Checked Out (7 page)

H
elen came home from the séance at midnight. Phil was reading in bed, his face and arms red as raw steak.

“Phil!” she cried. “You’re burned even worse than I realized.” She dropped her packages and ran to him.

He raised a fat brown bottle of Jamaican Red Stripe beer to his sunburned face and said, “The label is almost the same color as my nose.”

“Did you wear sunscreen?”

“Of course.”

“What about a hat?”

“My official Clapton Crossroads hat.” He pointed to the sweaty-damp ball cap hanging on a bedroom chair.

Helen gently turned his head. “That doesn’t protect your neck,” she said. The back of his neck was seared a painful deep red, except for an inch-wide white spot his ponytail must have covered.

She hissed in sympathy and said, “Your neck is so red.”

“What’s wrong with red necks, darlin’?” he drawled.

“Why didn’t you wear your hair down to protect your neck?”

“Too hot, sweaty, and dangerous around machinery,” he said.

Helen pulled a wide-brimmed straw hat from a bag. “I stopped by a late-night tourist shop and bought you this.”

“Nice,” he said. He smiled, and his burned face looked like it might crack. Helen hurt looking at him.

“The other gardeners, Charlee and John—that’s Carlos and Juan—wear straw hats, but not as good as this one.”

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close. “Come here,” he said, kissing her lips. “You worry too much.”

She put her arms around his neck and felt him wince. “I also have a topical steroid cream and an aloe vera lotion,” she said.

“I love it when you talk dirty,” he said.

“You have a fever,” she said.

“Because you’re so hot. Come to bed, Nurse. You can take care of this burning sensation.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Helen said.

“Oh, you’ll make me feel much better,” he said, unbuttoning her blouse. For a man who looked parboiled, he moved with enthusiasm.

Afterward, when they were sprawled on the sheets, Helen hugged him carefully, her arms wrapped around the unburned parts of his chest. The contrast between his pale skin and seared face and arms was dramatic.

“Did you learn anything today?” Helen said. “I’d hate to have you suffer for nothing.”

“It was worth sacrificing some of my hide,” he said. “The cook, Ana, brought us cookies and cold drinks when we took our morning break in the kitchen.”

“The Coakleys let the help eat in the kitchen?” Helen said.

“The staff kitchen, where Ana does the actual cooking, not the show kitchen in the front of the house. Ana’s English is excellent, better than Charlee’s. John speaks some English, but understands more. I suspect the two men may be illegal, but it’s not polite to ask.

“Ana asked me why a gringo was doing yard work. I said I was on probation for speeding, and they relaxed a bit. I was outside the law—but not seriously. They thought getting arrested for speeding was funny. The real icebreaker was when Charlee said I was a good worker.”

“A high compliment in that world,” Helen said.

“The highest,” Phil said. “I praised Ana’s cookies—they were delicious. She said the Coakleys never said anything good about her cooking.”

“Ana sounds like a flirt,” Helen said. “It’s a good thing I’ve met her. She’s at least fifty.”

“With a husband and four kids. Even if she was twenty and hot, you’re still sizzling.” He kissed the top of her head.

“Ana is old-school Mexican,” Phil said, “and none of the Coakleys were home, so she fixed us a traditional
la comida,
a big lunch. We had ceviche, salad, empanadas and
carne en su jugo
—that’s meat and beans, like a stew—and hot tortillas. Ana made flan for dessert. Sure beat that health food Markos gave us the other night.

“After lunch, Ana relaxed and was ready to gossip. I asked about Bree Coakley’s twenty-first birthday party. Said I’d read about it in the newspaper. Boy, did Ana give me an earful.

“The family hired some big-time celebrity chef from New York because they didn’t want Ana’s ‘peasant food.’ That’s what they called her cooking. Never mind that she’d trained at one of the best restaurants in Fort Lauderdale, and she doesn’t serve Mexican food unless the family asks for it.

“
They hurt my feelings,
Ana said,
but I said fine. I told them I didn’t want the extra work. I didn’t, either.

“Maybe not,” Phil said, “but Ana was still hurt. She said the party cost half a million dollars, but Bree was unhappy.”

“Why?” Helen said. “You could buy a house for that.”

“Bree only got one birthday party, and that party was in Fort Lauderdale.”

“So?” Helen asked.

“Bree whined that Paris Hilton had a five-day birthday bash—five parties in five cities and five time zones—London, New York, Tokyo, LA and Las Vegas. Hilton had a different dress for each party, and a twenty-one-tier cake.”

“And I really admire Paris Hilton,” Helen said. “What a dimwit.”

“Which one?” Phil asked.

“Both,” Helen said. “Bree forgot that Hilton’s daddy has a ton of money.”

“No. Bree complained that her daddy was only a partner in a law firm and didn’t make ‘real money.’

“Bree wanted Daddy to buy her some celebrity guests, but all he could afford was someone like Vanilla Ice.”

“Who’s Vanilla Ice?” Helen asked.

