Poisoned Tarts (13 page)

“'Lanta, honey, I can feel my blood pressure risin' now, so I'm gonna tell you good-bye. If you've just gotta have those fancy boots, then I suggest you go out and earn the thousand dollars yourself. Then you'll just appreciate them so much more. Bye-bye, sugar. I love you.”

Gran looked quite sad for a moment, then she said, “Well, I'm sorry that you don't feel all that lovin' toward me right now. But what I said stands. So you can just get happy in the same britches you got unhappy in. Bye.”

She hung up the phone and sighed, for a moment looking her age.

Savannah felt her temper flare. How dare that spoiled brat Atlanta!

“I'm sorry, Gran,” she said. “She's got a lot of nerve asking you for something she knows you can't afford.”

“Oh, I reckon I could afford it. I could go without a few things and…”

“You've gone without long enough. Don't even think about it. She doesn't need thousand-dollar boots.”

“Well, she says she does. Says it's for an audition she's got next week. Could lead to her getting some more backup singer jobs in the recording studios there in Nashville.”

“Since when do backup singers have to wear thousand-dollar boots? That's the stupidest thing I've heard today.” She thought back on her interview with Tiffy Dante. “And that's saying something.”

“Did Dirko get anything out of Tiffany?” Tammy said. “Did he squeeze her? Put her in the hot seat?”

“No. We were debating between the rack and the iron maiden on the way to the station house. But her attorney was waiting for her when we got there. So even the Chinese water torture was a no-go.”

“Darn. I hate it when that happens.” Tammy grinned. She motioned for Savannah to come over to the desk. “But maybe after you see what I've got for you here, you'll feel a little better.”

Savannah glanced over at Granny, who was thumbing through her Bible, looking peaceful enough. But Savannah detected a trace of sadness remaining on her face.

She debated which of her two tasks at hand to deal with first.

“Want a glass of lemonade, Gran?” she asked.

“No, thank you, sweetie. I'm fine,” came the less than perfectly fine reply.

Savannah said to Tammy, “Let me go upstairs to the little girls' room and powder my nose. Then I'd be very happy to see what you have there.”

She took her purse with her and once behind the closed bathroom door, Savannah dialed her sister Atlanta's number.

When the youngest Reid kid answered, she was crying.

“'Lanta, what the hell's the matter with you?” Savannah snapped.

“I'm…I'm…I'm very upset!” was the whiny reply.

“Well, get over it. Right now! 'Cause you upset Gran, gettin' all huffy with her over those danged boots, and you're going to call her right now and apologize to her and tell her you love her.”

“I am not. Gran's the one who got pissy with me, telling me to get happy in my britches.”

“Atlanta Reid, don't you ever use Gran's name and a cuss word in the same sentence!”

“Cuss word? What cuss word?”

“You know what word:
pissy
. I tell you, I won't abide this kind of disrespect toward Granny. Now you call her and apologize for even asking her for such a big, expensive, ridiculous thing. And, while you're at it, tell her you're sorry for your crappy tone—don't use the word crappy—and you be sure to tell her you love her. I mean it, Atlanta! You make it right with her, or I swear, I'll land on you like a duck on a June bug.”

Savannah hung up, and sure enough, less than a minute later, she heard the downstairs phone ring. Smiling, she took her time, washed her hands, brushed her hair, and eventually strolled back downstairs.

“Ah,” she said. “Much better. Trying to get Dirk to stop at a service station…forget about it.”

She glanced over at her grandmother, who was off the phone, still sitting in the rose chair. But she had a smirk on her face. “Your sister just called back,” she told Savannah.

“Oh? Did she forget to ask for a thousand-dollar cowboy hat to go with the boots?”

“No-o-o. She was calling to apologize to me for the other call. Imagine that.” She chuckled as she gave Savannah another little sly grin. “She buttered me up like a hot breakfast biscuit. She even told me she loves me.”

“Good. I'm sure she does.”

“She said something else, too, just before she hung up.”

“What's that?”

“She said, ‘Tell my big, bossy sister that she can kiss my…um…foot.'”

Savannah laughed. “Well, as long as she said, ‘foot.'”

“I told her she shouldn't call you that.”

“Why not? I'm big, and I'm bossy. Never claimed to be anything else.” Savannah walked over to the desk and pulled up a chair beside Tammy. “So, kiddo, show me what you've got there.”

“I have Daisy's phone records for this past month.”

“Including right before she went missing?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good girl!”

Tammy brought the appropriate screen up on the computer's monitor and began to show Savannah the most pertinent calls.

“She talks to her mother a lot,” Tammy said. “And her mom calls her frequently, too. They don't talk long, just two or three minutes.”

