A Draw of Death (Helen Binney Mysteries Book 3)

by Gin Jones

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  A DRAW OF DEATH

  by

  GIN JONES

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  Copyright © 2015 by Gin Jones

  Gemma Halliday Publishing

  http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS BY GIN JONES

  SNEAK PEEK

  This book is dedicated to my sisters: Karen, Tanja, Carla, and Lisa.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Helen Binney didn't consider herself memorable. She was too small and middle-aged and ordinary. Her best physical feature—healthy, clear skin—ranked right up there with "nice personality" as the sort of description that really meant there was nothing particularly striking about the person's appearance.

  Even though Helen had once wielded considerable power as the wife of the governor of Massachusetts, she'd done it from behind the scenes where only a few political insiders knew about her involvement. No one else, from the press to the general public, had ever recognized her as anything other than a prop in her ex-husband's portrayals of himself as a devoted husband.

  Ambrose Tate, her garage tenant, lawyer, and friend, was her exact opposite. All he had to do was walk into a room—or like now, stand at his lathe in beat-up jeans and a flannel shirt, wearing safety goggles and ear protection and pretending he didn't know he was being observed—and no one would ever forget meeting him. It wasn't just his appearance, although being tall and lean probably helped, and at fifty-one, he could lay claim to looking "distinguished." His appeal wasn't even entirely due to his charming conversational skills, since he was memorable even when he was grumbling at people to leave him alone so he could enjoy his woodturning in peace, if not in quiet.

  Despite his recent admission that Helen kept his life interesting, today Tate was ignoring her to work on yet another batch of lamp stems. Presumably they were Christmas gifts, although she thought everyone in his substantial extended family already had several of the lamps he was becoming almost as good at making as he'd once been at getting acquittals in criminal trials.

  Helen hesitated briefly at the thought of getting her black pants and brand new cobalt blue tailored blazer covered in sawdust, but it was either that or remain standing on a concrete floor that seemed designed to irritate her lupus-affected joints. She could always brush the sawdust off later. She draped the strap of her small purse on the arm of one of the three ratty director's chairs that were intended to discourage visitors from staying for long. Further incentive to leave Tate alone was the chill in the air from the unusually early and cold winter, which the space heaters in the garage studio couldn't entirely dispel.

  Helen wasn't that easily discouraged. She had about half an hour to kill before her driver would come to take her to the library, and there was nothing like baiting Tate to calm her pre-event nerves.

  She climbed up onto the dusty director's chair and waited for Tate to acknowledge her. She tuned out the screech of the lathe and tried to figure out what was causing the nagging feeling that she'd forgotten something important for today's event at the library. Her ability to remember the myriad of little details that went into carrying off everything from a dinner with diplomats to a major fundraiser had been a huge asset in her career as a politician's wife. She'd been counting on that skill to carry her through her next career too, once she found an activity she could devote herself to in the same way she'd once devoted herself to running the governor's mansion.

  Lately though, she hadn't been able to remember anything, from her grocery list to the pattern for a crocheted chemo cap that she'd used often enough that she should have memorized it. She hated the way her body was failing her at an accelerated pace, thanks to the lupus that attacked her joints and limited her physically in ways that were more characteristic of someone in her sixties, than someone in her forties. And now it seemed that her mind was betraying her too. She'd intended to discuss the memory lapses with her nurse during a routine visit a couple of days ago, but Rebecca Grainger had been determined to update her computer records with all sorts of arcane information about Helen and wasn't interested in answering any questions herself.

  Tate finally reached a stopping point, turned off the lathe, and removed his eye and ear protection. "Found another body?"

  "Not yet," Helen said. "Found another customer for your hand-turned lamps?"

  "If I make them, they will come." Tate shrugged. "If not, I'll sell the lamps online."

  "Like Jack? His clay figures are in so much demand right now that he doesn't even have time to drive for me."

  Tate looked up from the adjustments he was making to the lathe. "Should I warn the local citizens there's a new driver on the road?"

  "Not necessary," Helen said. "Jack's arranged for a substitute driver. Two, actually. His niece and nephew."

  "That's a relief." Tate went back to fidgeting with his lathe. "For all the Clary clan's faults, no one's ever said anything negative about their driving skills. The world's a safer place with them behind the wheel. Plus, if you ran over someone, you'd probably expect me to come out of retirement to defend you."

  "And you'd do it, too," Helen said. "Don't worry. I'd make sure I ran over someone in an interesting manner. Always doing my best to keep you from boredom."

