Mary looked as though Savannah had just delivered a karate chop to her solar plexus. For the longest time, she said nothing. Then she opened her mouth and—
There was a banging on the kitchen door so loud that all three of them jumped. Mary even knocked over the sugar bowl, spilling it all over the lace tablecloth she had spread in their honor.
“What the hell?” Dirk said, getting to his feet, as still another barrage of loud pounding began. He turned to Mary, who was pale from the double shock of Savannah’s unsettling question and the angry attack on her back door. “Were you expecting somebody?”
“No! No one at all!” she replied.
He strode over to the door and jerked it open.
Savannah was on her feet at that point, too, and was standing beside her husband when they saw who was calling.
“Geoffrey!” they both exclaimed, surprised to see him and equally put off by his manner.
“What the hell are you two doing here?” the erstwhile great-grandson of Lucinda Faraday demanded.
“Investigating a murder. Why?” Dirk shot back. “Did you commit one?”
“I’m done talking to you. If you want to ask me something, speak to my lawyer.”
Geoffrey tried to push past them, but if Savannah and Dirk were good at doing anything together, it was filling up a doorway. Nobody got around or through them uninvited.
“I’m here to talk to Mary, not you,” Geoffrey complained. He stood on his tiptoes, trying to see over their shoulders. “Mary? Are you in there? Get out here. We have to talk!”
Mary tried to step up to the door, but Savannah placed her hand on her arm and gently pushed her back.
“You don’t need to talk to him,” Savannah told her. “At least, not while he’s acting like a horse’s rear end.”
“She does too have to talk to me!” Geoffrey bellowed, his spray-on tan looking strange on top of his red, flushed cheeks. “Mary, I’m giving you notice to vacate this property immediately! It’s mine now, and you aren’t welcome here, so get out! I’m giving you twenty-four hours before I send the sheriff out to evict you!”
“Wait a damned minute,” Dirk said, holding one large hand in front of Geoffrey’s face in his best Cop Directing Traffic style. “She doesn’t have to go anywhere. She lives here and has for years. You can’t throw someone out of their home with nothing but a twenty-four-hour notice.”
“Not only that,” Savannah joined in, “but who says this property is yours now?”
“Of course it’s mine!” was the quick and angry response. “I’m Great-Grandma Lucinda’s sole heir. Whose would it be? Everything that was hers is mine now. That’s the law.”
“Actually,” Dirk replied, “a judge will probably be the one deciding who inherits your great-grandmother’s estate. She may have left a will. She might’ve had other people she preferred to leave it to. But either way, you can’t come around here harassing this lady who took care of your great-grandmother while you ignored her.”
“Ignored her? She’s the one who abandoned me!” Geoffrey said, his face getting darker by the moment.
Mary managed to work her way around Savannah until she could see Geoffrey. The rage on her face matched his as she shouted back, “Miss Lucinda abandoned you? How dare you accuse her of that. She bailed you out of jail more times than you can count and paid your attorney fees, time and time again.”
“She didn’t that last time!” Geoffrey yelled. “She wouldn’t raise a finger to help me when I needed it most!”
“It wasn’t until you committed a crime so hideous that it made her sick to even hear about it that she cut you out of her life,” Mary countered. “That wasn’t abandonment. That was her coming to her senses and realizing what a monster you are!”
Geoffrey stuck his finger in Mary’s face and shook it. Savannah got ready to grab the offending digit, give it a twist, and listen to it crack. But he lowered his hand and his voice when he said in an ominous, low tone, “You are the one who turned my great-grandmother against me, you bitch. You told her bad things about me and started the trouble between us. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that. I haven’t, and you’re going to pay for it. Big time. Somehow. Someday, you’re going to be very sorry for what you did to me. I promise you that!”
Dirk reached out and grabbed a fistful of Geoffrey’s nicely pressed, expensive shirt. He jerked the smaller guy off his feet and pulled him against him, until they were almost literally nose to nose.
