A Draw of Death (Helen Binney Mysteries Book 3)

by Gin Jones

  Detective Almeida withdrew an obviously new, leather-covered notepad from the back pocket of her pants. "I'll make sure someone is looking into that."

  "There might be cameras on the side of the house," Helen added, hoping to get confirmation, but the officer only made a brief note in her pad before closing it and slipping it back into her pants pocket.

  "That's good to know." Detective Almeida handed Helen a business card. "If you think of anything else, you can call and leave me a message."

  Almeida's offer was only half sincere, Helen thought, but that was an improvement over Peterson's attitude. The new detective's number might come in handy, though, so Helen keyed the contact number into her phone before she could forget where she'd put the business card. It also served as a stalling tactic. As she punched in the numbers, she tried to figure out how to get permission to stay here at the mansion. Unfortunately, she couldn't remember exactly why it had been so important to come here today. All she knew was that there was something she needed to do here, and she hadn't done it yet. Something more than look for the cat.

  She glanced around her, hoping some visual cue would jog her memory. Her cane was lying on the grass next to the chair with the empty tuna can. That could buy her a little time to let her brain kick back into gear. "I need to get my cane."

  "Let me." Detective Almeida retrieved the cane before Helen could even take her first step. "And now, why don't I walk you to the gate? The lawn isn't as even as it looks. I wouldn't want you to fall."

  Helen accepted the cane and the escort. Nora's smile had turned into full-fledged gloating over what she probably perceived as Helen's fall, not physically, but socially, from the heights of the governor's mansion to the depths of a perp walk. Nora would never understand that Helen had chosen to live in a quiet little place like Wharton, far from the centers of power and social climbing.

  "I was just trying to help," Helen said. "It's too cold for a pampered pet to be outside."

  "I'm sure it will figure that out and come home on its own," Detective Almeida said, implacably escorting Helen down the driveway.

  Helen gave in for the moment and accepted the inevitable.

  For once, she wished Peterson was the only detective on the case. He would never have caught her on the grounds, or if he had, she'd have been able to talk him into letting her stay.

  * * *

  "I hear you almost got arrested for trespassing," Tate said without looking up from the lamp stem he was staining. The space heater was on full-blast, which Tate only did when he needed the temperature high enough for the wood finishes to dry properly in the otherwise chilly space. He hadn't been in the studio when she'd returned from Vic's mansion for her lunch. She'd only noticed his car when she'd looked outside to see if Jay and Zee had arrived to drive her to a meeting with Terri Greene at the library, to see what could be done to salvage Saturday's fiasco.

  "Your grapevine is almost as good as Betty's and Josie's." Helen should have known someone would rat her out to him. She couldn't do anything in this small town without being noticed, making her life even more public than when she'd been in the governor's mansion. Fortunately, she only had a few minutes to bear the brunt of the most recent lecture before Jay and Zee would arrive.

  Tate set the lamp stem on a drying rack near the space heater. "Maybe I should have asked your friends if they have any idea of what the police theory is for Rezendes's murder. My sources are being uncharacteristically close-mouthed. I finally had to give up on the back channels and make it official that I'm representing Stevie. Now that the department knows she's represented by counsel, at least they won't try to talk to her without me present."

  "I was wondering about that. Isn't representing a family member against the rules of being a lawyer? I remember one of my ex-husband's cronies got disbarred for sleeping with a client. They weren't married, but they were family for all intents and purposes."

  "That's different." Tate picked up the next lamp stem. "It's all about the power dynamics. When a spouse or a cousin asks for legal advice, the lawyer is in the weaker position. If he refuses, he's being a jerk, and everyone in the family will be mad at him. In your example, where the attorney is asking for sex or even a date with a client, the lawyer has the power position. The client is dependent on the lawyer for the duration of the legal case and risks losing both her legal representation and possibly her case if she refuses the lawyer's advances. The ethics rules are intended to prevent that sort of unfair pressure on clients."

