A Body To Die For (10 page)

Dr. Liu looked very different than she had in the field earlier that morning. Her high-heeled stilettos were gone, replaced by sneakers, covered with disposable booties. Like her assistant, she wore surgical greens and gloves. The fact that she wasn’t wearing a protective mask or face protector of any kind told them that she hadn’t begun any sort of cutting yet.

Bill Jardin’s naked body was lying on its back, staring sightlessly at the ceiling with eyes that were glazed and flat. Savannah could see a small incision on his belly, but other than that, he looked pretty much the same as he had at the river, except undressed.

Dr. Liu had placed a small white towel over his groin area, and not for the first time, Savannah was touched by the coroner’s respect for the bodies—and the people who had once inhabited them—who came across her threshold.

It was common knowledge that Dr. Liu was nicer to dead folks than to living ones. She made no bones about the fact that she preferred their company.

Finally, she set aside the instrument she was using and acknowledged them. “I suppose you want answers,” she said. “Where, when, what, how, all that good stuff.”

Dirk brightened. “You’ve got all that already?”

“Not even close. You’re not going to believe this. It’s a weird one. I can’t even get a probe into his liver to take his temperature.”

Both Dirk and Savannah forgot protocol and stepped closer to the table.

“What do you mean you can’t get it in?” Dirk wanted to know.

“Well…” Dr. Liu pointed to various reddish areas on the skin. “…I was wondering what that pink lividity was all about. I can’t say I’ve seen that exact color before.”

“Yes,” Savannah said, “we noticed that out at the river. Tammy asked me if it’s from carbon monoxide poisoning, but I told her it isn’t really red enough.”

“That’s true. I’ve seen that before myself, and it looks different from this.”

“What do you think it is?” Dirk asked.

“Oh, I know what it is…now. I couldn’t get the liver probe all the way in because he’s frozen.”

“What?” Savannah and Dirk said in unison.

“That’s right. He was frozen, and he’s in the process of thawing out. That can cause whatever lividity is present to look pink, like that, instead of the usual blue, red, or purple.”

Dirk shook his head, astounded. “I thought he felt pretty cold when we picked him up and put him on the gurney. But I figured it was just the river water that had chilled the body.”

“No river is that cold. At least not in this area,” Dr. Liu replied. “This victim was not only shot but also frozen solid.”

“For how long?” Savannah asked.

The doctor shrugged. “I have no way of telling for sure. As you know, it’s hard enough to establish time of death through body temp. Contrary to TV forensics, it’s iffy at best. But this…? I can’t even go by the rate of decomposition. Decomposition would have been arrested at the time the body was frozen. The tissues would only start to break down again after they’d begun to thaw.”

Phil walked to the foot of the table and looked at the body’s foot. “He’s starting to look bad fast, now that he’s thawing out.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Liu, “once tissues have been frozen and then thawed, the decomp rate is faster than normal.”

“Why would anybody freeze a corpse?” Phil wanted to know.

“Lots of reasons,” Dirk told him. “Maybe it was as simple as wanting to keep the body from smelling until they got the chance to dump him.”

“Or…” Savannah added, “…if they were really smart, they knew it would interfere with us establishing a time of death and would help them establish an alibi.”

“Why even take him out of the car that they shot him in,” Dirk said, “and then leave the car where we would find it and the body nearby? It’s not like we wouldn’t put the car and the body together.”

“I told you it’s a weird one.” Dr. Liu removed her gloves and tossed them into a biohazard waste can. “But for now, I need a cup of strong coffee. I want him to thaw a bit before I do my Y-incision. Phil, make sure nobody comes near him. I’ll be back in a little while.”

Savannah and Dirk walked with her out of the suite and back into the hallway.

“Can I buy you two a cup?” the doctor asked. “I know you’ve been up all night. You probably need a jolt.”

“Thanks, but we’ve gotta get going,” Dirk said, much to Savannah’s surprise.

