Murder à la Mode

by G. A. McKevett

  “Because you want to stay here and win my heart…or because you want to hang around until you solve the murder?”

  Savannah knew what he wanted to hear. And she knew what to say if she wanted to win this contest. But it wasn’t her way to speak only half her mind.

  “Both,” she said. “I want both.”

  “Fair enough.” He nodded and smiled. “I suspect you’ll accomplish one of them anyway.”

  She lifted one eyebrow and her dimples deepened. “Which one?”

  He laughed and said, “We’ll see. We’ll see.”

  Then he walked away and left her standing there with her magnifying glass…and questions that would probably keep her awake tonight, no matter how relaxing that bubble bath might be.

  Savannah stood at the window of her upstairs bedroom, holding her magnifying glass and fingering its delicate filigree as she looked out on the castle’s courtyard. The sun had set, but strategically placed lanterns lit the towers, gate, and walls. Although the lights were electric, like the ones in the hallways, they flickered like torches, casting strange shadows on the walls. Perched on corners and along the walls, gargoyles grinned wickedly, their faces seeming to move as the light danced on their hideous features.

  Again, Savannah was struck by the fact that the castle appeared more eerie than romantic, and she speculated about the wealthy Texan who had built this monstrosity. Was he a Dracula buff or a big fan of Frankenstein?

  And she wondered if he was the fellow Brandy was speaking to on the phone. It had certainly sounded like it from this end of the conversation. But why would he have placed Brandy in the contest? Had Tess and Alex known about her connections when they had accepted her into the competition?

  At the thought of Brandy on the cell phone, Savannah remembered that she, too, had a phone call to make. Tammy had told her earlier that Granny Reid had called Savannah’s house and wanted to know how the taping was going. Tammy had promised Gran that she would have Savannah call her that evening.

  Savannah glanced at the clock. With the time difference between California and Georgia, she couldn’t wait any longer or Gran would be in bed. Besides, she could use a good dose of Granny Reid. She depended on her occasional fix to stay focused and balanced in life.

  Carefully, she laid her magnifying glass on the dresser, then fished her cell phone out of her purse.

  Her grandmother answered on the second ring. “Hello, Savannah girl,” said the sweetest voice Savannah had ever heard.

  “How did you know it was me?” she asked as she kicked off her shoes, lay down on the bed and untied her corset lacings.

  “Your rings have a happy sound to them,” her grandmother said, “I can always tell it’s you.”

  “Aw-w-w, it’s more likely that you finally got caller I.D.”

  Gran chuckled. “You’re too smart for your britches. Always have been. I got call waiting, too. I got tired of your younger brothers and sisters telling me that I was living in the Stone Age.”

  “How do you like it?”

  “The call waiting is a nuisance. I can’t talk to more than one person at a time, so it’s more trouble than it’s worth. But the caller I.D. comes in handy when those old men from the home try to call me.”

  Savannah smiled. Gran had been running from the “old men in the home” since Grandpa had died, many years ago.

  “They’re still after you, huh, Gran?”

  “Oh, lordy yes. They never give up, and I know what they want, too.”

  Savannah heard the suggestive humor in her octogenarian grandmother’s voice and thanked her lucky stars that she had been raised by this lively, loving old woman.

  “What is it they want?” she asked, knowing that the question was expected. It was part of a frequent game they played. One of many.

  “They want my pension check, the one your grandpa left me; that’s what they want. And they’re not going to get it either. I’m going to spend it all on myself.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Savannah said, “when you splurge on yourself. You’re more likely to give it to somebody who needs it at church or to one of those worthless, free-loading brothers or sisters of mine. And speaking of them, how’s Vidalia doing?”

  “About as good as can be expected for a woman who’s too pregnant to see her feet. Had a big fight with Butch, though.”

  “Huh, oh. What did he do now?”

  Granny sighed, sounding tired. “Well, it seems Vi worked up the nerve to go lay out in the backyard, get a little sun, and he told her there wasn’t enough sun in the universe to tan that big white hiney of hers.”

