Dying to Call You dj-3

by Elaine Viets

  When the boiler-room doors closed on the bosses, the trash-pelting stopped.

  A swarm of agents started carrying out boxes of files.

  There was an electric pop and the computer screens went blank.

  “The phones stopped,” Taniqua said.

  “Tank Titan just hung it up,” Helen said. “I’m out of work. And you know what? I’ve never been happier.”

  Epilogue

  It was over. But it wasn’t a happy ending.

  Helen walked home from the busted boiler room feeling oddly empty. A wild vengeance had surged through her as she’d pelted her bosses with trash, but its hot satisfaction did not last.

  She knew Hank Asporth was in jail, charged with everything from boating under the influence to money laundering—everything but Laredo’s death.

  Laredo. She was the problem. Helen had never met the woman, but she’d heard her die. Now Laredo seemed more alive than ever, standing in front of Helen in her mock pinup pose. Helen could see her long blond hair, short-shorts and saucy red shoes. Laredo laughed at Helen, taunting her. And she haunted her.

  Helen didn’t believe in ghosts. But she did believe in guilt.

  Helen felt bad about Laredo. Yes, she was a blackmailer, and that was wrong. But Helen understood why Laredo did it. She’d worked those awful jobs, too. They killed your soul for six dollars an hour. Laredo was murdered trying to escape her hopeless past and dreary future. Helen knew she’d died in Asporth’s house. So why wouldn’t Laredo go away?

  “I’m not going to live with you,” Helen said to her.

  A woman loaded with shopping bags stared at Helen, then hurried past her. Helen realized she’d been talking out loud on Las Olas Boulevard—without a cell phone.

  I’ll call Savannah, Helen thought. Maybe if I give her the news about Hank’s arrest, she’ll feel better. Maybe that will get Laredo out of my head.

  She found a pay phone and got Savannah on the first ring.

  “I can take a break,” Savannah said. “Meet you in ten by the café. But I don’t feel like eating. Let’s go for a walk.”

  Savannah was easy to spot in the crowd. She was wearing one of her fussy frilled dresses. This one was a bright cerise that drained the color from her face. She had grown scrawnier since the last time Helen had seen her. Savannah was hungry for justice.

  “So Hank’s in jail?” she said.

  “Right,” Helen said.

  “But not for my little sister’s death. He’s dropped her somewhere like a sack of trash. She’ll never be found unless he talks.”

  “He won’t talk,” Helen said. “He’d incriminate himself.”

  The situation was hopeless, and they both knew it. They walked wordlessly for awhile down Las Olas, but neither one liked the crowds. They turned off on a side street and found a canal. It was a peaceful scene: low-hanging trees, bright flowers and a mother duck paddling in the water with her babies.

  Helen knew the fluffy little creatures would grow up to be ungainly Muscovy ducks with black feathers and ugly red wattles.

  “I wish I could find Laredo,” Savannah said. “What do you think Hank did with her? How could he hide a whole car?”

  “I don’t know,” Helen said. They’d had this conversation a hundred times. They’d probably have it a hundred more.

  They watched two boys, about ten years old, fishing from the canal bridge. Their musical accents marked them as natives of the Caribbean.

  “I’ve caught a whale,” one kid said. Small and wiry, he was reeling frantically. His fishing pole was bent almost double. Whatever he caught, it had to be huge. Then Helen heard his friend laughing. The young fisherman pulled out a Michelin tire.

  “Keep fishing, and maybe you’ll catch the whole car,” his friend jeered.

  That’s when something clicked for Helen. “Laredo’s car is in the water,” she said. “That’s deep water behind Hank Asporth’s house. I bet anything he put the body inside the car and dumped it in the canal.”

  “And how will you prove that?”

  “Let’s go look at Hank’s house,” Helen said. “I think I can show you.”

  They rode over in Savannah’s rattletrap Tank and parked in the empty driveway. Hank Asporth’s house had a neglected look. Newspapers were piled on the porch, the lawn needed mowing and plastic bags had blown into the ornamental plants.

