I swallowed down the urge to do the deputy harm and jammed my hands in the pockets of my jacket.
“You want to polygraph me? Fine, let’s go now.”
“You might want to talk to an attorney first.”
“I don’t need an attorney, Streeter. What I need is for you to do your goddamn job. Go find my woman.”
Streeter nodded subtly, like I’d just passed some sort of test. “Every suspect, you ask them if they did it, they’re always calm. ‘No. It wasn’t me, officer. I didn’t do it.’ When you know damn well they did. Nobody ever raises their voice. Nobody looks like they want to punch your lights out — unless they didn’t do it. For what it’s worth, Mr. Logan, I believe you.”
I looked past the Wrangler, hoping I might see Savannah, and said nothing.
“You probably want to change out of those wet clothes,” Streeter said.
“Probably.”
“I’ll give you a lift back to your room.”
I climbed in. The heater was on high. It felt good.
Streeter put the Wrangler in gear, checked his mirrors, and headed north toward the lake.
“Could be she got cold feet,” he said. “It happens sometimes.”
“She walked out when we were married the first time. She wasn’t shy about telling me then where she was going, and the reasons why. She wouldn’t be shy telling me now, but there was no reason for her to take off. Her leaving wasn’t voluntary.”
“You think somebody took her. Is that what you’re saying?”
I blew on my cupped hands to warm them.
“All I know is she’s gone.”
A man doesn’t do for his government what I did, for as long as I did it, without living in constant fear of retaliation. The fear is with you every day and every night. You constantly scan your surroundings, situational awareness on overdrive, assessing the body language of strangers whose path you cross and whether they pose a threat, until paranoia becomes muscle memory. I didn’t rule out the possibility that Savannah’s disappearance had something to do with my having once hunted rabid humans across the globe. But that made no sense. If someone had turned the tables, a survivor or disciple of one of my former targets, they would’ve likely come after me, not Savannah. Regardless, how would anyone have known that we’d be in South Lake Tahoe? The only people I’d told of our travel plans were Mrs. Schmulowitz and Larry, my airplane mechanic. Neither of them would’ve had any reason to tell anyone else.
“The owners of the bed-and-breakfast where we’ve been staying have an adult son who lives with them,” I said.
“You mean Preston?”
I looked over, surprised Streeter would know him.
“It’s a small town. Mr. Logan. Preston Kavitch is well-known among local law enforcement, believe me. Plenty of petty stuff. Drugs, drunk in public. Nothing violent, though, to my knowledge.”
I described how I’d caught Preston entertaining himself with Savannah’s panties in the bathroom of our bungalow.
“That surprises me,” Streeter said. “I didn’t think Preston was even aware of women. I don’t even remember ever seeing him out with one, tell you the truth. I can take him in for questioning if you think it’ll do some good.”
“That’s your call.”
We passed a snow plow rolling in the opposite direction, its amber caution lights flashing, snow arcing gracefully away from its angled blade and splashing onto the roadside like a bow wave from a boat hull.
“Good thing you found that plane yesterday and not today,” Streeter said. “Probably wouldn’t have been able to get up there in this weather. Wreck’s probably been buried over.”
Yesterday. It seemed so long ago.
The print technician was gone by the time Streeter dropped me back at the B&B. She may have been pissed at having missed her Pilates class, but she did her job: there was fingerprint dust virtually everywhere. I stripped, stuffed my wet clothes in Savannah’s plastic laundry bag, and took a quick hot shower. After I toweled off, I pulled on dry socks and jeans, a T-shirt, a flannel shirt, and my old Air Force Academy football sweatshirt. My hiking shoes and leather jacket were soaked through, but they were the only ones I’d brought with me. They’d have to do.
I was repacking Savannah’s stuff and mine, including her phone and charger, when a key slid in the lock, and the door opened, revealing Johnny Kavitch.
“Just wanted to make sure you’ll be out by noon check-out,” he said, still clutching the ski pole like a weapon, standing warily in the doorway, keeping his distance.
I checked my watch. “I’ve still got ten minutes.”
“Also, I wanted to let you know that I received an estimate on the door jamb you broke. You’re looking at $310 in repair costs.”
“A woman, my woman, has gone missing. Call me rude, Mr. Kavitch, but I really couldn’t give a damn at this particular moment about your door jamb. I told you, I’ll pay for the damage.”
“I’m sorry she’s missing,” he said, “but I’m sure she’s OK.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“Because nothing bad ever happens in Lake Tahoe.”
No one ever starved underestimating the average human being’s capacity to live in denial. I shook my head and continued packing.
“You need to understand something, Mr. Logan. We’re running a business here. And we don’t appreciate guests coming in and trashing the premises. And I certainly don’t need them insulting my son.”
I walked toward the door. Kavitch backed up, wearing a fearful expression that suggested I was capable of going berserk at any minute.
“Come back at noon. I’ll be gone by then.”
I toed the door shut in his face.
My phone rang on the bed as I was zipping up my duffel bag. I nearly sprained a wrist rushing to grab it.
“Savannah?”
“Guess again.”
“Hey, Buzz.”
The disappointment in my voice apparently was not hard to discern.
“You sound like I usually feel, Logan, which is about two steps removed from a slow, painful death. You doing OK?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You sure? Cuz if this is what ‘fine’ sounds like, I’d hate to hear ‘not fine.’ ”
“I’ve got some stuff going on right now I’d rather not talk about.” I forced myself to focus. “You make any traction on that matter I asked about earlier?”
“As a matter of fact. Let’s just say we never had this conversation, capisce?”
“What conversation?”
Buzz sort of snorted. His version of a laugh.
“OK, that tail number you gave me? The plane was reported stolen out of Omaha in October 1956. It belonged to Midwest Mutual. Big insurance company. Pilot went out to the flight line one morning to preflight the bird for a trip to Chicago, schlepping a bunch of corporate bigwigs, and it wasn’t there. Gone baby gone.”
“Why would the FAA deep six a missing aircraft file for fifty-eight years — unless maybe it was a clerical error?”
“Clerical error my flabby, civil service ass,” Buzz said. “There was nothing in error about that file being marked ‘eyes only.’ That plane was being flown by the Central Intelligence Agency when it disappeared.”
EIGHT
Buzz had a friend who had a friend. Buzz always had a “friend” in the know somewhere. In this instance, his contact either was, or worked with, the associate administrator of the FAA’s Civil Aviation Security branch in Washington. I didn’t get down in the weeds as far as titles or names, and Buzz didn’t elaborate. All he said was what his friend had told him: that the file on the stolen Twin Beechcraft that ultimately returned to earth in the mountains outside Lake Tahoe remained under official seal. The file jacket bore a faded, hand-written notation left by an FAA investigator probably long since expired, about something called “Project Short Hair.”