  "Still, it has to be difficult to represent a family member in something as serious as murder charges."

  "Like representing yourself in court, it's allowed, but not necessarily a good move," Tate said. "I'll step aside if Stevie's formally charged with a crime or if it even looks like that's going to happen. For now, though, I can make sure she isn't railroaded."

  "Do they have any real evidence against her?"

  "That's what I can't find out." Tate hid his emotions well, but there was a tightening around his eyes that signaled frustration. "All I know, and this was through so many levels of hearsay it wouldn't even be admissible in a kangaroo court, is that he died from a stab wound around 4 a.m. Not a standard knife, but something with a wider and thicker entry point, like a chisel."

  "A contractor's tool, in other words."

  Tate nodded.

  "I'm guessing Stevie was home alone and asleep at the time of the murder," Helen said. "They can't hold her lack of alibi against her in these circumstances, can they? No one's likely to have much of an alibi at that hour."

  "As far as I can tell, the police are focusing on the limited number of people who had access to the mansion. They know alibis won't make or break this case," Tate said. "Practically no one ever has a truly ironclad alibi anyway. The only one that's really solid is if the suspect was in jail at the time of the crime, and that can take a while to establish. Beyond that, a good prosecutor can undermine almost any claimed alibi by attacking the credibility of the alibi witness or finding a way to prove the crime occurred at a slightly different time when there is no alibi."

  "So means and motive will be more important," Helen said.

  "And Stevie has both. She's got a temper, she's strong, and she works with sharp tools all the time. And she was known to be irritated with Vic for harassing one of her crew members."

  "She's not the only one who might have wanted to get rid of Vic, though. What about his heirs? Have the police found his will?"

  "Not as far as I know," Tate said, "but for once Peterson is actually playing his cards close to his Kevlar vest, so maybe they do have it. If I knew what it said, I'd have some alternative suspects in case Stevie needs to establish reasonable doubt."

  "Is it possible Vic might have left his entire estate to his pet? Whoever is named the cat's caretaker would have had a motive to kill Vic to get his hands on all that money."

  "If that's why Vic was killed, someone's going to be mighty disappointed." Tate carried the second lamp stem over to the drying rack. "Massachusetts law doesn't allow the sort of really outrageous bequests to pets that sometimes make the news. If anyone contests the will, the court would reduce it to an amount that's reasonable for the animal's welfare. The larger the bequest, the more likely someone will fight it, so if Vic left all his money to a cat and he was as wealthy as he appeared, a will contest is almost a sure thing."

  "Judging by the million-dollar mansion, which rumor says was bought with cash, Vic had enough net worth that even leaving a small fraction of his estate to the cat would be a lot of money to some people, especially if the money could be used to pay for the caretaker's time, not just things like food and vet bills.

  Tate turned off the space heater and thought for a moment. "Depending on the terms of the bequest, the caretaker might be able to claim some compensation for himself in addition to the expenses. It seems unlikely as a motive for murder, though. Especially given how vicious this particular cat is rumored to be. The caretaker could be on
the hook for a lot more money than whatever he gets from the bequest if the cat bites someone. Stevie had to insist that it be locked up whenever her crew was on the property. It hates everyone, according to her. Everyone except Vic, of course."

  "And me," Helen said. "It came over and sat on my lap for a while on Sunday when I was waiting for Peterson to interview me."

  "Two cranky peas in a pod."

  "Or two reasonable creatures who are treated badly and lash out with good justification," Helen said. "Whoever named it Broadway ought to be shot. It's an invitation to break out into song, and most of the time the singing must be excruciating to a cat's heightened sense of hearing."

  "I suppose you've got an operatic-quality singing voice?"

  "Not even close," Helen said. "But I have enough sense to refrain from singing at the cat. It must have appreciated the peace and quiet while sitting with me."

  "How come you never leave me in peace and quiet?"

  Helen nodded at the lathe. "You don't like quiet."

