Killer Gourmet (20 page)

“No.
I
didn't fantasize about motherhood. I dreamed of being a doctor. That was all.”

“You actually decided not to ever have children.”

“I most certainly did. Motherhood is wonderful. The most important job in the world. But I believe that every little baby who comes into the world deserves to be really, really wanted. So if a woman doesn't truly want a child, I don't think she should have one. Of course, that's just my opinion.”

She took a clean tissue and dabbed at the tears on Savannah's cheeks. “Did you really, really want to have children, Savannah?”

For a long time, Savannah sat there, searching her mind and her heart for the answer. The true answer. Not the one she felt she was expected to speak.

She stopped crying and folded her hands in her lap, regaining control of her emotions.

Finally, she said, “I'd never really thought much about it. I figured I'd get married someday and motherhood being the natural progression and all—”

“For most people.”

“Yes, for most people. And I suppose I figured children were out there in my future somewhere.” She took a deep breath. “But I don't live in the future or the past all that much. My present is pretty darn full. It's pretty much all I can handle from day to day.”

“That's a good thing, Savannah. I think a lot of people would be happier if they lived in the present, too.”

“I never really decided,” she continued. “And I guess, if you postpone making a decision about something for long enough, sometimes the decision gets made for you.”

“And sometimes our hearts knows what's best for us and ‘decide' by ‘not deciding.' ”

Savannah wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “And that's okay?”

“I don't know. Only you can say if that's what happened.”

Again, the two women sat for several long moments in silence as Savannah processed all that had been shared between them.

Eventually, Savannah stood and tossed her used tissues into a nearby trash can. Then she smoothed her hair and her blouse and donned her best “tough gal” face.

“I don't know yet,” she told Dr. Anna. “I feel a lot of things right now. When it all gets sorted out, I'm not sure what's going to come out on top.”

The doctor stood, put her hands on Savannah's shoulders, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “
You
, my brave friend.
You
are
always
going to come out on top.”

Savannah laughed. A little. “How do you know?”

“I'm a doctor. We know everything.”

W
hen Savannah arrived home, it was to a house filled with guests, and she had to admit she was somewhat relieved.

All the way home from the doctor's office, she had rehearsed at least a dozen versions of the same speech that, sooner or later, she was going to have to present to Dirk:

“Guess what, honey. That pretty young thing you married a few months ago.... Well, she's turned into an old hag now and can't have babies. Hope you weren't counting on being a dad.”

That was about the best version she had come up with thus far. So she knew the speech still needed some work.

She truly regretted the fact that, before the marriage, she and Dirk had never had one single “baby” talk. It was a conversation that every couple needed to have before walking down the aisle. But perhaps it was even more important, since they were marrying in their forties—a bit late for starting a family.

Driving home, she had been hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe, he would be on the same page as she. Only without the hysterical sobbing in the doctor's office part.

When she pulled into her driveway and saw not only Dirk's borrowed radio car, Tammy's pink Volkswagen, and Waycross's General Lee, but also Ryan and John's Bentley, she had breathed a sigh of relief. Although it did trouble her to know that she was avoiding alone time with her own husband.

That had never happened before. But then it wasn't every day that a woman was told she wouldn't be having any babies. Ever. Or a man either, for that matter.

As bitter pills went, that was a pretty nasty one to have to swallow.

When she entered the house and walked into the living room, she saw Tammy and Waycross huddled together at the desk in the corner. They were staring at the computer screen as Tammy's nimble fingers flew over the keyboard. She knew they were hard at work because they gave her only the briefest of nods before going back to whatever they were doing.

Ryan, John, and Granny were sitting on the sofa. On the coffee table before them was Savannah's suspect poster board. The threesome was crouched over it, intently discussing every person named there.

She didn't see Dirk, and that worried her. But she didn't want go looking for him either. If she found him alone in another room, he would no doubt demand to know where she had been and what had happened. The last thing she wanted was to have that conversation when there was a house full of guests and no privacy.

Sitting down in her comfy chair, she scooped both of the cats onto her lap. As always, they were thrilled to see her, rubbing their faces against her cheek and the palm of her hand, demanding petting.

Considering the events of the past few hours, she found their unconditional love and affection all the more precious.

“Looks like y'all called yourselves a meeting of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency,” she said. “Guess I didn't get the memo.”

In unison they turned from what they were doing and looked at her, a bit sheepishly.

“We're sorry, love,” John said. “But Ryan and I, we were so discouraged and downcast that we could barely stand ourselves.”

