A Body To Die For Read online

  “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?”

  “No way!”

  “Yes. I was talking to a friend of mine who grew up in this area, asking him if he knew about any sort of poultry ranch or whatever. He said his dad actually worked at this place, like thirty years ago. Said it put his father off eating chicken for the rest of his life.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Anyway, it’s abandoned now.”

  “All the more reason to check it out.”

  “True.”

  “Off Sulphur Creek Road, near the car dump site, huh? Which direction?”

  “West. There’s a sign by the road where you turn north, an old one, advertising apple cider, a dollar a gallon.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen that.”

  “Turn down that dirt road, and my buddy says it’s about half a mile from there.”

  “Dirk’s gonna love you for this.”

  “Oh, wow…what I’ve always dreamed of…having Dirk’s undying love and devotion.”

  “I’m sure. Thanks, buddy. I owe you one.”

  “You owe me nothing, except an evening in a slinky, low-cut ball gown.”

  “Yeah, sure. Toy with my heart, will ya?”

  Savannah said good-bye to him and hurried back to Sharona.

  “Something about the case?” Sharona asked eagerly.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Not sure yet.” Savannah had learned long ago not to show all her cards to anybody. “But let me ask you something. You said you know a bit about Pinky’s operations.”

  “Some, yes.”

  “Did he or any of the others ever mention anything about chickens?”

  “Chickens?”

  “Yes, like maybe cockfighting, betting on them, whatever…?”

  Sharona thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I think I did hear something like that. A couple of times I heard Pinky tell someone to meet him at what he called the ‘chicken plant.’ I thought that sounded sort of strange. Is that a flower or a tree or…. What kind of plant is a chicken plant?”

  “Thank you,” Savannah said. “Thank you very much. I’ve gotta go. Enjoy the goodies.”

  “Oh, I will! I will! I’m going to go do the crossword puzzles and eat the cookies right now! I do the crossword in the Los Angeles Times every Sunday.”

  Crossword puzzles, huh? Savannah thought as she rushed back to the Mustang, punching in Dirk’s phone number as she went. Maybe there was more to Sharona than she’d thought.

  “Hi ya,” she said when he picked up the phone, “I’m at the safe house. I gave Sharona her stuff. Ryan just called me. He had something for us.”

  “Oh, yeah? What?” He sounded grumpy. Dirk was always grumpy, but more so when a case wasn’t moving fast enough to suit him.

  “An abandoned chicken-processing plant just off Sulphur Creek Road, six miles from where we fished Jardin out of the creek.” She climbed into the Mustang and waited for his excited, overjoyed response.

  There was dead silence on the other end. But she could hear him breathing, so she knew he was alive.

  She started her engine. “And Sharona told me that she’s overheard Pinky mention meeting people at the ‘chicken plant.’”

  Still, he didn’t reply.

  “Aren’t you happy about that?” she said, heading down the road through the orange grove. “I was. It sounds like a good solid lead to me.”

  “It is,” he said. “But I’m going to be bummed if it’s Pinky. I was hoping it was Clarissa or Rachel. Weren’t you?”

  “Yes, a little, I guess. But a lead is a lead. And at least this way, it won’t be the Morris kid. I’m heading out there right now.”

  “No, wait for me. You could run into some of his crew out there. Or some of the guys who do the cockfighting.”

  “If I run into some bastard who thinks it’s fun to see animals kill each other, I’ll beat the tar out of him.”

  “That’s exactly why I want you to wait there at the dump site for me, and we’ll go together. I don’t want you hurting anybody. You don’t think I was worried about you, do you?”

  She laughed. “I want to call Ryan back and invite him and John along, too. After all, it was his lead.”

  “You really think this is gonna pan out?”

  “Yes, I do. I have a feeling about it.”

  “Okay, if they want to tag along, that’s fine by me.”

  “Later, Sweetcheeks.”

  “In a while, Babycakes.”

  In unison they blew raspberries at each other and hung up.

  Ah, the sweet romance of it all.

  Chapter 19

  As Savannah, Ryan, and John sat in her Mustang by the side of Sulphur Creek Road, waiting for Dirk to arrive, they discussed the upcoming trek to the poultry plant.

  “I’m not looking forward to this. I just want to get it over and done with,” Savannah told them, resting her arms on top of the steering wheel and resisting the urge to check her watch again. “I’m an animal lover and a hypocrite. I like to pretend that the meat I eat is created back there in the rear of the grocery store. They make it out of some magical ingredients and then put it in those little Styrofoam packages with the cellophane wrap over them.”

  “I know what you mean,” Ryan said. “I think most of us would prefer to think that what we’re eating never actually mooed or clucked or swam.”

  “I don’t mind if it swam,” John added from the backseat. “But I can assure you, that if I had to butcher my own meat, I’d be eating a lot of fish.”

  “We’re a bunch of wimps,” Savannah said. “Too many Disney animal films growing up. That’s what ruined us. It was Bambi and those mice friends of Cinderella’s.”

  “True,” Ryan and John agreed in unison. “So true.”

  Savannah’s cell phone rang, and when she answered it, she had an excited Tammy on the other end.

  “Got something for you,” Tammy said. “I was searching on the Internet and found out who owns that property that you’re going to right now.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who?”

  “Baldovino Pinky Moretti himself.”

  “Really? Well, if that ain’t interesting.” Savannah glanced up and in her rearview mirror she saw Dirk’s Buick approaching. “I’m so happy to hear that. And I’m sure the boys will be, too. Good work, I mean, good sleuthing, kiddo.”

  She hung up and said to Ryan and John. “Hey, fellas. The chicken plant is now owned by none other than our mob-connected friend, Pinky Moretti.”

  “Ah,” John
said, “and so the plot thickens.”

  “Sleuthing? The plot thickens?” Ryan shook his head. “You two need to limit how much time you spend with Tammy.”

  Savannah waved Dirk to drive around them, and she pulled out onto the road and followed behind him.

  “There are worse influences in this world than Miss Tammy-Pollyanna Hart,” she said. “But I have to tell you, she’s been trying to get me to go vegetarian for years. After this little field trip, I may just have to try it.”

  The processing plant wasn’t difficult to find, because it was the only group of buildings at the end of the long, dirt road.

  One large, gray, windowless structure promised to be the actual processing center, and several equally forbidding outbuildings stood, shabby and somber, nearby. The roofs on some of them had caved in, while the walls on others bowed outward.

  And yet, for all the property’s rundown appearance, it didn’t have the look of a totally abandoned facility. Weeds grew beside the road, but there had been enough recent traffic to keep the drive itself clear. And on either side of the road, lay a profusion of litter, mostly beer cans and assorted snack food wrappers. And those looked fairly fresh.

  “There’s been some recent activity around here,” Ryan said, looking out the window as they bounced down the deeply pitted road. They could barely see ahead because of all the dirt Dirk was stirring up.

  “I don’t see any cars up there, though,” Savannah remarked, squinting through the dust cloud. “Maybe we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

  “Does Dirk have any sort of search warrant?” John asked.

  “I doubt he had time to get one that quick. If we find anything good, he can get one then.”

  “You colonists are far more bold about these things than we are on the other side of the pond,” John said.

  “Oh, stop with the Limey crap,” Ryan told him. “Like you and I didn’t bend plenty of the rules when we were in the Bureau all those years ago.”

  John snickered. “I remember it well. If we’d been caught, we would have been—”

  “Fired?” Ryan interjected. “You mean, like we were?”