Savannah Reid 12 - Fat Free and Fatal (9 page)

“That’s a lot of bucks to drop in out of nowhere. Maybe she settled some sort of lawsuit.”

Savannah shrugged. “Oh, sure. There are some perfectly legitimate ways to score a sum like that.”

“But a lot more illegitimate ways.”

“You’re so cynical.”

“Practical. Honest. I see things as they are, not through rose-colored sunglasses.”

She stuck out her tongue at him, then reached into the box and took out the checkbook that was folded between some of the bills. “When was that deposit?”

“On the fifteenth,” he said, “last month.”

She thumbed through the checkbook’s registry and found the credit noted in a woman’s clear, artistic handwriting…both the amount and the source of the check she had deposited. “Well now,” she said. “Ain’t that just interestin’ as all git-out?”

“What’s that?” He looked over her shoulder.

“We may not know ‘why’ yet, but we know ‘who.’”

“Who?”

“Who paid her all the money she’s been spending around here. The forty-four thousand dollars.” She stuck the checkbook under his nose and tapped her nail on the entry.

“So, who’s that?” he said reading the name. “Who’s Miles Thurgood?”

Savannah grinned. “The thlot plickens…” she said, “…Miles Thurgood is Dona Papalardo’s agent. Her former agent. And better yet, the former agent whom she’s suing and who’s suing her.”

“Oh, yeah.” Dirk nodded, remembering. “She told me about him. In fact, when I asked her who she thought might want her dead, he was the first one she mentioned, a step ahead of her ex-boyfriend.”

“I guess you’d better check him out.”

Dirk grinned his “nasty” grin and stuck the checkbook into his inside jacket pocket. “He was next on my list anyway. Now him and me…we’ve got us somethin’ to talk about!”

A
s Savannah and Dirk left Kim Dylan’s house and drove down the dusty road through the orange grove, they discussed their next moves.

“I can’t believe we went through the whole house,” Savannah said, “and couldn’t find one piece of paper with that guy’s name on it. His clothes and shoes are in the closet, his underwear in a drawer, but not a piece of mail, a note, nothing with his name. That was just downright aggravating.”

“Tell me about it. I’m going to call in,” Dirk said, grabbing his cell phone off the dash. “Maybe the new gal’s had time to run those names for me.”

Savannah couldn’t help but notice the sappy little grin that appeared on his puss the moment he mentioned the “new gal.” Over the years, she had watched him develop these little crushes from time to time. And while she didn’t want to admit for a second that she experienced even a twinge of anything resembling “jealousy,” she did feel better somehow when she reminded herself that she had been head-over-knickers in lust with Ryan when she had first met him. And there had been that hunk who modeled for the covers of romance novels—another almost-romance that had lasted no longer than the common cold.

They had reached the end of the dirt road, and as they were pulling onto the main highway, Savannah spotted a small stucco house, nearly hidden in some lemon trees across the road. An elderly lady was trimming rosebushes in the yard.

Her sunbonnet, simple cotton dress with a small floral pattern, and the elbow-high leather gloves reminded Savannah of her grandmother. Her heartstrings twanged, and she reminded herself that she owed Gran a phone call.

“Pull over,” she told Dirk. “While you’re talking to the front-desk bimbo, I’ll do some real work and have a chat with that lady over there.”

“About what? Rose pruning?”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Oh, I’m sure I can think of something other than that. Besides, Granny Reid already taught me all I’ll ever need to know about pruning roses. ‘Cut ’em short, feed them a banana peel, and don’t let ’em bite you.’”

He pulled over to the edge of the road. She opened the door and said, “While you’re flirting with cutie buns there, ask her to run ol’ Bleak for me.”

“How did you know she’s got great buns?”

She snorted. “Call it a lucky guess.”

She slammed the door and walked over to the woman, who appeared surprised to see her—or anyone for that matter. Savannah got the impression that visitors were few and far between for this lady.

“Hi, my name is Savannah,” she said brightly as she approached the woman and her rose garden. “And how are you doin’ today?”

“Well, I’m all right, I guess,” the woman replied, peering at her suspiciously from under the broad brim of her sunbonnet. “What do
you
want?”

O-o-okay
, Savannah thought.
Not all old ladies are as sweet as Gran.

“I was wondering if I could just talk to you for a minute, if you don’t mind.”

“I
do
mind. You’re tramping down my lawn!”

Savannah looked down at the ground beneath her feet. Bare dirt, a few brown weeds, some rocks and broken glass. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She saw a spot with fewer weeds a couple of feet away. She hopped onto that. “There. Is that better?”

