A Body To Die For (19 page)

Savannah patted her hand. “We’re going to help you find him. Do you have a picture of him that we can borrow?”

“Yes, I’ve got one in the bedroom.” Rachel got up from her chair and disappeared into the other room. In just a moment, she returned with a school photo of a gangly, freckle-faced boy with a mop of curly red hair.

She placed it in Savannah’s hand. “I want that back,” she said.

“I’ll get it back to you. I promise.” Savannah looked down into the child’s face and then into his mother’s. They looked a lot alike. They also looked like Clarissa. “Why were you at your sister’s house?” she asked.

Rachel looked startled. “How do you…? Did she tell you I was there?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Savannah told her. “We know for certain that you were there. Why were you there?”

“I had called her, several times, asking her if she’d seen Tanner. Asking her what had happened to Bill. She kept hanging up on me. So I went out there to confront her, face-to-face. You two came to the house while I was there, so she told me to hide in the bedroom. I did what she said.”

Dirk stood up, came over to stand by them, and took the boy’s picture from Savannah. He looked down at it for a long time, then said, “Are you telling me that you think your sister hurt your boy?”

“Hurt him? I’m telling you…I’m hoping that’s all she’s done.”

O
nce Savannah and Dirk were on their way back to San Carmelita—the desert scenery whizzing past as Dirk exceeded the speed limit by a wide margin—Savannah took the Morris boy’s picture out of her purse and looked at it.

“I hate it when it’s kids,” she told Dirk. “I mind a little less when adults are in trouble. A lot of them deserve the trouble they’re in, or at least they’ve done things to land them in the doghouse. But kids…kids break my heart.”

“Mine, too.” He shook another cinnamon stick out of the plastic bag. “All kids mess up. It’s part of growing up and figuring out who they are. But when they do things that ruin their lives, before their lives even get started, that’s sad.”

She looked at the picture, the eyes wide with innocence, or maybe naïveté, the freckles and red hair, so like his mother’s. She thought about Rachel, who, even though she’d never win awards for her scintillating personality, appeared to care deeply about her son.

“Why didn’t she report him missing?” Savannah said.

“What?”

“If my kid went missing, I’d call the cops.”

“And tell us what? That you were blackmailing your sister, screwing your brother-in-law, and were going to run away with him? That the brother-in-law’s missing and…oh, yeah, murdered. If you’re doing crap like that, you don’t want to draw attention to yourself.”

“She’d do it for her kid.”

“If she told us what was going on, it would hit the news and then her sister’s career would go up in flames. She might hate her sister, but it wouldn’t be in her best interests to kill the goose who lays the golden eggs and all that.”

“If she thought her kid’s life was in danger, she’d report it, get us looking for him.”

“So, why didn’t she?”

Savannah stared out the window for a long time, looking at the scenery, but not seeing it. “I think she didn’t tell the cops he was missing because she’s afraid he did it. She’s afraid her son murdered her lover. She’s also hoping he did.”

“Afraid he did it? Hoping he did it? Why the hell would she hope a thing like that?”

“Because thinking that your kid is a murderer is better than thinking he’s dead.”

“Lousy choices.”

“Aren’t they?”

Before Dirk took Savannah home, he dropped her by San Carmelita’s juvenile hall facility. He waited in the car as she hurried inside, Tanner Morris’s picture in her purse.

“My name is Savannah Reid,” she told the young woman at the reception desk. “I’d like to see Rebecca Shipton if she has a minute for me.”

“Do you have an appointment to see her?”

“No, but please tell her it’ll only take a minute. I know how busy she is.”

As the receptionist called Shipton’s office, Savannah looked around at the stark white walls, gray linoleum tiled floor, and worn blue chairs that had seen better days—a few decades ago.

The county didn’t spend a lot of money on wayward kids. At least, not decorating for them.

But then, juvie hall shouldn’t be a nice place to go
, Savannah thought. It was intended to be a lesson to kids who were headed down the wrong road—a lesson that even grimmer surroundings might be in their future if they didn’t shape up and fly straight.

But that was the hardcore kids, Savannah reminded herself. A lot of the children who came to this place really hadn’t been given a chance for a good life. And she wondered if they would find a fresh start here.

She had her doubts.

“Ms. Shipton will be with you in just a moment,” the young woman told her. “You can sit down if you want.”

Savannah took a seat, but had barely chosen a magazine, when a tired-looking, middle-aged woman walked into the waiting area. She was attractive, with large, expressive eyes and thick salt-and-pepper hair that lay in natural, neat waves. A tall, large-boned woman, the social worker gave off the air of someone who could be trusted, but not someone to mess with.

