Shop Till You Drop

Chapter 21

“If you need any other help, let me know. . . .”

Margery’s words haunted Helen as she walked back to her apartment. She passed through Phil’s pot fog in a fog of her own. Helen knew she was in trouble. Big trouble. She had angered a homicide detective. If Dwight Hansel looked into her life, what would he find?

Nothing.

Helen had no phone, no credit cards, no bank account, not even a paycheck. Any good detective would be suspicious.

But Hansel was not a good detective. That was Helen’s only hope. He was a loudmouth drunk, a party animal. Of course, she’d been poking sticks into the party animal’s cage. He could strike back with a search warrant.

But he would not find anything, she thought. There’s no trace of my other life except for a teddy bear and some clothes.

And an old suitcase. Containing seven thousand one hundred and eight dollars in cash.

A wild flash of panic ripped through Helen. Buried in her closet was seven thousand dollars she could not explain. She had no bank statements. That cash would say “drug money” to any cop, no matter how stupid. The coil of fear grew heavier. The snakes were slithering in the pit again.

I’ve got to get that money out of my apartment, she thought. Helen paced back and forth, asking: Where can I keep that cash?

A safe deposit box? No, that would cost money to rent. Besides, it would leave records. Even Hansel could find a safe deposit box.

“If you need any other help, let me know. . . .”

Margery. Margery would help her. Helen pulled down all the blinds, flung open the utility closet door and grabbed the old Samsonite suitcase wedged between the wall and the water heater.

She looked out her front door. The Coronado apartments were quiet. No one was outside. Peggy’s lights were off. So were Daniel’s. Cal’s were on, but she could hear his TV. And Phil? She sniffed the air, heavy with the sweet, burning-leaf smell of pot. Phil was happily in the hay.

Margery’s light was on. Helen carried the suitcase over to her landlady’s apartment and knocked lightly on the door. “Margery!” she called in a whisper. “Margery, are you there?”

“Where else would I be at this hour?” Margery bellowed, flinging open the door. “Come on in.” She was wearing a purple chenille robe. Her gray hair bristled with red sponge curlers.

“Are you running away from home?” she said. “What’s with the suitcase?”

“Margery, can you keep this for me? I promise it’s nothing illegal, but I can’t . . .”

“The less you tell me, the better. As far as I’m concerned, I’m storing your old luggage. Case closed,” her landlady said, patting the suitcase, “and I’m keeping it that way.”

Helen’s worst nightmare came true. The next morning, Detective Dwight Hansel showed up with a search warrant. But he wanted to search the store, not her home.

Hansel and his partner, Detective Karen Grace, were waiting in front of Juliana’s when Helen arrived at nine-thirty. Helen looked like a drug dealer in her heavy black sunglasses, but she was only trying to shield her eyes from the searing sun. Helen was so hungover from her night in Himmarshee she could hardly unlock the door. Breakfast had been black coffee and aspirin. Only then did she have the courage to look in the bathroom mirror. Helen winced at the sight: She looked old enough to be her own mother.

Detective Hansel did not look like someone who had been dancing on the ceiling at Sammy’s Good Tyme Saloon the night before. He seemed earnest and sober and eager to nail Helen’s hide to the green door. Detective Grace was the same odd mix of don’t-mess-with-me voluptuousness. Helen suspected Grace had to watch every bite to keep that lush figure from going to fat. Or maybe not. Working with Hansel could make any woman lose her appetite.

Hansel wanted to search the premises for evidence of drugs. Helen was relieved to see that the search warrant was fairly specific. The police were looking for ledger books, documents, long-distance records, and computer disks that did not relate to the business of the store and also for illegal drugs or narcotics paraphernalia.

No scales and tiny baggies at Juliana’s, Helen thought. So far, so good.

Helen called Mr. Roget in Canada and told him two homicide detectives wanted to search the store in connection with Christina’s death. Mr. Roget did not understand American law and didn’t care to. “Cooperate fully with the police, and call me if there is a problem,” he said. Helen was relieved he didn’t ask too many questions.

Stay out of the way, she told herself. Stay under the radar. You cannot afford to get noticed by the police. You do not want to go home to St. Louis.

Helen moved to the back of the store by the black silk-satin loveseats, as far away as she could get from Detective Dwight Hansel. He was up front, searching the counter area. Detective Grace was in the back, looking at ledgers in the stockroom.

She asked Helen what she was doing the weekend of Christina’s death. Helen told her that she had been on a date with Cal Saturday night. She’d spent the rest of the time at the Coronado, where her landlady watched her like a hawk. Detective Grace took Margery’s name and address. She also wanted the names of Juliana’s regulars. Helen gave her a list.

Then she gave Helen something. “You were right,” Grace told her. “Christina Smithson had a cat. I went back and checked her apartment.”

“Did you find Thumbs?” Helen said, hoping the cuddly animal was safe.

“No, I saw the rubbing marks.”

