Sour Grapes Read online

  DINNER, DESSERT . . . AND MURDER

  Savannah Reid was never happier then when those she loved were seated around her kitchen table, stuffing their faces with her good Southern home cooking. At that moment, four of her favorite people were finishing off a platter of fried chicken, a bowl of mashed potatoes, and a boat of cream gravy. Tammy Hart, her health-conscious assistant, was enjoying her usual salad.

  As Savannah joined the table, Ryan Stone asked, “Do you have time for a little extra work, Savannah? I’ve been hired by a beauty pageant promoter to ‘guard’ some lovelies who are competing for the Miss Gold Coast crown.”

  “Miss Gold Coast?” Tammy asked, nearly choking on her salad. “What a disgrace . . . Evaluating women on the basis of physical attributes.”

  “Yeah,” Dirk agreed. “Disgusting. Do they need an off-duty cop as a chaperone?”

  Savannah scooped up a big forkful of pie dripping with caramel and pecan sauce. “I’ll take it,” she told Ryan. “Looking out for some girlie-girl beauty queens, making sure they don’t stub their pretty toes and ruin their pedicures, maybe breaking up a few catfights over false eyelashes and hair mousse—how hard could it be? I mean . . . What could possibly happen at a beauty pageant?”

  Books by G.A. McKevett

  JUST DESSERTS

  BITTER SWEETS

  KILLER CALORIES

  COOKED GOOSE

  SUGAR AND SPITE

  SOUR GRAPES

  PEACHES AND SCREAMS

  DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

  CEREAL KILLER

  MURDER A‘ LA MODE

  CORPSE SUZETTE

  FAT FREE AND FATAL

  POISONED TARTS

  A BODY TO DIE FOR

  WICKED CRAVING

  A DECADENT WAY TO DIE

  BURIED IN BUTTERCREAM

  KILLER HONEYMOON

  KILLER PHYSIQUE

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Sour Grapes

  G.A. Mc Kevett

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  DINNER, DESSERT . . . AND MURDER

  Books by G.A. McKevett

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  For Elizabeth Harris

  From New York’s skyscrapers to the blue grasses of Kentucky, you’ve done it all, ’Lizbeth, with beauty, style and class.

  There’s a bit of you in every heroine I write.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  An artist seldom receives the kind of freedom and encouragement that I have enjoyed with my editor, John Scognamiglio. Bless you, John, for your generous spirit. And for your guidance, and your patience, and your great titles, and your plot ideas, and . . .

  Chapter 1

  Standing at the counter of Burger Bonanza, the tantalizing aroma of stale cooking oil tickling her nostrils, the sight of sandwiches in greasy wrappers setting her taste buds atwitter, Savannah Reid considered herself lucky to be within reach of food . . . any food. It had been a long night.

  “Sure you can afford this cornucopia of culinary delights, big boy?” she asked her buddy, Dirk Coulter, who stood beside her, studying the backlit menu on the wall—specifically, the price column—with the discriminating eye of a first-rate cheapskate.

  “I can afford it if you don’t get carried away,” he grumbled. Spotting a poster that dangled on a string from the ceiling, he brightened. “Hey, they’ve got a special . . . a Junior Deluxe with fries and a drink for ninety-nine cents! Let’s get a couple of those!”

  “Let’s don’t. I’m starved, and that measly kiddy meal wouldn’t fill a chipmunk’s cheeks,” she said, her Southern drawl becoming more pronounced, as it always did when she was irritated and hungry. And Savannah was frequently one or the other.

  She stepped up to the counter and motioned to the skinny girl in the baggy, red-and-blue polyester pantsuit. As the Burger Bonanza hostess sauntered to the cash register, Savannah noted the plastic name tag on the breast pocket of her shirt. “Good evening . . . ah . . . Jeanette. I would like to order a—”

  “I ain’t Jeanette,” the girl said as she slid an enormous wad of gum from one side of her mouth to the other and chomped on it. “Whaddaya want? We’re closin’ in a couple o’ minutes.”

  Savannah forced a weak smile and resisted the urge to relocate the gum to some other orifice . . . like the left nostril or right ear. Both of which bore multiple piercings. Beside her, Dirk snickered, and she elbowed him in the ribs. “Well, Miss Scrawny-Assed, Ill-Mannered Person Wearing Jeanette’s Uniform, I want a double chili-cheeseburger with a superlarge fries and about a quart of Coke and—

  “Hey, stop right there!” Dirk held up one hand in his best traffic-directing mode. “I’m not made of money, you know. Cops don’t exactly knock down the bucks.”

  “I know. I was one. But private detectives don’t make a killin’ either. And I just spent half the night, keeping you company on a duller-than-dirt stakeout for free.”

  “I thought the joy of hangin’ out with me would be payment enough.”

  Savannah looked him up and down, taking in the tousled, thinning hair, the decrepit bomber jacket, the ratty T-shirt with a faded Harley-Davidson logo, the nearly kneeless jeans, and the smirk on a face that showed the wear and tear of more than twenty years as a street cop.

