Savannah could tell just by looking at her that Jeanette had not died peacefully.
Her hair was plastered flat against her head, and some of the lake’s grasses were intertwined with her ringlets, like so many tiny green snakes. She was no longer wearing her tiara.
“Maybe she was drunk and just drove right off the cliff,” Martin said. “We’d probably have found some tire tracks if it hadn’t been for last night’s awful downpour washing everything away.”
Tom was carefully brushing Jeanette’s hair away from her forehead with his index finger. “We’ll have Herb check her blood alcohol level, but this wasn’t your average car wreck.”
“How do you know?” Jesse asked.
“Because she was buckled in her seat down there in that Cadillac,” Tom said. “Nice and tight.”
“So?” Savannah couldn’t help asking.
“That gal never put on a seat belt in her life. The county’s budget got balanced every year with the money we made from me writing her tickets. And . . . because she’s got a bullet hole right here in the side of her head.”
Savannah caught her breath and peered down at the body, trying to see where he was pointing.
Sure enough, directly over her left temple area was a small, round, neat hole.
Something about the wound looked strange to Savannah. But when she leaned down and tried to get a closer look, Tom yanked the zipper on the bag closed.
“We’ll know more once Herb’s done with his autopsy,” he said.
“Mr. Jameson’s going to do the postmortem?” Savannah asked. “Isn’t that going to be a bit rough on him, what with him having been her boyfriend and all?”
Tom stood and shrugged. “That’s the way it is in a small town. We don’t have the luxury of having strangers do our dirty work for us. We’ve gotta take care of our own.”
“Yeah,” Dirk interjected, “but there’s the little matter of him being under suspicion about his last autopsy. Wasn’t there some talk that he might’ve rigged his findings to suit the widow here?”
Tom looked quite annoyed as he slipped his uniform shirt on over his wet, muddy torso. “Why don’t you just let me take care of my own investigation, Detective Sergeant Coulter?” he said.
Dirk put on his T-shirt. “And you’re most welcome, Sheriff Stafford. Anytime you need somebody to climb a cliff with you, jump in a lake, and fish out a gross dead body, you just feel free to kiss my lily-white ass.”
The two men stared at each other, and Savannah was disheartened to see that whatever recently developed camaraderie they might have built over the shared experience of the recovery had disappeared before their hair had even dried.
“Where’s your weapon, Sergeant?” Tom asked Dirk, his voice hard and clipped.
Dirk waited a couple of beats before answering just as sternly, “Locked in the glove box of my rental car. Why?”
“I’ll need to see it.” Tom turned to Savannah. “And yours, too. I assume since you ain’t got a badge no more, your carry permit is all up to date.”
Savannah glared at him, thinking that there was more than one lily-white butt in the vicinity that he was welcome to pucker up to. But her anger cooled a bit when she remembered that her Beretta was in her purse, and the purse was resting on the car’s floorboard, right next to Marietta’s cursed high heel.
“Of course my permit is current. Do you really think the airline would’ve let me fly with it otherwise?”
“Maybe,” Tom replied. “If you fluttered those big blue eyes of yours and grinned with those cutesy dimples, you could probably make a guy believe most anything. Like that you and your old man went right home after the reunion last night.”
Dirk started to offer a retort, but Tom was already walking away from them, heading for their rental car. Savannah and Dirk exchanged a quick look of alarm, then hurried after him.
“Just for the record,” Dirk said as they caught up with him at the vehicle, “neither one of us has given you permission to search anything.”
“Yeah, and I’m just gonna worry myself sick about that,” was Tom’s reply as he yanked open the passenger door.
He pulled the car keys out of the ignition and unlocked the glove compartment. In a moment he had Dirk’s Smith & Wesson revolver in his hand and was sniffing the barrel. “This weapon’s been recently fired,” he announced.
“It sure has,” said Dirk. “I go to the range regularly. Went two days ago, in fact. Right before we left California.”
