Gin Jones - Helen Binney 01 - A Dose of Death (13 page)

“
I’ll walk out with you,” Geoff said.

“
No need,” Helen said. “You’ve got a much better chance at getting a scoop if you stay here and learn to knit.”

*  *  *

Geoff walked Helen out of the nursing home anyway, holding doors and offering the assistance she hadn’t requested and didn’t need or appreciate. If he thought that holding a few doors would convince her to give him an exclusive interview, he had another think coming.

As they approached the luxury car, Jack looked up from his video game. He glared at Geoff, who either didn
‘t notice or didn’t see any reason why he should care about the driver’s disapproval. Geoff was still talking about how much she’d enjoy reading the story he wrote about her when Jack slammed the Town Car door behind Helen, cutting off the reporter’s wheedling.

Jack waited until they reached the end of the long driveway before asking,
“Where to?”

It was safe to go back to the cottage now, she thought. Rebecca should be long gone, and, thanks to Geoff
‘s untimely interference, she didn’t have any leads to follow. “Home, please.”

“
Why is that reporter bothering you?” Jack said as they headed toward the center of the town.

“
It’s his job.”

As they drove past Tate
‘s office, Helen noticed that the garage doors were closed, suggesting he’d closed up shop early. She wondered if he’d found that retirement wasn’t quite what he’d expected it to be, and even his beloved woodworking wasn’t enough to keep him occupied, or if he’d given in to the demands of his clients and gone into the law office itself.

“
But why does Geoff keep harassing you?” Jack said. “Shouldn’t he be writing about Melissa’s murder?”

“
If he were a real investigative reporter, he would be looking into the murder,” Helen said. “But he doesn’t seem to have the right skills for the job. I’ve known some great reporters, and they question everything, and then mull over everything they’re told, deciding for themselves what makes sense, what doesn’t. Geoff Loring doesn’t do anything more than write up basic summaries of what people tell him, like a first-grader writing a book report. It’s what he did with the information the police gave him on Melissa’s murder. It’s what he does with the human interest stories on the nursing home residents. And it’s what he wants to do with a story about me—summarize whatever I say, and hope that people find it interesting, just because I’m the governor’s ex-wife.”

“
You probably got that a lot before you moved here,” Jack said. “I’ll make sure to keep an eye out for him the future, so we can avoid him.”

“
Don’t worry about it,” Helen said. “I can take care of myself.”

“
How did he know you were at the nursing home?”

Helen was startled by the idea that Geoff might have been following her. She
‘d encountered a couple minor stalkers in her days in the governor’s mansion, but she hadn’t expected that sort of thing now that she was retired. Then she realized that Jack was giving Geoff far more credit than he deserved.

“
I’m sure he wasn’t following me. It’s a small town, after all. Nothing more than a coincidence, running into me there. Apparently he visits there at least once a week.”

“
He shouldn’t be bothering the people who live there, either.”

“
I don’t think they mind. It breaks up the monotony of their days,” she said. “There’s no harm in it. It’s not like he’s doing any real investigating. He seems to think there’s a big story just out of reach somewhere, but he’d be better off if he actually dug into some of the stuff he’s already written about, and got to the bottom of it.”

“
Like Melissa’s death?”

“
That would be a good start,” Helen said. “The burglaries, too. They’ve been going on for so long that someone should have had some idea of who was doing them before Melissa was killed. I’ve read all the newspaper accounts, and no one seems to know anything at all about the perpetrator.”

“
What’s to know?” Jack said. “Someone’s stealing stuff. Happens all the time. I had a limo passenger two weeks ago who stole the towel that was wrapped around the champagne bottle. I mean, the guy could afford a thousand-dollar bottle of champagne, and he’s too cheap to buy his own kitchen towels.”

“
That’s different,” Helen said. “Your passenger didn’t break into someone’s house to steal anything. It didn’t require any planning or skills. Just see something and grab it.”

“
Maybe the other burglaries happened the same way,” Jack said. “Spur of the moment sort of things.”

“
They’re certainly random enough for that to be true,” Helen said. “Random enough that you’d expect the thefts to be unconnected, but the police are sure they’re all connected, because of the oddity of what was taken and not taken. Beyond that, no one’s been able to see any clear pattern in the timing or motivation or geography. The victim advocate said that most of them happened in May, June and December, but that doesn’t narrow things down too much. I thought there was supposed to be more of a pattern to crimes.”

