Not a Chance in Helen

by Susan McBride

  “Yes.” Helen nodded. Every breath she took still felt tinged with smoke. “She didn’t mean to kill Eleanora. Lady Godiva was her intended victim. She thought that if she got rid of the cat, Miss Nora would shower her with affection. Only she mistook the cat food for the pâté from The Catery.” Helen squinted at the remains of the once grand house. “Can you imagine devoting yourself to someone for sixty years of your life and then watching them treat a cat better than they treated you?”

  “She confessed all of this?” the sheriff said, still seemingly unconvinced that Helen hadn’t made it all up to save her friend.

  Helen turned on him then, rage shaking through her and rattling her voice as she replied, “I’m not lying, Sheriff! Zelma said as much herself! She had her bags packed. I saw them in the back of her car! She planned to set the place on fire then take off for heaven knows where.”

  “This is nuts,” Biddle remarked and pushed his hat back on his head, wiping at his sweat-­damp brow. “I can’t believe it.”

  “But it’s true, every word.” Helen swallowed down the grit in her mouth. “Do you think I could make something like that up?”

  The sheriff cocked his head and looked at her like he was trying to figure that out.

  Helen wanted to kick him.

  “Sheriff?”

  A fireman with a soot-­stained face approached. “We think we found the woman you said might still be in the house.”

  “Is she alive?” Biddle asked, but the expression on the fellow’s face made Helen’s heart sink.

  “I’m sorry,” the fireman said. “It looks like she tried to get out through the cellar doors around back. She was on the stairwell. It was the smoke that got to her, not the fire,” he explained, though it comforted Helen little.

  “She didn’t deserve that,” Helen murmured. “She may have been wrong, but she didn’t deserve to die.”

  Biddle said nothing.

  “Again, I’m sorry,” the man remarked before he walked away, and Helen hugged herself, trying to stop the trembling.

  “Well, it’s over at least,” the sheriff said.

  Helen nodded as she stared at the remains of the house. The once lovely Victorian mansion that had outlived uncountable floods was scorched and blackened by flames. It looked weary, with its gaping windows and splintered wood; defeated.

  As Helen thought of Eleanora and Zelma, her heart felt near to breaking.

  “Yes, it’s over,” she whispered, “but it’s not a very happy ending.”

  “C’mon,” Biddle said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take you home.”

  For once, Helen didn’t fight him.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  HELEN PLUCKED OFF her bifocals and put aside the crossword from that morning’s paper.

  She couldn’t seem to concentrate on the puzzle, no matter how hard she tried. Her mind kept going back to what had happened to Zelma Burdine.

  Sighing deeply, she stared out through the porch screens. Though she gazed upon trees and bluffs, on the bridge that spanned the nearby creek, Helen didn’t see the beauty in her surroundings. She could only think of one thing: Zelma had poisoned Eleanora.

  Helen couldn’t help feeling sorry for Zelma despite everything. How it must have hurt to realize she was prized far less than a four-­legged pet.

  “Helen?”

  She glanced at the door to see a woman standing beyond the mesh. She squinted and quickly realized who it was. “Come on in, Jean,” she said, forcing a smile and waving a hand. “The door’s open.”

  Jean Duncan stepped inside, dropping the door closed with a clatter.

  Her silver hair was tied back in a brilliant red scarf, and she looked peaceful in a way Helen hadn’t seen since before Eleanora’s murder. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  “Nonsense.” Helen cleared away a half-­read book and the newspaper so she could make room for Jean on the wicker sofa.

  Her friend sat down beside her.

  “It’s good to see you,” Helen said and reached over to give Jean’s hand a squeeze.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Jean told her, and she suddenly looked anything but serene. Her hazel eyes seemed on the verge of tears. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you this past week. If it hadn’t been for you, Biddle would’ve had me locked up in the Jersey County jail.”

  Helen felt her skin warm. She squirmed and picked some of Amber’s pale fur off her sweatpants. “I knew you were innocent,” she said, “and the sheriff surely would have figured it out before long, even if I hadn’t poked my nose where it didn’t belong.”

