“No,” he said sadly. “Nothing as bad as all that. But she’s in a dither, for sure. She finally got her folks on the phone this morning. Couldn’t get them to return her call for months now. At first she was all happy to talk to them, but then, her and them, they had a . . . Well, I reckon you’d call it a fight.”
Tammy fighting with someone? Savannah couldn’t imagine it. Other than the occasional testy, siblinglike banter between her and Dirk, Savannah had never heard Tammy utter a cross word to anyone for any reason.
“What about?” Savannah asked, realizing she was being too nosy, but unable to help herself.
Waycross shrugged his broad shoulders and hung his head. “I reckon I shouldn’t say. She’d probably talk to you about it if you asked her.”
Savannah was torn. One of the half dozen people closest to her heart was in pain, and she didn’t have time to even talk to her about it.
“I can’t, Waycross,” she said helplessly. “I have to—”
“Of course you do,” he said. “You can’t be worrying about stuff like that. That author lady could be in bad trouble right this minute.”
He glanced ahead at the coffee bar. “Did you really want to get coffee?” he asked. “Or was it a lame excuse?”
“A lame excuse.”
“That’s what I figured. Let me see if they have some green tea for her and then we’ll go on down to watch that checkpoint for you.”
“I’ll make sure you get some shore time, too.”
“Don’t worry about us, Sis. You got enough on your hands as it is. You just take care o’ business, hear?”
Savannah stood on tiptoe and kissed his ruddy, freckled cheek. “I love you, sweetie.”
“I love you, too, Savannah,” he said, his eyes shining with affection and respect. “Hightail it outta here. Go get your bad guy and let me take care of Tammy. That’s what you do best, and taking care of my girl and our baby is what I do best.”
“You got it, sugar.”
She left him by the coffee vendor and hurried over to Dirk. Grabbing him by the arm, she said, “Let’s get going, Mr. Detective, sir. Time’s a’wastin’.”
* * *
“This isn’t the way I’d envisioned my bucket list visit to Alaska,” Savannah told Dirk as they made their way down the gangway. “I was supposed to be all a’twitter with excitement, not filled to the gills with dread.”
“I hear ya,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist and giving her a little squeeze. “Maybe we’ll have to do this again sometime, when we aren’t worried about people getting murdered and stuff like that.”
“Yes, that crap’s a bit of a buzz-kill.”
“Think how bummed out we’ll be if we spend our whole day walking around this place, looking for them, and can’t find them.”
She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I can think of worse things.”
“Me too. But I’m trying not to.”
They made their way past the Visitor Center with its long line of tourists, waiting to ask their questions and collect their maps and brochures.
They threaded a zigzag path through a multitude of tour operators, holding signs that advertised bus tours, floatplane tours, hiking tours, and the occasional lumberjack show, all calling out the virtues of their particular adventure, like barkers at a carnival.
“Do you suppose we should poke our heads into the nearest station house and give local law enforcement a heads-up?” Dirk asked.
“And say what? Some passengers who left a cruise ship are probably walking around your town! God knows what they’re up to! Put out an APB! ASAP!”
“Smart-ass.” He cleared his throat. “But if we told them about the threatening letters . . .”
“Celebrity gets weird letters from a fan. News story at eleven!”
He reached over and ruffled her hair. “It’s good for you that you’ve got dimples and a cute, big butt. Otherwise, I wouldn’t put up with all this abuse.”
She grinned up at him, employing those high-ticket dimples. “Yeah, you got it bad, boy. You suffer.”
“In silence.”
“Never, never in silence. Just ain’t your style, Coulter. Never was.”
They paused on the sidewalk and looked up and down the street, lined with quaint stores and eateries.
“Where do you suppose they went?” Dirk asked.
Savannah shrugged. “They passed up a gourmet breakfast, prepared by the executive chef, so they couldn’t have been too hungry.”
“True. Maybe they wanted to go shopping.”
“They’re millionaires. What would they need that they could buy here?”
