Murder A'la Mode. G. A. McKevett

couple on the beach, you’d bring along a picnic,” he said, “some fried chicken, potato salad, stuff like that.”

      “Get real,” she said, her Georgian drawl thick as she popped open the soda can. “I cooked for you Friday night when you came over to watch the heavyweight bout on my HBO. And I made you biscuits, eggs, and grits on Sunday morning.”

      “I hate grits.”

      “You ate them.”

      “I didn’t know what the white goop was, or I wouldn’t have.”

      “Eh, you’ll eat anything if it’s free.” She reached into the pack and brought out another candy bar. It was smashed nearly flat and its wrapper was torn. She held it out to him. “Here, want this?”

      He snatched it out of her hand. “Sure.”

      They both munched for a while, quietly surveying their surroundings. Anchor’s Way Beach was one of the favorite playgrounds in the small California seaside town of San Carmelita. And usually it would have been full of sunbathers, even on a day like today, when there were more clouds than sun and a chill wind blowing inland. But the swing sets were empty, the volleyball nets deserted, and the die-hard surfers were hanging ten a few miles south at Pelican Ridge State Park.

      A couple of robbers—a pair described by witnesses as “one white male, late teens, wearing a red baseball cap; one black male, late teens, hooded sweatshirt with a Rams insignia”—had been holding up beachgoers, striking randomly, but usually just after sundown. Their favorite victims had been lovers taking a moonlight stroll or snuggling on the beach.

      So Dirk, who had been assigned the case, had called Savannah that morning and suggested they do some beach snuggling and see if they could lure the bad guys out of hiding.

      Savannah had gladly accepted the invitation to take down the bad guys. As far as the beach-blanket cuddling, she told him she would listen to the weather report and if it was, indeed, a cold day in hell, she was up for that, too.

      “How long do you figure we’ll have to wait for these guys to show their ugly mugs?” Dirk asked while he licked the remaining chocolate from his thumb and forefinger.

      “Five days. A week tops,” Savannah replied as she watched a seagull swoop low over their blanket. She covered the top of her Coke can with her hand, just in case. She had gotten over the romance of beach seagulls long ago, after one dropped some “special sauce” on her hamburger. She hadn’t eaten a Big Mac or fed a bird a french fry since.

      “A whole week? That long?” Dirk said with a whine in his voice that irritated the daylights out of her. To Dirk Coulter, “wait” was a four-letter word.

      Actually, she expected they might have a nibble from their teenybopper hoods a lot sooner, but she had learned long ago to prepare Dirk for the worst. That way he would delay his three-year-old, spoiled-baby routine of, “Can we go now? Can we go now? Can we, huh, huh, huh?”

      It was a litany that made her crazy and caused her to entertain homicidal thoughts about strangulation and dismemberment. She thought it better to lie to him than murder him.

      “Yeah, that long,” she said. “Even if they’re out here, they’ll probably want to check us out a few times before they jump us.”

      “Assuming they’re smart, and they probably aren’t, or they’d have real jobs.”

      Savannah grinned. “Like us?”

      “Well, like me.”

      She slugged his arm. “Hey. Just because I’m self-employed now doesn’t mean I don’t work. It’s not easy being a private detective.”

      “What’s hard about it?”

      She sighed. “Not being able to pay the bills when you don’t have any clients.”

      “Yeah, but if you had work, you’d miss out on all this….” He waved his arm wide, indicating the deserted, wind-swept beach. “Not to mention my company.”

      She looked around at the palm trees, swaying in the evening breeze, black silhouettes against a coral- and turquoise-streaked sky. On the far horizon the Avalon Islands floated on a layer of ocean mist and a lighthouse blinked into the gathering darkness. She smiled at him. “Like I said, it’s not an easy life. Sometimes I suffer.”

      “Yeah, yeah. It sucks to be you. I’ve heard it all before.”

      Savannah took a deep breath, drinking in the fresh salt air. For just a moment she could see Lance Roman strolling down the beach wearing nothing but a ragged, bloodstained pair of tights, his hair sweeping back from his rugged face with…a red baseball cap turned backward, walking with a guy in a Rams sweatshirt…?

      “Don’t look now,” she said, “but we’ve got company.”

      Dirk didn’t move, but his eyes brightened, and he smiled a nasty little grin. “Oh yeah? Where?”

      “Over your right shoulder about sixty feet back. Salt-and-pepper team walking this way.”

      “Fit the description?”

      “Yep. And they’re checking us out.” Her mouth had suddenly gone dry. She took a long drink from her cola, then set the can on the sand beside her. “How do you wanna play this one, big boy?” she asked him.

      “You mean I get to be in charge this time?”

      “It’s your gig. You call the shots.”

      He chuckled. “Since when?”

      “Now. And you’d better call it, because they’re closing in fast.”

      “I don’t wanna be sittin’ when they get here,” he said.

      “Me either.”

      “So, let’s stroll, act lovey-dovey.”

      “You got it.”

      He stood and extended his hand to her. Pulling her to her feet, he said, “You want to walk down to the water or stand here and make out?”

      She moved a step closer to him until they were nose to nose. “I wouldn’t want them to think we were trying to get away,” she said.

      “Me either.” He reached out his left arm, wrapped it around her waist and pulled her against him.

      He smelled like chocolate, leather jacket, and aftershave, not a bad combination, she had to admit. He was also deliciously warm, she decided as she involuntarily snuggled closer…and felt a long, hard object between them.

      “Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” she asked in her best Mae West impression, while keeping an eye on the approaching twosome in her peripheral vision.

      “Actually, it’s my Smith and Wesson,” he replied as his hand slipped between them and moved slowly beneath her breasts.

      “Then you’d better be reaching for it, boy, and not coppin’ a feel.”

      “Who? Me? Naw, I wouldn’t take advantage of a situation like that.”

      “Oh yes, you’re above all that. You—”

      Her words were cut off by his lips covering hers. Before she knew what was happening, Good Ol’ Dirk was kissing her. And even though she was trying to concentrate on the pair on the beach and attempting to pull her own 9mm Beretta out of its holster beneath her sweater, she couldn’t help noticing that he had a tasty smear of caramel on his lower lip.

      Oh yes…and that Dirk was an especially and unexpectedly good kisser.

      Who woulda thunk it? The words ran through her jangled mind a half-second before she reluctantly ended the kiss, Beretta in hand, but still concealed within her sweater.

      “Ready?” she said, a bit breathlessly.

      She could have sworn she heard him chuckle. “Sure,” he said.