1 A Dose of Death

by Gin Jones

  That was what Helen needed for her retirement: something she enjoyed so much that she couldn't give it up, even if she wanted to. "You mentioned teaching me to make hats, and I was going to stop at the crafts store on the way here, but I didn't know what I'd need."

  "Not a problem." Josie tucked the hat she was working on into the space between her hip and the chair, and dove into the Hello Kitty backpack that was on her lap. "We've got more yarn in our stashes than we'd be able to use in the combined lifetimes of everyone in the nursing home, and I always carry a few extra hooks. I like having options for new projects. Besides, I'm always dropping them, and sometimes it's easier to just use another one until I can find someone to pick it up for me."

  Betty nodded. "Crochet is easier for a beginner. Josie will set you up, and once you're comfortable working with one hook, we'll show you how to knit with two needles, so you can decide which you prefer."

  Helen pulled up a third chair and leaned her cane against the armrest. At least here she wasn't the only one carrying such an ugly thing.

  Within minutes, Helen was pulling loops through each other, forming first a long chain and then something that looked vaguely like the very wobbly edge of a cap.

  "This yarn is pretty," she said, trying not to feel that she was doing it a disservice.

  "You missed a stitch." Josie pointed to a gap in the fabric. "It takes some practice before you can talk and work at the same time."

  "I can listen and work, though," Helen said. "I'm curious about what Geoff Loring has been up to here, and I bet you two know."

  Betty and Josie shared a glance, before Betty confided, "We hate to speak ill of anyone who's down and out, but Geoff doesn't have any idea what's going on here. Not the people, not the politics, not the finances. Or the ways that all three intersect."

  "But you two know."

  "Mind your stitches," Josie said amiably. "You made two in one hole right there, and for now we're working on keeping the cap the same size, not increasing or decreasing."

  "It's ironic, really," Betty said. "Geoff didn't have a lead on anything more exciting than the memoirs of some old has-beens, but someone thought he did. We heard that he was in the emergency room this morning, getting a cast on his arm. It seems he was jumped by a bunch of thugs who told him he'd better stay out of the nursing home, or else. And then they broke his wrist, so he couldn't type up his story."

  "Geoff was attacked?"

  "By Neanderthals." Josie rolled her eyes. "Even the oldest resident here knows that computers can take dictation these days, with the proper software. Breaking arms just isn't as effective as it used to be."

  Helen realized she couldn't concentrate on both her stitching and her listening, after all. She showed the yarn mercy and let it fall into her lap. "So Geoff's going to write his story, after all?"

  "That's the irony," Betty said. "He didn't have a story that anyone would be upset about. Still doesn't. No one here has told him about anything that's happened in the last ten years."

  "You know," Josie said, picking up the abandoned mess in Helen's lap and pulling out the last dozen stitches. "He might have had a lead without realizing it. He interviewed Melissa a few weeks ago, and now she's dead. Maybe she told him something she shouldn't have, and it got her killed and him assaulted."

  "You don't think the Remote Control Burglar killed Melissa?"

  "Please," Josie said, sounding more like a teenager than an octogenarian. "He's been stealing remote controls for at least five years without going on a murderous rampage, or even escalating to stealing something valuable, like the televisions that are operated by the remote controls. Why would he suddenly escalate to murder?"

  "Melissa's death could have been an accident," Helen said. "The police think she might have surprised him, and she got killed in the course of the burglar's escaping."

  "Her death could have been a lot of things, but I don't think it had anything to do with burglary," Betty said, agreeing with her friend. "I think it started out as a romantic rendezvous and something went wrong. Melissa was meeting her lover in your lovely woods, and…I don't know. Maybe there was another lover, and he saw Melissa kissing the other man, and in a fit of jealousy, he tried to kill them both, but the lover got away and only Melissa died. Her killer probably hovered over her dying body, weeping and going insane with regret."

