Bitter Sweets

by G. A. McKevett

  Funny, the older she got, the younger they seemed to be making doctors, lawyers, and politicians. The kids were running the world these days.

  “Are you friends or family?” he asked, holding his clipboard tightly to his chest beneath crossed arms.

  Savannah looked at Dirk, who was standing next to her in the hall outside of the Intensive Care Unit, looking as impatient as she felt. She saw him start to reach for his badge, and she grabbed his hand.

  “Friends. Close friends . . . .” she said, “. . . . of the family.”

  Dr. Kid didn’t appear to completely believe her, but he looked bored and eager to be finished with this interview. “Your friend is stable,” he said. “That’s about all I can tell you right now until we get the results of some tests. From my preliminary examination, I’d say it was a fairly serious heart attack. While we don’t know what damage was done, I would caution you to prepare yourself.”

  She gulped. “For what?”

  “Is he gonna croak or not?” Dirk wasn’t one to mince words. And he had never minded alienating people. In fact, he seemed to take a morbid pride in his talent to do so.

  Dr. Kid lifted his chin until he was staring down his nose at Dirk—not an easy feat, as Dirk was at least four inches taller. “Yes, he’s going to ‘croak’,” the doctor replied without the candy coating or further explanation.

  “Sooner or later?” Savannah asked, trying to sound sweet, but it came out saccharine.

  “Yes,” was the reply.

  “Thank you so much, Doctor.” She reached for his hand and gave it her firmest shake . . . . the one that was guaranteed to make the recipient wince. He did. “I just can’t tell you how helpful you’ve been.”

  Dropping his hand as though it had something distasteful smeared on it, she turned and strode down the hall. Dirk quickly caught up.

  “Yeah, he’s helpful, all right,” she muttered. “About as helpful as a pissant in an outhouse.”

  As they left the building and headed across the parking lot to the Buick, Dirk stopped and grabbed Savannah by the elbow.

  “Hold on, Van,” he said. “Now that the dust has settled, I gotta ask you. What happened there at the colonel’s house today?”

  “What happened?”

  “That’s what I said. And don’t stall by repeating my own question back to me. That’s my trick.”

  “It’s every man’s trick. . . . and you didn’t invent it. Men always act like they’re the first to come up with something.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well . . . . women always change the subject.”

  “We do not.”

  “So, what happened at the colonel’s?”

  To his surprise, her blue eyes filled with tears and her lower lip began to tremble.

  She was going to cry. Savannah was going to cry right there in front of him. She had done it before, but it was a rare occurrence . . . . and it made him feel completely miserable, helpless, and inept.

  “Can I . . . . ?” She choked, then tried again. “Dirk, can I please get back to you on that? I’ve got some thinking to do.”

  Right there, right in the middle of the hospital parking lot, in front of God and anybody else who wanted to watch if they were nosy . . . . Dirk put his arms around his former partner and pulled her to his chest. Gratefully, she snuggled in and buried her face against the front of his shirt.

  “Sure, kiddo, take all the time you need.” He pressed a quick kiss to the top of her dark, glossy hair and thought for a moment how nice it smelled. “Just as long as you spill your guts to me by . . . . oh, say . . . . tomorrow morning.”

  Savannah sat in her floral chintz easy chair, Diamante on her lap, Cleo curled around her feet, a piece of half-eaten chocolate cheesecake on the table beside her. Raspberry liqueur sauce dripped tantalizingly down the sides, and onto the cut crystal plate, but—for the first time in the history of the world, or at least as long as Savannah could remember—she wasn’t interested in food.

  She gave the dessert another sideways glance. Nope, not even a niggle of appetite.

  Not a good sign, she thought. Any situation that couldn’t be vastly improved by a piece of cheesecake had to be a tough one, indeed. She must be more worried and upset than she had thought.

  Across the dimly lit living room, the time glowed in green numbers on the VCR. It was ten past four in the morning and she hadn’t slept all night.

