Corpse Suzette (24 page)

She hugged his arm—which
still had pretty nice biceps— leaned over, and kissed his cheek. “Ah,” she
said, “don’t worry, big guy. You’re ever’ bit as smooth as you ever were.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

As they left Coconut Joe’s
and walked out front to catch a taxi, Dirk glanced at his watch. “Oh, shit,” he
said.

“What now?” she asked,
expecting the worst. And with Dirk, “the worst” could be pretty bad.

“It’s after eleven. We
missed the last ferry home.”

“No way!” She looked at her
watch. Unfortunately, he was right.

“We’re going to have to
stay here tonight.” He groaned. “And the captain’s gonna be madder than hell
with me when he finds out he had to pay for a hotel room.”

“Two hotel rooms.”

“One hotel room with two
beds.”

“Two hotel rooms. Don’t
argue with me, boy. Granny Reid raised me to be a lady.”

“Does she know you pee
behind bushes on a stakeout?”

“Ouch, that hurt!”

“I meant for it to.”

“One room with two
beds—that’s all I’ve got. Take it or leave it,” said the heavily tattooed,
multipierced clerk behind the desk at the island’s only motel with a “vacancy”
sign.

They were sure. The taxi
had driven them from one end of Santa Tesla to the other looking.

“Come on, Savannah,” Dirk
said, tapping his fingers on the countertop. “What other options do we have?
It’s after midnight. Everything else is closed. And without a car, it’s not
like we can even sleep on the beach.”

“All right, all right,” she
said. “But if my Gran ever finds out about this, or any of the guys at the
station, you’re deader than a hamburger patty. I mean it.”

The guy behind the counter
chewed on his toothpick thoughtfully and gave Dirk a “You ain’t gonna get any,
fellow” look. “Gimme the key,” Dirk told him.

“Do you need help with your
luggage, sir?” the clerk asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Do you see any suitcases
here, smart mouth? Do you?”

The guy grinned and
shrugged. “Just asking.”

“This ain’t what it looks
like.” Dirk barked as he snatched up the key.

The clerk snickered. “I
never thought it was.”

“Hand me your T-shirt, boy,
and make it snappy,” Savannah called from the bathroom.

“Why?”

“Because I need something
to sleep in and needless to say, I didn’t pack any pajamas.”

“So sleep in the buff.”

“I do
not
sleep
naked.”

“Oh, hell, Van. I won’t
look. Just come to bed.”

“It’s not a modesty issue,
you nitwit. It’s an earthquake thing.”

“An earthquake thing?”

“Yeah, I haven’t slept nude
since the Northridge quake, and I ain’t gonna start tonight, so peel off that
T-shirt and hand it here.”

She heard a big sigh, then
some trudging steps. Opening the door a crack, she reached her arm out. He
shoved the shirt into her hand.

“There. Happy?”

“Moderately.”

She slipped the shirt on
and looked around the tiny bathroom, at her panties, bra, and socks drying on
the shower rod next to his socks and boxers. She had done the laundry in the
sink... his, too, which she felt pretty darned virtuous about.

She spit the minty gum she
had been chewing in lieu of a tooth-brushing into the toilet. At the moment,
she felt a bit like a she-bear, and it was
his
fault for not getting her
to the ferry on time.

Okay, she admitted, it
might be her own fault, too. She had a watch and had also gotten wrapped up in
the case and forgotten. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped now.

She turned out the light
and stuck her head out of the door. “You decent?”

“I’m in bed and covered up,
if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah, well, stay that way.
I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night and see you traipsing around
in the altogether or whatever.”

“If I have to go to the
bathroom to take a leak, and I frequently do at night, I just might be
traipsing, as you call it, so you just better keep your eyes closed all night.”

She settled between the
sheets of the bed next to his and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

The digital display from
the nightstand clock cast a sickly green light around the room, enough for her
to see that he was lying on his side, his back turned to her, facing the
window.

Every now and then a bright
light shone on the other side of the curtain, then disappeared just as quickly.

“That’s the lighthouse,”
she said softly. “Abigail would love this. She’s crazy about lighthouses. I can
see why. They’re really quite romantic when you think about it.”

