Just Murdered dj-4

by Elaine Viets

  At nine forty-five, Margery used her passkey to open 2C. Helen followed her into the furnished apartment. Like many bachelors, Warren wasn’t big on dusting, but the place was tidy. There were racetrack programs on the coffeetable, a coffee maker and a can of cashews on the kitchen counter. A jai alai schedule was posted on the fridge. Helen looked inside: deli turkey, hamburger buns, mustard, hot sauce, a jar of olives, and a bottle of champagne. The freezer had two frosted champagne glasses.

  “The old geezer keeps it on ice all the time,” Margery said. “So much for our special night.”

  “What?” Helen said.

  “There’s no fool like an old fool,” Margery said, “and I don’t mean Elsie.”

  The woman with the throaty laugh and the elegant French twist was gone forever, Helen thought sadly. Margery would never again dance with a man in the moonlight. Warren had committed a double crime: He’d stolen Elsie’s money and taken the last of Margery’s youth.

  The two women searched for dance lesson contracts and other papers. “I haven’t turned up anything more incriminating than his grocery and gasoline receipts,” Helen said.

  “Gas prices are a crime, but he didn’t commit it,” Margery said.

  In the bedroom, Helen found a locked closet. “Ha,” she said. “He’s up to something, and he doesn’t want the women he’s dating to find it.”

  “Dating,” Margery said. “That’s a nice old-fashioned word for what he’s been doing. I’ve got keys to the closets, too.”

  Margery unlocked the closet door. They saw the heads—two of them. Helen gave a little shriek of surprise.

  One foam head had a beautiful shock of silver hair. The other was empty.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Margery said. “That pretty silver hair is a rug. I never guessed—and I ran my fingers through it.”

  She turned the toupee over. On the inside were round metal eyelets. “He’s got an expensive one. The hooks are embedded right in his head. He attaches the toupee and gets the best fit.”

  Helen winced. She could feel the hooks sticking out of her head.

  Margery shoved the toupee in her pocket. “Got him. His ladies won’t think he’s such a stud when they see him with hooks in his bald head. I’m so happy about this, I feel like dancing.”

  “Me, too,” Helen said.

  “We’ll take my car, in case we need to make a quick getaway,” Margery said.

  Warren’s Studio of the Dance was in a pink stucco storefront off Las Olas. Warren was waltzing a woman of about eighty around the room. They were both graceful dancers.

  “He’s fun to watch, I’ll give him that,” Margery said. “He put me through my paces.” Helen could hear the layers of hurt and bitterness under her light words.

  The studio was furnished with a couple of couches, a few potted palms, and photos of dancers from Fred and Ginger to Tommy Tune. There were black footprints painted on the floor in intricate patterns. Helen knew she’d fall over her feet if she ever tried them, but Warren and the dancing woman moved through the routines with practiced swiftness.

  Margery wasn’t watching the couple. She was examining the framed items on the walls.

  “Time’s up, Shirley!” Warren said when the music stopped. “See you next week.”

  Shirley changed out of her ballroom shoes and headed for the door. Margery waited in the shadows until Shirley left.

  When Warren saw her, he gave a glittering smile. “Margery! Have you come for those advanced lessons after all? A little rumba, maybe? Or a cha-cha?” He swiveled his hips expertly.

  “Nope, this is going to be a cakewalk.” Margery whipped out the silver toupee.

  “Margery! How could you? You stole that,” he said indignantly. “You entered my apartment illegally.”

  “And you stole forty-eight thousand dollars from my friend, Elsie. You better tear up that contract.”

  “I can’t. It’s a legal document. It’s way past the three-day cancellation period.”

  “Dance studios are supposed to be registered with the state of Florida,” Margery said. “Your registration certificate should be prominently displayed up there with Fred and Ginger.”

  “A minor oversight,” Warren said.

  “Yeah, well, I’m overseeing this toupee.” She shook it like a dead rat. “I’ll come back for the other one and tear it off your bald head. Let’s see how attractive those gullible old biddies find you then.” Helen knew who the most gullible biddy was. Margery was gleefully destroying their moonlit nights.