  “That dad-gum yahoo. He gets her all riled up and then we have to deal with her. I’ll give her a call and calm her down.”

  “I’d sure be obliged to you if you’d handle this one. I swear, Savannah, I must be getting old. I can’t take those bawling fits of hers the way I used to.”

  “You? Old? Never. You’re just getting smarter…and pickier about how you spend your time. You’ve got better things to do than referee Vidalia’s marital spats.”

  “Amen to that. But enough about your sister; how’s that contest of yours going? You got that boy down on his knee with a ring in his hand yet?”

  “Now, Gran. You know I don’t want a ring, just a crown with diamonds in it. Diamonds I can pry out and sell.”

  “Well, is he at least handsome enough to make the whole thing worth your time if you don’t win the crown?”

  Flashing back on her dance with the “man of her dreams,” Savannah said, “Oh yes. Well worth it.”

  “Does he look like Sean Connery?”

  Savannah laughed. Connery was Granny’s standard for all time. Gran told everyone that in his youth Grandpa Reid had been the spitting image of Sean Connery with a bit of William Holden thrown in.

  “Nobody’s as good-looking as Sean Connery, Gran,” she said, “except Grandpa, of course. But Lance is an excellent kisser.”

  She heard the little gasp of surprise on the other end. “Oh, is that right? You done givin’ away the jewels already, Savannah girl?”

  “Naw. Just a little nugget. Enough to keep him interested, but not nearly enough to gain myself a reputation as a ‘maiden of ill repute.’ Don’t worry, Gran.” She took a deep breath and decided to spill the rest. “And Dirk caught us kissing.”

  “Good.”

  Savannah was a bit surprised. “Good?”

  “Yes. Good. That boy needs to see that if he’s interested, he’d better stop sniffing around and get down to business. It would serve him right if somebody went and snatched you up, right out from under his nose.”

  “But Gran. You’re forgetting something. I don’t exactly want him to ‘get down to business.’ I like things the way they are between us.”

  “That doesn’t matter. He ought to at least make an offer so’s you can turn him down if you want to.”

  “Gran, I don’t think that would—”

  A huge crash sounded outside the window. She felt the bed shake beneath her. It sounded like part of the castle had collapsed.

  “Oh, my God!” Savannah jumped up and ran to the window. “What was that?”

  “What’s wrong?” Gran asked. “You havin’ one of them earthquakes?”

  Savannah had felt the vibrations, but she knew this was no tremor. “No. It’s not a quake, but something bad’s happened. I’ll let you know in a minute.”

  She looked out the window and at first saw nothing.

  Then she spotted it, an enormous pile of broken statuary on the courtyard below and to her right. Although the figure had been smashed, enough pieces remained intact for her to see the evil grimace, some wings and claws. One of the gargoyles had tumbled off the roof of the keep.

  “Part of the building fell off,” she told her grandmother.

  “A big hunk?”

  “Big enough,” she said. “Part of the decoration.” Something told her not to tell her superstitious grandmother that she was hanging out in a castle wh
ere demons played a large part in the overall ambiance. What Gran didn’t know…wouldn’t cause Savannah any problems.

  Savannah lifted the window and leaned out to get a better look.

  Yes, the gargoyle was a goner; that much was sure. His days of guarding the castle were over.

  But then she saw a movement. One of his legs was twitching. Twitching? No, it wasn’t a trick of the light. There were at least one arm and one leg flailing away in that pile.

  “What the hell?”

  “Savannah!”

  “Sorry, Gran, but I swear I saw something move down there in that mess.” She was already running back to retrieve her shoes from beside the bed. “I gotta go, Gran. Damnation if that ugly thing didn’t go and fall on somebody!”

  Chapter

  10

  Savannah ran out of her room and down the hall toward the staircase, hoping that, for once, she would be able to find her way through the dark maze of corridors and outside without too much backtracking. Whoever that was writhing on the courtyard beneath the broken statuary would be in desperate need of help.

