by Todd Borg
PRAISE FOR TAHOE HEAT
“WILL KEEP READERS TURNING THE PAGES AS OWEN RACES TO CATCH A VICIOUS KILLER...”
- Booklist
“A RIVETING THRILLER... HARD TO PUT DOWN”
- Midwest Book Review
PRAISE FOR TAHOE NIGHT
“BORG HAS WRITTEN ANOTHER WHITE-KNUCKLE THRILLER...A sure bet for mystery buffs waiting for the next Robert B. Parker and Lee Child novels”
- Library Journal
“AN ACTION-PACKED THRILLER WITH A NICE-GUY HERO, AN EVEN NICER DOG...”
- Kirkus Reviews
PRAISE FOR TAHOE AVALANCHE
“BORG IS A SUPERB STORYTELLER...A MASTER OF THE GENRE”
- Midwest Book Review
PRAISE FOR TAHOE SILENCE
WINNER BEN FRANKLIN AWARD
BEST MYSTERY OF THE YEAR!
ONE OF THE FIVE BEST MYSTERIES OF THE YEAR!
- Library Journal
PRAISE FOR TAHOE KILLSHOT
“A WONDERFUL BOOK...FASCINATING CHARACTERS, HARD-HITTING ACTION”
Mystery News
PRAISE FOR TAHOE ICE GRAVE
“BAFFLING CLUES... CONSISTENTLY ENTERTAINS”
- Kirkus Reviews
“A CLEVER PLOT... RECOMMEND THIS MYSTERY”
Booklist
PRAISE FOR TAHOE BLOWUP
“RIVETING... A MUST READ FOR MYSTERY FANS!”
Addison, Illinois Public Library
PRAISE FOR TAHOE DEATHFALL
“THRILLING, EXTENDED RESCUE/CHASE”
- Kirkus Reviews
“HIGHLY LIKABLE CHARACTERS”
- San Jose Mercury News
TAHOE BLOWUP
By
Todd Borg
Published by Thriller Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2001 Todd Borg
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Thriller Press, a division of WRST, Inc. www.thrillerpress.com
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real locales, establishments, organizations or events are intended only to give the fiction a sense of verisimilitude. All other names, places, characters and incidents portrayed in this book are the product of the author’s imagination.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Thriller Press, P.O. Box 551110, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96155.
Library of Congress Card Number: 00-111553
ISBN: 1-931296-12-X
Cover design by Keith Carlson.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
TAHOE BLOWUP
PROLOGUE
When the match touched the sleeve of Jake’s gasoline-soaked shirt, flames flashed up his arm and across his back.
Jake threw himself to the ground and rolled over to try and put out the fire. But the tall dead grass was sun-dried and it ignited as he writhed on the ground. A hard wind spread the fire and in a moment the entire end of the meadow was engulfed in angry orange flames. Jake scrambled to his feet and ran into the forest toward Highland Creek. The small stream was only fifty yards away, down at the bottom of the ravine. If it still flowed with water at the end of summer, and if he sprinted...
A guttural scream ripped at the back of his throat as Jake fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. The fabric was synthetic, and before he could peel the shirt away it melted to his skin.
He plunged through the trees, a literal fireman carrying fire into the twilight. His fingers clawed at the melting synthetic that ran in rivulets of fire down his body. Skin came off under his fingernails.
The acrid smoke from his burning flesh caught inside his lungs, but it was nothing against the searing on his skin, a thousand red irons pressed on bare nerves.
Jake jumped and slid down the steepest part of the ravine. He tripped on a root, fell forward into the dry stream bed and hit his head on a rock. He lay motionless, his blackened body still burning like a torch.
A clump of dogwood, baked to tinder by a summer with no rain, caught fire. The flames spread to a maze of manzanita and from there touched a dead white fir that still had a full dressing of dried needles. The tree exploded like a firebomb, and the growing inferno lit up the night sky.
ONE
My first glimpse of the forest fire came as I was barbecuing a Salmon steak out on my deck.
It was about nine in the evening on September 18th when Spot, my Harlequin Great Dane, gave a little growl. Little, of course, is a relative thing when it comes from a one hundred and seventy pound polka-dotted foot rest. I ignored the comment, hunched as I was over the short barbecue, trying to stay warm. If I were in Kansas City or New York or even Minneapolis, a mid-September evening would be a pleasantly cool precursor to fall weather. But the deck on my little cabin sits at 7200 feet of elevation, a thousand feet above the East Shore of Lake Tahoe. When the sun goes down, the temperature plummets like a skier in a tuck.
The weather forecast predicted that our first winter storm would hit tonight. After the standard summer of one hundred straight days of hot sun in clear blue skies, precipitation is an elixir from heaven.
Like other Tahoe locals, I was more than eager to put up with chill and wet in order to dampen the fire danger in the forests. Besides, the snow level in the coming storm was supposed to be at 7000 feet which meant that Spot and I would be enjoying that famous Sierra white stuff while the poor people down below in their lakeside mansions would suffer a cold, cold rain.
