by GA McKevett
Savannah stifled a grin. She knew Dirk was deadly serious about this topic. What he had on top was thinning year by year, and she wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he literally counted the hairs on a regular basis.
“No one cares, but the guy. And he shouldn’t,” she said. “Really. Believe me. Women couldn’t care less about that.”
He smiled. “Good to know.”
“But stop grinnin’ like a goat chewin’ bumblebees. You can’t be in a good mood when we’re fixing to do battle.”
“That’s true.” He put on his best Clint Eastwood scowl and knocked, a bit harder than necessary, on the door with CHIEF CHARLOTTE LA CROSS lettered in gold on the textured glass.
“Come in” was the less-than-friendly reply.
They entered the office and found it as austere as the woman in black who was seated behind a desk that was equally black. Savannah wondered if anyone had ever mentioned to Charlotte La Cross that a splash of color in one’s surroundings or in a body’s wardrobe could do wonders for depression and a sour disposition.
And Chief La Cross looked like she was feeling even more tart than usual.
“What do you two want?” she snapped as she rifled through a stack of papers on her desk without making eye contact with them. “Say what you’ve got to say and then get the hell out of my office. I’m busy.”
“Yes, you do look busy, shuffling your papers around like that,” Savannah said. “In fact, you look about as busy as a cat coverin’ up crap on a marble floor. Is that what you’re doing, Chief? Making sure all the crap’s covered?”
“It’s not possible, you know,” Dirk told her. “There’s always something you miss. And then you get caught.”
Chief La Cross threw the papers down and glared at them. “I asked you what you want. You’d better say and then leave. I’ve had quite enough of you two, especially after that fiasco in the restaurant. I should have arrested you both then and there for disturbing the peace.”
“Yeah. You probably should have,” Dirk said. “Then we wouldn’t have found out what we did.”
“Though we did suspect it already,” Savannah added.
Although La Cross hadn’t invited them to sit down, they each took a chair on either side of her desk. Dirk leaned back in his, put his hands behind his head, and laced his fingers together. Savannah casually crossed one leg over the other, resting her ankle on her knee.
“So you been knockin’ boots with ol’ William for how long now?” Savannah asked. “And poor Amelia found out about it. We hear she didn’t take it very well.”
Under her tropical tan, the chief turned a few shades paler. “William and I are old friends. Nothing more.”
Savannah dropped the fake smile and fixed her with her strongest blue-laser stare. “Don’t insult us by lying to us,” she said. “We’ve been put through the mill on this case of yours, trying to do the right thing by the victim. The case you should be solving, except that . . . Oh, right, you may not want to solve it, because as it turns out, you’re one of the principals involved.”
The wind seemed to go out of the chief’s sails. She sighed, put her elbows on her desk, and rested her head in her hands. “You talked to Opal Parson,” she said with a tone that sounded to Savannah like exhausted resignation.
“Yes, we did,” Dirk said.
Savannah added, “You had to know we would, sooner or later.”
“I was hoping for later.”
“Why?” Savannah asked. “Why stall? What’s the advantage of buying time?”
“I was hoping to solve Amelia’s murder.”
“Solve it or get away with it?” Savannah shot back.
La Cross lifted her head. “Watch yourself. No matter what you think you’ve found out, you’re still in my office, my jurisdiction. You’d better never forget that.”
“Are you telling us you didn’t kill your boyfriend’s wife?” Dirk asked, his tone as testy as hers.
“I most certainly am telling you that. I’m trying to find out who did.”
“If you’re telling the truth, and you really didn’t do it,” Savannah said, “I don’t think you have to look far to find the culprit. Just roll over in your sleep and you’ll run flat dab into him.”
Chief La Cross jumped up from her chair. For a second, Savannah thought the police chief was going to attack her.
The thought also occurred to her that she had never—even during the darkest days of her law enforcement career—had the bullpucky beaten out of her two days in a row. It wasn’t a new record that she cared to set.
Instead, La Cross walked over to her window and stood, her back to them for a long time.
Finally, still looking out, she said, “William didn’t kill Amelia. If you’ll recall, he was shot himself. Badly. He very nearly died.”
“Who says it was the same shooter?” Dirk asked. “Could’ve been two different guys.”
“Same gun,” La Cross said. “I recovered casings at both scenes. They were the same. We were also able to compare the slugs removed from William and from Amelia. We examined them under a microscope, and the lans and grooves line up. They were a perfect match. They were fired from the same weapon.”
The chief turned around to face them, a bitterly smug look on her face. “Yeah, yeah, we aren’t complete schmucks around here. We know a few cop tricks. We watch CSI, too.”
“Well,” Savannah said, “we have three people in this little love triangle. You’re telling me it wasn’t William or Amelia, because they both got shot by the same gun. I guess that leaves you. Did you pop William because—when push came to shove—he refused to leave his wife for you? Then, when you screwed up the hit on him and he recovered, you reconsidered and decided to take her out instead?”
“You think you have it all figured out, don’t you?” La Cross said, her tone acidic, her dark eyes fathomless. “Well, figure this out. Someone took a shot at me, too. Only, fortunately for me, they missed.”
