Bitter Sweets

by G. A. McKevett

  “He has a record?”

  Damn, she hadn’t intended to let that slip, but, of course, he had latched onto it. “Mmmm, yeah, just one conviction, though. Not to worry.”

  “What was it for?”

  “What?” She knew darned well “what” but asking was worth a few seconds of stall time.

  “What was he convicted of?”

  “It . . . . ah . . . . it might have been for writing bad checks, insufficient funds, something silly like that?”

  O’Donnell’s eyes searched hers, making her feel the need to squirm in her chair. She could practically feel her nose growing and her tongue turning black. As Granny had often warned her in childhood, it would probably fall out of her mouth at any moment.

  Brian’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘might have been’? Was that all? Just bad checks or something like that?”

  Maybe it was Gran’s presence upstairs in the guest bedroom, or maybe it was the fact that she had formally prayed last night for the first time in ages. Either way, Savannah decided she didn’t really want to sully her freshly cleansed soul so quickly, so badly, with such a blatant lie.

  “No, Brian. It wasn’t bad checks. He was convicted of sexual misconduct with a minor.”

  “How minor?”

  “A child.”

  He stared at her with stricken eyes. “Oh, God, that is what we’re hoping for?” he said. “That’s the best case scenario . . . . that a convicted child molester murdered both of my niece’s parents and took off with her?”

  “Mr. O’Donnell, I’m so sorry, but I don’t know what to say to you.” Her head began to throb, until she could practically see double. “At this point, I don’t know what the hell I’m hoping for.”

  As Savannah was walking Brian O’Donnell out to his car to say good-bye, Dirk drove up in the old Buick. The moment he climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him, Savannah knew the tête-à-tête with Ian Warner hadn’t gone to his satisfaction.

  “Oh, great,” Brian muttered. “I was hoping to avoid that jerk. He’s really getting on my nerves.”

  “Dirk’s a good guy; it’s just that he possesses no social graces whatsoever and not a smidgen of couth. He rubs everybody the wrong way.”

  “How did it go?” Savannah asked as Dirk stomped up the sidewalk in their direction.

  “It was a fuckin’ waste of time. Nothing. Squat. That’s how it went; thanks for asking.”

  “What do you mean ‘nothing’?”

  “He had an alibi. Several of his worthless friends will vouch for him. They say he was boozing it up with them.”

  “I didn’t know that child molesters had friends.”

  “They do if their daddy owns a business the size of Warner Electric.”

  Savannah glanced at Brian and saw that he looked relieved. She supposed she should be, too. But she was wearing out her loafers, pacing around in square one.

  “What are you grinnin’ about?” Dirk asked Brian. “You think this is funny or something?”

  “Dirk!” Savannah was surprised. Even though Dirk wasn’t known for his diplomacy, he was one of the “good” cops. And, by Savannah’s definition, that meant basically civil to anyone unless they gave him ample reason not to be. From where she stood, Savannah couldn’t see any reason for him to be sarcastic with O’Donnell.

  “Don’t forget,” Dirk continued, glaring at Brian. “So far, you’re the only one on my list who had motive and opportunity to kill both victims.”

  O’Donnell’s face hardened, his jaws tightened. Savannah observed, with interest, that mild-mannered Brian O’Donnell had a temper, too.

  “Okay, big shot,” he told Dirk, “you’ve got opportunity and motive. How about some physical evidence? Last time I heard, you need a little of that, too, before you go around making accusations.”

  Not waiting for Dirk’s reply, he turned and strode away toward his rental car.

  “I’m working on it, buddy,” Dirk shouted after him. “Be seein’ you soon.”

  “Yeah, right.” O’Donnell slammed his car door and peeled out.

  With a mildly satisfied look on his face, Dirk turned to Savannah. “See what I mean. He ain’t just a Mr. Hyde; if you get him mad, he can be a Dr. Jekyll, too.”

  Savannah sighed. “Dirk, you poor, illiterate dear. Dr. Jekyll was the good guy; Hyde was the nasty. You’ve got it backward.”

