The Dead-End Job Mysteries Box Set 2

by Elaine Viets

  Phil checked the report. “It was. Lorraine Yavuz told the police she was inside the building. She said she heard the car hit the wall. I’m guessing Mark’s Monte Carlo plowed into that flat stretch of cinderblock next to the blue Dumpster.”

  “Where was Ahmet?” Helen said.

  “The report doesn’t say,” Phil said. “And the police didn’t ask. When did the drug dealer come running out? Before the shooting—or after it?”

  “Or did he fire the fatal shot?” Helen asked.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Coffee?” Phil handed Helen a warm mug. She sat up in bed and inhaled its dark, strong fragrance.

  “You think of everything.” Helen gave her new husband a love-drunk smile. “I’m glad I have you instead of one of those hardbodies at the gym.”

  “Thanks,” Phil said. “I think.” He looked down at his bare chest and said, “I’m not that flabby, am I?”

  “I meant those men are too muscular.”

  Silence.

  “Unnaturally so,” Helen added.

  “Bet that foot tastes delicious,” Phil said. “If you’d like to take it out of your mouth, I can fix you toast and eggs for breakfast.”

  “I meant it as a compliment,” Helen said. “I should know better than to make conversation before I’ve had my coffee.” She took a long drink and settled back on the pillows. “That’s better. I’m fortified with caffeine. And I don’t have to go to the gym today. I wonder how long the police will keep it closed.”

  “It’s a big homicide scene,” Phil said.

  “I’m hoping three or four days,” Helen said.

  “You may get your wish,” he said. “Maybe they’ll keep it closed long enough that those hardbodies you admire will get soft.” He kissed her, a long, slow kiss.

  “I never said I admired them,” Helen said as she pulled him back on the bed. “And what’s this about hard?”

  After another session of love, they were awakened by Thumbs, howling indignantly and demanding breakfast.

  “All right, all right, I hear you,” Helen said. “What time is it?” She checked the bedside clock. “It’s noon. No wonder Thumbs is angry.”

  “Let’s skip breakfast and go out to lunch,” Phil said. “Then we can see Gus. I want to ask him a question about Mark. Your PT Cruiser should be ready this afternoon. We can pick it up after we eat.”

  “Air-conditioning at last,” Helen said. “I’ll shower and be ready in no time.”

  Helen thought she looked good in her black dress and sandals. So did Phil, judging by his appreciative appraisal. He was wearing her favorite blue shirt. Thumbs twined around his legs while Phil poured the cat his food.

  Out by the pool, they were blasted by the noonday heat. Margery was skimming bougainvillea blossoms off the pool surface and flipping them onto the lawn with swift, expert movements. Helen thought the pile of damp purple flowers was too pretty for yard trash.

  “Good morning,” Helen called.

  “Good afternoon,” Margery said. “Off to work?”

  “Out to lunch,” Phil said. “Want to go with us?”

  “No thanks, I have a date with a rake.”

  “Sounds racy,” Helen said.

  “There’s nothing romantic about yard work,” Margery said, “though it is forever. Where are you going?”

  “Thought we might try the Fifteenth Street Fisheries,” Phil said.

  “The last time I was there, the place was overrun with tourists,” Helen said.

  “You make it sound like it has roaches,” Margery said. “They’re not an infestation. If we’re lucky, we get tourists. We live in a tourist destination. We all make our living off tourists, one way or another. We spend millions luring them down here. Then we don’t want to be around them. I don’t know why. People from the Midwest are more polite than Floridians.”

  “The New Yorkers aren’t,” Helen said.

  “Some New Yorkers,” Phil said. “I like the Big Apple variety.”

  “I said midwesterners,” Margery said. “We can debate the other states later. Midwestern tourists are polite. They’re less likely to cut you off in traffic. They’re quieter than Floridians. They don’t drink as much as we do or run around naked, except during spring break. So why do Floridians think there’s something wrong with a restaurant when the tourists go there?”

  “It’s not the tourists,” Helen said. “Restaurants cut back on the quality of the food and service if they get too many tourists. They figure the tourists won’t be back again, so they can treat them badly. A restaurant that caters to locals has to keep higher standards, all year long.”

