Murder Between the Covers

Chapter 19

“Excuse me, I need some help here.”

A lean woman with bad skin and dead-black hair plunked four paperbacks down on the counter at Helen’s register. They weren’t the usual women’s reading: Letters to Penthouse XIV, XV, XVI, XVII.

“I’m not sure this is what I want,” she said. “I need a book on talking dirty. Can you see if you have any books like that?”

Helen typed talking dirty into the bookstore computer and got several hits. She read the titles out loud.

“No, that’s not quite it.” The hard-faced woman had a surprisingly soft voice. “How about ‘talking sexy’?”

Helen typed in those key words. “I get a lot of books, but they’re about relationships.”

“I don’t want a relationship.”

“Can I ask what you do want?” Helen said.

“I’m going back to work doing phone sex. It’s been a couple of years and I’m out of practice. The new place does not allow scripts. I need some backup in case I go dry.”

Helen typed in phone sex. Bingo. “Here’s Confessions of a Phone-sex Queen. We don’t have the book in stock, but I can order it.”

“I’ll take it,” the woman said.

Another satisfied customer, Helen thought. “What’s your last name?”

“Retner,” the woman said. That name was familiar.

Helen typed it in and saw three other Retners had ordered books in the last thirty days. One was Albert. Helen wondered what kind of book the prissy, bad-tempered manager would order.

Curiosity overcame her. After the phone-sex worker left, Helen looked in the computer. Albert had ordered Smother Love: The True Story of a Serial Killer Who Smothered His Victims to Death.

Interesting.

Helen checked the publisher’s information on Smother Love. She read: Darryl Eugene Crow was shy and quiet, but he had no problem finding women. The relationships never lasted. When love died, Darryl Eugene’s lovers died, too.

He would ply his soon-to-be lost loves with alcohol, then end their lives with a pillow. This compelling study of ...

End their lives with a pillow? That was how Page Turner died. He was drunk, too.

When did Albert get this book?

Helen looked at the computer record. The book arrived three weeks before Page Turner died.

Helen couldn’t see Albert killing someone with a knife or a gun. That would be messy. He might get blood on his hands. But something sneaky, like smothering a defenseless drunk, that was his style. She could imagine him pressing down that pillow. It would be neat and quick. Albert wouldn’t even get his starched shirt wrinkled.

“Did Albert work the night Page Turner died?” Helen asked Brad.

The little bookseller looked skittish. “No, he got off work at six with me.”

“Where did Albert go after work?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Brad said. “Excuse me, I have to go.” He seemed anxious to get away. Had she offended him? And how could she ask Albert such a personal question? The thought made her head throb, and that gave her an idea. Helen waited till he returned from lunch, then clutched her forehead dramatically. She knew she couldn’t count on Albert to ask what was wrong. If she fell over on the floor, he’d reprimand her for lying down on the job.

She said, “Do you have any aspirin, Albert? Ever since Page Turner died, I’ve had the worst headaches.”

“I don’t dispense medication,” Albert said. “I read where a woman at a store was sued because she gave an aspirin to a customer.”

“For heaven’s sake, Albert, I’m not going to sue you. I have a headache. Didn’t Page Turner’s murder bother you?”

“Well, it has affected my colitis,” he said. “Just this morning ...”

You asked for it, Helen thought, as Albert gave her the intimate details of his ailment. At least they were bonding.

“I’ve never had an attack so explosive,” he finished. “It’s gotten much worse since Mr. Turner passed on. Stress, you know.”

“That’s terrible,” she cut in quickly. “His death seems to have caused so many problems. When Page left the store that Friday, I had no idea it would be the last time I’d see him alive. I went to a party, like it was any other day.

Where did you go?”

“What I do on my own time is my business,” Albert said, and his lips zipped. So much for bonding.

He’s hiding something, Helen thought. And I’m going to find out what it is.

But not tonight. Tonight she had another task. It was even worse than listening to Albert. She had to call her mother in St. Louis. Once a month, at seven in the evening, she made the call. And dreaded it the rest of the time.

