Every Body on Deck

by G. A. McKevett

  Books by G.A. McKevett

  Just Desserts

  Bitter Sweets

  Killer Calories

  Cooked Goose

  Sugar and Spite

  Sour Grapes

  Peaches and Screams

  Death By Chocolate

  Cereal Killer

  Murder a’ la Mode

  Corpse Suzette

  Fat Free and Fatal

  Poisoned Tarts

  A Body to Die For

  Wicked Craving

  A Decadent Way to Die

  Buried in Buttercream

  Killer Honeymoon

  Killer Physique

  Killer Gourmet

  Killer Reunion

  Every Body on Deck

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  G.A. MCKEVETT

  Every Body ON DECK

  A SAVANNAH REID MYSTERY

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by G.A. McKevett and Kensington Publishing Corporation

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2016955346

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-0082-7

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-0082-1

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: May 2017

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0083-4

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-0083-X

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: May 2017

  This book is lovingly dedicated to the Grandangels, the stars in my heaven.

  Thank you, Leslie Connell, for your many years of friendship and service. For both, I will be forever grateful.

  I also wish to thank all the fans who write to me, sharing their thoughts and offering endless encouragement. Your stories touch my heart, and I enjoy your letters more than you know. I can be reached at:

  sonja@sonjamassie.com

  and

  facebook.com/gwendolynnarden.mckevett

  Chapter 1

  “Savannah, that’s the third disturbance call this week! You gotta get your grandmother under control, girl.” Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter switched off his cell phone and jammed it into the inside pocket of his leather bomber jacket. “I don’t want the chief calling me on the carpet about her no more. I can get in plenty of trouble all on my own, thank you. I don’t need any help from your relatives.”

  Savannah Reid didn’t bother to ask for the gory details. She just sighed, turned the ruby red 1965 Mustang around, and headed out of town, toward the trailer park where her grandma had recently relocated.

  “Darlin’, have you ever noticed,” she said, her Southern drawl even more pronounced than usual because she was annoyed, “that when she’s baking you banana bread, she’s ‘Granny?’ But the minute she does something a wee bit out of line, all of a sudden she’s ‘your grandmother’?”

  “A wee bit outta line?” He gave a loud snort that made her jump.

  Wow, he’s really irked, she warned herself. Usually, when he was aggravated, he just gave the occasional cringe-worthy liquid sniff.

  “She assaulted her neighbor,” he said. “Clobbered him with a book.”

  Savannah snickered. “Just a couple of little harmless whacks about the head and shoulders with a New Testament.”

  “New and Old Testaments. She beat the crap outta him with the whole Bible. Large print, I believe. The thing weighed a ton. She coulda killed him. Or at least given him a concussion.”

  “Gran’s in her eighties. Of course it was large print.” She snickered. “Sorta brings new meaning to the term ‘Bible thumper,’ huh?”

  He didn’t laugh. She turned and searched his face. Not even a trace of a Dirk smirk. So she tried another tack. “Besides, it was Ol’ Man Biddle. Shoot, you lived by him and his old lady for years. You know yourself what an ornery peckerwood he is. Not to mention a pervert. If my Granny Reid hit him, he deserved it.”

  “But isn’t she a Baptist or a Methodist or something like that? Isn’t hitting him with the Good Book kinda sacrilegious or something?”

  Savannah shrugged. “It’s what she had in her hand when she saw him peeping through her window.”

  Dirk opened the glove compartment and took out a plastic bag filled with cinnamon sticks. “The chief thought it was kinda cute the first time. But he took a dim view of her smacking Biddle around a second time, and with a cast iron skillet.”

  “Again, it’s what she had in her hand. A weapon of opportunity. Biddle should’ve known better than to go skulking around her trailer two nights in a row. Apparently, he’s a slow learner.”

  Poking one of the cinnamon sticks into the corner of his mouth, Dirk said, “You’re going to have to explain to her that this isn’t Georgia. Bible whackin’ and skillet smackin’ ain’t as widely accepted here on the West Coast as they are in the rural South. Since she’s moved to California, she’s turned into a juvenile delinquent.”

  Savannah drove the red pony off the main highway and onto the pothole-pocked road that led to Shady Vale, one of the area’s two trailer parks.

  The picturesque, seaside resort town of San Carmelita had approved zoning for one mobile home park—an elegant, beachfront community, tastefully landscaped with copious palm trees, rockeries adorned with succulents, and the occasional water feature. Highly selective, the home-owners association of Pacifica Harbor Park thoroughly vetted every potential inhabitant, insuring that only the most respectable and law-abiding members of society were invited to live among them.

  Granny Reid had submitted her application and was anxiously awaiting their approval. Until then, she was stuck with the rest of the miscreants in Shady Vale. The “other” park.

