Bitter Sweets (7 page)

Savannah thumbed through the remaining magazines in the box and one of the last ones caught her eye. “Look at this,” she said, holding it up for his inspection.

“Vacations International?” Dirk frowned. “So what? It's a travel mag.”

“It's more than that. My sister Vidalia gets this. She and her husband bought one of those condo time-shares a few years ago. This is the directory for other participating resorts across the country, in case you want to trade your week for another location.”

Dirk was suddenly interested. “You think Mallock owns something like that?”

“It was sent to him and Lisa at their house last year,” she said, studying the mailing address label. “You don't get these directories unless you're a paying member.”

Quickly, Savannah began to scan the magazine, looking for the Southern California locations. “If there's anything local, he could be staying. . . .” She found what she was looking for. “Three. There are three of them within easy driving distance of San Carmelita. One at a hot springs up in Los Padres, another on the beach at the marina, and. . . . some cabins on Lake Arroyo.”

They both glanced at the fishing paraphernalia propped in the corner: rods, tackle boxes, nets, and hip boots.

“Isn't Lake Arroyo famous for its bass,” she asked, tossing the magazines back into the box.

“Yep, I caught a couple of nice ones there last fall.”

“Let's go.”

 

When Savannah and Dirk arrived at the Whispering Pines Lodge on Lake Arroyo, Savannah wasn't surprised—though she was a bit uneasy—to see Tammy Hart's hot pink Volkswagen sitting in the rear of the parking lot with the blonde inside. Earlier, Savannah had called her office to check for messages and had made the mistake of mentioning the latest development to Tammy.

“I want to come along,” she had insisted. “I want to be there when you catch that creep.”

“Nothing says we're going to catch him, Tammy,” Savannah had replied.

“But you might. And I feel really bad about all this, like it was my fault and—”

“Okay, okay, it wasn't your fault any more than it was mine, but you can meet us there. Park in the back of the lot and
stay in your car
until Dirk and I arrive. Don't you dare make a move on your own. You could get yourself hurt or cause us to lose him.”

Tammy had promised, and Savannah was relieved to see that she had been sensible, resisting the temptation to play Annie Oakley and charge in alone. Or, maybe, she had been just plain scared; but that, too, would be sensible under the circumstances.

Savannah climbed out of the Camaro just as Dirk was parking the Skylark next to Tammy. As Savannah had suspected, Dirk didn't look very happy to see her.

“What are you doin' here?” he asked as Tammy hurried up to them, an eager, flushed look on her pretty face.

“Savannah said I could come along.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dirk turned his scowl on Savannah. “And who died and made you Mama Bear around here?”

With a start, Savannah realized that, for the first time, she and Dirk were not partners anymore, homicide detectives with the same rank and authority. He was the law enforcement officer in charge of the situation; she was merely a civilian along for the ride.

On the other hand, he was still plain old Dirk, and she would only let him take this “head honcho” stuff so far.

“She wanted to come, and I said she could. That's it, that's all.” Savannah crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out her chin. She and Dirk had been together too long for him to mistake the stance.

“All right, all right. We're wasting precious time here. You . . . . stay back and out of the way,” he told Tammy. “And if anything funny starts to go down, eat some dirt.”

Tammy looked at Savannah and raised one delicate, arched eyebrow questioningly.

“He's speaking Macho Ass-lish again,” Savannah explained. “Translation: Any problem—take cover.”

“Got it.”

Savannah glanced around the parking lot, but saw only two other cars. “Mallock was driving a late model Ford sedan when he came to my office,” she told Dirk. “I don't see it or the Jeep that he's registered to at the DMV.”

“Not too surprising that he'd change cars,” Dirk added. “If he was smart enough to pull the wool over your eyes, he's no dumbbell.”

“Thanks, I guess,” she muttered as they headed up the walkway toward the door marked “Office.”

“Do you really think he's here?” Tammy asked, darting uneasy glances right and left at the quaint log cabins that were tucked among fragrant pines in a semicircle around the lake's edge.

