To Helen Back (11 page)

Chapter 22

A
T HALF PAST
seven on Monday morning, Helen had fed the cat, dressed in a navy blue sweat suit, and double-knotted the laces on her size six Tretorns.

She’d been too preoccupied lately to take her usual two-mile walk to the river and back, so she made it a point to do just that. Not only would it give her heart and lungs a good workout, but it would give her time to think besides.

It was still early enough that the town was quiet, and Helen strolled past sleepy block after block, feeling as if she was alone in the world. Houses appeared to slumber still, their window shades pulled down. The sun peeked at her in sporadic bursts of light from beyond the surrounding bluffs. In the treetops overhead, birds began to arise, chirruping like cuckoo clocks.

Her mind was not on their cheery songs, though. Instead, her attention drifted, as it always did these days, to the death of Milton Grone. She found it hard to dwell on anything else when that was all everyone in town seemed to talk about, trying guess who did it and wondering if the killer could be living right next door.

It shook Helen up to realize that such a hideous crime had occurred so close to home. She knew the world was changing around her, that drugs were as commonplace in small towns as big cities, and guns were bought and sold and stolen like trading cards. But River Bend had always seemed far removed from the sort of everyday crime that plagued nearby Alton, just a twenty minute ride down the River Road, and St. Louis City, less than an hour away.

Helen had always so secure in this place. Why, she and Joe hadn’t had locks installed on the house until sometime in the seventies, when the last of their four kids had gotten out of college and moved away. Half the time, Helen forgot to secure the doors, and, despite living alone, she had never felt the least afraid.

Until the murder of Milton Grone.

She glanced around her, to her right and left, quickening her pace.

When she realized what she’d done, she laughed at herself, though the pitch of it sounded far too high. Even she wasn’t fooled by her poor attempt at bravado.

She slowed her steps, telling herself Sheriff Biddle would find the killer soon enough.

Only that, too, caused her worry.

You murdered my husband!

Shotsie’s words rang in her ears, and she frowned, angry at the woman for pointing a finger at Felicity. Milton’s widow certainly had some nerve! And Frank Biddle himself, why he was no better, hauling Felicity down to his office in his squad car because of the whims of a hysterical widow.

Yes, Felicity’s shovel had been used as the murder weapon but that hardly meant the old girl did the deed. Why, anyone could have accessed the spade. Everyone knew that Felicity kept her gardening tools out back. On that Thursday night when Milton died, any one of a number of townsfolk could have crept into Felicity’s yard in the dark, picked up the shovel, smacked Milton upside the head then returned it to Felicity’s as if nothing had happened.

Even I could have done it
, Helen concluded as she approached the town hall, eyeing its quaint whitewashed brick and black trim. But I didn’t, and neither did Felicity, she concluded as she passed the building and moved on.

Half a dozen other residents of River Bend had better reasons to want Milton dead than a disagreement over a split-rail fence. Ida and Dot had been publicly fighting Grone tooth and nail since the sale of that land on the riverfront. Art Beaner and the town board had disputes over unpaid community fees going back at least a decade.

Still, Helen had a hard time convincing herself that any one of them had actually bludgeoned the bastard.

With a sigh, she pressed on past the playground, approaching the chapel.

When it came right down to it, she figured, the killer had done the town a favor. Even as she thought it, she realized how horrid it sounded. But from what Helen had seen, folks seemed as relieved at Milton’s death as they were shocked that such a crime had actually happened. In fact, she’d even heard someone murmuring to his breakfast companion at the diner the other morning that Milton’s death was a most convenient murder.

Now the Grones’ neighbors could live in peace and Art Beaner’s board was rid of the thorn in its side. Even Ida and Dot had one less obstacle to battle in their war against the water park.

The growl of an engine suddenly and loudly invaded the quiet of the morning, interrupting Helen’s thoughts.

With a whoosh of gravel and dust, a van whipped past her, tearing up the road toward the river. She turned away until the rush of gritty air settled. Coughing the rest out of her lungs, she shook her head, having recognized the truck that delivered the morning’s
Telegraph
.

Did he think he was Jeff Gordon careening around the track in a Nascar race? She fumed as she brushed herself off.

“Mrs. Evans!”

