Corpse Suzette

she found the master bedroom. She flipped on the wall dimmer switch,
then quickly lowered the light. There was no point in announcing to the
neighbors or passers-by that someone was home.
    Especially if the “someone”
wasn’t the homeowner.
    As Dirk had said, the
bedroom was a disaster, like the rest of the house. Originally it had been
decorated in a rustic but elegant old-Spanish style, with a mixture of dark,
heavy furniture, cream-colored plaster walls, and light, gauzy fabrics. The
four-poster bed was draped with a sheer white canopy and the floor-to-ceiling
windows were framed with the same delicate material.
    The paintings on the walls
were of exquisite old-world gardens in the Mediterranean.
    But that was where the
loveliness and grace ended.
    Like the rest of the house,
the room was a muddle of clutter and confusion. As she walked around, she
distinguished between what was simply bad-housekeeping—the dirty dishes stacked
on the bed tables, the piles of books and magazines beside the bed, the
crumpled clothes tossed in the corner near the bathroom door—versus the results
of what she assumed was Sergio’s searching: dresser and chest drawers open with
clothing tossed onto the floor, the desk in the corner emptied, and the closet
doors opened with clothing and shoes piled in a heap just outside.
    “Thanks for making my job
even harder,” she whispered to the unseen Sergio. If he had just left
everything as it was, she would have had a much better reading on what was
going on with Dr. Suzette right before she evaporated.
    She walked over to the
nightstand that had a phone and alarm clock on it. Experience told her that if
you wanted to know which side of the bed the head of the house usually slept
on, look for the phone and alarm clock.
    Opening the drawers of that
stand, she was somewhat surprised at the contents. There was the usual array of
reading glasses, antacids, and sleeping pills, an address book, pens, and a
couple of notepads.
    What she wasn’t expecting
was the array of pictures, magazines, calendars, and other memorabilia, all
dedicated to one woman.
    Marilyn Monroe.
    While she might have
understood such a collection in the bedroom of a sixty-plus-year-old man, it
was unusual in a woman’s nightstand. Especially a woman who was born after the
actress’s death.
    Two pictures in particular
interested Savannah. One was a close-up of Marilyn, dressed in typical silver
screen glam, a white fur stole around her bare shoulders and flashy earrings
with emerald-cut sapphires surrounded by diamonds.
    The other picture appeared
at first glance to be a duplicate. But after taking a second look, Savannah
realized that it wasn’t Marilyn at all, but a very good look-alike. This woman
lacked the charismatic sparkle and sensual quality that Marilyn had exuded in
her prime, but the features were markedly similar and the clothing and jewelry
an exact replica.
    Although Savannah hadn’t
been shown a picture of Suzette Du Bois, she didn’t need anyone to tell her
that this was the doctor, striving to look like her idol.
    It struck Savannah as
somehow pathetic.
    Suzette was obviously a
pretty woman in her own right. Why would she want to look like someone other
than herself? And why Marilyn Monroe in particular? Marilyn had been a
beautiful woman, but...
    Savannah had heard of
people who sought out plastic surgeons who would cut and stitch them into a
facsimile of some famous person, and she had always thought such folks must be
sad, lost souls with little going on in their own lives. Who would have thought
a talented doctor, famous for her own abilities and accomplishments, would have
been tempted to do such a thing?
    Savannah put the pictures
back into the drawer, closed it, and continued to look around. The small
wastebasket beneath the nightstand held only a small amount of trash. She
pulled it out and looked inside.
    Some used tissues, a wadded
piece of paper, and what appeared to be an empty prescription medicine bottle
were all she found.
    She uncrumpled the bit of
paper and saw a string of ten numbers, separated by several dashes. It looked
like a credit card number or maybe a bank account number. Beneath the number
was a single word: rosarita.
    A bank account number and
password?
    The thought also occurred
to her that if Sergio had searched the house for his lost money, maybe he
should have been looking for something less obvious than the actual cash. She
reminded herself that, these days, one