Free Murder With Reservations by Elaine Viets

handing Helen’s home address to Rob. In My Little Runaway, Helen saw Tara abandoning her current boyfriend for Rob. Helen knew that last movie would never be made. Paulie might be crude as a bus-station toilet stall, but he was filthy rich. Exotic-looking Tara, with her size-two figure and long dark curtain of hair, had an adding machine for a heart. She’d figure out Rob didn’t have any money the first time he hit her up for the dinner check.
    Still, the movies didn’t stop. Helen continued to torment herself. She dropped a room phone and hopelessly tangled the cord. She tripped over a wastebasket full of cigarette ashes.
    Cheryl slapped her cell phone into Helen’s hand for the third time. “Call again.” She sounded out of patience. Her daughter might be named Angel, but Cheryl wasn’t a saint yet.
    Helen hit redial, the only button on the phone she could manage, and prayed.
    Tara picked up on the third ring. “Helen,” she said.
    Helen heard the pleasure in Tara’s voice. After a rocky start, they’d genuinely liked each other.
    “I haven’t heard from you in ages,” Tara said. “I guess you’re calling to thank me. Congratulations. No one deserves good luck more than you.”
    “What good luck?” Helen said, knowing she didn’t have any.
    “The St. Louis lawyer who’s trying to track you down, silly,” Tara said. “That’s why you’re calling me, isn’t it? He said you’d inherited almost a million dollars. He wanted to get in touch with you. I didn’t know your phone number—oh, wait, you don’t have one, do you? I couldn’t remember your address, but I said you lived in that cute little place near the old shop, the Cranford.”
    “The Cranford?” Helen said, relief flooding her voice.
    “Yes. That’s the name of your apartment house, isn’t it?”
    “Right,” Helen lied. “The Cranford Apartments. I just called to say thank-you. It was a complete surprise. How is Paulie these days?” She played a brief game of catchup. As they talked, Helen wondered if Tara still flipped her waist-length hair. It had seemed to be in constant motion at the store.
    When Helen hung up the phone, she sank down with relief on a freshly made bed.
    She was safe. At least for now. Tara had accidentally sent Rob to a dead end.
     

 

    H elen spent her break staring at the rain. This was a Florida frog strangler, a lashing rain that turned the long lobby windows into tropical waterfalls. Even through the gray veil of water, Helen could see the Full Moon’s lawn was a lake and the parking lot was flooded. She watched the headlights of the cars trying to negotiate the hubcap-deep water.
    A storm so fierce would be over soon, but so would Helen’s break. She morosely munched her pretzels, gone soggy in the humidity. She might as well eat salted sawdust. Nothing was going right today.
    “Helen!” Cheryl said. “Get away from those windows. What if your ex-husband sees you?” Her dark curls were crinkled with concern.
    “He won’t be out in this weather,” Helen said. “Rob is holed up in a bar somewhere.”
    “You’re taking an unnecessary risk,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs. Ready to tackle room 323?”
    “Do we have a choice?” Helen tossed the rest of her limp pretzels in the trash and brushed the salt off her smock.
    “There’s always a choice,” Cheryl said. “But we may not like it.”
    Helen was in no mood for philosophy. Even a stoic would have trouble facing room 323.
    She nearly gagged when Cheryl unlocked the door. The greasy odor of old pizza and stale cigarette smoke smacked her in the face.
    “No doubt about it,” Helen said. “A smoker slept here.”
    “Slept badly, too,” Cheryl said. “You can tell a lot looking at a bed someone’s slept in. You can see if he was alone or with someone. When you see the sheets all tumbled and twisted, you know he had a night full of worries.”
    Helen hoped she didn’t have many nights like this guest. The sheets were