Sugar and Spite

by G. A. McKevett

  Savannah’s heart sank. “Don’t tell me that’s the only name he gave you.”

  “ ’T was the only one he spoke. But don’t let your chin drop so. I can give you a bit more help than that.”

  She brightened. “Really?”

  He beckoned her over to the counter and cash register in the corner of the room. After rummaging around beneath the counter for a moment, he came up with a dark green, old-fashioned bookkeeper’s ledger.

  “Mr. Snake paid with a check, he did,” Patrick said proudly as he scanned the rows of entries with one blackened fingertip. “And I always jot down the addresses and phone numbers off checks, to add to my mailing list. Then when I’m going to be at a faire, I drop my customers a postcard, informing them of my whereabouts.

  “Ah, here’s his real name, and his address as well. But before I give it to you, I’d like to know why you’re lookin’ for him? What’s he done to you or yours?”

  Again Savannah weighed the pros and cons of truth and lying. And decided to give Patrick McCarthy the benefit of the truth. “I think he may have killed someone, and my friend is being blamed for that murder.”

  Patrick’s face blanched white beneath his freckles. “Mother of God,” he whispered. “Tell me it wasn’t with my poniard he did the deed.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Really? Are you just sayin’ that now to spare my feelings?”

  Savannah gave him a reassuring smile. “If he did it, he did so with a gun, not your weapon.”

  “Thanks be to heaven,” Patrick said, crossing himself.

  “So, do I get the name and address, Mr. McCarthy?” Savannah asked, not daring to breathe.

  He began to write on the back of one of his business cards. “You do, indeed. And I hope it will be of help to your friend. Nothin’s worse in the whole, wide world than being blamed for what you never did.”

  No sooner was Savannah back in her Camaro, name and address safely in hand, than the lawyer representing the falsely accused man in question gave her a call.

  “It’s Larry,” he said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Bail’s been set. There’s no way he can make it.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Dirk had no assets to speak of. And, while Savannah lived from one meager check to the next, and often didn’t know where the money for next month’s telephone bill would be coming from, she did have assets. They weren’t exactly liquid, but bail bondsmen weren’t picky. Money was money. Property was property.

  Anything for a friend. And, especially, anything for Dirk.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Even with a high-powered attorney like Larry Bostwick with a few tricks in his hip pocket, bailing a desperate criminal like Dirk Coulter, Ex-Wife Slayer, out of jail was not a quick and painless process. By the time Savannah had him home, sitting on her sofa, his feet on her coffee table and his mouth full of cheap pizza, she felt at least thirty years older. He had aged a few decades himself.

  “Are you going to tell me?” he said, displaying a mouthful of mozzarella, pepperoni, and black olives. Not a pretty sight.

  “No,” Savannah replied, leaning over him and taking her second piece. He grabbed a fourth. The pizza never had a chance.

  “I want to know.”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  He washed down the slice—five bites’ worth—with a swig of beer. “What did you have to put on the line to bail me out? Tell me.”

  “What’s it to ya?” she said, winding a string of cheese around her forefinger, then licking it off. “I pawned Tammy, okay?”

  “Nope. They don’t pay that much for bimbos at hockshops.”

  “I sold myself on the corner of Lester and Main to customers coming out of the porn shop.”

  Dirk shook his head. “Sorry, babe, but you’re a bit past your prime. Those quarters just don’t add up that quick.”

  She threw the beer-bottle cap at him, bouncing it soundly off his forehead. “Insult me again like that, buddy, and I’ll hike your tail back to the pokey. Got it?”

  She picked up the remote control, switched on the television, and found a game of Jeopardy. Cranking up the volume, she blurted out the first question, “Who is George Bernard Shaw?”

  He snatched the remote out of her hand and pushed, MUTE. “Van, did you have to put your house up for collateral?” he asked.

  “Why? Are you gonna take off for Tijuana?” She swallowed her last bite and added, “What are amethyst and citrine?”

  “No, I’m not going anywhere,” he replied, sounding slightly offended that she would even ask.

