Voodoo Ridge

by David Freed

  “Tire tracks from both scenes also matched,” Streeter said.

  “What size were the tires?”

  “I couldn’t tell you offhand. The measurements are in my file. Big tires. Like on a pickup.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing that comes to mind.”

  “No arrests anytime soon.”

  Streeter hesitated. “Probably not,” he said.

  A good minute went by without either of us saying anything. Streeter sipped his coffee and methodically surveyed other diners, his eyes going instinctively to the bulges under their shirts and at their ankles where they might be concealing weapons. He was, I decided, a decent, if inexperienced, investigator merely out of his league.

  I pulled a ten dollar bill from my wallet, laid it on the table, and angled for the door.

  “I’m warning you, Mr. Logan, please don’t interfere with an active ongoing police investigation.”

  “ ‘Active.’ Is that what you call it?”

  I was out the door before he could respond.

  The chill mountain air smelled of burning wood. A gray-brown smudge from hundreds of fireplaces clung to the tops of the pines. I sat in my truck. Maybe Streeter was right about Preston Kavitch. You learn while tracking terrorists that it’s easy to become myopic. You convince yourself that that unconfirmed shred of a lead from some illiterate goat herder is true because you want to believe it’s true. Soon enough, you’re racing down camel tracks in Somalia, ignoring intelligence assessments that say the killers are in Spain. Then, a bomb goes off on a commuter train in Madrid, killing and maiming dozens, and you spend what years you have left haunted by your own intractability.

  Lesson learned.

  My phone rang. It was Marlene, the receptionist at Summit Aviation. She was crying.

  “I read in the paper they found her body. I’m just so very sorry. I can’t stop thinking about it.” She cleared her throat. Then she said, “There’s something I need to get off my chest.”

  “What’s that, Marlene?”

  “I wasn’t exactly being truthful with you.”

  “About what?”

  She hesitated. “You remember when you found Chad up near that plane?”

  “Hard day to forget.”

  “Well, Gordon, he was . . .” She broke down, sobbing like she was in pain.

  “Gordon was what, Marlene?”

  “I’d prefer not to discuss it over the phone.” She lowered her voice as though concerned she might be overheard—I assumed by Priest—and asked to meet in person.

  “I’m here in Lake Tahoe. We can meet wherever you want.”

  She told me she was waiting for a callback from her husband—they’d quarreled that morning again over what she said were “money issues,” and he’d stormed out of the house. She was hoping to hear back from him shortly and could meet me in thirty minutes.

  “There’s a grocery store on Lincoln Avenue, just south of Apache.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  My old Tacoma didn’t want to start. I cranked the ignition for a solid five seconds before the engine finally caught, then turned southbound on Emerald Bay Road, while a solid stream of cars and trucks bearing skis and snowboards inched along in the opposite direction toward the slopes at Heavenly.

  I glanced up in my rearview mirror and realized I was being followed.

  TWENTY

  Most rolling surveillances are intended to be clandestine. The best ones involve multiple vehicles rotated in and out of the point position, such that the person being tailed never sees the same car very long.

  This was not one of those surveillances.

  This one was meant to intimidate.

  A black Pontiac Trans Am circa 1977 with tinted windows quickly closed the gap. We drove that way for more than a mile, me doing the speed limit, him drafting my back bumper the way it’s done at Daytona. A prudent driver might’ve put on his turn signal and pulled to the shoulder of the road to let the other driver pass and avoid a confrontation. Unfortunately, I’ve never been very adept at prudence.

  I jammed on my brakes and he slammed into me. I cut the Tacoma’s steering wheel right, then, hard left, locking my rear bumper to his front spoiler. With his muscle car stuck to my less-than-muscular truck, he had no choice but to follow me as I pulled over. My intent was to introduce myself to the Pontiac’s driver by way of my fists to his face, before inquiring as to what he was doing, following me so closely. But it never got that far.

