The Dead-End Job Mysteries Box Set 1

by Elaine Viets

  “A what?” Helen said.

  “I broke three nails putting up my hurricane shutters,” she said, waving her hand. “I can’t stand it.”

  Helen thought the woman would have plenty of time to do her nails by candlelight when the storm hit.

  “Can I help you with that bag?” Helen said.

  “No, no, just hold the door,” woman said. “I have to run to my manicure.”

  Helen held the door and the woman struggled into the storm. Lulu zipped out after her.

  “Lulu!” Helen said. “Get back here.”

  But the skittish Lulu ignored her. Helen could see the dog’s little bottom bobbing above the flooded sidewalk before she disappeared around the corner.

  “Lulu’s heading for the bar again,” Jeff said, and dashed after her. He was back ten minutes later, wet and worried, curly hair plastered flat on his head. The wind was howling now, a nightmare sound.

  “I can’t find Lulu,” Jeff said. “The bar is closed. Someone at the salon saw her running toward U.S. 1. She could get hit by a car. Drivers can’t see her in this rain. What am I going to do?”

  “Go after your dog,” Helen said. “I’ll lock up and go home.”

  Jeff handed Helen the spare key. “Don’t stay long,” he said. “This store can flood in a bad hurricane. During Andrew, the water was four feet high in here.”

  Then he was gone, racing out into the storm, crying, “Lulu! Lulu!”

  The wind seemed to be coming from all directions now, swirling and slashing. Helen had to get out of there while she could still walk home. She piled some towels by the door to soak up the water, then did a quick walk-through check of the shop.

  She was ready to lock up when she noticed a huge deposit in the Saint Bernard’s cage. Damn. Todd should have cleaned that up. She’d have to pick it up or the place would smell foul, especially if the electricity went off. The unpleasant pile was way in the back of the cage.

  The Saint Bernard cage was the size of a child’s playpen. In fact, Jeff told her the previous owner of the grooming shop used to lock his kids in there on hectic Saturdays. Helen didn’t know if he was joking or not. It had a padlock that was occasionally used for dogs good at jailbreaks.

  She crawled into the cage with a roll of paper towels and a plastic bag, cussing the incontinent Saint Bernard. The lights flickered for the third time. Helen had to get out of here. If the wind got any fiercer, she wouldn’t be able to walk home to the Coronado.

  Something heavy hit the boarded windows. A coconut? A flowerpot? A lawn chair? Common objects turned into deadly missiles during a hurricane.

  The wind was shrieking like a tortured soul. The building rocked and swayed. Each blast set loose frightening thumps and flapping bangs. Now there was a sound like ghostly footfalls. Helen shivered. She didn’t like being alone in here.

  Well, then, she told herself briskly, get it over with and get out. Helen crawled the length of the cage, glancing down at the newspapers lining the bottom. That was a mistake. SINGLE WOMAN MURDERED IN LAUDERDALE CONDO, screamed one headline. UTAH SERIAL KILLER BELIEVED IN SOUTH FLORIDA, said another.

  Helen moved faster. She’d crawled all the way to the back of the cage when the lights went out.

  “Shit!” she said, and put her hand into the warm dog pile.

  “Double shit!” she said.

  That’s when she heard the cage door slam shut. “Hey! Who’s there?” Helen said. She was too angry to be afraid.

  No one answered. Above the howling, she heard a metallic snap. The cage lock. Helen saw a figure moving in the blackness toward the door. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. She didn’t know if it was short or tall. It was hunched over, shrouded in a rustling rain slicker.

  “Help! Don’t leave me in here. I’ll drown,” Helen said.

  The only answer was the slam of a door.

  CHAPTER 14

  Helen sneezed. Her nose itched from the dog hair. She rattled the door again, but she knew it was useless. She was locked inside the dog cage, stuck in an ungainly crouch. The cage wasn’t big enough for her to sit down or stand up. Wasn’t that a form of torture? It certainly was for her.

  The smell in the cage was atrocious. What did that damned Saint Bernard live on—beer and pickled cabbage? Helen had wiped her dirty hand on a paper towel and pushed the foul towel through the wire. She couldn’t get the massive left-behind lump in the cage through the wires, so she buried it in more paper towels and stuck it in the plastic bag. The cage still stank.

