Voodoo Ridge

by David Freed

  “Even if you just need somebody to talk to. I’m serious, Logan. Talking helps. According to Oprah, anyway.”

  “I didn’t know you were an Oprah fan, Buzz.”

  “Who isn’t?”

  He told me all about what Oprah said regarding open and honest communications, how cathartic they can be. I listened, but not very well, thanked him for his support, and signed off. I pulled the covers up around me, not bothering to dress, and slept fitfully until just before dawn. My day, I decided, would be spent hunting. Hunting, like flying, requires complete focus. I liked that. It would take my mind away from my grief.

  The complimentary continental breakfast at the Econo Lodge was the usual assortment of cold cereal, bad Danish, apples so mushy as to be inedible, and coffee so strong, you could refinish furniture with it. I ate quickly, zipped up my jacket, went out to my truck, scraped the frost off the wind-shield with my only credit card, and drove to Gordon Priest’s residence in the dark.

  Priest lived two minutes away in the Skylark Mobile Home and RV Park off Lake Tahoe Boulevard. His weathered, single-wide aluminum trailer, among about a dozen in the “park,” exuded all the charm of a discarded beer can. Across the street was a large thrift shop. I parked in the lot, the rear of my truck facing his trailer, and established an eyes-on surveillance using my mirrors only. At 0750, Priest emerged carrying a small paper sack that I assumed was his lunch and exchanged angry words with a big-boned, bottle blonde in a red kimono robe who followed him out of the trailer, and whom I assumed was his wife. He got into a blue Ford Escort station wagon. I waited while he hooked a U-turn on Lodi Avenue, almost directly in front of me. That was followed by an immediate left onto Lake Tahoe Boulevard.

  I followed him at a prudent distance, motoring north toward the lake.

  He passed a lumberyard, crossed a creek, and made a right turn without signaling into the parking lot of a US Bank branch, while I deviated into the parking lot of the Denny’s across the street so as to avoid suspicion. He withdrew some cash from the ATM and then proceeded to drive to the Iranian-owned Dutch Mart Gas and Grub, where he went inside.

  I parked a block away and waited.

  After ten minutes or so, Priest reemerged, accompanied by Reza Jalali. The two men spoke for a long minute, both occasionally glancing over their shoulders. They shook hands. Then Priest got in his station wagon and drove away. Jalali watched him go.

  Neither man observed me.

  We were headed south. At the intersection of Lake Tahoe Boulevard and Emerald Bay Road, a sign pointed in the direction of the airport, but he continued straight, picking up speed.

  Odd.

  I followed him for another three minutes or so, passing a fire station, the road out of town narrowing to two lanes, before Priest turned right onto a residential street called Stony Mountain Court that ended in a cul-de-sac. As I pulled over and watched, Priest proceeded to the end of the circle, and parked in front of a large, not unattractive custom home, the kind middle-class folks build to convey the sense to their neighbors that they’ve arrived.

  Priest got out of his station wagon and walked up the driveway with his sack lunch. He must’ve been satisfied nobody was following him, because he never looked back.

  As he walked up the driveway toward the front door, it opened. A woman stood inside the doorway, impatiently awaiting his arrival.

  Gordon Priest, it seemed, had a big dark secret.

  TWENTY-ONE

  A sturdy brunette—mid-forties, big shoulders, big breasts, big hips—she stood with her arms sternly crossed just inside her doorway in knee-high leather boots, a leather miniskirt, and matching leather bra. A tattooed astrological sun took up the whole of her belly. In her right hand was a riding crop. In her left was what looked like a spiked dog collar. Gordon Priest tried to kiss her, but she backed away as he entered her house and whipped him once across the butt. He was getting down on all fours when she closed the door.

  The manager of Summit Aviation appeared to be on a close personal basis with Lake Tahoe’s resident dominatrix. Or at least one of them. Given the tongue lashing his wife had delivered to him that morning as he left home, I could more or less understand the appeal.

  I telephoned Summit Aviation and asked Marlene when she expected him in.

