Killer Reunion Page 21

  “We talked about this back at the house,” Dirk said. “You did the research and found out which room was Imogene’s and how to get to it. You’re going to be the lookout while Waycross and Gran go in. That’s enough for a woman in your, um, delicate condition.”

  “That’s no big deal. And I’m not that delicate. You said you’d send me a text when you start talking to Miss Barnsworth and another one when she leaves your sight. How hard can it be to look out for a woman you know is on her way?”

  “Someone else might try to come into the room,” Gran said.

  “Like who?”

  “Maybe a gentleman caller. You wouldn’t believe what goes on in these old folks’ homes. A lot of hanky-panky. That’s what.”

  Tammy groaned with frustration. “You guys aren’t fooling me. Even if a whole troupe of exotic male dancers comes charging into that room for a wild night of senior citizen sex, they’d arrive by way of the hall, and I won’t see them from where I’m standing under the window.”

  “She’s got you there,” Dirk told Savannah.

  “Shhh.”

  “I’m afraid this is a harbinger of things to come,” Tammy said with a sniff. “Just because I’m pregnant, I’m being downgraded to junior detective. Once I’m a mom, it’ll be even worse.”

  “That isn’t true,” Dirk told her. “You’ll be even more valuable than ever. We can stick surveillance equipment in the kid’s diaper.”

  Savannah pointed to the lights of the nursing home, shining a bit farther down the road. “No more squabbling, y’all,” she said. “We’ve gotta be serious. This is a dangerous mission we’re on here. We must not get caught. But if, God forbid, you are captured, you know what you have to do. Bite your cyanide capsules and end it all. And don’t get them mixed up with your Tic Tacs, the way you did last time.”

  Tammy giggled.

  Waycross snickered.

  Granny began to hum the theme song from Mission: Impossible.

  This time when Savannah and Dirk entered the nursing home, they didn’t find the pretty blond receptionist sitting at the French desk. Her replacement would have been attractive in a girl-next-door way, with her freshly scrubbed face and no-nonsense ponytail, except for the scowl on her face. She was frowning at her computer screen as they entered, and her disposition didn’t seem to improve when she looked up and saw them approaching.

  Savannah hoped this didn’t bode ill for the visit overall. If there would be anything sweeter than clearing herself of a murder, it would be getting to rub Tommy Stafford’s face in the proverbial cow pie in the process.

  When the receptionist, whose name tag identified her as Gilda, didn’t offer any sort of verbal greeting, Savannah said brightly, “Hi there. Nice to see you this evening.”

  Okay, that was over the top, she told herself when Gilda fixed her with a stare that was colder than twelve-hour-old coffee and just as appealing. Dial it back a notch, girl, and don’t look so desperate.

  Dirk stepped in to rescue the situation. Again, he performed a quick under-the-nose badge swipe and put on the grimmest version of his cop grimace. “I’m Detective Sergeant Coulter,” he said, his voice half an octave lower than usual. “I need to ask you a couple of questions about a resident of yours.”

  “Got a warrant?” Gilda asked with an accent that sounded like she had been raised in the Bronx.

  “No, I don’t got a warrant,” Dirk replied with equal charm. “And I don’t need one just to ask you a couple of questions.”

  “I think you do,” she said. “So I got nothing to say.”

  Dirk stepped to the back of the desk and peered at her computer screen. She quickly hit the OFF button, but not before he saw something that made him grin. “Does your boss know that you spend your time here at work looking at naked hunks on social media?” he asked.

  She simply stared at him, but her jaw tightened, and her fingers clenched the back edge of the desk.

  Savannah smiled. She had always gotten a kick out of watching her husband in action. Surgeons and attorneys might make more money, but she was convinced it was far more entertaining to have a cop for a hubby.

  “So ask your questions,” Gilda replied, crossing her arms over her ample bosom.

  “That’s better.” Dirk walked back around to the front of the desk. “You were on duty this past Saturday night, correct?”

  “Yes,” was the curt reply.

