Murder Between the Covers

Chapter 5

Helen found a solitary bagel in her fridge. It was speckled with green-black mold. She tried to scrape off the mold, then decided the bagel wasn’t worth packing and tossed it.

The low-fat mozzarella, which was supposed to go on the speckled bagel, was worth saving. It went into the bag of groceries, along with a jar of pasta sauce, half a stick of butter with toast crumbs, and the other discouraging contents of a single woman’s kitchen. Helen had to pack up everything edible in her apartment, even Thumbs’ catnip toys. Margery had warned her not to leave any food behind when the Coronado was tented for termites.

“All the food has to go, or it will be contaminated,” her landlady said. “Remove all your medicines, cosmetics, body scrubs, spices and herbs. The gas kills everything that breathes oxygen, so all the plants have to be out of there or they’ll die.”

Helen’s illegal cat and Peggy’s forbidden parrot also had to go. Helen understood now why Margery was giving the Coronado residents three days at the beach. The tenting preparations were time-consuming and tedious.

Helen checked the last cabinet. She threw out some stale graham crackers and stuck a jar of crunchy peanut butter in the bag. That was it. Her clothes were packed. Thumbs was meowing in his carrier. She lugged her suitcase, food bag, and cat carrier out to Margery’s big white Cadillac. Her own car needed eight hundred dollars in repairs. It could rust in the Coronado parking lot until she won the lottery— and Helen didn’t buy tickets.

Margery and Helen were the last to leave the Coronado.

Her landlady was about to drive off when Helen said, “Wait! I forgot a suitcase.”

“And there goes the damn phone,” Margery said. “We’ll never get out of here.”

Helen hastily opened her closet and pulled out the old Samsonite suitcase wedged between the wall and the water heater. Inside was a discouraging bundle of old-lady underwear. At least, Helen hoped it would discourage any thief.

Under that stretched elastic and snagged nylon was all the money she had in the world: $7,108 in cash. This was also where she hid the untraceable cell phone she used to call her mother and sister.

She was almost ready to leave when she remembered Chocolate, her teddy bear. She picked him off the bed, felt around inside, and pulled out eleven bucks. Chocolate was indeed a stuffed bear.

Helen threw the Samsonite in the backseat just as Margery came out. “Your boyfriend called. He couldn’t stay on the phone. He’s got emergency surgery on a Lab.

The dog was hit by a car and it’s in bad shape. He’ll be with it all night.”

Instead of me, Helen thought. Whoa. What is the matter with me? I’m jealous of an injured dog.

The lights were just coming on at the Coronado. White lights twinkled in the palm trees. The pool shone like a sapphire. Floodlights showed the old building’s swooping curves.

“This is the first time the Coronado has been empty since Zach and I built it in 1949,” Margery said. “It was right after the war, when we were first married. We had such plans.”

That was about fifty-five years ago, Helen calculated.

Margery would have been twenty-one years old. She tried to imagine Margery as a young bride.

“It’s a beautiful place,” Helen said, hoping Margery would talk about her plans and her long-dead husband, Zachary. But Helen could almost hear the door slam on those memories. Margery said nothing on the drive to Hollywood beach. The farther they got from the Coronado, the more she seemed to shrink and fade. The purple outfit she was wearing was so old and washed-out, it was almost gray. She didn’t light up a cigarette, either. That should have made Helen happy, since she hated cigarette smoke.

But Margery didn’t seem the same without her dragon wreath of smoke. She didn’t even seem to notice Thumbs’ racket. The unhappy cat howled nonstop in his carrier.

When they turned off A1A, Helen saw the moonlit ocean. “It’s gorgeous,” she said.

Margery still said nothing. She pulled in at the Beach Time Motel, a 1950s two-story L painted pink and green.

Plain, clean, and cute, it reminded Helen of the places she stayed on family vacations.

“We’re here,” Margery said. “If that cat carries on like that all weekend, you’ll be sleeping on the beach.”

Helen’s room had a sagging bed with a harvest-gold spread and a kitchenette barely big enough for a coffeepot.

But the ocean view was spectacular and the sound of the surf was soothing. Thumbs calmed down once he was liberated from his carrier. He gave himself a bath on her bed, sending fluffs of cat hair into the air.

By the time Thumbs was settled with his food, water, and litter box, it was six-thirty. The termite tenting party had started. Cal the Canadian was barbecuing in the motel courtyard, flipping burgers and turning hot dogs. Peggy arrived with a salad of sliced celery, chicken, and sesame seeds.

