LITMIR.BIZ

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the one who insisted on watching those whorehouse tapes over and over when we were prosecuting that madam.”

      “He even took them home with him when the case closed.”

      “If you get O’Fallon,” Tammy said, obviously listening to their every word, “I’m burning this disk…in the fireplace, that is…and you’ll be relying on testimony alone to fry Vito.”

      Savannah chuckled. “She’s not kidding, and it’s a good idea. Otherwise she’d be burglarizing the judge’s house to get the DVD back and in spite of all my lessons, she’s not that good at breaking and entering. She’ll get caught; we’ll have to bail her out and all that rigmarole.”

      “I’ll arrest you for destroying evidence,” Dirk said, waving a brownie in Tammy’s direction.

      “No, you won’t. Because Savannah would stop feeding you, and you’d have to buy your own food or starve to death,” she replied. “There, that should do it.” She popped the DVD out of the computer, slipped it into a plastic case, and walked over to the sofa.

      Holding the DVD out to him, she said, “The whole, sad, sordid story right there in digital format for the world to see.”

      “Thanks.” He took it from her, getting only the merest smear of Savannah’s fudge frosting on the cover. “I owe you girls. I couldn’t have done it without you. None of the girls in the SCPD are cute enough to have lured anybody into that shower room.”

      Savannah stroked Cleopatra’s glossy black coat with one hand and ate a slice of pecan pie with the other. “I wouldn’t share that with the gals you work with,” she told him.

      “Why not? It’s true.”

      Savannah nodded solemnly and gave Tammy a sideways glance. “And thus the mystery is solved: Why does Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter continue to work alone since that day, all those years ago, when Detective Reid left the force?”

      “To heck with that,” Tammy said, nudging Dirk’s shin with the toe of her sneaker. “Let’s get back to that ‘I owe you girls’ part. What’s it going to be? A day at a spa, dinner at Chez Antoine? A weekend on Catalina?”

      “Get real,” Dirk replied. “I’m paying you out of my own pocket.”

      Savannah sighed. “A hot dog at the pier. Pay yourself if you want extras, like sauerkraut or mustard.”

      He grinned. “That’s more like it.”

      His cell phone buzzed, playing the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—his choice of ringtone for his captain.

      “Coulter,” he barked into the phone.

      His curt tone had a lot to do with the fact that he despised the captain, but he would have answered the same way if it had been his grandmother, the Dodgers’ lead pitcher, or Santa Claus.

      “Oh, yeah? Really? Hm-m-m.”

      Savannah and Tammy watched as his irritation faded to subdued interest and mild curiosity.

      That was as close to “excited” as Dirk got.

      “All right,” he said. “Gimme the address.” He dumped an instantly indignant Diamante on the floor, reached to the end of the sofa and got his leather bomber coat. He took a pad and pen from the inside pocket. Scribbling, he said, “Oh, yeah, I know the place. I didn’t know it was she that lived there now. All right. I’m on my way.”

      He clicked the phone closed and sat there with a perverse little smirk on his face. “You’re not going to believe this. You are not gonna freakin’ believe this!”

      “What?” Tammy asked.

      “Who?” Savannah wanted to know.

      He swelled up with the high degree of irritating self-importance enjoyed by someone who holds a juicy gossip tidbit that they haven’t yet shared.

      Savannah had seen toad frogs less puffy.

      “Oh, spit it out,” she said, “before I slap you nekkid and hide your clothes.”

      He crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chin a couple of notches. “Clarissa Jardin.”

      Neither Savannah nor Tammy said anything for as long as they could stand it. Finally, Savannah broke the stalemate by reaching down and snatching the remainder of his brownie out of his hand.

      “Hey! I wasn’t done with that!”

      “You are, unless you tell us what you’re so danged smug about. What’s with Clarissa? She’s having a hissy fit about us busting a perv in her gym and giving her bad publicity?”

      “Oh, no. She’s happy about publicity. Any kind of publicity.”

      “That’s true,” Tammy said, “or else she wouldn’t go on all the talk shows, the way she does, and talk trash about ‘tub-os’ as she calls them.”

      “Yeah, she needs a skillet beatin’ for that,” Savannah said. “But what’s the call about?”

      “Did you know she lives in the area?” Dirk said.

      “Yeah, big deal,” Savannah replied.

      Looking quite pleased with herself, Tammy said, “I knew that, too. I read the other day she’s bought that old, old adobe mansion up in the hills between here and Twin Oaks. It used to belong to the Mexican landowner Don Ramon Rodriguez back in the mid-1800s.”

      “That place?” Savannah said. “I heard that old place is haunted.”

      “Well, that’s where the Mistress of Pain and Gain and her hubby are living right now,” Dirk told them. “Or, at least she’s living there. Seems to be some question about whether he’s living or not.”

      “What?” Savannah and Tammy asked in unison.

      “Yeap,” he said. “That’s what the call’s about. She phoned the station house tonight and reported him missing. And I just caught the case.”

      “How long?” Savannah wanted to know.

      “Five days.”

      “Five days?” Savannah’s right eyebrow raised a notch. “Not exactly eager to get him back, huh?”

      “Maybe he leaves home frequently,” Tammy said.

      “You listened to her squawking all afternoon.” Dirk rose and pulled on his coat. “If you managed to get away from her, wouldn’t you stay gone?”

      “But five days!” Savannah couldn’t get over it. “Heck, I wouldn’t wait a minute past four days to report you missing.” She poked Dirk in the ribs as he passed by her. “Wait. Where do you think you’re going?”

      “To talk to the Mistress of ‘No Pain, No Gain.’”

      “Not without me you aren’t. Let me get my purse…and my gun.”

      “Your gun? You probably won’t need your gu—”

      “Listen, if that loudmouth gives me any lip at all or even mentions the word ‘tub-o’ in my presence, you gotta know what’s gonna happen. It’ll be justifiable homicide. And if there’s one overweight gal on the jury, I’m home free.”

      Dirk gulped and shot Tammy a helpless, worried look. At least, as helpless and worried as tough-guy Coulter ever looked.

      “Yeah,” he said, following her to the front door. “That’s what I’m afraid of. You dispensing your own brand of Southern justice in the middle of my missing persons case. Just thinkin’ about all that extra paperwork is enough to make me sick to my stomach.”

      He paused at the door, then darted back into the living room. In one smooth move, he scooped up another brownie and some chocolate pecan cookies.

      Wrapping them in a napkin, he hurried

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