Savannah Reid 12 - Fat Free and Fatal (21 page)

O
ne of Savannah’s least favorite places in the world was the San Carmelita morgue, or as it was more cheerfully called, the Medical Examiner’s Forensic Sciences Laboratory.

She had nothing against dead people. Most dead people hadn’t chosen to be so, so how could you blame them?

But she had witnessed too many truly heart-wrenching scenes inside that building to feel warm and fuzzy when she was walking up the sidewalk to the front door.

Normally, she found the whole experience beyond depressing, and this morning, her mood was even less festive than normal. She was going to see the body of the man she had killed the night before.

Not her idea of a good time.

And things got only worse when she walked through the front door and saw that her least favorite desk officer was on duty, Kenny Bates.

Someday,
she thought,
someone will murder Officer Bates, and I’ll take the stand in their defense and say something like, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you’d only known Bates…if you’d spent one moment in his presence…you’d not only release the defendant but give him/her a slap on the back, a ‘fare-thee-well,’ and the Nobel Peace Prize.”

She had rehearsed her testimony many times, as well as her own defense. “But your honor, he breathed egg salad and nacho cheese chip breath on me, and then suggested I come to his house and watch his new porn DVDs with him. I had to beat him to death with his own sign-in clipboard. I had to. Being a woman, your honor, I’m sure you understand.”

When she walked through the door, he looked up at her and his face split into a big, stupid, leering smile. “Savannah! Hey, baby, what’s cookin’?”

“Your head in my soup pot if you even so much as take a step this direction,” she snapped. “I ain’t in the mood, Bates. I am soo-o not in the mood. So just back the hell off.”

She grabbed the sign-in sheet and scrawled “F. Quew” in the signature column beside her entry time.

“Hey, I hear they’ve got a guy back there that you shot!” he yelled after her as she headed down the hall toward the autopsy suite. “Is that true? You shot him?”

“Yeah, and I didn’t even
know
him, and I shot him five times! I
hate
you, Bates.
Hate
. Live in fear.”

At the end of the long hallway was a pair of stainless steel doors. The door on the right was propped open, so she stepped inside.

“Dr. Liu?” she called out. “Jen, are you here?”

Before her was the large, stainless steel table with its scales, the trays of surgical tools, all covered with sterile cloths, the bright lights and the microphone suspended overhead, the pedal on the floor for the ME to turn the microphone on and off as she dictated her findings into it.

And sinks. Everywhere there were sinks and waste bins marked
Hazard—Biological Waste
.

But no Dr. Liu.

Savannah knew the suite well. The doors to the left were the refrigeration units, each of which could hold four bodies. To the right a door led to a small room where bodies were laid out so that they could be identified by loved ones. The room had a window that opened onto the hall and a shade. Savannah had stood in that hallway many times with the next of kin and watched as they dissolved into tears upon seeing their loved one beyond the glass.

That was another reason why she hated this place. She could literally feel the sorrow, like energy stored in a battery, which had seeped into these walls. She didn’t know how Dr. Liu could bear to work here, but thankfully, she did.

Someone needed to.

“Dr. Jen?” she called out, louder than before.

The door to her right opened, and Dr. Liu stuck her head out. “Oh, hi, Savannah. I’m in here, getting him ready. His mother is supposed to be by in a few minutes.”

His mother. Oh, god,
Savannah thought.
This just gets worse by the minute.

“Then let me look at him and go,” she said. “This is one ID I’d just as soon miss if I can.”

Dr. Liu looked at her with deep compassion showing in her dark brown eyes. “Yes, that’s one you should avoid. Come on it.”

Savannah walked into the small room, which held only the two women and a gurney with a body on it, which was shrouded from head to toe with a green surgical cloth. Even though he was completely covered, Savannah was struck by what a large man Cameron Field was. He had to be well over six feet and considerably more than two hundred pounds.

Dr. Liu said, “Are you sure you want to do this, Savannah? You don’t have to.”

“Yes, I do,” she replied. “The room was dark. I didn’t even get that good a look at him. I have to know what he looks like or this ghostly, featureless face is going to haunt me forever.”

“This could make it worse.”

“It could. But it’s a chance I have to take.”

“Okay.” Dr. Liu pulled the sheet back, exposing him to the waist.

Savannah felt her knees nearly buckle beneath her.

