by Elaine Viets
“I won’t go back to Rob, mother.”
“You won’t have to, Helen dear, if you’re really determined. Lawrence and I have been talking it over. He has some friends in the archdiocese and I have some money. We want to start the proceedings for an annulment. It would be like your marriage never took place.”
“But it did,” Helen said. “For seventeen years.”
“Well, you’d still have a civil divorce. But if you got an annulment, in the eyes of the Church your marriage never happened.”
“But it did,” Helen said. “I have the pictures to prove it. Mom, an annulment won’t erase my marriage. It renders it sacramentally invalid. It’s nothing but a divorce for rich people, and in my opinion, it’s for hypocrites.”
“Helen, I’m trying to save your immortal soul.” Her mother started crying. She was terrified her divorced daughter would go to hell.
“Mom, I was married. You can’t say I wasn’t. I slept with the guy all those years. You can’t save my soul with a lie.”
“You’re stubborn,” her mother said angrily. “You don’t want to be helped.”
Helen had to end this hopeless conversation. She brought out the pink cellophane from the gift basket and crackled it near the phone.
“Hello, Mom? We’re breaking up. I have to go now. I love you.”
Helen pressed the END button. The last thing she heard was Dolores’ heartbroken weeping.
Helen found she was clutching the phone and her cat. As she stroked Thumbs’s soft, thick fur, she wondered:
What if my mother had believed in me more and the Church less? What if she’d said, “Rob is a rat. Pack your bags and come home to your mother, where you belong”?
Then I would not have had that screaming scene in court. I would never have run from St. Louis.
I would not be living in South Florida.
I would not have this dead-end job.
I would not have heard a woman die.
Chapter 20
Someone had sucked all the air out of the room.
Helen couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t stop thinking about her mother, pulling strings to make Helen’s marriage disappear. Dolores had denied her husband’s infidelity for forty years. Now she was denying her daughter’s failed marriage. Helen felt as if her mother was trying to wipe her out.
She ran outside. It was only eight o’clock. The winter evening was velvety warm, scented with night-blooming flowers and Phil’s pot smoke. Phil. Now there was a man worth thinking about. Except Helen had a perfect record of picking losers.
“You going to stand there like a lawn ornament?”
Helen jumped. Margery had materialized in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Her landlady was in deep purple down to her ankle-strap platforms. Those shoes took guts. Helen would kill herself walking in them.
“Sarah called,” Margery said. “You want to use my phone to call her back?”
Once they were inside, Margery said, “Sarah did call, but I wanted to tell you about Fred and Ethel. They’re going to the Happy Cow tomorrow. I’ll pick you up outside your office.”
“Let’s hope they bite,” Helen said.
“Is that a pun? And will you stop pacing?”
Helen realized she’d been marching back and forth across Margery’s kitchen.
“You’re wearing me out watching you. Sit down. You look like hell. Have some chocolate.” Margery handed Helen a Godiva truffle, like a doctor dispensing a pill.
“Should I take two and call you in the morning?”
“Wake me up and you’re a dead woman. Now make your call.”
Margery tactfully left the room. Helen settled into the puffy purple recliner. Her landlady’s vintage lavender Princess phone was on a metal TV tray. It had been awhile since Helen had used an actual dial. It felt heavy and awkward.
Sarah answered on the third ring. “Helen, have you seen the paper today?”
“Not yet.”
“See if Margery has one.”
Margery either had powers of divination or she was listening on the extension. She plopped a paper in Helen’s lap.
“What was the name of that guy you were calling when, uh, everything started?” Sarah asked.
“Hank Asporth.”
“There’s a story about some big society party in the feature section. I think his picture is in there.”
Helen found the party story. “Holy cow. It’s the Mowbry mansion,” she said.
In the newspaper photos, the place looked like a museum. The furniture was so gold-trimmed and gaudy she knew it was either really cheap or really expensive.
“Helen,” Sarah said, “did you say Mowbry? I thought his name was Asporth.”
“The Mowbry mansion is where this party took place. These photos make it look even spookier than when I was there.”
