Margie’s smile faded. “Not so’s you’d notice,” she replied.
Savannah pointed to a triple-layer fudge cake drizzled with raspberry sauce. “Have a slice or two of that heavenly concoction, Margie, and you’ll forget al-l-l your troubles, guaranteed.”
Before Savannah could make her own selection, a buzzing sounded from her purse. She reached inside it and pulled out her cell phone. “Excuse me,” she told her fellow dinner guests. “Normally, I don’t carry this thing to dinner with me, but I wanted to be available for Dirk.”
“Go right ahead,” Gibson told her. “I’m afraid it’s one of those dubious technological advances that we have to accept.”
“Hello,” she said. “Hi, Dirk. Margie and I are having dinner at Chez Antoine with Ryan and Gibson. We’re about to eat dessert, so this had better be good, buddy.”
She listened to Dirk’s reply as Ryan ordered for her and everyone else at the table, then excused the waiter. He, Margie, and Gibson politely pretended not to be listening to Savannah’s conversation, until she said, “What? Oh, no. When? Okay. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”
She refolded the phone and put it back in her purse. All three were staring at her, sumptuous desserts forgotten.
“Well?” Ryan asked.
“I sense something foul is afoot,” Gibson added in his best “Christopher Plummer Plays Sherlock Holmes” impression.
“Foul, indeed,” Savannah said. “Ryan, Gibson, would you two enjoy Margie’s company a bit longer this evening? Maybe she could go back to your apartment for an after-dinner soft drink?”
“Of course, we’d be delighted,” Gibson replied.
Savannah turned to the girl. “Is that all right with you, Margie?”
The teenager gazed at Ryan, lovestruck, and mumbled, “Sure.”
“What’s up?” Ryan asked, less subtle than his dignified partner.
“Dirk wants me to join him out on Turner Canyon Road. Officer Joe McGivney was patrolling that area tonight. His radio car was found abandoned there in an orange grove. Now he’s missing, too.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ryan said softly, looking as worried as Savannah felt.
“That’s bad news, indeed.” Gibson cleared his throat and turned to Margie. “But don’t worry about Miss Bloss. We would be pleased to entertain her for the remainder of the evening.”
Ryan rose along with Savannah and helped her into her jacket. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he told her, then said to Gibson and Margie. “You two go ahead with your desserts. I’ll be back in a minute.”
When he and Savannah reached the foyer, he took her hand and slipped it comfortingly into the crook of his arm. “So, what’s really going on?” he asked her.
“Is it that obvious?”
“You don’t turn pale over a missing cop. Besides, you left without taking a doggy bag full of chocolate cake. That isn’t like you at all.”
She didn’t laugh or even smile. “Dirk says there’s blood spray all over the inside of the vehicle.”
“Like Titus Dunn’s apartment.”
“Worse. There’s brain matter, too.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
9:04 P.M.
“You know, I used to like orange groves,” Savannah told Dirk as they stood several yards from the abandoned cruiser that was anything but empty now. Dr. Jennifer Liu and her technicians were at work again, taking photos, making sketches, collecting samples—bits and pieces, swabs and wip-ings—and combing the area surrounding the car.
“When I was a kid in Georgia,” she continued, “I used to go for long, peaceful walks in the peach orchards.”
“I know what you mean. When me and the old lady were breaking up, I spent a lot of time walkin’ up and down rows like these, and it helped settle my nerves. After this mess, I don’t think a citrus grove is ever gonna settle anything for me.”
“I hear you. Why couldn’t he just do his meanness in grungy back alleys?”
Savannah watched as Dr. Liu studied the gruesome splattering of blood and other gore on the upper portion of the driver’s seat.
When she had first arrived, Savannah had taken a close look herself. She wouldn’t be eating rare steak for weeks.
At the edges of the cordoned area, a crowd was forming. Savannah recognized a few of the spectators, including Angie Perez and her worthless, jock boyfriend. Along with the amateur gawkers were the professionals, reporters from local media and a couple of camera crews from Los Angeles television stations.
