The Dead-End Job Mysteries Box Set 1

by Elaine Viets

  Gayle did not. “Denny, get your feet off the counter,” she said. “Now you’ll have to clean it again. Helen, I found this stack of romances in the bathroom. Put them away.”

  As Helen headed toward the rear of the store, she remembered Mr. Davies. He was going to tell her more about the golden blonde in the silver car. She hadn’t gotten back to him, and he hadn’t come up front to see what caused the commotion. How could he sleep through that riot?

  Well, she knew where to find him. He never left until the store closed at midnight. She put away the books, then found Mr. Davies in his secluded book nook. He was dead to the world.

  Poor old fellow is really tired, she thought. His water glass had fallen over. The spilled water was dangerously close to his latest book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. She smiled. He was still reading Mark Twain.

  A ruined book would upset the old bibliophile. She bent down to pick it up and brushed his hand. It was ice-cold.

  “Mr. Davies?” she said. “Are you all right?” She started to gently shake him, when he fell stiffly forward. His eyes were open.

  “Please, Mr. Davies, wake up,” she pleaded.

  But even as she said it, Helen knew that would never happen.

  Chapter 22

  Helen did not shed a tear for Gabriel, but she couldn’t quit crying for dear, gentle Mr. Davies. “He’ll never know how Huckleberry Finn ended,” she sobbed. Her Kleenex looked like soggy lace.

  Gayle handed her a fresh tissue and said, “Helen, the man was eighty-something. It’s not a tragedy when an old man dies.”

  Helen thought that was harsh. She sniffed and blew her nose. Young Denny patted her on the back.

  “I’m just glad there weren’t any customers in the store,” Gayle said. “We’ve already had the police here once today.”

  Gayle had called 911 for the second time that day. Once again, they heard the sirens. “That’s an ambulance pulling up,” Denny said.

  “I told them the man was dead,” Gayle said. “What’s this, the Lazarus brigade?”

  The fire department paramedics came running in as if they really could save Mr. Davies. For one moment, Helen felt hope. Maybe Mr. Davies could be revived. But she remembered his skin, so cold and oddly blue, and his stiff body.

  “I’ll go back with the paramedics,” Gayle said. “You two stay up here and lock the doors. We’re closed. All we’re going to get now are freaks.”

  The crowd gathering outside the store had hot, hungry eyes eager for a look at the body. One held up a child to see inside. The ghouls knocked on the glass, and Denny and Helen pointed to the CLOSED sign.

  Helen wasn’t sure how long it was before the paramedics gave up and called the police, but eventually uniformed officers pushed through the crowd. Helen and Denny let them in, then locked the door again.

  The blood freaks had grown restless. Helen was glad the police were there. She and Denny stayed at their post. Sound traveled in the empty bookstore. The two booksellers could hear people talking, but they couldn’t tell whether it was the police or paramedics. A woman was asking Gayle if she knew Mr. Davies’ next of kin or the name of his medical doctor. A man kept saying, “I can’t find any prescription bottles or Medic Alert bracelet on him. There’s no doctor’s appointment card in his wallet.”

  “I said, there’s something wrong with this guy,” said one man.

  “Of course there is. He’s dead,” said a second man.

  “No, look at his eyes.”

  “I’ll be damned. Are those petechiae? Any pillows around here?”

  “Over there on that couch.” That was Gayle.

  “I wouldn’t touch those pillows with tongs,” Denny whispered. “You won’t believe how often I find them next to a pile of skin magazines. Have you seen the stains on those things?”

  “Quiet,” Helen said.

  “What are petechiae?” Denny said in a small voice.

  “Broken blood vessels in the eyes. You get them if you’ve been strangled or smothered,” Helen said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I watch CSI,” Helen said. “Please shut up, or we’ll never learn anything.”

  They heard the first man’s voice again “. . . get all the pillows bagged. Have to bag his hands, too, in case he fought his attacker. We’d better get the evidence techs in here, although the paramedics have already done a great job of ruining the crime scene.”

  “Hey, we were trying to save his life,” said an indignant male voice.

  “Call homicide, too. Shit. Nothing’s ever simple.”

