Murder Unleashed (24 page)

Helen pulled a free newspaper from a stand and held it in front of her face. Between the paper and the big straw hat, her face was well hidden. The waitress returned carrying Helen’s steaming coffee. It smelled sharp and strong, but her stomach rebelled when she tried to sip it. Helen felt jittery. Food. That would calm her. She slathered her bagel with cream cheese, then stared at it. She couldn’t take a bite.

Helen was sick with fear, worry, and loss. Even if she escaped the police, her life was over. She’d have to flee Fort Lauderdale, like she had St. Louis, except this time she wouldn’t be so lucky.

The Coronado had become her second home, and she loved this life better than the one she’d left behind. Now she was going to lose everything—again. She’d been happy at the Coronado. Her new life wouldn’t be so easy to give up. Margery and Peggy had become her family. Margery had protected Helen better than her own mother.

Helen liked her offbeat apartment and her big-pawed cat. She loved Phil. Would she ever see her lover again? He couldn’t have an affair with a fugitive. She’d have to leave behind the man she loved.

Helen wept silent tears. She cried for this new life in Florida, which gave her so much, and her old life, which gave so little. That was what she’d finally realized about St. Louis—how easy it was to leave it. Her sister, Kathy, was the only person she missed. Helen thought she’d had friends in St. Louis, but now she knew they were only acquaintances. None of them would do what Margery did this morning—give her money and help her escape the police.

But then, Helen never needed to escape the cops in St. Louis, not until she shot off her mouth in court. Helen had been ultrarespectable, with a closet full of designer suits, a Dunhill briefcase, and the sore neck and aching back that went with a demanding corporate career.

She’d made a hundred thousand a year in those days. Most of it went for things she didn’t want: a house and a car to impress people she didn’t like, and gifts for an unfaithful husband who stayed successfully unemployed.

She didn’t know Rob was unfaithful. Or rather, she didn’t want to know. She kept her eyes firmly closed until that afternoon when she’d come home from work early and found Rob on the back deck with their next-door neighbor, Sandy. Helen couldn’t close her eyes then, no matter how hard she tried. Her husband was screwing another woman on Helen’s teak chaise longue.

Something had burst inside Helen. She could feel it rip loose and explode. She picked up a crowbar and started swinging. Rob and Sandy started running. They looked like skinny hairless animals, loping naked across her deck. Rob abandoned Sandy and ran for the protection of the Land Cruiser that Helen had bought him.

He scrambled inside and locked the doors. Helen demolished the SUV with the crowbar. She never laid a finger on Rob, but destroying his SUV probably hurt him more. Meanwhile, Sandy called the cops on her cell phone. Sandy and Rob didn’t press charges for attempted assault. Sandy was afraid her husband would find out how she spent her afternoons. She’d told him she was a charity volunteer. Helen thought that described most of Rob’s girlfriends.

Helen filed for divorce. She expected to lose the house, or half of it, even though she’d paid for the whole thing. She’d prepared herself for that. It was the price of Rob removal. But she didn’t count on the rest. Rob got a smart lawyer and she got a dumb judge. The lawyer painted Rob as a supportive househusband who kept his unstable wife on a career track by sacrificing his own livelihood. Helen’s high-priced lawyer sat there like a department-store dummy. He refused to fight for her.

The judge awarded Rob half of Helen’s future income. That was when quiet Helen crossed the line the second time and never came back. She stood up in court and swore that Rob would never see another penny of her money.

“You’re in contempt of court,” the judge had told her.

“Yes, I am,” Helen had said.

She went home, packed her suitcases, dropped her wedding ring in the Mississippi River, and took off, driving in wild zigzags around the country until her car broke down in Fort Lauderdale.

Helen took a series of low-paying, cash-under-the-table jobs. She refused to have a credit card, bank account, or phone. She had to keep her name out of the computers. She knew the money-hungry Rob would track her down and take half of even her minimum-wage income. South Florida and her dead-end jobs were her refuge. Now that part of her life was over.

Helen looked down at her plate. The bagel was torn to pieces, and her coffee was cold. It was nine thirty. Time to call Margery. She wondered where she would wind up living next: Idaho? South Dakota? She couldn’t take the cold winters. Maybe she’d take a bus to Arizona or New Mexico.

