Voodoo Ridge (11 page)

“I told her that was unacceptable. She couldn’t have cared less.”

“Consider yourself lucky. For the FAA to respond to anything in six to eight weeks, we’re talking world-record pace.”

“You’re a pilot,” Streeter said. “You tell me: why would they restrict any information on a plane that’s been missing that long, let alone an entire file? It’s like they’re hiding something.”

I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Ruby brought over a white china plate with five thick strips of hickory-cured bacon and set it down in front of Streeter.

“Matty always likes to eat his bacon first, before anything else,” she explained to me. “He’s an eccentric, this one.”

“I just don’t like getting maple syrup on my bacon, that’s all,” Streeter said.

She gave him an affectionate peck on the top of his head and shuffled outside for a quick smoke, lighting up a Virginia Slims before she was even out the door. Cold air rushed in.

“What about Chad?”

Streeter looked at me like he didn’t understand.

“Your victim. The dead kid. From the airport.”

“What about him?”

“What was he doing up there?”

Streeter chewed a strip of bacon. “Best guess? You landed, told Chad you’d seen a downed airplane. He calls my department. Deputy Woo buys the call. Woo shows up, you tell him what you saw, correct?”

“Affirmative.”

“Chad’s standing there. He’s listening in. He’s local, knows the area like the back of his hand. He gets off work, tells a buddy, and they decide, ‘Hey, we’ll just hike in there and steal whatever we can from the wreckage before search and rescue can get in.’ Happens all the time, people looting downed airplanes. So they get up there. They pry open the crate. Something inside that’s worth big money. Only Chad’s buddy decides he’s not interested in profit sharing. So, like you said yesterday, Chad gets capped and his buddy makes off with the merchandise.”

“Sounds like you got it dialed in.”

“It’s a workable premise. Let’s put it that way.”

“Why did you want to see me this morning?”

Streeter wiped his mouth with his napkin and picked a bacon bit from the gap between his front teeth. “I need to know why the FAA put a clamp on that file.”

“I’m not on real intimate terms with the FAA these days, Deputy. Let’s just say we’ve had our differences.”

“But you did work in the intelligence community. You have a security clearance, correct?”

“Hypothetically, if I ever
did
hold a clearance, it would’ve been revoked when I turned in my resignation papers. That’s assuming I ever worked for the government, which I’m not saying I did or didn’t.”

The deputy’s biscuits and gravy arrived, smelling like I imagine heaven smells—the yeasty musk finished off with an irresistible hint of lard. I could feel my arteries congealing just inhaling.

“Enjoy,” Ruby said, reeking of tobacco.

Again, Streeter waited until she was out of audio range.

“OK, fine, so you don’t have an active clearance. But, assuming you
did
work for the government, like the newspaper said, you’d still have contacts, friends who could do you a favor, correct?”

“That’s a whole lot of assuming, Deputy.”

Two young men with brown skin and stylishly coiffed black hair walked in and hovered near the door, waiting to be seated. Busy chowing down, Streeter didn’t notice them. I did. Some may have mistaken the two for Arabs. I knew them to be Iranians who, I observed in my adventures abroad, are inclined to be taller and slightly lighter in complexion than their Middle Eastern neighbors. Iranian men also tend to be more fashionably attired and more attentive to personal grooming. These guys were all that. Pricey jeans and black leather jackets. No shortage of cologne. Not a nose hair in sight.

The taller of the two caught me looking and tried staring me down. I held my gaze. Dominant males, I learned with Alpha, reflexively maintain eye contact when confronted with what they perceive instinctively as other, socially aggressive males. It goes back to the time when we all swung from the trees by our tails: to see its prey, the hunter must always expose its eyes. When the hunted breaks eye contact, it’s a sign of submission that signals, in essence, “Do with me what you will; I won’t fight back.”

After a few seconds, the taller Iranian looked away, leaned closer to his companion and muttered something in his ear. Pretending to peruse the plastic laminated menu, his friend, a powerfully built fireplug, turned and glared at me. I glared back.

Streeter turned and looked over his shoulder, chewing on a strip of bacon, curious to see what I was seeing. The taller Iranian noticed him and nodded in a not friendly way. Streeter nodded in response and turned back toward me.

“The tall guy’s name is Reza Jalali,” he said. “Owns a couple convenience stores in town. The other guy, I’ve never seen before.”

“Something hinky about that dude,” I said.

“Clearly, you don’t trust your fellow man, Mr. Logan.”

“I used to. Then I read Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who said that if you’re too open-minded, your brains fall out.”

Streeter smiled. I watched him dip a piece of bacon in the gravy, stuff the bacon in his mouth, and lick grease from his fingers. Back at the Tranquility House Bed-and-Breakfast, the Kavitches, Johnny and Gwen, would probably be serving up organic granola with reduced-fat yogurt and fresh fruit because that’s what B&B owners do—try to convince you that there’s something inherently healthier staying with them than at the Comfort Inn, where you cook your own waffles with premixed cups of “batter” that looks a lot like baby spit-up.

Streeter salted and peppered his biscuits and gravy. “So, what do you say? You think you could put a call in for me?”

I told him I’d think about it.

“Either way,” I said, “it’ll cost you a strip of bacon.”

“Knock yourself out.”

He slid his plate across the table.

Elevated triglycerides never tasted so good.

S
NOW WAS
coming down as I walked out of the restaurant. Big soft fluffy flakes that fell slowly through the pines, muffling all sound and washing all color from the morning. I used my arm to brush off the driver’s door on the Yukon, got in, started the engine and fired up the heater.

