by Elaine Viets
Helen changed the filter, vacuumed the vent inside and out, and while she was at it, cleaned the whole utility closet. All the while, she thought about Tara.
Christina had found out Tara had been a prostitute and hidden the proof in the store. Was she blackmailing Tara? How much money was Tara paying to keep her past quiet? And why . . . ?
“You fixed it!” Tara said. “Cool air is coming out. The store should be liveable pretty soon.”
Tara stood silhouetted in the stockroom doorway, a small, slender woman in a fashionably fringed skirt and a shoulder-baring top. Her pink mules were embroidered with flowers. Her long hair was soft and shining. Her skin glowed. She looked sweet and vulnerable, unlike the brazen tart in the flyer. Tara had reinvented herself.
“What’s wrong?” Tara said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Helen reached for the flyer. “You were a Las Vegas . . . sex worker?” she said, proud she’d remembered the politically correct term for hooker.
She could see Tara’s body tense, as if she were turning to stone. “Yes,” she said, defiant but also afraid. “So?”
“Is that where you met Paulie?”
“God, no. He thinks I’m a mail-order bride from Thailand. He paid a fortune to get me here. I banked it all.”
“You’re kidding,” Helen said. “Paulie thinks you’re from Thailand? With that Midwest accent? Where are you from—Chicago?”
“Cleveland. I told him I’d listened to Berlitz tapes,” Tara said.
“And he believed you?”
“Men believe what they want to believe, especially when it comes to sex,” Tara said. “I’m the fantasy woman he’s always wanted—exotic, quiet, submissive. Paulie really wants a hooker, but he doesn’t know it. I give him what he wants. He gives me what I want—money and security. He’d drop me like a hot potato if he knew my past. He thinks I was a virgin when we met.”
“How much was Christina blackmailing you for?” Helen said, deciding to bluff.
“I paid her two thousand a month,” Tara said. “Recently, she wanted to raise it to twenty-five hundred dollars. I could barely make the two thousand, even with all Paulie gave me. I was desperate.”
“That’s why you faked that robbery,” Helen said. “You were looking for this flyer, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but I was also looking for some photos. She has pictures of me with my clients . . . doing things. She showed me the flyer first, and I laughed and said flyers could be faked. Then it was her turn to laugh. She said she had some photographs Paulie would love to see.”
“Photos can be faked, too,” said Helen.
“Not these,” Tara said, sadly. “I saw them. They’re real. I searched the store, but I couldn’t find the flyer or the photos anywhere. The search took longer than I expected. I couldn’t explain to Paulie why I was so late.”
“Why not? You could have said you were delayed by an accident on the road.”
“You don’t know Paulie. He’s so jealous, he’d check. He calls my cell phone if I’m half an hour late.”
“So you tossed some clothes around, hit your forehead on the wall, and made up the story about the two men with guns,” Helen said.
Tara nodded, the curtain of hair sliding across her face.
“Don’t worry,” said Helen. “I won’t tell the police about the break-in unless I absolutely have to.” For my sake, she thought, not yours.
“I didn’t kill Christina,” Tara said. “You believe me, don’t you? I’d be crazy to kill her before I found out where she stashed those photos. If the police find them, I’m in trouble. That’s why I came back to work here, to see if they turned up anywhere.”
“I thought you and Christina were friends,” Helen said.
“We started off that way. Friends, I mean. Then she showed me the photos and asked for money. I was afraid she would tell Paulie and ruin everything. So I pretended we were still friends. It wasn’t too hard. I pretended with Paulie, too. Most of the time, I could forget what Christina was doing.”
Tara said it without bitterness. Helen wondered if she was faking that, too.
“Where did you find the flyer?” Tara asked.
“In the filter box,” Helen lied. “Do you know what ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ means?”
“It’s a song by Captain & Tennille, isn’t it? An old one.” She shrugged. Obviously, it meant nothing to her.
“Are you going to tell Paulie?” Tara said. “Are you going to ruin the only good thing I’ve got?”
“No, Tara,” Helen told her. “Your past is your own.”
