Helens-of-Troy (2 page)

“How can I be lonely with you around,
Mr. Wagner?” She sensed a note of sorrow in his voice. “You’re like
family to me. Telling me all the who’s who and what’s what when I
first moved here, to Troy. I never would have guessed that Burt
McGee was the preacher’s illegitimate son. Not in a million
years.”

“Well, I still don’t know how you
figured out that Liz Delaney and Stacey Freeman were two sisters
who were separated at birth. They don’t even look alike. One’s a
redhead and one’s a blonde. That might be close enough to call, I
suppose, but one is a lot uglier than the other.”

“Call it woman’s intuition,” Helena
laughed.

“You’ve got more than your fair share
of that, girlie,” Mr. Wagner winked. “I sometimes wonder whether
you’ve got that E.S.P. thing going on. I really hope you don’t,
because if you really could read my mind, we probably wouldn’t be
friends.”

“I’m afraid I’m not very good at
reading people’s minds, Mr. Wagner. Although I know a few people
who can.” She paused for a moment, her lips coming together tightly
in a grimace. “You’d think they’d be happy with that gift, but no.
Me, I’d love to be able to do it.”

Mr. Wagner looked at her,
unconvinced.

“Rest assured, your deep dark secrets
are safe from me,” she admitted.

A look of relief crossed the old man’s
face.

“But,” Helena said, leaning in to him
so close that he could smell her sandalwood perfume, “if you swear
to take it to your grave, or at least lie and say you saw them both
on the beach, I’ll tell you how I figured it out. The sisters have
the same birthmark on their left shoulder. Identical. Shaped like a
pineapple. I put two and two together when they came to my practice
complaining about shoulder tension. That’s where we women carry our
stress.”

“If you say so,” he said, still
intoxicated by her presence. She was wearing a tight, striped
sweater that was cut low both in the back, and in the front. He
couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had a magnificent set of
ta-tas.

“It’s true, Mr. Wagner. You take a look
at them next summer.”

He coughed, and she realized where his
gaze was aimed.

“The sisters, Mr. Wagner. They both
spend hours in the sun and they’ve got the leathered skin to prove
it. I’ve got them on a vitamin E regimen.”

“If you say that’s how you figured it
out, I’ll pretend I believe it,” he winked. “But I still think
there’s more to you than the lovely picture you present to the
world.”

“You’re always great for my ego, Mr.
Wagner. I guess I do have a way with people. Well, with men anyway.
Women can be a little standoffish.”

“They’re just jealous. You just ignore
what Betty. Lachey is saying.”

“Why? What is Mrs. Lachey
saying?”

Mr. Wagner changed the subject. “Tell
you what, I won’t visit for the next little while. I’ll let you
enjoy your company all by yourself. You won’t need an old man
hanging around your house.”

Helena put her arm around her friend.
“Nonsense. I’m sure my granddaughter Ellie will love to hear your
gossip just as much as I do. She’s quite the talker herself, our
Ellie. She loves Halloween, as I recall. You’ll be able to laugh
about all the kids who were afraid to come up the steps. I’m sure
you’ll both find that amusing.”

“Children aren’t much for stories from
old folks these days,” he lamented.

“Well, Ellie’s not exactly a child. I
haven’t seen her myself for a few years. She was eleven then and
she’s fifteen now. I suspect she’s grown up quite a bit. I don’t
know how much she remembers about me. I wouldn’t be surprised if
she makes a little strange in the beginning, although I hope that
it’s not strained for long. I don’t know if I remember how to talk
to a teenager. It’s been a while.”

“That’s what happens,” he said sadly.
“They grow up and they have no time for you.”

“Well, they do get busy,” Helena
replied, knowing in her heart that the old man was right. Her only
daughter Helen rarely even phoned her. Just a card on her birthday
and a cheese tray at Christmas.

“That’s probably why the hairs on my
neck are standing up,” she thought to herself. “Why did Helen call
and ask if she and Ellie could come and stay for a while? Why
now?”

