And now he was actively
seeking employment or business opportunities elsewhere. That could be
suspicious. With Suzette still missing, it might seem a bit premature to assume
that she wasn’t coming back, that he needed another place to work. Unless, of
course, he knew something that others didn’t.
Tammy took a mug of cocoa,
walked over to the desk and sat down. Turning on Sergio’s laptop, she motioned
to John. “You should come look at what I found,” she said, “thanks to that
awesome forensic software you loaned me.”
Both John and Ryan hurried
over to the desk and leaned over her shoulders.
“What did you find?”
Savannah asked. “I didn’t know you found something.”
“Well, it isn’t a 7.6 on
the Richter scale, but I thought it was interesting.” Tammy typed away on the
keyboard for a minute or so, then said,
“Voila
! There it is.”
Savannah squeezed into a
spot beside Ryan. “What? What is it?”
“Ah!” John said. “I see!”
“Wow, look at that!” Ryan
added.
“I thought you’d like it.”
Tammy beamed up at them, terribly proud of herself.
“What in Sam Hill are you
guys talking about?” Savannah said, staring at the screen. All she could see
was a long list of words, abbreviations, and symbols that made no sense at all
to her.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Savannah,”
John said. “We computer nerds forget that not everyone is as savvy about this
foolishness as we might be, because—”
“What is it, plee-ease?”
Savannah held in a scream. “Speak to me in English! Now!”
“Simply put, someone was
messing with Sergio’s computer behind his back,” Ryan told her. “They installed
a special program into his notebook here, probably without his knowledge, that
would record every single keystroke he made when he used it. At a later time,
the person who placed the program there in the first place could retrace his
keystrokes, see everything he’d typed, every online site he visited, etcetera.”
John nodded. “It’s a
program that’s used by parents who want to see what their children are looking
at online; who they’re talking to.”
“And,” Tammy added, “it can
be used by employers who want to know what their employees are doing on company
time: if they’re working, playing video games, or looking at naughty pictures.”
Ryan said, “Many a cheating
spouse has been caught by these, emailing their honeys, setting up dates or
whatever. Or maybe a hubby has sworn off his pornography addiction and his wife
wants to know if he’s fallen off the wagon or not.”
“Can you tell who put the
program in there?” Savannah asked.
“Not who, but when,” Tammy
told her. “It was installed about a year ago.”
“If it was a year ago, I’d
vote for the wife... or perhaps I should I say ‘girlfriend.’ That’s about the
time Suzette kicked Sergio out of the house. I’ll bet you it had something to
do with this program. She probably nailed him with other women, using that
program.”
“And get this,” Tammy
added. “It was uninstalled. That’s why I couldn’t find it before. It was
uninstalled and all files relating to it deleted. With this new program of
yours I was able to dig it out. This thing rules!”
“I’m so glad it’s helping,”
John said. “And you’ll find as you work with it, you’ll be able to uncover even
more. It’s the equivalent of going through someone’s personal garbage.”
“Without getting potato
peels, tomato sauce, and kitty litter all over you,” Savannah said, recalling
some of her less favorite searches.
“Hey,” Tammy said, leaning
forward and studying the screen. “I just noticed something else. Something that
could be important.”
“What’s that?” Savannah
asked.
“As I said, the snooper’s
program was uninstalled and all the pertaining files deleted. I can see right
here when that was done.”
“When?”
Tammy looked up at
Savannah. She lifted one eyebrow. “It was done three days ago.”
Savannah caught her breath
for a moment, then nodded. “Yeap, three days ago was the day our old buddy
Sergio kicked the bucket.”
Chapter
W
hen Savannah hurried into
the kitchen to tell Dirk about the snooper software on Sergio’s computer, she
found him exactly where and how she’d left him, his arms folded on the table,
his head on them. He looked like an over-sized kindergartner taking a “rest
break.”
And while Dirk might be a
bit lazy from time to time when it came to domestic chores like cleaning or
microwaving a TV dinner, he never slacked on the job. He lived for his work,
and he tended to be a pit bull when it came to never letting go until the job
was done.
He had to be sick.
She walked over to him and
put her hand on his shoulder. Giving him a gentle shake, she said, “Hey, buddy.
You asleep?”
His only response was a
muffled groan.
“Dirk?” She ran her fingers
though his hair. “Sugar, you okay?”
He raised his head slightly
and looked up at her with glassy eyes. “I don’t think so,” he muttered. “To be
honest, I feel like shit.”
“To be honest, you look a
bit like dog poo, too. Here, let me feel your head.”
She laid her hand across
his forehead and was not surprised at how hot he was. “You’ve got a fever, big
boy,” she told him. “You’re sick.”
“I don’t get sick when I’m
on a case, and especially not a homicide.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, you’d
better revise that motto of yours, ’cause you’re burnin’ up with fever there.”
“I’m just tired and run
down. I’ll be all right.”
“Yes, I’m sure you will be,
once Dr. Savannah has taken care of you. I’m going to get you some aspirin to
bring that fever down and put you in bed.”
Dirk squinted at his watch.
