Murder Between the Covers

Chapter 1

“Helen, where the hell are you?” The creep used the intercom, so everyone heard.

“I’m in the back, stripping,” she said. Now they all heard her reply.

“I don’t care what you’re doing, get out here,” he said.

“Now.”

Helen Hawthorne quit stripping and wished she could start ripping. She wanted to rip out the black heart of Page Turner III with her bare hands.

He knew where she was. He also knew she couldn’t complain when he played his little games. He was Page Turner, literary light and owner of Page Turners, the book chain with his name. Page was a multimillionaire, but not because of the three bookstores. The real family fortune came from mundane moneymakers such as pancake houses and muffler shops.

Page ran the bookstores because he had the same name as the founder. That was all Page had in common with his book-loving grandfather. The current Page Turner couldn’t sell a book to a boatload of bibliophiles.

Helen flung open the stockroom door, expecting to see Page. Instead she collided with Mr. Davies, the store’s oldest inhabitant. Mr. Davies showed up every morning at nine, when the store opened, and stayed until it closed at midnight. He brought two peanut-butter sandwiches, one for lunch and one for dinner, and drank the free ice water in the café. All day long he read books. He bought one paperback a month, when his Social Security check arrived.

Helen liked him. He was as much a fixture as the shelves and chairs.

Mr. Davies was a small gray squirrel of a man, with big yellow teeth and inquisitive brown eyes. Now those eyes were bright with disappointment.

“You’re dressed,” the old man said.

“Of course I’m dressed,” Helen said. “What did you think I was doing in there?”

“Stripping,” he said hopefully.

“I was stripping the covers off paperbacks,” she said.

Mr. Davies was more shocked than if she’d been stark naked. “That’s terrible, a pretty girl like you mutilating books,” he said.

“I agree, sir,” Helen said.

Mr. Davies scurried off to his favorite reading chair, holding his book protectively, as if Helen might strip it, too.

Helen couldn’t tell Mr. Davies why she’d been stripping.

She’d been dealing with yet another of Page’s mistakes. He’d bagged Jann Hickory Munn, the hot fiction writer, to sign at Page Turners on his national tour. But Page did no advertising, so six people had come to Munn’s signing. Page was stuck with cases of books.

The unsold hardcovers were sent back. But most publishers didn’t want paperbacks returned. The shipping would cost more than the books. Instead their covers were stripped and counted like scalps. The author paid for Page’s miscalculation in lost royalties. Someone else always paid for Page’s mistakes.

Page stood in the middle of the store, arms folded across his chest. He looked more like a boxer than a bookstore owner. A boxer gone to seed. Too many nights spent drinking with best-selling authors had transformed Page’s barrel chest into a beer belly. His chiseled chin was buried in fat.

His Roman nose was red and veined. But he still had wavy blond hair, and at six feet, he was a commanding figure.

“I need you to ring,” Page said to Helen like a lord granting a boon to a peasant. The book buyers didn’t know Page could not work his own cash registers. They were too complicated for him. Page retired to his quiet, comfortable office lined with his grandfather’s priceless first editions.

Helen faced the horde of impatient customers. Another bookseller, Brad, was already ringing, but the line of customers was almost out the door.

“Next, please,” Helen called as she opened her register.

The man who stepped forward was talking on his cell phone. He could have been a young Elvis with his thick black hair, heavy-lidded eyes, and sexy sneer. His black silk shirt showed a hint of tanned chest and no gold chains.

Tight jeans. Narrow hips. Strong hands. Helen checked for a wedding ring. Nothing. How had this one stayed on the shelf?

The Hunk snapped his cell phone shut, another point in his favor. Some customers talked on the phone while Helen rang them up.

He threw two paperbacks on the counter. One had a cracked spine and curled cover. The other was crisp and new. “I’m exchanging this,” he said, pointing to the sad specimen, “for this.” Sexy voice, too. Soft, caressing, polite. He was a sweet talker, all right.

