacular fall.

  I went through a transition that compressed me down, making my thighs burn. Then came a lip. I couldn’t see what was below. I tried to pre-jump it to minimize how much it would toss me into the air, but I misjudged and came down too early, my skis slamming onto the top side of the lip. It nearly crushed me, but I managed to keep my balance. The lip sent me airborne. I landed going fast. Too fast. There was a smooth patch where I thought I could turn. I edged hard to the left, slowing dramatically, then found a perfect, low mogul and used its lift to put me into a right turn, carving through some junk snow. When I came to an open area, I did a hard, skidding stop and came to rest at the edge of the trail.

  My lungs were heaving, my heart protesting the sudden extreme exercise.

  As Jillian skied down below me, her pink cap bobbed and danced and then disappeared as she went around a curve in the trail.

  When I caught my breath, I resumed my descent, going slower this time, threading my way through moguls, picking my line with care.

  When I finally got to the bottom, Jillian was waiting. She seemed to examine my suit, no doubt looking for, but not finding, snow patches that would reveal a fall and explain my delay.

  “How’d it go?” she asked.

  “Great,” I said, trying to muster enthusiasm. “But I found out that there is no point in trying to keep up with you. You’re amazing. So ’fess up. Where’d you get your chops?”

  She smiled. “I grew up in Colorado. We skied nearly every weekend in the winter. I tried racing here and there. Not enough to get good, but enough to get hooked. In high school, I read an article that said that Sierra Nevada College was the number one ski racing school in the country. A dozen Tahoe resorts within an hour’s drive. Diamond Peak was five minutes from campus, Mt. Rose fifteen minutes, and this one, Northstar, twenty. So I came west for school and eventually won a couple of NCAA championships. But that was as far as my racing career got. Now I just ski for fun. I like to take it easy and enjoy the scenery.”

  “Taking it easy?” I said. “That was my last thought as you shot down the mountain and disappeared into the mist your skis kicked up.”

  “So what do you think? See any good spots to direct the Stevies?”

  “Any place but Burnout,” I said.

  “Then how ’bout we try Polaris?”

  “Sure.” As I said it, I knew that it would be every bit as difficult as Burnout.

  Jillian skied over to the Backside
Express. I followed. We were on the chair a minute later.

  A few runs later, my thighs began to get shaky. Following Jillian was one of the more difficult things I’d done in years. I found myself stopping more often and watching her go, taking no rests. She skied with an economy that revealed her race background. Her turns were carved, not skidded. She had no wasted moves. She was not a showy skier like the Stevies. Every move Jillian made led to speed.

  Once, as I stood at the edge of a trail, trying to catch my breath, I noticed another skier behind her and to the side. He wore a white suit and had a white knit cap. When he was away from the trees, he blended into the snow and became hard to see. He was obviously a very good skier, not as clean of line as Jillian, but able to ski hard and fast. He wasn’t a showy skier, but he caught my eye because I realized that I’d seen him near Jillian on the other trails.

  I pushed off and tried to ski fast. When I got to the bottom of the run, Jillian was waiting as before, but the man in white was already on the chairlift, well up the mountain. I looked up to see if his face was visible, but he was too far up into the trees and facing upslope, away from me.

  Jillian and I got on the lift and rode in silence. When we got to the top, the man was gone.

  Two runs later, came a repeat experience. I was catching my breath, watching Jillian disappear down a mogul field, when I saw the same man. He appeared at the side of the trail, skiing fast, staying behind Jillian and nearly matching her moves.

  Sometimes, an aspiring skier will choose a better skier and follow that person down the mountain as a learning device. If the following skier doesn’t get too far out of their control zone, it can be very instructive to try to keep up and match the moves of the lead skier.

  It seemed like the man in white had chosen Jillian. It was obvious that she was one of the best skiers on the mountain.

  Yet something about his actions seemed different. He didn’t telegraph student learning from the master. He telegraphed wolf chasing prey, gauging its speed, its stamina, its strength.

  When I got to the bottom, he was gone. I decided that I was over-reacting to something that goes on constantly at every ski resort, so I didn’t say anything about it to Jillian. I didn’t want to alarm her.

  We skied the rest of the afternoon, taking in most of Northstar’s back side and finished the day with a beer in front of an outdoor fire at the pedestrian village.

  “Where else do the Stevies do their thing?” I asked when I had my boots off and my stockinged feet up near the flames.

  “All of the major destination resorts. Sugar Bowl, Squaw, Alpine, Diamond Peak, Mt. Rose, Northstar, Homewood, Heavenly, Sierra, Kirkwood. It’s been so successful that we’re considering putting teams out at the major Colorado areas.”

  “They ski every day, these Stevies?”

  Jillian nodded, obviously proud. “Yeah, we have eighteen teams of two. Two main teams for each of the areas. They rotate so that every major area has seven-day-a-week coverage. Because Squaw is bigger than most of the other areas, we have two extra teams there. Heavenly gets even greater treatment because of its huge size and because it’s close to Steven’s Peak. We know that many of the future customers of Steven’s Peak are currently skiing at Heavenly. So we have two main teams on the California side, one for the lower mountain and one for the upper mountain. Another two teams cover the upper and lower mountain on the Nevada side. Teams five and six rotate in to handle the sixth and seventh days of the week.”

  “Impressive,” I said. “Sounds like a good plan.”

  We watched the people ice skating on the rink at the center of the plaza.