“It’s six o’clock. I ain’t going to bed at six. I was going to go back over to
Du Bois’s place and—”
“I was going myself
anyway,” Savannah said. “I’ll go for both of us, and you’re staying home. I
reckon you caught your death o’ cold, standing out in that rain today. You’re
not going out in it again.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Over my dead body, boy.”
He started to rise from his
chair, but she put one hand on his shoulder and shoved him back down. She was
surprised at how easily he complied.
Dirk was many things.
Compliant wasn’t one of them.
“What’s going on in here?”
Ryan asked as he and John walked into the room just in time to see the
mini-skirmish.
“Dirk’s sick,” she said.
“He’s been running himself ragged, and he’s plumb worn out. He’s got a fever.
I’m going to give him some aspirin and put him to bed.”
“So she says,” Dirk
mumbled.
John leaned over Dirk,
studying him closely. “Any other symptoms?” he asked Savannah.
“Other than general
cussedness and standard orneriness... just fatigue and fever.”
“I’ve known several people
who’ve come down with something like this lately,” Ryan said. “It’ll knock you
off your feet for weeks if you don’t nip it in the bud early.”
He looked at John, and they
both nodded.
“Fix him up, John, like you
did me,” he said.
Dirk scowled. “What? What
are you talking about? Fix me up how?”
John left the table and
walked over to the kitchen counter where Savannah kept a perpetually full bowl
of fresh fruit. He picked out a large orange.
“Savannah,” he said, “be a
dear and get me some whole cloves, your sugar bowl, and your finest Irish
whiskey. I’m going to make the lad a hot toddy.”
“I ain’t drinkin’ when I’m
on the job,” Dirk said, but he was scowling a bit less and his bleary eyes reflected
more than a passing interest.
“I’m making you an Irish
toddy, and by god, you’ll drink it and like it,” John replied.
As Savannah searched her
relatively sparse liquor cabinet for whiskey, John set to work, heating water
on the stove and cutting the orange crosswise, then studding the thin slices
with the cloves.
He dissolved a couple of
spoonfuls of sugar in a cup of steaming water and floated a few of the orange
slices on the top, then added an obscene amount of the whiskey to the mixture.
He took it to Dirk and set
the mug in front of him on the table. “Drink up, old chap,” he said. “It’s the
cure for the common cold. Works in twelve hours. You’ll be a new man by
tomorrow morning, I assure you.”
Dirk lifted the mug and
sniffed it. “Really?”
“Well,” Ryan said, “let’s
put it this way: If it doesn’t cure what ails you, at least you won’t mind
being sick half as much.”
Dirk took a sip, grimaced,
and looked up at John, who was leaning over him with a parental, no nonsense
expression on his face.
“Drink it down,” John said.
“Now.”
Dirk did as he was told,
and even licked his lips afterward. “It’s not really all that bad,” he said.
“In fact, it’s pretty kickass.”
Ryan laughed and turned to
Savannah. “We’d better get him upstairs and in bed right away,” he told her.
“That stuff’s going to kick
his
ass any second now, and then he’ll be
dead weight.”
And Ryan wasn’t
exaggerating. By the time the three of them had Dirk up the stairs, peeled down
to his skivvies, and tucked between Savannah’s pink satin sheets, he was too
looped to even resist.
But, being Dirk, he managed
to complain at least a little during the process. “I don’t want no gay guys
undressing me,” he said as Ryan removed his shoes and Savannah tugged his jeans
off.
“Oh, hush up,” Savannah
told him. “Ain’t nobody here interested in what you’ve got. And you’re not
getting into my clean bed in those dirty, damp clothes.”
John grabbed the hem of
Dirk’s Harley tee-shirt and yanked it over his head. “Not to worry, Dirk, old
lad. Ryan and I can resist ravishing such a fine model of manhood as yourself.”
He chuckled. “ ’Tis a hardship, to be sure, but we’ll bear up.”
True to her word, Savannah
wasted no time once dinner was finished and hurried over to Suzette Du Bois’s
house. In her hand she had a checklist of the things Dirk had wanted her to
cover: numbers on her phone’s caller ID, last number dialed, and numbers
programmed for speed dial. She also needed to pick up Suzette’s address book
and look again for any sort of diary or journal.
To satisfy her own
curiosity, she intended also to look for a certain black teddy bear wearing a
green and red plaid vest... the toy named “Baby” without which Sammy Du Bois
never left the house.
It was still pouring rain
when she pulled up in front of the house, and she made a dash for the front
door. The feel of the cold rain on her skin brought back less-than-fond
memories of the funeral earlier in the day. No wonder Dirk had gotten sick.
“Depressing” and “cold” were a bad combination, especially when mixed with
“exhausted.”
She was a little worried
about him. But his fever had broken before she left, and Tammy had promised to
check on him every hour or so until she returned, so she wasn’t overly
concerned.
She unlocked the door with
the house keys she had nabbed out of Dirk’s leather jacket pocket and let
herself into the house. This time she went ahead and flipped on the foyer
lights. With Dirk’s expressed permission, she wasn’t exactly breaking and
entering this time.
And while convenient, she
had to admit it was a little less exciting.
