by Elaine Viets
“He doesn’t live here now. Moved out six months ago. Ancient history,” Daisy said, making it clear she was free for Phil.
Helen tried to hide her surprise. Daisy didn’t know Zach was dead.
“We’ve been told Zach is well-off,” Phil said.
“Zach’s good at impressing people,” Daisy said. “Not as good at making and keeping money.”
“Can we come in to discuss him?”
“It’s a nice night,” Daisy said. “Let’s sit out in the yard.”
It was a warm, steamy night, but Daisy was no fool. She wasn’t going to let two strangers inside, even a handsome silver-haired one like Phil.
She shut the screen door and led the private eyes to a black wrought-iron table on the lawn. Mosquitoes whined in the sticky night air.
“I haven’t seen Zach in a while,” she said. “He borrowed three thousand dollars from me, so I don’t expect to see him any time soon.”
You won’t, Helen thought. Ever again.
“He bought an expensive condo in Snakehead Bay,” Phil said.
“He’s missed two mortgage payments,” Daisy said. “He spent the money on a lawyer instead. I gave him the three thou, but that man’s in a boatload of trouble.” She took a long drink of cold Diet Coke. Helen was thirsty, but didn’t dare ask for a drink and interrupt Daisy.
“Isn’t his Zen Cat Tower business doing well?” Phil asked.
“It was until he got the cease-and-desist order from the company that made the original version,” Daisy said. “He stole his Zen Cat Tower from a design sold by the big-box stores. Copied it right down to the suede cushions, and the company is threatening a suit. The bank is about to foreclose on his Snakehead Bay condo.”
“Are you married?” Phil asked.
“No, thank goodness,” Daisy said. “I’ve made a lot of dumb mistakes, but I didn’t tie myself down to Zach and his problems. It’s bad enough I lived with him all those years.
“He wanted me to move in with him. I have to take care of my Aunt Tillie. This is her home. She’s quite old, and I’m her only relative. I can’t leave a sick woman. She needs me.
“I kicked him out, and now I’m enjoying being a single lady. Got that big old bed to myself. No old guy shuffling around the house, demanding dinner at six, snoring all night. It’s quieter without him. More fun, too.”
Fun? Helen thought. Taking care of a sick person?
“I love dancing,” Daisy said. “That’s my real interest. Do you dance?”
“Sometimes,” Phil said.
Never, Helen thought.
“I take ballroom and salsa dancing lessons at the Coral Room, a fabulous ballroom built in the thirties. They say Fred and Ginger danced there. It’s worth the drive to Fort Lauderdale. It’s my one free night. Aunt Tillie sleeps, and I go with a regular group of women every Friday. Fun-loving women, if you know what I mean.”
She winked at Phil and patted his hand. “You should join us. Handsome guy like you would go far.”
I bet, Helen thought.
“You’d have a good time, too, honey,” she said to Helen.
“You know what I like about dancing? You can rent a good man. Lessons with a professional dance partner cost me a hundred dollars an hour. That may sound like a lot, but I get a man who devotes his attention to me for a full hour. Does whatever I want.
“It’s cheaper than living with a man full-time who ignored me. And when I get tired of him, he goes home.”
CHAPTER 14
Friday
Brat-brat-brat-braaat! Screeech! Screeeeeeeech!
The power tool shriek sent Helen rocketing out of bed. “Construction this early?” she said. “What are those bozos doing?”
“Merf!” said a grumpy Thumbs. He’d been sleeping on Helen’s feet when she sat up and accidentally booted him across the bed.
“It’s six fifty-seven,” Phil said. “Almost time for you to get up, anyway. Of course the workers are starting early. It’s hurricane season. The contractor wants to get the Coronado finished in case a major storm hits.”
“Well, at least I’ll get to work on time today.” Helen peered through the mini blinds. “Nice sunny morning. Margery’s in the yard, spraying dollarweed again. I’ll get dressed and take my breakfast outside.”
“Make sure she doesn’t spray you,” Phil said. “I miss our usually cool landlady.”