Between the Santa Rapist’s exploits and now the missing police officers, San Carmelita was losing its sterling image as a safe, law abiding, upper-middle-class community.
“That blond kid,” she told Dirk, “the one standing with Angie Perez. He’s her boyfriend, the one who didn’t want to stop and help Charlene Yardley. And here he is again. Have you checked him out?”
“I’ve got my eye on him. He’s a bit of a cop buff, listens to police bands. He probably heard the call go out and bopped over here.”
“Do you consider him a suspect?”
“I haven’t exactly cleared him yet. He says he was with Angie and some friends when Charlene was attacked, but they admit he was in and out of the party, supposedly making beer runs, but he was gone a long time.”
“Long enough?” Savannah noticed the young man watching the coroner with ghoulish fascination. But then, a dozen others in the crowd were wearing the same expression.
“Long enough,” Dirk replied. “He’s a ‘maybe’ for the rapes, but the cops . . . I don’t know what the hell they’re all about.”
“When did Joe come on duty?” she asked.
“At 1700 hours.”
“Did he call out with anything suspicious”
“Nope. His memo book is on the front seat. According to it, he’d written three tickets. We’ll run them down, but I’m not expecting anything there.”
A sudden disturbance at the rear of the crowd caught their attention as some loud, unhappy individual was pushing through to the front.
Savannah thought she recognized the voice and the colorful vocabulary. Yes, it was Donald DeCianni. As he burst through the crowd and climbed over the yellow tape, Savannah noticed he was out of uniform. Judging from the baggy sweats, his tousled hair, and the sheet-wrinkle lines on his face, she assumed DeCianni had recently been asleep.
Well-rested and wide awake, Donald DeCianni wasn’t exactly Mr. Personality. He had been known to challenge his fellow officers to a fistfight over which pizza parlor had the crispiest crust and the coldest beer.
“DeCianni’s not going to take this well,” Dirk grumbled. “He and McGivney were partners for about five years.”
“Were they close?”
“No, couldn’t stand each other. About two months ago, McGivney asked to get transferred just to get away from DeCianni, got sick of his bullshit. But you wait and see; DeCianni’s gonna act like they was blood brothers or twin sisters or somethin’.”
“Hey, Coulter,” DeCianni called out as he hurried from McGivney’s abandoned car to where Dirk stood with Savannah. “Is this mess yours?”
“The Santa mess is mine,” Dirk told him. “If this is part of the Santa mess, then it’s mine, too.”
“Is it?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“What happened to my brother?”
Dirk shot Savannah an “I Told You” look, then answered him, “Don’t know yet.”
DeCianni sniffed and hitched his thumbs in the waistband of his sweats, exposing several inches of hairy, roly-poly belly. Savannah decided to study the wayward sprigs of hair sprouting from his head—the sight being slightly less revolting.
“And what about Titus?” DeCianni snapped. “Have you got a line on him yet?”
“Nope. Nada,” Dirk said.
“Sounds like you don’t know a hell of a lot,” DeCianni said.
Savannah winced. Dirk wasn’t the best guy on the planet to mouth off to. She watched as he
reined in his temper.
“Well, DeCianni, if you wanna help me out,” he said slowly, sarcasm dripping, “play detective for a while, just jump right in. You’ll probably have it all wrapped up by midnight, huh?”
DeCianni backed down a bit, coughed and ran his fingers through his mop of hair. “Well . . .” he mumbled, “somebody needs to catch this guy. I mean, first Titus, now Joe. Who’s next?”
“Could be one of us,” Savannah said. Why should the boys nitpick at each other without a girl joining in?
“Why us?” DeCianni snapped. He actually looked worried.
She snickered inwardly, but donned her straightest face. “Titus was the first to respond to the call on Charlene Yardley,” she observed. “I noticed that Joe McGivney was one of the first to show up on the beach when we started searching for Titus’s body. Now we’re here. Apparently it isn’t healthy to respond to a crime scene these days.”
DeCianni stared at her long and hard for a few moments, then turned to Dirk. “Is she serious? Do you think that’s what’s behind this?”
