Helens-of-Troy (14 page)

“Confused, yes. Wrong, no.” Helena
corrected her. “He’ll be back. He knows where the little girl is.
You mark my words.”

“If you’re so sure, why are we here? I
have other things to do. I should be taking the van back to
Tony.”

“We all have other things to do. We’re
here to keep up appearances. How would it look if we were the only
family in town not looking for the little girl?”

“I suppose. But what does this all have
to do with Ellie? Maybe our imaginations are running away with us
and it is just what everyone else thinks it issomething humanly
criminal?” Helen offered.

“Willie doesn’t do humanly criminal.
He’s not human. Not anymore, anyway.” She paused for a moment,
considering what she was about to say. “I don’t think Ellie has
told us everything. If this were a child who simply ran away and
met misfortune, Willie wouldn’t be this interested. There has to be
something else going on.” She bit her lip as she thought this over.
“Maybe I should call him.”

“You can’t just call Willie,” Helen
reminded her. “He’s on the other side. What are you going to do?
Use your long distance calling card?”

“Oh, he’ll come if I call him,” Helena
threatened.

“Don’t you dare,” Helen hissed, trying
to keep her voice down. “He is a bad, bad, man.”

“Willie himself is not the problem,”
Helena protested. “You know that.”

“But he’s connected to the problem. He
always is. We’ll solve this on our own. I do not want that man near
my daughter ever again.”

“You may not have a choice. Helen, you
have got to sit that girl down and tell her who Willie
is.”

“He is a nightmare. That’s it. No
further explanation necessary.”

Helena started to reply, but Helen cut
her off abruptly. “The discussion is over. You just watch your
friend Roy solve the big mystery. That ought to keep you
entertained.”

Helena’s face turned red as she turned
her eyes to Chief Cohen, who was in turn, looking at
her.

In Roy’s eyes, Helena was a welcomed
sight. He wouldn’t say that she was unflappable, because he knew
that wasn’t true. But he knew she was good in a crisis. He needed a
dozen more people like her to help out today. He was more concerned
about the other inexperienced volunteers. Most of them were dressed
for a day at the mall, not winter dumpster diving. When this was
all over, he was going to have to form a proper search-and-rescue
group in the community.

Ralph Wildman showing up this morning
was a mixed blessing. He was a dairy farmer, and Roy knew he had
spent hours on end in the barn with the calves, getting them
through their first winter. Ralph wouldn’t get cold being outside
all day, and he wouldn’t give up easily. That had to count for
something, Roy hoped, because Ralph was normally a major pain in
the ass.

Forming a group to Ralph’s left were
the students from Troy Tech. Roy was somewhat surprised they were
here, given the altercation he had with a few of them after the
game last night. They weren’t too happy when he confiscated their
beer and poured it down the sewer. He knew they probably didn’t
give a shit about the lecture he had given them, but at least they
gave a shit about something. They gave a shit about a lost little
girl, and no one told them they had to. Teenagers were often
underestimated in Roy’s opinion. “Just a couple more minutes,” Roy
assured everyone. “I want to make sure we’ve got all the sections
covered.” He disappeared inside the town hall to get a
map.

“I don’t envy him,” Helen said to
Helena as she tightened a fuchsia-hued scarf around her neck. It
clashed with her coat, but it was the only one she could find while
scrounging through Helena’s hall closet. “Having to tell a parent
you can’t find their child,” she continued, “that would be a
horrible thing to have to do.” She thought about all the times
Ellie had threatened to run away when she was younger.

“It makes finding the odd body on a
porch swing seem like a walk in the park, doesn’t it?” Helena said
sarcastically. “I’m sure our bad days don’t even compare to theirs.
I have to clean up snot all the time when I’m teaching someone how
to use a neti pot. They scrape brains off of windshields after a
head on collision. Neither are pleasant, but really…”

“Okay. Don’t get so defensive. Or
descriptive. I take back what I said about the police and the
cereal box,” Helen said. “Neti pot?”

