Deceived (A Hannah Smith Novel) (9 page)

“We’ll need bug spray,” he said as I started away. “I’d like to see the Helms property from the water, then maybe get out and have a look around.”

It stopped me. Before I could ask, though, the special prosecutor tried to put me at ease, saying, “I don’t want to see the pond where the woman died, don’t worry. This has to do with an old murder case. I brought along the file so I can orient myself.”

“You mean her husband?” I said. “Dwight Helms’s murder, is that the one?” As I asked, Alice Candor vanished into the house, too, so I’d missed my opportunity to flash her a nasty look or maybe even say something when I got close enough.

“Yeah, killed by person or persons unknown,” Ransler said. “Do you remember the details? It was a long time ago—almost twenty years.”

“I don’t remember much about Mr. Helms, just that he looked like a giant to me. Wore a big cowboy hat. And that they never found the man who shot him.”

The prosecutor had stepped off the dock and was opening his car but looked up when I asked, “Joel? Is it a coincidence you’re reopening the case?”

“Unsolved murders are never closed,” he began, then stopped and puzzled over something. After a moment, he asked, “Did you say
shot
? Is that what people around here believe?”

Now I was confused. “Yes, by drug dealers, outsiders supposedly. Shot once or twice in the back of the head. If the killer was caught, I never heard about it—”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Hannah. Parents . . . Yeah, I can see why they wouldn’t want their kids to know the details. This many years later, when locals talk about the murder, I’m surprised they don’t . . .” The man paused to reconsidered. “
There’s
the explanation. It happened so long ago, old-timers don’t discuss it.”

“That’s true,” I said, still confused. “No one’s proud of something like that. But are you telling me Dwight Helms
wasn’t
shot by drug dealers?”

Ransler’s tone became dismissive as he opened the trunk of his Audi and reached in. “Forensic science wasn’t very good in those days, that’s why I’m bringing the file along. Until I see for myself, though”—he stepped away from the car, holding an open briefcase—“let’s talk about that job I offered you.”

Job?
I had guessed right, but now he got down to details, explaining, “My office has a budget to hire outside help—Tallahassee money earmarked to track consumer fraud. That’s how big the problem is. Here, does this look familiar?”

He handed me a manila envelope that contained the pamphlet I’d seen on the floor in the Helmses’ living room. Same old-timey photo of a woman stirring a cauldron, an architect’s drawing of a modern building beneath—the mock-up of a museum, I read for the first time—and in bold white typeface:

PRESERVE OUR HERITAGE
JOIN FISHERFOLK of SOUTH FLORIDA Inc.

“These things were scattered all over the floor,” I said, then looked at the back where there was a simple pledge form that solicited donations of $10, $20, $50—just check the box—and a fill-in-the-blank space for
Other
. If it was a swindle, at least the con men weren’t being overly greedy, which I told Joel.

“Maybe it’s legitimate, maybe it’s a soft pitch that leads to bigger money,” he replied. “That’s not unusual. I have only two people on my staff and we’ve got seventy, eighty of these so-called charities to check out. Those are just the ones we’ve flagged. There are fifty
thousand
charities registered in this state, did you know that?”

I looked at the pamphlet again. The fine print said that Fisherfolk of South Florida Inc. was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations tax-deductible. The address was a P.O. box in Carnicero, a little crossroads town, inland Florida.

“Carnicero’s in Sematee County?” I asked.

“Yep—I always picture carnival people because of the name. In the envelope there’s preliminary information that’ll explain why I flagged the organization.”

“Your friend Mr. Chatham probably knows something about this,” I said. “I don’t know if his family fished, but the Chathams have been in Florida a long time.”

“Del’s never heard of it, and that’s another red flag. So’s the fact that Rosanna Helms had a whole stack of these forms. Chances are, she gave them out to her friends. Maybe
they
have a stack, too, which could mean it’s some kind of pyramid scheme. I need someone local, an insider, to follow up in person and do the research. By law, I can only hire an investigator licensed and bonded by the state, so you’re a perfect fit.”

“Actually, it was my Uncle Jake’s business,” I replied. “And I’ve got a lot of charters already booked, so I—”

“This isn’t high priority, so you can work around your charters. We’ll pay whatever the rate schedule allows by the state. If this Fisherfolk thing is legitimate, you’ll know soon enough—then I’ll throw more cases your way.” The man offered me a confidential smile. “For me, it’s a win-win because hiring you gives me a built-in excuse to—”

Do what?
Stay in touch? Meet for dinner? Try to lure me into bed—that
wasn’t
going to happen. Ransler didn’t offer a hint because his cell rang again, this time with important business.

