To Helen Back (2 page)

Chapter 2

“Q
UIET NOW, PLEASE,
could I have quiet, everyone?” Art Beaner leaned into the microphone at the podium, sending his nasal tone screeching across the rows of chairs lined up in the small downtown building.

Helen Evans pressed her palms to her ears, waiting until the squeal of Art’s voice had died down to nothingness before she peeled them away again.

She looked around her, across the large room used for meetings of the Ladies Civic Improvement League, which she religiously attended; morning aerobics classes, which she didn’t; and Thursday night town halls. The place had filled up rather quickly. Usually no more than two or three dozen showed up, if that. But this evening’s main discussion was a volatile one by River Bend standards, namely, the razing of fifty acres up the river in the name of progress. Helen had taken a peek at the plans for the Wet ’n’ Woolly Water Park when the board had snagged a copy, and she wasn’t any more thrilled than her neighbors at the thought of such pristine land converted to aqua ducts of plastic pipe and slides surrounded by a sea of asphalt.

Helen had lived in this cozy Illinois town for fifty of her seventy-five years, ever since she’d married Joe. She’d borne four children at the hospital in nearby Jerseyville and had reared them in this very spot. Even after that dismal day three years ago when her husband had died, she’d kept up her little house at the corner of Jersey and Springfield. She didn’t see the need to change. Some of her best memories had been made there, after all.

Continuity made her feel safe, secure, which was why she enjoyed life in River Bend. There were no McDonald’s up the street, no fast food chains of any sort, just the diner on Main, which served a dandy chicken salad, and a few restaurants over in Grafton. They had little beyond a one-pump gas station that sold bait, an antiques store, a grocer’s, and a beauty shop. What more, Helen wondered, could one want?

Certainly not a water park, she decided, putting aside her spectacles and the quilting square she’d been stitching. The idea of Milton Grone selling the land to developers tied a knot in her stomach.

“Attention, I said! Attention,” Art Beaner called out, this time hammering down the wooden gavel. The motion set the microphone to buzzing angrily again so that a wave of moans erupted and Helen covered her ears. Until Art tapped the microphone none too gently and got the unnerving noise to stop.

When quiet reigned once more, Art cleared his throat and pressed a finger to his horned-rims. “Would, ah, Clara Foley please stand and read the minutes from our last meeting.”

From a seat near the front row a bosomy woman in a purple muumuu rolled to her feet. She flipped open the cover of a steno pad, cocked her grayed head, and began to read: “Meeting commenced with results from the bake sale run by Lola Mueller. We made sixty-five dollars and twenty-three cents to go toward the beautification of Serenity Garden.” She paused to lift her double chins. “The peach pie I bought was certainly delicious,” she commented.

Helen chuckled, as did those around her.

Art Beaner loosened his button-down collar and winced. “To the minutes, Clara, please.”

Clara sent him a black look before glancing down at the dog-eared pages again. “Second order of business was the new sewage pump on Springfield. Henry Potter got us a big break with his waste disposal company, which is removing the old pump and installing a new one at a discounted cost.” With a skin-wobbling nod, she forged ahead. “The last hour of the meeting was devoted to debate about ways to prevent the construction of Wet ’n’ Woolly. Things became so heated and ugly that board chairman Beaner called for the arguments to be postponed until the next Thursday night, which is now,” she clarified. “You want me to read the motions?” she asked, staring up at the podium.

Art shook his head.

Flicking her steno pad closed, Clara grinned. “I guess that about covers it,” she said, and with a sweep of purple cloth and groan of metal, she sat down to polite applause.

“To continue our discussion of Milton Grone’s sale of land to Wet ’n’ Woolly,” Art began, only to be interrupted by the cry of, “It’s an outrage!”

A woman in the front row hopped to her feet. “It’s a miscarriage of justice . . . an abomination!” she continued to protest.

Helen smiled at the sight of vocal naturalist Ida Bell in her oversized jodhpurs, shaking a bony fist in the air.

“All those birds . . . the wood owls and thrashers and bobwhites . . . they’ll be displaced from their homes,” she declared. “The rabbits and deer and squirrels will have to seek refuge in other places.” Her angular features flushed with anger, and she shook her head, topped by a tight cap of dark curls. “It makes me sick just to think of it, Mr. Beaner,’ she shouted. “Sick, sick, sick!”

“You tell him, Ida!” a small voice yelped, and Helen saw Dotty Feeny pop up from her seat to raise her eager face to her companion.

