Buried In Buttercream

by G. A. McKevett

  Yes, Savannah decided that Tammy’s eyes were definitely sparkling as she watched Waycross wash a fender. Though it might have had something to do with the fact that her little brother filled out the back side of a pair of jeans quite nicely.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Dirk said, nudging Tammy’s foot with his own. “Are you going to help us with this case or not?”

  “What?” She seemed to take a few seconds to reorient herself. “Oh, the case. Sure! What do you want me to do? Just name it.”

  “The husband, Ethan Aberson, has an alibi ... been in Vegas for days now on some sort of business trip,” Dirk told her. “He’s been staying at the Victoriana. I called the hotel and confirmed that he’s checked in there. But, as you know, it’s only an hour flight from LA to Vegas. And you can drive from San Carmelita to Vegas in five and a half hours.”

  Tammy was already on it. “So, you want me to do some more digging and make sure that he didn’t slip back home on the day his wife was murdered?”

  “That’s right,” Savannah said. “Find out what conference he’s at and see if you can verify that he attended all the meetings, was seen at mealtimes, maybe hung out with his coworkers, stuff like that.”

  “We want every hour of that day accounted for, if at all possible,” Dirk said.

  “I can do that!” she said. “I’ll get the names of his coworkers, and I’ll call them, and I’ll tell them that I’m his little sister and that I’m pregnant, and he was supposed to be my natural childbirth coach, but he didn’t show up for the class like he was supposed to, and I’m just checking to make sure that he really did have to be out of town at a convention, so that I won’t hold it against him for the rest of our lives... .” She stopped to draw a breath. “Stuff like that.”

  Savannah stared at her. “Considering that you’re the most virtuous, totally honest person I’ve ever known, you’re scary good at that.”

  Tammy lifted her chin and tossed her long hair back over her shoulder. “I do what I have to do for ‘the cause.’ It’s not lying if the end justifies the means. You taught me that, Savannah. And how to pick locks. And how to make fake business cards in two minutes. And how to use my feminine wiles to get past male security guards. And—”

  “Okay, okay.” Savannah held up one hand. “As long as I’ve enriched your life in practical ways.”

  But Tammy wasn’t listening anymore.

  Brother Waycross had removed his soaking-wet tee-shirt and hung it on the fence, and now he was vigorously scrubbing bug debris off the Mustang’s headlights. Muscles flexing, straining with every stroke of the cloth.

  And, apparently, at least for the moment, Miss Tammy Hart had other things on her mind.

  Chapter 14

  Savannah didn’t like going to jail. Never had. She didn’t like going to county lockup, state prisons, or high-security mental hospitals for the criminally insane.

  They all had bars. And she hated seeing steel bars. They gave her a creepy sense of claustrophobia.

  What would be worse than living in a cage for the rest of your life? Nothing she could think of. And even though she knew that many of the people inside those places had done terrible things to land themselves behind those bars, she couldn’t help feeling bad that they were there.

  At least for the time she was in jail with them. And as long as she didn’t think too much about their crimes or their victims’ miseries.

  But when it came to a guy like Arlo Di Napoli, those feelings of sympathy were hard to scrounge up. Cold, hard, ugly bars notwithstanding.

  Savannah didn’t like batterers. In fact, she had a hard time not bitterly hating them, having seen the damage they did to their partners, their children, society, and even to themselves.

  So much suffering. And all because one person decided it was fine and dandy for them to use violence to get their way, to manipulate those around them into doing whatever they wanted, when they wanted it, the way they wanted it.

  It was a pretty simple, self-serving philosophy: Do what I tell you or I’ll hurt you.

  And she bore the scars of such a mindset on her body and would for the rest of her life.

  No. She didn’t like batterers.

  So, when she and Dirk visited Arlo Di Napoli in the county jail, she was prepared to loathe him on sight. And the sight of him didn’t exactly change her mind.

  Several words sprang to her mind when he walked into the tiny, grim, visiting room, wearing his bright orange prison suit, his dark hair slicked close to his scalp, a weird, wispy little goatee dangling from his chin.

