by Elaine Viets
“I don’t know how she died, but she wasn’t shot. We didn’t want to touch anything and mess up the investigation. Vera swears Chrissy committed suicide. I think she was hit on the head and hanged.”
“Where are you?” Phil asked.
“On Las Olas, walking toward home.”
“Did you get any lunch?” Phil asked.
“I haven’t eaten since breakfast,” Helen said, and suddenly realized she was hungry as well as tired. She hadn’t eaten for ten hours. No wonder she felt dizzy.
“It’s too hot to walk home,” Phil said. “Can you make it to the Floridian? We could have dinner there. It’s cool inside.”
“Deal,” Helen said. “I’ll be there in five minutes and get us a table.”
“The Flo,” as the locals called it, stubbornly refused to change. While other Las Olas restaurants served teeny portions and picked pockets for two-hundred-dollar dinners, the Flo had generous food and small prices. This was diner food, with sassy servers and a lit dessert display case. Meals for serious grease abusers.
If you were in the right mood, the Flo was friendly, funky and affordable. If you weren’t, then you could turn up your nose and decide the place needed a good scrubbing. In that case, the Flo hoped you’d order braised quail with kumquats elsewhere. It didn’t need your business.
Phil turned heads as he walked into the dark diner. His long hair was pulled back into a silver white ponytail. He wore jeans and a soft blue shirt that matched his eyes. Phil was a private eye. Helen knew he’d want the seat at their table that kept his back to the wall. He was more comfortable when he could watch the room. Sitting nearby was a young man, pale as a boiled egg, shoveling a chef salad into his mouth.
Phil kissed Helen and pulled out his chrome chair. The low light softened his laugh lines and eye crinkles. Helen was a sucker for eye crinkles. She couldn’t understand how she’d found such a good man. She’d had a lot of bad luck in her life. Maybe it was time for a change.
Phil ordered a beer and a ham-and-cheese omelet with a side of chopped onions. Helen asked for a turkey wrap and coffee. When his omelet arrived, Phil smothered it in ketchup until Helen couldn’t see any egg, then topped it with onions and hot sauce. Helen picked at her turkey wrap, drank coffee and told Phil about her day.
“Vera found Chrissy dead in the back dressing room,” Helen said. “She thinks Chrissy committed suicide. The crime-scene techs found a white porcelain pineapple with blood and hair on it. I think it could be the murder weapon. The police won’t say. I’m guessing the killer knocked Chrissy out with the pineapple, then tried to make it look like suicide by hanging her with a scarf. When I said Chrissy had been murdered, Vera got mad and reminded me I wasn’t a crime-scene expert. She wants Chrissy’s death to be suicide. Murder might scare away her customers.”
“Suicide or murder, it’s a nasty way to go,” Phil said. “I hope Chrissy was unconscious.”
“I always thought that pineapple was a stupid ornament,” Helen said. “It’s as useless as the people who like it.”
“Any ideas on the killer?” Phil asked.
“I’m betting it’s the husband,” Helen said. “Chrissy was afraid of Danny Martlet. He’s a bully and Vera said he fools around. He’d want his little wife out of the way.”
“That makes sense if she didn’t sign a prenup,” Phil said. “But the last thing Danny would want was a murder trial while he’s negotiating the Orchid House deal. Bad publicity could scare off the board votes he needs for his project.”
“Maybe,” Helen said. “I’ll tell you what’s scaring me. Snapdragon’s is in Hendin Island, and Detective McNally has the case. He made my life miserable after King Oden was killed. He’s looking for any excuse to arrest me.”
“But he didn’t, did he?” Phil asked.
They didn’t stop talking when the waitress refilled Helen’s coffee cup. The waitress didn’t react. It was that kind of place.
“No, but I don’t know why,” Helen said. “My fingerprints were all over the Limoges pineapple that bashed Chrissy.”
“But you work at the shop,” Phil said. “Your prints are supposed to be on things. Any good defense lawyer would point that out. When fingerprints are someplace they’re not supposed to be, then there’s trouble.”
“Still, the detective took me back to the station for elimination prints,” Helen said. “The cops took Vera’s and Jordan’s prints at the scene. McNally is out to get me.”