  Dirk was all too familiar with the community himself, having lived there for most of his adult life, until marrying Savannah and moving into her small, midtown home. Better digs was just one of the many upticks that marriage had brought him, along with a steady stream of home-cooked meals, cable TV, and an honest-to-goodness love life.

  He was, for the most part, a deliriously happy married man.

  Except when his in-laws broke the rules of society, and he was assigned the task of corralling them.

  Just outside the city limits, at the end of the bumpy and broken road, past some neglected orange groves and beyond a windbreak of ancient eucalyptus trees, sat an
assortment of house trailers. A baker’s dozen. Rusty and decrepit, they were unlikely to ever be called “mobile homes” again. At least, not without a hearty amount of scrubbing, some skillful bodywork, and a spray painting.

  In general, the residents of Shady Vale weren’t known for being overly ambitious when it came to even basic home maintenance, let alone beautification.

  As Savannah drove past the row of fragrant, gray green eucalyptus trees, she steeled herself for what might lie ahead. Granny Reid was a peaceful, God-fearing, law-abiding woman who was mostly known for her piety, good humor, and the triple-chocolate cakes she baked and delivered to members of the community who were in need.

  In her hometown of McGill, Georgia, many of her neighbors had found those cakes—as well as pots of homemade soup, loaves of freshly baked bread, and tins of pecan fudge—on their doorsteps when sickness, financial hardships, family problems, or death itself had visited their homes.

  When Gran had first moved to San Carmelita and taken over Dirk’s old trailer, Savannah had seen her extending the same warm, neighborly kindness toward her fellow Shady Valeians.

  But then Ol’ Man Biddle had commenced with his tomfoolery. Some new ruffian residents had moved into the tiny community, individuals who were a bit more unruly and untidy than the less-than-stellar status quo.

  The situation had been rumbling downhill ever since.

  Savannah heard her husband groan, and she didn’t need to ask why, as the park came into full view ahead. It looked like 90 ninety percent of the town’s law enforcement personnel was there. Several radio cars blocked the entrance, their red and blue lights flashing. Inside the property were more police vehicles, uniformed cops galore, two fire engines, copious ambulances, and a large black truck with red and gold lettering on the side that identified it as belonging to the Hazardous Materials Response Team.

  “Hazmat?” they both said in unison.

  “Lordy mercy,” Savannah whispered.

  Dirk shook his head. “What the hell’s she done now?”

  “I just hope she’s all right.” Savannah’s heart was racing as she strained to see if anyone was being loaded into the ambulances. But the EMTs were nowhere in sight. The only individuals milling about were dressed in white protection garb, with hoods and self-contained breathing apparatuses over their faces.

  Dirk took a long drag on his cinnamon stick and said, “I’ll bet she fed that bloodhound of hers chicken livers again. She should know better. It gives him the worst gas I’ve ever smelled in my life.”

  In the interest of maintaining matrimonial harmony—at least what little there was at the moment—Savannah decided not to mention that Colonel Beauregard’s chicken liver gas expulsions were not the worst thing she had ever smelled. Without a doubt, Dirk had won the blue ribbon in that contest after an all-you-can-eat buffet extravaganza at Casa Jose’s. Savannah and the cats had fled the toxic cloud in the middle of the night, evacuating to the living room sofa, because the air in the master bedroom had become dangerous to any creature possessing a nose and set of lungs.

  But Savannah decided to keep her mouth shut and spare Dirk that trip down memory lane.

  There was, after all, a time to correct those around you and a time to just sit silently and smugly, reveling in the self-satisfaction that they were just purely wrong.

  This was one of those times.

  Biting her tongue, she pulled the Mustang as close as she could to the area that had been cordoned off by yellow police barricade tape. As soon as she had parked, they both jumped out and rushed to the nearest squad car. The uniformed patrolman inside recognized them and rolled down his window.

  Nodding to Dirk, he said, “Mornin’, Detective. Not surprised to see you show up, this being your old stomping grounds and all.” He flashed Savannah a grin. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Coulter. How’s the sergeant here treating you?”

  Savannah returned the smile. “It’s still ‘Reid,’” she replied, “but I’m enjoying being a Mrs., for sure.”

  Never thrilled with what he called “pointless chitchat,” Dirk cleared his throat and gave the officer his grimmest, no-nonsense scowl. “Whatcha got here?”

  The patrolman shrugged. “Don’t know. The chief said we should all stay in our units with the windows rolled up until hazmat figures out if it’s safe or not.”

  Savannah shot Dirk a quick look. She was deeply disturbed that her grandmother was in the middle of some sort of hazmat situation, but that concern was closely followed by her dismay at the thought of coming face to face with the police brass.

