Sugar and Spite (8 page)

Savannah wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with Dirk, but she was sure he was—as her Granny Reid would say—a far piece from being all right. He sat in the passenger’s seat of her Camaro, staring straight ahead, like a prisoner being led down the hall toward the electric chair. As she drove, she watched him with her peripheral vision, the way he was shaking all over, especially his knees, which were practically knocking together, like a cartoon character’s. But he wasn’t funny. Savannah was more than a little concerned by the way he was breathing—fast, hard, and progressively more erratically.

She wasn’t sure if he was having some sort of old-fashioned panic attack, or worse, a heart attack. Thinking back on all the cheap pizza, buckets of happy-hour buffalo wings, two-for-the-price-of-one burgers and hot dogs she had seen him happily consume over the years, she wondered if the king of cheap was going to have to fork over big bucks for an angioplasty to clear all that bargain crud out of his arteries.

“You okay, buddy?” she asked, reaching over and jostling his forearm. His muscles were knotted and tight with tension. He flinched at her touch.

“No,” he replied with a degree of candor that told her he certainly wasn’t his usual cantankerous, closed-off self.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

“Turn this buggy around and head south until we hit Tijuana.”

She shot him a sideways look. “You
are
kidding. Right?”

“Not really. I’m more than half-serious.”

“Well, forget it.”

“Bad idea?”

“Very bad. You know that tacos and burritos give you killer gas. And the top of your head sunburns the closer you get to the equator, because you’re too vain to admit you need sunscreen on it.”

“I do not.”

“Do, too. You’re in denial about your hair loss.”

“Yeah, and you still pretend to wear a size ten. Who’s livin’ in loo-loo land?”

“I haven’t been a size ten since I
was
ten, and I’ve never claimed to be anything other than a voluptuous, full-figured woman. You’re just cranky because you think you’re going to get sent up the river on a first-degree murder charge and have to spend the rest of your life with roommates that you put behind bars. Huh?”

His face flushed red, all the way up to the receding hairline he claimed he didn’t have. “Well, that’s a damned good reason to be cranky, don’t you think?”

“About as good a reason as I can think of.”

They drove along in silence for a while, heading for the downtown, old-town section of San Carmelita… and the police station. To their left, on the distant horizon bits of blue ocean glimmered between palm trees and stucco houses with red-tile roofs. To their right stretched uniform rows of dark green citrus trees, limbs heavy with fruit. The warm air was scented with the rich fragrance of oranges and lemons. A perfect February day in Southern California.

Except that her best friend in the world was probably on his way to the slammer.

“Maybe it won’t happen,” she said. She could hear the lack of conviction in her own voice. Dirk was no dummy, and he knew her well. She knew he heard it, too.

“If you were the detective working this case,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest, “would you arrest me?”

Savannah couldn’t bring herself to say it. “Would you… if you were in charge of the case?”

He sighed. “An ex-wife dead in a guy’s trailer. Shot with his gun. Neighbors heard them arguing right before. They saw him run outside with the gun in his hand right after. He’s got her blood on him and gunpowder residue on his hands. He’s blamin’ it on some unknown intruder that nobody saw but him. I’d lock his ass up. And you would, too. Huh?”

She couldn’t lie to him. There was no point. “Yeah. I would.”

Searching for something more uplifting to add, she said, “Of course, I’d also check out his story, just in case he wasn’t lying through his teeth. And that might lead somewhere.”

Absentmindedly, he reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then shoved them back in. Savannah knew he was dying for a smoke, but she had forbidden him, upon threat of a painful death involving kinky torture if he lit up in her Camaro.

Considering the circumstances, she decided to take pity on him. “Go ahead.”

He perked up at the very thought of the much-needed nicotine fix. “Really? Don’t kid about a thing like that.”

“I’m not kidding. You can smoke. This once. But open the window, hang your head out, and pant like a golden retriever.”

In four heartbeats, he had lit the cigarette and was taking a long, luxurious draw, which he later released out the window, as instructed.

“Do you think they’ll actually check out my story… at all?” he said.

