Board Stiff: A Dead-End Job Mystery (17 page)

J
oan Right’s body, a mournful mountain range, rolled past on a stretcher.

Helen and Sunny Jim bowed their heads when the stretcher trundled by the canopy. Even the insensitive Cy ceased blathering while the photographer recorded Joan’s sad cortege.

“She was a damn fine woman,” Jim said.

A fitting epitaph, Helen thought. Poor Joan. She thought her luck was changing. It was. For the worse.

I will find your killer, she vowed silently. I will track him down and he will pay. And then I hope I can forgive myself. You paid for my overconfidence with your life.

They watched the ambulance doors slam shut on Joan’s life.

Jim broke the silence first. “You say Joan didn’t kill herself, and she sure as hell didn’t fall off that pier. That means she was murdered. Who did it?”

“Cy,” Helen said. “She was helping us with your investigation. Remember that heavy rain a few nights ago? Joan told me that Kevin, a dishwasher at Cy’s, saw something in the water when Ceci was killed.”

“The Latino guy?” Jim asked.

“Nicaraguan,” Helen said. “Kevin wouldn’t talk to us at the restaurant, but Joan helped me meet him at his bus stop on Seashell. Joan introduced us and told Kevin it was safe to talk to me. That’s when Cy’s Mercedes went by.”

“The one with that stupid CY 4 ME plate?” Jim asked.

“That’s it,” Helen said. “Kevin was in my car, drying his drenched hair with a beach towel, so his face was hidden. But the passenger door was open and the dome light was on. Joan was upset. She thought Cy saw her face. She said he was paranoid about outsiders finding out his business.”

“You know he ran drugs,” Jim said.

“I’ve heard the rumors,” Helen said. “But there’s no proof, and that statute of limitations ran out long ago. I heard he murdered two of his associates. Again, no proof. I knew he had a dangerous past. But I didn’t take her fears seriously. Phil and I should have protected her.”

“I could have, too,” Jim said. “I feel even worse now that I know she died trying to help me.”

“She wanted to help,” Helen said. “She wanted to put Cy in jail for good. She tipped us off that he was going to bribe Commissioner Frank Gordon.”

“So I was right,” Jim said. Helen heard the satisfaction in his voice. “Frank the Fixer was selling his vote. I knew it.”

“Phil and I were at the restaurant with a female operative when it happened. So was Valerie Cannata, the Channel Seventy-seven investigative reporter.” Helen wished Margery was there. She’d love being called a “female operative.”

“Valerie’s smokin’ hot,” Jim said.

“She wasn’t hot in her disguise,” Helen said. “No, that’s wrong. She didn’t look like her glamorous TV self in a cat T-shirt, but Cy recognized her. She had a hidden camera in a big old purse to silent-tape the bribery. Cy handed Frank a restaurant carryout bag stuffed with cash. Valerie caught it on tape.”

“And you didn’t tell me this!” Anger made Jim’s leathery skin even redder and his frizzed hair bobbed with impatience.

“It failed,” Helen said. “We failed. Cy recognized Valerie despite the disguise. He saw through my disguise, too. He knew I’d been hanging around his restaurant, talking to Joan.

“The bribe attempt went sideways: Frank the Fixer tried to run away with the cash out one door. Cy tried to escape out the other. Phil tackled Frank and they fought. The restaurant’s phony nautical decor caught fire from those cheap candles. Frank and Cy got away, the bribe cash burned and Frank threw Valerie’s camera into the ocean.”

“Was Joan there?” Jim asked.

“No. But he not only recognized me that rainy night,” Helen said. “He saw Joan talking to me when I was in my white PT Cruiser. She’d arranged a meeting with a key witness.”

“It’s pretty distinctive,” Jim said. “I haven’t seen another white Cruiser on the beach. Cy’s no dummy.”

“Cy was afraid Joan would tell Valerie about his deal to bribe the commissioner,” Helen said. “He was absolutely right.”

“Cy’s got a sixth sense for his own survival,” Jim said. “He’s as crafty as he is crooked.”

“Our plan blew up in our faces,” Helen said. “Now Valerie’s on probation at the station and Cy is threatening to sue her. The Riggs Beach cops are protecting him, and Cy’s lying about what started the fire. Phil and I can’t say anything or Valerie’s career is over. It may be ruined anyway. There’s no proof Cy bribed the commissioner or killed Joan.”

“So what’s Plan B?” Jim asked.

“We keep searching for Ceci’s killer and save your business. We have some leads on another suspect. We’re interviewing people. Cy has a girlfriend.”

“The chick who runs Cerise?” he asked. “Big deal. I knew that.”