  “Who cares? You knew what I meant.”

  She took his arm and led him toward her front door. If ever anyone was in need of a ham and cheese on rye with dijon, it was Dirk. Now. From the way he was frothing at the mouth, it was apparent that his blood sugar level had hit bottom.

  “You know,” she said, “I don’t appreciate you insulting my guests without my permission.”

  “O’Donnell was your guest? Since when?”

  “He was on my property.”

  “He was standing on the sidewalk. That’s public property, which means he was fair game.” Dirk shook his head. “Damn it, woman, don’t give me a hard time. I’m having a really rotten day.”

  Savannah decided to add a Coke to the menu.

  As Savannah walked into the examination room of the morgue, she was glad she had eaten a sandwich with Dirk. Because, upon seeing Earl Mallock lying on the table, his torso cut open and internal organs exposed, she figured it was a good day to diet.

  The smell assaulted her nose and went straight to her gag reflex. Earl had been a bit ripe when they had found him in the shack. Time hadn’t improved his condition.

  “Savannah, good to see you. Want to watch?” Dr. Jennifer Liu stood over the corpse, scalpel in one hand, Earl’s liver in the other. As always, she had a bright smile on her face, and her dark eyes glimmered with excitement. Dr. Liu simply loved doing autopsies.

  “It’s always fascinating,” Jennifer had told Savannah once. “No matter how many you’ve done, each one is different. I love getting in there and seeing what I can find.”

  Savannah was infinitely glad there were people like Jennifer in the world. Medical examiners, morticians, and piano teachers—society needed them desperately. But Savannah had to admit that, whatever it took to do the job, she didn’t have it.

  Dr. Jennifer’s young assistant, a fellow named Mark, was peeling Earl’s face down from the top, revealing the bare skull with its perfectly round, black hole directly in the center of the forehead.

  “Have you got a mask?” Savannah asked, trying not to inhale, only exhale . . . . a tricky maneuver.

  “Over there in the second drawer.” Jennifer pointed with a bloody surgical glove. “Help yourself.”

  Savannah hurried to the cupboard and pulled out a small blue dust mask.

  “Vicks?” she asked.

  “Top drawer,” Mark replied. He grinned and added, “Wimp.”

  “Up yours. Sideways.” Savannah smeared a huge dollop inside the mask, then put it on, snapping the elastic around the back of her head. Instantly, her eyes began to water, but it was worth the sacrifice. Although no amount of Vicks could completely eliminate the stench, it cut it in half and kept her from gagging.

  “What have you found?” Savannah asked, joining them beside the stainless steel table. She hung back a bit, telling herself it was because she didn’t want to interfere with their work, but knowing it was because she—like all other healthy, living beings—had a natural and instinctive aversion to anything dead.

  “Interesting stuff,” Dr. Jennifer said, “huh, Mark?”

  “Yeah, fascinating.”

  Mark didn’t seem to relish his work. Savannah suspected the only reason he was an autopsy assistant was because it made him a popular guy at the local bars. He had an entire repertoire of morbid, corny jokes that resulted in him receiving more than his share of “stiff” drinks on the house.

  “Like what?” Savannah asked.

  “For one, I’d say that Mr. Mallock recently lost a lot of weight . . . . and probably not the healthy way. His skin is a little saggy for a
male his age. He also has stretch marks there on the underside of his belly and his upper thighs.”

  “That’s what I understand, too,” Savannah said. “I’ve been told he was quite heavy not that long ago.”

  “Another thing . . . .” Dr. Liu looked pleased with herself. “He isn’t a natural redhead.”

  “I knew that one, too.”

  “Oh.” Jennifer hated to broadcast reruns. She much preferred to wow her audiences, rather than tell them something they already knew. “Okay, Miss Smartie Pants, I’ve got at least one thing that’s going to surprise you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, let’s go over here to the microscope while Mark opens up the skull for me.”

  “Yes . . . . let’s.” Savannah hated standing too close when the saw was buzzing. Flying bone chips made her nervous.

