Fat Free And Fatal. G. A. McKevett

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      “Of course they work,” Savannah grumbled under her breath. “Cut out most of somebody’s insides and there’s bound to be some changes made.”

      “Actually,” Tammy said, “I think she had gastric bypass—that doesn’t actually remove—”

      “Yeah, yeah.” Savannah shook her head. “It’s still messin’ big time with what the good God gave you. It’s a bunch of hooey, if you ask me. Dangerous hooey.”

      “That may be true,” John interjected, “but you must admit, she’s much thinner now. And healthier.”

      “Thinner? Yes. Healthier? Who knows? Chemo patients get thin. So do anorexics and bulimics. Doesn’t mean they’re healthy.”

      The table was silent for a tense moment, then Tammy said, a little too sprightly, “Well, so Dirk is out there now, processing the scene?”

      “He is. And interviewing the staff there at her mansion and whoever was present when it happened.” Savannah tried to keep the jealous tone out of her voice, but she wasn’t at all successful. It was only at times like this, when Dirk was assigned to something particularly interesting, that she regretted her parting with the San Carmelita police department all those years ago.

      She could take a day off, pretty much whenever she wanted. But Dirk had a pension, medical benefits, and juicy cases…like a murder at a movie star’s mansion in the hills.

      Sometimes she found herself wishing she had his job and he had a wart on his tail…as Granny Reid would say.

      “When do you think he’ll be finished over there?” Ryan wanted to know.

      She glanced up at the clock on her kitchen wall, a cat whose tail swung back and forth and whose green, rhinestone eyes clicked right and left—a gift from Granny Reid, which made it a treasure. “Oh, he’ll probably be wrapping up in an hour or so. Dirk doesn’t exactly dally.”

      “Which means he’ll be here in an hour and ten minutes,” Tammy said. “He can smell your fried chicken and hear it calling to him from the other side of LA.”

      Savannah stood and began to clear the dishes. “Everybody ready for cake and ice cream?”

      Ryan looked at John. “Oh, we can wait…for Dirk, that is.”

      “Most certainly,” John said. “’Tisn’t truly a party without him.”

      Savannah chuckled. Yes, they might be dysfunctional, but they were a family, this strange circle of hers. “We’ll wait then,” she said as she carried their dirty dishes to the sink. “But I’ll go ahead and give you your gifts now that—”

      The phone rang. Savannah wiped her hands on a towel and reached for it.

      The voice on the other end was gruff and abrupt. Typical Dirk. He had never gotten the hang of “hello” and “good-bye.” Pleasantries were a waste of time—unlike fishing and watching heavyweight bouts on Savannah’s HBO.

      “This sucks,” was his greeting and pithy report.

      “Oo-okay,” she replied. “Details?”

      “Come see for yourself.”

      “Really?” Savannah nearly jumped out of her skin.

      “Yeah.”

      “When?”

      “Now.”

      Savannah glanced over at the guests sitting around her table. Of course she couldn’t just leave in the middle of Ryan’s party, but—

      “Uh, I can’t right now.”

      “You sure? I got you a job here if you want it,” Dirk said.

      “A job? A paying job? Don’t you toy with me, boy.”

      “It’s yours if you want it. I told this spoiled rotten movie star bimbo that she needs a bodyguard. I told her either she hired somebody or I was going to assign my ugliest, meanest, nastiest cop to do the job. She fought me about it at first until I told her I knew a gal who could do it. You know, that you could watch out for her, even though you’re a chick.”

      “Ah, how generous of you.” Savannah reminded herself to crack him in the head with a skillet sometime when he least expected it. “But really…” She lowered her voice. “…I can’t right now. I could come over later after—”

      “Go now,” Ryan said.

      Savannah turned around and saw that her friend had a wide smile on his handsome face. “But your birthday? The cake?”

      “Hey,” he said, “a homicide case and a paying gig for the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency? That tops a birthday party all day and all night.”

      Savannah weighed one against the other for two whole seconds.

      A friend’s party versus looking at a dead body?

      Birthday cake or a homicide case?

      It wasn’t until she was in her ’65 Mustang, speeding toward the Papalardo estate in Spirit Hills that she paused to consider what it might say about her character, or lack thereof—how quickly and shamelessly she had made that decision.

      Murder takes the cake. Any ol’ day.

      Chapter 3

      As Savannah drove her classic Mustang through the posh, gated community of Spirit Hills, she tried not to notice the dark smoke appearing in her rearview mirror, coming from the ’Stang’s tailpipe. During the car’s last garage appointment, it had been given a grim prognosis from Ray, her mechanic. “You’re gonna need a ring job soon, Savannah, and maybe the valves ground, too. And that’s gonna set you back some serious cash. You might consider trading her in while she’s still running as good as she is.”

      The thought of getting rid of the ’Stang made Savannah’s heartstrings twang with a sour resonance, and she usually managed not to think about it, not to notice the billowing black cloud behind her. One of her life mottos was: If you don’t see it, it ain’t there. But while that level of denial might work when it came to the size of one’s buttocks, it was harder to maintain when you could look in your rearview mirror and see that you were a one-woman pollution machine in such a beautiful locale as Spirit Hills.

      As she passed one palatial mansion after another with their vast property allotments, it was all too apparent to Savannah that she was a “have-not” in a “have-a-lot” community. She passed Tudor and Greek revivals, Spanish haciendas, and the odd sprawling contemporary, but not a single driveway contained a smog factory like the one she was driving. Not even close.

      “Eh, some people just got no taste for the classics,” she muttered in a voice that sounded a lot like her Granny Reid’s. “It takes a person of refinement to appreciate an objet d’art like you,” she told the car, lovingly patting its dashboard.

      As though on cue, the Mustang sputtered and spewed an especially foul emission from its rear.

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