Just Desserts (28 page)

“I can certainly understand that,” Ryan said, nodding approvingly. “Can’t you, Detective Coulter?”

“Sure, of course I can.” Dirk pulled the keys from the ignition, opened the door, and stepped out. “Let’s go have a little ‘close encounter’ with your scrawny, heavy-metal dude,” he grumbled. “And we’ll find out how good a detective you are, Mr. Sherlock Stone.”

It was him.

Savannah knew the moment he opened the apartment door and focused on her with beer-bleary eyes. Not that she recognized him as her attacker. She had never actually seen the assailant; he had merely been a movement in her peripheral vision.

But the look of shock on his face when he saw her told Savannah more than she needed to know. She was more to him than just the lady with the neat Camaro.

“Why?” she said, stepping into the doorway, forcing him back.

“Why ... what?” He glanced quickly from Dirk to Ryan, then back to Savannah.

“Why did you crack me on the head last night?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Savannah sighed. “If one more creep tells me that he doesn’t know what I’m talking about today, I swear, I’m gonna smack him. Now ... I’ll ask you again, and you’d better think long and hard about your answer. Why did you attack me last night?”

This time he didn’t reply; he just stood there, beer can in hand, bare chest, bare feet, his jeans riding low on his skinny ass, giving her the same smirk that she had slapped off many faces during the course of her life. Admittedly 98 percent of those had been in the first ten years, but she hadn’t forgotten how it was done.

“You hit the wrong person last night, Mr. Bowman. I’ll do whatever is necessary to see that you spend some time behind bars. Because nobody lands me in the hospital and gets away with it.
Nobody!”

She saw a momentary flicker of fear cross his face, and she realized she had practically screamed the words at him. Having meant every word she had said, Savannah could see that he was at least intelligent enough to know when a threat was real.

A second later his cool look slid back in place. “Lady, I don’t know who you are or what you’re talkin’ about. But I’m watchin’ a great rerun of ‘Gilligan’s Island’ in here, and you’re makin’ me miss the good part.”

Ignoring the sarcasm, she decided to take a stab in the dark and see if she could hit something vital.

“Also, I know that you killed Jonathan Winston. And by the time I’m done I’ll have proven that, too.”

Bull’s-eye! A direct hit.

She heard him catch his breath and hold it, and she saw the color drain from his face.

My god,
she thought, not believing her luck.
He did it!
She shot a look at Dirk and Ryan. They seemed as surprised and pleased as she at this new revelation.

“I didn’t kill nobody,” Eric said, his voice shaky, all traces of cool gone. “And I didn’t do anything to you either, ‘cept ask you if you wanted to sell your car. You fuckin’ cops think you can go around givin’ people shit all the time. Well, I know my rights, and unless you got a warrant or somethin’, you can’t hassle me.”

Having stated his case, Eric Bowman slammed his door in their faces.

Savannah had to employ all of her self-control not to jump up and down and giggle manically as they walked back toward the alley.

Finally, a break in this damned case! A break that might eventually lead to an arrest, that might lead to a conviction, that, ultimately, might lead to vengeance! Ah, life was sweet.

“He’s lying, he’s lying,” she told Dirk and Ryan, who were both jockeying for a position beside her. “That little weasel is lying through his snaggley yellow teeth.”

“You sure about that?” Dirk asked.

Dirk always took some convincing.

“Sure she is,” Ryan supplied with a one-up grin.

“Oh yeah, and how do you know so much about it, smart guy?”

“Easy. You could see it in his eyes, his body language. Besides, she never said a word to him about any of us being cops.”

When Savannah returned home that evening she found the atmosphere in her living room chilly and ominously quiet—like the silence after a storm, or before a storm, or in between. It was hard to tell.

Atlanta sat on the end of the sofa, which she had apparently staked out and claimed with squatter’s rights. The room reeked of nail polish and remover. She had her feet propped on the arm of the sofa, cotton wedged between her toes, and was performing a meticulous pedicure.

Savannah thought she looked like a duck who had waddled through a cotton patch with sticky feet. But, astute as she was, she decided it might be best to keep the observation to herself.

“Hi,” Savannah said, testing the waters.