I figured there’d be little harm, making a call or two on Deputy Streeter’s behalf. I’ll admit, part of my motivation in helping him out was ego driven. I’d seen and done a thousand things in defense of my country. I’d been trained to compartmentalize those things, to keep secret from any and all but my fellow go-to guys the tactics, techniques, and procedures we exercised to do those things. But Streeter had been correct: I did know people in government who enjoyed access to restricted information, including Paul Horvath, an investigator with the FAA’s Flight Standards District Office in San Diego.

Horvath had been assigned to determine the cause of my near-fatal accident a few months earlier at San Diego’s Montgomery Airport. He’d concluded that an intentional act of sabotage had forced me to crash land the
Ruptured Duck,
and that the incident had been in no way my fault. That, however, hadn’t stopped the FAA from tormenting me for months afterward, what with the dozens of reports and sworn declarations I was compelled to submit just to keep my flight school certified and my pilot’s certificate intact.

I found Horvath’s card in my wallet and called him.

“Who?” Horvath said, yawning, half asleep.

“Cordell Logan.”

I’d forgotten it wasn’t yet 0700. It took him a few seconds to remember me.

“What time is it?”

I told him. Then I told him why I was calling.

“Let me make sure I have this correctly. You want me to
give
you confidential information from a restricted agency file?”

“Yes.”

“Without going through proper channels? Is that what you just asked me?”

“Proper channels could take weeks, Mr. Horvath. The information is needed in an ongoing police investigation, the murder of a young man in the mountains outside Lake Tahoe.”

“Mr. Logan, I’m as law and order as they come. I hope they find the killer and put him away. But what you’re asking me to do is to commit a crime, a very serious crime, not to mention jeopardize my career. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

I apologized for having called so early and signed off. Not without some reluctance, I then called my buddy, Buzz.

“This is not directory information, Logan,” Buzz grumbled over the phone. “Don’t you have any other friends who still work for Uncle Sugar? I’m busy. I have things to do, like saving the free world. Why are you always calling
me
?”

“Because we share a history, Buzz. Because I love you like the deranged, antisocial brother I never had.”

“Well, when you put it that way . . .”

Buzz (not his real name) was an opera-loving, former Delta operator who’d been among Alpha’s initial cadre of go-to guys—a “plank holder,” as they were known. He’d lost an eye to RPG shrapnel on one especially gnarly op outside Benghazi. After the White House shut down Alpha as a potential political liability, he’d ended up working at the Defense Intelligence Agency, riding an analyst’s desk that kept him inside most days, an assignment he’d used to good effect. Buzz cultivated more intra-agency connections over the years and possessed more behind-the-scenes insights about the inner workings of the alphabet agencies than probably any member of the intelligence community who ever lived.

I told him how I’d happened to stumble upon the wreckage of the long-missing airplane, about the murdered kid, the crate from the Santa Susana Field Lab, and the FAA’s unwillingness to cooperate with a homicide investigation. Buzz asked me for the plane’s tail number. I gave it to him. He said he’d ask around and see what he could come up with. I didn’t even have to bribe him, which I usually did.

“You seem like you’re in an unusually agreeable mood, Buzz.”

“Got busy with the wife last night. First time in a month. I put on a little Pavarotti, she squeezed into something skimpy I got her for Valentine’s Day five years ago, which was the last time I
remembered
Valentine’s Day, and we rocked the house. The kitchen. Our bed. The
dog’s
bed. It was something, lemme tell ya.”

“I could’ve definitely gone all day without knowing about the dog’s bed, Buzz.”

“Hey, you asked.”

“So I did. Live and learn.”

“What are you doing in Tahoe, Logan? Tahoe’s for rich people. The beautiful people.
Beautiful
is not a word that comes readily to mind when I think of your sorry mug.”

“Savannah and I are getting remarried.”

There was a long silence on the other end.

“Say again?”

“We’re getting remarried.”

“To Savannah?”

“Affirmative.”

“The Savannah who dumped you for Arlo Echevarria?”

“One and the same.”

There was a time when Buzz wouldn’t have hesitated to tell me that I’d lost my mind, reconciling with a woman who’d left me for a brother warrior. But for once, he held his tongue.

“I just hope you know what you’re doing, Logan.”

“Makes two of us, buddy.”

He said he’d get back to me with whatever relevant insights he could find on the crashed Beechcraft. I told him I’d be waiting.

The snow was coming down heavier, beginning to blanket the cars in the lot. I envisioned a leisurely breakfast back at Tranquility House with Savannah, followed by a romantic interlude in the privacy of our bungalow with a cozy fire in the fireplace. We’d drive into town after that, take out a marriage license, and exchange vows.

I couldn’t have known that by the time I got back, she’d have gone without so much as a word of good-bye.

SEVEN

N
othing seemed amiss.

The damp washcloth draped over the faucet and the water beaded on the tiled walls of the shower stall told me that Savannah had showered shortly after I’d left our bungalow to meet with Deputy Streeter.

There were two bras and two pairs of panties in the plastic bag she used for dirty laundry. That told me she’d apparently dressed for the day and left—but without her long down coat, which was still hanging in the closet. I knew she wouldn’t have gone for a walk without it, given the weather.

I also knew she hadn’t gone for a run. Her Nikes were still packed in her suitcase, and her iPhone in its pink protective case was still on the nightstand, charging. Savannah never went anywhere without her phone.

I ventured back outside, searching for tracks in the freshly fallen snow, but the only ones I could see were mine. That told me she’d gone before the snow started falling.

“Haven’t seen her all morning,” Johnny Kavitch said when I went into the main house. “She didn’t come in for breakfast. It’s still sitting on the table in the dining room, untouched. Yours, too. Gwen, have you seen Savannah this morning?”

Kavitch’s wife emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a red and white striped dish towel. “Listening to the TV. I’m sorry, were you calling me?”

“Have you seen Savannah this morning?” I asked before Johnny could.