  "Better if you stick to things like convincing Vic Rezendes to speak at the library. I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say this afternoon. He usually charges a hefty fee to speak, and it's not every day that a professional poker player comes to the Wharton Library."

  "That may change now that there's a casino in Springfield," Helen said, although she was proud of her success in getting the B-list celebrity to speak at Wharton's library. Today's event wasn't anywhere near as big and fancy an event as even the smallest one she'd ever organized for the governor's mansion, but she thought it would actually have more of a personal impact on the people who attended it than any political fundraiser or state dinner could possibly have. No one
would ever remember the work she'd done for her husband, but they might remember her work for the library. "Are you hoping to pick up some hints for your first trip to the new poker room?"

  "I've got to get my thrills somehow," he said. "It's been dull around here since you almost got yourself killed while meddling in a missing persons case."

  "I'm afraid you're going to have to get your jollies from something other than my near death from now on," Helen said. "I've given up investigating crimes now that I've finally got something worthwhile to do with my time. The library can use my skills to help get the attention and funding it deserves."

  "The librarians aren't going to know what hit them."

  Helen chose to take that as a compliment. "Exactly."

  "I know you aren't going to listen to me," Tate said, "but be careful with Rezendes. He's got quite a reputation for being…prickly. One of my nieces is the contractor on the renovations to Rezendes's new home, and she says his reputation as a crackpot is, if anything, understated."

  "I'm sure I can handle him." At least, in normal circumstances, she could. After a week of poor sleep and without her old, multi-featured organizer notebook and her once-powerful Rolodex full of contacts that couldn't help her here in Wharton, she was under a bit of a handicap.

  Even if she were at her peak, Vic Rezendes would have strained her abilities. In all her years of event planning, she'd never seen as long a list of pre-requisites as the one that the poker player's assistant had given her. She'd organized many weeklong events featuring dozens of speakers without ever once getting as many odd little special requests as she'd received from this one person doing a brief speech followed by a question-and-answer period. His assistant had been adamant that any failure to meet these demands would result in a cancellation, and it was going to be a miracle if Helen hadn't forgotten at least a few of them. "My niece is pretty good at handling customers now that she's gotten control of her temper," Tate said, "but Rezendes has been a challenge. He's obsessed with having the perfect poker room in his house, and he won't stop researching even after he settles on what he wants. He's ordered and returned at least twenty different light fixtures for above the table. Stevie can usually put a stop to this kind of waffling by pricing the change orders punitively, but nothing seems to get through to Rezendes. Plus, he seems to know exactly what buttons to push during an argument. He's been terrorizing Stevie's workers, and that's the one thing she'll still react badly to. Just yesterday, she threatened to walk off the job the next time he bothers one of her crew. Or possibly hang him from the ceiling lights. If he ever makes a final decision about them."

  "He can't be any worse than the people I dealt with in the governor's mansion," Helen said. "Politicians are practically guaranteed to have a weird quirk or two, and some of their hangers-on—the ones who think they're hotshots but aren't, and the ones who buy their way into the inner circle—they're even worse."

  "Everyone thinks their own particular clientele is the biggest challenge," Tate said. "I've had as little contact as possible with politicians, but if it weren't against the Rules of Professional Responsibility, I'd pit some of my not-guilty criminal defendants against your politicians in a race to the title of most difficult any day. And the stories I've heard about Rezendes suggest that he'd have left my clients in his dust."

  Not that she'd admit it to Tate, but she'd already come to the conclusion that Vic Rezendes had been a bad choice for her first event at the library. In fact, her second thoughts were probably the cause of her recent insomnia. Still, after twenty years in politics, she was confident she could handle a narcissistic poker player with one brain hemisphere tied behind her back.

  It wasn't like he was going to try to kill her or anything.

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  Just as Helen emerged from the garage, a beat-up old pick-up that belonged to Jack Clary parked next to her shiny new Subaru Forester. Joey and Zoey Clary climbed out of the old vehicle. They shared the genetic make-up of their uncle, not only in their appearance—slightly shorter than average, wiry build, and heads shaved completely bald at their young ages of twenty and twenty-two—but also in their uncanny ability to predict exactly when she was ready for her ride.

  Despite their youth, they were, as Tate had said, excellent, responsible drivers. The only complaint Helen had was that she could never tell the siblings apart, thanks to their family resemblance, which was magnified by their androgynous wardrobe, consisting exclusively, as far as she'd ever seen, of khaki pants and navy sports shirts.