“Are you okay?” the ME asked. “I’ll bring you a chair if you feel like you need to sit down. Or a glass of water?”

“Thanks, but that’s not necessary. I’m okay. But could you leave me alone with him? Just for a couple of minutes.”

She hesitated. “Well, I’m not really supposed to, but…since it’s you…”

“Thank you.”

Dr. Liu slipped silently from the room and closed the door behind her.

Savannah stared down at the still, white face for a long time, taking in every feature. He had a broad, almost pudgy face, a fair complexion and a small cleft in his chin. Faded acne scars showed on his clean-shaven cheeks. His dark hair was slightly wavy and slicked back.

He wasn’t what most people would call attractive in any way. But hardly anyone on the streets would have pegged him for a ruthless killer, either. Quite the contrary. He looked soft, maybe lazy…not someone you would give a second thought to if you stood behind him in line at the grocery store.

He was wearing a black sweat suit. The front of the shirt was crusted with his dried blood and five neat holes were burned into the fabric.

Savannah knew Dr. Liu would cover his chest area with the sheet before showing him to his mother.

Around his neck was a small gold chain and on it hung a gold charm in the shape of an anchor.

She noticed a rip in the sleeve of his shirt. A small tear with something that looked like a thorn caught in the fabric beside it. Savannah recognized the bit of vegetation instantly. She had a pair of bougainvillea on either side of her front door. And for all of their lush green leaves and beautiful red blossoms, she knew all too well how badly those thorns bit if you got too familiar with them. This was a bougainvillea thorn that had ripped his sleeve. She filed that bit of information away for later consideration.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and saw this man as he had been last night, staring at her down the barrel of his revolver. If she had taken half a second longer than she had, she’d be the one on this gurney right now, waiting for Dirk or Tammy or Ryan or John to identify her remains.

“Why didn’t you just put down the gun?” she asked him. “You’d have wound up in prison, but you would have been alive. And your mother could have written you letters and talked to you on the phone.”

Then she thought of Jack and Kim. They’d been given no choice. This man had taken their lives from them with no warning at all.

She had given him a chance to live.

And that was a hell of a lot more than he had given his victims.

“It’s on you,” she told him. “It’s on you, not me. You carry it into eternity with you. And I’m going to sleep a lot better tonight than I did last night. You got what you asked for, you son of a bitch.”

She turned and walked out the door. “Okay, I’m done,” she said.

Then she realized that Dr. Liu wasn’t alone.

The ME was standing in the middle of the room, talking to a petite brunette who looked to be in her mid-fifties. She was simply but nicely dressed in a navy suit, a pretty woman in a plain sort of way.

She had a heart-shaped face and large eyes, though it was obvious she had been crying profusely. In her hand she clutched a bunch of tissues.

“The investigation is ongoing,” Dr. Liu was saying, “but it appears that he was involved in a home invasion of some sort.”

“Someone broke into his house? Why? To rob him?”

Dr. Liu glanced quickly at Savannah who had frozen by the doorway, unable to move.

“Uh, no,” the doctor said, hesitating, as though choosing her words carefully. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but in fact, it appears that it was your son who was the intruder. From what I understand at this point, the police believe he was threatening the movie star, Dona Papalardo with a gun. Her bodyguard was forced to shoot him to save Ms. Papalardo’s life.”

Don’t tell her it’s me
, Savannah thought, trying to send her wishes telepathically to Dr. Liu.
For god’s sake, please just let me get out of here without her knowing it was me.

The lady gasped and brought the tissues up to her face. “Oh no, I was afraid of something like that. My son was a good boy, but he kept things from me, you know. A mother can tell things sometimes.”

Again, Dr. Liu shot Savannah a look. Savannah would have liked nothing better, under normal circumstances, than to question the mother further about her maternal suspicions. But if she ever did find out that Savannah was the one who had killed her son, and she probably would, she would have resented being questioned without being fully informed of Savannah’s role in her son’s death.

“So,” Dr. Liu said, “you aren’t entirely surprised that your son may have been involved in…some illegal activities?”

“Sad, but not surprised,” she said, wiping her eyes. “He was always such a good little boy. He and his father were very close. They both loved the ocean. We had a cottage in Pelican Cove, and they hunted for shells there on the beach day after day. They even photographed the shells they found. Cam got really good with a camera even as a little boy. But his dad died when he was only ten. And he was never the same after that.”

