by Elaine Viets
“Somebody has already searched this room,” Phil said.
“Papers are scattered on the dresser top,” Helen said. “That’s a check register.”
Phil used the handkerchief and a pen from his pocket to open the check register and flip through the recent pages. “Mireya deposits $623.43 every two weeks, like clockwork,” Phil said. “There are small withdrawals for checks to Publix, the utilities, Marshalls. Then the deposits stop and whoa—what’s this? A deposit for twenty thousand dollars.”
“That’s major money for a young woman making minimum wage,” Helen said. “When was the money deposited?”
“Last Monday. The day before that video ran on Channel Fifteen.”
“It smells funny in here,” Helen said. “Smells like—”
She saw Phil’s jaw go rigid and his mouth tighten into a thin line.
“Does Mireya have a poodle?” Helen asked. She was talking too fast, trying to stave off the inevitable awful discovery. “I see curly dark hair on the pillow.” She edged closer to the bed and realized the spread wasn’t covered with flowers. Blood, bone and brain matter were spattered on the powder blue spread. The pillowcase wasn’t maroon. That was blood.
“No,” she said. “No, no, no!”
She started to pull back the spread when Phil grabbed her arms. “Helen,” he said. “That poor woman is dead.”
“Was she shot?”
“She was beaten with a baseball bat. It’s beside the bed. You can’t help Mireya. We need to leave.”
“But what about the police?” Helen asked.
“You’ve already been interviewed in connection with one murder. If you’re involved in two, they’ll lock you up—and I’ll lose my PI license.”
“But you’ve used your handkerchief on all the light switches and doors,” Helen said.
“I’ve still tampered with a crime scene. I’ve left hairs, fibers and probably shoe prints all over this place.”
“Shouldn’t we search for the wedding video?” Helen asked.
“It’s either at the TV station or the killer has it,” Phil said. “Let’s go.”
“How long has Mireya been dead?”
“The air-conditioning was turned down to sixty, but the body is pretty bloated. My guess is she’s been dead about a week.”
“We can’t just leave her here,” Helen said.
“We won’t.” Phil steered Helen toward the hallway. “We’ll make an anonymous call to the police from a big shopping mall north of here.”
“If you get the Jeep,” Helen said, “I’ll search her car trunk.”
“You don’t have a key,” Phil said.
“The trunk is broken and held shut with a bungee cord,” Helen said.
“Someone will see you,” Phil said.
“They may see a person, but they won’t see me,” Helen said. “Give me your shirt.”
“My shirt? Why?”
“I need a man’s shirt.” She picked an oversized T-shirt off the pile of clothes on the bed and said, “Put this on.”
“It’s pink,” Phil said.
“Good. You didn’t come in wearing a pink shirt.”
Phil unbuttoned his blue shirt, and Helen put it on over her white blouse. She looked heavier wearing two shirts. For once, she was glad she looked fatter. She pulled her long brown hair into a knot on top her head, plucked the Marlins cap off the bear and put it on. Then Helen reached into her purse and pulled out a dark brown eyeliner pencil.
“We don’t have time for you to put on makeup,” Phil said.
“This isn’t makeup. It’s a mustache.” Helen drew a heavy, dark handlebar mustache on her face.
“It looks fake,” Phil said.
“No one’s going to get close to see,” Helen said. “I’m tall enough to pass as a man, and I’m wearing jeans and running shoes.”
“Not many men carry purses, even in Florida,” Phil said.
“Good point,” Helen said. She shoved her purse down her blouse. “That should hide my chest. Now I have a manly beer gut. I’ll carry your clipboard. Phil, you get the Jeep. Park it outside the town house complex. I’ll join you as soon as I can. Let me borrow your handkerchief to close the sliding door.”
Phil left the town house first by the back door. Helen counted to thirty and followed, pulling the door shut with her hand wrapped in the handkerchief. She tried to walk macho. Helen was relieved that the chunky guy was no longer torturing ribs on the grill. The pool was deserted, except for a single, sleeping sunbather.
