Corpse Suzette

each other, of
course. Suzette tried to fire her when she found about the two of them, but
Sergio wouldn’t hear of it.”
    “And he’s the boss when it
comes to that sort of thing?”
    Myrna snorted with disgust.
“Sergio is the boss when it comes to anything. And why that is, I’ll never
know. Suzette is the surgeon, the one with the skill and the credentials. He
does nothing but sit in that office of his and pretend to manage things.
Suzette could replace him in a heartbeat, but he’s having a heck of a time
filling her shoes.”
    Savannah set her drink down
abruptly. “What? He’s trying to replace her already?”
    “Oh, he’s been trying to
pull in another surgeon since the day she went missing. Making calls all over
Beverly Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica, even talking to New York doctors, trying
to sell them on the idea of a practice in sunny California. Right now, Emerge
doesn’t have a surgeon. We’re out of business until we do.”
    Savannah toyed with her
straw and waited for a group of young women to pass by their booth and out of
earshot. Then she leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “Myrna,” she
said. “What do you think has happened to Suzette? What’s your best guess?”
    Myrna looked sad and
thought for a long time before answering. “I don’t want it to be in your paper
that I said this, okay?” Savannah nodded. “I promise that absolutely nothing
you say to me will wind up in any paper.”
    “I’m not sure what’s
happened to Suzette,” Myrna said. “Either she got fed up with Sergio, once and
for all, and just took off somewhere. Like a mini-nervous breakdown, and she’s
sitting in some hotel somewhere sobbing her eyes out and letting him worry.
Or... worse.”
    “And by worse, you
mean...?”
    “Foul play. Someone has
hurt her... or worse.”
    “And who would have hurt
her? Could you make a guess? Just between us girls, of course.”
    Again, Myrna considered her
answer carefully, then said, “If I had to guess who might murder her—and that’s
what we’re talking about here, murder, right?—I’d say that Devon is the most
likely to have done it. After all, she threatened to kill Suzette. Maybe she
did.”
    Savannah froze, her glass
half way to her lips. “Devon threatened to kill Suzette? When? Where?”
    “In the parking lot, the
night before Suzette went missing. They were screaming at each other because
Suzette had caught Devon and Sergio together at some hotel. And Devon told
Suzette to back off or she’d be sorry. When Suzette asked her what she meant by
that, Devon said, ‘Back off or you’ll find out. I know people who would take
care of you for fifty bucks and as far as I’m concerned, it would be money well
spent.’” Myrna paused and took a breath. “That sounds like a threat to me. How
about your
    Savannah recalled the
sapphire and diamond earrings in Saul’s pawn shop and the satisfied smile on
Miss Devon Prissy Pants’s face when she had strolled into his place that
morning.
    “Yeap,” she said with a
thoughtful nod. “Sure as shootin’... sounds like a threat to me, too.”
     
    “Hey, this rabbit food
ain’t too bad,” Dirk said as he buried his face in the toasted pita sandwich
that Tammy had prepared for them. “Considering that a bimbo made it,” he added.
    “It is good, Tam,” Savannah
said. “I didn’t know you could cook... other than cutting up celery and carrot
sticks and pouring mineral water, that is.”
    From the other end of the
table, Tammy beamed as she passed a bowl of salad to Abigail, who sat silently
beside her, staring at her plate with open disgust. “Why, thank y’all,” Tammy
said in a fairly dreadful imitation of Savannah’s southern drawl. “I figured
you’d cooked for me plenty of times, and since Abby’s here, I should make
dinner for a change.”
    “I like Savannah’s cooking
better,” Abigail said.
    Everyone paused,
momentarily stunned by the blunt comment. Then Savannah shook her head and
said, “What’s the matter with you Yankees? You don’t have the good manners that
God gave a jackass.”
    “I don’t eat crap like
this,” Abigail replied nudging the pita on her plate with one finger, like a
kid would a dead bug to see if it would wiggle.
    “It’s good,” Dirk said.
“There’s little shrimps and some kind of melted cheese in there with all that
green grass-stuff. It ain’t half bad.”
    “I could make you something
else, Abby,” Tammy said, her feelings