Just Murdered

Chapter 27

“Helen, you’re safe.”

Phil’s voice was a caress. Helen’s eyes teared at his tenderness.

Phil knelt down to pull her out of the pool, a semi-naked knight at her service. Helen took his strong hands and remembered how they felt on her bare skin.

Then she thought of them unhooking Kendra’s red lace bra.

“You idiot,” Helen said as he pulled her up onto the concrete.

“What?” Phil’s eyes widened in surprise, and he let go of her. Helen fell back in the pool with a seismic splash, drenching everyone.

“What the hell was that for?” Margery said. Her gray hair hung in wet hanks, but she kept her gun trained on Luke’s fake foam chest. He didn’t move.

“What are you doing?” a dripping Peggy said. She looked like the winner of a wet T-shirt contest.

Helen could handle a murderer, but a lover was another matter. A woman had only so much courage each day. This time, she climbed out of the pool on her own, using the ladder.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she said to Phil, who looked stunned.

“I think she’s light-headed,” Margery said. “Helen, you’re bleeding. We’ll get you help.”

Blood trickled down Helen’s arm and dribbled on her feet. Blood smeared her chest. Blood streaked her face like savage paint. Blood was pulsing off the Coronado walls and pool. Helen finally figured out that red was the police lights. The pool seemed to be swimming in red.

Helen started to sway.

“She needs an ambulance,” Phil said.

“Then call one and get some clean towels,” Margery said. She kept her gun trained on Luke.

Helen felt woozy when she looked at the pulsing bloodred pool. There was something black on the bottom. She looked closer. It was her purse. Inside was the tape recorder. Her conversation with Desiree was drowned in nine feet of water. Helen felt the world go black as she tumbled toward the concrete.

Phil was holding her bandaged hand. If this was a dream, it was a good one. He was so handsome. His eyes were electric blue. His naked chest was lean and lightly tanned. Even his crooked nose was cute.

She felt a draft at her back and knew she was wearing one of those stupid hospital gowns. They belonged in nightmares. This was real.

“Hi, there,” Phil said. “You’re in the emergency room. They’ve stitched you up. You’re going to be fine.”

His chest was smeared with blood.

“Are you okay?” she said. “How did you get hurt?”

“That’s your blood. I caught you when you passed out.”

Then Helen remembered everything—the conversation with Desiree, the fight with Luke, and Kendra’s red bra.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Suddenly you look angry.”

Helen had learned one lesson after all her work: Things were not what they seemed. Jason was crazy, but he wasn’t a killer. The old woman by the pool was a man.

Helen thought the woman she heard making love in Phil’s bed was Kendra. But was the man Phil? Helen assumed it was. But so many of her other assumptions had been wrong.

“I want you to answer me, and I want an honest answer, no matter what the consequences,” she said. If Phil had been with Kendra, so be it. Margery had survived Warren. She would get over Phil.

“I promise,” Phil said solemnly.

“When I came home tonight, I heard a woman in your bedroom. Was that Kendra?”

“Yes,” Phil said.

Helen’s heart beat wildly. Now she had to ask the second question: “Was the man you?”

“No,” Phil said.

Helen studied his face for signs of lying. Her ex would get shifty eyed and sound extra sincere when he lied. Phil looked her straight in the eye.

“Do you believe me?” he said.

A great stillness descended between them. Helen thought the rest of her life depended on her answer.

“Yes. I do,” she said.

“Good,” Phil said. She realized he’d been holding his breath as well as her hand.

“Here’s what happened,” he said. “I came home tonight and found Kendra in my bed with another man. I’d made a deal with her: She couldn’t drag any more men back to my apartment. The last one stole my Clap-ton collection. I didn’t care what she did, but not at my place.

“Kendra said this character was a big-time producer who could help her career. Some help. He couldn’t even afford a motel room. I told her to pack up.”

“She’s gone?” Helen said.

Margery barged into the room, a whirl of wet purple. “I heard the whole thing,” she said. “At least the scene on the sidewalk. He threw out Kendra along with her rhinestone cowboy. Phil even loaded her suitcases into a cab. She’s out of there.”

