Tahoe Avalanche, Page 2

  “I just want to know what happened. That kid was everything to me.”

  “Was everything to you? Isn’t that a little premature?”

  Bill frowned so hard, you could store toothpicks in the folds of his brow. “You do that, right?” he said. “Track people down? Find out where they went, what happened?”

  “Yeah, but first we need to wait to find out if the truck in the tree was his. If he is in it, that will answer the question. That note doesn’t mention him going to Tahoe City with anyone else. Do you think he went by himself? If not, you could talk to the people he might have ridden with. Or people he may have told his plans to. See if they know whether he made it through or not.”

  “I called the few friends of his that I know. His buddy Will Adams was March’s main ski partner. Will thought that March probably drove to Tahoe City alone because he didn’t think any of their South Shore group knew the people March was visiting.”

  “Does March have a girlfriend?”

  Bill shook his head. “No. March doesn’t want to be tied down.”

  “Is he dating anyone?”

  “Not that I know of. He used to see a girl from Reno, Samantha Peachtree. I called her. She said she hasn’t heard from March in a year.”

  “What about the guru of the Sierra that he mentions in his note?”

  “I don’t know who that is. I asked Will if he’d heard of this guru guy, and he said he had no idea who March was referring to. So I asked him who else I should call. He said I should try Paul Riceman and Carmen Nicholas. I called them, but they didn’t know March was going to Tahoe City.”

  Bill’s face was contorted with worry. A Cuban drumbeat came from his coat. He pulled out a cell phone.

  “Hello?” Bill said.

  I could hear a faint tinny voice talking between Bill’s sentences, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  “Yeah, this is Bill Esteban...Yes, Sergeant. What did you find out?...Yes, that’s what he drove. A red Toyota...You could see the plates?...He was thrown out?...I don’t understand.”

  Bill listened for a time, then said, “Call me when you learn something more? Thanks.”

  He hung up and looked at me, his face grim. “That was Sergeant Bains with the El Dorado Sheriff’s Department. They had a climber who got up the nearest tree. Took some pictures. They ran the plate. It’s March’s truck perched on the broken tree. But March isn’t inside.”

  “March was thrown out in the impact?” I said.

  “It looks like he wasn’t inside when the avalanche hit. Both doors were caved in. Sergeant Bains said the driver’s door was probably caved in from the avalanche. The passenger door’s got marks that look like they match a guardrail. He said that stretch of road has guardrails, but they can’t check them because they’re buried under fifteen feet of snow that’s set up like concrete.”

  “So the truck got smashed between the avalanche and the guardrail before it was hurled into the tree,” I said.

  “Sounds like it. But March is nowhere to be seen.”

  “Suggesting that March was not in his truck when the avalanche hit.”

  “Yeah,” Bill said. “Maybe March got stuck on the road. He got out of the truck, sensed the avalanche coming and ran to safety.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Possible,” I said.

  Bill’s face got darker. “Or he got out of his truck and was swept away just like the truck.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Either way, I’d like to hire you to look into it. The cop I talked to in South Lake Tahoe said you’re good. I’ll pay whatever your rate is.”

  I shook my head. “I investigate crimes, not accidents,” I said.

  Bill looked wounded. “Why not? Can’t you just give me one day? Make some calls, ask around or whatever it is you do?”

  “Sorry. There’s meat in investigating crime. A bad guy to catch. But accident investigations are always about trying to establish negligence, even when common sense says there isn’t any. It always leads to a lawsuit, and I won’t be part of that.”

  Bill had picked up one of the real estate booklets and was rolling it into a tight tube, wringing it hard enough that his knuckles were white. He shut his eyes a long time, took a deep breath, held it, then breathed out slowly. “I’m not interested in suing anybody, Caltrans or otherwise, you have my word on that.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Bill slumped a little against the wall, taking some of the weight off his arms and crutches. His eyes suggested a lot more age than his driver’s license would probably show. Weariness and sadness and pain.

