by Elaine Viets
Violet punched END and said, “She’ll see you at four o’clock, but she says her condo is still a mess.” She smiled. “Fran has her professional pride.” She wrote on a small pad and said, “This is her address and cell phone number. Then you’ll report to the hospital tomorrow and stay with Daddy until he’s well enough to come home.”
“Violet,” Nancie said, drawing out her name. “Remember what I said. You realize there are extra charges if Helen is on duty more than twelve hours at a time in your father’s room?”
“I told you I don’t care about money,” Violet said. “I want to save Daddy.” Her voice cracked into sobs. Helen felt sorry for the distraught daughter.
“Phil, will you call that woman and apply for that ridiculous estate-manager job this afternoon?” Violet said. “My friend Mary Lynn Reed will give you a good reference. Here’s the information about Mary Lynn’s property for your job interview.” She pulled an envelope from her massive purse and handed it to Phil.
“What am I looking for if I get hired?” he asked.
“Evidence of murder.”
“Attempted murder,” Nancie corrected.
“How do you think Blossom killed—uh, attempted to kill your father?” Phil asked.
Violet didn’t hesitate. “Poison,” she said. “Fran says she poisoned him. She’s no expert on spices—she thought cumin and turmeric were poison—but she’s smart. Fran recognized that woman’s behavior was suspicious. She just picked the wrong things off the counter. Poison is a woman’s weapon.”
“Not always,” Phil said. “I’ve known women to shoot, stab and strangle.”
“You don’t know that woman,” Violet said. “She’s sly. She knows how to ingratiate herself. Somehow she flattered her way into my father’s life on that cruise ship.”
Even a smart man can have a weakness for a beautiful woman, Helen thought. Especially if he’s a lonely widower. Why can’t Violet see that?
“That woman has sailed to India and Asia,” Violet said, “places famous for exotic poisons. I think she brought some home. So does Fran.”
“Poison isn’t always from the exotic East,” Phil said. “I could find enough at Home Depot to wipe out half of Lauderdale. Blossom could kill your father with his own medication, like giving him too much blood thinner.”
“My father doesn’t take blood thinner,” Violet said. Her voice softened into a plea. “Fran knows that woman poisoned Daddy. So do I. We want you to work at her house and find the evidence. We think she used a poison that doesn’t show up on normal tests. That’s why the doctors can’t find it.”
“Violet, if Blossom used something from your father’s medicine cabinet, there may be no way to trace it,” Nancie said.
“If Daddy should die, I want that poison found during the autopsy,” Violet said, her voice rising.
“There won’t be an autopsy if your father dies,” Nancie said.
“And why not?” Violet was standing now.
“Because if he dies, he’ll be in a hospital under a doctor’s care,” Nancie said. “The law says there is no need for an autopsy. Autopsies are expensive.”
“I can pay for one,” Violet said.
“You still can’t do it,” Nancie said. “Blossom is next of kin. She’ll have to give permission, unless there is compelling evidence of a homicide.”
“That’s what I’m paying these investigators to find,” Violet said.
CHAPTER 4
Frances Murphy Sneed was proud of her new condo, a corner unit overlooking a lake. She answered her door in a white polyester uniform. “Come in, Helen,” she said. “Don’t mind the uniform. It’s still good, even if I don’t work anymore.”
Helen wondered if the housekeeper with the crinkly gray hair had lost her identity as well as her job. “Thanks for seeing me, Mrs. Sneed,” she said.
“Call me Fran. Anything for Mr. Z. I need a cigarette and coffee. What about you: coffee, water, Coke?”
“Coffee’s fine,” Helen said.
Fran was a plump, comfortable woman. Helen guessed her age at sixty-something. From her work-worn hands, she could tell they’d been hard years.
The housekeeper’s condo building could fit inside the Zerling mansion, but it was light, airy and livable. Helen followed Fran into a beige-tiled kitchen with cardboard boxes piled in a corner. She poured two mugs of coffee and told Helen, “Sugar and creamer’s on the counter.”
Helen carried her coffee carefully across the living room’s pale blue carpet. Fran patted a pillowy white sofa wrapped in thick plastic as if it were a pet.
