Corpse Suzette

racks.
    “Yeah, I’m coming. And
don’t you rush me, boy,” she said, following close behind. “I’m only half
awake.”
    “I just want to get this
business over and done and back home.” He jerked a stack of newspapers off a
shelf and began to thumb through them. “I don’t like being away from American
soil.”
    “Give me some of those and
go sit down,” she told him, pointing to a pair of easy chairs that had been
arranged in front of a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the ocean.
    He did as she told him and
even paused to enjoy the view for a moment. “This is a pretty neat library,” he
said.
    “I know a better one,” she
replied with a sweet, slightly homesick smile.
    She joined him in the
chairs, and they both searched the papers in their hands, looking for the back
pages and the classified ads.
    “Not much of a rag, this
one,” he said. “But then, I guess there’s not much news around here.”
    “Sounds refreshing.”
    “You mean boring.”
    “No-o-o, I mean refreshing,
restful, peaceful, safe... like San Carmelita used to be before the so-called
City of Angels moved in.” She found some ads and began to peruse the various
events and objects for sale on Santa Tesla. “This is a good idea I had,” she
told him. “Especially since I had it before breakfast.”
    “Yeah, we’ll see how good
it was. Don’t go tooting your own horn there, girlie.”
    “I have to toot it or it
goes tootless. Why I’m—”
    “Sh-h-h-h. Please, no
talking in here.”
    They both turned around and
saw a woman who looked frighteningly similar to the bank manager they had
sparred with the day before. She was standing behind their chairs, her hands on
her hips, her glasses on the tip of her nose, glaring at them.
    Savannah couldn’t help
giggling. “Sorry,” she whispered. “Is it okay if we pass notes?”
    “Just keep it down.”
    “Okay, we will. I promise.”
    As soon as the woman was
gone, Dirk said, “If she comes back over here I’ll shoot a spit wad into her
hair.”
    “Oh, cool! And can you make
fart noises in your armpit, too?” Then an ad caught her eye and all juvenile
delinquencies fled... or were at least put on hold. “Here we go,” she
whispered, looking over her shoulder. She tapped her finger on the page.
    “Read it to me.”
    “Executive home, new
split-level ranch, four bedrooms, three baths, formal dining room, fully
finished basement, fully landscaped yard, and spectacular ocean view.
One-point-two million. Elizabeth Fortunato Realty.”
    “Well, here’s another one,”
he said. “Similar to that one, only it’s five bedrooms, a guest house, and
pool. One and a half million.”
    “Elizabeth’s listing?”
    “Yeap. And this one has an
address. Let’s go. It’s in the hills up there where our taxi buddy was wringing
out the curves yesterday.”
    “Oh goody.”
    “This time you won’t get so
sick,” he said reassuringly.
    “How do you know?”
    “Because this time you
aren’t plastered on piña coladas.” Again, they heard a rustling behind them.
Again the grating voice spoke. “I warned you before not to talk so loudly. Now
you’re going to have to leave.”
    Savannah turned to Dirk.
“Do you have that address out of there?”
    He nodded. “Got it.”
    She turned back to the
librarian. “Not to worry, ma’am. We’re leaving. You have a nice day now, you
hear?”
    The woman eyed them
suspiciously until they walked out the door.
    Savannah laughed as Dirk
called for a cab on his cell phone. “I just love being sweet to cranky people,”
she said. “It just confounds them somethin’ fierce.”
     
    Savannah had a strange
fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach. And it had nothing to do with the
hairpin curves they had just traveled to arrive at the top of this steep hill.
    The scenery was
breathtaking from up here: the island spread beneath them, green and lush, the
lighthouse nearby, gleaming white in the morning sun, a stretch of the
sparkling, blue Pacific between them and home, and to the west of them, the
ocean disappearing into the horizon.
    “I’ve got a feeling,” she
said as the cab pulled up and stopped in front of a beautiful home that looked
like an Italian villa.
    “Me, too,” Dirk replied,
pointing to a sign on the front lawn of the property. It was an Elizabeth
Fortunato listing sign, and across it had been pasted a bright red banner that
read, SOLD.
    “Of course, it could still
be that other house in the paper,” she said,