“Gotta run,” he told me, pocketing his phone. “An actual murder—they just found the body.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Can’t say. Oh”—the special prosecutor looked over his shoulder as he walked toward his car—“can we postpone our trip until this afternoon? I could be back by one, maybe two.”

I shook my head. I had a charter scheduled for the afternoon, a woman who wanted to learn fly-casting, and her son who was home from college.

“Wednesday morning, then,” Ransler pressed. “I’ve got meetings tomorrow.”

I don’t like being rushed, and was also troubled by the man’s subtle flirting, so I shook my head and lied, “The biologist I’m dating? He’s already booked me for Wednesday. All day.”

Ransler thought that was humorous. It caused him to smile as he opened the door of his Audi. “Your boyfriend has to book a date? Or do you mean you charge him to fish?”

“We’re collecting
specimens
,” I responded as if that explained everything.

“Then make it tomorrow, I’ll change my calendar. Afternoon or morning?” Ransler, who should have been on his way to a murder scene, stood, loose-jointed and amused, awaiting my answer.

“Tomorrow same time,” I told him, which was safer than risking another ridiculous lie.

Loretta was napping when I got to the house, Alice Candor and the nosy little man with the camera were nowhere to be seen, so I opened my laptop, still fuming, and searched for details on a murder that had gone unsolved for twenty years. I had a dozen more important things to do but couldn’t stop myself. Joel Ransler had been evasive about how Dwight Helms had died.
Why?
My secret fear was that Helms, instead of being shot, had been killed with an axe, which was a wild suspicion but so unsettling I was determined to prove myself wrong.

The old newspaper stories I found, though, weren’t helpful, because accessing the archives required a paid subscription. Should I find my wallet and use a credit card? Or wait until I was at my Uncle Jake’s office where our computer was authorized to search restricted state and federal files? I decided to wait because the crime databases would offer more information than newspaper stories that were twenty years old.

No . . . twenty-one years old, according to the abstracts I read. Dwight Helms’s body had been found in May after a tip to police from “an unnamed informant.” Helms had also been arrested the previous month for leaving the scene of an accident and charged with DUI. A year earlier, he had been arrested but not charged after police found a bale of marijuana in his abandoned pickup truck.

Ransler had said Crystal Helms was living in a trailer park not far from Sulfur Wells, so I did a quick search on her, then on her brother, Mica. Like their father, the lives of both were summarized by a series of police reports that recorded the saddest of family traditions, but nothing so new as a phone number or address.

The Internet wastes a lot more of my time than it saves, which I remind myself about daily, yet it’s hard to tear myself away from the keyboard once I get started. I had a ton of things to do—background searches on Alice Candor and Joel, among them, which required the office computer—but I found myself checking my e-mail in hopes of a note from Ford. No luck, which wasn’t surprising because he had warned me that communication was difficult from Venezuela.

Steered by Ransler’s claim there were thousands of charitable organizations in Florida—a few of them fraudulent—I moved on to the subject of scam artists.

He had been right about elderly Americans being a favorite target. Most of them owned property, they had retirement funds and money socked away. Scammers working from the safety of foreign countries—Jamaica, most commonly—preyed on their fragility and loneliness like carrion birds.

There was a long list of gambits: Make contact by phone, Internet, or, better yet, by registered mail—pose as an IRS agent and demand back taxes. Or claim to be a mortgage company that is foreclosing unless a forgotten lien is paid. Threaten to disclose an unnamed crime—by age eighty, we’re all guilty of something, right? Deliver the good news that a million-dollar lottery prize will be shared once the “fees” are paid. If U.S. authorities expose or confront the scammers, so what? They change their cell numbers, invent a new scenario, and return to picking the bones of the innocent living. The scammers’ greatest assets, I read, were America’s inattentive adult children who confused the term
professional care
with
family care
.

These stories were so upsetting that when I heard my mother’s bedroom door open and the sound of her shuffling feet, I found myself rushing to help her into the recliner and then fetched her tea after spending several minutes searching for the TV remote, which she had stored with the dish towels, God knows why.

