by Todd Borg
I stared out at the lake and the mountains beyond. The hot weather had melted nearly all of the snow from the storm, even at the higher elevations. The only white patches I could see were a few places on northeast-facing peaks, snowfields that often existed year-round.
The distances across the lake were too great to see any houses. But the south end was where the most significant groupings of houses were and hence the likeliest places where the arsonist would set the next fire. Street could be in anyone of them. Even if we had a carte blanche search warrant, it would be impossible to search even one percent of them in the next day or two. And all the other fires had come soon after the notes were delivered or faxed. The time to save Street was nearly gone.
“We also got the forensics back on Linda Saronna,” Diamond said.
“Any direct evidence of murder? Or is this like Jake Pooler and Joanie Dove, another supposed accident?”
“This one is definitely murder,” Diamond said. “The coroner determined cause of death to be smoke inhalation.”
“Like Joanie Dove.”
“Right. But Ms. Saronna had contusions on both wrists and one ankle. They were deep enough to have survived the charring of the fire. The ulna bone on her right arm also showed marks.”
“Meaning?”
“Ligatures. She was tied to the bed. She fought the ropes so hard that she produced bruising down to the bone. It could eventually help us to convict the killer. Sometimes victims do that. The ones that struggle the hardest leave behind the most evidence.”
“What was she tied with?”
“They’re not sure. I don’t know the technicalities, but apparently synthetic polymers like nylon leave certain traces when they burn, and no such traces were found. So that rules out standard climbing ropes and water-ski ropes both of which are common up here in Tahoe. The best guess is that it was probably a cotton rope. The charred remains would then be hard to distinguish from her clothes which, according to her colleagues, were all cotton.”
After Diamond left I thought it best to start learning what I could about Linda Saronna. If it was just another accidental death or a thrill-killing as George the psychologist thought, then learning about her would do little good. But there was still the chance it was murder with a purpose, in which case having a third victim multiplied my chances of finding some connection between the killings. Any information could bring me closer to Street’s kidnapper.
I thought it would be easiest to start at Linda’s work. I took Spot with me and drove to the Forest Service.
Inside, the secretary was red-eyed and wiped her nose as I approached.
“I’d like to speak to Frederick, please. My name is...”
“Owen McKenna,” she interrupted. “We all know you now that the news talks about you every day.” She sniffled. “I’m so sorry about Street Casey. I hope you find her soon.” She picked up the phone and punched some numbers. “Frederick? Owen McKenna is here to see you.”
Frederick came out in a few seconds. He, too, was red-eyed. He no longer looked like the clean-cut young man with lots of energy and enthusiasm. Instead, he looked beaten down and enormously sad. “Come on back, Owen. We can talk at my desk.”
His office was a cubicle made out of carpeted panels five feet high. When we both sat down, our knees nearly touched.
“Sorry for the melancholy atmosphere. The last few days have been pretty rough for all of us here. Linda was like a mother to me and to most of the crew as well. And today when Patty Sherman told us how Linda died – Patty’s brother knew because he is a policeman – that did us in all over again.” He pulled a Kleenex from a box and blew. “I heard you were hurt pretty bad trying to help Linda.”
“I’m better now.”
“I’m real sorry about your girlfriend. Any news?”
I shook my head. “What I came here for is information about Linda. General stuff that you might know as well as anyone.”
“You mean her job? Or her personality?”
“Anything you can think of. What she did, talked about, her loves, her family, friends, where she went on vacation.”
Frederick nodded. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Start when you first met her. Your impressions then and now. Anything that comes to mind.”
He thought a moment. “Linda was one of those good, honest people who would tell you exactly what she thought. Sometimes it could be a little harsh when she critiqued you, but she always did it gently and without any meanness whatsoever. She was just frank. And sometimes her frankness could be really funny.”
“How do you mean?”
“Like after a meeting with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency she’d say, ‘old so and so is so stiff I bet he hasn’t been laid in six months.’ Or she’d say that watching environmentalists trying to save the forests is like watching Nineteenth Century barbers pulling teeth. The cure is worse than the disease.”
Frederick talked about Linda Saronna for twenty minutes. He sketched in detail a dedicated career woman with few friends, a woman whose passion was the forest in general, first, and Lake Tahoe forests, second. A woman whose idea of a vacation was fly fishing in remote forests of Northern California like those near Mt. Shasta. She gave herself to everyone at work but not, apparently, to her two ex-husbands.
I interrupted at that point. “She was married twice?”
“From what I’ve heard, yes,” Frederick said.
“Do you know how long ago?”
“Not really. When she was in her twenties, I think. My sense is that neither marriage lasted more than a couple years. But I don’t think there was any animosity there. She remained friendly with at least one of her ex-husbands. They sounded like good friends.”
“Any kids?”
“No. But she loved kids. I guess she took in a foster kid some years back.”
That got my attention. My first connection between two of the three fire victims. “Do you know anything about the child?”
“No. That was long before I got here.”
“Did Linda ever talk about the kid?”
