encouraged me to write a Florida series. I hope they like this one.
Thanks to Jim Brennan of Brennan Thomsen Associates Inc. Carolyn Cain, author of
Shannon May gave me her South Beach expertise. I appreciate the help of Ann Meng, broker, Buy the Beach Realty Inc.; Art Rosen Real Estate; Yolanda at the Florida Center for Cosmetic Surgery; M. Diane Vogt, author of
Thanks to John R. Levy and mystery lover Debra Davis at Shelton Ferrari in Fort Lauderdale, which has a splendid Barchetta.
Rita Scott does indeed make cat toys packed with the most powerful catnip in kittendom. They have sent my cats into frenzies of ecstasy. Read all about them at www.catshigh.us.
Ed Seelig at Silver Strings Music gave me a “Clapton Is God” T-shirt. It is one of my treasured possessions.
Julie Dost let me wander around her weight-training class like a zombie. Her workouts jar something loose in my brain that helps me write.
Thanks to Detective RC White, Fort Lauderdale Police Department (retired), who answered countless questions on police interrogations and procedures. Any mistakes are mine, not his.
Jerry Sanford, author of
Thanks to Merrilyn Rathbun, research director at the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society, and Florida expert Stuart McIver, who has written too many books to list here.
Thanks to the librarians at the Broward County Library and the St. Louis Public Library who researched my questions, no matter how wacky.
Special thanks to librarian Anne Watts, the person who lives with Thumbs the cat. Thumbs is a real six-toed cat, although his own coat is a richer brown. He agreed to go gray for his role in this series.
Chapter 1
On Wednesday, Helen met a woman who could not frown.
The frownless female was another amazing customer at Juliana’s. The store was on Las Olas Boulevard, the fashionable, palm-fringed shopping area in downtown Fort Lauderdale. After working two weeks there, Helen thought she’d seen every kind of expensive kept woman.
The woman who could not frown did not seem all that different from the other customers who were buzzed inside. You could not simply walk into Juliana’s. The elegant green door was locked to keep out undesirables: sunburned tourists in “I Love Florida” T-shirts, harried mothers with sticky-fingered children, and the hopelessly unfashionable.
This exclusive policy was never stated, but everyone on Las Olas knew it. Some women walked on by, never ringing Juliana’s doorbell. They knew the green door would not open for them.
Woe to those who tried and failed. A woman turned away from Juliana’s might tell herself that the clothes were overpriced and made for skinny little bimbos. That was true. But it was also true that Ms. Reject had been publicly branded as without style, and worse, that Juliana’s could not help her.
This added to the thrill of those who were admitted by Christina, the head saleswoman. When the green door swung open, some women had the same celestial look of relief and joy that wavering saints must wear when admitted into heaven.
But Brittney, the woman who could not frown, did not register any emotion at all, not even when she squealed “Christina!” and air-kissed her.
Brittney was a longtime customer and a big spender. Helen could tell that by the way Christina had moved across the room, like a quick cat pouncing on her prey. She even hugged Brittney. Christina only touched people who spent lots of money.
As they stood implant to implant, Helen thought the two women looked enough alike to be sisters. Both had long blonde hair (dyed), plump pouty lips (collagened), and sapphire blue eyes (contacts). It went without saying that they dieted to starvation.
They were dressed alike, too. Both wore casual clothes that cost a fortune and stayed in style about two and a half seconds. By next season, Brittney would have given her thousand-dollar outfit to the maid, and Christina would have sent hers to the consignment shop.
Before she worked at Juliana’s, Helen had only seen these styles on MTV. Christina and Brittney wore low- rise pants tight enough to show the freckles on their butts, high heels and low necklines. Both bared their shoulders and flat tummies pierced with silver rings.
But Christina looked like Brittney’s older sister, although Helen suspected they were the same age. Brittney belonged in those revealing clothes. Christina looked a little too old for them. Maybe it was the lines running from her nose to her mouth or the fine furrows in her forehead. The nights she spent crawling the South Beach clubs were starting to show in Christina’s skin.
Brittney didn’t have any wrinkles, and she hadn’t had a facelift, either. Helen had worked at the shop long enough to know what good and bad facelifts looked like.
“Let me see. Let me see,” Christina said, examining Brittney’s smooth oval face. “It looks perfect.”
“It worked,” Brittney said, in a soft, sultry voice that sounded like a sigh in a seraglio. “I’ve met a wonderful new man. He has a house in Golden Beach.”
Golden Beach was aptly named. Oceanfront homes there started at just under three million dollars. Brittney had a rich catch. She presented Christina with a small gold gift bag, packed with crimson tissue paper. “I brought you a little present.”
Many of Christina’s customers brought her little presents. Helen thought they were trying to curry favor, so that green door would always open for them.
Christina’s long, slender hand rustled around in the tissue paper like a small predator and pulled out a Movado watch with a mother-of-pearl museum dial and a matching lizard strap. “Pink! The new color. Although my favorite color is green,” she said, and laughed.
Brittney did not laugh. Maybe she couldn’t, Helen thought.
“Come on back and sit down,” Christina said, as if she was inviting a friend into her home for a chat. Helen was relieved when she saw Brittney head for the sitting area. Juliana’s sales associates were only allowed to sit if a customer sat first. If there were no customers, they had to stand. The owner spot-checked the security camera tapes to make sure that rule was followed.
Christina offered Brittney a drink.
“Evian, please,” she said, in that velvet whisper.
The super-skinny ones always wanted water. Christina hurried to the back room for Evian water. Helen and Brittney strolled past a single Hermes scarf draped on a mahogany sideboard that had once been in a Rockefeller mansion. (“This isn’t a rummage sale,” Christina had told Helen. “Never put out a pile of anything.”)
They passed two pale blue six-hundred-dollar blouses on a dark, sleek wood rack. Hanging next to them were the matching jackets. They were two thousand each.
Brittney spotted a spaghetti-strap knit top on a rosewood wine table. It was a turquoise knit edged with hot pink crocheted lace. Made of viscose and polyester, the scrap of cloth weighed little more than a Kleenex.
“How much?” Brittney said. Juliana’s never used price tags.
“Three hundred fifteen dollars,” Helen said. She could say that now with a straight face. When Helen first saw
