Mad as Helen (15 page)

Chapter 29

H
ELEN TU
RNED OFF
the highway and rolled into River Bend. Preoccupied with her thoughts, she barely gave the old lighthouse with its bright red roof a cursory glance as she passed it by. As she entered the town proper, she hardly noticed Serenity Garden, with its newly planted zinnias, snapdragons, and daisies. A woman with a watering can straightened up from the flowerbeds and lifted a hand to wave, but Helen caught the motion too late from the corner of her eye, so she tucked her chin down and drove on.

What am I missing? Helen kept asking herself as she headed down Main Street toward home. Why did it seem that the more she dug for answers, the more questions she turned up?

She sensed that everything she needed was there, stored away in her head. If only she could dip in her hand and snatch out that one piece tying the odds and ends together.

Like an elusive word in a crossword, it would come to her in time. Helen only hoped that she could wait.

When she reached the downtown, Helen slowed to a snail’s pace, noticing a small commotion in front of the sheriff’s office. Several people stood on the sidewalk, and there were more across the street outside the diner, watching as Biddle helped a passenger out of his squad car. Helen recognized the woman—Hilary Dell, who owned the stationery store and who was a substitute for Helen’s bridge group. The two quickly disappeared into the sheriff’s office, and the rubberneckers began to disperse.

She saw Agnes March looking on from in front of her antiques store, and Helen rolled down a window, calling out, “What’s going on?”

“Hey, there, Helen,” Agnes said, fingering the pearls at her throat as she leaned into the window. “You’re just getting back to town, are you?”

“I’ve been in Alton.”

“Then you’ve missed all the excitement.” Agnes’s weathered face grew animated. “There’s been another burglary.”

“What?”

“This time it was at Hilary Dell’s,” Agnes told her and wrinkled her nose. “She’d been away for one night and returned this morning to find her place ransacked. She’d put up a camera over her back door after Mattie’s place was broken into, so they know who did it.”

“They do?”

Agnes nodded. “It was Charlie Bryan. Hilary said the image was kind of iffy, but there was no doubt in her mind.”

“Charlie Bryan,” Helen repeated, wondering how that was possible. Hadn’t the sheriff put him in lockup overnight? How on earth could he be two places at once?

“Been nice chatting, Helen,” Agnes said and smiled. “But I’d better get back to the store.”

“Yes, of course.”

A horn honked behind her, and Helen moved forward enough to slip into a vacant parking spot on the street.

She grabbed her bag and hurried to the door of Biddle’s office. With a gulp of air, she squared her shoulders and marched inside.

“Let me get the image on the screen so we can get a good look at it,” Biddle was saying as he fiddled with a computer on his desk, swiveling it around so Hilary Dell could see the monitor from the chair in which she sat.

When Helen shut the door behind her with a click, the sheriff glanced up. Hilary’s head swiveled. Her face looked puffy and very upset.

“Helen!” Hilary cried out, seeming happy to see her.

“Mrs. Evans,” the sheriff said, far less pleased by the intrusion. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you about the murder,” Helen said as she approached his desk.

“Well, can it wait?” Biddle asked. “I’m in the middle of something here.”

“My dear friend,” Helen cooed and went over to Hilary. She settled on the chair beside her. “Are you all right?”

The other woman nodded. “I’m okay, Helen, just shaken up a bit.”

The sheriff cleared his throat. “Like I was saying, ma’am, Mrs. Dell and I are in the middle of something.”

Helen gestured at the computer screen. “Please, go on,” she told him. “I’ll sit here quiet as a mouse. You don’t mind, Hilary, do you?”

Her friend shook her head. “Not a bit.”

Biddle grumbled as he fed a DVD into the system. Pretty soon, black-and-white images filled the monitor.

The picture looked crisp enough to Helen. She could see the back door and stoop of Hilary’s house, as well as part of the driveway.

“My goodness,” she remarked, “wherever did you get such a thing? Did you have to call a security company?”

“Would you believe I ordered it online?” Hilary replied. “It’s rather like the monitor my daughter used for her kids, only it’s meant for outdoors and has night vision and records on a DVR. My son-in-law set it up the day after Mattie got robbed. I wouldn’t have felt safe otherwise.”

“Incredible,” Helen murmured, thinking you could order just about anything these days and have it delivered right to your door.

“I can send you a link if you’re interested,” Hilary said, only to have Biddle clear his throat again loudly.

“Ladies,” he grumbled.

“Sorry,” Helen said and made a motion of zipping her lips.

She watched as the sheriff fast-forwarded to a certain time and date stamp on the screen. Then she heard Hilary’s sharp intake of breath as a shadowy figure hovered on the periphery.

