Again, no one answered, though they both could hear someone rummaging about inside.
“This is the San Carmelita Police Department,” he shouted. “Come to the door.”
Savannah stepped to the right and peered through a window into what looked like the living room. She saw a figure scurry across the room, and even though the house was dark inside, she was pretty sure it was a guy in his skivvies.
“Neal,” she shouted, “we know you’re in there, and we’re not leaving until we talk to you. So, come to the door. We don’t care if you’re dressed or not.”
“Well, I care if he’s dressed,” Dirk told her. “I only talk to guys with pants on.”
“Oh, please. Like you don’t run around the house naked as a jaybird half the time.”
“Not anymore, you’ll notice. Now that Tammy could be dropping in with the baby any minute, I’ve been keeping big Dirk and the twins under wraps.”
“Sh-h-h. I think I saw him coming to the door now. You don’t want our number one murder suspect to catch you talking about your exhibitionistic tendencies.”
“I’ll have you know that I—”
The door swung open, and there stood what Savannah thought at first was a child. Then she remembered that Ethan had described his wife’s first husband as weighing two pounds and afraid of the dark. She decided this had to be Neal Irwin, the Scourge and Enemy of Ducks Everywhere. As she had predicted, he was wearing nothing but some tight red spandex briefs.
“Aw, go put your pants on, dude,” Dirk told him. “Can’t you see there’s a lady standing here?”
Neal sized up Savannah with a lustful eye and said, “That’s okay. A lot of women have seen me undressed. Nobody’s complained yet.”
“Yeah, well, this one’s my wife. So, go put your damned pants on before I lose my temper and slug you.”
“Are you sure you’re a real policeman?” Irwin asked with a smart-aleck grin.
Dirk growled and took a quick step toward him. Immediately Savannah intervened.
Stepping between the two men, she turned to Neal Irwin and said, “Why don’t you go get dressed, Mr. Irwin? I’m sure if you do, things will go much better.”
Neal started to shut the door, but Dirk stuck his foot in the crack, preventing him from doing so. “Just leave it open,” Dirk told him. “And don’t take all day getting them pants on neither. We’ve got business to conduct.”
Irwin glanced from Dirk, to Savannah, then back to Dirk. The look seemed furtive to Savannah. She got the feeling he was debating whether or not to bolt.
“Don’t even think about sneaking out the back way either,” she told him. “We’ve got a couple of guys waiting in your backyard, watching the back door and the windows, just in case you decide to be unfriendly and leave before you’ve even had a chance to get to know us.”
As soon as Irwin retreated from the door into the darkness of the house, supposedly in search of more substantial clothing, Dirk turned to Savannah and said, “Can you believe the arrogance of this guy? That comment about all the women who’ve seen him in his underwear and think he’s cute. Do you think he’s cute, you know, in his red banana hammock?”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t really looking at his banana, ham-mocked or otherwise.”
“Good answer.”
“Thank you. I thought so, too. Besides, why would I look at him, when I get such a delicious eyeful at home.”
“Now you’re overdoing it.”
“Oh. Sorry. It’s hard, you know, striking that delicate balance.”
“Between bald-faced, lying flattery, and genuine, affectionate praise?”
“That would be the one.”
“But you did notice his legs. I saw you checking them out. You were definitely checking out his legs.”
“He’s got bird legs, Dirk. Skinny, bony, knobby-kneed bird legs. At home I have big, hairy, manly, tree-trunk legs to look at. Why would I give him a second glance?”
“Gee, thanks.” She was surprised to see he looked genuinely pleased about the “compliment.”
“You’re welcome.” She rolled her eyes, stuck her head in the door, and yelled, “Neal Irwin, haul buns, boy. We ain’t got all day, you know.”
Savannah looked over at her husband. He was still beaming, still grinning like a jackass eating cactus.
All that because I said he had good legs, she thought. Men are so-o-o easy.
* * *
A few minutes later, Savannah and Dirk were sitting on a sofa that smelled of cat urine, amid stacks of boxes, piles of newspapers and magazines, and bags of garbage that had never found its way to the can, let alone the curb.
Savannah wasn’t sure if Momma Irwin had been a hoarder, a lackadaisical housekeeper, or a lot of both.
Either way, Sonny Boy Neal didn’t seem to mind. He tossed a large pizza box filled with empty soft drink cans and ice cream containers off a leatherette recliner and plopped himself down on it.
Savannah decided that Mom might have been a great housekeeper and her son might have managed to trash it so thoroughly in the months since her passing.
Neal’s idea of “getting dressed to entertain guests” consisted of pulling on a pair of black, baggy, knit shorts, which Savannah decided must have belonged to Momma. He certainly hadn’t bought them in the men’s department of any retailer.
She remembered what Luciana had said about him being quite the womanizer, and she found it difficult to believe. While Savannah had never seen Beth Malloy in person, she recalled how the actress looked in The Great Gatsby, and she had been lovely. Savannah recalled what Amy had told her about how men found Beth irresistible and flirted with her constantly.
She couldn’t imagine a woman like that finding the guy sitting in his mother’s chair wearing his mother’s shorts attractive.
