The Dead-End Job Mysteries Box Set 2

by Elaine Viets

  Helen checked the Cruiser’s dashboard clock again. 8:59. Was that clock broken? she wondered. She glanced at her watch and the same time taunted her.

  Finally, the dashboard clock flipped over to nine o’clock. Helen tensed. Phil looked more alert.

  Where was Kathy?

  She checked her watch again. That time was still 8:59. When her wristwatch clicked over to nine o’clock, Kathy’s minivan slowed and approached the strip mall drive. The tubby blue vehicle lumbered onto the pitted driveway, then stopped beside the blue Dumpster. The engine sounded like a sewing machine. Kathy rolled down her window.

  Helen waited, hardly daring to breathe.

  What’s taking my sister so long? she wondered. Does she need help lifting the heavy money bag?

  Helen forced herself to remain in her seat. Finally, she saw the bag shoved through the driver’s window. It landed on the empty Dumpster with a booming thud.

  Helen breathed a loud sigh of relief. Phil’s face twitched.

  Kathy drove slowly around the back of the strip mall, flipped on her blinker and eased into the traffic.

  Enjoy your cosmo, Little Sis, Helen thought. It was 9:02.

  Where was the blackmailer? How long would he leave that much cash sitting out in the open? A homeless man could have the luckiest find of his life. A curious shopper at the drugstore could wander over and check out the bulging bag on the Dumpster. The pale, sturdy cloth bag glowed like a beacon in the dark.

  Helen wanted to tell Phil she was worried, but after a look at his grim face, she didn’t dare. Instead, she studied the scene behind the sparkling windows at Jackie’s Fine Eats.

  The lone diner at the back table signaled the server for the check, put down some bills and stood up. The server hurried over to take his money, counted the bills and shook her head. Then she cleared the table. The mopping man made his way to that section.

  It was 9:04.

  Now the last customer was outside. He walked with a limp. Helen still couldn’t guess his age or see his face, just his pear-shaped body in khaki pants and a dark T-shirt. His hair was conventionally short and either very thin or receding.

  The man limped past the two silver cars in the restaurant lot to the curb, then looked both ways. He waited for a break in the traffic, then limped awkwardly across the first three lanes of Manchester, dragging his right leg. He barely made it to the concrete median before the next rush of traffic.

  “Phil!” Helen said. “Look! I think that man standing on the median is heading this way. Is he our blackmailer?”

  Phil craned his neck.

  “Could be,” he said. “Or he might be a diner who parked at the drugstore because he couldn’t find a spot at the restaurant.”

  It was 9:07.

  “The blackmailer has to pick up that bag soon,” Helen said. “That much money can’t just sit there.”

  “The blackmailer’s probably parked in this lot,” Phil said. “That would make more sense. Manchester is dangerous to cross, especially if you have trouble walking fast.”

  He peered at the man on the median. “Maybe that is the blackmailer,” he said. “He may not want to risk driving into the strip mall. That cash has been sitting on the Dumpster a long time.”

  There was a short break in the stream of traffic. The limping man stepped off the median, then hurriedly tried to hop back on it. A passing Honda honked angrily as he landed safely on the concrete.

  “That was close,” Phil said. “That last car nearly flattened him.”

  “I can’t see his face yet,” Helen said. “But I think it’s Lee Cook, the neighbor who had knee surgery. They’re both built like bowling pins.”

  “Could be the grandson who broke his leg,” Phil said.

  “No, he looks too fat to be the grandson,” Helen said. And we’re having a real conversation, she thought, but tamped down that hope.

  “You didn’t see Matt’s class photo,” Phil said. “He’s been porking out on Grandma’s cookies.”

  “And drinking beer,” Helen said. “Don’t forget that DUI.”

  Suddenly, the three eastbound lanes were empty. Helen saw the man step off the curb and run across Manchester. He wasn’t exactly running. It was more like a limping lunge. But he made it across before the next fleet of cars barreled down.

  He limped faster now that he was safe and hop-limped up the drive.

  “It’s the blackmailer!” Helen said. “He’s heading straight for the Dumpster.”

