“The beach. I want to try out that new, red bikini…see what I can catch with it.”
“A sexually transmitted disease, if you aren’t careful,” Savannah muttered. Then, louder, she said, “I’m going to bed now. You make yourself at home. I’ll turn down the covers in the guest bedroom and you—”
The front doorbell chimed, and Savannah jumped. “Who the heck is that at this ungodly hour?”
“Savannah,” Tammy said, “it’s only eight o’clock. You probably just feel like it’s one in the morning.”
Savannah went to the door and peeked through the peephole. The sight of the man on the other side of her door was enough to set her heart racing.
The sight of Ryan Stone was enough to set her pulse and her hormones to racing any time, day or night.
She flung open the door and feasted her eyes on male splendor at its most dazzling.
Wearing a black tux, a red rose in his lapel, and a crisp white shirt that set off his handsome, chiseled, tanned face to perfection, he was simply gorgeous. And so was his partner, John Gibson, who was standing beside him.
Equally debonair, dressed in a similar tux, John was older than Ryan, with thick silver hair, pale blue eyes, and a neatly trimmed mustache. His British accent was strong and sweet as he held out a lavender rose to Savannah and said, “Good evening, milady. We’ve been…” He hesitated as his eyes swept over her, taking in the now-rumpled slacks and jacket, her mussed hair and makeup-free face. “…looking forward to this for weeks.”
Ryan looked her over, too, and seemed a bit confused when he said, “We did mention that we were picking you up at eight o’clock?” He turned to John, looking somewhat concerned, and added, “You did tell her it’s black-tie, right, John?”
“Um…” John shifted from one foot to the other and cleared his throat. “I do hope I mentioned that. You know—it being the Center for Performing Arts Annual Gala—it’s one of those rather stuffy affairs.”
“Oh, my goodness, I totally forgot!” Savannah wished that, like some wicked witch, she could just dissolve into a big puddle of water on the floor and then disappear.
She opened the door wider and pulled them both inside. “I am so, so sorry! I can’t believe I…oh…I feel lower than a skunk’s belly. Or is it a toad’s belly? It doesn’t matter. I can’t believe I let that slip my mind!”
“Quite understandable, love,” John said, planting a kiss on her cheek, “and completely forgivable. We heard on the news that your past twenty-four hours have been most exciting.”
Ryan put his hand under her chin and turned her face into the light. “Savannah, are you okay? You look pale and a little under the weather.”
“You’ve just never seen me without my face paint on before. Maybelline and Max Factor are two of my closest friends.”
He laughed. “I’ve seen you without makeup, and you’re lovely either way. But you look really tired.”
“As a matter of fact, I was on my way to bed, but now that I’ve seen you, I’ve perked right up.”
“Me, too!” Marietta came sailing into the foyer from the living room. “And, unlike my sister here, I do have my face on and am available. You know…since y’all don’t have nobody to escort to your shindig.”
As though in slow motion, Savannah watched the looks of helplessness and horror cross her friends’ faces.
They knew her sister well, having met her during one of her previous visits. She really couldn’t blame them.
As though from far away, she heard Marietta say, “I don’t have no evening gown with me, but I’ve got a really cute little tiger-striped stretchy dress that’s cut way down to here and way up to there. It shows off all my feminine assets to their best possible advantage. And I can slip into it nearly as fast as I can slip out of it.”
Savannah tried to think fast, fast enough to save them. But her brain was crawling when it needed to sprint.
“Well, that’s a lovely, tempting offer,” John said, with all the enthusiasm of a man being offered dental surgery without anesthesia. “I hardly know what to say.”
“Me either,” Ryan added.
“Hey!” Tammy shouted from the living room. “I’ve got it! Look at this, everybody!”
Savannah and her three guests all rushed en masse into the living room, where Tammy was hopping up and down in her chair.
No matter what she’s got, Savannah thought, the kid gets a raise just for rescuing Ryan and John from spending a night in Marietta Hades.
