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 red, 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.
“10-52, Eagle Eye?” asked the female dispatcher.
“Negative, dispatch. 10-79.”
“Oh. Uh, copy, Eagle Eye.”
Savannah’s heart sank. It felt like it had just hit the dirty, dusty floor. She whirled to face Dirk and saw that he had the same stricken expression on his face that she was sure she was wearing on hers.
“No,” she whispered.
“It’s not. Not necessarily,” Dirk said, stepping closer to her and putting his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t go there, Van. You don’t know.”
But she did know. Deep in her soul.
“Do you have another vehicle to rent?” she asked Larry.
He hemmed and hawed a moment, then said, “Not as nice as the Chevy.”
“What do you have?” Dirk demanded. “Speak up, man.”
“An oldie. It’s a 1984 Bronco. She’s rusty and looks awful, but she’ll get you where you wanna go.”
“That old nasty thing I saw out front when we pulled up?” Dirk asked. “The green one with the purple fender and yellow driver’s door?”
“That’s the one.”
Dirk was already pulling out his wallet. “How much for the day?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t ever rented it out, and—”
Slapping two twenties on the counter, Dirk said, “Gimme the keys, dude. Now!”
When Larry hesitated, Dirk added, “Unless you want me to just commandeer it in the name of the law.”
Savannah held her breath. She knew that Dirk had no authority to do such a thing in Alaska. It might even be iffy in California, since he wouldn’t be using the vehicle to pursue a fleeing felon.
But Dirk had never let little technicalities like that get in his way when he was riled up.
“Okay. Okay.” Larry pulled a large ring of keys off his belt and thumbed through it until he found the right one. As he peeled it off the ring, he said, “I’m doing you a big favor here. If it happens to be my pretty red car that’s wrecked up there, you let me know as soon as you can, okay?”
“Sure.” Dirk grabbed the key from him, and he and Savannah rushed to the door.
She paused a moment before leaving and turned back to Larry, who was fondling his twenties. “Which way to Copper Creek Road and that glacier?” she asked.
“Out the driveway, turn right. Half a mile down to the road. Turn right again. The glacier’s about four miles down.”
“Thanks.” She sailed out the door with Dirk.
It wasn’t until they were in the old Bronco and hurtling down the bumpy road that she said, “Eagle Eye refused an ambulance.”
“I know, honey.”
“And a 10-79.”
“I heard.”
“Send a coroner. That’s as bad as it gets.”
Dirk said nothing. He just nodded.
“It’s her.” Tears filled Savannah’s eyes and squeezed her throat until she could scarcely breathe.
Dirk reached over, grabbed her thigh, and gave it a shake. “You don’t know that, babe. It ain’t her till it’s her.”
“I do know. It’s her.”