Corpse Suzette (9 page)

Savannah donned her most
sympathetic face. “I can’t imagine that Mr. D’Alessandro is all that easy to
work for. I had a boss one time that I couldn’t stand, and between you and me,
Sergio reminds me a lot of him.”

Again, the look.

Myrna didn’t reply
verbally, but the expression on her face said it all. Yes, Ms. Myrna definitely
qualified as disgruntled.

Savannah decided to take a
stab in the dark as to why Myrna might not have been all that fond of Suzette,
either. “I’ve never met Dr. Du Bois,” she said, “but I know how irritating it
is when bosses ask you to run frivolous personal errands for them on your own
time.”

She had struck pay dirt.
Myrna nodded vigorously and promptly discarded her right to remain silent. “No
kidding!” she said. “Like you don’t even have a life of your own. Trips to the
dry cleaners, the drugstore, the grocery store for heaven’s sake! Heaven forbid
that somebody’s run out of fresh basil!”

“And some bosses will even
have you go to the vet for them!” Savannah added. Might as well stoke the fire
a bit. “Picking up medicine for her
dog,
of all things. You must just
hate that.”

Just as quickly, Myrna’s
demeanor softened. “Oh, I don’t mind that. Sammy’s a little sweetheart. And I
love animals. It’s the trips to pick up her favorite bath gels that I resent.
And having to go shopping to buy skimpy lingerie for his latest girlfriend.
That
I mind!”

“And who wouldn’t! Can’t
Devon pick out her own garter belts, for heaven’s sake?”

Myrna’s eyes widened. “You
know about Devon?”

“Oh, honey, I know just
about everything worth knowin’. Being nosy is my job, and I gotta tell you, I’m
very good at it.” Myrna laughed and Savannah felt a bond, a girl-connection,
had been made.

She had a new friend at
Emerge.

No time like the present to
take this new friendship for a practice run. So, she leaned even closer and
whispered, “Also, just between us, I can’t stand that Devon. She should fall
down a flight of stairs and into a pit of crocodiles, as far as I’m concerned.
She irritates the daylights outta me.”

“Oh, absolutely. I hate
her! She thinks she’s so hot and so smart.”

“And that’s particularly
irritating to those of us who really are.” Myrna snickered, then shook her
head. “I don’t understand what Sergio sees in her, or any of the rest of the
bimbos he dates... except that they’re young and don’t have any wrinkles or
sags.”

The depth of sadness in the
woman’s eyes touched Savannah’s heart. She could tell by looking that Myrna had
once been a beauty. And if she hadn’t been cut, stitched, and tucked into an
unnatural caricature of herself, she still might have been.

“I don’t think men like
Sergio date young women because their skins are smooth,” Savannah said softly.
“I think it’s because they feel more comfortable with a woman who hasn’t been
around very long... long enough to figure out how little a man like that really
has to offer her. Us older gals see a guy like him coming and we tuck tail and
run.”

Myrna studied Savannah’s
face for a moment, then said, “You aren’t as old as I am. Judging by your
lines, I’d say you’re in your midforties.”

“Very good. You could work
at a carnival, guessing ages and all that.”

“It’s like a carnival here.
Strange characters everywhere and—”

The phone on her desk
buzzed. She answered it and then told Savannah, “Mr. D’Alessandro can see you
now—now that he’s finished with his call to London... which is code for
‘talking dirty on the phone with the bimbo.’”

Savannah flashed her a
warm, down-homey smile. “Thank you, Myrna. I’m glad we had this little girl talk.
Let’s chat again, soon, huh?”

Myrna returned the smile.
Yes, Savannah decided, she definitely had an “in” at Emerge.

“You got it,” Myrna
replied. “Good luck with your magazine story. I can’t wait to read it. But
remember... don’t quote me directly on any of that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Yeah, I can’t
wait to read that story
too,
Savannah thought as she headed down the hall toward D’Alessandro’s
office door.
And if the story has a bad ending, which I think it’s going to
...
I want to read it in the form of an arrest warrant.

Down the hallway and to the
left was a door with a brass plaque that read, “Sergio D’Alessandro,
President.”

She had to admit, Sergio
D’Alessandro sounded a bit spiffier than Leonard Roy Hoffman. It certainly looked
better on a brass door plaque. But she’d never trusted people who changed their
names as frequently as the papers on the bottom of a parakeet cage. One changed
names and bird-cage papers for the same reason: because the shit was piling up.

She knocked once, then
opened the door and stepped into one of the most opulent offices she had ever
seen. From the China-red walls to the black lacquered furniture, the plush
oriental rugs and oversized vases sprouting everything from ferns to pussy
willow sprigs, the decor made her feel she had stepped into the office of the
Chinese ambassador to the U.N.

But the guy sitting behind
the lacquered desk was no diplomat. And not even a designer suit and a fancy
name change could make him classy.

In what Gran would have
called, “no account, low-down, good for nothin’” style, his eyes swept over her
again, lingering on her full bust line. If she had been wearing a tight
sweater, she would have forgiven a guy a fleeting glance. She had to admit, her
ample bosom was an eye-catcher. But when she was doing business, wearing
business attire, there was no excuse for outright ogling.

“Good morning, Mr.
D’Alessandro. Ah... Sergio,” she said, fixing him with a blue-eyed laser stare
that pulled his gaze upward, however reluctantly. She plopped herself down on a
white leather chair and opened her purse to take out her notebook. “We have a
lot to talk about and not much time. Let’s get crackin.’”

“Um, okay.” He seemed to
snap out of his reverie, but he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms
over his chest. “What have you got? Did you find her?”

