Savannah looked at them both, seeing two of the dearest people she had ever known. In her life, she had borne more than her share of guilt over situations that were quite similar.
She thought about what Dr. Liu had said: “The truth makes things better, even when the truth is painful.”
And in that moment Savannah silently promised her friends and herself that, one way or another, she was going to find out what had happened to Jason Tyrone. Even if it’s ugly, truth is truth. And without it there would be no justice and no freedom from guilt.
Nothing could be done to bring Jason back. Dead was dead. But maybe, just maybe, she could provide a bit of healing to the living.
Chapter 8
The forensics lab was in the industrial part of town—where graffiti was the only form of paint on the buildings’ gray cement-block walls, and the weeds that sprouted from between cracks in the asphalt road provided landscaping.
Unlike the morgue, which contained grieving family members, dead bodies in various stages of decomposition, and, worst of all, Officer Kenny Bates, Savannah didn’t mind the forensics lab so much. In fact, she had often thought it would be an interesting place to work.
Not a fun place, because of Eileen. But interesting.
Eileen was an enormous woman, oversized in every way. She was at least six feet, two inches tall, and she had a sizable girth, a booming voice, and the personality of a Marine drill sergeant whose hat and boots were two sizes too tight.
Eileen’s personal work ethic was impeccable. She did things the way they were supposed to be done and when they were supposed to be done, if not sooner. And as head of the lab, she demanded equal dedication from every employee unfortunate enough to work under her.
She didn’t suffer fools. She didn’t particularly like people, especially men. And she hated anyone who wasted a minute of her precious time while she and her team were processing materials from a crime scene.
Therefore, she loathed Dirk.
Although she hadn’t found enough evidence to convict him of being a “fool,” he was far too masculine for her female sensitivities. And probably more than anyone else in the SCPD, he had wasted her time by bugging her every five minutes when she was trying to find the much-needed answers to questions about his cases.
Long ago, Dirk had been banned from the lab premises. But fortunately for him, Eileen was quite fond of Savannah and would usually tolerate his presence if he brought along the fairer member of the Van-Dirk team.
Apparently, he was thinking about this as he pulled the Buick into the parking lot near the simple white door that bore a small county seal.
“Do you have any idea how demeaning it is,” he said, “to have to bring you along every time I come here?”
Savannah shot him a look. “Do you have any idea how demeaning it would be to walk around for the next week with a black eye and a fat lip?”
“You know what I mean.” He sniffed. “I got me twenty years on the job, a gold detective’s shield, and a fully loaded Smith and Wesson against my ribs, but that woman in there won’t even answer the damned door unless I’ve got you along for the ride.”
Savannah chuckled. “That’s because she’s under the delusion that I keep you under control at all times. She figures that if I’m around you won’t curse, handle the evidence, pass gas, or spit on the floor.”
“What’s the matter with that? She does all that stuff and more. She is one scary broad, if you ask me.”
“It’s her lab. She’s big. She’s mean. And she knows how to murder you at least a hundred ways. And get away with it.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought of that,” he said, as they got out of the car and walked up to the door. “She’s probably got vials full of acid and nasty crap that she could just spill a drop or two on you, and you’d fall down and crumple up into a wriggly, snotty, slimy heap and die right then and there. You know, like a slug when you sprinkle salt on it.”
Savannah gave him a weird, sideways look. “Sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought,” she said. “Way more than you probably should’ve.”
She punched the doorbell button. From inside they could hear a loud, irritating buzz that must have resounded throughout the building, like a ten-foot-tall, angry mosquito.
“Maybe that’s why Eileen’s so cranky,” she said. “I’d be cranky too, if I had to listen to that thing all day long.”
“Who’s cranky?” came a loud, annoyed voice from the speaker mounted over their heads.
The door was yanked open and there stood Eileen. All of her. Topped off by a thick mane of curly silver hair that Savannah had often thought could have provided coverage for at least half a dozen regular folks.
She was convinced that was one reason why Dirk didn’t like Eileen. Anybody who daily counted the hairs on top of his head wasn’t likely to look fondly upon someone with so much to spare.
“Did I just hear you call me ‘cranky’?” Eileen barked.
“Cranky? You?” Savannah deepened her dimples and batted her eyes. “Why, darlin’, would I say something like that about you? In all the years I’ve known you, I don’t recall the two of us sharing a single cross word between us.”
Eileen raised one bushy, silver eyebrow that had never once been visited by a pair of tweezers. “Well,” she said, “we haven’t had any differences that a bag full of your homemade chocolate chip cookies wouldn’t resolve.”
She looked down at Savannah’s hands but saw only a purse. “Apparently, you’re here on a peaceful mission, and this guy you’ve dragged along with you isn’t going to piss me off by asking if I’ve already processed everything I took out of that hotel room.”
Dirk gulped, and Savannah had to repress a giggle. It amused her to see how scared he was of Eileen. Oh, he would yell at her and get in her face if she got his dander up. But as tough as Dirk thought he was, he had a healthy respect for feisty females and more than a smidgeon of fear.
And Savannah was very happy she was included in that number.
