A Decadent Way to Die: A Savannah Reid Mystery

by G. A. McKevett

  “You ran a background check on a guy yesterday. His name’s Chad.”

  “Chad Avery. That’s right. Bad dude.”

  “Could you possibly look up that particular bad dude’s address for me?”

  “Yeah. Give me a minute here…. Let’s see …”

  While Savannah waited, she looked at the front of Tammy’s cute little beach cottage. Buying that house was a dream come true for Tammy. She had literally danced for joy when she’d crossed over that threshold.

  But then, Tammy was joy and dancing and sunlight all rolled into one amazing human being. She always thought the best of and hoped the best for everyone she met.

  And now she wasn’t even safe inside her own precious little home.

  “I’ve got it, “Iris said. “He’s at fifteen seventy Becker Street. It’s over in that subdivision behind the mall, I think.”

  “Yeah, I know where it is. Thank you. And, Iris, could you just keep this call between you and me?”

  “Absolutely. Us girls gotta hang together.”

  Savannah hung up and headed toward the center of town and the mall.

  A few times in her life … very few … Savannah had actually hated someone. Usually the feeling was hot, intense, and fleeting.

  Granny Reid had taught her a lot about not hanging on to the hot coals of anger, because you were the person most likely to be badly burned by them. So, she had always let her anger go as quickly as she could.

  But this feeling wasn’t disappearing any time soon. All she had to do was think of Tammy sitting on her sofa, sobbing, ashamed, saying it was her own fault that she had been stuck, and Savannah knew … this was a rage she was going to feel for the rest of her life.

  When Savannah saw the tricked-out SUV sitting in the driveway at 1570 Becker Street, she was relieved. She wanted this to be over, one way or the other. Now.

  Deep inside, the ex-cop was telling her that this was dangerous, coming here to confront him like this. This man was violent. Large, mean, and, obviously, no gentleman where women were concerned.

  And she didn’t care.

  For the first time in her life, a switch had been flipped, and survival was no longer the primary motive.

  Stopping him. That was her only goal.

  She reached beneath her linen jacket and, for a moment, closed her hand around the butt of her holstered Beretta. She un-snapped the thumb break, drew the weapon, then slid it back into the holster.

  You should have a plan, Savannah, the cop in her head whispered as she walked up the sidewalk to the house.

  No plan needed, she told it. This is pretty simple.

  She knocked on the door, resisting the urge to pound it with her fist. No point in alerting him.

  She knocked twice more before he finally answered. And when he did open the door a bit and peek around it, the look on his face suggested he might have been expecting her. He gave her a half a smirk and said, “Savannah! How nice to see—”

  She kicked the door with all her might. It flew open and the edge struck him, hard, in center of his face. Blood spurted from his nose as he stumbled backward, holding it and moaning.

  “What the hell?” he said, snorting, trying to breathe through the liquid flow.

  She let go with another kick, this one directly to his groin.

  He forgot his broken nose as he grabbed his crotch with both hands, folded in half, and toppled to the floor.

  In an instant she was standing over him, her foot on his throat. Her Beretta was in her hand, end of the barrel jammed against his forehead.

  “You hurt Tammy,” she could hear herself saying in a voice she didn’t even recognize as her own. “Tammy is my family. If you ever hurt her, if you ever even speak to her again, I will kill you.”

  He looked up at her with a dark enmity she had never seen before. For two seconds, she was afraid. Deeply, terribly afraid.

  So, she shoved the gun even harder against his skin, leaned down until they were nearly face-to-face, and bored him with her eyes. “If I hear that you came within a hundred yards of her, or if you even call her on the phone, I swear to God, I will hunt you down and blow your brains out.”

  When he said nothing, she dug her foot deeper into his neck. “You won’t even see it coming. I’ll break into your house and shoot you in your sleep, or I’ll sneak up behind you in a dark alley, and you’ll be dead before you hit the ground. Do you understand me?”

  He gave her the slightest nod.

  A sinking feeling in her gut told her that was all she was going to get out of him.

