Come Helen High Water

by Susan McBride

  Dark eyebrows arched. “Should I?”

  Jackson Lee had admitted to being a poker player, so could be he was just good at lying. But Frank sensed his ignorance wasn’t faked.

  “Have you ever been called Jackie?” he asked.

  Jackson laughed. “I’ve been called a lot worse.”

  Frank felt like he was getting nowhere. “Is your mother named Penny Tuttle?”

  “Which one?”

  “Excuse me?” Biddle wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “I had about five so-called mothers at various points of my childhood,” Jackson explained. “I was a foster kid, kicked around like a hot potato from the time I was four, but none of ’em was named Tuttle, not that I can recall.”

  “All right, I get the picture,” Frank said, not sure where else to go. He didn’t have a thing to pin on him that would stick.

  “I’m still not under arrest?”

  “No.”

  Not yet, Frank thought.

  Jackson smiled thinly. “Then I think our little chat is over, Sheriff. Have a nice day,” he said and started to shut the door.

  Frank pressed a palm to the door to keep it open. “Whoa, hold on. Did I just hear a scream?” he said, because he did hear a voice or voices, coming from the back of the apartment. It was as good an excuse as any to poke a nose in.

  While Jackson sputtered in protest, Frank shouldered his way into the apartment, glancing around the tiny front room. He walked toward a dining table that was slathered with postmarked mail. Looked like bills with the little plastic windows. Frank picked up a few pieces, but they weren’t addressed to Jackson Lee.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the man asked, striding over to the sheriff and scooping the mail into a pile in his arms. “You don’t have a warrant to search—”

  “I don’t need one if I think someone’s in danger,” Frank cut him off and strode toward a closed door and opened it to find the bathroom.

  “There’s no one else here. I’d call the police on you, except you are the police.”

  Frank ignored him, opening the only other closed door next.

  “Hey, that’s my bedroom! It’s private,” the fellow sputtered over his shoulder.

  “There’s that screaming again,” the sheriff said then turned the knob and went in.

  A television on the dresser was on, turned to a game show where the contestants whooped and hollered.

  “You’re right. No one’s here. Must have been the TV,” he said.

  Still, he gave the room a slow once-over, spotting a couple boxes from OfficeMax sitting on the desk beside a printer that had what looked like blue paper in its feed.

  Jackson edged around him, leaning against the desk and blocking Frank’s view. “Are you satisfied, Sheriff? There’s no one in danger.”

  Luann Dupree wasn’t there. That was for sure. There wasn’t anywhere for her to hide, unless Jackson had her squished into an itty-bitty closet. He didn’t see any signs of another inhabitant: one toothbrush in the bathroom, one dirty glass and dish on the countertop, and one dented pillow on the bed.

  “If I have more questions, I’ll be in touch,” Frank said, brushing past the man on his way out of the apartment.

  He shut the door behind him, sure that Jackson Lee watched him through the window as he went down the wooden steps.

  When he got to his patrol car, he made a call to Officer Bingham.

  “I just paid a visit to your local huckster, Jackson Lee,” he said. “Thought you might be interested to know he’s got a bucketful of stolen mail, and there’s a printer set up with check stationery and a carton of magnetic ink.”

  The supplies of a thief in the business of check fraud.

  “Thanks for the tip, Sheriff.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Jackson Lee probably didn’t have a thing to do with Bernie Winston’s fatal drowning. Why nudge a man toward death’s door when you still saw him as a meal ticket?

  Frank was equally doubtful that he’d fauxmanced Luann Dupree to pilfer her bank account, but he was clearly up to no good.

  It made him feel better to think ol’ Jackson Lee might finally see the other side of prison bars. So far as Frank was concerned, cockroaches had nothing on swindlers.

  Chapter 27

  Helen stayed at the Winston house for nearly two hours, until Clara mentioned wanting to go home to check on her cats. Ellen and Sawyer were staying over with Betty, so Helen figured it was a good time to leave them alone.

  She heard her cell phone ring in her warm-up pocket as she slogged through the puddles on Springfield. One glance at the number on the screen, and she sighed.

