Bitter Sweets

by G. A. McKevett

  A face materialized before her on the screen. Round, double-chinned. If he had been wearing a white beard and red suit, Earl Mallock could have been a department store variety Santa Claus. Unless you looked into his eyes.

  Savannah had seen that look before, too many times. Flat, emotionless, frightening more for what wasn’t there than what was. No sense of happiness, excitement, sorrow, or pain . . . . all the components that made up most lives. All that was reflected there was a void, a profound emptiness of the soul.

  She shivered.

  “Recognize him?” Dirk said.

  “Well, not really, but . . . .”

  Yes, she did. As much as she didn’t want to, she did recognize him.

  “If you change the hair and eye color,” she muttered, staring at the screen, “if you take off the extra pounds . . . . oh, God. . . .”

  “Is it him?” Dirk placed strong, warm hands on her shoulders. But, rather than imparting comfort, as he obviously intended, the intimate gesture nearly made her burst into tears of fear and anger.

  “That son of a bitch. He dyed his hair and cut it short.”

  “And his eyes?”

  “Colored contacts, I’ll bet.”

  “But you said he was fat.”

  “He was. But apparently he lost the weight. Fast. That’s probably why he looked so haggard and run-down. This picture was taken less than a year ago, and he’s about 160 pounds now.”

  “Wow, you’ll have to find out what kind of a diet he was on,” Dirk replied.

  “Shut up,” she snapped. “Your timing stinks and you aren’t funny.”

  Instead of verbal retaliation, he continued to rub her shoulders. “You didn’t know, Van,” he said softly.

  “That doesn’t matter,” she said, jumping up from the chair and throwing the switch on the computer. “I should have known.”

  She headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Dirk hurried after her.

  “To see Lisa Mallock. To warn her. To tell her she was wrong about trusting me. In this world you can’t trust anybody. Not even yourself.” Tears flooded her eyes as she strode down the hallway and out the back door of the station. “Dammit,” she muttered as she got into the Camaro and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving Dirk standing alone and looking concerned on the station steps. “I should have known. I’m sorry, Lisa . . . . Christy. Dammit, I’m so sorry.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When Savannah had left the police station, she had fully intended to drive straight to Lisa Mallock’s home, ring the bell, and warn her about a possible contact from her ex-husband. But after arriving at the address, Savannah checked her watch and realized it was only five-thirty in the morning.

  Lisa would be distressed enough about the information, without being summoned out of bed to receive the news.

  Sitting in the Camaro, Savannah studied the surrounding parking lot, play area, and laundry room. No one was stirring. All was silent and still. With the first pink and lavender rays of dawn tinting the sky, it seemed hard to believe that anything sinister was likely to happen soon.

  Seven-thirty, she decided. With a child in the house, she’ll probably be up and about by then.

  After drinking a cup of coffee or two, Lisa would be fortified, at least a bit, to hear the bad tidings.

  Checking everything once more, Savannah headed home. She intended to spend the next two hours combing the information that she and Tammy had uncovered . . . . or the misinformation, as it had turned out to be. She needed to see what had gone wrong and how she might redeem the situation.

  But another shock greeted her as she hurried up the walkway to her house. At first she thought it was Earl Mallock, standing there on her front porch, partially hidden by the bougainvillea. The red hair, the slender build, were all too familiar.

  But when the man turned toward her and she could see his face, she had an instant idea who her early morning visitor was.

  “I’m sorry for the early hour,” he began, “but—”

  “It’s all right. Let me guess,” she said dryly, holding out her hand to him. “You’re Brian O’Donnell. The real one, that is.”

  He looked genuinely confused as he accepted her handshake. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your sister’s name is Lisa Mallock, and I’ll just bet you’re looking for her. Right?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Just a lucky guess.” With a tired, defeated sigh she opened her front door. “Come inside, Mr. O’Donnell. It’s about time you and I put our heads together.”

