Mad as Helen (11 page)

Chapter 21

M
ATTIE
O
LDBR
IDGE PARKED
her twenty-year-old Lincoln in the gravel and weeds by a chain-link fence. A dozen or so other cars already cluttered the makeshift parking lot by the river. Ever since some business-minded Grafton folk had decided to convert the old boatyard into a weekend flea market, the place never lacked for traffic.

Grabbing her pocketbook and sliding out from behind the wheel, Mattie smiled at the idea of people driving from the city out to this river town just to rummage through junk others had tossed out. And it was pricey junk at that. It seemed like anything that predated the Carter administration these days was called an “antique.” Once Mattie had even seen a pair of mood rings from the ’70s going for ten dollars each.

But once in a while, she’d find a real jewel: a lovely cherrywood table that needed only to be stripped and refinished, a crystal candy dish smothered beneath a layer of dust, and a blue sugar bowl with a chicken filial. The latter had been sold to her by a woman who’d found the piece “distasteful,” and which Mattie had since discovered dated back to the mid-nineteenth century.

She hooked her purse in the crook of her elbow and walked across the rough ground. A slope of pavement led downward to the opened doors of the barnlike structure that housed the flea market.

Mattie stepped out of the sun and into the shadows of the old boat works. A musty odor pervaded the cavernous room, the smell of things trapped too long in someone’s basement or attic.

Dozens of booths lined the walls and filled the middle. Fellow shoppers meandered about, hunting for a bargain. Music filled the air, dispersed by speakers near the front doors, but Mattie couldn’t even tell what song was playing. It was drowned out by the chatter of voices.

She took in as deep a breath as her lungs would allow, then she plunged forward into the crowd. She had no patience with paintings on velvet or glitter-glued sweatshirts or tables overstuffed with handmade crafts. What good did it do to cover a roll of toilet paper with a crocheted jacket? It wasn’t as if the things could catch cold.

Mattie knew what she liked, and it certainly wasn’t that. Good glassware always made her look twice. A gilded vanity mirror in great shape could inspire her to haggle. She wasn’t averse to buying a pretty rhinestone pin or charm bracelet now and then, or even a sleek cigarette case made of sterling silver.

Mattie paused.

Could it be? Was it possible?

She picked it up and studied it, turning it upside down and checking the mark on the bottom. With trembling hands, she opened it up to find an inscription: “To M, Love H.”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Mattie jumped at the brittle voice over her shoulder. She snapped the case back together and turned to the smiling woman who’d been watching her.

“How?” she began, but the word got stuck in her throat. She swallowed and tried again. “How did you get this?”

The woman lifted a hand to scratch at the red bandanna wrapped around her head. “It came from an estate sale,” she told her, so smoothly that Mattie would never have guessed it was a lie if she hadn’t known better. “It belonged to a well-to-do Alton woman who recently passed.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes.”

Mattie held it to her breasts, which were heaving. She was furious. “No,” she said firmly. “No, it didn’t.” She felt tears rush to her eyes. “It’s mine,” she told the dealer. “It was stolen from my house last weekend.”

“That can’t be,” the woman said, but Mattie read the fear in her eyes.

“If you’d like, I’ll call the sheriff in River Bend,” Mattie said, lifting her chin. “He’ll be here in no time flat, and he can confiscate the case and check the description against the police report I filed.”

The woman glanced around her. A few customers inspecting items within her stall had overheard and stopped to stare. The dealer grabbed Mattie’s arm, her mouth set in a grim line. “Look, lady,” she ground out in an unfriendly whisper, “put the cigarette case back down and scram, all right? You’re spooking me and everybody else. I’m sure you’re just confused. You probably have that Old Timer’s disease everyone your age gets.”

Mattie took a step back so that her bottom bumped a table filled with mismatched pieces of china. The neatly stacked cups and saucers loudly rattled.

“I’m going to take out my phone and call Sheriff Biddle right now,” Mattie said, her voice rising. “And when he shows up and proves this is stolen goods, that’ll spook everyone even more.”

The woman’s eyes rounded, as if unsure whether or not Mattie actually had lost her mind. “I-I,” she stuttered, wetting her lips, “I’m sure we can settle this quietly.”

“No.” Mattie patted the cigarette case, still folded fast against her bosom. “No, I don’t intend to be quiet. For all I know, you’re the one who broke into my house and stole it!”

“Me?” The woman put a hand to her heart, looking every bit like she was going to have a heart attack. By then, a crowd had gathered around them. “I didn’t steal anything!”

