Poisoned Tarts (3 page)

A cell phone began playing the theme song to
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Dirk reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his phone. “The captain,” he offered in explanation. He shrugged and added, “Seemed appropriate somehow.”

They nodded, understanding perfectly. Dirk's rocky relationship with his captain—and everyone else in the S.C.P.D.—was common knowledge. The brass didn't like him. He hated them. And most of his fellow cops respected his work but would have run ten miles in the opposite direction to avoid working with him.

Dirk had only slightly less luck with partners than with women. And the only person who had actually enjoyed working with him, had been Savannah. Since she and the S.C.P.D. had parted ways years ago, Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter had been the proverbial lone wolf, and nothing made him happier than to be pack free.

When he wanted companionship, howling at a full moon or whiling away the boring hours of a stakeout, he invited Savannah to come along.

She was so much better than Detectives Demitry, Averick, or Bura—way better looking, and she always brought food.

“Coulter,” he barked into the phone, chatty as always. He listened for a few seconds, then began to scowl. “Why? No. I don't think so.”

Savannah perked up as they all listened intently. While they wouldn't have admitted it for all the rocky road fudge in the world, they lived vicariously through Dirk and his cases. Since Savannah was no longer a cop, Ryan and John had long ago left the FBI, and Gran and Tammy were merely Nancy Drew wannabes, they had to get their true crime fix somehow.

“If it's only been nineteen hours, what's the big deal?” Dirk was asking. “Whatever happened to the twenty-four-hour rule?”

Ah, a missing person
, Savannah thought.
Not as interesting as some cases, but it could turn into something.

“Just 'cause it's a fat cat's daughter.” Dirk shook his head in disgust. “Yeah, okay, that's even worse…a fat cat's spoiled rotten daughter's friend. She doesn't come home from partying, and I'm supposed to go club hopping to find her? I mean, it's not like she's a little kid who went missing from a local playground or—” He sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'll get right on it. In fact, I left ten minutes ago. Happy?”

He snapped the phone shut.

“Teenager didn't make it home last night?” Savannah asked.

“Yeah, an eighteen-year-old named Daisy O'Neil. She's a friend of that Dante kid….” He thought for a moment. “You know, that gal that's always in the tabloids, the skinny one.”

“Tiffy Dante.” Tammy turned to Gran. “She's sort of a local celebrity around here, she and her friends. Her dad is filthy rich, and she and her high society girlfriends are always getting into some sort of trouble.”

Gran waved a dismissive hand. “Oh please. I know who Tiffy Dante and her girlfriends are—the Skeleton Key Three. I read the papers and watch some TV. I mean, we may live out in the toolies there in Georgia, and McGill may be nothing but a wide spot in the road. But I'll bet you that more girls at McGill High School know who Tiffy Dante is than know the name of the first lady of the United States of America. Sorry state of affairs, but true.”

“Oh yeah,” Dirk said. “I've heard of them, too. Read something about some sex–drug parties they were having there at her father's mansion last year when…oh…sorry, Mrs. Reid.”

Gran gave him a wry look. “We know about sex and drugs there in McGill, Georgia, too.” She grinned. “Not that we'd have nothin' to do with either one.”

“No, of course not.” Savannah turned to Dirk. “So, who did you say is missing? Tiffy? Bunny? Or the third one…what's her name…?”

“Kiki,” Tammy supplied. “The third one's name is Kiki.”

“But it's Daisy O'Neil who's missing,” Dirk reminded them.

“Where do they get these names?” Gran said. “Can you imagine sticking a perfectly sweet, innocent little baby with a stupid tag like Kiki for the rest of her life?”

Savannah bit her tongue and decided not to mention that Gran had named one of her sons Sebastian and one of her daughters Annameena. Gran might be over eighty, but she still had a fast hand, and Savannah was within slapping distance.

“So,” Savannah said, “if the Skeleton Key Three is Tiffy Dante and her friends Bunny and Kiki, who is Daisy O'Neil?”

Tammy was fast with the answer. “Daisy is sort of a hanger-on, an appendage to the Key Three. She's not as rich and certainly not as thin as the others. I've seen her pictured many times with them. She's never quite as put together as they are. Though I must say, she's the prettiest of the group, in my opinion.”

“Well,” Dirk said, rising from the rug and shoving his phone back into his pocket. “Whether she's rich or thin or good-looking, I couldn't tell you. All I know is that she didn't come home last night and her mother is worried about her, and Tiffy's dad, Andrew Dante, is raising a stink about us looking for her.”