“That was the problem. Bree still had a pretty good party with fifty of her closest friends and a twenty-one-tier cake.”

“Just like Paris,” Helen said.

“Plus Bree’s party had caviar, ice sculptures and a champagne fountain. Rich people love champagne fountains. Oh, and lots of drugs.”

“Pot and coke?” Helen asked.

“That’s like asking if there was beer at a barbecue. Ana said the servers told her they saw weed, coke, heroin, and ‘coket,’ a mix of cocaine and Special K. Along with mephedrone and MDMA, and the usual abused prescription drugs, including Xanax, Vicodin, Klonopin, Percocet and Seroquel, better known as jailhouse heroin. One more—Desoxyn, prescription speed.”

“Good Lord,” Helen said. “What a pharmacy.”

“There could have been more, but that’s all Ana said the waitstaff recognized. She said it turned into a real orgy, sex everywhere.”

“Were Bree’s parents home?”

“They left early. She was twenty-one and they wanted her to
have a good time. The food was served all night as a buffet. The parents helped sing ‘Happy Birthday’ while she cut the cake. They gave Bree two presents—a twenty-thousand-dollar ruby-and-diamond pendant and a red Beemer convertible. Then the old folks left.

“About midnight, when the party was in full swing, Ana brought out a special treat,
chapulines
, for Bree and her inner circle. Ana said the snack was low-fat, low-carb and high-protein. The birthday girl scarfed them down like popcorn. So did her friends. Ana said they ate two big bowls of
chapulines
and begged for more. But she was out of grasshoppers.”

“Grasshoppers? That was her special treat?” Helen said.

“Toasted and seasoned with salt and lime. It’s a Mexican snack. And Ana wasn’t lying. Grasshoppers are low-fat, low-carb and high-protein.”

“Ick!” Helen said.

“Bree and her crowd were so out of it, they didn’t know what they were eating.”

“So Ana got her revenge,” Helen said.

“And then some,” Phil said. “At one o’clock, Bree was still wearing her ruby necklace. A server saw her go into a downstairs powder room—and in that crowd, it really was a powder room—with her boyfriend, Standiford W. Lohan the Third, known as Trey.”

“Was Bree wearing the necklace when she left the powder room?”

“Ana doesn’t know. But she’s setting up a meeting with two servers from the party. Want to talk to them?”

“You bet,” Helen said.

“How was the séance?” Phil asked. “Did you raise Flora Portland?”

“Flora’s deader than disco, except to the true believers, Lisa and Blair. Melisandra the medium went into a so-called trance and said
exactly what I thought she would: The library must be saved at all costs.”

“Any cold spots during the séance?” Phil asked.

“Only when the air-conditioning kicked on. But Lisa, the library board president who bopped the patron with a bookend, felt the cold when Flora appeared. Lisa also said the ghost touched her arm.”

“Where were the medium’s hands?” Phil asked.

“Firmly gripping the hands of both Blair and Lisa, keeping the magic circle. However, I did feel the edge of the tablecloth move.”

“Melisandra used her foot,” Phil said. “A fraudster’s favorite. One creep pulled it on the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon the Third. The medium slipped off his shoe and touched the Empress’s arm. She thought it was one of her dead children.”

“How cruel,” Helen said. “Melisandra could have easily slipped off her shoe under the table. You know the most surprising things.”

“Yes, I do,” Phil said. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Did I tell you about staying at Aunt Frankie’s haunted house? I was about nine. While my little sister Kathy had her tonsils out, I stayed with my aunt Frankie, a big cheerful blonde. She was renovating a house in south St. Louis. Beautiful place, built in 1904. The neighbors said it was haunted by an old woman who’d died when she fell down the staircase. They claimed her ghost walked those stairs and hung around the guest room, reading over people’s shoulders.”

“Makes the afterlife sound pretty boring,” Phil said.

“Maybe, but the neighborhood kids wanted to hold a séance there on Halloween. I wasn’t used to old houses with creaky floors and dark wood,” Helen said, “and I was scared to sleep in the haunted room. Aunt Frankie promised there was no ghost, and said if I kept the bedroom door open she’d be right down the hall.

“Late that night, there was a wild storm—lightning, thunder, howling wind. My room had one of those old pocket doors that
slide into the walls, and the door started closing all by itself. I was too scared to scream. Aunt Frankie ran in to check on me and saw me shaking and shivering. She hugged me and said the wind made the door move.

“
Everything in this old house is off-kilter,
she said
. It’s drafty. That ghost is nothing but a breeze.
Sure enough, when Aunt Frankie got storm windows, the ghost went away.”

Helen tried to hide a yawn.

“Is it the company?” he asked.

“It’s the time,” Helen said. “It’s one o’clock. I have to go in early tomorrow and catch a ghost. A live one.”

A
lexa looks like a ghost this morning, Helen thought, as the library director unlocked the staff entrance door.

Alexa managed a weak smile, but her tailored lavender suit was the same color as the circles under her eyes. She looked pale, and her dark hair was frizzy and lifeless.