“Oh, Phil.” Helen threw herself at Phil and began kissing him wildly. He didn’t care that she was covered in bandages. He kissed her right back. His lips were soft and warm. His face was pleasantly scratchy. It felt good to hold him again.

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” she said

“No, I’ve missed you,” Phil said.

Helen could feel exactly how much he missed her.

Margery’s hand clamped on her shoulder. “I don’t want to be a killjoy, but the cops want to talk to you. Now. They’re on their way in. Are you ready for that?”

Helen nodded.

“Good. I’ll tell them. And Helen, I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses.”

Margery winked at her.

The evening after the swimming pool attack, Helen sat on a chaise longue at the Coronado. All traces of the bloody battle were gone. The concrete had been bleached white. The pool was a peaceful oasis. Helen’s hand, arms, and chest were plastered with bandages. Her stitches itched, but she didn’t care. Phil held her good hand. She floated on clouds of love and painkillers.

Margery and Peggy were drinking white wine out of a new box. Pete the parrot celebrated with a fat cashew. Phil munched more cashews and drank a beer.

“Can I get you anything?” Phil asked her.

“I have everything,” Helen said.

Margery rolled her eyes. She looked festive in ruffled shorts and flip-flops trimmed with purple daisies. Except if they were purple, weren’t they asters? The question was too difficult for Helen in her current state.

Margery did not want to sit and enjoy the sunset. She had unfinished business. “This morning, I found this on my doorstep.”

Margery held a ripped-up paper. It looked like a legal document.

“It’s Elsie’s dance-lesson contract. She’s out two thousand dollars, but that’s a stupidity fee. The rest of the contract is canceled.”

The party applauded.

“When did that happen?” Helen said.

“I found the door to apartment 2C wide open at six this morning. All those cops running around last night must have scared Warren, and he skipped. He took my bath towels, but the TV and the furniture are OK. I’ll rent that apartment quickly during the season. Besides, I still have his toupee.” Margery held it up, grinning like a crazed scalper.

“Awwwk!” Pete flapped his wings and paced Peggy’s shoulder.

“Put that thing away,” Helen said. “Pete hates it as much as I do.”

When Pete settled down, Peggy said, “Helen, you have to give us the gory details. You’ve kept us waiting long enough. You slept all day.”

Margery snorted and blew out more smoke than a city bus.

Helen blushed. She’d been in bed, but she hadn’t been sleeping. She was amazed what she and Phil could do despite her seventy-six stitches.

“I got some of this from the police,” Helen said. “The rest I overheard in the emergency room. It was a circus last night. Luke needed a tetanus shot and stitches for his hand. I bit him pretty hard. I also scratched his eyelid.”

“Good,” Margery said. The cigarette smoke gave that one word a hellish emphasis.

“The police let Luke call his wife,” Helen said. “Desiree called her daddy. Luke tried to explain everything to Desiree. He thought he could throw himself on her mercy.”

“I’d rather throw myself on a cactus bed,” Margery said.

“Don’t the police usually keep suspects separate?” Phil said.

“Luke asked for his lawyer, who was also his father-in-law,” Helen said. “Brendan brought Desiree with him as his associate. I don’t think the beat cops recognized her. Desiree’s been all over the papers, but she gets overlooked.”

Peggy and Pete were getting impatient. “Are you going to tell us what happened or not?” Peggy said.

“Awwwk!” Pete said. Phil fed him another cashew.

“Luke told them everything,” Helen said. “I heard him. I was in the next ER cubicle. The murder was simple. After the rehearsal dinner, Luke went to the church to talk to Kiki. He had to be in that movie and he had to marry Desiree. He needed her money to finance his career, although he didn’t say that to his wife. Luke was sure if he told Kiki how important the movie role was for his career, she would change her mind.”

Margery took another drag on her cigarette. “The poor dumb bastard,” she said. “Kiki would stop him from taking that role because it meant so much to him.”

