Peaches And Screams (A Savannah Reid Mystery)

by McKevett, G. A.

  She sighed, knowing how the rest of her afternoon would be spent—perusing these files, one by one, looking for something. Of course, she had no idea what she was looking for . . . until she found it.

  And even as she headed for the kitchen to ask Elsie if she could borrow some sort of cardboard box to hold the drawer’s contents, Savannah had a sneaking, sinking feeling that, even if she spent the next few hours learning far more than she ever wanted to know about the judge’s life, she was going to come away empty-handed.

  Because instinct told her that Elsie’s “ghostly” visitor had come and gone . . . taking the good stuff with them and leaving her with such jewels of information as overdue utility bills, last year’s stock reports, and the judge’s prescription for Viagra.

  “Well, that was a total waste of time,” Savannah said as she fell back onto the bed in Dirk’s motel room. “And boy, am I bushed.”

  Her arms flung outward, she looked as though she had just taken a shot, dead center, from a Wild West gunslinger. And she felt like it, too.

  “I hate going through paperwork,” she grumbled. “Have I mentioned that I’d rather get a pedicure from a guy with a weed whacker than search for clues in a stack of papers?”

  “I believe you did mention that,” Dirk replied as he continued to return the green folders to the cardboard box. “A couple of hours ago.”

  “Only then,” Tammy added as she scooped another pile off the dresser and handed it to him, “it was a manicure from a dude with hedge clippers.”

  “And I’ve still got to go to that wedding rehearsal,” she groaned. “The fun just never ceases!”

  “Is it a dress rehearsal?” Tammy asked eagerly. “Are you going to wear the upside-down tulip dress?”

  Savannah opened her eyes and shot her a poisoned look. “Don’t you just wish.”

  “Tulip dress? What’s that?” Dirk wanted to know.

  “Forget about it.” Savannah slapped both hands over her eyes, trying to blot out the mental picture. “It doesn’t matter. I’m only going to wear that monstrosity once, for about seventeen minutes . . . or however long it takes Pastor Greene to hitch those two nitwits. And if either of you show your face at the church, I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “What time’s the wedding?” Dirk asked Tammy.

  “Four o’clock.”

  “I’ll pick you up at three-thirty. Wear something pretty.”

  “I will. I’ve got this slinky little blue slip dress that really shows off my—”

  “Oh, will you two just stop?” Savannah sat up suddenly. “I mean it! Some things are off limits for teasing, and that damned dress is one of them!”

  Completely ignoring her, Tammy and Dirk continued their conversation.

  “I hear it’s peach,” Tammy said, carefully arranging another armload of files. “A really, really bright shade of peach. Practically glows in the dark. With poofy capped sleeves, and—”

  “I’m gonna hurt you, I swear.”

  “And this wide sash around the waist and—”

  “If I have to get off this bed, as tired as I am . . .”

  “And a great big ol’ bow across the butt, and—ow-w-w! Shit! Dirk! He-e-elp!”

  “Will you, Marietta, take Lester to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

  Standing next to her sister, watching Marietta gaze up into her fiancé’s eyes, loved ones lined up across the front of the small country church, Pastor Greene, prayerbook in hand, leading them in this rehearsal of the sacred wedding vows . . . Savannah could almost feel her heartstrings twang a little.

  Almost.

  But not quite.

  The whole scene would have been far more romantic if Savannah hadn’t seen the wild-eyed redhead slip into the church a second before with a shotgun in her hand.

  “Gun!” Savannah shouted, momentarily forgetting that she was in the company of civilians, not law enforcement personnel. They simply turned and stared at her, as though she had committed some major social faux pas.

  “Hit the deck! Get down on the floor and stay there!” she screamed at them as she turned and hurried down the center aisle of the church toward the armed female.

  Nice time to be without my Beretta, she thought, flashing back on the fateful moment when she had stashed it high on the top shelf of Gran’s bedroom closet.

  Who needs a gun at church? she had asked herself.

  Now she had her answer: The maid of honor . . . if the present-and-hard-to-get-rid-of wife was attending the rehearsal.

