by Elaine Viets
“My date?” Jackie looked blank. She was sitting at her desk, fiddling with a pencil. Helen could hardly bear to look at her gnawed fingernails.
“Didn’t you have a lunch date with someone you knew from . . . before?” Before your divorce. Before your life imploded.
“Oh, I almost forgot about that,” Jackie said.
“No wonder,” Helen said. “You were going out before Brenda died. That must seem like another lifetime.”
“It does,” Jackie said. “I’m afraid the date with Alvin was a disappointment. We went to lunch at a lovely restaurant where I used to go . . . before. I thought we had a lot in common. I’d seen Alvin at charity events back when I could support them. He had the same interests in good causes that I did. He’d been divorced for years. Alvin is an older man of means, about seventy. That’s why his behavior was so shocking.”
“What did he do, Jackie?” Helen asked.
“We went to a restaurant where many of our friends lunch. I wore my pink Chanel. It’s not new, but Chanel never goes out of style. Alvin was nicely dressed, too. The waitress took our order. He had a steak. I had a salad. The waitress had barely left the table when he said, ‘I have to tell you, I’m interested in lots of sex. If you’re not, then consider this a lovely lunch.’”
“That’s disgusting,” Helen said. “What did you do?”
“I said, ‘What about making love?’
“He said, ‘That comes later. Maybe.’
“Alvin was wrong. It wasn’t a lovely lunch. But I was too embarrassed to walk out because too many people there knew me. I didn’t want a scene.”
“I’m sorry,” Helen said. “I can’t believe a seventy-year-old man wanted to jump your bones like a horny teenager. He has no class.”
“I’m through with dating. I’d rather live alone.”
“I don’t blame you,” Helen said.
Jackie switched the subject. Helen figured she was embarrassed by the memory of her awful date. “You seemed startled when Jessica said she came in the member gate. You didn’t know she did that?”
“I never guessed,” Helen said. “It seems risky. Mr. Ironton is always raving that if the staff uses that gate, it’s a firing offense.” She took a sip of cinnamon tea. Then she took a big drink. It was good.
“I think risk taking is part of the thrill,” Jackie said. “Jessica dislikes this job. Subconsciously, I think she wants to be fired.”
“But she’s worried about paying her bills.” Helen drank more tea. It was tasting much better. She’d misjudged it.
“Aren’t we all?” Jackie said, and snapped the pencil in two. She didn’t seem to notice. Helen saw how strong her hands were. Jackie looked fragile, but she’d played golf and tennis for years . . . before.
“We’re all trapped,” Jackie said. “We can’t even afford to look for something better. There are higher-paying jobs in Fort Lauderdale, but I can’t buy the gas to drive there, and I’m too tired to look for work even if I could. This place wears me out. Jessica’s in the same situation.”
Helen decided to tell her about Jessica’s deal with Rob, without mentioning names. Jackie was smart. Maybe she could help Helen. Maybe she even knew what Jessica was doing.
“Let’s say an interested outsider gave a customer care staffer a chance to earn several thousand dollars,” Helen said. “This outsider offered her an incentive to mine some of the damaging information in the files. Information about people who abused her daily. People who deserved whatever happened to them if their peccadillos were made public.”
“I don’t have any money,” Jackie said.
“What?” Helen said.
“I don’t have any money. Brenda wanted money, too, when she found out what I was doing. I told her I was broke, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Helen choked on her tea. Jackie’s conversations raced through her mind. Jackie needed money. Jackie walked to the club, so there would be no record of her entering the employee gate. Jackie was missing a blouse. Jackie hated Brenda, who tormented her every chance she got.
Brenda loved to search customer care desks. She’d found the missing file—in Jackie’s desk. Jackie came back to retrieve it, just like she came back now to get some papers. Incriminating papers that Helen had overlooked.
Because she was too busy trying to put the blame on Cam and Jessica. Her good friend, Jessica.
“It’s you,” Helen said. She felt sick. She thought she might pass out.
