Half-Price Homicide (26 page)

A meat market. A doctor’s office. A tiny storefront church with a sparkling window framed by white curtains. At least, Helen guessed that’s what these businesses were. She translated the signs as Phil’s black Jeep rolled down the street past a
carnicerla,
a
tnMico,
an
iglesia.
They were on a potholed road near the Dixie Highway, literally on the wrong side of the tracks in Palm Beach County. The area between Dixie and I-95 was considered poor by Palm Beach standards.

“We’re a long way from Worth Avenue,” Helen said. “Tourists never see this.”

“They’re missing the interesting part,” Phil said. “You can find Brooks Brothers, Neiman Marcus and Tiffany stores at any upscale mall. These shops are one of a kind. I bet that meat market has sensational hot sausage. And look how the congregation has fixed up that church. They painted red roses and a gold cross on the window.”

“I didn’t realize there were Latino neighborhoods here,” Helen said.

“Who do you think works in the mansions?” Phil said. “I bet if I yelled ‘green card,’ I could make half the people on this street disappear.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?” Helen asked.

“Of course not,” Phil said. “Then we’d never find Commissioner Stranahan’s two houses.”

He turned right, then left, then right again. “Be careful,” Helen said. “If anything happens to you, I’ll never find my way out.”

“Your concern is touching,” Phil said.

She yanked his ponytail playfully and said, “You know I can’t live without you.”

They were on a dusty sunbaked street lined with square cinder-block houses in faded tropical colors. The lawns were brown and dry. Most of the homes had chain-link fences and iron bars on the windows.

Phil stopped in front of a lime green house with its screen door hanging off the hinges.

“Shame on the commissioner,” Phil said. “I see a dozen housing-code violations just standing here.”

Helen and Phil walked carefully up the cracked concrete steps. Phil reached through the torn screen and knocked on the door.

After a long wait, a Latino built like a melting ice-cream cone answered. His eyes were frightened. “No spik English,” he said.

“Do you know if——,” Phil began.

The frightened man interrupted. “No. Go away.
Vete.”
He made shooing motions with his hands and slammed the door.

“Do you think he really doesn’t speak English?” Helen asked when they were back in the Jeep.

“Who knows?” Phil said. “It’s a good way to get rid of strangers. You speak Spanish, don’t you?”

“Gringo Spanish,” Helen said. “That’s what my old Cuban boss, Miguel Angel, called it. My Spanish is slow and my vocabulary is small. I couldn’t help you if anyone started firing rapid Spanish.”

“Let’s drive to her other house,” Phil said. “I don’t want to attract more attention here.”

Commissioner Stranahan’s second house was almost a copy of the first, except it was sun-scorched turquoise and had a handmade
“se renta cuarto”
sign.

“I think that sign translates as ‘room for rent,’ ” Helen said.

Phil coasted by the house and parked his battered Jeep half a block away, between a rusty pickup and a brown seventies beater with the trunk wired shut.

“I’ll go to the front door and ask about renting the room,” he said.

“You look too rich to rent here,” Helen said. She took time to admire her fiancé’s tight black T-shirt and jeans.

“It’s not for me,” Phil said. “It’s for my imaginary construction manager, Jose. I’ll stall whoever answers while you get a closer look at the place.”

“Give me time to sneak around the side first,” Helen said.

She crunched across the dead brown grass and looked in the garage window. Helen saw three mattresses on the concrete floor, two flat pillows and a tangle of gray white sheets. In one corner a white toilet squatted in the open. It looked oddly naked.

That’s one, she thought.

A tiny back room had a pink sheet tacked over the window, but Helen could see scuffed turquoise walls, a sleeping bag and a mattress on a tile floor and a toilet in the corner.

Two toilets, she thought.

The third room was bigger, probably intended as the master bedroom. It had four mattresses, egg-yolk yellow walls and a toilet.

The long, narrow bathroom did not have curtains or frosted glass on its window. Helen looked into a shower black with mold. Through the parted plastic shower curtain, she could see a bedroll in one corner and a toilet in its proper place.

The kitchen had a toilet, too, opposite the stove and a fridge that hummed and groaned. The kitchen counter was cluttered with cans and boxes, most with Spanish labels. The sink overflowed with dirty dishes. Helen saw a huge roach on an open loaf of bread. A futon mattress and two sleeping bags were piled in a corner. A listing chrome-legged table with six mismatched chairs took up most of the room.