“Smoked salmon?”
“They’d have it shipped in from Scotland.”
“Furs?”
“If Natasha wears fur, I’d imagine it would be a full-length mink. I can’t picture her in a beaver-lined Elmer Fudd hat.”
“Also true. So, what does that leave?”
Savannah glanced around at all of the eager tour operators. “Sightseeing.”
“If you had a lot of money, like the Van Cleefs, would you get on a bus full of tourists to ride around and look at the scenery?”
“No way. I’d hire a private car.”
They both looked around at the traffic driving by, the nearby parking lots, and the taxi queue halfway down the block.
“Not a luxury limo in sight,” Dirk said, stating the obvious. “Next idea?”
“In a pinch, I’d get a cab. I’d hire the driver to take me wherever I wanted to go.”
“That’s a lousy idea. A long shot at best.”
“Have you got a better one?”
“Nope.”
“Then that makes my idea positively sterling.”
He rolled his eyes, reached down, and grabbed her hand. As they walked toward the taxi queue, she squeezed his fingers and said, “One of these days, darlin’, your eyeballs are gonna roll right outta your head. Then you’re not going to be able to find them, ’cause you have a hard enough time finding things with your eyeballs in their sockets, let alone with them rolling around on the floor.”
Placing a kiss on the top of her hair, he said, “No problem. I have a wonderful wife who’s great at finding things.”
“Like your toothbrush when you leave it in the toaster?”
“Absolutely.”
* * *
They spent the next half hour leaning into taxis with open windows and questioning the cabbies. They showed them the pictures of Natasha and Colin and asked if they had seen either or both of them that morning.
The answers had been nothing but a string of depressing nos.
They were considering taking another tack, when at long last they were surprised and delighted to get a yes.
An older female cabbie, wearing a green and blue plaid shirt that was three sizes too large for her, said, “Saw them earlier this morning. Right about here, as a matter of fact, waiting for a ride.”
“Did you give them one?” Dirk asked.
“No. But the guy behind me in number 436 did.”
“Bless you!” Savannah gushed.
The cabbie gave her a wry smile. “That’s mighty kind of you. Blessings are nice. Cash spends better though.”
Dirk pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket, reached through the window, and handed it to her.
“Gee,” she said, shoving it into her oversized shirt pocket. “Now I can buy that vacation home in Florida I’ve been dreaming of.”
Giving her a curt little salute and bright smile, Dirk said, “That’s wonderful. I feel like a fairy godfather.”
She growled under her breath, then moved her cab forward, nearly running over their toes.
They hurried to the next taxi in the queue. Instead of leaning through the passenger’s window, they rushed around to the driver’s side.
“Hang back a few steps and let me take this one,” Savannah said, when she saw that the cabbie was a fellow who was probably in his fifties.
S
he did well with guys in their fifties, sixties, and upward. She wasn’t particularly sure why, and she wasn’t especially proud of it. But she’d decided long ago that, when you’ve been given a natural talent, it’s your duty to use it to full advantage.
She leaned down just enough to expose a bit of cleavage—yet another natural gift that had been bestowed upon her. She deepened her dimples with a cutesy smile and said in a sorghum sweet voice, “Why, hi there, sugar! As it turns out, you are just the man I been lookin’ for!”
He looked at her. Her ample bosom. Her bright blue eyes. Her ample bosom. Her deep dimples. Her ample bosom.
Grinning from ear to ear, like a roadkill-possum on a hot Georgia highway, he said, “Really? Then I guess this is my lucky day!”
Chapter 12
“I’m surprised that you have a car rental agency here,” Savannah said when the cabbie parked the taxi in front of an establishment, which the sign identified as LARRY’S RENT-ALL.
“It ain’t Alamo or Enterprise, but it’ll do,” replied the driver, who had become somewhat less enamored with Savannah the moment Dirk had climbed into the cab and sat beside her. But he’d been pleasant enough and had offered them an interesting tidbit of information.