  “Then you must’ve seen Miss Imogene Barnsworth leave here about eight o’clock and return just before midnight.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “No.”

  Savannah could see that Dirk was growing impatient with his interviewee.

  “You’re just a friggin’ fount of information, aren’t you there, Gilda?” he said.

  “Nope.”

  Savannah decided to give it a whirl. “When Miss Barnsworth goes out for the evening like that, does she go with someone or does she drive herself?”

  Gilda turned to Savannah and gave her a smile that was slightly less smirky. Apparently, she liked Savannah a bit more than Dirk. That was hardly a surprise. Most people did.

  “Usually she drives herself,” she said. “But last Saturday night someone picked her up.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “Not his name.”

  “‘His’? It was a guy?”

  “Yeah, a really cute guy. Hot.”

  “How old?”

  Gilda shrugged. “I don’t know. About my age maybe.”

  “And how old are you?” Dirk asked.

  “Thirty.”

  “Good thing you aren’t thirty-one,” he shot back. “That’d have required a two-syllable response.”

  “Yeah.”

  Savannah gave him a warning look and continued. “What did he look like?”

  “Cool. He had a lot of ink and long black hair. Muscles. Dressed cool.”

  “And to you, dressing ‘cool’ would be . . . ?”

  “All black. A big crucifix necklace. Biker boots. Leather vest. Big leather bracelets with silver studs.”

  “Ah, yes. Cool, indeed.” Savannah smiled. “Did you happen to see what he was driving?”

  “That was the best part. He had a General Lee.”

  “A General Lee? An old orange Dodge Charger?”

  Gilda nodded. “With an oh-one on the door and a Confederate flag on the top.”

  “That’s pretty memorable, all right.”

  “This guy,” Dirk said, “he picked her up and dropped her off?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us about that night? Anything that stands out in your memory?” Savannah asked.

  “Just that she was dolled up a bit more than usual. Dressed all in red. Miss Barnsworth always looks nice, but it occurred to me that maybe she’d dressed up for him.” Gilda made a face. “Kinda gross. An old lady like her and a guy my age.”

  “You say she was dressed up.” Savannah’s pulse rate increased a bit. “Do you recall what sort of shoes she was wearing?”

  “Yeah, some cute red heels. Pretty high for an old woman like her. I’m telling you, she looked like she was going on a date or something. Yuck.” Gilda glanced around, as though suddenly aware she was being less than discreet. “You’re not going to tell her I said that, are you?”

  “Not at all. In fact, we won’t tell her that we spoke to you about her at all. This will just be our little secret, okay?”

  Gilda looked relieved.

  Dirk glanced down at his watch. Savannah did the same and saw that it was 8:15 p.m.

  The rest of the gang would be in position now. It was time.

  “How’s about you give Miss Barnsworth a buzz on your phone there,” he said, “and let her know that we’re here to see her?”

  “Okay.”

  Dirk rolled his eyes. “Sheez. Two whole syllables. Hope you didn’t strain yourself there.”

  “Nope.”

  S
avannah and Dirk sat on the sofa next to the fireplace while waiting for Imogene Barnsworth to appear. They kept their voices low and tried not to sound too excited as they spoke to each other.

  Why let the rather unpleasant Gilda know that she had made their evening? Doing so would, no doubt, ruin hers.

  Dirk leaned close to Savannah and said, “This is gonna be a piece o’ cake. How hard can it be to find a dude driving a General Lee and wearing a leather vest?”

  “Well, the General Lee part . . . you might be surprised how many of those are running around these parts.”

  “But with a Confederate flag still on the top?”

  “Again, in this part of the country, there are still strong feelings about the War of Northern Aggression.”

  “War of Northern . . . You mean the Civil War?”

  “Shhh. Watch your language, boy. You’re in Dixie now. But anyhow, this new information is certainly interesting.”

