The Dead-End Job Mysteries Box Set 1

by Elaine Viets

  The more she talked about the lottery, the livelier Peggy became. When the phone rang a few minutes later, both women jumped. Peggy grabbed the phone and scrambled to hit the talk button. She listened a moment, then said, “Yes, I am.” She stared at the phone for a second before she snapped it off.

  “Wrong number,” she said. “Some woman asked, ‘Are you Margaret Freeton?’ When I said yes, she hung up.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. If it was a wrong number, why would she know your name?” Helen said.

  “You don’t suppose it’s a burglar or something, calling to see if I’m at home?”

  “Could be. I’d tell Margery to be safe. She’ll keep a watch on your place when you’re not around.”

  They heard car doors slamming. Lots of them. Helen couldn’t believe what happened next. A small army of police officers fanned across the yard, taking combat positions. Two men in plainclothes materialized. Helen and Peggy stared at them, openmouthed. Helen saw Margery’s door open. Their landlady looked equally shocked.

  It’s a drug bust, Helen thought. The cops have finally busted Phil the invisible pothead.

  The plainclothes officers were homicide detectives Clarence Jax and Tom Levinson. Helen wondered what they were doing on a drug bust.

  “Margaret Freeton?” Detective Jax asked.

  “Yes?” said Peggy.

  “We have a warrant for your arrest.”

  “What?” Peggy said. She didn’t understand what was happening. Neither did Helen. Margery was marching toward them, a purple-clad protector, demanding, “What is the meaning of this? What are you doing on my property?”

  The detectives ignored her. “You are being charged with murder in the first degree in the death of Page Turner III,” Jax said. He read the Miranda warning and started to cuff Peggy’s hands. Pete bit him hard.

  “Get that damned bird away from me or I’ll wring his neck.”

  Peggy freed the detective’s bleeding finger and gently handed Pete to Helen. The parrot struggled, but did not fight Helen. He stayed perched on her hand and she stroked his feathers with one finger to soothe him. The detective cuffed Peggy’s hands behind her back.

  “Is that necessary?” Helen said.

  “It wasn’t necessary for that bird to bite me,” he said.

  “I didn’t kill Page Turner,” Peggy said.

  “We’ll get you a good lawyer,” Margery said. “Don’t say a word until she shows up.”

  “Please take care of Pete,” Peggy cried. “His birdseed is in your cabinet. It’s the red box. Don’t overfeed him. He’s on a diet.”

  “Shut up,” Margery said. “Promise me, not another word until your lawyer gets there.”

  As the police took Peggy away in handcuffed shame, Helen could hear her phone ringing and ringing, with the call that was supposed to change her life. Madame Muffy’s prediction was complete. Death, destruction, and murder had buried Peggy in a dark landslide.

  A dazed Helen said, “How could they arrest Peggy for murder?”

  “Because she probably did it,” Margery said.

  “Peggy didn’t even know Page Turner,” Helen said.

  “Of course she did,” Margery said. “They were engaged.”

  Helen was too stunned to say anything. The woman at the bookstore was right, she thought. I am an idiot. And I don’t know anything.

  Chapter 9

  “Tell me why you think Peggy did it,” Helen asked Margery.

  The question had been hanging over them for the last two hours. Margery had been working the phone to find a lawyer for Peggy. She called friends and called in favors. She asked everyone, If you were in trouble, who would you call?

  It came down to two lawyers: Oliver Steinway and Colby Cox. “Both are good. But Steinway’s defended so many killers that hiring him is practically an admission of guilt,” Margery said. “Colby is a little more low-profile. We’ll go with her.”

  Then Margery called more numbers, until she found Cox at her home. It was now nine p.m. “She doesn’t live far away. She’s on the Isle of Capri. Want to come with me?”

  Capri was one of several small islands connected to Las Olas by causeways. The residents were connected by lots of money. On the drive over, Margery said, “That Detective Jax is damn smart. He came back again today, batting his eyes and saying he needed to confirm the times when everyone arrived and left the barbecue Friday night. He didn’t seem interested in one particular person, but I should have known.”

