Corpse Suzette (16 page)

“I don’t. But
she
does, and that’s all that matters.”

“Deception. I didn’t know
you had it in you, Tam.”

She chuckled. “I didn’t,
but I’ve been hanging out with you. It’s contagious and you’re a carrier.”

“That’s true. If liars’
pants really did catch on fire, I’d be buying new drawers five times a week.”

Chapter

T
he ride to Emerge with
Abigail was a bit more pleasant than usual for Savannah. Abigail had brightened
considerably at the prospect of spending time with Jeremy Lawrence. She was
somewhat less morose, and considering it was Abigail, “less morose” qualified
as “darned near giddy” in Savannah’s book.

And the moment they arrived
and entered the building, a swarm of friendly Emerge employees, including
Jeremy Lawrence, descended on Abigail and rushed her away into the luxurious
and mysterious recesses of the spa.

In less than two minutes,
they disappeared and Savannah found herself alone in the lobby with only Myrna
for company.

And Myrna wasn’t all that
sociable. In fact, she was downright standoffish.

She returned to her desk
and busied herself there, shuffling papers, sticking them into a folder, and
ignoring Savannah entirely.

Savannah followed her and
sat, unbidden, on one of the chairs next to her desk. “That was so sweet of you
guys, arranging this whole day of beauty for Abigail. I think it’ll do her a
world of good.”

Myrna didn’t reply, just
continued to mess with her papers, a look of anger mixed with hurt on her face.

Savannah wondered what
might have happened to change the climate so quickly. When they had spoken on
the phone less than an hour ago, Myrna had been her usual warm and friendly
self. Now things had gone from warm to frosty and Savannah had to find out why.

“Is everything okay,
Myrna?” she asked. “Have I upset or offended you in some way?”

“You mean, by lying to me,
telling me you’re a reporter when you’re really a private investigator?”

Oh, that.
Savannah cursed herself
for not telling Myrna herself. It was always worse if they heard it from
someone else.

“I’m sorry, Myrna.
Sometimes in my line of work, I’m not always honest with people. It’s a part of
the job that I’m uncomfortable with. Especially when I’m dealing with someone I
like, I’d rather be forthcoming.”

Myrna stared down at a
folder on her desk. “You could have told me. If you could tell somebody like
Devon, you could have told me. I thought you and I were girlfriends.”

“I didn’t confide in Devon
as a buddy,” Savannah said. “I had to tell her because I was with Sergeant
Coulter when he went out to inform her of Sergio’s death. And I’d still like to
be friends with you, if you can forgive me for that deception.”

Myrna looked up at her, the
anger in her eyes softening. “Is there anything else you need to tell me?
Anything else you might have lied... or been deceptive about?”

“No. That’s it. Really.”

“Okay.” She took a deep
breath. “Then let’s start over.”

“Done!” Savannah glanced
down at Myrna’s desk, at the one and only folder there. It had Abigail’s name
on it. “Not a lot going on, I guess,” she said.

“Next to nothing. We’re
going to close the doors for good tomorrow. With Suzette gone and Sergio dead,
there doesn’t seem to be any reason to go through the motions anymore. That’s
why we figured we’d go all out for Abigail today. Might as well start and
finish Emerge with panache.”

“And how about Mystic
Twilight? What’s going to happen to that spa?”

“Same thing. It was about
to fold anyway. Closing will just be a formality at this point. It’s all very
sad.”

“Do you have any leads on
another job?”

“No,” Myrna said sadly.
“Everybody wants nineteen-year-olds at the front desk at these clinics. Maybe
I’ll retire. Move to Florida and spend my time lying in the sun.”

“There are worse ways to
spend the rest of your life, that’s for sure.”

Myrna reached beneath her
desk and took out a small box. “I just need to pack up a few things here,” she
said, “and then I’m off to... well... the rest of my life, as you say.”

She opened a drawer and
began to load personal items into the box: nail polish, makeup, sugarless gum
and mints, some costume jewelry, and a few pictures.