  She knew the trick to identifying them—they were known as Jay and Zee, and they each wore a single, tiny earring in the shape of the appropriate initial—but she always felt a bit guilty when she had to study their ears to know which one was which. Besides, she was convinced they sometimes swapped the earrings just to play mind games with people, and she didn't need any more confusion than her insomnia was already causing.

  Other than that, Helen enjoyed having them drive her whenever Jack wasn't available. They were cheerful without being overly so, and they knew when to help and when to stand back. They both knew she preferred to let herself into the car without having someone hovering over her, treating her as if she were so old and feeble that she couldn't even open a door. They immediately slid into the front seats of the Forester without waiting for her to get in first. Helen thought it was Zoey behind the wheel, simply because she tended to be more assertive than her younger brother.

  "The library, right, Ms. Bee?" the driver, presumably Zee, said. They'd both picked up their uncle's habit of not using her first name, but had adapted it to their own preference for initials.

  "Right." Helen suddenly realized what had been nagging at her when she'd been in the garage with Tate: she'd meant to bring her yarn bag with her today in case she had some time to practice her crocheting before Vic Rezendes arrived. It wasn't worth going back inside the cottage to get it now, though, and if that was all she forgot today, she would consider the day an epic success.

  While Zee drove down the long gravel driveway, Jay turned and poked his head through the space between the two front headrests to ask, "Do you need us to drive you anywhere tomorrow? Marty Reed wants us to help with the security system installation at the Rezendes place, and he's offering overtime pay."

  "I think I can manage for one day," Helen said. "Didn't he need you to work today?"

  "No one's allowed on the property while both Mr. Arr and his assistant are off-site," Zee explained. "They cleared out all the trades an hour ago just to be sure we were all gone before this afternoon."

  "And Mr. Arr wonders why the work is behind schedule." Jay shook his head, although his tone contained more pity than the irritation his sister exhibited. "If he'd just let us do our jobs, we'd have been done before he moved in last week. Poor Marty is going to have a nervous breakdown if there are any more change orders."

  Helen had met Marty Reed earlier this year when her nieces had insisted she get a security system for her cottage. She hadn't really thought she needed one, but they worried about her living alone, a two-hour drive away from their homes in the greater Boston area. She'd agreed in the end, simply because the basic alarm system had been a small price to pay for their peace of mind and her own independence. It had also turned out to be worth its weight in gold when she'd ended up investigating two separate suspicious deaths, and she'd been able to remind her anxious nieces that she was perfectly safe as long as she had that security system. She'd been careful not to mention that she seldom remembered to turn it on.

  Marty Reed had always seemed unflappable to Helen. She couldn't imagine what it would take to give him a nervous breakdown, except perhaps for a homeowner confessing to not turning on her security system religiously. "What did Rezendes do to upset Marty?"

  Jay laughed. "What didn't he do? First, he was going to skip the security features entirely and just have cameras installed for recording the games in his poker room. He's going to be using the video feed for streaming online w
orkshops, you see. Marty talked him into having a basic alarm package to go with the cameras, and everything was fine for about two days. Then Mr. Arr started with the change orders."

  "A new one just about every day," Zee added. "He's changed his mind at least three times about the exact model of camera he wants, and it's not like Marty has all the different high-end cameras in his truck."

  "Or the microphones," Jay said. "The rest of the equipment and wiring is pretty much the same as any other high-end system so the parts are in the van. It's just that Marty's had to keep ordering different specialty equipment and wait for it to be overnighted, and half the time it ends up being back-ordered for a few days. Otherwise, we'd have been done weeks ago. Now Marty just wants to get it done before Mr. Arr can change his mind again. That's why Marty asked us to work on a Sunday, even though he has to pay us extra. He's taking all the delays personally ever since Mr. Arr claimed they were caused by Marty not being good enough at his job. He's hoping we can finish everything tomorrow while Mr. Arr is busy preparing for an online class he teaches on Sunday evenings."

  "I feel bad for Marty," Zee said, "but all the extra work's been great for us. We're saving up for a trip to California so we can get jobs in the movie industry. Jay thinks we should take acting lessons, but he's wrong as usual. The odds of becoming a famous actor are pretty low, but for every star, there's dozens of supporting crew. We don't have to be actors to hang out with them."

  The siblings bickered while Helen silently celebrated the confirmation that she'd been able to tell which one was which without checking the earrings. Zee was behind the wheel, and Jay was in the passenger seat.

  Maybe she really could get through today's event without forgetting anything more important than her yarn bag.