  Bill turned and looked at me. “I wouldn’t know where to start,” he said. “If he’s buried, what do I do? Do they have a way of finding bodies in the snow? Or do the bears get to him first, like carrion, like rotting venison? Do I just wait until spring and hike around looking for his bones?” Bill’s eyes were red and puffy.

  “You’re not from here, are you?” I said, glancing at his city shoes and coat.

  “No, I live in Houston. But I have a house in the Tahoe Keys. I come whenever I can. March lived at my house.”

  “You have a card?”

  He fished one out of his wallet and handed it to me. “Addresses, phone numbers, it’s all there. I wasn’t going to go back to Texas ’til Saturday. Maybe I won’t at all, now.”

  “Let me make some calls,” I said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  THREE

  I went to my office on Kingsbury Grade, called the El Dorado Sheriff’s Department and was put on hold for a long time.

  I had left an art book from the library on my desk. It was about East Asian art. I didn’t know anything about art east of the Ural Mountains and west of San Francisco, but I’d paged through it at the library and was fascinated by the way the Chinese made fog and clouds and rain and snow with a wash of ink off a brush. I paged through it now, courtesy of the county’s phone system, and saw that the stormy Tahoe landscape had already been painted a thousand years ago in a country on the other side of the planet. Eventually, Sergeant Bains picked up the phone.

  “I’ve heard of you,” he said. “You were with San Francisco PD, right? Now you work private?”

  “Yeah. I was talking to Bill Esteban a half hour ago when you called him about the truck that belonged to his nephew March Carerra.”

  “Was that something or what?” Bains said. “Who ever heard of a truck on top of a broken-off tree? Must have been one hell of a slide to throw that truck out into space like that.”

  “Any word on the owner, March Carerra?”

  “Nothing. But the whole area is covered by frozen snow from the avalanche. Ten or more feet deep everywhere. If Carerra is buried under there, who knows when we’ll ever find the body. Caltrans has a rotary on it. But it could be a day or two before it punches through the slide. Those rotaries take a bite six feet high, but the slide is twice that deep in places. They’ve got a front-end loader helping to break it up. Hate to think of what happens if a rotary hits a body. But then, considering what the slide did to the truck, it figures Carrera’s body would’ve been thrown way down the mountain. Might be a long time before we find him.”

  “Any plan to bring in search and rescue dogs?” I asked.

  “Several of the county SAR team members have dogs, but at this moment they’re working a search on the West Slope. A couple of backcountry skiers were caught in the storm. They called in on their cell, and we got a good read on their location off the cell GPS. But we still haven’t got to them yet. The skiers are alive and this pickup driver at Emerald Bay probably isn’t, so I don’t think the SAR team will be bringing their dogs this way anytime soon.”

  “Mind if I bring in a dog and do my own search?”

  Bains paused before answering. “I’m thinking you wouldn’t get in the way and cause any further problems, so be my guest. If you can find the body, it’ll save the taxpayers money. I’ll clear it with Caltrans, get you past the gate.”

&nbs
p; I thanked him, hung up and dialed Ellie Ibsen.

  While Spot had some search training, it would be much faster to get professional canine help. Which meant calling on the most famous dog trainer in the West.

  “Ellie, darling, Owen McKenna,” I said when she answered.

  She hesitated, her brain no doubt scrambling to place my name, not surprising for a person not far from ninety. “Owen! Where have you been? I’ve gone months without hearing your voice. Do you think I’m going to live forever?”

  “If not you, Ellie, who?”

  “And you only call when you want to use my dogs,” she kidded me. “Let me guess. You’re calling about that avalanche at Emerald Bay. I saw it on the news. They showed pictures of a truck up in a tree.”

  “Yeah. Our hope is that the driver got out of the truck before the avalanche. Maybe he got a ride from someone. But he may have been buried in the slide.”