  Years ago, she and they had parted company under less than cordial circumstances. While she didn’t have any ex-husbands, she was pretty sure that running into the SCPD bosses felt a lot like rounding an aisle in the grocery store and finding yourself nose to nose with a previous spouse you were happy to be rid of.

  If your ex had a gun and a badge and hated you almost as much as you loathed him.

  The patrolman gave Savannah a sweet, reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. It’s the fire chief who’s giving the orders here,” he explained. “He’s the only boss around. At least for now.”

  Savannah resisted the urge to reach inside the squad car and give the kid a hug. Like every other uniformed peace officer in the SCPD, he obviously knew about her being ousted and his sympathies lay with her. She didn’t care so much what a few guys in suits thought of her, as long as the men and women in uniforms were on her side. Like this young man, who had been hired long after her departure, but he had heard her story and aligned himself with her.

  Ah. Loyalty among the rank and file.

  He deserved a hearty embrace.

  But Dirk wouldn’t approve. No doubt about it. He cast a dim eye on anything that might compromise his “bad-ass” reputation. Although he definitely had a soft side to his otherwise tough-as-nails persona, few living beings had the chance to see the sweet, mushy version of Dirk Coulter, let alone reap the benefits thereof. That privilege was mostly reserved for his wife and the children, cats, and dogs who happened to cross his path.

  In the course of his career Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter had garnered numerous awards: a Certificate of Commendation, a Lifesaving Medal, a Medal of Merit, and even the coveted Medal of Valor.

  Those honors aside, Dirk would never receive a Safe-Driving Medal or a Mr. Congeniality tiara and bouquet.

  He had no problem with that.

  Popularity and the good opinions and well wishes of his fellow human beings were commodities Dirk Coulter could do without.

  On the other hand, having been raised as a Southern female, Savannah lived in constant fear that someone, somewhere, might not think she was the finest person walking the face of the earth. She worried about it every day, all day, and it kept her awake at night. Everyone, absolutely everyone, had to adore her.

  Even people she couldn’t stand the sight of.

  She wanted to be Dirk when she grew up someday and not give a flying flapjack what anybody thought of her. But she sincerely doubted that was ever going to happen. Southern belle training went deep.

  DNA deep.

  She was doomed to a life of people pleasing.

  “Thanks,” she told the patrolman. “All I want is to find out if my grandma’s okay. Did you happen to see a feisty ol’ gal running around in a flowered caftan, causing trouble?”

  “Silver hair, big earrings, and a bloodhound?”

  “That’s her!”

  He nodded toward the trailer that had formerly been Dirk’s, but was now inhabited by Granny Reid and Colonel Beauregard. “When the chief cleared the area, he told her to go in there and not come out. She gave him some lip, but finally did as she was told.”

  “That sounds like your grandma,” Dirk grumbled under his breath.

  Savannah feigned surprise and indignation. “A Reid woman . . . giving someone lip? Unheard of.”

  Dirk snorted. “It’s the ‘did as she was told’ part that’s unbelievable.”

&
nbsp; Savannah left the car and hurried toward the trailer.

  “Hey!” the patrolman called out to her. “You can’t go over there. Not without a mask.”

  Savannah reached down, pulled the hem of her linen jacket up across her face.

  Long ago, she’d been told that in a potentially toxic situation, she should tear off her bra and hold one of the cups over her nose. But she couldn’t envision herself arriving at Gran’s door wearing her bra on her face instead of her boobs. That would, undoubtedly, lead to more speeches about Southern belle propriety, and she wasn’t in the mood. Especially if those speeches were given by a woman who had crossed paths with the law three times in one week.

  From the corner of her eye, she could see a couple of the hazmat workers in their white, hooded uniforms scurrying toward her. So she quickened her step and managed to reach the trailer’s front door before they could intercept her.

  She gave the door a couple of brisk raps. As she waited impatiently for Gran to answer, she turned and realized that Dirk was right behind her. The look of concern on his face went straight to her heart. He might complain about her grandmother from time to time, but he loved Granny dearly and was as concerned about her well-being as Savannah was.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Savannah realized that the hazmat workers were nearly upon them. This was no time to stand on formality.

  Savannah pushed the door open and hurried inside. Dirk quickly followed, then closed it firmly behind them and threw the bolt.

  “Gran? Granny, where are you? It’s me, Savannah. Dirk’s with me, so don’t come out unless you’re decent.”

  An instant later, the small trailer was filled with the plaintive sound of a baying bloodhound, as the Colonel in all of his canine glory came loping out of the bedroom. His long, silky, copper ears and pendulous dewlaps swung from side to side as he galloped toward them, eyes bright, tail wagging.