Peaches And Screams (A Savannah Reid Mystery) (2 page)

Savannah motioned for Tammy, who was already running toward the van, her former fatigue forgotten in the adrenaline rush of the moment. “Come on, kiddo,” Savannah shouted through the half-open door. “You’re not going to believe this. He’s an old collar of ours.”

“Really?” Tammy slid the rear side door of the van open and jumped into the backseat behind Savannah. “Too cool.” Under her golden California suntan, the rosy blush of victory glowed.

“Yeah, too cool.” Savannah looked down at the video camera in her lap, then smiled broadly at Dirk. “You’re gonna owe us girls big time for this one.”

Dirk’s own smile evaporated, a worried look taking its place . . . the expression he usually wore any time the subject of spending money—his money—was discussed. “Why? What do you want? Dinner or expensive candy or perfume, or somethin’?”

“Well, I think we’ll settle for
‘something
,
’ ”
Savannah said carefully.

Dirk scowled. “Something . . . like what?”

“Like . . . don’t you need to go water a bush . . . for a few minutes?”

Byron Swift’s head whipped back and forth as he looked from one to another. “What do you mean? You’re not going to leave me alone with her, are you? I mean . . . that would be police brutality.”

“She ain’t a cop no more.” Dirk chuckled. “She’s a private citizen now.”

“But look what she did to me before! I—”

“Oh, shut up,” Dirk replied. “She ain’t gonna hurt you . . . much.” To Savannah, he said, “And this will settle it, right? If I give you a few private moments here, I don’t have to buy you dinner or nothin’?”

“We’ll call it even. Right, Tammy?”

Tammy nodded, eyes wide with expectation. “Sure.”

“Okay, you got it. Don’t leave any marks.” Dirk double-checked the handcuffs, then backed out of the van, muttering something about having to “drain the dragon.”

Byron Swift began to wheeze like a bulldog in a dust storm.

“Oh, chill out, will ya?” Savannah told him. “I’m not going to hurt you . . . at least, not as long as you do what I tell you to do.”

A shiver swept over him, and for a second his eyes looked hopeful. But hope quickly changed to suspicion. “What? What are you going to make me do?”

Keeping her Beretta trained on Swift, Savannah reached with her left hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of surgical gloves. “Here, Tammy, put these on,” she said, tossing them back to her assistant, who quickly did as she was instructed. “Then lean over here and take this camera off my lap.”

Tammy enthusiastically did as she was told.

“And what do we have here?” Savannah said. “A blank video. How nice.” She snatched a tape, still in its plastic wrapper, from a pile of cassettes on the console and passed it to Tammy. “Do you know how to operate that thing?” she asked Tammy.

Tammy gave it a quick once-over. “Sure. It’s pretty straightforward. Point, focus, and shoot.”

“Good. Take the tape out that’s in there and be careful with it; it’s Dirk’s hard-earned evidence. Then put that new one in. We’re going to make ourselves a little home movie of our own.” She chuckled. “Yep, Tammy, darlin’ . . . you point and focus . . . and if ol’ Byron here says exactly what I tell him to say, word for word . . . I won’t shoot him.” She turned back to Swift and gave him a smile that was completely void of warmth or humor. “Now, Byron, baby . . . you’re going to play the part of a sicko pervert . . . shouldn’t be much of a stretch. You just take a deep breath and repeat after me.”

 

 

“Hi, my name is Byron Swift. I’m the vice president of the San Carmelita Savings and Loan. I’m fifty-two years old, blond hair and green eyes, five foot, seven inches, weigh one hundred and seventy-five pounds. My hobbies are fishing, outdoor barbecuing, walking my dog on the beach, and filming your kids doing their exercises in gym class. I turn these home movies into porn videos, featuring myself doing nasty things with your children. I do this because I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m not going to say that, damn it . . . and you can’t make me say—”

“Hey, Tam, you forgot to edit that part out.” Savannah nudged Tammy, who was sitting beside her on the sofa, with her elbow.

“I’ll cut it later, I—”

“Shh-h-h, I gotta hear this.” Sitting on Savannah’s other side, Dirk propped his sneakers on the coffee table and took a long swig from his beer bottle. Savannah promptly kicked him on the shin.

“Get your shoes off my furniture, you heathen.”

Savannah’s easy chairs were occupied by two other guests, Ryan Stone and John Gibson, her friends and sometimes fellow detectives. On his lap Ryan held both of Savannah’s house cats, Diamante and Cleopatra—a couple of miniature black panthers with rhinestone-studded collars. They were purring with ecstasy as he stroked them and rubbed behind their ears.

Savannah didn’t blame them. Tall, dark-haired, and deliciously handsome, Ryan would have been welcome to stroke or rub her ears any time he liked.