  Savannah offered the man one of the wing chairs in her office, and she sat in the other opposite him. There was no time to mess with coffee, cookies, or Southern hospitality. “Talk about a creepy sense of déjà vu,” she muttered as she stared at the red-haired man across from her.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Let me ask you a question,” she said. “First, why were you on my doorstep so early in the morning?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I was worried.” The dark circles under his eyes attested to the fact that he was weary, but Savannah wasn’t ready to believe anything too readily anymore.

  “It’s a condition that’s going around,” she replied. “Why were you worried?”

  “I talked to my wife, back in Orlando, Florida, last evening, about eight o’clock Pacific time. She told me that you, or someone from your office, called her.”

  “That’s true.”

  “She said that someone who looks like me came here and asked you to find my sister.”

  “Someone did. We called her to verify that it was you, and we compared physical descriptions. She confirmed that you were in San Carmelita, searching for your sister, and that she wasn’t surprised you had contacted a private investigator. I’m very sorry, Mr. O’Donnell, if that’s who you really are. Everyone thought our visitor was who he claimed to be . . . . specifically, you.”

  “I think I might know who he was,” Brian O’Donnell said.

  Yeah, you and me both, Savannah thought, but she kept it to herself. “Who?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid it might be Lisa’s ex-husband, a guy by the name of Earl.”

  “Is that right?” Savannah cleared her throat. “And why do you think that?”

  “Because I’m afraid I may have made a mistake by talking to him about her. You see, I’ve been searching for my sister for a long time and about eight months ago I traced her here to San Carmelita. I contacted her husband—he’s her ex now, but I didn’t know it then—and asked him about her. He didn’t let on that they were even separated, let alone divorced. He said that if I’d come to town, he might convince her to see me.”

  “You came then . . . . eight months ago?”

  “Yes. I flew right out, and he met me at LAX. We had a drink there in one of the lounges and he told me that she refused to see me. He asked me a lot of questions about our childhood, my life, our family. I was flattered that he was such an interested brother-in-law, considering that my sister wouldn’t even see me.”

  “Yes. He can be quite convincing,” Savannah agreed, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. “Please, go on.”

  “We continued to correspond, and when my father died recently, I asked him to talk to my sister again, to tell her how important it was that I see her. I was hoping that, maybe, the inheritance money would make a difference.”

  He blushed, a deep, natural redhead flush and shrugged his shoulders. “I wasn’t proud. I wanted to see her any way I could, no matter what her motivation.”

  “I can understand that. But you haven’t seen her yet?”

  “No. I just arrived in town last night. And after I spoke to my wife, I decided I’d better come over here right away and ask you what was up. Besides, I don’t even know where my sister is. Last night I drove by the address that Earl Mallock gave me and it’s just one of those postal centers with PO boxes.”

  Savannah felt the first spark of hope she had experienced since visiting th
e Blue Moon Motel last night. Maybe things weren’t quite so bleak, after all. Along with the bad news that she would have to deliver to Lisa Mallock in another hour and a half, she could bring her a blessing . . . . a real, flesh-and-blood brother.

  “I know where she is,” Savannah told him with a tired smile. “I’m going to spend the next ninety minutes making absolutely, positively sure that you are who you say you are. And if it’s true, I’ll introduce you to your sister. Believe me, you couldn’t have arrived at a better time.”

  “Is this it?” Brian O’Donnell’s ruddy face glowed with anticipation as Savannah pulled the Camaro into the driveway and cut the key. “Is this my sister’s house?”

  “That’s it. The unit ‘A’ on the left. And that’s her Tempest under the carport, so I’d say she’s home.”

  Brian was already opening the car door and swinging a leg out.

  “Ah . . . . you might want to wait just a minute,” she suggested, “and let me go first. I think I should tell her that you’re with me.”

  He looked only slightly disappointed. “Oh, okay. I’m just anxious, that’s all.”

  “Perfectly understandable. I won’t take long. Promise.”

  But when Savannah rang the doorbell, no one answered. After buzzing a couple times, she knocked loudly.

  Still no response.

