Killer Physique (A Savannah Reid Mystery) (31 page)

“Sux. He 8nt talkn,” came the almost instant, Dirk-code reply.

Her thumbs flew over her phone pad. “Comin in. Don’t believe NE thing I say.”

“OK.”

She hurried into the station, by way of the back door. The chief of police, whom she loathed, along with the rest of the brass who had been instrumental in her firing, usual y came and went through the front or side doors.

There was no point in announcing her presence.

Once inside the building, she headed down a narrow, depressing, dark hal way that led to the Box—or so she and Dirk liked to cal Interrogation Room #1.

Dirk would be in there with Nico. No doubt about it. When Dirk was questioning a suspect, he was like a camel in the desert. He didn’t even need to drink or pee. It was as though his entire digestive system just shut down. She’d never seen anything like it.

If only he’d been able to do that on stakeouts.

Sure enough, there was a sign hanging on the door of the Box: INTERVIEW IN PROGRESS.

She knocked lightly, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

When she saw only Dirk and Nico sitting at the table, she was greatly relieved. No attorney.

Good.

Nico had been too stupid to lawyer up.

But he did seem to have enough sense to be scared when she walked through the door. In spite of the fact that he had a body like a bul , Nico radiated the confidence and courage of a barnyard chicken.

Like most of the criminals Savannah had met, Nico hadn’t committed his crimes because he had the fortitude to pay for his misdeeds if he were ever brought to justice. No, Nico wasn’t brave or tough. He was stupid, thinking that he would never have to pay.

She walked to the table and stood beside Dirk, her hands on her hips. “I thought I should let you know, Detective, that your suspect here is now facing a first-degree murder rap. The girl in the hospital—she just died.”

The moment the words left her mouth, Savannah felt a deep stab of conscience. In her line of work, she lied al the time. But she was just superstitious enough to be uncomfortable even uttering something like that.

Dirk glared at Nico across the table. “That’s bad news for you, my man. First-degree murder. That’s a tough one, even for a lifelong career criminal like you.”

“First degree?” Nico asked, looking like he was about to burst into tears or wet his pants or both. “How can it be first-degree murder when it was just a car accident? I never meant to kil that girl. I never meant to hurt any of you.”

“That’s not what your boss, Fabio, just told me,” Savannah said. “He confessed to it al . Said he paid you to run us off the road and kil us.” She walked over and stood behind Nico’s chair. She leaned over, literal y breathing down his neck, and added, “Murder for hire. That’s one of those special circumstances. Buddy, I wouldn’t wanna be you for anything. The way I see it, you kil ing a pretty young girl like that, there’s a needle somewhere with your name on it.”

“Can’t we make some kind of a deal?” Nico pleaded, his chin quivering like a kindergartner begging for dessert.

“Nope,” Savannah told him. “Your boss is in the next room right now writing out a formal confession. He made his deal already while you were fartin’ around in here. And now, he’s the lucky one. He’l be outta jail in five to ten years—about the same time as you’l spend on death row, before they put you down like an old hound dog.”

“No! It wasn’t no murder for hire. He didn’t even give me money. He let me have some old weights that he was gonna throw out anyway. And I was just supposed to bang into the back of your car a little bit. You know, shake you up some. My boss just wanted you to know that he wasn’t somebody you should mess with.”

Savannah looked over at Dirk, whose mouth was slightly open. But his eyes glowed with a grim satisfaction.

They had their confession.

Dirk stood, walked over to a smal cabinet, and took out a yel ow legal pad and pen. He returned to the table and said to Savannah, “Didn’t you just tel us that Garzone’s in there writing out his confession right now?”

“Yep, he’s just about finished.”

Dirk slapped the pad and pen down onto the table in front of Nico. “Then I hope you can write fast, boy,” he told him. “First guy to hand in his confession gets the best deal. Maybe there’s stil time for you to get yours in before he does.” As Nico scribbled frantical y, his tongue sticking out the right side of his mouth like a kid who was concentrating on his coloring, Savannah ventured a glance at Dirk and saw that he was looking at her with an expression of humor and adoration on his face.

Dora had been right; they were a team, and they always worked best together.

Savannah gave him a wink, pursed her lips, and sent him a silent air kiss.

Sometimes, it was especial y nice to be needed.

