by Elaine Viets
“You’re a little far from Tallahassee,” Helen said. “So why don’t you go back where you belong?”
“Gladly,” he said. Helen wanted to wipe that sneer off his face. Instead, she stood in the doorway and watched Harper the preppy stroll through the store. He walked at a stately pace, as befitted a future political mover and shaker.
Finally, the preppy prowler was gone.
An hour later, Gayle was at Helen’s register. She was not her usual cool self. Her blond hair stuck out at weird angles. Her black turtleneck was dotted with packing lint. She was definitely upset.
“Page’s office has been broken into,” she said. “I’ve called the police.”
“Did they get anything?”
“I can’t tell. I noticed the break-in when I took the last cash pickup to the safe. The office lock was jimmied. I’ve never seen such a mess. The place is ransacked. Astrid has been through so much, and now she’ll have to deal with this.”
“Why? I know she’s the owner, but you know what’s there better than she does.”
Gayle ran her fingers through her hair, and sent her bangs up in more spikes. “I thought the police made a mess, but that was nothing. Papers are tossed all over the floor. The file drawers are open. The couch is slashed.
Things are broken and overturned. The locked video cabinet door was bashed in, too. I guess someone didn’t know the police took all the videos. Either that, or the thief wanted it to look that way. There’s a lot of damage.”
“I caught a guy in the back hall about an hour ago,” Helen said. “I have his name. He’s a legislative assistant to State Senator Colgate Hoffman III.” As soon as she said the name out loud, she knew why it was familiar. The thought rocked her.
“Why would a senator’s assistant break into Page’s office?”
Helen knew, but she couldn’t say why. Peggy had starred in the missing video with the senator’s late son.
The women’s rest room was right next to the rope barricade. Someone must have come along when the preppy prowler was trying to break into the office and he ducked in there. It was the closest hiding place.
The store was soon overrun with police. Helen expected the evidence technician and burglary detectives. But she didn’t expect to see Homicide Detective Clarence Jax. He spent most of the afternoon with Gayle, while she tried to figure out what was missing. Helen rang up the customers and gave vague answers to their curious questions about the police.
Gayle was her capable self the next time Helen saw her.
The punk-stress spikes were gone. Her black clothes were lint-free. She was a gunslinger in Doc Martens.
“Nothing’s missing,” the manager concluded. “Whoever did it trashed the place. I think it was a pissed-off staffer.
But Detective Jax wants to hear about your preppy prowler.”
Jax peppered her with questions that made Helen feel like she was lying, even when she wasn’t. “And you actually saw the senator’s aide in the women’s bathroom?” he said. Did he think she was making that up?
“No, I didn’t. A woman customer reported him there.”
“Do you have her name and number? Do you have a description of her?”
“I didn’t take her phone number. She was about fifty, on the chunky side, short gray hair. A sensible-looking woman.” Helen hoped that would make Jax believe her.
“Did she pay for a purchase by check or credit card? We could find her that way.”
“She didn’t buy anything,” Helen said. “She reported a strange man in the women’s bathroom and I went back to investigate.”
“And then she left? Without buying anything?” Helen thought she heard more skepticism in his voice. “Did you see this man in the rest room?”
“No, he was in the hall, in the restricted area.”
“Did he say why he was there?”
“He claimed he was lost, even though he’d have to step over a velvet rope with a PRIVATE sign on it.”
“Did you see him near the office door? Did he have anything in his hand?”
“No. He was coming from the direction of Mr. Turner’s office, but I didn’t actually see him touch the door. He didn’t seem to have anything with him.”
Because he didn’t find anything, Helen thought.
“What was his demeanor?”
“Arrogant,” Helen said.
“But he didn’t seem furtive or guilty?” Jax said. “He didn’t appear to be hiding anything?”
“No, I asked for identification. He showed me his legislative assistant’s ID, as if that was supposed to impress me. He left when I asked him.”
“So at the time, you didn’t think his actions were suspicious enough to report him to the police?”
“No,” Helen said. “That was before I knew about the break-in.”
“Well, we’ll talk to him,” he said.
He doesn’t believe me, Helen thought. She wanted to scream in frustration. She knew why the preppy prowler was in Page’s office, and why he could brazen it out. He didn’t find the video with Peggy and the senator’s dead son.
He came away with nothing. Helen wondered if the ambitious little twit was acting on the senator’s orders, or if he thought he could advance his career with a timely burglary.
But Helen couldn’t mention the video to Detective Jax.
Yes, it would explain why the pink-shirted prowler was in Page’s office. But it would also give the police an even stronger motive for Peggy to commit murder.
There was only one good thing about the break-in: It proved Peggy was innocent. She was in jail when it happened. For the first time, Helen felt hope.
Detective Jax stopped by the bookstore the next day. He flashed his badge and his smile at a woman waiting in line, and stepped up to Helen’s cash register. Once again, he had those aggressive movements, that fiery red hair and air of righteousness. Jax had arrested her friend for murder, but Helen recognized a man who believed he had done the right thing.
“Mr. Harper Grisham IV says he was never in your bookstore. He produced two witnesses who say he was on the beach with them in Fort Lauderdale all day.”
