Corpse Suzette

can’t. Go sit over there on the couch, and
brace yourself. I’ve got some unpleasant news for you.”
     
    Twenty minutes later, Devon
was still crying, wringing her hands, and wiping her nose on the sleeve of her
robe, in spite of the fact that Savannah kept shoving handfuls of tissues at
her.
    “I can’t believe it!” she
said for the seventh time. “He was so healthy! So energetic! That guy could go all
night and frequently did!”
    The thought of Sergio
“going” at all, let alone all night, made Savannah want to go scrub her mind’s
eye with a steel wool pad and bleach. But considering the depth of Devon’s
apparent grief, it was clear that his smarminess held a certain appeal for some
females.
    There was no accounting for
taste, or the lack thereof.
    Savannah was already
mentally celebrating the fact that she had won the bet with Dirk and would be
dining in splendid repast at Burger Bonanza soon.
    Devon might be a jerk, and
she may have killed Suzette and robbed her of her earrings. But there was no
way that she had murdered her lover. Her shock at hearing of his passing was
genuine; no doubt about it.
    “How?” she kept saying.
“How did he die?”
    “We’ll find out tomorrow,”
Savannah told her. “After the autopsy.”
    “And until we do find out,”
Dirk added, “there’s not much more to talk about concerning that topic. I’ve
got something else to discuss with you tonight.”
    Devon’s red, swollen eyes
narrowed even more. “What? I told you, it’s late, and now that I’ve gotten this
awful news . .
    “And you’re about to get
some more.” Dirk gave her an ugly smile. “I’d like you to know that I’m
seriously thinking of arresting you for murder.”
    “Murder?” Devon choked and
sputtered. “How can you even think I’d kill Sergio? I loved him! And besides,
you just said you don’t even know how or why he died. It could have been
natural causes and—”
    “Not D’Alessandro,” he
said, “Suzette Du Bois.”
    “That’s just stupid!” She
threw the handful of tissues at him, but they fluttered to the floor midway
between them. “You don’t even have a body. How can you be sure she’s dead, let
alone that I did it?”
    He gave her his most
intimidating look, the one he reserved for his least favorite suspects. “You
pawned her earrings this morning.”
    “I did not !”
    “We have the earrings. We
have your fingerprints on the ear-rings. We have Suzette’s thumbprint on the
earrings and her DNA. We’ve traced the earrings back to the jeweler where they
were purchased... by Suzette Du Bois. They’re hers. You pawned them. In other
words. We have you .”
    Savannah gave Dirk a
sideways glance and had to suppress a giggle. Not having been raised by Granny
Reid, Dirk had no qualms about lying until his tongue turned black and fell
out. Considering that he hadn’t even heard about the earrings until little more
than an hour ago, he had just told a string of whoppers. DNA, indeed.
    But it worked. Which
proved, contrary to Granny’s teaching, bad guys did occasionally win.
    Devon dissolved into
hysterical sobs. Hands over her face, she spilled it, just as Dirk had intended
her to. “Okay, okay, I had her earrings. I took them out of her dresser the
other night when Sergio and I were searching her house.”
    “You and Sergio were
searching Suzette’s place?” Dirk asked. “For what?” Savannah added. She knew
already, but she wasn’t sure how much Sergio had told his girlfriend.
    “For the money that Suzette
stole from Sergio. And when we didn’t find it, he told me to go ahead and treat
myself to something. He said that, considering how badly she’d ripped him off,
we deserved to take a little of it back. So, I took those diamond and sapphire
earrings.”
    “What did he take?”
Savannah asked.
    “A couple of the rings he’d
given her, and a bracelet, and a pendant, and some silver candlesticks from
Tiffany, and some Waterford crystal, and Sammy’s diamond collar.”
    “A dog collar?” Dirk
frowned and shook his head. “A diamond dog collar?”
    “Yeah. He said he’d pry the
diamonds out and sell them. He was always jealous of Sammy, said she cared more
about that stupid dog than she did about him. But now…” She began to choke
again. “Now he’s... he’s... he’s dea-a-a-ad!”
    Dirk turned to Savannah. “A
diamond dog collar? Is she serious?”
    Savannah shrugged. “Sure.
Why not? I’d buy a couple for my kitties if I had the