Killer Physique (A Savannah Reid Mystery) (15 page)

“I just moved in here. Not even a month ago,” Thomas replied. “Escrow hasn’t even closed yet.”

“That’s pretty nice of them, letting you live here before the ink’s on the paperwork,” Dirk observed.

“ ‘Nice’ has nothing to do with it. Considering how much money Jason put down on it, I’m surprised they didn’t move the entire property to the beach for him.” He gripped his glass, staring out at the fountain in the koi pond. “Until Jason hit it big with the movies, I had no idea the kind of power that money brings with it. You’d be surprised what people wil do for a fistful of cash.” No, I wouldn’t, Savannah thought. She had seen people take another person’s life for ten dol ars or a single line of cocaine.

“From what we understand,” Savannah said, “the two of you had been together for about five years. Is that true?” He gave her a somewhat unpleasant, sarcastic smile. “Gee, you read the tabloids, too. And did you hear that we were going to adopt an alien baby with two heads and three eyes?”

“No, I reckon I missed that issue,” Savannah replied evenly.

If Thomas Owen wanted to make a good first impression and get on her good side, this wasn’t the way to go about it. Smart alecks had never been high on her list of favorite people.

Thomas seemed to sense her disapproval, and his face softened a bit. He walked over to the sofa and sat down near her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you have no idea what my life’s been like lately. It’s real y been the month from hel , preceded by the year from hel . And I can’t go into a grocery store or convenience shop without seeing every detail of my hel spread al over the covers of those damned magazines.” Savannah softened as wel . “I can’t even imagine how hard that must be. Life is difficult enough without the whole world knowing your business.” Thomas set his drink on the glass-topped coffee table. “Knowing your business, having very strong opinions about your business, and making up business that you don’t even have and printing it. It sucks.”

Dirk seemed a bit less impressed than Savannah, as he looked around at the palatial house. “Yeah, I guess it’s hard to get people to feel sorry for you when you live in a joint like this—especial y when somebody just handed it over to you, scot-free.” Even as she winced, Savannah saw an anger rise in Thomas’s eyes that set off her internal alarm system. Oh yes, Thomas Owen had a temper.

Mental y, she jotted that one down for future contemplation.

“There’s more than one way to earn something,” Thomas told Dirk. “You put up with a guy like Jason for five years—his obsessive training, his ridiculous diets, his ’roid rages, his fooling around, and his whole manic-depressive crap. And then you tel me whether you should walk away with nothing.”

“You didn’t exactly walk away, did you?” Dirk said tauntingly. “If those tabloids that you hate so much were right, he gave you your walking papers.”

Thomas jumped up, his fists clenched at his sides. His face turned a deep shade of red. “What kind of cop believes everything he reads on the covers of tabloid magazines?”

“Not this one,” Dirk replied. “I find that the texts on a victim’s cel phone are a lot more valuable, evidentiary wise. And a hel uva lot more entertaining, too.”

Thomas’s face went from red to an ugly purple. Savannah could literal y see the veins in his forehead throbbing. If Dirk kept this up, the guy was going to have a stroke on the spot.

Dirk gave her a quick glance, and she realized that he had reached the end of his “bad cop” routine. It was time for her to take over as the “good cop.”

“Now, Detective,” she said to Dirk in her most condescending voice—the one he just loved, especial y now that they were married, “Mr. Owen here has been through a real y tough time, and you aren’t making it any easier for him, saying insensitive, mean things like that.”

“I’m not here to make things easier for Mr. Owen or anyone else, for that matter,” Dirk said. “I’m here to find out what happened to Jason Tyrone.” Instantly, Thomas dropped the whole indignant routine. His angry expression disappeared, replaced by intense interest. “What do you mean,

‘What happened to Jason?’ The medical examiner said it was his heart, that he took too many drugs or something like that. She said it was an accident. It was an accident. . . . Wasn’t it?”

“Do you think it was?” Savannah asked softly. “You lived with Jason; you probably knew him better than anyone. What do you think happened to him?”

Without warning, Thomas burst into tears. He covered his face with both hands and sobbed uncontrol ably.

Savannah leaned over and placed her hand on his shoulder. She could feel his entire body trembling.

