When Shadows Fall: A Helen Bradley Mystery (Helen Bradley Mysteries Book 5)

by Patricia H. Rushford

  Helen fell into step beside him. "Do you know who the victim is?"

  "Not yet, but it looks like we're about to find out."

  One of the deputies pulled at the dead driver's door. "It's locked."

  They then tried the passenger door. Also locked. So they went back to the driver's door and, using a short crowbar, jimmied it open. Water poured out of the car. The victim, a man, was still strapped into the seat. His head lolled to the side with the surging water. His medium-length dark hair swayed like seaweed in the tide. A blue cap swept past him and, following the course of the water, fell to the ground.

  Helen's stomach lurched. She'd seen the cap dozens of times in the last few months.

  Tom scooped up the soggy cap and brought it to Joe. "The guy's face is pretty distorted. Been in the water a couple of days."

  "Probably since Sunday night." Helen turned away from the gruesome sight.

  Joe cursed under his breath. "Stephanie, call Dr. Fisher. Find out what's keeping him. I don't want the body or anything else moved until he gets here."

  "It's Chuck's cap, isn't it?" Helen murmured. "I rarely saw him without it."

  "That's what I'm thinking." He stared down at the logo, a fisherman reeling in a salmon with a snowcapped mountain in the background. The white printing above the scene read Woodruff Charters. Anchorage, Alaska.

  Joe turned the cap over. As if to verify their identification, the inside beige band bore the initials CD.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Helen shivered as a trickle of cold rain made its way down the back of her neck. Unasked questions hovered between her and Joe. Why had Chuck been driving Ethan's car? How had he ended up in the river? "Any ideas on what happened?" Helen ventured.

  Joe removed his hat and flicked the water off. "Your guess is as good as mine. Looks like he took the corner too fast."

  "But what was he doing in Ethan's car?"

  Joe sighed. "The million-dollar question. You have any answers?"

  "I suppose an obvious one is that he killed Ethan and wanted to get rid of Ethan's car. Maybe he wanted to buy some time. Distract you. But that supposition creates even more questions: Why bring the car clear out here? What was he planning to do with it? How was Chuck planning to get home? Somehow I don't see him walking that far."

  Joe stared out at the river, hands resting on his hips. "You got that right. He might have arranged to meet someone out here."

  'Which means he had an accomplice."

  Helen tried to imagine the scene. Chuck and an accomplice killing Ethan. Chuck driving Ethan's car to the river and then running off the road. "If someone had followed him, wouldn't they have seen the accident and gotten Chuck out?" Something hit her. "Didn't I hear someone say the doors were locked? Somehow I can't see Chuck locking himself into a car, unless it had automatic locks."

  "Good point. In which case we're looking at Chuck as a victim. We'll know soon enough." Joe pocketed his hands and hunched his shoulders. "Knowing Chuck, I'm thinking he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Might've witnessed Ethan's murder. Ethan's killer had to get rid of Chuck too. Which brings me back to Jordan. Since he'd had dinner with Ethan, he'd have motive for removing Ethan's car. He'd want to lead us away from the restaurant. He probably killed Chuck, stashed his body in the car, and once he got out here, he put Chuck behind the wheel, set the car in drive, and sent it down the embankment."

  Helen felt deflated. She glanced up at the heavy cloud layers. The rain showed no sign of letting up. "So Alex kills Ethan, then runs Ethan's car into the river with Chuck's body in it? Why bring the car clear up here? It's a long way back to where Ethan's body was found. And Jordan is new to the area."

  "Rosie isn't."

  "Come on, Joe." Helen was about to argue in her friend's defense when another vehicle pulled up.

  "Excuse me." Joe hurried over to where George Fisher had parked his car.

  Helen frowned at Joe's retreating figure. He seemed bent on nailing Alex, regardless of whether or not it made sense. Of course, he had good reason. A man doesn't admit to murder without just cause. If Rosie was right and Ethan had changed his will to include Alex, it meant their son stood to inherit a great deal of money. Resentment and money could easily add up to murder.

