Poisoned Tarts (7 page)

“Don't worry,” Savannah said, “We're just getting started with this investigation.”

Pam led them through the living room with its threadbare plaid sofa, Mediterranean-style coffee table, and plastic, fake Tiffany lamp and on into the kitchen. She offered them a seat at a chrome and Formica dinette table that reminded Savannah of Gran's old set.

“Want some coffee?” Pam asked. “It's fresh. I just made it.”

“Sure, thanks,” Dirk said.

“Not for me,” Savannah said as she looked around the kitchen. Apparently, Pam was into chickens. The wallpaper was a blue and yellow print with chickens of every breed, size, and age doing chicken things: pecking at the ground, crowing from tops of fence posts, and emerging from cracked eggs.

Even the dishtowels hanging on the rack and the canisters on the cupboard were spangled with chickens.

Savannah resisted the urge to judge, remembering her own Unicorn Period. She was so glad she had resisted getting that tattoo on her right breast and spared herself the depressing spectacle of a less than perky unicorn.

Pam slipped a cup of coffee onto the table in front of Dirk, along with a sugar bowl and creamer.

Dirk took a notepad and pen from inside his leather jacket. “We just need to get a bit more information from you,” he said. “A description of the car your daughter's driving, the plate number, what she was wearing the last time you saw her, just your standard stuff like that.”

“Of course,” Pam said. “I want to help any way I can.”

“Would you mind,” Savannah asked, “if I took a look in Daisy's bedroom? I hate to poke around in your daughter's things, but considering the circumstances…”

“Oh, sure. No problem. It's right down the hall there, the door on the right. Help yourself.”

“Thank you.”

Savannah walked down the short hallway to a closed door that had a plaque on it that said, “Daisy.” As might be expected, yellow daisies surrounded the name, and the “i” was dotted with a pink daisy.

When she opened the door, Savannah expected to find a typical teenager's room: posters of the latest rock heartthrobs, garish colors, and stuffed animals vying for space with more grown-up possessions like mountains of makeup, shoes, and purses.

But not this room.

One look told Savannah that Daisy O'Neil was no ordinary teenager.

At first glance, Savannah thought she had stepped into some small tropical paradise. Someone had painted murals on all four walls, surprisingly good murals, of a lush jungle full of exotic palms and greenery, monkeys, parrots, and toucans.

And most impressive of all were the cats. Spotted leopards, black panthers, and ocelots crouched in the trees, while tigers hid in the foliage, their stripes blending perfectly with the tangled vines and thick grasses.

Apparently, Daisy was not only in love with the jungle and its big cats, but she was a talented artist, as well. On one wall, toward the bottom of the mural, Savannah saw the signature, “Daisy O.”

The girl was also quite a gifted botanist. The room was filled with all sorts of palms and philodendrons, pothos and schefflera, Chinese evergreens and peace lilies.

The furniture was sparse and inexpensive—a daybed, one chest, and a desk—but the wicker style fit the jungle theme perfectly. And the bed was neatly made with dark green linens.

Savannah walked over to the desk and sat on the small stool. With practiced deliberation, she quickly but thoroughly examined each book, letter, note, and item both on the desk's top and in its four drawers. Mostly, she found books about wildlife, the Amazon rainforest, ecology, and botany.

One drawer held a small case of makeup: mascara, lip gloss, one color of eye shadow. Apparently, Daisy was a natural beauty. One bottle of clear nail polish, a file, and some clippers were her manicure-pedicure kit.

Savannah thought of Daisy's high maintenance friends and wondered briefly how many bottles of polish and tubes of lipstick were in Tiffany Dante's makeup drawer.

In one of the bottom drawers, far in the back, hidden beneath some folders, was something that caught Savannah's eye.

It was a white bag with a red logo from a local drugstore. And inside the bag was a pregnancy test and a receipt dated September 15th. It was the type that contained two kits in one box. One kit was gone; the other was still inside the box and in its original wrapping.

Savannah stored that bit of information in the back of her mind for future reference, along with the name of the drugstore and date on the receipt.

She returned the kit to its original place in the back of the drawer, deciding, at least for now, to protect any of Daisy's secrets.

