Sugar and Spite

by G. A. McKevett

  “We’ve got a booth right back here,” he said, ushering her to the far corner of the room full of chrome-and-red-leatherette seats and pearlized gray tabletops. Overhead hung wagon wheels sporting lanterns with red hurricane globes. But the lighting did little to illuminate the room, and Savannah didn’t realize until she was nearly sliding into the booth that they had company.

  After making the phone call and hearing the woman’s voice, she had briefly wondered if Francie would be there. She had quickly dismissed the idea. Not even Francie would be tacky and tasteless enough to show her face at this meeting.

  But, as with everything relating to her father, Savannah had underestimated the situation.

  Francie was older, too, than the last time Savannah had seen her. Her blond hair had turned as gray as Macon’s. The heavy makeup she had always worn now looked pathetically garish on her aging face. Her figure had once been voluptuous, but gravity was having its way and her ill-fitting polyester stretch pants and too-tight T-shirt did nothing to camouflage the problem.

  “Have a seat, sugar,” Macon was saying as he gently shoved her into the booth bench and slid next to Francie on the other side. “I’m just so glad you could make it. Does me a world of good to see your pretty face.”

  “You are looking good!” Francie gushed. “My goodness you’ve turned into a pretty girl.”

  Savannah could smell the strong odor of alcohol on her breath. Between dark black lines of heavy eyeliner, her eyes were bloodshot and bleary.

  “Thank you, Francie,” she murmured, sounding anything but grateful. “I didn’t know you were going to be joining us tonight.”

  Macon reached over and covered Francie’s sun-spotted hand with his. “I wanted her to be here, when I tell you the good news.”

  Savannah was fairly certain she didn’t want to hear this “good news,” but she heard herself saying, “What’s up, Macon?”

  “Well ...” He looked a bit disappointed. “I wanted to sorta work up to the subject, but since you ask me outright like that, I guess I’ll just spill the beans now.”

  Savannah waited, her hands folded demurely in front of her, projecting an image of calm that she didn’t feel.

  “Well,” he began, “I reckon this might not be the best news as far as you’re concerned, but I’m really happy about it, and I want you to be, too. If you can be, that is.”

  “What is it, Macon?” she asked, trying not to jump up out of her seat and run out the door without hearing what he had to say.

  “I’ve asked Francie here to marry me. And she said she would. In fact, she wants to ask you something special.”

  “Something special?” Savannah’s fists were clenched in her lap under the table. “Special how? What?”

  “I want you to stand up with me. To be my maid of honor. I think it’s high time that we acted like family. One big, happy family, ’cause I’m gonna be your stepmomma, you know.”

  Savannah searched Francie’s face to see if she was serious. Regretfully, she was.

  Amazed, Savannah slowly shook her head. “I don’t quite believe this. I ...”

  Macon gouged Francie in the side. “See there, honey bunch. I told you she’d be surprised. Just look at that. She’s pleased as punch. She can’t even talk straight.”

  “Then you’ll do it?” Francie said. Without waiting for an answer she plunged ahead, chattering on about wedding plans, something about Las Vegas and twenty-four-hour wedding chapels that played Elvis music while you walked down the aisle.

  “Wait a minute,” Savannah said, when she finally found her voice. “Hang on just a darned minute.” She took a deep breath and turned to her father. “You tell me that after all these years, you’re finally divorcing my mother? You and Mom are still married, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, but I’m gonna get one of those quickie divorces as soon as we get to Vegas, before the wedding, of course.”

  “Of course. And as soon as you’ve divorced my mother, you’re going to marry the woman you’ve been having an affair with for as long as I can possibly remember. The woman you used to drop off at that seedy little motel on the edge of town the few days a year that you actually came home to your family. The one the whole town talked about behind Mom’s back and behind us kids’ backs, but loud enough that we could all hear and be embarrassed as hell about. The woman that you would swing by and pick up on your way back out of town, leaving Mom pregnant with my next brother or sister. Is that what you’re telling me, Macon?”