  It was Sarah Biddle.

  Helen let it go to voice mail.

  She didn’t mean to be rude. It was just that she was pretty worn out emotionally. Besides, there wasn’t a good place to pause and take the call. The green wooden benches deposited here and there in the grass now stood in brown pools of water.

  The river couldn’t go down soon enough, she thought as she trudged home through the muck. She left her frog boots just inside the porch door and padded into the house in her stocking feet.

  Amber had heard her come in and meowed, wending round and round her ankles before Helen realized she was late to feed him lunch. She opened a fresh can of Fancy Feast and set it down for him in the kitchen. Once she’d filled a cup with cold water and drunk about half, she felt better, like if she sat down for a few minutes she might catch her second wind.

  She settled on the wicker sofa, feeling the lump in her jacket pocket as she set her hands in her lap.

  Reluctantly, she retrieved her cell phone and stared at it.

  If she were the smart old bird everyone thought she was, she would have put it away in a drawer and ignored it. Surely whatever Sarah Biddle had to say could wait. But her curiosity got the better of her. Might as well get it over with, she told herself, dialing into the voice mail system and hitting the button for Speaker.

  “You have one new message,” it told her before she heard Sarah Biddle’s voice, which came at her in a breathless rush.

  “John Danielson is a dirty rotten scoundrel! You know what I saw in Lu’s old apartment? Boxes slapped with mailing labels for addresses all over the place! I pried one open and found a piece of pottery that looks centuries old. There’s an invoice that says it’s a Native American burial bowl. He’s selling it for a thousand dollars! It still has a tiny pink numbered sticker on the bottom that Luann used to tag items she inventoried, and there are a dozen more boxes ready to mail at least. Helen, he’s stealing stuff that belongs to the Historical Society and putting it on eBay!”

  Good Lord.

  Had Sarah truly stumbled upon evidence of a crime? Helen listened again just to be sure she’d heard right.

  Then she dialed back Sarah’s number.

  It rang only once before she heard the sheriff’s wife exclaim, “Helen! You got my message?”

  “Yes, and I truly hope you’re reading this wrong. What if Danielson is selling items to raise money for the Historical Society . . .”

  “Ha!” Sarah balked. “Then why wouldn’t he have notified the town council about selling off the collection to raise funds? And why does it show payment was made to him and not to the RBHS? Guess what he’s using as the return address.”

  Helen had a sinking feeling. “Not Penny Tuttle’s house?”

  “Bingo!”

  “All right, I believe you! But I think you’ve done enough snooping on your own,” Helen said, her heart pounding. “The sheriff needs to get involved at this point. This isn’t something you can handle.”

  “I’m done with the apartment,” Sarah said. “And I’ve already glanced over the display cases in the museum, and I didn’t notice anything gone. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to pilfer from the exhibits, since too many residents have already viewed them and taken pictures. I’ve got maybe twenty minutes before Danielson comes back, so I’m going down to the basement.”<
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  Helen rose to her feet, feeling like an angry mom whose child was determined to disobey. “Sarah, you listen to me! If Danielson is stealing from the Historical Society, the sheriff needs to know. You could mess things up if you keep this up.”

  “Frank’s gone,” Sarah replied. “He had to check out something in Alton.”

  “No,” Helen moaned.

  “There’s no time to waste.” Sarah pressed the issue. “If Danielson has Lu . . . if she’s still okay . . . then he’s got her in the basement. Lu kept it locked because it freaked her out to go down there, and Danielson had to know that. The contractor didn’t touch it during the renovation except to move the HVAC equipment upstairs, so it’s still a bunch of closed-off old rooms that the hotel mostly used for storage. It would be the perfect place to stash her.”

  “It’s probably flooded down there,” Helen reminded her. “It’s not safe.”

  But Sarah rattled on. “I’m guessing he kept her at his mom’s house and then moved her here when he took her job. If he was drugging her, he could have smuggled her over in the dark in a moving box or wrapped up in a bedspread, and no one would have been the wiser.”

