And the Killer Is . . .

by G. A. McKevett

“Okay. How does next week sound?”

  “Oh, don’t toy with me, girl! Don’t get my hopes up and—”

  “I mean it. I’m so tired of living here in McGill. I miss you and Granny so much it hurts. You’re my people. Well, you’re the ones I like.”

  They shared a hearty laugh at their siblings’ expense.

  “You know I feel the same way,” Savannah told her. “Why don’t you pack several suitcases and a few boxes, too, and spend a long, long time?”

  “Do you mean, like, move there?”

  “It’s been done.”

  “You and Granny and Waycross are braver than I am.”

  “Hey, it’s only change, and change won’t kill you.”

  There was such a long silence on the other end that Savannah thought they might have been disconnected.

  “You there, kiddo?” she asked.

  “Yes. That’s the problem. I’m here, and I’d much rather be there. With y’all, and the sunshine, and the beaches, and Disneyland.”

  Savannah felt as if her heart was overflowing. “Oh, honey,” she said. “Do it! I’ll help you any way I can.”

  “I know you would. I think about it all the time. But it’s hard to leave everything you know. I’ve spent my whole life here.”

  “All the more reason to try something else for a change. If for any reason you find you don’t like it, McGill ain’t going anywhere. You can always go back. You’ve got nothing to lose and maybe a whole new life to gain.”

  “I’m going to!” she said. Savannah could tell by the joy and excitement in her voice that her sister had made her decision.

  “Oh, darlin’, that is wonderful! Wonderful! You have no idea how glad I am that you’re doing this! Thank you!”

  Suddenly, the bubbles in Savannah’s tub sparkled more brightly and their jasmine scent was sweeter. She was pretty sure that if she bit into one of those truffles it would taste better than anything she had ever put in her mouth.

  Happiness just did that to you.

  Chapter 28

  Savannah was never more contented with her lot in life than when she was in her kitchen, cooking good food for her loved ones. The only thing she enjoyed more was when she was in the backyard barbecuing for them.

  So, that was exactly what she did the following evening.

  All of her California family was present: Granny, Tammy, Waycross, and Vanna Rose. Ryan and John were there, as well as Ethan and little Freddy.

  Savannah and Dirk had billed the occasion as an opportunity for everyone to get to know Brody better.

  While that was true, the grown-ups were in a particularly festive mood for a reason they weren’t sharing with the children.

  Geoffrey Faraday was in jail! Not for murder, as they were still building that case. But Dirk had him dead to rights for blackmail, burglary, and grand theft auto. Considering his previous record, there was no doubt that Geoffrey Faraday would be incarcerated for a very long time. Unless, of course, they could nail him for first-degree murder, and then he would be going away forever.

  Ryan and John had brought a set of horseshoes and were showing Brody how to play the game. Unfortunately, more than once, the Colonel had mistaken their intentions when throwing the horseshoes and had scampered after them, trying to pluck the heavy metal objects from the air.

  “Don’t do that, you fool hound dog,” Brody yelled at him. “If you catch one of those things, you’re going to knock your teeth out. You’ll be the only bloodhound in town sportin’ dentures.”

  Savannah had solved the problem by luring the dog over to the barbecue grill with tiny bits of the tri-tip she was cooking. After one bite, he had no interest in sinking his teeth into a horseshoe.

  Dirk was tending the barbecue. Outdoor grilling was his only foray into the world of cooking, but he was getting better at it all the time. Although lately, he had decided it kept the meat moist if he poured some of the beer he was drinking over it from time to time.

  Savannah decided to call it “basting” and hope her guests wouldn’t object to eating food that had been splashed with one of Dirk’s half-consumed beers.

  When she saw Tammy staring at him as he performed the ritual, Savannah whispered, “The heat burns off any germs that might be on the meat. Don’t you think?”

  “Sure,” said the ever cooperative and nonjudgmental Tammy. “You bet. But I’m a vegetarian. I wasn’t going to eat it anyway, and I’m certainly not going to with Dirk-o spit on it.”

