by Elaine Viets
“And then Jerrod said to me, ‘Granny’—he calls me Granny—”
“Mrs. Cratchley,” Helen said, “I’d love to chat with you, but my boss is here and I have to go.”
“I understand, dear,” Mrs. Cratchley said. “You call anytime.”
Helen’s next call let loose with a string of profanities that nearly wilted her rose. She felt better. She was used to that.
When she got her five-minute break an hour later, Jack was still on the phone, happily peddling septic-tank cleaner. Helen dug a plastic soda bottle out of the trash can and walked back to the battleship gray bathroom.
She was filling the bottle with water for her rose when Taniqua came out of a plywood stall. A boiler-room diet of junk food was slyly putting pounds on her slender figure. Taniqua definitely filled out her powder-blue halter top and tight low-rise pants. Helen wondered what brought this beauty to this beastly place.
“That rose from the new guy?” Taniqua said.
“We went out for drinks last night. He brought me this. Wasn’t that sweet?”
“He nothing but trouble.”
“He’s romantic.”
“Huh,” Taniqua said. “A love rose. Oldest trick in the man’s book. Get those at the 7-Eleven for a buck. That makes you a dollar ho.”
“Taniqua! What’s he done to you?”
“He be a bailiff boy.”
“A what?”
“You find out soon enough. Just don’t be trusting no bailiff boy.”
Taniqua slammed the bathroom door.
Chapter 11
Helen’s morning started with a hangover. It ended with a mutiny.
Mr. Cavarelli slithered in at ten o’clock. He was one of the elegant reptiles from the New York office. His eyes were flat and yellow. Even his suit was a lizardlike greenish brown. He wore alligator shoes, which Helen thought was no way to treat a relative. She wondered if his silk-clad feet were covered with scales.
Mr. Cavarelli kept his upper lip curled as he walked through the boiler room. He glided into Vito’s office like a hungry predator and silently slid the door shut.
Helen did not see Vito for the rest of the morning. He didn’t even come out to monitor the telemarketers. Maybe Mr. Cavarelli had disemboweled him and was snacking on his entrails.
Helen made four sales in quick succession. She sold better when Vito wasn’t looking over her shoulder.
Vito did not emerge until the end of the shift. He looked mauled. His smooth pink skin was blotchy white. His shirt tail hung out. He seemed nervous. Well, who wouldn’t be, after three hours with Mr. Cavarelli? It probably felt like the intake interview from hell.
Vito plastered on a sick smile and started passing out commission-check envelopes. Helen could never figure out the commission pay schedule. It seemed to be based on sun signs and the position of the moon.
Taniqua eagerly tore into her envelope. “What’s this shit? They be paying me for fifteen sales. I had seventeen. I got my list right here.”
Her “proof” was a tattered piece of paper with a handwritten list of names, addresses and dates. No supervisor had signed it. No supervisor would. Records were conveniently vague at Girdner Sales. Taniqua had no hope of getting that missing money.
“Goddamn crooks,” Zelda said, hugging her red sweater closer to her tiny body. “I didn’t get my commission on four sales.”
“They ripped me off.” That was from Bob, a huge tattooed biker.
And me, Helen thought. Her envelope was a little thicker than the others. I can’t complain, because I get my money in cash. Vito helps himself to a commission on my commission.
Panhead Pete, another biker, said, “Hey, I been cheated, too. I’m short three sales. I want my fuckin’ money.”
He crushed his check in a hairy paw, which made the death’s head on his bicep grin wider. Pete was a mountain of lard with a beer-keg belly. He loomed over Vito, who started sweating.
Mr. Cavarelli slid out of the office, elegant and evil. “Is there a problem?” he asked softly.
“Yeah,” Pete said. “I’ve been stiffed outta three sales.”
“But you haven’t,” Mr. Cavarelli said, fixing his flat predator’s eyes on Pete. He smiled. His teeth looked sharp and pointed. “I personally calculated those checks.”
Pete shifted uneasily. Maybe he realized he was two hundred and eighty pounds of slow and tasty beef. Maybe he saw the slight bulge under Cavarelli’s well-tailored armpit. Helen certainly did. The lizard was lethal. Pete’s only weapons were his meaty fists, and they didn’t stop bullets.