  “It’s not really all that surprising that she might’ve had an accomplice,” he said, dropping his volume another notch and looking around again. “After all, she may be spry, but she’d still have a hard time lifting Jeanette and getting her into that car all by herself. With a hole in her head, Jeanette must’ve been deadweight. No pun intended.”

  “Not just that,” Savannah replied. “We should have realized right from the beginning that it had to be two people, not one. They dumped Jeanette and her car into the lake, and then they left in a second vehicle. It would have taken at least two people to drive Jeanette’s Cadillac and the getaway car to the lake.”

  “Duh.”

  “Yeah, duh.”

  “Here she comes now. Text Tammy.”

  “Doing it right now.”

  Savannah fired off a message to Tammy that read Go. Look for red heels.

  Almost immediately, Tammy fired back, K.

  Savannah poked her phone into her back pocket just as Imogene Barnsworth came marching up. She was wearing a dark green velvet robe and house slippers with ostrich feather trim. With her makeup off and her face shining with moisturizer, she looked as though she’d been ready to retire for the evening.

  She didn’t seem all that happy to see them, either.

  “You might have phoned,” she said as she joined them near the fireplace, “and asked if this was a convenient time. At this time of the evening, I might have been entertaining someone more pleasant than the two of you.”

  Feisty, Savannah thought. There’s nothing better than a feisty older woman. Why can’t women learn to get feisty sooner?

  Imogene plopped herself on a nearby chair and ran her fingers through her copper-gray hair. “What is it?” she asked. “To what do I owe the honor of this ill-timed and unwelcome visit?”

  “We just have a couple more questions,” Savannah said. “We won’t take long.”

  “You’re right. You won’t,” Imogene snapped back. “Because now I know exactly who you are. I oughta be calling Sheriff Stafford right now and telling him that you’re here, harassing me.”

  “Why, Miss Barnsworth, I—”

  “You are the girl they arrested for killing my sister-in-law.”

  Savannah’s eyes went a bit icy as she replied, “I am a woman, not a girl, and I didn’t kill your sister-in-law.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Miss Barnsworth, if I’m taken to trial and wrongly convicted, I’ll be going away to prison for the rest of my life. Unless I’m executed, that is. And if I thought these could be the final days of my freedom, I sure wouldn’t waste them by running around, acting like I’m trying to find a killer. I’d be sitting in my granny’s flower garden with my loved ones, eating all the chocolate I could lay my hands on, or making wild whoopee with my husband, or trying to sneak across the Canadian border.”

  Imogene took several moments to think that over. Then she nodded. “I suppose that’s true.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And if you didn’t do it, I’d hate to see you convicted of it.”

  “Then help us out here.”

  Imogene leaned back in the chair and rearranged the skirt of her robe in a more attractive pose. “I guess, since I’m going to inherit my brother’s money, I’m your number one suspect, right?”

  “Yes, Miss Barnsworth,” Dirk said. “You are. So, if it wasn’t you who did it, help us eliminate you as soon as possible so we can go on to number two.”

  “You’ve got a number two?”

  “We’ll get one,” Savannah told her. “Tell us where you were Saturday night.”

  “The same place I am every Saturday night. With friends.”

  “Doing what?” Savannah asked, anticipating the answer.

  “Playing games.”

  “Playing poker’s more like it,” Dirk said. “And winning. A lot, so we’ve heard.”

  Imogene shrugged. “I play with a bunch of nitwit men who constantly tip their hands. Taking their money isn’t hard, believe me.”

  “How did you get to this Saturday night’s game?” Savannah asked.

  Instantly, Imogene froze. Any trace of congeniality disappeared from her face. “Why?”

  “Why would you mind telling us?” Savannah replied, lifting one eyebrow.

  “I’ve been having a bit of trouble starting my car, and a friend was nice enough to give me a ride. The rest is none of your damned business.”

  “That doesn’t sound so sinister,” Dirk said. “Why are you afraid to tell us who it was?”

  Imogene jumped to her feet, a dark scowl on her face. “Listen, mister. I’ve been to hell and back several times in my lifetime, and I’m not afraid of anybody or anything. But I make it a practice to keep my nose out of other people’s business. And I expect them to honor my privacy, as I do theirs.”

