8:39 A.M.
After several hours of dirt combing—searching the crime scene for the most minute particle of evidence—Dirk, Savannah, and Officer Titus Dunn had decided it was time for some nourishment at a local pancake house.
The waitress, who filled out her hot pink uniform to perfection, eyed Titus as she sidled by, a coffeepot in her hand and a twinkle in her eye. “You need a refill?” she asked him, ignoring Savannah and Dirk, who sat across the booth from the patrolman.
Savannah was only mildly irked. After all, Titus was the quintessential tall, moderately dark, and delectably handsome hunk who spent most of his spare time lifting weights at the gym. While Dirk was . . . well . . . Dirk was Dirk. And she, herself, probably wasn’t the waitress’s preferred gender.
But, on the other hand, there was no excuse for a customer suffering from low blood sugar or caffeine deprivation in a pancake house.
“Excuse me, Adrienne,” she said, reading the name tag over the waitress’s left boob. “I need another Danish—cherry and cream cheese—and some more coffee,” she said, waving her hand in the woman’s line of vision. The waitress tore her eyes away from Titus for a second. “And do you have some half and half?” she added. “This blue water just doesn’t cut it.”
Adrienne shook her head slightly, as though coming to consciousness after a long, deep slumber . . . or maybe a short, intense fantasy. “Sure,” she muttered. “Coming right up.”
“Two Danish rolls and four cups of coffee for breakfast,” Dirk said, shaking his head in mock disgust and doing that “tsk, tsk” thing that made Savannah want to box his jaws. Dirk turned to Titus. “You can tell—this one’s really got the old girl shook up.”
Titus laughed and turned golden eyes rimmed with long black lashes to Savannah. Her heart did a pit-a-pat. “What’s he saying, Savannah?” Titus said in a voice as deep as his shoulders were broad. “Do you eat more when you’re upset?”
“No, I eat less,” she said, giving Dirk an evil eye. “Normally, I’d have a short stack of hotcakes to go with the rolls, and a slab of ham on the side.”
Titus chuckled, revealing a smile that should have been used on recruitment posters for the S.C.P.D. Half the force would have been women. “We miss you,” Savannah,” he said affectionately. “It’s just not the same at the station without you.” He nodded toward Dirk. “And this guy mopes around with his chin draggin’ on the floor. It’s like he’s got an acute case of permanent PMS.”
Savannah nudged Dirk in the ribs with her elbow. “Ah, Dirk’s always been a downer. He considers it his mission in life to keep us optimists adequately depressed.”
Dirk scowled. “I’m not a downer; I’m a realist.”
“You’re a Gloomy Gus who’s only happy when he’s pooping in somebody’s ice cream.”
Titus grimaced and looked down at the eggs and link sausages on his plate. “Oh, man . . . now there’s a visual I could have done without.”
“Me, too.” Dirk gave her a look of disgust mingled with respect. “Van, you’re the only chick I know who can out-gross a guy.”
“Why, thank you, darlin’. That’s high praise, indeed, coming from a foul-mouthed, dirty-minded adolescent like yourself.”
Adrienne arrived with the coffee, half and half, and Savannah’s Danish. As she dumped a healthy—or unhealthy, depending on the point of view—portion of cream into the coffee and stirred it, she wondered when Charlene Yardley would be able to eat solid food again.
“Speaking of disturbing visuals,” she said, “I can’t get the victim’s battered face out of my mind.”
“No kidding,” Dirk said, slathering more butter and syrup on his tall stack of blueberry flapjacks. “She looked like a semi had run over her, backed up, and made a second trip.”
“She looked pretty awful out there in the grove, too.” Titus shook his head, and he had a sad, distant expression on his face. “I don’t understand how one human being can do something like that to another one . . . and somebody they don’t even know.”
“Well, we assume it was a stranger attack, but we aren’t sure,” Dirk said, chewing and talking at the same time—a habit Savannah had tried for years to beat out of him. Dirk was a fairly old dog, and keeping your mouth shut when you eat must be classified as a new trick.