And seeing her, Savannah had the encouraging thought that it was the people, compassionate, tough-minded professionals like Rebecca Shipton, who made a difference in kids’ lives inside this institution…whatever color its walls might be.

“Savannah,” Rebecca said, hurrying across the room to greet her. “It’s so good to see you. What a nice surprise.”

She embraced Savannah warmly and gave her a peck on the cheek, which Savannah returned.

“I know you’re always up to your gazoo in work,” Savannah said, “so I won’t keep you. But we’ve got an unofficial report of a missing kid, and I was wondering if you’d take a look at his picture and tell me if you’ve seen him.”

“Unofficial report?” she asked.

Rebecca’s sharp eyes and ears missed nothing. In her business, she couldn’t afford to.

“Yeah, it’s a long story,” Savannah said as she removed the boy’s photo from her purse.

She held it out to her, and Rebecca studied it carefully before answering. “No,” she said. “We don’t have him, and I haven’t seen him.”

“Would you keep an eye out for him? He was last seen here in San Carmelita, and he could be in trouble.”

“In trouble or causing trouble?”

Savannah shrugged. “At the moment, we don’t know for sure. Could you just pass the word for everybody to be on the lookout for him and call me if anybody sees him?”

“Absolutely.”

Savannah handed Rebecca the picture, who gave it to the receptionist. “Debbie, could you scan and copy this for me and then give it back to Ms. Reid here? I’ll need about eight copies.”

“Sure.” The receptionist took the photo and immediately stuck it inside a scanner.

“I wish we could talk longer,” Rebecca said, “but I have to get back. I’m in the middle of an intake.”

“I’ve gotta get going, too.” Savannah gave her another hug. “Thanks a million.”

“Let’s get together at the Pastry Palace sometime soon for one of their cream puffs and a coffee.”

“You got it. Thanks a bunch.”

Rebecca disappeared down the hallway, and Savannah silently blessed her for the work she did. Helping kids…whether they wanted to be helped or not. It didn’t get any more noble than that.

When Debbie gave the photo back to her, Savannah thanked her and hurried back to the car where Dirk was waiting for her, listening to Elvis’s greatest hits, and sucking on his cinnamon stick.

“What’s next?” she asked him as she climbed into the Buick.

“That feather and the crap on the tires—I keep thinking about that,” he said. “I think I’ll go see our old buddy, Julio Sanchez, the dude we busted for cockfighting a couple of years ago.”

“I thought they locked him up.”

“They did, but he’s out on probation. Got out a few months back. I think I’ll go talk to him and see if I can get him to tell me where the action is now.”

“You think he’s going to admit to you that he knows, him being on probation and all?”

“He’s a druggie, too. Once I pat him down and find his stash, he’ll probably be happy to talk to me about anything else. Do you wanna come along?”

Savannah considered it. She didn’t like people who were cruel to animals of any kind, and she wouldn’t mind seeing Dirk put Julio in an uncomfortable position. Like against the Buick, legs spread, hands behind his back.

But she had a mission of mercy she felt she should run.

“I’m going to go take Sharona a goody bag,” she said. “Some homemade cookies and books. Things to while away the time over there. I don’t want her getting bored and thinking about going home. At least, not until we know if Pinky’s boys are after her or not.”

She remembered her sister, sitting at home, probably cursing her for not taking her to Disneyland or at least Sunset Boulevard. One of the perks and curses of living in Southern California was taking your visiting relatives to see the world-renowned sights. Whether it was a perk or a curse depended on which relative was visiting.

“I have to take Marietta to the beach, too. I promised her, and I’ve been neglecting my hostess duties. Southern hospitality standards to uphold, and all that.”

“She arrived on your doorstep without warning, not a call or letter to say she was coming. I’d say that releases you from all responsibility when it comes to entertaining her.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because you’re a barbarian, heathen Yankee, who doesn’t know any better.”

“And you’re a pushover for pushy relatives—a friggen pansy, a doormat, a goody-two-shoes.”

Savannah didn’t reply.

He had her there.

Savannah loved the safe house. She loved the cottage itself with its bright white exterior and its cheerful blue roof, the flower beds planted around it that bloomed with marigolds and nasturtiums. She loved the swing on the front porch and thought of the people she had seen sitting there, relaxing and unafraid of whatever evils that might bedevil them.

She loved the whole idea of “safe.”