He glanced around the dingy hallway and shook his head. “Man, this place is a bummer. Me and Savannah, we were saying right before we came in here…we don’t know how you can stand it, working in here, doing what you do.”

Savannah nodded. “Like he said, nothing good ever happens in here.”

“I don’t agree,” Dr. Liu said as she pulled the scrunchy from her hair and shook it loose, its glossy length cascading down her back and around her shoulders. “Something good happens in here almost every day.”

Savannah looked around, doubtful. “What?”

“I find out the truth. And that nearly always improves a terrible, painful situation.”

Remembering some of the grim truths she had seen Dr. Liu uncover over the years, Savannah said, “Even when it’s a terrible, painful truth?”

“Yes, even then.
Especially
then. Most people want to know what really happened to their loved one and why. Even if it’s ugly. They have a burning need to know. I find out for them, whenever I can.”

Dirk nodded toward the stainless-steel double doors. “And you’re going to find out what happened to our buddy in there—the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but…ugly or not?”

“I’m going to try. The killer did their best to make it difficult for me.” She smiled, a nasty little grin. “And, of course, that just makes me all the more determined.”

W
hen Dirk pulled up in front of Savannah’s house to drop her off, she gazed at the place with all the adoration of a sweetheart who had been too long parted from their beloved.

Okay
, she thought,
the flower beds could use a good weeding and eventually I’m going to have to paint again, but it’s still home sweet home
.

She had loved the little house the moment she’d first seen it, all those years ago—the Spanish-style architecture with its red tile roof, the white stucco walls that were common enough in that part of the world. But the charm of the home was two bougainvilleas that grew on either side of the porch steps. Their lush vines grew in profusion up the supporting pillars, to the roof and then together, joining in the middle and forming a canopy of dark green leaves and bright red blossoms.

She had affectionately named the plants Bogie and Ilsa.

When it came to stories of ill-fated romances, she was a hopeless sap. Last summer she had planted two rosebushes in her backyard and christened them Scarlett and Rhett.

Hopeless.

“I feel like I’m abandoning you,” she told Dirk. “But if I can just get a shower, a sandwich, and a couple of hours’ sleep, I’ll be a new woman. Or at least, slightly refurbished.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said, giving her knee an affectionate squeeze. “We’re both dead on our feet, and you’ve done enough already. Go get your nap and your shower. You’ve gotta be fresh when you meet with Jardin’s mom.”

“Fresh? I’d be happy with ‘conscious’ and ‘recently bathed.’”

“Yeah, that
would
be nice, wouldn’t it?”

He rubbed his hand across his eyes and shook his head, as if he was fighting just to stay awake.

She couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Dirk might have his faults, but when it came to his job, he didn’t have a lazy cell in his body. He would push himself far harder than anyone Savannah had ever known when he was on a case. Especially if it was a homicide. And she knew why.

Sure, it was partly the thrill of the hunt, the challenge of catching the bad guy. But she knew that, for Dirk, it was more a matter of finding justice and resolution for the family. And that was a noble cause.

With murder, there could never be true closure. But justice was a good consolation prize.

She reached over and ran her fingers through his hair, just above his ear. Then she lightly massaged the back of his neck.

“Come on inside with me,” she told him. “I’ve got leftover fried chicken and potato salad. You can grab a shower, too, and zonk out on my couch for an hour.”

“I really shouldn’t,” he said with a total lack of conviction.

“You really
should
.”

He nodded toward Tammy’s hot pink Volkswagen Beetle parked in the driveway. “The twerp’s here. If I try to snooze on the sofa, she’ll keep me awake trying to talk to me. You know how she is. If she can’t talk, she’ll pop.”

“So, stretch out on the bed in my guest room. We’ll draw the blinds and you’ll be snoring like a bear in his cave in two minutes. I’ll wake you up later.”

“I’ve gotta call the station house and see if Jardin had a gun permit. You know, that spot in the glove compartment where there wasn’t any blood…? If he had a gun, then maybe—”

“You can call while I’m dishing up the chicken.”

“Okay. You talked me into it.”

