by Elaine Viets
Helen took off her shoes and black pants, stepped up on the toilet seat, raised the shade and opened the window. She threw her pants and shoes outside. They landed on the pool deck with a thud. Then she boosted herself onto the toilet tank, knocking over a scented candle and shattering a jar of potpourri. She pulled herself through the window up to her hips.
Damn. She was stuck.
Helen wiggled and squirmed. It felt like she was scraping off a layer of skin. No, two layers. I’m going to look fabulous on my wedding night, she thought. I’ll be bruised from waist to knees.
She twisted and turned, and finally she was free. Helen fell headfirst onto a padded wicker couch. It wobbled, but didn’t fall over. Thank heavens King only bought the best.
Helen stood up gingerly and realized she’d lost her underpants in the frantic struggle through the window. No way she was going back in there. Helen slipped on her black pants and shoes. She threaded her way around the pool furniture, past the umbrella tables, and found a gate by a small waterfall. Helen peered through the fence and saw no one. She still smelled smoke.
She made a run for the back exit. She was out! She counted at least three fire trucks in the street, along with a herd of police vehicles. Helen dodged her way through them and was nearly to the street when she was stopped by a police officer. He had buzz-cut red hair, pale skin and a zit on his chin.
“We’re asking the staff and wedding guests to stay while we ask them a few questions,” Officer Buzz said.
“But there’s a fire,” Helen said.
“The blaze has been contained,” Officer Buzz said. “For safety’s sake, guests may wait in the empty house across the street. It’s for sale, and there’s an open house today. The Realtor gave us permission to use it to question guests, since potential buyers can’t get down the street with all the activity.”
“Why do you need to talk to us?” Helen asked.
“It’s routine in a suspicious death,” the officer said.
“Is King dead?” Helen asked.
“He was pronounced DOA at the hospital,” the officer said.
“But King drowned,” Helen said.
“We don’t know how he got into the water, ma’am.”
Another officer with STEVENS on his name tag walked Helen across the street to a mansion slightly smaller than King’s. They crossed a vast empty parquet floor and climbed a curved staircase to a small bedroom.
“Wait here,” Officer Stevens said. “We’ll be back shortly. Do you have a cell phone?”
“No,” Helen said.
“May I check your purse?”
The officer looked through her purse, then left, closing the door. Helen sat down on a blue quilted spread and waited. She picked up the phone by the bed to call Phil, her fiancé. The line was dead.
Helen paced back and forth until she was sure she’d worn a path in the pale rug. It was nearly five o’clock when Officer Stevens returned and led her to a nearly empty kitchen with stainless steel appliances. A man in a dark suit was sitting at the oak kitchen table.
“Sit down,” he told Helen. “I’m Detective Richard McNally, and I’m in the Crimes Against Persons Unit.”
McNally was her worst nightmare. His white hair said he was a veteran. His steel blue eyes said he was smart. His questions started out mild. Helen tried to be as honest as possible.
Was she a guest at the wedding?
No, she was here to assist the bride’s hairstylist, Miguel Angel.
Where was he?
Helen didn’t know.
When was the last time she’d seen him?
He’d excused himself to go to the bathroom just before the main course was served.
No, she had no idea what time Miguel Angel had left the table.
Helen was worried and tried not to say so. Would the police see the stylist’s disappearance as a sign of guilt? Did they know about his fight with King? Miguel Angel had a hot temper, and he’d threatened to kill the groom. But his anger passed quickly. Helen was sure Miguel would never hurt anyone.
Where was Helen at the time the groom went into the pool?
She didn’t know the exact time, but she’d sat at table twenty-nine during the whole dinner.
Anyone else with her at the table?
Yes, Phoebe, Miguel Angel’s assistant, who was there as a guest of the bride. Also an older gentleman with a woman in a red dress. They’d never introduced themselves.
Where was the bride during this?
At the head table, until the DJ announced it was time to cut the wedding cake. Then Honey went to look for the missing groom. So did Cassie, King’s daughter, and Melody, the maid of honor.
Did Helen know the groom?
