Tahoe Avalanche

by Todd Borg

  “You got her number?” He asked. “I can track it.”

  “Her cell, yeah. Let me find it again.” I went through the menu and read it off to Bains.

  “Hang on.”

  I waited. Packer was coming around Crystal Bay. The lake was completely socked in. Dense fog sat on the slate gray surface of the water. If I didn’t know there was a giant lake out there, I might have thought we were driving next to a very long but narrow duck pond. In the sky were darker clouds making evanescent shapes that emerged from the fog and then disappeared back into it like the ink wash clouds the Chinese landscape artists painted a thousand years ago.

  Bains came back in my ear. “Nothing on the Internet cell locator. No surprise, there. These mountains, they get in the way of cell towers and GPS satellites and everything else.”

  “Maybe she turns it off for privacy,” I said.

  “A true subversive, huh?”

  “Stay in touch,” I said.

  “Right.” Bains hung up.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  I called Street as Packer was driving past Spooner Lake. My call got routed to her voicemail. The questions banged around in my head. Was she on another call? Did her battery die? Did the weather change enough to kill her cell reception? I left a message saying I’d try again.

  Packer came up to Highway 50, turned down the mountain toward Glenbrook. I tried Street again, got her voicemail again.

  “Who can you think of who knows April?”

  “Lots of people know April,” he said.

  “Names.”

  “March’s friends, of course. Will Adams, me, Paul... Oh, sorry. I can’t believe I named him.”

  “I haven’t met Will.

  “He’s in Zephyr Cove. We can stop there, first.”

  “Who else?”

  “Carmen Nicholas.”

  “Met her,” I said.

  “The Lieberman brothers, Mack and Checker.”

  “What’s their connection to April?” I asked.

  “They’re just buddies. They do a stand-up routine. First at one of the open-mike gigs at a coffee shop, then they graduated to a little venue over at Harrah’s. They open for the bigger comics that come through. They’re pretty good, actually.”

  “How’d they meet March?”

  “I think we were all out partying one time, and Carmen said we should see them perform. She knew them from hustling drinks.”

  “They live here on the South Shore?” I asked.

  “No. They stay in an apartment when they perform during the summer.”

  “They ski? Or do backcountry treks? Take an avalanche course?”

  “No. They’re more into the summer beach babe scene. They come up from San Diego. I don’t think they’ll ever get used to snow and cold.”

  “Who’s next?” I said.

  “People who knew April... Well, there’s a girl who lives down near Auburn. Ada something. I forget. Her parents have a cabin out near Camp Richardson. She comes up now and then. She’s not real tight with our group, but April and her have done quite a bit of hiking and camping. She stopped in the shop yesterday. She’s smart, but she’s such a college girl I don’t know if she’ll ever grow up.”

  “She’s the one who manages her parents’ winery in the foothills.”

  “Yeah.” Packer pushed his truck fast as he entered the Cave Rock tunnel.

  “I was told she was in France,” I said.

  “Someone got mixed up,” he said. “I sold her some base wax yesterday.”

  And April was supposed to be in the Dominican Republic, I thought.

  “Does Ada do any snow sports?”

  “She’s real into cross-country skiing, the skinny-ski thing. Kick and glide in the groomed tracks. I’ve seen a picture of her and April skiing where April had on wool knickers just like the old days, and Ada wore her race clothes. Skin-tight blue nylon, top and bottom. She’s skinny, just like those race skis. But she’s got serious leg muscles. I guess that whole Nordic thing is major exercise.”

  My phone rang. It was Street.

  “You’re okay?” I said.

  “Yeah. I was on the phone with the sheriff’s department. They’re coming on snowmobiles. They’ll probably be here in the next hour. Mare and I are still waiting in the trees. We can see the mine shack. We’ve seen no one else.”

  “Are you warm enough?”

  “Yeah. Mare’s anoraks are great. Spot’s a little frustrated, but he’s behaving. Here, say something.”

