Cooked Goose

to beat out of him. Dirk was a fairly old dog, and keeping your mouth shut when you eat must be classified as a new trick.
    “Is she going to be all right?” Titus asked.
    “Probably,” Savannah replied. “Her arm is broken, she has a concussion, and she needed a lot of stitches for the lacerations on her face and head. The sonofabitch really did a number on her. May he rot in hell.”
    “When I talked to her there in the grove,” Titus said, “she told me she thought he was white, and he was wearing the Santa Claus disguise. That’s about all she could tell me.“
    “That’s all she had for us, too,” Dirk said, replenishing his mouthful. “Nothing to go on.”
    “Yeah, her memory’s about as worthless as the crime scene.” Savannah’s fatigue began to catch up with her as her tummy filled. Food... and now sleep. That would improve her mood considerably. The simple pleasures of life.
    “I can’t believe,” she said, “we searched that long and didn’t come up with anything except a few more of those damned curly, white hairs. That’s a piss-poor payoff for the backache I’ve got.”
    “But at least we’ve got the hairs,” Titus said, “and we know it’s the same guy who did the other women. That’s something.”
    “So... we’ve got a nondescript, probably white, Santa Claus who’s molting,” Dirk grumbled. “Big friggin’ deal. He’s gonna keep on raping and plundering—will probably escalate to murder before long—and we’re never, ever, gonna catch him.”
    Savannah felt her own mood barometer drop fifteen notches. “Like I told you,” she said to Titus, “Dirk makes sure that no one’s morale rises above Suicide Level One.”
    “Hey, what can I say?” Dirk shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s my job to make sure everybody around here understands the situation. And the situation is: We got a very sick guy on the loose... and when it comes to nabbing him... we got diddly-squat.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

    9:41 A.M.
    A fter breakfast, Savannah drove Dirk back to her house to get his car, where he had left it the night before. As they stood beside his old Buick in her driveway, saying goodbye, Savannah noticed that Dirk was wearing what she called his “sorta-sappy” look. It was the expression he donned when he was feeling sentimental, but, being Dirk, didn’t want her to know.
    “Listen, Van,” he said, nudging a rock in the dirt with the toe of his scuffed sneaker that looked worse than usual, thanks to their stint in the muddy orange grove. “Before you go, I just want to say that I really appreciate your help, last night and today. Workin’ with you, it was kinda like old times.” She chuckled. “Yeah, except in days of yore I got paid.”
    His sappy look quickly changed to indignation. “You aren’t suggesting I pay you, are you?”
    “You? A man who reuses coffee filters? A guy who could read a newspaper through the best towel in his bathroom?” He bristled. “Hey, are you insinuating I’m cheap or somethin’?”
    “Who, me? You, cheap? Never.”
    He wasn’t convinced his case had been made. “I bought you pizza last night... kind of,” he argued, “and breakfast this morning. Basically, I’ve fed you for the past twelve hours.”
    “So? It was the least you could do.” She propped her hands on her hips and tossed her head. “Let me remind you, good buddy, that if it hadn’t been for you, I would have been I snoozing away in my comfy bed for eight of those twelve hours.”
    “Well... like I said, I appreciate what you did, especially talking to that Yardley gal there in the hospital and—”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know you appreciate me...” She waved him off. She could only take so much sentiment Dirk style. “So shut up already. Any time.”
    “ Any time?”
    He looked far too eager. She decided to backpedal. “Well... almost any time. When?”
    “How about later this afternoon or tonight? I gotta go over the victim files. And I always get bored and fall asleep if I have to do it by myself.”
    “Paperwork? Forget it. I gotta sleep this afternoon and give another one of those self-defense classes at the library tonight. Sorry, old chum, but you’re on your own. Maybe tomorrow... unless a real, live, paying job comes along.” .M
    She socked him on the shoulder, then started to walk a way-
    “Listen,” he called after her, “I’ll try to get you some dough for the time you’re putting in on this one. Maybe I’ll write you