by Elaine Viets
Her second husband had a great body and all the right moves except one: Chip swung both ways. Marcella caught Chip with his boyfriend and made a terrible scene. It was the talk of the seaport bars. Shortly after that, Marcella and Chip went on a sailboat trip to the Bahamas. She told the police that her second husband had had a lot of wine that evening and must have fallen off the boat during the night. A fisherman found the body two days later.
The coroner ruled the death accidental. Chip’s boyfriend was never seen again. No one went looking for him. He was a drunk and a drifter.
Husband number three was a member of the yacht crew, another empty-headed stud fifteen years younger than Marcella. Gossip said she caught this one with an island hottie, but nobody would say anything on the record.
Two days after Marcella supposedly caught her third husband in bed with another woman, he ate some bad seafood and died in agony. The island police didn’t investigate his death too carefully. He was seen eating three lobsters that night in a restaurant in the capital of Georgetown. Two other lobster-lovers at the restaurant were also sick, but they survived. Marcella ate steak, the most expensive thing on any island menu. She was once more a widow. After the inquest, she buried her handsome young husband at sea.
Marcella was fifty-two when she met her fourth husband at a bar in the Caymans. That wedding nearly equaled Madonna’s extravaganza with Sean Penn, according to People magazine. The million-dollar wedding was in a pavilion by the sea, decorated with ten thousand pink roses.
Two years later, the groom drowned in a diving accident. Marcella’s fourth husband was only thirty. The police investigation found nothing unusual and Marcella seemed to have no known reason to kill him.
The fifth husband died in the Bahamas, again on that fatal sailboat. He was a bodybuilder who cheated on Marcella with a sixteen-year-old Nassau girl. He told the girl the rich old bag he married was so grateful, he could do anything. The young woman got pregnant and her mother told Marcella.
Marcella had a very public reconciliation with her husband on Bay Street. It was so touching, tourists and locals alike applauded them. The couple sailed for a second honeymoon on that teak boat. Marcella wanted to picnic on a remote island, just the two of them.
The cook packed a basket with caviar, lobster and champagne. Her fifth husband was an inexperienced sailor. The sailboat hit a sudden squall, the boom swung wildly in the wind, and he was cracked on the head. He died before Marcella could get him to a hospital.
The coroner ruled the head wound was consistent with injuries sustained by a blow from the boom. Marcella had the bodybuilder cremated.
Rob was husband number six. He cheated on the Black Widow and stole her jewelry.
Helen kept asking herself how she could be so wrong about everyone—Rob, Jackie, Cam, Jessica, maybe even Margery. She didn’t trust herself to judge bananas at the supermarket anymore.
She was relieved when they reached the jewelry store, a marble cube in a shopping strip between a Botox specialist and a pricey pet store.
NEW AND PRE-OWNED ELEGANCE, the jewelry shop window proclaimed in scrolly gold letters. Inside, the shop went for the discount Versailles look: gold-framed mirrors, fake Louis XVI chairs and crystal chandeliers. The counters had stubby gold legs. The white carpet was thick and soft. Walking on it was like wading through a warm snow-storm.
The shop owner oozed around the counter, also on stubby legs. Fine tailoring couldn’t mask his rotund figure. Helen suspected even if he wore sunglasses, his eyes would still look shifty. He clasped his soft white hands, as if trying to keep from grabbing the jewelry off his customers. His wide oily smile straggled away when he recognized Phil.
“This is Mr. Harpet,” Phil said.
Helen barely rated a nod.
“The client is due in less than ten minutes,” Mr. Harpet said. “The best observation post is through a two-way mirror in the back room.”
“Just like at the police station,” Helen said.
Mr. Harpet’s look said she was not the better class of client.
“There’s a speaker in the room,” he said. “You’ll be able to hear everything the same as I do.” Mr. Harpet ushered them into a dingy back room. The hidden mirror let them see the whole store from behind the main counter. It was as if they were standing behind him.
“Best seats in the house,” Phil said.