“I was trying to sharpen the focus and all that, to define the spatter. It’s so fine, and it just barely shows. It wasn’t easy, you know. But I was using this new photo manipulation program you gave me for Christmas, and when I applied this one special effect to it, that sort of changes the positive image to a negative image, I—”
“Tamitha,” Savannah said, leaning over her shoulder and staring at the gray-white screen with fine black dots, “I’m old and tired. Just tell us what you see there, Sweet-pea.”
“It’s not the outline of a gun,” she said, pointing to a distinct area that was clear of any spatter. “The lines are pretty clear, and straight. When he got shot, the glove compartment was open and something was lying in it. The fine high-velocity blood spray went all over the interior of the compartment, except where the object masked it.”
Savannah explained to Ryan and John, “Dirk thought it might be a gun, because it would make sense that Jardin might have been reaching for a weapon if he felt threatened.”
Ryan nodded. “Makes sense.”
“But it wasn’t a gun. Look at that shape,” Tammy said. “It’s more like something square was lying there—or rectangle, actually—something with straight edges.”
“A piece of paper?” Savannah said.
“Maybe something like a brochure?” John suggested.
“Or the owner’s manual?” Ryan said. “Most people keep the manual in the glove compartment.”
“Or an envelope?” Tammy said.
Savannah thought that one over for a moment and a bell went off in her head. “He told his girlfriend, Sharona, that he had to pay off a debt that he owed to a bookie named Pinky before he could leave with her to go to Las Vegas. What if he had the money in the glove compartment? Maybe he met somebody to make a payment, and when he reached over to pull the envelope out of the car…bang.”
“Girlfriend? Bookie named Pinky? Gambling debts?” John said with a raised eyebrow. “It sounds like this fellow had a complicated life, to say the least.”
“Oh, you have no idea how complicated.” Savannah took John by the hand and laced her arm through Ryan’s. “Just park yourselves down over here and let me tell you al-l-l about it.”
For the next hour, Savannah sat on the sofa between Ryan and Tammy as she filled the guys in on the pertinent facts of the case. No one seemed to mind that they were missing the society event of the season.
John relaxed in Savannah’s wingback chair, while Marietta wriggled around on the floor, adjusting her back, performing semi-obscene yoga-type stretches, doing what she called “gettin’ them blasted kinks out” after her long trip. With the gymnastics and the come-hither looks she kept shooting at Ryan, she was, as Gran would say, “Makin’ a spectacle of herself in front o’ God and ever’body.”
Savannah would have blushed for her, if she’d had the energy. But she decided, instead, to just beat her once she’d rested up and had the strength to wield a baseball bat.
Ryan and John listened with rapt attention as she filled them in on the many and sordid adventures of the recently departed William “Bill” Jardin. And it was all a lot of “jolly good fun” as John would say…until she hit the wall.
She didn’t see it coming, the wall that marked the boundary of her endurance level. She was, simply, there one minute and gone the next.
“Savannah?” Ryan said as she slid sideways and collapsed against him, her head on his shoulder.
“She’s out,” Tammy said with a giggle. “I knew
she would be pretty soon. She was running on empty all day.”
“Poor girl,” John said, jumping to his feet and grabbing the well-loved, well-worn afghan that was draped over the back of her chair. He hurried to the sofa.
Ryan eased her down, and Tammy placed one of the loose cushions beneath her head. Then Ryan gently lifted her legs and straightened her out, nearly the full length of the couch.
John covered her, tucking the crocheted throw around her feet and legs. When he pulled the cover up to her chin, he knelt down and placed a kiss on her forehead.
Ryan told Tammy. “I’d bet money that she’ll sleep right through the night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that tired.”
“Oh, tired, sh-mired,” Marietta said, getting up off the floor, a sour look on her face. “Savannah always did have a lazy streak wide as the Mississippi River…not to mention being a big party pooper.”
She sidled up to Ryan, toying with a stiffly sprayed lock of her hair. “I, on the other hand, can go all…night…long.”
Ryan shot John a somewhat frantic “save me” look.
