Cooked Goose (7 page)

“I thought he killed me,” she whispered. “But then I woke up.”

The police officer released his hold on her and peeled off his jacket. He handed it to the girl. “Here,” he said, “put this on. We don’t want our Good Samaritan freezing to death.” As the girl slipped into the coat, he turned back to Charlene. “I hate to have to ask you questions at a time like this, ma’am, but I need to know: Did you get a good look at the man who attacked you?”

Charlene forced herself to speak in spite of the pain. “No, he wore a beard. Red hat. Like Santa.”

The policeman nodded. “Was the guy Caucasian, black, Latino?”

“White, I think. Was dark and ...”

"About what size?”

“What?”

“Was he tall or short?”

“Don’t know. Bigger than me. Can’t talk now. Hurts to breathe.”

“That’s okay. We’ll take your statement later.” He patted her shoulder, but his eyes were scanning the scene. Standing, he pulled a flashlight from his belt and began playing the powerful beam back and forth across the ground. “You just rest,” he said. “It’s all over now.”

“No,” Charlene whispered. “Not over.”

The girl leaned closer, placing her ear near Charlene’s mouth. “What did you say?” she asked.

An emotional abyss swallowed Charlene Yardley, and she felt herself falling, tumbling headfirst into an ever-darkening blackness. “This…will never…never be over.”

CHAPTER FIVE

11:05 p.m.

“Paranoia over the Santa Claus Rapist reached new heights this evening,” the channel seven newscaster announced as blithely as if she were hawking corn dogs at a ball game, “when a local shopping mall Santa was viciously attacked by an overzealous member of mall security.”

Savannah’s eyes bugged and her jaw dropped as she stared at the screen. “Oh, man, tell me this isn’t happening.”

“It’s happening,” Dirk replied with a sniff and a snort, then he took a long last chug from his beer bottle.

“You’re a lot of help.” Savannah covered her eyes with her hands, but peeked through her fingers. “Tell me when it’s over.”

The anchor’s far-too-cheery account continued over footage of the mall’s front lot where the incident had occurred. “In a display of true holiday spirit, Henry Wilcox, a.k.a. Kris Kringle, was attempting to aid a young woman in the parking lot, when an unidentified—”

“Unidentified,” Savannah whispered, “thank God.”

“—mall guard administered a swift kick to Mr. Wilcox’s groin. Wilcox’s doctor says that, due to the delicate nature of his injuries, Mr. Wilcox will be unable to perform his duties as Santa for the remainder of the holiday season.”

Dirk nodded solemnly. “Yeah, with nuts the size of basketballs, you wouldn’t want kids squirming around on your lap.”

“Shut up, Coulter,” she snapped, glaring at him through her fingers. “You don’t need to state the obvious.”

“It’s over.”

She dropped her hands. “Gee, thanks.”

“I told you, that dude’s gonna sue you. You can’t mess with a man’s gonads like that. You hit a guy where he lives and he’ll come after you, one way or the other.”

On the end table next to her, Savannah’s cell phone began to buzz. She groaned as she looked at the “Unknown” entry on the caller ID . “That’s probably him now.” She steeled herself and answered it. “Hello. Yes, this is Savannah Reid.” She listened, frowning. “No, no comment.”

She switched it off and tossed the phone back onto the table. Dirk gave her a questioning look. “A reporter from the Star,” she said, “wanting to know if I’m the unidentified guard. I’ll be front page headline by morning.”
 

He smirked. “It won’t be the first time.”

“I know. It’s getting harder and harder to remain a private, private detective in this town.”

Something buzzed and she jumped. “What in tarnation is that?”

“You’re sure strung tight. It’s just my phone.” He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out his cell. Peering at the display, he muttered, “Damn.”

“Who is it?”

“Captain Bloss. He just texted me a code 666.”

Savannah’s mind quickly scanned her own mental list of police codes. She couldn’t remember any 666. She raised one eyebrow. “Those are some pretty ominous digits. What do they mean?”

