by Elaine Viets
“I guess that rules her out,” Helen said.
“Not quite,” Phil said. “Loretta also owns two houses in Palm Beach County.”
“Two Palm Beach houses,” Peggy said. “That’s a ritzy location.”
“Palm Beach County likes you to think it’s for the rich and glamorous, but not everyone has a mansion with live-in servants,” Phil said. “Palm Beach has poor neighborhoods and modest homes. I’m guessing Stranahan’s two houses fall into those categories. Both cost under two hundred thousand dollars.”
“How many toilets?” Helen asked.
“They’re listed as having one bathroom each—but that doesn’t mean they do. Homeowners often add extra toilets without getting the permits. Want to drive with me tomorrow and see them?”
“How can I resist such a romantic date?” Helen said. “I’d love to see the toilets of Palm Beach County. I’ve been gone most of the day. How is Margery? I’m worried about her.”
Peggy looked at Phil and lowered her voice. “With good reason,” she said. “Margery has been holed up in her apartment since Phil told her the bad news.”
“Which was?” Helen asked.
“I didn’t find a Mark Smith in Chicago,” Phil said. “Not one who could be the tenant in apartment 2C. I did find a Marco Rupert Gomez of Chicago with Mark Smith’s same birth date. That Gomez is wanted for aggravated assault and the rape of a twenty-year-old college student.”
“That’s horrible,” Helen said. “How do you know he’s Mark in 2C?”
“The story ran in the Chicago paper. His victim was paying her way through college as a model. He beat her so badly she needed facial reconstruction. Even if Mark avoids being tried for Jordan’s murder, he’ll be extradited back to Illinois for that crime.”
“Brilliant detective work,” Helen said. “But you still didn’t say how you know Mark Smith is really Marco Rupert Gomez of Chicago.”
“ ‘Gomez’ is a common name, a sort of Latino ‘Smith.’ Mark used a version of his real first name,” Phil said. “People often do that when they take an alias. They’re likely to keep their same birth date, too. Makes them easier to trace. Here. Look at Marco’s photo.”
Helen studied the newspaper picture. “That’s him, all right, but he looks more thuggish.”
“It’s a mug shot. Police stations aren’t known for flattering lighting.”
“I had no idea he was Latino,” Peggy said. “Mark never spoke Spanish.”
“He’s third-generation,” Phil said. “He was born in Illinois. His parents are schoolteachers. Helen’s family is German-American and she doesn’t know a word of German.”
“I do, too,” Helen said. “Strudel. Wiener schnitzel. Bratwurst. That’s my complete German vocabulary.”
“Point taken,” Peggy said. “Do you think Jordan knew Mark had beaten and raped a young model?”
“I doubt it,” Phil said. “Mark met her when she was waitressing at Beach Buns and they moved in together at the Coronado a month later. That’s what he told me over brews by the pool, anyway.”
“Is Margery still blaming herself for Jordan’s murder?” Helen asked.
“Yes,” Phil said. “Margery says she should have hired me to do a background check on the guy. Then she could have warned Jordan. She spent most of today in Mark and Jordan’s apartment, doing heaven knows what.”
“Brooding,” Peggy said.
“Awk!” Pete said.
“Margery came hobbling down from 2C about three o’clock,” Phil said. “She turned dead white when I told her about Mark’s Illinois warrant. She shut herself in her apartment and hasn’t said a word since.”
“I’ll go talk to her,” Helen said.
“Good luck,” Peggy said. “The door is locked. Neither of us can get through to her.”
Helen knocked on Margery’s jalousie door. No answer. She pounded on the door until the glass slats rattled. More silence.
“Margery, open this door or I’ll break the glass,” Helen said. “You know these slats are a pain in the neck to replace.”
“Hold your horses, I’m coming,” Margery said.
Helen could see her landlady’s form against the frosted-glass slats. “What do you want?” Margery asked.
“I want to know if you’re all right,” Helen said.
“I’d be fine if you weren’t butting in my business,” Margery said. “Go away.”
“We want to help you. You haven’t been yourself.”