  “Then it doesn’t matter, does it? What is the Nile? Eat that last piece of pizza before it gets cold ... as if you care.”

  He glowered at her for a few seconds, as he did when he didn’t get his way... which was often with her. “You aren’t going to tell me, are you? I can find out, you know.”

  “What is the Book of Kells?”

  “I don’t know why you like that stupid game,” he growled.

  “The game isn’t stupid; you are. You don’t like it because you don’t know any of the answers ... I mean, questions. What is seven and a half?”

  He choked on his pizza. Still gagging, he stood and walked into the kitchen. She heard the refrigerator door open. “Where’s the beer?” he yelled. “I don’t see any more here.”

  “You’re cut off for the night,” she said.

  He marched back into living room. “Since when? I’ve only had one.”

  “And that’s all you get. You’re on duty.”

  He snorted. “In case you haven’t heard, I’m off duty. Probably permanently.”

  “You’re working, and so am I,” she told him, “unofficially. I just figured I’d let you get ‘assimilated’ back into society before I sprang it on you.”

  “Sprang what?”

  “We haven’t exactly been slacking off around here while you were cooling your heels in the big house. The fine lads and lasses of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency have got a lead on your case, big boy.”

  “Really? A good one?”

  “Wait until you hear how good.” She gave him a big grin. “You’ll shout ‘Howdy’ and wet your britches!”

  “Let’s go pick him up, right now!” Dirk didn’t need to change his briefs, but he was exuberant. “Gimme the bastard’s name and address, come on, hand it over!”

  Savannah calmly stood, picked up the empty pizza box and the dead-soldier beer bottle. “First things first,” she said. “I can certainly understand your enthusiasm, but we’ve got to think this through.”

  “What’s to think about? The sonofabitch killed Polly, and I’m getting nailed with it. I’m gonna wring his neck with my bare hands and then deliver his head on a silver platter to Jeffries.”

  “How ... Old Testament ... of you,” she said, walking into the kitchen with dinner’s remains. “That’s what I’d like to do to him, too. And that’s exactly why we’re not going to pick him up ourselves. If you hadn’t noticed, you’re the suspect in this case, not the investigator, and I’m not even a cop anymore. If we go waltzing in there—”

  “Where? Where is he? I want to know right now!”

  “—with guns a-blazin’, you’ll be in more trouble than you are now. And I’ll be behind bars with you, and there’ll be no one to bail out either one of us.”

  Dirk sat down hard on one of her dining chairs and let out a loud groan of frustration. She ignored him and continued to tidy the kitchen while he watched.

  “McMurtry’s green,” he said. “He’ll screw it up; you wait and see.”

  “No, he won’t. We won’t let him.”

  He cheered up, ever so slightly. “We’ll be along?”

  “Of course we will be.”

  “Do you think he’ll let us come?”

  “He will ... or we won’t give him what we’ve got. All of this will be handled in prenegotiation.”

  “So, in other words, we’re gon
na put the squeeze on him first.”

  Savannah smiled, but it wasn’t a pretty expression ... more ominous than joyful. “If he cooperates, we’ll go easy on him. If he doesn’t, we’ll squish him ’til the little bugger pops.”

  Newly promoted Detective Jake McMurtry looked like an eager Labrador puppy on his first hunting trip when he charged through the doors of the Chat & Chew Diner on Highway 101 and Main Street in west San Carmelita.

  “I swear his tail is wagging,” Savannah said as she sipped her coffee and took a big bite of the lemon meringue pie on her plate.

  “Yeah, and he should roll his tongue back up and put it in his mouth,” Dirk added, trying to stick his fork in her pie and getting his hand speared in the process.

  “Get another piece if you’re still hungry,” she told him as Jake made his way toward their booth in the rear of the room.

  “The waitress will think I’m a pig.”

  “Too late. It’ll be your third piece of apple pie à la mode. She already knows you’re a pig.”

  Savannah shoved her plate and cup to Dirk’s side of the table and moved around to sit beside him. A united front.

