Corpse Suzette

1
     
     
     
    “W anna go watch Loco Roco?”
    “Sure.”
    “Same place?”
    “I’ll be there in ten.”
     
    “There” was the Patty Cake
Donut Shop, which frequently served as a meeting spot for Savannah Reid and her
old buddy, Dirk. Police work could be lonely when nobody in the department was
willing to be your partner. And Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter was frequently
a lonely man.
    But generally not for long.
    Now a private detective,
Savannah had once been his partner in another lifetime... before she and the
San Carmelita PD had parted ways under less than amiable circumstances. And
once in a while, when she “got a yen,” as her Southern granny would say, for an
old-fashioned stakeout, she accepted one of his invitations.
    He invited her constantly.
He enjoyed her company and the homemade snacks she frequently brought along to
fuel the long, tedious hours. She accepted once in a while... when there were
no good forensic shows on TV and no unread romance novels on her nightstand.
    But she always accepted
when the subject was Loco Roco.
    She was every bit as
determined as Dirk to catch that lowlife doing something illegal, immoral, or
fattening and put him back in the joint where he belonged. Roco had made a
lifelong career of robbing convenience stores and on his last job had
pistol-whipped a clerk into a coma. With Savannah’s help, Dirk had arrested
him, only to have the most serious charge thrown out on a technicality:
prosecutorial error.
    They’d never gotten over
the disappointment that Roco was back on the street after only eighteen months.
They knew it was just a matter of time until he lapsed into his old pattern,
and they intended to be there when he fell off the wagon and violated his
parole.
    They had been watching Loco
Roco for weeks. So far, he hadn’t even jaywalked or spit on the sidewalk. To
their consternation, he was Mr. Law-Abiding Citizen, while his latest victim
was still in physical therapy, relearning how to walk. But Savannah and Dirk
weren’t the sort to give up easily.
    And that was why Savannah
arrived at their rendezvous spot in eight minutes rather than the estimated
ten.
    When she pulled into Patty
Cake’s parking lot, she found Dirk sitting in his old battered Buick Skylark in
the rear near the alley. She knew the drill. He was waiting to see if she had
brought any cookies, pie, brownies, or cake before he went into Patty’s.
Cheapskate that he was, he was hoping he’d only have to buy coffee. His
mood—which usually wavered between morose and sullen—would plummet when she
emerged from her classic Mustang, bagless.
    Tough.
    Her company didn’t come
cheap. The scintillating conversation, the benefit of her vast law-enforcement
experience, the occasional slap upside his head to keep him awake... it all had
a price. And the cost was two maple bars... or a giant chocolate-frosted Boston
cream if she was in the throes of PMS.
    He rolled down his window
as she approached the Buick, a scowl on his face.
    “No fried apricot pies?”
    “You ate them all when you
were over Saturday night,” she said as she opened the passenger’s door and
brushed some Taco Bell wrappers off the seat and onto the floor.
    “That was two nights ago.
You’ve had plenty of time to make some more.”
    She slid in next to him and
fixed him with a baleful eye. In her thickest Georgia drawl, she said, “Ye-eah,
buddy... and I’ve had time to go clean that filthy house trailer of yours, wash
your pile of dirty laundry, and perform an unnatural sex act on you that I’m
sure you’d just love. But we both know none of that’s ever gonna happen,
so go get me some donuts, boy. Two maple bars and a Boston cream. And
make it snappy!”
    Dirk’s jaw dropped. “ And ?”
    “And.”
    “Now you’re just bein’
spiteful.”
    She grinned and winked at
him. “You think?”
     
    Half an hour later they
were parked across the street from Burger Bonanza, watching the rear door of
the fast food joint, waiting for a skinny, grungy thirty-year-old named Roco
Tessitori to exit.
    “How sure was his parole
officer that he’s going to get fired tonight?” Savannah asked as she licked the
chocolate frosting off her fingertips.
    “Sure, sure. The manager
here called the P.O. this morning and said he was gonna let Loco go as soon as
his shift’s over. Said he’s been late every day, doing next to nothing on the
job, and he threatened one of the girls who works here. The manager figures