  “Spot, be good!” I yelled into the phone.

  I heard him whine in the background. Then Street was back. “I’ll call when the cops get here and we leave.”

  We said goodbye.

  “You want to call Will before we stop by, or surprise him?” Packer asked.

  “Surprise,” I said.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Will Adams lived in Zephyr Cove, up a winding road and around a curve that put his place above the highway below.

  “Tell me again what this guy does for a living?”

  “Computer consultant,” Packer said. “Went to UC San Francisco. Worked for an Internet startup for a while, then moved up here. Now he does the rent-a-geek thing. You got a computer problem or a network that needs setting up, he’ll do it. Only a hundred fifty bucks an hour.”

  “Even paltry wages add up,” I said.

  Packer pulled into the drive and parked. He beeped the horn twice and got out.

  Will opened the door as we walked up. His hair was combed straight up like in the photo Bill had shown me. He wore khakis and a dark brown sweater.

  We exchanged greetings and Will took us inside to a big living room with a stone fireplace and a huge TV. The furniture was black leather on chrome.

  “Beer?” Will said.

  We nodded and Will went over to the kitchen, opened a stainless steel fridge and pulled out bottles of Fat Tire Ale. I sat on the couch that faced the fireplace. Inside were remnants of a real fire. A half-log glowed with embers. Will sat cross-legged on the floor. Packer stood leaning against fireplace stone.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that your friend Paul Riceman was killed two days ago,” I said.

  Will looked shocked. “What happened?”

  “He was next to his house when the snow slid off the roof. He was trapped and he suffocated.”

  “Like an avalanche...”

  “We’re looking for April Carrera. Any idea where she might be?”

  I watched Will’s reaction. His frown seemed genuine. “I thought she was in the Dominican Republic, building houses or something.” He looked down at the carpet. “I didn’t know Paul that well, but to die in the snow, like March... Is April okay?”

  “I don’t know. The only time I’ve spoken to her she was vague about her surroundings. At first, I thought she didn’t want to be found. Now I believe it was because she was never there.”

  “Why the obfuscation?” Will said.

  “One of the things I want to know. I also learned that Paul took an avalanche class last November. I think March and April took that same class. Did you ever hear them say anything about that?”

  Will looked at Packer. “Like that class you took?”

  “Yeah. Mine was three years ago,” Packer said.

  “I never heard about it. I’d think one of them would’ve said something.” Will drank his beer, then balanced it on his knee.

  “Where do you think April would stay in town if she didn’t want to be seen?”

  Will shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know her that well. Some friend, I guess. Or a motel.”

  My phone rang. It was Street’s number. “Sorry, I need to take this,” I said. I stood up and walked outside.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” I said.

  “The cops are here, searching Claude’s place. They said you should call them tomorrow.”

  “No sign of Claude?” I asked.

  “No. We’re going to head back down. Mare says we have plenty of time to get out of t
he high country before dark.”

  “Call me when you get down the mountain?”

  “Will do.”

  I went back inside Will’s house. Packer was talking to Will in earnest, his tone low and serious. He stopped in mid-sentence when he saw me.

  “Any thoughts on how we might find April?” I asked.

  Will shook his head. “Is she in danger?”

  “Yes.” I handed Will one of my cards. “Call me if you hear anything?”

  “Yeah, sure. Of course.”

  We said goodbye and left.

  “Next stop, Carmen,” I said to Packer.

  “She’ll probably be at work,” he said, starting his truck, and pulling out of Will’s driveway.

  “The avalanche class you took,” I said as Packer drove. “Was there anything else that Sisuug covered? Stuff unrelated to avalanches?”

  “Not really. Some wilderness survival stuff.”

  “What did that consist of?” I asked.

  “Winter camping, backcountry travel in winter, what gear to bring, high energy foods, stuff like that. He also taught us how to dig a snow cave, and how to tow a toboggan in case we wanted to bring in gear to make a base camp.”

