Corpse Suzette

spy on Sergio’s e-mails
and see if he was chasing other women. But Suzette told Myrna about it, and
Myrna used the software to get his bank account number and password. That’s how
she was able to steal the money out of his account and put it into one of
hers.”
    “But the password rosarita ?”
Tammy asked. “Wasn’t that a reference to the place where Suzette caught Sergio
with Devon?” Savannah stretched out on the towel beside Dirk and kicked off her
shoes. “Myrna overheard the big fight between Devon and Suzette that day after
Suzette found them at the Rosarita Hotel,” Savannah said, wriggling her toes
into the cool, damp sand. “Again, she made choices based on misleading us into
thinking it was Suzette we were after.”
    “And...” Abigail said,
“...Myrna was the one who put the botulism solution into Sergio’s syringe. But
why kill him ?”
    “Because,” Savannah told
her, “she was worried when she heard he had hired me, a private detective, to
find his money for him. She figured he might stop at nothing to get it back. If
he kept looking, he might have realized it was her that had stolen his money,
not Suzette. She decided it would be safer just to have him dead, too.”
    “And it was all because she
was mad at them for fixing her boyfriend up with a new face and him leaving her
for another woman?” Abby shook her head. “If I’d been her, I would have just
knocked off the ungrateful, two-timing boyfriend, not them.”
    “It wasn’t just that,”
Savannah said. “She had worked for Suzette and Sergio for years and resented
them the whole time. She was addicted to the surgeries and procedures and was
constantly paying off one or the other with her paychecks. She was living below
the poverty level because of it, with no way out.”
    “But that was her fault,
not theirs,” Abby argued.
    “Like that has anything to
do with whether people commit murder or not,” Dirk said. “These days, people
blow other folks away just because they look at them cross-eyed on the
freeway.”
    “And it wasn’t just
revenge,” Savannah continued. “With that kind of money, Myrna figured she’d
have a whole new life, all the money she’d ever want for new procedures to keep
her looking good, a great house, leisure time to lay out on the beach and
attract young studs who don’t mind being supported by a rich older woman. She
had it all planned out.”
    Abigail shook her head.
“She must have been a bit off her rocker, though, saving Suzette’s body,
setting it up like that in her pool house. That’s just gross and sick.”
    “You think?” Tammy laughed.
“You should see what Savannah’s got in her garage.”
    “What? What have you got?”
    “Nothing,” Savannah told
her. “Your cousin is pulling your leg.”
    “Really?”
    “Probably.”
    “You Californians are
weird,” Abby said, “I’m going back to New York City where it’s safe.”
    “Not just yet.” Savannah
gave her a smile and a wink. “Now that we’ve got this case wrapped up, it’s
time for you and me to go have ourselves some fun.”
    “Just you two?” Tammy
asked, pouting just a little.
    “Yeap, just us two.”
    “Where?” Abby wanted to
know. “Where are you taking me?”
    “Someplace special. You’ll
see.”
    “Does it have anything to
do with murders or stinky dead bodies playing solitaire alone in pool houses.”
    “No,” Dirk said from under
his baseball cap. “Savannah only does that fun stuff with me !”
    “Yes, because you’re so-o-o
special.” Savannah poked him in the ribs.
    He grabbed her and held her
in a headlock until she nabbed a bit of his midriff and pinched it hard enough
to make him howl.
    “See what I put up with,”
Tammy told Abigail, shaking her head. “We’re just a big dysfunctional family
around here. And, would you believe, those two are the parents ?”
    Abby grinned. “Looks pretty
good to me. I think I’ll visit more often.”

Chapter

25
     
     
     
    “W hat is this place?” Abigail
asked as Savannah ushered her into the tiny cubbyhole called “The Oasis.”
    “Usually, it’s your
ordinary, run-of-the-mill bar,” Savannah told her as she guided her toward the
corner of the dark little room where a slightly elevated platform was
surrounded by a circle of chairs and tables. “But not on Friday night.”
    “What happens on Friday
night?”
    “You’ll see.”
    Savannah pulled out a
chair, and Abigail sat down on it, facing the platform.
    “Actually, I