by David Freed
“Well, maybe if you did, you’d understand better. It’s not that I don’t want to help you. It’s just that we can’t. My son should’ve never talked to you to begin with. Now, please, go away. Leave us alone.”
“But why can’t I give it to him, Dad?”
“Get in the damn house, Billy.”
The kid rolled his eyes and reluctantly headed for the house.
“Before you go, Billy,” I said, more to his father than anyone else, “you might want to consider your options. You can give me that plate number, and I’ll give you my word that I won’t tell another soul where I got it. Or you can call the sheriff’s department and tell them yourself. If you don’t tell them, I’ll tell them we had this talk, and they’ll arrest you for withholding evidence. And, if you do tell them, they’ll put it in their official file, where they got the number. When they arrest that dude with the van, it’ll all come out in open court, how the cops came to find him. And when the dude gets out of prison early—and everybody in California gets out of prison early—I guarantee, he’ll come looking for you.”
His father stood there in silence, blinking at me, unsure what to do, then at his son.
“Please, Dad.”
His father hung his head and nodded, then went back inside. Billy seemed almost relieved to give me the plate number, proud of himself for remembering it. I asked him if he remembered seeing any signs or stickers on the van when he was in Truckee, anything that might provide me a better notion of who drove it.
He said he didn’t.
Could he offer any more specific details about the owner himself?
“He was pretty big,” Billy said after thinking about it for a few seconds.
“You mean heavy?”
“More like, you know, tall.”
“How tall?”
“About your height. Maybe an inch more. Or two. Something like that.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
Billy looked down at his red Chuck Taylors and thought hard.
“Not really,” he said after awhile.
“You did good, Billy.”
He smiled shyly. We shook hands.
The sun was setting. The air was chilled. I zipped up my jacket and watched Billy head inside, then called Buzz. It was pushing 2100 hours on the East Coast. The phone rang four times before his machine picked up, with a personal greeting from the man himself:
“I’m trying to avoid somebody I dislike,” Buzz’s voice said. “Leave a message. If I don’t call you back, you’ll know it’s you.”
Beep.
I left the license plate number Billy had given me and asked Buzz to run it.
MY WALLET held less than twenty dollars in cash. I was $105.43 short of maxing out the credit limit on my Visa card, according to the pleasant-sounding young Indian woman on the other end of the 1-800 customer service number printed on the back. She said her name was “Kimberly.”
“How may I assist you today, Mr. Logan?”
I kicked off my soggy hiking shoes and lay back on my bed at the Econo Lodge. I had enough credit for one more night’s lodging, and barely enough for gas to get home. Unless Mumbai saw fit to up my limit, I’d have no choice but to leave Lake Tahoe in the morning, surrendering any hope of finding Savannah’s killer on my own anytime soon, if ever.
“You can start off by telling me your real name,” I said. “Not the anglicized version you give out so that geocentric Americans won’t be quite so intimidated talking to a non-American. I like to know who I’m really talking to.”
A long pause.
“I am called Nirupama.”
“Pretty name.”
“Thank you. How can I be of service, Mr. Logan?”
“I need you to raise my credit limit, Nirupama.”
“I understand you would like your credit limit raised on this account. Is this correct?”
“Yes.”
Another long pause. She was no doubt on the computer, studying my sketchy payment record—or, perhaps more accurately, nonpayment record.
“I’m sure we can accommodate your request in some fashion. May I kindly place you on brief hold while I consult my supervisor?”
“Sure.”
Elevator music ensued. It soothed my brain. How long I was on hold or when Nirupama hung up on me, I couldn’t say, because I fell asleep. When I awoke, I was on my stomach and my phone was ringing on the carpeted floor. Daylight was sneaking in through the curtains. Morning already.
“This is Logan.”
“This plate number you left on my machine, is this the booger eater who did your lady?” Buzz asked, his voice faint and static-charged from 3,000 miles away.
“Possibly.”
