by Elaine Viets
Come on, Helen thought. Pick up the bag and go. Let’s get this over.
Then Khaki Man made his move. He stubbed out his cigarette and sauntered into the bar.
That’s when a slender brunette in a red Dodge Charger squealed up in front of the planter, hopped out, grabbed the bag, tossed it in the front seat and jumped in after it. A Toyota behind her beeped its horn. The Charger was blocking traffic. The brunette hit the gas, roared out of Thirty-third Street and turned right on A1A, going much too fast.
Helen saw Phil jogging toward her. She opened the Igloo’s door and said, “Hurry! The catnapper just grabbed the bag. It’s a woman, a fit-looking brunette, heading south on A1A. We caught a break. She’s driving a bright red Charger, so she’ll be easier to track. Buckle up and let’s go.”
Phil had barely snapped on his seat belt when Helen swung out of the space and turned onto A1A.
“There it is,” she said. “The red car waiting at the stoplight.”
“Middle lane,” Phil said. “She’s not turning onto Oakland Park. We’re about six cars behind. Let’s try to keep it that way.”
Highway A1A runs along the ocean, but this morning they weren’t there to look at the water. Helen followed the red Charger for about a mile, until they came to a section with impressive towers on the west side and about four blocks of small apartments on the beach side.
“Her signal’s on,” Phil said. “She’s turning left at the next street.”
“Good,” Helen said. “The security won’t be as good in these small buildings.”
They followed the Charger for a block, then it turned left again onto a street lined with midcentury-modern apartments painted white, pink and turquoise.
“Funky little area close to the beach,” Phil said. “We’ll have to explore it sometime.”
“Later,” Helen said, then realized she sounded abrupt. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Keep driving,” Phil said, his voice soft. “Don’t slow down and don’t stop. She’s turning into that pink apartment lot. Keep on going.”
CHAPTER 28
Tuesday
Helen ditched the car in a parking spot around the corner and tossed a couple of quarters into the meter. She and Phil ran the half block to the street with the pink apartment. Once they were in sight of the building, they strolled along, hand in hand, another couple going for a walk near the sea.
“What department’s jurisdiction is this?” Helen asked.
“Ireland Beach PD,” Phil said.
“Look,” Helen said. “She’s lugging the money bag inside the pink apartment.”
The midcentury-modern building, pale pink with black accents, was starkly framed by straight, tall palms. The deceptively simple building had been beautiful once, but after sixty-some years of storms and salty ocean air, the paint was faded and peeling, the gutters were rusted, and the aluminum window frames were pitted and tarnished.
A thirtysomething brunette in black booty shorts, ankle-strap heels and a turquoise tank top teetered along the building’s cracked sidewalk. Helen saw the ropy muscles bulging in her right arm as she hung on to the duffel bag. She seemed strong, but hauling that bulging bag of marked money slowed her down.
“Does she look familiar to you?” Helen asked.
Phil shook his head no.
“I think I’ve seen her before,” Helen said. But the only brunettes she could remember from this case were Jan Kurtz and Gabby Garcia, Dee’s maid. Both would be working now.
The private eyes slowed their walk as the brunette opened the outer glass door. They hustled up the walkway as she elbowed her way through the inner door.
“No doorman and no security,” Helen said. “Bless these old buildings with cheap landlords.”
By the time they were inside, the steel elevator doors had swallowed the mystery woman. The lobby, a dirty pale pink, was littered with take-out menus and free newspapers. A dusty silk ficus molted in the corner.
They watched the fourth-floor number light up over the elevator. “She’s on the top floor,” Phil said. “You take the stairs on the right and I’ll take the fire stairs on this side. Meet you at the top.”
Helen ran up the grimy black-painted stairs splotched with old chewing gum and sticky with spilled drinks. The pink walls were decorated with a haphazard collage of handprints and missing patches of plaster.
When she finally reached the fourth floor, Helen was puffing slightly. She paused to catch her breath and read the hall sign. Apartments 40 through 44 were on the left, 45 through 49 on the right.