  “That’s stalking! I’ll get a restraining order.” Warren’s craggy face was unpleasantly flushed.

  “You might stop me,” Margery said. “But you can’t stop every old woman in South Florida. You’ll never know when one of my friends will come in here, start dancing, and snatch you bald. They won’t be gentle, Warren. They might tear some hooks out of your head. Especially when they think about what you did to a sweet widow woman like Elsie.”

  “Margery, please, can’t we talk?” Warren pleaded. “Doesn’t our time together mean anything?”

  Helen winced at Warren’s sappy words.

  Margery’s smile was savage. She held the toupee like a fresh scalp. “Nope. I got me a wild hair. Let’s go, Helen.”

  They left Warren flatfooted in his dance studio.

  Chapter 22

  “So how’s your investigation going, Sherlock?” Margery was weaving in and out of the tourist traffic on Las Olas. Warren’s captured toupee lay between them like a dead pet.

  Helen did not want to have this conversation. But if she didn’t, Margery would ask about Phil. She wanted to discuss her love life even less.

  “Why do you think I’m investigating anything?”

  “Your customer’s been murdered, the cops are asking the wrong questions, and you want me to give the right answers.”

  Margery slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a man in a parrot shirt. “Blasted brain-dead tourist. Did you see that? Walked right into the traffic. I should run him down to teach him a lesson.”

  Warren’s toupee slid across the seat. Now it was nuzzling Helen’s leg. “I could talk better if you’d get rid of that creepy hairpiece,” she said.

  Margery picked it up by its scruff and stuffed it in her pocket.

  “Speak,” she said.

  Helen did. When she finished, Margery said, “Was that wedding held in a briar patch? Why is everyone scratched?”

  “Not everyone,” Helen said. “Just three people. The cops think Kiki may have scratched her murderer. That could be why her nails were chopped off, to get rid of the incriminating DNA. Or maybe her killer was kinky. I saw her hands. They looked bizarre.”

  Those clutching dead-child hands flashed in her mind again.

  “Hello, Helen, are you there? Who else is scratched?” Margery said.

  Helen shook off the memory. “Chauncey has a scratch on his neck, but Donna Sue says he got it at the theater. Desiree has a scratch on her arm. She says it was a cat. Her father’s not saying how he got the scratches on his hands.”

  “All these scratches aren’t natural,” Margery said.

  “One isn’t natural,” Helen said. “The others just happened. Everyone gets scrapes and scratches.”

  “Yeah, right,” Margery said.

  “What’s that on your right hand?” Helen pointed to a long red scrape.

  “I was trimming the bougainvillea and it bit me,” Margery said.

  “I rest my case,” Helen said.

  “Watch it or I’ll get out that toupee again,” Margery said. “Have you checked that Jason guy for scratches?”

  “No. Come to think of it, he was wearing a sweater with long sleeves. Of course, it was chilly.”

  “He could be hiding something,” Margery said.

  “He is hiding something. Ever since I talked with him at the theater, I’ve been trying to figure out what it is. I know he sells Ecstasy. I suspect he’s also using his product. One actress said he’s rea
l touchy-feely. He wore this super-soft sweater, cashmere or something. X makes you sensitive to touch, so users crave hugs, stuffed animals, soft things.”

  “What else do you know about Ecstasy?” Margery said.

  Like everyone in South Florida, Helen considered herself an expert on street drugs. “It gives you endless energy,” she said. “You can dance all night. It makes your teeth clench, so some people use suckers to relieve that symptom. Jason had a bunch in his car.”

  “Is it addictive?”

  “I guess so,” Helen said.

  “How?” Margery said. “Does it mellow you out like pot? Does it make you crazy like angel dust? Do you try to fly off buildings like with LSD? Or do you think you’re putting a stake through a vampire’s heart when you’re really killing the mother of the bride?”

  “I don’t know,” Helen said. “But I’d better find out. Could you drop me off at the library? I have time to do some Ecstasy research before I go to work.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Margery said. “After you do your research, we’ll see Jason and check him for scratches.”

  “He won’t be at the theater until six,” Helen said.