  “Is something wrong, Officer?” That was Gayle, sounding worried.

  “We’re just being careful, ma’am.”

  “They’re calling homicide,” Denny said, sounding impressed. “They think somebody killed Mr. Davies. Who would murder an old dude like that?”

  “It’s all my fault,” Helen said, and began to cry again. “I killed him.”

  “You were apparently the last person to talk with the victim,” homicide detective Harold “Gil” Gilbert said. Helen liked him. A lot better than Detective Jax. Gilbert had nice hazel eyes and luxuriant light brown hair. The kind you could run your fingers through, except she was keeping her hands to herself these days.

  “Now tell me about your conversation with Mr. Zebediah Davies.”

  Helen quit crying and looked up, startled. “His name was Zebediah?”

  “What did you think it was?”

  “I never called him anything but Mr. Davies,” Helen said.

  “‘Mister’ isn’t much of a first name,” he said. He also had a sense of humor. She could go for Detective Gilbert. If he wasn’t a cop. If she wasn’t on the run from the law. If she wasn’t a sucker!

  “I asked him about the night that Page Turner died,” she said, wiping her eyes. Her hand was streaked with black. Terrific. Her eyeliner was running. She probably looked like a panda.

  “Mr. Davies always sat in the same chair, by that window overlooking the parking lot. He was there from nine in the morning until we closed at midnight. He saw who picked up Page Turner. Detective Jax arrested my friend Peggy for Page’s murder. He’s wrong. I know he’s wrong. I was doing my own investigation.”

  “That’s a dangerous game. People get killed that way.”

  “I know. I killed Mr. Davies with my stupid questions.” Helen started sniffling again and brought out the Kleenex. It was a series of interconnected holes. Gilbert offered his pocket handkerchief. When she blew her nose, it sounded like a trumpet solo. “Sorry. I’ll wash it and get it back to you.”

  “Forget it,” he said. “And you didn’t kill Mr. Davies. Don’t ever think that. Don’t take that guilt on yourself.”

  Helen didn’t believe him. But it was time to turn off the waterworks. She hated weepy women.

  “Detective Jax thinks Page Turner drove off with Peggy and was never seen again. But Peggy brought Page back to the store, and someone else picked him up. Mr. Davies saw that person. He tried to tell Detective Jax, but Jax got impatient and didn’t let him finish. Mr. Davies talks—talked—a lot, and he kind of rambles. I mean rambled.”

  I’m starting to ramble like poor Mr. Davies, she thought. But she could talk to Gil Gilbert. He was leaning forward as if he wanted to catch every word.

  “What did Mr. Davies tell you?”

  “He said a lovely blonde showed up in a silver car. He called it ‘a silver coach for a golden princess.’ I said there were a lot of blondes in the store. He said, ‘Not like this one. She had yellow hair and looked like Cinderella.’ I wanted to ask him what he meant, but then we had this problem with a pedophile.”

  “I heard about the Las Olas mommy riot. Those women sent Mr. Goggles to the emergency room.”

  “Good,” Helen said. “Things got pretty hectic after that. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Mr. Davies again. Then I found that sweet old man dead in his chair.” She was not going to cry. She fought back the tears.

  “So all
he told you was that he saw a blonde with a silver car.”

  “It’s not much help, is it?” Helen said.

  “What do you think he meant by Cinderella?” Gilbert said.

  “Mr. Davies had an interesting mind. It didn’t work quite the same as everyone else’s. Peggy drove a Kia and he called it a Vietnam car, because to him KIA meant ‘killed in action,’ and they used that term in the Vietnam War. Who knows what Cinderella meant?”

  Gilbert had more questions, lots more. It was nearly three a.m. when the police released the booksellers. Even young Denny looked hollow-eyed and exhausted. Helen’s tear-reddened eyes were twin pools of blood.

  “Can I give you a ride home?” Gayle said.

  “I can walk,” Helen said. “I only live a few blocks away.”

  “You shouldn’t be walking alone at this hour.”

  Three drunks were weaving down the sidewalk, singing “Louie, Louie.” They looked harmless, playing air guitars and howling the words off-key, but suddenly Helen didn’t feel so brave.

