Killer Reunion (7 page)

 

“We shall never speak of this night again. Never. Ever. Understood?” Savannah said as she sat in the passenger seat of the rental car, shivering, her teeth chattering, water streaming off her hair, her bare feet and legs covered with mud up to her knees. She was holding her purse in her left hand and one of Marietta's sandals in her right.

Only one.

Dirk stopped the car in front of Granny's house and turned off the engine. Chuckling gleefully, he said, “Right. Get real. You know I'm going to torture you with this every day for the rest of our lives. No way
this
gets brushed under the rug.”

She thought it over. Readjusted her expectations.

“Okay, I'll make you a deal. You don't tell Granny one word of what actually happened tonight—none of it,” she said, “and you'll live to see the morning light.”

“You got it, kid.”

 

They found Gran wide awake and sitting in her comfy chair, reading her Bible. On the side table next to her was a crumpled tabloid newspaper. Granny considered both to be infallible sources of all things true.

“What in tarnation happened to you?” she said as she caught sight of her oldest granddaughter and her grandson-in-law. “Considerin' the lateness of the hour, I was halfway through plannin' your funerals, but I didn't reckon it'd be as bad as all
this
!” She waved a hand, indicating Savannah's sodden attire, dripping hair, and mud-caked legs.

“I'm so sorry, Granny,” Savannah replied, lingering on the doormat. “We had a bit of car trouble and—”

“Don't go giving me that hooey. You never could lie worth a plug nickel, gal, so don't even bother.”

Gran raised one delicate eyebrow as she took in every detail of the twosome's appearance. “
Okay
,” she said once her evaluation was finished. “After the reunion shindig, you went up to Lookout Point for some hanky-panky, got caught in the rain and stuck in the mud.”

Dirk turned to Savannah. “How'd she know where we were?”

Savannah sighed. “The color of the mud. It's redder up there than anyplace else in the county. Right, Gran?”

“Absolutely. I knew ever' time any of you kids went up to that den of iniquity to fornicate—or to come too dadgum close.”

Savannah gave her grandmother an affectionate smile. “And only somebody who had visited that ‘den of iniquity' would know such a thing. Right, Gran?”

Granny sniffed. “I've heard tale. Or maybe I've been up there once or twice in my time. But only with my husband, so . . .”

Nudging Savannah in the ribs with his elbow, Dirk said, “I can see now where you get your detecting skills.”

Savannah nodded. “Let's just say, it wasn't a particularly windy day when that apple fell off the tree.”

“The only question I have is,” Gran continued, “why are you, Miss Savannah, so much worse off than your husband? He ain't the kinda man who'd have his wife get out and push a car that's mired in the mud. Hmmm.”

Savannah sighed. “Gran, just once in a while, don't you reckon
some
things could remain a mystery?”

“Those are the words of a person with secrets to hide, so I'd say that whatever occurred, you, girl, were the culprit.” Gran turned to Dirk. “If you would please, grandson, carry your wife into the bathroom yonder and hose her off in the shower.”

Dirk gulped. “Carry her?”

“Most certainly. I sure don't want those muddy feet of hers on my clean floor.”

Savannah grinned at him. “You carried me over the threshold on our honeymoon night.”

“But that was one step.”

Her grin started to fade. “Are you suggesting, big boy, that I'm a mite too heavy for you to hoist?”

“Why no. Not being a completely stupid man, I wouldn't dream of suggesting such a thing.”

With only a slight groan, he scooped her into his arms and headed toward the bathroom. There was a brief moment of high drama when he tried to maneuver them both through the narrow doorway leading into the bath, but in the end, no romance novel hero had ever done it better.

As they disappeared into the bathroom, he added, “Let's just say, when I married you, babe, I got my money's worth.”

D
uring her career as a law-enforcement officer, Savannah had been required to perform the sad task of informing the next of kin when their loved ones had passed. It had been her least favorite part of being a cop.

In the performance of that depressing duty, she had seen a wide range of reactions, from stoic bravery to numbing shock and uncontrolled hysteria.

But never in all her years had she witnessed the complete breakdown and devastation of a human being who had received bad news—until she told Marietta that her sexy, strapping sandals were a goner.

“No! No! It can't be true! Oh, Gaawwd! Tell me it ain't true!” Marietta shrieked, collapsing across Granny's sofa. Dramatically sprawled, legs apart, turquoise leopard-print knickers exposed, she pressed the back of her right hand to her forehead, while clutching the arm of the sofa with her left. “I can't believe it! I just can't believe it!”

Although Savannah had asked Dirk to be present when she broke the news to Marietta, she didn't blame him for jumping up from Gran's chair and hightailing it out the front door at the first sign of her sister's indecent exposure. Almost everyone who knew Marietta Reid was far more acquainted with her lingerie collection than they chose to be.

When someone misbehaved in that neck of the woods, it was commonly remarked that so-and-so had “shown their hind end.” For some reason, Marietta took that phrase quite literally. Though usually only in the presence of males she found attractive.

“What's all the ruckus in here?” Gran said, charging into the living room, a dish towel in her hand.