  She didn’t have to be told that the shotgun-totin’ mama was Lester’s wife, the one fighting the divorce that was supposed to have been final by now.

  “Now, now, you don’t wanna go waving a gun around like that in the house of the Lord,” she told her in her most easygoing, down-homey voice. “It just ain’t right.”

  The disgruntled redhead raised the weapon to her shoulder and aimed it directly at Savannah’s face. “You stay right there or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off!” she yelled.

  The practiced way she handled the gun and the wicked gleam in her eyes set off alarms for Savannah. Mrs. Lester meant business. So Savannah decided not to mention that using the “F” word in church wasn’t a good idea either.

  She halted about ten feet from the woman and held her hands up in surrender. “Don’t shoot me,” she said. “I’m a nice person. And I’ve got a husband and four kids and a couple of cats who love me and who’ll starve to death if you kill me.”

  Okay, so you aren’t supposed to lie in church either, she thought, but surely the Lord’ll understand, considering the circumstances.

  “I know you’re mad and unhappy,” she continued, “and I don’t blame you, but bringing a shotgun in here is only going to make things worse.”

  The redhead laughed. “It’s gonna make y’all feel worse. That’s for sure! But I’m gonna feel a whole lot better after I pump some shot into the bitch who broke up my family!” She stood on tiptoes and stared over Savannah’s shoulder. “Where are you, Marietta Reid? Come down here right now and take what’s comin’ to ya!”

  Suddenly, Savannah realized she was no longer alone. She had reinforcements: Pastor Greene to her left and Gran to her right.

  “Lucille Marie,” Gran snapped, “you put that thing down before you hurt somebody.”

  “I aim to hurt somebody, but it ain’t you. So stand aside, Mrs. Reid.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere till you put that gun down,” Gran said, stepping closer to her.

  Savannah’s heart caught in her throat when she saw Lucille turn the gun toward Gran.

  A dozen takedown scenarios played through her head, but they were all too risky. Lucille was still a good ten feet away; the chance that she could reach her before she could pull off the shot . . .

  “That’s quite enough!” roared a deep, authoritative male voice.

  It took Savannah a couple of seconds to realize it was coming from Pastor Greene.

  “I’ll not have this sort of carryin’ on in my church, young lady.” He simply stepped forward and snatched the gun out of her hand. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Lucy, bringing a gun into a house of worship! Why, you went to Sunday school right down there in the basement, and we taught you right from wrong. There’s just no excuse for this. None at all!”

  With an even more practiced hand than Lucille had demonstrated, he cracked the breech of the gun and dispensed the shells in one fluid movement.

  Savannah’s mouth dropped open. Apparently . . . and thankfully . . . there was more to the soft-spoken, silver-haired pastor than met the eye.

  “You get yourself into my study,” he told Lucille, pointing to a door in the back of the church. “You and I are gonna have a long overdue talk about the state of your eternal soul . . . not to mention your messed-up marriage and your behavior here tonight.”

  When Lucille didn’t move fast enough to suit him, he gave her a shove from behind. “Get in there now. I mean it!”

&
nbsp; He turned back to Savannah and Gran . . . and the rest of the marriage party, who had risen from their prone positions on the carpet and crept to the rear of the church once the rampaging Lucille had been disarmed.

  “I reckon ya’ll will just have to go on without me,” he said. “Or better yet, let’s call it a night. The rehearsal’s over.”

  They watched, speechless, as he strode across the sanctuary, disappeared into his office, and slammed the door behind him.

  “Well! If that isn’t a fine how-do-you-do!” Marietta propped her hands on her hips and turned on her sheepish fiancé, who looked as though he had lost several years off the end of his life in the past five minutes. “And, boy . . . you didn’t exactly hurl yourself between me and danger, now did you, Lester?”

  Savannah reached for her sister. “Marietta, don’t. It’s not going to help anything by—”

  “Oh, shut up, Savannah!” She shook her hand away. “I’ve got a fiancé and two mostly grown boys and do you think any of them would place themselves in harm’s way to protect me? Not one of them! They just laid there, facedown on the rug like a bunch of spineless wimps!”

