Killer Honeymoon (20 page)

“I understand,” Savannah replied. “Being a PI myself, I feel the same way.”

“I have always believed that confidentiality extends even after a client’s death.”

Savannah was starting to get worried about where this might be headed. “Normally, I would agree,” she said. “I suppose it would depend upon the circumstances.”

“I’m afraid the circumstances of this case require me to break that rule.” Opal closed her eyes as though feeling some sort of internal stab of pain. “Because I’m afraid that I may have inadvertently done something that led to a tragedy.”

“Tell us about it,” Dirk coaxed gently. “You’ll feel better if you do.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s going to take a lot more than that to make me feel better, but here goes.”

She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. Her voice became a flat monotone as she told them her story.

“Amelia Northrop came to me, here at my house. In fact, we sat right here in this gazebo while she poured her heart out to me. She had a strong suspicion that her husband, William, was being unfaithful to her. She had suspected it for some time and wanted to know for sure, once and for all.

“Frequently people come to me because they actually want to catch their cheating mate. They want out of the marriage, and they’re looking for a good reason to leave.

“But Amelia wasn’t like that. I think she truly wanted to hear me report back to her that she was mistaken, that he was as good a husband as she had hoped he was.”

“Let me guess,” Dirk said, “he was a rat fink.”

She nodded. “He was. No doubt about it. I had the pictures, the video, and the audio recordings. She demanded to see and listen to everything I had. She was devastated.”

“I can imagine,” Savannah said, thinking of the beautiful woman whose bright smile and bubbly personality lit up the television screen every night at 11:00.

Thousands of men gazed at that beauty every night and wanted her. And yet, for the man who had her, she wasn’t enough.

“I’ve been doing this for years, but I think her grief was the deepest I’ve ever seen. She felt so terribly betrayed. And she was angry. Horribly angry.

“I couldn’t console her. She left here, sobbing hysterically. I remember worrying if she would even be able to drive, considering her state of mind.”

“Did you hear anything more from her?” Savannah asked.

“No. The next night, I was delivering a sofa, which I had reupholstered, to a client, and that’s when I’d heard that William Northrop was in the hospital. That he’d been shot.”

“Do you think she did it?” Savannah asked.

“Well, yes. It certainly occurred to me that she might have. I mean, what are the odds?”

Savannah looked over at Dirk and saw he was as intrigued by this news as she was.

“I suppose it might have been a coincidence,” Savannah said, testing her.

“No.” Opal shook her head. “You didn’t see her eyes. I’m telling you, when Amelia Northrop left here that day, she looked like a woman who had completely lost her mind.”

“That was the last time you saw her or communicated with her in any way?”

“Yes. After he was shot, I tried to phone her. Left her several messages. But she wouldn’t return my calls. I was so relieved to hear that Mr. Northrop had survived his injuries. I was surprised when someone told me he had gone home from the hospital and she was still with him, nursing him even.”

She wiped her hand over her eyes, as though trying not to see the haunting images inside her mind. “Then, just when I thought I was mistaken about the whole thing, just when I thought we were in the clear, I heard she was . . . that she’d been . . .”

Opal’s voice broke, and she started to cry. Savannah got up from her chair, walked over to her and knelt beside her.

Taking the woman’s hand, she patted it and said, “It’s okay. It’s all right. Whatever happened, you didn’t cause it.”

Opal choked in her tears and squeezed Savannah’s fingers in a grip so tight it hurt. “I just don’t know what to think now. I don’t know what happened. I can’t go to the Santa Tesla police with my information. It would just get me in that much more trouble.”

“No, I don’t believe it would,” Savannah said. “From what you just told us, I can’t think of any law you’ve broken. You didn’t cause William Northrop to cheat on his wife. She came to you for a service, and you rendered it according to her desires. You didn’t shoot anybody. I think you’re okay.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Opal told her, tears streaming down through the dust on her cheeks. “I can’t go to the cops because the other woman, the one William Northrop was seeing, is Chief La Cross.”

“W
hen did you
just know
the other woman was gonna be La Cross,” Dirk asked as they drove away from Opal Parson’s home.

