Sour Grapes

can.”
    “Please tell Mr. or Mrs. Villa that the left front tire of their car is flat. They might want to have it taken care of now, rather than later this evening when they’re ready to leave.”
    “Of course. I’ll let them know right now.”
    The waitress hurried away, and Savannah returned to the parking lot, where she found a nice dark place to hide in the shadow of some tall oleanders. She grinned, savoring the anticipation.
    It didn’t take long. In less than three minutes, Catherine rushed out the front door and made a beeline for the back of the lot and a BMW that was approximately the same size as Savannah’s house.
    In her ankle-length evening dress and her high, high heels, she tiptoed around the car... once... then again... and a third time. Finally, shaking her head, she walked back to the center and through the front door.
    From her hiding place Savannah could see the confused look on her face. She felt only the slightest bit of guilt. Just as food—when eaten standing or off someone else’s plate—didn’t contain calories, lies told on the job didn’t exactly blacken your soul. Catching one really bad guy would provide absolution for at least one hundred fibs. She was sure it was a rule that was written somewhere in the cosmos.
    Once she was fairly sure that the Villas weren’t coming back out, and that no one was around to observe her, she headed straight for the BMW.
    It was black, she noted with a sad kind of satisfaction. And it was a pretty good bet that the carpeting inside would be black, too.
    Standing beside the driver’s door, she looked inside for any tiny red light that might indicate an alarm was employed. But she didn’t see anything.
    After glancing around once more and affirming that she was alone, she tried the door handle. But no such luck; it was locked. Even out here in the country, the Villas had secured their Beamer.
    She flashed her penlight through the back window and verified that yes, indeed, the carpeting was black.
    From her purse she took her handy-dandy, all-purpose lockpick and stuck it into the door. But once again, she was up the proverbial creek paddleless. The newer locks were more advanced than the old ones, and it was getting harder and harder to break into things these days. No amount of jiggling and twisting would do the trick.
    She walked around to the back of the car and repeated the process with the trunk lock. Just when she was about to give up... bingo! It snapped open. So, the old girl hadn’t lost her touch after all, she noted with satisfaction.
    One more look around, then she raised the lid and looked inside.
    Other than the black carpeting... which as Dr. Liu had said, would be less than two years old in the trunk of a late-model car, she didn’t see anything particularly incriminating. It was just your standard, spotless, yuppie family trunk with tennis rackets, a kid’s skateboard, a roadside emergency kit, and an empty bag with a designer label on it.
    And it smelled good. In fact, it smelled great... springtime fresh like clothesline-dried laundry. Several detergent commercials and their catchy jingles danced through Savannah’s mind.
    It had just been cleaned. Scrubbed from stem to stern. There wasn’t one smidgen of sand, dirt, or lint in the entire trunk. She placed her palm flat on the floor and could feel a slight dampness.
    And when she leaned back and played her light over the side of the car, the wheels, and bumpers, she realized that the entire vehicle was spotless. Nobody’s car, not even Catherine Villa’s, was this clean, unless it had just been professionally detailed.
    Turning back to the trunk, she pushed the tennis racket and skateboard aside. Even the carpet beneath those items was damp and immaculate... or was it?
    What were these? Six little black things that were almost invisible against the rug. Leaning inside and shining her light directly on them, Savannah could see what they were—six flies, quite dead, lying on their backs, their tiny feet sticking straight up in surrender.
    Why would flies be in a perfectly clean trunk? And why would they be dead in that immaculate trunk? Savannah could hazard a guess. But a guess—a feeble one—was all it would be.
    She could see herself going to Dirk and saying, ‘The flies were there because they were attracted to the smell of death that was present in the trunk even after Barbie’s body had been removed. And the flies died because some caustic chemical... like