Shop Till You Drop (19 page)

When Helen opened the dressing room door, she saw it—a flash of blond hair and black. But there was no one in the room, and no way for anyone to run past Helen. There was just an empty dressing room, with a freshly vacuumed carpet, a peach silk dressing gown on a padded hanger, and a pair of tiny black heels in a size Helen could never hope to wear. There was no blonde in black. It was a trick of the room’s triple mirrors.

“It’s my imagination,” she thought. It’s Christina, whispered a voice in her mind.

But Christina was dead and had been dead for more than a week. Why would she be in the store now? Yet Helen had the feeling she was there, saying good-bye, walking past the ice blue silk jackets she so admired, caressing the Hermes scarves, drinking in the vibrant D&G colors, reveling in the rioting Versaces, looking at the painting of the make-believe Juliana, and finally, defiantly, sitting on the silk-satin loveseats for the last time.

“Christina, if that is you, I hope you are at peace,” Helen said, and she felt foolish when she said it. But then she didn’t feel foolish, and she didn’t feel frightened any more. She was sure whatever had been in the store was gone. Still, when Tara showed up at ten that morning, she was relieved to see her.

Tara blew in like a fresh breeze. “I’m in black in honor of Christina,” she said, solemnly. Helen had called her from Margery’s last night and told her that Christina was dead.

Helen almost smiled. She could hardly call that outfit mourning. Tara’s top stopped just south of her black bra, and her Brazilian lowrise jeans barely covered her bikini wax, leaving most of her flat midriff exposed. But Helen thought Christina would have appreciated the effort.

“Poor, poor Christina,” Tara said. “It’s so horrible. I can’t believe it.”

Her black veil of hair parted, and Helen saw Tara’s forehead. Even skillful makeup could not completely hide the ugly bruise.

“How are you?” Helen asked.

“I’m OK,” Tara said, and shrugged, baring more midsection. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”

Helen didn’t either. She didn’t know what to say or why Tara had faked the robbery. They were both relieved when the doorbell rang. Tara looked out and said, “Do you really want to buzz this woman in? She doesn’t look like one of ours.”

Unlike Christina, Helen buzzed in almost everyone. The only person she ever kept out was a mother with two little girls, and those children had chocolate ice-cream cones. But even Helen had her doubts about this woman. She was short and stout and wearing a shiny black satin dress with fussy ruffles and rhinestones. Her chubby feet bulged out of patent leather heels. Her gray hair was tortured by a frizzy perm, and her bangs were chopped off straight across her forehead. Her skin was pale white and thickly powdered. Her mouth was a thin, mean line in blood-red lipstick. She didn’t look like someone who would shop at Juliana’s, and yet she seemed familiar.

“Honestly, Helen, that woman scares me. She looks like a vampire. Do we have to let her in?”

“I think I’ve seen her somewhere before,” Helen said.

“
Halloween II
?” Tara said.

Helen laughed and buzzed in the woman. She bustled in, looked around the room with disapproval, and dropped a shapeless black leather purse as big as a doctor’s bag on the counter. Tara stepped back as if it were poisoned.

“I’m here for my sister Leanne’s last paycheck,” the woman said, her jaw thrust out like a bulldog’s. “And don’t try to deny it. I’ve been through her books and I know she’s owed one more.”

“I’m sorry, but we have no one named Leanne working here,” Helen said, more politely than the woman deserved.

“Oh, yes, you do. You just don’t know her God-given name. She called herself Christina. She liked that phoney foreign froufrou. Our parents gave us honest, down-to-earth names, Leanne and Lorraine, but Leanne’s name wasn’t good enough for her. Arkadelphia wasn’t good enough, either. She left home more than twenty years ago. Said we were hicks.” From the set of the woman’s jaw, the insult still rankled. “Then she went and took an Eye-talian name instead.”

“Oh, of course, you’re Christina’s sister, Lorraine,” Helen said, and as soon as she said it, she saw the woman had Christina’s eyes, without her clever makeup, and her pale skin, powdered into flour whiteness. Her thin lips could have used some collagen.

“The police said you would be in town,” Helen said. “I am so sorry. We’re all in shock. Christina’s death was so sudden, so unexpected.”

“I always expected it,” Lorraine said. “My sister was a sinful woman. She lived a life of shame and degradation, and God struck her down so she would no longer infect the righteous.”

Tara gasped. Helen felt a sudden rebellious urge to defend Christina. “I think you are mistaken, Lorraine. Christina managed a fashionable store and was much loved by her clientele. Many of them were her friends.”

“Whores and kept women,” Lorraine said, looking directly at Tara, “who use their bodies for shameless display and immorality.” Tara backed into a rack of blouses until they almost covered her bare middle.

“I said to Leanne, maybe I don’t have your looks, but I have something more lasting, my immortal soul.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure in that case that you won’t want to stay here any longer than necessary,” Helen said frostily. “You wouldn’t want to jeopardize it. Let me get Christina’s check out of the safe.”

Helen came back with the check and a release form. Just because she could, Helen made Lorraine show her driver’s license for identification. She saw the birth date. Lorraine was forty-three, only four years older than Christina, but she could have been her mother.

This woman is cold, Helen thought. She finds out her sister is dead, and by the next morning, she has already counted her money and wants her last paycheck.

Lorraine’s black purse swallowed the check and snapped shut. “It’s not for me,” she said, as if she could read Helen’s mind. “This money will be used for the Lord’s work.”

“Will there be a memorial service for Christina here in Florida?”

“No, I am taking my sister away from this Sodom and Gomorrah. She will be buried back home where she belongs.” Then the woman’s mouth snapped shut, remarkably like her purse, and she marched out.

