underneath, spastic with fear.
“Something to do with d-d-dead people.” Debbie had developed a stutter. “They called themselves the Six Feet Unders. Like the TV show. They’d make jokes about it. Said it was their ‘grave undertaking.’ They paid a lot of money to go in that room. It was their big fundraiser. I don’t know anything else. I never went back there. I was too scared.”
“Who did?” Savannah said.
“K-Kristi. It was Kristi. She was always there after midnight.”
“Does she work at Gator Bill’s?”
“N-no. I don’t know where she works, except those parties at the M-M-Mowbry mansion. I don’t know where she lives, either.”
“Then you’re going to get us her address, right?”
Debbie nodded. “We’re working a party together at the Mowbrys’ tomorrow night. I’ll call you with it.”
“I’ll call you. And you better not tell her why you want that address. You better not mention anything about us at all.
Understand?” Savannah shook the can of oven cleaner. That sound again, that poisonous rattle.
“You may think Hank is a bigger threat than I am, but you haven’t seen me when I’m really crazy. Got it?”
Debbie nodded again, too frightened to speak.
Savannah backed away from her, and Debbie slid down the wall.
Chapter 9
I’m going crazy, Helen thought, as she made her shaky way down Debbie’s steps. First, I heard a woman die, but the police wouldn’t believe me. Now, I’m hanging around with an insane redneck, forcing my way into apartments. What’s next?
“Kristi’s next,” Savannah said, marching past her down the stairs. “She’s going to tell me what she knows about Laredo.”
“What are you going to do?” Helen said. “Squirt her with Windex until she comes clean? I can’t believe you were going to shoot that woman in the face with lye.”
They were arguing in whispers in Debbie’s parking lot so they wouldn’t wake the neighbors.
“Hey, I promised you I wouldn’t use a gun, and I didn’t.
I’m trained in the use of household products.”
“You threatened to blind a woman, and I stood there and let you. If Debbie complains to the police, I could be arrested.” Then the cops would find out I was on the run, Helen thought, and send me back to St. Louis.
“She’s not going to complain,” Savannah said. “She doesn’t want them to know she lied about Laredo.”
Helen relaxed a bit. Savannah was right about that, at least.
“OK, but I’m not getting in that car until you hand over that oven cleaner. You’re a menace with that stuff.”
Some threat, Helen thought. Savannah has the car keys. I could wind up walking home.
“Oh, all right.” Savannah surrendered her weapon. Helen dumped it in her purse before she changed her mind and grabbed it back, then opened the Tank’s dented door and sat down heavily. A seat spring stuck her in the rump.
“I knew that murdering Hank Asporth was behind this, Savannah said. “We’ve got to get to him.”
Helen said nothing. She didn’t want to talk anymore about Hank Asporth. She just wanted to know that Laredo was dead, so she could get on with her life. Great. Now I sound like some sort of self-help book:
The two women rode in silence while the Tank bucked and rumbled past karate schools, XXX-rated topless joints, cheap bars and check-cashing stores. It was not a landscape to inspire optimism.
My life is a mess, Helen thought. My job is a nightmare.
People hate me from coast to coast. I’ve been cussed in sixteen languages. I don’t enjoy my evenings by the Coronado pool anymore, thanks to Fred and Ethel. I don’t have time to see my friend Sarah. I’ve gained almost ten pounds eating potato chips and Pria bars.
The private litany of failure continued until Savannah pulled in front of the Coronado. She put the Tank in PARK and set off a symphony of squeaks and rattles. “You’ll call me when you get off work tomorrow night, right? So we can talk about our next step?”
“There is no next step,” Helen shouted over the engine noise. “Not when you want to maim people.”
“It won’t happen again,” Savannah said. “I admit my temper got the best of me. But I wouldn’t have hurt Debbie.
Really.”
Helen had seen the murderous look in Savannah’s eye.
“Please,” Savannah said. “My baby sister’s lying somewhere in an unmarked grave. I’ve got to find her.”
A light came on in a second-story apartment. The Tank had awakened Fred and Ethel. Helen would never hear the end of it.
“I’ll think about it.” Helen wanted to slam the Tank’s door for emphasis, but it refused to catch. Savannah had to lean across the seat to close it, which spoiled the drama.
The Coronado’s turquoise pool shimmered invitingly, but the chaise longues were empty. Helen was disappointed. It was warm tonight, and she’d hoped that Margery and Peggy might be out by the pool. Especially when she saw the lights in Fred and Ethel’s apartment.
A single ficus leaf dropped into the pool and drifted aimlessly. Helen felt just as lost. She missed Peggy and Margery, but it was more than that. She longed for someone to love, even though she’d been badly hurt.
Right. You really need another man, she told herself. You can sure pick ’em. So far, in Florida she’d dated a cheapskate, a con artist, a married man who said he was single and a guy so possessive he gave her a bracelet of bruises for talking to another man. No chance of her falling for anyone as long as she worked in the boiler room. The only men she saw all day were her crude boss, Vito, and Nick the junkie.
She sniffed the night air and caught the thick, heavy scent of marijuana. Oh, yeah, there was Phil the invisible pothead. Just what she needed after dating drunks, crooks and deadbeats—a druggie. She wondered what he looked like. Even when he saved her life, there was only the slogan on his T-shirt, floating in the air like a dream message:
“Clapton Is God.” She still remembered the feel of his hands, strong and sure, as he pulled her from the deadly fire.
Was Phil straight or gay, single or married? She didn’t know. He seemed complete in his chemically altered world.
He didn’t need any woman.
The smell of Phil’s weed was extra thick tonight. It reminded her of the rock concerts she used to go to in St. Louis. That made her feel old. It had been eons since she’d held up a lit Bic and gotten silly.
When she opened her front door, Thumbs was waiting for her, rubbing against her legs and purring his greeting. Usually her cuddly cat made her feel better. Not tonight.
I’m an old maid living alone with my cat, Helen thought.
And I’m only forty-two years old.
The next morning Helen was back in the boiler room.
Discouragement—or maybe it was dirt—settled on her as she walked through the grimy door. Her phone stank of cigarette smoke. She wished she had Taniqua’s Lysol to wipe it down.
In ten minutes, the computers would come on, and she would start waking up East Coast home owners. But now, sick and tardy telemarketers were calling Vito with their excuses.
She could hear Vito was yelling into the phone, “Your hand is all swollen and hurts? So what do you want me to do?
Kiss it? If you’re not coming in, I need a doctor’s note.”
The phone rang again. “You promised me you weren’t going to do this shit again,” Vito screamed. “You want