She shot him a “get real”
look. “Please. If I’d found her, I’d have hauled her in here with me today.”

“So, what’s the problem? I
hired you because you’re supposed to be good and—”

“Supposed to be good?” She
bristled. “Sugar, I’m
way
better than good. But you didn’t give me
diddlysquat to work with.”

“I gave you the keys to her
house.”

“And I was there last
night, till the wee hours of the morning, working my fingers to the bone.”
At
least until Ryan and John rescued me,
she thought.
And that's none of
ol' Sergio’s business.
“But when you won’t tell me what I’m looking for,
it’s a little hard to tell if I’ve found it.”

He sighed and leaned even
farther away from her in his chair. “Well, what
did
you find?”

“You tell me,” she said.
“To start with, does the word ‘
rosarita’
mean anything to you?”

His eyes widened and his
cheeks turned flushed, glowing red even under his tan. “Maybe. Why?”

Savannah’s patience
snapped. “Don’t mess with me, boy. If you want me to find Suzette—and more
importantly to you, your money—you’d better smarten up quick and start telling
me what’s what. What does ‘
rosarita'
mean to you?”

“It’s a hotel between here
and Santa Barbara.”

“I know that. It’s also the
brand name of a line of Mexican food, and the name of a couple of hundred young
ladies in this county, but I need to know what the word means to you personally
and to Suzette.”

Sergio groaned and shook
his head. For a long time he just sat there, his hand over his mouth, staring
down at his desk. Finally, he gave up the mental battle with himself and said,
“It’s where Suzette and I first made love, years ago.”

She studied his face. She
had seen the same guarded look on suspects, several thousands of them, as they
withheld information. “And?”

“And... we had another...
more recent... association with the place.”

“How recent?”

“The night before she
disappeared.”

“That’s pretty darned
recent. You went there again, for old times sake or...?”

“No, not that. She sort of
caught me there.”

“With another woman?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it was
with another woman. Okay?”

“Who?”

“It’s not important.”

“It’s important. Spit it
out, Sergio. Who were you doin’ this time at Rosarita’s when Suzette caught you?”

“I’m not going to say. I
have the lady’s reputation to protect and—”

“Then I’ll just assume for
the time being that it was Devon.” His mouth dropped open. “You know about
Devon?”

“Oh, give me a break,
Sergio. Do you think I’d know that you graduated 273 in your high school class
of 275 and I wouldn’t know about Devon? What happened when Suzette found you at
Rosarita’s with Devon?”

He shrugged. “She was
upset.”

“How upset?”

“Very.”

“Because you were fooling
around with Devon or because you were doing it somewhere that was yours and
Suzette’s ‘special’ place?”

“Both.”

“Does Devon know that
Suzette saw you there?”

“Oh yes. Suzette got hold
of a passkey somehow and broke in on us there in our room. She slapped Devon
across the face and slugged me in the stomach.”

For some perverse reason,
Savannah’s estimation of Suzette Du Bois rose several notches. She fought down
a smile. “And this was the night before she disappeared?”

He nodded.

“You might have mentioned
that to me before.”

“Like I said, I need to
protect the lady’s reputation.”

“Devon is married?”

“Well, no, but...”

“I think the hide you’re
protecting is your own, Sergio. And if you don’t start leveling with me, you
can just kiss that money of yours good-bye.”

His face darkened, and he
clenched his fists in a way that made her mentally check the Beretta in her
shoulder holster under her jacket. “Don’t say that. I worked hard for that
money. I have plans. I need to get it back. Now!”

She put on her calmest face
and softened her tone. “Then help me, Sergio. Tell me about the money. How much
are we talking about? I’m not being nosy here. I need to know exactly what I’m
looking for.”

Again, she watched the
mental battle registering on his face as he decided whether to trust her or
not. Apparently, he thought he had to, because he said, “One and a half million
dollars.”

Her heart skipped a beat
and her breathing stopped. But only for a moment before she recovered herself
and replied coolly, “Okay. Now we know what we’re working with. And was this
money in an account, in cash...?”

“In a bank account.”

“Okay.”

“And it got stolen.”

“How, if it was in a bank?”

“It was transferred out of
my account.”

“Without your knowledge?”

“Yeah. Somebody got hold of
my password somehow.”

“You must have contacted
the bank. What did they say?”

He slammed his fist down on
the desktop. A nerve in his jaw was twitching as if it were being zapped by a
Taser. “They say that I’m out one and a half million dollars. There’s nothing they
can do about it, or so they say. They were happy to inform me that I was the
one responsible for keeping my password safe and if I didn’t, tough luck. They
told me to tell my story to the cops, not them.”

“And did you... go to the
cops?” Savannah knew the answer to that one even before he replied.

“No. I want to keep the
cops out of this. That’s why I hired you. How could she have gotten my
password? That’s what I want to know. I never told
anybody
that!
Nobody!”

Savannah glanced down at
the slender notebook computer lying on his desk. “Do you conduct business with
that bank there on your computer?”

“Sure. That’s the best way
to—” A sick look dawned in his eyes. “Do you think Suzette could have gotten my
password out of my computer?”

“I have an assistant, a
computer whiz-kid, who could have gotten it in about ten minutes. Is Suzette
computer savvy?”

“Enough,” he said. “Enough
to figure out when I was visiting porn sites and dating services while we were
living together.”

“It’s possible then.”

“Oh, man. You think your
money’s safe because it’s in a bank and look at what can happen.”

Savannah studied Sergio and
speculated on the ways he might have accumulated one and a half million dollars
of unaccounted-for funds. None were good ones. Especially for a guy who had
served time for embezzlement.