Savannah Reid 06 - Sour Grapes

by Mckevett, G A

  "We're fine," Savannah said, her arm around Atlanta's shoulders. "What's up, doc?"

  "We've got the Gorton kid."

  "Francie?" Atlanta asked.

  "No, her brother, Trent."

  "Where did you find him?" Savannah said.

  "In the arcade at the mall. Figures, huh?" He chuckled. "In the old days, when we were looking for a local punk, we checked out the pool halls. Now it's the mall arcade. . . where all the mommies send their little kids when they're shopping. Scary, huh?"

  "Very" Savannah tucked the tissue into her pocket. 'So what's next?"

  "A lineup. I've got Mrs. Lippincott coming down to he station in an hour to see if he's the one who

  hopped off those flowers. Wanna come and watch?" Savannah turned to Atlanta.

  Atlanta blew her nose soundly and gave Savannah a

  veak smile. "I'm all right. I've gotta practice my guitar myway, get ready for the talent competition tonight. (ou go ahead."

  "Okay," Savannah said, "but--"

  "I know. . . I know. Beep the door locked! Ugh!"

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  anon Lippincott must love you," Savannah said, "you pulling her away on the last day . . . the big day . . . of her pageant."

  "Actually, she hates me," Dirk replied. "In fact, she called me a few names that I'm pretty sure aren't supposed

  to be uttered at an All-American function like a

  beauty contest. But she don't have to like me. She just has to show for the lineup."

  With Dirk at the wheel, the battered old Skylark rounded the curves, heading out of wine country and entering lemon-grove country In another ten minutes

  they would be "in town," not that San Carmelita was a metropolis by anyone's definition.

  Savannah was enjoying just sitting in the passenger's

  seat, kicking back, savoring the view and a few responsibility-free minutes. And she had to admit she was actually glad to have some downtime with Dirk. Although

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  she usually considered him a nuisance, he was a habit. And even an aggravation, if it was habitual, could be dear to the heart.

  "If Lippincott picks the Gorton boy out of the

  lineup, are you gonna hold him?" she asked.

  "I haven't decided yet. But if she does ID him, it'll give me a little more torque to squeeze him with." "So, you -haven't questioned him yet?'

  "Nope. But I'm gonna right after the lineup. Wanna ATatch?"

  "Are you gonna use the rack and the pendulum?" "Naw. . . . they're at the repair shop. But I got this :ool new contraption called an Iron Maiden. It's this :asket sorta thing with spikes inside. You stick the interiliewee in it and slam the door closed."

  "A la Edgar Allan Poe and Vincent Price?" "Exactly."

  "Cool. I definitely waxma watch."

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  "What is this, man? I been treated with nothin' but lisrespect all day long, man. You know what I'm sayin', nan?"

  Trent Gorton walked with that cocky bee-bop stride

  hat made Savannah wish she had an enormous fly

  *Tatter so that she could whack him across the butt with

  . As she watched Dirk lead him down the hall from the emporary lockup to the room where they would do the

  ineup, she wondered how this scraggly, moronic gang-ter could be from the same gene pool as his lovely, inelligent, sensitive sister.

  "What's up?" he asked for the tenth time in three ninutes. "Where we goin'? Whatcha'll doin' with me

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  here? I didn't do nothin' and nobody's told me nothin,.

  "You're gonna stand in a lineup, pal," Dirk told him. "We've got the lady who saw you delivering that batch of

  flowers to Barbara Matthews the night you killed her."

  "I didn't kill nobody. I was through with her, man. We was broke up, and I'm on to another old lady. You know what I mean, man?"

  "For right now, let's just see if we can get a positive ID. Then we'll take it from there."

  "Can I leave, man? I mean, if you get that positive ID you want, can I leave?"

  Dirk stopped, spun him around, and began to remove his handcuffs. "We'll see. One thing at a time, my Mend. I'm gonna take these cuffs off for the moment, 'cause we don't want you to be only one standin' there

  wearin' bracelets. But you try to pull somethin', and I'll be all over you. . . you know what I mean, man?"

