by Elaine Viets
“We weren’t friends,” he said. “Everyone knew that. It would be improper for me to attend.”
“That’s what I thought,” Honey said.
Helen was relieved that Miguel Angel wouldn’t be at the memorial service. Phil had told her that the police frequently videoed murder victims’ funerals, looking for persons of interest. It would be better if Miguel Angel—and Helen, for that matter—were absent.
“I didn’t want his body on display,” Honey said. “I think that’s a horrible custom. Instead, we’ll have my favorite photos of King. That way, people can remember King the way they saw him in life.”
How was that? Helen wondered. As a crude drunk? A cokehead? A philanderer? A vicious gossip who destroyed careers? Perhaps King’s daughter would mourn him sincerely. Cassie was too young to know what her father was really like. But Helen doubted there would be many tears shed for the dead King. Even Honey’s eyes were tearless. Did murderers cry for their victims?
“It’s a sad business,” Helen said, which was as close to the truth as she wanted to get.
“Cremation is so much nicer and cleaner,” Honey said. “It’s better than having him rotting in the ground.”
“King should definitely burn,” Helen said, then stopped. Miguel Angel’s glare could have stripped the skin off her face. “It’s how many cultures give final tributes to their kings and warriors. What are you going to do with his ashes?”
“King loved the ocean. That’s his boat docked behind the house. I’ve hired a charter captain to take us out at sunset and scatter his ashes at sea.”
Helen heard the screech of a power saw and jumped. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought it was one of the peacocks.”
“They’re gone,” Honey said. Helen thought the widow might be smiling under the heavy veil.
“Gone where?” Helen said.
“I got rid of them. I couldn’t stand the noise. It reminded me of King.”
Who thought the noisy birds sounded like money, if Helen remembered right. Maybe Honey preferred quiet money.
“I know King’s death is hard for you, but it’s also caused problems for Miguel Angel,” Helen said. “The video of their disagreement just before the wedding was on television.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Honey said. “I didn’t give that terrible video to the TV station. I don’t know how they got it. My lawyer is looking into the situation. I just want this horrible mess to go away.”
“So do we,” Helen said. “But all that’s going away right now are Miguel Angel’s celebrities. They’re canceling bookings right and left.”
“What can I do to help?” Honey said. “May I write you a check to cover the salon’s losses?” She pulled a checkbook out of the vanity drawer.
“Yes!” Helen said.
“No!” Miguel Angel said. “There were no losses. We had many appointments.”
“All tourists,” Helen said. “The big names are gone.”
“Do you want me to make some calls?” Honey asked.
“I won’t beg people to come to my salon,” Miguel Angel said. “If they don’t want my services, they can go to hell.”
Helen could see Miguel Angel was angry with her for telling Honey about his troubles. He was a proud man.
“You can help Miguel Angel by letting us examine the wedding photos and videos,” Helen said. “Maybe we can find something that will give us a clue to the killer.”
“I don’t see how you can, since the police already took copies. But you might as well have them,” Honey said. “I can’t bear to look at those pictures and videos. I’ve paid the photographer for his work, but Marco Antonio still has the originals. Take them if you want.”
“Where’s his studio?” Helen asked.
Honey gave Helen the address.
“Will you give us written permission?” Helen asked.
“I’ll write something now,” Honey said.
Miguel Angel ducked outside on the balcony for a cigarette while Honey typed a permission letter on a computer in King’s home office.
She’s being very cooperative, Helen thought. Was Honey innocent of murder? Or did she already know there was nothing useful in those photos? Helen couldn’t read the woman.
She slipped into the bride’s dressing room. It was the size of Helen’s Coronado apartment, and organized like a fine library. Flat mahogany drawers held scarves, sweaters, socks and lingerie. Sweaters were arranged in clear drawers by color. Dresses hung on a revolving carousel. They were a rainbow of color: red, yellow, green, black, turquoise, pink and coral.
