To Helen Back: A River Road Mystery

by Susan McBride

  The minister didn’t reply. He simply stared at her.

  Instead of clamming up, as she probably should have, she nervously babbled on. “Maddy said she’d thought he loved her, that she had hopes he’d leave his wife—”

  Fister laughed so abruptly it made Helen jump. “She was a fool,” he said, shaking his head. “But I don’t blame her. She’s young and naive and without a mother’s hand to guide her. He saw her weakness and played on it.” As the minister spoke, his hands flexed in and out of fists. “He preyed on her need for attention and lied to convince her that what they did was all right. He took advantage of her,” he said through gritted teeth. “He was a grown man, and Maddy a child.”

  He stopped and looked at the sky as the pinks and grays of sunrise changed chameleonlike to blue. “He had no right,” Fister whispered, still staring at the sky. “He had no right.”

  Helen reached out, touching Fister’s arm, which made him start, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Don’t blame yourself,” she told him. “What happened wasn’t your fault, despite what Maddy thinks.”

  “Blame myself?”

  “I can hear the guilt in your voice.”

  He took a step aside, pressing his palms together, and Helen suddenly realized there was more to all of this than what she knew.

  “If you hear guilt in my voice, it’s not for anything I’ve done. It’s for waiting as long as I did to do anything at all,” he told her, though he didn’t meet her eyes. “You must understand, there was no other way. My fears were for Madeline, for what he’d do to her, what he’d already he’d done.” Fister raised knotted hands to the heavens. “By God, he put her through hell.” With a sigh, his broad shoulders lost their stiffness. “At least now he won’t bother her again.”

  “Of course he won’t,” Helen echoed, certain that was what he wanted to hear. She hoped that, both for his sake and Madeline’s, it was the truth. “He’s out of her life, and she’ll get on as before. She’s young and, from what I’ve seen, quite resilient. She’ll be over this before you know it.”

  He dropped his hands to his sides and shook his head. “I’m not sure she’ll ever forgive me.”

  “She loves you.”

  “Does she?”

  “She’s your child, your flesh and blood,” Helen reminded him.

  A wry smile took shape on his mouth as he told her, “I don’t know if that matters to her anymore. Not this time, not after everything I’ve done.”

  Helen wondered what he wasn’t saying, for she could see he was holding something back, something that was eating at him inside. “It must be hard for you, watching your daughter grow up.”

  “Maybe she wouldn’t have grown up quite so fast if only her mother had lived.”

  “I’m sure you did your best,” Helen said. “It’s all any of us can do. Raising children isn’t easy.”

  His brow wrinkled. “But it’s my duty to teach right from wrong, and I failed with my own daughter.”

  “Well, she confided in you, didn’t she?” Helen said, wishing he could see that it wasn’t so hopeless after all. “Isn’t that how you found out about her relationship?”

  “No,” he said, gazing off again.

  “You don’t mean to say that the man she was involved with . . .” Helen let the question hang, noticing the deep flush that rose from Fister’s neck.

  The minister didn’t remark one way or the other. He stared past her, arms folded across his chest. His bearded face looked grim.

  Helen knew then, without a doubt. that Maddy’s married lover had confronted the minister. Perhaps it had been a confession? Or, she wondered, was it a taunt? “Would you like to talk about it?” she asked, since the can of worms had already been opened.

  “I think it’s time I returned to my desk,” he said briskly, nodding at her. “Good day, Mrs. Evans.” Then he walked away, leaving her standing on the sidewalk.

  She watched him cross the bridge and ascend the steps to the chapel. He took a quick look back from the doorway before he ducked inside.

  “Well, for heaven’s sake,” she said aloud, and tried to piece together the conversation she’d had yesterday with Madeline and her words with the pastor this morning.

  She furrowed her brow.

  Who was this older married man who’d taken advantage of a young girl and told the pastor about the affair himself? Fister said the man would never, ever bother Maddy again.

  Helen’s eyes went wide. Was it possible? she wondered. Could it truly be . . . ?