She chuckled. “I never doubted I could.”

As they got out of the car and walked up to the house, he said, “I appreciate this.”

“Oh, yeah? How much?”

He looked suspicious. “Uh…a little…I guess. Why?”

“Well, if you’re just plum brimming with gratitude, you could come over here on Saturday and mow my lawn.”

“Did you ever get your power mower fixed?”

“Nope. You’ll have to use that old reel hand mower.”

“That’s what I figured.”

They went into the house, and Savannah tossed her purse and keys onto the piecrust table in the front hallway.

“It’s us,” she called out.

“Hi, us,” came the cheerful reply from the living room.

They found the devoted Tammy sitting at the desk in the corner, slaving away at the computer. She was sipping from a tall glass of water with cucumber and lemon slices floating in it, along with a sprig of mint and a curl of gingerroot.

“Cleansing again, I see,” Savannah commented, pointing to the glass.

“I had to, after eating that German chocolate cake of yours last night.” She groaned. “I really shouldn’t let you do that to me, polluting my body like that.”

“I didn’t exactly have to throw you to the ground, pry your jaws open, and shove it into your mouth.”

Tammy laughed. “That’s true.”

“If you’ve got any of that cake left, I’ll take a piece of it, too,” Dirk said as he sank onto her sofa and scooped Cleopatra up into his lap. Instantly, the cat began to rub her face on the front of his T-shirt and purr.

Savannah had decided long ago that if her cats liked somebody, they had to be a good person. Dogs would slobber all over anybody; cats were more discriminating. They could tell.

“Come with me into the kitchen,” she told Tammy, “and I’ll fill you in while I get this guy some fuel. He’s runnin’ on fumes. And me, too.”

“Okay, I have good news for you,” Tammy said, trailing after her, “more good news, and some maybe bad news. Which do you want first?”

Savannah opened the refrigerator door and stuck her head inside. “Give me the bad first, and we’ll end on a high note.”

“Your grandmother called.”

“That’s good news. Isn’t it?” She took a big yellow bowl of potato salad from the top shelf and handed it to Tammy.

Tammy took it over to the nearby dining table. “You’d think so, ordinarily. But she sounded a little concerned.”

“About what?”

“About Marietta.”

Savannah cringed, in spite of herself. The very mention of her sister’s name was enough to set her nerves on edge, and she felt bad about that. A body ought to at least like their loved ones.

“What’s up with Marietta?” she asked, knowing it would have something to do with a man or…God forbid…men. As a beautician, Marietta was a whiz at “big” hairdos, giving perms, highlights, and frostings. But she wasn’t worth a lick when it came to managing the male population in her life.

“She broke up with her fiancé.”

“Which one?”

So far, Marietta had been married three times, and Savannah had long since lost count of the engagements. By the third date Marietta was usually sporting a diamond ring of some sort.

She worked fast.

After a number of painful and expensive mishaps, Savannah had finally learned to wait until the day before the wedding to actually buy the bridesmaid’s dresses. She had a guest closet full of fluffy, frothy, fashion nightmares that she was determined to sell on eBay someday when she was desperate for gas and grocery money.

“I don’t remember this one’s name,” Tammy said. “Ernie or Eddie or—”

“Ellis?”

“That’s it. Ellis Crocker.”

“I went to high school with Ellis. A good enough guy. Not very bright, but he could run really fast.”

Tammy snickered. “Apparently fast enough.”

“No kidding.” Savannah uncovered a plate of chicken and set it on the table, along with some bread and butter. “So, Gran was worried about Marietta’s fragile mental state? Again?”

“Actually, she’s more worried about your mental state.”

“Uh-oh. I think I’m about to hear the bad news part.”

“Gran thought you should know that Marietta decided to close the beauty shop for a week and take a vacation.”

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me…”

“Yes, she hopped on a plane this morning, and she’s on her way to Los Angeles right now. Plans on spending some days in the sun here in seaside San Carmelita.”

Savannah groaned. “Just kill me now.”

