Sugar and Spite

by G. A. McKevett

  Yes, this man was definitely capable of what they suspected and more. He had hired his arson and killing done out of convenience and self-preservation, not squeamishness; instinct told her that.

  “Exactly what am I supposed to pay you to keep quiet about?” he asked out of one side of his mouth, just like a Hollywood gangster.

  She glanced around quickly, but no one seemed to be watching. The other patrons had gone back to their own drinking and miscellaneous flirting.

  She leaned toward him until their shoulders were touching. She could feel he was very aware of the contact.

  “You need to pay me ...” she said, “... for keeping quiet about how you hired somebody to whack my sister Polly.”

  The guy was good; he didn’t even flinch. He stared her straight in the eye, and said with a smile, “Bullshit.”

  She smiled right back. “No shit, Mr. Cooper. You did it. She told me she was afraid you were going to, what with her leaning on you for the plastic surgery and the new teeth and all that stuff. She even went back to her old man, the cop, for protection. But you had your guy go right into his trailer and kill her.”

  “And who else have you told about this?”

  “Oh, I haven’t said a word to a soul ... except for what I wrote in the letter that’s in my safe-deposit box at my bank. The box that my attorney has been told to open if anything were to happen to me.”

  “And what would you say if I told you, ‘I don’t know you. I didn’t know any Polly. And I don’t have the slightest idea what the hell you’re talking about.’ ”

  “I’d say you aren’t half as smart a man as people tell me you are.”

  Cooper threw back the rest of what was in his glass and motioned for a refill. Savannah declined another herself and waited for him to receive his fresh one before she gave him further zingers.

  “I loved my sister a lot,” she said, feeling her nose grow several inches. “Polly was a great gal.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I thought she was a bitch, myself. You should be glad she’s not around.”

  Savannah chuckled. “Okay. That’s true. She was. But she owed me a lot of money. And now I’ll never get paid back.”

  “You wouldn’t have been paid anyway ... from what I’ve heard about the lady. No firsthand knowledge, of course.”

  “Of course.” Savannah turned on her stool to face him directly. “I want fifty thousand. One time. In cash. You won’t ever hear from me again, I promise.” She donned a haggard, street-weary look. “I want to get out of this stupid town and back to Miami. And I want to fly first-class.”

  He thought long and hard before answering. “And what about your ... letter?”

  “There’s only one copy, and it stays in the safe-deposit box. Just for a bit of life insurance.”

  “And what if you die before I do. What then?”

  “Well, I’m at least twenty-plus years younger than you. If we both kick off through natural causes, you won’t have anything to worry about, huh?”

  His fingers were wrapped so tightly around his glass that she half expected it to crack in his hand. Obviously, Mr. Ethan Cooper didn’t like having a gun—even a figurative one—to his head.

  She, on the other hand, was loving every moment of it. Though she had the definite, uneasy feeling that if they were alone and not in a public place, he would have his hands around her throat instead of that glass.

  But, upset or not, Cooper was also a man of keen, swift decision-making capabilities.

  “One time,” he said. “Fifty thousand, once. If you ever come back for more, I swear you’ll die. And this time, I wouldn’t bother hiring it out. I’d do it myself.”

  A shot of adrenaline went through her, sweeter than any sugar fix or alcohol buzz. Hot damn! A confession!

  “Tomorrow night. Right here,” she said. “Don’t forget—it’s to be in cash.”

  “Don’t you forget,” he replied. “One time. And your ass goes to Miami to stay.”

  “Absolutely. Good night, Mr. Cooper.”

  “Go to hell, lady.”

  It was all Savannah could do not to run across the restaurant parking lot to get into the large black van parked there. But she restrained herself and walked casually, trying not to skip or whistle, “Zip-a-dee Doo Dah!”

  As she approached the van, she whispered, “It’s me. Open sesame!”

