Tahoe Avalanche

by Todd Borg

  “So they shook hands on a verbal agreement. Claude had told them that a verbal agreement was a legally binding contract and that if anyone shirked the contract, the others would testify on behalf of the agreement.

  “The agreement was that they would reconvene at a time acceptable to all in the group. They would hike as a group up to the location as the snow was getting thin. There they would make a group camp and, with the aid of shovels and metal detectors, find the coins and, again as a group, bring them to an appropriate broker who would sell them. They would split the proceeds. They seemed a tight enough group that Astor even agreed to include his initial coin in with whatever the group found.”

  “Tight enough,” I said, “that somebody is murdering the others in hopes of getting the coins for himself.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Astor ever say who and how many people were in the class?” I asked.

  “No. I should have asked. He might have told me.”

  “Did he give any indication of where this took place?”

  “No. That was part of the agreement. None of them could reveal the location to anyone else.”

  “Yet if someone did exactly that, then the murderer could be anyone,” I said. “What is your involvement?”

  Josie sighed. “After March Carrera died in the Emerald Bay avalanche, Astor told me that March had been part of the group. He also told me that it was possible that the unidentified girl who was also found dead in the Emerald Bay slide might have been in the class. But then Astor died three days after that. Later, it came out that the girl was someone named Lori Simon from San Francisco. Now Paul Riceman has died from being buried by snow that slid off his own roof. Unbelievable, it seems. Did you know about him?”

  “Yes.” I pointed at Spot. “Spot found the body.”

  Josie stared down at Spot, then drank beer.

  “Even after the deaths, you didn’t leave it alone,” I said.

  “No. I realized that regardless of Astor’s agreement with other unidentified people, that agreement doesn’t extend to me. I also believe that just because the coins were glimpsed for a moment before they were buried, that does not convey ownership to the people who glimpsed them. It is like learning of an ancient shipwreck at sea. Anyone who comes upon information suggesting the existence of the shipwreck may pursue finding it.”

  “You’ve pursued it?”

  “Trying, without much luck. I hired a pilot from Reno to fly over Tahoe’s mountains and take pictures of anything that looks like avalanche sites. He has a plane equipped with a camera. I asked him to shoot anything that could be an avalanche and rockslide even if it is covered with more recent snowfall. He has taken hundreds of pictures and emailed them to me. I’ve been studying them to see if anything looks like what Astor described.”

  “Sounds like an expensive operation,” I said.

  “It is. But I don’t care about the cost. I just want to hold them in my hands. I want to put the best ones in their own display case so I can see them every day. As you are aware, I don’t need more money. But like lots of people, I covet extremely rare things. For some people, it’s paintings or ancient pottery or ivory carvings or stamps. For me it’s rare gold coins.”

  “Because you have an extensive knowledge of these coins, you must have formed an opinion about how a rider on horseback would come to own a bag of them. Although people still ride horses in the Tahoe mountains, we can surmise that the person with the coins was probably riding back in the era when the coins were produced, right?”

  “I think so, yes,” Josie said.

  “If there were a dozen of them,” I said, “that would be two hundred and forty dollars. Two dozen would be almost five hundred dollars, a small fortune back in the eighteen-seventies. Why would a horseman be carrying them over the high mountains? The roads we have today follow the common routes of riders from back when white men first came upon Tahoe. But Claude could not have been demonstrating avalanche control near any of our current roads. So these coins were not only off the beaten path of today, they were probably off the beaten path of yesterday. Was this a thief trying to hide from pursuers? A miner who made a good amount of money and then wanted to ride away where no one else would follow? What do you think?”

  “I’ve wondered all of those things,” Josie said. So I did some more reading. It turns out that in eighteen seventy-one, a year after the Carson City Mint opened, there were allegations of improprieties and discrepancies at the mint. Although the superintendent of the mint claimed the accusations were politically motivated, he lost his job. It is not unreasonable to think that these coins could have been stolen, lifted by an employee who then ran, choosing an escape route where he’d be least likely to be intercepted. A rugged route that would take him away from all other travelers would also be a route with the greatest danger of injury for his horse. The area that Astor described was steep enough to sustain avalanches and rockslides. A horse could easily slip on such steep terrain and fall on his rider. Like a skier triggering the avalanche that buries him, the horse may have triggered the rockslide that buried him and his rider. And it took almost a century and a half for another slide to briefly unbury them.”

  “Where is Astor’s coin now?”

  Josie shook her head. “I don’t know. Jamesie and I looked through Astor’s things after Astor died, but we couldn’t find it.”

  I watched her as she spoke, looking for any nervousness or discomfort or brazenness that might indicate prevarication. She seemed the same as before.

  I looked over at Jamesie who stared at the floor as if he didn’t even hear us. I had no idea of what kind of person he was, but I also had no trouble visualizing him finding the coin as the two of them searched for it, slipping it into his pocket and continuing on with the pretense of searching. He didn’t seem to enjoy being a butler and I couldn’t imagine him working at such a job for anything but a paycheck. In a year or so, after the fuss about it settled down, he could sell the coin and quit the daily demands of Josie.