  "I hear ya."

  "Good."

  At that moment, Savannah heard a door open to the right and, to her dismay, Marion Lippincott walked through it. There was nothing quite like lack of organization to spoil a perfectly good lineup.

  "Shit," Dirk muttered. "What's she doin' back here? . . . ruins everything."

  Trent looked around him, a definite haziness in his eyes that spoke of too many nights spent partying and

  not enough studying. "What?" he said, eqiially concerned. He spotted Marion Lippincott. "Oh, all you need is a positive ID, right?" he asked Dirk.

  Dirk froze. He gave Savannah a quick, I-Can'tBelieve-It glance, and said. "Ye-e-e-es."

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  "Okay, then . . . I recognize her," Trent said, happy to comply if it meant this ordeal might be over. "That old gal there. . . she's the one who was at that wine place when I dropped off the flowers. I recognize her. Okay?"

  Dirk and Savannah stared at each other, then back at Trent.

  "Well, what're you waitin' for?" Having performed his dvic duty, Trent was getting antsy. "You got your positive ID. Now I'm outta here, right?"

  Dirk shook his head, still incredulous. "Boy, you gotta lay off sniffm' that paint or whatever you're doin'.

  You ain't got much left upstairs."

  Dirk replaced the cuffs, then walked over to Marion Lippincott who looked equally impatient. "I believe you can go back to your pageant now, Mrs. Lippincott. Thanks to Mr. Gorton, we've got all we need here."

  Savannah stood behind the glass and watched Trent

  Sorton squirm in what was called the "sweat tank," but Dolitely known to the public as the interrogation room. knd Dirk was one of the best when it came to making a

  ;uspect sweat.

  "So, why did you kill her? Was it because she broke ip with you?" Dirk paced up and down behind the kid's :hair, the action designed to raise his anxiety level as nuch as to work off Dirk's nervous energy.

  "She didn't break up with me; I broke up with her. 'we done told you that."

  Dirk laughed. "Oh, yeah, a gorgeous gal like that . . . scumbucket like you just up and dumps her. I'm sup)osed to believe that, huh?"

  Trent shrugged his skinny shoulders and toyed with

  he enormous skull ring on his middle finger. "You can

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  believe it, or don't believe it. It don't matter to me what you believe, you know what I'm sayin', man? That's what happened, I swear it on my mama's grave."

  Dirk reached over and gave him swat on the back of

  the head. "Your mama ain't dead, peabrain, so you swearin' on her grave don't mean dick. Now you better start telling me the truth or I'm gonna start showin' you

  some serious disrespect. We found your fingerprints on the flowerpot, so we know you were at Villa Rosa that night. And even better, we've got more of your prints on the windowsill. You left them there when you leaned in and poured the chicken blood on the bed."

  "Okay, okay! So I did the chicken thing. I'll admit that But I didn't kill Barbie. I didn't even see her there that night. I just did that business with the chicken to get back at her, and then I left. That's all I did."

  "You didn't figure you'd knock off the mother of

  your baby to make your life a whole lot simpler?"

  Savannah watched the kid carefully and saw genuine

  surprise dawn in his eyes. He hadn't known. Barbie hadn't told h
im.

  "Barb was pregnant?" he asked. "She was gonna have a baby?"

  "You didn't know that, huh?"

  "No. She didn't say nothin' about it But, come to think of it, maybe that's why she was actin' weird." "Weird?"

  "You know, man, wantin' to break up with me and all that."

  "So, now she's the one who wanted to break it off with you? Make up your mind. Ustially, a girl who's knocked up ain't the one callin' it off. Usually it's the guy who wants out Whose kid do you figure it was?"

  Trent jumped up from the seat, but Dirk pushed him

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  right back down. "If Barbie was pregnant, it was my kid," he said, slamming his fist on the table. "You understand me, man?"

  "I think you're tellin' me that you were so special

  that she wasn't doin' nobody else but you. That's what you're sayin', right?"