The thought occurred to Savannah that, all of a sudden, Dirk looked even more tired than she felt. No easy feat.

“They mean,” he said, “you’re gonna get bumped from tomorrow morning’s headline. That son of a bitch has raped another one.”

* * *

11:27 P.M.

When Savannah and Dirk arrived at the crime scene, the orange grove looked as though it had been invaded by a flock of alien spacecraft. Adozen squad cars lined the sides of the road, blue and red lights flashing eerily.

Savannah pulled Dirk’s old Buick onto the shoulder near the center of the hubbub. As they climbed out of the car, she saw Patrolman Mike Farnon and his partner Jake McMurtry, two of her favorite ex-compatriots.

Mike’s round face glowed when he spotted her. “Hey, Savannah!” he shouted. “Haven’t seen you since the Fourth of July barbecue. You’re looking good.”

She gave him a dimpled grin and a wink. “Ah, you silken-tongued laddie, you’re just sayin’ that because it’s true.”

Jake slapped her shoulder, hard enough to hurt. She accepted the gesture as a compliment, establishing her as “one of the boys.”

“What are you doing here?” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re this old fart’s date.” He pointed at Dirk, who was still strolling around, checking out the scene.

“No, but he was the designated drunk at our late-night beer and pizza orgy,” she said. “Somebody had to drive him here.”

Dirk joined them, wearing his “I Mean Business, Suckers” scowl. “So, guys, what’ve we got?”

Jake nodded to the nearest radio car and a teenage girl who sat, shivering, in the backseat. The door was open and her feet were hanging out. A large jacket—a cop’s uniform coat—was draped around her shoulders. “The girl over there,” he said, “the pretty Latina. She and her boyfriend were driving by about 2200 hours and spotted the victim crawling, naked, by the side of the road. The girl got out to help her. The boyfriend drove on. Didn’t want to get involved.”

“Nice guy,” Savannah muttered.

“Yeah, right. But he did call it in when he got home.” Dirk gave an unimpressed grunt. “So, the mayor will pin a rose on his nose.”

“Is the victim at the hospital?” Savannah asked.

“On her way. The ambulance just left.”

“How is she?”

Jake looked like he might be feeling a bit queasy. “Not great. Her arm’s broken, maybe some ribs.”

“And her face is pretty mashed up,” Mike added, looking equally sick.

“Were you two the first to respond?” Dirk asked.

“Not the first. We were on a possible liquor store burglary over by the high school. Titus got here first.”

“Where’s he?”

“He’s been searching the grove since we got here.” Mike pointed into the orchard where a lone figure was combing the ground with a flashlight beam.

“Did he string the tape?”

“Yeah. He had the perimeter set up when we arrived.”

“Good man.” Dirk waved a hand toward the teenager in the backseat of the patrol car. “Has anyone questioned the girl?”

“I think Titus talked to her, but we told her you’d want to speak to her, so she’s been waiting around.”

“Whose jacket is she wearing?” Savannah asked.

“Titus gave her his. She put her sweater on the victim. The kid was freezing when he got here.”

“Thanks guys,” Dirk said. “Keep these people back behind the line, especially the reporters, and let me know when Bloss gets here.”

Dirk headed toward the unit and Savannah followed.

“What makes you think the captain’s coming?” Jake called after them.

“Are you kidding?” Savannah replied over her shoulder. “We’ve got television cameras here, and Bloss is still working on his fifteen seconds of fame.”

Savannah felt a mini-surge of affection for Dirk as she watched him drop to one knee beside the open car door to talk to Angie Perez. His street-worn face softened, and he ditched the brusque, tough guy tone of voice when he interviewed victims or traumatized witnesses.

Over the years, being his partner and his friend, Savannah had learned all his secrets—like that he would get teary-eyed over an abandoned puppy. And the guy couldn’t be all bad if he liked cats.

She leaned over the open car door and listened as he spoke to the distraught teenager. “Your name is Angie, right?” he said.

