Just Murdered (16 page)

“I love it,” Lou said. “How much?”

“Twenty-seven hundred dollars.” Millicent had doubled the price. She knew her man.

“See?” Lou said. “It’s better than that black nightgown thing. We’ll take it.”

Millicent waited until the couple drove off in their black Lincoln Town Car. Then she did a triumphant dance around the store. “Yes! I can’t believe I sold it. And to a mob wife. It’s perfect. Who’s going to tell Lou his wife’s dress is ugly? They’d wind up in cement shoes. It’s gone. I’m free.”

Until Millicent bought the next ugly dress she had to get rid of.

But sales is about confidence. Millicent was on a roll. She sold dresses all day long. If a bride even walked down the block, she was sucked into the shop and bought a dress.

The only one who didn’t buy was Cassie. The chunky little bride had come back three more times. She’d tried on her dream dress for her sister, her mother, and her maid of honor. She still hadn’t bought it.

Now Cassie showed up with a tiny wrinkled woman in black. “This is my grandmother!!” Cassie said. “I want to show her my dress.”

Helen thought it was getting a little gray from all the try-ons, but she brought Cassie’s lacy dress to a fitting room once more.

“Grandma loves it!!” Cassie squealed, when she came out. “There’s just one more person I need to show it to.”

“You should charge her rent on that dress,” Helen said.

“She’s about ready to buy,” Millicent said.

“I’m about ready to win the lottery,” Helen said. “As soon as I buy a ticket.”

Millicent’s most haunting sale that day was to Becky. Thirteen-year-old Becky had a doelike softness. Her mother had the same face, except it looked freeze-dried.

Becky wanted a special dress for her bat mitzvah, the coming-of-age ceremony for Jewish women. She tried on an electric-blue gown that was perfect for her dark hair and eyes. The style was right for her. So was the price.

Her mother started picking it apart. “The color’s too bright. I don’t like the material.” On and on she went, finding flaws in a flawless dress.

Becky apologized for her mother. “She doesn’t mean it. She’s a careful shopper.”

“You need to try on more dresses,” her mother said. Millicent dutifully brought them back. None were as electrifying as the blue dress.

“We need to see some selections at another store,” the mother said.

“But, Mummy . . .” The girl was near tears.

“Let’s go, Becky,” her mother said.

“Please, don’t sell my dress,” Becky told Millicent. “I’ll make her come back today. I promise.”

“We’ll never see her again,” Helen said.

“Wait and see,” Millicent said.

Two hours later, Becky was back. “You’ve come for your dress,” Millicent said.

Becky nodded shyly and smiled.

“Not so fast,” her mother said. “I want her to try on the black satin suit again. And the pink outfit.”

Becky tried them both. Then she said, “Mummy, I’ve tried on every dress in the store. I want this one. I feel like a princess.”

Becky got her electric-blue dress. She carried it like an actress clutching her Oscar.

“That’s one determined little girl,” Helen said, as Becky left with her prize. “What happens to girls like that?”

“She’ll either grow up like her mother and become mean, controlling, and critical,” Millicent said. “Or she’ll rebel and turn out totally different. If that happens, she’ll have a hard fight on her hands, poor child. I don’t know if the girl will be strong enough. But she did get her dress. Maybe there’s hope.”

Helen wondered if there had ever been any hope for Desiree. In some ways, the bride seemed more helpless than thirteen-year-old Becky.

Millicent was saved. Helen was not.

Her job was safe, but how long would she have it if the cops arrested her for murder? Helen felt a sick, twisty feeling. She’d been inside a women’s prison, all cinder block and steel. She’d talked to her best friend through a Plexiglas partition. Helen couldn’t bring her flowers, chocolate, or comfort. She’d watched her wither away in jail.

I have to get help, Helen thought. I can’t do this by myself. I’m too scared to think straight. Peggy was at work. Margery was wrapped up in Warren. And Phil. She didn’t want to think who Phil was wrapped up in. Helen sneaked back to the shop’s office and called the one friend who helped her see problems clearly.

