by GA McKevett
Waycross piped up, “Yeah. Tammy and me . . . er, Tammy and I . . . could go talk to them. Soon as we’re done, we’ll ring y’all up and tell you what they said.”
Tammy gave Waycross a quick sideways glance, a vigorous nod, and a bright smile. “Sure! We could do that! We’d be happy to.”
Yes, Savannah thought, definitely something nice developing there.
“That’s okay,” Dirk told them. “We’ll go. It’s not that far. We’ll be back by noon.”
Savannah gave him a quick look and a slight nod toward Tammy and Waycross. She knew Dirk was rooting for this blooming romance as much as she was.
He cleared his throat. “But you two can help a lot here at home. Go online and find out absolutely everything you can about Amelia and her husband.”
“Yes.” Savannah nodded. “She was a bulldog of a reporter. Had to have made a bunch of enemies along the way.”
“And him being a big-time land developer,” Tammy said. “With all the focus on conservation and ecology, they don’t usually win a lot of popularity contests these days.”
“Exactly.” Savannah took a sip of her coffee, which was now turning cold. It was time to wrap this meeting up and get on with business. “You know what to look for, Tammy. Waycross, you help her out.”
“Oh, I will.”
Waycross grinned broadly . . . and so did everyone else in the circle. Young love was as hard to hide as California sunshine on the Fourth of July.
“I’m reluctant to mention this,” Ryan said, “because it would be so much nicer for the two of you to just have the island to yourselves, but . . .”
“Yes?” Savannah prompted him.
“John and I have a friend who owns a vacation home on the other end of the island, well away from the lighthouse. If you’d like to have any of us nearby while you’re there, but not too near, I’m sure we could use it.”
John nodded. “That’s true. Our friend and her husband are on holiday in Switzerland now, so it’s probably available. I know they’d be happy to have any of us there . . . but, of course, only if the two of you want—”
“Sure,” Dirk interjected. “It’s not like you’re going to be bunking right there with us in that fancy cottage you rented for us. Since the law enforcement on the island seems to consider us the enemy, it’d be kinda nice to have backup if we needed you.”
“That’s for sure,” Granny added. “You’ll need somebody there to bring you bologna sandwiches when they throw you in the slammer.” She glanced at Ryan and John; then she turned back to Savannah. “I don’t mean me. I’ll just stay here and feed the cats and clean the litter boxes. But the rest of y’all might as well—”
John reached over and put his hand on Granny’s shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous, love. If we’re going, you’re going.”
Her face beamed. “But who’ll feed the cats?”
“Marietta and I had ourselves a little sister-to-sister chat,” Savannah said. “After us discussin’ some of the facts of life, she’s decided to stick around and prolong her vacation for a while longer. She can tend the girls.” She turned to Ryan. “How many bunks does your friend have in her vacation house?”
“It has five en suite bedrooms.”
“What’s ‘on sweet’ mean?” Gran asked.
“Every bedroom has its own bathroom.”
Granny grinned. “Boy, howdy. That is sweet.”
Ryan laughed. “It has a pool house, a guest cottage, an infinity pool, tennis courts. There’s definitely room for the entire Moonlight Magnolia gang.”
Tammy clapped her hands, Waycross cheered, and Gran’s blue eyes sparkled.
Savannah smiled to herself, thinking this would hardly be a traditional honeymoon, with the whole crew along. But the idea couldn’t have pleased her more.
She turned to Dirk, leaned over, and whispered in his ear, “Is this all right with you, sugar?”
He chuckled. “Sure. What guy wouldn’t want everybody he knows to tag along with him and his new bride?”
“If you’d rather not, we can tell them—”
He gave her a squeeze and a kiss on the forehead. “Shhh. And if we get our butts thrown in jail, Granny can bake us a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and a file in the filling.”
Chapter 8
“I’m sorry, sir, ma’am, but you simply cannot see any member of the news team without an appointment.”
