A Body To Die For

by G. A. McKevett

  “Kill him? I told you, I didn’t have anything to do with that one. Nothing at all.”

  “Yes, you did,” Dirk snapped back. “You hid his car in your building there, right next to the trash can full of rotten chickens—”

  “Cocks!”

  “Whatever. And you stashed his body in your freezer. The CSU techs are over there right now, lifting his tire marks off your floor and collecting samples of his blood and hair out of your freezer. Do you want to play this bullshit game with me and pretend they’re not all gonna match?”

  Pinky looked like somebody had slugged him in his ample belly. He began to chew his thumbnail with all the vigor of a deeply worried, multicharged felon.

  But he hadn’t yet uttered that one dirty word they always dreaded. The one used by more intelligent criminals. “Attorney.”

  No, Baldovino Pinky Moretti looked like the type who considered himself much smarter than any stupid lawyer. So, why call one?

  Savannah loved guys like Pinky. And so did Dirk. His sort made life so much easier for them.

  “Why did you kill him?” Dirk said.

  “I told you. I didn’t. I mean it! I didn’t do that one!”

  That one, versus the other ones? Savannah thought. No, Pinky wasn’t exactly coloring with a full box of crayons.

  But, sadly, she almost believed him. There was a certain indignation to his protest that struck her as sincere.

  Dirk, on the other hand, didn’t appear to believe him at all.

  “You killed him,” Dirk said. “He owed you money. He came out to your fricken chicken joint, and you blew his brains out and shoved his body in your freezer. Then, later on, you took the body and the car and dumped them up the road a few miles in Sulphur Creek. We already know that much. Now we just need to find out why. Did he do something to piss you off?”

  “No! I wasn’t pissed at him at all. The only beef I had with him was that he owed me money. He said he was going to pay me what he owed.”

  “And you believed him?” Savannah asked.

  “Yeah, I did, because he knew better than to lie to me.”

  “When did he say he was going to pay you?” Dirk asked.

  “Last Monday, the night he got killed.”

  Dirk grinned. “And how do you know that he got killed on Monday night?”

  Even a nonintellectual like Pinky knew when he’d been caught in his own trap. He sat there and opened and closed his mouth a few times, then shut it tightly.

  “He came out there to pay you off, didn’t he?” Dirk said. “And something went wrong. And he wound up dead. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  Pinky said nothing. Savannah was afraid he might utter that ugly word that had ended so many promising interrogations. So, she leaned across the table and gave him her most sisterly, caring, compassionate look.

  “Listen, Pinky,” she said with loving kindness just oozing from her voice. “You don’t strike me as a cold-blooded killer. You seem like a decent guy who wouldn’t hurt anybody unless they were really, really asking for it. Tell us what happened. Tell us what he did that caused you to do it.”

  No response from Pinky. He had even decided to give his thumbnail a rest.

  “I know you want to tell us,” Savannah continued, “because nobody wants to be thought of as a mean bastard who’d just kill somebody for no reason. Tell us your side of the story. Set the record straight.”

  “I didn’t do it!” he shouted. “I did not shoot him! He was already dead when—”

  “When you got there?” Savannah said. Again, his words had a certain, frantic ring of truth. The look of total frustration on his face appeared genuine. “You went there to meet him, to get paid, and when you arrived, he was already dead?”

  “Yeah. Dead. Shot through the head right there in his car. On my property! What the hell was I supposed to do, just leave him there?”

  “What did you do?” Savannah asked.

  Pinky sighed and his shoulders sagged. “I had my boys stick him in my freezer there, just for a few days, until we could figure out what happened to him. And we put his car into the main building there.”

  “Did it occur to you to call us?” Dirk asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Pink replied dryly. “I’m under investigation for a gambling-related murder, and I’m gonna call you and say what? ‘I found this guy who owed me money shot to death at my cockfighting arena?’ That would have gone over well.”

  “So, if we believe you,” Dirk said, “you went to your property to meet with Jardin and when you got there, he was already dead in his car. The Jaguar was parked where?”