As the oldest child in a family of nine kids, Savannah had enjoyed precious little privacy of her own, so she respected others' as much as her occupation would allow her.

She left the bedroom and its exotic decor, returning to the more mundane regions of the house.

At the table, Dirk and Pam O'Neil were still talking.

“Does she have a job?” Dirk was asking. “I mean, something other than this sitcom thing that just came up.”

“Yes. Since she graduated this past spring, she's been a cashier at Drug Mart over on Walston Street.”

Savannah perked up at the mention of the drugstore, the same one where the pregnancy kit had been purchased. She had noticed that a twenty-percent discount had been applied to the subtotal on the receipt. An employee's discount, perhaps?

“Have you talked to them at the drugstore yesterday or today?” he asked. “Do they know she's missing?”

“I told her boss that she didn't come home last night and asked if he knew anything. He didn't. But he wasn't expecting her anyway. She had asked for the next four days off so that she could…” Pam choked and wiped her hand across her eyes. “…could do this sitcom taping. I just can't even tell you how excited she was about this.”

“And how about a boyfriend?” Dirk asked. “Anybody she's seeing regularly?”

“Not anymore. As I told Savannah, Daisy had a boyfriend that she was really in love with, a guy named Stan. Stanley Crofton. He works there at Drug Mart with her, only he's in the photo department. But Tiffany broke them up a few months ago.”

“So it was Stan who ended the relationship?” Dirk asked.

Savannah knew why Dirk wanted to know who had called it quits. A dumped former boyfriend or husband was always the first and primary suspect any time a female went missing.

“Well, I guess you would say that it was officially Daisy who pulled the plug. She told him to get lost. But only after she found out he was fooling around with Tiffy.”

“Did Stan want to keep the relationship together?”

“Sure he did,” Pam said, an angry and defiant tone to her voice. “He was stupid enough to fall for whatever Tiffy dangled in front of his nose, but he was smart enough to realize pretty quick what she was up to and that she was no good. He begged Daisy to forgive him, and she did. But she refused to be his girlfriend anymore. And I'm glad she did. I told her she would be an idiot to take back a man who fooled around on her.”

Savannah had noticed that although there were many pictures of Daisy and a few of her mother around the house, there was a clear absence of any male faces in those family portraits. Considering the degree of venom in Pam's tone when she talked about wayward men, Savannah wondered if maybe Mr. O'Neil had found out the hard way that Pam wasn't one to keep a philandering fellow around the house.

“So, Stan did
not
want the break up?” Dirk said, clarifying.

“No, I guess you could say he didn't.” Pam replied. “Like most men, he wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. Scumbags that they are.”

Yes, Pam has a few issues with the opposite sex
, Savannah thought, cringing for Dirk, who had chosen to ignore the insult and was scribbling away on his notepad.

“Well…” Savannah said, “…there just has to be one or two men on the face of the earth who actually deserve the air they breathe. Present company included.”

Dirk stopped scribbling, looked up at Savannah, and grinned. “Naw, she's right,” he said. “We're all a bunch of scumbags. She's got us nailed.”

For half a second, Pam smiled. It was a pretty smile, and the thought occurred to Savannah that if this mother wasn't worried sick, she'd probably be a nice enough person to be around—sexist attitudes, cynicism, and all.

And Savannah really wanted to return her kid to her and see that tiny smile turn into an enormous one that glowed with joy. She had returned more than one youngster to a distraught parent in her career as a cop, and the experience was one of her very favorite, to be sure. There was nothing as sweet as a happy ending where a child was concerned.

“This guy, Stan,” Dirk said, “to your knowledge, was he ever abusive with your daughter? Physically? Verbally? Maybe overly possessive, like jealous of her with other guys?”

Pam O'Neil gave Dirk a long, hard look before she answered. “No. He was not. And if he had been, he wouldn't still be walking around on his own two legs.”

“O-o-kay,” Dirk said. “So do you have any reason to think he might have harmed your daughter in any way?”

“No. Absolutely not. He's much too afraid of me to do something like that.”

Savannah chuckled. “My kind of mamma.”

Dirk sighed and flipped his notebook closed. “I'm still going to go have a talk with him. Do you know what hours he works?”

