Savannah Reid 12 - Fat Free and Fatal (5 page)

Dona nodded, reached up and covered Savannah’s hand with her own. “I want that,” she said through her tears. “I want that very much.”

“Then you’ve got it.”

Savannah smiled—a small, grim smile that added no warmth to the cold blue of her eyes. Oh, she’d help Dona Papalardo, all right.

Catch a bad guy, a killer who would hide in the brush like a coward and shoot a helpless woman down in cold blood?

Protect another innocent woman and prevent him from doing the same to her?

Oh, yes. That was better than a bubble bath with a glass of champagne and a box of chocolate truffles.

Wa-a-ay better.

W
hen Savannah arrived back home later in the evening, she found Tammy sitting at the rolltop desk in her living room, working away at the computer. Although exactly what Tammy found to do at the computer that was “work” related, hour after hour, day after day, Savannah could only guess. Being ignorant of even the most rudimentary workings of all machines—except her Beretta and her Mustang’s carburetor—Savannah didn’t surf, chat, send or receive e-mail, IM, blog, or even Google.

And she was fine with that. Her ignorance was fully intentional. She had more than enough people to aggravate her in her everyday life. Why add a worldwide network of numbskulls to compound the problem? That was one of her favorite mottos, and she held it dear.

Savannah had a lot of mottos. She lived by them…when it was convenient. And when it wasn’t, she revised or tossed them.

Life is complicated enough without bogging yourself down with a bunch of stupid rules—especially those that are self-imposed. And most are.

That was her main motto.

Tammy looked up with a bright smile on her face when Savannah came into the room. “Did you get the job?”

Savannah’s cats—miniature panthers named Diamante and Cleopatra—bounded off their window perch and ran to her. She nearly tripped over them as they rubbed against her ankles and meowed loudly.

“Of course I got the job,” she said, bending down to stroke their silky black coats. Ah, unconditional kitty love made it worth coming home every time.

Well, mostly unconditional.

A never-ending flow of Kitty Vittles and a clean litter box. Constant petting and never being able to sit down without a cat on your lap. Black cat hair on every garment you owned, and never being able to leave a half-eaten tuna sandwich on your coffee table…or kitchen table either, for that matter.

Okay. So kitty love wasn’t all that unconditional. In Savannah’s estimation, it was still good. There was something to be said for having someone to come home to—someone who didn’t leave the toilet seat up and still miss the bowl.

Cleo let out a particularly plaintive yowl, and Tammy said, “Those beasts are lying to you. I fed them both half an hour ago.”

“Celery stalks? Carrot sticks? Green tea?”

Tammy made a face. “No, that foul-smelling, fishy crap that they like. The canned stuff, not the dry. I nearly gagged.”

Savannah thought of the blood and gore on Dona Papalardo’s driveway and figured it was a good thing that Tammy hadn’t been along. Anybody who gagged at canned cat food might do a lot worse viewing the aftermath of a homicide. And Dr. Liu took a dim view of people adding their own DNA to her crime scene.

“When does your gig start?” Tammy wanted to know.

“Tomorrow morning. I just came home to tie up some loose ends here and get some things together to take over there.”

“You get to stay there? At Dona Papalardo’s mansion?”

Savannah grinned and chuckled. “I do! I do! And you should see the place. It’s gorgeous. Straight off the silver screen. Art deco glamour all the way.”

Tammy’s lower lip protruded like that of a three-year-old being told that it’s still eleven and a half months to Christmas. “I wish I
could
see it. It’s not much fun being your assistant if I don’t get to assist you. Especially at cool places like Dona Papalardo’s mansion.”

“I’ll see what I can do to get you inside as soon as possible.”

The pout turned into a bright smile. “Really?”

“Do I lie to you?”

“Um…”

“Without good reason?”

“Uh…”

Savannah sighed. “I’ll get you in. I’ll deliberately leave something behind that I really need, and you can bring it to me tomorrow. How’s that?”

“Will I get to stay and play?”

“We’ll see.”

Again the pout. “I have a mother. I know what
we’ll see
means.”

Savannah sat down in her favorite seat, an overstuffed, comfortable armchair that was covered with rose-print chintz. Propping her feet on an ottoman, she gathered the cats into her lap. They jostled each other, vying for the best spot. “But I’m not anybody’s mother,” Savannah said. “Unless you count these two varmints.”

