Corpse Suzette (18 page)

“What do you like best
about your makeover?” Savannah asked her.

Abby tossed her head and
ran her fingers through her hair. “I like being a redhead. I was when I was a
kid, but then it turned dark.”

“And now you’re a redhead
again. Come to think of it,” Tammy said, “you’ve always been a redhead...
temper-wise, that is.”

“Now, now... you aren’t
buying into any old stereotypes, are you?” Savannah cautioned.

“Stereotypes?” Tammy
cleared her throat and grinned. “Tell me the truth now... have you ever known a
boring, passive redhead?”

The guys at the table
laughed heartily. “She’s got you there, Savannah,” Ryan said. “I have to admit
that every redhead I’ve known could be classified as feisty, to say the least.”

“Absolutely,” John agreed.
“And here’s to feisty redheads! May they rule the world!”

“I think we already do,”
Abby replied.

“To Queen Abigail,” Tammy
said, lifting her glass. “Long may she reign!”

“Here, here!” John raised
his own glass and they clinked all around.

“And now,” Abby said, “if
you two could solve this murder case, we’d have even more reason to celebrate.”

“Oh, talk about popping
somebody’s bubble.” Savannah visibly deflated. “You had to bring that up?”

“Yeah, really,” Tammy
added. “Just when we’re celebrating your ‘coming out’ you have to remind me of
my wasted hours, sitting there, messing with that stupid computer.”

Ryan leaned closer to Tammy
and lowered his voice, “Actually, we brought you a little present tonight to
help you with that.”

Tammy’s eyes lit up.
“Really?”

“Oh yeah. You’re going to
love us after you see this.”

“I already love you.”

“Okay, then we’ll be
adored. I borrowed a little something for you from a friend of ours at the
Bureau.”

“The FBI?” Abigail said,
instantly all ears.

“Sh-h-h,” Ryan replied,
giving her a discreet nod.

“What is it?”

“Software,” John said.
“Forensic software.”

Ryan pulled a square
envelope from his pocket and slid it across the table to Tammy. “You use that,
you’re going to be able to find everything in that computer... even the stuff
your poor, dead buddy thought he had deleted.”

“Really?”

“Would I lie to one of my
girls?”

“Sweet!” Tammy clutched the
envelope to her chest, a look of pure rapture on her face. “Oh, this is so-o-oo
sweet!”

“Speaking of sweets,”
Savannah said, eyeing an overladen dessert tray that was passing her by. “I
think we should all have crêpes suzette tonight. It just seems appropriate
somehow.”

Chapter

“I
sn’t there a song that
says, ‘It never rains in California’?” Abigail asked as they all stood huddled
in a sodden lump, trying to ignore the fact that their umbrellas weren’t doing
a bit of good. Umbrellas only worked when the rain was falling vertically.
Thanks to an unseasonable and particularly fierce, onshore storm, the
horizontal precipitation was drenching everyone present and making them
generally miserable.

But it was the perfect
setting for a funeral.

Savannah, Tammy, and Dirk
had insisted on being present when the mortal remains of one Leonard Roy
Hoffman of Bakersfield, California, aka Sergio D’Alessandro, were laid to rest.

Abigail had come along
because she didn’t want to sit at home alone. And not even the previous day’s
Emerge experience was going to lift her dampened spirits as she stood there in
the cemetery in the pouring rain, shivering with the other mourners.

“Sh-h-h-h, it’ll be over
soon,” Savannah admonished her, seeing a couple of heads turn their way at the
sound of Abby’s complaining.

She, too, wanted nothing
more than to go home, peel off the cold, wet clothes, and get into a warm robe.
But she wasn’t there just to pay her respects. Especially since she had
precious little respect for ol’ Sergio. She was working.

She, Tammy, and Dirk were
all working, as they scanned the faces of the crowd and accounted for everyone.

It was commonly known among
the members of law enforcement that murderers were frequently nearby after a
killing, hanging about the crime scene, helping with a search if one was
conducted, and attending funerals.

What was the fun of causing
a horrific hullabaloo if you couldn’t be around to appreciate it and watch its
effect on others?

So the Moonlight Magnolia
team was at the funeral in full force, studying the attendees and the
interactions between them, looking for anything out of the ordinary or
suspicious.

Savannah squinted against
the cold, driving rain, shivering, listening to the minister go on and on about
how loved Leonard had been, such a fine son, a dear friend, an accomplished
businessman, and what a contribution he had made to his community. The
clergyman made ol’ Sergio sound like a real peach.

Savannah wondered if the
preacher had ever met him.

The coffin was suspended
over the freshly dug grave on straps, waiting to be lowered. A temporary
pavilion had been stretched over the site, and a ring of folding chairs placed
around it.

