by Elaine Viets
“What’s drawing the huge crowd?” Helen said. “A Beatles reunion?”
“Big Dick and the Extenders,” said a twenty-something with a luxuriant goatee. “They usually play in the Upper Keys. They’re great.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Sarah said. “Big Dick is supposed to make Howard Stern look like Miss Manners.”
Helen and Sarah elbowed their way in closer to the open windows. Helen liked the music. Most of it was songs from the sixties and seventies, with some hard-driving southern rock. She did not like Big Dick’s jokes. She had expected some about sexual organs, considering the band’s name. What she didn’t expect was how many jokes put down women and how many women laughed at them. They even laughed when he said, “I see a lot of beautiful women here tonight. I see some ugly bitches, too.”
Helen felt trapped in a fifties frat house. The audience, mostly young men and big-haired women, seemed to love it.
“Let’s get out of here,” Sarah said.
“Took the words out of my mouth,” Helen said. She was about to walk away, when she saw a tall man in a purple muscle shirt deep inside the bar. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
“Sarah, wait. Do you know that guy?” she said, pointing him out.
“I can’t get a good look at his face,” Sarah said. “There are too many people.”
A couple in front of them left, and Sarah and Helen moved forward and pushed their way inside. Helen saw the guy more clearly now, but she still couldn’t place him. He stripped off his muscle shirt, waved it in the air, and began dancing like a Chippendale. Muscle Shirt was at least three beers ahead of his companions. The drunken crowd cheered, and his dance grew wilder and lewder. Helen saw Muscle Shirt had incredibly hairy armpits. Then she got a good look at his face.
“Oh, my God. It’s Detective Dwight Hansel,” she said. “The homicide cop who interviewed me today. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
The band took a break, and the sudden quiet was thunderous. Then the regular barroom sounds started up again—the clink of bottles, the scrape of chairs, snatches of conversation: “So I said to her, if you don’t like it, you can haul your skinny ass out of here . . .”
Nice place.
“Let’s get out of here before Dwight Hansel sees us,” Helen said.
“I’ve been ready to leave for a long time,” Sarah said, starting for the door.
It was too late. Hansel saw them and stepped in front of Helen. He was standing so close, she could smell the sweat on his purple muscle shirt. His skin looked slick and slippery.
“You following me, Helen?” he said, pointing to his chest with his beer. The bottle was sweating, too. “You can save your energy. I’m going to be following you. In fact, I’m gonna be all over you like a cheap suit. You know why? Because I think something is going on in that store. I’ve been talking to some people. That Christina was selling more than dresses. And you’re in on it. Or maybe it’s the boyfriend. Hey, I like that even better. You’re in on it with the boyfriend.”
“Joe?” Helen said. It came out as a croak.
“Yeah. Maybe you wanted a rich boyfriend for yourself. So you murdered your friend Christina.”
Helen was so insulted he’d accused her of wanting Joe, she ignored the charge of murder.
“Joe? You think I’m interested in Joe? I wouldn’t go out with Joe if he was the last man on earth. He’s even dumber than y—”
She stopped just in time. She almost said “you.”
“Than what?” Hansel said.
“Your beer bottle,” she ended lamely.
“Joe’s smart about money,” he said. “He has a couple million in the bank. You’re making how much pushing dresses? Maybe you’d rather spend your days sitting out by some rich guy’s pool.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Helen said.
“Oh, no,” he said, softly. “I’m dead serious.” Then he walked back to his friends and left Helen standing in the middle of the seething crowd of drunks. Helen felt the fear in the pit of her stomach, coiled and knotted and heavy. She’d trapped herself. This man would never believe her.
“Are you OK?” Sarah said.
“No,” Helen said.
“What do you want to do?”
“Get another drink,” Helen said.
Helen was surprised it was still early when she got out of the bar. Which bar it was, she couldn’t remember, and the sign seemed kind of blurry. But her watch, which she could read, said it was only eight-thirty. Helen was tipsy. No, not tipsy. Hammered. Hammered in Himmarshee.