“Is she going to be all right?” Titus asked.
“Probably,” Savannah replied. “Her arm is broken, she has a concussion, and she needed a lot of stitches for the lacerations on her face and head. The sonofabitch really did a number on her. May he rot in hell.”
“When I talked to her there in the grove,” Titus said, “she told me she thought he was white, and he was wearing the Santa Claus disguise. That’s about all she could tell me.”
“That’s all she had for us, too,” Dirk said, replenishing his mouthful. “Nothing to go on.”
“Yeah, her memory’s about as worthless as the crime scene.” Savannah’s fatigue began to catch up with her as her tummy filled. Food . . . and now sleep. That would improve her mood considerably. The simple pleasures of life.
“I can’t believe,” she said, “we searched that long and didn’t come up with anything except a few more of those damned curly, white hairs. That’s a piss-poor payoff for the backache I’ve got.”
“But at least we’ve got the hairs,” Titus said, “and we know it’s the same guy who did the other women. That’s something.”
“So . . . we’ve got a nondescript, probably white, Santa Claus who’s molting,” Dirk grumbled. “Big friggin’ deal. He’s gonna keep on raping and plundering—will probably escalate to murder before long—and we’re never, ever, gonna catch him.”
Savannah felt her own mood barometer drop fifteen notches. “Like I told you,” she said to Titus, “Dirk makes sure that no one’s morale rises above Suicide Level One.”
“Hey, what can I say?” Dirk shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s my job to make sure everybody around here understands the situation. And the situation is: We got a very sick guy on the loose . . . and when it comes to nabbing him . . . we got diddly-squat.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
9:41 A.M.
After breakfast, Savannah drove Dirk back to her house to get his car, where he had left it the night before. As they stood beside his old Buick in her driveway, saying good-bye, Savannah noticed that Dirk was wearing what she called his “sorta-sappy” look. It was the expression he donned when he was feeling sentimental, but, being Dirk, didn’t want her to know.
“Listen, Van,” he said, nudging a rock in the dirt with the toe of his scuffed sneaker that looked worse than usual, thanks to their stint in the muddy orange grove. “Before you go, I just want to say that I really appreciate your help, last night and today. Workin’ with you, it was kinda like old times.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, except in days of yore I got paid.”
His sappy look quickly changed to indignation. “You aren’t suggesting I pay you, are you?”
“You? A man who reuses coffee filters? A guy who could read a newspaper through the best towel in his bathroom?”
He bristled. “Hey, are you insinuating I’m cheap or somethin’?”
“Who, me? You, cheap? Never.”
He wasn’t convinced his case had been made. “I bought you pizza last night . . . kind of,” he argued, “and breakfast this morning. Basically, I’ve fed you for the past twelve hours.”
“So? It was the least you could do.” She propped her hands on her hips and tossed her head. “Let me remind you, good buddy, that if it hadn’t been for you, I would have been snoozing away in my comfy bed for eight of those twelve hours.”
“Well . . . like I said, I appreciate what you did, especially talking to that Yardley gal there in the hospital and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know you appreciate me . . . ” She waved him off. She could only take so much sentiment Dirk style. “So shut up already. Any time.”
“Any time?”
He l
ooked far too eager. She decided to backpedal. “Well . . . almost any time. When?”
“How about later this afternoon or tonight? I gotta go over the victim files. And I always get bored and fall asleep if I have to do it by myself.”
“Paperwork? Forget it. I gotta sleep this afternoon and give another one of those self-defense classes at the library tonight. Sorry, old chum, but you’re on your own. Maybe tomorrow . . . unless a real, live, paying job comes along.”
She socked him on the shoulder, then started to walk away.
“Listen,” he called after her, “I’ll. try to get you some dough for the time you’re putting in on this one. Maybe I’ll write you up as one of my snitches or something. I’ll call you Trixie Delight or Ample Samples.”
She stepped up onto the porch as he climbed into his Buick. “Gee, thanks. But I know how much you pay your snitches. Don’t bother; five bucks doesn’t buy much these days. Just keep me in pizza and Danish.”