  “The Fifteenth Street Fisheries is under new management,” Phil said. “We’ll look at the boats in the marina, have a drink and lunch.”

  “I’m finally getting my car,” Helen said.

  “That’s right, use me and cast me aside,” Margery said, grinning at them. “Get out of here, you two. I hope you fed that beast. I don’t want to listen to Thumbs yowl while you’re gone.”

  The Fifteenth Street Fisheries Restaurant was some thirty years old, a survivor by South Florida standards. The two-story Caribbeanstyle building with the cool verandas sprawled along the Lauderdale Marina. Tarpon swam near the docks, waiting for their daily feeding.

  Helen and Phil took a table with a water view and watched the sleek greenish-blue game fish dart and circle in the water. A little girl tossed a french fry in the murky water, and the fish—some nearly six feet long—fought over it. The girl squealed in delight as her cautious mother held her hand.

  Helen virtuously ordered a tomato and buffalo mozzarella salad, then swiped Phil’s french fries. At first she ate them one at a time. Now she reached for six.

  “Hey!” he said after she helped herself. “Get your own.”

  “Can’t,” she said. “They’re fattening. I have to stay in shape to keep my job.” She picked up Phil’s last fry, examined it, then put it back on the plate.

  “What’s wrong with that one?” he asked.

  “Overcooked,” she said.

  “So it’s good enough for me? Thanks a lot.”

  “Look at how I’ve saved you. There are about fourteen hundred calories on that plate,” Helen said.

  “Were,” Phil said.

  “I was only thinking of you,” Helen said. “I’m worried about your health.” She smiled at her husband. “Why do you want to talk to Gus?”

  “I want to clear up a couple of questions about his brother’s gun. The police report said Mark was right-handed. Gus confirmed that. The police said the gunshot wound was on the left side of Mark’s head.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Helen said. “Mark would have to reach around his head to shoot himself.”

  “I think the wound on the left side supports Gus’s theory that his brother was shot by someone,” Phil said. “The killer could fire into the car from the driver’s side and drop the weapon on the floorboard. Except the police recovered a shell casing from the front passenger seat.”

  “So if someone shot Mark, they’d have to run around the car and throw the shell casing on the passenger side,” Helen said.

  “Not necessarily,” Phil said. “The shell casing could have bounced or fallen onto the passenger-side seat. It could have been moved when his body was taken out of the car. Paramedics aren’t careful about preserving crime scenes. They only wanted to save Mark.”

  “That’s a reasonable explanation,” Helen said. “But if the killer shot Mark, there’s no mention in the police report of a bullet hole in the driver’s window.”

  “No. Mark must have rolled down the window,” Phil said. “That tells me Mark either knew and trusted his killer or wanted to talk to him, so he rolled down his window. Even in 1986 most cars had air-conditioning, and Mark’s Monte Carlo was only a year old.”

  “Ahmet,” Helen said. “Mark went to talk to Ahmet at his import business.”

  “I want to ask Gus if his brother had a gun,” Phil said. “
Maybe Mark wasn’t there to talk to Ahmet. What if Joel’s story was true? The dealer kept Bernie a prisoner in his house and Mark had to rescue his sister. She was still hiding at the brothers’ apartment, afraid to leave. Maybe Mark went there to kill Ahmet.”

  “Then how did Ahmet shoot Mark in the head?” Helen said.

  “That’s one more question we can’t answer,” Phil said. “It will get worse when I ask Gus about Joel’s story: Did he know his sister, Bernie, was rescued by Mark? I also suspect Mark was dealing drugs.”

  Helen winced. “You really think Mark was a drug dealer?”

  Phil nodded.

  “Those questions will shatter Gus’s last illusions about his family,” Helen said.

  “Gus will have to face a lot of painful things before this investigation is over,” Phil said as he signaled the waitress for the check. “Brace yourself. Our client may fire us.”

  Helen ate the last overcooked fry.

