Mad as Helen (5 page)

Chapter 8

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
,
Nancy Sweet got into the shower, dried her hair, and dressed as she always did. She hadn’t slept all night. She’d stayed up to shred those stupid notes of Grace’s—it was the least she could have done—and hadn’t finished until just before seven. Her eyes were puffy from crying and throwing herself a pity party, but she dabbed on concealer and headed to the office, arriving at 7:30, half an hour before Grace, like she always did. Or at least she had until Grace had canned her in front of half of River Bend the night before.

Maybe she could reason with Grace, Nancy thought as she unlocked the door to the office. What if she explained what had happened, how the notes had fallen out of her bag on the sidewalk and Bertha Beaner had swiped them? Perhaps then Grace would realize she’d been hasty in firing her, especially after all the extra hours Nancy had put in getting Grace’s book notes typed up.

She flipped on the light switch in the waiting room and hesitated. Her gaze roamed the framed Rorschach ink blots upon the walls, and she shook her head.

No, she knew, it would never work. When was the last time Grace had actually listened to her about anything?

The answer was simple:
never
.

Trying to have a rational conversation with Grace at this point was akin to banging her head against the wall.

Nancy sighed and moved into the inner office, passing the coffee machine just as it turned on, its timer set for precisely 7:45.

She might as well pack her things and get out of there. Grace could mail her final paycheck. It would only make things worse if she hung around and bumped into Grace when she arrived at eight o’clock.

Don’t cry again, for God’s sake,
Nancy told herself as tears pricked at the back of her eyelids. She swallowed and focused instead on the tasks at hand.

She went through her desk and grabbed the few things that belonged to her: two framed photographs, the pencil holder made of rolled-up magazine strips one of her nephews had crafted, and a spiral-bound notebook in which she tracked each day’s priorities. At least she wouldn’t have to worry any more about forgetting a task and setting Grace off, would she?

On impulse, Nancy reached for a blank pad of paper, picked up a pen, and composed a quick note to leave her ex-boss.

“Dear Grace,” she wrote in a childish scribble, “You are a hateful, small-minded bitch, and it was hell to come in every day and work for you. I hope your book fails miserably.” Then she signed it, “Sincerely, Nancy Sweet.”

“Real mature, Nance,” she whispered to herself. Her parents would be proud to know that her four years of college had amounted to this. She ripped the page off the pad, wadded it up into a ball, and tossed it into the wastebasket.

No, if she had any last words to say to Grace, she had to do it face-to-face. She’d let the woman run over her for months. Maybe, Nancy figured, it was time she stood up for herself.

Nancy straightened her shoulders.

What did she have to lose? Grace had already fired her.

She made up her mind and decided to stay put, since it was now ten minutes till eight. Grace would arrive soon enough. The woman never strayed from her schedule.

Nancy wandered about the office for a good fifteen minutes, growing impatient as another fifteen ticked past. Grace should have arrived by now, she thought, then felt an uneasy prickle up her spine. She got a bad feeling that had nothing to do with her frustration. What if something had happened to Grace, like she was being held prisoner until she agreed not to publish her book? It didn’t seem that far-fetched, especially after the showdown in front of LaVyrle’s.

Call it misguided loyalty, but Nancy had to find out if Grace was all right. Once she did, maybe
then
she’d tell her off.

She locked up the office but kept her keys, since one was for Grace’s front door. Then she walked the three blocks to the street where Grace lived. She knew the way well enough. She couldn’t count the times in weeks past that she’d had to go to Grace’s house to wait for the carpenter, the plumber, the painter, the roofer, or the dishwasher repairman. She’d even had to water Grace’s plants for a week when her boss had attended a symposium in Austin.

Nancy was so preoccupied with pondering all the ways that Grace had taken advantage of her that she didn’t see Mattie Oldbridge standing on the porch next door. She never even heard the woman call out a perky, “Yoo hoo!”

What she did notice was Grace’s car, pulled all the way back into her driveway.

So she
was
home.

Nancy sucked in a deep breath and marched up Grace’s front steps. Making a fist, she pounded firmly on the door.

“Open up, Grace! It’s Nancy,” she shouted when she got no response. “I know you’re there, so let me in!”