Helen heard the rattle of a door handle around the corner to her left and sprinted toward it. The industrial gray carpet was stained and dirty, but it silenced her footsteps. She hoped Phil was doing the same thing on the other side.
The mystery woman was unlocking the apartment at the end of the hall—number 44. Helen saw the fire-stairs door was open about an inch on the other side. Phil.
The catnapper had the bag of cash tucked between her feet as she twisted the doorknob. It didn’t open. Stuck. She slammed her shoulder against the door. Helen saw the fire-stairs door slowly open, and she raced down toward the woman.
As the mystery woman grabbed the money bag, Phil and Helen shoved her through her own door. The three of them tumbled inside the apartment and Phil shut the door.
The woman’s brown wig slid loose. Helen pulled it off and recognized the flattened honey blond locks of Amber Waves, Mort’s pole-dancing girlfriend.
“Amber!” she said. “You’re the catnapper!”
Amber gave a little scream and tried to escape, but Phil blocked the door and shot the bolt.
“Mrs. Raines is right next door,” Amber said, her voice shaking with fear. “When she hears me shout, she’ll call the police.”
“Good,” Phil said. “We’re calling the police anyway.”
“Why?” Amber said, looking at Phil with wide, not-so-innocent brown eyes.
“You stole Mort’s cat, Justine, and held her for ransom,” Phil said.
“What cat?” Amber said. “I don’t see any cat.”
Helen saw a dingy living room with a sagging, yellow-flowered couch, a floral riot gone wrong. One lampshade was dented, and the oak coffee table was scratched.
“Mew!” A tiny noise. A smoky blue-gray fur ball slid out from under the couch and patted Phil’s shoe with one dainty paw. “Mew!”
Helen was transfixed. The gray kitten seemed to dominate the grungy room. Helen had seen enough champions to recognize the proud chest, haughty carriage and glossy fur of a natural winner.
“Well, hello, Justine,” Phil said, scooping up the fluffy kitten. She was so small, she nearly fit in the palm of his hand. Her copper eyes glowed like new pennies.
“That’s my kitten,” Amber said.
“Really?” Phil said. “You can afford a pedigreed Chartreux? Amazing. A kitten like this must cost a month’s rent at this dump.”
“I got her at the pound,” Amber said.
“Well, that’s easy to prove,” Phil said. “Justine was microchipped. We’ll have a vet scan her.”
Helen pointed to the bejeweled bus-shaped carrier. “And that’s Justine’s Baby Coach sitting near the TV,” she said. “She never travels in anything else.”
“That’s right,” Amber said, quickly changing her story. “I’m cat-sitting for Mort, and you can’t prove otherwise.” She shifted effortlessly from fear to defiance.
“You’re an extremely well-paid cat sitter,” Phil said. “That’s half a million dollars in that bag.”
“So?” Amber said, her voice insolent. “It’s mine.”
“Can you prove it?” Phil said. “Because we can prove it doesn’t belong to you. Where did you get it?”
Helen stepped in front of Amber and grabbed the bag. Amber lunged for her, slashing at Helen with her pink-painted claws. “I said it’s mine!”
Phil caught her arm and twisted it behind her back, still cupping the kitten
in one hand. “Easy, there. That’s a question for the police,” he said. “You’ve kidnapped this cat and tried to get half a million for her from Mort’s wife, Trish.”
“Prove it!” Amber was brazen, but then, she’d had time to master that skill pole dancing in the clubs.
“We recorded you,” Phil said. He held up his cell phone. “Right here.”
“Play it,” Amber challenged him.
“Mrs. Barrymore,” the computer-generated voice said.
“Sounds just like me,” she said with a sneer.
Helen saw a black speaker box, a snake coil of cords and a headset piled on the coffee table. “And what’s this?” she said, picking it up. “Looks like a voice changer to me.” She examined the connectors. “For an iPhone. Amber, Amber, you used your own cell phone to make the catnapping calls. Very foolish and very traceable.”
Helen unzipped the Baby Coach and gently lifted the little cat into her traveling home. Justine gave a loud, contented purr as she settled in.