“Are you drunk or did you bump your head?” Loretta demanded when I offered her a pillow. Then called to Mrs. Terwilliger, who was outside picking tomatoes, “Donna, get in here! Something’s wrong with Hannah and she’s scaring me!”

It was then my mother noticed the Fisherfolk of South Florida pamphlet I’d left on the desk. Instantly, her demeanor changed. “My dear lord,” she moaned, “Pinky’s dead, that’s why you’re being so nice. I told you when it was happening. Was she murdered?”

I hadn’t received confirmation from Joel Ransler, but I also couldn’t lie—not after the stories I’d just read about ignoring the elderly. “It’s not official, Mamma, but, yes, Mrs. Helms was found last night. She wasn’t murdered, though, she died naturally—out for a nice walk. She didn’t suffer at all.”

For several minutes, my mother cried, halting her tears long enough to tell me what a good woman Rosanna Helms had been, then mixing in stories about the fun they’d had as girls. “We were always there for each other,” she sniffled. “Except for the years we weren’t speaking, I’ve never had a closer friend!”

I said the things people always do under those circumstances while I knelt by the recliner and waited for Loretta to get hold of herself. She finally did, and was still in control after I’d returned with a fresh box of tissues, her eyes rheumy as grapes when she looked up at me. “You searched Pinky’s house yesterday. Didn’t you tell me that?” She had the date wrong, but I was struck by how unusually lucid my mother sounded.

“Yes, late Friday afternoon, but Mrs. Helms wasn’t there,” I said, once again omitting details about my attacker.

Her attention shifted to the pamphlet and she sighed. “So now you know the truth, I suppose.”

“Truth about what?” I asked.

“You know what I’m talking about. Why torture me by not saying it?”

“You’re upset,” I replied. “You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”

“I don’t?” she asked as if surprised. Then she began her nervous habit of tapping thumbs against middle fingers, a sure sign her mind was working hard at something. It made me suspicious.

“Know the truth about
what
?” I asked again, voice firmer.

Loretta’s thumb tapping stopped. It meant she had come to a realization or had settled on a strategy—seldom did it mean she was about to speak the truth. This time was different, apparently, because she replied, “Teddy Roosevelt’s fishing reel. And the book you mentioned . . . And a bunch of other junk nobody cared about until you went snooping. I had Levi drive it all to Pinky’s place.”

I had been comforting the woman by patting her shoulder but decided she had received enough comforting for one day. I pulled my hand away and stood straight.
“Snooping?”
I said. “Granddaddy left those things to the family in his will. That Vom Hofe reel alone was worth a thousand dollars—I looked it up on the Internet. Why in the world did you give it to Pinky?”

Loretta exchanged her tissue for the TV remote and swung her face toward the television. “Don’t begrudge a dead woman a bunch of old fishing tackle you never used in the first place.”

“That’s not an answer,” I countered. “Besides, more than just a reel is missing. Where are the framed photos of Great-grandma and Aunt Sarah? There was a mesh gauge for weaving nets that was over a hundred years old. And a bill of sale for cattle from the Confederate Army signed by—”

“Which is why it belongs in a museum, not your Uncle Jake’s Army trunk!” Loretta interrupted. Then snapped, “Pinky’s dead—go to her house and steal the junk back, if you want it so bad. She’s not around anymore to stop you!”

I had suspected a connection between our missing antiques and the drawing of a museum on the pamphlet, so what I’d just heard wasn’t shocking news. What bothered me was the look of secret triumph fixed on Loretta’s face. There had to be a reason. Had she intentionally steered me to the subject of Teddy Roosevelt’s fishing reel to avoid admitting something far more serious? Yes, I decided. It explained why she’d appeared surprised when I declared she had nothing to feel guilty about.

“There’s something you’re not telling me, Loretta,” I said.

“Next, you’ll be accusing me of a crime,” she responded, “or of sleeping with a married man—as if
you’ve
got room to talk.”

Now I was very suspicious. Never before had she tried to bait me by alluding to a love affair she had kept secret for years—but that’s what she was now attempting.

I knelt by the recliner again and asked for the third time, “Tell you the truth about
what
, Loretta? You were afraid I found something when I was at Mrs. Helms’s house. What are you hiding from me?”

