Murder Unleashed (28 page)

“Her shirt said it all,” Helen said.

“Do you think Lucinda wanted Francis to bring the dog to those parties—or was she trying to shock us?” Jeff said.

“Either way, she succeeded,” Helen said.

“I can’t believe it. That innocent little puppy.”

Helen felt as if she’d been hit with a jolt of electricity. “The dog!” she said. “That’s it.”

“What’s it?” Jeff said. He looked like a puzzled pup himself.

“Lucinda said the housekeeper would do anything for money. She’s right. For fifty bucks I bribed Lourdes to talk about Tammie, even though she had strict instructions to keep quiet.

“The housekeeper wasn’t home when Tammie was murdered, but she told me where she was. Lourdes said she got a phone call and had to leave. That call was from Francis. Lourdes took Barkley.”

“She stole the dog?” Jeff said. Now he seemed really confused.

“No, the husband, Francis, took the dog from our store. But the police didn’t find Barkley at Francis’s home. He’d stashed Barkley somewhere else. He gave her to Lourdes. That’s why Francis spent a long time talking to the housekeeper. He was making a deal with her. The housekeeper is hiding the dog for money. I bet she has Barkley at her house in Hialeah. It’s perfect. Nobody in Francis’s world would go into a Hispanic community unless they were taking their maid home.”

Jeff didn’t look convinced. “How are you going to find out?”

“I’m going to watch the housekeeper and see where she goes. If you’ll let me, of course. I’ll have to leave early again.”

“Are you kidding?” Jeff said. “The cancellations are killing my business. I expect the Barkley kidnapping story to hit the news any hour now. Take the rest of the afternoon off. Take the rest of the week off. If you find Barkley, it will clear my store’s name.”

It will help me, too, Helen thought.

The boutique door opened and a perky blonde in her early twenties came in. She weighed maybe ninety pounds, counting the ten pounds of pink ruffles. At her side was a black mastiff big enough to saddle and ride. The dark monster was tame as a kitten, unless some man tried to get near his mistress. Helen bet this dog was the terror of UPS deliverymen and mail carriers.

The Rapunzel syndrome, Helen called it. Instead of climbing a thorny tower to claim this beauty, her prince would have to get past her monster dog.

Someday, someone will do a study about small women and big dogs. Little women came into the shop with horse-sized mastiffs, Great Danes, shelter mutts, or exotic breeds from England and France.

The little blonde stepped up to the counter and said in a breathy voice, “Is Jeff here? I want to ask him about special food for Milton. He’s got some kind of skin rash.”

Milton wagged his three-foot-long tail and cleared two shelves.

“I’ll get him right away,” Helen said. Milton could accidentally demolish the store in five minutes.

Jeff wasn’t in the stockroom. She knocked on the bathroom door, but it was empty. She checked the grooming room and circled the front of the store, in case he was on the floor, stocking the lower shelves. She saw Lulu vamping in her latest outfit, but no sign of Jeff.

Helen looked out the shop window. A black van was parked at the edge of the lot. Was this the van Todd talked about? As she watched, Jeff got out of the passenger side, looked around, then jogged back behind the building. Helen grabbed a pen off the counter and wrote the van’s license plate number on her wrist. She heard the shop’s back door open.

“Jeff,” she said, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“You didn’t look hard enough. I’ve been right here, Helen.” He looked her straight in the eye. “What do you need?”

The blonde stepped up to the counter, patted Milton’s neck, and said, “I wanted to ask you about Milton’s diet.”

Helen didn’t hear the rest of their conversation. Jeff had lied right to her face. Helen was so angry she stayed on the other side of the store, slapping cans of dog food on the shelves with furious thuds. Jeff didn’t notice. He worked up front, schmoozing with the customers and answering the phone. Talking to people seemed to energize him.

“Are you still seeing that big dark-haired guy?” he asked Milton’s owner.

“Which one?” the little blonde said.

Helen slipped into the back room to call Phil. She sighed with relief when he answered on the second ring. “Want to help me do surveillance on the housekeeper?” she said. “I think Lourdes has the dog.”

