LITMIR.BIZ

      Savannah had considered going home and grabbing a few hours of sleep before daybreak came and the next step in the search for Bill Jardin would begin. Certainly, it would have been the sensible thing to do.

      But she hadn’t considered it seriously. Of all her many virtues—which, of course, included humility—“sensible” wasn’t at the top of the list.

      Years ago, she had discovered that she could usually circumvent the biological need to sleep, if she only had enough adrenaline, caffeine, and simple carbs in the form of baked goods or chocolate.

      Now, after hours of hanging around the abandoned Jaguar, shooting the breeze with every uniformed cop on the scene, and ignoring the increasingly testy Dirk, she was running low on adrenaline. So, she was delighted to see the hot pink Volkswagen bug pull up to the perimeter edge and a bouncy blonde pop out.

      “Tammy!” Savannah shouted, as though greeting a long-lost relative at the airport. Actually, she was happier to see Tammy than she would have been to see any of her Georgia family, with the exception of her beloved Granny Reid.

      And one of the reasons for her elation was the bag in her assistant’s hand.

      It was a white bag, with “Patty Cake Bakery” printed in red on the side. The much needed nutrition-free simple carbs and caffeine had arrived!

      “Dirk! Hey, Dirk, get over here,” Savannah yelled to him.

      He was sitting in the front seat of his Buick, his arms crossed over the top of the steering wheel, his head resting on his forearms.

      He looked the picture of dejection. But Savannah knew it was more like the epitome of barely repressed terror.

      Dawn was breaking, and he still hadn’t come up with a good excuse not to lead his investigation team over the side of that cliff. She was relieved that he didn’t have any cyanide capsules in the Buick’s glove box.

      He needed food. Free food.

      If that couldn’t cheer him up and take his mind off his troubles, nothing could.

      Oh-so-slowly, he raised his head. Just an inch at first. Then, enough to peek at her over his burly forearms.

      She tried not to laugh. Big, bad Dirk, my butt, she thought. He’d run headlong into a room full of “considered armed and dangerous” perps, Smith & Wesson drawn, a Clint Eastwood scowl on his face. But ask him to climb up a ladder to paint some window trim? Forget about it. He wouldn’t show his face at painting parties, not even for a free keg of beer and all-you-can-eat pepperoni pizza.

      She knew. She had tried.

      “Come here!” she told him again.

      When he didn’t budge, she pointed to Tammy.

      He looked that way and when he saw the Patty Cake bag, he came alive, jumping out of the car and hurrying over to them.

      Savannah felt a surge of affection toward him. She had often thought that the basis of their long-standing friendship was their mutual love of junk food and artificial stimulants.

      But Tammy appeared less happy. By the dim light of the early dawn, Savannah could see a half-smile, half-grimace on her pretty face, and she knew exactly why. Tammy was thrilled to be here, to be part of the action. And the grimace was because…

      “You know I hate having to buy this crap for you,” she said as she held the sack out to Savannah with two fingers, like a dog walker holding a plastic bag with their Fido’s dumpings inside. “It goes against my principles to even step into an establishment that sells poison like that to human beings and calls it ‘food.’ Who—”

      “Smells great in there, though, doesn’t it?” Dirk said, trying to pull the bag out of Savannah’s hand. “I mean, you have to admit the smell of the coffee brewing, along with the fresh-baked muffins and stuff.”

      Tammy grinned. “Yeah, okay, it smelled great, but what’s to keep them from selling at least one whole-bran muffin or something with an actual nutrient in it?”

      Savannah handed Dirk his usual oversized apple fritter and a cup of black coffee. “I think Patty gets a lot more pigs like Dirk and me in her place than she does intelligent, health-conscious people like you.”

      Tammy opened her mouth to retort, then snapped it closed. Why continue to argue when you’ve already won?

      She glanced around, taking in all the activity. The van with the Crime Scene Unit’s logo on the side had just arrived. Technicians in their spotless white lab coats, cases in hand, were descending on the Jaguar.

      But the county coroner’s van was conspicuously absent.

      “No body yet?” she asked.

      “No,” Savannah said. “Plenty of biological matter for CSU to process, but no actual DB yet.”

      “Are we sure he’s dead?” Tammy asked.

      “Oh yeah,” Dirk said. “At least, if the spatter is Jardin’s, it’s a lock he ain’t among the living no more.”

      Tammy brightened—far more than was decent under the circumstances. “So, we get to go mountain climbing and look for the body! Cool!”

      What a ghoul, Savannah thought. Maybe she had over-trained the kid. Tammy cried at the thought of chickens losing their lives and being made into nuggets, but finding a human corpse…that was cool stuff?

      “Yeah, yeah, mountain climbing. Yippee,” Dirk grumbled. He took a long drink of his coffee and sauntered back to the Buick.

      “What’s the matter with him?” Tammy asked.

      Savannah bit into a maple bar and closed her eyes to savor it just a moment before answering. She swallowed, opened her eyes and said, “Dirk, heights, remember?”

      “Oh, right. He won’t even climb onto a chair to change a lightbulb. I guess he’s not big on rappelling down a cliff.”

      “You think?”

      “I’ll go. I’m into that stuff.”

      Savannah smiled, basking in the sunshine energy that her dear friend exuded. Tammy was into anything. Tammy was into life.

      Nodding toward the Jaguar, Tammy said, “May I look?”

      “Sure.

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