Mad as Helen (8 page)

“I wonder . . . ,” Nancy murmured.

“What?”

“I wonder who really killed her.” Nancy squinted in the dim. “Do you suppose it might be someone we know?”

Helen sighed. “It’s an awful thought, isn’t it? But highly likely, I’m afraid.”

“What makes you say that?”

Helen shrugged. “There were plenty of people in River Bend who were upset about Grace’s book, wouldn’t you agree? I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a good reason why a total stranger would have wanted her dead. Unless—” Helen paused as another thought came to mind.

Nancy watched her. “What is it, Grandma?”

“Unless,” Helen went on, “Grace’s killer was a thief.”

“A thief?”

“Someone broke into Mattie’s just next door not a week ago, didn’t they?” Helen said, finding that the theory didn’t sound so crazy once she’d voiced it.

“Yes, but—”

“Bear with me.” Helen sat on the bed and faced her granddaughter. “Did you happen to notice anything out of the ordinary when you went inside Grace’s house? You’d been there enough before to be familiar with the place.”

“I’ll say,” Nancy breathed.

“Well, was anything out of sorts?”

“I don’t know.” Nancy shut her eyes for a moment. “It’s hard for me to picture much else except finding her like . . . like
that
.”

“Try, honey, please.”

Nancy tucked her chin atop her knees and stared off into the rafters. “What I remember is that no one answered the door, no matter how much I yelled and pounded. I used the key to get in, and the house was dark. There were no lights on, and it was quiet. When I went into the living room, I saw that Grace’s writing desk was open. She always locked it, because it’s where she kept important paperwork. Then I went up the stairs and into her bedroom.” Nancy swallowed hard. “That’s when I tripped over the bat. I picked it up without looking at it. Grace’s clothes were a mess all over her bed, as though she’d dressed in a hurry and didn’t have time to put them away. Maybe she was running late for dinner. Otherwise she would have straightened up. She was such a stickler about being tidy, you know, everything in its place and a place for everything.”

“Go on,” Helen verbally nudged when Nancy stopped.

Nancy’s voice caught, and she blinked in the dark, reaching out for Helen. “I can’t imagine that someone from town did that to Grace, left her there on the floor to die. . . .”

The words trailed off, and Helen felt her shudder.

“I’ll never forget what she looked like.”

“Hush,” Helen cooed and raised her hand to smooth Nancy’s hair. “It’ll be all right, you’ll see,” she whispered. “Everything will be all right.”

Helen couldn’t bear to think otherwise.

Chapter 15

O
NCE
H
ELEN
HAD
made Nancy a grilled cheese sandwich and heated up some tomato soup—and encouraged her to actually eat the food—her granddaughter seemed far less agitated. Nancy was heading for the shower when Helen left the house, walking toward the river. She needed some time alone to clear her mind and think.

She followed the sidewalk past houses much like her own, clapboard structures with porches in shades of blue, yellow, and white; neat yards with pansy-trimmed pathways and, here and there, a picket fence.

Now and again someone would call out to her, and she’d smile and wave, though she never slowed her steps. She could only imagine what they’d already heard about Nancy, with Biddle pouncing on the girl like that. Helen’s cheeks warmed as she imagined how fiercely the rumor mill was undoubtedly churning among the girls getting their hair done at LaVyrle’s right this minute.

She drew in a deep breath. Never mind them, she told herself. Nancy was the one who concerned her, no one else.

Poor, poor Nancy.

Helen suddenly wished the girl hadn’t come to River Bend to visit just after her college graduation. She wished, too, that Nancy hadn’t found out about Grace Simpson putting up her shingle in town and searching for an assistant.

It’s the perfect opportunity for me, Grandma,
Nancy had said with such excitement in her face that Helen’s chest ached at the memory.

A noisy starling cackled down at her from the branch of a towering elm. It sounded so chastising that Helen knew she had to stop blaming herself for the fix her granddaughter was in. She realized she’d curled her hands into fists, and she relaxed them. She slowed her quick pace as she reached the town’s only chapel, sitting across a stone bridge.

She was close enough to the river to smell it, and her nose wrinkled at the fishy scent. Even still, she walked toward it, pausing only when the edge of town gave way to the Great River Road, a highway built along the Mississippi’s edge. A century ago, the trail had been little more than flattened grass and railroad tracks. Now all that remained of the tracks were occasional forgotten patches of rusted metal overgrown with weeds.

Helen put her hands on her hips and stared at the brown of the river, at the boats skimming the water and the barges rolling through it, and she wondered how it must have been to stand on this same spot in another era, when steam-driven vessels had wheeled through the currents instead of noisy gas-powered speedboats that whipped this way and that, carrying women who wore very little and men belching beer.

