Bitter Sweets (21 page)

Tammy wrinkled her pert nose and pursed her lips as though she had just sucked on a sour lemon. “Oooo, that's gross. Must you be so crude, Detective Coulter?”

Dirk chuckled. Other than the fact that they had no idea what sort of trouble Savannah had gotten herself into, or what he would have to do to get her out, things were back to normal.

 

“Where is your granddaughter, Colonel?” Savannah asked.

“Safe. That's all I'm going to tell you right now,” he replied.

“Did she see you kill her father?”

“No, of course not. What kind of a man do you take me for? I waited outside until she had left the shack to relieve herself in the woods. That's when I did it. She never even saw the body.”

The two sat in relative silence for a while, listening to the ticking of the clocks. Savannah watched while he stroked Beowulf's ear and scratched the animal's neck as it leaned against his leg. The dog didn't seem at all aware of the turmoil his master was feeling.

“When I decided to kill Earl,” Neilson continued, “I told myself that I wouldn't care if I got caught. It was something I had to do, no matter what the cost.

“But now,” he continued, “now that I've been exposed, so to speak, I find that it matters very much. Miss Reid, I'm an old man. I don't want to spend my few remaining years in prison.”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before . . . .” Savannah didn't like the self-righteous tone of her own voice. While she might be morally right, who was she to judge this man?

“Do you think I didn't? I thought about it long and hard. But like I said, it didn't seem to matter at the time. He killed my little girl, Miss Reid. She may have been a woman, a stranger to you. But she was my Lisa. That bastard tortured her. Before he died he told me that he was trying to get her to admit that she had committed adultery. But Lisa was a good woman, a decent person. She never . . . . but he . . . .”

His voice broke and tears flooded his eyes. Savannah had the decency to look away.

“I know what he did,” she said. “And I believe I know—at least in part—why you did what you did, too.”

“You can't know it all . . . . the guilt, the self-condemnation, the regrets. When they wanted to prosecute him, years ago, during the war, it was because they knew what kind of an animal he was. He mistreated his prisoners, just like he did Lisa. But I helped to get him off. I had to, he was my soldier. That's why I had to be the one to execute him. I had to be the tribunal and the firing squad. He was my responsibility. I had to take care of it the only way I could.”

Savannah had to ask to satisfy her curiosity. “I was wondering, sir, about the piano wire bindings.”

“I wanted to mislead you and the police into thinking it was the same killer. I couldn't find out what kind of wire he had used on Lisa, but in Vietnam he had used piano on the prisoners. So, I thought it was a good bet. Besides, I thought it was ironic justice somehow for him to be discovered in such a demeaning position, the same as he had inflicted on Lisa and those POWs.”

“But you bound him
after
he was dead?”

“Of course I did. I'm not a cruel person, Miss Reid. I'm not a monster, like he was.”

Savannah quietly digested that information for a moment, deciding that it had the ring of truth. Then she drew a deep breath and continued. “Colonel, I can't even imagine the pain you've been through, losing your daughter in such a terrible way. And I won't presume to understand all of your motives and actions. But Earl Mallock wasn't your soldier anymore. We have laws, and we have peace officers to enforce them. Whatever your reasons, what you did was premeditated murder.”

“You call it what you want. I call it justice.”

“It doesn't matter what you or I call it. It's up to the courts now.”

“So, you're going to arrest me?”

For once, Savannah was almost relieved not to have that badge hanging on its chain around her neck. “I'm not a cop anymore, Colonel,” she replied. “Thankfully, it isn't my duty to arrest you.”

“But you're a conscientious, law-abiding citizen, Miss Reid. Just as I was until a few days ago. Do you feel it's your duty to turn me in?”

She sat, quietly studying him, searching her own heart. The colonel didn't look like a war hero. He looked like a tired old man with an ashen face and beads of sweat shining on his wrinkled forehead.

But then, one never knew for sure what was going on inside another human being, Savannah reminded herself.