  His head was turned so Helen couldn’t see his face. Phil cracked his door, ready to pounce.

  “Careful,” Helen said. “He’ll see us when you open your door.”

  “No, he won’t,” Phil said. “I unscrewed the dome light while you were getting dressed this afternoon.”

  Just then, the man turned toward them.

  “Oh. My. God,” Helen whispered. “It can’t be.”

  But it was.

  “Rob,” she said.

  “A badly damaged Rob, overweight and crippled,” Phil said.

  “Look how he’s favoring his right arm,” Helen said. “That whole side seems partly paralyzed. Tommy’s crack on the head with his bat did some serious damage.”

  “Unless it was the premature burial,” Phil said.

  “Rob’s sick, too,” Helen said. “His color is bad. He’s pale as lard.”

  “Sh!” Phil said. “Get ready. It’s time.”

  They both eased out of the Cruiser and silently stole across the short strip of grass as Rob clumsily grabbed the money bag off the Dumpster with his left hand. The bag was so heavy, Rob staggered under its weight.

  He scuttled down the drive with his prize. Rob reminded Helen of a fish hawk she’d seen, trying to fly off with a fat, struggling fish. The bird nearly drowned trying to hang on to its prey.

  Rob could hardly walk, but he wasn’t going to let go of his prize.

  Phil stepped out in front of Rob. “Can I help you with that?” he asked.

  Helen came up beside him and grabbed the bag.

  “I’ll take that,” she said. “It’s mine.”

  Rob looked stunned. He stood there, staring. Helen couldn’t pry the bag out of his fingers, but she had a good grip on the handles.

  Then her ex seemed to recover from his shock. His small eyes lit with malice. “Well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t Auntie Helen and her new squeeze.”

  His voice was flat and hard. “Hey, Phil, she still make that little moan when you stick it in her? I would have dumped her years ago, except for that sound. It was a real turn-on.

  “But you won’t be getting any once she’s in jail, will you? And dear little Tommy will be motherless. The ugly sisters are going to jail for attempted murder.”

  “No, they’re not,” Phil said, his voice cool.

  “What?” Rob said.

  “You lose, loser,” Phil said. He smiled, as if he was explaining something to a slow learner. “If you’d called the cops when you crawled out of the church hall basement, they’d both be in jail. But you got greedy. You had to blackmail Helen for the rest of her money. Well, the game’s over. Beat it.”

  “Beat it?” Rob said.

  “Git. Go. Vamoose,” Phil said. “You’ve got nothing to go to the police with.”

  “It’s not my fault I didn’t call them right away,” Rob said, his voice unnaturally high. “I was unconscious. Do you know what that bitch and her fat sister did? They buried me in a basement. Wrapped me in plastic and then covered me with crushed rock and drove off. Drove off and left me to die.

  “I woke up sometime after midnight—I heard the church bells; that’s how I knew the time. They stole my watch, too. I woke up and found myself under the rocks in the church hall basement. I was panicked and in pain. If I hadn’t crawled out of there, I’d be buried under concrete by now.”

  “Gee, what a loss to the world,” Phil said.

  “I suffered,” Rob said. “Look at me.”

  “You never were much to look a
t,” Phil said.

  “She ruined me,” Rob said. “I can’t move right anymore. I think I had oxygen deprivation when she buried me. Or a small stroke caused by that little bastard. But I’m going to tell the police and ruin them all.”

  “No, you’re not,” Phil said. “You can’t prove a thing. You should have called the police after you escaped. Now it’s too late. You made it worse when you tried blackmail. Didn’t the Black Widow give you a million bucks to go away? That was one desperate woman.”

  “I spent it,” Rob said. “So what?”

  “Looks bad,” Phil said. “An ex-millionaire blackmailing a hardworking suburban mom and a little kid. Even for you, Rob, that’s low.”

  “You can’t prove I blackmailed anyone,” Rob said.

  “Yes, we can,” Phil said. “Kathy recorded you the last time you called.”

  Rob’s face turned another shade of pale.

  “Got the recording right here,” Helen said, and pulled the digital recorder out of her pocket.

