A Decadent Way to Die (18 page)

“I don’t believe she loved him for who he was.” John turned the heat down a bit under the saucepan. “I suspect she loved him because he had a knack for making her feel better about herself. He was good at that … and therefore, at seduction.”

“Poor Blanca, falling for that crap.” Helene shook her head. “And look what it cost her.”

“Do you think that’s why she was killed? Because she was with him?” Savannah asked.

“No, I don’t,” Helene replied. “I think she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Then, you think that Vern was the intended target … the one the killer was after?”

“No, I do not.” Helene seemed grim and more than a little certain. “I think I was the intended victim.”

“You?” Savannah asked. “Why do you think they were trying to kill you?”

“Because every single night, I go take a soak in that tub. It helps my arthritis. Everybody knows that. I’ve been doing it for years.” Savannah saw her shudder, ever so slightly.

Then Helene Strauss lifted her chin a notch and continued, “If I hadn’t been at your party last night, Savannah, I would have been in that spa, just like I am every night. It’s quite dark down there after sunset. And there are a lot of shrubs on that one side of the tub. If someone had thrown something electrical into the water, the way you think they did, they probably couldn’t see who was in it for sure. They just assumed it was me.”

Savannah didn’t want to believe her. She would much, much prefer to think that someone wanted to murder a womanizing swindler than a dear woman she had grown to like and admire greatly.

She tried to picture the spa, the way it had looked last night. And she had to admit that if someone had plugged an appliance into that outlet and sneaked around behind the bushes, where they grew very close to the tub, they wouldn’t have had a clear view of the water. At least, not until the moment they were tossing their item in.

Helene’s theory was plausible. This double murder could have been yet a third attempt on the matriarch’s life.

She looked at Ryan and John, and the solemn looks on their faces told her that they, too, believed that Helene could be right.

“I’m glad you have Ryan and John here with you,” Savannah said. “Very glad.”

“Me, too,” Helene replied. “Otherwise I’d have to stir my own frosting.”

A few moments later, Ryan walked Savannah back to the front door.

“Keep an eye on her highness,” Savannah told him, tiptoeing to give him a peck on the cheek.

“Every moment of every day,” he said.

“And while you’ve got your eyes open, keep tabs on our friend, Tiago. He seemed sincere to me today, but he’s got a pas-sel of bruises he doesn’t want to talk about.”

“And a deceased wife who was fooling around on him.”

“Exactly. And if Waldo shows his mug around here …”

“Call you or Dirk right away, and keep him here. Got it.”

Savannah paused, her hand on the doorknob. “And just one more thing. We’re looking for what’s been described as a ratty old boom box. It belonged to Waldo, was sometimes used for background music beside the spa … and it’s gone missing.”

“Gotcha.”

“Thank you, Ryan.”

“For you, Savannah, anything.”

“A piece of that cake when it’s done?”

He gave her a knee-melting grin. “Even that.”

By the time Savannah made her way back to the spa area where her car was parked, Dirk and Tammy were waiting for her. Dirk, as impatient as ever, was leaning against his car, arms folded over his chest, scowling.

Tammy stood nearby, talking on her cell phone, her back to them, her voice low.

“I talked to Ryan, John, and Helene back at the house,” she told him. “Ryan says they’ll look for the boom box. And by the way, Emma says Waldo was asking her about it yesterday afternoon.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. And Ryan says they’ll keep an eye out for him, too, and let us know if he comes back home.”

“Good man, Ryan.”

“So, what’s next?”

“I’ll take the spade to Eileen, have her dust it for prints or whatever. And then I’ll drop the dope by the station. Then I’m off to West Hollywood. Woo-hoo.”

“Want me to go to La Rosita, verify Tiago’s alibi?”

“That’d be great. The only reason I’m not taking him to the station right now is because you say you believe he’s clean.”

“I wouldn’t say he’s completely off the hook. I just have a feeling about him, that he’s told me the truth so far.”

“Well, in my book, he’s not in the clear until we find out for sure how he got those shiners.”

“True. And I’m thinking a ride to La Rosita might settle that, once and for all.” Savannah looked at Tammy, who was still on the phone and casting the occasional furtive glance their way. “Let me guess,” she said, “she’s talking to What’s-His-Nuts.”

“Yeah. And from what I heard, it sounded like the bimbo’s making up with him.”

“Tarnation.”

“Yeah. What’s the matter with you women? The worse a guy treats you, the more you stick around.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Apparently so.”

“And not all of us are like that. First time a guy looks crosseyed at me, he gets kicked to the curb.”

Dirk crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue.

“Oh, pleeez,” she said. “You’ve been camping out on the curb for years, boy. You just never noticed.”

Chapter 16

S
avannah had never noticed that the forty-minute drive to the tiny inland town of La Rosita was particularly long or boring. But with Tammy sitting beside her, staring out the passenger window and saying nothing, Savannah felt like she was driving to New York.

Tammy was known for her buoyancy, her effervescence, her nonstop chatter. Savannah hardly recognized this quiet, withdrawn person sitting in the passenger seat.

