Savannah was surprised and not just because it was one of the few sentences he had contributed to the dinner conversation. She was pleasantly taken aback to see a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes that she recognized all too well. It was the same sparkle that his daughter’s eyes had when she was working a case.
It appeared the apple hadn’t fallen that far from the Hart family tree after all.
“Of course, you’d be welcome to join in the search, Mr. Hart,” Savannah told him. “The more, the better.”
It took only a moment for Dr. Lenora Hart to absorb what had just been said and to raise a complaint. “Quincy, I can’t imagine why you would want to join in such a thing.”
“Because I think it’s fascinating, this work they do,” he replied, showing more boldness and gumption than Savannah would’ve thought him capable of. “I’ve been listening to them for the past hour and thinking, What a wonderful way to make a living. A lot more exciting than board meetings, that’s for sure. There’s a mother and a baby missing,” he continued. “If I can help find them and return them to their friends and family, what an amazing thing that would be.”
“Get real, Quincy, do you really think you’re going to be the one to solve this case of theirs?”
“Well, I don’t know, Lenora. I might, and I might not. But I could at least try. What have I got to lose?”
“Your dignity. You’re too old to go rummaging around in sagebrush. What would your board members think?”
“I don’t give a damn what my board members think. We spend way too much time in this family worrying about what other people think, and I’m tired of it.”
Suddenly, Quincy Hart stood, reached across the table, and took his granddaughter from Dirk’s arms. He held her close to his chest for a while, breathing in the wonder of her delicate baby scent. Then he kissed her cheek and sat down.
He turned the infant to face him, pressed his nose to hers, looked into her big blue eyes, and said, “From now on, sweetheart, if you want to make happy noises, even in a public place, you go right ahead. Like Granny said, it’s the sweetest sound in the world.”
Quincy looked over at his wife with a strange combination of affection and sadness. “Starting right now,” he told his grandchild, “in our family, we’re going to worry a lot less about what other people think about us. We aren’t any more important than anyone else. Chances are good, they aren’t thinking about us at all.”
Chapter 19
The next morning, Savannah and Dirk arrived at the morgue armed for battle. Their weapon: a plastic container filled with chocolate chip/macadamia nut cookies, fresh from Savannah’s oven.
No one could say “no” to Savannah’s baking. Least of all, Dr. Jennifer Liu, the county’s top medical examiner.
She was the only woman Savannah had ever known who craved chocolate as much as she did.
Once they walked through the front door of the drab, depressing building, Savannah steeled herself for what would inevitably come next.
Kenny Bates.
She hated Kenny Bates, the behemoth who manned the front desk with the same ferocity as the Hound of Hades guarded the gates of hell, preventing those inside from escaping their eternal torment.
She wasn’t sure why she disliked him so much, though she had a plethora of reasons from which to choose: his taco-chip breath, his flea-infested toupee, his too-tight shirt that gapped open, revealing curly black belly hair. Or maybe it was the fact every time he laid eyes upon her he couldn’t resist telling her how deeply in lust he was with her. Although she was quite sure that he behaved just as badly with other woman he met, that knowledge did little to keep her from fantasizing about ways to murder him. Painful ways. Heinous ways.
She often did the math. If she had killed him the minute she’d met him, she would almost be eligible for parole by now.
Ah, twenty-twenty hindsight, she thought as she approached the counter, you can be cruel.
When she had Dirk with her, she always thought that Bates would be smart enough not to say anything stupid to her. But she had decided long ago that Kenny possessed absolutely zero self-control. He couldn’t help himself, even if it meant taking a beating.
The moment he heard the door close behind them and their footsteps approaching, he flipped off his computer screen and sauntered over to the counter where the sign-in clipboard resided. She watched as the expression on his face went from down-in-the-mouth to drool-out-of-the-mouth.
