Sugar and Spite (19 page)

“Yeah, just a shirt wound.” She pointed to her torn sleeve. “I don’t know how I’m going to explain ripping the costume to Ryan.”

“Eh, he knows better than to lend you undercover clothes. You’re always getting shot at or something.” Dirk shined the light back on the dead man. “I’m the one with the problem here. My only witness to the murder, the killer himself, is dead.”

Jake groaned. “I’m the one who has to call this in. I mean, we’ll have to get the medical examiner’s team out, cordon off the area. We’ve got a homicide scene here. And I’ve got to write up a report and to explain to Jeffries and Hillquist why I let you two come along. I knew better, but I let you talk me into it, and now look at the mess I’m in.”

Savannah nodded toward the body. “Of all our problems, I think that guy’s is the worst.”

“Naw,” Dirk said, “he’s got no worries. He doesn’t even have to come up with next month’s rent.”

Savannah took the light from him, knelt beside the corpse, and shined the beam on the dead man’s face. “Are you sure he’s the one who was in your trailer?”

Dirk nodded. “Positive. He’s the one who killed Polly, the guy I fought with.”

Savannah stood and flashed the light among the trees and bushes around them. They had checked before and seen no one. There was still nothing to look at but foliage. Nothing moved. She sighed. “Now all we have to do is find the dude wbo thinks he’s Cupid.”

“Maybe we’ll luck out,” Jake said. “After all, how many people are running around here with bows and arrows?”

* * *

“Oh, a lot of people here have bows and arrows,” Tony Rodriguez, the armorer, told Savannah and Dirk an hour later. “Crossbows were a common weapon during medieval times, and they’re very popular here at faire.”

“Peachy,” Savannah said. “That is not what we wanted to hear.”

“Yeah, thanks for nothin’,” Dirk grumbled.

Tony continued to polish the dagger blade he had been working on when they had approached him at his campsite. He hadn’t heard about the murder in the woods yet, and he seemed to be taking the news with remarkable nonchalance. More than half of the faire workers and performers had congregated in a noisy, rambunctious mob at the wood’s edge, making a nuisance of themselves as Jake, several other cops, and Dr. Liu’s team processed the scene.

But Tony just sat on his bale of hay… polishing.

“Pretty weird, that guy getting shot like that,” he said, dropping his pseudo-old English accent. “And in the back, too. Pretty bizarre.”

Savannah thought of Snake lying there, blood oozing from the wound in his back. He had died quickly, but he had seemed to be in considerable pain from the time he hit the ground until his speedy demise.

“Bizarre, yes,” she said, “but not pretty. Not at all.”

* * *

“Yeah, Tony’s right. Everybody’s got a crossbow,” a dainty, rather empty-headed, heavy-lidded lass told Savannah and Dirk. Savannah had previously seen her selling flowered wreaths for ladies’ hair, but now she lay sprawled across a rough-woven rug, holding a pipe in her hand that smelled suspiciously like a combination of skunk and oregano. “Well, not everybody,” she added, “but a lot. Everybody’s got daggers. We eat with them, you know.”

She, too, had dropped her accent the moment she had been told about the killing, and shrieked, “Oh, like… oh my God!” in distinctively valley-girl fashion.

“I don’t care about daggers,” Dirk snapped. “Did I ask you about friggin’ daggers? Did I ask you what you crazies eat with out here when you’re playing knights and ladies of the Round Table?”

Savannah could practically see the flower wreath on the woman’s head wilt beneath the onslaught of the dragon’s breath. The girl whimpered as though she had been struck. “Well, like, you don’t have to be rude about it,” she said. “I was just trying to, like, help you and…”

Dirk walked away in disgust, muttering something about, “… bimbos…” leaving Savannah to appease the emotionally wounded weaver of daisies.

“He’s a bit of a curmudgeon,” she tried to explain, but the girl just looked confused. “You know, cranky, cantankerous,” she added. “He can’t help himself. See, his mother dropped him on his head.”

The lass’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “You mean, like, when he was a baby?”

“No, last week.” Savannah followed Dirk, shaking her head. “Bimbos…”

* * *

Dawn broke over the dark hills and, bathed in the pink-and-lavender light of the new day, the medieval campsite looked even more authentic than it had by moonlight or in full sun. Savannah had scored a couple of sticky buns and some hot coffee, which she brought to Dirk, hoping the nourishment would raise both their spirits along with their blood sugar level.

