A Body To Die For Read online

  She was feeling tired and lazy and relaxed when she entered the locker room, ready to just shower, go home, and kick back.

  But the moment she passed through the dressing area and into the showers, a creepy, apprehensive feeling washed over her. The hair wasn’t exactly standing up on the back of her neck, but she had the sensation that some sort of threat was nearby.

  It was an intuitive warning that she had felt many times before as a police officer and since, as a private investigator. And she had learned, long ago, not to ignore it.

  She opened her mouth to call out to Tammy, but thought better of it. Instead she glanced around taking in the closed door on the back wall of the long, narrow room, the two rows of shower stalls on either side.

  She could hear more than one shower running. The odor of disinfectants, mixed with the floral smells of soaps and shampoos, scented the humid air.

  Only three stalls were being used their plastic curtains drawn. She walked quietly between the rows, bending over to peek at the bare feet exposed between the bottom of the curtain and the floor.

  Tammy’s perfectly pedicured, hot pink toenails made identification easy. Three stalls away from Tammy were a pair of feet wearing bright red and purple flip-flops—the senior lady from the rowing machine, no doubt.

  But it was the feet wearing the sneakers that caught her eye.

  Sneakers and jeans.

  In the stall right next to Tammy’s pink toes.

  Silently, Savannah crept up to the curtain of Tammy’s stall and pulled it aside a few inches.

  A wet, sudsy Tammy whirled around, but Savannah pressed her finger against her lips in a silent “Sh-h-h,” then pointed to the plastic curtain that separated her shower stall from the one next to it.

  Tammy’s eyes widened, but she nodded.

  At least twenty thoughts and decisions processed in Savannah’s brain in the next few seconds, the major ones being: Weapon’s in my gym bag. Don’t pull it yet. Handcuffs in waistband. No time to call Dirk. Tammy’s wet and slippery. Won’t be much help.

  The most satisfying thought: Gotcha now, you dirt-sucking perv…

  And the uppermost thought any time she was getting ready to apprehend a perpetrator: Don’t get killed!

  A moment later, all conscious decision making was over, because an arm reached beneath the plastic curtain. And in its hand was an open cell phone.

  A video camera cell phone.

  And the user was pointing it up at them.

  Savannah felt, more than heard, Tammy’s sharp intake of breath as she instinctively moved back away from the camera and against the curtain on the other side of the stall.

  Stepping into the stream of the shower, Savannah reached down, grabbed the wrist, and yanked with all her might.

  Someone yelled.

  She felt him fall. Hard.

  But she hung on.

  The camera fell with a clatter, and Savannah was dimly aware of Tammy scooping it up and holding it to her bare chest.

  Savannah braced herself and gave the arm another jerk.

  Her illicit photographer came sliding, facedown, across the floor, under the curtain, and into their stall.

  Tammy squealed and tried to gather the curtain around her as Savannah twisted his arms behind him. A second later, she had him cuffed.

  “You got him!” Tammy shouted.

  Savannah flipped him over…and looked down into the frightened, youthful, pretty face of Dirk’s bimbo exercise companion.

  “And he’s a she!” Tammy added.

  When it came to stating the obvious, Tammy was gifted.

  Savannah loved her anyway.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Savannah asked the girl, reaching up to turn off the shower, now that they were all three thoroughly drenched.

  “Nothing! I wasn’t doing anything!”

  “You were taking dirty pictures.”

  “I was not! I was calling my mom!”

  Savannah turned to Tammy, who was now cocooned in shower curtain. “Check that phone,” she told her. “Was the camera on?”

  Tammy nodded. “Still is.”

  “Turn it off and check to see what she got.”

  Good with techno gadgets, it didn’t take Tammy long to do as she was told. She squealed. “Oh, my gawd! She got my butt and from that angle, it looks as big as a bus!”

  “Don’t you dare delete it! That’s our evidence!” Savannah reached down and hauled the weeping girl to her feet. “What are you doing, taking pictures of women’s naughty bits? You’re not into girls; I saw you smooching Mr. Universe out there a few minutes ago. And you sure looked like you meant it.”