“She’s still in love with Zach,” Helen said. “She can’t admit it, even to herself.”
“If you say so, Doctor Phil,” he said.
Helen, freshly showered and ready for work, carried her coffee and toast out by the pool. She loved South Florida’s soft mornings, with the silvery skies and slightly salty tang of the ocean.
The hard-hatted workers stopped chipping and hammering at the Coronado’s cracked and pitted face and stared at her. She waved, and the men went back to their noisy work. Upstairs, she saw Sal Steer, the beef-faced boss, pointing to the cracks around the window in 2C, Helen and Phil’s office.
Helen watched their landlady spray the dollarweed with the built-in nozzle on a square plastic jug of weed killer, working with savage intensity. Margery wasn’t her usual stylish self. Nobody wore good clothes to kill weeds, but her purple shorts and top had escaped from a rag bag. Her normally shiny, swingy gray hair was flat and uncombed, and she had a cigarette clamped in her teeth. Helen thought she looked slightly demented.
“Morning,” Helen said, and took her last gulp of coffee.
Squirt. Squirt. “Did you see Daisy last night?” Margery asked. “Did you learn anything?”
“She still doesn’t know Zach is dead,” Helen said. “She tried to hit on Phil.”
“As old and wrinkled as she is? Fat chance,” Margery said, with a sneer. “What did she say when you told her Zach was dead?”
“We decided to let the police handle that,” Helen said. “We learned more this way.”
“You two still bent on drumming up business for that lawyer of yours?”
“Nancie doesn’t need us to find her work,” Helen said.
“You going to offer me more advice for my own good?” It was a challenge.
“Margery, what’s wrong?” Helen asked. “Did I say something that offended you?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Everything is just— Oh, hell. Here’s that snake from Snakehead Bay.”
“I’ll stay here with you,” Helen said.
Detective Whelan moved through the yard like an approaching storm—thick, solid, unstoppable.
“Morning, ladies,” he said, and nodded. “Mrs. Flax, I have a few more questions.” He took out a small notebook with a pen stuck in the spiral top.
“It’s Ms.,” Margery said. She plunked her weed killer on the table, dangerously close to Helen’s breakfast, folded her arms and glared defiantly at the detective.
“Your husband, Zachariah Flax—”
“Ex-husband,” Margery corrected.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?” the detective asked.
“You asked that last night. I kicked him out some thirty years ago, after I found out he’d been running drugs with his fishing charter boat. I got that news from the feds. He took off with some floozy.”
Daisy’s a floozy? Helen thought. That’s harsh.
“I divorced him in ’eighty-four. He didn’t show up in court. My lawyer did service by publication. I didn’t see him again until this Monday, when he showed up here with a big bunch of flowers, saying he loved me. I threw him out on his posies.”
The detective dutifully made notes, then asked, “Have you placed any phone calls to him?”
“Never. I don’t have his phone number,” Margery said.
Another note. “Then how did you arrange to meet him at Beachie’s restaurant Thursday night?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” Margery said. “I was tricked into that meeting.”
“What is your relationship with the person who arranged the meeting?” he asked.
“I’ve known Elsie since grade school,” Margery said. “We’re ex-friends now.”
“Why would Elsie arrange the meeting?”
“Because she’s a meddling old fool,” Margery said. “She’s going senile. Her son wants to put her in assisted living.”
Helen winced. Poor Elsie. She didn’t deserve that. Detective Whelan wrote down her answer.
Out of the corner of her eye, Helen saw Phil run upstairs to their office. He talked briefly to the boss and the worker chipping out the rust-discolored stucco under the window. He started to unlock the door, then stopped to watch the detective interrogate Margery instead.
“Now I’ve got a question for you, Detective,” Margery said. “Do you think I poisoned my ex at that restaurant?”
“I never said that,” Detective Whelan said.
“A blind woman can see where you’re going,” Margery said. “I didn’t kill him. He’s been dead to me for years.”
