by Elaine Viets
“It also makes it easier to identify her dead husbands,” Helen said.
“True,” Phil said.
Helen’s mellow mood was gone. She was suddenly cold—and stone sober.
“She killed Rob,” Helen said. “Marcella killed him and she’s going to set me up for his murder.”
Phil took her in his arms. “No,” he said, fiercely. “That won’t happen. I won’t let it happen.”
“Do you really think we can beat the Black Widow?” Helen said.
“She’s not your enemy,” Phil said. “Not yet. She’s only dangerous if the police go after her. Right now, you’re useful to her.”
“Can we solve this before she turns on me?” Helen said.
“We haven’t any choice,” Phil said.
CHAPTER 19
Xaviera clicked into the office in killer heels—black spikes with silver buckles.
Helen suspected it wasn’t new shoes that put that dreamy smile on her face. Xaviera had made up with her boyfriend, Steven.
Helen guessed Xaviera had bought the shoes when she was down in the depths after their fight. Then she made up with her man. Now Xaviera had the best of both worlds: new shoes and an old love.
“Where’s Kitty and Solange?” Xaviera asked.
“The bosses are meeting with Mr. Ironton and the club lawyers,” Jessica said.
“Again?” Xaviera said.
“They’re going to be tied up all morning.”
“Good. Put the phones on automatic answer and meet me in the ladies’ room in five minutes,” Xaviera said. “I have information about the murders.”
“Hey, what about me?” Cam said.
“We’ll sneak you in,” Jessica said. “It’s the only private place for a staff meeting. A club member could walk in anytime and overhear us. Anyone could listen in at the staff cafeteria.”
“But the bathroom is full of germs,” Cam whined. He pouted like an overgrown baby.
“OK, don’t come with us. But don’t say we didn’t ask you,” Xaviera said. She tapped her way out of the room in her saucy heels, swinging her round bottom provocatively.
Helen took one more call, then put her phone on automatic answer and slipped down the back hallway. Jessica and Jackie followed. Cam trailed behind them, grumbling and clutching a bottle of hand sanitizer in his huge paw.
The OUT OF ORDER sign was already hanging on the women’s locker room door.
Helen knocked three times and Xaviera opened it. “It’s clear,” she said. “But we can only get away with closing it down for ten minutes. I’ll talk fast.”
Helen noticed Xaviera had a new manicure—bright purple polish with rhinestones on the nail tips. Brenda would have gone ballistic if she’d seen it.
Jessica, Helen and Jackie perched on the marble vanity. Cam stood in the middle of the room, as if he expected the germs to jump out and grab him.
“Oh, come on, Cam,” Jessica said. “You’re bigger than those little germs.”
“This room is loaded with staph and other things that can kill you,” Cam said.
“I promise to get you out of here alive,” Xaviera said. “I have news. My boyfriend, Steven, overheard the head of club security talking about the murders with the cops. Marshall Noote is friends with the Golden Palms chief of police.”
Nobody asked where Steven was when he overheard the information. Listening at the office door, Helen figured.
Xaviera stood in front of them, looking like the cool high school teacher the boys fell in love with. All she needed was a blackboard and a pointer.
“Here’s what the police know so far. It’s confidential, so if you start telling other people, you’ll get Steven and me in trouble.”
“We wouldn’t do that,” Jessica said.
“Just talk,” Cam whined. “I don’t want to be in the ladies’ room. I’m a guy.”
Xaviera looked like she had a snappy comeback, but she swallowed it.
“The police believe the murder scene was staged. The victims had been dead only a short time before Helen found the bodies.
“Julio, the weekend valet, said Helen locked the door when she left Sunday night. She even came back to check it. Steven had night security. He reported that all the customer care doors were locked and the lights were off.
“The police believe Brenda opened the office early Monday morning. She wasn’t due in until eleven, when she was supposed to play golf with Blythe St. Ives. But she came in the employee gate at seven thirty-three. The police don’t know why. There was no early morning appointment in her desktop diary. Her killer may have been waiting in the building or walked in after her. They think he surprised her.
