Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (32 page)

FIFTY

Joe looked as serious as I’d ever seen him.

“Let me think,” he said. He moved his fingers here and there, touching different places. His hands shook when he pointed at mountains.

“You said she was at Rubicon Peak. I remember most of her route from there.”

“Great,” I said. “Now comes a difficult question, and I’m sorry to ask it.”

“What?”

“If a person is following her and he is determined to kill her, what about the landscape would suggest how he might do it to make it look like a accident?”

Joe looked very sad. “I suppose he could just push her off any mountain.”

“Well, maybe yes. But I’m thinking that he would want to choose a place where her fall would be certain to end in death.”

Diamond said, “Another consideration is that he’d pick a place where other people would be unlikely to see it. A secluded place, less open.”

“Okay, let me consider that,” Joe said.

He bent over the map, his face a mass of frown wrinkles. I looked over his shoulder, but I was aware that for me, topo maps were something to be deciphered, a foreign language where I knew only half of the words. For Joe, it was like reading the morning paper. He picked up a pencil, wrote numbers on the mountains, drew some arrows.

I left him alone. Because my cell didn’t get reception at Joe’s house, I used his phone to call Street. She said she had collected my ski gear and checked and found out that the Cave Rock tunnel was open. She would be on her way in a few minutes.

I waited.

In time, Joe straightened up.

“I think this was the order of the peaks. And I think this was her desired route based on what I previously drew for her. Now I have to imagine how she would react if and when she thinks she is being chased.”

“Yeah, that would help,” I said.

He leaned back over the maps.

FIFTY-ONE

“Okay, I’ve got some recommendations,” Joe said. “I’m worried. I think we should hurry.”

“Agreed.”

Joe turned from the table to look at Diamond and me. “Tell me, please. You told Simone that Manuel and Jillian had died, and Simone now believes that they were part of her group. But does she know how they died?”

“She understands that their deaths looked like accidents but were likely murders,” I said. “She believes that Ned was the likely killer.”

“But if she comes to think that the killer is someone else,” Joe said, “she’ll be wondering how he is going to try to kill her and make it look like an accident, right?”

Diamond said, “She’ll be thinking about which routes make a killer’s job easier or harder. The obvious choice for the killer is to repeat the process he used with Jillian, a hip-check at the wrong moment to send Simone into a tree or off a cliff.”

Joe said, “So if Simone stays away from cliffs and trees and doesn’t give him an opportunity, he will look for whatever is the steepest slope she skis near, especially one that faces northeast where the avalanche danger is greatest.”

Joe pointed to one of the maps.

“These three red lines are her probable routes from Rubicon Peak. Number one is where she originally planned to go, which, as I recall, is Phipps Peak followed by Dicks and Jacks Peaks. The logical way would be to stay on the Tahoe Rim Trail. It generally follows these ridge lines.” Joe traced with his big finger. “Any track off the ridge would be too steep to safely ski. Once she got down to this saddle, the only reasonable direction would be this route up here. Does that seem logical to you?”

Joe looked at Diamond.

“I don’t know,” Diamond said. “I know nothing about back-country skiing.”

Joe nodded. “The second line is her closest escape route. If she’s trying to take the fastest way out of the high country, she’d likely veer off the Tahoe Rim Trail at Middle Velma Lake and head down to Lower Velma, then Eagle Lake, and then down to Emerald Bay. But I think she would only do that if she’s leaving the high country due to bad weather. If she believes she’s in danger from someone chasing her, I think she would behave differently.”

“How?” I asked.

Joe pointed at the map. “It’s what Diamond said about what makes a killer’s job easier. This escape route is a narrow trail through heavy forest. It goes around crags and steep drop offs. A person determined to harm Simone would find a hundred places to push her off a cliff without being observed. Simone will be thinking about how Rell’s assault and Manuel’s and Jillian’s deaths were designed to look like accidents. I think she’ll decide to stay in open areas. That way there will be fewer cliffs and a much greater chance that anyone else would see her pursuer. Hopefully, that knowledge will intimidate him.”

“There aren’t a lot of people in Desolation Wilderness in the winter,” I said. “Maybe none.”

“True. But Simone will hope that there are some people around, and she will make decisions based on that hope. If Simone is being chased, I’m guessing that when she gets to Middle Velma Lake, she’ll turn west and follow its drainage down to Rockbound Valley. That area is much more open. Because there is less cover, anyone pursuing her would be easy to see from a long distance. That will reduce her risk. It also plays to her strength.”

