Mug Shot

by Caroline Fardig

  “She could be, but she’s not any more dangerous than she was earlier this week when I was running around alone with her. Guilty or not, I want to say goodbye to her. After that, I’m headed to talk to the police.”

  “Well, be careful. See you soon.” He gave me a kiss on the cheek and made a beeline for the door.

  I didn’t only want to say goodbye to Savannah, I also didn’t want Stan to know what I was planning to do. She was my friend, and I wanted to give her a chance to come clean. It was obvious she was hurting, and I was willing to forgive her and stand by her side if she told the police everything she knew to help Pete’s case. If she refused, then I’d go to the police and tattle about what I found and let them sort it all out.

  Chapter 30

  Spotting Carl at the buffet, I went over to him. “It was a lovely party, but I have to leave. I’m not feeling too well. Did you hear Pete’s bail got revoked?”

  He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Yes, and I’m so sorry to hear it. I’m sure things will work out, though. Keep your chin up.” Carl was so nice. I didn’t want to see his life ruined by this whole mess.

  “Where’s Savannah? I want to see if she’s doing better before I go.”

  He shrugged. “She said she was going outside for some air. I don’t know what’s wrong with her today, but I hope she snaps out of it.”

  “Me, too. Take care, Carl.”

  I went through a back door, out to the patio. Savannah was much farther out in the yard, and I could just barely see her petite silhouette in the light of the full moon. She was pacing back and forth near the outline of what looked to be a backhoe and a big pile of dirt. I didn’t want to have to do this, but something had to be done.

  “Hey, Savannah,” I panted, having slogged across at least a hundred yards of wet grass to get to her.

  She whirled around. Her makeup was streaked (finally), and her eyes were puffy from crying. She tried to smile, but failed miserably.

  I hugged her, but quickly let her go and took a step back. “I’m sorry everything’s in such a mess. I’m sure you’re not in the mood to get into this right now, but I have to ask you something. It can’t wait.”

  “What?” she croaked.

  “You know exactly how Cecilia was killed. Unless you were there, you wouldn’t know that. Were you inside that tent, Savannah?”

  Her eyes grew enormous, and she began breathing heavily. “What are you saying?”

  I didn’t want to say it. “I’m saying…that you’re my friend, and I care about you. But…if you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, you need to try to make it right. And I’ll help you.”

  Her face grew dark. “You don’t care about me! You’ve only been hanging around with me because you were using me on your quest to save Pete. Nobody cares about me!” she wailed.

  “Of course I care about you! I wouldn’t be out here if I didn’t. And Carl adores you. He’s very worried about you.”

  She laughed again, this time a little crazily. “Stupid Carl. He doesn’t love me. He loves the idea of me. He loves me being his trophy wife.” Savannah began to pace around angrily. “And Alejandro…He said I was the only woman for him. But then he got her pregnant…She didn’t love him like I did. It wasn’t fair. He was supposed to be mine.”

  As she continued her pacing, I happened to glance down into the giant hole at our feet. “Oh, holy shit!” I blurted out before clamping my hand over my mouth. My heart hit the ground. There was someone in that hole, facedown, and he wasn’t moving. I whirled around to Savannah and grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “Who is that?” I cried. “What happened?”

  She stared at me blankly.

  I shook her. “Is he…dead?”

  Again with the blank stare.

  I went back to the hole and leaned over, calling, “Hey! Are you okay? Do you need help?”

  The man didn’t move. I squinted to look at him more closely, noticing that he was dressed in a suit and had longish dark hair. Bastidas.

  Turning back to her, I exclaimed, “Savannah! Is that Bastidas?”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks as she nodded.

  I was at a loss. This was so unreal. “Why is he…Did you…?”

  She wiped at her tears and looked away.

  “Did he try to hurt you or something?”

  “Yes!” she cried, burying her face in her hands.

  Relieved, sort of, I went to her and put my arms around her. “That must have been scary. What did he do to you?”