  Standing behind her, Paulie and Steve seemed to shrink three sizes in their jeans and T-shirts. They were both white and trembling, obviously traumatized, and now horribly emasculated.

  Savannah’s self-restraint snapped. “No, Marietta, you shut up!” she told her. “Don’t say another word. You made this mess and you dragged the rest of us, including your two boys, into it.”

  “Don’t you talk to me like that, Savannah Reid!” She took a step forward and shoved her face into Savannah’s. “Who do you think you are, Miss High-and-Mighty, telling me what I—”

  “Marietta, stop that!” Gran said, trying to step between them.

  Savannah reached out with one finger, placed it on Marietta’s chest, and pushed her sister back to a comfortable distance. In a soft, but deadly tone, she said, “Go . . . home . . . now. And give this whole situation some serious thought. For once in your life, be smart, Mari. If not for yourself and your own future, for your boys.”

  Marietta whirled around so fast that Savannah thought she might do a complete 360-degree turn, but she caught herself and stomped out the back door of the church.

  Gran walked over to her great-grandsons and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “You boys did just fine,” she told them. “Your mama’s just upset and scared. She didn’t mean what she said.”

  “Sure she did,” Steve replied, his lower lip trembling. “I guess she would’ve been happier if we’d gotten killed, as long as we were protecting her like she deserves, right?”

  “You did exactly what you should have done,” Savannah told him. “Everything turned out okay in the end and that’s all that matters.”

  “Yeah,” Paulie said. “Everything’s just jim-dandy.”

  Lester stood, head down, hands deep in his slacks pockets. “What a mess,” he mumbled. “What a freakin’ mess. I better go talk to Lucy. She’s gotta be real upset to have done a fool thing like this.”

  Without another word he shuffled over to the pastor’s door, knocked softly, and disappeared inside.

  One by one, everybody filed out of the sanctuary, until only Savannah and Gran remained.

  “I know you meant well,” Gran said, lacing her arm through Savannah’s, “with what you told the boys. But everything didn’t turn out okay tonight.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Savannah sighed, her knees turning to warm jelly from the adrenaline still coursing through her bloodstream. “No trigger was pulled and nobody’s hide got perforated, but things aren’t all right by a long shot.”

  Chapter 15

  Savannah was still wearing her pajamas and Gran’s chenille robe when Tammy and Dirk knocked on the front door. From the excited look on Tammy’s face, Savannah knew, even before she let them in, that she had news.

  “Okay, I heard something!” Tammy said as they entered the house, ignoring the baying Beauregard, who nipped at their heels as they passed him on the porch. “All that hash-slinging finally paid off, last night about midnight.”

  Balancing what was only her second cup of coffee in one hand, Savannah pushed them in the general direction of the sofa. “Sit,” she said. “Do you want a cup of java?”

  “No,” they both said in unison.

  “Well, I do . . . while it’s still hot.” She eased herself into Gran’s comfortable recliner. Her grandmother was out back, tying up tomato vines in the garden, and wouldn’t be in until the heat and humidity became unbearable. “Okay,” she said to Tammy, once she was settled. “Spill everything you’ve got.”

  “Bonnie Patterson and Alvin Barnes have been fooling around since—”

  “I told you that yesterday afternoon at the hotel,” Savannah said, blowing the steam that was rising from the lip of the cup. “I already—”

  “Oh, hush,” Tammy snapped. “You don’t know everything I know, so be quiet and let me tell you something for a change.”

  Savannah stared at her assistant, mouth open, then turned to an equally shocked Dirk. “The kid’s getting feisty in her old age.”

  “Yeah, wonder where she’s getting it?” Dirk said with a grin.

  “Sorry, Tam,” Savannah said, “the floor is yours.”

  “Thanks. Bonnie and Alvin have been a hot commodity since long before she married the judge. And according to a couple of his honor’s former caretakers, who were having a Lumberjack’s Deluxe Breakfast this morning at the counter, they never stopped seeing each other. Every day when the judge was off playing golf, and Elsie Dingle was taking a nap, Alvin snuck in the back door and . . . hokey-pokey.”

