Cooked Goose (26 page)

“I wish you’d been around yesterday for me and my friend here,” Savannah said, nodding toward Tammy, who was trying not to make a wry face every time she took a sip of her now lukewarm beer. “The cops were hassling us. Picked us up at the corner of Lester and Oak. Seemed to think we were working girls.”

Ed looked them up and down with his good eye. “Well, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Tammy said, “but we weren’t then. Once in a while, even pros have to go grocery shopping.”

Ed waved to the barkeeper for another round of drinks. Having consumed his, he didn’t seem to notice that the ladies hadn’t finished theirs yet. That was the way Savannah liked her pigeons. Soused.

“Those cops are always hassling innocent people,” he said after the bartender had brought another transfusion for him and had removed the women’s barely touched drinks and replaced them with cold brews. “They picked me up, too, for no good reason and gave me hell for more than an hour.”

“You? An upstanding legal advisor?” Savannah looked adequately shocked. Tammy grinned and buried her nose in the suds, pretending to drink.

“You too? Don’t tell me you were hanging out at Lester and Oak.”

“Naw, this detective guy, a real jerk, wanted to ask me some questions about these missing cops.”

Tammy licked her lips. “Really? Why would they ask you about something like that?”

Edward smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. “Let’s just say I’m not known for being a fan of law enforcement.”

“So, this cop—the guy who questioned you—was a real creep, huh?” Savannah said, coaxing as gently as possible. Even drunk, he could get spooked and clam up before she heard anything good.

But, thankfully, Ed seemed to be in a chatty mood. “Yeah,” he said. “He bounced me off a wall; that’s how I got this.” He pointed to his shiner. “I could have ended the talk right away, told him what he wanted to know. But I wasn’t going to make life any easier for him or any other cop. Not if I can help it.”

Savannah glanced over at Tammy, who was all ears. “What do you mean?”
 
Tammy asked.

Savannah leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. “What could you have told him that he wanted to hear?”

“Oh, like that I couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with those cops getting burned. I’ve been in a Vegas slammer for the past two weeks. I mixed it up with one of those rent-a-cops in a casino there. I just got back in town day before yesterday.”

“I see.” Savannah felt her spirits plummet. He was telling her the truth; she could see the sincerity shining in his one good eye. They were back to square one.

She nudged Tammy. “I think we’d better get going. I’ve got some Christmas stuff to do.”

Instantly, Ed turned indignant. “What do you mean? I thought we were getting along great here. I thought, you know, this was a date or something.”

Savannah waited until she and Tammy were well out of the booth and had their purses tucked under their arms, her car keys in her hand before she said, “Sorry, Ed. But like we told you when you first sat down, we’re off duty.”

“That’s right,” Tammy added. “Sheez. Even working girls have Christmas presents to wrap.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

December 18—7:40 p.m.

" Are you all right, Savannah?” Ryan Stone asked as he stood beside her in her kitchen and watched as she arranged slices of apple, chunks of banana, strawberries, oranges and cubes of pound cake on a silver platter. “You seem tired or preoccupied. Is there anything we can do to help?”

She stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m fine, Ryan. Thanks for asking. It’s just that, going to a funeral in the afternoon, then giving a Christmas party in the evening—it doesn’t seem right somehow.”

“Of course not. There’s nothing right about murder, ever.” He took a slice of apple and nibbled on it. “If a person dies of natural causes or even a simple accident, it’s easier to believe that their passing was part of a divine plan. But homicide. Never.”

She walked over to the stove and stirred the chocolate mixture that was heating in the double boiler. The rich aroma filled the air. For Savannah, the scent of chocolate was as much a part of Christmas as the smell of pine or bayberry. At times like this, she missed her Gran’s homemade fudge and walnut divinity. Mostly, she just missed her Gran.

“Joe McGivney’s widow was a mess,” she told him as she added a bit of cream to the mix. “Not that the rest of us were much better. When they played ‘Amazing Grace’ on the bagpipes, there wasn’t a dry eye in sight.”

