Shop Till You Drop (38 page)

“That was a terrific lunch,” Helen said. “I’m glad we skipped the sandwiches and went straight for the sundaes. No point wasting good stomach space on ordinary food. Now I have to go back to work. Just drop me off at Federal Highway and Broward. I need the walk.”

It was nearly one o’clock on a sunny winter afternoon. Flowers bloomed. Palm trees rustled like taffeta dresses. Passersby looked trim and chic. Even the signs in the store windows were attractive. Especially the one in the window of Page Turners bookstore. It said, “HELP WANTED. Immediate openings for booksellers.”

Helen went straight in and asked for the manager. Gayle was small and blonde and dressed in black, like a Juliana’s regular, but she wore Doc Martens, a shoe that never trod Juliana’s carpet.

Helen breathed in the smell of hardbacks and reveled in their colorful covers. She saw a sign announcing that Burt Plank would be signing there Saturday. A real bestselling mystery writer. No more empty-headed bimbos. Helen knew she would like it here. Then she remembered what the other manager said on her first interview at Page Turners.

“Will I have to clean toilets?” Helen said.

“Not if you work days,” Gayle said.

Helen could live with that, especially after Gayle went upstairs to talk to the owner about her special circumstances. She was back in ten minutes.

“He says he can pay you six seventy an hour in cash,” Gayle said. “That’s twenty cents less than our other booksellers make, but he says it’s really more because there are no taxes and withholding.” Gayle looked like she did not believe this. Helen said the money was fine. She wanted out of Juliana’s.

“When can you start? I’d like to begin training you today,” Gayle said.

“Let me make a phone call. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Helen felt no loyalty to Mr. Roget, not after he’d docked her pay for the champagne. Dead-end job workers were powerless. They were yelled at by customers and abused by cheap bosses. Their hours were changed without notice. They were fired for no reason.

They had only one weapon, and Helen was about to use it. She marched into Juliana’s. “Tara,” she said. “I’m calling Mr. Roget. You’ll want to be here for this.”

Tara waited expectantly, rocking from one dainty foot to the other, while Mr. Roget’s secretary found their employer. Finally, he came on the line.

“I’m quitting,” Helen said. Tara’s eyebrows shot straight into her hair. She could hear Mr. Roget sputtering and protesting.

“When? Right now. What? You’ll give me a dollar-an-hour raise? No, thank you. Don’t worry about sending me this week’s pay. I’ll take the money out of the till before I leave. I’ll also take the money you docked me for the champagne. I know you weren’t serious. You couldn’t possibly be that cheap.”

Tara let out an audible snort.

“Stealing? I don’t think so. But you can report me if you wish, Mr. Roget. Of course, you’d have to explain our unusual financial arrangement.

“You want to speak to Tara? She’s right here, Mr. Roget.”

Helen handed the phone to Tara, who listened for a moment and said, “No way. I’m outta here, Old Tightwad. Get someone else to work for your miserable money.”

Tara hung up the phone, laughing. “Free at last,” she said.

Helen paid Tara her wages out of the till, then took the money she was owed, but not a penny more. She balanced the cash drawer and put it in the safe, turned off the lights, and turned on the alarm.

As she was locking the door, a skinny woman wearing a Harley T-shirt and missing two teeth rang Juliana’s doorbell. Two weeks ago, she would never have dared.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re closed,” Helen said. Then she shut the green door for the last time.

Juliana’s never reopened after Helen shut the green door.

The store is now a wood-fired pizza restaurant. The pizza place kept the painting of the notorious Juliana, bought at the Episcopalian rummage sale. The red-lipped, hard-eyed Juliana looks down disdainfully on chicken-and-artichoke pizza. The green door has been painted tomato red.

Helen still has Thumbs. Brittney wanted Maria to care for the cat. If Brittney had arranged for her slave-maid to have the proper papers, she might have had her wish. But Maria did not have a green card. She was too busy worrying about the INS to concern herself with a cat.

Helen is still dating Dr. Rich, although she is no longer sure whose turn it is to pay for dinner.

“Is this serious?” her landlady, Margery, asked Helen one evening as they sat by the Coronado pool.

Helen thought of their last night together and smiled. “It’s too early to tell,” she said. “But I may have found the one single man in South Florida who’s not a deadbeat, a drunk, or a druggie.”

“We’ll see,” Margery said. She still had not forgiven the male species for Daniel, the divinely handsome con man, not even when she read that he’d be going to prison for his frauds.

Helen lived in Daniel’s old apartment, 2C, for ten weeks while her home was repaired. Margery threw a party when Helen’s place was ready. Her apartment looked just the same, only better. The boomerang table and the Barcalounger were back in their usual places. The new bed did not squeak. Sitting on a turquoise chenille spread was a brown teddy bear with a slit in its back. This was indeed a stuffed bear. It was stuffed with a hundred dollars. Margery claimed not to know how the money got inside. Helen loved everything about her new place except the faint odor of smoke, but she only smelled it on rainy mornings.

Everyone at the Coronado attended Helen’s party except her neighbor Phil. Helen had tried to thank the invisible pothead several times, but he never answered the door. One night, she left double-stuffed Oreos and two quarts of Cherry Garcia ice cream packed in dry ice on the doorstep and yelled, “Thank you, Phil.”

The cookies and ice cream were gone in the morning.

 

Tara and Tiffany did not have to reveal their imperfect pasts to their boyfriends. Tara’s return to her old job-free life had one unfortunate side effect. Her neighbor, Mr. Rodriguez, suffered a mild heart attack when she stepped nude into the hot tub at three in the afternoon.

Tiffany with the bad eye job still has the same boyfriend, Burt, but she did get a new pool service.