Helen marched briskly to parking spot 117. Phil’s Jeep was gone from the illegal spot by the Dumpster.
She saw the curtain flutter in the town house two doors down. With her hand wrapped in the white handkerchief like a bandage, she unhooked the bungee cord. The trunk sprang open with a haunted house creak.
Inside was a rusty beach chair and an empty canvas tote, but no tape, CD, or MiniDV. Helen quickly ran her hand around inside the trunk and came up with stray hairs, threads and bits of rust.
She heard a car honking on the other side of the complex fence and suspected it was Phil, growing impatient. One more quick swipe around the trunk, and she saw the spare tire. She ran her hand inside the wheel well. The MiniDV was taped to the tire, out of sight. Helen pried it loose and stashed it in her purse, hoping Phil didn’t see it.
She was securing the trunk’s bungee cord when Phil roared into the parking lot.
Chapter 27
“You look funny with that hand-painted mustache,” Phil said to Helen. He’d broken every speed limit to get back on I-95. Now his battered old Jeep was creeping in rush-hour traffic. Helen sucked in smog and wished for air-conditioning, or even fresh, hot June air.
She scrubbed at her self-inflicted mustache with a tissue and checked the rearview mirror. The dark eyeliner wasn’t coming off. It seemed embedded in her skin, a dark brown, greasy splotch.
“Can we get off the highway and stop at a drugstore?” Helen said.
“Are you sick?” Phil said.
“I feel all right. But unless you want me wearing a mustache for our wedding, I’d better remove this fast. I used waterproof eyeliner. I need some cold cream.”
“Do drugstores carry cream?” Phil said. “I could get you half-and-half at the supermarket.”
“Not that kind of cream,” Helen said. “Face cream, like Pond’s. For removing makeup. It comes in a jar.”
Phil had many fine qualities, but the man was shopping impaired. Still, he edged into the slow lane and turned off the interstate toward US 1, prepared to brave the stores.
“There’s a Walgreens,” Helen said.
“I can go in and ask for cold cream,” Phil said. “But aren’t they going to look at me funny?”
“It’s Florida,” Helen said. “Nothing is weird here. Say you’re buying it for your mother. Or you’re an actor.”
“Well, okay,” Phil said. “But won’t you come in with me?”
“We’re supposed to be traveling under the radar,” Helen said. “We drove all the way north to the Wellington Green mall to use a pay phone to report Mireya’s murder. The cops should be at Three Palms by now. If they’ve interviewed the neighbors, the curtain twitcher could mention that the person searching Mireya’s car trunk had a mustache. If I walk into this store with a smeared painted-on mustache, someone will notice. I’ll be on the store’s video.”
“Okay,” Phil said. But he still sounded reluctant. He squared his shoulders and marched into the drugstore like a gunslinger facing a bar packed with surly bikers. He ran back out ten minutes later with a bag. “Is this right?”
Helen took out the jar of Pond’s cream. “Perfect,” she said.
“You don’t know what it was like in there,” he said. “They didn’t just have Pond’s cold cream. They had a nourishing moisturizer pack, some towelettes coated with the stuff and an antiwrinkle cream I didn’t get because you don’t have wrinkles.”
Helen interrupted him with a quick kiss. �
��Thank you,” she said.
“I finally settled on Pond’s Classic. I figured that was like Coke Classic. I couldn’t go wrong with the original. Did I do right?”
“You did right,” Helen said. “I didn’t realize I was putting you through that.”
“You women have no idea what men go through in stores,” Phil said. “You think it’s simple to run in and pick up something. But whenever I go, the store is out of the item you want, or they don’t carry that brand but they carry something similar or—”
“It’s over,” Helen said. “You survived the ordeal.” She began smearing the fake mustache with globs of cream, then rubbing it with another tissue. “It’s coming off. Do I have a big red mark on my upper lip?”
“Of course not,” Phil said.
“I’m worried about Elsie,” Helen said.
“Margery’s older friend?” Phil asked.
