Gin Jones - Helen Binney 01 - A Dose of Death (10 page)

Helen turned to the next page. At the top, finally, was a signature she did recognize. She
‘d seen it the other day, on the paperwork denying her restraining order. Judge Samantha Nolan. She probably attended all the local funerals, at least briefly. Even though judges were appointed for life in Massachusetts, rather than being elected, they were still political appointees. Short of impeachment, judges couldn’t be terminated, but if enough people complained to their representatives, a judge could find her career dead-ended, with assignments to distant, unpopular, courthouses and to the most boring of cases.

Helen felt more than heard the approach of footsteps muffled by the thick carpeting. She looked up to see a perky-faced man young enough to be in high school, wearing an oversized black suit and trying unsuccessfully to look solemn.

He stopped beside her and bent toward her solicitously. “Do you need any assistance?”

“
I’m fine,” Helen said. “Just needed a moment to prepare myself.”

“
Shall I escort you inside?”

Helen hesitated. She hated having to assume the social mask, pretending she
‘d had any positive feelings toward Melissa. There was no point in staying out here, though. She wasn’t going to learn anything more from the guest book.

She placed her hand on the young man
‘s arm and let him walk her into the adjoining room. It was, not surprisingly, much smaller than the places where she’d attended services on her ex-husband’s behalf, and, even so, it felt far too large for the handful of people seated facing the casket and lectern. People spoke in hushed tones, and the occasional bit of laughter was quickly squelched with a guilty glance to see if anyone had heard the inappropriate sound.

Helen stood in front of the casket, paying her respects, just as she
‘d done for countless people she hadn’t even known as well as she’d known the nurse. Melissa was no longer the muddy, bloody, contorted mess she’d been when Helen last saw her. She’d been made to look younger and more relaxed than she’d ever been in life. Helen half expected the corpse to be holding a Diet Pepsi can or two for the journey into the next world, but Melissa’s empty hands were crossed over her chest.

Helen continued over to the receiving line, which consisted of just one person: Gordon Pierce. Today
‘s ascot was a somber gray to go with his dark gray suit and white shirt. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Helen said automatically.

Pierce took her free hand, the one not gripping on her cane, in his.
“Thank you for coming. It would have meant a lot for Melissa to know how much you appreciated her.” 

Now wasn
‘t the time or place to get into just how much Helen hadn’t appreciated Melissa or anything to do with his agency. For the moment, she needed to keep Pierce mollified, long enough to pump him for information about who might have had a motive to kill Melissa. “I was hoping to meet some of her other patients. Are any of them still here?” 

“
It’s so kind of you to ask.” Without letting go of her hand, Pierce glanced at the three other people in the room, and then shook his head. “There were a few patients here earlier, but they’re old and don’t get out much. Besides, most patients tend to take their paid care-givers for granted and don’t really think of them as human beings.”

Who were those three people then? They didn
‘t seem to be nurses, not with their frayed clothes and shaky hands. Had the funeral director dragged them in from the streets to fill the room and make it seem like more people had cared about Melissa, in the ancient tradition of hired mourners? Did anyone really do that? If not, they might be people who truly cared about Melissa. Maybe even her next of kin. Prime suspects, according to Tate. Exactly the sort of people she’d hoped to meet here.

“
What about Melissa’s family?” Helen said. “Are any of them here?”

“
She only has one distant relative. A nephew, I think, in California,” he said. “Nobody who lives around here. I felt I owed it to her to make the burial arrangements since she died on the job.”

That was interesting, Helen thought. For liability reasons, she
‘d have expected a boss to try to establish that an employee’s death had occurred at a time when she was
not
working, rather than on the job. Especially since it seemed highly unlikely that Melissa had been working at the time of her death. She’d died sometime between 6 p.m. and the following 10 a.m. Most of that time wasn’t even close to her contracted late-morning/mid-day visitation hour at the cottage, and Helen certainly hadn’t asked her to come out for an extra visit.

Helen pulled her hand from Pierce
‘s grip. “I really should be going. Lots to do.”

“
I can save you one errand,” he said. “I’ve found the perfect new nurse for you. Her name’s Rebecca, and she has a background in physical therapy. I’m sure she’ll be
perfect
for you.”

Pierce had thought Melissa was perfect for her too, so she didn
‘t have a great deal of confidence in his matchmaking skills. “I don’t need a nurse any longer.”

“
I know we got off on the wrong foot with the first placement,” he said, “but you’ll like Rebecca much better.”

“
That’s not saying much. Anyone would be less irritating than Melissa.” Helen’s voice must have grown sharp with her annoyance, because the three rent-a-mourners were turning to stare at her. She mollified them with a murmured, “God rest her soul.”

Pierce turned so that he was between Helen and their audience, his body serving as a bit of a barrier against eavesdropping. He lowered his voice.
“Melissa could be a bit strong-willed and abrasive sometimes, but she got the job done. No one died on her watch.”

Except Melissa herself.

Actually, Helen thought, Pierce
‘s claim didn’t make sense. “Didn’t she specialize in geriatrics? She must have lost a few patients.”

“
Well, sure,” Pierce said. “But no more than would be expected in the circumstances. And not for any reasons she could have done anything about. That’s what I meant. You can’t blame her for the death of patients who were old and terminal before she was hired. It was just a coincidence that she was working with them when they died.”

“
Are you sure?” Helen said. “I’ve read about nurses giving their elderly patients lethal doses of drugs to put them out of their misery, whether they wanted it or not.”

