Just Murdered (20 page)

Helen couldn’t quit. She needed the money. She also needed to keep an eye on Millicent. Maybe Desiree was lying about that rehearsal dinner. But Helen didn’t think so.

She’d already caught Millicent in one lie.

 

For the rest of the afternoon, while Helen wrestled with white silk and satin, she made her decision. Tonight was the night. She would ask Phil to move in with her. She was ready. She couldn’t change her lying boss, but she could fix her love life.

Last night with Phil had been wonderful. When he’d gotten out of her bed at two a.m., she’d wanted him to stay. Not just for the rest of the night, but the rest of her life.

Phil said he had to get up early to meet with the lawyers again. Helen felt a small twinge of delight when she thought of Phil stumbling through his front door and accidentally waking up Kendra asleep on his couch. He’d have Helen’s scent on his skin, her lipstick on his shirt. That would teach Kendra to move in on her man.

But Helen knew it was stupid to leave a man as fine as Phil alone with a schemer like Kendra. That’s why she would ask him to live with her. Eventually they’d need a bigger place. Maybe they could move into 2C when Warren went to his condo. They would break the curse on that apartment forever.

She ran home to tell him. She started to knock on Phil’s door, but it was open. A good sign. He was waiting for her.

“Phil,” she said softly. She didn’t want the whole apartment complex to hear her. Margery knew too much about her love life already.

There was no answer.

“Phil?” Helen stepped inside.

She smugly noted that the living room was a welter of women’s clothes, pizza boxes, and dirty coffee mugs. Kendra had not gotten any neater. She stepped around a sparkly red bustier on the floor. Cheap, just like its owner.

“Phil?”

He must be waiting for her in bed. He’d done that before. He knew when she got off work. Phil had sexy black silk sheets and a silver champagne bucket. Helen sighed at the memory of their champagne nights and picked her way around Kendra’s pink spike heels.

The bedroom door was shut. Phil definitely planned to surprise her.

Well, she had a surprise of her own. She tiptoed back across the room, stepping over purple hot pants. Did anyone wear those tacky things anymore? She slipped the chain lock on the front door. Kendra was probably at the club by now, but Helen didn’t want her walking in on them.

Helen checked herself in the mirror. Not bad, considering the day she’d had. Her hair looked pretty good, and she’d put on fresh lipstick before she left work. Her white blouse and black pants were boring, but she’d take care of that. Helen unbuttoned her blouse and saw that her white bra was gray. Ugh. She flung the blouse and bra on top of Kendra’s trashy clothes. The boring pants followed. The black lace panties could stay. They looked sexy.

Much better, Helen decided. She was forty-two, but she had a good body. Lifting heavy wedding dresses had given her firm upper arms and a perky chest.

Enough of Miss Proper. Helen could be dead as Kiki tomorrow. It was time she lived a little.

“Surprise, Phil!” She flung open the bedroom door.

Phil looked stunned.

He pulled himself away from Kendra. The Kentucky Songbird was clinging to him like ivy on a college wall.

“Helen, it’s not how it seems,” Phil said.

“Let me guess,” Helen said. “She was giving you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

“No, she was trying to get me back.”

“She doesn’t have to try,” Helen said. “She can have you.”

Kendra stood there with a little catlike smile. She was wearing clothes. Helen was not. She grabbed her pants, bra, and blouse and yanked open the front door. The chain lock flopped it back.

Helen ripped off the chain, holding her clothes over the vital spots. She was humiliated enough without getting dressed in front of Phil and Kendra. She only had to scamper next door.

Phil blocked the door. “Please don’t go. Remember last night. Try to see this sensibly.”

“I don’t want to see it at all,” Helen said. “Get out of my way.”

She pushed past him.

“Helen!” Phil cried, but she slammed the door in his face. The ten-foot sprint to her place was screened by tropical plants. She made a running start and ran smack into Margery.

“Nice to see you,” her landlady said. “All of you. Are you taking up nudism?”

“It’s not funny,” Helen said. “I caught Phil with Kendra. All men are unfaithful bums.”

“Get dressed,” Margery said, “and meet me at the pool. I’ll have Peggy there.”

“I don’t want to show my face ever again.”

“You’ve shown everything else,” Margery said. “Put your clothes on and meet us by the pool. You can’t stay holed up inside in the mood you’re in.”

Helen put on her dingy bra, dull blouse, and boring pants. She gave her cat Thumbs some food and an indifferent pat, picked up a pretzel for Pete, and headed for the pool.

Her landlady was in lavender tonight. There was nothing sensible about her clothes. Margery’s shorts had a flirty ruffle around the hem. The pointy toes on her lavender T-straps would have killed Helen’s feet. She handed Helen a cold glass of wine.

Peggy and Pete were both in brilliant green. The dieting parrot munched morosely on a celery stick.

“I brought him a pretzel,” Helen said.

“He can’t have it,” Peggy said. “He’s gained another ounce. The vet says he has to lose weight.”

“Forget Pete,” Margery said. “What did that bird-brain Phil do?” She lit a Marlboro.

“I caught him with Kendra. She was all over that man like a cheap suit.”

“Like a cheap tart.” Peggy was the sort of friend who took your side.

“I finally trust a man after my ex,” Helen said, “and Phil does this. I loved him. I really did.” Her throat was clogged with tears.

“Awwwk!” Pete snapped his celery.

“Go ahead and cry him out of your system,” Peggy said. “That’s awful.”

“It gets worse,” Helen said. “I was going to surprise him. I was standing there in my slightly wrinkled birthday suit and Kendra was fully dressed.”

Margery blew out enough smoke to set off a fire alarm. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Kendra was dressed?”

“Yes,” Helen said. “In black spandex. With rhinestones.”

“Anything disarranged or popped out?” Margery said.

