“Ranch? Ranch?” Dirk shook his head and made a tsk-tsk sound. “It just ain’t right, them calling a fruit farm a ‘ranch.’ Ranches have cowboys and horses and steers and manure and manly stuff like that. There ain’t nothing masculine about avocados. I mean, they taste good in guacamole, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“I think ‘avocado ranch’ is a legitimate term. I’ve heard it many times.”
“Oh, yeah? Did you ever hear of an avocado roundup? Did you ever see any rough, tough cowboys, wearing Stetsons and boots and chaps, lasso a bunch of avocados, throw ’em to the ground, and brand ’em with a hot iron?”
“No, but I might tie a rope around you, throw you to the ground, and stick you with a hot poker if you don’t drop this ridiculous conversation.”
“Okay. I will, if you just admit one thing.”
She sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted, in spite of her long night’s sleep. “What’s that?”
“You admit that you can’t even imagine Pa, Hoss, or little Joe raising a bunch of avocados on the Ponderosa and calling it a ‘ranch.’ It would have been downright unnatural.”
Up ahead, Savannah could see the outlines of a magnificent contemporary home, nestled among some ancient, gnarled oaks. They were nearly at their destination.
It was time to put Dirk out of her misery.
“You are absolutely right, my darlin’,” she said. “You couldn’t be more right, and I couldn’t possibly be more wrong.”
He looked confused for a moment, then a bit pleased, then somewhat pissy. “How come it is,” he asked, “that even when I win an argument with you, it doesn’t feel like I won?”
“You know, sweetie pie, you’re absolutely right about that, too. Just as right as rain. You win. You couldn’t be any righter if you had to be.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Savannah knocked twice, and Dirk did the same three times, with hard, determined knocks, before anyone answered the door. But when it finally opened and Savannah saw the bedraggled guy standing there, she instantly knew he was Thomas Owen. She also knew that he was in an acute state of shock and grief.
And even though she felt an enormous wave of pity for him, she also reminded herself that people who had recently committed their first homicide frequently appeared that way.
Fortunately, there weren’t all that many hardcore, psychopathic serial killers in the world. Most murders were done by ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. And the act of killing a fellow human being usually had a devastating effect on the murderer as well.
So Thomas’s swollen, red-rimmed eyes, gray pallor, slumped shoulders, and rumpled clothing did nothing to convince her of his innocence.
Dirk might’ve been a bit of a nitwit when it came to conversations about the Ponderosa’s lack of avocado-raising propensities, but he knew more than his share about homicides. And anybody who had conducted even a few murder investigations knew that the victim’s significant other was always number one on a detective’s list of suspects.
“Thomas Owen?” Dirk asked in his most officious, no-nonsense, cop voice.
The young man ran shaking fingers through his short, mussed, blond hair and nodded curtly. “Yeah. Why?”
Dirk opened his badge and stuck it under the guy’s nose. “I’m Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter with the San Carmelita Police Department.”
“And I’m Savannah Reid,” she told him. “We’re investigating the death of Jason Tyrone.”
When Thomas didn’t reply, Savannah added a simple, “And we’re sorry for your loss.”
He gave her the weakest of smiles, then said, “Thank you. How can I help you?”
“We’d like to come in and sit a spell,” she told him, “if that’s okay with you. We hate to intrude in a time like this, but Sergeant Coulter here has a few questions to ask you. Strictly routine, of course.”
“There’s nothing routine about Jason dying.” Thomas’s eyes filled with tears.
“No, of course not,” Savannah said quickly. “We understand that the two of you were close. And I’m sure that his passing must be very painful for you. We won’t stay long, really.”
She glanced in Dirk’s direction and saw that he was beginning to lose the little patience he had. She hoped that Thomas would invite them in without Dirk having to strong-arm him.