“The evening shift,” Pam told him. “They're open over there 24-7. He should be on duty now.”

As Dirk rose from the table, Pam stood, too, and picked up his empty cup and saucer. “Go talk to Stan if you want to,” she told Dirk, “but I can tell you now, he had nothing to do with Daisy disappearing like this. It's those girls over at that Dante place. You mark my words. They've done something to Daisy.”

Savannah walked over and put her hand on the woman's shoulder. “Detective Coulter is just covering all bases,” she told her. “He's very good at what he does.”

Pam gave Dirk a long once-over before she answered. “Yes, I can tell that he doesn't totally stink at it.”

Dirk laughed. “Such high praise. You'll give me a swelled head.”

Savannah walked past him and toward the door. “Yes, it is. And you should leave before she gets to know you better.”

A moment later, as they got into Dirk's car, he asked Savannah, “Do you really think I'm good at this, or were you just blowin' smoke back there?”

“You? Sure I do. Don't you?”

He thought it over for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I don't. I mean, maybe for a moment, right after I've solved a big case. But usually, I just feel like I'm going through the motions but faking it.”

“Eh, everybody feels that way. Don't you think? I'll bet you that even brain surgeons, presidents, and nuclear physicists feel like that…like they're faking it. They live in fear that someday, somebody's going to point at them and say, ‘I know! I know your big secret! I know you're nothing but a fake!'”

They put on their seat belts, then turned and looked at each other.

“Brain surgeons, too?” Dirk said. “Gawd, I hope not.”

B
efore Savannah and Dirk arrived at the Drug Mart, Savannah told him what she had found in Daisy O'Neil's bedroom.

“If she's buying and using pregnancy test kits, she's obviously fooling around with this Stan kid or somebody else,” Dirk said as he left Pam O'Neil's shabby residential neighborhood and entered a shabby business district.

This wasn't San Carmelita's worst area. That was on the far end of town, where the drug pushers, tattoo parlors, X-rated porn stores, and pawnshops were.

This area wasn't nasty enough to have even the touch of dark side glamour reserved for the worst of the worst. This section was just poor and depressed, like most of the people who shopped there.

Bars covered all the store windows, even on the second floors, and every vertical surface was marred by the ugliness of graffiti.

Unlike the bad side of town, families could walk around in the daylight hours and remain relatively safe. But the minute the sun went down, law-abiding folk were home behind their locked doors and barred windows.

And yet for some reason known only to the corporate powers of Drug Mart, this store was open all day, every day. To be sure, none of those corporate execs would have worked there or wanted their mothers, sisters, or children to.

Savannah could remember all too well having answered a call, back when she was on the police force, to a particularly violent robbery here at this store. A pharmacist had been shot and nearly killed.

“I was just thinking about that Pakistani lady,” Dirk said as he pulled into a parking space near the door. “The pharmacist who got shot here that night.”

“Me, too,” she said.

Long ago, she had gotten over any amazement that they were so frequently thinking the same thing at the same time. After all, they had spent more time together than several married couples combined.

“Let's go see this Stan dude,” Dirk said. “Shake him up a little and see what falls out of his trousers.”

Dirk had his stern face on, Savannah noted, as he always did when he was dealing with the boyfriend or husband of a female victim.

On one level, she didn't blame him. When a woman was harmed, the perpetrator frequently was her intimate partner. But not always. And sometimes, Dirk forgot that.

If a woman went missing, he went after her man. Every time. With a vengeance.

And Savannah never envied a guy who had Dirk Coulter breathing down his neck.

They entered the store and headed for the photo department near the back, where they found a big, goofy-looking kid leaning over a photocopy machine and reloading it with paper.

Stanley Crofton was huge, well over six feet and considerably heavier than two hundred pounds. His hair was cut so short that at first glance, he appeared bald. He wore glasses with thick lenses and bent metal frames. His white Drug Mart smock was badly stained with a frayed collar.

In the shabby, depressed neighborhood, Stan fit right in.

“Are you Stanley Crofton?” Dirk asked him as he reached inside his jacket for his badge.

The boy looked up from the copy machine. “Yes,” he said tentatively, as though he wasn't sure if this was a good time to be Stanley Crofton or not. “Why?”

