Tahoe Avalanche

by Todd Borg

  “What about Maria and Bill’s mother? She had money.”

  “No, it is not true. Elena was poor. Very poor. She helped me with her grandchildren. But it was the baking. And the clothes. She was good at clothes making.”

  “Bill said she set up a trust fund for the grandchildren. He said March and April have had a small but steady income.”

  “April and March have talked of this trust fund. But I cannot understand. Elena could not help when the children got the food poison. They were very sick. But there was no doctor. If she had money, there would have been a doctor.”

  “Gabriella, when the kids were growing up, except for being poor, did they have a normal childhood?”

  “There was not much worry. They missed their mother so much at first. But children adjust. They ran around and rode on the bicycle of their friend. They laughed and played. The most stress was the storms. We live in trailers. Every year or two the tornadoes blow at the trailers. Some are ruined. Some vanish. The paper called it Muerte Cielo. When the clouds turned black, people would shout Muerte Cielo! That was the only worry.”

  I thanked Gabriella for her time and hung up.

  I dropped Spot at Street’s lab and was heading toward the Keys at 9:00 a.m. The clouds parted, and I was blinded by dazzling sunshine on the snow. I reached into the glove box for my sunglasses and an envelope fell out. There was no name on it, but it was sealed like the other warning notes. I thought about the times I’d left the Jeep unlocked. I pulled over, put on my gloves and opened it.

  McKenna, save yourself and your dog. Tell the guy with the crutches you’re no longer working the investigation. If you don’t, the first bomb will rip your dog apart and the second one will tear you in half.

  I stayed parked at the side of the road as I considered my options. I’d thought that Paul was the killer. I had thought that he wrote the other notes and built the snow sculpture bomb. But this note had a similar message, and the envelope, paper, type, and formatting all looked the same. So either I’d focused on the wrong guy and Paul was innocent, or he’d had a partner who killed him and was taking over his mission.

  The practical, sensible thing for me to do would be to stop. Give up the case and preserve my dog and myself. But I realized that I must be close to knowing who the killer was. Otherwise, the killer wouldn’t be concerned.

  I decided that Street was right, that the killer was just after me and Spot. So I’d watch for bombs everywhere I went. I’d keep careful track of Spot. And I’d keep after the killer until one of us stumbled.

  I pulled back onto the road and drove over to Uncle Bill’s.

  The garage door was open and he was getting three bags of groceries out of his Escalade as I pulled up.

  “May as well come through the garage,” he said. Then he saw my face. “Christ, McKenna, you look like hell. I heard about the explosion. I’m so sorry.”

  “Help you carry those bags?” I said.

  “Nope. I may be a crip, but I can carry my own groceries.” The words were rough, the voice rougher.

  I understood that his disability was a sensitive subject. Unfortunately, what he thought was acceptable behavior from others was only clear to him. Which meant that the rest of the world would forever have to tiptoe around him.

  I wasn’t good at tiptoeing.

  Hanging on the garage wall was one of those ski sleds made for handicapped people. It had a blue plastic seat and straps to hold down someone’s legs. The seat sat on a framework that was mounted to a ski.

  Also hanging on the wall were two short outrigger skis. They had crutch-like handles that wrapped around the rider’s lower arms, similar to Bill’s regular crutches.

  “Do you ride the ski sled?” I asked.

  “Hell, no.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “April fancies herself a do-gooder, a cripple-fixer. She can’t just let other people be. Sees something wrong and considers it her duty to fix it. Problem is, what she thinks is wrong isn’t the same as what other people think is wrong. The world would be better off if she’d mind her own business and fix what’s wrong with her.”

  “Are you saying that she got the sled for you?”

  “She’s like a burr under a crip’s saddle.” He mimicked her, speaking in a high voice. “‘Uncle Bill, there’s a reclining bicycle they make that you can pedal with your hands. You should get those new crutches that fold so you can get them in the car easier. My friend is studying physical therapy, and she says you should be going to therapy at least every other day. And here is a leg exerciser that you can use in bed. Oh, and Uncle Bill, here’s a ski sled for physically challenged people. I also bought you a season pass at Heavenly, and I arranged for lessons, and I printed out the race schedule so you can work toward the handicapped Olympics.’”

  “She sounds very thoughtful, very supportive.”

  “She sounds like a meddling little bitch. She should stay with her ghetto shacks in the Dominican Republic or wherever she is and leave me out of her life.” Bill put all his grocery bags over one arm and, letting his crutches dangle from his arms, pulled himself up the stairs using the handrails on each side.

  My impulse again was to offer to help him, but I kept my mouth shut and slowly followed him up the steps.

  I parked myself in one of the living room’s big leather chairs and waited while he unloaded groceries. Eventually, he hobbled into the living room and sat down.

  “Both avalanches were set on purpose,” I said. “And it appears that the slide off Paul’s roof was intentional.” I didn’t mention the new warning note. “Did March ever say anything unusual about Paul?”

  Bill shook his head. “Nothing that stands out. They skied together now and then, that’s all.”

  “He ever say anything about three-by-eights?”

  Bill shook his head. “What are three-by-eights?”