  The words that flashed across her intuition’s radar screen were “slick” and “slimy.”

  He reminded her of the strippers’ pole at Willy’s Rendezvous.

  She remembered what Francie had said about how good he was in bed, and the peanut butter sandwich in her belly did a flip-flop.

  “What’s this about?” Arlo said without preamble as he pulled out a metal chair and sat down at the metal table ... metal handcuffs around his wrists.

  That was another thing about jails that Savannah didn’t like. All the metal. She didn’t know how people could stand to live with all that cold, hard metal.

  But under the circumstances, she was fine with the idea that this was Arlo’s new lifestyle ... and would be for a while.

  “It’s about one of your women, Arlo,” Dirk told him, taking a chair across the table from him.

  Arlo gave him a sarcastic little sneer. “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to be more specific. I got lotsa girlfriends.”

  “Really? I thought this was an all-men’s jail,” Savannah said, unable to resist needling him just a bit. “But I guess you can call your honeys in here girls or bitches or cell mate bed warmers or anything you want to.”

  “I mean on the outside,” he said, rising for the bait. “Real women!”

  As she could have predicted, ol’ Arlo didn’t like women with sass. And that was fine, because she and every other sassified gal she could imagine wouldn’t have given a jerk like Arlo a second glance.

  Or a first one either, for that matter.

  “You been in here how long now?” Dirk asked.

  Savannah knew that Dirk was well aware of the details of Arlo’s little vacation on the county. But then, Dirk seldom asked questions that he didn’t already know the answer to.

  “Two weeks,” Arlo replied. “And what’s the matter with one of my girls?”

  “Well,” Dirk said, “I thought you’d want to know, dear little Francie’s shaking her bare buzzungas and her naked butt, too, down at that scumbucket bar ... Willy’s.”

  Dirk waited for his information to sink in.

  It looked to Savannah that Arlo hadn’t been aware of that and didn’t approve. At all.

  Arlo, who didn’t mind jumping his best friend’s wife, didn’t like other men looking at his woman’s junk.

  That was no surprise. Long ago, Savannah had observed that it was always the men who habitually fooled around on their partners who were the most jealous.

  “Okay,” Arlo said. “I’ll have to have a little talk with her about that. She told me she was filing books at the local library for extra money.”

  Savannah stifled a laugh. “Not unless she’s doing some sort of naughty librarian routine for Willy and the boys.”

  That didn’t go over well either with ol’ Arlo. And Savannah was perversely pleased that it hadn’t.

  “But Francie’s not the only one of your women who’s got a problem,” Dirk told him. “In fact, her wavin’ her dinglebobbers in front of a bunch of guys is nothing compared to what’s going on with your other gal.”

  “Stop messing with me, man. Which one of those stupid bitches got a problem?” Arlo demanded, not bothering to mask his bad temper.

  “The one who broke up your marriage,” Savannah told him, not bothering to hide her delight in rubbing some salt in his wound. “She’s got a major, major problem.”

  “Who, Madeline? So what? Who cares?” He
leaned so far back in his chair that Savannah was afraid he’d topple over backward.

  She didn’t particularly care if he busted his head open on the hard, cement floor, but she didn’t want Dirk to have to go through all the paperwork that such an injury, occurring during an interview, would precipitate.

  “You’ll care,” Dirk said, “once I charge you for it.”

  “Charge me for what? What am I supposed to have done to her?”

  “You murdered her.”

  “Murdered?” Arlo gulped, looked at Dirk, then Savannah, his eyes wide, mouth gaping. “Are you ... are you saying ... Madeline’s dead?”

  “Very.”

  He appeared to quickly absorb the information ... and deal with it. “Oh. Okay. Whatever.”

  Savannah said, “I’d tell you that I’m sorry for your loss, but you don’t seem all that sorry yourself, so I won’t bother.”

  “She caused me a lot of trouble, that bitch. If somebody took her out, I ain’t gonna cry about it.”

  “I don’t expect you to cry about it,” Dirk said. “But I’m thinking you did it.”

