Half-Price Homicide Read online

  Half-Price Homicide

  Copyright © Elaine Viets, 2010

  Originally published by Signet, May 2010

  Published as an eBook in in 2018 by JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

  All rights reserved

  eISBN: 978-1-625673-26-8

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Tiger Bright Studios

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Also by Elaine Viets

  About the Author

  For Sherry Schreiber, who said I would be amazed

  by what happens at designer consignment shops.

  You were right.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There is no Snapdragon’s Second Thoughts. It doesn’t exist, nor does its clientele. Fort Lauderdale has lots of designer consignment shops. I researched this novel at Hibiscus Place Emporium, 1406 East Las Olas Boulevard. Special thanks to former owner Manny Lopez, Laurie Hooper, Chris Lopez and Josefina Rivas, who does the finest alterations in Fort Lauderdale. I did button shirts at Hibiscus Place, and dusted the stock, including those pineapples. Why those pineapples are so popular is a mystery I will never solve.

  Special thanks to D. P. Lyle, MD, for helping me determine signs of death. His Writer’s Forensics Blog (writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com) is recommended for all your forensic needs. Fred Powers of Powers Bowersox Associates, Inc., told me how to bury a body in a basement.

  If you follow my account of body disposal and get caught, those mistakes are mine, not theirs.

  Librarian Doris Ann Norris helped me plan a traditional Catholic funeral.

  Steven Toth, of Mr. Entertainment and the Pookiesmackers, answered my questions about punk/indie bands, even after I admitted to liking the Dandy Warhols.

  Thanks to the tax experts and lawyers who advised me on Helen’s tangled financial and legal affairs, including M. Susan Carlson of Chackes, Carlson & Spritzer.

  A special thank-you to editor Sandra Harding at NAL, her assistant Elizabeth Bistrow, Kara Cesare and Lindsay Nouis, and the NAL production staff. Thanks also to my long-suffering husband, Don Crinklaw, who eats the orange chips and butter-and-onion sandwiches like Phil does, and to my agent, David Hendin, who is always there when I need him.

  Many other people helped me with this book, including Detective R. C. White, Fort Lauderdale Police Department (retired), Synae White and Rick McMahan, ATF special agent.

  Special thanks to Valerie Cannata, Colby Cox, Jinny Gender, Karen Grace, Kay Gordy, Jack Klobnak, Kevin Lane, Robert Levine, Janet Smith and Carole Wantz, who could sell fur coats at a PETA convention.

  Les Steinberg of Steinberg & Steinberg, LLC, is my expert on boys’ toys, not to be confused with boy toys. Tom Barclay and Mary Lynn Reed told me how to get fired from radio.

  Librarian Anne Watts lent me her cat, Thumbs, for the Dead-End Job series. Thanks again to the librarians at the St. Louis Public Library and Broward County Library. Yes, I could get information from the Internet, but I’m not smart enough to know what’s solid and what’s misleading. I need librarians for that.

  Thanks also to my sister bloggers on The Lipstick Chronicles, for their advice and encouragement—Nancy Martin, Harley Jane Kozak, Sarah Strohmeyer, Lisa Daily and Kathy Sweeney.

  I’m also grateful to the many booksellers who hand-sell my work and encourage me.

  Finally, any errors are my own. If you want to complain or, better yet, tell me what you like about the novel, please e-mail me at [email protected].

  CHAPTER 1

  “I need to see Vera right away,” the pocket-sized blonde said.

  Her voice was a sweet whisper.

  Helen Hawthorne could barely see the woman’s curly head over the counter. She reminded Helen of a cream pie with her high-piled sugar white hair and lush curves. A size two, Helen estimated, based on her years in retail.

  Cutie-pie was no tourist vacationing in Fort Lauderdale. She belonged on fashionable Las Olas Boulevard. But Helen figured Cutie-pie would pay full price for her skimpy white dress, not hunt used bargains at Snapdragon’s Second Thoughts, the high-end clothing consignment store where Helen worked.