He and Helen sat on two crippled gold chairs and waited impatiently. Phil got up and paced. Helen shifted in her chair and wondered if her slippery former spouse would show. He seemed to have a sixth sense when things weren’t going his way.
“What if it is Rob?” Helen said.
“We let him complete the deal. I want the whole thing on tape,” Phil said. “Then we grab him and the jewelry.”
Helen heard a bell. The shop door opened. She saw a man silhouetted in the sunlit doorway, but he was too far away to see his face. He was about Rob’s height. He wore new jeans, a baseball cap, and judging by the drape, an expensive shirt.
As he walked toward the counter and the hidden mirror, Helen finally made out his face.
“That’s him!” she said.
“It sure is,” Phil said.
Helen wanted to leap through the glass and strangle him. After what he’d put her through, Rob strolled in to boldly sell his wife’s jewelry. Incredible.
Phil squeezed her hand in a gesture of affection and warning. “Easy,” he said. “I know you’re angry. Sit tight and we’ll nail him.”
Helen watched Rob shake hands with Mr. Harpet. She was fascinated by their body language—two liars talking to each other. Mr. Harpet slathered on his charm like cheap suntan oil. Rob did his good ol’ boy routine, which was hard to carry off in Gucci loafers. She almost believed him, even after all these years.
Mr. Harpet sat down at a spindly gold desk. Rob pulled up a gold silk chair and took a black velvet bag out of his pocket. He spilled the contents on a velvet pad on the desk. Even across the room, Helen could see the green and white fire of diamonds and emeralds.
Mr. Harpet pulled out a jeweler’s loupe and moaned in pleasure. Helen blushed, as if she were eavesdropping on an intimate moment.
Rob started bargaining for the best price on his wife’s stolen jewelry. Mr. Harpet offered him ten cents on the dollar, then let Rob bargain him up to nearly full price. Why not? He was never going to pay the money.
“Then it’s a deal,” Mr. Harpet said, with a Judas smile.
Those words were the signal.
Phil opened the door and stepped into the plush front of the store. Helen followed. She saw Rob turn nearly as white as the corpse he was supposed to be.
“Welcome back from the dead, Rob,” Phil said. “It’s business as usual, I see. We’ve got your transaction on tape. I’m sure the police will be interested.”
“The necklace was a present from my wife,” Rob said. Except for the color change, he was cool. Helen had to give him that.
“That’s not what Marcella told me,” Phil said. “She paid me to track you down. She doesn’t want you. The Black Widow has her next husband picked out. But she’d like her jewelry back.”
“You must be the famous Phil,” Rob said. “No wonder you’re here. I heard you liked used goods.”
Helen grabbed Phil’s arm, before he punched Rob. “Don’t let him bait you,” she said. “He’s not worth the skin off your knuckles.”
“You’re pussy-whipped, man,” Rob said. Without warning, he picked up the gold silk chair and swung it at Phil’s leg. Helen heard a crack, then a crash of glass.
“My mirrors! My display case!” shrieked Mr. Harpet.
“My leg,” Phil said.
Rob streaked out the door, the bell jangling merrily.
“He’s got the jewelry,” Phil said, rubbing his leg in a welter of glass. “Helen, go get him.”
“What about you?”
“I’m fine. Don’t let him get away.”
“No chance,” Helen said. “He hunte
d me for years. This is payback time.”
She started to run and nearly tripped on her spike heels. She kicked the shoes off, but grabbed one as a weapon. Then she took off barefoot down the street, her skirt hiked so she could run faster.
Her feet pounded the warm sidewalk. A woman walking a Yorkie picked up her little pet and held him protectively. Rob was running across the parking lot.
“Stop, thief!” Helen cried. She could see Rob dodging an SUV. He turned down a quiet street. Helen followed, determined to catch him.
Rob bolted across a yard and leaped a fence. Helen hitched up her skirt almost to her waist and jumped, too. Her new skirt ripped on the chain link. Now she was beyond mad.The skirt wasn’t paid for yet and it was ruined.
They were tearing through a weird park with flowers, stuffed animals, and balloons on sticks in the grass. No, wait. This wasn’t a park. It was a cemetery. With rows of flat gray granite stones.