She’d never seen him before today.
Did anyone have a reason to kill King?
Helen said she didn’t know. She remembered the bride saying King liked to keep his friends close and his enemies closer, but she didn’t say that. King’s ex-wife and former girlfriend must have hated his guts. King had groped a young staffer. His former business partner was suing him. How close did King’s enemies get—close enough to kill him?
How did the deceased behave? Detective McNally asked. When was he last known to be okay?
“He stopped by to see the bride about an hour before the ceremony,” Helen said. “I think he was drunk. Just before the bride marched down the aisle, I saw him take a drink out of a bourbon bottle and then stash it in a potted palm.”
Helen didn’t mention drugs. She hadn’t seen King using those. The police didn’t seem to know about the fight with Miguel Angel, so she didn’t mention that, either. She gave McNally the name she’d used since fleeing St. Louis, plus the salon information, her current address and her landlady’s phone number. Helen didn’t have a phone in her name. She wanted to stay hard to find.
It was six o’clock before Helen was allowed to leave. Across the street, she could see that the fire trucks were gone. A faint odor of smoke lingered. Trampled flowers littered the pavement, and shattered crystal stars glittered in the waning light. King’s velvet lawn was scarred with brown tire ruts.
The wedding guests’ cars had been valet parked along the street. Some vehicles were still there. Helen saw no sign of Miguel Angel or his ride. He’d driven her to the wedding.
Well, it wasn’t that bad a walk. She started hoofing it home when Miguel Angel’s Jeep drove up. A woman leaned out of the driver’s side and asked, “Want a ride?” It was Miguel Angel, with long blond hair and a blue dress.
Chapter 7
“Miguel Angel, is that really you?” Helen said. “You’re beautiful.”
“I had the best stylist in Fort Lauderdale,” he said.
Helen laughed. “Meaning yourself.”
“It’s true,” he said. “I cannot lie.”
The evening sun gleamed on his blond hair. His complexion was smooth and creamy, and his makeup was perfect.
“If it’s the truth, then it’s not bragging,” Helen said. “I’ve seen the photos of your Halloween costumes at the salon, especially that one of you dressed as a cheerleader. You can perform miracles.”
“Daily,” Miguel said, without a trace of modesty.
If Miguel Angel could give ordinary women the illusion of beauty, he could easily transform himself into an attractive female. It helped that Miguel was slender, round-faced, and looked younger than his forty years. His makeup case was crammed with wigs and extensions. Miguel Angel’s blond hair had to be a wig.
“Where did you get the peacock blue dress?” Helen asked.
“Out of the bride’s closet. We’re the same size.”
Not quite, Helen thought. The dress was tight around his waist. The top had to be padded.
“I slipped into King’s bathroom and shaved my face and legs with his razor,” Miguel Angel said.
And probably your chest, Helen thought. That neckline dipped pretty low.
“Then I did my makeup,” Miguel Angel said. “I had to lea
ve my black traveling case behind.”
“You heard that King is dead?” Helen asked climbing into the passenger seat of Miguel Angel’s Jeep.
“How could I not hear? The screams, the sirens, the fire. I watched it from the upstairs window like a TV show. When the police arrived, I had to disappear, so I borrowed Honey’s dress and high heels.”
“Borrowed?” Helen watched the sweat stains spread on the peacock blue silk. “Do you think she’ll want that dress back? Or those shoes?”
His feet were stretching out high-heeled sandals several sizes too small for him. They were ruined.
Miguel Angel shrugged. “Honey won’t miss them. She can afford more.”
“Why didn’t you just run when you saw the fire?” Helen asked.
“Because the TV crews were outside, photographing the guests. I could be here as a stylist, but if someone thought I was feeding King gossip, my business would be dead. So I put on a dress and ran outside. Even if I was on TV, my clients wouldn’t recognize me.”
“Why would anyone think you betrayed them to King?” Helen asked.