“You want to help? Fine. Go pack Jordan’s things in her apartment. Her parents are driving down from Orlando tonight to pick them up. I’ve piled her clothes and papers on the kitchen table. There are three suitcases in there that you can use. The cops have unsealed the apartment, so you can get in.”
“What about the key?” Helen asked.
Margery’s door opened a few inches. A liver-spotted hand slid out, holding a key. “Here. When the parents show up around six o’clock, come get me.”
“We can handle it for you,” Helen said.
“It’s my apartment complex and my responsibility,” Margery said. “Jordan’s parents are Bud and Susan Drubb.”
“Nobody’s named Bud Drubb,” Helen said.
“Do you want to help or yammer?” Margery slammed the door.
“What did she say?” Peggy asked when Helen returned to the umbrella table.
“She insulted me,” Helen said. “That’s a good sign. She wants us to pack up Jordan’s things for her parents.”
Apartment 2C stank. Helen opened the door and the unpleasant tang of rotted meat, old blood and Florida mold rushed out, along with top notes of floral air freshener. As she and Peggy walked into the living room, they heard the peculiar hollow deadness of an empty apartment.
Helen was relieved the couch where Jordan had been murdered had been taken away. She winced at the blood on the living room walls. The door to the bedroom where the drunken Mark had passed out was shut. His empty beer bottles were gone.
Peggy shivered. “This used to be such a cute apartment. Now it’s horrible.”
“I don’t think Margery will be able to rent this for a long time,” Helen said.
“Let’s pack up and get out of here,” Peggy said.
Helen recognized many of the dresses she folded into a black suitcase as Snapdragon’s bargains. Peggy packed shoes, underwear and makeup into another suitcase, then started stacking photos, bills and papers into the third.
“This photo here must be her parents,” Peggy said. A couple in their fifties smiled at the camera from a sunlit beach.
“The mom looks like Jordan with short hair,” Helen said. “Jordan had her same green eyes. Her dad has a nice, craggy face. They seem too young to have a twenty-something daughter.”
“Had,” Peggy said. “I dread meeting them tonight. Looks like we’re finished here. We can take these suitcases downstairs. Jordan’s parents shouldn’t see this apartment. Are we going to tell Margery when the Drubbs show up?”
“She wants us to, but let’s let her sleep,” Helen said.
The two women carried the suitcases out by the poolside table. Then Peggy brought out two glasses of cold wine, and Phil added a bag of cheddar-and-sour-cream potato chips.
“Ew,” Peggy said. “They’re orange.”
“They’re pretty good once you get past the first bite,” Phil said.
Helen and Peggy stuck to the wine. Helen hoped one glass would be enough anesthesia to get her through the meeting with Jordan’s parents.
The couple who came to the Coronado that evening could have been the grandparents of Bud and Susan in the photo. Bud’s hair was nearly white. Susan’s face was lined and sagging. They walked as if some monster had stripped off their skin and sucked out their souls.
“We came to get our daughter’s things,” Bud said. His dignity was heartrending. They refused any drinks, even water. They did not want to sit down. Phil helped Bud carry the suitcases to their white Buick.
“We want
to get back on the road,” Susan said. She seemed to be fighting back tears. “We knew our baby would get in trouble someday, but we hoped it wouldn’t happen. Jordan always said she liked bad boys. She thought good men were dull.”
“Did she know Mark was wanted for assault and rape?” Peggy asked.
“Oh, yes,” Susan said. “She told us. We were so frightened for her. We sent her money so she could get a place of her own, but she said she wanted to stay with Mark. Mark told Jordan that he didn’t really rape and beat that young woman. He said she’d liked rough sex—then afterward she’d changed her mind and cried rape. Jordan believed him. She said Mark was the kindest, gentlest man and deserved another chance. Well, look where his chance got my daughter.”
Helen couldn’t bear to see the pain in Susan’s eyes.
She heard the rattle of glass and saw Margery in her doorway, standing straight and tall. She wore a violet caftan, dangling earrings and purple sandals with flowers on them. A cloud of cigarette smoke covered her face like a veil.
