“I know. I’m sorry, but if you could go over it again, I’d really appreciate it.”
As the teenager began to relate the details of her experience, Savannah noticed a crowd of spectators beginning to form at the periphery of the scene. Leaving Dirk to question his witness, she walked slowly along the edge of the group, studying each face. Many times, the perpetrator of a crime returned to the scene and watched the aftermath unfold, mentally wallowing in the carnage he had created. Savannah had learned, long ago, to search the spectators for suspects.
One young man in particular caught her attention. He was a young, blond fellow, about Angie’s age, wearing a football letterman’s jacket and a guilty-as-hell look on his handsome face. He was staying well to the back of the crowd, his eyes trained on the patrol car where Dirk was questioning Angie.
As Savannah approached him, she decided to take a verbal stab in the dark and see if she could draw a little blood. She smelled the booze on his breath as she leaned close to him and said, “Your girlfriend’s doing her duty as a citizen. Why don’t you be a man and go do the same?”
“What?” He turned to Savannah and glared at her with as much concentrated focus as his bleary vision would allow.
She decided his confusion was as fake as a five-dollar alligator-skin purse.
“You heard me,” she said, “and you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re Angie Perez’s boyfriend, the one who called this in. At least tell them what you saw.”
He glanced around furtively and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Get away from me, lady. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Savannah shrugged. “Have it your way,” she said as she walked away. “But if that detective who’s talking to Angie has to come to you rather than vice versa, he’s not gonna be his usual charming self.”
She walked to her car, opened the trunk and took out a small camera. Systematically, she began to take pictures of the crowd, working from one end of the group to the other. Dirk would comb them later, identifying as many individuals as possible.
“Hey, Reid! What the hell are you doing here?” said a male voice with an irritating, nasal twang directly into her right ear.
Savannah braced herself and turned to face the one human being she despised most in the world. As far as she was concerned, Captain Harvey Bloss had worked hard to ascend to that high-level position on her personal shit list. In the interest of fair play, she had bestowed the honor judiciously—no one deserved it more.
“Now, what do you suppose I’m doin’, sugar?” she said, far too sweetly. “I’m gawking, like everybody else. Fortunately there’s no law against that.”
Bloss gave her a drop-dead look that matched her own degree of animosity. “Get out of here, Reid,” he said with a long, liquid snort that made Savannah shudder. “You’ve got no business hanging around a crime scene.”
Bloss wasn’t a particularly attractive man, even without the disgusting mannerisms. He wasn’t overweight, but he had a pudgy, bloated look about him that indicated, perhaps, a lack of sleep and excessive alcohol consumption. He peered at the world through squinted, suspicious little eyes, and the only time he actually made eye contact was when he was trying to intimidate someone.
But, mostly, he just irritated the crap out of her and she loved returning the aggravation. Having the opportunity to irk him made her day.
She lifted one eyebrow. “Excuse me? This is a public street I’m standing on and, thanks to you, I’m now Jane Q. Public, so I’m right where I belong.”
“Go home, Reid.”
“Go to hell, Bloss. Go directly to hell. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”
“How juvenile.”
She wrinkled her nose as though she had just caught a whiff of a week-old road-killed skunk. “Yeah? Well . . . nanny, nanny, boo, boo. And your mother dresses you funny, too.”
Bloss gave her a condescending look that made her want to slap him stupid, then he walked away, heading for the car where Dirk was questioning Angie.
Lucky Dirk, she thought as she watched Bloss, mentally calculating the length of the proverbial stick up his butt. Why else would someone walk that stiffly? Or maybe it was a simple case of deficient dietary fiber.
She heard a girlish giggle behind her right shoulder. The titterer stepped forward, and Savannah recognized the outlandish orange and green spiked hair. It was the punked-out kid from her self-defense class.
“Oh, hi, Margie,” she said, embarrassed that she had appeared so unprofessional in front of a student. “Sorry you overheard that. I don’t usually talk to law-enforcement officials like that, but I sorta hate that guy.”
“Me too. What did he do to you?”
“It’s a long story. What do you mean, you hate him, too? What did Captain Bloss do to you?”
Probably had her arrested for drugs or shoplifting, Savannah thought, as she checked out the leather clothing, trimmed with metal studs and the pierced lip, cheek, nose and eyebrows. Then she reminded herself that not every kid who dressed like a weirdo was a criminal . . . just lacking in taste.
“He left me and my mother for another woman,” the girl said, “when I was ten years old.”
Savannah’s jaw dropped half way to her chest. “What? Bloss is your dad?”
“Yeap. Sucks, huh?”
Savannah shook her head, trying to rearrange her scrambled brain waves. “Wow! I didn’t even know he had a kid.”
Margie laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in the sound. “That’s a scary thought, huh? A jerk like him procreating? My mom should’ve had him spayed on their honeymoon.”
Savannah studied the teenager’s face. Her expression was belligerent, but, beneath all the exaggerated makeup, her eyes were full of sadness. “Not necessarily,” Savannah said. “You seem like a nice kid.”
“Naw, I’m a brat. Ask anybody who knows me.”
