An Uplifting Murder (42 page)

The average bra size? A C-cup, and many women wear Ds. That information comes from Susan Nethero, founder of Intimacy bra shops, in her
Bra Talk
book.

Headlights and dimmers:
Some women are embarrassed when the outlines of their nipples are visible through their bras. Some resort to Band-Aids to hide their “happy nipples” or “headlights.” Those work, but pulling them off can be painful. Gel cover-ups with names like Dimmers and Bra Discs will give you a smooth line in your bra.

Let it show:
Women who think their nipples are nothing to hide try products such as BareLifts, adhesive stick-ons that are said to lift breasts and realign nipples to a high position. Lingerie departments may carry these adhesive stick-ons, or you can check them out at
www.barelifts.com
.

Afterglow:
I can’t decide if this is tacky or tantalizing. Maybe it’s both. LuminoGlow makes glow-in-the-dark lingerie.
www.glowinthedarklingerie.com.au
.

Hot mamas:
Pregnant friends complain that once they start to show, they are consigned to the cutesy ghetto, expected to wear maternity clothes in nursery styles and colors. These women tried to tell the stores that they were carrying a baby—they hadn’t turned into one. Lingerie for new mothers was dreary.

HOTmilk Lingerie seems to understand the difference between babes and babies. They sell bras with no wires to inhibit milk production, no stitching or seams to irritate sensitive nipples, and “quick release clips” for easier breast-feeding. HOTmilk has lingerie, camisoles, nightwear, as well as a charity called Knickers for Africa to help elevate the status of young women.
www.hotmilklingerie.co.uk
.

The end of Swamp Thing:
Many woman enter menopause as early as their midthirties. They know the horror of waking up in the middle of the night in wet bedclothes, clinging to a damp pillow. NiteSweatz’s line of “moisture wicking” products are designed to help with this problem. NiteSweatz makes sleepwear, day wear, gowns, cover-ups, even pillowcases. For more information, go to
www.nitesweatz.com
.

Don’t want to pay NiteSweatz prices?
Try a “moisture wicking” T-shirt. They’re supposed to soak up sweat, and they work night or day. Nike’s Dri-FIT is one of many similar brands.

My grandma wore a girdle:
God rest her soul. That rubber girdle must have been an instrument of torture in the St. Louis summers, no matter how much baby powder she used. Many modern women prefer to tame their curves with shape wear such as Spanx. There are styles ranging from “below the knee shapers” to “high-waisted panties” that reach to your bra band. You don’t have to suck in your gut at the beach, either, with “slimming” swimsuits. Check out the styles at
www.barenecessities.com
.

Women are not the only ones who suffer to look slimmer:
Spanx makes a line of men’s “moderate control cotton compression” T-shirts and tank tops. Available at
www.barenecessities.com
.

Read on for a sneak peek at the
next novel in Elaine Viets’s national bestselling
Dead-End Job Mystery series,
PUMPED FOR MURDER
Coming in hardcover from Obsidian in May 2011. Helen Hawthorne wished Eric Clapton would shut up. She didn’t want to listen to him croon about cocaine.

“She don’t lie. She don’t lie...” Eric sang.

Enough, Helen thought. She sat up in bed and pulled up the black satin sheet over her breasts. She didn’t want to be totally naked for the first fight of her marriage.

Phil, her husband of thirty-three days, looked lean and white against the dark sheets. She admired his young face, a startling contrast to his silver-white hair. His eyes were closed as he listened to the music.

Here goes, Helen thought. As soon as I open my mouth, our honeymoon is over.

“I hate that song,” she said. “Clapton sounds bored.”

Helen waited for Phil to defend his guitar hero. He gave a lazy stretch, sat up and said, “You’re right.”

“I am?” Helen raised one eyebrow in surprise. Her husband worshipped Clapton. He even had a “Clapton Is God” T-shirt. Helen expected Phil to be struck by lightning every time he wore it.

They’d spent the sizzling September afternoon in his bedroom, listening to Clapton sing about hopeful love, hopeless love, and shameful, sinful love while they indulged in legal, married love. The cool music and green palm fronds shading the window turned Phil’s bedroom into an oasis at the Coronado Tropic Apartments.

Phil reached for the CD clicker and switched to an old favorite, “White Room,” with the howling guitar sound. “There. Is that better?”

“Much,” Helen said.

“You have to admit the guitar riffs in ‘Cocaine’ are elegant,” he said. “In his defense, Clapton thought he was singing an antidrug song.”

“Not to me,” Helen said. “Sounds like he’s in love with the White Lady.”

“You and a lot of other people,” Phil said. “You heard the audience cheering in that live recording. That’s why he quit singing it for a while. Coke was the evil lady of the eighties, and ‘Cocaine’ was her anthem. When Clapton brought the song back for his North American tour, he added ‘that dirty cocaine’ line for his backup singers. It’s my least favorite Clapton song. He sounds depressed.”

“Did you ever use coke?” Helen asked.

“Did I
what
? I. Hate. Coke.” Each word was a separate sentence. Phil threw back the sheet, slipped into his white robe and paced up and down. With his silver hair, he looked like an agitated ghost.

“I hate the whole cocaine culture: the destruction, the corruption, the killings. I worked a case here in South Florida in the mideighties, in the days of the cocaine cowboys.”