  “Known what?” Helen said.

  “That he was after Peggy. She was the only one who came late and left early.” Margery hit the steering wheel with her hand. “I’m an old fool. I told him the times. I could have said I didn’t remember, but no, I had to prove I had such a great memory. I hope I haven’t talked that poor girl into the electric chair.”

  She thinks Peggy is guilty, Helen thought, but she was too frightened to say the words. Margery swung her big white car into the driveway of Cox’s tract mansion, a pink stucco affair the size of a hotel. The small forest of royal palms sheltering it was lit like a stage set. As they drove up, the security gates swung open. Cox must be one successful lawyer.

  “Wait out here,” Margery said. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Helen suspected Margery was writing a sizable check and didn’t want her to know. Waiting in the Cadillac was like sitting in a plush lounge, but Helen could not relax. It all seemed so surreal. Peggy would be on trial for murder. The police had said first-degree murder. Was that the bad one? Florida was a death-penalty state.

  She heard the front door open. Margery walked out slowly, as if she didn’t want to deliver her news. She pulled open the car door and sat down heavily on the seat. “Cox will see Peggy tonight at the jail, but there’s no way she can get a bail hearing before morning. She said Peggy may not get bail, period, because this is first-degree murder.”

  “Margery, lawyers are expensive,” Helen said. “Peggy’s my friend, too. I’ve got seven thousand dollars in cash. You’re welcome to that.” It was all the money she had in the world.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Margery said.

  Helen had read somewhere that a full-blown murder trial could cost the defendant half a million dollars or more. She wondered where Peggy would get that kind of money. She’d have to win the lottery for sure.

  On the drive back, in the wan glow of the streetlights, Margery looked exhausted. Her gray hair was limp, her skin sagged along her jawline, and her purple shorts set was wrinkled. She caught herself in the mirror and said, “I look like particular hell. Why don’t you come back to my place for a drink?”

  When the landlady flipped on her kitchen light, Pete’s squawk sliced through their ears like a chain saw. He had overturned his water dish and dumped his birdseed on the floor. Helen cleaned up the wreckage from the one-parrot riot. Margery made herself a screwdriver that was a glass of vodka with a shot of orange juice. Helen had white wine out of a bottle with a real cork. It sure beat box wine.

  “Now,” she said when they were settled at Margery’s kitchen table, “tell me why you think she did it.”

  “You know Peggy dated Page Turner,” Margery said.

  Helen did not. That still had her reeling. “I can’t believe it. The only male I’ve ever seen her with is Pete.”

  “Believe it. Her problems started before you came to town. She and Page dated for almost a year. Peggy thought they had a serious relationship. She really believed he would marry her. He gave her a ring, a fire opal, and she wore it as an engagement ring. I told her opals were bad luck.

  “One morning, after Page got out of her bed and went to work, Peggy went outside for the newspaper. She opened it up and there was an announcement of Page Turner’s engagement to this society babe in Palm Beach, Astrid somebody. Peggy went crazy. She screamed and shouted and threw things. Then she went storming over to the bookstore, still in her nightgown, and threw the ring in his face.”

  “I heard about
that,” Helen said. “But I didn’t realize the woman was Peggy.”

  She thought of languid, laid-back Peggy on the chaise longue by the pool, and tried to imagine her as a screaming shrew in a nightgown. Was it possible?

  Then Helen saw herself in St. Louis the afternoon she caught her husband, Rob, naked with their next-door neighbor. He always said he hated Sandy. He’s a bare-assed liar, she’d thought irrelevantly as she watched Rob’s hairy rump. That was just before she picked up the crowbar and started swinging. Helen had been so cool and controlled until that moment. Then something snapped inside and it started an avalanche of snapping outside.

  “I could see Peggy being angry,” Helen said. “But this happened two years ago. Why would she kill him now?”

  “Because Peggy said, ‘I’ll get you. But it will be when you least expect it. Then I’ll stab you in the back, just like you stabbed me.’ Everyone at the bookstore heard it.”

