A Denial of Death

by Gin Jones

  "We don't know for sure that she's gone permanently," Helen said. "Charlene was certain she'd be back."

  "But now Charlene is gone too," Betty said. "Hank's uncle told us at lunch."

  "I was hoping she'd been found by now," Helen said. "Do you have any idea where she might have gone?"

  "Maybe Ralph killed her too," Josie suggested, stabbing her crochet hook into her cap with a bit of extra enthusiasm.

  "I thought he was supposed to be having an affair with her," Helen said.

  "Well, I could have been wrong about that," Josie said, unfazed by the inconsistency. "Ralph could have been having an affair with someone else, and Angie caught him, and he killed her, but then Charlene tried to blackmail him about it, and so he killed her too."

  "Why are you so convinced Ralph was having an affair with someone?" Helen said. "He seems awfully devoted to Angie from the way he talks about her."

  "It does seem unlikely he'd be cheating on her," Betty said, proving she was the more grounded of the two women, "but there are plenty of women who'd come running if he showed any interest at all."

  "His office manager has had a crush on him forever," Josie said.

  Betty nodded. "I never thought Ralph even noticed, but Angie could have finally pushed him into her waiting arms. A sweet woman. I wouldn't have blamed Ralph if he'd fallen for her. He deserved some happiness."

  It wasn't much of a lead, but Helen didn't have anything better. "What's the office manager's name?"

  "Samantha Zacharias," Betty said. "You can find her at the insurance agency during business hours. Probably after hours too. She's dedicated to her work."

  "And to Ralph," Josie added.

  The female half of the feuding couple in the corner looked like she was having trouble breathing. Her lover turned to face her and then grabbed her hand and began to shout sweet nothings at her, promising her she'd be fine and he really did love her, and he hadn't meant to forget about their breakfast date. A few other patients glanced in their direction before going back to their television watching or card playing. Betty and Josie glanced at the commotion and then went on knitting and crocheting as if nothing were happening.

  Helen started to push herself to her feet, although she didn't know what she could do to help the woman in distress. "Shouldn't we alert the staff?"

  "They'll be here before you can dial your phone," Betty said. "She's got a heart condition, and fluid builds up in her lungs, and this sort of thing happens every few days. She wears a monitor that alerts the nursing staff whenever she's in serious distress."

  Even as Betty explained, two nurses burst into the room with a syringe and an oxygen mask and tank. The first nurse gave the injection while the other one placed the oxygen mask over the patient's face. Almost immediately, the old woman was breathing more normally, and the man beside her relaxed. He kept hold of her hand, though, their earlier tiff forgotten, and the woman smiled back at him through her oxygen mask.

  "See?" Betty said. "Martha Waddell may be annoying at times, but she runs a tight ship. No one dies unnecessarily on her watch. As much as we like to complain about her, we're really lucky to have her in charge. Not everyone sees it that way, of course."

  "Angie was always trying to get Martha fired," Josie explained. "I think the last time I saw her she was arguing with Martha."

  "I'd forgotten about that." Betty's busy hands stopped for a moment. "She was here on a day that wasn't Charity Caps Day. It must have been the day before she went missing. Even the residents who refuse to wear their hearing aids could hear the shouting from both women. Martha doesn't usually let anyone get her goat like that, but Angie is an expert at pushing buttons."

  "What were they arguing about?"

  Betty and Josie looked at each other, and they both shrugged. Betty spoke for them. "We could hear the voices but not the actual words. It could have been about anything, really. Angie didn't like having to sign in at the front desk when she was only dropping off some caps without staying for the whole event, like she'd done the week before. Maybe she was still mad about that and thought she'd find the home's administrator here, so she could go over Martha's head with the complaint. He usually works on Wednesdays, but he had some meeting to go to that week, so Martha was here instead."

  Josie got the unfocused look she usually had when making up a story about one of the residents. "Maybe Martha scared Angie away. Not just from here but from the entire town. If anyone could do it, Martha could."