And John came to the rescue. He looked at his watch. “Oh, dear, I had no idea it was so late. Don’t we have to get back to the flat and attend to those game hens? They’ve been marinating much too long and will be over-seasoned for tomorrow’s dinner.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Ryan agreed, nearly running for the door. “Too much rosemary can ruin a bird.”
As they disappeared out the door, the startled Marietta turned to Tammy. “Well, if that ain’t a fine how-do-you-do! I never figured the two of them for farmers.”
“Farmers?”
“Yeah, they’re all in a tizzy, worrying about those hens. And who the hell is Rosemary? I thought they were gay.”
As Ryan and John made their getaway, hurrying down the sidewalk toward their classic Bentley in the driveway, Ryan said to John, “Marinating game hens? You never cook game hens. Where the hell did you get that?”
John shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the business Savannah told us about the chicken droppings on Jardin’s tires.”
“Ah. Divine inspiration.”
“Precisely.”
When Savannah regained consciousness the next morning, it was to the ringing of the house phone and Tammy’s soft voice that was half-whispering, “Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency. How may I help you?”
It took Savannah a few seconds to orient herself and realize she was on her couch, instead of in bed, and the sun was shining outside her windows. Faithful Diamante was at her feet, Cleopatra was curled snugly against her chest, and Granny Reid’s hand-crocheted afghan was over her. The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee scented the air, along with something that smelled deliciously like home-baked cinnamon rolls.
Life didn’t get much sweeter than this.
“She’s sleeping, and I hate to wake her. Is it really important?” Tammy was saying from her seat at the desk in the corner.
Tammy turned and looked at Savannah. Seeing that she was awake, she put her hand over the phone and said, “I’m sorry, but it’s your sister. She’s all upset, almost hysterical. And she says she has to talk to her big sister.”
“Hysterical sister?” Savannah groaned. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Vidalia.”
“Ah, that figures. Ask her whose life and whose death.”
Tammy hesitated. Being a kindhearted and truly superior human being, Tammy found it difficult to be rude. “Do you really want me to ask her that? She is crying.”
“Vi has a kid every year and a half…unless she’s having twins,” Savannah said, forcing herself to sit up. “She’s always suffering from either pregnancy hormones or postpartum depression. Hand me the phone.”
Scooping up Cleopatra with one hand, Savannah relocated the enormous kitty to the other end of the sofa, next to her equally oversized sister.
“Here’s Savannah,” Tammy was saying into the phone as she walked across the room. “Feel better.”
“What is that amazing smell?” Savannah asked as she took the phone.
“Coffee and cinnamon buns.”
Savannah couldn’t believe it. “Marietta brewed coffee and baked?”
Tammy blushed, as always, embarrassed to be caught doing a good deed. “Um…no, I did. I thought you might need some of that awful crud that you eat to get you going this morning.”
“I adore you.”
“Same here. I’ll get some for you.”
“God bless that girl,” Savannah whispered as she watched Tammy scurry away to the kitchen. “Whatever did I do to deserve her?”
She took a deep breath and held the phone to her ear. “Vi,” she said. “Who’s about to die? You? You didn’t find out that it’s twins again, did you?”
Vidalia already had two sets of twins. She was pregnant again and the whole family was praying it was only one. Another set might just put her over the edge.
Vidalia pretty much pitched her tent right on the edge anyway. It wouldn’t take much of a nudge to send her over.
“It ain’t me who’s gonna die,” Vidalia said between hiccuping sobs. “It’s that no-good-for-nothin’ sister of yours who’s gonna get a bullet through her head next time I see her.”
“No-good-for-nothing sister,” Savannah mused as she ran her fingers through her hair and stretched. “Could you narrow it down a bit?”
“Marietta! That’s who I’m talkin’ about. Mar—i—e-eta. She’s pushed me too far this time, and she’s gonna get what’s been comin’ to her for years. I’m gonna stomp a mud hole in her. You wait and see if I don’t.”