Savannah felt like someone had just reached into her chest and squeezed her heart with a tight fist. She didn’t want to hear this, but she couldn’t bring herself to walk away.

“I had to work all the time to support the two of us,” his mother was saying. “And I left Cam alone a lot. He never had many friends his own age, so he was alone for hours every day. I’ve wondered sometimes if—”

She broke down completely, and Dr. Liu put her arms around her, patting her back. “There, there,” she said. “I’m sure you did the best you could. And I’m sure your son knew you did, too. Kids just don’t always turn out the way we’d like them to. We can’t blame ourselves for the choices they make as adults.”

She continued to comfort the woman until she managed to regain her composure.

Then Dr. Liu said, “Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Field? I’ll prepare your son’s body for you to view it. That will only take a couple minutes, and then it will all be over, but is there anything else we can do to help you?”

She nodded, “Actually, there is one thing. Cam always wore a gold chain with an anchor on it. It was his father’s. I gave it to him on the day of his dad’s funeral, and it hasn’t been off his neck since.”

“Yes,” Dr. Liu said, “it’s on him now.”

“May I have that? I want to wear it now myself. I need it…to feel close to them both.”

The fist that was squeezing in Savannah’s chest clamped down until she was sure she would never breathe again.

The room around her began to spin.

“I have to go,” she said as she hurried past the two women toward the door. “Thank you, Dr. Liu, but I have to—”

“Are you all right?” Dr. Liu called to her as she exited the door and hurried out a rear emergency door. “Savannah, are you…?”

Savannah ran across the parking lot and got into her Mustang. She sat there, gulping in deep breaths of air until her head stopped spinning.

Around her time seemed to slow. The morning sun was streaming through her window, warming her face. A nearby palm tree swayed in the breeze, making its dry, swishing sound. Seagulls overhead swirled, dipped and cawed at each other.

Life continued.

But not for Cameron Field.

And to a certain extent, not for his mother.

Savannah had heard, years ago, an old proverb that said, “When you take a life, you lose a part of your own.”

She looked into the rearview mirror and saw the blue eyes of the woman looking back at her.

“Did part of you die last night, Savannah?” she asked the woman in the mirror. “And if so, what part?”

Time will tell
, was the answer that came back, whispering its quiet wisdom to her heart.
Time will tell
.

S
avannah wanted nothing more in the world than to go home, take a hot bath, crawl into bed with her two kitties, and sleep for days. But only if she had some sort of guarantee that she wouldn’t dream. The few hours she had grabbed the night before had been more stressful than just staying awake all night. Nightmares, featuring dark figures in dark rooms with dark agendas, woke her over and over again, until she had decided to stay awake the few remaining hours until dawn and read.

Anything to keep the demons from bedeviling her.

She had already decided that a good strong sleeping pill or a potent Irish toddy was going to be her pre-bedtime snack tonight.

Unfortunately, it was barely noon. And she had a bit of business to finish before she was officially off-duty.

She headed the Mustang toward the hills and the Papalardo estate.

Nothing would have made her happier than to never return to that place again, but she owed it to Dona to at least check on her and make sure that she was recovering from her trauma.

But when she arrived at the mansion, she couldn’t park within a quarter mile of the place. Reporters’ vehicles lined both sides of the street, and throngs of people milled about in the driveway and on the front lawn.

The crowds were bad when Kim was shot, but this was far, far worse.

Savannah parked where she could and then hiked to the mansion, ducking and dodging her way through the crowd, until she finally reached the front door.

After several knocks and thumb punches at the doorbell, Juanita answered. Her face was lit with genuine delight to see Savannah. But when she looked beyond her to the mob that was charging toward them, she grabbed Savannah’s arm, pulled her inside, and slammed it behind her.

“All night and all day, they do that,” she said, shaking her head. “The phone, she doesn’t stop ringing, and the people, they don’t stop knocking! Ugh!”

As though materializing out of her words, a phone in the library began to ring and someone pounded on the door.

“You see! I do not lie.
Es muy loco!”

“I’m sorry, Juanita,” Savannah said. “Things will probably quiet down in a few days. You’ll just have to ride it out. How is Ms. Papalardo?”

Juanita smiled. “Ah, she is good. Much better. She is happy now. Today she told me how happy she is that she is alive. It is a gift to be alive.”

