system. Steppenwolf’s wail drowned out the words.
Savannah started reading in a stilted monotone. “First murderer: ‘Where is your husband?’ ”
Laredo spoke next. Helen could hear the fear and defiance as she said, “I hope, in no place so unsanctified where such as thou may find him.”
Damn. Steppenwolf was running over Laredo’s words.
Helen couldn’t tell if she recognized the voice. She wished Laredo would say more. Instead, she heard Savannah’s flat voice: “Thou liest, thou shag-eared villain!”
With absolutely no change of tone Savannah said the murderer’s part: “What, you egg! Young fry of treachery!
Savannah read the son’s dying declaration like a grade schooler with a primer: “He has killed me, Mother. Run away, I pray you.”
Finally, Laredo’s voice again. Her emotion overwhelmed the tape recorder’s tinny little speaker: “Murder!” she cried.
“Murder!” There was an unearthly scream.
Helen knocked over her coffee. “It’s her,” she said.
“That’s the woman on the phone.”
“I knew it,” Savannah said with satisfaction, as she mopped up Helen’s spilled coffee. “Now tell me what you know about my sister’s death.”
Helen told her everything. Savannah did not cry. Her sorrow seemed beyond tears.
“Have you seen this Hank Asporth?” Helen said. “Was he big and strong enough to hurt her?”
“My sister was just a little bit of a thing. It would be easy.
She didn’t even weigh a hundred pounds.” Helen noticed Savannah was talking about her sister as if she was dead.
“The police think I heard a movie,” Helen said. “But I heard her say ‘Hank,’ twice, and then I heard her scream—like the scream on the tape only more real. I know that was no movie. But the cops searched the place and found no body, no blood, no sign of a struggle, no sign of a woman.
The only cars in the garage were registered to Asporth. They don’t believe she was killed. I know she was.”
“I do, too,” Savannah said. “I knew the moment he did it.
It felt like someone reached in and ripped out my heart.
“I want the man who did this to her. I want him dead.”
Chapter 5
A cold wind hit Helen in the face when she left The Floridian. The temperature was supposed to drop down to sixty degrees tonight. She hunched her shoulders against the sharp breeze.
A bare-chested guy in shorts and sandals staggered past her, his arm around a tipsy brunette in a strapless dress.
Tourists. The cold didn’t bother them. You could always tell.
Sixty felt warm after the brutal winters of New York, New Jersey and Quebec. In St. Louis, where Helen used to live, sixty would have been a spring day. But she had been in Florida for more than a year. Her blood had thinned.
Another gust of wind sent a beer bottle rolling down the street. She shivered, glad she was almost home. It felt warmer around the pool at the Coronado Tropic Apartments.
The swooping cream-white curves of the old building blocked the winter wind. The lights on the purple bougainvillea gave the pool a warm glow. The box of cheap wine gave the party around the pool its own glow.
“Hi, there,” Peggy said.
“Awwk,” said Pete, Peggy’s parrot.
Both Peggy and Pete were exotic-looking, with elegant beaks. Officially, the Coronado had a no-pets policy. Etiquette required that Helen ignore Pete when their landlady, Margery, was around. He patrolled Peggy’s shoulder restlessly, until she gave him a pretzel to settle him down.
“Pull up a chaise longue,” Margery said. Her purple shorts set was the same color as the night shadows. The darkness had smoothed out the wrinkles on her sun-damaged face, and Helen caught a glimpse of a younger woman.
She studied Helen with shrewd old eyes. “You look terrible. What happened?”
“I heard a murder last night.” Helen told them the story over a generous glass of wine.
“You’re not sure it was a murder,” Margery said. “You’re not even sure the woman was dead.”
“She’s dead,” Helen said. “Nobody sounds like that and lives.”
“Well, you’ve found the sister,” Peggy said. “That’s a relief. Your part is done. She can turn it over to the police.”
“No, it’s not,” Helen said. “Laredo’s missing. The police won’t investigate it. They think she took off. I need to prove to myself she’s dead. I heard a woman die. Do you know how horrible that is? Don’t you get it?”
She could see Peggy frowning in disapproval. She could feel Margery doing the same thing. She started talking before they could object. “Tomorrow, I’m going to Gator Bill’s restaurant to see that waitress, Debbie. Savannah’s talking with the neighbors in Hank Asporth’s area to see if they noticed her sister’s car. She’s also going to follow Hank around and see where he goes.”
“Sounds like you got the hard part,” Peggy said. “And the expensive part. Even if you just have a drink at Gator Bill’s, it will cost you twenty bucks.”
Pete gave a disapproving squawk.
“Savannah’s taking a day off work to follow Hank. That will cost her a lot more than twenty bucks.”
“Are the cops hassling you about this?” Margery said.
“No. As far as they’re concerned, nobody was murdered.
I’m just a crazy woman who made a hysterical call. They checked it out and saw nothing. Case closed.”
“Then why can’t you let it go?” Margery asked. “You don’t know this Laredo woman. She sounds like someone who’d leave town for no reason. She’s a waitress living in a double-wide. She doesn’t have any roots.”
“I heard a woman die,” Helen said. “I didn’t make it up.
And I don’t walk away from murder.”
“Hush,” Margery said, looking toward the parking lot.
“Here come the new neighbors in 2C, Fred and Ethel Mertz.
I don’t want these nice, down-to-earth folks to hear you talk about murder.”
Ethel was about sixty. She had a chunky body, tightly permed gray hair, and a T-shirt with prancing cats on it. The back of the T-shirt showed the cats’ butts. Helen figured that was as down-to-earth as you could get.
Fred was wearing a baseball cap that said, I’M RETIRED—DON’T ASK ME TO DO ANYTHING, and a T-shirt that didn’t quite cover his expanding belly. Helen stared at his massive gut.
The flesh was firm and smooth, like a prize gourd. The rest of him was lumpy, as if he’d been constructed of modeling clay. He had a jowly face with a knoblike nose. More lumps for chins, arms and knobby knees.
Fred and Ethel declined Peggy’s offer of a glass of wine.
“We don’t believe in strong drink,” Ethel said. “We’re high on life.”
“Awwk,” Pete said.
Helen felt the same way. “What are you retired from, Fred?”
“I sold pre-owned cars.” Of course. Helen should have recognized that insincere smile. “Ethel worked for the IRS for thirty-eight years. What do you do?”
“I work for Girdner Sales,” Helen said.
“Never heard of them,” Fred said, as if that counted against the company. “What do they do?”
“We’re a telemarketing firm.”
“A telemarketer?” Fred said. “You know what I tell telemarketers? ‘Why don’t you give me your home number, honey, so I can call