“Now, Vi, don’t talk nasty about your sister. It ain’t proper,” Savannah said, conveniently forgetting that, only the night before, she had threatened to do Marietta bodily harm with a baseball bat.
“Don’t you scold me!” Vidalia shot back. “You ain’t Gran, so don’t go gettin’ bossy with me, girl.”
“If you didn’t want me to boss you around why the blazes would you call me? You know how I am.” She yawned. “Why are you all riled up? What did she do to you this time?”
“She seduced Butch!”
Savannah snapped wide awake. “She what? Butch? Your Butch?”
Picturing the sweet, easygoing garage mechanic who had fathered Vidalia’s brood and tolerated her moods for years now, Savannah just couldn’t imagine it. Not that Butch was above it, or Marietta, either, for that matter, but Savannah was sure that he was far too afraid of Vidalia to even look twice at another woman.
A few years back she had nearly murdered him for looking once at the waitress at the Chat-n-Chew Café there in McGill.
“Vidalia, I can’t believe it. Butch loves you to death.”
“Yeah, well, as soon as her latest fiancé dumped her, Marietta waggled that big butt of hers in front of Butch, and dadburn him, he went for it.”
“Define ‘went for it.’”
“They did it. I know they did. I saw some of it with my own eyes. And he admitted the rest of it to me after I threatened to brain him with a skillet.”
It occurred to Savannah that maybe the Reid women should stop cooking with heavy, cast-iron frying pans and take up lighter, nonstick cookware, like the rest of the world. It might be safer for all concerned…especially their menfolk.
“Now, Vidalia,” she said, “this is not the time to tell any stories outta turn or even to embroider the truth. This is serious. Don’t tell me that Butch stepped out on you with Marietta unless it’s true. ’Cause if it is, I’m gonna have to go right now and whoop her tail. And you don’t want all that violence and mayhem on your conscience if it’s not so.”
“It’s true! Why do you think she lit outta here like a cat afire? It’s ’cause she knew I was gonna mop up the floor with her.”
“What does Butch say about it all?”
“He ain’t sayin’ nothin’ to me. I threw him out—lock, stock, and barrel. Put his clothes and CDs in a garbage bag and pitche
d ’em out the window into the yard. He’s livin’ over at the garage, sleepin’ on a cot there in the office.”
Savannah laid back on the sofa and put one hand over her eyes. Without coffee, this was just too much for a body to bear. “Vidalia, what do you want me to do about this?”
“Tell that worthless hussy sister of mine that she’s living on borrowed time.”
“Okay. I’ll pass it along. And Vi, sweetie, try not to get any more upset than you have to. It’s not good for the baby, you pitching a fit like this.”
Tammy appeared with a tray laden with a coffee mug, a cinnamon bun on a dessert plate, and a daisy in a bud vase.
As she set it on the coffee table, Savannah caught a particularly fragrant whiff of the pastry and said a rather quick good-bye to Vidalia.
“You’re an angel,” she told Tammy. “A pure angel.”
“So are you.” Tammy whipped a napkin off the plate, and with all the aplomb of a waiter in a five-star restaurant, spread it across Savannah’s lap.
“If I am, I’m an angel who needs wings to hold her halo up. I just rushed my sobbing sister off the phone to get to a cinnamon bun.”
Tammy laughed. “If you stopped eating every time one of your sisters called, crying about something, you’d…”
When she didn’t finish the sentence, Savannah supplied the end for her, “I’d lose a ton of weight. I’d have to run around in a rainstorm just to get wet.”
She savored a bite of the bun, then a long drink of the coffee. “By the way, where is Marietta? It’s not like her to be absent when food is present, her being a Reid and all.”
“She already had hers. She’s out in the backyard…um…getting a tan.”
Something about the way Tammy said “getting a tan” caused Savannah’s antennae to rise. Sure, Tammy was big on sunscreen and limiting sun exposure, but something was amiss besides the health issues.
“Getting a tan? In her new red bikini?”
“Uh, yeah.” Tammy gulped. “Half of it.”
“Half of the bikini?”
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