  “Right there by the main building, near the front door, the one with the big, new lock on it.” Pinky thought that over for a moment. “Hey, how did you guys get in there?”

  “She picked it,” Dirk replied.

  Pinky looked at Savannah with new respect and nodded. “Okay.”

  “Why did you really leave him in that freezer so long?” Dirk asked him. “You don’t strike me as a guy who’d take days to make up his mind what to do about something. Why were you stalling?”

  As Pinky sat there, saying nothing, avoiding Dirk’s eyes, as well as his question, Savannah mulled it over.

  “When you found Jardin,” she said, “did he have your money on him?”

  Pinky shook his head. “No.”

  “Was it in his car?”

  Again, a head shake.

  “So,” Savannah said, “the reason you kept him on ice was because you were trying to track down your money. You wanted first crack at finding the killer and your dough, before the cops got on it.”

  Dirk smiled and nodded. “I think you’ve got it,” he told Savannah. “That’s exactly why. You figured if we nabbed the murderer before you did, you’d never get your money back.”

  “But I still didn’t kill him,” Pinky said.

  “And let’s just pretend for a minute here that we believe you,” Dirk replied. “Who do you think did it? You’ve been on the investigation for about five days longer than we have. You’ve gotta have some sort of opinions on the subject.”

  Pinky’s face changed, from dull and witless to dark and furious. “Oh, I’m pretty sure I know. I think it’s his wife, that Clarissa exercise bitch.”

  “Really?” Savannah asked. “Why?”

  “Because she called me and changed the meet time.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. He’d called me that morning and asked if I could meet him there at the plant at seven o’clock. I said okay. Then, later that evening, his wife calls me. She says something’s come up, and he can’t make it till two hours later. Said he asked her to call me cause he was tied up doing something or the other.”

  “Did she say what he was doing?”

  Pinky shrugged. “I don’t remember. Something about the car, problems with the new car or whatever. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. I was just pissed that he postponed on me like that. I’d already been waiting a couple of weeks to get paid.”

  “You don’t happen to remember what number she called you from, do you?” Savannah asked. “Like if it showed her name in the caller ID or whatever?”

  “No, it just said ‘Wireless Caller.’ And showed a number. I remember it ended with ‘666.’ I noticed it because of all the scary movies I’ve seen about that number.”

  “Yeah, that’s a distinctive one,” Dirk said, giving Savannah a sideways glance.

  Savannah said, “Pinky, did you ever get in touch with Clarissa Jardin?”

  Pinky gave a raspy little laugh. “Yeah. We talked several times.”

  “On the phone, or in person?” Dirk asked.

  “Both. She claimed she didn’t know anything about the money, or him coming out to pay me, or any of it. She even said she didn’t call me, that it must have been somebody else pretending to be her. I made her get out her cell phone and call me with me standing there. She did. But a different number showed up on my caller ID. It wasn’t the ‘666�
� one.”

  Dirk sat still, staring at Pinky, thinking it all over. Finally, he said, “We’ve interviewed Mrs. Jardin a number of times. She never mentioned that she’d met you face-to-face. Why do you suppose that is?”

  The already menacing look on Pinky’s face turned even darker. “I asked her not to,” he said with chilling coldness. “As a personal favor to me.”

  “I’ll bet you did,” Dirk replied.

  Pinky lifted his thumb to his mouth and began to chew again. “She comes across all tough on TV,” he said, around his mutilated cuticle. “But she ain’t all that tough…believe me.”

  Savannah looked into those flat, predatory eyes. Oh, I believe, she thought. I do, really do, believe.

  “But you think she killed her own husband?” Dirk asked him. “You think she was the one who made that call to you, telling you to come two hours later? You think she met him there earlier and killed him before you got there?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I think.”

  “So, why didn’t you do worse than just threaten her?” Dirk said.

