Just Murdered

Chapter 25

“Luke is taking the housekeeper home,” Desiree said when she opened her front door.

Helen froze. Was she alone here with Desiree? Surely not. A place this big had to be infested with servants. But the mansion was silent as a midnight grave. The bride wore a black dress that could have passed as a nun’s habit if it had a cross. Her flat shoes belonged on a woman of sixty. There were no makeup circles under her eyes tonight.

Desiree lived in a 1920s pink stucco palace a few blocks and several light years from the Coronado. It was done in the Early Funeral Parlor style favored by Florida’s old money. The gloomy entrance hall was dominated by a vast marble-topped table and a weeping fern in a black urn. The hall opened onto even larger rooms. Helen expected brass signs to announce “Wescott viewing, Parlor A.”

“It’s a lovely evening. I thought we could have tea in the garden. Unless you’d rather have cocktails.” Desiree seemed suddenly concerned about a salesclerk’s needs. At her wedding, the bride wouldn’t let Helen have a cup of coffee. Instead, she threw it on her crystal dress.

“I’d like that very much,” Helen said fervently. It would be easier to escape if she was outside. “Tea is fine.”

Helen didn’t plan to drink anything, including the tea. She didn’t trust anything Desiree would serve.

She followed Desiree across several acres of carpet and through the French doors. Tea, iced and hot, crust-less sandwiches, and tiny cookies waited on a glass-topped table. The garden was a dreary expanse of dark green bushes clipped into fantastic animals and wrought-iron flamingos. Helen guessed the rich didn’t buy pink plastic flamingos, but they would have brightened up the yard.

While Desiree busied herself with the tea things, Helen reached into her bag and flicked on the tape recorder.

“How are you feeling?” Helen said.

Desiree’s eyes teared. Helen suspected that no one had asked her that question, not even Luke.

“The funeral was a nightmare,” Desiree said, handing Helen a nearly transparent cup painted with yellow flowers. “I don’t remember most of it. The worst part was finding something for Mother to wear. I had to choose her clothes for all eternity.”

Desiree paused at this solemn thought, then put six sugary cookies on her plate. “I finally decided on the pink dress she wore when we shopped for my wedding gown. It had so many memories.”

All of them bad. “That day was unforgettable,” Helen said truthfully. She wondered if Kiki was buried with or without her underwear.

“I really wanted to bury her in the rose dress,” Desiree said. The cookies had disappeared, with only a powder-sugar trail marking their place on the plate. She helped herself to six more. Helen ate nothing, but Desiree didn’t seem to notice.

“The dress she died in?” That was creepy.

“She loved it so,” Desiree said. “But the police wouldn’t release it. They said it was part of the ongoing investigation. Luke said I couldn’t do it, anyway. He said you couldn’t close the casket on that hoop—if you squash it down, it pops back up.”

“He’s probably right,” Helen said.

“Do you know who killed my mother?” Desiree reached for more cookies.

“I have my suspicions,” Helen said, “but I wanted to talk with you first, to clear some things up. I heard your mother also fought with Luke.”

“They had a disagreement. It wasn’t serious.” Desiree studied her teacup. She wouldn’t look at Helen.

Helen’s next words were cruel, but she had to say them. “Luke said he wouldn’t marry you if your mother didn’t let him act in that movie.”

“He didn’t mean it!” Desiree said. “She makes people say terrible things.”

Makes. Kiki still lived in her daughter’s head.

“Luke loves me. He could have had richer and prettier women, but Luke married me. He’s so beautiful. You don’t know what it’s like to be plain and to love pretty things. I like to look at him. Even his feet are pretty.” Desiree’s thin lips were trembling. The drab skin underneath folded oddly into her neck.

“Oh, Desiree,” Helen said. “He’s not a statue.”

“But he is a work of art. He’s also an artist. And he’s mine.” Her eyes glittered with greed. Helen knew then that Desiree would kill to possess the man she wanted. She would murder her mother to make Luke happy. Once Kiki was dead, Luke could have his career.

Desiree started flinging accusations wildly. “I think that chauffeur, Rod Somebody, killed Mother. He thought she’d left him a million dollars, but she didn’t. Or it could be Jason. Mother laughed at him when he couldn’t, you know . . . perform. You remember the famous Sex on the Beach case, where that guy strangled his girlfriend because she laughed at him when he couldn’t do it?”