Right away, from the sad, sincere look my mother gave me, I knew what came next was a lie or another small truth meant to throw me off the track. “It’s about that membership form you found at Pinky’s,” she said, meaning the Fisherfolk pamphlet. “I think you’ll be proud when I explain about our family history’s being preserved. But, Hannah darlin’? You’re the one who never used Teddy Roosevelt’s fishing reel or the rest of that junk, so please don’t get mad when I do.”

•   •   •

FUMING ONCE AGAIN,
I let the porch door bang close and was almost to the dock when I noticed that Levi Thurloe was across the street, standing in the mangroves, watching me. Not hiding, exactly . . . Or maybe the strange man
was
hiding because he backed deeper into the bushes as I approached the road. Never in my life had Levi frightened me, but he did now—a silent presence dressed in coveralls who looked huge in the shadows and was holding something, a tool or a broken branch, in his hand.

I had to make a decision. If I crossed the road, as I’d intended, the path to the dock would take me within a few yards of Levi. Turn right, the road curved along the bay toward the marina and the row of rickety docks and cottages we called Munchkinville. Because of what Loretta had just told me, I had a reason to go there. I wanted to knock on every door and ask owners if they, too, had donated some of their property, or even all of it, to a nonprofit organization that was collecting for a museum that, for all Loretta knew, existed only in the mind of some architect she’s never met. Even if Joel Ransler hadn’t offered me the job, it was a task I would have undertaken because that’s exactly what my mother had done—signed over some of her property, how much I was still uncertain.

“It’ll save me taxes!” was the only explanation she would offer.

I thought for a moment, then turned right to avoid Levi but took only a few strides before my spineless behavior angered me enough to reconsider. No one, especially a poor, brain-damaged man I’d known since childhood, was going to scare me away from my own boat. So I did an about-face and crossed the road, calling, “Come out of those bushes, Levi, before mosquitoes eat you alive!”

Instead of doing it, though, the man crouched lower as if unconvinced I could see him. It was a strange reaction even for Walkin’ Levi, which should have stopped me in my tracks but only made me more determined. “You come out of there and talk to me or I’ll come in and get you!”

Several slow steps the man took, his weight crunching branches, before he appeared in the shadows next to a buttonwood tree. A hammer—that’s what he was holding in his right hand.

“I don’t know nothing,” he mumbled, responding to a question I hadn’t asked. Then lifted his head enough to look at me, which was unusual and didn’t last long but enough to notice that his eyes appeared as glazed and cold as glass. His earbuds were still missing, too, so maybe the absence of music had left the man alone in his head. Or had his expression
always
been so empty? He avoided eye contact, so I couldn’t be sure, but I had an uneasy feeling that something inside Levi Thurloe had changed.

The boldness in me vanished. “I’m . . . sorry, Levi, I shouldn’t have raised my voice like that.”

The man’s chin dropped to his chest. He looked at his muddy boots, looked at the hammer, then picked a leaf off his coveralls, which he rolled between his fingers.

Now what should I do?
Leave him alone,
a voice in me said.
Keep moving and pretend this never happened.
But we were here, only a few yards apart, and there could be no avoiding a handyman who worked next door. So I pushed ahead, saying, “Loretta told me you used the truck to deliver a box to Mrs. Helms. That she
asked
you to do it and you had permission. I shouldn’t have doubted you the other day. You forgive me?”

A shrug was my reply. Levi began tapping the hammer against his thigh—hopefully because he was eager for me to be gone and not because he was agitated. What I wanted to ask was
Why were you so frightened on Pay Day Road?
but couldn’t summon the courage. So I kept my tone chatty and stuck to a subject that had to be addressed. “I’m sure you took great care of the truck, no need to discuss that. But the thing is, Levi—”

He sensed a rebuke, and the man’s nostrils widened to gather air, which caused me to pause, before I continued, “The thing about using the truck is, you probably shouldn’t drive unless you have a license. See . . . my mother’s not as fussy as some when it comes to breaking the law or going to jail. But if the police pulled you over, and if they checked your—”

I stopped talking because, for the second time in my life, Walkin’ Levi risked eye contact, and what I saw scared me.
The police—
my choice of subjects could not have been more thoughtless. It
was
the source of the problem between us. Because of me, Levi had been questioned by Billy, the tough detective, and he was still mad. I had no idea why anger had motivated him to spy on me from the mangroves, but now was not the time to discuss the police or even to hint that Levi might be arrested.