“Phil staked out her place last night.”

“What did he find?” Jim said.

“Don’t know. He was out all night,” Helen said. “I’m calling him now.” She started strolling down the beach.

“Hey, don’t walk away,” Jim said. “I want to know what’s going on. I hired you two because you were supposed to be the best and you’re running around tripping over your di—your shoes.”

“We are the best,” Helen said. “This case is impossible and you know it. Nobody but us believed your story about the bribery. Even the cops are on Cy’s side. It’s best you don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Hell, that’s easy,” Jim said. “You don’t know what you’re doing, either. You got one more week. I’m not wasting more money. I’ll need it to live on while I rebuild my business. Or start a new one.”

Helen walked into the wind. The air smelled clean and salty, and the sun beat down on her head, but nothing lightened her dark mood. Joan was dead. Her marriage was dead and her career was dying.

She saw two guys in gray college T-shirts and black board shorts playing catch on the beach. The crew-cut college boys were throwing a small pink football with a tail.

A tail?

Helen looked closer. That wasn’t a football. It was a fish. A red snapper was gasping and flopping as it arced through the air.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Stop that!”

“What?” said the short one. He had heavy shoulders and slitty eyes and wore his arrogance like cologne. “It’s just a fish.”

“Then eat it or throw it back in the water. Don’t torment it. It’s alive.”

She glared at them both.

The taller boy with the lean runner’s body had the grace to look ashamed. He cupped the wriggling fish in his hands, carried it to the ocean and gently lowered it into the water. The fish lay on its side for a long moment, then righted itself and swam slowly away.

“Thank you,” Helen said. She walked another quarter mile, practicing how she’d tell Phil the news about Joan’s death and Jim’s warning. She sat under a palm tree and speed-dialed her partner with trembling fingers.

“Hello,” he said.

“She’s dead!” Helen blurted and her voice broke. All her carefully rehearsed words fled.

“Who?” Phil said.

“Joan Right,” Helen said.

“No! That’s terrible. How’d you find out? It wasn’t on the TV news.”

“She didn’t show for our meeting at the coffeehouse this morning,” Helen said. “I went back to Riggs Beach to ask Jim if he’d seen her since the fire. A couple of tourists found her body this morning under the pier. Cy said she’d committed suicide, but I knew he was lying.”

“Because his lips were moving?” Phil said.

“No jokes,” Helen said. “Cy made up some story that she was depressed and worried about money, and he’d offered her a loan. He said she was so grateful, she hugged him. Joan would never touch that scumbag. She hated him.”

“So how did Cy get close enough to murder Joan?” Phil asked.

“I don’t know,” Helen said. “Someone she trusted lured her down to the pier after dark and Cy ambushed her. Maybe the autopsy will give us information. How did the stakeout go at Alana’s apartment?”

“It was a long night,” he said, and sighed. “Alana got home about eight thirty. Looked like she’d been going for a long walk, possibly along the beach. Her hair was windblown and she had a beach bag but no purse.

“Cy showed up at her place at eleven. I took photos of him leaving her apartment at two a.m. It might be enough for a divorce. It certainly establishes a connection between Alana and Cy.”

“Which everyone knows anyway,” Helen said. “That’s not enough to crack the case. I’ll take her to lunch today and see if I can learn anything new.”

“Be careful,” Phil said. “If she catches on, we’ll break our last link to Cy.”

“I have time to think of ways to approach her,” Helen said. “It’s not even ten o’clock. I wanted to ask you about Daniel.”

“Ceci’s husband? What about him?” Phil said.

“He may have put their vacation on credit cards,” Helen said, “but that doesn’t mean he paid for everything that way. He’s a liar, Phil. He betrayed his wife with her best friend. That tells me he’s used to sneaking around. I want to talk to the staff again at the Full Moon Hotel.”

“Fine with me,” Phil said. “I’m going to catch up on my sleep.”

“Phil,” Helen said, “I think we’re responsible for Joan’s death.”

“What? Where did you get that crazy idea?”

“We’ve had two major failures—the disaster at Cy’s restaurant that may have ruined Valerie’s career, and Joan’s death. Both times, we weren’t talking things over enough. Our lack of preparation showed.

“We should have gotten Joan protection,” she said. “We should have made her stay with someone who’d watch her. I could have put her up in my apartment until Cy was in jail. She’d still be alive.”

“Helen, the only one responsible for Joan’s death is her killer. Even if we’d warned her, she wouldn’t have believed us.”

“Yes, she would,” Helen said. “She was afraid of Cy—with good reason.”