Stony silence.

When the girl glanced up, then returned to her toes, Savannah could see that her eyes were badly swollen from crying.

Savannah’s heartstrings twanged with a discordant zing. Poor kid. She had done some less-than-savvy things recently, to say the least, but she was paying for them. Thank God, the price didn’t appear to be so high as to ruin her life.

“Tough day, huh?” she said as she walked over to the sofa and sat on the other end.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Atlanta muttered, dabbing some Coral Sunset Ultra-Frost on her pinkie toe.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Nope.”

“Okay.”

So much for communication.

Diamante jumped onto Savannah’s lap and forced her head under her mistress’s hand, wanting to be petted. The gesture almost brought tears to Savannah’s eyes. At least somebody in the house was glad to see her. Gee, it just wasn’t all that much fun coming home these days.

“Did I get any messages?”

“Nope.”

“Mail?”

She said nothing but pointed toward the end table with her polish brush.

Oh, joy. A stack of bills. Just what she needed right now.

“Damn it, ‘Lanta,” she said, her patience snapping, “I did what I thought was best ... for you, that is. Can you give me that, at least?”

Her sister looked up at her, swollen, slitted eyes glaring. “You won! Okay? He won’t even talk to me on the phone now. Hung up on me
five
times today. Gee, I wonder why. Could my big sister have maybe gone to visit him and waved her badge under his nose? Could that be why he’s afraid to talk to me, even for a minute?”

“I don’t feel as though I’ve won anything, Atlanta,” she said, her anger dissolving in the face of her sister’s pain. She reached over and touched the girl’s shoulder. “If I’ve lost part of your love for me, then nobody’s won.”

She was relieved when Atlanta didn’t shake her hand away. Instead, she laid the polish aside, turned around, and held her arms out to her sister. Savannah wasted no time in pulling her into a warm embrace.

“You didn’t lose my love,” the girl said between sniffles. “I still love you.”

“Good.” Savannah’s own tears began to flow, wetting her sister’s hair as she rocked her in her arms. “I’m so glad. I love you, too, baby.”

Again Atlanta sniffed, then pulled away and scowled at the smudge on her right big toenail. “I’ll always love you, too, Savannah,” she said, licking her thumb and running it lightly over the mussed polish. “But right now I really don’t like you very much. You understand, don’t you?”

Savannah sighed. “Sure. I understand. No-o-oo problem.”

Finally the day had ended—some days seemed
never
to end—and Savannah had intended to turn in early and curl up in bed with a good romance novel. A bit of escapism never hurt anyone, she reasoned. But once she was enveloped in her new Laura Ashley sheets, skin softened by a long soak in a lavender-scented bath, her body caressed by the ivory silken folds of a lusciously decadent teddy, her cats curled warmly on either side of her feet—Savannah realized that there was no way in hell she could relax.

With a groan she plunked the romance novel onto the nightstand and leaned over the edge of the bed until she was nearly standing on her head. Feeling the blood rush to her face, she tried to see past the spots that were rapidly forming in front of her eyes as she groped for what she fondly called her Rat Maze.

The Rat Maze consisted of a two-by-three-foot rectangle of purple foam core board with small hot pink stick-on notes all over it. When trying to keep mental track of the countless people, events, evidence, etc., involved in a case, she used this self-made tool to keep it all straight.

Even with this little invention of hers, she still felt as if she was struggling to find her way through a difficult maze, but, inevitably, she was searching for a particular “rat,” and it was worth the effort when she finally nailed the dirty rodent.

In the top row she listed her possible suspects, those who had motive and opportunity. Her practiced eye scanned the inventory of potential culprits in this particular maze.

Beverly Fiona Eric Danielle Norman Unknown Winston O’Neal Bowman Lamont Hillquist Assailant

One by one, she stared at the bits of brightly colored paper, seeing the faces, remembering their words and actions, wondering.

After only a few moments of consideration she moved Eric Bowman’s stick-it to the far left, giving him the dubious honor of the number-one position. She was pretty sure he had smacked her over the head and stolen the ledgers and her notebook. That was reason enough, she figured, for his promotion.

