Murder at the Book Group (32 page)

Then she looked around the room and said, “Well, we—”

I cut her off. “Annabel, Lucy, and I looked at Sam's site last night. Quite impressive.” I hoped my bright and cheerful manner covered my nervousness. I stuffed my hands into my pockets in case they started trembling.

Anabel sniffed. “Yes, he's very talented.” She shot Helen a look of reproach.

“Especially that Nazi collage. Where did he find all those items?” Lucy's artless tone betrayed none of the unease that I felt. I felt a twinge of envy for her acting ability.

Annabel narrowed her eyes at Lucy, perhaps suspecting a trick question. Reluctantly, she said, “His uncle was an SS officer.”

So did that mean Sam actually owned the items, perhaps bequeathed to a military historian nephew by his doting uncle? That roused Sarah from her reverie. “An SS officer! You're in a relationship with a man related to a Nazi?”

“Sam's
not
responsible for what his uncle did.” Annabel's eyes blazed.

Helen put out her hand in the stop position. “Ladies, please. Let's start. Hazel, since you're a cofounder of the group, I thought you might lead the discussion.”

Startled, I managed, “Fine.” I'd had the impression that Helen was going to facilitate, as she was so intent on having the meeting in the first place. Not that it mattered. “I guess the first order of business is to decide if we want to continue to meet and if we want to continue reading mysteries.”

I scanned the faces. Annabel had returned her attention to her shoes, describing circles in the air with her right foot. Maybe I'd misjudged her embarrassment threshold and she did regret her earlier revelations. Whatever the reason, it was fine with me if she avoided eye contact. I felt edgy enough just being in the same room with her, especially after learning of her early arrival at Carlene's the previous week to deliver brownies. And my edginess now extended to Helen. One suspect was more than enough for the likes of me. Two was way over the top. The sooner I expedited this discussion, the sooner I could get into Helen's bedroom.

I asked, “What do you think, Annabel?”

When she managed with an aggrieved air, “Whatever you all decide is fine with me,” I resisted the urge to raise my eyes to the ceiling.

After a lengthy exchange the group agreed to wait until after the holidays and see how we felt then. A “cooling off” period as Art put it.

I was about to propose a group vote, but when Annabel asked, “Does anyone really think Carlene committed suicide?” everyone started talking at once. But the speculations they floated echoed my own, with nothing new or helpful.

When the discussion wound down, I thought it was as good a time as any to find out if someone in the group had been the mysterious, shadowy figure Janet claimed she saw early in the evening of the previous Monday. Specifically, I hoped for a reaction from Annabel. But how would I finesse the question?

I never got the chance. Helen, clearing her throat, started, “I'd like to propose a prayer in memory of Carlene, a woman who gave so much of herself to this group.”

I looked at Sarah, who looked mutinous at Helen's suggestion. But Annabel's half laugh turned my attention to her.

“And just what was the ‘so much' that Carlene gave to the group?” She didn't wait for an answer before moving along. “I really can't participate in a prayer. I'd feel like a complete hypocrite. You see, I'm not sorry that Carlene is dead. The woman was no frigging saint.” Annabel bit her lip before going on. “She slept with my boyfriend and
then
she slept with my son.” Lucy and I shot uneasy looks at each other while Annabel ran down Carlene's transgressions, thankfully condensing the account she'd given to us.

Sarah looked astonished. “Goodness gracious. When did all this sleeping business happen?”

“Um, a while back.”

“Since you came to the book group?”

“Uh, no, before.”

Helen slanted a knowing look at me, probably in a nonverbal reference to our conversation of a week earlier when she'd reported her man-in-the car sighting. Aloud, she said, “But, Annabel, you and Carlene were friends.”

Annabel's face contorted into a sneer, but she said nothing. She stood, smoothed her skirt, and picked up her cherry-red handbag. “Yes, well, like I said, I simply can't join you in a prayer. Art, my jacket please.”

Art displayed considerable flexibility as he rose from the floor. We waited in an uncomfortable silence until he returned with a short black jacket. He tried to help Annabel into it, but she grabbed it out of his hands and walked to the front door. Turning back, she said, using a formal tone, “I'm glad we've had this time together.” With that, she left.