  As they walked away, Mark took a large, clear plastic bag and placed it over the head of the corpse. A few seconds later, the room reverberated with a noise that sounded like a chain saw cutting down an oak.

  Savannah didn’t look; the head was always the part that made her shoot stew if she wasn’t careful.

  “Over here,” Jennifer shouted above the din as she pointed to the microscope. “Take a look.”

  Savannah leaned over the scope, squinted, and wondered as always, what she was looking at. Things certainly appeared different when magnified a zillion times. Once, Jennifer had shown her a common cat flea, and that night Diamante and Cleopatra had both been double-dipped, like a couple of chocolate-covered ice-cream cones.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Tissue from Mr. Mallock’s wrists, near where the wire had been twisted. Just like the sample I showed you that I cut from his ex-wife.”

  Savannah looked again, not understanding the connection. This material looked very different. “But Lisa’s had those blue-black specks in it.”

  “That’s right. Inflammation cells. Mr. Mallock’s has none.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means the wires weren’t on him nearly as long. In fact, judging from the lack of swelling in the surrounding tissues, I’d say his wires were applied postmortem.”

  “Postmortem?”

  Jennifer smirked, well satisfied with Savannah’s degree of shock.

  “You got it.”

  “But why would someone restrain a corpse?” she asked, thinking aloud. “Or maybe they just wanted it to look like the first murder. A copycat?”

  Dr. Liu shrugged. “That’s for you to decide. I just gather the facts, right? It’s up to you and Dirk to catch the bad guy.”

  “We’re trying, we’re trying. What else do you have?”

  “Two different kinds of wire.”

  “Seriously?”

  Jennifer nodded her head. “The first one was common copper wire, like they sell in any run-of-the-mill electronic store. A thin variety.”

  “Electrical?” Savannah instantly thought of Ian Warner’s shop.

  “Yeah. But the second wire is even thinner. I’m not sure yet, but I’d say it’s piano wire. And another thing. . . .” Jennifer reached for a nearby manila envelope and pulled out a coil of copper wire. “Look at this,” she said, pointing to the end. “See how jagged and uneven the cut is?”

  Savannah saw a number of gouges along the last four inches or so of the wire and the very end looked as though it had been sawn, rather than neatly cut.

  “Yes, I see. What do you think it means?”

  “I’d say the person who cut it used a knife. See the scrapes along the side? Those were probably made when he dragged the blade along the wire, before actually severing it. And see how it’s sort of crimped?”

  “Yes.”

  “Some people cut wire by looping it over the knife first, then sawing through.”

  “It must have been a pretty good knife,” Savannah mused.

  “One of those very effective survival knives, I’d say.”

  Mark’s saw suddenly went quiet, and the women found themselves shouting in a silent room.

  “Cap’s off,” he said, stepping back and giving a grandiose wave toward the body. “He’s all yours.”

  “Ah, ha . . . . now we can find the bullet,” Dr. Liu said, all but rubbing her hands together with ghoulish delight.

  Examining the front quarter of the scalp which Mark had sawn away, Jennifer carefully considered the small, round hole. “Yes, this is the entrance.” She held it under Savannah’s nose. “See, the bevel slants inward. The bullet always removes more material the farther in it goes. That’s how you can tell if it’s the entrance or exit.”

  Savannah marveled, not for the first time, at the wondrous design of the human body. Because of the dome shape, the skull was incredibly strong, yet surprisingly thin. She could see light through it as Jennifer held it up.

  “And here . . . . Mark, bring us a flashlight so that I can show Savannah exactly what I’m talking about. This always amazes me, the path that a bullet makes through a brain.”

  A flashlight. Oh, great, Savannah thought. If there was anything she didn’t need right now, it was a better look.

  But on closer inspection, she found that it was, indeed, amazing. The even, black tunnel of destruction had burned its way through Earl Mallock’s consciousness, forever destroying a million complex biological processes, a million memories, and one life.