  She straightened up and took her foot off his neck.

  As quickly as she had entered the house, she left.

  It wasn’t until she was at least a mile away that it hit her, and she had to pull over to the side of the road as the adrenaline surged through her body. Arms crossed over her chest, she hugged herself tightly and waited for the shivering to stop.

  She fought the nausea and the horrible, tight sensation in her chest, like a giant hand was squeezing her, and there was no air to breathe in the car at all.

  The enormity of what she’d done hit her like a riptide, overwhelming her, dragging her under, carrying her out to sea.

  Finally, the shaking subsided. She passed her hand over her forehead and realized she was drenched in sweat. And when she looked in the mirror, a woman with wild blue eyes stared back at her. A woman who appeared very nearly insane.

  In that moment, her eyes looked just like the eyes of the guy lying on the floor, her foot on his neck, her gun to his head. And that was what frightened her most.

  Savannah’s knees were still a bit weak when she entered the police station an hour later. She came in through a seldom-used side door to avoid running into the brass. Having parted ways with them under less-than-amicable circumstances years before, she didn’t want to come face-to-face with the chief or the captain.

  She figured that, after the day she’d just had, a run-in with either one of them could prove fatal for somebody.

  When she found Dirk, he was just getting ready to begin his official interrogation of Waldo Fischer. He had given her a call and told her he had returned with his prisoner. He’d invited her to come watch, and she decided it was a better plan than sitting at home, stewing about Tammy and Chad.

  She walked up to Dirk, who was standing in the hallway, right outside Interrogation Room Two. It was the room with the lousy air-conditioning, and was commonly referred to as “the sweat box.”

  Dirk always stuck his hardcore cases in there.

  “Hey, Van,” he said, happy to see her … until he took a second look. “Babe, don’t take this wrong, but you look awful.”

  She quickly ran her fingers through her hair, wiped the smeared mascara from under her eyes, smoothed her slacks with her palms, and buttoned her jacket so that the blood on her blouse wouldn’t show. “There,” she said. “Better?”

  “Not really. You look like you’ve been through the wringer. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “A lot of nothing, I’d say.”

  “We’ll talk about it later. Let’s play a game of Lean on Waldo.”

  “Sure.” He motioned for her to enter the room first. Then, as she walked by him, he peered at the front of her shirt. “Is that blood on you?”

  “Might be.”

  “Yours?”

  “Nope. But with the mood I’m in, if he doesn’t cooperate, we might be adding some of Waldo’s.”

  Dirk and Savannah sat on one side of the unadorned, utilitarian, metal table on chairs that were as hard and uncomfortable as the SCPD could find when they had “decorated” the room.

  With stark walls, no windows, and the temperature set higher than any other room in the station, they had intended the space to be a no-fun zone … and they had succeeded.

  On the other side of the table, on his own hard, overly upright chair, sat a disgruntled, disheveled Waldo.

  Savannah took a mildly perverse pl
easure in knowing that, no matter how bad she might look at the moment, blood on her shirt and all, he looked way worse. His stringy, blond hair was damp with sweat, hanging into his eyes. His tee-shirt’s armpits were dark and wet. His tanned face was an ashen shade of gray, which complemented his red-rimmed eyes perfectly.

  Yes, Waldo was a mess.

  Quality, one-on-one time with Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter could do that to a guy.

  Apparently, it had been a rough ride from West Hollywood.

  Dirk had told her on the phone that Waldo had been extremely uncooperative, answering none of his questions on the way to San Carmelita. But at least, in his silence he hadn’t uttered the one dirty word that ruined a detective’s day. “Lawyer.”

  Prepared to play the “good cop,” Savannah pasted a fake smile on her face—the “I Understand What You’ve Been Through” one—and leaned across the table toward Waldo.

  His green eyes, so like his aunt’s, were dull and vacant as he tried to focus on her.

  “What are you on, Waldo?” she asked him.

  He thought it over for a while. A long while. Then he delivered his well-considered, deeply philosophical response. “Noth-in’.”