Dirk sat up straight in his chair. “When?”
“The same day William was hit. I was walking out of my house and a shot came from a passing car. Missed me by inches. It struck the palm tree next to my front door. If you don’t believe me, I’ll take you to my house right now and you can examine the hole it left.”
“Did you recover the slug and casing?” Savannah asked.
“Not the casing. I searched the road for it, but it probably landed in the shooter’s car. I managed to dig the slug out of the tree without damaging it too badly.”
“And?” Savannah could feel her pulse rate quickening. “Was it a match for the others?”
“Absolutely. No doubt about it.”
Savannah stared into those black eyes, weighing the sincerity she saw there. Or lack of it. Of course, Savannah knew the woman could be lying.
Contrary to popular belief, with some people it was really hard to tell, even for a seasoned professional.
“Did you get a look at the driver?” Dirk asked.
“No. The vehicle had dark, tinted windows.”
“Description?” Savannah said.
“A black Jeep, maybe ten years old. Rusty. In bad shape.”
Dirk dug out his notepad and started to scribble. “Plate?”
“California, blue on white. First four—4NPC. I didn’t get the rest. I was too busy pulling my own weapon and hiding behind my shrubs.”
“Do you have any lead on that tag?” Savannah asked. “Any idea at all whose vehicle it is?”
“Obviously not, or I’d have the owner in my jail cell.”
“There can’t be too many vehicles on this island, let alone a lot of Jeeps,” she said. “How hard can it be to find it?”
“With cars going back and forth on the ferries every day, you’d be surprised how hard it is. Besides, the shooter wouldn’t be the first criminal to use stolen plates when they commit a crime.”
“True.” Savannah stood, and Dirk rose with her.
He tucked his notebook back inside
his jacket pocket.
“If we help you catch this killer,” he said, “there’s something I want from you. In fact, I demand it.”
“What’s that?” La Cross asked suspiciously.
“I want a heartfelt apology from you. My wife is shapely, not husky. And this bomber jacket of mine is a classic.”
“I agree. Your wife is a lovely woman,” she said grudgingly.
He scowled. “And my jacket?”
“If you help me catch the killer, we’ll talk about that jacket.”
As Savannah slid between the sheets and pulled the quilt up around her, she glanced over at her cell phone on the night table to see if she’d gotten any calls while in the bathtub.
“Fluff Head didn’t call,” Dirk told her as he got in beside her. “And you know what they say about how a watched phone never rings.”
“I thought it was a watched pot that never boils.”
“Same principle.”
She grimaced as he tossed one leg over hers, rubbing a tender spot on her shin—residual battle damage from the no-longer-mentioned “Xenos Affair.”
“You really have to stop calling her stuff like that. It’s rude and stupid, when you consider she does stuff to help us solve these cases that we could never do ourselves. Like run this partial plate number.”
“Ryan and John are helping her.”
“Yeah, because you and I couldn’t even talk their lingo, let alone get results. You need to show your superiors proper respect, meadow muffin.”
“And speaking of showing respect, why do I get a feeling that little term of endearment isn’t all that reverential?”
She snickered and tickled his ribs until he wriggled and slapped her hand away. “ ’Cause you’re a cynical ol’ curmudgeon,” she told him.
“Hey! Why is it wrong for me to call Tammy a ‘fluff head,’ but you can call me a ‘curmudgeon’?”
“Because in your case, it’s true, where Tammy—”
Her phone began to play “You Are My Sunshine.”
“Where Tammy is calling me right now.” She reached for the phone and flipped it open. “Hey, babycakes. What’s happenin’?”
“It’s not too late, is it?” came the voice on the other end.
“Not for you. Got good news for me?”
“I have news. Whether it’s good or not . . . that’s up to you.”
“Lay it on me.”
“I got a possible on that plate.” She drew a deep breath. “Those first four characters you gave me don’t suggest it’s a vanity plate.”
“Right. So?”
“And La Cross said it was a Jeep, about ten years old.”
“Okay?”
“Ten years ago, the sequence of letters and numbers on California plates that weren’t vanity went—number, three letters, then three numbers.”
Savannah looked over at Dirk, who was waiting on pins and needles, and rolled her eyes. He mouthed the words “Fluff head.” She smacked him on the arm.
“What did we find, Miss Tammy, darlin’?”
“Well, I checked most of the nine hundred ninety-nine combinations of numbers for those last three, missing digits, and I found a black 2001 Jeep that belongs to someone living there on Santa Tesla.”
“And it is . . . ?”
“Actually, it’s not a person. It’s more like an organization. It—”
“Tammy Hart, you are wearin’ my nerves to a frazzle! What have you got?”
“The Island Protection League.”
“No way! Dr. Glenn’s group?”
“The very one.”
Savannah turned to Dirk. “And she seemed so nice!”
Dirk shrugged and looked obnoxiously smug. “I told you to take me along when you interviewed her. She never would’ve pulled the wool over the eyes of a cynical ol’ curmudgeon like me.”
“So, what’s the full plate number?” Savannah asked.
As Tammy rattled off the numbers, Savannah wrote them down on a scrap of paper on the nightstand.
