A Body To Die For

by G. A. McKevett

  “So, where’s our man Pinky now?”

  “Wilcox had him picked up this morning. They’re holding him in county jail.”

  “For murder?”

  “Assault. He punched a deputy sheriff when he got pulled over for a rolling stop at a red light.”

  Savannah grinned. “Did that deputy provoke him in any way?”

  “Naw, I’m sure he didn’t. But I foresee a promotion in his immediate future.”

  “Are you going to question him? Can I be there when you do?”

  Dirk didn’t answer.

  “Dirk? Do you mind if I go along?”

  After a few more moments of silence, she thought maybe they had lost the signal. “Hey, buddy…you there?”

  “What? I…oh, damn.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think I just dozed off there.”

  “I think you did, too. Are you driving?”

  “Sitting at a light on Lester Street.”

  “Pull off somewhere and take a nap. Right now. Go to the parking lot there by the pier, lie down on the seat, and sleep for an hour or so before you kill some poor, innocent person.”

  “Yeah, okay…Mom.”

  “I’m getting plum swimmy-headed myself. I’m going to go upstairs and crash for a little while. I’ll have Tammy call you to wake you up in an hour.”

  “All right.”

  “And darlin’, before you zonk out, be sure your doors are locked and your windows are up. There’ve been some muggings down in that neck o’ the woods lately.”

  “Hu-u-rumph.”

  With assurances from Tammy that she would wake her if anything important developed, Savannah retired to her bedroom to get a little sleep. The sight of the room with its lacy curtains, snowy linens, and vase filled with fresh roses from her garden sitting on the dresser nearly made Savannah cry. It felt like a week since she had last been here—the place where she retreated to refresh her body and spirit.

  While Savannah usually wore slacks, simple tailored blouses and jackets, and loafers, she did allow herself total female expression in two ways: sexy lingerie and a completely girlie girl bedroom.

  The handmade quilt on the bed had lacy accents with its rose and lilac print fabric—a recent gift from Granny Reid. And even the smell of the room was feminine, Savannah’s favorite floral perfume, mixed with the fresh flowers.

  It was, indeed, a room to dream in.

  Rather than tempt evil fate by actually undressing and getting into bed properly, Savannah simply kicked off her shoes, pulled the quilt back, and slipped beneath it.

  Wrapping herself in the quilt, lovingly stitched by her grandmother’s own hands, it was as though Granny Reid herself was rocking her to sleep.

  Less than ten seconds later, she was, as Gran would say, “snorin’ like a cartoon bear.”

  She had been asleep two minutes—or at least, it felt like two minutes—when a soft knocking at the bedroom door awakened her.

  “Savannah? It’s Tammy.”

  The door opened an inch and Tammy’s pert nose appeared in the crack. “I’m sorry to wake you, but Bill Jardin’s mom is on the phone. She’s here in California now. In fact, she’s in San Carmelita, and she wants to come over right away. Are you up for it?”

  “Up? Up? Hell no, I’m not up. I just got to sleep.”

  “Actually, it’s been over two hours. I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

  Savannah threw off the quilt and sat up so quickly that she nearly fell off the side of the bed.

  Running her fingers through her mussed hair, she said, “Did you call Dirk and wake him up, too?”

  “Over an hour ago.”

  “Good.”

  She knew she was in a pissy mood when the thought of Dirk getting more sleep than she’d gotten made her feel the need to box his ears and stand him in a corner.

  Tammy walked into the room and held out the phone to her. She did her best not to sound like a groggy wolverine just coming out of hibernation when she said, “Mrs. Jardin, this is Savannah Reid. I’m glad to hear from you, and I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” said a soft voice with a gentle, Midwestern accent on the other end. “But I don’t want your condolences. I want you to put my daughter-in-law in jail for murdering my son.”

  Savannah was a bit taken aback by the woman’s candor. The voice might be soft and sweet, but there was no mistaking the bitterness and grief behind those words.

  “I want to help you in every way that I can,” she replied. “Let me give you my address. You come over here and we’ll talk.”

