“She’s in her seventies, living in a nursing home. I’m sure some extra money would go a long way toward making her a lot more comfortable.”
“But an elderly lady in a nursing home doesn’t make your best murder suspect.”
“I’d still talk to her if I were you,” Tammy said. “She might know something.”
“I’m going to. But the first thing on my list is to go to the funeral parlor and have a chat with Mr. Jameson. If he’ll see me, that is.”
“Do you want company?” Something about Tammy’s lackluster tone and the sleepy look in her eyes told Savannah that hers was an offer the young mother-to-be was hoping she would refuse.
“No, sugar. You go stretch out on Granny’s feather bed and have yourself a nap, if you can get some sleep in that house with all the ruckus going on.”
“That’s okay. I’m going to have Waycross take me back to our hotel room.”
“Hotel? What hotel? Oh.” Savannah gulped. “You two checked into the No-Tail Motel?”
“Yes. It’s all we could find.”
“Did the, um, name tip you off that maybe . . . ?”
“I did wonder about that. But then I saw the logo on the Web site. It’s of a cute little dog with a teeny bobbed tail. I think that’s where they got the name.”
Savannah looked at her a long time, then nodded solemnly. “Okay.”
As the women walked through the vegetable garden on their way back to the house, Savannah said, “If the other folks staying at that motel are too noisy, turn up your radio real loud so you won’t have to listen to ’em.”
“Will do.”
“And be sure to lock your doors and windows nice and tight, and prop a chair under the doorknob.”
“Why?”
“That no-tailed dog might be vicious.”
“Oh. Right.”
As Savannah and Dirk drove away from Granny’s house, with Savannah at the wheel, Dirk sat, shaken and pale, in the passenger’s seat. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the tail of his T-shirt and said, “I gotta tell you, Van, you scared the hell outta me back there.”
“I’m so sorry, darlin’.”
“When you said that business about going to see Jameson all by yourself, my whole life flashed in front of me.”
“It was awful of me. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Well, I know what I was thinking. I thought you were gonna leave me there with that houseful of women and kids all by myself.”
“Please forgive me. It must’ve been horrible. Soul scarring, in fact.”
“It was. All that talking, talking, talking. And about absolutely nothing. And the fighting about every stupid little thing. How did you ever survive, growing up in that?”
“I went for a lot of walks. I like to wore this road out,” she said, pointing to the narrow dirt driveway they were traveling from Gran’s front door, through the cotton fields on either side, to the paved highway.
He settled back in his seat, then rummaged around in the glove compartment and retrieved his bag of cinnamon sticks.
“I felt like a guy on death row who’d gotten a reprieve from the governor when you called Butch and asked him if I could come over there to the garage and help him out.”
“It was the least I could do, sugar, under the circumstances. You should’ve known that I’d never do a thing like that to you—leaving you alone with my family. At least not that many of them at once.” She reached over and squeezed his knee. “After all, I promised to love, honor, and cherish you.”
She gave him a sideways glance, and when she saw the sappy look of unadulterated love on his face, it was all she could do not to snicker.
Her big, brave hubby could face down a gang of bank robbers and hardly break a sweat. But confronted with the prospect of being alone in a small house with a gaggle of gabby, loudmouthed, quarrelsome women, he fell to pieces.
She turned the car onto the highway and headed for the three-block-long stretch of stores and businesses that constituted downtown McGill, Georgia.
When they entered town and Savannah pulled into the parking area beside Butch’s garage, Dirk pulled the cinnamon stick from his mouth and tossed it onto the rear floorboard.
“Your brother-in-law does know that I’m pretty much clueless about cars, right?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t have the first idea how to help him fix a double clutch.”
Savannah laughed. “That’s okay, sugar. He’s not working on a double clutch. He’s probably got his feet propped up on his desk, sipping sodas and looking at girlie magazines.”
“Really?” Dirk looked impressed. “How do you know?”
“Because there’s no such thing as a double clutch.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. It’s code.”
“For what?”
“For ‘I don’t want to be around my wife’s crazy relatives, so I’m pretending I have to work.’”
“All right! See ya later, babe! You’re the best!”
Before she could assure him that, yes, she was the absolute best, he had given her an enthusiastic kiss on the lips, had bounded out of the car, and was scurrying up to the garage office in search of cold, free soft drinks and PG-rated pornography.
Chapter 12
During the drive from Butch’s garage to the mortuary, Savannah thought of at least twenty different possible ways to gain access to Jeanette Barnsworth’s remains.
In feasibility, they ranged from highly iffy, like just asking Herb Jameson very sweetly and fluttering her eyelashes, to downright silly, like climbing through a window, scrounging around the mortuary and locating the body, then sneaking a peek.
She’d already decided against Plan B. The last time she squeezed through a window, lost her balance, and hit the floor on the other side, she’d cracked a rib and torn her favorite pair of slacks.
Besides, a peek wasn’t going to do it, anyway. She’d already had a peek there at the lake. What she needed was the autopsy report, if Jameson had finished it. And even more unlikely, if he would share it with her.