When nothing happened, Nancy stabbed her copy of Grace’s house key in the lock, turned the dead bolt, pushed the door wide, and let herself in.

F
ROM
HER
PORCH
railing, Mattie Oldbridge watched as Nancy Sweet disappeared through Grace Simpson’s front door.

The poor child, she thought, seeing how worked up the girl was. The way she’d pounded at the door and yelled for Grace to open up had sent chills up Mattie’s spine.

Although seeing Nancy so riled didn’t surprise Mattie. She’d heard about Grace firing the girl in front of a crowd at LaVyrle’s, so she couldn’t blame Nancy for being angry. But Mattie wasn’t used to seeing the pretty Miss Sweet so uptight. Usually when Nancy swung by Grace’s to do this or that, she was so friendly and kind.

But then Grace Simpson seemed to have a lot of folks worked up these days, didn’t she?

A rush of air from off the river ruffled Mattie’s hair, but it wasn’t just the wind that gave her goose bumps.

She heard the popping of tires on gravel and turned her head to catch Sheriff Biddle’s mud-speckled black-and-white coming around the corner. With a squeal of brakes, it stopped in front of Grace’s yard.

Oh, no, Mattie thought, hoping Grace hadn’t called the sheriff when the girl had let herself into the house. Hadn’t Grace caused Nancy embarrassment enough? Would she have the girl arrested, too?

Mattie watched as the sheriff and another man—a distinguished fellow in a dark blue suit—emerged from the squad car and headed up to Grace’s front door.

“This is all very odd,” Mattie murmured, “very odd indeed.”

She pressed herself back into the shadows of the porch and waited.

Just as the sheriff and his companion reached the top of the whitewashed steps, the front door flew wide open and Nancy Sweet raced out the door, clutching something in her hands.

Mattie squinted, wishing she’d thought to put on her glasses when she’d come out for the paper. What was it Nancy carried? Was it a broom or a stick?

Even without her horned-rims she could see the girl’s face was white as bones.

“Whoa now!” the sheriff said and grabbed the girl’s arm, forcing her to drop the stick to the ground.

Nancy raised her hands in the air. They appeared muddied to Mattie’s unfocused eyes, although the mud around here was brown, not red.

“Help, oh, God, help her, please!” Nancy began to scream so loudly that Mattie felt battered by her voice. “I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have come,” she ranted over and over, and her slim body heaved so that the sheriff had to hold her steady.

The fellow in the dark suit just stood by and gaped.

“She’s dead, she’s really dead!” Nancy sobbed and slumped against Biddle’s chest.

And Mattie did the only thing she possibly could have done after witnessing such a scene: she ran inside, dropped the newspaper, grabbed her phone, and dialed her friend Bertha Beaner.

Chapter 9

“
W
HAT DO YOU
mean you’re holding Nancy for questioning?” Helen asked, putting a protective arm around her granddaughter. She glared at Sheriff Biddle across his desk. “You must know that she could no more have killed Grace Simpson than I could.”

Biddle sighed, his gaze shifting from the pale face of the girl back to Helen. “Come now, Mrs. Evans. You’ve got to realize that I’m only doing my job. We found Nancy at the murder scene, holding a bloody bat.”

“What you
assume
is the murder scene,” Helen replied and tightened her grip on the girl. Nancy had barely uttered a word since Helen had arrived at the sheriff’s office, and Helen was worried that her granddaughter had gone into some state of posttraumatic shock.

“Look here,” Biddle said and gesticulated wildly, “I’m nearly one hundred percent certain Grace Simpson was killed where we found her. There was no sign she’d been moved, no indication of a struggle or forced entry. Her car was parked outside her kitchen door. Her body was found on her bedroom floor. The blood from her head wounds left stains on the carpet and, of course, the baseball bat that Nancy brought out of the house with her. Doc Melville accompanied the body to the county morgue in Jerseyville. When they’ve done forensics testing, we’ll know more. But until then, Nancy’s a person of interest.”

Helen pressed her lips together and looked at her granddaughter. Nancy’s face was positively bloodless, and her eyes looked glazed over. The girl needed to be taken home and put to bed, not grilled by River Bend’s sole lawman. “Sheriff, please, she’s had a great fright, stumbling upon Grace like that. I’ll keep her with me if you’re worried she’ll leave town.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t let her go yet,” the sheriff responded. “I need to find out why she was there this morning.”

