“There in the house, I guess,” Dirk said. “They’d turned one of the extra bedrooms upstairs into an exercise room.”
“Was there any reason to think it was especially hot in there when she was working out?”
Dirk shook his head. “Not really.”
“The bathroom was unusually hot,” Savannah interjected. “I remember when I knelt beside her and put my hand on the tiles, they felt warm, even through my glove. Normally bathroom tiles would be cool. And the air was hot in there, too.”
“That was because of the skylight,” Dirk said. “Those things look good, but they let a lot of heat in, especially when the sun’s coming straight through them. I wouldn’t have one myself.”
Savannah chuckled. “A skylight in a trailer. I think that’s called a sunroof.”
He shot her a look and grunted. “Anyway.”
“Yes, anyway...” Dr. Liu reached for a stapler and fastened several sheets of paper together before placing them in a green folder on her desk. “Ms. Connor accidentally killed herself with harsh dieting and strenuous exercise. Let it be a lesson to society.”
Savannah and Dirk stood and headed for the door. Dirk murmured a half-hearted, “Thank you.”
As they were leaving, Savannah turned back to the doctor and said, “I always wondered how you do it. Stay slim and trim, that is.”
Dr. Jennifer shrugged and grinned. “I do it the healthy, all-American way,” she said. “I smoke three packs a day.”
Chapter
6
Savannah and Dirk were only halfway across the station house parking lot on the way to their cars when his cell phone buzzed.
“Coulter,” he barked into it.
Savannah could tell by the scowl on his face as he listened that their plans for an early lunch at their favorite barbecue joint were about to be postponed. Nothing put Dirk into a foul mood and made him growl faster than to have something getting between him and his feeding dish.
“Where?” he said. He listened, then added, “Yeah,” and hung up.
She had always marveled at his economy with words—especially when on the phone to a boss. And even though, after years of hard work, Dirk had risen to the rank of Detective Sergeant First Class, he wasn’t and never would be one of the “suits,” as he called them.
“We got another body,” he told Savannah. “Up on Citrus Road.”
“In the orange groves?” she asked.
“Not this time. It’s layin’ on the side of the road.”
The county’s citrus orchards had long been a favorite site for body dumpings, rapes, and other nefarious activities. So much for strolling among the lemons and communing with nature, Savannah had decided long ago after moving to Southern California.
Although she had spent her childhood wandering among the peach and pecan orchards of Georgia, she had abandoned the Nature Girl routine and switched her relaxing, get-in-touch-with-the-inner-spirit walks to the local three-story mall. It was safer and you could stop for a peach milkshake or a butter pecan cone at the Baskin-Robbins.
“Wanna go with me?” Dirk asked as they continued across the parking lot to their cars.
“Nope. Thanks anyway,” she said. “I should get home to Marietta, listen to her rattle on about her Internet sweetie, and try not to gag or laugh at her. She takes offense easily.”
“Some of those Internet romances actually work out,” he said. “I saw a couple on Oprah who met that way and—”
“You watch Oprah?
He grinned sheepishly. “Dr. Phil was on.”
“Oh, that explains it.” She considered what he’d said for a moment, entertaining the thought that this longdistance cyber-relationship might work out for her sister. She thought it over carefully. Five seconds later, she said, “Naw. It won’t work. Marietta’s got her good points, but she’s a little whacky when it comes to the men in her life.”
“Not the brightest egg in the Easter basket, huh?” Savannah grinned. “Let’s just say that her cornbread ain’t quite baked in the middle.”
“You sure you don’t want to come with me?” he asked with his hand on the Buick’s door handle.
“I really shouldn’t.”
“The body is a young, good-looking fat chick. And before you yell at me, those were the captain’s words, not mine.”
“A good-looking fat chick... dead on the side of the road?”
He nodded. “That’s what the man said. A ‘young’ one.”
A cold, creepy, dirty feeling rolled over Savannah, making her wish she could step into a nice warm shower with a bar of strong antiseptic soap and just wash it away.
She walked around to the passenger side of the Buick and jerked the door open. “Let’s go,” she said.
Even before Savannah and Dirk arrived at the scene on Citrus Road, Savannah had a feeling that she might know the name of this unfortunate as well. Months ago, she had read an article in the local paper about Cait Connor’s close friend, Kameeka Wills, another plus model who had followed Cait’s example and moved from Los Angeles to San Carmelita. Kameeka hadn’t been in the business as long as Cait, but she was a rising star in the fashion world. The African-American beauty with her high, sculpted cheekbones and exquisite copper skin had her own line of plus-sized lingerie fashions at one of the high-end department stores, and her face had graced the cover of Real Woman twice in the past year.
The news article had said that she’d bought a house in the foothills above the town. And while the paper hadn’t given her address for security reasons, they had named the specific area, and it was less than half a mile from where Dirk had been told they would find the body.