“Then you shouldn’t have a thing to worry about,” Mattie told her, still refusing to let go of the case Harvey had given her almost fifty years ago, when the whole world had smoked and hadn’t known any better.

With her free hand, Mattie rustled her phone from her purse and hit a button, speed-dialing the sheriff. Like clockwork, he showed up not five minutes after.

Frank Biddle’s heavy boots clattered across the concrete floor as he entered the boat works and strode up the aisle toward the booth where Mattie remained in a Mexican standoff with the vendor.

The sheriff hiked up his pants and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. “So where,” he asked, “is the item in question?”

Mattie held the cigarette case out to him, a catch in her voice as she told him, “This is mine. It’s one of the things stolen from my house. See,” she said and opened it up to reveal the inscription. “Harvey gave it to me for our first anniversary.”

Biddle took it from her hands and looked it over. “Sure appears to be the one you described in your report, ma’am.” He turned toward the vendor. “I’d like to know how you got this.”

“Well, I-I,” the woman stuttered.

“She told me from an estate sale in Alton,” Mattie said with a sniff. “And we both know that’s a lie.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” The woman’s hands went to her kerchief-wrapped hair. “I had no idea this was hot, or I wouldn’t have bought it.”

“Just tell the truth, ma’am,” Biddle asked.

“It was a boy, a teenager who brings me things sometimes,” she explained, shaking her head. “Every once in a while, he has a few nice pieces he tells me belonged to his family. Says they’re in a tough spot and need the cash.” The vendor crossed her arms. “Lots of folk are hard hit these days, so it came across as real enough. The kid seemed decent, short hair, no tats, and he talked about living with his grandpa.”

Mattie wrinkled her brow and looked at Biddle. The description sounded like someone from town, the boy who was always causing trouble.

“He had a crew cut?” the sheriff asked. “Was he about five foot six and wiry?”

“Yes, that’s him,” the woman said.

Biddle sighed. “Any chance he gave you a name?”

“Joe Smith.”

The sheriff gave her a look like
You’ve got to be kidding.

“I know, I’m a fool,” the vendor admitted and gazed at Mattie with sympathy. “But if he’s stealing, can you blame him?”

“Could you identify him if need be?” Sheriff Biddle said.

“Piece of cake.”

“Well, if he should come by again, give me a call,” he told the vendor and gave her his card.

“I will.”

The sheriff nodded at Mattie. “C’mon, Mrs. Oldbridge. Let’s head back to town. I’ll meet you at my office.”

Mattie followed the squad car along the highway to River Bend, although her oversized Lincoln moved more slowly than his cruiser. She went straight to his office and waited there, as he’d asked her to. Not long after, he showed up, dragging in Charlie Bryan.

Mattie had known the boy’s grandfather for a good many years, so Charlie was hardly a stranger. But he was familiar enough to the rest of the town as well, more for his antics than his parentage.

Biddle ordered the boy to sit in a chair across from his desk. Mattie stuck to the bench just inside the front door, not wanting to get in the middle.

“Did you steal this?” Biddle asked the boy point-blank, shaking the sterling cigarette case under Charlie’s sunburned nose.

“What?” Charlie snickered. “Here we go again. I told you I didn’t break into anybody’s house, and it’s the truth.”

“That’s very interesting,” the sheriff said, perching on the corner of his desk so he towered over the seated boy. “A vendor at the Grafton flea market said she got it from a kid whose description fits you to a T. She’s more than willing to come in and identify you.”

“Okay.” Charlie shifted in the chair so that one leg dangled over the arm. A beat-up tennis shoe jiggled violently. “So maybe I sold her the cigarette case. Big effing deal. That doesn’t mean I stole it.”

The sheriff shook his head. “C’mon, Charlie,” he sighed. “How else could you have gotten it?”

“Maybe I found it!” He spat the words and jumped to his feet. He curled his hands into fists and raised his voice so loudly that Mattie put her hands over her ears. “I found it, all right? It was in the grass near the creek that runs behind the old lady’s place. Somebody must have dumped it.”

Biddle didn’t appear to believe him any more than Mattie did. “Someone dumped it?”

Charlie stood his ground. “It’s true.”

There was something in his tone of voice that nearly made Mattie believe him. But then Mattie knew how easy it was for children these days to lie. It seemed to her that they thought nothing of it and no one taught them otherwise.

The sheriff stared at the boy forever and a day before he withdrew to a position behind his desk and settled into his chair. “You’ve been the one breaking into these women’s houses, haven’t you, Charlie?”

“No.”

