Cooked Goose

one who got here first and helped me with the lady.”
    “I know. I’m sorry, but if you could go over it again, I’d really appreciate it.”
    As the teenager began to relate the details of her experience, Savannah noticed a crowd of spectators beginning to form at the periphery of the scene. Leaving Dirk to question his witness, she walked slowly along the edge of the group studying each face. Many times, the perpetrator of a crime returned to the scene and watched the aftermath unfold, mentally wallowing in the carnage he had created. Savannah had learned, long ago, to search the spectators for suspects.
    One young man in particular caught her attention. He was a young, blond fellow, about Angie’s age, wearing a football letterman’s jacket and a guilty-as-hell look on his handsome face. He was staying well to the back of the crowd, his eyes trained on the patrol car where Dirk was questioning Angie.
    As Savannah approached him, she decided to take a verbal stab in the dark and see if she could draw a little blood. She smelled the booze on his breath as she leaned close to him and said, “Your girlfriend’s doing her duty as a citizen. Why don’t you be a man and go do the same?”
    “What?” He turned to Savannah and glared at her with as much concentrated focus as his bleary vision would allow.
    She decided his confusion was as fake as a five-dollar alligator-skin purse.
    “You heard me,” she said, “and you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re Angie Perez’s boyfriend, the one who called this in. At least tell them what you saw.”
    He glanced around furtively and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Get away from me, lady. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Savannah shrugged. “Have it your way,” she said as she walked away. “But if that detective who’s talking to Angie has to come to you rather than vice versa, he’s not gonna be his usual charming self.”
    She walked to her car, opened the trunk and took out a small camera. Systematically, she began to take pictures of the crowd, working from one end of the group to the other. Dirk would comb them later, identifying as many individuals as possible.
    “Hey, Reid! What the hell are you doing here?” said a male voice with an irritating, nasal twang directly into her right ear.
    Savannah braced herself and turned to face the one human being she despised most in the world. As far as she was concerned, Captain Harvey Bloss had worked hard to ascend to that high-level position on her personal shit list. In the interest of fair play, she had bestowed the honor judiciously—no one deserved it more.
    “Now, what do you suppose I’m doin’, sugar?” she said, far too sweetly. “I’m gawking, like everybody else. Fortunately there’s no law against that.”
    Bloss gave her a drop-dead look that matched her own degree of animosity. “Get out of here, Reid,” he said with a long, liquid snort that made Savannah shudder. “You’ve got no business hanging around a crime scene.”
    Bloss wasn’t a particularly attractive man, even without the disgusting mannerisms. He wasn’t overweight, but he had a pudgy, bloated look about him that indicated, perhaps, a lack of sleep and excessive alcohol consumption. He peered at the world through squinted, suspicious little eyes, and the only time he actually made eye contact was when he was trying to intimidate someone.
    But, mostly, he just irritated the crap out of her and she loved returning the aggravation. Having the opportunity to irk him made her day.
    She lifted one eyebrow. “Excuse me? This is a public street I’m standing on and, thanks to you, I’m now Jane Q. Public, so I’m right where I belong.”
    “Go home, Reid.”
    “Go to hell, Bloss. Go directly to hell. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”
    “How juvenile.”
    She wrinkled her nose as though she had just caught a whiff of a week-old road-killed skunk. “Yeah? Well... nanny, nanny, boo, boo. And your mother dresses you funny, too.”
    Bloss gave her a condescending look that made her want to slap him stupid, then he walked away, heading for the car where Dirk was questioning Angie.
    Lucky Dirk, she thought as she watched Bloss, mentally calculating the length of the proverbial stick up his butt. Why else would someone walk that stiffly? Or maybe it was a simple case of deficient dietary fiber.
    She heard a girlish giggle behind her right