Tahoe Blowup

by Todd Borg

  Rosie was still staring at Spot. “Is he friendly? Can I pet him?”

  “Sure. He won’t hurt you.”

  Rosie came out from behind the counter and tentatively reached out her hand for Spot to sniff. Her eyes were wide.

  “Any idea?” I prompted.

  “What?” She stroked the point of Spot’s head with two fingertips as gently as if he were a new-born kitty.

  “Any idea where I might find Winton?”

  “No.”

  I thought it wouldn’t hurt to expand my white lie. “Rosie, an older woman was in yesterday, said she was Winton’s mother. She wondered where he was. I didn’t know what to tell her. Have you ever met his mother?”

  Rosie reached out both hands and, very delicately, scratched behind Spot’s ears. “I haven’t seen Winton in weeks.” Her voice sounded distant. She was in doggy rapture.

  I repeated the question. “Did you ever meet his mother?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t think he had a mother. I thought Winton was a foster kid all his life.” She took her index finger and very carefully stroked Spot’s nose. “God, I didn’t know that Mr. Mondo was based on a real dog.”

  “Mr. Mondo?” I said.

  She tilted her head toward the wall behind her as she leaned forward and ran her hands down Spot’s neck. Spot looked up at me, his eyes no longer sad.

  I looked at the wall behind her, wondering what she meant about Mr. Mondo.

  Rosie reached her arms around Spot’s neck and hugged him. I was looking at the wall inside the shop.

  On the bottom shelf were two stuffed animals. Long legs, thick chests, big heads. White with black spots.

  Harlequin Great Danes just like Spot and identical to the one that was burned and left on my doorstep.

  “Rosie, when was the last time you sold a Mr. Mondo?”

  “We haven’t. Too expensive. We got them in almost six months ago, so lots of people have looked. But eighty-nine ninety-five? Gimme a break. I told Mrs. Kato she should only get one, but did she listen? No way.” Rosie was now kneeling in front of Spot, her arms up around his chest. His head hung over her shoulder.

  Rosie continued, “She insisted on getting three of them. And this was after the Sierra Nevada Board Game. She didn’t listen to me on that, either. When is she going to learn?”

  “You say you had three Mr. Mondos?”

  “Yeah.” Rosie’s head was turned sideways against Spot’s chest as if she were listening to his heartbeat.

  “There are only two on the shelf,” I said. “Where’s the third if you haven’t sold it?”

  “Stolen. Mrs. Kato thinks it was on my shift. Says I spend too much time in the bathroom. But I think it was on her shift. Besides, it was on her shift that the deposit was stolen just before she closed, what was it, a week ago? It only makes sense that if someone is lifting the deposit off the desk when she goes in the storeroom to check the back door, wouldn’t they grab the Mondo dog at the same time?” Rosie was now standing at Spot’s side, bent slightly, her arms as far around his chest as they would go, which meant her fingertips were just touching each other.

  “At least, I should be glad she doesn’t think I stole him,” Rosie said. “Why would I want a Mr. Mondo? Especially now that I know the real thing is available.” She stepped back to get a better look. “What is his name?”

  “Spot,” I said. “Rosie, do you have any idea where Winton would go?”

  She shook her head vacantly. “No. I don’t know.”

  I tugged on Spot’s collar, getting ready to leave. Spot resisted. He didn’t want to go. “Thanks, Rosie,” I said.

  “Spot,” she said wistfully as we drew away. “That’s great. Good to meet you, Spot.” She called after us, “How much do Mondo dogs cost, anyway? Are they expensive?”

  I called back, “Yes, but it’s not the cost to buy them, it’s the cost to feed them.”

  We left Rosie standing in the sidewalk, staring after us.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The next morning was warmer and drier. I turned on the radio and the forecast called for increasing winds out of the southwest. The phone rang just as the announcer particularly cautioned about the fire danger. It was FBI Special Agent Ramos asking to come by my cabin.

  When he showed up I had already assembled an appropriate group: Diamond was there to represent Douglas County. Captain Mallory of the SLTPD and Captain O’Reilly of the Truckee PD were also present. I wanted each law enforcement agency to share all information that could help find Street, and I knew the FBI would never agree to it in advance. So I had to spring it on him.

  Ramos was irritated as hell and threatened to walk out. I said, fine. I’d tell everything I had to Diamond, Mallory and O’Reilly and Agent Ramos could find out from them later.

  Fuming, he stayed.

  The meeting was stiff and formal with Agent Ramos acting more like he was participating in a deposition than in a discussion with other law officers about a sick perp.

  I gave them everything I had on the fires.

  I started with the foster child named Tommy orphaned in the Freel Peak Fire. The fact that Tommy appeared to have lived with both Joanie Dove and Linda Saronna and that the child was a discipline problem who also wet the bed. The fact that the child’s description matched that of Winton. The fact that I’d seen Winton play with the lighter fluid and the fire. The fact that he appeared to present himself to be dim-witted when I believed him to be bright.

  I continued with Winton’s .22 rifle and the mountain lion named Pussy Cat, shot with a .22 at about the same time the first fire was started, the fire that killed Jake Pooler who was Winton’s boss.

