by David Freed
Streeter arrived exactly seven minutes later, pulling in behind me. I turned off the engine, stepped out of the Yukon, and got into his Wrangler.
“Got your voice mail,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. Crazy day. We got the preliminary autopsy results back this morning on Chad Lovejoy. Looks like Mr. Lovejoy got tapped with a .40-cal, three rounds. We got some good plaster casts, shoeprints leading away from the plane, before the snow covered them up. Fairly unusual tread design.”
According to Streeter, law enforcement records showed that Chad Lovejoy had done two tours in the less-than-loving embrace of California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He’d logged sixteen months at Chino on an intent-to-distribute cocaine beef, and another year at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison for residential burglary. He was on parole at the time of his murder.
“How does a two-time loser land work at a high-end airport like Tahoe?”
“His uncle’s Gordon Priest,” Streeter said. “Priest is the manager at Summit Aviation Services.”
“I already know that. Did you talk to him yet?”
Streeter shook his head. “We’re still putting a list together. Lovejoy ran with a pretty sketchy crowd, given his arrest record. He had no shortage of ‘friends’ who would’ve slit his throat for a nickel. We’re talking to them first.”
“What about Preston Kavitch. You talk to him yet?”
“Soon as you and I are done here.” The deputy wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “What was so important, you had to talk to me A-SAP?”
Part of me, a big part, wanted to fill him in on the call I’d received from the man calling himself Crocodile Dundee, but I knew doing that would likely doom Savannah. Well-intentioned though they may be, few rural law enforcement agencies have the expertise to bloodlessly resolve real kidnappings. The track record of federal law enforcement isn’t much better, which was why I wasn’t about to fill in the FBI, either, not with the prospect of special agents flooding Lake Tahoe in their raid jackets and black Chevy Suburbans. The German army marching into Paris was only slightly more conspicuous.
“You wanted information on the locked-down FAA file,” I said.
“You got something?”
I filled him in on the downed airplane’s apparent ties to the CIA.
Streeter’s eyes lit up. “The CIA? In El Dorado County? Oh, man, that’s awesome.”
“If it were my investigation,” I said, “the first thing I’d do is try and establish whatever it was that was in that crate. You nail that down, you find out where a thief might fence it. You establish the market, you establish the market’s primary players. Then you start squeezing. Hopefully, they lead you to your killer.”
“Not to pry or anything,” Streeter said, “but you seem pretty familiar with the process.”
I opened the passenger door and got out.
“If I hear anything else, I’ll let you know. Lemme know if Preston says anything worthwhile.”
“I’ll tell you what I can,” Streeter said.
I started back for the Yukon.
“Mr. Logan?”
I turned.
“We’re gonna do our best to find her and bring her back to you safe.”
I tried to thank him or at least smile. It would’ve been the civil thing to do, but I wasn’t feeling all that civil.
A MOTEL room is a motel room. All I really cared about was whether the shower produced hot water and the bed was reasonably free of parasites. The thirty-six dollar a night Econo Lodge on Lake Tahoe Boulevard would more than do until I heard back from Crocodile Dundee.
Savannah would’ve rolled her eyes at the prospect of spending five minutes in such a room, let alone all night. The art that decorated the room—reproductions of badly composed landscapes—would’ve commanded her attention. The paintings were bolted to the walls. Why, she would have wondered aloud, would anyone in their right mind even think about stealing such tacky art? She might’ve made some snide remark about the floral print bedspread, and how humans occasionally have been known to spontaneously combust rubbing up against that much polyester. She would’ve accused me of being tight with a buck for having booked us into such a room, while I, in turn, would’ve accused her of being spoiled by her daddy’s oil money. Then we would’ve thrown the bedspread on the floor and made intense love. Entwined and wholly spent after that, we would’ve pondered our future together and that of our child. All would’ve been perfect in our world. For a while, anyway.
