by Elaine Viets
“Have a seat, Nora, and I’ll be right out with your dress,” Millicent said.
But Nora didn’t sit. She slipped by Helen and Millicent and found her dress in the back. She tried it on by herself in an empty fitting room. Millicent never let a woman alone with a salon mirror and her own insecurities. Now Helen saw why.
Nora stumbled out wearing fuzzy-ball tennis socks and a five-thousand-dollar red gown. She stood in the salon shrieking: “It’s too big. I hate it. My husband will hate it. It’s a disaster.”
Tears flowed. Makeup ran. Millicent charged out. “Nora, sweetie, it’s not a disaster. It’s a minor alteration. I know my business. I ordered it a little big because you’re so well-endowed. Our seamstress will take it in at no charge.”
“It’s dragging down my chest,” Nora cried.
Mother Nature did that, Helen thought.
“It just needs a little adjustment,” Millicent soothed. “Let me pin it for you. It will be fine. You’ll see.”
Millicent led a sobbing Nora back to the fitting room. In a short time, Helen heard giggles. “You are one hot mama,” Millicent said.
“I love it,” Nora said. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Once again, Millicent had worked her magic. No wonder her hair was snow white.
Helen waited on the next mother of the bride. Rosemary was a tall woman with hair like iron and a backbone of steel. Helen thought Rosemary could walk across the salon with a book balanced on her head.
“I’m supposed to pick out a black dress,” Rosemary said. “I have no say-so in the matter. I’ve been told it’s not my wedding—by my own daughter.”
Helen could see the bitter hurt in the mother’s eyes. “Would you like something strapless or with a sleeve?”
“I don’t know,” Rosemary said. “My daughter’s getting married on the beach. It could be cold. It could rain. I don’t care. It’s not my problem. It’s not my wedding. Oh, hell. Make it sleeveless. If my arms are flabby, who cares? I’m sixty-two.”
Helen sold Rosemary a handsome black knit, but she couldn’t do anything about her hurt feelings.
Simone, the next mother of the bride, was a scrawny face-lifted blonde. “I don’t want to compete with my daughter,” she said, as she picked out a flashy rhinestone number.
Helen translated that as, “I do want to compete with her.”
Poor Simone. She was expertly nipped and tucked, but a fifty-five-year-old could not upstage a woman thirty years younger. Not even if she went to the wedding naked. Especially if she went naked.
Helen sighed. Some women could not let go of their youth, even though it left them long ago. This store didn’t need a salesclerk. It needed a shrink.
Kiki’s murder didn’t surprise her. Helen was amazed every wedding didn’t end with a killing. Family neuroses were painfully exposed, often in the middle of the shop. Right now, Millicent was refereeing a family fight.
The father of the bride was sleek as a panther in black Armani. The mother of the bride wore matronly blue lace. Mr. Panther curled his lip at the blue lace.
“Are you trying to make me look bad?” he said. “That’s a five-hundred-dollar dress. It looks it.”
“I’m trying to be practical,” the mother of the bride said.
“There’s nothing practical about a reception at the Biltmore,” he said. “We’re having it there because I am successful. My wife must reflect my success. Don’t come out in anything less than two thousand dollars.”
“Come, dear,” Millicent said. “I have something that will look smashing with your hair.”
Helen wondered what it was like to fight with a man because you didn’t spend enough money. Probably like any other fight.
The mother of the bride appeared next in a six-thousand-dollar dress the color of old money. She smiled tentatively.
“That’s more like it,” Mr. Panther said.
Helen hoped they would leave soon. I feel like one big exposed wound, she thought. I’m rubbed raw by other people’s unhappiness. All this money, all these plans, and half these marriages will fail. Just like mine.
But it wasn’t only her unhappiness that haunted Helen. She was afraid. Each day, fear tightened her gut. Each night, it invaded her dreams.
She wondered how much longer the police would be able to ignore the pressure to make an arrest for Kiki’s murder. I’m an easy suspect, she thought. My fingerprints are in all the wrong places. My blood is on the victim’s dress. I had a fight with her the night she died.