“I can walk home,” Helen said.
“You’re not walking home in your condition,” Sarah said. She held her liquor better, or maybe she hadn’t drunk as much as Helen. Anyway, Sarah drove Helen to the Coronado. Helen nearly fell out of the big Range Rover when she opened the door. She walked carefully to her apartment, as if her head might fall off. Then she put on her cutoffs and Tweety Bird T-shirt and poured herself some wine in an iced tea glass. She filled the glass to the brim.
Margery was sitting at the picnic table, smoking Marlboros and reading a paperback. Her landlady’s shorts were the color of a new bruise. Her toenails were ruby red. She saw Helen lurch into a chaise longue.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Margery said. “I think I made a mistake,” Helen said. Her words sounded slurred.
Margery picked up Helen’s iced tea glass and poured the wine on the grass.
“Hey!” Helen said.
Margery ignored her. She went into her place and came out with a ham sandwich, a bag of pretzels, and a big glass of water.
“Eat this,” she said. “And drink all the water. I’m not making you coffee because that will just make you a wide-awake drunk.”
Helen ate. She was hungry and thirsty. Then she told Margery what she had done.
“You made a mistake,” Margery said. For some reason, Helen felt better when her landlady said that. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to the Sunnysea police? They have the worst force on the beach. Didn’t you hear about the homeless guy who was Tasered?”
Helen looked blank.
“Must have been before you moved here. There was something wrong with the guy. He was mental or on drugs or something, and he went into a Sunnysea café and started tearing up the place. Broke a window, flipped over two tables, scared the owner half to death. The cops were called. Four of them showed up. They held the guy down and hit him with a Taser. A stun gun. The guy died. Some witnesses said the cops were justified. Others thought they used excessive force. One of the papers asked if there was going to be an investigation. Know what the police chief said? ‘Why? We didn’t shoot him or anything.’ ”
Helen groaned. She could feel a headache starting. She could feel that heavy coil in her stomach grow tighter. It was squeezing her guts.
“Look, Sunnysea Beach has some good cops,” Margery said. “But the city can’t afford to pay much, so they can’t hire the sort of police you’d get in a richer place. They get young, inexperienced cops who think they know everything. They get rejects from other departments. They get retired guys from up North with attitudes and pensions who don’t care any more.”
Helen groaned again. Now her head was throbbing, and her guts were in a viselike grip. Snakes of fear slithered around in the pit of her stomach. She had not felt like this since she ran from St. Louis.
“Too late for regrets now,” Margery said briskly. “You talked. The damage is done. I’ll do my best to protect you. If those cops show up here, you call me. If you need a lawyer, you call me. I know a good one who owes me a favor. If you need any other help, let me know. . . . What the hell is that?”
Margery’s head swiveled around like the kid in The Exorcist . Helen followed her. They saw Peggy the parrot lady and Daniel the magnificent strolling along the sidewalk.
Helen thought they made a stunning couple: long-legged, red-haired Peggy and Daniel with the rippling muscles and the tiny sho
rts with the large bulge.
Helen saw the couple was actually a threesome. A grumpy-looking Pete sat on Helen’s shoulder. Daniel seemed to realize that Pete was out of sorts, too. He reached out to pet the parrot. Pete clamped down on Daniel’s finger and refused to let go. The parrot had a wild, piratical look in his eye.
“Pete!” Peggy said angrily. “Pete! Stop it right now.” But Pete hung on. She gently pried his beak open to free Daniel’s digit.
“Is that a parrot or a pitbull?” Daniel said.
“Pete’s going to his room,” Peggy said. “Daniel, I am so sorry.” And she was gone.
“Let me get you a Band-Aid. You’re bleeding,” Helen said. There was a tiny teardrop of blood on Daniel’s finger. It was perfect, too.
“You better put some antibacterial ointment on that,” Margery said. “Do you have any?”
“Yes,” Helen said.