“Her endurance,” I said.

“And determination,” Diamond said.

“Right. Cross-country ski champions are like marathon runners. They’re rarely the big, strong guys. They’re always the thin, super-fit athletes. While I doubt that Simone is very fast, she might be able to simply outrun someone much bigger and stronger, even if that person is an accomplished skier. But it depends on how deep the snow is. If she’s in the lee of a mountain, it will have accumulated deep. She’ll have a great deal of work breaking trail. That will give any pursuer a huge advantage because he can ski in the tracks she made, and he won’t have to expend a fraction of the effort. If instead, Simone finds some windblown areas with harder snow, then she can ski much faster and will be on more equal footing with anyone following her. I talked about this with her.”

“So she will search out those windblown areas,” I said. “But the slopes will still be a problem,” I said. “She said she’s just an intermediate at downhill.”

Joe nodded. “Which is why I think she’ll head down here to Camper Flat.” He pointed. “She probably won’t have time to consult her map for more than a moment, but you can see Camper Flat from up above. Its openness will beckon. From there, she would probably turn south and make the gentle climb along the Rubicon River up to Mosquito Pass. That’s a much more dangerous area with cliffs and dense forest, but the long non-technical endurance trek to that point may have given her a substantial lead by then. She could get over the pass to Lake Aloha where its open area would again give her more safety.”

I looked over the map, visualizing the areas that Joe had described.

“What if she isn’t being chased, yet?”

“Then she would stay on the original route to Dicks and Jacks peaks, which still brings her to Lake Aloha.”

“An easy spot for someone to see her and give chase,” I said.

“Right. The killer could intersect her at any point,” Joe said. “Lake Aloha is a huge open basin above eight thousand feet, with very few trees. The frozen lake area itself would be a great place for her to out-distance anyone chasing her if she can find some windblown, crusted snow.”

“I can see your point,” I said. “But this route you’ve outlined is so much longer. Do you really think she’ll pass up one of these fast escape routes in favor of a much longer route?”

“Yes. She’ll realize that the shorter escape routes are filled with secluded areas that would invite attack. She’s quite confident in her endurance ability. She may well believe that she could out-distance her pursuer.”

“You say that like you don’t think it’s true.”

“I don’t think it matters if it’s true,” Joe said. “If Simone believes it, that might be enough to get her to choose the more open route.”

“If she successfully gets through the Lake Aloha Basin, then what?”

“Then she’d be forced to take the risk of going down to Echo Lakes.” Joe traced on the map. “The drop out of Lake Aloha is narrow and heavily forested. It would invite attack. Let’s hope we find her before then.”

“If we decide to try and intercept her, how do you recommend I go about it?”

“We should go in by snowmobile.”

“We?”

“Yes. You and me. Your dog, too, if you want. I’ll be driving, so maybe you can hold your dog behind me.”

“On a snowmobile. Into Desolation where snowmobiles aren’t allowed,” I said.

“Right. The girl’s life is at stake. We have to choose the fastest way in,” Joe said. He sounded irritated.

“I’m not arguing with you,” I said. “Just checking.”

“We should go in at Echo Lakes and travel from there up to Lake Aloha. Then we go on to Rockbound Valley if we haven’t already found her. If you prefer, Diamond could substitute for me, or your dog, for that matter.”

Diamond shook his head. “I would be a handicap. I don’t know mountain back-country. I wouldn’t know what’s safe or not regarding avalanche terrain. Other than how to shovel it, I don’t really know snow that well.”

“Okay, that’s settled.” I turned to Joe. “Echo Lakes is a long way from where she is now.”

“Yes, but that’s the way I think she’s headed. More important, at seventy-four hundred feet, it’s the highest elevation access to Desolation. We would only have to climb seven hundred vertical to get to Lake Aloha. The other Desolation trail heads are a thousand feet below Echo Lakes. We might not be able to make the climb with both you and me, never mind your dog.”

I studied the map. “I’ve been up to Echo Lakes, but I don’t remember how long they are.”

“Two miles total. And they are well frozen, so we can make good time before we have to start climbing. With luck, there’ll be other tracks we can follow. And Desolation Wilderness doesn’t start until after we go through Echo Lakes, so we might find a snowmobile track. That would really make it fast.”