“Birdbrain here kept going after the sesame seeds,” she said. She put the salad on a picnic table and went over to give Cal a hand at the barbecue. Pete sat solemnly on Peggy’s shoulder, so unsure of his surroundings he hardly squawked, although he eyed the sesame-seed salad.

Sarah, a friend of Helen’s who used to live at the Coronado, brought baked beans swimming in molasses and bacon and a platter of fried calamari. As Sarah’s generous figure attested, the woman had no fear of food. Cal immediately abandoned Peggy and the barbecue grill to cozy up to Sarah. He laughed loudly at her jokes and tried to entertain her with stories of his own.

“I think you have a conquest,” Helen whispered when Cal went for another Molson.

“I’m not that desperate,” Sarah said. “That cheap Canadian is looking for free room and board.”

“Sarah! How can you say that?”

“Because his idea of a covered dish was two tomatoes on a plate, unsliced.”

“I mean, how can you say he’s only interested in your money? You’re an attractive woman.”

Sarah had curly dark hair, bright brown eyes, and pretty hands that she showed off with good jewelry. Tonight she wore a hot-pink muumuu and flowered sandals. “I’m a fat woman with a fatter bank account. Cal hates to work. Besides, would you date him?”

“I did. You know what happened. He stiffed me for dinner.”

“See? How’s your vet friend?”

“He’s spending the night with a sick Labrador,” Helen said, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

“He’ll be here tomorrow, don’t you worry,” Sarah said.

“Cal’s coming back. Don’t leave me. He won’t come over when you’re here.”

“That’s because he still owes me money,” Helen said.

Cal saw Helen, made an abrupt U-turn, and went back to helping Peggy. Helen stayed with Sarah, acting as an effective anti-Cal device.

Everyone seemed to be avoiding someone tonight.

Madame Muffy the preppie psychic stayed away from Peggy and Helen. Cal steered clear of Helen and Margery.

Phil the invisible pothead avoided everyone. He never came out of his room, but a persistent cloud of pot smoke proved he was having his own party.

Despite Cal’s stingy contribution, there was plenty of food. Margery had brought hot dogs and hamburgers, buns, and chips. Helen made deviled eggs. Madame Muffy baked a luscious chocolate cake. Beer, wine, and soda were chilling in a cooler.

“What’s the wine?” Peggy called, busy at the barbecue grill.

“The box says it’s ‘chilled red.’ Has an expiration date of September 2005,” Helen said.

“Sounds like a good year. Pour me a glass.”

“Will do,” Helen said. Sarah took a glass, too. So did Margery.

“What about you, Muffy?” Helen said, holding up the wine box and hoping to establish normal neighborly relations.

“No, thank you,” Muffy said primly. She was a study in baggy khaki. Helen wondered why a young woman was so defiantly drab.

“You want a Coke instead? Or a Sprite?”

“I don’t drink alcohol or soda,” Muffy said. “They’re all poison, filled with caffeine and chemicals. I brought my own natural fruit juice.” She poured herself a glass of something brown. She did not offer it to anyone else.

Helen felt like she’d offered Carry Nation a shot and a beer. So much for mending fences with Madame Muffy.

The conversation fell flat. Worse than flat. It seemed to lie there like something dead. Peggy picked at her salad, eating less than Pete. Madame Muffy cut her burger in two, then in quarters. Margery rolled a hot dog around on her plate.

Only Sarah and Cal had any appetite. Cal ate as if food was about to be outlawed. He wolfed down three burgers, two hot dogs, most of Peggy’s salad, a half dozen deviled eggs, and hefty helpings of calamari and baked beans.

Helen tried to eat, but she wasn’t hungry. She put a bunless burger on her plate and stared at it. It was all alone.

Like her. Rich had canceled their romantic night for a sick dog.

When Helen looked up, Peggy and Pete had disappeared.

Madame Muffy and her juice went missing soon after that.

Helen wished Cal would disappear. Instead, he droned on about how Canada was superior to America. Margery didn’t bother debating him, another sign she was not herself. Normally, she was the purple-clad defender of the USA. Helen and Sarah struggled to carry on a conversation.

The evening broke up about nine with polite thank-yous.

Sarah gathered up her dishes and left. Margery packed up the extra buns and chips and put away Peggy’s salad. Helen ate the last deviled egg. Cal took back his two unsliced, untouched tomatoes.

Helen had a restless night, but she could not sleep in Saturday morning. She’d promised to go with Margery for the final walk-through at the Coronado before the crew put the termite tent on. Helen felt like she was visiting a sick friend in the hospital.