  “I wanted to ask you something about Rell Rorvik,” I said, changing the subject.

  “Yes, of course! That’s why we met in the first place! How is she doing?”

  “Not well. I contacted you because Rell’s husband Joe isn’t sure that her fall was an accident.”

  Jillian’s face darkened. “You mean to say that someone made her fall off the deck?! My God! That is a horrible idea! I can’t believe that someone would push Rell!”

  “It’s not proven, yet. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you about it.”

  “I was so sad about her fall,” Jillian said. “So sad. And now... to hear that it might not be an accidental fall, that makes it so much worse.”

  “How well did you know Rell?”

  “Well enough that we felt very comfortable with one another. But not well enough that we ever told each other secrets.”

  “She didn’t confide in you?”

  Jillian shook her head. “But I sort of confided in her. She was very easy to talk to. Rell had a gift. She made you feel like you could say anything.”

  “Did you confide anything that could have distressed her?”

  “No nothing like that. I can’t even remember what I said. But I talked to her a little bit about some problems I’ve dealt with over the years.”

  “Can I ask what kind of problems?”

  “Just personal stuff. Family stuff. Relationship stuff.”

  “I think Joe said that you and Rell met at a book club?”

  “Yes. It was an on-again, off-again group. One of the regular women apparently knew of Rell and invited her. Another member did the same with me. Rell and I got along very well. But both of us only went to one more book club meeting. It wasn’t very organized, and both Rell and I are organized and focused. Neither of us has time for chit-chat over snacks.”

  “Did you ever see her or talk on the phone after you left the book club?”

  “Yes to both. She called me one day to catch up, as she called it. Then she asked me if I wanted to go hiking. I said yes. So we met at a trailhead near the Desolation Wilderness and hiked up to a couple of the lakes. There were some other people along. It was a good hiking group.”

  “Did any of the others make you uncomfortable? Or did anything happen or get said that would suggest that Rell might have disagreements with anyone?”

  Jillian paused, then shook her head.

  “Do you know the names of the other people in the hiking group?”

  “No. It wasn’t like that. We were all just hikers. It wasn’t about us, it was about the mountains.”

  I got out my card and handed it to her.

  “Will you call me if you think of anything that could pertain to this?”

  She nodded.

  We finished our beers. “Time for me to go home and rest my sore muscles,” I said.

  “Me too,” Jill said. “Maybe we can ski together again sometime. Maybe do some back-country descents.”

  “That would be fun.”

  “By the way,” she said, “when I said that I was just cruising that first run? I was kidding. Truth is, I did push it a little. I wanted to see how you would handle it.”

  “Did I pass?”

  “Yeah. Lots of guys make excuses if they can’t keep up with a girl. It’s pathetic. But you were honest. I like that in a man.”

  “I’ll remember that when I can’t get out of bed tomorrow morning.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Spot was excited to see me when I got home. As always when I’ve been gone, he pushed his nose hard into my clothes, sucking air through the fabric, teasing out hints of where I’d been and what I’d been doing. I let him outside, and I stood in the open doorway for a moment as he raced around. Spot seemed puzzled when I went back inside, chunked some food into his bowl, then popped an aspirin, sat down in the rocker with a beer, and barely moved.

  I called Street and told her about my day. Then I finished my beer and went to bed without eating. Wrestling with Ned Cavett was hard on a body. Trying to ski with Jillian was worse.

  When I heard Spot’s nails click on the floor, I rolled over and saw him standing in the dark, staring at me, wagging his tail. It was his come-and-give-me-some-attention posture. The red numbers on the clock said 7:30 p.m., the normal hour for a long pre-dinner walk and snowball fetch.

  “Sorry, largeness. I�
�m beat. See you in the morning.”

  I went to sleep.

  The clock said 7:30 a.m. when Spot woke me up by sticking his cold, wet nose in my face. It took me a minute to realize that it was exactly twelve hours later.

  He was standing in the same place, wagging as before.

  “You been there all night?” I realized that he was thinking the exact same thing. “Okay,” I said.

  My leg and back muscles were so sore from skiing that I was barely able to move. I did some slow stretches, made coffee, played with Spot in the snow, fed us both breakfast, and was about to call Street when the phone rang. It was Diamond.

  “The Rorviks have a neighbor named Dwight Frankman.”

  “Yeah, I’ve met him,” I said. “What’s up, Sergeant?”

  “About an hour ago, he was in a head-on collision with a tree. He’s alive but a little confused. Says someone ran him off the road. He thinks it was on purpose, but he’s a little paranoid, if you ask me. They just carted him off to the hospital.”

  “Where’d it happen?” I asked.

  “On the highway near Spooner Summit. His Chevy Tahoe went off the road, slid down the snowy bank, and did a face plant on a Jeffrey Pine. The pine is okay. The Chevy is pretty banged up. Airbag deployed. We might not have found him until spring, but for the kid happened to have a flare gun.”

  “Flare gun,” I repeated.

  “Sí. He fired several rounds until a lady going by noticed and called it in. Dangerous stuff, those flares. Burn at three thousand degrees for eight or ten seconds. If they land on something flammable, they’ll start a fire fast. But maybe they saved this kid’s life. He couldn’t get up the steep slope in all the snow. Anyway, after the whole Manuel Romero thing, driving off the mountain at Emerald Bay, I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Thanks,” I said, again trying to wake up, trying to make my sore body move. “I’ll check it out.”