So why did Miguel Angel choose the peacock blue dress that nearly everyone else had?
Chapter 21
“I never gave that wedding video to Channel Fifteen,” Marco Antonio said. “I swear it on my mother’s grave.”
The photographer’s smooth, dark hair stuck up like a field of weeds, probably because he kept running his fingers through it. His pleated guayabera shirt had a mustard smear on the front and sweat circles under the arms. He looked old and tired.
Helen couldn’t believe this was the same photographer who’d been so cool and controlled throughout the chaos of Honey’s wedding. Now Marco Antonio seemed sick with worry.
She and Phil were crowded into his tiny office in the back of his photography shop. The air conditioner clanked and rattled and poured out air barely cooler than the June heat.
Marco Antonio talked fast, even for a Cuban. “I will be ruined. I am sorry that Mr. Oden died. Very sorry. But I signed legal papers that I would not release any pictures or videos to the media. King insisted on that in the contract. He didn’t want his competitors scooping him on his own wedding. Now his widow has turned her lawyer loose on me. She says she’ll sue and take everything I have.”
He threw out his arms to embrace his dusty office and desk piled with greasy takeout bags. “Everything” was not much, even if he included the gold-and-white couch and framed bridal portraits in the lobby.
Helen felt a stab of pity for Marco Antonio. Phil pressed him for more information. “You gave the police the original video the day of the murder, didn’t you?” he asked.
“No! I pretended to, but I only gave them a copy. That video on the TV news has ruined my business. Four brides canceled and I had to return their deposits. Now I can’t afford to fix the air-conditioning—and it’s June. This is supposed to be my busy season.”
Helen handed the photographer Honey’s permission letter. “We may be able to help you,” she said. “I talked with Honey this morning. We need the Oden wedding photos and videos. Phil, my fiancé, is a private detective. We can’t make promises, but if Honey has some answers to King’s murder, she might leave you alone.”
She certainly can’t sue you if she winds up in jail, Helen thought.
Marco Antonio patted his damp forehead with a white handkerchief. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll get them now.”
“A copy will do,” Phil said. “But I also want the video and photos your assistant shot. Did the police get those?”
“No,” Marco Antonio said. “They never mentioned Mireya, and I didn’t tell them about her. Who needs more complications? I think it was Mireya who sold the video to the television station. She is greedy.”
“When does she come into work?” Phil asked.
“She quit.”
“What’s she doing now?” Phil asked.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Marco Antonio said. “Mireya had a chance to be a good photographer and she threw it away.” He sat on the edge of his desk and started an avalanche of fast food bags.
Phil caught them. “Where does she live?”
“Three blocks north behind the Publix shopping center. It’s a bright blue two-bedroom house with white awnings. You can take the alley that runs alongside this building to get there.”
Helen felt like she’d spent all day in a Jeep. First, Miguel Angel had driven her to Honey’s and back to the Coronado. Then she and Phil had rushed
off to see the photographer. Now she was bouncing up the rutted alley to Mireya’s block. Phil turned onto the street and pulled up to a house the color of a blueberry snow cone.
“Mireya!” Phil pounded on the front door and called her name. No answer. Finally, a tiny older woman with impossibly black hair peered out of the house next door. Her hair was piled in an elaborate style Marie Antoinette would envy. The woman wore a flowered housecoat and gold slippers.
“She’s not here,” the woman said. “I am her neighbor, Gracie.” Helen was fascinated by her thick eyeliner and false lashes. Gracie moved toward them in a cloud of sweet perfume.
“Do you know when she’ll return?” Phil asked.
“She won’t,” Gracie said, batting her false lashes at Phil. She pulled her housedress closer to her body, so it showed her buxom figure. “Mireya is too good to live in our neighborhood now. It has too many Cubans, she says. What does she think she is? She’s moved to Palm Beach County.”
“Do you have her address?” Helen asked.
“Yes. She expects me to forward her packages.”