Neither she nor Dirk said anything as he continued to cry for what seemed like a very long time.

Final y, he began to speak—harsh, broken sentences between his sobs. “It was over . . . at least a year ago. But my mom . . . cancer last winter.

Jason felt sorry for me. Put off tel ing me. In love with . . . someone else.” Savannah reached into her pocket and pul ed out some clean tissues. She considered tissues a mandatory tool in her business. Almost as important as the Beretta strapped to her side.

She handed them to Thomas and said, “There, there. I know it must be just awful. But if you can col ect yourself for a minute and tel us—was there anybody that Jason was on the outs with? Did he have enemies? To your knowledge, did anyone have anything against him?” He lowered his hands from his face. His eyes were big with alarm. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You think that because we just broke up, I might have done something to him.”

“Now why would we think a thing like that?” Dirk said with a distinct tone of sarcasm in his voice. “To my knowledge, Jason didn’t have a family.

But did he have a wil ? Let’s see now. . . .” He paused, pretending to be thinking hard. “If he prepared some sort of wil during these past five years when you two were together, and he didn’t have a family, I wonder who he would’ve left it al to.” Dirk leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and locked eyes with Thomas. “Did you wonder if he’d leave it al to you? Or do you already know?

Did he have time to change his wil since the two of you broke up? He’s been pretty busy with the movie and al . I bet he didn’t get to it.” Thomas jumped to his feet and headed for the door. “I’m done talking to you,” he said. “If you want to find out anything else about my life or Jason’s, I suggest you pick up a magazine at the grocery store checkout line. Now get out of my home.” Dirk did as he was told, but Savannah lingered behind.

This was the time, after Dirk had grossly offended the interviewee, when Savannah’s “good cop” act often worked best.

It was a routine they had perfected years ago, and most of the time it worked very wel .

“Try not to let him get to you,” she said. “Back in the police academy he skipped class the day they taught us how to deal with the public.”

“No kidding. He’s a real jerk.”

“And you aren’t the first to say so.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t shrink away. In fact, he seemed to welcome the friendly touch.

As his tear-fil ed eyes looked into hers, Savannah tried to read what she could see there. Sadness, to be sure. Fear—definitely. And maybe a bit of guilt? She couldn’t be certain.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, his voice shaking. “They just cal ed and told me that the funeral’s tomorrow. His manager’s setting the whole thing up. Just a private, little gathering for those closest to him.”

He gulped. “Not that long ago, I would’ve been the chief mourner. Now I don’t know if I’m even welcome at the service. Am I one of the closest to him?”

He began to cry again, and instinctively Savannah reached out her arms and hugged him. As he clung to her she could hear him say through his tears, “He was my life. My everything. And he’s gone. Now I don’t even know who I am.” Chapter 14

“One of these days,” Savannah told Dirk as they drove over the stone bridge, leaving Owen’s property, “you’re gonna overdo that bad cop bit of yours and get us shot. Or maybe bludgeoned with a frozen leg of lamb or perforated with a fireplace poker.” He laughed. “Naw. That’s what I’ve got you for, kiddo. I’m pretty sure that on our marriage certificate there’s something about you hurling yourself between me and flying bul ets.”

“Real y? Hmmm. I don’t recal anything about bul ets or hurling myself anywhere for any reason. Hurling you? Maybe.”

“It was on the back. In the fine print.”

“I’l have to borrow Tammy’s Nancy Drew magnifying glass and read that itty-bitty print sometime and see what I agreed to.”

“While you’re at it, read the part about the experimental sex you agreed to try every Friday night.” She giggled. “Oh yeah. I can hardly wait to see you in a French maid’s costume, finding creative new uses for a feather duster.”

“That’l be the day.”

“Yeah, the day I bleach my eyebal s and scour them with steel wool. If I were to see you in a short, black skirt and fishnet hose, I’d never recover.”

“Don’t fret. It ain’t gonna happen. You’l be the one wearing the French maid’s costume.”

“And what are you gonna wear for me? I’m an enlightened woman, you know . . . comfortable with my own sexuality and al that liberated stuff. I think the man needs to perform, too.”

He thought for a moment. “I could probably scare up a cowboy outfit and a Lone Ranger mask.”

