Cereal Killer

by G. A. McKevett

  Marietta thought for a moment, obviously tempted. Then she shook her head. “Naw. I think I’ll pass this time. I dieted like crazy for the past two weeks to look good for this trip. No point in gaining it all back the minute I get here—before I even see him.”

  “See... him?"

  Savannah was afraid to ask. Most of the “hims” in Marietta’s life had brought her grief. And anything that brought Marietta grief soon brought everyone in the family grief. Marietta wasn’t exactly a stiff-upper-lip, bear-it-all-with-quiet-dignity, keep-your-troubles-to-your-self sort of girl.

  Marietta’s eyes suddenly lit with the glow of passion, and she instantly halted the examination of her surroundings. She was very clearly, as Savannah liked to call it, in Marietta Loo-Loo Land.

  Yep, the worst had happened... again. Marietta Jank Reid was in love.

  Lord help us all, Savannah thought.

  * * *

  “So, you’ve met Mr. Right?” Savannah resisted the urge to add “again” as she stifled a yawn.

  The two sisters sat at Savannah’s dining table beneath her Tiffany-style lamp and sipped their Baileys-laced decaffeinated coffees. In the middle of the table before them sat an empty carton that had—until twenty minutes ago—held Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. In front of each sister sat an empty bowl that was all but licked clean.

  Marietta had succumbed to dietary temptation.

  Savannah had known she would; it was a Reid genetic thing.

  “Oh, this guy is so-o-o-o much more than just my Mr. Right,” Marietta gushed. “He’s my—”

  Oh, gawd,Savannah thought, please don't tell me he’s your friggin’ soul mate. You’ve had so-o-o-o many soul mates and—

  “Soul mate. Really, he is! I’ve never connected with any man in my life the way I’ve bonded with this man. He’s just so perfect for me in every way. We are just alike, really we are!”

  He has big hair? He wears rhinestone tigers on his shirts? Well, you did say he’s in West Hollywood, but...

  “Oh?” Savannah buried her nose along with her opinions in her coffee cup.

  Her sister had been in her house less than an hour. No point in getting her riled up this soon. Surely their first really big row could wait until tomorrow morning.

  But Mari didn’t take offense. Her eyes were still glassy. She was still deep in Love Loo-Loo Land and the inhabitants of that bright place seldom took offense. Even when offense was intended. Insulting such a person, Savannah had learned, could be a highly frustrating experience.

  “He’s so handsome and smart and rich and sensitive! That’s the best part, his sensitivity! I never had that with my other two husbands, you know, or with Lester, my last fiancé. Lester had all the sensitivity of a rock, but you know that. You went to our wedding. Well, not our wedding exactly because his wife broke it up with a shotgun, so... but you remember all of that.”

  Savannah flashed back on that lovely memory—of her standing between her sister and the raging woman with the shotgun, trying to talk the woman out of perforating Marietta’s hide.

  Yes, one seldom forgot such rich life experiences as staring down the double barrel of a shotgun, contemplating the indignity of dying in a peach-colored monstrosity of a bridesmaid’s dress.

  Remember?

  Yes, she’d been scarred for life. She now felt nauseous every time she saw peach taffeta.

  “So, where did you meet this love of your life?” she asked. “How did you get to know a guy in West Hollywood?”

  Marietta’s eyes darted to the right, then the left. She sipped her coffee before answering.

  Savannah braced herself.

  “Well, we’ve sorta been like pen pals for a while. You get to know a person really well that way. There’s something about writing instead of speaking directly to each other. You’re actually able to get to know the true person that way. You open yourself and so do they and you expose your soul, raw and—”

  “Oh, my God, Marietta Reid! You’re here to see some asshole you met in an Internet chat room!”

  Ding, ding. Okay, so much for waiting until tomorrow morning for round one.

  “Asshole? Asshole! How can you even say that, Savannah

  Reid!” She leaped up from her chair so abruptly that it nearly overturned. Her coffee sloshed onto Savannah’s white linen tablecloth.