Truly Nolen was doing the job. In South Florida, their bright yellow Volkswagen bugs with the mouse ears, whiskers, and tails were as common as the pests they killed.

When Helen and Margery arrived at the apartments at nine, a flatbed truck was already there. George and Terrell would put the monster yellow-and-black-striped tarps on the building.

George, thin and whiplike, threw the tarps off the truck and manhandled the long ladders. The tarps were rolled up like tacos. Also on the trucks were long strings of metal clamshell clamps, which looked like big spring clothespins.

The tarp ends would be rolled together and clamped shut, forming a seal. George did most of the roof work. Terrell, big and muscular, clamped down the building’s sides.

Signs were posted all over the Coronado: DANGER:

DEADLY POISON—PELIGRO VENENO MORTAL. For those who could not read, there were skulls and crossbones.

Trevor, the fumigator, was nailing the last sign on the gate. He was about five-eight, with powerful shoulders and a strong, square jaw. He’d dressed up his drab uniform with gold chains that gleamed against his dark skin.

“Ah, good,” he said. “Let’s do the final inspection.”

As they went through each apartment, Helen had a voyeur’s view of how everyone lived. All the cabinets were open. Helen saw the same things in each apartment: miscellaneous mugs, stacks of Tupperware, ugly glass vases from florists. They had a pathetic garage-sale look.

Trevor checked the refrigerators, cabinets, and stoves for food. He looked carefully in each room, making sure no one was left behind. He was obsessive about it.

“An old woman hid in her home once because she didn’t want to leave. Poor thing died. Happened to another company, but it’s every fumigator’s nightmare. I don’t want it to happen to me.”

Trevor moved with assurance through other people’s homes. Helen and Margery trailed behind him. Helen felt guilty about snooping, but she also enjoyed it.

Cal the Canadian had furniture for a colder clime: heavy velvet sofas and chairs, thick carpets, and a coffee table big as an aircraft carrier. Clothes were dumped on chairs.

Books and newspapers were scattered on the floor. His rooms seemed small and crowded. Even his fridge door was cluttered with photos of his daughter and grandchild.

His cupboards and refrigerator were bare of food, and there were no medicines in the bathroom. Cal’s place was safe.

Peggy’s home looked light and airy. Bright colors and white wicker, painted wooden fish, and pretty seashells made it a pleasant place to live. Her huge four-poster bed looked like something in a magazine. Helen noticed there were no photos except for ones of Pete. In the kitchen, Peggy had left behind a box of birdseed, bananas, and a bag of rice. Helen packed them up for her friend.

“Some people can’t follow simple instructions,” Margery grumped.

“Peggy must have been distracted,” Helen said.

After each apartment was inspected, the door was locked with the owner’s keys. Then the doorknob was fitted with a metal shield that had a second lock.

“Only the company has these keys,” Trevor said as he secured the doorknob shield. “The doors are double-locked to make sure the owners don’t come back and do something stupid. Before we put in the poisonous Vikane gas, which has no odor, we have to put in Chloropicrin, which is essentially tear gas. That’s to keep people out. The tear gas makes their eyes stream. Sometimes, even that isn’t enough. People will break into their own homes because they forgot a shirt for work or left their purse behind. They think they can hold their breath long enough to get in and out, but they can’t. They’re overcome by the gas.”

“What happens then?”

“Some live. Some die.” He shrugged. “There’s no known antidote and the symptoms are different for every person.

You might have a heart attack. I might have convulsions.

Vikane affects different people in different ways. It’s not a good way to die.

“One man went back into his place during a tenting, sat down in his favorite chair, and turned on the TV. He’d lost his business and wanted to commit suicide. They found him with his finger still on the remote, flipping through the channels for all eternity.

“A pair of cheating lovers sneaked back in because they knew his partner would never think of looking in the tented bedroom. They were found dead together.”

The canvas tarps were shrouding the windows now, and the rooms were dark as caves. The canvas flapped in the breeze and created an odd snapping sound. As Helen walked through the dark, hot rooms, she seemed to see death everywhere. She wondered why Trevor bothered with the locks, when the windows were left open.

Margery must have been thinking the same thing. “What about burglars?” she said.

“They die, too,” Trevor said. “If a thief gets in there, well, he’s not going to tell the hospital he inhaled Vikane in a termite tent. By the time the hospital figures it out, he’s dead.”

“So how do you survive inside when the tents come off?” she said.

“I use a SCBA respirator,” Trevor said. “George has one, too, in case I get overcome. I’ll go in and open everything up. It will be safe for you to come back late Monday.”