Savannah breathed in the moist, rich scent of forest loam and sighed. “Somehow, I doubt it. But we'll know soon.”

 

“He isn't here.”

The lean, mean, overworked, and underfed secretary behind the counter stared at the two photos, shaking her head. From the combined smells of the office, Savannah surmised that the woman subsisted on strong coffee and menthol cigarettes. Like a Vegas blackjack dealer, she snapped both pictures onto the counter and pushed them in Savannah's direction. One was the DMV photo of Earl Mallock, the second the department artist's sketch of the same picture, minus the excess poundage, plus red hair and brown eyes.

“Are you sure?” Dirk sounded thoroughly aggravated, but the secretary didn't flinch. She gave him a cold stare, adjusted a twig of hair that had strayed from the French twist at the back of her head and said, “I'm sure. We only have three guests here now, so they're pretty easy to keep track of.”

“Have you ever seen him?” Savannah asked. Hoping. It never hurt to hope.

“Oh, yeah. He rents here all the time. Was here for a couple of weeks, left just last night.”

“Well, hell, why didn't you say so in the first place?” Dirk asked, shoving his omnipresent toothpick to the right corner of his mouth.

“You asked if he is a guest, not if he
was.”

Savannah could tell the secretary was enjoying baiting Dirk. Everyone did. His surly attitude seemed to bring out the worst in nearly everyone around him.

“Can you tell us what cabin he was staying in?” Tammy asked sweetly, batting long lashes like a Mississippi coquette. “And we'd like to look at it, if you don't mind.”

Dirk shot Tammy a warning glance. “I told you to keep back. I'm the one with the badge here. I'm doing the asking.” He turned back to the secretary. “Which cabin?”

She ignored Dirk and pressed a key into Tammy's palm. “Number Fourteen. There's no one there now, so look around if you want. I haven't had a chance to clean it up yet. . . . was going to get to that later this afternoon. Just be sure to lock it up tight after you leave.”

“Give me that damned key,” Dirk growled as the threesome left the office and hurried down the well-worn path to the cabin in question.

With great ceremony Tammy dropped it into his outstretched hand. “You're welcome.”

Before he could close his fingers around it, Savannah snatched it away. “Enough of this crap,” she said, sobering as they neared the log cottage with the numbers painted in red on the green door. “We're all a bit on edge,” she admitted. “But we've gottta look sharp now. There's no telling what we'll find in there.”

 

Savannah knew the moment she cracked the door. She could smell it. The stench of death.

Her heart sank to her shoes, and for a moment she couldn't move.

“You'd better wait out here, Tammy,” she said finally, pushing the door open.

“But—”

“No buts. Stay out here and keep your eyes peeled for Mallock. If you see anything, just let out a holler.”

Savannah gave Dirk a telling look and he returned it as he, too, entered the tiny cabin.

“Shit,” he said under his breath.

“Yeah.”

A quick glance told her the room was empty. . . . if rotten smells, residual horror, and all-around dark, creepy vibes didn't count.

The cabin consisted of three small rooms, the main living area which had a threadbare, floral sofa, a tiny refrigerator, and a sink. Through one door to the left, Savannah could see a primitive bathroom, and through another, a bed.

“Hello?” Dirk said.

Only the eerie, heavy silence replied.

Savannah started to call out for Lisa or Christy, but couldn't bring herself to utter their names.

“What do you see?” Tammy's frightened voice drifted in from the front porch.

“Nothing yet,” Savannah replied.

“That's good, huh?”

Savannah didn't answer.

On the sofa lay a Pocahontas coloring book and some spilled crayons.

“What's that?” Dirk asked.

Again, Savannah couldn't bring herself to reply as she bent over the book and saw some words childishly scrawled in red across the top margin.

She read the four words:

“Oh, God . . . .” she whispered, feeling sick at heart and stomach. She turned and walked toward the bedroom. The odors became overpowering.