The voice startled her no less than the speeding van, and she spun about, hand to heart, to see Earnest Fister emerging from the chapel and hurrying toward her.

Clad in black trousers and white button-down shirt, he moved down the chapel steps two by two and strode forward in an agile sprint. He crossed the stone bridge in a blink and was quickly at her side.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “That paper boy’s going to run down someone one of these days.”

“I’m fine,” she told him, and she was. She held her palms apart by several feet, much as a fisherman bragging of his latest catch. “He missed me by this much.”

Fister’s brooding features didn’t relax one iota. His dark eyes looked to the road as he told her, “I’ve called the paper myself to complain about his driving, but they don’t seem particularly concerned.”

Helen smiled. “They’re probably glad to have anyone at all willing to do the job this far out of Alton and with the sun barely up. Speaking of which”—she hooked a thumb toward the chapel—“what’s got you working at the crack of dawn on a Monday? Is the town so full of sinners you’ve resorted to putting in overtime?”

Instead of amusement crossing the clergyman’s face, his mouth pulled taut. “I got up early and came here to be alone,” he murmured. “It’s difficult for me to think at home, what with Madeline moping about and glaring at me..”

“I see.” Helen knew from her chat with Madeline Fister the day before that the girl blamed her father for all her recent troubles. She felt nearly as sorry for the pastor as for Maddy. “How is she?”

“She’s all right,” Fister said, but without much conviction, so that Helen wondered if the opposite weren’t true.

“She certainly has a lot to deal with for someone her age, doesn’t she?” She glanced at him sideways. “I have to wonder how on earth she became involved with a married man,” she went on, before she could catch herself.

Fister’s dark eyes turned on Helen with an intensity that made her take a step away.

She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn, but Madeline told me about him herself,” she explained, wondering if he thought she’d heard something on the town grapevine. “Perhaps she said it just to shock me.”

The minister didn’t reply. He simply stared at her.

Instead of clamming up, as she probably should have, she nervously babbled on. “Maddy said she’d thought he loved her, that she had hopes he’d leave his wife—”

Fister laughed so abruptly it made Helen jump. “She was a fool,” he said, shaking his head. “But I don’t blame her. She’s young and naive and without a mother’s hand to guide her. He saw her weakness and played on it.” As the minister spoke, his hands flexed in and out of fists. “He preyed on her need for attention and lied to convince her that what they did was all right. He took advantage of her,” he said through gritted teeth. “He was a grown man, and Maddy a child.”

He stopped and looked at the sky as the pinks and grays of sunrise changed chameleonlike to blue. “He had no right,” Fister whispered, still staring at the sky. “He had no right.”

Helen reached out, touching Fister’s arm, which made him start, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Don’t blame yourself,” she told him. “What happened wasn’t your fault, despite what Maddy thinks.”

“Blame myself?”

“I can hear the guilt in your voice.”

He took a step aside, pressing his palms together, and Helen suddenly realized there was more to all of this than what she knew.

“If you hear guilt in my voice, it’s not for anything I’ve done. It’s for waiting as long as I did to do anything at all,” he told her, though he didn’t meet her eyes. “You must understand, there was no other way. My fears were for Madeline, for what he’d do to her, what he’d already he’d done.” Fister raised knotted hands to the heavens. “By God, he put her through hell.” With a sigh, his broad shoulders lost their stiffness. “At least now he won’t bother her again.”

“Of course he won’t,” Helen echoed, certain that was what he wanted to hear. She hoped that, both for his sake and Madeline’s, it was the truth. “He’s out of her life, and she’ll get on as before. She’s young and, from what I’ve seen, quite resilient. She’ll be over this before you know it.”

He dropped his hands to his sides and shook his head. “I’m not sure she’ll ever forgive me.”

“She loves you.”

“Does she?”

“She’s your child, your flesh and blood,” Helen reminded him.

A wry smile took shape on his mouth as he told her, “I don’t know if that matters to her anymore. Not this time, not after everything I’ve done.”

Helen wondered what he wasn’t saying, for she could see he was holding something back, something that was eating at him inside. “It must be hard for you, watching your daughter grow up.”

“Maybe she wouldn’t have grown up quite so fast if only her mother had lived.”

“I’m sure you did your best,” Helen said. “It’s all any of us can do. Raising children isn’t easy.”