“I’m glad we live on the beach,” Savannah offered. “When you come inland like this, you realize how much the ocean breezes really keep the temperature down.”

“Uh-huh.”

Savannah pointed to either side of the highway, where the brown, parched hills were covered with scrub brush and prickly pear cacti. “Not really a place you’d want to live, unless you were a rattlesnake or a coyote or a jackrabbit.”

“Uh-huh.”

Okay,
Savannah thought,
so much for philosophical chitchat.

“Tammy, are you mad at me?”

Tammy gave her a quick, wary look, then went back to perusing the view of the countryside from her passenger window. “No.”

“Well, you could’ve fooled me. If I had a nickel for every word you’ve said since we left, I wouldn’t have the down payment on a pack of gum.”

“Sorry,” Tammy said. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Okay. Would you like to talk about it?”

Savannah turned the Mustang off the freeway and onto a two-lane highway that twisted through a canyon lined with citrus groves and miscellaneous oil pumps.

“I don’t think we should,” Tammy replied.

“Since when don’t we talk about everything that goes through our minds?” Savannah asked. “Remember? You and I are the kind of gals who let it all hang out … especially with each other.”

“I don’t think Chad would like it, me talking to you about him,” Tammy mumbled.

Another alarm went off in Savannah’s head. Lately, she felt like she lived next door to a fire station with so many warning bells clanging.

“I reckon it’s the right thing to keep a lid on how much you gossip,” Savannah agreed. “But I’d like to think that if my best friend was having a problem, she’d feel comfortable sharing it with me. Even if somebody else didn’t particularly like it. Nobody’s got the right to tell a person what they can say and what they can’t.”

“It’s not just that he wouldn’t want me to,” Tammy said after a long silence. “I don’t want to talk about him with you. You’d start telling me how stupid I am to put up with him. And then I’d have him telling me I’m stupid for dumping him, and you telling me I’m stupid for not dumping him, and I’m sick and tired of hearing how stupid I am, when I’m just trying to—”

“Whoa! Hold on there! I’ll have you know, I’ve never, never called you stupid, and the day’s not gonna dawn when I do!”

“You won’t say the word, but that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It is not!”

“So, you think it’s just fine and dandy … me reading his texts, talking to him on the phone, agreeing to go out with him later to talk things over?”

“You agreed to go out with that nasty, controlling bastard, after you got up the gumption to break it off with him? What’s the matter with you, girl? Have you completely lost your marbles?”

Silence reigned supreme for at least a mile, as more scenes of cacti and dried brush flew by the window. Rattlesnakes slithered, coyotes prowled, and jackrabbits hopped.

Finally, Savannah couldn’t take it anymore. “Yeah … thank God for those ocean breezes,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

El Lobo Loco wasn’t the nicest bar Savannah had ever been in by a long shot, but it wasn’t the worst. It didn’t smell of stale beer or dirty bathrooms, and the mostly Latino clientele appeared to be average working men, stopping by the cantina for a drink before going home to their families.

Only one other woman was in the bar when Savannah and Tammy walked in. She was sitting with a couple of guys in the rear corner, drinking a beer. She wore a pink dress and white apron with the name “Cecelia” embroidered on it—a waitress’s uniform.

She, and every other patron of El Lobo, gave Savannah and Tammy thorough appraisals as they walked across the room and to the bar. From the looks on the men’s faces, they passed muster. But when the woman saw the approval and interest on the face of the man sitting next to her, she seemed less impressed with the new arrivals.

She shot them a couple of dirty looks, then whispered something to her companion. When he turned his head to answer her, Savannah noticed that he had a black eye and bruised cheek.

He also bore a strong resemblance to Tiago—the same strong jaw, high cheekbones, and thick, black hair. And through his thin tee-shirt, his body looked as toned and muscular as the gardener’s. Even more so.

Savannah figured this was the brother who had tangled with Tiago … and clearly won the fight.

The bartender, a small, older fellow wearing a beer-stained shirt, hurried over to take their order. “Two colas,” she said.

When she saw the frown on Tammy’s face, she quickly amended it to, “One cola and an organic water.”

“Organic water? What’s that?” he said.

“Just water,” she told him. “If it’s wet, it’ll do.”

“Wet water, we have.”

As he walked away to get their drinks, Savannah sat on one of the stools, and Tammy took a seat beside her. The ten or so drinkers watched their every move and talked to each other in hushed tones.

“Reckon they don’t see a lot of strangers in here,” Savannah said.

“Obviously not,” Tammy replied.

“Especially good-lookin’ gals like you and me.” Savannah gave her an elbow poke and a grin.

She got an anemic smile in return.

“Here you go,
señoritas
,” the bartender said, sliding the two glasses toward them. “Welcome to El Lobo Loco, The Crazy Wolf.”

“Thank you,” Savannah said, laying a twenty dollar bill on the bar.

He picked up the bill. “I’ll get your change for you.”

“I don’t need change,” she said, leaning closer to him and lowering her voice. “I need some information.”

The bartender glanced quickly in both directions. Then down at the bill in his hand. “This is enough for the drinks,” he said. “I don’t know how much information it’ll buy.”