Unless you killed Christina, she told herself.
Chapter 23
Did Tara kill Christina?
Christina had preyed on her friend, bleeding her for money, month after month. Tara had to pretend they were still friends to keep her privileged life. She would only be free if she had those photos. Tara was so desperate, she beat her head against the wall until she bled, then made up the story of the armed intruders.
But Tara still didn’t have the photos. She needed Christina alive.
Helen could see a frustrated Tara beating Christina to death with something heavy like a tire iron. But she couldn’t see tiny Tara stuffing the dead body into a barrel and then lugging the heavy barrel out to Biscayne Bay.
Tara seemed so delicate, so fragile. But delicate Tara could carry huge armsful of clothes to the dressing rooms. Fragile Tara could lift big boxes of stock. Tara was strong as a stevedore.
Helen wanted to find Christina’s killer. She was tired of being afraid. She was afraid Detective Dwight Hansel would discover her past. But she didn’t want the killer to be Tara. She liked Tara, despite her occasional outbreaks of silliness.
But how could Helen unravel this mess? She had no detecting skills. She didn’t know the meaning of the mysterious words on Tara’s flyer, “Love Will Keep Us Together.” They could be a slogan, a song, a code. Or a note Christina jotted down that had nothing to do with anything.
Maybe the key was hidden in those appliance manuals. Maybe there were more blackmail victims. But every time Helen slipped back to the stockroom, the doorbell rang, and she had more customers.
Helen soon saw any search was hopeless while the store was open. She’d wait until this evening. She was itching to read those appliance manuals. She had to know if there were more juicy secrets buried in those dry pages.
The wait was almost unendurable. It grew worse when the last person Helen wanted to see walked into Juliana’s—Niki. The woman who paid for the murder of Desiree Easlee now flashed her wedding ring like a trophy. She’d won, although Helen did not think Jimmy the Shirt was any prize.
The bride wore black, a good color for a killer. Even Helen had to admit that Niki made a radiant bride, until you got close. Then her mouth was bitter, and her eyes were hard. But the Playboy non-centerfold finally had a man. Helen wondered if he could endure her perfume until death parted them.
“I just heard about Christina,” Niki cooed. “It’s so terrible. She would have been so happy to know that Jimmy and I are married.”
“I thought Jimmy was going to marry Desiree,” Helen said. She couldn’t resist.
“She died,” Niki said, shortly. The perfume cloud around her quivered.
“She was murdered, wasn’t she?” Helen said. “It must have been a shock when you saw the reports on TV.”
“I didn’t. I was devastated when Jimmy . . . well, when Jimmy and I split up. I went home to Mother. I spent the whole month in Athens.”
“Georgia?” Helen said. Niki could have driven from Georgia to Florida and back without leaving a trace.
“Greece,” Niki said.
That would be a little tougher.
“I flew straight back when I heard about the carjacking. Poor Jimmy was so lonely. He threw himself into my arms and said he still loved me. He admitted Desiree was a mistake. He wanted to get married right away, so we’d never be apart again. We got our license and
went to a judge, then caught a plane to Costa Rica. We’ve been there ever since on our honeymoon.”
Clever Niki was telling Helen she had an alibi for both Desiree and Christina.
“How was Costa Rica?” Helen asked.
Niki wrinkled her nose. “Full of bugs. But I don’t care. I’m so happy.” Her lips twisted into a Lady Macbeth smile.
What woman would marry a man right after his fiancée was buried?
The woman who hired her killer.
Jimmy was another gem. His bride-to-be was brutally murdered, days before their wedding. Her coffin was barely underground before he married another woman. Jimmy had not bothered to mourn his fiancée one week. The “mistake” had been erased.
Niki and Jimmy deserved each other. Helen was glad when Niki finally left Juliana’s, even though the bride didn’t buy anything. Her perfume lingered like an accusation. Helen felt like airing out the store.
The day crawled forward. Helen and Tara dragged clothes in and out of dressing rooms. Customers dropped ten-thousand-dollar gowns on the floor, left Hermes scarves draped over chairs, and abandoned belts on counters. They bought almost nothing. It was six-twenty when the last customer left Juliana’s.
