by David Freed
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.
I pressed my back against the wood siding of the adjacent wall. With my right arm extended, I slowly pushed open the door a few inches, careful to keep clear of the gap and the door itself, where a shooter was likely to fire if his intention was to stop me from coming in. The hinges were well-oiled. They didn’t squeak. Nobody shot at me.
Had I still been with Alpha, serving as the point man in a standard, five-man entry team stacked up outside the door, I would’ve waited for the last guy in the stack to squeeze the shoulder of the guy ahead of him, indicating he was ready for action. That “ready” signal would have been passed up the train until the guy behind me squeezed my shoulder, telling me we were all good to go. Then we would’ve gone. With my submachine gun or short-barrel shotgun raised to my shoulder and ready to fire, I would’ve moved to my left, sweeping the room and my field of fire from left to right. The man directly behind me would’ve entered, shifted to my right, and scanned from right to left. We would’ve stayed a foot away from any walls because bullets tend to ricochet within six to eight inches of walls. And we would’ve put multiple hollow-point rounds into the vital organs and skulls of anyone remotely threatening. But, like I said, it was just me, and I was without the comforts of a good gun.
I waited a few seconds, exhaled slowly, and walked in.
The bed had been made. Things tidied up. Nothing looked amiss. Nobody was there. That’s what I thought initially. Then, from inside the bathroom, I heard a male voice mutter, “Mmmm. Oh, yeah.” I moved quietly and peaked around the corner:
Preston Kavitch, the son of our B&B hosts, Johnny and Gwen, was standing at the pedestal sink, in front of the antique, gilt-framed mirror. He was stroking his crotch with his right hand and caressing his left cheek with a pair of Savannah’s black lace panties.
“Hey there, sport.”
Startled, he stumbled backward and fell into the claw-footed tub.
“I was just—”
“—Just what? Doing your best Pee Wee Herman imitation?”
“Actually, I was . . .” Preston cleared his throat. His eyes darted in every direction but mine. “I was changing the light bulb over the sink. It went out. Your lady told my mother it was out before she left to go wherever. I’m in charge of maintenance. It’s what I do. Only I couldn’t find a sixty watt, so I had to get a seventy-five watt, which’ll be bright, but that’s OK. Not that big a difference between sixty and seventy-five. Uses more energy, but whatever.”
His nervous eye movement and his manic elaboration of insignificant, irrelevant details, instead of sticking to the topic at hand—namely, him being a pervert—more than confirmed my suspicions that Preston Kavitch was exactly that.
“Please don’t tell my parents, OK?”
“Why wouldn’t I tell them?”
Preston had to think about that one for a second. “Because I’m really a nice guy?”
“Nice guys don’t go round sniffing their guests’ underwear, Preston.”
“I wasn’t sniffing. I was . . . appreciating.”
“Hand ’em over, Preston.”
He handed me the panties. Then he started crying.
“They’ll kick me out of the house if you tell ’em,” he said, crocodile tears flowing, still sitting in the tub with his legs hanging awkwardly over the edge. “I got nowhere else to go. Please, it won’t happen again. I swear it.”
There was a time when I would’ve ignored his begging and made a point to teach him a proverbial lesson he’d never forget, one that might’ve involved the spilling of blood and a broken bone or two. Back then, I didn’t feel sorry for many people, including those who got down on their knees and begged me for their lives. I steeled myself against their pleas; they got what was coming to them. But then I started getting older, and maybe, more or less, a little wiser.
“Get up, Preston.”
He gripped my outstretched hand and I hauled him out of the tub, just as Savannah came walking into the bungalow.
“Logan?”
“In here.” I stuffed her panties in the back pocket of my jeans.
“Please,” Preston whispered, “you can’t tell her.”
Savannah entered. “What’s going on?”
“Preston had to change a light bulb.”
“That’s right,” Preston said. He fished the old bulb out of the antique wire trash basket and made a point to show it to her. “Burned out. Just like you said.”
“Thanks for getting to it so quickly,” Savannah said. “It would’ve been hard to see in here tonight otherwise.”
He gave me a furtive glance, lowered his head and walked out of the bathroom. I waited until I heard the door close and latch.
“You told his mother about the light bulb?” I asked Savannah.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Nothing.”
I’d been wrong about Preston Kavitch. He hadn’t lied to me. He may have been a disgusting pervert, but he was, at least in this instance, an honest one.
“You’ve got that look on your face,” Savannah said.
“What look would that be?”
“The ‘weight of the world’ look. I’ve seen it before, Logan. Innumerable times. And I learned a long time ago that it’s pointless, me asking you, ‘What’s wrong?’ Because you’ll never tell me, anyway. Now, why don’t you slowly undress me and take me to bed?”
I was sorely tempted. I was also plain sore, not to mention exhausted. I couldn’t decide which hurt more, my scraped elbow or twisted knee. Both of my feet were blistered. My shoulders felt like they’d been stomped on by contestants from “The Biggest Loser.”
“Would you be offended,” I said, “if I took a hot bath instead, alone?”
“No, I wouldn’t be offended.” She tilted her head subtly and her eyes smiled. “I just wish I’d had the presence of mind to bring along your Mr. Bubble.”
“I’ll survive.”
She held my face in her hands and kissed me softly, one cheek, then the other.
“Go take a bath, Logan. Let me know if you need anybody to wash your back.”
I assured her I would.
