by Todd Borg
“Will you still be getting paid while Mrs. Pooler decides how to dispose of Jake’s assets?”
“Well, now that you mention it, I haven’t thought about that. I’ve always handled the payroll, including writing out my own check. I figure out the FICA, state and federal withholding, unemployment and so forth. And I sign the checks. So I suppose I’ll keep doing that for the time being.” She looked at me hard. “You knew he was dead the last time you came by, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I had to inform the widow first. What about Winton? Is there still work for him to do?”
“My land, yes, if he would only show up! Just yesterday I took delivery on the roofing material for the Rewald’s. The trusses and sheathing are up of course, so the shipment was just the cedar shingles. But when I saw the bill of lading, I almost fainted! They came C.O.D. Custom cut, fire-proofed cedar shingles for a roof with something like fifteen dormers. It was Winton who placed the order. He must have forgotten to send the letter of credit! So I had to interrupt Mr. Rewald down at his venture capital firm in Santa Clara. What with all the faxes and bank guarantees, I’m up against the wall trying to keep track of it all. And that boy Winton taking off at a time like this! Good heavens, what am I going to do?” Betty looked up at me, her eyes searching mine.
“You say Winton hasn’t shown up for work?”
“No! Two days, now. And he just lets the answering machine get it when I call. If I didn’t know him so well, I’d be worried. I know he’s angry about Jake and is staying away out of spite. But little does he know that the fallout is all landing on me.” Betty folded her arms on her desk and bent her head down, forehead on forearms. Her gray hair hung forward off her head, just touching the cluttered desk top. Then she lifted up, her tight face red. “I’m sorry, Mr. McKenna. I guess this is all getting to me.”
“Betty,” I said, moving in closer, using a soft voice. “I thought I should talk to Jake’s friends. Maybe I could get a clue as to what happened. Could you give me the names of the people who were closest to him?”
Betty burst into laughter, then caught herself. For a moment I thought the skin over her cheeks would break. “Mr. McKenna, you don’t understand. Jake didn’t have any friends. He was, how shall I put it? He was an unpleasant man at best. It wasn’t like he and Lenora ever received dinner invitations or anything like that.”
“He must have been friendly with somebody.”
Betty shook her head. “Not the way I use the word. I suppose you could go over to the High River Saloon and ask around. Jake used to stop there after work.”
“I thought I’d stop by Winton’s house. Can you tell me his address?”
“Sure. He’s down by Carnelian Bay somewhere. I’ve never been there myself. Let’s see, I’ve got the number in the payroll file.” While she flipped through a file drawer, I picked up a phone book off her desk and looked up MacIntyre. There was a James MacIntyre listed in Soda Springs.
Betty handed me a Post-it note. “This is Winton’s address.”
I wrote Jimmy MacIntyre’s number next to Winton’s.
“Thanks, Betty. Oh, one more thing. Did you ever hear of Joanie Dove?”
“No. Who’s that?”
It was the exact same response that Joe the bartender at the High River Saloon had given me. I thanked her again, said goodbye and left.
I didn’t know the street that Jimmy MacIntyre lived on, but the bartender said it was out by Sugar Bowl Ski Resort. It made sense to go there first and catch Winton on my way back home.
Jimmy MacIntyre lived in a run-down eight-unit condo. I stepped past a broken plywood contraption that used to hold a grouping of six garbage cans. Now the ugly, bent cans sprawled at odd angles, the garbage pulled out and ripped apart by bears.
I stepped past the mess, found the MacIntyre unit and rang the bell.
The woman who answered was cute and petite, with perky hair cut shoulder length so that it would bounce like a cheerleader’s. No doubt she was the wife who’d been Jake’s sexual target. “Hello,” I said. “I’m looking for Jimmy MacIntyre.”
“Oh, no. Is he in trouble again?” She wiped her hands with a pink and blue plaid dish towel.
“May I speak with him, ma’am?”