“Because I believe his last two scoops originated at my salon,” Miguel Angel said. “Remember when he reported that Fernanda was drinking again, after a month in rehab? She turned up drunk for her appointment, carrying a champagne bottle. Her photograph was on King’s gossip blog the next day. She was wearing the same outfit she had on at my salon. And Richelle’s baby bump? She told me she was pregnant but was keeping it quiet until her wedding next Saturday. Two days later, the news was on King’s TV show.”
“But if she told you, she probably told other people,” Helen said. “And Fernanda walked down Las Olas at noon, drinking champagne.”
“She was drunk, but I took the bottle away from Fernanda before she left my salon,” Miguel Angel said. “I made sure she was escorted to her limo. That photo was taken at my salon. But the real gossip—Honey’s baby—has never been reported. You know why not? Because Phoebe is feeding information to her good friend Honey. And Honey is paying her.”
“Are you sure?” Helen asked.
“How could Phoebe afford that expensive blue dress for the wedding? It had to be at least three thousand dollars. Why was she an honored guest—because she’s such a good friend? Something is wrong. I am watching her. Phoebe will be gone soon. Then she will have big problems, because King’s gossip empire is dead.”
“Do you think Honey killed King?” Helen asked.
“No!” Miguel almost shouted. “She’s not like that.”
“But she would marry King for his money.”
“That is the way of the world,” Miguel Angel said. “Do you really believe in happily ever after?”
“I did once,” Helen said. “Then I quit believing any marriage could be happy. Now with Phil, I’m beginning to hope again.”
“Your ex-husband must have really hurt you.”
“He did,” Helen said. “But I survived. If Phil betrays me, I’ll survive that, too.”
“But he won’t,” Miguel Angel said. “Phil loves you.”
“Right now he does. Forever is another issue.”
Helen still remembered the warm afternoon when her faith in forever was destroyed. She’d come home from work early and found Rob naked with their next-door neighbor, Sandy. Those two had been so busy rocking the chaise longue on the new back deck, they didn’t notice Helen. She was frozen in the doorway, her mind refusing to believe what her eyes saw.
The couple didn’t realize Helen was there and that she had picked up the crowbar Rob had used to work on the deck. Until Sandy peeked over Rob’s shoulder and screamed.
Rob had dismounted with record speed and left his buck-naked lover to fend for herself. He sprinted for the safety of his Toyota Land Cruiser—the SUV his wronged wife had bought for him.
Helen, in a red rage, beat the vehicle into dented metal, busted glass and broken plastic. She’d totaled the SUV and still regretted it. Her life would have been simpler if she’d destroyed Rob instead. She would have only served seven years or so for his murder. Instead, she’d killed the car and let her unfaithful husband live. Now she was facing a life sentence with Rob. Helen discovered ex-husbands were like cockroaches; you never quite got rid of them.
A frantic Sandy had called the police. The cops had stopped Helen from beating the SUV—and laughed themselves silly at the naked Rob cowering inside the ruin.
Rob and Sandy had declined to press charges against Helen, but Rob had the last laugh. When Helen filed for divorce, his lawyer used the photos of the smashed SUV to show that Helen had an uncontrollable temper. He claimed that Rob had been a steadying influence who kept her successful career on course. Helen told the court the man hadn’t worked in seven years, unless you counted jumping other women’s bones. Helen’s lawyer sat there like a cardboard cutout.
The divorce judge had awarded Rob half of Helen’s six-figure income, plus half the house she’d bought with her money. Her ex had earned himself hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Helen swore that Rob would never see another nickel of her income. She fled St. Louis, crossing the country in grief-crazed zigzags to keep Rob from finding her. Her car died in Fort Lauderdale and she started her new life, taking dead-end jobs for cash under the table and trying to stay off Rob’s radar. She’d succeeded until earlier this year, when he’d tracked her down.
“So who killed King?” Helen asked, steering the conversation to a safer topic.
“Who knows?” Miguel Angel said. “Maybe one of his strippers. Or his hookers. Or his ex-wife. Or some celebrity he ruined by his gossip. Even his old business partner wanted him dead. I heard the lawyers’ fees were eating Wyllis alive. Everyone hated King.”
“Even you?” Helen teased.
