Just Murdered

Chapter 14

Millicent was saved. Helen was not.

Her job was safe, but how long would she have it if the cops arrested her for murder? Helen felt a sick, twisty feeling. She’d been inside a women’s prison, all cinder block and steel. She’d talked to her best friend through a Plexiglas partition. Helen couldn’t bring her flowers, chocolate, or comfort. She’d watched her wither away in jail.

I have to get help, Helen thought. I can’t do this by myself. I’m too scared to think straight. Peggy was at work. Margery was wrapped up in Warren. And Phil. She didn’t want to think who Phil was wrapped up in. Helen sneaked back to the shop’s office and called the one friend who helped her see problems clearly.

“Helen!” Sarah said. “What’s happening?” She sounded cheerful, but then she had a home office overlooking the beach.

“Lots of things,” Helen said. “None of them good.”

“Then we need to meet,” Sarah said. “When can you do lunch?”

“Tomorrow is my day off.” Helen said those words with satisfaction. A few hours ago, she’d been facing a permanent unpaid vacation.

“Wear black,” Sarah said. “We’re going to South Beach.”

“I’ve never seen you in anything but bright colors,” Helen said.

“I don’t want to be mistaken for a beach ball.”

Sarah was a woman of size. Helen couldn’t imagine her any other way. She had a Kewpie-doll face and energetic brown curls. She also had a shrewd money sense. Sarah had made a fortune in Krispy Kreme doughnuts and adult diaper stock.

That was why she picked up Helen the next afternoon in a green Range Rover. Helen settled into the luxurious leather seats with an appreciative sigh. The bridal-shop van had all the comfort of a welfare office.

As Helen’s guts knotted into a rope, she tried to pretend she was going to South Beach on a sunny day. She soon ran out of chitchat. The traffic was the only subject left.

“Is this a street or a parking lot?” Helen said, as they crawled along Ocean Drive. “We’ve gone one block in the last five minutes.”

“It’s South Beach in the season,” Sarah said. Suddenly she swung into a side street and pulled the SUV sharply to the curb.

Helen gripped the armrest to keep from sliding sideways. “What happened?”

“A miracle,” Sarah said. “I’ve found a parking space near the restaurant.”

“Where are we going?” Helen said.

“To the closest thing South Beach has to a shrine: The News Cafe.”

Inside were tables, a newsstand, and a bookstore that catered to the crowd who read Thoreau for fun. Outside was a sidewalk cafe with a breathtaking view of the beach beauties. Thongs and Thoreau were an unbeatable combination.

Sarah and Helen felt doubly lucky when they spotted an empty table outside under a green umbrella.

“Is this where Versace went before he was gunned down?” Helen said.

“Such a shame,” Sarah said. “It wasn’t fair to him or the restaurant.”

Helen wondered if Versace had once warmed her seat. It was the closest she’d ever get to his clothes.

She was dining with the rich and beautiful. The air seemed to glow with money. Then the wind shifted. The money glow was replaced with something rank and powerful, like a high-school gym on a hot day: unbridled body odor.

They were downwind from four exquisitely dressed strangers. Their stink was a noxious cloud.

“Who are those people?” Helen said. “They’re wearing couture, but they don’t have two bucks for deodorant.”

“Eurotrash,” Sarah said. “A South Beach hazard. They infest all the restaurants. They think deodorant is for the masses.”

“So is breathing,” Helen said. “I see why our table was open.”

“The good news is, they’re leaving,” Sarah said.

The four striking, smelly strangers rose. Their BO got up and went with them. Their table was quickly cleaned, and the Eurotrash were replaced by a very young woman and a very old man. His yellowish skin was so scored with wrinkles it looked like it had been cut with a razor. His eyes were flat and dead.

Now Helen thought she smelled sulfur.

The young woman had an angelic face and a burning desire for corruption. She almost thrust her high white bosom into his trembling old hands.

“Whatever he has, she wants it bad,” Helen said.

“You don’t want to know,” Sarah said. “This is South Beach. We can watch the show or we can talk. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? You’ve worked hard to avoid the subject.”

Helen’s insides were tied so tight, she could hardly talk. “I’m mixed up in a murder, Sarah, and I’m scared.”

There. She said it.

A waiter with a chiseled chin arrived, giving Helen a brief reprieve while they ordered lunch. Helen wondered if he was an actor, a model, or just another beautiful waiter. Everyone seemed to be seriously thin and glamorous. Helen felt fat and frumpy. She ordered the fruit plate as penance. Sarah wanted the Caesar salad with fried calamari. Helen wished she had her friend’s culinary courage.

After the waiter brought their food, Helen began the story of Kiki’s murder. Sarah started dismantling her salad with gusto. But as Helen talked, her friend’s appetite waned. By the time Helen got to the DNA demand, Sarah abandoned her fork.