“Sounds very
Miami Vice
,” Helen said. “I loved that TV show.”

“
Miami Vice
was a Disney movie compared to Miami then,” Phil said. “Coke isn’t romantic pink sunsets, throbbing sound tracks and drug dealers’ yachts.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Helen said. “I was in high school back then. Our wild St. Louis drug scene was kids smoking pot under the bleachers.”

“I’m only five years older,” Phil said. “I was a PI trainee on my first major case. I was only twenty-one, and my hair was blond. They thought I’d be good at finding a sixteen-year-old runaway because I looked young. Her name was Marcie. I was supposed to bring her back to Little Rock.”

“Did you?”

Phil was still pacing the terrazzo floor in his bedroom, avoiding their scattered clothes.

“I tracked Marcie to some clone of Studio 54, then bribed the doorman with a hundred bucks. Put the bribe on my expense account. Thought I was quite the stud.”

“You are,” Helen said. She tried to put her arms around him, but Phil shook her away. He seemed anxious to make this confession.

“I followed Marcie into a club packed with half-naked people. It looked like every club then: tropical neon and a shiny black bar with mirrors. Behind the bar, Tom Cruise wannabes mixed flashy cocktails.”

“Sounds interesting,” Helen said.

“It wasn’t,” Phil said. “The crowd was mostly fat, balding men, Don Johnson look-alikes with designer stubble, and very young women. Couples were having sex everywhere: behind the curtains, in bathroom stalls, even right on the tables.”

“Ew,” Helen said. “I want to wash my mind out after that image.”

“Well, I can’t. I also can’t forget the black bowls of coke. They sat around like party favors.”

“What happened to Marcie?” Helen said.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Did you find her?”

“Yeah,” Phil said. “I found her. I sent her home—in a box. I’d like to forget her. I’d like to forget the whole ugly decade.”

Phil seemed to shut down. He stopped pacing and sat down on the bed next to Helen.

“It must have been horrible for you,” she said.

“It was no fun for Marcie, either. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

Helen traced the outline of his thin, slightly crooked nose with her finger and kissed the bump where it had been broken years ago. “Let’s talk about something pleasant: our new detective agency. Do you still like the name Coronado Investigations?”

“It’s perfect,” Phil said. “Classy with a retro feel, like the Coronado Tropic Apartments. Our office could be a set for an old private eye movie: the rattling window air conditioner, the monster gunmetal gray desks, the battered file cabinets. I can see Bogart sitting behind my desk in a wife-beater undershirt, drinking cheap whiskey.”

“I’d rather see clients,” Helen said. “Our savings will run out soon. We have to find some. How do we start looking for work?”

“That’s what I asked Ray, my PI friend. I had breakfast with him this morning. I was working while you slept in. He’s a retired cop who’s with a big agency now.”

“You were supposed to tell me what he said when you came back,” Helen said.

“It’s not my fault. I was distracted by this tall brunette with great legs.”

Helen tucked her legs under her. “There. The distraction is gone. Why should he help us? Aren’t we competition?”

“Not really. He works for a huge agency that specializes in private security. It started as a small shop run by two friends and grew. Ray says we need a PI license and a computer. I already have both. We need insurance, and we have the money for that.”

“What about me?” Helen said.

“The state laws on private eyes are changing. We can get you in under the wire as my trainee, but you’ll have to take classes. So will I, if we want the business to succeed.

“Ray says we have another important asset—our reputation. I’m glad we went back to St. Louis and cleared up your troubles with the court. That’s out of the way.”

Troubles with the court.
Helen felt like a boulder had been lobbed at her gut. She’d divorced her lying, cheating ex more than two years ago. That was how she wound up in south Florida. She was on the run, avoiding an outrageous divorce settlement. A St. Louis judge had given her greedy ex-husband, Rob, half of Helen’s future income.

Helen had hidden in Fort Lauderdale, working jobs for cash under the table. Rob had tracked her down, demanding fifteen thousand dollars. With the help of a St. Louis lawyer, Helen had cleared her name with the court.

“Has Rob shown up in court to contest the new divorce settlement?” Phil asked.

Helen felt her mouth go dry as Death Valley. Alkaline dust seemed to coat her tongue. “Uh, no. The process server can’t find him. My lawyer published all the legal notices. Rob never appeared.”

“He disappeared at the wrong time,” Phil said. “Your legal troubles are over.”

“Almost over,” Helen said. “I didn’t file any taxes while I was on the run. My St. Louis tax attorney is working on that problem.”

“We’ll be free soon,” Phil said.

Helen felt a second boulder land on her back. Rob was never going to show up in court. If she was lucky, no one would ever see her ex-husband again. Rob was dead, and she’d helped bury him. His death had been an accident, but Helen couldn’t tell anyone except her sister, who’d helped hide the body. She couldn’t even tell Phil, the man she loved. She’d have to carry that crushing burden the rest of her life. She hated keeping a secret from her husband, but if she told Phil, she’d ruin an innocent young life.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Phil asked. “You look pale.”

“Nothing,” Helen said, adding yet another lie to the layers of deceit. “What else did your PI friend tell you?”

“Lots. Maybe too much. I’ll tell you more as I remember it. Ray suggested I hang around the courthouse and watch for new case filings. He says I should find a small, hungry law firm and do its investigative work. Our business will grow with the firm’s.”