  Helen had a hard time picturing any scenario in which Melissa was the heroine, and this one seemed even less likely than the theory that Melissa had tried to stop the Remote Control Burglar. "Did Melissa even have a lover? Her boss said she didn't even have any family or close friends."

  "It's possible," Josie said eagerly. "No one talks about their romantic triangles, after all. The whole point is to keep them secret. Not that anyone is very good at hiding things from us. You wouldn't believe the things we see while we're just sitting here, quietly making hats."

  "Anything that might explain why Melissa was killed?"

  The two women looked at each other and shrugged. Betty answered for them. "Not really. Everyone's been talking about it, but no one here really knows anything about what goes on outside our walls. Mostly, what we hear is just gossip about the residents and the staff. Melissa's been gone long enough that half the people here have forgotten they ever knew her."

  Josie snorted. "The residents here aren't exactly reliable witnesses. Half the time, I forget what I'm crocheting until Betty reminds me. It's a good thing I learned to crochet when I was a kid, because I'd hate to forget that."

  Another dead end, Helen thought. Maybe Tate had had better luck with the owner of the limo company.

  "I'd better get going." She tried to return the tangled pile of yarn, with the hook buried in its depths, but Josie insisted that she keep it to practice on at home.

  "I wish I could stay longer," Helen said, "but I'm expecting a visit from a friend at my cottage this afternoon."

  "A friend or a lover?" Josie said.

  "Sorry to disappoint you," Helen said. "He's just a friend. He saves all his passion for chunks of exotic wood."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Tate had, indeed, had more success than Helen had. With the cooperation of the limo company's owner, he'd identified a recent passenger in Jack's car, who, if Helen's theory was right, might well be the next victim of his remote control thefts.

  Tate and Helen were now sitting in his car, half a block away and around the corner, where they could keep the house in sight, without being obvious about it.

  "This is a waste of time." Tate tossed aside the woodworking catalogue he'd been reading for the last two hours.

  Since most of the burglaries had occurred between 2:00 and 4:00, they'd arrived around 1:30. Since then, while Tate read, Helen had been dutifully stabbing her crochet hook into what she hoped was the right spot for each of the subsequent stitches.

  "We've got half an hour left until 4:00," Helen said. "Jack will show up by then. Unless you picked the wrong victim from his passenger list. I'm sure he's driven more than one inconsiderate person in the last couple weeks."

  "Most of them were regulars, business people he's worked with dozens of times before, and who haven't been hit by the burglar," Tate said. "I'm going on the theory that this is someone he hasn't driven before, or he would have already robbed them. There were only two new people on his schedule for the last two weeks, and only one was male. If you're right about Jack, it's got to be this one."

  "I'm right," Helen said. "He'll be here. If not today, then tomorrow or the next day."

  "Easy for you to say," Tate said. "I can't exactly bring my lathe with me, but you've got your knitting."

  "Crochet." She showed him the metal crochet hook. "See? One hook instead of two needles."

  He took the hook from her and turned it around, peering at it closely. "I could make one of those out of wood."

  She reclaimed it from him. "How long did it take before you knew woodworking was what you wanted to do with your time?"

  "I kne
w it the first time I turned on the lathe in shop class and saw a block of wood spinning," he said. "I've still got the piece I turned that day. I saved it to look at whenever I'm struggling with a difficult new piece. I certainly didn't do a great job with that first one, but I could feel the potential, and it inspires me every time I look at it."

  Helen looked down at the tangle in her lap. Maybe this crocheting thing wasn't the right retirement hobby for her, after all. She certainly hadn't felt any potential when she'd taken the crochet hook from Josie, or even as the stitches had started to pile up. Looking at it now certainly didn't inspire her. She'd managed to make a beautiful, multicolored skein of yarn into an incredibly ugly lump. Still, there was always knitting to try. She might feel different about that, and she liked Betty and Josie, who seemed to enjoy sharing their love of textiles as much as they enjoyed sharing the local gossip.

  "Hey," Tate said, straightening in his seat. "That looks like Jack's truck."