  “He…he told me…that we were through forever. That…that he was done messing around with married women.”

  When she didn’t offer any more information, I dropped my arms. “That’s it?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Enough to kill him? No!”

  She looked at me as if I’d slapped her, and that was when I noticed there was something wrong with her eyes. They seemed…vacant. Once I finally realized what was going on, my anger melted away.

  I continued gently, taking her hand. “Sweetie, you’re sick. You need help. Come with me, and I promise you’ll get exactly the care you need to make you better.”

  Yanking her hand away, she said, “I’m just fine. In fact, I’ve never been better. My problems are in the ground, and now I can get on with my life.”

  I turned around to look down at Bastidas, who still hadn’t moved. I feared the worst. “But you can’t simply cover this up—”

  While I wasn’t looking, Savannah charged me and shoved me forcefully from behind. Taken by surprise, I was unable to stand my ground, and I stumbled toward the giant hole. I struggled to get my footing, but it was too late. Suddenly, there was no ground under my feet, and I fell quite a ways down, splatting facedown into a pool of icy water and disgusting mud. I got the wind partially knocked out of me—I could still breathe, but it hurt. I must have been in Savannah’s stupid eight-foot deep koi pond. It was like a giant grave—a perfect rectangle carved out of the earth, and it even already had a dead person in it. After wiping the mud from my face, I rolled over onto my back, groaning as several of my joints popped.

  Savannah was grinning maniacally at me from above. “Yes, I can cover this up. Literally.”

  I didn’t know what she meant, having become a little dizzy and disoriented from my fall. “Savannah, why did you push me? I need help. I don’t think I can get out of here on my own.”

  “That’s the point. You’re staying down there. You know what I’ve done. You want to lock me up and throw away the key, and I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “Please don’t do this. It will only get you in more trouble.”

  She smiled. “But I’m not in any trouble. Pete’s in jail for Cecilia’s murder. Once I fill in this hole, there’s no evidence of anything else I’ve done. It’s like none of it ever happened.”

  Her sudden change in demeanor made me extremely nervous. “But you’re going to get me out first…right?”

  She said simply, “No. You know my secrets.”

  I looked around for my purse so I could try to call for help, or at the very least record our exchange. Damn it! I spied it up by the top edge of the hole, completely out of reach. Even though terror had begun to grip me, I felt like I could still be able talk her out of it. I had an idea.

  I got up carefully, pulling myself onto my knees. “You know, maybe your friend here is still alive. If he is, you wouldn’t be charged with his murder. That’s good, right?” Struggling to my feet, I promptly sank to my ankles in mud. It took all I had to yank my feet out of the wet earth and get myself over to where Bastidas lay at the other side of the hole, my shoes left somewhere in the sea of mud. Hoping Bastidas had a little life left in him, I grabbed his arm and rolled him onto his back.

  His dead eyes stared at me, and I had to choke back a scream. So much for hoping he was still alive. I noticed that his face was a mess of cuts and bruises. “Did you beat him up, too?”

  She rolled her eye
s. “No, it was Kent, the idiot. This whole thing is his fault. Abigail told him last night that she was leaving him for Alejandro. This afternoon, he decided to use Alejandro for boxing practice. Between getting the snot beat out of him and some tell-all news article he kept going on about, Alejandro up and decided to swear off married women.” She picked up a section of metal pipe from the ground. “All I did was hit him in the head with this.”

  “Look,” I said, starting to shiver both from fear and from the frigid mud plastered to me. “Don’t say anything else. Get me out of this hole, and I swear, I will help you through this.”

  “Right, by making sure I’m put in jail or someplace even worse, like the funny farm.”

  “Well, then how about you get me out of here, and I’ll give you a head start? You disappear to some deserted island, and the cops will never find you. Is that better?”

  She considered my offer for a brief moment. “Nope. I’m not giving up my life. You are.”

  “What?” I cried.