  A crow squawked from the telephone wires above her, and Helen shook away her mental meanderings.

  “Absurd,” she muttered, and with one last look at the church, picked up her walk where she’d left off.

  Chapter 23

  AFTER WALKING ALL the way to the river, Helen made a point of stopping at Felicity’s on her way home. She found the old girl out front in her yard. Down on all fours, Felicity was plucking weeds from a petunia bed. She chattered on all the while, coaxing the flowers to “grow up pretty for mummy.”

  Helen smiled to herself, recalling that even Prince Charles had been observed prattling on with his plants. And she wasn’t embarrassed to admit that she conversed with Amber as though the cat understood her every word.

  “Good morning,” she said as she approached.

  Felicity looked up, murmuring a hello before scrambling to her feet. “I thought I’d get an early start. It’s so much cooler in the hour after daybreak,” she explained as she tugged off her gloves, then brushed at her dirty knees.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Helen said, because she hadn’t meant for Felicity to stop her work just to chat.

  “No, no.” Felicity adjusted the brim of her straw hat and linked her arm through Helen’s. “In fact, I’m glad you came by. I picked some blackberries earlier, and I’ve got a pint for you.”

  “What a dear!” Helen patted her hand. “It’s sweet of you to think of me.”

  “I find if I stay busy I’m less likely to think of—” She swallowed and squeaked out, “Everything.”

  Helen noticed the hollows beneath her usually vivid eyes as Felicity’s gaze shifted toward the fence.

  “Oh, hon, please, don’t fret,” she said, wishing she could offer some real words of comfort. “It’ll all be over with soon, I’m sure, and then life will get back to normal. Mark my words.”

  Felicity sighed. She usually had such good posture, with shoulders straight and chin up, but now she just seemed to slump. She attempted a smile but it was feeble at best. “You’re right, of course. It’s not like me to be so bloody spineless.”

  “I’d never call you spineless,” Helen insisted. “Why, you’ve more gumption than the queen.”

  Felicity’s pale cheeks flushed.

  “Now where are those delectable blackberries?”

  “If you’d like to come inside, I’ll fetch them for you,” Felicity said, then made the mistake of glancing over at the Grones’ house yet again. She would have stumbled had Helen not caught her arm. A tiny whimper escaped her throat, and Helen looked across the fence to find the cause of her distress.

  There, in the window, stood Shotsie Grone. Her blond hair made a frizzy aureole around her face as she stared brazenly at them. Though the screen turned her features bleary, her scowl was visible enough.

  Then her hand jerked down the shade and she was gone from their view.

  “Oh, my, I thought I was done with that lot, but I guess I’m not, am I?” Felicity mumbled, swaying ever so slightly.

  “It’s all right,” Helen said, hoping her friend wouldn’t faint.

  “She’s as wicked as he was,” Felicity whispered.

  Helen opened her mouth to deny it, to explain that Shotsie was just distraught and misguided. But she knew none of that would help. The Grones had caused Felicity immeasurab
le pain, and even the most stalwart of souls could only take so much.

  “Come on,” she urged, leading her friend toward the lovely white Victorian with its intricate gingerbread trim. “Let’s go inside and have some tea, okay?”

  At Felicity’s nod, Helen walked with her up the steps, through the porch, and into the sunny kitchen. She settled her friend into a seat at the polished oak table in the center of the room. The orange tabby, Ginger, glanced up from a windowsill to blink at them, then settled back to sleep after a hearty yawn. Helen figured that dear old Ginger didn’t pine for Milton Grone and his shotgun any more than her owner.

  Helen had been in Felicity’s kitchen often enough to know where everything was. Whistling tunelessly, she busied herself filling the teapot and setting it on the stove to boil. She gathered up two china cups and saucers from the cabinet, found the strainer and a tin of loose Earl Grey, and lined up everything on the tiled countertop.

  “Don’t let Shotsie get you so worked up,” she said when Felicity let out a sad-sounding sigh. “You’ll drive yourself mad if you do.”