Dirk flipped the badge open and showed him the gold shield. “I'm Det. Sgt. Dirk Coulter with the SCPD. I need a few minutes with you.”

Stan glanced around, turned a nice shade of pink, and walked over to the counter where they stood.

“Why?” he asked. “Why do you want to talk to me? I haven't done anything wrong.”

Dirk's eyes narrowed. “I never said you did. And stop answering my questions with questions.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

His words were meek enough, and he glanced away, avoiding Dirk's eyes, like a less aggressive male in a wolf pack when confronted by the alpha male.

But Savannah saw a flash of anger behind those thick lenses, and it occurred to her that Stanley might have a nasty side. And that, coupled with his hefty size, might present a problem to anyone who crossed him—even a smaller man, let alone a woman.

She hoped that if Daisy had run afoul of someone, it wasn't this guy. Those huge hands could do serious harm.

“I need to ask you about your ex-girlfriend, Daisy,” Dirk was saying. “I guess you know she's gone missing.”

Stan's eyes widened. “Missing? What do you mean, ‘she's missing'? I just saw her yesterday morning, and she was fine.”

“What time did you see her?” Dirk asked.

“I had breakfast with her at the café across the street when I got off work at eight yesterday morning. She was all jazzed about her taping tomorrow. So excited she couldn't even eat. And for Daisy, that's saying something. She and I have that in common. We both like to eat.”

A soft, affectionate smile crossed his face just for a moment, and Savannah began to revise her assessment of Stan. Just because a guy was big didn't mean he was a threat. Some of the sweetest guys Savannah had ever known were big mushy teddy bears at heart.

One of them was standing right beside her.

Although if anybody called Dirk a teddy bear to his face, they might get bitten.

Stan had also spoken of Daisy in the present tense. That was always a good sign—at least where his noninvolvement in her disappearance was concerned.

“She had breakfast with you,” Dirk said. “So does that mean that you two are boyfriend-girlfriend again?”

Stan shrugged. “I guess. We had a big fight and broke up a couple of months ago, but I think we've made up now. You know how it is with girls…sometimes, it's hard to tell.”

Both Stan and Dirk chuckled and gave Savannah sideways glances.

“Hey,” she said, “don't look at me. A guy always knows where he stands with me…in trouble or out of it. No mixed signals here.”

“That's true.” Dirk nodded. “Very true.” He turned back to Stan. “This is Savannah Reid. She's working this case with me and—”

“Case? What case? Do you mean Daisy is a…a ‘case'!”

He looked genuinely distraught, and again, Savannah dropped him a notch lower on her mental list of suspects.

Stan actually looked like he might start to cry. “You don't seriously think something bad has happened to her, do you?” he said.

It was Dirk's turn to avoid eye contact. “We don't know yet. But she hasn't been seen or heard from in over twenty-four hours.”

Savannah added, “For some people, that's no big deal at all. But Daisy's mother says it's unusual for her. Would you agree?”

Stan nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. That's not like Daisy. She always lets her mom know where she is, what she's doing.”

“Her mom is pretty strict with her?” Savannah asked.

“She's not strict like
mean
or anything bad. Pam's a nice lady, and they get along good. Daisy checks in a lot so that her mom won't worry about her. The two of them are close. They're like all they've got.”

“I didn't see any sign of a dad around when we were over there just now,” Savannah said.

“No, he took off with his secretary when Daisy was just a little kid. Pam's been pretty pissed about it ever since. She doesn't even like me all that much, and I think it's because she doesn't trust men.”

Savannah thought better of asking her next question, then decided to jump on in. “Stan, I heard that you and Daisy broke up over Tiffany Dante. Is that true?”

Even as she spoke the words, Savannah thought how ludicrous the whole idea was. She couldn't imagine a shallow, materialistic girl like Tiffany Dante “soiling” her hands with a simple, poor, unattractive kid like this one. If she had, indeed, seduced Stanley Crofton, it could have been for no other reason than to spite her so-called friend.

“I never did anything with Tiffany,” Stan said. The indignant look on his face was convincing. “I wouldn't touch that stupid girl. I can't stand her, and I told Daisy a long time ago that she should dump those gals. Pam put that idea into Daisy's mind, or maybe Tiffy did, just to mess with her head. But it's not true at all.”