  “Josie, how much do you pay Jamesie?”

  She jerked her head toward him, then looked back at me. “I believe that is private information.”

  “Room and board and eight hundred a week,” Jamesie said.

  “Seems generous,” I said.

  “We didn’t start out that high,” Josie said. “But Jamesie’s done a good job and when I found out about his debts I...” She stopped and looked at Jamesie again. He glared at her.

  “What debts, Jamesie?” I said.

  “None of your business.” His voice had angry gravel in it.

  “It’s easy to find out. If you don’t tell me I’ll know anyway by noon tomorrow.”

  Jamesie gave me the same look of hatred I’d seen him give Josie when I saw him peeking through the poolroom door. “My ex-wife never worked. While I taught school, she was off screwing any man who had money. She is younger than I and, while she’s not beautiful, she has a dramatic body and a sultry demeanor, and a lot of men with means paid her attention. When I finally divorced her, the court said that she had taken care of the domestic side of our marriage and that was equal in worth to my earnings. They also said that half of my little pension belonged to her, too, and unless she got remarried to someone with greater financial resources than mine, I would have to keep paying her alimony even after I retired. I told them that I was due to retire in a couple years and that I wouldn’t be able to live on half my pension. So they reduced the payment by half, but I had to give her the house in exchange. Five years later, I’m still paying her alimony, and she still has the house I bought before we were married. But for five years she has been living with a rich man. She stays at his houses in Tahoe and Palm Springs. He flies her back and forth in his private plane and he buys her a lavish lifestyle. I tried to get our settlement changed, but she denies her involvement with him, and because she hasn’t married, the court won’t make any change. She keeps her new Mercedes and clothes at his house. The car is in his
name, and she still has her official address at my house. Her house. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d kill her.”

  “Do you have other debts besides the alimony?”

  Jamesie took a deep breath. “I still owe the lawyer who helped me. And I have a high credit card debt from before the court settlement. The attorney told me what was likely to happen. That I’d have to fork over half of everything including my savings account. I couldn’t stand that. So I went on a trip to France, determined to spend all my money so she wouldn’t get any of it. I met an ex-pat South African who was living in Monte Carlo. He talked me into investing in a new gold mine. It was a vein that had been overlooked by the big guys. This man had a lot of impressive geological surveys and other scientific information demonstrating a high likelihood that an overlooked quartz vein to which he had rights was stained with gold. I fell for it, lost my head, and signed some papers saying I would invest seventy-five thousand in his operation. It sounded exciting because the payback was likely to be ten dollars back for every dollar invested.”

  “You had seventy-five thousand in savings?” I said.

  “I was down to twenty. So I got cash advances on all six of my credit cards. The advances added up to fifty-five thousand dollars. I added that to the twenty, and it was gone as fast as that man could get on an airplane and disappear.”

  “How much debt is left from the fifty-five you borrowed on the credit cards?”

  “I haven’t been able to pay much more than the minimum payments. Five years later I still owe fifty thousand.” Jamesie stood up. “I’m not feeling well. If you have no further questions?”

  “I know where to find you,” I said.

  “Mrs. King?” Jamesie said.

  “Yes, you may,” she said.

  Jamesie left.

  FIFTY-NINE

  “Why does he hate you?” I asked when Jamesie had gone upstairs.

  Josie sighed. “You think so, too? I was hoping I was wrong in my thoughts. I think it’s because I’m wealthy. Jamesie has a problem with anyone who has money. I believe it goes all the way back to his childhood. He was raised in Southern Cal by a very poor single mother. When he was a toddler she took him with her on her housecleaning jobs in Brentwood. He’s been fixated about money ever since.”

  “And now we know he has a history of pursuing gold,” I said.

  “Yes. He...” She paused, listening. “My God.” She hurried out of the room and down to the living room at the front of the house. Spot and I followed. She pulled the drape aside and looked out the window. “I thought he was going to bed. He’s leaving. Jamesie is driving away in the pickup.” She let go of the drape and turned to me. “I can’t imagine what that is about. I thought he was just going to bed.”

  Spot stuck his nose at the edge of the drape where she’d been holding it. He thrust it aside and looked out the window.

  “Is the truck his?”

  “No. He has an old Nissan. But it doesn’t have four-wheel-drive. He has permission to use the truck.”

  “Any idea where he might be going?”

  “In the middle of the night? No. None at all.”

  “May I take a look at Jamesie’s room?”

  “Yes, of course. He has the third floor. You saw the stairs when you came in.”

  “Come, Spot.” He left the window and came over.

  Josie looked as if she were about to comment on whether it was appropriate that Spot come with me, but she didn’t speak.

  Spot and I climbed the outsized staircase up and around and up and around again. Jamesie’s suite was comprised of multiple rooms, some with slanted ceilings here and there depending on the arrangement of gables on the roof. He had a bedroom and bath he used, two bedrooms he didn’t use, a bath he didn’t use, an office, a living room with a fireplace, a sunroom with a wall of windows, and a kitchenette with twice as much space and three times as many appliances as the kitchen nook in my cabin.

