Wicked Craving (8 page)

“Naw, they don't care. Said they were in the neighborhood anyway. But that's not why I called you. I was doing some stuff here on the computer, and then they came, and we've all been sitting here doing research on that Wellman guy and his wife.”

“Oh, really?”

“You gotta see this! We've found something really, really cool! Can you come home and see it?”

Savannah knew she could just ask Tammy what she'd found and continue to enjoy her time with Gran on the pier. But poor Tammy worked so hard for the pittance Savannah could afford to throw her way whenever a paying job came along.

And Gran was right about one thing: Tammy loved Savannah and the work they did together. She thrived on whatever meager praise she received and, of course, the pleasure of playing Nancy Drew and solving cases.

Savannah figured the least she could do was play along with her.

She covered her phone with her hand and said to Gran, “She's dancing in her bloomers over there about something she's found on the Internet. Do you mind if we go home and see what it is before she pops?”

“Let's see…go back to your house, put my feet up, pet those pretty kitties of yours, and eat whatever goodies you put in front of me. Hm-m-m.”

“Ryan and John are there.”

“And feast my eyes upon the likes of Ryan Stone and John Gibson.” She placed the back of her hand to her forehead, fluttered her eyelashes, and did her best Scarlet O'Hara almost-swoon. “'Twill be a hardship, but I'll bear up.”

 

When Savannah and Gran arrived back at her house, they found Tammy sitting at the rolltop desk in the corner, staring at the computer screen. Ryan and John had arranged a couple of Savannah's dining room chairs on either side of her, and they, too, were absorbed in what she was doing.

Cleo was curled up asleep on Ryan's lap, and Di was on John's, savoring a prolonged scratch behind the ear.

Diamante and Cleopatra firmly believed that if anybody sat down, creating a lap, it should be immediately occupied by a feline who was either napping or getting petted or both.

“So,” Gran said, “what's all the ruckus about?”

“Yeah, it better be good,” Savannah added. “That beach was mighty pretty today.” She glanced at Gran. “And the company was nice, too.”

“I'm sorry to interrupt your day,” Tammy told them. “But this couldn't wait. And we had to actually show it to you…couldn't just tell you about it.”

Ryan stood, cradling the cat in his arms. “Here, Granny,” he said, indicating his chair with a nod. “Sit down and look at what we've got.”

“I don't go in much for computers and the like,” Granny said, but she gladly took the seat.

“Come over here, dear,” John told Savannah as he, too, rose and offered his chair. He set a disgruntled Diamante on the floor. With a switching tail, she strutted away into the kitchen.

Savannah sat down and gave Tammy a nudge. “Okay, I'm all eyes and ears. Lay it on me.”

“Well…” Tammy said, milking the drama, “…before Ryan and John dropped by, I was finding all sorts of stuff on here about Wellman and his wife. They'd really only become rich and famous last year. Before that, nobody had heard of them. And boy, does he have some quacky ideas about weight loss.”

“Like what?” Savannah asked.

“His hypnosis, reprogramming-the-mind stuff. I mean, hypnosis can be a valuable tool to help a person eat the right things and exercise regularly. And I'm sure it helps someone who's trying to lose weight to understand why they overeat…you know…un-resolved emotions and all that.”

Savannah reined in her impatience and said as calmly as she could, “Okay…and you found…?”

“All this stuff about how he thinks that fat is just stored emotions, and if you listen to his CDs or watch his DVDs, even
one
time, you can stir up all those repressed emotions and release them and all your fat into the universe.”

“Well, a bunch of people have bought his stuff, and I haven't seen big blobs of fat floating up into the sky…so, I guess it's safe to assume it doesn't work that way.” Savannah drew a deep, steadying breath. “So, he's a schmuck. Anything that might help us solve the murder?”

“When Ryan and John got here, I told them what I was doing, and how I wasn't finding any information about them, except this recent stuff. Robert and Maria Wellman both just sort of appeared out of nowhere. I couldn't even find out where they had lived before moving to San Carmelita a couple of years ago.”

“And that,” Ryan said, “was when John suggested we check out the family tree and ancestry sites.”

John nodded. “I thought perhaps if we knew where their families lived—parents and siblings—we could start from there.”