She had always found it to be a touchy, delicate situation—the business of interviewing a person who was close to the victim. And that challenge was compounded when he or she was a suspect. If you hadn’t yet proven them guilty, you had to treat them with all the kindness, civility, and compassion that you would anyone who had lost a loved one. If they were innocent, the last thing they needed was an overaggressive police officer adding to their stress at one of the worst moments of their life.
On the other hand, you didn’t want to coddle a killer. It was a difficult balancing act.
“Okay,” Thomas said simply. “Come on in.”
He led them into what turned out to be a magnificent home. Though it was contemporary in design and had a lot of steel, concrete, and glass in its construction, an abundance of wood and stonework gave it a natural coziness.
Teak ceilings that soared twenty feet or higher lent the living room a delightful, open feel. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls revealed the magnificent landscaping, bringing the serenity of the outside in.
And gigantic indoor palm trees thrived in all the sunlight the windows provided.
Savannah had to think that so much nature, such an abundance of greenery, had to provide a great deal of peace to anyone fortunate enough to live there.
Unless, of course, someone they loved had just died.
Thomas led them to an inviting sofa made of highly polished bound bamboo and comfortable cushions with a colorful tropical print.
“Have a seat,” Thomas said, motioning to the couch. “Do you want something to drink? I’ve had quite a lot myself the past couple of days.”
“No, thanks anyway,” Savannah said. “But don’t let us stop you, if you want to have something.”
Early in her career, she had discovered that interviews were far more productive when the interviewee had consumed a bit of alcohol. Not enough to make him nasty and belligerent, but enough to lower his inhibitions a bit.
Eagerly, almost gratefully, Thomas hurried into the kitchen. He returned thirty seconds later with the glass half full of an amber liquid. When he walked past them, Savannah caught the distinctive smell of scotch whiskey.
She thought he was going to have a seat in a chair near them. But instead he paced back and forth in front of the window, stopping occasionally to stare out at the Japanese garden and take a sip of his whiskey.
Finally, it was Dirk who spoke first. “Nice place you got here. How long have you lived here?”
Of course, Dirk knew how long. Tammy had told them the exact date that Thomas had taken occupancy when she had given them the address. But Savannah herself frequently asked questions to which she already knew the answer. It was a technique that was particularly effective at the beginning of an interview, when you were trying to determine if the person was honest and forthright or just your garden-variety, bold-faced liar. It beat the “Sniffing For Burnt Pants Method” every time.
“I just moved in here. Not even a month ago,” Thomas replied. “Escrow hasn’t even closed yet.”
“That’s pretty nice of them, letting you live here before the ink’s on the paperwork,” Dirk observed.
“ ‘Nice’ has nothing to do with it. Considering how much money Jason put down on it, I’m surprised they didn’t move the entire property to the beach for him.” He gripped his glass, staring out at the fountain in the koi pond. “Until Jason hit it big with the movies, I had no idea the kind of power that money brings with it. You’d be surprised what people will do for a fistful of cash.”
No, I wouldn’t, Savannah thought. She had seen people take another person’s life for ten dollars or a single line of cocaine.
&
nbsp; “From what we understand,” Savannah said, “the two of you had been together for about five years. Is that true?”
He gave her a somewhat unpleasant, sarcastic smile. “Gee, you read the tabloids, too. And did you hear that we were going to adopt an alien baby with two heads and three eyes?”
“No, I reckon I missed that issue,” Savannah replied evenly.
If Thomas Owen wanted to make a good first impression and get on her good side, this wasn’t the way to go about it. Smart alecks had never been high on her list of favorite people.
Thomas seemed to sense her disapproval, and his face softened a bit. He walked over to the sofa and sat down near her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you have no idea what my life’s been like lately. It’s really been the month from hell, preceded by the year from hell. And I can’t go into a grocery store or convenience shop without seeing every detail of my hell spread all over the covers of those damned magazines.”
Savannah softened as well. “I can’t even imagine how hard that must be. Life is difficult enough without the whole world knowing your business.”