  A side door of the van slid open and a hand reached for her. She took it and was pulled inside, where she was hugged, kissed, and slapped on the back by the entire Moonlight Magnolia team who had squeezed inside the van with all the highly technical surveillance equipment. The vehicle was owned and driven by John Gibson, who also gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “You did it, Van!” Dirk said, pulling her onto his lap and slapping her rear. “I can’t believe he actually said it.”

  “And you got it?” she asked, looking anxiously at the digital readouts and blinking lights on the recording equipment.

  “Every word,” Ryan assured her. “Loud and clear.”

  “We were all listening,” Tammy said, beaming even in the semidarkness. “You did great!”

  “Well, I hope you took notes, kiddo,” she told her. “’Cause tomorrow, it’s your turn. I got Cooper; and first thing tomorrow morning, you’ll go after the good doctor.”

  Although Savannah had found it difficult to sleep while still flying high on the wings of Sweet Victory, she had finally dropped off around 1:00 A.M. An hour later, she tossed and turned, dreaming. It was an older sister/surrogate mommy’s nightmare.

  One of the kids was crying. Sobbing in their sleep.

  It was the baby. Atlanta.

  “’Lanta, honey ... what’s wrong?” Savannah whispered, fighting to wake up. Even after all these years, she was on duty. Big sisters could never really desert their posts.

  “I’m coming, sweetie,” she said, rolling onto her side and throwing back the bedcovers. “Atlanta, you shouldn’t have eaten all that ice cream. You know it gives you a bellyache....”

  But it wasn’t Atlanta. The voice was male.

  “Waycross?”

  Her only brother. He seldom cried in his sleep. Something bad must be wrong.

  It wasn’t until Savannah was standing and walking toward her bedroom door that she realized ... she was fully awake. But the nightmare crying was continuing.

  Dirk?

  Alarmed, she hurried down the dark hall toward her guest bedroom. In all the years she had known him, she had never seen Dirk cry. Tear up a bit, get husky in the voice, maybe, but never actually cry. And certainly not these horrible, wracking sobs.

  She didn’t bother to knock but went directly into the bedroom.

  The golden light from the streetlamp shone through the gauze curtains and across the bed that was spread with Granny Reid’s tulip-patterned quilt. She saw Dirk lying there, under the quilt, his face in shadow, his broad shoulders heaving as he wept.

  She rushed to his bedside, leaned over, and tugged on his arm. “Dirk, are you all right, darlin’? No, of course you’re not all right. What a stupid thing to ask. I just ... oh, honey....”

  Without thinking of mundane things like propriety, she crawled into the bed beside him and rolled him over onto his back. He continued to cry, his hands over his face.

  “Dirk, buddy, come on. Talk to me. What is it?”

  “She’s dead,” he managed between hitching gasps. “She’s gone, and she’s not coming back. Ever.”

  “Oh, I know, hon. I know. I’m so sorry.”

  As she would have done with any of her siblings, Savannah slid her arm under his neck and pulled his head over onto her shoulder. She wiped his tear-wet hair back from his forehead and placed several soft kisses there. He tasted salty with sweat; his body was cold to her touch.

  She had to remind herself that, in spite of their earlier triumph with Cooper, Dirk had just buried his murdered former wife’s ashes at sea, and he was entitled to grieve. She just hated to see him taking it so hard.
<
br />   “It’s over now,” he said. “All over.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said, hoping to comfort him.

  But her words seemed to only intensify his sorrow. “You don’t get it,” he said. “Now I can’t make it right with her. Not ever. No chance now.”

  “Oh, I see.” Savannah realized he had not only lost Polly, but the fantasy of ever having a successful relationship with her. Bygones would never be bygones. No kiss and make up was possible now. Even hope was dead.

  “I yelled at her,” he said, his face pressed against the bodice of her flannel nightgown. “The last time I saw her, I yelled at her.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.”

  “I called her rotten names and told her to get out. I...”

  She hugged him tighter as he fought to catch his breath and continue, “I ... told her I never ... wanted to see her again. And then ...”

