“It’s funny,” Tara said, “but she went out of her way to avoid talking about it. I figured it was her business and didn’t press her. I’m sorry you want me back because there’s trouble, but I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Helen had not mentioned the fake robbery. The subject seemed to have barbed wire around it. Now Tara was whispering into the phone. “Paulie’s smothering me. I swear I can’t go to the john without him tagging along. He means well, but I’m going crazy. I’ll tell him my shrink recommends I go back to work as part of my recovery. And I know! I’ll say the cops have a twenty-four-hour guard on Juliana’s. You’ll back me up on that, right? I’ll be in Monday.”
“Terrific,” Helen said. “I need you.”
And she did. All morning long, customers came in and bought clothes as if someone had shredded their wardrobes with garden shears. Everyone asked after Christina. Some brought her little gifts, which Helen put away for when Christina returned. (If she returned.) I don’t know for sure the dead woman is Christina, Helen told herself. (But she is.) The ID hasn’t been confirmed yet. (But it will be.)
That afternoon, two Miami Palms homicide detectives showed up at Juliana’s. They looked like they’d been auditioning for
“Do you recognize this purse?” Crockett asked her. He pulled out a brown paper evidence bag. Inside was the vintage gold mesh purse with the diamonds on the clasp. The one Christina had showed Helen the day she left for vacation. Helen looked at it and felt the floor slide away. She grabbed onto the counter to keep from falling.
“Where did you get it?” she said. “Did you find it in her home? Or her car? Pawn shop, that’s where you got it. Someone stole it and . . .”
Helen was babbling. She knew it, and the detectives knew it, too. They looked at her with the professional sadness of people who have had to deliver too much bad news, and Helen could not lie to herself any longer.
“Christina is dead.” She’d said it. Now it was real.
“We found this purse with the body,” Crockett said.
How ironic, Helen thought. A fragile vintage purse survived unharmed, but Christina, hard as nails Christina, did not.
“One more thing, ma’am,” Crockett said. He showed her a smooth black button. The subtle gold center glowed like a jewel.
The words stuck in her throat. Helen forced them out. “It’s her suit button,” she said. “Was she alive when they put her in the barrel?”
“No,” Crockett said gently. “She was dead.”
Helen felt relieved. She did not ask if Christina had suffered. She’d been beaten to death. “Please don’t make me identify her.”
“No, you won’t have to,” Tubbs said. “We’ll make the ID from the implants.”
Helen felt an irrational anger flare up. “Then why did you have that terrible article in the paper, if you knew about the implants? Couldn’t you have traced her that way and saved me this?”
“The implant manufacturer was out of business,” Tubbs said. “The records were in storage. We were afraid it would take awhile to locate them. Time is important. The faster we start the investigation, the faster we can find her killer. We have the records now. But your information was a big help.”
“Does she have any family to bury her?” Helen asked.
“A sister, Lorraine,” Tubbs said. “She lives in Arkadelphia. Once the medical examiner is through, Lorraine will take the body home to Arkansas for burial. The sister is flying in today. We’d like to ask you some questions now, if you don’t mind.”
Helen locked the green door and put up the “back soon” sign. Then she and the detectives went to the black silk-satin loveseats. Helen sat down, even though sitting was forbidden for sales associates when there were no customers. Let Mr. Roget fire her. With Christina dead, who would run the store?
The detectives asked Helen questions for what seemed like hours. The funny thing was, Helen could not remember any of them later or how she answered. But she remembered being very careful. Helen did not lie to the police. She just did not tell them everything. She did not say anything about Christina’s drug dealing and skimming. She did not mention the murder of Desiree Easlee. She told herself she was too disoriented to deal with those matters now. If she said the wrong thing in her shocked state, she could be implicated in drug dealing, embezzling, and murder. After all, they happened at the shop. She needed time to work out the best way to tell the police.
After the homicide detectives left, Helen called Mr. Roget. The store owner made appropriate sounds of horror and dismay when he learned of Christina’s murder, but they sounded perfunctory to Helen. He seemed more interested in making sure that Helen and Tara could run the store now that Christina was dead.
“I’m not sure I want to manage Juliana’s, Mr. Roget,” she said, just to see how the old cheapskate would react.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” he said. “I can give you an additional dollar an hour.”
“That’s all? For running a store?” Helen said.
“You’ll get your commission after six months. And of course, I’ll keep the same terms, cash only, off the books,” he said, and it almost sounded like a threat. Helen remembered the Las Olas store owner who wouldn’t pay her in cash. She’d be making seven seventy an hour. She knew how hard it was to get that money on her terms.
“OK, Mr. Roget. Do you want me to close the store Monday, in honor of Christina?”
“Oh, no, Helen,” he said, genuinely upset now. “Don’t close the store. Christina wouldn’t want that.”
Right, Helen thought. And you wouldn’t want to miss a sale. She wondered if he’d closed the store when his own mother, the original Juliana, died.
“And Helen,” he added, “do what you can to keep the store name out of the newspapers. We don’t want that kind of publicity for Juliana’s, do we?”
Now a new fear gripped Helen, something she’d never thought of. What if Christina’s murder got a lot of press? What if her own name got in the newspapers? And the two homicide detectives. Their clothes may have been out of style, but they looked smart. Suppose they figured out who Helen was? One phone call back to St. Louis, one story on the news wires, and Rob would find her.
Helen would have to go back to cold St. Louis. There would be no evenings spent drinking wine by the Coronado pool with Peggy and Pete. No purple-clad Margery, dispensing chocolate and sympathy. No glimpses of Daniel, the perfect man.
It was a horrible prospect.
Helen felt sick just thinking about it. She ran for the rest-room and threw up. Then she closed the shop for the day. To hell with Mr. Roget.
Chapter 18
When Helen opened Juliana’s Monday morning, she thought she saw someone back by the dressing rooms.
“Hello?” she called into the darkened store. “Anyone there?” Helen was frightened. Too many odd things had happened here lately.She flipped on the lights and reached into her purse for her pepper spray. With the spray in her hand, Helen had the courage to walk through the store.
“Hello?” she called again. She looked behind the counter but saw no one. The carpet had been vacuumed last night by the janitor service, and no footprints disturbed the deep pile.
“Who’s there?” Her voice sounded like a croak. There was no answer. But she could swear someone was in the store with her.
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