  "What's going on around here?" George shook Joe's hand, and the two of them started walking toward the Jaguar. "I thought I was moving into a peaceful resort area. You have more crime out here than they do in Portland."

  "It's not quite that bad," Helen told him as they neared her.

  He greeted Helen with a smile that lit up his face. "We meet again, dear lady."

  "Only briefly. I'm leaving. Not much I can do here."

  "Oh, I don't know about that. Have you had a chance to investigate the scene?" He'd aimed the question at Helen.

  "Joe's the authority on that." Helen answered quickly, sensing Joe's annoyance. As much as she would have liked working beside her old friend, Helen thought it best to stay in the background. For some reason, maybe because George was still treating her as a colleague, Joe seemed threatened. She took a step back. "I was just leaving."

  "By the way," George said, "did you get my call?"

  "No. I haven't been home."

  "Well, then, I may as well ask you now. Would you like to have dinner with me tonight? Give us a chance to catch up."

  "I'd love to."

  'Where's a good place? I haven't had much time to do any restaurant hunting."

  "How about we meet at Tidal Raves in Depoe Bay?"

  "Ahh. That one I know. Good choice."

  Joe cleared his throat. "I hate to rush you, Dr. Fisher, but , . .."

  George apologized and turned back to Helen. "I'll see you tonight, then, about seven?"

  Helen promised to make reservations, then trudged back to her car. Before going to see Rosie, she would stop at the house to change clothes, dry her hair, check her messages, and grab a bite to eat.

  Once at home, she placed a quick call to the restaurant, then checked the answering machine. Four messages: Kate, Eleanor, George, and Annie. Nothing from J.B.

  She called Kate first, skipped their usual greeting, and plunged right in with, "Have you heard from J.B.?"

  "Hi to you too. And no, I haven't. None of the hospitals have him on their patient list. His doctor's office won't tell me a thing. You know how they are with confidentiality. I got Jason working on the FBI, but they're saying they haven't talked to him. They must be telling the truth. Your friend there, Tom Chambers, called me and wanted to know if we'd heard from him."

  "I see." Helen sank onto the couch, her heart as heavy as the blown-glass paperweight she picked up off the coffee table.

  "Apparently J.B. doesn't want to be found."

  "I'm really upset with him right now, Mom, and I think you should be too. I don't care what he's doing, he shouldn't be worrying you like this."

  "I'm sure there's a good reason."

  "Good reason, nothing. You sound like Jason. All this secret- agent business. It's crazy."

  "Jason thinks he might be on an assignment?" Helen ran her hand over the smooth surface of the glass ball. If he were, she could accept his strange behavior. It might even explain the fact that he'd had lunch with a woman. And maybe she was just fooling herself.

  "Jason is engaging in wishful thinking. There's nothing to suggest that J.B. is on assignment. Jason checked all the flights going out of Portland, and J.B. wasn't on any of them. He even flashed a picture of J.B. around the airport, but no one remembered seeing him. I think you were right the first time in thinking it had something to do with his health. Maybe he checked into the hospital under an assumed name."

  Or left town using an alias. The lump in her throat made talking next to impossible. She didn't want to tell Kate that J.B. had a third reason for disappearing. One she'd have never thought possible until she'd phoned the restaurant. One she still couldn't quite believe.

  "Mom?"

  Helen swallowed back her tears
. "I'm here."

  "Do you want us to keep looking?"

  "No. There doesn't seem to be much point. I imagine he'll come back when he's ready."

  "Well, when he does, I plan to give him a piece of my mind."

  If he comes back. The words stayed in her head while Helen made her apologies for cutting the conversation short and hung up.

  If he comes back. She closed her eyes and imagined J.B. on their wedding day. Everything had been perfect. He'd looked straight into her eyes when they'd exchanged vows. He'd never hesitated or wavered. "You are my one true love," he'd avowed time and again.

  Helen thought back over the short time they'd been married. Had she insisted too much on maintaining her independence? Had she pushed J.B. into the arms of another woman by leaving him alone too often while she left home to visit family and work on her writing assignments?

  He will come back. She felt certain of that. Still she wondered if he ever would.