“Helen!” Sarah said. “What’s happening?” She sounded cheerful, but then she had a home office overlooking the beach.

“Lots of things,” Helen said. “None of them good.”

“Then we need to meet,” Sarah said. “When can you do lunch?”

“Tomorrow is my day off.” Helen said those words with satisfaction. A few hours ago, she’d been facing a permanent unpaid vacation.

“Wear black,” Sarah said. “We’re going to South Beach.”

“I’ve never seen you in anything but bright colors,” Helen said.

“I don’t want to be mistaken for a beach ball.”

Sarah was a woman of size. Helen couldn’t imagine her any other way. She had a Kewpie-doll face and energetic brown curls. She also had a shrewd money sense. Sarah had made a fortune in Krispy Kreme doughnuts and adult diaper stock.

That was why she picked up Helen the next afternoon in a green Range Rover. Helen settled into the luxurious leather seats with an appreciative sigh. The bridal-shop van had all the comfort of a welfare office.

As Helen’s guts knotted into a rope, she tried to pretend she was going to South Beach on a sunny day. She soon ran out of chitchat. The traffic was the only subject left.

“Is this a street or a parking lot?” Helen said, as they crawled along Ocean Drive. “We’ve gone one block in the last five minutes.”

“It’s South Beach in the season,” Sarah said. Suddenly she swung into a side street and pulled the SUV sharply to the curb.

Helen gripped the armrest to keep from sliding sideways. “What happened?”

“A miracle,” Sarah said. “I’ve found a parking space near the restaurant.”

“Where are we going?” Helen said.

“To the closest thing South Beach has to a shrine: The News Cafe.”

Inside were tables, a newsstand, and a bookstore that catered to the crowd who read Thoreau for fun. Outside was a sidewalk cafe with a breathtaking view of the beach beauties. Thongs and Thoreau were an unbeatable combination.

Sarah and Helen felt doubly lucky when they spotted an empty table outside under a green umbrella.

“Is this where Versace went before he was gunned down?” Helen said.

“Such a shame,” Sarah said. “It wasn’t fair to him or the restaurant.”

Helen wondered if Versace had once warmed her seat. It was the closest she’d ever get to his clothes.

She was dining with the rich and beautiful. The air seemed to glow with money. Then the wind shifted. The money glow was replaced with something rank and powerful, like a high-school gym on a hot day: unbridled body odor.

They were downwind from four exquisitely dressed strangers. Their stink was a noxious cloud.

“Who are those people?” Helen said. “They’re wearing couture, but they don’t have two bucks for deodorant.”

“Eurotrash,” Sarah said. “A South Beach hazard. They infest all the restaurants. They think deodorant is for the masses.”

“So is breathing,” Helen said. “I see why our table was open.”

“The good news is, they’re leaving,” Sarah said.

The four striking, smelly strangers rose. Their BO got up and went with them. Their table was quickly cleaned, and the Eurotrash were replaced by a very young woman and a very old man. His yellowish skin was so scored with wrinkles it looked like it had been cut with a razor. His eyes were flat and dead.

Now Helen thought she smelled sulfur.

The young woman had an angelic face and a burning desire for corruption. She almost thrust her high white bosom into his trembling old hands.

“Whatever he has, she wants it bad,” Helen said.

“You don’t want to know,” Sarah said. “This is South Beach. We can watch the show or we can talk. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? You’ve worked hard to avoid the subject.”

Helen’s insides were tied so tight, she could hardly talk. “I’m mixed up in a murder, Sarah, and I’m scared.”

There. She said it.

A waiter with a chiseled chin arrived, giving Helen a brief reprieve while they ordered lunch. Helen wondered if he was an actor, a model, or just another beautiful waiter. Everyone seemed to be seriously thin and glamorous. Helen felt fat and frumpy. She ordered the fruit plate as penance. Sarah wanted the Caesar salad with fried calamari. Helen wished she had her friend’s culinary courage.

