A Body To Die For (27 page)

She reached into her pocket and retrieved her cell phone. She punched a couple of buttons, and Dirk answered.

“I’m here,” she said as she walked through the tangle of weeds, past a collapsed, rusty swing set, and through a broken chain-link fence.

“I’m driving up to the front,” he said.

She could hear the truck approaching as she scrambled up to the yellow house and positioned herself at the corner. From here, she couldn’t be seen from any of the windows, and she had a clear view of the side of the house and the rear. “I can’t see the right side of the house,” she whispered into the phone.

“My right or your right?” he asked.

“Your right.”

Knowing Dirk, she had already done the “math.” Why confuse the poor guy? He confused so easily.

“The right if you’re in the house looking out, or…

“Dirk! Are you still in the truck, on the street, looking at the house?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’m at the left back corner of the house. I can’t see the right of the house, so you’ll have to keep an eye on it.
Your
right. You know, like your right hand. That’s the hand you scratch your ass with.”

“Jeez…you really
are
irritable today.”

She heard him cut off the engine and open the truck door.

“I’ll keep my phone on,” he said, “and put it in my pocket, so you can hear what’s going on.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Good luck.”

“You, too.”

Her ear to the phone, her eyes on the back door and the side windows, she listened as Dirk walked up to the front door and knocked. It took longer than usual—or at least, it seemed like a long time as her adrenaline levels soared and her heart raced—before the door finally opened.

She heard Dirk say, “Hi, are you Myrtle Weyerhauser?”

“Yeah,” was the reply.

“I’ve got a delivery, a wide-screen television, on the truck there. It’s for a Mr. Norbert Weyerhauser. Is he your husband, ma’am?”

“No, Stu—I mean…Norbert is my son.”

“Well, if he can sign this form, I’d be happy to—”

“He ain’t here.”

“But you told our office on the phone that he is. I’m afraid I can’t deliver it unless Mr. Weyerhauser signs for it.”

“Gimme that paper. I’ll sign for it.”

“No, ma’am. Can’t do that. And besides, I’ll need Mr. Weyerhauser to help me unload it. See, my partner was sick today—out with the flu—and I can’t carry it in by myself.”

“Are you a cop?”

“A cop? Me? Why would you say that? Do I look like a cop?”

“Yeah, actually, you kinda do. What’s in that box in the truck? Is it really a TV?”

Savannah went from “vigilant” to “high alert” in an instant.

The voices on the phone faded as she lowered the phone and listened intently to a new sound…a scraping noise…coming from the other side of the house.

Ducking, so that her head would be below the windows, she hurried across the back of the house. She paused at the opposite corner, then took a quick peek around.

At first, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing—a flash of silver in the sunlight. Some sort of metal was sticking out of the upstairs window.

Then more of it protruded…and more…tilting down toward the ground.

A ladder.

She grinned, closed her cell phone, and stuck it in her pocket. She unsnapped her side holster, freeing her Beretta…and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. No sooner had the end of the ladder reached the ground than a hairy leg popped out of the window, and then another followed.

Dressed in baggy shorts that hung low on his hips, flip-flops, and a T-shirt large enough to use as a tent for a backyard campout, Stumpy Weyerhauser was making his getaway.

Or at least, Stumpy thought so.

She waited until he was halfway down the ladder before she sauntered around the corner of the house and over to the foot of it.

He was huffing, puffing, and unsteady as he descended. The flip-flops didn’t help as he tried to get solid footing and kept sliding off the backs of the sandals.

So intent was he, hanging on tightly to the sides of the ladder and casting furtive glances toward the front of the house, that he didn’t even notice Savannah as she walked up behind him.

He didn’t realize she was there until she reached up, grabbed the hems of his shorts, and jerked them down around his ankles.

Instantly, she regretted the action, because his underwear came down, too, and she found herself “face-to-face” with one of the least attractive features of an unattractive man.

“Hey! What the hell!” he yelled as he whipped his head around and nearly fell.

He tried to grab at his shorts with first one hand, then the other, while clinging to the ladder, and again, it was nearly his undoing. The side rails bent and the entire contraption wobbled as he tried to maintain his balance and re-dress his backside.

