She shook her head. Her eyes filled with regret and guilt. “It wasn’t that. I was afraid, but it wasn’t fear. It’s just that I saw him standing there, alive, breathing…a living, breathing person. I couldn’t shoot another human being. I just couldn’t do it.”
“That’s okay,” Savannah told her, stroking her hair. “Really it is. A lot of people couldn’t take another life, and that’s all right. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, truly.”
“But if you hadn’t been there,” she said, “he would have killed me. I’d be dead right now. He’s still be alive and breathing, but I’d be the one dead up there.”
Reluctantly, Savannah nodded and said, “That’s probably true.”
“You know it’s true,” Dirk said.
“Sh-h-h.” Savannah pressed her finger to her lips and gave him a warning frown. To Tammy she said, “But you don’t have to think about what might have been. What happened is all that matters. And if someone had to die, at least this time, it was the bad guy.”
“But it does matter,” Tammy said, hiccuping with sobs. “It matters a lot because next time you might not be there. And you’ve told me over and over, don’t ever pull a gun on someone unless you absolutely know that you can use it. Well, now I know. I can’t use it.”
She reached to the back of the stool and took her backpack off it. Reaching into the pack, she pulled out her new gun and laid it on the counter in front of Savannah. “There,” she said. “I don’t want to carry that anymore. And after today, after seeing what a gun can do to a human being’s body, I don’t even want to touch one ever again.”
After a couple of strained moments, Dirk reached over, picked up the gun and emptied it of its ammunition. Then he stuck it in his jacket pocket. “I think that’s a wise decision, kiddo,” he told her, his voice soft with compassion. “And Savannah’s right. Not everyone should carry a gun. Not at all. There’s no shame in being a person who feels the way you do. Hell, more likely you should be proud of yourself.”
She sniffed, wiped her eyes and gave him a half smile of gratitude. “Thanks, Dirko,” she said. Then she turned to Savannah. “But,” she said, “as long as there are bad guys in the world who are carrying guns, we’d better be glad we’ve got somebody like Savannah here who doesn’t feel the way I do.”
“Hey,” Savannah said, leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. “It’s a big, big world. There’s just gotta be a place for all kinds of us in it.”
Chapter 23
O ne of Savannah’s least favorite places in the world was the San Carmelita morgue, or as it was more cheerfully called, the Medical Examiner’s Forensic Sciences Laboratory.
She had nothing against dead people. Most dead people hadn’t chosen to be so, so how could you blame them?
But she had witnessed too many truly heart-wrenching scenes inside that building to feel warm and fuzzy when she was walking up the sidewalk to the front door.
Normally, she found the whole experience beyond depressing, and this morning, her mood was even less festive than normal. She was going to see the body of the man she had killed the night before.
Not her idea of a good time.
And things got only worse when she walked through the front door and saw that her least favorite desk officer was on duty, Kenny Bates.
Someday, she thought, someone will murder Officer Bates, and I’ll take the stand in their defense and say something like, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you’d only known Bates…if you’d spent one moment in his presence…you’d not only release the defendant but give him/her a slap on the back, a ‘fare-thee-well,’ and the Nobel Peace Prize.”
She had rehearsed her testimony many times, as well as her own defense. “But your honor, he breathed egg salad and nacho cheese chip breath on me, and then suggested I come to his house and watch his new porn DVDs with him. I had to beat him to death with his own sign-in clipboard. I had to. Being a woman, your honor, I’m sure you understand.”
When she walked through the door, he looked up at her and his face split into a big, stupid, leering smile. “Savannah! Hey, baby, what’s cookin’?”
“Your head in my soup pot if you even so much as take a step this direction,” she snapped. “I ain’t in the mood, Bates. I am soo-o not in the mood. So just back the hell off.”
She grabbed the sign-in sheet and scrawled “F. Quew” in the signature column beside her entry time.
“Hey, I hear they’ve got a guy back there that you shot!” he yelled after her as she headed down the hall toward the autopsy suite. “Is that true? You shot him?”
“Yeah, and I didn’t even know him, and I shot him five times! I hate you, Bates. Hate. Live in fear.”
At the end of the long hallway was a pair of stainless steel doors. The door on the right was propped open, so she stepped inside.
“Dr. Liu?” she called out. “Jen, are you here?”
Before her was the large, stainless steel table with its scales, the trays of surgical tools, all covered with sterile cloths, the bright lights and the microphone suspended overhead, the pedal on the floor for the ME to turn the microphone on and off as she dictated her findings into it.
And sinks. Everywhere there were sinks and waste bins marked Hazard—Biological Waste.
But no Dr. Liu.
Savannah knew the suite well. The doors to the left were the refrigeration units, each of which could hold four bodies. To the right a door led to a small room where bodies were laid out so that they could be identified by loved ones. The room had a window that opened onto the hall and a shade. Savannah had stood in that hallway many times with the next of kin and watched as they dissolved into tears upon seeing their loved one beyond the glass.
That was another reason why she hated this place. She could literally feel the sorrow, like energy stored in a battery, which had seeped into these walls. She didn’t know how Dr. Liu could bear to work here, but thankfully, she did.