Phil listened carefully, then said, “I like your theory. The more I think about it, the more it seems possible. Most housekeepers seem to leave work between four and six at the latest. I’ll pick you up at three. If we miss Lourdes today, we can leave a little earlier tomorrow.”

Helen had barely hung up the phone when it rang again. She heard Jeff pick it up, and scurried out to finish restocking the shelves.

Ten minutes later Jeff said, “Helen, can you come back here a moment?” His voice sounded flat and angry. What was that about? Had she done something wrong?

Jeff was standing stiffly at the stockroom table, surrounded by boxes of doggie chews. He reminded Helen of her grade-school principal, Sister Mary Monica.

“I’ve talked with the Stately Palms homicide detective, Helen,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me you found Tammie’s body when you tried to return Prince?” He even sounded like Sister Monica now. His voice was stern, but disappointed.

“I . . .” Helen realized she had no good reason. “I’m sorry, Jeff. I got scared and ran. It was stupid and the cops caught me.”

“You’ve jeopardized my store’s reputation,” Jeff said. “You used my delivery vehicle to commit a crime. Everyone knows the Pupmobile. The neighbors saw it there. How could you do this to me? I can understand your panicking and running from the police, but I thought I was the kind of employer you could come to when you were in trouble.”

“You are, Jeff. I am sorry.”

“You know what the worst part is? You lied to me,” he said.

Yes, she thought. But you lied to me. So we’re even.

“I’m sorry, Jeff,” she repeated.

There was nothing more to say. She expected Jeff to fire her. Instead he turned away and began unpacking boxes. Helen finished stocking the shelves. Jeff’s silence followed her like an accusation.

When Phil showed up in his black Jeep forty minutes later, Helen ran to it, grateful to be out of there. Phil pulled her into the Jeep and gave her a deep kiss.

“You’re so tense,” he said, rubbing her neck and shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

“Bad scene with Jeff.” She told him what happened. “Here’s what I don’t understand: Why would the detective call Jeff and tell him that now?”

“He wants to turn up the heat on you,” Phil said.

“It worked,” Helen said. “Jeff is angry at me and I don’t know how to fix it.”

They were at the entrance to the Stately Palms Country Club. The same semimilitary guard was there, looking alert and official. Phil showed her some identification with gold seals all over it. The guard did everything but salute.

“You certainly impressed her,” Helen said.

Phil shrugged. “That’s me,” he said. “Impressive.” He gave that lopsided grin that made Helen wish they were parking someplace far more secluded. Phil stopped at the entrance to the tennis courts. They could watch the cars coming out of the Grimsby driveway, but not attract the attention of the neighbors.

The street was quiet. An air-conditioning repairman left, a plumber arrived, a carpenter drove away in a white truck, but no one came or went at the Grimsby home.

“I checked the records, but I didn’t find anything for Jonathon under any of his names,” Phil said. “No arrests, no convictions, nothing about him even being questioned for a homicide. I think he was telling you the truth. He never killed anyone, in self-defense or otherwise.”

“Good,” Helen said. “At least my instincts are right about someone.”

“I did some checking on a Helen Hawthorne, too,” Phil said. “You don’t exist. No bank account, no phone, no driver’s license.”

Fear gripped Helen. She’d been afraid this was coming. The only thing she could do was fight back. “How dare you investigate me,” she said.

Phil brushed aside her anger and looked straight at her with hurt blue eyes. “Who are you, Helen?” he said. “What did you do? Why won’t you tell me? Don’t you love me?”

She could have taken anger. She would have fended it off with the shield of her own rage. But Phil was hurt, and that she couldn’t stand.

“I told you,” she said. “My ex-husband—”

“It’s more than that,” Phil said.

They both saw the battered brown car chugging toward them. It was small, square, and dented. The windows were down, and Helen could hear a Spanish-speaking announcer on the radio.

“It’s Lourdes,” she said.

Phil waited until there were at least two cars between them, then fell in behind Lourdes’s car. Tailing her was easy. The housekeeper drove slowly and carefully. She stopped at all the lights and never made risky dashes across intersections. It took nearly forty-five minutes to get to Hialeah. They drove in silence. Helen told herself they didn’t talk because they were concentrating on following Lourdes’s car.