  "Angie's not the running-away type," Betty said thoughtfully. "She is the threaten-a-person's-job type, though, and Martha is awfully attached to her career. I don't know what Martha would do if she felt her job was in jeopardy. She's got her heart set on replacing her boss, and she'll need an absolutely perfect record to be the first female director here."

  "Maybe you should drop the investigation," Josie said anxiously. "I don't want Martha to get into any trouble. Just being suspected of murder, even if there's no proof, would be enough to scuttle her career."

  "I may not be able to do much more investigating anyway," Helen said. "The police are officially involved now, so I need to watch my step. Tate's a good lawyer, but I shouldn't make a habit of dragging him out of his retirement to save me from obstruction of justice charges."

  Betty waved one of her needles dismissively. "Don't worry about the local police. If they give you any trouble, we'll talk to Hank's uncle, and he'll have a word with his nephew. I don't think the cops will bother you, though. Probably won't even notice you. They don't mean to do it, I'm sure, but they tend to divide the world into people who are a threat to them and people who aren't. They're so busy looking for the dangerous ones that they don't notice the law-abiding ones. Your age and gender put you in a demographic that doesn't generally commit crimes and isn't a threat to the officers' safety, so they won't even see you unless you do something really outrageous."

  "That's reassuring," Helen said. "Tate gets cranky whenever he thinks I'm about to be arrested."

  "Tell me more about this Tate person," Josie said. "Is he cute?"

  "He's a brilliant lawyer, and he doesn't meddle in my life unless I ask him to," Helen said. "That's all that matters."

  "He is cute," Josie teased. "You're blushing."

  "I'm just flushed from the heat in here. You need better air conditioning." Helen might be the youngest person in the room, but she felt too old for romantic nonsense. "And I need to get going. My driver will be waiting for me out front, and Martha will probably ban me from the premises if my borrowed car distracts her staff again."

  * * *

  Martha was, indeed, on the look-out for Jack and the attention-grabbing car. She stood in the nursing home's imposing front doorway with her laptop, responding to emails while keeping an eye on the driveway.

  Joining Martha in the doorway, Helen said, "I'm sorry today's car was such a problem for you. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again."

  "People can die if the staff get distracted."

  "The residents I come to see here always seem to be in great health, considering their ages," Helen said. "I'd forgotten just how ill some of the residents here can be until a few minutes ago when a woman had trouble breathing. Your staff responded perfectly."

  "Thank you. Most people never notice how good the staff is." Martha closed her laptop. "They never appreciate anything. All they do is complain."

  "Like Angie Decker? I heard she was upset about something the last time she was here."

  "She's a piece of work." Martha turned to watch the driveway as if she couldn't be any less interested in the subject, but then she asked, "Did the gossips happen to say why Angie was so upset with me? It would be nice if they got their facts right for a change."

  Judging by the way Martha's fingers had tightened around her laptop, the question wasn't as casual as she was trying to make it appear.

  "I gathered that Angie thought she should be exempt from the sign-in procedure."

  "Oh, that." Martha's fin
gers relaxed their grip on the laptop, and she turned a smile on Helen. "Everyone thinks they know how to do my job. I invited her to get a degree in nursing home administration and ten years' experience first, and then we could talk about changing the visitor sign-in procedures."

  "What did she say?"

  "Oh, the usual," Martha said. "She was going to go over my head, she'd get me fired, that sort of thing. I hear it all the time."

  But Martha didn't shout back all the time, not the way she'd apparently done with Angie. Something had gotten under Martha's skin, and she was being uncharacteristically secretive about what was irritating her. Usually, she was direct to the point of rudeness. It was her one obvious weakness when it came to getting ahead in her career.

  "I hope Angie didn't cause you any trouble with your boss."

  "I wouldn't let that happen," Martha said. "Angie wasn't the first to threaten my job, and I doubt she'll be the last. I've got ample academic and hands-on experience to support every single one of our policies and procedures. Nothing she could say about any of them would get me fired."