“Margery,” Helen said. “You’re back.”
“You were supposed to tell me when Jordan’s parents arrived,” Margery said. She took Susan’s hand in her own and said, “I’m so sorry about your daughter.”
“Thank you,” Susan said. “I was telling your friends that my little Jordan was too trusting. She knew Mark had a violent past, but she thought he’d reformed.”
Bud came up to his wife and said, “We should leave now, sweetheart. We have a long drive ahead.”
“Would you be my guests at a hotel for the night?” Margery asked.
“No, we want to leave this place,” Bud said. “No offense.”
“I understand,” Margery said.
They watched the couple drive off.
“Margery, did you hear them?” Helen asked. “Jordan knew that Mark had raped and beaten a woman. You’re not responsible.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Margery said.
“You’ve been punishing yourself for Jordan’s death.”
“Oh, now you’re a psychologist as well as a sales clerk,” Margery said. “I’m so relieved. When I need a psychiatric evaluation, I won’t have to bother with a professional. I have an amateur on call to hand out half-baked diagnoses.”
“You’re angry,” Helen said.
“No,” Margery said. “I’m furious.” Her voice was no longer a quaver. She thundered. “I asked you to tell me when the Drubbs arrived, but you didn’t bother.”
“You’re wearing purple,” Helen said.
“Well, alert the media,” Margery said. “I always wear purple, you twit.”
“You’re cussing, too.”
“Hell, yes. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Helen said. “Everything is fine.”
CHAPTER 27
Ameat market. A doctor’s office. A tiny storefront church with a sparkling window framed by white curtains. At least, Helen guessed that’s what these businesses were. She translated the signs as Phil’s black Jeep rolled down the street past a carnicería, a médico, an iglesia. They were on a potholed road near the Dixie Highway, literally on the wrong side of the tracks in Palm Beach County. The area between Dixie and I-95 was considered poor by Palm Beach standards.
“We’re a long way from Worth Avenue,” Helen said. “Tourists never see this.”
“They’re missing the interesting part,” Phil said. “You can find Brooks Brothers, Neiman Marcus and Tiffany stores at any upscale mall. These shops are one of a kind. I bet that meat market has sensational hot sausage. And look how the congregation has fixed up that church. They painted red roses and a gold cross on the window.”
“I didn’t realize there were Latino neighborhoods here,” Helen said.
“Who do you think works in the mansions?” Phil said. “I bet if I yelled ‘green card,’ I could make half the people on this street disappear.”
“You wouldn’t, would you?” Helen asked.
“Of course not,” Phil said. “Then we’d never find Commissioner Stranahan’s two houses.”
He turned right, then left, then right again. “Be careful,” Helen said. “If anything happens to you, I’ll never find my way out.”
“Your concern is touching,” Phil said.
She yanked his ponytail playfully and said, “You know I can’t live without you.”
They were on a dusty sunbaked street lined with square cinder-block houses in faded tropical colors. The lawns were brown and dry. Most of the homes had chain-link fences and iron bars on the windows.
Phil stopped in front of a lime green house with its screen door hanging off the hinges.
“Shame on the commissioner,” Phil said. “I see a dozen housing-code violations just standing here.”
Helen and Phil walked carefully up the cracked concrete steps. Phil reached through the torn screen and knocked on the door.
After a long wait, a Latino built like a melting ice-cream cone answered. His eyes were frightened. “No spik English,” he said.
“Do you know if—,” Phil began.
The frightened man interrupted. “No. Go away. Vete.” He made shooing motions with his hands and slammed the door.
“Do you think he really doesn’t speak English?” Helen asked when they were back in the Jeep.
“Who knows?” Phil said. “It’s a good way to get rid of strangers. You speak Spanish, don’t you?”
“Gringo Spanish,” Helen said. “That’s what my old Cuban boss, Miguel Angel, called it. My Spanish is slow and my vocabulary is small. I couldn’t help you if anyone started firing rapid Spanish.”
“Let’s drive to her other house,” Phil said. “I don’t want to attract more attention here.”