She stuck a corner of the towel in the back pocket of her tight jeans, then stuck her hands on her hips. “You’re with the probation department, right? I don’t understand why they’re always switching officers. Just when Jimmy was starting to get comfortable with Mr. Webster, they changed him over to Mrs. Tasminski, or whatever her name is. Now you. What gives?“
I realized that the mistaken association would get me answers better than any other. “Is he home?”
“No, he’s at work. Where he’s supposed to be. I just talked to him on the phone, so I know he’s not out running around.” Her tone had an edge to it, as if she were an innocent wife, victimized by her husband’s transgressions.
“Where is work?”
“Oh, come on! As if you people don’t know everything about Jimmy!” She pointed toward the mountains. “Over at Sugar Bowl, remember? Chairlift maintenance in the summer? Snowcat driver in the winter? Ring a bell, now?”
“Thanks, ma’am.”
Fifteen minutes later I found Jimmy MacIntyre climbing down from a chairlift bull wheel. He held several tools in his left hand and hopped his right hand from one ladder rung to the next until he reached the ground.
“Jimmy MacIntyre? My name is Owen McKenna. I’d like ask you a couple of questions if you have a moment.”
Jimmy bent over and dropped his tools into a large tool box that was attached to the back of an all terrain vehicle, the kind with four over-sized, knobby tires and a seat and handlebar arrangement like on a motorcycle. “Ask all you want. It don’t mean I’ll answer.” He sounded gruff and angry. It was a big, bad world and Jimmy wasn’t finding an easy way through it.
“I’m investigating the East Shore fire. I wonder if you knew the victim, Jake Pooler.”
Jimmy was bent over the tool box, fishing for something. “If I did, I would have kicked his ass, that’s for sure.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“No.”
“You didn’t light him on fire in revenge for him sleeping with your wife?”
Jimmy jerked his head up to look at me. He held a large wrench in his hand. His knuckles were pale and hard under the grease. He shook with anger. “I wish I had! But somebody else beat me to it.”
“You sound serious, Jimmy.”
He moved a step toward me. The wrench seemed to levitate a few inches as if his hand were struggling to hold it down. “I am serious,” he hissed. “I would’ve burned him if I’d had the chance. I don’t care what would’ve happened. I coulda spent the rest of my life in prison, but it would’ve been worth it.” Jimmy turned and looked up at the mountain. He breathed deeply. His voice was lower when he spoke again. “I guess it was lucky for me that somebody else got him first.”
It was a short conversation, yet I saw no point in continuing. I regretted having faced Jimmy with his demons, but having done so convinced me of his innocence. His anger was so all-consuming that I didn’t think he could lie while under its influence. I thanked him for his time and left.
I drove back to Lake Tahoe on 89, past Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows ski areas. When I got to Tahoe City, I headed around the north side of the lake to Carnelian Bay, one of a long string of resort communities that consist of a jumbled mix of expensive vacation homes and old cabins. A fancy restaurant, a ski rental shop and a condominium complex filled the remaining spaces. Across the lake, 25 miles to the south, I could see the ski runs of Heavenly. Despite the Indian summer they were still white from the last snowfall, protected from the warm winds by their north-east orientation and their high elevation.
Winton Berger’s address turned out to be one of six tiny cabins that comprised the Big Sleep motel. A sign advertised weekly and monthly rentals and I surmised that the cabins were too small to compete with
other accommodations for the typical tourist. Winton’s cabin was number 4.
I found him out back, sitting on a tree stump sipping a beer. A short distance away was a dirty barbecue pot with a small pile of charcoal under the grill. The corners of a couple briquettes were white, but it looked like they had gone out.
“Hi, Winton. I’m Owen McKenna. We met at your office the other day.”
“Yeah, I remember.” He glanced up at me, then back at the charcoal. “Only, it ain’t my office. Never was, never will be. I quit.” There was a slight lisp on the S in ‘was’ and the C in ‘office.’
“Why? From what I gather, it would be a much nicer place to work now that Jake’s gone.”
