A Body To Die For Page 12

  “Even when you are up to no good?”

  “Especially then. Being given the benefit of the doubt is a very sexy thing.”

  Savannah thought of Clarissa Jardin’s promo poster. “Even sexier than a sleek, hard body?”

  “That crap’s overrated. Call me old-fashioned, but I like my women soft.”

  She smiled at him. “I love you.”

  He grinned back. “All women do. Just ask that chick at the station, Kimeeka. She’s got it bad for me.”

  “So I hear.”

  As they got out of the car and passed through the bell gate, Savannah could hear Clarissa’s voice just inside the wall. She seemed to be arguing with someone.

  But when they entered the courtyard, they realized it wasn’t an argument, because Clarissa was the only one talking. She was addressing a fellow in dirty work clothes, a straw hat on his head, and a rake in his hand.

  “If you want to keep working for me,” she was telling him, “you’d better not ever let anything like that happen again. When I say I want purple asters, I mean purple, not blue. Are you people color-blind, deaf, or just plain stupid?”

  Dirk nudged Savannah with his elbow and whispered, “See, not sexy.”

  Savannah could understand his point all too clearly. Clarissa’s yellow halter top and tight terry-cloth shorts might have revealed her toned, tanned body, but the harsh, critical expression on her face said so much more.

  The worker with the rake stared down at the freshly planted flowers that, to Savannah, looked more purple than blue. He mumbled something that sounded like an apology under his breath, but his eyes smoldered beneath the brim of his hat.

  Savannah wondered if Clarissa had any idea how many enemies she made in the course of a day. Or if she cared.

  Did she know how devastating an act of retaliation could be from someone who had been so deeply insulted?

  Having a husband in the morgue with a bullet hole in his head might have been a clue.

  When Clarissa saw Savannah and Dirk walking toward her, the already irritated look on her face turned even angrier. “You two? Again?” she said, leaving the gardener to his asters of dubious color. “Who let you in?”

  Savannah saw Dirk open his mouth, then close it, thinking fast. She knew he was trying to avoid getting the maid in trouble for buzzing them in. Why should the gentle Maria suffer the same scolding as the gardener or worse?

  As usual, when Dirk was asked an incriminating question, he skirted the issue by asking one of his own. “Do you own a gun, Ms. Jardin?”

  So much for dillydallying and pleasantries, Savannah thought. She had to admit, his style was improving.

  “I do,” Clarissa replied, putting her hands on her hips. “And I have a license for it, too.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Dirk said, “you have a carry permit. You and your husband both.”

  “Well, if you knew that, why did you ask me?”

  Savannah gave her a smile that wasn’t particularly warm. “Oh, Sergeant Coulter often asks questions that he knows the answer to. That’s what makes a conversation with him so all-fired fascinating.”

  Dirk motioned toward the house. “Let’s go inside. I have a few other questions to ask you.”

  Reluctantly, Clarissa led them into the house. This time, Savannah noticed that as Dirk walked along behind Clarissa and her yellow short shorts, he didn’t even appear to be aware that her butt was society’s definition of perfection. And even though she had a pretty wicked sashay to her walk, he didn’t give her hindquarters a second look.

  Maybe there was something to that business of guys only noticing for the first few minutes, Savannah thought. And maybe ol’ Dirk was capable of spitting out the occasional gem of wisdom, after all. She’d have to pay more attention to what he said in the future.

  Nah, she decided. One diamond in twenty years…hardly worth the hassle.

  Once they were inside the house, Clarissa turned on them, and without the previous courtesies of offering seats and refreshments, she demanded to know: “Why are you here, really? Do you have anything new on my husband’s case? Have you figured out who killed him yet?”

  “It’s a bit early,” Dirk replied. “These things take time.”

  “I watch television, all those cops and forensics shows,” she snapped back. “I know that you have to catch whoever does it in the first forty-eight hours or else you never will.”