  “A charge that ski patrols use for avalanche control.”

  “Oh. Never heard of them.”

  “Did he ever refer to April as AC?” I asked.

  “You mean, using her initials? Not that I know of.”

  “Did March ever talk about ski patrollers?”

  Bill shook his head. “You got a lot of questions.”

  “That’s a problem? You’ve got a dead nephew who was probably murdered. That’s a problem, too.”

  “Yeah, but I’m paying you to find out who started the avalanche. Instead, you’re asking me questions like I’ve got some key to March’s death. I lay awake night after night trying to think of anything else March might have said. Trying to help you do your job. But I already told you everything I know.”

  “Did you? You didn’t tell me that April lived here, and that you kicked her out.”

  Bill started to speak, then stopped. “She’s always been an ungrateful kid. She was impertinent. She acted like I owed her. Like my home was her home and she didn’t have to earn a damn thing. I had to practically wait on her. She never lifted a finger.”

  “If she had, you would have jumped on her for patronizing a cripple.”

  Bill glared at me.

  “Gabriella also told me that your mother was broke,” I said. “If she was broke, where did she get the money for a trust fund for her grandchildren?”

  Bill hesitated. “She was broke because she put all her money into the trust fund.”

  I walked over to where Bill sat. “Bullshit, Bill. According to Gabriella, your mother couldn’t even pay the doctor when the children got sick. If she had money for a trust fund for the kids, she would have gladly used it for the kid’s medical expenses.”

  Bill’s naturally red face was turning redder. I leaned over him.

  “What are you hiding? Why did you lie?”

  “Go away,” Bill said. “Quit prying into my life.” Bill pushed down on the chair arms, raising himself up. “Out of my way,” he said.

  I didn’t move.

  He realized he couldn’t get up with me in the way. He flopped ba
ck down into the chair, astonished. “Move, you sonovabitch!” He struggled again to get up. I stayed put.

  “Goddamn, you, McKenna!” He yelled loud enough that the neighbors would be able to hear. “Let me up!”

  “I will when you tell me the truth.”

  “I did!”

  “No. I want it all. Let’s start with the money. You set up the trust fund for March and April, didn’t you?”

  Bill stared at me.

  “Didn’t you!” I shouted.

  Bill jerked at my yell. He stared for another second, then looked down. The stiff anger in his face melted away and then turned to sadness and then grief. He began to cry. At first his lip quivered and then his face scrunched up and tears came down. He bent over, arms on his broken knees, his big head nearly covering his arms. His chest heaved and his sobs were wrenching.

  I walked into the kitchen while Bill cried like a howling animal. I looked out the kitchen window at mountains wrapped in the dark clouds that delivered the snow, precipitation that brought money to some, death to others. In time I found a glass in the cupboard, filled it with water and brought it back to Bill.

  It took a long time for him to calm. Gradually, his sobbing grew quieter, the muscular spasms less severe. Eventually, he went silent, and I could barely see him breathing. He pushed against his legs and flopped back against the back of the chair. His head lolled sideways, his face crimson and wet. Bill wiped off his glasses with his hand and stared toward the wall, toward the framed picture of his sister Maria and the two toddlers sitting on her lap, March on her right knee, April on her left.

  I set the glass of water on the table next to Bill, then sat down and waited.

  When Bill spoke his voice was low and monotone. There was no emotion, no feeling. Just reportage. Just the simple recitation that makes a horrible revelation even more devastating.

  “I was driving the car that night, not Maria. She was in the passenger seat. The kids were in back. I was drunk. I caused the accident that killed March and April’s mother.”

  FORTY-ONE

  I sat down, leaning forward, elbows on my knees.

  Bill didn’t move, his head still lolled sideways, like he had no muscle control, like someone in a coma.

  “It was two in the morning. Maria and I had just closed up my club. She was my manager, my head waitress, my chief accountant. I was the man at the door greeting the guests, and the man behind the bar pouring the stiff drinks that we became known for, the young entrepreneur who was so full of himself that he couldn’t see why he shouldn’t celebrate his success every night.

  “Maria gathered up the kids from the cots in the back room where they were asleep, wrapped them in sleeping bags and carried them one at a time out to her car. She came back in to tell me there was a sleet storm rising up and would I drive her home? She’d slid off an icy road once and ever since had been petrified of driving on ice and snow. She had an old Chevy from the early sixties. It didn’t even have seatbelts, and I think that added to her fear.

  “I told her I couldn’t drive her, that I had work to do at home. Of course, I didn’t have a life outside of the club. The only work I had to do at home was to watch late movies and drink myself further into oblivion.

  “So she went back outside. I didn’t hear her car start up. Eventually, I looked out, and she was standing under the eave by the back door of the club. The parking lot light shined on her face, and I saw her looking up at the sky, her eyes wet with fear, as the freezing rain coated everything. It was a winter version of Muerte Cielo.

  “So I thought I’d be big about it. Help my little sister home. It was like I’d completely forgot that she’d moved in from the country with her kids and rented an apartment just to help me run the club. I was good at driving in the snow and ice. Of course, I’d been drinking a little here and there, just as I always did during work. Maybe it added up to six or seven drinks, quick shots of tequila, nothing serious like the double martinis that were popular with my customers.