  “Because, in spite of what people might think, or what a certain DA thinks about me, I’m not that kind of guy. I don’t just go around killing people because of what I think they did. I have to know for sure before I take a drastic action like that.”

  Savannah gave him her best, Southern belle, dimpled smile. “Now that’s what I like,” she said, “a man of high moral standards.”

  When Savannah and Dirk had left the jail and were headed back to her house to grab a bite to eat, regroup, and decide on their next move, Savannah got a call on her cell phone.

  It was Ruby Jardin on the other end, sounding irritated and impatient when she said, “Well? I’ve been waiting. What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry, Ruby,” Savannah told her. “I was just going to call you. I—”

  “I’ve been watching my TV, the news channels, to see if they’ve arrested Clarissa yet, and not a blamed thing.”

  “No, there haven’t been any arrests made yet. But we’ve come up with some interesting leads.”

  “Leads? I’m not paying you for leads. I’m paying you for results.”

  “Leads come first, Mrs. Jardin. Leads, then arrests,” Savannah told her, as gently as she could. “I know you must be very anxious for justice for your son. But these things take a little time. Please be patient with me for just a wee bit longer.”

  A call-waiting beep came through, and Savannah looked at the caller ID. The number was Rebecca Shipton’s.

  Savannah’s pulse rate rose. “Listen, Ruby, I’ve got another call and it might be important. I’ll call you back this evening there at the hotel, okay? I promise.”

  Ruby wasn’t happy to say goodbye, but Savannah had a feeling that Rebecca wouldn’t be calling unless she had a lead on the Morris boy.

  “Rebecca!” Savannah said. “Hey, girl! What’s going on?”

  “I’m here in my office, looking across the desk at your young man.”

  “Really! Oh, that’s fantastic!” Relief flooded through her. At least the kid wasn’t dead. No matter what happened to make him run or whatever he’d done, at least he was alive. “Did he actually say he’s Tanner Morris?” she asked.

  “No, he’s being difficult and won’t talk to us. But I’m looking at his picture right here in my hand. There’s no doubt about it at all.”

  “Where did you find him? How did you pick him up?”

  “We passed the picture around and one of our volunteers saw him hanging out at the bus station downtown. We called the cops, and they picked him up for loitering.”

  “We’re on our way over right now. We’ll be there in twenty minutes. Don’t let go of him.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. See you later.”

  Savannah hung up and turned to Dirk, who was eagerly eavesdropping. “Rebecca’s got Tanner Morris.”

  “I gathered,” he said. “Alive and well?”

  “Well enough to be sitting in her office, refusing to tell her who he is.”

  “Hm-m-m. Sounds like your typical pain-in-the-ass teenager.”

  Savannah thought of her younger siblings, all of whom had suffered through adolescence, some with more grace than others. “Difficult teenagers,” she grumbled. “Oh goody. My favorite.”

  “But he’s alive and kicking,” Dirk said.

  “Yes, thank goodness for that.” She remembered some times when they hadn’t had such a happy ending. She still had nightmares about the endings involving kids that hadn’t been happy. “He can be as difficult and surly as he wants,” she said. “I learned from Gran how to handle surly.”

  “Does it involve a switch cut from a tree and the back of a woodshed?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Great. That’s just what the SCPD needs. A child-abuse lawsuit.”

  “Naw, I won’t give him a switchin’…just a serious talkin’-to.”

  “Oh, no! Anything but that! We men hate the talkin’-to crap. ‘Honey, we need to talk.’ Those words strike terror in the hearts of American men everywhere.”

  “Only those who’ve committed dark, wicked deeds.”

  “Like leaving the toilet seat up, walking into the house with muddy feet, not listening to every word you women babble at us all day long?”

  “Those are the main ones. The toilet seat thing, though, that’s the worst.”

  “So I’ve heard. I never understood that. Women act like it’s a mortal sin. We need it up; you need it down. It’s not like one point of view is any more virtuous than the other.”