Tom handed the revolver to Jesse, then reached down to the floorboard for Savannah’s purse. As Savannah watched his hand closing over her bag, she had the same sensation as when she dropped a glass and watched it fall to the floor, beyond her reach. A feeling of utter helplessness. A sense that fate was already in motion and beyond her control.
But he didn’t seem to notice the shoe as he lifted the purse, opened it, and took out her Beretta. She knew what was coming next. As was their habit, she had accompanied Dirk to the firing range the day before their flight.
“This one’s been fired, too,” he said.
She couldn’t resist a bit of sarcasm. “I hope you aren’t suggesting that we both shot Jeanette. There’s only one hole in her head.”
Tom didn’t reply, but he gave the Beretta to Jesse, as well.
It was when he tossed Savannah’s purse back onto the floorboard that he saw the shoe. He froze, looking at it for what seemed to Savannah like one and a half eternities. Finally, he reached down, hooked his finger through one of the straps, and lifted it out. Dangling it in front of her face, he said, “Why, lookie here. Cinderella done lost her slipper at the ball last night.”
Don’t put it together, Tommy, she silently pleaded with him. Don’t figure it out. Please be a bad cop just this once. Not the smart, observant one you’ve always been.
“This is one of the shoes you were wearing last night,” he said. “Where’s the other one?”
“Back at Granny’s,” she replied. “That one fell off when I was getting out of the car last night. I just tossed it back in there.”
“So you got this shoe all muddy there in your granny’s driveway?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, as though he had just absorbed a sharp blow to the ribs.
Or a direct stab to the heart, Savannah thought.
When he opened them, he looked at her with an expression that was as sad as any she’d ever seen on his handsome face. “Why, darlin’?” he whispered. “Why’d you have to go and lie to me? I would’ve given you every benefit of the doubt. I’d have moved heaven and earth for you, but, damn it, gal . . . you had to go and lie to me.”
Dirk stepped between them. “What makes you think she’s lying to you? It’s some mud on a shoe, not a fingerprint in blood.”
“It’s Lookout Point mud . . . red as a clay flowerpot,” Tom told him.
Turning to Savannah, Tom said, “In the years you and me was keepin’ company, how many times did we check to make sure we didn’t have any Lookout Point mud on our shoes when I took you back home to your granny? With those eagle eyes of hers, I even had to make sure none of it was on my tires. Do you really think I’d forget a thing like that, Savannah? Never, girl. I’ve not forgot a thing about those years we was together.”
His words found their way to her heart, as she was sure he had intended them to. She said nothing, and the tension in the silence around them rose with each passing second.
Under no circumstances would it have been easy for her to listen to her boyfriend talk about the “good old days” in front of her husband. But with the added burden of her being under suspicion for murder, it was almost unbearable.
Just when she thought she was about to burst into tears, start screaming, or begin banging her head against the nearest pine tree, Tom turned and handed the shoe to Jesse.
“We’re taking both of those weapons and that high heel into evidence,” he told his deputy. “Now, if y’all will excuse me,
I’m gonna phone Herb Jameson and get him up here to pick up this body. And then I’m gonna try to find somebody in this county who gives a damn that Jeanette’s dead and inform them of her untimely passing.”
He started to walk away. Then he turned back to Savannah and Dirk and added, “Don’t think ’cause I ain’t haulin’ you two in that you’re in the clear. If either one of you dares set foot out of this town, and I have to come after you, God help you.”
“Sounds like he means it,” Dirk said as they watched Sheriff Tom get into his car and drive away.
“He does,” she replied. “Believe me. Every word.”
Chapter 10
In anticipation of the fact that there would be a crowd the size of an army at Granny’s for dinner, and to save her the effort of cooking for everyone on the eve of her birthday, Savannah and Dirk had stopped by the local pizza parlor and had purchased a mountain-high stack of pies.
Now “the gang,” which included every Reid who was in town and not incarcerated, was around the table and lining the counters, gobbling down the goods.