If she was the coroner, and the number one suspect asked for a look at the body, she would have laughed in their face and shown them the door. How could she expect Mr. Jameson to do anything else?
It wasn’t going to be easy to get the information she needed. But then, when was a homicide investigation ever simple? She supposed some cases were. But she’d never had any of them.
By the time she arrived at the funeral home, she’d decided upon a fairly straightforward plan. She was going to ask Herb Jameson with all the Southern belle sweetness and gracious female persuasion she could muster.
And if that didn’t work, she’d mow over him like a giant John Deere combine harvester.
She wasn’t proud. Whatever the job took, she was up to it.
She wasn’t going down for a murder she hadn’t committed. Especially Jeanette’s. Not after all those years of resisting her homicidal fantasies and urges to do exactly that.
The funeral home’s colonial façade gave the place an elegant, yet imposing appearance. The stark white walls, the black shutters, and the graceful columns spoke of formal finality. But the colorful flower beds that edged the perfect lawn lent a warm personal touch.
She drove from the circular brick driveway to the less decorative, more utilitarian paved road that led to the side and back of the establishment. A triple-vehicle garage had two doors open. Inside one she could see the long black hearse that had carried many people she knew, and some she loved, to their final resting places. In the other was Herb’s new Cadillac.
Apparently, he hadn’t returned it, as he had threatened to at the school. At least not immediately.
Savannah was a bit disappointed to see both the hearse and Herb Jameson’s personal car. One part of her—the sneaky but more forthright part—had been hoping to find the mortician gone from his business. The more she thought about trying to talk her way into the place, the more an old-fashioned b
reaking and entering seemed preferable.
She parked the rental car near a side door, which she hoped was less used than the others, and got out. Mentally crossing her fingers, she walked up to the entrance, hoping against hope that the local custom of not bothering to lock one’s door extended to the neighborhood mortuary.
She stifled a yelp of glee when the knob turned and the door swung open. It didn’t even creak.
So far, so good, she thought.
Having been to the back area of the mortuary once before, when trying to clear her brother of a murder charge, she knew the way.
Down the narrow hallway, with its drab walnut paneling and dark blue carpet, was the preparation room, which was sometimes used for autopsies. In a small community where homicides were almost nonexistent, there was no need for a full-time coroner. So on the rare occasion when one was needed, the local mortician might be pressed into service. And such was the case with Herb Jameson.
When she had consulted with him before regarding the homicide her brother was accused of committing, she had found Jameson to be surprisingly knowledgeable in the forensic sciences. She hoped he would be as efficient in this case, because the truth would lead Tom Stafford to the real killer and away from her.
Savannah felt a pang of anxiety when she heard a noise that sounded like the clanging of metal instruments being tossed into a tray. After years of watching Dr. Jennifer Liu, San Carmelita’s medical examiner, perform autopsies, she was quite familiar with the sound.
But even though she wasn’t looking forward to the conversation she was about to have, she was glad that the autopsy was still in progress. She wasn’t too late, after all.
Although Granny’s teachings about good manners dictated that she knock before opening the closed door, Savannah decided to take a slightly more aggressive approach. She opened it just enough to stick her face through and only then gave it a light triple knock.
Herb Jameson was dressed in disposable paper overalls, complete with matching booties over his street shoes. On his face was a surgical mask. His hair was netted, and his hands were gloved. He stood beside a large stainless-steel table, upon which lay the earthly remains of Jeanette Barnsworth.
“Excuse me, Mr. Jameson,” she said. “It’s me, Savannah.” She eased her head and one shoulder inside the room. “I know you’re terribly busy, so I won’t take up much of your time. I was just wondering if... well, how your autopsy’s coming along. And if you need any help. If you do, I’d be happy to lend a hand. You know, clean your instruments or—”
The look he gave her was far less friendly than any she had ever received from him before. “Thank you, Savannah. I appreciate your offer,” he said, with absolutely no gratitude whatsoever in his tone. “But I don’t think Sheriff Stafford would approve of me allowing his main suspect to handle the victim’s body. Some might call it a conflict of interest, don’t you think?”
Savannah fought to keep her sweet face from sliding off and gentled her tone when she said, “I understand perfectly, Mr. Jameson. But surely, no harm would be done as long as I don’t touch anything.”
She stepped all the way into the room and gently closed the door behind her. After taking only one step in his direction, she stopped and said, “See? I can stand right here with my hands in my pockets, and that shouldn’t cause any problem at all. From here I can just ask my couple of questions, and if you don’t want to answer them, you just say so, and I’ll be on my way.”
After badgering you half to death, she silently added, and only if you chase me out of here with one of those big, sharp scalpels of yours.
When he didn’t answer, she continued to press. “All I want to know is if you’ve determined a cause and manner of death yet. That’s it. That’s all.”
He peered at her over the top of the surgical mask in much the same way she studied a suspect she was interrogating. And as she tried to resist squirming inside her jeans, she decided it was a lot more fun to be the interrogator than the one getting squeezed.