Chivalrous as Dirk was, he felt the need to pull every punch when dealing with the fairer sex, which left him at a disadvantage. With another guy he could go at it, tooth and claw, holding nothing back. But with a woman, Dirk always played the gentleman.
Savannah loved that about him and never, ever used this lovely quality against him.
Eileen, on the other hand, had no such standard.
“I mean it,” Eileen was saying, her hands on her ample hips as she glared at Dirk. “If you think you’re going to come into my lab, and pace up and down my floor, and look over our shoulders, and ask every five minutes, ‘When are you gonna be done?’ then you can just get back into that pile of crap you call a car and go find somebody else to bother.”
Dirk’s hair-thin thread of patience snapped. Nobody insulted the Buick and got away with it. “I would like to have it noted for the record,” he said, “that I have just been standing here with my teeth in my mouth, minding my own business, while you ladies talk between yourselves. I haven’t asked one question or made one demand. But in spite of my restraint, my basic character was criticized and my vintage vehicle disrespected.”
Eileen seemed to think that over for a moment, and some of the harshness faded from her face. She gave him something that Savannah might have called a smile, had someone else been wearing it.
“Okay,” the CSI said in a half-friendly tone, “what can I do for you two today?”
Savannah considered her next words carefully. A gentle peace had been established; it had to be preserved at all cost. How could she ask the question and yet preserve this new spirit of cooperation?
Unfortunately, she didn’t think quickly enough.
Dirk had time to jump in. “We wanna know what you found there in that hotel suite. You processed the scene . . . what . . . oh . . . about eight hours ago? You oughta know by now whether you’ve got something good or not.”
The next thing they knew, they were staring at a closed
door—a simple door, a white door, the door with the county seal on it.
Savannah supposed there was at least one thing to be grateful for. If Dirk’s nose had been even an inch longer, it would’ve been broken.
“Boy, you just beat all,” she said. “You take one step forward then slide face first in the mud half a mile back’ards.”
Dirk shook his head sadly. “And I thought we were doing so well there for a minute.”
“We were. Then you had to go open your trap and be your ornery, cantankerous self.” She turned and socked him on the arm. “You know what this is going to cost me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I know. It means we have to stop at the grocery store on the way home for the chocolate chips. Lots and lots of chocolate chips.”
“It sure does,” Savannah said. “And I gotta tell you, after missing out on a whole night’s sleep I’d much rather spend my afternoon snoozing than baking a monster batch of homemade cookies.”
“Maybe she’d settle for store-bought.”
“Eileen? No way. She can totally tell the difference.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He looked and sounded like he meant it, so she decided to take pity on him. “It’s okay. I forgive you. But you have to stir the dough . . . and you can’t gobble down a bunch of it either, like you usually do.”
They turned to leave when they heard a voice—a decidedly cranky voice—coming from the speaker over the door. “This time, throw some macadamia nuts in there, too.”
“How can anything that smells so good be so bad for you?” Tammy said, as she watched Savannah take a heavily laden cookie sheet from the oven.
Savannah smiled, accustomed to Tammy’s outspoken campaign against all things nonnutritious. “Once in a while, you have to eat something that’s good for the soul, as well as the body,” Savannah told the younger woman. “You don’t do it every day.”
“You do it every day,” was the ready response. “Several times a day.”
Savannah donned her best pseudo-self-righteous look. “I do not make chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies every day.”
“That’s true. Sometimes it’s peanut butter fudge or blackberry cobbler or German chocolate cake.”
“Then don’t falsely accuse me, girlie. You gotta get your facts straight before you convict.”
As Savannah used the spatula to deftly flip the cookies off the sheet and onto the cooling rack, she heard the front door open and her brother’s soft voice as he called out, “You gals in here?”
“In the kitchen,” Savannah shouted back.
“Boy, howdy,” he yelled back, “I can smell them cookies all the way in here.”
“Just follow your nose.” Savannah lowered her voice and said to Tammy, “If you intend to keep on keeping company with my little brother, you’re gonna have to reconsider your dietary habits. He’s a good ol’ boy, and Georgia menfolk don’t thrive on lettuce leaves and celery stalks.”
Tammy sighed. “We’ve already talked about that. If it hasn’t mooed or clucked lately, he doesn’t consider it food.”
“And it’s gotta be swimmin’ in gravy, too.”
“I know. You Southerners seem to consider gravy a beverage.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
Waycross entered the kitchen. He had orange paint on his hands and arms and a generous smear of it on his left cheek.
“Looks like the Charger’s getting a new orange dress,” Savannah said.
“Not yet. I’m still workin’ on the engine. But no reason it can’t be as bright as a new penny, too.”
Savannah looked at the tall, skinny redhead, and her heart melted. Of her eight siblings, Waycross was, by far, one of her two favorites. Cheerful, kind, and without a lazy cell in his body, he was a pure joy to be around.
She was thrilled he had decided to stay in California for a while. Dirk had been kind enough to let him move into his old mobile home that sat in a trailer park on the edge of town. Waycross was a skilled auto mechanic who also did excellent body and paint work, so she’d had no problem finding him work at a shop that specialized in restoring classics.