“Look, Helen, I’m sorry Joan is dead. She seemed like a good woman. But you’ll go crazy blaming yourself. Sometimes, we fail. It happens. We learn to live with it.”

“I still say our agency is failing because we’re not communicating.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Phil sounded surly.

“When Joan said Cy was suspicious, I should have told you. We should have sat down with Joan and discussed the best ways to protect her. When we taped the bribe at Cy’s, we should have talked about what to do if Valerie was recognized. She’s one of the most famous people in Fort Lauderdale. If we’d had a fallback plan, we could have saved her camera.”

Phil kept a stony silence.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you something,” Helen said.

“Perfect,” Phil said, sourly. “What now?”

“Sunny Jim says we have one week to get results or he’s firing us.”

“Well, well. Looks like the rest of the world agrees with me,” Phil said, his voice unnaturally cheerful. “The agency is failing. It’s time to go our separate ways.”

He hung up without saying good-bye.

“D
id you catch the bastard yet?” Sybil asked. The owner of the Full Moon Hotel exhaled a ferocious cloud of cigarette smoke, as if she was burning to drag Daniel off to hell.

Helen had trouble breathing in Sybil’s dark, smoky cave. How did her bright, sunlit hotel have such a black heart?

She smothered a cough and Sybil waved one wrinkled hand in a useless effort to banish the smoke. “Take a seat and tell me what you’ve got,” she said.

Helen’s leather chair felt slightly sticky with nicotine residue. She leaned forward in the seat and told Sybil about the diver who’d killed Ceci and what she and Phil had learned about Ceci’s husband in St. Louis. “Daniel took out a million-dollar life insurance policy on Ceci,” she said. “He was having an affair with her best friend.”

“Disgusting,” Sybil said. “Shouldn’t surprise me, though, after more than half a century in the hotel business. How can I help you nail him?” Her smile showed sharp yellow teeth that would make a shark shudder.

Why is this scraggy little woman so endearing? Helen wondered.

“Phil, my partner, says Daniel put his whole vacation on a credit card,” she said. “He saw the statements. But Daniel’s sneaky. I think he used cash to buy things and hide them. Things that will connect him to hiring Ceci’s killer in Florida.”

“You’re right,” Sybil said. “My night clerk, Jackie, told me that the day Daniel checked in, he waited till his wife was out at the pool, then asked where he could buy a phone card. No, he
demanded
to know. Barged right up and interrupted Jackie when she was checking in a couple.”

“Sounds like Daniel made friends from the first day here,” Helen said.

“Oh, he was a beauty,” Sybil said. “That move got me wondering: Why would a cheapskate like Daniel make calls from a pay phone?”

Sybil answered her own question. “So the police wouldn’t find them on his cell phone, that’s why.”

“Like contacting the diver who killed his wife,” Helen said.

“Exactly,” Sybil said. “He could have bought a second cell phone or a throwaway phone. But that could be traced back to him. The store would have the receipts and videos of him buying it. The prosecution loves those videos at murder trials. But a pay-phone call—that’s harder to track.”

“Is there a pay phone near your hotel?” Helen asked.

“Used to have one right here in my parking lot. Had it taken out,” Sybil said. “It was an old rotary dial. Drug dealers get callbacks on those phones. I wouldn’t have anyone selling drugs near my family hotel, so I had the phone company get rid of it. But a nasty little convenience store on Federal Highway has a pay phone.”

“I think I know the place,” Helen said. “Cinder-block cube painted pink a long time ago. Next to a liquor store. Scary-looking guys hanging around it.”

“Lots of riffraff around that place. Crack dealers, some of them,” Sybil said. “That store sells phone cards, too. Jackie sent him there. She didn’t care if he got mugged or not. Wish he had been. His sweet little wife would still be alive. Guess there’s no chance you’ll come back and work for me?”

“You never know,” Helen said, and thanked Sybil.

She felt vindicated when she walked to her car. Next time she talked to Phil, she’d tell him about Daniel’s phone card, paid for in cash. Phil had a phone company contact who owed him. He’d give Phil the numbers dialed out from that phone on the dates Daniel was in Lauderdale. They’d have the link that would tie Daniel to his wife’s murder.

That’s damn good detecting on my part, she thought. Not that Phil will say so.

All the way back to the beach, Helen brooded about her painful conversation with Phil. He seems eager to destroy Coronado Investigations as well as our marriage, she thought. Why won’t he forgive me?

Yes, it was wrong to hide the fact Kathy and I were being blackmailed. Just as wrong as burying Rob in the church basement. But I did it to save my nephew. I was stupid, not malicious. Now my mistake could ruin my life. Our life—and our business.

