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inside.”
    “Deal,” Helen said. “I’ll be there in five minutes and get us a table.”
    “The Flo,” as the locals called it, stubbornly refused to change. While other Las Olas restaurants served teeny portions and picked pockets for two-hundred-dollar dinners, the Flo had generous food and small prices. This was diner food, with sassy servers and a lit dessert display case. Meals for serious grease abusers.
    If you were in the right mood, the Flo was friendly, funky and affordable. If you weren’t, then you could turn up your nose and decide the place needed a good scrubbing. In that case, the Flo hoped you’d order braised quail with kumquats elsewhere. It didn’t need your business.
    Phil turned heads as he walked into the dark diner. His long hair was pulled back into a silver white ponytail. He wore jeans and a soft blue shirt that matched his eyes. Phil was a private eye. Helen knew he’d want the seat at their table that kept his back to the wall. He was more comfortable when he could watch the room. Sitting nearby was a young man, pale as a boiled egg, shoveling a chef salad into his mouth.
    Phil kissed Helen and pulled out his chrome chair. The low light softened his laugh lines and eye crinkles. Helen was a sucker for eye crinkles. She couldn’t understand how she’d found such a good man. She’d had a lot of bad luck in her life. Maybe it was time for a change.
    Phil ordered a beer and a ham-and-cheese omelet with a side of chopped onions. Helen asked for a turkey wrap and coffee. When his omelet arrived, Phil smothered it in ketchup until Helen couldn’t see any egg, then topped it with onions and hot sauce. Helen picked at her turkey wrap, drank coffee and told Phil about her day.
    “Vera found Chrissy dead in the back dressing room,” Helen said. “She thinks Chrissy committed suicide. The crime-scene techs found a white porcelain pineapple with blood and hair on it. I think it could be the murder weapon. The police won’t say. I’m guessing the killer knocked Chrissy out with the pineapple, then tried to make it look like suicide by hanging her with a scarf. When I said Chrissy had been murdered, Vera got mad and reminded me I wasn’t a crime-scene expert. She wants Chrissy’s death to be suicide. Murder might scare away her customers.”
    “Suicide or murder, it’s a nasty way to go,” Phil said. “I hope Chrissy was unconscious.”
    “I always thought that pineapple was a stupid ornament,” Helen said. “It’s as useless as the people who like it.”
    “Any ideas on the killer?” Phil asked.
    “I’m betting it’s the husband,” Helen said. “Chrissy was afraid of Danny Martlet. He’s a bully and Vera said he fools around. He’d want his little wife out of the way.”
    “That makes sense if she didn’t sign a prenup,” Phil said. “But the last thing Danny would want was a murder trial while he’s negotiating the Orchid House deal. Bad publicity could scare off the board votes he needs for his project.”
    “Maybe,” Helen said. “I’ll tell you what’s scaring me. Snapdragon’s is in Hendin Island, and Detective McNally has the case. He made my life miserable after King Oden was killed. He’s looking for any excuse to arrest me.”
    “But he didn’t, did he?” Phil asked.
    They didn’t stop talking when the waitress refilled Helen’s coffee cup. The waitress didn’t react. It was that kind of place.
    “No, but I don’t know why,” Helen said. “My fingerprints were all over the Limoges pineapple that bashed Chrissy.”
    “But you work at the shop,” Phil said. “Your prints are supposed to be on things. Any good defense lawyer would point that out. When fingerprints are someplace they’re not supposed to be, then there’s trouble.”
    “Still, the detective took me back to the station for elimination prints,” Helen said. “The cops took Vera’s and Jordan’s prints at the scene. McNally is out to get me.”
    Phil took a long swallow of