“The what?”

“I have a cat named Cookie. Cats mark their territory by rubbing their heads and faces on furniture, doorjambs, and corners. It leaves a dirty gray spot at cat height, no matter how clean you are,” Detective Grace said. “I found the rubbing spots at Christina’s. There was one near a kitchen cabinet where she probably kept the cat food. Way in the back, behind some folded paper bags, were a few food pellets and a grooming brush. The brush was full of hair. The lab says it’s domestic cat hair. She had a cat sometime while she lived there.”

It was a small victory for Helen. Detective Grace didn’t come out and say it, but she believed Helen was telling the truth—about the cat, anyway. She gave Helen her card and said, “Call me if you think of anything else.”

Her partner was another problem. Dwight Hansel treated Helen as if she was lying, and he went out of his way to tell her.“I still haven’t found anything to substantiate your story,” he said.

Stay polite, she told herself. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I hear women of a certain age can start making up stories,” he said. “Has to do with hormones or something. Unless you’re just plain lying.”

Don’t let him rattle you, she told herself. “I’m not lying,” she said.

“You were the last one to see her alive,” he said. “And that makes you especially interesting to me.”

I’ve got to find out who killed Christina before Dwight Hansel looks into my life, Helen thought. He’ll send me home to Rob for pure spite. Now the snakes were slithering in a pit lit by slashes of panic.

At ten a.m., she was no longer alone in her misery. Tara arrived for work and turned pale when she saw the two detectives. Helen thought Tara looked thin and vulnerable in her tiny tight skirt and lowcut top. Tara kept pulling her long black hair across her face like a curtain, hoping to hide behind it.

She told Detective Hansel she was a new employee and had only worked for Christina for one week, which was true. Tara forgot to mention that she’d been a customer at Juliana’s for six years. Helen didn’t tell the cops, either. Her last attempt at being a solid citizen had been a disaster.

The search was swift and efficient. The police took some papers and computer disks, but it seemed clear they found nothing exciting. Christina had removed her troublesome special purses before she left for vacation. The police did find some tiny baggies, but they held extra buttons. If there were any stray pills from the infamous purse spill, the cleaning service had vacuumed them up weeks ago.

The two detectives gave Helen a receipt for the items they took and said they would get more detailed records from the phone company. Helen wondered if they would find any suspicious calls and felt another jagged stab of fear. There was no way she could prove Christina made those calls, not her.

Helen and Tara were both relieved when the two detectives left but wary of talking about the search.

“Did they bring in the drug-sniffing dogs?” Tara asked.

“No,” Helen said.

“We’re lucky Detective Hansel is lazy,” Tara said. “The cops did that to a friend of mine. He’d moved his stash, but the dogs knew it had been there and set up a racket. The cops made his life hell.”

Tara knows about the purses, Helen thought. But all she said was, “Detective Hansel didn’t mention anything about the two armed men who forced their way in here.”

“Oh,” Tara said. That single syllable held immeasurable relief. Both women hoped the poor communication between the two police departments would keep that event buried.

The awkward silence was broken when the doorbell rang. Juliana’s regulars began stopping by like mourners visiting a funeral home. They were dressed in impeccable black and had the air of women at a wake. They knew Christina would have no memorial service. This was the only way her favorites could pay their respects.

Brittney, Tiffany, and Bianca all showed up, fortunately after the police left. The three chief mourners huddled together on the silk-satin loveseats with Tara, drinking bottled water, remembering Christina, and discussing their favorite plastic surgeries. Helen, mindful that she was not one of them, stood respectfully nearby, feeling like a funeral home attendant. Actually, she felt more like the corpse. She was still hungover from last night.

Brittney was talking about a society dinner party. “The hostess was a rich doctor’s wife,” she said in a ghostly whisper.

“Aren’t they all?” Tiffany said.

“Except for the rich lawyer’s wives,” Tara said.

“Her penthouse condo cost millions,” Brittney said. “It was right on the water. But she has the worst eye job in Lauderdale. When she blinked, one eyelid closed slower than the other. I couldn’t stop looking at her. Finally, I had to ask the name of her surgeon. I wanted to make sure I never went to him.”

The others shuddered delicately. Tiffany seemed unaware that her own eye job was less than successful.

“It takes such courage to have any work done,” said the radically rearranged Brazilian, Bianca. “One slip and you’re ugly forever.” Helen figured with all the surgery they’d had, these women had the courage of a Roman legion.

They discussed who did the best eye jobs (upper and lower), which plastic surgeons corrected the other doctors’ mistakes, and the merits of face lifts versus fat injections.

“Fat injections have less risk, but they only last eight months,” Tara said.

“And that’s if the doctor doesn’t get greedy and dilute the fat. If he does, then it’s four to six months,” Tiffany said.

“Or if she does,” whispered Brittney. “Women doctors are just as greedy as men.”

“Greed is the one place where women have true equality,” Tara said. Helen found that line strangely haunting.