“As you know, there are no cameras in this building. But security analyzed the employee gate tapes. All the employees coming in Monday morning both before and after the murder arrived at times that fit their scheduled work hours. No one else came in unusually early, except for Brenda.”
For once, Helen was glad that she’d been delayed by the car crash on I-95. An early arrival would have made her a prime suspect in Brenda’s murder.
“What about the club members?” Jessica said. “Are the police checking their arrival? Or are they only going after the staff?”
“Yeah,” Cam said. “The cops should hear the members’ phone calls. Those people are mean.”
“Some are killers,” Jessica said. “Mr. Casabella’s with the mob.”
“We have a number of mobsters,” Jackie said. “As well as other unsavory types. This new management lets in people who could have never joined in my day.”
Helen was surprised Jackie spoke up. Maybe, now that Brenda wasn’t browbeating her, she’d feel more at ease with her colleagues.
“The police aren’t ruling out anyone,” Xaviera said. “But they can’t rule anyone in, either. Did I say that right? Can you rule someone in?”
“We understood. Go ahead,” Jessica said. “If we’re in here much longer, the members will start screaming.”
Cam sneezed. “It’s unhealthy, too.”
Xaviera looked at her watch and started talking faster. “There’s a problem. The camera was out of order at the member gate.”
“I was here Sunday when it happened,” Helen said. “A club member got mad when the gate wouldn’t open automatically. He rammed it with his car.”
“He took out the gate arm and the camera,” Xaviera said. “So there are no camera or computer records for the gate Sunday night or Monday morning. It was wide open and unguarded.”
“Anyone could have come in and killed Brenda—even a nonmember,” Jackie said.
“That’s pretty much it,” Xaviera said. “Here’s what we know about the murder. The police believe Brenda was killed first, and she was the intended victim. The employee gate guard saw her arrive in her golf outfit. The gate camera tape confirmed that she was wearing a golf shirt and visor, not her club uniform.
“There was not enough blood on Brenda’s body for her to be killed topless. The police believe she was wearing her golf shirt and the murderer cut it off with the scissors in Brenda’s desk. The golf shirt was not found on the club property, though there was an extensive search of the Dumpsters.”
Helen thought of the huge old buildings with their warren of back passages, nooks and closets. There were a million places the killer could hide a bloody shirt, then take it away later.
“The police believe the killer wanted to humiliate the victim. Whoever killed Brenda was very angry. She was beaten nearly fifty times with the golf club. The doc got hit only once or twice.”
“The killer wasn’t teed off at him.” Cam laughed loudly at his own joke. His laughter echoed hollowly off the bathroom marble. No one else joined in.
“The doctor was killed by number two,” Xaviera said.
Cam snorted at Xaviera’s mildly mangled English.
“He was killed second,” Jessica corrected.
“Right. That’s what I said. Dr. Dell had a club billing statement in
his pocket. He withdrew thirty-five hundred dollars in cash from the bank yesterday afternoon. The money wasn’t found on his body. Police think the killer took it. They say the doctor saw the office was open early and tried to pay the bill before his golf game.”
Helen suspected that the doctor had filched the statement out of the family mailbox and wanted to pay off the incriminating bill before his wife saw it. Talk about a fatal attraction. His fling with a staffer had cost him his life.
“The police think the doctor wandered into Brenda’s office during the murder and got himself killed,” Xaviera said.
“I’m confused,” Jessica said. “Was this a robbery?”
“No. The police think the killer just helped himself to the money.”
“Or herself,” Jessica said. “The killer could be a woman. Nobody would pass up that much free cash.”
“The police say the killer then tried to make the murder look like a jealous spouse had attacked the two. But Brenda wasn’t married and didn’t have a serious boyfriend. The doctor’s wife was in New York on a shopping spree. Demi knew about the doctor’s affair. That’s why she was on the shopping spree.”
