“A woman was being killed.”
“Then listen to your instincts. Make the call.”
Helen’s fingers felt cold and unwieldy, a dead woman’s fingers. Her brain was racing: Nellie believed her, but what if the cops didn’t? What if—?
“911. Do you need police, fire or medical?”
“Police.” Helen had trouble getting out that one word. The others came in a gasping rush, as if she’d been running for miles. “I just called a house. I heard a woman being hurt. No, killed. I heard her die. They were having a fight and she was screaming and he killed her.” At least I think so. Helen silently smothered her doubts.
The 911 operator said, “Where is help needed?”
Helen found her businesslike tone soothing. Just the facts, ma’am. We can deal with this, no matter how bad it seems.
Helen read the address on her computer screen. “It’s 1751
Seamont. On the Intracoastal Waterway. Hurry, but I think it’s too late.”
“What city?”
“Brideport,” Helen said.
“What was the phone number of the person you were calling?”
Helen read it from the computer screen.
“What is your name and telephone number?”
“Helen Hawthorne.” She gave the Girdner number.
“Where are you calling from?” The litany of questions was comforting. The 911 operator’s voice was soothing as poppy syrup.
“Girdner Surveys,” Helen said. “It’s near Broward Boulevard and U.S. 1. I’m a telemarketer there. I was calling the Asporth house when I heard someone murder this woman.”
“And the name of the person you were calling?”
“Henry Asporth. He answered the phone. He said his name was Hank. Then he put the phone down and I heard him arguing with a woman. She sounded young, but I don’t know who she was. She screamed, but it was cut off. I think he strangled her or broke her neck. He killed her. I heard it.”
“For my own clarification, you did not hear shots,” the operator said. “You heard the male subject strangle the female?”
“Yes,” Helen said. “I didn’t hear a gun. I think he killed her with his bare hands. It was horrible. Then he hung up the phone.”
“How much time has gone by since you hung up?”
“I don’t know,” Helen said. “A couple of minutes. Maybe five at the most. Nellie—she’s my supervisor—she told me to call. It hasn’t been real long. And I didn’t hang up the phone. He did.”
“Did he sound like an older male or a younger male?”
“Old. No, young. But not too young. He was grown up.”
“Did it sound like there was another male present?”
“I didn’t hear another man. Just Hank Asporth and the woman he strangled.” And maybe another woman, Helen thought. But before she could say it, the operator said, “What makes you think that he strangled her?”
“I heard him! It was this awful choking noise.”
“Was she choking on food?” the 911 operator said.
“No, it wasn’t choking like that. She was fighting, trying to stay alive, and then she made this terrible sound.”
“What sound?”
Helen couldn’t describe the sound and she couldn’t forget it.
“A dying sound,” Helen said. “She was murdered and I heard it.”
All her doubts went away. At least for the moment. After Helen repeated everything Hank had said again, the 911 operator told her the police and paramedics had been dispatched and that the police would contact her later. Helen put down the receiver. It felt like it weighed twenty pounds in her hand.
“Are you OK?” Nellie asked.
“I’m fine,” Helen said.
“You don’t look fine,” Berletta said. “Not unless you’re wearing flour for makeup. Let me get you some water.”
Penelope had strict rules about telemarketers being seen but not heard. “You can’t go out now,” Helen said. “There are clients here. If you’re caught roaming the halls, you’ll be fired.”
“If they want to fire me for acting like a human being, shame on them,” Berletta said.
Helen started to get up, but Nellie pushed her down. “Sit.
You look like particular hell. I’ll lie for Berletta if I have to.”
“It’s too big a risk,” Helen said. “Berletta needs this job.”
Berletta had a ten-year-old daughter with cerebral palsy.
Her free days were spent fighting with the insurance companies for disallowed medicine and treatments. Her evenings were spent at Girdner, trying to pay off medical bills that had climbed to six figures.
“Don’t worry, I’m packing protection,” Berletta said. She picked up a clipboard. “This is a trick my husband learned in the army. If you walk around with a clipboard, nobody questions you.”
Helen laughed. The laugh turned into a shrill giggle that she had trouble stopping.
“Do you want to go home?” Nellie said to Helen. “I’ll write you an excuse.”
“I’m fine,” Helen said. She could feel tears clogging her throat, but she fought them back.
“How about some chocolate therapy?” Nellie said. “Sugar and caffeine are good for shock. The almonds will give you protein.” She pulled out a gold-wrapped chocolate bar.
“Ah, the healing powers of Godiva,” Helen said. She ate the chocolate. Berletta returned unscathed with a bottle of water and a damp paper towel. Helen gulped the cold water, then wiped her face with the towel and took a deep breath.
“Enough,” she said. “I’m going back to work.”
“You’re one tough woman,” Nellie said.
“It’s all the abuse I take as a telemarketer.”
The hourly insults, sexual slurs and questions about her parentage had toughened her up. She could work. She would work. She had a quota to fill, or she’d never get survey duty again.
Helen didn’t want to think about what she had unleashed.
If the cops really did find a dead woman, they might look into Helen’s past. She’d changed her name, but she was still on the run. Any halfway smart cop could figure it out.
The cops would find no credit cards, no bank account, no phone in her name. They’d realize she was using a false name in about thirty seconds. She’d be on her way back to St. Louis. Helen wondered if she’d have to wear handcuffs the whole trip.
She went back to the computer, and called the next person, a thirty-two-year-old stockbroker named Ashley Lipston. “May I speak to Ms. Lipston?” Helen’s voice sounded like it came from a newly opened tomb.
“I can’t hear you. Speak up.”
“I’m doing a sturbay, I mean, a survey for Spilver Sur—”
Ms. Lipston slammed down the phone.
Helen stumbled through her next presentation, too. Then she started signing up Silver Spur martini drinkers, finding a strange relief in doing her job.
A shaky hour and a half later, two Brideport police officers came to Girdner Surveys. The night receptionist, who looked like Helen’s third-grade teacher, Sister Wilhelmina, brought them back to the phone room.
“These police officers are here to see you,” she said.
The receptionist gave Helen a disapproving look, as if she’d just earned six demerits. Helen wondered if any clients had seen the cops.
Nellie and Berletta put down their phones and frankly eavesdropped.
The two officers were as clean and new as their uniforms.
One was dark, compact and muscular—a farm boy with a nose like a new potato. The other was a blond woman with short, untidy hair. The shirttail of her uniform blouse was creeping out of her waistband and her collar
