Sugar and Spite (22 page)

The girl who had scooped this bit of heaven on earth for Savannah was none other than Nathan the Juggler’s wayward older sister. Though it was difficult to imagine her belly dancing in a medieval gypsy village. At the moment, she was a study in boredom, standing behind a counter that held more than twenty flavors of ice cream, dressed in a pink-striped smock and wearing a pink scarf to hold her blond curls away from her face.

She had served Savannah with only minimalist grunts and a mumbled, “Two-fifty.” Savannah decided that her somewhat surly attitude might be due to her blackened left eye and her busted lower lip. Either Nathan’s sister, Lynn, had a self-destructive habit of walking into doors, or old Kevin had been using her for a punching bag again.

Retreating to the card section of the large drugstore, Savannah stood behind a rack of red, pink and white Valentine cards and watched Lynn as she mechanically performed her duties of scooping and collecting money. The young woman looked intensely unhappy. There was a heaviness about her actions that indicated something was crushing her spirit.

Savannah had seen the look on far too many women, young and old. And many of those had been truly kind, loving people… all the more easily taken advantage of because of their gentle natures.

She found it hard not to hate the abusers who mistreated these women simply because they could. They were cowards who chose those females as targets for their rage and feelings of impotence, rather than stronger, less kind and generous souls. For the most part, bitches didn’t get whacked around. Nice ladies did. It was a cruel irony that Savannah despised.

And Nat’s sister, Lynn, looked like she had once been a nice, sweet young lady. Now she just looked empty, used up.

Savannah killed time, shopping for a Valentine for Tammy, until another ice-cream server relieved Lynn, and she walked outside the store for a cigarette break.

Savannah followed and found her leaning against an empty bicycle rack, lighting up.

“Hi,” she said as she approached her, trying to look as casual as possible. It wasn’t easy, considering that Jake and Dirk were anxiously watching every movement she made from Dirk’s old Buick Skylark, parked in the rear of the lot near the road.

Lynn gave her a suspicious half scowl that made her black eye look even more ominous than before. She didn’t reply… only grunted.

“I know something about your boyfriend, Kevin,” Savannah said, leaning against the rack herself, watching traffic whip by on the busy, palm-tree-lined Lester Street.

“So?” She was like a trout who was obviously interested in the worm on the hook, but wouldn’t bite.

“So… I know that he killed that guy, Snake, at the faire. And I know that you helped him by getting Snake to follow you into the woods.”

There! That had the desired effect! Miss Cool Hand Lynn’s mouth sagged and even her bruised, swollen eye opened wide. Savannah loved dropping bombs on people, especially deserving folks who had done nasty deeds like helping to murder another person.

Lynn sputtered and spewed, but no articulate words came out.

Savannah continued. “I also know that you didn’t really want to help him, that he bullied you into it. Which means, that if you come forward right now and tell the authorities everything you know, you won’t be in nearly as much trouble as you will be if you wait until they come after you.”

Lynn’s fingers were trembling so badly that she could hardly bring her cigarette to her lips. “Are you… are you a cop or something?”

“No. I’m not a cop. I’m a private investigator.” She pointed to Dirk and Jake, sitting in the car near the street. “But
they
are. And they know everything that I know.”

Lynn choked on her smoke. “So… why haven’t they arrested me yet?”

“They were going to. I talked them out of it, said I wanted a chance to convince you to give up Kevin and save yourself.” Throwing the cigarette onto the ground, the young woman began to cry. Savannah reached into her purse, pulled out a tissue, and handed it to her.

“Why would you do that?” Lynn said between sobs. “Why… did you want to help me? You don’t even know me.”

“Oh, I know you. I know you all too well,” Savannah said, wrapping her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “I’ve known literally hundreds of women like you, young and old, rich and poor, black, white, and all the colors in between. And I know that the best thing you can do to be rid of this bastard, once and for all, is to help the cops put him away.”

Savannah shook her gently, wishing she could literally shake some sense into her. But there was so much fear in the young woman’s eyes. And, often, fear overrode common sense.

“He’s a killer, Lynn,” she told her, “and he’s incredibly selfish. He’ll kill you, too, if he decides it’s what’s best for him. Don’t think for one moment that he won’t. In spite of what he tells you when you’re having sex, you aren’t that special to him. Believe me, no one is truly special to someone like him.”

Tears streamed down the young woman’s face, causing her mascara and eyeliner to run in black rivulets down her cheeks. Savannah could tell that her mind was racing as she tried to make what was probably the most difficult decision of her life.

“He murdered somebody, Lynn,” Savannah added softly, trying to tip the scale to the right. “He killed someone in cold blood. And worse yet, he used you to do it.”

Lynn blew loudly into the tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “Snake was a jerk,” she offered feebly.

“I’m sure he was,” Savannah agreed, “but that didn’t give Kevin the right to stalk him with a crossbow in a dark woods. He died in a lot of pain; I know, I was there. And you know as well as I do that this wasn’t the first time Kevin has done something illegal.”

It was a shot in the dark, but this particular quarrel had found its target. Lynn looked shocked that Savannah seemed to be so knowledgeable on the subject of Kevin Donaldson’s exploits.

“And Snake isn’t the first person that Kevin had hurt either,” Savannah ventured. “There was that house that he burned and heaven knows what else. Somebody like that can’t be allowed to walk around free, hurting more and more people. Next time it could be you, Lynn, or somebody in your family, someone you love.”