Every time the doorbell rang, she expected to see Detectives McIntyre and Smith. If I can’t find the killer, I’m going to jail, she thought. If by some miracle I’m not convicted, my ex and the court will find me, thanks to all the trial publicity. I’ll wind up back in St. Louis. That will be another kind of prison.
So what am I doing to save myself? Spinning my wheels.
Helen had poked around and eliminated Chauncey as the killer—maybe. Jason still seemed a likely suspect, but others were just as good. Helen didn’t know what to do next. She was lost.
My life is hopeless, she thought.
To set the seal on her hopelessness, Cassie came back for the third time that week. Her wedding dress had more viewers than an art museum opening. “I’ve brought my cousin Lila to see my dream dress!!” Cassie’s black curls bobbed cheerfully on her shoulders.
Millicent rolled her eyes.
Helen said, “You’ve already shown it to your mother, your father, both grandmothers, your sister, your aunt, all four bridesmaids, and your best friend.”
“Do you think I should go ahead and buy it?” Cassie said.
“No, I think you should bring in the band and the caterer,” Helen said. “Everyone else has already seen the dress.”
Millicent gasped. Cousin Lila laughed. “Why don’t you get the dress before you wear it out, cuz?” Lila said.
Cassie hesitated, then said the three little words they’d been waiting for: “I’ll take it.”
“Praise the Lord,” Millicent said and grabbed Cassie’s credit card before she changed her mind.
After Cassie left, Millicent said, “I’m splitting the commission with you, Helen. I waited on her first, but you made the sale.”
“I don’t deserve it. I could have wrecked everything. I’m losing my patience. These big weddings set women’s rights back fifty years.”
“Weddings bring out the worst in some women,” Millicent said. “We’ve got Mom trying to recapture her lost youth. She’s afraid of growing old. She believes her daughter’s wedding is the signal her life is over. The bride is crazy, too. Brides become different people—moody, demanding, given to tears and scenes. Even if they’re living with the guy, they’re still nuts. It’s the commitment. Before, they could pack up and leave if something went wrong. They can’t do that if they marry the guy. So they’re scared.
“You’ve got two frightened people, the mother and the daughter, and they can’t comfort each other. And don’t forget Daddy. He has a midlife crisis and boffs his secretary.
“You know what? There’s a reason for all that craziness. It’s nature’s way of getting the bride out of her parents’ house and into her own.”
Helen laughed.
Millicent looked out the shop window. “LaTonya and her mother are coming for her final fitting.”
“At five fifty?” Helen said. “We close at six. I’m not sure I can take another bride.”
“LaTonya isn’t another bride,” Millicent said.
LaTonya was almost as tall as Helen, with flawless dark skin. Her body was big boned and sculpted. She was a preppie princess in pre-law at Harvard.
Her mother, Dorcas, wore a faded pink flowered housedress and plastic thongs. Millicent saw that the bride’s mother had no interest in spending money on herself, but she’d do anything for her darling daughter.
Mom and daughter first went to Millicent’s arch-rival, Haute Bridal. “They wouldn’t show us a dress,” Dorcas said. “Said
my baby girl would be happier here where they had cheaper stuff.”
Dorcas spoke without bitterness. Helen would have picketed the place—or burned it down.
“We bought here because Millicent was so nice,” Dorcas said. “It was the right place to go.”
Dorcas had spent five thousand dollars on LaTonya’s dress and veil. Dorcas’s sister bought a thousand-dollar dress. Her aunt spent seven hundred bucks. Millicent knew Dorcas owned a string of wing-and-chip shops and raked in a million bucks a year. She was also a gospel singer of local renown.
Helen took the bride upstairs to try on her dress for the final time.
“You look tired,” Millicent said to Dorcas. “Sit here in this chair, and we’ll have your daughter come down in her dress. I’ll put on her veil and everything, so you can see the whole effect.”
LaTonya didn’t whine about her thighs, hips, or gut. Helen was grateful for that. She zipped the bride into her dress. Millicent crowned her with a chiffon veil. The white satin dress and brown satin skin were a stunning combination.
Millicent called out, “Here comes the bride.”