  “Oh,” Helen said.

  “Peggy was never the same after Page Turner. She swore off men forever. That’s when she got Pete and began buying lottery tickets. She hasn’t had a date since.”

  They were both silent as they sipped their drinks. It had been more than a year since her ex-husband had betrayed her and Helen began her zigzag flight across the country. Did she still want to kill Rob? Helen didn’t think so. Her fury had flared up and then burned to ashes. Now she only wanted to stay away from her ex. She’d made another life for herself. She was beginning to forget his betrayal. She thought again of her hot weekend with Rich and melted inside.

  “I don’t believe Peggy would kill him after all this time,” Helen said. “That story is a Las Olas legend. It would be easy for anyone to find out the jilted woman was Peggy and plant Page’s dead body in her home. Is that all the police have?”

  “The butcher knife in Page’s back had Peggy’s fingerprints on it,” Margery said.

  “Of course it had her fingerprints. It was in her kitchen.”

  “That’s not what the cops think.”

  “How do you know what the cops think?”

  “I have my sources,” Margery said smugly.

  “You still haven’t answered my question: Why would Peggy go after him now?”

  “Page has a video of her.” Pete squawked in protest, and Margery threw the cover over his cage.

  “He has—or had—lots of videos. Peggy has plenty of company, if the stories I heard are true.”

  “Peggy has company in this video. She was with two men and a lot of coke.” Margery knew the most surprising things and said them without the slightest disapproval.

  “Peggy? In a threesome? She lives like a nun.”

  “Now. But she used to be a wild one, honey. You’ve got to promise to keep this next part quiet. I’m only telling you because you’re her friend and maybe it will help you understand what she’s up against.”

  Some friend, Helen thought. I talked with her three or four nights a week and didn’t know anything about her.

  “When Peggy was going out with Page, she often partied in his office. It was a pretty spectacular place.”

  “I saw the couch and his fabulous first-edition collection.”

  “You didn’t see the half of it,” Margery said. “Peggy told me there’s a back playroom with a bed, a fireplace, a fur rug, and a closet full of toys you don’t buy at FAO Schwarz.”

  “There is?” Helen said, feeling dumber still. “I didn’t know anything about that.”

  “Peggy did. She said there were cameras all over. She knew he was taping some of their sessions. Page said it made sex more exciting. Young women are so trusting today. We used to ask for our love letters back when we broke up with a man. Now, they let guys videotape them.”

  She shook her head at modern gullibility and took a swig of her screwdriver. “One night after the store closed, Page asked her to do a threesome. She was so crazy in love, she said yes. The third party was a much younger guy named Collie. Peggy said he was cute and clean-cut.”

  “Wait a minute. Wouldn’t she have had the threesome with another woman?” Helen’s worldly knowledge came from Cosmo.

  “Not this time. Peggy was very nervous and did a lot of coke before she got there. She did even more at Page’s place. Peggy said the tape made Basic Instinct look like Bambi.”

  Helen and Rob had rented that movie, and Rob had raved about Sharon Stone for weeks. Helen didn’t remember any cocaine. Oh, wait, the scene with the murdered guy. He had coke on his . . . Helen could feel herself blushing. Sometimes, she was so Midwestern.

  Margery didn’t seem to notice. “The coked-up Peggy passed out and woke up the next morning in her own bed. She didn’t know how or when she got there.

  “She turned on the TV and heard the news bulletin: State Senator Colgate Hoffman III’s son was found dead in a Fort Lauderdale hotel room of a suspected drug overdose. He was Colgate IV, Collie for short. Peggy recognized him as the cute guy in Page’s office. She realized that he must have died sometime during their party or soon after.

  “Peggy was terrified. She begged me to help her. She expected to hear from the police any day, but they never showed up. She was lucky. You know anything about the senator?”

  “He’s one of those law-and-order, war-on-drugs types,” Helen said.

  “That’s right. His son Collie had a long history of drug abuse. Hoffman’s political opponents charged that the investigation into his son’s death was covered up. The public’s sympathy was with the senator. People felt he’d suffered enough and should be left alone in his grief.

