Cereal Killer

by G. A. McKevett

  SMILE AND SAY DIE

  Savannah nodded to one of the cops who were kneeling beside the body, and when he acknowledged her, she stepped over the tape.

  “Mind if I take a look?” she asked. “I might be able to ID her for you.”

  “Sure.” The youngest of the two reached over and pulled the tarp back from the face. “There you go. Know her?”

  Even with the road dirt, the scraping and the blood that covered a bad wound on the left side of her head, Savannah recognized her instantly. She turned and walked back to Dirk, who was finishing his conversation with Howard. “Her name is Kameeka Wills,” she told him. “She’s a model. A close friend of Caitlin Connor.” For a couple of seconds, she let her information sink in and watched Dirk’s brow cloud. Then she added dryly, “What do you figure the odds are of them both being accidents?”

  “About the same as you and me running off to Vegas, getting married and winning a million at the blackjack table.”

  ‘Yep. That’s about right.”

  Books by G. A. McKevett

  JUST DESSERTS

  BITTER SWEETS

  KILLER CALORIES

  COOKED GOOSE

  SUGAR AND SPITE

  SOUR GRAPES

  PEACHES AND SCREAMS

  DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

  CEREAL KILLER

  MURDER À LA MODE

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  850 Third AvenueNew York, NY 10022

  Copyright © 2004 by GA. McKevett and Kensington Publishing Corp.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  All Kensington titles, imprints and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational or institutional use.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Attn. Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Hardcover Printing: January 2004

  First Mass Market Paperback Printing: December 2004

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  For

  Gwendolynn and Bobby

  Whose love continually warms and inspires us.

  You’ve found each other... at last.

  Chapter

  1

  “I'm not going to eat another bite of food in this filthy jalopy of yours until you clean it out,” Savannah Reid said as she glanced over the seat into the rear floorboard of the battered old Buick. The sight of wadded burger wrappers, mustard-stained napkins, and assorted taco trash was enough to put her off the double chili cheeseburger and super-sized fries in her lap.

  Secretly she had to admit that this principled stand of hers had more to do with the double scoop, rocky road, hot fudge sundae she had consumed half an hour ago than it did with the mess in the back of Dirk Coulter’s old Buick. The biohazard landfill site that he affectionately called his back seat had been irritating her for years. And since that massive sundae had taken the edge off her hunger, she figured it was a better time than most to launch a protest.

  “I never thought I’d see the day when you’d threaten not to eat,” Dirk said as he pulled the Skylark out of the Burger Bonanza’s drive-through and entered the midday traffic on Vista Del Mar. “What’d you do... pig out on something before I picked you up back at your place?”

  If there was anything that irked Savannah more than Dirk’s filthy car, it was his ability to read her with uncanny accuracy. She wanted to chalk it up to his finely honed skills as a police detective—and that might have had a little to do with it—but mostly it was because the two of them had spent far too much time together over the years.

  Most married couples spent less so-called “quality” time together than they did.

  Now there was a scary thought.

  “What makes you think I ate something before you came by?” she asked.

  He continued to drive as he fumbled with the Styrofoam burger container in his lap. “Easy. You had chocolate breath when you got in the car. And you’ve got something that looks like a piece of walnut between your front teeth.”

  She quickly flipped down the visor and studied her reflection in the mirror on the back. “I do not have anything stuck in my teeth!”

  “Lemme see.”

  She peeled back her lips and gave him a gruesome grin.

  He shrugged. “It’s gone now. What was it? Snickers bar?”

  “Ice cream sundae. Breakfast of champions. And it was probably a pecan you saw stuck in my teeth. Us Georgia girls don’t eat walnuts,” she added with her best Southern drawl.

  He chuckled as he lifted his burger to his mouth and took a hearty bite. Ketchup oozed out the side of the sandwich and dropped on the front of his Harley-Davidson T-shirt.

  “Watch it. You’re dribbling on yourself there.”

  He glanced down. “Naw, that’s spaghetti sauce from last night’s dinner.”

  “It’s ketchup. I just saw it drop. What do you mean, last night’s spaghetti? You’re wearing the same shirt you wore yesterday? And you’re calling me gross because of a little nut between my teeth?”

  “Hey, I sniffed it before I put it on. It was clean. I only wore it half a day yesterday. I had to change in the afternoon after that drugged-out perp bled on me.”

  “A perp bled on you?”

  Dirk grinned. But it was a nasty smile, not one to warm the heart. ‘Yeah. Me and him had a little disagreement.”

  “I guess if he was the one who sprang a leak, that means you won the argument.”

  “I always do.”

  Savannah decided not to mention that she had seen him lose a few “disagreements” in years gone by, when he had wound up shedding more blood than the perps he’d caught. Dirk liked to think he was quite the bad ass, and he was a lot easier to get along with when she didn’t contradict him. Besides, for the most part, she was glad she was his friend and not his enemy. She had to agree; he was pretty bad... and frequently an ass, too.