Dear Lord in heaven, please not Lisa,
she prayed silently.
Please, not Lisa or Christy . . . . please, please. . . .

The bedroom was empty, too.

Except for the body lying on the floor, wedged between the double bed with its faded, pink chenille spread and the log and plaster wall.

“Don't let it be the kid,” she heard Dirk whisper. “It's not the kid, is it?” he asked, crowding into the tiny room beside Savannah. Her own fear echoed in his shaky voice.

“No,” she said. “Thank God it isn't.”

Half of Savannah's heart rejoiced, as the other half broke. Tears flooded her eyes and sorrow choked her throat as she added, “But it's her mother. It's Lisa.”

The details of what she was seeing rushed over her, a suffocating tsunami of crushing reality. The lifeless, staring eyes. The wrists and ankles bound tightly with thin wire. The neat round gunshot hole in the forehead. The blood and tissue spilling from the massive exit wound in the back.

“Dead?” Dirk asked.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Very dead.”

“O
h, my God! What happened? Is she. . . . ?” Tammy Hart stood in the doorway of the bedroom, her hazel eyes wide with shock as she stared down at the body on the floor.

“Yes, honey, she is.” Savannah walked over to Tammy and placed one hand on her shoulder. She could feel the younger woman shaking violently as the color drained from her cheeks.

“You two should get the hell outta here,” Dirk said, his tone far more gentle than his words.

Transfixed on the corpse, Tammy ignored him and took a few halting steps toward the victim. Savannah watched with misgivings as Tammy knelt beside Lisa Mallock's remains.

“An entry wound to the front of the head,” Tammy murmured in a strangely flat monotone. . . . a student reciting a hard learned lesson. “Exit wound in the back. Close range powder burns. Looks like a large caliber—”

Her voice broke with a sob and she began to gag. Savannah reached for her and turned her around, forcing her to look away. “It's okay, sweetheart,” she said, pressing a big-sisterly kiss to Tammy's forehead. “Dirk can take it from here.”

“But it's our fault.” Tammy looked up at Savannah and the misery and guilt Savannah saw registered on her pretty face went straight to her heart. It wasn't as though Tammy was saying anything new. . . . anything that wasn't already slicing like a dull razor through Savannah's own mind and conscience.

“It's not anybody's fault,” Dirk said, “except for the son of a bitch that pulled the trigger.”

“And we know who that was.” Tammy tried to turn and take another look, but Savannah's hands tightened on her shoulders, preventing her.

“No, we don't. At least, not for sure,” Savannah told her, wishing she could believe her own words.

“That's right,” Dirk agreed. “You never really know who done it, 'til you know for sure who done it.”

“What?” Now Tammy looked confused as well as upset.

“The point is . . . .” Savannah took her by the hand and pulled her out of the cramped bedroom and into the main living area. “. . . . that Dirk has work to do, and we're only keeping him from doing it.”

“But we could help him,” Tammy protested. “That's what we do for a living, right?”

Savannah looked back at Dirk and gave him a sad, sick smile. More than anything in the world, she wanted to stay, to work this case through with him. They had been partners for so many years, it was almost impossible to walk away.

“We shouldn't be here,” she told Tammy. “Dirk is already going to be in trouble for bringing us—me, in particular—with him to a crime scene. We don't want to make things any harder for him.”

Savannah turned back to Dirk and mouthed the words, “I'm sorry.”

He growled and shrugged his broad shoulders. “Just get goin', both of you. I'll give you a ring later, when I know what's what.” Pulling a small, cellular phone—his only capitulation to advanced technology—from his inside coat pocket, he punched in some numbers.

“Coulter here,” Savannah heard him say as she hurried out the door of the cabin and down the dirt path with a weeping Tammy in tow. “I got a stiff at the Whispering Pines Resort on Lake Arroyo. Yeah, that's right. Better get a wagon rollin' and call Dr. Liu.”

 

“Are you dreading it?”

