Murder Between the Covers (16 page)

Helen dug in the pile of leftover ketchup, mustard, and sugar until she found a pepper packet. Gayle ate her peppered salad methodically. First all the tuna. Then the tomatoes. She was working on the string beans when she said, “Jamie was a sad case. She OD’d on heroin last year.

“Shelly was the smart one. She left Page for another man. Her new boyfriend got them a great gig on a yacht. She cooks, he crews. Last I heard they were headed for Brazil.

“I’m sure there were more, one-night stands or women who showed up after hours, but those are the ones I knew about.”

Five women, a typical South Florida sampling: Two thrived on the corruption here, one ran back home, one ran away to sea, and one died. Cheree and Maree wouldn’t care about sex videos. They’d consider them good advertising. Jamie was dead, and couldn’t be hurt any more. Shelly had left the country. That left one candidate for blackmail. How would the Pittsburgh dentist feel about a wife who starred in Page’s private porn library?

“Liza, the one who went back home, are you in contact with her?”

“I get a card from her at Christmas,” Gayle said, intent on spearing an escaped string bean.

“Could you find out if she heard from Page recently?”

“Why?” Gayle stabbed and subdued the slippery green bean and began working on the potatoes.

“Because I think Page may have been blackmailing those women.”

Gayle waved a forkful of potato as if it were a pointer. “Page Turner was a lot of things, most of them bad. But he wasn’t a blackmailer. Why bother? He didn’t need the money.”

“Rich people never have enough money,” Helen said.

“He certainly wouldn’t get it from the women in those videos. None of them had two nickels to rub together. Astrid was the only woman he dated with money. I think that’s why he married her.”

“Then he did it because he could,” Helen said. “He liked the power.”

“I never thought I’d hear myself defending Page Turner,” Gayle said, “but I’ll say it again: He’s not a blackmailer. I’ll call Liza for you, but I’m not sure she’ll tell me anything. We weren’t close. I knew Peggy better.”

Gayle put her fork down and looked at Helen. “She’s your friend, isn’t she? That’s why you’re asking these questions.”

“Yes,” Helen said. There was no point in hiding it. “Page was blackmailing her. I think he may have been blackmailing the others, too, if not for money, then for pure meanness.”

“Page was always motivated by money. Always. How would he get money from Peggy? I don’t think Page’s sex videos are any big deal. The cops will watch them and snicker, but that’s all. Peggy is lucky there’s no video of the day she stormed into the bookstore in her nightgown. That was your blackmail material. I never saw anyone, man or woman, so angry. If she’d had a knife instead of a newspaper, she’d have stabbed him on the spot.” Gayle ran her fork savagely through the last potato.

“But that was two years ago,” Helen said.

“You don’t get over a hurt like that right away. Maybe not ever. He made a fool of a smart woman.”

Gayle threw away her salad things and wiped the crumby tabletop with her napkin. “I’ll call Liza in Pittsburgh. But don’t expect anything.”

That should have been the motto for the whole afternoon. A badly used blonde with a big chest wobbled up to Helen’s cash register with a stack of coin-collector folders. Either the blonde was wearing bourbon cologne, or she was trashed. She tried to pay with two rolls of quarters. Helen groaned. She’d have to count all the coins.

“Hey!” the woman said, and slapped Helen with a wave of bourbon. “Why yuh taking ‘em out of the wrappers? I already counted ‘em for you.”

“Because half these quarters are Canadian,” Helen said, and slid them back across the counter. The bourbonized blonde was hanging on to the counter and swaying. Helen felt seasick.

“Oh, yeah.” She looked sheepish and shrugged her shoulders, a bad move. Her right breast nearly slid out of her halter top. She stuffed it back in, and the other breast almost escaped.

“Shit,” said the drunken numismatist.

“Can I help?” said the man in line behind her. Helen eyed his wedding ring and glared at him. “Er, maybe not.” He took a step back.

The blonde was trying to subdue her slippery breasts. Helen spotted a star-and-dagger tattoo during the struggle, which threw off her quarter count. The line kept getting longer. She paged Brad for backup. The little bookseller eyed the pile of coins and whispered, “How exactly do you think she earned all those quarters?”