“That’s not what Zachariah Flax thought,” the detective said. “He wanted to get back with you.”
“How do you know what he thought?” Margery said. “He’s dead.”
Please shut up, Helen prayed.
“Ms. Flax, do you understand how many witnesses heard your altercation at Beachie’s? I’ve talked with four so far, including your server. She says the victim, Zachariah Flax, insisted she be his witness, and he got down on his knees in the restaurant.”
Whelan paged through his notebook, then read in a monotone, “‘Margery, I love you. Come back to me. I’ll love you for the rest of my life.’”
The effect was comical, but Helen didn’t smile.
“She says you responded, ‘With any luck, that won’t be long.’ Did you say that, Ms. Flax?”
“I did,” Margery said. “I wanted to make it clear to him that our marriage—and any so-called romance—was over for me.”
“Really?” he said, drawing the word out as if he didn’t believe her. “Because from what I heard, you had a lot of heat for no fire. You basically told him he should drop dead, and that night he does. An amazing coincidence.”
Margery’s eyes glowed with anger, and her words came fast and furious. “You want to know if I poisoned him? Go check the restaurant’s surveillance video system. Beachie’s has to have one. Those cameras are everywhere. You’ll see for yourself I didn’t poison him.”
Silence. Even the construction work was quiet. Helen studied her toast crumbs and wished Margery could get control of herself.
“Did you check the surveillance video at the restaurant?” the landlady demanded. “Well?”
“I don’t answer questions, Ms. Flax,” he said, closing his notebook. “You do. This interview has left me with more questions. I’ll be back. I promise.”
He stalked up the stairs toward Phil. Helen saw her husband shaking his head. He must be telling Detective Whelan that he couldn’t talk to him and neither could his PI partner.
“You asked a good question, Margery,” Helen said. “I’ll get Phil to check the restaurant surveillance video for you. Did you find that box of Zach’s papers?”
“I dug it out last night.”
“I’ll carry it up to Phil now,” Helen said.
“I can take it myself,” Margery said. “I’m no helpless old lady. You’ll have it as soon as that detective leaves.”
Helen started up the stairs to the office. Now Detective Whelan was talking to Sal. “That’s right, Detective,” he said. “I’m in charge of this project.”
Helen slipped into the Coronado Investigations office, closing the door carefully so the glass slats in the jalousie door wouldn’t rattle.
“Hey, there,” Phil said. “How’s it going?”
“Just fine,” she said. She mimed listening at the door, and they both eavesdropped on Whelan’s interview with Sal Steer.
“Yes, I was here on Monday,” he said. “My crew wasn’t. I’d given Ms. Flax my evaluation of her building’s rebar problem. I told her there was extensive damage. The rebar—that’s the reinforcing steel bars.”
“I know,” the detective interrupted.
“This building has been exposed to salty sea air for more than sixty years, and the rebar has started to expand and flake from rust. You can see the damage around the window on this unit here. That’s just a small example.”
Helen thought she heard the scratch of the detective’s pen on his notepad.
“My company is qualified to do the remedial work,” Sal said. “Faulty concrete repair can worsen the structural problems, you know.”
“Yes,” the detective said. He sounded impatient.
“I discussed the corrective measures that we’d need to take. Ms. Flax seemed shocked by the state of the building’s deterioration as well as the price of the restoration.”
“How much will it cost to repair?” Detective Whelan asked.
“More than a hundred thousand dollars,” Sal said. “When I told her that, she said she couldn’t afford it. She was going to sell out to a developer. This is a valuable piece of real estate, Detective. They’d have to tear down the building, of course, but land this close to downtown is worth a pretty penny.
“I was concerned Ms. Flax was making her decision too quickly. I wanted to discuss it with her further, but then the white-haired gentleman showed up with an enormous bouquet of flowers, and I stayed, hoping I could talk with her after he left.”
And to watch the show, Helen thought.
“She called him Zach, and she didn’t seem happy to see him,” he said.
“What did they discuss?” the detective asked.