  “I…I…it isn’t that big a deal. I mean, it’s just some silly pictures and—”

  “Are you kidding me?” Savannah wished she had a bacon-greased skillet in her hand. “There’s a sixteen-year-old girl who’s afraid to leave her house now because you took some of your ‘silly’ pictures, posted them on the Web, and turned her into an overnight porn star.”

  The woman didn’t answer, just continued to sob.

  “She’s been downloaded thousands of times in the past few weeks. How do you think that makes her feel? How do you think her parents feel? I’ll warn you right now, girlie, her daddy wants a piece of you.”

  Tammy was holding the camera phone, watching her X-rated footage over and over again and shaking her head. “How can you do this to another woman…violate someone’s privacy like this?” she asked her. “Why?”

  “I didn’t want to,” she said, snuffling. “Really, I didn’t. He made me.”

  “Who made you?” Savannah asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Vittorio.”

  Savannah glanced over at Tammy and nodded toward the cell phone in her hand. Tammy caught her meaning and discreetly flipped on the phone’s camera, pointing it in their confessor’s direction.

  “Vittorio made you take pictures of naked women in public showers?” Savannah stated…for the record.

  “Yeah. He made me. Really he did.”

  “And how, exactly, did he force you to do this?”

  “He told me that if I didn’t do it, if I didn’t love him enough to do that one little thing for him, he’d break up with me.”

  Savannah gave her a long, steady, piercing look, until finally, the young woman broke eye contact and stared down at her wet shoes, shame and fear all over her face.

  “You think I’m disgusting,” she said, crying softly. “You think I’m worthless, total crap, giving in to a guy like that.”

  Savannah weighed the thoughts and emotions sweeping over her. “No,” she said, “I’m disgusted by what you did. I’m angry at you for hurting other women, but I don’t think you’re crap.” She sighed, removed one of the handcuff manacles from the girl’s wrist and attached it to the shower’s cold-water handle. “You’re the one who thinks you’re crap,” she said, “not me. Somewhere along the line somebody told you that you’re worthless, and you took it to heart. That’s the problem here. Otherwise, if you loved yourself, and some jackass like Vito suggested you do such a thing, you would’ve told him to turn those barbells of his into suppositories and then dive off the end of the city pier.”

  Savannah turned to Tammy. “Watch her till I get back.”

  “Sure.” Tammy nodded, as always, too eagerly. “And can I dry off and get dressed?”

  “No, you have to keep wearing that shower curtain until the CSI unit gets here and fingerprints it and swabs it for DNA.”

  Tammy’s big eyes widened and mouth opened and closed several times before she finally said, “You are kidding, right?”

  Savannah chuckled and shook her head as she walked away. She wouldn’t go back to being young again for anything in the world. Having the odd wrinkle and cellulite bump was a good exchange for bits and pieces of accumulated common sense.

  When she exited the locker room, she was relieved to see that both Dirk and Vittorio the Magnificent were still working ou
t. But when the young man saw her, he got a wary look on his face. He set down his barbells, picked up his towel, and tossed it over one shoulder.

  Donning an unconvincing pseudo-nonchalant expression, he began to stroll toward the men’s locker room door.

  Savannah hurried over to Dirk and said in his ear. “It’s him. Mr. Biceps.”

  “The big guy?” Dirk asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah.”

  Neither of them was averse to a little hard work in the call of duty, but Savannah had to admit she didn’t blame Dirk for this momentary lapse in enthusiasm. The guy was enormous, not to mention young. And she could usually tell which ones would give them a hard time, resist, run, fight, or all of the above.

  Vito looked like a resistor.

  As he walked toward the men’s shower room, he had a swagger to his step that announced to the world that he was, indeed, an “alpha male.” Or at least that he considered himself one, and that was an attitude that frequently caused problems. Law enforcement officials had ways of dealing with the Alpha Vitos of the world, but they often went home nursing bruises and sprains after dealing with them.