“The minute Betty Sue told me Opal specialized in cheater catching,” Savannah replied smugly.

“You did not.”

“Did too. You saw the way she was looking at him across the table there at the Lobster Bisque. Goo-goo eyes all the way. I can’t believe you missed it.”

He shuddered. “I didn’t consider it a real possibility. I mean, did you see that woman? I hate to say it, but she’s one unattractive chick, and she’s got a lousy personality, to boot. You wouldn’t catch me within a ten-mile radius of her, if I could help it.”

“ ‘Unattractive chick’?” Savannah shook her head. “Boy, you could use some enlightenment classes.”

He laughed. “If you haven’t been able to change me in all these years, do you really think classes are gonna help?”

“Good point.”

They had arrived at the Santa Tesla police station, and Dirk found a parking spot for the Jaguar.

As they got out and went inside the building, Savannah couldn’t help wondering when they’d be able to leave again. If things went badly with Chief La Cross, they might be looking at cement and iron bars for quite a while.

“Ryan and John are up to date on all this, right?” Dirk asked, his hand protectively on her waist. “They know that if we don’t come up for air in an hour or so—”

“They’ll be calling the FBI, the coast guard, the cavalry, and Batman and Robin.”

“Good. And Granny’ll take care of the cats if—”

“Shush! I’m nervous enough without you catastrophizing.”

“And Granny’ll bring us food if—”

She slapped him on the back of the head.

He laughed. “Okay, okay. Just making sure all bases are covered.”

They entered the front door, and—just as Savannah had dreaded—there was her nemesis again. Or at least his carbon copy.

He lit up at the sight of her.

“No!” she said. “Do not even start with me. If you do, I swear, I’ll snatch that ugly rug thing off your head and ram it down your throat.”

The lust faded from his eyes as he donned a distinctly “pissy” look.

“We need to talk to the chief,” Dirk said, “and don’t give us any crap about her not being here. We saw that big black sedan of hers in the parking lot.”

“We’re not leaving until we talk to her,” Savannah added.

The desk attendant reluctantly picked up his phone and punched a couple of numbers. “Yes, Chief,” he said. “You got a couple out here insisting they wanna see you.” He glanced them over, head to toe, taking in their attire and general appearance. “Yeah, ratty-lookin’ big guy in a beat-up bomber jacket. Tall, husky girl, dark hair. It’s them. Okay.”

Dirk looked down at his jacket. “ ‘Beat-up’? What are you talking about, ‘beat-up’?”

“ ‘Husky’?” Savannah said. “Catch up on the latest PC terms, boy. It’s full-figured or plus-sized these days. Sheez!”

The receptionist gave her a curt wave toward the hallway behind him. “Second door on the right.”

“By the way,” she said as they passed his desk, “you are follicle-free and comb unencumbered. And nobody gives a hoot. So take that dead-squirrel skin off your head and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine on your head for a change.”

As they walked down the hall toward the chief’s office, Dirk nudged her. “Did you mean what you said back there? Is it true that nobody cares if a guy’s bald or not?”

Savannah stifled a grin. She knew Dirk was deadly serious about this topic. What he had on top was thinning year by year, and she wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he literally counted the hairs on a regular basis.

“No one cares, but the guy. And he shouldn’t,” she said. “Really. Believe me. Women couldn’t care less about that.”

He smiled. “Good to know.”

“But stop grinnin’ like a goat chewin’ bumblebees. You can’t be in a good mood when we’re fixing to do battle.”

“That’s true.” He put on his best Clint Eastwood scowl and knocked, a bit harder than necessary, on the door with
CHIEF CHARLOTTE LA CROSS
lettered in gold on the textured glass.

“Come in” was the less-than-friendly reply.

They entered the office and found it as austere as the woman in black who was seated behind a desk that was equally black. Savannah wondered if anyone had ever mentioned to Charlotte La Cross that a splash of color in one’s surroundings or in a body’s wardrobe could do wonders for depression and a sour disposition.

And Chief La Cross looked like she was feeling even more tart than usual.