“Think nose bidet. And thank you. But
it doesn’t get you off the hook. You still need to tell Ellie about
Willie.”

“Who’s that plump, curly-haired woman
who’s glaring at us?” Helen asked, in an attempt to distract her
mother. “I’m not getting a love vibe from her.”

“You mean the one dressed in the neon
pink tracksuit?”

“Yes. She’s got to be cold in that
outfit. Not to mention embarrassed. Never wear neon after Labor
Day. Or ever, really.”

“That’s Betty Lachey, Ryan and Stan’s
mom and our illustrious neighbor. With any luck she’ll be
hibernating soon and we won’t see her until spring.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“Nor is she,” Helena laughed. “She
hates us.”

“Us? How can she hate me? She doesn’t
even know me.”

“Hate by association,” Helena said,
forcing a smile and giving her neighbor a wave. “There’s a small
town attitude in Troy, I’m afraid. You’ll get used to it. I
did.”

“Is there a Mr. Lachey?” Helen asked,
nodding politely to the woman.

“That subject is strictly verboten if
you happen to want to keep the peace. Betty got sick of him
constantly hanging around the house and told him to get a hobby.
Well he did. A five-foot-six Texan named Traci. She was a brassy
woman with guns from the double D ranch, if you get my drift. He
ran off with her two summers ago.”

“Well, that explains why she hates
you.”

Helena looked at her daughter. “For the
record, I never even looked at her husband.”

“Hate by association,” Helen answered.
“Listen, don’t say anything to Ellie about Ryan’s father running
off. The less those two have in common, the better.”

“She’s going to find out eventually.
What’s the big deal? Oh...oh, Helen. Haven’t you told her yet?
About her father? Really, Helen. When are you going to have that
talk with her? When are you going to have that talk with
me?”

“Well, not right now. Maybe in thirty
years.”

“Helen, your denial of who you are and
what it all means is going to put Ellie in danger. You have to get
over it,” she said sternly.

Betty Lachey began to walk towards
them, and Helen sighed with relief. She didn’t want to talk to
Helenaor Ellie, about any of that. Not now. Not ever.

“Is Stan feeling any better?” Helena
asked, genuinely concerned. “It’s not like him to miss one of
Ryan’s games. I noticed he wasn’t there last night.”

“Stan was just getting over the death
of poor Mr. Wagner,” Betty began, “and now there’s all this
terrible business with little Brooke. I swear, I don’t know what to
tell him anymore. This town is going crazy.” She paused for a
moment and pulled an orange winter vest from the bag she was
carrying. She noticed Helen wince as she zipped it over her jacket.
“What? Like that scarf matches your coat, Miss
Hoity-Toity?”

Perhaps her mother was right about
Betty Lachey, Helen thought.

Helena smiled. “Well, she’s got you
there. You should have taken the black one. No fuchsia after Labor
Day. Fuchsia is another word for neon.”

Suddenly self-conscious, Helen began to
tuck the scarf under her coat to hide it. “It was in your
closet.”

“I’m not happy about what happened at
your house the other night,” Betty continued. “But I at least I
know Stan’s alive and safe at his piano lesson. That is a darn
sight more than the Quinlan’s know about their child. So it makes
you stop and think.”

“I’m not totally batty, Betty. I can
assure you that if I knew Mr. Wagner was dead on the swing, I would
have taken care of it.”

“Humph,” she said. “Like you took care
of Mrs. Harbinger? Never mind Stan, I’m having a hard time getting
over that one.”

“There’s that Mrs. Harbinger thing
again,” Helen said, poking her mother. “Do tell.”

It was Helena’s turn to change the
subject. “Betty, I don’t think you’ve been properly introduced.
This is Helen, my daughter.”

“I know who she is,” Betty snorted, as
she turned her back on them and headed towards the pastry table.
“And I know who her daughter of darkness is too.”

“Bitch,” Helena said. “I think she
needs a good tongue-lashing.”

