A Denial of Death

by Gin Jones

  "I'm sorry, Aunt Helen," Laura said. "It's just that we worry about you, and we're so far away most of the time."

  "Your aunt's tougher than she looks. I won't report her activities to you girls, but I always tell her when she's going down dangerous paths. She'll listen to me." Tate looked at Helen. "Won't you?"

  Laura said, "We need to know you'll be safe," and Lily added, "It's not unreasonable to ask that you follow your lawyer's advice. The lawyer you chose, not us."

  If Helen didn't agree, they'd probably hire private detectives to watch her. She wouldn't even be able to be terribly angry with them, because she knew they loved her and were just trying to help. But she was a competent adult, not a child, and she wasn't ceding her free will to anyone.

  "I'll listen to Tate's advice." She wouldn't necessarily do what he suggested, but she always listened to him before she made up her own mind.

  Lily and Laura relaxed, and Tate put away the last of the tools he'd been cleaning. "As long as that's settled, it's time for me to leave. If the three of you want to stay out here, that's fine with me. Just lock up when you're done."

  "The cottage would be more comfortable," Laura said as she slid off the chair as carefully as if she were nine months' pregnant instead of a few weeks. "I could use some tea. Decaf, of course."

  Lily immediately started for the garage door, and Laura followed at her heels, leaving Helen behind with Tate.

  Once they were outside he murmured, "They might have missed the crossed fingers behind your back when you said you'd listen to me, but I didn't."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Helen said loftily.

  Only the microscopic crinkles in the corners of his eyes betrayed his amusement. "You said you'd listen to me, not that you'd actually follow my advice, which is what your nieces inferred."

  "Are you going to tell them?"

  "Of course not. You're my client, not them."

  "Don't forget I'm also your landlord and supplier of exotic wood."

  He glanced at the pile of blanks she'd given him. "That's just a bonus, not the real reason for my loyalty."

  She was going to ask what the real reason was when Lily called her name. "Are you coming? Laura needs to use the bathroom."

  Tate laughed. "Barely far enough along for a positive pregnancy test, and she's already claiming over-active bladder. Just wait until she hits the last few weeks."

  "Now you know why I was so anxious not to live near Boston when I retired," Helen said. "Out here, I won't have to cater to a constantly pregnant niece or get roped into round-the-clock babysitting."

  "I thought you just wanted to be far enough away that they wouldn't notice when you took up investigating murders as your retirement hobby."

  * * *

  Helen fixed Laura's decaf tea and a tray of cheese and crackers while half-listening to the excited chatter of the expectant mother. With the other half of her brain, she contemplated the fact that SLP was apparently perfectly legal and therefore had no reason to have caused Angie's disappearance. No, the most likely pool of suspects was right here in Wharton. Except no one Helen had talked to so far seemed particularly likely.

  There was one person she hadn't talked to yet who was among the last to see—and be angered by—Angie: the cabbie who'd driven her to her sister's house. Barry was actually becoming a more likely suspect while he dodged Jack. The cabbie couldn't have killed Angie on the day she left because she'd been alive hours later when she checked into the casino. But what if Angie had taken a bus back to Wharton at the end of the first week, somehow avoiding notice by the bus driver, and Barry had picked her up at the bus station? He could have killed her then, perhaps provoked beyond even his saintly endurance when she stiffed him of his tip for the second time in a row.

  Helen wasn't convinced that was much of a motive for murder, though. Cabbies had to be used to bad treatment. Back when Jack had been a limo driver, he'd told Helen countless stories about his rude passengers, and not leaving a tip had actually been among the least of the bad behaviors.

  Before she gave up on the random act of violence theory completely, she needed to talk to Charlene again to confirm that Angie had, in fact, been writing erotica, and the seventy-five thousand dollars had been paid legitimately, not for some criminal enterprise using SLP as a front.

  First, though, Laura was entitled to a few minutes of celebration over her much-desired pregnancy. Helen forced herself to pay attention to her nieces as she poured the boiling water into the teapot.