“Maybe you even broke into Grace Simpson’s two nights ago, and she caught you,” the sheriff suggested. “So you hit her with a baseball bat and ran.”

Charlie stumbled backward. “No!”

Mattie tightly gripped her handbag, fingers trembling.

“I’m going to have to hold you for selling stolen goods, son,” the sheriff said, his voice still unusually gentle. “You can call your grandfather and tell him where you are, and I’ll talk to him, too, if he needs more explanation.”

“You’re putting me in jail?” Charlie kicked over the chair so that it cracked hard against the bare floor. “This is so effing messed up!”

Mattie covered her mouth with her hands.

The sheriff didn’t even flinch. “You should thank your lucky stars I’m just putting you in a holding cell. It’ll be a whole lot worse if I find out you killed Grace Simpson.”

Chapter 22

L
AVYR
LE
’
S
B
EAUTY
S
HOP
buzzed with voices that fought to rise above the hum of the hair dryers. The persistent snap of scissors seemed to punctuate the chatter. The odor of solution for permanents and dye jobs pervaded the air, overpowering the sweet scent of shampoo and spray and the omnipresent tangle of perfumes.

Helen’s senses throbbed at the discord the moment she walked through the door. The place was crowded even more than usual. “Come on in, Nancy,” she called behind her and waved a hand to urge the girl inside.

“Helen!” someone shouted, and Helen saw Bertha Beaner sidle off a chair in the waiting area, leaving a pair of chattering women with their heads bent together. Soon enough, Sarah Biddle emerged from the back to join them, while Mary watched and twisted her ponytail behind the reception desk.

“Well, hello, Nancy,” Sarah said, perhaps a tad too brightly. “It’s good to see you.”

The whispering duo in the waiting room instantly looked up as Nancy came to stand at Helen’s side. Helen could feel the stares directed at them both, and she suddenly doubted her decision to bring Nancy to the salon for one of LaVyrle’s special “perk-me-up” pamperings.

“Yes, it’s wonderful seeing you out and about,” Bertha remarked, as though Nancy had been ill.

Bertha looked much as Clara Foley had the day before, Helen mused. She wore the requisite lavender cape, and her head seemed wired with tiny pink curlers, around which a ring of white fluff had been tucked to catch dripping solution. The powerful smell of it caused Helen to wrinkle her nose.

“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” Bertha asked, trying so hard to force a smile that her cheeks resembled a chipmunk’s. When Nancy didn’t respond, Bertha glanced sideways at Sarah as if to say,
Hey, help me out here!

The sheriff’s wife quickly stepped in. “Don’t let Frank push you around,” she told Nancy bluntly, and her long face compressed. Even with lips pursed, her prominent teeth protruded. “You can’t let him get to you. He’s like a bulldog when he latches onto something. But he’ll realize he’s made a mistake with you and find the real killer soon enough.”

Nancy cast her eyes to the floor.

Helen grabbed the girl’s hand. “Of course he will,” she said.

Sarah poked at the foil-wrapped strands in her hair. “It’s just that he has to question everyone related to the case. It’s his job to be thorough.”

“So he’s questioned the two of you then, has he?” Helen asked, not in the mood to mince words.

Sarah blinked and looked at Bertha. “Well, he did give me a talking to last night when he got home about my seeing Grace more than once without telling him. But he knows where I was the night Grace died, because I was with him. In my book, that’s a rock-solid alibi.”

“While we’re on the subject,” Helen said and nodded at Bertha, “Grace’s book had you awfully worked up as well. I assume you’ve spoken with the sheriff?”

Bertha turned one shade darker than the lavender cape. “Are you suggesting that
I
murdered Grace Simpson?”

Helen blurted out, “Anything’s possible.”

“That’s right,” Sarah Biddle agreed, going on, “why, it could’ve been any number of people who hit Grace with that bat—her husband, Max, for example.”

“Yes, or her publisher from the city,” Bertha remarked, sounding miffed. “I heard that he hated Grace’s guts.”

“What about that awful boy, Charlie Bryan,” Sarah added, looking around nervously. “This isn’t for public consumption, but just this morning Frank put the boy in lockup after he found out Charlie had sold one of Mattie Oldbridge’s stolen items to a dealer at the Grafton flea market. . . .”

“What?” Helen said, not having heard that tidbit yet.

Even Nancy raised her downcast head.

“Does the sheriff think Charlie’s the one who’s been burglarizing houses in River Bend?” Helen asked, wondering again if the break-ins and Grace’s death were related.

