Pumped for Murder (17 page)

“It doesn’t mean Bryan is unfaithful because he stares at Paula,” Helen said. “Any man with a pulse would. I even look at her. The only other woman I’ve seen Bryan spend time with is his trainer, Jan Kurtz. She puts him through his paces five or six hours at a time. He’s only interested in her professionally.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Helen said. “I watch them in the mirrors when they think no one is looking. It’s strictly business.”

“Maybe Bryan knows you’re a plant,” Phil said.

“I don’t think so,” Helen said. “When the gym reopens, I’ll spend one more day, then tell Shelby what’s going on: Her husband is faithful, but he’s lost interest in her.”

“She’ll hate to hear that,” Phil said.

“The truth hurts,” Helen said. “I get the feeling Shelby might prefer a husband who’s cheating on her to one who’s faithful but uninterested.”

Phil kissed Helen good night and was soon snoring softly. Helen stared at the ceiling, thinking about faithful husbands and painful truths.

H
elen’s alarm went off at four the next morning. She swatted the clock like a fly, and it tumbled off her bedside table.

The clatter woke up Phil. “Huh?” he said, sitting up in bed. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to fly to St. Louis,” Helen said. “You go back to sleep. I’ll leave the Igloo in the airport parking lot.”

Phil rubbed his hands through his thick silver hair and said, “No, there’s not enough time for you to catch the parking shuttle. I’ll drive. I just need some coffee.”

“Me, too,” Helen said, staggering into the bathroom. She flipped on the light, looked in the mirror and winced. Was that red-eyed creature really her? No need to get her suitcase out of the closet. She already had the bags under her eyes.

When she emerged damp from the shower, Phil handed her a mug of hot coffee.

“You’ve saved my life,” she said, gulping coffee while she threw a pantsuit into her rolling bag in case she really did see the lawyer. She packed a black long-sleeved shirt and scarf so the blackmailer wouldn’t see her. She planned to stake out the money drop. That creep was getting fifteen thousand dollars of her cash, but it would be his last payday. This time, Helen would catch him.

Five o’clock was too early for the sun to be up. The air was so thick, Helen thought she might drown if she inhaled. The Coronado’s window air conditioners rattled and insects hummed, a comforting summer symphony. She heard the low rumble of thunder in the darkness and hoped this trip wouldn’t be canceled by bad weather. She had to get to St. Louis.

She rolled her suitcase down the narrow sidewalk to the parking lot. As they passed Margery’s apartment, Helen saw the yellow glow of their landlady’s kitchen light and caught the faint whiff of cigarette smoke seeping through the glass slats on the jalousie door. The rest of the Coronado was ghostly white.

“My car or yours?” Phil whispered.

“Mine’s air-conditioned,” Helen said. “You want to drive the Igloo? You’re more awake.” She handed him the keys.

“I like this car,” Phil said as he eased the PT Cruiser through the small, tight traffic jam in front of the terminal.

“You can’t have it,” Helen said. She kissed him good-bye and rolled her suitcase toward the airport security line. She’d packed light, but Helen felt the heavy burden of her lie to Phil.

Her fellow travelers seemed abnormally chipper for six a.m. Helen’s head ached and her eyes felt like someone had tossed sand in them. She’d spent the night beating herself up.

I can sleep on the plane, she told herself as the jet pushed back from the gate.

She didn’t. The plane bounced through the thunderheads for more than a thousand miles. Even seasoned travelers grabbed their seat arms as the plane dipped and pitched. The captain ordered the flight attendants to stay seated.

Helen blessed Phil for that morning coffee. No beverages were served on the three-hour roller-coaster ride.

The clouds cleared a hundred miles before their destination.When the flight finally touched down in sunny St. Louis, the passengers applauded. Helen felt like she’d walked there from Lauderdale.

The graceful steel and glass curves of Lambert International Airport made a sunlit cage. Kathy was waiting at the terminal entrance, looking even more frazzled than Helen. She noticed her sister’s hair was a trace grayer at the temples and her smile was tentative.

Her niece, Allison, looked so much like Kathy, back when Helen’s sister had been carefree. Before my ex and I ruined my sister’s life, Helen thought.

“Aunt Helen!” Allison cried. A flurry of pink ruffles ran toward her.

Helen hugged her niece. “You’re so big,” she said.

Allison twirled to show off her outfit, her round face lit with a smile. “See my Disney princess backpack? I’m wearing princess ruffles, too.”