Even Marietta and her two boys were present. Although her offspring had entered the surly, adolescent stage of life, they were still tolerable. And Marietta was less agitated than when she’d huffed and puffed her way out of Gran’s house.
Apparently, she’d done some of the soul-searching and attitude adjustment that Granny had required to gain re-admittance. Marietta was fairly adept at readjusting her attitude when free food was within reach.
“I was relieved to hear that the two of y’all were gonna be able to join us tonight,” Butch said as he stuffed his face with a garlic knot. “When I heard the sheriff done nabbed your guns and is holding them as evidence, I figured y’all might be eating supper in the penitentiary tonight.”
Savannah groaned, made a face at Dirk, and said, “So much for keeping any bad news under wraps until after supper time.” She turned to Butch. “How did you know about that? By the time Tom confiscated our weapons, you and that whale of a tow truck were long gone.”
Butch shrugged. “I’m good buddies with Martin’s wife’s second cousin, Kenny. He told me when he came by the garage and asked me to fix a flat for him. Third time this month he’s had a blowout. That boy never has learned the virtue of bitin’ the bullet and paying for a set of new tires.”
“Reckon that explains everything,” Savannah said. She looked at Dirk. “He knows Martin’s wife’s second cousin.”
Dirk nodded, chewing thoughtfully. “Who’s a menace to society, driving around on bald, patched tires. Glad we cleared that up.”
Vidalia decided to jump into the conversation. “I heard that he confiscated Marietta’s shoe, too. Took it into custody, so to speak.”
Savannah cast a quick look at Marietta, hoping she hadn’t heard. But of course she had. Marietta never listened to anything important that was told to her. However, if a word of gossip or a whisper of bad news was uttered three counties away, she caught every word.
“My shoe got arrested?” she said, spitting meatball pizza bits across the table. “My very best, sexy, strappy, rhinestone-studded sandal is in the hands of the law? Is that what you’re telling me, sister of mine?”
Vidalia munched on happily, seemingly unaware of the emotional trauma she had just inflicted. “Yep, that’s right. Sheriff Stafford’s got it locked up nice and tight in a safe there in his office.” She turned to Savannah. “And before you ask, big sis, I know this because Martin’s wife’s youngest sister is president of the PTA, and I ran into her at school this afternoon, when I was registering the twins. She told me all about it. And that the principal’s foolin’ around with the school secretary again. He keeps this up and he’s gonna get hisself fired, for sure.”
Dirk shook his head. “Is that all you guys do around here? Gossip?”
“What else is there to do?” Gran said, refilling his glass of iced tea. “Since the UN moved its headquarters outta here and set up shop in New York, and our philharmonic symphony hightailed it off to Boston, it’s been a little dull here ’bouts.”
“I’m tellin’ ya,” Butch added, “when our Rockettes up and deserted us for Radio City Music Hall, I ’bout bawled my eyes out.”
“Okay, okay.” Dirk held up his hands. “I got it. You’re in the midst of a cultural dry spell.”
“My high heel is in Tommy Stafford’s safe?” Marietta’s lower lip was starting to tremble, and her eyes were filling with tears. “Was it as muddy as the other one? By the way, where is the other one? Where did you put it, Savannah? You didn’t throw it out, did you?”
Gran reached across the table and shook her finger in Marietta’s face. “Marietta, don’t you start up with that nonsense again. If you do, I swear I’ll send you home without your supper.”
From his place at the counter, Marietta’s oldest son turned around and tapped Gran on the shoulder. “Granny, if Momma has to go home without her supper, do we have to go, too?”
His brother piped up. “Yeah, Gran. You wouldn’t throw us out along with her, would you? We hardly ever get pizza anymore. All she makes is bologna sandwiches.”
“Of course not, darlin’. If your momma gets throwed out on her ear, y’all can stay. Somebody’ll give you a ride home. I promise.”