  You’re gonna feel like shit tomorrow, she told herself.

  It’s already tomorrow, came the sarcastic reply.

  See, I told you so. She had to have the last word in an argument, even if it was with herself.

  The slow creak of an upstairs door and the soft steps on the staircase told her that Gran was sleeping about as soundly as she was. Or wasn’t . . . . as the case might be.

  A moment later, she saw her grandmother’s feet, the hem of her robe, and then the lady herself as she descended the stairs.

  For half a second Savannah felt guilty, afraid she had awakened the older woman, who probably needed her sleep. But the guilt quickly faded to relief at not being alone with her problem.

  “What’s the matter, Chicken Little?” Gran asked as she sat on the end of the sofa nearest Savannah and pulled her feet up, tucking them beneath her. “Is the sky falling?”

  “Not yet. I’m deciding whether to pull it down or leave it there.”

  “Pull it down onto your own head?”

  “On someone else’s.”

  Gran nodded sagely. “Mmmm . . . . making a decision that’s going to affect another person . . . . that’s always a hard one.”

  “Especially if you happen to like that person, and if your decision is going to have a major impact on his life.”

  Reaching for the uneaten cheesecake, Gran said, “You were a police officer for years, Savannah. I would have thought you’d made hundreds of decisions like that.”

  “I suppose I did. But usually, the choice had to be made in a matter of minutes, sometimes only seconds. I didn’t have time to think it through. I just acted on instinct.”

  “Maybe that’s what you should do now. Listen to your heart, Savannah.”

  “It isn’t talking.”

  “It’s always talking. If you can’t hear it, it’s because you aren’t listening.”

  Savannah sighed, leaned her head back on the chair, and closed her eyes. “I’m just so afraid that I’ll make the wrong decision and it’ll turn out badly.”

  “From where you stand now, you can’t foresee the future. You can’t possibly know if it will turn out well or not. But even if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, that doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision.”

  Savannah opened her eyes and studied the dear old face, loving every line. “What do you mean?”

  “People are always judging their decisions by the outcome, and that’s just plain foolish. There have been lots of decisions made in this world that have caused a heap of human suffering and misery. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t the right choice to make at the time.”

  Savannah thought that one over, while stroking Diamante’s satiny head. “So, if you don’t base your decision on what you believe the outcome will be . . . . what’s the deciding factor.”

  “You go with what you feel is the morally right thing to do.”

  “What if you’re a bit fuzzy about that?”

  “You do the best you can and, as long as your heart is being as honest as it can, you trust that the Almighty will take up the slack. It’s all any of us can do.”

  Savannah thought of Earl Mallock, lying on the floor of that tin shed, a bullet through his brain. “But Gran,” she said, “I know someone who did exactly what you’re saying. He made a decision which he thought was morally upright, but he was wrong. It can’t be a moral act to take another human being’s life . . . . except as an act of self-defense or in defense of society.”

  “I agree with you. But the person you’re speaking of . . . . whoever this individual might be,” she ad
ded with a sly smile, “. . . . didn’t agree. If he’s a man of honor, he did what he felt he had to do, and he’ll understand that you’ve gotta do the same.”

  Savannah felt a sinking sensation in her stomach, as though her half a piece of cheesecake had been made of rocks instead of chocolate.

  “I don’t like it, Gran,” she said. “Not at all.”

  Granny Reid buried the fork in the decadent confection and scooped up a generous bite of cake and raspberry sauce. “Yeah . . . . well . . . . what’s ‘liking’ got to do with the price of tea in China?”

  It wasn’t even six o’clock in the morning when Savannah knocked on Dirk’s trailer door. He took a long time to answer, as she had expected he would. Along with a love of food and nabbing criminals, she and Dirk shared another common bond: Neither one was a morning person.

  “What the hell?” he asked as he cracked the door and stuck his head out. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Lovely to see you, too,” she replied.

  “What time is it?”