“I will not allow it to happen,” Ida went on, spurred forth by the encouragement. “If I must stop it with my bare hands, I will . . .”

“Miss Bell, please,” Chairman Beaner cut in. “I think we all understand your position by now.”

“But she’s right.” Dot stepped up beside her friend, the pair looking every bit like Mutt and Jeff: Ida, tall and thin as a beanstalk, and Dot, short and chubby. “Everything she says is true. It’s a sin to let wildlife be destroyed for mere money.”

“Speaking of the green stuff . . .” A voice rose from the rear, and Helen turned—as did the rest of the room—to see who’d spoken.

Helen’s breath caught in her throat as Shotsie Grone came forward, tugging at the hem of her yellow sweatshirt, her dark eyes darting this way and that. Helen couldn’t recall ever having seen the woman at a town meeting before and wondered what possible motive she had for being there. Surely she hadn’t come to defend her husband’s actions?

“I, uh, I’d like to talk a little more about the bucks involved in the deal my, uh, Miltie’s gone and made.” She raised her dimpled chin while twisting a corkscrew of blond hair around a finger. “So the land’s not going for cheap, is it? Miltie stands to gain a lot of dough?”

Ida Bell chirped, “You mean you don’t know?”

“Well, it’s just that I, um . . .” Shotsie faltered and her chin drooped to her chest. She stopped twirling her hair. Then she looked around the room and her eyes took on a sudden glow. “I’m just wondering how much it would cost if you all were to buy the land from him instead?”

“Us? Pay him?” Ida’s tone resounded with skepticism.

The whole room began to whisper, the voices swirling around Helen’s ears.

“Why, Mrs. Grone, we don’t have that kind of money on hand,” Art Beaner said into the crackling microphone. “That would mean millions, and we’ve barely a fraction of that set aside in our community funds.”

“Millions? Of dollars?” Shotsie swayed and pressed a hand between her breasts. “Millions,” she repeated, though her apparent surprise passed in an instant and an expression of smugness set in. “Well, then, if you can’t match the sale price”—she shrugged—“I guess you’ll have t’ live with the water park. What’re a bunch of squirrels worth anyhow?”

“Why you silly, little bumpkin!” Ida snorted, and started to charge up the aisle, only to have Dotty grab hold of her arm, keeping her back.

Shouts erupted from the room’s four corners.

Art Beaner pounded his gavel. “Ladies and gentlemen, please,” he called out, his forehead glistening beneath the lights. “People of River Bend, get ahold of yourselves and let’s discuss this matter rationally!”

“Aw, shut up, Beaner!” someone yelled.

Still, Art continued to plead for silence until the roars turned to grumbles. “Thank you,” he said, and wiped a sleeve across his brow. “Now if anyone wishes to speak, just raise a hand, I’ll point your way, and we’ll do this in an orderly fashion.”

Helen seemed suddenly to be surrounded by waving arms.

Art stabbed a finger toward Felicity Timmons, seated to Helen’s left.

Felicity brushed off her skirt and stood, addressing the chairman in her trilling tone. “I say we should take some action against Mr. Grone. As his neighbor, I’ve had to put up with his intolerable behavior on a daily basis. He’s ignored all standards of common decency. He’s made a mockery of the rules. Why, he’s built a fence upon my property, and yet he has no intention of removing it! I say, Chairman Beaner”—Felicity wrung blue-veined hands—“isn’t there something we can do to stop him? Isn’t there anyone who can put him in his place?”

“Hey, that’s my Miltie you’re talking about!” Shotsie cried.

“Mrs. Grone, please,” Art said into the whistling microphone.

Helen reached over to take hold of Felicity’s trembling hand as her friend slumped to her seat. Helen patted her gently, though it didn’t do much to erase the other woman’s grim expression.

“What about that promise Gerald Grone made before he died?” Henry Potter said, jumping up from his seat. “Didn’t he swear he’d leave that land to the town?”

“Henry, I must ask you to wait your turn,” Beaner scolded with a wave of the gavel.

“He’s right!” Ida Bell stomped to her feet again. “We were all right here in this very room when Milton’s father told us that the acreage would be ours one day. Then he had that dreadful heart attack.”

“What about papers?” Shotsie moved farther up the aisle, rubbing palms on her thighs. “Did he sign any papers, legal mumbo-jumbo that gave the town Miltie’s land?”

Ida stammered, “No, no, but—”

“But nothin’!” Shotsie’s mouth curled triumphantly. “That means Miltie can sell it to anyone he wants and you can’t stop him.”