The Hunk plunked down the new Burt Plank thriller, and smiled like a man who always got his way. He would this time. Most stores would not take that battered book back, but Page Turners had a liberal return policy. The Hunk started to take the new Plank thriller and walk away. Helen grabbed it.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I need to ring this up as an exchange and get a manager’s approval.”

“Why? They’re both the same price.”

Because Page Turner’s pet computer nerd developed an overcomplicated system, Helen thought.

“Because we have a computerized inventory system,” Helen said.

“This is ridiculous,” the Hunk said, and suddenly his caress had claws.

He was right. It was ridiculous. Page Turners required more signatures for a simple book return than a bank loan.

“I can’t believe this,” he said. “What’s taking you so long, lady?” He slapped his hand on the counter. Helen jumped. Her fingers slipped on the computer keys.

DENIED, the computer said.

Helen had typed in the wrong transaction number. She’d have to start all over again, retyping the ten-digit transaction number, five-digit store number, and six-digit date.

“Just give me my book,” the Hunk said, reaching for the Burt Plank thriller.

“I can’t do that, sir,” she said, sliding it under the counter. Finally she typed in all the numbers.

“I hope you’re done now,” he sneered, and this time it didn’t look sexy at all. He did not look like the young Elvis anymore. He was mean and arrogant.

“Not quite,” she said. “I still need the manager’s approval.” She paged Gayle.

“For a freakin’ paperback?” the Hunk said.

Helen looked nervously at the line. It was even longer.

All those paying customers were kept waiting because of another half-witted Page Turner policy.

“I want my book! ” the Hunk screamed.

Helen’s face was hot with embarrassment. The other customers in line shifted uneasily. A few glared. She didn’t blame them. She was new and slow. The store policy was old and stupid. It was a fatal combination.

Behind the Hunk, an elegant blonde in a blue sundress crossed her arms and said, “People like him should not be let out to ruin the day for the rest of us.” The blonde was angry, but not at Helen.

A short woman with a majestic bosom and a New York accent said loudly, “Rude people stink.”

“I am so tired of public rudeness,” a pale gray-haired woman agreed. She had the soft voice of an NPR announcer, but the Hunk heard her and turned the color of raw liver. He didn’t look nearly so pretty in that color.

Helen understood now why he had that ringless hand.

By the time Gayle the manager ran up and typed in the approval code, every customer in line had condemned the Hunk. He took his book and left without another word.

The bookstore customers had held their own anti-rude rebellion.

The elegant blonde handed Helen a Paris Review to ring up. “Don’t let him upset you, dear. You’re doing a good job,” she said.

Helen had never felt so good about a dead-end job. Page Turner III was a jerk, and she wished she made more than six seventy an hour. But the customers could be surprisingly kind, the booksellers were fun, and she loved books.

Work would be perfect, if someone would just murder Page.

For the next half hour Helen rang up stacks of computer manuals, romance novels, and mysteries until they blurred into one endless book. Then, suddenly, there were no more customers. They seemed to come in waves. By some silent agreement, everyone in the store would rush forward to buy books at the same time. Then they’d all leave together. The only sound now was the Muzak, sterilizing a Beatles song.

Helen looked at the clock on the computer. Four o’clock.

She was off work in thirty minutes, not a moment too soon.

She only hoped the rest of the customers were reasonably normal.

It looked like she was going to get her wish. The twenty-something woman at the counter looked like a tourist from Connecticut. She had a small sunburned nose, a short practical haircut, and baggy khaki shorts that showed knobby knees. She looked familiar, but Helen wasn’t sure why.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for books on astrology,” she said.

“They’re in New Age, aisle twelve,” Helen said.

“Where’s that?”

“Between Religion and Self-Improvement,” Helen said.

Wasn’t religion supposed to be self-improving? she wondered. Why did they need two categories?

“You can see it from here,” Helen said, pointing. It was polite to point in a bookstore. Besides, she couldn’t say, “It’s the aisle with all the books on the floor.” New Age attracted the biggest slobs in the store. Helen wondered why “free spirit” meant “inconsiderate.”