“True,” Winton said. “But I’m sick of everything connected to that jerk. And ol’ lady Betty, she ain’t much better. She’s either in love with Jake or ready to cut his throat. All I hear about is Jake this and Jake that. It’s even worse now that he’s burnt toast. I can’t stand it.” Winton looked over at the charcoal in the pot. “Shit’s gone out.” Without getting up, he lit a kitchen match and tossed it onto the little pile of briquettes where it flickered weakly. Then he picked up the lighter fluid and squirted a long stream that arced through the air to the charcoal. The fluid burst into flame. Winton kept the stream going while the flames grew into an inferno.
I stepped back before my hair was singed.
Winton stopped squirting. “Damn charcoal never lights the first time.” He held the lighter fluid can up and looked at the label. “I should just use gasoline.” Winton set the can on the ground and looked up at me. “Of course, gas has this little problem.” He gave a nervous giggle. “If you squirt it like that while the fire is burning, the fire races up the stream and the can explodes. I saw that happen to a friend once when we were little. Lost three fingers on his right hand.” He giggled again. “But that charcoal sure did light the first time!”
“You like to play with gas?”
“What does it matter? You gonna try and stick me with Jake’s murder? Good luck, ’cause I was in Reno the whole time. My friend can vouch for me.”
I stepped to the side and sat down on another stump not far from Winton. Uncle Owen sitting down for a chat. Friendly. Caring. You could tell me anything. “Who said it was murder?” I asked.
Winton paused. “It only makes sense. He deserved to be murdered. And there are a lot of guys out there who’d do the honors. Besides, Jake wouldn’t have killed himself, accident or not. He wasn’t the type.” Winton poked at the charcoal with a long stick. “If I killed Jake I woulda done it the same way. Set a fire to make it look like an accident. With all them environmentalists fighting that Smoky Bear shit about not letting the woods burn, it wouldn’t look like murder. More like a war about fire policy.”
It is unnerving when you realize that you’ve underestimated someone. I suddenly had the sense that Winton was choosing his words not to express his feelings so much as to manipulate mine.
“Winton,” I said, “Did you ever know a woman named Joanie Dove?”
He hesitated just a moment. “No. Who’s that?”
I looked at Winton, disbelieving.
He smiled at me.
“Joanie Dove died in the second fire,” I said. I watched him carefully.
“What fire?”
“In Tallac Properties.”
“Where’s that?”
“On the South Shore,” I said.
“Oh,” he said.
“Winton, do you know where Jake kept his gasoline cans?”
He took his time answering. “I don’t know. On his truck, I guess.”
“Any idea where his truck would be?”
“No. Maybe at his house?”
I wondered how close Winton was to Jake. “Do you go there much?”
“Never been there.”
“But you know where he lived, right?”
Winton shook his head. “I met Mrs. Pooler once when she came into the office, but that’s all I know of his family life.”
“It was rare, her coming to Jake’s place of work?”
“Like I said, she only came once when I was there.”
“What was her reason that time?” I asked.
“Same as why she always called on the phone. Screaming about what she was going to do to the bastard.”
“Did she ever threaten to kill him?”
“Worse,” Winton said, looking off into the woods, remembering. “Once I answered the phone the same time as he did. Before I got it hung up I heard her yell that she was going to cut his pecker off.”
I pondered that. “Now that you’ve quit your job, what are you going to do?”
“Don’t know. I got a friend who drives truck for a cement company. Maybe he can get me some work.”
“Do you plan to stay in the area?”
“Why? You gonna charge me with a crime?”
“No. But we may have more questions.”
“We?”
“Me. The Truckee Police. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Department.” I stood up.
Winton craned his neck to look up at me. “You’re about as tall as Jack’s beanstalk.” Then he seemed to grow more sullen. “You want to ask more questions, come and find me. Maybe I’ll be here. Maybe I won’t.”
As I left I thought that Winton Berger could certainly be the firestarter, but it didn’t have the strong resonance I’d come to expect over my years of interviewing suspects who turned out to be guilty. Revenge as a motive for killing his boss was possible but not convincing. And there were some things that didn’t fit. Why, for example, would Winton spend a thousand dollars to have me roughed up? First of all, he didn’t look to have financial resources. Second, wouldn’t he just torch my cabin instead?