  Helen got a chill up her spine.

  Was John Danielson a kidnapper as well as a thief?

  She hated to think the man who’d played the hero bringing Bernie Winston safely out of the woods was really the bad guy, but it wasn’t looking good.

  “So John Danielson is Mrs. Tuttle’s son, Jackie?”

  “It makes sense, doesn’t it? Just because his last name is different, doesn’t mean anything. She could have remarried when he was a kid, and if he wasn’t adopted by his stepfather . . .”

  “Okay, okay,” Helen interjected, “how about we let Frank figure it out?”

  “Frank can have Danielson once I find Luann! I just can’t stop now, knowing she could have been down in the basement for weeks.”

  She set the phone down momentarily as she retrieved her frog boots then pulled them on. “I’m calling the sheriff and then I’m coming to get you. You’d better be outside waiting for me when I get to Main Street. You hear me, Sarah Biddle? You need to get out of there now. Danielson could come back any minute, and if he did all those things you’re accusing him of, he’s dangerous.”

  “I’m at the basement door, and it looks like the same padlock. Let’s just hope he didn’t rekey it,” Sarah went on, as if Helen hadn’t said a word. “Luann kept her key above the door threshold. I’m fishing with my fingers . . . Ah, there it is!”

  “Sarah!” Helen barked. “You stop it right this minute. I’m heading out the door. If John Danielson gets you before I do, you’ll be lucky.”

  “Hey, I’m in!” Sarah told her. “Oh, shoot, the light won’t go on. You think there’s water down there? Maybe it shorted the electricity. Sorry, but I’m going to have to hang up, Helen. I need to use the light on my phone until I can find the light below . . .”

  “Do not hang up on me!”

  But Helen heard nothing in response, not a breath, not a whisper, and certainly not Sarah’s voice rattling on.

  Her phone told her point-blank: Call Ended.

  What in God’s name did Sarah think she was doing?

  Helen quickly redialed the woman’s number before leaving the house, letting the screen door slap behind her.

  She could hardly breathe until the ringing stopped and Sarah answered. “Don’t you ever hang up on me again!” she chastised. “Where are you now?”

  “I’m in the cellar. It’s wet down here, but it’s not too bad. There’s maybe an inch or two of water. I guess the sandbagging worked. I remember seeing a light overhead right about where I’m standing. Let me swing an arm to find the chain . . . Ah, here we go!”

  Helen heard a click.

  “It’s an awful fluorescent fixture that flickers like something from a horror film. Oh, man, is it ever creepy down here. Lu was right about the mold. It smells worse than a wet bathing suit that never dried.”

  “What do you see?” Helen asked, trying to focus on where she was going as she waded through the wet road.

  “I see a rusted punch clock and hooks for coats or uniforms. I believe Lu told me it used to be the staff room. There’s a busted-up bathroom nearby, and there’s the old hotel safe.”

  “Surely he didn’t put Luann in there,” Helen said, puffing gently as she slogged through the river muck on the sidewalk, trudging toward Main Street. “The safe was meant to be airtight, wasn’t it?”

  “No, she’s not there. The safe door’s partly open. I don’t think it really closes anymore,” Sarah described in a quiet voice. “I can’t see anything but a bunch of old empty shelves and cubbies. There are a couple of closed doors up ahead, though.”

  Helen listened to Sarah’s loud breathing and then heard a clanging noise.

  “It’s kind of dark down at this end,” she said, sounding spooked. “The first door’s locked. Lu, are you in there!” Sarah called out, and Helen heard the noise of her pounding. “I can’t get in. The second door is locked, too. Dammit!”

  “Okay, enough,” Helen said, finally reaching the block where the business district started and the residential area stopped. “We need to bring in the sheriff. This is ridiculous! I’m almost to you, Sarah. Come on out of there. We’ll wait for Frank and go back in with him and maybe Art Beaner and Henry Potter, too.”