  “Do you have any alcohol?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Alcohol. I need a drink or two at least to get through the next few hours.”

  Savannah thought of the beers that she always had stashed in the back of her refrigerator, so that Dirk could have a cold brew on demand. Then there was the whiskey she kept for hot toddies and Irish coffees. Not to mention the triple sec for margaritas and the rum for daiquiris.

  “Come on over,” she said. “We’ll see what we can do for you…on all accounts.”

  The lady who appeared on Savannah’s doorstep ten minutes later reminded her of some of the women from her own hometown in rural Georgia. The pink polyester pantsuit, the floral print blouse, the oversized acrylic beads around her neck, and the silver-blue hair—they all made Savannah homesick for women with soft, Southern accents, gentle smiles, and very strong opinions about what was right and what was just pure-dee wickedness.

  “Mrs. Jardin,” Savannah said, gently shaking her hand. “I’m Savannah. Come right in and sit a spell. You must be plum exhausted, considering all you’ve been through.”

  Ruby Jardin turned back toward the street and waved away the cab that was sitting in front of Savannah’s house. “You don’t know the half of it,” she said. “I’m so mad and so hurt and so tired that I can’t see straight.”

  Savannah led her into the house and considered seating her in the living room, but then she had a second thought. “Would you like to have that drink in my backyard?” she said. “You’ve been cooped up on a plane for hours. It might be nice to breathe some fresh air.”

  “I’d like that. I was sitting next to some numbskull who reeked to high heaven. He’d taken a bath in cheap aftershave…like that’d take the place of good ol’ soap and water.” She shook her head, disgusted. “You’d think with all this airline security hooey these days, they’d be more discriminating who they let onboard those planes. I don’t know what this world’s coming to.”

  Savannah looked into the woman’s dark brown eyes, which were swollen from crying, and saw the deep pain barely below the surface. She had just lost a child to murder, and that had to be the worst misfortune that could befall anyone. But, instead of screaming at the world, she was complaining about a guy on the plane wearing cheap cologne.

  Instead of curling into a fetal position and wishing for death herself, as most people might assume they would do under the circumstances, she had just flown more than halfway across a continent to find justice for her son.

  So, as Savannah directed the woman through her house—stopping in the kitchen to grab two cold beers, an icy mug, and a glass of lemonade, and then out to the backyard—she decided that she liked Ruby Jardin very much. And she was determined to help her any way she could.

  Moments later, sitting on comfortable chaises beneath Savannah’s cedar arbor, draped with wisteria, Ruby let it flow—a flood of accusations against her now-former daughter-in-law.

  “Clarissa never did love Bill. Not properly anyway,” she said. “She only married him because he was so good-looking and charming. He was so handsome, my Bill.”

  Tears filled her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. “He could charm any woman,” she continued, “and did. Too many, I admit it. That was his downfall. Women.”

  Thinking of Sharona and how heartbroken she appeared to be over his death, Savannah had to agree that B
ill had at least one woman too many in his life.

  Savannah said nothing, just let Ruby talk as the grieving mother sipped her beer and toyed with her pink and purple beads.

  “I warned him when he told me he was going to run away with that one. I told him that if Clarissa found out what he was up to she might do away with him. Or hire somebody else to do it. I wouldn’t put anything past that woman. But would he listen to his mother? No. He told me to mind my own business.” She swallowed hard and said, “Like he wasn’t my business. Like I didn’t worship the ground that boy walked on.”

  “I’m sorry, Ruby,” Savannah said softly. “So, he told you about her? About his plans to leave Clarissa and move to Vegas with his girlfriend?”

  “Sure. He told me everything. My son and I were very close.” She sniffed. “And I know what you’re thinking, that I shouldn’t approve of something like adultery. But you don’t know what he went through, that poor thing, what that Clarissa put him through. She made his life a living h-e-double-1, yelling at him right and left, leaving him alone and lonely for weeks on end so she could run around, appearing on TV, promoting all that exercise baloney of hers. She was just asking for him to step out on her.”

