Just Murdered (12 page)

She ran outside for the morning paper. Sure enough, Kiki was front-page news. DEATH COMES TO THE WEDDING: MOTHER OF THE BRIDE MURDERED, said the morning paper. The free paper, the
City Times
, had a more irreverent headline: ONE DEAD MOTHER.

Millicent’s will be swarming with TV cameras, Helen thought. I need a disguise. I have to find some way to get in and out of that shop without being noticed.

Helen remembered that Margery had a khaki work shirt with BILLY on the pocket. She knocked on Margery’s door. Helen could hear her landlady’s TV going. “. . . in the Blood and Roses Murder. We’ve learned that the death dress cost three thousand dollars at Millicent’s bridal salon on Las Olas.”

Her landlady was wearing her purple chenille robe and red sponge curlers. “Thought that might be you. The TV people are all over your shop, shooting the dresses in the windows,” Margery said.

“I’m trying to keep them from shooting me. Can I borrow your BILLY work shirt?”

“Here.” Margery handed her the shirt, still warm from the iron. “I’ve already dug it out. I thought you might need to wear it again. I have to tell you, Billy never worked this hard in his life.”

Helen was afraid to ask who Billy was. She took the shirt. Back in her apartment, she put on her khaki pants and sensible shoes. She packed a cardboard box, threw in the
City Times
paper to read at lunch, and taped the box shut. She carried a clipboard under her arm.

Millicent’s back parking lot was swarming with TV trucks. They paid no attention to the box-bearing Helen. She rang the doorbell just before nine. “Express package delivery,” she yelled.

A harried Millicent answered the back door. “I didn’t order—”

“Millicent, it’s me. I don’t want to turn up on TV.”

Millicent gave her a shrewd look. “Come on in. But how are you going to wait on customers in that outfit?”

Helen pulled a dress, her good shoes, pantyhose, and purse out of the cardboard box. “Voila!” she said.

Millicent managed a smile. She’d had a bad weekend, too. Thick concealer couldn’t quite hide the dark circles under her brown eyes. Her high heels were scuffed. One bloodred nail was chipped.

“The police interviewed me for two hours,” Millicent said. “Desiree told them I had a fight with her mother Friday night.”

“Are you a suspect?” Helen secretly hoped she was. She hoped the police had lots of suspects to keep them busy.

“I don’t know,” Millicent said. “But Desiree found out the cops talked to me. She says the estate won’t pay my bill until my name is cleared. She told me, ‘It’s just a precaution. I don’t want my mother’s murderer to profit.’ ”

“That’s lousy,” Helen said. “After all you did for her.”

Including maybe kill her mother.

Millicent ran her bloodred nails through her white hair. “Helen, what am I going to do? I need that money now. What if the cops never catch the killer?”

Helen was saved from answering by a ringing phone.

“It’s probably another reporter wanting to see the death dress—that blasted rose gown,” Millicent said.

“I’ll tell them to get lost,” Helen said. “You look like you could use some coffee. Why don’t you make us a pot?” Millicent was so upset, she didn’t notice her employee was ordering her around.

Helen scrambled for the phone. “Millicent’s. How may I help you?”

“You can die, that’s how!”

“Excuse me?” Helen said.

“How can you do this to my mother?” the woman shrieked. “I’ll ruin you. I swear to God. I’ll sue. I’ll—”

Helen winced. “Desiree, is that you? This is Helen. What’s wrong?” Besides the fact that your mother was murdered at your wedding.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. I’m calling about your disgusting ad in the
City Times
.”

Helen struggled to make sense of this. The hangover didn’t help. “What ad?”

“The ad that makes my mother’s murder into a joke,” Desiree screeched. “Are you so greedy you have to sell dresses over her dead body?”

Helen wished her head wasn’t pounding. She wished this call made sense.

“Desiree, we never advertise in the
City Times.
Let me take a look at the paper. I’ll have Millicent call you right back.”

