Killer Honeymoon (24 page)

When he didn’t reply, she added, “Oh, wait a minute. If Hank here was to work five years, he couldn’t pay this thing off. In fact, if he were to sell that motel he works in, he couldn’t afford something like this.”

“Which means,” Dirk said, taking the ring from her hand, “that he probably came by this in an unscrupulous manner. Whatcha wanna bet?”

Savannah was already texting Tammy. She had a hunch, and she needed proof. Something told her the sunshine girl could get it for her pretty quickly.

“It’s fake,” Hank said. “I won it at the ringtoss on the pier.”

“I don’t think so,” La Cross said, looking it over. “This is a platinum setting and a quality diamond. You stole this.”

“I didn’t steal nothin’, and you can’t prove it!”

“Then why were you carrying it next to your heart there in a cigarette pack?” Savannah asked.

“I bought it!”

“A minute ago, you won it,” Dirk said. “Make up your mind.”

“Just take us to your jeweler,” La Cross told him. “You know, the one you shop at on Rodeo Drive. If he vouches for you, no problem.”

Hank propped his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. “I didn’t steal it! Really, I’m telling you the truth. I swear to God!”

“Then how did you get it?” Dirk demanded. “And it better be good.”

Hank reached up and pulled long and hard on his ponytail in a nervous gesture, which made Savannah wince. It had to hurt. Finally he said, “Somebody gave it to me, okay?”

“Who?” Dirk asked. “You don’t look to me like a guy who’d be gettin’ diamonds from women. Or men either.”

Savannah’s phone vibrated in her hand. Trembling with anticipation, she read the message from Tammy and opened the two pictures that she had sent, as requested.

It was all she could do not to cheer, cry, and laugh out loud, all at the same time.

“Oh, Hank, Hank,” she said, showing him the first picture, “look at that. Your ass is grass, and the power mowers are a-circlin’!”

“W
hat is it?” Dirk asked, leaning over and peering at the small picture on Savannah’s phone.

Chief La Cross did the same and looked as puzzled as he did.

But Hank Jordan didn’t look confused. He knew exactly what he was seeing there in that tiny image.

Judging from the pallor of his skin, Savannah wondered which he would do first, throw up or faint.

Savannah turned to Dirk. “That first picture is of Amelia Northrop. It’s her publicity head shot. And you can see that ring there on her hand.”

Dirk held the cell phone practically against his nose and squinted. “Okay, if you say so.”

“Okay. For you old folks without your glasses, here’s the zoom shot.”

She showed them the close-up of Amelia’s hand. There was no mistaking the distinctive design of the ring. It was a match.

Savannah pulled the chair she had been sitting in close to Hank and sat down beside him. Summoning as much fake concern and sincerity as she could muster, she said to him, “I believe you, Hank, when you say you didn’t steal that ring. I believe Amelia gave it to you.”

“Well, I don’t!” La Cross interjected. “He took it off her finger just before he shot her there on the beach.”

Savannah gazed into Hank’s eyes, trying to convey understanding. “I don’t believe that, Chief. It’d be one cold-blooded bastard who’d rip a ring off a lady’s finger right before he killed her. Now just look at this man. He’s not like that.”

“That’s right!” Hank was so happy to have found an ally. “I wouldn’t do something like that. I’m telling you—she gave it to me.”

“How did you meet Mrs. Northrop?” Savannah asked as casually as she could, considering that she would have much preferred to just reach out and squeeze his weasely neck until something cracked.

“She came by the motel one day. Said she’d done some research about the people on the island and I interested her.”

“I’ll bet you did. What happened then?”

“We got to be sorta like friends, and she gave me that ring.”

In her best “Big Sister Mode,” Savannah reached out and adjusted Hank’s collar. “Now, Hank, we know she gave it to you for a reason. Like maybe a payment for something?”

He suddenly looked wary. “Um, no. Nothing like that.”

“Oh, I think it was. In fact, I think Amelia had found out that her husband was being unfaithful to her, so she did some research on people living on the island and came across you.”

Hank just looked from one of them to the other and kept playing with his ponytail, so Savannah pressed on. “After doing a criminal background check on you, she probably thought you’d be her best bet.”

“For what?”

“To kill her husband and his lover. That’s why you wounded Northrop and tried to kill Chief La Cross here. If you’d been a better shot, they’d both be dead, huh?”

When he didn’t reply, Dirk chimed in with his own questions. “What happened, Hankie boy? Did Ms. Northrop get mad at you for blowing it and threaten you somehow? Is that why you chased her on that beach and killed her in cold blood?”

“No! That’s not it at all!”