Riggs Pier, bristling with anglers, appeared on the horizon. The restaurant’s blackened ruins were smaller. The hardworking backhoe had nearly cleared the rubble. A new restaurant would soon rise on the same spot. Without Joan.

Helen felt a stab of sadness and guilt. She could almost see Joan, with her tired blond beauty, hurrying to clear tables and waiting on customers who didn’t tip. She’s dead because of me, she thought. Because Cy knew she’d talk to Valerie. Now I have to prove that he killed her. I owe her that much.

Why would Joan meet Cy alone at Riggs Pier? She wouldn’t. She’d never do anything so risky. But Joan knew Alana at Cy’s boutique. She wouldn’t see her as a threat.

Maybe Alana is the key.

Helen parked her car in the pier lot, made Cy ten dollars richer, and barged through the throngs of strolling tourists toward Cerise, impatient to talk to the boutique manager.

“Hey, girlfriend!” Alana greeted her with a smile. “I’m having a terrific morning. Want to join me at that coffee shop for a chicken wrap and Key lime pie? My treat. I’m celebrating.”

“Glad to,” Helen said.

“Shelly, I’ll be at the coffee shop,” Alana called. The short, brown-haired woman gave her a big lipsticked smile and waved good-bye.

Alana seemed to glow with success today. Her golden hair was shiny and her sheer bronze top caught the sun. The customers at the coffee shop stared at her as she sat at a table with a view of the water.

“This sun matches my mood perfectly,” Alana said and stretched like a long-limbed golden cat.

For a beach business that catered to tourists, the coffee shop operated with stunning efficiency. Helen and Alana had their food and drinks minutes after they sat down.

“So tell me your good news,” Helen said, nibbling at her chicken wrap.

“Cy gave me that outfit I showed you,” she said. “I didn’t even have to do anything disgusting.”

“Very generous,” Helen said. Cy? Giving a sixteen-hundred-dollar gift to his girlfriend? What have you done? she wondered.

“It gets better. Today, the tourists are buying everything I set out—even the ugly sale stuff that’s been cluttering up the racks all season.”

“You are having a good day,” Helen said.

“You aren’t. You look sad,” Alana said. “What’s wrong?”

Helen thought this was the first time Alana had ever asked how she felt. “I was on the beach this morning when they found Joan, the server at Cy’s restaurant,” she said. “I liked her.”

“So I heard,” Alana said. “She committed suicide.”

She used the tone that someone might use to say, “She took an aspirin.” No sympathy and even less interest.

“Joan didn’t seem the suicidal type,” Helen said.

Alana shrugged. “Who can tell? Kef said she’d been depressed for a very long time.”

Kef? Helen was startled. Joan had told Helen that only Cy’s close friends from the old days called him by that drug nickname. “How long have you and Cy been friends?” Helen asked.

“A long time,” Alana said. “So long I’d rather not remember. Makes me feel old.”

I bet, Helen thought. I bet there’s a lot you’d like to forget.

“I used to do odd jobs for him in the eighties,” Alana said. “We weren’t doing the deed back then. We didn’t start screwing until he hired me to run his boutique and I had to work off my rent. The hard way.”

She giggled, then saw Helen’s face. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Alana said. “It’s not like I’m breaking up his marriage. It’s been dead a long time. He only stays married for the sake of his kid.”

Right, Helen thought. Heard that one before.

Her face must have betrayed her.

“Hey,” Alana said, “haven’t you ever done anything you’re not proud of?”

Bury my ex-husband in a basement, Helen thought.

Alana correctly read Helen’s silence as guilt. “Thought so,” she said.

But she couldn’t read the rest of Helen’s thoughts. She’d tolerated—even been mildly titillated by—Alana’s carefree morals. Now Helen started putting together the bits she’d gleaned: Alana knew Cy, also known as Kef, from the bad old days when he ran drugs.

Cy gave her that coveted expensive outfit and Alana bragged,
I didn’t even have to do anything disgusting.

So what did Alana do? Did she make sure Joan would be at Riggs Pier the night of her death? How? Did she offer her a sales job at the boutique? A reference for a job at some other Riggs Beach restaurant or bar? Promise to take her to a beach restaurant for dinner?

That’s my guess, Helen thought. But if I’m wrong, I’ll cut off my access to Alana, and that will tick off Phil. Except he’s already angry. Let’s see how she reacts—or overreacts—when I press her about Joan. We’re almost finished with lunch anyway.

“How does it feel to kill someone?” Helen asked.

Alana stopped eating her pie.

“What?” she said, putting down her fork.

“I said, ‘How does it feel to kill someone?’” Helen repeated.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Alana said. But her eyes shifted uneasily. The wind grabbed her paper napkin and it fluttered away.