  Probably far more than she could give them, but…

  At the second-floor landing, she nearly collided headlong with Alex and Roxy, who were also hurrying downstairs.

  “What was that awful noise?” Roxy asked

  “It sounded like it came from the courtyard!” Alex added, his usually high-pitched voice a few notes higher.

  “It did,” Savannah replied as they ran on down the staircase. “One of the gargoyles fell off the roof, and there’s somebody under it!”

  “No! Who is it?” Alex asked.

  “Don’t know. I only saw one leg.”

  “Do you think they’re hurt?” Roxy said.

  Again, Savannah was struck by the mental agility of her competitors. “Considering that they’re lying under a ton of stone or plaster or whatever, I don’t suppose they’re feeling too good,” she replied dryly.

  “But how can a gargoyle just fall off the building like that?” Roxy wanted to know. “I figured those things were stuck on there good!”

  “We could have hoped,” Alex said. “I’m going to have a talk with R.R. about the safety of this place! If one of my crew got hurt I’ll sue his ass off!”

  Roxy shot him a quick, warning look that Savannah noted…and decided to think about it later, post-emergency.

  When they burst through the front door and into the courtyard, they found that Ryan, John, and Tammy were already there, having run over from the gatehouse. Ryan and John were lifting a particularly large piece of the statue from the pile.

  “How bad is it?” Savannah shouted as she ran up to them. “Who is it?”

  “Don’t know yet to either question,” Tammy answered as she, too, grabbed handfuls of the rubble and tossed them aside. “Whoever it is, they were moving just a second ago. But now…”

  Ryan and John tossed the giant chunk aside, and more of the body was revealed. Savannah saw a corset and skirt. It was one of the ladies.

  For an instant she considered that it might be Mary Branigan, and the thought made her sad. But the leg that was now completely uncovered was long…and dark-skinned.

  “It’s Carisa,” she said, feeling no better. The sight of anyone lying there beneath the rubble was heart-wrenching.

  She and the others began clearing the pile as quickly as they could, being careful not to jar Carisa or injure her further.

  “Is she breathing?” Ryan asked as John gently brushed away the bits of debris from her head and chest.

  Her face was covered with blood, her eyes closed. She was motionless.

  “I can’t be certain,” John replied as he knelt next to the body. “This bloody awful light out here, you can’t see a thing.”

  He bent over her and put his ear to her mouth. He held up one hand, motioning for silence. They all froze and waited.

  “She’s breathing,” he said, “but barely.”

  “Has anyone called 9-1-1 yet?”

  At that moment Mary and Brandy came running out of the keep and over to the pile. And seconds later Pete and Leonard ran around the side of the keep.

  “What’s happened?” Pete shouted.

  Mary gasped when she saw the shattered statue and someone moving beneath it. “Is somebody hurt?” she asked.

  “It’s Carisa,” Savannah said. “Go call 9-1-1 and tell them to send an ambulance, Code Three!”

  Mary raced back into the building while Brandy stood by, wringing her hands. “Oh, dear! This is awful! Why is she under all that mess?”

  “Why, indeed?” John said.

  Ryan knelt next to him and felt for a pulse at her throat. “Thready,” he said. “They’ve got to get here right away.”

  “I’ll go get a blanket to cover her,” Tammy said, already running back to the gatehouse.

  Pete and Leonard did nothing except stand there with their mouths open, gaping at the mess and shaking their heads.

  Savannah made her way across the rubble and joined Ryan and John, kneeling beside the body. She reached over and stroked Carisa’s hair. “You’re okay, honey,” she told her, not knowing if she could even hear her, knowing she was far from okay. Loss of consciousness at the scene was never a good sign. And she could see from the unnatural angle of the woman’s left leg that it was badly broken.

  “We’ve got help coming,” she told her as she took Carisa’s limp, cold hand in hers. “Can you wake up for me? Can you open your eyes a little?”

  Everyone watched anxiously, but there was no response.