“Yeah, the cute one. She’s my bridesmaid. She recognized those two sneery creeps in apartment 2C—Josh and Jason. She says they’re working on her neighbor’s roof and she’s thinking of hiring them to do hers. Elsie can be a little ditzy sometimes, but she’s good with faces. And I don’t trust those guys.”
“Why? Because everyone else in apartment 2C has been a crook?”
“Yes, and Josh and Jason don’t look like construction workers,” Helen said.
“And how does a construction worker look?” Phil said. “Should they wear hard hats?”
“They don’t have the right kind of muscles,” Helen said. “We had a lot of construction workers staying at Sybil’s Full Moon hotel when I cleaned rooms there. Even the skinny ones had serious muscles—their arms were like braided ropes. Josh and Jason look like they’ve never lifted anything heavier than a beer bottle. Also, the construction workers’ necks and arms were burned deep red. The 2C guys have pool tans. Their skin color is too even and pale for outdoor workers. Look at their hands. They aren’t calloused. Josh and Jason aren’t roofers.”
“So you want me to check them out?”
“Please,” Helen said. “Elsie’s a sweet lady and an easy target. I don’t want her or her friends hurt.”
“Okay, I’ll go tomorrow,” Phil said. “As a present for you.”
It was six thirty when Phil drove into the Coronado parking lot. Helen was relieved to see Margery decked out in a cool, pale lavender caftan and purple kitten-heeled sandals, looking like her old self. She had a screwdriver in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
“Why do you have that red mark on your face?” Margery asked.
“I’ll explain later,” Helen said.
“And since when did you become a Marlins fan?” Margery asked.
“Oh, the hat? I found it.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Phil said, and kissed her.
“Oh no,” Margery said. “You’re not getting away. I need to talk to you two about the wedding. Have a seat by the pool.”
“Can I go get a beer?” Phil asked.
“Of course,” Margery said.
“Helen, do you want anything?” Phil asked.
“White wine.”
Helen and Margery sat down at the umbrella table. “Good evening,” Helen said to Josh and Jason. They grunted, got up and went inside, leaving their beer bottles by their chaise longues again.
“Hey,” Margery called after them. “I said no glass by the pool.”
“Whatever,” Josh said. Unless it was Jason. Their door slammed and the beer bottles stayed on the concrete pool deck.
“I’m raising their rent,” Margery said. “They’re renting on a month-to-month basis. That’s the easiest way to get those slugs out of here. They’ve snubbed my guests and broken my rules.”
“But Phil drinks beer out by the pool all the time.”
“That’s different,” Margery said. “Phil picks up after himself. He doesn’t leave bottles lying around. I want these two gone.”
“You used to think they were cute,” Helen said.
“You talking about me?” Phil was balancing a beer bottle, a white wine, a roll of paper towels and a bowl of fresh popcorn.
Margery rescued the bowl of hot, buttery popcorn and took a handful. “This is the real thing. It’s not microwaved. You make terrific popcorn. I like that in a man.”
“Great little cook,” Helen said. “Think I’ll keep him.”
“You wanted to see us?” Phil asked.
Between popcorn crunches, Margery said, “Who is going to be your best man?”
“I was thinking of asking Cal the Canadian,” Phil said, reaching for a handful of popcorn.
“Are you sure he’s back in Lauderdale? I haven’t seen him,” Helen said.
“He’s here,” Margery said. “He’s spent his time in Canada and is now eligible for his government health insurance. He came in the other night. Phil, is he the best you can do for a best man?”
“Helen vetoed the vice cop.”
“I did not,” Helen said. “I just wasn’t enthusiastic about having a vice cop in my wedding.”
“Why?You’re all wearing clothes, aren’t you?” Margery asked. “Who are you getting for Peggy’s escort?”
“Her boyfriend—Daniel the lawyer—said he’d escort her,” Helen said.
“Good,” Margery said. “He probably has his own tux. I didn’t know Phil knew the man.”
