Tahoe Deathfall

by Todd Borg

That evening the captain brought our plane into Las Vegas on a low glide path. The lights of the hotels on the Strip sparkled in the twilight as we touched down. The distant mountain silhouettes stood out as rugged black shapes against the navy blue sky.

  After we came to a stop, I signed some forms and departed, knowing that I could catch a scheduled flight to Reno/Tahoe International when I was through on the desert.

  Inside the airport I headed to the rental car counters, each of which had long lines. I picked one and forty minutes later had the keys to a forest green Ford Taurus. It was dark as I left the airport and pulled onto the freeway, merging with the rush of traffic in America’s fastest-growing city.

  I’d gotten an address for Saint Mary’s Sanitarium out of the phone book. It was north of Las Vegas in a town called Hollybrook. I followed the freeway and then a state highway until I saw the sign for Hollybrook.

  The town of Hollybrook was centered around a town square that had a band shell in one corner. I drove down main street past the square and watched the signs. I went several blocks before I found Lincoln Avenue, the street listed in the phone book. I made a guess at the num­bering system and turned right.

  Lincoln Avenue went up a hill, through a neigh­borhood of old clapboard homes and then out of town. In the distance I saw a grouping of lights in the night. The lights looked like those of a small refinery in the desert.

  I turned in between two stone pillars. A back-lit sign said Saint Mary’s in flowing green script. I followed a drive which snaked over and around small desert hills as it gradually climbed up to the collection of lights. Eventu­ally, I arrived at a gate made of chain-link fencing. Flood lights lit the fence and showed six strands of barbed wire across the top. To the left was a gate house. Above it a sign said Saint Mary’s Sanitarium. This sign was painted on rough wood and was nothing like the friendly sign out on Lincoln Avenue. A large, solid woman walked out and approached my car as I stopped. She was wearing a maroon uniform with brass buttons and a wide, shiny black belt. She had a .38 revolver in a holster, a radio strapped to her chest, and a sap hanging from a loop on her belt. She was smaller than my six-six, but not by much. I hit the button to roll down my window.

  “Visiting hours are ten to noon in the morning and five to eight in the evening,” she said.

  “Right,” I said. “I just flew out from Florida and wanted to see where mom lives. I’ll be back tomorrow. Thanks.” I rolled up the window, backed up and turned the car around. I didn’t like her style and I didn’t like the gun on her hip.

  I drove back out to Lincoln Avenue and looked for another route into the desert hills toward the hospital. I found only one. It was a street with scattered warehouses. The road went a few blocks and stopped. I turned around and went back. There were few opportunities to leave Lin­coln Avenue and none of them went very far toward Saint Mary’s. The hospital appeared isolated.

  I pulled over and parked behind a junkyard with a mountain of used tires. I got out and locked the door. Inside the trunk I found the tire iron. Universal tool of bad intentions.

  Las Vegas sits on a low desert and gets hot enough to fry eggs during the day. But the night air was cold and, of course, I didn’t have a jacket, just a flimsy windbreaker.

  I headed into the hills, moving at a brisk pace to stay warm. My footfalls landed on dark sand and rocks. Running on uneven ground at night is a good way to sprain an ankle. I tried to keep my leg and foot muscles tense, preparing for every step to be on a rolling rock.

  The air was deceptive, over-flowing with sage and other herbal scents as if I were in a verdant oasis. At the tops of hills I could see the sparkling lights of Saint Mary’s floating against the black landscape. In the valleys I plunged into darkness with only the stars to tell me where the rise of earth met the sky. At each hilltop I seemed to get no closer to the hospital. I kept on, up and down, and suddenly found myself at a chain-link fence.

  It was the same as the fence at the guarded gate. It stood seven feet tall from ground to the base of the barbed strands. The barbed wires angled in and up another two feet. As I contemplated how to break in I realized that the fortifications were designed to keep people from getting out. Saint Mary’s was looking less like a psychiatric hospi­tal and more like the prison Immanuel Salazar alluded to.

  Unfortunately, I had no flashlight and the ambient light was too dim to easily see if the fence had an alarm. One aspect of the fence was apparent. There was no visi­ble insulation where it touched the ground. Which meant that it wasn’t wired for electric shock. That didn’t rule out motion detectors, stress sensors, sound monitors and infrared beams.

  I could climb the fence, throw my windbreaker over the barbed strands and jump to the ground, but that left the problem of escape. Much better to make an open­ing through which I could exit as well as enter.

  The fencing appeared to be imbedded in the ground. One stab in the dirt with the tire iron proved oth­erwise. I waited for alarm bells and floodlights, but none appeared. So I started at one post and worked toward the next, levering the tire iron under the fence chain and lift­ing upward. After my second pass between the posts, I’d warped the fencing such that it lifted six inches or more above the sandy desert.

  When the chain link seemed to give no more I started in on the dirt. The tire iron made a lousy shovel, but it was effective at dislodging stones and rocks. I dug at the dirt, sweeping it to the side. In ten minutes I’d made an opening that was a foot and a half between the bottom of the fence and the dirt.

  I got down and slid on my back, snaking under­neath. From the other side I pushed down the warped fencing to make my opening less obvious. If floodlights came on it would not be immediately apparent where I came in. Then again, it would not be easy for me to see where I could get out. So I walked backward toward the hospital and sighted to find a reference point that would lead to the opening. There seemed to be none. I moved sideways and tried again with no luck. Turning, I consid­ered the hospital and all of its lights. Eventually I found a line. If I stood so that the two lights directly in front of the main entrance were lined up, and then I turned around and looked at a flashing red light out near Hollybrook, the opening in the fence was directly before me. To test it, I moved fifty yards away.

  I ran across the landscape with my eyes on the streetlights above the hospital entrance. When they lined up I turned to face toward the distant town. Then I ran toward the flashing red light. When I got to the fence my opening was only eight feet to my right. Perfect.

  The best way into the hospital was not clear as I looked at its various levels and windows and doors. The main entrance was well-lit, a disadvantage, but it might be unlocked even after visiting hours. The other doors were darker, but would likely be locked and alarmed.

  I decided on the main entrance. If only I had a clip­board and a white coat. I hiked through the darkness. When I was fifty yards from the entrance, floodlights lit the grounds and a siren cut through the calm night air.

  TWENTY-SEVEN