Cereal Killer

by G. A. McKevett

Pappas stared at Dirk for several long, tense seconds; then he reached for a manila folder in a stack of similar ones on his desk and flipped it open. He thumbed through the papers inside, reading.

  Finally, he closed the folder and tossed it back on the heap. “She was A-negative,” he said, crossing his arms again. “Is that all?”

  “That’s all. Thank you.”

  Savannah was never happier to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine than when they exited the clinic. Once in the parking lot, she paused and took a deep breath.

  “I hear ya,” Dirk said. “That guy smells... and I’m not talkin’ about his onion breath either.”

  “Let’s keep an eye peeled on him.”

  “Man, I’m running out of eyes here. I had to cut Tumblety loose, and I’ve got Jake McMurtry tailing him. Then there’s Cait’s husband and that agent gal and those other models and the photographer and that ad agency dude. Cheez. Usually you can’t find a suspect in a case, and now we’re drowning in them.”

  Savannah reached into her purse, pulled out her notebook, and flipped it open to the page where she had jotted down the limo’s plate number. “Well, your life’s about to take a turn for the worse,” she told him, “because I have a sneaking suspicion that when you run this plate, you’re going to find out that it belongs to a guy named Charles Wentworth III.”

  “The cereal tycoon?”

  “None other.”

  Dirk winced as he wrote the number in his own notebook. “I hate dealing with those dudes with the numbers after their names.”

  Savannah laughed. “Oh, yeah? You oughta rub noses with the guys down South like Bubba Junior and Little Billy Ray. There’s just something about having to live up to the ‘seniors’ or numbers one, two, or three that makes a fella defensive.”

  Dirk glanced back at the clinic door. “Or having an MD after your name and something to hide.”

  Savannah was in the grocery store, picking up the makings of a fine pork chop and cornbread dressing dinner, when her cell phone rang. Stopping in the frozen section, she answered and was surprised to hear an unfamiliar voice on the other end.

  ‘Yes, hi,” he was saying, “I’m Officer Leo Kingston with the SCPD. I got your number from Dirk Coulter. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I should call you.”

  “No problem,” she said, reaching for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. “What’s up?”

  “I mentioned to some of the guys here that I was going to have to go out and talk to somebody and one of them recognized your address.”

  “My address? Why are you going out to my address?” She pitched the ice cream into the cart and reached for a pint of Cherry Garcia, Marietta’s favorite.

  “We got a complaint about a Marietta Reid, who’s staying there. Dirk says she’s your sister.”

  Savannah froze, the ice cream in her hand. “Yes, I’m afraid she’s a close blood relation of mine. What was the nature of the complaint... as if I have to ask.”

  “Apparently she’s been harassing a certain William Donaldson, who lives in West Hollywood. He called us and asked us to speak to her about it, to tell her that he’s considering getting a restraining order against her. It seems she showed up today at his place of employment and had to be removed from the premises by the security there.”

  “Lord help us,” Savannah muttered. “That girl’s plumb lost her mind, and she didn’t have all that much to begin with.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Never mind. Thank you for calling me, Officer Kingston. I’ll speak to my sister, really, and I guarantee you that she won’t be bothering Mr. Donaldson again.”

  “Are you sure, because I really ought to follow up on this if—”

  “I’m sure. Thank you, Leo.”

  Savannah hung up and stood there, staring at the Cherry Garcia in her hand. Then, with a determination born of fury, she shoved the ice cream back into the freezer.

  “Screw you, Marietta Jane Reid,” she grumbled. “No ice cream for you. No pork chop dinner. No nothing. You can just get your butt with your purple, tiger-striped pants on the next plane to Georgia. It’s a transcontinental flight. If you’re lucky maybe they will feed you something!”

  “You can’t make me go home, Savannah! You can’t make me do nothin’ I don’t wanna do!” Marietta shouted as she paced the length of the living room, waving her arms and punctuating each statement with a stomp.

