Killer Physique (A Savannah Reid Mystery) (20 page)

“It was a very nice service though,” Tammy said to Ryan in her most comforting, sisterly voice. “A glowing eulogy and pretty music.”

“I didn’t realize that Jason had no family to speak of,” Ryan said. “I remember a long time ago I asked if he had brothers or sisters living in the area. He said he’d been the only kid of a single mom. I guess even she’s passed on.” At the mention of single moms, Savannah noticed that Dirk looked down, as though he was suddenly interested in the label on his beer bottle. “At least she kept him and raised him,” he said softly. So softly that, at first, Savannah wasn’t sure if any of the others had heard him.

But they had.

A heavy silence descended on the room. Savannah searched for the perfect thing to say and couldn’t think of anything. Everything that crossed her mind had the potential to make the situation even worse.

As she tried to decide whether to reply or just let it pass, Ryan spoke up. “How’re you doing with that, buddy?” he asked Dirk. “They’re coming to visit pretty soon now, right?”

When Dirk didn’t answer, Savannah said, “Day after tomorrow. The suitcases are al packed and ready to go, last we heard.”

“Oh, that is soon,” John said.

Again there was a long, awkward pause. And this time it was Dirk who spoke up. “How am I doing? Okay, I guess. Frankly, it’s a bit nerve-racking. Most people don’t meet their parents for the first time when they’re in their forties.” Waycross nodded and gave him a compassionate look. “That must be mighty strange. Savannah and me—our daddy won’t ever win the Father of the Year award. But at least we got to see his face a few times a year.”

Tammy leaned across the table, closer to Dirk. Her big eyes were fil ed with concern as she said, “Are you sorry that I found them for you? Do you wish I’d just left wel enough alone?”

Savannah held her breath, hoping Dirk would say the right thing. The last thing Tammy needed was to think she had hurt her friend or interfered in his life. She was a gentle person with a tender heart and was easily wounded by such things.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dirk said, giving her a warm, brotherly smile. “I’l be grateful to you til the day I die for hooking us up. When I think about how it was, not knowing who my parents were or why they’d given me away like that. . . . Let’s just say this is way better. Even if they turn out to be superweird or somethin’, it’s better knowing than not knowing.”

“Oh, good,” Tammy said, sinking back into her chair. “You had me worried there for a minute.”

“He’s just a mite nervous about their visit,” Savannah offered as she sat down next to Dirk, a cup of hot chocolate in her hand. “Nervous in a manly man, Navy Seal, Ponderosa cowboy sorta way.”

Ryan snickered and nearly choked on his port.

John guffawed.

Dirk pouted. “I don’t think it was al that damned funny.”

Savannah slapped him on the back. “It was al in the delivery, darlin’. Al in the delivery.” Later, when Ryan and John had left, Tammy and Waycross volunteered to do the dishes. So Savannah and Dirk retired to the living room.

Savannah sat in her comfy chair with Diamante on her lap. Dirk stretched out on the couch with Cleo draped across his chest.

These had been their favorite relaxation positions for years. Even back when they were partners and friends, but never lovers.

For the first two weeks of their marriage they had done the lovely-dovey, newlywed thing and snuggled together on the sofa. But old habits die hard, and it hadn’t been long before they had reverted to their previous arrangement.

And the cats were more than happy, each having a pets-providing, chin-scratching, treat-giving human at their disposal.

“That was nice of Ryan and John to ask me how I was doing,” he said, “with al they’ve got going on right now.”

“They care about you,” Savannah told him.

“They care about you, and you care about me, so they care about me.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“I think they feel bad because we’ve been spending al this time on their friend’s case. Time we real y don’t have, considering your parents’ visit.” He sighed and sank deeper into the sofa. “They shouldn’t feel guilty about something like that. Honestly, it’s kinda taken my mind off the visit. If I didn’t have this case to work on, something to keep my mind occupied, I’d probably be a screaming Mimi.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Absolutely. Whenever I’m not thinking about the case, I start imagining these scary scenarios in my head. Stuff like my mom sitting me down for this big, heavy, serious talk.”

“You think she’s going to do that?”

“I guess she kinda has to, doesn’t she? You don’t just waltz into your kid’s life after forty years and say, ‘Hi, sonny boy. Anything new? So much has happened since the last time we saw each other—what with the dinosaurs going extinct and al .’ ”

“Yes, I see your point. That could be a little weird.”