  Deputy Woo threw open the Pontiac’s driver-side door and took cover behind it with his pistol leveled at me through the open window.

  I raised my palms to show him I was unarmed. “Burt Reynolds just called. The Bandit wants his ride back.”

  “Why’d you brake on me like that?” Woo demanded.

  “Why were you following me like that?”

  “To make sure you don’t do something stupid.” He holstered his weapon, closed his door, and walked forward to survey the damage. “Streeter texted me. He wants to make sure you stay out of trouble and stay out of the way as long as you’re up here.”

  Cars speeded past in both directions without stopping.

  “Sweet maneuver,” Woo said, inspecting the damage. “Where’d you learn to drive like that?”

  “My previous employer. We learned all sorts of fun stuff.”

  He asked me where I was going. I told him it was none of his business.

  “I could make it my business,” Woo said.

  “If you want to arrest me, arrest me. My first call won’t be to an attorney. It’ll be to the local newspaper, to tell them in intricate detail how the local sheriff’s department is incapable of making the slightest progress on a double homicide, and how the murderer is still out there, roaming free, capable of killing again at any time.”

  Woo studied me, his face expressionless, trying to gauge the sincerity of my threat. Then he stared down at our two bumper-locked vehicles.

  “How do we get unstuck?”

  “Easy. I’ll show you.”

  Back behind the wheel, I fired up the engine and shifted into gear. When I gave it the gas, my truck pulled forward—ripping away the entire front spoiler assembly of Woo’s Trans Am, while he stood there watching, wearing the same impenetrable expression.

  I got out with the engine running and walked back to take a look.

  “They don’t make ’em like they used to,” I said.

  Woo didn’t say anything.

  LIRA’S SUPERMARKET off Apache Avenue was no Safeway, but it was clean and well-organized. I ordered chicken tenders from the deli counter and ate them outside while waiting for Marlene to arrive from Summit Aviation. I wasn’t really hungry, but I ate anyway. Chicken was protein. I needed protein to remain mission-focused. I wondered what part of the chicken a “tender” was and tried to block Savannah from my mind, the way her body looked in that ditch.

  Marlene arrived within five minutes of the appointed time, driving a faded green Honda Civic with rusted sidewalls and a crumpled right front fender. She got out and looked around with noticeable trepidation, as if she, too, had been followed. From everything I could see, it appeared she hadn’t.

  “You doing OK?”

  “Not really,” Marlene said. “My husband’s behaving a little crazy.”

  “Want a chicken tender?”

  She shook her head no and glanced over her shoulder. Her face was flush. Her hand trembled when she ran it across her mouth.

  “Can we go inside? I’d rather not be seen out here.”

  “Sure.”

  I followed her inside the supermarket. We stood in the bread aisle. There was bruising under her right eye. She’d tried to hide it with makeup, but you could’ve spotted it with a satellite.

  “Does your husband hit you, Marlene?” I said gesturing toward her cheek.

  “You mean this?” She blushed, embarrassed, and averted her eyes. “No. Of course not. I slipped on some ice, that’s all.”

&nbs
p; “Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

  “Look, I didn’t come here to talk to you about my husband, or being a klutz, OK? I came to tell you about Gordon, my boss.”

  “What about him?”

  “He wasn’t telling the truth.” Again, Marlene looked nervously over her shoulder. “You know how I told you he was at some big FAA meeting in Reno the day Chad died?”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, he wasn’t. Some guy from the FAA called, wanting operational stats from last month, takeoffs and landings, that sort of stuff. I told him Gordon took those stats with him when he went to the meeting in Reno. The FAA guy tells me, ‘What meeting? That meeting got canceled.’ ”

  “You’re saying Gordon wasn’t in Reno that day?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know.” She bit a fingernail. “I lied to you about something else, too.”

  I waited.