  “I know, I know,” Felicity murmured, and raised trembling hands to unpin her hat from her crown. “It’s just that she always seems to be watching. I feel her eyes on me all the time. Even in my dreams. I barely slept a wink.” She set the straw hat aside and dropped her hands to her lap. “I’ve been hearing voices in the middle of the night,” she quietly admitted, “people arguing and a loud popping noise, like a gun.”

  “It’s probably someone’s TV turned too loud or your imagination working overtime,” Helen told her, unearthing a box of butter cookies and bringing a plate of them to the table.

  “True,” Felicity agreed. “But I’m a dreadful wreck regardless, and all because of him.”

  Helen picked up a cookie. “What’s done is done,” she said. “No matter who killed Milton, he won’t ever be back. Shotsie told me she’s not staying on once everything’s settled, so soon you’ll be rid of her, too.”

  Felicity picked at a cookie. “You don’t believe I did it, do you?”

  “What?” Helen had taken a nibble of a cookie and bit her tongue instead. She flinched at the pain as much as the question, finally finding her voice to say, “For goodness’ sake, of course I don’t think you killed Milton.”

  “But the shovel was mine.”

  “You’d left it outside. Anyone could have used it.”

  “But I had a good reason. I hated him enough to do it.”

  Helen didn’t like seeing her friend like this. “Stop it! You’re innocent.”

  “Shotsie doesn’t believe that,” Felicity went on, “and I’m not so sure about the sheriff.”

  The teapot whistled, cutting off the chance to respond, and Helen quickly rose. She strained the tea and poured it into Felicity’s favorite sterling server, then collected the cream, spoons, and china on a tray and took it all to the table.

  “You’ve got to forget what Shotsie said,” she insisted as she poured them each a steaming cup. “She’s pretty irrational right now.”

  Felicity blew on her tea, saying nothing.

  Helen patted her hand. “The local grapevine is painting you as something of a hero.”

  “Pish posh,” Felicity said, but perked up. “What do the gossips say about the murder? Do you imagine Biddle will find the culprit soon?”

  Helen took her friend’s hand and held it tight. No doubt Felicity was as unnerved by the goings-on as she was. They’d once felt secure in their own homes, only to have Milton’s murder take that away from them. “Frank Biddle might be a bit of a so-and-so, but he’ll figure this out,” Helen said, reassuring herself as much as Felicity.

  “And until he does,” her friend added in a quiet voice, “we’ll just all have to stay on our toes.”

  Helen found her gaze drifting over to the window where Ginger lay. Through the glass, she could clearly view the split-rail fence, and she thought of the patch of unkempt grass where they’d found Milton.

  Someone had deliberately set the dead man’s head on a rock to give the impression that the gash was caused after he fell, not before. No stranger wandering into town would have felt the need to cover up the crime. And whoever struck the death blow had to be someone who knew that Milton had a history of heart troubles, like his father.

  Much as Helen wished to believe that no one in River Bend could have acted with such violence, the facts didn’t lie.

  She picked up her teacup, the brew hot enough to burn her tongue. Even so, it didn’t rid her of the sudden chill she felt, knowing that a killer lived among them.

  Chapter 24

  “WHY, SHERIFF, YOU know good and well where we were on Thursday night,” Ida Bell scoffed. “We were at the town meeting, as Art Beaner can attest.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly where we were,” Dot Feeny piped up, bobbing her head.

  The sheriff eyed the women from behind the safety of his desk. “And you said you arrived when exactly?”

  “We were practically the first there,” the tiny and round Dot told him, glancing sideways at Ida as if seeking approval. “Sat right in front, we did.”

  Ida tapped a mud-splattered boot against the floor. “Everyone in town hall saw us,” she stated, adding gruffly, “I reminded them all of what a horrid thing this water park deal is, and I didn’t mince words.”

  “No, she didn’t mince anything, Sheriff, I promise,” Dot remarked.

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that,” Biddle told her, and pretended to scribble while surreptitiously studying the pair perched on chairs across from him. Ida looked remarkably like a long-legged crane, and Dot a more compact hoot owl, each of them taking turns squawking at him.

