Cooked Goose

Savannah flashed O’Leary a friendly, open smile and received only a perfunctory grunt in return.
    Six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound Officer O’Leary’s steel-trap mind might have been a tad rusty in the hinges, but he took his job as first line defense very seriously. And if his sheer bulk weren’t deterrent enough, he carried a .357 Magnum as a side arm and a billy club the size of a California redwood. No one got past Morton O’Leary; no one even tried.
    Once inside the private room, Savannah and Dirk saw a sweet-faced nurse who was sitting on a chair beside the bed, watching over her charge with obvious concern.
    “How is she?” Dirk asked as he looked down at the woman who was lying still, eyes closed, her head swathed in bandages, her right arm in a cast. Both of her wrists bore the dark, telltale lines, indicative of having been bound. The lower half of her face, that showed below the wrappings, was grotesquely swollen and splotched with patches of red, black, and purple bruising.
    Savannah winced, unable to even imagine how that sort of beating would have hurt. The victim looked like someone who had been involved in a violent traffic accident. But her situation was all the more horrific because it had been some sick individual’s intention, not Fate’s intervention that had put her here.
    “She’s asleep,” the nurse said. “She has been for the past hour.”
    “Has she said anything?” Savannah asked, thinking that the woman’s face was so badly contorted that she would surely be unrecognizable to her loved ones. It would require plastic surgery to put her right again. And those were just the physical injuries. The emotional scars would be permanent.
    “She just told us that her name is Charlene Yardley,” the nurse replied. “And she asked us to call her ex-husband.”
    “Did you?” Dirk asked.
    “Yeah.” The nurse lowered her voice and added, “He wouldn’t come, the jerk. But he gave me her sister’s number. I called her, and she’s on her way.”
    “I wanted to ask her some questions,” Dirk said, “but if she’s sleeping, I...“
    “She needs the rest, poor baby.” Savannah patted Charlene’s hand, noting the torn nails and skinned knuckles. Apparently, she had put up some sort of defense. “That bastard really put her through the mill.”
    Charlene’s eyelids flickered. “Mama?” she whispered through cracked, puffy lips.
    Savannah leaned close to her. “What, honey? Did you say something?”
    “Mama?” she murmured again.
    Savannah shot a quick look at Dirk and the nurse. Dirk gave her a nod. “I’m right here, sweetheart,” she said. “You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be just fine.”
    Charlene’s eyes fluttered again and this time she opened one just a crack and looked up at Savannah . When she closed it, tears slid down both her cheeks and she began to cry. “You aren’t my mom,” she said between sobs.
    Savannah’s heart ached. “I wish I were,” she said softly. “Your sister’s on her way here to see you.”
    “Oh, great... that’s all I need. My sister’s stupid and a drunk.”
    Savannah gulped. So much for close family ties. “Do you want me to try to find your mom for you?”
    At the suggestion, Charlene only cried harder. “You can’t,” she said. “My mama’s dead.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry.” Having struck out twice, Savannah was reluctant to swing a third time, but she had to ask, “Why did you think I was your mother?”
    “You... you sound like her.”
    “Oh.” The light dawned. “Was your mom from down South?”
    “ Savannah , Georgia .”
    “Well, if that ain’t a coincidence. My name is Savannah . Is that close enough?”
    At least Charlene had stopped crying. That was a step in the right direction. So, Savannah decided to press a little farther. “This detective who came in with me... his name ¡s Dirk Coulter... he needs to ask you a few questions. Do you feel up to it?”
    At the mention that a man was in the room, a look of fear crossed Charlene’s battered features. “No,” she said adamantly. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
    Dirk took a step back from the bed. “Van, maybe if you do it...” he said.
    Savannah nodded and stroked Charlene’s fingers. “Do you feel like talking to me?” she asked in her most beguiling tone, “just for a couple of minutes. If you get too tired, we’ll quit.”
    She hesitated, then said, “Okay.”
    “Did you see the man who attacked