Corpse Suzette

I
am a reporter, after all. I keep my ears open. Of course, I could be
persuaded to keep what I heard off the record for the time being....”
    Devon opened and closed her
mouth several times as she seemed to search for the right words.
    “That would be... um...
nice. I mean, there isn’t really anything to report now anyway.”
    “And in return for my...
waiting... you might give me the first phone call when you do have something
substantial to report?”
    Devon looked doubtful, but
she said, “Okay. Give me your business card, and I’ll see what I can do.”
    Business card?
    Savannah paused, thinking
fast. The cards in her purse represented her as a private investigator, not a
newspaper reporter.
    “I don’t have any with me
right now, but I’ll leave my number with your receptionist at the desk.”
    “You don’t have a business
card, Ms....?”
    Savannah’s mental gears
whirred. “McGill. Savannah McGill.”
    Devon’s eyes narrowed. “And
do you have your press pass with you, Ms. McGill?”
    “Darn. No. It’s in my other
purse... with my cards... you know, changed pocketbooks last night to go out to
dinner at this fancy-schmancy place, forgot to put everything back into my
everyday purse. Do you ever do that? I just hate it when I do that.”
    “Maybe you should leave for
now, Ms. McGill. Emerge isn’t really open to the public today. You can come
back when we have our press conference.”
    “When they find Suzette Du
Bois, you mean. When they figure out what’s happened to her.”
    The publicist’s eyes
narrowed even more, and Savannah saw a light shining there that made the
hackles on her back rise. Devon Wright might be dressed as a bebopping,
hip-hopping fluff-head, but underneath the frivolous facade was a dangerous
woman.
    “You should go now.
Really,” she said. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
    Savannah glanced over at
Dirk, who was still hanging out by the desk, questioning the aging, floozy
receptionist. “Thanks, but I can find my way to the door,” she said, “since
it’s only twenty feet away. I’m quite resourceful that way. Toodle-ooo. See you
later.”
    Devon didn’t reply. Or walk
her to the door. But she did stand there and stare after her, boring eyeholes
into her back. Savannah half-expected her sweater to burst into flames
somewhere between her shoulder blades.
    Savannah willed Dirk not to
call out to her, to inquire about her untimely exit. And he didn’t. They had
worked together long enough to know that they should save potentially
embarrassing questions for behind closed doors.
    Once outside, she returned
to her car and waited for him to join her.
    It didn’t take him long.
Five minutes later, he rounded the side of the building and walked across the
lot to her Mustang. She rolled down the window. “Let’s go somewhere else to
talk.”
    He nodded. “The pier?”
    “Sounds good. Follow me
over.”
    “Nope. You follow me .”
    “Eh, bite me.”
    She knew he would break at
least five major traffic rules to beat her to the pier. Dirk was just... such a
guy. He couldn’t help himself.
    Savannah had worked on him
for years, trying to smooth out the rough spots. And she had succeeded in a few
instances. He no longer propped his feet on her coffee table without first
removing his sneakers, and he remembered to lower the toilet seat at her house
at least fifty percent of the time. That was about as civilized as Dirk Coulter
was ever likely to get.
    But Savannah loved him
anyway. When she wasn’t plotting creative ways to murder him and dispose of the
body, she appreciated the fact that his bravado, bordering on aggression,
masked a heart that was remarkably soft toward the half a dozen people Dirk
loved in the world.
    He was as loyal as they
came.
    She and Dirk had known each
other since way back when. “Back when,” for her, meant “fifteen years and
thirty pounds ago.” For him, it meant a bit more hair and less around his
middle.
    But one of Dirk’s sweetest
qualities, the one that endeared him most to Savannah, was the fact that he
hadn’t really noticed those years or pounds. She was pretty sure that, at least
in his eyes, she was still that feisty, sexy young cop who had been assigned to
work with him... and had agreed to, although everyone else in the department
had refused.
    Dirk had always been
difficult, rebellious, a pain in the neck... the proverbial loose cannon that
everyone wanted to throw overboard. Other men on the force couldn’t