  Cutie-pie dropped a stack of soiled men’s shirts on the counter. They landed with a thud that told Helen extra starch wasn’t what weighed them down. She hoped the dark red stain on the white shirt was ketchup.

  “Do you have any dry cleaning for pickup?” Helen asked.

  Cutie-pie looked around as though checking for spies, then said, “Tell Vera it’s Angelina Jolie. It’s urgent.”

  This Angelina wasn’t bringing up babies with Brad Pitt. Vera gave all her prime clothing sources celebrity code names. She had to make sure the up-and-coming lawyers, businesswomen and social butterflies who bought her designer consignment didn’t travel in the same circles as the sellers. Selling your barely worn clothes was a worse faux pas than sleeping with your friend’s husband. As with adultery, the real sin was getting caught.

  But Vera cleverly provided Cutie-pie and her selling sisters good excuses to come into the store. Snapdragon’s also did first-rate dry cleaning and sold expensive knickknacks. Cutie-pie could say she was at Snapdragon’s doing her wifely duty and dropping off hubby’s shirts.

  “She’s in the back room,” Helen said. “I’ll get her.”

  “Hurry,” the blonde said. “He can’t know I’m here.”

  The sellers were always in a hurry. What if a friend came in to sell her castoffs? The shame would set off seismic shudders in their circle.

  Helen didn’t run through the narrow store, packed with high-priced clutter. But her long, loping stride covered several yards at a time. She cut through bins of dirty laundry, dodged a display of designer purses, tiptoed past the Waterford and powered through the consignment clothes racks. Versace, Gucci, True Religion and other designer names flashed by.

  After booking nearly a block through this pricey obstacle course, Helen stopped at the print curtains leading to the office of Vera Salinda, Snapdragon’s owner.

  She could hear a man’s voice say, “What do you think of me now? Do you love me?” His voice was the sort of whisper that made good women do naughty things.

  Vera’s was light and teasing. “Love you? Keep performing like this and I’ll marry you.”

  Oops, Helen thought. I’m interrupting a private moment.

  “Please, hurry!” Cutie-pie pleaded. Helen could hear her all the way in the back of the store.

  Helen knocked on the doorjamb, and Vera said, “Come in.”

  Helen tried not to stare at the
man next to Vera, but he was a fallen angel with a narrow waist, broad shoulders and artfully tousled golden hair. He seemed surrounded by sunshine. Or maybe it was a halo.

  “This is Roger,” Vera said.

  “Who should be leaving,” Roger said.

  “No, don’t go,” Vera said. “I still need you. I’ll be right back. Wait here.” She pulled the print curtains shut. Helen and Vera stepped into a dressing room. Vera’s sleek dark hair was like an ax blade. Her plump red lips looked like fresh blood. Her pearl white skin had an otherworldly glow in the underlit room.

  “What?” she asked Helen.

  “Angelina Jolie is here,” Helen said. “She wants to see you. She says it’s urgent.”

  “Hell’s bells,” Vera said. “Not her. The only thing worse would be Kate Winslet.”

  Vera hurried toward the front, adjusting her bloodred mouth into a scary smile. Tight black Versace jeans and a pink tank top showed off her gym-toned body.

  Helen picked up the Windex and started cleaning the costume-jewelry case, where she could watch and listen, but not be noticed. Snapdragon’s odd acoustics amplified voices.

  “Chrissy Martlet, how are you?” Vera asked. She swung her cutting-edge hairstyle and leaned on the counter. Muscles rippled under her hot pink top.

  “In a hurry,” Chrissy said. Her sweet breathy voice was a breeze through a bakery. “I have something to show you.”

  She moved the soiled shirts to reveal a brown leopard-print purse with a Prada logo. “It’s a pony-hair purse. Still has the original tags and the certificate of authenticity.”