“Eh, the damned thing’s
gonna keep me awake all night, shinin’ in here like that.”

She chuckled. Yes, Dirk was
a smoothie, no doubt about it.

“Don’t you say anything
about us sharing a room to Tammy, either,” she said. “If you do, I’ll never
live it down.”

He groaned. “I don’t know
what the big friggin’ deal is. We’ve spent a million nights together, sitting
in a cramped car on a stakeout. You’ve slept with your head in my lap or
stretched out on my backseat. What’s the difference? People put way too much
emphasis on who sleeps where. Sleepin’ is just sleepin’. It don’t mean
nothin’.”

She laid there in the
semi-darkness for a long time and thought about what he’d said. Of course, he
was right. Eating a meal next to another person, watching a TV show beside
them, sleeping next to them... what was the difference?

But there was a difference.

It was somehow cozy,
intimate, being in that room with him, even if they were in separate beds, even
if they were dogged tired and neither one interested in doing anything but
resting, even if the room did reek of stale cigarette smoke and have a
spotlight shining through the window every forty seconds or so.

It was sort of nice.

Although, of course, she’d
never tell
him
that.

Old Dirk Bear would laugh
at her if she even suggested such a thing.

“You know, Van,” he said,
his voice jarring her out of her reverie, “I was just lyin’ here thinking.”

“What about?”

“Last night. I don’t want
to make a big deal out of it or nothin’, but it was sorta nice, layin’ there in
your bed after John forced me to drink that frog-piss drink he made.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I mean, I usually
sleep in my trailer and it’s... you know... a guy place. But your room... with
those satin sheets... and those foo-foo lacy curtain things on the window and
your nightgown was hanging there on the chair in the corner and the whole room
sorta smelled like your perfume.”

“Yes?”

“And I was sick and feeling
like shit and... well, it made me feel better. Being there... you know... in
your room.”

She gulped. “Oh. That’s
nice, Dirk.”

“Not a big deal. I just
wanted to tell you that.”

“Thanks, darlin’. Thanks
for sharing.”

“You’re welcome. Goodnight,
babe.”

“Goodnight.”

She reached down, ran her
hand over the softness of his T-shirt, which had still been warm from his body
when she had slipped it on. She could smell a hint of his Old Spice deodorant.

Wearing it felt a bit like
getting a Dirk hug. And she had to admit it was nice—very nice—to be going to
sleep with someone else in the room besides the cats.

A second later he began to
snore.

Chapter

S
avannah had always loved
the smell of a library. That slightly musty, but delicious aroma of books took
her back to Georgia every time she smelled it. One whiff and she was back in
that spooky old house in the middle of the tiny, rural town of McGill, where
she and her other eight siblings had been raised by their grandmother.

The creaky, decrepit
Victorian house had been donated to the town by an equally spooky old lady
known as Widder Blalock, who had designated the house be turned into a library
after her death.

Savannah spent many a
delicious hour combing through the shelves of that library, living the more
exciting lives of the people on those pages—far more interesting worlds than
that of a poor girl from McGill, Georgia.

Nancy Drew’s and the Hardy
Boys’ adventures were never quite so scary as when read in the cubicle below
the staircase in that rickety old house.

So, when she and Dirk
walked through the doors of the Santa Tesla Public Library, she paused just a
moment to recollect and reminisce.

“You coming?” Dirk barked
over his shoulder as he strode away from her and toward the periodicals racks.

“Yeah, I’m coming. And
don’t you rush me, boy,” she said, following close behind. “I’m only half
awake.”

“I just want to get this
business over and done and back home.” He jerked a stack of newspapers off a
shelf and began to thumb through them. “I don’t like being away from American
soil.”

“Give me some of those and
go sit down,” she told him, pointing to a pair of easy chairs that had been
arranged in front of a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the ocean.

He did as she told him and
even paused to enjoy the view for a moment. “This is a pretty neat library,” he
said.

“I know a better one,” she
replied with a sweet, slightly homesick smile.

She joined him in the
chairs, and they both searched the papers in their hands, looking for the back
pages and the classified ads.

“Not much of a rag, this
one,” he said. “But then, I guess there’s not much news around here.”