“From the far end of Echo Lakes up to Lake Aloha looks to be another two miles. In deep snow, that would take a long time.”

“We haven’t had a deep snowfall for several days, so a snowmobile would be able to make the climb pretty fast. I’m guessing we could get up to Lake Aloha in a half hour.”

“You sound pretty certain about Echo Lakes being the best entry point,” I said.

“Of course, I’m certain. Didn’t you ask me because I know about snow country? We could go in by the other routes that I labeled as escape routes on Simone’s map. But they are mostly too steep to climb on a snowmobile. We’d have to ski. I don’t know what kind of back-country skier you are, but I’m not up to that. And while Echo Lakes is high enough, it’s most of two miles just to get down the unplowed road from the highway on Echo Summit. That’s eight miles of travel to Lake Aloha, which, if Simone is running for her life, is where I think she’ll be in about four hours.”

“You know where to get a snowmobile on short notice?” Diamond asked.

Joe nodded. “One of the guys in our lunch group. Harry Denner. Works for Caltrans. He’s the guy who’s always calling me chief. I can’t stand it. Doesn’t mean I won’t borrow his snowmobile. He’s got an Arctic Cat Bearcat Utility with two seats and the equipment rack behind. Owen could sit on the rack and help your dog balance on the rear seat.”

“And you would drive.”

“I’m old, I’m not dead. You think I can’t sit on a seat and squeeze the throttle?”

“Not at all. I was just asking. Where does Harry garage this machine?”

“At his cabin up on Echo Summit. It’s the reason I thought of this approach. And before you ask, no, I’m not being overly swayed by the presence of the snowmobile. I still believe that Echo Lakes gives us our greatest chance of intercepting Simone.”

“And you think that if a killer is out there, and he finds Simone, he won’t push her off a cliff before she gets to Lake Aloha.”

“That’s the beauty of this route. If she makes it to Rockbound Valley, there won’t be any cliffs nearby except at Mosquito Pass. If she gets through that, then Lake Aloha will give her a respite from cliffs until she descends to Echo Lake. If we get to her while she’s still in the high open areas, we could save her.”

FIFTY-TWO

“But this is all still speculation,” Diamond said. “We still don’t know if she’s in danger, right? For that matter, our idea that the killer is motivated by what got said in the No Judgment group is speculation, too. And we have no indication that Michael was a member of this hiking group. He has wavy brown hair. That’s all. Simone didn’t mention his tattoos, which would be hard to hide if the weather was hot when they went hiking.”

“Joe,” I said. “Did Rell ever say or do anything that might suggest whether or not Michael could have been one of the hikers?”

“No. But one time she mentioned that many of their hikes were on the South Shore because all but one of the hikers lived close. Of course, Michael lives really close, but I think she just meant the South Shore in general.”

I turned to Diamond. “You think there’s another motive?”

“Nothing in particular,” Diamond said. “But we haven’t pursued that idea.”

“What else could serve as a motive for killing people like the ones who’ve died?” I asked.

“This gets back to trying to influence me,” Joe said. “A lot of people will make money if the resort is built.”

“Like Bob’s investors,” I said.

Joe nodded. “Also investors not connected to RKS Properties.”

“Real estate investors,” I said. “People who own land near the resort.” I picked up Joe’s phone, called information, and got the number for Ira Weinstein, the realtor who sold me my cabin when I moved to Tahoe.

“Weinstein,” he answered.

“Owen McKenna. I’ll check in with you sometime, and we’ll catch up, but in the meantime I have a quick question.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“Do you know if any of your colleagues specialize in Christmas Valley? Especially the properties out at the very end?”

“You’re thinking about the proposed ski resort, aren’t you?”

“I’m not the first to ask the question, huh?”

He chuckled. “That would be one way to put it. Give a call to Dan Sandoval. I’ve got his number here someplace.” Ira read it off, I thanked him, hung up, and dialed.

When Dan answered, I told him who I was and that Ira Weinstein had given me his number.

“Are you familiar with the proposed Steven’s Peak Ski Resort?” I asked.

“Live, eat, sleep, breathe it,” he said. “The day they start breaking ground on that baby is the day I never again worry about making my condo payment in Maui.”

“I’m calling about properties in Christmas Valley that might benefit from the resort.”