“Ah, just think how popular you are. You’ve got people flying from all over the country to see you right now.”

“Popular, my butt. Marietta isn’t coming here to see me. She’s coming here because it’s the only vacation destination on the planet where she can get free room and board. And she knows I know it. That’s why she didn’t call first. Thought she’d sneak up on me and take me unawares.” She put her hand on her lower back, which was starting to ache. “I wonder if all doormats feel this used.”

“So, tell her ‘no.’”

“Yeah, right. Have you ever tried to tell a Reid woman ‘no’?”

Tammy thought that one over a second or two, then nodded. “Yeah, I see your point.”

“Want me to set you a plate?” Savannah knew the answer, but Southern hospitality required her to ask.

“No, thanks. I’m—”

“Purifying.”

“Exactly.”

“So, what’s my good news? God knows, I need it after that blow.”

“I got a lead on that redhead who was sobbing her face off out on Sulphur Creek Road today.”

“Really? How did you manage that?”

“I phoned that gal at the police station and asked her to run the plate number for me.”

“Which gal?”

“The one who hates Dirk.”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Kimeeka.”

“Oh, right. She really does despise him. How did you get her to run it? She’s not really supposed to do that for civilians.”

“I promised to call Dirko a pee-pee head to his face.”

“You do that all the time.”

“Yeah, but Kimeeka doesn’t know that.”

“Hey, whatever works.”

Dirk walked into the room, sniffing the air. “I smell chicken. And what was that you were saying about a Kimeeka? I know a Kimeeka…works at the records desk at the station. She’s got some attitude, that one. Takes forever to run plates for me, and then when I suggest she should hurry up a little bit, she gets all snippy. Between you and me, I’ve never really liked her.”

Tammy batted her eyelashes. “Really? Well, she likes you. She told me so today. She thinks you’re hot, got a great build on you.”

Dirk swelled with male self-satisfaction. “Oh, really? Hm-m-m. Now that I think about it, she’s not all that bad.”

“Yeah, she said you were pretty cool, you know…for an old guy.”

Instantly, he deflated. “She said I was old?”

“So, who is our redhead at the scene?” Savannah asked, having enjoyed the previous subject matter quite enough.

“Her name,” Tammy said, “is Sharona Dubarry. Twenty-six years old, single. She lives down on the beach, not that far from me on Seagull Lane. She designs lingerie.”

Predictably, Dirk perked up. “Really? There’s nice work if you can get it.”

“Eh, probably girdles,” Savannah said. She had to. She couldn’t help herself.

“And…” Tammy said, grinning, “…she has a record.”

“For what?” Dirk wanted to know.

“She was arrested for prostitution, two years ago. She was working for a high-priced escort service in Hollywood called Cache.”

“Hey, I remember that place, a fancy joint up in the hills by the observatory,” Dirk said. “It was mobbed-up. They busted a couple of wiseguys who owned it.”

“So, our girl has connections to organized crime. That’s interesting,” Savannah said. “And Clarissa said Bill was a womanizer and a gambler. That puts him in two high-risk groups.”

Dirk sat down at the table and began to heap food onto his plate. “I guess you know,” he said, “I’m going to have to skip that nap. I’m not going to be able to sleep until I talk to Clarissa again…see if she knows anything about him owing gambling debts to the wrong people.”

“Or him fooling around with some mobster’s girlfriend,” Tammy said. Handing him a large plastic bag, she said, “Here, have some tortilla chips, pee-pee head.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He took the bag, then gave her a funny look. “What did you just call me?”

“Nothing,” she replied demurely. “But Kimeeka said to give you a special ‘hello.’”

Savannah suppressed a giggle as she poured two tall glasses of strong, sweet tea. They would need the sugar and the caffeine. Both of them. Because, tired as she was, she wasn’t about to let Dirk go interview Clarissa Jardin alone. And it had nothing to do with the way he had looked at her tight rear end either.

It was because, if he was going to get a substantial break in this case, she had to be there when it happened.

Or so she told herself.