Phil took a long swallow of beer, then said, “Helen, we’ve had this conversation before and you’ve always refused to listen to me. But there’s been a murder at your store. The wife of an important developer was killed. A county commissioner was present.”
Helen knew where this conversation was heading.
“I have no connection to Chrissy,” Helen said. “I didn’t know her. Today was the first time I ever saw her. I certainly didn’t fight with her.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Phil said. “Law enforcement will be all over your store like a cheap suit. Sooner or later, McNally is going to find out you’re wanted in St. Louis. You defied the court and refused to pay half of your future income to your ex-husband, Rob.”
“But Rob disappeared. Nobody’s seen him in months,” Helen said.
“Which makes you look even more suspicious,” Phil said.
“But he disappeared because his second wife—or whatever Marcella was—gave him a million dollars to go away. Everyone in law enforcement knows the Black Widow has had five or six husbands who conveniently died.”
“They also know she’s never been arrested or convicted of murder,” Phil said. “Marcella can afford the best lawyers in the world. You can’t. You’ve made yourself an easy target.”
“But the divorce judge made a stupid decision,” Helen said. “Rob wasn’t entitled to half my future income. He wasn’t entitled to anything of mine. He lived off me for years. He just had a better lawyer than I did and he won.”
“And you ran away,” Phil said. “Come back with me to St. Louis and fight the decision.”
His voice was soft. Helen wanted to say yes, but then she saw the pale guy eating the salad was eavesdropping. His mouth was open and his fork hovered in the air. Great. What if he reported their conversation to the police? Helen glared at him, and he went back to shoveling in salad.
“Phil, I can’t leave Mom alone in Florida,” Helen said, lowering her voice. “She hasn’t regained consciousness in the three months since our wedding. What if she does come to? I can’t let her wake up alone in a nursing home. My sister Kathy and Tom can’t afford to travel here again after our June wedding didn’t come off. Mom’s so-called husband Larry is too cheap to fly down and see his sick wife. I haven’t been the best daughter, but I can’t abandon Dolores.”
“When are you going to see your mother next?” Phil asked. “Maybe the doctor can give you some clue to her condition. You’re running out of time here, Helen, and if you wind up in jail, you can’t help your mother at all.”
“The store will be closed tomorrow,” Helen said. “It’s still a crime scene. I can go to the nursing home and talk to the doctor when he makes his morning rounds. The home didn’t call you today, did it?”
“Not a peep from Dr. Justin Lucre,” Phil said. “Is that really his name—Lucre, like money?”
“Yep. The nurses call him Dr. Filthy, but not to his face. They like him even less than I do. You don’t find a lot of great healers working as nursing home doctors, but the nurses say he’ll take good care of Mom until her insurance money runs out. I’m glad she bought a long-term policy for catastrophic illness.”
“So is Larry, I bet,” Phil said. “She won’t be dipping into her savings.”
“I think Larry married Mom for her money,” Helen said. “She had worse luck with men than I did.”
Phil raised an eyebrow, and Helen said, “Except you, of course. You’re my reward after Rob. I know you’re not interested in my money, because I don’t hav
e any.”
The waitress poured more decaf for Helen, then slapped down the check for the salad eater. His cell phone rang. He answered it, then went outside.
“Looks like our table neighbor got a sudden attack of good manners,” Helen said. “Speaking of neighbors, was Jordan home when I called you?”
“No,” Phil said. “Her boss at the restaurant called at four thirty asking where she was. Jordan didn’t answer her cell phone or show up for work. He called Jordan’s boyfriend. Her boss was mad. I hope she doesn’t get fired.”
“Me, too. But there’s no shortage of breastaurants in Fort Lauderdale,” Helen said.
“What’s a breastaurant?” Phil asked.
Helen was glad he looked puzzled. “A place where pretty waitresses wear skimpy outfits, like Hooters. Beach Buns Bar & Grill overlooks an asphalt parking lot, but promises ‘a brew and a view.’ The view is Jordan in a bikini.”
“She must save money on dry cleaning if that little bikini is all she wears,” Phil said.