  A twenty-year-old beige pick-up in mint condition had parked a few houses down from the one they were watching. A moment later, Jack hopped out of the driver's side. Relief that she hadn't accused an innocent man mingled with concern for Jack.

  "How about that?" Tate said. "You were right. Can we leave now?"

  "We can't let him commit another crime," Helen said. "You need to talk to him."

  "Me?" Tate said. "Not my job. I'm retired, and I've got a workshop that I've barely had a chance to use, thanks to you."

  "Then why did you come with me?"

  "I was curious," he said, grudgingly. "The Remote Control Burglar's been a long-standing joke in this town."

  "It won't be a joke if Jack is arrested for Melissa's murder."

  "It looks like Jack's about done with his surreptitious scoping-out of the neighborhood," Tate said. "I can't believe he hasn't been caught by now. He couldn't look more conspicuous if he tried. If you're going to hold an intervention, now's the time to do it."

  "You'll at least wait for me in the car, won't you?" Helen said. "I'm not sure Jack will give me a ride home, after this."

  "You're running out of time to reach him before he gets inside the house." Tate turned on the car and drove the few yards to the front of the victim's house.

  As they approached, Jack, who had started up the driveway of his next victim, turned to check on them. Guilt was written all over his face.

  Tate got out of the car, leaving Helen to grab her cane and scramble after him.

  "Helen's been looking for you, Jack."

  "Did you need a ride somewhere, Ms. Binney?" Tate dug in his pocket for his cell phone. "The limo company didn't page me."

  "I don't need a ride," Helen said. "We know why you're here."

  "What?" Jack said. "I'm just—"

  "Don't bother," Tate said. "I expect my clients to lie to me, but Helen trusts you. Don't lie to her."

  Jack looked at his feet. "I didn't mean to get you involved, Ms. Binney."

  Maybe not consciously, Helen thought, but he'd known she was trying to identify the Remote Control Burglar, and yet he'd continued to feed her the information that had enabled her to identify him. If he'd really wanted to keep his secret, he wouldn't have mentioned his latest victim. "You were ready to stop doing the burglaries, though. And that's why we're here. To insist that you not do it any longer. It's too risky. If the police figure it out, they'll arrest you, and not just for burglary."

  "I didn't kill Melissa," Jack said. "I wouldn't do that."

  "I'm going to take a walk," Tate said. "I don't want to hear this. There's no client confidentiality since I'm not representing Jack."

  "Come on," Helen said. "We'll go back to your truck, and you can tell me everything."

  Jack hesitated, glancing at the house he'd been targeting.

  "Let it go, Jack," she said. "Getting some revenge isn't worth going to jail. I didn't specifically ask Tate for any advice for you, but I bet he'd tell you that 'the victim deserved it' isn't a legal defense to burglary."

  "This was going to be my last time," Jack said. "I was going to stop after this one."

  "And now you're going to stop before this one." Helen tugged him in the direction of his truck.

  He started walking with her. "You know I didn't kill Melissa, right?"

  "I believe you, but that's because I know you, and I'm not desperate to find a scapegoat. The police need to arrest someone, to make everyone else feels safe."

  "I'm not a violent person. You can ask anyone. I didn't even vandalize any property during the burglaries. I planned to, the first time I broke into a passenger's house. I brought a can of spray paint, and I was going to mess up his garage. But then I found an open window, and I went into the house itself, and I was going to paint in there instead, because I was really angry. But I just couldn't do it. The guy had been a jerk, but even he didn't deserve weeks and weeks of repairs. So I figured I'd steal something valuable. I started to disconnect the wires to his TV, and then realized I had a perfectly good TV at home, and I had no idea how to fence a stolen one, so there was no real point to stealing it. I noticed the remote, lying there on the coffee table, and this was before I got a smartphone, and I thought, 'hey, I could use some batteries for my videogames, and wouldn't the guy be irritated when he went to use the remote and the batteries were missing?' I figured that was enough payback. So I picked up the remote and turned it over, and then I realized I'd gotten my fingerprints all over it, so I might as well take the whole thing. That was even better, in a way, because he'd waste a bunch of time looking for it, the way he'd wasted my time."

