by Elaine Viets
“I don’t understand why the police didn’t arrest us,” Helen said.
“I do,” Phil said. “Cy and the commissioner didn’t want to call attention to themselves. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire—in this case, for real.”
“That’s how this city has always operated,” Margery said. “They can hush things up in Riggs Beach, but they don’t like outsiders poking around. In the sixties, they voluntarily desegregated to keep the feds away.”
“We owe our freedom to Margery,” Phil said. “She showed up at the station and demanded the police take her statement as a witness, then waited for us.”
“I thought I’d be camped in that lobby all night,” Margery said. “They wouldn’t let me smoke. By two o’clock, I was desperate. I told the desk sergeant I was calling Channel Fifty-four to tell them the news. He laughed and said every major station was covering the fire.
“I said, ‘Maybe, but they don’t know about the big fight with Commissioner Frank Gordon. That TV station will love a story about Seventy-seven screwing up.’
“The desk sergeant still didn’t get off his duff, so I pulled out my cell phone and said, ‘I saw Cy Horton hand Commissioner Gordon a bag of money disguised as restaurant carryout. I’ll be happy to show Channel Fifty-four where I last saw it.’
“Never saw a fat man move so fast.” She grinned.
“It worked,” Phil said. “Ten minutes later, the cops let me go. They set me free right before Helen.”
Helen saw Valerie shivering in the front seat. “Is the air-conditioning too cold?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” Valerie said. “Just tired, like I said.”
“What’s going to happen to you?” Helen asked.
“I’m in trouble,” Valerie said. Helen could tell the normally bold reporter was frightened.
“Will you have to pay for your lost camera?” she asked.
“That’s the least of my worries,” Valerie said. “I wasn’t authorized to be there tonight, taping.”
“I thought two-party taping was illegal in Florida,” Phil said.
“I was silent taping, video only,” Valerie said. “I do that all the time. But I need permission and I didn’t have it. I could get fired. Cy told me he’s going to sue the station.”
“He won’t do that,” Helen said. “He’d call attention to himself.”
“People sue us all the time,” Valerie said. “Most viewers have no idea. It’s not something we broadcast on the news. But when he files suit, word will get out among the courthouse wonks and the rumor mill will go into overdrive.”
“That lawsuit is frivolous,” Phil said. “It will never get past a judge.”
“Cy can threaten, though,” Valerie said, “and there’s nothing a TV station hates more than paying a lawyer to defend someone—unless it’s having to actually pay a judgment.
“This is the worst possible time. My contract is up for renewal. I’m very, very nervous, because the last thing you want to do is cause trouble before contract renewal, and trouble especially means costing the station money. Just the threat of a lawsuit is a terrible thing. Even if you know you’re right, a lawsuit never feels right. Besides, I’m forty. That’s old for TV.”
“Old?” Margery said, and snorted. “You’re a baby.”
“You don’t look forty,” Helen said.
“You’ve got a huge following,” Phil said. “You’re the face of the station.”
“Which means I make the big bucks,” Valerie said. “The station may decide it’s time to find a newer, cheaper face. They could hire three or four twentysomethings for what I make.”
“Do you really think you’ll be fired?” Helen asked.
“I don’t know,” Valerie said. “If I’m lucky, they’ll put me on probation. Which means I’ll have to come up with something good soon. Please, please, promise you’ll call me if you get something. I need a good story to save my career.”
“You know we will,” Phil said. “You’re our first choice. We owe our success to you.”
A success you want to throw away, Helen thought. “We’ll come up with something for you,” she said. “Wait! I do have something. I snagged Cy’s cell phone during the fight.” She rummaged in her purse and pulled it out. “He loves to text.”
“Check his messages,” Margery said.
Helen thumbed through them. “I see six from his wife and three from Commissioner Frank Gordon. His wife wants him to pick up a loaf of bread when he stops by Publix.”
“Helen!” Margery and Valerie shouted. “Read the commissioner’s messages.”
“The oldest one says, ‘Must have four days,’” Helen said. “My tipster told me ‘days’ is their code word for the amount of the bribe. It’s twelve thousand dollars, one day’s take on the pier parking lot.”