A burning, acidic pain traveled up the back of my throat from somewhere deep beneath my sternum. Standing in the hallway, card key in hand, surveying my new temporary digs, I felt something wet on my cheeks and reached up to wipe it away, surprised by my own tears. The last time I’d cried about anything was, well, I couldn’t remember the last I cried.
I took a shower, toweled off, trimmed my beard, put on clean clothes, rearranged the hangers in the closet, lay down to nap and couldn’t, paced, did push-ups, gazed out at the snow, forced myself to watch television. Anything to stop staring mindlessly at my phone on the bathroom counter where I’d plugged it in to recharge, waiting for it to ring.
A little dog with a high-pitched yap was barking and whining in the room above mine. I turned up the TV. Five minutes of channel surfing produced nothing that held my interest beyond a few seconds of the Ellen DeGeneres Show—and only because it occurred to me how much Ellen resembled Green Bay Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The barking upstairs grew louder, more incessant. I cranked up the volume. Then somebody next door started pounding in protest on the wall. I fantasized about putting my fist through the Sheetrock and teaching whoever was on the other side a lesson in potential life-saving etiquette: never pound on the wall of any motel to complain about the noise because you never know whether it’s harmless, hard-of-hearing gramps on the other side of that wall with Wheel of Fortune turned up too loud, or members of the Manson family. I turned off the TV, grabbed my phone, threw on my jacket, and left.
Walking through the motel’s parking lot toward my car, I looked up and saw the faintest hint of blue sky before the windblown clouds reclaimed their domain. Crocodile Dundee had been right about the forecast; the snow seemed to be letting up somewhat. If all went according to his plan, I’d be airborne in the morning. One step closer to getting Savannah back.
I needed to know as much about him as I could—his motives, his capabilities, everything and anything that might afford me an advantage if and when we crossed swords. Nowhere, it dawned on me as I pondered what limited resources were available to me in snowy South Lake Tahoe, offered more knowledge than a public library. There was a small one just off Lake Tahoe Boulevard, about a mile and a half west of the motel. I’d noticed it while searching for Savannah earlier in the day. I fired up the Yukon and drove over.
LIBRARIANS ARE among the smartest and often least sociable individuals on the planet. Books are their friends; it’s most people they can do without, especially dumb ones. I’d come to that realization the summer between my third and fourth grades in school when I’d been granted a rare day off from farm chores and walked two miles to the local public library, a two-story, turn-of-the-century, red brick fortress that smelled of damp paper.
The librarian, Miss Vanderford, had a long nose and heavy-lidded eyes bunkered behind winged, bejeweled reading glasses. She was ancient. Probably in her forties.
“What’re you looking for?” she asked me, from behind the checkout counter.
“A way out.”
“A way out, huh? Of what? This? Your life?”
I shrugged and stared at the holes in my canvas basketball shoes.
Miss Vanderford walked over with a cigarette dangling from between her lips, and grabbed a novel off the nearest shelf. “You want excitement? A life of grand adventure? Here. Read this.”
She thrust the book in my hand. It was “The Hunters,” a fictional account by author James Salter of his experiences flying F-86 Sabre jets
during the Korean War. I walked back to the farm, found some shade behind the hay baler, and read until the sun went down and there was no more light. All I ever wanted to be after that was a fighter pilot.
The South Lake Tahoe Library, a modern, wood-frame structure of spare, architectural utility, offered no inspirations comparable to those of my youth, but the librarian on duty, a willowy blonde about my age with pleasant green eyes, did offer me a cup of coffee and research assistance.
“I’m interested in finding out as much as I can about a plane crash that occurred outside of town, a long time ago.”
“The one I heard about on the radio this morning?” she asked me.
I nodded.
“You a reporter?”
“I’m a pilot.”
“Just curious about what happened?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“Well, you’re in luck. We got a call this morning from one of the TV stations in Reno. They’re also curious about that airplane. I’ve already started doing some research for them.”
