by Elaine Viets
The more a job paid, the less useful it was, Helen decided. Selling books had redeeming social value. Calling people at dinner to peddle vacation time shares did not.
And look at this prize catch in the job pool. It paid six times what she made at the bookstore: Spa attendants. Attractive bikini types. $1,200 a week guaranteed.
Bet I wouldn’t have to wear my ugly granny shoes, Helen thought. Or my pants with the pinpoint holes. Bet I wouldn’t have to wear anything at all.
She sighed and nearly threw the paper across the floor when she saw the display ad:
TWO DAYS TO YOUR DREAM JOB!!
Be there or be square. 10:00 a.m. till ????
Interviews start for Down & Dirty Discounts. Jobs galore: $8 an hour or more at our new Federal Highway store.
Maybe there was hope after all, she thought.
Margery’s day had been equally depressing. She’d been to see Peggy.
“She looks like death on toast,” Margery said. “The trial’s in three weeks. Her lawyer, Colby, is supposed to be the best, but for the life of me, I don’t know what she’s doing. She hired a private detective to help establish an alibi for Peggy. He came up with nothing.”
“What was Peggy doing after she left the barbecue?”
“She says she was driving around. But she didn’t buy gas—or anything else. No one saw her.”
They were in Margery’s big white Cadillac. The rain had stopped, and it was nearly nine at night. I-95 was a demented dodge-’em game. Cars weaved in and out of traffic, or stomped on their brakes for no reason. Sometimes they did both at the same time.
“I remember reading an article in the 1980s that twenty percent of the people arrested for traffic violations on I-95 were on Quaaludes,” Margery said.
“It explains a lot of this driving,” Helen said.
“Not really,” Margery said. “I think ’ludes are out. Who knows what they’re on now.”
The construction work started at the Palm Beach County line. The highway became a nightmare of lumpy patched asphalt and blinking barricades.
An SUV the size of an armored personnel carrier was tailgating the Cadillac. Helen could see its grille, like an evil grin, in the rearview mirror. When the SUV hit its high beams, urging Margery to get out of the way, the inside of the Caddy lit up.
“I hate when people do that,” she said, and slammed on her brakes. The SUV honked loudly, then pulled in front of Margery.
“Good,” she said, flipping on her high beams. “Let’s give this bird a taste of his own medicine.”
She tailgated and high-beamed the SUV all the way to Okeechobee Boulevard. Helen was relieved when Margery finally took that exit, even if it meant more torn-up roads in West Palm. About two blocks later, she was able to talk again.
“Can I ask a question?” she said.
“Go ahead.”
“What does Phil the invisible pothead do for a living?”
“I told you, he’s not invisible,” Margery said, sounding irritated. “I see him at least once a month when I collect the rent.”
“Well, I’ve never met the man and I’ve lived next to him almost a year. I just smell his burning weed. He’s supposed to be a Clapton fan, but I never hear a note from his apartment.”
“He’s a considerate Clapton fan.”
“Does he have a job?”
“Yes, it’s something with the government. Broward County, I think. Building division, variances and permissions.”
“No wonder he smokes so much dope. He must be crazy with boredom.”
“He’s got another five years and he can retire and do what he wants.”
“What’s that?” Helen said.
Margery shrugged. “He didn’t tell me.”
They rolled over the bridge into Palm Beach. The street looked like it had been steam-cleaned and landscaped by Disney. It was so neat, it made Helen nervous.
“We’re on Royal Palm Way, which is lined with royal palms,” she said.
“The rich aren’t big on ambiguity,” Margery said.
The late Page Turner didn’t have a house on the water, but he lived only a block or so away. The sight of Turner’s opulent home made Helen sick. It was a Mizner-style mansion in a shade of peach only rich people could buy. It was surrounded by a ten-foot-tall ficus hedge, but Helen could see the circular drive through the wrought-iron gates. The mansion was artistically lit, inside and out.
“Is this a hotel or what?” she said. “How many rooms does it have? Look at that. I can’t believe that cheap son of a gun was whining about paying me six seventy an hour. My salary wouldn’t pay for his floodlight bill.”