  "Right! That's exactly right. She didn't need nobody but Trent. I was more than enough for that bitch."

  Dirk walked around the table and sat down across

  from him. "Tell me something, Trent. What color is the carpet in that Charger of yours?"

  The kid's eyes narrowed. "Why do you want to know?"

  "I'm planning to recarpet my Buick, and I thought I'd ask your decorating advice. You seem like such a discriminating kinda guy."

  "It's black. But what's that got to do with anything?" Dirk nodded thoughtfully. "I've heard your Charger

  cherry; you rebuilt everything on it yourself." "Everything but the paint job. My cousin did that." "So, when did you put the new carpet in?"

  "Last summer. Why?"

  Dirk grinned. 'just askin'. I'm the sorta guy who's cuious about a lot of things. Like I'm wondering right low, where is that Charger of yours? They say you weren't driving it when they picked you up at the mall

  oday."

  'That's right, my stupid sister took off with it, and we laven't seen her since. When she gets home, she's in )ig trouble with me. She knows better than to drive my wheels."

  Listening on the other side of the mirror, Savannah 'elt a small chill of premonition. His sister took off with us car. . . and she hasn't been seen since?

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  That felt bad.

  It felt really bad.

  And Savannah had learned through painful experience,

  that when something felt that bad, it usually was. Sometimes it was even worse.

  Half an hour later, Savannah and Dirk were getting into his Buick, intending to head back to Villa Rosa, when Dirk got a call.

  Digging the phone out of his jacket pocket, he flipped it open. "Yeah?"

  In the passenger's seat, Savannah grinned. Dirk wasted precious little energy on such frivolities as courtesy or

  diplomacy. Being bridled with a Southern upbringing which requires an exhausting degree of gentility, she vowed to be exactly like Dirk when she grew up someday. How deliciously liberating it would be.

  "Okay," he said. Turning to Savannah, he said, "They found the Charger."

  "Good, where is it?"

  "Where is it?" he barked into the phone. "What's it doin' there?"

  He listened again and scowled. "All right. I'm on my way."

  As he refolded the phone and tossed it onto the

  dash, he sighed.

  "What's up?" she asked, afraid of the answer.

  'The car is at the old mission. It's sitting in the parking lot."

  "All right. Anybody in it?"

  He shook his head. "No, it's empty. The keys are still in the ignition."

  "So, what's the matter?"

  "Trent's kid sister is there, too."

  "Francie? What's she doing at the old mission?"

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  When Dirk and Savannah pulled into the mission's

  parking lot, they saw the dark blue Charger, sitting ampty, as they had been told it was. A patrol car was next to it, and inside the unit sat Officer Mike Farnon. Dn a routine round through the parking lot, he had ;potted the Charger. And with the help of the mission mrator, he had found Francie.

  He looked shook-up. His door was open, and his feet *ere on the ground. He had his hands over his face, Ind he was rubbing his eyes.

  Savannah felt sorry for him. She knew the gesture. he also knew that it wouldn't help. Whatever vision he as trying to wipe away would remain with him for the

  -est of his life. In this business, you saw sights that icarred your soul and made you old before your time. Savannah figured she was about ninety-eight.

  Dirk parked his car next to the cruiser, and when she :rawled out of the Buick, she felt like someone had loured her body full of liquid cement.

  That beautiful girl. Dead. Yes, she felt very, very old oday.

  "Where is she?" Dirk asked Mike.

  He nodded toward the back of the mission. "Down hose stairs."

  "Where's the curator?" Savannah asked.

  "That's her over there," Mike replied, pointing to an Aderly woman who was kneeling at the edge of the

  mrking lot. 'The one puking into the weeds." "Is she okay?" Savannah said.

  "About as okay as I am." Mike shook his head and let

  It took Dirk a long time to answer. "Nothin'. Dammit, she ain't doin' nothin' at all."