“Well, if it is, save a piece of him for me, will ya?”
“Roger that.”
“You ready to copy?”
“Go.”
Willing my eyes to focus, I grabbed an Econo Lodge pen off the nightstand and a slip of paper from a wafer-thin, motel-provided notepad.
Buzz had tapped into California Department of Motor Vehicle files. Had he violated privacy laws in doing so? Most certainly. But it wasn’t like I was Al-Qaeda. A covert operator had shown his former covert operator friend a little love. Happens all the time.
The plate linked to a green 2003 Chevy Astro Cargo Van and was registered to a Nevada corporation—Patriot Flow Professionals, LLC. The company showed a corporate address in Reno, about an hour and a half away, depending on how snowy the roads were.
“And I already know what your next question is,” Buzz said.
“What is Patriot Flow Professionals?”
“Like I said, I’m one step ahead of you.”
Buzz had pulled up Nevada Secretary of State corporate records. Under “type of business,” Patriot Flow was described simply as a “wholesaler.” The company’s registered agent was identified as D. B. Anderson. He or she also was listed as the company’s president, secretary, and treasurer.
“You’re wondering who D. B. Anderson is,” Buzz said, “and that’s where I can’t help you.”
The name, Buzz said, was too common to research without extraneous effort. I never would have asked him to put in that kind of labor in my behalf, given the pressures of his seventy-hour workweek, saving the free world as a counterterrorism analyst.
“That’s one Pavarotti CD I owe you anyway,” I said.
“We’ll call this one even. Good hunting, Logan. You lemme know if you need any backup, you hear?”
“You’re a man among man, Buzz.”
“That’s what I keep telling my wife.”
I showered quickly, packed, slurped down a bowl of Cheerios in the dining area adjacent to the motel’s lobby, left my plastic room key on the front counter, and headed north to Reno.
THE CORPORATE headquarters of Patriot Flow Professionals was situated on the edge of a complex of prefabricated concrete warehouses hunkered north of Interstate 80 on the west side of the “Biggest Little City in the World,” as Reno likes to call itself. There wasn’t a green Chevy van in sight. I got out of my truck and walked to the office door of the warehouse that corresponded to the address Buzz had given me. On the door’s glass insert, I could see the faint outline of stenciled letters, scraped clean: atr ot low Pr f n ls.
I peered through the window. The office was empty. Random pipe fittings, brass and PVC, alongside an unrolled string of plumber’s Teflon tape, littered the floor.
In the glass, I saw the reflection of a uniformed security guard striding toward me.
“Can I help you, sir?”
He was clean cut and buttoned-down, mid-twenties, five foot ten, 160 give or take a few pounds, with a pimpled complexion, mirrored aviator shades, and an all-business attitude. Riding his waist was a black leather duty belt that held handcuffs, a walkie-talkie, and Mace spray, but no pistol.
“I’m looking for Patriot Flow Professionals.”
“May I ask why?”
“It involves a crim
inal investigation.”
“Are you a detective?”
“Do I look like a detective to you?”
“Yeah, you do, actually.”
“So, what can you tell me about Patriot Flow Professionals?”
“They took off, about two weeks ago.”
The guard told me that the company owed several months’ back rent. They’d stripped the office bare and skipped out in the middle of the night.
“Do you remember any of the employees, what they looked like?”
“Only one I can think of was this one guy. Sort of waved when he’d see me.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall, white. I didn’t see him up close. I just started a month ago.”
“Any idea where they might’ve moved to?”
“Personally, I don’t. But somebody else might.” He unholstered his walkie-talkie, held it to his lips, and pressed the transmit button. “Unit One, base.”
“Base, go ahead,” a female voice said over the radio. She sounded young and bored.
“Yeah, Lisa, I’ve got a gentleman here, he wants to know if we’ve got a current ten-twenty on Patriot Flow Professionals.”
“He probably owes him money too,” Lisa said, chuckling.
