Brooklynn gave her a not-so-pleasant smile and added, “How nice of you.”
Savannah couldn’t recall hearing the word “nice” spoken with such sarcastic coldness.
Yes, this was definitely not a mousy miss sitting in front of her. This gal was hard, cold, and for some reason, no longer trying to hide it.
Savannah took a deep breath and got a nearly dizzying, strong smell of alcohol.
Whiskey.
No doubt about it. A lot of it.
“I’ve been thinking it must be hard for you,” Savannah continued, “what with Geoffrey being arrested. Again. You all alone here. Again. With you just a newlywed. I’m sure you were hoping for more.”
“Much more,” was the simple, blunt answer.
“Are you going to be okay?” Savannah asked. “Do you have anyone to support you during this—”
“I don’t need support. I’m fine. But thank you for caring.”
Again, with the sarcastic tone.
This Brooklynn was the exact opposite of the one who was sitting on the floor, weeping about never being able to repair their relationship with Great-Grandma.
Was the change in her personality due to drinking? Savannah wondered. Some people turned into someone else as soon as they downed alcohol.
But Savannah didn’t think the strong stench was coming from Brooklynn. She only had a bit on her breath. This smell was so powerful, Savannah would have been reluctant to strike a match.
“I suppose you’re wondering about the estate,” Savannah said, venturing into dangerous territory.
“What’s to wonder about?” Brooklynn said. “She died, he’s going to jail, we’re married, I don’t have to worry about paying the bills anymore. Or his ridiculously high attorney bills.”
“I see.”
For just a second, the harsh exterior seemed to slip, and Savannah thought she saw a bit of fear flit across her face.
“You do?” she asked in a voice more like Timid Brooklynn.
“I think so. You put so much into this relationship. Years, money, time, effort. I can’t imagine Geoffrey was easy to live with. If you wind up benefiting from his great-grandmother’s passing, and he doesn’t . . . oh, well.”
A broad smile lit up Brooklynn’s face. Apparently, it felt great to be so “understood.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she said. “I’m sorry she died, but still, some good should come from it.”
A slight breeze came through a nearby window and Savannah got another strong smell of whiskey.
Wow, that girl must’ve bathed in it this morning, she thought.
Then the breeze shifted slightly, and she realized the smell was coming from behind the sofa.
She flashed back on their first visit, when there had been a flurry of activity tossing things into the corner behind the furniture.
Slowly, Savannah stood, knelt on the couch, and looked behind it. “I’m sorry, darlin’,” she said, “but I think you might’ve spilled something back here. Smells like vanilla flavoring or—”
That was when she saw it. An empty bottle of whiskey, a large, fresh puddle of the stuff on the floor, clothes, and other items that had been thrown there. But more importantly, there was a beautiful small crystal glass with ruby flashing along the top, finished off with a stripe of gold.
Savannah reached into her pocket, pulled out a surgical glove, and slipped it on. “Oh, lookie! What have we here?” she said, reaching down and retrieving the glass.
She held it up for Brooklynn to see. For the sake of the men waiting outside and listening, she said, “A lovely glass with a red top and gold trim. How nice! Where did you find something like this, Brooklynn?”
For a long time, the women stared at each other. Brooklynn wavered between a “mouse in a trap” look and her cold, nasty persona. In the end, the icy gal won.
“I think you know where I found it,” she replied. “I think we both know what it means.”
“We do.” Savannah took a small brown paper bag from inside her purse and slipped the glass inside it. “It means Geoffrey’s done a lot of bad stuff. But it was you who drugged and strangled his granny and left her in that awful pose. You wrote those blackmail e-mails. All the while, you were framing Geoffrey for it, bringing that manuscript over here and giving us permission to search. Very smart, lady.”
Brooklynn gave a slight nod. “That’s an interesting theory you have there. Do go on.”
“I can understand what you’ve got against Geoffrey. But how about Lucinda? You acted as if you liked her the other day.”
“She was horrible to me. Treated me like dirt the first I met her. She looked me up and down, and she decided right then I wasn’t good enough to be in her family. Knowing what a pig Geoffrey is, you can imagine how offended I was.”
“Of course. He didn’t deserve you.”
“So true! Then after I found out what a mess she was living in over there, I knew she was crazy to pass judgment on me.”
“That must have been when you went back to scope out the place and plan the murder.”
“What?”
“The last time you were there as Lucinda’s guest, you only went into the parlor, and it was still clean. If you saw the mess firsthand, it must’ve been when you went there uninvited. When you broke in, looked around, memorized those stupid tunnels, and planned how you were going to do it.”
Brooklynn said nothing, but gave her a funny little smile, as though she was enjoying herself.
Savannah could tell she was aching to talk about it. Killing another human being is the biggest event in most murderers’ lives. They always want to share it. With somebody. Anybody. Especially someone who understands.
“I understand, you know,” Savannah assured her. “I probably would have done the same thing.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’re a nice person.”
Again, “nice” was spoken as though it was the most horrible word in the English language.