“Jordan says the leg and bikini waxes cost a fortune,” Helen said. “Guys don’t like hair with their beer, unless it’s long and firmly attached to a female scalp.”
“I’d like to go to Beach Buns,” he said. “I hear they have good spicy wings.”
“Margery had lunch there one afternoon. She said the customers were mostly married men old enough to be Jordan’s father. She never saw so many Tommy Bahama shirts. I think Tommy Bahama is the official shirtmaker for overweight adulterers.”
“Nice slogan,” Phil said.
“You can go to Beach Buns,” Helen said. “I wouldn’t care.”
“Will you go with me?” he asked.
“Not unless they add cute waiters in Speedos.”
“I’d feel silly staring at scantily dressed young women,” he said.
“That’s why I love you,” Helen said.
Phil reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
“Excuse me,” the waitress said. “Did you see the guy eating his salad here?”
“His cell phone rang right after you brought him the bill,” Helen said. “He went outside.”
The waitress looked out the window. “Damn. Nobody’s there,” she said. “He’s gone and he didn’t pay. I got stiffed by a new twist on an old scam—the disappearing cell phone caller. They used to say they were going to the restroom. He’ll get away with it, too.”
Helen flashed on Chrissy hanged in the dressing room, and hoped her killer didn’t get away.
CHAPTER 6
Jordan was stretched out on a chaise by the pool at the Coronado Tropic Apartments, like a Victorian lady on a fainting couch. There was nothing Victorian about her figure-hugging dress. It was so tight, Helen thought it might be holding Jordan together. It had a slightly grubby look, like a used bandage.
Jordan had combed her long, dark hair and put on fresh makeup for her dainty crying scene after her ordeal with the Hendin Island police. She gently blotted her eyes with a tissue. Helen, relaxed and refreshed after dinner with Phil, watched the performance.
Jordan sniffled delicately while a well-built young man patted her arm with strong callused hands. Her live-in boyfriend, Mark, was handsome enough to be a male model. But the dark lines on his knuckles revealed his profession. Mark was a mechanic at Warren’s Wrecks, and could never quite scrub the grease stains off his hands.
When Mark’s comforting hands strayed too near her tight white dress, Jordan gently brushed them away.
Funny, Helen thought, Mark’s paycheck was never too soiled for Jordan to spend.
Peggy, the Coronado’s exotic red-haired tenant, was drinking white wine. Her Quaker parrot, Pete, perched on her shoulder like a green imp. Even his Quaker-gray feathered head couldn’t make him look serious.
“The police asked me questions like I was a criminal.” Jordan wept artistically.
“Awk!” Pete said. Peggy tried to soothe the bird by petting him, but he hopped restlessly from foot to foot.
Jordan ignored the interruption. “They kept me so long I missed going in to work. Now my boss is mad at me.”
“You don’t have to go back to Beach Buns if you don’t want to, honey bear,” Mark said.
Jordan quickly turned off her tears. “But I have to work,” she said. “I don’t want to live off you.”
“I wouldn’t care,” Mark said.
The poor sap was besotted. Helen wanted to take him aside and explain that honey bear was prowling for a rich, upscale lover. But she knew her warning would be useless. How many people had tried to clue in Helen about Rob? She didn’t listen. You only open your eyes when it’s too late, she thought. I was Jordan’s age when I fell for my rotten ex. She is awfully young. Maybe Jordan will wake up and appreciate the good man she already has.
Helen tried to catch Peggy’s eye, but her friend was listening intently. Peggy had had her own problems with men. Her current man was a rare breed, a likable lawyer. She deserved him after too many heartbreakers.
Helen tuned out Jordan as her thoughts drifted back to her ex-husband. Rob was aptly named. The man had robbed her of her peace of mind. He’d stolen seventeen years of her life in St. Louis. He nearly got her money.
Helen had kept her eyes firmly closed to his faults. It was a shock when she came home early from work and found Rob with their next-door neighbor, Sandy. They were having sex on the back deck.
No, “having sex” sounded too polite, like having tea. Rob and Sandy were in a sweaty, rip-off-their-clothes rut when Helen walked in on them.