The brown car turned left at a school surrounded by a chain-link fence, then into a street with cinder-block houses painted sun-faded Caribbean colors: turquoise, yellow, and pink. Lourdes parked in front of a turquoise house with a banana tree. The house had a chain-link-fenced yard filled with children. Dark-haired boys and girls were romping with a dark curly-haired dog.

It was Barkley, the yuppie puppy. Helen had never seen her so animated, not even in her commercials. She leaped and barked with sheer joy, while the kids shouted and laughed and threw a tennis ball. Barkley would fetch it and bring it back to the tallest boy. Two girls would hug her, and the game would start over.

“That’s Barkley,” Helen said. “I almost hate to call the police. She seems so happy.”

“And Jeff seems so unhappy,” Phil said.

“You’re right. If Barkley isn’t found, it could ruin his shop.”

It could ruin me, too, she thought, but she didn’t say it. Phil would only ask more awkward questions.

“This will be my peace offering to Jeff,” she said. “He may forgive me when I tell him we found Barkley.”

But she took one last lingering look at the little dog leaping and rolling in the yard with the children. She was going to stop their fun. Barkley would probably go back to the cold and calculating Francis.

But if I don’t get the police off my back, I’ll be returned to cold and lonely St. Louis. Better you than me, poor puppy, Helen thought. They drove to a pay phone near a bodega, and Helen made an anonymous call to the police.

T
he turquoise house was bathed in flickering bloody light from the police cars. Neighbors gathered in tense knots on the sidewalk. Two men gave Helen and Phil dark looks, and pointed to the Jeep.

“Let’s go,” Phil said. “We don’t belong here.”

They drove off to the sound of children crying. Helen felt like something that slithered. “What will happen to Lourdes?” she asked as they crawled through the traffic.

“Lourdes is a survivor,” Phil said. “She’ll claim she found the dog wandering in her neighborhood, and took care of it. I doubt if the police will make the connection between Lourdes and Francis. Willoughby’s husband isn’t going to tell them how he met her. Francis will pretend he’s happy to have his dog back. Lourdes will keep her mouth shut. She’s smart.”

“How do you know?” Helen said.

“Look what she did with the money Francis gave her.”

“What do you mean?” Helen said. “She didn’t do anything.”

“Exactly,” Phil said. “The police will notice nothing suspicious. She didn’t quit her job or buy a new car or a designer wardrobe. She drives a junker and wears her housekeeper’s uniform. She’ll be fine.”

Helen still felt guilty. She kept seeing that little curly-haired pup frolicking with the children. Helen had sacrificed Barkley’s good life to save her own.

Barkley is a dog, Helen told herself. She’ll be returned to her rightful owner.

She’s going back to the man who murdered her mistress, said a small voice. She’ll pine away, living with someone who doesn’t care about her.

Helen sighed and looked down at her traitorous fingers. They’d held the phone, punched in the numbers, and ratted out the pup. She saw the license-plate number she’d scribbled on her wrist earlier that day. The ink was smeared, but she could still read it.

“Ohmigod!” she said.

Phil slammed on the brakes. “What’s wrong?” he said. “Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” Helen said sheepishly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you. I saw this license-plate number on my wrist and remembered I didn’t tell you what else happened today. Jeff disappeared again, and I went looking for him. He was in the van with that man, like Todd said. I wrote down the license number. Jeff looked me right in the eye and denied he’d left the store.”

“He’s probably cheating on his boyfriend,” Phil said. “I bet Jeff is sneaking off for a quickie.”

“No, it’s something else,” Helen said. “Jeff doesn’t have an alibi for the time Tammie died. He could have slipped out and stabbed her.”

“But why would he?” Phil said.

“I don’t know yet,” Helen said. “But I didn’t know there was a connection between Betty and Tammie until I found it. Jeff is up to something.”

“And you want me to check out the license plate and find out who he’s meeting?” Phil said.

“Please,” Helen said.

“It’s easy enough,” Phil said. “I have some contacts.”

They were back at the Coronado. A soft mist dimmed the harsh white light of the tropical moon. The palm trees shivered and sighed. It was a night made for secrets. Helen knew she could make her lover understand why she had to keep her secrets, if she could sit down and talk to him.