"Well? What did she want?" Dirk was practically dancing. "Did she say anything about her brother? Did she say he was there at the house?"
"No, she didn't mention Trent, but she did say that she's decided to talk to me, to tell me what was going on just before Barbie disappeared."
"Hey, that's great! But she doesn't want you to show up until after eleven, huh?"
'That's right. Her mom will be going to work then, and she said she wants to talk to me alone."
Dirk's face fell. "I guess that answers my next question."
"That's right, big boy. You don't get to go this time. It's a girl thing."
"After hanging around here, I'm gonna have to watch football games, chew tobacco, and belch for a week to get all this estrogen out of my system."
Savannah patted him. . hard . . . on the chest, right about where she figured one of his stashed muffins was. She felt it mash very nicely.
"I'm going to go tell Atlanta that I'm leaving the winery
for a while. I'll have Ryan keep an eye on her for me while I'm gone."
"Yeah, and I will, too. Let me know right away if the Gorton gal tells you anything good."
"I will, sugar I surely will."
As Savannah turned to leave, she thought she saw a movement among some oleander bushes only a few feet
away. But the brush was extremely thick, and she couldn't see if it was a person or maybe a bird or
No, she knew it wasn't a bird, or a gopher, or a stiff breeze; that was wishful thinking. It had been a person. Someone had been standing there. The question was: How much had they heard?
And the other question that nagged at Savannah
long after she had left the pool area was: If they heard everything--would it matter?
She had an uneasy, almost sick feeling, deep in her guts that it would. She just wasn't sure how.
Savannah didn't need to see the graffiti on the walls
of almost every building on Via Norte to know that she
was in the bad end of town. The bars on every window and door were proof enough.
Having served her time on a beat in that neighborhood as an SCPD officer, she had memories. . . most of them unpleasant. . . of events that had gone down on nearly every street corner and in almost every alley. And the occupants of many of the houses were known to her, as she had seen some of them at the worst moments of
their lives. She and Dirk had sometimes been the reason those were bad moments, as they had arrested them for everything from domestic abuse to public intoxication
and sometimes much worse.
But she could also recall the good times, when she had returned a runaway five-year-old and his dog to his
frantic mother, when she had arrived just in time to deliver a premature baby and managed to coax breath into
the infant's tiny lungs, when she had talked a young woman into leaving her violent boyfriend and starting a
new life for herself and her children in a safe house.
She had made a difference on these streets and inside
these houses that were miniature fortresses, although
ZUU G.A. McKevett
that might not be obvious, looking at the neighborhood now.
Turning the Mustang down the road where the
Gorton family lived, she noticed that this street was better than some. The yards were small but well-kept, with the patches of grass watered and mowed, flower beds blooming with geraniums, nasturtiums, and marigolds.
Savannah parked in front of 337, noting that there were no cars sitting in the narrow, gravel driveway. Francie's mother would have left by now, and although Savannah preferred to interview a minor with a parent's
permission, the girl had been adamant about waiting until they could be alone.
Savannah also kept her eyes open for any sign of
Trent. The boy stood a good chance of becoming their number one suspect, and the sooner they located him and started keeping tabs on him, the better.
Dirk had told her that he drove an old, restored Dodge Charger, but there was no sign of either the boy or his car.
As Savannah walked up the sidewalk to the front
door, she heard a whining, coming from the other side of the fence that bordered their property. It sounded like a dog in some sort of minor distress. She made a mental note to check on it later.
No one came to the door when she knocked the first
time, or the second, third, or fourth.
That's what I was afraid of, she thought. The kid got scared and decided not to talk after all.
She walked around the side of the house to the backyard
and could hear the dog next door whimpering as he followed along the opposite side of the high, wooden fence. -
To enter the rear of the property, she had to pass
SOUR GRAPES ZVI
through a gate. The backyard had been enclosed with a hurricane fence, and she saw a small henhouse at the rear of the property. A dozen or so chickens pecked at some grain that had been strewn on the ground, and an enormous red rooster sat atop a fence post, proudly surveying his domain.
"Chickens. . . Hm-m-m," Savannah said to herself. "Not a good sign for Master Trent."
No one came to the back door either when she
knocked. Double damn, she thought.
"Francie," she called out. Francie, it's Savannah Reid. Are you inside, honey? If you are, open up."
After another pounding on the door, and rapping on a couple of windows produced no response, Savannah had to admit she was licked. Either the girl had left the house, or she was inside and had no intention of showing her face.
The trip was a write-off.
The whining next door got even louder, and when Savannah turned around to look, she saw the source . . . and why he was upset.
A gorgeous animal stood on the other side of what
was a wire fence farther back on the property, beyond the wooden planking. At first, she thought he was a purebred wolf, by his long, lean legs, big feet and lush fur. But as she walked closer to him, she saw that he had pale blue eyes and the markings of a husky.
