A Decadent Way to Die

by G. A. McKevett

Dirk listened for a moment, then turned to Savannah, a big smile on his face. “Really? Wow! Good work, dude! We’ll be right over.”

  Savannah sat with bated breath, holding a big bite of pancake, dripping with maple syrup, in front of her face. “What?” she asked, half excited, half annoyed.

  “John and Ryan were taking Helene for a nice morning stroll on the beach just now.”

  “And?”

  “When they got to the area where she went over the cliff, they looked up, and there it was.”

  “There was what?”

  “The boom box. It’s stuck there on the side of the hill, halfway up.”

  “Whoa! We’ve got to get our hands on that!”

  “Yeah.”

  She looked down at her plate, the golden cakes, the crispy bacon. The scrumptious aftertaste of that first bite, her only bite, still lingering on her palate.

  “I’m not going anywhere until I eat every morsel of this amazing breakfast you’ve made me,” she told him.

  “A team of mules couldn’t pull me away from this,” he agreed. “Friggin’ boom box can just hang for a while longer.”

  “I’d give anything to be that agile again,” Savannah told Dirk, Ryan, John, and Helene, as they stood on the beach and watched Tammy scale the cliff.

  “Heck,” Helene said, “I’ve given up standing on a step stool to get dishes out of my top kitchen cupboards.”

  “The only thing I hate worse than chickens,” Dirk added, “is heights.”

  “I think you just say that so that I won’t ask you to clean my gutters,” Savannah told him.

  “No, really. Three rungs up, I freeze.” He glanced over at Ryan and John. “Yeah, yeah, I know … you guys parachute and bungee jump when you’ve got nothin’ better to do on a Saturday afternoon. But you’re nuts. The both of you.”

  “But we located your evidence for you, loonies that we are,” John told him.

  “Something tells me you’ve hit pay dirt,” Ryan added. “Why else would someone toss that over the cliff, instead of just pitching it in the trash?”

  “Obviously, they didn’t think we’d find it.” Savannah looked at the beach sand under her feet and the waterline on the cliff. “Last night the tide was in. If they threw it away then, they probably thought it would hit the water and be carried away.”

  Dirk gave her a grin. “Now we know something else about our suspect—he or she throws like a girl. They couldn’t even clear the cliff.”

  Helene sniffed. “Let me tell you, sonny, in my day I threw a fast ball that you would have had a hard time hitting.”

  Savannah laughed, but she didn’t take her eyes off Tammy, who was about a quarter way up the hill, about half the distance to her goal.

  An avid rock climber, Tammy had been tickled pink when Savannah had called her earlier and asked her if she thought she could do this chore for them. She had scooted over to the Strauss estate and had arrived before Savannah and Dirk.

  Of course, Savannah had been glad to have an excuse to call her and check on her. And to see her young friend, practically jumping out of her shorts with excitement, thrilled to play an important part in the case, did Savannah’s worried heart a world of good.

  Apparently, Tammy’s meeting with her troublesome ex-boyfriend had gone well. She seemed in top spirits on this, the morning after.

  “She looks okay,” Dirk said as he watched Savannah watch Tammy.

  “Yeah. She does. For now,” Savannah replied tentatively.

  “Don’t worry,” Ryan told her. “Tammy’s a very good climber. John and I couldn’t keep up with her the last time we went to Mission Mountain.”

  “Doesn’t she need some sort of safety rope?” Savannah said as Tammy found new footing and lifted herself a bit higher.

  “Not for that one,” Ryan said. “A beginner could scale it with no problem, let alone an experienced climber like Tammy.”

  “She has a natural knack for it,” John added. “She’s already far better than Ryan or I will ever be.”

  “She has a fearless spirit,” Helene said, looking up the cliff at the young woman, who was within a couple of feet of her goal. “I like that in anyone, but especially a female.”

  “Yeah,” Savannah murmured, “though sometimes fear is a good thing. You wanna have a little bit of ‘scared spitless’ in your bones, say, when you’re wranglin’ a rattlesnake.”

  “She’s not going to run into any rattlesnake on that hill,” He-lene said. “Not with all the racket we’ve been making down here. They’ve crawled into their holes or left a long time ago.”

  “I’m not worried about the snakes that live in holes in the ground,” Savannah grumbled under her breath. “It’s those nasty, two-legged rattlers that bother me.”

  “Hey, I made it!” Tammy yelled down from her perch on a rock that jutted from the side of the cliff.

  With both feet firmly on the stone, she removed her climbing gloves and tucked them into her shirt pocket. Then she pulled a pair of surgical gloves from the back pocket of her shorts and put them on.

  Reaching up, she gently dislodged the portable stereo from the branch where it had caught.

  From the other back pocket of her shorts she took out a small nylon cord. Carefully, she tied one end around the handle of the boom box.