  In a weak moment, she might have admitted that she joined him on midnight stakeouts for the pleasure of his company. They had been partners on the San Carmelita police force for seven years, before she and the department had experienced a parting of the ways. And she missed Dirk. If nothing else, she missed the daily opportunities to yank his chain; he was just so “yankable.”

  She gave him one of her deep-dimpled smiles, then sniffed. “Eh . . . get real, Fart Face. You promised me food. Now, fork over for a double chili cheese and the works before I pitch a fit.”

  Dirk groaned—a beaten man. He turned to the girl behind the register. “Get her what she ordered, before she decides she wants onion rings and a strawberry sundae, too.”

  A few minutes later, they were sitting on miserably hard booth seats, their feast spread across the table between them. Dirk was pouting, and the expression looked ridiculous on a forty-plus guy wearing a Harley shirt.

  “Geez, you didn’t have to go ahead and order the rings and—”

  ‘’Oh, hush and stuff your jaws.” She shoved the oil-soaked bag of onion rings over to him and grabbed her own burger from the tray. Chili ran from both sides of the sandwich and dripped onto the wrapper as she bit into it. The spicy sauce filled her senses, and she closed her eyes as she chewed, savoring the moment. Ah . . . food, nourishment, highly saturated fat calories. Once again, all was right with the world.

  For just a second, maybe two, her pleasure was slightly dimmed by the thought that tomorrow morning, this burger would be riding around on her butt or elsewhere on her
body, along with about thirty extra pounds of Winchell’s Donuts, Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, Yukon Gold potato chips—drowned in French onion dip—and chocolate-dunked, peanut butter cheesecake. But, as always, these depressing thoughts had a short shelf life in Savannah’s mental archives.

  Long ago, she had decided to live comfortably with those thirty pounds. She liked the extra sixteen that had settled on her chest. And she figured a pound or two on her face filled out any fortysomething wrinkles. A pound on each foot and another for both hands weren’t something she worried about. That only left nine unwanted pounds, which she assumed had wound up on her rear, and since she carefully avoided wraparound dressing-room mirrors, she hardly ever saw her backside. Outta sight, outta mind—it was a motto to live by.

  Yes . . . after a bit of rationalization, Savannah had conjured a healthy self-image. Nine unseen pounds certainly wasn’t enough to cause her to take drastic measures . . . like dieting or jogging.

  “You’d think,” Dirk said around a mouthful of burger, “that for the prices they charge, they’d install a decent sound system in here.” He nodded toward the speaker mounted on the wall behind a potted plant with brown, crispy leaves.

  Savannah squirted a glob of ketchup onto her fries as she listened to the scratchy version of “Hotel California.” “Glenn Frey sounds good no matter what,” she said.

  “Eh, you’ve just had a crush on him since he was on Miami Vice a million years ago,” Dirk said, sounding slightly miffed. Although they had never been romantically linked, Dirk sulked when she said anything good about another guy. And Savannah had to admit that she bristled when he made “Cindy Crawford-hot-bod” comments. But she wasn’t about to admit that those minor irritations were indicators of anything other than a long-standing, completely blasé friendship.

  “Are you goin’ out with me again tomorrow night?” he asked, reaching for her soda. “That guy’s bound to show up at his mama’s house sooner or later, and then I’ll nab his ass and stick it back in jail where it belongs.”

  “Yeah, I’ll hang out with you again. But only because I have a special feeling in my heart for kid beaters like that one. I think it’s called loathing. Get your hands off my Coke. Buy your own.”

  “What are you talkin’ about? It’s all-you-can-drink. When it runs out, you just go fill it up again. Why should I pay for two?”

  She snatched the Coke out of his hand and returned it to her side of the table. “Because I don’t want to swap slobber with you.”

  “I wouldn’t slobber in it. Geez, Van . . . for a chick you can be really gross sometimes. I—”

  “Sh-h-h. Heads up,” she said, looking over his shoulder toward the front of the dining room, where a motley entourage was filing in, wearing the baseball jackets and caps, and red-kerchief bandannas that identified them as members of one of Los Angeles’s more vicious gangs.

  “What is it?” Dirk asked, instantly serious. They had worked together so long that they read each other well, and even though a half smile was pasted on her face, her blue eyes registered definite concern.

  “Looks like we’ve got some big-city gang activity,” she said, “right here in the sleepy little beach town, tourist trap called San Carmelita.”

  “How many?”

  She turned back to him but watched them in her peripheral vision as they spread out across the front of the restaurant. “We’ve got five males and a female. The girl’s walking up to the counter. Looks like she’s going to order.”

  “And the others?”

  “We’ve got one very big, older and very mean-looking dude standing in the doorway, eyeing the parking lot. He’s wearing a black-leather raincoat.”

  “It ain’t rained since April.”

  “Exactly. Oversize, and he’s got one hand inside.”

  Dirk winced. “Oh, shit. That there’s bad news. What do you figure he’s carryin’?”