  “So, why, exactly, do you think Clarissa killed, I mean…took his life?”

  “Because he was going to leave her and divorce her. California’s one of those states that splits everything fifty-fifty when a couple calls it quits. He would have taken half of everything she’s got. And that’s what she lives for, that greedy witch, her stuff. The houses, the cars, the money. That’s all that matters to her. Well, that and her celebrity. Being in the spotlight and thinking the sun rises and sets for her alone.”

  She chugged down the last half of the beer and set her mug down on the small table between their chaises. Savannah wasted no time refilling it. She had always found that alcohol was a great lubricant when it came to keeping a fact-gathering conversation going.

  Not that Ruby Jardin’s wheels needed to be greased.

  “Although,” she was saying, “I don’t know that Clarissa’s replacement would have been that much better for him. She’s not exactly squeaky clean herself, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I do. I mean, we’ve checked her out, and I’ve talked to her myself.”

  “Already?”

  “Just a few hours ago.”

  “Wow, you are good. When I saw you on TV and heard about you guys catching that pervert at Clarissa’s club, I had a feeling about you. I told myself that you were the one who could help me nail Clarissa.”

  “Well, I’m happy to help you find out who harmed your son. We’ll have to see where the evidence leads us. It may very well point to Clarissa.” Savannah took a drink of her lemonade. “Mrs. Jardin, you say that your son frequently confided in you. Did he mention anything to you about him coming into a sizeable sum of money?”

  Ruby looked away, suddenly deciding to study Savannah’s rose garden intently. She didn’t answer.

  “When I spoke to his girlfriend earlier,” Savannah said, “she mentioned that he had said something to her about it. I thought he might have told you, too.”

  “Well, of course he told me about it. And of course she knew about it, too. She was in on it. Has been all along. It was all her big idea. Bill never would have thought of doing something crooked like that, not on his own.”

  Savannah gazed across the lawn at her rose garden, feigning interest, too. It didn’t do to appear too excited at a time like this.

  “It was her idea, you say?”

  “Sure. I mean, not that I mind them squeezing some money out of Clarissa. Bill deserved every penny he got from that miserable, messed-up marriage. But that other one—she’d been blackmailing Clarissa from day one, long before she and Bill ever started seeing each other.”

  It didn’t do to appear overly confused in the course of an interview, either, but Savannah couldn’t help it. “What?” she said. “I know that she’s been in some trouble in the past, but blackmail? Sharona’s been blackmailing Clarissa? For how long? For what?”

  It was Ruby’s turn to be confused. “What? Who’s Sharona?”

  “Sharona Dubarry, your son’s girlfriend. Tall, slender, beautiful redhead…?”

  Ruby laughed. “Redhead, yes. And I guess she’s okay looking, if that’s your taste. But she’s about average height and I don’t think anybody would call Rachel slender.”

  “Rachel? Rachel Morris?”

  “Yes. Clarissa’s twin sister. The one who posed for Clarissa’s ‘before’ shot, and who’s been blackmailing her for it ever since she got famous.”

  Savannah nodded as a couple of the puzzle places clicked into place for her. “The one who’s also been sleeping with Clarissa’s husband. The one who thought that Bill was going to leave his wife and run away with her to Vegas…too.”

  “Too?”

  Savannah looked at Ruby Jardin, a grieving mother who thought she knew everything there was to know about her precious, recently departed son. A mom who believed that her boy was, basically, a good guy, tormented by one woman and led astray by another.

  The last thing Savannah wanted was to add to her pain.

  “What do you mean, ‘too?’” Ruby asked, unwilling to let it drop. “And who’s Sharona?”

  Savannah swirled the ice in her lemonade a time or two before answering. “I spoke to a young lady named Sharona today,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “And she was in love with your son and seemed to think he was in love with her, too. Of course, I only have her word on that. She may have been mistaken. Time will tell.”