Savannah reached for one of
the snapshots. “May I?”

“Sure.”

It was a picture of a white
poodle, holding a small black teddy bear in his teeth. The teddy bear was
wearing a bright red and green plaid vest and looked a bit ragged around the
edges. Savannah could swear that the dog was grinning.

“That’s Sammy,” Myrna said,
“and Baby.”

“Baby?”

“The teddy bear’s name is
Baby. I taught Sammy the cutest trick with it. You say, ‘Sammy go get your
baby,’ and he’ll run and get it. Then you say, ‘Sam, love your baby,’ and he
growls and shakes it like it’s a rat. It’s hysterical. Sammy lo-o-oves Baby.”

Myrna collapsed into
giggles, but Savannah continued to stare at the picture. “He’s really attached
to it, huh?”

“Oh yes. Suzette always
took Sammy with her, everywhere she went. Everywhere! And wherever Sam went,
Baby went. If she tried to leave the house without the bear, Sam would stand by
the door and bark until she brought it, too.”

Savannah mentally retraced
her steps when she had searched Suzette’s house. Both times. She was pretty
sure she would have remembered a teddy bear wearing a red and green plaid vest.

So, Suzette wasn’t allowed
to leave the house without Baby, huh? Interesting. One more reason to consider
that maybe Suzette had staged her own disappearance after all. Leave the dog’s
collar out in a conspicuous place, but take his favorite toy.

She’d have to mention that
to Dirk when she checked with him next.

Thoughts of Dirk brought
her back to the business at hand. “Myrna, I need to ask you about something.”

“As a reporter, or a
private investigator?”

“Touché. As a plain old
P.I. who’s no longer technically on the job, but eternally curious.”

“Okay. Ask away.”

“Who has keys to the
medicine cabinet? The one there in Exam Room One, where Nurse Bridget takes
blood samples.”

“Keys? Well, let me see.
Sergio and Suzette, of course. And Bridget. And Yasmina.”

“Who’s Yasmina?”

“Our anesthesiologist.”

“Why haven’t I seen her
around?”

“She hasn’t been here
because we haven’t had any surgeries scheduled.”

“Who else?”

“Well, I have a key that I
keep here in my desk.” She opened the bottom drawer and pointed to a small key
that was fastened to the side of the drawer with a piece of cellophane tape.
“We keep one here, just in case somebody loses or forgets theirs and needs to
get something out of the cabinet.”

“And who knows that one is
there?”

“Pretty much everybody, I
guess.”

Savannah sighed.
Everybody
,
she thought.
Boy, that narrows the list—not at all.

“So, tell me more about
this anesthesiologist, Yasmina.”

“She’s fantastic at what
she does.
She
won’t have a problem getting work at another clinic. A
bunch of Beverly Hills surgeons have been after her for years, trying to lure
her away from Suzette.”

“Do you suppose I could
speak to her sometime soon?”

“You could talk to her
today, but as I said before, she isn’t here. She’s at Mystic Twilight, also
packing up her things.”

Mystic Twilight,
Savannah thought.
I
need to check that place out anyway.
“Could we maybe call her there? See if
she’ll talk to me and if she’ll hang around long enough for me to get out
there.”

“Sure. I’ll give her a call
right now and you can ask her.” She gave Savannah a funny little smile.
“Anything for a girlfriend.”

Dr. Yasmina La Rue sounded
like a sweetheart over the phone, with a soft, Caribbean accent and a chuckle
in her voice. But she also sounded like she meant it when she told Savannah,
“I’d be happy to talk to you, dear, but once I’m packed, I’m leaving Mystic
Twilight for good. You’d better hurry.”

So Savannah didn’t dawdle
about getting into the Mustang and heading into the foothills east of town. She
called Dirk on her cell phone and gave him the news.

“Where are you?” she asked
him.

“Just approaching the city
limits. I got done in Santa Barbara a little early. Why?”