“How is it
you
showed up at Grace’s this morning?” Helen asked. She’d heard only that Mattie Oldbridge saw Biddle show up in his squad car with a well-dressed man just before Nancy ran out of Grace’s house with blood on her hands. “Who was the man you said was with you?”

“I didn’t say anything about him.” Biddle leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You must’ve heard that news elsewhere.” He gave her a knowing look. “Besides, I’m supposed to be asking the questions—”

“Just as soon as you answer mine,” Helen cut him off, patting Nancy’s hand all the while. “The man?” she prodded.

Biddle sighed. “That was Harold Faulkner. He’s Grace’s publisher from the scholarly press in St. Louis. He claims she was supposed to meet him for dinner last night at Tony’s in St. Louis. He was expecting her to deliver a copy of that book everybody’s been gossiping about.” The sheriff raised his bushy eyebrows. “You probably heard that news elsewhere already, too, huh?”

Helen scoffed. “Who hasn’t?”

“Faulkner got worried when Grace didn’t show,” Biddle continued. “He tried calling her half the night and left messages on voice mail at her office and on her cell. He came into town first thing this morning and knocked on her door. When she didn’t answer, he showed up on my doorstep. He was waiting here when I got to work. We went over to Grace’s together,” the sheriff said and shifted his gaze from Helen to her granddaughter.

“That’s when you ran into Nancy,” Helen said, squeezing the girl’s hand as Nancy made a tiny whimper.

“More like she ran into me,” Biddle corrected. “She had the bat in her hands. She dropped the thing at my feet, ma’am.”

Helen bristled. “That hardly means Nancy killed her.”

“Tell me, Mrs. Evans, what am I supposed to think?”

“That she was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Biddle jerked his chin at Nancy. “I’d rather she explain it herself.”

Helen started to open her mouth.

“In her own words,” the sheriff butted in.

Helen turned to Nancy and crooked a finger beneath her drooping chin. “Sweetheart,” she said quietly, “can you talk about what happened this morning at Grace’s?”

Nancy’s pale eyes blinked. She looked numbly at Helen and then across the desk at Sheriff Biddle. She picked up the handkerchief in her lap that Helen had given her earlier, and she began twisting it into a knot.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she whispered hoarsely.

“Nancy?” Helen’s concern grew tenfold.

“Go on,” the sheriff urged and leaned forward, seeming to watch the girl as closely as he listened.

Nancy ran her tongue across dry lips. “I didn’t intend for Mrs. Beaner to get a hold of those notes. I tried to be so careful about everything. But Grace wouldn’t even give me a chance to explain.” She lifted her head, her eyes wide as she stared right at Biddle. “I waited for her at work, and when she didn’t come, I thought something happened to her.” Nancy faltered for a moment. “I still had a key to her house, so I went over and let myself in.” Her voice rattled as she spoke, and her shoulders shook, as if she had palsy. “She wasn’t downstairs, so I went up. Her room was dark, and I stumbled over the bat, so I picked it up.

“I didn’t think twice.” Nancy shook her head, glancing down at her hands. “Grace kept a baseball bat in her bedroom. I’d seen it there a dozen times before when I was over at her house, taking care of things. She was paranoid about living alone, just like she was paranoid about everything else.” The girl lifted her chin, though her voice quivered. “I didn’t notice the blood until I”—she stopped and sucked in a breath—“until I went into the bedroom, turned on the light, and saw her on the floor. I knew she was dead, and I flipped out.”

“That’s enough,” Helen snapped, unable to sit a moment longer and watch her granddaughter be put through such torture. She got onto her feet and urged Nancy up. She wrapped a strong arm around the girl’s shaking shoulders. “Nancy’s not fit to do this, Sheriff. Even you must see that. I’m taking her home. She needs rest, not the third degree.”

The sheriff raised a hand in protest. “Now wait a minute,” he started to say, but Helen ignored him.

“Let’s go, sweetheart,” she told Nancy and guided the stricken young woman toward the door. “I’ll be in touch,” she said over her shoulder. Then, without another word, she led Nancy from his office and was gone.