of tree huggers, she’d get some crazy reactions. She had to listen to a lot of lectures.”
“Taking out asbestos is a tree-hugging activity?”
“Around here it is,” Margery said.
“But she didn’t actually use the equipment at work. She wasn’t cleaning contaminated sites. She answered the phone and typed letters.”
“Peggy’s not stupid. If she was around the equipment on a daily basis, she’d know how to use it,” Margery said.
“Okay, even if she had access to SCBA equipment, how did she get into her apartment when the building was tented?” Helen said. “She’s bigger than Muffy. I don’t think she could fit through those little windows.”
“She had a key, what do you think?”
“But she didn’t have a key to that big metal shield they put on the doorknob,” Helen said. “Only Trevor the fumigator had those. Peggy couldn’t get into her own apartment even if she wanted.” Helen felt better just saying it. It was more proof Peggy was innocent.
“Maybe we should ask Trevor,” Margery said. “I’ll take him some of my brownies. Come in and cool off while I change my shoes.”
Margery opened her kitchen door to a blast of chilled air.
She slipped off her tennis shoes and started walking across the floor. Her feet made an odd crunching sound, as if she was walking on eggshells. She pointed to Pete’s cage. “I’ve got to get that seed-slinging monster out of my kitchen. I’m sick of my floor crunching with birdseed. And feathers are everywhere.”
Pete screeched. The sound was an icepick in Helen’s ear.
“Oh, yeah,” Margery said. “The noise. How could I forget? He never shuts up.”
“He’s lonesome,” Helen said.
“I’d like to give him your cat for company.”
Helen tried to soothe Pete by petting him, but he snapped at her finger. Instead, she swept up the spilled birdseed.
Green fluff and feathers floated on the air. The little Quaker parrot was pining for his Peggy. Helen sighed. She put away the broom when Margery clattered out in purple ankle-strap slides. “It’s all set. I called the office and got the address where Trevor is tenting. He’ll be there until six.”
Margery took a dozen brownies out of the freezer and microwaved them. “They’ll smell like fresh-baked,” she said, wrapping them in foil. Helen followed Margery out to her big white Cadillac. Helen was sure that once you collected Social Security, the state of Florida automatically issued you a big white car.
“We’re in luck. He’s at a hardware store in Pembroke Pines.” Margery drove at a stately pace. They didn’t need to check the address. They could see the building, covered in flapping canvas, a block away.
“Do you think he’ll talk to us?” Helen said.
“No man can resist my brownies,” Margery said.
Certainly not Trevor. “Fresh-baked,” he said when Margery handed him the warm package. Helen felt rather baked herself, standing in the hardware store’s parking lot in the four-o’clock heat. Trevor looked cool in his pressed uniform. The man didn’t sweat.
“I wish I could help you,” he said after he stashed the brownies in his truck. “I’d like to set an innocent free, like I was set free. But those door-shield locks are mostly for show. You could pop them with a screwdriver.”
Helen said nothing on the drive back. There was nothing to say.
It all went back to Peggy. She had the answers. Helen had to ask the questions. She caught the bus after work.
This time Helen had no fear of the police when she visited the North Broward jail. She had put on her cloak of invisibility. The ugly thick-soled bookstore shoes and sensible clothes turned her into a faceless clerk. She presented her fake ID without fear. You can get used to anything, she thought. Even talking to your friend through Plexiglas. But nothing could protect her from the sight of Peggy.
Peggy wasn’t just losing weight. She was shrinking. She seemed to be collapsing inside her baggy jailhouse suit. Her pale skin was an unhealthy yellow. Her large elegant nose had become a bony beak. For the first time, Helen saw gray in Peggy’s dark red hair.
Now Helen was going to add to her misery. She took another look at this new, frail Peggy and almost stopped. But it had to be done or she’d never get Peggy out of here.
She picked up her phone and said, “A legislative assistant to Senator Hoffman was at the bookstore. I found him wandering in the restricted area. I can’t prove it, but I know he’s the one who broke into Page Turner’s office. The place was trashed. Whoever did it was obviously looking for something. They even broke open the locked video cabinet—although why anyone would bother to lock an empty cabinet, I’ll never know.”
A single tear rolled down Peggy’s cheek.
“What is it, Peggy? What’s going on? You’ve got to tell me. How can I help you if I don’t know?”
“They don’t have it,” Peggy said. “I thought they did.
That’s why I kept quiet. But they don’t have it.”
“Don’t have what?” A deputy walked by. Helen realized she was almost shouting into the phone.
“The video. That horrible sex video.” Peggy was crying harder now. Helen had trouble understanding her. “It would have destroyed me, but the fight wasn’t about me. It was about two powerful men. I was caught in their cross fire.
Page Turner never blackmailed me. I wasn’t important enough.”
Peggy stopped and began plucking at a loose string on her top until Helen thought she would scream. “Tell me, Peggy. Please.”
Peggy wiped her eyes and took a deep gulping breath.
“You know about the video with the cocaine and Senator Hoffman’s son.”
Helen nodded.
“There was some ugly stuff on that video. Not just the sex. Collie hated his father. He said things like, ‘My father’s big on law and order—for other people. When I get caught, he calls in his fixers. If I did crack in Homestead instead of coke in Lauderdale, they’d lock up my ass and throw away the key.’ ”
“And he said this while snorting the white stuff?” Helen said.
Peggy nodded. “There was a lot more. It’s like he made this tape to get even with his father. And then... there was the sex. You must think I’m a real slut.” She was picking at the loose thread again.
“I think you’re my friend, and I’m sorry you’re in this mess.”
Peggy quit torturing the thread. “Collie’s death was my wake-up call. I went into rehab and got Pete and played the lottery.”
She laughed bitterly. “Doesn’t sound like much of a life, does it? But I was happy. Or at least I didn’t hurt anymore.
Then Gayle found out that Page was planning to use the tape to ruin Senator Hoffman. She warned me.”
“Gayle? How did she know?”
Peggy shrugged. “She must have overheard something at the bookstore.”
“Why would Page do that? Was he drunk or crazy?”
“Neither,” Peggy said. “Senator Hoffman cost Page Turner several million dollars. He talked him into investing in some energy stock.”
“Enron?”
“No, that’s not the name. But it tanked like Enron. Unfortunately, the senator neglected to tell Page to sell the stock when it started diving. Page lost about three million.
He was going to have to close the bookstores because of the losses. He’d used their working capital.”
Finally, the store closings made sense. The stores weren’t losing money. Page had taken their cash and blown it on bad investments.
“He’d embezzled from the stores.”
“Well, he owned the stores, so I don’t know if you’d call it embezzling. But the family wasn’t going to bail him out.
Gayle said they hushed it up, but he was stuck with the losses.
“Page tried to get the senator to cover his losses, but Hoffman said he couldn’t do anything about it. That’s when Page vowed to ruin him by turning that tape over to the press. It would make the senator a