  CHAPTER 19

  Helen was wilting in the soupy heat as Phil’s Jeep idled in the beach-bound traffic. The salt air smelled like exhaust and warm asphalt. She hoped this was the last time she’d have to inhale that particular perfume. She couldn’t wait to drive her cool PT Cruiser.

  “What color is my new Cruiser?” Helen asked.

  “That’s a surprise,” Phil said.

  “You won’t give me a hint?” she asked.

  “We’re almost at Gus’s. You’ll find out soon enough. Besides, you said you didn’t care as long as it had air-conditioning.”

  Helen hoped it was bright red or a vibrant blue. A wicked black Cruiser would be fun. It would look like a bootlegger’s getaway car. Maybe she could put a fake bullet-hole decal on the back window. Then she remembered Mark and his real bullet wound. Bullet holes were not funny. Not now. Not with this client.

  “How much is the car costing us?” she asked.

  “It’s two years old,” Phil said, “has about fifteen thousand miles, one owner and not a scratch on it. Gus is giving it to us for eight thousand.”

  “Giving?” Helen said. “Eight grand is a lot of money for a used car.”

  “I checked the prices,” Phil said. “We’re getting a deal. He’s charging us about four thousand below what it’s worth.”

  “We’re working for Gus and we’ll wind up owing him money,” Helen said.

  “You wanted a car,” Phil said. “I got you the best deal I could.”

  “Eight thousand is not too bad,” Helen said.

  “With taxes, tags and insurance, you’d better add another two or three thousand.”

  “That wipes out our startup money,” Helen said. She was getting an old familiar feeling. “Can we afford that much?”

  “We have to,” Phil said. “If you’re going to be an equal partner, you need a car. I know it’s a scary chunk out of our stash, and neither of us has a regular paycheck.”

  “I have my job at the gym,” Helen said.

  “Which will be over as soon as our case is finished,” Phil said.

  “New clients aren’t lining up at our door. So we have to be careful for a while. But this is a justifiable expense. We have to spend money to make money.”

  “I have a little money tucked away in a St. Louis account that we can use now that the terms of my divorce have changed.”

  “A little?” Phil said. “You have three hundred thousand dollars stashed there.”

  “But no money coming in,” Helen said. “And I still have to work out my problems with the IRS and pay the lawyers.”

  “You don’t owe that much,” Phil said.

  That old feeling was growing darker, blacker and more threatening, like an approaching storm system. Soon it would become a constant, full-blown worry. Helen had lived with many kinds of worries: the vague unhappiness when she had a dull, well-paid corporate job that ate up her life and gave her nothing but money. The ferocious anger when she’d discovered her husband, Rob, was unfaithful. Heck, she didn’t discover it. She stumbled over her buck-naked husband doing the wild thing with their next-door neighbor Sandy. Helen had picked up a nearby crowbar and hurt the one Rob loved most—his SUV. Rob had wept real tears over that loss, and Helen hadn’t felt one bit better.

  Her dull anger morphed into blind rage when the divorce judge gave her ex-husband, Rob, half of her future income—a rage so ferocious that she fled St. Louis. Helen had driven around the country in hate-crazed lunges—over to Kansas, then south until she finally landed in Fort Lauderdale, nearly broke and jobless.

  There she’d learned to live with a different worry: fear ate away at her while she struggled to avoid her ex. She swore Rob would never see a nickel of her money, and she’d kept that vow—at a terrible cost. She’d give every cent she had, plus all her future earnings, if her worthless, blood-sucking ex were alive again.

  Now Helen lived with the fear that Rob’s body would be discovered, but that was a worry she could bury deep—just like Rob. She hadn’t killed her ex. He’d died accidentally. Her innocent nephew, Tommy Junior, swung his bat and hit Uncle Rob when he attacked Helen. Helen and her sister, Kathy, had begged Rob to go to the emergency room, but the man had refused. He wasn’t going to the ER because a ten-year-old smacked him in the head with a bat. Rob died. Helen’s innocent nephew would have to live with a burden he didn’t deserve, all because of Rob’s selfish, careless decision.

