Chapter 28
The moment Savannah and Dirk left Edith Yager’s property, they headed back to town, to the Honey Bear Motel.
“Let me talk to her,” Savannah told him as they crawled out of the Bronco and headed toward the far end of the building, where Olive Kelly was staying.
“I’ll call Dr. Johnson,” Dirk said, “and ask him if he was able to lift any prints off that syringe.”
“Gotcha. Meet me by the picnic area.”
“You don’t wanna go in our room? Maybe stretch out on the bed for a moment.”
She pinched his cheek. “Aren’t you just the funniest feller? A real knee-slapper, that’s you.”
He laughed, bent down, and gave her a peck on the lips. “Go talk to the ding-a-ling. I’ll call the doc.”
They parted ways, and Savannah headed for room number 12.
When she knocked on the door, it took so long for Olive to answer that Savannah was afraid she might have left. But eventually the door opened a crack and a badly bedraggled blonde stuck her nose out.
“What?” she said.
“You and I need to talk,” Savannah told her.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you. Thanks to you people, my life is ruined.”
“Come on now. It can’t be all that—”
“It is that bad! My bosses are dead. I don’t have a job anymore, and I can’t even leave this stupid little nothing town and go home because the cops won’t let me, and I wouldn’t have any money to get back home even if they did.”
“But surely you could—”
“No! I couldn’t! I’m never going to get out of this place, and who’s gonna give me a job? Do you think anybody around here needs a personal assistant? Of course not. I’ll probably wind up having to turn tricks down there by the pier and—”
“Just stop!” Savannah reached out and pushed the door wide open.
At first, she was sorry she had. She didn’t realize that Olive was in her underwear, “barely there” panties and a “hardly anything” bra that looked like they had been purchased in a porn shop.
“Put on some clothes, Olive,” she told the nearly hysterical blonde. “Get a hold of yourself. You’ll be able to go home again, one way or the other. Stop with the drama crap. It only makes things worse.”
Olive shuffled over to the rumpled bed and picked an even more rumpled T-shirt. She slipped it on, then plopped herself onto the foot of the bed.
The shirt did precious little to cover her assets, but Savannah decided to let it go. In situations like this, you had to pick your battles.
“I have something to show you that might make your problems a bit better,” Savannah told her, taking her phone from her purse.
Olive brushed a handful of hair back from her forehead and out of her eyes. “What?”
Savannah searched for the picture of Edith and showed it to her. “Do you recognize this woman?”
Olive leaned forward and squinted at the screen. She lit up in an instant. “Sure! That’s the woman I told you about. The one who gave me a ride in her van.”
“The van that smelled like dogs?”
“It reeked! She had five dogs in the back and some of them were still wet from having a bath.” She shuddered. “I can still smell it. Yuck.”
Pausing, she reconsidered. “But it could have smelled ten times worse and I still would have taken that ride. My feet were killing me!”
Savannah couldn’t help smiling, in spite of Olive’s lament. She just loved it when a piece finally fit into a puzzle.
“Okay, good,” she said. “Now, I’m going to ask you something else and I want you to think really hard before you answer. All right?”
Olive screwed her face into a “thoughtful” expression. “Okay. What is it?”
“From the moment you got into that van, until the moment she dropped you off at the pier, did you get out of the vehicle for any reason?”
She thought hard, then her eyes lit up. “Yeah. We were going down the road and she said that she heard something bumping under the van, like maybe she’d run over a branch, and it got stuck or something. She pulled off the road and asked me if I’d get out and look.”
Savannah grinned. “You did.”
“I did, but I couldn’t see anything.”
“Now, one more question. When you got out to look under the van, where was your purse?”
“Why?”
Savannah sighed and ordered her eyeballs not to roll. “Just think about it, Olive. Try to remember. It might be important.”
Again, Olive’s forehead furrowed with the effort of getting ready to think. “Okay.” Finally, she answered, “On the floorboard. It was on the floorboard the whole time.”
Savannah loved it when she got the answer she wanted. “Where is your purse now?”
“That trooper guy took it. He put it in a brown grocery bag and wrote something on it.” The blonde’s eyes blazed. “Boy, he’s got a lot of nerve doing that. My mascara’s in there! I’ve been running around with no eyelashes because of him!”
Hmmm, a natural blonde, Savannah thought as she left the room. Wonders never cease!
* * *
As planned, Savannah and Dirk rendezvoused in the picnic area.
Patricia Chumley was still reading. She ignored them, and they returned the favor.
They sat down at a table and watched for a moment as some children purchased a five-dollar soda from the innkeeper, who then allowed them to give it to the eager bear.
He sat back on his haunches, lifted the bottle like a baby taking its formula, and downed it in a few seconds.
The children pealed with laughter, and the innkeeper looked pleased, too, as he shoved the five dollars into his pants pocket.
“That bear’s going to get diabetes,” Savannah said. “How many of those things a day do you reckon he drinks?”
