by Todd Borg
“Okay!” Ellie said, barely containing her excitement. “Owen told us about art. Now you tell us about an insect! Pick a bug. Any bug. Something strange that would live in this landscape.”
Street sat on the arm of Ellie’s chair and gazed at the reproduction of Bierstadt’s painting.
Ellie drank the last of her Jack Daniels and looked up at me, more life in her eyes than in nearly anybody, never mind someone working through their ninth decade. “Owen? While Street thinks, maybe I should have another J.D.! Don’t you agree?”
“Absolutely.”
“Oh!” Ellie said. “I haven’t had this much fun in years!” She was nearly bouncing in her chair.
I brought Ellie another whiskey and myself another beer. I didn’t refill Street’s glass because, after all, she still had an inch left which would last her another hour.
“Okay,” Street said. “There’s an obvious insect wherever you find dead wood.” She pointed to the picture. “Like the rotting stump of this tree. Underneath there is likely a termite colony.”
Ellie scrunched up her nose. “I hate termites. The pale, crawly things give me the creeps.”
“They’d give you worse than that if you were an invader in their nest. You know how social insects like ants and bees have evolved specialized behaviors among their members? Queens lay eggs. Workers find the food and tend the eggs. Well, the only job of soldier termites is to protect the nest. And they’ve evolved an extreme way of doing so.”
I looked at Ellie. “Knowing termites, I have a feeling we’re about to hear something gross.”
Ellie turned toward Street. The old woman’s eyes were wide and alert.
“Worse,” Street said. “When the threat to the nest is major, the soldier termite turns around and attacks with a blast from its rear end. Except, in this case the effort is so severe that it blows its entire rear end off.”
“Does the termite die defending the nest?” Ellie asked.
Street nodded somberly. “Altruism in the extreme.”
“This, uh, artillery shot,” I said. “What do entomologists call it?”
“Explosive defecation.”
Ellie and I looked at each other, our eyes locking. We burst into laughter.
“Definitely a Kafka bug,” Ellie said.
We ended up discussing insects and art for another hour during which time I got out some salsa and cheese and leftover roasted chicken, rolled up some enchiladas and popped them in the oven. While they baked, I opened a Sonoma Valley Zinfandel, got out spinach and lettuce and washed a bowl of cherry tomatoes. When the enchiladas were hot I sprinkled shredded sharp cheddar over them. I put a couple more logs on the fire and, because I don’t have a dining room never mind a table, I served us an enchilada dinner in our living room chairs.
After a time, Ellie said that she didn’t remember the last time she had such an enjoyable evening, and could she extend it by sleeping over? I understood that she was too tired to ride back down to the foothills. My first thought was that I didn’t have a fold-out couch and maybe Ellie should sleep at Street’s. But then I remembered that Street had just put up Mrs. Duchamp. And the previous spring my client Jennifer Salazar had taken refuge there. Despite Street’s generosity, it wasn’t right to put all of my temporary housing needs on her doorstep.
“Of course you can stay over,” I said. “You’ll take the bedroom.”
“Are you sure?” Ellie said.
“Certainly. I’ll sleep in the living room with the dogs. Natasha will be more comfortable in a strange place if she has company.
Street stayed a few minutes longer and kept Ellie company while I put fresh sheets on the bed. Then Street headed home.
“She seems like a very special girl,” Ellie said as I returned to the living room. “So... full of life.” Ellie looked up at me, her eyes searching. “Do you think you’ll get married some day? Mind you, I know that’s prying, but when you get as old as me you can get away with it!”
“I’d love to,” I said.
“Get married to Street?”
I nodded.
“She doesn’t want to?”
“It’s not real clear. I’ve asked her a few times, but she declines.”
“But she seems to like you so much. You two get along in a special way.” Ellie’s face showed confusion. “Is there another man?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said. “It is more about having complete control over her life. I think she feels she would be losing some independence.” I was surprised at myself. It wasn’t like me to reveal such thoughts to another person. But Ellie had a way of opening me up.
“If she has a measure of fear about losing control,” Ellie said, “there must be a reason.”
“There is. The last time she wasn’t in control was when she was a child and her childhood was rough to say the least. Some ugly things happened to her. She ran away from home when she was fifteen and hasn’t spoken to either of her parents since.”
“Where do they live?”
“At the time Street left, they lived in St. Louis. Her mother was an alcoholic and her father had been in and out of prison, mostly in. We don’t know where they are now. I offered to find out, but Street doesn’t want to know. She shut the door on her childhood and won’t open it back up.”
“Does she have siblings?”
“She had a brother, two years her junior. But he died a few days after a beating by the father. The coroner said the cause of death was pneumonia, but everyone else thought it was the beating. Street left the next day.”
“Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry,” Ellie said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Where did Street live when she ran away? Fifteen is so young.”
“She took a Greyhound to Memphis where she had cousins by her mother’s sister. She called from the station and they came to pick her up. But the first thing her aunt did was call Street’s parents. Street could hear her father yelling in the background. She was so frightened of him coming and taking her home that she slipped out in the middle of the night and started hitchhiking.”