  They drove through the main business section of the small seaside town of San Carmelita and past a park whose perimeter was lined with palms. On one side of the park a dozen children entertained themselves in the sandbox and on swings. On the opposite side stood several picnic tables and barbecue pits.

  “Pull in,” she told him, nudging him with her elbow. “I want to eat my lunch over there in the fresh air and sunshine.”

  “I got fresh air.” He pointed to the pine tree shaped deodorizer dangling from his driver’s mirror. “Plenty of it.”

  She grunted and gave him another nudge.

  “All right, all right.” He pulled into the only blank spot at the curb and parked.

  “That’s a fire hydrant,” she said, pointing to the obvious.

  He reached into the back seat and rummaged through the debris until he produced a police ID plaque, which he propped on the dashboard, “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “If the park catches on fire, I’ll move the car, Miss Goody Two-shoes.”

  She muttered an abbreviated speech about “being a good examp
le to young people” under her breath as they strolled to the nearest picnic table and found a seagull poop-free spot to spread their lunch and sit down. There was no point in muttering her character improvement speeches aloud; she had been trying to civilize Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter for years. She’d had about as much luck at that as she had at dieting away those pesky extra thirty pounds, organizing her kitchen cupboards, and halting the depletion of the ozone layer.

  The older she got, the smarter she got, and the more carefully she picked her battles. Now solidly into her forties, Savannah had learned the value of conserving life energy. Once a tireless perfectionist, she had recently decided to live by a new motto: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. And if you still can ’t pull it off, give up. There's no point in being a damned fool about it.

  They were golden words to live by. She considered having them tattooed on her left buttock. Heaven knows, there is plenty of room back there—something else that might have caused her a great deal of angst a decade ' ago. But no more.

  Savannah liked herself, her life, and her butt... all of it. And now that she wasn’t sitting in his dirty car, she even liked Dirk. With the Southern California sunshine in her face, the ocean breeze in her hair, and a chili cheeseburger in her mouth, she was a happy kid.

  ‘You got any jobs lately?” Dirk asked between chews. Her spirits plummeted.

  Motto number two: Happiness is short-lived. Enjoy it while you’ve got it. Something to tattoo on her right buttock for balance.

  “No. Nada. Zilch. Not one ka-ching in the old cash register in over a month now,” she admitted. “Private detecting may pay more than being a cop did, but work’s spotty.”

  “Maybe you oughta drop your standards a little, start taking on those wayward hubby spying jobs. You must get a call a day for those.”

  “Try two or three a day. If I wanted to hang around outside quickie motels and take amateur porno pictures with zoom lenses, I’d be rollin’ in the dough.”

  “So?”

  “So what? There has to be a more noble way to pay the bills than providing evidence for wives who probably knew they should leave their scumbag husbands years ago.”

  ‘You could still be a cop, rousting druggies and getting stuck with dirty needles, frisking scanky hookers and chasing scrawny crack heads through back alleys, get-tin’ your favorite T-shirts bled on.... Now that’s noble.” Savannah looked across the picnic table at her comrade-in-arms who, in spite of the additional wrinkles and crow’s-feet and the slightly thinner hairline, still had a wicked gleam in his eye when he talked about being a cop. There was still plenty of life in the old dog, and she wasn’t exactly ready to lie down, roll over, and play dead either.

  Besides, Dirk was never happier than when he had something to piss and moan about. He lived to gripe.

  Savannah glanced around the park, enjoying the rare moment of relaxation with her old friend. Dirk seldom took a day off, and when he did, he usually spent it fishing off the end of the city pier. But the tide and the winds were high this morning, and the pier had been closed, spoiling Dirk’s recreational plans and dashing his hopes of snagging a free dinner.

  Hence, Savannah had been graced with the pleasure of his company. And even though his disposition might not be the rosiest or his conversation the most scintillating, Dirk was as comfortable and well worn as her blue terry-cloth bathrobe. And she loved both him and the robe, whether she would have admitted it or not.

  In the middle of her savor-the-moment reverie, she heard a mild disturbance on the other side of the park, near the sandbox where the children were playing. A couple of grungy, street-worn guys were standing nose to nose, fists clenched, arguing about something. Because of the proximity of the children, Savannah studied the situation with the eye of a former peace officer. Dirk, too, had laid down his burger and was listening with grudging interest as the argument escalated to a shouting match.

  More than one curse floated through the summer air, references to unnatural sexual acts and equally unsavory intimate relationships with immediate family members.

  “Damn it. Not on my day off,” he grumbled, rising from the bench. “And I know one of those idiots, too. The blond one’s a CI of mine.”

  Reluctantly, Savannah left her own lunch to the mercy of marauding seagulls and followed him as he strode across the grass toward the pair.

  “One of your informants?” she said, running a couple of steps to catch up with him. “Did he ever give you anything worthwhile?”