  I told them about Jake Pooler’s affair with Winton’s girlfriend and hence, Winton’s motive for killing Jake. Winton had Jake’s truck from which the gas can used in the first fire had likely been taken. Lastly, I explained that the burned, stuffed dog left on my doorstep was almost certainly stolen from a store where Winton’s ex-girlfriend worked.

  After a couple hours of questions and suppositions and theories, we all agreed that the evidence against Winton was only circumstantial, that there was nothing to directly tie him to the arson fires or the murders. But we also agreed that both the quantity and quality of the evidence was overwhelming.

  Agent Ramos said he could obtain a search warrant for Winton’s cabin.

  O’Reilly said that he would get a warrant for Winton’s arrest for the theft of Jake’s pickup. There was a problem in that the truck had not been reported stolen and Winton had used it in the past for Jake’s business, but O’Reilly thought he could take care of it.

  Once Winton was brought in we were certain he would cave under questioning.

  I gave Agent Ramos Winton’s rifle and told him that the deformed slug found in the mountain lion was at the ballistics lab in San Francisco. Ramos said he’d have the tests on the rifle completed in a couple of days.

  As they left, we knew that within a couple of hours every law officer in California and Nevada would be looking for Winton Berger.

  The phone rang a few minutes later.

  “Owen McKenna,” I said.

  “Owen, it’s Glennie. You didn’t tell me about Street. I’m so sorry! You must be dying inside!”

  “It’s hard. I’m mostly numb,” I said.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Just the photos of the fires if you can find any.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. I’ve tracked down several. Should I bring them by your cabin? They’re not very good, but perhaps you’ll spot something in them.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  When Glennie showed up she gave me a hug. “Owen, I’m so sorry. Do you think Street will be okay?”

  “I don’t know, Glennie. I don’t know.”

  “Here, let me show you the photos.” She pulled out a yellow Kodak envelope and spread out a bunch of prints on my kitchen counter, g
rouping them into three sets.

  “These are from the first fire when Jake Pooler died. They were taken mostly from the highway below your cabin. As you can see, our staff photographer was focusing on the fire, not the bystanders. Plus, it was at night. So it’s very hard to see any faces.

  “The next pile is the Tallac Properties fire where Joanie Dove died.” Glennie was obviously in reporter mode, telling me a chronology that I knew better than anyone. “This fire,” she continued, “was during the day. The bystanders are better lit but still hard to make out.

  “This third pile is the fire that killed Linda Saronna, again at night. Not many bystanders and very hard to see. Some of these were taken by one of Linda’s neighbors. All the others were taken by the paper’s photographer.”

  Glennie dug in her purse. “I brought you a magnifier to help you see.” She handed me a little box with a lens on one side and a light bulb inside. “Just set it on the photo and push the button on the side.”

  I tried it on one of the photos. It made a dramatic difference, but it would still take a lot of studying to get anything out of the photos.

  “Obviously, I’m going to need to go over these slowly,” I said. “Can you leave them here?”

  “They’re yours,” Glennie said. “You let me know if there is anything else I can do, okay?” She forced a little smile and left.

  It had been a long day, and I was so fatigued that I thought I’d be worthless at studying the photos. But Street was out there someplace.

  I got a pen and note pad, sat down at the counter and went to work using Glennie’s lighted magnifier.

  In terms of identifying faces, the photos ranged from barely promising to completely hopeless. But I went through each one, slowly and carefully, making two lists.

  When I was finished, the first list contained all possible identities of the people in the photos. Some stretched my imagination, but if I had a vague idea of a person’s identity, I wrote down their name.

  The second list was positive IDs and it contained only a few names, most of whom appeared in just one photo each. Glennie, Diamond, Captain Mallory, Frederick Mallicoff and South Lake Tahoe Battalion Chief Joey Roberts were all on this list. One person appeared in three photos taken at the first two fires and that was Linda Saronna.

  I studied her pictures again. Although hard to see, I could tell that the fires were very traumatic for her, so obvious was the distress on her face. Did she already suspect Tommy/Winton during that first fire? Was Tommy/Winton in any of these photos? He could be, for it seemed that I saw Winton in every obscure and blurry human form before me.

  There was one more person on my list. He was in many photos and they represented all three fires. More disturbing than the number of photos, however, was the look on his face in several of the images. It was a look I could only describe as excitement.

  Terry Drier.

  Of course, being a fireman, Terry Drier had a reason to be at all of the fires. And fires are exciting, even if in a negative, horrifying way. But two of the three fires were on the California side of the lake, out of Terry’s normal territory. Then again, Frederick had explained to me that the Mutual Aid Plan had all fire-fighting agencies helping each other.

  I tried to imagine Terry lighting the fires and found that it didn’t seem impossible. I tried to imagine him kidnapping Street, and while it was an outlandish thought, it would be easy for him because Street would open the door for him. And Spot knew Terry as well, so he wouldn’t have been alarmed.

  Then there were the warning notes. Why did they come to Terry’s fire department? Why not the Forest Service? Then the notes switched to faxes. Was Terry feeling too much risk with the notes being “delivered?” Did he arrange the faxes to put some distance between him and the other warning notes? It would have been more complicated sending a fax from someplace else, from another machine without anyone knowing.