“I know what you mean. The bagpipes always get me, too.”

John Gibson had entered the kitchen in time to hear their last exchange. “I saw the procession going down Harrington Boulevard,” he said. “There must have been peace officers there from all over the state.”

“And some from Arizona and Nevada.” She poured the chocolate into a large fondue pot as Ryan steadied it for her. “Nothing like a show of strength and support to make a public statement. The sight of acres of squad cars, rolling silently down the street, lights flashing, should be enough to make John Q. Public think twice before he takes out a cop.”

“One would think so,” John said. “But it appears a certain Mr. Public hasn’t gotten the message yet.”

Savannah handed the platter to Ryan and the pot in its wrought iron stand to John. “If you gentlemen would kindly transfer that to the dining room table, I’ll get some plates. And then we can all consume far more calories and saturated fat than the surgeon general would recommend.”

“And savor every morsel, I’m sure,” John said, sniffing the chocolate.

The moment food appeared on the table, Dirk materialized. “I was out there in the living room,” he told Savannah, “trying to entertain your depressed sister and be Christmasy, like you asked me to. And I could hear you guys in here talking about my case.”

“How’s it coming?” Ryan asked as Savannah motioned for them to take seats around the table. “Any good leads?”

“No leads,” Dirk replied as he started to load his plate with fruit and cake. “None at all. Not good, bad or rotten.”

Savannah left them to their discussions and walked into the living room, where she had her third True Spirit of Christmas experience this season. Her sister was sitting in Savannah’s favorite chair, the overstuffed wingbacked affair with the wide, comfy footstool. The two cats, Cleopatra and Diamante, had rolled themselves into black, furry balls on either side of Vidalia’s feet. All three were asleep.

On the end of the sofa, beside the twinkling Christmas tree, Margie had curled up with the twins, their heads bent over Savannah’s ancient copy of
The Night Before Christmas
. The teenager was reading to them, and they were totally absorbed. Savannah could tell they were near the end of the story, so she decided not to disturb them with an invitation to the table.

She walked back into the kitchen/dining area and put on a pot of coffee to brew. Then she joined the men at the table. They were as involved with their discussion as the kids had been with their book. Though the subject matter was anything but festive.

“Anyone who would stick a cop’s badge in his mouth has a lot of rage about something,” Ryan said. “Whether his anger is over a particular issue, or if he lives his life in a perpetual state of fury, that’s the question.”

“Among the chaps you’ve interviewed,” John asked Dirk, “who do you consider most likely to be your fellow?”

“I really don’t know. I’ve got a young guy, a football star, who I like for the rapes. But I don’t know why he’d come after the cops. No connection from him to them that I can see.”

“And we had a possible on a recently released cop killer,” Savannah said, helping herself to an orange slice and dipping it in the melted chocolate. “But, turns out, he’s been in the Nevada system most of the time this has been going on. So, he’s a bust.”

“We’ve got a weird situation with some rings,” Dirk said, reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a small evidence envelope. “Don’t say anything about this, because we haven’t released it to the public, but it seems our missing cop, and our two dead ones all owned rings like this.”

“DeCianni, too?” Savannah said, surprised.

“I asked his grieving girlfriend about it today after McGivney’s funeral. Says he’s got one, but hardly ever wears it. Never told her where he got it. This one was McGivney’s.” Dirk turned to John. “And, even more interesting, our last rape victim had a bruise on her face that could have easily been made by a ring like this.” He shook the star-studded ring out of the envelope and handed it to Ryan.

“Now that is interesting,” Ryan said, examining it closely. “It’s almost like a class ring.”

He handed it to John, who fingered it thoughtfully. “Or some sort of fraternity.”

“I’ve talked to all three women: Titus’s girlfriend, McGivney’s wife, and DeCianni’s girl. They say the men almost never wore the rings and never said where they got them. In fact, DeCianni’s girlfriend and him had a big fight about his. She thought maybe some other gal gave it to him.”