“Then why was the doctor trying to pay off the bill before his wife saw it?” Cam asked.
“It’s one thing to know something, and another to see it in black and white,” Jessica said.
“Yeah. That could drive a woman to—” Helen stopped. She could tell everyone automatically finished her sentence.
“What about a hit man?” Cam said. He watched a lot of movies. “Maybe Demi hired some guy to kill the doctor.”
“The police say Demi was not the jealous type. The doctor had strayed before and Demi had the same solution for her pain: retail therapy. She took a major shopping trip to New York or Paris. If she decided to get rid of Dr. Dell, she might hire a cutthroat divorce lawyer, but she wouldn’t murder her husband.”
“So the doctor was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Helen said.
“Right. The real target was Brenda.”
“Maybe if he’d stayed home with his sweet wife, he’d still be alive,” Jessica said.
“The police have any idea why someone would kill Brenda?” Helen said.
“It’s more like who wouldn’t kill Brenda,” Cam said. “We all hated her guts.”
“Do we have to go to her funeral?” Jessica said.
“I want to go,” Cam said. “I’m going to dance on her grave.”
Jackie had turned whiter than the Superior Club towels, and started nibbling her nails. Helen felt sorry for her. Just the mention of Brenda’s name seemed to sicken her.
They heard someone pounding on the restroom door. The staffers held their breath, and the door pounder went away.
“We’d better get back to work,” Helen said.
“Any more questions?” Xaviera said.
Helen had a lot of questions, but she couldn’t ask them.
Was Rob’s disappearance connected to Brenda’s murder? Was he dead, too? What had her wandering ex gotten himself into? Was that his body the tourists found on the beach? What happened to the missing Winderstine file? Was Brenda killed because of it?
Then Helen had a thought that made her heart freeze.
When did the killer leave the customer care office?
How close did Helen come to making the death scene a threesome?
CHAPTER 20
“The service at this club is intolerable.” Blythe St. Ives’s shriek was shrill as a steam whistle. Helen held the phone away from her seared ear.
“Yesterday was the absolute limit,” Blythe screamed. "The locker room had an out-of-order sign on the door. I couldn’t use it for an hour. An hour, I tell you.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Helen said. “But I’m sure the restroom wasn’t out of order that long.” We only hijacked it for ten minutes, she thought.
“I pounded on the door until my hands were bruised, but no one answered,” Blythe said. “Then I went for help in customer care. No one was in the office. Not one person. What were you people doing?”
Meeting in the restroom, Helen thought. Blythe made it sound like she was abandoned in the wilderness.
“Someone must be on duty in the office at all times during business hours,” Helen said. “We are required to keep it staffed.”
“Don’t you dare call me a liar!” Blythe shrieked. “Let me speak with Solange.”
Helen put Blythe on hold and knocked on Solange’s door. The department supervisor looked like she’d had a sleepless night. Her red hair had gone from artfully tousled to unfashionably tangled. Her skin was blotchy and her eyes looked bruised.
“Blythe is on the phone, breathing fire,” Helen said. “She wants to speak to you.”
“Oh, please,” Solange groaned. Helen noticed her usually flawless manicure was chipped. “I don’t need to deal with her today. I have another meeting with Mr. Ironton. What’s Blythe complaining about now?”
“She claims the locker room restroom was closed for repairs for an hour yesterday and she couldn’t use it,” Helen said. “I’ve checked the repair reports. There was nothing noted on the list.”
That was true.
“Has anyone else complained?” Solange said. “Sometimes the repair crews forget to write down emergencies.”
“No, Blythe is the only one,” Helen said. Also true. “She says she tried to complain to customer care, but no one was on duty in our office at eleven yesterday morning.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Solange said. “We had a full staff here.”
“I told her that,” Helen said.
Solange gave a put-upon sigh. “OK. I’ll deal with Blythe. I’ll also note this in her file. Really, that woman is unstable.”
Helen didn’t feel guilty for Gaslighting Blythe. The golfer was growing more demanding by the day, and she had an ugly temper. But was Blythe crazy enough to club two people to death?