“And we found something very interesting.” Ryan pointed to the screen. “Show them, Tammy.”

“I found a number of Wellman family trees. One in particular seems to be centered in the Las Vegas area.” A few entries and clicks of the mouse and Tammy was on the site. She pointed to the diagrams on the screen that showed the various branches of the family.

“As you can see,” she continued, “this is a particularly well-developed site. They have little paragraphs telling something about each family member, and most of them even have a picture of the person.”

“This is good,” Granny said, squinting at the monitor. “We need one of these for the Reid bunch. Although we'd need a heap bigger screen than that one when we got to our nine younguns.”

“I found Maria and Robert Wellman here on the family tree,” Tammy said. Again, she entered her search data and clicked. “There they are.”

She pointed to the screen, where the photo of a couple—possibly taken on their wedding day—was displayed with a caption beneath that read:
ROBERT AND MARIA WELLMAN
.

Savannah only had to look at the faded picture to know it was taken about fifty years ago. The lady's pillbox hat with a half veil and the man's bow tie and sharkskin suit with tiny, narrow lapels, spoke of a yesteryear's fashions.

The smiling lady in the photograph, holding a bouquet of roses, bore no resemblance at all to their victim. But, although the man wasn't the same Robert Wellman she and Dirk had interviewed earlier, he did have similar facial features.

“That might be Wellman's parents,” Savannah said. “They're around the right age, and this guy looks a little like the doctor.”

“Maybe Robert's a junior,” Gran suggested. “I don't know if they go in for that in Nevada, but we got us a mess o' juniors down South.”

“That's what we thought at first, too.” Ryan was grinning like a magician with a great trick somewhere up his sleeve.

“But we kept looking,” John said. He patted Tammy's shoulder. “Show them, love.”

Tammy moved her cursor around on the screen, made a few selections, and brought up new images.

“We saw plenty of pictures, even some videos, of Dr. Wellman and his wife on other Web sites, plus seeing him on TV,” she said. “So we were searching, looking for similar names or people who looked like them. Imagine how surprised we were to see this….”

Savannah watched the new frame pop up on the monitor. There was no doubt about it; the face looking back at her was Robert Wellman. And it wasn't the Robert Wellman wearing the bow tie, either. This was the man she had spoken to in his seaside mansion…the guy whose wife had just been found murdered.

Tammy pointed to the caption beneath the picture.

Savannah stared at it, uncomprehendingly, for a moment. Then she said, “Who the heck is Bobby Martini?”

“Exactly.” Tammy giggled.

“Maybe they got it wrong…the people who made up the Web site. Maybe it was an accident, putting ‘Bobby Martini' under Robert Wellman's picture.”

“That's no mistake,” John said. “His name and picture are on a number of this site's pages. We studied the family tree, branch by branch. Your so-called Dr. Wellman is the real Robert Wellman's nephew. And his name is Martini.”

“So, Bobby Martini assumed his uncle's identity?” Savannah's head was spinning, processing this new information and thinking how much fun it was going to be to tell Dirk.

“According to the social security death index,” Tammy said, “Robert Wellman, the uncle, died five years ago. How much do you want to bet that Martini is using his uncle's social security number?”

“But how about his wife, Maria?” Granny said. “If Robert Wellman is really Bobby Martini, then Maria's name isn't…I mean, wasn't…Wellman, either.”

Tammy started jiggling around in her seat, like a kindergartner who desperately needed to go to the little girls' room. “Oh, oh, that's the best part! Here, look at
this
.”

Again, more clicking, typing, searching. And another picture appeared on the screen.

It was Maria Wellman, all right. She was about ten years younger and had black hair, but there was no doubt in Savannah's mind this was the same person. “That's her, but…the name…Gina? Who's Gina Martini?”

Granny shook her head and sighed. “I'm all bum-fuzzled now. People oughta have to keep the name the good Lord gave 'em. And the hair color, too. Otherwise it's just all too confusing.”

“So, Gina ripped off Bobby Martini's aunt's identity, too?” Savannah asked. “Robert and Maria Wellman are really Bobby and Gina Martini. Wow.”

“Hold on to your hat,” Ryan said. “It gets better.”

Savannah wasn't sure she could handle “better.” But she said, “Okay, lemme have it.”