  The phone rang. Helen pushed herself up and grabbed it before it could ring again. It was Rosie.

  "Helen, is that you?"

  Helen released the breath she'd been holding. "Yes, Rosie. It's me."

  'You don't sound like yourself."

  Small wonder. "I just stopped by the house to change. I should be there in a few minutes."

  "Please hurry. I'm worried about Alex. He won't talk to me. He keeps insisting he killed his father and that I should accept the fact and go home."

  "Maybe you should, Rosie. I'm not sure there's much I can do."

  "Helen, how can you say that? I know he didn't kill Ethan. Please come and talk to him. Maybe he'll listen to you."

  Helen doubted it but didn't say so. "Have you hired an attorney yet?"

  "Yes. She's meeting me at the jail in a few minutes. You're coming, aren't you?"

  "I'll be there."

  Fifteen minutes later, Helen walked into the room where Alex Jordan waited on the other side of a glass partition. He was handcuffed and badly in need of a shave. His brown hair curled over his collar, giving him a bad-boy look. Helen could easily have revised her former opinion of him.

  His dull blue eyes didn't lift to meet hers when she greeted him. "Did Rosie send you?" he asked as Helen sat down.

  "Yes and no. She asked me to talk some sense into you, but I'd have come even if she hadn't asked."

  "Why?"

  "Last night, when you were arrested, you told me you were innocent." Helen crossed her arms and leaned forward. "Now I understand you've confessed to Ethan's murder."

  "So I lied."

  "What made you change your mind?"

  He shrugged. "Nothing special. I just realized I couldn't get away with it."

  "You are lying now, Mr. Jordan." Helen looked him straight in the face.

  "You don't know that." His gaze darted from hers to the table.

  "I can read it in your face. It was the letter opener, wasn't it? When the sheriff showed it to you, you changed your story."

  He didn't admit it, but Helen knew she'd hit a nerve.

  "You knew where it had come from and were afraid Rosie might become a suspect. You changed your story to protect her. Though I can't fathom why. You barely know her. You haven't had time to build much of a relationship."

  He continued staring at the table, hands clasped.

  "Alex, listen to me. Rosie didn't kill Ethan. You don't have to lie to protect her."

  He frowned. "I know she didn't, because I did. I took the letter opener and used it to kill Ethan."

  "No, you didn't."

  "You're crazy, lady," he burst out. "Why would I admit to killing someone if I didn't do it?"

  "You don't have to do this, Alex. Think about it. Rosie's devastated over losing Ethan. Do you want her to lose you too? Have you any idea what this is doing to her?"

  "Like you said, we haven't known each other long enough to build a relationship."

  "Hogwash. Rosie's loved you since the day you were born. She held you in her heart all the time you were growing up. You've apparently been thinking a lot about her too. It must have taken a great deal of effort, time, and money to find her.

  When you walked back into her life, she. . .. "Helen heaved a sigh and leaned back. "This is getting us nowhere."

  "I told you, I did it."

  The idea was preposterous. Why couldn't Joe see through it? Helen had to think of a way to trip Jordan up. After a few moments, she said, "Rosie's letter opener disappeared over a week ago."

  "Yeah, like I said, I took it."

  "Hm. You took it to use as a murder weapon to kill Ethan, whom, if memory serves correctly, you hadn't even met yet?"

  "That's right. But I knew who he was."

  "So you're saying you took Rosie's letter opener and used it to kill Ethan. Why would you use a weapon that would lead directly back to Rosie and eventually to you? Why not use a gun or a kitchen knife? Or even a piece of wood? No one setting out to commit a crime purposely implicates himself. If what you say is true, you deliberately set out to pin the murder on Rosie or yourself, since you two had easiest access to the murder weapon."

  "I didn't think about it."

  "All right." Helen decided to take another route. "Say you did kill him. I'd just like to know one thing."

  "What's that?"

  "Why did you kill Chuck Daniels?"

  He jerked his head up. The look on his face was one of genuine surprise.

  Helen finally had his attention. "Your boss. Chuck Daniels. You didn't know about him, did you?" Helen pushed on. "His body was found this morning. I strongly suspect Ethan and Chuck were killed by the same person."