We all looked taken aback, Lucy and I less so than the others. Helen made a show of rolling her eyes and huffing disapproval.
Thank God Annabel's gone,
I thought. But Helen kept me from breathing a sigh of relief.

“Well,” said Art.

“Well,” parroted Sarah. I half expected Sarah to contribute a story involving Carlene and Den. She didn't, and possibly she didn't have one to share.

Helen started, “So, about that prayer . . .”

Now Sarah leveled a challenging look at Helen. “I agree with Annabel. I don't want to pray. I fail to see how prayers are going to help Carlene now.”

“You don't have to pray, Sarah,” I said through gritted teeth, thinking that we should be praying for ourselves.

“I'll just be on my way. Then you can pray in peace. Art? My jacket?” Art disappeared again, reappearing with a jean jacket. Sarah left with little fanfare.

“Does
anyone
want to pray with me?” Helen stopped short of calling us heathens, a term no doubt on the tip of her tongue. Lucy, probably feeling the need to diffuse the situation and move the prayer proceedings along, suggested that we simply observe a moment of silence. Helen didn't look happy, but as we indicated agreement with the silent option, she scowled and joined us in a moment that lacked the intended spiritual flavor. All I thought about was what Lucy and I were about to do.

After the moment of silence, we sat, looking uncertain. Helen announced with a sweep of her hand toward the kitchen, “There's decaf, and Sarah brought some éclairs.”

Lucy looked at me and smoothed an eyebrow, our prearranged signal to start the action. “Just as soon as I use the restroom,” she said.

“First door on your right.”

I waited a minute for Lucy to get into the hall bathroom and close the door. Then I launched into my act. Grabbing my stomach, I groaned, “Oh God, I feel sick. Where's your other bathroom, Helen?” I injected as much desperation into my voice as I could.

Helen started down the hall. She opened a door and turned on the overhead light. She turned left, opened another door, and turned on another light. “Right in here.” I hoped she wouldn't stay outside in the bedroom, thwarting my plans.

Helen's indifference to interior decor prevailed in the dispirited bathroom with its faint locker room smell. Probably few people ventured in there, if any. The translucent glass of a transomlike window high on the wall above the mildewed shower allowed the only possibility of natural light. A large and threadbare brown bath mat didn't quite hide the worn linoleum. I pretended to vomit, running water in the sink to cover the sound. A couple of gobs of aqua toothpaste clung to the bowl of the sink. I gingerly dried my hands with an uninviting hand towel that looked to be a find from a fleabag motel yard sale. Assuming such establishments held yard sales. I waited two minutes before emerging from the bathroom, trying for a still-sick effect. I was alone.

I looked for the photo collage by the door going out to the hall. Evan had said it was just inside the door and he could see it from the den. I found it about six feet from the door mounted on a pegboard over a faux French Provincial dresser. Either Evan had superior eyesight or he'd lied and
had
been in Helen's bedroom. Or, most likely, Helen had moved the display to a place where she could gaze at it lovingly when she awoke in the morning, because the dresser faced her bed. I had no trouble recognizing the images, as I'd just seen a number of them in Evan's bookcase. The same baby, the same five-year-old, the same Little League player, the same senior yearbook picture, the same awkward-looking teenage prom attendees, the same picture I'd glimpsed in Helen's trunk after the memorial service. In short, the same Evan Arness. At least a dozen pictures showed combinations of Evan, Helen, and Art sitting either on that uncomfortable love seat out in the living room or at the dinette table.

I studied a familiar picture of Evan in a well-cut dark suit accessorized with a boutonniere. Was that taken on his and Carlene's wedding day? I recalled seeing a picture of the two of them just a couple of hours before with Carlene wearing an ivory midcalf-length dress. Seeing the edge of an ivory skirt in this picture made me realize that Helen had cropped Carlene out of her own wedding picture.

I continued to study the display, seeing a small photo of Evan and Helen that I'd missed before. Helen looked happy, girlish. It looked like Evan and Carlene's family room in the background, so likely they had posed for this shot at a turkey dinner. Either that or Helen had spliced the photographs together, no doubt courtesy of skills she'd picked up at her editing class.