  “That’s television,” Savannah told her. “Sometimes it actually takes us forty-eight hours and ten minutes to nail the bad guy.”

  “Don’t you get smart with me!” Clarissa shouted. “You don’t know who you’re talking to! Nobody talks to me like that!”

  “Maybe more people should,” Savannah replied quietly, evenly.

  Clarissa turned to Dirk. “Get her out of here. I’m a grieving widow, for God’s sake. I demand to be treated with some respect and this, this…” Her eyes ran up and down Savannah’s figure, and it was obvious she was considering whether or not to dare a weight-related insult.

  Dirk stepped forward, once again interjecting himself between the two women. “Ms. Jardin,” he said, sounding exhausted and exasperated, “do you want to help us catch the person, or persons, who killed your husband? Or do you want to waste our time by trying to impress us with how important you are? It’s your choice. Make it. Now.”

  Clarissa glared at Savannah for a long time, then said, “I don’t like her. I don’t want her coming around here with you any more.”

  Savannah answered for Dirk, “If you don’t want me in your home, I won’t come here again,” she told her. “I’ll respect your wishes. I’m only here as a favor to Sergeant Coulter, to help him solve your case. But before you decide that for sure, I want you to know that I’m a pretty damned good investigator, if I do say so myself.”

  Clarissa said nothing.

  “She is.” Dirk nodded vigorously. “She really is.”

  Savannah continued, “And if you don’t like me, believe you me, I can live with that, because I’m not particularly fond of you either. But we don’t have to like each other for us to work together. And if you work with me, and with Sergeant Coulter here, we might be able to get some justice for your husband. And I figure that’s what a grieving widow would want more than anything else right now…that and finding out what happened to her husband in his final moments on this earth.”

  To Savannah’s surprise, Clarissa’s eyes welled up with tears. She walked over to the Victorian fainting couch and sat down. Putting her hands over her face, she began to cry.

  Savannah reached into her purse and pulled out a couple of tissues. She walked over to the couch and offered them to Clarissa.

  Surprised, Clarissa stared up at Savannah for a long moment, then took the tissues and wiped her face.

  “I really am sorry for your loss,” Savannah told her. “I wish this awful thing hadn’t happened to your husband and to you. I wish we could just make it all go away, but we can’t. All we can do is find out the truth about what happened and hope that’ll give your heart some peace.”

  Clarissa whispered a halfhearted, “Thank you,” and blew her nose.

  “About the gun…” Dirk sat down on a chair near the couch, “the one you have a permit for…”

  “It’s in my purse,” she said.

  Dirk cleared his throat. “I’m going to have to see it.”

  “Ma-a-ari-i-ia!” she screamed.

  Both Savannah and Dirk jumped.

  In an instant the maid appeared, looking nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. “Yes, Señora?”

  “Get my purse for me.”

  “Sí, Señora.”

  The maid hurried across the living room to an armoire that was a mere six feet from where Clarissa was sitting. She yanked the mirrored door open and retrieved a purse from an inside shelf.

  As she handed it to her mistress, Savannah recognized the bag as a designer purse that cost more than Savannah had paid for her ’65 M
ustang—when it was new.

  Maria left the room as quickly as she’d appeared.

  Clarissa reached inside the purse and pulled out a derringer with a stainless finish and what Savannah guessed was a two-inch-long barrel.

  With carelessness born of naïveté about firearms and their potential for destruction, she waved the weapon around. “Here it is,” she said. “Bill gave it to me for protection. You never know, with all the crazies in the world. And some people take my message about fitness personally. Some actually hate me. I’ve received death threats.”

  Imagine that, Savannah thought as she reached out and took the weapon from Clarissa’s hand.

  Few things made her more nervous than a firearm in an untrained hand.

  Pointing the gun away from all living beings in the room, Savannah lifted the weapon to her eye and sighted down the barrel.

  At least, that’s what she was pretending to do. She was actually taking the opportunity to smell the weapon and determine if it had been recently fired.