She found John Gibson delightfully appealing, too. Though older than Ryan by around ten years, John was the quintessential British gentleman. His thick silver hair, sweeping mustache, and aristocratic English accent were irresistible.

But Savannah’s fantasies had gone unfulfilled; Ryan and John were committed to each other and had been for years. She had to settle for entertaining them at least once a week, and those events constituted the red-starred days on her social calendar.

They chuckled, watching the video on her television along with everyone else, as Byron Swift continued his coerced confession.

“I do this because I’m a degenerate, who can’t . . . or won’t . . . help himself.” The film jumped . . . another rough cut. “And I’ve been doing it for years, although I haven’t served much time, because I have a high-priced attorney who usually gets me a sweet deal.”

“Savannah, my dear,” John said, “you’re a most effective director. You certainly get the most from your performers.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir,” she replied with her best Southern-belle eyelash flutter. “Here’s the good part.”

“And even though I’m under arrest now . . . again . . .” Swift added, “I’ll probably be out right away and filming your kids again. Be sure to look for me on the streets in a month or two. I’m . . . no . . . I don’t want to . . . okay . . . I’m the twisted lech with the camera. There, are you satis—”

The film ended abruptly, followed by a round of applause.

“And you should have heard Savannah afterward,” Tammy said. “She told him she was going to send a copy of this to the local chapter of Hell’s Angels—Vets on Hogs—and the Parents Against Child Molesters Vigilante Association.”

“Parents Against who?” Dirk asked. “I never heard of a group called that.”

Savannah took his bottle from his hand and helped herself to a long drink. “Eh,” she said with a shrug, “I just made it up. I don’t want him sleeping too well at night . . . or manipulating the system too hard to get out on the streets right away.”

“What
do
you intend to do with this fine film of yours,” Ryan asked, “submit it for Academy consideration?”

“Naw. I’m just going to stash it on a shelf somewhere and deny it exists,” she said. “After all, we don’t want him complaining that ol’ Dirk here abused him by leaving him in a van with two vicious, vindictive females.”

“Yeah,” Tammy added, “I think we violated about fifteen of his civil rights there.”

“At least fifteen,” Dirk agreed.

“And after searching my soul . . . for at least a minute and a half... I can honestly say: I can live with myself.” Savannah reached for the bowl of caramel popcorn on the coffee table. “How about you, Tam?”

Tammy grinned. “The guilt’s a heavy burden, but I’ll bear up.”

 

S
everal hours later, having been plied with copious amounts of double Dutch chocolate fudge, popcorn, and the potables of their choice, Savannah’s guests began to take their leave.

Tammy departed first, promising to return in the wee hours of the morning to take Savannah to the airport. Although Savannah returned home as seldom as possible to the tiny rural town in Georgia where she had been born and raised, this visit was unavoidable. The oldest of nine children, Savannah had been summoned to yet another wedding.

If there was anything worse than going home, it was to a wedding not your own, without any sign of a ring on your finger, without even an escort on your arm.

Ryan and John were the next to leave, waving good-bye from their vintage Bentley as Savannah watched from her front porch. She could hardly see through the tangle of bougainvillea that was taking over the front of her Spanish-style bungalow.

“Have a safe trip to Georgia, dear,” John called as they pulled out of her driveway, his silver hair glowing in the light of the street lamp.

“Be sure to give us a ring if you need anything, okay?” Ryan added, his head stuck out the window. “In fact, give us a call whether you need us or not. We’re going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.” She blew them a kiss.

“Eh, what’re you wasting that on them for,” said a grouchy voice behind her. She turned to see Dirk standing there, pulling on his battered bomber jacket. “Those two aren’t into
girl
kisses.”

“Stop,” Savannah said. “Stop right now. Behave a little better, and I might blow you . . . a kiss . . . now and then.”

His eyes twinkled. “Mmm, had my hopes up for a half a second there.”

She scowled. “Get real, Nacho Breath. Are you going home now, too?”

“Yeah. Some of us have to work tomorrow, while
other
people get to leave on vacation.”

“Some vacation . . . watching one of my zillions of siblings get married, while I’m still . . .”

“Yes?” His eyes searched hers; she quickly glanced away.

“Never mind.” Linking her arm through his, she began walking him toward his Buick, which was parked on the street in front of her house.

“Were you about to moan and groan about still being single?” he asked. “I could have sworn that was what you were going to say.”

“No way. I like being single. No man’s shoes to trip over . . . except your rotten old sneakers when you’re here for Monday night football and the free pizza. Having the toilet seat
down
, where it belongs, all the time . . . except when you visit and leave it up.”

“So, with a guy like me around, you don’t need a husband. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, except for vehicle maintenance, lawn care, and the occasional plumbing job, I do okay.”

“But then there’s the old bada-bing, bada-boom.” He prodded her with his elbow.