Phil whistled.
“The next one says, ‘Carryout tonight at eight forty-five.’ He’s talking about picking up the bribe in that carryout bag.”
“Except the bag burned up in the fire and the video was swept away by the current,” Valerie said. “We have no proof.”
“We might,” Helen said. “My tipster’s a server at the restaurant. Maybe I can talk her into an interview with you. She was afraid of losing her job, but it’s gone now anyway.”
“Oh, could you?” Valerie said. “If she’ll talk, I’ll be forgiven everything. You know I protect my sources. I’ll go to jail before I’ll talk. When are you meeting?”
“The day after tomorrow at the Brew Urban Cafe,” Helen said.
“Is that the coffeehouse on Southwest Second Avenue near the railroad tracks?” Phil asked.
“I’ve been there,” Valerie said. “It’s the hippest coffeehouse in Lauderdale. Call me as soon as you talk to her.” Now she was alert, awake and hopeful. Even her hair looked better.
Her elation was catching and the mood lightened in the big white car.
Until Margery turned on Riggs Beach Road. The street was blocked about a quarter mile from the pier. Through the thicket of police, fire trucks and TV vans, they could see the devastation. Only the charred bones of the restaurant remained. Firefighters in turnout gear guarded the blackened ruins. The burned restaurant smelled good, as if someone had lit a huge campfire.
“Oh. Sweet. Jesus,” Valerie said, her words like a prayer. “Look at all the media. How am I going to get to my car without someone recognizing me?”
“You can have my Billy Ray cap,” Phil said. “The hair is attached.” He whipped the cap off his head, and the fake brown hair dangled like a dead rat.
“Thank you, Phil,” Valerie said. She jammed her hair under it. Now she looked like a miscreant on the TV show Cops.
“I’ll make sure you get it back,” she said.
“Don’t wash it,” Phil said. “You’ll ruin it. I’ll walk you to your car. My Jeep is parked there, too.”
Helen started to slide out with him, but Phil turned on her. “Ride with Margery,” he said coldly. “We’ll meet in the office tomorrow.”
“Oh, Phil,” Margery said sweetly. “May I speak with you a moment?”
Valerie loitered out of earshot near the car bumper while Phil jogged over to Margery’s window.
“I see you haven’t come to your senses yet,” she said, all sweetness gone.
“I can’t trust her,” Phil said. “She’s wrong.”
“She is,” Margery said. “She’s guilty of criminal stupidity. But if you dump her and dissolve Coronado Investigations, what are you going to do? Your last PI job blacklisted you. You need a female operative. And don’t look at me. I have an apartment to run. You need someone younger who can work full-time.
“So if you ask me, you should swallow your pride.”
“Thank you, Margery, but I didn’t ask you,” Phil said. Helen felt the chill in the backseat.
He left. She was alone, staring at the smoldering ruins.
CHAPTER 28
“Found something. Meet me in 2C 11 a.m.,” the e-mail read
.
Phil sent that at nine twenty-two the next morning, and the tiny ding! of his new e-mail woke up Helen. She’d fallen asleep with her laptop open on her bed. Her vast, empty bed.
Eight words. That’s all Phil wrote, Helen thought. He didn’t even sign it, or ask if I’m free at that hour. He just assumed I’ll show up. I won’t play games. I’ll finish this case and get on with my life. And stop sounding like a self-help article.
Her anger burned away her grogginess. She’d slept late in her apartment. No husband woke her whistling in the shower. Helen had always found Phil’s early-bird cheer annoying. Now she missed it. She even missed Thumbs demanding breakfast at seven o’clock.
Neither one missed her. The weight of last night’s failure came crashing down. Her tiny apartment felt huge and lonely.
She fought back with a pep talk. Time to pick myself up and start over, she decided. I did it before and I can do it again. After coffee.
She set up the coffeemaker and noticed her hair smelled of smoke. She’d been too tired to shower when she got home. She’d do it while the coffee was brewing.
Her closet-sized bathroom was deliciously steamy. She started a bold song about washing that “man right outta my hair,” but her voice wobbled and her tears mingled with the shower water.