“That’s two suspects,” Helen said. “Which one is it—Rod or Jason?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. She’s dead. Nothing will bring her back.”

At least you hope so, Helen thought. She wanted to see how far she could push the bride.

“Desiree, I don’t know how to say this, but what if Luke killed her?”

“He didn’t!” the bride said. “It had to be the other two. I know Luke didn’t do it. I know for a fact!”

Because you did it, Helen thought. But she pushed a little harder. “If anything happens to you, Luke would be a very rich widower.”

“I’m not like my mother,” Desiree said. “I won’t stand in his way. I’ll give him everything. What else could he want?”

Helen looked at the chinless little face, the drooping hair, the muddy skin. She thought how Desiree clung to her husband and how he pried her fingers off his arm. She’d killed for that man, but he couldn’t stand her touching him.

“His freedom,” Helen said. She heard the crunch of gravel and thought Luke might have returned. It was time for her to go.

“I don’t like you.” The handle of Desiree’s teacup snapped in two. “You better watch what you say.”

“I’ll be very careful,” Helen said. “Starting with this statement: I know there’s a murderer in this house. I have the evidence. I will ruin the killer.”

“I don’t believe you. But if you really have the evidence, you can show it to me now,” Desiree said. “I’ll pay good money for it—more than you’d make in a year.”

Triumph leaped through Helen like an electric charge. Gotcha! “You’ve proved my statement,” Helen said. “I think I’d rather show it to the police.”

“Say one word, and I’ll sue you for slander,” Desiree said.

“That’s the advantage of being broke,” Helen said. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

Her bluff worked. Desiree was the killer. Helen knew it. Why else would she try to buy Helen’s evidence? She patted the cassette recorder. She thought that tape would make the police detectives start asking the right questions.

As she headed home with quick, sure strides, something nagged at her. She couldn’t quite get at it. What was it that Desiree had said?

Maybe the little bride was protecting someone besides her husband. Her father, perhaps, driven to the brink of bankruptcy by Kiki’s wild spending.

Helen did not believe Kiki’s murder was premeditated. She probably said something cruel and her killer exploded in rage, reaching for the wedding dress and pressing it down on her face to shut her up. Then the killer shoved her body in a closet.

Fast, quick, and deadly.

But who did it?

Jason, with his monstrous actor’s ego, believed Kiki should help him because she was rich and he was pretty. She’d turned him down and laughed at him. But Desiree wouldn’t protect him. Unless he was blackmailing her. Maybe that was the evidence that Desiree wanted to buy.

Her father? He was trying to stick his own daughter with her wedding expenses. Desiree wouldn’t pay more money to save him.

No, it didn’t make sense. Desiree was the logical candidate for Kiki’s killer. She had endured a lifetime of her mother’s barbs until she finally cracked. She would convince herself she killed her mother to save her husband’s career, but she really did it for her own sanity.

What was it Desiree had said? Helen could feel it flitting through her mind. Desiree had been talking about her mother and Jason. “Mother laughed at him when he couldn’t, you know . . . perform. You remember the famous Sex on the Beach case, where that guy strangled his girlfriend because she laughed at him when he couldn’t do it?”

Jason and Kiki had been embarrassingly amorous at the church. Kiki had dragged him back there for kinky sex. She’d put on the rose dress and he’d been turned off.

So how did Desiree know her mother had laughed at Jason?

Because she went back to the church after the rehearsal dinner.

Helen stopped dead on the sidewalk, and a man behind her nearly walked up her back. “Hey, lady, put on your brake lights if you’re going to stop like that,” he said.

Helen ignored him.

Rod. She had to find Rod. The chauffeur would know. Helen was six blocks from the Blue Note. She turned in that direction, long legs eating up the sidewalk.

The Blue Note still looked the same. It would always look the same. A guy was sitting at the bar, drinking away his sorrows. Tonight it wasn’t Rod.

Helen put a twenty on the bar. “I need to find the chauffeur Rod. It’s important.”

The balding bartender took the money and looked at the clock. “If you can wait until nine thirty or so, he may stop by, but I can’t guarantee it.”