Tara had been pale and subdued all day. She did not speak to Helen, except to ask the price of a Versace shirt. Now Tara said, “I guess you won’t want me working here any more.”
“Why?” Helen said.
“Now that you know what I am,” Tara said.
“I know you’re a good saleswoman, and I expect you here at ten in the morning,” Helen said. “Why don’t you go home before Paulie starts worrying? I’ll close up.”
“Thanks,” Tara said, and managed a weak smile. But she left as if she was escaping from jail. Poor Tara, trying live down her long-buried past. She must have dreaded the day it would be unearthed. Helen knew how she felt. She had her own secrets.
Helen locked the door, closed out the cash register, and put the money in the night safe. Alone at last.
The stack of appliance manuals was sitting in the stockroom, safe and dull as a pot roast. Helen paged through telephone booklets, security system manuals, and light fixture instructions. She shook each one and fanned the pages.
She found six things, but they were hardly fodder for blackmailers. They were harmless articles. Five were the sort of stories proud mothers showed their bridge clubs. The sixth was a routine news story.
Helen found the first story hidden in a computer manual. The pill-popping Venetia was “Local Mother of Year” in the Golden Shores Gazette. She was praised as the “spirit of Golden Shores volunteerism,” who raised half a million dollars for the children’s home. “But she’s also the busy mother of two little boys,” the article oozed.
Venetia’s Adolfo suit could have come from Nancy Reagan’s closet. Helen was surprised how attractive Venetia looked when she wasn’t twitching.
The puzzle was Christina’s bold, black writing on this clipping. She’d scrawled “Mother and Child Reunion.” Definitely a song title, a Paul Simon hit from the 1970s.
What did that mean? Why hide this story in a computer manual? It could not possibly be blackmail material.
Next, Helen found a newsletter for a Wichita nursing home. The Sunny Gables Monthly had named Cindy Pretters as Employee of the Year.
Despite the big hair and bad makeup, Helen could see that Cindy was Tiffany, before her eye job. Cindy/Tiffany’s baggy uniform was a far cry from the clothes she wore now, bought by her rich old boyfriend, Burt.
Even ten years ago, Tiffany had a knack for pleasing older men. She was photographed with four nursing home residents. The three elderly men looked at Tiffany like she’d just let them into heaven. Tiffany’s charm seemed to escape the only other woman in the picture. Mrs. Vera Crinklaw, age ninety-two, stared stoically into the camera, as if she’d been forced to attend at gunpoint.
Christina had scrawled another song title on the Sunny Gables Monthly: “Silver Threads Among the Gold.” Helen’s grandmother liked to sing that song. It was even older than the Captain & Tennille hit.
That was two articles.
In a booklet for a battery-operated clock, Helen found the third: a People magazine story about the supermodel Sharmayne. She was photographed at an animal shelter benefit hugging her German shepherd, Big Boy. Sharmayne was at the height of her career and her beauty. The disastrous liposuction was another year away. But despite Sharmayne’s stunning looks, it was Big Boy who stole the photo. He made Rin-Tin-Tin look like the runt of the litter. His fur was glossy, his bearing noble, his eyes alert and intelligent. No wonder Sharmayne told the magazine “Big Boy is my main man.”
Christina’s black slashing writing was on this story, too. It was a Nick Lowe song, “The Beast in Me.”
The fourth was a business article announcing that Christina’s ex-boyfriend, Joe, had paid six hundred thousand dollars for a five-thousand-square-foot warehouse near Port Everglades. This story was so boring, Helen could hardly read it to the end.
In the margin, Christina had written “Gotta Serve Somebody.”
A Bob Dylan hit? This made no sense whatsoever.
Story number five was hidden in the instructions for store shelving. It was an article from Chicagoland Hi-Life, a magazine devoted to rich people’s parties.