She took a deep breath and dialed. This must be what it felt like to call a doctor for your cancer test results, she thought.

Margery picked up the phone on the first ring.

“It’s me,” Helen said, her voice cracking with fear.

“You’re safe,” Margery said.

Safe? The words didn’t register at first. Then they finally sank in. “The police didn’t come for me? Who did they arrest?”

“The women in 2C, Doris and Alice.”

“I can’t believe it,” Helen said. “You rented to crooks again?”

“You were right,” Margery said. “They weren’t housecleaners. Those two had a scam going. Preyed on the elderly.”

“But they looked so nice,” Helen said. “I thought you checked them out. Didn’t you call some foundation?”

“It was an accomplice in New Jersey,” Margery said. “She got a cut for posing as the foundation director and giving them references. They were clever, I’ll give them that. One of them—Alice, I think the cops told me—would sit in the kitchen and try to sign up a senior citizen for their phony cleaning service. It wasn’t free, either, like they told me. They charged prices so high, any sane person would naturally refuse. But Alice wouldn’t tell the old people the price until last.

“While she sat there explaining all the services they offered, Doris went through the house giving it an ‘evaluation.’ Actually, she was helping herself to jewelry, checks, knickknacks, and anything else she could shove into her mop bucket and purse. She took little items, all easy to hide.”

“And people let her do that? Just wander through their houses?”

“Only the trusting ones. Or the poor souls who were slightly addled. You saw those two women. They looked like the salt of the earth.”

Helen remembered how hard they’d worked to interest Elsie. “Thank goodness Elsie was loyal to her house-cleaner,” Helen said. “She would have been a prime target.”

“Those two crooks knew exactly what to take,” Margery said. “Sometimes the victim didn’t miss the items for days or even weeks. They were cleaners, all right. They cleaned those old people out.”

“That’s really dirty,” Helen said.

H
elen had escaped again. She’d had two warnings. First there was her handcuffed ride to the police station. Then the cops raided the Coronado. They’d hauled away Alice and Doris. Next time they would come for her.

She had to do something. The police had stopped investigating Tammie’s murder. They’d pegged Jonathon as the killer, and they’d caught Helen in an embarrassing lie. They could still come after her as an accomplice.

The Willoughby situation was even more desperate. She expected Ted Brogers, pet detective, on her door step any day, arresting her for Willoughby’s death.

Even if the cops left her alone, the publicity would ruin her. What if they forced her to testify about finding Tammie’s body? She could see the video of her throwing the robe in the Dumpster on the evening news. Her ex, Rob, would track her down for sure.

Phil had promised to check out more names for her, but Helen had work of her own to do. This was her problem, and she wanted to solve it herself.

She was at the Pampered Pet by ten o’clock, anxious to talk to Jeff, but the store was overwhelmed with a burst of business. She’d barely said hello before a young woman with a Westie asked for a case of organic dog food. GRAMMY’S POT PIE, the dog-food label said. CHICKEN, RED-JACKET NEW POTATOES, CARROTS, SNOW PEAS, RED APPLES.

Helen wondered what her own dinner would look like on a can: SINGLE WOMAN’S SPECIAL: WATER-PACKED TUNA, STALE WHEAT BREAD, OLD TOMATO, LOW-FAT MAYO. Maybe she should pick up a can of dog food for dinner.

She hauled the case out to the Westie owner’s MINI Cooper. When Helen came back into the store, she heard Jeff on the phone. “You need the parts shaved. Yes, ma’am. Bring her by and we’ll fix her. Fortunately, we have Jonathon to help you.”

He hung up the phone.

“We do?” Helen said. “Jonathon is back?”

“In all his glory. He’s working on a sheltie right now. He made bail yesterday. I really need him. That poor woman has a white dog and she shouldn’t. She can’t keep it clean. Now we’ll have to shave that pretty white hair. People want these long-haired fluff muffins when they should have a short-haired dog like Lulu. It’s like wearing white pants. Some people have the knack. Others don’t.”

Jeff was wearing white pants and he didn’t have a speck of dirt on them, despite a morning when dogs had piddled all over the store. It’s a gift, Helen decided. Her own jeans smelled a bit funky. She must have knelt in something.