"Well, hello, you handsome fella," Savannah told
him as she stepped up to the fence. "Aren't you a beauty!"
The dog whimpered and shook his head, as though
beckoning her to come over to his side of the fence.
"Yes, I would love to take you home with me," she
said, "but I'm pretty sure you would have Cleopatra and
Diamante for lunch. Or, at least you'd try, and you'd
AV.I.LEILUG14
1
wind up with scratches all over that pretty long muzzle
of yours."
She grimaced, looking at the mangled, half-chewed poultry carcass that someone had tied with pieces of
rough twine around his neck. A sprinkling of white feathers littered the dog's yard. "Looks like you're already in trouble for trying to make lunch out of the
neighbor's chicken."
Having been raised in the rural South, Savannah had heard of the practice of tying a dead bird around a
clog's neck and allowing it to stay on him until it literally
rotted off. A disgusting method, but supposedly an effective one for putting the animal off the idea of chickens.
And certainly, this fellow looked as though he hated his situation.
"Maybe you should just stick with phoning the Colonel
the next time you get a hankerin' for a drumstick, darin'," she told him.
He mumbled something in wolf-dog that sounded
Like a pathetic denial.
"What's that?" she said, sticking her finger through he fence and stroking his moist black nose. "You say ,Tou didn't do it? You were framed? That's what all the )ad guys say. Why should I believe you?"
The big eyes rolled, and he shook his head, fluffing mit the magnificent ruff of fur around his neck where
us gruesome burden wa
s tied.
"Well, that's true. You've never lied to me before,
Savannah stood there, thinking, wondering, evaluatng her options. "Hang in there, handsome," she said. I'll be right back."
And she was, a couple of minutes later with her Swiss krmy knife in hand. "I'll tell you what," she said. "If you
aiuit ls.K.H.C.G3 41/0
come back here to the gate. . . that's it. . . right back here, where I can reach you."
She leaned over the locked gate that connected the
two yards. "Now don't bite me, okay?" Stretching as far as she could, she could almost reach the animal, but not quite.
"If you want me to help you, you'll have to stick those big dodhoppers of yours up here on the fence. That's a good boy. . . wolf . . . dog. . . or whatever you are."
He reared up and lifted his huge front feet onto the
gate. She was shocked to see that he was nearly as tall as she was. Images from Jack London's stories and the Grimm brothers' fairy tales flashed through her mind.
"'Hm-m-m . . what big teeth you have, my dear," she told him. "Ah, but you're just a big baby, aren't you?"
Again, more eye rolling and whining.
"Okay, okay. Hold still." Reaching across the gate, she slid her knife blade beneath the twine and quickly
sliced through it. She grabbed the end of the cut string and hauled the carcass over the gate to her side of the
fence.
"But you can't tell anyone that I cut this off," she told him. "It'll just be our little secret. And if anybody asks, it fell off of you and right here into this yard, which, by the way,! was invited to come into by one of the house's occupants. Got that? I just found this foul fowl lyin' back here on this side of the gate."
Relieved of his albatross, the ancient mariner began to prance about, shaking himself, and grinning a big, toothy, wolfy grin.
"Feel better now?" she asked, as she leaned over and coaxed him back onto the gate so that she could pet
him. Looking at the brass tag that dangled from his heavy leather collar, she said, "Nanook. That's your
hlrt
(1.11
1
name, huh? Well, I've done you a favor, which means ,rou owe me. If I ever find myself plagued by a kid in a red cloak or a trio of bothersome pigs, I'm gonna call Ml you, okay?"
The blue eyes looked into hers with a depth of inteligence
and understanding that took her aback, and the luiet dignity of the creature touched her heart.
"You're welcome," she said softly. "It was my plea-awe."
Moments later, as she was placing the dead chicken nto a plastic bag she had dug out of her trunk, she neard Nanook pacing on the other side of the fence. At east he wasn't whining anymore.
But as she drove away, an ambulance siren sounded a ew blocks away, and she laughed to hear her new riend answer with a comical parody of the siren's howl.
Now she had another memory for this neighbornood
. the profound experience of looking into a
volt's eyes and, for a moment, touching a far more ioble soul than her own.
Chapter
18
ike many California coast towns, San Carmelita had 1,...2begun its life as a mission, established by Franciscan fathers who had traveled from San Diego to the San
Francisco Bay Area, building churches and converting the Native Americans along the way . . . whether they
wanted to be or not.
And the San Carmelita Mission stood--as it had since it was built by those new, reluctant converts in the late 1700s--on a hilltop, overlooking the town and beyond it, the ocean. The panoramic view became more magnificent with every hairpin turn of the road that
zigzagged up the steep hill, giving a traveler the lighthearted feeling of truly being "above it all."
But Francie Gorton had no appreciation for the
sweeping vista as she guided her brother's Charger up
the hill toward the old mission. She was wondering why
206
A. McKevett
Savannah Reid had changed their plans and asked
someone to phone and switch the location.