Dirk chuckled and shook his head. “Come on, DeCianni. Cops were crawling all over both scenes. It’s got nothin’ to do with anything. Savannah was just yanking your chain.”
DeCianni stuck his face so close to Savannah’s that she could smell his booze and cigar breath. “Don’t go bustin’ a guy’s balls,” he said, “when his partner’s missing. You haven’t been off the force so long that you don’t know what a low blow that is.”
“Ex-partner,” she quietly added.
“Same difference.” He nodded toward her, then Dirk.
She considered that for a second, then agreed. “True. Sorry, it was a bit below the belt.”
“I’d like to see how you’d feel if something bad happened to this guy . . .” He punched a thumb toward Dirk. “. . . or vice versa.”
As he swaggered away, the butt of his baggy sweatpants sagging almost to the back of his knees, Savannah turned to Dirk. “Is it just my imagination, or did that sound a little like a threat?”
Dirk sniffed. “DeCianni likes to think he’s a major threat to humanity. Personally, I think beneath the blowhard bull, he’s a pussy.”
Savannah propped her hands on her hips. “Excuse me. But as a woman and a cat lover, I take offense at that.”
“The profanity?”
“The association.”
December 15—5:32 P.M.
“Where else but Southern California can you have a barbecue ten days before Christmas?” Tammy said as she danced around the gas grill on Savannah’s patio, wearing a bright red bikini and a sappy grin.
Savannah noted, with only a twinge of bitterness, that the grin was wider than her assistant’s cellulite-free rear end. “Southern Florida,” she said, “the Caribbean, the French Riviera. Here, have another beer.” She shoved a brew at her, determined to put some meat on the kid’s bones.
“Nope. It’s mineral water for me.”
Savannah turned to Dirk, who was chug-a-lugging down his fifth Beck’s. “Mineral water,” she murmured, “how healthy . . . how virtuous.”
He simply grunted and slid lower in the chaise longue, pulling his Dodgers cap down over his eyes.
It had been a tough week, and they all needed to kick back a bit. Even Margie was getting into the spirit of the cookout, sitting at the picnic table, stripping the shucks from a dozen ears of corn. Except for the outlandish hair coloring, the unconventional piercings, and the metal studs sprouting from her black jeans and T-shirt, she might have been any other suburban kid.
Ten minutes before, she had reached into the cooler for a beer and gotten her hand smacked; Savannah was a vigilant big sister. Five minutes after that, the two of them had been squeezing lemons in Savannah’s kitchen, and now a pitcher brimming with icy lemonade sat on the picnic table beside the baked beans and potato salad. Margie was rapidly making the pitcher’s contents disappear.
The sun was setting, casting a purple haze across the tawny foothills behind the neighborhood. A coyote yipped in the distance, prompting a chorus of yowls from his neighbors, who were as restless as he was over the recent brushfires. The occasional piece of white ash floated, like a dirty snowflake from the sky, and settled on the lawn.
“When are your sister and the kiddies supposed to get here?” Tammy asked as she watched Savannah turn the chicken breasts over the flame. The smell of the salsa marinade and hickory smoke filled the damp, evening air, making everyone’s mouth water.
“My granny called this morning,” Savannah said, “and told me they received a call from Vidalia yesterday. Seems the driver kicked them off the bus somewhere in Texas. They spent the night in a motel and caught another one the next morning.”
“That’s awful!” Margie said, nearly dropping her corn. “Your sister being pregnant and all. That driver should be ashamed of himself.”
“Ashamed? He should be fired,” Tammy added, equally scandalized.
Savannah chuckled. “I thought so, too. I even went so far as to suggest a good, ol’ fashioned horsewhipping . . . until I heard about the fire.”
“The fire?” Dirk peeked out from under his cap brim.
“Yeah. The one my nephew set in an elderly gentleman’s hat. Apparently the old fellow had suggested that the boy not hang upside down from the luggage racks . . . and we Reids have been known to hold a grudge . . .”
“. . . and to take revenge,” Dirk added.