  "What could get you fired?" Helen said. "Not that I think you should be, of course. Just curious."

  Fingers tightened on the laptop again. "In theory, I suppose gross misconduct or insubordination would do it. I've never really thought much about it."

  That last statement was a lie. Helen was sure of it, although there was no way to prove it. Martha worried constantly about being fired, which seemed odd since she really was quite good at her job. No one would ever have any real grounds to accuse her of misconduct, gross or minor. The insubordination, though, was a possibility. She didn't particularly hide her disdain for her boss.

  "You shouldn't have to worry about your job. From what I've seen, you're very good at it," Helen said. "Did you ever consider banning Angie from the nursing home? It's not as if she's a patient or even a relative of a patient."

  "It looks like she banned herself. She hasn't been back since then." Martha nodded at the approaching vehicle in the driveway. "There's your driver. You'd better go meet him before that silly car causes another scene."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Helen did her best to climb into the odd little car quickly, grateful that at least she didn't have to struggle with a seat that was either too high or too low. She urged Jack to drive out of sight of the nursing home's windows before they attracted another crowd and they were banned from the nursing home. Although, if Martha hadn't banned Angie, Helen was probably safe.

  At the end of the driveway, Jack said, "If you don't mind my saying so, you look tired, Ms. Binney. Shall I take you home?"

  "You sound like my nieces bribed you to watch over me."

  Jack stiffened in his seat, his shoulders hunching over the wheel. "I would never do anything behind your back, Ms. Binney. You can trust me."

  She'd obviously hit a nerve. "I'm sorry. I am a bit tired today, and it's making me cranky. I trust you completely."

  "So we're going back to the cottage?"

  "Not yet," Helen said. "I'd like to talk to Ralph again first."

  Jack turned right, and drove for a couple minutes before he muttered, "I should have told you before."

  "Told me what?"

  "Your nieces did offer to pay me for keeping an eye on you." His voice sped up. "Just because I'm a convicted felon, everyone thinks I've got no morals. But they're wrong. Even back when I was doing stupid things, I never would have betrayed a friend like you."

  "I know."

  "I would never tell anyone anything you didn't want me to," Jack said, winding down a bit. "I was only a little tempted, because sometimes I worry about you. And you know how persuasive your nieces are. Lily can spot a person's weakness from fifty feet away, and Laura just hugs a person into submission. But I turned down their offer, and I won't tell anyone else when you look tired, but I thought we were good enough friends I could tell you the truth. If you want me to be just your driver, nothing else, you can tell me, and I won't presume on our friendship any longer."

  "Don't be ridiculous," Helen said. "I wouldn't know what to do without you, and I don't just mean with respect to transportation."

  "All right," he said, his shoulders relaxing into their usual alert but not anxious position. "Do you really need to go see Ralph today? You could talk to him tomorrow."

  "It has to be today," Helen said. "With Charlene missing too now, I want to be sure the police are taking the investigation seriously, and Ralph's the only one who can put any pressure on them."

  "You still shouldn't risk your own health. It won't help Angie if you get sick."

  "I'm just a little tired, and that's pretty much par for the course with lupus," Helen said. "Besides, it's not just Angie I'm worried about. Something's definitely going on, and the effects are spreading. First, it was Angie, then Charlene, and now even my nieces have fallen off the radar. Lily was supposed to get back to me with a report on SLP, and I haven't heard from her or her sister since yesterday. It's not like them to go so long without checking on me. After I talk to Ralph, I need to track them down and find out why they're avoiding me."

  "You could hire me to be a double-agent," Jack said with a grin. "I'll pretend to be spying on you for them, but I'll really be spying on them for you."

  "It would certainly serve them right."

  A few minutes later, Jack parked the Mini Cooper Countryman in front of the Deckers' house. When Helen turned around to shut the passenger door, she noticed the cat and the neighbor in the window across the street again. This time, the curtain was pulled back enough to reveal that the homeowner was a morbidly obese woman in a Hawaiian print housedress.