“A little? I gotta tel ya, I do not want to hear about how my parents went up to Makeout Point after the prom and spawned me in the backseat of his Chevy Impala. Cal me old-fashioned, but that’s an image I do not want in my head.” Just for a moment, Savannah’s own mind was pol uted with an image of her mother, Shirley, getting it on with her trucker daddy in the bed of his sleeper cab. She shuddered at the thought.

“Yes,” she said, “if she even starts down that road, you’d better head her off quick.”

“That’s the worst part about stuff like that. Once you’ve heard it you can’t unhear it. And, I swear, I think it’d scar me for life.” Savannah chuckled. “With al you’ve seen and heard on the job? Dude, you’re a lot tougher than you think you are.” He perked up. “You real y think so?”

“Naw, you’re a marshmal ow. I was just trying to perk up your spirits a bit.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

They both sat in silence for a while, petting their respective cats.

Then Dirk said, “What I need to perk my spirits up is to find out, once and for al , what happened to Jason Tyrone. I want to either find some solid evidence that there was foul play, or something to prove, once and for al , that it real y was an accident.”

“You and me both. I need to be getting ready for your parents. I could write the Declaration of Independence with my finger in the dust on top of the bedroom dresser. I’ve got leftovers in the icebox that need to be pitched. I need to stock up on groceries and run several loads of laundry. I can’t have your mother thinking you married a slob.”

“But I’m a slob.”

“That doesn’t matter. Mothers always cut their sons a lot of slack in that department. But daughter-in-laws, that’s a different story. If the house is a mess, it’s her fault. Plain and simple. Women’s Liberation stopped short of correcting that little problem. Now we gals are expected to have jobs and run the house. Bum deal, if you ask me.”

Dirk sat up, placed Cleo on the floor, and walked over to Savannah. He sat down on the ottoman at her feet. Reaching over and taking her hands in his, he said, “I am so, so proud that I managed to marry me a great gal like you. Hel , I married so far above myself that, from where I’m at up here, I’m looking at clouds.”

He waved a big hand, indicating the furniture, the wal decorations, and the careful y chosen, careful y placed knickknacks. “You’ve made us a wonderful house, Van. It’s warm, and cozy, and comfortable, and pretty . . . just like you. And my parents are gonna see that. And they’re gonna see that I love you and you love me. And that’s al that matters.”

She gazed into his eyes and saw nothing but unconditional love and total acceptance. What was a little blue shaving cream on the bathroom mirror in comparison to gifts like those?

Placing her hands on either side of his face, she pul ed him to her and gave him a long, passionate kiss.

When they final y came up for air, she laughed and said, “You just said al that mushy stuff so you could get in my bloomers. Right, boy?” He laughed. “Busted. You got me.” Slowly he trailed his finger tip from her lips down her throat and into her cleavage. “So tel me,” he said, his voice husky, “is it working?”

She grabbed his hand, stood, and pul ed him to his feet. “What do you think?” she asked, as she dragged him toward the stairs.

“I think I’m about to get lucky.”

“Imagine that. Me too.”

Chapter 18

Savannah woke from a restless sleep and sat straight up in bed, her heart pounding. She was trembling and short of breath, and although she was sweating, she felt cold. It was the kind of cold that came from something deep inside her—not from the temperature in the room.

“The patch!” she said.

“What?” Dirk stirred in his sleep and rol ed toward her.

“It was the dadgum patch!”

He groaned and looked at the clock on the nightstand. “Babe, it’s six forty-five in the morning. Could this wait another half an hour or so?”

“Huh? Oh, sure. Sorry, darlin’. I guess I was dreaming about it and . . . wel , you know how I figure stuff out in my sleep?”

“I know how you think you figure stuff out in your sleep.”

“Like the time I figured out that Gloria Houston was embezzling from her boss there at that florist shop.”

“Didn’t that turn out to be the boss who was embezzling from his own company?”

“Um, maybe. But there was that other time when I woke up just knowing that Old Man Cronin had been kil ed with a fireplace poker, there in his own house.”

Dirk yawned. “It was a basebal bat. His nephew did him in for the insurance money.” She was starting to get annoyed. “Fireplace poker, basebal bat, what’s the difference? They were both from inside his house. And I’m tel ing you, it was the patch.”