“Well, it better be fixed next time,” Pete said lamely.
“I’ll look into it,” Mr. Cavarelli said with a flick of contempt.
Pete walked out, shoulders slumped. Zelda and Taniqua followed, too beaten down to protest.
“Wow, that was something,” Jack said. “That guy in the suit has real management ability. Did you see the way he handled those malcontents?”
“He had a gun,” Helen said.
“You’re kidding,” Jack said.
Helen wasn’t sure he believed her. It was too soon for Jack to get a commission check. He’d learn soon enough about Girdner’s curious accounting.
She was carrying her rose in its bottle vase. He blocked her way to the door, awkward as a schoolboy. “Uh, I wanted to see you today, but I can’t. I’ve got an appointment with my lawyer this afternoon. About the divorce.”
“I understand,” she said.
“And I can’t make it tonight, either,” he said.
“Jack, you don’t have to explain. We’re not going steady.”
“I want to see you all the time.” He looked so sincere, like a little boy all grown up. He was so neat and well-groomed, so different from the boiler-room dopers and losers.
“Helen!” Vito’s shout broke into her thoughts. “Thank God you’re still here. Can you work the survey side tonight?”
A rose from Jack and a night in survey heaven. Helen was in such a good mood, she decided to call Savannah. She stopped at the Riverside Hotel and used one of the pay phones. Might as well make this call in comfort.
“No word from Miss Debbie,” Savannah said. “I called all last night until two o’clock and she didn’t answer. That little blond snip is not getting away with this. This is my sister we’re talking about. I’ll choke the information out of Debbie with my bare hands. I’m going to her apartment. You’re off work now, right?”
“Until five,” Helen said.
“I haven’t had lunch yet, and the boss isn’t around this afternoon. I can take a little longer. Let’s drive over to Debbie’s.”
“Are you packing a weapon?” Helen said.
“I told you, I don’t like guns.”
“I’m talking about oven cleaner.”
“You got my last can. I’ll be outside the Riverside Hotel in five minutes.”
Savannah’s Tank pulled up in front of the hotel, rattling and rumbling. Savannah put it in PARK, and it farted black smoke. The doorman averted his eyes.
“Nice troll doll.” Helen pointed to the orange-haired toy swinging from the rear-view mirror.
“I brought it for luck,” Savannah said. “Laredo gave it to me.”
There was a sad silence.
“I raised her, you know,” Savannah said. “Mama didn’t want her. She only had Laredo because Woodbridge Manson wanted a boy child, and she thought she could keep him if she gave him a son. Guess she figured she had a fifty-fifty chance of pleasing him.
“Mama gambled and lost. You can’t return a baby like a wrong-size dress. Manson took off when Laredo was two months old. Mama wasn’t mean to Laredo or anything. Just not real interested.
“I was ten years old. I thought Laredo was the cutest thing. She was my own baby doll. I liked everything about her. Her baby smell. The way she kicked her little legs and squinched up her eyes when she cried. And her smile. She could light up a room with that smile. She was bald as Dwight Eisenhower until s
he was almost two. I used to tape a pink bow on her head, so everybody would know she was a girl.
“By the time she turned twelve, they sure knew. She had bazooms out to here, and boys following her like dogs in heat. Laredo had man trouble from then on. I figured it was because she couldn’t keep the first man in her life, her daddy, Woodbridge Manson. I was always getting her out of scrapes with boys. She got knocked up at fifteen, but I talked her into getting rid of it. Mama never knew. I went with Laredo to the clinic and held her hand. I thought it was my fault. I didn’t raise her right.”
“You were ten years old.”
“Yeah, well, I was a failure as a mother. I don’t have any daughters of my own. Laredo’s the closest I’ll ever have to a child.”
She touched the troll doll. “Maybe she had itchy feet after all. Maybe she’s not dead. Maybe she ran off with another man. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Helen thought Savannah was trying to convince herself. She knew the truth, and so did Helen. She was glad when they pulled into Debbie’s apartment complex. She spotted the waitress’s purple Neon in the lot.