“Let’s just say, I’ll betcha that old coot makes more money off the bear than he does this flea-bag motel.”
“This spider-ridden, flea-bag motel.”
He rubbed his hand over his eyes and it occurred to her that he was probably exhausted. Sleeping scrunched in the back of the Bronco hadn’t helped.
Just to keep his arachno-whacked-out wife company.
How sweet. No wonder she loved him.
“Did she identify Edith?” he asked her.
“Bingo. She said Edith asked her to get out of the van to check something that turned out to be bogus. Olive left her purse in the vehicle when she did.”
“Good. Dr. Johnson said he found prints on the syringe and the purse that weren’t Olive’s. I told him to compare them to Edith’s.”
“Her DMV thumbprint?”
“Better. He’s got her full set. Years ago, she and her sister used to do some courier work back and forth from Ketchikan. They had to be bonded.”
“Good.”
“He shared another juicy tidbit. Turns out that the syringe had human blood in it, mixed with the pento-whatcha-ma-call-it.”
“Wow, that’s great! Can we get a DNA?”
“He sent it off. Who knows when it’ll be back.”
Savannah’s phone rang. She looked at it and said, “Ryan. Good. Maybe they found out something up at the glacier center.” She answered it, “Hi, sugar. What’s shakin’?”
“Not sure how this shakes out,” was his reply. “Don’t know if you’ll be glad or distressed to hear our news.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“The Van Cleefs weren’t at the Tongass Glacier Visitor Center yesterday. We showed their picture to everyone and then, just to be absolutely sure, we watched the security video of the entrance from when the center opened until after the accident. Nary a Van Cleef.”
“Your eyes must be tired.”
He laughed. “Yes, that much fast-forwarding can make you a bit dizzy, but we’d do anything for you, kiddo.”
“Don’t think I don’t appreciate it.”
Savannah looked across the table and saw Dirk grimace.
He didn’t really mind if she flirted with Ryan, since there was no threat of it ever going anywhere. But he seemed to feel the need to register at least a modicum of disgust when it occurred. It was the macho thing to do.
“There’s another reason that you’re going to appreciate us even more,” Ryan was saying. “We heard about your little, um, domestic dispute last night. We’ve arranged to change rooms with you. We didn’t see anything in our number ten that had more than two legs. So, we’ll swap with you. Okay?”
Gratitude flowed through her soul like the Hoover Dam floodgates opening. “Really? Are you kidding? You’d do that for me?” Then she paused, considering the ramifications. “Are you telling me that you’re willing to sleep with Dirk’s parents?”
“No,” was the firm reply. “They’re great people, and we like them a lot. But we talked to them about this already. They’re definitely moving with you.”
Savannah had another call coming through, so she said good-bye, along with some more slobbery sweet expressions of undying gratitude.
Switching modes, she answered the new call with her most professional hello.
It was Dr. Johnson with still more news.
“I’m shocked to say it, but you and your husband were right,” he said. “Those were Edith Yager’s fingerprints on the syringe. Also on the clasp of the purse that belongs to Ms. Kelly.”
Savannah gave Dirk a thumbs-up. “That’s great news, Doctor. But why would you say you’re shocked?”
“Because Edith Yager is one of the best people I’ve ever known in my life,” he said. “Yes, she’s a bit rough around the edges, and maybe not everybody’s cup of tea. But I always figured that anybody who loves animals can’t be all bad. I’ve been her vet for twenty years, and her father’s before her. The Yagers have always been good people.”
Savannah considered his words, then stacked them against the evidence. “Then tell me this, Doc. What’s a good person doing with a syringe containing a lethal concoction mixed with human blood?”
* * *
While Dirk met with Sergeant Bodin and the magistrate to obtain a warrant to search Edith Yager’s trailer and property, Savannah decided to take a short walk down the street to Myrtle’s taxi office.
She figured if anybody was expert on the town’s gossip, it would be the owner/dispatcher of the local taxi service.
When she opened the door to the office, she could hear Myrtle raging at Jake yet again.
“How many times have I told you to check in with me before you leave the center, huh? You drop off a fare, you call me and see if there’s somebody there who wants a ride back. This ain’t that hard, lame brain! Now here you are, back in town, and you’ve gotta turn around and drive back up there. You’re burning twice as much gas, and your fare’s waiting half an hour!”
She slammed down the phone and spit loudly into the soda can on her desk.
Seeing a dark brown streak run down the woman’s chin, Savannah knew she would never again be able to drink from a soft drink can for the rest of her life.
Myrtle looked up, saw Savannah, and accidentally allowed a smile to play across her lips before squelching it.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
Savannah shrugged and stepped farther into the dark, tiny office. “I just wanted to pop in for a minute and say hi.”
“I doubt that,” Myrtle replied. “Nobody drops by here just to see me.”
“Okay. I have an ulterior motive. I want to gossip, too.”
Myrtle’s eyes gleamed, but like her smile, the glimmer was fleeting.
“Then sit down,” she said, pushing a metal folding chair in Savannah’s direction. “Take a load off. Want a soda?”