“Are you going to try to stop me?” she asked him. If they were laying their cards on the table, they might as well see the entire deck.

“Do you mean, would I try to kill you, too, rather than let you turn me over to the authorities?” He shook his head. “No, Miss Reid. I've killed for my country. I killed for my daughter. But I won't commit murder or any other crime to keep from suffering the consequences of my own actions. If that's what you feel you have to do, I won't try to stop you.”

Savannah looked into those ice blue eyes, and realized they weren't as cold as she had once thought . . . . as she wished they were.

Under the circumstances, she didn't want to like, admire, or respect this man. It clouded her judgment, made it difficult to be objective.

Was it her duty to turn him in? Of course it was. He was a killer, plain and simple.

But it wasn't so plain. And it certainly wasn't simple.

Either way, Savannah had to make up her mind. Because, from where she sat, she could see out the front window, and a very determined-looking Dirk was coming up the walk.

D
irk wasn't overly concerned as he strolled up the sidewalk toward the colonel's front door. So what if Savannah was a little overdue? What else was new?

It wasn't until he heard her yelling that he kicked into high gear.

“Dirk! Dirk, Dir-r-r-rk!” She sounded serious. Very serious.

He bolted to the door and tried the knob. Of course, it was locked. Dirk always expected the worst, because that's what he usually got.

“Dirk!”

She had gone from serious to desperate.

A hundred images flashed across his mind. Most of them having to do with her struggling with a seventy-year-old man. And, judging from the sound of her voice . . . . losing. With her black belt in karate, it didn't seem likely, but . . . .

He mentally cringed, waiting for the sound of a gunshot.

“Savannah! Savannah! What the hell's goin' on in there?” He tried to force the door, but it was one of those big, solid, reinforced types. And his lineman's shoulder had seen better days, better years.

“Get in here!” she yelled, sounding breathless. “Back door!”

He sprinted around the side of the house, slipping on some freshly dug dirt in a flower bed. His knee wrenched. Pain shot up to his hip, but he only barely noticed.

He grabbed the back doorknob, twisted and threw it open with so much force that it bounced off the wall and hit him squarely on the forehead.

Even through his own groans of pain, he could hear the dog barking and Savannah panting as she struggled.

“In here!” she cried between strangled gasps.

He ran into the living room, then nearly skidded to a stop, trying to figure out what his eyes were seeing.

The colonel lay sprawled in the middle of the floor on his back. Savannah was kneeling beside him. It looked like she was beating the living crap out of him. There were no weapons in sight, except for a pistol in a fancy box, lying several feet away beside the sofa.

“Don't just stand there!” she shouted. “Help me!”

“Looks to me like you've got everything under control,” he said dryly. “You're the one on top.”

Now that he could see she was all right, he was relieved and a little pissed for all the effort he had gone through. Besides, his knee was starting to throb.

“Damn it, Dirk. He had a heart attack. Make yourself useful and call an ambulance. Then help me with the CPR, before I have one myself.”

Suddenly, everything made sense, and Dirk felt like a fool.

Oh, well, it wasn't the first time, he thought as he yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and punched out 911. And knowing him, it certainly wouldn't be the last.

 

“Is he going to make it?” Savannah asked the army hospital doctor who looked too young to be anyone's physician.

Funny, the older she got, the younger they seemed to be making doctors, lawyers, and politicians. The kids were running the world these days.

“Are you friends or family?” he asked, holding his clipboard tightly to his chest beneath crossed arms.

Savannah looked at Dirk, who was standing next to her in the hall outside of the Intensive Care Unit, looking as impatient as she felt. She saw him start to reach for his badge, and she grabbed his hand.

“Friends. Close friends . . . .” she said, “. . . . of the family.”

Dr. Kid didn't appear to completely believe her, but he looked bored and eager to be finished with this interview. “Your friend is stable,” he said. “That's about all I can tell you right now until we get the results of some tests. From my preliminary examination, I'd say it was a fairly serious heart attack. While we don't know what damage was done, I would caution you to prepare yourself.”

