Her companion nodded. “I understand completely. That’s the worst part about quitting. You pork right out. Your good clothes don’t fit you anymore. It’s just not worth it.”
As the women continued to chat about the downfalls of giving up nicotine, they turned their faces slightly toward Savannah, and she could see them more clearly owing to the dim halogen lights that lit the entrance.
She recognized Amy Jameson immediately. She looked a lot like her father, Herb. Although his hair was now silver and thin, it had once been auburn, thick, and curly like Amy’s. And they both had soft, sweet faces and easy smiles, readily offered to everyone they met.
Until tonight, anyway, Savannah reminded herself. Once again, she found herself wondering at the change in the undertaker’s personality. People seemed to change around Jeanette, and not for the better.
The person who had always been closest to Jeanette was the smoker who was speaking with Amy at the moment. Lisa Mooney—now Lisa Riggs, since she had married the middle Riggs boy, Frank—had been Savannah’s second least favorite female at McGill High. She had always emulated Jeanette in every way possible. For as long as Savannah had known her, Lisa had dressed like Jeanette, had walked with the same prissiness as Jeanette, had talked like her, and had tormented other girls in fine form, under Jeanette’s rigorous tutelage.
Savannah had assumed that one day Lisa would outgrow Jeanette and become her own person. But apparently, she hadn’t, judging from her attire. She was wearing an outfit that was almost identical to Jeanette’s, except for the color. Lisa’s dress, purse, and high heels were all hot pink, and though a bit less rhinestone encrusted than Jeanette’s, her attire definitely qualified her as second runner-up in the “gaudy” category at the reunion.
But Lisa’s mood seemed far less festive than her overstated costume. She looked perfectly miserable as the two women conversed in hushed tones.
“I don’t understand how you can still be friends with the likes of her,” Amy was saying to Lisa in a voice far more harsh than Savannah had ever heard her use. “How can you still talk to her? How can you be nice to her, knowing what she’s done?”
“I don’t know for a fact that she did it, and neither do you,” was Lisa’s quick retort. “I like to think of myself as a loyal person. I don’t turn my back on my best friend just because of some mean-spirited gossip.”
Amy dropped her voice even lower, and Savannah had to strain to hear her say, “You know it’s true, Lisa. You, of all people. You know her better than anybody, and you know in your heart what she did. It’s time she was held accountable for all the lives she’s destroyed.”
To Savannah’s surprise, Lisa threw her cigarette onto the sidewalk, covered her face with her hands, and began to cry. She wept so bitterly that Savannah couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.
Did it really matter that twenty-five years ago a teenage girl had made love to her boyfriend? A relatively worthless boyfriend at that, as it had turned out. Who hadn’t committed a few youthful indiscretions in their day? Tonight the woman Lisa had become was hurting badly, apparently paying a heavy price for being loyal to the wrong person.
Savannah thought back over the years, recalling how Lisa had been Jeanette’s ever-present sidekick, fighting her battles for her, doing the more aggressive girl’s bidding, all without question.
It must be hard, Savannah thought, to pass the age of forty and only then realize that the person you’ve spent your life idolizing may have committed murder.
“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe she would stoop that low.” Lisa fished around in her purse but brought out nothing but her cigarettes, a hairbrush, and a lipstick.
Amy produced a tissue from her pocket and handed it to Lisa. “I know what you mean,” she said, her tone softer and less accusatory than before. “I have a hard time believing that he’d go along with it, too. I sure thought better of him than that. But Jeanette’s always had a way with men. She knows just how to get whatever she wants from them. He’s not the first to give in to her, and he sure won’t be the last.”
Savannah could hear the pain and disappointment in Amy’s voice, as well. She tried to imagine how difficult it would be to realize that your own father had aided and abetted a murderess—all for the price of a new Cadillac and a roll in the hay.
Amy’s mother had died when she and her two sisters were very young, and Herb Jameson had raised his girls with loving devotion. Savannah had never heard a cross word pass between Herb and his daughters or seen any sign of dissension in their relationships.