The woman returned with a copy of Astrology for Dummies, which Helen thought was a wonderfully apt title.

Something clicked, and Helen knew who the woman was.

She’d just moved into Helen’s apartment complex. Helen hadn’t had a chance to introduce herself yet. The introduction would have to wait. Customers were lining up again.

The woman fixed her deep brown eyes on Helen and said, “I’m psychic. I know your past.”

Helen paled. She’d buried her past after that terrible day in court. Even her own mother didn’t know where she was now.

“I can tell you have come a great distance,” the psychic said.

Helen felt the fear grip her stomach and pull it inside out.

She had run from St. Louis, crisscrossing the country to throw off her pursuers, before she had arrived in Fort Lauderdale.

“You are Russian,” the psychic said.

Helen giggled in pure relief. She was as Russian as bratwurst and sauerkraut. Her family was St. Louis German. Helen had changed her name when she ran. This woman was no more psychic than a cement block.

“Not even close,” Helen said cheerfully, shoving the book in a bag.

The woman handed Helen a card that said, MADAME

MUFFY’S PSYCHIC SERVICE. HELPFUL ADVICE ON ALL AFFAIRS.

TELL PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. $20 PALM READING WITH AD.

GET ONE FREE QUESTION IF YOU CALL NOW!!!!!

“Madame Muffy?” Helen said. “What kind of name is that? What sort of psychic wears a pink golf shirt?”

“Spirits on the astral plane do not care about frivolous earthly matters,” Muffy said.

“True. But people here have certain expectations. You need some Birkenstocks and dangly earrings.”

“Listen, sweetie, I have a lot of business clients. They want advice on the stock market,” Madame Muffy said.

“They don’t want me traipsing into their office in some weird getup. There’s a Lighthouse Point executive—I can’t give you his name because my clients are confidential— who is a million dollars richer because of me.”

“Right.” Helen handed Muffy her book bag. Only South Florida would have a psychic called Muffy. Helen figured that was why Madame Muffy did such a rotten job predicting her past. She was too normal for the paranormal.

“May I help the next customer?” Helen said.

Two boys stepped up to the counter. The eight-year-old gave her a crumpled ten-dollar bill and a copy of The Adventures of Captain Underpants.

“Another Captain Underpants fan,” Helen said. “Are you one, too?” she asked the older boy, a solemn twelve.

He looked offended. “That stuff’s for kids.”

“Who do you like?” Helen asked.

“Steinbeck,” the boy said. “Ever read The Grapes of Wrath? Steinbeck rules.”

Steinbeck rules. Helen’s heart lifted when she heard those words. This was the future talking. There were still readers, despite what the cynics said. Helen couldn’t stop thinking about the boy as she walked home on Las Olas.

Las Olas was the fashionable shopping street in Fort Lauderdale, but it had nothing for her. She passed trendy restaurants where the entrées cost more than she made in a day, and chic shops where hand-painted gifts cost more than she made in a week.

The Coronado Tropic Apartments were only four blocks from the bookstore. In the slanting late-afternoon light, the white two-story Art Deco building looked like a vision of old Florida. The building’s exuberant S-curve seemed hopeful. The turquoise trim was jaunty. Purple bougainvillea spilled into the tiled pool in romantic extravagance.

Helen ignored the fact that the nearly new air conditioners were starting to rattle and drip rust down the white paint.

Peggy, the woman in 2B, was on a chaise longue by the pool, with Pete the parrot on her shoulder. Peggy looked rather like an exotic bird herself, with her dark red hair and elegant beak of a nose. She was beautiful in an offbeat way, but Pete was the only male Peggy tolerated. She seemed to have given up on men. Instead, Peggy spent all her money on lottery tickets.

“Hey, Helen,” she said, waving her over. “I’ve got a new system.”

Peggy always had a new system for winning the lottery.