  In her wing-back chair, Savannah sat quietly, watching the tantrum and sipping her coffee that was liberally laced with Baileys Irish Cream. She wished it was Jack Daniels, but Baileys would have to do. She had to keep her wits about her. Assertiveness had never come easy for her when it came to her family members.

  Bad guys were one thing. She had no problem threatening them with manual castration or death by slow strangulation. But when it came to her sisters...

  Tammy had discreetly removed herself from the living room and taken refuge in the kitchen, where she sat at the table, quietly working on her computer. But she wasn’t fooling Savannah. She was absorbing every detail of this drama. Having come from a relatively sane family herself, Tammy found the dynamics between the Reid sisters a never-ending source of amazement and amusement.

  “Finally, I have a chance at happiness,” Marietta wailed. “And you just can’t stand it. I’ve got a man who loves me, a good man, and you’re so jealous that you’re throwin’ a monkey wrench into the works by making me go home.”

  Savannah scooped Diamante up onto her lap and began to pet the cat. She’d heard that stroking an animal could lower your blood pressure. And judging from the pulse pounding in her temples, hers needed lowering.

  “I’m not making you go home,” she said calmly. “I’m just telling you that if you intend to stay here in California and make a blamed fool of yourself over a man who doesn’t want any part of you... you’ll have to do it someplace other than my house.”

  “But I can’t afford a motel room! I already told you that! Why else do you think I’d stay here?”

  Savannah winced, wishing there was a form of bulletproof vest that could fend off darts from your so-called loved ones. “I don’t know...” she said. “Maybe because you wanted to see me, to spend time with me?”

  “Doing what? Listening to you put me down, tell me how stupid I am, and how I’m always messing up? Gee, that’s a lot of fun.”

  In her peripheral vision, Savannah could see Tammy peek around the corner, a look of concern on her face. Maybe she could trade Sister Marietta in on a sister like Tammy—someone who didn’t shoot poisoned verbal arrows.

  “You’re right, Marietta,” she said as she stood and set the cat on the floor. “You’re a grown woman, and your life is your own. I’ve taken liberties, expressing my opinions to you when you didn’t ask for them. I apologize for that. Please forgive me.”

  Marietta looked relieved, then confused. “So... what does that mean?” she asked. “Can I stay here with you? At least for a few more days while I work out these little problems with Bill?”

  “No. You can’t stay.”

  “But—but you just admitted that you were wrong.’

  “I was wrong to give you advice that you didn't want. But you still have to go.”

  “But where? Where will I go if I can’t stay here?”

  “Home to your boys, maybe?”

  “There you go, judging me again. That was advice... and a statement about me not being a good mother.” Savannah’s remaining nerve snapped. “Dammit, Mari! You asked me. You asked me a specific question, and I answered it You can go home or you can go check into a cheap hotel. Lord knows there are plenty of them in your so-called boyfriend’s neighborhood. You can go fly a kite on the beach and sleep in your rented car. I don’t care what you do! But if you’re going to act stupider than stupid, you’re not going to do it around me, ’cause I have better things to do than watch it.”

  At that moment, she was once again saved by a bell; the telephone rang. As usual, it
was resting on the coffee table, and both she and Marietta dove for it.

  “Don’t you touch that stinkin’ telephone!” she shouted at her sister. “It’s my dad-gummed phone, and if you so much as lay a finger on it, I swear, I’ll beat you to a frazzle with it!”

  Marietta must have believed her, because she backed off—all the way to the other side of the living room— and stood there sulking.

  “Hello!” Savannah said into the phone with a vehemence rarely used for a simple telephone greeting unless one was expecting a telephone solicitor.

  “Hi. Is everything okay?” asked a velvet voice that could only belong to Ryan Stone.

  She instantly melted. “Ryan. I’m so glad to hear from you.” He had no idea how glad, but someday she might tell him the sad, sad story of how she had thrown her sister out onto the cold, cold street and ruined forever any chance she had of finding her One True Love.

  “I’m calling to ask you out on a date,” he said, a touch of humor in his words.

  “Yeah, right. Don’t toy with me, boy. My heart’s a fragile thing where you’re concerned.”