When Savannah pul ed the Mustang into the al ey behind Garzone’s gym, Richard was in the passenger seat, talking on the phone to Dora.

Dirk leaned forward from the backseat and whispered, “Tammy? Any change?”

Richard held the phone away from his mouth for a moment and said, “A few minutes ago, she looked like she was trying to open her eyes.”

“Excel ent,” Savannah said. “Wel , maybe not excel ent, but encouraging.”

Dirk sighed and fel back onto the seat. “I just want her to wake up and say something to somebody. I’m gonna feel horrible til I hear she’s talking again. It’s unnatural, the blabbermouth kid not talking.”

Richard gave his wife a whispered “I love you, too” and hung up.

They saw a radio car with a couple of uniformed cops pul into the lot near them.

“Okay. There’s our backup,” Dirk said, checking his weapon. “Let’s rock and rol .” For al of his muscles and in spite of his criminal history and lousy attitude, Fabio Garzone wasn’t such a tough guy, after al .

When he saw Dirk and Savannah and their entourage entering his gym, he folded like an old map that’d been left in somebody’s glove box for twenty-five years.

It was only a matter of minutes until Dirk was leading him out to the squad car and shoving him into the backseat.

Fabio had offered no resistance with his muscles, but that didn’t stop him from running his mouth—much to Savannah’s annoyance.

“What exactly am I being arrested for?” he asked, practical y spitting the words at Dirk, who was fastening a seat belt around him.

“For ordering the kil ings of me and my family,” Dirk replied, keeping his temper in check, but barely.

“I never told anybody to kil you or anybody you know—and not Jason Tyrone either.”

“I’m not arresting you for Jason Tyrone’s murder. Not yet,” Dirk said. “But give me time. I’m not gonna rest until you get absolutely everything that’s comin’ to ya.”

He slammed the door and turned to Savannah and Richard. “Let’s get back to the hospital and check on our girl, then I’l run over to the courthouse and get the subpoena to search this guy’s house.”

Savannah nodded solemnly, glaring through the car window at the monster who had put Tammy in that hospital bed. “Can’t think of anything I’d rather do. Wel , actual y, I can. But there’re too many witnesses, and you’d have to arrest me, too.” Chapter 26

Savannah was holding a bouquet of daisies and Dirk a handful of bal oons when they approached the door of Tammy’s hospital room. Richard brought up the rear with a red, heart-shaped box of chocolates.

Al were fil ed with dread over what they might find. And none of them real y believed Tammy would benefit from their gifts.

It was going to have to be a case of “It’s the thought that counts.”

Already, Savannah had steeled herself against the probability that nothing had changed in her brief absence. And she had tried to convince herself that, in Tammy’s case, status quo was a good thing.

But it wasn’t working.

She didn’t have to be a physician to know that unconsciousness was a terribly serious condition, and the longer it lasted, the worse the prognosis. She also knew that once someone had been out for six hours, they could be classified as comatose.

She didn’t think she could stand it if she had to use the words “coma” and “Tammy” in the same sentence.

Dirk reached over with his free hand and grasped hers. She was almost grateful that he didn’t give her the “She’l be fine” line. She’d heard enough lies for one day—even wel -meaning ones.

The three of them crept into the room.

The first thing Savannah noticed were the voices. Fairly loud voices having a normal-sounding conversation, rather than hushed whispers fil ed with fear.

“That’s what I’m seeing, too,” she heard Ryan say. “She’s got an R.O. against him. Wow! Wait til we tel Savannah.”

“Tel me what?” Savannah said, as she was the first to step around the blue curtain that cordoned off Tammy’s half of the room.

And there on the other side of that magical divide was the most beautiful sight Savannah had ever seen in her life.

Tammy, sitting up in bed, ful y awake, her face bruised, her eyes swol en nearly closed, her arm in a sling, and the brace stil around her neck.

Savannah had never seen her looking more gorgeous.

Instantly, Savannah burst into tears. Everything she had been holding back since the col ision came pouring out of her heart and her eyes as she rushed across the room to her friend’s bed.

“Oh, oh, honey!” she shouted. “You’re awake! You’re sitting up!” She glanced down at the electronic tablet that was propped on pil ows on Tammy’s lap. “You’re working?”