  “Probably not ’til late this afternoon,” she said. “He called this morning and said he’d be away at meetings pretty much all day.”

  “The man is obviously dedicated to his work.”

  Marlene seemed anxious to know if I’d had a chance to pass along to the sheriff’s department what she’d confided to me the day before about how Priest had lied regarding his whereabouts the day Chad Lovejoy was murdered, and how his relationship with Lovejoy was strained.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Well, when you do, like I said, just don’t say you heard it from me directly. I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “No worries, Marlene.”

  I got out of my truck, walked up to the house, and put my ear to one of the two frosted glass panels that flanked the ornately carved oak door. From inside, I heard the following exchange between Priest and a woman whom I assumed was the dominatrix I’d seen standing in the doorway:

  “You will lick my boots if I tell you to.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “You will get down on your knees before me if I tell you to. If you don’t do what I tell you quickly enough, you’ll be disciplined. Understood?”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  Crack went the riding crop.

  “Louder.”

  “Yes, mistress!”

  I rang the door bell.

  The house went conspicuously silent.

  I rang again.

  No answer.

  I rang. And kept ringing until the dominatrix came to the door. She was lathered in perspiration, a black leather trench coat hastily thrown over her sadomasochistic accoutrements. Her fingernails were pointy and the color of the devil himself.

  “I’m looking for Gordon Priest.”

  “I don’t know any Gordon Priest.”

  “Tell him it’s Cordell Logan.”

  “I just told you—”

  “Tell him that if he doesn’t come to the door,” I said, pulling out my phone, “I’m calling his wife.”

  Her face softened with resignation. She sighed and yelled over her shoulder.

  “There’s some guy out here. Says his name’s Logan. He’s calling your wife.”

  Priest came sprinting. Imagine a barefoot, disheveled Fred Flintstone wearing a dog collar and a pink terrycloth robe that was ridiculously undersized.

  “Can I help you?” he said sheepishly.

  “We can take this inside,” I said, “or we can stand out here and talk. That way all the neighbors can listen in.”

  Priest gave the lady in leather a look that was both pleading and apologetic.

  “Come on in,” she said. “I’m Mistress Elvira, by the way.”

  “Of course you are.”

  The living room was a testimonial to the American West. Cowhide-covered furniture. A pair of steer horns hanging over the fireplace mantle. Framed lithographs of horse-mounted Native Americans with feathers in their hair.

  “Think I’ll hit the can and let you boys chat,” Elvira said.

  Priest watched her disappear down a hall, her ample hips swaying side to side.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said, looking back at me.

  I shrugged. “Nice collar.”

  He smiled, embarrassed, and took it off.

  “How’d you find me?”

  “Followed you.”

  He nodded, hands stuffed in the pockets of his hastily borrowed robe, staring at the floor.

  “You want a drink or something?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Mind if I do?”

  “It’s a free country.”

  He crossed to a wet bar and poured himself a full tumbler of vodka.

  “Yo
u’re not gonna tell my wife about any of this, are you?”

  “Only if you don’t tell me the truth.”

  “You mean about my nephew, Chad?”

  I said nothing, waiting.

  Another swig of booze, then Priest said, “I was at a meeting in Reno the day he was killed.”

  “There was no meeting that day in Reno.”

  “Of course there was.”

  “You’re lying to me, Gordon.”

  He rubbed his nose with his free hand and folded his arms across his chest defensively, refusing to meet my eyes.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Your body language just told me.”

  Gordon Priest downed the rest of his drink. “OK, look, here’s the deal.” He hesitated, then exhaled. “I was here that day, OK? Most of the day, anyway. But, for god’s sake, if my wife knew . . . She’ll take everything I own. Please. You can’t.”

  “You’ve got proof you were here?”

  “My credit card statement.”

  “Your dominatrix takes MasterCard?”

  “And Visa, and American Express,” Mistress Elvira said, returning from the bathroom and disappearing into the kitchen. “I run a legitimate business. No hanky-panky. I’m getting the yogurt.”

  “OK,” Priest said.