“We’ll see about that,” Ida replied in a most determined tone. Then, with all eyes upon her, she marched through the rows of townsfolk, brushing past Shotsie Grone and heading out of the building altogether.

Like mice drawn by the Pied Piper, nearly everyone else in the room followed suit, rising to their feet as they hurried in hot pursuit.

Despite Beaner’s pleas for everyone to sit down, the place quickly emptied out.

From her chair, Helen watched the goings-on with concern. Though she knew few River Bend residents were overly fond of Milton Grone—quite the opposite, in fact—none had ever suggested physical violence, despite the fact that most had probably thought of it at one time or another, she was sure.

“Maybe we should do something, Reverend Fister,” she said to the man in shirtsleeves seated to her right. “They did sound at the end of their ropes. And you know Mr. Grone. Things could get out of hand if we let them.”

“Yes, I know Mr. Grone,” the minister remarked rather quietly, and almost reluctantly rose from his chair. He hardly appeared a man on a mission. “I know him very well.”

“He might need to be saved . . .”

“I think he’s past saving,” Earnest Fister remarked, the tight frown on his lips drawing a line between peppered mustache and beard.

Helen detected the flicker of aversion in his eyes, and she suspected that the clergyman who conducted services at their tiny chapel every Sunday morning didn’t think any more highly of Milton Grone than the rest. Newly hired the year before, Earnest Fister had moved into a house near the chapel, just a block from the Grones’. His wife had passed away some time ago, or so Helen had heard, which accounted for him living alone with his teenage daughter, Madeline. Helen couldn’t begin to guess what had transpired between the minister and Mr. Grone to make Fister speak of the man with such obvious unease. Though she could certainly believe Milton Grone had done
something
to alienate him.

“Shall we go?” she suggested. “I’d hate to see Ida and Dot get into trouble.”

“Very well,” Fister said, and let out a heavy sigh. “If you put it that way, I supposed we must.”

With Felicity Timmons and Art Beaner at her heels, Helen left the hall with Fister and headed out. Though the crowd of townsfolk was at least a block ahead, she could hear their upraised voices as they plodded forward past neatly trimmed yard after yard, marching in the direction of Milton Grone’s house like a mob bent on a hanging.

Every now and then through the lamp-lit dark, Helen could make out the arm-waving figure of Shotsie Grone, screaming for them to “Stop it right now, or I’ll sue you all!”

Art Beaner shuffled along to the rear, mumbling, “Oh, my, oh, my,” while to Helen’s right the Reverend Fister strode forward in silence.

By the time they turned the corner onto the Grones’ street, Helen saw the several dozen who still followed Ida standing in a semicircle on the edge of Milton’s lawn. Their voices seemed hushed, more akin to disquieted whispers. Helen no longer heard the uncompromising words of bringing Grone to his knees. Instead, their tone suggested things were not as they ought to be. And she found herself suddenly wondering if a shotgun-toting Milton had appeared on his porch.

“Excuse us, please, excuse us,” Art Beaner begged of the gathered troupe, managing somehow to break open a path for himself, Helen, Felicity, and Earnest Fister to walk through.

When they emerged at the front of the pack, Helen felt a ripple of anxiety race up her spine.

Her frazzled curls obscuring her face, Shotsie Grone knelt on the ground beside a man’s limp form. The two appeared fused into a single shadow, only hazily lit by the glow of the moon and the streetlamp half a block up.

“Mrs. Grone?” Helen said, and came up behind her.

Shotsie raised her head slowly and met Helen’s gaze. Tears ran down her bloodless cheeks, dripping from eyes turned glassy with shock.

Her movement allowed Helen a glimpse of the man who lay on the unkempt lawn. His skin appeared waxy and gray. His eyes stared blankly into the night.

Shotsie said something, mumbling words so unintelligible that Helen couldn’t make out a one. But she didn’t need to hear. Helen knew precisely what she’d said.

Milton Grone was dead.

Chapter 3

A
T
H
ELEN’S URGING,
several members of the crowd took off for Amos Melville’s. The doctor arrived barely five minutes after, his white hair ruffled and brown bag clutched in his hand. He wore a coat thrown over striped pajamas and his feet were stuffed into a pair of loafers.

As gently as she could, Helen pried Shotsie away from her husband. The woman whimpered at first, but then her sobs fast turned into pitiful wails. Helen anchored an arm around Shotsie’s trembling shoulders, holding her a safe distance back from the body as Doc Melville got down on hands and knees beside it.