“Then you’d better fill us in right now on all the gory details,” Savannah told him, “or you’re about to go down as one of the ugliest, meanest killers in history. People all over the country are gonna cheer when you get the needle. You killing a pretty young gal like that for no reason, and all.”

“It wasn’t for no reason! I mean, it wasn’t just me! I’m not going to jail all by myself when—”

“When what, Hank?”

“When killing her wasn’t even my idea!”

The moment he said the words, Savannah could tell he wanted to take them back. But it was too late.

Her face was only a few inches from his. Her eyes were filling his vision when she said, “Murder for hire is one of those ‘special circumstances,’ Hank. Punishable by death. You could get the needle for this if you don’t give Chief La Cross what she needs here.”

A flicker of hope registered on his face. “You mean, if I tell her who hired me, I won’t get the needle?”

La Cross started to speak; Dirk reached over, put his hand on her arm, and squeezed.

“You’ll not only have to tell her who it was, but you’ll have to help us prove it.”

“Like set him up? Wear a wire? Get him to confess?”

“Exactly.”

“And then I won’t get the death penalty?”

“If you aid law enforcement in apprehending all guilty parties in this crime, Mr. Jordan, I’m certain your cooperation will serve to prove your great remorse. I can assure you that your actions will weigh heavily in the scales of justice, on the day you’re sentenced.”

“What?”

She lost her patience. “Who the hell was it? Northrop?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because he found out she’d hired me to shoot him and the chief here, and that she’d given me her wedding ring to do it. That really pissed him off.”

“Go figure,” Dirk mumbled.

“He figured out it was me from some paper she’d left there at the house with my name on it. So the day he got out of the hospital, he called me and offered me a hundred grand to do it.”

Jordan shrugged. “I’ve been broke my whole life. You couldn’t expect me to turn down a deal like that!”

“Of course not,” Savannah replied evenly. “How did you get her to go to the beach with you that morning?”

“I was waiting for her outside her house, by her car. I told her we had to talk, that I wanted some more money until I could fence the ring. I got her to take a ride with me.”

“Once you got down to the beach, what happened?”

“I told her what her husband had done, how he’d offered to pay me to kill her. I told her if she wanted to up his ante, I’d consider it.”

Savannah felt her blood temperature plummet. This guy was sitting there, discussing his heinous crime as though describing a fishing trip with his best buddy.

“But she didn’t even want to talk about it. She sorta freaked out and jumped outta my car and ran down toward the water. I guess I don’t have to tell you two the rest, ’cause you were there.”

“You saw us?” Savannah asked.

“Sure. I thought about taking you guys out, too, but I figured it’d be easier just to get away from there. I figured she’d croak before she told you anything. She didn’t look like she was gonna make it.”

By then, Savannah’s blood felt like it had reached subzero. She knew she had to get out of that room before she tied into him and tried her best to kill him with her bare hands. Deep in the most primal part of her being—a part she couldn’t deny, but didn’t want to have to see with such stark clarity—she wanted to see him dead. As dead as that young woman on the beach.

She also had to leave because if she didn’t, she was going to tell him that she had just lied to him. Whether he cooperated and helped them nail Northrop or not, he would probably still be facing the death penalty. She wanted to tell him because she wanted to see the look on his face when he realized he’d just been had.

But she didn’t. She didn’t attack him, and she didn’t mock him. Her determination to control that primal part of herself was the only difference between her and the guy in the chair.

And she
would
be different from him. She
would.

“He’s all yours, Chief,” she said.

Then she turned and ran out the door, in desperate need of sunlight and fresh air.

 

“This is going way better than before,” Granny said as she sat in the big, comfortable passenger seat of Ryan and John’s surveillance van and watched the action through the windshield.

Behind her, manning two different recording devices, were Savannah and Dirk. Chief La Cross was watching through a small side window with a pair of binoculars.

Directly ahead was William Northrop’s big glass house. Hank Jordan was walking up to the front door.

On the lawn a couple of gardeners were raking the flower beds. They looked a heck of a lot like Ryan and John.

Two utility workers examining a nearby telephone pole bore a striking resemblance to the patrolmen Franklin and Rhodes.

“That’s true, Gran. It wouldn’t take much to improve on our last surveillance job,” Savannah replied.

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about that.” Dirk was still decidedly grumpy about the topic.

“Would this have anything to do with the bruises on your faces?” La Cross asked.

Savannah sniffed. “It was a contributing factor.”

La Cross lowered her binoculars and gave them a teasing look. “Good. I thought maybe you’d had a newlyweds’ quarrel.”

“Hey, don’t even talk like that!” Dirk snapped. “Real men don’t hit women. Real men hit men who hit women.”