  Dr. Liu lifted out the murdered brain and laid it carefully on the tiny dissecting table, beside the scale. When she returned to the cavity, she probed the empty bowl with her gloved fingertips. “And here . . . .” She held up the tiny mushroom-shaped piece of metal that had done all the damage. “. . . . is our bullet.”

  She squinted at it, turning it this way and that. “Mmmm. Not what I was expecting.”

  “Why? What is it?” Savannah found that her curiosity was contagious.

  “I’d bet that it’s a .45.”

  “What’s unusual about that?”

  “Normally, a .45 would have gone on through . . . . created an exit wound. Maybe it was a low charge.”

  “Like target ammo?”

  “Exactly. But there’s another reason I wasn’t expecting a .45.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I would have bet he was shot with the same weapon as Lisa Mallock. But she was killed with a nine millimeter.”

  Savannah held her breath for a long time, and it had nothing to do with the stench of death in the room. “No shit?” she said at last.

  Dr. Liu quirked one eyebrow. “Are you sure they were killed by the same person?”

  Savannah’s head swam. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “I don’t know what you’re so excited about,” Dirk told Savannah in his usual, pessimistic tone that irritated her to death. Leave it to him to pop her bubble at every possible opportunity.

  “This is a very interesting development,” she argued. “You just have to see the black side of every cloud.” She poured herself another glass of Gran’s homemade lemonade, leaned back in the chaise lounge, and took a long swig.

  She needed it to cool off her temperament as well as her palate.

  Ordinarily, this would have been a relaxing, pleasantly hedonistic experience, sitting in her backyard, beneath the grape arbor, sipping an icy beverage and listening to Gran hum through the kitchen window as she prepared her famous chicken and dumplings.

  But Dirk’s negativity could sour any occasion.

  “I swear,” she muttered, shaking her head, “if you won the lottery, you’d bitch.”

  “What’s the point in winning?” He shrugged. “The whole thing’s rigged, and besides, even if you won, the damned IRS would take most of it.”

  She studied him, continually amazed. “Point proved. But no matter what you say, I still think this helps to define our list of suspects. Before, we were only considering people who had motives to kill both Lisa and Earl. Now we know it may have been two different indiv
iduals.”

  “How does the list change?” He helped himself to a refill of lemonade. Savannah cringed when he set the cobalt blue antique pitcher down hard on the glass-topped table between their chaises. The man was hopeless.

  “Well,” she said, “we can rule out Vanessa. She may have hated Lisa, but she was in love with Earl.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time someone killed the one they love. Maybe she found out that Earl killed Lisa and figured it was because he was still hung up on her. Vanessa admitted she’s the jealous type. Besides, she may have wanted to nab the kid . . . . like it’s the one she never had, or something like that.”

  “All right, I’ll give you that one,” Savannah admitted reluctantly. “But how about Alan Logan? He threatened to destroy Earl’s family, just like he did his. Looks like someone did exactly that.”

  “He was a suspect before. He’s one now. Nothing’s changed there.”

  “And then there’s the colonel. Gran says he was grief-stricken. He may have killed Earl because Earl murdered his daughter. I couldn’t say that I’d blame him too much.”

  He sniffed. “Naw, the colonel’s an old fart with arthritis. If you and me were huffin’ and puffin’ to hike back there to that shed, he never would’ve made it. He was barely able to get around his living room the other day.”

  Savannah heard a loud crash from the kitchen. A skillet or pan had hit the tiles. A moment later, Gran’s head appeared at the window. “Dropped the diamond outta my ring,” she said cheerfully. “Nothin’ to worry about.”

  Yesterday, she had broken a glass, and a plate the day before. Savannah had decided not to concern herself. Dishes were replaceable. Gran was priceless.

  “And then,” Dirk continued, “there’s that punk, Ian Warner. If he did it, then a whole houseful of people are lying for him. Which is possible, but not likely. Before, I figured he killed both Lisa and Earl to get to Christy. Now, I reckon Earl could have beat him to Lisa, but that don’t change nothin’. It don’t matter what Dr. Liu says about it bein’ two different killers. Like I said, we’re up Shit Creek without a paddle.”