“All properties in Christmas Valley will benefit. Not everyone will be happy with the traffic. But when the crowds drive them to sell and move to quieter areas, they’ll at least appreciate the price that future vacation home buyers will pay for their abodes, large or small.”

“I’m wondering if there’s been any unusual activity related to the proposed resort.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking along the lines of someone who really stands to benefit if the resort is built and will lose a great deal if it isn’t built.”

“Like I said, everyone will benefit dollarwise. But there is one guy who showed up almost before there were even any whispers about the resort. He bought nearly every empty lot left in the valley. Paid cash, too. A lot of people thought he was taking a big risk to dump so much money into a single neighborhood. But he’s looking damn smart today.”

“Do you happen to remember his name?”

“No, but I’ve got it in my book. Hold on.”

I waited.

Dan came back on the line. “He’s from the Bay Area. His name is Michael Paul.”

I thanked Dan, hung up, and told Diamond and Joe what he’d said.

“A new motive,” Diamond said. “Michael’s on the hot seat.”

“Right,” I said. “Joe, do you have a number for Michael?”

He walked over and picked up his little book from the desk and flipped it open.

“No. I don’t. I never had reason to call him. If I want to talk, he’s always driving by.”

Diamond said, “You call him, he could answer even if he’s out chasing Simone.”

“Sure, but don’t you think I could tell?”

“Wind in the background?” Diamond said. “Breathing hard with exertion?”

“Yeah. It’d be a relief to find out that Michael is currently watching a game at a friend’s house or eating at a local restaurant.” I turned to Joe. “Can you think of someone who might know him? Or know his number?”

“Dwight knows him better than anyone else around here. They’re always talking in the road.”

“Do you have Dwight’s number?”

“Sure.” He opened to a page and pointed at the number as he handed me the book.

I used his land line to dial Dwight.

It rang several times and went to voicemail. I said, “Dwight, this is Owen McKenna. If you’re there, please pick up. I need to ask you a question. Either way, please call when you get this message. It’s important.” I left Joe’s and my numbers and hung up.

“Do you have Dwight’s cell number?”

Joe shook his head. “But I have an idea. Dwight often goes down to Berkeley on business. Maybe you can reach him there. If not, someone there might have his cell. You could look online and find their number.” Joe pointed to his computer.

It only took me a few minutes to find a telephone number for the Physics department at UC Berkeley.

“They’re not going to give you Dwight’s cell number,” Joe said. “People are careful about keeping personal phone numbers private.”

“Right. I’ll have to have an angle.” I thought about it for a bit, then dialed.

“Physics,” a young male voice answered when I called.

“Hey,” I said in a voice higher than my natural register, trying to sound younger by ten or fifteen years. “This is John Dalton over at Nanocave Gaming in Palo Alto. We’ve got a little gamer project going on here that has hit a glitch. I wonder if you can give me a referral? One of our engineers – you probably know him – Bandy Milan?”

“No, I don’t know him,” the voice said. “You said Bandy, right?”

“Yeah. Bandy. I guess it goes back to when he had to testify at that big hearing in D.C. on bandwidth issues. So Bandy’s working on some nano-software modeling. I don’t really know about it. I’m in Human Resources. I.T.’s not my gig. Well, Bandy hit some kind of computer trap where everything starts running in circles.”

Across the room Joe was watching me, frowning. Behind him, Diamond was grinning and shaking his head. I turned away to make it easier to ignore them.

“Anyway, I made some calls, and this dude told me that there’s a nano-modeling consultant who does contract work for you guys. I thought that might be a good fit for us. I’m calling to see if you know who this consultant is and if you can give me his contact info?”

There was a short pause. “Nano modeling? I don’t know of anyone like that, but hold on, and I’ll call Reginald. He’s using some software to try to re-imagine quantum mechanics. He might know what’s happening in nano.”

The phone went silent. I turned and looked at Joe. “They put me on hold,” I said.

 Joe nodded. I waited.

Two minutes later came a female voice. “Is this the person looking for Dwight Frankman?”

“Maybe,” I said, “if he’s your nano-modeling engineer.”

“He might be your guy,” she said. “But he lives in Tahoe, so I don’t know if that affects your needs. We just use him for detail work. We generate a concept to test, he writes the code, we test. It’s pretty easy for him to do that from anywhere. He’s got a sweet deal, living in Tahoe, working on his own time.”