  Helen waved, and the woman dropped the pulled-back curtain. Helen could still see a bit of the bright flowery print through a narrow gap in the curtains.

  Jack followed Helen's gaze to the neighbor's window. "Perhaps I'd better stay and keep an eye on the car."

  "Good idea. If she comes out to look at the car, ask her if she saw Angie on the day she disappeared."

  "Sure thing, Ms. Binney."

  Aware of the neighbor watching her progress, Helen followed the sound of Ralph's nail gun to the Deckers' back yard. The gazebo was now rivaled in size by the collection of tools and supplies dropped around the foundation and along the route to the patio. Instead of picking her way through the abandoned items and risking a fall, Helen waited until Ralph set down the nail gun, pulled his ear protection down to hang around his neck, and went over to pick through a bundle of shingles.

  She called out his name, and he turned around with a hopeful look on his handsome, slightly sweaty face. "Have you heard from Angie yet?"

  Helen shook her head. "I was hoping you had."

  He dropped the shingles in his hand, adding to the clutter on the ground. "Not yet."

  "You've been making good progress on the gazebo."

  "I'm hoping it will be done by the time Angie gets back. She's wanted it for so long. I should have built it for her years ago."

  "I was wondering if you could tell me where Charlene might have gone," Helen said. "Unless you're too busy."

  "No, no." He stripped off his tool belt as he walked toward her and the house. "It's time to stop for the day. I've been working since dawn, and I'm too tired to concentrate properly. That's when mistakes happen. Angie would hate it if anything's sloppy. Although, right now I'd be glad to listen to her complaining about the gazebo's defects, if she would just stop playing games and let Charlene bring her home."

  Ralph had to be really determined to finish the gazebo if he was working such long hours in this heat. Helen barely had enough energy to make her way through the clutter to the patio. "You think Charlene is with her sister?"

  "She must be. Charlene only cares about three things: her job, her sister, and her glass sculptures. The only reasons she'd skip a day of work are if she's hospitalized or if she's doing something for Angie." Ralph held the back door open for Helen to precede him into the house.

/>   Like the clutter in the yard, the dishes and food containers were multiplying in the kitchen. Assuming Angie did come home eventually, she might well be tempted to leave again until someone could dig out the mess. If Angie was punishing Ralph by going away, he was responding in kind, intentionally or not, by creating all this work for her return.

  Ralph cleared a pile of used dish towels off a chair and offered the seat to Helen. "Can I get you something to drink?"

  She wasn't sure there was a clean glass anywhere in the kitchen. "No, thank you. I'm fine."

  He opened the refrigerator to reveal an interior stuffed with three weeks' worth of take-out containers. Angie was definitely going to regret leaving for so long. Assuming she ever returned, which seemed increasingly unlikely.

  While Ralph considered the contents of the refrigerator, Helen asked, "Have the police learned anything yet?"

  "Not that they're telling me." Ralph belatedly realized there was nothing to drink in the refrigerator and went over to the sink to rinse out a glass and fill it with water. "Mostly they just keep asking me useless questions."

  "Like what?"

  "They wanted to know if Angie and Charlene have any enemies who would benefit from their death, that sort of thing."

  "Do they have any enemies?"

  "I don't know about Charlene. She might have caused some jealousy at work, by getting promoted so often and so fast." Ralph carried his water over to the table and sat on the chair across from Helen without looking, squashing the cardboard cereal box on it. He rose to remove the box and toss it on top of the table, where it teetered precariously on a stack of dried-milk-encrusted bowls. "Angie certainly doesn't have any enemies. She can be difficult sometimes, but she always talks people around to her way of thinking before she's done."

  More likely, Ralph himself found a way to mollify the people she'd offended, just like he'd tried to head off a problem with Betty and Josie by delivering some preemie caps to meet Angie's commitment. "Has she been difficult with anyone in particular recently? Someone she was still trying to bring around to her way of thinking?"