“I’m really sorry,” Jackie said. “But I knew the minute you saw that fax-number list you’d figured it out. I followed you into the bathroom and heard you talking to Marcella. You asked if Rob ever received any faxes on the yacht. When I heard that, I had no choice. I’m so sorry. You’re nicer than Brenda. I don’t want to kill you.”
You don’t have to, Helen wanted to say. But the words wouldn’t come out.
She could hear the phone ringing, far away. It’s Mrs. Buchmann, calling for a guest pass, Helen thought. I’m going to die at exactly five fifty-eight.
Helen saw the darkness gathering at the edge of her vision. Then it closed over her.
CHAPTER 25
I’m dead, Helen thought. I’m dead and buried in a coffin. I must be decaying pretty fast. I smell awful.
Wait. I’m breathing. I’m not dead. I’m buried alive.
Helen tried to scream, but panic strangled the sound, and it died on her dry lips. The hot, dark air was thick as felt. She was smothering. She tried to move her hands but they were bound in front of her.
Did undertakers tie dead people’s hands in coffins?
Wait. There was something thick and sticky around her wrists. Duct tape. Her hands were bound with duct tape. Undertakers didn’t use duct tape. She tried to kick out with her feet, but she couldn’t. Her legs were bound at the ankles.
Helen was buried, but not in a graveyard. Sweat trickled into her hair. She tried to calm herself, to remember what had happened. Her head ached. She’d thrown up and the sour smell turned her stomach. Her head felt stuffed with Styrofoam.
She tried to piece her scattered thoughts together, but they slid away in the panicked darkness. She wanted to claw, kick and scream. She knew she had to think.
Jessica. I thought Jessica was the killer. Helen imagined her actress friend at her desk, laughing and talking on the phone.
And Cam. I blamed Cam, too.
Then Jackie had stopped by the office just before closing. Jackie with her little pink basket, tempting me with pretty poison like a witch in a fairy tale. Jackie wanted me to eat a chocolate with a pink icing rose. “I promise you’ve never had anything like it,” she’d said.
She was right, Helen thought. I’d never had poisoned chocolate before. If I didn’t hate creme centers, I’d really be in a coffin. She gave me tea, too. Tea with a bitter taste. Tea that made me black out. Jackie drugged me and tried to kill me.
Helen was gasping for breath, sweat running in streams down her body. The swampy darkness seemed to suck the air out of her.
Jackie should have killed me, Helen thought. Dying slowly in a dark box is worse than a quick death. What if I never see Phil again? Who’s going to feed Thumbs? Margery hates cats. What if—?
What if I quit whining. I’m not dead. I don’t know why, but I’m alive. I’m going to get out of here. The first step is to find out where I am.
Her head was clearing a little. Helen could move her elbows slightly from side to side in the narrow space. She hit the left side with her funny bone, and shrieked in pain. But over the stinging, searing hurt, she felt something. The left side of the box was definitely wood. Thick wood. She moved her right elbow carefully and struck cardboard. Boxes. She was shoved in with stacks of cardboard boxes. She heard the tinkle of little bells. Christmas ornaments.
Of course, Helen thought. Jackie couldn’t carry me out past the valet stand, no matter how strong she was. Someone would notice. Instead, she dragged me across the office carpet and into the back hall. Helen h
oped her uniform had protected her from rug burns.
Jackie shoved me into the long, narrow supply cabinet. It was big enough to hold me. She must have rolled me into the bottom shelf. She’d already bound my feet and hands with duct tape, so I’d be easier to drag. Clever Jackie gave me handles, like a suitcase.
She didn’t wait around to make sure I was dead. She knew she couldn’t keep the office lights on or the door open after six p.m. That would make security suspicious. Jackie waited until I passed out and then left. Good thing she didn’t put duct tape over my mouth, or I would have choked to death when I threw up.
“Help! Someone help me!” Helen screamed.
She knew it was useless to yell. No one could hear her in the deserted building. Jackie had closed the office for the night. Helen was stuck in the cabinet until morning. How far away was that: One hour? Eight hours? Twelve?
Helen wasn’t sure she could survive that long without fresh, cool air. The cabinet was a hotbox.