When she saw her granddaughter draped across her furniture, writhing in distress like a cartoon blonde tied to a railroad track by a mustache-twirling villain in a long black cloak, she said, “Marietta, this had better be good, gal. You'd best have a powerful excuse for carrying on like a danged fool. And put your dress down and your legs together. We ain't having no hootchy-kootchy girl shows in my front room.”

Marietta made a half attempt at correcting her posture, but the mournful wailing continued. Between sobs, she said, “You don't know what Savannah did, Gran. She totally annihilated my best pair of shoes.”

“I know. I know. I saw.”

“You saw?” Marietta turned on Savannah. “You let Gran see them, but you won't let me see them?”

Savannah donned her saddest, most compassionate face. “It's best,” she said, “if you just remember them as they were. Trust me.”

“But you let Gran see them! Maybe I can get them fixed.”

Gran sat down abruptly on her chair, as though suddenly very tired. “Actually, Marietta, I saw one of them. And it was beyond help. You best work on gettin' over it.”

Marietta fixed Savannah with an evil eye. “She did it on purpose. She murdered my shoes.”

Gran wiped her face with the dish towel, settled back in her chair, and propped her feet up. Then she said in a calm, sweet voice, which Savannah wished she could emulate at moments of high stress, “Miss Marietta, I'm gonna say this to you one time. You need to listen and listen good. 'Cause if I have to get up from this chair on your account and go cut a hickory switch, you're gonna have something to bawl and carry on about.”

Gran drew a deep breath and continued, “Girl, you gather your wits about you and mind your manners, or remove yourself from my house. Just as simple as that. You decide which it's gonna be. Right now.”

Marietta bounced up from the sofa, having gone from grief to indignant fury in an instant. She snatched her purse off the coffee table. “Well! I know when I'm not welcome! Talk about adding insult to injury!”

As she marched toward the door, Gran added with equal grace and composure, “Okay. You've made your choice. And I'll thank you not to return to my home until you've had a change of attitude.”

Marietta's exit was punctuated by a door slamming that rocked the house and rattled the glass knickknacks on a nearby shelf.

“I'm sorry,” Savannah began. “I never meant to—”

“Of course you didn't.” Gran sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, looking oh, so weary.

It occurred to Savannah that sometimes—times like these, when there were conflicts in the family—Gran actually looked her age. And that angered Savannah.

The thought that her grandmother would be troubled at all, especially by something like a pair of stupid hooker heels, seemed wrong to Savannah on so many levels.

“I can't take it like I used to,” Gran said after a moment. “On the other hand, I reckon I could. But I choose not to.”

Savannah sat on a chair near Gran's, reached over, and took her hand between her own. As always, she was surprised at how soft the older woman's skin was. Like a baby's. And she wondered, as she always did, why it should be so, that human beings were their softest at the beginning and the end of their lives.

“I don't blame you,” Savannah said, stroking her grandmother's arthritic fingers. “Marietta knows better. You taught her better.”

When Gran opened her eyes, Savannah saw tears brimming in them, and she felt like her heart would break.

“I tried to teach you all the same. The Lord above knows I did. But with some, it took, and with the others, it just didn't so much. I don't understand that. ‘Train up a child in the way he should go,' the Good Book says, ‘and when he is old, he will not depart from it.'”

Savannah shrugged. “Well, maybe Marietta's not old enough. Maybe she'll turn around yet.”

“When she's ninety?”

Both women chuckled.

“Maybe she's a late bloomer,” Savannah said.

“Might be, but either way, I'm afraid it won't be in time for me to see it.”

“I wouldn't say that. I reckon that from up there in heaven, you'll be able to look down on us and see what's going on. If anybody can, it'll be you, keeping an eye on us, making sure things go well for us, if it's in your power to do so.”

Gran squeezed her hand. “You know me well, Savannah girl. I reckon I won't ever be done raisin' you younguns.”

Savannah looked into her grandmother's eyes, which were the same shade of brilliant cobalt blue as hers, and said, “If someone had told you and Grandpa all those years ago what lay ahead . . . the heartaches you'd have with my dad, all us grandkids, and the fact that you'd have to raise us, do you reckon you and he would've still gone up there that night to Lookout Point?”

Granny threw back her head and guffawed, the hearty sound of her laughter filling the little house, as it had for as long as Savannah could remember.

When she'd finally recovered herself, she said, “Lawdy, girl, the things you come up with sometimes. If I'd said somethin' like that to my grandma, she would've slapped me neckid and hid my clothes.”

She wiped her tears of laughter away with a corner of the dish towel. “But in answer to your question, you're darned tootin' I would have. Your grandpa was one fine-lookin' hunk o' masculinity in his day, with a fierce, passionate nature. Knowin' what I know now, I would've raced that man to the top of that hill. And once I got him there and all to myself, I would have turned him ever' which way but loose.”

 

As Savannah stood at the counter of her grandmother's kitchen and stirred the enormous bowl of carrot cake batter, she felt an almost overwhelming sense of guilt.

Living in a seaside resort town like San Carmelita, with its almost constant onshore ocean breezes, she had forgotten what summer afternoons in Georgia were like. Summer afternoons in almost any part of good old Dixie, for that matter.