“I’m nice to people who deserve it. Not to people who don’t. Geoffrey didn’t deserve good things. His great-grandmother had a ton of nice things, but see what she did with them? You worked hard your whole life, and thanks to him getting in trouble and her not helping him, you lost it all. You deserved reimbursement, one way or another.”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I thought!”
“She wasn’t going to live that much longer anyway.”
“Exactly!”
“What good was her money doing her . . . her living there in a landfill.”
“I know!”
“By knocking her out with the drugs first, she wouldn’t even feel it.”
“Well, that was the plan.” Brooklynn slumped back in her chair, less jubilant than before. “It didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.”
“I hate it when that happens. You think you’ve got it all worked out and then . . .”
“One little thing.”
“What went wrong? Looks to me like you covered your bases just fine.”
“She passed out before she could show me where the . . . where something was that I wanted. That was actually the reason for drugging her. I thought if she was woozy enough, I could tell her to give it to me or else, and she would. Plus, she wouldn’t fight me so much. She took me to the area she said it was in, but then she passed out and wouldn’t wake up.”
“Oh, man! That must have been frustrating!”
“It was! But nobody’s gonna find it . . . that thing . . . anyway in all that mess, so it all worked out okay.”
“The will, you mean. The new one that leaves everything to Mary Mahoney.”
Brooklynn looked dumbstruck. “You know about that, too?”
“Let’s just say there are two very smart women in this room right now. One of whom is going to be very, very rich.”
They shared a laugh, then Savannah said, “How did you get Geoffrey to marry you so fast? I mean, you needed to be married so you’d have the money once he went off t
o prison.”
“That was the easy part. He heard those guys he’d done that burglary with had been arrested. He figured they’d be giving him up any minute. I told him if we were married, they couldn’t make me testify against him. Now that was a stroke of luck. I think it was the Man Upstairs looking out for me, don’t you?”
“Oh, I’m sure He’s watching . . . and listening, too.”
A small voice in her earpiece said, “Every word. We got it all.”
“There’s just one thing I can’t figure out,” Savannah continued.
“What’s that?”
“If you gave Lucinda a fatal dose, and she’d already passed out, she was dying anyway. Why the strangulation? Why the posing?”
“That nasty old bitch made me feel really bad when she put me down like she did. Even after I left her that day, I kept seeing the disgust in her eyes. I saw it constantly, from the time I woke up in the morning until I went to sleep. I saw her eyes, and I thought how I was going to get even with her. When I’d start feeling bad, I’d imagine what I was going to do to her someday and feel so much better.”
“So, when the time came . . . ?”
“I couldn’t just let her go to sleep. Nice people die that way. No, it had to be my way, exactly the way I imagined with the world seeing her for what she was—a dead, old, ugly slut.”
“Okay. That’s it.”
Those were the code words for Dirk to come in and take over.
In seconds he’d come charging through the door, and that was a good thing. Because Savannah desperately needed to go outside and get some fresh air. She thought there was an excellent chance that she was going to be sick.
Chapter 30
Since their previous backyard celebration had been interrupted, the Moonlight Magnolia gang, friends and family, decided to throw another party a week later. Life was good. They had so many wonderful things to celebrate.
It was a group affair with everyone contributing in their own way. Dirk was manning the barbecue by popular demand. Several bottles of meat-dedicated, room temperature beer had been placed tactfully within his reach by the grill. Loathing a warm brew as he did, there was no chance he would be stealing sips from it.
Tammy brought trays of fresh fruit and vases of wildflowers, picked in the hills that morning. After Freddy stuck several of the blossoms in Vanna’s curls, she decided to decorate the Colonel by putting daisies in his collar. Brody quickly intervened on behalf of his buddy, telling her, “I know you mean well, Miss Vanna, but no self-respectin’ hound dog wears flowers. Not a boy hound, anyway.”
The moment she turned away, Brody removed them and set them aside. He promised to help her decorate Cleo’s and Diamante’s collars later.
Waycross supplied the music. He rigged up a set of powerful car speakers to a battery, and as self-appointed DJ was playing tunes chosen for everyone present: Johnny Cash, classical, rock, and the staple—good ol’ California beach songs from back in the day.
Ethan provided a tent, for those who might prefer to be out of the sun. Inside he had set up a high-tech audiovisual presentation that was a memorial to Lucinda, showing the highlights of her life. The positive ones. The sunshine and none of the darkness.
Mary Mahoney sat in the tent, watching, weeping, and laughing with the others who ventured inside to view. She had helped Ethan assemble the photos and videos into a loving remembrance of a colorful life, flawed as it was, lived with gusto and courage.
Savannah had prepared a dozen side dishes the night before. Everything from her signature potato salad to a few southern favorites, salads that contained nary a vegetable, but plenty of fruit-flavored gelatin, whipped topping, and marshmallows. She set them out on the table, knowing that Tammy would soon be pointing out the folly of calling something a “salad” that contained nothing but man-made chemicals.
Granny had insisted on doing the baking. Savannah suspected it was so she could enjoy the company of her favorite kitchen assistant, Alma. The younger Reid sister had arrived the day before, and Savannah felt her home was now complete, just having the dark-haired, blue-eyed, gentle beauty under her roof.
So much to celebrate!