“Well, you give me my money’s worth, and we’ll discuss how much more I owe you. Sí, senor?”

“Sí.”

“I need to know about a guy who comes in here all the time, he and his wife. His name is Tiago Medina.”

“I know Tiago.” He glanced toward the corner, where the woman sat with the fellow with the black eye.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m a friend of Tiago’s.”

“You aren’t the police?”

“No. I’m not the police.”

He glanced at Tammy.

“Neither am I,” she said, reaching for her water. “We want to help Tiago. That’s all.”

He thought it over for a moment, then said, “The last time I saw him was this morning. When he left here.”

“Tiago was here drinking this morning?” Savannah asked.

“No. He was drinking last night. He drank too much and”—again, he shot a look at the couple in the corner—“he had some problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

“It doesn’t matter. Family problems.”

Savannah heard a buzz coming from Tammy’s purse, which was sitting on the bar between them. Tammy started to reach for it but took one look at Savannah and withdrew her hand.

Savannah fought the urge to fish the phone out of her purse and dunk it into the glass of non-organic water.

“I know about the fight,” Savannah told the bartender. “Tiago’s looking a bit the worse for wear today. I was just wondering if you could tell me what you saw, how it started, stuff like that.”

Suddenly, without saying a word, Tammy snatched her purse off the bar and headed for the front door.

Savannah pushed down the surge of anger she felt at such an unprofessional move. Tammy knew better. And if she didn’t, she was going to hear all about it on their way home.

But for now, Savannah had to attend to her own business at hand. And her task at the moment was to get this bartender to tell her more.

Unfortunately, she knew the look on his face. Like a meter that had run out of time and needed more coins fed in, he had reached his limit and wanted more than the change from her twenty dollar bill.

She pulled another one from her purse and put it on the bar. When he reached for it, she held it tightly in place.

“So, Tiago had too much to drink last night,” she said. “And he had a fight with his brother, Sergio, over there.”

The barkeeper nodded.

“What did they fight about?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me something that does matter if you want this money.”

He hesitated. “Okay. Tiago was too drunk to drive home to San Carmelita last night. He was going to sleep in his truck. So, I told him he could sleep here.” He pointed to a door in the rear of the room. “Back there … on a couch in my office. This morning he left.”

“He was here all night?”

“All night.”

“Were you here all night, too?”

“No, I went home to my wife.”

“Then how do you know for sure that he didn’t leave and come back sometime during the night?”

Suddenly, the bartender’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you aren’t
policia
?” he said. “You sound like
policia
.”

Savannah let go of the twenty. “I’m not the police,” she said. “If I was a cop, I’d have a petty cash fund and be able to pay you more than that.”

She picked up her purse off the bar and stood, intending to try her luck with the couple in the corner. But when she turned to head in that direction, she saw they were gone. The booth was empty.

“Damnation,” she muttered. Glancing around the room, she didn’t see anyone who looked eager to gab. They were all giving her highly suspicious and moderately hostile looks.

Savannah decided her welcome had run dry at El Lobo Loco.

When she exited the bar, she looked up and down the street, hoping to see Tiago’s brother, Sergio, or his lady friend.

But all she saw was Tammy, who was half a block away, walking in her direction.

Annoyed at herself for having let an important contact slip away like that, Savannah rehearsed the little speech she was going to give Tammy. The basic theme was going to be something like, “What the hell were you thinking, girl, leaving in the middle of an interview to call your no-good, sorry-excuse-for-a-human-being boyfriend?”

She climbed into the Mustang, started the engine, and rolled down the windows to release some of the stifling heat.

When Tammy opened the door and got in, Savannah said nothing, not trusting herself to keep it civil. She didn’t want to bite the kid’s head off … just set her straight.

As she pulled onto the street and headed toward the highway, she said in the gentlest tone she could manage, “We were in the middle of an interview back there, Tammy, and—”

“Did you get anything out of him? Enough to confirm Tiago’s alibi?”

“Not really, but that’s not the point I was making. I—”

“Did you find out what the fight was about?”

“No, and—”

“I did.”

“
You
did? How did you …?”

“I saw them leaving—that couple in the corner. When they went outside, he got in a truck and drove away, and she walked down the road in the opposite direction. Turns out she was going to work at a café down there.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I chased her down and talked to her. Her name’s Cecelia Medina. She’s Tiago’s sister-in-law.”

“Yes, I figured she might be because he looked a lot like—”

“Turns out,” Tammy continued, “she started the fight last night between the two brothers. She told Tiago that his wife was a loose woman, who was probably fooling around on him with other men. Seems Cecelia never really liked Blanca, always thought Tiago could’ve done better. But when she told him that last night here in the bar, Tiago got mad and started yelling at her, telling her that she had a bit of a past before she and his brother got married, too. Sergio had to defend his wife. And he and Tiago wound up in a fistfight. A pretty bad one. Tiago was too drunk and messed up afterward to drive, so the bartender let him sleep it off in the back room. Everybody made up this morning, and Tiago went over to their house for a breakfast of eggs and sausages. Then Tiago drove back home.”