“Sure thing. I got more freebie coupons where that came from.”
“I’ll bet you do. Go get some sleep; you look like I feel. And that’s not a good thing.”
When she walked into the house, she was a bit startled and dismayed to see the blinds thrown wide open, sunshine pouring in. New Age jazz was playing on the stereo—cheery jazz. Tammy, the indomitable morning person, had struck again.
“Good morning,” trilled a joyful greeting from the kitchen. Tammy bounded into the room, holding a glass of carrot juice in one hand and a large quartz crystal in the other.
Savannah considered making a sarcastic comment about the kid “stroking her rocks” again, but that would only lead to a lecture about crystal power or some other hocus-pocus goofiness.
“Don’t give me any of your ‘good morning’ crap,” Savannah mumbled as she tossed her purse and keys onto the piecrust table beside the front door. “It isn’t morning until I’ve slept.”
Tammy giggled. “Oh, oh . . . our mistress is feeling a little testy,” she told Diamante, who was sunning herself in the open window. She held out some pink slips of paper to Savannah. “Here you go . . . messages.”
Savannah refused to take them. “Go away. Leave me alone.”
“Your sister, Vidalia, called.”
Heading for the stairs, Savannah stuck her fingers in her ears and sang, “La, la, la, la, la-a-a-a-a. I can’t hear you. I’m going to take a hot bubble bath, and then I’m going to bed.”
“She was crying.”
Savannah paused, one foot on the bottom step. “Of course, she was crying. She’s seven months pregnant. . . All she does is cry or eat. Lately, she’s been crying and eating at the same time . . . and complaining about how much weight she’s gained.”
“She says she’s going to leave her husband.”
“Vidalia’s always threatening to leave Butch. But she won’t. He’s the one who’s buying the Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream she’s gorging herself with and the tissues she’s boo-hooing into. She may be pregnant and depressed, but the girl isn’t stupid.”
Savannah continued on up the stairs, dragging her body that was becoming more weary with every step.
Still obnoxiously cheery, Tammy called after her, “Well, this time I think she means it. In fact, she mentioned something about leaving him and coming out here to spend Christmas with you.”
Suddenly energized, Savannah nearly tumbled over herself getting back down the stairs. “What? What did you say?”
“And she mentioned something about bringing some twins.”
“Oh my God!” Savannah choked on her own spit and couldn’t speak or even breathe for a moment.
“Who are the twins?” Tammy asked, so innocently, with such casual indifference. She could afford to be nonchalant. She didn’t know.
“The twins are my niece and nephew,” Savannah said. “Redheaded, fieckle-faced five-year-olds.”
“How cute!”
“Cute, my ass. Those cherub-faced gargoyles could guard the gates of hell. They’re holy terrors, I tell you! The worst! Where is Vidalia’s phone number? Dear Lord! I have to stop her before she starts packing!”
10:02 A.M.
She was too late.
“Vidalia just hightailed it out of here and took my young’uns with her, she did,” Butch told Savannah when she called from her phone in the bedroom. “And here it’s just a few days before Christmas. I tell you, Savannah, that girl’s done gone plumb whacko on me. Worse than the last time she was pregnant, and you know what a nut-job she was then.”
Good old Butch, Savannah thought as she sat on the edge of her bed and kicked off her shoes, he’d never win the “Sensitive Husband of the Year” Award. But Vidalia wasn’t a particularly easygoing gal either, even when she wasn’t pregnant, let alone when she was “big as a barn.”
“Maybe she just went to the grocery store,” she said hopefully.
“She packed six suitcases.”
“The mall perhaps?”
“She told me flat out she was going to California. Says she’s gonna live there with you in your spare bedroom, her and the twins and the new baby. Now what do you think of that there?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.” She collapsed across the bed, which had begun to spin as though she had consumed a six-pack of beer on an empty stomach.