  While it might be a different caliber than the shell casing in the car, it never hurt to look…and smell.

  One quick glance at Dirk told her that he knew what she was doing. He gave her a discreet questioning look. She shook her head just enough to send him a silent “no.”

  Removing the two bullets from the pistol, she said, “So, you had her all loaded and ready to go.”

  “No point in carrying an empty gun,” Clarissa answered matter-of-factly.

  “That’s true,” Savannah replied, thinking of the Beretta in her shoulder holster with its full clip.

  Handing the weapon and bullets to Dirk, Savannah sat down in a chair near Clarissa and asked her, “Do you think you could actually use that thing on another human being?”

  Clarissa looked her square in the eye and said, “If I had to. To save my life or the life of an innocent person, you betcha.”

  Savannah returned her look and for just a moment, the two women bonded.

  “Some fat-ass guy grabs me, tries to rape me, I’d blow him away,” Clarissa added.

  The bonding moment ended abruptly.

  “Interesting how you assume the rapist would be fat,” Savannah said, “I’ve known quite a few scrawny-assed rapists in my day.”

  “Ms. Jardin, I hate to have to even mention this,” Dirk interjected, “but when we were here before, you mentioned that your husband was a gambler. What sort of gambling did he do?”

  “Bill would bet on which drop of rain would reach the bottom of a window first,” she said. “He loved it all. Private high-stakes poker games, the ponies, football, baseball, you name it. He even bet on dogfights, you know, those awful pit bull fights where they watch the dogs tear each other apart. I kicked him out of the house for a week when I found out about that.”

  “Yes, I can imagine,” Savannah said, her skin crawling at the idea of those horrible blood sports.

  “And do you have any idea how he placed those bets?” Dirk asked.

  “Yeah, with a bookie named Pinky. He called here all the time, threatening Bill to pay his debts. In fact, Bill was supposed to meet with a district attorney named Walter Wilcox next week about testifying in some murder trial.”

  Savannah had to mentally will her jaw not to hit the floor. “Oh, really,” she said. “This guy, Pinky, is going to be tried for murder?”

  Clarissa nodded. “If Wilcox gets enough evidence against him. That was why he wanted to meet with Bill. Pinky claims he never met this guy named Freddie Romano, who turned up dead in Las Vegas, and Bill knew better. Bill said he’s played poker with Freddie sitting on one side of him and Pinky on the other.”

  Savannah glanced over at Dirk and saw that he was practically dancing. “And,” Dirk said, “Bill owed Pinky money?”

  “Yeah, a lot of it. Bill said he was afraid that Pinky was going to kill him. Said he’d threatened to.”

  Savannah asked, “How much is a lot?”

  Shrugging, Clarissa said, “I don’t know for sure. But Bill had owed him as much as $50,000 before and didn’t consider that ‘a lot.’ I’d guess it was probably in the six figures.”

  “And you know all this how?” Dirk asked.

  “Bill told me. He didn’t keep much from me. Our marriage was pretty much over anyway. I think he actually wanted me to dump him. God knows, he gave me reason enough.”

  “Which brings me to my next question.” Dirk took a deep breath. “What do you know about a gal named Sharona Dubarry?”

  “Nothing,” Clarissa replied. “I don’t know anybody by that name.”

  Savannah thought she was lying, that she could see it in her eyes. This was the second time Bill Jardin’s widow had denied knowing the identity of his mistress. Savannah decided to tuck that little mental tidbit away and mull it over later, deciding what it might mean.

  Clarissa didn’t appear to be the type of woman who would willingly remain in the dark about something as important as her husband’s fidelity.

  Apparently, Dirk didn’t believe her either, because he gave her a penetrating look—the one he usually reserved for interrogating hardcore criminals—and said to her, “Don’t waste my time or yank my chain, Ms. Jardin. I’ve been up all night long and so has my partner here. I’ve been very patient with you so far, but you’re starting to piss me off.”