“You wouldn’t want the man walking in the dark,” Margery said.
“I want him rotting in hell,” Helen said.
“It’s hard to sympathize with the little people when you’re sitting in a Cadillac,” Margery said. “Let’s keep some perspective here. Now, will you put down your manifesto and help me find a place to park?”
The street signs said, PARKING BY PERMIT ONLY—9 A.M. TO 6 P.M.
“It’s going on ten o’clock,” Helen said. “We can park on the street. If we see any security coming around, we’ll move on.”
“OK, but you’re going to have to do most of the watching. I can hardly see anything. My view is blocked by the hedge.”
They watched for an hour with the lights off. “If we don’t find a bathroom soon, I’m going to ruin the upholstery,” Margery said. “I could use some coffee and a cigarette, too.” Margery had made the supreme sacrifice. She didn’t smoke on the stakeout.
They stopped at a convenience store on Dixie Highway. “This surveillance stuff is about as exciting as alphabetizing my spices,” Margery said. “I’m beginning to miss that parrot. His squawks would keep me awake.”
“It’s almost eleven. You want to hang it up for tonight?” Helen said.
“No, let’s go back for another hour or so.”
As they sat in the dark, Helen asked, “How come the police never suspected you of Page Turner’s murder? He was killed at your place.”
“Why, that’s so sweet,” Margery said sincerely. “You don’t think I’m a helpless old lady. The cops did. Also, I had an alibi. I was drinking Singapore slings with Alice, the owner of the beach motel, until two a.m. One of the guests complained about the noise.”
It was eleven-twenty when a small car pulled up to the wrought-iron gates. An arm snaked out and punched in a code. The gates swung open.
“He has the combination,” Helen said. “He’s been here before. And look at that little car. He’s no rich guy.”
“This is it,” Margery said. “You don’t make a social call at this hour. We’re about to find out the widow Turner’s main squeeze.”
“Main squeeze?” Helen said.
“Quiet,” Margery said. “The car door is opening. Looks like a skinny guy getting out.”
“That’s no guy,” Helen said.
“Definitely not,” Margery said. “I should have put on my glasses. That’s a woman.”
“That’s Gayle,” Helen said.
Chapter 24
“More coffee, honey?”
Helen was a sucker for coffee shops where the waitresses called her “honey.” This one was the real thing, a neon-and-metal diner off the highway. At midnight, the place looked like that Edward Hopper painting, Nighthawks. The fluorescent lights turned Margery’s amethyst outfit a sickly purple and her skin an unhealthy yellow. Helen knew she looked equally exhausted. They both needed a caffeine infusion.
It was raining again and the diner’s air-conditioning was on full-blast. The place was freezing. Helen spent most of the summer shivering in the refrigerated indoor Florida air. She wrapped her hands around her thick white coffee mug to keep warm.
“Maybe Astrid needed some records from the bookstore,” Helen said. “Maybe that’s why Gayle was there tonight.”
“How does Astrid usually get the store reports?” Margery lit up a
cigarette now that the surveillance was over.
“We send them by courier every Monday morning.”
“Not at eleven-twenty at night,” Margery said. “Not delivered by an attractive young lesbian. Who, by the way, wasn’t carrying anything.”
“Astrid can’t be gay. She was married to Page, who was this hot stud.” Helen let go of the coffee cup long enough to take a drink, hoping it would warm her insides.
“That’s what he said,” Margery said. “Ever ask any of the women if he was any good?”
“No,” Helen said.
“Ha. I thought so. John Kennedy was supposed to be a stud, too, but a lot of women said he wasn’t much of a lover. Don Juans rarely are. More interested in scoring than thinking about what a woman needs.”
Helen took another drink while she considered this. It made sense. She wanted to ask Margery how she knew these things, but didn’t dare. Her landlady probably had a fling with JFK. “I feel so Midwestern,” Helen said. “Astrid was married, so I didn’t expect her to have a gay lover.”