  Jean fiddled with the gold chains at her throat. “Well, just the same, I’m glad I had you on my side. If I’d depended on Sheriff Biddle to get to the truth, it might’ve been a long wait.”

  “Now, Jean, he was just doing his job,” Helen said, repeating words told to her not so long ago, in fact. And she hadn’t liked them then any more than Jean appeared to now.

  Her friend let out a slow breath. “I’m awfully happy to be off the hook, but it’s terrible the way it all turned out, isn’t it? Poor Zelma,” Jean added in a whisper, and her eyes filled with tears. “It might be a good thing that she didn’t have to live with the guilt of accidentally killing someone she loved. It’s heart-­breaking.”

  “Oh, Jean, what happened with Jim was an accident,” Helen said and took her friend’s hand. “If only Eleanora had been kinder to you and Zelma both. Sometimes grief just gets the best of us.”

  Jean shook her head. “I just wish it had all turned out differently.”

  “Well, what’s done is done.” Helen tried to cheer her friend up. “You need to look ahead now and put the past behind you.”

  Jean glanced down at her lap. “If only I could,” she said. “But I have a feeling my catering business is over before it’s begun.”

  Helen smiled. “I talked to Verna Mabry myself, and she’s willing to hire you to cater the annual luncheon. So I’d imagine you’ll need to get started on the menu. You do know how picky the LCIL ladies are.”

  Jean looked up, and this time the tears in her eyes were anything but sad. “Yes,” she said, “I guess I do.”

  “Just stay away from goose liver pâté, all right?”

  “Oh, I will,” Jean laughed. “I definitely will.”

  AT NOONTIME, HELEN headed for the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. She nearly tripped over Amber en route.

  He flew ahead as if determined to beat her in a foot race. Then he promptly sat down at his empty saucer. While Helen opened up a fresh can of cat food, she eyed the floor around her hungry feline, noting that all the ants had completely disappeared.

  She found herself thinking that Splat really did the job—­maybe too well in some cases.

  Leaving Amber in the kitchen devouring Ocean Whitefish ‘n’ Shrimp, Helen took her sandwich to the porch. She heard the crunch of tires on gravel and looked up to see Frank Biddle’s black-­and-­white pulling up just before she could take a bite of grilled cheese.

  He slammed the car door and hiked up his trousers as he walked up her stone path. The porch steps creaked when he climbed them. He doffed his hat, smoothing his palm over his head before he raised a fist to knock.

  “Mrs. Evans? Is that you?”

  “If it’s not,” she said, “will you go away?”

  He grunted and opened the door despite the lack of invitation.

  “Ma’am,” he murmured and took a seat opposite her at the table, the wicker crackling as he settled in and plunked down his hat. His eyes seemed to jump from one end of the porch to the other, touching upon everything but her.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked him.

  “Well, Mrs. Evans, it’s like this,” he started, though she had a feeling she was going to have to drag whatever it was
out of him. “I have a ­couple things I need to tell you.”

  She settled back in her chair and waited.

  He shifted in his seat. “First off, Jemima Winthrop took in old Mrs. Duncan’s cat. Though I guess she’s a Duncan now, too, isn’t she?”

  Helen stared at him. “Jemima has Lady Godiva? How does that affect the will?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” he told her and openly eyed the gooey sandwich on her plate. “My guess is they’ll try to get something out of caring for the critter.”

  Helen sniffed. “Well, if they don’t come out of this a few dollars richer, it won’t be for lack of trying.”

  “Guess we’ll just have to wait and see where the dust settles, won’t we? That is, once the estate goes through probate.”

  Helen picked up half of the grilled cheese, only to put it back down. She pushed the plate away, not having much of an appetite.

  “You gonna eat that?” Biddle asked.

  Helen smiled. “Are you hungry, Sheriff?”

  “A little,” he said and reached across the table. He picked up half the sandwich and took a big bite, muttering with his mouth full, “They’re settling down here, by the way.”

  Helen blinked. “Jemima and Stanley?”

  “Yep,” he got out as he swallowed. “She said they’ll live in the old Winthrop place. Stanley claims he’s gonna fix her up.”