“I can’t imagine anything so terrifying,” Ellie said.
“Me neither. But she got a series of good rides and headed west to San Francisco.”
“Did she know anyone there?”
“No. And she didn’t quite make it that far. Her last ride let her off in Berkeley early one morning. She wandered around for a couple of hours and spotted Cody’s Bookstore. She was still standing there when they opened.
“Let me guess. She got a job.”
“Yes. She lied about her age and said she would be good in the science section. The manager asked what she knew of science and she gave him a lesson on the insect Order called Lepidoptera.”
“How did a fifteen year-old girl know about that?”
“She’d always wanted a pet as a child, but her mother wouldn’t allow it. So Street collected insects. Her favorites were Monarch butterflies. She learned everything about them. I forget their scientific name, but I remember the Lepidoptera Order they belong in because we’ve joked about her time at Cody’s books as a type of adoption. She refers to it as the Lepidoption. She says Cody’s saved her life.”
We were silent awhile. Ellie had a few drops of wine left and she held her glass upended to let them drip out into her mouth.
“I suppose it is a good balance,” Ellie said. “You two live apart, Street has her independence, but you get together often. That’s why I never married. In my day a man’s needs were everything. Now people are finally realizing that women are just as important. You respect Street’s needs.”
“Yes, I do.”
“That is a good thing. More important than marriage.”
We sat for a time in comfortable silence, then said goodnight and Ellie turned in.
Now that I was alone, I quietly stepped outside and opened the garbage can where I’d put the stuffed animal. I pulled it out and turned it over in
the weak light of the front entry.
Most of the outside had been burned black. The fabric had melted in places and then cooled into a hard brittle covering that was cracked and broken. The inner yellow stuffing was singed and it too had cooled hard and rough.
I pulled two of the bent legs back into what may have been their original position and looked at the animal from different angles. I now understood that it had been a toy dog. But as I rotated it I saw that it had unusual proportions, thick through the chest and neck, but with long thin legs. On its flat belly was a patch of unburned fabric. Although soiled, it appeared to be mostly white with a bit of black on the edge.
Goosebumps raised up across my back. The toy stuffed dog, burned to a crisp, was supposed to be a Great Dane. A Harlequin like Spot.
NINE
I spent the night in my sleeping bag in front of the wood stove, the dogs on either side. Although little of my fitful dozing could be called sleep, toward dawn I finally achieved a couple hours of slumber, then awoke to the smell of coffee. Ellie must have already been up and busy in the kitchen. I unzipped the sleeping bag and shuffled outside onto the deck where Ellie reclined on the chaise lounge. The dogs lay on the far side of the deck, their noses on the edge of the boards, appearing to project over the lake. The fall sun was bright and hot and Lake Tahoe looked like a giant blue crystal a thousand feet below.
“Good morning,” I said.
“I made coffee,” Ellie said. She reached over to the tray she’d put on the table and poured me a steaming cup from the thermos. “I found no cream or sugar, so I’m assuming you like it black.”
“Blacker the better.”
“I dreamed of your Bierstadt painting,” Ellie said. “It was so peaceful.”
“With or without Street’s insects?” I asked.
“Without.” She looked at me, eyes flashing. “No Kafka bugs at all!”
We had a leisurely breakfast of strawberries and cantaloupe and did not speak of the fire or the dead man. Afterward, we loaded the dogs into the Jeep and drove back down to the foothills. We had an animated conversation about Ellie’s favorite pastime, gardening, as we wound through the American River canyon. Ellie’s take on the business of planting and weeding and harvesting was that gardening wasn’t much about vegetables at all, but instead was very much about rejuvenating one’s soul. To see things grow, blossom, mature, get old and die, and then watch nature start all over with a new beginning as fresh and eager as if the process weren’t a cycle but a singular miraculous event, was to Ellie a cleansing of her deepest places.
By the time I dropped Ellie and Natasha off at her Three Bar Ranch she’d gone from being a pleasant acquaintance to one of my good friends and someone I would consult in the future on matters much more varied than search and rescue.
When I got back to Tahoe, I stopped at my office on Kingsbury Grade. The only mail in my box was junk and bills. The day’s paper was on the floor in front of my door. The headline was huge and the story was under my friend Glenda Gorman’s byline.
BODY FOUND IN FOREST FIRE
A body found in the East Shore fire was burned beyond recognition according to Douglas County authorities. The unidentified corpse, believed to be that of a large male, was discovered by a search and rescue dog brought in by local detective Owen McKenna. McKenna, who could not be reached for comment, is believed to be working for the Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District. Battalion Chief Terry Drier would neither confirm nor deny McKenna’s involvement. Nor would he explain what motivated McKenna’s search and whether or not he expected to find a body.
Diamond Martinez, Fire Investigator for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, confirmed that the fire was set with gasoline in a meadow near the bottom of the Highland Creek ravine.
