Poisoned Tarts (9 page)

Savannah chuckled. He was right. Tammy did have a healing effect on people. People around her tended to remain healthy, no matter what. They didn't dare do otherwise. Her remedies were to be avoided at all costs…even if it meant pretending you were feeling dandy when you had a full-fledged case of the whooping, bubonic diabetes.

As Savannah turned off the foothill road and into the park, she saw several teenagers eyeing her car with admiration mixed with envy. She knew she had a hot ride and enjoyed driving the classic car. And although the engine was old and in constant need of some sort of repair, the exterior was cherry. You could see the red Pony SS coming a mile off. And unless you were tailing somebody and trying to blend, or black, smelly smoke was belching out of the tail-pipe, driving it around was pretty darned awesome.

As she drove down the narrow two-lane road that ran the length of the park, her anxiety began to build. Maybe there was no DB reported, but that didn't mean the car wouldn't reveal something they didn't want to see.

They passed the sandboxes, the swings, the slides, the picnic tables, and barbecue pits that were pretty much empty. It was a bit early in the morning for the parkers, the potheads, and the frankfurter brigades to be out and about.

The road twisted through the canyon with its steep, wooded hills on either side. And as they drove deeper into the valley, the arroyo became more and more narrow, the trees and brush thicker, the mown lawn more sparse.

And up ahead, at the end was a large gate—the gate marked “No Trespassing,” the gate that absolutely everyone ignored and climbed over. Because just beyond the gate were some of the nicest hiking trails in the county.

In the spring, Savannah loved going back there and being waist high in the wildflower splendor. Yellow daisies and sage bloomed in glorious profusion—a feast for the eyes and admittedly, a challenge to the allergic.

Unfortunately, rattle snakes bloomed rather profusely, too, but she carried her Beretta with her, along with a totally unsophisticated Southerner's disrespect for the sanctity of reptilian life.

She might have wept at the sight of a dead bunny rabbit, but she could blow a rattlesnake to smithereens without batting an eyelash.

There would be no nature walk today. At the end of the road sat Daisy's old Honda and next to it, a police radio car, its blue lights flashing.

“Donaldson,” Dirk mumbled. “Rookie kid. Always with the drama. I swear, he lights up when he's scooping roadkill.”

She grinned, remembering the days when Dirk had used his siren and lights for absolutely any reason at all. And if he was in a squad car right now, he'd have the siren going and lights flashing.

It was a testosterone thing.

They parked the Mustang at least 60 feet from the other two vehicles and walked over to the fresh-faced, eager young cop who was standing guard.

Savannah liked Frank. She couldn't help it. He had been out of the academy two years, but the newness hadn't worn off for him. He was one of those guys who would absolutely love being a cop until the day he died. Unlike most people, Frank had found his passion in life, and he lived it daily. Life didn't get better than that.

Though he was a bit of a fanatic about it and therefore, occasionally, irritating. Especially to someone as irritable as Dirk.

Frank's round, rosy-cheeked face was beaming as he hurried over to them and said, “Hi, Savannah, Detective Coulter. I found it! I just had a feeling I should look down here, and sure enough, there it was!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dirk muttered under his breath. “Fricken Columbo here.”

Savannah knew he was irked because during his night of cruising the streets,
he
hadn't thought of checking here. And poor Frank would pay the price.

Sometimes, it was painfully obvious why Dirk was respected but not particularly loved in his own police department.

“Why did you park so close to the vehicle like that?” Dirk barked as they walked over to the Honda. “What if we wanted to check around it for tire impressions or footprints? You probably drove right over anything that was there. Or walked on it.”

Frank blushed and sputtered. “Well…I…tire impressions? Footprints? On asphalt?”

“It rained recently. Ever heard of mud prints?”

“Uh…okay.”

Poor Frank
, Savannah thought.
How dare he find Dirk's possible crime scene before
he
did!

“So, whatcha got here, buddy?” Savannah asked too brightly. “No sign of the girl, huh?”

“No. Car's unlocked. Keys are gone. No signs of violence inside the vehicle.”

Dirk sniffed. “And just what ‘signs of violence' were you looking for, Donaldson? Overturned furniture? Broken lamps?”

Frank was an easygoing sweetheart, but this was a bit much even for him. Anger flashed in his pale gray eyes. “No, sir. What I meant was, I saw no blood spatter on the seats or headliner. No brain matter or bone fragments on the windows…sir.”

Dirk glared at him for a few long, tense seconds, then grinned and nodded. “Okay, Donaldson. Thank you for assessing and securing the scene for me.”

He glanced over at the yellow “Do Not Cross” crime scene tape that had been strung in a wide, wide circle around the car and the surrounding area—a much wider area than was necessary…even if the secured area did include the young cop's own squad car. “Good job with the tape, too.”

Frank grinned. “Thank you, sir.”

“Did you start a log?”

Frank produced a notebook and proudly presented it to Dirk. “I did. I found the vehicle at 0900 hours and—”

“Thank you, Donaldson.” Dirk snatched the notebook out of his hand, glanced at it, and tucked it under his arm.

As the threesome walked toward the Honda, Dirk told Frank, “Let me give you a couple of tips about how I'd like you to secure my scenes in the future.”

Frank perked up, all ears. “Yes, sir. I'd like that, sir.”

“First, secure the primary scene itself. The vehicle, the body, whatever. And that area is not to be entered by you, or anyone else, until I, or another detective, arrives. You keep your car, your feet, and your mitts off that area.”

“Ten-four, sir.”

Savannah repressed a snicker as Dirk rolled his eyes.