“What do you two want?” she snapped as she rifled through a stack of papers on her desk without making eye contact with them. “Say what you’ve got to say and then get the hell out of my office. I’m busy.”

“Yes, you do look busy, shuffling your papers around like that,” Savannah said. “In fact, you look about as busy as a cat coverin’ up crap on a marble floor. Is that what you’re doing, Chief? Making sure all the crap’s covered?”

“It’s not possible, you know,” Dirk told her. “There’s always something you miss. And then you get caught.”

Chief La Cross threw the papers down and glared at them. “I asked you what you want. You’d better say and then leave. I’ve had quite enough of you two, especially after that fiasco in the restaurant. I should have arrested you both then and there for disturbing the peace.”

“Yeah. You probably should have,” Dirk said. “Then we wouldn’t have found out what we did.”

“Though we did suspect it already,” Savannah added.

Although La Cross hadn’t invited them to sit down, they each took a chair on either side of her desk. Dirk leaned back in his, put his hands behind his head, and laced his fingers together. Savannah casually crossed one leg over the other, resting her ankle on her knee.

“So you been knockin’ boots with ol’ William for how long now?” Savannah asked. “And poor Amelia found out about it. We hear she didn’t take it very well.”

Under her tropical tan, the chief turned a few shades paler. “William and I are old friends. Nothing more.”

Savannah dropped the fake smile and fixed her with her strongest blue-laser stare. “Don’t insult us by lying to us,” she said. “We’ve been put through the mill on this case of yours, trying to do the right thing by the victim. The case you should be solving, except that . . . Oh, right, you may not want to solve it, because as it turns out, you’re one of the principals involved.”

The wind seemed to go out of the chief’s sails. She sighed, put her elbows on her desk, and rested her head in her hands. “You talked to Opal Parson,” she said with a tone that sounded to Savannah like exhausted resignation.

“Yes, we did,” Dirk said.

Savannah added, “You had to know we would, sooner or later.”

“I was hoping for later.”

“Why?” Savannah asked. “Why stall? What’s the advantage of buying time?”

“I was hoping to solve Amelia’s murder.”

“Solve it or get away with it?” Savannah shot back.

La Cross lifted her head. “Watch yourself. No matter what you think you’ve found out, you’re still in my office, my jurisdiction. You’d better never forget that.”

“Are you telling us you didn’t kill your boyfriend’s wife?” Dirk asked, his tone as testy as hers.

“I most certainly am telling you that. I’m trying to find out who did.”

“If you’re telling the truth, and you really didn’t do it,” Savannah said, “I don’t think you have to look far to find the culprit. Just roll over in your sleep and you’ll run flat dab into him.”

Chief La Cross jumped up from her chair. For a second, Savannah thought the police chief was going to attack her.

The thought also occurred to her that she had never—even during the darkest days of her law enforcement career—had the bullpucky beaten out of her two days in a row. It wasn’t a new record that she cared to set.

Instead, La Cross walked over to her window and stood, her back to them for a long time.

Finally, still looking out, she said, “William didn’t kill Amelia. If you’ll recall, he was shot himself. Badly. He very nearly died.”

“Who says it was the same shooter?” Dirk asked. “Could’ve been two different guys.”

“Same gun,” La Cross said. “I recovered casings at both scenes. They were the same. We were also able to compare the slugs removed from William and from Amelia. We examined them under a microscope, and the lans and grooves line up. They were a perfect match. They were fired from the same weapon.”

The chief turned around to face them, a bitterly smug look on her face. “Yeah, yeah, we aren’t complete schmucks around here. We know a few cop tricks. We watch
CSI,
too.”

“Well,” Savannah said, “we have three people in this little love triangle. You’re telling me it wasn’t William or Amelia, because they both got shot by the same gun. I guess that leaves you. Did you pop William because—when push came to shove—he refused to leave his wife for you? Then, when you screwed up the hit on him and he recovered, you reconsidered and decided to take her out instead?”

“You think you have it all figured out, don’t you?” La Cross said, her tone acidic, her dark eyes fathomless. “Well, figure this out. Someone took a shot at me, too. Only, fortunately for me, they missed.”