His brow wrinkled. “But it’s my duty to teach right from wrong, and I failed with my own daughter.”

“Well, she confided in you, didn’t she?” Helen said, wishing he could see that it wasn’t so hopeless after all. “Isn’t that how you found out about her relationship?”

“No,” he said, gazing off again.

“You don’t mean to say that the man she was involved with . . .” Helen let the question hang, noticing the deep flush that rose from Fister’s neck.

The minister didn’t remark one way or the other. He stared past her, arms folded across his chest. His bearded face looked grim.

Helen knew then, without a doubt. that Maddy’s married lover had confronted the minister. Perhaps it had been a confession? Or, she wondered, was it a taunt? “Would you like to talk about it?” she asked, since the can of worms had already been opened.

“I think it’s time I returned to my desk,” he said briskly, nodding at her. “Good day, Mrs. Evans.” Then he walked away, leaving her standing on the sidewalk.

She watched him cross the bridge and ascend the steps to the chapel. He took a quick look back from the doorway before he ducked inside.

“Well, for heaven’s sake,” she said aloud, and tried to piece together the conversation she’d had yesterday with Madeline and her words with the pastor this morning.

She furrowed her brow.

Who was this older married man who’d taken advantage of a young girl and told the pastor about the affair himself? Fister said the man would never, ever bother Maddy again.

Helen’s eyes went wide. Was it possible? she wondered. Could it truly be . . . ?

A crow squawked from the telephone wires above her, and Helen shook away her mental meanderings.

“Absurd,” she muttered, and with one last look at the church, picked up her walk where she’d left off.

Chapter 23

A
FTER WALKING ALL
the way to the river, Helen made a point of stopping at Felicity’s on her way home. She found the old girl out front in her yard. Down on all fours, Felicity was plucking weeds from a petunia bed. She chattered on all the while, coaxing the flowers to “grow up pretty for mummy.”

Helen smiled to herself, recalling that even Prince Charles had been observed prattling on with his plants. And she wasn’t embarrassed to admit that she conversed with Amber as though the cat understood her every word.

“Good morning,” she said as she approached.

Felicity looked up, murmuring a hello before scrambling to her feet. “I thought I’d get an early start. It’s so much cooler in the hour after daybreak,” she explained as she tugged off her gloves, then brushed at her dirty knees.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” Helen said, because she hadn’t meant for Felicity to stop her work just to chat.

“No, no.” Felicity adjusted the brim of her straw hat and linked her arm through Helen’s. “In fact, I’m glad you came by. I picked some blackberries earlier, and I’ve got a pint for you.”

“What a dear!” Helen patted her hand. “It’s sweet of you to think of me.”

“I find if I stay busy I’m less likely to think of—” She swallowed and squeaked out, “Everything.”

Helen noticed the hollows beneath her usually vivid eyes as Felicity’s gaze shifted toward the fence.

“Oh, hon, please, don’t fret,” she said, wishing she could offer some real words of comfort. “It’ll all be over with soon, I’m sure, and then life will get back to normal. Mark my words.”

Felicity sighed. She usually had such good posture, with shoulders straight and chin up, but now she just seemed to slump. She attempted a smile but it was feeble at best. “You’re right, of course. It’s not like me to be so bloody spineless.”

“I’d never call you spineless,” Helen insisted. “Why, you’ve more gumption than the queen.”

Felicity’s pale cheeks flushed.

“Now where are those delectable blackberries?”

“If you’d like to come inside, I’ll fetch them for you,” Felicity said, then made the mistake of glancing over at the Grones’ house yet again. She would have stumbled had Helen not caught her arm. A tiny whimper escaped her throat, and Helen looked across the fence to find the cause of her distress.

There, in the window, stood Shotsie Grone. Her blond hair made a frizzy aureole around her face as she stared brazenly at them. Though the screen turned her features bleary, her scowl was visible enough.

Then her hand jerked down the shade and she was gone from their view.

“Oh, my, I thought I was done with that lot, but I guess I’m not, am I?” Felicity mumbled, swaying ever so slightly.

“It’s all right,” Helen said, hoping her friend wouldn’t faint.

“She’s as wicked as he was,” Felicity whispered.