  “Why would he teach you to make a base camp?”

  Packer thought about it. “I think Claude looked at all backcountry skills from the perspective of how to live in the wilderness. He was a natural mountain man. I don’t think he understood that us students just wanted to hike in and ride the steep and deep and not get caught in a slide.”

  Packer parked behind Harrah’s and we walked into the casino. I stopped one of the cocktail waitresses. “Excuse me, is Carmen on tonight?”

  “I think so. But I haven’t seen her. Better check with Sierra.”

  “Sierra?”

  “At the wait station. You can’t miss her. She’s the one with hair that comes to a point. Like Mount Shasta.”

  The waitress pointed toward one end of the casino. We walked over and saw a woman whose rigid hair did look like Mount Shasta. She was at a bar, talking to the bartender.

  “Excuse me, is Carmen on tonight?” I asked her.

  The woman glared at my face bandage and my arm sling. “Carmen is AWOL.”

  “She called in sick?” I asked.

  “No. She called in saying her family was sick. This family leave stuff is ridiculous.”

  “Any idea where I’d find her?”

  Sierra glared at me. “Like I would know?”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Know where she lives?” I said to Packer.

  He nodded.

  A few minutes later, he pulled in to an apartment building off Pioneer Trail near Stateline. He found a parking space and we walked up an outdoor stairway that was caked with ice. Packer knocked on Carmen’s door. We waited. Down to the right was an apartment with lights on inside and loud Mexican music thumping through the walls. Leaning against the railing were four pair of old downhill skis. I knocked again and we waited some more.

  “I’ve seen her talk to the woman who lives on that side,” Packer said, pointing to the left. Another pair of downhill skis leaned against the building near the division between Carmen’s apartment and the neighbor lady’s apartment. “That woman might know where Carmen went. But the lady’s kind of a witch and Carmen said that she won’t talk to anybody. She just slams the door on anybody she doesn’t know. You can try it, but I just want to warn you.”

  We stepped sideways past the skis. The door had dirty paint and a splintered doorjamb where someone had tried to pry it off its hinges. Inside came the howl of girl-group music from the sixties.

  I knocked on the door, hard and loud.

  In time the decibels inside were turned down. The door opened and a cloud of cigarette smoke billowed out.

  A middle-aged woman wearing pink shorts and pink a T-shirt and fluffy pink slippers stood there, a lowball glass in her hand, hanging down by her hip. I expected the drink to be pink, but it was a strong amber. She didn’t appear to notice my injuries. Maybe injuries were normal for her visitors.

  “Hey there, ma’am, my name’s Owen and this here’s Packer and we’re looking for Carmen. We were just getting our bump after work and Carm’s not there like normal and her supervisor said that Carm was sick, so we came over to see how she was doing, but now she doesn’t answer her door. And the light ain’t even on and we know that with her usual schedule she wouldn’t be in bed this early even if she was liking to die. In fact, we were here a couple months back when she called in sick and we brought her some soup and flowers and Packer bought her a card from the shop just down from the wait station. Remember, Packer? The one with green glitter on it and the joke about the devil and the margarita? Anyway, we sat with her and watched Leno. So her light should be on, unless she’s really sick. Then we thought we should probably ask her neighbors, just to be sure everything’s cool. Do you know if she’s okay?”

  The woman swirled the drink at her hip and regarded me the way a carabid beetle probably regards a snail. “I ain’t seen Carmen since day before yesterday. She could be in Paris, France for all the times I looked out and seen snow piling up on this walk and me the only sucker around here stupid enough to shovel the crap off.”

  “Really,” I said, trying to look interested.

