Helen Hath No Fury (17 page)

I
HEARD
S
USAN’S INTAKES OF BREATH AS SHE GULPED IN
what I told her. “Now what?” she asked when I finished.

“Mackenzie suggested—and I agree—that we have to get the group together. We have to openly pool whatever we know or suspect or fear. If we don’t find out what this is about, how do we know what to do? How do we even protect ourselves?”

“Why’s somebody after us?” Susan said, echoing my earlier sentiments.

“That’s what we have to find out. So for convenience’s sake—yours—should we meet at your house tomorrow night or mine?”

“Mine,” Susan said. “Ear pauking.” Easier parking. Her pronunciation kept improving, so that she almost sounded like a lockjawed aristocrat. “Hey!” she said with almost her former vigor.
“Classic.
Gather all the suspects together—”

“This is our book group, not suspects!” I said. “Next you’ll say we’ll use the drawing room. Too bad you don’t have one.”

“Somebody’s knocking us off.”

“But not anybody who’ll be in that room, Susan.” Oh, how I hoped I was telling the truth. “There are other options.”

“Who?”

“Ivan Coulter. Mysterious whereabouts. Having an affair. Helen might have been very much in the way. Somebody altogether else. Somebody we don’t know about at all. Somebody who—are you ready?—doesn’t like books, has never heard of a book group. It could be anybody.”

“You fink ev’body tell truth? Right out?”

I thought about Clary and the missing funds, Roxanne’s nonmarriage, Tess and the psychological history, Wendy, who’d wanted to be partners with Ivan. Private things that should have been able to die along with Helen. Private things that would kill the book group.

“All in liv’ room,” Susan said. “And we name the killer!”

No wonder she couldn’t sell her book. “What’s going through your injured skull?” I asked. “A Nero Wolfe flashback? That isn’t how it happens—not even in books anymore.”

“They had more fun back then.”

We both sighed, I suspect for different reasons.

“So maybe instead … killer goes berserk and mows us all down. ’Cept the heroine. Who is the heroine of this one?”

I did not deign to honor that with a response.

“Okay,” she said. “Just joking.”

“It is good to hear that sanity has returned along with better enunciation. Six-thirty at your house tomorrow. Let people know. And I’ll have time after school to pick up sandwiches. Everybody can pay me back.”

“They never worry about food in books,” Susan said. “Did Miss Marple have hunger pangs? Sam Spade?”

N
EXT MORNING
, D
ENISE WAS HANGING ON, HER CONDITION
somewhat less perilous than it had been the night before. The papers were full of the news of her attack,
and in addition to the sorrow, the worry, the fear, and the confusion, what really rankled was that Denise’s attack served as free PR for her husband. I saw him on the morning news before I left for work, and there he was, son Zachary by his side like a younger reflection, both of them sorrowful but statesmanlike. However, Roy Stanton’s voice did break when he said the words
my wife.
And he did not use the opportunity to talk about our weakened moral fiber or any of the other campaign rhetoric he could have easily adapted to the situation.

Much as I still wanted to, even I would have had a hard time believing him guilty of anything except grief. Even without knowing that he was standing in an auditorium in front of a crowd when Denise was attacked.

“So how does it feel?” Mackenzie asked as I headed for the door.

I had no idea what he meant.

“Goin’ off to work for the first time as an engaged woman!”

I had forgotten. All it takes is attempted murder, and like that—my betrothal slips my mind.

He winked. “Cinderella got her prince. Happily-ever-afters on the horizon. The story grinds to a close.”

“That sounds fatal.”

His next question made it clear that while I may have popped the question, he was asking the crucial question. “When you going to tell your mother? Or did you diabolically plan this for the one time she’s inaccessible?”

How could I have forgotten my mother, for whom this would be her core experience? “She knows,” I said, listening to her purr in the background. “Trust me.”

“All the same, maybe we could pretend this happened after they get back. For the record, for the official announcement. Tell you what, next week, when they’re
home, I’ll propose. My turn. I’ll even ask your father for your hand.”

“And the rest of me, too, I sincerely hope.” I heard my mother chuckling. “You’re perfect,” I said, and then I really did have to leave, betrothed or not.

