Murder Unleashed (3 page)

Helen grew more uneasy as she went through a country kitchen the size of a French province. The video room was bigger than the local multiplex.

“Anyone here?” The silence was unnatural. Did she have the right time?

Helen checked her watch. It was twelve-oh-two. Tammie may have acted like an airhead, but that party was important to her. She wouldn’t forget Prince’s noon hair appointment.

Maybe Tammie was taking a nap, recovering from the stress of party planning. Helen wandered through a labyrinth of halls hung with murky British landscapes until she found the master bedroom. The canopy bed looked like it slept six starlets. The miniature canopy bed next to it could hold one Yorkie. Both were empty. So was the master bath. The white terry robe on the door belonged in a hotel.

“Tammie? Prince?” she called. No one answered.

Now Helen was seriously worried. She eyed the bedroom phone. Maybe she should call Jeff. Maybe she should call 911. No, she couldn’t bring in the police. They’d ask awkward questions.

Helen kept searching for signs of life.

The French doors in the master bedroom opened onto the pool, which was slightly smaller than Lake Okeechobee. Gaily striped awnings—no, wait, Tammie would never have anything gay—sheltered umbrella tables and teak lounges. Under a vast umbrella, Helen saw two tanned legs on a teak lounge, spread wide and unmoving. The toenails were bloodred.

The hair went up on the back of Helen’s neck. “Tammie?” she said.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. Helen felt dizzy. She’d stumbled on a dead body before. She never wanted to see one again. Please, she prayed. Please let Tammie be OK. What if the woman had had a stroke or a heart attack? It happened to perfectly healthy granola chompers.

Helen looked at the splayed legs and winced. What if something worse had happened?

It wasn’t natural for a woman to be so still. A fly crawled up one brown leg toward the knee. No manicured hand reached out to shoo it away.

Helen had to see the rest of the body, but she was too afraid to move.

“Tammie, please say you’re OK,” she begged.

No answer.

Helen unfroze one leg, then the other. She moved carefully around the umbrella table, alert for blood spatters or signs of a struggle. No furniture was broken or overturned, but the waxed legs on the lounge had a lifeless, rubbery look. The two tall glasses by the chaise were unbroken.

Then Helen saw the rest of the body and gave a little shriek.

“Oh, don’t be such a prude,” Tammie Grimsby said. “Haven’t you ever seen a naked woman before?”

T
ammie Grimsby, lying in a sun- and alcohol-soaked stupor, didn’t apologize for her nudity. She wouldn’t deprive the world of a body like hers. Helen admitted it was imposing, but she wished Tammie would throw a towel over her nakedness.

“There’s nothing wrong with sunbathing in your own backyard,” Tammie said. She yawned and stretched until her massive mammaries arched upward. The big nipples were dark brown.

Is she coming on to me? Helen wondered. She wasn’t sure. Tammie might be naked because she wanted to seduce Helen. But her natural state could also be contempt. Tammie simply couldn’t bother dressing for a servant.

That was the problem with a dead-end job: Helen had no protection. She couldn’t complain. It was her word against Tammie’s, and the Yorkie’s owner could say Helen made a pass at her. Her boss, Jeff, was a good guy, but Tammie had spent a lot of money at his store. Helen might find herself out of work.

“Most people wear clothes when I pick up their dogs,” Helen said.

“I’m not most people,” Tammie said, and stretched again.

Helen studied the sun umbrella and tried to look bored. The woman was disturbingly sexual. In her work-out clothes she’d looked like an aging trophy wife. But stretched out on the chaise she was a lushly curved nude, an old master’s model. Helen wanted out of there.

“I can’t have tan lines.” Tammie’s voice was languid and slightly slurred. Helen caught the sweet, bitter whiff of alcohol.

“Does she have a body, or what?” The braying voice bounced off the pool deck. Kent Grimsby was ten years older and a foot shorter than his wife. He had the rolling walk of the overmuscled male. His arms were gnarly with muscle. His neck was thick as a palm tree trunk. Helen suspected he hit the steroids. This was the first time she had a clear view of the ogre’s face. His nose, chin, and cheeks were thick lumps, shaded by black hairy eyebrows

Kent wasn’t naked, but Helen thought nudity might be less obscene than his unlined Speedo. His equipment wobbled as he walked, reminding Helen of a rubber dog toy. She wondered if it would squeak if she squeezed it. She wondered if she could wash her mind out with soap.

