“When the cops showed up, I was the number one suspect, just like I expected. The fact that I had a lawyer made the cops more suspicious. I went downtown for a talk with them. The company had their lawyer. I had mine. Next, the state inspector weighed in, looking for violations. I sat tight and kept my mouth shut, like my lawyer said. But I was sweating.
“The autopsy report saved me. It said the body had been dead since Friday night, not Saturday. That’s twenty-four hours longer than anyone guessed. There were fly eggs, but the flies didn’t develop very far. They were killed by the Vikane.
“But the autopsy said Page Turner did not die of Vikane poisoning.” He was checking gauges on the Vikane cylinder.
“Well, no. He had a knife in his back,” Margery said.
“But that knife didn’t kill him, either. The coroner said he was smothered with a pillow. While drunk.”
“That’s why we didn’t see any blood,” Helen said.
“The stab wound in the back was inflicted after death,” Trevor said. He sounded like he’d memorized the autopsy report. “A butcher knife had been found in the body, and there were prints on the knife, but the police didn’t tell me who they belonged to. I was just happy they weren’t mine.
“Page Turner had died Friday night, before the Vikane was ever pumped into the building. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt. I had nothing to do with that man’s death.
“Also, he’d been moved. The blood had pooled in the lower body. The police found evidence the body was kept in the closet and dragged out later. They believe that we passed right by the closet where the body was stashed. It was covered by some long bridesmaids’ dresses.”
“Glad somebody found a use for those things,” Margery said.
Helen and Trevor ignored her.
“The man was probably murdered between eight and midnight on Friday, and that’s what saved me. I was coaching my church’s softball team. We won the division finals and had a victory party afterward. I was not only in the photos, I was in the video, with a time-and-date stamp. It was two a.m. when I finally went home. Page Turner was long dead by then. Besides, the police could find no connection between me and Turner.”
“So you were off the hook,” Helen said.
“Mostly. But the police knew I knew something. I made a deal with them. My lawyer and I explained why I’d delayed informing the police about the dead body for twenty-four hours. I got a lecture and was released.”
He checked the gauges again and the clear plastic hoses.
Helen heard the hissing of the Vikane gas, releasing more death. She wanted out of there. She and Margery congratulated Trevor and left.
On the ride home, Helen said, “I knew Trevor didn’t do it.”
“Oh, really?” Margery said. “You were ready to convict him when he called his lawyer.”
Helen wasn’t proud of that. “I heard the cops found the tapes with all Page’s naked girlfriends,” she said, hoping to change the subject. “That will keep them busy for years.
We have nothing to worry about.”
But Margery looked worried indeed.
Chapter 8
“You don’t know anything,” the woman said.
“Ma’am, I need either the title or the author,” Helen said.
“I can’t find the book without one or the other. Please give me more information.”
“I saw that book in your store last month. It had a blue cover,” the woman said triumphantly, as if she’d produced a crucial fact.
“I’m sorry, but we have a hundred thousand books,” Helen said. “Lots of them have blue covers.”
“You’re an idiot,” the woman said, and turned her back on Helen.
I must be, Helen thought, to take this abuse for six seventy an hour. She used to think bookstores were genteel places to work. Now she knew how mean some customers could be. They seemed to get almost physical satisfaction from insulting clerks.
It had been a bad day at the store. She’d also had to deal with a young weasel who tried to return a stolen Bible.
Helen had watched him shoplift it, sliding it into his backpack. The Bible was the store’s most shoplifted book. Now he had the nerve to come up to the counter, take out the boosted Bible, and claim he lost the sales receipt. The weasel spat four-letter words at her when she confiscated the Bible and refused to give him any money.
“Thou shalt not steal,” she told him. He took the Lord’s name in vain. Then the Bible stealer left.
The bad customers looked like animals today, she thought, weasels and pigs with the dispositions of wolverines.
The nice customers were worse. They asked the questions Helen wished she could answer: When was Page Turner’s funeral? Would the store close for the service?
Would it close permanently? Who was in charge now? Albert was the day manager, but he didn’t know any more than Helen did. He stood around in his starched shirt, sweating and wringing his pale hands, afraid to make the smallest decision.
A blonde came up to the counter with
“We used to talk about books for hours upstairs in his office.”
Helen saw how the blonde filled out her white halter top.
Another pigeon, she thought.
“They had such lovely literary discussions,” said the little brown mother hen with her. “You don’t find many men who can talk about books in South Florida. And to die in such a senseless way.”
“We’re all sorry, ma’am,” Helen said, sliding the book into a bag.
But she wasn’t, and neither was anyone else who worked at Page Turners. Helen felt like a fraud as she made fake sounds of sympathy to the customers.
Only Matt, the bookseller who’d walked off the job when his paycheck bounced, came out and said it. He stopped at the store the morning after Page Turner’s murder hit the news. Matt’s dreads were as luxuriant as ever, but his usual white T-shirt was black.
“You’re out of uniform,” Helen said. “What’s with the black? You in mourning for Page?”
“I’m not wasting any tears over that man. I heard you found the body.”
“It was dreadful. He had a butcher knife in his back.”
“I told you he’d pay,” Matt said. “The man passed, but it wasn’t easy. He’s gone and I’m glad.”
Helen was, too. But she couldn’t bring herself to say so.
This store has pigs, pigeons, hens, and weasels, she thought. You can add another animal to the menagerie. I’m a rat. I’ve got to get out of retail. I’m beginning to hate the human race. I need a nice desk job. Someplace without a cash register. I need to get off my feet.
Before Helen started at Page Turners, she had no idea how physically hard a bookstore job could be. Booksellers were not allowed to sit when they worked the cash register.
Cheap Page did not carpet the cashiers’ area. He wouldn’t even spring for rubber mats. After eight hours of standing on concrete, her feet hurt so badly she could hardly walk home. Her back ached and kept her awake at night.
“The key to survival,” Gayle told her, “is to get the ugliest shoes with the thickest soles you can find.”
Helen spent sixty dollars she couldn’t afford for cushion-soled lace-ups too styleless for her grandmother. Gayle was right. The thick soles helped. But the pain never really went away.
Now that she was cut back to thirty hours a week, Helen had time for a serious job search. She’d had an