“I asked you what you want.”

“So you did. Yes, you sure did.”

This was going to be tough, Savannah decided then and there. She also decided that maybe there was a perfectly good reason why this lady seldom had company. What did the rest of the world know that she was just now discovering?

“I was wondering about your neighbors, the ones who live down there.” Savannah pointed to the dirt road.

“She’s dead,” the woman snapped, emphasizing her statement by snipping off a particularly thick branch from a rosebush. “Got herself shot right there in front of that place where she works. I read about it in the paper this morning. And it was on the
Los Angeles Wake-up Show
, too.”

“Yes.” Savannah nodded somberly. “That’s true. But I was wondering about him.”

“Him?”

“Yes, the guy who’s been hanging out there. Her boyfriend,” she added, deciding to venture an educated guess. After all, it was a
one
-bedroom apartment and there
were
condoms in the bathroom.

“Oh,
him
!” Another, even more violent snip with the pruning shears. “I can’t stand him.”

Savannah’s heart beat a little faster. “Really? Was he rude to you, or…?”

“Rude to me? He’s rude to everybody, riding that noisy motorcycle in and out of here at all hours of the day and night. Rattles my windows! Wakes me up out of a dead sleep at seventy-thirty!”

“That early in the morning?”

“No, seven-thirty at night! I’m dead to the world at that hour!”

“Oh, I see. That’s just plumb rude of him!”

“That’s what I said when I called the cops on him.”

“You called the police? Did they come out and talk to him?”

“They said they would, but they didn’t. I sat right there on my porch all day long and watched, but they didn’t bother.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Savannah said, and she meant it. If the SCPD had sent someone out, there might be a record with the motorcyclist’s name on it. “You wouldn’t happen to know what his name is, do you?”

“No. Don’t give a tinker’s damn either. I just want him to stop riding that infernal thing in the middle of the night.”

“What does he look like?” At least she could get a physical description. Not nearly as good as a name, but better than going back to Dirk empty-handed. She had to do at least as well as the bimbo at the station desk.

“I don’t know what he looks like.”

“You haven’t seen him?”

“Of course I’ve seen him.”

“Then…?”

“He’s always wearing that big black helmet. And a black leather jacket and jeans. That’s not going to tell you much about him, now is it?”

“Uh. No, it’s not.” Okay, maybe she
could
go back with squat. Lord knows, it had happened before. Maybe the front-desk chickie-poo had struck out, too.

“But I do have his license number. The license plate on the back of his motorcycle. I wrote it down.”

“You do? You did!” The sun shone brighter. The birds sang louder. Nearby orange blossoms burst into bloom. “Would you mind terribly giving it to me?”

“Why? I don’t even know you. What do you want it for?”

Savannah thought fast, a dozen lies racing through her mind. The truth just seemed so…complicated. “I want to make sure he gets what’s coming to him,” she said.

“For racing through here like a Hell’s Angel and waking up an old woman who needs her sleep?”

Savannah nodded. “For that, and for anything else he’s done that he oughtn’t.”

The woman smiled, a big and somewhat unpleasant smile. “You just wait right here,” she said, laying her pruning shears and gauntlets on the ground. “I’ll be right back!”

Savannah suppressed a chuckle. “And I’ll be right here waiting.”

“So, there!” Savannah shoved the piece of paper under Dirk’s nose the moment she got into the car. “Call your little desk muffin and give her that plate to run, and we’ll find out who Kim’s mystery man is.”

Dirk took the piece of paper, looked at it, then cleared his throat and scowled. “Well, maybe we will and maybe we won’t,” he grumbled.

“What?”

“The desk gal, Jeanette…she looks better than she is.”

Savannah was devastated to hear that, but she figured she could get over it. A hot fudge sundae would probably do the trick. “Really? What a shame. She didn’t run those names for you?”

“I guess she tried, but she couldn’t even find Kim Dylan, other than this address. And I already had that from the ID in the victim’s purse.”

“What do you mean, couldn’t find her?”

“No record. Not even a Social Security number.”

“No Social?”

“Or driver’s license in any state.”

“It’s an alias.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. That or Jeanette is a lot dumber than she looks.” He flipped open his cell phone and punched in a number. As he waited for an answer, he added, “You’ll be happy to know, though, that she was able to locate your new brother-in-law. And other than a couple of trespasses on private property last year, he’s clean.”

“Trespasses?” She’d been hoping for an outstanding warrant for a parole violation. “What sort of trespasses?”