“Don’t bother,” Desiree said. “I’m calling my father. He’ll sue you into the next century. Millicent will be lucky if she sells dresses at Wal-Mart when he finishes with her.”

Desiree hung up the phone so hard, Helen’s ears rang. She needed coffee before she could confront this. The phone jangled again.

“I’ll get that,” Millicent called from the front room. “Maybe I should tell the reporters yes. Photographing the death dress could be good advertising.”

“Millicent, don’t! Wait! There’s some sort of problem—” Helen ran out to stop her. The pain in her head went all the way down to her feet.

She was too late. Millicent picked up the phone. Helen could hear her saying, “Cancel? Ellen, why would you want to cancel?”

Helen pulled the popular free tabloid from the cardboard box. She found the ONE DEAD MOTHER murder story. Right next to it was a full-page ad framed with ribbons and bridal bells.

MILLICENT’S—WEDDINGS TO DIE FOR! the headline said. Helen felt sick. No wonder Desiree was angry. This was utterly tasteless.

The copy was worse: “Want a beautiful wedding? Tired of ugly relatives? You need Millicent’s, Fort Lauderdale’s most fashionable bridal salon. See us for all—and we do mean all—your wedding needs.”

“Oh, my God.” Helen sprinted back inside the store calling, “Millicent!”

But Millicent was on the phone, sounding desperate. “Rebecca, sweetie, you can’t cancel. You’ll lose your deposit. Of course you care. Three thousand dollars is a lot of money. Rebecca, please listen—Rebecca?”

Millicent stared at the dead phone. “That’s the third cancellation this morning.”

The phone rang again, shrill and angry.

“Don’t answer that,” Helen said. “Read this first.”

Millicent gave a little shriek when she saw the headline. She was spitting fury by the time she finished. “That bitch at Haute Bridal did this. She’s trying to ruin me. I’ll sue her. I’ll get her if it’s the last thing I do.”

“We have to find out for sure who placed the ad,” Helen said. “I’ll call the paper.”

“They won’t know anything,” Millicent said.

“They might,” Helen said. “You listen on the extension.”

Helen told Eric in the advertising department about the ad.

“Weird. Why would some stranger buy an ad for your store?” Eric said.

“To destroy our business,” Helen said. “Do you know who did this?”

“I took the ad myself.” Eric sounded nervous now. “Saturday afternoon about three. It was a rush job for Monday. A walk-in at our office. The buyer paid cash.”

“Who was the buyer?”

“A woman. She wore a red jacket and black pants. I couldn’t see her face real good because she had on these big dark sunglasses. But she had long white hair and really red nail polish, like blood or something.”

“Millicent, that sounds like you,” Helen said. “How old was she?”

“Old. Older than my mom,” Eric said. “I’d say she was about fifty-five.”

“I am not.” Millicent was outraged. She hung up on Eric.

Helen’s head hurt from all the slamming phones.

Millicent paced the pink salon in a red rage. “What did I tell you? It’s Haute Bridal. The woman will stoop to anything. And she’s older than me. She put on a white wig and placed that ad. She was furious when Kiki came here and canceled the order with her shop.”

“How did she find out Kiki was dead? I didn’t call you until five.”

“It was on the news from about two o’clock on,” Millicent said.

Of course. Helen had been holed up at the church all afternoon, but that didn’t mean the rest of the world was locked away. She’d seen the TV vans outside the cathedral.

“This is a public relations disaster,” Millicent said.

For the first time, she looked old and desperate. “Helen, what am I going to do? I’ve had three cancellations already. Desiree has refused to pay the balance of Kiki’s order. I’ll lose my business. I’m too old to start over again. I’ve worked so hard for everything and now it’s gone horribly wrong.”

Millicent put her head down on her desk and began to weep. Helen couldn’t stand to watch a strong woman cry.

“Don’t!” she pleaded. “I’ll think of something.”

