Killer Reunion

by G. A. McKevett

  Savannah looked into her old friend’s eyes and saw a bitterness born of disillusionment and unfulfilled dreams. She seemed to recall a time, decades ago, when Amy had said she wanted to be a fashion designer when she grew up someday. Or was it a ballerina?

  She had forgotten.

  She wondered if Amy Jameson had forgotten, too.

  “Not all good lives are exciting, Amy,” she told her. “What you do here is really important. Rose changed my life by introducing me to books and the love of reading. I’m sure you change lives for the better every day.”

  “But you didn’t come here to talk about how important I am.”

  Amy shoved the last book from her cart into its proper place, and Savannah recognized it instantly. It was Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. The very copy that she herself had checked out many times.

  “You came here,” Amy continued as she headed toward her desk, “to talk to me about Jeanette.”

  “Can’t a friend drop by to say hi without . . . Okay. You’re right. That’s why I’m here.”

  Amy sat down in her desk chair and pretended to busy herself by stacking and restacking some piles of papers. Even though she didn’t invite Savannah to have a seat, Savannah pulled a small side chair close to the desk and parked herself on it.

  If Amy thought she could get rid of her with a frosty reception, she had another thought coming. It took way more than that to scare off a former cop. There was nothing quite like being shot at and critically wounded to reset the bar on how easily one got offended.

  “What took you so long?” Amy asked. “I figured you’d be over here the minute you made bail.”

  What took so long? Savannah thought. I had to go chase down some stupid leads that led absolutely nowhere. Just your usual homicide investigation. That’s all.

  “I heard about the conversation you had with my father and his suspicions about you,” Amy continued. “And I know you were standing there in the shadows when I was talking to Lisa about Jeanette.”

  “I hope you don’t share your father’s conclusions about me,” Savannah said. “You knew me pretty well back when we were kids. I hope you know I wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “People change, Savannah. And how well can any of us know anyone? People have secrets.” Amy drew a shuddering breath. “Besides, my father’s very good at what he does. If he says you killed Jeanette, that’s good enough for me.”

  “Your dad’s wrong about me, but as a general rule, he is good at what he does. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I came by here today. I want to give you some information that might, well, set your mind at ease where he’s concerned.”

  Amy looked genuinely puzzled. “Set my mind at ease? What are you talking about?”

  “You saw me standing there in the shadows while you were talking to Lisa about Jeanette.”

  Amy’s stared intensely into Savannah’s eyes when she said, “Yes. And . . . ?”

  “I heard what you said about your dad being, well, influenced by Jeanette to the point of maybe filing a false report and—”

  “Whoa! Hold on! I never said anything like that.”

  “Actually, you did. You and Lisa talked about how persuasive she could be with men, and you admitted you never thought your father would give in to her so-called charms.” Savannah stopped speaking because Amy was laughing.

  But there was no mirth it in. It was a bitter, empty laugh that chilled the soul to hear.

  “Some detective you are, Savannah Reid,” she said when she’d finally recovered herself. “Here I thought you’d figure it all out right away, but you’re clueless. You don’t know half what you think you do.”

  Savannah plowed ahead, through the ridicule. “I have documentation that proves your dad is innocent of all wrongdoing. His autopsy report on Jacob Barnsworth was exactly as the lab reported. He doctored nothing for Jeanette. Mr. Barnsworth really did pass away from natural causes.”

  “I know that.”

  “But you didn’t the night of the reunion. You were talking to Lisa about how Jeanette had manipulated him, got what she wanted out of him, how disappointed you were that—”

  “Oh. I see.” A light dawned in Amy’s eyes. “I’ve got it now.”

  “You’ve got what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Come on, Amy. Help me out here. You and I used to play Barbie dolls together, for Pete’s sake.”

  “You didn’t have a Barbie doll.”

  “I know. But you had several, and you let me play with them. Even the prettiest ones. I remember it like it was yesterday. I never forgot your kindness toward me.”

