Voodoo Ridge (7 page)

“Musical instruments lend ambiance to a room,” I said, like I knew anything about home decor.

I should’ve said nothing.

Johnny dove into a ten-minute monologue on the ethereal qualities of the harp, its long history, and how he’d always wanted to take lessons, but waited until retiring from the IRS field office in San Jose and moving up to Lake Tahoe, for fear that his fellow auditors might tease him.

“I’d love to play you something,” he said.

“Johnny’s an awesome musician,” Gwen said, beaming at him.

My ex-wife embedded her burgundy fingernails in my forearm before I could say not just no, but hell no.

“That would be lovely,” Savannah said.

We sat through Johnny Kavitch’s rendition of Barbra Streisand’s “Evergreen,” which was followed by Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You,” replete with Gwen singing along. I was ready to start drinking after that. The only problem was, I stopped drinking years ago. I could tell by her thin smile that Savannah was in agony, too, but there’d be no alcoholic respite for her, either. She was pregnant.

Mercifully, the harp concert was cut short when a surly bean-pole in his mid-twenties garbed in saggy jeans, black combat boots, and a Def Leppard sweatshirt barged into the room.

“Who ate my pizza?” he demanded. “It was sitting in the refrigerator last night. Now it’s fucking gone.”

He was around twenty-seven, six foot three, and all of about 155 pounds. Dark, greasy hair fell to his bony shoulders like strands on a wet mop. Gwen ignored the beanpole’s outburst and introduced him pleasantly as their son and resident maintenance supervisor, Preston.

“Preston, these are our guests, Mr. Logan and Ms. Echevarria. They’ve come all the way from Rancho Bonita to get married—
re
married, I should say. Mr. Logan’s a pilot. He flew them up here in his own airplane. Isn’t that awesome?”

Preston gave me a sidelong glance that was anything but friendly.

“Did you eat my pizza?” he demanded.

“Wasn’t me, dude.”

“Me, either,” Savannah said.

“I cannot tell a lie,” Johnny said, carefully leaning the harp back against the wall. “I ate your pizza, Preston, and, boy, was it tasty. But fear not. I’ll get you another one.” He tried to pat him on the back. Preston pulled away.

“That was my pizza—mine, OK? I paid for it with my own money.”

“It’s no big deal,” Johnny said. “I’ll get you another one.”

Preston fixed his father with a daggers-of-death glare. “Why don’t you do the world a favor and just die. I hate you. Both of you.” He swept a pair of brass candlesticks off the parlor’s ornately carved mantle and onto the oak floor, stomping out of the parlor. I heard the front door open and slam behind him.

Gwen smiled as she picked up the candlesticks. “He’s only like this when he forgets to take his meds. We never take it personally.”

“He’s really a total sweetheart otherwise,” Johnny said.

“I’m sure he is,” Savannah said sympathetically.

I was hardly sure. You don’t openly speak ill of your parents without having given the idea at least a little thought.

D
INNER DID
little to lighten my mood. The Kavitches recommended a little sushi place about a half mile up the road. “A bit on the pricey side,” Gwen said, “but the most awesome sashimi you’ll ever eat.”

She was right about the prices. She was flat wrong about the rest.

The restaurant was in a strip mall. Six tables. Posters advertising Kirin beer tacked to the walls. A few sorry koi kites hanging from the ceiling.

“Feels like we’re in Tokyo,” I said as we walked in.

“I’m sure it’s perfectly fine,” Savannah said.

The two chefs working behind the counter were white. Not that being born in Japan is a prerequisite for working with raw fish. But both of these guys looked like their only prior seafood experience was eating at Long John Silver’s. And both looked to be half drunk.

We ordered miso soup, which wasn’t terrible, and a few hand rolls, which were.

“I’ve had better sushi at Costco,” I said.

“What is it with you and Costco?”

“Costco’s the American way of life, Savannah. Americans will willingly stand in line for an hour if they think they’re saving a buck for a lifetime supply of Spanish olives, even if they hate Spanish olives. It’s what the founding fathers envisioned when they wrote the constitution: naked consumerism run amok in a giant metal warehouse.”

She picked at a piece of soy sauce-soaked ginger with her chopsticks and smiled one of those smiles where you can tell there’s not much happiness behind it.

“We’ll go get the license tomorrow morning,” Savannah said, “and tomorrow night, we’ll have a dinner to remember.”

I cleared my throat, sucked down the last of my soup and avoided eye contact. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’d agreed to guide members of the sheriff’s search and rescue team into the mountains at dawn. They needed somebody to show them where the crash site was, assuming it was a crash site. Chances were good I wouldn’t be back until after the marriage license office had closed for yet another day.