  She had already taken off, heading for the backhoe. I worried for a moment, but then reasoned that there was no way in hell prissy Southern belle Savannah Worthington knew how to use a backhoe. I didn’t have a clue how to work one, so I was pretty sure she didn’t, either. I flinched as I heard the backhoe start up. It would seem that she at least knew how to turn it on, unfortunately.

  “Hey,” I yelled over the loud engine. “What are you doing?”

  She leaned out of the cab and yelled back, “Burying you. And my secrets!”

  “You can’t work that thing! There’s no way you can—”

  I stopped abruptly as the backhoe started moving my way, pushing dirt from the huge pile into the hole I was in. Although trying with all my might to get a handhold on the steep wall and climb up, I couldn’t manage to do anything but slide back down into the mud. Between my broken finger and the soft, crumbling walls, I couldn’t get a grip.

  The first load of mud thankfully landed on the other side of the hole from where I was standing, but Savannah had realized that and was pushing the next load straight at me. I pressed myself against the wall, feeling mud and clumps of dirt rain down on my back, engulfing my legs to the knee. Bastidas’s body was all but buried, with only his shoulder still sticking up out of the ground. I tried desperately to free myself and get on top of the mud she had just dumped, but it was even mushier than the floor of the pond, and I sank faster and deeper. A couple more loads and I would be buried alive, I realized.

  Then I started to panic. Who even knew I was out here? Stan thought I was leaving. Carl didn’t know where Savannah was other than “outside,” and since they had acres of land, that didn’t narrow it down. The party was in full swing, with holiday merrymaking and loud Christmas music. We were far enough away from the house that there was no way anyone could even hear the noise of the backhoe, let alone my cries for help, so I was totally screwed. I had to talk my way out of this.

  “Savannah!” I yelled. “Wait! Please!”

  She popped her head out of the cab, seeming to be back to her normal, chipper self. Now she was really scaring me. “What’s up, girl?”

  Seriously? Did she think we were going to have a little girl talk or what? I went with it. “Could you turn that thing off for a minute?”

  Waving her hand dismissively, she replied, “Nope, sorry. I have a job to do. You doing okay down there?”

  “Um, no, not really. I need help. Can you help me?”

  “Not right now. I’ve got to get this job done.” She waved cheerily and pushed another load of dirt in on top of me. Savannah had snapped. She was batshit crazy.

  With dirt now up to my waist, I started frantically screaming, “HELP! Someone help me! Help! Can anyone hear me?”

  Savannah yelled exasperatedly, “There’s no one out here, Juliet. Save your breath. Besides, I can’t concentrate with you yelling.”

  “Wait,” I pleaded, trying to think of something to say to make her stop filling in the hole. “Hey, I want to know—how do you know how to use a backhoe?”

  She smiled proudly. “You know I wasn’t always a society gal. I learned how to operate heavy equipment on the farm. Plus, after Alejandro and I did the nasty in this thing one time, he let me drive it.”

  Great. Now the last image I would ever have in my mind would be of Savannah and Bastidas getting it on in that backhoe. She didn’t give me time to answer, pushing in even more dirt, which had now crept up to my shoulders. This was it. One more load, and it was the end.

  “Juliet! Juliet, are you out here?” I heard Ryder yell from not too far away.

  “YES!” I screeched. “Ryder! I’m down in the hole! Help me!”

  After a few moments, I saw Ryder appear at the top of the hole with his gun drawn, leveled at Savannah, his phone in his other hand. He said something into the phone and flicked his eyes at me. I saw his jaw clench.

  He put the phone in his pocket and yelled to Savannah, “Savannah, turn that thing off, and step out of the cab.”

  Still firmly in the throes of her psychotic break, she replied, “I can’t. I’m not done with the job.”

  He replied evenly, “I have a gun pointed at you. I will shoot you with it if you make another move with that backhoe.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t shoot little old me.” She laughed.