“Sometimes real women do, too,” Granny added with a snicker.

“Amen,” Savannah replied.

“You know, I like you two better than I did at first,” the chief said.

“That, too, was an easy improvement. No place to go but up,” said Savannah.

La Cross waved an arm, indicating all of Ryan and John’s expensive equipment. “This is a nice setup your friends have here. Wish I had something like this.” She sighed. “Hell, I’d be happy just to have that gadget that triggered the gate to open.”

“Shhh,” Dirk said. “I’m getting something here.”

He pressed a button on the recorder. A blue graph danced on a computer monitor in front of him as Hank Jordan’s voice came in loud and clear.

“Hey, I gotta see you,” Hank said. “Right now. We got a problem.”

“You can’t come here to my home, you idiot!” was the equally clear response from William Northrop. “How did you get through the gate?”

“It was open.”

“Well, get the hell out of here now before somebody sees you!”

“No, seriously, we’ve gotta talk!” Hank insisted. “This guy I know at the motel, he figured out what I did for you, and now he wants in on it, too.”

There was a long pause; then Northrop said, “Get in here.”

Hank disappeared into the house and the big door closed with a finality that would have bothered Savannah if it had been anyone other than a heartless murderer inside. She figured she should conjure up some concern for Hank Jordan’s well-being, but she couldn’t.

If a battle ensued, she wasn’t sure which party, if anyone, she would be rooting for.

“You told somebody about it?” Northrop was asking Hank. “You had to go and shoot your mouth off to some other moron?”

“Hey, watch who you’re calling names here. I didn’t tell anybody. He got into my stuff, and he saw the backpack full of money you gave me. Now he’s saying if I don’t give him half, he’s going to the cops.”

“So give him half.”

“I don’t wanna give him half! That ain’t enough for doing a murder. Especially of a woman. It wasn’t easy killing a woman as good-lookin’ as your old lady.”

Everyone in the van held their collective breaths for the next response.

Come on,
Savannah thought.
Come on, Billy boy. Don’t stop now! Dig that grave of yours a full eight feet deep.

“Listen to me, you stupid ass,” Northrop said. “You’ve gotten all the money out of me that you’re ever going to get. Don’t forget, if my wife’s murder comes back on me, you’ll go down for it, too.”

“But I—”

“You nothing. You deal with this idiot friend of yours any way you have to, but don’t you ever come back to me again. If you do, I swear, I won’t even bother to hire somebody to kill you. I’ll do it myself! You hear me?”

“Oh, darlin’, we hear you,” Savannah said, bouncing up and down on her seat. “We
all
hear you! And I can’t wait till the jury hears you, too!”

“That’s enough. Let’s go get him,” Chief La Cross said as she opened the van door and jumped out. Dirk hopped out with her.

“You go ahead, Chief,” Savannah said. “You’ve got enough good backup there without me.”

La Cross didn’t have to be told twice. In a heartbeat, she was running toward the house. Dirk, Ryan, John, and Patrolmen Franklin and Rhodes swept en masse up the sidewalk to the front door with her.

“That’s not like you, sweet pea,” Granny said, “holding back when it’s time to grab the bad guy.”

Savannah smiled, watching La Cross charge through the front door, gun drawn, followed by the rest of her team.

“The chief there’s the one who got her heart broken,” she said. “He bedded her and betrayed her, and that kills an important part of a woman’s soul. She needs this a lot more than I do.”

“I love you, Savannah girl.”

“I love you, too, Gran. You’re the best!”

 

It didn’t take long for Savannah to locate Dr. June Glenn. The entire island was abuzz about the fund-raising gala she had organized, and the festivities had just begun on the oceanfront in the harbor.

Known for its casual lifestyle, Santa Tesla Island wasn’t accustomed to having ladies in evening gowns and men in tuxedos stroll her pier. But tonight, the island’s elite were doing just that as they sipped champagne, chatted, nibbled hors d’oeuvres, and enjoyed one sultry jazz number after another, performed by a twelve-piece orchestra.

Savannah felt woefully underdressed in her linen slacks and simple button-down shirt. But then, she wasn’t here to raise funds, nibble, or sip. She had good news to deliver . . . and a new husband waiting for her back at the lighthouse keeper’s cottage.

It was a simple task, locating Dr. June Glenn. As Savannah had expected, the doctor was at the center of one of the largest conversation circles. Wearing a floor-length red gown that draped her slender form, her hair in an elegant updo, she was easily one of the loveliest women present. Interestingly, much of her beauty had to do with her grace and her passion as she presented her point of view to those standing around her.