Why was he missing in one place but on a bulletin board in another?
The NamUs file had been logged in August 2024, two months after date of last contact. Aside from mentioning Santa Cruz, it added nothing to the flyer and was in one respect less accurate, listing the anchor tattoo on his shoulder but not the word across his knuckles.
I did a quick-and-dirty search. The biggest hurdle was his name. Moore is the eighteenth most common surname in the United States. For US boys born in 2004, Nicholas was the thirteenth most popular first name.
“Nick Moore” was a long snapper for the Baltimore Ravens.
He was also a minor-league baseball player, a collegiate wrestler, and a lacrosse coach.
He was an actor, a dead poet, a law school professor, a management consultant from Miami, a nurse practitioner in Albuquerque, and an addiction counselor in Waterloo, Iowa. In Santa Cruz alone there were three of him.
Across the room, he grinned at me.
Anyone with information should please contact Tara Moore.
As a rule I steer clear of missing persons cases. There’s often little I can do beyond what the cops have already tried, and I won’t string along a grieving family.
Some PIs make a decent living doing just that. Their choice.
Try not to get her hopes up.
I dialed the number on the flyer.
“Hello.”
“Hi. I’m looking for Tara Moore.”
“Speaking.”
“Hi, Ms. Moore. My name is Clay Edison. Pardon me for calling out of the blue. I’m a private investigator, and—”
She hung up.
Obviously, mine wasn’t the first offer of “help.”
I emailed her.
Hi Ms. Moore.
My name is Clay Edison. I’m the private investigator who called you. I was recently in Millburg and I saw the flyer about Nick’s disappearance. I was hoping to ask you a few questions.
I suspect other PIs may have contacted you in the past and that you might be skeptical. I’m not trying to get you to hire me. I just want to talk. If you’re not interested, I apologize for the disturbance. I won’t bother you again.
You can feel free to contact me via email or at the number below.
All best.
Chapter 21
The half hour spent chatting with Deputy Zucchero paid dividends the following day, when a PDF of Kurt Swann’s case file showed up in my inbox.
Cause of death was cerebral edema/subdural hemorrhage, secondary to blunt force trauma.
Manner of death was accidental.
I read the narrative, written by lead investigator Owen Ryall.
At 2251 on 12/05/2009, I was notified by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Dispatcher to respond to Swann’s Flat Road...
Having been in Ryall’s shoes, I could imagine his exasperation upon arriving at the scene only to be informed that there was no body yet. It wasn’t even clear whether this was a coroner’s case.
Kurt Swann was lying somewhere at the bottom of a rocky escarpment, dead or alive, but heavy rain and strong winds had prevented search-and-rescue from making a direct descent. The alternative — hiking up from below in the pitch black, over miles of steep, sludgy, unfamiliar terrain — was worse. They had decided to wait it out.
Al Bock had misremembered one detail. It wasn’t Kurt’s truck that had gone over the cliff. It was Kurt himself. The truck was still by the side of the road.
By 0315 on December 6, conditions had improved enough to make a second retrieval attempt. SAR threw down ropes. At 0548 they spotted the body of a male meeting Swann’s description.
He had fallen approximately three hundred feet along a sixty-five-degree incline studded with boulders and logs, the force of which had thrown him another fifty feet laterally. His clothing was torn, his skin lacerated, his skull bashed in. A branch had impaled him in the groin. He’d lost both shoes and one sock. His hunting vest had stayed on; in an interior zipper pocket was a wallet. Positive identification was made from a California driver’s license.
At 0611, Kurt Swann was pronounced dead.
I scrolled through photos.
Broken limbs in a cradle of broken, bloody vegetation.
Right eye popped out onto his cheek.
One small mercy: Rain had deterred animals from picking at him.
Additional photos, taken topside, showed the wicked hairpin turn. A dark-colored Dodge Ram sat close to the edge, jacked up, rear left tire missing. The cliffside had partially given way, as if he’d been in the process of changing the tire and lost his footing.
While Ryall’s secondary, Chris King, coordinated with detectives, Ryall proceeded to the address on the driver’s license, 21 Beachcomber Boulevard, Swann’s Flat. The road was slippery and treacherous, and he didn’t arrive until 0900.
He was met at the door by the decedent’s next of kin, Leonie Swann, and their two-year-old daughter, unnamed. Ryall asked to speak with Mrs. Swann in private and suggested she call a relative or friend to help with the child. She declined. Ryall then informed her of her husband’s passing.
She already knew.
On the previous evening, she had received a visit from an individual named David Pelman, who told her that Kurt had slipped while changing a blown tire and fallen to his death.
Good old Dave, purveyor of four-hundred-dollar coolant.
Ryall again suggested that Leonie call someone for support. This time she agreed. She phoned a neighbor, who arrived within a few minutes. Ryall did not note the neighbor’s name but proceeded to David Pelman’s residence at 29 Gray Fox Run.
According to Pelman, he and Kurt Swann had left Swann’s Flat together before dawn on December 5 to hunt elk. They drove in Swann’s truck to their favorite area, Lishin Valley, about three miles northeast of Millburg. All day long they slogged through the cold and damp without so much as sniffing a bull. Pelman was philosophical.
It’s called hunting he said not shooting.
By midafternoon it was coming down pretty hard. They decided to pack it in.
Weeks of intermittent rain had reduced the road surface to slop. Approaching the hairpin,
I heard this big bang and we go sliding. The bed was sticking out over the edge and the tire had a rip you could put your fist through. We jacked her up. Some of them lug nuts was rusted on pretty damn tight. Kurt hands me the old tire so’s he can put on the spare. I start walking around and I heard him yell. I didn’t see nothing cause my back was turned. I just look over my shoulder and he wasn’t there no more. I went and leaned my neck out. I couldn’t see nothing. He wasn’t answering me neither.
Ryall asked Pelman if either man had been intoxicated. Pelman replied that they each had three or four beers over the course of the day. He further stated that Kurt regularly drank beer and that he, Pelman, did not perceive Swann as impaired.
Pelman considered trying to climb down but decided it was too dangerous. Nor could he find the spare, which must have gone over with Kurt.
Left without a choice, Dave Pelman trudged to town on foot, in the rain.
At 2214 he phoned 911 from his residence. Ryall asked why Pelman hadn’t stopped at any of the other houses along the way. Pelman replied that nobody else was home.
The 911 call lasted twenty-two minutes. Afterward Pelman changed into dry clothes and proceeded in his own vehicle to the Swann residence to inform Leonie that Kurt was dead.
Ryall asked what time that conversation had taken place.