“Mother,” Helen cautioned, “get that
look out of your eyes, and harness all that negative energy. The
Chief is coming back outside.”

Chief Cohen faced the crowd. Tell them
just what they need to know, he reminded himself. “Okay everyone,
let’s begin. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

“What’s going to happen at the school
on Monday?” Ralph asked. “Are we going to have to worry about some
nutcase roaming the halls, trying to snatch another
kid?”

Roy could sense the mood of the crowd
changing. Most of the parents probably hadn’t thought that far
ahead until Ralph mentioned it.

“I understand your concerns, Ralph, but
let’s just try to focus on right now,” the Chief replied. “We’ll
have security in place Monday morning if we need to.”

“Shouldn’t you set up some roadblocks
or something?” Ralph insisted.

“There isn’t really much point doing
that now, Ralph,” Roy said calmly.

That one got Betty Lachey going. “He
would have had all night to get away. You should have set up one of
those spike lines across the highway yesterday.”

“Ralph, Betty...” Chief Cohen began, “I
appreciate your insights, as always. But you’re all just a step or
two ahead of your favorite cop show. Things don’t work that way on
Troy time. The only person we’re looking for right this moment, is
Brooke Quinlan. That’s it. That’s our job today.”

“Why don’t you use some dogs?” Ralph
Wildman asked.

Roy wanted to stuff a sock in Ralph’s
mouth. “I need everyone to look with all of your senses. For
example, use your eyes. If you were around Brooke’s neighborhood
yesterday you’d know that we did bring a canine unit in from the
city. The dogs were using their eyes and their nose. Unfortunately
they were unable to track a scent beyond the end of the street.” He
lied. The truth was that the dog had refused to follow the scent
past Helena’s corner. The German shepherd had dug its claws into
the pavement and no command given to him would make him go further.
The town didn’t need to know that part.

“Use your ears. She hasn’t had any food
or water and she might be hurt, so any sound she makes may be
slight. Pay attention. If you have a blanket in your car, it would
be a good idea to get it and take it along. She may be hypothermic,
or in shock,” Roy added, noting that their faces had grown
grim.

The town also didn’t need to know that
the dog heard somethingsomething in a pitch so high, no human
could hear it. Roy had seen the dog get down on its belly, cover
his ears with his paws and howl in agony. In all the years Roy had
been around dogs, both fully trained working dogs and those of the
house pet variety, he had never seen a dog do that.

“You should have called me to bring my
dogs,” Ralph insisted. “They can track a rabbit in wet grass.
They’d have Brooke home by now.”

“Those dogs are so old they can’t even
smell each other’s butts,” Ryan said aloud, looking at Ralph
Wildman with contempt.

“Okay, okay, settle down,” Roy
commanded. He knew had to get everyone grouped and on the road
before they got more restless. “Does anyone have any other
information on the whereabouts of Brooke Quinlan? I didn’t get a
chance to talk to everyone in town over the last twenty-four hours,
so if you have anything to tell me, this would be a good time to do
it.”

“I saw her,” Ryan offered. “She ran by
Stan and Kev just before they went up to Mrs. LaRose’s house. It
was about seven o’clock.”

Tom looked at him. “Are you sure? I
didn’t see her.”

“Well, I notice girls more than you
do,” he laughed good-naturedly, giving Tom a body nudge. He winced.
“Crap. I really wrecked my shoulder last night. It’s still not
sitting right in the rotator.”

“You notice girls when they're six?”
Ralph Wildman asked, sneering at Ryan. “What's wrong with you,
Lachey?” He raised his voice so others could hear what he was
saying. “Maybe we should be checking your house first, since you
seem notice little girls more than the rest of us.”

“Fuck you, Wildman. That’s not what I
said.”

“You got a girlfriend, Lachey? One
that’s your age?”

“I don’t need a girlfriend, Wildman. I
do your daughter.”

Tara Wildman, who had been staying
behind her father, moved even further away. “Stay away from my
daughter, Lachey,” he said loudly. “You’re a pervert.”