by Todd Borg
“First name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did Joanie have any friends who knew her well? People you often saw going to her house?”
She shook her head again. “Not that I ever noticed.”
I looked beyond her head and stared at the house to steady myself for a moment, like a seasick sailor staring at the horizon in pitching seas. I pointed through the trees at the second house that had burned, a place that looked as if it had been large but was now just a huge mound of ashes with a few charred timbers poking out. “How about your neighbors in the other house that burned? Do you know them?”
She glanced over at the burned house. “I’ve never known exactly what their name is, but it sounds like Spacocinni.” The woman grinned mischievously, looked down at her baby and waggled her nose in the kid’s face. “We call them the Spaghettios, don’t we, pumpkin?” She turned back to me. “They haven’t even been up to take a look. The only person I’ve seen was an insurance adjuster. You know how it is with some people. It’s just one of several vacation homes they have. They’re probably back in Sicily or someplace.”
“Thank you,” I said. “My number is on my card. If you think of anything else, please call, okay?”
This time she nodded vigorously, and the up and down with the body twisting was too much. The kid vomited across the front of the woman’s shirt. I left fast.
Information had a Mrs. Lydia Mortensen in Kirkwood, and when I called and introduced myself, she invited me down, giving me directions from the Kirkwood turnoff.
I drove out Christmas Valley and headed up the highway at the end of the canyon. The road climbs up to Luther Pass and then makes a gentle descent down into Hope Valley, a spectacular mix of aspen stands and open glens at 7000 feet of elevation. The aspen trees had turned a brilliant golden yellow and the leaves shimmered like discs of gold in the breeze. Surrounding the valley are snow-capped peaks. Snow melt from the recent storm had swollen the rapids of the Carson River and I paralleled the rushing water up the valley. Further west I followed the road up the side of Red Lake Peak. Nearing the top of Carson Pass I drove into a winter landscape. The storm that had dropped a few inches at my cabin on the East Shore of Tahoe had made a major impact in the high country to the south of Tahoe.
The plows had pushed the snow into berms eight feet high and it was still September. It was easy to see why the higher passes to the south are closed in the winter. Too much snow. Coming around a curve I could see the jagged ridge line of the California Alps to the south, and beyond them, the 13,000-foot mountains of Yosemite.
Just above Carson Pass loomed Round Top and The Sisters and all of them reflected, like a picture postcard, in Caples Lake which hadn’t yet frozen. I continued over the dam and turned in to Kirkwood.
I followed Lydia Mortensen’s instructions all the way in past the ski lifts and then out toward the golf course. She lived in a new house, light gray with brown trim.
Lydia, a sturdy woman in her mid-fifties, was outside shoveling snow when I pulled up. I parked in the street. Spot was still sleeping in back and didn’t move when I got out.
“I swear, you just can’t find kids who want to work anymore,” Lydia said as I approached her. “I pay well, but shoveling is too much work for kids raised on video games.” She looked up at me and I could see the dark bags around her eyes. She’d obviously been through hell in the last couple of days.
“Did it snow again last night?” I asked. “We’ve had nothing in Tahoe since the storm last week.”
“Mr. McKenna,” she said in an admonishing tone. “You are Mr. McKenna, right?”
I nodded and reached out my hand. We shook. Her grip was firm.
“Mr. McKenna, this is Kirkwood,” she continued. “Snowiest ski resort in North America. Last year we had fifty-four feet of snow. Do you know how often it has to snow to add up to fifty-four feet? I figured it out. Thirty inches a week for five months straight. Of course, sometimes it snows sixty or seventy inches in one storm, which leaves room for a few sunny days. Other periods, it snows all the time. So, in answer to your question, yes, it snowed last night. And it’ll probably snow tonight. And these neighbor kids are worthless. I just bought this place last year. Joanie wanted me to move up to Tahoe from Sacramento, but I didn’t want to be too close to Joanie, didn’t want to crowd her. So I came to Kirkwood. It was so cute, I couldn’t resist. But I’m already thinking of moving down below Heavenly on the Nevada side. Maybe just south of Carson City in Gardnerville. My God, last year the snow here was as high as the house.” She pointed dramatically up toward the top of the roof. “We were like a walled city. The streets and driveways were just tunnels in the snow.