“Who cares?” Helen snapped, her patience strained. “Now start ringing.”

She finally determined that the woman had $17.25 in U.S. quarters. “You’re a dollar twenty-three short.”

The tipsy numismatist produced a roll of dimes from a large, limp leather purse. The count started again, but this time it went quicker. Helen found twelve U.S. dimes in the welter of Canadian coins. To heck with the three cents. The woman belched delicately, let go of the counter, and lurched out the door.

The next customer was a round-faced, smiling teacher who looked like a Chaucer goodwife. She had a two-foot stack of bargain books. Even with her teacher’s discount card, her purchases came to $99.81. She handed Helen a hundred-dollar bill. Helen gave her back a pathetic nineteen cents.

The teacher threw up her hands and said, “Thank God! Now I can have the operation.”

Helen was still laughing when the woman bustled out.

“Glad something’s made you happy,” Gayle said. The line had vanished, and they could talk again. “I found Liza. It wasn’t too difficult. She’s pregnant and the doctor’s ordered bed rest until the baby comes. There’s no way she was being blackmailed. She didn’t even know Page was dead. She sounded completely surprised.”

“Maybe Liza’s a good actor,” Helen said.

“Liza was always a bad liar. She’s telling the truth. Look, I did what you asked. Now maybe you need to ask yourself: If Page really was a blackmailer, why only Peggy? And why now?”

Good questions. Helen tried to come up with answers all afternoon. She also asked herself why Peggy was holding back information. None of it made sense. Her brain raced like a gerbil on a treadmill, going round and round, getting nowhere, while she rang up books and watched the clock.

At six-thirty she clocked out. It was time to meet Gabriel in the store’s café. She would even buy her own coffee, thank you. She wasn’t starting this relationship off on the wrong foot.

Denny was working the café tonight, baking chocolatechip cookies between latte orders. The heat from the oven made his auburn hair curlier and flushed his skin. There was something about a man working in a kitchen that was irresistible. Helen stood in line behind a painfully thin woman with red hair and tight Moschino jeans.

“Black coffee and a bagel. Can you scoop out the bagel?” Ms. Moschino asked.

“No,” Denny said, “but you can.” He handed her the bagel and a spoon, and she gutted the center, leaving behind a thick rope of bread.

“Why did she do that?” Helen asked when Ms. Moschino left.

“She’s on a diet.”

“Why not just eat half a bagel and take the other half home?”

“Beats me,” Denny said. “We got people in here who get mad because they don’t want cheese on their sandwiches. I tell them I can’t take off the cheese, they have to do it. It’s health-department regulations. They yell at me, saying, ‘I’m paying all this money for a sandwich and I have to take off my own cheese?’ Yes, sir. I can’t move the cheese, I can’t scoop the bagel, and I can’t figure any of them out.”

“Ah, Denny, you sound as unhappy as the rest of us. Welcome to the wonderful world of retail.”

“Thanks. What do you want?”

“A double latte and a chocolate biscotti.”

“Whipped cream on that latte?”

She looked at the too-thin woman picking at her gutted bagel. “Absolutely.”

Helen was sitting at a table by the window when Gabe walked in. Heads turned, male and female. The skinny redhead stopped in mid–bagel bite. Gabe, with his blond hair and massive muscles, drew all eyes. But Helen looked first for his imperfections, her guarantee of a good relationship. When he smiled at her, she saw his teeth were still crooked. He ordered a cappuccino and a slab of double chocolate cake. Good. That would maintain the slight paunch. Nothing would stop the natural hair erosion. She smiled when he sauntered over with his coffee and cake. He seemed so easygoing compared to Dr. Rich.

They talked books, then South Florida theater. “Most people don’t realize it, but South Florida is overrun with Shakespearean actors,” he said. “Want to see
A Midsummer
Night’s Dream
at the Shakespeare in the Park Festival in Hollywood?”

It was a real date. Helen wasn’t sure she wanted to say yes. She warily studied Gabe’s strong hands for signs of a wedding ring, but saw no tan line. “Are you in a relationship right now?”

“Not really,” Gabe said.