The guests were pretty frightening, too. The women’s surgically stretched, chemically peeled skin made them look like burn victims. The men were old and dissipated.
Helen was fascinated to see Parrish Davenport, the jowly old man in the shamrock shorts, identified as a lawyer with a major Lauderdale firm. He was holding a drink. The pouches in his puffy face proved he’d held a lot of them.
“I’m impressed,” Sarah said. “How do you know what the Mowbry mansion looks like?”
Helen was still staring at the pictures. Good Lord. The lecher who tried to squeeze her breasts was a prominent plastic surgeon. Maybe he wanted to know if they were real.
The woman in the La Perla panties was a real estate agent who sold multimillion-dollar properties. In the photo, her real estate was covered with a chic black dress.
And there was Hank Asporth, with his oiled hair and eyebrow like a furry black caterpillar. He was in another mobster knit, this one gray with black trim. He had one arm around an overdieted society type, a stick figure with blond hair and balloon breasts. Her dress was weirdly exaggerated, the way only couture can be. It was the party’s hostess, Mindy Mowbry.
Hank Asporth had his other arm around a man, identified as Mindy’s husband. Helen could identify him, too. He was the guy with the tan and the too-white teeth. He’d burst in on her in the bathroom and asked, “Wanna get it on?”
“Dr. Melton Mowbry (left), a partner in the Prestige Perfect Plastic Surgery Group. Mr. Asporth (center), a Brideport financier, is an investor in Dr. Mowbry’s enterprises,” the newspaper cutline said.
Hank Asporth definitely knew Melton and Mindy Mowbry. Probably in the biblical sense.
“Helen, are you there?” Sarah said. “You seem distracted. Have you really been to a party at the Mowbrys’? You didn’t tell me you moved in such exalted circles.”
“I’ve been to a couple of parties there,” Helen said. “But not as a guest. As a bartender.”
“There’s a bartender in the photo on the right. Well, part of one. I see the arms and chest. Is that you?”
“I doubt it,” Helen said, absently, still studying the photo of Hank Asporth draped around the Mowbrys like a fur stole. “I don’t think the paper runs pictures of topless bartenders.”
There was a loud clunk. Margery must have dropped the phone.
“I’ll be over in fifteen minutes,” Sarah said.
Uh-oh. Helen wished she’d thought before she spoke. Margery was standing over the purple recliner. “Would you care to explain why you were tending bar topless?”
“I’m forty-two. I don’t have to explain.”
“I don’t care if you go streaking buck-naked down Las Olas,” Margery said. “But I know you too well, Helen Hawthorne. There’s only one reason why you’d work a job like that. You’re trying to solve that girl’s murder, aren’t you? You’ve set something loose. That’s why your place was torn apart. The Coronado never had a break-in before. You’ve brought those people onto my property. You better tell me what they’re looking for.”
“Can I wait until Sarah gets here, so I don’t have to tell the whole thing twice?”
“No. Start ta
lking.”
Helen obeyed. Those purple platforms made Margery look ten feet tall.
She told her landlady everything from Debbie’s death to Kristi in the coffin. When Sarah showed up, she started over again. Margery listened with her arms folded over her chest and her mouth in a tight line.
“And I thought society parties were boring,” Sarah said.
“They are boring,” Helen said. “Those people aren’t any more interesting naked than they are clothed.”
“They’re deadly boring,” Margery said. “We’ve got two young women strangled and two ransacked homes. Those killers have been at the Coronado. What are you going to do about it?”
“They’re trying to find that red disk,” Helen said. “That’s why they trashed my place. I don’t know everything that’s on it, but they want it bad. I have to find it first.”
“And how are you going to do that, Sherlock? I assume you’re not going to the police?”
“That’s a lost cause. The cops think I’m a nutcase,” Helen said. “I have to find it myself. I’m going to take another look in the Girdner computers. I’ll use the names in this newspaper story and see what I can find out about these people. There are all sorts of useful tidbits in the Girdner database. There have to be some connections between these people at the party.”