She could see Rob jumping over the headstones. Helen followed him, running past the rows of graves. She was closing the gap. She could see the names on the stones that nearly grazed her feet: MUFFIN. COOKIE. DUMPLING.
Bizarre. Why would someone put food on a tombstone? Then she passed a tombstone shaped like a bone and knew where she was: a pet cemetery. Those were the names of much-loved dogs and cats.
Rob was slowing down, getting winded. Helen ran faster, powered by fury. Her ex wasn’t getting away. Not this time. She’d follow him into hell.
She only had to follow him another row and a half. Rob dodged left, tripped over a stone, and fell facedown in the stringy grass. The fall knocked the breath out of him. Helen landed on his back.
“Uhf!” Rob said, panting like an old dog. “You’ve put on weight since we were married.”
Helen hit him with her high heel.
“Dammit,” Rob said. “That hurt.”
“It was supposed to,” she said. Then she started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Rob asked, between gasps.
“I just noticed the tombstone you fell over. It says, ‘Beloved Rover. Faithful Unto Death.’ That would definitely trip you up.”
Rob said nothing. He was still trying to catch his breath. Phil’s Jeep roared onto the cemetery road. Phil stopped at their row, left the engine running, and limped across the grass.
“You got him,” he said to Helen. “Good work. I knew you were smarter than he was. I didn’t know you were faster and stronger.”
Phil bent back Rob’s hands and cuffed him. Rob struggled, but Helen stuck her knee in his back, where it would hurt the most. Rob yelped like a stepped-on poodle.
Phil extracted the velvet bag from Rob’s pocket. That’s when Rob really howled. “Hey! You can’t do that.”
Helen kicked him in the gut. It felt good. His belly was soft. He’d been lifting beer and bags of nachos since he’d died.
“Shut up or she’ll kick you again,” Phil said. “She wants to hurt you even more than I do.”
“Are you OK?” Helen asked Phil. “You’re limping. Should you be walking?”
“I’m fine now that you caught this idiot. I don’t think my leg’s broken. I’m well enough to kick him all the way back to Miami.”
“I’m not talking,” Rob said.
“Fine.” Phil powered up his cell phone. “You can talk to the police. Just remember, you’re a dead man.”
“Wait. I can explain,” Rob said.
Rob could always explain, Helen thought. Her ex-husband believed he could talk his way out of anything. Usually, he could.
“Let’s get him out of here,” Phil said. “I don’t want him attracting more attention.”
Phil and Helen frog-marched the handcuffed Rob across the cemetery and shoved him in the cramped back of the Jeep.
“Can’t you cuff me in front?” Rob whined. “I’m wedged in here. This hurts.”
“Good,” Helen said. Phil backed out of the cemetery and swung the Jeep toward the highway.
“You move pretty fast for a dead man,” Helen said. “Police in three counties have been looking for you. The cops thought I killed you. Why did you put Marcella and me through this?”
“I told you,” Rob said. “But you didn’t listen. You never do. I wanted to get away from her. I needed money to leave her.”
“So you stole from your own wife,” Helen said. “Just when I thought you couldn’t go any lower.”
“She never wore that crap. She wouldn’t have missed it, if she hadn’t sent those rubies to be cleaned. I was desperate.” Rob pleaded with hurt-puppy eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like to be that desperate.”
“Sure I do,” Helen said. “I was married to you.”
“She’s tired of me,” Rob said. “She wants to kill me. She’ll get away with it, too. She’s the Black Widow. I had to save myself. I wanted everyone to think I was dead. It was the only way to survive. The cops would suspect she killed me, but they’d never prove it.”
“So why drag me into this?” Helen said.
“I thought it would be better if I had two murder suspects.”
Phil grabbed Helen’s blouse before she went over the back of the seat after Rob. “He’s not worth it, remember?” he whispered in her outraged ear.
Helen took a deep breath to calm down. Phil was right. She wouldn’t take the bait. “You provoked that fight with me at the club,” she said. “You wanted me to hit you. That would mark me as a suspect.”