Helen had made three major mistakes with men since she’d moved down here. Before that, there was her exhusband Rob, one giant step backward for mankind. If she had to interview Gabe like a prospective employer, she would.

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Nothing, really,” he said with a charming shrug that sent muscles rippling across his shoulders. “We just drifted apart.”

Drifted apart. That sounded nice and neutral. Not, “I followed her to work and called her fifty times a day.” They drifted apart, two ships in the night. A gentle ending.

Gabe’s cell phone rang. He checked the number and turned it off, scoring more points.

“Sorry,” he said. “I hate these things, but I need it for business.”

Helen continued to probe. She’d been burned by Rich. No, bruised. She flexed her battered wrist. “I guess you make lots of phone calls when you’re going out with someone.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” Gabe looked endearingly puzzled, like a golden retriever who’d lost his toy under the couch.

“A cell phone is a good way to keep track of someone you’re dating.”

“You mean like constant phone calls? I’ve got better things to do and so does she. At least I hope she does. I don’t believe in hog-tying a woman with a phone cord. You either have her or you don’t.”

He’s got me, Helen thought.

“I’d love to see the play,” she said, as her last fears were put to bed.

The store’s doors were locked. Clusters of customers stood outside, noses pressed against the windows like abandoned puppies.

The group inside looked even more forlorn. Gayle the manager was dressed in her usual black, but today it was not a fashion statement. It was an undertaker’s outfit. Gayle didn’t actually say the store was closing. But even the youngest bookseller, Denny, figured it out.

“We’re fucked,” he whispered to Helen. “We’re going to wind up shoveling fries at Mickey D’s.”

“If we’re lucky,” Helen said.

Albert glared at them, and they lapsed into guilty silence.

“So, to recap before we open this morning.” Gayle began counting on her fingers. “One, no new stock will be delivered. We will not be getting any new books until further notice.

“Two, we will not be receiving any more new magazines.” Brad’s sharp face went red with anger. The magazines were his domain. He managed the section, fussed over the stock, worried about the snowfall of subscription cards. Now he was demoted to an ordinary bookseller.

“Three, staff hours will remain reduced.

“Four, there will be no new hires, even if someone quits.

“And five, if customers ask if the store is closing, the answer is no.”

Helen didn’t believe that. In her experience, business declines were rarely reversed. Page Turners was on a downward slide. They were enforcing Page’s destructive last decisions and had made more bad ones. She had to find another job.

Albert stood there, shell-shocked. He did not ask if the store was closing. Even his optimism was dead. The starch had gone out of his white shirt, and his tie was spotted. Helen heard him muttering, “At my age, what am I going to do?”

When she went to the break room to get her name tag, Denny was putting on his café apron. His normally curly auburn hair stuck out in porcupine spikes. His innocent face was troubled.

“Here’s what I don’t get,” he said. “We have people lining up to buy books. Look at the crowd waiting for us to open. It will be like that all day. In the café, I’ll be cranking out five-dollar coffee drinks and selling four-buck slices of cake nonstop. But they’re acting like the store is a loser. Where’s the money going—up someone’s nose?”

Maybe once upon a time, when Page and Peggy romped in the upper room. But Page had stopped using coke when he’d married Astrid. Gayle said the late owner was all about money. Where did the store’s money flow? Was it an underground river, diverted to some unknown source? And what—if anything—did it have to do with the penniless Peggy?

Gayle opened Helen’s cash register, unlocked the doors, and greeted the customers with her usual smile. But they were not fooled. They knew Page Turners was in trouble.

A skinny elderly man who smelled of cigar smoke and

solitary soup lunches waved a newspaper clipping in Helen’s face. “Why don’t you have that book? It’s on the
New York Times
best-seller list.” He pointed out its place on the list, as if that could make her produce it.

“Our shipment was delayed,” Helen lied.

“You’re supposed to be a bookstore,” he said. “Where are your books?” He threw the clipping on the counter and stormed out.

Behind him was an unhappy old hippie. His bald dome tapered off into a pony tail. His red eyes were dilated from weed. “Don’t you have more of these music books? That’s a pathetic selection, man.” The Grateful Dead biography he handed Helen was well thumbed and sticky with spilled whipped-cream coffee.