“No,” Helen said. “Why do you care what that little tramp was wearing?”

“What about Phil? What was he wearing?”

“Jeans and a blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves.” The shirt matched his eyes, Helen wanted to say, but didn’t. She sniffed back more tears. She was a sucker for rolled-up sleeves. She was a sucker, period.

“His shirt was tucked in and buttoned?”

“Yes,” Helen said.

“Any signs of life in the zipper area?”

“Margery!” Helen said. “No. Why are you asking these disgusting questions?”

“Because Phil may be telling the truth. Kendra could have ambushed him. It’s possible she heard you come in and threw herself at him. She knew how you’d react.”

“What were they doing together in the bedroom with the door closed?” Helen asked.

“She could have shut it when she heard you stumbling around in the living room. Was the door closed all the way?”

“I don’t know. Is it important?”

“Yes,” Margery said. “Try to visualize the scene.”

Helen took another slug of wine to fortify herself. She closed her eyes and replayed one of the more embarrassing moments in her life. She saw herself chucking her clothes and heading for Phil’s bedroom. She felt her hand on his doorknob. It opened at her touch. She didn’t have to turn it.

“It was closed, but not completely shut. It wasn’t locked, that’s for sure.”

“How close was Kendra to the door?” Margery said.

Helen saw a fiery waterfall of hair and a short black skirt. “I almost hit her with it. I wished I had.”

“The only thing he’s guilty of is stupidity,” Margery said. “Phil was duped.”

“I don’t understand,” Helen said. “He’s a private detective. He’s done undercover work with mob bosses and drug dealers, but he’s outsmarted by his ex-wife?”

“Yep,” Margery said. “That takes a different kind of smarts.”

She poured Helen more wine. “You’re going to need courage. I gather your marriage wasn’t the best. It gets harder to love as you get older. Your new man has to live with the mistakes of the old—and he doesn’t even know it. Don’t make Phil pay for something your ex-husband did.”

Helen wanted to believe her. But she saw herself slut naked in front of Kendra.

Her heart shriveled with shame.

The bride was a young Grace Kelly in a simple white strapless gown.

“She’s beautiful!” Millicent said.

Molly was touchingly, heartbreakingly beautiful. The pale blonde was alight with love. Molly’s mother was as handsome as Chanel and a good salon could make her, but she’d never been as lovely as her daughter. Now maternal pride made her beautiful, too.

While Helen buttoned the bride into the gown and Millicent pinned the hem, Molly talked about Eric, the accountant she was marrying in four months.

“Last night, Eric brought me a rose and teddy bear for our anniversary,” she said.

“Which anniversary is this?” Helen asked.

“We’d been engaged exactly one hundred eighteen days, six hours, and seven minutes. Eric doesn’t like to celebrate conventional dates. Eric says . . .”

Molly’s mother interrupted the Eric ecstasies. “Put on the veil, please, so I can see the full effect.”

Millicent dusted off her knees, stood up, and pinned the gossamer veil to the bride’s chignon. It floated around her, a silken aura. Molly did a dramatic twirl that ended in a happy little skip.

Two tears ran down her mother’s cheeks. “My baby is really getting married,” she said. “It wasn’t a wedding dress until you put on the veil.”

Millicent wiped her own eyes with a red-lacquered nail. This tender scene seemed to erase all the hysteria, fights, and harsh words heard in her salon. “This is why I sell bridal gowns,” she said.

Helen felt tears forming, too, but hers were bitter. She ran for the small dressing room, locked herself in, and wept silently. She cried for Kiki, who could only compete with her daughter. She cried for Desiree, who had oceans of money and not a drop of her mother’s love. She cried for Molly and the inevitable loss of her young love. She hoped it would change into something strong and mature.

Finally, Helen cried for the woman she used to be, the one who wanted to love Rob forever and fled when that love failed. The woman whose life was shattered again last night.

Then she shook herself like a wet dog, blew her nose, and decided she’d had enough dramatics.

Helen could not believe that Millicent, who wept for her beautiful brides, was a murderer. It didn’t make sense. Helen’s brain had been infected by her dinner with Desiree.

I have Mad Bride Disease, she thought. The craziness that affects weddings has seeped into my head. Helen had seen perfectly normal women have fits because their bridesmaid dresses were the wrong shade of cranberry. I’m the wackiest of all, if I think Millicent is a killer. The only cure was to prove Millicent was innocent. Maybe her appointment book would say where she was the night of the rehearsal dinner.

Millicent was still working with Molly and her mother. Helen slipped into the back office and checked the appointment book. It was blank for that Friday.

Then Helen opened the filing cabinet and pulled out Kiki’s folder. The bills were staggering: almost seventy thousand dollars, including the special-order dresses, express delivery, and seamstress overtime. She found a copy of Kiki’s check for half the amount, but no other record of payment.

Then she found one other thing: an application for a home-equity credit line on Millicent’s home. She’d mortgaged her house to front this order. Helen had Millicent’s motive for murder.

She put the file back, then pulled it out again and wiped it with a clean cloth. If the cops arrested Millicent for murder, she didn’t want her prints on the papers. Next she wiped down the file cabinet. She hoped Windex killed fingerprints.

“Good!” Millicent was standing in the doorway. “This office needs dusting. I’m glad you’re doing it.”

“I’ll stay back here for a bit,” Helen said. Her heart was beating so fast she was afraid she’d slide onto the floor. “Yell if you need me out front.”

As soon as Millicent went back to work, Helen called Jeff. There was nothing odd about that. Bridal salons and wedding planners talked constantly. Besides, Jeff was so soothing and sensitive.

“Oh, my
God,
Helen, are you all right? Did you survive that horrible, horrible
day?
”

“I’m fine, Jeff,” Helen said. But she couldn’t keep the weariness from her voice. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”