  As Jake slid into the booth across from them, the thought occurred to Savannah—not for the first time—that Jake had wanted so badly to become a detective so that he could come to work dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, rather than his uniform. He had looked much better in his uniform. Apparently his promotion meant a daily shave was no longer a burden, and hair combing was optional.

  Savannah didn’t need to look at his bare ring finger to know there was no Mrs. Jake at home. No woman would have allowed her man out of the house looking like that.

  He appeared to be dog tired, too. His eyes were bloodshot and had dark circles under their bags. He looked like she felt, and that wasn’t good.

  “Hey, Savannah, Dirk, I’m glad you called,” he said as he motioned for the waitress to bring him coffee. “I was going to give you a ring first thing in the morning. I was going to give you the night off, Dirk, considering that you just got out.”

  “Thanks,” Dirk replied coolly, “but I’d rather get this settled. Once I’m cleared, then I’ll sleep.”

  Jake rubbed a hand wearily over his eyes. Not promising, Savannah thought. What’s going on that he doesn’t want to see?

  “Maybe you’d better grab a nap or two along the way,” Jake said. “It may be a while before we wrap this up.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well you don’t know what we got.”

  Dirk looked smug as he said it ... a look that always set off alarm bells for Savannah. She could hear her granny’s voice quoting the proverb, “Pride goeth before a fall.”

  “What have you got?” Jake asked, without even a trace of enthusiasm or curiosity in his monotone.

  “Actually, Savannah and her agency came up with it,” Dirk said, giving credit where it was due. “I’ll let her tell you about it.”

  He waved a hand in her direction and she took the floor. “You must know about the poniard that was found at the scene,” she said.

  “The what?”

  “You don’t know about the medieval weapon that was—”

  “Oh, yeah. That thing. I didn’t know what it was called, but, yeah, I’ve seen it.”

  “We figure the shooter left it there,” Savannah said. “We think he came into the trailer, intending to kill either Polly or Dirk or both with that weapon. Then she pulled Dirk’s gun on him, he yanked it out of her hand—breaking her wrist—and turned the pistol on her.”

  “Yeah,” he said, adding an enormous amount of sugar to his coffee. “I figured it might have gone down that way. So?”

  “So, we traced the weapon to the armorer who made it, and we’ve got the name and address of the guy who commissioned it. We’ve got the killer.”

  Jake sighed. “You talked to Patrick McCarthy?”

  Savannah nodded, feeling the helium begin to seep from her birthday balloon. “Yes, this morning,.”

  “I talked to him half an hour after you did.”

  “No way. How did you find him? I didn’t see you at the Medieval Faire.”

  “I don’t know about any fair. I looked him up in the Yellow Pages under ARMOR.”

  Savannah’s mouth popped open. “You dirty, rotten cheater! You didn’t even have to dress up in those ridiculous ...”

  Jake was too tired to gloat. “Yeah, he told me you had been there. He gave me the same name and address he gave you.”

  “Leland Whitley? Twenty-four twelve East Lester, Apartment G?”

  “That’s it. It’s fake.”

  “Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to hear that.”

  “There’s no Leland Whitley in the state of California and the apartments at 2412 East Lester only go up to D.”

  Dirk visibly deflated and sank low in his seat. “Damn.”

  “Yeah, damn,” Savannah whispered. “Double-dog damn.”

  “So, where does that leave us?” Dirk said, shoving his last bite of pie away, uneaten ... a bad sign, indeed.

  “It leaves us,” Savannah said, “back at the Medieval Faire, looking for a dude who calls himself Snake and is probably bent out of shape over losing his poniard.” She sighed. “Oh, well, I didn’t have anything else to do tonight ... like sleep, or anything boring like that.” She turned to Dirk and nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. “Tell me, big boy, how do you look in a corset?”

  An hour later, Dirk stood in Savannah’s living room, an ugly scowl on his face, powder blue tights covering his legs, and the rest of him draped with a royal blue tunic. On her coffee table lay the satin waist sash and the Henry VIII-type, massive gold chains. He drew a line somewhere, and it was at the tights.