Between the California sunshine and the beaches, a manly man trailer to live in, and the company of a sweet, beautiful girl like Tammy, Waycross was simply thriving like weeds in a watermelon patch. And Savannah couldn’t be happier about it.
He started to reach for a cookie, then stopped, his bright orange hand hovering over the cooling rack stacked with goodies. Turning to Tammy, he said, “My hands are a mess, sugar. Could you please get me one o’ them?”
Tammy giggled, grabbed a cookie, and fed it to him—so slowly and sensuously that Savannah felt like she needed to go take a cold shower by the time the deed was accomplished.
“By ‘one o’ them,’ I meant ‘two,’ ” he told her, licking a bit of chocolate off his lower lip.
Tammy watched the simple action, totally entranced. Eventually, she snapped to attention and said, “Oh, sure. Of course.”
Savannah decided to look away as the whole erotic scene replayed and gave them a bit of privacy.
It was so strange, seeing them together like this. In love. And, yes, in lust—but so cute about it.
She couldn’t help wondering if she and Dirk appeared that silly to other people. Probably not. They were so much older and far more mature.
Then she recalled, only a few days ago, when they had been exchanging kisses on the town pier. A ragged old curmudgeon who was fishing off the end had packed up his equipment with a vengeance, shot them a disapproving grimace, and grumbled as he stomped away, “Get a room, will ya?”
Okay, maybe they made fools of themselves, too. Apparently, you never got too old for True Love to make a fool of you.
As Waycross chewed on his second and then third cookie, Tammy asked Savannah, “Is there anything we can do to help you out with this case? Not that it’s really a case yet, because you don’t even know what happened, but, well, you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” Savannah began to place some of the cookies that had cooled into a plastic container. If she didn’t, with Waycross around, the batch was likely to meet an untimely death. “It’s sort of a case. After all, a seemingly perfectly healthy young man fell down dead. A lot of people are wondering why.”
“Like you?” Tammy said with a little smile.
“Absolutely. You can’t be in the detective business without having a mile-wide streak of curiosity.”
“You mean, without being a nosy busybody,” Waycross said around his half-chewed cookie.
Savannah reached over and gave him a bop on his curly head. “Don’t talk with food in your mouth,” she said. “And don’t forget that you’re a Reid, too. So, genetically speaking, you’ve got a lot of ‘nosy’ in your DNA along with the rest of us.”
“Nope. The womenfolk in our family are the only ones who carry that nosy gene thing. Along with wide backsides and generous fronts,” he added with a chocolate grin.
“Oh, boy . . . now you really are asking for it!”
He reached for another cookie. She slapped his hand. And they struggled with the container for a while before she relented and tossed one at him. He snatched it out of the air and popped it whole into his mouth.
“Does he eat like that when he takes you out to restaurants?” Savannah asked Tammy.
“No,” she replied, giggling. “He saves his worst behavior for you.”
Savannah sealed the lid of the container, set it on top of the refrigerator, and said, “There are exactly twenty-four cookies in there. If, later on, I find I’m one short, Waycross Reid, I’ll be draggin’ you behind the barn for a hickory limb switchin’.”
He snickered. “Since you don’t have a barn or a hickory tree, you’ll have to forgive me if I ain’t exactly quakin’ in my boots.”
“Are you two gonna help me with this case that ain’t a case, or are you gonna eat me outta house and home?” Savannah asked, mildly miffed.
She was losing her good humor as she thought about Dirk upstairs, snoozing away in bed, while she slaved away in a hot kitchen, preparing bribes for people he had offended.
Life was frequently unfair.
“Sure.” Waycross dusted his hands together, ridding them of imaginary cookie debris. “What can we do?”
“Find out everything you can about Jason Tyrone, but concentrate on the scandalous stuff.”
“Dig up the dirt,” Tammy said with a smile.
“Exactly. Especially anything having to do with a recent romantic breakup.”
“He’s a gay feller, ain’t he?” Waycross said. “I think I read that in one of Granny’s newspaper magazine thingies.”
“Yes,” Savannah said, “it was all over the tabloids that he recently split up with a partner he’d been with for a long time. Find out what that was all about, if you can.”
Tammy nodded knowingly. “Always check out the significant others first—especially if there was a recent parting of the ways.”
“And run a financial check on him, too, while you’re at it,” Savannah said. “Find out if there were any problems in that area.”
“We’ll see if we can root up any of the usual naughtiness—foolin’ around on your honey, gamblin’, drugs . . .” He glanced up at the top of the refrigerator. “. . . stealing goodies from your big sister when she ain’t lookin’.”
“I kid you not, you knucklehead. You touch those, I’ll throw a duck fit.”
She turned to go into the living room with the intention of heading upstairs for a bit of beauty rest beside her snoring husband. But instead, she ran into Dirk at the bottom of the stairs.
His hair was tousled, his face bed-crumpled and wearing an expression that was most disgruntled.
“The cookies are done,” she said. “I was just coming upstairs to join you.”
“Too late,” he replied, as he tucked his shirt into his jeans and ran his fingers through his hair. “I just got a call from Dr. Liu. She wants us to meet her right away.”
Killer Physique Page 7
