Killer Reunion (12 page)

“I'm sorry you had to go through that, sweetie,” she said. Then she added mentally,
Too bad your loss of appetite didn't keep you from snarfing down my pizza.
“If it helps, I was really proud of you,” she told him. “And, by the way, you've got better abs than Tom.”

“Really?”

“Definitely. Way more cut. And he's got some major love handles going on there.” She coughed. “His pecs aren't as good as yours, either.”

She was lying through her teeth, but she was counting on the male ego, in all its strength and glory, to aid her in carrying it off.

“Gee. Cool.”

He sounded extremely pleased.

Mission accomplished.

“How did your phone conversation with Tammy go?” he asked.

“Great. She told me a secret, but I swore I wouldn't tell anybody. It's a surprise.”

“Her and Waycross are flying here tonight.”

She raised her head and stared at him. By the glow of Gran's “praying hands” night-light, she could see the big grin on his face. “How do you know about that?”

“A couple of days ago, I was walking by the office desk, and Tammy was looking at something on the computer screen. She shut it off right away, so I wouldn't see it. Then she went in the kitchen to blend up some of that stupid green guck she drinks for lunch.”

“You turned it back on and looked.”

“Of course I did. Two coach-class tickets to Atlanta. Red-eye, tonight.”

“Granny's going to be so pleased.”

“She will.” He hugged her closer. “And you'll be happy to have your favorite brother and the ding-a-ling here, considering all that's going on.”

“Don't call her that.”

“She calls me Dirko, and she says it like she means ‘total idiot.'”

“I don't think that's an exact translation. More like ‘complete and utter dumbbell.'”

“And that's better?”

She sighed. “I believe so. In her mind, anyway. Let it go, darlin'. Take a lesson from me and try not to worry about what anybody thinks of you. It's a waste of time and energy. Not to mention the scars it leaves on your heart.”

He toyed with her hair for a while, running his fingers through her ringlets. Finally, he said, “I'm sorry she hurt you so bad, darlin'.”

Tears welled up in her eyes once again. This time she let them flow. “Well, she's dead now, isn't she?”

“Very. Believe me, if you'd seen her floating in that water—”

“And years ago, I'd have been happy about that.”

“I doubt it. You were probably just as sweet when you were a kid as you are now.”

In spite of her dreary mood, she nearly laughed aloud. Of all the adjectives she might have used to describe herself,
sweet
wasn't on the list.

“I just feel sad and a wee bit relieved that she's gone,” she said. “But mostly, I feel aggravated at myself for letting her get to me the way she did. Even last night, when I hit her, it was because I'd let her get under my skin. Now she's gone. And I'll never have the opportunity to look her straight in the eye and say, ‘You can think whatever you want to about me. You can say anything you choose to. But your nasty words are going to roll off me like water off a fresh-waxed Chevy coupe. You'll never hurt me with them again. I'm a good person. At least I try to be. And that's good enough.'”

He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “It's not important whether she heard what you just said or not, babe. She wouldn't have taken your words to heart or changed her rotten ways or apologized. Even if you could've said all that directly to her, you wouldn't have gotten any satisfaction out of it.”

“Probably not. I don't think self-improvement was a priority of hers. She thought she was pretty perfect as she was.”

“The person who needed to hear you say that just did.
You
needed to hear Savannah, the woman, defend Savannah, the kid. And you just did.” He turned her face so he could look into her eyes. “Feel better?”

“Yes,” she said, meaning it from the depths of her little girl heart. “I do. Thank you.”

“You're welcome, darlin',” he said. “Good night.”

He stroked her cheek for a while with his forefinger, waiting for her response.

But Savannah was already asleep.

“H
appy birthday to yooou. Happy birthday to yooou. Happy birthday, dear Granny! Happy birthday to yooou!” The festive song filled the small house as soon as the first light of dawn touched its windows.

Gran was an early riser. If her grandchildren, their spouses, and her great-grandchildren wanted to preserve the age-old tradition of treating her to breakfast in bed, they had to roll out early and get cracking.

In what had formerly been called “the older girls' bedroom,” she was lounging like pampered royalty on the feather bed, propped up on lace-trimmed, embroidered pillows. Her sparkling silver hair was neatly brushed, and she wore her pink satin quilted bed jacket and her best cubic zirconia stud earrings.

When Savannah peeped into the bedroom to see if she was ready, it occurred to her that Queen Elizabeth herself had nothing on Granny when it came to receiving visitors graciously in one's bedchamber.

The great-grandkids arrived first, carrying a saucer on which slices of banana, apple, and orange had been lovingly placed in decorative layouts. This year, the array included roses made of strawberries, inspired by a fancy fruit-cutting class Marietta had taken at the local library.

Next came Jesup and Cordele with sweetened coffee topped with fresh-whipped cream and sprinkled with cinnamon.

Savannah and Alma had been assigned the most difficult chore, the main course, which included eggs fried to perfection, without a hint of a “ruffle” around the edges; crisp bacon; succulent sausages; totally lump-free cream gravy; and fluffy, “float out of the basket and into your mouth” biscuits.