“She’s home,” Helen said.
“I thought so. Little witch wasn’t answering my calls.”
Savannah grabbed her purse, slammed the car door, and marched up the stairs. Helen ran after her, hoping she’d kept her promise about the oven cleaner.
Savannah rang the doorbell. Nobody answered.
“Ring it again,” Helen said.
Savannah did.
Helen did not hear anyone moving around in the apartment.
“Must be taking a nap. This will wake her.” Savannah smacked the door with a powerful wallop. It swung open.
“Place smells funny,” she said.
They walked in cautiously, Savannah first. “She’s a messy housekeeper, too. There are things all over the floor.”
Helen spotted a chair lying on its side, stuffing flowing from the slashed seat. A lamp was tipped over, the bulb shattered. “Something’s not right here. Don’t touch anything.”
“You think it’s burglars?” Savannah stepped cautiously around a ripped couch pillow. “Or mean kids? They knocked over that knickknack stand and broke everything. Look.”
Helen saw a headless china cat, a shattered cupid and a porcelain hand on the tile floor. The hand looked intact. There were no chips in the pale fingers.
Debbie had uncommonly pale skin, like fine porcelain. Helen froze. Her legs weighed ten tons each. They refused to move.
“What’s the matter?” Savannah said. “Did you see this kitchen? Someone dumped sugar all over the counter. She’s going to have ants everywhere. Flour and coffee are in the sink. And look at this. They threw raw chicken on the floor. I guess that’s the bad-meat smell.”
“The hand. Her porcelain hand,” Helen said.
“My grandmother had one of those,” Savannah said, peering around the doorway.
Helen got her legs to move again, and slowly walked behind the beige couch. The pale hand was connected to a white lace cuff. The cuff was connected to . . . nothing.
“It’s just like Grandma’s,” Savannah said. “Except hers had a china rose on the little finger. And look at that thing on the pedestal. Debbie sure likes body parts, doesn’t she?”
It was a heavy-breasted female torso, a plaster copy of something Greek or Roman, Helen thought. For some reason, the vandals hadn’t toppled it.
“I bet Debbie’s hanging out by the pool. Is she in for a surprise when she gets back,” Savannah said.
Helen stepped carefully around some spilled CDs to get into the bedroom. “The covers and pillows are torn off the bed and the mattress is slashed,” she reported. “And there’s a marble foot by the bed.”
“Another body part,” Savannah said.
Helen saw that the foot was connected to a long white leg. The leg went up to a flirty cheerleader’s uniform and a tangle of blond hair.
“Debbie!” Helen said, her voice sounding small and scared. “Debbie, are you OK?”
Even as she said the words, Helen knew Debbie wasn’t. One look at her purple, distorted face told her that. There was a cruel line of bruises around her throat. Her long white-blond hair had been twisted into a silver rope and pulled tight around her neck. Debbie had been strangled with her own hair.
Savannah came up behind Helen and touched her shoulder. “Jesus,” she whispered.
Helen jumped at her touch. “You said you wanted to strangle Debbie with your bare hands.”
“I didn’t kill her. Someone else did.” Helen backed away, putting the bed between her and Savannah.
“You strangled her,” Helen repeated. She took another step back. Now she could run for the door.
“Hell’s bells,” Savannah said. “Use your head. If I was the killer, would I drag you to the scene of the crime? I’d let the cops think it was a burglary gone bad and never come back here.”
That made sense, but Helen was still wary. “We better call the police,” she said.
“Uh, I can’t be around the police. Little problem with my former employer,” Savannah said.
“I understand.” Helen wasn’t anxious to contact the police, either. “Let’s leave and call them from a pay phone.” She wanted out of that place. Now.
“I’m not leaving until I look for Kristi’s address,” Savannah said.
That declaration convinced Helen: Savannah was either innocent or putting on a good show.
“Don’t touch anything. Just stand there. I’ll be finished in two shakes.” Savannah pulled a pair of yellow rubber gloves out of her purse and began searching. She pawed through the papers scattered on the floor and checked the message slips by the phone. She poked in the wreckage of overturned drawers. She picked through the contents of Debbie’s purse, spilled across the bedroom floor.