  “No, really. I’m hoping you’ll do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to a social function this evening. And if Tammy is free, John would like to take her. We realize it’s short notice, but it shouldn’t take long for you ladies to become ravishingly beautiful. It’s formal, by the way.”

  Savannah looked over at Marietta, who was still trembling with rage and indignation. She quickly weighed the options before her: Spend the evening with two delicious men at a formal affair. Fight with her sister for another two hours and wind up committing homicide. And as fun as that might be, there was the body disposal, which could prove tricky with all the new advances in forensic investigations.

  “We’ll come.”

  “Excellent. John will be delighted. We’ll pick you ladies up at half past seven.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Again, that throaty chuckle on the other end that never failed to set her knickers atwitter. “We’re going to Mystic Canyon. Specifically, to the Wentworth estate in Mystic Canyon for dinner, dancing, and a charity auction to benefit the county symphony. I believe several of the people you’re investigating in these murders will be attending. It should be fun.”

  Savannah grinned from ear to ear. “Oh, yes. I’m sure it will be. Thanks for thinking of us.”

  “Always, sweetheart. Always.”

  Savannah had to wait a moment or two after she hung up before her legs would work again. Ryan frequently had that effect on her. Then she walked past the incensed Marietta without a word and into the kitchen where Tammy waited, an expectant look on her pretty face.

  “Well, what did Ryan want?” she asked.

  Savannah laughed. “All I can say is: Put on your dancin’ a shoes, darlin’. We’re gonna rock the night away. And better yet, while we’re there, we’ll squeeze us some bad guys.”

  Tucked away in the hills behind San Carmelita, Mystic Canyon was a secluded and exclusive community where middle-class citizens, like Savannah, or even the upper-middle-class folk seldom ventured. This wasn’t because they didn’t want to venture there. It was simply because the overzealous guards at the gate made sure they didn’t get the chance.

  So Savannah felt more than a little pleased with her- i self when she sailed past the security booth with Ryan, John, and Tammy in the guys’ vintage silver Bentley.

  Savannah sat in the back seat of the car with Ryan, trying not to gawk and drool, as they drove past everything from stately Tudor mansions to sprawling Spanish haciendas—palatial residences that ranged from vintage Hollywood art deco to Miami Beach contemporary.

  Every estate reflected the skill and taste of some renowned architect and, perhaps, that of its wealthy owner. And each property created its own fantasy land for the occupants and visitors alike, inviting them to spend a bit of time on the French Riviera, the streets of Rome, or the baronial English countryside.

  “It’s nice to see how the rest of the world lives,” she said, thinking of her own leaky roof that needed repairs.

  “A very small segment of the rest,” Ryan replied, “if it’s any consolation.”

  “A little.”

  She glanced down at her evening attire, a simple black dress, and felt a fleeting moment of anxiety. When she went to one of these high-society events, she always felt a bit like Cinderella—a scullery maid who knew, no matter how she dressed, she was still just a poor girl from the Georgia cotton fields.

  But she dispelled her feelings of inadequacy by remembering what her grandmother had told her, “You’re from fine stock, Savannah girl, so hold your head up high and look ’em all square in the eye. They’ve got nothin’ over you, darlin’, so don’t let ’em think they do.”

  “You look fantastic this evening, Savannah,” Ryan said, as though sensing her momentary lapse of confidence. “You do that dress justice,” he added, glancing down at her abundant cleavage. The wraparound silk dress revealed a tasteful but tantalizing amount of creamy curves with its low V-neck. And it fulfilled her personal standard: “Show Off the Goods, But Don’t Be Trampy.”

  Savannah gave him a grin and a nudge. “Watch it. You’ll make John jealous.”

  “Too late for that,” John replied from the driver’s seat. “I’ve known all along that if Ryan ever leaves me for a woman, it’ll be you, Savannah. Besides, how can I be jealous when I have such a lovely companion myself this evening?”

