He looked inside the fuselage door at the crash-damaged crate, sitting open and empty, save for hundreds of balled-up pieces of newspaper scattered in and around it.
“They used the wadded-up paper to pad whatever was inside the crate,” I said. “Whatever the shooter found inside that crate was so valuable, it apparently was worth pumping three slugs into that kid over there.”
Streeter wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell by the way he rubbed the side of his face that I was talking sense.
“What kind of plane is this?” he said.
“A twin-engine Beech 18. Also known as a ‘Twin Beech’ because of the twin tail. Beechcraft started building them before World War II. Cranked ’em out for more than thirty years. Great airplane. They were the Lear jets of their day. The FAA should still have a record of it on file based on the tail number. They’ll know who owned it back in the day. They’ll also know when it was reported missing.”
Streeter exhaled and said he’d check it out. He clearly didn’t like anyone telling him how to do his job.
It was past 1630 hours by the time the sheriff’s helicopter flew me back to the South Lake Tahoe Airport, then took off again almost immediately, airlifting two crime scene analysts to the crash scene. I watched the chopper lift off, grateful at not having had to hike all the way back out. I checked on the Ruptured Duck, making sure he was securely tied down on the flight line, and patted his nose like the trusty mount that he was. Then, feeling tired and hungry, my knee throbbing, I walked into Summit Aviation Services.
Marlene was sitting behind the reception counter, sobbing.
“One of the sheriff’s helicopter pilots said it was Chad they found up there. Please tell me that’s not true.”
“I’m afraid it is, Marlene.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, drying her eyes with a Kleenex. “I don’t mean to get all emotional. You look like a man who could use a hot cup of hot coffee.”
She started to get up. I insisted that she stay put and helped myself to both.
“Such a nice young man.” Marlene shook her head and took a deep breath. Her chin quivered. “It’s just so terrible. Why’d he go up there? For what? Why would anybody want to hurt Chad? I don’t understand.”
“Nobody does at this point. Except whoever did it.”
She said she’d been trying to reach Summit’s manager, Gordon Priest, to give him the bad news, but Priest wasn’t answering his cell phone.
“I know he’ll take it hard,” Marlene said, her voice cracking. “They bickered once in a while, but Gordon was Chad’s uncle. He really loved Chad. They were like two peas in a pod, those two.”
Priest, she volunteered without me asking, had gone to a big operational meeting at the FAA’s Flight Standards District Office in Reno. He’d left a message that morning on the answering machine saying he wasn’t sure he’d be back in the office that day before close of business.
“I know he’ll be devastated,” Marlene repeated.
The Buddha advised great caution when prejudging others, “lest you run the risk of being wrong.” That kind of blind, benefit-of-the-doubt benevolence doesn’t allow much maneuver room for the kind of gut instinct I was trained to follow when I worked for the government. My gut told me in this instance that it was more than coincidence, Gordon Priest being away at some out-of-town “business meeting” the day after the fatal shooting of his nephew. But if you’re a Buddhist, you do your best to let the bad stuff go. You embrace the good in everyone, however much in short supply good may be these days.
And so I tried. Who, after all, murders his own nephew?
“You were busy, Logan. I understand that. But it would’ve been nice if you’d called to let me know you’d be up there all day.”
“I would’ve, Savannah, believe me, but there’s no cell service.”
She blew air through her lips and made a right turn off Airport Road, onto Emerald Bay, heading north toward our B&B, after picking me up. I turned on the Yukon’s radio to break the strained silence in the car. A country tune was playing. Some guy whaling on his guitar with great earnestness, “Get your tongue out of my mouth ’cause I’m kissing you good-bye.”
“Are you mad at me?”
Savannah shook her head.
“You seem mad.”
“You were doing what you had to do. I’ll get over it — but not if you don’t turn off that awful song.”
I turned off the radio.
“Thanks for picking me up.”
“Of course.”
More silence.
“We’ll get the license tomorrow,” I said, “assuming you still want to.”
Savannah glanced over and gave me a smirk.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
She almost smiled.
I reached across the seats of our rented Yukon and caressed her silken neck.
“So, what did you find up there? Anything?”
“An airplane.”
“Really? Just like you said.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Anybody alive?”
“The plane had been up there a long time.”
I debated filling in the blanks for her. About the skeletal dead pilot. About the mysteriously empty crate. About the dead young man we’d met at the airport the day before. But what purpose, I asked myself, would any of that have served, beyond unnerving the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with? We’d flown up to Lake Tahoe to get remarried. Tomorrow, we would. Nothing other than that mattered much in my opinion, not even a murder.
“Were there bodies?”
I looked out the window and didn’t say anything.
“I’m just curious, Logan. You don’t have to say if you don’t want to.”
“Yeah. There were bodies.”
We rounded a curve doing fifty-five in a forty-five mph zone. A highway patrol cruiser was sitting on the shoulder of the road. Savannah braked, glancing down at the speedometer, then up anxiously in her rearview mirror as we passed by the cruiser. The cop didn’t stop us, though. Savannah said it was an omen of good things to come. I attributed it to blind luck. But that’s just me. I turned the radio back on to the same country-western station. The song that was playing, near as I could discern, was, “I’m Not Married, But the Wife Is.”
Savannah, a native Texan who was not keen on the music she was subjected to as a child, groaned. “What in heaven’s name are we listening to?” She reached down and changed stations: a smorgasbord of hip-hop, top-forty, Spanish language, then this:
“… said the wreckage was discovered below Voodoo Ridge, in a remote, mountainous area of the El Dorado National Forest, about eight miles west of South Lake Tahoe. There were no survivors. Officials said they believe the plane may have been missing for several years. Sources familiar with the investigation, meanwhile, told KKOH News that sheriff’s authorities are treating the crash site as an active crime scene. Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital today, congressional Republican leaders accused the White House of—”
I switched stations.
Savannah glanced over at me with a quizzical look on her face. “The plane’s been missing for ‘several years,’ but they’re treating it as an ‘active crime scene?’ That seems rather strange, doesn’t it?”
“Somewhat.”
She knew I was holding back.
As Savannah slowed and turned into Tranquility House’s small guest-parking area, I could see that the door of our bungalow was cracked open.
“That’s weird,” Savannah said. “I know I locked it before I went to get you.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, Logan, I’m sure.”
I told her to wait inside the car, got out, and approached the bungalow.
Among operators tasked with breaching a targeted structure, the first man through the door is known by various monikers. The Point Man. The Bullet Catcher. The Meat Shield. The guy voted Most Likely to Succumb. You never know who or what’s waiting for you on the other side. A task for the faint of heart it’s not. When you’re unarmed and there’s only one of you, as I was, the task can be especially daunting. I could’ve waited out whoever was inside, assuming anyone was, but waiting was never my style. That left two tactical options: storm in or sneak in. I opted for the latter, if only because it was the less confrontational way to go and thus, philosophically, more Buddhist-like.