I said nothing.
“Well, when the sheriff wants my opinion, I’ll give it to him. Otherwise I’ve got nothing to say.”
“You seem somewhat hostile, Mr. Priest. I’m going to assume you’re just having a bad day, and that you’re not always such an insensitive jerk.”
My purpose was to antagonize him, to knock him off his game a little. People will often reveal things when they’re flustered, little truths that might otherwise remain obscured behind the filters of normal civil discourse.
He strode toward me angrily, half a cookie stuffed in his mouth, his big belly jiggling under his polo shirt.
“That airplane was ancient history. It didn’t matter to anybody. If you hadn’t spotted it, my nephew would be alive today, and I wouldn’t be getting telephone calls from my hysterical sister every twenty minutes. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused, how much damage?”
“Actually, I do.”
He turned and stormed back to his office, slamming the door behind him.
Whoever it was who’d called me to say he was holding Savannah wasn’t Gordon Priest. Crocodile Dundee spoke in a gravelly baritone. Priest spoke in a whiny tenor. You can disguise a voice only so much. Was it still possible that Priest played some role in the murder of his sister’s son, and in Savannah’s abduction? I wasn’t about to rule out anything or anyone. The fact that Priest had left a message the day before on his office’s answering machine, informing his receptionist that he’d be away all day at some out-of-town meeting struck me as more than curious. Had he left that message with the intent of establishing a credible alibi, then gone into the mountains to help loot a long-missing airplane, opting ultimately not to share with his nephew the profits to be had in whatever cargo that airplane was carrying? I didn’t know, but I definitely intended to find out.
Marlene sat down at her desk and opened the top drawer, revealing an impressive array of candies, cookies, and bags of potato chips. She unwrapped an Almond Joy.
“You mentioned to me yesterday that Chad and Gordon were close,” I said, knowing that Priest couldn’t hear me with his door closed. “Doesn’t seem to me like there was a whole lot of love lost between the two of them.”
The receptionist glanced nervously in the direction of Priest’s door and crammed half the candy bar into her mouth. “Gordon puts on a big front,” she said.
She offered me the other half of the Almond Joy. I declined.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stuffing the half I’d turned down into her mouth. “I get really hungry when I’m sad or nervous.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations, Marlene.”
“Gordon’s really a big softy. He knows he loved Chad. He gave him a chance when nobody else would.”
“I heard he raises Australian shepherds.”
“Not raise. Breeds. For money.” Marlene licked some chocolate from her fingers.
I asked her why Priest was interested in that particular breed of dog.
“Why not golden retrievers or labradoodles?”
Marlene cocked her head, thinking. “You know, I’ve never thought to ask him. Are you interested in getting one?”
“Someday maybe. I don’t know.”
She brightened. “Speaking of beautiful, where’s your beautiful girlfriend?”
I probably should have told her the truth — one more set of eyes looking for Savannah couldn’t hurt — but I was tired and not in the mood.
“She’s around,” I said, “somewhere.”
Marlene laughed like I’d just made a joke. “Well, I’m looking forward to seeing her again — only this time, with a big fat wedding ring on her finger.”
The ring was to have been a surprise. The day before we flew to Lake Tahoe, while Savannah was napping, I’d taken Mrs. Schmulowitz aside and asked if she wouldn’t mind picking me out a wedding band that afternoon from her favorite jewelry store in downtown Rancho Bonita. I knew as much about jewelry as I did ballroom dancing, which is to say, nothing. Mrs. Schmulowitz had survived three bad marriages and outlived a fourth. If anybody was an expert on wedding rings, it was she.
“Do I mind?” she whispered to me excitedly, careful to not let Savannah overhear. “Bubbeleh, I mind when the Giants miss the playoffs. I mind not being able to find a decent bagel anywhere on this entire facacta coast. But do I mind shopping for rings? What are you, kidding me? Now, how much were you planning to shell out for this lasting symbol of your eternal love?”
“I have no clue. How much do rings go for these days?”
“Considering the price of gold? More than you’ve probably got. What happened to the ring you bought her the first time, you don’t mind me asking?”
“She heaved it off the Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of an argument.”
“Making a statement. Nice. I always pawned my bling. Why throw good money after bad, am I right?” She reached up and patted my face. “Don’t you worry. I’ll pick you out a nice ring, bubby — she can always return it if it doesn’t strike her fancy. Pay me back when you can.”
The ring was still sitting in my duffel bag, in a purple velvet box. My plan had been to pretend on our drive to the wedding chapel that the idea of a ring had simply slipped my mind — just to get a rise out of Savannah. Then I would’ve grinned, reached into my pocket, and shown her the ring. She would’ve laughed, kissed me, and all would have been right. That was the plan, anyway. It was now on indefinite hold.
“Think I’ll go out and check on my plane,” I told Marlene.
“Certainly.”
She buzzed me through a glass security door. I pulled the collar up on my leather jacket and walked out to the flight line. Gordon Priest, I decided, could wait. My grilling him about his possible involvement in his nephew’s murder would’ve only antagonized him and probably gotten me in trouble with the sheriff’s department, accused of interfering with Streeter’s investigation.
The Ruptured Duck was tied down directly in front of Summit Aviation, between a Cessna Cardinal and a notoriously unstable V-tail Bonanza — a “Doctor Killer” as they’re commonly known in general aviation because more than a few physicians have been known to buy them and die in them. I grabbed a green, six-foot fiberglass folding ladder leaning near the front door, propped it in front of the Duck’s right wing, climbed up, and began brushing off eight inches of wet snow with my forearm.
“Thought you might want this,” Marlene said, emerging from inside, sans coat, carrying a snowbrush in hand.
“ ’Preciate it.”
“You know,” she said, “it occurred to me, if you’re interested in an Australian shepherd puppy, you really should talk to my friend, Liam. He and Gordon, they’re sort of business partners. Liam knows everything there is to know about Aussie shepherds. He’s from there, you know, the land down under.”
Liam was Liam McMahon, proprietor of Sundowner Sports, a ski and kayak rental shop situated about a half mile from the gondola station at the base of the Heavenly Mountain Resort. Marlene had described him as a middle-aged charmer, an expert snow and water skier popular with the ladies. Sitting in my Yukon outside his small but bustling shop and observing the activities within, it was easy to comprehend why:
A wiry man with Goldilocks tresses that he wore in a ponytail, craggy, sun-burnished features, and a quick, dazzling smile, McMahon moved easily among his customers, teasing and laughing as he fitted them for boots, skis and snowboards. I waited until the crowd thinned before going in. If I concluded that McMahon was in any way complicit in Savannah’s disappearance, things could get ugly in a hurry; I didn’t want anyone else but him getting hurt.