Murder Between the Covers

Chapter 20

Helen woke up alone.

She was sure last night was a dream, a wonderful dream, until she saw the blond hair on her pillow. Gabriel had definitely been in her bed, and this morning he was a hair balder. She smiled and stretched. She did not want a perfect man, but she’d had a perfect night.

She padded out to the kitchen. On the sink was a chocolate croissant, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a single red rose. Gabriel definitely understood a woman’s needs.

There was also a note:

Dear Helen, I hated to leave you, but I had to be on the job at six this morning. I’ll be working late into the night, but I’ll think of you all day. Thanks for letting me share my dream house with you. I’ll stop by the store tomorrow, but if you’re too busy to talk, I’ll understand. See you soon, dream lover.

Gabriel P.S.: Your air conditioner was rattling, so I fixed it.

Helen sighed. This man was too good to be true. So sensitive. So understanding. It wasn’t until her cat nearly tripped her that she realized Thumbs had been weaving through her legs, demanding breakfast.

“Sorry, boy,” she said, giving him a pat. “I’m in a daze here.”

She fed Thumbs, made coffee, then took her breakfast outside to the table by the pool.

“Well, well, somebody had a good night,” Margery said.

She looked like a grape Popsicle in a purple shorts outfit that showed off her tanned legs. At seventy-six, Margery had legs most women would envy.

Helen took a big bite of croissant so she wouldn’t have to answer.

Margery sipped her coffee, lit a cigarette, and said, “How’s the investigation going, Sherlock?”

“I think I have a lead.” Helen didn’t mention that everything she found out so far made Peggy guiltier. “It’s Albert.

When I asked him where he was the night Page died, he got angry and refused to tell me.”

“He sounds guilty, all right. Albert the one with the stick up his ass?”

Helen nodded.

“Those are the worst kind.” Margery blew a massive cloud of smoke. “What’s his motive?”

“He’s fifty-six, has an old mother to support, no health insurance if he loses this job, and no prospects for more work.”

“Turner took everything from him. A stupid thing to do.

How will you find out what this Albert was doing?”

“I’ll think of something,” Helen said, licking the last of the chocolate croissant off her fingers. “I’d better get to work. I’m due in at nine.”

It’s like love, Sarah had told her. Just let it happen natu-rally. Well, love had happened last night. Maybe Albert’s alibi would happen, too.

“He’s so vicious,” Brad said. “Do you know what Albert did?” The little bookseller was in the break room, trembling with anger. His color was a dangerous red.

“He showed me this.” He had a magazine, rolled up as if he was going to swat a puppy.

“I didn’t even know it existed.” Brad looked ready to shred the magazine with his bare hands. “This piece of trash makes fun of J.Lo’s... demeans her ...”

“Her what?” Helen said.

“Her derriere! How can they do this to a sweet, sensitive woman?”

He unrolled a MAD magazine. Helen hadn’t read one since she was a kid, but it didn’t look much different. Brad found the offending page with shaking fingers, a satire called “People Who Should Have Won This Year’s Nobel Prizes.”

MAD gave an honorable mention for the Nobel prize for chemistry to “Jennifer Lopez... who in conjunction with Du Pont, developed a synthetic fabric capable of containing her ass.” The cartoon showed Lopez with PASS and DON’T PASS signs on her bulging bottom.

For Brad’s sake, Helen suppressed a smile.

“It’s so sexist,” said the skinny bookseller, whose own rear was flat as Nebraska. “J.Lo is not fat. She’s not like these half-starved actresses. She’s a grown woman with curves.”

“That she is,” Helen said. “If more entertainers were built like her, life would be easier for the average woman.

Brad, this won’t hurt J.Lo. Her fans know better.”

“It’s mean,” Brad said. “I don’t read MAD. I wouldn’t have seen it and it wouldn’t have upset me. But Albert couldn’t wait to show it to me.”

“Albert’s gotten meaner since the store-closing rumors started,” Helen said.

“Those aren’t rumors, sweetie. This place will be history soon.”

It was natural to go to the next topic, Helen thought. As natural as falling in love. “I know Albert hated what Page was doing. No one seems to know where he went that Friday evening. Do you think he killed Page Turner?”