  “Give me that!” Rob grabbed for it, stumbled, missed and caught Helen by the arm.

  “Ow!” she cried. It felt like Rob was trying to squeeze the bone out of her flesh.

  “I said, give it to me.”

  Helen slid the recorder into the money bag with her other hand. Rob wrenched Helen’s arm so hard, she screamed louder, but she didn’t let go of the bag.

  “Phil, call 911,” Helen shouted, hoping that would scare Rob away.

  It worked. Rob pulled harder on the bag, but Helen hung on to it. Phil produced his cell phone, and Rob’s eyes were frantic.

  “No!” he said. “No, don’t. You can’t.” He threw Helen into the Dumpster. She hit it face-first and got a long, ugly slice on her forehead from a sliver of rusty metal. Her face throbbed and her arm ached, but she was still clutching the bag.

  Rob scrabbled away, dragging his right leg. He’d given up the cash fortune. Now he tried to flee across the street to keep his freedom.

  “Phil!” Helen said. “He’s running for his car across the road. Don’t let him get away.”

  Phil was already after him. He looked up, saw the approaching traffic, and stayed at the curb.

  Rob kept going. He hobble-hopped across the first lane, then the second, to a braying chorus of horns and squealing brakes. An air horn bellowed as an eighteen-wheeler in the third lane tried to stop. Helen heard shouts and screams, then screeching brakes and a sickening thump.

  She hid her face.

  There was a shocked silence. Helen looked up from the Dumpster, her face burning from the ragged scratch. Handprint bruises were already blotching her arm.

  Traffic had stopped on Manchester, all six lanes. The truck’s driver leaped out of his cab and ran toward a broken figure on the road.

  Helen saw a long red-gray smear on the truck’s gleaming radiator, then heard the driver say, “He’s dead.”

  She dropped the money bag in the Dumpster.

  “He’s dead,” the driver wailed. “Sweet Jesus, save me. I’ve killed a man.”

  Thank God, Helen thought. Her knees buckled and she slid down onto the cracked pavement.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Miss, are you okay?” the woman asked.

  Helen stared at her young, kind face. Her startling flamingo-pink hair was oddly pretty with her creamy complexion.

  “Your face is bleeding,” she said. “And I can see the bruises on your arm already. My name is Kirby, and I caught the whole thing on my iPhone.”

  “What whole thing?” Helen said. She wasn’t as woozy as she pretended. How much of the confrontation with Rob had Kirby videoed?

  “I was coming out of the drugstore when I saw the fight,” Kirby said. “I saw that weird dude try to steal your grocery bag and twist your arm.”

  “He hurt me,” Helen said. “My face hurts, too.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Kirby said. “The dude threw you against the Dumpster.”

  Helen was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Did you get audio, too?”

  “No, my mic’s busted,” Kirby said. “Should have never bought a refurbished one.”

  “I feel dizzy,” Helen said. She was. Dizzy with relief. Kirby hadn’t caught the whole scene. Just the right part.

  “Where’s Phil?”

  “The dude who attacked you?” Kirby asked. “He’s dead. Seriously dead.”

  “No, the man with the silver hair. He’s my husband.” Helen moved her face slightly and felt blood trickle down her neck. She saw Phil in a small knot of people clustered around Rob’s body on Manchester Road.

  Let’s hope he’s doing damage control, she thought. She tried not to look at the mangled mess that was her ex-husband. Suddenly, she was shaking all over.

  “I think you’re in shock,” Kirby said.

  “I need to get to my car and sit down a moment,” Helen said, pointing to the Cruiser. “It’s right there.”

  “You need to go to the hospital,” Kirby said, “but I’ll help you to your car. The police and ambulance are on their way. About a zillion people called 911, but I think I’m the only one who videoed the fight.”

  She held up her iPhone proudly. The pink case matched her hair. “Think the police would like to see my video?”

  “I’m sure they would,” Helen said. She stood up slowly, holding on to the rusty Dumpster. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  Kirby was shorter than Helen, but sturdy. “Here, lean on me,” she said.

  “I don’t want to get blood on your T-shirt,” Helen said.