  She turned to Francie, whose badly lipsticked ruby red lips were starting to tremble. “And you. You have a more than twenty-five-year affair with a married man. You run all over the country with him in his rig, while his children practically starve at home because of his neglect. And then you have the gall to ask me, the oldest of those nine kids—the one who remembers you best—to be your maid of honor? Did I hear you correctly? Is that what you two just told me?”

  Francie shrugged. “Well, if you put it like that, it don’t sound like such a good idea....”

  Macon bristled and put a protective arm around his bride-to-be’s shoulders. “Now look here, Little Miss Savannah Priss, I’m not going to sit here and let you insult the woman I’m gonna marry. That just ain’t right.”

  “And we all know how concerned the two of you are about doing what’s right. Right?”

  “Don’t you give me none of your sass, young lady. I could still—”

  “What, Macon? Put me over your knee and give me a whuppin’? Let’s get real. The day of you taking your belt to me is long past. So don’t even start down that road with me, or I’ll slap you stupid, just for old times’ sake.”

  “You’re a lot like your mama,” Macon said, shoving his cup away and slopping coffee onto the table. “You got a big mouth and a big butt. Always did have.”

  Savannah stood and silently counted down her temper before replying in a studied, calm voice, “Listen to me, Macon and Francie. In spite of what I just said, I don’t wish either of you ill. It would bring me no happiness to hear that misfortune had befallen you. I don’t hate you. But I don’t love you either. Too much water has gone under the bridge to even pretend that I do.”

  She saw her father wince, but she decided to continue. “And I can’t give you my blessing for this upcoming... union of yours. If you want to get married, get married. If you’d had the courage to do it properly years ago, you might have saved us all a lot of grief.”

  She started to walk away. Then she came back to the table. “And one other thing, Macon. I used to resent the fact that you weren’t there to raise the children you brought into the world. I used to resent the childhood that I missed as the oldest, acting like a surrogate parent while you drove your rig and your girlfriend all over the country, while Mom sat in bars and drank enough booze to kill an elephant trying to drown her pain. I used to resent all the diapers I changed, the skinned knees I doctored, and the snotty noses I wiped.”

  Tears flooded her eyes, and for once, Savannah didn’t bother to blink them back or wipe them away. “But then, I realized that you were the one who got the bum end of the deal. You weren’t there when Atlanta took her first steps, or when Waycross hit his first homer in Little League, or when Vidalia came waltzing into the living room wearing her prom dress and looking like a fairy princess. You’ve never held her sweet babies. You missed all that. But I was there, Macon. And those moments were worth the dirty diapers and the hours of homework and the sleepless nights when they all had the chicken pox. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

  She leaned over, offered her father her hand, and, to her surprise, he shook it. “Have a good life, Macon,” she said. “And you, too, Francie. Go get married and be happy if you can. Just don’t contact me anymore. Okay?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. She walked out the door and into the night air that reeked of fried onions and diesel fuel.

  But she had said some things that she had needed to say for a long, long time.
And the strange combination of onions and diesel had never smelled so sweet.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The next morning, Savannah and Dirk sat in the back of John Gibson’s Bentley and stared out the window at the panoramic view below them. John and Ryan sat in front, John in the driver’s seat, as always.

  “Can you imagine having the bucks to live on a piece of property like this?” Savannah said as she took in the sweeping vista: orange and lemon groves directly below them, the city of San Carmelita a bit farther down, embracing the gently sloping hills, all the way to the beach. And the glorious Pacific Ocean reaching to a hazy pink-and-aqua infinity.

  Definitely a nice view, if you could afford it.

  “Naw, I wouldn’t want to live up here,” Dirk said with his usual effervescence. “One good earthquake and the whole thing’s gonna fall right into the ocean. In fact, you couldn’t pay me to live up here.”

  “Well, a lot of people have paid a great deal for these lots,” Ryan said. “In fact, even the smaller ones are going for seven figures.”