Unfortunately, only those
seated in the chairs were sheltered by the covering. Everyone else had to stand
outside it and be pelted.

Savannah kept repeating the
mantra, “Hot chocolate. Hot chocolate,” to herself to keep her teeth from
chattering as she studied the small, intimate gathering.

The elderly woman sitting
nearest the head of the coffin had to be his mother. An elderly and frail
woman, dressed in black with the traditional veil over her face, she wept
softly into a lace handkerchief. The minister seemed to be addressing his
parting words to her alone. Savannah speculated that he might be her minister,
rather than Sergio’s... or Leonard, as he was being called today.

She appeared to be the only
one genuinely, deeply distressed at Leonard’s untimely passing. Except,
perhaps, for Devon Wright.

From her spot at the foot
of the grave, Devon was wailing, eyes heavenward in what certainly appeared to
be a display of wrenching, soulful agony. Except for the fact that there didn’t
appear to be a tear in sight.

Directly behind her stood
her son, the little boy that Savannah and Dirk had seen that night at her
house. He was just far enough outside the canopy to receive absolutely none of
its protection and he was being soaked to the skin. Shivering violently, he was
staring at his mother in alarm.

It took all the
self-control Savannah could muster not to go grab the boy and rescue him from
the scene. The kid didn’t need to be standing in a cold rain at the funeral of
some guy who was nothing more than his nitwit mother’s Bang of the Month. The
boy needed some hugs, a change of warm, dry clothes, and a hot fudge sundae
with a cherry on the top.

At least, according to
Basic Savannah Reid Child-Rearing 101.

In the crowd, someone else
was watching the interplay between Devon and her boy. It was Dr. Yasmina La Rue
who watched for a moment, then locked eyes with Savannah and shook her head
sadly.

Savannah thought of what
Dr. La Rue had said—that Devon needed to love herself more so that she could
love those around her.

Savannah supposed that was
true. But she also decided that Yasmina was a better person than she was. The
good doctor saw Devon as a lost soul who needed to find herself, someone who
needed to be loved, understood, and upheld.

But Savannah was just as
quick to admit she, personally, just wasn’t that virtuous. She’d much prefer to
just push Devon Wright off the end of the San Carmelita pier and find out later
whether she could swim or not.

She decided to pray about
it and ask the Lord to make her a better, more loving, understanding, and
tolerant person. But she’d prayed that quite a few times before and hadn’t
noticed any great changes in her personality. So she wasn’t overly optimistic
that it would take this time either.

Jeremy Lawrence stood about
twenty feet away from them, wearing a somber, dove-gray suit and an even more
somber expression on his handsome face. He was holding an oversized umbrella,
trying to keep himself and Myrna Cooper dry. She stood stoically beside him,
clinging to his arm. And for all of the water soaking the lower halves of their
bodies, neither of them had even a hint of moisture in their eyes.

From time to time Myrna
shot an angry, hurt look at a man who sat beside the coffin under the canopy.
The object of her disdain looked to be in his early fifties. A relatively
handsome man, he was holding the hand of a woman young enough to be his
daughter, but who bore no resemblance.

Savannah would have bet her
detective agency’s petty cash that the guy was Myrna’s former honey who had
dumped her for a younger woman after she had paid for his face-lift.

And she didn’t blame Myrna
for the nasty looks either. If a guy had done that to
her,
he wouldn’t
have been able to walk straight for months, and the last thing he’d need was
another girlfriend.

Behind them, Nurse Bridget
stood quietly, clutching a rosary, her head bowed and eyes closed. She was
mumbling under her breath. Next to her stood a man, who had one arm around her
shoulders and held in his other arm a little girl who looked exactly like
Bridget.

A few other faces were
vaguely familiar to Savannah, employees of Emerge, like the maid who had
discovered the deceased’s body, a young woman who had been Abigail’s hair
stylist and another who had been introduced to Savannah earlier as the spa’s
manicurist.

Apparently, Sergio had no
other close friends or family.

Savannah wasn’t
particularly surprised.

“Anybody here you don’t
know?” Dirk whispered, leaning close to her.

“Just the older woman, who
I think is his mom,” Savannah replied. “And that gal over there with the
platinum blond hair and the big sunglasses.”

“The older lady is his mom.
I’ve talked to her already. She’s a real mess over him dying so young. And the
blonde is Suzette’s sister, the one I interviewed in Santa Barbara.”

“You’ll have to tell me
about her later,” Savannah whispered.

“Nothing to tell. She
thought her sister was a nutcase for caring about this guy. That’s it.”

“How much longer are we
going to stay?” Abby said, nudging Savannah in the ribs with her elbow. “I’m
about to freeze to death here.”