  Savannah thought of Elsie, her bright eyes and sharp curiosity. Alvin must have been a pretty good sneak to get past her on a regular basis.

  Tammy continued, “These two guys were talking about how Bonnie and Alvin had set the whole thing up, from the very beginning, to take advantage of the old man. The judge had a bypass years ago, and they counted on him kicking off pretty soon.”

  “That was pretty dumb on their account,” Savannah said. “Most people who’ve had a bypass can live a long, normal life if they take care of themselves.”

  “And the judge did.” Tammy sat on the edge of the sofa, still wearing her uniform of short shorts and a tube top. Savannah was surprised those gardeners had been able to converse at all in the presence of such blatantly displayed female pulchritude. “Except for his evening scotch and soda, he did everything the doctor told him, low-fat diet, nine holes of golf every day.”

  “And Bonnie and Alvin got impatient,” Dirk added, stealing her thunder. “They got to thinking the old fart never was gonna kick. So they helped him along.”

  Tammy gouged him in the ribs with her elbow. “Hey, I’m the one who served greasy eggs and bacon and toast slathered with butter, yuck, to get this. Have some respect.”

  Savannah cleared her throat. “These two caretaker guys, they said all this while they were downing their Lumberjack Break-fast?”

  Tammy nodded. “That’s the sum of bits and pieces that I overheard in the course of half an hour.”

  “Okay, that’s all very interesting,” Savannah said. “It may even be true. But the bottom line is: It’s just gossip. And if we’re going to get Macon out of the slammer, we’re going to have to take Sheriff Mahoney more than that.”

  “Yeah, I told her that,” Dirk said, “but she’s got some more. Go on, kiddo,” he told Tammy. “Tell her about the Navigator.”

  Wriggling like a kindergartner who needed to visit the little girls’ room, Tammy said, “Alvin’s put money down at the local Ford dealership for a brand-new Lincoln Navigator with all the options. The salesman was having a Spanish omelet with his wife, but hers was a Denver skillet scramble, no cheese.”

  Savannah lifted one eyebrow. “We’ve gotta get you out of there, Tam. I’m starting to worry.”

  “Forget about me. Don’t you see the significance of him orde
ring a new black Navigator when, until now, he’s been driving a bomb of an old Pontiac that’s missing a fender?”

  “As I said before,” Savannah replied, “it’s interesting, but hardly incriminating.”

  Tammy shook her head in exasperation. “Don’t you see? He’s profiting from the judge’s death!”

  “Honey, often, when people die, other folks profit. It’s the way of the world. But it doesn’t mean that everybody who receives an inheritance is a murderer.”

  “Bonnie’s buying a matching Navigator, fully loaded, all in white. And the local furniture dealer was in, too . . . plain toast, hold the butter and black coffee. And she’s ordered a lot of new furniture . . . a bunch of contemporary, ultra-modern stuff . . . for the mansion.”

  “Now that’s a crime.”

  “And she’s talking all over town about how she’s going to send Elsie Dingle packing when she takes over the house. Says she never did like the old lady and won’t put up with her sass.”

  Savannah’s eyes narrowed; her lips thinned. “That does it. Miss Priss Bonnie Patterson and her no-good boyfriend Alvin are going do-o-own.”

  For some reason, which she couldn’t explain, Savannah hadn’t expected someone named Alvin Barnes to look like a Greek god.

  So much for expectations.

  Stretched out on his back on a chaise beside the pool, his golden skin gleaming in the sunlight, Alvin B could have been Mr. July in any beefcake calendar. The red thong-style swimsuit barely did the job of containing his assets.

  The spitting image of his father, the judge? Savannah thought as she approached him, trying to remember who had said that.

  Thinking of the thin, wizened man on Herb Jameson’s embalming table, Savannah couldn’t see even a remote resemblance.

  As she walked around the end of the pool and up to his chaise, Savannah smelled the strong scent of coconut oil, mixed with a musky cologne or aftershave lotion, and saw that Alvin was thoroughly greased, from his thick, dark hair to his bare toes. Reflector sunglasses hid his eyes, so she couldn’t tell if he was awake or sleeping.