“No. I only remember one comment. She had a dog a few years ago, when I first started. Some terrier/schnauzer mix that she’d rescued from the pound. She was trying to give it away right after she hired me. I asked her about the dog thinking maybe I’d take it. She said no way she’d give it to me, that it was a bad dog. I said how bad, and she replied, ‘you want to know how bad this dog is? I’ll tell you. This dog is so bad he makes even my foster kid seem nice.’” Frederick paused. “Are you thinking her foster kid might be the arsonist?”
“I don’t know, Frederick. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can.”
“I suppose you could ask Sheila. She’s been here the longest, even longer than Linda was. She may remember more.”
“Is she here?”
“I think so. Let me check.” He got her on his phone. “Sheila? Are you free for a few minutes? I want to introduce someone to you. Be there in a sec.”
Frederick brought me to a corner office similar to the one Linda had occupied. He introduced me to Sheila, a large, beautiful black woman with clear rich skin the color of Hawaiian Koa wood. As with the Mexicans, it was a lift to my spirits at seeing Sheila adding some color to a community as white-bread as Tahoe.
Sheila gestured me into one of the chairs at the side of her desk. She turned, leaned her elbows on skirted knees and spoke to me, her black eyes moist and warm. “I’ve heard of you, Mr. McKenna. I’m so sorry about your lady friend being kidnapped. And I want you to know that we’re all grateful about the way you tried to save Linda. What can I help you with?”
“I’m investigating the fires and Frederick just told me that Linda Saronna took in a foster child some years back. I’m wondering if you can tell me anything about the kid.”
“I’m afraid I can’t be very helpful. I only met him once or twice. His name was Tommy. I forget his last name. Or maybe I never knew. He lived with Linda for two, two
and a half years. Tommy was around twelve. And this was maybe twelve years ago. He was a problem child, always in trouble at school. He got suspended a couple of times during the period he lived with Linda. But Linda loved him very much, tried everything. And even though the State of California is supposed to pay all expenses, she brought in two or three therapists at her own expense. I asked her about it once. I was worried she was spending her entire salary on counseling for the boy. But she wouldn’t hear of it. She said that if you knew the child’s history you would justify any expense.”
“Can you tell me what Tommy looked like?”
“Skinny. Long, brown hair, always in his face. He had terrible posture, stood so bent it was like he was about to break in half. I remember thinking at the time that he looked like a trouble-maker.”
“Sheila, do you know if Linda kept any photos of Tommy here at work? I realize it was a long time ago, but maybe there would be something tucked away in her desk?”
Sheila smiled and shook her head. “I went through her desk just yesterday, looking for a Planning Commission report that she wanted me to work on. I looked everywhere before I found it in the secretary’s file. I’m sure I would have noticed any photos of Tommy.”
I stood to leave and Sheila stood as well.
“May I ask what you do here at the Forest Service?”
Sheila smiled. “Oh, I’m sort of the stage manager behind the scenes, making sure all the props for the magic tricks are in place.”
“You’ve been here a long time?”
“Twenty years. Longest of anyone. They offered me Linda’s job before she came, but I declined. I don’t like spotlights and center stage comes with all the responsibility. I prefer to work the curtain ropes and such. I’m very happy being number two. I just hope that when they find a new number one that he or she is even half as good to us as Linda was.”
“Thanks so much, Sheila,” I said as I left.
I felt torn in two by the stress, half of me ready to give in to terminal sadness, the other half ready to go to war. One thing was for certain. If the second half of me was still primed when I found out who had Street, no amount of legal maneuvering would save his sorry ass to enjoy a legal execution.
THIRTY-THREE
Spot ignored me on the ride home. I tried to be nice to him, but I think he sensed that Street had disappeared from his life. Having that happen on top of me disappearing for days and his earlier mistreatment over Pussy Cat made him permanently melancholy. He lay in the corner of the cabin and wouldn’t budge even when a moth landed on his head.
Meanwhile, I tried to see the murderer as a problem foster kid named Tommy who grew up and killed his foster mother in revenge for perceived misdeeds. Or, killed both foster moms if, as I suspected, Tommy had lived with Joanie Dove in Sacramento before being assigned to Linda Saronna.
The logical next inquiry would be to go through the foster agencies and see if Tommy had ever lived with Joanie Dove. But it would probably take days to get through the privacy rules that the agencies adhere to. I thought I would first try Joanie’s sister, Lydia Mortensen. She might remember if Joanie had a foster child named Tommy. She might even have pictures of Joanie’s foster kids, pictures that I could show to Sheila and see if she recognized any of them as Tommy.
I’d written her number down the last time I called her.
“Mrs. Mortensen,” I said after I’d identified myself over the phone. “You met most of Joanie’s foster kids, didn’t you?”
“Yes, certainly. I think I knew them all.”
“Were any of them boys?”
“Half or more, as I recall.”
“Do you remember any of their names?” I asked, not wanting to say the name Tommy in case her memory was suggestible.
“Well, now, let me see. There was William, of course. I’ll never forget him because he got so mad once when I called him Billy. ‘My name is William!’ he yelled at me. Imagine that, a little boy of four or five yelling at me like that!
“And then there were the twins, Tim and Tom. There was also...”