My marital status didn’t make a lot of difference in the teaching of how to use the semicolon or even in finishing
The Scarlet Letter.
Of course, it would make a considerable difference to the odds of my ever needing to wear a scarlet letter. I had a fleeting image of Hester Prynne walking down Walnut Street today with her scarlet
A
sewn on the front of her overalls or T-shirt. Amusing, except that it led to thoughts of Petra Yates, who might as well have been required to wear the letter. And of Helen, who in some sense had secretly worn it all those years.

At lunch, I knocked on the school counselor’s door, and Rachel and I talked for the entire hour, planning the Save Petra Yates campaign. We weren’t going to lie to her father, but we weren’t going to break Petra’s trust, either. Instead, we’d tell her father half the truth, the whole half the truth, and nothing but the half the truth. Emphasis on her despair, loneliness, and suicidal thoughts. He needed to hear the appalling stats on teen suicides. Rachel was going to call him immediately.

As for me, I’d called the book group about tonight’s meeting, and I also called the hospital four times during the day. Denise was still in critical condition and unconscious, but by some measure, still also “improved.” She was holding her own.

I wished I knew what she’d intended to tell me.

In the hopes of seeing at least one thing to completion, I sent messengers looking for my missing editor in chief. Cinnamon had to be told that her revisions were farcical and unacceptable. Together—and I’d be at the meeting this time—we could forge a final edition of the
InkWire
that wouldn’t be mortifying—even by Philly Prep’s low standards. But the deadline for copy was this week, and Cinnamon was not to be found. This might be a battle Host.

At three
P.M
., Rachel sent me a note. “Amazing! Mr. Y. came in immediately—solo. Agreed to fam. counseling! Keep fingers crossed—looks hopeful!”

It might actually work. Obviously, the man cared. He was weak and needed strengthening. He simply hadn’t wanted to see, to challenge his second wife and alter their dynamics. But now, his daughter was missing and he had to look. He had to see. It sounded as if he would. I breathed a bit more easily on behalf of Petra Yates.

Giving up on finding the evasive Cinnamon, who was undoubtedly off on some fashion quest, I packed my briefcase at end of day. Then I realized that I needed to take care of a few administrative chores, and I had the time to do it then. I had over an hour before I’d pick up sandwiches for tonight. I needed two student addresses and phone numbers—their failure warnings had gone unacknowledged. Time for a desperate last-ditch conference with the parents. Havermeyer’s philosophy of education was simple and to the point: If the families pay the bills, the children pass. We were allowed to set pedagogical standards—as long as we set them as low as it took to pass everybody. But they had to at least prove they were breathing. They had to go through the motions, and these students weren’t doing even that.

I went downstairs reluctantly—I always go to the office as reluctantly as a child in trouble with the principal. Dealing with the malevolent secretary, Helga, was never a joy.

The school was settling into quiet, with only isolated sounds here and there. I approached the walnut office
door when it swung open and Ivan Coulter emerged. We stared at each other.

“Mr. Coulter! I—what brings you here? Is Gretchen well?”

“I’m taking her out of school early.” He looked in pain. “For the term. She’ll miss a few weeks. I came over to make sure her teachers cooperate and don’t penalize her. She’s been through enough.”

I nodded.

“I’m taking her away. Really away. The problem with day trips like Longwood is that you still have to go home again. Now, we’re visiting her grandparents—my parents—and then, I’m not sure. I’m afraid for her. I don’t know what’s going on, but too much is. I’m hoping her teachers will allow her to write papers in lieu of final exams. Or base her grades on what she’s done so far.”

I was surprised he would bother explaining himself to me, but maybe Denise’s attack had made him rethink some things. Maybe I was no longer an archvillainess.

“I’m sure the staff will cooperate. You know, I’m not one of Gretchen’s teachers. You don’t have to even request anything of—”

“I know that. Your only relationship to her is that you keep sending the police to her door!”

Guess I was wrong about having been pardoned. “I never—”

“Your
boyfriend
did,” he said. “Same thing.”