LaTonya slowly descended the stairs, her head held high. Her white veil floated like a banner.
“Here comes the bride,” the mother crooned to the traditional tune.
Then her voice swelled and she sang, “I say, here comes the bride, oh Lord, Lord, Lord.” Dorcas turned the tune into a full-throated gospel song.
I say here comes the bride
I am filled with righteous pride.
Thanks be to the Lord, oh yes.
LaTonya gave her mother a dazzling smile.
Millicent had tears in her eyes. “Did you ever see anything so beautiful?” The afternoon’s frustrations were borne away on the mother’s sweet song.
Dorcas dabbed her eyes with a man’s handkerchief. “I’ve been lost all these weeks, worrying about money and details,” she said. “I forgot what this wedding is all about.”
The bride, Helen thought. There would be no wedding without the bride.
There would be no murder without the bride, either. Kiki wanted to upstage her mousy daughter at her own wedding. But Desiree was a mouse with the heart of a wildcat. And her mother was dead.
It was Desiree who demanded to see Helen. It was Desiree who fed her the information about Millicent, then sent Helen off on a wild-goose chase that wasted her time.
Desiree knew something—and she didn’t want Helen to find out what it was.
The bride was the key to this murder.
Chapter 24
Helen walked home from work in the soft twilight. Fort Lauderdale was preparing for its nightly party. Musicians were setting up in the Las Olas restaurants. Sunburned tourists were ordering pitchers of margaritas. Cruise ship passengers wandered aimlessly through the shops.
Everyone had vacation smiles except Helen. She felt tired and sad. There’d been too many emotional scenes at the bridal shop today. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She didn’t know why she was crying—and then she did.
She missed Phil. She could see him now, that lean muscular body and those blue denim eyes. She missed his sardonic comments and his sharp intelligence. But most of all, she missed his love. She needed their champagne nights to survive the drudgery of her dead-end job.
With Phil, the Coronado seemed delightfully eccentric. Tonight the place looked seedy. Rust trails dripped from the window air conditioners. The sidewalk was cracked. The purple bougainvillea had dead spots, even after Margery’s pruning.
Helen also missed the comfort of her friends. She wanted to sit out by the pool and sip wine with Peggy and Margery, but both their apartments were dark.
But she wouldn’t go running to Phil. Not as long as his awful ex, Kendra, the Kentucky Songbird, was living with him. Maybe someday Helen could find the courage to forgive him. But not with Kendra gloating in the background. The woman had seen her naked. It was too much to bear.
Helen saw a light on at Phil’s place. Should she peek through his miniblinds?
Why not? She had no pride left after popping up in her black panties.
She crouched down and looked through the slats. Phil’s living room was the same welter of Kendra’s clothes, cereal bowls, and coffee cups. Helen’s stomach turned when she saw a brush bristling with red hair on an open pizza box. A red lace bra sprawled on the sofa.
The woman was shameless.
Phil’s bedroom door was shut. Was he locked in there with the braless Kendra? Or had they gone out together?
Helen wanted to knock on Phil’s door. She wanted to knock in his head. She didn’t do either. She marched home head down and ran into a solid wall of muscle.
It was Detective Bill McIntyre. His crooked-nosed partner, Janet Smith, was standing next to him on Helen’s doorstep. Helen’s heart started thumping when she saw them.
“Can we talk with you?” McIntyre said.
No! Helen started to shout. But she was afraid to say that. “Come in,” she said, hoping she sounded natural.
She unlocked her door. The two detectives followed her. Detective Smith prowled the two-room apartment, picking up knickknacks and putting them down. Helen wanted to tell her to stop, but she didn’t. She was starting to sweat.
Detective McIntyre sat on the turquoise couch. His muscular frame dwarfed its spindly fifties design. Thumbs, her traitorous cat, jumped into his lap.
“Can I get you some coffee?” Helen said.
“No thanks,” both detectives said.
A bad sign, Helen thought. Cops did not like to drink with suspects. She perched on the edge of the Barcalounger.