“No, but you’re the oldest of nine kids. And big sisters can be as bad or worse than moms.”

Savannah laughed. “That’s true. And if you don’t believe it, ask any of my eight younger siblings.”

“Oh! That reminds me.” She pulled a piece of paper from one of the desk’s cubbyholes. “A member of your Georgia brood called about an hour ago, asked to speak to you. I told her I wasn’t sure when you’d be back, just in case you didn’t want to talk to them tonight.”

“Wouldn’t want to talk to my own flesh and blood?” Savannah said.

“Well, I know that they can be…um…trying…sometimes.”

“Trying?
My
family? Naw. I just
love
hearing about Vidalia’s most recent fight with Butch, and how the morning sickness has hit her and her ankles are swelling already, and Marietta’s latest fiancé—the guy she found on the Convict Penpal Web site—or Macon’s current brush with the law, having burgled some junkyard for car parts or—”

“This time it’s Jesup.”

“Ah, the Princess of Darkness. And that’s on a good day. How did she sound?”

“Gloomy.”

“That’s our Jessie. She can generate thunderheads on a cloudless day, just by crawling out of bed and looking out the window. What did she want?”

“Didn’t say. Just asked to talk to you. She said she wasn’t at home, but didn’t want to leave a number.”

Savannah felt a little guilty for the sense of relief she felt at not having to return the call. After all, Jesup was her sister, and who wouldn’t want to talk to her
sister
?

A sister who harbored a morbid interest in murder, mayhem, and disease—the most exotic, gut-roiling ways that a human being could depart the earth.

A sister who wore nothing but black, who wrote twenty-stanza poems about Jack the Ripper, the Spanish Inquisition, the Donner Party, and Ted Bundy.

A sister who constantly asked Savannah if she had any new autopsy or crime-scene photos to share.

Who could resist the charm and appeal of a sibling like
that
?

Savannah decided that
she
could. And she could get rid of the guilt, too. She’d just toss it on the pile with all those pesky, outdated mottos.

“How long do you figure this bodyguard job with Dona will last?” Tammy wanted to know.

“Long enough for me to pay this month’s mortgage and last month’s utility bills,” Savannah replied. “And I—”

The doorbell rang, followed by a loud pounding on the front door.

Savannah glanced at her watch. It was after nine.

Most of her friends were well-trained enough not to drop by without calling first, and certainly not after nine, which was usually her romance-novel reading/chocolate nibbling time.

And while Dirk wasn’t particularly well-trained, she knew it wasn’t him. She had said good-bye to him at the Papalardo mansion and sent him home with strict instructions to get a good night’s sleep and let some uniformed cops stand guard at Dona’s.

When it came to sleeping, Dirk usually followed directions.

“Who can
that
be?” Tammy said.

“A dead person walkin,’” Savannah replied, dumping the cats onto the floor and heading to the front hall. She mentally checked the fact that her Beretta was in its holster, lying on the table next to the door. If it was a burglar or a door-to-door salesman, they were living their final moments on earth.

When she opened the door and saw the faces of the people standing on her porch, Savannah instinctively slammed the door closed, threw the bolt and reached for the gun. She had it out of the holster and had chambered a round before she could form any conclusion about what she had just seen.

“Who is it?” Tammy asked.

Who?
Savannah wasn’t even sure
what
it was.

Her mind was churning with the possibilities. A person in a Halloween mask? It wasn’t even close to Halloween. A burglar?

Violent, disturbing visions of all the home-invasion robbery scenes she’d ever processed raced through her mind, along with plans of action.

“Call nine-one-one!” she told Tammy. “And run to the back door. Don’t open it. Make sure it’s locked and turn on the porch light.”

Then she pointed the gun at the center of her closed front door—her finger off the trigger, but ready.

“Who the hell are you?” she shouted. “And what do you want?”

“Your sister, you idiot,” yelled back a voice with a thick Georgia accent. “Open up.”

Sister? Sister?

Savannah’s brain whirred, trying to process the vision of the white-faced, black-lipped, monster-clown faces on her doorstep with the concept of “sister.”

And it just didn’t compute.

“Open up, Van! What’s the matter with you, girl? Slam the door in
my
face, will ya?”

Okay, the voice was right. The Southern twang, the bossy indignation—all rang Savannah’s memory bells.

She ventured a look through the peephole, a definite no-no when expecting that the person on the other side might be an armed and dangerous criminal. More than one person had done so, only to find themselves looking down the barrel of a gun.

