To Helen Back (4 page)

Chapter 6

A
MOS
M
ELVILLE SQUINTED
at the slide of human tissue through his high-powered microscope, not pleased at all with what he saw.

He lifted his head, moving away from the eyepiece, instead gazing down at the open folder near his elbow. Though the pages were already filled with his scribbles, he picked up his pen and added further notes. He wrote quickly, wanting to capture his thoughts while they were fresh in his mind, before the flow was broken.

He’d examined Milton Grone as thoroughly as his own little lab would allow, taking X rays and tissue samples from the wound on Milton’s skull.

And he didn’t like the results. No, he didn’t like them at all.

He called on Ed Drake, an old college chum and a medical examiner for the county, and relayed his concerns. Within a half hour Drake had shown up in River Bend to talk with Amos face-to-face. Then he left with the body, promising to do a few lab tests in-house and before delivering Milton to the local mortuary in time for the funeral the following day.

Doc prayed that Ed Drake wouldn’t find anything that changed the initial finding of “cardiac arrest” as the cause of death on the death certificate. But a sense of doubt nagged at him.

A thatch of white hair fell upon his furrowed brow, but he didn’t raise a hand to push it off. “Lord above, but I hope my suspicions are wrong,” he muttered, knowing if he wasn’t, the good people of River Bend would surely have something juicy to gossip about, something much more disquieting than a catty remark whispered by one gray-haired matron to another over a hand of bridge. No, it would be far worse.

If Doc was right in his assumption, it could mean that someone in town was a killer.

Chapter 7

F
ELICITY
T
IMMONS APPROACHED
the yard of her neat white Victorian house, pausing at the gate opened wide to the inlaid brick walk.

From beneath her hat’s brim, she eyed the split-rail fence that trespassed on her land by half a foot, gazing past it at the weed-invested grounds and paint-peeled home set on concrete slabs veined with cracks.

Instinctively, she searched for the man with the sunburned face and untamed hair, clad in dusty overalls. But she saw no one there, merely a vacant window staring back at her, its shade partially drawn like a half-closed eyelid.

There was no rusted lawn mower running unattended, its noisy motor enough to inspire a migraine. No one sloppily sprayed herbicide about so that it rained down fatally upon the raspberry bushes. No slouched figure hung over the fence, smirking at her and taunting her with remarks that made her blush.

She sighed aloud, her heartbeat easing as her blood pressure came down. Grone was dead, she reminded herself, and he wasn’t coming back.

She fairly swayed with relief at the thought.

Felicity had never liked Milton Grone, not one little bit. She’d always believed he’d get his just desserts sooner or later. She was just sorry that it hadn’t been sooner.

With a sniff, she went around to the rear of the house, touching a camellia bud along the way, cooing softly to a droopy rhododendron. They were her children, these plants, and she cared for them as such. She’d never been married—engaged once, yes, till her fiancé got cold feet— though she hadn’t dwelled on it overmuch. She had worked for the British railway for half of her life, selling tickets to people traveling here and there while she’d gone nowhere. And finally she’d up and quit, using her savings to travel before it was too late, viewing scenery that inspired her senses and her green thumb beyond the roses of her native England: the tulips in Holland, the rain forests of Costa Rica, the gardens of Versailles, and the verdant vineyards of Tuscany. Then one fall Felicity had jumped the pond to take a riverboat cruise down the Mississippi and had been smitten by what she saw. Once she’d glimpsed the winding river edged by craggy bluffs painted amazing shades of gold, red, and yellow—witnessed her first bald eagle in flight and thought, That is me!—she fell in love with the beauty and simplicity of the region and decided to remain.

Since settling in tiny River Bend all those years ago, she’d been happy as a clam, gardening each day, puttering about in the dirt, and taking walks up to the river’s edge to listen to the brown waters lapping gently upon the rocky shore.

The only thing that had marred her peaceful existence was Milton Grone, as ungrateful a fellow as she’d ever known. His parents had once lived in the house next door. Gerald and Eda were all that Milton was not: kind, thoughtful, generous. Though hardly a rich man by the standards of the day, Gerald had given what he could to the township, more in deeds than in dollars. When Gerald and Eda passed, they willed their money to River Bend. It had been barely enough to restore the old lighthouse and build a new playground, but more than enough to irritate his son, bringing him home again.

Felicity settled into a wrought-iron chair on her back patio, remembering all the dust Milton had kicked up when he returned with his then-wife Delilah. They hadn’t been satisfied with receiving Gerald and Eda’s house and the property around it. They’d scoffed when they learned there was no financial windfall; that other than the old homestead, all Milton had inherited was undeveloped acreage up the river.

“What in the hell am I gonna do with a bunch of trees?” Milton had yelled loud enough for all the neighbors to hear. “What good will they do me?”

He’d tried to sell the plot to the town, as he wanted it off his hands. But they hadn’t taken a bite, not back then. Milton had wanted an exorbitant amount for it, more than River Bend’s coffers could pay. Though he only had to wait a decade or so for Wet ’n’ Woolly to step in.

