The Dead-End Job Mysteries Box Set 1

by Elaine Viets

  “And now she is looking for Husband Number Six,” Helen said.

  “Maybe not. She’s getting older. Maybe she’s tired of men,” Phil said.

  “She seemed pretty interested tonight,” Helen said. “Do you think Margery knows Marcella is the Black Widow?”

  “Of course,” Phil said.

  Helen stared at the dark ocean. “Then she’s deliberately sending Rob to his death.”

  “Margery wouldn’t do that,” Phil said. “Never.”

  Helen felt relieved until he added, “But she might set things in motion to see what would happen.”

  Helen had spent so many nights boiling with hate, thinking of ways to kill Rob, but even she couldn’t dream up the Black Widow. She was the perfect trap for Rob. He’d be ensnared by her luxury and his own ego. Like all Marcella’s husbands, he’d imagine he could play around on his aging wife and still enjoy her money.

  “Helen, relax.” Phil kissed her neck. “I don’t think that romance will go anywhere. The guy has no technique. He pawed Marcella like a horny teenager.”

  “Maybe she wants to feel like a horny teen,” Helen said.

  The sky was lightening in the east. A thin line of silver appeared in the black night.

  “Forget him. Watch the sunrise with me,” Phil said. “It’s the greatest show on earth.”

  Soon the sky filled with towering pink and gray clouds. The molten morning sun burst above the horizon, gilding the pink with liquid gold. Helen never saw the sun come up in St. Louis, when she was a corporate slave. It was a glorious sight.

  “It’s a new day,” Phil said, and kissed her until he was the only man on her mind.

  The sand was warm and the air felt soft when they left to eat breakfast at an old chrome diner. After blueberry pancakes and hot coffee, Helen checked the time. Seven thirty. She hadn’t stayed up all night since college. She felt raffish and a little light-headed.

  “I have to go, Phil,” she said. “I barely have time to shower and change for work. It’s been a strange and wonderful night. Thank you.”

  “Don’t worry about Rob,” he said, as he kissed her good-bye.

  “I won’t,” she said. In the new morning her fears seemed foolish. They were night fevers. Marcella was no murdering monster. She’d had bad luck with men, that was all.

  At eight twenty-five Helen slipped through the side door of the Full Moon Hotel. She was met by a jubilant Sondra.

  “You don’t have to sneak around anymore,” the desk clerk said. “Your ex checked out half an hour ago. He must have used that dating service after all. This woman in a silver Bentley pulled into the hotel parking lot. A Bentley at this place. Can you believe it?” Sondra’s brown eyes were wide.

  “Her chauffeur paid Rob’s bill and put his suitcase in the trunk. Then he opened the door and your ex climbed inside the Bentley. That’s when I saw her. She looked like an old-time movie star, that older woman in Sunset Boulevard. Remember her?”

  “Gloria Swanson,” Helen said. “She killed her younger lover.”

  “Whatever,” Sondra said. “You’re free. Your ex is another woman’s problem.”

  “Did this woman have dark hair and red lipstick?” Helen asked.

  “That’s her,” Sondra said. “Do you know her?”

  “She’s a rich widow,” Helen said.

  And Rob’s a dead man, she thought.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Helen, what’s the rule for moving a guest’s property?” Craig said. The blond boy-band leader was stripping the bed in room 323.

  Helen came out of the bathroom, her toilet brush held like a scepter. “We can’t touch it,” she said. “This room is the guest’s home. We must respect his things. If someone piles clothes and junk on a dresser, we can’t dust it. We can’t even throw away a cup of warm soda. But we can move a newspaper to make a bed.”

  “What about a handgun?” Craig said.

  “Gun?” Helen said. The toilet brush clattered to the floor. “You found a gun?”

  Craig picked up the crumpled pillow. On the mattress was the biggest, longest handgun Helen had ever seen, with a barrel like a steel casket and a grip like a black mood.

  “That’s not a handgun,” Helen said, her voice quavering. “That’s a cannon. Why would you carry that? In case you ran into an elephant in a dark alley?”

  “It’s a Smith & Wesson Model 629 Classic .44 Magnum,” Craig said, his voice reverent.The boy-band leader had morphed into a weapons expert. “Look at that baby. It’s a foot long. A Magnum can do a lot of damage.”