“I tell her, with a body like that, you got nothing to be ashamed of,” Kent said. “It’s natural to go around with no clothes. You’re born naked and you die that way.” Wobble. Wobble. Kent and his rubber toy were getting too close for Helen’s comfort.

“But in between, my mother told me to cover up,” Helen said.

“Another waste,” Kent said. “You look like you got a good body yourself. Nice high, pointy—”

“I’ve got to go,” Helen interrupted.

Tammie thought so, too. She was still in the same languid pose, but her eyes were alert and hard. She didn’t like Kent praising any body but hers.

“Me, too,” Kent said. “I’m spending the afternoon test-driving Porsches. Vroooom. Vrooooom.” He made car noises like a six-year-old. Wobble. Wobble. Helen didn’t want to look at his stick shift.

Tammie wiggled her painted toes and waved a hand vaguely toward the pool. “Prince is over there. Take him. This day has had too much stress. I need to relax.”

Helen picked up the dog, who was docile and drowsy from the sun. “Does he have a pet carrier?” she said.

“Never!” Tammie said. “Prince has never been in a carrier.”

First time for everything, Prince, old pal, Helen thought. She wasn’t letting a dog loose in the Cadillac. Prince would head straight under the gas pedal. Helen kept a soft-sided carrier in the car.

“I’ll make sure Prince is back by four,” she said.

Tammie closed her eyes. Dismissed.

Helen hurried out, glad to be gone. She opened the hot-pink car door and plopped Prince in the carrier on the front seat. The little dog whined. She gave him a turkey jerky treat, and he slurped it quietly the rest of the trip.

Helen delivered Prince to the king of the groomers and went back to waiting on boutique customers.

That afternoon she sold a smuggling purse to Mrs. Delvecchio. The little widow wanted to sneak Samantha, her teacup poodle, into her high-rise apartment. The Pampered Pet was near the Galt Ocean Mile, a stretch of beach that looked like Manhattan with palm trees. Like Manhattan, its high-rises were thick with rich widows and divorcées.

When Helen saw the tiny woman in tailored black, she recited the New Yorker’s prayer: “Oh, Lord, don’t let me become a little woman with a little dog in a big high-rise.”

Many high-rises banned pets. Cats were easy to hide, but a whole industry arose to help these women sneak in their dogs. Designer smuggling purses had special mesh airholes to safely conceal little dogs in their depths. Puppy training pads served the dogs’ basic needs. Some animals never saw sunlight except when they went to the vet or the groomer.

“What do you do if your dog barks in the elevator?” Helen said, as she wrapped up the three-hundred-dollar doggie bag for Mrs. Delvecchio.

“I have a bad cough.” The little widow made a horrible hacking noise.

“Clever,” Helen said.

“Also, I tip the doorman well at Christmas. He knows to keep his mouth shut. Nobody comes between me and Samantha.”

One look at the small, fierce woman and Helen could believe the stories that she’d helped the late Mr. Delvecchio make his money. He’d died of lead poisoning in a New Jersey clam house. Somebody put six bullets in his back.

A small, freckled woman stood shyly at the counter, waiting for Helen to finish with Mrs. Delvecchio. “I’m here to pick up my dog,” she said. She was drab as a sparrow, except for her bright brown eyes.

“Mrs. Harrow,” Helen said. “You have the little white shih tzu, Alexa.”

“That’s right. I’ll pay now, before you get her. Was she good for Toddie?”

“Yes,” Helen said. Actually, the spoiled Alexa yipped for three solid hours, but the salon always said the dogs were well behaved.

Helen raised her eyebrows when she saw the size of Todd’s tip on Mrs. Harrow’s credit-card slip. The handsome young groomer had made another conquest. Helen wondered how long it would be before the newly divorced Mrs. Harrow brought him blue Tiffany boxes wrapped in white ribbons.

Helen carried out the freshly groomed shih tzu, which smelled of flea shampoo and coconut cream rinse. Alexa quivered with joy when she was reunited with her owner. Dog and owner made small, excited cries.

They were barely out the door when Jonathon gave a howl of anguish. “I can’t work with this moron. I can’t take the distractions.”

Helen and Jeff ran to the salon side. Jonathon had Todd, the other groomer, backed against the wall. Jonathon’s ten-inch ice-tempered stainless-steel scissors were at Todd’s throat. Todd was pale as Pottery Barn bedding.