  “Okay, I’m sorry about the asshole part,” Savannah said. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions, but—”

  “That’s right! You shouldn’t have! He’s a wonderful, deeply spiritual and soulful person and—”

  “And you could tell that just from chatting with him online? You could absolutely tell that he’s not... say... Ted Bundy.”

  Marietta’s eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms over her chest, which was as ample as Savannah’s. “Ted Bundy,” she said with sinister deliberation, “is dead! And I’ll thank you not to question my judgment in this matter, Savannah. Just because you’re older than me doesn’t mean that you can get all high and mighty and give me advice about a personal matter that has nothing to do with you!”

  For a moment Savannah entertained a mental picture of herself grabbing a pot off the kitchen stove and smacking her sister on the head with it, rearranging that updo of hers. Maybe even relocating it to... say... her butt crack. But then she switched the picture to one of herself biting down on her own tongue.

  Until blood began to trickle down her chin.

  While she silently quivered from head to toe. The very image of self-restraint.

  Yep, Savannah Self-Control Reid. That was her.

  Slowly, she opened her mouth, preparing to say something kind, patient, conciliatory. ‘You can’t fly across the country to go on a date with somebody who you’ve met in a chat room, Marietta! What the hell’s the matter with you, girl? That’s just plain dumber than dumb!”

  Okay, so much for restraint.

  Marietta drew herself up, hitched her nose into the air, and looked down its length with all the disdain of offended royalty.

  “If you would be so good,” she said, “as to get my room ready, I think I’ll go to bed.”

  “No problem. I’d be glad to do that,” Savannah said. She sighed and rose to her feet. After three days, bath fish and visitors stink, she reminded herself as she walked past her sister, into the living room, and up the stairs.

  But that was your average, run-of-the-mill visit. This was a Reid sister visit that was only forty-five minutes old. And there was no doubt—it was already as smelly as a week-old catfish.

  Savannah lay in the middle of her bedroom floor, her arms outflung, staring up at the ceiling. As she watched her ceiling fan spinning above her, the thought occurred to her that she must look like the bad guy in an old Western who had just faced down the sheriff at high noon. And lost the gun battle.

  That was about the way she felt, too.

  The clock on her nightstand said it was well after midnight, and she wasn’t even in the vicinity of “sleepy” in spite of her exhausting evening with her sister. While listening to Marietta drone on about her beloved cyberprince, she had fought to stay awake and feign interest. But once in bed, she had started thinking about Caitíin Connor, and now she was wide awake and frustrated. Not a good combination.

  For the fifth time, she stood up, rearranged her flannel pajamas, patted her hair into place, and then hurled herself backward onto the floor again.

  Fortunately, she had chosen an especially thick carpet when she had replaced the old one in her bedroom last summer. And she had martial arts training, so she knew how to fall without breaking or even severely straining anything vital. Plus there was that layer of Godiva/Chunky Monkey/Nacho Doritos padding to cushion her.

  On the floor again, she lifted her head, looked down at her pajamas, and frowned.

  “Mmmm...” she said. “Still not quite right.”

  The bedroom door swung open, and Marietta stood there, glaring down at her. She was wearing a slinky rayon nightgown
with a plunging neckline and a wild purple leopard print. Her hairdo was somehow still perfect, as was her makeup.

  Marietta firmly believed in the single woman’s need to be fully prepared to receive male company should it present itself... day or night. If the house had caught on fire, Marietta wanted to look gorgeous just in case some hunk fireman happened to fling her over his shoulder.

  Yet another reason why Savannah sometimes wondered if her sister needed a brain transplant.

  “What the hell’s going on in here?” Marietta asked without preamble, her hands on her hips. ‘You’re making so blame much racket that I can’t get to sleep.”

  “Sorry,” Savannah said as she rolled her head left and right, trying to see her hair, to check how it was lying on the carpet. But it was too short.

