Nadia Nichols - Everything To Prove

“What can I do for you?” he said in a voice as rough as his appearance.

Libby indicated the wreckage on the concrete floor behind her. “Did you salvage this plane?”

“Most of it,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Look, lady, if you’re with the press, I have nothing to add to what’s been said, and if you’re a relative of someone who was on the plane, you’ll have to talk to the state police.”

“I’m neither,” Libby said. “You were recommended by Elmer Brown of the Fish and Game Department. He told me Alaska Salvage always got what it went after.”

“Almost always,” he corrected. “That plane behind you crashed in Cook Inlet just after takeoff with six souls aboard. The riptide took some of the wreckage out before we could get to it. My crew’s still looking for the missing pieces.”

“Was anyone killed?”

“There were no survivors.”

Libby glanced back at the pieces of wreckage and wondered who the people had been, and what their last moments had been like. She felt a sudden chill. “Did you…?”

“We don’t recover bodies. The state police dive team was in charge of that. We assist as necessary, of course. Their dive team isn’t nearly as good as mine.”

“What do you do with the wreckage?”

“The FAA likes to look it over, so we lay everything we find out for ’em in here. It’s a convenience for them and they pay us for the privilege. When they’re done with their investigation we’ll sell what we can and scrap the rest. Why? You looking for a grisly souvenir? Something with a little blood on it, maybe? If so, you’re out of luck. I already sold all that stuff off to help pay my medical bills.”

Libby’s chin lifted in response to the hostile sarcasm in his voice. “I’m looking to hire a salvage outfit to find a plane that went down twenty-eight years ago in Evening Lake, just south of the Brooks Range.”

Now that she’d announced her business for being there, he eyed her up and down as if trying to decide if she was worth talking to. “Evening Lake?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea where it crashed?”

“Not exactly. I’m hoping to find out more after I speak with some people.”

“Evening Lake is big. I’ve fished it. Spent a couple weeks camped up there a few years ago. Must be a good three, four hundred feet deep in some places.”

“So I’ve been told,” Libby said, wishing he wouldn’t stare at her quite so brazenly. She decided that he was both crude and rude and any sympathy she’d initially felt for his battered condition evaporated as the heat came up in her cheeks.

“When you’re talking remote salvage operations, you’re talking big bucks.”

“How big?” Libby asked.

“For a salvage operation on Evening Lake…that’d take a crew of at least three people, flying in all that gear and some pretty sophisticated equipment. Just finding the plane could take some time. Once it’s found, purchasing the salvage rights and getting the wreckage to the surface could run you maybe seventy-five, eighty grand. Possibly a lot more.”

“I see.” Libby was staggered by the sum. “What if the plane crashed in shallow water?”

“If it were in shallow water, the initial search party would have spotted it.” He rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “I’m assuming there was a search?”

Libby nodded. “But they may have been looking in the wrong location, and if there was a lot of chop on the surface, wouldn’t that have made it difficult to spot anything?”

“Maybe. But over the years a helluva lot of planes have flown in and out of there. If nobody’s reported seeing anything in all that time, I’d have to assume it’s way down there, and if you’re not sure the plane really crashed in the lake, you could be wasting a lot of time and money. Were there any eyewitnesses?”

Libby shook her head. “Not to my knowledge. But the plane was taking off from a lodge, the only one on the lake at that time. They think it went down just after takeoff. The pontoons were found half a mile down the outlet of the lake.”

“Must’ve crashed real close to the mouth of the river, then. The wind blows pretty strong through the pass there and would’ve pushed the pontoons clear to the opposite shore otherwise.”

“That’s what the searchers figured. How do you base your salvage fees?”

“Depends on the size of the plane.”

“It was a de Havilland Beaver. Six-seater.”

“We require a deposit of ten grand up front. You’d pay a straight hourly fee contingent upon the size of the crew and the equipment being used. When we find the wreckage, we’re willing to negotiate fair salvage trades toward payment if the plane is deemed restorable.”

“What shape do you think the plane would be in after all that time?”

“Pretty good, if it was down deep and wasn’t demolished when it hit the water. It’s the ice and salt water that plays hell with wrecks. The plane would probably be in close to the same shape as it was when it crashed.”

“If you found the wreckage in just two hours and raised it the same day, would that be less than ten thousand?”

“The minimum charge for any remote salvage operation is twenty-five grand. The retrieval cost of the last plane we dredged up out of a lake ran three times that amount. If you don’t mind my asking, why is salvaging this plane so important after twenty-eight years?”

“It’s not the plane so much as what it was carrying,” Libby said. “Thank you for your information. It’s been helpful.”

He gave her a keen look and rubbed the stubble on his jaw again. “My name’s Dodge. I own this business. Let me know if you want us to take a look.”

“Thank you,” Libby said, accepting the business card he pulled out of the chest pocket of his coveralls and glancing down at it briefly. Carson Colman Dodge. Fancy name.

She left the Quonset hut in a discouraged mood. Twenty-five thousand dollars was an impossible amount for her to come up with, never mind seventy-five. She had the sinking feeling that she’d made a terrible mistake in giving up the residency at Mass General. But she was here, so she might as well persevere for as long as she could. By 10:00 a.m. Libby was on a flight to Fairbanks, hoping to speak to Charlie Stuck’s son, Bob, about what Charlie might have told him about the incident.

“MY FATHER NEVER said nothin’ to me about anything,” an overweight and balding Bob Stuck said seven hours later, standing outside the door of his one-bay garage in Moose Creek in the watery spring sunshine. Six rusted trucks cluttered the small yard and another took up the garage. He sported a gold hoop in his left ear, a diamond stud in his right and his hands were black with grease. “He was never home. Always off chasing poachers and fish hogs and women. That was more important to him than raising a son.” He spat as if talking about his father put a bad taste in his mouth.

“Did he have any close friends that you know of? Anyone he might have talked to about that plane crash?” Libby asked.

“Most of ’em are dead now. But Lana’s still alive. She lives over on the Chena. She and Charlie shacked up together about ten years back. She took care of him better than he deserved, cooked for him, cleaned his cabin, washed his clothes and waited up nights till he came home from the bars. Then he had that stroke and the hospital put him in the old folks’ home. She wanted the doctors to let him come back home. She ranted and raved in the hospital, made a big scene, said she could take care of him better than any nursing home.” Bob shook his head. “Yeah, she might remember something. She don’t talk to me, but she might talk to you.” He gave her a baleful stare from red-veined eyes. “You’re Indian, ain’t you?”