She, on the other hand, would have been far happier to see one tire iron, baseball bat, or maybe a pipe with some sort of band twisted around it—something that might have been used to crush poor Tess’s skull.
“If there was anything in here, we would have found it,” Dirk told her. “We’re just wasting our time.”
“Wasting my time, that’s for sure. You’re getting overtime. I could be sleeping and…”
Her complaint faded the moment she spotted something. It wasn’t much, but she hadn’t noticed it before.
“Hey, look at this,” she said.
He hurried over to where she stood at the end of one of the long rows. “What is it?”
“It’s what it’s not. It’s not dusty right there.” She pointed to a spot about four or five inches across on one of the shelves that was about the same height as her knee. Although an even coat of dust lay on every other part of the shelf and its bottles, that one area was clean.
“One of the C.S.I. techs probably brushed against it with his lab coattail or something,” Dirk said.
“Maybe, but it’s also just about the right height for someone to step up onto.” She pulled her nightgown sleeves down over her hands, put one foot on the clean spot and by holding onto one of the shelves, pulled herself up.
Looking around from her new vantage point, she suddenly became aware of a beam that stretched across the ceiling. When standing on the floor, it appeared to be flush against the ceiling. But from where she was standing, she saw a space of about three inches between the beam and the ceiling.
And she saw something else. A long, cylindrical shape.
“Hand me your flashlight, quick!” she said.
Sensing her excitement, he pulled the torch out of his back pocket, turned it on and handed it over.
She shone the beam into the dark space and saw a metallic flash.
“Gloves!” she said.
He got a pair from his pocket, handed them to her and then steadied her with his hands at her waist while she pulled them on. “Do you see it? Is it a weapon?”
“Sure looks lethal enough to me,” she said, trying not to get her hopes too high, but whatever it was that was stuffed in that space was a dull, silver color, about a yard long and a couple of inches thick. And it didn’t look like any sort of building pipe or conduit she had ever seen before.
Promising. Very promising.
While Dirk continued to hold her by the waist, she leaned over and reached for it. Carefully, she pulled it out by one end.
Holding it tightly, she jumped down from the shelf and stood there in the middle of the room, staring at her trophy.
“Look at that,” she said.
“Yeah, if you hit somebody on the head with the end of that thing”—he pointed to one end of the rod that had a spiked iron ball attached—“you could brain somebody with it. No problem.”
But Savannah wasn’t looking at the end of the rod with the ball. Or the other end that had a heavy chain hanging from it.
She was looking at a metal rope that was twisted around the rod, diagonally, winding from one end to the other.
“That’s the pattern, the candy-stripe pattern that Dr. Liu found on the body,” she said. “How much do you want to bet that the bruises on Tess’s back correspond directly to this pattern?”
“I wouldn’t bet at all,” Dirk replied. He pointed to the dark reddish-brown mess smeared near the ball end of the rod. There were even bits of hair and flesh caught in the rope twistings. “Just like I don’t need a DNA test to tell me that’s our victim’s blood, tissue and hair.”
Dirk put on a pair of gloves himself, took it from her and looked it over from one end to the other. “Good work, Van,” he said. “You found the murder weapon! We’ve got it!”
“Yes, we’ve got it.” She stared down at the ugly thing, trying to remember where she had seen it before. “But the question is,” she said, “what the hell is it?”
“What a beautiful day it is outside!” Tammy said, chattering happily at Savannah’s side as they walked down the stairs the next morning, heading for the dining hall and breakfast. “The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and—”
“Do you mind!?” Savannah snapped as they reached the landing. “You know I can’t take your ‘Zippidee-do-dah’ routine first thing in the morning!”
Tammy continued, undaunted. “It’s the perfect day for your…well…I can’t say because it’s going to be a surprise, and I promised Ryan and John I wouldn’t spill the beans.”
“I hate surprises. Especially the kind you get around here.” Savannah tugged at the lacings on her leather vest. “I thought these new outfits that Mary gave us might be better, but this danged thing is nearly as uncomfortable as the corset.”
“Yes, but it looks great on you,” Tammy said. “The hose show off your great legs. Those knee-high boots look really hot, and that vest holds ‘the sisters,’ as you call them, right up there under your chin where they look their best.”
She glanced down and saw that Tammy was absolutely right. This outfit would make any female look good, but it made her ample curves look altogether too good for common decency. Granny would undoubtedly have a conniption fit when she saw the show on TV.
Savannah could hear her already: “Savannah, girl, what in tarnation were you thinking, lettin’ your bosom hang out there like that in front of God and everybody!? Why, I oughta take a paddle to you, young lady, runnin’ around half-necked, lookin’ like the Whore o’ Babylon! I liked to’ve died when Elsie at church told me she seen you on the television set with your…”
Yes, Savannah would pay big-time when Granny saw Man of My Dreams. The most Savannah could hope for was that they would broadcast the show on Sunday or Wednesday night when Gran was at church. And if Savannah bribed and threatened her brothers and sisters enough, maybe she could convince them to “forget” to tape it for Gran. Fortunately, Granny Reid had never figured out how to work her own VCR beyond turning it on and off. Sometimes technical ineptitude in an octogenarian was a blessing.