  “Sh-h-h-h. It’s all right. You didn’t mean it like that. She knew you didn’t mean it. You threw her out all the time, but you always took her back. She knew you cared for her.”

  He put his arm around her waist and rolled against her, his body, warm and hard, pressed against the length of hers. For half a moment, Savannah realized they were finally in bed together. After all the years. After all the fantasies. After all the maybe ... no, maybe nots.

  But in her fantasies it had never been like this. Nothing so sad.

  He buried his face against her breast, his tears wetting the front of her gown. She stroked his hair and murmured incoherent, soothing sounds as he continued to confess.

  “I told her I was sorry,” he said. “When she was dying, and I was holding her. But I don’t think she heard me. I think she was already ...”

  “She heard you, sweetheart. People hear everything when they’re leaving. She heard you, and she knew what was in your heart. Polly died in the arms of someone who loved her. We should all be so fortunate when our time comes.”

  She bowed her head and kissed some of the tears away from his cheeks. “You helped her, darlin’. Really you did. You made her passing more gentle by being there, by holding her. That’s all you could do. It’s all anyone could have done.”

  That seemed to help a little.

  Gradually, his sobs subsided and his grip on her lessened. She could feel his body relaxing, the hardness, the tension melting from his muscles.

  She rocked him gently, back and forth, like her grandmother had her years ago, when her own world had come tumbling down. His breathing became slow and easy.

  Ten minutes later, Dirk was asleep, his arms still around her, his face still buried in her chest. In the dim yellow light of the streetlamp, his street-tough face had softened, and he looked years younger.

  Ten minutes more, and he was sound asleep, even snoring a bit. He was back to being Dirk.

  But dawn was breaking before Savannah finally slipped her arm from beneath him and returned to her own bed ... tired, but infinitely glad she had been able to help a friend.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Savannah expected things to be a bit awkward between them the next morning, but Dirk woke with a “Let’s Go Git’Em” attitude, and even refused breakfast before they piled into his Buick and took off for Tammy’s apartment.

  “Do you think the bimbo can pull this off?” he asked as they headed along Harrington Boulevard toward the seaside area where Tammy lived.

  “She isn’t a bimbo and, of course, she can. You should give her more credit.” Silently, Savannah cursed him for uttering the words of doubt that echoed the ones in her own mind. “Besides, Tammy has to do it,” she added. “I can’t go see the doctor, saying I’m yet another person. He and Cooper might compare notes and find the two of me too similar.”

  “I just don’t trust her to get it right. This is important.”

  “Well, you have to trust her. Unless one of you guys want to dress up in drag and pretend to be Joleen the hairstylist.”

  “Not me. Maybe Ryan or John would want to—”

  “Don’t even go there,” she warned him. “After all they and ‘the bimbo’ have done for you lately, I’d think you’d be a bit more gracious than usual. It wouldn’t take much,” she added under her breath.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  Savannah nearly gasped. Such a heartfelt apology from Dirk was a rare commodity, indeed. His emotional state was obviously far more fragile than she had thought. She vowed to handle him a bit more gently.

  “No apology necessary,” she said.

  They drove along in silence for a while. She could feel his mood deteriorating by the moment. A sideways glance at his face told her his thoughts were far away and sad. She wondered if he was embarrassed about crying in her presence last night.

  “Are you okay today, buddy?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” he replied.

  She thought for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “You don’t need to feel weird about ... you know, anything. I mean, there’s no shame in grief. There’s nothing wrong with letting it out, even crying a little when—”

  “I wish I could,” he said brusquely, cutting her off.

  “Could what?”

  “Cry. You chicks have it good. When you feel rotten, you blubber. Us guys don’t get to do that.”

  She turned and stared at him, not sure she had heard him correctly.

  “You wish you could cry?” she said. “Do you mean, like, now?”

  “Now. Anytime. Sometimes I just wish I could let go and bawl like a baby. Shit, I haven’t cried for years. It would probably feel good to just let it all hang out.”