  “It could surely use some fixing.”

  Biddle took another bite, chewed thoughtfully, and nodded. “Oh, and you were right about something else.”

  Helen’s ears pricked up at that, and she noticed the sheriff’s ears turn red as did his cheeks.

  “It appears Miss Burdine was planning on running away. The garage wasn’t too badly damaged, and we recovered her bags from the Ford. She took a few things that weren’t hers though.” He licked grease from his fingers before ticking off on them, “A sapphire necklace, a pair of diamond earrings, an ivory brooch, and a ­couple of platinum rings.”

  “Oh, dear,” Helen said and thought again how much she hated unhappy endings.

  She heard the pitter-­patter of paws on linoleum and glanced over as Amber made his grand entrance. His yellow eyes first fixed on her and then on Sheriff Biddle. Not at all impressed by the company, he turned his tail and sashayed over to a sunny spot at the opposite end of the porch.

  “It’s sad,” she remarked, “how blind we are sometimes to what’s right in front of us.” As Eleanora had overlooked Zelma, she was thinking, but Biddle obviously took her words to mean something else.

  He wiped his hands on his pants and got to his feet, hooking his thumbs in his gun belt. “Uh, ma’am, I wanted to . . . well, I figured that maybe I owed you . . . “ His voice trailed off, and he cleared his throat.

  Helen looked up at him, waiting.

  “I realize I gave you a hard time about interfering in the investigation,” he said and shifted on his feet. His face flushed upward from his collar. “But I really, um, figure I should offer you—­“

  “My grilled cheese,” she cut him off with a smile, holding out her plate. “If you want the rest, it’s yours.”

  Susan McBride’s (Mostly) Healthy Tomato-­Pesto Grilled Cheese

  You’ll need:

  Two slices of a hearty whole-­grain bread

  One beefsteak or Roma tomato

  Several slices of smoked mozzarella cheese

  Pesto

  Mayonnaise (preferably vegan)

  Spread or butter

  Set a skillet to medium heat. If desired, use olive oil or spray to keep sandwich from sticking.

  Prepare two slices of bread by generously smearing one with pesto and the other with vegan mayonnaise. Cut two slices of beefsteak tomato (or more if you use a Roma tomato) and lay on top of the pesto. Cut two or three slices of smoked mozzarella (or smoked Gouda if you prefer). Place on top of the tomato and put your sandwich together. Before placing in skillet, smear spread or butter on top side of bread, then carefully flip sandwich so that butter-­side is down in the skillet.

  While the sandwich is grilling, coat the top side of bread with butter or spread so that it’s ready when you need to flip it. Let the sandwich get nice and golden brown on each side so the cheese melts.

  Carefully remove from the skillet and enjoy!

  Read on for a sneak peek at

  SAY YES TO THE DEATH

  the new mystery in Susan McBride’s

  USA Today bestselling

  Debutante Dropout series!

  Prologue

  MILLICENT DRAPER YAWNED and nudged her owl-­like glasses back up the bridge of her nose, leaving a smudge of ivory fondant on the tortoiseshell frames. Her plastic-­gloved fingers were smeared with the stuff. Her knuckles felt stiff, and she could barely keep her eyes open. She’d worked through the night on a wedding cake for Senator Ryan’s daughter, Penny, and she hadn’t slept a wink. Olivia La Belle, the bride’s wedding planner, had phoned at six o’clock the night before—­just as Millie was closing up shop—­and demanded an early delivery. “Sorry, Millie, but the ceremony’s been pushed up a wee bit,” Olivia had said in a honey-­sweet twang that implied softness when Olivia was anything but.

  Four whole months was “a wee bit?” Millie thought with a groan.

  “We need the cake by three o’clock tomorrow sharp,” Olivia had insisted, her sugared drawl turning hard. “The ceremony’s at five with a sit-­down dinner reception to follow. If you don’t get this done, it will make me very unhappy. Do you understand what I’m sayin’, darlin’?”

