Not a Chance in Helen (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

T
HE PAIR PULLED
apart as fast as they were able. Jemima smoothed down her dress and righted her yellow hat, which had been knocked cockeyed. Stanley wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, though he still wore a trace of lipstick on his upper lip.

“My word, woman, haven’t you ever thought to knock?” he growled.

Helen simply stared.

Jemima fingered her pearls. “I just came in to use the restroom, and I happened to bump into Stanley . . . uh, Mr. Duncan.”

I’ll say she did, Helen mused. She bumped into him so hard their lips locked.

“Well, I, uh, was just leaving,” Jemima murmured after composing herself. “So if you’d excuse me.”

Jemima came forward and tried to sidestep her, but Helen backed up to the door. She put her hand on the knob. “I think it’d be a good idea if you both just stayed put. I imagine the sheriff would like the chance to find out what’s really going on between you. I know I’m curious myself.”

Stanley and Jemima exchanged glances.

The knob rattled then turned. Helen felt the door nudge open and quickly stepped out of its path.

“What’s going on?” Jean looked into the room, the frustration on her face changing to confusion. “Zelma got herself so worked up she fainted. Fanny Melville’s got some smelling salts out, but I should really take her home.” She glanced at Helen though her eyes kept flickering back to Stanley and Jemima. “I figured you’d want to know.”

“I’m sorry I was so slow,” Helen said. “But something besides the tea towels caught my eye.”

Jemima’s head reared, and suddenly she appeared more like her old self. “Why, you’re not going to
tell
her, are you?” Her voice crackled. She crossed her arms over her breasts, the floral silk of her dress swaying with her indignation. “Of all the people . . . it would have to be you who butted your nose in where it didn’t belong.” She swiveled to Stanley. “She’s got the biggest mouth in town! She’ll twist everything all around, and by the time it gets to the sheriff’s ears, he’ll be ready to slap us in handcuffs!”

Helen blinked, trying not to take offense at the remark, considering the source. Jemima Winthrop was more than likely a murderer, or at least an accomplice. Compared to that, being called a gossip didn’t seem so awful.

“Hey, none of this is my fault,” Stanley countered. “You’re the one who wants to hook up in the strangest places.”

“Me?” Jemima shot back. “Well, you’re the one who couldn’t bear to wait another minute to put your paws all over me.”

“Hey, don’t go acting shy now, when you were the one who came after me like a cougar in heat.”

“A cougar in heat?” Jemima repeated, looking truly pissed off.

“You heard me,” Stanley told her.

“How could I not, the way you’re yelling.”

“
I’m
yelling? Of all the crazy . . . “

Helen felt as if she were watching Wimbledon, with the ball going back and forth, back and forth.

Jean stood in the doorway, wide-eyed. Her face was white as ash.

“What in tarnation is all this shouting?” Helen heard the sheriff sputter. Jean moved out of the way, and Frank Biddle entered the powder room.

“Ah, Mrs. Evans,” he said, like that explained everything, and Helen pointed at Jemima and Stanley, who still argued, nose to nose.

“I caught them red-handed,” she said before adding, “in a clench.”

“You don’t say?” The sheriff hiked up his belt. “Break it up,” he said as the pair continued to squabble. “Enough’s enough.” Biddle firmly moved Helen aside to reach Jemima and Stanley. He separated them, stepping in the middle like a boxing official stopping a fight.

“You ass,” Jemima said, and Helen couldn’t tell if she meant Biddle or Stanley.

“Crazy woman,” Stanley shot back, hoping he didn’t mean her.

They both crossed their arms and glared.

Biddle shook his head at them before he fixed his gaze on Helen. He sighed loudly. “Okay, Mrs. Evans, want to tell me what you’ve started now?”

Helen resisted the urge to say something she might regret. Instead, she jerked her chin at Jemima and Stanley. “There’s something going on between them, all right, just as I told you. When I walked in, I saw the two of them kissing.”

“Busybody,” Jemima whispered but pressed her lips tight again.

Stanley shifted on his feet.

“You’re so focused on Jean that you can’t see what’s right under your nose,” Helen told Biddle, gesturing at Jean, who lingered near the door. “These two have some explaining to do, Sheriff, don’t you think? For all we know, they murdered Eleanora and painted Jean as the prime suspect! Why else would they hide their relationship?”

Biddle cleared his throat, glancing from Jemima to Stanley. “She’s got a point, you know. I’d like to hear what the both of you have to say.”

“Are you arresting us, Sheriff?” Stanley spoke out first. “If that’s the case, let me step into the other room and get my lawyer. That pretty young thing works for the Duncan family, you know.”

“Why don’t you can it, Stan?” Jemima blurted out. “It’s time to spill.”

“But, Jemmy, you said that we had to keep on the down low—”

“I’m done with sneaking around,” she cut him off. “Don’t you get the picture? If we don’t tell the truth, the whole town’s going to think we murdered Eleanora. Mrs. Evans will make sure of it.” She gave Helen the stink eye.

Helen didn’t even flinch. “Did you kill Eleanora?”