“Especially me,” Miguel said, tossing his long hair. “Not enough to kill him, though. But I was afraid the police would hear about the fight, so I thought I’d better get away.”
“You were lucky to avoid the cops,” Helen said.
“I didn’t avoid them. Not totally. An officer caught me leaving the house. He looked so young, I thought he was a Boy Scout in the wrong uniform. I said,‘No spik English’ over and over and cried like a hysterical woman. I did the whole Cuban drama routine. They thought I was the bride’s crazy auntie. I gave them a fake name and address in Miami, and left.”
“Miguel Angel, the police will get you for that,” Helen said, conveniently forgetting her own fake name.
“They’ll get me, anyway,” Miguel Angel said. “I hated that man. I had a fight with him. I begged his wife not to marry him. I’m gay and I’m Cuban.”
“You’re an American citizen,” Helen said.
“Not to the police. I’m still Cuban, no matter how many citizenship tests I pass. If they have to choose between arresting a Cuban nobody and a pretty American, you know who they’ll throw in jail.”
“They’re not like that,” Helen said. But she wondered if that was true. She was a middle-class American and lived in a different world. Besides, she’d had her own troubles with the law.
“I still wish you’d talked to the police,” she said.
“I wish this had never happened,” Miguel Angel said. “But it did.”
It was six thirty when Miguel Angel pulled up in front of the Coronado Tropic Apartments. Helen waved good-bye and walked up the path to the backyard. The waning light was kind to the old Art Moderne building, tinting the Coronado’s elegant curves a soft bluish-white. The palm trees rustled like taffeta petticoats in the gathering dusk.
Helen’s landlady, Margery Flax, was stretched out on a chaise longue by the turquoise pool. Margery was seventy-six. Tonight she wore a long, summery lavender dress slit high enough to reveal purple gladiator sandals. Margery loved purple. Her gray hair was bobbed, and her tanned face creased with wrinkles. Cigarette smoke wreathed her hair.
When Helen saw Phil, her heart beat faster. Her man looked impossibly handsome with his long white hair i
n a ponytail. He was wearing her favorite shirt—medium blue—and blue jeans that matched his eyes. His nose was slightly crooked. When he smiled, he had sexy eye crinkles.
Phil was drinking a beer and eating spicy chips. He put down his bottle and got up to kiss Helen. His slightly beer-flavored kiss had that special zing. Damn, she was lucky to find him.
“Are you okay?” Phil asked. “You look tired.”
“I am tired,” Helen said. “It’s been an awful day. The groom is dead.”
“At the wedding?” Margery asked. She poured Helen a glass of white wine out of the box. Phil handed over his chips.
Helen took a deep gulp of cold wine and said,“Died right after the ceremony. The police suspect he was murdered, but nobody knows for sure. The bride tried to save him.” Helen told them about the wedding, the fire and her police interrogation.
“It’s so sad,” Helen said. “It was a fairy-tale wedding. A little overdone, maybe, but beautiful.”
“Did you get any tips for our wedding?” Phil asked.
“Yes, your ex-wife is not invited,” Helen said. “And you’re not wearing a tux with brown lapels.”
“Uh, I wasn’t planning to.” Phil looked puzzled.
Helen kissed him on the forehead. “I don’t understand why King bothered to get married in the first place. He could have all the women he wanted.”
“All the hookers,” Phil said. “There’s a difference.”
“Honey is no hooker,” Helen said. “Though I think she married him for his money.”
“The other problem was his profession,” Margery said, and blew more smoke into the soft night. “His gossip empire embarrassed King’s daughter, Cassie. Some of the women at his former strip club were selling so-called special services, and King was arrested for pimping. His lawyers claimed that King wasn’t responsible for the after-hours activities of his employees, and he had no idea they were engaged in prostitution.
“No one bought that argument except the jurors. King was acquitted. But his daughter suffered for his sins. He’d sent Cassie to an expensive private school. The students were merciless about her father’s arrest. They taunted her with how the man made his money. They hung strings of king-sized sausages on her locker door, left sex toys in her backpack and condoms in her textbooks.”