Bitter Sweets

for so long. It’s a wonder somebody didn’t knock him off long ago. Hell, I’ve even threatened to do it myself.”

    “Did you?”

    His eyes locked with hers, and she could see he had switched to “red alert.” She remembered how cold he had gone that day when he had asked her to deliver his message to Earl.

    “Did I threaten him? Yes. Did I murder him? No. Thinking about it and talking about it, are a long way from doing it.”

    “If you don’t mind me asking, do you have an alibi for Wednesday night?”

    “Am I going to need one?”

    She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a cop anymore. But it never hurts to remember where you were when something like that happens. Especially considering your past history with Earl and your public threats against him. Sooner or later, somebody besides me is gonna ask you.”

    “Yeah, I’ve got an alibi.” He shook his head as though disgusted with himself, or perhaps with Fate. “See that spot right there ...” He pointed to a four-by-four-foot square on the deck near the bow, where the surface was dull. “... I was sanding that. Do you suppose anybody would believe it?”

    A few minutes later as Savannah was wiping the dust from her white skirt and climbing back into the Camaro, she was thinking of how she would describe the conversation to Dirk.

    Sitting in the car, she reached into her purse and pulled out her tiny, personal recorder.

    “Overall, he seemed sincerely upset,” she dictated into the minuscule machine. “Important to note, though... I didn’t tell him Earl had been murdered. I only said that he was dead, and he never asked how he got that way. Mr. Alan Logan, captain of The Big Bust, seemed to know that all by his lonesome.”

    Savannah checked out the station house parking lot, before going inside. Not seeing the chiefs BMW or Bloss’s generic, beige, “Fed” sedan, she decided the coast was clear. Dirk’s grungy Skylark was a welcome sight. These days, she missed him more than she wanted to admit.

    It was around seven, and most of the “brass” had gone home-at least the ones she was openly feuding with. Bette the Blabbermouth was at the front desk; Savannah wasn’t pleased.

    “Oh, hi there, Savannah. Nice to see you again.” At least Bette had the decency to look a little embarrassed.

    “Uh-huh,” Savannah replied without enthusiasm. “Where’s Denise?”

    “Vacation. Aren’t you happy to see me?”

    “That depends. Are you going to put me on hold so that Bloss can shove my backside through a wringer?”

    “Oh, come on, Savannah. I was just doing my job.” Bette toyed with one of the bleached, frosted, and permed locks that curled over each ear. The rest were piled on top of her head and haphazardly held with a butterfly clip.

    A quaint, Southern phrase drifted through Savannah’s mind. Something about: Snatching her bald ...

    Bette held out her hand. “Sisters?”

    Savannah grunted and gave it a brief, limp shake. “Cousins...maybe,” she mumbled. “Twice removed.”

    She found Dirk, as always, rooted to his desk chair, staring bleary-eyed at a mountainous stack of papers in front of him, an assortment of burnt-out cigarette butts bristling from a nearby ashtray.

    His tired face lit up when he saw her, and she felt special. Maybe, as Granny said, absence did make the heart grow fonder.

    “What’s shakin’, sugar?” she asked, dragging up a chair to sit beside him.

    “I’ve had better days, maybe better lifetimes,” he growled.

    She reached over and pinched his arm. “If I ever ask you how you are, and you say, ‘Fine, thanks,’ I’ll faint.”

    “If you’re unconscious, does that mean your mouth won’t be runnin’?”

    She grinned. “No guarantees. I’ve been known to hold entire conversations under general anesthetic.”

    “Why do I find that completely believable?”

    Leaning over, she rested her head briefly on his shoulder. “Miss me?” she asked in her best Dixie coquette impression.

    “Nope.”

    “Not even a little?”

    He cleared his throat and looked miserably uncomfortable. Dirk couldn’t handle any “mushy” stuff at all.

    “Maybe a bit,” he admitted. “I’m going through nail polish fume withdrawal. Stakeouts are pretty boring without you pestering me.”

    She tickled his ribs, and he jumped, overly sensitive about the extra weight he had added around the middle lately.

    “Seriously, what have you got?” she asked, looking down at the