  Amy glanced away. “I felt sorry for you,” she said. “What with your parents the way they were. And there were so many of you. I knew you didn’t have toys.”

  “I really appreciated your generosity back then. It was most welcome. Most needed.” Savannah placed her hand on Amy’s forearm. “Thank you, Amy.”

  Amy blinked rapidly a couple of times, and long wet lines streaked her cheeks. Finally, she composed herself and said softly, “Truly, I thought you’d figure it out on your own, Savannah. I didn’t want to get involved. This is such a small town, and if people start thinking badly of you for some reason, any reason, they’ll make you miserable about it for the rest of your life.”

  “I know. They do.”

  “I thought you’d be able to put it together yourself, considering what you heard that night there behind the school.”

  “I think I have,” Savannah said, recalling her conversation in the florist shop with Lisa.

  She remembered the look on Lisa’s face. The expression that was supposed to be grief but wasn’t.

  It was fear and anger, mixed with guilt.

  It was a look that Savannah, a former police officer, had become all too familiar with.

  “That night, after the reunion, behind the school,” Savannah said, “the man you were talking about with Lisa, the man who gave in to Lisa and did what she wanted, I thought it was your father. But it wasn’t, was it?”

  Amy shook her head slowly. “No.”

  “It was Lisa’s husband, Frank, right? Jeanette seduced Frank.”

  Savannah’s heart pounded so hard, she could feel the blood throbbing in her temples as she waited for Amy’s reply.

  After what seemed like an eon, Amy nodded. “Jeanette didn’t know the meaning of the word loyalty. Lisa thought she was so special to Jeanette. Best friends forever and all that. Year after year, she watched Jeanette hurt other people. She even helped her hurt them. But Lisa thought she was immune.”

  “Jeanette might sleep with every other woman’s husband but would never do that to her,” Savannah said.

  “Right. But, of course, it doesn’t work like that. None of us are special or immune. If somebody’s hurting others, it’s just a matter of time until they do the same to us.”

  “If they do it with you, they’ll do it to you. That’s a lesson hard learned.”

  “For Lisa, it sure was.”

  “Thank you, Amy, for helping me,” Savannah said. “Is there anything else you know that you could tell me? I’ll take anything.”

  Amy wiped her eyes and nose on a tissue, then said, “She didn’t leave the school right away that night. After I left you and Lisa, I got halfway to my car and realized I’d forgotten some books I was supposed to bring back here. I returned to get them, and I saw all the ruckus with you and Jeanette. Saw you slug her and her hit the ground.”

  “Not my shining hour, for sure.”

  “Actually, I thought you did pretty well. Most of the people standing around watching were rooting for you, no doubt.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “And Lisa was watching. She hadn’t left yet. She was watching from over there in that dark area by the fence, where she was parked. I saw her.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “And later, when I pulled out of the lot, she was still standing there, watching you talk
to Jeanette and Tommy and your husband.”

  “Okay. Again interesting.”

  Amy gave her a loaded look. Savannah prepared herself to hear something of importance.

  Amy said, “Lisa was parked right next to Jeanette’s purple convertible.”

  “There in that dark area.”

  “By the fence. It’s not well lit over there, but I could see well enough to make out that ugly hot pink satin outfit Lisa was wearing. I’m absolutely positive it was her.”

  “Okay. That’s all good to know. Thank you,” Savannah said. “Did you see Lisa leave? Or Jeanette?”

  “No. When I drove away, Jeanette was back on her feet, complaining like a scalded skunk to the sheriff. You were talking to your husband.”

  “And Lisa?”

  “Still standing there beside the cars. In the dark. Watching. It was creepy.”

  “Thank you, Amy. This is all such an enormous help.”

  Savannah stood and took one more long tender look around the room. “I envy you, working here like you do. The peace and quiet. The gentleness of it all.”