Tammy sat on the end of Savannah's living room sofa, a box of tissues in one hand, the other arm wrapped tightly around a floral, satin-fringed pillow, which she was hugging to her chest.

“What?” Turning from the front window, where she was keeping watch, Savannah tried to concentrate on what her distraught assistant was saying. “Am I dreading what?”

“Telling Brian O'Donnell that his sister is dead.”

Savannah placed one hand on the windowsill for support and resumed her vigil. Any minute now, Brian was due to arrive. He didn't know yet. And she felt she should be the one to tell him.

“Of course I'm dreading it,” she replied, her voice husky. “Informing the next of kin was one of the worst things I had to do on the police force, and it looks like I can't get away from it even now.”

“Are you going to tell him it's our fault?” Sniffing loudly, Tammy tossed the used tissue into a nearby wastebasket and reached for a fresh one.

He'll probably figure that one out on his own,
Savannah thought, but she kept it to herself.

“No,” she said, “and neither are you, because it isn't our fault. Dirk was right, Tammy; the only person responsible for this murder is the one who committed it.”

“Do you really believe that? I mean, completely, truly?”

Savannah opened her mouth to deliver the routine reassurances, but they caught in her throat. “My head believes it,” she said, when she finally found the words. “My heart is going to need some time. The truth is like that; it takes a while to filter down from the mind and through the emotions.”

“How did you get to be so wise?” Tammy asked. Savannah could hear the sincerity in her voice. It both flattered her and made her ashamed.

If I were all that damned smart, Lisa Mallock would be alive right now and her little girl would be safe,
her lacerated conscience whispered. But she didn't need to place any of her own guilt on Tammy. Judging from the kid's hunched shoulders and bowed head, she was toting more than a full load already.

“I'm not wise. Just old,” Savannah replied. “Let's say, I've been around the Monopoly board a few times more than you.”

For several long moments, neither woman said anything. At last, Savannah was pleased to hear Tammy take a sip of the cognac-laced, whipped cream-topped, hot chocolate she had made for her earlier. A little hedonism, once in a while, was good for everyone.

“What are you going to do now?” Tammy asked. “I mean, what's next?”

“I'll talk to Brian O'Donnell and make sure he doesn't hear about his sister on the news. Then I'm going to find Earl Mallock.” Again, she gripped the windowsill, but this time the gesture wasn't one of weakness, but anger. “And when I get my hands on him, I'm going to send him directly to hell.”

 

Brian took it better than Savannah had hoped. Much better. In fact, he was so calm and matter-of-fact about the whole thing that she entertained a few doubts about his own agenda.

“Are you absolutely sure that her ex-husband did it?” he asked.

“At this point, I would say it's likely. But you never know until a case is closed,” she replied.

“I think I'll stay in town until then. . . . until you know for sure.”

“We'll stay in touch.”

Other than the usual “hello” and “good-bye” pleasantries, that was the extent of their conversation, and Brian O'Donnell was on his way.

As Savannah watched his rental car pull out of her drive and disappear around the corner, Tammy appeared, a bunch of computer printouts in her hand and the glint of a smile showing on her tear-swollen face.

“I decided I was wasting time and energy feeling rotten about what happened to Mrs. Mallock,” she said, pulling Savannah over to the sofa and forcing her to sit. “So, I got busy. You'd be surprised what you can find out about a person with just a computer and a modem. . . . when you put your mind to it and stop feeling sorry for yourself, that is.”

Savannah glanced over the papers and was duly impressed. “Good work, Ms. Hart. Don't let anyone call you a blond bimbo. You are extremely talented and intelligent. Don't ever forget it.”

“Thanks.”

“So, Earl Mallock held a city business license?”

“That's right. An antique shop, downtown on Harrington Boulevard. And he had a partner named Alan Logan. It went kaput a few months ago.”

“We'll have to get Mr. Logan's address and have a talk with him.”