“Chocolate Lovers Bash Sweetens Charity,” the sugary headline said, but it was the photo that captured Helen’s attention. It starred another Juliana’s regular, Niki, the perfumed bride from hell, with four female partygoers. The benefit was at a lavish house, and the four women dripped diamonds. Only Niki had no jewelry. She outshone them all in a simple black dress.
Christina had written “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Why use this clichéd show tune?
The last article was a short news story about the death of Brittney’s fiancé, Steve. The story said his body had been found by a boater in a canal near the Seventeenth Street Bridge.
The couple was to be married in June. The story said the medical examiner found “significant amounts” of alcohol in the deceased’s blood. Steve’s death was ruled an accident, but Helen could see how the suicide whispers had started.
Christina had written “Tiny Bubbles” on this story, Don Ho’s ode to a bottle of bubbly. It was a mean choice for a man who got drunk and drowned.
Helen looked through the stack of manuals again but found nothing else. It was almost eight o’clock when she left the store. On the walk home, Helen puzzled over the articles and song titles. They were an eclectic collection, from Nick Lowe to Don Ho. If this was a code, it was beyond Helen.
She had been searching for two hours. Helen knew less than when she started. She had not found Tara’s blackmail photos.
Where did Christina hide them? The police had already searched her penthouse. Did that mean the photos weren’t there? Did the police miss the hiding spot? Or did they have the photos, and they weren’t telling Helen? No, if Dwight Hansel had those photos, he would not miss an opportunity to torment her.
Tara had searched the store and found nothing. It was Helen who stumbled on the Las Vegas flyer by accident.
How many other secrets did Juliana’s hold?
These questions buzzed around Helen like gnats, irritating her and refusing to go away. When she finally got to the Coronado, Helen went out by the pool, looking for Peggy or Margery. She wanted to discuss her finds, but neither woman was home.
Instead, Daniel and Cal the Canadian were talking at the picnic table. Daniel was barechested, and his tanned abs looked like they’d been bronzed. His cobalt eyes had a wicked slant in the twilight. His long hair tumbled down his shoulders like black silk. Next to him, Cal seemed old and shrunken, juiceless and used up.
“Yes, sir,” Daniel was saying. “I agree that the American medical system leaves much to be desired. But I’m not convinced the Canadian system is a cure-all. I read that in some Canadian hospitals, patients lie in the hallways because there aren’t enough beds. I
s that true?”
Daniel was so well mannered, Helen thought. Most Coronado residents walked away when Cal started lecturing on the joys of Canada, but Daniel listened patiently and answered thoughtfully.
Cal growled an answer Helen couldn’t quite hear. “It’s been a pleasure talking to you, sir,” Daniel said. “See you later.”
Helen watched Daniel walk to the parking lot. His muscles moved like oiled coils of steel. Daniel was barely out of earshot, when Cal said, “ ‘Sir’! He says ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir.’ To me!” Cal kicked the picnic table with his sandaled foot.
“But, Cal, you’re always complaining that Americans are not as polite as Canadians,” Helen said. She enjoyed tweaking Cal. He still had not paid back the money he’d “borrowed” for that disastrous dinner at Catfish Dewey’s.
“But he called me ‘sir,’ ” Cal said. “He makes me feel like his grandfather.”
Well, you look like his grandfather, Helen wanted to say. But she didn’t, proving that Americans were politer than Cal thought.
The green door did not open quite so often these days. Customers were drifting away, as Helen feared. But not Juliana’s small group of regulars. They kept coming back and asking the oddest questions.
“Did Christina give you an envelope with my name on it?” asked Sharmayne, the former supermodel. She waltzed in that Saturday morning and disdainfully demanded to speak to Helen.
“No,” Helen said.
“You must have it somewhere,” Sharmayne said. “Look again.” She tossed her mane of hair like an impatient pony.
“I don’t have it,” Helen repeated firmly, and Sharmayne knew she’d been rude. She tried her softest smile, the one usually reserved for rich men.
“Christina was going to send me something right before she died. I never received it, so it must still be at the store.”
“Maybe it was at her home,” Helen said. “In that case, her sister Lorraine would have it, or the police.”