by Elaine Viets
“No, that’s how young girls talk. I figured that’s why she took that part with the theater. She was hoping to make it as an actress. There’s a lot of movie roles here in South Florida, if an actress can get the right showcase. A Shakespeare play would have been a big step forward.”
Maybe, but Helen thought Laredo’s talk of a big score sounded like trouble. Her plate seemed to be empty. She must have eaten the whole mound of food. Savannah had a few bites of grits and eggs, but she let the waitress remove her nearly full plate.
Savannah took a long drink of beer. “I know something’s wrong. I told the police that, but no one believed me. I got this feeling Laredo’s dead. Then you called. It was the call I’d been dreading, but it was a relief, you know?” She started peeling the label off her beer bottle.
“But I don’t know,” Helen said. “All I know is I think I heard a woman strangled. The police disagree. They say it was a movie. But that was no movie. It was about the worst sound . . .” Helen stopped. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting she was your sister.”
“No, go ahead,” Savannah said. “Don’t spare me the details. What makes me crazy is everybody saying nothing is wrong. Just tell me what happened.”
“Your sister knew a guy named Henry Asporth, right?”
“He hung around the restaurant,” Savannah said. “Hank liked to flirt with the waitresses. There were a lot of guys like that. Men with more money than sense, trying to forget middle age was creeping up on them. Laredo went out with him for a while.” She pulled away another strip of label.
“Our survey files say she lived with him,” Helen said.
“She stayed over weekends sometimes, but she never moved in. That was more wishful thinking. She did that survey thing as a joke. She came home laughing about it. Hank was talking business with the boys one night, and Laredo was bored. Some survey taker called and asked boo-coo questions. Laredo made up a bunch of stuff about how she lived with Hank in that big house and was an actress. She was always pretending to be somebody else, even when she was a little kid.”
Helen heard Laredo’s teasing voice again, like a forties movie star: “You’ve been a very bad boy, Hank. You’re just lucky I like bad boys.”
Another strip was gone. Savannah’s beer bottle was half-naked now.
“Laredo wanted Hank to marry her, but that was never going to happen. Hank never treated her right. She finally walked out on him. Had to, for her own self-respect. I was proud she did that. Takes courage for a girl to walk away from a man with money.
“Laredo told me all about it, why she finally pulled the plug. She was over at his house. She was all ready for a little lovin’ when he got a business call on his cell phone. He answered it. He kept talking on the phone while they were doing it. He finished up, still talking on the phone. He got out of bed and went into the living room. Didn’t say a word to her.”
“What a pig,” Helen said.
“Oh, yeah. He woulda been a prize swine at the state fair. Hank’s call lasted for hours. Laredo could see him in the other room pacing around bare-naked, with the lights on so the neighbors could see him.”
Savannah hit a tough patch of label, but kept picking at it.
“Laredo said she read a magazine, then played around on his computer. She liked video poker. Hank never did come back to bed,” she said. “She was good and pissed. When he finally returned, Hank said he’d be tied up all night and sent her home in a cab. Laredo told me she never went out with him again. Said no man was going to treat her like that.”
Pick. Pick. The label was stubborn. But so was Savannah.
“Your sister told you all that?” Helen trusted her sister, Kathy, more than anyone in the world. But there were some hairy escapades in her past that even Kathy didn’t know about.
“Laredo knew I wouldn’t judge her. I know she kept stuff from me, but she told me most of her adventures. She was so mad at ol’ Hank, she had to tell somebody. I thought she might put sugar in his gas tank or something.” Pick. Pick.
“Did she have any particular plan for revenge?” Helen said.
“Not really. She said when she finished with him, he’d be sorry. She said he’d be begging her to marry him. She was going to be one of the fine ladies of Lauderdale.” The last of the label gave way, and Savannah had a little pile of crinkled paper on the table.
“But that was Laredo, all talk and dreams. I couldn’t see how she was going to make Hank marry her—she wasn’t pregnant, she wasn’t going out with him and she made fun of him. She said he was always looking in the mirror and combing his hair to cover his bald spot. He was getting those hair plug things. Once she said he was making so much money that he could afford the best defense lawyers.”
