Free Voodoo Ridge by David Freed

outside the fuselage door, and the nongalvanized box nails jutting from the wood, their tips bent and shiny.
    “The nails aren’t rusty,” I said.
    “Which means what?”
    “Which means they haven’t been outside long enough to get rusty. And the plywood’s not warped. Somebody pried open that crate and tossed out that piece within the last day.”
    He looked inside the fuselage door at the crash-damaged crate, sitting open and empty, save for hundreds of balled-up pieces of newspaper scattered in and around it.
    “They used the wadded-up paper to pad whatever was inside the crate,” I said. “Whatever the shooter found inside that crate was so valuable, it apparently was worth pumping three slugs into that kid over there.”
    Streeter wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell by the way he rubbed the side of his face that I was talking sense.
    “What kind of plane is this?” he said.
    “A twin-engine Beech 18. Also known as a ‘Twin Beech’ because of the twin tail. Beechcraft started building them before World War II. Cranked ’em out for more than thirty years. Great airplane. They were the Lear jets of their day. The FAA should still have a record of it on file based on the tail number. They’ll know who owned it back in the day. They’ll also know when it was reported missing.”
    Streeter exhaled and said he’d check it out. He clearly didn’t like anyone telling him how to do his job.

    I T WAS past 1630 hours by the time the sheriff’s helicopter flew me back to the South Lake Tahoe Airport, then took off again almost immediately, airlifting two crime scene analysts to the crash scene. I watched the chopper lift off, grateful at not having had to hike all the way back out. I checked on the Ruptured Duck , making sure he was securely tied down on the flight line, and patted his nose like the trusty mount that he was. Then, feeling tired and hungry, my knee throbbing, I walked into Summit Aviation Services.
    Marlene was sitting behind the reception counter, sobbing.
    “One of the sheriff’s helicopter pilots said it was Chad they found up there. Please tell me that’s not true.”
    “I’m afraid it is, Marlene.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said, drying her eyes with a Kleenex. “I don’t mean to get all emotional. You look like a man who could use a hot cup of hot coffee.”
    She started to get up. I insisted that she stay put and helped myself to both.
    “Such a nice young man.” Marlene shook her head and took a deep breath. Her chin quivered. “It’s just so terrible. Why’d he go up there? For what? Why would anybody want to hurt Chad? I don’t understand.”
    “Nobody does at this point. Except whoever did it.”
    She said she’d been trying to reach Summit’s manager, Gordon Priest, to give him the bad news, but Priest wasn’t answering his cell phone.
    “I know he’ll take it hard,” Marlene said, her voice cracking. “They bickered once in a while, but Gordon was Chad’s uncle. He really loved Chad. They were like two peas in a pod, those two.”
    Priest, she volunteered without me asking, had gone to a big operational meeting at the FAA’s Flight Standards District Office in Reno. He’d left a message that morning on the answering machine saying he wasn’t sure he’d be back in the office that day before close of business.
    “I know he’ll be devastated,” Marlene repeated.
    The Buddha advised great caution when prejudging others, “lest you run the risk of being wrong.” That kind of blind, benefit-of-the-doubt benevolence doesn’t allow much maneuver room for the kind of gut instinct I was trained to follow when I worked for the government. My gut told me in this instance that it was more than coincidence, Gordon Priest being away at some out-of-town “business meeting” the day after the fatal shooting of his nephew. But if you’re a Buddhist, you do your best to let the bad stuff go. You embrace the good in everyone, however much in short supply good may be