  He told me he didn’t use his personal credit card to charge his sessions with Elvira—nobody, he said, would be that stupid. Rather, he said, the charges posted to his corporate American Express account, the statement of which was mailed each month to his airport office, where his wife wouldn’t see it.

  I asked him about his going to see Reza Jalali at the convenience store that morning.

  “Reza’s a ’Niners fan,” Priest said. “I’m a Raiders fan. The Raiders lost last week and the ’Niners won. I owed him $100. I went to pay him.”

  I didn’t buy it. Murtha, the ex-con, had told me that Chad Lovejoy feared his uncle Gordon was involved in something sketchy with Iranians living in the Tahoe area. Chad was so unnerved, he couldn’t tell Murtha what it was.

  “You’re lying to me again, Gordon,” I said.

  “I swear I’m not.”

  I dug the phone out of my pocket and punched in numbers.

  “What’re you doing?” he said, half-panicked.

  “Calling your wife.”

  “Okay, okay, okay.” Priest ran a hand through his tangled, sweat-soaked hair. “The truth. Just hang up. Please.”

  I hung up. He started walking toward the front door.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “My car,” he said. “Something I need to show you.”

  I followed him down the driveway. Barefoot, Priest navigated the snow-covered concrete gingerly, making little painful noises, like he was walking across hot coals. The station wagon was unlocked. Instinctively, I watched his hands and stayed close behind his right side as he leaned in and reached under the passenger seat with his left hand. If he did pull a gun on me, he’d have to turn awkwardly, drawing the weapon across his body before getting a shot off. I’d take him out long before he got the chance.

  Only it wasn’t a gun Priest was reaching for, as it turned out. It was a sheaf of papers—bills of lading from several foreign shipping companies, each listing replacement parts for Cessna and Piper airplanes.

  “We run a company,” Priest said, “supplying aircraft parts to Iran.”

  “In violation of US trade sanctions against Tehran.”

  “It’s not military parts, nothing like that. They’ve got civilian pilots over there who like to fly small planes, just like we’ve got here. We’re not hurting anybody.”

  “You could go to prison. You know that, right?”

  “All we’re doing is helping keep general aviation alive in a corner of the world that could use a little help, that’s all.”

  I handed him back the papers. “What about nuclear material?”

  He looked at me blankly.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “That Twin Beech we found up in the mountains was hauling enriched uranium.”

  “You think I was trying to export uranium to Iran?” He blanched, pumping his knees to keep his feet from freezing. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. And if I did, I’d be on the phone to the FBI in a New York minute. I’m a proud American. I bleed red, white, and blue, OK? And I didn’t kill my nephew. Or anybody else.”

  Two houses down, across the cul-de-sac, a garage door rolled up and a middle-aged woman in a burgundy tracksuit started to get into her black Mercedes SUV. She spotted Priest and stopped dead in her tracks, mouth agape.

  “I’d say she definitely digs the robe.”

  “You’re not gonna tell my wife about this, are you?”

  “No.”

  “What about the feds?”

  “I’ve got nothing against civilian pilots, in Iran or anywhere else.”

  Priest tilted his head up to the sky and exhaled like a great weight had been lifted from him.

  “Thank you, Jesus.”

  We shook hands. “I’m real sorry again about your lady,” he said. “And I know he and I didn’t always get along, but I’m sorry about what happened to my sister’s kid. I just hope they catch whoever did it before somebody else dies.”

  “Makes two of us.”

  As I watched him hotfoot it back inside, wondering what yogurt had to do with spiked dog collars and riding crops, my phone rang.

  “Hello, bubby. It’s Mrs. Schmulowitz calling.”

  As if I wouldn’t recognize that nasally Brooklyn accent anywhere.

  “It’s not like I’m trying to be a Jewish mother,” she said, “but, let’s face it, I am a Jewish mother. I was just checking in to see how you’re doing. Are you OK? Where are you? When’re you coming home?”

  “I’m fine,” Mrs. Schmulowitz. “I’m still in Tahoe. Not sure when I’m coming back. Soon, I hope.”