She saw the snow-white face again, with its black-rimmed eyes and black lips, surrounded by spiky black hair. The face was grinning and sticking its tongue out at her.

“Savaaa-nn-ah,” it said. “Open the door this very minute! I want you to meet my new husband!”

Savannah looked past the first face to the one behind it, equally adorned with the macabre makeup. She could tell from the square set of the jaw and the strange goatee that it was male.

Husband?
For half a second she considered that her sister, Vidalia and her redneck, mechanic husband, Butch, had gone stark raving crazy. Vidalia was the only one of her siblings who was married at the moment, Marietta being between hubbies.

“It’s me, Jesup. Girl, have you plumb lost your mind? Let us in!”

Suddenly, the loose pieces snapped into place.

Jesup.

Over her shoulder, she shouted, “Skip the nine-one-one call, Tammy.”

“I’ve already got them on the line,” was the answer.

“Tell them it’s a false alarm.”

Tammy came into the hallway, the phone to her ear. “Then I should tell them that we aren’t in life-threatening danger?”

Savannah sighed as she replaced her gun in its holster, laid it on the table, and opened the door. “Well, I wouldn’t go
that
far. But, hopefully, you and I can handle it.”

“Does Granny Reid know that you ran off and got yourself hitched?” Savannah asked, once she had her sister and her newfound brother-in-law sitting on the sofa, tall glasses of lemonade in their hands and a plate of pecan brownies on a plate in front of them.

“Nope,” Jesup replied, munching on a brownie. “It’s gonna be as big a surprise for her as it was for you.”

“Dear Lord, I hope not! She’s too old for a shock like I just had. Her ticker would seize up and stop for sure. Where does she think you are?”

“Oh, she knows that I went to Las Vegas. She just thinks I’m still there, gambling and dabbling in the devil’s stagnant scum pond of wickedness and pure
D
iniquity—as she calls the place. And she thinks I’m alone. She doesn’t know nothin’ about Bleak. Nobody back home does. We met on Monday. It was love at first sight.”

Savannah cast a critical eye over the object of her younger sister’s affection, the latest member of her family, and she tried not to gag. He reminded her of a certain jewelry thief she had recently wrestled to the ground. The leather vest, the tattoos that crawled from his wrists up his arms and onto his neck, images of snakes, snarling demon faces, bats and spiders, vampire fangs dripping with blood—all without a “Mom,” a heart, or a flower among them. Not to mention the spiky hair that, with the help of a jar of gel, defied gravity as well as society.

She also had to resist the urge to walk across the floor and slap her sister stupid. One whack would probably suffice.

She glanced over at Tammy, who was known for being far more tolerant and less judgmental than Savannah ever could be, even on her most benevolent, Sunday-go-to-meetin’ behavior.

And she could tell that even Sister Tammy the Munificent was put off by his appearance.

Both Bleak and Jesup wore white, chalky foundation makeup, as well as lipstick that was the color of coagulated blood and black, dramatic eyeliner. But Bleak had used the liquid eyeliner brush to draw a spiderweb on his right cheek, complete with a spider, whose eyes were tiny rhinestones, apparently glued to his face.

All Savannah could think was that he looked like a demon-possessed drag queen. And an ugly one at that.

Yes, Gran would roll over in her grave—if she weren’t still alive.

“You met on Monday,” Savannah repeated in an ominously monotone voice that she usually reserved for questioning perps she suspected of child molesting or puppy drowning. “Monday, you say. And it’s only…Friday. Now, if that don’t just beat all. And you got married when?”

“Yesterday,” Jesup announced proudly. “We wanted to on Tuesday, after spending the night together Monday night, but we decided to wait and think about it some more, you know.”

“Oh, yes, wait, think about it, mull it over, weigh the pros and cons. Lord knows you wouldn’t want to just jump into something as all-fired serious as marriage with both feet on a moment’s notice like that. That would just be plain ol’ loco.”

“Exactly. It’s a real commitment, marriage is, and—”

“No, Jessie,” Savannah said, “bringing home a kitten from the city dump, that’s a commitment. Marriage is a life sentence. At least, it’s supposed to be.”

Jesup looked at Savannah as though she had lost her mind, then rolled her eyes. “Well, duh, Van. Of course it’s for life. Once you meet your soul mate who completes you, you’ll never want to be without them. Not even for a moment.”