Cooked Goose

steak for weeks.
    At the edges of the cordoned area, a crowd was forming. Savannah recognized a few of the spectators, including Angie Perez and her worthless, jock boyfriend. Along with the ama teur gawkers were the professionals, reporters from local media and a couple of camera crews from Los Angeles television stations.
    Between the Santa Rapist’s exploits and now the missing police officers, San Carmelita was losing its sterling image as a safe, law abiding, upper-middle-class community.
    “That blond kid,” she told Dirk, “the one standing with Angie Perez. He’s her boyfriend, the one who didn’t want to stop and help Charlene Yardley. And here he is again. Have you checked him out?”
    “I’ve got my eye on him. He’s a bit of a cop buff, listens to police bands. He probably heard the call go out and bopped over here.”
    “Do you consider him a suspect?”
    “I haven’t exactly cleared him yet. He says he was with Angie and some friends when Charlene was attacked, but they admit he was in and out of the party, supposedly making beer runs, but he was gone a long time.”
    “Long enough?” Savannah noticed the young man watching the coroner with ghoulish fascination. But then, a dozen others in the crowd were wearing the same expression.
    “Long enough,” Dirk replied. “He’s a ‘maybe’ for the rapes’ kut the cops… I don’t know what the hell they’re all about.”
    “When did Joe come on duty?” she asked.
    “At 1700 hours.”
    “Did he call out with anything suspicious?”
    “Nope. His memo book is on the front seat. According to it, he’d written three tickets. We’ll run them down, but I’m not expecting anything there.”
    A sudden disturbance at the rear of the crowd caught their attention as some loud, unhappy individual was pushing through to the front.
    Savannah thought she recognized the voice and the colorful vocabulary. Yes, it was Donald DeCianni. As he burst through the crowd and climbed over the yellow tape, Savannah noticed he was out of uniform. Judging from the baggy sweats, his tousled hair, and the sheet-wrinkle lines on his face, she assumed DeCianni had recently been asleep.
    Well-rested and wide awake, Donald DeCianni wasn’t exactly Mr. Personality. He had been known to challenge his fellow officers to a fistfight over which pizza parlor had the crispiest crust and the coldest beer.
    “DeCianni’s not going to take this well,” Dirk grumbled. “He and McGivney were partners for about five years.”
    “Were they close?”
    “No, couldn’t stand each other. About two months ago, McGivney asked to get transferred just to get away from DeCianni, got sick of his bullshit. But you wait and see; DeCianni’s gonna act like they was blood brothers or twin sisters or somethin’.”
    “Hey, Coulter,” DeCianni called out as he hurried from McGivney’s abandoned car to where Dirk stood with Savannah. “Is this mess yours?”
    “The Santa mess is mine,” Dirk told him. “If this is part of the Santa mess, then it’s mine, too.”
    “Is it?”
    “Don’t know yet.”
    “What happened to my brother?”
    Dirk shot Savannah an “I Told You” look, then answered him, “Don’t know yet.”
    DeCianni sniffed and hitched his thumbs in the waistband of his sweats, exposing several inches of hairy, roly-poly belly. Savannah decided to study the wayward sprigs of hair sprouting from his head—the sight being slightly less revolting.
    “And what about Titus?” DeCianni snapped. “Have you got a line on him yet?”
    “Nope. Nada,” Dirk said.
    “Sounds like you don’t know a hell of a lot,” DeCianni said.
    Savannah winced. Dirk wasn’t the best guy on the planet to mouth off to. She watched as he reined in his temper.
    “Well, DeCianni, if you wanna help me out,” he said slowly, sarcasm dripping, “play detective for a while, just jump right in. You’ll probably have it all wrapped up by midnight, huh?”
    DeCianni backed down a bit, coughed and ran his fingers through his mop of hair. “Well...” he mumbled, “somebody needs to catch this guy. I mean, first Titus, now Joe. Who’s next?”
    “Could be one of us,” Savannah said. Why should the boys nitpick at each other without a girl joining in?
    “Why us?” DeCianni snapped. He actually looked worried.
    She snickered inwardly, but donned her straightest face, “Titus was the first to respond to the call on Charlene Yardley,” she observed. “I noticed that Joe McGivney