“Just touching base.”

“Exactly.” Tammy pointed to the screen. “This number is the Dante house. Daisy calls there pretty often, too. They never call her.”

“Why doesn't that surprise me?”

“This is Tiffy's cell phone number. Daisy calls it at least once a day. Tiffany doesn't call her. Although the afternoon that Daisy went missing, she called Tiffany once…here…at 3:39. And then Tiffany called her back an hour later.”

Savannah squinted at the screen. “Actually, Tiffy called her three times that afternoon—at 4:30, 5:03 and 5:15. That seems a little odd—a flurry like that from somebody who ordinarily never bothers to call.”

“Look,” Tammy said, pointing to another number. “Daisy called Tiffany again at 4:59.”

“Those calls were flying back and forth pretty fast and furious for a while there.”

“And that's exactly when you figure she went missing.”

“That's right,” Savannah said. “Pam told us that Daisy left the house about four to go to the Dante estate. And after I twisted their arms a little, Tiffy and company admitted she came by for a little while, supposedly to have them help her with her lines for the sitcom taping.”

“Which they say they refused to do.”

“Yes. They say she dropped by, but they told her to get lost and she left. Supposedly.”

Tammy tapped her fingertip on the screen. “Well, it looks like maybe she
did
leave. It wouldn't make much sense for Daisy to be calling Tiffy and vice versa if Daisy was at the estate.”

Savannah mulled over the possibilities in her mind. “So, why the calls back and forth?”

“They were arguing? Fighting about something. Maybe one hung up on the other or…?”

Gran stirred in Savannah's chair. “Or maybe they were meeting somewhere. When I go home after I visit you here, Waycross picks me up at the airport, and if it weren't for our cell phones, I don't know how we'd ever find each other. You call back and forth like that sometimes when you're trying to find each other.”

Savannah considered that one for a while. “You might be right, Gran. Like if they were both driving around, trying to meet up somewhere?”

Tammy nodded. “Maybe they did meet somewhere. And took a drive in Daisy's car.”

“With Tiffany at the wheel? Why would that happen?” Savannah said. “Or maybe they met somewhere, and after Tiffany did whatever she did to her, she decided to move the car to another location…to the park where we found it.”

“I don't like the sound of that,” Gran said.

“Me, either,” Tammy added.

Savannah shook her head, trying to imagine how a tiny, petite woman like Tiffany could have controlled the big, stout Daisy.

“Good work, Tam. Can you print that out for me, and one for Dirk, too?”

“Sure.”

“And one more thing…”

“What's that?”

Savannah didn't even want to say the words. Certainly didn't want to picture the scenario in her mind. But…

“Find out if the Dante family has any gun permits.”

Tammy gave her a startled look. “Wow,” she said softly, “okay.”

“Thanks.” Savannah glanced at her watch. “Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I have to go call a worried mom and tell her that we still have no idea where her daughter is.”

O
ver a dinner of chicken and dumplings, Savannah, Dirk, Tammy, and Gran tried to have a normal conversation. But try as they might, the topics kept changing from the weather, the beaches, the fine art of kite flying to the missing girl.

Savannah couldn't help noticing that Dirk was all but gulping down his meal—unheard of for him. He was far more of a savor every bite kind of guy, which was the main reason why she liked feeding him.

But she had to admit that she didn't have much of an appetite. She found herself wondering if Pam was eating, trying to take care of herself and keep her strength up. She hadn't sounded so good earlier on the phone.

Also, Savannah couldn't help wondering if Daisy was eating dinner somewhere…anywhere. Would Daisy O'Neil ever eat at her mother's table again?

“What's the matter, puddin'?” Gran whispered, leaning over and laying her hand on Savannah's forearm. “You're worrying yourself sick about that girl, aren't you?”

Savannah laid down her fork. “Well, not exactly sick yet, but I'm concerned.” She looked across the table at Dirk, who had abruptly stopped an argument with Tammy to listen in. “We're all pretty worried about her,” she added.

“In fact,” Dirk added, “as soon as I'm done here, I'm going back to the Dante place.”

“You'll be shot,” Savannah told him. “Tammy checked. They've got everything from deer hunting rifles to antique dueling pistols over there. And now that Dante knows what you did to his little darlin'—”

“You mean, what
we
did.”

Savannah shrugged. “Okay, what
we
did…he'll probably slap a lawsuit on you.”

“Or just plain slap you with a glove or something,” Gran added, “and challenge you to a duel with those old pistols of his.”

Dirk gave her a borderline flirty grin. “I think you hotbloods down there in Georgia go in for that dueling stuff a little more than we do here in Southern California. But if I see him getting out a pair of white leather gloves, I'll duck.”