Felicity shook her head. Why hadn’t Gerald bequeathed the land to the town, as he promised? What made him change his mind? she wondered. Or had he? But there was no documentation to back up that promise, none that anyone could find anyhow.

The only aspect of it that made Felicity feel the least bit better was knowing that Milton Grone had died before he could enjoy his jackpot.

“Enough of this,” she said aloud, and patted her thighs. “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, old girl,” she told herself, and with a push, did arise.

She pulled on her soiled gloves and looked around for her trowels. Where had she put them? And where was her shovel?

Ah, yes, she suddenly recalled. During the to-do the previous night, she’d set them near the porch. She hadn’t cleaned them and put them away as she should have. She’d been so flustered, what with Milton pestering her earlier in the day. And then came the town meeting and the fuss of finding the body. It’s a wonder she hadn’t forgotten about her tools altogether.

The shovel leaned against the lattice, the tip of the spade stuck in the dirt. The trowels lay scattered thereabouts. She wouldn’t need the shovel anyway, she realized, and left it where it was, deciding to wash it off later, when she finished up her other tasks.

She’d purchased a lovely flat of marigolds a few days before, and they waited patiently in plastic pots on her porch steps. The trowels would do just fine, she decided, picking them up before retrieving the flowers.

Once she’d deposited everything beside the empty plot near the gate, she began to dig, whistling as she rooted each marigold in the fertilized loam. “You’re safe now,” she told them as she toiled. “You’re safe, you see, because that bloody awful man is gone. Very soon he’ll either be ashes or buried,” she assured them, “put under the earth deeper than any of you, never to be uprooted.”

A cloud washed over the sun for a moment, banishing the warmth that had touched her shoulders and back. The sudden chill made the hairs on her neck stand on end, and Felicity stood, looking over and across the fence, her breath catching in her throat.

Had the window shade at the Grones’ house come up just a bit? Had someone stood there, watching her a minute before?

She shivered at the idea.

The sun reappeared, warming her back again, and Felicity shook off the odd feeling. Milton was dead, she reminded herself. He couldn’t bother her anymore.

She patted the ground around the frilly leaves of her marigolds, noting how brightly their golden heads titled up, and she smiled.

Chapter 8

S
TILL CLAD IN
the skirt and blouse she’d worn to Stitch and Sew, Helen finished putting plastic wrap around the zucchini bread she’d baked that morning and headed out of the house for the Grones’.

As Helen approached, she saw Felicity in her yard, planting annuals, and stopped just long enough to ask after her. Her friend did appear less preoccupied than she’d been at Lola Mueller’s. But Felicity had always found solace in the earth.

Helen walked on to the house next door, pausing at the dented mailbox before forging ahead on the cracked sidewalk toward the Grones’ front porch.

“Hello?” she called through the screen of the door. “Anyone home?”

“Come on in,” a voice shouted with more impatience than welcome. “I’m in the kitchen!”

And so Helen left the sunshine and entered a dim hallway devoid of light, save for what filtered in through a grimy window.

She and Joe had been here to dinner often when Eda and Gerald were alive, though that was quite a while ago. The place had been kept up far better then, the paint fresh, the floors swept and sills dusted. Still, in spite of the changes, she knew her way around well enough to find the kitchen.

“Mrs. Grone?” she said as she made her way past faded wallpaper toward Shotsie’s voice. She paused in the doorway, cradling the plastic-wrapped bread in her arms, finding herself at a loss for words.

Dead ahead at a litter-strewn table sat the newly widowed Mrs. Grone, wrapped in a shapeless bathrobe. The head covered by corkscrew curls drooped, so that Shotsie’s chin sat on her chest. She clutched a box of Kleenex with one hand. The other held a single filmy tissue into which she abruptly—and loudly—blew her nose.

“Am I interrupting?” Helen asked, taking a tentative step forward. “I could always come back—”

“No, no.” Shotsie waved the used tissue overhead like a flag of surrender. “It’s all right.”

Helen wasn’t so sure. She knew how it felt to lose a husband, and though she would hardly compare Milton Grone to her Joe, she understood how Shotsie must hurt.

“I brought you zucchini bread,” she said, feeling rather silly offering the food, as it was hardly a cure for grief. “I’ll put it on the counter if you’d like.”

“Whatever,” Shotsie said dully, and lifted her chin with a sigh.

Helen could see the toll her tears had taken. Shotsie looked so different from the woman she’d seen the night before in town hall. Her face was devoid of makeup, pale and childlike. Shadows of gray ringed her eyes beneath the sag of her uncombed curls.

“Oh, my poor dear,” Helen said, and went to sit at her side, setting the bread amid the clouds of tissue on the table, taking Shotsie’s cold hand in her own. “What can I do for you?” she asked. “This must be so difficult, I know.”

“Do you?” Shotsie jerked out of her grasp. She sniffled, eyeing Helen skeptically. “Do you really?”