  Gayle was parked in Page Turner’s old spot. Astrid must have given it to her as a perk for managing the store. Page’s widow rarely drove into Fort Lauderdale. Helen had seen her silver Mercedes maybe twice since she’d worked at Page Turners. Gayle moved a pile of books and papers off the passenger seat and Helen folded her legs into the little Honda. Only when she sat down did she realize how tired she was.

  “You see why I hate working nights?” Helen said. Gayle managed a weak smile.

  “I live at the Coronado Tropic Apartments,” Helen said. “You make a left at the next street.”

  “I know how to get there,” Gayle said. “What time do you come in tomorrow?”

  “Not till eleven. And if you want me to work tomorrow night, the answer is no.”

  Gayle pulled into the Coronado parking lot.

  “Listen, I really appreciate this,” Helen said.

  “No biggie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Helen waved good-bye, waiting until the silver Honda was out of sight. It was easy to get lost in these side streets. But the little car found the way back to the main highway.

  The Coronado was dark and still. Even Margery’s light was off. Hungry insects sang their blood songs. Predators rustled in the plants. Phil’s perpetual pot smog perfumed the air. As Helen passed through, she took a deep breath and inhaled. Maybe secondhand sensimilla smoke would help her sleep.

  Shoosh. Shoosh. Clunk-thud.

  Helen woke up at the noise and grabbed the pistol by her bed. Too late. Her cat Thumbs sent a book sliding off her nightstand. She shot him once with the water pistol. That usually sent him scurrying for cover.

  But this morning the big gray-and-white cat didn’t budge. He sat defiantly on her nightstand and with his huge six-toed paw flipped the clock off the edge. Helen caught a glimpse before it went overboard. Nine forty-five.

  It was hours past his feeding time. She must have slept through his breakfast cries. Now Thumbs was telling her to feed him or else. He had a system of escalation. Unbreakables like the book went first, followed by semisurvivable items like the clock. Fragile knickknacks were next. She heard the clink of china, and saw his catcher’s mitt of a paw scooting the bud vase to the edge of the nightstand. She caught it and picked up the cat before he could send anything else flying off.

  “All right, I’ll feed you,” she said, and carried Thumbs into the kitchen. He purred all the way.

  “My alarm didn’t go off at nine,” she said as she filled his food bowl. “So I should thank you that I’m not late for work.”

  I’m having a conversation with a cat, she thought. But I’d rather talk to Thumbs than think about today. I dread going to the store. If I can just make it through the next eight hours, I’ll have two days off.

  As soon as she walked into the bookstore, she knew something was different. Mr. Davies’ chair was gone, but more than that seemed missing. The store seemed barren and cold without the gentle old bookworm. He’d been so happy there, surrounded by piles of paperbacks.

  She stood on the spot where his chair used to be and said, “I’ll miss you, Mr. Davies.”

  “What were you doing back in that corner?” Albert said when she returned to the front. The prissy bookseller looked as if his starched shirt was holding him up. “I won’t go near it. It’s like that old man is still there.”

  “I wish he was,” Helen said. “Mr. Davies wouldn’t hurt anyone, alive or dead.”

  “I miss him,” Brad said. “We used to talk about J.Lo. He particularly appreciated her performance in Enough. He said her acting was underrated, although he agreed that some of her clothes in that movie did not flatter her opulent figure.”

  “She’s not opulent, she’s obese,” Albert said nastily. Brad looked stricken.

  Helen intoned:

  “Pain.

  “Pain.

  “Pain is a red scream in my head. . . .”

  Albert turned dead white.

  “We all have things we care about,” Helen said. “We should respect them.”

  Albert didn’t say another word about J.Lo or anyone else.

  “Thanks,” Brad whispered, and went back to gathering up the books scattered all over the store. He moved slower today and smiled less.

  Only Gayle was her usual cheerful self, laughing and chatting with the customers. At the cashier’s counter, a little boy about four proudly presented his new book to Helen. It was shaped like a fire truck.

  “Here,” he said. His mother put a twenty on the counter.