“Eh, if I can do without having my oil changed, my tires rotated, and my pipes Roto-Rootered I can give up the old binging and booming.”

His smirk faded into a look of concern. “Speaking of . . . romance . . . are you going to be seeing any of your high school buddies there in Georgia?”

For a second, memories of adolescence flashed before her mind’s eye: sultry nights in pecan groves, stolen kisses behind the athletic field bleachers, daring caresses at the drive-in movie, the backseat of Tommy Stafford’s ’56 Chevy.

Yes, she’d had a few “high school buddies.” However, only one face came to mind. Tommy’s.

But did she even want to see his face again?

“No. I don’t think so,” she said.

“Good.”

Dirk looked so relieved that she didn’t bother to set the record straight, to admit she had been answering her own question, not his.

It was her turn to nudge him. “Why, Detective Coulter, I do believe you’re jealous.”

He jerked his arm away from hers. “I’m not neither. I just don’t want you getting into trouble. You bein’ so far away, I won’t be able to bail you out.”

Before she could protest, she recalled that he had, in fact, bailed her out—both figuratively and literally—numerous times over the years.

She looked up at his face—street-fight scars, perpetually mussed hair, and all—and felt a rush of affection for her best friend in the world. Standing on tiptoe, she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

His “stakeout shave” rasped against her lips, but she had long ago decided that Dirk’s rugged masculinity was perhaps his most appealing attribute . . . along with a rabidly protective streak toward those he cared for. The rest of the world could go to Hades in a pink Easter basket, as far as Dirk Coulter was concerned, but the handful of people he loved . . . he loved fiercely.

“I’ll be fine,” she told him. “I’ll get Marietta married off . . . for the third time . . . and I’ll be right back. You won’t even know I’m gone.”

To her surprise, he bent down and returned her kiss, his lips warm as they lingered just a bit longer than the usual peck on her cheek.

“Oh, I’ll know you’re gone,” he said, clearing his throat. For once, he didn’t add any smart aleck disclaimer to dilute the sentimentality of the moment. “Believe me, I’ll know.”

As she watched him drive away down her street, his taillights disappearing at the corner, Savannah realized she was going to miss him, too. A lot.

Whether she ran into Tommy Stafford or not.

 

 

“Thanks for bringing me to the airport,” Savannah told Tammy as they pulled into the short-term parking lot of the mystery maze known as Los Angeles International Airport, “and for taking care of the kitties and the agency for me while I’m gone.”

Tammy had a slight pout on her face as she swung her old, hot-pink Volkswagen Bug into an empty spot and cut the engine. “And all I asked in return was one little, itsy-bitsy peek at the dress.”

“You’re not looking at the dress. That’s it; that’s all. I don’t even want to think about the damned thing, okay?”

They got out of the car, locked it, and headed for the trunk in front. Tammy opened it and helped Savannah haul out her suitcase, carry-on, and one enormous garment bag.

“It can’t be that bad,” Tammy said, grabbing for the bag, which Savannah snatched out of her hand.

“It’s revolting. Let’s just say, it makes me look like an enormous, upside-down tulip.”

“What color?”

Savannah winced at the thought. “Fluorescent peach.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. I swear, Marietta picked that style just to make the rest of us look ridiculous. She’s not above it, you know.”

Tammy grabbed the suitcase, Savannah the carry-on, and they headed for the departure terminal. “What color is the maid of honor wearing?”

“Mint green.”

“That’s not so bad . . . I guess.”

“Yeah, Marietta was set on dusty rose, but we talked her out of it. Dusty rose and peach. That girl never has had a lick o’ sense when it comes to colors, or dressing, or decorating . . . or men.”

“This is her third time around, huh?”

They stood at the crosswalk, waiting for the constant flood of taxicabs, limos, vans, and transport buses to come to a halt. Even in the pre-dawn hours, LAX hustled and bustled. Savannah punched the signal-control button several more times, although she knew that—like the panel on an elevator—repetition did no good. It only provided the illusion of control to the puncher.

“Yeah, this is Hubby Numero Tres. And she’s got two children, one from each of her exes. Impulse control isn’t exactly Marietta’s forte, either. She was asking everybody whether they thought it was silly for her to wear a white gown and veil. They said it was, but she’s going for it anyway.”

Finally, the light changed, and they started across. A nearby bus coughed out a cloud of acrid diesel smoke, and Savannah tried to breathe momentarily through her ears. Ah . . . the luxury of travel.

The electronic doors slid open, ushering them into the terminal full of harried, mostly irritated, passengers. “When Marietta asked me what she should wear,” Savannah continued, as they headed for the endless queues, “I suggested that she wear a football jersey with the number 3 on the back.”

Tammy laughed. “You didn’t! What did she say?”

“Nothing . . . for two whole weeks. Absolutely not a word. Clammed up tighter than Dirk’s wallet.”

“Only two weeks?”