Enough with the waterworks. Helen turned off the tears and the shower, poured some coffee and blow-dried her hair. It seemed to take forever to dry in the humidity. The scratch on her forehead was healing. She draped her bangs to cover the wound, then dressed extra-carefully in her black pencil skirt and the fluttery-sleeved pink-and-black blouse she’d bought at Cerise.
Helen checked herself in the mirror: glossy dark hair with a bit of curl, touch of pink lipstick and dark mascara. The skirt and blouse weren’t bad, she decided. No, they were stunning. Eat your heart out, Phil.
She slipped on her black sandals, opened her door to a glorious sunny day, then marched across the Coronado yard and straight up the stairs to 2C. Helen didn’t knock. It was her office, too.
She opened the door exactly five minutes late.
Phil was at his desk. Her heart melted. Almost melted. She hardened her aching heart, sat in her black partner’s chair and said nothing. He’d called the meeting. He could speak first.
Phil fiddled with his coffee cup but didn’t offer her any. Last night took its toll on him, Helen thought. He’s ashen and the lines around his eyes look deeper.
He cleared his throat and said, “We still have to find out who killed Ceci and save Sunny Jim’s business.”
She nodded. He shifted in his chair. Her silence made him uneasy. Good.
“Her husband, Daniel, is still a suspect,” he said. “We have a good motive—the insurance policy and Daniel’s affair—but I can’t find any Florida connection. I’ll show his picture around the dive shops and beach bars and see if anyone remembers him.”
Helen broke the next uncomfortable silence with “What if Cy hired Randy the diver to kill Ceci?”
“The restaurant owner didn’t know her. Why would he kill Daniel’s wife?” Phil asked.
“To ruin Sunny Jim’s business,” Helen said.
“Max told us the killer had to know what time Ceci started paddleboarding,” Phil said. “He couldn’t hang around the pier in a black dive suit with an underwater scooter. Why would Cy buy the commissioner’s vote if he’d already hired a killer? He’d be spending double the money for the same result.”
“Makes sense,” Helen said. She didn’t bother hiding her doubts. “I can ask the staff at the Full Moon Hotel if Daniel went anywhere except the usual tourist places.”
“No need,” Phil said. “He used credit cards. I’ve already checked his bill online. He and Ceci only went to tourist spots. I’ve been looking into Bill Morris Bantry, the owner of Bill’s Boards. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Turns out Sunny Jim’s rival is a killer.”
“He went to jail for murder?” Helen asked.
“He was tried for manslaughter,” Phil said, “but not convicted. Bill used to live in the Florida Panhandle, in Pensacola, with his fiancée, a twenty-year-old named Tiffany. She disappeared ten years ago.
“Bill was questioned by the police. He kept to his story: The couple had argued after a long night at the clubs. Tiffany wanted out of the car so she could watch the sunrise on the beach. Alone. She was never seen again.
“Bill claimed he let her out, went for breakfast and spent the day at his mother’s house, repairing her roof and gutters. Two days later, Tiffany’s family reported their daughter missing. Bill didn’t bother to call the police and he didn’t help search for her.”
“And she was supposed to be his fiancée?” Helen asked.
“That’s why her family said Bill murdered Tiffany,” Phil said. “No point in joining in the search if he knew she was dead. Her body was never found and there was no forensic evidence that she was dead.
“The cops arrested Bill. At the trial, his lawyer tried Tiffany, dragging her name through the mud. She’d been a wild child, charged with possession and prostitution. Bill’s lawyer said Tiffany was killed by a drug dealer or a former pimp. Bill was acquitted. After his mother’s death a year later, he sold her house and moved to Riggs Beach to start over. His beach rental business is struggling, like Sunny Jim’s. Maybe more so, since Bill isn’t a local.”
“You agree with the family and the cops?” Helen said.
“Bill’s a killer,” Phil said. “He killed Tiffany and got away with it. Now maybe he’s getting away with murder again. He’s bold. He challenged Sunny Jim on his own turf, setting up his rental business next door to Jim on the beach. He’s worried about his business. He hired his employee, Randy, to wreck Jim’s business at spring break. When that didn’t work, he paid Randy to kill a customer and ruin Jim’s business permanently. Bill knew and trusted Randy.”