  “Listen up, buddy. Have you ever got up in the middle of the night and gone to the bathroom, thinking you’re going to be able to just shuffle in there, do your business and then come right back to bed, get in, and never quite wake up? Then…you go in, sit down and plop! Your rear end’s sticking in ice-cold water, and believe you me, you’re wide awake and mad as a wet hen. And before you can go to bed, you have to take a shower, maybe even change pajamas. Takes you hours to get back to sleep. All because some lamebrain forgot to put the toilet seat down like he was supposed to, like you asked him to a thousand times before!”

  He was silent for a long time. Finally, sounding a little hurt, he said, “I thought we had put that behind us…no pun intended.”

  “Some things a woman never truly forgets.”

  “You already yelled at me a lot. I said I was sorry, and you said you forgave me.”

  “Forgiving’s one thing. Forgetting’s another.”

  “Obviously.”

  They rode on a long, long time in silence.

  “Sheez,” he mumbled, reaching for a cinnamon stick. “Some women. You piss ’em off once and…”

  “Watch it.”

  Chapter 21

  When Savannah sat down in Rebecca Shipton’s intake office and looked at the tall, skinny, red-haired kid sitting across from her, she didn’t see a problem child. She saw a scared young man.

  He did have the look of a man, being taller than most adults. And even though he was slender, she could see the promise of a full-fledged hunk further down the road.

  But for today, Tanner Morris was a teenager in trouble, and he knew it.

  “Tanner,” Savannah said as she settled into one of the uncomfortable, folding metal chairs that Rebecca had provided for her and Dirk, “we know who you are. We even have some pretty good ideas about why you might have run from your mom. And we want to help you. But we need you to talk to us.”

  “I’ve got nothing to say,” the teenager replied, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “I want a lawyer.”

  A kid who’s smarter than the hardcore criminal we just interviewed, Savannah thought. Go figure.

  “You don’t need a friggen lawyer,” Dirk grumbled at him. “You’re not being charged with anything.”

  “You have the right to have your guardian present while they question you,” Rebecca said from her seat behind her desk. “If you tell us how to get in touch with your
parents, I’ll call them.”

  At the mention of parents, a look of fear swept over Tanner’s face. “No, don’t do that,” he said. “I don’t have a dad, and I don’t want my mom here.”

  “Your mom, Rachel Morris, that is,” Savannah said.

  His big eyes filled with tears. Hanging his head, he started to quietly cry.

  As she reached into her purse for tissues, it occurred to Savannah that, lately, everyone she came in contact with burst into tears within minutes. Maybe she should reexamine her interrogation tactics.

  “We’ve talked to your mom, Tanner,” she told the boy. “She’s worried sick about you. In fact, I called her just before I got here, and I told her we have you. She’s on her way to get you right now.”

  “No!” He jumped up from his chair. “I don’t want to see her. Not now. I can’t!”

  Dirk stood and with a firm hand on the kid’s shoulder pushed him back down onto his chair.

  “Then you better tell us why you don’t want to see her,” Dirk said. “And you’d better start talking fast. What happened that night?”

  “Which night?”

  Tanner’s innocent act wasn’t very convincing. Savannah found it both interesting and reassuring that he wasn’t a good liar. Good kids weren’t good liars. Maybe he was a good kid after all.

  “You know which night,” Savannah said. “Last Monday night, the night that Bill Jardin was killed.”

  Tanner gasped and his fair, freckled skin turned an even lighter shade of pale. “Mr. Jardin was killed? He’s dead?”

  “You didn’t know that?” Dirk asked.

  “Um, no. Well, not for sure. I was hoping that maybe he wasn’t.”

  Savannah gave him her sweetest, most understanding big sister smile and said, “Tanner, I know you’re scared. I think you’re in a really bad situation and you need our help. But we can’t help you unless you tell us exactly what happened that night. We know part of it, but we need to know the rest.”

  “For one thing,” Dirk said with far less sisterly understanding than Savannah, “we know that you were at the Jardins’ ranch out there in the country.”