  Laura nibbled on a cracker and then said, "I've got an infant GPS tracker on order, so we'll be able to affix it to her as soon as she's born."

  Lily paused in the act of collecting three mugs from a cabinet. "Why don't you just go and have a chip installed, the way they do for pets?"

  "Can I do that?" Laura said anxiously, missing her sister’s sarcasm. "What if it malfunctions and needs to be replaced? Children live a lot longer than pets do, after all."

  "Pets can live to be about twenty, and that would take you up to the college years," Lily said. "You wouldn't need to track your children when they're sixty years old."

  "Lily's right," Helen said, thinking of the incident at the nursing home when a patient had had trouble breathing. "At that age, they get a different kind of monitor."

  Helen tuned out the girls' squabbling, knowing they wouldn't appreciate her stepping in to resolve the matter any more than she appreciated their interference in her life. Her thoughts turned instead to Angie's medical alert bracelet. Could it be one of the high-tech devices with GPS, like Laura's baby monitor or the one Rebecca had recommended for Helen? If so, perhaps Ralph could trigger it remotely. Then they could find Angie in just a matter of minutes. Ralph might not have thought to do it because he was so convinced his wife was still alive. Of course, it was also possible he had thought of it and then been careful not to mention it, because he'd killed her and didn't want her found.

  "If you two are done here, I've got work to do," Helen said. Before she questioned Ralph tomorrow she wanted to be prepared. "You've reminded me that I need to learn more about GPS tracking."

  * * *

  The online descriptions of medical alert systems had been frustratingly vague, forcing Helen to abandon her research until the morning when her nurse could fill in the details before Jack arrived to take her to see Ralph.

  Eventually, Rebecca's car followed Tate's up the driveway and parked where Jack usually dropped Helen off.

  Helen settled into her recliner and waited impatiently while Rebecca reviewed the supply of prescribed medicines and checked that the refrigerator was amply stocked with healthy, easy-to-prepare foods. Helen even refrained from insisting it wasn't necessary to take her temperature or check her blood pressure today and let both procedures happen without a fuss.

  As Rebecca removed the blood pressure cuff, she said, "It's a little higher than usual today. Perhaps I should stay a while and take it again in half an hour."

  "I'll be gone by then," Helen said. "It's nothing. I'm just a little anxious to get this check-up done, so I can leave."

  Rebecca peered at her for a long moment and then finally said, "Okay, but if it's elevated again on Thursday, I'm going to recommend some additional testing."

  "That won't be necessary," Helen said. "Now, have a seat on the sofa and talk to me about medical monitors."

  Rebecca's face reflected her surprise, but she didn't hesitate to say, "What do you want to know?"

  "I read the brochures, but they're obviously biased, since they're trying to get people to buy the product. Do you know anyone who actually uses one of these systems?"

  "Sure," Rebecca said. "They're fairly common among patients who live alone like you do. The exact model depends on whether they're home-bound or not. A mobile version would be better for you, since you do seem to get out a lot more than I was expecting."

  "I've always got my cell phone and my driver for back-up."

  "There are still advant
ages to the mobile system," Rebecca said, "If you trigger the alarm, the monitoring company has your medical history and can get it to the first responders if you're not conscious enough to do it. Plus, if something happens that keeps you from triggering the alarm, your family can find you by using the tracker."

  That was good news for finding Angie, if she had the right kind of system, but it wasn't anything Helen would want for herself. "That's a little creepy. It's bad enough that the NSA and all the marketers on the internet know every move I make. I don't really want my nieces following me that closely."

  "Anything can be abused, but I've never heard of excessive interference by family members being a problem for patients," Rebecca said. "I have heard stories of how the monitors can be life-saving, though. If a patient goes missing, the family just logs onto the computer and gets a GPS coordinate for where to send the first responders. You'd get to decide who has that authority to log on, of course. If you think your nieces would be too intrusive, then maybe there's someone else you could authorize to get the information."

  Tate. She could trust him to let her make her own decisions without constant supervision. "I'll have to think about it."

