Flight of Death - Richard Hoyt Page 0,2
it to Portland. I got halfway down the ramp to the eastbound lanes when the oil light went on, so I pulled to the side of the road. Then nobody would stop. I must have been here for nearly an hour. It was zoom, zoom, zoom. Nobody even slowed.”
“On a night like this, maybe they were afraid of the Bridge of the Gods.”
She rolled her eyes, oh sure.
“I can drive you back to The Dalles, if you’d like. They’ve got service stations there and places to stay. You can find out what’s wrong in the morning.”
She seemed uncertain.
“Or maybe you prefer Cascade Locks or Hood River. Wherever.”
She didn’t want to drive off with a stranger.
“Or you can wait it out here; I can send a tow truck back if you’d like.”
She sighed. She was stuck. “The Dalles, why not?” she said, and rolled up the window.
Backpack in hand, she trailed after me as I walked back to the bus. She said, “What’s got you traveling up this gorge in the wind?”
“Two young kids fighting a pot rap.”
“Huh?”
“I’m a private detective,” I said. “How about you?”
“Owls.”
“What else but owls. Barn owls? Screech owls?”
“Spotted owls.”
“Oh, boy.” I shook my head and looked back at her.
She grinned. She had dimples. I liked dimples. “What do you mean, what else but owls?”
“An owl flew out of the forest into the parking lot at Memaloose. It was spooky, right out of Poe.” I opened the door of my bus for her. “You’re lucky this is not logging country. I could have been a logger.”
She hopped up onto the seat, laughing. “If I’d thought you were a logger, I would have stayed in my car.”
Chapter Two — Recount
We got in Big Blue, and I worked the bus up through the gears to fourth, bucking a head wind that held me at fifty-five, and we shook, rattled, and nearly everything except rolled, the side door clattering with enthusiasm.
“John’s my name,” I said.
“Jenny,” she said, and we shook. “Helluva wind.” She smelled good.
“In a wind like this you sail a bus, you don’t drive it.”
“You say you saw me from the other side?”
I could feel her watching me. A honking big semi clattered by with a rush. I had my hands full with the head wind, so I couldn’t get a look at her face in the darkness. “Figured you’d be gone by the time I got back, but what the hell.”
“Thank you. You said you were a private detective?”
I lifted up my hip and retrieved my wallet and slipped her a Denson and Prettybird business card with the face of a crafty coyote on the outside. The crafty coyote was drawn by the artist Donna Cowapoo who had been on my mind earlier. “Willie Prettybird?”
“My partner. He’s a full-blooded Cowlitz.”
Jenny read the card in the light of the dashboard. “‘John Denson and Willie Prettybird, private investigators. Seattle and Portland. Licensed in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska.’ Say, that’s impressive!”
“Actually, it should be just plain John Denson, private investigator. Willie only helps me when I have a job I can’t handle by myself or have too many jobs at once.”
“Ahh, I see,” she said.
“Seattle’s where I have my answering service. Willie has an apartment in northwest Portland. He likes to be able to flash a business card with his name on it.” I grinned. “I don’t mind. People think we’re a high-powered agency: a tandem of pros working the streets instead of one moron clinging by his fingernails and an Indian sidekick. Also, Willie Prettybird makes a classy addition to a card, don’t you think?”
“It’s not your everyday name, that’s true. Are you on a job?”
“Willie’s down at Brookings working on the case of the humpbacked flute player you’ve probably been reading about. I’ve got a mill worker and his wife in Washington who took a couple of weeks off to go fishing, and the day after they got back, the sheriff showed up with a search warrant, and damned if he didn’t find a shack up the creek filled with drying marijuana.” I shook my head.
“Was it their pot?”
“They say not. They say they don’t know how it got there.”
“And you have to come up with evidence to support them?”
“If I can find any. I’ll talk to the couple Friday afternoon, then I’ll know more. Working for the old Boog this time out.” I figured I might as well get it over with.
“The Boog?”
“Boogie Dewlapp.”
She looked amused. “The guy on the tube?”
Boogie Dewlapp ran television commercials