“Sounds refreshing.”

“You mean boring.”

“No-o-o, I mean refreshing,
restful, peaceful, safe... like San Carmelita used to be before the so-called
City of Angels moved in.” She found some ads and began to peruse the various
events and objects for sale on Santa Tesla. “This is a good idea I had,” she
told him. “Especially since I had it before breakfast.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how good
it was. Don’t go tooting your own horn there, girlie.”

“I have to toot it or it
goes tootless. Why I’m—”

“Sh-h-h-h. Please, no
talking in here.”

They both turned around and
saw a woman who looked frighteningly similar to the bank manager they had
sparred with the day before. She was standing behind their chairs, her hands on
her hips, her glasses on the tip of her nose, glaring at them.

Savannah couldn’t help
giggling. “Sorry,” she whispered. “Is it okay if we pass notes?”

“Just keep it down.”

“Okay, we will. I promise.”

As soon as the woman was
gone, Dirk said, “If she comes back over here I’ll shoot a spit wad into her
hair.”

“Oh, cool! And can you make
fart noises in your armpit, too?” Then an ad caught her eye and all juvenile
delinquencies fled... or were at least put on hold. “Here we go,” she
whispered, looking over her shoulder. She tapped her finger on the page.

“Read it to me.”

“Executive home, new
split-level ranch, four bedrooms, three baths, formal dining room, fully
finished basement, fully landscaped yard, and spectacular ocean view.
One-point-two million. Elizabeth Fortunato Realty.”

“Well, here’s another one,”
he said. “Similar to that one, only it’s five bedrooms, a guest house, and
pool. One and a half million.”

“Elizabeth’s listing?”

“Yeap. And this one has an
address. Let’s go. It’s in the hills up there where our taxi buddy was wringing
out the curves yesterday.”

“Oh goody.”

“This time you won’t get so
sick,” he said reassuringly.

“How do you know?”

“Because this time you
aren’t plastered on piña coladas.” Again, they heard a rustling behind them.
Again the grating voice spoke. “I warned you before not to talk so loudly. Now
you’re going to have to leave.”

Savannah turned to Dirk.
“Do you have that address out of there?”

He nodded. “Got it.”

She turned back to the
librarian. “Not to worry, ma’am. We’re leaving. You have a nice day now, you
hear?”

The woman eyed them
suspiciously until they walked out the door.

Savannah laughed as Dirk
called for a cab on his cell phone. “I just love being sweet to cranky people,”
she said. “It just confounds them somethin’ fierce.”

Savannah had a strange
fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach. And it had nothing to do with the
hairpin curves they had just traveled to arrive at the top of this steep hill.

The scenery was
breathtaking from up here: the island spread beneath them, green and lush, the
lighthouse nearby, gleaming white in the morning sun, a stretch of the
sparkling, blue Pacific between them and home, and to the west of them, the
ocean disappearing into the horizon.

“I’ve got a feeling,” she
said as the cab pulled up and stopped in front of a beautiful home that looked
like an Italian villa.

“Me, too,” Dirk replied,
pointing to a sign on the front lawn of the property. It was an Elizabeth
Fortunato listing sign, and across it had been pasted a bright red banner that
read, SOLD.

“Of course, it could still
be that other house in the paper,” she said, afraid of getting her hopes too
high.

“Or she might have sold her
some other house entirely—one that wasn’t even listed in the paper.”

“True, true. So we should
prepare ourselves that this is probably just a dead end.”

“A dead end. That’s all
it’s going to be,” Dirk replied as he paid the cabby and got out. He offered
Savannah his hand, and she slid out as well.

But as they hurried up the
stone walkway, Savannah couldn’t help saying again, “But I’ve got a feeling.”

“Me, too.”

“You want me to go around
to the back of the house, in case she tries to run out that way?”

Dirk thought about it for a
minute, then said, “Naw, let’s just knock on the door and see who answers. It’s
probably not her and even if it is, it’s an island. How far can she get?”

“That’s what they said
about those guys who escaped from Alcatraz.”

Dirk knocked on the door.
This time he used his nice, gentle, Avon-lady knock, not his usual heavy-duty
S.C.P.D. pounding.