“
You can’t believe everything you read.” Jack turned the Town Car onto her street. “Especially in the local paper.”

“
That’s certainly true.” Geoff Loring wouldn’t recognize a pattern if she drew it on his notepad. And the police hadn’t been taking the burglaries seriously until now. They hadn’t collected any fingerprints or checked for other forensic evidence at those crime scenes, so there was nothing to compare to the items confiscated from the vicinity of where Melissa was killed. “Until the burglar strikes again, there really isn’t much that anyone can do to identify him.”

“
If he knows what’s good for him,” Jack said, “he’s lying low until the killer’s caught.”

Jack ought to know how a criminal would think, what with all the family members who
‘d hired Tate to represent them. “What were your cousins arrested for, anyway?”

“
You don’t think they’d try to rob you, do you?” Jack braked more sharply than usual at the last stop sign before her driveway. “I wouldn’t let them do that to someone nice like you.”

“
They might not have bothered to ask for your permission.”

“
They’re not burglars,” Jack said firmly, easing off the brake and rolling the Town Car forward. “Their arrests were always for assault. They’d get drunk and then start fistfights. They’ve got good jobs, and they don’t have any reason to steal from anyone, least of all from someone who’d never done anything bad to them. They work hard and they play hard, that’s all.”

Interesting, Helen thought. In the governor
‘s mansion, financial skirmishes among colleagues were the norm, but physical assaults were largely unheard of. In Jack’s world, assault was practically respectable, while theft was considered bad form.

“
If you trust your cousins,” she said, “then so do I.”

“
Good.” Jack parked in front of her cottage. “I like you, Miss Binney, but I couldn’t work with someone who didn’t trust me and my family.”

Jack delivered Helen back home at noon, two hours after they’d left, which should have been plenty of time for Rebecca to leave. The nurse apparently had a deeply buried stubborn streak, though, judging by the fact that she was still waiting on the front porch, sitting on the uncomfortably hard brick, looking anxious and apologetic.

“
I know you don’t want me here, but I can’t charge for time when you’re not here,” Rebecca said as she rose to her feet. “I don’t have any other appointments for today, and I really need the money. I won’t be a bother, I promise. You’ll hardly even know I’m here.”

Helen could feel herself succumbing to guilt at the thought of sending the nurse home without her billable time. Helen didn
‘t need a nurse, but she could use some help.

“
As long as you’re here,” Helen said, “you might as well come in and help me organize some papers.”

“
Papers?” Rebecca said. “But I’m from the nursing agency, not the secretarial one. You don’t expect me to type, do you? I’ve never been very good at it. It takes me forever to key my notes into the new electronic patient files.”

Helen unlocked the front door.
“No typing, I promise. But if you come into my house, I expect you to provide the help I actually need, not the help I don’t want.”

She clutched her bag uncertainly.
“I’m supposed to take your blood pressure. I’m not sure I’ll get paid if I don’t do it.” 

“
If they won’t pay you for the visit because of that, I will,” Helen said. “Or you can leave. I don’t need anything other than the help with my papers.”

The nurse took a tentative step into the cottage, without closing the door behind her.
“Maybe I should call someone to find out what I should do.”

“
That’s up to you.” Helen limped over to her built-in desk space. Her hip still hadn’t settled down after the tumble out the bedroom window. She should have taken the spare cane with her on this morning’s trip, but she’d been counting on finding the other one at Tate’s office, and she hated the way the spare one’s ugliness drew attention to her mobility issues even more than the one she’d lost. Next time she went out, though, she wasn’t going to be so vain. It was more important to get her hip stabilized. If her nieces saw her hobbling like she was now, they’d have her committed, for sure.

Rebecca looked at her
cell phone uncertainly, while Helen checked her answering machine. Lily had called to let her know that a security consultant would be visiting the cottage to design a system for her.

Oh, goodie. More visitors
.

Helen looked at the stack of scrapbooks filled with newspaper articles about the burglar and then looked at the dithering Rebecca.
“Make up your mind,” Helen snapped, “If you’re going to stay, then you can help me carry these scrapbooks over to the kitchen island. After that, I could use something to eat to keep up my strength. We both could. There’s plenty of food in the fridge. Or do I need to hire a caterer?”