Helen knew it was serious if her friend wasn’t eating. “You need a lawyer, Helen,” Sarah said.

“A lawyer will run up bills I can’t pay and tell me not to talk. If the cops arrest me, I’ll be stuck in jail.” Helen shuddered as she pictured herself in a prison jumpsuit on the other side of the Plexiglas.

“Then you need to solve the murder,” Sarah said.

Helen could feel her guts rotating into new knots. “How?” she said. “I don’t have the police resources. I don’t have their forensic knowledge. I can’t make people talk to me. I don’t know anything.”

“Sure you do. You know the time of death, right?” Sarah said.

“Well, I overheard the cops talking. They guessed Kiki had been dead about twelve hours. I saw that she’d been smothered. The police mentioned petechiae. You should have seen her face. It was like . . .”

Sarah turned as green as her salad. “I don’t need to know that,” she said quickly. “But you’re wrong, Helen. You already know two important things: the time and the cause of death. Do you think a man or a woman killed her?”

Helen saw Kiki’s doll-like corpse again. It had seemed so small. “The killer could have been a woman. Kiki weighed about a hundred pounds. A strong female could have thrown her facedown and smothered her. A big man could have done it easily.”

Helen thought she hadn’t eaten anything, but her plate was empty. How did that happen? “It’s the cut nails that got me,” Helen said. “They were a mutilation.”

“Kiki must have scratched her killer,” Sarah said. “Why else were her nails clipped? The police photographed your scratch, right? Did anyone else in the wedding party have scratches on their arms or neck?”

“Desiree had a long scratch on her arm,” Helen said. “She said the cook’s cat did it. Her father had some nasty scratches, too.”

“That cat gets around,” Sarah said.

“It’s odd,” Helen said. “Desiree doesn’t live with her father.”

“Maybe you need to look into that,” Sarah said.

Helen’s guts unkinked a notch. Perhaps this wasn’t hopeless after all. “Someone else had a scratch,” she said. “I remember hearing about it, but I can’t remember where.”

“It will come to you,” Sarah said confidently, as she speared a chunk of calamari. She was eating with enthusiasm again. “Here’s something else: Who locked the church after the rehearsal and who opened the doors in the morning?”

“Good question,” Helen said. “Kiki locked up after the rehearsal, but I heard her make a date to meet Jason in the church after the rehearsal dinner. She said churches made her hot.”

“Nice lady,” Sarah said.

“I don’t know who opened the church. Jeff, the wedding planner, would. He was there when I arrived the morning of the wedding, directing a flock of florists.”

There were swarms of people involved in this wedding: hairstylists, makeup artists, caterers, and guests. There must have been four hundred guests. Just the wedding party alone was huge. Sixteen attendants preceded the bride and groom to the altar. How many of those people hated Kiki?

The gut twisting started again. “What’s the use?” Helen said. “It’s too much for one person. I don’t have anything.”

Sarah pointed her fork at Helen. A crispy circle of calamari hung on the end. “You have one major advantage. You knew Kiki intimately. You heard her fight with her daughter, her ex, and other people the police may not know about. You have insights into her character they don’t. The police have to find that out secondhand.”

“True,” Helen said. “I even saw her naked. Do you know she had her pubic hair waxed into a dollar sign? What do you think that says?”

“Sex and money. It’s a dangerous combination. But that’s what I mean. You knew the victim alive. The police only saw her dead.”

“Victim,” Helen said. “That’s a funny word for Kiki. Tormentor would be more like it.”

“Would anyone she’d tormented want to kill her?”

“Everyone,” Helen said. Her guts twirled like a forkful of spaghetti. But Sarah wasn’t going to let her slide back into despair.

“So there is no shortage of suspects. Tell me the main ones,” Sarah said.

“The bride, the groom, the father of the bride, the best man.”

“Killer wedding party,” Sarah said.

“I’m not finished. There’s the chauffeur. And maybe Jason, the groomsman she was chasing at the rehearsal dinner. But why are we even making this list? I can’t interview them. Do you really think Desiree will talk with me?”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “You bonded with her. You were her surrogate mother on her wedding day.”

“What about her father, the lawyer?”

“Well, no, I don’t think you can talk to him.” Sarah chewed some lettuce thoughtfully, then said, “I doubt if the police can, either. But I bet you could worm your way into his office for some background.”

“How? I don’t know anybody important.”

“That’s your strength, Helen. You’re a clerk, one of the invisible people who do the work. You can talk to his office staff. They’ll know more about him than anyone, including his wife.”

“How do I see the others? I can’t call up Chauncey. He’s a big local theater director.”

“Theaters always need volunteers,” Sarah said.