Her relationship with Helen was awkward
at best. It had been that way since Helen was a teenager. That’s
why the phone call last night had been disturbing. There was
something in her daughter’s voice that hinted there was more to the
story than she was initially letting on. Something that intuitively
told Helena that “Ellie wants to get to know you,” really meant
“Ellie’s in danger and you’ve got to help us.” Helen never was a
good liar.

“Don’t be upset if my daughter Helen
doesn’t seem friendly,” Helena explained to Mr. Wagner. “She’s like
that with everybody. I don’t know where she gets it from. I’ve lost
track of how many languages she can speak—French, Spanish,
Italian—but try and communicate on a human level? Well, that is a
whole other ballgame with her. I dare you to ask her
wazzup!”

“A little uptight is she? Okay, I won’t
take it personally. Thanks for letting me know.” He looked at the
dead man and sighed. The legs had fallen down again. “Are you sure
this stubborn old coot isn’t supposed to be me? I’m starting to see
a resemblance.”

“Take it easy, Mr. Wagner. Don’t let
him give you a fight. I can always ask one of the Lachey boys to
help me with him later.”

“Never you mind,” Mr. Wagner said. “You
put me in charge of him, and come hell or high water, in charge I
will be. Mr. Corpse here would frighten the bejeezies out of young
Stanley. I know he just had his eighth birthday, but he’s still a
bit of a baby if you ask me. You just go about your business. I’ll
tend to our friend here. I’ll be fine. It takes me a while longer
to do things, but I have no plans for the rest of the afternoon.
Especially since it looks like I won’t be doing any newspaper
reading anytime soon.”

“Maybe I didn’t make the legs right,”
Helena said, oblivious to his remark. “Anatomy wasn’t my strong
subject. I probably spent too much time on the head. Did you notice
the wound I made?”

“You mean the slit eyeball?”

“I spent a lot of time getting the
blood on it just right.”

“I can see that. Wonderful job. Brian
De Palma would be proud. Now go and make the beds or do whatever
you need to do. Leave him to the master. I’ll set those legs
straight. I’ll make the man look like rigor mortis has set
in.”

Helena laughed. “Oh Mr. Wagner, you
kill me. Well, not really, but you know what I mean. You’ve got
quite the funny bone. Tell you what, I’ll take you up on that offer
and leave you to it. I’ll be back in just a bit. If you need
anything, just holler.”

“Maybe there’s another blanket up there
in one of the bedrooms?” Mr. Wagner asked hopefully, but Helena had
already turned away, leaving him alone on the porch.

“I might as well join you on the
swing,” he said to the body, “for all the attention I’m getting
around here today.”

Helena walked into the house and headed
straight for the family-sized kitchen. She quickly filled the tea
kettle with water, placed it on the stove burner and turned it on.
The water would take a few minutes to boil, allowing her time to
rush upstairs and check the bedrooms.

She ran up the staircase faster than
she had ever done before. It winded her slightly, and she made a
mental note to bring the exercise bicycle out of storage for the
winter.

Standing inside the converted attic
bedroom on what was the third floor of the old house, she took a
look around the normally unused room. It was a good size, with
plenty of closet space that could be used for a teenager’s endless
wardrobe. As an added feature, there was a door opening to a little
balcony above the second floor. Helena knew Helen would be envious,
but she wanted Ellie to have this room. It would offer the teenaged
girl the privacy Helena knew Ellie would covet at that age. It
would also put a floor between Ellie and her mother, and that was
probably also a good thing at this point in all their lives. But it
needed a good dusting before nightfall.

“So much to do, so little time,” Helena
sighed. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. She could
hear the swing creaking on the porch, but soon tuned it out. She
was listening for non-earthly sounds. “You’re not fooling me,” she
said aloud. “I can feel it. The winds of change are blowing around
me, and I can tell they are not fair weather winds. So help me, if
you mess with my family, I will kick your ass.”