  “I did it? How could I have done it? I’m in here!”

  “I think you paid for it.”

  “Paid for it? You think I paid somebody to knock off Madeline? Are you serious?”

  “Serious as a heart attack.” Dirk leaned across the table toward him. “We’ve found out a lot about Madeline Aberson, and most of it isn’t all that nice. I’m sure you had a good reason.”

  “Let’s hear your side of it,” Savannah said, “so that we don’t think you’re just a coldhearted bastard. Why did you have somebody kill her?”

  Arlo shook his head. “Oh, no ... you aren’t going to get me to answer a question like that. That’s like asking somebody, ‘Did you hurt your hand when you smacked your wife?’ I ain’t falling for nothing like that.”

  Savannah turned to Dirk. “Arlo here’s too smart for us, buddy. You can’t pull the wool over his eyes.”

  Dirk’s eyes narrowed as he leaned still closer to his interviewee. “Okay, then let’s get real honest, real quick. You tell me who you think might’ve killed Madeline, and I’ll check them out. And if I find out it was them, you’re off the hook. Otherwise, we’re gonna investigate every nook and cranny of your sorry life.”

  “And how much you wanna bet,” Savannah said, “that we can come up with something that’ll make sure you don’t get out of here until you’re way too old and feeble to do any of those ‘bitches’ of yours any good at all?”

  Arlo’s wispy goatee trembled just a bit as he shot them both evil looks. His hands twisted against the manacles as he fidgeted in his chair.

  “It mighta been Francie,” he finally said. “Or she mighta got some guy there at the bar to do it for her. She really, really hated Madeline.”

  “Okay, who else?” Dirk prompted him.

  “Maybe Madeline’s old man, Ethan.”

  “Ah, yes, Ethan, your best friend, right?” Savannah said. “Your bosom buddy who caught you in a compromising position with his wife.”

  “It was just a regular missionary position. Nothing kinky or compromising about it.”

  “Well, I’m sure you explained that to him at the time and it made everything much better.” For just a moment, Savannah had a mental image of this guy and Madeline together, and she got rid of it as quickly as possible. With all her faults, Madeline had seemed semi-classy. Not the sort to go for a hay roll with a guy like this.

  But there was no accounting for taste.

  “Why do you think Ethan might have killed her?” Dirk asked him.

  “Well, the obvious. She left him for me ... you know ... before she found out that I didn’t want her. At least not that way. I wasn’t about to marry her or anything like that.”

  “She left him?” Dirk said. “Didn’t he throw her out when he caught you two together?”

  “No, he didn’t. Go figure.” Arlo put his hands behind his head and rocked on the rear two legs of his chair, an unpleasant, nonchalant expression on his face. “If I’d been him, I’d have beaten the crap outta her and tossed her to the curb, but nooo. He ran off to his mommy’s house and stayed there, pouting like a little boy, for a few days. And when he came crawling back to Madeline, he found his stuff in suitcases on the front porch and the door locks changed.”

  “That’s a little hard to believe,” Savannah told him.

  “Hey, for me, too,” he replied. “But it’s what happened. She called me and told me that she’d kicked him out so that I could leave Francie and come live with her. I told her no way that was gonna happen.”

  “And how’d she take that?” Dirk asked.

  “She gave me an ultimatum. Told me I had twenty-four hours to tell Francie about us and leave her, or she’d pay her a visit and fill her in on all the gory details.”

  “I’d say that’d be a good motive for murder there, buddy,” Dirk observed.

  Arlo nodded solemnly. “I thought about it. I admit it. I did. But instead, I told Francie, as sweet and gentle as I could.”

  “And?” Savannah asked.

  “And she tied into me like a wildcat. Started kicking and clawing and trying to scratch my eyes out. I smacked her a time or two just to settle her down, and that’s when the neighbors called the cops.” He sighed. “I guess they could tell by looking at her that she’d got the worst of it, so they arrested my ass.”

  “So, this isn’t your first domestic violence offense ... the one you’re serving now,” Savannah observed.