She gulped. “For what?”

“Is he gonna croak or not?” Dirk wasn't one to mince words. And he had never minded alienating people. In fact, he seemed to take a morbid pride in his talent to do so.

Dr. Kid lifted his chin until he was staring down his nose at Dirk—not an easy feat, as Dirk was at least four inches taller. “Yes, he's going to ‘croak',” the doctor replied without the candy coating or further explanation.

“Sooner or later?” Savannah asked, trying to sound sweet, but it came out saccharine.

“Yes,” was the reply.

“Thank you so much, Doctor.” She reached for his hand and gave it her firmest shake . . . . the one that was guaranteed to make the recipient wince. He did. “I just can't tell you how helpful you've been.”

Dropping his hand as though it had something distasteful smeared on it, she turned and strode down the hall. Dirk quickly caught up.

“Yeah, he's helpful, all right,” she muttered. “About as helpful as a pissant in an outhouse.”

 

As they left the building and headed across the parking lot to the Buick, Dirk stopped and grabbed Savannah by the elbow.

“Hold on, Van,” he said. “Now that the dust has settled, I gotta ask you. What happened there at the colonel's house today?”

“What happened?”

“That's what I said. And don't stall by repeating my own question back to me. That's my trick.”

“It's every man's trick. . . . and you didn't invent it. Men always act like they're the first to come up with something.”

“Oh, yeah? Well . . . . women always change the subject.”

“We do not.”

“So, what happened at the colonel's?”

To his surprise, her blue eyes filled with tears and her lower lip began to tremble.

She was going to cry.
Savannah
was going to cry right there in front of him. She had done it before, but it was a rare occurrence . . . . and it made him feel completely miserable, helpless, and inept.

“Can I . . . . ?” She choked, then tried again. “Dirk, can I please get back to you on that? I've got some thinking to do.”

Right there, right in the middle of the hospital parking lot, in front of God and anybody else who wanted to watch if they were nosy . . . . Dirk put his arms around his former partner and pulled her to his chest. Gratefully, she snuggled in and buried her face against the front of his shirt.

“Sure, kiddo, take all the time you need.” He pressed a quick kiss to the top of her dark, glossy hair and thought for a moment how nice it smelled. “Just as long as you spill your guts to me by . . . . oh, say . . . . tomorrow morning.”

 

Savannah sat in her floral chintz easy chair, Diamante on her lap, Cleo curled around her feet, a piece of half-eaten chocolate cheesecake on the table beside her. Raspberry liqueur sauce dripped tantalizingly down the sides, and onto the cut crystal plate, but—for the first time in the history of the world, or at least as long as Savannah could remember—she wasn't interested in food.

She gave the dessert another sideways glance. Nope, not even a niggle of appetite.

Not a good sign,
she thought. Any situation that couldn't be vastly improved by a piece of cheesecake had to be a tough one, indeed. She must be more worried and upset than she had thought.

Across the dimly lit living room, the time glowed in green numbers on the VCR. It was ten past four in the morning and she hadn't slept all night.

You're gonna feel like shit tomorrow,
she told herself.

It's already tomorrow,
came the sarcastic reply.

See, I told you so.
She had to have the last word in an argument, even if it was with herself.

The slow creak of an upstairs door and the soft steps on the staircase told her that Gran was sleeping about as soundly as she was. Or
wasn't
. . . . as the case might be.

A moment later, she saw her grandmother's feet, the hem of her robe, and then the lady herself as she descended the stairs.

For half a second Savannah felt guilty, afraid she had awakened the older woman, who probably needed her sleep. But the guilt quickly faded to relief at not being alone with her problem.

“What's the matter, Chicken Little?” Gran asked as she sat on the end of the sofa nearest Savannah and pulled her feet up, tucking them beneath her. “Is the sky falling?”

“Not yet. I'm deciding whether to pull it down or leave it there.”

“Pull it down onto your own head?”

“On someone else's.”