  “What are you doing down there?” Marietta asked, nudging her with the toe of her marabou-plumed slide. “Did you roll out of bed, hit your head, and smack yourself stupid like you used to do when we were kids and sleeping four to a bed?”

  “No, but thank you for your concern. It’s touching. Hand me that mirror over there on the dresser, would you, please?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re so sweet and because I asked you nice. I even said ‘please.’ ”

  “Gran would be so proud,” Marietta grumbled as she trudged over to Savannah’s dresser and picked up the antique silver hand mirror that was one of Savannah’s few true treasures. Tammy had given it to her several years before for Christmas, along with a matching comb and brush.

  Using the set with its fine silver filigree and soft boar bristles made Savannah feel like a fine Victorian lady— like the woman who might have actually used it a hundred years ago. A nice change of persona after a day of helping Dirk wrestle down an ugly, dirty perp.

  Marietta handed the mirror to Savannah, who held it over her face and studied her hair and the way it lay on the carpet. Unfortunately, she had just had it cut, and it didn’t have the effect she had been hoping for.

  “I asked you what you’re doing down there,” Marietta repeated. “Collecting dust bunnies?”

  “Naw. I only gather those puppies up once a year when they’re big enough to knit sweaters with. I’m conducting an experiment.”

  “What kind of experiment?” Marietta yawned, diluting the illusion of genuine curiosity.

  Savannah laid the mirror on the floor beside her. “Reach down here and grab my ankles, would you?” Marietta frowned, as though she had been asked to unload fifty bales of cotton from a Mississippi barge. “Do what?”

  “Grab me by my ankles and pull me a couple of feet across the floor.”

  Marietta glanced up and down Savannah’s length. “No. You weigh a ton, and I’ll put my back out.”

  Savannah’s nostrils flared ever so slightly as she returned the evaluating look, taking into account the amount of fabric it took to cover Marietta’s fairly ample figure... even with a plunging neckline.

  ‘You’re not exactly skin and bones yourself, Miss Priss. Do it, okay? Just grab my ankles and pull me a few feet.”

  With the expected amount of moaning and groaning, Marietta did as she was asked. Dropping Savannah’s feet back to the floor with a thud, she said, “There. Happy now?”

  “I don’t know. Hand me that mirror again, would j you?”

  Marietta scooped the mirror off the carpet and gave it to her.

  She held it over her face, looked at her hair on one side, then the other. Holding it farther away from her, she scanned her body.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said, rising from the carpet.

  “What? What’s what you thought?” Marietta was looking at her as though she had just peeled a banana and shoved it into her right ear.

  “Thanks,” Savannah told her, a distracted look on her face as she replaced the mirror on the dresser and walked over to the nightstand, where she picked up the phone.

  “No problem. Any time you wanna be dragged around, j just give me a holler and I’ll come a-runnin’. Meanwhile, if you could just keep it down a bit, some of us are trying to get our beauty sleep.”

  When Savannah didn’t reply, Marietta shook her head. “And you say that I’m the one who just fell out of the Dumb Tree and hit ever’ limb on the way down,” she mumbled as she left the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  Savannah glanced at the clock as she punched in

  Dirk’s number. So what if it was nearly one o’clock in the morning? If the case was keeping her awake, it would be keeping him up, too. Or at least, it should be. And if it wasn’t... she’d change that in a hurry.

  Chapter

  5

  ”I don’t like her clothes,” Savannah told Dirk as she _L settled among the pillows on her bed, the phone cradled under her chin. “And I’m not just talking about the fashion faux pas of wearing an outfit that looks like something you’d bake a turkey in, either.”

  “You don’t like the way her clothes were sorta scrunched up around her armpits and her crotch, right?” he said on the other end.

  Savannah frowned. She hated it when he beat her to the punch. Fortunately, it didn’t happen that often. “Right. Don’t tell me you noticed that at the scene.”