At home, Helen prepared herself. She shut the mini-blinds and locked the door, then opened her utility closet and got out the battered Samsonite suitcase that held her seven-thousand-dollar stash. She rooted around in the old-lady underwear until she found the cell phone and a piece of pink cellophane from a gift basket.

She’d bought the cell phone in Kansas when she was on the run. She’d sent her sister Kathy a thousand dollars and hoped that would cover the bills for a long time. Her air conditioner was rattling so loud, it sounded like it was about to take off and join the mother ship. She had to turn it off so she could hear on the phone.

“Hi, Mom. How’s everything?” she said.

“Just fine,” said her mother in a high, clipped voice that signaled disaster. “Absolutely peachy. Kathy—you remember your sister?—was in the hospital with emergency surgery. I’m taking care of the kids. Of course, I couldn’t call you, because I don’t know where you are, and you won’t tell me.”

“Surgery? Oh, my God. What’s wrong?” Not Kathy, the only person she trusted.

“She had her gall bladder removed,” her mother said.

She was dragging it out, reveling in Helen’s remorse and guilt.

“The doctor was able to do the so-called easy surgery, but her recovery has been slow. It didn’t help that you weren’t at your sister’s side when she needed you, because you’re busy ruining your life for a stupid, stubborn reason.”

“It’s not stupid,” burst out Helen. “Rob betrayed me— with Sandy, a woman he said he couldn’t stand.”

“He made a mistake. Men do that.”

“A mistake! Mother, that man didn’t have a job for five years. He lived off me during that time. He was supposed to be oiling the patio furniture. I came home from work early and caught him with our next-door neighbor.”

“And instead of handling the situation with dignity, the way a daughter of mine should, you went crazy with a crowbar.”

Helen was not getting into this argument again. “Is Kathy home? I’d better call her before it’s too late.”

“You can’t hang up,” her mother said. “I want to talk to you. Helen, what if Kathy had died? What if something had happened to one of her children? Or me? You need to—”

Helen crinkled the pink cellophane. “Sorry, Mom, you’re breaking up. Bad connection. Good-bye, Mom, I love you.”

Now she really did have a headache. She was sweating heavily, and not just because the air conditioner was off.

Helen dialed her sister’s number with shaky fingers.

“I’m fine, Helen,” Kathy insisted.

“You don’t sound fine. You sound weak.”

“I was asleep. Really, I’m OK. Tom has been making me dinner. Mom has the kids. I’m enjoying the rest. I may malinger a little longer.”

Helen wished she could see her sister so she’d know for sure. Instead, she resorted to their old childhood code.

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Cross my heart, Helen. You know Mom. She makes every scratch into a fatal illness.”

“I don’t think gall-bladder surgery is a scratch.”

“It’s not that big a deal. I had the keyhole surgery. You should see my scars. I’ve had bigger mosquito bites. I’m more worried about you, Helen. Are you OK? There are a lot of murders down there in Florida.”

“There are a lot of murders up there in St. Louis.”

“Yes, but mostly in the black part of town.”

Helen sighed. Kathy was good at closing her eyes to reality.

“Helen, are you happy?” Kathy said. “I can’t see you living in two rooms with some old 1950s furniture, when you used to have a twelve-room mansion in St. Louis. You had Ralph Lauren fabrics and—”

“Yes, Kathy, I had all that. But you know what? It wasn’t me. I worked until eight or nine every night so I could buy things I didn’t want. For recreation, I went shopping, which got me in more debt.

“When I was divorcing Rob, I used to walk around the house at night and say, ‘I could live without this. I could live without that.’ I’d go through the house room by room. I could live without the dining room that seated twelve.

Twelve people from the office I didn’t really like but wanted to impress. I could live without the formal living room, where I rarely relaxed. It was a showcase for parties to advance my career.

“Or the guest room, which never had any guests because I was too busy to stay in touch with my out-of-town friends. One day, I realized I could live without it all.

“Now I sit out by the pool here in Florida and drink wine and watch the sunset. It’s a better life for me. I’m much happier.”

“You’re sure?” Kathy said. “Cross your heart?”

“Cross my heart. Stay well, Kathy. I love you.”

