A Denial of Death

by Gin Jones

  "That's interesting." It fit with what Charlene had said about the agency encountering some financial difficulties, and the timeframe when Angie had become interested in storytelling and digital publishing. Ralph had either lied about the financial stability of the agency, or he'd been oblivious to the financial struggles Angie's secret career had resolved. "Anything else?"

  "Sorry. Right around then the summer-school bus came by, cutting off any chance of hearing the rest of the conversation. It stops in front of my house to drop off kids who live on either side of me. Angie was gone by the time it left." Francesca bent down to untangle the bright-colored leash from her right crutch and then leaned against the Bentley to catch her breath after the little bit of exertion in the direct sun. "I wish I could be more help. I don't like Angie, but I don't wish her any real harm. We all have our crosses to bear, and I'm sure she has her reasons for being so miserable to everyone."

  "You've been very helpful," Helen said, humbled by the other woman's understanding nature. She herself would never have accepted Angie's bullying with such a forgiving attitude. It was probably a good thing Helen's cottage was sufficiently isolated that she couldn't see or hear her neighbors. Otherwise, Tate would be so busy keeping her out of neighborhood tiffs that he'd never get to enjoy a single minute of his retirement. "I wouldn't have known about the laptop if it weren't for you, and now I know a little bit more about Angie's day before she disappeared. At least now we know she was still here and being her usual nasty self at whatever time the bus comes through here."

  "It would have been around 11:30," Francesca said. "Mel and me, we use it as the signal for making lunch. Mel usually goes to the window a few minutes before it's due and meows for me to join him. That's why I was there to see Angie going to the mailbox."

  At the sound of her name, the cat demonstrated her piercing meow. Francesca struggled to straighten from her leaning position against the Bentley and reach down to pat her feline companion. "We should be going. The bus will be coming through here soon, and I make everyone uncomfortable if I'm outside."

  Helen thanked Francesca again and waited to make sure she got home safely. The woman struggled across the street and up the very slight incline of the front path to her door. Judging by how winded she was by the time she'd gone those couple hundred feet, it was absurd to suspect Francesca of harming Angie. Even if every compassionate word Francesca had spoken was a lie and she did indeed wish someone would kill Angie, Francesca wasn't physically capable of doing it herself. Or at least she wasn't capable of moving the body after it was dead. She might perhaps have tripped Angie with one of the crutches, causing Angie to fall and hit her head in some fatal way, but Francesca could never have moved the body from wherever it had fallen into some hiding spot.

  Francesca opened her front door just enough to sidle inside with her body blocking any view of the dim interior, as if she was afraid to let anyone see what was inside. Something like a dead body in the living room would certainly explain Francesca's terror at the prospect of the police visiting her even better than her claimed fear of strangers in her house.

  Jack interrupted her thoughts. "Where to now, Ms. Binney?"

  "I don't know." The idea that Francesca had killed Angie was improbable but not much more so than the possibility that Angie had finally revealed her nasty personality to Ralph, and he'd snapped, tracking her to the casino and killing her there. Neither theory felt even remotely plausible. She needed more information.

  "Let's go see if Charlene can shed any light on Angie's career as a writer."

  * * *

  At Charlene's house Helen had Jack back into the driveway with the front wheels as close as possible to the street. She asked him to stay with the Bentley so he could deter anyone who might vandalize the car and also follow up on his attempts to locate the cabbie, Barry. Those were valid reasons for him to stay behind, but her real concern was that Jack remain out from the shadows of the property's overgrown shrubs and in full sight of anyone who might be watching the property. It was better if he wasn't seen approaching Charlene's front door. No one except Tate would ever accuse Helen of breaking and entering.

  Charlene's mailbox was overflowing with the weekend junk mail preventing it from closing completely, and her distinctively painted VW Beetle wasn't in the driveway.

  The summer sunshine faded as Helen entered the small yard, surrounded as it was by the towering shrubs and the neighboring houses. The deep shade should have been a welcome respite from the heat, but instead it just felt gloomy and isolating. Helen couldn't see the street from where she stood at the bottom of the porch steps and wasn't sure if Jack could hear her if she fell and needed help. This was just the sort of situation where she might actually find a use for a mobile medical alert system, but she couldn't wait until she had one before she talked to Charlene.

  Helen resolutely continued up the three steps of the front porch and rang the doorbell. Not surprisingly, no one came to the door, and she heard no movement inside. She rang the bell again, but the absolute silence convinced her no one was home.

  Helen accepted she'd hit yet another dead end and returned to the Bentley. Sliding inside, she couldn't help noticing the seats really were comfortable, neither too high nor too low, with plenty of room for her cane and yarn bag.

  "That was quick," Jack said.

  "Charlene's not home."

  "I guess we both struck out then. No one seems to have seen or talked to Barry since Sunday."

  She'd only been trying to be thorough by talking to him. The cabbie was an unlikely suspect and had probably already shared everything he knew about the day Angie disappeared, but his sudden change in behavior was suspicious. He could have become the victim of some foul play himself, if he wasn't simply hiding from more in-depth questioning about Angie's disappearance. "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep looking for him."

