“How did she find out Kiki was dead? I didn’t call you until five.”
“It was on the news from about two o’clock on,” Millicent said.
Of course. Helen had been holed up at the church all afternoon, but that didn’t mean the rest of the world was locked away. She’d seen the TV vans outside the cathedral.
“This is a public relations disaster,” Millicent said.
For the first time, she looked old and desperate. “Helen, what am I going to do? I’ve had three cancellations already. Desiree has refused to pay the balance of Kiki’s order. I’ll lose my business. I’m too old to start over again. I’ve worked so hard for everything and now it’s gone horribly wrong.”
Millicent put her head down on her desk and began to weep. Helen couldn’t stand to watch a strong woman cry.
“Don’t!” she pleaded. “I’ll think of something.”
“What can you do?”
Nothing, Helen thought. I’m a shopgirl. I won’t even be that if Millicent goes out of business. I’ll have to look for another job, and that’s harder work than working. Any job I find won’t be as nice as this one.
She recalled some of her previous dead-end jobs. She’d been a clumsy crockery-dropping waitress at a Greek diner. She shuddered when she thought of the owner, his hands fastened on her breasts like hairy suction cups.
She did time as a telemarketer and was cursed from coast to coast. Working at Millicent’s was a dream compared to those places. There was only one way to save her job.
“I can find the killer,” Helen said. “I’ve done it before.” Her brave words sounded silly.
“Even if the cops catch the killer that won’t help us. The damage here is permanent.” Millicent waved the “Weddings to Die For” ad at Helen, then threw it down on her desk.
The store was dead. The white wedding dresses hung like shrouds. Helen sat with Millicent like a mourner, while the phone rang and rang and the answering machine recorded one cancellation after another.
Chapter 11
“Customers!” Millicent said, and pulled herself out of the packing boxes like a shipwreck survivor who’d seen help on the horizon. She was starved for business. No bride would come near her store.
“We have customers! It’s a couple in their late thirties. Probably a second marriage. Good. She’ll be working and have money. She’s thin, too. She can wear clothes. I’ve got just the gown for her.”
Millicent spun this fantasy while she picked white threads off her suit and slipped on her shoes. The old fire was in her eyes. She marched confidently down the balcony stairs to the salon, determined to make this sale.
Helen looked over the balcony and nearly threw up on the happy couple. It was homicide detectives Bill McIntyre and Janet Smith. She saw Millicent’s shoulders sag as she got closer and recognized them. Helen started down the steps. Her feet felt like cinder blocks.
The Sunnysea detectives sat side by side on the gray husband couch. Both wore suits, but McIntyre’s was better tailored. Male detectives seemed to have a streak of vanity the women did not.
“They want to talk to you,” Millicent said. Helen could hear the relief in her boss’s voice.
Helen took a pink chair and sat down quickly, before she panicked and ran out the door. If I slip, they’ll send me back to my old, cold life in St. Louis, she thought. She saw her hands were white from gripping the chair arms and tried to relax.
The pumped-up McIntyre started talking this time. Helen wondered what weights he lifted to get a muscle- bound neck. As he spoke, little muscles moved like a living anatomy lesson. Helen expected his voice to be burly, too, but it was a light, pleasant tenor.
“We want to ask you a few more questions about the day of the wedding,” Detective McIntyre said. Even his mustache was muscular.
Helen stalled for time. “Have you found anything interesting?”
“We found some fingerprints on the wedding dress that was wrapped around the victim’s head,” he said. “Also on the dress the victim was wearing.”
“You can get fingerprints from cloth?” Helen said.
“Yes. Some kinds of cloth.”
“Do you think the prints belong to the killer?” Helen said.
“We thought maybe you could tell us.”
“Whose are they?” Helen said.
“Yours,” McIntyre said.
Helen wanted to put her head between her knees, the way the nuns made her when she felt sick at school. She wanted to bolt for the door.
Think, she told herself. You haven’t done anything wrong.
“Of course my fingerprints are on both dresses.” Helen’s voice was shaky and slightly too high. “I helped the bride into her gown during several fittings. I helped Kiki put on the rose dress. I carried both dresses into the church and hung them up.”
“Mind telling us where you were between eleven and two the night of the rehearsal dinner?” Detective Janet Smith said.
Helen felt her face grow hot with embarrassment. “I was with my boyfriend at my place.”
“All night?” Smith said.
Detective McIntyre sat there like a muscle monument. Helen wished he’d leer or do something human.
“Phil left about seven the next morning.”
“Anyone see him leave?” Detective Smith said.
“Probably my landlady. She knows everything that goes on at the Coronado,” Helen said.
“And your boyfriend will confirm this?”
“We had a fight and we’re not speaking, but yes. You can check with him.”
“We will. What aren’t you telling us?” Detective Smith said.
“What do you mean?” Helen tried to look her in the eye and failed.
“You know something,” Smith said.
I know a lot of things, Helen thought, but nothing I can tell you.
I know the bride didn’t want me to open the closet door where her mother’s body was stashed. I know her father and the best man virtually forced her into that marriage. I know the groom was determined to be in that Michael Mann movie, no matter what his mother-in-law said. I know the best man will save his theater with the money he inherited from Kiki. I know the chauffeur will inherit a million dollars.
Here’s the most important thing I know: I can’t afford to say anything. These people are rich and powerful. They can ruin me.
Maybe she could hint around about Jason. Actors had neither money nor power. Sorry, Jason, she thought, but the sharks are circling. I’m throwing you overboard. She might have felt guiltier if he wasn’t such a conceited twit.
“You tested Kiki’s body for DNA, right?” Helen said. “She might have been with someone the night of the rehearsal.”
“Been with how?” Detective McIntyre said.
“Sexually.” The word sounded prim and salacious at the same time.
“Believe it or not, we’ve heard of DNA,” McIntyre said.
“We watch the cop shows, too.” Detective Smith had a sarcastic streak.
Say something, Helen thought, but don’t babble. “The rose dress, the one Kiki was killed in? She couldn’t get into that dress by herself. It had a four-foot-wide hoop skirt.”
“Like Scarlett O’Hara?” McIntyre said.
“Exactly,” Helen said. “Scarlett had help. So did Kiki. That dress was fragile. It would be easy to step wrong and tear the skirt. Kiki couldn’t even sit down in a regular chair. She couldn’t put that dress on alone. So who helped her?”
