Sour Grapes

burned. She inhaled something highly caustic.”
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait for the lab results. But I’m sure it wasn’t anything she was sniffing recreationally. If she had been physically able to escape that poison, she would have.”
    “You said before that you think she was bound.”
    “Yes, and I’m sure of it now. There was even a shred of tape still on one of her wrists. It looks like standard duct tape, but we’ll rim tests on it, too. I’ll see if we can identify a brand for you, but I wouldn’t bet on it. There wasn’t much.”
    “Any hair or fibers?”
    “Hairs were all hers. We have some dark fibers. I think they’re carpet threads. Maybe from an automobile. I’ll get that for you, too.”
    Savannah walked over to the table and looked down at the earthly remains of Barbara Matthews, Beauty Queen, and felt bad that she didn’t feel worse.
    Not only was the young woman dead, but so few people seemed to be sorry. Everyone deserved to be grieved. Even unpopular, bratty girls like Barbie.
    And, although Savannah couldn’t summon an enormous amount of grief from her heart, she would do everything she could to supply justice for Barbara Matthews. Even unliked, ungrieved victims of murder deserved justice.
    “Yes,” Jennifer said as she walked up to stand next to Savannah by the table, “a perfectly healthy young woman. A perfectly healthy, pregnant young lady.” Savannah gave her a quick sideways glance. “Really?”
    “Really. About eight weeks.”
    “Mm-m-m.” She silently reaffirmed her promise. Now there were two victims who required justice, and that doubled her burden of responsibility.

Chapter

19
    W hen Savannah returned to Villa Rosa that afternoon, she found the pageant activities centered, once again, on the patio surrounding the swimming pool. At one end of the area, on a stage decorated with gold-and-silver-mylar balloons, the interview portion of the pageant was being conducted.
    On a set designed to look like a talk-show stage, the young ladies were taking turns sitting in the guest’s chair, chatting with the pseudo-host, a very debonair-looking Anthony Villa. But Savannah could tell that in this case, looks were deceiving. Although he was playing his role well, she got the distinct feeling Tony would have much preferred to be walking in his vineyard.
    She spotted Dirk at the edge of the crowd, showing half a dozen snapshots to first one, then another, of the girls. But as each one took a look, she shook her head, then walked away. He had his “I’m Discouraged—I Hate My Job” look on his face. Savannah wondered if what she was going to tell him would cheer him up or plunge him further down into the “I Hate the Whole World—Life Ain’t Worth Diddly” mode.
    “Hey there, good-lookin’,” she told him with her best Mae West impression, one hand on her hip, the other patting her hair. “If you’re not getting anywhere with those youngsters, show a real woman what you’ve got.”
    But he was in too lousy a mood even for Mae’s double entendres. “I got squat, that’s what I got.” He wiped the sweat off his forehead, and Savannah noticed that he was flushed all the way up to the receding hairline he denied he had.
    “Why don’t you come over here and sit in the shade a spell,” she told him. ‘Take a load off and all that.”
    She led him over to an umbrella-covered table and sat him down. Dirk wasn’t able to go all day long at breakneck speed the way he had when she’d first met him. The old fella was getting some mileage on him. While she, on the other hand, felt fresh out of the showroom.
    She sat down on the chair beside him and groaned with relief as she propped her feet in the crook of the table legs. Okay, so her odometer had rolled over a few times, too. They were still an awesome twosome... at least in her estimation.
    “Whose picture are you showing there?” she asked.
    He fanned the photos out on the table like a Las Vegas card dealer and pointed to the one in the middle, a gangly, teenage boy with stringy long hair and a sullen expression that looked more like a mug shot than the school picture that it was. That’s Trent, the boyfriend,” he told her. “I was hoping that maybe somebody saw him come back later in the evening, after Ryan pitched him off the property.”
    “Any luck?”
    “Nope. Nobody saw nada. They were all at that dinner thing.”
    “Have you found him yet?”
    “No. But once