“What kind of idiot are you,” Dirk shouted in his face, “to threaten a woman right in front of me like that? I’m the cop who’s investigating you for murder, and you threaten someone in my presence? Are you completely stupid?”
Geoffrey went from enraged to terrified in an instant. He shook his head and muttered something that sounded like an apology under his breath.
Dirk pushed him, maintaining his grip on his shirt and backing him away from the house. “You leave this property right now, Faraday,” he told him. “If this lady tells me that she even saw you looking in her direction from the other side of a street, we’re going to have a long, serious talk, you and me. Do you understand?”
Geoffrey nodded feebly, and the instant that Dirk released his hold on him, he scrambled away, nearly tripping over his own feet as he stumbled to the black Porsche they had seen before behind his house.
As he drove away, Savannah heard Dirk mumble, “If there was any justice in this world, that man wouldn’t be driving that car. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Or the air he breathes,” Savannah added, equally disgruntled.
They turned back to the kitchen and saw Mary collapsing onto one of the dining chairs, her face white, her breathing labored. A moment later, she began to cough again, those deep, wracking spasms that they had witnessed when they first met her, talking to Ethan on the front porch.
The attack went on for quite a while, alarming them both. Savannah stood behind her chair, her hands on the woman’s shoulders, feeling helpless, unable to assist or even comfort her.
“Are you okay?” she asked, knowing how inane it sounded. Obviously, she was far from okay.
Savannah looked over at Dirk and realized from the alarmed expression on his face he was just as concerned as she was.
“Mary,” he said, dropping to one knee beside her chair, “can we help you? You want us to call nine-one-one? Get you an ambulance?”
Mary continued to cough but shook her head emphatically.
“Okay, we won’t then,” Savannah assured her. “Just try to breathe, darlin’. In and out.” Again, she felt stupid for even suggesting the obvious and momentarily worthless advice.
Finally, the spasms subsided. But they had taken their toll on Mary. She leaned forward, folded her arms on the table, and laid her head on them.
Savannah rubbed her back as Dirk tried to reassure her by saying, “Don’t worry about that piece of crap, Ms. Mahoney. Really. I know his type. He’s all mouth. He’s not going to come around here bothering you anymore.”
“But if he does,” Savannah added for good measure, “don’t you even open the door to him. You don’t have to. You just call us, and Dirk’ll deal with him. Believe me, Detective Coulter can get a lot rougher than that with him if he needs to.”
Finally, Mary recovered herself well enough to speak, though in a shaky, weak voice. “I’m not scared of him,” she said. “Not physically anyway. But I’m afraid he’ll do exactly what he said, kick me out of my home.”
“Try not to worry about that now, Mary,” Savannah told her. “You can cross that bridge when and if you need to.”
“I know I shouldn’t get upset. It brings on those coughing fits. But I’ve lived here for so many years now. I can’t imagine having to leave. Especially at a moment’s notice, like he was saying.”
“You won’t have to,” Savannah said, wishing she could believe her own words. She shot Dirk a questioning look, which he returned with a shrug of his shoulders.
Not reassur
ing.
Maybe she was advising the woman to be too complacent. Perhaps the threat was real.
“I think you should talk to a lawyer, Mary,” Savannah said. “Just to set your mind at ease. An attorney who specializes in this sort of thing can tell you what to expect and how to protect yourself. Even one appointment could make a difference, give you some peace of mind.”
Mary shook her head. “I don’t think it would help. Like he said, he’s her next of kin, her sole heir.”
Dirk cleared his throat and said, “To your knowledge, did Ms. Faraday have a will?”
“Yes. She did.”
“And . . . ?” Savannah asked.
“She left everything to him.”
“Oh.” Savannah glanced at Dirk, who was shaking his head and looking as disgusted as she felt.
Mary lifted her head and turned in her chair to face them. “But that was before he got arrested and convicted for holding those poor women who were being trafficked in the basement of that old house of his in Barstow.”