  She looked up at the sky which was only just beginning to streak with the first rays of sunlight. “Dawn-thirty. Rise and shine, big boy.”

  “I’m risen, but there’s no way I’m gonna shine, for you or anybody, this early.”

  He stepped back and threw the door open, waving her inside.

  She wasn’t surprised to see he was wearing only his boxers and an undershirt. Modesty wasn’t high on Dirk’s list of virtues, and he had told her once that he considered robes an extravagance and pajamas sissy.

  “I need coffee,” she said, plopping down on his sofa.

  “And I need three more hours of sleep. Looks like we’re both outta luck.”

  He sat down beside her, ran his fingers through his hair, and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to get to a market. Want some water?”

  “Bottled?”

  “Tap.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t have any of Ryan’s iodine tablets on me.”

  He leaned back and draped his arm casually across the top of the sofa. His expression wasn’t casual. “Okay, spit it out. You didn’t come over here at this hour for coffee. You’ve got a cupboard full of that gourmet shit in your own kitchen.”

  She took a big breath. “It’s about the colonel.”

  He nodded. “I thought it might be.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Earl Mallock murdered Lisa, just like we thought,” Savannah told Dirk, who had pulled on a pair of jeans in honor of the occasion. “And Colonel Neilson killed him . . . . ‘executed’ him, is the way he put it.”

  Dirk leaned forward on the sofa, acutely interested. “He actually confessed to you?”

  “Yes, there in his house, just before he had the heart attack.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “A confession. Now that’s something I didn’t have.”

  “What do you mean? You didn’t know it was the colonel!”

  “I did after I had the lab run an overnight ballistics check on that Colt .45 of his. It matches the bullet that killed Mallock. I wonder why he didn’t get rid of it?”

  “He said he took it out to the end of the pier and was going to toss it. But he couldn’t.”

  “Understandable.”

  They sat quietly for a moment, and Savannah’s ire began to rise. “Okay . . . . so you’ve got the gun, but you don’t know about the piano wire, smart aleck.”

  “The one missing from Neilson’s baby grand? Oh, yeah. Been there, done that. You aren’t the only decent detective around here, you know.”

  “Well! Well . . . . I . . . .” she sputtered. “I was there first! I was the one who found the damned gun for you. And it wasn’t easy, either; he had hidden it in the big grandfather clock.”

  “Would’ve been the first place I’d have looked.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Bull, true.”

  She sat, glaring at him, breathing hard, nostrils flared. “You know, Coulter,” she said in a deadly quiet tone, “I’ve never really liked you. Not even a little bit. I want you to know that.”

  He smirked. “Can’t say as I’m all that crazy about you, either. Though you are kinda cute when you’re pissed.”

  “I am not!”

  “Cute?”

  “Pissed. I don’t have anything to be pissed about, except you trying to take credit for my work. I broke this case and you know it. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d still be harassing poor Brian O’Donnell.”

  Dirk sobered. “Oh, yeah . . . . I’ve gotta apologize to that guy. I was pretty hard on him.”

  Savannah reached for a ratty blanket that had been tossed on the end of the sofa and draped it around her shoulders. Suddenly, she felt chilled.

  “What are we going to do about Colonel Neilson?” she asked.

  “He committed a murder.”

  “I know. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “You’re going to arrest him.” It was more of a statement than a question. She knew Dirk all too well. Why had she even asked?

  Dirk sighed. “The hospital called about two hours ago. He’d just had another heart attack. He slipped into a coma. They don’t think he’s going to come out of it.”

  Savannah imagined the colonel, lying helpless on his white hospital bed, and she thought of how unfair it was that people were housed in such vulnerable machinery as the human body.

  “If he does come out of it?” she asked.

  Dirk stared at his thumbnail. “I’ll arrest him. I’ll have to, Van.”

  “And if he doesn’t? Dirk, his reputation, his granddaughter. . . .”