As rivulets of sweat dripped into her eyes, stinging them, and streamed down the back of her neck, she silently cursed herself for not having gifted her grandmother with some sort of air conditioner over the years. While Gran claimed to be perfectly fine without one, Savannah couldn't imagine that anyone enjoyed being in a humid, one-hundred-degree room, let alone baking in one.

She vowed that as soon as she returned to California, the first thing she would do was order one of those energy-saving window units for Gran. Maybe even two. One for each end of the house. And then she would send her a couple of checks during the summer months to cover the extra expense on the electric bills.

“Man, if I'd known it was this hot here in this house today, I wouldn't have offered to come over and help y'all bake Gran's birthday cake,” said her sister Vidalia from her position at the end of the table, where she sat, watching Savannah mix the batter and Alma gather the ingredients for the cream cheese frosting.

“Me either,” said Jesup as she performed her most arduous chore of the afternoon—hoisting some iced tea to her lips and guzzling half the glass. “That's one of the main reasons I moved outta here and in with Darrell Abney. At least his trailer's air-conditioned.”

“Those Abneys spend more time in jail than out,” Savannah said over her shoulder. “Why didn't you buy Gran an AC or, better yet, get a place of your own?”

Jesup looked totally confused and more than a bit scandalized. “Now, why would I want to do a thing like that? I'd have to pay rent.”

“I don't know,” Savannah said. “A sense of independence maybe? The satisfaction that comes from knowing that you're an adult, that you're making your own way in the world?”

Jesup gave a snort and took another guzzle of iced tea. “If I get down in the dumps and wanna feel better, I go get another tattoo. Perks me right up. Don't tell Gran, but I've got 'em all over my butt now. Both cheeks. The one on the right's a big rooster, and the left one's of a devil—red face, horns, and everything—stickin' his tongue way out. You should see it.”

Savannah rolled her eyes. “No, thank you. Lovely as it sounds.”

As she poured the batter into the greased cake pans, Savannah could smell the fragrance of the cinnamon and other spices, as well as the pineapple and coconut. She could almost taste the cake now.

Maybe Jesup should take up baking as a way to fight depression
, she thought.
It's less expensive, and Gran's not as likely to throw a conniption and faint dead away if she catches sight of her bent over in the shower.

“Tattoos don't come cheap,” she observed. “Who pays for yours?”

“Darrell's gonna give me one for my birthday. After that, I think I'm gonna dump him and take up with his brother Richie. He's got a job.”

“Good idea. At least you have a fiscal plan for your future.”

Alma giggled and shot Savannah a sly grin.

“What?” Jesup said. “Why are you laughing, Alma? Is she making fun of me?”

“Savannah wouldn't make fun of you,” Alma replied.

“Only every time she opens her mouth to say somethin',” Vidalia added. “She's always been a smart aleck and a half.”

The normally docile Alma whirled around, armed with a silver package of cream cheese in each hand. “Don't you say nothin' mean about Savannah! I'd hate to have to whup you, Jesup, but I will.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jesup waved her off with one hand while refilling her tea glass from the nearby pitcher. “I'm scared plumb spitless. You're gonna beat me to a frazzle with some cream cheese. I'm pretty sure you'd get the death penalty for that.” Jesup saw something through the kitchen's screen door that caught her attention. “Speaking of the law, guess who just pulled into our backyard driveway.”

Even before she looked up, Savannah had a feeling. For as long as she'd known him, she'd had a certain feeling when Tom Stafford was nearby. Apparently, being happily married to someone else hadn't changed that.

No sooner had Savannah popped the two round cake pans into the oven than her own special “someone else” came charging through the back door. The grimace on his face, the same one he got when he took a swig of sour milk, told her that it was, indeed, Sheriff Tom Stafford who had come calling.

“It's him,” he announced as he rounded the table and joined Savannah, who had turned to wash her hands at the sink. “And he's got his Mr. Serious puss on.”

Savannah's pulse rate increased by twenty points or so. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears.

“Reckon it's about last night?” she asked Dirk.

“I sure hope not. Otherwise, this five-star resort vacation of ours might be on its way down the crapper.”

“What about last night?” Jesup wanted to know. “What happened last night?”

“I know,” Vidalia stated. “I heard all about it this morning at the nail salon.”

“Wait a minute,” Dirk barked. “This wide-spot-in-the-road town has a frickin' nail salon?”

“Yeah. Three of them,” Savannah replied. “And that doesn't include Marietta's hair salon. Why?”

“Why? Because I just drove forty-five minutes one way to take my suit to the dry cleaners. How can you have three nail salons and a hair salon and no dry cleaner?”

Jesup waved both hands. “Hold on a minute. I want to hear about what happened last night. What did they say there at the salon, Vi?”

“It's going to have to wait,” Savannah said as she watched her old beau walk up to the screen door and stand there, filling its frame with his oversized, overly muscular body. He had his burly arms crossed over his chest, and as Dirk had observed, he was wearing his most officious scowl.

She recognized it immediately.

It was the look most lawmen—and women—wore when they truly meant business.

They practiced it in the mirror more often than they practiced their marksmanship at the shooting range.