“We can take her some things, if you want,” Helen said.
“Let her pick them up herself,” Gracie said. “Do you know what she gave me for a good-bye present? Some dusty old silk flowers and a half-empty jar of mayonnaise. I threw them out. You can have her address. Tell her I said the neighborhood is better without her.”
“Do you know where she works now?” Helen asked.
“Mireya says she doesn’t have to work anymore. She has an annuity from a rich auntie. Rich auntie, my eye. Her family are no-goods. They’re all on welfare.”
Helen and Phil thanked Gracie. On the drive back to the Coronado, Helen said, “Mireya must have gotten a lot of money for that video if she’s living in Palm Beach County.”
“Not necessarily,” Phil said. “Not everyone in Palm Beach County is rich.”
“True,” Helen said. “I’ve seen some Cops shows set in Palm Beach County. The police were chasing drug dealers out of trailer parks. I bet those episodes made the society types wince.”
“The county has a ragged side the socialites would rather forget,” Phil said. “Do you want to go to Mireya’s house now?”
“Let’s go back home and check out the wedding pictures she shot first,” Helen said, “in case we see something important. I can’t believe we’ll be on our honeymoon in the Keys next week. I’m really looking forward to that.”
“Me, too,” Phil said, and kissed her.
“I hope King’s murder will be solved by then. How did your interview with King’s ex-wife go?”
“I haven’t seen Posie yet,” Phil said. “Her condo is on the way home. Want to go with me?”
“Sure,” Helen said.
An elderly guard waved their Jeep into Posie’s development without checking. The condos were stacks of storage boxes with screened-in porches built around an artificial lake.
Helen thought the palm trees and greenery made a pleasant setting. But Posie, banished from King’s palace with her daughter, probably saw the condo as a comedown. She was home, and looked younger in jeans and a T-shirt. Posie ignored Helen and flirted outrageously with Phil as she led them to a wicker couch on the porch. She fluffed her hair and tucked in her shirt to show her bust and narrow waist.
“You weren’t at the wedding Saturday,” she said to Phil. “I would have noticed.”
“He was helping get ready for our wedding,” Helen said, then wished she hadn’t. She sounded defensive.
“We wanted to ask you about King’s wedding,” Phil said. “You’re an important witness.”
“I’m so important the police hardly bothered talking to me,” Posie said. “Honey wanted everything perfect, but it was a massive screwup.” Her hard eyes were lit with malice.
“I wasn’t surprised by the fire. King had already let that woman set fire to his money. He watched every nickel when we were married.”
“Do you think Honey killed King?” Phil asked.
Posie didn’t blink at his blunt question. “All I know is this: If King had stayed married to me, he’d still be alive.”
“Then why did you leave him?” Phil asked.
“I didn’t. He dumped me. King said Honey was younger and classier—and she was giving him a boy. I ruined my health trying to give him a son. I had four miscarriages. Then I gave him a beautiful daughter, but Cassie wasn’t good enough. It had to be a boy—a prince for King.
“Honey knows how to suck up to the old broads at those society parties King liked,” Posie said. “He’d kiss their asses, and he wanted me to do the same. But I had too much pride. I gave one old bag a little fashion advice and she got insulted. I was only telling the truth: A facelift would have made a big difference. She said she preferred to look natural. There’s nothing natural about wrinkles, and I told her so.
“King dropped me because of that. He said it wasn’t classy. He was obsessed with class because he didn’t have any himself. Classy, my ass. How classy is it to marry a man for his money? What does she have that I don’t?”
Fewer facelifts, Helen thought. Softer manners. Bitterness and hate were etched in Posie’s tightly stretched skin. Her collagen-filled lips looked ready to pop, like angry balloons.
“So, yeah, sweet little Honey killed him. That gold digger was after his money, and she got it. If Honey had signed a prenup, King would be safe. But he was thinking with his little head.”
“How come no one saw Honey kill her husband?” Phil asked.
