“That’s Mount San Carlos on the left and Chalmers Peak on the right,” the deputy said, pointing, “and that area between is where you said you saw whatever it was you saw.”
He handed me the binoculars. It wasn’t difficult to orient myself. Through the magnified lenses, I clearly recognized the bow of craggy, barren rocks linking the two mountains, below which I’d first spotted from the air what I was increasingly convinced were the remains of an airplane. Beyond that, I could make out nothing identifiable other than trees; the forest was too thick.
Woo estimated we were about six miles from the site as the crow flies. He knew of an unpaved logging road that wended about halfway there. The remaining miles would have to be negotiated on foot.
“It’ll be sunset in a couple of hours,” he said. “Search and rescue can head up first thing in the morning. I’m sure they could use your company.”
“Why not fly? Doesn’t the sheriff’s department have a helicopter? There could be injured people up there.”
The sheriff did, in fact, have a helicopter, Woo said, but the conditions of its use in tight budgetary times were extremely restrictive. Unconfirmed reports of downed airplanes apparently fell outside those limits.
“That’s all I can do, Mr. Logan.” He turned and trudged back down the slope toward his Wrangler, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket.
I scanned the mountainsides with the binoculars one last time. There was really nothing to see beyond those towering peaks and a forest so deep and silent as to be almost unreal.
I’m not a big believer in extrasensory perception. People who claim powers of clairvoyance are con artists half the time, by my experience, and the other half, fruitcakes. But I couldn’t shake the powerful sense that something was up there, beneath those trees, waiting for me, and that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
FOUR
Johnny and Gwen Kavitch operated Tranquility House, the meticulously kept, Victorian-style bed-and-breakfast where Savannah had booked us a bungalow. They were unbelievably nice in a laid-back, Grateful Dead kind of way. I was immediately suspicious of them.
It was late afternoon. The four of us were commiserating in their parlor. A full-sized concert harp was propped in one corner. The Kavitches had laid out a spread of cheeses on an antique sideboard, paired with bottles of what I assumed was good wine. So far as I could tell, we were their only guests. At 300 bucks a night, there was no mystery as to why.
Gwen was a gaunt blonde gone gray with a world-class overbite and a pair of those shaded, prescription glasses that are supposed to lighten indoors but never quite do, leaving the vague impression that the wearer is either high or hung over. She’d spent nearly thirty years as a special education teacher in San Jose, she told Savannah and me, before budget cuts forced her to take early retirement.
“We’re just so pleased you chose to share your special occasion with us,” she said. “It’s just so awesome.”
Gwen said “awesome” a lot, a habit that I found less than awesome.
Johnny was even more pallid than his wife. Garbed in Mexican sandals, faded corduroys and a gray “Old Guys Rule” T-shirt, he rocked a wispy goatee and a shaved head that reminded me more than a little of a hardboiled egg.
Savannah complimented them on their selection of paint color for the parlor’s nine-foot walls.
“It’s called ‘fallen oak leaf,’ ” Johnny Kavitch said. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“Looks pretty much like tan to me,” I said.
Savannah gave me a look. There was a lull in the conversation. Being a whiz at small talk, I took note of the harp leaning in the corner.
“Musical instruments lend ambiance to a room,” I said, like I knew anything about home decor.
I should’ve said nothing.
Johnny dove into a ten-minute monologue on the ethereal qualities of the harp, its long history, and how he’d always wanted to take lessons, but waited until retiring from the IRS field office in San Jose and moving up to Lake Tahoe, for fear that his fellow auditors might tease him.
“I’d love to play you something,” he said.
“Johnny’s an awesome musician,” Gwen said, beaming at him.
My ex-wife embedded her burgundy fingernails in my forearm before I could say not just no, but hell no.
“That would be lovely,” Savannah said.
We sat through Johnny Kavitch’s rendition of Barbra Streisand’s “Evergreen,” which was followed by Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You,” replete with Gwen singing along. I was ready to start drinking after that. The only problem was, I stopped drinking years ago. I could tell by her thin smile that Savannah was in agony, too, but there’d be no alcoholic respite for her, either. She was pregnant.
Mercifully, the harp concert was cut short when a surly bean-pole in his mid-twenties garbed in saggy jeans, black combat boots, and a Def Leppard sweatshirt barged into the room.
“Who ate my pizza?” he demanded. “It was sitting in the refrigerator last night. Now it’s fucking gone.”
He was around twenty-seven, six foot three, and all of about 155 pounds. Dark, greasy hair fell to his bony shoulders like strands on a wet mop. Gwen ignored the beanpole’s outburst and introduced him pleasantly as their son and resident maintenance supervisor, Preston.
“Preston, these are our guests, Mr. Logan and Ms. Echevarria. They’ve come all the way from Rancho Bonita to get married—remarried, I should say. Mr. Logan’s a pilot. He flew them up here in his own airplane. Isn’t that awesome?”
Preston gave me a sidelong glance that was anything but friendly.
“Did you eat my pizza?” he demanded.
“Wasn’t me, dude.”
“Me, either,” Savannah said.
“I cannot tell a lie,” Johnny said, carefully leaning the harp back against the wall. “I ate your pizza, Preston, and, boy, was it tasty. But fear not. I’ll get you another one.” He tried to pat him on the back. Preston pulled away.
“That was my pizza — mine, OK? I paid for it with my own money.”
“It’s no big deal,” Johnny said. “I’ll get you another one.”
Preston fixed his father with a daggers-of-death glare. “Why don’t you do the world a favor and just die. I hate you. Both of you.” He swept a pair of brass candlesticks off the parlor’s ornately carved mantle and onto the oak floor, stomping out of the parlor. I heard the front door open and slam behind him.
Gwen smiled as she picked up the candlesticks. “He’s only like this when he forgets to take his meds. We never take it personally.”
“He’s really a total sweetheart otherwise,” Johnny said.
“I’m sure he is,” Savannah said sympathetically.
I was hardly sure. You don’t openly speak ill of your parents without having given the idea at least a little thought.
Dinner did little to lighten my mood. The Kavitches recommended a little sushi place about a half mile up the road. “A bit on the pricey side,” Gwen said, “but the most awesome sashimi you’ll ever eat.”
She was right about the prices. She was flat wrong about the rest.
The restaurant was in a strip mall. Six tables. Posters advertising Kirin beer tacked to the walls. A few sorry koi kites hanging from the ceiling.
“Feels like we’re in Tokyo,” I said as we walked in.
“I’m sure it’s perfectly fine,” Savannah said.
The two chefs working behind the counter were white. Not that being born in Japan is a prerequisite for working with raw fish. But both of these guys looked like their only prior seafood experience was eating at Long John Silver’s. And both looked to be half drunk.