by Gin Jones
Their odd little negotiation session seemed to be over, so Helen ducked back around the corner before they could look up and realize she'd been eavesdropping. With all the conspiring over hiding the Toth name, they probably wouldn't appreciate a relative stranger knowing about their deal.
Helen waited until Marty started to talk again, confirming that the work would begin next week, so his voice would cover the sound of her approach. Then she resumed walking around the corner as if she'd never stopped to listen.
"Annie," Helen called out. "I'm so glad to see you. I was sure I'd gotten lost."
Annie gave Marty a look of dismissal.
"Morning, ma'am." Marty nodded at Helen and seemed torn between trying to stuff the turquoise shirts inside his jacket and using them to cover the Toth Construction logo on the chest of the jacket. He settled for rushing off. "Sorry I can't stay. Can't even be away from the construction site for a decent lunch-hour visit to my grandmother these days."
Even if Helen hadn't overheard the conversation, she never would have believed Marty was here to visit his grandmother. Not this deep inside the administrative building. Still, there wasn't any reason to embarrass him by calling him on his little white lie. Whatever he and Annie were up to, as far as Helen could see, wasn't any of her business since it didn't have anything to do with either the garden or Sheryl's death.
Annie helped to cover Marty's rushed exit by leading the way into an office that Helen initially thought belonged to an assistant since it was half the size of Wes's reception area and its only view was of the staff parking lot. After a moment, it became clear that this was indeed Annie's office. The desk and filing cabinets were cheap metal, rusting in spots, although she did have a nice ergonomic chair, and the room held the sort of personal touches that were missing from the more luxurious space upstairs. One of them was a picture of a row of laughing women, including Annie and Dale, over in the community garden. The plants were lush and green, much more like what Helen had seen in the magazines she'd been reading all winter than what the garden currently looked like. Annie wore turquoise overalls and held half a watermelon at an angle that demonstrated the center had been consumed all the way down to the white rind. Her face was covered with watermelon juice and bits of pulp.
"What a great picture," Helen said.
Annie laughed. "That was last year at the harvest fair. We had a watermelon eating and seed spitting contest. Dale won, of course, but I didn't do too badly."
"From what I hear, Dale always wins once she sets her mind to something."
"True," Annie said. "The trick is to make sure she sets her mind to the right things."
"Which is where you come in."
"Exactly." Annie dropped into the chair behind her desk. "What can I do for you today?"
"Nothing really." Helen remained standing since she didn't plan to stay for long. "I just wanted to say hello and thank you for arranging the tour."
"I hope you didn't let the rainy weather give you a bad impression of the place," Annie said. "Some of the interiors can seem a little dingy without sunshine, and you might not have noticed all the windows that let in tons of natural light. The plants growing in public areas of the buildings are real, you know, not artificial."
Helen's guide hadn't mentioned that, probably because it didn't matter all that much to either the staff or the casual visitor. It obviously mattered to Annie though. "I bet that's your doing."
"Not just me," she said. "Quite a few of the residents here are gardeners. They help maintain the indoor plants and make suggestions for new ones."
"Are they part of the community garden too?"
"Not as many as I'd like to see over there," Annie said. "Some prefer houseplants, and a few others are too intimidated by Dale to risk running into her."
"Dale can be a bit overwhelming."
"Especially lately," Annie agreed. "You know about her interest in line drying, right? It's almost National Hanging Out Day, and she ought to be looking forward to it, but for some reason, she hasn't been all that excited. I suppose it didn't help that the media just aren't interested in covering the event. She couldn't even get Geoff Loring to do a piece on it for the Wharton Times."
Geoff was probably terrified that Dale might turn the relatively benign story into something truly controversial.
"I wouldn't think that would faze Dale."
"Normally, it wouldn't," Annie said. "I think something else has been bothering her, so she's overreacting to other things. The problem with the title to the garden land would have been bad enough on its own, but there were signs that she was upset even before we heard about Fred Lawson's will."
"What signs?"
Annie laughed. "You're going to think I'm crazy, but it's her laundry line. If you know her well enough, the way she hangs her clothes can tell you a lot about her mood. If she's happy, she does silly things like make it look like the shirts are holding hands. When she's sad, she hangs all of her black clothes on the outer ring so they obscure all the bright clothes in the middle. That sort of thing is normal for her. But ever since she found out that Sheryl was trying to buy the garden land and the selectmen might be willing to sell it to her, she's been doing something with her laundry that I hadn't seen before, and it's kind of scary."
"How can a bunch of clothes be scary?"
"Maybe it's just me, and nobody else sees the pattern, but I swear she's been hanging her laundry so it looks like a shooting target. Like, there'll be something big and red in the back row, and then in front of it, she'll hang a bunch of blue clothes but with some of the red peeking out of the middle, and finally in front of that, she'll hang some gray T-shirts so you can see the inner rings of red and blue." Annie shuddered. "It's creepy. Like her subconscious is looking for things to shoot at."
"You're right. That doesn't sound healthy." Fortunately, it wasn't enough to prove that Dale had wanted to kill anyone. Helen doubted that a court would even let a jury consider evidence of Dale's laundry hanging patterns if she were charged with murder.