Natasha and Colin had asked him to take them someplace where they could rent a vehicle. They had expressed a desire to do their own driving tour.
Savannah wasn’t sure if she was relieved or further puzzled by that, but she was determined to pursue it.
“You’d be surprised what we’ve got in this little town,” the driver was saying as Savannah paid him for the ride. “Why, we’ve even got fast food joints. Three of ’em.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said, adding a generous tip.
“I wouldn’t say ‘wonderful,’ because they’re all fish joints. Boy, what we wouldn’t give one that served beef, like a McDonald’s or a Burger King. Better still, maybe an Arby’s!”
As she and Dirk crawled out of the cab, Savannah said, “Tell you what. My husband here likes to buy lottery tickets. If we ever hit the big one, we’ll come back here and open up a restaurant that specializes in hamburgers. We’ll even name a burger after you. How’s that?”
“Wonderful! Now that would be wonderful!”
She saw the stars glittering in his eyes when he looked at her, and she realized that he was, husband or no, in love with her again.
Yes, it was a gift. God given? Probably not, but handy all the same.
While she and Dirk walked up to the door of Larry’s Rent-All, she pinched his rear and said, “It’s not just my boobs, you know.”
“What?” He genuinely looked confused.
“This effect I have over men.”
“I know that. I’m a man, remember?” He gave her a lusty once-over. “It’s the whole package, gal. That’s what has ’em fallin’ at your feet. Those bright blue eyes. The soft, Southern drawl. That prissy little wiggle when you walk. You’ve got the whole shebang.”
“How sweet! Thank you.”
“Yes, you can thank me. You know how!”
“If you stopped talking about it. If!”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot that part.”
Thankfully, they had reached Larry’s entrance. Savannah jumped when she turned the knob and the door swung open. An eardrum-splitting buzzer sounded, alerting Larry that they had arrived.
He came rushing out of the back room, a toaster in one hand and screwdriver in the other. Wiping the sweat off his brow with his forearm, he said, “Hi. Whatcha need?”
Savannah glanced around at the shelves that lined the walls, holding a plethora of household appliances, tools for machinists and woodworkers, not to mention every odd apparatus used by homemakers and weekend handymen.
Apparently, Larry rented far more than automobiles.
She wouldn’t have been surprised to hear he had a fishing boat on a shelf in the back room.
The place smelled of dust and oil, a combination that Savannah had always liked. It reminded her of men, good men, who fixed things that were broken.
On a top shelf a CB radio squawked, rattled, and squeaked out the mostly unintelligible messages flying back and forth on the airwaves between the local police and other emergency responders.
Savannah heard an exchange about a lost dog, last seen behind the fish-packing shed.
Apparently, Saaxwoo was a sleepy, basically crime-free town.
Savannah walked over to Larry and stuck her phone under his nose. “We understand that these people rented a car from you this morning.” She showed him the Van Cleefs’ photos.
“Yes, they did.” He laid the toaster and screwdriver on the counter, yawned, and ran his fingers through his rumpled hair. Savannah was pretty sure he had been taking a nap in the back room. The toaster and screwdriver had been a prop to convince his customers that he actually worked for a living.
“I don’t wanna sound rude,” he said, sounding like he was about to be rude, “but how’s that your business and not just theirs and mine?”
Dirk pulled out his badge. “I’m a police officer, and I’m conducting an investigation.”
“An investigation?” Larry went from lazy to alarmed in a heartbeat. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re missing.”
“Missing?”
“Yes,” Dirk said, “and since they’re missing with your car, I figure that might be of interest to you.”
All drowsiness gone, Larry was fully attentive. “Did they take off with my car? Did they steal it?”
“Might have,” Savannah said, mentally crossing her fingers behind her back. “Did they say where they were taking it?”
“Yeah. They were talking about driving up to see the glacier.”
“What glacier?” Dirk asked.
“Tongass Glacier. The only one we have within driving distance around here. It’s one of the main reasons the cruise ships stop here. We’re not exactly known for our fine hotels and restaurants.”