  "I suppose you're right." Tate rummaged through some clutter on his workbench before coming up with his eye and ear protection. "Just for the record, I'm pretty sure Vic was the one who named the cat, so you might not want to talk about shooting its namer, at least until his actual killer is caught. And it wasn't a tribute to the famous theater street. In poker terms, a broadway is a specific type of winning poker hand: a straight of five consecutive cards, any suit, starting with a ten, through the jack, queen, king and ace. Vic won a major tournament with one early on in his career. At the time, he'd been on the verge of giving up on the idea of becoming a full-time player, and that success convinced him to stick with it."

  "Still, it's not a very good name for a cat," Helen said. "If Vic actually cared about the animal, he'd have named it something that reflected its personality, not something to glorify himself. Maybe then the cat wouldn't feel the urge to act out."

  "So what would you do?" Tate said. "Name it after yourself since you're so alike?"

  "I might have. It's smart and curious and anti-social, like me." Helen thought she heard a car coming up her gravel driveway. "On the other hand, if it was witty and pessimistic and obsessed with scratching perfectly good bits of wood into smaller bits, I'd be tempted to call it Ambrose."

  "No one—man or beast—deserves that kind of abuse."

  "Ambrose is a perfectly fine name." She heard the distinctive sound of two car doors slamming shut. Jay and Zee would wait as long as Helen wanted them to, but Terri was another matter. Helen slid off the director's chair and brushed at the sawdust on her casual pants. "I'll leave you to your peace and noise. Terri Green is expecting me. Are you sure I can't tell her you've agreed to speak at the library in January? She might forgive me for the fiasco with Vic if she knew you were his replacement."

  "Not if you're right about the limited appeal of a speech on woodworking." He slipped his goggles on and then raised them again. "Just one thing before you leave. I'm going to be too busy making sure Stevie isn't charged with a crime to also watch over you until Vic's killer is apprehended. I'd appreciate it if just this once you'd avoid making any waves. That means no more controversial speakers for the library and no name-calling of cats, their dead owners, or police detectives."

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jay and Zee dropped Helen off at the top of the uneven concrete path to the annex and left to park on the other side of the library where they could play games on their phones while they waited.

  Marianne was on the lawn outside the door to the annex. She was running back and forth among three teens who were tossing a cardboard box about the size of a packet of copy paper in an apparent game of keep-away. Two of the teens were significantly taller than the third one, who was closer to Helen's height. All three wore dark, androgynous outfits consisting of hoodies and oversized shorts that hung down to mid-calf. The hoods were up, throwing shadows on their faces, making a fashion statement and, probably as the least important consideration, protecting them from the cold wind that whipped around the building. To one side of the concrete path was a jumble of three skateboards, suggesting the teens had been on their way to the park about a block away on the street behind the library.

  The three skaters were chanting "Mari-anne, the Library-Anne."

  Poor Marianne ran from teen to teen like an eager puppy, never coming to close too retrieving her box but convinced that if she just tried hard enough, she'd actually catch it.

  "Gentlemen." As she approached the annex's door, Helen finally got a good look at the face of the smallest teen. "And lady."

  The tallest of the trio held the box under his arm as if it were a football, safe from Marianne's attempts to tug it away from him. He turned to face Helen, and the other two came over to flank him. The apparent leader narrowed his eyes at Helen, probably dreaming up some new game to play.

  She knew she had even less chance than the nimble Marianne to physically retrieve the box that presumably didn't belong to the teens. That didn't mean Helen was helpless. "Seriously?" Helen said to the apparent leader. "You can't find something better to do than to tease a defenseless street person? You think that's worth getting dragged down to the police station?"

  "No donut shop is going to catch us," the leader said. "No way, not while we've got our boards."

  "You really haven't thought it out, have you? There are video cameras all over the library building." At least, she hoped there were, but she didn't dare look now. "You can't out-skate a camera. The thing is, if you're going to risk annoying the cops, it really ought to be for something more important than a few minutes of fun while teasing someone who can't really fight back. Either go big, or go home."