“It’s a start.” Margery’s mouth was no longer a straight line. She’d unfolded her arms. She was coming around.
“Here’s my plan,” Sarah said. “I’m taking Helen to Jimmie’s in Dania Beach. She can use a little chocolate therapy.” Sarah looked like a bonbon herself in a pink caftan frosted with a white turquoise necklace.
“I’ve already had Godiva.” Helen pointed to the gold wrapper on the TV tray.
“Chocolate isn’t like booze. You can mix,” Sarah said. “And Jimmie’s chocolates are pure South Florida.”
When they were in Sarah’s Range Rover, Helen said, “I’ve been eating a lot of junk lately. I’m not sure—”
“Oh, please, Helen, don’t fall into the great American pastime of obsessing about food. I may be fat, but I’m not boring.”
“You’re not fat,” Helen said. “You’re just you.” Sarah, like Pavarotti, looked best as a person of size.
Jimmie’s was in a little pink house with a candy-striped awning. Above the door, an evergreen wreath framed three white plastic swans. Pink flowers bloomed everywhere.
“This place looks like it was made out of gingerbread,” Helen said.
“Are you going to be the witch?” Sarah said. “Jimmie’s has champagne. I think you need some.”
“Is that chocolate-covered, too?”
“Just breathe in the air. You’ll feel better.”
Helen had never seen so much chocolate, ribbons and flowers. It was as if her favorite maiden aunt was a chocoholic. There were mounds of rum, piña colada and key lime truffles. There were shelves of dark chocolate turtles, hand-dipped Oreo cookies, and chocolate-covered pretzels. Rows of chocolate-covered fruit: kiwi, pears, oranges. The chocolate-dipped strawberries were big as peaches.
“They’re dipped first in white and then in dark chocolate,” the salesperson said.
“Try the chocolate-covered orange peel,” Sarah said. “It’s tart—a word that seems to describe you lately.”
Helen made a face, then took a bite. The orange peel was not sweet. It was rich, with a nifty little zing that was almost alcoholic. “Oh, my. If I had Jimmie, I wouldn’t need other men. This is better than . . .”
“Sex?” Sarah said.
Helen thought of Phil, the visible non-pothead.
“Almost anything else,” she said.
“OK, who is he this time?” Sarah said. “Let’s go over to the café side and discuss this.”
Sarah ordered champagne and more chocolate, which gave Helen time to collect her thoughts. A waitress brought two glasses and a cold bottle of champagne.
“Nobody,” Helen said. “My romance was over before it began. I took your advice and went out with a guy from the boiler room.”
“Not the boiler room.” Sarah slammed back a surprising gulp of champagne. “I wanted you to meet a decent man.”
“Well, I didn’t. I need a chocolate-covered strawberry before I can go any further.”
Helen told Sarah about Jack the bailiff boy between bites. The story didn’t seem so bad. Champagne was the right accompaniment for a romance gone wrong.
“I am sorry,” Sarah said. “But you handled the whole thing well. Your exit line was perfect. Besides, you don’t sound too broken up. I know there’s someone else.”
“I’m not dating him. I just saw him.”
“Who?” Sarah’s champagne glass hung in midair. “Don’t let me sit here sounding like an owl.”
“I’ve finally seen Phil the invisible pothead.”
“After all this time? I want details.”
“He looks like a rock star. Dark-blue eyes, slightly crooked nose, long hair, lean face, nice muscles, good tan.”
“All this and a druggie, too,” Sarah said.
“But he’s not. It’s an act. He’s undercover. Margery knew all along he wasn’t a pothead. That’s why she rented to him. She won’t tell me which agency he’s with. She says he’s single, straight and dangerous.”
“Sounds like your kind of man.”
“Not according to Margery. You disapprove, too, don’t you?”
“You’d be bored with a nice, safe man,” Sarah said. “If he’s good enough for Margery, he’s good enough for you.”
“That’s practically an endorsement,” Helen said.
They clinked champagne glasses.
“Always agree with the customers.”