Daniel followed Helen docilely into her apartment. She was grateful that she’d hung up her work suit and put the wine box away before she went out by the pool. At least she didn’t look like a drunken slob. With Daniel so near, Helen was sobering up fast.
When Daniel stepped into her apartment, the place suddenly seemed much smaller, and the bed much bigger. The bed was very big. It seemed to take over the apartment. It was pulsating, throbbing, beckoning. No matter where Helen looked, she saw the bed.
Daniel was standing much too close. She didn’t want him to do that. No, she did. She wanted him even closer. But Helen was afraid she’d do something embarrassing, like throw herself into his arms and start kissing him. Helen was also afraid to take Daniel into her bathroom, which was the size of a phone booth. She had him sit down on the couch and brought in the ointment and a Band-Aid.
“Would you put it on for me?” he asked. Helen took his wounded hand and held it in hers. Daniel had huge fingers, and Helen wondered if that meant his other appendages were large. Feet, for instance, she told herself, trying to clear her pheromone-fogged brain.
It didn’t work. Smearing goo all over Daniel’s index finger and wrapping it in a Band-Aid seemed like some arcane aphrodisiac rite, a prelude to passion. Get a grip, woman, she told herself.
“Well,” Helen said, briskly. “That’s that.”
“Thanks,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes. “Anything I can do for you?”
Helen studied his face for a smirk. He seemed to be sincere. “For a Band-Aid?” she said, with a shaky laugh. “Don’t be silly.”
“Then I guess I better go,” he said, and moved off into the velvet night.
Helen could not stand to be alone in her apartment. Daniel had overpowered it. He’d overpowered her fears, too. She still felt the fear coiling in the pit. She was still afraid Detective Dwight Hansel would get her. But when Daniel was with her, the snakes stopped slithering.
Helen stepped around her huge empty bed, opened the patio door, and cursed her denseness. Daniel had given her an invitation, and she was too dumb to recognize it. She’d lost her only chance to be loved by a perfect man. She breathed in the soft night air and thought she might die of longing. But women who wore Tweety Bird shirts did not die of anything so interesting.
Helen went sadly, soberly, out to the pool. Peggy was outside again, without Pete. Or the magnificent Daniel. Pete wasn’t a pet, Helen decided. He was a feathered chaperone. An earsplitting squawk was enough to discourage most men. If not, Pete literally nipped the romance in the bud.
“I guess I messed up my chances for a date, huh?” Peggy said.
Helen looked at her. “You don’t really care, do you?”
“I’d care very much if Pete had hurt Daniel,” she said, seriously.
“But you don’t really want to date Daniel, do you?” Helen said. “You admire him, like a painting or a statue.”
“Helen, I’ve had too much hands-on experience to get involved with any man again. I’m through with them for good. Pete’s the only man for me.”
Helen wondered what had happened to make a woman as striking as Peggy live like a nun.
Their purple-clad landlady popped out of the palms like a wild orchid. “What happened?” Margery asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” Helen said.
“Good girl,” Margery said, approvingly. “Only way to land a man like that.”
But Helen was sure she’d made another mistake.
Chapter 21
“If you need any other help, let me know. . . .”
Margery’s words haunted Helen as she walked back to her apartment. She passed through Phil’s pot fog in a fog of her own. Helen knew she was in trouble. Big trouble. She had angered a homicide detective. If Dwight Hansel looked into her life, what would he find?
Nothing.
Helen had no phone, no credit cards, no bank account, not even a paycheck. Any good detective would be suspicious.
But Hansel was not a good detective. That was Helen’s only hope. He was a loudmouth drunk, a party animal. Of course, she’d been poking sticks into the party animal’s cage. He could strike back with a search warrant.
But he would not find anything, she thought. There’s no trace of my other life except for a teddy bear and some clothes.
And an old suitcase. Containing seven thousand one hundred and eight dollars in cash.