Someone had rounded up flashlights, and they were beamed down as Amos worked.

Helen looked on with the rest as the doctor shined a pin light into Milton’s unseeing pupils, touched his fingers to the man’s throat, and then lifted a lifeless hand upward to check fingernails for color.

After a quick listen with his stethoscope, Doc Melville stuffed it back into his bag. “The light, please, turn it here,” he said, before he rolled Milton’s head toward him, clucking aloud as he scrutinized the side of the skull that had rested upon an uprooted stone.

He sighed as he gently lowered the head to the position in which he’d found it. Without a word, he closed his leather satchel and rose from his knees, brushing dirt from his pajamas as he faced Shotsie Grone.

Helen tightened her arm around the woman as Amos Melville pressed a finger to the bridge of his spectacles, moving nearer to the pair.

He glanced at Helen, clearing his throat before he told Shotsie, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Grone, but I warned Milton many times to take better care of himself. His heart just wasn’t what it used to be, despite how robust he appeared. If he’d only been more serious about his condition . . . if he’d used the nitroglycerine prescription I asked him to take . . . well, perhaps we might have prolonged his life by a few more years.”

Shotsie’s teary eyes widened. “What exactly are you saying, Doc? What’s this ‘condition’ you mentioned? You don’t mean his hemorrhoids?”

Before the doctor addressed Shotsie’s questions, he met Helen’s eyes again for a brief moment. He looked equally puzzled. “You didn’t know about Milton’s myocardial infarction ten years back?”

“His myo . . . what?” Shotsie shook her head, clearly confused. “I don’t understand.”

“He had a massive heart attack,” Doc explained, sounding surprised by her ignorance. He chuckled softly. “I was your husband’s physician for more years than I’d like to recall, and he was as stubborn as an ox every one of them. His heart problems were his Achilles’ heel. I guess he didn’t want to trouble you about it, what with you being younger than he was.”

“A heart attack,” Shotsie murmured.

“He was in the hospital for nearly a month,” Amos told her. “I must say that, for a time, we were afraid he wasn’t going to make it. But his orneriness pulled him through, all right.”

Shotsie pulled away from Helen and looked at the people who still milled about as if searching for someone. She hesitated before pointing a finger at Ida Bell. “She said Miltie’s father died of a heart attack. Is that true?”

Doc nodded. “It seems a good many diseases involving the heart are inherited.”

“So that’s what happened to Miltie?”

Again Amos nodded. “From the looks of things, I’d say yes. Though there is a rather nasty gash on his head where he struck that rock when he fell. I’d like to examine him further”—he waved a hand around him, at the dark and the people who hovered about—“in better equipped surroundings.”

“A heart attack,” Shotsie murmured, standing motionless.

Helen kept a distance apart from her, afraid to touch her for fear she’d intrude. So it startled her when Shotsie released a hysterical sob and threw herself on the ground beside Milton, pressing her cheek to his chest. Her hands clutched at the bib of his overalls. “Oh, Miltie, why now? Oh, God, why now?”

The spectators who lingered began to disperse, so few remained by the time the town’s only squad car pulled up without the benefit of lights or siren. It parked in front of the Grones’ battered mailbox.

Sheriff Frank Biddle ambled forward in mud-splattered boots, his thumbs hooked into his pockets. He’d donned his holster, which hung precariously beneath a good-sized belly. When he approached Helen and Doc, he tipped up his hat and puffed his chest out like a peacock.

“Got a call from Henry Potter. He mentioned there was trouble at the Grones’,” he said with a nod before looking over in Shotsie’s direction. His eyes narrowed but otherwise seemed unperturbed by the scene. “So what’s up, Doc? Did old Milt finally go boots up and leave us all in peace?”

“Sheriff, really!” Helen frowned at him, jerking her chin toward the still-sobbing Shotsie.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said quickly, and turned around.

Helen saw the tail of his blue pajama top sticking out in back where he’d missed tucking it into his trousers.

“It appears to have been a heart attack,” Doc Melville said.

“I didn’t know he had one,” Sheriff Biddle quipped, though his grin swiftly vanished when Helen fixed her eyes upon him.

Doc stepped forward. “I’d like to examine the body, Sheriff, so if we could get an ambulance here to move him—”

“No problem.”

“Um, Sheriff.” Art Beaner emerged from the shadows behind Helen. He held a shotgun awkwardly in his hands. “I found this sticking out of the bushes not far from the . . . from Mr. Grone,” he said in his nasal tone.