  “Hey, it will be something good to show my mom. I sneaked to the store to buy ice cream. She’s always on me about my weight. The chocolate swirl is melting.” She held up a dripping plastic bag.

  “I’ll get you more,” Helen said, limping toward her car.

  “No, don’t,” Kirby said. “The universe is saying I don’t need more ice cream. It sent me to this store for a purpose, and that was to help you. Do you believe that?”

  “Oh, yes,” Helen said. “You’re exactly what I need now. I’m still light-headed. I want to stretch out in the backseat.”

  “The police are here,” Kirby said. “And a couple of ambulances. I’ll make sure they find you—and show them my video.” She ran off into the night.

  “Thank you, Kirby,” Helen said. Her voice sounded weak. She didn’t have to pretend to be dizzy now. She stretched out on the backseat and wrapped her hand around her secret weapon. Emergency lights flashed on the strip mall, bleaching the brick bone white, then bloodred.

  Rob is dead, she thought. Really, truly, finally dead. He can’t hurt me or Kathy or Tommy anymore. I wish I could feel sorry for him, but I don’t. He’s killed my marriage.

  Maybe, she thought. Memories of the good times she’d had with Phil rushed back—their long afternoons of lovemaking, their hot honeymoon in the Keys, working together on cases, even the first time she’d met him, when she was undercover at a wild party. Well, not totally undercover. She’d been hired as a topless bartender. She’d tried to cover her chest with two one-liter soda bottles.

  Usually, that memory made her smile. Now tears started in her eyes. She wiped her face with her hand and it came back smeared red.

  Maybe Phil will forgive me now that Rob is dead and I’ve been hurt. Where is Phil? Did the police arrest him? Would Kirby’s video get them off the hook? Or did someone else video the whole incident—with sound?

  Helen heard Kirby say, “She’s over here in her car. I think she feels pretty sick and she’s all bloody.”

  “Helen!” Phil said. “You’re safe. You’re bleeding. How bad did he hurt you?”

  “It’s just a scratch,” Helen said. She remembered that line from a movie and hoped it really was a scratch. She’d hate to have her face scarred.

  What am I doing? she thought. A man was killed—no, my ex-husband was killed—and all I can think about is my face.

  Phil opened the passenger door on the driver’s side, sat beside Hel
en and cradled her in his arms. She inhaled his comforting scent of coffee and sandalwood and leaned her bloody face on his chest. Maybe everything will be all right after all, she thought.

  Then a uniformed officer knocked on the window. “Sir, I understand you witnessed this accident?” he asked.

  Helen saw that his name tag said GRIMES, but she couldn’t see his department’s name. Officer Grimes looked like a sandy-haired, freckled farmboy, but there was nothing friendly in his manner. He was all business.

  “Yes, I did,” Phil said. “And so did my wife. She’s been injured.”

  “Please step out of the car, sir,” the officer said. “Was your wife also hit by a car?”

  Helen sat up and Phil opened the back door and climbed out. “No, she was attacked by the man who died,” he said. “The dead man is Rob—”

  “We have his driver’s license, sir. I need your information.”

  Phil opened his wallet and pulled out his license and PI credentials. “I’m Phil Sagemont and this is my wife and business partner, Helen Hawthorne. We’re Florida private eyes, up here to investigate the death of a St. Louis woman, Ceci Odell, who was murdered in Riggs Beach.”

  “That the Kirkwood woman who was paddleboarding?” Officer Grimes asked. “I saw that on TV.”

  “That’s the one,” Phil said.

  “How did your wife come in contact with the victim?” Officer Grimes asked.

  “We think he followed us here,” Phil said. “Helen and Rob divorced a couple of years ago, and it wasn’t friendly. He hounded my wife, even followed her to her new home in Florida.”

  Fairly true, Helen thought. He left out the part where the court said I owed Rob half my future income. But he did come to Fort Lauderdale looking for me.

  “He even watched her sister’s house,” Phil said. “Kathy lives in Webster Groves. We were at a barbecue there tonight, and Rob must have seen us. We left to go to the drugstore.”

  Half-true, Helen thought. Rob was definitely watching Kathy. But now it’s time for my secret weapon.