Brad started, then his face lit with a malicious smile. “I know what he was doing that night. I saw him, quite by accident. He swore me to secrecy. He had to. It was awful.”

“Tell me,” Helen whispered.

“That would break my vow. But I can show you. Then I won’t be telling you, will I? Albert doesn’t deserve my secrecy. Not after what he did.”

“When can I see?” said Helen.

“Tonight. He can’t stop himself. He does it three or four times a week. Meet me in front of the store at nine p.m.

And wear black.”

Wear black? What was Albert doing at night? Was he a burglar? A grave robber?

The hands crawled around the clock. Finally, it was nine and she was in black, waiting in front of the bookstore.

Brad picked her up in a rusty little blue car that looked like a running shoe. They chugged into the lot of a chain bookstore. A sign at the door announced, OPEN-MIKE POETRY NIGHT—9:00 P.M. TONIGHT.

“What are we doing here?” Helen said.

“Shhh. Don’t talk,” Brad said. “Sit in the back row on the floor and keep your head down. If he spots you, he’ll bolt.”

About forty black-clad poetry lovers were perched on folding chairs or sprawled on the floor. A young woman with luminous white skin was standing in front of the microphone, reciting her poem in a flat, uninflected voice.

“My milk is the feast of goddesses. My right breast is Juno. My left is Hera,” she droned.

“Aren’t they the same person?” Helen whispered.

“It’s about feelings, not facts,” Brad said. People gave them dirty looks. Brad shut up.

“And from my womb flows Venus and rebellion,” the poet said in a monotone, then stopped. The audience applauded loudly. The poem was over.

A thin man who looked like Ichabod Crane in a beret stepped up to the microphone. He was dressed entirely in black, like a Beat poet of fifty years ago. It was Albert.

Helen hardly recognized him without his stiff white shirt.

He adjusted the microphone and began reading in a high, thin voice:

“Pain.

“Pain.

“Pain is a red scream in my head.

“Pain is a cry in my heart ...”

“Pain is listening to this,” Helen whispered.

“I told you it was awful. Page Turner deserved to die.

The English language does not deserve this torture.”

“Shhh!” someone hissed.

Helen had seen enough. She and Brad scooted to the end of the row and ducked out the back.

“Lord, that was awful,” Helen said. “No wonder Albert didn’t want me to know what he was doing.”

“At a competing bookstore, too,” Brad said. “He’s addicted to open-mike poetry nights. Hits all the bookstores and coffeehouses. Saturdays, he does two. ”

“Why didn’t anyone laugh at his bad poetry?”

“Because they’ll be getting up and reading their own bad poetry.”

“But I don’t understand why a sensitive poet like Albert would read a true crime book called Smother Love. ”

“Isn’t that the one about Darryl Eugene Crow? He’s known as the prison poet. His poetry sounds a lot like Albert’s.”

“Thank you for showing me, Brad. That was painful, but instructive.”

“I want this book, but it’s too expensive.” Muffy the preppy psychic was holding a fat volume called Cooking with the Stars: A Guide to Astrology and Food. She was dressed almost like the preppy prowler in a pink shirt and khakis. The pink made her hair look blond. She was almost pretty.

“Can you buy this for me with your employee discount?”

“No,” Helen said. “I could get fired.”

“But I can’t afford it without your discount,” Muffy said.

“It’s not money out of your pocket.”

“I’m sorry,” Helen said. “You’ll have to get something else.”

Muffy raised her voice so heads turned. “I can’t buy the book I want. It’s all your fault.” Then she stomped off to the Cooking section.

When Helen saw her next customer, she didn’t have to be psychic to predict more trouble. It was Melanie Devereaux DuShayne, the POD author. Helen wondered how she had the nerve to walk into the store after the Page Turner debacle. Her blond hair trailed down her back. She wore a tight, short sea foam–green sundress with a froth of polyester lace down the plunging neckline, and those clear plastic shoes.

“I got a call that my book has come in,” Melanie said.

Her voice trembled and her face went pink.

Now Helen knew what she was doing there. An author would endure any humiliation for her book. She checked the hold shelf. “You have two copies, actually. That will be twenty-nine ninety-five each, for a total of—”

Melanie’s face crumpled. Her voice was teary. “That much? I get a discount if I buy from the publisher, but it looks better if I order them at a real bookstore.”

