Murder Unleashed (12 page)

Helen remembered his one distinguishing characteristic. “He’s kind of handy. He might have tried to feel you up.”

“Honey, that won’t help,” Eunice said wearily. “I can’t remember all the men who’ve hit on me. You’d think I was on the menu.”

Helen asked at the shops and restaurants in the section and got the same story. Salesclerks told her: “I’m not sure.” “It could be him.” “I think I’ve seen him before, but I can’t say it was Saturday.” She didn’t have the nerve to mention Francis’s hobby.

By eight o’clock, Helen knew her search was hopeless. She’d walked the mall until her feet ached. She sat on a bench near the exit. She would come back after the storm. This wasn’t a good time to interview people. The salesclerks seemed distracted and anxious to close early. The shoppers were clearing out, their burst of manic buying over. A man and a woman struggled with a huge box marked PORTABLE GAS GENERATOR on a dolly. It didn’t seem very portable now, but that generator would be worth its weight if the storm knocked out power lines.

As the couple wrestled the unwieldy box through the door, a blast of warm wind blew leaves and plastic bags onto the mall’s polished floor. A small woman with unnaturally black hair came out of the restroom with a cleaning cart. She looked at the fresh mess, shook her head, and started sweeping up the windblown trash.

Trash.

This woman would notice a man rooting through the trash. Helen dug deep in her wallet for her emergency twenty. When she had made six figures a year, twenty dollars was lunch money, “yuppie food stamps,” because ATMs issued so many twenty-dollar bills.

But now, in her minimum-wage world, twenty dollars had new respect. It represented nearly half a day’s pay.

Helen held out the creased and folded bill. “Excuse me, ma’am,” she said. “May I ask you a question?”

“What did you lose?” the black-haired woman said. Her English was accented but clear.

“A man,” Helen said. “He is causing problems for his family.” The woman swept the floor with a long-handled broom nearly as tall as she was. She moved it expertly while she shook her head at the wickedness of men.

Helen gave her the photo and the twenty. The woman took both, and studied the photo as she pocketed the twenty. The light gleaming off her dead-black hair gave it a purple cast.

“Yes, I saw him,” she said. “It was Saturday about five thirty. I know the time because I start work at five o’clock, so I was not so tired early in my day. He was looking for something in the trash can by the Gap store. I remember, because I don’t see a white man do that very much. He was not a bum or an old man looking for aluminum cans for the recycling. He took some paper out of the trash and overturned a full coffee cup. He made a big mess and left it for me. I had to mop the floor.”

She handed Helen back the photo. The cleaning woman was about thirty-five, an anonymous servant like Helen. She bet there was another reason this woman remembered Francis. “Did he make a pass at you?”

The woman’s face flushed with anger and shame. “He touched my—” She couldn’t continue, she was so upset. “I am a respectable married woman. I will not forget him.”

A break at last. “Could I have your name?” Helen said.

The woman backed away. Her English deteriorated as her fear grew. “No, please. I no talk to you about this. Make trouble for me.” She pushed her cart before her like a shield and hurried down the hall. Helen didn’t follow. She had what she needed. The police could track down the woman if they had to.

Helen called Willoughby collect from a pay phone at the mall. Barkley’s owner was desperate enough to take Helen’s call and ecstatic when she heard the news. “I knew Francis didn’t have an alibi,” Willoughby said. Helen could almost see her blond curls bobbing emphatically. “I’ll call that Detective Brogers. We’ll have my dog back in time for the shoot.”

For the first time Helen felt a surge of hope. Barkley would be found. The lawsuit would disappear and so would her troubles.

She braced herself for the walk to the bus stop. The sky was black and moonless. The night was alive with wind-borne debris. Helen’s bus pulled up as she arrived, her second lucky break. All the way home she felt a surge of excitement that she tried to push away. She had to ignore the feeling. It was too soon to celebrate. That wasn’t the right word to describe her situation. There was still the Tammie horror. But half her burden had been lifted. She felt lighter.

Even the perpetual pounding of hammers as she walked home from the bus stop didn’t ruin her good mood. At the Coronado, the dancing palm tree was jigging in wild circles. Magically, there was no wind by the pool itself. Margery and Peggy were stretched out on adjoining chaise longues, drinking white wine and eating pretzels. Pete moved restlessly up and down the back of Peggy’s chair, like a soldier on perimeter patrol.