“I don’t, except to say hello,” Phil said. “But guys don’t get all sentimental about who’s in their wedding. He’s not in vice, is he?”
“Depends,” Margery said. “He is a lawyer. Who should we get to escort Elsie?”
“She’s a bridesmaid, too?” Phil said.
“I told you that,” Helen said, then wondered if she had.
“Uh.” Phil didn’t know what to say.
“Never mind, I’ll find someone,” Margery said. “Helen, your sister Kathy is going to be your maid of honor, right?”
“Yes. Unless Phil has any objections, Cal can be her escort. I don’t want to put poor Tom in a monkey suit.”
“And your niece is a junior bridesmaid?”
“Allison is only three,” Helen said. “She’s too young. We could make her brother the ring bearer, but Tommy Junior is a little old for that honor.”
“Make him the cat wrangler,” Margery said. “I gather that fur ball of yours is invited to the wedding.”
“I thought we’d lock Thumbs away for the ceremony,” Helen said.
“He’ll howl through the whole service,” Margery said. “I can hear him yowling at mealtime, even with my door shut. Tommy can watch him and make sure the cat doesn’t go over the fence.”
“I’ll get Thumbs some shrimp for the wedding feast,” Phil said. “We don’t need a ring bearer. Cal can hold the wedding ring.”
“What about your mother, Helen?”
“She can get her own shrimp,” Helen said, helping herself to more popcorn.
“Will you please talk sense,” Margery said, and puffed out an angry cloud of cigarette smoke.
“Mother is not coming to our wedding,” Helen said in clipped tones. “We’ve already discussed this. She won’t change her mind. She’s going to stay home and disapprove.”
“Well, at least you made the gesture,” Margery said.
“And she made a gesture right back,” Helen said. “Mom is not the forgiving type.”
“What about your family, Phil?”
“Don’t have one,” he said. “I’m an orphan, and my ex, Kendra, is not invited.”
“Any children?” Margery asked.
“Not that I know of.”
They chomped popcorn and discussed plans for the food, chairs, flowers and tiki torches for the seven o’clock ceremony. “I’ve checked the long-range weather forecast,” Margery said. “Saturday is supposed to be hot and sunny.”
The wedding cake was being delivered to the Coronado. Phil promised to pick up the food and ice.
“What time do you want me to help set things up for the wedding?”
Helen said.
“You are not doing anything the day of your wedding,” Margery said. “You are the bride. And don’t tell me you’re going to work at Miguel Angel’s salon.”
“I have Saturday off,” Helen said. “Though I do go in for a few hours tomorrow.”
“Is Miguel Angel coming here to do your hair and makeup?”
“No, I’m going to the shop.”
“Then you’d better take my car,” Margery said. “You’ll look a mess if you try to walk home or ride in Phil’s un-air-conditioned Jeep.”
“I’m going with Cal tomorrow to get our tuxes fitted,” Phil said. “I’ll take him out for a beer tonight.”
“Bring your wallet,” Margery said. “If you take Cal, you’ll pay for the pleasure of his company.”
Margery turned to Helen. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Moving in with you,” she said.
Chapter 28
“A twenty-three-year-old woman was found beaten to death in her town house at the Three Palms complex in Palm Beach County,” the television announcer said.
Flashing emergency lights and solemn law enforcement officials filled the screen, followed by the inevitable black body bag being wheeled to an ambulance. Clumps of neighbors stood at the edge of the parking lot.
Helen shivered and felt sad. She remembered Mireya’s dark hair and enthusiasm for her job. She was so young. Such a cruel death.
“The victim’s name is being withheld pending notification of relatives,” the announcer said. “The police are looking for a man wanted in connection with the killing. Witnesses say a white male in his late thirties was seen leaving the victim’s home by the back door. The man is described as about six feet tall and two hundred pounds. Here is a composite drawing.”
A beady-eyed man with a Marlins cap and a Snidely Whiplash mustache flashed on the screen.
“If you see this person, do not try to apprehend him,” the announcer said. “Call the police immediately. He is believed to be dangerous.”