Savannah perked up a bit. “Oh yeah?”
Mary looked up at her with frightened, sad eyes. “Yes. After that, she sat me down, here at this table, and told me that she didn’t consider him family anymore.”
“Understandable,” Dirk muttered.
“She said I was the only person she trusted, the only one who had ever been kind to her, taken care of her. She told me I was her family. She said she had written a new will and left everything to me.”
Suddenly, a light dawned in Savannah’s head. “That’s what you were looking for,” she said.
Mary nodded. “That’s what I was looking for. I’ve been looking for it since Ethan found her yesterday.”
“A new will!” Dirk said, far too cheerfully. “Well, there ya go! You don’t have anything to worry about.”
Savannah rolled her eyes at him and gave Mary a comforting pat on the back.
Nothing to worry about?
Mary’s future depended on a single document. A piece of paper hidden in a sixteen-thousand-square-feet mansion. Filled with countless cubic feet of garbage.
All Mary Mahoney had to do was find it.
No, she had no reason for concern, nothing to worry about. Not a blamed thing.
Chapter 16
As Savannah sat, parked in her Mustang, watching Brody run across the schoolyard toward her with a big grin on his face, she felt a rush of happiness. Other than little Vanna Rose squealing at the sight of her, having a child so thrilled to see her wasn’t a joy Savannah had experienced much in her life.
Sometimes, Diamante and Cleopatra were especially excited when she came home, and they expressed their pleasure by making furry figure eights between her ankles as she walked from the front door, through the living room, to the kitchen. But she knew they were far happier that the Bestower of the Kitty Kibbles had arrived than that Beloved Mommy had made it home safe and sound.
They were gluttons. Pure and simple. She harbored no illusions about the fact that their love for her was based primarily on food. Petting, scratches behind the ears, and mumbled sweet nothings about how they were the world’s smartest, sweetest, and most beautiful cats qualified as a distant second on their list of priorities.
Until that moment, sitting in the Mustang and watching Mr. Brody Greyson race across the grassy field toward her, Savannah had never fully experienced what Granny must have felt all those years ago when she had collected Savannah and her siblings from their school.
With her windows rolled down, Savannah could hear him yelling, “Hi! Hey, hey, Savannah!” from halfway across the field. She saw the light of happiness in his eyes and something even more important—peace. After less than twenty-four hours in her care, Brody looked like a different kid.
She couldn’t recall ever feeling more deeply satisfied than she felt at that moment, as though she had accomplished something truly great.
“ ‘Hey’ yourself, kiddo,” she called out to him as he approached. “Get in this car right now and tell me all about your day!”
He jerked the door open, tossed his backpack onto the floorboard, and plopped himself on the passenger’s seat.
The sneaky little smirk he gave her told her that he was deliberately trying to pull one over on her.
“You’ll have to get up pretty early in the morning to put the shuck on me, boy,” she told him.
His eyes widened with fake innocence. “Huh? Whaddaya mean?”
“Backseat,” she told him.
“Huh?”
“Munchkins ride in the backseat. It’s the law and a good one at that.”
His face screwed into a scowl. “No way. My momma lets me ride in the front seat.”
She turned toward him and laser-trained her intense blue eyes on his. “Don’t even start with that ‘But my momma lets me’ junk. I’m not your momma, and it won’t work. When you’re with me, we do things my way. No arguments. Got it?”
He sighed and, acting as though his britches had a brick or two in each pocket, climbed out, pulled the seat forward, and slid into the rear.
He sat there, giving her the evil eye, as she glared back at him in the mirror.
“Don’t look at me like that, boy,” she told him. “You know darned well we wear our seat belts in this car. Buckle up.”
“I don’t know how.”
“We both know that’s a big ol’ fib,” she said. “You’ve done it several times since I met you. I saw you.”
“I done forgot how.”
“You’ll remember. You’re a fart smeller.”
He giggled. “You said it wrong. You meant ‘smart feller.’”