  Clarissa bristled. “Well, you’ve got a lot of nerve—”

  “Oh, you have no idea how much nerve he has,” Savannah said. “You don’t want to be on his bad side, believe me. He’s got a nasty streak, especially when he’s tired.”

  “Sooner or later,” Dirk told Clarissa, “we’re going to figure out what happened to your husband. And if I find out that you’ve been lying to me, giving me bullshit information or not telling me all you know, I’m coming after you.”

  Dirk stood and walked closer to her. She started to stand, then seem to think better of it and remained on the fainting couch.

  In fact, Savannah noticed that she looked a little pale under her tan, a little shaky, too. Maybe she would put that couch to good use.

  “You haven’t been straight with us,” Dirk said, sticking his finger in her face. “You wait for days before you even report your husband missing, and then you just neglect to tell me that he had a bookie after him, trying to collect gambling debts—a bookie who’s being looked at for murder. Why the hell didn’t you mention that last night?”

  Clarissa started to cry again, covering her eyes with Savannah’s tissues.

  “Oh, knock it off. I don’t buy it.” Dirk turned to Savannah. “Have you got a glove?” he asked her.

  She reached into her purse, produced an examination glove, and handed it to him.

  He shoved the derringer into the glove, then placed it into his jacket pocket.

  “Hey,” Clarissa said, “don’t you need a warrant or something to take my property?”

  Dirk leaned down until he was nearly nose to nose with her. “Do I need one? Are you going to give me a hard time about that, too?”

  Clarissa glared up at him, but her voice was even and only mildly hostile when she said, “No, go ahead and take it.”

  “If any fat-assed rapist comes after you in the next few days,” he said, “you’ve got my card. Just give me a call and I’ll send Savannah to come over here to shoot him for you, okay?”

  “I’m not going to be here,” Clarissa replied. “I’m leaving town tomorrow. I have an interview to do in New York. They’re doing a television special on me, and now that Bill’s been murdered—”

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” Dirk told her. “Until I get a substantial lead on this case…one that doesn’t point to you…you’re not leaving town.”

  Clarissa jumped to her feet and shouted in his face, “No way! You can’t enforce that! I’m not under arrest!”

  “You’re going to be in about two seconds.”

  “For what?”

  “Obstructing justice…until I can get you for first-degree, premeditate
d murder.”

  Savannah watched the two of them glare, stare, huff and puff at each other for what seemed like ten years, until finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. This time it was her turn to play the peacemaker.

  “Uh, Clarissa,” she said, “do you happen to have the phone number of that district attorney, the one Bill was supposed to be meeting with to discuss Pinky’s trial?”

  At first, Clarissa didn’t appear to hear her as she continued her stare down with Dirk. Then she shook her head slightly and turned to Savannah. “What? Oh, yeah. There’s a business card. I think it’s on the refrigerator. Maria! Maria! Maa-a-a-ri-ia!”

  Dirk held up one hand. “I’ll get it myself. Just stop that damned shrieking.” As he passed by Savannah, she heard him mutter under his breath, “Sheez, living with that…the guy probably shot himself.”

  Five minutes later, they had returned to Dirk’s car, one derringer and one D.A.’s business card richer, when Savannah had a thought.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, grabbing him by the arm before he could open her door.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Chickens.”

  “Chickens?”

  “There were feathers and crap on the Jaguar’s tires.”

  “Yeah, maybe we should have asked her if he ever went to any farms anywhere.”

  “Dogfights,” she said. “Clarissa said he liked to gamble on the pit bull fights.”

  Dirk looked confused. “But what’s that got to do with chickens? I don’t know what…oh, you mean—”

  “Yeah, cockfighting.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Dogfighting, cockfighting, same sort of miserable crap. And from what we’ve heard about Jardin, I’d say it’s more his speed than poultry farming.”

  “Maybe the other night he met Pinky or somebody else at one of the sites where they hold the fights.”

  “Maybe to pay them, or tell them that he couldn’t pay them, which might have gotten him popped.”