By the time the staff comes in at eight tomorrow morning, I’ll have used up all the air, she thought. I’ll be dead, or too weak to call for help. There’s no guarantee they’ll find me in the morning. This cabinet is filled with holiday decorations. They might not find my body till they put up the plastic shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day.
Helen slid her bound hands sideways and pounded awkwardly on the cabinet door. It wouldn’t budge. It was locked—or jammed. Helen stopped, exhausted and panting. Her mood wavered between terror and defiance.
Think, she commanded her foggy brain. This is a wooden cabinet, not a bank vault. You need something to cut that tape.
The cardboard boxes were too flimsy. Brenda had been so proud when she’d packed the decorations away and labeled the boxes with her prissy lettering. She’d made us stop everything to admire her work.
Brenda. Mousy little Jackie had beaten Brenda bloody with a golf club, then whacked Dr. Dell.
Helen couldn’t believe it. But she remembered the strength in Jackie’s hands. And her habit of snapping pencils when she was upset.
Something had finally snapped for Jackie.
She’d lost everything: her husband, her money, her friends. She wound up working at the club where she used to be an honored member, suffering sly humiliations from her ex-friends and abuse from Brenda.
Jackie, the former jet-set beauty, was hoarding stocking coupons and lunching on boiled eggs.
That disastrous date with Alvin was her last chance to return to club society. Jackie probably never had a chance with Alvin, but that date had given her hope. She was still glamorous and thirty years younger than Alvin. But he had treated Jackie like a cheap whore.
He’d killed her last hope.
Then Brenda had found out that Jackie had been selling club information. She’d demanded money Jackie didn’t have and threatened to fire her. Jackie would lose her little apartment in Golden Palms. She’d clung to that address in the town where she’d lived all her life. It was the only thing she had.
Brenda wanted to take it away.
It was too much. Jackie had murdered Brenda, then killed Dr. Dell when he walked in at the wrong time.
It seemed so obvious now. I’ve been a fool, Helen thought, blundering around in the dark, suspecting innocent people based on my half-wit conclusions. I should have told the police what I knew about Rob, and damn the Black Widow. But I had to play amateur detective. Look where it got me.
“Help!” Helen screamed again. She pounded on the door until her hands were scraped and bloody. The adrenaline rush made her feel better, but she knew it wouldn’t last. Soon she’d wear herself out, and she would be too tired to struggle. She turned her face closer to the door hinge, hoping for cool air.
Helen moved her bound hands up to the lock, feeling for some way to open it. She couldn’t work it. But she discovered the lock had a sharp edge. She ran her taped hands across it once.Then twice.Then again and again. The lock made a small tear in the duct tape. She tore long scratches in her wrists and hands, but Helen was beyond feeling that kind of pain. Concentrating on cutting the tape calmed her. Her breathing grew more even.
After what seemed hours, she managed to free her hands and pull the tape off.
She still couldn’t open the cabinet. She pounded the wooden door until her hands bled and her shoulder hurt. She scooted forward to try a different angle of attack and felt something hard in her pocket.
Her cell phone.
Why didn’t I think of that sooner? Helen thought.
Because I am the last woman in America to get a cell phone.
She managed to pry it open and power it up. At last, she saw a welcome light. She was no longer in the dark. The time glowed: eleven seventeen p.m. She’d been locked inside the cabinet more than five hours. She could see by the comforting light of her phone. She’d guessed correctly. She was up against boxes marked “Christmas tree stand” and “ornaments.”
She dialed club security and heard a man’s voice, “Hello. This is Steven.”
“Xaviera’s Steven? This is Helen. Help me.” That’s what she wanted to say. But her voice was a hoarse croak and her words rushed out in a jumble.
“Helen, what’s wrong? Where are you? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I was attacked,” she said. “Someone tried to kill me.”
“Ohmigod. Are you hurt?”
“I’m OK. I’m trapped in the customer care office. In the supply closet in the back hall. I need to get out of here. I’m running out of air.”
“I’ll get help. No, I’m coming right over. Stay there.”
“I can’t go anywhere,” Helen said.
“I meant, stay on the phone,” Steven said, and promptly disconnected her.