  She glanced at her watch. It was seven-forty. Maybe Lisa was still in bed and a sound sleeper. Perhaps if she tried the back door.

  But she had no better luck there. After pounding until her knuckles tingled, she was about to give up and accept the fact that no one was at home, when she noticed something that sent a chill through her. Deep, jagged gouges in the wooden doorframe, just beside the lock.

  “No,” she whispered. “No, don’t let it be. . . .”

  Even as she tried to deny what she feared, Savannah pulled a tissue from her jacket pocket and used it to turn the knob. The door swung open easily.

  Lisa Mallock would never have slept with the door unlocked. With the threat of her ex-husband hanging over her, Lisa wouldn’t even have been awake in her house with the door unlocked.

  “Lisa?” Savannah stuck her head inside the kitchen and looked around. The bills were still spread across the table. The remaining M&M cookies on the plate had been covered with plastic wrap. “Lisa, Christy?”

  Instinctively, Savannah’s hand went to the Beretta that she carried in a shoulder holster beneath her jacket. Not wanting to scare Lisa or her young daughter, she didn’t draw the weapon, but she was ready if necessary.

  “It’s me, Savannah Reid. Anybody home?” she called. The house had a heavy, uneasy stillness about it that made the back of her neck tingle.

  Carefully, she walked through the kitchen and into the living room. With the shades and curtains drawn, the room was fairly dark, and she could only discern basic shapes: the sofa, a bean bag chair, the television on a TV tray in the corner.

  As she crept deeper into the room, a strange, irritating sound caught her attention. A high-pitched beeping, like a pager or . . . .

  It was the telephone receiver, lying on the floor beside the end table. As a matter of habit, she reached for it, to return it to its cradle, but caught herself. Although she was hoping against hope this wasn’t a crime scene, she knew better than disturb anything.

  “Lisa?” she called again, knowing it was pointless. No one slept that soundly. If Lisa Mallock were here and able to speak, she would have done so already.

  Slipping the Beretta from its holster, Savannah pointed the barrel at the ceiling and crept down the short hallway. One glance into the bathroom told her that it was empty and nothing seemed amiss.

  She hurried on to the first bedroom. Inside she saw the twin bed with its Little Mermaid spread, spilling onto the floor. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a small dresser. The drawers were gaping open and appeared to be empty.

  Pink tights and a spangled crown lay crumpled on the floor. No fairy princess would have left such a prize like that. Not willingly. “Oh . . . . Christy,” Savannah whispered to the silent room.

  Across the hall, Lisa’s bed was equally disheveled, the spread lying in a heap on the ancient, gold shag carpeting.

  The top sheet was gone—another fact which Savannah noted with alarm. Lisa Mallock had been a nurse. It was probably just a silly stereotype, hospital corners and all that, but Savannah couldn’t imagine a nurse sleeping without a top and bottom sheet.

  The lower, fitted sheet that remained had been pulled loose and the right side was ripped. At the foot of the bed lay a pillow with a crimson darkness staining the linen. Savannah didn’t need to turn on the light to see what it was. She could smell the distinctive, coppery odor of blood.

  “What’s going on here?”

  She whirled around, gun in hand, to find Brian O’Donnell staring at her with a stricken face. He looked past her to the bed, and she heard him draw a ragged, strangling gasp.

  Returning the pistol to its holster, she placed one hand on his chest and gently coaxed him backward. Maybe he hadn’t seen the ripped sheet or the bloody pillow. “I’m not sure,” she said. “But it doesn’t look good.”

  “Do you think her ex-husband did something to her?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to call the police and—”

  At that moment they heard a loud noise; someone had thrown open the front door. Heavy footsteps. Male voices.

  “Stay here,” she whispered to Brian as she pulled her gun again. Pushing him aside, she crept along the wall and took a peek around the corner into the living room.

  By the light of the open doorway, she saw three silhouettes, a trio of men, standing in the center of the room. As her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she recognized the one nearest her.

  “Dirk?” she asked.

