Cooked Goose Read Free Page A

her. She exposed a breast as she reached up to catch it. Hugging the garment to her, she began to softly cry.
    “A nut job,” Dirk said, turning to Savannah. “That’s who you’ve got working for you.”
    “Give her a break, Coulter,” Savannah said, handing him her gun to hold on the fellow who was still wriggling like a caterpillar under a sunlit magnifying glass. She hurried over to Tammy. “Are you all okay, sweetie?”
    “No,” Tammy said between sobs. “It was awful!”
    “I can imagine.” She helped her slip on the blouse and button the front as though Tammy were a distraught kindergartner getting ready for a traumatic first day at school. “That nasty ol' thing shocking you and that scumbag attacking you. You must be—”
    “Attacking me?” Tammy shook her head and sniffed. “He didn’t attack me. He was trying to help me get that thing off my chest. He was just—”
    “Oh, damn.” The truth hit Savannah with a wallop somewhere in her solar plexus as she stared down at the fellow on the pavement.
    He glared back at her with a mixture of rage and confusion in his blue eyes. Blue eyes. White beard. Rosy cheeks—well, his cheeks were sort of green now, but she was pretty sure they had been rosy a second before she had kicked him in the groin.
    “You hurt Santa Claus,” said a sweet, wee voice behind them. Savannah turned to see a young boy, watching her with horror on his munchkin’s face. “You’re in big trouble, lady,” he went on to explain in painful detail. “I saw what you did! You kicked Santa Claus right in the balls!”
    “Don’t say ‘balls,’ honey. It’s not nice,” his mother said, pulling her child closer to her and away from the crazed brunette and the other woman who had just disrobed in public. “We prefer to call them by their proper name, testicles.”
    “Yeah,” the kid continued, wide-eyed. “And I saw that lady’s chesticles, too! Did you see them? They were hanging right there and—”
    The outraged mother clamped one hand over her son’s mouth and the other over his eyes as she led him away.
    “I’m-m-m...I’m-m-m-m...” croaked Santa Claus as he struggled to rise.
    “What is it, sir?” Savannah graciously offered him her hand. He slapped it away.
    A couple of fresh-faced security guards in black, wanna-be-cop uniforms came whizzing up in a glorified golf cart. “What’s going on here?” the tallest one demanded as he climbed out of the cart. “Oh, Mr. Wilcox,” he said, noticing the man on the ground, “it’s a good thing you’re here.” He consulted his watch. “Your shift starts in three minutes. Are you hurt?”
    “I’m-m-m...I...ack-k-k-k-k.”
    “Mr. Wilcox seems to have lost his voice for the moment,” Savannah said, trying to sound helpful, even cheerful. “In fact, I think he should probably be taken to a hospital. You said something about his shift. Does he work here?”
    “Sure,” replied the short one. “He’s our five o’clock-'till-closing Santa.”
    “Oh, crap,” Savannah whispered to Dirk, “I really did kick Santa in the balls.”
    “Definitely classifies as a ‘naughty’ and not ‘nice’ gesture,” he replied dryly.
    Still leaning against the VW, Tammy continued to quietly sob.
    “I’m-m-m…I’m-m-m-m…” Once again, the not-particularly-jolly old elf tried to communicate with the world.
    “Oh, Santa. I’m so sorry.” Savannah dropped to her knees beside him and clasped his cold, clammy hand between her own. “What is it, sir? What are you trying to tell us?”
    “I’m-m-m…I’m-m-m…”
    “That’s it. Just take a deep breath and say it.”
    “I’m-m-m… gonna…sue…your ass off!”
    * * *
    6:15 p.m.
    Having pulled his car deep into the orange grove, well out of sight from the main road, the driver cut the key. He pulled his backpack from the floorboard and yanked the zipper open. Inside he had packed duct tape, thin nylon rope, and a ten-inch butcher knife—the tools of his