“Pretty,” Helen said. “I like the pink sparkles on your shoes.”

“The other mothers say this princess phase will pass,” Kathy said and rolled her eyes.

“I got to come to the airport,” Allison said. “Tommy had to go to school.”

“Tommy was not happy,” Kathy said. “You look exhausted, Sis. Bad flight?”

“Like being in a cocktail shaker going six hundred miles an hour,” Helen said. “It’s over. I’m here.”

“I’m so glad,” Kathy said, hugging her. “Thanks for coming here.”

The searing heat hit them when they left the terminal. “Fall definitely hasn’t arrived yet,” Helen said. “St. Louis seems hotter than Florida.”

“The only sign of fall is the dogwood in my backyard,” Kathy said. “My poor little tree is doornail dead. This was the fifth-hottest summer in city history.”

“Do dogs like dogwood?” Allison asked.

“No, but cats like cattails,” Helen said.

“You’re silly,” Allison said, giggling.

They climbed into Kathy’s blue minivan, the same one Kathy had used to haul Rob’s body to his clandestine burial. Despite the brutal heat, Helen couldn’t help shivering at that memory.

“Hungry? Want to stop for breakfast?” Kathy asked.

“Food later,” Helen said. “Let’s get the money now, in case there’s a problem at the bank. I’ll call Drake Upton while you drive there. Maybe he can see me while I’m in town.”

The lawyer answered his own phone and gave Helen a mild chiding. “I wish you’d given me more notice.”

“I am sorry,” Helen said. “I had to see my sister in a hurry. Unfinished business after Mother’s death.”

“I can fit you in at nine thirty tomorrow for twenty minutes,” Upton said.

“I’ll be there,” Helen said.

She hit END on her phone and said to Kathy, “I can leave straight for the airport after the lawyer’s appointment. If you can’t take me, I’ll catch a cab. I have to find some way to tell him about that money we’re giving our friend.”

“Why?” Kathy asked.

“Deposits and withdrawals of ten thousand dollars or more are reported to the IRS.”

“We could take out six thousand now,” Kathy said, “and four thousand this afternoon.”

“It still adds up to ten thousand, and that has to be reported,” Helen said. “I’ll ask my lawyer how I should handle it.”

Kathy’s van swerved slightly, and a red Nissan honked at her. “Does that include deposits, too?” she asked. “Does that mean the bank reported the twenty-one thousand dollars I found in Mom’s cookie jar when I put it in the kids’ college fund?”

“Sure does.”

Helen watched the color drain from her sister’s face.

“It’s okay,” Helen said. “Make sure you tell your accountant and pay taxes on it.You can say it was a gift from Mom before she left on her trip.”

“What about Mom’s not-so-grieving widower, Lawn Boy Larry?” Kathy asked. “Will he find out?”

“The IRS won’t report the transaction to Larry. He never bothered knowing his wife well enough to find out about that cookie jar. Have you heard anything from old greedy guts?”

“He held the estate sale the day after Mom’s funeral and put her house up for sale a week later. I drive by it nearly every day. It sold three weeks ago, and a family moved in before school started. I’m sure Larry kept all the house sale money.”

“I’m sure he did, too,” Helen said. “He only married poor Mom for her money. She wouldn’t be buried next to Dad if she didn’t have a prepaid plot. At least she can spend eternity with the man she loved. Mom and I have some track record when it comes to men.”

“You’ve got a gem now,” Kathy said. “Phil was worth the wait.”

Helen checked her niece before she asked her next question. Allison was asleep in her car seat. “What time do you leave the package?”

“Nine o’clock,” Kathy said. “It should be dark by then.”

She stopped the minivan in front of a beige cube and said, “Here’s the bank. Take this bag for the money.” She handed Helen a reusable Schnucks supermarket bag.

“Go green for blackmail,” Helen said.

E
leven thirty-two.

Nine hours and twenty-eight minutes before Kathy had to deliver the blackmail money, Helen loped out of the bank with the ten thousand dollars. She dropped the cash-crammed Schnucks bag in the minivan’s cargo compartment and climbed into the front seat.

“What now?”

“Home to Webster Groves,” Kathy said, “and an early lunch.”

Allison woke up at the word “lunch.” “Mommy made us special Ooh and Aah’s Wrap ’Em Ups.” She could barely contain her excitement. “I’m having them for my birthday party.”