“I could get a little ranch,” she continued non-stop. “I looked into it, you know. They have these beautiful places down below the mountain. But this place,” she pointed at my feet, “the driveway right where you are standing is at eight thousand feet. I’ve got one of those special maps that I looked it up on. You know what that means? That means that while I’m shoveling snow, those people in Gardnerville are listening to songbirds. I watch the giant rotary snow plows go roaring by while the Gardnerville people are watching wild mustangs running across the desert under Job’s Peak.
“I’m sorry, I’m talking your ear off. Why don’t you come inside, Mr. McKenna. I’ll make you some tea.”
I followed her into an immaculate house with spectacular mountain views out the windows, and sat on a gray divan while Lydia Mortensen made us a pot of tea.
“I’ve got some oatmeal biscuits, Mr. McKenna,” Lydia called out from the kitchen. “Would you like one?”
“No thank you,” I said. Oatmeal had always seemed like a food one ate for no purpose other than to build character. I didn’t see any reason to start on that now.
Lydia came out with two mugs on a tray. Between them sat two lumps of gray stuff on brown napkins. “I brought you a biscuit, anyway, Mr. McKenna. You are a big man, and you need lots of food.” She sat down on a love seat opposite me. “Now my sister Joanie, she was an amazing cook. Could that girl bake. No biscuits for her, let me tell you. My God, her Danish pastries were to die for!” She picked up a biscuit and took a large bite. Her jaw muscles bulged like Arnold Schwartzenegger’s as she chewed. She looked at me expectantly.
I picked up my tea and sipped it. “Delicious,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to try your biscuit?” she said through a full mouth.
“I’d love to, Mrs. Mortensen, but I just ate a huge lunch. Tell me,” I said, changing the subject, “do you have a photo of your sister that I might look at? I never met her.”
“I... on the piano,” she muttered.
I stood and fetched a silver framed photo. When I came back to the divan, I realized she was crying.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mortensen. I know this is hard for you.” I sat next to her on the loveseat, put the framed photo down on the low table and took her hand in mine.
“She... she was my only family.” Her words were interrupted by choking sobs. “It should have been me. She was the good one, I was the selfish one.” She cried harder.
I massaged her hand. “I don’t see why you would think that,” I said.
“It’s true!” Lydia blurted. “I’ve always been selfish. Me, me, me! And all I do is talk! As a result, nobody ever liked me. Everybody liked Joanie! Just ask the people at her work. They always ask her out to the shows and over to their houses for dinner. Just last week Joanie was telling me about going to a birthday party for one of her boss’s kids. A girl named Lucy. My God, what I would do to have someone want me at their kid’s birthday!” She broke into another fit of sobbing.
“Do you live alone, Mrs. Mortensen?”
“Yes. Ever since Herb passed on seven years ago. He was an older man. We were married sixteen precious years. He was a dear and left me well-provided for.” Lydia sniffled. She reached for a Kleenex and blew her nose.
“Was Joanie married?”
“
No. Never was. She was kind and sweet and certainly attractive enough. Here, look at her picture.” She picked the framed photo up and handed it to me.
The fortyish woman in the photo had shiny brown hair in a Betty Crocker cut and a gentle smile. “Did Joanie have any kids?”
Lydia pulled her hand from mine and stared at me. “I just told you she never married.” Her tone was indignant.
“Oh, of course you did,” I said.
“I was barren and she was single,” Lydia said, her crying beginning again. “But there again, I was selfish, and she was giving. All I did was sulk about my inability to have children, while Joanie took in all those foster kids. I can’t even count how many over the years.”
I sipped the last of my tea. “Did Joanie have any enemies?”
Lydia acted shocked. “What are you saying?”
“Someone who would want to hurt her? Someone who was angry with her?”