Although the hit man who killed Desiree Easlee was never found, Niki was arrested for her murder. Under Florida law, the person who joins in a crime is as guilty as the one who pulls the trigger. Niki was charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Her husband, Jimmy the Shirt, hired the best criminal defense attorney in Fort Lauderdale. He got Niki out on bond. Jimmy put up the money. At a press conference, he said his lovely wife could not possibly be guilty of this terrible crime, and he stood behind her one hundred percent.

He was standing behind her a month later when she slipped and fell off his one-hundred-foot yacht, but, alas, he was unable to save her. The sea was rough, the night was foggy, and so was Niki after five margaritas. Her body was recovered three days later. Niki was cremated and her ashes were scattered on the beach in Belize.

 

Detective Dwight Hansel received a commendation for his investigation of Joe’s illegal immigrant and drug smuggling ring. He was hired by the Miami Palms police department.

Joe was tried and sentenced to twenty years in the federal penitentiary. His Ferrari 550 Barchetta was totaled, leaving only one hundred nineteen in the United States. Joe’s insurance company refused to give him the full replacement price of four hundred ten thousand dollars, saying the car was not in good condition. They cited a long scratch on the hood, which was not the result of the accident, and food stains on the leather seats. The insurance check was confiscated by the federal government under the RICO racketeering laws.

 

Detective Karen Grace was named “Florida Law Enforcement Officer of the Year” for her innovative murder investigation using animal DNA. She was offered a job with the Broward County Sheriff’s office at a substantial increase in salary.

 

Brittney was charged with the murders of Christina and her fiancé, Steven. Helen was relieved that Brittney was not charged with trying to burn down her apartment and kill her. That meant Helen would not have to testify. She could continue to escape media attention.

Brittney denied everything. She hired Oliver Steinway, the same attorney Daniel used for his fire extinguisher scam.

The prosecution felt it had a good case, thanks to Detective Karen Grace. She spoke to Emmanuella, the Haitian housekeeper who worked next door to Brittney. She drove the battered gray car with the twine-tied trunk.

Emmanuella said Brittney wanted to give her fifty dollars to borrow her car and her uniform. Emmanuella said no. She had to go to her niece Merline’s wedding all the way up in Deerfield Beach, and she needed her car. Brittney threw in two hundred dollars for cab fare. It was pocket change for her, but nearly a week’s pay for Emmanuella.

The frugal Emmanuella had a cousin who worked for a limo service. He gave her a special deal, and she got a limousine cheaper than a cab. Emmanuella put the difference in her savings account and pulled up at the church in a limo bigger than the bride and groom’s. There was no question about the date. The entire family remembered when Emmanuella the housekeeper came to the wedding like a rich lady.

At the trial, the whole story of the murders came out—or at least the parts that the prosecution could piece together. It started with a man. Brittney found out her fiancé, Steve, had been planning to dump her for a blond ten years younger. The blond was named Kevin. Kevin was married then, and didn’t dare go to the funeral or to the police.

If Brittney couldn’t have Steve’s love, she wanted his money. Steve had not changed his will yet. If she killed him, she would inherit everything.

Christina offered to help Brittney with Steve’s murder. She was on the Hatteras on that final cruise. She also took the incriminating photos. When Brittney inherited Steve’s money, Christina began blackmailing her. Just a few “loans” at first, but then Christina’s greed grew until Brittney killed her.

The prosecution said Christina insisted that Brittney deliver the blackmail payments to her penthouse after work on Saturdays. The front desk records showed Brittney usually visited Christina once a month.

The last time, Brittney came prepared. She buttoned the maid’s shapeless uniform over her dress and put a big plastic trash can in the battered gray car. Then she wheeled the trash can in the service entrance at One Ocean Palm Towers, right past the Hispanic staff on their smoking break. No one challenged her.

Brittney took the service elevator to the penthouse, took off the maid’s uniform, and left it and the wheeled trash can in the fire stairwell.

Once inside, Brittney found some excuse to get Christina in the guest bathroom and clobbered her with a heavy jar of bath salts.

Brittney wiped up most of the blood, but enough seeped into the white tile grout that the police suspected murder. When they found bits of bone and brain matter, their suspicions were confirmed. Brittney may have worn a housekeeper’s uniform, but she did not clean like a pro.

Brittney hauled Christina’s body out of the condo in the wheeled trash can. The Hispanic staff who hung out back remembered that the pretty blond maid struggled to get the heavy trash can into that old gray car. They helped her tie the trunk with twine. That night, Joe put the body in a barrel and dumped it into Biscayne Bay. It was supposed to look like a mob hit.

It didn’t. But Brittney still might have gotten away with murder if she hadn’t taken that cat. She thought she’d cleaned the penthouse thoroughly of any trace of Thumbs, but she never found the grooming brush deep in the cabinet. That brush and one rooted hair on Christina’s body were enough to turn the investigation toward her.

Brittney had to fight DNA from three separate sources. There was the cat DNA, which proved she had the victim’s cat. Also, a crumpled tissue was found in the guest bathroom wastebasket. Brittney had blown her nose and left her own DNA at the scene. On the same tissue were small amounts of Christina’s blood. The police found Christina’s blood and hair in a wheeled trash can at Brittney’s home and in the battered gray car.

Still, the reporters thought Brittney would not be convicted. “A Kleenex, a cat hair, and three people who barely speak English isn’t much of a case,” one of the pundits said. Joe testified, too, as part of a deal for a reduced sentence, but he was dismissed as a “lying goombah.”

Most reporters secretly felt Brittany would go free because she was so beautiful. The men on the jury could not stop staring at her. They could not take their eyes off her lovely face.

But to everyone’s surprise—except Helen’s—Brittney was found guilty.

The foreman told reporters why the jury voted to convict her: Brittney showed no emotion throughout the trial.