  It took Dirk a long time to answer. "Nothin'. Dammit, she ain't doin' nothin' at all."

  out a long, shuddering breath. "She got here right after I did. I asked her if she'd look around and she did. At first, we didn't think anybody was here, but then she went downstairs and. . . Sorry, but it kinda got to me, the kid being so young and all."

  Dirk slapped him on the back. 'just sit here and get yourself together, Mike. We'll go down on our own."

  Savannah was already on her way to the stairwell at

  the back of the building. Going down those steps was the last thing on earth she wanted to do. But she had to have answers, and they lay down there in the darkness.

  The moment she began to descend the stairs, she felt the coolness of the old adobe structure surround her, sheltering her from the afternoon sun. Her eyes took a while to adjust to the darkness and when they did, she saw a sharp turn halfway down the narrow staircase.

  It was when she reached that landing and turned to

  the right that she saw her. A pitiful, crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs.

  Savannah was only faintly aware that Dirk had caught

  up to her and was standing on the step above her.

  "Shit," she heard him say, quietly. . . a lot of pain expressed in one word.

  "Yeah," she replied. "Yeah."

  "Here," he said, shoving a flashlight into her hand. 'Thanks."

  "Watch where you're steppin'."

  "Okay" Normally, she wouldn't have needed to be reminded about crime-scene protection. But at the moment, she wasn't thinking; she was feeling.

  "Oh, sweetie," she said, the words catching in her

  throat as she hurried on down the steps and knelt beside

  the girl. As she reached out her hand to touch the body, she knew that Mike Farnon was right. Francie

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  Gorton was dead. But until Savannah actually touched her, she wouldn't allow herself to believe it.

  Behind her, Dirk wasn't saying anything. He knew, too. But he asked anyway, and she understood why. Hope. Until you absolutely, positively knew for sure . . . there was always hope.

  "She's gone," Savannah said. "No pulse, no breathing. No rigor yet. It hasn't been long." She reached down and stroked the long, glossy hair that spilled across the girl's face and onto the floor. "Poor baby, no wonder she stood me up. While I was there at her house, she was . .

  Savannah felt Dirk's hand, big, warm and comforting on her shoulder. "Come on, Van. We'll call Dr. Liu. Why don't! walk you up and outta here."

  The professional deep in Savannah's mind told her

  that they should be searching the floor and every inc
h

  of this stuffy, dark, spooky little room for evidence.

  But a louder voice that was speaking from her heart

  told her, `To hell with evidence. What does it matter now? You can catch and execute a dozen killers for this, and this sweet, young girl will still be dead."

  "I'm sorry, Francie," she said. "I told you I'd look out for you, and . . . I'm so sorry"

  Dirk's hands were under her arms, lifting her. 'That's enough. Let's go."

  He pulled her to her feet and turned her back toward

  the stairs. On rubber legs she climbed the steps into the sunlight. As if she were a feeble, newly released hospital patient, he guided her to the Buick, opened the door, and seated her inside.

  After getting her settled, he walked over to the cruiser and shared a few words with Mike Farnon. Then he returned to the car and got in.

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  He didn't say anything as they drove away, out of the parking lot and onto the highway, heading back toward Villa Rosa.

  It was when they reached the citrus groves that

  Savannah lost it. The grief came crashing in on her, so intense that she began to shake all over. Her hands covering her face, she leaned forward in her seat and began to sob.

  Immediately, Dirk pulled the Buick off the road and parked it between two rows of lemon trees, where he cut the engine.

  He reached over the back of the seat and fumbled

  around in the rear floorboard.

  "Here, Van," he said, shoving a handful of yellow Wendy's napkins at her. They smelled of ketchup and onions, but she took them anyway and continued to cry into them.

  She felt his arms go around her, pulling her to him. Giving in to a rare and luxurious moment of complete

  neediness, she sagged against him and buried her face in his warm, solid chest.

  "It's okay, honey," he said. "Go ahead and bawl your face off if you wanna. I won't tell nobody." He patted her head like she was a distressed golden retriever. Then he began to slowly run his fingers through her