“You mean, someone who would burn her house down? What are you, nuts?!” Lydia stood up and stared at me. “It was a forest fire! It was an accident! I can’t imagine what you are suggesting. Joanie was a beloved person. No one would want to hurt her!”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mortensen. I’m only trying to be thorough. The fire was started on purpose. Just like the other one.”
“It was?” Lydia sat back down, a stunned look on her face.
“Mrs. Mortensen, almost certainly you are right. Even though the fire was caused by arson, Joanie’s death was probably not intentional. But bear with me for a moment. Pretend that someone did want to harm her. Or maybe just scare her. Can you think of anyone who had a disagreement with Joanie? Or maybe someone who was envious of her? Someone at work who didn’t get the promotion that Joanie got, that sort of thing. Does anyone come to mind?”
Lydia Mortensen slowly shook her head. “No. I can’t imagine that there is anyone in all of Tahoe who’d want anything but the best for Joanie.”
“How long has she lived in Tahoe?”
“Let’s see. It will be three years this Christmas. I mean, it would have been.” The tears started to flow again. “God, all I’ve done since her death is cry like a baby. But she was all I had left in the whole world.” She sobbed harder.
“Did you say that Joanie lived down in Sacramento before moving to Tahoe?”
Lydia nodded, tears dripping off her cheek faster than she could mop them up with tissue.
“What about her life there? Was there anyone who might have been angry with her?”
“No. It was the same then as now. Everybody loved Joanie.”
I was getting frustrated. To hear Lydia and Joanie’s neighbor tell it, Joanie was more loved than a saint. “Mrs. Mortensen, I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re not being realistic. No one can get through life without irritating others. A very good person like Joanie may not irritate many, and it may not even have been Joanie’s fault when someone felt angry with her. But life doesn’t run perfectly smoothly. You know that from your own experience. So please think harder.”
Lydia just sat there shaking her head, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.
“Let’s think of this a different way,” I said. “Did you ever spend much time with her?”
“Of course,” Lydia said, displeasure in her voice. “When we both lived in Sacramento we played cards once a week and often went to movies. When Joanie moved to Tahoe I came up and stayed with her for weeks at a time.”
“In all those times, did anyone ever raise their voice at Joanie, or argue with her?”
“Not to speak of.”
“I don’t just mean to speak of,” I said, trying to stay calm. “I mean at all. Ever.”
Lydia Mortensen looked exasperated with me. “Well, I remember a time the newspaper kept going missing off her front step. When Joanie spoke to the boy about it he got mad at her as if she were accusing him of being dishonest. But that wouldn’t be cause for lighting a forest fire now, would it?”
“Not for you or me, Mrs. Mortensen. Was this newspaper boy in Sacramento or in Tahoe?”
“Tahoe. Not long after she bought her house.”
“Speaking of which, how was it that Joanie afforded such a nice house?”
“Oh, Joanie was very frugal and she always had a good job. She saved every penny. Plus, there were all those foster children over the years.
“The foster children were when she lived in Sac?”
“Yes. The money from it was terrible, but she saved it all.”
“Did she leave a sizable estate?” I asked.
“She had a decent savings account, a few stocks and the house. Of course, the house is gone, but the insurance agent says there won’t be any trouble collecting the insurance.”
“How is her estate to be handled?”
“I get one third, the Tahoe Women’s Center gets one third, and The League To Save Lake Tahoe gets one third.”
I pondered that for a moment, seeking motive, not finding much. “The foster children you mentioned. How many of them were there?”
“Oh, gosh. She must have had kids in her house for twelve or fifteen years. Two at once most of the time. Most would get moved every few years, so I suppose it added up to a dozen or more.”
“How did she work it with her job?”
“Same as other single mothers. It was difficult at first, convincing the agency she could do it. But they could tell she was dedicated. And after the first year, they kept calling to see if she’d take more kids. Anyway, she’d get the kids off to school, then Nattie, the neighbor lady, would be there to baby-sit when the kids came home until Joanie got home from the title company. After a few years, Joanie got good enough at her job, she could do much of the escrow work at home, so she’d leave work early most days and meet the kids when they were through with school.”