  Rebecca scooted to the edge of the sofa, preparing to stand. "Is there anything else you want to discuss? I'd be glad to stay, but usually you'd be pushing me out the door by now."

  "I think we're done for today." The only questions Helen still had weren't the sort Rebecca could answer. Questions like: who would Angie have trusted with access to her GPS location? Her husband, despite having kept seventy-five thousand dollars worth of secrets from him? Or her sister, who knew that particular secret but maybe not other secrets that Ralph did know.

  Moments after Rebecca left, Helen heard a powerful engine roaring up her driveway. She peered out the front window to see a red convertible sports car with an elegant winged hood ornament she vaguely thought belonged on a larger and more staid vehicle.

  Jack jumped out and waved at her enthusiastically.

  Helen grabbed her cane and her yarn bag and went out to see what on earth he was doing with such a ridiculously expensive and frivolous car.

  "Isn't she amazing, Ms. Binney?" Jack said as she came down the front steps. "I never would have picked this out for you. Not sure how she'll do on the snow, but if this is what you want, I'll make it work."

  Helen continued over to the passenger side door. "This is what the competent, efficient, no-nonsense Martha Waddell drives?"

  "Yep. A Bentley Continental. Ed said hers is a couple years older than this, and brown instead of red, but it's the closest thing he had. He said if this is close but not quite right, he has a Mercedes in the same general class and a little newer."

  Once again Ed had the completely wrong image of who she was and what she wanted, and this time it was her own fault. If this car's competition was a Mercedes, it was definitely not in her intended price range. How on Earth had Martha Waddell been able to afford it? Her job was well paid but not that well paid.

  "I think maybe there's been some sort of miscommunication. I was expecting Martha's car to be sensible, not flashy."

  "A person's car can reveal a lot about them that you wouldn't otherwise expect," Jack said. "And a lot of the time, it's not what they want you to know about them, either."

  As she settled into the passenger seat, Helen tried to imagine what hidden depths the car could be revealing about Martha besides the fact that she wasn't as sensible as Helen thought she was. "What does this car tell you about Martha?"

  "I wouldn't call it flashy like you did. Not exactly. It's fun and all, but in a solid and understated sort of way. Martha's like that: reliable, understated, and powerful." Jack got behind the wheel and put the car in gear. He patted the steering wheel with one hand and said wistfully, "Are you sure this isn't what you were looking for?"

  She didn't want to spoil his fun, so instead of insisting they return to the car lot immediately, she just said, "I'll let you know after we take it for a spin. First stop is Ralph's house."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ralph was working on the gazebo, shaving a bit off a shingle that was perhaps a millimeter too large. His t-shirt was soaked with sweat, and a trail of tools and supplies had become a barrier separating the back yard from the front yard.

  Helen didn't want to risk clambering through the debris. Since he was using a hand tool, he'd taken off his ear protection. She shouted Ralph's name, and then asked, "Could we talk for a few minutes?"

  He set down his hand planer and asked, "Do you have a lead on where Angie and Charlene are?"

  "They're not together. I talked to Charlene again. She doesn't know where Angie is."

  He drooped to sit on the top step of the gazebo. "Then where can she be?"

  "I don't know, but perhaps there's a way to find out."

  "Come on over and sit with me." He pointed a few feet to Helen's left. "There's a gap over there, where you can get through."

  Helen carefully picked her way through the obstacle course and settled beside him. "I understand Angie has a heart condition."

  Ralph nodded. "A congenital heart defect. It was surgically repaired when she was a child, but it leaves her at risk for abnormal heart rhythms and heart infections. She's never had anything more than a few minor incidents, and she follows her doctor's orders religiously. Still, she wears a medical alert bracelet in case she ever does have a serious problem, so the paramedics would have an immediate diagnosis."

  "I've been thinking about getting something like that myself," Helen said. "I understand some models have GPS trackers in them these days. There's even an option for family members to go online and get the exact location of the bracelet and its wearer."