  “Anybody watching us?” Helen said.

  “Don’t think so. There are no cars at the next-door neighbor’s and the old man on the other side has his TV blaring.”

  “Good,” Helen said. “Let’s go around to the backyard.”

  There was no fence. They slipped around a bird-of-paradise bush. Helen had never seen the spiky orange blooms outside a florist’s bouquet. The backyard was expensive waterfront real estate. The lawn near the house was covered with pink paving blocks. When they ended, there was grass to the water’s edge.

  “There’s your proof,” Helen said. “I should have seen this before. It was right there all the time. That grass is going to trip up Hank Asporth.”

  “Why?” Savannah said.

  “That’s new sod. Look.” Helen pointed to a broad swath of lighter grass running through the yard. “It’s covering the tire tracks through the yard to the water’s edge.”

  “I see it,” Savannah said. “But how will we get the police to see it? They think you’re a nut and I’m a nuisance.”

  “I know someone who’ll get their attention,” Helen said.

  Helen waited the rest of the day for Phil to come back to the Coronado, but he remained invisible. She didn’t have a number to reach him or a phone to call him if she had. About five o’clock, she knocked on Margery’s door. Her landlady came out in heliotrope shorts, holding a tall screwdriver garnished with lime.

  “Do you know how to get hold of Phil?” Helen said.

  “Which part do you want to hold?” Margery had obviously been getting her liquid vitamin C. Helen was irritated because she’d spent a lot of time speculating on exactly that subject. “This is serious. I need to reach him for business. Can you get a message to him?”

  “Of course I can. Keep your pants on,” Margery said.

  Helen wondered why everything sounded suggestive.

  “Go on back home,” Margery said. “I’ll handle it.”

  Margery worked her magic. She found Phil, and he found the authorities.

  At seven the next morning, Savannah and Helen were standing at the dock in Hank’s backyard, like mourners at a grave. Savannah stared into the dark water. Helen looked for Phil, but he wasn’t there. It was an achingly beautiful day.

  Helen didn’t know how long it took the police dive team to find Laredo’s little yellow car. Time seemed to stretch, then fall away. When the battered Honda was pulled from the canal, Savannah did not say a word. Helen was afraid to offer any comfort, even a hug. If she touched Savannah, she would shatter, and they’d never put the pieces back together.

  When the grim business of resurrecting the dead car was complete, the police opened the trunk. There was a body inside. The police would not let Savannah see it, but they said it was a small blond woman wearing short-shorts and one red high heel.

  Laredo had been found.

  “It’s over,” Savannah said. For a brief moment, she looked like her old self. “I can bury my little sister. And she won’t wear a dress slit up the back.”

  • • •

  At sunset, Helen was sitting by the Coronado pool with Margery and Peggy. Pete sat on Peggy’s shoulder, munching an asparagus spear. The chubby parrot was on a diet.

  Helen brought out a box of white wine. Peggy found a can of cashews. Margery added a plate of chocolate-dipped strawberries. The evening breeze sent bougainvillea blossoms sailing across the pool. It was just like old times.

  “So tell us what happened this morning,” Margery said, “after they pulled out the body.”

  “The police got a search warrant for the house,” Helen said. “They were
looking for evidence to link Laredo to Hank Asporth.”

  “You think they’ll nail the bastard?” Margery took a big bite of her strawberry. It dripped on her purple shirt.

  “I hope so. He can say Laredo’s fingerprints were in his house because he dated her. But he’ll have a harder time explaining away her purse. It was in the same closet where I found her red shoe. They found other stuff, too. He’s been charged with the murder of Laredo Manson.”

  “I thought Mindy killed Laredo.” Peggy picked up a cashew. Pete eyed it.

  “I heard her say it, right before she went up in flames—and off to hell. Once the car was found, Hank started babbling and his lawyer couldn’t shut him up. He swears Mindy strangled Laredo and he was only a terrified bystander.”

