Killer Blonde by Elaine Viets

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.
    â€œThe police came here. I talked with a Detective Mowlby, 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.
    â€œMr. Hammonds, the CEO, showed the detective Vicki’s resignation letter. Mowlby questioned everyone in the office, including me.”
    â€œDid you tell the cops you suspected Minfreda?” Helen said.
    â€œI told them what I knew for sure,” Margery said. “That Vicki was a lesbian and Chris was a woman.”
    â€œWhat!” Helen nearly dropped her wineglass on the concrete.
    â€œSure. I saw them together at a restaurant in Miami.”
    â€œBut Vicki flirted with all the men.”
    â€œYes, 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.
    â€œWhen 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.”
    â€œBut why was Vicki jealous of Minfreda and the attention she got from the men?”
    â€œIt wasn’t about sex,” Margery said, as if she were talking to a large, slow child. “It was about power.
    â€œAfter 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 Christine had quit her job, closed out her bank accounts, and skipped town, leaving no forwarding address.
    â€œDetective Mowlby figured Vicki and Chris took off for San Francisco or some equally open-minded place. Remember, 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.
    â€œThe 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 personal 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.
    â€œVal laughed at that idea. ‘Suicide?’ she said. ‘Not a chance. My sister drove people to suicide, but she wouldn’t take herself there.’
    â€œVal 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 typewriter dusted, but didn’t find any useful prints. Too many people had used it since Vicki left.”
    â€œLeft?” 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?”
    â€œCoffee cups break all the time,” Margery said.
    â€œBut you found blood on Vicki’s desk,” Helen said.
    â€œOne 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.”
    â€œYou didn’t want to look,” Helen said.
    Margery