“He may be wanted for questioning in a double murder in Lake Tahoe,” I said.
The guard peeled off his sunglasses. “Are you kidding?”
I shook my head no.
He held the walkie-talkie to his lips and pressed the transmit button again. “He says the dude is wanted for murder.”
“Really?” the dispatcher said.
“That’s what he says.”
“OK, stand by one.”
Cars and semitrucks rolled past on the interstate, a quarter mile away. Overhead, a hawk circled, trying to ignore the crows that were harassing him. We waited.
His walkie-talkie crackled to life.
“Dispatch, unit one.”
“This is unit one,” he said.
“Yeah, Ryan, the only thing anybody around here knows,” the dispatcher said over the radio, “is that Patriot Flow might’ve moved to the Tahoe area. Clarice in billing thinks the CEO was from somewhere around down there.”
“Copy that.”
He volunteered that he was waiting to get into the Reno police academy and asked me what department I was with.
“None.”
Ryan looked dismayed. “You told me you were a cop.”
“On the contrary, Ryan. You said I was a cop. Do me a favor. Ask if she’s got an address in Tahoe.”
“I would if you were a cop.”
“Look, I’m pretty certain this guy murdered my wife.”
Ryan searched my eyes and saw my pain. Slowly, he brought the walkie-talkie to his lips and keyed the transmit button.
“Lisa, any chance we got an address in Tahoe?”
“Stand by.”
“How’d he kill her, you don’t mind me asking?”
“Strangled her.”
“That bites.”
“You have no idea.”
“Dispatch, unit one.”
“Go ahead, Lisa.”
“Yeah, Ryan, Clarice doesn’t have a specific address or anything. But she says the skip tracer thinks it’s on Airport Road.”
Airport Road. Where Summit Aviation Services was located. Where ex-con Chad Lovejoy labored for his shady uncle, Gordon Priest, before being shot dead beside the ghost of an airplane in the snowy mountains of the Sierra Nevada.
TWENTY-FOUR
Some say the drive between Reno and Lake Tahoe is among the prettiest in the country. Bald eagles. Gurgling, unspoiled streams. Verdant mountains majesty. All of that nature stuff at every turn of the gently winding, perfectly maintained road. I was too focused and too much in a hurry to play tourist. I needed to get back to Lake Tahoe, find Gordon Priest, and extract the truth from him by whatever means necessary.
Buddhists consider impatience and anger to be poisons that cloud sound judgment. I won’t deny that I was well beyond both. The baser parts of my brain were running the show, the “fight or flee” parts, and I wasn’t about to flee. Should I have contacted Deputy Streeter to tell him what I’d learned in Reno, then backed off and let law enforcement do its job? A prudent man would’ve done exactly that. But prudence was the last thing on my mind. I craved revenge, cold and sweet, and I needed it right then, more than anything I’d ever needed in my life.
What is normally a ninety-minute drive took me less than half that.
I stormed into Summit Aviation Services. Priest’s office was dark, the door closed. Marlene was sitting at her receptionist’s desk, eating a cookie.
“Where is he?”
She turned toward me, a little flustered, breaking off the friendly conversation she was having with two clear-eyed, clean-shaven young men garbed in charter pilot uniforms—black pants, white, short sleeve shirts, with captain and first-officer bars on their epaulettes. I could see their gleaming executive jet parked on the ramp outside.
“I’m sorry?” Marlene said.
“Your boss. Where is he?”
“He’s at a meeting.”
I came around the counter and planted my palms on her desk, invading her personal space.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
“Does he own a green van?”
“A green van? Not that I know of. Why are you so upset?”
“What is Patriot Flow Professionals?”
Marlene sat back in her chair, breaking eye contact, looking away, pretending to shuffle papers. “I have no idea.”
“I think you do. I think it’s that business he runs on the side, smuggling airplane parts to Iran. Isn’t it?”
“I don’t like the way you’re behaving, Mr. Logan.”