According to a source in a local fire department, the fire may have been started by an environmentalist upset with the fire suppression policies of the U.S. Forest Service. Linda Saronna, head of the Forest Service’s Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, said that the Forest Service is continually reviewing its fire suppression policies. Saronna stated that while controlled burns are increasingly used to reduce fire danger as well as to restore a natural balance to parts of the forest, it is Forest Service policy to use all available resources to put out fires near populated areas.
I tossed the paper on my desk and played the messages on the answering machine.
There were two from Glenda Gorman at the paper and one message from Diamond Martinez.
I dialed Diamond back first and he answered immediately.
“Got an ID on the body,” he said. “A Mr. Jake Pooler of Jake Pooler Construction in Truckee was reported missing yesterday. We sent a courier to Truckee to get old man Pooler’s records from his dentist. Dr. Aaron Ashley did the forensics.”
“Old man Pooler?”
“Sixty-eight.”
“Doesn’t sound so old to me,” I said.
“Old where I come from. You work the fields on your hands and knees, you’re old by forty. Anyway, Mr. Pooler had a bridge, some crowns and a lot of fillings. They all matched up.”
“Who made the missing persons report?”
“His wife.”
“Has she been notified?”
“Not yet.
“I’d like to talk to her,” I said.
“Feel free. The Truckee officer who took the missing persons report said she didn’t seem too upset by his disappearance.” Diamond paused. “Makes you wonder if she lit the match. Maybe I could ask you to do me a big favor, being that half of Truckee’s finest are down in Sacramento at a tactics seminar and they wondered if I could...”
“You want me to do the tough stuff,” I said.
“Sensitive guy like you would be perfect for the job. Besides, you’re on the Douglas County payroll. You’re practically a public official. Makes sense you’d inform the widow.”
I paused. “Okay.”
“Let me know what you find out.”
“Any word on her? Does she collect life insurance? Is his business worth much?”
“I asked a friend who works for one of the building supply companies in the area. Sounds like old man Pooler had more liabilities than assets. His name was near the top of their receivables list.”
“Not much motive for the widow,” I said.
“No.”
“One more thing that may connect with this.” I told him about the burned stuffed animal I found on my door step.
“Do you think it could be our arsonist trying to warn you off?” Diamond asked.
“I would, except that at the time the stuffed animal was put on my doorstep almost no one knew I was on the job.”
Diamond sighed. “I guess you didn’t see yesterday’s paper. The article on the fire had a mention of you just like today’s paper. Said you’d been hired by the Tahoe Douglas F.P.D.”
“What? I thought I was supposed to be kept under wraps.”
“You were. So either we’ve got a leak or someone was very careless. Anyway, there’s a lot of psychos out there, Owen. Anyone could have read about you and decided make a sick joke. Then again, maybe someone found the burned, stuffed animal in the woods and put it on your doorstep thinking you’ll want to see all possible evidence. Either way, I’d watch your back side. It ain’t a reach for an arsonist to leave a threatening sign before they do something more serious. Could be a copycat, too. Some jerk who wants to get in on all the fun the firestarter is having. I’ll send a deputy up the mountain to pick up the evidence. Never know what leads us to a firestarter. You going to be there?”
“No. I put the stuffed dog in the garbage can.”
“We’ll pick it up.” Diamond said goodbye and hung up.
I dialed the Herald and punched in Glenda Gorman’s extension.
“Glennie,” I said when she answered. “This is your favorite detective returning your call.”
“Owen, honey! Where have you been? You’re solving the world’s hottest fire mystery and I’m
in big need of a scoop. Do we know who did it, yet?”
“Nope.”
“How ’bout an ID on the victim?”
“Nope.”
“Any clue on the motive?”
“Nope.”
“There you go again, loquacious as Larry King. How am I going to fit it all into ten column inches?”
“Don’t know,” I said.
She paused. “How is Street?”
“Wonderful as ever,” I said.
“God, what I’d do to have a guy like you say that about me.”
“Glennie, you are wonderful and I’ve said so before.”
“But wonderful doesn’t make for love, does it?”
“For the right guy, it does.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. “Owen, you know that time a long way back when we almost had something? You and I fit together pretty good.” Her voice wavered. “How did you put it? ‘Like Zinfandel and garlic bread. A lot of spice and flavor, but still not the main course.’”
“Did I say that?”
“Yeah,” Glennie said. “The most heart-breaking words I ever heard.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“If Street ever...”
“I know. If it happens, I’ll call you first.”
I put on a windbreaker and got in my car with Spot. I drove around the south end of the lake and headed up the West Shore toward Truckee. Late September is the beginning of what locals call the shoulder season in the Tahoe tourist trade, yet cars filled the parking lots at Emerald Bay and camera-toting tourists crowded each other at the overlooks. All the snow from the storm had melted at the lower elevations and the wind was calm, leaving the lake smooth as glass near the shore. Out in the middle were odd calligraphic patterns traced by wind on the surface. In the distance across the lake I could see the dark scar from the fire and the smoke plume on the mountain above my cabin.