Commissioner Stranahan’s second house was almost a copy of the first, except it was sun-scorched turquoise and had a handmade “se renta cuarto” sign.
“I think that sign translates as ‘room for rent,’ ” Helen said.
Phil coasted by the house and parked his battered Jeep half a block away, between a rusty pickup and a brown seventies beater with the trunk wired shut.
“I’ll go to the front door and ask about renting the room,” he said.
“You look too rich to rent here,” Helen said. She took time to admire her fiancé’s tight black T-shirt and jeans.
“It’s not for me,” Phil said. “It’s for my imaginary construction manager, José. I’ll stall whoever answers while you get a closer look at the place.”
“Give me time to sneak around the side first,” Helen said.
She crunched across the dead brown grass and looked in the garage window. Helen saw three mattresses on the concrete floor, two flat pillows and a tangle of gray white sheets. In one corner a white toilet squatted in the open. It looked oddly naked.
That’s one, she thought.
A tiny back room had a pink sheet tacked over the window, but Helen could see scuffed turquoise walls, a sleeping bag and a mattress on a tile floor and a toilet in the corner.
Two toilets, she thought.
The third room was bigger, probably intended as the master bedroom. It had four mattresses, egg-yolk yellow walls and a toilet.
The long, narrow bathroom did not have curtains or frosted glass on its window. Helen looked into a shower black with mold. Through the parted plastic shower curtain, she could see a bedroll in one corner and a toilet in its proper place.
The kitchen had a toilet, too, opposite the stove and a fridge that hummed and groaned. The kitchen counter was cluttered with cans and boxes, most with Spanish labels. The sink overflowed with dirty dishes. Helen saw a huge roach on an open loaf of bread. A futon mattress and two sleeping bags were piled in a corner. A listing chrome-legged table with six mismatched chairs took up most of the room.
Helen hurried to the living room. The sliding doors also had sheet curtains, but she could peek inside. These walls were dark brown. A plaid couch sagged against the opposite wall. It looked lik
e someone bunked on it. Helen counted five mattresses on the floor and more tattered sheets. A small brown TV was perched on a cinder block. Yet another toilet sat in the far corner. The count was up to six.
A sunporch had been converted into a room, thanks to unpainted plywood. Helen couldn’t see in, but she bet this makeshift room had a toilet, too. She tugged on the door. Locked. Before she could explore further, she heard shouts from the front of the house.
Helen slipped around the side and ran for the Jeep. She was sitting sedately inside by the time Phil jumped in, started the engine and screeched toward I-95.
“Nice work,” Helen said. “You kept him distracted while I looked. I could hear you didn’t get along well with José’s potential landlord.”
“That slime,” Phil said. “He told me the room would cost six hundred a month and José would have to share it with four people. He wanted three months’ cash up front.”
“Well, at least your imaginary supervisor would have his own in-room toilet,” Helen said. “I think we’ve found the house of the seven toilets. I couldn’t see into one room in the back, but all the others, even the kitchen and the garage, had toilets.”
“The kitchen, too?” Phil asked. “That’s disgusting.”
“The house is a slum, Phil. Those poor people are sleeping on the floor. I counted maybe eighteen mattresses and sleeping bags. If Commissioner Stranahan is charging six hundred per person, she’s raking in almost eleven thousand dollars a month from that house.”
“Only if the renters are sleeping one person to a mattress,” Phil said. “If they share, she’s making even more.”
“It’s greedy and wicked,” Helen said. “How does she get away with it?”
“She rents to illegal immigrants who don’t dare complain,” Phil said. “She may be paying off officials, too. Or the inspectors don’t bother with poor neighborhoods. You can find houses like that throughout Florida. They’re luxury accommodations. Some illegals send home most of their pay, or make so little they can’t afford to rent. They camp in the woods and risk getting beaten and robbed.”
“How do you think Chrissy found out about Commissioner Loretta Stranahan’s house?” Helen said. “She’d never go to a Latino neighborhood. Chrissy thought visiting Snapdragon’s was an adventure.”