  The defensive look returned to Amy’s face. “Sure you do. You wouldn’t trade your life for my boring one. Not for anything.”

  “No. I wouldn’t. Because I love my life. The craziness of it, the ups and downs. But you wouldn’t like everything about mine, either. I guarantee you.”

  Amy shot Savannah an angry glance that cut deep into her and confused her.

  “What is it, Amy?” she asked her. “Why are you so mad at me? What have I done?”

  It took the librarian a long time to reply. And when she finally did, she sounded ashamed. “You got out,” she said, almost in a whisper.

  “I got out?”

  “You had a dream and you followed it. All the way to California.”

  “Aw, Amy. Dreams can be followed and fulfilled anywhere. Good lives can be lived in any corner of the world. You don’t need a sunny beach to follow your destiny.”

  “You did. You needed a sunny beach.”

  Savannah thought only a moment before agreeing. “Yes. I did.”

  Savannah’s memory returned to Amy’s pretty pink bedroom, the frilly bedspread and matching curtains, the soft white carpet covered with Barbie dolls and miscellaneous fashion doll paraphernalia. She recalled how Amy could take two strips of shiny fabric, twist them this way and that, and create a beautiful evening gown on the spot.

  No doubt about it. Amy Jameson’s Barbies had been the best dressed in town.

  Searching her childhood friend’s sad eyes, she said, “Yes, I did need a change of scenery. It’s true. And maybe you do, too. Fortunately, it’s never too late to chase a dream. Never.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out one of her cards. “If you ever want to ‘get out,’ as you call it, give me a call. I know people who know people in the Los Angeles fashion industry. We’ll see what we can do.”

  Laying the card on the desk, she added, “But don’t discount the value of being a librarian in McGill, Georgia. Because to my way of thinking . . . what you do here . . . it’s a darned near sacred calling.”

  Chapter 28

  Half an hour after Savannah left the library, the eager members of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency, working and honorary alike, were assembled in the parking lot of the McGill High School.

  Near the fence.

  In the area that, once the sun went down, was destined to be the darkest.

  “Listen up, everybody. We’ve got a lot to do and only a few more hours of daylight to do it in,” Savannah told Tammy, Waycross, Granny, and Alma. She had already briefed Dirk on the drive to the school. “This may or may not be the actual crime scene,” she told them. “But it’s the last place where someone saw our victim in close proximity to our main suspect.”

  “There wasn’t a lot of time between when they were last seen here,” Dirk added, “and when Savannah heard that splash at the lake. Less than an hour. So there might have been time for them to meet up again somewhere else. But it’s not likely. It might have happened right here.”

  “At least where she got bonked with the high heel,” Gran said. “And Lord knows, at a high school reunion, there’s an abundance of those around.”

  “Among other things, we’re looking for one high heel in particular,” Savannah told them. “If it’s here, it shouldn’t be too hard to spot. It’s hot pink, with rhinestones and sequins on it.”

  “But we’re not just looking for the weapon,” Tammy said. “We’re looking for anything at all that seems out of the ordinary.”

  “Like what?” Alma asked, all excited to be included in the search.

  “You won’t know till you see it,” Dirk told her. “Let’s get looking.”

  It took only twelve minutes for them to make their first find.

  “Over here!” Alma called out as she dropped to her hands and knees and stared at something on the pavement.

  They all ran over to inspect her discovery.

  Savannah knelt on one knee beside her younger sister and saw something glittering among the rocks and dirt on the asphalt. More than one something. Sequins. Two hot pink ones and four purple ones lay close together. They were muddied and somewhat faded, but there was no mistaking what they were.

  “That’s important, isn’t it?” Alma asked. “I mean, sequins fall off of dresses all the time. But you wouldn’t think they’d fall off together, from two different dresses at the same time.”

  “You sure wouldn’t,” Savannah said. “Not unless there was some sort of tussle going on.” She patted Alma on the back. “Good work, girlie! You earned an extra scoop of ice cream on your cone for sure!”