  Ethan was talking to Waycross, while Vanna and Freddy played on the grass nearby. Freddy found a dandelion that had escaped Savannah’s scrutiny. He picked it and attempted to stick it in Vanna’s bright red curls. Unfortunately, his little friend would have no part of it. She reached up, pulled the flower out, and promptly stuck it in her mouth.

  Savannah saw Tammy give her a dirty look.

  Shrugging, Savannah said, “What? I only put arsenic on the ones in the front yard, so what’s your problem?”

  “Very funny,” Tammy said, reaching around Dirk to put one of her vegetarian burgers on the grill beside the tri-tip.

  “Hey,” he complained, “get that wanna-be burger off my grill. Only manly man stuff gets cooked here.”

  Tammy crinkled her nose at him. “Your manly man tri-tip and my veggie burger. That’s what’s going to be on your grill, and don’t spill any of that spit-polluted beer on my burger.”

  “I don’t spit in my beer! Who the hell do you think I am? I’ll have you know I have perfect control over my saliva. It goes where I tell it to and when.”

  “He does,” Savannah assured her. “I know. I’ve seen him spit on bugs in my garden before. He’s surprisingly good at it.”

  Tammy rolled her eyes and walked away to join Waycross, Ethan, and the babies.

  Dirk motioned for Savannah to come closer. He whispered in her ear, “Is it really a bad thing for me to pour my beer on the tri-tip? Or is that just her being persnickety?”

  “She might have a point,” Savannah said. “Why don’t you open a new beer and just use it exclusively for the meat.”

  He thought about it for a minute, then said, “If there’s anything left in that meat-only bottle, can I drink it when I’m done?”

  “Of course, darlin’. When I bake a cake, I get to lick the beaters and the bowl. We cooks need a few perks for slaving over hot stoves.”

  As she walked away she saw him head for the cooler and another beer, grinning all the way.

  He was so easy.

  But just as he was lifting the bottle out of the crushed ice, she heard his phone ring, and she knew who it was by the Alfred Hitchcock theme song ringtone.

  She hurried over to him to see what Dr. Liu would have to say. This was the phone call they had been waiting for. The final nails in Geoffrey Faraday’s coffin. He was a murderer, and they wanted to make sure he didn’t just pay the price for burglary, blackmail, and car theft. That particular conviction was the only thing that would have satisfied Lucinda Faraday—murder in the first degree.

  “Yes, Doctor,” Savannah heard him say. “Whatcha got for me?”

  He put the phone on speaker, so Savannah could hear the conversation, too.

  “I have lab reports on Faraday. They show there was a drug in her system. Quite a lot of it.”

  Savannah said, “I’m here, too. What kind?”

  “Hi, Savannah. It’s a prescription strength sleeping pill, called dimazepin. It’s one of the strongest ones, a controlled substance.”

  “How much had she taken?” Dirk asked.

  “Ten times the amount it would have taken to kill her.”

  “Wow, then there’s no way that was an accident,” Savannah said.

  “Absolutely not.”

  Savannah wondered about the strangling, which seemed like overkill if you had already given a woman ten lethal doses of medication.

  “Why didn’t he just let her die from the pills?” Dirk asked. “Why the strangling? Why the posing?”

  “
He was cruel,” Savannah said. “He didn’t want her to die peacefully or easily.”

  “I agree with Savannah,” Liu said. “The pills were just so he could kill her more easily.”

  Savannah glanced around the yard and realized almost all of the adults were watching them, Ethan in particular. They had known that calls from Dr. Liu and the lab were imminent. She could tell they were waiting to hear, and at this point, she didn’t know if this was good news or bad.

  “I have another piece of information for you,” the doctor continued.

  “What’s that?” Dirk asked.

  “I heard from Eileen at the lab. She asked me to call you.”

  “Why didn’t she call herself?”

  “She isn’t speaking to you. She’s furious with you for sending over so many items for them to process. She says it’ll take six months, and frankly, I don’t know if she’ll do ten percent of it.”

  Dirk mumbled something that sounded moderately obscene under his breath.