“They did,” Posie said, “They’re just not coming forward. Sorry, I have to throw you out. I have to pick up Cassie at soccer practice.”
When they were in the parking lot, Helen said, “Wow, three rooms aren’t big enough to hold all her hate. I was glad to get away from her.”
“I bet King was, too,” Phil said. His Jeep rumbled back to life. Phil made a right turn and almost wiped out a bicyclist who blithely cut in front of him.
“Did you see that?” Phil said. “I nearly hit that guy.”
“Do you think that’s true?” Helen asked.
“What? That Honey killed King? I don’t know,” Phil said. “We don’t have any proof, just lots of motives. Did someone see the murder? We may find that out when we look at those wedding videos.”
“My place or yours?” Helen asked.
“I have the better system,” Phil said.
Half an hour later, Helen and Phil were stretched out on his black leather sofa, watching Mireya’s wedding video and eating spicy Thai noodles. Helen kept track of the blue dresses. She saw at least five on the video: the bride’s sister, Melody. The groom’s ex-wife, Posie. King’s daughter, Cassie. King’s former lover, Tiffany. Miguel Angel’s assistant, Phoebe.
Miguel Angel made six. All wore spike heels.
Helen and Phil looked through the wedding photos until Helen had trouble telling everyone apart. One photo nagged at Helen: It showed a blonde in a blue dress arguing with King. They were standing by the pool.
“Can you turn up the sound?” Helen asked.
“There isn’t any sound with this video,” Phil said. “I don’t know if it’s defective or Mireya didn’t record it.”
“Look at this,” Helen said. She pointed to something at the edge of the photo. “That looks like a white tablecloth. Why would a tablecloth be on the ground by the pool?”
She stared at the white shape until something clicked in her mind. “Wait!” she said. “That’s not a tablecloth. Look at how it’s draped. That’s the poufy part of Honey’s wedding dress. See the satiny fabric? And she wore spike heels. She could have killed him.”
“Let me check the notes,” Phil said. “That picture was made off a shot in the second video.” Phil raced through the video until it came to the section where the photo came from. First they saw a blonde in a blue dress arguing with King. Then the camera jumped to Barry, the embarrassing best man, announcing the toast that wouldn’t stop.
“Back up there. Does it look to you like several frames are missing?” Phil asked.
“Yes,” Helen said. “But I can’t tell if the deletion is deliberate or if the camera was trained on something else, like Barry’s toast. You should have heard him. There’s a memory the bride won’t want to keep.”
The camera swung back to the groom again. He was arguing with the blonde. “Is that still the same blonde in the blue dress?” Phil asked.
“I can’t tell,” Helen said. “They all look alike. What’s that on the woman’s back, near the shoulder blade?”
“It’s a blue smudge,” Phil said. “Maybe it’s a flaw in the photo.”
The hair was the same color as Miguel Angel’s wig, and the blonde’s large feet were crammed into too-small sandals. Sandals with very high heels.
“Is that Miguel Angel in that dress?” Phil asked.
“I don’t know,” Helen said. “I can’t tell.”
“Why is Phoebe wearing a blue dress? How could she afford it? It looks expensive,” Phil said.
“Good questions,” Helen said. “Maybe we need to know more about little Phoebe.”
There was a knock on the door. “It’s me, Margery,” their landlady said. “Are you two decent?”
“At what?” Phil asked, as he opened the door.
Margery was wearing a purple caftan trimmed in silver. Phil whistled. “I like the outfit.”
“Thanks,” Margery said, waving away his compliment and her cigarette smoke. “I wanted to remind your future wife that her bachelorette party is tomorrow. Helen, you need to be outside at ten thirty in the morning.”
“Who’s invited?” Helen asked.
“Your minister and your bridesmaids,” Margery said. “That’s Peggy, Elsie and me. Your sister is welcome, but she won’t be in town until next Friday and you don’t want a party the night before your wedding.”