  Dirk rose and walked over to his kitchen sink. Opening the cupboard below, he squatted and pulled out the colonel’s small gun case. “If he doesn’t, I guess you and I will take a romantic moonlight stroll on the pier, kiddo.”

  She smiled at him. Loved him. For the compassion and the goodness he tried so hard to hide. “It’s a date.”

  As Savannah drove down her street toward home, Dirk sitting next to her, she said, “I wonder what our surprise is. Tammy sounded excited.”

  “I don’t think my system can take many more surprises this week,” Dirk growled.

  “She sounded happy.”

  “She sounded ditsy. With her, it’s hard to tell the difference.”

  Approaching her house, she saw a classic, silver-gray Bentley parked in her driveway. “Hey! Ryan’s here, and maybe Gibson. They must be part of the surprise.”

  “Oh, thrill,” he drawled. “I’m getting terribly excited. I think I’m having a hot flash,” he added with an obnoxious lisp.

  “You know, Coulter, I really wish you would try to be a little more tolerant,” she said. “And a whole lot kinder.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m working on it.”

  “Work harder.”

  They parked, got out of the car, and by the time they were halfway up the walk, Tammy had thrown the front door open and was dancing a little jig on the porch.

  “You’re here, you’re here,” she said with giggles interspersed.

  “You’re a ditz, you’re a ditz,” Dirk muttered under his breath. But Savannah heard and gave him the usual jab in the ribs with her elbow. “If you don’t stop doing that, I’m going to start wearing a gougeproof vest.”

  “What’s up, sugar?” Savannah asked as she bounded up onto the steps.

  “Just come inside.”

  When Savannah entered the living room, she found Ryan and John sitting on the sofa, wearing smiles as broad as Tammy’s.

  “Good morning, Savannah,” John Gibson said as he rose to kiss her hand. “Detective Coulter.” He gave a curt nod in Dirk’s direction. Dirk responded with a grunt.

  “Apparently it is a good morning,” Savannah replied. “Does someone want to tell us why?”

  “Ryan and John just got here about half an hour ago, and I called you right away,” Tammy said breathlessly. “You see, I had a feeling the colonel might ha
ve been the one who murdered Earl. And after I talked to your grandmother early this morning—I called to talk to you, but she said you were already up and out—she and I were both sure it was the colonel and—”

  “Tell-a-Gran,” Savannah muttered. Gran was sweet, she thought, but discretion was not her most prominent virtue.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Never mind. Go on.”

  “So,” Tammy continued, “I kicked into high gear and did some serious research there at home with my computer and modem. When I found what I was looking for, I called Ryan and John and they took it from there.”

  She grabbed Savannah’s hand and led her through the living room, into the kitchen, and over to the back door. Dirk followed as quickly as he could without appearing to be overtly interested.

  “Look at what they brought for us.” Tammy pointed through the window in the back door.

  Savannah stared through the glass, blinked, and looked again. But it wasn’t easy to see, because the tears were already beginning to well.

  There, sitting at her small picnic table beneath the grape arbor was Granny Reid. Dressed in a caftan that was sprinkled with tiny daisies, a handmade wreath of daisies from Savannah’s country garden in her hair, she wore a happy, contented smile that made her look at least a generation younger.

  She was sharing a pitcher of lemonade with Christy Mallock, who wore a similar daisy ring around her red curls. One of Savannah’s J.C. Penney catalogs was open on the table before them, and each held a pair of scissors. They were “cutting out paper dolls,” an activity that brought back a flood of fond memories for Savannah.

  For a moment, Savannah couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe. Then she whirled around and grabbed Tammy about the waist, lifting her off the ground.

  “Thank you, thank you,” she said between sobs.

  Then she turned to Dirk and did the same thing. . . . except for the lifting part. She tried, but he was much larger and made of denser stuff than Tammy.

  Ryan and John had followed them into the kitchen. They were hugged and profusely thanked next.

  Even Dirk had moist eyes as he grabbed Ryan’s hand, then John’s and gave them hearty shakes.