“I have two tickets to Richard the Third tonight,” Helen said. “It’s Luke’s last performance in that play before he does his movie. I can start there. Then I can call the theater and say I was impressed by the production and want to help. Would you like to go with me to the show?”

“Sorry, can’t make it tonight. What about Phil?”

“He’s dumped me for his ex.”

“He hasn’t dumped you. And you haven’t dumped him. You’re waiting for him to come to his senses. When does his ex leave town?”

“Margery said her run’s been extended another week.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good. You need to work on this,” Sarah said briskly. She polished off the last of her calamari. “I think you’re on to something with that rose dress. Why would Kiki be wearing it? She was saving it for the reception. It was for her grand entrance, right?”

“Yep. It was way over the top for a mother of the bride, but she wanted to be a star at her daughter’s wedding.”

“So why was she wearing the rose dress when she died?” Sarah said.

Helen saw what Sarah was getting at. “Kiki wanted to impress someone with her fabulous gown. It had to be a man. A woman would be turned off by a sexy dress. It wasn’t her chauffeur. Why would Kiki need to impress an employee?”

“So she wore it for a man, possibly a young one,” Sarah said. “But would a young man be impressed? You said Kiki looked like an aging movie actress around the bridesmaids. She was no match for their youth and beauty.”

“But she had one thing they didn’t,” Helen said. “Money.”

“Which young men needed money the most?”

“The chauffeur, but we’ve ruled him out,” Helen said. “Luke could get money from his wife. That leaves another actor—the handsome twit Jason. He’s in the production, too. Guess I’m a theater volunteer.”

“Unless . . .” Sarah said thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Unless Kiki wore the dress to get her ex back. Brendan might be impressed with a glamorous older woman.”

“Her ex-husband?” Helen said. “No way. He has a new trophy wife.”

“Maybe the young wife has worn him out. Young wives can be high maintenance. They need lots of money, attention, and time in the bedroom. Besides, if Brendan married Kiki again he wouldn’t have to worry about money.”

“But they fought the night before she died,” Helen said. “I heard them.”

“That fight sounds like jealousy to me, and where there’s jealousy, there’s still love. Brendan didn’t want Kiki throwing herself at some young stud.”

“I can see the advantages for him,” Helen said. “But why would Kiki want to go back with Brendan? What could he give her? She had all the money and no-strings sex she wanted. Why cater to an older man with empty pockets and a big ego?”

“Ever talk to a twenty-year-old?” Sarah said.

“I wouldn’t waste time talking to Rod,” Helen said.

“After a while, you get tired of bimbos, male or female,” Sarah said. “Chasing young studs was making Kiki look silly, and society’s opinion was important to her. Maybe she wanted to settle down and quit being a scandal. She made a play for Jason at the rehearsal dinner, but she did it to make Brendan jealous. Her ex was her real target. If she remarried Brendan, she’d get a smart, respected man and a presentable escort.”

“Do you think Brendan killed her out of jealousy?”

“That’s one possibility,” Sarah said. “Or maybe she made a promise to a younger man that she couldn’t keep if she went back with Brendan.”

“Interesting,” Helen said. “But there’s something else that bothers me. My boss, Millicent. She got in a fight with Kiki over money. She made me go to the funeral. And there’s that weird ad in the City Times. The person who placed it looked like Millicent. But it could have been an actor impersonating her.”

“All it would take was a white wig and red nails,” Sarah said.

“Maybe I should get a better description of the buyer,” Helen said.

“Sounds like you have a plan,” Sarah said.

“Would you like dessert?” The beautiful waiter was back with more temptation.

“A cappuccino,” Helen said.

“Chocolate mousse cake with a scoop of vanilla on the side,” Sarah said.

“Ice cream and chocolate mousse?” Helen said.

“Kiki died thin,” Sarah said. “Look where dieting got her.”

“I’ll take the cheesecake,” Helen said. “Hold the ice cream.” Sarah was the only person who made her feel virtuous when she pigged out.

Their conversation had been so intense that Helen had lost track of where she was. Now she saw the South Beach scene again. The old man and the young woman were gone. Sitting at their table was a quiet man carrying a long leather case with a triangular bottom.

The hair went up on the back of Helen’s neck. “What do you think he has in that case? A shotgun?”

“It’s too narrow for a shotgun,” Sarah said. “How about a pool cue and two balls?”

“It’s not wide enough for pool balls. If this was my neighborhood, I’d say he was a shuffleboard hustler. They use a long, forked stick. Maybe the waiter knows.”

The waiter was carrying Helen’s foaming cappuccino and two wicked pieces of cake.

“Pssst,” Helen said. “What’s that man got in that case?”

“His broom,” the waiter said. “He had the case custom-made.”

There was nothing more to say.