“And you believe that?” That preppy scum had lied.
“They all have sunburns,” Jax said.
“This time of year, you can burn in ten minutes. He was here. Why would I make up that story?” Helen could feel her rage building. The angry heat rose out of her core and seemed to travel up her spinal column.
“He says you’re politically motived. You’re a liberal trying to hurt Senator Hoffman’s chances of reelection.”
Another lie, even more outrageous. Her anger level was rising. “I never laid eyes on him before I found him wandering the bookstore hall.”
“Maybe he is lying,” Jax said. “But you’re not telling me the whole truth, either. You’re holding back something about this prowler. I know it. I want to know what it is.”
Helen pretended to be interested in her cash register keys. Mentioning that video would sign Peggy’s death warrant.
When she thought she could talk without her voice shaking, she said, “You’ve got to reopen Page Turner’s murder investigation. This break-in proves Peggy was innocent.
She was in jail when it happened. She couldn’t have done it.”
“The break-in has nothing to do with Page Turner’s murder,” Jax said. “The investigation is closed. Ms. Freeton killed him. I can’t investigate a case that’s going to trial. It’s over.”
Red rage surged up and boiled over in her brain. It was the same rash anger that destroyed her St. Louis life. “Your mind is made up,” she said. “Don’t confuse you with the facts. You’d rather send an innocent woman to her death.
Tell me this, Detective Jax. Why would Peggy kill that man and leave his body in her bed?”
“Because her brains were fried on coke. People who use drugs don’t make sensible decisions. And she does use drugs. We have her on tape.”
“Not anymore. She’s clean.
She was framed. But you’d rather railroad an innocent woman, because you need that case cleared. Page Turner was an important man. Peggy’s not important. But she is my friend, and she didn’t kill him.”
She regretted her outburst instantly. She waited for Jax to lash back. Instead, he picked up a delicate gift book from a counter display, What Is a Friend? Its cover was garlanded with pink ribbons and roses. He coolly paged through its flowery sentiments.
“Loyalty to a friend is a beautiful thing,” he said, holding up the book. “But some loyalty is misplaced. I can’t see a nice woman like you being friends with a coke dealer.”
“No,” Helen protested, but that small word didn’t seem strong enough to ward off the ugly accusation. The thought made her sick. “Peggy may have used it years ago, but she never sold cocaine.”
“That’s not what I heard,” he said. He tossed the open book on the counter and walked out.
Helen picked it up and read the page: A friend is someone who can tell you anything—and everything.
Chapter 17
“He’s a damn liar,” Margery said. Her face was purple with rage. It set off her violently violet shorts and purple tennis shoes. She’d been skimming dead leaves out of the Coronado pool when Helen came home from work that afternoon.
Now Helen’s landlady held the long-handled net like a warrior’s spear and declared, “Peggy’s no coke dealer. Do you think for one minute I’d tolerate drugs at the Coronado?”
The scent of Phil’s pot smoke wafted on the warm air.
Helen’s nostrils quivered. “Phil’s different,” Margery said.
“Anyway, he’s not a dealer.”
“Then why would Detective Jax say that?”
“Cops lie,” Margery said. “They aren’t sworn to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth during an investigation. They’ll lead you on with a little falsehood and feel it’s in a good cause. If Jax can turn you against Peggy, you may give him more information to nail her. At the very least, you won’t be a character witness for her in court.”
Some character, Helen thought. I couldn’t testify on her behalf if I wanted.
“I thought I could get him to start asking himself questions, so he’d reopen the investigation.”
“He can’t reopen the investigation,” Margery said.
“Don’t you understand? Once Peggy was arrested, he couldn’t investigate anyone else for that murder. Do you know what a good defense attorney would do with that?
‘Tell me, Detective, is it not true that you continued to look for another suspect even after my client was arrested and in jail pending trial?’ ”
“How do you know so much about how the police operate?” Helen said.
“You live as long as I do, you learn things. The hard way,” Margery said, and the door slammed shut on her past again, locking Helen out. She put the leaf net away, then uncoiled a green garden hose and began cleaning off the pool deck. Helen slipped off her shoes, rolled up her pants cuffs, and got her toes wet in a poolside puddle. She smelled the ozone rising off the warm wet concrete and felt the sun on her back. They soothed her.
“I never understood why the police arrested Peggy,” she said. “It’s obvious someone put Page’s body in her place to set her up. How could Peggy go into a tented building filled with tear gas and poison gas? She isn’t Superwoman.”
Margery adjusted the nozzle. A stream of water drove the pool deck’s dirt and debris into the grass. “Did you know what your wine-drinking buddy did for a living?” Did.
Margery used the past tense, as if Peggy was never going back—or she was dead.
“She’s a receptionist for some company off Cypress Creek Road,” Helen said.
“Do you know the company’s name?” Mist rose from the hot concrete as the hose squirted it.
“NECC. ENCC. Something anonymous. Peggy said her job was as dull as the name.”
“The company is National Environmental Cleanup Corp.
They get called in when there’s asbestos in a building, or there’s a toxic spill or some other environmental cleanup problem.”
Helen felt sick. She knew where this was heading.