“Yeah, the boots are pretty cool,” she said, looking down at the soft-skin, knee-high boots that hugged and accented her shapely calves. “I feel a bit like Nancy Sinatra.”
The blank look that Tammy gave her made her feel old.
“She sang a song about boots that was popular when I was a baby,” she said. “I barely remember it.”
Tammy shrugged and smiled. “Whatever.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
At the bottom of the stairs, they turned to head down a corridor leading to the dining hall, and Savannah nearly collided with the suit of armor that stood guard in the foyer.
A strange sense of déjà vu swept over her. “Wow,” she said, stopping and shaking her head. “That reminds me of this weird dream I had before you woke me up just now.”
“A nice medieval fantasy?” Tammy asked. “With Lance and romance and…”
“More like a nightmare. I dreamed this guy dressed in full armor was chasing me down the halls here, and it was like I was stuck in a maze. I couldn’t find my way out of this place.”
“That’s not weird; it’s perfectly natural that you would dream something like that. I got lost in here at least five times yesterday.”
“But not with a knight chasing you.”
“No, nothing that dramatic.” Ever the kind heart, Tammy took Savannah’s hand and patted it. They continued on down the hallway. “That must have been awful,” she said. “Did he have a sword and a shield and everything?”
Savannah looked at her strangely before answering as she recalled the oddities of the dream that had been so vivid. “No. He didn’t. In fact, that was what was strange about it. He was running after me, and when I looked over my shoulder to see if he was about to grab me, he raised his arm, like he was going to hit me with something. But there was nothing in his hand.”
Tammy looked perplexed. “That is weird. But then, it was just a dream.”
�
��Just a dream? Don’t let Granny Reid hear you say that. She sets great store by dreams. She says, ‘Your best common sense speaks to you in dreams and sometimes even the angels themselves, so you’d surefire better listen.’”
“But a knight chasing you through the halls, trying to hit you with…a handful of nothing?”
Savannah could almost see the little cartoon lightbulb switch on in her head. “I’ll be damned!” she said. “It’s that dad-gummed suit of armor.”
She whirled around and ran back to the bottom of the stairs where the sentry armor stood, perpetually at attention.
His left arm hung straight down from his side, but his right was bent at the elbow. His right hand, a chain-mail gauntlet was slightly open, as though holding something. A weapon? A weapon that wasn’t there?
“Didn’t this thing have something in its hand when we first got here?” she asked Tammy. “I could’ve sworn it did. It wasn’t just standing here, empty-handed, looking stupid like this. I’m pretty sure it was holding something.”
“Like a sword?” Tammy was interested, but barely.
“No, I think I would have paid closer attention to a sword. It was more like a rod, something say—this long.” She held her hands about three feet apart.
Suddenly, Tammy’s eyes widened. “A yard long?” She stepped closer and looked at the glove, whose fingers were still curled as though holding an object that would have been a couple of inches across. “You mean, about the size of the murder weapon that you and Dirk found down in the cellar?”
“I’m sure he was holding something like that. And now he’s not. We have to find out for sure.”
Savannah left the armor and hurried on down the corridor with Tammy right beside her.
“The tape,” Savannah said. “We need to get our hands on the tape that the crew shot there in the foyer when we all first arrived. That suit of armor is bound to be on there somewhere. Then we’ll know for sure.”
A wave of optimism that she hadn’t felt in a while washed over her, energizing her body, which had been complaining about its lack of sleep and carbohydrate deprivation. Finally, a break!
“Yes, I’ll talk to Leonard the camera guy and get him to show me the tape,” she said, practically skipping down the hallway. “This is going to be great! I can’t wait to tell Dirk! He’s going to be so jealous that I figured it out, and I’ll tell Granny about my dream and—”
“There’s just one thing,” Tammy said, uncharacteristically glum.
Savannah glanced sideways and saw the clouds of doubt gathering on her young friend’s usually sunny face. “No,” she said. “I’m not going to ask. Don’t you dare rain on my parade, young lady. I want to feel this good at least until I get some coffee in me. Assuming those nitwits actually serve some real coffee this morning.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
They walked on in silence, and Savannah’s mood deflated moment by moment. They were nearly all the way to the dining hall when she couldn’t take it any longer. She stopped in the middle of the hall and turned on Tammy with a vengeance. “All right. Go on. Spit it out. How can this not be good news, finding out where the killer got the murder weapon?”
“Oh, that’s good news. It’s just not great news.”
Savannah propped her hands on her waist. “Well, Miss Prissy Pants, since it’s the only news we’ve got, that makes it pretty darned great in my book!”
“Okay…but…”
“But what?”
“But if the killer was going to choose a weapon…well…that was pretty smart of them, huh? Picking a murder weapon that absolutely everybody saw and everyone had access to. Good move, don’t you think, since even though you figured it out, we can’t possibly narrow it down to anybody in particular?”
Savannah stared at her for a long time, a big scowl on her face. Finally, she said, “Thank you. Thank you very much for that bitter spoonful of reality. I think I liked you better when you were Mr. Bluebird on My Shoulder.”
