Clubbed to Death (16 page)

The doctor was reaching for Brenda’s bare breast, like a dead god trying to touch his creation one last time.

Helen heard an odd high-pitched sound, somewhere between a scream and a whine. She realized she was making that noise. She backed out of the office and called the club’s emergency number from her desk. Her fingers felt numb and clumsy.

“Security,” a man said.

Helen took a deep breath. Her voice was frighteningly calm. “This is Helen in customer care. We have a problem. A big one. Two people are dead. In the office. One’s a member and one is an employee.”

“This is Steven,” the man said. “You know me. Xaviera! Please tell me she’s OK.”

Helen could hear his fear. “She’s fine. She’s not here. No one’s here but me and—” Her teeth were chattering. She couldn’t say the names.

“Helen? Are you still there?” Steven said. “You are alone in that office?”

“Yes. I think so. I just reported for work and found them.”

“Get out of there now. Lock the door and don’t let anyone in. Don’t let any of the customer care staff leave the area. Keep them there. I’ll be right over. I’ll bring help. You’re going to be OK.”

Helen’s hands shook so badly, she could hardly turn the key in the lock. She paced up and down the veranda outside the office while she waited. She took deep breaths and tried to think.

Brenda was dead. Brenda was dead. The words were a drumbeat in her head.

Yesterday, she’d wanted her sneaky boss dead. The whole office did.

But not like this.

Who killed her? Everyone on the staff had a key to the office. Was Helen working with a murderer? Was anyone in her office angry enough to bludgeon two people?

She couldn’t see Cam killing them—too many germs. Jessica or Jackie? Now there was a joke. Meek little Jackie was too frightened to argue with Brenda. Jessica never fought. She was too laid back.

Xaviera? She had the fury, but she wouldn’t beat two people to death and run. Xaviera was no coward. She’d stood up to Brenda.

She’d kill them and confess.

There was Demi, the doctor’s long-suffering wife. She played tennis and had quite an arm. Dr. Dell was notoriously unfaithful. Would Dr. Dell have an affair with Brenda when he had a sweet wife like Demi?

Of course he would. He not only cheated on his wife, he was unfaithful to his mistress. What about the staffer who “relaxed” at the club?

Helen didn’t find Brenda’s stringy body and surgically enhanced breasts attractive, but a surprising number of men fell for fake boobs.

Brenda was the doctor’s own personal do-it-yourself project.

But their affair was only gossip. It might have ended long ago—or never happened. Once a man had a reputation as a hound, every woman he said hello to was labeled a conquest. Suppose Dr. Dell had simply seen the open door and cut through the customer care office to the golf course, the way so many members did? He’d walked in at the wrong time and wound up murdered. What a stupid death.

Helen had another scary thought: Was Brenda killed by the same person who’d murdered Rob?

The Winderstine file! Where was it? Was it still hidden under Brenda’s desk pad? Helen had to know fast. Security would arrive any moment.

She unlocked the office door with fumbling fingers, then stopped abruptly at Brenda’s door. She couldn’t see anything but that hand and those dark red spatters on the wall, but she felt some force push her back.

It’s your own fear, she told herself.

There was a powerful stink when she entered the room. How could I have missed that the first time? she thought.

But she knew. The mind couldn’t take in all the room’s horrors at once.

She tiptoed over to Brenda’s desk and moved the desk blotter. The Winderstine file was gone.

Oh, no, Helen thought. No, no, no.

She backed out of the room and managed to lock the office door again.

Brenda wasn’t whacked by an irate wife or a jealous lover. She was killed for that file. Helen couldn’t say anything to anyone. She couldn’t even prove she’d seen it.

She heard the putt-putt of the golf carts, and four security guards swung in front of the office. Steven was riding shotgun with Marshall Noote, the head of security. Noote dismounted and hitched up his trousers: John Wayne in a club blazer.

“What seems to be the problem?” Noote asked. He could barely hide his dislike of Helen.

“There are two dead people,” Helen said. “I found them when I came in to work.”

“What did you touch?” It was an accusation.

“The door. My phone to call you. That’s all, I think.”

“Stay out here,” Noote said.

Helen never wanted to go back in there again.

She heard a flurry of footsteps. “Helen, what’s going on? Why is security all over the place? Was there a break-in?” It was Jessica, looking fresh and rested on Monday morning.