  “Who said anything about the theater? You can get home addresses on the Net.”

  I’m losing my edge, Helen thought. Too much time with chiffon, not enough with computers. “Glad somebody’s thinking,” she said. “We have a good chance of catching him at home before noon. Drug dealers are rarely early risers.”

  Helen put her name on the computer list at the library. Twenty minutes later, she was typing in “Ecstasy addiction.”

  “Bingo,” she said. “This article says X users may encounter problems similar to amphetamine and coke users, including addiction.”

  Helen scrolled down the story. “Wow. Jason is using it for sure. Listen to this: “ ‘The designer drug Ecstasy, or MDMA, causes long-lasting damage to brain areas that are critical for thought and memory. . . . Researchers found that four days of exposure to the drug caused damage that persisted six to seven years later.’ No wonder Jason was dropping lines in Richard the Third. The other actors were complaining about it.”

  “That boy’s in big trouble,” Margery said. “Actors depend on their memory for their living.”

  “Here’s a list of where to get help,” Helen said. “Florida has a major rehab industry. Jeez. Clean doesn’t come cheap. A top rehab center costs as much as a good college.”

  Margery checked her watch. “Your computer time is about up. Did you look up Jason’s home address?”

  “Yes. He lives in a town house in Dania,” Helen said.

  Half an hour later, Margery pulled her white whale of a car into The Gardens at San Andrino. Florida developers loved to give subdivisions splendid names. The semi-Spanish town houses had an impressive entrance and a velvety green lawn.

  “Margery, paranoia is a symptom of Ecstasy addiction,” Helen said. “Jason may think the two of us are ganging up on him. I’d better talk to him alone. Would you mind waiting in the car?”

  “OK. I can grab a smoke. If you’re not out in fifteen minutes, I’m coming in after you.”

  Margery sounded like a late-night movie, but Helen felt a little safer. Jason had a nasty streak for a guy taking a huggy drug.

  Jason’s town house was one of six set around a tropical courtyard. Helen knocked on his door. No answer. She knocked harder and a voice called out, “I’m coming. I’m coming.”

  Jason swung open the door and blinked at the bright light. His face was puffy from sleep, but startlingly handsome. He wore a blue velvet robe and nothing else. His chest was perfectly tanned and toned. Helen wondered if he waxed it.

  Jason’s beauty was only skin deep. He had an ugly mouth. “I said I didn’t want to talk to you, bitch,” he snarled. “Beat it.”

  A small, determined woman in her sixties came out two doors down. She stood on her porch, cell phone in hand, and glared at Jason.

  Helen lowered her voice. “You can invite me in for five minutes or I can tell your neighbor there how you make your money. I don’t think she’ll be happy living by a drug dealer.”

  Jason reluctantly opened the door. His right wrist was wrapped in an Ace bandage.

  Helen waved at the woman as she stepped through the door. Her protector nodded but didn’t budge from her porch or put away her cell phone. Good. She’d be listening for sounds of mayhem.

  The cold air hit Helen immediately. It was like walking into an upright freezer. She caught a glimpse of a kitchen sink piled with dirty pots. That was the last normal sight in the town house.

  The living-room walls were covered with dark blue velvet. The couches were dark velvet, too, a fabric way too warm for Florida. No wonder Jason had the air-conditioning set at subzero.

  Midnight-blue curtains blocked the light. In the soft velvety darkness, the white marble fireplace had a graveyard glow. Over the mantel, in place of a picture, was a flat-screen TV.

  Helen felt like she was trapped inside a jewelry box. The dark velvet made Jason’s green eyes glow like emeralds. His face was cold white stone. He made a grab for Helen’s arm, but she stepped back and put a velvet chair between them. She picked up a black marble candlestick from the mantel and hefted it.

  “Nice,” she said. “And heavy.”

  Jason backed off. “All right, bitch. What are you doing here?”

  “What happened to your wrist?” Helen said.

  “I sprained it during a sword fight at rehearsal,” he said.

  Helen saw blood spots on the bandage. Sprains didn’t bleed. “When did that happen?” she said.

  “None of your frigging business. You want to tell me what this is about?”