Biddle took the gun and raised the barrel to his nose. He sniffed then tapped the butt. “It’s been fired recently. Still smells of burned powder.”

The acrid odor was faint but Helen could smell it as well. “Perhaps Mr. Grone himself fired it,” she suggested. “Everyone in town knew he kept the thing loaded and ready. Maybe he heard something that brought him outside.”

“Like a squirrel in his trash, or Miss Timmons’s cat,” Art mentioned, running a hand over thinning hair. “As a matter of fact, Felicity told me he took a shot at Kitty just a week ago. Scared Felicity to death.”

“Not as much as the cat,” the sheriff said, though no one laughed.

“He could have fired at an animal then dropped the gun when his heart gave out,” Art surmised aloud. “You think that might be the case, Doc?”

“I won’t say anything more until I’ve had a chance to properly look at the body,” Amos said. “So if you’ll get that ambulance here, Sheriff, we can proceed straightaway.”

“Gotcha, Doc.”

The sheriff headed over to his black-and-white, and Helen heard the crackle of static from his radio as he called for an ambulance.

Helen helped Doc separate Shotsie from Milton, a task that was harder than anticipated. It took some persistent pleading before Shotsie allowed Helen to move her aside so that Doc and the sheriff could prepare Milton’s body for transport.

Ida Bell and Dot Feeny took that moment to approach the grieving widow, who wept in the safety of Helen’s arms.

At Dotty’s nudge, Ida asked, “If there’s anything we might do to help, Mrs. Grone . . .”

Shotsie stiffened, jerking out of Helen’s grasp. She sucked in a breath before reeling back her head and hissing at the pair, “I don’t want anything from either of you, ya hear me? Nothing! As I see it, you as good as killed my Miltie. Because of all the trouble you caused him with your stupid threats, he’s gone and left me, you understand? And he’s not coming back!”

Helen stood in stunned silence along with Ida and Dot.

Shotsie squared her shoulders, wiped the roll of tears from her cheeks with dirt-smeared fingers, and strode toward the house. Once inside, she dropped the screen door shut loudly behind her.

Until then Earnest Fister had kept a quiet vigil by the fence. Now he walked across the yard with its uprooted rocks and knee-high weeds. He stopped near the trio of women only long enough to announce, “I think this is where I come in. I’ll go talk to Mrs. Grone and try to calm her down.”

Dotty clasped birdlike hands between her ample breasts and moaned, “What a horrible thing. Simply awful.”

Helen patted her arm. “Yes, yes it is. Death is never easy.”

“Oh, no.” Dot turned her plump face to Helen’s. “I meant what Mrs. Grone just said, that Ida and I are to blame for Milton’s passing. That simply wasn’t at all kind.”

“She’s upset, Dot,” Helen reminded her. “She’s had a terrible shock.”

“I don’t think anyone’s sorry that he’s gone,” Ida remarked in her overloud way. “I don’t mean to be crass, but he wasn’t the most human of beings. He treated us all like pebbles in his shoes. Without him around, life in this town will improve immensely.”

“Ida, for goodness’ sake!” Helen couldn’t believe what she’d heard. It wasn’t like Ida to be so callous, most certainly not at a moment like this.

Ida crossed her thin arms over her chest and set her booted feet apart. “I can’t help it, Helen. He was just plain no good. As much as I’m concerned with living creatures on our planet, I hardly had a soft spot in my heart for Milton Grone. All he’s done ever since his father died is stir up trouble. He turned bitter and mean, and it’s made Felicity a nervous wreck, the poor thing, having to live just next door. Now she’s free of him, isn’t she?”

“Yes, now she’s free,” Dot echoed.

Helen searched around them, having not seen Felicity since they’d reached Milton’s property. She finally spotted her across the split-rail fence, standing in her own yard, silhouetted quite clearly by her porch light.

Her gaze followed Felicity as the woman walked toward a cluster of bushes and stooped to retrieve a pair of gloves from the ground. Those, she pressed into the large pockets of her duster.

Then Felicity bent again, this time to grab the long handle of a shovel. She took it with her back to the house and leaned it against the porch before she disappeared inside.

“Dear Felicity,” Helen murmured, unable to refute either Ida’s or Dot’s remarks about Milton’s death somehow freeing her.

But then, Helen knew, Felicity would not be the only one breathing a sigh of relief now that Milton Grone was gone.