“There’s something you’re not telling me, Logan.”

Her eyes demanded answers. With good reason. Much of our marriage had been tainted by the nature of my work, the deception inherent in how I once earned a paycheck. You can be a trained prevaricator of the highest order, a first-ballot inductee to the Liars Hall of Fame, as I was back then, and the woman you share a bed with will always know the truth on some subliminal level. Savannah had me dialed in. She always did.

I explained to her the obligation that compelled me to put off our exchanging vows for yet another day, the unspoken bond that compels one pilot to help another in crisis.

“Somebody could still be alive up there,” I said. “And even if there isn’t, there’s got to be family somewhere, relatives, wondering what happened to the people on that plane. They have a right to know, Savannah. If I were up there in those mountains, I’d expect the same effort to be made in your behalf.”

She nodded and told me I was doing the right thing. She said my conscientious nature was among the qualities she always found most attractive in me. And she apologized for being petulant without me having accused her of it.

“But I’d be lying,” Savannah said, “if I said that I wasn’t disappointed. I wanted this trip to be the beginning of the rest of our lives together, Logan. I wanted it to be romantic. All it feels like now is the way things always felt: you going off, doing your thing, regardless of me or my wants. Only in this case, I actually
know
where you’re going and what you’re doing.”

I apologized for disappointing her.

“Don’t worry about it,” Savannah said. “You’ll have plenty of time to make it up to me.”

She gave me a wink.

I wanted to kiss her. And did.

H
AD
I been able to see the ceiling that night in our bungalow at the B&B, I would’ve lain awake, staring at it. As it was, all I could see over my head was the gingham, rose-colored canopy of our poster bed.

Savannah rolled away from me, taking the covers with her. I was too hot anyway and she was always too cold—opening and closing the bedroom window was often a point of friction during our first marriage. That was before I discovered Buddhism and the duality of life. There can be no up without down, no joy without sorrow, no heat without cold. The sooner we embrace uncomfortable opposites, the more content we’ll be.

“I can shut the window if you’re chilly,” I said.

“I’m OK.”

“You sure? I don’t want the baby catching cold.”

“Babies don’t catch cold, Logan, not in the womb.”

“Good to know.”

Savannah rolled over to face me.

“What if it’s a girl?” she said.

“Makes no difference to me.”

“You wouldn’t be disappointed if we had a daughter?”

“I probably would be when she’s a teenager. Larry has a daughter in high school. He says it’s like trying to defend a box of raw chicken in a swamp filled with gators.”

“It’s the male who decides the gender, Logan. Your little swimmers. Sixteen years from now, you’ll only have yourself to blame. Just so you know.”

“We should be so lucky.”

She cuddled in closer. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Tell me we’re gonna be OK, Logan.”

“More than OK.”

There was no response. A minute or so passed. I could tell by her slow, sonorous breathing that she’d gone to sleep. I always admired that, Savannah’s ability to simply turn off the day, its nagging disappointments, and drift off. My mind, meanwhile, raced in the darkness among myriad ruminations. What would it be like being married again, and responsible 24-7 for a life other than my own? How would I earn a viable income to support my child? What was up there, on that mountain? What if what I saw was nothing? Was I leading authorities on a goose chase?

I closed my eyes. Savannah was in my arms, her soft, warm breath on my chest. It’s possible I may have slept.

D
EPUTY
Woo picked me up before dawn. I’d rolled out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Savannah, and dressed in the dark. Through the front window of our getaway bungalow, I watched a jogger slowly plod the Lake Tahoe shoreline in Spandex leggings, stocking cap and a ski parka. The condensation of his breath clouded in his wake like steam from a locomotive. Definitely cold out there. Part of me toyed with the tantalizing prospect of crawling back under warm covers and snuggling with Savannah, but only fleetingly. Except for my spare boxers, I threw on every article of clothing I’d taken with me.

S
UNSHINE
STREAMED
through the pines. The first light of morning.

Woo navigated his four-wheel drive Wrangler along the rain-rutted logging road he’d pointed out to me a day earlier. Other than exchanging a “Good morning,” and, a “Thanks, You’re welcome” for the cup of McDonald’s coffee he’d brought me, we’d said nothing to each other for more than twenty miles. He wasn’t unfriendly. He was merely a man of few words. I respected that. Many of the great writers whose works I had devoured at the academy believed that language is a perishable commodity, that we’re allotted only so many words in a lifetime. Once we’ve used them up, that’s it. Game over. Could be Woo read the same books I had. Hard to know. It was hard to know anything about the guy. His face gave away nothing.