The girl nodded.

“I hear you did a good thing, helping the victim,” he said as he fished a tattered tissue out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

“I don’t know how much I helped,” the girl replied between sniffs. “I hope she’s going to be okay. Have you heard how she is?”

“No, I haven’t,” Dirk said. “But I’ll call the hospital in a little while, and I’ll let you know, okay?”

“Thanks.”

“And how about you?” Savannah asked her, touched by the teenager’s concern for the victim. Who said kids didn’t have a heart these days? “Are you going to be okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah. I guess so.” Angie dabbed at her eyes and the dark streaks of mascara dripping down her cheeks. “I mean, I don’t know why I’m crying. I wasn’t the one who…. Oh, that poor lady.”

Savannah reached over and stroked the girl’s hair as though she were one of her younger sisters. “You’re crying because you’re a good person, kiddo, and it hurts to see something like that.”

“I guess you guys get used to it,” she said, hiccupping, “but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that.”

Dirk looked down and brushed some dirt off the knee of his jeans. “We don’t get used to it either,” he said quietly, “if that makes you feel any better.”

He waited while Angie blew her nose and composed herself, then he said, “Do you feel up to telling me what happened?”

“I already told the policeman, the one who got here first and helped me with the lady.”

“I know. I’m sorry, but if you could go over it again, I’d really appreciate it.”

As the teenager began to relate the details of her experience, Savannah noticed a crowd of spectators beginning to form at the periphery of the scene. Leaving Dirk to question his witness, she walked slowly along the edge of the group, studying each face. Many times, the perpetrator of a crime returned to the scene and watched the aftermath unfold, mentally wallowing in the carnage he had created. Savannah had learned, long ago, to search the spectators for suspects.

One young man in particular caught her attention. He was a young, blond fellow, about Angie’s age, wearing a football letterman’s jacket and a guilty-as-hell look on his handsome face. He was staying well to the back of the crowd, his eyes trained on the patrol car where Dirk was questioning Angie.

As Savannah approached him, she decided to take a verbal stab in the dark and see if she could draw a little blood. She smelled the booze on his breath as she leaned close to him and said, “Your girlfriend’s doing her duty as a citizen. Why don’t you be a man and go do the same?”

“What?” He turned to Savannah and glared at her with as much concentrated focus as his bleary vision would allow.

She decided his confusion was as fake as a five-dollar alligator-skin purse.

“You heard me,” she said, “and you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re Angie Perez’s boyfriend, the one who called this in. At least tell them what you saw.”

He glanced around furtively and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Get away from me, lady. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Savannah shrugged. “Have it your way,” she said. “But if that detective who’s talking to Angie has to come to you rather than vice versa, he’s not gonna be his usual charming self.”

She left the unhappy teenager and began to walk along the edge of the crowd, snapping pictures with her phone. Methodically, she worked from one end of the group to the other. Dirk would comb them later, identifying as many individuals as possible.

“Hey, Reid! What the hell are you doing here?” said a male voice with an irritating, nasal twang directly into her right ear.

Savannah braced herself and turned to face the one human being she despised most in the world. As far as she was concerned, Captain Harvey Bloss had worked hard to ascend to that high-level position. Considering how many degenerates she knew, he’d had a lot of competition.

“What am I doing? What do you suppose I’m doin’, sugar?” she said, far too sweetly. “I’m gawking, like everybody else. Fortunately there’s no law against that.”

Bloss gave her a drop-dead look that matched her own degree of animosity. “Get out of here, Reid,” he said with a long, liquid snort that made Savannah shudder. “You’ve got no business hanging around a crime scene.”

Bloss wasn’t a particularly attractive man, even without the disgusting mannerisms. He wasn’t overweight, but he had a pudgy, bloated look about him that indicated, perhaps, a lack of sleep and excessive alcohol consumption. He peered at the world through squinted, suspicious little eyes, and the only time he actually made eye contact was when he was trying to intimidate someone.