  “So, we’re going to start this interview with a big, fat lie?” Dirk said. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.”

  “Waldo,” Savannah said, “have you spoken to anybody in your family lately?”

  “No.”

  At least he answered that one right away, Savannah thought to herself. One lie, one truth. The score was tied.

  “Do you know what happened on your aunt’s estate?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what happened’?” he asked, obviously trying hard to concentrate. “What happened?”

  “Some people died,” Dirk told him.

  He suddenly looked far more alert. “Who?” he asked. “Who died?”

  “Blanca,” Savannah said. She waited for that to sink in, then added, “And Vern Oldham.”

  “Blanca? Oh, no.” He seemed genuinely sad, though Savannah couldn’t tell for sure through the haze of the drugs. She hated interviewing someone who was under the influence. It often dulled their responses and made them harder to read.

  “What was Vern doing there?” he asked.

  “Apparently, he was doing Blanca,” Dirk replied. “Did you know they had a thing going?”

  “He used to drop by once in a while, when my aunt was gone somewhere. I guess he could have started something with her then.”

  “What did he drop by for, Waldo?” Savannah’s wheels were turning fast. She remembered the half-smoked marijuana joint in the ashtray next to the chocolate-dipped strawberries and champagne. “Did Vern come to the property to score his pot from you?”

  “Naw, he had a ’script for it, from his doctor, you know.”

  “You seem to know a lot about Vern’s habits,” Dirk said. “Were you his connection? Did you sell him what his doctor wouldn’t give him? Like his coke?”

  “Uh, no. I wouldn’t deal.”

  “You’ve got a record for dealing,” Dirk said, standing up and walking around to stand next to him. “And we found your stash in the shed behind your house, so don’t tell me you’re above it. That’s just gonna piss me off.”

  Waldo held up his cuffed hands. “Okay, okay. I used to. But that stuff you found, it’s not mine.”

  “Let me guess,” Dirk said, leaning over him. “You were holding it for a friend of yours. Some guy who sits next to you in study hall.”

  “Waldo, buddy,” Savannah said, “you need somebody to write you some new material. That one doesn’t fly once you’re wearin’ big-boy britches.”

  “Did Vern come by your aunt’s place to score from you?” Dirk asked again. “I don’t care if he did. I’m investigating a murder here, not your drug dealing. But you’re gonna tell me the truth, or you’re going away for dealing. Got it?”

  Waldo peered up at Dirk, whose face was less than a foot from his. He looked like he wanted to crawl under the table and hide.

  “Tell him, Waldo,” Savannah said. “You’ve got nothing to lose. The drug charges are the least of your concerns right now.”

  “What do you mean?” Waldo asked, starting to shiver. “The least of my concerns? What other concerns have I got?”

  “Detective Coulter has evidence that you did those murders.”

  “No way!”

  “You own the murder weapon,” Dirk told him. “And the lab says that your prints are the only ones on it.”

  Savannah knew that, no matter how much Dirk might have leaned on Eileen, they wouldn’t have processed the boom box that quickly. But then, contrary to popular belief, during an interview, it was perfectly legal for a cop to lie like a dirty dog on a cheap rug to a suspect. Many times, she had left an interrogation swearing that she could smell her own pants burning.

  “What murder weapon?” Waldo was really shaking now. “I don’t even own a gun.”

  “Who said it’s a gun?” Dirk returned to his chair and sat down.

  “You don’t need a gun to kill somebody,” Savannah told him. “Haven’t you ever played the game Clue? Even a candlestick will do in a pinch.”

  “I have no idea what you guys are talking about,” Waldo said, slouching down in his chair.

  “We’ve got your boom box,” Dirk said, “full of chlorinated water … with your prints on it.”

  Waldo shook his head vigorously, which caused him to lose his balance and nearly fall off his chair. “You guys are crazy. How the hell would anybody kill somebody with a boom box? I mean, if you were going to smack ’em in the head or something, you’d use a brick or a rock. A boom box … that’s just plain nuts.”