Tammy brought up yet another page, which was a picture of an enormous oak tree. On the limbs and branches of the tree were text boxes, containing names, dates, and the relationships between those remembered there.

“The family tree,” Savannah said. “In all its glory.”

Tammy tapped on the screen with her fingernail. “Check it out. Right there.”

Savannah read what it said. Then she read it again. And then once more.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, forgetting for the moment that her grandmother was sitting nearby.

“Yeah,” Tammy said, terribly pleased with herself.

“Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?” Gran asked breathlessly.

“Yeap,” Ryan replied. “Bobby Martini and Gina Martini weren't husband and wife. They were brother and sister.”

Granny did a tsk-tsk and shook her head. “I thought I'd seen some nasty cow-pucky back where I come from, but that there…that's one mighty messed-up family.”

S
avannah waited as long as she could stand it to call Dirk—one minute and thirty seconds. And it only took her that long because someone had left the phone off the charger, and she couldn't find it.

She finally hit the “Pager” button on the base and located it in the cupboard with the cat food.

Reluctantly, she admitted that things around her house were getting misplaced more and more frequently the older she got. Her reading glasses had wound up in the freezer a couple of days ago, and that couldn't be a good sign.

“It's a good thing my butt's well attached,” she muttered as she leaned back against the kitchen counter and punched in his number on the phone, “or I'd probably find it in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator.”

He answered after the second ring. “Coulter.”

“‘Coulter,' my butt. Don't act like you don't know it's me. I know you've got caller ID. Listen…you aren't going to believe the news I've got,” she started to tell him.

But he cut her off. “Me, too,” he said. “I just left those road maintenance workers over there where they're working by Wellman's office building, and boy, they had a story and a half to tell me! Wait'll you hear it!”

“Like I said…I've got news of my own! Tammy found out that—”

“Naw, I'd rather tell you in person. You've gotta go with me on another interview anyway. I'll swing by and pick you up in ten minutes.” He hung up.

She stood there, staring at the silent phone in her hand, wondering if this was what it felt like to be ignored and taken for granted.

“Yes,” she muttered to herself. “This is exactly what it feels like. That boy needs a good skillet whack upside the head. That'd cross his eyes and set him straight.”

When she walked back into the living room, where Tammy, Ryan, John, and Gran were still gathered around the computer, Tammy said, “Well, was he impressed with what we found out?”

“I didn't tell him.”

“You what?”

“He irked me, so I held out on him. That'll teach him.” She walked over to her favorite chair, sat down, scooped Cleo into her lap, and kicked her shoes off. “Actually, he's on his way here to pick me up in a few minutes. Said he wanted to take me on some interview. I'll tell him the news when he gets here.”

Savannah looked across the room at her grandmother sitting there next to Tammy, a twinkle in her eyes, a broad grin lighting her face. She enjoyed “sleuthing”—as Tammy called it—as much as any of them. In fact, Savannah was pretty sure she had inherited her nosiness from Granny, along with the famous Reid blue eyes, curvaceous, bodacious figure, and occasional bouts of pure cussedness.

“Don't worry, Gran,” she said. “I'm not going out with him again today. I'm staying home and visiting with you. We'll bake some brownies and watch a Cary Grant movie together. Sound good?”

“Sounds ridiculous,” Gran replied. “If Dirk wants you to go on an interview with him, you hightail it outta here. You're not going to sit around the house keeping an old lady company when you could be catching a cold-blooded, good-for-nothing-but-fertilizer killer.”

“She certainly isn't,” John said. “Savannah's going with Dirk, and you, dear lady, are coming out to dinner with us at Chez Antoine.”

Granny lifted her hands in heavenly surrender. “Oh, if I have to. But you tell that Antoine, ‘no snails or frog legs.'”

“Oh, I'm pretty sure he remembers how you feel about those delicacies from the last time we took you there,” Ryan said.

“Indeed,” John added. “I believe everyone who was dining at Antoine's that evening remembers that you don't eat…how did you put it? Ah yes—reptiles, amphibians, or critters that slither around in their own slime.”

As Ryan passed by Savannah on his way to the kitchen for a glass of water, she caught him by the arm and whispered in his ear, “Do you think Antoine will let her back in the place, you know, considering?”

