Were they also shadowed with fear?
“I don’t believe you,” Helen said.
“Then believe this. You don’t know what you’re getting into. If you have any sense you’ll get out fast.”
A few heads turned their way. Some men stared. Debbie smiled fetchingly in their direction and left, her white-blond hair rippling down to her waist.
Helen wondered what could be threatening at this party for middle-aged rich people? By ten o’clock, many of the guests had said goodnight and drifted away.
Helen’s shift was over at eleven. Steve came by her station and said, “Don’t bother to clean up. Kristi’s going to take over here.”
Steve counted out her pay in cash. “You did a nice job, he said. “I heard a lot of good comments about you tonight.
Call me again for another gig.”
Helen liked the feel of two hundred dollars in her hand.
She had another one-fifty in tips. There was no downside to this job, except that her feet hurt. But for three hundred fifty bucks, she could stand that.
She walked out the grimy back entrance in a green glow.
Already she was dreaming about spending her bartending money. Maybe she could finally get her car fixed. The rusting heap needed eight hundred dollars in repairs, but she could make that in three weekends. Look at the money she had right in her hands. She ought to put it in her purse. It wasn’t safe walking around with that much cash, even in Brideport.
Helen stopped dead. She didn’t have her purse. She’d left it in the service bar.
Helen felt like a complete fool. Well, at least no one would notice another bartender at the party. She could get her purse and get out again. She ran the block back to the Mowbry mansion. No one saw her slide into the dismal back entrance and along the kitchen hall to the pool. There was no one at her service bar under the palm tree. Helen pulled her purse out of a cubbyhole in the bar. Fresh tubs of ice and glasses had been put out. New lemons and limes had been cut.
It was a long trip home on a lot of water. Helen stopped in the closest bathroom. The Mowbrys’ place seemed to have about twelve on the first floor. It had no lock, but Helen figured a shut door was enough. She was washing her hands when a man opened the door. She’d seen him at her bar before. A scotch on the rocks who saw himself as a player, with too-tanned skin, too-white teeth and too much gold jewelry.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“You’re excused.” He exposed the teeth. “I saw you earlier tonight. You must be new. Wanna get it on?”
“Do I
“Hey, why are you so upset? You’re here for the second party, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not. I came back because I forgot my purse.”
“Oops, sorry.” He oozed out the door.
The same waitresses were walking around with the same canapes, but now the women were topless. Helen thought the half-naked servers looked bizarre instead of sexy. They also looked cold. Some had goose bumps bigger than their nipples.
But it wasn’t just the servers who were half-naked.
The blond women guests had shed their dresses and were parading rail-thin bodies in expensive thong underwear.
Helen did not want to estimate what those La Perla panties cost per square inch.
The men, alas, were in an equal state of undress. Florida’s male movers and shakers wobbled like Jell-O in a hurricane.
When they weren’t grabbing canapes, they had their hands on the waitresses’ breasts.
The chubby old man in the green cummerbund now had on only his shamrock boxers. The busty blond server was on her knees before him. Her tray of mini-quiches was abandoned on a stone bench.
All around on chairs, couches and tables, people were entwined in positions Helen had never seen in the want ads.
It was a charity swingers party.
Chapter 8
Helen expected to feel shocked. Actually, she was rather proud.
Trust South Florida to find a way to liven up one of the deadliest events in the social calendar. Naked fat men and skinny women weren’t her thing, but an orgy was an interesting way to raise money for charity.
As she boarded the waiting water taxi, Helen wondered what other charities the swingers had sponsored: Single mothers? A sperm-donor bank? A school for delinquents?
The possibilities were endless. The advantages were obvious. There were no speeches at an orgy, and nobody wanted their name read out loud for any reason. Of course, the thank-you notes might be a problem. “Dear Mr. Harrison-Smythe: Thank you for your contribution to the fifth annual charity ball....”
The water taxi hit the wake of a passing yacht and Helen got a face full of cold, dirty water. Ugh. Her hair was soaked.
It was what she needed to shock her back to reality. This wasn’t funny. Laredo had been a waitress at the swingers’ party shortly before she disappeared. She’d asked Tammy, the Gator Bill’s bartender, for change for five one-hundred-dollar bills. Five hundred dollars was the amount Helen had been offered to work the second party. Now she knew why the party paid so much. She’d have to do more than serve drinks.
How was she going to tell Savannah her little sister was a topless waitress—and maybe worse?
Helen remembered the blond server kneeling before that silly old man in the shamrock shorts, and his wad of tip money. She hoped Savannah would never find out. But Savannah wasn’t stupid. She’d know pretty young women didn’t get that kind of money for being good little girls.
Cold water from her drenched hair slowly dripped on her shirt. Her teeth chattered, and she shivered in the cool night breeze. The water taxi was open as a veranda. She wished she’d brought a jacket.
Poor Savannah. Her baby sister was murdered, and now her memory was being killed, too. Helen saw once more the pinup photo of the flirty little blonde. Laredo looked so eager, so willing to do anything to get out of that drab trailer park. Her sweet desperation would attract rich old men the way honey draws bees—or WASPs.
Important people went to those parties. Fort Lauderdale’s money men and women frolicked in their overpriced underwear. They were served a sea of alcohol, and at the second party, possibly drugs. People let their guard down in those situations.
Had Laredo seen or heard something that got her killed?
Some illegal business deal, some improper political alliance?
Had she tried to blackmail someone? Just being seen at that second party was enough to ruin most of those guests. Soccer moms or city councilmen, no one would want their names connected to that charity affair.
Helen was bone cold by the time the water taxi bumped against the dock behind Las Olas. Her shirt stuck to her like she’d been in a wet T-shirt contest. The short walk home did nothing to warm her. No one was sitting out by the pool at the Coronado on this chilly night. The only sign of life was Phil’s cloud of pot smoke. The man was a perpetual party of one.
Back in her apartment, Helen took out her money again and counted it on the bed. Her cat, Thumbs, jumped up and rolled around in the pile of bills, making the money crackle.
Yesterday, she would have joined him, laughing at her good fortune. Now she lifted her cat off the bed, quickly bundled up the cash, and stuffed it in a couch pillow. It was blood money. She wanted it out of her sight.
Helen slept badly that night. Thumbs complained loudly at her restlessness. Most nights, he slept peacefully