Helen ordered a beer. Twenty minutes later, a yellow stretch Hummer pulled up in front of the Blue Note. A uniformed chauffeur got out. It was Rod, a trimmer, happier Rod. He seemed delighted to see Helen. Rod sat down next to her and ordered a club soda and a burger with no fries and no onions.

“I’m working for a limo rental place,” Rod said. “I drive this hummer of a Hummer. Lotta parties. The folks who rent this baby make sure everybody’s happy, especially the chauffeur. They tip big-time. I take them to the clubs on South Beach. I usually stop here for a sandwich before work.” Rod didn’t mention his acting ambitions. He liked the role of South Beach chauffeur.

“Listen, Rod, I have to ask you a question,” Helen said. “I saw you right after Kiki’s will was read. You weren’t feeling too good.”

“Are you kidding? I was wasted.”

“That, too,” Helen said. “You said something I wondered about: ‘She’s an evil little woman. Looking all sad and talking all soft. Had me thinking about crazy stuff I never would have considered. Almost did it, too.’ Were you talking about Kiki?”

“Heck, no,” Rod said. “I was talking about Desiree. She’s one scary woman. Used to sit in that Rolls when her mother wasn’t around and work on me. She’d say, ‘Mother is worth thirty million and you’re making what?’

“She’d stop and give me time to think about it. Then she’d start up again: ‘You’re in the will, you know. But not for long. She’s trying out new chauffeurs on your day off.’

“She had this soft, sad little voice. It was like having a bad angel whispering in my ear. She looked so pathetic, I felt sorry for her. Desiree got me in such a state I actually thought about killing Kiki, until I came to my senses. You probably think I’m crazy.”

“No,” Helen said. “I saw Desiree at work. At the bridal shop, Kiki rejected Chauncey’s desperate plea for money for his theater. She humiliated him in front of everyone. Desiree slithered in and said the only way he could get his money was to kill her mother.”

“She tried to get poor old Chauncey?” Rod said. “He’d never hurt anyone. He just wanted to save his theater.”

“She worked on me, too,” Helen said. “She had me convinced Millicent killed Kiki. When I finally figured out my boss was innocent, I felt like I’d recovered from a fever.”

Rod’s burger arrived. The bartender set it on the counter with a napkin and ketchup. Rod ordered another club soda.

“That’s it,” Rod said. “That’s what it was like for me, too. I told you I admired Kiki. I may have been in love with her, or maybe it was just her money. But I never thought of killing her until Desiree started working on me.”

“Could she manipulate her mother?” Helen said.

“She could play head games with the devil himself. Kiki was mean, but it was all on the surface. Desiree is sly. She keeps her malice hidden.”

“Desiree went back to the church after the rehearsal dinner, didn’t she?” Helen said.

“She did. I brought her. Jason was there with Kiki when we arrived. The lights were on in the bride’s dressing room. Jason came down the stairs with his fly unzipped and his shirt unbuttoned. One look at his face and you could figure out what happened—or didn’t happen.

“Desiree saw it right away. She did a number on Jason, telling him if he was a real man, he’d stand up to her mother. Jason is eye candy. He’s not big on brains. He wants a theatrical career, but he doesn’t want to work for it. That’s why he let Kiki paw him in the first place. I tried to talk Jason into leaving, but he wouldn’t listen.

“When Jason wouldn’t budge, I tried to get Desiree to go with me. She said she wanted to ride with Jason. I made one last effort to get him out of there. He insisted on staying. He said he wanted to salvage the situation. I knew it was hopeless. I left them both. Kiki was still upstairs.

“I’ve felt guilty ever since. If I’d persuaded Jason or Desiree to leave with me, would Kiki still be alive?” He paused, waiting for something. Helen realized Rod wanted her to absolve him.

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “Did you tell the police this?”

“No. I didn’t have any proof. Besides, someone else could have shown up later. The cops may catch whoever smothered Kiki, but they’ll never nail the real killer—Desiree.”

Rod drained his club soda and left some bills on the bar.

“Funny thing,” he said. “Desiree is about as sexy as my granny’s underwear, but she lives up to her name. She’s a real temptress.”