  “As in a million bucks or more?” Dirk was traumatized at the very thought of such extravagance.

  “And that’s just for the dirt,” Savannah added, shaking her head. “Imagine, a million dollars for dirt.”

  “The developer is collecting a tidy sum,” John said. “Acquiring this property and overcoming numerous obstacles to having it rezoned by the city was one of his finer triumphs.”

  “This is all well and good,” Dirk said, shifting nervously on his seat, the sumptuous leather wasted on him. “But I didn’t come up here to sightsee. You said you’d found somethin’.”

  Savannah cringed at Dirk’s lack of diplomacy, but by now, John and Ryan knew Dirk too well even to notice, let alone be offended.

  “We have uncovered something indeed,” John said, glowing with self-satisfaction. “After we left your home last evening, Savannah, we spent much of the night making telephone calls. I must tell you, more than one of our friends is upset with us, but it was worth incurring their wrath.”

  “It certainly was,” Ryan interjected. “We were so pleased with what we learned that we were waiting at the courthouse this morning when they opened their doors. It took a while, but we confirmed what we were told last night.”

  “Which was?” Savannah had to fight the juvenile urge to cross her fingers and toes.

  “We were searching for a connection to our fine Lieutenant Jeffries and someone named Cooper.” John waved a hand at the open, freshly bulldozed lots. “And there it is.”

  “This land,” Ryan said, “was purchased by one Ethan Cooper.”

  “The Ethan Cooper?” Savannah asked. “The guy who built Oaks Dale?”

  “And many other exclusive, gated communities here in Southern California,” John replied. “Exactly such a complex is intended for this area. Building will begin this summer. Custom, five- and six-bedroom homes.”

  “Okay,” Dirk said. “So, people are nuts enough to pay a fortune for land that’s gonna slide downhill as soon as the spring rains begin. What’s that got to do with Jeffries?”

  Ryan and John grinned at each other, savoring their juicy tidbit as long as possible before spitting it out. In unison they pointed to a prime lot, marked off with yellow surveyors’ flags, right in the center of the complex.

  “That one,” Ryan said, “is his.”

  “Get outta here,” Savannah exclaimed. “He bought that property on what a cop makes? Even a lieutenant on the SCPF isn’t paid enough to keep a cat stocked with Kitty Gourmet.”

  Laughing, Ryan said, “I kid you not. Our poor, underpaid public servant is going to retire like a king.”

  “He won’t be buying it with old family money,” John added. “We checked. And he loses more money than he wins in Las Vegas.”

  “Our man is connected,” Savannah offered.

  John nodded. “He is connected to Ethan Cooper. We were just beginning to put that together, along with an interesting profile on Mr. Cooper, when we left to rendezvous with you two.”

  “Let’s go back to my house, and I’ll fix us some lunch,” Savannah suggested. “We’ll compare what you have against what Tammy’s been working on. She’s been glued to that computer screen since dawn-thirty.”

  “And then,” Dirk said, his voice soft, his expression sorrowful, “I have to go... somewhere... for a while.”

  Savannah reached over and took his hand between both of hers. “We’re all going to go, buddy,” she said. “We’ve already talked about it.”

  He brightened slightly, but only for a second. “You don’t have to. I mean, you guys hardly even knew her and, Van, I know you didn’t even like her.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Savannah laced her fingers through his big, thick ones and squeezed. “We’re going for you.”

  Dirk looked astounded. His voice got husky. “But why?”

  “Because you would be there for us if we needed you,” she replied. “That’s what family is all about.”

  “Ethan Cooper?” Tammy exclaimed. “I know Ethan Cooper! My old boss used to play golf with him.”

  “Ah, yes. Your old boss. What a fine fellow he was,” Savannah added. “We got him on first-degree homicide for hiring a hit man to kill off his enemies, if I remember correctly ... and I do.” She slapped generous dollops of Dijon mustard on the giant hero sandwiches she was building on her kitchen counter.