Apparently, just the sight of her made his day. She supposed she should be flattered to be so adored. But she would’ve much preferred to have been beaten with a wet squirrel then face Kenny Bates that morning—or any other morning for that matter.
“Hell-o-o, beautiful! I was wondering when I was gonna see you again” was the chipper greeting that awaited her as she stepped up to the counter, in search of the clipboard and its all-important sign-in sheet.
“Shut up, Bates,” Dirk warned him. “I’m not in the mood and neither is she.”
“I’m just saying hello to the prettiest woman who ever walked through those doors. Ain’t nothing offensive about that.”
“Bates,” Savannah said, “you could recite the Lord’s Prayer and make it sound dirty. Hand me the dadgum clipboard.”
“I’m not a machine, you know, handing out sign-in sheets like a trained monkey. I keep this place safe, too.”
“Yeah, from all those marauding hordes who wanna break in here and steal themselves a corpse.”
“I’m a policeman like any other one.”
“Frightening thought.”
“You should show me more respect.”
Savannah pasted the most deliberately phony smile she could summon across her face and said, “Officer Kenneth Bates, defender of Truth, Justice, and the American Way . . . if I have to go back there myself and find that clipboard, I swear I’ll beat you to death with it.”
Bates gasped and turned to Dirk. “Did you hear that? She threatened me. Your wife threatened me with bodily harm.”
“No, not bodily harm. Death. That was a death threat, and I’m pretty sure she means it. You’d better do what she says. She’s a scary broad.”
“Yeah? Well, you married her.”
“I happen to like scary broads. I feel safe when she’s around.”
“I don’t.”
“You shouldn’t. She hates your guts. If I were you, I’d produce that clipboard pronto.”
Bates reached up, straightened his toupee, then squatted down and grabbed a board from somewhere under the counter.
He groaned as he stood and held it out to Savannah. Locking eyes with her, he waggled one eyebrow and smiled.
No doubt, he’d intended it to be a sexy “come hither” look. But he failed by a mile. Rather than getting her hot and bothered, his smarmy, leering grin reminded her of a poor, run-over opossum, lying by the roadside for a week in the Georgia sun.
“Put it on the counter,” she said.
“Here it is. Come and get it.” He leaned back, holding it close to his chest. When she made a half attempt to grab it, he slid it down to his crotch area.
For a big guy, Dirk could move fast when he wanted to, and apparently, he wanted to. Badly. The next thing Savannah saw was an indiscernible whirlwind of activity. Then she heard Kenny yelping like a hound dog with his nose caught in a hole in the backdoor screen.
Finally, she was able to focus on bits and pieces of the flurry before her, and she realized that her husband was beating the tar out of ol’ Kenny with his own clipboard.
When it broke in half, he used both pieces.
By the time Dirk was finished, Kenny’s toupee was nowhere to be seen, Kenny had a bump on his forehead that was visibly growing by the second. His lip had a split, and blood was dribbling down his chin.
“Hey, I was just funnin’ with your wife,” he sobbed, backing away from Dirk. “You had no call to do that.”
“If I’d done what I ‘had call to do’ you’d be on y
our way to the hospital right now.” Dirk turned to Savannah. “I think we’ll just let Bates here sign us in, babe. Let’s get goin’.”
A moment later, they were walking down the long hallway that led to the autopsy suite.
Savannah slipped her arm through Dirk’s and leaned her head on his shoulder. “I want you to know that I appreciate you defending my honor like that back there, but I don’t condone violence.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. We just had a little discussion about the proper way to hold a clipboard when you’re offering it to a lady.”
“You laid hands on him first. Gran says, ‘Never put your hands on your fellow man in anger. But if he strikes the first blow, beat the ever-lovin’ tar outta him so he’ll never even think of doin’ it again.’ ”
“Yeah, you and Gran are real peace-lovin’ women.”
“We are.”
He snorted. “This from the woman who pelted the doughnut gal with her own doughnuts because she grabbed my ass when I was gettin’ a fresh cup of coffee.”