  “Whatever he ripped off in his last burglary. Could be an Uzi.”

  “Do you think it’s them?”

  Savannah didn’t have to ask who he meant; the same thought had occurred to her the moment the crew had entered. An APB had been issued about a group of teenage gangsters, led by a guy in his early twenties, who had been holding up fast-food joints on the coast of California, north of Los Angeles. They picked spots—like Burger Bonanza—that were near a freeway entrance and hit them late at night, just before closing, nabbing the day’s receipts. As soon as they robbed the place, they headed down the highway and were lost in the traffic.

  So far, they hadn’t killed anyone, but during the last holdup they had shot a cashier and destroyed the kid’s right arm. Definitely bad guys . . . quickly getting badder.

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “I’d bet they’re our buddies. And us here with I-Ain’t-Jeanette and the salad bar cleaner-upper . . .”

  Her voice trailed away as one of the males, carrying an enormous boom box, walked by their table on his way to a booth in the back corner of the room. He sat down, facing forward, set the box on the table in front of him, and turned on what Savannah called “rap crap,” drowning out Glenn Frey and causing Savannah to hate him with all her being.

  “He’s mad-doggin’ me, big time,” Dirk said. “Sizin’ me up.”

  “Yeah, the guy at the door is checking us both out and keeping an eye peeled on the parking lot. What do you wanna do?”

  “Bust ’em?”

  “Yeah, right. Duh . . . six to two are pretty lousy odds. I don’t mind getting you and me killed, but if anything happened to sweet little Ain’t-Jeanette, I’d never forgive myself.”

  “I guess you’re right. Maybe if I just whip out my badge, it’ll scare ’em away.”

  Savannah raised one eyebrow. “Hey, that’s a possibility. Not you pullin’ it out, but me. Remember what we did to distract those yahoos in Chat-n-Chew Café a few years back?”

  “Yeah, but there were only three of ’em, not a roomful.”

  Savannah saw two of the other guys take seats in the front corner booths. The girl sat down beside one of them, a soft drink in her hand. She gave Savannah an icy, bitter look that belied the softness of her youthful face.

  Savannah’s anxiety barometer rose a couple of notches; she and Dirk were now effectively surrounded. “Well, we gotta do something fast,” she said. “They’ve taken positions. It’s going down.”

  She reached under the table and tapped him discreetly on the knee. “Pass me your badge.”

  “Ah, man . . . how come you get to be the cop?”

  “ ’Cause I’m the girl, and they won’t get as shook up if it’s me. Now give me the tin.”

  Reluctantly, he slipped his hand inside his jacket, then handed her the badge under the table. “It’s not tin; it’s gold . . . and you’d better not get any bullet holes in it.”

  She glanced around warily as she slid the thin, leather folder inside her sweater. “I’ll try not to.” Then, louder, she added, “I’m gonna make a trip to the salad bar. Want anything?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the leader of the entourage tense and lift his left hand slightly. The others froze, their eyes darting between him and the booth where she and Dirk were sitting.

  Dirk used the opportunity to glance over his shoulder at the front of the restaurant, the salad bar, and the players in their drama. “Yeah,” he said with studied nonchalance, “nab me some breadsticks.”

  “Breadsticks comin’ up.”

  Slowly, she stood and strolled up to the stainless-steel bar with its fake stained-glass canopy. The teenage, male employee had just finished covering the last metal canister and loading it on a cart with the others. All that remained was melting ice, strewn with bits of lettuce and other veggie castaways. He didn’t look happy to see her.

  “I’ve got everything put away,” he said. “We’re closing, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” she replied, walking up to him and standing as close as she could without arousing the suspicions of the gangsters ne
arest her, about twenty feet away. “And I want some chocolate pudding.”

  “We don’t have no pudding,” he said, swabbing at the stainless-steel edge of the bar with a soggy rag. “And even if we did, I told you, we’re closing.”

  Savannah took a couple more steps toward him, until they were nearly nose to nose. “I said . . . I want pudding. And I know you’ve got some in the kitchen.” She jabbed his chest with her forefinger for emphasis. “You get back there and fetch it for me. I’m suffering from PMS and I need my friggin’ chocolate fix. You hear me?”

  The kid’s eyes bugged slightly. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I’ll see if we’ve got some.”

  As he started to walk away she whispered, “Stay back there. Both of you.” He looked confused. She raised her voice. “And if you come out here without that pudding, mister, you’re takin’ your life in your hands!”

  She lingered at the salad bar, checking out a shriveled radish, floating in the watery ice, until she could see that the boy had taken the clerk by her elbow and led her into the back of the kitchen out of sight.

  Like cigarettes burning holes in an old sofa’s cushions, Savannah could feel the gangsters’ eyes boring into her as they watched her every movement.

  Her mind racing, mentally rehearsing her next sequence of maneuvers, she meandered back to the table where Dirk sat. A thought raced through her brain, This is a dumb idea. You’re gonna get yourself and Dirk killed.

  She quickly retorted with a silent, Oh, yeah . . . can you think of anything better?