Sugar and Spite (7 page)

Dirk began to snore.

* * *

When dawn broke, pink, gold, and turquoise, through her living room curtains, Savannah was still wide-awake, lying on her sofa, her grandmother’s crocheted afghan thrown over her… her loaded 9mm Beretta and an extra clip filled with bullets lying on the coffee table beside her.

Someone had to stay awake and sober. And, because of the hellish nature of his past twenty-four hours, Dirk had been given the honor of
Designated Drunk
.

Because, even though the thought hadn’t seemed to have occurred to Dirk—at least, he hadn’t voiced any concerns in that area—Savannah was worried for their personal safety.

Somebody had murdered Dirk’s ex-wife. That same somebody had tried to shoot him, too. Polly might be the one lying in the city morgue in a special white body bag with a locked zipper, reserved for homicide victims and those who had died under suspicious circumstances. But the intruder had entered Dirk’s trailer. And for all anyone knew, Dirk might have been his intended victim, not Polly. She might have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Savannah felt a shiver that not even Granny Reid’s lovingly crocheted coverlet could chase away. This feeling was in her bones.

Without knowing who had been in that trailer, why he had been there, and who he had really intended to kill, there was no way to know if Dirk’s life was still in danger. If the killer had made the attempt once and failed, who was to say he wouldn’t try again?

So, Savannah had stayed awake the rest of the night, standing guard, so to speak, while lying on her sofa and listening to her brass ship’s clock tick. Tammy would be in at nine, and by then it would be bright daylight.

Then she would go to bed and get some badly needed sleep. But for now, the princess had to keep watch over the castle, just in case some homicidal dragon tried to cross the moat. Sir Dirk was passed out cold up in the tower. Even a knight in dusty armor needed some time off.

Even before Tammy arrived the phone started to ring; reporters from local papers and television stations wanted to know if Dirk had a statement. Savannah told them, not too tactfully, that if she were to wake him, he would, without a doubt, have several statements, none of which they would want to hear.

Savannah wondered who had tipped them off that he was at her house. But then, journalists were fairly resourceful, and Savannah’s name had been linked to Dirk’s in print more than once, thanks to some high-profile cases they had worked together.

When the doorbell rang at 8:34
a.m
., Savannah threw the afghan onto the end of the sofa and gave up on getting any quick winks. She took her Beretta from the coffee table, shoved it in the back of her jeans waistband, and went to the door.

Looking through the peephole, she saw Rosemary Hulse, one of her least disliked newspaper reporters. Rosemary was tenacious, but not obnoxious, when it came to getting her story. So, in a moment of humanitarian love and consideration, Savannah decided not to shoot her dead on the front porch.

“Rosemary…” she said as she opened the door, “you decided to pay me a little visit. How sweet. If I’d known you were comin’, I’d have baked a cake.” Her far-less-than-enthusiastic tone belied the expressed Southern hospitality.

Rosemary didn’t buy it. She gave her a rueful smile, and said, “Sorry, it’s not social.”

“Didn’t really figure it was.” Savannah noted that the usually perfectly groomed reporter looked a bit disheveled herself. Her customary pageboy flip didn’t flip, and she was wearing wire-rimmed glasses instead of her contacts. “Did they drag you out of bed so that you could drag me out of bed?”

“Something like that. I’ve been up since three, when they called me about the shooting.” Rosemary glanced up and down Savannah’s rumpled shirt and slacks. “Did I drag you out of bed?”

“More like off the couch. It’s been a long night.”

“Is he here?”

“Yeah, upstairs, hopefully sawing logs. I’m not going to disturb him, so don’t even ask.”

Rosemary reached into her purse and produced a mini-recorder. “Mind if I ask you a couple of ques—”

“Of course, I mind. I haven’t had my coffee yet, and my blood sugar level is zero, which means my brainwave level is the same.”

Rosemary shot her a winsome smile. “Invite me in for coffee and a Danish, maybe?”

But it wasn’t that winsome. “Nope. Sorry. Nothing personal.”

“After coffee and doughnuts, when you’re feeling better”—Rosemary fished in her pocket for a business card and handed it to Savannah—”if you or Sergeant Coulter do decide to talk to the media, will you give me first crack?”

“Don’t hold your breath. I don’t know much yet, and Dirk’s not exactly the chatty type.”

The reporter wrinkled her nose. “I remember. I think he told me to… well… he suggested some unnatural act that—”

“Don’t feel bad. Coulter has offered similar suggestions to almost everyone he knows at one time or the other. Actually, he likes you.”

Rosemary looked doubtful. “Really? How can you tell?”

“He actually spoke words to you. If he didn’t like you, he’d growl, maybe snap.”

“And he’s your friend?”

Savannah laughed. “My best one in the world. Doesn’t say much for my taste, huh?” Behind her, Savannah could hear the phone ringing again. “Gotta go.”

“Give me a call.”

“If I talk, it’ll be to you.”