  “Here you go,” she said. “I’m sending it down.”

  “Let ’er rip, kiddo,” Dirk called to her as he pulled out his own gloves and put them on.

  Slowly, Tammy played out the cord, lowering it down until it reached Dirk’s outstretched hands.

  “Got it,” he said and dodged the cord as she released it.

  “Good girl! Careful coming down, sweetie,” Savannah called to her.

  Helene stepped up to Dirk and squinted, looking the boom box over carefully. “I don’t understand all the uproar over a stereo,” she said. “I agree my nephew should have put it in the garbage, instead of littering the property with it, but that’s hardly a concern for the police, I should think.”

  Dirk was instantly alert. “Did you actually see Waldo throwing this away?” he asked her.

  “Of course not. If I had, I’d have yelled at him and sent him down the cliff to get it. We know what to do with garbage.”

  “Then why are you assuming he was the one who pitched it?” Savannah asked her.

  Helene shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose because it’s his.”

  “Are you sure?” Dirk asked. “These things look a lot alike … black, rectangular, buttons …”

  “Certainly, I’m sure. I gave it to him for his birthday a couple of years ago. I picked it out myself. I don’t forget things like that. In fact, I don’t forget much of anything.”

  “I’ll bet you don’t, love.” John gave her a smile and patted her shoulder. He turned to Dirk. “If she says it’s her nephew’s, it is.”

  “Fine with me,” Dirk said under his breath.

  Savannah watched as Tammy made quick work of returning down the cliff.

  Dirk was squatting on the beach, the stereo balanced on his thigh, when Tammy jumped down onto the sand.

  “Excellent work there, girlie,” Savannah told her, giving her a hug and a slap on the back.

  “No sweat.” Tammy brushed the dirt off her clothes, then removed her climbing gloves. “In fact, it was fun.”

  “Not as fun as beating us to the top of Mission Mountain,” Ryan said, giving her a playful nudge.

  Tammy poked him back and laughed. “No. Not nearly as much fun as that.”

  Savannah looked over Dirk’s shoulder and watched as he pushed the eject button on the player and caused the CD drive door to open. A small amount of water trickled out.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, looking up at her with eyes twinkling. “We have water inside.”

  “Hallelujah,” Savannah answered.

  “What’s so good about that?” Helene wanted to know.

  Instantly, Savannah’s mood plummeted. What was good news to them was going to cause
a lot of pain to a nice lady. And Savannah wasn’t sure how to tell her.

  She didn’t have to.

  Helene’s sharp mind processed the information, and she came to her own conclusion in an instant. “Oh,” she said sadly. “I see. You’re happy because you believe you’ve found the murder weapon … which happens to belong to my grandnephew.”

  “Yes, Helene,” Savannah said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Helene turned to leave. “Not as sorry as I am,” she said as she walked away.

  As Savannah walked Tammy along the beach and down the forest path, back to her car, she tried to get a reading off her young friend’s mood.

  She had seemed buoyant enough before the climb, and ecstatic afterward, while reveling in the praise of the team. But now, as they strolled through the sun-dappled woods, Tammy seemed worried and preoccupied.

  “You did really well back there. Thanks again,” Savannah told her.

  Tammy took the ponytail scrunchy out of her hair and shook the glossy length free. It fell around her shoulders, looking like a golden, satin curtain.

  Savannah couldn’t help but think that Tammy could have her pick of men. Pretty, sweet, funny, and smart, she was a prize.

  Far too good for the likes of that Chad creep, she told herself. May he run into a grizzly bear with a big hunk of bacon fat in his back pocket.

  Savannah also realized that any mother, big sister, or adopted big sister would think the same thing.

  Of course, in Tammy’s case, it was true.

  “I know why you’re including me so much in this case,” Tammy said with a bit of sadness in her voice. “You’re trying to build me up, make me feel better about myself.”

  “You shouldn’t have one blamed reason to feel anything but good about yourself, Tammy Hart. Don’t underestimate yourself … or the contributions you’ve made to this case. Nobody waiting for you at the foot of that hill today wanted to climb it … or could have the way you did.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  They walked on down the path until they saw the front of the mansion through the trees and Tammy’s Volkswagen Beetle sitting in the driveway in front of it.

  “How did it go last night?” Savannah couldn’t help asking.

  “Okay. Nice actually. He brought me some pretty roses and a box of candy. Apologized like crazy for doubting me yesterday … for thinking I was with another guy.”

  Savannah felt her pulse quicken. If this kept up, she’d have to be on blood-pressure medication or tranquilizers before the end of the week.

  “Um …” she said, knowing she was wading into quicksand. “If you broke up with him, it really wasn’t any of his damned business who you were with or where you were yesterday, right?”