  Dirk snorted. “Naw. He just rats out anybody who’s on his shit list, anybody he wants to get even with.”

  “Hmmm... he’s not long for this world if he keeps doing that. Somebody’s bound to punch his time card.”

  “Not soon enough to suit me.”

  As they reached the middle of the park, the tall, skinny blond guy spotted them and abruptly left his opponent, a husky black fellow dressed in leather garb, draped in chains, and bristling with silver studs.

  “Hey—hey, you, Coulter!” the blond yelled as he hurried toward Dirk and Savannah. “Come ’ere! I got a complaint to make!”

  The children in the sandbox had stopped playing and were watching with their concerned mothers as the guy ran up to Dirk and grabbed him by the arm.

  “Let go of me,” Dirk said, shaking his hand away. “What’s the matter with you, cussin’ like that in front of women and children? You got no couth?”

  “He ripped me off! That dude sold me bad rocks, man. I want you to arrest him.”

  At the word “arrest,” the dude in question began to I not-so-nonchalantly stroll away in the opposite direction.

  “Go get him, man! He cheated me out of fifty dollars, cuz. Fifty big ones! That’s gotta be a felony, right?” Dirk fixed him with an evil eye. “What are you telling me, you moron? That somebody sold you some bad dope? Is that what you’re trying to say to me?”

  Savannah grinned. Even the slowly retreating guy in leather had a smirk on his face.

  “Yeah, man!” the blond wailed, holding out his open j palm, which contained a couple of tiny wads of cellophane plastic, wrapped around small cream-colored squares of something that looked like soap. “He sold me macadamia nuts, man! Fuckin’ macadamia nuts instead o’ rocks! What does he think I’m gonna do with these... make friggin’ chocolate chip cookies? I ain’t no Mrs. Fields, man! Lock him up, Detective! But get me my fifty dollars back first.”

  Dirk stared down at the bindles in the guy’s hand for what seemed like forever. Savannah stifled a snicker.

  Then Dirk growled and batted them out of his hand. The misnomered contraband sailed through the air and landed in some nearby shrubs.

  “Are you stupid or just plain dumb?” Dirk asked him. He grabbed him behind the neck and gave him a shake like he was a puppy who had just piddled on the good rug. “You want me to intervene because you got ripped off in a drug deal? You expect me... on my day off, no less... to arrest some guy for selling you macadamia nuts instead of rock cocaine? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Well... I...”

  ‘You come here to a city park, where mothers bring their babies to play, and you make a damned drug deal, and you have the nerve to complain to me when you get ripped off? Why, I oughta—”

  “Actually...” Savannah said, stepping between them, “Dirk, you oughtn’t to. Really...”

  She nodded toward the dozen or so wide-eyed children and their mommies who were hanging on every word.

  Dirk released his informant, who seemed to quickly realize that this situation wasn’t going at all the way he wanted. Not only was the police detective not interested in dispensing any justice his way, but his dishonest dealer was about to leave the park.

  “I can’t believe this,” the blond sputtered. “So much for ‘protect and serve,’ huh? So much for keeping the peace and all that crap.”

  He left Dirk and rushed over to the shrubs, where he retrieved his bindles. Then he hurried after the guy in the
leather jacket, who was waiting for a break in traffic to cross the street and exit the park.

  “Can you believe that?” Dirk said, watching him and shaking his head.

  “Oh, yes. I believe anything. That was a close one, huh, buddy?”

  Dirk nodded. “No kidding. If they’d actually come to blows I’d be spending my day off dragging them to the house and doin’ fives. The last thing I want is paperwork when I’d rather be fishing.”

  “Or hanging out with me if the pier’s closed.”

  He gave her a sideways grin. “Yeah, or hanging with you.”

  From the other side of the park, they could hear the blond yell, “See if I ever buy anything from you again, you asshole!”

  The black man slowly turned back toward him. “Huh-oh,” Savannah said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about...”

  “What’s the matter, you cantly-ass pimp?” the blond continued. “Did that crack-whore mamma of yours use up all of your stash? Is that why you’re out sellin’ macadamia nuts instead of the real thing, huh?”

  Dirk sighed. “Eh, shit.”

  Savannah nodded. ‘Yep.”

  Less than four seconds later, Dirk’s least favorite confidential informant was on the ground, getting the daylights pummeled out of him by an angry dope dealer who didn’t seem to mind at all that a police detective was casually making his way toward him across the park lawn.

  Savannah strolled along beside Dirk, her arm laced companionably through his. They looked like a couple of old folks taking their daily constitutional as a few yards away fists flew, along with colorful curses, bits of spit, some handfuls of hair, and finally... a bloody tooth.

  “I’ll help you fill out the fives,” she told Dirk in her best consoling voice. “You just dictate and I’ll type.”

  “You’re damned right you will,” he replied. “It was your idea to have lunch in this friggin’ park instead of the safe, trouble-free confines of my car. You owe me, girl.”