  She continued to stare at him, her mouth open. Could it be that he didn’t remember? Had he been asleep the whole time? Sleepwalking was one thing. But sleep crying?

  She shook her head. Men. Such weird creatures. Who could figure them out?

  Ten minutes later, they pulled up in front of Tammy’s apartment and tooted the horn. She came running out, dressed in her idea of what a hairstylist/cosmetologist would look like. Far too made-up. Hair much too big. A bright, floral-print shirt and hot pink capris that were way too tight.

  “The Cosmetologists’ Union should hang her from a lamppost by her three-inch-long nails,” Savannah said as she watched her assistant bounce merrily down the sidewalk to their car. “Such gross misrepresentation.”

  Dirk shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. She looks kinda cute.”

  Savannah shook her head. “Your taste in women leaves something to be desired. The next time you tell me I look great I’m going to go right back into the house and change clothes.”

  Tammy climbed into the Buick’s backseat, amid the fast-food wrappers and old newspapers. “Well, what do you think?” she asked proudly, throwing her hands wide.

  “Are the nails glue-ons?” Savannah asked.

  “Yep. So is half of the hair. Pinned on, that is.”

  “What’s your name?” Dirk asked gruffly.

  “Joleen.”

  “And what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a hairstylist who doesn’t make nearly enough money to keep quiet about everything I know ... all kinds of sordid details that my customer, Polly, told me just before her untimely death.”

  Dirk nodded approvingly. “Not bad.”

  “How much money are you asking for?” Savannah quizzed her.

  “Fifty thousand ... and liposuction on my thighs.”

  Savannah and Dirk both grinned. She said, “Good girl.”

  He added, “Maybe we don’t have so much to worry about after all ... with the bimbo on the job.”

  Tammy beamed, actually pleased with the compliment.

  Savannah made a mental note to compliment the poor kid a little more often.

  After rendezvousing with Ryan and John, who were driving the “Bat Van” as Savannah called it, they drove to a small coffee shop across the street from San Carmelita’s Community General Hospital. Savannah and Dirk
left the Buick parked on the street, while John pulled the van into a lot behind the restaurant. They all congregated inside the van.

  “Check your wire to make sure it’s working,” Ryan told Tammy as he switched on blinking red, green, and yellow lights on black-box equipment and adjusted various dials and toggle switches.

  “Testing one, two, three. There once was a girl from Nantucket ...” Tammy stopped and giggled. “Sorry, I’ve been hanging out with Savannah too long.”

  Dirk glanced at his watch. “Enough nonsense. It’s almost eight hundred hours, the time the old doc orders his hotcakes and sausage. You’d better get going.”

  “John will be in there with you, sitting at the bar, if you run into trouble,” Savannah said. “And we’ll be listening to and recording every word out here. Remember the cue: ‘I have to go to the john.’ If we hear that, we’re comin’ in. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Savannah gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Scared?”

  “More like excited.”

  “Good. Then you’re ready.”

  Tammy started to open the van door, but Dirk reached out and held her by the arm. “I just want to say, I really appreciate you doing this,” he told her. “You don’t have to, and ...”

  “No problem.” She patted his hand, then threw the van door open. “And don’t thank me ...” she said, climbing out, “... until we get something good on that tape.”

  “Nothing good yet,” Savannah sighed as they sat tensely in the van, listening to Tammy’s and the doctor’s voices that came from the small speaker in the ceiling over their heads. “This guy’s smarter than Cooper. He’s not going to give us anything we can take to the bank.”

  Tammy and Dr. Julian Rafferty had been talking for more than ten long minutes, and he had skillfully avoided anything even remotely resembling a confession.

  “So, let me get this straight,” he was saying. “You expect me to give you fifty thousand dollars and perform complimentary liposuction on you, so that you won’t go to the police with some ridiculous rumor that I had something to do with some woman’s murder. A woman I never met.”