Leave it to Jeanette to cause problems where there had never been any before.
As though materializing from their conversation, Jeanette sauntered out the back door with Herb at her heels.
Savannah took a step backward, deeper into the shadows.
Amy and Lisa froze, looking like a pair of rabbits whose hutch had just been invaded by a fox.
But as Jeanette headed in their direction, Lisa suddenly sprang to life and said in a far too loud and animated voice, “I’ve gotta skedaddle. Frank had to work tonight, but he’s probably home by now. Promised to make it up to me with a nice romantic dinner. So I’d better git goin’.”
Her unconvincing speech delivered, she scurried away and disappeared into the darkness among the parked cars.
Jeanette walked up to Amy, her backbone even stiffer and her chin even higher than usual. “Well, well. That one took off like somebody’d lit a bonfire on her skirt tail.”
After a long, tense moment, Amy said, “I reckon she had somewhere to be.”
Jeanette sniffed. “Oh, yeah. Like that tightwad Frank would treat her to a romantic dinner. She’d do well to weasel a cheeseburger and the small fry out of that cheapskate.”
“As it turns out,” Amy said with a quick hurt look at her dad, “I’ve got someplace to be myself.”
“Really?” Jeanette said as Herb stared down at the sidewalk. “And where’s that?”
“Anywhere but here,” was Amy’s curt reply before she turned and strode away into the darkness without another word to Jeanette or any further acknowledgment of her father.
Herb looked perfectly miserable as he watched his daughter leave. It occurred to Savannah that he, too, would prefer to be anywhere other than in his present situation.
But it was Jeanette’s response that fascinated Savannah. As Jeanette stood, glaring at the departing Amy, her face darkened with anger so intense and ugly that, even knowing her history, Savannah was taken aback.
Apparently, the years had not improved Jeanette’s temperament. Quite the contrary, it seemed.
But Savannah wasn’t surprised. Having dealt with people during some of their worst moments, she had formulated a theory about mankind. She’d decided that with age, good people tended to become better, bad people got worse, and sometimes good folks went wrong. But she had yet to see a bad person become a good one.
So it was no shock that a spoiled and temperamental child had become an angry and potentially dangerous woman.
As Savannah watched the humiliated woman huff and puff, fists clenched, she could feel Jeanette’s rage building. Having not one, but two former friends disrespect her so blatantly wasn’t something that McGill’s closest thing to a socialite was accustomed to.
Savannah wasn’t surprised when Jeanette turned her wrath on her date.
“Well, thank you very much, Herb,” she said, her voice thick with sarcasm. “I sure appreciate how you rushed to my defense there.”
Herb shrugged. “Sorry, sugar, but I don’t know what you expected me to say or do.”
“You could have at least told that smart-mouthed daughter of yours to show me a bit of respect. I’ve been nothing but good to her over the years, introducing her and her sisters to important people, inviting them to all the best parties. Parties they never would’ve been able to attend, them being nothing but run-of-the-mill undertaker’s daughters.”
Savannah watched as the mortic
ian squared his thin shoulders. “I suppose, if that’s the way you feel, you won’t mind if this run-of-the-mill undertaker finds himself another way home.”
“What other way?” Jeanette’s rage burned several degrees hotter. Even in the semidarkness, Savannah could see that she was trembling with fury as she reached out and poked Herb’s chest hard with her long acrylic fingernail. Purple, of course. “What other way?” she repeated. “Are you going to embarrass yourself and me, too, by hitchhiking your way home, when everybody here knows you’re my date?”
Herb grabbed her hand in mid-poke and squeezed it hard. “I might hitchhike,” he said. “If that’s what it takes. I don’t care, as long as I’m not with you. This date’s over, Jeanette. In fact, the whole thing’s over. I’m done with you. And frankly, I’ve got to tell you, you weren’t worth it. Not even close.”