  Savannah stepped in. “Did she at least take time to search the manuscript for fingerprints?”

  “Yes. Apparently, that’s what she’s maddest about. Said it was a waste of time.”

  Savannah didn’t want to hear that! “How?” she asked. “A nuisance I can understand, but a waste? Really?”

  “She didn’t find one print on it that belonged to your suspect, Geoffrey Faraday,” Liu told him. “It was covered with prints. The victim’s.”

  “Obviously,” Dirk said. “She wrote it, so she would have handled every page.”

  “And one other person, which we thought is a bit strange.”

  “Who?” Savannah asked.

  She waited for what felt like an eternity for Liu to say the words. Finally, she did. “The prints that were all over it, other than the victim’s, belong to Brooklynn Marsh. Geoffrey’s new wife.”

  * * *

  The backyard barbecue had turned into an emergency meeting of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency.

  Savannah and Dirk quickly filled everyone in on the latest developments, especially the one about them having a brand-new number one suspect.

  “Who woulda thought Miss Mousy had it in her?” Dirk said, shaking his head as they gathered around the picnic table beneath the arbor.

  “I agree,” Savannah said. “She didn’t look like she’d be able to say ‘Boo’ to a goose.”

  “I always wondered about that southern phrase,” Tammy observed. “Do you people down there go around scaring geese a lot?”

  “You mean more than here or in Maine or North Dakota?” Savannah asked.

  “Do you mind?” Dirk barked.

  “Sorry.” Savannah cleared her throat. “Hearing this new thing about the fingerprints on the manuscript, it makes sense. If I was engaged to a horse’s rear end like Geoffrey, I’d be looking to get rid of him, too.”

  “Yes, and the woman invested years of her life with him,” said John. “She’d be looking for some sort of payoff.”

  Ryan added, “She bankrupted herself for him. Lost a career. She’d want major financial compensation of some sort, if she could manage it. Probably emotional payback, too.”

  Savannah glanced over at Brody and saw that he was trying to teach the two toddlers how to throw the horseshoes. They seemed oblivious to the adult conversation taking place on the other side of the yard.

  She was glad for that, at least.

  Turning her attention back to the group, she said, “If it was a woman who killed Lucinda, it would make even more sense that she would drug her first. No struggle, less work that way.”

  “Is Brooklynn large and strong enough to carry Lucinda from the bed area to the place where I found her?” Ethan asked.

  “Hm. I’m not sure about that.” Savannah tried to recall the woman’s basic build. It had been hard to tell under the baggy pajamas. “We’ll have to think about that one.”

  “I’m still not sure why she got moved from her bed to there anyway,” Dirk replied. “Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe I was wrong and the whole thing went down right there where the body was found.” Savannah turned to Ethan. “You said that Lucinda liked her Irish whiskey.”

  He nodded. “A lot.”

  “Did she have a nightcap?”

  “Every night without fail. Told me she’d never get to sleep without it.”

  “Tell me about that. If it was a nightly pleasure for her, she probably had some sort of ritual.”

  He nodded. “Yes. She did. She had a special cut-crystal glass. Short, wide, with red flashing around the top and a gold edge. Beautiful. She told me a lover gave it to her. She didn’t say which one. I had the feeling it might have been her son’s father. Anyway, it meant a lot to her. She always drank her nightly whiskey from that.”

  Savannah turned to Dirk. “Did the team find a glass like that at either the bed location or where her body was found?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. A fancy glass like that would’ve stood out in all the ugly garbage. I’ll check with the CSU team, but they were all showing me anything they thought was different or special. There was nothing like that found in either place.”

  Waycross had been sitting quietly, adding nothing to the conversation, stroking Colonel’s glossy copper ears and keeping an eye on the children. But he turned to them and added, “If I wanted to put somebody to sleep, big time, and I knew they downed a glass of whiskey ever’ night before they called it a day, I’d spike that whiskey. Then after I’d done the stranglin’ thing, I’d been sure to get rid of that bottle and glass, ’cause they’d have a bit o’ that poison in or on ’em. That’s prob’ly why we didn’t find ’em there. If that Brooklynn gal was the killer, she’d a took ’em with her.”