“Kitchen,” Phil mouthed, and Helen and the cat retreated around the corner into that dreary, cluttered room.
Phil kneeled in front of Amber, took her long, smooth hands in his, and looked into her eyes. Helen knew how persuasive he could be when he talked to someone that way. She couldn’t help admiring his chiseled jaw, strong shoulders and silky silver-white hair.
Neither could Amber.
“Amber,” he said, his voice soft and sympathetic. Helen almost expected him to put his collar on backward to hear her confession. His absolute attention and intensity made susceptible people want to unload ugly truths. “You’re in a lot of trouble. Mort’s dead, his cat is missing and your DNA was found at the murder scene.” That last part wasn’t true, but Amber didn’t know that.
“We know the time of the murder, because Mort put up his arm to defend himself when he was beaten, and his watch stopped at exactly six o’clock Sunday night. The Peerless Point police have a camera system that tracks license plates along the main road where Mort’s house is, and your car was videoed going to the house. There’s about a ten-minute break, and then your car leaves his home. Don’t you see, Amber? You’re at the scene at the time of his death. You have a motive. You thought Mort would marry you, and he chose another woman. You’re on the hook for his murder.”
“I didn’t do it,” Amber wailed. “I didn’t kill him. I went to his house because he promised to give me a parting gift—a check for six months’ rent on my pole-specialist studio. When I got there, his front door was open and there was blood on the doorstep. I knew something was wrong, so I used my scarf to open the door and stepped around the blood. I didn’t want to leave prints.”
“Clever,” Phil said.
Conniving, Helen thought.
“Mort was lying on the floor”—she paused dramatically—“dead. There was no doubt. I looked everywhere for my check, but I didn’t see it.
“Instead, I saw Justine, hiding in the bottom of her cat tower. So I packed her in her carrier and took her.”
Helen was shocked and disgusted. Amber had left Mort, the man she wanted to marry, dead on the floor while she looked for her money, then stole his cat.
“You didn’t call the police?” Phil asked gently.
“I was too upset,” Amber said. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
But you weren’t too upset to run off with the one valuable you could turn into quick cash, Helen thought.
“Mort’s death was the end of my dreams,” Amber said. “I didn’t think his relationship with that Jan Kurtz would last.” She said Kurtz like “curse.”
“I thought he’d come to his senses and marry me. But when I saw him lying there, I knew that would never happen. He owed me! He promised me money to start my own studio.
“I was only trying to get what was rightfully mine,” she said, “but I didn’t kill him. You understand, don’t you, Phil?”
Amber smiled at him and fluttered her eyelashes.
“Perfectly,” he said.
“And you won’t call the police?”
“Absolutely not.”
She smiled wider. The sun was coming out after her tears.
“Helen will make the call,” Phil said. “We’re only witnesses. Our client Trish Barrymore will decide if she wants to press charges for theft and extortion.”
CHAPTER 29
Tuesday
“Hell, yes, Trish will press charges,” Nancie shouted into her office phone. The lawyer quickly lowered her voice. “Is this conversation safe?”
“Of course I’m safe,” Phil said. “I’m surrounded by Ireland Beach’s finest.” They couldn’t put Phil’s cell phone on speaker, but Helen stood close enough to hear the conversation. They’d been banished to Amber’s hallway.
“No jokes, Phil,” Nancie said. “I’m not in the mood. After what that Amber Waves woman put my client through, I want the cops to throw the book at her—robbery, extortion, failure to report a death and anything else they can think of. She’s looking at maybe fifteen years in prison.
“I’d really like to hang her from a pole by her dyed blond hair. No, I want her head on top of the pole.” And separated from her neck, Helen thought. If Nancie had the power, she would have sent Amber to the chopping block.
Helen couldn’t tell if the lawyer was revved up by the prospect of clearing Trish’s case or getting rid of a demanding, difficult client. Either way, she’d never heard her so elated.
“Whoa! Calm down, Nancie,” Phil said. “It’s going to take time to sort things out.”