As yet a third person walked away from Jeanette in less than five minutes, she shouted at his retreating back, “I don’t suppose that new Cadillac was worth it, either, huh?”
Glancing briefly over his shoulder, he said, “I’m returning it to Arthur tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll give you some sort of refund.”
“Too bad there ain’t some sorta refund for dating an impotent old man!”
Herb paused in mid-step for half a second, then continued on, his stride even faster and more purposeful than before.
Ouch, Savannah thought. Low, low blow.
Even in the course of a heated argument, some topics needed to be off-limits. Apparently, Jeanette hadn’t heard that rule or, more likely, had given herself permission to violate it.
As Savannah stood still and silent in the shadows, watching her enemy’s humiliation, it occurred to her that she should be enjoying this moment more. At least she would have expected to.
How many times in her imagination had she told this person off, given her a piece of her mind, set her straight? How many times had she fancied a hundred different ways that Jeanette might get her comeuppance in the most humiliating ways possible?
But while the fantasies had given Savannah a great deal of pleasure at the time, the reality seemed far less sweet. More than anything else, she felt sad.
So much drama, so much pain, for so many people . . . and for what?
Nothing.
It was all completely pointless.
Such a waste of time, of energy . . . of life.
For years she had hated Jeanette and had wished her ill, and now, seeing her nemesis in the flesh, in the act of living out her own miserable existence, it occurred to Savannah that the worst punishment Jeanette could receive was simply being Jeanette.
“What are you lookin’ at?”
It took a second for Savannah to realize that Jeanette had spotted her and was speaking to her.
The rudeness of the question and how it was asked dispelled any momentary sense of pity Savannah was feeling. Anger, the cold kind, hit her bloodstream like an instant four-liter transfusion of frosty iced tea.
“I beg your pardon?” she said in a flat, sinister tone, one that might have concerned a somewhat more timid soul.
But Jeanette Barnsworth had no link labeled TIMID on her DNA chain.
“I asked you what you’re lookin’ at. Hiding there in the shadows, eavesdropping, listening to stuff that’s none of your business.”
Slowly, Savannah stepped out of the darkness and into the dim yellow light.
As anemic as the halogen glow was, Jeanette appeared to see something in Savannah’s eyes that registered at least a bit of caution. She took one step backward, putting a little more distance between them.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Savannah said. “I was just standing there with my teeth in my mouth, waiting for my husband to bring the car up, when you started screaming nasty things at your date. If they were secrets, maybe you shouldn’t have been shouting them out for God and everybody to hear.”
“Yeah, well, I reckon since they kicked you off the police force for being so fat, you’re one of those private detectives who go around spying on people for money. ’Pears you’re good at somethin’, after all.”
Savannah swallowed a gasp as the sharp blade of the woman’s words drove deep into her heart. What was it about catty, cruel women that they always knew your soul’s deepest wound and how to pierce it, at whim, with breathtaking accuracy?
She forced her voice to be even, her breathing slow and calm, as she said, “Your investigation skills are sadly lacking there, Miss Jeanette. Part of being a good detective is making sure you’ve got all the facts in hand before you go accusing people. And not just the facts that suit your purpose.”
“And what purpose do you reckon I’ve got?”
“Putting other people down so you can feel good about yourself and the rotten things you do.”
“I feel just fine about myself.”
Savannah nodded thoughtfully. “You shouldn’t. But I suspect you do. I used to think that, just maybe, what appeared to be arrogance on your part was some sort of cover-up for a deep-rooted insecurity. But there are plenty of people who actually think they’re better than everybody else. They’re not insecure or troubled or tormented. They’re just plain ole conceited.”
Jeanette absorbed the insult without even flinching and took a couple of steps closer to Savannah. “And then,” she said, “there are people like me who know what’s what and who’s who. Like that my family’s always had a pot to piss in, and yours had a stinkin’ outhouse. Like that my grandpa was mayor of McGill, and yours dug graves in the cemetery. Like that my mom was president of the garden club, and yours is a worthless drunk who spends all day and night holding down a bar stool and swiggin’—”
“You need to shut up, Jeanette. And you need to do that now,” Savannah said softly, calmly.