Until she saw' the light on
in the living room and heard someone stirring in there.
Instinctively, she reached
inside her raincoat and unsnapped her Beretta’s holster.
A moment later, a woman walked
out of the living room and into the foyer. She looked Savannah up and down,
then said, “May I help you?”
Savannah recognized the
platinum blonde, even without the big sunglasses she had been wearing at the
funeral. She was Suzette Du Bois’s sister.
Savannah took her hand out
of her raincoat and held it out to the woman. “My name is Savannah Reid,” she
told her. “I’m investigating your sister’s disappearance with Sergeant Coulter.
He asked me to drop by over here and check a couple of things. I hope I’m not
disturbing you.”
“I’m Clare Du Bois,” the
woman replied, accepting Savannah’s outstretched hand and giving it a brief
shake. “No, you aren’t disturbing me. I was just...” Her voice broke as she
waved a hand toward the living room. “...looking at some family pictures.”
“I’m so sorry... about your
sister,” Savannah said, avoiding the customary words
for your loss.
Her
loss wasn’t exactly established just yet, although Savannah figured it was
probably only a matter of time.
Clare’s eyes misted with
tears, and she nodded graciously. “Thank you. I’m sure she’ll turn up, but it’s
hard waiting.”
“I’m sure it must be just
awful.” Savannah thought of her own sisters in Georgia. While some of them
could be a major ache in the rump from time to time, she would be beside
herself if any of them went missing for any length of time. “Is there anything
I can do for you?”
“Just find her for me.”
“We’re trying. Really, we
are.”
Clare turned and walked
back into the living room. Savannah followed her.
She noticed that the
clutter on the coffee table had been swept aside and several photo albums were
lying open on it.
It occurred to her that,
under the circumstances, she might be able to get more out of Suzette’s sister
than Dirk had been able to do earlier. There was nothing quite like old family
photos to open the memory floodgates.
“May I sit with you for a
moment?” Savannah asked her. “I’m tired myself, after the funeral today, what
with the rain and all. You must be exhausted.”
“I am,” Clare said. “I hate
funerals. Even if I’m not all that...” Her voice trailed away as though she had
reconsidered the wisdom of such candor. She sat down on the sofa and crossed
her hands demurely in her lap.
Savannah took a moment to
glance over the woman, taking in her expensive and beautifully tailored suit. A
cream-colored wool, it set off her blond hair and ivory skin to perfection. Her
jewelry was one simple gold circle pin and button earrings. She wore an
enormous diamond ring, but it was on her right hand. Her left was bare.
She was a pretty woman,
probably in her late forties, which would have made her a few years older than
Suzette. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, and Savannah wondered if
the tears had been for Sergio or Suzette or both.
Savannah searched her face
for any resemblance to either the Marilyn-Monroe-look-alike photo she had seen
in the bedroom or DMV photo of Suzette that Dirk had shown her. The basic
facial structure was the same: high cheekbones, a strong yet feminine jawline.
But there, the similarities ended.
“May I get you a glass of
water?” Savannah asked. “Or maybe make you a cup of coffee or tea?”
Clare shook her head. “No,
thank you. I wouldn’t ask anyone to go into that kitchen. My sister, she’s a
wonderful person, but housekeeping has never been her forte. I was going to
clean it up, but I started looking at these...” she pointed to the photo
albums, “…and I got waylaid.”
“It’s probably just as
well,” Savannah said. “I think Detective Coulter would prefer if we just leave
things as they are, for the time being.”
Clare’s eyes widened. “Oh,
it’s okay that I came in, isn’t it? There wasn’t any of that yellow tape the
police use across the door, saying I shouldn’t.”
“No, it isn’t cordoned
off,” Savannah said. “There’s no evidence that it’s a crime scene.”
At the
moment,
she added silently. “So, if it’s all right with your sister that
you’re in her house, it’s okay with him, I’m sure.”
Clare looked even sadder.
“I don’t know if it’s all right with her or not. I know where she keeps her
extra key... under the big brown rock in the petunia bed, but I don’t know if
I’m really welcome to be here or not.”
Savannah nodded. “Detective
Coulter mentioned that the two of you have been estranged for a while.”
“It’s been a little over a
year now since I saw her,” Clare said. She reached over and picked up the
largest of the albums. Taking out one of the snapshots, she looked at it with a
sweet, sad, loving expression on her face. “I miss her. Suzette and I were
always very close.”
“If you don’t mind me
asking... what happened?”
“He
happened.” Suddenly,
Clare’s face went hard and her eyes cold. “That piece of crap that we buried
today.
He
happened.”
“Oh. I see.” Of course, she
didn’t see, and Savannah wasn’t sure exactly what to say in the face of such
sudden vehemence. But this was definitely a conversational road she wanted to
travel. “I was no big fan of Sergio’s,” she said choosing her words carefully.
“And I can understand that you might not be either.”
“I went to his funeral
today just to make sure that he’s dead. That’s the only reason I was there
today in the rain, listening to all those lies about what a great human being
he was. I wanted to see that he’s dead and buried, once and for all.”