Savannah nodded. “When appropriate.” She popped the top on a beer can and generously sprinkled the ale over the chicken until it sizzled and steamed. “So, their ETA has been slightly delayed. They’ll probably arrive tomorrow night, barring any other ‘mishaps.’ ”
“You mean . . . arson, murder or mayhem?” Dirk added.
“Among other juvenile indiscretions.”
From inside the house, they heard the phone ring; Margie jumped up from the picnic table and flew inside.
“Teenagers and phones,” Savannah said, “there’s some sort of biological connection.”
“Her friends don’t know she’s here, do they?” Tammy whispered. “I mean . . . for security reasons.”
“No, Bloss didn’t want anyone to know.” Savannah reached for a plate and began dishing up the beautifully browned, delicately smoked chicken. She could feel her tummy growl in anticipation. “He was quite definite about it,” she added. “Personally, I’m as security conscious as anybody, but I think he’s wigging out about this a bit.”
“Me, too,” Dirk said. “I doubt the guy’s gonna try to get her again when there’s so many women in town who would give in to him without a tussle.”
Margie bopped out of the house, the cordless phone in her hand. “It’s for you,” she said, thrusting it at Dirk.
“Great. And me with most of a six-pack under my belt,” he told Savannah in a whispered aside before he answered, “Coulter here.” He listened for a moment, then fumbled in his shirt pocket for a pen. Scribbling on one of Savannah’s decorator paper napkins, he said, “Okay, thanks. I’ll get right out there.”
He pushed the Off button and hoisted his body off the chaise. “Say, Van . . . I know you’re in the middle of cookin’ here, but how do you feel about a drive in the country?”
She studied the sick look on his face. “Turner Canyon Road? An orange grove, maybe?”
“How did you know?”
“Call it a hunch. Another orange grove rape?”
Dirk sighed. “A simple rape would be better news . . . if you can believe that.”
“A body?”
“Supposedly McGivney’s. An anonymous tip came in a few minutes ago.”
“The same caller who told us about Titus being on the jetty . . . even though he wasn’t?”
“They think so.”
“Gee. Helpful, though not very accurate.”
Savannah turned to Tammy and Margie, who looked a bit disappointed, but Dirk needed to get to the scene, and once again, he’d had a few too many to dri
ve. Besides, she had to admit, she wanted to be in the thick of things . . . even if the soup was pretty thin.
“Do you mind?” she asked Tammy, not wanting to say in plain English, “Will you baby-sit the kid for me?”
“Not at all. Margie and I are going to eat everything you cooked and then, if you’re not back yet, we’ll play a wild game of hearts.” She turned to the teenager. “You do know how to play hearts, don’t you?”
“Nope.” She didn’t sound too excited.
“Well, high time you learned.” Tammy waved Savannah and Dirk away with an airy hand, just before nabbing a piece of Savannah’s chicken. “You two get going. And good luck.”
“Yeah,” Dirk grumbled as they walked back into the house. “We can go not find Joe, just like we didn’t find Titus.”
“That’s it,” Savannah told him as they strapped on their weapons and she grabbed her purse. “Hold onto those positive thoughts until they squeak.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said as they walked out the front door and down the sidewalk to her car. “Don’t piss into a stiff wind, and never say die.”
“Words to live by.”
6:05 P.M.
This time, when Dirk and Savannah arrived, they were the first on the scene.
A homicide scene.
No doubt about it.
No futile combing the beach and coming up empty. Not tonight. Tonight the caller had been right on. He had said they could find a dead cop in the ditch on the northwest corner of Turner Canyon Road and Santa Rosita Way.
Officer Joe McGivney was there, all right, and he was very dead, lying on his back, one arm twisted behind his back, the other flung out to one side.
His weapon was still in his holster.
When Savannah shone her flashlight in his face, his sightless eyes stared back, flat and dull. Rigor mortis was well-established, insect infestation had begun.
Cause of death had to be related to the small, black perfectly round hole right in the center of his forehead, Savannah thought as she deliberately put her grief and anger on hold and mentally clicked into analytical mode. The star-shaped pattern of splits in the skin surrounding the hole showed that the muzzle of the gun had probably been held directly against his forehead when the trigger had been pulled.
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