“I’m sorry,” Helen said. “We don’t give author discounts.

I wish we did. We do take credit cards.”

“I’m maxed out,” Melanie said. “I bought the editing package.”

Helen looked at her. “Editing package?”

“I wanted the best for my book, so I paid nine hundred ninety nine dollars for the deluxe package. It includes copyediting, five free books, plus two favorable reviews.”

“Where do the reviews run?” Helen said.

“On the UBookIt Web site,” she said. “They’re really supposed to help sales and I wanted to give my book every chance.”

Poor Melanie. No one would read those reviews but other POD authors. Her book was the bastard child of the book industry. She’d been seduced by a greedy publisher who only wanted her for her money. Helen felt sorry for her.

“POD books are not returnable. You have to take both copies.”

“I’ll have more money next month. Can’t you keep one until next payday?”

It was against the rules. But Helen figured Page Turners owed Melanie that much. She rang up one book and buried the other on the hold shelf.

“Thanks,” Melanie said. “Where are your romances?”

Helen directed her to that section, and hoped Melanie could find something. The romances had been around.

Helen was embarrassed to sell them.

“Helen,” said Gayle, her blond hair shining like a halo in the bright sun. “My reading glasses came apart. I have to finish the weekly financial report. I’m going to run to the optometrist down the street and see if he’ll fix them. Will you watch the shop for a few minutes? Albert is due in any moment. Until then, you’re in charge. You and Denny can do a slush run. Brad can run the register.”

Helen felt like she was on an Easter-egg hunt. She found stray books under tables and chairs, shoved under shelves, and hidden in displays. She wished it was as easy to look for Page’s killer. She was running out of suspects. She was missing something, too. It nagged at her. When she turned the corner and saw Mr. Davies, the store’s oldest inhabitant, in his usual chair, she knew what it was.

He’d tried to tell her something last time she’d talked with him. Except Helen had been too impatient to listen.

Now she sat humbly on the footstool at Mr. Davies’ chair and said, “I cut you off last time. I’m very sorry. That was rude. On the night of the murder, the pretty redhead in the green Kia brought Page Turner back to the store, didn’t she?”

Mr. Davies sat up eagerly, his bright squirrel eyes gleaming. “Oh, my, yes. I know I talk too much. It makes the young impatient. That young Detective Jax was the same way. Don’t you think the police are looking younger these days? I really wonder how anyone that young can be trusted with a gun, but they say fourteen-year-olds take guns to school now. It was so different when I was young.

He didn’t bother listening to me.”

Who? Helen wondered, then realized Mr. Davies was talking about Detective Jax.

“And he did not apologize like you did, my dear.”

Helen dug her nails into her palms for patience while she waited for Mr. Davies to get to the point.

“The redheaded girl—excuse me, woman, I do try to say the right thing—the redhead was back after ten minutes. I thought Mr. Page Turner was very foolish to spend so little time with such an attractive young person. She left him at his private parking spot behind the store.

“But then I dozed off, and at first I thought it was a dream, she was so beautiful, and I told that detective that, and he said he didn’t care about my dreams, he just wanted the facts. But I wasn’t dreaming. I’d been reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I’m rereading the old classics.

They are so much richer at my age. I read a biography of Mark Twain, but you can learn more about an author by reading his work—or her work, excuse me. Authors always write about themselves. The good ones are better at disguising it.”

Helen suppressed a sigh and felt some sympathy for Jax.

Would Mr. Davies never get on with it?

“I’d just finished the page when this lovely blonde showed up in a silver car. A silver coach for a golden princess.”

This wasn’t much help. “Lots of blondes are in the store,” she said.

“Not like this one. She had yellow hair and looked like Cinderella.”

“Helen to the front, please, Helen to the front.” She was being paged. It sounded like Denny.

“Cinderella? What do you mean?” Helen was desperate for more information.

“Helen to the front. Please come to the front!” It was definitely Denny. He sounded desperate.

“Gotta run. I’m being paged. I’ll talk to you later, Mr. Davies.”

“Don’t worry, dear, I’ll be here,” he said. “I always am.”

Sadly, that turned out not to be true.