  His shoulders sagged. "How did he die?"

  "You'll find out soon enough. I'm not going to give you information you can feed back to the sheriff. He might actually believe you."

  His defeated gaze rose to meet hers. "Okay. You win. I didn't kill my father. But I've already confessed. What if the sheriff doesn't believe me?"

  "I think he will, eventually. In the meantime, you can help me find out who did kill him."

  Alex pulled his chair closer and seemed to relax. "How?"

  "Tell me what you were doing in Rosie's store last night."

  "I-I was scared. There were some things that could have linked me to Ethan, and I wanted to get rid of anything that might look suspicious."

  "Like the check for a hundred grand?"

  He frowned. "How do you know all this stuff?"

  "I was upstairs feeding the cats while you were digging through Rosie's desk." Helen saw no reason to elaborate.

  "You're the one who called the cops?"

  "No. But I'm the reason they were there."

  "I don't understand."

  "I lost my key and had to break in. While the officer and I were talking, we heard you and Joe downstairs. I saw you running away."

  His Adam's apple floated up and down. "It was a stupid thing to do. Going there, I mean. I'd heard about the murder at work Monday afternoon. I was afraid the cops would find out about him being my father and about the meeting we had, and the money."

  "Yes. I can see where a check like that would be incriminating. Did you know about Ethan before you contacted Rosie?"

  "All I had was my mother's name. I did some digging and started asking questions. Just put two and two together."

  "When you found out who your father was, did you ask him for money?"

  "What are you getting at?" Alex unclasped his hands and balled them into fists. "You think I was blackmailing him?"

  "You have to admit, it looks suspicious."

  "I wasn't. Anyway, he gave it to Rosie, not to me. She was upset that he'd even offered. He apologized to me that night. Said he just wanted to do something. He hadn't expected Rosie to take his offer as an insult."

  That sounded like something a man might do, Helen thought. All too often they had a propensity for trying to fix things in what they felt was a logical and practical way.

  "Would you have taken the mo
ney if he'd offered it to you?"

  "I don't know how to answer that. Ethan wanted to include me in his family. He wanted to make sure I got a share of his estate when he died. I probably wouldn't have turned him down." He glanced up at her and then looked away. "I didn't go looking for money. I just wanted to know who my real parents were."

  "I'm sorry you won't have a chance to know him better," Helen said.

  "Yeah, but at least I got to meet him. He was a good man." He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them.

  "I need to go." Helen stood. "I trust you're going to tell the sheriff the truth."

  He nodded. "I hope it's not too late."

  "I suggest you see the lawyer your mother is bringing in. You're going to need one."

  On the way out, Helen bumped into Rosie and the attorney, a woman named Marcia Davidson.

  "Marcia," Helen nodded in acknowledgment. Although Helen had never worked with her in the business sense, they had met socially. "Nice to see you again."

  "Likewise." In her pinstriped suit she looked like a feminine candidate for Gentlemen's Quarterly. The only thing missing was the tie. Marcia was a seasoned attorney with a reputable law firm.

  "Have you talked to him?" Rosie held Helen's arm in a vise grip.

  "Yes." Helen gave them a quick recap of the conversation she'd had with Alex.

  Rosie tipped her head back and raised her hands in prayer position. "Thank you."

  "He's willing to admit he didn't do it, but we've still got some big hurdles." Helen turned to Marcia. "Did Rosie tell you about the check Ethan wrote?"

  Marcia nodded. "Have you told the sheriff about it?"

  "He knows." Helen then shifted to Rosie and, before she could protest, said, "You need to tell him everything, Rosie."

  "Helen's right." Marcia placed a hand in her pocket and extracted a card. "Call me if you learn anything that might help us. The prosecuting attorney feels they have a solid case against Mr. Jordan. I haven't had a chance to review the evidence."

  Half an hour later Helen sat across the desk from Joe Adams's empty chair, staring at his gold nameplate and waiting for him to come in. He'd just talked with Rosie and Alex, and she wanted to know the outcome.

  "Well?" She watched Joe walk to his old wooden swivel chair and settle himself into it.