Thomas set his drink on the glass-topped coffee table. “Knowing your business, having very strong opinions about your business, and making up business that you don’t even have and printing it. It sucks.”
Dirk seemed a bit less impressed than Savannah, as he looked around at the palatial house. “Yeah, I guess it’s hard to get people to feel sorry for you when you live in a joint like this—especially when somebody just handed it over to you, scot-free.”
Even as she winced, Savannah saw an anger rise in Thomas’s eyes that set off her internal alarm system. Oh yes, Thomas Owen had a temper.
Mentally, she jotted that one down for future contemplation.
“There’s more than one way to earn something,” Thomas told Dirk. “You put up with a guy like Jason for five years—his obsessive training, his ridiculous diets, his ’roid rages, his fooling around, and his whole manic-depressive crap. And then you tell me whether you should walk away with nothing.”
“You didn’t exactly walk away, did you?” Dirk said tauntingly. “If those tabloids that you hate so much were right, he gave you your walking papers.”
Thomas jumped up, his fists clenched at his sides. His face turned a deep shade of red. “What kind of cop believes everything he reads on the covers of tabloid magazines?”
“Not this one,” Dirk replied. “I find that the texts on a victim’s cell phone are a lot more valuable, evidentiary wise. And a helluva lot more entertaining, too.”
Thomas’s face went from red to an ugly purple. Savannah could literally see the veins in his forehead throbbing. If Dirk kept this up, the guy was going to have a stroke on the spot.
Dirk gave her a quick glance, and she realized that he had reached the end of his “bad cop” routine. It was time for her to take over as the “good cop.”
“Now, Detective,” she said to Dirk in her most condescending voice—the one he just loved, especially now that they were married, “Mr. Owen here has been through a really tough time, and you aren’t making it any easier for him, saying insensitive, mean things like that.”
“I’m not here to make things easier for Mr. Owen or anyone else, for that matter,” Dirk said. “I’m here to find out what happened to Jason Tyrone.”
Instantly, Thomas dropped the whole indignant routine. His angry expression disappeared, replaced by intense interest. “What do you mean, ‘What happened to Jason?’ The medical examiner said it was his heart, that he took too many drugs or something like that. She said it was an accident. It was an accident. . . . Wasn’t it?”
“Do you think it was?” Savannah asked softly. “You lived with Jason; you probably knew him better than anyone. What do you think happened to him?”
Without warning, Thomas burst into tears. He covered his face with both hands and sobbed uncontrollably.
Savannah leaned over and placed her hand on his shoulder. She could feel his entire body trembling.
Neither she nor Dirk said anything as he continued to cry for what seemed like a very long time.
Finally, he began to speak—harsh, broken sentences between his sobs. “It was over . . . at least a year ago. But my mom . . . cancer last winter. Jason felt sorry for me. Put off telling me. In love with . . . someone else.”
Savannah reached into her pocket and pulled out some clean tissues. She considered tissues a mandatory tool in her business. Almost as important as the Beretta strapped to her side.
She handed them to Thomas and said, “There, there. I know it must be just awful. But if you can collect yourself for a minute and tell us—was there anybody that Jason was on the outs with? Did he have enemies? To your knowledge, did anyone have anything against him?”
He lowered his hands from his face. His eyes were big with alarm. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You think that because we just broke up, I might have done something to him.”
“Now why would we think a thing like that?” Dirk said with a distinct tone of sarcasm in his voice. “To my knowledge, Jason didn’t have a family. But did he have a will? Let’s see now. . . .” He paused, pretending to be thinking hard. “If he prepared some sort of will during these past five years when you two were together, and he didn’t have a family, I wonder who he would’ve left it all to.”
Dirk leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and locked eyes with Thomas. “Did you wonder if he’d leave it all to you? Or do you already know? Did he have time to change his will since the two of you broke up? He’s been pretty busy with the movie and all. I bet he didn’t get to it.”