“You don’t have a phone,” Detective McIntyre said. He ran his huge hand through Thumbs’s soft fur. The cat purred loudly. Detective Smith was examining a flea-market vase as if it were museum-quality Meissen.
“I hate phones,” Helen said.
“No credit cards, either.” He scratched Thumbs’s ears. The faithless cat rolled over in flagrant feline delight and presented his belly.
“I’m trying to live within my means,” Helen said.
“And no bank account.”
“I don’t trust banks. Is that a crime?” Helen tried to say it boldly, but her voice quavered.
“No. But it is a crime to interfere with a homicide investigation and threaten a potential witness. Jason said you’d threatened him.”
“I threatened him? He threatened me. Ask his neighbor. She heard the whole thing.”
“He told us what he’d overheard the night of the rehearsal. Jason says you had a fight with the victim.”
Helen didn’t like Detective McIntyre’s tone. “I told you that.”
“Only after we heard it from another source.”
“I forgot. I was tired.” Helen sounded defensive.
“You also forgot to mention that you threatened to kill Kiki. Jason said you shouted, ‘Don’t you threaten me, lady. If I lose this job, you’re a dead woman.’”
“That’s a lie.” Helen leaped off the Barcalounger, red with rage. “I never said any such thing.”
That lying scum. Helen wanted to wring Jason’s neck. Then she saw Detectives Smith and McIntyre staring at her. She’d certainly showed her temper. Helen settled back on the Barcalounger and tried to answer more calmly. “You must have noticed I didn’t lose my job.”
“Kiki didn’t have time to complain. She was dead before the shop opened on Saturday,” Detective McIntyre said.
“Jason is lying,” Helen said. “Are you going to take the word of a drug dealer?”
“I’m not worried about someone who deals a little recreational Ecstasy,” McIntyre said. “I have a murder to solve. You’ve got no business messing in this investigation. I’m making it my business to find out why you’re so interested. Good-bye, Ms. Hawthorne.”
Detective McIntyre put down her cat and brushed the hair off his trousers, then walked out. Detective Smith followed. This time she was the silent partner.
He
len sank down on the couch, which was still warm from McIntyre’s bulky body. Thumbs bumped her hand, hoping for another scratch, but she didn’t respond.
Why would Jason go to the police? It was a risky move for a drug dealer. Helen must have hit a nerve, but she didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t ask him. Not after the police warned her away.
Did Jason panic because she noticed the bandage on his wrist? The police would have seen that, too. Was it something she said—or he said?
Maybe Jason didn’t go to the police. Maybe the cops caught him dealing, and he traded lies to avoid an arrest. That made more sense.
Now the two detectives were investigating her. How did they find out her financial information? Did they do a credit check? Was that legal?
Helen didn’t know. She did know that the two detectives were smart. They would find out who she really was fast enough. Helen had to act soon or she’d be back in front of that wizened old judge in St. Louis. She could hear her mother, the new Mrs. Lawn Boy Larry, weeping. She could see her greedy ex-husband reaching for her money.
Helen was sick with fear. I need help, she thought. I can’t do this alone. The walls in her little apartment seemed to close in on her. She couldn’t stay there like a wild thing in a trap.
Phil! He was a private eye. He’d help her. He’d already offered. Why did she throw away his note? This was no time to keep up a silly tiff over black panties and a redheaded tramp. Not when she was headed for prison. Helen would be wearing a prison jumpsuit and Kendra would have years to work her cheap wiles on Phil.
Helen ran to his apartment and pounded on the door, but Phil didn’t answer.
“Phil! Are you there?”
Helen heard something that sounded like a cat crying. Then she realized it was a woman’s low moan of pleasure.
“You son of a bitch.” Helen kicked at his door. The moans grew more intense. She saw a hefty rock in the garden nearby and thought of throwing it through his window. She decided Phil wasn’t worth the effort. She had to save herself.
Margery! Margery would help. Her landlady knew everyone and everything. She’d solve this crisis.
Margery’s place was still dark. Maybe she was napping. Helen hammered on the jalousie door until the glass rattled. She wanted Margery to appear in her purple chenille robe, grumpy and sleepy eyed.