Sarah’s rabbitlike front teeth pulled on her lip. “Honestly, he isn’t sure. The boy said he found the piece behind Mattie’s house, like someone had dropped it.”

Bertha let out a hardly subtle, “Hmph.”

Helen glanced at Nancy. “You’re right, Sarah, anyone could have done it. I just wish your husband was as open-minded as you.”

Sarah sniffed, her eyes softening. “I never believed for a moment that Nancy was guilty.”

“Nor did I,” Bertha chimed in.

Nancy very nearly smiled for real.

“Thank you,” Helen told them, seeing her granddaughter perk up a bit. “I just wish you could get your husband on the same page, Sarah.”

The loud clack of approaching high heels effectively put an end to the conversation. LaVyrle appeared from her secluded station, bringing with her the smell of hairspray and Miss Clairol. She cocked her blond head and smiled tightly.

“Sorry to break up your gabfest,” she said, and her dark eyebrows arched. “But it’s back to the dryer for you, Mrs. B,” she told the sheriff’s wife, poking at the foil-wrapped strands in Sarah’s hair with gloved fingers. “Five more minutes, you hear me?” she announced and tapped the face of her wristwatch.

Sarah nodded obediently before scurrying back to where her waiting hair dryer hummed.

“And you, Mrs. B,” LaVyrle said, turning her attention to Bertha Beaner. “Let’s check things out.” She unsnapped a pink roller and unfurled a wavy strand. “Looks like you’re just about done.” She turned toward the lanky girl at the reception desk. “Hey, Mary, go rinse Mrs. B’s hair, will ya?”

Eyes wide, Mary bobbed her head. With a squeaky “Follow me,” she led the way to the sinks as Bertha Beaner hurried to keep up.

LaVyrle looked at Nancy and Helen. “So, Mrs. E,” she began, “Mary said you called earlier. Your granddaughter needs a cut and blow-dry?”

Helen hugged Nancy to her side. “I thought she could use a little pampering.”

LaVyrle winked at the young woman. “Well, I’m just the one to do it.”

“How about a manicure, too, with the paraffin wax,” Helen suggested. “That felt wonderful, I must say.”

LaVyrle jerked her chin at Nancy. “How’s that sound, honey?” she asked. “You want the works?”

“Sure.” Nancy shrugged. “Whatever.”

LaVyrle ignored her lack of enthusiasm. “We’re pretty booked up today, but I can squeeze you in.”

“Pretty booked up is an understatement,” Helen commented, as the place seemed almost overcrowded. “Is there something going on tonight that I don’t know about? Or has your reputation spread well beyond River Bend?”

“I’d love to say that’s the reason.” LaVyrle exhaled upward, blowing at blond bangs. “Though I think it’s got more to do with morbid curiosity,” she remarked and shook her head. “God rest her soul, but it’s Grace Simpson who’s bringin’ them in. There’s been more traffic today than I’ve seen in months. And what with that memorial service in the chapel tomorrow morning. . . .”

“What service?” Helen asked, yet another piece of gossip she’d missed.

Nancy’s eyes grew wide. “Tomorrow morning?” she whispered.

“Heard it from Darcy at the diner,” LaVyrle told them, leaning in. “She spent a while yesterday refilling Max Simpson’s coffee cup, can ya even believe? He’s hangin’ around, waiting for the will to be read. So he figured he’d do a quickie memorial service at the chapel since he can’t do a proper funeral yet, not without the body,” the beautician explained with a wiggle of latex-gloved fingers. “He’s not even puttin’ a mention in the paper. Poor Mrs. S. She deserved better than what she got.”

Helen glanced at Nancy, who gnawed on her bottom lip.

“Enough chitchat,” LaVyrle said, seeming to pick up on Nancy’s discomfort. “You ready, darlin’?” she asked and took Nancy’s arm, drawing her away from Helen. “You put yourself in my hands, honey, and I’ll doll you up real good. No long faces allowed at LaVyrle’s. So how’d you like your hair cut? You thinkin’ about trying a new style?”

Helen heard LaVyrle going on and on as she walked Nancy away.

Helen found an empty chair in the waiting area and settled in. Though she was surrounded by the cacophony of the salon, she hardly heard the buzz of hair dryers and drone of voices.

So Max Simpson had come to town, had he? And he’d decided to throw Grace a memorial service in River Bend despite the ongoing investigation?

He’s hangin’ around, waiting for the will to be read.

It sounded to Helen like the man had come out of greed, not love for a woman who was dead. All Max Simpson wanted from Grace now was to see what she had left him.