Corpse Suzette

Bois went missing.”
    “That’s right.”
    They smiled at each other.
They could practically smell their prey.
    The trail was getting
fresher by the minute.
    “Good for the kid!” he
said. “She’s getting better at this stuff all the time. What did the password
turn out to be?”
    Savannah laughed. “Sammy.”
    “Of course.”
    “Of course.”
    They walked down the
street, passing buildings more substantial than the slapdash huts that lined
the beachfront areas. Here the businesses and houses resembled some that
Savannah had seen in Key West, Florida, on a vacation there years ago. They had
a combination of tropical and Victorian flavor, with lots of gingerbread-house
details, verandas, and the occasional widow’s walk around the roof. Under
different circumstances, she might have considered her surroundings romantic.
    But strolling alongside
Dirk, whose formerly buoyant mood had been replaced by his standard sullen one,
thanks to the snippy manager at the bank, it wasn’t easy to get into any sort
of romantic state of mind.
    And that was okay. She was
working.
    Who needed romance when
there was a bad guy—or girl, as the case might be—who needed catching?
    Dirk stopped in the middle
of the sidewalk, leaned against a palm tree, and took out his cell phone. “I
just want to check something,” he said. A moment later he barked into the
phone, “Coulter here. I’m on Santa Tesla Island... yes, all the way out here.
Run a check with DMV. I want to know the name and address of everyone on this
island who owns a BMW. That’s right.” He scowled. “What do you mean you can’t—”
    Savannah elbowed him in the
ribs. “Look around you, Dorothy,” she said. “You’re not in Kansas anymore... or
California either, for that matter.” She pointed to a passing car that had no
license plate, only a red sticker in the lower left corner of the rear window.
“They’re not going to find any of these cars in the California DMV records.”
    “Oh.” He grunted, then said
into the phone, “Never mind.” Then he turned off the phone and shoved it back
into his pocket. “I have to tell you,” he said, “I’m feeling a little out of my
element here.”
    “That’s because you are out
of your element, kinda like wading through Jell-O. But don’t fret. This whole
island isn’t even half the size of little San Carmelita. We’ll find the BMW
that picked Suzette up at the dock, and we’ll find her, too. You wait and see
if we don’t.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah... a
friggen’ Pollyanna, that’s you, Van.” She laughed and laced her arm through
his. That was what she loved about Dirk, that sunny disposition, that
effervescent personality, and of course, the eternal optimism.
    He shook his head and
groaned wearily. “Nope, we’re never ever gonna find that gal. She’s gotten away
with cold-blooded murder. Not if we stay on this stupid island for a hundred
years, and look for her from one end of it to the other and then fall down dead
in our tracks and rot right there. We’re just not gonna find her.”
    Ah, yes. Savannah
thought as she looked around her at the lush tropical foliage and breathed in
the clean, salt-sea scented air.
    This is romance at its
finest.

Chapter

20
     
     
     
    “D id you really think we’d
run across somebody with a BMW in one of these swanky bars?” Dirk asked
Savannah. “Or is this just a scheme of yours to see how many of those stupid
umbrella drinks you can get me to buy for you in one afternoon?”
    She sipped her piña colada
and twirled the tiny paper umbrella between her fingertips. Around them, a
large portion of the island’s population, or so it seemed, had congregated to
enjoy equally festive beverages and, in general, make merry, here in a place
called Coconut Joe’s.
    If she used even a little
bit of imagination, it was easy for her to look around and imagine that she was
in a bar somewhere in the Bahamas. The music being piped into the place had a
definite Caribbean flavor, as did the bright batik sheets of fabric that hung
from the ceiling along with fishing nets and colorful paper lanterns. So many
palmettos decorated the place that she felt she was in a jungle.
    The patrons were equally
exotic, dressed in bright floral sundresses and tie-dyed T-shirts, with more
seashell necklaces than she had seen anywhere since the seventies.
    “Apparently,” she said,
“once the sun starts to set here on Santa Tesla, the natives run to the bars
and get