“All taken care of. When I heard Gran was coming to town, I called him and asked him to cater John's next birthday party.”

“But that isn't for eleven months. Don't you think he'll find your motives a little suspect when you walk in there with Gran on your arm tonight?”

“Sure he will. But Antoine's far too gentlemanly to throw a dear, silver-haired lady out of his restaurant…in front of his other customers.”

Savannah looked back at her grandmother, who was still sitting next to Tammy, both of them studying the images on the computer monitor with rapt attention. “I'd like to see anybody try to throw my granny anywhere she didn't want to go. They might accomplish it, but oh…the scratching, the biting, the kicking and gouging. All that blood and gore.”

Ryan thought it over and shook his head. Somberly, he said, “It wouldn't be worth the price they'd pay.”

“Not even close.”

 

Savannah had expected a pretty spectacular reaction from Dirk when she told him the news about Robert and Maria Wellman—specifically, that they weren't Robert and Maria Wellman.

And she wasn't disappointed.

He nearly ran the Buick off the road and into a lemon grove.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked, slightly bug-eyed.

“I kid you not. Brother and sister.”

“That's so gross.” He shuddered. “You don't think they…you know…yuck.”

She shivered along with him. “You're so typically male. Your brain automatically gravitates toward ‘nasty.' I hadn't even thought of that.”

“Oh, you did, too.”

“Well, I thought about it for a minute. Then I decided that they're just living in the same house, posing as husband and wife, for some other bad—but not icky—reason. Something that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with creepy stuff.”

“Like incest.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“Maybe they're serial killers on the run. Maybe they ran a brothel outside Las Vegas and robbed and murdered all their johns, left 'em hanging on meat hooks in a trailer in the backyard…something like that?”

She shot him an alarmed sideways look. “You scare me sometimes, boy.”

“Live in fear, woman. Live in fear.”

“Yeah…whatever.”

They drove along in silence for a while down the narrow, two-lane road that wound among the citrus groves that bordered the town on the east side. The dark green leaves of the trees contrasted beautifully with the snowy blossoms, and the sun-warmed, ripening fruit scented the moist, late afternoon air with an intoxicating perfume. Once in awhile, they passed a stand of eucalyptus trees, planted to function as windbreaks, and that fragrance mingled with the others.

Situated high on the foothills, the road also afforded an occasional view of the ocean in all its splendor.

After living here so long, Savannah thought she might have grown accustomed to the breathtaking beauty of the glittering, turquoise sea. But she hadn't. And she was sure she never would.

“Oh yeah,” she said, snapping out of her commune with nature and back to business. “You didn't tell me your news.”

He looked a little pouty when he said, “Well, now that you told me that thing of yours, it doesn't seem so important.”

“Took the wind out of your sails a bit, did I?”

“Sorta. And I'm not sure what it might have to do with what you guys uncovered.”

“So, lay it on me and maybe I can figure that out, too.”

He sniffed. “Get over yourself.”

She laughed and punched him on the bicep. “You haven't even told me where we're going, who we're going to interview.”

“You haven't given me a chance to talk since you got in the car.”

“The floor's all yours, puddin' cat.” She glanced down at the floorboard, littered with newspapers, boxing magazines, and mostly empty fast-food containers. “Garbage and all.”

He turned left, leaving the picturesque foothill road and heading down into town…the bad part of town…Stumpy's part of town.

But not anymore
, Savannah thought with a self-satisfied grin.

“So, give me your news, boy,” she said. “Lay it on me. What did the street maintenance guys have to say?”

“A couple of them were gals. Women's lib's brought you girls a long way. Now you can fill potholes with the good ol' boys.”

Savannah shrugged. “It had to happen. A woman's got a right to do roadwork and anything else she wants to do. And, of course, being female, she'll do it better.”

“You're just feelin' cocky because you got better news than me today.”

“Is mine better?”

“Yeah, but mine's pretty good.”

“Are you going to tell me what it is, or just keep me guessing?”

He gave her a mischievous grin.

“I know what that look means,” she said. “It means I'm going to be getting mighty irked at you mighty quick.”

He pointed to a sign up ahead and a dirt road entrance. “We're already there,” he said.