“Who’s Ooh and Aah?” Helen asked. “And why are they rapping?”

“You’ve been neglecting your Disney Channel,” Kathy said. “Ooh and Aah are two monkeys. The Wrap ’Em Ups are chicken-lettuce wraps—sandwiches, not singers.”

Allison collapsed into giggles at this news. “Singers!” she said. “They’re not singers. We’re having Monkey Face salads, too.”

Helen raised an eyebrow.

“That’s fruit salad,” Kathy translated. “Allison will drink milk and we’ll have grownup jungle juice.”

“Made from fermented grapes, I hope,” Helen said.

“White grapes,” Kathy said.

“Good. Jungle juice contains lots of antioxidants for Aunt Helen.”

Helen admired the scenery on her way to Kathy’s house. The summer sun had wilted the gardens and burned lawns brown, but St. Louis still looked lush. The last time Helen had been home was for her mother’s funeral almost two months ago. It was Phil’s first visit to the city, and he’d praised St. Louis’s beauty extravagantly. Helen had felt a childish compulsion to defend her adopted state of Florida, as if every boost for St. Louis knocked Fort Lauderdale.

Today, without her husband beside her, Helen could admit to herself that the tree-shaded suburban streets looked cool and inviting. She wondered if she’d disagreed with Phil to convince herself that she didn’t want to come back home.

Florida was built yesterday, except for its prehistoric swamps and eternal ocean.

St. Louis was older than the United States. It started as a French trading post in 1767 and grew into a nineteenth-century river and railway hub. Some say the city reached its peak with the 1904 World’s Fair. There was even talk of moving the U.S. capital to St. Louis. That went nowhere, as so many of the city’s grand plans would, but mansions and generous homes from its glory period survive. They wear their age well. St. Louis’s older homes promise stability, though like all white elephants, they can be a burden as well as an honor for their owners.

Kathy and Tom’s two-story home had stained-glass windows and a gingerbread porch. “That’s our house!” Allison shouted. “Daddy burned the paint off the porch. He’s going to make it white and pretty.”

“Daddy better hurry,” Kathy told Helen. “Winter is on the way. Tom will freeze his tail off soon, even working with a blowtorch.”

My sister had a nearly perfect life, right down to the white picket fence covered with rambler roses, Helen thought. Until Rob and I ruined it. Another guilt boulder was piled on top of her lies to Phil.

Kathy helped her daughter out of her car seat, and they gathered in the comfortable kitchen with the rooster wall clock. “Is it lunchtime? I get lunch with Aunt Helen,” Allison shrieked. “You said so. Ooh and Aah Wrap ’Em Ups!”

Helen winced. The little girl had a loud, shrill voice.

“Allison, what did I tell you about using your indoor voice?” Kathy said. “Go wash your hands while I heat up our lunch.”

The lettuce wraps were made with ground chicken, mushrooms, soy sauce, onions, garlic and mint on tender butter lettuce. They tasted deliciously grown-up. Allison was proud of her Monkey Face salads.

“I made them myself,” she said. “Mommy cut up the fruit.” Helen admired the salads—thick rounds of sliced pineapple with blueberry eyes, raisin noses, strawberry mouths and kiwi ears.

After lunch, Kathy sent Allison upstairs to her bedroom to watch
Goodnight Moon
on her mini DVD player.

“I’m not sleepy,” Allison protested. Her lower lip quivered.

“You don’t have to take a nap,” Kathy said. “Just watch one movie while I talk to Aunt Helen; then you can come downstairs.”

After Allison was settled in her room, Kathy said, “If I tell her she doesn’t have to take a nap, she’ll be out cold in ten minutes.” She poured Helen a second glass of wine, then brought out a bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. “Coffee?”

“No thanks. I’ll stick with jungle juice,” Helen said. “Tell me where you have to deliver the money tonight at nine o’clock.”

“On top of the Dumpster in the abandoned strip mall on Manchester,” Kathy said. “The one where we threw away the stuff after we buried Rob. I can’t believe I just said that sentence. I’m a suburban mom.”

“If you want to stay one,” Helen said, “we have to find this creep. Do you think he followed us there?”

“I thought we were careful to make sure no one followed us,” Kathy said. “After he called yesterday, I drove around the strip mall again. There’s a little cafe across the street, Jackie’s Fine Eats. Maybe he parked there and watched us.You can see the Dumpster from the cafe window.”