  There was silence on the line. Finally, Ellie spoke in a subdued voice. “Avalanche victims who are buried rarely live more than fifteen minutes, so if he was buried, he’s almost certainly dead. My best avalanche dog reacts badly to that. I try games and such, but not much works to cheer him up.”

  “What about a live find?”

  “Yes, that helps.”

  “Then I’ll arrange it if necessary.”

  Ellie didn’t respond immediately. I knew she was remembering all the times over the years when her dogs had been out on search and rescue missions in the Sierra or even flown to earthquakes or other disasters around the globe. There had been many times when people had been found too late. Some dogs experience depression when their enthusiastic search work results in a body instead of the reward of finding a living person.

  “Which dog is your best in avalanches?” I said, trying to redirect her thoughts.

  “I have a couple. You remember Natasha, of course. You worked with her on that forest fire. She’s great in snow, but she’s laid up with a torn tendon. My newest, however, is going to be a star. Honey G is only two years old, but you won’t believe how that dog works a territory.”

  “Honey G?”

  “Yes. Stands for honey-colored Golden Retriever. I’ve had him out on many searches now, and he’s amazing. I’ve never seen a dog air-track a scent better than Honey G.” She paused, then said, “When will you pick us up?”

  “First thing tomorrow morning? Say, six o’clock?”

  “You should know it’s supposed to start raining down here again tonight. So that will slow you down even after you get out of the snow.”

  “I’ll leave extra early.”

  “Will you bring his largeness?”

  “If he found out I visited you and didn’t bring him along, there’d be repercussions.”

  “Good. I’ll be waiting,” Ellie said, eager as a Central Valley kid coming up to ski the mountains.

  “Ellie, this slide is large and very deep, and by the time we get there it will have been set up for thirty-six hours. It will be like sending Honey G out to sniff through acres of concrete. Is there much hope of finding a scent in that situation?”

  “Maybe not. But we still have to try.”

  “Right. See you in the morning.”

  I called Bill Esteban and told him I would work his case for a day or so, and I’d report tomorrow night. He was appreciative and said he’d wait to hear.

  I left the next morning at 4:30 a.m. Spot sat up in the backseat as we drove through the darkened town. Caltrans had a long row of dump trucks occupying one lane. At the head of the line a rotary was eating the huge snow berm that the graders had deposited in the center of the four-lane road. The driver angled the chute to fill the lead dump truck. It took only twenty seconds. Then the truck pulled away and the rotary operator paused as the next dump truck pulled into position. Snow removal on this scale is a large, expensive operation, but it is the only option in Tahoe where most snowfalls are measured in feet, not inches.

  Spot’s ears were forward, his huge panting tongue flipping drops of saliva here and there around the backseat. He stuck his nose on the window and made a big smear across the opaque condensation.

  “It’s snowing outside,” I said. “Most pets would be glad to be in a warm, dry car.”

  Spot licked the window.

  “Your choice,” I said. I hit the button to roll down the rear window just as another snow squall swept down the highway.

  Spot stuck his head as far out into the snowstorm as he could, staring at the dump trucks. If he didn’t have 170 pounds of ballast and studded paws gripping the seat fabric, I’d worry that he’d fall out. Instead, I put the windshield wipers on high, turned up the heat on the defroster, ignored my dog and concentrated on driving.

  I went through town and climbed up the thousand vertical feet to Echo Summit. Eventually, Spot pulled his snow-encrusted head inside and went to sleep.

  It was very slow going around the big curves down to Twin Bridges. At Strawberry the snow became slushy and stuccoed the windshield. The wipers began to ride up over the ice rather than scrape it off. I rolled down the window and reached out to scrape the buildup off with my hand.

  Because this storm off the Pacific was relatively warm, we drove out of the snow and into cold rain when we came down to 4000 feet at Kyburz. The rain never let up as I followed the tight curving highway. Eventually, the road left the American River and climbed back up the ridge to Pollock Pines. Once again at 4000 feet we popped up into heavy snow, but then re-entered the rain as we wound down to Placerville. I turned north on 49 and headed toward Coloma where the gold discovery in 1849 started the mad rush. The turnoff to Ellie’s Three-Bar Ranch was only a few miles ahead.

