Free Voodoo Ridge by David Freed Page A

these days.
    And so I tried. Who, after all, murders his own nephew?

    “Y OU WERE busy, Logan. I understand that. But it would’ve been nice if you’d called to let me know you’d be up there all day.”
    “I would’ve, Savannah, believe me, but there’s no cell service.”
    She blew air through her lips and made a right turn off Airport Road, onto Emerald Bay, heading north toward our B&B, after picking me up. I turned on the Yukon’s radio to break the strained silence in the car. A country tune was playing. Some guy whaling on his guitar with great earnestness, “Get your tongue out of my mouth ’cause I’m kissing you good-bye.”
    “Are you mad at me?”
    Savannah shook her head.
    “You seem mad.”
    “You were doing what you had to do. I’ll get over it—but not if you don’t turn off that awful song.”
    I turned off the radio.
    “Thanks for picking me up.”
    “Of course.”
    More silence.
    “We’ll get the license tomorrow,” I said, “assuming you still want to.”
    Savannah glanced over and gave me a smirk.
    “I’ll take that as a yes.”
    She almost smiled.
    I reached across the seats of our rented Yukon and caressed her silken neck.
    “So, what did you find up there? Anything?”
    “An airplane.”
    “Really? Just like you said.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “Anybody alive?”
    “The plane had been up there a long time.”
    I debated filling in the blanks for her. About the skeletal dead pilot. About the mysteriously empty crate. About the dead young man we’d met at the airport the day before. But what purpose, I asked myself, would any of that have served, beyond unnerving the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with? We’d flown up to Lake Tahoe to get remarried. Tomorrow, we would. Nothing other than that mattered much in my opinion, not even a murder.
    “Were there bodies?”
    I looked out the window and didn’t say anything.
    “I’m just curious, Logan. You don’t have to say if you don’t want to.”
    “Yeah. There were bodies.”
    We rounded a curve doing fifty-five in a forty-five mph zone. A highway patrol cruiser was sitting on the shoulder of the road. Savannah braked, glancing down at the speedometer, then up anxiously in her rearview mirror as we passed by the cruiser. The cop didn’t stop us, though. Savannah said it was an omen of good things to come. I attributed it to blind luck. But that’s just me. I turned the radio back on to the same country-western station. The song that was playing, near as I could discern, was, “I’m Not Married, But the Wife Is.”
    Savannah, a native Texan who was not keen on the music she was subjected to as a child, groaned. “What in heaven’s name are we listening to?” She reached down and changed stations: a smorgasbord of hip-hop, top-forty, Spanish language, then this:
    “. . . said the wreckage was discovered below Voodoo Ridge, in a remote, mountainous area of the El Dorado National Forest, about eight miles west of South Lake Tahoe. There were no survivors. Officials said they believe the plane may have been missing for several years. Sources familiar with the investigation, meanwhile, told KKOH News that sheriff’s authorities are treating the crash site as an active crime scene. Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital today, congressional Republican leaders accused the White House of—”
    I switched stations.
    Savannah glanced over at me with a quizzical look on her face. “The plane’s been missing for ‘several years,’ but they’re treating it as an ‘active crime scene?’ That seems rather strange, doesn’t it?”
    “Somewhat.”
    She knew I was holding back.

    A S S AVANNAH slowed and turned into Tranquility House’s small guest-parking area, I could see that the door of our bungalow was cracked open.
    “That’s weird,” Savannah said. “I know I locked it before I went to get you.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yes, Logan, I’m sure.”
    I told her to wait inside the car, got out, and