  He stared at the huge handgun like a man in a dream, then shook himself awake. “So do we move it or not?”

  “Did the guest put the sign on the bed that asks us not to change the sheets?” Helen asked.

  “No,” Craig said. “He tore it into little pieces.”

  “Hostile,” Helen said.

  “Very,” Craig said.

  The gun pulsed, black and evil, the source of dark crimes.

  “We’re not supposed to touch that gun,” Helen said. “A weapon is a little different from a USA Today.”

  “Tell me about it. I’d survive a hit in the chest with a newspaper. Have you seen the guy staying in this room?”

  “Yesterday he demanded extra towels,” Helen said. “When I brought them, he grabbed them and didn’t tip. He’s short and muscle-bound, with a thick neck and big red pimples.”

  “Steroids make you short-tempered,” Craig said.

  ’Roid rage was loose in this room, along with a gun. The Magnum seemed to grow larger. It was at least two feet long now.

  “How mad do guests get if we don’t make their beds?” Craig asked.

  “Extremely,” Helen said. “They pound on the front desk, screaming for clean sheets. Sondra tries to explain why beds piled with belongings can’t be touched, but the guests see a freshly made bed as their natural right. They pay good money for their room and they want service. At home it takes two minutes to make the bed. They don’t even think about it. But on vacation they’ll wait all day for us to do it. Even when we offer to make the bed if they’ll move their junk, they’re still furious.”

  “Do you want to tell a man with a .44 Magnum why we didn’t make his bed?” Craig said.

  Helen stared at the gun. Were those notches on the grip, or scratches?

  “I think we can make an exception to the no-touch rule,” Helen said.

  “Right.” Craig started to pick up the gun.

  “Wait!” Helen said. “What if it was used in a crime? Here, pick it up with this.” She threw him a towel.

  Craig laughed. “Aw, come on. This belongs to some harmless nut who’d rather fondle a gun than a girl. I can’t see a criminal hiding out at the Full Moon with the AARP tours.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Helen said. “We had a bank robber in this room.”

  “Here?” Craig’s eyes widened.

  Damn, he was cute. Helen liked watching him pull the heavy spread off the bed. A man doing domestic chores seemed extra attractive.

  “It happened before I worked here,” Helen said. “The robber holed up in this room and the cops shot him. He tried to escape out that window.” She pointed dramatically at the bland glass rectangle.

  “What happened to the money?” Craig said.

  “It was never found. The cops think he was meeting someone for a drug deal. The other maids say the FBI searched the hotel and tore this room apart, but they never found anything.”

  “Where do you think the money is?” Craig said.

  “I have no idea,” Helen said. “There’s nowhere to hide it in the room. The pictures and headboard are bolted to the wall. You can’t stick it under the bed. All the beds have wooden barriers to keep items from rolling under the mattresses. The robber could stash the money in an air-conditioner duct or hide it in a housekeeping room. The only other hiding place would be in the laundry room.”

  And those have been searched by the staff, she thought.


  “Huh,” Craig said. “So you don’t think it’s still in the hotel?”

  “No,” Helen said. “My guess is his accomplice got away with the money. The robber was killed before he could run.”

  “Makes sense,” Craig said. “Especially since no one’s found it.” He leaned over and kissed Helen lightly. She was suddenly aware that she was alone in a hotel room with a young hunk and a big bed. Now the king-size bed was pulsing. It seemed to spread across the room, an acre of white sheets.

  “Have a drink with me after work.” Craig’s voice was husky.

  “I’m seeing someone,” Helen said.

  “No strings,” Craig said. “Just for fun.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  Helen was sorry, and wished she wasn’t. An uncomplicated fling had a sudden strong allure. How can I even think that, after last night with Phil? she scolded herself. I must be overtired. Maybe I’m running from commitment. No, I sound like a talk-show expert. Maybe I’m just a talk-show guest—on Jerry Springer.

  “We’d better get going.” Helen loaded her spray bottle and cleaning rags on the cart. “We have to leave for Rhonda’s funeral at two.”

  There. A little death should take care of any lingering lust.