  Sitting next to him, Tammy blushed nearly as red as the red satin sheath she was wearing. She did look especially lovely, Savannah thought, enjoying the look of pure pleasure on her young friend’s face. Tammy’s sun-bleached hair always glistened with health, as did her golden-tanned skin. But it was the kindness in her eyes that gave Tammy her greatest beauty, a warmth that enveloped and soothed everyone around her.

  Savannah was glad they had invited her along this evening to share in the fun—not to mention the espionage.

  “Here we are,” Ryan said as they approached the end of the road and a sumptuous French château. “This is the house that cereal built.”

  As they pulled into the long driveway and headed toward the front of the mansion and the circular motor court, Savannah stared up at the imposing limestone façade, the slate roof with its copper gutters, the mullioned windows sparkling in the golden light of early evening. “Wow,” she said. “They must have sold a heck of a lot of corn flakes.”

  “Not to mention puffed rice,” John added. “But even more importantly, Charles Wentworth and his son, Charles Wentworth II, were brilliant businessmen. They kept their company alive through the Great Depression and two World Wars, and not only survived, but flourished.”

  “The only thing Wentworth Industries can’t endure, it seems, is the reign of Charles III,” Ryan added, revealing a bit of sarcasm that was rare for him.

  “From what I hear,” John said, “the family business is in deep trouble due to some appalling mismanagement on the lad’s part. A dreadful shame, really.”

  They stopped in front of the house, where a queue consisting of a Mercedes, a BMW, a Porsche, and a Lamborghini waited while valets scrambled to greet the arriving guests and relieve them of their vehicles.

  “You should have seen old Dirko,” Tammy told John, sounding like a prissy five-year-old who was tattling on her older brother. “He dropped by Savannah’s just before you picked us up. Boy, he was livid that we were coming to this and he wasn’t.”

  Ryan laughed. “I can’t imagine that Dirk would enjoy himself at this sort of function,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like his cup of tea... or bottle of beer, as the case might be.”

  “It isn’t,” Savannah said. “It’s just that he’s afraid we’ll score something good on the case and he’ll miss it. Believe me, that’s the only reason he’s jealous. He couldn’t care less about the dining and dancing, let alone about fund-raising.”

  “Well, if we all keep sharp this evening,” John s
aid, “we might learn something that will help you catch this brute. Jealous or not, I’m sure your Dirk would welcome any help we can give him.”

  “Absolutely,” Savannah said as a fresh-faced young valet hurried to open her door. “An evening in opulence and splendor doesn’t exactly bite, but let’s not forget why we’re here.”

  As she stepped out of the Bentley and onto the granite-block motor court, she thought of Cait Connor and Kameeka Wills, who were far past helping. But Tesla Montoya was still out there somewhere and maybe it wasn’t too late for her.

  A shiver ran over her that had nothing to do with the cool California breeze that was sweeping through the canyon, bringing the sea fog and a damp chill with it. She wrapped her lace shawl around her shoulders, clutched her Gucci-knockoff bag, and slipped her arm through Ryan’s.

  Chapter

  17

  Along with a throng of other guests, the Moonlight Magnolia foursome moved through the château’s magnificent entryway, and like all the arrivals, they took their time, soaking in the ambience. A floor of white Carrera marble and a twenty-five-foot coffered ceiling with gold-leaf molding reflected the light from two magnificent crystal chandeliers. On either side, the maple walls had niches every few feet that contained antique statuary and bronzes, which Ryan whispered to her were French, nineteenth century.

  At the end of the hall, they were ushered into a great room that Savannah couldn’t help noticing was bigger than her entire house. The lofty ceiling here was also coffered, and thick, colorful tapestries hung on the walls, next to oil paintings that were everything from still lifes to portraits to European landscapes. Savannah didn’t have to ask if they had been purchased at the local poster shop, like much of her own art. Everything in the Wentworth mansion was the real thing.

  Except maybe Charles Wentworth III.

  Phony baloney, was Savannah’s instant analysis when she saw him enter the room in his white tuxedo, his wavy blond hair slicked back in Great Gatsby style and his mannerisms just as affected.