  “Do you want to be a fireman?” Helen asked him as she rang up the book and bagged it.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “My brother is a firefighter in Fort Lauderdale,” Gayle told him. “He’s very brave.”

  “I’m brave, too,” the little boy said. “I’d like to be a fireman. Or an alligator. Then I could eat the bad people.”

  Helen stopped laughing abruptly. Firefighter. Firefighters have breathing gear. They could get into a tear-gas-and-Vikane building. Maybe Gayle got the SCBA equipment—or stole it—from her brother. Did she hate Page Turner enough to kill him?

  She looked at Gayle with the golden hair . . . and the silver car.

  What’s wrong with me? she thought. How can I suspect Gayle?

  How can you not? said a small voice. Gayle wasn’t upset at Mr. Davies’ death. That wasn’t natural.

  Gayle hated Page Turner. She was working at the store the night Page Turner died. She had an hour for dinner—enough time to get to the Coronado and back.

  Of course, someone else could have hated Page Turner. Someone who looked even more like Cinderella.

  And Astrid’s silver Mercedes was a much grander coach.

  Chapter 23

  “I have two promising leads,” Helen told Margery.

  They were drinking screwdrivers in her landlady’s kitchen. Margery’s recipe was light on the orange juice and heavy on the vodka, with a hint of Key lime.

  Helen came home from the bookstore feeling like she’d been beaten with bamboo. The booze hit her like a brick. She estimated she could down another three ounces before her lips went numb.

  “Squawwwk!” said Pete. She didn’t even jump when he screeched. The screwdrivers were mellowing her out.

  “You really think your manager is a killer?” Margery looked frivolous in amethyst shorts and tangerine toenail polish. But her shrewd old eyes watched Helen carefully.

  “I don’t know,” Helen said, and took another sip. Jeez, that drink was good. “I just know Gayle’s very smart. Something’s not right about her. She was at the store when Mr. Davies was killed, and she didn’t seem very sorry that he was dead. Plus she has blond hair and a silver car.”

  “Ever stand on Las Olas and count blondes in silver cars? You’d run out of fingers pretty fast.”

  “I still want to check her out,” Helen said. “But I’ll have to do my research on Gayle at the store. She’s off the next two days and so
am I. I thought I’d use this time to check out Astrid, the merry widow. She had her late husband underground awfully fast.”

  “A quick burial in a hot climate. Is that all you have on the wife?” Margery knocked back a slug that would have paralyzed Helen. The woman could pound it down.

  “She had a fight with her husband the day he died. I’d like to know what that was about. And I’d really like to see if Astrid has any gentleman callers. She’s a good-looking woman. My theory is she got her boyfriend to kill her husband. He’d have quite an incentive. He’d get to marry an attractive society blonde and enjoy the dead Turner’s millions.

  “Astrid could have been the blond bait who picked up her husband. Maybe she promised him something special when they made up after their fight. She could have delivered him to her boyfriend for the kill.”

  “But she didn’t kill Mr. Davies.”

  “No, but the boyfriend could have been in the bookstore. Astrid is the type to have someone spy on the help. He could have heard me talking to Mr. Davies. During the mommy riot, he could have smothered Mr. Davies and slipped out. No one would have noticed in the confusion.”

  “Possible,” Margery said, although she still sounded skeptical. “You planning round-the-clock surveillance of Astrid’s house?”

  “Not necessary,” Helen said. She took a bigger sip this time. In fact, it was close to a gulp. She was feeling nicely numb, with a hint of a giggle underneath. “Astrid’s no dummy. She must know the police consider her a suspect. The wife always is. She can’t go to parties and dinners with her lover right now. But she must want to see him. Rich ladies aren’t good at denying themselves what they want. If he’s visiting her, it’s going to be late at night.”

  “I like this,” Margery said. “You’re thinking. And the widow lives where, Palm Beach?”

  “Right,” Helen said. It came out more like “Riiiiiight.” It wasn’t the orange juice making her talk like that. She looked at the drink longingly, then put it back down. No more until she explained her plan to Margery. “I already have her address. From the bookstore files.”

  “So how are you going to get there, Samantha Spade? Hitchhike? Palm Beach is eighty miles round-trip. You don’t have a car.”