Still, it was fortunate for both Dale and the garden that Sheryl had died from a fall and hadn't been shot with a competition arrow, strangled with a clothesline, or stabbed with a clothespin.
* * *
Helen let Annie get back to work and headed off through the maze of corridors to the lobby and then out to Lee Street where Jack was waiting. He had double-parked next to the once again beeping black sports car near the Averys' driveway. Helen managed to cross the street, climb into her Forester, and buckle up before the alarm was disarmed.
Helen asked Jack to stop at the Chinese restaurant in the center of town on the way back to the cottage since it was her turn to provide lunch again. The rain had let up by the time she got home, so she didn't need Jack's umbrella escort on the short walk from her car to the garage.
She carried the takeout bag over to the corner table, removed the drop cloth, and settled into her chair to wait for Tate to acknowledge her arrival. His attention was completely focused on the pieces of wood he was gluing together, so she knew it would be a few minutes before he noticed she was there. If she were younger and more foolish, she might have been irritated by the way he didn't simply drop everything to focus on her the instant she came into the garage. It was probably better this way. She couldn't expect him to be more attentive to her than she was to him, and there were times when her other activities took priority over Tate. Besides, she knew that once he joined her for lunch, she would get as much of his attention as he gave to his woodworking. Or at least something close to as much.
While Helen waited, she emptied the takeout bag onto the table. There was a container of Kung Pao chicken plus two containers of rice, one plain and one fried. She ignored the packet of chopsticks since Tate had made a much nicer pair for each of them and wouldn't use the cheap, disposable ones. He didn't much like fortune cookies either, complaining that the whole idea of predicting the future was irrational and encouraged people to do stupid things.
>
Helen absently opened one of the cookies. Now is the time to try something new. For once, the fortune actually did seem to apply to her life right now as she embarked on her gardening hobby.
She cracked open the second one since she knew Tate wouldn't touch it. Good health will be yours for a long time. Too bad she didn't really believe in fortune-telling any more than Tate did. It would have been nice to believe that her remission was permanent. But, as another fortune cookie had once reminded her, she had to stop wishing, start doing. She did try to follow that advice in most things, particularly with her health, but it wasn't any guarantee when it came to an unpredictable condition like lupus.
Tate collected two sets of his handmade chopsticks from a mug on the shelf above the table and two trenchers before sitting across from Helen.
"So where were you yesterday?" Helen asked. "I hope everyone in your family is okay."
"They're as fine as they get." He claimed the carton of fried rice. They'd eaten together often enough now to know that Helen preferred her rice plain. "I'm starved."
So he didn't want to talk about where he'd been. That only made Helen more determined to find out what he'd been up to. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing important." Tate reached for the Kung Pao chicken. "I just spent some time at the courthouse. I was lucky to get you a message about it at all. This particular judge has been known to hold people in contempt at the mere sight of a phone, so I keep mine safely buried in my briefcase."
"I thought you were retired," she said.
"Just some loose ends that needed tying up. There are a few more that I'll be working on the rest of the week too." He looked up from his trencher. "Don't get any ideas. I'm not going back to giving you legal advice."
"I wasn't asking you to," Helen said. "If I need any legal advice, I'll go talk to your nephew."
"Adam may be a little distracted," Tate said between bites of his lunch. "Lily's nervous about being Laura's birthing coach, so he's been coaching her in turn."
"What does Adam know about childbirth?"
"Nothing. But he knows a lot about Lily, and all he really needs to do is keep reminding her that she can do anything she sets her mind to. She's a lot like her aunt in that way," Tate said. "So, whom have you pegged as Sheryl's killer?"
Helen set down her chopsticks. There was no point in deluding herself any longer. Too many people had wanted Sheryl out of their way for it to be credible that her death was an accident. "The police are going to blame it on Dale Meeke-Mason, and they might even be right. She's definitely passionate about protecting the garden, she's got a military background, and she looks strong enough to have overpowered Sheryl. Wes Quattrone wants the land at least as desperately as Dale wants it. He really hated Sheryl, and I suspect he's got a temper. And then there's Marty Drumm. He's acting like a loyal employee who's shocked and saddened by the boss's death, but I heard he was on the verge of being fired for being drunk on the job."
Tate helped himself to some of the chicken. "That may not be a completely unfounded rumor. Marty was arrested for drunk and disorderly yesterday. I saw his name and charges on the docket when I was at the courthouse."
"That's disappointing," Helen said. "I was hoping it was just sour grapes on someone's part. I rather like him. He seems to be in over his head trying to keep the business afloat, and yet he hasn't given up."
"What about Cory O'Keefe?" Tate said. "He's Sheryl's heir, I understand, and they've never been particularly close. Why isn't he on your list?"
"I'd forgotten about him."
"He's not usually an easy man to forget," Tate said. "Good-looking, charming, financially stable, even more so now that he's inheriting Toth Construction. What's not to like?"
"I'm sure I could find something if I spent enough time with him."
"Are you planning to?"