While they had been talking, Bloss had made his rounds and returned with Officer Titus Dunn in tow. Bloss fixed his daughter with one of his classic glares which was, undoubtedly, intended to instill fear and intimidation. Margie glared back, the picture of adolescent rebellion.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked her.
“You need to hire somebody to write you some new lines,” Savannah muttered, recalling his earlier greeting to her.
Titus started to grin, but swallowed the smile when Bloss shot him a warning glance.
“I was looking for you,” Margie told her father, her demeanor as bristly as her hair.
“How did you know I’d be here?” he snapped.
“I was in the kitchen when you took the call. I heard you say where you were going, so later, I decided to—”
“What do you want?”
“Money,” his daughter returned, her tone turning as curt and hostile as his.
“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“Hell, yes, it matters.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward. “I’m going out with Meg, okay?”
“Where?”
“Don’t know yet, but I need some cash.”
“No.”
Margie’s face flushed angrily. She stuck out her open hand, ramming it against her father’s chest. “Give me the fucking money!” she screamed. “No-o-o-ow!”
Savannah glanced over at Titus, who was also watching the bizarre exchange with amazement. Neither of them dared to breathe.
Having been raised Southern style, at the end of a hickory stick, Savannah couldn’t comprehend such blatant defiance.
Bloss glowered at his daughter for what seemed like an eternity as his face turned as dark as hers. He was huffing and puffing like a disgruntled bulldog, his meaty fists clinched at his sides.
But the girl didn’t budge.
Finally, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “There!” He tossed a handful of bills at her. “Now get out of here, and stay with your friends.
Don’t go anywhere alone.”
Margie gave him a sarcastic, self-satisfied smirk and walked away, clutching her cash to her chest.
“When are you coming home?” he called after her.
“When I get damned good and ready,” she yelled back as she climbed into the driver’s seat of a new, ice-blue, BMW convertible nearby.
The Roadster took off, spinning its wheels in the roadside gravel. Savannah cleared her throat and shook her head thoughtfully as they watched the car disappear around a curve. “Well, well . . .” she said, “. . . darned kids these days. Sometimes, they just won’t do ya proud.”
CHAPTER SIX
December 11, 12:30 A.M.
If Savannah and Dirk had been concerned about the latest rape victim’s security, all their worries evaporated when they saw Officer Morton O’Leary stationed outside her hospital room. King Kong himself couldn’t have charged through that door, even with Godzilla as a backup.
When Savannah and Dirk passed through, Savannah flashed O’Leary a friendly, open smile and received only a perfunctory grunt in return.
Six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound Officer O‘Leary’s steel-trap mind might have been a tad rusty in the hinges, but he took his job as first line defense very seriously. And if his sheer bulk weren’t deterrent enough, he carried a .357 Magnum as a side arm and a billy club the size of a California redwood. No one got past Morton O’Leary; no one even tried.
Once inside the private room, Savannah and Dirk saw a sweet-faced nurse who was sitting on a chair beside the bed, watching over her charge with obvious concern.
“How is she?” Dirk asked as he looked down at the woman who was lying still, eyes closed, her head swathed in bandages, her right arm in a cast. Both of her wrists bore the dark, telltale lines, indicative of having been bound. The lower half of her face, that showed below the wrappings, was grotesquely swollen and splotched with patches of red, black, and purple bruising.
Savannah winced, unable to even imagine how that sort of beating would have hurt. The victim looked like someone who had been involved in a violent traffic accident. But her situation was all the more horrific because it had been some sick individual’s intention, not Fate’s intervention that had put her here.
“She’s asleep,” the nurse said. “She has been for the past hour.”
“Has she said anything?” Savannah asked, thinking that the woman’s face was so badly contorted that she would surely be unrecognizable to her loved ones. It would require plastic surgery to put her right again. And those were just the physical injuries. The emotional scars would be permanent.
“She just told us that her name is Charlene Yardley,” the nurse replied. “And she asked us to call her ex-husband.”
“Did you?” Dirk asked.
“Yeah.” The nurse lowered her voice and added, “He wouldn’t come, the jerk. But he gave me her sister’s number. I called her, and she’s on her way.”
“I wanted to ask her some questions,” Dirk said, “but if she’s sleeping, I . . .”
“She needs the rest, poor baby.” Savannah patted Charlene’s hand, noting the torn nails and skinned knuckles. Apparently, she had put up some sort of defense. “That bastard really put her through the mill.”
Charlene’s eyelids flickered. “Mama?” she whispered through cracked, puffy lips.
Savannah leaned close to her. “What, honey? Did you say something?”
“Mama?” she murmured again.
Savannah shot a quick look at Dirk and the nurse. Dirk gave her a nod. “I’m right here, sweetheart,” she said. “You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be just fine.”
Charlene’s eyes fluttered again and this time she opened one just a crack and looked up at Savannah. When she closed it, tears slid down both her cheeks and she began to cry. “You aren’t my mom,” she said between sobs.
Savannah’s heart ached. “I wish I were,” she said softly. “Your sister’s on her way here to see you.”
“Oh, great . . . that’s all I need. My sister’s stupid and a drunk.”
Savannah gulped. So much for close family ties. “Do you want me to try to find your mom for you?”