Savannah shrugged. “Hey, that’s a record for a Reid gal. The only thing we like more than eating is talking.”

“I wish I were coming with you,” Tammy said as she set the suitcase on the floor at the end of the mile-long, twisting, turning, cordoned line. “All that family togetherness sounds like fun.”

“It might be . . . for some other family.” Savannah sighed, realizing that she didn’t really mind the long, long line. It could even be longer, for all she cared. Although she hated to admit it, she was in no hurry at all to return to the bosom of her homeland. “For us,” she said, “family togetherness tends to spell trouble.”

“With a capital T?”

“Oh, yes. Trouble . . . in all caps, bold, underlined, italicized. We Reids don’t do anything halfway.”

 

 

“If that Macon doesn’t shape up real quick, I’m gonna slap him naked and hide his clothes,” Waycross Reid said as he drove the old Ford pickup down the pothole-ridden road. Savannah sat next to her brother and wondered, with every bounce of the shock-shot truck, if one of the exposed seat coils was going to take intimate liberties with her backside. She looked wistfully at the truck’s dash, wishing there was some sign of an air-conditioner vent; she had forgotten how humid the South could be in mid-August, and she was melting inside her cotton suit.

But, while Waycross had a state-of-the-art stereo system, there was no hint of a temperature-control device. As a young man, his priorities were notably different than those of a perimenopausal female.

The saga of the Reid family “troubles” had begun the moment Waycross had picked her up at the Atlanta airport two hours before. Twenty-nine years old, the only redhead in the batch, Waycross was the oldest of her two brothers. His relationship with his younger brother, Macon, had always been rocky, at best. And Savannah usually agreed with Waycross, the more hardworking, sensible, and responsible of the two. If he said Macon was being a pain, it was probably true.

“What’s he doing?” she asked.

“I don’t even know what he’s doing. I’m afraid to ask,” Waycross replied. “But I know who he’s doing it with. Since he graduated from high school he’s been hanging out with those Whitney boys, and you know what trailer trash they are . . . especially that Kenny Jr. What a friggin’ yahoo that one is. He’s so lazy the dead lice wouldn’t fall off him and stupider than a dirt clod.”

“The Whitneys. Yeah, I remember their old man,” Savannah said, searching her memory banks. “He drank like a skunk and practically lived in Sheriff Mahoney’s rear cell. It’s no wonder the kids turned sour.”

As they drove through Savannah’s hometown of McGill, she noted with a twang of the heartstrings some of her favorite haunts: the drugstore where she had enjoyed the occasional strawberry ice cream cone on a hot Saturday afternoon, the library where she had discovered the joy of Nancy Drew mysteries, the elementary school where she, her mother, and even her grandmother had attended. All three generations had played tag among the giant oaks and hopscotch on the hard-packed earth, where the grass had been worn away by hundreds of small, energetic feet.

But the trip down memory lane didn’t take long. When Savannah was a child, McGill, Georgia, had been only three blocks long.

Now it was four.

Urban sprawl.

“Have you given Macon a talking-to?” Savannah asked him.

“I’ve preached whole sermons to him . . . so has Gran . . . but it just rolls off him like rain off a duck’s back. You can’t tell Macon Reid nothing; he knows all there is to know about everything. If you don’t believe it, just ask him.”

“How’s everybody else doing?”

“Gran’s good, full o’ piss and vinegar, as always. Alma helps her out a lot.”

Savannah smiled, reminding herself that there would be a few blessings to this visit. Seeing Gran and Alma were two. Savannah liked to think she loved all her siblings equally, but she had to admit a favoritism toward Alma, who had always been the one to nurse a sick kitten, rescue a baby bird, or help Gran wax a kitchen floor or even scrub a toilet when necessary.

“Alma’s a sweetheart,” she said. “I wish she were the one getting married, instead of Marietta. She deserves to find a good husband.”

“Yeah, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. She’s still pretty shy with the boys.”

“And Cordele?”

“Still as uptight as ever. Goes around telling everybody what they oughta and oughtn’t do. She reads those psychology books and has a label for everything everybody does. I called her a busybody the other day, and she told me I’m a passive-aggressive with severe parental abandonment issues. Whatever the hell that means.”

Savannah chuckled. “That sounds like Cordele. And Vidalia?”

“Going crazy with those two sets of twins, and taking Butch along with her. He works with me at the service station about eighteen hours a day. Says it’s to make ends meet, but I think he’s just avoiding diaper duty.”

Savannah felt another surge of mixed emotions as they left the asphalt highway at the edge of town and turned left onto a dirt road. She wondered how many times she had walked this road from Gran’s house to the highway to catch a school bus, to check the mailbox, or just to get away for a moment of blissful solitude, away from a house full of nine kids, perpetually runny noses, mountains of soiled laundry and dirty dishes.