  “Nope. About an hour ago. I was looking at the Polaroids of the bathroom while I was watching the sports. The Dodgers won, by the way.”

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dodgers-schmodgers.”

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry.” Some topics were sacred with Dirk. Baseball was one of them. Beer was another.

  “Somebody dragged her around the bathroom,” he said.

  Savannah mulled that one over for a moment. “I think they dragged her into the bathroom.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, if they didn’t... why was she in the bathroom in the first place?”

  He snorted. “Seeing that man about that horse, draining the dragon, pinching a—”

  “Stop! Enough with the potty euphemisms already. She wasn’t using the bowl.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The toilet seat was up. Check your Polaroids.”

  He was quiet; she could hear him shuffling through his materials.

  Finally he said, “You’re right. I didn’t even notice that”

  “Of course not.” She sighed, wishing she’d had a cream-filled, fudge-frosted cupcake for every time she had yelled at him for leaving her toilet seat up. What could be more refreshing than to get up in the middle of the night for a bathroom visit only to stick your unsuspecting bare bum into a bowl of cold water? It caused one to curse all of mankind.

  “Maybe she was washing her hands,” he suggested. “The sink hadn’t been used since it had been cleaned.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Not a water spot in sight.”

  He groaned. “Something else that only a chick would notice.”

  “Same thing with the bathtub and shower. Hadn’t been used.”

  Dirk thought for a moment. “Maybe she was throwing up. Her husband said she was into that when she was trying to lose weight.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “There were pee-pee sprinkle spots around the rim of the bowl. If she’d intended to kneel there and toss her chili, she would have cleaned it first. It’s part of the ritual for most bulimics. She hadn’t cleaned it and didn’t have anything in her hand to clean it with. Nothing lying on the floor.”

  “Which brings us back to... why was she in there?”

  “I told you already. Somebody dragged her in there.”

  “After she was dead?”

  “I guess.”

  “But why?”

  Savannah opened her mind to the possibilities. But it had been a long day, and it seemed her brain waves were leveling out to a flat line. Nothing.

  “I don’t know,” she told him. “You figure it out. I can’t do all of your work for you.”

  She chuckled as she hung up on him.

&
nbsp; The cats had snuck into the bedroom while Marietta had the door open, and they were snuggling against her pajama legs, circling, arranging themselves in positions that would have been miserably uncomfortable for anyone outside of the feline species.

  “Diamante, Cleopatra,” she said, reaching down to stroke first one, then the other. ‘You two figure it out. Why would somebody drag a dead body into a bathroom and leave it there? And if they did drag it in there... does that mean that the dragger had anything to do with the person getting dead in the first place? Probably, huh?” The cats blinked up at her with sleepy eyes.

  “Got that?” she asked them. “Good. You girls discuss it between yourselves. I want an answer by morning.”

  By the time Savannah trudged downstairs in her bathrobe the next morning, she had no more information about Cait Connor’s death than she had upon retiring.

  Not surprisingly, neither the cats nor her subconscious had formulated any more theories during the night.

  She found her sister stretched out on the sofa in the living room, a sheer wrap of black chiffon over her purple leopard nightgown. She lay on her side, lounging on some throw pillows, watching an old black-and-white romance movie on the television.

  As always, every hair on her head was teased on end, smoothed, and sprayed stiff. And every layer of makeup had been carefully troweled on.

  Marietta might have her cleavage bared for almost every occasion, including funerals, baptisms, and PTA meetings, but her naked face was only a distant memory to her friends and loved ones.

  All she needs is a glass of champagne and a box of bonbons to make the picture complete, Savannah thought. She mumbled a feeble, “Good morning,” in her direction as she passed through on her way to the kitchen.

  “It’s about time you woke up,” Marietta returned. “I thought I was going to plumb starve to death before you finally showed your face. Do you always sleep this late?”

  Savannah glanced up at the clock on her kitchen wall. “It’s eight o’clock,” she said. “Not exactly dawn-thirty, but it ain’t noon either.”