Helen opened her mouth to deny it, to explain that Shotsie was just distraught and misguided. But she knew none of that would help. The Grones had caused Felicity immeasurable pain, and even the most stalwart of souls could only take so much.

“Come on,” she urged, leading her friend toward the lovely white Victorian with its intricate gingerbread trim. “Let’s go inside and have some tea, okay?”

At Felicity’s nod, Helen walked with her up the steps, through the porch, and into the sunny kitchen. She settled her friend into a seat at the polished oak table in the center of the room. The orange tabby, Ginger, glanced up from a windowsill to blink at them, then settled back to sleep after a hearty yawn. Helen figured that dear old Ginger didn’t pine for Milton Grone and his shotgun any more than her owner.

Helen had been in Felicity’s kitchen often enough to know where everything was. Whistling tunelessly, she busied herself filling the teapot and setting it on the stove to boil. She gathered up two china cups and saucers from the cabinet, found the strainer and a tin of loose Earl Grey, and lined up everything on the tiled countertop.

“Don’t let Shotsie get you so worked up,” she said when Felicity let out a sad-sounding sigh. “You’ll drive yourself mad if you do.”

“I know, I know,” Felicity murmured, and raised trembling hands to unpin her hat from her crown. “It’s just that she always seems to be watching. I feel her eyes on me all the time. Even in my dreams. I barely slept a wink.” She set the straw hat aside and dropped her hands to her lap. “I’ve been hearing voices in the middle of the night,” she quietly admitted, “people arguing and a loud popping noise, like a gun.”

“It’s probably someone’s TV turned too loud or your imagination working overtime,” Helen told her, unearthing a box of butter cookies and bringing a plate of them to the table.

“True,” Felicity agreed. “But I’m a dreadful wreck regardless, and all because of him.”

Helen picked up a cookie. “What’s done is done,” she said. “No matter who killed Milton, he won’t ever be back. Shotsie told me she’s not staying on once everything’s settled, so soon you’ll be rid of her, too.”

Felicity picked at a cookie. “You don’t believe I did it, do you?”

“What?” Helen had taken a nibble of a cookie and bit her tongue instead. She flinched at the pain as much as the question, finally finding her voice to say, “For goodness’ sake, of course I don’t think you killed Milton.”

“But the shovel was mine.”

“You’d left it outside. Anyone could have used it.”

“But I had a good reason. I hated him enough to do it.”

Helen didn’t like seeing her friend like this. “Stop it! You’re innocent.”

“Shotsie doesn’t believe that,” Felicity went on, “and I’m not so sure about the sheriff.”

The teapot whistled, cutting off the chance to respond, and Helen quickly rose. She strained the tea and poured it into Felicity’s favorite sterling server, then collected the cream, spoons, and china on a tray and took it all to the table.

“You’ve got to forget what Shotsie said,” she insisted as she poured them each a steaming cup. “She’s pretty irrational right now.”

Felicity blew on her tea, saying nothing.

Helen patted her hand. “The local grapevine is painting you as something of a hero.”

“Pish posh,” Felicity said, but perked up. “What do the gossips say about the murder? Do you imagine Biddle will find the culprit soon?”

Helen took her friend’s hand and held it tight. No doubt Felicity was as unnerved by the goings-on as she was. They’d once felt secure in their own homes, only to have Milton’s murder take that away from them. “Frank Biddle might be a bit of a so-and-so, but he’ll figure this out,” Helen said, reassuring herself as much as Felicity.

“And until he does,” her friend added in a quiet voice, “we’ll just all have to stay on our toes.”

Helen found her gaze drifting over to the window where Ginger lay. Through the glass, she could clearly view the split-rail fence, and she thought of the patch of unkempt grass where they’d found Milton.

Someone had deliberately set the dead man’s head on a rock to give the impression that the gash was caused after he fell, not before. No stranger wandering into town would have felt the need to cover up the crime. And whoever struck the death blow had to be someone who knew that Milton had a history of heart troubles, like his father.

Much as Helen wished to believe that no one in River Bend could have acted with such violence, the facts didn’t lie.

She picked up her teacup, the brew hot enough to burn her tongue. Even so, it didn’t rid her of the sudden chill she felt, knowing that a killer lived among them.