  “Carisa, can you hear me?” she asked. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me. Try really hard, okay?”

  Again, no reaction.

  At that moment, another person appeared on the scene. It was Leila, holding a suitcase in one hand and a large make-up bag in the other. She walked over to them, a moderately concerned look on her face.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Part of the building fell on Carisa,” Roxy told her. “She’s almost dead.”

  Savannah shot her a look. “Do you mind?” she said. “We’ve got an injured person here who doesn’t need to hear that sort of talk.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Roxy didn’t look all that sorry.

  Leila strolled over to them, still holding her luggage. She took a quick look at Carisa, then at the mess. “Looks like one of those ugly devil statue things.”

  “Yes. That’s what it was,” Ryan told her.

  Leila leaned back and looked up at the building’s outer wall. “Probably from up there. Yep, one of them is missing. Too bad.”

  Savannah wasn’t sure if she was referring to the demise of the gargoyle or Carisa’s injuries. She suspected the former.

  Leila turned to Ryan. “I guess this means I’m not going to get a ride any time soon out of here.”

  “No, I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone your trip home for a little while,” he said with a slightly contemptuous tone. “At least until the paramedics have arrived and taken your sister contestant to a hospital—one with a trauma unit.”

  “Damn,” she said, “and me wanting to get out of this place as quickly as possible.”

  “Hey, life’s rough,” Savannah snapped. “You wanna hightail it out of here and stop making a nuisance of yourself?”

  Leila lifted her chin a notch, turned on her heel, and marched back into the keep.

  Tammy arrived, huffing and puffing from her sprint, a blanket under her arm. She handed it to Savannah, who gently draped it over Carisa’s body and tucked the edges carefully around her.

  Ryan felt for a pulse again. “Getting weaker,” he said.

  Savannah said to Tammy, “That ambulance is taking too long. Maybe you should go make a second call to 9-1-1. Make certain that”—she glanced down at Carisa, who showed no signs of consciousness, but one never knew for sure—“that they know how important it is that they arrive as soon as possible.”

  Tammy nodded and gave Savannah a knowi
ng look. “I will,” she said. “I’ll make sure they get the message.”

  As Tammy ran away, Savannah looked at Ryan and John and saw her own deep concern registered on their faces. Standing several feet away, Alex and Roxy and Leonard and Pete seemed less worried

  Brandy, however, was softly crying. “She’s going to be all right, isn’t she? She’s not really hurt that bad, huh? It just looks bad, right? Her eyes are probably just closed because she’s tired…from getting mashed and all.”

  “God, could you just strike her with a bolt of lightning, please?” Savannah mumbled, “And Lord, while you’re in the neighborhood, answering prayers, could you also light a fire under that ambulance’s tail?”

  Everyone watched as the paramedics loaded Carisa into the ambulance and then sped away, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

  Savannah had tried to read the paramedics’ expressions, but in their business, blank faces were as necessary as surgical gloves and oxygen tanks. If the speed of their departure was any indication—and it often was—Carisa was in bad shape.

  Once the ambulance had passed through the castle gate and disappeared in the distance, Savannah turned back to Ryan and John, who were standing behind her. “Do you think she’ll make it?” she asked them.

  “I don’t know,” Ryan replied. “I heard the paramedic say that her blood pressure is almost nonexistent. Sounds like internal injuries to me.”

  “And unfortunately,” John added, “it’s a bit of a distance to the nearest hospital. Her first ‘golden hour,’ when medical attention is the most crucial, is going to be long gone by the time they arrive.”

  Savannah looked around. Most of the castle’s occupants were filing back into the keep, now that the major excitement had passed. Leonard and Pete had trailed away, and only Tammy remained. She was standing in the rubble, searching the ground with a flashlight.

  “Nancy Drew’s hard at work over there,” Savannah said, nodding in her direction.

  John chuckled. “Ah, she’s a fine one, our Tammy. She would have done well in the Bureau with enthusiasm like that.”