At the suggestion, Charlene only cried harder. “You can’t,” she said. “My mama’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Having struck out twice, Savannah was reluctant to swing a third time, but she had to ask, “Why did you think I was your mother?”
“You . . . you sound like her.”
“Oh.” The light dawned. “Was your mom from down South?”
“Savannah, Georgia.”
“Well, if that ain’t a coincidence. My name is Savannah. Is that close enough?”
At least Charlene had stopped crying. That was a step in the right direction. So, Savannah decided to press a little further. “This detective who came in with me . . . his name is Dirk Coulter . . . he needs to ask you a few questions. Do you feel up to it?”
At the mention that a man was in the room, a look of fear crossed Charlene’s battered features. “No,” she said adamantly. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
Dirk took a step back from the bed. “Van, maybe if you do it . . .” he said.
Savannah nodded and stroked Charlene’s fingers. “Do you feel like talking to me?” she asked in her most beguiling tone. “Just for a couple of minutes. If you get too tired, we’ll quit.”
She hesitated, then said, “Okay.”
“Did you see the man who attacked you?”
“Yes . . . well . . . sorta.”
“What did he look like?”
“He wore a beard, a big white one, like Santa. But it was fake. It slid around when he was . . . you know . . . when he was raping me.”
Savannah glanced over at Dirk, who was suddenly all ears. “When the beard slipped,” she said, “did you happen to see his face?”
“Not really. Not enough to tell anything.”
“Do you know if he was Caucasian, or black, or Hispanic, or—?”
“The other policeman asked me that, too.”
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask again. Just in case you might remember something else.”
“It was dark. But I think he was white.”
“What else was he wearing, besides the beard?”
“A black shirt, like a sweatshirt . . . and I think . . . jeans.”
Savannah thought for a moment. “Did the shirt have any words or pictures on it?”
“No.”
Of course not, Savannah thought. That would have been too easy. Oh, well, it was worth a try. Your average criminal wasn’t known for his high intelligence quotient and more than one had been nabbed because he had committed his particular crime dressed in a T-shirt that said something like, “Dudley Trucking—Bowling Champion 1979.”
“Could you see the color of his hair?” she asked.
“No. He was wearing a red and white hat, like Santa Claus.”
“How big a guy was he?”
“Bigger than me and a lot stronger.” She began to cry again. “He . . . he really hurt me.”
“I know, honey.” Savannah felt tears well up in her own eyes. She glanced over at the young nurse, who was biting her lower lip. “But you’ve got great doctors and nurses here,” she told her. “They’re taking good care of you.”
“But what if he comes back?” Charlene asked. She was trembling so hard that Savannah could feel the bed shaking as she leaned against it. “What if he comes here to the hospital and tries to kill me again?”
“He can’t,” Savannah told her. “No way. Right outside your door is the biggest Irish cop you’ve ever seen, and he’s packin’ a gun the size of a Sherman tank. Ain’t nobody comin’ through him, I guarantee it. You’re safe now, Charlene. Really.”
She continued to sob. “But I don’t feel safe.”
Savannah didn’t have the heart to tell Charlene Yardley that one of the worst things her attacker had done to her was to rob her of the simple, human joy of ever
feeling safe again.
“I know you don’t,” Savannah said, “but we’re going to catch that bastard for you and put him away so that he can’t ever hurt you or anyone else again. I promise.”
Charlene turned her face away, but she gripped Savannah’s hand even harder. “He . . . he . . .” She struggled with the words. “He did awful things to me,” she finally said, as though she were confessing some deeply personal, mortal sin.
Savannah returned the squeeze. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
She began to cry even harder. The sound was like that of a wounded animal, and everyone in the room shuddered. “He made me do things to him, too,” she told them. “He said he’d kill me if I didn’t.”
“That’s okay, Charlene,” Savannah said. “You only did what you had to, what anyone would have done under those circumstances.”
“If my mama had seen me there in that orange grove, she . . .” Charlene released Savannah’s fingers and covered her face with her hand, as though trying to blot out memories that could never be erased. “Oh, God,” she said, “I’m glad my mother is dead and won’t ever know what he did to me, and what he made me do to him.”
“Your mama would have wanted you to do whatever was necessary to stay alive. And that’s what you did,” Savannah told her firmly, then she softened her tone. “You were a brave girl, Charlene. A strong, brave girl. And now everything’s okay, sweetheart. You’re safe and everything’s going to be all right.”
Pulling the sheet higher around Charlene’s shoulders, Savannah said, “You try to go back to sleep, honey. Just close your eyes and try not to worry about anything. Atta girl.”
After several minutes, Charlene had stopped crying, and her breathing was slow and rhythmic. Finally, Savannah stepped away from the bed and walked over to Dirk. “Come on,” she whispered to him. “Let’s go get that damned sonofabitch and nail his dick to the nearest wall.”
Half-awake and half-asleep, Charlene heard what the woman with the soft, sweet, Southern accent whispered. And, after hearing her, Charlene felt a bit better.
Mama had said she was going to get the bad guy and make him pay for what he had done to her little girl. And Mama sounded like she really meant it, too.
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