  Tammy shrugged. “I guess we’re sort of back together again. He asked me for another chance, and I said okay.” She glanced at Savannah and quickly added, “I told him not to ever put me down like he did before in front of you or anybody else. He promised he wouldn’t.”

  “It’d be nice,” Savannah said, “if he was just a decent man, who wouldn’t dream of embarrassing you in front of your friends in the first place. A respectful man treats you respectfully without you having to demand it from him.”

  Tammy stopped in the middle of the path, her arms crossed over her chest. Tears sprang to her eyes. “Not everybody’s as okay about being single as you are, Savannah. I get really lonely sometimes. And when he’s good, Chad’s really good, you know? Yeah, we have our fights, like every couple does. But most of the time, he really makes me feel special.”

  “You’re special all of the time, Tammy. All, not most. And that’s how he should treat you.”

  “You really need to stay out of this, Savannah,” she told her. “It’s my business, my relationship. Not yours.”

  “I understand that. And believe me, I’m not saying half of what I want to. My tongue’s bloody from biting it.”

  Tammy’s face turned red with anger, more than Savannah had ever seen before. She hardly recognized her friend at all. And it shocked and deeply saddened her.

  “Well, we don’t want you to have a bloody tongue, Savannah. Say whatever you’re dying to say. Say it once, and get it out of your system.”

  “He has a record, Tammy. He’s had three restraining orders against him, from three different girlfriends. He assaulted two of them. This guy’s a batterer!”

  Tammy stood there, eyes locked with hers, hardly blinking. She said nothing, just lifted her chin a notch.

  “Oh, my God,” Savannah said. “You already knew!”

  “Of course, I knew,” Tammy replied coldly. “I run background checks for a living. I’m a detective, remember? You taught me well.”

  “But … then … how could you …?” Savannah was totally flummoxed. “I don’t understand why you …”

  “I talked to him about it on our second date. He explained it all to me.”

  “How the hell do you explain away three ROs and two assaults?”

  Tammy sighed. “If you must know, he was living with the first one—had been for a couple of years—and he came home and found her in bed with his best friend. And, okay, he lost it. He hit them both, her and him, once each, and then he walked out and left her. A crime of passion, Savannah. It could happen to anybody. You joke all the time about smacking people with skillets.”

  “Yes, but I don’t actually do it. I’m quite protective of my cast iron cookware. Besides … threatening people with strange forms of violence is just a quaint, Southern custom.”

  The two women stared at each other for a long, terribly uncomfortable time. Finally, Savannah said, “How about the other one? Two assaults.”

  “That was his last girlfriend,” Tammy replied. “She used to hit him all the time. One night, he just pushed her off him, and she called the cops. That’s all there was to it.”

  “And if you believe that one, I’ve got some marshmallows to sell you. He can go roast them in hell, telling you some cock-a-mammy story like that one.”

  Tammy’s eyes went even colder, her face harder than before. “Okay, Savannah. You’ve said your piece. Now, I’m going to ask you for the last time to stay out of my personal business.”

  Savannah felt her own temper rising and fought to keep it down. “You got it,” she said as calmly as she could manage. “Just, please, think it over.”

  But Tammy was already walking away. And Savannah could sense the distance between herself and her beloved, long-time, best buddy widening.

  In fact, Savannah felt like her friend was already a hundred miles away.

  “Hey, Van,” Dirk called out to her, as she made her way back to his Buick, which was parked on the path near the cliff. “Come here.”

  He was alone now. Ryan and John had left with Helene.

  With his trunk lid up, he was rummaging around inside. She could see a large brown evidence envelope, sealed, and neatly tucked away on the left side of the interior. The right side was far less than tidy, housing an inordinate amount of Dirk’s “manly man” junk—fishing poles, a tackle box, baseball bat, football, and a box filled with Elvis and Johnny Cash CDs.

  “We got some news,” he said, slamming the trunk closed.

  He looked excited. She wished she could be excited. But after that encounter with Tammy, she felt lower than a hog with his chin on an auction block.

  “What’s up?” she asked, trying to sound like she gave a hoot.

  “West Hollywood called. They picked up Waldo at that bar. They’re holding him for me. I’m gonna go drop this boom box over at the lab and then drive down and get him. Wanna come along?”

  She thought it over for a minute. “No, thanks,” she said.

  “Really? Since when don’t you want to have your finger in the middle of the pie?”

  “Sticking my fingers in other people’s pies … that’s been getting me in trouble lately,” she said. “I think I’m going to go talk to Helene. I don’t want
her to hear about Waldo from somebody else first. Then I’ve got some fences to mend.”

  He reached over and tugged on one of her curls. “You sure? Are you okay?”

  “No,” she said, giving him a tired smile. “I’m not okay. And right now, I’m not sure about much of nothin’.”

  Chapter 20

  John answered the door of the mansion when Savannah knocked and escorted her into the great room.