Her green eyes opened slowly and she
looked around the room. There was no sign that anyone else was
there, or that anyone else had heard her. “I need to get this room
ready for Ellie,” she said, not convinced. “So don’t even
start.”

Shaking off the shiver that was running
down her spine, she walked over to the old oak mirror hanging on
the wall. She was overwhelmed with the need to look over her own
shoulder. “Not that you’d show up anyway,” she acknowledged, gazing
into the reflection. “At least not during the day.”

She paused as if she were waiting for
an answer. The room offered her none. “I hope I’ve made myself
perfectly clear.”

Taking some sheets from the closet,
Helena made up the bed. Ellie’s bed. That thrilled her. Never in a
million years did she think her granddaughter would ever be under
her roof.

She spread out a handmade quilt that
some Amish friends had painstakingly made for her years ago. The
design was constructed from several pieces of patterned fabric laid
out like stained-glass windows, all on an off-white background. It
wasn’t the most modern of bedspreads, but it would be warm. The
room at the top of the stairs got quite chilly at night. Besides,
if Ellie didn’t like the bedspread, they could always take a trip
together into the city for a bed-in-a-bag. She wouldn’t take it
personally. It was a teenager’s prerogative to hate things. In the
meantime, the covert religious symbolism might not be such a bad
thing ― the crosses in the pattern covering her granddaughter at
night. It most likely wouldn’t mean anything to Ellie, but it would
make Helena sleep better, given the foreboding sensations of doom
she was having.

Helen, though…Helen would be another
story. Helen was smart. She’d figure out the symbolism of the bed
covering in about thirty seconds and there would be hell to pay.
Hell that would go on forever. “Not good,” Helena said, deciding to
roll back the bedspread to the foot of the bed. “What Helen doesn’t
know won’t hurt her. At least for now,” she said, opening the
balcony door to let some fresh air into Ellie’s room.

Leaving the door open behind her,
Helena went down the flight of stairs to the second floor and
headed for the room at the back of the house that would become
Helen’s.

That decision would have its own
problems. Having her daughter sleeping down the hall meant Helena
was going to have to behave herself. But other than banishing her
daughter to the cottage in the backyard— the space she used as her
medical office—where was Helen to sleep? She laughed. There were
only three bedrooms in the house. The room with the gaudy
peony-covered wallpaper that had been left by the previous owner
really was the only answer. Her daughter Helen would hate it. That
thought made Helena laugh a little harder.

“I’ll be nice when she gets here,”
Helena promised herself. “Okay, at least I’ll try to be
nice.”

She gave the room a once-over. She
regularly vacuumed the entire second floor, so there were no
cob-webs in the corners of the windows, or dust bunnies under the
bed. She knew Helen would check.

Satisfied, she went down the hall and
peeked in to her own bedroom, the master. It was tidy enough for
company. She looked around for telltale signs of her personal life.
Everything that needed to be hidden was.

Low whistles from somewhere outside the
room interrupted her train of thought and made her feel afraid.
“No,” she whispered, turning at the noise. “Not now. The girls are
coming.”

She listened intently for more telltale
sounds. Then she remembered—the tea! She gave her head a shake. A
sense of relief warmed her veins. The sound was coming from the
kitchen. She had completely forgotten about the orange pekoe. Poor
Mr. Wagner!

She ran downstairs and threw a couple
of teabags directly into the whistling kettle. There wasn’t much
point trying to be fancy. She hoped he would forgive her. “Tea,
paper, blanket,” she said as she gathered everything up and headed
outside to the front porch.

It was too late. Mr. Wagner had
left.

Helena put the tea down on the seat of
the now empty rocking chair. Across from it was a perfectly
positioned stuffed dead body lying across the swing. Apparently the
corpse had won that battle and remained supine despite Mr. Wagner’s
best intentions. The blanket had thoughtfully been placed over it
so the neighborhood kids wouldn’t see it too early.

“Nice job, Mr. Wagner,” she sighed. “I
guess I’ll see you later.”