“You enjoyed it,” Rob said. “You’ve wanted to pop me for years.”
“What about that blood in the parking lot?” Helen said. “How’d you fake that?”
Rob shook his head so his hair flopped to the side. Helen could see deep scabbed cuts at the edge of his hairline. “I cut my forehead with a razor blade. See? It’s an old wrestler’s trick. Bleeds like a son of a bitch, but doesn’t hurt much. I could hide the cuts with my hair. I made another cut in my arm, sucked the blood up with a syringe and then squirted it over the Dumpster so it looked like arterial blood spray.”
“How’d you know to do that?” Helen said.
“It’s all on the Internet if you read the forensic Web sites. I knew I couldn’t stockpile my blood, like they did in that TV show.”
“Desperate Housewives,” Helen said.
“Right. That trick doesn’t work. Blood clots pretty quickly. But if I took it out with a syringe and squirted it right away, I’d have a decent blood spatter pattern.” Rob was puffed with pride over his plan. “I got kind of queasy. I tried not to think this was my own blood. It worked. At least, it fooled the cops. I hated to lose the shirt, though. It was a favorite.”
Helen made a low growl, like an angry dog, but she stayed in her seat. Phil patted her knee.
“It was worth the sacrifice. I knew Marcella would lawyer up,” Rob said. “But you couldn’t afford a good lawyer. The cops would keep after you.”
Phil gently rubbed Helen’s back, another reminder not to respond. He didn’t have to worry. Helen couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t find the words to answer Rob.
The Jeep turned off I-95 onto the road to Golden Palms. The ordeal was almost over.
“You know, Rob,” Phil said. “I was going to call the police and let them know you were alive and well and selling stolen jewelry in Palm Beach County. But your wife doesn’t want the publicity. I doubt she’ll press charges. I hate wasting police time. They don’t like it, either. Instead, I’m taking you home to your wife. That way Marcella can decide if she wants to be a widow again.”
“No!” Rob’s smirk vanished. Helen could see real fear in his eyes. “No, please. Call the police.”
“Nope,” Phil said. “You’ve bothered the police enough. Helen, we’re five minutes from the Superior Club. Call Marcella on my phone and tell her she has a visitor.”
“I’ll scream when we get to the club gates,” Rob said. “Security will come running. They know me. You won’t get away with this.”
Phil pulled the Jeep behind t
he pumps at a deserted gas station. He turned around and said, “Sure I will.” Phil slammed Rob in the jaw. His eyes rolled back and he slumped back unconscious.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” Phil said, as he put the Jeep in gear. “Helen, please call Marcella. Let her know her visitor is a little under the weather. I’ll deliver him and her jewelry momentarily.”
Helen gave the message to the skin-domed majordomo, Bruce.
“Certainly,” Bruce said. “Someone will be on the dock to help the gentleman aboard. Marcella thinks a short sea voyage is just what he needs.”
Helen shivered when she hung up the phone. Men didn’t return when they sailed with Marcella.
Michael, the devilishly handsome club concierge, was waiting on the dock with a wheelchair. The Brandy Alexander loomed over him, its black windows like eyeless sockets. Michael eased the handcuffed Rob out of the car and into the wheelchair with practiced moves. Club members regularly drank themselves into a stupor and the concierge tactfully wheeled them to their rides. The club could maintain the fiction that these members weren’t drunk, just a little under the weather.
Rob was still unconscious. His head lolled to one side and his mouth was open. The concierge tucked a blanket around Marcella’s unfaithful spouse to conceal his handcuffs, then wheeled the chair up the ramp. Rob never stirred.
Phil handed the velvet bag of jewelry to Bruce. Bruce handed Phil a check. Marcella did not come out to thank Phil or Helen.
Helen and Phil watched the white-uniformed crew cast off. The club concierge stayed on board. Helen wondered if the new husband would dispose of the old one.
Helen and Phil watched the Black Widow’s ghost-white yacht sail away. This time, Helen did not run screaming along the docks to save her ex.
She held Phil’s hand and said nothing.