“You'd better,” Gran told him. “That name Dante sounds Frenchish. He could be part Creole, and then you'd have real problems on your hands.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Reid. I'll certainly keep that in mind,” Dirk told her.

His cell phone went off and after listening to his caller for only a few seconds, he jumped up from the table and ran to the living room.

“What's the matter?” Savannah hurried after him.

He rushed to the TV and turned it on, then hung up his phone. He grabbed the remote and turned to the local news.

“Oh, no!” Savannah said as she saw footage of herself and Dirk escorting Tiffany Dante down the walkway of her father's mansion to Dirk's Buick. “Who took that?”

“It's fuzzy, not a very good picture,” Dirk said, watching himself drag the unhappy heiress along against her will. “Looks like maybe somebody shot it with a cell phone camera.”

“Unfortunately, the picture isn't fuzzy enough. Look at that.” Savannah groaned as the Dirk on the screen shoved Tiffany into the backseat of his car. “If Andrew wants to sue you, that film would certainly help his case.”

“Let him sue me,” Dirk said. “She's obviously resisting there. Sh-h-h, what are they saying?”

“Socialite Tiffany Dante was taken into custody today by a deputy of the San Carmelita Police Department…” the reporter was saying.

“Deputy?” Dirk was incensed. “I'm a detective sergeant, you big-haired bimbo! Get it right!”

“She was questioned by the deputy in connection with the disappearance of one of her closest friends, Daisy O'Neil, a member of Tiffany's exclusive Skeleton Key Club.”

“How about a picture of the missing girl instead of that idiot bimbo?” Savannah said. Then to Dirk, she said, “Didn't you guys get a picture to them of Daisy? I gave you the one her mother—”

“Yes. I gave it to Shelly. She scanned it in and sent it to the LA stations and asked them to cover the story.”

“Well, looks like they are all over it,” she replied sarcastically.

Tammy and Gran joined them, and all four watched the footage of Savannah, Dirk, and their captive making their getaway, Buick tires squealing.

Dirk cleared his throat. “Um…did I really peel out like that? Hm-m-m.”

“Video doesn't lie,” Savannah said. “Jurors just love videotape.”

“Oh, shut up.” Dirk headed for the front door.

“Where are you going?” she asked him.

“To the Dantes'. I'm going to wave Tammy's phone records under their noses and scare the sh—” He looked over at Gran. “—the crap out of them.”

He disappeared out the door.

After a couple of profoundly silent seconds, Tammy said, “It might take a little more than a telephone bill to terrify Andrew Dante.”

“True,” Savannah replied. “So true. I'll go with him.”

 

When Savannah and Dirk pulled up in front of the Dante estate, they had to fight their way through a crowd of paparazzi that made the Pasadena Rose Parade look poorly attended.

And they realized it was a mistake to be arriving in Dirk's Buick, which was now a celebrity in its own right. The moment the camera-toting professional stalkers spotted them, they were swarmed.

But neither Savannah nor Dirk had a problem with the press.

“Get the hell out of my face, or I'll arrest every one of you for obstruction of justice!” Dirk roared, holding his badge above his head.

A tiny bubble of camera-free space appeared around him. But twice as many tightened around Savannah until she thought she was going to suffocate.

After sleeping with at least three or four siblings at a time growing up, she had developed a bit of claustrophobia. And finding herself besieged by shouting people, her eyes blinded by their flashes, the phobia exploded inside her.

“Get off me!” she yelled. “The next person who touches me gets clobbered. Back off! I mean it!”

To her surprise, they actually complied, and miraculously, a narrow path opened between them and the house. Dirk plowed through the crowd like an offensive lineman, with Savannah following in his wake.

This is one of those moments for the mental scrapbook
, Savannah thought as she worked her way through the bizarre scene of photographers, coffins, dismembered bodies, and monsters, all illuminated by the surreal flashes of their cameras.

“Are you here to arrest Tiffany Dante?” one reporter shouted.

“Did she murder Daisy O'Neil?” another cried out, a note of hysteria in her voice.

“Nobody's dead that we know of,” Dirk yelled. “Just settle down. There's nothing to report here. Really.”

“Sheezzz,” Savannah added, “don't you people have homes to go to?”

When they reached the front door, fortunately, it was ajar, so they darted inside and closed it behind them.

“Holy cow,” Savannah said, checking herself to make sure she still had everything she'd come with: a full set of clothing, all of her limbs, her purse, her Beretta in its holster beneath her jacket. “If Tiffy has to run gauntlets like
that
all the time, maybe it
isn't
much fun being her.”