  Savannah mulled that over and thought it made perfect sense. She said to Ethan, “If that glass is half as pretty as you say it is, I don’t think she’d throw it away, either.”

  “If she pulled this off,” Tammy said, “on some level, I think she’d be feeling proud of herself. She’d want to keep it as a little souvenir, don’t you think?”

  One by one, the team members thought about it, then nodded.

  “I’d keep it,” John said.

  “Me too,” Waycross added.

  “Even I probably would,” Dirk admitted, “though it’d be stupid. You’d just kinda have to, to remind yourself of what you’d got away with.”

  A cold determination started to build in Savannah. She thought of the old woman whose life had been difficult already, taken from her by a young one whose only motive would have been greed, pure and simple.

  She stood and turned to Dirk. “I don’t like the fact that, if she did it, she’s feeling proud of herself. I want to upset her apple cart, right and proper. Would you mind if I go have a little talk with Miss Brooklynn?”

  “Not as long as you’re wearin’ a wire, and we’re in the van right outside.”

  “Overly protective, are we?”

  “We are that,” Ryan said. “Especially where you’re concerned.”

  “We’re fond of you, love,” John added. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I’ve noticed,” she said, feeling a blush coming on. “I appreciate it, too. Apparently, our Miss Mousy ain’t as timid as we thought.”

  Chapter 29

  When Dirk dropped Savannah off, a block from Brooklynn’s modest Spanish home, he said, “One more time.” She sighed, knowing the microphone John had hooked inside her collar was working fine. But Dirk was a worrywart. At least where she was concerned.

  That was endearing and occasionally annoying.

  “Testing, testing. One, two, three, four, five, gonna skin that man alive . . . if he doesn’t let me get out of this here vehicle and go do my job.”

  In her earpiece, she heard Ryan say, “Loud and clear, Dixie Darlin’. Go get her.”

  “They’ve got it,” she told Dirk.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said,
adjusting his own earpiece.

  She leaned over, gave him a kiss for luck, and left him to listen and worry.

  She knew, between the two of them, she had the easy part.

  Crossing her fingers and saying a little prayer that their gal would be home, she hurried up the sidewalk and onto the little house’s porch.

  One more time, she ran the details of her plan through her mind. What she would say and when.

  Yeah, like it matters, she thought. No matter how prepared you think you are, the plan always flies out the window in the first ninety seconds.

  Savannah knocked on the door, and it took quite a while for it to open. When it did, she could hardly believe what she was seeing.

  Standing there was Brooklynn Marsh-Faraday, but she was a totally different woman. Savannah was shocked by the transformation that a stylish outfit, makeup, and hairdo could make.

  Brooklynn was wearing a figure-hugging dress, tights, and booties that showed she did, indeed, have a body and was quite physically fit. Her makeup was impeccable, accenting her slightly slanted eyes, and giving them a beautiful, exotic quality. Her hair was not only washed, but styled, full and glistening as it flowed over her shoulders to her waist.

  Brooklynn was a knockout! Go figure!

  “Wow,” Savannah said. She almost added, “You clean up good,” but changed it to, “You look very nice. Going somewhere?”

  “Just hanging out,” was the casual reply.

  Savannah thought she smelled alcohol on her breath, but she couldn’t be sure. If it was booze, the gal had started a bit early in the day.

  Celebrating, perhaps?

  “May I come in?” Savannah asked.

  “Oh, yeah, sure.”

  Brooklynn opened the door and stepped back so she could enter.

  The house had gone through a transformation, too, though not as drastic as the lady herself. Some of the clutter had been put away and the smell of urine was less. Apparently, some kitty had a newly cleaned litter box.

  “What’s up?” Brooklynn asked, motioning for Savannah to sit and doing the same herself.

  “I’ve been thinking about you. Wondering if you’re doing okay.”

  “Really?”

  Savannah noticed that the look on her face wasn’t one of appreciation, but suspicion.