“Mrs. Mortensen,” I interrupted. “The boy named Tom. Did people call him Tommy?”
“Oh, no, that would have been too confusing. We all were careful to call him Tom.”
“I don’t understand why it would be confusing,” I said.
“Because of the other Tommy.”
“There was a second Tom?”
“Yes. He was older than the twins.”
“How old?”
“Well, let me think,” Lydia Mortensen said. “He wasn’t in middle school yet. I remember because where Joanie lived the middle school was just down the block. But Tommy was still taking the bus to grade school. So I suppose he was nine or ten.”
“Do you remember how long ago this was?”
“Oh, dear. Besides the twins, he was her last foster child. A very difficult boy. Headstrong and surly, always blaming the world for what happened. I know Joanie loved him, but she couldn’t handle him.”
She hadn’t answered my question, so I tried again. “How long ago was this?”
“Well, it wasn’t long after the agency relocated Tommy that the twins Tim and Tom went back to their natural mother who had gotten out of some kind of drug rehab. Joanie was without kids for the first time in years. I guess it was about fourteen or fifteen years ago that she had Tommy.”
“Did Joanie ever take pictures of the kids?”
“Yes! She always had a camera going. Whenever I visited her house during those years chances were there’d be a flashbulb going off in my face at some point.”
“Where might I find some of those pictures?”
“Mr. McKenna, I’m so sorry. They burned up in the fire. Joanie kept all her photos in a toy box in the bedroom closet. She pulled it out often. It was red with a gold latch. She called it her treasure box.”
“Did she give any of the photos to you or anyone else?” I asked.
“No. Joanie never did that for some reason. But it fits with her personality. She was very interested in everyone else, but she didn’t think anyone would be interested in her life. In fact, the only photo I have of any of her kids was one of Joanie and Suzanne. Suzanne was my favorite of all her foster kids. Like a niece to me. God, I cried when she went off to college in Florida.”
“Mrs. Mortensen, you say that Tommy blamed the world for what happened. What was it that happened?”
“Actually, I never knew the details but Joanie said he was orphaned in the Freel Fire. I always remembered the sound of the words. Oh, my! Now that I’ve said it, I’m realizing for the first time what it means. I haven’t thought of it in years. Do you suppose that maybe he grew up and...” She stopped talking for a moment. “But it doesn’t seem like something he would do. He was a willful boy, as I remember. But I can’t see him lighting fires. Even so, it is a disturbing thought, isn’t it, Mr. McKenna?”
“Yes, it is.” I was thinking of the words, Freel Fire. “Do you think Joanie meant the Freel Peak Fire?”
“I’m not sure,” Lydia Mortensen said. “But when Joanie referred to the Freel Fire it certainly sounded like a family name.”
“Can you describe the boy?” I asked.
“Well, it was an awfully long time ago. He was, you know, a typical boy. Ran around a lot. Always throwing or kicking something. He made lots of noise.”
“You mean he was verbally loud?”
“No, more like he took up a lot of space for a skinny kid. Physical space. Psychic space. He was a demanding child, somewhat sullen, definitely not happy. And he wet the bed. It always sounds like a small thing. But let me assure you, Joanie found it very difficult.”
“What did he look like?”
“Like I said, he was skinny. He had brown hair like a mop almost. It went in every direction. And there was something in his eyes I didn’t trust.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Mortensen.”
My next call was to Jake Pooler’s secretary, Betty Williamson.
&nb
sp; “Betty, do you know anything about Winton’s childhood?”
“Why, no. I don’t know anything about Winton’s personal life. Why do you ask?”
“Did he ever mention parents or siblings?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“What about holidays? Did he say where he was going for Christmas or Thanksgiving?”
“As far as I remember, if Winton wanted to celebrate any holiday, he would get together with his friends and drink beer.”
“Can you think of any of their names? Someone who knew Winton?”
“Just that girl that he saw for awhile.”
“His girlfriend?”
“Used to be,” Betty said. “Before Jake got to her.”
“What is her name?”
“Rosie. I don’t think I ever knew her last name. You could check at the Truckee Gift Company, the little shop where she works.”
Not wanting to call and possibly scare Rosie away, Spot and I drove up to Truckee and found the Truckee Gift Company on a side street lined with tiny boutique shops. I decided to take Spot with me to the store as he can be a real ice-breaker with women.
When I got to the store, a plain young woman with half a dozen earrings in one ear and little stud in one nostril was standing behind a small counter. She was pricing candles that were shaped like fir trees. She had straight stringy hair tucked behind her ears and wore an olive dress that looked like it was made of old paper.
“Excuse me, are you Rosie?” I said as I stepped into the doorway.
She looked up and her eyes immediately went to Spot who was standing at my side. When I want to be certain he doesn’t scare anybody I keep my fingers in his collar, no leash necessary because of his height.
“Yes?” Rosie said, glancing at me, then looking back to my dog.
I decided my official investigator status would intimidate Rosie so I said, “I’m from Jake Pooler Construction. Betty Williamson and I have been worried about Winton Berger because he hasn’t shown up at work or called. Betty thought you might know where to find him.”
