Bitter Sweets

by G. A. McKevett

  Crime scene photos that her eyes and brain had already processed flashed through Savannah’s mind. Suddenly, she had no appetite, not even for Fredrico’s cuisine.

  “Dear God,” she whispered. “He’s done it before.”

  “And he got away with it.”

  “How? The military tribunal didn’t believe he did it?”

  “Oh, they know he did it. He never denied that fact. They found him ‘not guilty’ by reason of temporary insanity. It seems he snapped under the accumulated stress and strain of combat.”

  “So, his atrocities were ‘justified’?”

  “Supposedly, or at least understandable. In their opinion, that is.”

  Savannah felt the old rage growing, the fury that those who had committed horrible crimes against their fellow human beings were set free to do it again and again. It was an old story, and she was sick to death of hearing the same, tired ending.

  “How do you suppose he got away with it?” she mused.

  Ryan reached across the table and handed her another document that was several pages thick. “Here is a segment of the trial transcript. The testimony of Earl Mallock’s commanding officer. It’s quite a moving account, a powerful argument on behalf of the accused. Besides, Mallock’s advocate was a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. I’d say it had a lot to do with Mallock’s acquittal.”

  “What kind of man would defend someone who had done something like that?”

  “Someone with a code of honor that might be different from yours or mine. Someone who felt it was his duty to stand beside his men. . . . no matter what they had done.” Ryan lifted his glass, watched the tiny bubbles racing up the sides of the flute in iridescent threads, then took a sip. “That someone was a Captain Forrest Neilson.”

  Savannah sat at her dining room table. Gran to her right, Dirk to her left, and Tammy at the other end, typing furiously into her laptop computer.

  “I already knew about Mallock serving in ’Nam,” Dirk said, pouting as he wolfed down a plateful of tuna sandwiches which Savannah had thrown together for him.

  “But you didn’t know about the court-martial, or the fact that Mallock had served under Neilson.” Savannah never passed over an opportunity to humble Dirk. It was a rotten job, but she felt she was the only one who loved him enough to do it.

  “So, no big deal.” He chomped off a quarter of a sandwich and chewed noisily. “Any moron could have come up with that.”

  “You didn’t.” Tammy gave him a nasty look over the rim of her glassful of mineral water.

  “You know, Dirk, I think you’re jealous.” Savannah refreshed her grandmother’s root beer float with another generous scoop of Dreyer’s vanilla and then her own.

  “You must admit,” Gran said, stirring the ice cream until it made caramel-colored swirls in the amber liquid, “those two are extremely handsome and charming fellows. And smart, too. That John Gibson used to guard the palace of the queen of England, you know. I feel so honored just to have met him.”

  “I suppose they aren’t too bad,” Dirk said sarcastically, “if you don’t mind the fact that they are a couple of quee—”

  “Gays,” Savannah interjected, giving Dirk a sound smack on the side of the head. “And very dear friends of mine, so watch your mouth.”

  She jerked the plate of sandwiches out from under his nose. Leaning down to his ear, she lowered her voice and said, “Try not to make an ass of yourself, Coulter, if you can help it.”

  “Gays?” Granny suddenly became all ears. “Are you telling me that John and Ryan are homosexuals?”

  Savannah sighed and returned to her chair and her ice cream float. “Yes, Gran, they are. . . . among many other things. . . . qualities too numerous to mention. Now could we please—?”

  “Well, I’ll be.” Granny shook her head in amazement. “Who would have guessed it? They didn’t look like homosexuals. I mean, they were so masculine and all.”

  Savannah shot Dirk a look that told him how she felt about him having started all of this.

  “Ah. . . . Gran. . . .” Savannah paused, choosing her words carefully, reminding herself that people could only be held accountable for the amount of enlightenment they had been given. Her grandmother’s upbringing and social discipline hadn’t exactly been progressive. Dirk, on the other hand, had no excuse.