“What’s a SCBA respirator?” Margery said.

“It looks like a diving tank, but it has a full face mask connected to the breathing hose. It’s not to be confused with a scuba tank. Diving gear doesn’t really work for this.”

“What about those charcoal gas masks, the kind used in Desert Storm?”

“We tried them,” Trevor said. “They don’t work as well.

You need a self-contained breathing apparatus. You can buy it at a fire-equipment place or on the Internet.”

“So why don’t burglars use them?” Margery asked.

“Too expensive,” Trevor said. “A SCBA unit costs about two thousand dollars a tank. If a burglar had two thousand dollars, he wouldn’t need to be a burglar.”

“Breaking into this place wouldn’t pay for the tank. Nobody here has the Star of India on her dresser,” Margery said. “All a burglar would get was some old TV sets, a video camera or two, and Grandma’s engagement ring.”

Helen thought her landlady had a real talent for crime.

“It’s not worth the risk,” Trevor agreed.

Still, Helen was glad she’d taken her suitcase full of cash to the beach.

Madame Muffy’s place was as dull as its owner. The living room was still a palm-reading parlor. The bed had a beige comforter. Three unpacked boxes served as a nightstand. There were no photos, pictures, or anything personal.

Helen had seen hotel rooms with more personality.

Finally, they entered the home of Phil the invisible pothead. This was the apartment Helen had been waiting to see. Naturally, it reeked of pot. The sagging couch was covered with a madras throw and High Times magazines. Three coffee-ringed pine boards on cinder blocks served as a coffee table. It held a bong, a roach clip, a Clapton mug with black coffee, and a barrette in the shape of a guitar.

“What’s he doing with a hair barrette?” Helen said.

“It holds his ponytail. That’s no ordinary guitar,” Margery said respectfully. “It’s a Fender Strat, same as Clapton plays, in solid silver.”

“You’d think he’d use pot metal,” Helen said. Once again, she wondered how her landlady knew these things.

She examined the plastic milk crates full of albums. “I’d love to help myself to these.” There were original LPs from Clapton’s days with Cream, the Yardbirds, and John Mayall and the BluesBreakers. Helen slid out one record. Oddly, it was beautifully cared for, without the dirt and scratches druggies inflicted on their albums.

The walls were covered with vintage posters, including one for Cream’s Goodbye album. The room’s centerpiece was on a stand: A Clapton-model Fender Strat guitar. It was 7-UP-can green, better known as stoner green.

There were no medicines in the bathroom. In the kitchen, Trevor opened the freezer. Inside was a glass vial of clear yellow liquid and a fat bag of pot.

“Got to get rid of that, ma’am,” the fumigator said. “The herb will get contaminated.”

Helen started to pack the pot with the bananas, but Margery said, “Throw that out. I’m not driving around with an illegal substance in my car. What if I got stopped?”

Helen couldn’t imagine the cops stopping Margery for a drug bust, but she did not argue.

“And what’s this?” her landlady asked, pointing to the vial.

“Urine sample, ma’am,” Trevor said. “For drug tests. If you smoke the herb, you can’t pass the test. Some people buy clean samples on the Internet. If their job requires mandatory drug testing, they palm the sample and use it instead of their own fluid. But the gas will ruin it. It should be thrown out, too.”

“Why don’t you throw that out while the inspector and I walk through my place?” Margery said, and Helen knew she was not invited to look in her landlady’s closets and cabinets. Helen owed Margery a few favors, but she thought handling a frozen urine sample canceled them all.

She found a plastic grocery bag, picked up the vial with it, and dropped it in the Dumpster.

The Coronado was nearly covered with tarps. Clear plastic hoses for the poison gas snaked along the sidewalks and across the pool. The ends of the hoses were taped to floor fans in the hallways. The fans were whirring softly. They would dissipate the poison gas through the apartments.

The Coronado looked like a disaster scene, as if a tornado or hurricane had hit. The chaise longues by the pool no longer seemed inviting. Helen saw an abandoned pair of flip-flops. They looked sad.

In the harsh sunlight, Helen could see the cracks that had been cheaply patched and painted over. The Coronado was showing its age. So was Margery. She came out of her own apartment and suddenly looked every day of her seventy-six years.

Helen and Margery left Trevor as he was pumping poison gas into the apartments. The Coronado was wrapped like a present.

Helen felt tired and sad. This should be a hopeful occasion, she thought. The Coronado could be saved. But it looked like death in a pretty package.