“No, much worse. It’s—”

Noote interrupted. “No talking. Not until the police question you.”

“The police?” The color drained from Jessica’s face. “What’s happening?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Noote said. He turned to a thick-necked security guard. “Take them over to the main building and put them in separate rooms. Don’t let them hang out together and compare notes. That’s the fastest way to screw up an investigation.

“You!” He pointed to the other guard with a neck like a tree trunk.

“Do the same thing with the rest of the customer care staff as they arrive. A different room for each one and no talking. We’re following procedure. I run this department by the book.”

“But what about the office?” Jessica said. “Who’ll take care of the members?”

“They can take care of themselves for one day. This office is closed.

It’s a crime scene.”

“Oh, man,” Jessica whispered. “Those phones will be radioactive tomorrow. What’s happening?”

“I said no talking!” Noote barked, and Jessica clamped her mouth shut. She looked frightened.

Helen and Jessica rode off in silence in the silly striped golf cart.

The guard made Helen ride up front. Jessica sat alone in the back, clutching her purse like a security blanket. Helen saw Xaviera and Cam strolling down the path together, laughing and chatting. Their day was about to be ruined, too.

At the hotel, security confiscated Helen’s cell phone. She was stashed in the Granada Room, a poky meeting place that was almost never used. It had been stripped of everything but a folding chair and a bare table.

Helen stared out the window at the parking lot. She could hear the sirens baying. It looked like half the police cars in South Florida were out there, parked at haphazard angles. There were also crime scene vans, unmarked cars and vehicles whose purpose she couldn’t begin to identify.

She paced up and down on the worn carpet, too restless to sit. The room was warm, but her teeth were still chattering. Shock, she thought.

I’m in shock. She unwrapped an energy bar, took two bites, then remembered Brenda’s last angry words to her about eating in the office.

She saw Brenda’s battered, bloody body and lost her appetite. Helen threw the rest of the bar away.

She wished she could feel bad about Brenda, but she was glad the woman was dead. That made her feel worse. She couldn’t feel anything about Dr. Dell. He’d been a bully, too. If nice Mr. Giles had died, she’d be weeping buckets. This numb hatred made her feel sick and dirty.

Helen counted the cracks in the plaster ceiling. She counted the dead flies on the window sill. She’d started counting police cars when she was called in for questioning by Golden Palms homicide.

A uniformed officer escorted her to another meeting room. Helen didn’t know Detective O’Shaughnessy, but he seemed to know her.

He treated her with respectful contempt, as if she could do a lot of damage—like a ticking bomb. She guessed that’s what happened when you had Gabe Accomac for your lawyer.

The homicide detective could have been Marshall Noote’s younger brother. His hair was sandy blond instead of gray, but he had the same military haircut, thick neck and beefy face. She’d bet O’Shaughnessy’s father and grandfather had been cops, too. The detective never mentioned her missing ex, but Rob seemed to be there, spreading suspicion and discord, the way he did when he was alive.

Now he’d caused the deaths of two more people. Helen was convinced Brenda was murdered for the Winderstine file. She didn’t say that, of course. She didn’t mention the file at all. She didn’t want to talk about her deal with the Black Widow.

She had trouble concentrating on the detective’s questions. He asked if Dr. Dell had any enemies. Helen said she didn’t know. She’d only met him briefly when he had a question about his bill.

Was the doctor having an affair with Brenda?

“I don’t know,” Helen said. Well, she didn’t. Not for sure.

Did Brenda have any enemies?

Helen knew she’d better answer this truthfully. “She didn’t have a lot of friends among the customer care staff. But that was office politics.

I don’t think anyone would kill her for that.”

“Then why would they kill her?” the detective asked.

“I don’t know,” Helen lied.

He didn’t believe her. He asked her the same questions again and again. She tried to keep her answers straight. She wanted to put her head down on the table and sleep. Finally, O’Shaughnessy let her go after she signed a statement. A tech took her fingerprints “for the process of elimination.” Helen wondered why the police bothered. They’d find staff fingerprints on every surface in the office.

She retrieved her cell phone from security and found a text message: “We’re all meeting at Cam’s condo after.”