Lynn nodded, looking positively miserable. “Last night he hinted that he was going to do something to my little brother, Nathan. Said he thought Nat might get him into trouble, you know, about the crossbow.”

“What about the crossbow?” Savannah asked with conjured sincerity.

“It was my little brother’s crossbow that Kevin used to shoot Snake. And Kevin’s afraid that Nat noticed it missing. I told him if he touched my brother, I’d turn him in or kill him myself.”

“Let me guess,” Savannah said dryly. “That’s when you got the shiner.”

“Yeah. I didn’t sleep at all last night, worrying about my little brother.” She started to sob again, even harder than before. “If anything happened to Nat, I don’t think I could stand it.”

Savannah patted her back soothingly, just as she would have any one of her own younger siblings. “That’s why you have to talk to them, Lynn,” she said, pointing to the car where Jake and Dirk sat, watching. “You have to tell them everything you know so that they can make sure they have a case against him. Are you willing to talk to them right now? I’ll walk you over to the car and introduce you. Then I’ll go back into the store and make it right with your boss. I’ll tell them that you have a serious family problem and had to go home. Okay?”

Lynn blew her nose again, squared her shoulders, and nodded. “Okay.”

“Good girl! That’s one of hardest, smartest things you’ll ever do. I’m mighty proud.”

An hour and a half later, Lynn was sitting in Savannah’s Camaro in the middle of the drugstore parking lot, crouched down in the seat, so that she could barely see out the car window. Savannah sat in the driver’s seat beside her, cell phone in her hand.

“How’s she doing?” Dirk asked over the phone. He and Jake were still in Dirk’s Buick, but they had pulled the car to the front row, near the store’s door.

“She’s fine… considering,” she replied, looking down at the frightened young woman in the pink smock beside her.

“Isn’t this about the time Donaldson usually picks her up from work?” he asked.

She turned to Lynn. “Your shift is over at five, right?” she asked her. “And that’s when he arrives to drive you home?”

Lynn’s teeth were chattering, her arms crossed tightly over her breasts, as though she were afraid her heart was beating so hard it would fly out of her chest at any moment.

“He’s usually here about ten minutes early,” she said, “to make sure that no other guy is hanging around. He’s really jealous.”

“Yeah, he’s jealous. His kind always is. They’re also the sort of jerk who fools around on a girl. It never fails.”

She lifted the phone back to her mouth. “She says he’s often early, so it’s anytime now. You two ready?”

“Chomping at the bit, fit to be tied, and rarin’ to go… as you would say.”

Savannah grinned. “Why, I’ll make a righteous Rebel out of you yet, Yankee boy.”

Dirk just growled.

Suddenly, Lynn gasped, reached over, and grabbed Savannah’s thigh. “That’s him, there in the new black Corvette.”

A sleek, perfectly polished Corvette slid into one of the parking spots near Dirk’s Buick and came to a stop.

“Heads up, lawman,” she said. “That there’s your guy… the scrawny-assed yahoo crawlin’ out of the black ‘Vette.”

“They’d better be careful,” Lynn said breathlessly, as they watched Dirk and Jake approach their suspect from the rear as he walked across the lot toward the store entrance. “Kevin’s really strong, and he’s mean, and he knows a lot about fighting. He might hurt them and get away.”

“He’s like all the rest of the lily-livered bullies,” Savannah said. “He’s a big shot when he’s beating up on women and other innocents, or when he’s stalking somebody in the dark. But let’s see how he does against a couple of really tough guys. How much you wanna bet he folds like a cheap playing card?”

Lynn had started crying again, hugging her arms even tighter across her chest. “No, you don’t understand. He’s really—”

Her words ended the instant that Dirk and Jake grabbed him from behind and threw him up against the store’s cement-block wall. He struggled a moment, but gave up quickly as Dirk twisted his arms behind his back and Jake slapped cuffs on him.

Savannah and Lynn couldn’t understand the words they were saying to him, but their no-nonsense tone was unmistakable. Kevin Donaldson was being read his rights.

When all three turned around and headed back to the Buick, Dirk gave Savannah a smile and a discreet thumbs-up. Savannah had pushed Lynn’s head below the dash, but now she coaxed her to sit up. “Look at big, bad Kevin,” she told her. “He can dish it out, but he can’t take it. He’s bawling like a scalded hog.”

She looked over at Lynn and saw something new on her face, the trace of a smile.

“I guess I should feel bad,” the young woman said. “I mean, he is my boyfriend, and I’ve just caused him to be arrested for murder. Yeah, I should feel really bad.”

“Why the hell should you feel bad?” Savannah asked. “A sonofabitch who’s made your life miserable, who’s threatened to hurt or even kill members of your family, who’s blacked your eye and busted your lip… you’re supposed to feel bad that he’s getting locked up? Bull puckey! Are you over twenty-one?”

“Turned twenty-two last month.”

“Good!” She slapped her on the back. “Let’s celebrate. We’ll go to Tijuana Rose’s Cantina and order a couple of margarita grandes big enough to take a Jacuzzi in!”

* * *

Savannah and Dirk stood on the window side of the two-way mirror and watched Kevin Donaldson sweat as Jake interrogated him in the “interview” room next door. Jake had allowed them to sneak in before the questioning with plenty of threats about “disavowing any knowledge of their actions should they be caught or killed.”

Jake had only been at it for fifteen minutes, and Donaldson was already starting to crack.

“The kid’s better at this than I thought he would be,” Savannah said, watching how Jake stayed behind Donaldson, just out of his line of vision, and leaned over him, practically breathing down his neck when he wanted to score a major point.