  "It's got to stop now," Helen said as they reached his pick-up.

  "I know," he said. "It's hard, though. Doing this makes me feel like a sort of low-level superhero, teaching jerks a lesson, taking care of the little bad guys who aren't big enough problems for real heroes to deal with. I don't even have a use for the batteries any more, now that I have games on my smartphone, but it's a habit. Like an addiction."

  "Maybe there's a twelve-step program for theft," Helen said. "Or you can find a new, more legally acceptable volunteer activity to replace the jerk-punishing activity. I'll help you."

  "I've seen your scrapbooks and photography," he said. "No offense, but I'm not sure you're the best mentor when it comes to recreational activities."

  "Tate, then. He can introduce you to woodworking."

  "You think he'd do it?"

  "He's even more addicted to woodworking than you are to remote controls. He loves to talk about his work." Of course, both Tate and Jack obviously preferred to work alone, so that could be a problem. "If he won't help, Betty and Josie will. They're always looking for someone new to teach. Just promise me you won't come back here, and you won't break into any other houses."

  "I promise," Jack said, but Helen caught him glancing longingly at the house they'd just left.

  "Listen to me, Jack," she said. "Tate thinks we should turn you in to the cops, but I'm not going to do that. Not as long as I don't hear about another break-in. But I will turn you in if it happens again."

  Jack turned away from the house. He stared at her for a long moment. "It's over. I promise. I'll find a new hobby."

  Helen waited until he climbed into his truck and drove away. Then she headed over to Tate's car. Jack was wrong. It wasn't over. Not until Melissa's killer was arrested.

  Unfortunately, there was no one other than Jack, in his guise as the remote control burglar, with any apparent motive. Melissa didn't have any of the usual suspects: family members, or a lover, let alone the two jealous lovers that Betty and Josie had dreamed up. Melissa didn't have any co-workers or rivals with a grudge. Everyone loved her. Or at least didn't hate her.

  Except for Helen.

  Why couldn't the police see that she was the prime suspect?

  "Well?" Tate said as she climbed into the seat beside him. "Is he going to turn himself in?"

  "No. But he is going to stop stealing remote controls."

  "And sta
rt stealing televisions?"

  "He's giving up burglary completely."

  Tate didn't say anything, but she could feel his skepticism for the duration of the silent trip home. At the cottage, he let her out at the front path and then parked in his usual spot, intent on returning to his beloved tools and chunks of wood.

  She'd pushed him far enough for today, she decided, so she left him alone in the garage and went into the cottage. She still had plenty of questions she would have liked to ask. What would happen to Jack if the police did arrest him? Would Tate come out of retirement to defend him? Actually, if it came to it, would Tate come out of retirement to defend her, if the police finally realized that their theory about the Remote Control Burglar was wrong?

  Helen tried to relax with Josie's crochet hook and skein of yarn, but the stitches only grew tighter and more malformed. She couldn't help thinking that there had to be someone else with a motive to kill Melissa. She just needed to find that person.

  Helen abandoned her yarn, and started a new spreadsheet, like the one she'd made for the remote control burglaries, only this time, she focused on Melissa, and all the people the nurse had had any contact with. She didn't have much information, though, not like all the newspaper articles she'd had for the burglaries, so it didn't take long before she realized she needed to talk to Betty and Josie again, to see if they had any facts to support their jealous-lover scenario.

  * * *

  The next morning, Helen's planned trip to the nursing home was delayed by the arrival of Detective Peterson and his forensics team. Helen hadn't had a chance to call the car service company to schedule a ride before they arrived, and an hour later, the police were on their way out of her driveway just as Tate was entering it.

  She was never going to have a moment to herself, ever again.

  At least Tate's arrival saved her having to call him. He wasn't going to like the latest news any more than she did.