“Once the Coronado was tented, I came back late Saturday night and donned my SCBA gear. Then I took the clamps off one corner of the tent and slipped in. It was hot, dark, and spooky inside. I picked the locks again on Peggy’s apartment and went inside.
“I slid the body back on the bed. That was the hard part, but I wanted everyone to know he was a philanderer. I heaved the head and shoulders up, using his belt as a sling.
Then I dragged the legs onto the bed.”
“No way. A little thing like you moved a big guy like that?” a groomsman said.
“Never underestimate the power of a woman scorned,” Melanie said.
Or her upper-body strength when she’s worked out at the gym, Helen thought.
“I wasn’t completely successful. I wanted Page found on his back, but when I tried to turn him over, he kept wrinkling the spread and it didn’t look nice. Also, he smelled yucky. So I left him facedown.
“Then I went to the kitchen for a butcher knife. I wrapped it in a towel to preserve the prints, held it below the handle part, and stabbed him in the back. That felt so good, I wanted to keep doing it, but I was afraid I’d mess up her prints.”
Melanie vacuumed the drag marks off the rug. “Then I deposited the SCBA gear in a canal, along with the scarves.
I knew the butcher knife might implicate Peggy, but I was sure she would never be convicted. Good always wins out.”
Helen snorted. The wedding party glared at her.
“After that, I began to heal. I realized Page Turner was wrong. I was a good writer. I had created the perfect locked-room mystery. My big mistake was to kidnap that parrot. I thought it would make her”—Melanie pointed at Helen for the third time—“stop investigating. Instead, everything unraveled. Perhaps I had a subconscious desire to get caught. I’m not a bad person.”
She looked winsome in blue chiffon and white icing.
Helen almost believed her, until Melanie tried to justify killing Mr. Davies. “He was so old and lonely, I was doing him a favor. It was a blessing, really. What was he—eighty-three? Who would miss him?”
I do, Helen thought. The store was not the same without his gentle presence.
When Melanie finished her tale, she waited as if for applause. Instead, there was only the snap of handcuffs.
Melanie looked surprised. Maybe she expected to talk her way to freedom. Two uniforms took her away. “I’ll be auctioning the movie rights,” she said as they led her out.
Detectives Gilbert and Levinson took statements from the wedding party.
Someone slipped out to Publix and came back with a white sheet cake that said
The wedding reception was about to start, minus one bridesmaid.
* * *
There was another party, this one for Peggy. She was out of jail and fully exonerated. Margery celebrated her homecoming—and Pete’s departure from her place—with a barbecue by the Coronado pool. Peggy looked thin and worn, and Pete’s feathers were still ruffled. But they were together at last. Helen knew both would recover.
“Awwwk!” said Pete, but it was a contented screech. He was once more sitting on Peggy’s shoulder. She was in her chaise longue by the pool. Peggy gave Pete an asparagus spear. He held it in one foot and gnawed on it.
Helen wondered if Pete knew that Peggy had gotten a big bouquet of flowers from one of the cops she met during her stay at the jail. He wasn’t at the party, but they had a date next week.
This was a gala affair, far more cheerful than the beach party. Margery contributed T-bone steaks. Helen brought champagne. Sarah made crab cakes with a luscious sauce.
Peggy made a salad, although she had to borrow Margery’s butcher knife. Madame Muffy brought another chocolate cake. Cal the Canadian showed up with two tomatoes, unsliced. They looked a little shriveled, and Helen wondered if they’d attended the first party.
Even Madame Muffy toasted Peggy’s freedom with champagne. She announced she was leaving the Coronado and moving to Miami.
“Please let me read your palms,” Madame Muffy said to the partygoers. “It will be my good-bye present.”
“Er, no thanks,” Peggy said.
“I’m too old to have a future,” Margery said.
“I’m too superstitious,” Cal said.
“I’m game,” Sarah said.
“Me, too,” Helen said.
Sarah held out her hand and Muffy contemplated it. “I see health and success for you,” Muffy said. “You have a Martha Stewart aura.”
“Muffy tells that to all the girls,” Helen said. “She said I had one, too.”
Sarah giggled. Muffy glared at her.
“What about my love life?” Sarah said.
“You are content as you are,” Muffy said. “You do not need a man to complete you.”
“You got that right,” Sarah said. “Your turn, Helen.”
Helen suddenly wished that she wasn’t doing this. When she was growing up in St. Louis, the nuns said it was dangerous to seek knowledge of the future. Lord knows Muffy’s predictions had caused Peggy enough grief.
“Do I see a handsome detective in your future?” Margery said. “That Gil Gilbert seemed awfully interested in you.
You gotta love a man who shows up in the nick of time.
The bride was about to bean you with that cut-glass bowl.”
“It would have put me out of my misery,” Helen said.
“She’d already drowned me with pink punch.”
“I don’t understand why that wedding bash didn’t wind up on TV,” Cal said. “Somebody had to have a video camera. They could have sold the tape to the networks.”
“There were several video cameras,” Helen said. “But the bride and groom’s families promised to sue anyone who gave a tape to TV.”
Helen had been afraid the wild wedding would wind up on the news and her ex, Rob, would find her. But she was lucky. There was no publicity. The police were happy to take credit for solving Page Turner’s murder. Helen escaped the limelight.
“Don’t change the subject, Helen,” Margery said. “What about Detective Gilbert?”
“Gil Gilbert is married and an honorable man. He wouldn’t think of cheating on his wife. And I don’t do married men.”
At least, not when I know they’re married, she thought.
“Besides, my luck with men has not been too good lately.
I’m not in the market till I get my head on straight.”
Sarah applauded. Helen presented her palm. Madame Muffy’s grasp was firm and strangely warm. Her brown eyes grew intense. “What do you want to know?” she said.
“Might as well make Margery happy. What’s my romantic future?”
Madame Muffy studied Helen’s palm for a long moment, then said, “I see a man for you. A man worth waiting for.
He is free, but he’s let himself be caged for noble reasons.
He is loyal and true, brave and colorful. And he’s right here in your own backyard.”
“Awwwk!” the little green parrot said.
“You can’t have him,” Peggy said. “Pete’s my main man.”
E p i l o g u e g Page Turners bookstore closed two weeks after the Going Out of Business Sale sign went up. Most of the stock sold.