  Ryan stood beside her, layering ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato slices on the bread she had prepared. Dirk sat at the kitchen table ten feet away, scribbling on a legal pad, while Tammy and John consulted their laptop computers opened in front of them.

  “What can you tell us about Mr. Cooper, love?” John asked Tammy as he clicked away at his keyboard.

  “He’s as crooked as the Pacific Coast Highway,” she said. “He even cheats at golf... or so my boss used to say. He has an enormous amount of money, incredible power, and no morals whatsoever. An-n-n-nd ... he was involved in quite a scandal last summer. You remember... that sweet old couple whose house burned down... up there on the hill.”

  Savannah nearly dropped her mustard knife. “On the hill ... right where those expensive lots are now.”

  Tammy grinned and reached over to slap Dirk on the arm. “There, you crotchety old fart, how’s that... coming from an air-headed, flaky, blond bimbo?”

  “I never accused you of being a blonde.”

  She slapped him again, harder.

  “That’s enough, children,” Savannah said. “I’ll have to send you to opposite corners for time-out.”

  Dirk ignored the threat, tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the legal pad. “Didn’t Nathan, Lynn’s little brother, say that Kevin had bragged about burning some people’s house down for enough money to buy a Corvette?”

  “He sure did. That’s exactly what he said.” Savannah licked the knife clean and stuck it into the dishwasher.

  Ryan looked up from his mountain of ham and cheese slices. “Who do you suppose the investigating officer was on that case?”

  Savannah smiled. “I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts, our lieutenant handled that one all by his lonesome self.”

  Savannah supposed that the trip out to sea with Polly’s ashes could have been more miserable. But she wasn’t sure how.

  She stood on the bow of the fifty-foot fishing boat with Tammy and shivered. Dirk, John, and Ryan stood at the stern ... also shivering.

  “How can it be so warm and sunny on land and foggy and friggin’ cold out here?” Savannah said, pulling her lightweight cardigan more tightly around her. A sailor’s wool pea coat would have been more appropriate. A sailor’s wool gloves, wool muffler, wool cap and socks....

  “The offshore flow of air from the desert warms the coast,” Tammy said, “while the ocean air is—”

  “It was a rhetorical question, Tam. I’m far too cold and nauseous to absorb any meteorological words of wisdom you might have now.”

  When T
ammy’s lower lip protruded ever so slightly, Savannah reached over and wrapped her arm around the younger woman’s waist. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Just a bit grumpy under the circumstances. It’s hard, you know. I feel like I should... I should feel worse than I do. I mean, this is the woman’s funeral—what there’s going to be—and she deserves to have people here who mourn her. At least people who knew her, and preferably liked her a little.”

  “I know what you mean,” Tammy said, looking out into the silver-gray fog that deadened the sound of their boat’s engine and the horn of the lighthouse in the distance. “I can’t tell you how many phone calls I made, trying to get people to come to this... for Dirk’s sake. Polly just didn’t have very many friends. She knew a lot of people, but they were all mad at her over one thing or the other. I lost track of how many told me that she had used them one time too many.”

  Savannah nodded. “I understand how they felt. She never took advantage of me, but it’s because I saw the way she treated Dirk, and I refused to let her get close enough to screw me.”

  Looking back at Dirk, she saw that he was talking to Ryan and John in a companionable, male way. Their presence seemed to be comforting to him, and she blessed them for caring about a crusty curmudgeon with a thick head and good heart.

  Sitting on the starboard side of the boat in a deck chair was a middle-aged woman with hair that was five shades too dark for her sallow complexion. She was wearing a fake leopard coat, black leggings, and black knee-high boots. Savannah envied her the clothing, even if it was a bit garish for a funeral. At least she wasn’t shivering.

  “What’s the story with her?” Savannah asked Tammy.

  “She’s Polly’s hairdresser. The only one who would agree to come.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Joleen Palmetto. She has that shop downtown on Harrington Boulevard, near all the new boutiques. Polly went there at least once a week for her hair and nails.”