“What did she mean by that?”
“She didn’t say. It was just a casual remark. They were definitely finished.” Savannah took a final drink. The beer bottle was empty, inside and out.
“Then why was she at his house the other night?”
“I don’t know,” Savannah said. “I don’t for the life of me. All I know is she’s gone and I haven’t heard from her in a week.”
“I heard her say ‘It’s the coffee.’ Does coffee mean anything special to Laredo?” Helen said.
“Well, she had to have a cup first thing in the morning,” Savannah said.
“Listen, Savannah, do you really think it was your sister I heard? Maybe it was someone else who got . . . who . . .”
“I know it’s her. But I figured you’d ask that question. That’s why I brought this.”
She dug around in the floppy purse again. This time, she pulled out a dented cassette recorder and a tangle of wires and sponge that were headphones.
“I thought it might help if you could hear her voice. She was working on her lines for that Shakespeare play. She’d tape them. Helped her memorize them. She was going to play Lady Macduff.”
“She was in Macbeth?” Helen said.
“Yes. She had a big scene where she . . .” Savannah stopped, and her pale face went even whiter. She took a deep breath. “. . . Where she got murdered. Laredo told me the play was bad luck. You couldn’t even say the name in the theater. They called it ‘the Scottish play.’ Laredo slipped and said ‘Macbeth’ during the audition and they made her go outside, turn around three times and ask permission to come back in because it was such bad luck. Laredo laughed, but she did it. She really wanted that part. I helped her with the script. I read the other parts, the murderers and the son.”
Savannah turned on the clunky old tape recorder and pushed a button. “I’ve got it at the right place.”
Helen put on the headphone. The sound was tinny and it was hard to hear over the clatter of plates and restaurant conversation. She took a sip of coffee, hoping the caffeine would help her concentrate.
Helen recognized Savannah’s voice. “Okay, Lady Laredo, are you ready?”
There was a giggle like the one on the answering machine. Unfortunately, the woman Helen had heard on the phone wasn’t giggling.
Then another voice, younger and lighter: Laredo. “I’ve been practicing my screams. I think I’m getting good at them. Erin told me it’s like being an opera singer. You’ve got to open your lungs. Let me take a last drink of water and let’s do it.”
Savannah was talking again: “I’m reading the parts of the murderers and the son. You’re doing Lady Macduff, right?”
“Right.” Helen guessed that’s what Laredo said. “Born to be Wild” was playing on the restaurant sound system. Steppenwolf’s wail drowned out the words.
Savannah started reading in a stilted monotone. “First murderer: ‘Where is your husband?’”
Laredo spoke next. Helen could hear the fear and defiance as she said, “I hope, in no place so unsanctified where such as thou may find him.”
Damn. Steppenwolf was running over Laredo’s words. Helen couldn’t tell if she recognized the voice. She wished Laredo would say more. Instead, she heard Savannah’s flat
voice: “Thou liest, thou shag-eared villain!”
With absolutely no change of tone Savannah said the murderer’s part: “What, you egg! Young fry of treachery! Stab! Stab!”
Savannah read the son’s dying declaration like a grade schooler with a primer: “He has killed me, Mother. Run away, I pray you.”
Finally, Laredo’s voice again. Her emotion overwhelmed the tape recorder’s tinny little speaker: “Murder!” she cried. “Murder!” There was an unearthly scream.
Helen knocked over her coffee. “It’s her,” she said. “That’s the woman on the phone.”
“I knew it,” Savannah said with satisfaction, as she mopped up Helen’s spilled coffee. “Now tell me what you know about my sister’s death.”
Helen told her everything. Savannah did not cry. Her sorrow seemed beyond tears.
“Have you seen this Hank Asporth?” Helen said. “Was he big and strong enough to hurt her?”
“My sister was just a little bit of a thing. It would be easy. She didn’t even weigh a hundred pounds.” Helen noticed Savannah was talking about her sister as if she was dead.
“The police think I heard a movie,” Helen said. “But I heard her say ‘Hank,’ twice, and then I heard her scream—like the scream on the tape only more real. I know that was no movie. But the cops searched the place and found no body, no blood, no sign of a struggle, no sign of a woman. The only cars in the garage were registered to Asporth. They don’t believe she was killed. I know she was.”