  Helen felt something wet on her feet. Oh, no. The Saint Bernard didn’t leave a puddle, too, did she?

  Helen dipped a finger and sniffed cautiously. It was water. She tasted it. It was slightly muddy, a little salty. This was bad news, far worse than any piddling Saint Bernard. The rainwater in the parking lot was over the curb and coming into the shop. The flooding had started.

  What had Jeff said? During Hurricane Andrew the water in the store was four feet high. She’d drown, trapped in this cage. That was way over her head. Helen couldn’t imagine a more humiliating way to die. She’d be found floating in a locked cage with the biggest pile of dog doo in Fort Lauderdale. She could hear the shocked whispers at her funeral as her friends stood over a cut-rate casket: “Poor Helen. We didn’t realize she drank until it was too late.”

  Would it be worse if an autopsy found no evidence of alcohol? What if her friends thought Helen had died of acute stupidity? “We don’t know how it happened, but she managed to lock herself in a cage, and when the water came up, well . . . Helen always was a little klutzy.”

  Who did this to her and why?

  Helen must have discovered something that threatened someone—but what? Did Todd see her poking in his pink gift bag with the green lining? Did Jonathon hear her say something to the police? In that case, why didn’t they just kill her? The person in the slippery slicker could have easily surprised her and bashed her head in. Why leave her locked in this cage, waiting for a slow death? Who hated her that much?

  Helen was angry at herself and whoever snapped that lock. She was not going to die. She would find a way out, and from the sound of the storm, she’d better do it soon. The wind grew wilder, beating on the boarded-up windows. Strange missiles thudded against the plywood. The building creaked and sighed.

  She rattled the cage door until her teeth vibrated, hoping to shake the lock loose.

  Nothing.

  She grabbed the wire door with both hands and pulled until the tendons stood out on her muscular arms, trying to yank the door off its hinges. It held. It was made to withstand two-hundred-pound dogs. The burly Saint Bernard weighed more than Helen did.

  What time was it? It was absolutely dark in the boarded store. There was no light from the street, no winking security lights or glowing clocks. Helen couldn’t read her watch, but she guessed it was about five o’clock. The storm was supposed to hit at eight. She wondered if the store would survive the hurricane. She wondered if she would survive.

  Thwap! Something landed on the roof. Helen jumped and the dirty water sloshed around her ankles. The plastic bag of dog doo bobbed on the water. Helen’s feet and the seat of her pants were wet. She tried to sit on the roll of paper towels, but it quickly absorbed the water. The grooming room was warm and steamy, but she still shivered in the muddy water swirling in the cage.

  Helen poked three fingers through the cage wire and found the padlock, rough and slightly rusty. She could feel a keyhole, a fairly large one. Now she needed something to open the padlock. She had nothing useful in her hair or on her clothes. Why didn’t she wear a pin or a hair clip? Why didn’t she carry a nail file or a Swiss army knife? Her shoes were slip-ons. Her watch was cheap plastic. Helen didn’t even have a metal belt buckle.

  Her stomach growled. She was hungry. Thirsty, too. Her mouth was dry with fear. She was in water past her ankles, but it wasn’t fit to drink. Helen wanted to paw the cage like the yappy dogs in the grooming room. If she ever got out of
here, she’d never ignore their unhappy howls again. She knew exactly how they felt.

  She forced herself to make a slow, careful search of the cage, inch by wire inch. It was damp, blistered with rust, and frustratingly secure. Until she reached the far left corner, near the very top. A wire stuck her thumb so hard she bled. Helen was never so happy to feel pain. Yes! She’d found an inch-long length of loose wire. She began working the small piece off the cage. Her battered fingers were slippery with her own blood. She slowly lifted and twisted the wire, teasing another inch away from the cage. The rest was too tightly attached.

  Helen kept prying and pulling. She was at an awkward angle. Her knees cracked and cried for mercy. Her hips and back ached. The wire slid and sliced her finger. She kept twisting. She broke a nail down to the quick. That stung, but Helen didn’t care. The wire was loosening. She could feel it. One more good pull and a twist, and it would be free. Then she could start working the lock.

  Slam!