  Dirk chuckled. “Arlo’s a fast learner.”

  “Hey, if you were married to a gal like Francie, you’d have to take a hand to her once in a while, too. She’s always chasin’ after other guys. And no man with any dignity’s gonna take that lying down.”

  “Is that what this last fight was about?” Dirk asked. “The one you’re serving time for now? Some other guy?”

  “Yeah. I saw her making eyes at him in a bar and I couldn’t let that go. I smacked her around a little bit, she acted like I was some kind of abuser or something, and here I sit.”

  “That’s a sad tale, Arlo,” Savannah said sarcastically.

  “Ain’t it though?” Arlo gave her a goofy half smile that made her realize he’d missed the sarcastic part of her statement.

  It was no fun to insult people when your zinger flew right over their heads.

  “Makes me wanna tune up and have myself a big ol’ boo-hoo right here and now,” she added.

  He got it that time. “Screw you,” he said, flashing hate from his eyes, his goatee twitching.

  “No, thanks,” Savannah replied. “I’ll leave that to your honey bunny back in the cell.”

  “We have conflicting stories about what happened when Ethan caught his friend doing the hokeypokey with his old lady,” Dirk remarked as he and Savannah exited the final gate of the jail and stepped into the sunlight.

  No bars. No metal. Savannah was immensely grateful.

  She lifted her face to the sun and breathed in the sweet, fresh air that smelled like sage and eucalyptus trees and ocean. A big improvement over sweat and urine and that indefinable but ever-present stench of stress and misery.

  “Yes,” she said. “Odelle says Ethan kicked Madeline out of the house the day he caught her and filed for a legal separation immediately.”

  “And good ol’ Arlo here says that he kept trying to get her back and that he’s the one who wound up with his suitcases on the porch.”

  “Funny how many different historical accounts there are for every major battle that’s been fought since the beginning of time.”

  “They say the final story’s written by the winner.”

  She thought of Madeline lying on the slab. Ethan and his parents who now had to raise a little girl without the child’s mother. Odelle having to sell her beloved home. Francie clinging to Willy’s pole for support. Arlo in an orange jumpsuit, looking at the world through cold, metal bars.

  It was ha
rd to spot a winner among them.

  Chapter 15

  “Ah, I needed this,” Savannah said as she and Dirk walked, hand in hand, along the San Carmelita pier, enjoying one of the prettiest sights on earth–a southern California sunset.

  The salt sea air had never smelled sweeter. In fact, she was so grateful to be on the “outside” again that she didn’t even mind the squawking seagulls circling overhead, begging for treats.

  “If one of those shit hawks craps on my head,” Dirk growled, “I’m going to take my weapon out and shoot him.”

  “Oh, you would not,” she said, squeezing his arm and leaning her head on his shoulder.

  “I’m not as big of an animal lover as you are,” he said.

  “Yes, you are. You’re worse,” she said. “I hear you talking all mushy to Cleo and Di when you think I’m not listening. Besides, you wouldn’t kill a wild animal like that bird,” she said, pointing toward a particularly beautiful gull circling directly over them. “You aren’t that good a shot.”

  He growled, but grinned down at her and placed a kiss on her forehead. “How’re you feeling?” he said.

  “Fine, and don’t ask again.”

  She didn’t feel fine. Just walking the length of the pier had caused the pain under her breast to flare. And her legs were a little shaky as they neared the far end.

  At nearly two thousand feet in length, San Carmelita’s wooden pier was one of the longest in the state. But it shouldn’t have been an exhausting walk. She’d strolled it many times without giving it a thought.

  But that was before ...

  “Let’s sit down over here,” Dirk said, guiding her in the direction of the bench at the very end. “I wanna look at the waves for a while.”

  “You do not,” she snapped.

  Her curt, angry tone surprised her. She hardly recognized the voice as her own.

  But it didn’t seem to faze Dirk. “Yeah, I really do,” he said. “I want to sit with my girl and look at the ocean and get in touch with my inner, peaceful self.”

  “You’ve got one of those?”