“I do, too,” Savannah said. “I knew the moment he did it. It felt like someone reached in and ripped out my heart.
“I want the man who did this to her. I want him dead.”
Chapter 5
A cold wind hit Helen in the face when she left The Floridian. The temperature was supposed to drop down to sixty degrees tonight. She hunched her shoulders against the sharp breeze.
A bare-chested guy in shorts and sandals staggered past her, his arm around a tipsy brunette in a strapless dress. Tourists. The cold didn’t bother them. You could always tell. Sixty felt warm after the brutal winters of New York, New Jersey and Quebec. In St. Louis, where Helen used to live, sixty would have been a spring day. But she had been in Florida for more than a year. Her blood had thinned.
Another gust of wind sent a beer bottle rolling down the street. She shivered, glad she was almost home. It felt warmer around the pool at the Coronado Tropic Apartments. The swooping cream-white curves of the old building blocked the winter wind. The lights on the purple bougainvillea gave the pool a warm glow. The box of cheap wine gave the party around the pool its own glow.
“Hi, there,” Peggy said.
“Awwk,” said Pete, Peggy’s parrot.
Both Peggy and Pete were exotic-looking, with elegant beaks. Officially, the Coronado had a no-pets policy. Etiquette required that Helen ignore Pete when their landlady, Margery, was around. He patrolled Peggy’s shoulder restlessly, until she gave him a pretzel to settle him down.
“Pull up a chaise longue,” Margery said. Her purple shorts set was the same color as the night shadows. The darkness had smoothed out the wrinkles on her sun-damaged face, and Helen caught a glimpse of a younger woman.
She studied Helen with shrewd old eyes. “You look terrible. What happened?”
“I heard a murder last night.” Helen told them the story over a generous glass of wine.
“You’re not sure it was a murder,” Margery said. “You’re not even sure the woman was dead.”
“She’s dead,” Helen said. “Nobody sounds like that and lives.”
“Well, you’ve found the sister,” Peggy said. “That’s a relief. Your part is done. She can turn it over to the police.”
“No, it’s not,” Helen said. “Laredo’s missing. The police won’t investigate it. They think she took off. I need to prove to myself she’s dead. I heard a woman die. Do you know how horrible that is? Don’t you get it?”
She could see Peggy frowning in disapproval. She could feel Margery doing the same thing. She started talking before they could object. “Tomorrow, I’m going to Gator Bill’s restaurant to see that waitress, Debbie. Savannah’s talking with the neighbors in Hank Asporth’s area to see if they noticed her sister’s car. She’s also going to follow Hank around and see where he goes.”
“Sounds like you got the hard part,” Peggy said. “And the expensive part. Even if you just have a drink at Gator Bill’s, it will cost you twenty bucks.”
Pete gave a disapproving squawk.
“Savannah’s taking a day off work to follow Hank. That will cost her a lot more than twenty bucks.”
“Are the cops hassling you about this?” Margery said.
“No. As far as they’re concerned, nobody was murdered. I’m just a crazy woman who made a hysterical call. They checked it out and saw nothing. Case closed.”
“Then why can’t you let it go?” Margery asked. “You don’t know this Laredo woman. She sounds like someone who’d leave town for no reason. She’s a waitress living in a double-wide. She doesn’t have any roots.”
“I heard a woman die,” Helen said. “I didn’t make it up. And I don’t walk away from murder.”
“Hush,” Margery said, looking toward the parking lot. “Here come the new neighbors in 2C, Fred and Ethel Mertz. I don’t want these nice, down-to-earth folks to hear you talk about murder.”
Ethel was about sixty. She had a chunky body, tightly permed gray hair, and a T-shirt with prancing cats on it. The back of the T-shirt showed the cats’ butts. Helen figured that was as down-to-earth as you could get.
Fred was wearing a baseball cap that said, I’M RETIRED—DON’T ASK ME TO DO ANYTHING, and a T-shirt that didn’t quite cover his expanding belly. Helen stared at his massive gut. The flesh was firm and smooth, like a prize gourd. The rest of him was lumpy, as if he’d been constructed of modeling clay. He had a jowly face with a knoblike nose. More lumps for chins, arms and knobby knees.