“I can’t say that hasn’t occurred to me a few times today myself,” Savannah said. “It was a close call last night. Be glad that you weren’t here, that you’d gone home already.”

“Oh, I am glad. I mean, I’m sorry it happened to you and Senorita Tammy and Senorita Dona, but I think I would have died, I would have been so scared!”

Savannah thought of Juanita’s gentle strength when Jack had been killed and she said, “I don’t think so. I think you would have been as strong, even stronger, than the rest of us.”

“Savannah! Just the person I wanted to see!”

Savannah looked up at the top of the stairs and saw Dona Papalardo standing there in a black suit with red fox trim around the collar and cuffs. While Savannah thought it gaudy and, where the fox was concerned, a sad waste, she had to admit that Dona looked quite glamorous.

She floated down the stairs on four-inch heels, adjusting a satin pillbox hat, complete with short French veil in the front. Her makeup was perfect, and for the first time since Savannah had met her, she had color in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes.

She hurried over to Savannah and, to Savannah’s surprise, embraced her heartily. “I’m so glad you came by to see me,” she said. “With the police here last night, questioning everyone and processing my bedroom, I didn’t get a chance to tell you how grateful I am to you for saving my life!”

Savannah shrugged. “You’re welcome, but I was just doing what you pay me to do.”

“And that reminds me. I must pay you—pay you for a job well done. Come into the library with me, and we’ll take care of that right now.” She turned to her maid. “Juanita, get us each a glass of Chardonnay.”

Savannah held up one hand. “Uh, I really don’t—”

“Oh, don’t be silly. We need to celebrate a little, celebrate life, celebrate the end of this terrible ordeal.”

Savannah followed her into the library, but she found it difficult to raise her mood to match Dona’s. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I just came from the morgue, where Field’s mother had come to identify his body. Understandably, she was very upset. It was difficult for me to see that.”

Dona stopped abruptly, and she turned around to look at Savannah, her smile evaporating. “Oh, dear. I never thought about…I mean…I guess he does have some relatives, a mother, someone who would grieve him. He was just so awful that I didn’t think of him as being someone’s son.”

“Everyone has a mother. And no matter what you’ve done in your life, most mothers will love you anyway…and grieve terribly if you pass on before them.”

Dona placed a gloved hand on Savannah’s forearm. “I’m really sorry, Savannah, that you had to go through that. And that’s another price you’ve paid for me. I don’t know how I’m ever going to thank you.”

She slid behind her desk and sat down, waving an arm in the direction of a nearby chair. “Please, have a seat. I don’t have long to talk. I’m on my way to an interview.
America Tonight
wants to do an entire show about what’s happened here. We’re taping it today, and it’ll air tomorrow night.”

Pulling a large leather checkbook from the desk drawer, she said, “I have to tell you—and I feel guilty even thinking it, let alone saying it, considering the fact that both Jack and Kim lost their lives—but I’ve never felt so alive as I do today. Just having something so terrible happen, having that maniac waving a gun in my face, telling me that he was going to kill me, and then having bullets flying around my bedroom like that! I tell you, it reminds you of how precious life is and how quickly you can lose it!”

Savannah nodded. “A brush with death frequently leaves people feeling like that.”

“Do you feel that way today? As though the world is somehow lighter? Brighter?”

“No, I can’t honestly say that I do. But maybe after a good night’s sleep.” She thought for a moment. “Where did
you
sleep last night after the police left?”

“Well, of course, after all that happened in my bedroom, I certainly couldn’t sleep in there. Besides, your detective friend said he wasn’t ready to release it yet. It’s still officially a crime scene. I had to call him earlier today and ask for permission to go in there and get my clothes. I slept downstairs, in Mary Jo’s room.”

“Oh?” For a moment Savannah thought she might have missed a potentially important element in the Dona–Mary Jo relationship.

But then Dona added, “Mary Jo left yesterday morning, long before the trouble started around here. She said she was going to Encino to stay with her mother for a while. She and I had a bit of a falling-out about Mark. Not the first time either, I might add. Mary Jo is never happy unless she has what I have. Which, of course, means she’s never going to be happy.”

She scribbled some figures on a check and with dramatic flourish, tore it out of the checkbook and handed it to Savannah. “There you go,” she said with a bright smile. “A little something to show how much I appreciate you saving my life last night. I’ll never forget you for it.”