But then, there was no accounting for taste—or the lack of it.
“What’s this all about?” Neal Irwin asked. “You want me bad enough to track me down here? I paid those parking tickets last month. I swear. I can show you the canceled check if you want.”
“I couldn’t care less about your parking tickets,” Dirk told him. “Are you telling me you don’t know what’s happened?”
“What? What’s happened?”
“The business about your ex-wife?”
“Which one?”
Again, Savannah’s head spun. He had more than one ex-wife? More than one woman had actually walked down the aisle with this guy? It was hard to believe, but then, maybe he cleaned up good.
She couldn’t imagine there was enough soap in the world to do the job properly. An ugly spirit was hard to wash away, and a cruel one impossible to hide.
Dirk gave him one of his worst scowls, the kind he usually reserved for hardened criminals whom he had personally busted more than three times. “Do you expect me to believe that you haven’t seen the news or gone on social media or noticed the Amber alerts on the freeway and highway signs?”
“Amber alert?” He seemed genuinely confused. “Why? Is some kid missing?”
“Yes,” Savannah said. “Your ex-wife’s son. In fact, both she and the child have disappeared.”
“Melinda and Jake are missing?”
“Beth and Freddy, you numskull,” Dirk said. “Now don’t pretend you didn’t know that.”
“How would I know that?” he asked in a whining tone that grated on Savannah’s nerves. “I don’t watch TV, and I haven’t been on social media all day.”
“Well, they’re missing, and we need to know a few things,” Savannah told him. “Like, when was the last time you saw your ex-wife?”
“I don’t know. A long time.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Savannah told him.
“Then you heard wrong. I haven’t seen her for months, years even. Like not since before her kid was born.”
“You’ve seen her since then,” Dirk said. “In fact, you’ve seen a lot of her since then. Every single inch of her. I have a picture to prove it.
”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Have you spoken to her on the phone recently?” Savannah wanted to know.
“Yes. A few times. She’s not happy in her marriage, and sometimes she just needs a shoulder to cry on. That’s it. That’s all that’s left of our relationship now—her complaining about him.”
“Crying on your shoulder, huh?” Dirk said. “Is that what you call what you two were doing in the picture that I saw?”
“What’s this about a picture?” Neal said. “What picture? All of a sudden, everybody’s talking about some picture.”
“Who’s ‘everybody’?” Savannah wanted to know.
“You, her, Ethan. She called me yesterday, sobbing her face off, all upset over some picture that somebody sent Ethan. It’s supposed to be of her and me getting it on. If it is, it must be an old one. Because she and I haven’t done the deed for five years, at least.”
Savannah didn’t know whether to believe him or not. His facial expressions and tone of voice actually sounded genuine, but then, he wouldn’t be the first good liar who managed to sound truthful while lying their backsides off.
Years ago, Savannah had discovered that those who blithely lie their way through life are often quite good at it—practice having made perfect.
Even seasoned members of law enforcement had a hard time discerning whether a suspect was telling the truth or setting their own pants afire with their constant flow of fabrications and deceptions.
“Then you’re denying that it’s you in that picture?” Dirk asked.
“No, I’m not denying it. I haven’t seen the picture. It might be me. I’m denying that I’ve had sex with Beth since we broke up, and she married that idiot she’s with now.”
He reached down, grabbed an empty soda can, and squeezed it until it crunched in his hand. Then he threw it across the room.
Temper, temper, Savannah thought. Not exactly a smart time to demonstrate your anger issues in front of a cop.
“By the way,” Neal continued, “even if I was banging my ex, which I’m not, she wouldn’t be the only unfaithful one in that marriage. Old Ethan’s getting something on the side himself. There’s even a picture of it. A real, up-to-date picture. That’s what you ought to be looking at.”
“Do you have a copy of this alleged picture?” Dirk asked.
“No, but Beth said she did. Some friend of hers sent it to her. She got all upset about it.”
“She probably would,” Savannah said, “having been there and done that before. Remember, Neal?”
He gave a derisive sniff and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You just find that picture of Ethan and his former fiancée, and then ask him if he was looking to get rid of his wife so he could get back with her.”
“Beth and Freddy aren’t the only ones who are missing,” Savannah told him. “Their nanny, Pilar, disappeared the same time that they did.”
“Yeah, well. That’s too bad.”
“We found her this morning,” Dirk said. “Dead.”
Neal seemed mildly interested. “Oh? Wow. Bummer.”
“We figure the same person who killed the nanny has Beth and Freddy.”
“It wasn’t me. That’s all I’ve got to say. Check out What’s-His-Face. When a woman goes missing or gets killed, isn’t it almost always the husband?”
“Or an ex-husband,” Savannah said. “Ethan didn’t do it,” she added with pseudo-confidence. “If he didn’t and you didn’t, who do you figure did?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that manager of his who’s always hanging around their house, trying to get something going with Beth. She told me he creeps her out.”
“She told you that?” Dirk asked. “Those were her words?”
“Her exact words.”
That was the second time Savannah had heard someone express their distrust of Abel Orman in the past couple of hours. She mentally underlined his name on her suspect board, and moved him a notch higher.
