Cooked Goose (20 page)

Margie’s smile faded. “Not so much,” she replied.
 

Savannah pointed to a triple-layer fudge cake drizzled with raspberry sauce. “Have a slice or two of that heavenly concoction, Margie, and you’ll forget all your troubles, guaranteed.”

Before Savannah could make her own selection, a buzzing sounded from her purse. She reached inside it and pulled out her phone. “Excuse me,” she told her fellow dinner guests. “Normally, I turn this thing off at dinnertime, but I wanted to be available for Dirk.”

“Go right ahead,” John told her. “I’m afraid it’s one of those dubious technological advances that we have to accept.”

“Hello,” she said. “Hi, Dirk. Margie and I are having dinner at Chez Antoine with Ryan and John. We’re about to eat dessert, so this had better be good.”

She listened to Dirk’s reply as Ryan ordered for her and everyone else at the table, then excused the waiter.

He, Margie, and John politely pretended not to be listening to Savannah’s conversation, until she said, “What? Oh, no. When? Okay. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.” She shoved her phone back into her purse.
 

All three were staring at her, sumptuous desserts forgotten.

“Well?” Ryan asked.

“I sense something foul is afoot,” John added in his best “Christopher Plummer Plays Sherlock Holmes” impression.

“Foul, indeed,” Savannah said. “Ryan, John, would you two enjoy Margie’s company a bit longer this evening? Maybe she could go back to your apartment for an after-dinner soft drink?”

“Of course, we’d be delighted,” John replied.

Savannah turned to the girl. “Is that all right with you, Margie?’

The teenager gazed at Ryan, love struck, and mumbled, “Sure.”

“What’s up?” Ryan asked, less subtle than his dignified partner.

“Dirk wants me to join him out on Turner Canyon Road. Officer Joe McGivney was patrolling that area tonight. His radio car was found abandoned there in an orange grove. Now he’s missing, too.”

“That’s bad news, indeed.” John cleared his throat and turned to Margie. “But don’t worry about Miss Bloss. We would be pleased to entertain her for the remainder of the evening.”

Ryan rose along with Savannah and helped her into her jacket. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he told her. To John and Margie he said, “You two go ahead with your desserts. I’ll be back in a minute.”

When he and Savannah reached the foyer, he took her hand and slipped it comfortingly into the crook of his arm. “So, what’s really going on?” he asked her.

“Is it that obvious?”

“You don’t turn pale over a missing cop. Besides, you left without taking a doggy bag full of chocolate cake. That isn’t like you at all.”

She didn’t laugh or even smile. “Dirk says there’s blood spray all over the inside of the vehicle.”

Ryan winced. “Like Titus Dunn’s apartment.”

“Exactly.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

9:04 P.M.

“You know, I used to like orange groves,” Savannah told Dirk as they stood several yards from the abandoned cruiser that was anything but empty now. Dr. Liu and her technicians were at work again, taking photos, making sketches, collecting samples — bits and pieces, swabs and wipings – and combing the area surrounding the car.

“When I was a kid in Georgia,” she continued, “I used to go for long, peaceful walks in the peach orchards.”

“I know what you mean. When me and the old lady were breaking up, I spent a lot of time walkin’ up and down rows like these, and it helped settle my nerves. After this mess, I don’t think a citrus grove is ever gonna settle anything for me.”

“I hear you. Why couldn’t he just do his meanness in grungy back alleys?”

Savannah watched as Dr. Liu studied the gruesome spattering of blood and other gore on the upper portion of the driver’s seat.

When Savannah had first arrived, she had taken a close look herself. She wouldn’t be eating rare steak for weeks.

At the edges of the cordoned area, a crowd was forming. Savannah recognized a few of the spectators, including Angie Perez and her worthless, jock boyfriend. Along with the amateur gawkers were the professionals, reporters from local media and a couple of camera crews from Los Angeles television stations.

Between the Santa Rapist’s exploits and now the missing police officers, San Carmelita was losing its sterling image as a safe, law abiding, upper-middle-class community.

