Murder Between the Covers

happened. For the first time, Helen felt hope.

Detective Jax stopped by the bookstore the next day. He flashed his badge and his smile at a woman waiting in line, and stepped up to Helen’s cash register. Once again, he had those aggressive movements, that fiery red hair and air of righteousness. Jax had arrested her friend for murder, but Helen recognized a man who believed he had done the right thing.

“Mr. Harper Grisham IV says he was never in your bookstore. He produced two witnesses who say he was on the beach with them in Fort Lauderdale all day.”

“And you believe that?” That preppy scum had lied.

“They all have sunburns,” Jax said.

“This time of year, you can burn in ten minutes. He was here. Why would I make up that story?” Helen could feel her rage building. The angry heat rose out of her core and seemed to travel up her spinal column.

“He says you’re politically motived. You’re a liberal trying to hurt Senator Hoffman’s chances of reelection.”

Another lie, even more outrageous. Her anger level was rising. “I never laid eyes on him before I found him wandering the bookstore hall.”

“Maybe he is lying,” Jax said. “But you’re not telling me the whole truth, either. You’re holding back something about this prowler. I know it. I want to know what it is.”

Helen pretended to be interested in her cash register keys. Mentioning that video would sign Peggy’s death warrant.

When she thought she could talk without her voice shaking, she said, “You’ve got to reopen Page Turner’s murder investigation. This break-in proves Peggy was innocent.

She was in jail when it happened. She couldn’t have done it.”

“The break-in has nothing to do with Page Turner’s murder,” Jax said. “The investigation is closed. Ms. Freeton killed him. I can’t investigate a case that’s going to trial. It’s over.”

Red rage surged up and boiled over in her brain. It was the same rash anger that destroyed her St. Louis life. “Your mind is made up,” she said. “Don’t confuse you with the facts. You’d rather send an innocent woman to her death.

Tell me this, Detective Jax. Why would Peggy kill that man and leave his body in her bed?”

“Because her brains were fried on coke. People who use drugs don’t make sensible decisions. And she does use drugs. We have her on tape.”

“Not anymore. She’s clean. She was framed. But you’d rather railroad an innocent woman, because you need that case cleared. Page Turner was an important man. Peggy’s not important. But she is my friend, and she didn’t kill him.”

She regretted her outburst instantly. She waited for Jax to lash back. Instead, he picked up a delicate gift book from a counter display, What Is a Friend? Its cover was garlanded with pink ribbons and roses. He coolly paged through its flowery sentiments.

“Loyalty to a friend is a beautiful thing,” he said, holding up the book. “But some loyalty is misplaced. I can’t see a nice woman like you being friends with a coke dealer.”

“No,” Helen protested, but that small word didn’t seem strong enough to ward off the ugly accusation. The thought made her sick. “Peggy may have used it years ago, but she never sold cocaine.”

“That’s not what I heard,” he said. He tossed the open book on the counter and walked out.

Helen picked it up and read the page: A friend is someone who can tell you anything—and everything.

Chapter 17

“He’s a damn liar,” Margery said. Her face was purple with rage. It set off her violently violet shorts and purple tennis shoes. She’d been skimming dead leaves out of the Coronado pool when Helen came home from work that afternoon.

Now Helen’s landlady held the long-handled net like a warrior’s spear and declared, “Peggy’s no coke dealer. Do you think for one minute I’d tolerate drugs at the Coronado?”

The scent of Phil’s pot smoke wafted on the warm air.

Helen’s nostrils quivered. “Phil’s different,” Margery said.

“Anyway, he’s not a dealer.”

“Then why would Detective Jax say that?”

“Cops lie,” Margery said. “They aren’t sworn to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth during an investigation. They’ll lead you on with a little falsehood and feel it’s in a good cause. If Jax can turn you against Peggy, you may give him more information to nail her. At the very least, you won’t be a character witness for her in court.”

Some character, Helen thought. I couldn’t testify on her behalf if I wanted.

“I thought I could get him to start asking himself questions, so he’d reopen the investigation.”

“He can’t reopen the investigation,” Margery said.

“Don’t you understand? Once Peggy was arrested, he couldn’t investigate anyone else for that murder. Do you know what a good defense attorney would do with that?

‘Tell me, Detective, is it not true that you continued to look for another suspect even after my client was arrested and in jail pending trial?’ ”

“How do you know so much about how the police operate?” Helen said.

“You live as long as I do, you learn things. The hard way,” Margery said, and the door slammed shut on her past again, locking Helen out. She put the leaf net away, then uncoiled a green garden hose and began cleaning off the pool deck. Helen slipped off her shoes, rolled up her pants cuffs, and got her toes wet in a poolside puddle. She smelled the ozone rising off the warm wet concrete and felt the sun on her back. They soothed her.

“I never understood why the police arrested Peggy,” she said. “It’s obvious someone put Page’s body in her place to set her up. How could Peggy go into a tented building filled with tear gas and poison gas? She isn’t Superwoman.”

Margery adjusted the nozzle. A stream of water drove the pool deck’s dirt and debris into the grass. “Did you know what your wine-drinking buddy did for a living?” Did.

Margery used the past tense, as if Peggy was never going back—or she was dead.

“She’s a receptionist for some company off Cypress Creek Road,” Helen said.

“Do you know the company’s name?” Mist rose from the hot concrete as the hose squirted it.

“NECC. ENCC. Something anonymous. Peggy said her job was as dull as the name.”

“The company is National Environmental Cleanup Corp.

They get called in when there’s asbestos in a building, or there’s a toxic spill or some other environmental cleanup problem.”

Helen felt sick. She knew where this was heading.

“They have SCBA breathing equipment. Keep it in a locked room. Peggy had the keypad combination taped inside her desk,” Margery said.

“Of course she did. She worked there.”

“Yeah, well, the police think she took her work home with her.”

Margery turned off the water and coiled up the hose.

Helen could feel her own fear coiling inside. I’m not wrong. Peggy didn’t kill him, she told herself. I knew her.

At least, I thought I knew her. “How do you know this stuff about the investigation?” she said.

“Never mind how I know. I’ve lived here a long time. I have friends.”

“I thought Peggy was my friend. Why didn’t she tell me where she worked?”

“She learned not to talk about it,” Margery said.

“Florida’s not exactly famous for protecting the environment. When people found out she worked for a bunch