  “Gran. . . . not all gay men act effeminate. In fact, none that I’ve ever known. Just as not all elderly ladies are sticks in the mud, who sit around and knit all day.” She turned to Dirk. “And, thankfully, not all cops are homophobic jerks.”

  Granny didn’t seem to be offended by Savannah’s observations, only fascinated, as she mulled over this new revelation.

  “Could we get back to business now?” Savannah said, looking at Tammy, who nodded in agreement, and then at Dirk, who was still sulking.

  “What’s next?” Tammy asked, helping herself to one of Dirk’s sandwiches.

  “I think Ryan and I should go visit the colonel. At the station last night, he seemed far more likely to cooperate than before. And judging from what we know about his long-standing relationship with Earl, he might be able to point us in the right direction.”

  “I’m going along,” Dirk said with an indignant sniff. “After all, I’m the only one around here who’s got a badge.”

  “Oooo, low blow.” Savannah winced.

  “At least I didn’t whack you on the head. That’s the twenty-seventh time you’ve hit me. I know, I’ve been counting.”

  “Only twenty-seven times in how many years?” Tammy asked. “That must be some sort of record for patience and fore-bearing, Savannah.”

  “Tammy, call the colonel and tell him we want to drop over,” she said. “Ask him to feed Beowulf a big meal and put him on a sturdy leash. Then let Ryan know what’s happening. Let’s get going; time’s a wastin’.”

  Savannah gulped down the last of her float and grimaced as it froze her sinuses. “I’ll see you later, Gran, just as soon as I can. You stay out of trouble now, hear?”

  When Savannah, Ryan, and Dirk arrived at the colonel’s home an hour later, Beowulf wasn’t on a leash, but apparently he had been fed recently. He was lying peacefully on a rag rug beside the fireplace, asleep, his great muzzle tucked beneath his paws. He had opened one eye as they entered the room, dismissed them, and resumed his nap.

  “Do you want some coffee?” the colonel asked, once he had them seated around the living room.

  “I wouldn’t want to put you out,” Savannah said. Judging from the black bags under his eyes and the sallow cast to his complexion, she thought he would be better off lying in a hospital bed, rather than serving guests.

  “It’s already made.” He left the room slowly, his arthritic shuffle far more pronounced than she remembered. Colonel Forrest Neilson seemed to have aged ten years in the past twelve hours.

  While they waited for his return, the threesome took the opportunity to scrutinize the contents of the room. On a small, round table against the far wall was an ornately carved, ebony inlaid box, which was propped at a forty-five-degree angle to better display its contents.

  Leaving her seat, Savannah studied the object through the glass top. “It’s his Congressional Medal of Honor,” she told them, keeping her voice low. “Wonder what he did to get that?”

  “Sacrificed a bit of his soul, I’d say,” was Ryan’s quiet reply.

  She continued to walk around the room, taking in the other interesting aspects. The most distinctive features were the clocks, dozens of exquisite antique clocks hanging on walls, cluttering every horizontal surface. Three towering grandfather clocks, glass-domed anniversary clocks, Bavarian cuckoo clocks, mantel clocks, music box clocks. All were running and all were set at the precise time.

  “I collect and repair them,” the colonel explained as he arrived with a tray, laden with mugs of strong, black coffee, cream, and sugar. “Normally, I would make corny jokes about having a lot of time on my hands, but I just finished making fune
ral arrangements for my daughter. I guess I’m not in a joking mood.”

  Savannah returned to her seat and opened her mouth to say, once again, how sorry she was. But, thankfully, Ryan did it for them all.

  “We can’t express how sorry we are for your loss,” he said in his deep, gracious voice. “And that’s why we’re here today. We’re all working very hard to bring some closure to this tragedy. But we need your help.”

  The colonel sank wearily into a well-worn recliner and leaned back. He shut his eyes briefly, then opened them and said, “What do you want from me?”

  “Information,” Dirk replied, wearing his most “sensitive cop” face. “I understand you and Earl Mallock go back a long ways.”

  The colonel seemed mildly surprised that they would know this. “Yes. That’s true.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, Savannah added, “And we know about what happened in Vietnam.”