All in all, Savannah wasn’t holding out a lot of hope for Kameeka Wills, but she decided to keep her suspicions to herself and not share them with Dirk until they saw the body in question.
Citrus Road ran along the top edge of the town and for years had been the divider between land that had been developed and the virgin foothills. Untouched, the hills stretched into the distance above the town, providing a tawny suede backdrop for the glowing white stucco buildings and their red tile roofs.
With its sharp curves, the road presented a bit of a challenge to the locals’ driving abilities, especially on a moonless night or during a storm when boulders or mud sometimes slid off the hills and down onto the pavement. And since joggers enjoyed the rural peace and the scenic views afforded by the road, the occasional accident wasn’t uncommon.
They rounded a curve and were upon the scene before they knew it. Again, yellow tape signaled passersby that something was amiss in society. And if that hadn’t alerted the witnesses, the bright yellow tarp spread over the body on the side of the road would have.
“Right here next to the pavement,” Dirk said as he pulled in behind one of the three cruisers that were parked on the dirt shoulder. “Somebody probably got her when they came around that curve back there.”
“Yes,” Savannah said, but with little enthusiasm. “Maybe.”
He gave her a quick, questioning look, then got out of the car. She followed him, walking along the edge of the road where the scrub brush, sage, and marguerites surrendered to asphalt.
As they approached the body, a middle-aged uniformed officer recognized them and came over to meet them.
“Hey, Howie,” Dirk greeted him, “how does it look?”
“Jogger,” Officer Howard Potter replied with a shrug. “They get it out here all the time. Car whizzes around the corner and “Bam!’ That’s all she wrote.”
Savannah winced. “Fresh?” she asked.
“Yes. Probably early this morning.”
“Any ID?” she said.
“Nope. Nothing on her but her clothes.”
“Who found her?” Dirk wanted to know.
Officer Potter nodded toward a twenty-something guy with red running shorts who was sitting in the back seat of one of the cruisers. He was talking to a policeman who was squatting beside the open door and taking notes.
“
He was out here running this morning at daybreak and practically tripped over the body,” Potter continued. “He’s barfed a couple of times.”
“Is she messy?” Dirk asked.
Savannah cringed again. She’d seen it all... but she didn’t relish seeing it all again. The really bad scenes made her old before her time.
“Not too bad,” Potter replied. “Car ran over her, though. You can see the tire tracks.”
“So much for hoping it was a coyote attack,” Savannah said dryly as she left them and walked on toward the body.
“Coyote?” she heard Potter say behind her. “They don’t hurt anybody, ’cept maybe a miniature poodle or...”
“Eh, Van’s got a weird sense of humor,” Dirk replied. “Don’t pay any attention to her. I don’t”
Savannah’s eyes searched the ground as she approached the area that had been cordoned off with the tape. It was a matter of habit after years of investigating crime scenes. You never knew what you were looking for... until you found it. And she’d rather find an unexpected clue at a scene than a pearl in a fried oyster.
But all she saw was roadside litter and none of it exceptional. The CSU would no doubt collect most of it because, even though the victim might have been hit accidentally, the motorist had left her there to die. And that turned an accident into a possible vehicular homicide.
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.
“Her name is Kameeka Wills.”
“I’m sorry,” the young cop said. “A friend of yours, huh?”
“No, I never met her. But I’ve seen her pictures often enough. She’s... she was a high-fashion model.”
The policeman looked down at the body and pulled the tarp halfway down so that he could see her figure. She was wearing a simple tank top that had been partially torn, revealing a lacy bra, and running shorts. Across one thigh Savannah could see the distinct mark of tire treads where the vehicle had run over her.
“She’s a model?” he said. “No way! She’s a blimp.”
For the tenth time in twenty-four hours, Savannah fought the urge to feed somebody their front teeth. She looked down at the dead woman’s toned, muscular body... voluptuous, yes, but beautiful even in death.
She gave the cop a quick once-over, taking in his flabby middle, double chin, and pudgy cheeks. Funny how many men held a completely different standard for women than they did for themselves.
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.”
Chapter
7
Dirk had called the station house, requesting an address on Kameeka Wills, at the same time that Savannah had phoned Tammy and asked her to find it on the Internet. Tammy had beaten the station by more than two minutes—a personal best record for her. Usually her lead was only a matter of seconds.
When Savannah and Dirk pulled up in front of the modest bungalow, hidden among a thicket of trees in the crook of a cul-de-sac, she couldn’t help doing a mental comparison to the glass house on the beach.
The home had a woodsy charm with natural siding and a pseudo-cedar shake roof. Real shake roofs had been outlawed long ago after San Carmelita had lost an entire neighborhood to a blazing inferno, which had leaped from one wooden roof to the next, devouring the dried cedar shakes and the houses beneath them.
The new fake shakes didn’t look as good, but they didn’t burn either, and there was a lot to be said for that.