“That blond kid,” she told Dirk, “the one standing with Angie Perez. He’s her boyfriend, the one who didn’t want to stop and help Charlene Yardley. And here he is again. Have you checked him out?”

“I’ve got my eye on him. He’s a bit of a cop buff, listens to police bands. He probably heard the call go out and bopped over here.”

“Do you consider him a suspect?”

“I haven’t exactly cleared him yet. He says he was with Angie and some friends when Charlene was attacked, but they admit he was in and out of the party, supposedly making beer runs, but he was gone a long time.”

“Long enough?” Savannah noticed the young man watching the coroner with ghoulish fascination. But then, a dozen others in the crowd were wearing the same expression.

“Long enough,” Dirk replied. “He’s a ‘maybe’ for the rapes, but the cops…. I don’t know what the hell they’re all about.”

“When did Joe come on duty?” she asked.

“At 1700 hours.”

“Did he call out with anything suspicious?”

“Nope. His memo book is on the front seat. According to it, he’d written three tickets. We’ll run them down, but I’m not expecting anything there.”

A sudden disturbance at the rear of the crowd caught their attention as some loud, unhappy individual was pushing through to the front.

Savannah thought she recognized the voice and the colorful vocabulary. Yes, it was Donald DeCianni. As he burst through the crowd and climbed over the yellow tape, Savannah noticed he was out of uniform. Judging from the baggy sweats, his tousled hair, and the sheet-wrinkle lines on his face, she assumed DeCianni had recently been asleep.

Even when he was well-rested and wide awake, Donald DeCianni wasn’t exactly Mr. Personality. He had been known to challenge his fellow officers to a fistfight over which pizza parlor had the crispiest crust and the coldest beer.

“DeCianni’s not going to take this well,” Dirk grumbled. “He and McGivney were partners for about five years.”

“Were they close?”

“No, couldn’t stand each other. About two months ago, McGivney asked to get transferred just to get away from DeCianni. Got sick of his bullshit. But you wait and see; DeCianni’s gonna act like they was blood brothers or twin sisters or somethin’.”

“Hey, Coulter,” DeCianni called out as he hurried from McGivney’s abandoned car to where Dirk stood with Savannah. “Is this mess yours?”

“The Santa mess is mine,” Dirk told him. “If this is part of the Santa mess, then it’s mine, too.”

“Is it?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“What happened to my brother?”

Dirk shot Savannah a “Told You So” look, then answered him, “Don’t know yet.”

DeCianni sniffed and hitched his thumbs in the waistband of his sweats, exposing several inches of hairy, roly-poly belly. Savannah decided to study the wayward sprigs of hair sprouting from his head—the sight being slightly less revolting.

“And what about Titus?” DeCianni snapped. “Have you got a line on him yet?”

“Nope. Nada,” Dirk said.

“Sounds like you don’t know a hell of a lot,” DeCianni said.

Savannah winced. Dirk wasn’t the best guy on the planet to mouth off to. She watched as he reined in his temper.

“Well, DeCianni, if you wanna help me out,” he said slowly, sarcasm dripping, “play detective for a while, just jump right in. You’ll probably have it all wrapped up by midnight, huh?”

DeCianni backed down a bit, coughed and ran his fingers through his mop of hair. “Well,” he mumbled, “somebody needs to catch this guy. I mean, first Titus, now Joe. Who’s next?”

“Could be one of us,” Savannah said. Why should the boys nitpick at each other without a girl joining in?

“Why us?” DeCianni snapped. He actually looked worried.

She snickered inwardly, but donned her straightest face. “Titus was the first to respond to the call on Charlene Yardley,” she observed. “I noticed that Joe McGivney was one of the first to show up on the beach when we started searching for Titus’s body. Now we’re here. Apparently it isn’t healthy to respond to a crime scene these days.”

DeCianni stared at her long and hard for a few moments, then turned to Dirk. “Is she serious? Do you think that’s what’s behind this?”