  Neilson’s face hardened. “Young lady, I sincerely doubt that you know anything at all of what happened in Vietnam. You couldn’t. You weren’t there.”

  “I was,” Ryan said softly. “Special forces.”

  “Me, too.” Dirk picked up a mug of coffee and took a slurp. “Umm. . . . infantry,” he added reluctantly, upstaged by Ryan.

  “Then you’ll understand why I’m not inclined to drag up the past right now. God knows, the present is hard enough to handle.”

  “Yes, we do understand, sir,” Ryan said. “But we need to discuss the similarities in the charges that were brought against him then and. . . . forgive me. . . . what happened to your daughter.”

  “The similarities are there.” Neilson rubbed his eyes; Savannah could only imagine how much his head must be aching. “Earl committed the atrocities in Vietnam, just like they said he did. I was a fool to defend him. What can I say? It seemed the honorable thing to do at the time.”

  His voice caught in his throat, and Savannah thought he was going to lose the battle with his emotions. But he rallied. “Staff Sergeant Earl Mallock. . . . he was my soldier. He had been on a trip through hell and back, a trip I had sent him on. What he did was horribly wrong, but I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime act, the result of all he’d gone through. How was I to know that, years later, he would wind up doing the same thing to my daughter?”

  “There was no way anyone could know, Colonel,” Savannah said. “You mustn’t blame yourself.”

  “Thank you.” His expression was sincere, his eyes compassionate when he added, “You either.”

  “Colonel, you’ve known this guy for years, he was your son-in-law,” Dirk said. “What can you tell us about him that might help us figure out where he’s taken your granddaughter?”

  “If I knew the answer to that, I would have told you long ago.”

  “Does he have any friends or relatives that he may have turned to for help?” Savannah asked.

  “Earl is a loner. He doesn’t like people, doesn’t trust them. And not many people like him. He has a girlfriend named Vanessa, but I’ve talked to her already, and I don’t think she knows anything. In fact, I think she’s put out because she thinks he’s run away and left her.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I think he’s hiding out somewhere, waiting for things to calm down before he tries to leave the state. With his picture and Christy’s all over the evening news and the front page of the papers, he’d have a hard time traveling with her now.”

  “That’s what I figure, too.” Dirk helped himself to Savannah’s untouched mug of coffee. “But we’ve checked all the motels, hotels, flophouses, and fleabags. Can’t find hide nor hair of them.”

  Ryan had stood and was walking slowly around the room, examining the clocks, the Congressional Medal, and miscellaneous memorabilia. He seemed particularly interested in a collection of framed photos on top of the baby grand piano in the corner.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “do you play?”

  “Yes, a little.”

  “Classical?”

  “Jazz, but not as much as I used to. . . . with the arthritis and all.”

  Ryan picked up one of the pictures and brought it to Neilson. “Can you tell me where this was taken?”

  The colonel glanced at the photo, then handed it back. “I’m not sure. It was a long time ago.”

  Savannah craned her neck to get a glimpse. It appeared to be a shot of two men, standing in a wooded area.

  “The reason I was asking,” Ryan continued, “is because it looks like a place where a friend of mine camped a few years ago, up in the hills beyond Turner Canyon. About an hour’s drive from here. I think it was called Montega Ranch, Montoya. . . . something like that.”

  “I don’t think that’s where it was taken, but I don’t remember for sure. It might have been. Earl and I used to go out for a week at a time, and he’d choose the locations. He was really into that survivalist routine, getting back to nature and all that. I got too old, too many aches and pains in the joints; we hadn’t been for years.”

  “Do you think he might have taken Christy out into the wilderness?” Savannah asked. “That might explain why they haven’t been seen in the city.”

  “I don’t know.” The colonel was becoming agitated. “If I knew where my granddaughter was, don’t you think I would tell you?”

  “Of course you would, sir. I’m sorry. It’s just that we’re—”

  “We’re obviously imposing on you at a difficult time,” Ryan said, returning the photo to its original place. “We should get going.”