“I’m headed for the Mystic
Twilight spa in Hidden Canyon. I have a personal invitation from Suzette’s
anesthesiologist, a lady named Yasmina La Rue. Have you been there yet?” she
asked him.

“No. The staff there at
Emerge told me that nobody has been around there for a couple of weeks now, so
I didn’t bother. Did you check out the keys there at Emerge... who had them,
who didn’t?”

“They all had one or had
access to one. Everybody and their uncle’s dog’s first cousin. Nothing there.”

“All right. You want me to
come out there with you?”

“Not particularly. I’m just
going to poke around. If I see anything interesting, I’ll give you a buzz.”

“Okay. I’m going to go back
to the morgue and see if Dr. Liu has anything else for me.”

“Give Kenny Slug Breath my
regards.”

“A one-finger salute?”

“Exactly.”

“Will do.”

Savannah was upon Mystic
Twilight before she knew it. Rounding a sharp curve about a mile into the
canyon, she saw the entrance, a paved road with a discreet sign with a fancy,
intertwined M and T.

She turned onto the road
and traveled another half mile or more between old gnarled oaks in a park-like
setting.

As always, when venturing
into one of these canyons that were scattered among the hills of Southern
California, Savannah felt a strange mixture of peace and unease. With her car
window rolled down, she experienced the place with all of her senses. The
ancient oaks, the smell of wild sage in the air, the taste of dust, the feel of
the hot sun and dry wind on her skin, the sounds of birds, frogs, and crickets,
along with a distant rush of a creek over its rocky bed; she felt she had
stepped back in time.

The Native Americans had
considered these valleys sacred, forbidden ground. And when she was there, she
felt like a careless interloper... as though the land itself was somehow aware
of her. Aware, and not particularly hospitable toward her.

She always breathed a sigh
of relief when she left the valleys and returned to her own stomping grounds by
the sea.

Rounding yet another
corner, she saw the spa, a large, square, flat-roofed building that looked like
it belonged in Morocco, not sunny California.

The exterior walls were
stucco, painted a dark, terra-cotta. Mature palm trees planted all around the
building added to the feeling that it was some sort of desert oasis.

As she pulled up in front,
she saw that a man-made stream crossed in front of the edifice, styled to look
like the natural creek beds in the area.

The front door was an
elaborate, arched, wrought iron affair, surrounded by colorful tiles of deep
blue and gold... more of the Moroccan influence.

She left the Mustang and
walked up to the door. She hurt her knuckles knocking on the door, and no one
answered. Gingerly, she gave it a push, and it creaked open with a spookiness
that she might have found delicious under other circumstances. But having just
seen a dead guy and knowing that a woman was missing, she wasn’t in the mood
for “creepy.”

“Hello?” she shouted.
“Anybody here? Yasmina? It’s Savannah Reid. Yoo-hoo.”

As her eyes adjusted from
the bright sunlight outside to the dark interior, she saw that the entrance was
at least two stories tall, as well as wide and deep. More of the blue and gold
tiles covered the walls and were arranged in ornate patterns on the floor. In
the center of the room was a massive fountain, but it was dry and looked as
though it hadn’t run for a long time.

Three hallways branched off
from the entry, heading in numerous directions. And each hall was even darker
than the entrance.

Savannah wasn’t eager to go
roaming and exploring, even if that was the job description.

Mentally, she checked her
weapon, chose one of the hallways, and headed down it.

Big girls aren't afraid of
the dark,
she told herself.

Well, Sergio probably
wasn't afraid of the dark either, and look at where that got him. He’s in a
drawer in Dr. Liu’s morgue with an autopsy “Y” incision on his chest,
her self replied.

“Anybody here?” she called
again.

Her voice echoed off the
tiles and came back to her, sounding a bit less confident than she wanted to
feel. In fact, she sounded scared... and she wasn’t sure why.

It wasn’t just the dark.
The dark felt ominous somehow. And the building didn’t feel empty.