  “You know how I told you Gordon and Chad were like two peas in a pod?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, they weren’t. Gordon hated Chad. Hated the way his sister made him hire him, hated him for who he was, the ex-con. He was always riding Chad, calling him lazy, a good-for-nothing criminal, how it was such a big waste, having to pay him even minimum wage.”

  “Why would you lie to me about something like that?”

  “Gordon’s my boss. I was just trying to be loyal, I guess.”

  “How did Chad react to all of that, when Gordon rode him?”

  “Chad? All he tried to do was make Gordon happy. If what they said in the paper was true, that Chad went up to that plane to steal stuff, I could definitely see him asking Gordon to go with him, to try and please Gordon, because Gordon, he’d be all over something like that, knowing Gordon. He’s definitely into making a fast buck if he can. And he’s not beyond breaking the law to do it, either.”

  I asked her if she was aware of any business dealings Gordon Priest might’ve had with any newcomers living in the Lake Tahoe area. She started to say that she didn’t know, then abruptly reversed herself.

  “He gets a lot of calls from this one guy, now that I think of it.” Again, Marlene glanced over her shoulder. “Talk about a crazy accent. I can barely understand the guy. Gordon always shuts his office door whenever he calls. He won’t ever tell me his name. He just tells me to tell Gordon that it’s his ‘friend’ calling.”

  “What kind of accent?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. Arab, maybe. I don’t really know. Foreign. That’s all I know.”

  “Iranian?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you told the sheriff’s department all this?”

  “I was kind of hoping you might be able to tell them for me.”

  Marlene said she was afraid that if Priest found out she’d informed on him, she’d lose her job. Better that investigators find out about him from someone else, she said. Then, if they wanted, they could come to her for confirmation.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

  She checked her wristwatch. “I better be getting back. Got a flight landing in about ten minutes.” Then she looked up at me, her eyes pooling. “Her father’s flying in to take your lady back to Las Vegas.”

  PRIVATE JETS don’t interest me. They never have. I’ll never be able to afford one, not in this life, which is why they all essentially look the same to me. But I easily recognized Gil Carlisle’s airplane as it touched down. The gleaming white Dassault Falcon flaunted the Carlisle family coat of arms on its vertical stabilizer—a black knight’s helmet above a yellow medieval shield embossed with a red cross. You’ve gotta have some major cojones to flaunt that much unvarnished ego.

  I got out of my truck and leaned against a low chain-link fence as the jet swung smartly off the runway, taxiing to a stop in front of Summit Aviation Services. The door folded open and my former father-in-law, Gil Carlisle, bounded down the stairs, followed by his legal advisor, Miles Zambelli, both striding toward me.

  “What are you doing here, Logan?” Carlisle said. He was wearing python-skin cowboy boots, a tan felt Stetson, carefully creased old-guy jeans, a white turtle neck and shearling coat. He looked like a bloated Marlboro Man.

  “I came to say good-bye to your daughter.”

  “Haven’t you done enough damage already?”

  “I didn’t kill Savannah, Gil.”

  “I have something for you,” the smug, Harvard-educated Zambelli said. He dug into his stylishly distressed, $700 leather shoulder bag and removed an official-looking sheet of paper. “It’s a restraining order, signed by the honorable Ronald Jablonsky of Clark County, Nevada. You can read it later.”

  He thrust the paper at me across the fence.

  “Restraining me from what?”

  “From participating in any funereal arrangements, or attending any graveside, chapel, or any other memorial service held in conjunction with the demise of Ms. Savannah Carlisle.”

  I wadded the paper and tossed it in his face.

  “That’s battery,” Zambelli said, pointing an accusatory finger at me.

  “Bullshit is more like it.”

  He picked up the crumpled restraining order, slipped it back in his man purse, and said, “You’ve been duly warned.”

  My issues with Zambelli were long-standing. He’d taken advantage of Savannah, enjoying a one-night stand with her after we’d divorced, for which her father apparently had forgiven him. I wasn’t nearly so benevolent, but I knew that my impulse to forcibly remove the carotid artery from Zambelli’s neck was nothing more than misdirected wrath. My fight was not with him or my former father-in-law. It was with Crocodile Dundee, the man who’d murdered Savannah.