Ryan added, “So we decided to drop by here unannounced and inflict our disgruntled selves on you. Guess it's your lucky day.”

“Not really,” Savannah muttered under her breath. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Why so glum? Is there any special reason you're all down in the mouth? That's out of character for you guys.”

That was when she noticed that their normally impeccable attire was actually quite grungy. John's dove gray slacks were dirty on both knees, and Ryan's white shirt had black smudges that looked like grease on the elbows and down the front. Their hair was a mess, and Ryan had a streak of oiliness on his right cheek that matched the mess on his shirt.

“You two look like you've been in a pig wrestlin' contest and the pigs took the blue ribbon,” she told them.

“That's about how I feel, too,” Ryan replied. “After hearing what Otis Emmett said about no one entering or exiting the restaurant's rear door, we realized that the rod and the knife that Dr. Liu described still have to be somewhere in the kitchen area.”

“Or down the hallway that leads into the bathroom,” Granny added.

“Or in the bathroom itself,” Dirk said as he walked into the living room, juggling several coffee mugs in his hands.

Waycross jumped up from his seat at the desk and hurried over to help him. He took two mugs from Dirk, walked back to the desk, and offered Tammy one.

She simply shook her head and gave him a sweet smile. “I've already had my daily half-cup. But thanks anyway.”

Waycross walked over to Savannah's chair and placed the mug in her hands. Catching sight of her tear-swollen eyes, he said, “You all right, sis? You look like you've been crying.”

“Naw. It's just my sinuses acting. You know, the Santa Ana winds and all that mess.”

“I didn't know you have sinus problems,” he persisted.

“I do today. Okay?” she snapped back. “Now what were you all saying about looking for that rod and knife?”

Although she was trying to avoid Dirk's eyes, she could feel him staring at her from the other side of the room. He had been watching her since he had walked in from the kitchen. But now that Waycross had brought attention to her red eyes, her detective husband was giving her the piercing, see-all-know-all Sergeant Coulter special.

For a moment, she knew what it felt like to be in the sweat box with Dirk doing the interrogating. He had that intimidating “I know all your secrets” look down pat. No wonder criminals folded like a poorly wrapped burrito when he questioned them.

“We looked everywhere,” John said. “We're positively flummoxed. Haven't a clue where the bloody things are.”

“The other night,” Savannah said, “when you had that meeting with the staff . . . did anybody go back in the kitchen or the bathroom?”

“Absolutely not,” John told her. “The crime scene tape is still across the doorway, and we told them in no uncertain terms not to set foot in there.”

Ryan added, “And they didn't. We had our eyes on them the whole time. Nobody went in there. It's been sealed since the crime occurred.”

Dirk walked over to Savannah, slid her footstool over beside her chair, and sat down on it. Placing his hand on her knee, he said softly, “How did your . . . um . . . errand go?”

Suddenly, she felt as though everyone in the room was staring at her, giving her the same old hawk-eyed look as Dirk.

She took a quick glance around the room and saw that she was right. They were all staring at her with big question mark eyes.

Why did her friends and family all have to be detectives? It made it nigh to impossible to get away with anything.

She turned back to Dirk and said calmly, “Thanks for asking, but lousy. By the time I got there, they were all sold out of my size. You know how those stupid clearance sales are.”

The room was silent.

If a cricket had been chirping five miles away, they could have all heard it and understood every word it was saying.

“How did your interview with Yale Ingram go?” she asked Dirk.

“Okay.” His expression was still guarded and hurt, and that went straight to her heart. “I asked him why he stopped by the restaurant the day of the testing. He said he wanted to see the new place, wanted to see what Norwood had thrown him over for.”

“Really straightforward stuff,” Savannah said.

“Yeah. He was pretty nice and polite about it all, until I suggested that maybe the reason he stopped by that day was to tell Norwood that he had dropped the lawsuit . . . so Norwood wouldn't tell his wife about the orgy.”

“The what?” A wide-eyed Tammy whirled around in her seat, suddenly all ears.

“Come on now, girl,” Granny said. “I'm an old lady from the one-stoplight town of McGill, Georgia, and even I know what an orgy is. It's when more than two people get together and commit a bunch of debauchery and wickedness and call it ‘fun.' And I'll have you know, it was your generation that thought up that hooey. Until y'all invented it, there weren't such things in the world. My generation wouldn't have dreamed of such a thing.”