She shook her head. Times had to change though, didn’t they? And for the most part, she was happy about it. So much of what was new made life simpler. Other so-called advances only seemed to push civilization back to more uncivilized days.

If what was happening to River Bend lately—the unsolved burglaries and now the murder of Grace—was any indication, Helen wasn’t so certain she didn’t prefer the “good old days.” If nothing else, life had seemed less intimidating.

A pair of cars raced up the highway, the sun glinting off the glass and chrome, and Helen shook her head at the noise and smell of fuel that lingered in their wake.

She clicked tongue against teeth, wondering what old Henry Ford would think of his invention now. It would probably make the man long for a horse and buggy. Why did it seem that everyone was in such a hurry?

Wasn’t that why people like Grace Simpson thrived? Folks were anxious for a quick fix to their problems. They wanted someone to tell them what was wrong and to offer a fast cure, which often seemed to come in a little brown bottle.

It was too bad Grace had decided to use those confidences to her own advantage. Was a shot at fame so important that she’d risk betraying so many confidences? Didn’t she realize her clients would be furious at the idea? Didn’t she understand that, despite the use of pseudonyms, they’d feel Grace was betraying their trust?

Helen couldn’t help wondering if that was why Grace’s husband had cheated on her. From what Helen had observed of Grace’s stint in River Bend, the woman had seemed to care more about her career and personal gain than about nurturing relationships and healing fragile psyches.

A lot of good the book had done her in the end, Helen mused. All Grace Simpson’s so-called ambition had gotten her was dead.

With a sigh, she turned away from the River Road and the Mississippi’s wide brown waters, trekking along the sidewalk back into town.

Back to Nancy.

Chapter 16

S
HERIFF
B
IDDLE
DROVE
slowly up the graveled road toward Amos Melville’s place, the fifteen mile per hour speed limit allowing little more than a snail’s pace.

As Doc’s was only about two blocks away, Frank could have walked from his office instead of taking the car and probably made it there just as quickly. But Frank wasn’t a man who liked to expend unnecessary energy. He’d been fit enough in his youth to huff and puff his way through his physical at the policy academy, but he’d never been one to jump on any of the exercise crazes that came into fashion. Jogging, he figured, was for the birds. Why, he wondered, would an intelligent human being want to run mile after mile if no one was chasing him? As for lifting weights, well, Frank felt strongly that if God had intended for him to pump iron, he would have attached dumbbells to his palms instead of fingers.

He braked the car at a stop sign where two tree-covered roads intersected, and he glanced to his right to see a figure in a blue sweat suit coming toward him.

Oh, great, he thought, exhaling slowly. He tipped his hat as Helen Evans leaned into the open window of his car on the passenger’s side.

“Hi, Sheriff.”

“Hello, ma’am,” he said before turning his eyes back on the road ahead. He tapped his fingers anxiously against the steering wheel.

“Have you had a chance to look for Grace’s missing manuscript?” she asked.

Biddle’s throat tightened. “No, ma’am, I haven’t, not yet,” he said, but that didn’t seem to make her go away.

“Have you questioned any of Grace’s clients?”

“Look, Mrs. Evans,” he told her as calmly as possible, “I’m on my way over to Doc Melville’s to discuss the case. So if you wouldn’t mind—”

“No, I don’t mind a bit,” she replied.

Without another word, she plucked her head out of the window and opened the door. Before Frank could make so much as a noise of protest, she slid in beside him, pulling the door shut with a loud
thwack.

He let out a slow breath. “You can’t go there with me, ma’am.”

“I can’t go to Doc Melville’s?”

“No.”

“Not even if I’m sick?” she said.

“You’re not sick, ma’am,” Frank responded, biting his check before adding, “unless there’s a medical diagnosis for being a buttinski.”

Helen turned to him, her blue eyes flashing. “If you don’t let me ride with you, I’ll walk there myself.” The gray of her hair framed a face filled with enough lines to affirm her senior citizen status, but age certainly hadn’t dulled her determination. “I have a right to hear what Doc and the county ME have discovered. It’s my granddaughter you’ve accused of murdering Grace, after all.”

Here we go again, Biddle thought.

“I haven’t accused her of anything, ma’am, not officially.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” Helen murmured as she settled back into the seat and fastened the seat belt.

“Please get out, Mrs. Evans,” Frank tried again.

She didn’t even look at him. “No.”

He heard the honk of a horn and glanced in his rearview mirror to see a dark Chevy pickup hovering behind the black-and-white. Biddle gave the man a wave before facing Helen again.

“Please, ma’am—”

“No.”

The Chevy honked again, and Biddle saw the driver lean out his window to shout, “C’mon, Sheriff, the sign says ‘stop,’ not ‘park.’ ”

“All right already,” Biddle hollered out the window then turned to Helen.