  Savannah gunned the backhoe, pushing the rest of the mud and dirt in on top of me, covering well over my head. Terrified, I gasped for breath but instead got a mouthful of nasty mud. Through the oppressive silence of the dirt and mud that encased me, I thought I heard a muffled gunshot. The weight of the earth on top of me was putting pressure on my body, and I was dangerously close to passing out. My lungs began to strain as they became more and more deprived of air. I clung to the hope that Ryder would surely pull me out before it was too late.

  I was fighting to stay conscious when I heard the faint sound of voices directly above me. I felt movement in the earth on top of me, and the pressure on my head and shoulders seemed to lessen a bit.

  Through my daze, I could finally hear Ryder’s voice, and he sounded panicked. “Juliet! Juliet! We’re digging you out. Just hold on, sweetheart.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, too late realizing that only served to get dirt up my nose. There was no way I could answer him, but it was enough to know he was coming to my rescue.

  I felt a hand hit my head, and heard Ryder cry, “I found her. Dig!”

  Several hands started pawing at me, which would normally have freaked me out, but I knew these hands were only digging away at the dirt to save me. I felt air hit my face and a hand gently brush over my eyes, nose, and mouth. After taking a much-needed breath of clean air, I gingerly opened my eyes. The first face I saw was Ryder’s.

  He smiled down at me. “You’ll do anything to get my attention, won’t you?”

  I spat out a mouthful of dirt. “Get me the hell out of this hole.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  Epilogue

  It took Ryder and two other cops armed with shovels a good ten minutes to dig me out far enough that they could pull me the rest of the way out of the koi pond. Exhausted, I collapsed on the cold, wet grass. Ryder sat down tiredly next to me.

  “Babe, how in the hell did you get in that hole?”

  I sighed, shivering. “How much time do you have?”

  “For you? Forever.” He took his suit jacket off and put it around me, then yelled to one of the other cops, “Hey, can we get a blanket over here?”

  He was being very sweet to me. And he totally looked like James Bond coming to my rescue. His super sharp black suit was completely ruined now, thanks to me and the mud.

  I asked, “Why did you get all dressed up to arrest someone?”

  He smiled. “I was actually coming to get you. I heard Cromwell was headed out here to arrest Savannah for Cecilia’s murder, and after you got stuck in the middle of a police bust last time, I thought maybe I could talk you into leaving before the action sta
rted.”

  “Thanks. It would have been nice to have gotten out before the action started. Next time, come sooner.” My entire body was shivering now.

  Ryder pulled me close to him. “There’s not going to be a next time, because I’ve decided never to let you out of my sight.”

  I looked up at him and frowned. “Why? It’s over. I’m done sleuthing, because now Pete’s name can be cleared.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m trying to say that I want you back. I was a total dick when we fought yesterday, and I’m sorry. I just got a little jealous, that’s all.” The other cop came by and tossed him a heavy wool blanket. Ryder wrapped me up in it, and I felt instantly better.

  “I’m sorry, too. I know I’m not the easiest person to date.”

  His face grew serious. “When I almost lost you in the mud, I realized I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it.”

  That completely turned me into mush. “Really?”

  Nodding, he leaned in to kiss me, but pulled away after barely brushing my lips. “You’re kind of dirty.”

  I made a face. “And probably not in a sexy kind of way, right?”

  Trying not to laugh, he said, “I’m afraid not.”

  Glancing over at the empty backhoe, I asked, “Where’s Savannah? You didn’t shoot her, did you?”

  “No, I only fired the shot to scare her, and it worked. She snapped out of it and turned herself in. She’s on her way to jail for the murder of Cecilia Hollingsworth.”

  Wincing, I said, “You might want to add Alejandro Bastidas to her list.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “His body is down in that hole. On the opposite end from where you found me.”

  Jumping up, he ran over to the nearest cop and gestured to the hole, explaining the morbid situation. The cop nodded and hurried to speak with some of the other officers on the scene. It was going to be a long night of digging for some of them. I certainly didn’t envy their task.

  Ryder sat down next to me again, gathering me back into his arms. “Are you sure you’re okay after being down in a hole with a dead guy?”