“
No, no,” Rebecca said, dropping her cell phone back into the pocket of her pastel pink scrubs top. At least there were no sickeningly cute animals on it. “I can make lunch for you. I’ve been taking nutrition classes, you know.”

“
I don’t want nutrition lectures.” She didn’t need another person telling her what she could and couldn’t eat, on top of everyone already telling her what she could and couldn’t do. “I just want lunch.”

Rebecca let the door shut behind her and scurried across the room to retrieve the scrapbooks and carry them over to the kitchen island. She then went to investigate the contents of Helen
‘s refrigerator. Fortunately, Helen had chosen the food in there herself, so whatever Rebecca came up with couldn’t be too bad. Helen could afford to be nice to her, this once. After all, it was going to be Rebecca’s last day here. If Tate’s nephew was even half as good as Tate claimed he was, he’d have the agency’s contract cancelled by tomorrow.

Rebecca was putting the final touches on a salad and mumbling about the high-fat content of the available dressings, when there was a knock at the front door.

“I’ll get it,” Rebecca said, pushing aside some of the papers on the island to make room for the salad bowl next to Helen’s right hand.

Helen
‘s first impulse was to tell Rebecca to ignore the visitor, but then she realized it was probably the security system guy, so she didn’t object.

When Gordon Pierce walked in, though, Helen regretted not insisting on answering the door herself. This was what she got for letting other people help her: a visitor wearing a lime green and pink plaid seersucker jacket with a matching green cravat.

He bent to whisper to Rebecca. “How’s she doing today?”

“
I can hear you,” Helen said.

Rebecca looked back over her shoulder at Helen, as if asking for permission to answer her boss.

Helen took pity on Rebecca and said, “I’m fine. I’m always fine, or I would be if everyone would just leave me alone. That’s what I keep telling everyone, and no one ever listens to me.”

Pierce nodded, and confided to Rebecca in the same, perfectly audible whisper,
“I see she’s in one of her moods again. Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. You can head on out now. I’ll stay with the patient for a while.”

“
But I haven’t taken her blood pressure yet, and you can’t do it.” Rebecca’s hand came up to cover her mouth, as if belatedly realizing she’d criticized her boss.

Helen silent cheered her on.
You tell him, girl. Damn right Pierce wasn’t taking my blood pressure. Not unless he wanted to have assault charges filed against him.

Pierce took Rebecca
‘s hand and patted it. “I think we can skip the blood pressure reading, just this once.” 

Rebecca turned to Helen, pleading for understanding.

“Stay or leave, it’s up to you,” Helen told her before turning to Pierce. “My blood pressure is fine. Or it was until you showed up. What do you want?”

“
Nothing worth your getting all worked up about,” he said.

Rebecca scurried across the room to grab her bag and leave. She shut the door behind her, so carefully that Helen didn
‘t even hear the door latch click into place, having already turned back to the pile of scrapbooks on the island in front of her.

“
I was just wondering,” Pierce said as he took the seat across from Helen. “Did Melissa leave any of her paperwork here? You know how the medical insurance companies are, I’m sure. If we want to get paid, we have to dot every “i,” cross every “t.” In triplicate.”

“
Melissa didn’t leave anything inside the cottage.” Except a couple cans of Diet Pepsi, but Helen had poured them out already. “The police confiscated everything she had on her.”

“
They don’t have what I’m looking for.” Pierce helped himself to a cucumber slice from Helen’s salad, and she slapped his hand away before he could take another one.

“
Maybe they’re in her car.”

“
I’ve already checked there.”

“
I didn’t know they’d found it,” Helen said. “Where was it?”

“
At the repair shop,” Pierce said. “Apparently it broke down on the way to your cottage that morning. Something to do with the alternator, I’m told. Such a dedicated nurse, Melissa was. She called for a tow, and then hitched a ride here, so you wouldn’t be here all alone.”

“
I like being alone,” Helen said automatically. She would have been more irritated with Pierce if it weren’t for the fact that at least now she knew that Melissa had been killed in the morning, not the night before. If she could find out exactly when the tow truck had been called, it would help to narrow down the time of death even more. “Melissa wasn’t supposed to be here that morning. It would have been better if she’d gone with her car to the repair shop.”