“Delivered this afternoon,” she said. “I had a furnished apartment at Mr. Z.’s. When that witch Blossom fired me, I wanted to rent a furnished place, but Miss Violet wouldn’t hear of it. She bought me this condo.”
“Violet bought this?” Helen asked. And never mentioned it, she thought. She gave the woman points for her secret kindness.
“And the furniture,” Fran said. “That girl has a good heart, like her parents.”
Fran slid open the doors to a screened-in porch with white wicker. “This is my favorite room,” she said. “It’s the only table until my new kitchen set arrives. Let’s have our coffee out here.”
Fran sat down with a small, tired sigh and lit a filter-tip cigarette. Golden sun slanted through the green trees by the lake. Graceful white birds foraged in the lush grass.
“It’s like a painting,” Helen said.
Fran looked pleased. “Some condos, like Oak Hill, don’t have an oak or a hill. But White Egret has real egrets.”
She sipped her coffee, then asked, “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about Blossom and Mr. Zerling,” Helen said.
Fran’s faded blue eyes hardened with dislike. “She killed Mr. Z. Not a doubt in my mind. I worked for the Zerlings for thirty years. I ran the place and did the cooking. Nothing fancy, just good home cooking—fried chicken, steaks, chops.
“Violet’s mother hired me, and no finer lady walked this earth. Mr. Z. was lonely after she died. He said everything reminded him of Honeysuckle and he needed a change of scene. That’s why he took that cursed cruise.
“He called me all the way from India and said he was getting married. I was happy for him. But when I saw his bride, my mouth dropped open. She was fifty years younger than him. He was crazy about her. She acted like she was in love, but that’s what it was—an act. She’d flinch sometimes when he touched her. Poor Mr. Z. never noticed.
“Blossom tries to act like a lady, but she makes little slips.”
“Like what?” Helen asked.
“I fixed salmon steaks for dinner and she didn’t know what a fish fork was. Drinks her tea with her pinkie extended. Pretends to be fancy when she’s common as dirt.
“Blossom wanted rid of me from day one. She complained about my cooking. Said it was fattening. ‘I need vegetables,’ she says. So I made a pot of green beans with new potatoes and a nice ham bone. ‘The beans are overdone,’ she says. ‘I like them al dente.’ That’s half-raw. It ain’t healthy.
“One night I brought a crown roast into the dining room and Mr. Z.’s face lit up. I was going back for the baked potatoes and sour cream and chives, when she whispered, ‘If I keep eating like this, I’ll be as fat as Fran.’
“That hurt my feelings. I’m no size two, but I’m strong and healthy.”
Helen tried not to stare at Fran’s swollen ankles and the purple veins worming through her legs.
“Mr. Z. shushed Blossom. After dinner, he dropped by the kitchen for a cookie and slipped me a hundred dollars. ‘Buy yourself a little treat, Fran,’ he says. That’s the kind of man he is.
“Blossom kept on about my cooking until Mr. Z. let her get rabbit food special-delivered from some chef. But he still wanted me to cook for him. She never went into the kitchen, not even to make tea.
“That’s why I got suspicious when Blossom said she was cooking Mr. Z. a special dinner. ‘I’m making chicken curry,�
� she says. ‘Arthur likes spicy food.’”
“‘Since when?’ I says. Mr. Z. let me speak my mind, though I tried not to take advantage of it.
“She says, ‘Since our cruise. That’s where Arthur discovered curry.’ She turns to Mr. Z. and says, ‘You like it spicy, don’t you, sweetie?’ She gives him a goopy look and he grins at her like he doesn’t have a brain in his head.
“The next day she took over my kitchen and shooed me out, except when she couldn’t find a pot for the rice. The kitchen counter was covered with strange stuff she’d bought herself. A bunch of leaves she called coriander. It looked like parsley and I saw no harm in that. I recognized the bay leaves, garlic, cinnamon, poppy seeds, gingerroot and cayenne powder. But there were two other powders I never saw before: one yellow-green and the other one orange.
“I asked straight out what they were. ‘Spices,’ she says. I didn’t trust her. I snuck a pinch each in a Baggie, just in case. That was my mistake. I should have thrown it all out. I’d still be fired, but Mr. Z. would be healthy. But I let her serve that foreign slop and now he’s dying.”