“Did she ever have any difficult foster kids? Any who fought with her or were particularly rebellious?”
Lydia gave me a skeptical look. “Do you have kids, Mr. McKenna?”
“No.” I could still see the vomiting baby from a couple hours earlier. “I’ve never had the pleasure.”
“I can tell. If you did you’d know that all kids at one time or another are difficult and rebellious. All kids fight with their parents at some point. Now, if you’re thinking one of those kids would grow up, track Joanie down in Tahoe and then light her house on fire, you’re wasting your time. Mr. McKenna, we’re talking about children to whom Joanie was a loving, devoted mother.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “One more question?”
“Certainly.”
“Have you ever heard of a man named Jake Pooler?”
Lydia shook her head. “No, I’m sure I haven’t.”
“If Joanie had ever had any dealings with any man, do you think she would have told you about it?”
“Absolutely. Joanie didn’t have much time for men. If there had ever been one around, I’d have known. You can count on that.”
I thanked Lydia for all of her time, complemented her again on her hospitality.
“You still didn’t eat your biscuit, Mr. McKenna. I’ll put it in a bag for you.” She ran and got a baggie, carefully folded the biscuit inside and pressed the package into my hand.
I thanked her again and left.
When I turned out on the highway, I remembered the biscuit in the baggie. I pulled it out and held it up. “Hey, a treat for your largeness.”
Spot sat up, sniffed the biscuit, then lay back down.
“As you wish,” I said, then tossed it out the window.
When I got back to South Lake Tahoe, I stopped at Heritage Title, the company where Joanie had worked. There were several women inside a single large room. One was a secretary at a desk in the front, the others were at desks arranged in a square formation in back. One of the desks was empty. All the women were on their phones while they flipped through folders, sorted papers, amended contracts, dug in file drawers, punched calculators and took notes.
&
nbsp; I waited at the secretary’s desk. With a phone wedged between her head and shoulder, she was speaking to a client while she wrote in an appointment book with her right hand and worked a computer mouse with her left. She smiled at me and held a finger up to let me know she’d be with me in a minute.
For a guy who has to concentrate just to brush his teeth, this office was a lesson in the real difference between the sexes. It wasn’t strength or social skills or cooking techniques.
It was multi-tasking.
“Yes, sir?” the secretary said.
I gave her my quick intro and explained that I wanted to speak to whomever had known Joanie Dove the best.
“Oh, Joanie was the nicest person. We’re all still in mourning. Let’s see. I guess Sonoma knew her best.”
“Sonoma?” I said, wondering if I’d heard correctly.
“Yes.” She turned and pointed to a thin woman with a tight helmet of blond curls who was maybe twenty-three at the outside. “She’s our youngest escrow officer, but is she good or what. She’s closing as many per week as Annie and we’ve only had to refile one set of documents since she started and even that was because of a mistake that Fidelity Mortgage made. Sonoma didn’t know Joanie as long as the rest of us, but she and Joanie really hit it off. They had lunch together all the time.” The secretary waited until Sonoma got off the phone. “Sonoma? Do you have a second?”
I was directed back and introduced to Sonoma who stood and shook my hand. She sat in her high desk chair and I sat in a low-slung vinyl contraption that brought me almost level with her. I explained that I was looking into Joanie Dove’s death and wanted to ask some questions about her.
Sonoma was kind and forthcoming throughout my interview, and when I was done I’d learned precisely nothing. Saint Joan was a wonderful person, sweet and kind to a fault, and no amount of digging could change that.
I thanked Sonoma and left, walking out into a day that was as hot and dry as any in August, an amazing contrast to Kirkwood in the high mountains to the south.
As I drove away, I realized that I’d failed to find any connection between Joanie Dove and Jake Pooler. If their deaths were not accidental, it was going to be hard to establish motives that made any sense. A motive for Jake alone was easy enough. But Joanie was the opposite of Jake. It appeared there were as many people who loved Joanie as there were people who hated Jake.