As a girl she had been taken from an unsafe environment, along with her eight other siblings, and placed in Granny Reid’s safe home. There, the young Savannah had relearned the joys of being a child again. She had gone to bed at night in peaceful surroundings and woke to the smell of coffee, sausage and biscuits, and her grandmother’s kind voice.

And if placing a fearful person here in this cottage in the middle of orange and lemon groves could give them that same sort of soul-deep contentment that she had experienced lying on her grandmother’s featherbed, Savannah supported the effort any way she could.

And her support usually came in the form of her traditional “safe house basket.”

She felt a little like Red Riding Hood as she took the large basket from the backseat of the Mustang and walked to the door with it over her arm. Only she had more than simple edibles in her basket. She had loaded it up with the macadamia chocolate chip cookies and fudge brownies, but she had also included an assortment of romance novels, some lighthearted movie DVDs, and a book of crossword puzzles.

She had some doubts that Sharona was the crossword puzzle type. But she was pretty sure she could get into the romance novel with the cowboy hunk on the front—the guy who was bending a cowgirl backward in his arms and gazing down at her half-exposed bosom with unabashed lust.

He looked a heck of a lot better than that creep, Aldo or Alpo, or whatever his name was.

But her do-gooder buzz was diminished a tad when she saw Sharona sitting on the front porch swing, talking on the phone.

It wasn’t simply that she was having a conversation with someone on her cell phone. It was that she ended the conversation a bit too abruptly and snapped the phone closed a little too quickly to suit Savannah.

She also didn’t meet Savannah’s eyes for the first few seconds after she stepped up onto the porch, and that bothered her, too.

“Hi, sugar. How’s it going?” Savannah asked her, trying to sound as cheerful as she’d felt a minute ago.

“Okay. Boring, but okay.”

She noticed that Sharona appeared more rested. Her hair was brushed, she had a little bit of makeup on, and most importantly, she wasn’t shaking at all.

“I brought you some stuff to help with that,” Savannah said, handing her the basket.

She was touched by the young woman’s eagerness as she searched through her new treasures. “Wow, that’s so nice of you. Thank you!” she said as she held up first the books, then the DVDs, and read the titles.

Savannah sat down on the other side of the swing. “Honey, I hate to bring this up, but the person you were talking to on the phone…you didn’t tell them where you are, did you? Like I told you before, it’s critical that you never, ever tell anybody where this house is. That’s the number one condition for you being here.”

“No, I didn’t,” Sharona assured her. “Are you worried because I was talking on the phone?”

“Well, it did cross my mind when I saw you that maybe…”

“I was afraid that’s what you’d think. But I was talking to my sister in Indiana. She called me because she couldn’t get me at my house, and she was worried about me.”

“Does she know what’s been going on around here?”

“Yes. She and I are close. We share everything. Well, almost everything. I told her that you’d put me in a safe house, but I explained how I couldn’t tell her or anybody where it is. She understood.”

“Okay.”

“That’s all right, isn’t it? I can tell her that much, as long as I don’t say where the house is, right?”

“Yes, that’s okay. It’s just that the fewer people, especially ones around here, who know what’s going on with you, the better.”

“I understand, believe me. It feels great to be here. I don’t want to ruin it.”

“For yourself or for anybody else in the future who might come here for protection.”

Savannah’s cell phone began to chime, and when she dug it out of her purse, she saw it was Ryan’s number on the caller ID.

“Excuse me just a minute,” she told Sharona as she walked a few feet away and answered it.

“Hi,” she said, “I’m glad you called. Sorry about falling asleep on you like that. Literally, falling asleep
on
you, from what Tammy told me.”

“Think nothing of it,” Ryan replied. “You were exhausted. We were happy to tuck you in.”

Lurid thoughts of them tucking her into bed rushed through her mind, but as always, she just let them flow in and immediately out. There was no point. Just no point at all. So why torment herself?

“I’m really sorry I forgot about the gala, too,” she said. “You two looked so gorgeous in your tuxes. I can’t believe I missed the opportunity to look at you all night.”

He chuckled. “We’ll see what we can do about making that up to you. We enjoy looking at you in an evening gown, too.”

“Yeah, right.”

No point, Savannah
, she told herself.
No point at all. Don’t even go there
.

“Actually, I called,” he said, “because I might have a lead for you on that poultry…um…site.”

“Really? A chicken farm?”

“Well, nothing so quaint as a farm. It was actually a poultry-processing plant.”

“Yuck. A chicken slaughterhouse?”

“That’s another way to put it.”

“Where?” She brightened considerably.

“Would you believe, just off Sulphur Creek Road, about six miles from where you found the car and body?”