Someone needed to.
“Dr. Jen?” she called out, louder than before.
The door to her right opened, and Dr. Liu stuck her head out. “Oh, hi, Savannah. I’m in here, getting him ready. His mother is supposed to be by in a few minutes.”
His mother. Oh, god, Savannah thought. This just gets worse by the minute.
“Then let me look at him and go,” she said. “This is one ID I’d just as soon miss if I can.”
Dr. Liu looked at her with deep compassion showing in her dark brown eyes. “Yes, that’s one you should avoid. Come on it.”
Savannah walked into the small room, which held only the two women and a gurney with a body on it, which was shrouded from head to toe with a green surgical cloth. Even though he was completely covered, Savannah was struck by what a large man Cameron Field was. He had to be well over six feet and considerably more than two hundred pounds.
Dr. Liu said, “Are you sure you want to do this, Savannah? You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do,” she replied. “The room was dark. I didn’t even get that good a look at him. I have to know what he looks like or this ghostly, featureless face is going to haunt me forever.”
“This could make it worse.”
“It could. But it’s a chance I have to take.”
“Okay.” Dr. Liu pulled the sheet back, exposing him to the waist.
Savannah felt her knees nearly buckle beneath her.
“Are you okay?” the ME asked. “I’ll bring you a chair if you feel like you need to sit down. Or a glass of water?”
“Thanks, but that’s not necessary. I’m okay. But could you leave me alone with him? Just for a couple of minutes.”
She hesitated. “Well, I’m not really supposed to, but…since it’s you…”
“Thank you.”
Dr. Liu slipped silently from the room and closed the door behind her.
Savannah stared down at the still, white face for a long time, taking in every feature. He had a broad, almost pudgy face, a fair complexion and a smal
l cleft in his chin. Faded acne scars showed on his clean-shaven cheeks. His dark hair was slightly wavy and slicked back.
He wasn’t what most people would call attractive in any way. But hardly anyone on the streets would have pegged him for a ruthless killer, either. Quite the contrary. He looked soft, maybe lazy…not someone you would give a second thought to if you stood behind him in line at the grocery store.
He was wearing a black sweat suit. The front of the shirt was crusted with his dried blood and five neat holes were burned into the fabric.
Savannah knew Dr. Liu would cover his chest area with the sheet before showing him to his mother.
Around his neck was a small gold chain and on it hung a gold charm in the shape of an anchor.
She noticed a rip in the sleeve of his shirt. A small tear with something that looked like a thorn caught in the fabric beside it. Savannah recognized the bit of vegetation instantly. She had a pair of bougainvillea on either side of her front door. And for all of their lush green leaves and beautiful red blossoms, she knew all too well how badly those thorns bit if you got too familiar with them. This was a bougainvillea thorn that had ripped his sleeve. She filed that bit of information away for later consideration.
She closed her eyes for a moment, and saw this man as he had been last night, staring at her down the barrel of his revolver. If she had taken half a second longer than she had, she’d be the one on this gurney right now, waiting for Dirk or Tammy or Ryan or John to identify her remains.
“Why didn’t you just put down the gun?” she asked him. “You’d have wound up in prison, but you would have been alive. And your mother could have written you letters and talked to you on the phone.”
Then she thought of Jack and Kim. They’d been given no choice. This man had taken their lives from them with no warning at all.
She had given him a chance to live.
And that was a hell of a lot more than he had given his victims.
“It’s on you,” she told him. “It’s on you, not me. You carry it into eternity with you. And I’m going to sleep a lot better tonight than I did last night. You got what you asked for, you son of a bitch.”
She turned and walked out the door. “Okay, I’m done,” she said.
Then she realized that Dr. Liu wasn’t alone.
The ME was standing in the middle of the room, talking to a petite brunette who looked to be in her mid-fifties. She was simply but nicely dressed in a navy suit, a pretty woman in a plain sort of way.
She had a heart-shaped face and large eyes, though it was obvious she had been crying profusely. In her hand she clutched a bunch of tissues.
“The investigation is ongoing,” Dr. Liu was saying, “but it appears that he was involved in a home invasion of some sort.”
“Someone broke into his house? Why? To rob him?”
Dr. Liu glanced quickly at Savannah who had frozen by the doorway, unable to move.
“Uh, no,” the doctor said, hesitating, as though choosing her words carefully. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but in fact, it appears that it was your son who was the intruder. From what I understand at this point, the police believe he was threatening the movie star, Dona Papalardo with a gun. Her bodyguard was forced to shoot him to save Ms. Papalardo’s life.”
Don’t tell her it’s me, Savannah thought, trying to send her wishes telepathically to Dr. Liu. For god’s sake, please just let me get out of here without her knowing it was me.
The lady gasped and brought the tissues up to her face. “Oh no, I was afraid of something like that. My son was a good boy, but he kept things from me, you know. A mother can tell things sometimes.”
Again, Dr. Liu shot Savannah a look. Savannah would have liked nothing better, under normal circumstances, than to question the mother further about her maternal suspicions. But if she ever did find out that Savannah was the one who had killed her son, and she probably would, she would have resented being questioned without being fully informed of Savannah’s role in her son’s death.