  Oh, yeah, darlin’, Millie understood. Ticking off Big D’s premier event planner was a big no-­no. Olivia might as well have said, “If you don’t get this done, you’re as good as dead in this town.”

  Ever since Olivia had done weddings for an Oscar winner and the spawn of a former president her head had blown up as big as Texas. She’d become society’s go-­to-­girl, and not only for Dallas royalty but honest-­to-­God foreign royalty and Hollywood’s A-­list. She’d even finagled her own reality TV show on a cheesy cable network and used it to promote herself and to punish those who displeased her. Anyone who dared defy the Wedding Belle risked hanging a “going out of business” sign on the front door.

  Millie had seen it happen most recently to her dear friend Jasper Pippin, a floral designer in Big D for decades. Fed up with Olivia’s lies and demands, he’d finally drawn a line in the sand. “She lied her tight little ass off and said the tulips I had flown in from Amsterdam for the mayor’s wife’s birthday party were half-­dead,” Jasper had told Millie, moaning. “She threatened a drubbing on her TV show if I didn’t eat the cost. I’m going to lose my shirt if she keeps pulling these dirty tricks.”

  “What will you do?” Millie had asked him.

  Jasper had drawn in a deep breath and said, “I’m going to let her have it.”

  So the always civil Jasper had finally squared his thin shoulders and stood up to Olivia, sure that other vendors who’d been jerked around would follow suit. Only no one dared, and Olivia had blacklisted him. His orders had begun to dry up one by one until Jasper had to shutter his doors, claiming early retirement though Millie knew better.

  That evil woman had her French-­manicured fingers in so many pies around Dallas that everyone who worked with her was scared to death. Even Olivia’s own assistant seemed skittish, and with good reason since the job seemed to involve a revolving door. The gangly college grad, Terra, who followed her everywhere taking notes on her iPad never seemed to say anything but “Yes, Olivia” and “Of course, Olivia,” like a well-­trained parrot.

  Millie wished she’d had the gumption to tell Olivia that she could take this impossible cake deadline and stuff it, but she couldn’t risk losing everything she’d worked so hard for. She’d started Millie’s Cakes in her own kitchen thirty-­five years ago and had b
uilt her impressive client list from scratch. She wasn’t ready to give it all up because she’d ticked off the very fickle Ms. La Belle. Unlike Jasper, she had no intention of being forced into early retirement.

  Millie swallowed, glancing at the clock on the wall. With a noisy tick-­tick, its hands crept toward seven.

  She had only seven hours left, and she still had to attach the two hundred handmade sugar orchids she’d painted a delicate shade of purple. Her feet ached from standing, and her arthritis was acting up so that her fingers felt like unbendable sticks. If the shop wasn’t so busy, she would have turned the whole shebang over to her staff but they had other orders to fill, cakes that had been on the docket for months and were equally important.

  No, this monkey was squarely on Millie’s back.

  If she blew this job for Senator Ryan’s daughter, it would be on her head, no one else’s. She tried to convince herself that she couldn’t blame the bumped-­up time frame entirely on Olivia. That silly Penelope Ryan was the one at fault.

  “Damned girl got herself knocked up,” Millie muttered, having heard the gossip that the bride’s belly had begun to pop and that the senator—­a button-­down conservative if ever there was one—­wanted his daughter legally wed ASAP. He couldn’t afford to have the nineteen-­year-­old college sophomore he’d painted as pure as the driven snow during his campaign get photographed walking down the aisle in a maternity gown.

  “You can put her in a big white dress and marry her off but that doesn’t change anything,” Millie murmured and pushed at her glasses again.

  Was the senator going to pull one of those “the baby came prematurely” routines when his grandchild popped out in another five months or so? ­People didn’t seem to have a whole lot of sense these days, but most of them could count so long as they had enough fingers and toes.

  Ah, well, Millie mused, there would always be brides who got knocked up before their vows. There would always be disappointed fathers who wanted to pretend their darling daughters stayed virginal until their honeymoons. And there would always be bitches like Olivia La Belle behind the scenes, wielding a phone in one hand and cracking a whip with the other, either telling everyone off or telling them what to do.