“He broke into a mortuary one time and somebody’s crypt another time. Didn’t take anything, or hurt anything. So it was just trespassing.”

“Oh,” she said, sagging deeper into the Buick seat. She should be happy for her sister. She knew it, and she felt guilty for feeling disappointed. But she couldn’t believe this slapdash marriage was a good thing. And she was hoping that maybe it could end quickly and cleanly before Jesup got any more deeply involved with this character, while there was still time to just get a nice, easy annulment. Maybe even before Granny Reid or the other relatives back in Georgia had to know about it.

But she couldn’t see Jesup leaving her new husband in a huff over some trespassing charges. Heck, Jessie herself had done worse than that. Way worse.

She listened as Dirk read the motorcycle plate number to the woman on the other end. It was pretty obvious from the flat tone of his voice that his infatuation level had plummeted at least seventy degrees. Dirk liked a female who filled out a sweater or a tight skirt nicely, but a woman who couldn’t run a good background check wasn’t going to be high on his list for long. It might have taken a lot of years for his priorities to rearrange in that order, but he had eventually evolved.

This time Jeanette seemed to have done better. He was actually smiling when he hung up from the call. “Okay,” he said, “we’ve got a name. Not a familiar name, but a name.”

“What is it?”

“James Morgan. Ring a bell?”

She shook her head. “Nary a tinkle.”

“Me either.”

“Did she give you an address?”

“Yeah,” he said. “She did.” He sighed. “
This
one.”

As they pulled back onto the road, Savannah called Tammy on her cell, and Tammy answered right away.

“Hi,” Savannah said. “How’s it going?”

“Fine. Earlier, I had to run off a batch of reporters who came to the door and were demanding to talk to Ms. Papalardo, but now I’m having a nice cappuccino with Dona’s housekeeper. She’s very…uh…friendly.”

“Chatty?”

“Yes.”

Savannah could practically hear Tammy smiling. “Good girl,” she said. “Squeeze everything you can out of her. In fact, ask her right now if she knows a James Morgan.”

She heard Tammy ask and the negative response.

“Oh well,” Savannah said. “It was worth a try. What’s Dona doing?”

“She’s upstairs in her bedroom. She’s been sick all day. Called down for a glass of water earlier and that’s all we’ve heard out of her.”

“Anybody else in the house?”

“Gardener’s outside and…well…everything you said about him…it’s so true. But he’s the only one around, except me and Juanita here.”

“Okay, well, Dirk and I are on our way back. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Take your time,” Tammy said. “Really. No hurry.”

Savannah could hear it in her voice, the excitement you get when an interview or interrogation is going well and you’re actually getting something from your subject. She got the message.

“Okay,” she said, “we’ll take our time getting back. We don’t want to interrupt if you’re getting some good stuff there.”

“Excellent.” She could hear Tammy suppress a giggle. “See you
later
.”

When Savannah ended the call, Dirk turned to her and said, “Sounds like the kid is doing okay.”

“It sounds to me like she’s doing better than okay. She’s sharing a cup of java with the maid, and I got the idea it’s going well. She all but told me to stay away because she’s getting somewhere with her.”

“So, how’s about we get some lunch before we go back?”

Dirk inviting her to lunch? She turned to him, her mouth hanging open. “Really? You’re going to take me to a restaurant for lunch? Why you sweet thing, you.”

He looked suddenly quite uncomfortable. “Well…I…”

I should have known,
she thought.
Dirk forking over for a proper meal. Way too good to be true.

“Okay, okay,” she said, “Burger Bonanza’s on the way. I’ll settle for a burger and a chocolate shake.”

She expected him to perk up, but he still looked as though he’d just been told that he was going to have gallbladder surgery.

“What?” she said. “What’s with the puss? Where do
you
want to go to eat? You’re the one who brought it up, you know.”

“Well, I was thinking that your house is right on the way. Burger Bonanza is a few blocks out of our way and besides, you’ve probably got some of that fried chicken left over from Ryan’s party, right? And you said you’d save me some birthday cake. Besides, I haven’t seen your sister, Jesup, since I was in Georgia and that’s been years and—”

“Oh shut up, you friggin’ mooch. You’re not the least bit interested in seeing any of my kinfolk. You just want to sink your chompers into my leftover fried chicken. My
free
leftover chicken.”

He shrugged and looked moderately guilty. “Well, hell, Van, you can’t blame a guy for that?”

“
Blame
a guy?” she said, “I could
slug
a guy for that. For a lot
less
than that.”

He grinned broadly “So, is that a ‘yes’?”

She sighed. “Just drive.”