“Of course I do.” Helen set her hands helplessly in her lap.

A smile tugged at Shotsie’s mouth. “You sound like everyone else in this town”—she dabbed roughly at her eyes and laughed angrily—“all those do-gooders who never welcomed me when I married Milton.”

“They only want to help,” Helen said.

Shotsie blew her nose again. “You mean they only want to ease their guilty conscience. Everyone despised Miltie. I’d of had to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to see. Since the day Milt moved me in, hardly anyone’s ever said boo to me. And during this whole thing with Wet ’n’ Woolly, there was all that name-calling and threats.” She shook her head. “You’d of thought Miltie murdered someone, the way we were treated. He would’ve had to be a saint to put up with what he did.”

Helen shifted in her seat, thinking that Milton Grone was hardly Mother Teresa. She didn’t know quite what to say, which was probably just as well, as Shotsie wasn’t finished.

“No one gave a damn about him when he was alive so why should I believe they care now that he’s dead? Unless they assume the land deal will fall through with him gone and all.” Shotsie pushed a hand through her limp curls. “Well, they’ll find out soon enough that I’m not breakin’ off Miltie’s deal with those developer fellows. Nothing’s changing where that’s concerned. Milt wanted that land sold to the water park, and I’ll make sure it all goes through just like he planned, even if it’s the last thing I do. You got that, Mrs. Evans?”

“I do,” Helen said. Then she cleared her throat, steering the conversation into even muddier waters. “I was wondering, my dear, if you’ve called Delilah—”

“Delilah?” Shotsie stiffened. “Why should I?”

Helen smoothed her skirt, wondering if perhaps she’d have been better off not broaching the subject at all. “She was married to Milton.”

“A hundred years ago!”

“They do have two children.”

“The ungrateful brats,” Shotsie said, and sounded like she was choking. “Miltie hadn’t seen them forever. They never even sent him a Father’s Day card.”

Helen watched the play of emotions on Shotsie’s face, seeing the mix of uncertainty and disgust. She didn’t doubt that there was little love lost between the two Mrs. Grones. But fair was fair. “They should be told Milton’s dead regardless,” she insisted. “He was their father after all.”

Shotsie’s frown deepened. “You know what’s gonna happen then, don’t you? They’re going to want a piece of the water park deal. No way,” she said, and vigorously shook her head. “No way are they going to see so much as a penny. Not after what their nasty mother put Miltie through. Did you know she threatened to sic a lawyer on him for back child support? Oh, and unpaid alimony, too, even though he swore she’d gotten more than enough.”

“No,” Helen said, and she wasn’t sure that was any of her business. “I’m sorry, no, I didn’t.”

Shotsie toyed with the tissue in her hands and sniffed. “Milton mostly kept his problems to himself,” she whispered, “and so did I.”

Helen attempted a smile. “Maybe now, because of this, you’ll come out of the house more often and give us all a chance to get to know you better, and you to know us.”

Shotsie shifted her gaze, staring at Helen. “You’ve gotta be joking, right? ’Cause I’ll tell you something, Mrs. Evans, just as soon as I’ve taken care of things here, I’m clearing out. With Miltie gone, there’s nothing to keep me in this dump a minute longer.”

“You should give the town a chance—” Helen began, when Shotsie sharply cut her off.

“A chance?” she repeated, her cheeks blotched with pink. “You figure I’ll get cozy with that Felicity Timmons next door, huh? She’s a real pal, that one. She’d like me better if I were a petunia. I can see her from the window, playin’ in the dirt every day from sunup to sundown.” Shotsie snorted. “That old bag was nothing but snooty to Milt and me, always complaining about this or that. Like the fence Miltie built. He worked hard on it, too, pullin’ up rocks the size of cannonballs so he could put in the posts.” Her fingers plucked at the tissue, shredding it to strips. “No, I don’t doubt Felicity’s kicking up her sensible heels now that Milt’s dead. And those two birdbrains from that nature club, I’ll bet they’re celebrating, too.”

Helen noted the feverish glint in Shotsie’s eyes, and figured it was time to skedaddle. She came to her feet, the chair screeching on the uneven linoleum as she pushed her way out. “You should lie down,” she told Shotsie. “You must be tired after everything.”

Shotsie opened her mouth as though to object then closed it promptly, her lips vaguely quivering. As suddenly, she broke into sobs, her shoulders sinking as tears spilled from her eyes, glistening on rounded cheeks. Her wails echoed through the house.

“Oh, my,” Helen breathed, and her mothering instincts kicked in. She gently guided Shotsie from the table, tucking the smaller woman to her side. “Come along and let’s get you tucked into bed. Then I’ll leave you alone so you can sleep.”

Helen led the crying widow to a room at the back of the house, settling her in bed, just as she’d promised. She slipped out a few minutes after, hurrying toward home and wondering all the while if Shotsie would make it through the funeral the next day without falling apart, knowing it would be difficult enough for everyone as it was.