Somehow he had gained access to the showroom without forcing a door or making a lot of noise. She had been certain to lock the doors behind her when she had entered the building that night. And the two patrolmen had found it unlocked the next morning.

If Bowman had been able to come and go easily the night he had attacked her, he could have done so just as effortlessly the evening that Jonathan had been killed.

Taking two more notes from the pad, she stuck them on the board under Bowman. On the first she wrote “Attack, Reid?” and on the other, “Easy Access to Showroom?”

In another row she had stick-its that read “Ledgers Stolen” and “Reid’s Notebook Stolen.” These she also moved beneath Bowman’s name.

She stared at this arrangement with a puzzled quirk to one eyebrow. This one didn’t ring quite right. Bowman just didn’t strike her as someone who possessed a brain sophisticated enough to decipher a business ledger as complicated as that one. If he couldn’t understand it, why steal it?

The answer wasn’t long in coming. Bowman was acting on behalf of someone a lot smarter. He was just a paid punk doing someone else’s bidding.

But whose?

Again she scanned the row of suspects. As with the majority of San Carmelita’s populace, any and all of them fit the bill of being smarter than Eric Bowman.

Beneath each name she had affixed notes, signifying possible reasons they might have had for murdering Winston: revenge, jealousy, anger, and, in Beverly’s case, all of the above, plus lots of money. His death had saved her from having to divide a sizable fortune down the middle in a messy divorce settlement.

Savannah’s head began to throb again, making it difficult for her to concentrate or even focus on the tiny bits of paper any longer.

She glanced at her bedside clock: a few minutes after ten. This would be a very early taps for her, but every molecule of her body was telling her that she needed the extra sleep.

No sooner had she turned out the light than she heard the highly annoying, nerve-jangling racket that she was beginning to despise.

She fumbled for the phone and shoved it in the vicinity of her face, rapping her front tooth in the process.

“Hell-ooww!”

“Detective Reid?”

Savannah thought she recognized the voice, and her weary body received a jolt of adrenaline. “This is Savannah Reid,” she replied, hedging the detective bit.

“I called you the other night, to tell you about the ball.”

Yes, there it was—the Eastern Seaboard drawl. She could hear it in the “ca-w-lled” and the “ba-w-ll.” Yep, East Coast, all right. More specifically, the New York City area.

“Yes; I’m glad you called back,” she said, sitting up straight in the bed. Startled and offended, the two cats leaped off both sides, but Savannah never noticed. “I wanted to thank you for the tip, but, to be honest, it wasn’t particularly conclusive. There were a lot of people at the Pavilion that night. And nobody was wearing a sign that said ‘I done it.’ ”

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. I wish I could, really.”

The woman sounded sincere, as though she truly did want to help. In fact, she sounded like something was wrong. Something pretty badly wrong.

“Why can’t you tell me?” Savannah asked. “Are you afraid for your own safety?”

“Not really... at least, not yet. But I’m not absolutely sure at this point. And I don’t want to ... you know, turn someone in ... unless I’m positive.”

Savannah thought that one over for a moment. “Okay. So, why are you calling me tonight?” she asked hopefully. Heck, hoping was still free, and it never hurt.

“Because I wanted to tell you that I think someone’s life is in danger. I’m not sure, but if I didn’t tell anyone, and she ... well ... I thought I should call you just in case.”

“Have you heard someone threaten a person’s life?”

“No, not directly. But I saw some papers and ... it doesn’t matter how I know. Maybe you can answer a question for
me
.”

“I’ll try. Shoot.”

Savannah heard her hesitate, then take a deep breath. “Do you know anyone who was close to Mr. Winston who might be in possession of a lot of his money? Money he took from his business?”

With a quick glance at the board—and Fiona O’Neal’s name—she replied, “Maybe. Why?”

“Because I think that somebody is after that money. And whoever has it... I think they’re going to get killed if they don’t hand it over.”

“I see. Any hints about who we’re talking about?”

A long, heavy pause. Then, “I think it might be Mr. Winston’s first wife, Fiona.”

Savannah thought it best not to confirm the suspicion, just in case the woman on the other end of the line was more interested in fishing for information than supplying it.