  Spot explored and sniffed while I searched. As with my earlier search of the caretaker’s cottage, there was no specific item I was looking for, although it would be fruitful if I spotted an 1870 CC Double Eagle.

  Like the caretaker’s cottage, it did not take a long time to determine that there was nothing significant lying out in plain sight or tucked in an obvious hiding place.

  I went back down. Spot followed, detoured for a moment at the second floor, then later rejoined me on the main floor. Josie seemed to notice his delayed appearance, but didn’t mention it.

  “Jamesie’s not back?” I said.

  “No.”

  “I’d like to take another look at the cottage.”

  “I’ll come and punch in the door lock code,” Josie said.

  “Don’t bother. You’re in your robe, and it’s cold outside. I still remember the code from when I watched over Jamesie’s shoulder when he let me in before. I can let myself in.”

  Josie raised her eyebrows. “Suit yourself.”

  “Another question about Jamesie.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is he physically active? Is he in good shape?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s a serious skier. Downhill. Backcountry. He even does the amateur race circuit. Just two weeks ago he won a trophy for his age group.”

  I thanked her, and Spot and I left.

  Spot and I performed a sniff-and-search in the caretaker’s cottage. It was the same as my previous search except that it took me twice as long with only one good arm. Nothing appeared to have been moved or changed.

  I picked up the map I’d seen on my last visit. It was a duplicate of the maps that March and Paul had. I sat down at the desk and flicked on the desk lamp. It still showed the same topographic depiction of the Tahoe Basin, but this time I was armed with new knowledge. The events of the last few days wouldn’t change the map, but they might change what I made of it.

  I took the time-honored approach of drawing an imaginary grid and then studied each column, careful to be thorough and not skip ahead. As with the room search, I had no idea what I was looking for.

  In a few minutes, I had scanned all the imaginary columns and thus had scanned the entire map. Nothing came to my attention. But the trick is to also study the imaginary rows in the hope that a horizontal search might cough up tidbits that a vertical search would miss.

  I hit paydirt on the penultimate row, near the bottom center of the map, just north of Hope Valley and up the shoulder of Freel Peak, where it said Armstrong Pass.

  Armstrong.

  It was the one name that April talked about that had nothing to do with the Civil War and everything to do with surreptitious looks between April and March.

  Street and I had hiked Armstrong Pass. And in our hiking book we had read how it was a little used route over the Sierra during the 19th Century. Before the construction of what became Highway 50 over Spooner Summit, and Kingsbury Grade over Dagget Pass, most miners and pioneers heading toward California’s Central Valley came from Carson Valley by way of a longer route. They rode their horses up the canyon to Hope Valley and then over Luther Pass into Tahoe, where it was an easy trek to Echo Summit and down the American River Canyon to the Sierra foothills.

  The odd traveler chose a steeper route from Hope Valley, climbing up over Armstrong Pass and then down to Tahoe’s South Shore.

  It was one of those horsemen who was caught in an unfortunate slide and lay buried until Claude’s avalanche group uncovered his bones. And a bunch of 1870 CC Double Eagle gold pieces, the cumulative worth of which might be millions.

  Seeing Armstrong Pass on the map gave me a sudden strong sensation that April was up on that mountain. I didn’t have any specific evidence to support the thought, but it had a resonance. It felt inevitable. In Bill’s presence, April had spoken of Armstrong in connection with the Carson City Mint. She and March had winked over the reference. Paul Riceman had gotten upset at her liberal use of Armstrong’s name.

  April had been out of communication, away from the news, unaware
of Astor’s and Paul’s deaths. She was the last or one of the last surviving members of the avalanche class, a class where the Guru of the Sierra, Claude Sisuug, also taught them winter camping and survival skills.

  We’d had a lull in weather the last few days. Bill had said his niece was strong-willed. April might try to do an excavation camping trip before the next major storm began, a storm that was due to hit Tahoe in little more than twelve hours. It seemed clear to me that April was trying to finish the business that had taken the lives of her brother and friends.

  I hoped that my vision was a mirage, that I was wrong, and that she was safely in bed at the house-building charity’s dorm in the Caribbean. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

  SIXTY

  I folded the topo map and put it in my pocket.

  I didn’t stop to inform Josie King as Spot and I ran back to the Jeep, jumped in and drove away.

  I steered with my knee and dialed Sergeant Bains as I raced back down Lakeshore Drive toward Highway 28. It was 2:30 a.m.

  “Yeah,” he said after I identified myself.

  “I believe April Carrera is up on the shoulder of Freel Peak, somewhere near Armstrong Pass, trying to dig through snow and rock toward a bunch of gold coins that she and her avalanche classmates briefly saw during their class last November. After seeing the note with her name on it in Claude Sisuug’s cabin, it’s logical to assume that he is with her or nearby and won’t let her get off the mountain alive. But it is also possible that any number of other people are the murderer, including Josie King’s butler who has backcountry skills and money problems.”

  “Whoa, slow down, McKenna. I gotta wake up. Where’s Armstrong Pass?”