She shut the door in Rosemary’s face, nearly closing it on Cleopatra in the process. “One of you cats is always underfoot,” she told Cleo, nudging her with the toe of her sock. “Let me guess. You’ve got no Kitty Gourmet in your bowl, right?” The cat purred loudly and twined herself around Savannah’s ankles as she hurried to the cordless phone she had left on the coffee table. “Hello… oh, shit,” she said as she tripped over the cat and caught herself just before she hit the rug. “Get your hairy face outta here. I’ll feed you in a minute.”

“So, Dirk
is
there. I thought he might be,” said a sexy male voice on the phone. Savannah’s heart skipped a staccato pitterpat, as it always did when she heard from Ryan Stone… or saw his handsome face… or even thought of him. He was gorgeous, suave, kind, intelligent, funny, gay. Savannah hadn’t been able to reorient his sexual preferences, no matter how she had applied her feminine wiles, which, her being a Southern belle, were considerable.

She had to be content to worship him from afar… him and his partner, an older, but equally handsome and charming British fellow named John Gibson.

“We heard it on the local television news this morning,” Ryan was saying as she sat down on the sofa and pulled Gran’s afghan around her again. “John guessed Dirk would be with you, making a serious dent in your kitchen staples.”

“No, so far he’s only raided my liquor cabinet.”

Ryan chuckled, then got serious. “So, how is he? Holding up all right?”

Savannah was touched at Ryan’s concern; she knew that Dirk wasn’t his favorite person on the planet. Less than tactful Dirk had dropped enough derogatory comments about alternative lifestyles to alienate both Ryan and John. More than once Savannah had gouged him in the ribs or kicked him under the table for insulting her friends. Ryan and John tolerated Dirk because he was Savannah’s, and Dirk avoided bruises and tongue-lashings by at least pretending to tolerate them in return.

“He was pretty shook up last night, when it first happened,” Savannah said, plucking at the fringe on the afghan, remembering Dirk, naked, cold, and shivering there on his trailer floor. “But later he composed himself sufficiently to piss off Lieutenant Jeffries when he questioned him.”

“That sounds like the Dirk we know and love. Any idea who the killer was?”

Once again, Savannah was pleasantly surprised. Ryan had automatically assumed it wasn’t Dirk. Maybe they hated each other less than she thought.

“I’m pretty sure Jeffries thinks Dirk did it. We don’t know. He saw the guy, but barely. White, brown hair, medium height and weight, pretty generic-looking. Dirk didn’t get that good a look; he was wrestling him for the gun. Polly was bleeding to death on his floor. He had other things on his mind.”

“Do you want us to come over, see what we can do?”

Savannah wasn’t about to turn down the offer. Ryan Stone’s and John Gibson’s investigative skills had been invaluable to the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency in the past. They were both former FBI agents and still had a lot of connections at the Bureau. John Gibson seemed to know everyone who was anyone in Southern California and beyond. Ryan could find absolutely anybody… especially someone who didn’t want to be found. They were definitely prize players to have on one’s team.

“I’ll take a rain check for the moment,” she said, “until we see what Jeffries is going to do. Obviously, if they try to pin this on Dirk, I’ll have my work cut out for me.”

“We all will.”

Savannah smiled. “Consider yourself kissed, my friend.”

“By you… what a nice way to start the day.”

She stifled a frustrated moan, just thinking of what it might be like to start the day by kissing a hunk like Ryan Stone. A nice fantasy. But reality was Dirk snoring in her guest room.

She thanked Ryan again, assured him she would call if she needed them, and said good-bye.

No sooner had she turned off the phone than it rang again. She was prepared to give a reporter an earful of colorful Southern phraseology when she heard a familiar voice, sounding oh so official.

“Lieutenant Jeffries here. I need Dirk Coulter.”

“Dirk is in bed,” Savannah said, as gently as possible. “He was up all night. Could I possibly have him call you in a few hours?”

“Wake him up. Tell him to come down to the station.”

“Now?”

Stony silence on the other end.

“Okay, Lieutenant. I’ll get him there right away. Is there… some particular problem?”

“Just have him here in twenty minutes and tell him under no circumstances is he to speak to the press. No one!”

“Oh, I see,” Savannah mused aloud. “A bit of a public-relations debacle?”

But Jeffries hadn’t heard her. He had already slammed the phone down in her ear.

Slowly, Savannah dragged her tired body up the stairs and down the hall to the guest room. Dirk looked pretty much exactly as he had a few hours ago, when she had undressed him and tucked him in. He was sprawled across the covers, looking as though someone had shot him. But he was snoring too loudly for a corpse.

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” she said, shaking him gently.

He grumbled and pulled the covers over his head.

“Get up,” she said. “The lieutenant called. He wants you on the carpet in twenty minutes, and you smell like a saloon.”

More rumblings, but no movement.

“Take a hot shower, kiddo, and I’ll whip you up some coffee and pancakes.”

The head emerged, one eye opened.

Savannah smiled, satisfied. She knew Dirk, his habits, his preferences, the way to motivate him.

Free food did it every time.

As she made her way to the kitchen to stir up some hotcakes, she decided to give him real maple syrup and melted butter. It might be his last meal on the “outside” for a long time.