drive like an old lady if you wanna nail this guy.”
He had her there.
Savannah was just as eager as he was to slap a fresh pair of handcuffs on Norbert “Stumpy” Weyerhauser. And just because Stumpy’s mom, Myrtle, had told them he was home an hour ago, didn’t mean he would hang around. If he smelled a rat—or a cop sting operation—he’d be making tracks out of town.
“Do you think she bought it?” Dirk asked for the fourth time.
“Who? Myrtle?”
He nodded.
“Oh, yeah.” Savannah chuckled at the memory of the telephone call her assistant had made on Dirk’s behalf earlier. “You should have heard Tammy laying it on thick.” Savannah dropped her southern accent and donned Tammy’s valley-girl tone. “‘Yes, Mrs. Weyerhauser, it’s true! Your son, Norbert, has won a forty-one-inch, high-definition, flat-screen television! If you can assure me that he’ll be home to sign for it personally this afternoon, your entire family will be able to watch TV in style this weekend!’ ”
Dirk frowned. “She said forty-one-inch?”
“Yeah, I think so. Why?”
“I don’t think they make a forty-one-inch. I told her to say it was a forty-two.”
Savannah shrugged. “Oh well. So, Stumpy gets shorted an inch. He’s probably used to it.”
“What?”
Grinning, she said, “Didn’t you ever notice that Stumpy and his limbs are normal height and length?”
“Uh … yeah … I guess.”
“So, where did he get that nickname? I’m thinking from a former wife or girlfriend, someone who knew him intimately. ”
Dirk smirked. “You’re a nasty, evil woman, Van. I like the way you think.”
“Well, you know me.” She shrugged. “I have a soft spot in my heart for nimrods who break into elderly ladies’ houses, steal from them, and smack them around. I think about Granny Reid, and then I have this overwhelming need to beat them to death with a brick of week-old cornbread.”
“Yeah, me, too. I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear that this dude had violated his parole. I begged the captain to let me be the one to bring him in.”
As they neared the street where Stumpy, robber and senior-citizen abuser, lived, they both dropped the casual banter and assumed an all-business demeanor. Stump wasn’t known for carrying deadly weapons or assaulting anybody who was actually big enough or strong enough to fight back, but he was still a convicted felon. And they were pretty sure he’d have pretty strong objections to going back to prison. So, they couldn’t exactly sleepwalk through the act of nabbing him.
“When we get there, you go to the front door,” Savannah said. “I get to cover the back.”
“No way!”
“That’s the price I charge for going along.”
“But he always runs out the back door!”
“I know. I read his sheet. Why do you think I want to cover the rear?”
“Hey, I’m the cop and—”
“Don’t you even go there, buddy. If I wanted to watch cops doing their thing, I’d be home with my feet up, eating Godiva chocolate, and staring at the TV.”
“Damn,” Dirk grumbled. “I should have had Jake McMurtry or Mike Farnon come along instead of you. They take orders a lot better.”
“Yeah, but they wouldn’t have come. They don’t like you.”
Actually, nobody in the SCPD liked Dirk. Most respected him, even envied him; he was a gifted detective. But he never received invitations to hang out at the local bar after hours or drop by for a tri-tip sandwich when somebody in the department threw a barbecue.
Normally, Savannah wouldn’t have mentioned that to a person. She wasn’t cruel, as a rule. But she knew Dirk didn’t care. He didn’t have a people-pleasing bone in his body. And long ago she had decided to be Dirk when she grew up. He saved so much energy … not giving a flying fig what anybody thought of him.
“But you like me,” he said with more than a touch of little-boy vulnerability in his voice.
Okay, he cared a little what a few people thought—the people he loved. And he could count those on one hand.
She gave him a dimpled grin. “Oh, I’m plumb crazy about you, but I still get the rear of the house. End of discussion.”
Dirk pulled the truck over to the curb. “Then get out here. The house is up there on the right. The yellow one.”
As she started to climb out of the truck, he added, “Watch yourself. He’s got a pit bull in the backyard.”
She froze, one foot on the ground, staring at him, mouth half-open. “Are you yanking my chain?”
He grinned broadly. “Yeah.”
“You lyin’ sack!” She got out, slammed the door, and said through the open window, “I’ll get you back. See if I don’t.”
She strolled along the street, picking her path among chunks of broken concrete that had once been a sidewalk, tree roots, weeds, and the leavings of dogs whose owners didn’t carry pooper-scoopers.
Glancing up and down the block on both sides of the street, she didn’t see anyone looking out the window, sitting on the porch, chatting with the neighbors, or trimming any hedges. Not a lot of hedges got trimmed regularly in this neighborhood.
As she got closer to the yellow house, she eyed the blue one next to it. There were no cars in the driveway. Instead of curtains, faded, flowered sheets covered the windows. The backyard was accessible and, from what she could see, there were no signs of a watchdog.
Looking back, she saw that Dirk was still waiting, watching her through the pickup’s dirty windshield, grinning at her. He shot her a peace sign. She shook her head and chuckled. Some old hippies never grow up, she thought. But she wouldn’t have him any other way.
After one more glance around to make sure she wasn’t being watched, she darted down the side of the blue house. It was a small, shotgun affair, long and narrow, with rooms arranged end to end—not unlike the one she had been raised in.
Less than five seconds later, she was in the backyard. From there, she could see the rear of their suspect’s house.
She reached into her pocket and retrieved her cell phone. She punched a couple of buttons, and Dirk answered.
“I’m here,” she said as she walked through the tangle of weeds, past a collapsed, rusty swing set, and through a broken chain-link fence.
“I’m driving up to the front,” he said.
She could hear the truck approaching as she scrambled up to the yellow house and positioned herself at the corner. From here, she couldn’t be seen from any of the windows, and she had a clear view of the side of the house and the rear. “I can’t see the right side of the house,” she whispered into the phone.
“My right or your right?” he asked.
“Your right.”
Knowing Dirk, she had already done the “math.” Why confuse the poor guy? He confused so easily.
“The right if you’re in the house looking out, or …”
“Dirk! Are you still in the truck, on the street, looking at the house?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’m at the left back corner of the house. I can’t see the right of the house, so you’ll have to keep an eye on it. Your right. You know, like your right hand. That’s the