I hope so, Helen thought. If Brenda’s nasty golf partner turned out to be the killer, it would make our lives much easier. We could settle down at work. Now we’re jumpy, nervous and watching one another. We feel guilty and uneasy. None of us liked Brenda. We’re all glad she’s dead. But every one of us is wondering: Did someone in this office kill her?
Everyone, that is, except the killer.
Helen polished off her third coffee of the morning, and knew her jitters weren’t due to caffeine overdrive.
The strain showed on the staff in different ways. Solange looked ragged. Kitty was weepy. Xaviera snapped at people. Cam sucked on his puffer. Jessica was pale and drawn. Jackie retreated into herself. She sat scrunched up at her desk, as if she was making herself smaller.
“Can someone here help me?” a woman at the counter said.
Helen jumped. That was the other problem. Every time a club member came through the door, Helen wondered if she was waiting on Brenda’s killer.
This member looked mild enough. She had shiny blond hair, a soft, round face and thirty extra pounds. She wore pretty peach linen and carried a dainty Prada purse, a trifle that would cost Helen a month’s salary.
“I’m Gillian Aciphen,” the woman said. “I can’t use my card in the club restaurant. There must be something wrong with it.” Gillian had the smile of a woman who knew the world did what she wanted.
“I’ll check for you,” Helen said. “Sometimes the strip on the card gets demagnetized.”
Helen looked up Gillian’s photo in the computer, to make sure the card wasn’t stolen. Nope, Gillian Aciphen’s photo matched the woman at the counter—if you padded her with those extra pounds. Mrs. Aciphen was pretty in person, but she’d been drop-dead gorgeous when the photo was taken four years ago.
Helen checked the Aciphen account on her computer.
Uh-oh. Here was the problem in big red numbers. The account was one hundred twenty days in arrears. It had been frozen. That’s why Gillian couldn’t charge anything. Overdue notices had been sent to Harold Aciphen’s office. H
e’d ignored them.
“Let’s go in here where we can talk,” Helen said, ushering Gillian into Kitty’s empty office for privacy.
“Is something wrong?” Gillian’s blue eyes were wide and trusting. Her lightly freckled nose was small and pert.
“I’m very sorry, but your account is three months in arrears.”
Gillian looked confused. “There must be some mistake. My husband pays the bills every month. Harold told me he paid this one. Something is wrong with your computer.”
“No, ma’am,” Helen said. “We’ve sent three overdue notices.”
“I didn’t see any of them,” Gillian said.
“They were sent to your husband’s office,” Helen said.
Mrs. A turned white as typing paper. “That can’t be,” she said. “I know Harold—” Then she stopped abruptly. The light seemed to go out of her eyes. Her shoulders slumped. She gripped her pretty purse and said, “Thank you. I’ll look into this.”
Helen watched her leave, a beaten woman. Gillian knows what’s wrong, Helen thought. Something made her stop in midsentence. Helen wondered what she’d remembered: an odd phone call, lipstick on a collar, a husband who suddenly started working late?
Whatever it was, Gillian Aciphen had just realized her comfortable life was coming to an end. She would never again smile in that same confident way.
Maybe Harold was having problems with his business and was afraid to tell his wife he was in financial trouble. Gillian liked expensive things.
Maybe Harold was paying the bills for a new love, and Mrs. Aciphen was about to be slapped with a divorce.
Judging by the changes in the photo, Helen thought it might be the latter. Get yourself a good divorce lawyer, Gillian, she wanted to say. That’s where I went wrong.
“Why are you staring into space in my office, sweetpea?” Kitty said.
Helen looked at her Kewpie-doll boss. Kitty’s dark curls were flat and her big brown eyes were red-rimmed. Her face was freshly powdered. Helen wondered if she’d been covering up tear tracks.
“I had to break some bad news to Mrs. Aciphen,” Helen said. “She just found out her club account is three months in arrears. Her husband told her he’d paid it.”