“Nothing. Either Debbie never had Kristi’s address, or it’s gone,” Savannah said. “We better make ourselves scarce.”
Savannah and Helen used their shirttails to wipe the doorbell, doorknob and door. “We didn’t touch anything else with our hands. The floor is tile. I don’t see where we left any footprints.”
“What if the neighbors see us?”
“What neighbors? Everyone’s at work.”
They stopped at a pay phone on Dixie Highway and called the police nonemergency number. Savannah disguised her voice to sound like an old woman. She said there was a funny smell coming out of apartment 203. No, she wouldn’t leave her name, just check it out, please. That’s why she paid taxes.
Savannah hung up. The Tank rumbled and bucked down the highway. Helen felt sick and dizzy, but she wasn’t sure if it was the lurching car or . . . She saw Debbie again, her blond hair twisted around her white neck. Debbie had used her beauty as a weapon. It didn’t save her this time.
Debbie was dead.
And I stepped over her body, wiped my fingerprints off her door, and left her to rot. What’s wrong with me? How could I be so cold?
Helen remembered Debbie in the parking lot, flipping her long hair, flirting with the dazzled cook, driving home in her purple jellybean of a car. She was young, silly and sure she could conquer the world—at least the male half.
Like Laredo. And now Debbie was dead. Like Laredo.
A single tear splashed in Helen’s lap. She tried to hold the others back. She didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t stop.
“What’s wrong?” Savannah said.
“Debbie’s dead and it’s our fault.” Helen wiped her eyes with her palms and sniffled back more tears. “She was afraid to tell us anything. She said, ‘They’ll hurt me. They’ll hurt me bad.’ If we hadn’t forced Debbie to talk, she’d still be alive. We’ve blundered around and killed another person.”
“Excuse me? We’ve killed another person? Where are you getting that crap?”
“I heard a woman being strangled. Now I’ve seen one.”
Savannah turned on her angrily. “You didn’t hear a woman being killed. Yo
u heard my little sister Laredo die. She had blond hair and the sweetest smile you ever saw. She wanted to be a famous actress and she had a part in a real Shakespeare play. Now she’s dead and I can’t even find her body to bury her.”
The Tank died at a light, and Savannah smashed her foot down on the gas until the car shot forward, belching smoke.
“You want to know why I can’t find her? Because Debbie told the police Laredo took off. She took a thousand dollars to say that.
“I’m sorry Debbie’s dead, but she made her mistake when she lied about my sister. I didn’t kill her and you didn’t, either. Debbie’s own greed killed her.”
Savannah was so upset she ran a light and nearly hit a delivery truck. There was a rousing chorus of honks punctuated by one-fingered salutes, then a long silence.
“Who do you think killed her?” Helen said. “Hank Asporth?”
“He’s the most likely candidate,” Savannah said. “But why did Debbie say ‘They’ll hurt me’? Why not ‘He’ll hurt me’?”
“You think he’s working with someone else?”
“I don’t know. We need to get in touch with this Kristi. She knows something. But I’m fresh out of ideas.”
“I’ll call Steve and see if he needs a bartender,” Helen said.
“You’re going to tend bar topless? Nice lady like you? You’ll be too embarrassed.”
“I’m beyond embarrassment,” Helen said. “I’m a telemarketer.”
Chapter 12
It was only two thirty in the afternoon when Savannah dropped Helen off at the Coronado. It seemed much later. Time had slipped sideways in Debbie’s apartment. Helen felt oddly boneless. And she was tired, so very tired. She had to get some sleep before she went to work, or she’d never stay awake tonight. Helen set her alarm for four o’clock.
As soon as she crawled under the covers, Helen was wide awake. She saw the dead Debbie, her long hair twisted cruelly around her neck. Helen could not picture her as a blond beauty anymore. Debbie was a bloated face and a bruised neck, a bedroom nightmare.
She rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling. Maybe she should go see Margery. Her landlady would make a screwdriver that would knock the nightmares out of her head. But she would also tell Helen to quit telemarketing. Look where it got her: working with junkies and bikers and listening to murders.