“You’d be surprised by the rich women who have female lovers,” Margery said. Helen really wasn’t going to ask how she knew that. “In the nineteenth century, lesbianism was tolerated, even encouraged, in certain upper-class circles. Appearances were all that mattered, and it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to have a female friend.”
“Even one as butch as Gayle?” Helen said. “In her Doc Martens, she could hardly mingle with Astrid’s country-club friends.”
“Astrid doesn’t want to play tennis with her,” Margery said. “I can’t think of a better way to get revenge on an unfaithful husband than to cuckold him with a woman. So much for his stud rep.”
“Do you think Gayle helped Astrid kill her husband?” Helen said.
“I think it’s the best lead we’ve had so far. Let’s take one more swing by the house and see if Gayle is still there. It’s heading toward one a.m.”
Margery drove back to Palm Beach in a pounding rain. Sometimes the road vanished completely into the wall of water. All Helen could see was the center line unwinding like a ribbon into the gray rain. She stayed silent while Margery handled the big Cadillac with considerable skill.
The rain stopped suddenly as they came over the bridge into Palm Beach. The shining moon lit the ragged clouds and turned the water into a sea of silver.
This time, the Turner mansion looked totally different. The huge house was dark and silent. Gayle’s Honda was parked in the circular drive.
“Do you have to be anywhere tomorrow morning?” Margery said.
“No, I have the whole day free.”
“Good. We’re spending the night at a motel. I want to see something,” Margery said. “Don’t worry. I’ll pay for it.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Helen said. “I have money.”
“I have more,” Margery said. “Besides, I want that damn squawk box out of my house.”
They got a no-frills motel room with two double beds in lower-rent Lake Worth. It was a smoking room and stank of stale tobacco. Helen didn’t complain.
Her pillow smelled like an ashtray, but Helen was asleep as soon as her head touched it. Margery shook her awake at five-thirty a.m. and handed her a cup of coffee made in the motel room’s little coffeepot. It tasted thin and bitter, but Helen was grateful for any hot caffeine.
“Throw on your clothes,” Margery said. “Let’s check something out.”
By six a.m., they were back at the Turner mansion. Gayle’s car was gone. “She’s out before the day help arrives,” Margery said. “They’re hiding their relationship. I’d say we have a good, solid theory. Your work is cut out for you. Find out where they both were the night of the murder.”
Astrid was easy. Women like her had their lives chronicled in the society columns. Helen walked over to the Broward County Library that morning, and began combing the Florida magazines and newspapers. She found what she needed two hours later in the Florida High Life weekly.
On the night her husband died, Astrid had hosted a benefit for the You Gotta Have Heart Association in Vero Beach, a hundred miles north of Fort Lauderdale. The newspaper photos showed Astrid at the head table, next to a well-upholstered gentleman shoving a forkful of food in his mouth. Good thing he was a major donor. The guy would need the heart association’s services soon.
The photos accompanied a column called “Samantha’s Society Rambles,” which Helen thought was a remarkably accurate description. It was headed by a photo of Samantha, who looked like Dick Cheney in drag.
Astrid was wearing a black strapless Gucci gown, according to Samantha, who pronounced her “stunning.” Helen wouldn’t go that far, but Astrid was regal-looking. Her dress must have cost a fortune. More than I make at her bookstore in a year, Helen thought.
Samantha the society columnist had a positive mania for reporting the designers of all the women’s dresses. Helen wondered if the charity would have made more money if the women had stayed home and donated the price of their dresses.
Samantha kept rambling, but Helen followed her to the bitter end, slogging through designer and guest names. In the last paragraph was the information she needed. Astrid had “danced till dawn to the music of Peter Duchin’s Orchestra.” There was a photograph to prove it. She and the well-upholstered gentleman were holding each other at arm’s length, as if they were coated with anthrax.
Helen didn’t know if Astrid actually stayed until the sun peeped over the horizon, but one thing was clear. She was there late. Astrid could not have slipped out for an hour to kill her husband in Fort Lauderdale. It was a two-hundred-mile round trip.
