“Where?”
“If I knew that, it wouldn’t be hidden, would it?”
Savannah moved the spray bottle closer to Kristi’s eyes.
“I didn’t want to know,” Kristi said. “Laredo was gone and Debbie was dead. I was afraid I’d be next.” She was crying hard now. Her white face was now an ugly red. Her nose was running. “You can point that thing at me all day, but I don’t know any more.”
“You got any family?” Savannah said.
“A sister in Missoula.”
“I suggest you take a nice long visit home. The last woman we talked to wound up wearing real corpse clothes.”
Chapter 18
“Some of the greatest actors of all time had a period of hired sex in their past,” Savannah said. “Marilyn Monroe, for instance.”
Helen said nothing. She was still shaking from the encounter with Kristi. Or maybe it was from riding in the Tank.
The car was shimmying like Elvis’ hips. The troll doll was dancing from the rearview mirror. Her stomach was in a spin cycle.
“My sister wasn’t a hooker.” Savannah sounded like she was trying to convince herself. She clutched the bucking steering wheel with both hands. If she held onto it, she might hold onto her sanity.
“Savannah, I work rotten jobs just like you,” Helen said.
“Dead-end jobs hurt your body. They grind down your spirit.
Anyone who talks about the dignity of labor has never worked them. After a day on the phone in the boiler room, I can hardly move my neck, it hurts so bad. I come home at night and fall into bed—alone. I don’t have the time or the energy to date.
“I’m tough. You are, too. But someone as young and pretty as your sister might do anything to escape.”
A single tear slid down Savannah’s dry, freckled face, as if she had no more left. Helen could hardly bear to watch its slow progress. “Laredo put on those weird clothes and climbed into a coffin with flabby old men. My little sister.
How could she?”
“She must have been a great actress,” Helen said.
Savannah seemed to find Helen’s comment comforting.
They rode in silence for a mile or so, if any time in the jiggling, jittering Tank could be called quiet. An SUV driver gunned her engine and drove around them, narrowly missing the Tank’s bumper as she flipped them off.
“Can I ask you a favor?” Helen said. “Can we pull over and ditch that spray bottle? It makes me nervous. If we have an accident, bleach and ammonia are a highly volatile substance.”
“It’s just plain ammonia,” Savannah said. “There’s no bleach. I wasn’t going to take a chance like that. I told you I’m trained in the use of household products. I brought the masks for effect. They scared Kristi good.”
“Scared me, too,” Helen said.
“Sorry about that. I wouldn’t really use such a dangerous substance. But I knew Kristi wouldn’t tell me the truth. I had to frighten it out of her. She’s a hooker, however much you dress it up in white lace and lilies. Hookers are good at lying.
It’s what they do for a living.”
More silence. Laredo, the pinup-pretty blonde with the sassy red high heels, was in the car with them. Helen could almost see her laughing—and lying to her sister. Even the rattling Tank couldn’t shake their sadness.
“Well,” Savannah said, because she couldn’t say anything else. “Wanna get something to eat?”
Helen realized breakfast had been her last meal, and it was four o’clock. “Sure. My treat.”
“No, mine. I ruined your appetite. Least I can do is help you get it back.”
They pulled into the Heywood Family Diner, a mom-and-pop place on U.S. 1. Exactly what we need right now, Helen thought. Hot buttered grease. Waitresses who call us “honey” and bring us comfort food.
Savannah got out, unscrewed the top on the spray bottle, and dumped the contents on the parking lot. Then she tossed the empty bottle in the back seat. It landed on a pile of yellowing newspapers and old takeout bags. She threw the two masks in the restaurant Dumpster.
Inside, the Heywood diner looked exactly the way Helen hoped it would. There was a long row of blue plastic booths.
Comfortable-looking waitresses carried pots of hot coffee.
The daily specials were chalked on a blackboard. The air smelled of fried eggs, fresh biscuits and hot coffee. Home.
They found a booth in a corner shielded by a glass-brick planter filled with dusty fake ferns.
“Coffee?” the waitress said. She carried two hot pots at once, a feat Helen could never master.
“You bet,” Helen said.
The waitress poured and said, “We got a tuna-melt special with coleslaw and fries for four ninety-five. A bread-pudding dessert comes with that.”
“Sold,” Helen said. “My grandmother made terrific bread pudding. I love the stuff.”
“Make that two,” Savannah said. “We’re easy.”
Their food was on the table ten minutes later. “This is just what I needed,” Savannah said.
The world did seem brighter with hot food. Savannah quit gnawing on herself and worked on her tuna melt. Helen ate everything down to the last salty fry. The waitress brought another round of hot coffee and bowls of fragrant bread pudding.
“They used lots of cinnamon,” Savannah said. “This is the good stuff.”
“What do you call that yellow sauce on your bread pudding?” Helen asked.
“Hard sauce,” Savannah said.
“That’s what my Southern granny called it. Nobody else knows what I’m talking about.”
When they pushed back their bowls and had more coffee in front of them, Savannah was ready to talk about Laredo.
“What do you think my sister really had on that disk?
Kristi said it was money laundering and some fraud with big names. I can’t imagine what she means.”
“How much did Laredo know about computers?” Helen said.
“A lot more than I do. Computers are second nature to someone her age, and she was darn good. She could have had a career in them. But she said computer jobs were boring and didn’t pay enough. Plus, she thought the guys were geeks.”
“Did your sister mention anything about breaking into Hank’s computer?”
“No,” Savannah said. “But she didn’t always tell me everything.”
That was the understatement of the year, Helen thought.
“Laredo did tell you something: Hank treated her like dirt at his house and she got mad. She also got even. She told you she used his computer for video poker. I bet she was playing a more dangerous game. She broke into his financial records.
She could have been blackmailing him.”
“But what did she find—and why would the names surprise us?” Savannah said.
“Hank goes to parties at the Mowbrys’, and they’re connected to some powerful people in South Florida. Maybe he’s mixed up with the Six Feet Unders. He could be in some weird business like snuff films. People who like sex in coffins may also get off on watching people die.”
Savannah shivered, and Helen didn’t think it was the air conditioning. “God, I hope you’re wrong. Could you go back to Hank Asporth’s house and check out his computer?”
“No way I’ll ever get in his house again,” Helen said.
“Not after my date there. Besides, Hank isn’t stupid. Once Laredo threatened him, he’d have gotten the incriminating records out of there.