“That’s wonderful, honey bun,” she said. “You did good.”
There was a little giggle on the other end, but not the enthusiastic response Savannah expected from her usually overly effervescent assistant.
“How’s it going back there?” she asked.
“Okay.” Again, the answer was a tad lackluster.
Savannah glanced over at Dirk, who was busy beating and folding his pillow, getting it just right. “Is our little project coming along all right?” she asked.
“Yeah. That’s coming along great.”
Hmmm. So, if everything’s so great, why are you so glum? Savannah thought.
“How’s Waycross?” she asked.
There was a long, telling pause. “Okay, I guess. Haven’t seen much of him because he’s been busy, you know, with that. When he is around, he’s . . . well . . .” Another silence. “He’s okay, I guess.”
Savannah’s heart sank, in spite of the intriguing information she’d just been given about the case. “Okay, darlin’,” she said. “Excellent work there. I’ll call you again tomorrow after I’ve reinterviewed Dr. Glenn.”
“Nighty-night.”
“Sweet dreams.”
Savannah hung up the phone and switched off the light. Moonlight shone through the mullioned window, casting prison bar shadows across the bed. Every few seconds, the beam from the lighthouse made its round, bathing the room in a momentary silver glow.
“That’s some pretty exciting news, huh?” Dirk said. “Finally we’ve got a halfway decent lead.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
He turned onto his side to face her. “What’s up with you? Usually, you’d be dancing a jig around the room.”
“I’m worried about Tammy and Waycross.”
“You sound like Granny. Don’t worry. They’re old enough to behave themselves. And if they don’t, they’ll be careful.”
“That’s not what I mean. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“But they were getting along good. Great, in fact. What’s wrong with that?”
“Waycross is backing off.”
“You’re kidding! Tammy’s a doll, and hotter than a pistol. She’s obviously crazy about him.”
Savannah felt a tightening in her throat. Her eyes stung with unshed tears that seemed to well up from out of nowhere.
Not exactly nowhere, she reminded herself. Her tears and her brother’s sprang from the same source.
“He doesn’t feel worthy of her,” Savannah said, her voice catching on the lump in her throat.
“Why the hell not? He’s a great guy.”
“A great guy from a family tree with some really rotten branches on it,” she said.
“Oh.”
Savannah could hear the hurt in his voice—a lot of it—echoing in that one word. She had made her statement without thinking. In light of Dirk’s recent revelations about his own family, she should have known better. This had to be a painful topic for him, too.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said finally.
“Of course, something like that shouldn’t matter at all,” she offered, thinking how lame it sounded.
“But it does.”
“Does it?”
“Absolutely.”
In the darkness, she could hear him swallow . . . hard.
“It can keep a guy from going after a special gal for a long time. Years even.”
Savannah thought of all the years of friendship between Dirk and herself. Years when they were dear friends, but they could have been lovers.
She rolled onto her side, facing him, and gently touched his cheek. “What a shame,” she said.
He kissed her, softly and sweetly. “Ain’t it though?”
Chapter 21
Savannah and Dirk had been unable to find Dr. Glenn at the office where Savannah had interviewed her before, but a volunteer, who was manning the desk, suggested they look at a nearby lake.
“Once a week, Dr. Glenn goes out there and pi
cks up litter,” the woman had told them. “She may be our director, but she isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty when she has to.”
“I wonder just how dirty she gets her hands,” Savannah mused as she drove the Jaguar into a valley between two of the island’s largest mountains.
Hills that looked like they had been covered with tawny-beige suede rose on either side of them, dotted with dark green sage bushes here and there. Yellow daisies and bright orange California poppies bloomed in profusion. Alongside the road, a creek burbled over its stony bed, reaching ever inland, flowing to the center of the island. Along its banks grew the occasional grove of ancient, gnarled oaks.
“A little mud on your hands is one thing,” Dirk said as he enjoyed the view from the passenger seat. “Now, if we’re talking blood, that’s another story.”
“I have to tell you, this one surprises me.” Savannah shook her head. “You wait till you meet her. Dr. Glenn comes across as a quality person—intelligent, devoted to the well-being of this island. I just can’t imagine her hanging out the window of a Jeep, shooting at a police chief.”
Dirk sniffed. “Yeah, well, considering who the police chief is, I can imagine myself taking a shot at her. La Cross doesn’t exactly bring out the best in people. She’s a real battle-axe.”
“That’s a highly sexist remark.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it? She is.”
“If she were a man, you wouldn’t say that. You’d say he had a strong personality.”
“Naw. That’s not true. I’d hate La Cross no matter what gender she was.”
“How much of that is because she insulted your jacket?”
He glanced down and ran his hand lovingly over the old, cracking leather. “The woman’s obviously got no taste. In men or in jackets.”
“That’s true . . . about the ‘men’ part.”
He shot her a look.
“You know what I mean,” she added quickly. “Northrop’s obviously a jackass.”
Up ahead, they could see the creek widening and spilling into a small lake, surrounded by reeds, massive rocks, and a few trees.
“Hey, look at that.” Dirk pointed to a rusty black Jeep parked at the end of the road, near the water’s edge. “And check out the plate number.”