She hung up. Helen missed her sister with an almost physical pain. Kathy understood her. She had stood by Helen during the divorce. Her ultra-Catholic mother wanted her to get back with Rob. Not Kathy. She’d told Helen, “I’m surprised you only took the crowbar to his car. I’d have broken every bone in his body.”

The memory of a naked Rob, running for his Land Cruiser, could still make Helen smile. He had abandoned Sandy and locked himself inside the SUV. Helen picked up a crowbar and smashed the windshield. By the time a terrified Sandy had called 911, Helen had trashed every inch of the vehicle.

There was no law against that. The car was registered in her name. She’d paid for it.

The police had laughed themselves silly at her bare-assed husband, cowering in the broken glass. He and Sandy did not press assault charges. They didn’t want Sandy’s husband to find out. He did anyway.

Helen filed for divorce. That’s when things went really bad.

Rob claimed that she earned her six-figure salary because he was a loyal house husband, subject to her wild mood swings. As proof, his lawyer showed photos of the beaten SUV and the police report. Rob’s many girlfriends testified that he’d done a lot around the house. A lot of screwing, maybe, but no hammering and sawing. He never finished any of his home-handyman projects. Helen had to pay contractors to undo his lousy work.

Throughout this fiasco, Helen’s high-priced lawyer sat there like a department-store dummy. He wouldn’t let her say a word. He didn’t want to upset the judge.

In the end, the judge gave Rob half their house, even though she’d made all the payments. She’d expected that.

What she didn’t expect was when the judge gave Rob half her future earnings, because her successful career was based on his “love and support.”

That was when a red rage flamed up in Helen. She stood up in court, picked up the familiar black book with the gold lettering, and said, “I swear on this Bible that my husband Rob will not get another nickel of my salary.”

Later, the Bible turned out to be the Revised Missouri Statutes. But Helen considered the oath binding. She packed a suitcase and ran from St. Louis, driving a zigzag course across the country to throw the law and her ex off her trail. She wasn’t sure how far the courts would go to track down a deadbeat wife, but Rob would work hard to avoid work.

On the road, she sold her silver Lexus to a crooked used-car dealer. He gave her a clunker that died in Fort Lauderdale. That’s how she wound up in South Florida, working dead-end jobs to avoid the corporate and government computers. Even if Rob found her, he’d get only half of her miserable paycheck. That wouldn’t keep him in imported beer.

Only her sister Kathy knew where she was. Helen couldn’t trust her mother. Rob would sweet-talk her address out of her mother.

It wasn’t a bad call, Helen lied to herself. She’d had worse. She packed away the phone and stretched out on the bed for just a minute. When she woke up the next morning, she was still in her work clothes, clutching her cat, Thumbs, like a teddy bear.

Helen went warily to her date with Gabriel. She had the warnings from Sarah and the knowledge of her own failures with men. The production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was spellbinding. Even in an outdoor amphitheater, the ancient words overpowered the modern distractions of thumping car radios and traffic noise. She applauded vigorously when the actors took their bows. Then she and Gabe walked around downtown Hollywood. Helen liked the way his eyes crinkled. She was a sucker for eye crinkles.

“Can I show you something?” Gabriel asked. “It’s only a few blocks away.”

They walked to a pretty residential neighborhood with older homes. He stopped at an empty lot landscaped with fan-shaped palms and a fish pond. In the center was a concrete foundation.

“This will be my dream house,” he said. “I’m finishing it a little at a time. What do you think the perfect house needs?”

Two people who love each other, Helen wanted to say.

Instead she discussed fireplaces, hardwood floors, and granite countertops. They walked and talked, then drank cold beer and ate spicy peanut noodles at a Thai restaurant.

At last, he took her home to the Coronado. The night was thick with her neighbor’s cannabis fog. Helen knew Phil’s dreams were smoke. Gabriel’s dream was solid concrete.

Maybe they could build on it together.

“Let me in,” Gabe said quietly. “I’ve shown you my dream. Let me be part of yours.” He kissed her, and his lips were soft and warm and his body was hard and insistent.

Helen unlocked the door.