Her hand on her still-holstered pistol, Savannah laughed at him and said, “Careful there, Stump. You don’t wanna take a tumble with those britches down; you could skin something important.”

“You stupid bitch!” he shouted. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Whoa, Norbert! Watch who you’re calling names there, good buddy. You’re in no position to make enemies.”

She reached over and nudged the side of the ladder. Not enough to knock it down, but definitely enough to get a rise out of the already stressed Stumpy.

“Hey! Knock it off! You’re gonna make me fall and—”

Again, he reached for his shorts, while trying to step down one more rung. Apparently, multitasking wasn’t Norbert Weyerhauser’s strong suit.

He tumbled off the ladder and landed on his face in a particularly muddy area of a flower bed. Adding injury to insult, the ladder slid sideways with him and landed on him, smacking him soundly on the head.

A small, inch-long gash opened in his scalp, and bright red blood began to ooze out.

“Hey, Stump…you’ve sprung a leak, boy,” Savannah said as she stepped across him, straddling his body, then sat down on his back.

The wind went out of him in a whoosh.

He struggled only a moment as she pulled his arms behind him. Taking some handcuffs from her slacks’ waistband, she called out, “Hey, Dirk! Back here!”

“What…are you?” Stumpy asked struggling to breathe with her weight pinning him. “A…cop?”

“Close enough,” she replied as she saw Dirk come running around the corner.

He looked infinitely alert, ready for action, body taut with tension…until he saw her sitting on the face-down Stumpy. Stumpy with mud on his face, his shorts still pulled down to his ankles, his butt bare as the day he was born—only hairy and not half as cute.

Dirk froze, staring at them, his mouth open, taking in the scene.

Then his eyes locked with Savannah’s.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked her.

“Apprehending your suspect for you. And you’re welcome,” she replied with a grin.

“She…she…sexually assaulted me!” Stumpy whined, thrashing around. “And she’s…squashing…me.”

Dirk considered the words for a moment, shook his head as though he simply couldn’t process the information, and walked over to them.

Savannah stood and pointed to the cuffs. “After you’re done with him, I want those back,” she said.

Instantly, Dirk was indignant. “Hey, I gave you a pair to replace the ones I—”

“Don’t get all huffy with me! You gave me one pair for my birthday after ripping off three pair from me over the years. So, by my calculations, I’m short two sets and a birthday present.”

Dirk reached down, grabbed Stumpy, and hauled him to his feet. In another quick move, he hoisted his prisoner’s shorts back up to their original position. “There you go, Norbert,” he said. “I just improved your appearance tenfold.”

“I’m telling you,” Stumpy whimpered, “that crazy woman sexually assaulted me!”

“No, she didn’t.” Dirk took him by the arm, leading him toward the front of the house. “I’ve known her for twenty years,” he said, “and in all that time, I couldn’t convince her to sexually assault me.”

Dirk glanced back over his shoulder at Savannah, who was following close behind. “And…” he added, “…as we’ve all seen, I have way more to offer her in that respect than you do.”

A woman with pink, foam hair curlers, a lavender chenille robe, and a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, came running up to them. “Norbert!” she yelled around the cigarette, “I told you it was a scam. There’s ain’t nothing in that box they brung. I checked it! It’s empty as your head. You ain’t never been lucky enough to win nothin’!”

“Ah, shut up, Ma,” Norbert replied, shuffling along as Dirk led him toward the pickup.

Savannah wondered where the woman had found antique, pink, foam hair curlers. She wondered how old that chenille robe was. She wondered if every time Norbert had abused one of his elderly female victims he had been thinking of his mommy.

But there was something else that piqued her curiosity even more.

She had to ask.

Turning to Mother Weyerhauser, she said, “I have to know…who was the first person to call him ‘Stumpy’? Was it you?”

“Hell no.” The cigarette, stuck to her lower lip, bobbed up and down a couple of time. “It was that idiot bimbo that he dropped out of high school to marry. She started calling him that right before she divorced him. I’ve always called him “Norbert.’”

Savannah gave Dirk a big smirk as she opened the truck door and helped him tuck the bloody, grumpy, Stumpy inside. “Told ya so.”