Corpse Suzette

spa’s
manicurist.
    Apparently, Sergio had no
other close friends or family.
    Savannah wasn’t
particularly surprised.
    “Anybody here you don’t
know?” Dirk whispered, leaning close to her.
    “Just the older woman, who
I think is his mom,” Savannah replied. “And that gal over there with the
platinum blond hair and the big sunglasses.”
    “The older lady is his mom.
I’ve talked to her already. She’s a real mess over him dying so young. And the
blonde is Suzette’s sister, the one I interviewed in Santa Barbara.”
    “You’ll have to tell me
about her later,” Savannah whispered.
    “Nothing to tell. She
thought her sister was a nutcase for caring about this guy. That’s it.”
    “How much longer are we
going to stay?” Abby said, nudging Savannah in the ribs with her elbow. “I’m
about to freeze to death here.”
    “I hate to say it, but I’m
really cold, too,” Tammy added. Savannah could see that she was turning a
little blue under her perpetual tan.
    The mourners were beginning
to throw roses on top of the coffin. And the minister had gotten to the “dust
to dust” part of his eulogy.
    “Let’s go home,” Savannah
said. “I think we all need to thaw out. How’s about some double fudge hot
chocolate?”
    “With a shot of Bailey’s?”
Dirk asked, “Savannah style?”
    “Of course. Let’s let the
dead rest in peace.”
    Dirk groaned and wiped a
hand wearily across his wet face. “Rest? God knows, somebody needs to.”
     
    As Savannah heated milk in
a pan and melted some chocolate chips in her microwave, she looked across the
kitchen to the table where Dirk sat, his elbows propped on the table, his head
in his hands.
    “Dirko doesn’t look so
good,” Tammy whispered in her ear. “I’m worried about him.”
    Savannah nodded. “I know.
He just can’t burn the candle at both ends like he used to. When he tries it,
he fizzles like a defunct Fourth of July bottle rocket.”
    “I heard that,” he said,
raising his head and glaring at them with bloodshot eyes. “I may be tired, but
I’m not deaf, and I’m sure as hell not old. So watch it over there.”
    “Yeah, yeah, we’s tremblin’
here. Shakin’ in our boots,” Savannah replied. “That’s us. Did you eat good
today? Want me to scramble you up some eggs? Make you a bowl of chicken noodle
soup or something?”
    “Naw, I’ll perk up in a
minute. I just need to rest my eyes.” Savannah poked Tammy. “You just wait.
He’ll be snoring in thirty seconds. Happens every time he ‘rests his eyes.’ He
closes those peepers and a second later, he’s making zz-zz-zz’s like a cartoon
bear.”
    Savannah and Tammy left him
alone and continued to make the hot chocolate and, as Savannah had predicted,
it was less than a minute before he started to snore. When the cocoa was
finally ready, steaming hot mugs topped with peaks of whipped cream and
sprinkled with shaved dark chocolate, Savannah was reluctant to wake him.
    “Leave him alone for now,”
she told Tammy. “Let him get a few winks. That’ll do him a world of good. Perk
him right up.”
    Tammy snickered. “I don’t
think the words ‘Dirk’ and ‘perk’ even belong in the same sentence.”
    “Sh-h-h.” Savannah took the
tray with its bounty and tiptoed past Dirk and into the living room.
    Ryan and John sat with
Abigail, who had changed out of her wet clothes and into a dark green Georgette
skirt and matching blouse. The color accented her new hair color and even
though the outfit was a bit bohemian with its flouncy layers, the monochromatic
scheme was an enormous improvement over her previous mixture of paisley and
plaid.
    She still had multiple
bangles on her arms and gypsy hoops in her ears, but the look was more elegant
than eccentric. No more Bag Lady Abby.
    “I love this new look of
yours, love,” John was telling her. “It’s still you, but more sophisticated.”
    She beamed and blushed. For
a moment, she looked more to Savannah like a demure Southern belle than a tough
gal from New York City. But then, John and Ryan had a way of making any woman
melt.
    “Jeremy helped me pick out
everything,” she told them. “He talked to me a long time about what I liked,
and I admitted to him that I’ve always thought I must be part gypsy. I love
stories about them, their mysticism, their travels. I always dressed up like a
gypsy at Halloween and pretended to tell everyone’s fortunes. Jeremy encouraged
me to embrace my passions, to express myself