“I didn’t allow myself more than a dozen. Besides, they were just itty-bitty doughnut holes, not apple fritters or anything heavy enough to do any real harm.”
“There I thought you were outta control.”
“Never.”
They arrived at the large, swinging double doors that opened into the morgue’s autopsy suite, Dr. Jennifer Liu’s domain.
Savannah made sure the container of cookies was in front of her, held almost at eye level. Heaven forbid that the ME should happen to be in a bad mood and not notice the sacrificial offering.
Opening one of the doors a crack, Savannah looked inside. She saw Dr. Liu bending over the stainless-steel table, where she performed most of her work. Inspection, dissection, investigation—all done by the medical examiner to answer the lengthy list of questions society had when one of its members died unexpectedly.
Law enforcement wanted to know, the justice system wanted to know, and most of all, those who loved the deceased desperately needed to know.
Dr. Jennifer Liu was good at finding out what had happened to those who were unfortunate enough to end up on her autopsy table. She knew how important those questions were to those who asked them. She also knew that sometimes the only good thing that could come from a terrible situation was truth.
Before announcing her presence, Savannah paused and watched Dr. Liu as she locked the zipper of a body bag on her table, securing its contents.
From the moment they had met, Savannah had been mystified by this strange woman. Jennifer Liu looked more like an actress or fashion model than a medical examiner. Tall, thin, graceful, she was beautiful in an exotic way. When she was working, her long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, usually tied with a colorful silk scarf. Today, it was a print—orange, red, and yellow flames.
Savannah had never once seen her wearing “sensible” footwear. The doctor’s shoe closet must have been a wonder to behold, filled with spiky stilettos, strappy sandals, rhinestone-encrusted platforms, and thigh-high leather boots.
The sexy shoes, combined with Dr. Liu’s signature miniskirts, caused her to look like anything but a medical examiner from the waist down. The upper half was always professional, covered in a standard physician’s white coat. Once in a while, if it was a particularly messy autopsy, she would don disposable green scrubs.
Today she was wearing the white coat, and Savannah was glad. It was bad enough to lose a beautiful young woman like Pilar. But at least her family would be able to view her one last time if they chose.
In her time Savannah had seen far more violent, downright grisly deaths, and she was somewhat relieved that this didn’t appear to be one of them.
Dead was dead. But one death could be much worse than another.
As Dr. Liu finished gathering her instruments, she glanced up and caught sight of Savannah. More importantly, she saw the cookies.
She grinned, but only for a moment. Then her forehead wrinkled into a frown. “Is he with you?” she asked. “Did you bring him with you?”
“I’m afraid so.” Savannah pushed the door open a bit farther to reveal Dirk, who was standing just to her side.
“I’m not talking to him.” Dr. Liu tossed the tools of her trade onto a steel tray. “He was in here yesterday, noodging me, making a total nuisance of himself. Two days of Coulter in a row is more than I can take.”
“But he feels really bad about it,” Savannah assured her. “In fact, he was awake most of the night, pacing the floor, and wailing something about offending his favorite medical examiner. He was pert nigh beside himself with remorse.”
Savannah turned to Dirk, poked him in the ribs with her elbow, and whispered, “Weren’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s me. Overwrought with guilt.” He rolled his eyes.
“A less sincere apology, I’ve never heard.” Dr. Liu took the tray of used instruments and carried them across the room. She placed the assortment in a sink and then began to wash her hands, using a red, strong-smelling soap from a nearby dispenser.
When she had finished, she dried her hands and turned to Savannah and Dirk. “Come in, come in,” she said, beckoning them. “But only because you brought Savannah, and Savannah brought cookies,” she added.
Savannah handed her the container, then walked over to stand next to the body on the table. “Is this our girl?” she asked sadly.
“Yes. I just finished with her.”
“What did you find?” Dirk wanted to know.
“Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the brain. Manner of death: homicide.”
Dirk groaned. “Damn. There’s no chance it was an accident? Like maybe she fell and hit her head on something?”
“No, I’m sorry, Detective. No chance.”
“But how do you know for sure?”
Savannah winced, expecting Dirk to receive a sharp tongue-lashing from the proud and outspoken ME.
But to her surprise and relief, Dr. Liu didn’t seem to mind the question. Her voice was uncharacteristically calm and patient when she answered, “Your victim’s brain was only damaged on one side, the side where she was hit. When the head is stationary, and it’s hit by a moving object, the damage is done on that side only, in the area where it was struck. On the other hand, if the hard object is stationary, and the head is moving, you’ll find damage on the side that came in contact with the stationary object and on the opposite side, as well. It’s physics, Detective Coulter, and the way the brain moves within the skull upon impact. Understand?”
“Not really,” he admitted. “But if you say so.”
“Do you have any idea what she might have been struck with?” Savannah asked.
“Yes. A rock.”
“You know that for a fact?” Dirk asked.
“Yes.”
“How?” Dirk insisted.
“There was residue from the stone embedded in the tissue around the wound. Plus, CSI told me they found it, your murder weapon, thrown into the bushes between where the body was found and the parking lot. It was about ten feet from the path.”
Dirk looked at Savannah. She could see the excitement building in him, the same as it was growing in her. Finally, they had a ruling of homicide. They had a murder weapon. It was the oldest weapon ever used by human beings against their enemies. And right then it was at the Crime Scene Unit being processed.
“Is there anything else you can tell us, Dr. Jen?” Savannah asked.
“A couple of things. One, she struggled with her attacker. She has bruises around her wrists and marks, where the killer’s fingernails dug into her.”
“Did she have any of their skin or blood under her nails?” Dirk asked.
“No. Surprisingly none. However, she did have traces of red fibers. I’ll be sending those over to the lab within the hour. I understand there was a red knapsack of some sort found in the scene. Is that right?”
“Yes. A red leather one with a cloth strap,” Savannah t
old her.
“Do you suppose it was the victim’s?”
“No,” Dirk replied. “It belonged to her employer—the woman who’s still missing along with her kid.”
“CSI will be comparing the fibers that I found against the ones on that bag, I’m sure. As for me, that’s all I have for you.”
The doctor reached into the container, pulled out a cookie, and took a bite. She closed her eyes as she chewed, savoring the moment.
When she was finished, she replaced the lid on the container and stood on tiptoe to stash it on the top shelf of the nearby cupboard.
“I’d forgotten how good your cookies are, Savannah,” she said. “Anytime you want to bring that guy of yours around here, you go right ahead.”
“As long as I’ve got cookies.”
“Exactly.”
Chapter 20
“You should’ve saved at least half of those cookies to bring to Eileen,” Dirk told Savannah as they pulled into the CSI parking lot. “You know how she can be sometimes.”
Savannah glanced over at Dirk in the passenger seat and saw something on his face that struck terror in her heart. Guilt. She knew the look all too well.
“You’ve been here already about this case, haven’t you?”
“Why would you even ask something like that?”
“You came over here yesterday either before or after you pissed off Dr. Liu. That’s why you wanted me to come with you, isn’t it? Come on, confess and you’ll feel a lot better.”
“I plead the Fifth. I wanna lawyer.”
She growled and grumbled under her breath as they got out of the car and walked up to the nondescript white door, emblazoned with the county seal.
“If you hadn’t annoyed the daylights out of everybody who’s supposed to be helping us on this case yesterday, you could be doing this alone, and I could be interviewing Orman. We don’t have time to be doubling up on a simple errand like this.”
He stopped in his tracks and gave her his “I’ve got a great idea that you’re gonna love!” look. It was seldom a great idea and she almost never loved it, but that never stopped him from employing the tactic over and over again.
Hide and Sneak Page 18