Tammy grinned the least sympathetic and remorseful smirk Savannah had ever seen. Then she sashayed on ahead and into the dining hall.
As Savannah watched her assistant’s retreating figure, she couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be to apply the sole of her left boot to the right buttock of that size-zero fanny. Just one or two swift kicks would suffice to reduce her internal conflicts, calm her jangled nerves, bring peace to her troubled soul.
Ah…’twould be lovely.
“These boots are made for walkin’,” she sang under her breath as she followed. “One of these days these boots are gonna….”
Chapter
13
In the dining hall, Savannah and Tammy found Alex standing by the makeshift desk at the end of the room. He was speaking on the phone, and as they approached, Savannah was pretty sure she heard him say, “I can handle this, R.R. My wife just died; can you cut me a little slack here?”
One quick glance at Tammy told her that she had heard it, too. Tammy looked as alert as Granny Reid’s bloodhound, Colonel Beauregard, when he got wind of a skunk.
As Alex watched them coming toward him, he quickly ended the conversation and hung up the phone. “Out in the garden,” he said brusquely. “We’re shooting the breakfast out there this morning. Get going. Everybody’s waiting.”
“Well, if they’re waiting for me, they’re probably waiting for you, too,” she said a little too sweetly. “Why don’t we mosey out there together and everybody can get started?”
He said nothing, but gave her a nasty look that made her wonder what she might have done to knock his nose out of joint. She didn’t have to wonder very long.
“I don’t like that detective buddy of yours,” he said before they had exited the dining hall. “He’s grilled me four times already about Tess’s death, and his bedside manner leaves something to be desired. He’s all but accused me of killing her myself.”
“He’s not a doctor,” Savannah said gently. “He’s a detective who’s investigating a murder. And, as unfair as it might seem, the spouse of a victim is always among the top suspects on a detective’s list.”
“Yeah, well, he’s poking his nose into things that are none of his business. Stuff that has nothing to do with Tess being killed. You’d think he’d show a little respect for a grieving family member.”
Savannah had to bite her tongue to keep herself from saying more. Dirk had his shortcomings, but she had worked with him for years and knew that he was always as kind and sensitive as possible to the bereaved…unless he was pretty darned sure they had something to do with the killing.
Tammy reached over and patted Alex on the shoulder. “You can’t take it personally, Mr. Jarvis. Dirk comes across gruff, I know, but underneath all that, he’s a sweetheart. He’s just doing his job.”
Savannah smiled to herself and tucked that little exchange away for safekeeping in her memory banks. It would be useful for blackmailing Tammy in the future. She would rather die than have Dirk know she had said something nice about him. Heaven forbid.
“So, he believes I killed my own wife?” Alex turned on Savannah. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I don’t know what Detective Coulter believes at this point,” Savannah replied.
“Then what good are you? What do you think I’m paying you for? I want you to report back to me exactly what’s going on with every step of the police investigation.”
Suddenly, he snapped his mouth shut.
Yes, she decided, Alex had said more than he had intended to.
Savannah’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you were paying me to conduct my own investigation, and that’s what I’m doing. Which reminds me: I want to have a look at some of the tape you’ve shot so far. Specifically anything that was taken in the foyer before we arrived or right afterward.”
“I don’t let anyone in the cast look at the dailies,” he said. “They start complaining about the way they look and want this cut and that cut, or they start griping that I’ve
got more of someone else and not enough of them, and—”
“I’m sure I look just dandy,” she told him. “My interest is completely professional. When can I see them?”
“Uh…I guess this afternoon, after this morning’s contest.”
“Is the winner’s prize an afternoon with Lance again?” Tammy wanted to know.
“Yeah, a horseback ride out into the hills.”
Savannah raised one eyebrow. “And what makes you think I’m not going to be busy this afternoon with Lance? I might win this one.”
Alex gave her an unpleasant little chuckle. “Call it a hunch,” he said. Then he walked away, heading out the door to the gardens.
“Tell me this contest isn’t rigged,” Savannah said, watching him go. “I don’t stand a chance.”
“Aw-w, don’t feel bad. You wouldn’t want to win anyway,” Tammy replied. “Not today’s challenge.”
“I wouldn’t?”
“The prize is getting to ride horseback through the hills with Lance. Horse riding? Horse?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s true. Even Lance isn’t worth me climbing up onto one of those fly-bitten critters again. Especially for a whole afternoon. Forget about it. I’ll let somebody else win.”
“You’ll let them?”
“That’s right. If anybody other than me wins, it’s because I let them. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Ain’t nobody winning time with that guy but me, Savannah thought when she saw Lance sitting at the breakfast table, a breathtaking smile on his face, the morning sun shining in his hair, muscles rippling against the thin fabric of his musketeer’s shirt—not to mention the bulges in his tights that would have gotten even Granny Reid “hot and bothered” on a winter’s night.
So what if I have to sit on a nag a mile above the ground, bouncing along until my butt aches and my bouncing boobs knock me unconscious? He’s worth it.
Murder à la Mode Page 17
