Murder Between the Covers

Murder Between The Covers

A DEAD-END JOB MYSTERY

Elaine Viets

Praise for Elaine Viets’s first Dead-End Job mystery, Shop till You Drop

“Elaine Viets has come up with all the ingredients for an irresistible mystery: a heroine with a sense of humor and a gift for snappy dialogue, an atmospheric South Florida backdrop, a cast of entertaining secondary characters, and some really nasty crimes. I’m looking forward to the next installment in her new Dead-End Job series.” —Jane Heller, national bestselling author of Lucky Stars

“Elaine Viets’s debut Dead-End Job mystery is a live wire. It’s Janet Evanovich meets The Fugitive as Helen Hawthorne takes Florida by storm. Shop no further—this is the one.”—Tim Dorsey, author of The Stingray Shuffle

“I loved this book. With a stubborn and intelligent heroine, a wonderful South Florida setting, and a cast of more-or-less lethal bimbos, Shop till You Drop provides tons of fun. Six-toed cats, expensive clothes, sexy guys on motorcycles—this book has it all.”—Charlaine Harris, author of Club Dead and Poppy Done to Death

“Fresh, funny, and fiendishly constructed, Shop till You Drop gleefully skewers cosmetic surgery, ultraexclusive clothing boutiques, cheating ex-husbands, and the Florida dating game, as attractive newcomer Helen Hawthorne takes on the first of her deliciously awful dead-end jobs and finds herself enmeshed in drugs, embezzlement, and murder. A bright start to an exciting new series. This one is hard to beat.”—Parnell Hall, author of The Puzzle Lady crossword puzzle mysteries

ALSO BY ELAINE VIETS

Shop till You Drop

Acknowledgments

Page Turners and its staff are purely imaginary. No such bookstore ever existed. But I worked at the Barnes & Noble in Hollywood, Florida, for a year to learn the business. I want to thank manager Pam Marshall and her staff for their help and kindness.

Thanks also to Joanne Sinchuk at south Florida’s largest independent mystery bookstore, Murder on the Beach in Delray Beach, for her book-world expertise. And to bookseller John Spera for his support.

All writers thank their spouse, their agent, and their editor. But I could not write this book without my beloved husband, Don Crinklaw, my pitbull agent, David Hendin, and my enthusiastic editor, Genny Ostertag. Thanks also to the New American Library copy editors and production staff, who were so careful.

So many people helped with this book. I hope I didn’t leave anyone out.

Thanks to my loyal friends Valerie Cannata, Colby Cox, Diane Earhart, Jinny Gender, Karen Grace, Kay Gordy, Debbie Henson, Marilyn Koehr, and Janet Smith for their advice and encouragement.

Ed Seelig at Silver Strings Music told me what a Clapton fan would have in his home.

Mark at Safetyman SCBA and Safety Equipment gave me SCBA information.

Terri Magri advised me about dreads.

Thanks to Bob Brown at Truly Nolen’s Hollywood, Florida, office. Bob drives one of those funny yellow mouse cars. I nearly drove him crazy asking questions.

Thanks also to Truly Nolen’s Darryl Graves, fumigator and man of infinite patience, who let me follow him around while he tented a building. Leon A. Johnson, roof man, performs amazing feats of strength on Florida rooftops, and Brandon A. McFarley clamps the sides of tented buildings.

Thanks to Detective RC White, Fort Lauderdale Police Department (retired), who answered countless questions on police interrogations and procedures. Captain Kim Spadaro, commander of the Broward County Main Jail Facility, and Deputy Deanne Paul gave me a tour of the Broward County Jail. Thanks also to author and police officer Robin Burcell, who wrote Deadly Legacy. Any procedure mistakes are mine, not theirs.

Jerry Sanford, author of Miami Heat and federal prosecutor for the northern district of Florida, answered many complicated legal questions.

Thanks to public relations expert Jack Klobnak, and to my bookseller friend, Carole Wantz, who could sell iceboxes in the Arctic Circle. Special thanks to Anne Watts and Sarah Watts-Casinger, who are owned by Thumbs the cat.

Chapter 1

“Helen, where the hell are you?” The creep used the intercom, so everyone heard.

“I’m in the back, stripping,” she said. Now they all heard her reply.

“I don’t care what you’re doing, get out here,” he said.

“Now.”

Helen Hawthorne quit stripping and wished she could start ripping. She wanted to rip out the black heart of Page Turner III with her bare hands.

He knew where she was. He also knew she couldn’t complain when he played his little games. He was Page Turner, literary light and owner of Page Turners, the book chain with his name. Page was a multimillionaire, but not because of the three bookstores. The real family fortune came from mundane moneymakers such as pancake houses and muffler shops.

Page ran the bookstores because he had the same name as the founder. That was all Page had in common with his book-loving grandfather. The current Page Turner couldn’t sell a book to a boatload of bibliophiles.

Helen flung open the stockroom door, expecting to see Page. Instead she collided with Mr. Davies, the store’s oldest inhabitant. Mr. Davies showed up every morning at nine, when the store opened, and stayed until it closed at midnight. He brought two peanut-butter sandwiches, one for lunch and one for dinner, and drank the free ice water in the cafe. All day long he read books. He bought one paperback a month, when his Social Security check arrived.

Helen liked him. He was as much a fixture as the shelves and chairs.

Mr. Davies was a small gray squirrel of a man, with big yellow teeth and inquisitive brown eyes. Now those eyes were bright with disappointment.

“You’re dressed,” the old man said.

“Of course I’m dressed,” Helen said. “What did you think I was doing in there?”

“Stripping,” he said hopefully.

“I was stripping the covers off paperbacks,” she said.

Mr. Davies was more shocked than if she’d been stark naked. “That’s terrible, a pretty girl like you mutilating books,” he said.