"Behind the mission just after eleven," the caller had said. "And she won't have much time, so don't be late."
Francie had hoped that Savannah would keep their
meeting confidential, but she seemed like a smart, nice lady, and if she had needed to change their meeting place and tell someone else about it. . . Francie would trust her judgment.
In a few minutes, she would be trusting her with a lot more. Her very life, in fact. But, remembering how kind and concerned the lady had been when they had
talked there on the bench, overlooking the vineyards, Francie relaxed a bit.
Francie considered herself a good judge of character,
and her instincts told her that Savannah Reid had a ;-ood heart. Someone had told Francie that she had been a cop for years, so if anyone would know how to handle this situation, she would.
Francie pulled the Charger into a parking lot that
had been laid behind the mission for visitors, who were welcome to tour the place on weekends. In the seventh ;rade, her history teacher had brought the class here ibr a field trip. She recalled getting an A-on the report the had written about the visit, and Francie had been listressed. She wasn't accustomed to getting an A-, and be resented the reason the teacher gave for marking
down--her statement that she had felt the place was haunted.
But she had.
Francie had always been sensitive about certain things, eeling things that no one else was aware of. And she lad been most aware of an uneasiness about the old
)lace. Within those thick, adobe walls, she sensed them
SOUR GRAPES 207
. .
the spirits of the men, women, and children who had died of disease and abuse, while being forced to build those walls and worship a god who was a stranger
to them.
Local legend said that there were literally hundreds
of the Chumash tribe buried on the property in mass graves. But Francie didn't feel them in the ground. She felt them in those thick, white, adobe walls.
As she got out of the car and walked toward the mission,
Francie wished that Savannah had chosen anywhere, anywhere at all, other than this place to meet. It was private, to be sure; no one was in sight, and hers was the only car in the parking lot. Nobody would overhear their conversation.
At least, no one who had been alive for the past two hundred years.
A breeze swept up the hill, a hot wind that whipped sand into her eyes, making them tear. She could smell the wild scents of the sage and margaritas blooming on
the hills around her, their aromas rich in the heat of the midday sun. A mockingbird sang somewhere, repeating his song several times, then changing his tune, and a pair of doves cooed to each other in the nearby brush. Francie liked birds. She liked chickens. But it made her sad to think of her chickens right now.
She glanced at her watch. It was only a few minutes past eleven, so it wasn't surprising that Savannah hadn't arrived yet. But Francie was sure she would soon. Savannah seemed like a punctual person, and she had sounded eager to meet with her.
Thank goodness she had Savannah. She wasn't sure what step to take next, but Savannah would direct her. Savannah would protect her. For the first time since Barbie had told her that ugly secret, Francie felt safe.
41JO Ural. 1nG11L'UV&&
But the feeling was short-lived. With every step she took closer to the mission, she found it more and more difficult to breathe. At first she thought it was the dust blowing around her, irritating her asthma. Then she decided it was the heat. The sun beat down on her, heating her dark hair until it felt like it was burning the top
of her head.
And the air was thicker, harder to pull in and out of her lungs.
The wind caught the bell in the tower
and caused it
to chime, once, twice, three times. "For whom the bells tolls," she whispered. "It tolls for me."
Then she shook her head, trying to reorient herself to reality. This was no time to let her imagination take over. She needed to stay calm and grounded, and not think about the restless spirits within the adobe walls. "Francie."
She heard it. She was sure she heard it . . . coming from the mission. Someone was calling her. The spirits, they were--
"No," she told herself. "It's Savannah. She is here. I don't know where her car is, but she got here before me."
"Francie."
There it was again, louder than before. It was coming from the side of the mission, from a stairwell that led down into some sort of dark cellar beneath the building.
She recalled the guide taking her and the other students down there. It had been dark and damp, spooky and gloomy, and she hoped that wasn't where Savannah was waiting.
"Francie."
"Yes? I'm here. Where are you?"
She walked to the side of the building and stood,
SOUR GRAPES 209
squinting up at the whitewashed walls that were so bright in the sunlight that just looking at them caused
spots to form in front of her eyes.
Feeling a bit dizzy, she walked to the top of the narrow stone staircase. About fifteen steps down was a small landing, where the steps turned and proceeded down to the cellar. She really didn't want to go there. If Savannah was in the cellar, she should come up here into the sunshine. Why stay down in the dark?
"Savannah? Is that you? Are you in the cellar?" she called. "If you are, please come out. I don't want to come down there. Savannah?"
Standing on the top step, she strained to hear any sound from below, but all was silent.
A seagull screeched overhead, frightening her. She jumped and leaned one hand against the wall to regain
her balance. Leaning forward, she peered into the darkness below, and called, "Savannah, please answer me. I'm up here. Come out. Okay?"
Savannah Reid 06 - Sour Grapes Page 16