Dirk sat up straight in his chair. “When?”

“The same day William was hit. I was walking out of my house and a shot came from a passing car. Missed me by inches. It struck the palm tree next to my front door. If you don’t believe me, I’ll take you to my house right now and you can examine the hole it left.”

“Did you recover the slug and casing?” Savannah asked.

“Not the casing. I searched the road for it, but it probably landed in the shooter’s car. I managed to dig the slug out of the tree without damaging it too badly.”

“And?” Savannah could feel her pulse rate quickening. “Was it a match for the others?”

“Absolutely. No doubt about it.”

Savannah stared into those black eyes, weighing the sincerity she saw there. Or lack of it. Of course, Savannah knew the woman could be lying.

Contrary to popular belief, with some people it was really hard to tell, even for a seasoned professional.

“Did you get a look at the driver?” Dirk asked.

“No. The vehicle had dark, tinted windows.”

“Description?” Savannah said.

“A black Jeep, maybe ten years old. Rusty. In bad shape.”

Dirk dug out his notepad and started to scribble. “Plate?”

“California, blue on white. First four—4NPC. I didn’t get the rest. I was too busy pulling my own weapon and hiding behind my shrubs.”

“Do you have any lead on that tag?” Savannah asked. “Any idea at all whose vehicle it is?”

“Obviously not, or I’d have the owner in my jail cell.”

“There can’t be too many vehicles on this island, let alone a lot of Jeeps,” she said. “How hard can it be to find it?”

“With cars going back and forth on the ferries every day, you’d be surprised how hard it is. Besides, the shooter wouldn’t be the first criminal to use stolen plates when they commit a crime.”

“True.” Savannah stood, and Dirk rose with her.

He tucked his notebook back inside his jacket pocket.

“If we help you catch this killer,” he said, “there’s something I want from you. In fact, I demand it.”

“What’s that?” La Cross asked suspiciously.

“I want a heartfelt apology from you. My wife is shapely, not husky. And this bomber jacket of mine is a classic.”

“I agree. Your wife is a lovely woman,” she said grudgingly.

He scowled. “And my jacket?”

“If you help me catch the killer, we’ll talk about that jacket.”

 

As Savannah slid between the sheets and pulled the quilt up around her, she glanced over at her cell phone on the night table to see if she’d gotten any calls while in the bathtub.

“Fluff Head didn’t call,” Dirk told her as he got in beside her. “And you know what they say about how a watched phone never rings.”

“I thought it was a watched pot that never boils.”

“Same principle.”

She grimaced as he tossed one leg over hers, rubbing a tender spot on her shin—residual battle damage from the no-longer-mentioned “Xenos Affair.”

“You really have to stop calling her stuff like that. It’s rude and stupid, when you consider she does stuff to help us solve these cases that we could never do ourselves. Like run this partial plate number.”

“Ryan and John are helping her.”

“Yeah, because you and I couldn’t even talk their lingo, let alone get results. You need to show your superiors proper respect, meadow muffin.”

“And speaking of showing respect, why do I get a feeling that little term of endearment isn’t all that reverential?”

She snickered and tickled his ribs until he wriggled and slapped her hand away. “ ’Cause you’re a cynical ol’ curmudgeon,” she told him.

“Hey! Why is it wrong for me to call Tammy a ‘fluff head,’ but you can call me a ‘curmudgeon’?”

“Because in your case, it’s true, where Tammy—”

Her phone began to play “You Are My Sunshine.”

“Where Tammy is calling me right now.” She reached for the phone and flipped it open. “Hey, babycakes. What’s happenin’?”

“It’s not too late, is it?” came the voice on the other end.

“Not for you. Got good news for me?”

“I have news. Whether it’s good or not . . . that’s up to you.”

“Lay it on me.”

“I got a possible on that plate.” She drew a deep breath. “Those first four characters you gave me don’t suggest it’s a vanity plate.”

“Right. So?”

“And La Cross said it was a Jeep, about ten years old.”

“Okay?”