When no one answered, he
tried again.

They heard a shuffling on
the other side of the door, and then the dead bolt turning.

They both tensed.

But it was a lovely young
Hispanic woman in a gray and white maid’s uniform who pulled it open. “Good
morning,” she said with a strong Spanish accent. “May I help you?”

At her feet a small white
poodle scampered, barking, trying to stick his head out the door for a better
look at the visitors.

He was wearing a
rhinestone-studded collar.

Savannah gave Dirk a
sidewise smile and whispered, “Sammy.”

He grinned back. Then to
the maid he said in his sweetest sugar-and-spice tone, “I have to talk to your
lady. Is she at home?”

The woman nodded. “She is.
But she sick. Cannot have visitor.”

“I’m sorry she’s sick,
“Savannah said. “But we must talk to her. Just for one minute. Please. It’s
very important.
Por favor
.”

Dirk took his badge from
his pocket and showed it to her. The woman’s dark eyes widened. “What is your
lady’s name?” Dirk asked.

“Her name? My lady’s name,
Norma.”

“Norma?” Savannah looked at
Dirk. “As in Norma Jean Baker?”

“St,”
said the maid, “Norma
Baker.”

“Okay, that does it,” Dirk
told Savannah. “We’re going in.” Then to the maid he said, “I’m sorry. We must
talk to your lady. Now. Okay?”

She nodded, opened the
door, and stepped back to allow them to enter.

The poodle scampered at
their feet, sniffing their shoes and pants legs.

“
Gracias
,
Señora
,”
Savannah said, glancing down at the simple gold wedding band on the woman’s
finger.

“No trouble, please,” the
maid said.

Savannah smiled at her.
“No,
Señora,
no trouble. Not to worry.”

Dirk pressed his finger to
his lips, then said softly. “Where is she? Your lady?”

“Miss Baker lie down. She
very sick. She have operation.”

“Operation?” Savannah gave
Dirk a quick sideways look.

“Yes, operation. In
afternoon yesterday at clinic. I take care of her last night and today.”

“I’m sure you’re doing a
very good job, too,” Savannah said. “Where is she? In the bedroom?”

She nodded.
“St.
Sleeping.”

“Not for long,” Dirk
muttered. “Can you show us where? Which room?”

Reluctantly, she lead them
through the sun-drenched home, down marble-tiled hallways lit by skylights and
massive windows that made the most of the hilltop views. The dog followed
alongside, gleeful about having guests. Savannah stopped once to pat him on his
woolly head.

“Nice, what four and a half
million dollars worth of stolen money can buy,” she whispered to Dirk, looking
around.

“Oh yeah. It’s gonna be a
bit of a drop to a six-foot cell.”

They found the master suite
at the end of one particularly long hallway. And inside, lying on a canopy bed,
her face swathed in bandages, was the lady of the house.

The poodle jumped up onto
the bed beside her, nuzzling her hand, wanting to be petted.

“I am very sorry, Miss
Baker,” the maid told her as they walked through the bedroom door. “But this
woman and this man, they say they must speak to you. I told them you are sick,
but the man... I think he is
policía
.”

Even though the woman on
the bed had her head wrapped like a mummy’s in pressure bandages, there was no
mistaking the alarm in her eyes.

“No,” she whispered through
the slit in the bandage that revealed her swollen, bruised lips. “No.”

“Oh, yes,” Dirk said as he
walked over to the bed. “Norma Jean Baker, huh? Didn’t it occur to you that one
might be a bit on the nose for an alias? I mean, you can only take this Marilyn
thing so far.”

Savannah looked at the
sprigs of blood-matted platinum blonde hair that poked from between the
bandages here and there. “What did you do?” she asked, “get more surgery here
on the island to make the transformation complete? I’ve heard of that sort of
thing, but wow, talk about a groupie!”

Dirk sat down on the bed
beside the woman and showed her his badge. “By the way, allow us to introduce
ourselves. This is my friend and fellow investigator, Savannah Reid. And I’m
Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter with the San Carmelita Police Department. And
you, Ms. Suzette Du Bois, are under arrest for the murder of your former
lover.”