Tammy grabbed the papers, sorted through them, and proudly produced a sheet with the information. “Here you go. Alan Logan's home address, new business address, and unlisted telephone number. By the way, his credit rating is the pits. . . . filed bankruptcy six months ago, after the business bit it. Got a divorce two months ago.”

“Is that all you have?”

Tammy jumped up from the sofa and headed toward the office. “You just go talk to him,” she said over her shoulder. “I'm on a roll here. By the time you get back, I'll know if he wears briefs or boxers.”

Savannah drove past the high school, with its hordes of loitering teenagers that made her homesick for her Georgia siblings, and turned left on Lester.

Less-than-picturesque Lester Street ran parallel to the prestigious Harrington Boulevard from one end of the downtown area to the other. But only geographically speaking. Both thoroughfares were located in the quaint, Los Angeles tourist trap part of San Carmelita, the area that surrounded the old mission. The only difference was: Harrington Boulevard had been renovated back in the eighties—palm trees planted, sidewalks widened, wrought-iron streetlamps installed—and Lester Street hadn't been touched.

The fact that Alan Logan's antique shop had once been located on Harrington, but was now situated on Lester, told Savannah that he had been forced to slide down a peg on the business ladder. Intuition told her that he probably wasn't too happy about it.

Glancing at her watch, she decided to give Dirk another call to find out what, if anything, was happening on his end. Punching in his car phone number on her own mobile phone, she watched the street signs, looking for Alan Logan's shop.

Dirk didn't answer. Well, that wasn't so unusual. He had a way of ignoring almost everything in life that he considered a nuisance, and his phone was certainly one.

She tried the next most plausible possibility.

“San Carmelita Police Station.” Bette, with the fake French accent, was on the board. Somewhere on the distant shores of her gene pool, Bette boasted a Parisian
grand-mère,
and she seemed to think this lineage gave her additional sex appeal. No one else seemed to hold the same opinion. . . . but Bette didn't seem to notice.

“Sergeant Coulter, please.” Savannah tried to douse her Southern accent and sound official, so she wouldn't be recognized. The last thing she needed right now was to have a long, boring chat with Bette.

“Savannah? Is that you?”

Savannah stifled a groan. “Yes. Oh. . . . is this Bette?”

“Yes! Where are you?”

That was a funny thing to ask, Savannah thought. Usually Bette would launch into some nonsense about her latest boyfriend, her annoying neighbor, or some other equally less-than-fascinating topic.

“Just running some errands,” Savannah replied curtly.

“Yeah, but
where?”

“Here and there. Does it matter?”

“Ah. . . . so, what's it like, being a lady of leisure, your own boss and all that?”

Savannah bit her lower lip. “I really wouldn't know. Is Dirk in?”

“I wouldn't know either.” Suddenly, Bette sounded a little icy around the edges. “Hold on.”

“Reid, is that you?”

When Savannah heard the grating, nasal voice of Captain Bloss, she almost wished she could transfer back to Bette.

“Yes, I think Bette got her lines switched. I need to talk to Dirk.”

“I'll just bet you do. But I want to talk to
you.”

“Why? I don't want to talk to you.” She was past pretending to be polite with this jackass. Their mutual hatred had been openly declared long ago.

“This ain't social, Reid. This is business.”

Warning bells went off in her head, like her smoke detectors at home the last time she had burnt a skilletful of liver and onions. The prospect of “talking” to Bloss was about as distasteful as that entrée had been.

“We don't have any business,” she said.

“How about a nice little chat about you being charged with ‘accessory to homicide'?”

She could hear the glee in his voice, and it made her want to slap him hard enough to make his ponderous jowls flap. It also made her pulse race, because she knew he wasn't bluffing. That son of a bitch would do it, if for no other reason than to make her life miserable for a while.

“That's ridiculous,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“So, come in and tell me to my face how ridiculous I am. And while you're at it, tell me what you were doing at the murder scene.”

“Murder scene? What murder scene?”

“Come in.”

“Why?”

“Come in, Reid, or we'll bring you in.”