Even Lulu looked better than Helen. Today the glamour hound was modeling a black Lurex turtleneck sweater that Helen would have worn on a date with Phil. Lulu’s nails were painted black and gold, and her strawberry-blond hair was freshly washed.

Upstaged by a dog, Helen thought, as Lulu strutted around the store. Helen couldn’t afford Lulu’s pampering—not when she made six-seventy an hour.

Jeff was back on the phone again, and this time something was very wrong. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs. Curtis,” he said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

He was white-faced when he hung up the phone. “Another cancellation. She heard about Willoughby’s dog. She doesn’t trust us to care for her baby. I knew this would happen.”

“Was Barclay’s dognapping on the news?” Helen said.

“Not yet. So far it’s just word of mouth. But that can kill me. There’s the phone again.”

He picked it up as if it were a loaded gun and put it to his ear. “You know, if you cancel a standing Jonathon appointment,” he said, “I may not be able to get you another one if you change your mind. Yes, yes, I understand. Your baby’s safety comes first.”

The salon doorbell rang, and Helen was rushing to find dog collars, dog beds, and biscuits. In between she’d see Jeff on the phone. Sometimes he accepted the cancellation stoically. Sometimes he’d resort to pleading. Neither one worked. She counted at least four cancellations in the appointment book.

It was eleven thirty when the crush of customers cleared out and the phone calls died down. Helen cornered Jeff in the stockroom. “If we’re going to clear Jonathon’s name, I need someone who can tell me about Tammie’s sex parties,” she said.

“Don’t look at me,” Jeff said. “I spend my evenings with Bill.” That was his interior decorator.

“I don’t know anything, either,” Helen said. “I’m with Phil.”

“Some swinging singles we are,” Jeff said. “In the sex capital of South Florida, we go straight home to our honeys.” He looked at Helen. “Well, some go straighter than others.”

“Neither one of us knows anything about the wild side,” Helen said.

“How did we get so boring?” Jeff asked.

Helen didn’t think her nights with Phil were dull. “Somebody has to know something,” she said. “Too many people come into this store.”

There was a thoughtful silence as Jeff and Helen wandered through the shop, running lists of customer names through their heads in the search for a decent—or indecent—source. Helen studied the shelves and displays, thinking of who bought dog clothes, jewelry, and treats, picturing one customer after another, dismissing them all as too respectable. She conjured up a parade of women as sweetly innocent as their small dogs.

After a storewide circuit, Jeff and Helen ended up at the same place: the rack of spiked and studded dog collars.

“Lucinda the dog-collar lady,” they said together.

“How do we get her back in the store?” Jeff said. “She shows up when she feels like it. She could come in tomorrow or next month.”

“That would be too late to help Jonathon,” Helen said. “What about telling her there’s a sale?”

“We never have sales,” Jeff said. “Our customers think those are down-market. I know! I’ll tell her I have new stock in from New York. I just got in those great winter coats for dogs, the fur-lined toy boxes, and the fainting couches—”

“What’s a fainting couch?” Helen interrupted.

Jeff pulled a miniature pink velvet Victorian chaise out of a box. It was exactly the right size for a small dog.

“These are new. They’ll bring Lucinda in, probably with another boyfriend.”

Jeff made the call while Helen paced impatiently. “Lucinda said she’s tied up right now,” he reported.

“Probably to a bedpost,” Helen said.

“She says she’ll be in later this afternoon.”

“When do you think Lucinda will show?” Helen asked.

“Who knows?” Jeff said. “Could be three or four o’clock. Could be tomorrow or the next day. Time doesn’t mean much for Lucinda. I’ve planted the idea in her foggy little brain, so she’ll show up sooner rather than later.”

“Could it be right now?” Helen said hopefully.

“No. It’s only noon. Way too early for the likes of Lucinda. Party animals rarely get going before two or three o’clock.”

Helen faced another frustrating wait, another day of going nowhere. “Why don’t you lend me the Pupmobile? I’ll collect Prince’s grooming fee from the new widower, Kent.”

“It’s nice of you to try, but I don’t think you’ll get any money out of him,” Jeff said.