“And when you've got the kind of wealth that Andrew Dante has,” John said, “it's enough to make certain that your complaint is heard.”

“Yeah, the chief is after the captain to get after me. So, I'll have to call it a night here.” He turned to Savannah. “Thanks for the good dinner, Van.”

She didn't even bother to ask; she just started to wrap up some brownies and fudge in a napkin to go.

More than anything, she was itching to tag along. But Gran had only arrived from Georgia two days before, and with her other guests there, it would just be too rude. Southern hospitality just didn't allow for such things.

She knew Dirk was thinking the same thing as he glanced around the room, then gave her a questioning look.

“Oh, go ahead and go,” Gran said, standing up and offering a hand up to Savannah. “You know you want to.”

“I don't want to,” she lied.

“You do, too. It's as plain as the fudge on your face.” Gran reached down and wiped a smear of chocolate off her granddaughter's lip. “Don't stick around on my account. I'll be trottin' off to bed in a minute anyway. Gotta read my Bible and my
True Informer
. There'll probably be something in there about this missing girl. You know how they beat everybody else to the scoop.”

Gran's unwavering confidence in the
True Informer
's journalistic integrity had always amazed Savannah. Whether something was written between the well-worn leather covers of her King James Bible or within the pulp mill pages of the national tabloid, it was gospel, according to Gran.

“Go ahead and go with him, Savannah,” Ryan said as he stood and stretched his long limbs. “John and I have an early tee time at the club tomorrow morning. We'll be getting going ourselves.”

Only Tammy appeared to mind. Her lower lip protruded in predictable fashion. Tammy didn't mind the fact that Savannah would be leaving as much as that she wouldn't be accompanying her.

Savannah felt for her, but not enough to invite her along. There was a limit to how many civilians Dirk could bring with him when he was on the job. And since Savannah brought along carbo-rich goodies and Tammy irritated him to distraction, Savannah was always his first choice.

“You coming?” he asked her.

She grinned, winked at him, and out of respect for her grandmother, decided not to give him her usual X-rated reply to that question. “Absolutely,” she said. “Let me get my weapon and—”

“You won't need it,” he said with a smirk. “I've got mine. I'll keep you safe.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “I'll just bring along my own, if you don't mind. I've seen you at the target range.”

S
avannah gazed out the window as they passed one mansion after another after another in the exclusive enclave of Spirit Hills. As they drove deeper into the valley, each estate seemed grander than the last. Here in the heart of the canyon, the trees grew thicker, and the road curved more tightly and rose in elevation with each twist and turn. And with every crook in the road, more and more of the panoramic view was revealed.

If you lived in San Carmelita and were rich enough, you could afford to live in Spirit Hills. If you were filthy, stinking rich, you could afford to live on one of the hillsides at the end of the canyon, overlooking the valley, the town, and the Pacific Ocean. And you could feel pretty darned good about it.

Or at least, Savannah figured they should feel pretty good about it. Heck, if she lived here,
she
would!

In McGill, the little rural town where she had been born, most people had looked down on her immediate family. Her barfly mom and never home trucker dad had made pretty sure of that. Their deeds and misdeeds had secured the family's reputation as white trash in the better part of three counties. Other than turning out a new baby every year and naming each one after a town in Georgia, neither of them had accomplished anything that would have garnered any respect from their neighbors.

But Granny Reid was respected and deeply loved by all who knew her—with the possible exception of Leon Hafner, who respected her but harbored precious little affection for her since the skillet incident. And when the courts had taken Savannah and her brothers and sisters away from her parents and put them in Gran's care, their lives had taken a decided turn for the better.

But not before Savannah had learned the pain of having people look down on you. Way down. And she had to think that living here on what seemed like the top of the world and literally looking down on everyone else…that would go a long way toward healing any inferiority complexes one might have incurred during a rocky childhood.

“Do you ever wonder what they eat in joints like this?” Dirk said as he guided his ancient Buick Skylark around another curve and shifted into low gear to climb a particularly steep hill.

“Is that all you ever think about?” she asked him. “Food?”

“No, sometimes I think about sex and baseball.”

She groaned and shook her head. “What do you mean, what do they eat? They eat just like the rest of us. Well, they probably wash it down with wine instead of beer or soda pop, but—”

“I mean, do people who live in a place, like say, that one there…”—he pointed to a sprawling Tudor mansion on their right—“…do they actually bring home a bucket of chicken when everybody's too tired to cook? Or do they eat pheasant under glass every night?”