“What can you do?”

Nothing, Helen thought. I’m a shopgirl. I won’t even be that if Millicent goes out of business. I’ll have to look for another job, and that’s harder work than working. Any job I find won’t be as nice as this one.

She recalled some of her previous dead-end jobs. She’d been a clumsy crockery-dropping waitress at a Greek diner. She shuddered when she thought of the owner, his hands fastened on her breasts like hairy suction cups.

She did time as a telemarketer and was cursed from coast to coast. Working at Millicent’s was a dream compared to those places. There was only one way to save her job.

“I can find the killer,” Helen said. “I’ve done it before.” Her brave words sounded silly.

“Even if the cops catch the killer that won’t help us. The damage here is permanent.” Millicent waved the “Weddings to Die For” ad at Helen, then threw it down on her desk.

The store was dead. The white wedding dresses hung like shrouds. Helen sat with Millicent like a mourner, while the phone rang and rang and the answering machine recorded one cancellation after another.

“Customers!” Millicent said, and pulled herself out of the packing boxes like a shipwreck survivor who’d seen help on the horizon. She was starved for business. No bride would come near her store.

“We have customers! It’s a couple in their late thirties. Probably a second marriage. Good. She’ll be working and have money. She’s thin, too. She can wear clothes. I’ve got just the gown for her.”

Millicent spun this fantasy while she picked white threads off her suit and slipped on her shoes. The old fire was in her eyes. She marched confidently down the balcony stairs to the salon, determined to make this sale.

Helen looked over the balcony and nearly threw up on the happy couple. It was homicide detectives Bill McIntyre and Janet Smith. She saw Millicent’s shoulders sag as she got closer and recognized them. Helen started down the steps. Her feet felt like cinder blocks.

The Sunnysea detectives sat side by side on the gray husband couch. Both wore suits, but McIntyre’s was better tailored. Male detectives seemed to have a streak of vanity the women did not.

“They want to talk to you,” Millicent said. Helen could hear the relief in her boss’s voice.

Helen took a pink chair and sat down quickly, before she panicked and ran out the door. If I slip, they’ll send me back to my old, cold life in St. Louis, she thought. She saw her hands were white from gripping the chair arms and tried to relax.

The pumped-up McIntyre started talking this time. Helen wondered what weights he lifted to get a muscle-bound neck. As he spoke, little muscles moved like a living anatomy lesson. Helen expected his voice to be burly, too, but it was a light, pleasant tenor.

“We want to ask you a few more questions about the day of the wedding,” Detective McIntyre said. Even his mustache was muscular.

Helen stalled for time. “Have you found anything interesting?”

“We found some fingerprints on the wedding dress that was wrapped around the victim’s head,” he said. “Also on the dress the victim was wearing.”

“You can get fingerprints from cloth?” Helen said.

“Yes. Some kinds of cloth.”

“Do you think the prints belong to the killer?” Helen said.

“We thought maybe you could tell us.”

“Whose are they?” Helen said.

“Yours,” McIntyre said.

Helen wanted to put her head between her knees, the way the nuns made her when she felt sick at school. She wanted to bolt for the door.

Think, she told herself. You haven’t done anything wrong.

“Of course my fingerprints are on both dresses.” Helen’s voice was shaky and slightly too high. “I helped the bride into her gown during several fittings. I helped Kiki put on the rose dress. I carried both dresses into the church and hung them up.”

“Mind telling us where you were between eleven and two the night of the rehearsal dinner?” Detective Janet Smith said.

Helen felt her face grow hot with embarrassment. “I was with my boyfriend at my place.”

“All night?” Smith said.

Detective McIntyre sat there like a muscle monument. Helen wished he’d leer or do something human.

“Phil left about seven the next morning.”

“Anyone see him leave?” Detective Smith said.

“Probably my landlady. She knows everything that goes on at the Coronado,” Helen said.

“And your boyfriend will confirm this?”