“Was any curry left over?” Helen said.
“No,” Fran said. “That’s suspicious, too. She made a big potful. After dinner, she cleaned the pot and washed both their plates, then left the rest for me to clean up.
“Mr. Z. took sick during the night and she called 911. The next day I went to the police with those Baggies and—” Fran stopped, her face pink. “Made a fool of myself. But that curry was poisoned.”
“You still think that?” Helen asked.
“I know it. I saved the wrong part, that’s all. I’ll tell you something else, too.” Fran leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Blossom has herself a boyfriend.”
“Did you see him?” Helen asked.
“No, but I saw her going out at midnight all dressed up. She wasn’t wearing her regular rich-lady clothes. She had on a skintight skirt and a blouse cut to her navel. She was clickety-clacking across the drive to her car when she set off the security lights. That woke me up. I saw her plain as day, dolled up and wearing false eyelashes. She never dressed like that around Mr. Z.
“I mentioned it when I brought her morning tea. She says real casual-like, ‘Oh, yes, I couldn’t sleep. I went for a drive.’ She was dressed for a man, not a midnight drive.”
“Did Blossom ever call a man from the house?” Helen asked.
“No,” Fran said. “I’d hear her ordering things from stores and talking to Mr. Z.’s friends when they called. She didn’t have any friends of her own.
“She fired me after she found out I went to the police. Next time I saw Mr. Z., he was in the ICU in a coma. I sneaked in when his partner Mr. Roger sat with him. One look and I knew Mr. Z. was dying, but I can’t say that to Miss Violet.”
“She believes he’ll recover,” Helen said.
“She hasn’t lived as long as I have,” Fran said.
She finished her coffee, then said, “Here’s something else about Blossom. She won’t let anyone clean her dressing room. Cleans it herself. There’s something in that room she doesn’t want me to see.”
“Did you search it?” Helen asked.
“Too afraid,” Fran said. “She was looking to can me. Now she has.”
The housekeeper was quiet now, as if she’d exhausted the subject and herself.
Helen thanked Fran and drove home. She parked the Igloo in front of the Coronado Tropic Apartments, pausing briefly to admire the building’s sweeping Art Moderne curves in the fading light. The Coronado was built in 1949, when their landlady was a bride.
Helen and Phil rented half the units in the L-shaped apartment building. Their Coronado Investigations office was upstairs in apartment 2C. They lived downstairs in an odd arrangement: After their marriage, Helen and Phil kept their same small apartments next door to each other. They slept mostly at Phil’s.
Helen thought slipping into Phil’s bedroom to spend the night made their legal love feel illicit. But Phil sometimes retreated to his place to play loud music and Helen occasionally read alone in her apartment. Her cat, Thumbs, didn’t mind the arrangement as long as he was fed.
The palm trees in the courtyard rustled like old-fashioned petticoats. Helen heard laughter and found Phil, Margery and their neighbors Peggy and Pete sitting by the pool for the nightly sunset salute, a Coronado tradition.
Their landlady wore a filmy lavender caftan and a swirl of cigarette smoke. A stylish seventy-six, Margery wore her gray hair in a swingy bob and her wrinkles as marks of distinction.
She raised her glass of white wine and said, “You look tired, Your Holiness. Take a pew. Have a drink.” She poured Helen a cold glass from a box labeled “White Wine.” Even the grapes in the photo looked plastic.
“Hi, Helen,” said Peggy, a redhead with a dramatic nose. Her little black dress skimmed her figure and showcased her pale good looks.
“Hello!” said Pete. The Quaker parrot had emerald green feathers and a sober gray head. He was perched on Peggy’s shoulder.
“Hi,” Helen said. “You’re dressed up for a poolside party, Peggy.”
“I’m going to dinner with Danny,” Peggy said. “Phil said you were ordained today. Congratulations. Should I call you Reverend Hawthorne?”
“No,” Helen said. “I was ordained in the line of duty and it doesn’t feel quite right.”
“You’ll make a better minister than most seminary graduates,” Peggy said. “We’re also celebrating your agency’s two new jobs.”