“Then,” Dirk said, “you string a second, wider perimeter around that, which will provide a secondary containment, protecting any evidence that, say, the perpetrator may have dropped or created making his getaway: footwear impressions, tire impressions, cigarette butts…or if they're incredibly stupid, a dropped business card or driver's license. Hey, it's happened.”

“I believe you, sir.”

“And finally,” Dirk continued, “if it's a particularly hot scene, like a murder, and if you have lookie loos or press around, string a third tape wide around the other two, creating a third level of containment.”

“Really?” Frank was impressed but mystified. “If I may ask, why a third one, sir?”

“So that you can eat a burger or smoke a cigarette without contaminating your own scene and without some ‘film at eleven' chickie-pooh and her cameraman leaning over your shoulder asking you for a statement.”

Frank grinned from ear to ear. “Thank you, sir. But what if she's a really hot chickie-pooh?”

Dirk gave Savannah a sideways look and lowered his voice a notch. “Then you put down the burger, step over the tape, and give her an exclusive. Duh, Donaldson. You gotta learn to think for yourself on this job, or you'll never soar to the high ranks of detectivedom.”

Savannah cleared her throat. “Uh, can we get on with the business at hand, you two? Or do you want to trade smarmy pickup lines first?”

As they approached the car, she heard Dirk whisper to Frank, “Did they just take you out of the oven, girl, 'cause you are
hot!”

Frank whispered back, “Hey, all those curves and me with no brakes.”

She groaned and added, “‘You're the best-looking woman who's walked through that door in the past twenty years, and I should know. My lazy ass hasn't left this bar stool once in all that time.' That one always did it for me.”

When they reached the car, levity ceased, and the looks on all three faces were all business.

With a practiced eye, Savannah scanned the automobile exterior, looking for anything, new scratches, smears, prints, leaves or any other sort of vegetation, debris of any kind…and, of course, blood.

The car was dusty and dirty, as though it hadn't been washed in quite a while. It had a few scratches and a couple of fairly deep dents, but they were rusty and old. Nothing fresh.

The tires were free of any extraordinary amount of mud or beach sand.

“Did you open the door with your bare hand?” Dirk asked Frank.

“No, sir. I didn't have any gloves, but I used a clean tissue on the handle so that I wouldn't touch it.”

“Get yourself some gloves, and carry them at all times,” Dirk said. “If for no other reason than so that you can protect yourself when you're handling somebody who's bleeding. I shouldn't have to tell you that. That's 101.”

“Yes, sir. I usually do, but my fiancée took them without telling me to protect her hands when she was dying her hair red last week.”

Savannah winced.

Dirk let him have it. “Ask your stupid girlfriend how she'd feel having you bring AIDS home to her.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dirk pulled three pairs of latex gloves from his jacket pocket and gave one pair to Frank and another to Savannah. When they were all appropriately clad, Dirk carefully opened the driver's door of the Honda and leaned inside.

“Keys are gone,” he said. “And Patrolman Donaldson here is right…no blood or gore immediately apparent. Nobody got shot, stabbed, or severely bludgeoned in here.”

Savannah opened the passenger's door and checked the glove box. She found nothing unusual inside, just the standard registration and insurance cards, a pair of sunglasses, a tube of lip balm, and a packet of mints.

They looked under the seats but saw nothing at all. Not even a gas receipt, a soda can, or a candy wrapper. Compared to the thousands of vehicles they had searched in their day, this one was pristine.

“Hm-m-m,” Savannah said.

“Hm-m-m, what?” Dirk wanted to know.

“I was just thinking—the outside of this car is pretty grubby. But the inside, at least up front, is really clean.”

“So?”

“It's usually the other way around. Clean cars are usually clean, and dirty ones are dirty—inside and out. But if a car is both clean and dirty, it's usually the outside that's clean and the inside that's dirty. People run it through the car wash for a quickie so that everybody will think they're driving a clean car. And they don't take time to wipe down the dash.”

“Okay. And…?”

“And look at this car. It's dirty on the outside and inside, but this area around the driver's seat is spotless. Who would run a car through a wash and only have them clean the front interior?”

“Maybe she cleaned the inside herself at home.”

“Maybe. But really, look at this. There isn't a spot of dust on the dash, the steering wheel, the armrests. And yet, there in the back—the armrests, the door handles, dusty and dirty. Somebody cleaned up front and not the back or the exterior.”

“Yeah, right. That's not right.” Dirk nodded. “How much you wanna bet that we're not going to find a single fingerprint up here?”

Savannah lost that momentary warm feeling she'd gotten when they'd first looked inside and found an interior sans blood spatter.

Dirk took out his cell phone, punched in a number. “Yeah, Coulter here. I need a CSI out here right now. Yeah, in the park. We need this car printed as soon as we can get it. It's a rush.”

He hung up, reached down, and fiddled with the trunk release lever. It wasn't working.

He gave Savannah and Frank a troubled look. “We're going to have to get into that trunk,” he said.

“I'm pretty good at popping them,” Frank volunteered. “I've got this tool in my car that—”

“Get it.”

Dirk and Savannah waited for him at the back of the car. Reluctantly, Savannah leaned over, put her face near the trunk lid, and took a tentative sniff.

“Are you smelling for drugs?” Frank asked as he hurried back to them. “You smell pot or something?”

“No,” Savannah replied softly.

“She's sniffin' for decomp, you dingbat,” Dirk replied far less softly.

“Oh God. You don't think…”

“Just open it, would you?”

True to his word, Frank had the trunk open in less than ten seconds.

When she saw the relatively empty interior, Savannah felt a rush of relief so strong that it made her knees weak. The only things inside were a gas can half-filled with gas, a flashlight, a bag of potting soil, and a gym bag with the initials SCHS embroidered on it.