“You look like you’ve got good news,” Margery said. She sat up and poured Helen a big glass of wine. Helen wished she could wear purple clam diggers like Margery. On tall people like Helen, those pants looked like she couldn’t find anything long enough.

“Did you find the missing dog?” Margery asked.

“I’ve got a lead,” Helen said. “The husband was lying about his alibi. A cleaning woman saw him digging in a trash can.” She told Margery and Peggy the story.

“I hope that woman’s still there if the police want to question her,” Margery said.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Helen said.

“Green card,” Peggy said.

“Awk!” Pete said. Those were scary words in Florida.

“She might not have one,” Peggy said. “Or she could have a fake card that won’t stand a close look. What nationality was she?”

“I’m not sure,” Helen said. “I don’t think she was Hispanic. She might have been Eastern European. She was short with dead-black hair and dark eyes.”

“Did you get her name?” Margery said.

Helen shook her head. She didn’t get anything. She could feel her hope leaking away.

“It sounds like she was telling the truth,” Margery said. “That’s what you should be doing. Have you told the cops what happened at Tammie’s?”

Helen looked at Peggy, who was studying the pretzel bowl as if it contained the secret to world peace.

“Don’t underestimate the police, Helen,” Margery said. “They’re going to find out you were in Tammie’s house when she was dead.”

“Awk!” Pete said. Peggy’s wine sloshed in her glass, but she said nothing. She’d been in places she shouldn’t have been, too.

Margery continued her lecture, a professor in purple clam diggers. “Look how fast you learned Willoughby’s husband was lying, and you don’t even know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks a lot,” Helen said. “I got information the police never bothered to find out.”

“True. But if that cop was half-awake, he would have figured it out in five minutes. How long will it take two real homicide detectives to discover your shenanigans?”

Helen looked over at Peggy. She was feeding Pete a pretzel. Maybe his diet was discontinued for the storm.

“I wiped down everything before I left Tammie’s,” Helen said. “But so what if they find my fingerprints? I was in the house when I picked up the dog.”

“You were there too long the second time.”

“No one will know that,” Helen said.

“You went through a security gate in that pimpmobile.”

“Pupmobile,” Helen said. “The guard was asleep.”

“The security camera was wide-awake,” Margery said.

“The police are too busy building a case against the star groomer, Jonathon.”

“Are you sure?” Margery said. “Maybe the cops are building a case against you.”

“Me?” Helen’s voice came out a croak.

“Maybe they think you’re an accomplice. Look at it from their viewpoint. You work with Jonathon. Tammie made a pass at you. Jeff must have seen her waving her tits at you at the store. Didn’t you complain to him that she was naked?”

“Yes, but—”

“You had a grudge and you helped kill Tammie. That’s how they’ll see it. It’s time to call in Phil, Helen. He can help you.”

“I can help myself,” Helen said.

“So far I haven’t seen you do much but flap around in circles—kind of like that palm tree out there.That reminds me—what are you doing when this hurricane hits?”

“Hiding in my closet,” Helen said. “It’s got plenty of legroom.”

“Come on over to my place,” Margery said. “My friend Elsie is staying with me, plus everyone from the Coronado: Cal the Canadian and the women in 2C, Doris and Alice. Peggy and Pete will be there, so you can bring what’s-his-name.”

“Thumbs,” Helen said. “I’d better keep my cat locked in your bedroom. He might consider Pete dinner on the wing.”

“Awwk,” Pete said. He looked more nervous than ever.

“They’ll get along fine,” Margery said. “Your cat is too lazy to eat anything that doesn’t come with a can opener. We’ll have ourselves a real old-fashioned hurricane party. I’ll make screwdrivers as long as the electricity holds out. We’ll drink, eat too much, and sit out the storm.”

“It’s a date,” Helen said. “Now I’d better head home and check on Thumbs.”

The women in 2C were out on the balcony. They waved to Helen.

“Which one is which?” she asked Margery.

“That’s Doris on the left, with the wineglass,” Margery said. “Alice is pouring.”

“And it’s wine from a bottle with a real cork,” Helen said.