I followed her to the back of the library. She turned toward me as we walked and extended her hand.
“I’m Constance, by the way.”
“Cordell Logan.”
We shook hands.
“Haven’t seen you in here before.” She gave me a shy smile. “I think I would’ve remembered.”
“My first visit.”
“Really? Well, I hope it won’t be your last.”
She asked me if I’d come to Lake Tahoe to ski. I told her no. She told me she used to ski, before her divorce, but banged up her knee.
“My kids snowboard,” Constance said. “They’re always trying to get me to try it. They say it’s healthier on the joints.”
“Not snowboarding would probably be even healthier.”
She smiled, guiding me to a long wooden table with an old, box-shaped microfilm reader resting atop it.
“Well, anyway, I went through every copy of the paper from October 1956. Don’t know if it’s related to that airplane they found or not, but I found this story very curious.”
On the machine’s illuminated screen was a front page, photocopied, from the October 25, 1956, edition of the Reno Gazette-Journal. At the bottom of the page, below an Associated Press story headlined, “Hungarian Students Rise Up Against Russkies,” was another, much shorter wire-service dispatch that ran under the headline:
LOUD BOOM HEARD
Lake Tahoe (AP)—El Dorado County sheriff’s officials were investigating reports of a loud explosion heard early Wednesday morning in the remote, mountainous area known as Voodoo Ridge, about 10 miles west of Lake Tahoe’s south end.
A handful of area residents reported hearing a thunderous “boom” shortly after midnight. Authorities were exploring the possibility that an airplane may have crashed. However, no missing aircraft were reported. A sheriff’s official said a team would be sent to search the area as soon as weather conditions improve. A storm has blanketed the Sierra this week with nearly two feet of snow.
“I went through every copy of the newspaper for a month after that,” Constance the librarian said, “but I couldn’t find anything more about it. I will say, though, the area described in this article is the same area where they supposedly found that airplane yesterday.”
Waiting at the checkout counter with a stack of books, a stooped old man with a cane and a black beret coughed to get her attention.
“Duty calls,” Constance said apologetically. “Excuse me.”
I sat down at the table and reread the story on the microfilm machine. It offered nothing by way of actionable intelligence: residents had heard what may or may not have been a plane crash; there was no apparent attempt on the newspaper’s part to follow up.
So much for that.
Frankly speaking, the story about the Hungarian uprising that appeared on the same page made for far better reading. We studied the revolt in great detail at the academy, how even though the revolt failed, it came to play a major role decades later in the eventual downfall of the Soviet Union.
The article continued inside the newspaper. I hand-cranked the microfilm, advancing the pages, intending to finish the article. I never got that far.
On the jump page was a list of five, one-paragraph news briefs, each with its own headline, all under a larger headline, “News of the West.” The first brief described the winning entry in an Idaho potato-growing contest, the second detailed how officials were assessing small cracks in the Hoover Dam. It was the third story that caused me to sit up straighter in my chair:
AIRPORT GUARD KILLED
Santa Paula, Calif. (AP)—Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying the killer of an airport watchman shot to death Tuesday night in this small citrus farming community, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The suspect is believed to have escaped in a two-engine Beechcraft, Model 18 airplane.
TEN
A security guard is shot to death in Southern California. The suspect flies off in a Twin Beech. Hours later, residents in a remote and mountainous area of California hear an explosion amid a raging snowstorm that they speculate might’ve been an airplane crashing. More than a half century later, a Twin Beech is found in the same area with a long-dead pilot behind the controls, and with its mysterious cargo recently gone missing. I was no bookie, but the odds told me that it had to be the same airplane.
“Leaving so soon?” Constance said from behind the checkout counter as I headed for the library’s front door.
“Got what I needed. Thanks for the help.”
“My pleasure.” Her smile was one part professional and about three parts lonely.