So Mackenzie had decided, after the weekend, to push for a criminal investigation. Good for him. I didn’t express my pleased surprise, or inform Ivan Coulter that it hadn’t been my
boyfriend
who’d suggested to his fellow cops that a visit to the Coulters was a good idea. It had been my
fiancé.

I had a moment’s pride in Mackenzie’s ability to make things happen. In the quiet way he took care of things.

“I was sure Helen had jumped. Why wouldn’t I think that? It never crossed my mind that anyone would want to harm her, and the truth was, we were in the middle of a bad time, a very rough time. Not that I expected any such thing. But I didn’t believe she could have had an accidental fall because I couldn’t imagine why she’d be up on the roof on a workday at noon—leave work for the rooftop—unless she meant to jump.”

“The workman—”

“There were no workmen.”

“Roxanne thought—”

“I know. And now I think so, too. But then, what I knew for sure was that there were no workmen there. None of ours. I was right—and at the same time, wrong. It’s increasingly obvious that somebody was there. Somebody probably pretended to be involved in the roof project, and made an appointment with Helen. She was forever running back and forth from the office to check up on things. And our housekeeper’s peculiar command of English—if somebody spoke quickly and with authority, she pretended to understand. She’d let a person in if they had a convincing act, and she was easy to convince.”

I nodded. This was pretty much what I thought. This made sense.

“So I’m back to square one,” he said, “except that two more people have been seriously hurt and I can’t understand any of it. I want out of this. Most of all, I want Gretchen out of this. We’re leaving for an indefinite time. I can do my work from a distance.”

“But—”

“I’ve informed the police. I had nothing to do with any of this, do you understand? I know you meant well—all of you meant well—and in fact, you were right, apparently, and Helen was …” He shook his head. “But your efforts haven’t felt benign.”

“I apologize again.”

His voice softened. “I know it was out of love of Helen and concern for Gretchen.” He sighed. “But the maniac isn’t going to harm any more members of my family. I don’t even want Gretchen to know about it if anything more happens.”

We shook hands. It was quite odd. We hadn’t known each other, but our good-byes were heartfelt. As he took his hand from mine, he put it up, one finger pointing to the ceiling. “I forgot. About Roxanne. She’s got problems that she doesn’t want public yet, and I’m not giving any details, but instead of spreading rumors—”

“I honestly never—”

“Somebody is. My question is—why aren’t you all kinder to her? Your group is supposed to be friends. That’s what Helen and I were trying to be to her. Friends. Good neighbors.”

I thought of the women who had kept Roxanne’s secret. “We did try. We do. Please,” I said. “Even if it’s another woman—whatever it is, please say where you were that night. Because if you don’t, the police are probably going to keep visiting.”

“A threat?”

I shook my head. “An honest request. It won’t go any further. I promise. Where were you?”

Annoyance twisted his features. “The police know where I was. Your boyfriend probably knows. I was with my family. My parents.”

“Why be so mysterious about it then? Why not say that right away? You had to know it would throw suspicion on you.”

“It’s not against the law to have secrets. To respect privacy.” His sigh sounded near exasperation. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”

I nodded.

“Have you wondered what you’d do if they got into serious trouble?”

My sister Beth is the upright, solid sister. I had never thought of her in trouble, though I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d thought about me that way, and more than once.

“You’d help.” He didn’t seem to require confirmation. “But what if your sibling had done something so stupid—out of fear and confusion—so incredibly stupid that he was in danger of being locked up for it? Would you still help? I don’t actually care what your answer is. I would. I did. My brother is a good man, but he got desperate and did something idiotic. Understand that I in no way condone his act. It was criminal and wrong. It’s messed up my life and it was messing up Helen’s. Aside from the emotional toll, particularly on my parents, it prevented me from being part of a venture that would have required my capital.”

The deal with Wendy. Helen hadn’t stopped him, and it had nothing to do with Wendy’s unsavory fiancé and his underworld alliances. Ivan wasn’t who I’d thought. Nobody was.

“It’s taken time to undo it, and we were just ahead of the posse, so to speak. Helen was amazing. Astounded me how supportive she was. She didn’t have to be. Finally, we—I—she—got together the balance of what he owed, and now all of it has been returned. I was taking care of that last part of the mess the day she … the day it happened.”