Tammy snickered then winced. “Stop it! Nobody’s al owed to say anything funny. My ribs hurt when I laugh.” Savannah tossed the flowers onto the foot of the bed and reached for her friend, to hug her. Then she thought better of it and said, “Where can I touch you that it won’t hurt?”

Tammy took a lengthy inventory of her battered, bruised, and bandaged body. “I think you’d better just blow me a kiss,” she said.

Standing on the other side of her bed, Waycross smiled and said, “I found a spot right here that’s okay.” He pointed to Tammy’s left cheek.

Savannah wasted no time in planting one there.

Dirk did the same. Then he gave her a second one for good measure. “I’m real y glad you’re okay, kiddo,” he said. “You had us al worried sick.”

“Are those bal oons for me?” she asked.

He grinned. “Naw. I brought ’em for Ryan and John. But I guess you can have ’em.” He glanced over toward the window, where John and Ryan sat, each holding their own electronic tablets.

Dora occupied a chair next to theirs and was sipping from a disposable coffee cup. She looked exhausted and, for once, uninterested in adding to the conversation. Richard quietly laid the box of chocolates on the bed next to Savannah’s flowers and went to stand by his wife’s chair.

Lovingly, he massaged her shoulders.

“What’s going on here?” Dirk asked Ryan and John, pointing to their tablets. “You guys sitting around with your thumbs in your ears, playing video games?”

Ryan smiled. “Not at al . In fact, Tammy’s giving us lessons on Internet snooping and cyber-stalking.”

“Good,” Savannah said, as she careful y sat on the edge of Tammy’s bed, “because we need to nail this Fabio Garzone for everything we can.

We’ve got him for setting up the attack on us, but we also wanna nail him for Jason’s murder.”

“Hel ,” Dirk said, “I wanna prove he’s D. B. Cooper and the Zodiac before I’m done with him. Hurt my family and wreck my car . . . He’s lucky I didn’t lock those cuffs around his neck instead of his wrists.”

John cleared his throat. “Those are lofty ambitions there, lad. You might identify him as the Cooper chap, but you’re going to find it harder to blame him for Jason’s passing.”

“Why?” Savannah said, somehow dreading the answer.

“He was in New York City before, while, and after Jason died,” Tammy said with one hand against her left ribs.

“He was conducting workshops at the weeklong Sons of Zeus Bodybuilding Competition that’s held there every year,” John said, holding up his tablet so Savannah and Dirk could see the cavalcade of burgeoning bodies flipping by in a slideshow.

“And al of his club lackies were there, too,” Ryan told them. “So he didn’t get one of them to do it.”

“This is documented?” Savannah asked, hoping against hope.

Tammy nodded, then groaned at the pain it cost her. “Unfortunately, yes. We were just watching the footage of him and his boys on top of the Empire State Building, pounding their chests like a bunch of idiotic, wannabe King Kongs.” Savannah felt like one of those giant, inflated bal oons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade when it had just had its plug pul ed.

She was sinking fast.

“We’re back at square one, then, with Jason’s case,” she said. “And I was just so sure it was that jackass Fabio.”

“You’re not exactly at square one,” Dora said, toying with her disposable cup. “Wait til you hear what your Moonlight Magnolia team here found out on those expensive phone-computer things of theirs.”

Both Savannah and Dirk brightened. “Oh?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Savannah said. “When we walked in, I heard you say something about a restraining order.”

“First things first,” Ryan told her. “And here’s number one on the list of things we’ve uncovered—Alanna wasn’t the only woman Thomas was jealous of. According to some e-mails we dug up, Thomas accused Jason of breaking up a marriage. Apparently, an old girlfriend of Jason’s was getting a divorce, and Thomas thought it was because she’d been unfaithful to her husband with Jason.” Dirk shrugged. “As juicy as that may be, it doesn’t prove anything. Thomas thought Jason was messing around with everybody.”

“True,” John said, “but this couple is getting a divorce, and as recently as yesterday, the wife obtained an order of protection against him.

Apparently the husband’s been threatening her.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Savannah replied, “but it’s hardly evidence in our case.” Tammy piped up. “You know them.”

Savannah raised one eyebrow. “We do?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Leland Porter.”

Savannah’s breath caught in her throat. “Real y?” she asked, as the first puzzle piece clicked into place. “Jason had an affair with his old friend’s wife?”