  “Oh, she was probably telling you the truth,” Ruby replied. She leaned back, resting her head on the chaise, looking very weary and sad. “I always told that boy to keep his pants closed…that one of these days he was gonna get it caught in his zipper. But young people, they just think they know it all. You can’t teach them anything. Especially boys.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She closed her eyes and began to cry. “Did I tell you that he was my only boy? In fact, he was my only child.”

  “No, ma’am,” Savannah said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Catch whoever did this. Will you do that for me?”

  Savannah started to say, “I’ll try.” But she could hear Granny Reid’s oft-repeated phrase echoing in her head. “Never say, ‘I’ll try.’ ‘I’ll try’ is a weak person’s way of saying ‘no.’”

  “I will,” she said, meaning it. “I promise, Ruby. I will.”

  Chapter 13

  Savannah had no sooner said “good-bye” to Ruby Jardin than another taxi pulled up in front of her house. Tammy saw it through the window and shouted up the stairs, “Don’t look now, but I think your sister just arrived.”

  Standing at the bathroom sink, her toothbrush in hand and her mouth full of so-called super-brightening paste, Savannah tried to be thrilled. It had been nearly a year since she had seen Marietta, and she wanted so much to be happy about this reunion.

  The woman in the mirror looked back at her with bloodshot eyes.

  “It has nothing to do with Marietta’s vexing ways,” she told the makeup-less hag looking back at her in the mirror. “You wouldn’t be happy to see Brad Pitt right now.”

  “Yeah, right,” the woman replied.

  “I’ll be right down,” she shouted, spitting toothpaste all over the faucets—a particularly irritating occurrence, because spraying toothpaste everywhere was Dirk’s job.

  He had equally disgusting jobs, which he also did well, but she decided not to dwell on them, in the interest of plastering a fake smile on her face and greeting her sister.

  “Marietta!” she exclaimed as she hurried down the staircase and found a somewhat younger and much more made-up version of herself standing in the foyer. “Why, sugar! What a surprise!”

  “Surprise, my foot. Don’t tell me that Gran didn’t call to warn you. She always ruins everything.” Marietta set her suitcases on the floo
r and hurried over to embrace Savannah at the bottom of the stairs.

  Tammy had played hostess and let Marietta in the door, but she gave Savannah a guilty little grin as she ducked out of sight into the living room.

  Savannah couldn’t blame her. Marietta had that effect on a lot of people. Even in their hometown of McGill, Georgia, folks were known to dive behind produce displays in the grocery stores to avoid Marietta Reid.

  She wasn’t a bad person, just high-energy, and she had a lot to say even when there was nothing to talk about.

  “Hey girl! Look at you,” Savannah said, surveying her sister from the top of her highly frosted, highly teased, big hair, to the sequined leopard-print sweater, to the black miniskirt, fishnet hose, and purple pumps. “Ain’t you just all gussied up. And for air travel, too!”

  Marietta patted her oversized hairdo with one hand, and her hip with the other. “Well, I do believe in looking your best at all times. Rich men ride on those airplanes. It ain’t like takin’ the bus, you know. And you just might find yourself strikin’ up a meaningful relationship on a long flight like that one.”

  “Did you meet anybody?”

  “Naw. They sat me next to some old lady. And another gal was across the aisle with two noisy young’uns. If I’d wanted to spend five hours listenin’ to brats bawl and carry on, I’d have stayed home and spent the day with Vidalia and her bunch.”

  “How is Vi these days?”

  Marietta tossed her head, nearly moving her hair, and sniffed. “We’re fighting again, and I haven’t spoken to her in two days.”

  “Two whole days. Sounds serious.”

  “It is. She said some hard, tacky things to me, and I don’t think I’m gonna be gettin’ over it any time soon. Do you have something to eat? Because, you know, those tightwads don’t even feed you anymore on those airplanes.” She headed for the kitchen with Savannah trailing behind. “And they shove you into those tiny little seats that aren’t big enough for a gopher to sit in. Nope, air travel just ain’t as glamorous as it used to be when they served you those yummy smoked almonds…”