Something about the way he said that last sentence made Savannah think of bedbugs and buffets serving week-old food. Suddenly, she was very thankful to be traveling aboard a luxury cruise ship.
“How long does it take to drive up to Tongass Glacier?” Savannah asked.
“About twenty minutes at the height of the season, when the traffic’s bad. Fifteen if it’s light, and the weather’s good.”
Dirk picked up an electric nail gun from the shelf, looked it over, and then replaced it. “How long do people usually stay up there at the glacier, poking around, doing whatever it is you do when you’re looking at a glacier.”
Larry thought it over for a moment, then said, “An hour maybe. An hour and a half tops, if you take a bunch of pictures. Cruisers take a lot of pictures of glaciers. I’m not sure why. If you ask me, it’s just a great big chunk of dirty ice.”
Savannah opened her mouth, ready to defend the geological importance, not to mention the scenic grandeur of glaciers, but decided it would be wasted on Larry, so she closed it.
“What time did they leave here with the car?” Dirk asked.
“About nine-ish.”
Dirk was starting to lose his patience. Savannah could tell by the squint of his eyes and the tightness of his jaw. He looked like he wanted to pick Larry up and shake him until his teeth rattled.
Leaning deeply into Larry’s personal space, Dirk said, “I’m not conducting a ‘nine-ish’ sorta investigation here, Larry, my man. So, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, would you please aid the cause of law and order by hauling out the book where you wrote down the exact time that they left with your vehicle. I’m sure you have one back there somewhere. Maybe under the dust bunnies?”
Larry sighed wearily and leaned down to rummage beneath the counter.
“While you’re doing your civic duty,” Dirk added, “being an exemplary citizen and all that, could you also tell us the make, model, and color of the vehicle?”
As Larry continued to search, he said, “It’s a bright r
ed, 2006, Chevrolet HHR. Its vanity plate is LARRYS BB.”
“Larry’s baby?” Savannah asked.
He looked slightly embarrassed. “Okay. So she was really cute when she was new.”
She nodded. “Weren’t we all?”
Larry pulled a battered and, as predicted, dusty notebook from beneath the counter and spread it open. He flipped through the pages until he found the morning’s entry. “Okay, here it is. They left at ten till nine.” He snapped the notebook closed and gave Dirk a look filled with attitude. “Like I said, nine-ish.”
Savannah glanced at her watch and saw that it was, as Larry would say, one-thirty-ish.
She did a bit of quick math. The Van Cleefs had been gone four and a half hours since picking up the car.
Fifteen minutes to the glacier, fifteen minutes back. Ninety minutes spent looking at the glacier, tops, if you took plenty of pictures.
That was two hours. Which left another two and a half hours unaccounted for.
She looked over at Dirk and realized he was doing the same mental arithmetic.
“I know. But it doesn’t mean anything, Van,” he said softly. “They could’ve stopped along the way, got something to eat, checked out some other natural wonder and—”
“There ain’t no other natural wonders around here or places to eat neither,” Larry opined. “Just woods, mountains, creeks, and rivers. Those are all a dime-a-dozen in Alaska.” Suddenly he looked serious. “You think my car’s all right? That’s the most valuable thing I own. I’d hate for something to happen to it.”
“You’re all heart, Larry,” Savannah told him, “all concerned about your customers that way.”
“Hey, I love my fellow man as much as anybody else, but that car’s my bread and butter. If anything happened to it, I’d have to move back in with my in-laws, and if you knew them . . .”
Larry the Rental Man continued to prattle on about the shortcomings of his wife’s parents, but Savannah wasn’t listening to him anymore.
Her attention was focused on the squawkings and sputterings coming from the CB radio on the shelf.
“10-4, dispatch. This is Eagle Eye. We got a 10-55 here on Copper Creek Road just south of the glacier Visitor Center,” said a male voice that sounded like every other cop Savannah had ever heard who was trying not to appear upset when he was.
Every Body on Deck Page 10