“That would probably work for us. I should tell you that we don’t anticipate a lot of big projects, so I don’t think our presence would affect his work for you.”

“No sweat,” she said.

“Do you have Dwight’s number?” I asked.

“I do.” She read off the number.

“Thanks,” I said. Now that I had his cell number, I wanted to get off the phone. “I appreciate...”

“I should warn you that he’s expensive,” she said. “The only reason we can afford him is that we got a grant from the National Science Foundation. A public university like Berkeley can’t throw around money the way Stanford can.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said. “We’ll try to get some clear numbers from him before we proceed. Thanks again.”

“Of course,” she continued, “if you need his layer folding software, then he’s probably cost-effective even if he’s expensive.”

“Like I told the guy who answered,” I said, “I’m not a tech guy myself, so layer-folding is over my head. I only...”

“Not my area, either,” she said. “But I heard an intriguing analogy the other day that makes it more clear. Someone said to think of it like origami.”

Now she had my attention.

“What does origami have to do with nano-modeling software?” I asked.

“As it was explained to me,” she said, “nature doesn’t create blocks of stuff so much as she creates layers. This is especially true in the biological sciences, but it even exists in most of the physical sciences. Many morphologies that look like chunky materials are really just many layers folded and refolded. This is true of huge structures like mountain ranges, as well as the tiniest nano-structures. Layers of atoms and molecules, folded over and over. Understanding and designing nano-structures is a study of micro layers that are folded similar to the way origami artists fold paper. Once I heard that, it made a lot more sense to me. Don’t you agree?”

The woman’s enthusiasm was great, but I really wanted to get off the phone.

“Yes, you’re right,” I said. “That makes it much easier to understand. Thanks again.”

I hung up and turned to Joe. “Did you ever get the sense that Dwight was interested in origami?”

Joe frowned. “No. I mean, once or twice he stirred through the trash can of origami entries to my contest, but it didn’t seem like any significant interest.”

“Did he ever talk about origami in relation to his computer work?”

Joe shook his head. “No. Why?”

I was thinking about the scaffolding and how it fell in a neat, controlled manner, a collapse that seemed engineered, origami style. I now had Dwight’s cell number, but I wasn’t ready to call it just yet.

I turned to Diamond. “When Dwight drove his Chevy Tahoe off the road and down the snowbank, and he used his flare gun to get attention...” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Any idea where the wreckage went?”

“Let me think. I think it got hauled to Carson City Auto Body.”

“I’m wondering if Dwight could have used it to push Manuel Romero off the switchback at Emerald Bay.”

Diamond was already typing on Joe’s computer. He picked up the phone and dialed.

After a pause, Diamond said, “Sergeant Martinez, Douglas County, calling on a Chevy Tahoe you picked up near Spooner Summit a few days ago.”

He paused while someone on the other end spoke.

“Yeah,” Diamond said. “Wondering if you could tell me the scope of the damage.”

Another, longer pause.

“What about the front bumper?” Diamond said, “Was it mangled badly?”

Diamond listened. “Got it. One more question. Did you notice the tires? Did they have good tread? Any chance they had studded snow tires?”

He listened some more, said thanks, and hung up.

“Guy said the tires were bald. When they saw them, they thought, no wonder he went off a snow-covered highway.”

“Simone said the man named Cameron in the No Judgment group was athletic,” I said. “Dwight’s the opposite of athletic. The nine-one-one dispatcher said that the man who called in the report on the avalanche down below Mt. Rose had a really raspy voice. Like Michael’s. Dwight’s voice is smooth and high, closer to that of a choir boy. The person who hip-checked Jillian into a tree was an expert skier. Dwight doesn’t like exercise and said he didn’t ski. There’s nothing about him that makes him a suspect.”

“Except?” Diamond said.

“Except that the woman at Berkeley said that nano-modeling on the computer was like origami. It’s a reach, but I’m going to check Dwight’s house before I call his cell,” I said.

Joe nodded, no doubt understanding that my thoughts were shifting in new directions.

Remembering that my Jeep was in Tahoe City, I said, “Joe, may I borrow your tire iron?”

“Certainly. The cars are in the garage. Unlocked.”

“Spot will stay here with you and Diamond.”

I looked at Diamond. He made a little nod. “Garage door works best,” he said.