“Whatever. That’s you. Get that seat belt on before you’re a minute older. We’ve got a couple of cones waiting for us at the drugstore’s ice-cream counter . . . if you were good at school, that is.”
Two seconds later, she heard the metal snap of the seat belt.
“See there,” she said, starting up the Mustang. “You’re farter than you thought.”
He giggled. “I was good at school, too. A perfect kid!”
“Glad to hear it. I was looking forward to a double scoop cone, fudge and butter pecan.”
“I want chocolate chip mint and licorice,” he said.
“Yuck. You lost me with the licorice there, puddin’ head.”
“Hey, it’s what I like, and I was good! All day! It wasn’t easy, neither. My teacher was cranky. I think she must’ve had her underdrawers on backwards or somethin’.”
“Oo-kay. Whatever you say. Let’s make tracks.”
* * *
Half an hour later, they pulled into Savannah’s driveway, both holding towering cones and wearing ice-cream mustaches. Hers chocolate. His licorice.
She saw two familiar vehicles—Gran’s panel van and Ethan’s GMC Sierra. She had company. Again. Granny hadn’t yet left, and Ethan had dropped by.
Her house was full of love.
Long ago, she had decided that, if one wanted privacy and a personal life, it was best not to open a business in your house. Or have relatives who thoroughly believed the old saying, “My home is your home.”
“Yay, Granny’s here!” Brody shouted, nearly dropping his ice cream.
Savannah was more than pleased to see him so excited about seeing her grandmother again. Who said kids didn’t appreciate the older generations?
But then he added, “If she’s here, then the Colonel’s prob’ly here, too! He’s my favorite dog ever! He’s a darned good wrestler!”
“What exactly constitutes a good dog wrestler?” Savannah asked as they got out of the car.
“He grabs hold of you with his big ol’ mouth and throws you all around, but he doesn’t hurt ya.”
“I see.”
“But he does slobber all over ya. If slobber was poison, you’d be dead as a three-day-old road-kill possum after a tussle with the Colonel.”
“I can imagine.” She shuddered. “Lord knows, I don’t want to when I’m still eatin
g my ice cream, but unfortunately, I can.”
He continued to prattle on. About what, she wasn’t sure, as she was wondering why Ethan had dropped by.
Probably not to wrestle with the Colonel.
If he was here for an update on the progress she had made so far, she didn’t have a lot for him. Considering how generously he was paying her—at his insistence—she wished she could give him a great deal more.
Like the killer . . . tied up with a bright red bow. Especially if it was rotten old Geoffrey, who was her favored suspect, as well as one of her least favorite people.
As soon as they stepped onto the front porch, a familiar and loud noise erupted from the backyard. A hound’s plaintive, excited baying.
“The Colonel!” Brody shouted. “He heard us!”
“Smelled us is more like it,” she replied, laughing. “He is a bloodhound, after all.”
“He wants me to go back there and play with him.”
“He does, and that’s an excellent idea. But you go upstairs and change out of those new school clothes first. I don’t want them ripped up the first day you wear them, by a champion wrestling hound dog.”
“Okay!”
They entered the house, and the boy bounded up the staircase, looking as excited as the dog in the backyard sounded at the prospect of their next bout.
Savannah peeked into the living room and saw Granny sitting in her comfy chair, and Ethan on the sofa. Both were holding a coffee cup and balancing plates on their laps with generous slices of coconut cake.
Ethan saw her and jumped up to greet her, nearly dropping his refreshments in the process.
“Take it easy there,” she told him. “That’s some of the best cake on the planet. If it hits the floor, you’ll cry, for sure.”
“I would,” he said, setting the plate and mug on the coffee table. “I’ve enjoyed a few bites already, and I’d agree with you. It is the best!”
He hurried over to hug her. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and thought of the teenage girls at the pier. She wondered how many women in the world would have been thrilled to see Ethan Malloy in the flesh twice in such a short period of time.
And the Killer Is . . . Page 14