Vito was giving another pep talk in his dingy office. He was the televangelist of telemarketing, exhorting his ragtag flock to salvation. If they didn’t sell more, they were damned to eternal unemployment.
“If someone says, ‘I don’t buy over the phone,’ what do you say?”
The boiler-room crew looked up hopefully.
“You say, ‘I agree, ma’am. You don’t buy. First, you use our product for thirty days. Then you buy it.’ See, you’re agreeing with them.”
Helen was fascinated by Vito’s round head and spherical muscles. He was a bundle of ovoid energy.
“If they say, ‘I can’t afford it.’ You say, ‘I agree. You can’t afford it. But you can’t not afford it. If your septic tank backs up, it will cost you seven thousand dollars to dig up your yard. Seven thousand dollars.’
“First, sell them fear. Then, sell them peace of mind. Be like the guy who has three cups and puts the bean under one. Keep moving that argument.”
Vito raised his muscular arms toward heaven—or at least the cobwebs on the ceiling. “Now, go out there and sell. And remember, never, ever give out our toll-free number.”
When Vito finished talking, Helen wanted to buy the product, and she didn’t even have a septic tank. She made six sales that morning, beating her all-time record.
Vito sent her to survey heaven. She could do her research on the Mowbrys’ party that night.
It was easy work on the survey side. Helen had to sign up people with in-ground swimming pools. In Florida, everyone who was anyone had a concreted, chlorined hole in their yard. Helen was back in the A-list, the richest of the rich. It was her natural hunting ground. But she couldn’t start checking the newspaper yet. She had to sign up survey customers first.
She read the personal information on the first pool subject on the computer screen:
“Angela Hawson. Birth date 2/16/76. Single. No children. Occupation: Tax lawyer. Income: $100,000-plus. Number of computers in home: Three. Number of swimming pools: Two, one indoor. Pets: Two cats. Cars: Drives a 2002 Lexus. Suffers from depression. Takes Prozac. Has a weight problem.”
Helen was amazed what people told survey takers. She’d tear out her tongue before she’d tell a stranger she was taking mood-altering prescription drugs. But phone-survey ta
kers heard more secrets than priests in the confessional. People told her they were in rehab, bipolar, being treated for venereal disease. Helen thought they were too trusting.
“Hi, Angela. This is Helen with Girdner Surveys. We’re conducting a swimming pool survey that pays—”
“I told you to take my name out of your database,” Angela said. “I don’t want your annoying calls.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll make a note of it.”
But I won’t take your name out, Helen thought. I couldn’t, even if I wanted. Angela didn’t understand that once she gave her name to a survey taker, it was in the database forever. Now it would simply have a notation: “Do not call.”
Even death would not remove Angela. When she turned up her toes, her entry would say, “Dead. Do not call.”
A database was faithful unto death.
After she’d made enough survey calls to meet the minimum quota, Helen started checking the names in the newspaper story.
Ten of the twelve names were in the Girdner database. The real estate agent in the La Perla panties was divorced, made two hundred thousand a year, and had a hysterectomy.
Parrish Davenport was mortgaged to his shamrock shorts. Helen wasn’t surprised. Girdner’s records showed he’d been married four times. His current wife was twenty-eight. Helen suspected she was real tired of shamrocks.
Dr. Melton Mowbry wasn’t in the database, but Mindy was. She used tampons and kept tropical fish. She drank beer, wine and liquor. She was allergic to shellfish, which disqualified her for many restaurant surveys. She had three cars and a Cigarette boat. Helen wondered if she really drove the boat or if Melton had put it in her name for some tax dodge.
The lecherous plastic surgeon, Damian Putnam, was the most interesting entry. Helen was surprised to see that he was sixty-three. She’d thought he was about forty. He must be into recreational nips and tucks. He was a partner in the Prestige Perfect Plastic Surgery Group. Where had she seen that name before? In the newspaper. That was Dr. Melton Mowbry’s company. Interesting.
Dr. Putnam lived on the mansion side of Brideport, a finial or two from the Mowbry house. The database thoughtfully provided his address, all four phone numbers and his wife’s name.