And Savannah knew that she would never forget this moment. As she looked at the exorbitant amount written on the check, she nearly fainted. Normally, she would do well to make that much in a year. A really good year.

“Ms. Papalardo!” she said. “I think you’ve made a mistake here. This is far, far more than we originally agreed on.”

“And as it turned out, you had to do far more than we had ever expected.”

“But that goes with the territory. When I take the job of guarding someone, I know it may be necessary for me to use deadly force to do so.”

“Still, it would make me feel better. Take it. I want you to have it.”

Savannah stared down at the check in her hand and thought of all the places it could go. Her house was in desperate need of some repairs, as well as her car. And she could give Tammy the big bonus that she had deserved for so long.

When she looked up at Dona, she saw the actress’s green eyes were alight with humor and affection. “Savannah, this isn’t the time to be proud,” she said. “You probably need the money, and I don’t mean to brag, but I can easily afford it, so stick the check in your purse and spend it in good health.”

“Okay, if you put it that way.” Savannah folded the check and slipped it into her pocketbook. “Thank you very much.”

Dona flipped the checkbook closed and tossed it back into the drawer.

Juanita entered the room, a pair of wineglasses on a tray. She handed one to Dona and the other to Savannah.

“Here’s to the end of a terrible time,” Dona said, lifting her glass to Savannah, “and the beginning of good ones.”

Savannah raised her glass, but even as she sipped the cold, white wine, she felt the nettling of unsettled questions working on her subconscious.

“Dona,” she said, “did you know Cameron Field? Had you ever seen him before last night?”

“No, I hadn’t. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering why he was so determined to kill you. Do you have any idea?”

Dona looked confused at the question. “Now that you mention it, I wondered that myself. I suppose he was some sort of obsessed fan.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I guess because of what he said last night.”

“Before we came into your room?”

“Yes. He told me that he’d loved me for years, and that he knew we were meant to be together. When I told him that I had a boyfriend, he threatened to kill Mark, too. He said he’s watched from the hill the other night when we were kissing by the front door.”

Savannah nodded. “That certainly does sound like a stalker all right. Classic, in fact. But how do you suppose he got into the house?”

“Oh, the police figured that out last night. They said he climbed a tree up to the balcony of Mary Jo’s bedroom. She had forgotten to close the sliding door and it’s one of the few doors we don’t have a sensor on.”

“Is there a bougainvillea bush around there?”

“Yes, at the base of the tree. Why?”

“He had some thorns caught in his clothes. I saw them just now when I viewed his body at the morgue.”

“Ah, well, then the police were right.”

“One other thing,” Savannah said, “When Tammy and I were outside your door, about to come in, I thought I heard the two of you arguing.”

“Oh, we were! He was telling me that it was
my
fault that he killed Kim and Jack. And even though he was pointing that gun at me, I couldn’t let him say that and get away with it. I told him that their deaths were on him, not me. He chose to do what he did, and that was his fault, not mine. That’s when you came in.”

Savannah took a sip of her wine and thought that one over. “Yes,” she said, “I’ll bet you that when Dirk searches his apartment, he’ll probably find pictures and news articles about you, CDs of all of your movies, stuff like that. An obsessed fan with a criminal streak, not what a celebrity needs.”

“A criminal streak?”

“Yes, his own mother admitted today that she worried about him being on the wrong side of the law sometimes.”

“Well, there you go. What can you expect from a guy whose own mother thinks he’s bad?”

Dona took a tiny sip from her glass, then stood. “I really hate to cut our visit short, Savannah, but I have to be on time for this taping in the valley, and it’s going to take me a while to fight my way through those reporters out there.”

“Why don’t you have your driver pull into your garage and you can get into the car there?”

Dona grinned and the brightness of her smile reminded Savannah of why she was a world-famous star. “Now where would be the fun in that?” she said.

“Then at least let me walk out with you. Considering the bonus you just threw my way, I can work a few minutes of overtime for you.”

Both women stood. Dona walked around the desk and laced her arm through Savannah’s. “Then let’s go, bodyguard. We’ll walk out together. I’ll look glamorous and you can beat them over the heads with their own cameras.”

“’Twill be my pleasure, ma’am. My pleasure, indeed.”