  “If you think of anything, you let us know right away,” Dirk said, finishing off Savannah’s coffee.

  As the three of them left the house and walked down the sidewalk, Savannah said, “Well, that was a waste of time.”

  “Yeah, we don’t know any more than we did,” Dirk agreed.

  “Speak for yourselves.” Ryan looked excited, pleased, eager.

  “You got something?” Savannah said hopefully.

  “Let’s drop into Mort’s Bait and Tackle shop, and I’ll be able to tell you for sure.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Savannah and Dirk were sitting in Dirk’s Buick in front of Mort’s store, waiting for Ryan.

  “I don’t know what you see in that guy,” Dirk said with a self-righteous sniff. “It’s obvious you’ve got the hots for him, and he’s not the least bit interested in you.”

  “Jealousy does not become you, my friend.”

  “Jealous? Of him? Why, I—”

  “I think we’d better change the subject fast,” she said, giving him the evil eye, “before I have the overpowering urge to snatch you bald.” She turned her face toward the passenger window and added under her breath, “Both hairs, that is.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. Shut up; here he comes now.”

  Ryan opened the back door, shoved some fast-food garbage off the seat, and slid in behind Savannah. “We’re in luck,” he said, an eager smile on his handsome face.

  “Oh, goody. . . .” Dirk muttered.

  Savannah pinched his ribs hard, twisting the ample flesh between her finger and thumb. He jumped, but didn’t yell.

  If Ryan saw or heard the exchange, he ignored it. “Earl was in here about a week ago,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” Dirk perked up visibly.

  “The owner is a friend of mine, and he identified the photo I showed him.”

  “And. . . .” Savannah held her breath, hoping, hoping.

  “And he bought two rooster tails.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Dirk asked sarcastically.

  “Rooster tails. A special kind of spinner bait used for trout fishing.”

  “Oh, yeah. . . . I knew that.” Dirk cleared his throat. “So, what does that prove?”

  “It doesn’t prove a thing. But most of the fishermen in this area use rooster tails for creek fishing, and almost all of the creeks are dried up. That one little shower we had the other night was the first one we’ve had in months.�
��

  “Okay, okay. We don’t need a weather report,” Dirk growled. “Everybody knows about the drought.” He jumped as Savannah pinched him again.

  “The creek that runs along the edge of the Montoya Ranch almost always has water,” Ryan continued, “and trout. And everybody who fishes around here knows that it’s the best place to use a rooster tail.”

  Savannah looked at Dirk, Dirk looked at her, and they both looked at Ryan. A contagious smile spread across all three faces in unison.

  “How long will it take us to drive there?” Dirk asked.

  “Less than an hour. But we can only drive as far as Turner Canyon.” Ryan chuckled; he seemed to delight in giving this information. “From there on in, we have to hike.”

  “How far?” Savannah asked.

  “Six or seven miles. Maybe a couple more. But it’ll be fun.”

  Savannah turned to Dirk and saw her own lack of enthusiasm registered on his scowl. “Sure,” she said, trying not to sound sick at the thought of hiking anywhere, anytime, for seven miles, and maybe a couple more. “Great fun.”

  Dirk rolled his eyes. “Yeah. . . . who-o-pee.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The first two miles of the hike, Savannah had reveled in the joys of the great outdoors: the tantalizing smell of the sage, the marguerites growing in wild profusion with their yellow-and-white faces lifted toward the sun, the gentle breeze stirring her hair, and the occasional shade offered by a fragrant cedar or pine.

  The third mile, the romance began to fade. The breezes were too damned gentle—hardly even there at all. The pines and the cedars were too few and far between. And she had decided that the wild sage and daisies stank.

  Four miles in, she consoled her aching feet and back that this was some sort of spiritual excursion, a discipline that would enrich her soul. Hell, she might even lose a few pounds.

  The fifth mile she began to curse Ryan Stone silently for bringing them into this godforsaken place.