  "She's right, bro," the girl said, taking the box from the leader's arm and holding it out to Marianne. "You gotta bust diamondz or bail. Otherwise, you're no better'n a pusher."

  Before Marianne could claim the box, the shorter of the two boys grabbed it out of the girl's hands, pulled off the lid, and tossed it into the air, where it spun in a graceful loop. The papers inside caught the wind and dispersed in even more impressive tricks. Marianne began pouncing on the ones that fell closest to her.

  Watching his handiwork, the teen crossed his arms over his chest and said, "Now that was diamondz. What does an old geezer like you know about jail anyway? Bet you've never done anything even a little bit sketchy in your whole, overly long life."

  The girl slugged him in the arm. "You idiot. She's the lady who almost got killed while investigating a murder. That's about as rad as it gets."

  "Are you really that old biddy?" the tall leader said in an awestruck tone.

  "It's Binney, and I'm not old," she said. "Now, either help Marianne pick up her papers or move along before I call the police."

  The shorter boy grumbled, "This is so lame," grabbed his board and jogged in the direction of the skate park. The girl mumbled "Sorry" at Marianne, and then she and the taller boy went over to the fence to pick up the papers that had collected there.

  Marianne didn't seem to notice the apology or the assistance. She was on her knees crawling from paper to paper, mumbling something over and over, as if trying to make sure she wouldn't forget it.

  "Can I help?" Helen said to Marianne. "If you give me the box, I'll hold onto it for you. You're better at chasing down the papers than I am, but I can keep them safe so they don't fly away again."

  That seemed to get through Marianne's obsessive focus on the papers. She stopped mumbling and glanced over her shoulder, revealing a black eye so impressive that Helen couldn't believe she'd missed it until now, even with most of her attention on finding a way to end the teens' cruel game.

  The black eye couldn't have been the teens' fault, at least not due to anything they'd done today. Helen knew from personal experience that to be that colorful, the injury had to have happened at least twenty-four hours ago. She'd once smacked herself in the face with a car door when the wind blew it out of her hand and had woken up the next day to a
glorious bit of bruising. She hadn't been able to leave the private areas of the governor's mansion for two weeks after that for fear that some less-than-reputable media outlet would claim her husband had assaulted her.

  Helen pointed at the swollen, bruised area on Marianne's face. "What happened?"

  Marianne raised a hand to brush gingerly at her upper cheek. Her half-gloves were missing, and there were lacerations on both hands, visible even through the accumulated grime and windburn. Her knuckles were bruised as if she'd punched something.

  She glanced briefly in the direction of the street and then whispered, "The Lennias. They're gonna cause the world to end. Starting wi' me."

  "Why would they want to hurt you?"

  "I know who they are," she said, looking at the street again. "I saw 'em meeting o'er there, talkin' 'bout death 'n destruction."

  Helen knew it was unlikely, but she had to ask, "Did you tell the police?"

  "I fill out a report every Monday. This week, I made a new flyer with m'latest sighting 'n gave 'em to everyone in the station." She shook her stack of papers and handed them to Helen. "These're left over. You can keep one."

  Detective Peterson and his cronies had undoubtedly circular-filed theirs, probably without even waiting for Marianne to leave the station. Helen couldn't be that cold-hearted. Besides, she was curious what the flyers said. Maybe they actually explained what a Lennia was. Having a copy would also remind her to ask Geoff what he knew about Marianne and whether there was anything that could be done to help her. The woman was obviously tough, but this winter was already promising to be harsher than usual. The weather was a much bigger threat than any imaginary doomsday cult.

  "Thank you. I'd like that." Helen kept one of the newsletters and added the rest to Marianne's collection.

  Marianne's smile lit up her dirty, reddened face, making her look younger and less confused. The black eye ruined the picture, though.