I shifted my chair closer to the coals and moved the fish to make it sizzle. The wind threw ominous clouds across the moon. Spot was sprawled on the other side of the barbecue, the arc of his body wrapping halfway around the black metal cooking pot. His throat rumbled again. This time he actually lifted his head off the deck boards, an indication of seriousness.
“What, your largeness, are you making a fuss about?”
Spot jerked himself to his feet. His claws scraped the cedar decking like sixteen-penny nails. He upped the amplitude of his deep growl one notch, just enough to make his jowls quiver. His square body pointed over the water like a German tank above Omaha Beach.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s take a look.” I pushed my chair back, stood, walked to the edge of the deck and looked down. Lake Tahoe lay below me like a twenty-two-mile-long puddle of black ink. The moon stabbed through the clouds and made a silver glow on the water. I leaned on the railing, listening for the sound of an intruder, wondering if yet another bear had decided to scratch its backside against the posts that support my deck.
I heard nothing. Which ruled out bears because they are noisy. That still left the possibility of a mountain lion or coyote or even a person, all of which have been known to be silent. Spot increased the rumble.
“I know,” I said. “You’re pretty tough.”
Spot turned and looked at me, wagged his tail a quick one-two, then went back to his growling.
I gazed across the water, the second highest big lake in the world. Nothing appeared. I was turning back to the barbecue when my peripheral vision sensed a light just beyond the cliff ridge below my cabin.
I looked down toward where the land dropped off into the big ravine where Highland Creek ran all the way down to the lake. Nothing moved. Aware that a faint light like a faint star is less visible when you look straight at it,
I looked away.
Staring into the black clouds that presaged the coming storm I sensed a vague glow in the air. Spot growled louder. I smelled something that prickled the hair on the back of my neck. I grabbed the deck phone off its cradle and dialed the number I know best.
“Yeah?” a sleepy voice answered after five rings.
“Street, my sweet, wake up. You’re in bed early.”
“I’m sleeping,” she said groggily.
“Still got jet lag from the Honolulu bug conference?”
“Yeah. All the bugs are asleep. Me too.”
“I can tell,” I said.
Street was one of those rare people who slept as if they were under the influence of anesthesia. When I first met her I thought it was her norm, a happy, blissful somnolence. Later, I witnessed the first of what are regular wrestling matches, her slender muscles roping and twisting the sheets to the point of tearing, her jaw clenching while frightening whimpers escape from her throat. If you wake her at that point she’ll spend the next two hours shaking and refusing to say a word. But if you don’t wake her, her sleep will calm and she’ll later awaken happy and refreshed. The fact that she’d answered the phone at all told me I’d gotten her at a good time.
“Just do me a quick favor,” I said, “and look out your window, up the mountain toward my cabin. Tell me what you see.”
“Owen.”
“I know. You’re sleeping. Look. Tell. Then back to bed.” I heard the phone bang on her night stand. I heard the rustle of covers and a loud, frustrated sigh, then blinds being raised. Her gasp was frightening.
The phone was picked up, dropped, grabbed again. “Owen, Owen! My God, Owen!”
“What do you see?”
“Owen! You have to get out!”
“Sweetheart, perhaps you could elaborate.”
“Owen,” she said, now low-voiced and calm. “The mountain is on fire. As I’m standing here watching, the flames are racing up the ravine toward your cabin. I’d give you three or four minutes at the outside.”
Just after I hung up the phone, the first crest of fire rushed over the ridge a hundred yards below my deck.
TWO
I picked the Salmon off the grill, slapped it onto a plate and went inside my old, four-room log cabin. Spot followed, sniffing the air behind me. The fish went into the fridge along with the Pinot Noir that I’d opened.
The prospect of my cabin burning was more than I could fully contemplate in a few seconds, so I concentrated on what I could quickly carry out. My first thought of what to save was my art books, but I decided human lives took priority.
I called 911 and explained that there was a forest fire just below my house. The dispatcher told me they’d already received several reports.
In the drawer near my phone is a list of my neighbors, all of whom own glass-and-cedar contenders for Architectural Digest. I didn’t particularly care about their houses, but I wanted no bodies on my conscience. I took the time to call each one and let them know the mountain was burning. I got two answering machines, one voice mail and a pager. The only actual person who answered was Mrs. Duchamp, the woman with the toy poodle named Treasure who periodically tries to teach Spot how to do handstands and pirouettes. I once had asked Mrs. Duchamp if she was any relation to the artist Marcel Duchamp and she thought I meant a hair-and-nails boy down at the Mountain High Salon in Carson City.
“Mrs. Duchamp?” I said when she answered. “Owen McKenna. I’m calling to let you know our mountain is burning and the fire is coming our way. I don’t know how serious it is, but we should leave fast.”
“What?!” her voice shrieked in a falsetto worthy of a Parisian drag queen.
“Do you want to drive yourself, Mrs. Duchamp, or would you like a ride?”
The woman started blubbering about poor little Treasure and how the dog had once knocked over a flea-killer candle while watching a Pet Care video on Nail Polish for Poodles. The flame had singed her fir and made the most God-awful smell. Now Treasure hasn’t allowed Mrs. Duchamp to light candles, or even a fire in the fireplace, ever since.