“You’d better get a move on, Sheriff,” she said, her eyes glinting in a way that told him she was amused without her having to smile.

He grumbled, taking his foot off the brake and pushing the gas. As he moved through the intersection, he realized he’d lost again. Helen Evans was going with him to Doc Melville’s unless he bodily tossed her out. And Biddle figured he just might lose his badge over something like that.

So he did what he always did when Sarah drove him up the wall about this or that: he pressed his lips together in silence. Then he drove straight for Doc Melville’s.

He parked at the curb in front of the A-frame where Amos lived with Fanny, his wife of fifty-odd years. Frank got out of the car and started around to Helen’s side to open the door, but she’d already let herself out. She strode steadily up the path toward the side entrance to Doc’s office. When he got to the door, she was waiting for him.

Above their heads hung an old-fashioned shingle lettered neatly with the words
Dr. Amos Melville, M.D.
The afternoon breeze pushed it ever so slightly back and forth.

Helen opened the door for him and waved him in. “After you, Sheriff,” she said.

Frank didn’t argue.

He doffed his hat and went on into the waiting room, nodding at Fanny, who was seated behind the receptionist’s desk, alternately shuffling papers and typing on a laptop.

“Ah, Sheriff Biddle, right on time,” the doc’s wife remarked. She stopped typing and closed a folder, setting her hands atop it. “Helen? What are you doing here?” she added and peered above her bifocals. “Are you sick?”

“No, I’m fine,” Helen told her.

Frank was tempted to ask if Doc had any kind of prescription that cured “bossy.”

“I see.” Fanny looked back at Frank again. “Amos only mentioned that you’d be coming, Sheriff. He didn’t say a word about Helen joining you.”

“It was kind of last minute,” Biddle said, turning his hat in his hands.

“Yes, very last minute,” Helen echoed.

“Well, if you’d just take a seat. Doc’s in there with a patient. His last one of the day, thank the Lord. It’s been a nutty week, for sure.” Fanny shook her head, though the white cap of hair didn’t shift an iota. “There’s a strain of the flu going ’round, and then Jenny Patchett had her twins. And now with Grace Simpson . . .” She paused, sneaking a peek above her specs at Helen. “Anyhow, Amos’s schedule’s been booked up tighter than a tick.”

“No problem, ma’am, we’ll wait,” Frank said and headed toward one of the dozen vacant chairs. He scooped a teddy bear from the seat and settled into it, putting his hat aside on the table. He picked up a battered copy of
Highlights for Children,
which he quickly set down again. Then he rummaged through new and old copies of
Parents Magazine,
Modern Maturity,
and
People
until he found a
Field & Stream
.

Helen didn’t join him. Instead, she went up to the reception window and leaned across it, talking in hushed tones to Fanny Melville, who turned her bespectacled gaze upon him now and then as they gabbed.

Sure that he was the object of their muted conversation, Frank ignored the whispers. As long as Nancy Sweet was under suspicion for Grace’s murder, he had a feeling he’d probably get the cold shoulder from a number of Helen’s friends in town.

It seemed an eternity before a slender young woman whom Biddle recognized as a part-time waitress at the diner emerged from the back hallway with Doc not far behind her.

“You’ll be good as new in no time,” Amos said to the girl, patting her bony shoulder as he slipped her file in front of Fanny. “Just go on to the drugstore, pick up the prescription, and start on it today. And Darcy, don’t let Mary at LaVyrle’s place glue on any more fake nails. Get a little water trapped inside those things and before you know it, you’ve got green thumbs for real.”

“Yes, Doc,” the girl said. “I got it.”

Frank put aside the magazine and stood, hiking up his pants.

“Let us know if things don’t clear up in a few weeks,” Fanny was saying as the young woman took the written prescription from her and headed out the door.

“Why, hello, Sheriff,” Doc said, removing the stethoscope from around his neck, rolling up the tubing, and stashing it into the pocket of his white coat. “I see you let Helen tag along. Did she hijack your car?”

“Something like that,” Biddle grumbled, picking up his hat.

“Well, Amos, I could hardly stay out of this, knowing that my Nancy is the sheriff’s prime suspect,” Helen said, appearing suddenly at Frank’s elbow. “You can’t blame me for wanting to learn what else you’ve found out about Grace.”

Amos rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “I can’t imagine that what I have to say is going to help the situation much.”

Biddle took a few steps toward the doctor. “Maybe we should go on into your office and discuss the matter privately,” he said, though beside him, Helen bristled. “That is, unless you think it’s all right for the ladies to hear.”

Fanny Melville gave a snort and Helen sniffed. The meaning of each was equally clear.

Doc leaned a hip against the desk and smiled wearily. “I don’t imagine it’ll do them any harm to listen,” he said.

