“I’m looking for Gordon Priest.”
“I don’t know any Gordon Priest.”
“Tell him it’s Cordell Logan.”
“I just told you—”
“Tell him that if he doesn’t come to the door,” I said, pulling out my phone, “I’m calling his wife.”
Her face softened with resignation. She sighed and yelled over her shoulder.
“There’s some guy out here. Says his name’s Logan. He’s calling your wife.”
Priest came sprinting. Imagine a barefoot, disheveled Fred Flintstone wearing a dog collar and a pink terrycloth robe that was ridiculously undersized.
“Can I help you?” he said sheepishly.
“We can take this inside,” I said, “or we can stand out here and talk. That way all the neighbors can listen in.”
Priest gave the lady in leather a look that was both pleading and apologetic.
“Come on in,” she said. “I’m Mistress Elvira, by the way.”
“Of course you are.”
The living room was a testimonial to the American West. Cowhide-covered furniture. A pair of steer horns hanging over the fireplace mantle. Framed lithographs of horse-mounted Native Americans with feathers in their hair.
“Think I’ll hit the can and let you boys chat,” Elvira said.
Priest watched her disappear down a hall, her ample hips swaying side to side.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, looking back at me.
I shrugged. “Nice collar.”
He smiled, embarrassed, and took it off.
“How’d you find me?”
“Followed you.”
He nodded, hands stuffed in the pockets of his hastily borrowed robe, staring at the floor.
“You want a drink or something?”
“No, thanks.”
“Mind if I do?”
“It’s a free country.”
He crossed to a wet bar and poured himself a full tumbler of vodka.
“You’re not gonna tell my wife about any of this, are you?”
“Only if you don’t tell me the truth.”
“You mean about my nephew, Chad?”
I said nothing, waiting.
Another swig of booze, then Priest said, “I was at a meeting in Reno the day he was killed.”
“There was no meeting that day in Reno.”
“Of course there was.”
“You’re lying to me, Gordon.”
He rubbed his nose with his free hand and folded his arms across his chest defensively, refusing to meet my eyes.
“How do you know that?”
“Your body language just told me.”
Gordon Priest downed the rest of his drink. “OK, look, here’s the deal.” He hesitated, then exhaled. “I was here that day, OK? Most of the day, anyway. But, for god’s sake, if my wife knew… She’ll take everything I own. Please. You can’t.”
“You’ve got proof you were here?”
“My credit card statement.”
“Your dominatrix takes MasterCard?”
“And Visa, and American Express,” Mistress Elvira said, returning from the bathroom and disappearing into the kitchen. “I run a legitimate business. No hanky-panky. I’m getting the yogurt.”
“OK,” Priest said.
He told me he didn’t use his personal credit card to charge his sessions with Elvira — nobody, he said, would be that stupid. Rather, he said, the charges posted to his corporate American Express account, the statement of which was mailed each month to his airport office, where his wife wouldn’t see it.
I asked him about his going to see Reza Jalali at the convenience store that morning.
“Reza’s a ’Niners fan,” Priest said. “I’m a Raiders fan. The Raiders lost last week and the ’Niners won. I owed him $100. I went to pay him.”
I didn’t buy it. Murtha, the ex-con, had told me that Chad Lovejoy feared his uncle Gordon was involved in something sketchy with Iranians living in the Tahoe area. Chad was so unnerved, he couldn’t tell Murtha what it was.
“You’re lying to me again, Gordon,” I said.
“I swear I’m not.”
I dug the phone out of my pocket and punched in numbers.
“What’re you doing?” he said, half-panicked.
“Calling your wife.”
“Okay, okay, okay.” Priest ran a hand through his tangled, sweat-soaked hair. “The truth. Just hang up. Please.”
I hung up. He started walking toward the front door.
“Where’re you going?”
“My car,” he said. “Something I need to show you.”
I followed him down the driveway. Barefoot, Priest navigated the snow-covered concrete gingerly, making little painful noises, like he was walking across hot coals. The station wagon was unlocked. Instinctively, I watched his hands and stayed close behind his right side as he leaned in and reached under the passenger seat with his left hand. If he did pull a gun on me, he’d have to turn awkwardly, drawing the weapon across his body before getting a shot off. I’d take him out long before he got the chance.
Only it wasn’t a gun Priest was reaching for, as it turned out. It was a sheaf of papers — bills of lading from several foreign shipping companies, each listing replacement parts for Cessna and Piper airplanes.
“We run a company,” Priest said, “supplying aircraft parts to Iran.”
“In violation of US trade sanctions against Tehran.”
“It’s not military parts, nothing like that. They’ve got civilian pilots over there who like to fly small planes, just like we’ve got here. We’re not hurting anybody.”
“You could go to prison. You know that, right?”
“All we’re doing is helping keep general aviation alive in a corner of the world that could use a little help, that’s all.”
I handed him back the papers. “What about nuclear material?”
He looked at me blankly.
“What’re you talking about?”
“That Twin Beech we found up in the mountains was hauling enriched uranium.”
“You think I was trying to export uranium to Iran?” He blanched, pumping his knees to keep his feet from freezing. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. And if I did, I’d be on the phone to the FBI in a New York minute. I’m a proud American. I bleed red, white, and blue, OK? And I didn’t kill my nephew. Or anybody else.”
Two houses down, across the cul-de-sac, a garage door rolled up and a middle-aged woman in a burgundy tracksuit started to get into her black Mercedes SUV. She spotted Priest and stopped dead in her tracks, mouth agape.
“I’d say she definitely digs the robe.”
“You’re not gonna tell my wife about this, are you?”
“No.”
“What about the feds?”
“I’ve got nothing against civilian pilots, in Iran or anywhere else.”
Priest tilted his head up to the sky and exhaled like a great weight had been lifted from him.
“Thank you, Jesus.”
We shook hands. “I’m real sorry again about your lady,” he said. “And I know he and I didn’t always get along, but I’m sorry about what happened to my sister’s kid. I just hope they catch whoever did it before somebody else dies.”
“Makes two of us.”
As I watched him hotfoot it back inside, wondering what yogurt had to do with spiked dog collars and riding crops, my phone rang.
“Hello, bubby. It’s Mrs. Schmulowitz calling.”
As if I wouldn’t recognize that nasally Brooklyn accent anywhere.
“It’s not like I’m trying to be a Jewish mother,” she said, “but, let’s face it, I am a Jewish mother. I was just checking in to see how you’re doing. Are you OK? Where are you? When’re you coming home?”
“I’m fine,” Mrs. Schmulowitz. “I’m still in Tahoe. Not sure when I’m coming back. Soon, I hope.”
She also said she had news about my cat: he’d tangled with a snake.