He was standing at the edge of the woods; Jeffries had hotly ordered him and Savannah to stay at least a hundred feet from the actual murder scene. And whatever threat the lieutenant had used on Jake McMurtry had been most effective. As soon as Jeffries had left, Savannah and Dirk tried to cross the tape and Jake had barked and shown his teeth at them. Worse, he said he would arrest them both if they did, and he looked like he meant it.

So they were relegated to the proverbial bench, watching the game of criminal investigation continue without their participation. Neither were good at bench sitting.

Savannah found a makeshift seat on a dew-damp log and motioned for him to sit beside her. As they unwrapped their sticky buns, the aroma of the cinnamon and freshly baked dough made her realize how hungry she was, how much energy she had expended in the past twelve hours.

She had to stop missing entire nights of sleep like this. She was too old for that sort of deprivation; even one night of tossing and turning meant she would be grumpy and out of sorts for at least five days, more grumpy than usual.

“Do you think Jake’s come up with anything?” she asked as she watched the young detective wandering about like a Thanksgiving turkey who had been relieved of his head.

“Nope. He’s got nothin’,” Dirk said, gnawing at the sticky confection.

“How can you tell for sure?”

“‘Cause he looks like I feel when I got nothin’. He looks like I feel right now. Lousy.”

“Part of that is because you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in ages,” she told him. “What do you say I take you home and tuck you in for a nice long nap? Then we’ll come back out here later if we need to and pick up where we left off.”

She was afraid he would say no. Dirk was a real bulldog when he was on a case. Any case. Let alone one that concerned his own life and freedom.

“All right. For a little while,” he said.

He really
was
as tired as he looked. She decided to get him back home and in bed, as quickly as possible. Even if that meant stranding Jake McMurtry out here with no ride home.

Oh, well, he could always hitch a ride with Dr. Liu and the corpse in the coroner’s wagon. She had done it often enough. It was part of the job, the joys of working with dead bodies that had, until recently, been live people.

Not for the first time, Savannah wondered why she or anyone else would want to be a cop or a private detective.

Oh well, somebody had to do it. The bad guys couldn’t be allowed to win ‘em all.

* * *

When Savannah and Dirk arrived back at her house, they found Tammy at the computer, her ubiquitous glass of mineral water and a plate of veggie munchies sitting beside the keyboard.

“Pigging out again, I see,” Savannah said as she walked past Tammy and her assortment of carrot sticks, radish roses, zucchini slices, and broccoli florets. “You’re positively hedonistic,” Savannah told her, “stuffing your face with junk food like that. Where are your chocolate, cream-filled cupcakes? Or your nacho cheese chips? What about those all-important nutrients: sodium, sugar, artificial flavors?”

“I prefer to eat things that have some life in them,” she replied haughtily, hefting a leafy celery stalk and chomping into it.

“Smear some onion-flavored cream cheese on that thing, and it’ll taste a helluva lot better,” Dirk added as he walked over to the sofa, kicked his sneakers off, and sank into the overstuffed cushions. With his Nikes under the coffee table, his medieval ensemble looked a lot more authentic.

“You two are dietary nightmares,” Tammy said, shaking her head. “When I’m eighty-nine, I’ll still be in great shape, and you’ll be on your fifth quadruple bypass and—”

“Eh, a bus could run over you tomorrow,” Savannah said. “You’d be squashed flatter than a flitter all over the road, and then who’d care whether your arteries are clear or not?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you”—Tammy quirked an eyebrow, a gesture Savannah recognized. Her right eyebrow wriggled when she was about to be a smart aleck—”exactly what is this
flitter
thing that you’re always saying I’m going to be mashed flatter than?”

“It’s a highly technical term used south of the Mason-Dixon line, one that I’ve explained many times to you. But, sadly, you don’t have sufficient additives and preservatives in your system for your brain to retain the information. Why should I bother to tell you again?”

“
Don’t
bother.” Tammy tossed her head, sending her blond ponytail swinging. She turned back to the computer. “It’s hard to take you seriously anyway when you two are dressed like Maid Marian and Robin Hood.”

“Watch it, bimbo,” Dirk said, tucking one of Savannah’s fringed throw pillows under his head. “I’m startin’ to like these tights things. They’re more comfortable than jeans. I think I’m gonna wear ‘em all the time.”