Vidalia and Marietta supplied dessert—oatmeal cookies from the Burger Igloo, McGill's one and only café.

When Gran was finished, had wiped her lips with a rose chintz napkin, and had overseen the removal of the dishes, she tried to shoo them out of the bedroom.

“I have to get up and get dressed,” she protested. “I don't care what you say. I'm not going to loll about in bed all day long like a lazy floozy. I've got too much to do and too little time to get 'er done. All of you, skedaddle. Right now!”

Savannah grinned and said, “But there's one more course we want to serve you. And then you can get up and dance a jig if you've a mind to.”

“Another course? Lord have mercy, I couldn't eat another bite if my life was hangin' in the balance.”

“But you're going to like this course. It's very sweet, and I guarantee you have room for it. If not in your tummy, in your heart.”

Gran looked suspicious. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Savannah moved aside and motioned to the doorway. “It came about ten minutes ago, a special arrival from California.”

Tammy and Waycross stepped through the doorway and into the bedroom.

Tammy looked beautiful, her pretty face glowing, her long blond hair glimmering in the morning sunlight, her baby bump showing just enough to be adorable. Waycross was wearing a shy grin on his freckled face, his own copper curls in magnificent disarray from him having slept, or at least having tried to, on the plane.

“Hey, Granny,” he said. “You didn't really think we'd miss your birthday, didja?”

“We had to be here to celebrate with you.” As she patted her belly, Tammy added, “All three of us.”

Gran flew out of the bed and raced across the room to enfold them, and as many of her other loved ones as her arms could hold, in a rapturous hug.

And they all danced a jig together.

 

With the Reid clan all milling about the house, hovering over Gran, stuffing their faces with tasty edibles and swilling iced tea by the gallon, Savannah had to take Tammy into the backyard to get a moment alone with her.

They met behind the vegetable garden, in the midst of Gran's flower garden, between her Mister Lincoln and John F. Kennedy rosebushes. The scents from those snowy and scarlet blossoms, along with those of her deep purple, pink, and white peonies nearby, filled the moist air.

“This is sooo pretty back here,” Tammy said, looking around and soaking in the colors, the perfumes, the beauty of the blossoms waving in the gentle midday breeze. “It reminds me of your backyard. Which reminds me . . . Your neighbor, the busybody one, was happy when I asked her to feed the kitties and water your yard.”

Savannah rolled her eyes. “Of course she is. She gets to come into my house and snoop around, knowing I'm on the opposite side of the country.” Quickly, she added, “Not that I'm ungrateful, mind you. Cleo and Di adore her, and she doesn't just bop in and play with them. She stays, fixes herself something to eat, watches the food channels on my TV, takes a bubble bath in my tub.”

“She bathes in your tub? Seriously?”

“Yes. The last time she kitty sat for me, she informed me beforehand that she has a strong preference for my lilac-scented bubble bath. So I made sure there was plenty of it on hand. Hey, what are you gonna do? Good kitty sitters don't grow on trees, you know.”

Savannah nodded toward the white plastic bag that Tammy was holding under her arm. “You got a chance to go shopping for me?”

“I did. I hope you like what I got. I wasn't sure. . . .” Tammy opened the discreet garbage bag and revealed a pink paper bag inside with a
NAUGHTY LADY'S NOOK
logo on it.

Both women looked all around, checking their surroundings thoroughly, before Savannah reached inside, opened the pink bag, and took a peek.

“Perfect,” she said. “How much do I owe you?”

“A fortune,” Tammy replied. “This stuff doesn't come cheap, you know.”

Savannah reached into her front jeans pocket, pulled out a wad of cash, and pressed it into Tammy's palm. “There. And thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Savannah took the bag from Tammy and tucked it under her arm. “By the way, did you get an opportunity to run those checks?”

“Of course. I had a four-and-a-half-hour flight with nothing to do.”

“I figured you'd sleep, what with you expecting and all.”

Tammy gave her the “Don't mommy me” look.

Savannah held up a hand in surrender. “Okay, okay. What did you find out?”

Tammy pulled her electronic tablet from out of nowhere and began scrolling down the screen. “Jeanette Barnsworth wasn't as rich as she might have let on to you and the rest of the town,” Tammy said. “In fact, she was deeply in debt. Apparently, she had a bit of a spending addiction.”

“But her husband was rich.”

“He was. Filthy rich. But he didn't get that way by burning through money the way his wife did. He had her on a tight budget. She spent every penny of it and had run her credit cards sky-high. It was only a matter of time until he was going to find out about it.”

“If he died,” Savannah mused, “she could settle her debts and go on the spending spree of a lifetime. Plus, he'd never have to find out she'd run up the bills. Both are solid motives for murder.”

“You'd have a hard time proving it.” Tammy found the file she was looking for and showed it to Savannah. “That's his autopsy report. Natural causes. Respiratory failure after a bad chest cold.”

“Any illegal drugs or pharmaceuticals mentioned?”

“None.”

“Of course.”

“Whether there was or not, the mortician could have lied about it. And that would be equally hard to prove.”

“Unless you could somehow hack into the records of the lab that did the actual processing and get that original report to compare.”