“Just one,” Helen said. “Phil is working undercover as an estate manager.”
“Not yet,” Phil said. “The lady is talking to me tomorrow afternoon. If I don’t get hired, we’ll have to rethink this investigation. Meanwhile, I found us another job when I stopped at a restaurant on Seventeenth Street. I had a burger at the bar and got talking to a yacht captain at the next seat.”
“A lot of yacht crews hang out in that area,” Peggy said.
“Turns out the captain is looking for a detective. His name is Josiah Swingle.”
“Josiah sounds like a good name for a sea captain,” Helen said.
“He’s from an old New England family,” Phil said. “Josiah captains a luxury yacht docked on the New River. Says the owners mostly cruise the Caribbean. On the last trip they went to Atlantis in the Bahamas.”
“The fancy hotel and casino on Paradise Island?” Peggy asked.
“That’s the one,” Phil said.
“I’ve seen the photos,” Helen said. “Atlantis looks gorgeous.”
“You may get to see it in person,” Phil said. “The captain is worried there’s a smuggler aboard his yacht and wants to hire a detective to find him. It has to be a woman. You can work it.”
He added quickly, “If you want, Helen. I said we’d only take the job if you approve.”
“How will I watch our client’s father?” Helen asked.
“I don’t think he’s long for this world,” Phil said. “But if he lasts, Margery can babysit him.”
“I’m a minister, too, you know.” Margery grinned and exhaled an unholy amount of smoke.
“Tell me about this yacht,” Helen said.
“The captain says it’s got a cool sky lounge, a Jacuzzi and a dining room big enough for a dozen people. You’ll be one of the crew.”
“Doing what?” Helen asked.
“You’ll find out tomorrow morning at seven thirty,” Phil said. “That’s when the captain will be in our office. This job comes with an awesome ocean view.”
CHAPTER 5
Josiah Swingle was born to be a yacht captain—at least Helen thought so.
He had the right build: a compact muscular body with strong arms. A white polo shirt set off his broad chest nicely.
Josiah had the right look, too: neatly trimmed sandy hair and the sun-reddened complexion of a fair-skinned man. Helen liked the sun wrinkles around his eyes.
He was the right size. Josiah was about five
feet nine. That made him tall enough to command, but not so tall he’d perpetually bump his head in the ship’s low-ceilinged passageways, or whatever sailors called them.
Josiah had an air of calm confidence. I wouldn’t follow you into hell, Captain, Helen thought. But I’d obey your orders if the ship was in trouble. And I’d expect you to get us out of it.
Josiah had knocked firmly on the door of Coronado Investigations the next morning. Helen checked the office clock and was impressed by his punctuality: seven thirty on the dot.
Phil opened the door to their office, 2C, upstairs and across the courtyard from their apartments.
“Morning, Captain,” Phil said. “This is my partner and my wife, Helen Hawthorne.”
The captain shook hands with both Phil and Helen, another point in his favor. She liked his firm handshake and calloused hands. They belonged to someone who worked hard.
Josiah surveyed the Coronado office and nodded approval. “This is how a detective agency should look,” he said. “It’s a working office, not some decorator’s showcase.”
Almost right, Captain, Helen thought. Those gunmetal gray desks and file cabinets have been battered by years of work—but not our work. We bought them used.
Phil beamed when Josiah admired his framed poster of Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, her husband’s tribute to the romance of their trade. Then Josiah sat down in the yellow client chair, ready to tell his story. Helen and Phil sat across from him in their black and chrome chairs.
Josiah’s voice was low, but distinct. “I captain a 143-foot motor yacht called the Belted Earl,” he said.
“Interesting name,” Helen said. “Is the owner British royalty?”
“No, an American with a sense of humor,” Josiah said. “Before I tell you the family’s name, I need you to promise that you’ll keep it confidential, even if you don’t take my case.”
“You have our word,” Phil said. “Unless you’re doing something illegal that we’re required to report.”
“I’m not,” the captain said. “I’m trying to catch someone breaking the law. That’s why I need detectives. This is my first job as captain and I don’t want to lose it. I like the owner and the ship. Word can’t get around that there’s trouble aboard the Belted Earl.”