  And Savannah had gone home and soaked battered parts of her body in hot Epsom salt baths too many times in the past to relish the thought now.

  “Slip me your cuffs,” Savannah said. “Quick.”

  “Why?”

  Dirk wasn’t a materialistic sort of guy, but the half a dozen things he owned, he guarded like a rottweiler with a supper dish full of chopped sirloin.

  Savannah elbowed him. “I used mine on the bimbo. Hand them over now.”

  “Oh, yeah. You’re gonna take that guy down by yourself….”

  “I’ll get the job half done. The rest is up to you.”

  “This I gotta see.”

  He followed her as she headed toward the men’s shower room, where their quarry had just disappeared.

  At the door, she turned back to him and held up her hand. He stopped and she mouthed, “One minute,” to him. He nodded.

  She reached for the zipper on her sweat suit top, gave it a tug downward, three or four inches, and went inside alone.

  Other than one naked little fellow in the back of the room, who scrambled for a towel at the sight of a female entering the locker room, the only other occupant was Vittorio. He had peeled off his T-shirt, and Savannah didn’t have to fake the light of lust in her eyes as she looked him over.

  To get a gander at a body that good looking, a gal usually had to go to a strip club on “Ladies’ Night,” pay a cover charge, and be prepared to stick bills in some pseudo-fireman’s G-string.

  He gave her a suspicious, and somewhat hostile, look as she hurried over to him.

  “Hey,” she said, “my boyfriend and I are having an argument about you, and I’ve gotta ask you something.”

  She walked across the small room and stood quite close to him, making sure he had a clear view straight down the front of her sweat suit.

  Savannah would be the first to admit she was a few pounds over what the charts suggested even a tall woman should weigh. But she would also be the first to point out that at least ten pounds of that excess was in her bra, and therefore, not altogether something to be scoffed at.

  And Vittorio seemed to agree.

  He was obviously enjoying the pectoral view as much as she had been.

  Enjoy it while you can, you dirty little peeper, she thought. Where you’re going, you’re not going to see any real girlie parts for a long time.

  “You and your boyfriend are fighting over me?” he asked, all too pleased at the prospect.

  “Oh, yes,” she said in her breathiest, phone-sex voice—the one she never got to use for anything other than distracting perps…unfortunately. “We were arguing something fierce about you.”

  In her peripheral vision, she could see Dirk. He had stepped into the room and was moving slowly toward them.

  She moved slightly to her right, causing Vittorio to have to turn his back to Dirk in order to maintain his clear view of her feminine assets.

  Giving him her best, dimpled smile, she reached out and ran one hand lightly from his shoulder to his elbow, her fingertips skimming over his biceps. “Maybe you can settle the argument for me.”

  He gulped, his eyes glued to her cleavage. “Ah, sure…I mean…I’ll try.”

  Her hand moved further down, along his forearms, and she leaned closer still, until her chest was nearly brushing his. “My boyfriend said that to get a body like this, you must do steroids. But I said, ‘No way. He gets all those gorgeous muscles from working out. I can just tell.’”

  Vito was breathing hard…hard enough for her to congratulate herself on being able to seduce a guy half her age.

  She’d like to think it was because she was just so danged hot, but she reminded herself that Pretty Vito had this felony voyeurism problem and was, no doubt, a pretty easy mark.

  Dirk was only a few feet behind him.

  It was time.

  She reached down and in a practiced move, snapped one of the handcuffs onto Vito’s right wrist.

  A split second later, she twisted his arm behind his back, and Dirk was ready to grab it.

  Vittorio was so shocked at going from “seduced” to “cuffed” in a heartbeat that he was captured before he knew it.

  And even then, he didn’t seem to get it.

  “What is this?” he asked Savannah, indignant. “You and your boyfriend…you two into something kinky here?”

  “Nope,” said Dirk as he spun him around to face him. “Only one perv-o here, buddy. And you’re it.” He flashed him his badge. “San Carmelita Police Department. And you’re under arrest.”