  Tammy appeared with a bright blue index card folded in half, forming a small tent. “This is the closest thing I could find to evidence markers there at Granny’s,” she said, placing it beside the sequins. “Hopefully, the wind won’t blow it away.”

  They continued to examine the immediate area surrounding the sequins, and it was Waycross who made the next find.

  “More pink,” he said, pointing to the pavement, where tiny bits of fabric appeared to be ground into the rough surface.

  “We’ve seen this sort of thing before,” Savannah told Dirk. “Remember when we processed that awful motorcycle accident? That guy went flying off his bike and skidded on the road. There were little bits of his denim jacket embedded in the rocks like that. There was a lot more of it, mind you, but it looked like that.”

  Dirk nodded thoughtfully. “I remember. And it looks like somebody skidded along here, too.”

  “Maybe somebody’s shoe?” Tammy said. “Like if Lisa fell down and the side of her shoe slid along the asphalt.”

  “Or maybe she was pushed down,” Waycross suggested, “or the two women got to wrestlin’ around after they hit the ground? That would account for the sparkly things coming off both of their dresses.”

  Tammy placed another marker by the tiny fabric bits.

  Savannah stood for a moment, looking at the school, looking over the lot, trying to imagine what it had been like for Lisa, standing there, watching the action at the school.

  But Lisa had been in the lot several minutes before the altercation. Why hadn’t she left?

  What was she doing all that time out here by herself?

  “Tammy!” Savannah said. “Get me Lisa Riggs’s phone number.”

  “Why, Van?” Dirk asked. “What’s up?”

  “If you were Lisa, why wouldn’t you just drive away, like you’d told others you were going to do?” she asked. “What would you be doing out here all by yourself in the dark?”

  All three of the youngest members of the search team answered in unison, “I’d be checking my phone.”

  “That’s right. That’s what everybody does these days when they’ve got a spare minute. Even if they don’t make a call, they check their messages. What if she was about to get in her car, checked her phone, and had a chat or sent a text or two. Then she hea
rd my, um, lively discussion with Jeanette and watched that for a while.”

  “That sounds likely, sugar,” Gran said, “but what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “When I talked to Lisa there in her florist shop, she got mad at me and called Tom to come arrest me. She was wearing an apron with big pockets on it to work on her flowers there in the back. When she went to call him, she reached into her pocket, like it was an automatic action. But then, to make the call, she walked all the way to the other side of the store and used a landline phone on the counter.”

  “She’s lost her phone!” Tammy shouted. “Otherwise, she’d have used it!”

  “Most likely, she was reaching for it there in her apron, like she always did,” Waycross said, “but she’d forgot it wasn’t there.”

  Savannah grinned. “Bingo. So, Tammy, get me her cell phone number, would you?”

  Tammy’s tablet appeared, screens were scrolled, and a moment later, the number was given.

  The group stood, silent and breathless, as Savannah made the call.

  At first, the call didn’t seem to go through. So she tried again. And once more.

  Then they heard a faint chiming coming from somewhere in the weeds around the base of the fence. En masse, they rushed toward the sound.

  Savannah saw it first. A smartphone well hidden in the underbrush. “Don’t touch it!” she said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of surgical gloves. “Anybody got a pen?” she asked.

  As she was putting on the gloves, Dirk produced a ballpoint.

  “Take a picture of that,” she told Tammy, pointing to the phone.

  Tammy did so, her pretty face flushed from the joy only a forensic photographer who had read too many Nancy Drew books could know.

  Then Savannah carefully laid Dirk’s pen alongside the phone, marking its exact position.

  “Okay,” she said, carefully lifting the cell from the weeds. “What I’m doing now is an absolutely no-no.”

  “Not as bad as breaking and entering a nursing home winder in the dead o’ night,” Gran said with an evil snicker.