  “We understand,” Savannah began. “And we—”

  “No you don’t understand. But if you live long enough, you might. Not telling everybody all your business—that’s wisdom that comes with age.” Imogene smoothed the skirt of her robe, then her hair, and turned her back to them. As she walked away, she said, “Don’t come by here again. You disturb my peace. And my privacy and my peace are the things I value most. That, too, is wisdom. Pay mind to it.”

  The instant she disappeared through the door, Savannah grabbed her phone and texted Tammy. Get out.

  Knowing the way Miss Imogene Barnsworth felt about her privacy being violated, she sure didn’t want the gang to get caught inside the lady’s closet, their sticky fingers on her red party pumps.

  Chapter 24

  The next morning a relatively small group was seated around Granny’s kitchen table. At least small by Reid standards.

  Savannah, Dirk, Granny, and Alma had polished off a platter of pancakes and sausages, and now they were working on draining the pot of coffee.

  “I’ve gotta tell you,” Granny said, “if I had any cholesterol in my arteries this time yesterday, it’s gone now, for sure. My heart was pumping like a locomotive engine when Tammy told us that gal was on her way back to her room. And we didn’t have no time to spare, gettin’ outta there, neither. Once Waycross pushed me out the window, he barely had time to dive out headfirst hisself and get that winder closed before she waltzed through the door.”

  “Sounds exciting,” Savannah told her grandmother, smiling over the rim of her mug.

  “It was! I think it does a body good, gettin’ scared like that once ever’ ten years or so. I reckon it tacked another decade onto the end of my life, for sure.”

  “You just let us know,” Dirk said, “the next time you feel like you need a tune-up. We’ll do something wild and reckless, like go knock over an armored car or check out some books from the library that we have no intention of returning. I like the idea of you outliving us all.”

  Alma lifted her coffee cup. “Hear! Hear! To Gran living to be a hundred and sixty! At least!”

  “I don’t want you to think that your daring escapade was all in vain,” Savannah told her
grandmother. “Now we know that our primary suspect does, indeed, wear high heels. And she has a pair of bright red patent-leather ones right there in her closet. Probably the ones she wore Saturday night.”

  “I didn’t see no blood on ’em, though,” Granny said, looking somewhat disappointed. “Just a wee bit of mud, which ain’t surprising, since it was raining like all git out that night.”

  “It’s good that they still have a little dirt on them.” Dirk nabbed the one remaining sausage link and put it on his plate. “That means she hasn’t cleaned them. So they might have some blood evidence on them. Too small for you to see, but enough for a lab to find.”

  Gran shoveled a heaping teaspoon of sugar into her coffee and stirred it thoughtfully. “Something’s been troublin’ me, though. Kept me awake last night, puzzlin’ over it. I have to ask myself, why would a woman intendin’ to do murder that very night wear a pair of fancy high heels to the occasion? Seems like if there was ever a time for sensible footwear, that’d be it.”

  Dirk nodded and stuck half of the sausage link into his mouth. “It makes as much sense as a guy driving a tricked-out General Lee to and from a crime scene. Seems like he’d at least borrow his best friend’s generic old pickup truck.”

  “Maybe the high heel was a weapon of opportunity. But not necessarily. There’s no accounting for stupid,” Savannah told them. “I once knew a guy who worked at a bowling alley, fumigating the shoes. When he decided he needed some extra cash, he ran next door to the convenience store on his lunch break and robbed it. He put a brown paper bag over his head, but he was still wearing his uniform with the alley’s logo on the front. Needless to say, they arrested him ten minutes later.”

  Granny chuckled. “Yes, I reckon they did.”

  A light knock sounded on the back screen door, and they turned to see Tammy standing there, a bright, sunny grin on her face.

  “Come on in, child,” Gran said. “You don’t ever have to knock on my door again. You’re part of the family now. Just walk right in and set a spell.”