The fresh-faced young woman in her crisp navy blue suit, with her crisp white shirt and crisp white smile, which was becoming more forced by the moment, stepped in front of Dirk as he tried to get around her.
Savannah could sense a huge fight brewing.
Dirk was getting more cranky with each passing exchange with this gal, whose name tag identified her as PANZY—JUNIOR HOSPITALITY COORDINATOR. Since he began most encounters with his fellow humans with his mood-o-meter set at “crotchety,” it was bound to get ugly.
“Miss Panzy,” Savannah said, wedging herself between them and donning her most patient, Southern belle smile. “I understand that standard procedure dictates that we set an appointment previous to visiting your fine establishment here. But as you can see from Detective Sergeant Coulter’s badge, he’s a police officer, and this is important police business. I know that—”
“You have to have an appointment.”
“I know that you’re just trying to do your job, and I admire you for that. I surely do, but—”
“Nobody without an appointment gets past me.”
The junior hospitality coordinator glared up at Dirk, whose face had gone from red to purple. He looked like he was about to explode.
“And if you try to push by me again, like you did before,” she told him, “I’m going to start screaming bloody murder. When I do, twenty-five of the biggest, meanest security guards you ever saw are going to come running, because we take security here at the studio very, very seriously.”
Savannah’s cup of indignation overflowed, much like a garbage disposal trying to process a ton of ten-day-old Thanksgiving leftovers.
“I can see how seriously you take every blessed thing, Miss Panzy,” Savannah said, loudly enough for a tour group, which was being led through the reception area by a tour guide, to pause and listen, their ears practically sticking out on stems. “How serious do you reckon the studio execs are gonna get when they find out that two people left their honeymoon on Santa Tesla Island and came all the way here to wonderful downtown Los Angeles to tell your station that its star reporter didn’t drown accidentally?”
Savannah stopped to take a deep breath as dead silence reigned in the reception hall. “That’s right. We came here to tell y’all that Amelia Northrop didn’t drown. She was murdered, shot down in cold blood, and we saw it happen. And your bosses are going to find out that we weren’t able to tell them that because you, Miss Prissy Pants Panzy, wouldn’t let us, ’cause we didn’t have a dadgummed appointment! Now you put that in your pipe and smoke it, gal.”
Panzy, the tourists, the tour guide, and even Dirk stood there, silent, their eyes bugged, mouths agape, for what seemed like forever.
Savannah had heard of places so quiet you could hear a mouse pee on a cotton ball, and she figured this had to be one of them.
Then, suddenly, there was pandemonium. The tourists began to discuss what they had just heard . . . loudly. Some began taking pictures and videos of Savannah with their cell phones. The tour guide snapped to attention and tried to herd the horde down the hallway and away from this seemingly crazy lady, who was making all sorts of outlandish claims.
Panzy the junior hospitality coordinator fled. On her sensible two-inch black pumps, she ran to a desk on the other side of the room, grabbed a phone, and began giving an earful to someone on the other end.
Dirk turned to Savannah. “Well, I guess that particular cat’s outta the bag and there’ll be no putting it back.”
Savannah shrugged. “Oh, well. It was getting out, sooner or later, anyway.” She glance
d warily down the hallway. “You reckon they’ll really send twenty security guards? Just for us? That’d kinda be overkill, wouldn’t it?”
“She said twenty-five.”
“Oh.”
“Big, mean ones.”
“Woo-hoo.”
An hour later, Savannah and Dirk were still sitting in the station manager’s office. The man appeared to be as confused as he had been when they’d told him, fifty-five minutes before, why they wanted to see him.
“This makes no sense,” Edward Deville said as he toyed with an elegant fountain pen made of sterling silver and lapis. “As tragic as it may be, it isn’t all that rare for someone who’s in the public eye, the way Amelia is”—he paused, swallowed, then continued—“I mean, was, to be murdered. Sadly, these things do happen. But why would the island police tell us she died in an accidental drowning?”