As Savannah and Dirk walked up the sidewalk, they passed a small but pleasant pond stocked with koi to the left of the path and an interesting sculpture on the right. Carved from some sort of exotic, gold-toned wood, the piece reminded Savannah of a Polynesian fertility goddess with enormous, pendulous breasts and a full, rounded belly that could have been carrying a baby or simply an abundance of good food.
Bees buzzed in a nearby bottlebrush plant, and the smell of wild honeysuckle hung heavy and sweet in the warm air.
She watched the windows of the house as they approached, but she saw no movement.
“I don’t think anybody’s home,” Dirk said. “Maybe you’re right; that mighta been her back there on the side of the road.”
“I’ve been known to be right before.”
“Eh, you luck out sometimes.”
“I’d like to be wrong this time.”
Dirk shrugged. “Well, if that body ain’t this Kameeka person, it’s gotta be somebody else, so either way it’s bad news.”
“But if it’s somebody other than a second full-figured model, it’s more likely that the lady on the road was killed accidentally rather than murdered. And I could still believe that maybe Cait Connor died of dehydration.”
“True. Killing yourself through stupidity is better than getting murdered.”
“A little better.”
“Yeah, a little. But, then, dead is still dead.”
Savannah sighed. Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter, she thought, a man of few words. But not few enough.
On the front door of the cottage hung a wreath of dried grapevines sprigged with lavender and wild sage. The aroma scented the whole porch and gave the home a cozy, welcoming presence.
Dirk rang the doorbell several times, but there was no sound of movement within, and no one pulled the curtains aside to look out.
He turned the doorknob and gently pushed; the door opened an inch. Turning back to Savannah, he said, “How sure are you that was Wills back there on the road?”
“Sure,” she replied.
“Sure, sure?”
“I hate to say it, but I’m sure as shootin’.”
“Okay then,” he said, slowing pushing the door open. He took one step inside. “Anybody here?” he called. “San Carmelita Police Department. Anyone home?”
Instinctively, Savannah’s hand slipped under her sweater, and she unsnapped the holster that held her Beretta. She noticed that Dirk had reached under his leather jacket, too, for his Smith & Wesson.
She followed him into the gloom of the living room, where they waited just inside the doorway for their eyes to adjust to the dim light.
White wooden shutters were closed over the windows, and only a small amount of sunshine filtered between the slats, throwing thin blades of golden light onto a cream-colored Berber carpet.
The room was sparsely but tastefully decorated with the clean lines of contemporary furnishings. In front of the window sat a tan leather sofa, and a chest with brass fittings served as a coffee table. Over a fireplace in the center of the far wall hung a large black-and-white photograph of Kameeka Wills. Draped in a sheer, hooded robe, she stood on a rugged cliff overlooking the ocean in a landscape that reminded Savannah of the Monterey area.
A wind was whipping the garment around her long, shapely limbs, and she had a look of unworldly peace and soul-deep contentment on her beautiful face as she stared out across the horizon.
Savannah’s mind flashed back to the bruised and bloodied body she had just seen on the side of the road, and her heart ached.
“That her?” Dirk asked, nodding toward the picture.
“It was,” Savannah replied.
“Too bad. A pretty girl,” he said.
Savannah smiled in spite of her sadness. One of Dirk’s most endearing qualities as a man was his complete oblivion to weight issues. The only time she had ever heard him complain about a woman’s build was when he occasionally remarked upon seeing an extremely thin woman, “Boy, she looks like she could use a cheeseburger and a milkshake.”
“Anybody here?” Dirk called out again, projecting his deep bass voice down the hall to their right.
As before, there was no reply.
Ahead lay a dining area with a glass-topped table and bamboo chairs with comfortable-looking seat cushions. In the middle of the spotless glass sat a crystal vase and a simple arrangement of multicolored tulips.
On the wall, stainless steel shelves that were equally free of dust or fingerprint smudges held a dozen picture frames containing photos of what must have been Kameeka’s family and friends.
Loved ones—who probably didn’t know yet that she was gone from their lives, Savannah thought as she studied one picture in which Kameeka was in the center, her arms around the shoulders of two younger women who looked so much like her that they had to be sisters.
For a moment Savannah allowed the thought to play through her mind of how she would feel to lose one of her own sisters in such a way. But just as quickly as the thought sprang into her mind, she pushed it firmly away. Professionals couldn’t think of such things when they were “on the job.” It clouded the judgment.
Later, she knew it would return. When she was in bed and trying to get to sleep, about three in the morning, the thoughts would come back to haunt her the way they always did. But she would battle that problem when it presented itself. For now, one dragon to slay at a time.
She looked around the living room and dining area for anything that might appear to be out of place. But the home was impeccably kept.
“Either Kameeka’s a heck of a housekeeper or she’s got a great cleaning service,” she remarked.
‘Yeah, this is about the spiffiest place I’ve been in... ever,” Dirk added as he passed the table and chairs and headed toward the kitchen.
Cereal Killer Page 7