“I told him, ‘Hey, at least you got a job,’ ” Murtha said. “Steady work for ex-cons, that don’t come along every day, you know?”
I nodded.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Murtha said, “Chad wasn’t complaining none. He said his uncle was letting him sleep on a cot where they keep the airplanes or some shit. Wasn’t even charging him nothing to stay. Free rent. Beer money. Sounded like a pretty sweet setup to me. But, like I said, I didn’t see it coming. Should’ve said something to him. Only I didn’t, goddammit.”
“Tell him what, Jethro?”
“To watch his back. His uncle Gordon? The dude’s dirty as they come. Up to all kinds of nasty shit.”
“How do you know that?”
“Chad told me.” Murtha propped his hands behind his head and his feet on the floor in front him, facing me directly — body language that conveyed openness. “I’ll tell you something else he told me, too. You know Iran?”
“I’ve heard of it a time or two.”
“Yeah, well, Chad’s uncle, he’s running some kind of scam with some hardcore Iranian dudes living up there in Tahoe. It had Chad freaked the fuck out.”
“What kind of scam?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. Too scared.” Murtha lit a Camel, exhaled smoke through his nose, and eyed me through blue tobacco haze. “So what are you doing here, anyway, Mr.… Logan, is it?” he said, glancing at the business card I’d given him. “Chad worked at an airport. You’re a flight instructor. That tells me something.”
“It tells you nothing.” I got up and headed for the door. “Thanks for your time, Jethro.”
“I’m definitely interested in taking flying lessons,” he said. “Soon as I make some bank.”
“Or rob one.”
“Exactly.”
He grinned as I left.
So Chad Lovejoy’s Uncle Gordon was up to no good. I’d wondered about him all along. Murtha’s insights gave me new direction, new hope, a viable lead to follow. Walking to my truck, I was feeling reenergized, almost exuberant, when my phone rang.
“Logan.”
“It’s Matt Streeter.”
I could feel my pulse quicken.
“What’s up, Deputy?”
He asked me where I was.
“I’m in LA. Why?”
“How soon can you make it up to Lake Tahoe?”
His voice sounded different, an odd flatness to it.
“Why?”
“I’d prefer we talk in person.”
“I’d prefer we talk now.”
Streeter paused, as if gathering his courage.
“We’ve located some remains.”
SEVENTEEN
With the Duck still suffering electrical system issues and out of commission, I drove through the night as fast as my truck would carry me from Los Angeles to South Lake Tahoe. Four hundred and eighty miles. Nearly seven hours, excluding two brief pit stops for octane and caffeine. I focused on the far reaches of my headlights and fought to keep submerged the anguish that threatened to overwhelm me.
The drive was no scenic tour. The Golden State Freeway, which constituted more than three quarters of the route, runs the length of California’s semiarid Central Valley like a concrete spine. In daylight, it is a featureless, litter-strewn highway upon which most everyone flagrantly ignores the posted speed limit, anxious to escape as fast as possible the wasteland surrounding them. Driving the route in darkness might seem a blessing — but not when the eyes and brain are denied distraction. A man can keep his thoughts in neutral for only so long before his mind automatically slips back into gear.
Please God, Buddha, Allah. Don’t let it be my woman.
I passed a tractor trailer, a Kenworth, hauling a load of lemons. The lemons reminded me of the time a few weeks after we were first married when Savannah decided to bake me a meringue pie and left it in the oven too long. It looked like something left over from Hiroshima. She laughed at my teasing, a good sport, then went into the bathroom, locked the door, and sobbed. It was the last time she ever baked me anything.
I shouldn‘t have said what I said. You were doing something nice for me and I was a complete jerk. I’m sorry, Savannah. For what I did. For everything I didn’t do.
The road ahead seemed to blur. For a second, I thought the windshield had fogged up. Then I realized I was crying. I wiped away the tears angrily and drove on.
A light snow was falling as I turned off the freeway near Elk Grove onto US 50, south of what was once Mather Air Force Base, and began climbing into the rising sun. The highway remained ice-free for the most part, even as the weather turned colder. Air temperature lapses an average three and a half degrees for every thousand feet of altitude gained. I can’t say how cold it was on the valley floor a mile below me, but by the time I reached South Lake Tahoe a little before 0700, the digital thermometer outside Alpine Bank and Trust on the town’s far western approach showed eighteen degrees.
Streeter wanted me to contact him as soon as I pulled into town. I called from the bank’s parking lot. He was there inside of five minutes. He got out of his Jeep and into my truck with a manila file folder under his right arm, his expression grim.
“Thank you for coming up. I know it’s a long way on short notice.”
I nodded.
His jaw muscles were tight. He wouldn’t make eye contact. He no more wanted to do what we were about to do than I did.
“It’s all right,” I said. “Just tell me.”
He nodded, appreciative of my straightforwardness, and gazed down at the file folder now resting on his left thigh.
“Some of these pictures may be very graphic in nature to you. I apologize in advance.”
“I’ve been to a few rodeos,” I said as evenly as I could.
He hesitated, then handed me the folder.
I opened it. I had to force myself to breathe.
The first photos were of a woman’s sweater, a bra, a pair of panties, and a pair of brown suede boots. They’d all been badly burned.
“Do you recognize any of those garments?” Streeter asked.
“No.”
After the pictures of clothing came autopsy photos, more than a dozen in all. They were of a dead woman. Like her clothes, she, too, had been burned. What was left of her hair appeared to be dark red, like Savannah’s. Her face was charred, unrecognizable. Her nose was gone. Her eyes were gone. The jaw was parted. The teeth were white and perfect. Like Savannah’s.
“Where did you find her?”
“Down a ravine, south of town. A car caught fire. She didn’t have any ID on her. We’re having some trouble getting good prints, given the extent of injury. I figured you’d want to know.”
I flipped slowly through the photos. Burned hands. Long, elegant fingers, like Savannah’s. Burgundy fingernails, like hers. Burned legs. Blackened arms. The limbs really didn’t look like Savannah’s. Or did they? I couldn’t be certain. Nausea floated up from my stomach. I let out a breath, struggling to remain focused, trying not to cry.
“Were you able to establish a cause of death?”
“Not yet.”
“Was she violated sexually?”
“We won’t know that until the coroner comes back with his full results.”
A photo of the left leg caught my attention. A patch of skin on the inside of her upper thigh had been spared from the flames that had consumed much of the rest of her. When Savannah was a teenager, long before it had become a social requirement that every young person in America get tattooed, Savannah had gotten inked — a small, delicate red rose that took me by surprise when I first discovered it, kissing my way up her leg.