  Spot somehow knew where he was, and he was standing, excited, in the back seat as I pulled down the perfect drive to the perfect ranch home. It was still very dark and the short post lights lining the drive reflected on the wet asphalt. I parked where the drive looped around, got out and opened the back door. Spot charged out and zoomed around like a puppy on amphetamines.

  Ellie came out wearing a raincoat and a backpack and carrying an umbrella in one hand and snowshoes in the other. With her was a Golden Retriever. The retriever ran to meet Spot and the two of them sniffed each other, tails high and wagging, then ran around for a couple of minutes.

  We loaded Ellie’s snowshoes and pack into the Jeep just as the rain began to let up.

  “Owen, I want you to meet Honey G,” she said to me as her Golden Retriever jumped into the Jeep, smelling, as all wet Goldens do, so ripe that I wondered how he could possibly sniff out any other scent. I reached around and gave Honey G a pet.

  “You said Honey G is male, right?”

  “Yes,” Ellie said. “You think it is a feminine name?”

  “Well, it does sound like an NFL cheerleader. He doesn’t have gender confusion?”

  Ellie touched my shoulder. “A little gender confusion is good for males of most species. Keeps them sensitive.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “You could probably learn something from Honey G.”

  “No doubt,” I said.

  Ellie and I talked of old times as we drove. She asked about Street Casey. I asked about her dogs.

  Winter moisture off the Pacific often comes in waves. We found ourselves between two waves and we followed the serendipitous lull in precipitation all the way back to Tahoe.

  “Do you need a break?” I asked Ellie as we came over Echo Summit at dawn and coasted down the cliff edge toward the big lake that shimmered deep blue between rolling storm clouds. “Or should we go directly out to Emerald Bay?”

  “We should get to work, don’t you think?” she said. “We can rest tonight.”

  I drove out the Emerald Bay Highway and stopped where the Caltrans worker was stationed at the gate. He stared past me at Ellie as I explained who we were. He was no doubt wondering what a tiny old woman was doing on a search and rescue. “Sheriff’s Department said you’re okay,” he said as he let us through.
<
br />   FOUR

  I drove out the highway through four inches of fresh snow. We powered up the switchbacks in four-wheel-drive and stopped near the Emerald Bay overlook. The parking lot hadn’t been plowed, but I parked at a wide spot on the highway where a grader had pushed snow to the side.

  We put on our snowshoes and I pulled on my small just-in-case backpack with the windproof anoraks, space blanket, energy bars and water, then grabbed my shovel.

  We headed down the road, the dogs running loops around us. The slide loomed like a glacier that flowed down the mountain toward the lake and completely covered the highway.

  There was a narrow channel cut into the slide, following the highway. At the far end of the eight-foot-wide groove was a rotary plow looking like a giant insect chewing its way through the snow and belching diesel smoke. It spit out snow like a thousand snowblowers combined, its locomotive roar muffled by the walls of compacted snow on either side of it. A huge arc of snow shot 100 feet out of its chute, up and over the rest of the slide.

  I helped Ellie up off the road and onto the roadside snowbank. From there we headed into the woods off to the lower side of the highway where the mountain dropped away in a steep plunge.

  The dogs loped through the deep powder, Honey G having particular difficulty with the snow depth. I slogged ahead, breaking trail, and Ellie followed in my tracks. The deep snow was still work for her, but manageable. If her age or the high altitude made it more difficult, one would never know.

  A tenth of a mile down we walked up onto the compressed snow of the slide and, although it was a very steep slope, it was like stepping from water onto land. Hiking was much easier, with a hard surface cushioned by the carpet of snow that had fallen over the last day. In places, the wind had blown the new snow off the slide, leaving the exposed hardpack slippery enough that if you fell, you’d slide a long way down. But our snowshoes had cleats, and they kept us from slipping.