  “But that’s true, isn’t it? Aren’t you going to tell them about Mindy’s confession?” Peggy ate her cashew and picked up another. Pete watched with beady-eyed interest.

  “Hank could have stopped her from killing Laredo. He hid the body and nearly worried Savannah into her own grave. I’m not testifying on his behalf,” Helen said. “He kept his silence—I’ll keep mine.”

  “What happened the night Laredo was killed?” Margery took a healthy gulp of wine.

  “I think I’ve pieced it together from random remarks by the police, some stuff Savannah said and educated guesses. I know Laredo got some damning information from Hank’s home computer the night he’d abandoned her to talk on his cell phone.”

  “Served him right,” Margery said. “I hate people who ignore you to yak on their cell phones. So she put it all on that red disk and tried to blackmail him?”

  “Yep. Hank offered Laredo twenty thousand dollars for the disk, then doubled his offer. I think the cops found some uncashed checks in her name. But Laredo didn’t want money. She wanted Hank to marry her. Savannah told me that. The confirmation was in the Girdner Surveys files.”

  “Where?” Peggy finally popped the cashew in her mouth.

  A disappointed Pete bit his asparagus.

  “Laredo told the survey taker that she lived at Hank’s house. I saw that information in the Girdner files. Laredo wanted to be Hank’s wife and have the big house and a place in Lauderdale society. I think that’s why she was at his house the night she died: Laredo threatened to go public with the information if he didn’t set a wedding date.

  “Hank was not going to marry her. Laredo was definitely going to talk. It would have brought down the whole moneylaundering operation. That’s when Mindy strangled Laredo.”

  “With the same scarf that caught on fire?” Margery liked the gruesome details.

  “I don’t know,” Helen said.

  “How’d they get rid of the body so quick?” Margery said.

  “The cops think Hank and Mindy carried the body to Laredo’s car, which was parked in Hank’s garage, and put it in the trunk. Mindy removed the drink glasses and other signs of Laredo. Hank stuck a murder mystery in the VCR.

  “He was congratulating himself when he noticed one red heel and her purse by the couch. He tossed them in the guestroom closet as the police rang the doorbell.”

  “And where was Mindy?” Peggy listened spellbound, yet another cashew in her hand. Pete moved stealthily toward it.

  “She drove the car with Laredo’s body in it to the driveway next door. Then she went for a walk until the police left.

  When the cops were gone, Hank and Mindy dumped the car in the canal. They had some trouble with it. We’d had a lot of rain that week, and the car sank into the mud and tore up Hank’s backyard when the wheels spun.

  “His lawn service told the police he wanted them to replace the damaged grass. They have the order. Hank called them the day after Laredo was strangled. Hank still owes them money, so they’ll be happy to testify against him.”

  “How come no one saw the car go into the canal?”

  Margery said. “It’s bigger than a bread box and bright yellow.”

  “Hank’s next-door neighbor wasn’t home. The other neighbor was almost deaf. The house across the canal was shuttered and the snowbird owner wasn’t in Florida until January.”

  “And what about Mindy’s car? There’s no parking on those private streets.” Peggy’s cashew was suspended in midair. Pete leaned forward, watching it.

  “On Las Olas, where she’d been drinking before she showed up at Hank’s house. Mindy took a cab over to Hank’s because she was afraid of a DWI. The police found the cab records. Hank drove Mindy to her car afterward. Pushing a car into a canal must be a sobering experience. She drove home—but a parking ticket placed her on Las Olas that evening.”

  “Ow!” Peggy said, as Pete grabbed her cashew and ate it.

  The newspapers reported that sixteen people died in the fire at the Mowbry mansion. Uncounted careers went up in smoke that night. Two city council members and a state senator announced that they wanted to spend more time with their families. They would not be running for reelection.

  There were twelve early retirements in corporate Lauderdale.