  Pony hair, Helen thought. A purse made from a baby horse? She decided the material wasn’t any creepier than calfskin.

  Vera ran her fingers over the gold Prada logo, prodded the hairy purse with her long, bone white fingers and unzipped it. Helen saw the brown signature lining.

  “It’s the real deal,” Vera said. “I can sell it for four ninety-five.”

  Chrissy went even whiter. “What? That means I’ll only get half. Two hundred fifty dollars.”

  “Two forty-seven fifty,” Vera corrected. “And that’s if I sell it.”

  “I can’t do anything with that kind of money,” Chrissy said. Her sweet whisper changed to a thin vinegar whine. “That purse was three thousand dollars.”

  “It’s like a car, Chrissy. Once you drive it off the lot, it loses its value. Leopard print is so last year.” Vera’s voice was harder than her fake nails.

  “What about Tansey? Call her. She’ll take it.” Chrissy couldn’t hide her desperation.

  Chrissy must be a regular, Helen thought, if she knows the names of the women who buy her clothes.

  “Tansey hasn’t been buying,” Vera said. “Her ad agency is laying off staff.”

  “Couldn’t you give me a little more money? I have the tags and the receipt. Unlike some of your sources, I don’t steal.”

  “Nobody cares about your receipt,” Vera said.

  “The police would.” Chrissy returned to sweet-talking. “Please, Vera. You know me. My code name is—”

  “I know your real identity, Angelina,” Vera said, quickly cutting her off. “Hush. You never know who could walk in.”

  With a screech of brakes, a black BMW with a grille like a hungry mouth slid into the loading zone in front of the shop. The driver’s door slammed. A man filled the shop door, blocking out the harsh August sun.

  Chrissy looked frightened. “It’s Danny,” she whispered. “I think my husband followed me here. He’s getting suspicious. That’s why I asked your girl to hurry.” Chrissy hastily dropped the soiled shirts back on top of the pony-hair purse.

  Big didn’t begin to describe Danny Martlet. He was dark and threatening as a thunderstorm. His black eyebrows were like low-hanging clouds. His eyes flashed with barely controlled anger. He wore a navy suit, but didn’t sweat in the sweltering August heat.

  “Chrissy, pumpkin, you’re up early,” he said. “It’s not even noon.” His smile showed sharp teeth that made Helen shudder.

  “I’m taking your shirts in for laundering.” Chrissy’s voice trembled slightly. “Vera is the best dry cleaner in town. I want only the best for my hardworking man.”

  “Be sure and show her that ketchup stain on my white shirt,” Danny said. He grabbed the Hugo Boss shirt, exposing the pony-hair purse.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “It’s a purse,” Chrissy said.

  “I can see it’s a purse. I also see that Gucci bag on your shoulder. Since when do you carry two purses? Are you trying to spend twice as much of my money?”

  Helen heard him accent that “my.”

  “No. I must have picked it up by accident.”

  “Unless you were trying to sell it. This is a designer consignment shop. Was she bringing in that purse to sell, Vera?”

  “I told her leopard print is so last season,” Vera said.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Vera,” Danny said. “You sell designer clothes on consignment and my wife is addicted to logos.”

  “So what if I am?” Chrissy exploded. “You want me to look better than all the other wives, but you won’t give me any money.”

  “I don’t trust you around cash, sweetie,” Danny said. “It disappears at the touch of your little white fingers. But I let you shop as much as you want. You have unlimited credit at Neiman Marcus, Gucci, Prada and every other major shop from here to Miami.”

  “Did it ever occur to you I might want my own money?” Little Chrissy looked like a Chihuahua yapping at a Doberman.

  “Then get off your lazy ass and make some,” Danny said.

  “I can’t! I gave up my acting career when I married you.”

  “I hardly think a mattress commercial and a straight-to-DVD movie counts as an acting career,” Danny said.

  “I didn’t have a chance to develop my art,” Chrissy said.