  "I will," Jack said, "That's something I can do while I'm working on the clay figures that need to go into the mail later this week."

  "If you need to work on them today, you can drop me off to visit Betty and Josie, and I'll get a cab home later."

  "For the chance to drive this Bentley some more, I'd risk missing my shipping deadline." Jack pulled away from the curb and headed in the direction of the nursing home, the second planned stop on their itinerary. "But that shouldn't be necessary, as long as I can take tomorrow or the next day off to finish the orders."

  With Barry's disappearance Helen had run out of leads to pursue. "I don't expect to go anywhere important the rest of this week. You can have both days off if you need them."

  "Just one will do it," Jack said. "As long as you don't have other errands tomorrow, how about we use it to make a concerted effort to find the right car for you, and then I'll take Thursday off? I know this Bentley isn't really your style, but I'm glad I got a chance to drive it."

  Helen still couldn't picture Martha Waddell owning a car like this either. As long as she was going to be at the nursing home for a visit anyway, she'd have to see for herself what was in the parking spot reserved for the assistant nursing home director.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  There was nothing left for Helen to do except tell Betty and Josie she'd hit a complete dead end in her search for Angie. Everyone in town had wanted Angie gone, if not actually dead, and they all had good reason to hate her, if not to kill her. Angie was an awful person, no matter how many preemie caps she made for charity. She'd kept secrets from her husband, verbally abused a disabled person, and angered all the other volunteers she'd worked with. Martha Waddell probably wasn't the only competent, hard-working person Angie had threatened to get fired. It was a miracle Angie hadn't been killed years ago.

  Jack pulled the Bentley up to the front steps of the nursing home. "I’ll make some more calls to see if I can find Barry while you're visiting with Betty and Josie."

  "Thanks. It’s probably a waste of time, just to confirm that he dropped her off at her sister’s, but I’d feel better
if I checked everything."

  Helen got out of the car just in time to see Geoff Loring appear in the front doorway. He paused on the top step, rubbing his arm where it had been broken four months ago by thugs trying to convince him to drop a story he'd been working on. His pale face was even whiter than usual, which she might have attributed to the unflattering burgundy red of his sport shirt except that his face had the dazed expression of someone who'd just received bad news. Never a good thing to see in a visitor to a nursing home.

  Helen hurried over to him. "Geoff? Are you all right? Your uncle, is he okay?"

  "What? My uncle?"

  "You don't look good," she said. "Is something wrong?"

  "Oh, no, nothing like that. Uncle Tad is fine." Geoff pulled a smartphone out of his rumpled khaki pants. "I just got called to a crime scene."

  "I'm sorry." Four months ago he would have been racing for his car with the hope of his first big scoop. Today, if he did any running, it would be to hide from his editor, pretending he hadn't gotten the message. "What kind of crime?"

  "Murder," he said faintly. "Suspected, anyway. They've got a search warrant to look for a body."

  "I thought you'd switched from hard news to features."

  "I did. But the Wharton Times is a small paper, and sometimes we need to fill in for each other. I'm the only reporter available right now."

  "Maybe the police won't actually find anything."

  "That would be good," Geoff said, with a hopeful smile. "I'd be able to write about the search and then turn it over to someone else to figure out what happened to Angie Decker."

  Helen drew in a startled breath. "Angie? That's whose body they're looking for?"

  "I assume so," Geoff said. "I heard you talking to Betty and Josie the other day about Angie's disappearance, and the search warrant is for the Deckers' home."

  * * *

  Helen had limped all the way back to the Bentley before Geoff forced himself to leave the safety of the nursing home entrance's top step and head for his own car. As she got into the passenger seat she told Jack, "Change of plans. I need to get to the Deckers' house."

  "Anything you want, Ms. Binney." He started the engine while she tugged the heavy but smooth-moving door shut behind her.

  "The police are on the way there to search for Angie's body." Helen buckled her seatbelt. "And hurry, please. Ralph isn't prepared for being suspected of murder."

  Jack grinned at the opportunity to really test the Bentley, and the car shot forward.

  Helen called Tate, but there was no answer. He was probably busy with his lathe and had either turned off the phone to prevent being interrupted, or he was wearing his ear protection and couldn't hear the ring.

  She got his voicemail and said, "The police are searching for Angie's body at the Deckers' house."

  For most people, that would have been enough to at least pique their curiosity, but she needed something more to convince Tate to leave his workshop and come help Ralph. "I'm on my way there now with Jack. Just being on the premises won't get me arrested for interfering with a police investigation, will it?"

  That should do it. Tate wouldn't be able to resist the chance to see her in handcuffs.

  * * *

  Cruisers with flashing lights prevented anyone from coming within a block of the Deckers' house. Jack dropped Helen off a short distance away from one of the barricades. A commercial truck idled in front of the Deckers' house with a backhoe on the bed of its trailer.