Helen thought that was funny, now that help was on the way. She called Margery next and said, “I can’t stay on the line. I’m OK, but I don’t think I can drive home. Can you pick me up at the club?”
“What the hell happened now?” Margery roared. “Why do you sound like something in a tomb?”
Helen thought she could see her landlady’s cigarette smoke coming through the phone. “It’ll take too long to explain,” Helen said. “But I’m in a tomb, sort of, and they’re getting me out. Just get here, please. Come to the front gate. Ask for Steven in security.”
“Don’t do this to me, Helen,” Margery said. “What tomb? What’s going on?”
“I’m fine,” Helen said, and hung up. She had to. She heard Steven calling her name.
“Here,” she shouted and pounded on the cabinet door.
“Hold on, Helen,” Steven said. “The door’s jammed. I’m opening it now. I’ll have you out in a moment. Just stay calm.”
It was Steven who sounded nervous. The metal catch rattled and she felt someone slamming the door from the other side.
“Am I hurting you?” Steven asked, as he kept hitting the door.
“No. Just open the door,” Helen said.
And then he did.
Helen rolled out of the cabinet into the cool office. She landed on her back, gasping like a beached fish. Helen lay on the worn tile filling her lungs with delicious fresh air.
“Look at your hands,” Steven said. “You’re bleeding. The club doctor is on his way. So are Detective O’Shaughnessy and Marshall Noote, the head of security.”
Helen groaned.
“Hang on,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”
Not if the police and Marshall Noote show up, she thought.
“Can I get you water? Some coffee? Tea?”
“No tea,” Helen said. “Water. Water’s fine.”
Steven found a cold bottle in the department fridge. “Tiny sips,” he said. “We don’t want you drinking too much and getting sick.”
Water had never tasted so refreshing. Helen pressed the cold bottle against her forehead, then took another sip. “Thanks. This is delicious.”
So was Xaviera’s surfer boyfriend. Helen, on the other hand, was rancid. She had vomit on
her shirt and in her hair. Her uniform looked trampled and the sleeve was ripped.
Steven didn’t seem to notice the vile smell. He took out his pocket-knife and began cutting the tape off Helen’s ankles.
He was nearly done when the club doctor came running in with his black bag. He wrinkled his nose in disgust when he bent down to examine Helen. He spent his days in a perfumed office on South Beach, installing fake boobs in fake blondes. The club waived his monthly dues to keep him on call, but he mainly handled sunburns and poolside slip-and-falls. The doctor probably hadn’t worked a messy emergency in years.
“Let’s get her in a chair,” the doctor said.
Helen didn’t know if this was out of concern for her or his suit. He didn’t bother introducing himself, and Helen couldn’t find his name in her useless brain. The doctor poked and prodded. By that time, Detective O’Shaughnessy, Marshall Noote and enough security to staff a rap concert were crowded into the office.
Once again, Helen was struck by the father-son resemblance between O’Shaughnessy and Noote: same thick neck, thick fingers and short hair. Same cop eyes. They stayed trained on her while she told her story.
O’Shaughnessy seemed to believe her. She suspected Noote did not.
Things seemed to happen very fast now, in little jagged scenes. The medics arrived. The police collected a sample of her vomit. They searched for Jackie’s pink basket, the cup and the thermos, but those were gone. So was the petty cash—the five hundred dollars that Solange kept in her upper drawer. The drawer was open.
“Everyone in the office knew Solange kept the key under the plant on her desk,” Helen said.
Jackie had taken the money and run. The incriminating fax numbers that Helen had on her desk were gone, too. Jackie’s desk was empty.
The petty cash drawer was fingerprinted. The tape from Helen’s wrists and feet was collected to be checked for fingerprints.
A police officer was dispatched to Jackie’s apartment. The officer knocked on the door and no one responded. A neighbor said that Jackie had thrown some suitcases into her car and left about six thirty that evening. The same neighbor also said that Jackie had brought her tea earlier that afternoon. Now the neighbor couldn’t find her phenobarbital. She didn’t want to accuse anyone, especially sweet little Jackie, but she was the only visitor in days.