Dirk chuckled and shook his head. “Come on, DeCianni. Cops were crawling all over both scenes. It’s got nothin’ to do with anything. She’s just yanking your chain.”

DeCianni stuck his face so close to Savannah’s that she could smell his booze and cigar breath. “Don’t go bustin’ a guy’s balls,” he said, “when his partner’s missing. You haven’t been off the force so long that you don’t know what a low blow that is.”

“Ex-partner,” she quietly added.

“Same difference.” He nodded toward her, then Dirk.

She considered that for a second, then agreed. “True. Sorry, it was a bit below the belt.”

“I’d like to see how you’d feel if something bad happened to this guy.” He punched a thumb toward Dirk. “Or vice versa.”

As he swaggered away, the butt of his baggy sweatpants sagging almost to the back of his knees, Savannah turned to Dirk. “Is it just my imagination, or did that sound a little like a threat?”

Dirk sniffed. “DeCianni likes to think he’s a major threat to humanity. Personally, I think beneath the blowhard bull, he’s a pussy.”

Savannah propped her hands on her hips. “Excuse me. But as a woman and a cat lover, I take offense at that.”

“The profanity?”

“The association.”

* * *

December 15—5:32 p.m.

“Where else but Southern California can you have a barbecue ten days before Christmas?” Tammy said as she danced around the gas grill on Savannah’s patio, wearing a bright red bikini and a sappy grin.

Savannah noted, with only a twinge of bitterness, that the grin was wider than her assistant’s cellulite-free rear end. “Southern Florida,” she said, “the Caribbean, the French Riviera. Here, have another beer.” She shoved a brew at her, determined to put some meat on the kid’s bones.

“Nope. It’s mineral water for me.”

Savannah turned to Dirk, who was chug-a-lugging down his fifth Beck’s. “Mineral water,” she murmured. “How healthy. How virtuous.”

He simply grunted and slid lower in the chaise lounge, pulling his Dodgers cap down over his eyes.

It had been a tough week, and they all needed to kick back a bit. Even Margie was getting into the spirit of the cookout, sitting at the picnic table, stripping the shucks from a dozen ears of corn.

Except for the outlandish hair coloring, the unconventional piercings, and the metal studs sprouting from her black jeans and T-shirt, she might have been any other suburban kid.

Ten minutes before, she had reached into the cooler for a beer and gotten her hand smacked; Savannah was a vigilant big sister. Five minutes after that, the two of them had been squeezing lemons in Savannah’s kitchen, and now a pitcher brimming with icy lemonade sat on the picnic table beside the baked beans and potato salad. Margie was rapidly making the pitcher’s contents disappear.

The sun was setting, casting a purple haze across the tawny foothills behind the neighborhood. A coyote yipped in the distance, prompting a chorus of yowls from his neighbors, who were as restless as he was over the recent brushfires. The occasional piece of white ash floated, like a dirty snowflake from the sky, and settled on the lawn.

“When are your sister and the kiddies supposed to get here?” Tammy asked as she watched Savannah turn the chicken breasts over the flame. The smell of the salsa marinade and hickory smoke filled the damp, evening air, making everyone’s mouth water.

“My granny called this morning,” Savannah said, “and told me they received a call from Vidalia yesterday. Seems the driver kicked them off the bus somewhere in Texas. They spent the night in a motel and caught another one the next morning.”

“That’s awful!" Margie said, nearly dropping her corn. “Your sister being pregnant and all. That driver should be ashamed of himself.”

“Ashamed? He should be fired,” Tammy added, equally scandalized.

Savannah chuckled. “I thought so, too. I even went so far as to suggest a good, ol' fashioned horsewhipping. Until I heard about the fire.”

“The fire?” Dirk peeked out from under his cap brim.

“Yeah. The one my nephew set in an elderly gentleman’s hat. Apparently the old fellow had suggested that the boy not hang upside down from the luggage racks. And we Reids have been known to hold a grudge.”

“And to take revenge,” Dirk added.