After the waiter brought their food, Helen began the story of Kiki’s murder. Sarah started dismantling her salad with gusto. But as Helen talked, her friend’s appetite waned. By the time Helen got to the DNA demand, Sarah abandoned her fork.

Helen knew it was serious if her friend wasn’t eating. “You need a lawyer, Helen,” Sarah said.

“A lawyer will run up bills I can’t pay and tell me not to talk. If the cops arrest me, I’ll be stuck in jail.” Helen shuddered as she pictured herself in a prison jumpsuit on the other side of the Plexiglas.

“Then you need to solve the murder,” Sarah said.

Helen could feel her guts rotating into new knots. “How?” she said. “I don’t have the police resources. I don’t have their forensic knowledge. I can’t make people talk to me. I don’t know anything.”

“Sure you do. You know the time of death, right?” Sarah said.

“Well, I overheard the cops talking. They guessed Kiki had been dead about twelve hours. I saw that she’d been smothered. The police mentioned petechiae. You should have seen her face. It was like . . .”

Sarah turned as green as her salad. “I don’t need to know that,” she said quickly. “But you’re wrong, Helen. You already know two important things: the time and the cause of death. Do you think a man or a woman killed her?”

Helen saw Kiki’s doll-like corpse again. It had seemed so small. “The killer could have been a woman. Kiki weighed about a hundred pounds. A strong female could have thrown her facedown and smothered her. A big man could have done it easily.”

Helen thought she hadn’t eaten anything, but her plate was empty. How did that happen? “It’s the cut nails that got me,” Helen said. “They were a mutilation.”

“Kiki must have scratched her killer,” Sarah said. “Why else were her nails clipped? The police photographed your scratch, right? Did anyone else in the wedding party have scratches on their arms or neck?”

“Desiree had a long scratch on her arm,” Helen said. “She said the cook’s cat did it. Her father had some nasty scratches, too.”

“That cat gets around,” Sarah said.

“It’s odd,” Helen said. “Desiree doesn’t live with her father.”

“Maybe you need to look into that,” Sarah said.

Helen’s guts unkinked a notch. Perhaps this wasn’t hopeless after all. “Someone else had a scratch,” she said. “I remember hearing about it, but I can’t remember where.”

“It will come to you,” Sarah said confidently, as she speared a chunk of calamari. She was eating with enthusiasm again. “Here’s something else: Who locked the church after the rehearsal and who opened the doors in the morning?”

“Good question,” Helen said. “Kiki locked up after the rehearsal, but I heard her make a date to meet Jason in the church after the rehearsal dinner. She said churches made her hot.”

“Nice lady,” Sarah said.

“I don’t know who opened the church. Jeff, the wedding planner, would. He was there when I arrived the morning of the wedding, directing a flock of florists.”

There were swarms of people involved in this wedding: hairstylists, makeup artists, caterers, and guests. There must have been four hundred guests. Just the wedding party alone was huge. Sixteen attendants preceded the bride and groom to the altar. How many of those people hated Kiki?

The gut twisting started again. “What’s the use?” Helen said. “It’s too much for one person. I don’t have anything.”

Sarah pointed her fork at Helen. A crispy circle of calamari hung on the end. “You have one major advantage. You knew Kiki intimately. You heard her fight with her daughter, her ex, and other people the police may not know about. You have insights into her character they don’t. The police have to find that out secondhand.”

“True,” Helen said. “I even saw her naked. Do you know she had her pubic hair waxed into a dollar sign? What do you think that says?”

“Sex and money. It’s a dangerous combination. But that’s what I mean. You knew the victim alive. The police only saw her dead.”

“Victim,” Helen said. “That’s a funny word for Kiki. Tormentor would be more like it.”

“Would anyone she’d tormented want to kill her?”

“Everyone,” Helen said. Her guts twirled like a forkful of spaghetti. But Sarah wasn’t going to let her slide back into despair.