  “So I downed a couple more for the road. Nothing that would mess with my brain, just a little pick-me-up.

  “She thanked me and wiped her eyes and thanked me again and I felt so important. She ran through the ice storm and got the scraper out from under the seat. But I said I’d do it because I had my gloves on. Mr. Nice Guy.

  “So I scraped the ice off the windshield. The babies were sound asleep in back, all wrapped up in their sleeping bags. They never made a sound as I drove them home.

  “It was only about three miles to her apartment. But the road was dark and icy and there was a curve to the left, not real sharp, the kind of thing a good driver can take without slowing down. I took my foot off the gas just because I was such a good driver that I knew not to push it on ice. And it wasn’t the ice that got me.

  “It was my vision, my goddamn drunken blurry vision. I was trying to see the line, trying to blink away the double image in my brain, when I caught the tire on the shoulder.

  “It was like being sucked off the road by a giant vacuum cleaner. The car seemed to get pulled down the embankment and it rolled all the way over twice. I felt metal from the dash smash into my knees, and I heard Maria scream, and the passenger door popped open, and then it was still.

  “The babies were still in back, still in their bags, but awake and crying. I pulled myself out of the driver’s door, my legs on fire, and I crawled to Maria who was lying in the dirt. Her body was face down, but her head was sideways. Too far sideways. I knew there wasn’t any hope.

  “With Maria dead, all that mattered was the kids, their safety, their lives. I knew my knees were messed up, but that didn’t matter. I had some decision making to do. I’d been picked up for drunken driving in the past. I knew they’d convict me of manslaughter, and I’d go to prison.

  “I was sitting there in the dark, in the wet dirt next to my dead sister, trying to make a decision. Freezing rain was soaking everything with icy slush. There was no sound but the wind howling like Maria’s ghost and the babies crying and the sobbing of a stupid drunk trying to figure out how he messed up so bad.

  “The choice was simple. If I turned myself in, justice would be served, and the kids would be dirt poor, raised by my mother or by one of Maria’s friends or by some foster home chosen by the state. The kids might never go to college, might never have a job other than working in the meat packing plant, might never live better than in a rusted trailer on the bluff.

  “But if I didn’t turn myself in, and if I didn’t get caught, I might be able help give the kids a better life. I was all the kids had left. I didn’t amount to much. I had no home, no savings, no education. But the club was doing well, and I could see that in a few years I’d be able to pay off my debts. If the club stayed busy, I’d eventually be able to make good money. I could help the kids a little now, a lot more in the future.

  “They would suffer the loss of not having a mother, and it would be a terrible loss because they didn’t have a father, either. But they would have an uncle who would help.”

  Bill stopped talking. He was breathing the long deep breaths of someone who has just confessed his darkest secret and is undergoing seismic emotional shifts as a result.

  “I know it seems convenient that I had these justifications for why I didn’t turn myself in. I’ve beaten myself up about it continuously ever since. Constantly wondering if I did the wrong thing, constantly questioning my reasoning. Every time I hear of someone successful who came from nothing, someone who was adopted or was an orphan and they made something of themselves, then I realize that they could be March or April, that my presence wasn’t necessarily any help at all.

  “And in my deepest despair about my actions I have the self-pitying thought that if I’d gone to prison I might have been able to let myself off the hook a little bit for what I did. The state says that prison is how you pay your debt to society for the crime that you commit. But does prison help you pay your debt to yourself and your loved ones? Probably not
. But if it did, then I wish I’d gone.”

  Bill paused. He turned his head from the picture of Maria and looked at me for the first time since he’d begun talking, perhaps wondering what would come of telling me.

  “You left the kids at the scene and walked back to your nightclub?” I asked.

  “Yes. I’d worn gloves, so my prints weren’t on Maria’s car. I figured it would look like she had been driving. She was nearly as tall as me, so I hadn’t moved the seat position. I stumbled through the dark, my knees screaming. There were some trees just down the road and there was a broken branch on the ground. I used it like a crutch and walked a mile back to the club. Only one car came by, crawling along, its wipers on high speed. I got down in the ditch, and it went by without seeing me.

  “Back at the nightclub I called the cops, told them that my sister and I were working late and she’d left an hour or so ago but didn’t answer her phone, and I was worried that she hadn’t made it home okay. They went and found the accident and called me at the club with the sad news. I was up in the storeroom when the phone rang. Later, to the best of their understanding, they thought that the news was so upsetting that I tried to sit down on one of the cardboard boxes up there, but it collapsed and I tumbled down the stairway. They heard the racket over the phone and they came.”

  “They thought the fall down the stairs ruined your knees?”

  “Yes. And it did. What started out as a bad injury in the car accident became much worse. I was in the hospital for two weeks. They did three surgeries, trying to reconstruct the broken bones and torn ligaments. They spoke of amputating the right leg. In the years since, I asked about having both knees replaced. But they say there isn’t anything to anchor a knee joint to. It would be like a car mechanic trying to bolt a new wheel onto a pile of rust.”