  He whirled around, obviously as shocked to see her as she had been to identify him. “Van?”

  “It’s me. And who are . . . . ?”

  Even as she uttered the words, she realized that the fellow by the door was Colonel Forrest Neilson, and the third was one of her least-favorite people.

  “Why, Captain Bloss,” she muttered with saccharine sweetness, “what a pure dee-light to set eyes upon you again.”

  “Yeah, right,” he replied with that grating nasal voice and perpetual liquid sniff that had always made her hate him . . . . along with a few other hundred reasons that came immediately to mind. As her superior, Bloss had forced her out of the San Carmelita Police Department for grossly unfair reasons. That was her foremost reason for wanting to see him roasting on a spit at a country barbecue, and she knew at least a couple dozen individuals who would eagerly stand in line for the chance to turn him.

  “Why are you in my daughter’s house?” Colonel Neilson took a step toward her and she fought the urge to back away from him. In spite of his age and disabilities, he was still an intimidating figure.

  “I had an appointment with Mrs. Mallock,” she replied evenly, stretching the truth only a bit. Lisa hadn’t exactly been expecting her, but she had promised to be in touch soon.

  Close enough.

  “At what time?” Bloss said.

  “Five minutes ago.”

  “You saw Lisa five minutes ago?” Dirk asked.

  “No,” Savannah had to admit. “She doesn’t appear to be at home.”

  “Of course she isn’t home,” the colonel interjected, his bass voice booming through the eerie silence of the house. “Why do you think we’re here?”

  “Why are you here?” Savannah addressed the question to Dirk, who was looking unusually miserable, even for him.

  “Because Colonel Neilson believes his daughter is missing,” he said quietly.

  “She is missing.” Neilson took another step toward Savannah, his arthritic hands curled into impotent fists. “That no-good son of a bitch has her . . . . and my granddaughter, too, thanks to you, Miss Reid.”

  “Do you know that for a fact, sir?” she asked, delibe
rately keeping her voice even, despite her rising pulse rate.

  “Don’t you get smart with me, young lady. Everything was fine until you came along and—”

  “Excuse me. . . .” A soft voice interrupted and Brian O’Donnell stepped from the hallway, where Savannah had left him, into the living room.

  The colonel jumped, Bloss snorted, and Dirk’s hand went to his gun.

  “Did I hear you say that Susie O’Donnell is your daughter?” Brian asked Neilson.

  The colonel said nothing for a long moment. Even in the dim light, Savannah could see him turn pale beneath his deep California tan. Then he snapped, “Who the hell are you?”

  “Brian O’Donnell.” The younger man held out his hand to Neilson. “I’m Susie’s brother, Brian. I’ve been looking for you a long time . . . . and for Susan.”

  “Her name is Lisa now.” The colonel’s voice was brusque, but Savannah could hear the emotion beneath the clipped words.

  “I understand,” Brian replied, lowering his hand when the colonel refused to shake it.

  “Well . . . .” The colonel cleared his throat and pulled himself to attention. “. . . . it seems we’re all looking for her right now.” He pushed past Brian and Savannah and headed down the hall toward the bedrooms.

  “Since when does a citizen get a police captain and a detective all to himself, just because his daughter isn’t answering her telephone?” Savannah asked, keeping her voice low.

  “Since he’s Colonel Forrest Neilson,” Bloss returned, his round face flushed a bit darker than usual. “He’s a close and personal friend of the chiefs.”

  “Gee, that explains everything,” Savannah said sarcastically. “Let’s see now . . . . the last time I investigated one of the chiefs ‘close and personal friends’ I was fired. Right?”

  “You aren’t too swift; are you, Reid?” Bloss sniffed again, then carelessly swabbed the used tissue across his sweaty forehead. “You got one of them learning disorders or something?”

  Savannah shrugged and gave him a demure, if somewhat insincere, smile. “Not all of us are cerebrally gifted, like yourself,” she said. Dropping her voice, she added, “Not to mention phallically challenged and testicularly limited.”