“Is something wrong?” Jeff said mildly.

Helen nearly choked at his understatement.

“He kisses dogs,” Jonathon said, twisting the scissors at Todd’s neck. The pinioned groomer winced, but there was no blood on his tender skin.

“This raging idiot makes movements to deliberately distract me,” Jonathon said, flinging his blond hair like a whip. “I am working on Toto. He knows she’s skittish. I never drug my dogs, never. But I cannot have distractions. I need a private room. I must be away from this dog kisser.”

“Of course I kiss Bruiser,” Todd said. His voice came out a gargle with the scissors at his throat. He pointed to a chihuahua shivering on a grooming table. “I love her. Bruiser kisses me back.”

The little dog licked Todd’s hand on cue. “The hair dryer scares Bruiser. It’s so noisy. I try to make her feel better by loving her.”

“He’s a dunce,” Jonathon said, waving his scissors in the air.

Todd scooted out of range and stood behind Jeff, rubbing his neck. Both Helen and Jeff relaxed now that the razor-sharp blades were away from Todd’s throat.

“I do not kiss dogs,” Jonathon said. “I don’t have to. They feel my power and hold still. They know I am in command. He is not master of his dogs. He uses short scissors.”

It was the ultimate insult. Short scissors were for cutting human hair. Dog groomers used long scissors. In true male fashion, they measured themselves by the length. Jonathon went for ten inches of cold steel.

“Bruiser is a little dog,” Todd said. He was twenty years younger than Jonathon and much prettier, with his smooth, unshaven skin and honey-blond hair. Both sexes drooled over the way Todd filled his white T-shirt and black jeans. Helen thought Jonathon was jealous of Todd’s young good looks.

But Todd had good reason to resent Jonathon. Before the flamboyant star appeared on the scene, Todd had been the popular groomer at the Pampered Pet. Women loved to give him presents. A diamond-studded Cartier tank watch sparkled on his wrist. In his pocket was a gold cigarette case and a platinum lighter. Helen suspected Todd’s women did not rely solely on their little doggies for companionship, but the groomer’s social life was none of her business.

“I’ll get the cage room ready,” Jeff said. “Todd can work there.”

“It’s hot in there,” Todd whined.

“I’ll set up an extra fan,” Jeff said.

“I will be back when my room is ready,” Jonathon said. His rage was nearly as magnificent as his clothes. He stalked toward the door. Helen stepped out of his way. She respected Jonathon’s skill with the scissors and the animals, but when he was in an operatic mood, she avoided him.

“Wait! You can’t go, Jonathon. You have to groom Barkley,” Jeff said. His brown spaniel eyes were pleading. “Barkley is coming at two. She needs you.”

Barkley Barclay was the most valuable pup in Fort Lauderdale. The six-month-old chocolate labradoodle was part Labrador, part poodle, and all charm. She was the mascot of the nationwide Davis Family Dollar department stores, whose slogan was, “We Don’t Doodle on Our Deals.”

Labradoodles were “pedigreed” mutts. They were as cuddly as stuffed toys, with button eyes and curly hair. This one was owned by Francis Mortmain Barclay and Willoughby Barclay. Francis Mortmain was a CPA, about as colorful as a ream of typing paper. His wife, Willoughby, worked part-time at a boutique. Most of her paycheck went straight back to the store. She was addicted to cute things.

When people saw her drab spouse, they wondered why she married him. Francis wasn’t cute. Willoughby had wanted a good provider. Francis could afford to buy her cute cars and tennis bracelets.

Willoughby, who knew how to accessorize, bought the pup because Barkley would look cute in the family Christmas-card photo. It was the smartest thing she ever did. She sent that photo in to the Davis department stores mascot search. Barkley beat more than ten thousand canine contenders.

Once the Davis department stores signed up the pup, both Barclays quit their jobs. Their dog made more money than both of them. Willoughby spent her share of the signing bonus on a mondo mansion that was cute as a sledgehammer. Willoughby wanted to hit everyone with her success.

The care of the profitable pup had assumed magical proportions. The Barclays believed only Jonathon could groom their dog. Each curly hair on her winsome body had to be washed and clipped by the master once a week.

“Jonathon, only you can groom that dog,” Jeff said.

Helen sneaked a look at Todd to see how he took that slap. He had a fetching James Dean pout.