"What?" Helen tried to read Tate's expression, but it was more closed than usual. "Look for all his faults so I can find a reason to pin Sheryl's murder on him?"
"That," Tate said a little too nonchalantly. "And spend time with him. Beyond your visit to his office on Monday, I mean."
Helen used to think politicians had an edge on the competition when it came to spreading gossip. After all, their careers depended on knowing who was sleeping and/or feuding with whom. Since moving to Wharton, though, she'd realized that the information brokers who were only in it for the love of gossip were far and away better at it.
"I was trying to find out how he was planning to vote on the garden issue." Helen leaned forward. "And how is it any of your business what I was doing or how much time I spent with him? I thought we'd agreed that we were free agents, seeing as how we're both such bad risks for a long-term, committed relationship."
Tate hardly ever let his emotions show, so it was startling to see a flash of irritation cross his face. He set his chopsticks down with enough force that if they'd been the cheaper ones provided by the restaurant, they would have broken. "Right. As long as we're clear on that."
"I thought we were," Helen said, mystified. "Unless you want to revisit the issue."
"I thought maybe you did. Perhaps you'd rather go back to being my client."
Tate was jealous? A tiny part of her found the idea appealing. It wasn't a part of her that she wanted to encourage. It was beneath her, and she didn't have the energy for pointless games.
"No. I'm good as things are. A personal relationship, not a professional one." Helen pointed her chopsticks at the empty takeout bag. "Speaking of which, you owe me something extra special for lunch tomorrow since you skipped out on me yesterday."
He stared at his food instead of at her while he said, "Or you could consider it a get-out-of-lunch-free card and skip out on me sometime."
He really was worried that she was losing interest in him, she realized. "Don't be ridiculous. I'd rather have lunch with you than with anyone else." Helen wasn't any more enthusiastic about emotional scenes than he was, so she tried for a lighter tone. "Especially if you bring dessert from your cousin's bakery."
Tate stood and carried the trenchers over to a small laundry sink he'd had installed. "You only keep me around for what I bring to the table. First my legal expertise and now my family connections."
Normally she would have thought he was joking, but today, he seemed to mean it. "And you only keep me around for my entertainment value. If you're going to be all mopey today, I've got better things to do than sit here and listen to it."
"Like hanging out with Cory O'Keefe?" he said with his back to her. "He's never mopey."
"I gathered as much," she said. "And yes, I've got an appointment with him this afternoon."
"Appointment?" He looked at her over his shoulder, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Is that what you're calling it?"
He was going to find out the details anyway, so she might as well tell him now. "He invited me to a round of miniature golf. I don't know how he's viewing it, but I'm looking at it as another chance to find out how he's going to vote on the garden issue. And why he didn't mention that he's Sheryl's heir the last time I was there."
Tate turned on the faucet to rinse off the trenchers. "Don't let me keep you, then."
"That's it? You're not going to tell me to stay out of trouble or to drop the investigation or that Cory is probably some crazed serial killer with a really good game face?"
He concentrated on his dishwashing as if he actually cared about keeping the place clean, while the sawdust covering every surface proved otherwise. "It's your funeral."
And to think that she could have skipped this whole conversation and spent lunch with the handsome, charming, cheerful Cory O'Keefe. What had she been thinking?
Actually, Helen knew what she'd been thinking. That she'd rather be bickering with Tate than having the most wildly entertaining adventure with anyone else. Which was exactly how infatuation with a new partner was supposed to feel, as best she could recall. It had been a couple of decades since she'd experienced anything li
ke what she felt for Tate. She'd been in college when she met her ex-husband, and they'd been together exclusively almost from the very beginning. After that, she'd been married for almost as long as she'd been single, and she was pretty sure that dating as an adult was different from dating as a teen. Except, judging by Tate's irritation, maybe not. Apparently, the irrationality that came with hormone surges didn't really change with maturity.
If Tate was going to act like a child, then perhaps a little time out was just what he needed. After some alone time with his lathe, he might realize what an idiot he was being.
"I'll see you tomorrow at lunchtime," Helen said curtly. "And I'm counting on there being more chocolate, less drama."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Helen was a little worried that the rain might return and interfere with her golf game—and her chance to question Cory further—so she kept an eye on the clouds during the trip to Cory's office. Fortunately, while the skies remained overcast, they didn't seem poised to send down any precipitation in the next few hours. The miniature golf course might be damp, but they could still play.
The intern wasn't at her table. Instead, there was a sign telling visitors that Cory was with a client and would be out in a few minutes.
Helen wandered around the reception area, looking at the pictures of featured homes without actually seeing them. Maybe she shouldn't have agreed to drop the lawyer-client relationship with Tate. She enjoyed their lunches and more than enjoyed their kisses, but she really didn't need the drama. Or the guilt. Which she shouldn't even be feeling. It wasn't like she was here on a date with Cory. She was just trying to learn more about his possible involvement in Sheryl's death. That wasn't personal, it was…well, not exactly business since she wasn't a professional investigator, but it definitely wasn't a date. And even if it was a date, it wasn't like she was married to Tate or even in an exclusive relationship with him. Neither of them was ready for that.