“So,” Dr. Liu said, “you aren’t entirely surprised that your son may have been involved in…some illegal activities?”
“Sad, but not surprised,” she said, wiping her eyes. “He was always such a good little boy. He and his father were very close. They both loved the ocean. We had a cottage in Pelican Cove, and they hunted for shells there on the beach day after day. They even photographed the shells they found. Cam got really good with a camera even as a little boy. But his dad died when he was only ten. And he was never the same after that.”
Savannah felt like someone had just reached into her chest and squeezed her heart with a tight fist. She didn’t want to hear this, but she couldn’t bring herself to walk away.
“I had to work all the time to support the two of us,” his mother was saying. “And I left Cam alone a lot. He never had many friends his own age, so he was alone for hours every day. I’ve wondered sometimes if—”
She broke down completely, and Dr. Liu put her arms around her, patting her back. “There, there,” she said. “I’m sure you did the best you could. And I’m sure your son knew you did, too. Kids just don’t always turn out the way we’d like them to. We can’t blame ourselves for the choices they make as adults.”
She continued to comfort the woman until she managed to regain her composure.
Then Dr. Liu said, “Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Field? I’ll prepare your son’s body for you to view it. That will only take a couple minutes, and then it will all be over, but is there anything else we can do to help you?”
She nodded, “Actually, there is one thing. Cam always wore a gold chain with an anchor on it. It was his father’s. I gave it to him on the day of his dad’s funeral, and it hasn’t been off his neck since.”
“Yes,” Dr. Liu said, “it’s on him now.”
“May I have that? I want to wear it now myself. I need it…to feel close to them both.”
The fist that was squeezing in Savannah’s chest clamped down until she was sure she would never breathe again.
The room around her began to spin.
“I have to go,” she said as she hurried past the two women toward the door. “Thank you, Dr. Liu, but I have to—”
“Are you all right?” Dr. Liu called to her as she exited the door and hurried out a rear emergency door. “Savannah, are you…?”
Savannah ran across the parking lot and got into her Mustang. She sat there, gulping in deep breaths of air until her head stopped spinning.
Around her time seemed to slow. The morning sun was streaming through her window, warming her face. A nearby palm tree swayed in the breeze, making its dry, swishing sound. Seagulls overhead swirled, dipped and cawed at each other.
Life continued.
But not for Cameron Field.
And to a certain extent, not for his mother.
Savannah had heard, years ago, an old proverb that said, “When you take a life, you lose a part of your own.”
She looked into the rearview mirror and saw the blue eyes of the woman looking back at her.
“Did part of you die last night, Savannah?” she asked the woman in the mirror. “And if so, what part?”
Time will tell, was the answer that came back, whispering its quiet wisdom to her heart. Time will tell.
Chapter 24
S avannah wanted nothing more in the world than to go home, take a hot bath, crawl into bed with her two kitties, and sleep for days. But only if she had some sort of guarantee that she wouldn’t dream. The few hours she had grabbed the night before had been more stressful than just staying awake all night. Nightmares, featuring dark figures in dark rooms with dark agendas, woke her over and over again, until she had decided to stay awake the few remaining hours until dawn and read.
Anything to keep the demons from bedeviling her.
She had already decided that a good strong sleeping pill or a potent Irish toddy was going to be her pre-bedtime snack tonight.
> Unfortunately, it was barely noon. And she had a bit of business to finish before she was officially off-duty.
She headed the Mustang toward the hills and the Papalardo estate.
Nothing would have made her happier than to never return to that place again, but she owed it to Dona to at least check on her and make sure that she was recovering from her trauma.
But when she arrived at the mansion, she couldn’t park within a quarter mile of the place. Reporters’ vehicles lined both sides of the street, and throngs of people milled about in the driveway and on the front lawn.
The crowds were bad when Kim was shot, but this was far, far worse.
Savannah parked where she could and then hiked to the mansion, ducking and dodging her way through the crowd, until she finally reached the front door.
After several knocks and thumb punches at the doorbell, Juanita answered. Her face was lit with genuine delight to see Savannah. But when she looked beyond her to the mob that was charging toward them, she grabbed Savannah’s arm, pulled her inside, and slammed it behind her.
“All night and all day, they do that,” she said, shaking her head. “The phone, she doesn’t stop ringing, and the people, they don’t stop knocking! Ugh!”
As though materializing out of her words, a phone in the library began to ring and someone pounded on the door.
“You see! I do not lie. Es muy loco!”
“I’m sorry, Juanita,” Savannah said. “Things will probably quiet down in a few days. You’ll just have to ride it out. How is Ms. Papalardo?”
Juanita smiled. “Ah, she is good. Much better. She is happy now. Today she told me how happy she is that she is alive. It is a gift to be alive.”
“I can’t say that hasn’t occurred to me a few times today myself,” Savannah said. “It was a close call last night. Be glad that you weren’t here, that you’d gone home already.”
“Oh, I am glad. I mean, I’m sorry it happened to you and Senorita Tammy and Senorita Dona, but I think I would have died, I would have been so scared!”
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