“I hate to say it, but I’m
really cold, too,” Tammy added. Savannah could see that she was turning a
little blue under her perpetual tan.

The mourners were beginning
to throw roses on top of the coffin. And the minister had gotten to the “dust
to dust” part of his eulogy.

“Let’s go home,” Savannah
said. “I think we all need to thaw out. How’s about some double fudge hot
chocolate?”

“With a shot of Bailey’s?”
Dirk asked, “Savannah style?”

“Of course. Let’s let the
dead rest in peace.”

Dirk groaned and wiped a
hand wearily across his wet face. “Rest? God knows, somebody needs to.”

As Savannah heated milk in
a pan and melted some chocolate chips in her microwave, she looked across the
kitchen to the table where Dirk sat, his elbows propped on the table, his head
in his hands.

“Dirko doesn’t look so
good,” Tammy whispered in her ear. “I’m worried about him.”

Savannah nodded. “I know.
He just can’t burn the candle at both ends like he used to. When he tries it,
he fizzles like a defunct Fourth of July bottle rocket.”

“I heard that,” he said,
raising his head and glaring at them with bloodshot eyes. “I may be tired, but
I’m not deaf, and I’m sure as hell not old. So watch it over there.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’s tremblin’
here. Shakin’ in our boots,” Savannah replied. “That’s us. Did you eat good
today? Want me to scramble you up some eggs? Make you a bowl of chicken noodle
soup or something?”

“Naw, I’ll perk up in a
minute. I just need to rest my eyes.” Savannah poked Tammy. “You just wait.
He’ll be snoring in thirty seconds. Happens every time he ‘rests his eyes.’ He
closes those peepers and a second later, he’s making zz-zz-zz’s like a cartoon
bear.”

Savannah and Tammy left him
alone and continued to make the hot chocolate and, as Savannah had predicted,
it was less than a minute before he started to snore. When the cocoa was
finally ready, steaming hot mugs topped with peaks of whipped cream and
sprinkled with shaved dark chocolate, Savannah was reluctant to wake him.

“Leave him alone for now,”
she told Tammy. “Let him get a few winks. That’ll do him a world of good. Perk
him right up.”

Tammy snickered. “I don’t
think the words ‘Dirk’ and ‘perk’ even belong in the same sentence.”

“Sh-h-h.” Savannah took the
tray with its bounty and tiptoed past Dirk and into the living room.

Ryan and John sat with
Abigail, who had changed out of her wet clothes and into a dark green Georgette
skirt and matching blouse. The color accented her new hair color and even
though the outfit was a bit bohemian with its flouncy layers, the monochromatic
scheme was an enormous improvement over her previous mixture of paisley and
plaid.

She still had multiple
bangles on her arms and gypsy hoops in her ears, but the look was more elegant
than eccentric. No more Bag Lady Abby.

“I love this new look of
yours, love,” John was telling her. “It’s still you, but more sophisticated.”

She beamed and blushed. For
a moment, she looked more to Savannah like a demure Southern belle than a tough
gal from New York City. But then, John and Ryan had a way of making any woman
melt.

“Jeremy helped me pick out
everything,” she told them. “He talked to me a long time about what I liked,
and I admitted to him that I’ve always thought I must be part gypsy. I love
stories about them, their mysticism, their travels. I always dressed up like a
gypsy at Halloween and pretended to tell everyone’s fortunes. Jeremy encouraged
me to embrace my passions, to express myself through my clothes and
accessories. So... this was the result.”

“And a charming outcome it
was,” John said. “That Jeremy chap seems to have captured more than just your
style. He seems to have snared your fancy just a bit... or is that my own
romantic imagination working overtime?”

Her blush deepened. “I like
him, sure,” she said. “Who wouldn’t? He’s really sweet, not to mention
gorgeous. He actually told me that he might move to New York someday. He’s
already found a surgeon in Manhattan who may be interested in what he has to
offer. I told him that I’d do everything I can to help him make the move and get
settled, if he decides to try the East Coast for a change.”

Savannah set the tray on
the coffee table and began to hand out the mugs. “Well, he certainly did a good
job for Suzette and Sergio. He’s a highly creative, resourceful young man. And
I can see why you would like him, Abby. It might be nice for you if he did move
to New York.”

But even as she spoke the
words, Savannah thought back on her visit to Mystic Twilight the day before and
the person in the shadows who had watched her and then run from her.

In the past twenty-four
hours she had replayed her conversation with Jeremy Lawrence outside the back
door of the place, and she still wondered... had he been the one watching her?

Or if he hadn’t been the
one following her, spying on her, had he seen Devon Wright run out that door
and then covered for her?

And if so, why?

Nothing in his behavior
today at the funeral told her anything. He had been stoic. Moderately attentive
to Myrna. That was about all.