  He shook his finger in Ryan Stone’s face, sputtering and fuming. “Don’t think for one minute that I don’t know you and your ... friend there”—he jabbed a thumb toward John Gibson—“did this deliberately.”

  “Now why would we want to do anything, deliberately or otherwise,” Ryan said smoothly, “to upset you, Dirk?”

  “Don’t play innocent with me. You two had a good laugh putting this pansy outfit together, saying, ‘How do you think Coulter would like this? Would he look cute in that?’ I know how you are.”

  “And exactly how is that?” John said, raising his chin a couple of notches and looking down his nose with that aristocratic disdain perfected by the British.

  “Never mind,” Dirk said. “I just want you to know that I’m on to you, that’s all. And I’ll tell you something....” He turned on Savannah, who was trying unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle. Not to spare Dirk’s feelings. But, laced once again in the accursed corset, she was afraid she might pass out if she did anything that required extra oxygen ... like laugh.

  “Yes, dearest,” she said. “What wouldest thou say unto me?”

  “If I’m the only horse’s ass there wearing a getup like this one, I’m gonna—”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” she said, taking him by the arm and leading him toward the door. “You won’t be the only one there dressed in blue tights, but you might be the only horse’s ass.”

  She turned to Ryan and John. “Thank you, once again, for wardrobing us so handsomely.”

  “It was our pleasure,” Ryan said with a chuckle.

  “I’ll just bet it was,” grumbled Dirk as he headed out the door.

  “Are you sure you don’t want the two of us to come along?” Ryan asked.

  Savannah watched Dirk stomping across the lawn in his leather slippers with their cute little pointed toes. “I don’t think you two should be within spitting distance of Dirk for a while. Tights, really? Did you have to?”

  Ryan laughed. “John wanted to bring the hot pink ones. But I put my foot down. Didn’t want to send the old boy over the edge.”

  Savannah shook her head. “Are you kidding? For years now, Over the Edge has been Dirk’s legal address.”

  “What color are the tights they brought for Jake?” Dirk grum
bled as she got into his Buick and he peeled out of her driveway.

  “Tights? Jake?” She thought of the wizard’s costume tucked into the bag at her feet and thought it best to avoid the question for the moment. “Um ... I don’t know ... exactly. I saw some purple in the bag ... and red.”

  Dirk grinned. “Purple and red, huh? Cool. He’ll look pretty stupid in that.”

  Savannah covered her mouth with her hand and coughed. Once she got her hacking fit under control, she gave his shoulder a comforting, companionable pat. “Like I said, darlin’, you’ve got nothin’ to worry about,” she told him. “You’re bound to be the best-dressed horse’s ass there.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  By nine-thirty that evening, Dirk, Savannah, and Jake were pulling into the parking lot of the Medieval Faire, which was nothing more than a hard-packed field of dirt, surrounded by bales of hay to mark its perimeters. Compared to their previous visit, there were hardly any automobiles there. Only the moonlight illuminated the lonely scene. A few campfires glowed, dots of red scattered across the hillside, and a couple burned in a valley below.

  “I told you it would be closed,” Dirk mumbled, still disgruntled about the distribution of the costumes. He was even less happy now that he had seen Jake’s regal, wizard’s attire. “There’s not gonna be anybody here who can tell us what we need to know.”

  “Quite the contrary,” Savannah said. “The ones who stay and camp out overnight in the tents and pavilions are the people who work here, who are true devotees. They’re far more aware of what goes on than the guests who only visit in the daytime. Ryan says it’s a close-knit community, and everybody knows everybody. That’s why we had to dress up, so that we’ll fit in.”

  “If everybody knows everybody,” Dirk argued, as they climbed out of his Buick and headed down the moonlit path toward the encampments, “they’ll know that we ain’t nobody.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Jake said. “We’ll stand out like sore thumbs.”

  “Naw. You guys worry too much. Ryan says they frequently have visitors at night, like groupies who hang out after hours. That’s who we are.”