“
I understand. You don’t want to feel responsible for her being surprised by the burglar.” He reached for another cucumber slice, and Helen pushed the whole salad toward him. She certainly wasn’t going to eat it now.

“
I’m not responsible for Melissa’s being here that morning,” Helen said. “Especially if it was before 9:00. I never do anything before then, and she knew it. If she was driving somewhere at that hour, it wasn’t to come see me.”

“
Where else would she have been going?” he said, picking up her salad bowl. “She called for the tow a little after 7:30 that morning. It wouldn’t have taken more than ten or fifteen minutes for her to get here from where her car was picked up. Even if she had to wait a few minutes to catch a ride, she’d have been here by 8:00. There wasn’t enough time to go see another patient before coming back to check on you, especially without her own car. She must have come straight here, planning to wait outside until you woke up, but instead she ran into the burglar.”

He was probably right, up to the point where it was the burglar doing the murder. Helen usually got out of bed around 8:30, and that morning had been pretty routine up until the discovery of Melissa
‘s body. Certainly no fatal scuffle had been going on outside. Helen would have noticed.

The call to the tow company put Melissa
‘s time of death between 8:00 and 8:30. It also meant that Helen didn’t have much of an alibi. Being at home, alone and asleep, was even more worthless than usual when the murder occurred a few feet away from the suspect’s bedroom window. The police really should have been investigating Helen instead of assuming that a petty burglar had suddenly graduated to murder. 

Pierce set down the empty salad bowl.
“So, how do you like Rebecca?”

“
I’m sure she’s a very nice person and is very skilled,” Helen said, “but I don’t need a nurse.”

“
We could try someone else.” He pulled out his smartphone. “What about…”

“
No,” Helen said. “I’m not agreeing to anything without my lawyer present. If you haven’t talked to him already, he’ll be calling you. It’s the firm of Tate and Bancroft.”

Pierce stopped scrolling through his database.
“You don’t need a lawyer to talk to me. I’m here for you, whatever you need.”

“
That’s the whole problem,” Helen said. “I don’t need anything, and I don’t want you or anyone else here.”

“
I understand,” he said, putting away the smartphone and taking Helen’s hand to pat it.

She was so startled by his easy capitulation that she didn
‘t pull her hand away.

“
You miss Melissa,” he said. “We all do. She was so beloved by her patients. It’s why I hired her, you know—her dedication to her work. It wasn’t easy to steal her away from the nursing home.”

Now that he mentioned it, she did wonder why Melissa would have agreed to give up the job she supposedly loved so much.
“How did you get her to leave the nursing home?” 

“
I wouldn’t have been able to, without the budget cuts there,” Pierce said. “You know how it is with government-run entities these days, and the nursing home is owned by the town. It’s been hit with budget issues like every other department.”

That was the sort of thing Helen could understand. It had been hard enough running the governor
‘s mansion before all the recent state budget cuts. She couldn’t imagine how her successor, her ex’s cousin, was managing in the current economy.

Pierce continued,
“Melissa loved her work, didn’t ever want to retire completely. And they were cutting hours at the nursing home. She couldn’t bear to see what it did to her patients, and she couldn’t live on what they were paying her, not without a second job, and if she did that, she wouldn’t have time to volunteer at the radio station. I could offer her enough to live on, even working part-time.”

“
So the money was the only reason she left?”

“
What else is there, really?” Pierce said.

“
Job satisfaction.” Even when Helen’s duties in the governor’s mansion had been overwhelming, she’d always known that she was doing something worthwhile, and that she was appreciated. Leaving the work behind had, in many ways, been harder than leaving her marriage behind. “What about her patients? Didn’t she feel like she was abandoning them?”

“
Of course. And they loved her. All of them. But she didn’t have any choice. She needed a living wage. It’s not like she had any family who could help her out.”

Or friends, as far as Helen had been able to tell from the attendance at Melissa
‘s wake. The woman really had been all alone in the world. There was no one with any strong emotional ties to Melissa, the sort where love might turn to hate or murderous rage. But if the murder wasn’t personal to Melissa, it really did mean the burglar was the most likely suspect in her murder. Other than Helen, of course. She knew she hadn’t done it, and the burglar theory still didn’t feel right. That left only one other possibility: that the murder had been completely random.