Staring up at the ceiling, she cursed Fate for making her the oldest of nine siblings . . . the big sister they always ran to when their lives were in shambles . . . or when they perceived their lives were a mess. Usually, they weren’t half as bad off as they seemed to think they were. In her line of work, Savannah had seen worse . . . much worse.
“Did it occur to Vidalia to give me a quick phone call and ask if it would be convenient for her and her offspring to live with me right now?” she said, more to herself than Butch.
“Who knows what’s between her ears? I’m plumb worn to a frazzle tryin’ to figure that girl out. If it wasn’t for the babies, I’d just say ‘Good-bye and good riddance.’ ”
“Come on, Butch, you don’t really feel that way.”
“Right now, I do. She’s more trouble than she’s worth.”
“Is she driving here in her condition?” Knowing the usual state of Vidalia and Butch’s domestic economy, she assumed her sister wouldn’t have been able to swing air fare.
“Nope, the car’s in the garage. Your brother Macon is overhauling the engine for me. She took the bus.”
Savannah gasped. “The bus? She and the twins are riding a bus from Georgia to California? That’s crazy.”
“Crazier than a bedbug, that’s your sister.”
“She’s not that crazy, even when she’s pregnant. She must have been hoppin’ mad. You two must have had a hell of a fight. What was it about?”
“About?” he answered quickly. Too quickly. “It weren’t about nothin’.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Not a blamed thing. She just got on her high horse and—”
Savannah sat up suddenly. “Did you hit her? ‘Cause if you raised a hand to my little sister, I’ll get hold of you, boy, and turn you ever’ which way but loose.”
“I never hit a woman in my life, and you know it, Savannah. Though lately I been thinkin’ that’s what Vi needs, a good paddlin’ on the behind. It might get her to thinkin’ what’s what.”
All the wind went out of Savannah’s sails, and she sagged like a wet sheet on a clothesline. “When will they be arriving?” she asked, too tired to breathe.
“Best I can figure, three or four days. You call me when they show up, you hear?”
“I hear. I’ll call.” She sighed. “Hell, I probably won’t even bother with the phone. You’ll just hear this long, plaintive wail and . . .”
7:30 P.M.
“Okay, ladies, it’s time to join the real world, cruel as it may be,” Savannah told her class as they exited the library’s front door and entered the poorly lit parking lot. “Everybody got somebody to walk with?”
They paired up like third grade students on a field trip, but they weren’t nearly as chatty or jubilant. No sack lunches, no big yellow bus waiting for them. Just a dark, shrubbery-lined parking lot dotted with ominous shadows.
“Here’s your chance to practice what we’ve been preaching . . . parking lot safety,” she said, searching the shadows herself. The town bad boy preferred shopping malls, but you never knew when he might wax literary and start hanging out at the local library.
“What’s the first thing you do, Tammy?” she asked her assistant, who was bringing up the rear.
“Make sure you’ve got your keys ready in one hand, and if possible, some sort of weapon in the other,” Tammy responded.
“That’s right. And remember, almost anything can be used for defense, even an old, battered copy of Wuthering Heights. I once knew a young lady who was walking through the park on her way home from school when some perv flashed her. She smacked him on the dicky-do with War and Peace and changed his gender.”
A few giggles cut the tension for a moment, but it quickly returned. Savannah turned deadly serious. “Like I told you earlier inside, it’s when you’re getting in and out of your car that you’re the most vulnerable. And this is true, whether there’s a psycho on the loose or not. Angie . . . ” She turned to Angie Perez, who had joined them for the first time tonight at Dirk’s suggestion. The scared teen hadn’t required much coaxing. “What are you going to do on the way to your car?” Savannah asked her.
“Look everywhere. Make sure nobody’s following me. Check for anyone hanging around beside my car or even lying under it.”
“And, Margie, what do you do if you see anything at all suspicious?”
“Turn around and go back into the store,” she replied, all of her cockiness temporarily on hold. “Ask security to walk me out or call a cop.”
“Good girl.”
Margie beamed, and it occurred to Savannah that the girl must not receive a lot of adult praise or validation. No wonder she was such a brat.
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