  “Uh, count me out,” Craig said.

  “You’re not going?” Helen said.

  “Funerals aren’t my thing,” he said.

  “Are they anyone’s?” Helen said.

  “Look, I didn’t know the woman,” Craig said. “Who cares anyway? She was just a maid. She didn’t own the hotel. She cleaned it. It’s no biggie. No one will miss me.”

  “I sure won’t,” Helen said. She didn’t care if he heard her. No wonder she thought Craig was in a boy band. That’s what he was—a boy, not a man. Someone with no sense of responsibility. She wouldn’t get that little frisson if he kissed her again. Now he left her cold. She didn’t even think he was cute. His eyes were small and shifty and his teeth looked feral and pointed.

  “Suit yourself.” Helen pushed the cart down the hall to the next room. She and Craig cleaned three rooms in an awkward silence. She was just a maid, he’d said. How could he be so callous? Craig got his job because Rhonda died. The least he could do was show up at the church, the selfish jerk. He was getting the afternoon off with pay. Sybil had hired temps so all the staff could go to the funeral. Sybil liked making a buck, but she still did unexpected kindnesses. Maybe that was why the staff put up with the owner’s penny-pinching.

  Finally Helen couldn’t stand her own seething silence. “I need to ask Cheryl a question,” she said. “I’ll be back.”

  Craig shrugged, but kept quiet.

  Helen didn’t care if he had to clean her share of the room. She saw Cheryl’s cart parked in front of room 214, but the curly-haired maid wasn’t there. In fact, she wasn’t anywhere on the second floor.

  Helen ran back upstairs and saw the door to 323 propped open. She and Craig had just cleaned it. Did something else go wrong with the trouble room?

  Helen tiptoed in and found Cheryl on her hands and knees in the closet. The only piece of carpet to survive the attack of the party animals was in there. Cheryl had ripped it up.

  “What are you doing?” Helen pasted on a smile to hide the sharpness in her question.

  “Nothing.” Cheryl quickly dropped the carpet. “The rug didn’t feel right when I vacuumed it the other day and I wanted to check it.”

  “What was wrong?” Helen said.

  “It was lumpy,” Cheryl said. “I mean, it was loose. See?” She picked up a corner with one hand.

  But Helen saw Cheryl’s other hand sliding over to cover something. Helen couldn’t tell if it was one dollar or a fifty, but she’d recognize that shade of green anywhere.

  “Find some money on the floor?” Helen said. She tried to keep her voice light.

  “Why, yes,” Cheryl said. “No. It wasn’t on the floor.” Her pretty pink complexion flushed an ugly red. “It’s twenty dollars. It was in your ex-husband Rob’s room. Either he left it or the rich lady’s chauffeur put it on the dresser. I never got a tip that big, not ever. I’m afraid to let go of it, in case it disappears. But I feel guilty. I should split it with you, since he’s your husband.”

  “Ex-husband,” Helen said. “You can have it—and him.”

  Rob had never left a twenty-dollar tip in his life. What was Cheryl doing in room 323? Was she on another Full Moon treasure hunt? Didn’t the FBI look under the carpet in the closet? Rhonda’s funeral must be making the hotel staff crazier than usual.

  Helen couldn’t face Craig on an empty stomach. She was ashamed of her hot flare of lust. She went downstairs to the lobby vending machines and bought a bag of pretzels.

  The sight in the lobby stopped her short.

  Arlene was sitting on a pink couch with her knitting and her video camera. The Coronado resident had dyed her hair egg-yolk yellow. She wore an eye-burning fuchsia pantsuit. Helen thought she looked like an angry zit.

  “Helen, I didn’t know you worked here!” Arlene said. Her penciled-in eyebrows bounced up and down on her forehead and she started talking faster. “I told you about my hotel lobby hobby. You know I love to hang out in the lobbies and people-watch. I bet you see some sights here.”

  “Not really,” Helen said. “This hotel is kind of quiet.” Except for the murder.

  “The quiet ones are the best,” Arlene said.

  “I’m not sure there’s much to watch,” Helen said. Unless you count my ex-husband, who made quite a spectacle crawling into a Bentley with Marcella.