“I don't want to have this conversation again. We both agreed last time that very few people actually have pheasant under glass for dinner anymore. And no, I'm not going to try to make it for you. Ever. Barbecued game hens are the closest I'll ever come.”

He didn't reply, and they sat in silence for a while until she added, “And to be honest, I'm plum confused as to why you, of all people, would even give a hoot about a fancy schmancy dish like that. You're more of a hot dog and hamburger guy. What's with this obsession you have about pheasant under glass?”

He shrugged and looked mildly uncomfortable. “I don't want to tell you. You'll laugh.”

“So what? I always laugh at you. Spit it out. What is it?”

“It's a James Bond thing, okay?”

“James Bond?”

“Yeah, I read somewhere or heard that he likes it, like it's his favorite dish or whatever. And you know I'm a big fan of his.”

She shook her head and stared at him. “I never heard that.”

“Well, believe it or not, Miss Smarty Pants, you don't know as much about some stuff as I do.”

“Besides, James Bond is a fictional character. Do you mean Sean Connery likes it?”

“No, I mean
James Bond
. Never mind. I didn't think you'd understand.”

“Lord help us,” she mumbled under her breath. “Next thing you know, he'll want his beer shaken, not stirred.”

She rolled down her window to let in some of the fresh evening air and to release some of the less refreshing aromas of the burger and taco wrappers that he had tossed onto the back floorboard.
Pheasant under glass, indeed
.

“I want to talk about this case,” she said. “Like, why are we going to Dante's mansion rather than this Daisy O'Neil's house?”

“Because her mother called 9-1-1 from Dante's, said she wasn't leaving there until they told her where to find her daughter. She's convinced that the other girls had something to do with Daisy's disappearance, and she's causing a big stink about it.”

“Seems like Dante would have been the one calling the cops if she's harassing him on his own property.”

“Yeah, you'd think so. We may wind up having to toss her out of there if we can't settle her down.”

“The thought of ‘tossing' a worried mother anywhere doesn't exactly agree with me,” Savannah said. “If I had kids and one went missing, I'd be beside myself. I lost one of my kid sisters—I think it was Atlanta—in a Wal-Mart one Sunday afternoon for twenty minutes, and I about went out of my mind imagining what might have happened to her.”

“Yeah, that's just gotta be the worst. The absolutely worst thing that can happen to a parent…having a kid go missing. But this gal will turn up. I can feel it.”

She sniffed. “Oh yes, the infamous, infallible Coulter intuition.”

“Hey, don't knock it. My instinct has gotten you out of some nasty jams over the years.”

“And gotten me into plenty of them, too.”

“Be that as it may.”

They rounded a curve, and on a separate hill above them and to the left was the most magnificent mansion Savannah had ever seen. Crowning the hill, the palatial home looked like a cross between a Tuscan country villa and the Acropolis.

Illuminated by exquisitely placed architectural lighting, the limestone façade glowed golden against the darkening twilit sky. Arched and shuttered windows, some two and three stories tall, reached to ornate eaves and a red-tiled roof.

They drove through an avenue of giant, mature oaks that momentarily obscured the view of the house. Something about their black, gnarled trunks and the way their thick foliage blocked out even the last rays of the fading sunlight gave Savannah a creepy feeling. She felt like she was watching the prelude to some sort of horror movie as they passed between them.

But the sense of foreboding left the moment they exited the oaks and entered the circular motor court. Giant palm trees danced in the evening breeze, throwing lacy shadows across the front of the mansion, and in the center of the court, a four-tiered marble fountain was lit with golden floodlights. The water that cascaded from layer to layer sparkled like streams of liquid topaz.

“Wow, I heard about this place when they were building it two years ago,” she said, “but I had no idea it was so grand! Glory be, what a spread!”

“Eh,” Dirk replied. “My trailer looks this good when the neighbor's mutt runs too close to my front door and the outdoor security light flips on. It's all done with lighting.”

“Yeah, right.”

They parked in the court between a new Porsche convertible and an older rusty and dented minivan. On the van's bumper was a faded sticker that read “My Kid Is On the S.C.H.S. Honor Roll.”

“Something tells me that van belongs to Daisy O'Neil's mom,” Savannah said. “I can't imagine the guy who lives in this place driving it. And I'm sure they'd expect any servants who owned that to park around back and out of sight.”