Gran nodded sagely. “Mmmm . . . . making a decision that's going to affect another person . . . . that's always a hard one.”

“Especially if you happen to like that person, and if your decision is going to have a major impact on his life.”

Reaching for the uneaten cheesecake, Gran said, “You were a police officer for years, Savannah. I would have thought you'd made hundreds of decisions like that.”

“I suppose I did. But usually, the choice had to be made in a matter of minutes, sometimes only seconds. I didn't have time to think it through. I just acted on instinct.”

“Maybe that's what you should do now. Listen to your heart, Savannah.”

“It isn't talking.”

“It's always talking. If you can't hear it, it's because you aren't listening.”

Savannah sighed, leaned her head back on the chair, and closed her eyes. “I'm just so afraid that I'll make the wrong decision and it'll turn out badly.”

“From where you stand now, you can't foresee the future. You can't possibly know if it will turn out well or not. But even if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, that doesn't mean you made the wrong decision.”

Savannah opened her eyes and studied the dear old face, loving every line. “What do you mean?”

“People are always judging their decisions by the outcome, and that's just plain foolish. There have been lots of decisions made in this world that have caused a heap of human suffering and misery. But that doesn't mean they weren't the right choice to make at the time.”

Savannah thought that one over, while stroking Diamante's satiny head. “So, if you don't base your decision on what you believe the outcome will be . . . . what's the deciding factor.”

“You go with what you feel is the morally right thing to do.”

“What if you're a bit fuzzy about that?”

“You do the best you can and, as long as your heart is being as honest as it can, you trust that the Almighty will take up the slack. It's all any of us can do.”

Savannah thought of Earl Mallock, lying on the floor of that tin shed, a bullet through his brain. “But Gran,” she said, “I know someone who did exactly what you're saying. He made a decision which he thought was morally upright, but he was wrong. It can't be a moral act to take another human being's life . . . . except as an act of self-defense or in defense of society.”

“I agree with you. But the person you're speaking of . . . . whoever this individual might be,” she added with a sly smile, “. . . . didn't agree. If he's a man of honor, he did what he felt he had to do, and he'll understand that you've gotta do the same.”

Savannah felt a sinking sensation in her stomach, as though her half a piece of cheesecake had been made of rocks instead of chocolate.

“I don't like it, Gran,” she said. “Not at all.”

Granny Reid buried the fork in the decadent confection and scooped up a generous bite of cake and raspberry sauce. “Yeah . . . . well . . . . what's ‘liking' got to do with the price of tea in China?”

 

It wasn't even six o'clock in the morning when Savannah knocked on Dirk's trailer door. He took a long time to answer, as she had expected he would. Along with a love of food and nabbing criminals, she and Dirk shared another common bond: Neither one was a morning person.

“What the hell?” he asked as he cracked the door and stuck his head out. “Oh, it's you.”

“Lovely to see you, too,” she replied.

“What time is it?”

She looked up at the sky which was only just beginning to streak with the first rays of sunlight. “Dawn-thirty. Rise and shine, big boy.”

“I'm risen, but there's no way I'm gonna shine, for you or anybody, this early.”

He stepped back and threw the door open, waving her inside.

She wasn't surprised to see he was wearing only his boxers and an undershirt. Modesty wasn't high on Dirk's list of virtues, and he had told her once that he considered robes an extravagance and pajamas sissy.

“I need coffee,” she said, plopping down on his sofa.

“And I need three more hours of sleep. Looks like we're both outta luck.”

He sat down beside her, ran his fingers through his hair, and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, I haven't had a chance to get to a market. Want some water?”

“Bottled?”

“Tap.”

“No, thanks. I don't have any of Ryan's iodine tablets on me.”

He leaned back and draped his arm casually across the top of the sofa. His expression wasn't casual. “Okay, spit it out. You didn't come over here at this hour for coffee. You've got a cupboard full of that gourmet shit in your own kitchen.”

She took a big breath. “It's about the colonel.”

He nodded. “I thought it might be.”