The doorbell chimed, and the women looked up. “Helen, you can’t let that one in,” Tara said, alarmed. “She’s wearing a beige Ann Taylor suit. Christina said anyone who wore Ann Taylor was too boring for words. This woman is definitely too boring for Juliana’s.”

Helen liked the suit. In fact, she had one almost like it. “She’s carrying a Kate Spade bag,” Helen said firmly.

“It’s last season’s,” Bianca sniffed. “They sell them at no-name designer sales. Look inside. It will be stamped ‘salvage. ’ ”

Helen buzzed in the woman anyway, to the fierce disapproval of the loveseat set. It was not enough for them to be admitted. Others must be excluded. Otherwise, the green door meant nothing.

The Ann Taylor woman only confirmed Helen’s poor judgment in their surgically altered eyes. She committed one faux pas after another.

Ms. Taylor asked where the price tags were, and the loveseat women rolled their eyes. Juliana’s customers knew price tags were never displayed.

They sniggered openly when Ms. Taylor said, “Excuse me, but someone left her high heels in the dressing room.” Juliana’s customers knew the shoes were there as a courtesy if they needed to see how a dress looked with heels.

They were not surprised when Ms. Taylor left without buying anything.

Helen sighed and, for the tenth time that morning, wished Christina was there. She always knew what to say to her regulars, how to sell to them, and how to soothe them. Helen liked Juliana’s customers, most of the time. She pitied them sometimes, and she always envied their money. But she felt they were from some alien planet. They were so small, so delicate, so dependent on men.

But we’re all dependent on men, Helen thought. I could only go so far at my corporation before I hit my head on the glass ceiling, and I hit it hard.

Director of Human Resources was the title with the money and the power. It was the job Helen wanted, but it always went to a man at her company. Helen settled for second best, the duller, safer title of benefits director. Her career was good, but not great. But she had her marriage. Then she found out her husband had betrayed her, and she’d picked up the crowbar that wrecked her life. In court, the judge, another man, decided her awful future.

Maybe we aren’t so different after all, Helen thought. But she could never say that to Juliana’s women. They seemed to know that Helen’s pantyhose had runs in the toes stopped with clear nail polish. They would look at her self-manicured nails and four-year-old Ungaro suit and see no resemblance.

Precisely at one, Bianca, Brittney, and Tiffany rose gracefully from the silk-satin loveseats. Each woman told Helen how sorry she was to learn of Christina’s death. Each bought something for a few hundred dollars—a purse or a scarf or a belt—as if she was making a memorial donation in Christina’s name. Then they were gone. Helen wondered if they would come back.

Helen knew she was not the right person to run Juliana’s. There was something wrong with her. She hated needless cosmetic surgery. Helen thought most people looked better with their original face, unless they were disfigured. To her, the marks of maturity were not disfiguring. They gave people character. So she told the regulars she didn’t know who did the best lip work and breast implants. They knew she was lying. These women did not want to hear Helen’s lectures on the dangers of silicone and collagen.

When Juliana’s regulars wanted biopolymer injections, Helen did not tell them about exotic South American doctors, like Christina did. Instead, Helen gave them the phone numbers of the reporters who investigated the horrific damages. No one took the numbers.

The next afternoon, Helen made her worst mistake. It was with Melissa, the little blonde with the large implants and the sexy, slightly popped gray eyes. Helen knew she’d mishandled the woman, but she felt she had to try to stop her.

“You’ve taken over for Christina?” Melissa asked her.

Helen said yes.

“Then you must have her list of plastic surgeons. I need my eyes done. I have terrible bags.”

Helen looked at Melissa’s smooth pale skin. It was flawless.

“How old are you, Melissa?” Helen asked.

“Twenty-seven,” she said.

“You don’t need an eye job,” she said. “Your skin is perfection.”

“It’s not,” Melissa said. She squeezed out one crystal tear. “My boyfriend left me for a younger woman. It’s my eyes. I know it. If my eyes were OK, I’d still have him.”

“Did you ever wonder if the problem was not your face?” Helen said.

“What do you mean?” Melissa said, suddenly alert and tear-free.

“I mean,” Helen said, “that you are beautiful, but you don’t believe it. You cannot see yourself as others do. Why let some quack cut on you? He could ruin your looks forever. A therapist would be less painful.”

“Are you calling me crazy?” Melissa’s eyes were not popped now, but hard and narrowed.

“I’m merely suggesting—” Helen began.

“I’m outta here,” she said. “And I’m not coming back. I don’t have to listen to some nowhere sales clerk tell me I’m crazy.”

Melissa stalked out, slamming the green door.

Another customer lost forever, Helen thought. Soon, the sharp-eyed owner would notice that sales were down. Helen would be out of a job. No one else could take Christina’s place. No one else had the right combination of sophistication and sleaze.

Juliana’s was slowly dying, and Helen could not prevent that death, either.