An evil smile crossed Tammy's otherwise lovely and angelic face. She twirled a lock of her hair and giggled. “Ahhh, how I love a challenge. Consider it done.”

“How about the mortician's financials?”

“Solid down the line. Though he did make some purchases, like a new Cadillac, which he paid for with cash. And I didn't see that chunk of change anywhere in his accounts beforehand. He also bought two first-class tickets to the Bahamas.”

“The names on the tickets?”

“Herbert Jameson and Jeanette Barnsworth,” Tammy answered. “And he'd prepaid for an all-inclusive stay at a luxury resort there. A pretty tidy sum and nonrefundable.”

Savannah thought back on how Herb and Jeanette had interacted with one another at the reunion. Herb had been clingy and adoring; Jeanette condescending and standoffish. It seemed to her that he had had high hopes, hopes that were destined to be dashed. “I think ole Herb was headed for a reality check,” she said.

“Maybe he got it before she died,” Tammy suggested. “That might be a motive for murder, too.”

“The last I saw of them, as we were all leaving the reunion, he was the one issuing the walking papers. I think he figured out things weren't going well when she yelled at him right there in front of God and everybody and said that he was old and impotent.”

“Another motive for murder.”

“Folks have killed for a lot less. That's for sure.” Savannah glanced over Tammy's tablet screen. “Who else have you got there?”

“Well, since we think Jeanette might've killed her husband for his money, I looked for heirs to see who might inherit the goodies if Jeanette died.”

“Good idea. And?”

“His only surviving blood relative is his half sister, Imogene Barnsworth. She lives over in Sulfur Springs.”

“Hmmm. She can't have a lot of extra spending cash if she lives there. I think if you took everybody who lives in Sulfur Springs, held them up by their ankles, and shook 'em, you wouldn't get a dollar's worth of change for your efforts.”

“She's in her seventies, living in a nursing home. I'm sure some extra money would go a long way toward making her a lot more comfortable.”

“But an elderly lady in a nursing home doesn't make your best murder suspect.”

“I'd still talk to her if I were you,” Tammy said. “She might know something.”

“I'm going to. But the first thing on my list is to go to the funeral parlor and have a chat with Mr. Jameson. If he'll see me, that is.”

“Do you want company?” Something about Tammy's lackluster tone and the sleepy look in her eyes told Savannah that hers was an offer the young mother-to-be was hoping she would refuse.

“No, sugar. You go stretch out on Granny's feather bed and have yourself a nap, if you can get some sleep in that house with all the ruckus going on.”

“That's okay. I'm going to have Waycross take me back to our hotel room.”

“Hotel? What hotel? Oh.” Savannah gulped. “You two checked into the No-Tail Motel?”

“Yes. It's all we could find.”

“Did the, um, name tip you off that maybe . . . ?”

“I did wonder about that. But then I saw the logo on the Web site. It's of a cute little dog with a teeny bobbed tail. I think that's where they got the name.”

Savannah looked at her a long time, then nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

As the women walked through the vegetable garden on their way back to the house, Savannah said, “If the other folks staying at that motel are too noisy, turn up your radio real loud so you won't have to listen to 'em.”

“Will do.”

“And be sure to lock your doors and windows nice and tight, and prop a chair under the doorknob.”

“Why?”

“That no-tailed dog might be vicious.”

“Oh. Right.”

 

As Savannah and Dirk drove away from Granny's house, with Savannah at the wheel, Dirk sat, shaken and pale, in the passenger's seat. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the tail of his T-shirt and said, “I gotta tell you, Van, you scared the hell outta me back there.”

“I'm so sorry, darlin'.”

“When you said that business about going to see Jameson all by yourself, my whole life flashed in front of me.”

“It was awful of me. I don't know what I was thinking.”

“Well, I know what
I
was thinking. I thought you were gonna leave me there with that houseful of women and kids all by myself.”

“Please forgive me. It must've been horrible. Soul scarring, in fact.”

“It was. All that talking, talking, talking. And about absolutely nothing. And the fighting about every stupid little thing. How did you ever survive, growing up in that?”

“I went for a lot of walks. I like to wore this road out,” she said, pointing to the narrow dirt driveway they were traveling from Gran's front door, through the cotton fields on either side, to the paved highway.

He settled back in his seat, then rummaged around in the glove compartment and retrieved his bag of cinnamon sticks.

“I felt like a guy on death row who'd gotten a reprieve from the governor when you called Butch and asked him if I could come over there to the garage and help him out.”

“It was the least I could do, sugar, under the circumstances. You should've known that I'd never do a thing like that to you—leaving you alone with my family. At least not that many of them at once.” She reached over and squeezed his knee. “After all, I promised to love, honor, and cherish you.”

She gave him a sideways glance, and when she saw the sappy look of unadulterated love on his face, it was all she could do not to snicker.

Her big, brave hubby could face down a gang of bank robbers and hardly break a sweat. But confronted with the prospect of being alone in a small house with a gaggle of gabby, loudmouthed, quarrelsome women, he fell to pieces.

She turned the car onto the highway and headed for the three-block-long stretch of stores and businesses that constituted downtown McGill, Georgia.