  “What am I supposed to have done? What are you arresting me for?”

  “Taking naughty pictures,” Savannah told him. “Or should I say, talking some nitwit girl into doing it for you.”

  Vito bristled. “I did no such thing. If she was doing something like that, it was all her own idea! It’s her! Arrest her!”

  As they led him from the locker room, Savannah shook her head. “Shoot, there goes tonight’s fantasy.”

  “What?” Dirk asked, cranky.

  “The chivalrous knight fighting the dragon to rescue the fair damsel fantasy. Sir Galahad here just ruined it.” She sighed and shook her head sadly. “Dadgummit. And with that body he would’ve looked so good in a suit of armor, too.”

  Chapter 2

  “When the hell is she gonna be done messing with that?” Dirk grumbled as he sat on Savannah’s sofa, petting her oversized black cat, Diamante, who was sprawled across his lap.

  Diamante’s only reaction to his complaint was a slight tail twitch to show her own irritation. Diamante and her sister, Cleopatra, held the firm conviction that when a human petted a cat, they should give the task their full, undivided attention.

  Dirk was falling down on the job.

  Besides his preoccupation with Tammy, he had one eye on the television. The Dodgers were down four runs at the bottom of the eighth, which made him even grumpier than usual. And grumpy, distracted guys didn’t give the best pets.

  In the corner of Savannah’s living room, sitting at the rolltop desk, Tammy was working intently at the computer. She had banned everyone, even Savannah, from coming near her while she completed her task.

  As Savannah walked by the desk, on her way from the kitchen, a tray of assorted desserts in hand, Tammy grabbed a manila folder from the desktop and held it over the computer screen.

  “Oh, please,” Savannah said, “it’s not like I haven’t seen your bare butt in person plenty of times before.” She held out the tray. “Here, eat something before you grow faint from hunger.”

  “Like that would ever happen to anybody around here.”

  With a critical eye Tammy glanced over the plate laden with fudge brownies, a piece of pecan pie, a bowl of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, and something that looked like a strawberry sundae
. “Eh, it’s all poison. Pure poison. You really shouldn’t contaminate your body with—”

  “Yours is the one in the corner,” Savannah told her, tamping down her irritation. “It’s strawberries over yogurt over a sliced banana, sprinkled with chopped pecans. I made it just for you.”

  Tammy hesitated, laid down the envelope, and reached for the dish. “You put sugar in it, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t you snerl up your nose at my food, girlie. You’ll eat it or wear it!” Savannah glanced at the computer screen. “And believe you me, it’ll cover a lot more of you than that bar of soap did.”

  Tammy squealed and slapped the folder back over the screen.

  Savannah walked over to Dirk, chuckling. “Here you go, big boy,” she said, setting the tray on the coffee table in front of him. “A little something to take the edge off that ravenous hunger of yours…the one you worked up while pushing away from my dinner table fifteen minutes ago.”

  He merely grunted and continued to stare at the television. That was a bad sign. Dirk ignoring free food? She wondered if she should waste time trying to find his pulse or just go straight to CPR.

  She glanced at the screen. “That bad?”

  “They suck. They just stinkin’ suck.”

  “O-o-okay.”

  Dirk had a real gift for making succinct, pithy, insightful comments; it was part of the wonder that was him.

  But he wasn’t so deeply entrenched in despair that he couldn’t rally enough to reach for a brownie. “She’d better not be ruining my evidence over there,” he grumbled, nodding toward Tammy.

  “She’s not. She’s just fuzzying out her…um…”

  “Her fuzzy.”

  “Sh-h-h!” Savannah sat down on her favorite overstuffed, cushy chair next to him. “If she hears you say something like that, she’ll delete the pictures altogether.”

  “She will not. She enjoys nabbing and prosecuting a perv as much as we do.”

  “True.” Savannah smiled as she scooped Cleopatra, her other black mini-panther, onto her lap.

  Tammy appeared to be a gentle, peaceful, loving soul to those who met her. And most of the time, she was pure human sunshine.