“Why are you covering for him?”
“I’m not.”
“I want the truth, Marlene, and I want it now.”
One of the pilots, thin-shouldered with long sideburns, walked around the counter and put his hand on my shoulder, trying to look tough.
“You heard the lady,” he said. “You’re scaring her. Why don’t you take a deep breath and try to chill out a little bit?”
I looked over at his hand, then into his eyes. What he saw in my own eyes caused his Adam’s apple to bob up and down as he swallowed fearfully. He backed off without me having to say a word.
I turned and walked out.
GORDON PRIEST’S dominatrix was wearing a white lab coat with her name stitched in cursive, followed by the initials, “M.D.,” and, below that, “Internal Medicine.”
“Not you again,” she said, pursing her lips, standing inside her front door.
“Is he here?”
“If he was, do you really think I’d be dressed like this?”
“Are you really a doctor?”
She tilted her head and fired a condescending smirk.
“Board certified.”
“If you see him, tell him I’m looking for him. It’s important.”
“Will do. Listen, if you’re ever inclined to expand your horizons . . .” She reached into the pocket of her lab coat and handed me a business card. “We could have a ton of fun.”
The card featured a bullwhip coiled around an abstract rendition of what I assumed was the male reproductive organ.
“Doubtful,” I said, “but thanks.”
I drove to the Skylark Mobile Home and RV Park, pulled into the thrift shop lot across the street, and walked to Priest’s trailer. His station wagon was gone. Nobody answered the door.
As I returned to my truck, a young Latino couple emerged from the thrift shop. The father holding their daughter in his arms. She was perhaps two years old, bundled against the cold in a one-piece pink snowsuit and matching woolen ski cap with a fringed pom-pom on top, and strings that tied around her chin. I paused to watch as the mother opened the back door of a rust bucket Volvo. The father lovingly strapped the wriggling toddle
r into her car seat, smothering her with kisses that made her squeal with laughter. I tried not to fantasize about what it must feel like, the intensity of that kind of bond. My chances of ever experiencing it had been denied me, stolen with Savannah’s last breath.
I turned away from the happy little family, got back in my truck, tilted my seat back, and waited for Priest to come home. Was he Crocodile Dundee? My gut told me no. But my gut also told me Priest knew who Dundee was. And I had ways of extracting that kind of information in short order.
Pacifists question the worth of so-called “enhanced” interrogation techniques. They argue that such methods don’t work because people subjected to waterboarding, for example, or made to sit for hours on their knees, will eventually say or do anything to avoid more pain. As such, the critics say, any intelligence derived by using these methods can’t be trusted. They’re right. Because if the person being interrogated knows that his questioners are playing by humanitarian “rules,” then it’s usually nothing more than a big time suck for all parties concerned. The only way it can work is if the guilty detainee fully understands that he may be maimed or even killed if he’s not fully forthcoming.
Now, I’m not saying I ever personally relied on those kinds of tactics, techniques, or procedures. Nor am I saying I saw others use them. I’m not saying that at all. I wouldn’t want to spend the next several years in federal custody. But I’ve heard that much good actionable intelligence can be quickly derived by shooting off a toe, or a finger. You’d be amazed how swiftly that can get somebody’s attention.
Or so I’ve heard.
My phone rang. It was Marlene from the airport.
“Gordon’s here.” Her voice quavered with nerves. “He says he’d like to meet with you.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Does he own a gun?”
She lowered her voice. “Not that I know of. Gordon can be a little gruff sometimes, but I don’t think he’s capable of real violence. He’s a real teddy bear inside.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
I called Streeter as I drove to brief him about what I’d learned, but he wasn’t in. His machine picked up. I left a message.
MARLENE WAS standing outside without a coat, eating cookies, one after another. The temperature hovered in the low forties, but the wind chill factor was closer to freezing. Still, I could see sweat rings under the arms of her tan Summit Aviation T-shirt.