  "Angie would kill me if I tracked her down like that."

  "It's too late to worry about her feelings," Helen said, running out of patience with his patience. "If there's any way to find her with the GPS tracker, you need to use it. If you can't access the information, the police could probably contact the monitoring company and get the GPS coordinates from them."

  Ralph shook his head. "It's no use. She doesn't have that advanced a system. Just the old-fashioned bracelet she got years ago, plus a panic button for if she has an episode while she's here alone. It only works within a few hundred feet of the house, though, and she's certainly not within range now." Ralph picked up his planer again. "Did Charlene tell you anything else?"

  "Not really." Helen wasn't as convinced as Charlene that Angie was in Mystic. Besides, mentioning it would just feed Ralph's delusion that Angie was safe, and he needed to be worried at least enough to insist that the police do their job. Helen was rapidly running out of leads, and, much as it pained her to acknowledge that Tate was right, it was probably time to do what he'd suggested: leave the investigation up to the police.

  "Tracking the medical bracelet was a good idea." Ralph brushed a sliver of shingle off the planer. "I appreciate everything you're doing, but if Angie doesn't want to be found, there's nothing you or I can do about it. We're just going to have to wait until she's ready to come home." He gave her an encouraging smile. "One good thing is that I might actually have the gazebo done by then."

  Judging by the strain in Ralph's smile, even he was starting to doubt Angie would ever see the gazebo. He just wasn't ready to admit it to himself, let alone to anyone else.

  "I just have one more question, and then I'll let you get back to work," Helen said. "Did you know Angie was writing books for a publisher known as Scarlet Lipstick Press?"

  "Angie? Writing books?" Ralph's surprise seemed genuine. "She doesn't even like to read."

  That was what Terri Greene had said too, but it was becoming clear there was a lot that no one knew about Angie. "Apparently she liked to write, though, and was good at it. The extra money on your tax return came from a publisher. She had a laptop computer with her when she left, and I'm guessing that's what she used to write her books."

  "Angie?" Ralph said, frowning and shakin
g his head. "She doesn't have a laptop."

  "Maybe she borrowed it from someone. Her sister, perhaps. But she definitely had one with her the day she disappeared. The cabbie mentioned it, and so did…" Helen wasn't sure what Ralph's relationship with Francesca was, so it might be better not to name any names. "So did another witness who saw her getting into the cab."

  Ralph stared down at his planer. "I can't believe she hid it from me. I will never, not in a million years, understand what Angie's thinking. We need to have a long talk when she gets home."

  Helen left Ralph to resume his construction work without sharing her own suspicion that his wife wasn't ever coming home. That was one thing the police could handle far better than she could.

  * * *

  Francesca and her cat had braved the intense heat of the street to admire the Bentley. Today the cat's harness matched the bright turquoise of the flowers on its owner's Hawaiian-print housedress. The leash had tangled itself around the forearm crutches, but Francesca moved slowly and carefully enough to avoid tripping.

  The cat ignored Helen's approach, but Francesca nodded a greeting. "I thought you were planning to get an inconspicuous car. Although, I have to say, I might not mind being stared at if it was because I was riding around in something like this."

  "Would you like to take a test ride?" Helen said. "I'm sure Jack would be happy to drive you around the block."

  "Oh, no," she said. "I never leave sight of my house. I just came out to tell you I remembered something about the day Angie disappeared. I didn't think of it before because it was earlier in the day, not when the taxi was here. Angie came out to get her mail, and she had her phone with her. She was yelling at someone."

  "She yells at everyone."

  "Except for Ralph. She's got him convinced she's a sweet-natured angel. But I'm pretty sure it was him on the other end of the line because she started out all sweet, and she's only nice to him and her sister. I didn't catch everything she said, but she wanted to know when he'd be home, and she didn't seem happy with his answer. She'd gotten her mail by then and turned her back on me to go inside, so even though she was yelling into the phone, the words were muffled. All I got was that she was talking about money and how she'd had to get a job before they lost everything."