  “Do you honestly think I murdered Milton Grone?” Ida asked with a sniff. “I’m not afraid to confess that I didn’t like him, Sheriff. No, I didn’t like him at all.” Her angular features settled in an impatient frown. “Hell’s bells, but he had zero concern for the environment. His idea of recycling was tossing soda pop cans to the side of the road, so that someone else could come along and pick them up.” She clamped her teeth together and ground out, “He was a greedy, unconscionable son of a—”

  “Gun,” Dot said, before Ida could spit out another word.

  Ida ignored her. “I can’t tell you in good conscience that I’ve shed a single tear over his passing,” she went on. “Though I doubt the grocer’s had a run on tissues since he’s gone.” She tossed her head with its cropped brown hair and declared, “The world’s a far better place without him.”

  “Just because she despised him doesn’t mean anything,” Dot said, and hunched her already round shoulders. “Ida can’t stand to see any animal slaughtered.”

  “Oh?” Biddle lifted his pen from the page—and his eyebrows as well—at that one.

  “What I meant, of course, is that Ida’s a protector of all species,” Dot clarified, her cheeks flushed. “She’s not a killer.”

  Ida slapped a skinny thigh. “Dadgummit, Biddle! If I’d wanted to knock off Milton Grone, I would have done it long ago, before he finalized that deal with the lowlifes at Wet ’n’ Woolly!”

  “Yes, she would have done it long ago,” Dot chimed in, causing Ida to roll her eyes.

  “Look, you two . . .” Biddle set down his pen and rubbed his jaw. “ . . . I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I’m just trying to put together the pieces.”

  “Surely you have a lead in the case?” Ida pressed him, bemusement on her flinty face. “You’ve found fingerprints certainly? Foot tracks in the dirt?”

  “I’m working on it,” Biddle brusquely replied, and glanced down at his pathetic scribbles. He felt his neck grow warm, and he shuffled papers on his desk, feeling more irritated by the moment.

  He had found fingerprints on the shovel, yes, but they didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know.

  As for t
racks in the dirt . . . hell, he hadn’t even realized a crime had been committed until they’d already held the funeral service for Milton. By then, several days had passed and the crime scene was a mess, the ground trampled, the body moved, and any evidence destroyed. But Doc had assumed that Grone died of natural causes at first. They’d had no reason to treat the case as murder, not then.

  Once evidence had shown otherwise, there wasn’t much of anything left to find. So the sheriff had little to go on except Felicity Timmons’s shovel and the fact that she and Milton Grone had argued the morning of the murder.

  Frank pressed at his temples, feeling a headache coming on.

  “Do you have a prime suspect?” Ida barked, and he glanced up. “Other than Felicity, of course, as everyone knows she didn’t do it.”

  “I’m pursuing leads.” The sheriff closed his eyes, willing the headache—and the two women—to go away.

  Ida Bell harrumphed, and Biddle opened his eyes to see her sitting with bony elbows braced upon turned-in knees. Her long neck was stretched forward in a manner reminiscent of Canadian geese. “You don’t have squat yet, do you?” she said.

  Frank squirmed, thinking he was the one who was supposed to be doing the questioning. “I haven’t uncovered enough to put anyone under arrest.”

  “I see.” Ida looked sideways at Dotty, and her thin lips curved enigmatically. “If you don’t find who did it,” she began, “don’t beat yourself up over it, Sheriff. Whoever axed Milton Grone deserves a medal, not jail time, in my humble opinion.”

  “Axed?” Frank stared at her.

  “She meant shoveled,” Dot corrected. “Ida sometimes goes for hyperbole.”

  Oh, really? Frank wanted to stab himself in both eyes with his pen.

  “May we go now?” Ida scuffed her boots against the floor, looking bored. “I’ve a rally to plan.”

  Biddle tugged open his right-hand drawer to scrounge for aspirin.

  “Sheriff, did you hear me?”

  “Yes, loud and clear,” he said, still buried in his desk. He waved at them. “Go, ladies, please, go. But if you think of anything else, give me a call.”