“Are you telling me, Savannah,” he said, “that you have no idea how this young woman died?”
She fixed him with her most sincere, determined gaze and replied, “That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Mr. Jameson. I have no idea whatsoever how she died. If it was an accident—”
“It was not an accident,” he said, interrupting her. “She was murdered.”
Savannah winced. Expected or not, the words were hard to hear. “That’s tragic,” she told him. “I truly hate to hear it. No one deserves to leave this earth that way.”
“At least we agree on that,” he replied.
“If you’ve already determined the manner of death, then you must know the cause, too.”
“Yes, I do. It was drowning.”
“Drowning? Wow. Really?”
“You seem surprised.”
“I am surprised. There at the lake, Sheriff Stafford, his deputies, my husband, and I all expressed the opinion that she was dead before she went into the water. Probably from that injury to her temple.”
“But none of you are coroners, now are you?”
“No. We aren’t. And I’m not questioning you, sir. I’m sure you have good reasons for why you arrived at that ruling.”
“Of course I do.”
“Then would you mind sharing your findings with me? It will all be a matter of public record soon, anyway. Why would it matter if I find out now or later?”
He peeled the surgical gloves from his hands and tossed them into a bright orange trash can with a BIOLOGICAL WASTE sign on the side. Then he turned to Savannah, and in a voice that sounded both weary and sad, he said, “Her lungs are waterlogged, and I found the presence of more water in her stomach. She was alive when she went into the lake.”
“But what about the bullet wound to her temple?”
Jameson removed his mask, and Savannah was grateful. It made him look more like the man she had known and liked as a child. Her friends’ kind and gentle father. And less like the coroner whose ruling might send her away for murder.
“It isn’t a bullet wound,” he said simply.
Forgetting her promise to stand still in one place, Savannah took a couple of steps closer to the body and stared at the neat, round hole on the side of the head.
“You’re right,” she said. “When I first saw it there at the lake, I caught only a glimpse of it. But even then, I thought it looked strange. Not like your usual GSW. There’s no gunpowder stippling around the wound.”
“Though there wouldn’t be if the shooter was standing far enough away,” he replied.
“True. But where’s the black edging? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gunshot wound without those dark edges that a bullet makes when it burns its way into the flesh.”
“Like I said, it isn’t from a bullet. It’s a puncture wound.”
“How deep?”
“About five centimeters.”
“Could the head injury have occurred when she went off the cliff, like in an accident? Maybe something in the car caused it. A metal rod perhaps?”
“No. Definitely not. The wound occurred antemortem.”
“How long before death?”
He shrugged. “There’s no way to tell for sure. A half an hour? Perhaps more. There’s definite swelling, bruising, and blood inside the brain, surrounding the wound. And that would have taken some time to occur, unlike the drowning, which would’ve been much faster.” Pausing, he shuddered. “Though not fast enough. I’m sure she suffered terribly.”
“But if the head wound came first, maybe she wasn’t conscious.. . .” She paused. “You know, for the drowning part.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. People assume that every brain injury is instantly fatal. It isn’t. She may have been fully aware and suffering through the whole thing.”
Savannah saw an intense pain in his eyes, and she reminded herself that at least until last night, this man had feelings for the woman on his autopsy table. She couldn’t imagine autopsyi
ng anyone she knew, let alone cared for.
“I feel terrible that someone did this to her, Mr. Jameson,” she told him. “I feel sorry for her and for you. It’s awful, losing someone you’re close to.”
He turned his back to her and busied himself with placing the remainder of his soiled instruments and tools into a stainless-steel tray.
While he was occupied and was not watching, Savannah took the opportunity to take another step closer and get a better look at the small, round wound.
“What do you suppose the weapon was?” she asked.
When he didn’t answer, she thought perhaps he hadn’t heard her. So she said, “The shape of the stab wound . . . It doesn’t look like a knife was used.”
“It wasn’t a knife,” he said, his back still turned to her. “And she wasn’t stabbed. She was struck. Very hard. With an object that was flat on the end, not pointed.”
“Like a screwdriver?”
“No.”
Savannah searched her mind but could think of nothing. “Then what?”
He turned around and once again gave her that dark, penetrating look. “My best guess is that the puncture trauma to her head occurred when she was hit with a shoe. Or more specifically, the heel of a shoe.”
Savannah’s head started spinning. So did the room. She felt as though she had to sit down before her knees buckled beneath her and she fell.
“A heel?” she asked, hearing the trembling in her own voice.
“Yes.” His voice sounded as cold and dead as the woman on the table before them. “Jeanette was murdered with the heel of a woman’s shoe. A high heel. A stiletto.”
Chapter 13
As a resident of Southern California, Savannah had experienced more than her share of earthquakes. She was all too familiar with the physical sensations they produced: the queasiness that went far deeper than the average upset tummy, the loss of equilibrium, the sinking feeling that the ground beneath your feet was about to rise up and smack you in the head. Not to mention the pure panic of it all when you realized that your world, as you knew it, might literally be coming apart at the seams.
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