From her seat on the creamy white leather sofa, where she sat next to Dirk, Savannah studied the station manager. It was easy to see every inch of him, because he was sitting behind a desk made of a clear acrylic material and there was nothing on the desk but a sleek laptop computer, the fancy fountain pen, and a crystal sculpture of a nude woman and man caressing. Or, at least, she thought it was a guy and a gal getting it on. Or it might have been a couple of dolphins, or an odd, curvy lump of glass. She wasn’t sure.
Edward Deville didn’t look much like an executive to her. She always thought of execs as being harried, overworked, dressed expensively, but slightly disheveled because grooming was low on their list of priorities—well below hiring and firing people, sweating over budget cuts, and fighting with their boards of directors.
But in his pink polo shirt, khakis, and sneakers, and with his pristine desk, he didn’t look the part to her. She couldn’t help wondering how he had risen to such a position. Jobs like station manager of one of the largest television stations in Los Angeles weren’t just given away.
Her eyes scanned the walls of the ultramodern office. Two of the walls were glass.
Edward had the corner office overlooking the Los Angeles skyline. Another one of those überperks not just bestowed on every Tom, Dick, or Edward.
The third wall held glass shelves, which displayed numerous awards, including two statuettes that Savannah quickly recognized as Emmys.
The fourth wall held a strong clue as to Edward’s ascent in the world. Hanging, side by side, were two portraits. One was of the man sitting at the desk in front of them, and below his picture, a silver plaque identified him as EDWARD DEVILLE II, STATION MANAGER.
The picture next to him was of an older man who looked very similar to Edward. And he should, Savannah thought as she read the silver plaque under his. EDWARD DEVILLE, PRESIDENT.
Explains a lot, she mused. Apparently, the station head wasn’t above showing a bit of nepotism. Or even a lot, as the case might be.
“We don’t know why they’re covering up the fact that it’s a murder, sir,” Dirk was saying for the fourth time since they had begun trying to tell him their story.
“We’re going to try very hard to figure that out,” Savannah added. “We were hoping that maybe you could help us with our independent investigation of this horrible crime. You must feel pretty bad about it, Amelia being part of your ‘team,’ as such.”
“Our ‘team’?” Edward shook his head, and looked genuinely distressed as he ran his fingers through his short, thick mat of brown curls. “You mean, our ‘family.’ We’re all very close around here.”
Savannah couldn’t help glancing up at the portrait of Edward I.
And Edward II noticed.
“We may not have been blood related to Amelia, the way my father and I are,” he said, “but Dad and I care deeply about everyone who works here at the station.”
“I’m sure you do,” Savannah said. “So, could you please just tell us if you have any idea who might have killed her? Anyone who had a grudge against her or who might have threatened her?”
A thoughtful look on his face, Edward tapped his pen on his see-through desk. “Two people spring to mind, though I’m sure she had others,” he said. “Last year, she had a stalker. An ex-con who fancied himself her boyfriend. He would hang around outside the studio doors, trying to catch her as she entered and left.”
“Do you know his name?” Dirk asked, pulling a small notebook from his shirt pocket.
“Yes, it’s Burt Ferris. She got a restraining order against him. Last I heard, he was leaving her alone, but you never know with those guys.”
“You certainly don’t,” Savannah said, thinking of how often a simple piece of paper failed to protect people from their enemies. With some, the prospect of running afoul of law enforcement was enough to bring them to their senses. Others ignored the demand to desist. And some even considered a court order of protection a challenge, an opportunity for defiance against society, with whom they were frequently at odds.
“How long ago was this?” Savannah asked.
“He harassed her for over a year, following her around, sending her creepy presents—underwear and sex-toy crap you’d buy at an X-rated shop. She finally got the restraining order . . . let’s see . . . I think it was about three months ago.”
“Last you heard, where was this guy living?” Dirk asked.
“Around Luna Bonita, I think.”
Immediately Savannah began to text Tammy: Background, Burt Ferris, LKA Luna Bonita.
Almost immediately, she received the answer On it, followed by a mustachioed, goateed smiley face.