“How did you know?” Helen said.

“I’ve been around,” Margery said. Helen was afraid to ask where.

“When Luke got to the church, Jason and Desiree had already left. Kiki was upstairs. She was wearing the rose dress and she couldn’t get out of it. Kiki was about to call her chauffeur to come back, when Luke walked in.

“ ‘Good, you can help me out of this dress,’ she said. Kiki was standing in front of the open closet with the cobweb wedding dress.

“ ‘Only if you let me be a movie star.’ Luke said it as a joke, but he was dead serious.

“So was Kiki. ‘Never,’ she said. ‘I won’t have my son-in-law playing a retard. If you want to live on my daughter’s money, you have to make some sacrifice. It’s hard work being a kept man.’ ”

“Awwwk!” Pete said.

“This is a sensitive subject. I keep him in cashews,” Peggy said, smoothing his ruffled feathers.

“Then Kiki grabbed Luke you-know-where and said, ‘Maybe if you try hard enough, I could change my mind.’ ”

“What a witch,” Phil said. “She really propositioned her son-in-law on the eve of his wedding?”

“It gets nastier,” Helen said. “Kiki pulled out her daughter’s favorite wedding dress. ‘I can’t believe she wants to wear this thing,’ she said. ‘She thinks she looks good in it. But then she thinks you love her. And you think you’re going to act. Well, start acting now, big boy. If you’re good enough, you may fuck your way into the movies. This is your audition.

“ ‘And if you say anything to my daughter, I’ll say you came after me.’ ”

“Luke went crazy,” Helen said. “He was going to be a sex slave to the mother-in-law from hell. Kiki would have complete control over him. When she tired of Luke, all she had to do was tell her daughter, and he’d be out on the street. He reacted to preserve his freedom and his career.

“Luke tore the wedding dress from Kiki’s hands and threw it over her head. She thrashed and fought in the clingy, cobwebby fabric while he forced her down on the floor. Her hoop skirt tilted up toward her head. Luke pressed down with all his strength and smothered her in yards of white lace and red-black taffeta. It wasn’t difficult. Kiki was small and drunk.

“All that fabric protected Luke. Kiki fought hard, but she only left a small scratch on his hand.

“Luke knew about DNA under the nails—he had a small part in some murder mystery. He clipped Kiki’s nails with a scissors from the bride’s room. He flushed the clippings down the toilet, washed the scissors, and put them away. He bundled the body into the closet and shut the door.”

“The perfect murder,” Phil said.

“He couldn’t have done better if he’d planned it.” Helen stopped, distracted by the sight of Phil. With his silver-white hair in a ponytail, he looked like a blue-eyed brigand.

Margery cleared her throat. Helen started talking before her landlady said something snarly.

“Luke figured that closet wouldn’t be opened until after the wedding. He’d heard his bride go on and on about when all the dresses would be worn. Once he married Desiree, Kiki’s body had to be found quickly. He wanted his new wife to inherit her fortune.

“The next morning, Luke stuffed everything he’d worn at the rehearsal in a charity pickup box. He still had to explain his scraped hand, but he knew how to do that. He’d seen how the crystal gown had scratched me. Luke made a big deal of scratching his hand during the wedding ceremony. It was captured by all the cameras. His plan was brilliant. He hid the evidence of the murder in plain sight. No wonder Luke held up his new bride’s hand like a victorious prizefighter. He’d won.”

“So why didn’t he get away with murder?” Peggy asked.

“Because he had to find out what I knew. He’d heard that I’d investigated a murder at that bookstore. He talked Desiree into meeting me at Lester’s. Luke threw suspicion on Jason, and Desiree blamed Millicent. I got nicely sidetracked.

“Then the whole thing unraveled. When I went to their house, Luke heard part of the conversation with Desiree—the last part. She’d tried to buy my nonexistent evidence. I said someone in the house was a killer and I was going to take the proof to the police. I didn’t mention any name. I thought Desiree had smothered her mother. Luke thought I was talking about him. He had to kill me to save his career. Unlike Kiki’s murder, my killing was planned.”