  “Collie was buried and so was the scandal. Peggy was relieved. I could see her starting to get over her fright. She and Page patched things up. She was still seeing him. I told her that was a bad idea, but she didn’t listen to me. All she saw was that ring on her finger. Then she discovered that creep was engaged to another woman. She remembered all the things he’d talked her into, all the false promises he’d made. She ran to the bookstore in her nightgown and made a scene.”

  “What did she think Page would do—dump Astrid and marry her?” Helen said.

  “She didn’t think. Period. She just wanted Page to hurt as much as she did. She managed to embarrass him big-time. That was a mistake. He got her upstairs in his office. When there were no witnesses, he told her he’d made a tape of her and Collie and a lot of coke.

  “‘So what?’ Peggy said. ‘You’re in it, too. It was a threesome.’

  “‘Not on my tape,’ Turner said.

  “Peggy was frightened. She could be charged with manslaughter at the very least, based on her coking with the soon-to-be-dead man. Page told her that she’d let Collie die. He didn’t mention his own role. He didn’t say how Peggy got home and Collie got to that hotel. Peggy couldn’t contradict him. She had only the haziest recollection of that night. Page’s threat shut her up permanently.”

  “Poor Peggy. She must have been shattered.” Helen knew how you could go off the rails when you loved the wrong man. She and Peggy were sisters in experience.

  “She never saw that bastard Page Turner again,” Margery said, “or any other man. That’s a waste of a fine woman. The only good thing was, she went into rehab and got herself off the nose candy.”

  The long speech made Margery thirsty. She took a deep drink of her screwdriver and lit a cigarette.

  Peggy had often told Helen that she was through with men for good. Now Helen knew why. No wonder Pete was the only male she trusted.

  “Her life was nice and quiet. Then, all of a sudden, Page threatened to give that video to the press. Peggy was afraid she’d wind up in prison. Murder has no statute of limitations.”

  “But that’s crazy. Why would Page do that after keeping quiet for more than two years?”

  “Does he need a reason? The man was drunk, mean, and hated women. He’s so rich he can do what he wants. I don’t know why. But I know she was desperate.”

  “Did the police find the tape?”

 
“No. Not yet. But they found five others he made of her. And they know one video is missing. My source says Page put the women’s first names on the videos and then numbered them—Peggy one, Peggy two.”

  “Quite the little librarian,” Helen said.

  “Page had six of Peggy, and the third one is missing. I hope to God the cops never find it. They’ve got enough on her.

  “I love Peggy. I’ll do my best to defend her. But I think she did it.” This judgment was delivered in a hellish haze of cigarette smoke. Helen refused to accept it.

  “Lots of people hated Page Turner,” she said. “They had equally good reasons to kill him.”

  “Name two,” Margery said.

  “There’s Albert, the day manager at Page Turners. He’s worked there for thirty years. Now the store is probably going to close. Albert will be out of a job with no severance, no health insurance, and no way to support his old mother.”

  “And killing Page would stop the store from closing?”

  “No. But it was a lousy thing to do to Albert,” Helen said.

  “Hell, it was a lousy thing to do to you. And you didn’t kill Page Turner.”

  “No, but I thought about it. Gayle, the night manager, hated the way Page treated women.”

  “That’s why she killed him? To save a bunch of women she didn’t know?” Margery snorted more smoke. Even Helen thought her reason sounded stupid.

  “Probably not. Gayle did warn off a woman so she wouldn’t star in another one of Page’s videos.”

  “Then she could warn the others.”

  “How about his wife, Astrid? She called Page a son of a bitch on the phone.”

  “If every wife who did that killed her husband, there wouldn’t be a man left in Florida.”

  “Madame Muffy, the preppy psychic, could have done it. I heard her arguing with Page the day he died.”

  Margery snorted like a mad bull. “Muffy said on TV she was warning him about his terrible fate.”

  “I know. But there’s something weird about her.”

  “Of course she’s weird. How many psychics wear deck shoes?” Margery took a last swig of her screwdriver.