“This is from last night at 11:48,” Biddle told them, and Helen guessed that was why things looked such a weird shade of green. It must have been the night vision.

“There he is,” Hilary yelped, pointing at the screen. “There’s the thief!”

Helen squinted, trying to focus on the person in question. The camera must have been perched above the garage door, as it caught the back of the intruder as he hurried across the driveway. She hadn’t even seen a face. Within moments, the thief had disappeared into the house.

“He had a key?” Helen asked.

“He must have,” Hilary moaned. “Though I don’t know how he would have gotten it.”

“Let’s move on, shall we?” Biddle remarked. He tapped a few keys and fast-forwarded a total of fifteen minutes so they could watch the figure emerge.

The sheriff tapped a key and froze the screen. “This is the best we’ve got,” he said and looked at Hilary. “You still think that’s Charlie Bryan?”

“Yes, yes, it’s him!” Hilary replied, sounding so sure. “Who else could it be?”

Helen cocked her head, studying the image, but she couldn’t make out the features distinctly enough to be convinced.

What she saw was someone of average height wearing dark jeans and a baseball cap pulled low enough to disguise half the face. But there was something off, something that didn’t feel right. Maybe it was the shape of the jaw or the size of the feet. Charlie wasn’t a large boy, to be sure, but the sneakers looked about the size of Nancy’s.

“Are you sure that’s Charlie, Sheriff?” Helen asked, but Frank Biddle didn’t seem to hear her. She glanced at the door to lockup. “But Charlie couldn’t have—” she started to say, only Biddle talked right over her comment.

“If you want to hang around, Mrs. Dell, I’ll put you in the break room to fill out some paperwork. Then I can drive you home.”

“Yes, I can stay,” Hilary told him. She looked at Helen as she picked up her purse and stood. “You should order a camera, too, hon. Otherwise, you’ll never know what’s going on while you’re gone.”

“I’ll think about it,” Helen told her.

Biddle rounded up the paperwork from his desk. He arched his eyebrows at Helen. “So you’re hanging around, too.”

“I’ll be right here when you finish with Hilary.”

“I can’t wait.”

Helen didn’t let his sarcasm get to her. What she needed to discuss with him was far too important, and it seemed even more so after she’d viewed Hilary’s video. How could the sheriff believe the person in the video was Charlie? Unless he’d released the boy before midnight, it couldn’t possibly be him.

Ten minutes later, the sheriff returned. He sat down on the edge of his desk, facing Helen. Before she could open her mouth, he raised his hand.

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“You do?”

“She’s wrong,” he announced and scratched his jaw. “That wasn’t Charlie.”

Helen let out a held breath. “Oh, Sheriff, I’m so relieved to hear you say so. I’d hate for the boy to get in even more trouble when he’s been telling the truth all along.”

Biddle nodded.

“So he’s still locked up?”

“Since yesterday.”

“Hilary doesn’t know?” Helen asked.

“Not yet, ma’am,” Biddle told her, rubbing tired eyes. “Maybe Sarah didn’t open her mouth so wide this time after all.”

“Maybe not,” Helen agreed.

“Someone clearly wants to pin the burglaries on Charlie,” he said, and his gaze went to the frozen image on the computer screen, “enough to dress like the kid and make full use of his bad rep. Only this time, they screwed up. Charlie has an alibi.”

“He didn’t break into Hilary’s,” Helen said, just to be clear.

“No.”

“And he wasn’t lying when he told you he didn’t steal that cigarette case from Mattie’s,” she added. “Could be he really did find it behind her house.”

“Yep.” Biddle drew in a sharp breath.

“So he probably didn’t kill Grace Simpson either,” Helen said.

“Nope,” Biddle grunted and shut off the computer. He tugged a set of keys from his belt and singled out one.

“You’re going to release him?”

“I am.”

Helen nodded. “Good. And when you’re done with Charlie and with Hilary, too, I need you to do something for me as well.”

The sheriff’s hangdog face looked up. “What’s that?”

“I need you to get a search warrant,” she said.

“You need me to . . . what?”

“If we can just check out a feeling I have, I think we can put an end to this whole matter once and for all.”

“The whole matter being . . . ?”

“The burglaries,” Helen told him, clutching her purse in her lap, “and the murder of Grace Simpson. I believe I know the culprit.”

“Ma’am, I can’t ask a judge for a warrant to search someone’s house on your hunch. I’ve got to have probable cause,” he explained, staring at her as though she’d gone stark raving mad.