For a moment, visions flashed through Savannah's mind of the depravity of the Roman Emperors, the promiscuous ancient Greeks, and several rather lascivious accounts she had read in the Old Testament. But out of respect for her grandmother, she decided to let Granny think the flower children of the sixties had doomed mankind with their newly discovered sexual promiscuity.

“Anyway,” Dirk continued, “Yale told me at the time of the murder he was addressing a group of investors in the valley. Over a hundred of them, as a matter of fact.”

“And we've verified that here on the Internet,” Tammy proudly announced. “They even posted a video of his speech on Facebook.”

“Well, heck,” Savannah said, “if it's on Facebook it has to be true.”

Granny tapped her finger on Savannah's suspect board. “No matter how you slice this cake, you just keep coming back to the same thing. It must've been this Francia girl. And she must've stashed that rod and that knife someplace. Y'all just haven't found it yet. And I know why.”

Everyone turned to Granny, eager to hear her words of wisdom.

“And why is that, Mrs. Reid?” John wanted to know. “Please, do tell.”

“Because so far the only ones who've been looking for those things were Savannah—and she's been pretty muddleheaded lately—and menfolk. And everybody knows that when a man's looking for something and it doesn't up and fall right into his outstretched hand, he ain't got a clue.”

She stood and began to collect the empty coffee mugs from around the room. “There's only one thing left to do. We all hightail it outta here, get our backsides over to that new restaurant of yours . . . which I've been dyin' to see anyway. I'll betcha with some women along—gals who ain't been discombobulated, that is—we're gonna find us some murder weapons.”

 

“Okay, you boys were right. There ain't no weapons here,” Granny said as she collapsed onto one of the restaurant's dining room chairs and propped her elbows on the table. “Leastways, not those particular weapons . . . the ones that did the deed.”

As Dirk, Waycross, and Tammy followed her lead, taking seats at the large, round table, Savannah sat next to Granny and draped her arm across her grandmother's shoulders.

“I agree with you, Gran,” she said. “Of all the zillions of knives in this joint, there's not one that matches that description, with the partially serrated blade. And when Dirk and I were scrounging around for that rod the other day, it was measly pickings.”

Ryan walked over to their table, carrying a tray of glasses filled with ice. John followed with a large, frosty pitcher of water. They set it in the middle of the table and took seats.

Savannah reached for the pitcher and began filling the glasses for the overheated and overworked group of searchers.

“I've gotta tell you, this case is making me crazy,” Dirk said, rubbing his eyes. “We've got all of these suspects, all these motives. And every one of them has an alibi.”

“Except for Francia,” Ryan replied.

“Francia Fortun, as in, our new replacement chef,” John said, shaking his head. “I must confess, comrades, I'm sinking deeper and deeper into the well of depression by the moment.”

Dirk gave a dry chuckle. “And you know what they say about those wells being colder than a—”

“Watch it, young man,” Granny snapped. “I know that quaint little phrase, and a whole lot more to boot. But I don't go using them in mixed company.”

Dirk blushed and ducked his head. “Sorry, Granny.”

Tammy giggled. “Colder than a flat frog on a Philadelphia freeway in February?”

Dirk perked up. “Yeah, right. That's what I meant to say.”

Savannah slid a glass of water across the table to John. “Try not to worry, sugar. This is all going to work out in the end. You just wait and see.”

“That's for sure,” Waycross agreed. “You're gonna have this fine establishment up and running like a top in no time.”

Granny nodded. “These trials and tribulations will soon be a thing of the past.”

“Just as soon as we nail the killer,” Savannah said.

She pressed her fingertips to her aching temples, intending to give them a brief massage. But she glanced around the table and saw that Granny, Dirk, and Waycross were all watching her intently, worried looks on their faces. So she thought better of it and folded her hands on the table in front of her.

“It has to be Francia Fortun.” Tammy gave Ryan and John a sympathetic look. “I'm sorry, guys. I know that would leave you in a really bad place chef-wise. But she's the only suspect without an alibi.”

“That's true,” Ryan agreed reluctantly. “She's the only one who had opportunity.”

Dirk sniffed and leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Yeah? Well, there's no way I could sell that to the prosecutor: ‘She's the only one who could have done it, so she did it.' That ain't gonna fly.”

Everyone at the table sat still and quiet for a long time. Savannah could tell by the depressed looks on their faces that they were as pessimistic about this case as she was.

For the first time in years, she was beginning to think that a homicide she was working on might go unsolved. Possibly forever. And while, sooner or later, that was a sad reality in every investigator's career, she had no intention of surrendering the battle just yet.