Savannah grabbed one of Tammy’s radishes and popped it into her mouth. “Anything new?”

Tammy shot Dirk an uncomfortable look. She cleared her throat. “Well… we finally got a check from that old codger who had us investigate that young chickie-pooh he was dating.”

“The girl who had served time for prostitution, grand larceny, and embezzlement?”

“That’s the one.” Again she glanced uneasily over at Dirk, who had closed his eyes and looked as though he might be dropping off to sleep.

“Anything else?” Savannah said, almost afraid to ask.

“You got another message from that Macon person.” She held out a slip of paper. “I printed it out for you.”

Savannah took the paper from her, but quickly folded it and stuck it in her pocket unread. She stepped closer to Tammy and lowered her voice. “What else?”

Tammy looked up at her, sadness in her eyes. “And
they
called,” she whispered, nodding toward Dirk. “Wanted to talk to him about… you know…”

“They? Who are they?”

“And what did they want with me?” Dirk asked, sitting up, fully alert.

“The… um… the funeral home,” Tammy said. “It seems the medical examiner is all finished with the autop… well, you know, Dr. Liu is done examining your former wife, and it seems no one has claimed the body and…”

“Oh, that.” Dirk’s face seemed to turn from a tired white color to an exhausted, ashen gray. “Polly doesn’t really have many family members. And the sorry few she did have told her to kiss their lily-white asses years ago. I’m not surprised they’re not volunteering to come forward and claim her now. They wouldn’t wanna risk gettin’ stuck with the funeral expenses.”

Several thoughts on the subject filtered through Savannah’s mind, but she decided to keep them to herself. She, too, wasn’t surprised… that someone would tell Miss Polly Freeloader to kiss off. As far as she was concerned, Dirk should have done the same thing ages ago. If he’d done so, he might not be sitting on her sofa in strange, medieval garb, facing possible murder charges.

Dirk sighed and reached for his sneakers. “I guess I get to do this, too. Not that I mind, but—”

“But you’re dead tired, and it can wait for a few more hours,” Savannah said, snatching the shoes out of his hand. “You’re going to hike your tail upstairs, get out of that goofy outfit before you decide you like wearing it
too
much, and lie down on the bed. I want your toes pointing skyward in the next three minutes. Hear me?”

“But I…”

“No buts. Not a one. Away with you.” She yanked him to his feet and shoved him toward the stairs.

As he passed by Tammy’s desk, she turned around in her chair and put her hand on his arm. “Ah… Dirk,” she said, her face flushing beneath her perfect golden tan. “Do you know how Polly wanted to be… ah… taken care of after… ah… Did she want to be buried or—?”

He paused and thought for a long moment. “Cremated,” he said. “I remember when we were still married, one of her biker friends wiped out on his Harley and croaked. We went out on a boat—I got sicker than a dog—and we dumped his ashes in the ocean along with his leather jacket and gloves and some stuff like that. I remember she said something about that being a cool way to go. I guess that’s what I’ll do.”

Tammy stared down at the floor, but she gripped his sleeve harder. “You know,” she said, “I’ve done that sort of thing before, when my grandparents and one of my elderly aunts passed away. Made arrangements I mean. Can I do that for you? I mean, I’d like to, if you don’t mind. I know you’ve got a lot on your mind right now, and…”

Dirk swallowed hard, and Savannah could have sworn she saw tears in his eyes. His and Tammy’s history had been stormy, to say the least. Both had claimed to hold only contempt for the other, though Savannah had always wondered how deep that animosity went. She had suspected it was pretty shallow, something more akin to sibling rivalry than genuine dislike.

“Well,” he said, “if you’re sure it wouldn’t be too much to do, I’d appreciate it.”

“No problem,” she replied, releasing his arm and turning back to her desk. “Besides, I’m going to be doing it on Savannah’s time, so you’d better thank her.”

“Don’t tell me that,” he grumbled. “Shell probably send me a bill.”

Savannah chuckled. “I only pay her a nickel an hour, so the grand total won’t be more than a dollar. Even a tightwad skinflint like you can afford that.”

As Savannah watched Dirk disappear up the stairs, she walked over and put her hands on Tammy’s shoulders. “Thanks, sweetie,” she told her. “That was really nice of you, especially considering how you feel about the old fart.”