“No, thanks. I’m on a diet.” Savannah reached up to make sure her nose wasn’t growing.
Heaven knows, girl, she told herself. That’s the biggest whopper of a lie you ever told!
“Who you wanna gossip about?” Myrtle said, almost looking excited.
“Edith Yager,” Savannah replied. “Do you know her very well?”
“Know her? All my life.”
“What’s your impression of her? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Myrtle considered her answer a long time before answering, which pleased Savannah. It was rare to have someone give a thoughtful reply to such a question.
“I’m fond of Edith,” she said finally. “Though I don’t care to be around her much the way I once did.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she used to be nicer. Back when her father and her sister were alive. She used to be happy and that made her easier to be around.”
Savannah nodded. “The same could be said of most of us, I reckon.”
Myrtle’s eyes bored into Savannah’s with such intensity that Savannah had a hard time not looking away. The dispatcher reminded Savannah of Dirk when he was interrogating a very difficult, potentially violent suspect.
Finally, Myrtle said, “Have you ever lost somebody you loved, Savannah Reid? Somebody you loved with all your heart.”
“Yes, I have. I lost my grandfather, and he was very, very dear to me.”
“Then you know that it changes you. You don’t get over it. You don’t ‘find closure,’ whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. You don’t reach the end of your grief and ‘go on’ with your life. Your life will never be the same once they’re gone, and neither will you. That’s the truth about grief.”
She stopped to spit in one can and then take a swig of soda from the other. “That’s a little secret we humans keep from each other. We don’t talk about how some losses kill a part of you, and you never get it back. Grief ain’t the Iditarod. You can’t pass over a finish line and be done with it.”
“Whom did you lose, Myrtle?” Savannah asked, afraid she might have ventured too far.
But Myrtle smiled as tears filled her eyes. “I lost my husband five years ago. He was a pilot, the best anywhere around. But the storm was a big one and it came on fast.”
She paused, pulled in a shaky breath, and finally continued. “Part of me died that day along with him. Just like part of Edith died six months ago with her sister.”
“What was her cause of death?”
“Cancer. It’s the one that takes all the truly good people, ain’t it?”
Savannah nodded. “Seems it does, yes.”
“Edith nursed her sister up until the day she passed. Never complained to anybody about it neither. I respect that in a person.”
“Me too.”
“But once Mary Beth was gone, Edith just closed herself up there in that trailer with her dogs and none of us heard from her. Not until that business with the author, her so-called best friend forever.”
Savannah sat up straight in her chair and held her breath. “An author? Her best friend?”
“Yeah. I guess it was that one who was killed up by the glacier.”
“She was Edith’s best friend?”
Myrtle shook her head and sniffed. “In Edith’s mind, I guess. Edith said that author contacted her about buying a husky puppy. According to Edith, they e-mailed back and forth a lot about all the different markings on huskies and colors and how to raise them. Really bonded, they did.”
Savannah’s mind was already racing forward to the time when she would try to get the authorities to let Tammy search Edith’s computer for those correspondences.
“Then Edith found out that Natasha gal was coming here, getting off a cruise ship and spending a day here in little ol’ Saaxwoo. Edith went crazy, telling everybody in town that her very best friend was coming to see her. She bought paint and re-did the inside of that old trailer. She sewed new curtains for the windows. She couldn’t wait for her author friend to come visit her.”
“Did she? Go visit her, that is.”
Myrtle leaned back in her chair and propped her feet on her desk. “Don’t know. But something’s wrong. Once a week, like clockwork, Edith drives into town to pick up dog food. Normally, she would’ve come in today. But she didn’t.”
“Is that a big deal?”
“To Edith it is.”
“If you had to guess about what happened between Edith and Natasha, what would you reckon it was?”
“I’d say, if that famous author gal didn’t take the time to go to see Edith, she would have been mighty disappointed. More disappointed than you or me’s ever been in our lives. Devastated. Not to mention humiliated, since she told everybody in town that gal was coming to visit her. On the other hand, if the author gal did go see Edith, and then she wound up dead a stone’s throw from Edith’s house, I’d say that was a strange occurrence. Wouldn’t you?”
“I would.”
Savannah’s phone jingled. She glanced down and read the simple text from Dirk: Got warrant. Coming to get you.
“I have to go, Myrtle,” she said, rising from her chair. “But I want to thank you for taking time to talk to me.”
“No big deal. I didn’t mind.”
Savannah reached for Myrtle’s hand and shook it, then enclosed it in both of hers. “I have to tell you,” she said, “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my husband. I’m so sorry that you lost yours. That you lost part of your life. That you lost a precious part of yourself that you won’t get back.”
Once again, Myrtle’s eyes filled with tears. She gave an abrupt nod and said, “Thanks.”
Savannah left quickly, because she could tell that Myrtle was about to cry. Even though she’d known her less than twenty-four hours, Savannah knew that Myrtle wouldn’t want anyone to see her cry.