Helen didn’t have to ask after what. The message had the address to Cam’s new condo in Fort Lauderdale. He lived in a big pink building on the Intracoastal Waterway. Cam’s building had all the signs of Florida luxury: bubbling fountains, pricey landscaping, acres of awnings and a grumpy security guard who made her hide the unsightly Toad behind the garage.

Helen signed in at the front desk and took the oak-paneled elevator to the tenth floor.

“Come in, come in,” Cam said. “You’re the last to arrive.”

The apartment was a knockout—a sweeping view of the Intracoastal Waterway. Cam’s apartment was furnished in Tropical Guy: a fat brown leather sofa and big comfortable chairs, wicker lamps, a teak elephant footstool and a woven sea-grass rug.

“Nice,” Helen said.

Cam looked at home here. His big, awkward frame blended well with the oversized furniture. The sofa seemed to swallow Jessica and Jackie. Both sat pale and silent, clutching their water bottles. Xaviera drummed her long painted nails on the chair arm.

Kitty perched on the teak elephant, sipping a diet soda. The woman who’d tried to undermine the manager was dead, but Brenda’s murder had brought Kitty more trouble. There were dark circles under her brown eyes.

Cam was too jittery to sit. He kept using his puffer. “My asthma is triggered by stress,” he said.

Xaviera rolled her eyes.

Jessica, the peacemaker, made them compare notes about the morning. Helen knew the most.

“You actually found the body?” Xaviera said.

“What did she look like?” Cam asked. “Was she all bloody and bashed in?”

“Please, no.” Jackie started making tiny hurt-mouse sounds. Her eyes were a raw red. Helen knew this wasn’t the first time she’d cried today.

Xaviera came over and hugged her. “Please, Jackie, do not cry.

Brenda’s murder is a good thing. Whoever killed her did us all a favor.

She can’t torment us anymore. She’s dead and I’m glad.” She looked defiantly around the room, daring anyone to disagree.

“I am, too,” Cam said.

“I won’t miss her,” Jessica said.

“I would have killed her myself, sweetpea, if she was in that office much longer,” Kitty said. One brown curl had collapsed on her forehead. “I’m in serious need of relaxation. Cam, do you have any wine?”

“I have something better,” Cam said, and carried out a hookah—the first Helen had seen outside a movie. “Wait till you try this. I use a mixture of half pot and half tobacco. A few puffs and you’re so incredibly mellow. You won’t care what happened today.”

“I don’t do drugs,” Jackie said.

“Oh, Jackie,” Xaviera said. “If anyone needs to relax, it’s you.”

“No, I prefer not to.” Jackie gathered up her battered Chanel purse and fled.

“What about you, Helen?” Cam said. “You don’t object, do you?”

“Of course not,” Helen said. “Can I use your john?”

“Down the hall,” Cam said.

Helen didn’t care about a little pot, but she didn’t like Cameron having a hold over her. The club had strict rules about drugs and could order random drug tests. She wished Kitty would leave now, before the hookah started bubbling. If their boss ever needed to discipline the crafty Cam, she wouldn’t be able to after a pot party.

Helen sat on the commode in Cam’s tasteful slate-gray bathroom and called Margery. “I have a situation,” she whispered into her cell phone. “I’ll explain later. I need you to call me back on my cell in about a minute. I have to get out of here. Make up an excuse.”

“I won’t have to,” Margery said. “Marcella wants to see you.

Now.”

CHAPTER 15

Monday started with a murder. Now it would end with the Black Widow. Could it get any worse?

Helen couldn’t see any way to escape meeting Rob’s wife again. She’d asked Margery to get her out of Cam’s condo. Her landlady had granted her wish. Some escape. The alternative was far worse than a silly pot party. Now Helen had to walk back into Marcella’s private, perfumed hell alone.

This time, no lawyered limo took her to the yacht club. Helen parked the rumbling Toad in the Superior Club’s employee lot and followed the path to the yacht basin.

It was dusk. Purple night clouds were sliding across the sky. The January air was cool. Flocks of black birds were settling in the trees for the night, twittering to each other. The hibiscus were closing. Their red ruffled parasols opened for one day in a great, gaudy show. Then it was all over.

It was also over for Brenda and the doctor. They’d gone out in a horrific splash of red. Then there were the arcs of blood all over the parking lot where Helen had last seen Rob. There was too much death in this little paradise. Helen shivered, but not from the cold.