“So, you're serious about this girl, Daisy?” Dirk asked.

“Yeah. Sure I am. I care a lot about Daisy. We've even talked about getting married one of these days. I wouldn't mess around on her like that with anybody, let alone Tiffany Dante.”

Savannah leaned across the counter, lowered her voice, and said, “Stan, don't take offense, but…I have to ask you. Is there any chance that Daisy could be pregnant?”

His pale complexion blushed dark red. “What? What kind of question is that?”

“A very personal one, I know,” Savannah replied. “And I'm sorry, but I have to ask. That's one reason why girls leave home unexpectedly. They're afraid how their family will take it, and—”

“No. She's not. I mean, she said she was…you know…taking care of it. She told me she's on the pill, and I trust her. Daisy's a smart girl. We both want to go to college and get good jobs before we get married, before we have kids. She wouldn't mess us up that way.”

“Okay. Sorry, I had to ask.”

Savannah was liking Stan more all the time, but one look at Dirk told her that he wasn't as easily convinced as she was. He was still wearing his Clint Eastwood at high noon look as he evaluated the big kid in front of him.

Dirk cleared his throat and gave Stan his best long, stern interrogation look. “So, when is the last time you heard from her?”

“Yesterday,” Stan said, “when I left her after breakfast. We kissed good-bye there in the parking lot, and she left.”

“And you haven't spoken to her on the phone or heard anything from her since?” Savannah asked.

“No. I called her once tonight, right before I came to work. But she didn't answer her cell. I left her a message. She hasn't called me back yet.”

Dirk said, “And according to you, you two were on good terms when you saw her yesterday. She was in an upbeat mood and didn't mention anything like running away from home or a fight with anybody. Right?”

“Yeah, she was fine. We were fine.”

“So what do you think has happened to her?” Dirk asked. “What's your best guess?”

Stan thought it over, then shook his head. “I don't know. I really don't.”

“Is there anyone you can think of that we should talk to?” Savannah asked him. “Any other friends, people she might have gone to see, phoned, places she might go?”

“No. Daisy's either home or here at work or out with those stupid girls, those Skeleton Key idiots. She's over there a lot. Have you talked to them yet?”

“Yes,” Dirk said. “We've talked to them.”

“Well, talk to them again,” Stan said, and this time he had an anger in his eyes that made Savannah think, once again, that this mild kid could be a danger to the wrong person. “Or maybe I'll talk to them myself. Because if something bad has happened to Daisy, I can bet you it's got something to do with them.”

Dirk reached across the counter and slapped Stan on the shoulder. “You stay away from them for now,” he told him. “Let us do our job. And meanwhile…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. “…if you hear anything at all from Daisy or you think of anything, no matter how insignificant it might seem to you, day or night, you give me a call. Okay?”

Stan took the card, looked it over, then put it into his smock pocket. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Thanks. Thanks for looking for her.”

Dirk shrugged. “No sweat. It's my job.”

After Dirk walked away, Savannah lingered. She gave Stan a sympathetic look and a wink. “Don't let him kid you,” she told him. “He'd do it even if it wasn't his job. And so would I. We'll find Daisy for you.”

Stan blinked rapidly a few times, then swallowed hard. “Please do. She's a good kid. A really good kid. Bad things shouldn't happen to good people.”

As Savannah walked away, she thought how much she agreed with him. But she knew more than most that fair or not, bad things happened to good people all the time. Sadly, even more often than they happened to bad people.

And it drove her crazy.

 

“Okay, now I'm bummed. I am seriously bummed,” Dirk said as they drove away from the drugstore. “I was just so sure it would be the boyfriend. Hell, it's always the boyfriend.”

“Take heart,” Savannah told him. “Maybe Daisy's got another boyfriend.”

“Yeah, right. Now you're just being sarcastic.”

“Well, what would you prefer? A stranger abduction?”

“God forbid.”

She agreed with him there. If a stranger nabbed somebody, there was almost never a happy ending. And far too frequently, the case couldn't even be solved.

He took another cinnamon stick out of the bag on the dash and stuck it into his mouth.