  As Savannah watched him and listened to him, she had a sinking feeling that he was telling the truth.

  And that was always bad … when you had to admit that maybe your primary suspect wasn’t all that suspicious after all.

  “Where were you night before last, Waldo?” she asked. “We know you weren’t home. So, where were you?”

  He shrugged. “In Hollywood, with some friends of mine.”

  “You told me you didn’t have any friends,” Savannah reminded him.

  “Well, not great friends. Acquaintances, you know.”

  Dirk took out a pad and pen. “Gimme some names.”

  Waldo gulped. “No. It doesn’t matter who I was with.”

  “It matters a lot,” Savannah told him. “It might make the difference in you going away for a couple of years for that coke in the shed, versus a capital murder charge for the premeditated killing of two people.”

  Waldo thought about it, then shook his head. “No, I’m not gonna tell you who I was with. But I’ll say this … you’re looking at the wrong person for the murder thing. I didn’t try to kill my aunt, and I didn’t do anything to hurt Blanca or Vern.”

  “Then, who do you think did?” Savannah asked.

  He searched his brain for a long time. Savannah could tell it was a strain. “I don’t know. Maybe Emma.”

  “Why would Emma want to kill her grandmother?”

  “Because she’s dying to get her hands on all that money. Emma’s boyfriend, he’s made it clear he’s not going to marry her until she gets her inheritance. And Emma’s scared to death she’s going to wind up an old maid.”

  “How much money are we talking about?” Dirk asked.

  “I don’t know. Aunt Helene never tells anybody personal stuff like that. But it’s a helluva lot. And Emma’s getting sixty percent of it.”

  “Who’s getting the other forty percent?” Savannah asked.

  Waldo squirmed in his chair and cleared his throat. “Well … I guess … me.”

  Dirk smiled. “That’s good to know. Very good to know. Thank you, Mr. Fischer. You’ve been most informative.”

  When Savannah and Dirk stepped out into the hall, Dirk was practically rubbing his hands together with glee. “It’s him. He did it. And all that money he’s going to inhe
rit, that’s the motive.”

  Savannah shook her head. “If you were trying to prove he made the attempts on Helene’s life, maybe. But what does that have to do with killing Blanca and Vern? Those murders don’t get him any closer to the money.”

  “But he did it! Why else wouldn’t he tell us where he was? He doesn’t have an alibi.”

  “Isn’t he still on probation from his last drug charge?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So, he was probably hanging out with his druggie friends … a violation of his parole, right?”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  Dirk sighed. “Well, maybe Eileen’ll find his prints on the boom box.”

  “His prints on his boombox? The one that belongs to him? Dude, if that’s what you’re hanging your hat on, it’s a sad situation.”

  Dirk reached out and ran his finger lightly down her cheek. “So, enough about Waldo. Tell me … what’s going on?”

  Chapter 22

  As Savannah stood in the hallway, looking up at Dirk, she could see the concern in his eyes and it went straight to her heart.

  And when he touched her cheek, it went straight to her eyes, and the tears she had been holding back for hours started flowing.

  She backed away from him a step and said, “Don’t. Don’t be nice to me. If you’re sweet, I’ll lose it for sure.”

  “You’ll lose what? What’s going on, Van? Why the hell do you have blood on your blouse, and why are you crying?”

  She turned her back to him and headed for the rear door of the station. By the time she exited, she was running.

  He caught her in the parking lot, next to her Mustang. Grabbing her by the shoulder, he spun her around. “Savannah,” he said, pulling her close. “Talk to me, honey. What happened?”

  For half a dozen reasons that immediately sprang to her mind, she didn’t want to tell him. First, he was a police officer, and she didn’t want to put him in the position of knowing about even one assault, let alone two. But the main reason she didn’t want to tell him was because she had a feeling that, if she did, there would be three felonies committed before the day was over.

  Dirk had a protective streak just as wide as hers. And for all of his bickering with Tammy, he loved the kid dearly.