  “You have to leave,” Carlisle said. “Now.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “We’re not in Texas, Gil, and I’m not your son-in-law anymore. So I think I’ll stay right here for the time being if it’s all the same to you.”

  His face was turning red. “I can have you arrested.”

  “I don’t think you can, actually.”

  A rolling, chain-driven security gate clanked open about thirty meters to my left, and a black hearse drove slowly onto the tarmac toward Carlisle’s jet. He and Zambelli turned to watch it. The breath caught in my throat.

  Marlene emerged from the offices of Summit Aviation and began walking toward the airplane, followed moments later by her boss, Gordon Priest.

  It was time, I decided, to have a little chat with him.

  I hopped the fence.

  “Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Carlisle yelled after me. “Logan!”

  The hearse backed up to the jet. Two mortuary employees got out dressed in black. I ignored them, as I did Carlisle and Zambelli, hustling to catch up with me. Priest must’ve sensed me sprinting toward him from behind because he turned when he saw me and stopped in midstride.

  “Mr. Logan,” Marlene said with feigned surprise, like we hadn’t spoken minutes earlier at the grocery store down the road.

  I ignored her as well and focused on Gordon Priest.

  “Did you have anything to do with this?”

  His mouth was parted slightly, his eyes shifty, unwilling to meet my own. A muscle above his left cheekbone twitched. The fear in his lumpy face was unmistakable.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  I glanced briefly at the mortuary workers as they removed Savannah’s casket from the hearse, an inexpensive metal box that I knew Carlisle would exchange as soon as he got home for a far gaudier one befitting his obscene wealth and taste for the ostentatious. Had Savannah wanted to be buried in grand style or cremated? To my recollection, we’d never even talked about it. The lump in my throat felt as big as a baseball.

  With Zambelli in trail, Carlisle came trotting up, out of breath.

  “Who are you?” he demanded to know of Priest.

&n
bsp; Priest told him.

  “This is my personal attorney,” Carlisle said, pointing at Zambelli, “and I guarantee you, he will sue your ass off and you will lose a shitload of money unless you have this ‘gentleman,’ and I use the term loosely,”—referring to me—“removed from the grounds of this airport forthwith.”

  Priest ignored him and told me, adamantly, that he’d had absolutely nothing to do with Savannah’s death or that of his nephew. He said he was only too happy to cooperate with sheriff’s investigators. I looked over at Marlene. She was staring nervously at the ground.

  “I’m a law-abiding citizen,” Priest said. “I’ve never even had so much as a parking ticket.”

  He was, I decided, one of those guys who looked guilty. He definitely bore further scrutiny.

  Zambelli was yelling at him to call the authorities, demanding that I be arrested for violating his restraining order. I wanted to deck him but I knew that I couldn’t. I wanted to watch the men in black load Savannah aboard that jet, in her metal box, but I knew I couldn’t do that, either, not without giving my former father-in-law the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

  I turned and walked away.

  Carlisle’s jet wasn’t on the ground long. Twenty minutes, if that. It taxied to the south end of the field, passing me as I sat in my truck, then thundered into the crystalline blue, banking over the lake, departing the pattern to the east. I watched until it was no longer in sight.

  So long, love. Blue skies.

  A bitter burning taste filled my mouth. I couldn’t decide if it was rage or my heart breaking.

  BUZZ, MY old Alpha buddy back East, had somehow already heard about what had happened to Savannah when I called him that night from my room at the Econo Lodge. How he knew, I have no idea, but he did. I told him I needed Gordon Priest’s home address. He didn’t give me any grief about it.

  “We’ve been through a lot together, Logan, you and me. You need me to help you put the goddamn son of a bitch who did this out of his misery, I can be on the first plane out of Dulles and out there first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll keep you in mind.”