“I’ll pick you up!” I yelled into the phone. “Two minutes! Be ready!”
I hung up and shook my head at Spot. “You ever start watching dog videos, I’m selling you to Elmer’s Glue.” Spot stuck his nose into my hand and pushed it around, lightly grabbing my fingers with his teeth.
My stereo is normally tuned to public radio, so it took me a few seconds to dial in the local AM station. I turned the radio up loud, in case they reported fire news, while I collected my art books. There was no way I could gather them all in a short time, so I shoveled the ones from the main shelf into plastic Safeway bags.
Over on the end table next to my recliner was the book I was reading, an Abrams publication that contained a nice color plate of my current favorite painting, Bierstadt’s The Sierra Nevada In California. I stuffed it into one of the bags.
The air outside was filled with smoke as I dragged my Safeway bags out to the Jeep. Spot got excited when we pulled into Treasure’s driveway.
I ran up and rang the bell and heard another shriek from Mrs. Duchamp. I tried the door. It was unlocked.
“Mrs. Duchamp?” I called out as I turned the huge brass handle and pushed open a heavy oak door that stood eight feet tall and four feet wide. “Are you ready?”
Treasure came running. I bent down and she jumped into my arms and proceeded to lick my chin with a tongue so tiny it could barely moisten a postage stamp. But then, my perceptions may be lopsided what with owning a dog who could irrigate Southern Somalia in a single drool.
“Mrs. Duchamp, we have to go,” I yelled.
“But, but...” she cried hysterically. She ran into the hallway, high heels clicking on the hard maple floor. She turned and faced me, all two hundred pounds of her quivering with fear. She was wearing a peach-colored silk evening gown. Her large feet over-flowed the edges of her red enamel, strapless heels. Through the toe opening I saw bright red nails. “I’m not even dressed!” she cried.
“Mrs. Duchamp. Treasure is right here. You need nothing else but your coat.”
“But...”
Carrying Treasure, I turned and walked out the front door. Mrs. Duchamp came out a moment later. She was wrapped in a huge mink and she took fast tiny steps in her heels as she waddled toward my Jeep. I opened the door and she climbed in.
“Treasure! Oh, Treasure!” she exclaimed. “Are you here?”
Treasure was in the back seat leaping all over Spot, oblivious to Mrs. Duchamp’s cries.
“She’s in back, Mrs. Duchamp.” I backed out of her driveway and headed through thick smoke and falling ash down the long private drive I share with my neighbors. Halfway down the mountain we passed a wall of flames racing up through the Jeffrey pines and manzanita. The fire was fanned by the wind of the approaching storm and was oblivious to the few big rain drops that began to strike our windshield. Mrs. Duchamp shrieked as I drove past the flames.
We rounded a corner and saw another crescent of flame trying to out-flank the first. Mrs. Duchamp shrieked again. The road turned around another switchback and we entered a dark forest with no sign of additional fire. My neighbor settled down to a steady whimpering.
When we came to the highway two miles below, the first fire truck turned in, lights and siren on. It struggled in low gear up the steep road. Another fire truck was coming down the highway at high speed. A third followed in the distance. I was glad for their effort, but I knew that when it comes to forest fires, firemen are often impotent. If the wind is strong enough and the fuel sufficient, the fire will go where it wants.
The rain increased to a steady patter. It probably wouldn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the fire, but it couldn’t hurt. And if the storm came in as forecast, the weather would help in containing the fire.
I pulled onto Highway 50 and headed toward Street Casey’s condo. Mrs. Duchamp and I did not speak, both of us unwilling to voice our worst fears.
&nb
sp; Street was standing in her open doorway when we pulled into her drive. She was wearing her black coat. Under the hem hung the longer fabric of a sheer nightgown. As always, just seeing the silhouette of her calves probably added a year to my life. Men have painted large triptychs with less inspiration. Street’s thin, angular form did not fit the typical American standard of beauty, but to me she was gorgeous.
Although Street figured I’d come straight to her after leaving my cabin, I could see by the look on her face that she hadn’t bargained on Mrs. Duchamp. Nevertheless, Street was gracious to a fault and she ran out into the cold rain in her bare feet and opened the passenger door.
“Mrs. Duchamp,” she said. “It’s good to see you again, but I’m so sorry about the fire.”
Mrs. Duchamp got out, threw her meaty arms around Street’s slender body, bowed her head on Street’s shoulder and started crying in great heaving spasms. “Are we safe, here?” she cried out, panic in her voice. “Will the fire come this way?”
“The fire is on the mountain above us,” I said. “It will travel up the slope, not down. So we are completely safe, Mrs. Duchamp.”
“Come, now,” Street said, turning the woman, patting her on the back and walking her into the condominium.
Once inside, Mrs. Duchamp sat rigidly on Street’s couch holding Treasure so hard to her lap I thought the dog was having trouble breathing. Mrs. Duchamp sobbed that her entire life was in her house and that it was all in ashes. Street fussed over the woman, making assurances that the fire might miss the houses. Street’s administrations were so smooth that soon she had Mrs. Duchamp in Street’s own bed and, with the aid of a healthy glass of cognac, sound asleep.