She grinned. Obviously, brother Waycross was assisting Tammy. No great surprise there.
“You said that two people who might have posed a threat to her came to mind,” Savannah said. “Who was the other one?”
Edward hesitated, as though reluctant to talk about the second individual. He looked at Savannah, then at Dirk. The expressions on their faces clearly showed they weren’t going to leave without this additional information.
“Well?” Dirk snapped. “Who’s the other one?”
“Ian Xenos.”
The name rang a slight bell for Savannah, but she couldn’t recall where she’d heard it before. Something to do with organized crime or fashion?
“Who the hell’s Ian Xenos?” Dirk asked. “And what kinda name is that?”
“Probably fake,” Edward told him. “Xenos is head of a group of fashion merchandise counterfeiters who sell designer knockoffs in Los Angeles and New York. Amelia not only exposed his organization, but she proved the money was being funneled to a terrorist group.”
“Yes, I can see why that wouldn’t make her very popular with him,” Savannah said as she texted Ian Xenos, background to Tammy and Waycross.
“Where’s Xenos right now?” Dirk asked.
“About six weeks ago, they arrested him. He’s out on bail, awaiting his trial in a month or so. He’s the reason we’re so tight with our security at the moment. Thanks to her exposé on his group, we’re on high alert around here. At least until the trial’s over.”
“Yes, I’ll bet you are,” Savannah said, her stomach roiling at the thought of terrorists.
She knew she would never, for the rest of her life, get over 9/11 or the Oklahoma City Bombing. They were the only two events—other than her own personal-life tragedies—that simply thinking of them would instantly cause tears to spring to her eyes.
Though Granny Reid had taught her to forgive her enemies and not to hate anyone, she truly despised terrorists, both homegrown and foreign alike. And she didn’t feel one bit guilty about it, Granny’s upbringing aside.
“I understand,” she said, “that Ms. Northrop was married. Can you tell us anything about her husband, her marriage?”
“Not much,” Edward replied. “Amelia had an established career in journalism before they met, and it took a lot of her time and energy. He’s a very successful businessman, and that kept him busy. But they seemed to have a good marriage. Can’t say I saw them together all that often, but at o
ffice parties and stuff like that, they seemed like a loving couple.”
“Other than those two guys you told us about, is there anyone else you can think of who might do harm to Ms. Northrop?” Dirk asked. “Personal or professional?”
Edward seemed to think it over before saying, “Not really. Amelia was ruthless as a reporter, but around here she was very loved and respected.” He paused, and Savannah saw him bite his lower lip before continuing. “We’re going to miss her. A lot.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Savannah said, meaning it. In her career she had seen far too many people suffer terrible losses, precious loved ones gone forever because of someone else’s violence. “I wish there was something we could do for you.”
Edward looked her squarely in the eyes, and for a moment, the otherwise lackluster, even mousy-looking guy behind the desk radiated an unexpected, ferocious energy.
“If what you’re telling me is true,” he said, “and Amelia was really murdered, get whoever did it and see to it that they pay. I want justice for my reporter.”
Dirk and Savannah stood. Dirk reached across the desk and offered him his hand.
“Mr. Deville, we’re going to do our very best. We promise.”
As Dirk drove them along Interstate 10 toward Luna Bonita, Savannah called Tammy on her cell phone.
Tammy snapped it up on the first ring. “Those are bad, evil, nasty guys that you had us check out,” she said without her customary sunshine-and-light “hello.”
“Oh, we know,” Savannah told her. “We just wanted you to find out how bad.”
“Stay the heck away from them! That’s how bad. One stalks and beats up women, and the second one makes the first guy look like a saint.”
“Yes, we know. We’re on our way right now to try to find the stalker dude in Luna Bonita. Got an address?”
Tammy rattled off the information as Savannah jotted it and directions on the back of one of Dirk’s bank deposit receipts, which she’d found lying on the floorboard. She quickly ran out of room on the tiny sheet and had to write the rest on a discarded McDonald’s bag.