“Makes sense that Bill would go one step further and kill Ceci,” Helen said. “But why not do it himself?”
“With his past?” Phil said. “Bill barely avoided a murder conviction when his fiancée disappeared. The last thing he wants is more police attention, even in Riggs Beach. Besides, I can’t find any evidence that Cy ever talked to Randy. The diver sure didn’t eat there. Cy’s restaurant is too upscale.”
“But how did Randy know what time Ceci went paddleboarding?” Helen asked.
“Easy,” Phil said. “I asked Sunny Jim if he’d had any odd calls lately. Jim remembered one. The day before Ceci was murdered, a tourist called wanting to book boards for a big group—a party of eight—from ten to noon. Jim said he didn’t have eight boards because he had two reservations at ten o’clock. Most of Jim’s group bookings are for three or four people. Eight is unusual.
“Bill and Randy know exactly how many boards Jim has. When Jim said he had two ten o’clock appointments, that tipped them off when his customers were going out.”
“That’s what Margery said the killer would do,” Helen said. “Turned out Sunny Jim only had one paddleboard rental that morning. Ceci went paddleboarding alone, which made her even easier to kill. That theory is plausible, but you can’t prove it.”
“I need to find Randy, the missing diver who rented the underwater scooter,” Phil said. “I got a tip he’s back and hanging around in the Riggs Beach dives along A1A. I’ll go there this afternoon.”
“I don’t meet with the server, Joan Right, until tomorrow morning at seven,” Helen said. “I have to persuade her to talk to Valerie so our TV friend can save her job. Joan is terrified.”
“She can’t be worried about losing her job,” Phil said. “It went up in smoke.” He didn’t seem aware of the pun.
“I think she’s afraid of Cy,” Helen said. “Valerie says she should be. Some of his smuggling buddies disappeared in the eighties. Did you hear from Valerie yet?”
“No. I watched Channel Seventy-seven, but she wasn’t on. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“I feel bad that things went s
outh last night,” Helen said.
“We got too used to good luck,” Phil said. “We started counting on it.”
I wonder if that was a royal “we,” she thought. Or did Phil mean himself and me? Or is Valerie the second person? Phil and Valerie were lovers long before he met and married me. They both moved on. Didn’t they?
Helen tried to push that thought out of her mind, but she knew Valerie was rich, famous and glamorous.
“I still think Cy is up to something,” she said. “He’s greedy and desperate. I’ll talk to Alana, the manager at his boutique, as soon as I leave here. She knows Cy way better than I ever want to.”
“She sleeps with him to get cheap rent, right?” Phil said.
“And doesn’t hesitate to tell me,” Helen said. “Alana is the original Miss TMI.”
“Let me know what happens,” Phil said. He made no move toward her. She left, head high.
All the way to Riggs Beach, Helen replayed their conversation in her mind. She didn’t know how to react. Was Phil being professional or was he thawing slightly?
As she approached the pier parking lot, Helen heard the wildcat screams of power saws and furious hammering. Workers were constructing a temporary wooden walkway to the pier. A mobile sign flashed: FISHING PIER OPEN AT 5 PM TODAY! YES, WE SELL BAIT!
Riggs Beach didn’t waste time recovering.
A knot of gawkers watched a growling backhoe bite into the blackened restaurant rubble and drop it into a construction Dumpster that took up five precious parking spots. Helen was lucky to find an open slot.
She breathed in the soft, salty ocean air, slightly tinged with wood smoke. Helen swung by Sunny Jim’s on her way to Cerise. His yellow banners and canopy made a brave show, but Jim was staring glumly at the restaurant ruins.
“My business fell from zero to below zero,” he said. “People aren’t even stopping by to ask how much it costs to rent a paddleboard. I’ve been entertaining myself watching that tourist.”
A sunburned man in lime board shorts gingerly carried a big bluish crab to the water. The crab, big as a saucer, wiggled its hairy legs and waved its claws dangerously close to the man’s thumbs.