“Then go for a drive with me after you’ve delivered Hilary home,” she said. “Maybe you’ll see something that will give you cause enough.”

Biddle squinted at her. “And just where are we going to go?”

Helen met his eyes. “I’ll let you know when we get there.”

Chapter 30

T
HE HOUSE SAT
at the dead end of Springfield Avenue. To venture further meant ending up in a tangle of trees and a dried-up bed of rocks, which had once lined a flowing creek until the river had run low for too many years.

Helen hadn’t explained where she’d wanted to go until Biddle had gotten into her car and they’d been well on their way. When she’d told him, he’d balked.

“You think she’s the perp?”

“I do.”

“You honestly believe that she could have—”

“Yes, Sheriff,” Helen said sadly, “I’m afraid I do.”

There was no curb or even a dirt driveway. In this spot where Springfield dead ended, there was only a graveled circle so that misguided cars could turn around. It was on the circle that Helen finally parked.

For a long moment, the pair of them stared up at the house. It sat alone, looking neglected. Helen wasn’t certain why no one else had ever built at this tip of Springfield; then again, perhaps she did realize why after all.

As she got out of the car and stepped onto the uneven stone path leading up to the door, she gazed around her at the encircling woods. Cicadas, crickets, and a host of other unseen insects noisily hummed; the odd music they created seemed louder here than nearer to town. Otherwise, an unnatural hush pervaded the area so that the slam of the passenger door as Biddle got out seemed unduly sharp, so much so that Helen jumped.

“You all right, Mrs. Evans?”

She settled the straps of her purse into place and steadied herself. “Yes, Sheriff,” she told him, “I’m fine.”

Could be her sudden nerves were due to the stretch of tree boughs above them that seemed to cut off sky and sunlight. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that not a single other rooftop could be seen from where she stood, which gave the impression that they’d driven well into the country.

“Ma’am?”

Biddle touched her arm and she walked ahead with him, stumbling once or twice on the uneven stones. Even still, she refused the hand he offered.

They went up half a dozen steps to a porch littered with fallen leaves and dirt. The house desperately needed a new coat of paint and a set of new shutters. Though a mat at the door bid them welcome, Helen felt anything but.

The sheriff paused at the door, turning to give her an uncertain look. “I know you told me why you wanted to come here, Mrs. Evans, but it seems far-fetched that—”

“This is the house of a killer?” Helen said. “I hope I’m wrong, Sheriff. In fact, I’d love to be. But I don’t think I am.”

He reached for the doorbell and rang it once, then twice. Helen didn’t stop him even though she knew there was no one home.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she said and tried the knob. If there was any door in town still left unlocked, it would be this one. Why would a thief have to worry about being robbed?

“Ma’am, you can’t just bust in,” Biddle protested as Helen pushed the front door wide.

“Is that a cry for help I hear?” she said, cocking her ear.

“What cry?”

“Yes, I’m sure it was,” Helen fibbed, and her heart raced. She was afraid as much of the lie she’d just told as she was of what they might find. “C’mon, Sheriff, isn’t it your duty to check things out if someone might be hurt?”

“Ma’am, this doesn’t feel right,” he grumbled, but Helen was already inside.

The house was dim, but enough sunlight filtered through the place for Helen to make out the faded floral wallpaper and dull wood floor beneath their feet.

Biddle’s voice broke through her thoughts. “There’s no one here, is there? The place is quiet as a library.”

“You can always wait outside,” she told him and took in a deep breath.

The air smelled decidedly musty, but there was another scent that lingered. Helen recalled the odor she’d detected at Grace Simpson’s house, one that had seemed familiar somehow, though at the time she’d been unable to pinpoint why that was. Mattie Oldbridge had mentioned a weird scent at her place after she’d gotten home from her nephew’s. Helen had a feeling that they were one and the same.

She realized then what that smell had reminded her of: the beauty shop.

“This is breaking and entering,” the sheriff said as he followed her from one room to the next.

“But we didn’t break anything,” Helen reminded him, taking in the spare furnishings. “The door was unlocked.”

“We weren’t invited in—”

“We heard a scream.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear the cry for help,” Helen insisted, “but I certainly did. I just wish it hadn’t taken me so darned long to listen.”

The cry she’d heard had been real enough, though it had been silent, not loud. If only Helen had recognized it before things had gotten so bad that they’d pushed the back of someone she’d known and liked flat against the wall.

She spotted a picture frame on the fireplace mantel beside a Mason jar filled with grimy plastic flowers. The photograph showed a woman and a baby.

“Justin,” Helen said, knowing who the baby was.

