Elaine Viets & Victoria Laurie, Nancy Martin, Denise Swanson - Drop-Dead Blonde (v5.0) (pdf) by Unknown (best classic books .TXT) 📗

in the bushes near the pool, then a terrified squeak was cut short. South Florida was a strange, primordial place, freshly ripped from the swamps. Predators of all kinds abounded. What did anyone here know about their neighbors?

In Helen's hometown of St. Louis, everyone was con- nected in some way. One phone call, and Helen would know all about a man: where he went to high school, if his dad carried a briefcase or a lunch box to work, if his mom was a church lady, a lush--or both.

In south Florida, people have no families and no pasts. We are all freshly remade and newly hatched, Helen thought. Including me. Including Minfreda, who may or may not have been a murderer.

``It was nearly three weeks later when the police investi- gated Vicki's disappearance,'' Margery said.

``Her sister, Val, called them after Vicki didn't show up for a birthday dinner. It was Vicki's birthday this time. Val and Vicki weren't close, but they never missed their birth- days. Val didn't even have a key to her own sister's house. The cops broke in Vicki's door and found the typed good- bye letter. Oddly, it was the letter that made Val suspicious.

`` `Vicki has never given me anything I've ever wanted,' her sister said. `She wouldn't give me that Mustang. She'd sell it and take the cash.'

``It was funny reasoning. The cops didn't buy it. But when Val told me, I thought it made sense. Remember, I got sent out to buy Val's birthday present.

``The police came here. I talked with a Detective Mow-

151 152 Elaine Viets lby, I think it was. He had an odd name. He was very impressed with himself, but I wasn't impressed with him. He struck me as one of the boys in a trench coat.

``Mr. Hammonds, the CEO, showed the detective Vicki's resignation letter. Mowlby questioned everyone in the of- fice, including me.''

``Did you tell the cops you suspected Minfreda?'' Helen said.

``I told them what I knew for sure,'' Margery said. ``That Vicki was a lesbian and Chris was a woman.''

``What!'' Helen nearly dropped her wineglass on the concrete.

``Sure. I saw them together at a restaurant in Miami.''

``But Vicki flirted with all the men.''

``Yes, she did. Vicki was what we used to call a lipstick lesbian. I don't know if that term is proper anymore. She was excessively feminine. She loved to lead men on. But she lost her heart to a woman with tattoos and a hairy lip.

``When I thought back to her stories about Chris, she'd never said 'he.' And Vicki was so proud when Chris beat up the man who looked at her too long. That story made more sense when you understood that Chris was a woman.''

``But why was Vicki jealous of Minfreda and the atten- tion she got from the men?''

``It wasn't about sex,'' Margery said, as if she were talk- ing to a large, slow child. ``It was about power.

``After Detective Mowlby heard that, he was even less interested in digging. He confirmed that Vicki was a lesbian and had a lover named Christine. He confirmed that Chris- tine had quit her job, closed out her bank accounts, and skipped town, leaving no forwarding address.

``Detective Mowlby figured Vicki and Chris took off for San Francisco or some equally open-minded place. Remem- ber, people ran away from dull marriages and boring jobs a lot more in the sixties. It was an unstable time. Mowlby had more work than he could handle. Most of it was either hopeless or solved itself. The missing twenty-year-old daughter would usually turn up on her own, with VD and track marks, or she'd been living in some crazy commune. Either way, she'd want her middle-class life back, and in most cases Mommy and Daddy were more than happy to welcome her home. KILLER BLONDE 153

``The detective told me that Vicki's bank accounts had been cleaned out by a blonde in a pink coat the morning after she wrote that letter. Her clothes, makeup, and purse were gone. He thought the letter giving her car and per- sonal effects to her sister was a nice gesture. The detective said Vicki might have committed suicide--people often gave away their favorite possessions before they stepped off a bridge. Mowlby checked all the morgues and hospitals, and no blondes like her turned up.

``Val laughed at that idea.'Suicide?' she said.'Not a chance. My sister drove people to suicide, but she wouldn't take herself there.'

``Val called, wrote letters and browbeat the cops. The detective went through the motions. He looked through Vicki's office files in our storage room and had her type- writer dusted, but didn't find any useful prints. Too many people had used it since Vicki left.''

``Left?'' Helen said. ``She was murdered. She was dropped headfirst down a Dumpster. Didn't you tell the police about the Dumpster and the broken coffee cup?''

``Coffee cups break all the time,'' Margery said.

``But you found blood on Vicki's desk,'' Helen said.

``One drop. Maybe she cut herself when she broke the coffee mug. Sure, I thought the rolled-up rug went down the Dumpster, but I had no proof a body was in there. I never looked.''

``You didn't want to look,'' Helen said.

Margery shrugged. ``If Detective Mowlby had asked me, I would have told him what I suspected, but he didn't bother. I was just a secretary. What did I know? Besides, the cops weren't looking for a killer. They knew the staff didn't like Vicki, but most people don't like their bosses. Mr. Hammonds's memo didn't mention that Vicki had sto- len Minfreda's ideas. We all followed the CEO's lead. We didn't mention it, either.

``After a while, Val quit pushing the police and they quit asking questions. Val was thrilled to have that snappy little Mustang convertible. I don't think she missed her mean little sister