Sour Grapes

and talk with me. I’m sorry I...”
    When the rest of her words didn’t come, Savannah patted her shoulder. ‘That’s okay, dear. If you change your mind and want to talk, I’m in room 2G or you can call me. Here’s my cell-phone number and my beeper, too. Anytime, night or day. Okay?”
    She scribbled the numbers on a slip of paper and pressed it into the girl’s palm.
    “Okay. Thanks.”
    “I’ll walk you back to your room, if you like.”
    Francie glanced around—the furtive, suspicious look of the hunted. “No, that’s all right. I think it would be better if nobody... you know, if I wasn’t seen talking to you.”
    “I understand.”
    But as she watched the girl walk away with the grace and bearing of a queen, Savannah cursed herself for not understanding. And for not knocking on that bedroom door last night and demanding answers. If she had, Barbie Matthews might be alive... and Francie Gorton might be thinking about winning beauty pageants instead of fearing for her life.

Chapter

15

    “W hat is this crap?” Dirk pointed to the dish of VV food that had been set before him—half a pineapple, scooped out and filled with chicken salad, decorated with a sprig of mint and a paper umbrella.
    “It’s called lunch,” Savannah told him. “Stick a forkful into your mouth. It’ll keep you quiet... at least in theory.”
    “But it’s sissy food. I don’t eat girlie junk like this.” Savannah picked a walnut and a piece of fresh pineapple out of the salad, tasted it, and closed her eyes in ecstasy. “I realize,” she said, “that if your grub hasn’t moo-o-oed in the past twenty-four hours you don’t consider it food. But this really is good. Besides, it’s free.”
    Dirk reconsidered. That’s true.”
    He picked up his fork and began to shovel it in. She didn’t understand why he made such an issue of what he was eating; he never took the time to taste it anyway.
    A soft breeze rippled the edges of the umbrella over their table, a blue-and-white-striped affair, like a dozen others that had been set around the Villa Rosa swimming pool. Luncheon was being served to the pageant judges, hostesses, sponsors, members of the local press, and a number of society mucky-mucks, who seldom missed the opportunity to make appearances at this sort of thing.
    The contestants were walking among the tables, modeling the latest swimwear fashions, furnished by a beachfront boutique. Savannah was relieved to see that her own sister was wearing a modest one-piece maillot instead of one of the skimpy bikinis that some of the other girls were wearing.
    She spotted Frank Addison sitting at the end of the judges’ table. His chicken salad was being badly neglected, as he ogled each young body that passed his way.
    However, when Atlanta walked by him, Savannah was gratified to see him avert his eyes, suddenly interested in the conversation at his table. Her talk with him had made an impression on him after all.
    “That Addison creep,” she said. “I’d like to nail him for Barbie’s murder. Just thinking about hearing you read him his rights does me a world of good.”
    Dirk shoved his mouthful of food to the side of his jaw, and said, “Yeah, I’ve been thinkin’ about him. I told Jake McMurtry to check ‘im out. Wouldn’t it be fun if he had a rap sheet with some sexual assaults on it?”
    “Don’t toy with me. Only in my dreams.” She took a sip of the wine that had been served to the adults at the luncheon. One of Villa Rosa’s blush wines, it had a beautiful coral color and a surprisingly delicate, dry taste for a blush.
    “Since when are you drinking on the job, Van?” Dirk asked, reaching for his own glass of iced tea.
    “Yeah, right... like you wouldn’t be guzzling beer this minute if they’d offered it to you. Besides, I’m only having half a glass. If I drank the whole thing I’d go right to sleep, sitting here in my chair.”
    “By the way”—he stuffed another forkful into his mouth—“Dr. Liu told me she examined that muck that was on the Matthews kid’s bed. It was chicken guts, all right.”
    Savannah glanced down at her salad and silentiy cursed Dirk for his lack of timing. “Gee, thanks for letting me know.”
    “No problem.”
    “How did it go with informing the Matthews family?”
    “Rotten, just like always. Dad cried, Mom cussed me out, then she cried, too. There just ain’t no easy way to inform next of kin.”
    Savannah nodded. “It’s the worst. I