Corpse Suzette

favorite flower.”
    The pressure on her fingers
increased to downright painful. She got the message.
    “Anyway,” she said,
“Elizabeth was telling me about this darling little beach cottage, and I told
her I’d think about it, but I lost her card. I was keeping an eye out for her
car as we were driving around today—it’s quite distinctive.”
    The young man chuckled.
“Yes, there aren’t many BMW’s on the island; they’re not exactly easy on the
gas. I think she’s starting to wonder if she should have bought something
else.”
    Savannah smiled up at Dirk
and this time, it was genuine. “Yes,” she said, “but she’s just such a BMW kind
of girl.”
    “True. True.”
    “Do you have any idea where
she is now? I realize it’s a little late, but I really wanted to talk to her.”
    “Here, let me see if I can
get her on the phone.”
    The kid dialed a couple of
numbers, then said, “Sorry, she’s not answering her home phone or her cell. She
turns it off sometimes after office hours. There’s more to life than work, and
all that.”
    “Good attitude,” Dirk said.
“And when she’s working at living instead of working at working, where does she
do that?”
    “Huh?”
    “Where does she hang out?”
Savannah clarified.
    “Oh, that’s easy. If she’s
not here or at home, she’s at Coconut Joe’s.”

Chapter

21
     
     
     
    “H ey, déjà vu all over
again,” Dirk said as he and Savannah walked through the swinging doors of
Coconut Joe’s for the second time that night. “Are you gonna order enough piña
coladas again to put me in the poorhouse?”
    Savannah put a hand on her
abdomen and groaned. “I may never drink again. That seabreeze didn’t settle
well on top of the other ones. Too much acid, I guess.”
    “Good.”
    “Unless you irritate me
with your cheapness, son, and then I might order some Dom Perignon just for
spite.”
    “You order something like
fancy-ass champagne, you’ll be washing glasses until dawn to pay for it. No way
the captain’s gonna reimburse me out of petty cash for an expenditure like
that!”
    Savannah stopped and
whirled around to face him. “Are you telling me, that after all the bellyaching
you’ve done about buying me donuts and coffee, you’ve been dipping into the
station’s petty cash to pay for it?”
    “No, of course not. I
just...”
    Dirk was a lousy liar. Not
to perps; he could lie to them all day and never break a sweat, but lying on a
personal level... he couldn’t pull it off.
    “Your tongue’s going to
turn black and fall out one of these days, Coulter,” she said.
    “Yeah, and my nose is going
to grow and I won’t get my honesty badge in Girl Scouts. I’ve heard it all
before.”
    They had to duck and dodge
through the crowd, which was at least twice as thick as before, just to get to
the bar. But fortunately, once they were there, they found two empty stools
together at one end.
    Sitting down, Dirk motioned
to the bartender. “A couple of colas here,” he said, “and pass a bowl of those
nibble things down here, too.”
    The barkeep wasn’t
impressed. He slid their sodas and the pretzel dish in front of them, collected
Dirk’s six bucks and twenty-five-cent tip, and turned his back on them.
    “That’s it,” Savannah
hissed in his ear. “Piss off the bartender, the fount of all local folklore,
before we even get started.”
    “Who needs him now? We know
who we’re looking for.”
    “Oh, yeah? What does
Elizabeth Fortunato look like? Unless she drives through the front doors in her
BMW, we might have a little difficulty picking her out of the crowd.”
    “Not me. I know exactly
what she looks like.”
    “What?”
    “She’s a babe.”
    “A babe? And you know this
how?”
    “While you were busy making
goo-goo eyes and telling that kid all those lies about how you and me are
getting hitched and needing a honeymoon cottage, I was looking around the
office there.”
    “And?”
    “There was a picture of her
hanging on the wall. She was getting handed some sort of award thing by the
Santa Tesla Chamber of Commerce or some such nonsense. And she’s a babe.”
    “You want to be a little
more specific?”
    “Not necessarily. I’ll
point her out to you.”
    “She’s here?”
    “Not yet.”
    Savannah snorted and popped
a couple of mini-pretzels into her mouth. “I hate it when you’re smug.”
    “Now, now, don’t insult
your bridegroom right before the wedding. It’ll sour our honeymoon.”
    Savannah