  The assistant United States attorney general in the Southern District of Florida refused to prosecute Hank Asporth for the murder of Mindy Mowbry. But the prosecutor did want him for killing a witness—and Laredo’s murder carried a death sentence. Hank sang to save his skin. He got life with-out possibility of parole, but he won’t be sunning himself in some federal country club.

  Thanks to Hank’s testimony, Dr. Melton Mowbry and his partner, Dr. Damian Putnam, along with his funeral director wife, Patricia Wellneck, and the boiler-room bosses Vito, Penelope and Carlo Xavier Cavarelli, were indicted by a federal grand jury for Medicare fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. All those coast-to-coast calls were interstate wire communications. They were each sentenced to twenty years.

  The burned-out Mowbry mansion was leveled and the property sold to pay Dr. Mowbry’s legal bills. A sixtysomething Dallas car dealer bought the land. He plans to build a newer, bigger mansion on the site. It will have three swimming pools, including one with a swim-up bar for his twenty-year-old trophy wife.

  But that was in the future...

  “I start my new job on Monday,” Helen said.

  “Isn’t it a little soon to go back to work? The boiler room has only been closed three days.” Margery was in her yard, whacking off dead palm fronds with a long-handled cutter.

  Whack! Chop! Thud!

  A branch hit the sidewalk, and Helen backed away.

  “What are you getting yourself into this time?” Margery said. “I’m not sure I can take much more excitement at my age. Please tell me it’s not another dirty boiler-room operation.”

  Whack! Chop! Thud!

  “Absolutely not,” Helen said. “I’ll be surrounded by chiffon and flowers. I’ll be with the richest people in Lauderdale on the happiest day of their lives.”

  “You’re working at a funeral home with the loved one’s heirs.”

  “Wrong. I’m working at an exclusive bridal shop. We’re talking ten-thousand-dollar dresses.”

  Whack! Chop! Thud!

  “Well, that’s a relief. How much trouble can you get into zipping women into wedding gowns? Maybe you can get a good deal on a dress for yourself.”

  “Not with my luck with men,” Helen said. “The only aisle I’ll walk down is at the supermarket. I think I’ll go sit by the pool.”

  Whack! Chop! Thud!

  Margery attacked the palm with renewed fury, cutting off its coconuts. “Men!” she muttered, as she de-nutted the palm.

  Helen hadn’t heard from Phil since the night she’d rescued him. He’d kissed her good-bye and vanished. She sat by the pool in the noonday sun and pretended to page through the paper. She was really watching Phil’s door.

  Margery said nothing, but Helen could hear her thinking, “I told you so.”

  She’d been stupid again. She knew it. Phil was another handsome jerk. He was never coming back.

  She was dozing in the chaise long
ue when Margery woke her up. “Why don’t you take a nap inside?” she said. “You’re going to get sunburned. I’ll bring you some food later.”

  “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.” Helen stood up stiffly. Her scorched back and whip-slashed chest and neck still hurt.

  She went inside, spread aloe vera lotion on her burns, and fell asleep on her bed with her arm around her cat.

  She was awakened two hours later by a knock on her door.

  Margery, Helen thought. She was such a mother hen, fussing over Helen and bringing sandwiches, chocolate and wine.

  “I’m fine.” Helen opened the door. “I don’t need any—Phil!”

  He was standing on her doorstep, impossibly tanned and handsome. His pony-tailed hair was silver-white. His broken nose went off in an interesting direction.

  “I wanted to thank you,” he said. “I’m about finished here.

  I’ll have to go back to Washington. But I thought I’d take a few days to kick back and see Fort Lauderdale. Want to go with me?”

  Helen studied the soft hollow at his throat. It looked vulnerable. She remembered his hands when they pulled her out of the fire last year. They were strong.

  “I’d love it. I can show you places the tourists never see, Helen said.

  “Where?”

  “Right here.” She opened the door to her apartment.

  “How do you feel about cheap champagne for breakfast?”

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  Document authors :

  Elaine Viets

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