“
Melissa was abrasive sometimes,” he said, “but she wasn’t insane, and she wasn’t some sort of serial euthanizer. Ever since I took over the nursing agency, I’ve been doing psychological testing of prospective employees to make sure no one has that sort of inclination. We have a rigorous hiring process, and I’m sure Melissa’s previous employer tested her too. She’d been at the Wharton Nursing Home for years, and it has a solid reputation.”

“
If it’s so great, why’d she leave there?”

“
Natural transition to retirement,” Pierce said. “With our agency, she could work part-time, which left her free to finally have some fun. She’d always wanted to be in radio, and she was volunteering at the local station whenever she wasn’t with her patients.”

So that was why Melissa had been so determined to have the radio on. Helen felt a little guilty for having insisted on turning it off all the time. And a little jealous that Melissa had known exactly what she wanted to do with her retirement years; unlike Helen, Melissa had found something she really loved doing.
“It’s too bad she didn’t have more time to enjoy the radio work.”

Pierce nodded, but he was looking at the latest mourner to arrive. A real one, apparently, in a fairly new black suit.
“Excuse me. That’s the daughter of one of Melissa’s long-term patients. She must be devastated. I’ll send Rebecca out to see you tomorrow morning. You’re going to love her.”

“
That’s not necessary,” Helen started to say, but he was gone, just one more person ignoring her wishes.

Helen headed for the exit. Her curiosity about Melissa
‘s killer gave way to true empathy for the dead woman. There was a lot that Helen hadn’t liked about the woman, but she had to admire the woman’s sense of purpose. All Melissa had wanted was to do her job as a nurse, and to indulge her passion for radio. She could have continued to do both for at least another decade if it hadn’t been for the killer. It just seemed so unfair.

Helen was silent on the ride home, and Jack, always sensitive to his passengers
‘ preferences, didn’t try to engage her in any conversation.

Helen was uncomfortably aware that if she had been the killer
‘s victim, no one would have had the same sense of a life being cut short. Everyone had already dismissed her, because of the lupus, and she hadn’t thrown herself into any new interests, the way Melissa had done with her passion for radio.

It dawned on her that she had written herself off, just like everyone else did. She
‘d seen her life as
over
, rather than
starting over
.

No more. Even if everyone else wrote her off, Helen knew that she was still capable of great things. All she had to do was find something she was as passionate about as she
‘d once been about supporting her husband’s political career, or as Melissa had been about her nursing career. And even if Helen never did find an activity she cared about for her retirement, whatever she did was going to be better than getting a tree branch to the skull, followed by an employer-organized wake populated by faux mourners. 

*  *  *

When Jack delivered Helen to her home, Lily’s car was parked in front of the cottage.

Helen braced herself for Lily
‘s sharp inquisition, but it was the softer sister, Laura, who opened the front door and greeted Helen with a hug. “We’d have been here before today, but you know how Howie is about me being away all by myself overnight, and Lily was on a business trip and didn’t get home until today.”

“
I’m fine.”

“
I couldn’t have done what you did,” Laura said, “staying here all by yourself since the murder.”

“
It was no big deal.” Although, really, it hadn’t been easy falling asleep the first night, thinking about how Melissa had been killed right outside her bedroom, without anyone noticing until too late.

“
We’re here now, and that’s what matters,” Lily said from her spot at the kitchen island, with her laptop open in front of her. “Are you sure you want to cancel the nursing agency’s contract?”

“
I’m sure,” Helen said as she made her way inside. “I don’t need a visiting nurse, and I particularly don’t need one from that agency. They’re more likely to kill me than to help me.”

“
It’s not their fault that one of their nurses was killed here.”

“
We don’t know that.” Helen propped her cane next to the door and then settled into her recliner.

“
Wait,” Laura said. “You think someone killed her on purpose? I thought it was a burglary gone bad.”

“
That’s what the police say, but I’m not sure I believe it.”

“
You just don’t want to believe it,” Lily said. “It would confirm how vulnerable you are out here, all alone.”

“
I just want to know what happened,” Helen said. “If it was a burglary gone bad, and Melissa was protecting me, I should know that for sure. I don’t want to live with that kind of guilt and anxiety if it’s not true, and the police can’t be bothered to do their job and find the real killer.”

“
But if the police are right, will you finally get a security system or a medical monitor? ”

“
I’ll consider it,” Helen said. “For now, I’ve instructed my attorney to terminate the contract with the nursing agency. If there’s evidence—persuasive evidence, I mean, not just the detective’s lazy assumptions—that there’s a violent burglar in the area, we can talk about my options.”

“
You really have an attorney?” Lily said. “When you didn’t give me his name, I thought you were bluffing.”

“
He’s real.”

Lily still looked skeptical, and Helen realized it might be a little awkward explaining why she didn
‘t have her attorney’s business card, especially since if Lily called his office, she’d be told that Tate had retired. She had his number on her cell phone, at least. She scrolled through the memory until she found it, and then wrote it down for Lily. She’d talk to Adam and give him a heads-up that Lily might be calling. “Wait until tomorrow before you call. I need to let his office know that you might be calling, and that it’s okay to confirm that I’m a client.”

Lily took the piece of paper.
“This had better not be another bluff.”

“
We’re just concerned about you,” said Laura. “Family members are supposed to care about each other.”

“
I appreciate that,” Helen said. “I’m just tired of being treated like I’m incompetent. I understand that you do it out of love, but that doesn’t explain why the cops are just as bad. They should be grilling me, not providing me with a presumed defense.”