“Helen,” she said, and forced another smile. “Come in and let me introduce you to Seraphina Ormond, a good friend of Elizabeth Kingsley. She’s in the reading room and she wants to meet you.” Alexa toyed with that lock of white hair, another sign something was off.

“Uh, we already met,” Helen said. “In the parking lot two days ago. And she wasn’t very happy with me.”

“I know,” Alexa said. “But I think she wants to make amends. And I need her. Please, Helen? I’ve been working on her and I think I can bring her around so she’ll head the fund-raiser if the board approves the building restoration.”

“Okay,” Helen said. “At least we’ll be meeting in public here in the library.”

“Thank you,” Alexa said.

“You seem tired,” Helen said.

“I am,” Alexa said, “and worried about our library. How will last night’s séance affect our already divided board? I want to save our library, too, but that séance will only make our problems worse.”

The library director sighed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t burden you with my problems. Mrs. Ormond is waiting. Follow me. After your chat, please come to my office. I need to talk to you.”

About what? Helen wondered. There must be another problem. Alexa’s been wrestling with the fate of the library for weeks now.

She saw Seraphina Ormond browsing large-print books in a corner near the entrance.

Your basic rich blonde, Helen thought. Tall, fit, obnoxiously thin, with hair the color of dry champagne.

Seraphina wore tennis whites and socks with little balls so they wouldn’t slide into her tennis shoes. Her skin was tanned from hours on the tennis court.

“Helen Hawthorne, meet Seraphina Ormond,” Alexa said. “Seraphina is one of our most generous donors.”

Seraphina presented her hand as if it was an honor to shake it. Her grip was strong and firm, but her smile didn’t quite reach her pale blue eyes.

“Helen,” she said, with that upper-class bray straight from a fox hunt. Everyone in the reading room turned to stare at the women. Helen could see at least a dozen curious patrons. Gladys, the librarian at the checkout desk, edged closer.

“Now I know why you’re here. Elizabeth said she hired you to find that missing million-dollar watercolor,” Seraphina said. She was so loud, Helen was sure the patrons upstairs, as well as everyone in the back halls, could hear her. Worse, the woman had perfect enunciation.

“Who would have thought that dotty old Davis would stick anything that valuable in an old book? I told Elizabeth the family should hire someone to watch the old boy as soon as he started
getting gaga. But she and her brother didn’t want to hurt their father’s feelings. Instead they waited until he was almost completely out of it before he had an attendant. And now look what’s happened.

“I heard he hid family papers and property deeds in his books. Then that Scarlett”—she made a sour face—“gave every single book to the Friends. Who knows what else the old boy left in his collection.”

Helen glanced at the reading room. Patrons were no longer cocooned in their comfortable chairs or pounding their computers. Now she saw the gleam of alert eyes, like watchful forest creatures. Even Mr. Ritter, the old man in the dark suit, had put down his precious
New York Times
editorial page to eavesdrop.

Gladys had drifted over to the history section, ten feet from Seraphina. Helen swore the librarian’s ears were twitching.

“So did you find it yet?” Seraphina asked. “The million-dollar watercolor? No, I guess not, or you wouldn’t be here.”

Helen was relieved she didn’t have to answer. Seraphina never stopped her monologue and didn’t seem to expect a reply. But the PI was also dismayed. She’d hoped to conduct her search quietly, behind the scenes. Now everyone—library staff, patrons and volunteers—knew she was looking for the million-dollar watercolor.

Helen saw a small, white-haired woman quietly abandon her book on her chair and drift toward the Friends of the Library’s used book shelves near the checkout desk. Ms. White gathered as many dollar hardcovers as her short arms could hold, and carried them to the checkout desk, where she politely tapped the bell. Gladys hurried over to ring up her purchases.

Seraphina was still talking. “Elizabeth is in financial distress,” she said, “but she wouldn’t be if she’d listened to me. I told her not to go with that broker in Miami.”

She said the
M
-word as if the city were social Siberia, Helen thought. Maybe it is in her world.

“I warned her,” Seraphina said. “Our kind doesn’t go to brokers. But she wouldn’t listen. She thought he was a hoot—until she lost everything. Well, who’s laughing now? Elizabeth desperately needs an income and she’s had to hire an outsider to look through scads of old books donated to the Friends.”

Helen looked around wildly, hoping she could escape before Elizabeth’s so-called friend broadcast any more information about Helen’s search.

The forest animals in the reading room were stirring now, setting down their novels, closing their laptops and slipping toward the Friends of the Library sale shelves. There they grabbed armloads of sale books—fat diet guides, crack-spined medical books, shabby bestsellers—and rushed to the checkout desk. The line was around the room, and Gladys looked harried as she rang up the purchases.

Seraphina finally paused long enough for Helen to ask, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No, I just wanted to see what a private eye looked like on the job,” Seraphina said. “I thought you’d be more interesting.”

“My trench coat is at the dry cleaner,” Helen said. “If that’s all, I have to work.”