“But those patches were checked. Dr. Liu or Eileen or somebody told us they checked them and al the rest of the medications there in his room.

There was nothing in them except what was supposed to be.”

He punched his pil ow a couple of times, fluffing it, then snuggled into it. “Seriously, Van, I’m startin’ to think he real y did die of an accident, and we just won’t accept it because that means he died because of his own foolishness. Now, if you don’t mind, I wanna catch a few more winks before I rise and shine. Go back to sleep.”

“You go ahead,” she said, crawling out of bed. “I’m gonna get up and make some coffee and think about this grand revelation of mine. I’m tel ing you, it’s gonna turn this case around.”

When he didn’t reply, she knew he had already slipped back into Dreamland.

She shook her head as she pul ed on her robe and slipped into her house shoes. How lovely it would be to be able to fal asleep so easily.

Dirk had two things down pat—eating and sleeping.

Then she flashed back on the previous night’s activities. Okay, three things.

She plucked Diamante off the foot of the bed and tucked her under her arm. There was no point in reaching for Cleopatra. Cleo was snuggled against Dirk’s ribs and would have fought tooth and nail if Savannah had tried to remove her.

Yes, Cleo had turned into a bona fide daddy’s girl.

Savannah tiptoed out of the room and quietly closed the door behind her. And as she and Diamante passed the door to the much-disputed man cave, Savannah told the cat, “We’l just let those two sleep their lives away, while we solve the problems of the world. And while those two snooze, you and I are gonna have first dibs on the coffee and the Kitty Vittles.”

As they descended the stairs, Savannah chuckled and added, “You know, if I remember right, the two of them slept right through the Northridge Earthquake. Dirk said he didn’t even wake up. But I was screaming my head off, and you were running around the house like a chicken with your head cut off, while your sister . . .”

By the time Dirk and Cleopatra joined the land of the living downstairs, Savannah and Tammy had been on the computer for more than an hour, panning for the gold nuggets of knowledge to be found on the Internet.

“She’s right!” Tammy announced, as he shuffled into the living room, wearing a pair of black pajama bottoms spangled with Harley-Davidson logos and a rumpled tee-shirt.

Original y, probably sometime back in the early seventies, the shirt had also been black. Then it had morphed into a strange, unappealing shade of brown. Now it was a weird, muddy green most commonly seen on Hal oween costumes. And the sage quote that had been printed on the front was now il egible—its wisdom forever lost to the world. Al that remained of the faded letters was “Mustache” and “50 cents.”

“We’ve been researching those medicine patches that people wear,” Tammy fairly shouted, “and it looks like they could be lethal if—” He held up one hand in a gesture that was reminiscent of his traffic cop days. “No! I don’t care if you’ve found Jimmy Hoffa and he was hanging out with Jack the Ripper. I need coffee.”

As he passed by them and made his way to the kitchen, Savannah said to Tammy, “Boy, what a grump he can be first thing in the morning.

Imagine somebody being that grouchy just because they haven’t had their coffee yet.” Tammy turned in her chair and stared at Savannah. “Are you serious?” she asked, an incredulous look on her face. “I mean, real y? Are you kidding me?”

“What?” Savannah asked, clueless.

Tammy shook her head and returned to the monitor. “Oh, to see ourselves as others see us,” she mumbled under her breath.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Oh, look what I found here . . .”

As Savannah tossed her kitchen curtains and her best bath towels into the washing machine with one hand, she cal ed Ryan on her cel phone with the other.

He answered quickly. “Good morning, Savannah. This is a bit early for you.”

“I know,” she replied, as she chose the “warm” setting and added the detergent. “I’ve got a lot going on.”

“I can only imagine.”

“But I woke up this morning with one of those flashes of insight that I get during the night.” There was a long silence on the other end. Then, “You mean, like when you woke up after sleeping on the Stevenson case and thought she had put antifreeze in his sports drink?”

“Wel , that wasn’t one of my best ones, but—”

“And it turned out to be carbon monoxide poisoning?”

She closed the washing machine lid with a loud bang. “Do you want to hear what I’ve got to say or not, boy?” She heard a soft chuckle, then he said, “Sure. Let’s hear what you’ve got. Lay it on me.” She paused, her hand on the detergent bottle. There had been a time, not that long ago, when hearing Ryan Stone use the phrase “Lay it on me” would have set her fantasies and hormones racing.