  Jack left to find an inconspicuous spot to park the Bentley, while Helen mingled with the dozen or so people gathered to watch the commotion. Helen casually inspected the nearest cruiser. It was empty, and she assumed its assigned occupants were with Detective Peterson and the rest of the uniformed officers huddling over the idling truck, where two streets intersected at the corner of Deckers' lot.

  Peterson was standing next to his car, giving instructions to six officers who must have been roasting in their dark uniforms and heavy black boots. Judging by the way he was pointing at various areas of the Deckers' yard, they were discussing their plan of attack. They hadn't noticed her yet, but she couldn't count on their continued blindness if she made a beeline for Ralph's yard.

  To her left Francesca and her cat were peering out their front window. If she could just get to Francesca's house without being stopped, she might be able to get from there to the Deckers' yard.

  Helen made her way up Francesca's front path and knocked on the door. After a moment, it opened just wide enough to reveal Mel's face at Helen's eye level, where Francesca held him against her chest.

  "What's going on?" Francesca whispered.

  Helen kept her voice low too. "They've got a search warrant."

  "Poor Ralph," Francesca said. "He doesn't deserve this."

  "That's why I'm here. I need to get to Ralph before they do so he doesn't say something stupid. I've got a lawyer on the way." She hoped, anyway. "Do you think you could distract them long enough for me to slip into the yard?"

  Francesca stared at where Detective Peterson was still working out the search strategy and hugged Mel until the cat squeaked.

  "I know it's scary, but I can't get past them without your help," Helen said. "You don't want Ralph to be arrested for something he didn't do."

  "No, he's a good guy. He got the police to leave me alone after Angie complained, and he helped me with an insurance claim once, even though I wasn't insured through his agency." After one last look at Detective Peterson, she took a deep breath, released her too-tight hold on the cat, and said, "Okay, what do you want me to do?"

  Helen took in the location of the various vehicles and officers. She could probably get behind the backhoe without the officers noticing her. If they saw her at all, she would look like a local resident heading back over to join the group of rubberneckers at the end of the block. Geoff had arrived finally and joined them, staying inconspicuously toward the back of the group. He held his smartphone, but instead of taking notes he had it hugged to his chest, much like Francesca held her cat for comfort.

  Helen considered the shortest route to where she could hear Ralph methodically nailing shingles to the gazebo. Peterson had his back to her, and the other police had never paid any attention to her before, so there wouldn't be any reason for them to start now as long as she stayed within their expectations of her. Even they couldn't ignore her if she was marching right in front of them into Ralph's yard, and there was no way she could sprint faster than they could. She needed them to be distracted for at least a minute or two so she could hobble unnoticed up the driveway and across the construction debris.

  "I need to get to Ralph's back yard without the police stopping me," Helen said. "Can you get their attention for a couple minutes once I'm ready to step out from behind the backhoe? I'll move as fast as I can, but that's not saying much."

  Francesca stared in horror at the police before nodding grimly. "I wonder if being stared at will be any easier when I know it's helping someone else."

  "I'm sure it will." Raising her voice a bit in case anyone was paying them any attention, Helen said, "Sorry you can't come shopping with me today. Maybe next time when there isn't any excitement going on in your front yard."

  On her way back to the street, Helen gave the police a few curious glances, assuming she'd appear more suspicious if she ignored them completely. If Peterson turned around and saw her, he'd immediately know something was up, but the others would only notice her if she did something unexpected.

  Helen got into place behind the backhoe and signaled to Francesca. A moment later she responded with a loud shriek.

  "Mel! Oh no! Come back!" Francesca hobbled down the steps, her forearm crutches clattering with each step. "Help!"

  Helen took it as her cue and limped as fast as she could up Ralph's driveway and through the tools and supplies scattered around the back yard. She forced herself not to look back to see if anyone had noticed her. From across the street she heard babbling about an escap
ed cat and the need for help before Mel was run over by the police cars or the backhoe.

  Helen aimed for the pathway through the construction debris which she'd used earlier in the day. It was a little more clogged than it had been an hour earlier, but still passable.

  Ralph was calmly nailing another perfectly cut and placed shingle to the gazebo, his ear protection rendering him oblivious to the idling diesel engine in front of his house.

  "Ralph." She tapped him on the arm to get his attention. Once he'd taken off his ear protection, she said, "The police are here to search your property.

  He looked at her blankly. "Whatever for? I've got a permit to build the gazebo."

  "No time to explain. I didn't want you to be alone for this." Helen finally dared to look back toward the road, half expecting Detective Peterson to be shaking handcuffs at her.

  There were no visible handcuffs, but Peterson was coming up the driveway and heading for the Great Wall of Abandoned Stuff. He took up a position beside it with four uniformed officers flanking him. He pulled a packet of papers out of his jacket pocket. "We've got a warrant to search the premises, Ralph."

  "Just don't make a mess," Ralph said. "If you do, Angie will be furious, and you don't want her mad at you. She never forgets or forgives."

  "I'll have to risk it," Detective Peterson said. "We have a duty to do everything we can to find her."

  Helen couldn't resist pointing out, "You weren't in a rush the last time I talked to you."