  The woman drank a large swallow. “But actually, she went home. She’s got family in Eureka and her daddy’s got the big C real bad. They got these special shots they give him over in Redding. Carmen said her sister has to go up to Oregon for a week and can’t drive him, so Carmen went home to take him to get his shots.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am. Real sorry. Well, at least Carm’s not sick. I guess we’ll see her when she gets back. Oh, one more question, if I may. We’re also wondering about our friend April. She hasn’t returned our calls. Do you know if she’s been in contact with Carmen?”

  “Never heard of April.”

  “Okay, thank you for your time.”

  The woman nodded and shut her door, and we left.

  Packer looked at me as we walked to the stairs.

  “Well, can’t you charm the ladies.”

  “If they’re drunk.”

  We made several other stops at places where Packer thought we might learn news of April. But no one knew anything of her whereabouts. My only other idea was to get hold of Carmen and see if she knew where April was.

  I called information in Eureka. I got several listings for Nicholas, Carmen’s surname. On my third call I reached a man who sounded very weary.

  “May I speak to Carmen, please?”

  “She’s not here, yet. She called from the Starbucks in Redding an hour ago, so she’ll be here before too long. You want to leave a message?”

  “No thanks, I’ll try again.”

  With no connection to Will or Carmen or anyone else, April was proving as elusive as the mist in a thousand-year-old Chinese landscape painting.

  I had Packer swing by Street’s lab. My Jeep was in the lot, so I thanked him for his help and got out. “Anything I can do to return the favor, let me know.”

  “When my poetry chapbook comes out, you can buy one.”

  I nodded at him. He drove away.

  While Street and I ate a quick dinner, she explained that two cops had arrived on snowmobiles. They took a quick look in Claude’s cabin, talked to Street and Mariposa, took the partially burned note and the dynamite, and then let them go. Street drove Mare home before coming back to her lab.

  “What did you make of Claude’s cabin?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. The note and dynamite certainly make Claude look like the murderer. But that’s not enough to convict, right?”

  “No. But if there is a way to match the dynamite used on the deadly slides with the dynamite in Claude’s cabin or at my cabin, that would be very helpful. Much better would be finding Claude’s fingerprints on pieces of the dynamite and detonators at the crime scenes. Add in a witness or two, and we’d have
a tight case.”

  “It could be,” Street said, “that all the witnesses have died under snow. Except April.”

  “But April might be a perpetrator instead of a witness. She’s the one person who’s been hiding all along. She and Paul could have done all the murders to make it look like Claude did them. Then she could have left the partially burned note in Claude’s cabin and killed Paul to eliminate her only witness. The cops may eventually find Claude, and he will seem like a more likely perpetrator than April. Especially if the wild-man descriptions of him are true. But April and Paul may have killed Claude, too, and they may have made it look like an accident. Maybe in a way that has nothing to do with avalanches. If so, the DA might realize there isn’t enough evidence to pursue April.”

  “But what is her motive?” Street asked. “What could have happened that is so bad that she would kill everyone in her avalanche class?”

  “I don’t know. The more I inquire, the more people die, and I’m no closer to knowing why.”

  “One thing that may help,” Street said. “I looked at the dirt you brought home from the vineyard. I found a carabid beetle just like the one in Lori Simon’s lungs. I also found several bits of insect detritus that match the dirt I collected from the back of Paul Riceman’s pickup. It’s not proof, but it satisfies me that someone murdered Lori in the vineyard or near there and loaded her body into Paul’s truck.”

  Spot and I left after dinner.

  FIFTY-SIX

  My cell rang late in the evening. I was lying in bed, wide awake, alternately wondering and worrying about April.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Mr. McKenna, it’s April Carrera. That’s a very strange message you left.”

  “April, where are you? Are you okay?”

  “Of course, I’m okay. I just called you, didn’t I? I’m sorry it’s late.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Sure. What does it matter?”

  “Where are you?” I said again.

  “Didn’t Uncle Bill tell you that I’m in the Dominican Republic? I thought he was spilling his guts out to his new friend. Anyway, I’m okay. There’s nothing to worry about.”