Helen hurried to the living room. The sliding doors also had sheet curtains, but she could peek inside. These walls were dark brown. A plaid couch sagged against the opposite wall. It looked like someone bunked on it. Helen counted five mattresses on the floor and more tattered sheets. A small brown TV was perched on a cinder block. Yet another toilet sat in the far corner. The count was up to six.

A sunporch had been converted into a room, thanks to un-painted plywood. Helen couldn’t see in, but she bet this makeshift room had a toilet, too. She tugged on the door. Locked. Before she could explore further, she heard shouts from the front of the house.

Helen slipped around the side and ran for the Jeep. She was sitting sedately inside by the time Phil jumped in, started the engine and screeched toward I-95.

“Nice work,” Helen said. “You kept him distracted while I looked. I could hear you didn’t get along well with Jose’s potential landlord.”

“That slime,” Phil said. “He told me the room would cost six hundred a month and Jose would have to share it with four people. He wanted three months’ cash up front.”

“Well, at least your imaginary supervisor would have his own in-room toilet,” Helen said. “I think we’ve found the house of the seven toilets. I couldn’t see into one room in the back, but all the others, even the kitchen and the garage, had toilets.”

“The kitchen, too?” Phil asked. “That’s disgusting.”

“The house is a slum, Phil. Those poor people are sleeping on the floor. I counted maybe eighteen mattresses and sleeping bags. If Commissioner Stranahan is charging six hundred per person, she’s raking in almost eleven thousand dollars a month from that house.”

“Only if the renters are sleeping one person to a mattress,” Phil said. “If they share, she’s making even more.”

“It’s greedy and wicked,” Helen said. “How does she get away with it?”

“She rents to illegal immigrants who don’t dare complain,” Phil said. “She may be paying off officials, too. Or the inspectors don’t bother with poor neighborhoods. You can find houses like that throughout Florida. They’re luxury accommodations. Some illegals send home most of their pay, or make so little they can’t afford to rent. They camp in the woods and risk getting beaten and robbed.”

“How do you think Chrissy found out about Commissioner Loretta Stranahan’s house?” Helen said. “She’d never go to a Latino neighborhood. Chrissy thought visiting Snapdragon’s was an adventure.”

“Chrissy suspected her husband was cheating on her,” Phil said. “Didn’t she say Danny called Loretta a hundred times a day?” “She did,” Helen said. “I didn’t understand that. Loretta is against Danny’s Orchid House project. Why would Danny talk to her?”

“A man like Danny has business friends and business enemies,” Phil said, “and he’s smooth enough to keep in touch with all of them. In public, Danny would be polite, even friendly to his enemies. His type would hire investigators to look into the commissioners’ lives.”

“They can do that? Isn’t it illegal?”

“It may be illegal and it’s certainly unethical,” Phil said. “But it happens.”

“Who would take an investigation like that?” Helen asked.

“Some detective agency desperate for money, usually a small operation,” Phil said. “The big agencies are taking over the lucrative national and international security and investigations. The small agencies live off the scraps, and some of them cross ethical lines to stay in business. If you’re not burdened by ethics, looking for dirt on the commissioners would be a plum assignment with unlimited billable hours. It wouldn’t be hard to get information about Loretta’s houses. I found it in one day.

“Let’s say Danny got the information on Commissioner Stranahan from a private investigator,” Phil said. “Then Chrissy went through her husband’s papers and found it. At Snapdragon’s, she taunted Loretta with the house of the seven toilets.”

“And wound up conveniently dead,” Helen said. “Before she could ruin Loretta’s career.”

Phil expertly guided the Jeep through a construction lane change, then said, “Look, Helen, I wanted to have this conversation sooner, but your mother took a turn for the worse and we had to go to St. Louis. I may have to quit my job, possibly this afternoon.”

“Oh, Phil. Why?” Helen asked.

“Last month, a multinational company, Mortmane, tried to hire the agency I work for to investigate ten state representatives. Mort-mane wanted information about key committee members for an environmental issue. My section boss turned down the job. But now the economy is worse and jobs are fewer. He has a quota to make.”

“Is Mortmane the big defense contractor?” Helen said.