“I’m gonna go see that Tommy Stafford first thing tomorrow morning,” Marietta was muttering. “If I explain to him that it’s not even Savannah’s property, maybe he’ll give me my shoe back. I always did think he was a little sweet on me, you know, once him and Savannah parted ways.”
Savannah had never been happier to feel a butt buzz in her life. And when the merry little song that represented Tammy Hart began to play on her phone, she thought she was going to burst into tears of happiness.
Instantly, she yanked the phone out of her rear jeans pocket and said, “I’m so sorry, Gran. I know how you feel about cell phones at the supper table, and I absolutely agree. But this is Tammy, and I’ve been waiting for her to get back to me. It’s important.”
Gran gave a dismissive wave with her pepperoni and onion slice. “Go. Do whatcha gotta do, girl. But that Hawaiian pie might be all gone by the time you get back. Who would’ve thought that ham and pineapple would taste good on a pizza? Goes to show, you’re never too old to learn something new.”
“Don’t worry, babe,” Dirk said, transferring a slice of it to his plate. “I’ll save this piece for you.”
As Savannah left the table and headed for the front of the house, she mumbled, “Sorta like leaving the biggest, hungriest pig to guard the trough.”
When she reached the living room, Savannah plopped herself in the accent chair next to Gran’s. Certainly Granny’s was the most comfortable chair in the room, but unless her grandmother specifically invited her to sit in it, Savannah didn’t feel right doing so.
It was all about respect. As far as Savannah was concerned, Granny deserved all the love and honor that a granddaughter could demonstrate. And Savannah was determined to do so whenever possible.
“Hi, kiddo,” she said, answering the call. “Whatcha doing out there in that mild, moderate, and not steamy hot climate?”
There was a giggle on the other end, and Savannah could just see her sweet friend, in all her golden California beauty, sitting at the rolltop desk in her living room. No doubt, she was working away, performing acts of love and service for the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency.
If Tammy wasn’t using her sharply honed technical skills to hack into bank accounts, medical records, and confidential Facebook postings, she would be cleaning out the office garbage can and dusting off the ancient computer monitor. No task was too big or too small in the pursuit of justice. And like Savannah, Tammy derived her greatest pleasure from nabbing bad guys and protecting good ones.
Tammy Hart’s first love had always been what she called sleuthing. Although, now that she was crazy about Savannah’s brother Waycross and was five months pregnant with their child, her priorities had been reorder
ed, and detective work had slid to number three on her list.
“I got your message,” Tammy said. “Apparently, I can’t let you out of my sight for one minute without you getting into trouble.”
Savannah chuckled. “As if having you around has ever kept me out of trouble.”
“Good point. So what’s happened down there? You said in your message that the mean girl you hated got killed, the sheriff thinks you had something to do with it, and he confiscated your gun and Dirk’s, too. And something about Marietta’s muddy shoe?”
“That’s about it in a nutshell.”
Savannah lifted her feet and placed them on a nearby ottoman. Suddenly, she was feeling very tired. But that was hardly surprising, considering her past twenty-four hours.
“I need to send you some names of people I’d like for you to run checks on, if you aren’t too busy entertaining my brother and having a baby.”
“Your brother’s working on something, and he won’t let me tell you about it.”
“Sounds intriguing.”
Tammy snickered. “Oh, you have no idea. You’d think he was guarding some national secret. And the baby’s fine. It’s been fluttering around a lot inside there, like a big butterfly.”
“Enjoy those flutters while you can. Vidalia says in the third trimester it feels like they are doing a Riverdance routine on your bladder.”
“That’s okay. I’m looking forward to it all.”
For a moment, Savannah considered the differences between her sisters and her best friend. The climate wasn’t the only sunny thing that Savannah loved about California.
“Is there anything special that you’d like for me to find on these people when I run my checks?” Tammy asked.
“Just the usual,” Savannah replied. “Financials, criminal backgrounds, juicy personal stuff. If any of them ever tossed somebody they didn’t like over a cliff, I’d sure want to know about that.”
Killer Reunion Page 11