  She also said she had news about my cat: he’d tangled with a snake.

  “I’m sitting there yesterday, watching Judge Judy. Next thing I know, that fakakta Kiddiot comes running inside with this big black snake hanging out of his mouth. He crawls under the divan and they’re flopping around under there, the two of them, like it’s the World Wrestling Federation. So I go to the kitchen to get the broom, to get him out of there. By the time I come back, he’s eating the snake.”

  The fact that Kiddiot could catch anything, given his weight and lack of smarts, was surprising. But actually eating a snake? Now, that is truly stunning. The cat wouldn’t eat anything.

  Mrs. Schmulowitz reminded me that the Denver Broncos, my favorite team, were playing on Monday night. She’d be making her usual brisket, whether I was there or not.

  “No pressure,” she said. “Plus I’m thinking about baking a pie.”

  “I don’t recall you ever baking anything, Mrs. Schmulowitz.”

  “Last time I even thought about baking was forty-five years ago. Funny story: my dishwasher breaks, so I call a plumber. What a hunk this guy is! Tightens this, loosens that. Tells me no charge. ‘No charge?’ I tell him. ‘I gotta pay you something.’ So he tells me I can either bake him a cake or have sex with him. My third husband, may he rest in peace, comes home after work that night. I tell him what the plumber said. He’s horrified. ‘So what kind of cake did you bake him?’ he wants to know. I tell him, ‘What do I look like? Betty Crocker?’ ”

  I knew my landlady was only trying to cheer me up. I appreciated her effort. But the last thing I felt like doing was laughing.

  “Was he upset?”

  “Was who upset?”

  “Your third husband.”

  “Was he upset? What’re you, kidding me? The man didn’t talk to me for six months. But what’re you gonna do? You can’t go back, right?”

  Special operators are taught to backtrack when they’re in pursuit of a target and they’ve lost contact. In the haste of the hunt, little things often get missed along the trail. A broken tree branch. An o
verturned stone. Small clues.

  You can’t go back.

  I realized I had to. I needed to double back, up to the mountains, to the crash site where my life had taken a turn toward hell.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Schmulowitz.”

  “For what, bubby?”

  “Being my compass.”

  THE RUTTED logging road upon which I’d driven in with Deputy Woo to rendezvous with the sheriff’s rescue team was now snow-packed and all but impassable. I drove as far as I could, fishtailing and grinding gears, traversing drifts, before getting stuck seemed likely.

  I got out and walked, passing the same small, moss-roofed cabin I’d noticed that morning. The beat-up pickup that I remembered being parked out front was gone.

  Forty-five exhausting, sweat-drenched minutes later, my unwaterproofed hiking shoes and feet cold and wet, I reached the trailhead. Without snowshoes, I knew that the climb up and back would easily take all day. The leg I’d scraped up after falling on my first ascent to the crash site was throbbing. I didn’t care. I was trained to adapt and overcome, “see the hill, take the hill,” no matter the odds.

  Up the trail I climbed.

  No one ever said being mission-oriented was synonymous with being smart.

  I made it about two miles, fighting my way through snow that was at times waist-high.

  Then I fell into the stream.

  Anyone could’ve made the same mistake—losing their footing on slippery rocks and tumbling into icy, chest-high currents. That I did was more annoying initially to me than it was alarming. I slapped the water, angry at myself, waded to shore, and pulled myself out, drenched head to toe. Almost immediately, I began to shiver.

  Shivering is the human body’s first automatic defense against the cold. Shivering causes muscle contractions, which create heat to maintain homeostasis, or a constant internal temperature. I remembered a lesson I’d learned in escape and evasion training my first year at the academy: in water approaching fifty degrees, death can occur within the first hour of immersion. The water I’d fallen into was substantially colder than that.

  My teeth were chattering uncontrollably. In another few minutes, I would begin to lose muscle coordination and have difficulty thinking straight. Drowsy disorientation would set in. I would sit down along the trail and, as they say, that would be that.