Astrid did not put the pillow over Page’s face, but she wasn’t off the hook. Not after what Helen saw last night. Astrid and Gayle were in it together. Astrid, as the most likely suspect, had established her alibi. Meanwhile, Gayle did the dirty work.
Suddenly, all Gayle’s odd behavior made sense.
Gayle knew Peggy had threatened to kill Page. She’d been at the store when it happened.
Gayle knew where Helen lived because she’d been to the Coronado before. She took Page Turner there and dumped his body in Peggy’s bed to throw suspicion on her.
Gayle was strong enough to move the body.
Gayle knew the Coronado was being tented. Helen had talked about it and asked for the weekend off.
Gayle could go into a building filled with poison gas. She had a firefighter brother with access to SCBA gear.
Gayle hated Page Turner so much, she broke his Bawls.
Gayle had golden hair and a silver car.
Gayle told everyone that Peggy was guilty. Helen was sure she steered the police her friend’s way.
When Page’s office was broken into, Gayle said nothing was missing. If something vital was indeed stolen, something that cleared Peggy, Gayle would never tell the police. All Gayle cared about was that the break-in would upset her precious Astrid.
And what about poor Mr. Davies, dead in his favorite chair? Gayle could have easily slipped back from her errand to hear Mr. Davies was about to spill the beans. She could have smothered him anytime during the mommy riot. She certainly didn’t seem upset at his death.
Gayle stayed with the police when they were investigating Mr. Davies’ death, “helping” them. She made sure Denny and Helen weren’t anywhere near the scene. She could easily hide or cover up anything suspicious.
And what part did Astrid play in this? She was safely in Vero Beach, dancing till dawn in front of the photographers, while her lover made her a rich widow.
She had the money so they could live happily ever after.
Helen did not get more than four hours’ sleep that night, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t even care that she had to go into the bookstore on her day off. Today, she would confirm Gayle’s role in the murders. She would solve this case and save her friend. Peggy would be reunited with her pal Pete and live happily ever after.
Brad usually took his lunch hour
at one o’clock. It was a short walk from the library to the bookstore. On the way, Helen stopped at a drugstore and picked up the latest magazine tribute to Jennifer Lopez. J.Lo! it said. Twenty-four fabulous new photos! Learn her beauty secrets.
The little bookseller was munching Miami Subs takeout when Helen walked in the break room. She had no idea how he stayed so skinny on junk food.
“I brought you a present,” Helen said, and handed him the magazine.
“Is this a bribe?” he joked.
“Sort of,” Helen said.
“I owe you for Albert,” he said, biting into a sandwich oozing lettuce and mayonnaise sauce. “Since you recited his poem, he hasn’t even mentioned J.Lo’s name.”
“Good,” Helen said. “You remember the night Page Turner died?”
“How could I forget? He was a bastard to the end.”
“Was it busy here that night?”
“Nonstop. It was a full moon, too, and every weirdo in South Florida was in the store. I was working the register. I had to call Gayle up front because some wacko wanted to order a book on devil worship, but wouldn’t give us his name, phone number, or address. He was one scary dude. Dead-white skin, black clothes. Looked like he slept in a coffin. Gayle told him no phone or address, no order. I’m convinced he put a curse on us. In fact, that would explain everything that’s happened to this store since.” Helen thought Brad was only half kidding.
“Is that the only time Gayle came up front?”
“I think so. I handled the other crises myself. She stayed in the office the whole night, working on the accounts and the new schedule.”
“Did she go out for lunch?”
“She ate an eggplant sandwich from the café at her desk,” Brad said. “I saw her buy it.”
“But you didn’t actually see her in her office the whole night,” Helen said. “You were at the front cash register. She could have easily slipped out for an hour.”
“She could have, but she didn’t,” Brad said. He’d dripped a spot of mayo on his chin. “I hope you aren’t trying to pin Page’s murder on Gayle. You obviously haven’t worked as many shit jobs as I have. She’s a good manager. She’s too decent to murder anyone. I don’t really feel like reading, thank you.”