I can take care of what’s mine. I’ll do whatever I have to t’ hold my own.

She hadn’t realized she’d actually uttered the words until the sheriff asked, “You say something, ma’am?”

“Just thinking out loud,” she told him.

Without touching anything, Helen left the room. She didn’t even grip the banister as she ascended the stairs.

When she reached the bedroom, she stood in the doorway at first.

The bed was covered in a quilt, its patches faded. The walls might have been white once, but now they were the color of an eggshell, the plaster cracked and yellowed. There was another photograph of a boy tucked into the frame of a bureau mirror. On the dresser top was something else as revealing: a Styrofoam head upon which perched a blond wig combed into a bouffant.

“I think I will go outside, ma’am,” Sheriff Biddle said from behind her. “I don’t know what you’re up to exactly, but I don’t think I can be a part of this. And if I knew what was good for me, I’d drag you out as well.”

Helen nodded and soon heard the clunk of his boots on the stairs.

She went into the bathroom and caught her reflection in the mirror above the stained porcelain sink. She didn’t have to open up the medicine cabinet. She knew it would be filled with all the things a beautician would require for herself: beauty products, nail polishes, and lotions.

An old fashioned helmet hair dryer sat in its case on the floor. A soggy pair of panty hose hung over the shower affixed to the claw-footed tub. A shuttered pantry, half opened, revealed folded towels and extra rolls of toilet paper. A wicker hamper stood against the wall, its lid missing so that Helen could easily peer inside.

Her heart thumped faster.

Was it possible that the thief had known where to find so many things because it was where she hid her things, too?

Helen looked at the doorway behind her, making sure the sheriff hadn’t come back up without her hearing. But she was alone.

She sucked in a breath and dipped a hand into the wicker basket, reaching past assorted bits of laundry to the bottom. Just as she’d hoped, her hand encountered something odd. It was a pillowcase tied in a knot. When she picked it up, its contents jingled. Without thinking too much about what she was doing, she sat down on the toilet seat and put the makeshift bag in her lap.

Frowning so her thick eyebrows sat low over her eyes, she worked the knot out and opened the pillowcase. The box that rattled within proclaimed it to contain “bobby pins,” though it felt far too heavy to hold only that.

Helen slid a fingernail under the lid and popped open the box to reveal a host of keys, a dozen at least. Each had a name taped to it. “Farley,” one label read, and another, “White.” Still more were tagged “Oldbridge,” “Dell,” “Wiggins,” and “Simpson.” To her distress, Helen even found one marked “Evans.”

“Good God,” Helen breathed. Had all of them been targets? Might she herself have been next?

She put the keys back in the box and felt around inside the pillowcase for whatever remained. She pulled out a batch of tickets neatly rubber-banded together. Helen held them far enough away to read: East Alton Pawn, St. Charles Pawn, Kinloch, Wellston, Belleville, and Granite City.

Out-of-the-way spots, all of them.

Mattie’s candlesticks from Mexico, Violet’s pearls from Japan, Mavis’s emerald earrings . . . Helen thought of those treasures and others, stolen and sold by the thief.

Charlie Bryan had doubtless been telling the sheriff the truth when he’d said he’d found that cigarette case. And if he hadn’t been put in lockup because he’d sold the piece to a flea market vendor in Grafton, he would have been without an alibi, and the blame for Hilary Dell’s burglary would most certainly have been placed on him.

I’ll do whatever I have to t’ hold my own.

The words wouldn’t let her go. They played over and over in Helen’s head.

I know how folks talk. I know their bad habits and whatever good ones they’ve got, what their husbands eat for dinner, whose kids have diaper rash, what they got for Christmas.

Helen hadn’t wanted to believe it, but everything fit.

She’d found the missing piece she’d been looking for—the keys and pawnshop tickets hidden in the clothes hamper—and now everything snapped into place.

Only Helen felt as if she’d lost a battle instead of winning one.

Sadly, she stuffed the box of keys and pawn tickets back into the pillowcase. She knew she couldn’t take it to the sheriff. She was snooping inside a house without any kind of legal authority, making everything she’d found worthless. Sheriff Biddle would have to discover this evidence on his own.

With a sigh, she got up off the toilet seat.

“What the hell’s going on here?” a voice that was not Frank Biddle’s said from the doorway.

Helen lifted downcast eyes, catching a glimpse of sneakers, then jeans, and her gaze traveled upward to meet LaVyrle’s furious eyes. Usually so quick with a comeback, Helen drew a blank. She watched LaVyrle’s stare fall on the pillowcase, and Helen swallowed hard. Talk about getting caught red-handed.