“I’m sure you’ve shown that to your rape victims,” Ryan said.

“Of course I did. And no, they don’t particularly remember it. A couple gave me a weak ‘maybe.’ And Yardley was the only one with a star-shaped bruise.”

“Have you shown this around your station house,” John asked, “to see if anybody has a clue as to what it might mean? They might even know if someone else wears such a thing.”

“I wanted to.” Dirk popped an apple slice into his mouth along with a chocolate-dipped banana hunk. “But the captain told me not to. Says he wants to keep that particular element under wraps for the moment.”

John continued to study the ring, turning over and over in the light of Savannah’s Tiffany-style lamp. “This isn’t an especially good piece of jewelry. The workmanship is a bit amateurish. And there’s no stamp to indicate the gold content, although I’d say it’s low, probably about nine karat. It may have been cast by a local smith.”

“I’ve already checked every jewelry shop in town,” Dirk said. “They’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’ll bet your captain’s putting the pressure on,” Ryan said, giving Dirk a look of sympathy mixed with a bit of respect.

“Pressure? Not really.” Dirk glanced into the living room and lowered his voice. “To be honest, the captain’s been a little weird about this. Low key. Like he doesn’t give a damn if I wrap it up or not.”

John handed back the ring. “That is rather strange. With his officers dropping like the proverbial flies, you’d think he’d have a burning desire to see this chap apprehended as soon as possible.”

Savannah was about to ask every one if they were ready for coffee, when the doorbell rang. She glanced at the clock on her kitchen wall. “It’s after eight. I wonder who that is?” She stood and wiped the chocolate from her fingertips on her napkin. Quietly, she said, “Maybe it’s Bloss, come to acknowledge his daughter’s existence for a change. She’s only received a couple of one-minute phone calls from him since she got here.”

But when Savannah peeked through the peephole, she saw—not the hated Bloss—but another male who wasn’t much higher on her list. “Butch!” she said, throwing open the door. “What a shock, I mean, surprise!”

Looking over his shoulder, Savannah could see an ancient battleship of some sort sitting at the curb. She couldn’t believe he had driven the thing all the way from Georgia without a breakdown.

Her brother-in-law pushed past her and into the small foyer. He was skinny, dirty-haired, slovenly dressed and in need of a shave. In Savannah’s estimation, the epitome of “yahoo.” Weekly she watched more upstanding-looking citizens arrested on the television show,
Cops
.

And he didn’t appear to be in a very good mood. “Where is she?” he demanded.

She could smell the beer on his breath and the aroma of marijuana smoke on his clothes. “Who? Vidalia?”

“Uh-huh. That so-called wife of mine. Took off with my kids and hauled ’em halfway to China. Where the hell is she?”

Savannah grabbed the sleeve of his rumpled T-shirt. “She’s asleep. And your kids are having a story read to them. Keep your voice down and—’’

“Who the hell are you to tell me to keep my voice down? You may be Vi’s big sis, but you ain’t mine.”

“Listen, you knucklehead,” she said. “This here’s
my
home, and while you’re in it you’ll keep your voice down and behave yourself like a gentleman. Because if you don’t, you’re leaving—before you even lay eyes on your family.”

“And who’s gonna throw me out on my ear, you?”

Savannah gave him her dirtiest look and shoved her face close to his. “Think about it, Butch. My right thigh weighs more than your scrawny ass, and the rest of you, too. Now, do you really want to wrestle?”

He thought that one over for a moment and reconsidered. “I wanna see my kids. I aim to have a word—just a nice, quiet, talkin’ to—with my wife. That’s all.”

“Then you stay right here, and I’ll send the kids out to you,” she told him, releasing his sleeve. “And I’ll ask Vidalia if she wants to receive a nice, quiet talkin’ from you.”

Savannah walked into the living room and told the half-asleep children in Margie’s lap that someone wanted to see them in the hall. Then she walked over to her snoring sister, sprawled in her easy chair.