On the way home I called Lenora Pooler.
“Mrs. Pooler, this is Owen McKenna calling. I just have a quick question. Did you know Joanie Dove?”
“Who’s that?” she asked.
It was becoming boring, this answer to my question about Joanie Dove. Everybody had a reason to kill Jake Pooler, but no one would even admit to having heard of the second fire victim. It didn’t suggest much promise of finding a connection between the two.
TWENTY-THREE
I had used up most of the day and learned next to nothing. My one big breakthrough was when I decided that Jimmy MacIntyre, the spurned husband of one of Jake’s conquests, didn’t do the old bastard in. Which possibly narrowed my list of suspects down into the three figure range. I decided I should investigate the second victim while I was on a roll. But it was late, and as I drove south around the lake I was already mentally cataloging my wine selection and trying to match one up with the filet mignon in the fridge.
“What do you think, your largeness?” I said to Spot who was lying in the back seat. “Shall I open the Caymus cab?”
He swung his eyes toward me for a moment, the lower lids drooping and revealing pink crescents of flesh. Then he looked away.
“Okay,” I said. “I know you prefer beer, but trust me on this one, will you?”
Spot tucked his nose under the crook of his paw and pretended to sleep.
Being a detective, I knew that the excitement at the High River Saloon was not enough to sustain him through the day and he was back to being depressed over Pussy Cat. I believed that Dr. Selma Peralta would call as soon as the mountain lion was well enough to see Spot. His guilt would have to wait. The thought reminded me about the bullet they’d taken from Pussy Cat’s neck. It wasn’t yet five o’clock. The ballistics lab might still be open.
I got through on my phone.
“This is Owen McKenna calling to check on a bullet I dropped off. Any chance you’ve run the tests?”
“Yes,” a gruff voice answered. “We finished this morning. Hold on, let me grab the sheet.” I heard what sounded like clipboards being juggled. “Here we are. It was a twenty-two caliber, that much is clear. But unfortunately it was damaged by the impact and by the surgeon’s tongs. And if t
he victim is deceased, then I should point out that there is no coroner’s mark, a fact which you should point out to the county authorities. Very unprofessional.”
“The victim wasn’t human, so no coroner was involved.”
“Oh. I thought...”
“It was a mountain lion. Veterinarians don’t usually think to be careful of how they handle bullets.”
“Oh,” he said again. “I didn’t know.”
“Don’t worry. Anything else?”
“Yes. The bullet was substantially deformed by impact with bone. Yet we find traces of right hand grooves. But it was not possible to determine a land and groove ratio. So it could have been fired from any number of rifles.”
I thanked him and hung up just as I approached my turnoff. Dinner was but a thousand feet up.
Street called as I was putting the steak on the grill. “I wondered if you’d like to have a picnic with me in the morning after I get off work. I’ll have some maggot data by then.”
“Of course,” I said.
I was lounging in the sun on the deck when Street pulled up the next morning.
“I found the perfect place the other day,” she said as I got into her VW after cajoling Spot to scrunch himself into the back. “I’ve been wanting to take you there ever since.” She turned and gave me a mischievous grin. “You’re going to love it.”
“I was certain of that,” I said. “So I brought a libation to help us celebrate.” I opened my day pack and gave her a peek at a bottle of Beringer Meritage. Street waved her eyebrows in appreciation.
“So what did your creepy crawlers tell you?” I asked as she drove off.
“I took the standard approach of dividing the maggots I collected from the body into two groups. I killed one group to fix their development. The other group I allowed to mature. That process is not complete, so I’m not certain of the species and hence I’m only making educated guesses.
“I ran the numbers on several scenarios, adjusting for the temperature data the hygrothermograph recorded down in the Highland Creek ravine. It’s not an exact science. Closer to art in some ways. But each way I add it up I still come up with the same time of death.”