Jeanette smirked. “Woo-hoo! Look at you gettin’ your dander all up. Hurts to hear the truth, doesn’t it? And while you’re out there in sunny California, pretending to be some highfalutin private detective, you probably don’t want to remember how you used to spend every Saturday doing our laundry.”
Again, Jeanette stepped closer, until the two women were less than a yard apart. “Did you know,” she said, her eyes bright with perverse pleasure, “that I used to leave little . . . um . . . treats on my underwear just for you?” When Savannah didn’t reply, she continued, “But you always got them clean. Yes, if there’s anything you and your grandma was good at, it was gettin’ stains out of other folks’ underdrawers.”
Time slowed for Savannah as she stood there, watching, listening, evaluating. Often, when seeing cruelty up close and in sharp detail, she had wondered how society could embrace the idea that no person was actually bad, only troubled, in pain, or misinformed. While Savannah had seen many criminals whose misdeeds were merely echoes of abuses perpetrated on them, she had also seen too many sadistic narcissists in the world to believe that was always the case.
Some people truly enjoyed inflicting pain on others. And some of them, like Jeanette, had not been mistreated in their early lives. Some had been coddled, pampered, and told that the world revolved around them. And as a result, they believed that others existed only to serve them, to make their lives easier and more pleasant, to raise them up simply by being under their feet.
“The only thing you ever had going for you,” Jeanette continued, “was Tom Stafford. But you lost him, too, didn’t you? All I had to do was crook my finger, and, boy, he came running.”
Savannah was vaguely aware that some people had come out of the building and were standing nearby, close enough to overhear this exchange. She could feel other eyes watching from the darkness of the parking lot, eavesdroppers listening to every word they were saying. But she didn’t care. She felt nothing except that strange icy coldness coursing through her veins as Jeanette’s words flowed over her.
Over, but not through.
“Of course, I didn’t want him,” Jeanette was saying. “He was cute and all, but frankly, he wasn’t all that good in th
e sack. Didn’t rise to the occasion, if you know what I mean. Besides, he always said he was gonna be a cop. And who’d wanna marry a cop?”
A hundred images flooded Savannah’s mind. Those big, handsome men in blue uniforms carrying the Reid kids out of their mother’s house in their strong arms. Their deep, comforting voices telling them not to cry, that everything was going to be fine.
Countless memories of the men and women who had stood beside her on the police force, risking their lives, placing their vulnerable bodies between strangers and harm’s way. All because it was their duty, even to die, if need be. To protect and serve.
And even more pictures of Dirk, her husband, interjecting himself over and over again into the most horrific circumstances, trying to make a difference. She had seen him bruised, bleeding, spit upon, with filth hurled at him, along with words that seared the soul. Any soul. Even that of a street-hardened cop.
She had seen tears fill his eyes as he held the ones he couldn’t save in his arms and watched them, felt them, slip away.
“I mean, really,” Jeanette rattled on, “who’d want a lousy cop for a husband? Not me, that’s for sure. They don’t make beans, you know. I could never settle for a crap lifestyle like—”
Crack!
At first Savannah thought it was a gunshot. The sharp report echoed throughout the parking lot. Those standing nearby were struck silent.
The only sound was that of Jeanette Barnsworth hitting the sidewalk.
Slowly, Savannah became aware of the burning sensation in her right hand. Then she felt Dirk beside her, his arm around her waist, his breath against the side of her face.
She heard him whisper, “Holy shit, babe. What did you . . . what did she . . . what the hell? She’s out cold!”
And she was.
Queen bee Jeanette was sprawled on her back across the sidewalk, her arms out flung. The skirt of her rhinestone-studded dress fluttered up to her waist, revealing a less than attractive tummy-tucking foundation garment.
Killer Reunion Page 5