  The shop door banged open. Was it the wind or her attacker returning?

  Heart beating, Helen jerked the wire free, then sloshed up against the back of the cage. She hid the wire in her palm. I’ll ram it in his eye if he comes near me, she promised herself. I’ll stick it in his neck. I’ll rake his hand until he bleeds. I won’t hesitate. Not after what he did to me.

  Helen heard a voice. No, wait. Was that two voices? It was hard to tell with the raging wind. A flashlight beam hit her in the eye, blinding her. Helen gripped her wire, ready to spring.

  Then she heard Margery’s raucous voice: “What the hell are you doing in a cage?”

  “Helen, are you OK?” It was Phil.

  “Phil!” Helen said. “You made it to Florida. You’re safe.”

  “Helen, what happened?” That was Jeff. She heard the rattle of her boss’s key ring, and the cage door was open. Phil’s strong hands pulled her free, and he wrapped his arms around her. Helen tried to stand, but her cramped knees gave out. They felt like they had been stung with a million needles. She sagged into his arms, her head cradled on Phil’s shoulder.

  “Good Lord,” Margery said. “What is that smell?”

  Helen didn’t answer. She might smell bad, but Phil was deliciously spicy and lemony, with a slightly sweaty tang that made Helen see him stripped naked on her sheets.

  Margery took care of that memory. “Pee-yew. I’m sorry, Jeff, but I have to light up or I’ll gag,” she said. “What stinks?” She set fire to a cigarette.

  Helen pointed to the bobbing bag in the cage. “It’s what got me locked in here in the first place,” she said.

  “Gee, we used to use pork rinds for bait,” Margery said.

  Jeff came back with a load of dog towels to wrap around Helen. The wind was tearing at the Pampered Pet building with such ferocity, Helen’s rescuers decided not to wait for her legs to start working. “Get her into my car, Phil,” Margery said, “while I help Jeff check the water damage.”

  Phil carried Helen out to Margery’s big white car like a bride on her wedding night. Helen threw her arms around his neck and buried her face against his chest. The chest was nice and hard. The shirt was soft, well-worn denim. The blue matched his eyes. It would have been romantic if Phil hadn’t staggered under her weight.

  “It’s the water,” he said gallantly, as the rain slapped him in the face. Helen appreciated the lie. Phil struggled to open the door and stretched Helen out on the car’s wide backseat. He rubbed her cramped legs, trying to get the circulation back. Swarms of needles and pins traveled up and down her legs. She could not stop shivering. Phil took off his jacket and wrapped her in it. She was a soggy mass of ragged towels and damp coats.

  Now that Helen was out of the store, she caught a whiff of herself. It wasn’t something she would bottle. Phil didn’t mention it. He was such a gentleman.

  The wind rocked Margery’s heavy car. A chunk of wood hit the trunk and bounced off. Helen was glad when her landlady fought her way to the car and flopped into the seat, breathless and windblown.

  Margery lit another cigarette, then said, “Store’s OK for now. Most of the water is on the grooming side, not in the boutique, so Jeff’s stock is in good shape. I helped him stack the expensive bags of dog food up on the higher shelves and set out some sandbags by the door. If they hold, he won’t have much damage.”

  Neither Phil nor Helen said anything about a seventy-six-year-old woman helping Jeff with the lifting. They’d seen Margery sling the heavy patio furniture around like it was made of paper when she hosed down the pool deck.

  Headlights blinked at the far end of the lot. “That’s Jeff’s car,” Margery said. “He made it. Let’s go.”

  Helen settled against Phil in the backseat, grateful for his warmth. They drove home through a black soup on nearly deserted streets. Slamming winds sent the car sliding out of its lane, but Margery gripped the wheel and hung on, her cigarette clenched in her teeth. At a stoplight, a broken metal sign skittered through the intersection.

  “I’m not waiting for the light to change,” Margery said. “God knows what will be through here next.” She ran the red light.

  “How did you find me?” Helen asked.

  “When you weren’t home by five, Phil and I were worried. You’d given me Jeff’s phone number. I called his cell and got him at home.”

  “Did he ever find Lulu?” Helen said.