“Jake McMurtry’s a good man. He likes you. If you hadn’t put in a good word for him and taught him the ropes, he wouldn’t be a detective now. He’d still be walking the downtown beat with his buddy, Mike Farnon.”

Savannah couldn’t help grinning when Dirk actually stuck his head out the window to exhale. Despite his occasional cussedness, he could be a sweetheart when he took the notion to be. Damn, she would miss him, she realized with a tightness in her throat and around her heart.

“But,” he said, “we don’t know for sure that Jake’s gonna be in charge. He sorta started there at the scene, then Jeffries seemed to take over back at the station. Somehow, I don’t see Jeffries cutting me a lot of slack.”

“He wants to be police chief when Hillquist moves up to mayor,” Savannah reminded him. “I don’t see how it would improve his image if the department was smeared by having a wife-killing cop on the payroll. It would be better PR if the killer were a third party.”

Dirk shook his head, and his knees started banging together again. “I have a bad feeling about this, Van. Real bad.”

“You don’t know yet if—”

“Yes, I do. It’s gonna go bad. I know.” He reached over and put his hand on her thigh. His hand was shaking, too. “Stop the car,” he said. “Stop right up there.”

He pointed to a small dirt driveway that led into one of the lemon groves.

“Why?” She didn’t like his tone. She didn’t know what he had in mind, but she didn’t think he was intending to just empty his bladder.

“Just pull over. Do it!”

She did as he said, and before the car had even stopped rolling, he had the door open.

“Dirk, what are you doing?”

“I have to get out of here,” he said. “This car is closing in on me. I have to get out. I…” He bolted from the car and headed into the grove.

“Wait!” she yelled as she killed the engine, grabbed her keys, and took off after him. “Dirk, damn it… hold on! If I have to run after you, I’m gonna make you pay, boy!”

He darted between the rows of trees, and for a moment he disappeared. Then she saw him farther down the row.

“Coulter! Where the hell do you think you’re going? You can’t run all the way to Tijuana, you moron.”

But he looked like that was exactly what he intended to do. With a sinking feeling, she realized that if she didn’t give chase, he was going to be long gone.

“Get your mangy ass back here!” she hollered as she ran. “You’re just going to make it worse.”

Just when she thought she was going to lose him, she saw him step into a gopher hole and stumble. He fell against a thick lemon tree and got his shirt tangled in the thorny branches. By the time he had disengaged himself, she had caught up with him.

“Now that was a crazy fool thing to do,” she said, panting as she grabbed his arm and gave it an irritated yank.

He leaned over from the waist, sucking in deep chestfuls of air as he struggled to catch his breath.

She shook her head, disgusted with him. “You aren’t in nearly good enough shape to become a fleeing felon,” she said, doing some panting of her own. “And I’m far too lazy to hunt you down.”

“I was coming back,” he said.

“Yeah, sure you were.”

“I would have… in a few minutes… once my head cleared a little.”

She stood for a long moment, giving him a searching look. Dirk couldn’t lie worth a fig to someone he cared about. On the streets, to the perps, all night and all day… but not in his personal relationships.

He was telling her the truth.

And she had to trust him.

She let go of his arm and gave his shoulder a little, affectionate hit-and-rub. “Okay, pal. You need some space. No problem. I’ll wait for you in the car.”

He looked surprised. Dirk might be trustworthy, but he wasn’t a trusting soul. Far from it. Throughout life he had expected the worst from people, and, as a result, was seldom disappointed.

“Thanks, Van,” he said, obviously touched.

“No sweat.”

She glanced at her watch. When Jeffries had called, she had agreed to have Dirk in the station within twenty minutes. So what if it was more like an hour and twenty?

Dirk was right.

She could feel it, too. Things weren’t going to go well for him… no matter
when
they arrived.

* * *

As they rounded the final curve and passed in front of the city hall complex of buildings, Savannah and Dirk were surprised to see a bevy of reporters, some they recognized and others they didn’t, standing on the marble steps leading to the front door. Some carried cameras, others tape recorders with microphones. Rosemary Hulse was there in the center of the pack, her perpetual yellow legal pad in hand. Hulse was an old-fashioned sort of reporter.