SIX
My phone rang at 0512 the next morning. I was dreaming I was in bed with Savannah. She was curled in the crook of my arm. I could smell the sweet, musky fragrance of her perfume. Her breath warmed my neck. Only it wasn’t a dream.
“Logan,” I said, still groggy enough that it was a challenge merely remembering my name.
“Matt Streeter, El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department. Hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“No, I’m always up this early. The milkman and me.”
“Wondered if I could buy you breakfast.”
“I’m staying in a B&B, Detective. The second “B” typically implies breakfast is included with the bed.”
“OK, coffee, then. It’s important, Mr. Logan. I wouldn’t have called this early if it wasn’t.”
Gone was his recalcitrance from the day before. There was something almost needy in his tone. I asked him where he wanted to meet. He gave me the name of a café and the address. He said it was less than five minutes from where I was staying. I said I’d be there.
Savannah cracked an eye. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to go back to sleep.”
I kissed her, said I’d be back as soon as I could, and eased out of bed.
&nbs
p; STREETER AND I rendezvoused on Emerald Bay Road, south of town, at a log cabin with a big wooden sign out front that said, “Steve’s Coffee Shop.” Virtually everything inside—tables, ceiling, walls—was made from, or covered with, tongue-and-groove planks of knotty pine. Yogi Bear would’ve felt right at home.
The waitress was a grizzled blue hair easily as ancient as my landlady, Mrs. Schmulowitz. She called Streeter, “Matty,” in a raspy voice that bespoke a lifetime of inhaling cigarette smoke. He ordered coffee, biscuits and gravy, with bacon on the side, extra crispy. Then she turned to me with pad and pen poised.
“And for you, sweet cheeks?”
“I’m good with coffee, thanks.”
“You got it, Pontiac.”
Streeter watched her shuffle off toward the kitchen.
“That’s Ruby,” he said. “She used to own the place. Sold it to her stepson a couple of years back. He can be kind of a jerk sometimes, but he cooks the best flapjacks this side of Reno.”
I pressed my fingers to my eyes and rubbed, still trying to wake up.
“Deputy Woo tells me you came up to Tahoe to get married. Congratulations. You must be very excited.”
“You didn’t roust my butt out of bed at zero dark to congratulate me on getting married, Deputy. So why don’t you just spill it.”
“You get right to the point, don’t you?”
“One of my many character flaws.”
Except for two truckers wolfing down sausage and scrambled eggs at the counter, we were the only customers in the place. But that didn’t stop Streeter from glancing nervously over my shoulder, then his, then leaning in closer, to make sure nobody could hear him.
“There’s something real weird going on with that airplane up there,” he said.
“Aside from the mummy in the pilot’s seat and the dead kid, you mean?”
Streeter nodded. He started to say something, then hesitated. “I don’t know if I should tell you this.”
“If you didn’t want to tell me whatever it is you ‘shouldn’t tell me,’ Deputy, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”
He inhaled and let his breath out slowly. The old waitress brought over two coffees in heavy white ceramic mugs.
“Cream’s on the table if you need it, honey.”
Streeter gave her a small smile and waited for her to move off.
“It’s about that airplane,” he said. “What kind did you say it was again?”
“A Twin Beech.”
“A Twin Beech, right.” He ran a palm over his mouth. “I have reason to believe the government’s hiding information on it.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You know that plywood from the crate, the piece that was outside the plane?”
I nodded.
“After you left, I turned it over.” He fished a smartphone out of his jacket pocket, tapped the screen a few times, then handed it to me. “That was on the side that was lying in the snow.”
There was a photo on the phone’s screen, a close-up showing a stencil that had been burned black into the plywood. It read:
SSFL
Property of US Government
Extreme Caution When Handling
“I did some digging,” Streeter said, spooning sugar into his coffee. “SSFL stands for Santa Susana Field Laboratory. It was a federal research facility. They operated in the hills outside Los Angeles, way back in the 1950s. Classified top secret.”
“They designed rocket fuel.”
He looked at me. “You’ve heard of it, then?”
I shrugged.
“Figured you might’ve, considering your background.”
“My background?”
Streeter clearly hadn’t restricted his digging to the Santa Susana lab.
“You were tied up in a homicide investigation a year or so ago, back in Los Angeles County,” he said. “I saw a newspaper story online. It said you and the victim used to work together in the intelligence community. Some big hush-hush assignment. It said you threatened to punch out a reporter who came snooping around, wanting confirmation. That true?”
I sipped my coffee and said nothing.
Streeter half smiled. “That’s what I thought.”
He told me that his forensic investigators could find no wallet on the pilot who’d died at the controls of the Twin Beech. Without an airman’s certificate or driver’s license, there was nothing readily available to identify him. Moreover, the serial number on the .45-caliber pistol stashed in the dead man’s coat pocket had been filed off, rendering the gun all but untraceable.
“But that’s not the weirdest part,” Streeter said.
“And that would be . . . ?”
“The Federal Aviation Administration has a web site.”
“That is pretty weird, considering how Neanderthal the FAA is.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I let him finish.
“The FAA maintains a registry of every plane ever built in the United States. I inputted the tail number to see who owned it and find out when it was reported missing. All I got back was, ‘File access restricted.’ ”
Streeter said he promptly called the FAA’s twenty-four hour operations center in Washington, identified himself as a sworn member of law enforcement, and explained that he was actively investigating a homicide. Whoever he spoke to, he said, told him he’d have to write a formal letter of request for any information and send it by registered mail. The request would be reviewed by staff counsel. He could expect a response in six to eight weeks.
“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 h
ad 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.