“Now you’re talking.”

As they neared the freeway, which would take them either north or south, he said, “What now? Whose tree needs shakin’ next?”

“I think we should go back to the hotel. We didn’t real y talk much to the staff, except for when you got snippy with that one gal—the manager, I think it was—and plum near twisted her finger outta its socket.”

“She shouldn’t have stuck it in my face. Nobody gets to stick a body part in my mug without it gettin’ broken or, at the very least, dislocated.” Savannah recal ed the look of agony on the woman’s face as Dirk had bent the pointing finger backward until everyone present heard an ominous crack. “Oh, wel ,” she said. “Hopeful y, she won’t be on duty.”

“She’s on duty.”

“Of course she is. Just my luck.”

“And her finger’s in a splint.”

“It is?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, damn.”

“Yeah.”

They crossed the hotel’s luxurious lobby, heading toward the reception desk. And there was the manager in question, stil wearing her maroon blazer, white shirt, and baggy, black pencil skirt.

She was having a conversation with a pretty, young employee who was also wearing the standard uniform. The younger woman was far more attractive, but it had nothing to do with her youth or the fact that her skirt fit much better. It was because of the nasty scowl on the manager’s face.

And her grimace deepened the moment she spotted Dirk walking toward her.

“Uh-oh,” Savannah said. “She remembers you. That’s a problem you have with women; you’re just so darned unforgettable.” He grumbled something under his breath, and Savannah was pretty sure she heard some rather distinctive curse words that her husband seldom used in her presence.

“What was that you were saying?” she asked.

“You don’t wanna know. But I’l tel you one thing I do know—I didn’t twist her finger backward bad enough for her to need that contraption she’s got on it. That’s for sure.”

As they approached the reception desk, the manager grabbed a telephone and quickly punched in three numbers with her unbandaged hand.

Savannah whispered to Dirk, “Oh no. Dude, I think she’s cal ing the cops on you. Should we run? Maybe take off for Mexico, hide in Tijuana for a few days?”

Dirk quickened his step and arrived at the desk just in time to hear her say, “Yes, dispatcher, I need you to send a patrol car to the Island View Hotel. My name is Linda Gerard and I’m the manager here.” She paused, listening for a moment. Then she said, “The nature of my emergency? The rogue cop who attacked me the other night has just walked into my hotel again.” But Dirk had already pul ed his own cel phone from his pocket and had cal ed 911 himself. “Hi, Sal y. Coulter here. The cal you guys are getting on the other line—ignore it. The woman’s a nut job. I’m here at the hotel and Savannah’s with me. We’l take care of the situation.” He listened, smiling. “What’s that? Oh, thank you. I’l tel her. See you at the barbecue in a couple of weeks.” He hung up and turned to Savannah. “Sal y says to tel you, ‘Congratulations, and she hopes that we’l have a long, happy marriage and that you don’t murder me.’ ”

Savannah chuckled. “That makes two of us.”

Meanwhile, Manager Gerard stood, phone in hand, glaring at them with total loathing. But she seemed to realize she had lost round one of this match, so she hung up the phone.

She stuck her bandaged finger in Dirk’s face, wagged it, and said, “You better be damned glad that I didn’t sue the police department for what you did the other day. If the regional manager hadn’t talked me out of it, I would’ve sued you for everything you’ve got.”

“Oh?” Savannah turned to Dirk. “Everything you’ve got? Wel , let’s see . . . that’s mostly an ancient Buick, a battered bomber jacket, and your col ection of Harley Davidson memorabilia.”

She turned back to the manager, who was stil shaking her mummy-bound finger in Dirk’s face. “How do you feel about shot glasses, ashtrays, and Christmas ornaments—al with the proud Harley Davidson logo on them? My guest room is ful of his treasures. I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d sue him for al that junk and get it out of my house.”

“And while you’re at it,” Dirk added, “you better get that finger out of my face, or you real y might need that splint thing you’ve got on it.”

“What do you two want anyway?” she asked, as she removed the offensive digit.

“We need a favor,” Savannah said, batting her eyelashes.

Gerard gave them a nasty little smile. “Oh right, I’m going to do something nice for you—when hel freezes over.”