“Why do you figure they’re out here?” Dirk asked as Savannah headed the Camaro around the far side of the building and toward the rear parking lot. “Bunch of damned vultures, always around when there’s a corpse to be picked.”

Savannah didn’t want to raise his already high anxiety level, so she didn’t mention her theory that
he
might be the gasping, prostrate prospector whose body the buzzards were circling. But she had quickly decided that they would enter by a seldom-used back door, rather than the front, just in case.

Unfortunately, a couple of hungry-looking vultures were hovering at that entrance, too. And the moment they spotted her bright red car, they came running over.

“I’m it?” Dirk had opened the door halfway, but he slammed it closed. “I’m the news? Oh, shit. I don’t believe it.”

The two reporters had posted their positions, one by Savannah’s door, one by Dirk’s. Apparently the gang in front had noticed her vehicle, too, because they were making hot tracks around the side of the complex and heading in their direction.

“I’m not going in,” Dirk said. “I’m not going to talk to them, and I’m not going to wade through them either.”

Savannah looked at her watch. They were late, so late, for their very important date with Jeffries. “You have to,” she told him. “We’ve got to get in the building, and that’s it.”

He looked from one eager face to another, peering in the car at them, and shook his head. “No way. If any one of them says something smart, I’ll clobber them, and it’ll all be right there on tape.” He nodded toward the guy with the video camera. “I can see it now… Cop beats reporter to death with his bare hands, still bloody from murdering his ex-wife last night. Film at eleven.”

“You aren’t fixin’ to clobber anybody,” she told him. “Because if you do, I’ll clobber you. You’re going to step out of this car, head high, and walk into that building with all the solemn dignity worthy of a peace officer. And you aren’t going to say a word to them. Do you hear me?”

He mulled it over for a few seconds. “Oh… all right… I guess that’s the thing to do.”

“That’s my brave boy.” She gave him an elbow nudge. “On my count… one… two… three… Let’s go.”

She swung her door open, he did the same, and they were immediately accosted with microphones and a deafening din of questions.

“Did you kill your wife last night, Sergeant Coulter?”

“Exactly where was she shot and how many times, sir?”

“Are you here to turn yourself in?”

“Why did you shoot her, Detective? Did the two of you have an argument?”

Dirk opened his mouth to speak, but Savannah caught his eye and gave him a don’t-you-dare-speak-or-I-swear-Hl-brain-you look.

The look worked. He lifted his chin a couple of notches, and with far more grace than she had ever seen him exhibit, he began the long walk to the back door. They scurried after him, jostling for the position closest to their quarry. But he didn’t alter a step.

Savannah flew at them like a mother hen whose nest was being robbed. “Get away from him, you mangy-assed hyenas. He’s got nothin’ to say to any of you.”

“Who are you, his lawyer?” asked the guy with the video cam. He shoved the lens in her face and missed hitting her, hard, by less than an inch.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Coulter’s friend,” she said with deadly softness. “And if you don’t get that blamed thing outta my face, I’m going to whop you upside the head with it, and your ears will be ringing from here to Tuesday.”

“Are you threatening me, Miss…?”

“… Savannah Reid. Of course I’m threatening you, nitwit.” She shook her head and brushed him aside. “Not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?”

Once they were inside and had the door closed and locked behind them, Dirk turned to Savannah. “You did say you were going to ‘whop’ him ‘upside the head.’ That is what you said, isn’t it?”

“Yep. That’s what I said.”

“And you called them mangy-assed hyenas. That’s several words.”

“And what’s your point?”

“You said we were going to walk in here, head high, dignified, and not saying a word.”

“I did not. I said
you
had to do that. I didn’t say a word about me.”

They walked in silence down the hall, past family court, municipal court, and traffic court, heading for the police department hotshots’ offices.

As they approached the main door, Dirk said, “I guess you realize… it’s going to be
you
, mouthing off on the eleven o’clock news.”

She shrugged. “Oh, well, it won’t be the first time.”

“Or, knowing you, the last.”

She smiled up at him and nudged him toward the door. “Stop your carryin’ on and get in there. The principal’s waiting.”