A wild flash of panic ripped through Helen. Buried in her closet was seven thousand dollars she could not explain. She had no bank statements. That cash would say “drug money” to any cop, no matter how stupid. The coil of fear grew heavier. The snakes were slithering in the pit again.
I’ve got to get that money out of my apartment, she thought. Helen paced back and forth, asking: Where can I keep that cash?
A safe deposit box? No, that would cost money to rent. Besides, it would leave records. Even Hansel could find a safe deposit box.
“If you need any other help, let me know. . . .”
Margery. Margery would help her. Helen pulled down all the blinds, flung open the utility closet door and grabbed the old Samsonite suitcase wedged between the wall and the water heater.
She looked out her front door. The Coronado apartments were quiet. No one was outside. Peggy’s lights were off. So were Daniel’s. Cal’s were on, but she could hear his TV. And Phil? She sniffed the air, heavy with the sweet, burning-leaf smell of pot. Phil was happily in the hay.
Margery’s light was on. Helen carried the suitcase over to her landlady’s apartment and knocked lightly on the door. “Margery!” she called in a whisper. “Margery, are you there?”
“Where else would I be at this hour?” Margery bellowed, flinging open the door. “Come on in.” She was wearing a purple chenille robe. Her gray hair bristled with red sponge curlers.
“Are you running away from home?” she said. “What’s with the suitcase?”
“Margery, can you keep this for me? I promise it’s nothing illegal, but I can’t . . .”
“The less you tell me, the better. As far as I’m concerned, I’m storing your old luggage. Case closed,” her landlady said, patting the suitcase, “and I’m keeping it that way.”
Helen’s worst nightmare came true. The next morning, Detective Dwight Hansel showed up with a search warrant. But he wanted to search the store, not her home.
Hansel and his partner, Detective Karen Grace, were waiting in front of Juliana’s when Helen arrived at nine-thirty. Helen looked like a drug dealer in her heavy black sunglasses, but she was only trying to shield her eyes from the searing sun. Helen was so hungover from her night in Himmarshee she could hardly unlock the door. Breakfast had been black coffee and aspirin. Only then did she have the courage to look in the bathroom mirror. Helen winced at the sight: She looked old enough to be her own mother.
Detective Hansel did not look like someone who had been dancing on the ceiling at Sammy’s Good Tyme Saloon the night before. He seemed earnest and sober and eager to nail Helen’s hide to the green door. Detective Grace was the same odd mix of don’t-mess-with-me voluptuous
ness. Helen suspected Grace had to watch every bite to keep that lush figure from going to fat. Or maybe not. Working with Hansel could make any woman lose her appetite.
Hansel wanted to search the premises for evidence of drugs. Helen was relieved to see that the search warrant was fairly specific. The police were looking for ledger books, documents, long-distance records, and computer disks that did not relate to the business of the store and also for illegal drugs or narcotics paraphernalia.
No scales and tiny baggies at Juliana’s, Helen thought. So far, so good.
Helen called Mr. Roget in Canada and told him two homicide detectives wanted to search the store in connection with Christina’s death. Mr. Roget did not understand American law and didn’t care to. “Cooperate fully with the police, and call me if there is a problem,” he said. Helen was relieved he didn’t ask too many questions.
Stay out of the way, she told herself. Stay under the radar. You cannot afford to get noticed by the police. You do not want to go home to St. Louis.
Helen moved to the back of the store by the black silk-satin loveseats, as far away as she could get from Detective Dwight Hansel. He was up front, searching the counter area. Detective Grace was in the back, looking at ledgers in the stockroom.
She asked Helen what she was doing the weekend of Christina’s death. Helen told her that she had been on a date with Cal Saturday night. She’d spent the rest of the time at the Coronado, where her landlady watched her like a hawk. Detective Grace took Margery’s name and address. She also wanted the names of Juliana’s regulars. Helen gave her a list.
Then she gave Helen something. “You were right,” Grace told her. “Christina Smithson had a cat. I went back and checked her apartment.”
“Did you find Thumbs?” Helen said, hoping the cuddly animal was safe.