Dirk nodded. “And from what I've read about her, I don't think Miss Tiffy would be caught dead in any vehicle that didn't cost as much as your house and my trailer combined.”

Savannah recalled the appraised value of her own house on her last tax statement and added twenty-five cents for Dirk's single-wide monstrosity that still had vestiges of dinosaur poop on its tires. “No,” she said, “I doubt that she would.”

They left the Buick and walked across the granite-paved courtyard, through a gracefully arched colonnade, to a wrought iron double door. The delicate iron work formed two letters—a T on the left and a D on the right.

“Andrew Dante,” Savannah mumbled, mulling the initials over in her mind. “Should be an A, not a T.”

They both looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “Don't tell me,” she said. “He put his kid's initials on his door?”

“Maybe his wife's name is Tiffy, or something equally stupid that starts with a T.”

“Or he's a doting father. An
extremely
doting father.”

“That would explain some of the stories I've read in the tabloids. To hear them tell it, she's a brat who gets everything she wants and then some.”

Savannah pushed the button next to the door and heard the Westminster Chimes echo inside. “Ah, don't believe everything you read. Rich people get a bad rap just because everybody's jealous of them. Some of the nicest, most humble, and most generous people I've ever known were rich.”

“Naw. I hate 'em all. You can't be a decent person and be rich.”

She shook her head and sighed. “Coulter…there isn't one single solitary group of people under the sun that you trust, respect, or like.”

“That isn't true.”

“Is, too.”

“Is not. I like dogs.”

The door opened, and a tiny woman in her early twenties stood there in a black and white maid's uniform. Her thick dark hair flowed around her shoulders in a manner that struck Savannah as impractical for the active work of a housekeeper. And the skirt on her uniform was so short that should she need to bend over, she would have to squat ever so gracefully so as not to expose her diminutive derriere.

It also struck Savannah that both the person who had designed this costume, as well as the one who had decided that this young lady should wear it, were well aware of the clothing's limitations—or benefits.

Savannah gave Dirk a sideways glance and saw his eyes flit, ever so briefly, over the outfit and then lock on the maid's face. She had to give the guy some major points for professionalism. Better than anyone, she knew his predilection for French maid and cheerleader garb.

“Hello. May I help you?” the maid asked in a breathless, half-panting voice that sounded like it was straight from an 800-Call-to-Talk-Dirty phone line. She ran her fingers through her long hair and then shifted her weight from one foot to another, sticking her hip out to one side in what she undoubtedly thought was a sexy pose.

A quick look at Dirk told Savannah that he thought so, too.

His eyes bugged out just a bit as he looked her up and down one more time. But he cleared his throat, and apparently his mind, because he managed to dig out his badge, flip it open under her nose, and say with only the slightest squeak, “I'm Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter, San Carmelita Police Department. This is my colleague, Savannah Reid. We received a call that you have a problem here tonight. Is there a Ms. O'Neil around?”

The maid glanced uneasily over her shoulder. “Uh, yes, but…”

Savannah could hear a woman's angry voice deep inside the house, and a man's, too. They sounded as though they were arguing.

Dirk looked past the maid and tried to see into the massive foyer behind her. “Is that Ms. O'Neil I hear?” he asked. He didn't wait for an answer. “I need to talk to her right now.”

He gave his best, most authoritative cop wave of the hand, and predictably, the young woman stood aside to allow them in. Savannah decided then and there that the maid was more legs and hair than backbone. But she cut her some slack. After all, when she'd been that age, her composition had been much the same.

Hey
, she thought,
you live and you learn, and you eventually learn how to stand up on your hind legs and roar…like at abusive jerks in supermarkets.

She grinned at the fresh and refreshing memory as she followed Dirk into the mansion. A vision of her would-be assailant lying on the floor, soaking in a marinade of ketchup, pickle juice, and balsamic vinegar, brought a grin to her face and a resolution to her heart.

I simply must do that more often
, she thought before pulling her mind back to the business at hand.

The two-story foyer was depressingly large…depressing only because it occurred to Savannah that she could probably put her entire house inside its confines and still have room to park her Mustang, Dirk's Buick, and Tammy's VW bug. But even in her downhearted state, she had to admit it was impressive. From the marble floors to the turned oak staircase with its curved railings to the stained-glass rotunda ceiling, this architectural introduction to Dante's domain said it all.