“Calm down? Where the hell have you been?” Nancie said. “It’s almost noon. Trish started calling me at six this morning. She called every twenty minutes until ten o’clock, when I told her to get a drink, pop a Valium or have a friend sit with her, but I wouldn’t take any calls from her for one full hour.”
“How’d she take that?” Phil asked. “Trish is used to getting her way.”
“She wasn’t happy. I don’t mind babysitting clients, but I can’t take the weeping, shrieking and hand wringing hour after hour. It wears me down.”
Helen couldn’t imagine anyone wearing down Nancie. The woman was rock solid, but even granite could crack.
“Where is she now?” Phil asked.
“With Mort’s mother, Cynthia,” Nancie said. “They’ve stayed friends through the divorce. Cynthia’s pretty sensible. She realized the marriage was over, but didn’t want to antagonize Trish for the sake of what she calls her grandcat. She also believed Trish didn’t murder her son. Cynthia’s in town preparing for Mort’s memorial service, and Trish invited her over to choose photos of Mort. That should keep her occupied. But she’s going to be calling me in about seven minutes. This time, I’ll have good news for her. Where do we go to start the party?”
“The Ireland Beach police station, near Oakland Park Boulevard,” Phil said.
“I know where that’s at,” Nancie said.
“Meet us there in about three hours, at three o’clock,” Phil said. “They’re still processing the crime scene. The CSI techs are photographing Justine for evidence. Then she’ll go to the closest animal shelter to have her microchip scanned and prove that she’s really Trish’s cat.”
“I don’t want Trish there for that,” Nancie said. “She’s too emotional.”
“Especially when she hears they need the photos in case the cat dies or is otherwise unavailable for trial,” Phil said.
“Don’t even say the D-word out loud,” Nancie said.
“Technically, the cat’s evidence,” Phil said. “But they’ll let Trish keep the cat before the trial.”
Helen heard Nancie give a loud sigh of relief.
“Although there’s a uniform here who seems quite captivated by her,” Phil said. “He’s made Justine a cute toy mouse out of string and a crumpled piece of paper.”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t tell Trish,” Nancie said. “She’ll want the string to be woven by Swiss virgins, the paper handmade
and everything certified organic.”
“I don’t know,” Phil said, teasing her. “Justine seems mighty attached to her new toy.”
“I’ll forget to deduct the cost of that blotter you owe me if you lose it,” Nancie said.
“You should see Justine,” Phil said. “She’s sitting on her back legs, batting it with her little paws. She’s having such a good time. It would be a shame to deprive her of so much fun.”
“All right, Phil, what do you want?” she asked.
“Permission to bill our client for any red-light-camera tickets we got while delivering the ransom money and following the catnapper to her apartment. We each ran at least two red lights and the tickets are a hundred fifty-eight dollars each.”
“Done!” she said. “Trish can afford it. Submit copies of the tickets with your expenses and make sure to circle the ticket times, so I can prove you were working. Just don’t let that cat out of your sight.”
“Helen will stay with her,” Phil said. “I’m going with the money. I’ve already hit it with my special flashlight and it lit up like a Christmas tree. The cops are taking the cash to the Fort Lauderdale police to confirm the results before they charge Amber. They’re familiar with SmartWater because of all the test programs the company has with local law enforcement.
“The bad news is Trish won’t get the money back until after the trial.”
“She won’t care,” Nancie said. “She’ll get her cat, and that’s what counts. The cash is an unexpected bonus. Just make sure the cops understand all the money is marked with SmartWater. We don’t want any disappearing from the evidence room.”
“Will do. SmartWater will provide the expert witness to testify at Amber’s trial,” Phil said.
“That kit was a bargain for us,” Nancie said. “Nice work, both of you. I’ll tell Trish the good news. Meet you at the Ireland Beach police station at three.”
From the outside, the IBPD looked like a vacation cottage, painted pink and surrounded by palms and red impatiens. Inside, it turned into a cheap motel lobby decorated with yellowing Wanted posters and a database of dirty fingerprints on the walls and plastic chairs.