As John passed around the trays of exquisite gourmet hors d’oeuvres from ReJuvene, Ryan offered some to the group standing around the grill. When he got to Savannah, he said, “I’m so happy to know your sister. She’s absolutely delightful. Sort of a mini Savannah.”
“No, she’s her own person,” Savannah said, though pleased with the compliment. “Younger.”
“Well . . .” Ryan shrugged.
“She’s a lot nicer, too,” Savannah added.
“That’s for sure,” Dirk said, earning him a swat with a dish towel.
John walked up to them and said, “Is it me, or does there seem to be something going on between your little sister and our Ethan?”
He nodded toward the makeshift dance area where Waycross was playing a sweet love ballad. The only couple on the “floor” was Alma in her brightly flowered sundress, her hair in a graceful updo, slowly swaying to the music in the arms of Hollywood’s leading man.
They were chatting away, giggling, lost in their own world.
Savannah could hardly believe her eyes when she saw Ethan rest his cheek on the top of Alma’s head and close his eyes, a look of pure bliss on his face. To watch them, she could imagine they had been dancing together for years.
Could it be? Her little sister and Ethan Malloy?
“Holy cow!” she said. “Can you imagine? What if they . . . ?”
“Don’t look now, but I think they already have,” John said. “What a fine thing. She’s just what he needs.”
“She is?” Savannah thought of her sister, the darkness of their childhood, the poverty, her total lack of what the world would consider “sophistication.”
“It would be wonderful, but they’re so different,” Savannah told him. “She’s just a simple country girl, and he’s a man of the world. She’s a one-eighty-degree turn from Hollywood.”
“That’s exactly why he’d want her. Why he needs someone like her. She’s real.”
They watched as little Freddy walked up to the dancers, reached up, and tugged on the leg of his father’s slacks.
Startled out of their reveries, Ethan and Alma looked down, saw the child, and laughed.
“Hey, are you cutting in on me, young man?” they heard Ethan say to his son as he picked him up in his arms. “You want to dance with my girl?”
As though understanding exactly what his father meant, Freddy held his arms out wide to Alma.
She laughed and eagerly took him, placed their arms and hands in the appropriate dancing positions, and waltzed him across the lawn.
As everyone cheered, Ethan threw his hands up in surrender and walked over to join them by the grill. “Did you see that?! I change that kid’s dirty diapers, and he goes and steals my girl!”
Something about the way he’d said “my girl” caused Savannah’s heart to soar. John was right. She had introduced Ethan to her sister three hours ago, and he was already calling her his girl.
She glanced over to the dessert table to see if Granny was watching and saw that she was taking it all in and grinning broadly. When the two women’s eyes met, Gran laughed, put her hands together as though in supplicating prayer, then raised them, palms up, to the heavens, as if giving praise.
Savannah laughed. For years, Gran had been praying for a good man for her little Alma. If there was one thing Savannah knew, it was that sooner or later, the good Lord always answered Granny’s prayers. Savannah suspected it was because she wouldn’t quit until she plumb wore Him down.
Ethan reached over and took hold of Savannah’s elbow. “Excuse me,” he said. “I don’t want to take you away from your hostess duties, but could I have a word with you?”
“Sure.”
She led him over to a bench behind the vegetable garden, farther away from Waycross’s speakers and all the gabbing going on around
the food area.
As they sat down on the bench, she saw him cast a couple of looks at Alma and Freddy, who were still enjoying their waltz. They had been joined by Brody and Vanna and, considering that the toddler had just learned to walk, Brody was doing a pretty good job of showing her how to sway back and forth, standing on one chubby baby foot, then the other.
“I hope somebody’s getting that on video,” she said. “It’s about the sweetest thing I’ve seen in a long time.”
“It certainly is,” he said. But Ethan wasn’t watching Brody and Vanna. He was enjoying the sight of his son and the pretty girl who was twirling him around and around, making him squeal with joy.
Ethan seemed to make an effort to pull himself back to the business at hand. He shook his head, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a check. He took Savannah’s hand, opened it, and placed it in her palm.
“This is for you,” he said. “Don’t even start to make a fuss because—”
She glanced down at the sum and gasped. “No way! You already paid me! I got the bank transfer three days ago!”
“This is a bonus, and that is the fuss I just warned you not to make.”
“But it’s too much, really,” she said, trying to shove it into his tightly closed fist. “I can’t possibly take it.”
“Well, I’m not taking it back, so you’re stuck with it.” He gave her a warm, brotherly look and said, “Savannah, please let me do this for you. For your family. You do so much for others. It would make me so happy if you’d take this money and spend it on something special. Maybe something you’ve wanted for a long time but couldn’t . . . you know.”
“Afford?”
“Yeah. That. Isn’t there something you’d really like to have for yourself, or someone else you love?”
Savannah looked across the yard at the people who mattered most to her in her life. Such good people. So deserving. So content with so little.
“There is one,” she whispered.
“Good.” He smiled his big famous breathtaking smile. “I’m so glad. Thank you!”
“No, thank you!” She leaned over and kissed his cheek.
And the Killer Is . . . Page 25