  “I’ve got a screwdriver. Frank gave me these tiny ones to keep on my key ring. I’ll try to pry these old doors open, and if I can’t, I’ll take them off their hinges. But I’ll need both hands. I’m going to put away my phone now. If Danielson shows up before I’m done, stall him.”

  Stall him?

  “Are you nuts?” Helen croaked.

  “Didn’t Frank deputize you?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Well, if you have to arrest Danielson, do it! I’m hanging up now.”

  “Sarah? Don’t you dare . . . ,” Helen demanded, only to see Call Ended on her screen.

  Argh.

  She paused as she reached Main Street, cursing Sarah as she caught her breath. Enough is enough, she decided as she dialed the sheriff’s cell phone.

  It took a few rings for him to answer, but when he did, she started in, “Your wife’s gotten herself in a fix again! She took your key to the Historical Society and broke into the director’s apartment! She had a friend lure John Danielson away, but he’s due back any minute, and he’s been stealing things. She found real proof this time! And she’s still snooping in the dark basement, looking for Luann!”

  “Whoa, Mrs. Evans,” he said, sounding so far away, “what things did he steal?”

  “Sarah said he’s taken artifacts that Luann inventoried but weren’t on display, and he’s selling them to the highest bidder!”

  He started to speak, but Helen ran right over him, saying, “She’s convinced that Luann’s being kept in the basement against her will. I wish I could tell you that Sarah’s off her rocker, but I’m starting to believe her. I’m nearly at the Society building now. You’ve got to get here pronto!”

  “I’m on the road,” he told her. “I’ve just left Alton, and I’ll need to cut through Elsah and come in via the back road. It’ll be another twenty minutes at least, fifteen if I put on my siren.”

  “Then do it,” Helen said, her heart racing.

  “Don’t you do anything rash,” Biddle instructed. “Wait outside until I get there. Don’t put yourself in danger, too.”

  But Helen didn’t hang on to listen.

  She pocketed her phone, pressed onward, up the messy sidewalk, past the Closed signs in the windows of the Cut ’n’ Curl and Agnes’s antiques shop, until she reached the door to the Historical Society just as a black Ford Explorer pulled up in front.

  Wasn’t that John Danielson’s car?

  Helen swallowed.

  If things weren’t bad enough already, they were about to get worse.

  Chapter 28

  Helen watched t
he vehicle park in the watery street. Danielson got out and slogged to the sidewalk, his Dockers tucked into the tops of black rain boots. He had a small duffel bag slung over his shoulder, probably containing a pair of dress shoes. Helen wondered how he’d felt when he’d gotten to the Missouri History Museum only to find out his appointment there was a ruse. No wonder he was frowning.

  Lord, give me strength, she thought and geared up for her helpless-old-lady routine.

  “Why, there you are, Mr. Danielson!” she said, all aflutter. “I’ve been hoping I’d catch you when you weren’t slashing through the jungle with your machete to save a lost citizen.”

  Instead of smiling at her flattery, he approached her with a scowl.

  “Mrs. Evans . . .”

  “Oh, goodness,” she trilled. “I’m surprised you remember my name when you’ve probably met so many folks in River Bend that we all look alike.”

  She let out a little laugh that sounded fake even to her own ears, but it didn’t matter. John Danielson didn’t seem amused in the least.

  “I thought I told you that I’d suspended volunteer work until the floodwaters receded. I haven’t changed my mind.”

  “Well, yes, you did, but I was wondering if . . . if I might treat you to a late lunch at the diner and discuss some, er, fund-raising projects I had in mind for this year,” she said, clutching hands at her chest, as much an act of prayer as nerves.

  “Fund-raising projects?” he repeated and glanced toward the Historical Society door, barely ten feet away from him. Only Helen and a large puddle stood between them. “I’m sorry, ma’am, maybe another day. I really want to get back to work. I’ve just wasted a lot of time running into St. Louis on a fool’s errand.” He sighed with disgust, looking downright pissed. “I’m kind of worn out. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going inside . . .”

  “Perfect!” she piped up. “I’ll go in with you. I seem to have lost something, and I think I left it there in the room where Clara and I were last working on the photographs.”