Cooked Goose

it a damned minute!” Dirk took a step toward his captain, fists clenched.
    Savannah grabbed his arm. “It’s okay, Dirk,” she said quietly.
    “No, it’s not okay.” He shook off her hand and stepped closer to Bloss, who looked temporarily nonplussed by the intensity of his detective’s anger.
    “I need all the help I can get on this fuckin’ case,” he shouted in Bloss’s face. “And you give me nothin’! Nobody! I’m tryin’ to catch a damned cop killer and a nut job who’s assaulting another woman every couple of days. And you won’t assign me one other detective to help me out, when I oughta have a friggin’ task force workin’ on this with me.”
    “I’ve explained to you about my budget and—”
    “Screw your budget. We got cops dyin’ here and I don’t think you give a damn!”
    Bloss’s nostrils flared and the blood vessels on his forehead bulged. “Of course I give a damn! What are you accusing me of, Detective?”
    “Being a damned fool and a jackass to boot.”
    “Dirk!” Savannah grabbed him again.
    “No! I’ve had enough of this horseshit.”
    He stuck his finger in Bloss’s face, and Savannah had instant visions of her friend standing in the unemployment line.
    But Bloss’s anger seemed to be changing to fear as spit flew from Dirk’s mouth when he said, “This woman...” He jammed a thumb in Savannah’s direction. “...has been working with me day and night, on her own time, for free, tryin’ to solve this case. And then you walk up here and insult her... in front of me, knowing she’s my friend. In my book that makes you dumb and rude... whether you’re a captain or not.”
    “And how intelligent are you,” Bloss said quietly, “to address your superior in that way?”
    Savannah didn’t like the deadly calm in Bloss’s voice. The last time she had heard him use that tone, he had been two minutes away from firing her.
    “Dirk,” she said, “I appreciate what you said, and I’m sure the captain would have appreciated my efforts... if he’d only been aware of them. And now that you’ve told him, I’m sure he’ll be a wee bit more courteous if he sees me hanging around.” She sidled up to Bloss and looked him up and down as though evaluating his shanks and withers. “After all,” she said smoothly, “it’s to the good captain’s advantage to get this guy behind bars as soon as possible. Who knows, he could be next.” She had said it flippantly, meaning nothing more than to make a mildly irritating, smartaleck remark.
    But her statement’s impact couldn’t have been more dramatic if someone had touched the captain’s hind quarters with an electric prod. His eyes bulged and turned blood red, sweat seemed to materialize across his forehead and upper lip, and his chin began to shake.
    “What do you mean by that?” he demanded. “Why did you say that?”
    “Why? Well, no reason in particular,” she said, backing up until she was nearly stepping on poor DeCianni.
    “No! You meant something! What do you know?”
    Bloss looked like he was about to have a stroke or go into cardiac arrest, but Savannah figured it was only wishful thinking on her part.
    “I just meant that, with cops dropping right and left, any one of us could be next.” She couldn’t resist one more little jab. “Except me, that is,” she added with a smile. “I suppose, under the present circumstances, I should thank you for firing me.“
    Bloss turned on his heel and stomped away. Or at least he tried to stomp, although it was difficult to make much of a statement in the loose sand.
    “My, my,” she said, watching his less than graceful exit, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say our brave captain is a Nervous Nellie these days. Wonder why?”
    “I wonder, too,” Dirk said, throwing his arm around her shoulder and giving her a companionable squeeze. “Hell, from the way his eyes popped out of their sockets, you’d think he was next.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

    December 17 — 10:19 a.m.

    S avannah hung another ornament—a miniature, jeweled carousel horse—on the Christmas tree and stood back to survey the effect. Ah-h-h. Christmas. With all the glimmer and sparkle, the good food and camaraderie, it was her favorite time of year. The time when the child inside her came out to play. And even if there was no snow in the yard for snowmen when she trimmed the tree, Savannah was seven years old, feeling the magic and the love.
    “This is dumb.”
    Okay, so Margie