  Danny snorted. “The only acting you do is in the sack.” He meanly mimicked a woman in the throes of pretend passion: “ ‘Oh, Danny, more. More. More.’ More sex or more shopping, dear heart?”

  Helen kept her head down and scrubbed the already-clean display case. This was way too much information. They were talking so loud, she felt like she was inside their argument.

  Danny’s diatribe was interrupted by the clip-clop of high heels. A jingle of bells signaled Snapdragon’s door was opening. Vera slipped between the warring couple and said, “Continue your conversation elsewhere, please.”

  Danny dragged his wife by the arm to the back of the store. There was a tiny tinkling sound in their wake. Helen found a woman’s diamond Rolex wristwatch on the floor. Was it Chrissy’s?

  She heard a dressing room door slam. She waited, then knocked on the door. Chrissy and Danny were facing each other in the cramped space. Her face was bright red.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Helen said. “Is this your watch, Chrissy?”

  “Yes, thank you. The clasp is loose. That’s my next errand.” She absently fastened it on her wrist as her husband shut the door in Helen’s face. She caught snatches of their argument over the store’s low background music.

  “What do you mean, am I cheating on you?” Danny said.

  “I saw the way you stared at her last night!” Chrissy said.

  “I wasn’t looking at her designer dress, that’s for sure.”

  “No, you were looking at her fake tits,” Chrissy said. “Mine are real. So are my designer dresses. She wore a knockoff and everyone knew it.”

  “And none of the men cared,” her husband taunted.

  “You don’t love me anymore,” Chrissy said. “You want rid of me. That’s why you’re following me around. You want a divorce.”

  “Cut the melodrama,” Danny said. “If I wanted you gone, your ass would be out the door. Gone. Over and out. Understand?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Helen didn’t want to hear another ugly word. She moved toward the front to wipe down the sunglasses rack and tried
to block out Danny and Chrissy’s argument.

  Vera turned up the background music a notch, then loudly welcomed her new customer. “Loretta Stranahan. How nice to see the best-dressed woman on the county board of commissioners.”

  Helen nearly dropped the spray bottle. Loretta could have been Chrissy’s twin sister. Her blond hair was a shade or two yellower, but she was as small, creamy and curvy as Danny’s wife. And as well dressed in black Moschino and polka-dot heels. She looked about thirty and dangerous. No one would ever call her “little Loretta.”

  “Broward County has lots of women commissioners,” Loretta said. “But I like the competition. I came by to see if you got in more suits from Glenn Close.”

  “Sorry,” Vera said. “Glenn hasn’t made a delivery lately.”

  “Is she hanging on to her suits longer now?” Loretta asked.

  “Even the rich have money problems,” Vera said. “Men who never noticed the price of laundry now want their shirts on hangers instead of in boxes. You know why? Shirts are seventy-five cents cheaper on hangers. Seventy-five cents! These are the same men who used to leave their change on the counter because it made holes in their pants pockets. Now they count every freaking penny.”

  “Please, let’s not go there,” Loretta said. “I’ve had endless meetings about budget cuts. With the picketers, postcard campaigns and petitions, I’m about to snap.”

  “Let me show you my new arrivals in the back,” Vera said.

  “Watch the store, Helen,” Vera whispered. “I have to make sure Loretta doesn’t run into Danny.”

  Loretta trailed Vera through the store. Helen could hear Vera say, “I have a Chanel suit in your size.”

  “Too expensive-looking,” Loretta said. “My constituents will think I’m on the take.”

  “A black Ferragamo, then,” Vera said. “That’s rich-looking but not rich.”

  “Vera, honey, I have a hundred black suits. They all look alike.”

  “I’ll find you a new blouse,” Vera said. “A touch of color would freshen a suit. I have some hand-painted scarves. They’d look good on television.”

  “Well, I could look. That wouldn’t cost anything.” Loretta was weakening.