“Canyon Park? Your mysterious interview is in the park?”

“Yeap. Watch and listen.”

He drove the Buick down the long, narrow road that stretched from one end of the park to the other, passing the swings and slides, the sandbox and barbecue pits.

Ahead, Savannah saw a yellow minibus in the parking lot. A group of elementary school children stood in a cluster near the bus, listening to a couple of women and a young man.

Savannah recognized one of the females. “Roxanne? You're here to see her?”

“That's right.”

“Why?”

“Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.”

“Don't irritate the crap outta me, I won't slap your jaws.”

He parked near the bus and opened his car door. “Follow me,” he said. “This should be fun.”

For once, she did as he said and trailed along behind him as he strolled over toward the kids and their chaperones.

When they were about thirty feet away, Roxanne Rosen glanced their way. The moment she recognized them, a look of anger mixed with apprehension passed over her face. But she quickly covered it with a wooden half smile.

Savannah noticed that she was dressed far more conservatively than before in loose-fitting, dark green slacks and a long-sleeved shirt of the same color. The seal of the city of San Carmelita was embroidered on the shirt's pocket.

“Hello again,” Savannah said to her as they walked up to her.

“Uh…yeah, hi,” she replied, giving a furtive glance to the right, then to the left, as though looking for an escape route.

“Hello, Miss Rosen,” Dirk said. “I need to talk to you.”

“I'm busy. We've got to get these kids back into the bus and on their way.” With a wave of her hand, she indicated the group of kids and other adults, who were all listening intently, sensing something was amiss with one of their attendants.

“I'm busy, too,” Dirk replied, considerably less friendly than before. He turned to the other woman in the group. “Can you do without Miss Rosen here for a couple of minutes? I'm a”—he looked down at the innocent, young faces, all aglow with interest—“a law enforcement official…if you know what I mean.”

“The S-C-P-D?” the woman said, equally cryptic.

“Precisely.”

“Okay.” She turned to Roxanne. “We can handle them. Do what you have to do.”

Reluctantly, Roxanne left the group and joined Savannah and Dirk. As they walked away from the children, Savannah overheard one little girl say, “Boy, when they start spelling stuff, you
know
it's bad.”

“You'd better have a good excuse for embarrassing me like that in front of the children and my fellow volunteers,” Roxanne said, once they were over by the picnic tables and well out of earshot of the others.

“Volunteers?” Savannah said.

“Yeah. We bring underprivileged kids out here once a month for an all-day field trip. It's part of the Parks and Recreation program.” Roxanne plunked herself down on one of the picnic table benches and ran her fingers through her thick, carefully mussed curls. “I'm trying to do a good thing here, and you have to come along and ruin it.”

Dirk sat down across the table from her. Savannah did the same.

“There's no reason at all for you to be embarrassed,” he told her. “The kids don't know what's up, and as far as the adults…Your boss's wife got murdered. That's no secret; it's all over the news. It only stands to reason that you'd be questioned by the cops. So, get over it. You haven't done anything to be ashamed of, right?”

The piercing look he gave her put even Savannah on alert. What was going on here? Savannah knew that about-to-shoot-somebody-at-high-noon squint. And she knew that Dirk reserved it for people who had the dubious honor of ranking number 1 on his suspect list.

“Where were you night before last?” Dirk asked. “And don't lie to me, because I promise you that I'm going to check it out.”

She thought it over, then shrugged. “Hanging out with my girlfriends at Rick's Disco.”

“What time, exactly?”

She batted her suspiciously turquoise eyes a few times, looked around, as if looking for someone to rescue her, then said, “About eight o'clock.”

“No later than that? Rick told me you usually come in around ten.”

“I went in early, okay? It was Becky's birthday. We were celebrating.”

“What did you do before that?”

“I sat at home and watched TV and drank screwdrivers. And since you're probably going to ask…that's what I did when I left there, too, okay? Now that I don't have a job anymore, that's what I do.”

Tears flooded her eyes, making the fake aqua blue of her eyes even more intense. She folded her hands in front of her, fingers laced together, and stared down at them. “And I volunteer to help kids with crappy lives have a good time once a month. That's me. That's what I did that night. That's what I do.”