“They do everything,” Phil said. “What they don’t do, they hire us to do for them. Office scuttlebutt is that two of our operatives will be sent to Mexico to bring home the Mortmane CFO’s daughter. She ran off with a young man her father thinks is unsuitable. He wants her back in college. I won’t do kidnapping. The woman is twenty-one, old enough to make decisions without a disapproving daddy dragging her home.

“I have to show up at four o’clock today to get my next assignment. I may come home without a job. I have some money saved, Helen. We can still get married.”

“I have money, too,” Helen said. “Remember my three hundred thousand dollars? The IRS may get a chunk of it later, but we can live on that until you find another job.”

“Then let’s get going,” Phil said. “I researched marriage licenses online and brought the paperwork with me. It’s in the folder in the backseat. I even filled out our online application.”

“You expected me to say yes,” Helen said, in mock anger. “We’re not even married and you’re already taking me for granted.”

“I expected you to keep your promise to marry me,” Phil said. “We have to apply in person to the Clerk of Court’s office. We have five location choices, from the downtown county courthouse to Rick Case Honda.”

“You’re making that up,” Helen said. “You can’t get a marriage license at a Honda dealership.”

“You can, too,” Phil said. “It’s called a One Stop Division and it’s in the used-car building.”

“Love the symbolism,” Helen said. “Stop by for a used wife and a used car.”

“Hey, I hear Rick gives one hell of an oil change,” Phil said. “And he’ll make your carburetor purr.”

“I’ve got too much mileage on me for a used-car dealer,” Helen said. “I want the downtown courthouse.”

“Then let’s go now.” Phil took the downtown exit off I-95. “Do we want a civil marriage ceremony for thirty bucks?”

“Now that Margery is her old uncivil self, I’d rather she married us,” Helen said.

“Me, too,” Phil said. “Let’s keep it in the family.”

Phil parked in the courthouse garage. An hour later, they had their marriage license. “We can get married in three days,” he said. “You’ll really take me for better or worse, with no job and no prospects?”

“We’ll live on love,” Helen said, and kissed him.

“I still have forty bucks cash,” Phil said. “There’s a terrific lunch place called the Eleventh Street Annex. No booze, but delicious homemade desserts. I think they have mango cheesecake today.”

“I’ll postpone living on love for mango cheesecake,” Helen said.

Phil threaded the maze of downtown streets.

“What kind of job will you look for if you quit?” Helen asked.

“I was thinking of starting my own agency,” Phil said.

“Want to train a partner?” Helen asked.

“Seriously?” he said.

“Hey, it beats buttoning shirts at Snapdragon’s. But I’m moving too fast. You haven’t been fired.” “Yet,” Phil said.

Phil parked the Jeep in front of an old-style Florida duplex, nearly hidden by a tropical garden.

“Let’s continue this discussion after some food,” Phil said.

The Annex was fragrant with coffee. The speckled terrazzo floor was dotted with stylish metal tables, funky chairs and a sofa. A cheerful jumble of teapots crowded the shelves.

Two women, one in a black-and-white blouse and the other in a red shirt, drank tea together.

The owners, Jonny and Penny, the self-named “Two Ugly Sisters,” worked behind the counter. “The day’s specials are shrimp ravioli, turkey and cheddar panini with a cranberry compote, and Mexican lasagna,” Jonny said. “The Mexican lasagna is made with turkey. We’ve sold out of the other specials.”

Phil wanted the panini and Helen had the shrimp. Both ordered the mango cheesecake. They ate in respectful silence until dessert.

“How did you find this place?” Helen asked. “The cheesecake is a religious experience.”

“I’m a detective, remember? It’s off the beaten path, but word is out among the foodies.”

“Excuse me? Are you the man who eats orange potato chips?” Helen asked.

“And finds amazing cheesecake,” Phil said, finishing the last forkful.

“Now that it can’t ruin our appetite, can we go back to Chris-sy’s murder?” Helen asked. “We won’t have much of a honeymoon with Detective McNally dogging me.”

“Who do you think killed Chrissy?” Phil asked.

“Roger the smoking hot valet looks good, and I’m not talking about his handsome face. Chrissy indirectly threatened him when she tried to wheedle more money out of Vera for that pony-hair purse. She said, ‘I have the tags
and
the receipt. Unlike some of your sources, I don’t steal.’