Fred and Ethel declined Peggy’s offer of a glass of wine. “We don’t believe in strong drink,” Ethel said. “We’re high on life.”
“Awwk,” Pete said.
Helen felt the same way. “What are you retired from, Fred?”
“I sold pre-owned cars.” Of course. Helen should have recognized that insincere smile. “Ethel worked for the IRS for thirty-eight years. What do you do?”
“I work for Girdner Sales,” Helen said.
“Never heard of them,” Fred said, as if that counted against the company. “What do they do?”
“We’re a telemarketing firm.”
“A telemarketer?” Fred said. “You know what I tell telemarketers? ‘Why don’t you give me your home number, honey, so I can call you at eight in the morning?’”
He looked pleased with himself, as if he’d said something clever. Helen heard that routine twenty times a day.
“I hang up on them. Hard,” Ethel said. “I want their ears ringing like my phone.”
Helen wondered why people felt compelled to tell her the ugly things they did to telemarketers. She didn’t tell Fred what she wanted to do to used-car salesmen—especially the one who sold her that hunk of junk she drove to Florida. Nor did she tell Ethel that she thought most IRS agents weren’t smart enough to crunch numbers in the private sector, and that’s why they had government jobs. She kept her mouth politely shut. But telemarketers were such pariahs, even used-car salesmen didn’t have to be polite to them.
“What do you do when a telemarketer wakes you up?” Fred asked.
“I don’t have a phone,” Helen said.
“Huh,” Ethel said. “You bother people all day, but no one can bother you.”
Helen was not about to tell Ethel the reason she didn’t have a phone. “Nice meeting you,” she lied. “It’s getting late. I’d better head home.”
“Me, too,” Peggy said.
Helen felt mean and petty. Five minutes with the new neighbors, and she hated them. Fred and Ethel had attacked he
r job and her integrity. They didn’t even know her. Was that what nice, down-to-earth people did? She’d been living in South Florida so long, she didn’t know.
On the way to her room, Helen walked through the perpetual marijuana fog outside of Phil the invisible pothead’s apartment. In some ways, he was the perfect neighbor. He was quiet and considerate. He was supposed to be a Clapton fan, although he never bothered her with loud music. But he drove her crazy. She’d never seen him in the year she’d lived at the Coronado, not even when he’d saved her life. There had been a fire in her apartment and Phil had pulled her free. All she saw then was his CLAPTON IS GOD T-shirt, and felt his powerful hands pulling her out of the smoke and flames.
She’d give a lot to know what he looked like.
Gator Bill’s was the tackiest restaurant in South Florida—and that was no small claim. As she stepped inside, Helen was nearly blinded by the decor. The walls were slashed with strips of orange and blue neon, the Gators’ colors. The neon blinked on and off, making Helen’s eyes cross.
The lobby fountain had a ferocious twenty-foot blue gator with orange teeth. Brightly painted wood fruit and vegetables spilled from its open jaws, cornucopia style. It looked as if the gator was barfing bushels of corn, carrots, strawberries and oranges. Helen wondered if this said something about the food.
Gators were everywhere. Small gators slithered up the walls. Large gators lurked under plastic palm trees. Gator tracks crossed the ceiling.
Orange televisions hung in every corner. When there were no live Gators games, taped games featured Gator Bill’s exploits. In between, there were tapes of Mr. Two Bits leading his famous Gator cheer: “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar. Gator fans, stand up and holler.” Naturally, all the Gator fans in the restaurant did that every time he went into his chant.
No opportunity to honor the Gators was overlooked. Even the bathroom was Gator country. When Helen closed the orange stall door, she saw “Go, Gators!” on the inside door.
The rest room had an attendant, a dignified older African-American woman in an orange uniform. She had the usual tray of hair spray, mouthwash and perfume. But instead of hand towels, the attendant took two pulls on the towel dispenser and handed Helen a strip of brown paper. Helen tipped her a dollar. This woman had an even worse job than she did.