On the drive back, in the wan glow of the streetlights, Margery looked exhausted. Her gray hair was limp, her skin sagged along her jawline, and her purple shorts set was wrinkled. She caught herself in the mirror and said, “I look like particular hell. Why don’t you come back to my place for a drink?”
When the landlady flipped on her kitchen light, Pete’s squawk sliced through their ears like a chain saw. He had overturned his water dish and dumped his birdseed on the floor. Helen cleaned up the wreckage from the one- parrot riot. Margery made herself a screwdriver that was a glass of vodka with a shot of orange juice. Helen had white wine out of a bottle with a real cork. It sure beat box wine.
“Now,” she said when they were settled at Margery’s kitchen table, “tell me why you think she did it.”
“You know Peggy dated Page Turner,” Margery said.
Helen did not. That still had her reeling. “I can’t believe it. The only male I’ve ever seen her with is Pete.”
“Believe it. Her problems started before you came to town. She and Page dated for almost a year. Peggy thought they had a serious relationship. She really believed he would marry her. He gave her a ring, a fire opal, and she wore it as an engagement ring. I told her opals were bad luck.
“One morning, after Page got out of her bed and went to work, Peggy went outside for the newspaper. She opened it up and there was an announcement of Page Turner’s engagement to this society babe in Palm Beach, Astrid somebody. Peggy went crazy. She screamed and shouted and threw things. Then she went storming over to the bookstore, still in her nightgown, and threw the ring in his face.”
“I heard about that,” Helen said. “But I didn’t realize the woman was Peggy.”
She thought of languid, laid-back Peggy on the chaise longue by the pool, and tried to imagine her as a screaming shrew in a nightgown. Was it possible?
Then Helen saw herself in St. Louis the afternoon she caught her husband, Rob, naked with their next-door neighbor. He always said he hated Sandy. He’s a bare-assed liar, she’d thought irrelevantly as she watched Rob’s hairy rump. That was just before she picked up the crowbar and started swinging. Helen had been so cool and controlled until that moment. Then something snapped inside and it started an avalanche of snapping outside.
“I could see Peggy being angry,” Helen said. “But this happened two years ago. Why would she kill him now?”
“Because Peggy said, ‘I’ll get you. But it will be when you least expect it. Then I’ll stab you in the back, just like you stabbed me.’ Everyone at the bookstore heard it.”
“Oh,” Helen said.
“Peggy was never the same after Page Turner. She swore off men forever. That’s when she got Pete and began buying lottery tickets. She hasn’t had a date since.”
They were both silent as they sipped their drinks. It had been more than a year since her ex-husband had betrayed her and Helen began her zigzag flight across the country.
Did she still want to kill Rob? Helen didn’t think so. Her fury had flared up and then burned to ashes. Now she only wanted to stay away from her ex. She’d made another life for herself. She was beginning to forget his betrayal. She thought again of her hot weekend with Rich and melted inside.
“I don’t believe Peggy would kill him after all this time,” Helen said. “That story is a Las Olas legend. It would be easy for anyone to find out the jilted woman was Peggy and plant Page’s dead body in her home. Is that all the police have?”
“The butcher knife in Page’s back had Peggy’s fingerprints on it,” Margery said.
“Of course it had her fingerprints. It was in her kitchen.”
“That’s not what the cops think.”
“How do you know what the cops think?”
“I have my sources,” Margery said smugly.
“You still haven’t answered my question: Why would Peggy go after him now?”
“Page has a video of her.” Pete squawked in protest, and Margery threw the cover over his cage.
“He has—or had—lots of videos. Peggy has plenty of company, if the stories I heard are true.”
“Peggy has company in this video. She was with two men and a lot of coke.” Margery knew the most surprising things and said them without the slightest disapproval.
“Peggy? In a threesome? She lives like a nun.”
“Now. But she used to be a wild one, honey. You’ve got to promise to keep this next part quiet. I’m only telling you because you’re her friend and maybe it will help you understand what she’s up against.”
Some friend, Helen thought. I talked with her three or four nights a week and didn’t know anything about her.
“When Peggy was going out with Page, she often partied in his office. It was a pretty spectacular place.”
“I saw the couch and his fabulous first-edition collection.”
“You didn’t see the half of it,” Margery said. “Peggy told me there’s a back playroom with a bed, a fireplace, a fur rug, and a closet full of toys you don’t buy at FAO Schwarz.”
“There is?” Helen said, feeling dumber still. “I didn’t know anything about that.”
“Peggy did. She said there were cameras all over. She knew he was taping some of their sessions. Page said it made sex more exciting. Young women are so trusting today. We used to ask for our love letters back when we broke up with a man. Now, they let guys videotape them.”
She shook her head at modern gullibility and took a swig of her screwdriver. “One night after the store closed, Page asked her to do a threesome. She was so crazy in love, she said yes. The third party was a much younger guy named Collie. Peggy said he was cute and clean-cut.”
“Wait a minute. Wouldn’t she have had the threesome with another woman?” Helen’s worldly knowledge came from
“Not this time. Peggy was very nervous and did a lot of coke before she got there. She did even more at Page’s place. Peggy said the tape made
Helen and Rob had rented that movie, and Rob had raved about Sharon Stone for weeks. Helen didn’t remember any cocaine. Oh, wait, the scene with the murdered guy. He had coke on his... Helen could feel herself blushing. Sometimes, she was so Midwestern.
Margery didn’t seem to notice. “The coked-up Peggy passed out and woke up the next morning in her own bed.
She didn’t know how or when she got there.
“She turned on the TV and heard the news bulletin: State Senator Colgate Hoffman III’s son was found dead in a Fort Lauderdale hotel room of a suspected drug overdose. He was Colgate IV, Collie for short. Peggy recognized him as the cute guy in Page’s office. She realized that he must have died sometime during their party or soon after.
“Peggy was terrified. She begged me to help her. She expected to hear from the police any day, but they never showed up. She was lucky. You know anything about the senator?”
“He’s one of those law-and-order, war-on-drugs types,” Helen said.
“That’s right. His son Collie had a long history of drug abuse. Hoffman’s political opponents charged that the investigation into his son’s death was covered up. The public’s sympathy was with the senator. People felt he’d suffered enough and should be left alone in his grief.
“Collie was buried and so was the scandal. Peggy was relieved. I could see her starting to get over her fright. She and Page patched things up. She was still seeing him. I told her that was a bad idea, but she didn’t listen to me. All she saw was that ring on her finger. Then she discovered that creep was engaged to another woman. She remembered all the things he’d talked her into, all the false promises he’d made. She ran to the bookstore in her nightgown and made a scene.”
“What did she think Page would do—dump Astrid and marry her?” Helen said.
“She didn’t think. Period. She just wanted Page to hurt as much as she did. She managed to embarrass him big-time. That was a mistake. He got her upstairs in his office. When there were no witnesses, he told her he’d made a tape of her and Collie and a lot of coke.”
“So what?” Peggy said. “You’re in it, too. It was a threesome.”
“Not on my tape,” Turner said.