“Okay, then shoot,” Frank told him. “What have you got?”

Amos began slowly, as he always did. “As I told you already, Grace was killed by a blow to the head.”

“From the baseball bat,” Biddle interjected.

“Her occipital lobe was crushed. No doubt death was instantaneous.”

Helen came closer. “And when,” she asked, “was that exactly?”

“It’s hard to pinpoint time of death medically,” the doctor explained, “but as I told the sheriff here when I looked at Grace Simpson’s body at the scene, the state of rigor mortis indicated she’d been dead at least twelve hours.”

Biddle grunted. It was what Doc had initially suspected.

“See, Sheriff,” Helen said triumphantly. “That means Nancy couldn’t be guilty. When you found her with the bat this morning, Grace was already long dead.”

“No, Mrs. Evans,” Frank said, because this time the woman was barking up the wrong tree. “What it says to me is that Nancy argued with her after the scene at LaVyrle’s. She had a key to her house. Mattie Oldbridge saw Grace drive off in her car around seven-thirty. Nancy could have snuck inside the house and waited for Grace to return. They fought, and Nancy hit her with the bat. Then she showed up again this morning, acting like a concerned employee to divert suspicion.”

“That’s insane,” Helen countered.

Frank snapped back, “So is murder.”

Helen did her best to stare him down, but he ignored her and turned to Doc. “Is there anything else?” she asked. “Sheriff Biddle said the bat had some partial prints on it. Are they running those through the system?”

Doc nodded. “Yep, and they’re focusing in particular on seeing if Grace’s husband’s prints are on file.” He looked at Biddle. “It’s your theory they’re his.”

“So does Grace’s husband have a criminal history?” Helen asked. “Why else would his prints be on file?”

Frank tugged his hat back on and rubbed his nose. “His sporting goods store sells firearms, ma’am, so he had to be printed to get a permit to legally sell.”

“So that’s it? There’s nothing else that would help Nancy?” Helen looked at Doc hopefully.

Amos shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Frank said, giving him a nod. Then he faced Helen. “You need a lift home?” he asked out of courtesy.

“Thanks, but I’ll walk,” she replied.

The sheriff nearly sighed with relief; those blue eyes would have made mincemeat out of him all the way back to her cottage. He put his hand on the doorknob, about to leave, when Amos Melville’s voice stopped him.

“Do you know what plans Grace’s next of kin might have for her body?” Doc asked. “The ME wants to know what to do with it once he’s finished.”

Frank grimaced. “I don’t know, Doc. I’ve been trying all day to track the husband down, but all I get is his voice mail. I called his store and was told he’d taken a few days off.”

“Well, when you learn anything, give me a call,” Doc told him. “The county morgue would like a heads-up so they can contact the proper mortuary when the time comes.”

“Will do,” Frank promised. Then he made a beeline for the door and escaped.

He went back to his office and sat down behind his desk, pulling out the file labeled “Grace Simpson.” He spread it open on his desk and took out his pad of paper and pencil.

He didn’t write a thing for a long while. He went over what he already knew—namely, that Grace was murdered sometime around eight o’clock the previous evening, give or take an hour. It wasn’t a big leap to figure she missed the meeting with her publisher in St. Louis because she’d been murdered.

Had the therapist fought with Nancy Sweet? Could the young woman have smacked her with the bat—which she admittedly knew was in the house—and then left, perhaps not knowing Grace was dead. Had Nancy gone to Grace’s house the next morning and made a scene just to cover her butt?

Nancy had no alibi for the hours in question. She had no witness to affirm she’d stayed home. Not even the pizza delivery man.

Frank set down the pencil and rubbed at his head.

Nancy’s fingerprints were on the bat, along with Grace’s. Did the smudged prints belong to Max? Maybe the bat had come from his sporting goods store.

Or had the partial prints been left by someone else?

And where was that damned manuscript that had everyone so riled up?

Frank put pencil to paper and wrote:

1. Track down Max Simpson

2. Go through Grace’s office again—keys to file cabinets and desk in the staple box in Nancy Sweet’s top drawer

3. Find manuscript!

He thought of Nancy Sweet’s question about Grace’s clients who’d threatened her before she’d died. Would one of the townsfolk have committed murder rather than risk a secret coming out? At least Frank knew where Sarah had been between seven and eight o’clock last evening: she’d been home with him, feeding him dinner.

It was imperative that he get his hands on Grace’s manuscript and that flash drive Miss Sweet said was the only existing electronic file. Frank figured he needed to peruse the unpublished book for himself, purely for the sake of the investigation.

With a grunt, he tapped the pencil against his chin, trying to decide where to start, how to make sense of this. If any sense could ever be made of a cold-blooded murder.