Thomas jumped to his feet and headed for the door. “I’m done talking to you,” he said. “If you want to find out anything else about my life or Jason’s, I suggest you pick up a magazine at the grocery store checkout line. Now get out of my home.”
Dirk did as he was told, but Savannah lingered behind.
This was the time, after Dirk had grossly offended the interviewee, when Savannah’s “good cop” act often worked best.
It was a routine they had perfected years ago, and most of the time it worked very well.
“Try not to let him get to you,” she said. “Back in the police academy he skipped class the day they taught us how to deal with the public.”
“No kidding. He’s a real jerk.”
“And you aren’t the first to say so.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t shrink away. In fact, he seemed to welcome the friendly touch.
As his tear-filled eyes looked into hers, Savannah tried to read what she could see there. Sadness, to be sure. Fear—definitely. And maybe a bit of guilt? She couldn’t be certain.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, his voice shaking. “They just called and told me that the funeral’s tomorrow. His manager’s setting the whole thing up. Just a private, little gathering for those closest to him.”
He gulped. “Not that long ago, I would’ve been the chief mourner. Now I don’t know if I’m even welcome at the service. Am I one of the closest to him?”
He began to cry again, and instinctively Savannah reached out her arms and hugged him. As he clung to her she could hear him say through his tears, “He was my life. My everything. And he’s gone. Now I don’t even know who I am.”
Chapter 14
“One of these days,” Savannah told Dirk as they drove over the stone bridge, leaving Owen’s property, “you’re gonna overdo that bad cop bit of yours and get us shot. Or maybe bludgeoned with a frozen leg of lamb or perforated with a fireplace poker.”
He laughed. “Naw. That’s what I’ve got you for, kiddo. I’m pretty sure that on our marriage certificate there’s something about you hurling yourself between me and flying bullets.”
“Really? Hmmm. I don’t recall anything about bullets or hurling myself anywhere for any reason. Hurling you? Maybe.”
“It was on the back. In the fine print.”
“I�
�ll have to borrow Tammy’s Nancy Drew magnifying glass and read that itty-bitty print sometime and see what I agreed to.”
“While you’re at it, read the part about the experimental sex you agreed to try every Friday night.”
She giggled. “Oh yeah. I can hardly wait to see you in a French maid’s costume, finding creative new uses for a feather duster.”
“That’ll be the day.”
“Yeah, the day I bleach my eyeballs and scour them with steel wool. If I were to see you in a short, black skirt and fishnet hose, I’d never recover.”
“Don’t fret. It ain’t gonna happen. You’ll be the one wearing the French maid’s costume.”
“And what are you gonna wear for me? I’m an enlightened woman, you know . . . comfortable with my own sexuality and all that liberated stuff. I think the man needs to perform, too.”
He thought for a moment. “I could probably scare up a cowboy outfit and a Lone Ranger mask.”
“Now you’re talking.”
As they neared the freeway, which would take them either north or south, he said, “What now? Whose tree needs shakin’ next?”
“I think we should go back to the hotel. We didn’t really talk much to the staff, except for when you got snippy with that one gal—the manager, I think it was—and plum near twisted her finger outta its socket.”
“She shouldn’t have stuck it in my face. Nobody gets to stick a body part in my mug without it gettin’ broken or, at the very least, dislocated.”
Savannah recalled the look of agony on the woman’s face as Dirk had bent the pointing finger backward until everyone present heard an ominous crack. “Oh, well,” she said. “Hopefully, she won’t be on duty.”
“She’s on duty.”
“Of course she is. Just my luck.”
“And her finger’s in a splint.”
“It is?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, damn.”
“Yeah.”
They crossed the hotel’s luxurious lobby, heading toward the reception desk. And there was the manager in question, still wearing her maroon blazer, white shirt, and baggy, black pencil skirt.
Killer Physique Page 12