Tara was weeping and wiping her runny mascara on the back of her hands. Helen handed her a tissue. “Poor Christina,” Tara said. “Going back to Arkadelphia. She wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that!”

Helen thought Tara’s statement made a weird kind of sense. “Reminds me of what Mark Twain said about heaven for climate, hell for society.”

“I see why she never mentioned her sister,” Tara said. “I’d want to forget I was related to that, too.”

In her mind, Helen saw Christina again, slender, smart, and so sophisticated. Helen understood at last why Juliana’s green door had a lock. Christina was not barring all those nameless women with bad T-shirts and cheap shoes. She was keeping out one person only, her terrible sister.

She had lost that battle. Lorraine was taking Christina home—a fate worse than death.

It was still dark at five-ten in the morning. Helen heard the sound she’d been waiting for, the sliding doors of the panel truck.

She slipped on her cutoffs and sandals and ran outside into the warm black morning. The Coronado apartments were silent. One light was glowing yellow in Margery’s kitchen. Her landlady seemed to get by on about three hours sleep.

Helen crunched out to the newspaper box in front of the Coronado. She saw the red tail lights of the departing delivery truck. Helen bought a morning paper, slipping the coins in the yellow metal box with trembling fingers. Her heart was pounding, and her mouth was dry with fear. Her whole future was wrapped in a thirty-five-cent paper.

She spread the paper out on her coffee table. Nothing on the front page. Nothing in the entire front section. She began to breathe easier. Then, when she went through the whole paper, fear gripped her again. There was no story. Helen would have to do this again tomorrow and the day after that.

She took a deep breath, then went through the paper once more, slowly this time. She saw the small headline on page 13A: “Police ID Biscayne Bay Body.”

The story began, “The body found in Biscayne Bay Friday has been identified as Christina Smithson, 39, manager of Juliana’s dress shop, a longtime retail fixture on Las Olas, police sources said.”

The article repeated the awful details but added one thing new. “The murder is believed to have taken place at Ms. Smithson’s luxury condo in Sunnysea Beach.”

So that’s where she died, Helen thought. At home, in a building with a burly doorman and a security system.

She read on. “Sunnysea Beach homicide detectives are conducting the investigation with the assistance of Miami Palms police.” That meant Crockett and Tubbs were no longer running the investigation.

“The Downtowner Merchants Association has announced a $25,000 reward for anyone who has information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who killed Ms. Smithson. Anyone with information is requested to contact Sunnysea Homicide Det. Sgt. Dwight Hansel at 954-555-1252.”

Helen’s name was nowhere in the story. She nearly cried with relief. She was safe. The TV stations did not have any video of the barrel being pulled from Biscayne Bay, so they weren’t interested in Christina’s story.

Christina’s murder would not be a big story. Helen’s name would not be in the newspaper. The court and her ex Rob would not find her. She would not have to go home to St. Louis. Helen felt relieved and guilty at the same time. Christina had been buried twice, once in Arkadelphia and now in the newspaper.

The twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward was a sad commentary, Helen thought. The local merchants association cared more about Christina than her own sister did. Lorraine was giving her nothing, not even a Florida memorial service.

When Helen realized how many people read that little news story, she was even more relieved her name was not in it. At Juliana’s, the phone rang nonstop that Tuesday. Christina’s faithful customers wanted to talk about her terrible death. Some were sobbing. Some wanted to know about funeral arrangements. Others wanted to make sure that Juliana’s was staying open.

“Yes. The owner, Mr. Roget, said Christina would want it that way,” Helen said.

“Thank God. I have a party Saturday night,” said the tongue-pierced Tiffany, who had finally lost her lisp. “I need a new dress. It’s a matter of life and death.” But not Christina’s life—or her death, Helen thought.

She’d barely hung up when the phone rang again.

“Helen, are you OK?” It was Sarah, the woman judged too fat for Juliana’s. “I saw the article in the newspaper. The one about Christina. I’m so sorry. You must be worn to a frazzle. Let me take you to lunch today. Can you get away for half an hour? I’m working downtown.”

Helen and Sarah ordered chicken crepes at an outdoor restaurant on Las Olas. The bright flowers, green plants, and pretty wrought iron offered a soothing, sheltered spot to discuss Christina’s murder.

“Do the police know Christina was skimming money and selling drugs?” Sarah asked, mopping up béchamel sauce with a forkful of crepe.

“I didn’t say anything to them,” Helen told her.

“Why not?”

“Because it was worse than I told you,” Helen said. “I think she also arranged a murder for hire.”

Sarah’s crepe landed with a splat on her silk jacket and skidded down her suit. The alert waitress brought Sarah a glass of club soda, and she scrubbed at the stain with her napkin.

When Sarah could talk seriously again, she lowered her voice. “Christina arranged a murder? You heard this and did nothing?”

Helen felt another stab of guilt. “I didn’t think I could go to the police. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know the woman’s name or where she lived. I had no proof, just what I’d overheard, and I didn’t even hear the whole conversation. I could have been wrong.”

“But you weren’t,” Sarah said. Helen abandoned her crepe. She’d lost her appetite.

“Helen, you’ve got to go to the police.”

“I don’t want my name in the paper,” Helen said.

“The best way to get your name in the paper is if the police find out you’ve been holding back information. You’ll look guilty. Come forward now, and you still look like a concerned citizen.”

“But what if the police never find out what Christina was doing?”

“Did those detectives look stupid?”

“No. They were very smart.”

“Then they’ll find out. Besides, it’s the right thing to do.”

Something in that corny phrase appealed to Helen’s Midwestern morality. Maybe it was because Sarah looked so earnest, so honest, she made Helen want to believe in truth, justice, and the American way.

“You’re right,” Helen said. “I’ll do it. I’ll call the Miami Palms police.”