“It was quite heated,” he said. “I gathered they used to be married and he’d been gone some time. Now he wanted to come back. Ms. Flax was very angry and the discussion ended violently.”
“How?”
“She hit him.”
With a bouquet of flowers, Helen wanted to scream.
“He was bleeding,” Sal added.
His cheek was scratched! Helen had to fight to keep from running outside and telling Detective Whelan what she’d seen. Phil looked at her and shook his head, warning her to stay out of it.
“Zach said he wanted to come back to her, but Ms. Flax said, ‘There’s not enough room in South Florida for both of us.’ She threatened to call the police, and he left. I left right after that.
“The next day, Ms. Flax called me. She said she’d changed her mind and wanted me to fix the building.”
“Did she say why she changed her mind?” Detective Whelan asked.
“No.”
“Do you know where she got the money?”
“No. She wrote me a check for half the estimate, fifty thousand dollars. I cashed it and the work started today.”
“Thank you, Mr. Steer. That will be all for now.”
Helen and Phil heard footsteps on the cracked stairs. Phil looked out the window. “They’re both gone.”
“That no-good Sal,” Helen said. “Twisting Margery’s words.”
“There’s nothing we can do but find Zach’s real killer,” Phil said. “Did Margery find the box of Zach’s unclaimed papers?”
“Yes,” Helen said.
“I’d better get it before the detective comes back here with a search warrant for her apartment. And you’d better run. You’re going to be late at the cattery.”
“I can’t believe my job is making me late for work,” Helen said.
CHAPTER 15
Friday
Helen slid into the cattery like a base runner reaching home plate.
“Safe!” Jan said. “But cutting it close. Another sixty seconds and Dee would have flown in here.”
“On her broom?” Helen asked.
“Careful,” Jan said. “I can’t afford to have you fired. I can’t do tomorrow’s show alone. Not with two cats.”
“The traffic gods were with me,” Helen said.
“I do have bad news, though,” Jan said.
“What?” Helen’
s voice was a croak. Was she going to be fired after the show, before she learned anything that could help Trish?
“Dee says she doesn’t need you Sunday. She and I can handle that day. We will need you to help set up and groom Saturday and come in at six Monday morning to help wash Red and Chessie for the Hasher School Pet Appreciation Day.”
“Why the change in the show plans?” Helen asked.
“She saw the entry and judges lists. Dee knows the Sunday judges and thinks her cats will win.”
Helen tried to hide her relief. She could help Phil with Margery’s case on Sunday. They were sure the police would arrest their landlady any moment.
“Do you know who the Saturday judges are?” Helen asked.
“Sure. Here’s the schedule, downloaded from the Internet.” Dee handed her a fat printout. “It has the cat classes and breeds.”
Helen scanned the list and saw Lexie Deener, the cat-show judge Mort had been giving financial advice to, was judging on Saturday. She had the longhair championships in Ring Two, including Maine Coons and Persians.
“Red and Chessie are entered in the solid-color division,” Jan said.
“Dee’s going to let her cats compete against each other?” Helen asked.
“No, Red’s spayed,” Jan said. “Cat shows allow altered adults to be shown in the Premiership Class. Dog shows don’t permit that. Their champions are supposed to be breeders.”
“So, what’s the plan today?” Helen said. After work, she and Phil were going undercover to the Coral Room, where Daisy went ballroom dancing, and she didn’t want to be fiddling with cats all evening.
“We’ll comb the cats who won’t be shown, then pack the van for the show. While you, lucky girl, clean the litter boxes, I’ll pick up the cat curtains at the dry cleaner.”
“Cat curtains?” Helen looked at the tall windows where the four cats—silvery-soft Mystery, fiery Red, snow-white Chessie and Chocolate, the delicious brown beauty, sunned themselves on their shelves. “You put curtains on these windows?”
“No, these are cage curtains,” Jan said. “Start combing Chocolate. I’ll take Mystery and explain. Here, little girl.” Mystery buried her pale gray head in Jan’s thick, dark hair, and Jan carried her to a grooming table.