  “Yes. He told me he left you to lock up his store because Lulu escaped. That crazy mutt was at the Taco Bell on Federal Highway, begging in the kitchen. When I said you weren’t home yet, Jeff was afraid something bad happened. Shops closing for the hurricane are easy targets for robbers. Phil and I met Jeff and then found you. Want to tell me what happened?”

  By the time Helen gave her landlady and Phil the details, they were at the Coronado. Helen’s legs felt warm and unpleasantly needle-y, but they were working. She could walk on her own.

  “Look at that,” Margery said, as she pulled into a parking spot. “Storm got my neighbor’s old ficus tree.” The massive ficus, the size of a garage, was lying on the lawn, its roots helplessly in the air.

  The jolly little Coronado Tropic Apartments looked grim in the lashing gray rain. The Art Deco windows and sliding doors were boarded with plywood. The wind had stripped the bougainvillea of its purple blossoms and torn away tree limbs and palm fronds.

  “What time is it?” Helen said.

  “Six thirty,” Margery said. “Why? You going somewhere?”

  “The storm isn’t due for another hour and a half,” Helen said. “I can’t imagine what it will do.”

  “Won’t have to imagine anything,” Margery said. “You’re going to see the whole show.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Helen ran through the stinging rain to her own apartment. She was greeted at the door by Thumbs, her six-toed cat. The big-pawed cat looked at her reproachfully with wide golden eyes. She bent down to scratch his thick gray-and-white fur. He looked like a stuffed toy, except for those monster paws.

  “Sorry, boy,” she said. “I left you here alone. You must be exhausted from having to do storm duty.” Thumbs moved through the hot, darkened apartment with weary dignity, leading her to the kitchen. Helen opened a whole can of tuna to reward him. Thumbs ate it with smacking satisfaction.

  She looked around her place as if seeing it for the first time. Helen guessed the turquoise Barcalounger, the boomerang coffee table, and the lamps shaped like nuclear reactors would fetch high prices in New York. In St. Louis she’d have called them tacky. They simply belonged here in her Florida home. She loved her small furnished apartment with the view of the Coronado gardens.

  But the boarded-up windows turned Helen’s airy apartment into a dank cave. After being locked in the cage, she could hardly breathe in the small closed-in rooms. She was glad she wouldn’t have to stay here for the hurricane. Margery’s place wouldn’t be much bigger, but it would have noise and people to distract her.

  Helen checked her windows and
sliding doors for leaks, then took a quick hot shower and put on fresh clothes. No point in drying her hair. It would be soaked again by the time she ran across the yard to Margery’s home.

  She put Thumbs’s food and litter box into a shopping bag, then packed bread, chocolate, pretzels, peanut butter, sliced turkey, a box of wine, and other hurricane essentials. As she locked her door, she wondered if it would be there to open in twenty-four hours.

  Thumbs howled his protests as Helen carried him through the slashing rain, the bags of groceries bumping against her tortured legs. Margery’s door opened before she had to knock. The other storm refugees were already there.

  Margery’s friend Elsie was sitting in the purple recliner with her unpoodle, Corkie. Doris and Alice, the new renters in 2C, were drinking screwdrivers on the couch. They were both in their fifties, no-nonsense women in jeans and T-shirts. Doris was built like a Humvee with short gray hair and a big bumper. Alice was the thin one with the long gray-black bob.

  Helen put the struggling Thumbs on the floor.

  “Here, kitty.” Doris gave Thumbs a big smile and reached for the cat.

  Thumbs rudely ran past her and disappeared under the couch. Helen was relieved that her cat showed no interest in Pete. The tubby parrot was sitting on Peggy’s shoulder, restlessly pulling at his feathers. His exotic owner ran her fingers through her dramatic splash of red hair with the same gesture. Peggy’s face was not conventionally beautiful, but that made it all the more compelling.

  Helen saw why Peggy was tearing out her hair. Another Coronado resident, Cal the Canadian, had her blocked in a corner. As usual, Cal was praising his home country and cutting down the U.S.A. “Not only don’t you Americans have health insurance like we do, but now your government is going to take away your Social Security. You know that, eh?”

  Peggy gave Helen a wild-eyed look, and Helen promised herself she’d rescue her friend as soon as she could. She worked her way to the kitchen and added her bags to the loot on the table.