“They have SCBA breathing equipment. Keep it in a locked room. Peggy had the keypad combination taped inside her desk,” Margery said.
“Of course she did. She worked there.”
“Yeah, well, the police think she took her work home with her.”
Margery turned off the water and coiled up the hose.
Helen could feel her own fear coiling inside. I’m not wrong. Peggy didn’t kill him, she told herself. I knew her.
At least, I thought I knew her. “How do you know this stuff about the investigation?” she said.
“Never mind how I know. I’ve lived here a long time. I have friends.”
“I thought Peggy was my friend. Why didn’t she tell me where she worked?”
“She learned not to talk about it,” Margery said.
“Florida’s not exactly famous for protecting the environment. When people found out she worked for a bunch of tree huggers, she’d get some crazy reactions. She had to listen to a lot of lectures.”
“Taking out asbestos is a tree-hugging activity?”
“Around here it is,” Margery said.
“But she didn’t actually use the equipment at work. She wasn’t cleaning contaminated sites. She answered the phone and typed letters.”
“Peggy’s not stupid. If she was around the equipment on a daily basis, she’d know how to use it,” Margery said.
“Okay, even if she had access to SCBA equipment, how did she get into her apartment when the building was tented?” Helen said. “She’s bigger than Muffy. I don’t think she could fit through those little windows.”
“She had a key, what do you think?”
“But she didn’t have a key to that big metal shield they put on the doorknob,” Helen said. “Only Trevor the fumigator had those. Peggy couldn’t get into her own apartment even if she wanted.” Helen felt better just saying it. It was more proof Peggy was innocent.
“Maybe we should ask Trevor,” Margery said. “I’ll take him some of my brownies. Come in and cool off while I change my shoes.”
Margery opened her kitchen door to a blast of chilled air.
She slipped off her tennis shoes and started walking across the floor. Her feet made an odd crunching sound, as if she was walking on eggshells. She pointed to Pete’s cage. “I’ve got to get that seed-slinging monster out of my kitchen. I’m sick of my floor crunching with birdseed. And feathers are everywhere.”
Pete screeched. The sound was an icepick in Helen’s ear.
“Oh, yeah,” Margery said. “The noise. How could I forget? He never shuts up.”
“He’s lonesome,” Helen said.
“I’d like to give him your cat for company.”
Helen tried to soothe Pete by petting him, but he snapped at her finger. Instead, she swept up the spilled birdseed.
Green fluff and feathers floated on the air. The little Quaker parrot was pining for his Peggy. Helen sighed. She put away the broom when Margery clattered out in purple ankle-strap slides. “It’s all set. I called the office and got the address where Trevor is tenting. He’ll be there until six.”
Margery took a dozen brownies out of the freezer and microwaved them. “They’ll smell like fresh-baked,” she said, wrapping them in foil. Helen followed Margery out to her big white Cadillac. Helen was sure that once you collected Social Security, the state of Florida automatically issued you a big white car.
“We’re in luck. He’s at a hardware store in Pembroke Pines.” Margery drove at a stately pace. They didn’t need to check the address. They could see the building, covered in flapping canvas, a block away.
“Do you think he’ll talk to us?” Helen said.
“No man can resist my brownies,” Margery said.
Certainly not Trevor. “Fresh-baked,” he said when Margery handed him the warm package.
Helen felt rather baked herself, standing in the hardware store’s parking lot in the four-o’clock heat. Trevor looked cool in his pressed uniform. The man didn’t sweat.
“I wish I could help you,” he said after he stashed the brownies in his truck. “I’d like to set an innocent free, like I was set free. But those door-shield locks are mostly for show. You could pop them with a screwdriver.”
Helen said nothing on the drive back. There was nothing to say.
It all went back to Peggy. She had the answers. Helen had to ask the questions. She caught the bus after work.
This time Helen had no fear of the police when she visited the North Broward jail. She had put on her cloak of invisibility. The ugly thick-soled bookstore shoes and sensible clothes turned her into a faceless clerk. She presented her fake ID without fear. You can get used to anything, she thought. Even talking to your friend through Plexiglas. But nothing could protect her from the sight of Peggy.
Peggy wasn’t just losing weight. She was shrinking. She seemed to be collapsing inside her baggy jailhouse suit. Her pale skin was an unhealthy yellow. Her large elegant nose had become a bony beak. For the first time, Helen saw gray in Peggy’s dark red hair.
Now Helen was going to add to her misery. She took another look at this new, frail Peggy and almost stopped. But it had to be done or she’d never get Peggy out of here.
She picked up her phone and said, “A legislative assistant to Senator Hoffman was at the bookstore. I found him wandering in the restricted area. I can’t prove it, but I know he’s the one who broke into Page Turner’s office. The place was trashed. Whoever did it was obviously looking for something. They even broke open the locked video cabinet—although why anyone would bother to lock an empty cabinet, I’ll never know.”
A single tear rolled down Peggy’s cheek.
“What is it, Peggy? What’s going on? You’ve got to tell me. How can I help you if I don’t know?”
“They don’t have it,” Peggy said. “I thought they did.
That’s why I kept quiet. But they don’t have it.”