  “I saw your performance as Richard.”

  “And you came by for my autograph?” A nasty sneer disfigured his face.

  Helen knew how to wipe it off. “You’re losing your memory.”

  He shrugged. “It happens to actors.”

  “It happens to X users,” Helen said. “Ecstasy destroys memory. You’re using your product.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He opened his mouth to deny it, then burst out with, “I didn’t know it did that. Nobody told me. I didn’t find out until too late. At first, all I knew was X gave me energy. I could rehearse till midnight, then party till dawn. I felt like a god. I’d discovered the secret of the universe. The other actors were working shit jobs and struggling to pay their bills. X made me all this money. It gave me all this energy.”

  “Then it took it.” Helen said.

  “It took everything.” Jason’s voice was sticky with self-pity. Were those tears in his eyes? He’d gone from threats to tears in eighty seconds. If he’d shown that range onstage, he’d have been a great actor. He had no trouble remembering his lines for The Tragedy of Jason I.

  “Ecstasy took my memory. I started dropping my lines. It took my confidence. People talked about me behind my back.”

  “Paranoia is a symptom of addiction,” Helen said.

  “I saw that Web site, too.” That sneer again, a rictus of hate. But Helen remembered something else from the Web site. The last piece fell into place.

  “That’s why you were all over Kiki at the rehearsal. You wanted her to bankroll your rehab. A good rehab center would cost you twenty thousand bucks.”

  “She owed it to me as an artist. She had the money. It was nothing to her.”

  “Wrong, Jason. Money is everything to the very rich. They want value for their money. What could you give her?”

  “What do you think?” He thrust his pelvis forward. Helen prayed the robe stayed closed. She’d seen enough of Jason. “Where would an old bitch like her find a young stud like me?”

  Helen laughed. “Boys like you are on every street in Florida. Kiki had her boy toys drive her Rolls. Besides, she wouldn’t hand you the cash. She’d make you crawl until you hated her and hated yourself—then you wouldn’t get the money, after all. That’s what she did to her chauffe
urs.”

  Jason petted his velvet sleeves. “Do you think it’s easy selling X? There’s not that much money. I don’t have a Miami penthouse and a Mercedes. I’m in Dania, driving an Eclipse. It’s not even a convertible.”

  The addict’s whine. Helen hated his self-pity. “Any struggling actor would love to live here and wear expensive clothes like yours.”

  The self-pity dried up. The sneer was back. “They’re from Sawgrass Mills Mall, moron. Whoever heard of a drug dealer shopping at an outlet mall?

  “Look, I admit it. I asked her for help. So what? Do you understand how time-consuming drugs are? They take energy, effort, and careful planning. Kiki was my last hope. I begged her. She didn’t understand. No one does. Having an addiction is like hiding a beautiful damaged child in your home. I hate it. I hate it.” He was sniveling again.

  “You love it,” Helen said. “You called your addiction a child, not a burden or a monkey on your back. You’ll never let go of this baby—and it will never let go of you. You thought Kiki would set you up in a nice apartment, maybe even pay for your rehab. You poor schmuck. I thought only women fell for rescue fantasies.”

  Jason gave a mean laugh. “Hey, Helen, you know what they say about you older women? You don’t swell, you don’t tell, and you’re so grateful.”

  Helen wanted to slap him. “Kiki never heard of gratitude. She turned you down and laughed at you. So you killed her.”

  Jason was sweating heavily now, despite the room’s freezing temperature. His hair was plastered to his forehead. Sweat slid down his tanned chest.

  “Are you crazy? I couldn’t even fuck her, much less kill her.”

  Helen felt the acid of his bottomless self-contempt. “You tried to hit up Desiree for the rehab money the day of her mother’s funeral, didn’t you?”

  “She owed it to me,” Jason said. “But she wouldn’t give it to me. And I didn’t kill her, did I? Just like I didn’t kill Kiki.”

  Helen left him alone in his velvet box, hugging himself.

  Chapter 23

  “This wedding dress makes my hips look fat!” The bride was so skinny, Helen could have pulled her through a wedding ring.