Half-Price Homicide Read Online Free PDF Page A

right, Helen thought. I’ve been behaving badly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Chrissy’s death was an awful shock to all three of us. I shouldn’t have said anything. There is no normal way to behave when someone is murdered.”
    “Commits suicide,” Vera corrected.
    Helen gave Jordan a hug, and accidentally pulled her long hair. “Ow,” Jordan said. “You hurt me.”
    The sirens interrupted Helen’s clumsy attempted reconciliation. Police cars parked every which way, blocking Las Olas Boulevard. The long, narrow shop was overrun by an army of blue uniforms, until a sergeant sorted things out. Yellow crime-scene tape was strung to block off the store from the cash register on back. White jumpsuited crime-scene technicians arrived. Helen heard one say, “Do you know how many fingerprints there are in this place?”
    “We’re about to find out,” her partner said.
    Snapdragon’s was near the Floridian, a venerable grease spot that defied the trendy look of Las Olas. Patrons poured out of the restaurant and gawked in the shop window as if it were an exhibit at the fair. Helen recognized Johnny, a Floridian regular who held court daily at the restaurant’s outdoor tables with his little yellow Lab, Buster. Pretty women loved to pet Buster. Tourists liked to be photographed with him.
    Johnny lifted the pup so it could see inside Snapdragon’s. A blonde in shorts and a red bikini top reached up to pat Buster on his soft, furry head and gave Johnny a view that made his eyes widen. Buster was born to be a chick magnet.
    A few folks tried the shop’s door handle until a uniform was posted there. Then the morbidly curious were turned away. Another officer put out the store’s freshly fingerprinted closed sign.
    Vera, Jordan and Helen were separated and interviewed by uniformed officers. Vera was taken to her back office. Jordan sat in a sale chair by the ginger jars, and Helen perched on a tall chair at the counter up front.
    Helen was going over her account of the fatal morning for the second time when the front doorbells jingled merrily.
    In walked the last man Helen wanted to see.
     

Detective Richard McNally wore a suit the color of iron bars. His shirt was bone white, his tie a blood slash. His handcuff tie tack was a warning, at least to Helen. The man had been trouble for her before and he was going to be a problem now.
    A dark suit and tie in Fort Lauderdale in August was an invitation to heatstroke. Detective McNally looked cool as a Canadian winter.
    Helen did not. She felt queasy when the man walked through the door. She felt sicker when he put on protective booties and went back to see Chrissy’s body. She felt even worse when he returned with that knowing smile.
    “Miss Hawthorne,” he said. “Or is it ‘Mrs.’ now?”
    “Ms.,” Helen said. She meant to sound defiant, but couldn’t quite hide the quaver in her voice.
    “I gave you a wedding present three months ago when I let you walk,” he said. “Now there’s another dead body and here you are.”
    “I didn’t kill Chrissy,” Helen said.
    “But you just happened to be here when she died. And you just happened to be at the scene when that gossip King died. Imagine my surprise when I found you were also working at a Fort Lauder-dale hotel when a maid just happened to be murdered there.”
    “I didn’t have anything to do with Rhonda’s death,” Helen said.
    “You weren’t arrested for it. But you are what we call a link in three murders.”
    At least he doesn’t know about the others, Helen thought.
    As if he’d read her mind, Detective McNally said, “If I put together those links, I bet I’ll find a long chain. If I yanked that chain, I’m sure I’d find something you’ve been hiding, Ms. Hawthorne. Something you don’t want the police to know.”
    Helen knew he would. McNally was smart. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out Helen had been on the run for more than two years. So far, no Florida cop had tumbled to