Yet, for all of his protestations to the contrary, she still didn’t trust Neal Irwin. She had to be honest and admit that it might have something to do with the duck and jalapeño pepper. But she wasn’t ready to peel his name off the board just yet.
She looked over at Dirk, caught his attention, and began to toy with her right hoop earring. It was a signal they had used for years.
It was time for a “potty break.”
“Excuse me,” she said brightly to Neal. “But would you mind if I use your little girls’ room? I had a big glass of sweet tea at lunch, and it’s coming through with a vengeance.”
Neal hesitated, frowned, then said, “Yeah, I guess so. If you’ve really gotta go.”
“I really do.” She giggled. “My bladder’s the size of a thimble. A real nuisance.”
She jumped up off the sofa and headed for a nearby hallway entrance. “Is it back here?”
“Yes. Straight down the hall. The door’s open. But I have to warn you, it’s a little messy.”
“I don’t mind. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that.”
She scurried down the hallway. Reaching the end, she saw the bathroom door, open as he had said. She also saw another open door. Glancing inside she saw a bedroom filled with junk and an unmade bed. It was the closed door that caught her eye and captured her imagination.
She listened carefully and heard Dirk chatting away, far more loquacious than the usual Dirk. That was part of the drill. She claimed to need the bathroom, and he kept the subject busy while she snooped.
Of course, nothing she found would be admissible in court, since Dirk had no search warrant, and she wasn’t even a cop anymore. But sometimes she found something, some little something, or when she was lucky, some big something that provided a break in the case.
She wouldn’t have dared to do anything so underhanded while she was a cop, but now that she was a private detective, she had let her standards slip considerably.
It was part of the charm of being a PI.
Carefully, slowly, she eased the closed door open a crack and looked inside. She could hear Dirk clearly now, his voice louder than before, covering for her, keeping Neal well occupied.
Sticking her head inside the room, she looked around and caught her breath. No wonder he had the door closed. No wonder he hadn’t wanted her to come back there.
Neal Irwin had secrets to hide. One very big one in particular.
Chapter 17
“I feel so guilty taking the time to have a nice dinner,” Savannah told Dirk as they parked in front of Ryan’s and John’s restaurant.
“I don’t.”
She gave him a wifely “look of disapproval,” then reached into her purse for her lipstick and brush.
“You have no guilt at all when it comes to anything having to do with food.”
“Of course not. Why should I? Food is necessary. Food is good. If it’s around, you should eat it. As much of it as you can.”
“I totally agree, and having an attitude like that explains my svelte figure and your rock-hard abs.”
“Why, thank you for noticing.” He looked down at his belly, tapped it, and smiled with genuine pride.
She shook her head and thought how hard it was to insult a male as supremely confident as hers. With such a high level of self-esteem he seemed impervious to sarcasm.
Leaving him to admire his abs, she reached into her purse and pulled out the beautiful old Stratton compact that Granny had given her for her sixteenth birthday. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a woman who’d had a rough day.
Maybe Dirk was right. Maybe you should grab the opportunity to nourish your body and your spirit with a good meal whenever possible. Even more so if you were in law enforcement or private detection. One could never know when the opportunity to eat might present itself again. Or not.
She refreshed her lipstick, thinking what a perfect lip line Dr. Lenora Hart had when she saw her last. Then she brushed her hair thoroughly, trying to arrange her curls in
some semblance of an actual hairdo.
Somehow, she knew that it would take a lot more than this extra grooming to make her presentable to her friend’s mother. In fact, she was pretty sure that there was nothing on God’s green earth that she could do that would enable her to officially be “up to snuff” in the other woman’s eyes.
It seemed to Savannah that Tammy’s mother considered her to be competition, and the prize appeared to be Tammy’s respect and loyalty.
Savannah knew that no matter what she wore, how she acted, what she said, Lenora Hart would never consider her worthy of her daughter’s affection.
So, why try?
Savannah looked in the mirror at the tired woman with great lipstick and silently told her, Because you’re a woman, and you can’t help yourself. You can’t stand it if everybody you meet doesn’t fall in love with you at first sight and think you’re the best thing since double-ply toilet paper.
“Okay,” she said, returning her toiletries to her purse. “Let’s go eat something amazing, and remember, no talking shop at the table. This dinner is to be about Tammy and her folks, not a business meeting of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
Moments later, when they opened the door of ReJuvene and stepped inside, Savannah could instantly feel her body begin to relax and her spirit to restore.
Walking into this beautiful restaurant, created by her friends Ryan and John, was like being embraced by them.
Both men’s exquisite taste was reflected in the decor of the place. John’s traditional British upbringing showed in the masculine leather chairs with nail head trim that invited the diners to linger and savor. The antique brick walls and mahogany bookshelves provided the perfect backdrop for the fine old books and interesting artifacts that Ryan and John had collected during their world travels.
Oversized gilt-framed mirrors reflected the contemporary touches that Ryan had inspired. A beautiful water feature behind the bar had been formed from an exquisite slab of green slate. The glittering waterfall cascaded down the stone, disappearing into a line of fire at the bottom.
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