They glanced around, but the only one in sight was the Grim Reaper with his newly bloodied scythe. At least, he was the only one who was still intact. A few headless corpses were propped against one wall, and someone had tossed some dismembered body parts around Grim's bony feet.

“A nice touch,” Savannah said.

For once, it was Dirk who decided to be a bit cautious. “I don't think we should just go walking around in here,” he said, “until we see somebody and get invited, or at least tolerated. Dante's gotta be really pissed. I don't want to give him any good reasons for those lawsuits he's talking about with his attorneys.”

“No kidding.” Savannah listened, but the house seemed strangely quiet without all of the chaos that had been swirling through it only a few hours before. Apparently, the Murder and Mayhem Crew had gone home, and only the inhabitants of the house remained…along with their ghoulish rubber and plaster “visitors.”

“Can you imagine sleeping in a house with all this mess tonight?” she said, looking around and shuddering.

“Not really. I actually avoid sleeping in the middle of gory crime scenes. And to think of the money that must have been paid for all this.”

“More than you can imagine,” said a quiet female voice behind them.

They turned to see Robyn Dante coming out of the great room, a sad but resigned look on her pretty face. She was wearing loose gauzy pants and a simple crocheted top, the picture of delicate feminine beauty.

“None of Tiffy's parties are cheap,” she said as she walked over to them. She looked up at the Grim Reaper, who was more than a foot taller than she was, and shuddered.

“It's amazing,” she continued, “how much you can pay for tasteless garbage. But that's what my stepdaughter loves…demands. Expensive, tasteless garbage.”

Savannah was a bit surprised that she would say anything so blatantly critical of Tiffany. That sort of talk couldn't go over well around Daddy Dante.

“You're the ones who took Tiffany out of here today,” she said, looking them up and down. “I saw your story on TV.” A small grin lit up her tiny face, and her blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “Andrew's not going to be happy about this when he gets home.”

“Gets home?” Dirk said, a bit of relief in his voice.

“He left tonight for London…a business trip.”

Savannah resisted the urge to dance an Irish jig. This was good news, no matter how it was told. ‘No Andrew' might mean better access to the Dante mansion and the people in it.

Especially if they were on the good side of the mistress of the manse.

Moving a few steps closer to Robyn, Savannah glanced around and said softly, “It couldn't be much fun for you having to deal with…well…all of this.”

“You have no idea. You marry for better or for worse, but when you're saying those words, you think it's your mate's better and worst. You don't count on his family's worst.”

“That's true, very true. And you two haven't been married that long, right?”

“We'll be celebrating our second anniversary on New Year's Eve.”

Savannah looked into Robyn's big blue eyes and saw some doubt there. Apparently, Mrs. Dante wasn't that sure she'd even make it to the end of her second year.

“I hear you were his travel agent,” Savannah said.

“Yes.” For a moment, the young woman smiled a sweet, reminiscent smile. “I was working for World Travel International, and he walked in and…” Her smile disappeared. “And the rest, as they say, is history. It was splashed all over the tabloids how I took him away from his wife, Tiffy's mom. They didn't bother to report that she had left him and had been living in Switzerland with a lover for two years before I ever met him.”

“Well, that's not as juicy,” Dirk said. “Wouldn't sell as many papers.”

“That's right.” Robyn looked grateful for a sympathetic ear. “And the truth doesn't play as well for Tiffy, either. It's to her advantage to think of me as the evil stepmother who tore her family apart.”

“I can imagine,” Savannah said.

“Andrew's a sucker for guilt where she's concerned,” Robyn continued. “He's always spent a fortune on her, but now…it's crazy how she works on him.”

“Like this party?” Dirk said, waving a hand to indicate the room and all its gruesome props.

“Oh, this party is only one of many, many of her extravagances. And it isn't just the material stuff. It's what he lets her get away with. She's wild! She does exactly what she wants, with whom she wants, to whom she wants. She has no accountability whatsoever.”

“Which brings me to why we're here,” Dirk interjected. “We still haven't found Daisy O'Neil, and we have concrete evidence that Tiffany was involved in her disappearance.”

Robyn didn't look surprised. “I figured that's why you came and got her today. I assume you had a good reason for wanting to question her.”

“We did.”

“And I'm equally sure that she never would have gone with you without you forcing her to,” she added.

“We're committed to finding Daisy O'Neil,” Dirk said “No matter what we have to do.”

“Good. She's a sweet kid. I hope you do.”

Savannah glanced around again and asked, “Is Tiffany here?”

“She's out back by the pool, inspecting the new cemetery we have back there now.” She sighed. “It's just lovely.”

“I'll bet it is.” Savannah pushed aside the mental images of “bodies” floating in the pool. “And how about the other Key girls? Are they here, too?”