Helen shivered when she said that. She couldn’t help it. Phil put his arm around her, and she was ready to go on.

“Luke used his acting skills. He went to the theater for the disguise. Luke had been there often after hours. He knew where Chauncey kept the spare door key as well as the key to the sword cabinet. The police found his fingerprints all over that padlock. He stole the sword cane, then took the gray wig, dress, and foam-rubber chest from the prop room.”

“That wig wound up floating in my pool,” Margery said. “I almost shot it. I thought it was a rat.”

“Speaking of rats, what happened when Luke confessed to his wife?” Peggy said.

“Desiree dumped him. Luke was stunned.”

“I am, too,” Peggy said. “Didn’t you say she was all over him at Lester’s?”

“She was,” Helen said. “But then he was a trophy, a rising movie star. Now he’s damaged goods. Nothing can save him. She can’t be seen with the man who murdered her mother. And she certainly won’t pay for his defense. She loves her precious money more than Luke.

“Desiree got all noble sounding and declared, ‘I won’t use my dear mother’s money to defend her killer.’ ”

“That young man made a serious miscalculation,” Margery said.

“Right,” Helen said. “He thought he could count on his bride because she hated her mother. He knew his father-in-law fought constantly with his ex-wife. He thought Brendan would be his trial lawyer, but he refused to represent Luke.”

“Wow. This is better than a movie. Then what happened?” Peggy said.

“I don’t know,” Helen said. “The doc came in to stitch me up and I passed out again. I hate needles.”

Peggy groaned.

“I know,” Margery said. She pulled another Marlboro out of her cigarette case, tapped it, and finally lit it. Peggy drummed her fingers impatiently while Pete patrolled her shoulder.

“I heard this from my lawyer friend, Colby Cox, the big criminal defense lawyer,” Margery said. “After his wife abandoned him, Luke still thought he could get a good lawyer cheap, because his case would make the media. But Desiree’s father made some calls, including one to Colby. Suddenly none of the top criminal lawyers were interested in defending him.

“Luke got himself a court-appointed public defender. This lawyer was so young Colby says he had Pablum on his tie. But the kid wasn’t dumb. Luke thought he was safe because his wife couldn’t testify against him. The baby lawyer said Luke was wrong: his wife could—and would—testify.

“That’s when Luke took his lawyer’s advice to cop a plea,” Margery said. “It will be awhile before he’s back on the boards. Colby says Desiree’s daddy made one more call that night—to a divorce lawyer.”

“All that money and how long did that marriage last?” Peggy said.

“Less than a month,” Helen said. “I have to thank Margery for saving my life. If she hadn’t gone on about the right way to hold a cane when we saw Richard the Third, I’d be dead.”

“You saved yourself,” Margery said through a cloud of smoke. “It’s too bad about Luke, though. He’s a good actor.”

“His wife is better,” Helen said. “I still believe she worked on Luke. I think she slyly prodded him into killing her mother. Desiree was smart. She may have even suggested the closet was a good place to hide the body. She certainly knew her mother was dead in there. That’s why she wouldn’t let me open the door before the ceremony. That’s why she ruined the hated crystal dress afterward. She knew Kiki was dead and could no longer punish her for her coffee-throwing tantrum.

“I wonder if she talked Luke into killing me after I left their house. He only heard part of our conversation. I’ll bet you anything Desiree let him think I suspected he was the killer—not her.

“You know the worst part? Desiree will get away with it. That tape I made wound up in the bottom of the pool.”

“It probably wouldn’t have proved anything anyway,” Phil said. “You sure couldn’t use it in court.”

“Desiree got everything she wanted,” Helen said. “Her mother is dead and she has millions.”

“But she’s lost her handsome husband,” Peggy said.

“You can buy a lot of men with thirty million dollars,” Margery said.

“I like mine free, but not cheap,” Helen said.

“I’m your man,” Phil said.

“I knew that,” Helen said, and kissed him again.