Before Helen could find out what it was, a small woman in baggy khaki shorts interrupted. “Do you have the time?” she asked Helen.

It was Madame Muffy. Helen recognized the little psychic immediately, but Muffy did not remember her. People who wore name tags were often invisible away from their work.

“If you’re really psychic, why do you need to know the time?”

“I use my powers for serious things.” Madame Muffy stared at Helen until she said, “Oh, you’re the bookstore lady. I just moved into 2C. I’m your new neighbor.”

Helen hoped Madame Muffy could not read her mind.

She was not happy about this charlatan living at the Coronado.

“Let me read your palm—both of you—as a gift for my new neighbors,” Muffy said. “You can ask one question, no charge.”

Helen started to refuse, but Peggy looked amused.

“Come on, Helen, don’t be a stick. It will be fun.”

“Squawwwk!” Pete said. It sounded like a protest to Helen.

Three people and one parrot went upstairs to Muffy’s apartment. Her living room was as plain as her preppy outfits. There was a desk with a computer, a small round table covered with a brown cloth, three white wicker chairs from Pier 1, and a large poster with prices for tarot, palm, and crystal-ball readings. There were no pictures on the wall.

The speckled terrazzo floor was bare.

“You go first,” Peggy said.

Helen sat down reluctantly and put her hand palm-up on the table. The table wobbled, and she realized it was plastic patio furniture. When Madame Muffy took her hand, Helen stiffened, although the psychic’s touch was warm and gentle. “What is your question?” she said.

“What about my job?” Helen said.

“That’s it?” Peggy said. “What about romance? What about your life?”

I can’t risk any revelations about my life, Helen thought.

“My love life is fine,” she said. “I’m worried about work.”

“You have a powerful aura,” Muffy said. “As powerful as Martha Stewart’s.”

Helen saw her aura wrapped in white tulle and silk ribbons.

“You were meant to be a leader,” Muffy said. “You were meant to make money and hold a powerful position. You almost had it, and then you lost it.”

Helen could feel the blood draining from her face. In St.

Louis she’d made six figures. She’d been director of pensions and benefits for a big corporation. Then she came home early one day and found her husband, Rob, who was supposed to be building a new deck, nailing their neighbor, Sandy. Helen had picked up a handy crowbar and ended her marriage with a couple of swift swings. She still remembered the satisfying crunching sound.

“I see you working with money. You like it. You understand it. But you are working below your capacity. Something in your past is blocking your success. Your life will not move forward unless you remove this block. For a thirty-five-dollar palm reading, I can find out the name of the person who is blocking you.”

I can save myself thirty-five bucks, Helen thought. I already know the name. And I know what Muffy is: a fraud.

Of course she saw me working with money. She saw me standing at a cash register. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out I used to have money. I’m wearing four-year-old Escada. It’s a little threadbare, but better than anything I can afford now.

That’s what Helen hated most about bad psychics. They were good at messing with your mind. For a minute she’d almost believed the malignant Muffy could tell the future.

“You need me, sweetie, to straighten out your life,” Muffy said. “Come see me when you’re ready to talk.”

“I will,” Helen said, prying her hand from Madame Muffy’s grasp. Right after I marry G. Gordon Liddy on Las Olas in rush hour, she thought.

“And you can get me a discount at that bookstore,” Muffy said. “Next.”

Peggy sat down at the undercover patio table and presented her palm. Pete the parrot patrolled her shoulder restlessly, letting out earsplitting squawks.

“Calm down, boy,” Peggy said. She took back her palm to pet her parrot. Pete settled into a sulky silence.

“Now,” Muffy said. “What’s your question?”

Helen could predict that one. Sure enough, Peggy said, “When will I win the lottery?”

Madame Muffy took Peggy’s palm and said, “I can give you some lucky numbers if you—”

She stopped suddenly, looked closely at Peggy’s palm, and turned as white as the Pier 1 wicker. “I see death,” she said. “I see death, destruction, and murder.”

Then Madame Muffy fell face-forward on the table.