This further confirmed the conclusion I'd already made—Helen was in love with Evan. But this bizarre collection was way too creepy a way for a sixty-year-old to express love. If she was sixteen, it would be normal. Doodling arrow-pierced hearts filled with “E.A. and H.A. forever,” long heartfelt conversations with girlfriends, picking apart daisies (loves me, loves me not) were all part of the rite of passage.

Realizing that I had a limited window of opportunity in this room, I got out my cell phone, activated the camera feature, and started clicking. I darted around the room, looking for other pictures. On the same wall as the Evan shrine I found an eight-by-ten photo showing an attractive woman, dark hair fashioned in a fifties-style pageboy. Wearing a glittering evening dress and white gloves, she held a white rabbit. The woman looked somewhat familiar. I tried to imagine her with contemporary hairstyle and clothing, but that didn't help to identify her. A second picture showed the woman with a tuxedo-clad man pulling the rabbit out of a top hat. I looked from the first picture to the second and back again, realizing that the now-blond Helen and the then-brunette woman were one and the same. But wait—Helen wouldn't have been old enough in the fifties. Either this was her mother or Helen was in a retro costume. One other picture featured a dark-haired boy, likely Art, with Helen and a man who looked enough like Art to be his father.

I'd never been in Helen's bedroom and the lack of beigeness surprised me. I found myself in a flower garden, surrounded by a riotous assortment of pinks, yellows, and teals. The same floral pattern repeated itself in the comforter, dust ruffle, pillow shams, bolsters, tied-back curtains, and pleated lamp shades. Even the dresser, which I'd at first thought beige, was a pale pink.

What was up with the nice bedroom and the not-nice rest of the apartment? Helen herself was always well turned out. I guessed she didn't want to showcase her love for Evan in a squalid room.

I turned my attention to the assortment of books by her bed. A thick Bible with a bookmark stuck in the middle of what looked to be the Old Testament sat atop one of the nightstands. John MacDonald's
Nightmare in Pink
topped a precarious-looking stack in front of the nightstand. Suddenly that pesky thought I'd had earlier in the day came to life full force in my brain: Helen at book group,
The Deep Blue Good-by
spread open across her lap as she waved her arms about—arms covered in long bell-shaped sleeves, sleeves that fluttered about as she emphasized her points. Most of us had learned long ago not to sit next to her at book group—more than one person had been socked by a waving arm. The long sleeves, if I remembered correctly, covered her fingertips when she stood with arms at her side. Too long. Sleeves like those could cover up a lot of deeds. Like poisoning a mug of tea.

A number of the piled books lent credence to the long sleeves and poisoning idea.
Deadly Doses: A Writer's Guide to Poisons
was a case in point. Either Helen was joining the legions of crime writers or she was using the tome as a reference tool for a real-life murder strategy. At this point I suspected the latter and set to snapping pictures of the stacks. I gasped when I saw
Bitter Almonds,
Gregg Olsen's chronicle of the Seattle poisonings at the hands of Stella Nickell—one of the books I had picked up earlier in the day. I gasped again at
Human Poisoning from Native and Cultivated Plants.
Click, click went the camera. Was I at last looking at something that resembled proof, that issue that had weighed me down from the onset of this investigation?

Deadly Harvest
. When I'd spotted that title in Helen's trunk, I assumed that it was the traditional mystery that someone had recommended in book group a while back. A Washington—or Oregon—setting. But now I read the full title of
Deadly Harvest: A Guide to Common Poisonous Plants
. Interesting. Since this box was shoved in a corner behind the nightstand, it took minor bodily contortions to digitally capture the book title.

Lucy and I needed to visit Evan again on the way home and pry him away from his bed and Janet. I checked my watch and figured I could call him from the car. Time to get a move on. I pocketed my phone.

There had to be other clues to back my suspicion of Helen as killer. I didn't know what I expected to find: a vial of white powdery stuff with the bitter almond aroma sitting atop her dresser? I looked at the dresser as if to verify the absurdity of the notion. Then I got an idea.