  Arlene was shoving her yarn and needles into a giant straw tote.

  “You don’t have to leave,” Helen said.

  “Oh yes I do.” Arlene gave Helen a big lipsticked smile. “It’s nearly two o’clock. I need to go home and take my afternoon nap. We old gals have to keep to our schedules. See you out by the Coronado pool tonight.”

  She was gone, just like that. Helen envied the big woman’s grace as she rose and ran lightly to her car. She waited until Arlene pulled out of the parking lot before she went over to the front desk. Sondra wore somber gray today. Helen appreciated this mark of respect for Rhonda.

  “What was that woman doing in the lobby?” Helen asked.

  “Nothing much,” Sondra said. “Typical tourist. She watched people for a while, but she never talked to anyone. She knitted something pink and fluffy. Then she got out her video camera and took pictures of everything, the way tourists do. Shot the palm trees and the flowers, the lobby and the pool, the pay phones and the vending machines. You think they don’t have vending machines back home?”

  “Who knows?” Helen said.

  But she knew this: Arlene lived in 2C at the Coronado, and that set Helen’s alarm bells ringing. Too many crooks had stayed in that apartment. She also knew Arlene was in a hurry to leave once when she saw Helen. Did she really rush home for a nap? And was she really surprised to see Helen? She couldn’t remember if she’d told Arlene the name of this hotel.

  There was one more question Helen couldn’t answer: Why was Arlene at the Full Moon hotel the day of Rhonda’s funeral?

  CHAPTER 22

  JESUS SAVES was painted on the cracked plate-glass window of the derelict drugstore.

  “Does he have any bargains on Maalox?” Helen whispered to Denise.

  The head housekeeper glared at her.

  Helen opened the door to the storefront church and was hit by a refrigerated blast of rubbing alcohol, adhesive tape and mint.

  “A church in a drugstore is taking the opium of the people too far,” Helen said.

  “You’re going to hell,” Denise said, sounding like Sister Mary Justine. “Now shut up or I’ll make you walk home.” She settled her ample body on a dented folding chair. Helen prayed it wouldn’t collapse.

  Helen knew why she was cracking bad jokes. She hated this grim church. She stared at the broken tile floor, gray with dust and blotched with old gum, and remembered her grandmoth
er saying, “We were never so poor we couldn’t afford soap.” Someone could have mopped the floor, considering what Rhonda did for a living. No cleaning woman should have a funeral in a dirty church.

  The altar was a barren table with a Bible and a black cross. Rhonda’s cheap gray casket seemed to suck the light from the room. The wilted gladioli looked like they’d been pulled out of a Dumpster. Like Rhonda.

  Helen desperately wanted to believe that Rhonda’s funeral had simple dignity, but it was stark and sad. There were thirty people in the church, including the hotel staff. The black-clad mourners huddled together like crows in a rainstorm.

  Rhonda’s mother, Shirley, was yellow and dry as an old bone. Her battered black hat looked stepped on. Next to her sat a plump woman who patted Shirley’s sticklike arms. Rhonda’s mother leaned against the woman as if she might collapse. Was she a sister, an aunt or a friend? Helen was glad Shirley had someone to comfort her.

  Helen also saw who wasn’t there. There was no dream lover. The only men were two skinny retirees and fat Sam the biker. No, make that four. Leaning against the back wall was Detective Mulruney, his suit as wrinkled as his face.

  The bony preacher with his frock coat could have stepped from a nineteenth-century daguerreotype. He offered cold comfort, reading from Job in a dead monotone: “ ‘Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.’ ”

  Helen wanted to shout, “This is not a man’s funeral. Rhonda is a woman. Can’t you say something about her?”

  But the preacher never did. He read his hopeless texts until Helen wept in frustration. No one had noticed Rhonda when she was alive. She was thrown away in death. Now she was ignored at her own funeral.

  I will find who killed her, Helen vowed. She knew it sounded childish, but at least her tears stopped.

  The funeral party followed a dusty hearse to the cemetery, squeezed between two truck terminals in Lauderdale. The graveyard was flat and treeless. Helen stared into the hole prepared for Rhonda. The thin, lifeless dirt was dotted with rocks, evoking sermons on seeds and stony soil.