She was stunned. The pair were oblivious. They didn’t notice that Helen had picked up a crowbar. Finally, Sandy looked over and screamed. Rob, pale and naked as a new seedling, abandoned his lover for the protection of his SUV. Helen had started swinging and reduced the SUV to rubble. Then she filed for divorce.
She’d been surprised again when the judge had awarded Rob half her income. She’d expected to lose the house, but never thought the court would give fifty percent of her future salary to her scum-sucking spouse. For the last seven years of their marriage, Rob had lived off Helen while pretending to look for work. She tried to get her lawyer to fight back, but he sat there like a cardboard cutout.
Helen swore in court that Rob would never see a dime of her future income. Then she’d tossed her wedding ring into the Mississippi River, ditched her six-figure corporate job and driven off in frantic zigzags across the United States. She wound up in South Florida at the Coronado, where she had a new name and a new life, and worked for cash under the table.
The Coronado was an Art Moderne apartment building with sweeping white curves, rattling air-conditioner units and turquoise trim. Helen loved the old building and its raffish inhabitants.
Rob, desperate for his share of Helen’s money, eventually tracked her to Fort Lauderdale. He wasn’t too proud to demand his share of the pittance Helen made at her dead-end jobs.
It was her landlady, Margery, who tried to save Helen. She introduced Rob to a fabulously rich older woman, Marcella, known as the Black Widow. The pair sailed away together on her yacht. Margery figured Rob would join the Black Widow’s long string of late husbands. But Rob’s amazing luck worked again. The Black Widow didn’t want another messy murder investigation. She set him free with a million dollars and his promise to disappear.
Helen hadn’t seen her ex in almost a year. Phil said the Black Widow had only pretended to pension off Rob. She’d really added one more “accidental” death to her tally of former spouses. Helen disagreed. She believed Rob had the survival instincts of a cockroach. She knew he’d crawl back to ruin her new life.
Helen had spent her time in that special purgatory South Florida had for single women, dating drunks, druggies and deadbeats. Then she met her prince, Phil. Helen was finally ready for a happy ending. She and Phil planned a small, perfect wedding at the Coronado in June. They were nearly pronounced man and wife when Helen’s mother had appeared like an Old Testament prophet and stop
ped the ceremony.
As Dolores called down God’s wrath and the weight of the law on her daughter, the frail woman had a heart attack. Helen’s attempted wedding was canceled in a welter of accusations and unsolved legal issues.
The ambulance roared off to the emergency room with Dolores. Helen was left with her ruined reception—and Phil. He swore he loved her and promised to go to St. Louis and help Helen fight her unfair divorce. So far, her mother’s illness had prevented that trip.
Jordan’s soft, insistent saga sliced through Helen’s unhappy memories. Helen was forced into the present and Jordan’s melodramatic tale of her day. “The police wouldn’t even let me take the pink dress.” Jordan produced two perfect tears. “I offered to pay for it. But they said it was evidence.”
“You do realize a woman died,” Helen said.
Margery, lounging nearby, heard the righteous edge in Helen’s voice. She suddenly stood up and asked, “Who’d like a homemade brownie? I can nuke some.”
“Me!” Phil said.
“Me,” Peggy said.
“Me, too,” Mark said. “I love your brownies.”
“Not me,” Jordan said, as if Margery had offered her cat food on a cracker. “They’re fattening.”
“Some risks are worth it,” Helen said. “I’ll take one.”
“Good,” Margery said. “Five brownies, coming up. Helen, you can help me.”
“I’ll help, too,” Phil said.
“What can I do?” Peggy asked.
“You can help eat them,” Margery said. “Stay right where you are.”
Helen followed her landlady as she marched briskly across the short, tough grass to her apartment. Margery might be seventy-six, but Helen saw her as ageless rather than old. Three thousand years ago, Margery would have been sucking in the fumes escaping the rocks at Delphi and making pronouncements. Now she inhaled cigarettes and sucked down screwdrivers by a Florida pool. She was a modern wise woman in purple clamdiggers and orange gladiator sandals.
Margery knew Helen was stirring up trouble. She shut the old-fashioned jalousie door to her kitchen hard enough that the glass slats rattled. Then she turned on Helen. “What is the matter with you, going after that innocent girl?”