Doris was a tanklike woman with practical gray hair. Alice was thin with a gray-black bob. They seemed to regard the approaching storm as their evening’s entertainment.

What a change from the last bunch in that apartment, Helen thought.

She was almost to her door when Margery came running after her, cell phone glowing in the dark. “Phil’s on the phone. He wants to talk to you.” She grinned like a purple-clad Cupid.

Helen’s fingers trembled when she took the phone. Margery melted into the wind-whipped shrubbery, leaving Helen alone with her lover.

“Helen,” he said, his voice warm with love and worry. “I’m coming back. I’m catching the next plane down there.”

Margery had told Phil she was in trouble. Her landlady couldn’t resist meddling. “Why?” Helen could only manage that one word.

“Because I love you,” Phil said. “Because you’re mixed up in something ugly.”

Margery ratted me out about Tammie’s murder, Helen thought.

“Margery told me about that dognapping at your store. It’s a custody battle. Divorces can get ugly, Helen.”

She was giddy with relief. He didn’t know. “Tell me about it,” she said.

“I can save you,” he said.

“I don’t want to be rescued,” Helen said. “I can take care of myself. Phil, please don’t come to Florida. There’s a hurricane coming. I’d feel better knowing you were safe.”

“I’d feel better with you,” he said. “What kind of life would I have without you?”

What kind of life will you have with me, when you find out how I’ve lied to you? Helen thought as she closed the phone.

H
elen felt like she was being walled up alive. Two men were nailing plywood over the Pampered Pet windows. As each sheet blacked out another slab of light, the boutique grew more claustrophobic.

The store’s lights were on, but they never quite reached into the room. Unsettling shadows slid around the back corners. Furtive movements flickered through the lower shelves. Helen thought they might be Lulu nosing around, but when she checked, the dog was at the other end of the store. The wind caused odd creaks and rattling thumps. Helen wondered what was working loose on the roof.

The storm was now eleven hours away. Helen couldn’t see the hurricane coming in, but she could hear it. The wind had developed a horror-movie howl. A lashing rain slanted sideways across the parking lot.

Dripping customers struggled to open the shop door against the screaming wind. Jeff rushed forward to keep the door from slamming against the building. No one bought cute toys. They wanted thirty-pound sacks of pet food, emergency rations against the storm.

Everyone discussed the hurricane.

“It’s supposed to hit us directly,” a husky man said, as he hoisted sixty pounds of chow on his shoulders. He looked like he could stand up to any category windstorm.

“I heard the storm may miss us and go up to Palm Beach instead,” a thin blond man with one earring said. “I’m evacuating to Weston, and my friends have a cat. I wanted to bring it something.”

He bought the wild salmon treats and headed for his refuge on the edge of the Everglades.

Rumors flew faster than wind-scattered trash. Each customer proudly brought in a new one, like a dog dragging in a smelly piece of garbage.

This was the big storm, as big as Hurricane Andrew, with one-hundred-fifty-mile-an-hour winds. Fort Lauderdale would be flattened.

The Weather Channel said it would be downgraded to a category two and go up toward Palm Beach. Heck, hundred-mile-an-hour winds were nothing.

The Internet said it was a category three and would land at Port Saint Lucie. A hundred-thirty-mile-an-hour winds? If you didn’t live in a mobile home, you were OK.

No, wait, the radio said it would hit at Melbourne and it would be—

Nobody knew anything for sure, except they were restless, fretful, and plagued with odd impulses to stock up on strawberry Pop-Tarts and peanut butter, bleach, and bottled water.

No matter how scary the storm rumors grew, people still brought in their dogs for grooming. A standing appointment with Jonathon was sacred, come wind or high water.

Jonathon groomed the dogs alone in his room, his golden mane gleaming. He looked splendid enough for a Las Vegas stage. Elvis would have envied his rhinestone-studded orange disco suit, but the king of the Lauderdale groomers lacked the last ounce of star glow. Jonathon seemed remote and worried. Helen couldn’t tell if he was brooding on the impending hurricane or his possible arrest. He was trimming the ears on a fat chocolate poodle, and didn’t look up when Helen entered the grooming salon. The dog was perfectly still and absolutely trusting. Helen didn’t disturb him during the delicate operation.