  Helen had wanted to call the police and say that she killed Rob, but her sister, Kathy, refused. She was afraid her son would confess that he’d hit Uncle Rob, and Tommy Junior would be branded for life as a killer, teased by thoughtless classmates, mocked and shunned until he became an outcast. Helen and Kathy had both seen an innocent classmate ruined that way.

  So Helen swore she’d never tell anyone what really happened, not even Phil.

  Now she lived with that decision daily. It had become part of her marriage, an unwelcome third party. Helen had pledged herself to Phil for better or for worse, and this was bad. She felt like she’d broken her vows before she’d even married Phil. She’d dragged her dead ex into their life.

  Still, she couldn’t sacrifice her nephew. Helen had had to choose between blood and love, and blood won. She’d buried that fear so deeply, even she couldn’t bear to acknowledge it, but it was always there, a dark shadow beside her. Sometimes she wondered why Phil couldn’t see it.

  Now she was facing a familiar fear, the one she’d learned to live with after she’d quit her high-paying job and went on the run—the fear of not having enough money. The fear of living with no comforting paycheck. At least this fear was well-known. It moved in again, like a houseguest who didn’t know when to leave. Worrying about money added another shade of gray to her world, but Helen could live with this dreary problem. She’d endured it for more than two years before she married Phil. Heck, most of America lived with it.

  Phil brought her back to the present and the traffic jam on Federal Highway. “Helen, we’ll be okay. Margery hasn’t raised our rent in years,” he said. “She’s giving us the Coronado Investigations office for a dollar a month. We’re not going to be thrown out on the street tomorrow. You worry too much.”

  And Phil refused to worry. Helen thought that was another fault.

  “I have to worry for two,” she said.

  He put his arm around her, drew her near and kissed her forehead. “Then find a real worry. We don’t have any credit card debt, just the utility bills. We only have to feed ourselves and the cat.”

  “He’s a fat cat,” Helen said, but she couldn’t help smiling.

  “Forty percent of the homes in Broward County have underwater mortgages,” he said. “How many of the people stuck in this traffic jam are worse off than we are?”

  Helen studied the parade of painted snails stranded on the highway.

  “How about that woman in the red Mercedes?” Phil said. “She looks prosperous, but she could be in debt up to her designer sunglasses. And that poor guy in the rusty dark blue Datsun. Wonder if h
e’s seen a process server on his doorstep.”

  Those cars inched forward and the Datsun driver honked at them. Helen sat up and straightened her black dress. Phil waved at the Datsun and moved forward.

  Now the Jeep was next to a silver convertible packed with shirtless, sunburned students. Loud bass blasted from its speakers. Three guys clutched beer cans, and two blondes in bikinis sat on their laps. The wind blew the telltale odor of burning leaves Helen’s way. Party time. If this traffic jam went on much longer, she and Phil would have a contact high.

  What about you, kids? she wondered. Are you in debt already for school? Or will your troubles begin later, when you’re further down the road? The party car moved past them, and Phil said, “Get ready, Helen. As soon as we cross these railroad tracks, we’ll be at Boy Toys Restoration. There’s Gus, working on an old black Imperial. Look at that amazing beast.”

  The Imperial was as big and square as Kansas. The fenders were draped with protective cloth, like a patient undergoing surgery. Gus had his hands in the Imperial’s guts. He looked up, saw the Jeep bouncing over the tracks, wiped his oily hands on a rag and waved.

  Helen caught the first glimpse of her new car, parked in front. It wasn’t red, black, silver or even a cool blue. To Helen, it seemed older people drove cars this color. Even Margery, a woman who never showed her true years, had that one telltale sign of age.

  “It’s so ... white,” Helen said, hoping she kept the disappointment out of her voice.

  “The official color is stone white,” Gus said proudly. He opened the door and started the engine. “The interior is slate gray. It’s loaded with extras—bucket seats, air bags and tinted glass to make it even cooler in summer.”

  I said I didn’t care how it looked, Helen told herself. I only wanted a car with air-conditioning. I didn’t want to trudge around the used-car lots. I got what I wanted.

  Gus and Phil grinned, proud as new parents.

  “Wait till you feel that cooling system,” Gus said. “Sit down.”

  Phil virtually pushed her into the seat.