“You lured Joan to the pier so Cy could kill her,” Helen said. “She would never get close enough to him. She couldn’t stand him. That’s how you got that outfit you wanted so bad. Maybe you didn’t throw Joan off the pier, but you handed her over to the man who did.”

Alana’s easygoing attitude quickly flared into anger. “You’re nuts!” she said, loud enough that people at the nearby tables stared at her again. “How can you even say that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Helen said.

“I’m outta here,” Alana said. “Pay for your own lunch.”

She pulled a slim black wallet out of her purse, threw a twenty on the table and said, “Don’t come into my store, ever again. If you set foot inside the door, I’ll have you arrested for shoplifting.”

She flounced off to Cerise, followed by the stares of the other diners.

Interesting, Helen thought as she walked back to her car. Alana never denied what I said. She just erupted into anger. She’s guilty, but I can’t prove it.

Something else about that scene bothered her. She thought she had it, but it escaped her mind.

I’m too hot and upset to think straight, Helen decided. It will come back.

Inside the Igloo, Helen turned on the air-conditioning and called Valerie.

“Helen,” the TV reporter said, “I heard about that server who died. She was your source, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” Helen said. “And she didn’t commit suicide.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice soft with sympathy. “The station wouldn’t let me cover the story because it involved Cy. But I still have my job. So far.”

“Can you talk?”

“Not on a cell phone,” Valerie said. “I’m finishing a story downtown. Meet me at Riverwalk by the gondola ride.”

Riverwalk Linear Park was a pleasant paved walkway along the New River in downtown Lauderdale, lined with yachts and restaurants. Helen loved the slender black Venetian gondola moored there. It had been fitted with a motor and was driven by Captain Pierre in a straw hat and striped gondolier’s costume.

Helen waited on a nearby bench and watched the yellow water taxi motor by. She heard Valerie clip-clopping in her high heels before she saw her.

The Valerie of the Crocs and cat T-shirt was once again dressed to kill. She wore elegant black-and-cranberry stilettos with a slim cranberry sleeveless dress.

“You look like your old self,” Helen said.

“I’m still in disgrace,” she said to Helen as she sat next to her on the bench.

“But putting on a brave face,” Helen said.

“They won’t let me say anything on camera, but I’ve been continuing the Riggs Beach investigation quietly on my own,” Valerie said. “Commissioner Charles Wyman has an uncanny habit of getting gifts just before a decisive vote.

“He got a new pool from a contractor who wanted city business—and a deal on the price. You might say an impossible deal. He got a new car at an amazing price, just before the city bought its fleet. There are canceled checks and bills of sale, but Commissioner Wyman owns way too many expensive things for someone making his salary.”

“Joan told me Wyman wanted Cy to give his daughter a wedding reception with steak and lobster dinners at the restaurant in January,” Helen said. “Of course, Cy couldn’t give that gift when his place burned down.”

“There went Wyman’s chance to sell his vote,” Valerie said.

“Maybe he can get Commissioner Frank Gordon’s vote at a discount,” Helen said.

“Are you kidding? Gordon will charge him double now,” Valerie said. “I don’t think even Cy has that much money to burn. Gotta run, Helen,” and Valerie was gone in a sophisticated streak of color.

Chic Valerie made Helen feel frumpy. She was already tired and discouraged. Helen hoped she could snag a glass of wine with Margery by the pool.

She was relieved that Phil’s Jeep wasn’t in the Coronado parking lot, and positively cheered that Margery was sitting by the pool.

“Come sit. Have some white wine and cashews,” Margery said. The evening breeze lightly stirred her lilac caftan. Her necklace of deep purple abalone shimmered in the dying light.

Helen poured herself a generous glass of wine and grabbed a handful of cashews. She could hear Thumbs complaining all the way across the yard.

“That cat doesn’t stop yowling all day,” Margery said.

“He misses me,” Helen said.

“More likely he misses food.” Helen’s landlady was no cat lover. “What are you going to do about that noise?”

“Nothing,” Helen said. “I can’t. Phil changed the locks.”

“And didn’t give me a key like he’s supposed to,” Margery said, “or I’d let you in to feed that fur bag. How’s the murder case going?”

“Up in smoke, and I mean that for real,” Helen said. She updated Margery on their latest failures.

“Do you think there’s any chance Phil will forgive me?” Helen said. “I don’t understand why he’s behaving this way.”

“Most women don’t understand men,” Margery said. “Women are tough and practical. Men are romantics, especially guys like Phil. You didn’t tell Phil about the blackmail when you got married, did you?”