  Then I realized a potential misdirection.

  They might not have been faxes at all.

  Terry could have written the notes as before, then run them through the fax in the “copy” mode. The version that comes out of the fax is exactly like an actual fax transmission. And if his machine has a log feature that lists incoming faxes, it could have been disabled.

  I picked up Glennie’s magnifier and looked again at Terry’s face in the photos.

  George the psychologist had suggested looking at photos to find the arsonist. George had also reminded me that firemen are slightly more likely to be arsonists than the general population.

  Was I wrong about Winton?

  Was the whole thing with the foster child Tommy just a coincidence?

  George had also said that the arsonist was sending the notes as a kind of braggadocio, saying, ‘look how bold I am and you still cannot catch me.’

  Terry was the person who hired me. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate in boldness if he turned out to be the arsonist murderer/ kidnapper?

  Numb with fatigue and more confused than ever, I finally went to bed. I listened with dread to a howling wind, warm and dry, and cried for Street.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The phone rang at 7:00 a.m.

  “McKenna?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I sat up sweating from a nightmare about Street being tied to a bed.

  “This is Agent Ramos. We got into Winton Berger’s cabin. We haven’t found him yet, but he’s our perp.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Maps. Fire locations. Enuresis. “

  “What is that?”

  “He wets the bed,” Ramos said. “Under his regular sheets are towels and special rubber sheets below that. They stink of urine.”

  “So if he shot Pussy Cat, then we’ve got the homicidal trinity,” I said.

  “Right,” Ramos said. “Playing with fire, torturing animals and wetting the bed. And we found evidence that directly links him to the fires. He has maps of Tahoe up on the wall. All three fire locations were marked with notes about how the fires would burn. Very accurate descriptions.”

  “You think the murders are thrill-killings?” I asked.

  “Probably not, what with the evidence you’ve got that he had possible motive with all of the victims. But they could be. Regardless of which they turn out to be, we’ve got the evidence for it. Speaking of which, we left all the evidence in place and didn’t put up any crime scene tape in hopes he’ll return. Once we bring him in, we’ll hit him hard. From your description of his personality, no way will he resist us. He’ll be on death row as fast as we can hold the trial.”

  “Let’s hope we find him fast,” I said. My confidence was at an ebb. I didn’t believe that Winton would be caught before he lit the next fire.

  As I hung up I was thinking about what could make a person evil. Nature or nurture? Possibly there was nothing more stressful while growing up than being orphaned in a fire. How old was Tommy when the Freel Peak Fire happened?

  I tried to recall Linda Saronna’s words. Something like fifteen years ago. A woman died. No mention of a child.

  I got Frederick Mallicoff on the phone.

  “Frederick, I need some help, some research that you could probably do faster than anyone else. And I need it fast.”

  “Anything you want, Owen.”

  “Linda mentioned a forest fire to me. She called it the Freel Peak Fire. Said it was the worst the Tahoe Basin had ever had. About fifteen years ago. Sheila might know where to start your research. Find out everything you can about it and call me.”

  “You got it.”

  My next call was to Ellie.

  “Owen, I heard about Street,” she said when I told her who I was. “What can I do?”

  “I want to borrow Natasha and keep her with me for awhile. I think Street is being held in a house somewhere in South Lake Tahoe. If I can narrow down the location, maybe Natasha can search her out.”

  “She’s here just waiting for you,” Ellie said.

  Spot and I jumped in the Jeep and were out
of Tahoe and down at Ellie’s ranch in Gold Country an hour later.

  Ellie gave me a squeeze and a kiss and directed Natasha to the back door of the Jeep. The little German Shepherd jumped in promptly, then turned and cried as she realized her master wasn’t coming.

  Ellie’s eyes were moist as we drove off, but she gave a brave smile. I think she sensed that we all, Natasha included, were in a very dangerous situation.

  I was coming up through Kyburz when Frederick called.

  “I’ve got the basics on the Freel Peak Fire. There might not be much more info available and I thought you wouldn’t want to wait while I kept searching.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll be going through town in a while. I’ll stop by.”

  Frederick was at a copy machine near the reception desk when I walked into the Forest Service.

  “Hi, Owen,” he said. “Let’s go where we can spread out some maps.”

  I followed Frederick into the conference room. One wall was covered with a giant map of the Lake Tahoe Basin. Frederick ignored the big wall map and pulled some rolled maps from a bin in the corner.

  He unrolled two of them on the table, his arm muscles flexing dramatically. “These maps are older than the wall map. They show fire tracks from the previous couple decades.” He set paperweights on the edges of the curled maps to hold them down. The two maps made a single image of the South Shore. He pointed toward Freel Peak which, at nearly 11,000 feet, is the highest mountain in the Tahoe Basin.

  “The Freel Peak Fire was a blowup. It took place fifteen years ago next week. Both in terms of acreage burned and buildings burned, it was the worst fire Tahoe has seen since the arrival of white men. But that little statistic belies the real significance of the fire.”

  “Which is?”