The storm had let up. Wisps of low-lying stratus clouds retreated to the east, revealing a sunlit, cerulean blue sky so bright it hurt to look at it. The air was cold and felt good down deep in my chest. For an instant, my mind was transported to the frigid Koh-e Baba mountains of the Hindu Kush, where years before the cold had helped wipe from my brain the nauseating bouquet of blood, gastric acid, and partially digested sheep mutton, spilled by the terrorist whose intestines I’d just splattered all over the snow.
I dialed Streeter outside the library and told him what I’d learned about the airplane I’d found, how it may have been involved in a murder in Santa Paula back in 1956. He was stoked.
“If the homicide was never solved, they’ll still have a case file down there.”
“No statute of limitations on homicide,” I said.
“Did the article say whether they ever made any arrests?”
“All I know is what I just told you.”
“I’ll check it out. Thanks for the tip.”
“You talk to Preston Kavitch yet?”
“Finished up with him about ten minutes ago,” Streeter said. “He’s clean.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“He’s on probation. Wears an ankle monitor. The GPS shows he hasn’t left the house all day.”
Was Preston Kavitch Crocodile Dundee? I doubted it. Their voices were substantially different. Plus, Preston appeared incapable of tying his own shoelaces, let alone concocting a credible foreign accent and pulling off a major crime like kidnapping. But who’s to say he wasn’t working with somebody? I ran the theory past Streeter that Savannah could’ve entered the house, perhaps to grab a cup of coffee while awaiting my return, and run into Preston, who’d then restrained her until his coconspirator arrived.
“I searched the house top to bottom, the surrounding bungalows, and the grounds, and I didn’t see anything that jumped out at me,” Streeter said. “But I’ll go back and do it again, if it’ll make you happy.”
“Do that. Do something.”
“I understand you’re anxious, Mr. Logan. I’d be, too. We’re doing the best we can.”
I asked him if he knew whether Preston Kavitch had any ties to Australia.
“Australia?”
“Has he ever been there? Does he hang out with anybody from Aust
ralia? Do you know anybody locally who’s from there?”
There was a pause over the phone. “Why would you want to know that?”
I knew I was taking a risk. If Dundee found out that I was asking law enforcement such questions, he might well respond violently against Savannah, as he’d threatened to do. On the other hand, I wasn’t about to sit idly by and simply hope the sheriff’s department did its job.
“I’ll explain later,” I said.
“If you have information relevant to this investigation, Mr. Logan, I’d strongly urge you to share it. Withholding evidence in a homicide is against the law.”
“Duly noted. Are you going to answer my question or not?”
He didn’t answer right away, mulling his response. Then he said, “Because you helped us locate a missing airplane, and because you’ve been of more than a little assistance in this investigation, I feel obliged to reciprocate—to the extent department policy allows me.”
I waited.
“I don’t know anybody personally from Australia who lives in El Dorado County,” Streeter said. “That’s not to say they don’t exist. I just don’t know them.”
The only local Australian connection the deputy could think of—and it was a stretch to even call it a connection—was a local kennel club that raised and showed Australian shepherds.
“Great dogs, but they’re not even from Australia,” Streeter said. “I grew up with one. They’re from the Basque region of Spain originally. But, whatever. If you want to know if Preston has any connections to Australia, I’ll ask him.”
“I’d appreciate you holding off on that for the time being.”
“But I thought you just said—”
“I know what I said, Deputy. I have my reasons. I’ll explain them when the time’s right.”
Streeter to his credit didn’t push it. We hung up on amicable terms, each promising to keep in touch. I unlocked the Yukon and got in. I was sliding the key into the ignition when I remembered:
Out at the airport, Lovejoy’s uncle, Gordon Priest, the manager of Summit Aviation Services, had walked in while I was first pointing out on the map to Deputy Woo where I’d spotted the wrecked Twin Beech. Priest had tossed a bag from McDonald’s on the table, along with a keychain. There was a little metal dog attached to the chain. It was an Australian shepherd.