“I certainly didn’t poison the old biddy,” Stanley said.

“And neither did I,” Jemima chimed in. “No matter what anyone thinks,” she added, looking directly at Helen. Then Jemima reached for Stanley’s hand and held it, her face softening. “We’ve been seeing each other for years, if you must know. I’d usually have to go meet him somewhere outside of town. It was too risky being seen together around here, especially with the bad blood between our families.” She hesitated. “I couldn’t take the chance of anyone finding out we’d gotten married.”

“Married?” Helen caught her breath.

Jean slipped inside the doorway, hands on her cheeks. “How?” she asked. “When?”

Jemima didn’t take her eyes off Stanley as she answered, “We saw a justice of the peace a week ago. That’s why Stanley came back. He said he wanted to talk to Eleanora about getting his mother’s wedding ring. Marvin had always promised he could have it if he ever found anyone worthy of settling down.”

Was that why he’d been in Eleanora’s house the other day, tearing the place apart? Helen wondered. Zelma had thought he was looking for money, but all he’d mentioned was wanting “what was mine.”

“I didn’t want my mother to know,” Jemima went on, a catch in her voice. “I couldn’t risk pushing her even further into madness. She’s living on the brink as it is, sometimes lucid and sometimes . . .” She sighed. “I was afraid that knowing Stanley and I were together would kill her, and I’d already lost Daddy to the Duncans.” She peered at Helen from beneath her hat’s yellow brim. “You saw what a fragile state she’s in. If she even heard mention of Eleanora, it sent her spiraling downward.”

And there’s the rub, Helen thought, speaking up. “So if Eleanora was out of the way, you two could stop sneaking around?”

Jemima’s eyes went wide. “I never said that!”

“Were you figuring, too,” Helen went on, “that Stanley would inherit the Duncan fortune? Then he could return to you what you’ve always believed Marvin and Eleanora stole from your family, including that acreage by the harbor you want for a new library. With the way prices of real estate have gone up around here lately, it’s probably worth a pretty penny.”

“Stop it, no!” Jemima cried out. “No, that’s not it! I mean, we discussed the fact that Stanley might inherit something, but we never talked of killing her. We just had to be patient.”

“Yes, patient,” Stanley echoed and squeezed Jemima’s hand.

But Helen didn’t buy a word of it.

“Jean? Jean, where did you go?” A soft voice preceded the shuffle of footsteps, and Zelma was at the door, her cheeks red and tear-streaked. Behind the huge Coke bottle glasses, her tiny eyes appeared puffy and pink. “I want to go home,” she mewled.

“Yes, of course,” Jean said and took her arm.

“I’ll drive you,” the sheriff said and headed out after them.

Helen couldn’t believe he was leaving Jemima and Stanley and not hauling them down to the station! She dogged his footsteps, telling him, “If I were you, Frank Biddle, I’d strongly take Eleanora’s will into consideration. With so much money involved, as well as control of Duncan Industries, there’s plenty of cause for those two to poison Eleanora. Why, even if they counted on Stanley receiving just a fraction, it’s good enough reason for murder in my book.”

Why was he shaking his head, for heaven’s sake?

“The money trail,” Helen said, not letting go. “Can’t you see where it leads?”

He stopped in his tracks and turned around. Jean and Zelma did the same.

“It doesn’t lead to them,” he said, looking smugly at Helen. “I spoke with Eleanora Duncan’s lawyers this morning.”

Stanley and Jemima emerged from the powder room in time enough to catch Biddle saying, “Stanley Duncan isn’t a beneficiary. No one is, not an actual person, anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” Stanley snapped. “I’m the only surviving Duncan! The old bat must’ve left me something.”

Jemima cocked her head, crooking her yellow hat.

Jean clutched Zelma to her more tightly. “What did she do? Leave everything to charity?”

Oh, dear, Helen thought, surely Eleanora hadn’t bequeathed her millions to Save the River? If Floyd Baskin was getting it all, she’d eat her party hat.

“It won’t go to a charity, ma’am,” the sheriff said and cleared his throat. “It’s going to Lady Godiva. Looks like Eleanora left the whole kit and caboodle to the cat.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

H
ELEN INSISTED ON
riding back to Eleanora’s house in the sheriff’s car with Zelma. Jean had decided against going back to Eleanora’s—“I wouldn’t feel right,” she’d told Helen, “not until Biddle’s got this thing solved”—and Lady Godiva would be escorted home by the attorney after the party was over.

As they pulled up in front of the Victorian mansion, Helen gazed up at the pillared veranda with a sigh, wondering if it was Lady Godiva’s house now. How did a cat pay bills? Or hire someone to mow the lawn? She still couldn’t get over the fact that Eleanora would leave her assets to a feline.

Helen loved Amber dearly, but she couldn’t imagine bequeathing her estate to him.

Once they got inside, Zelma said she was feeling better but excused herself to use the restroom. Helen attacked the cupboards in the kitchen, scrounging up tea bags, cups, and saucers.

“It’s not quite like it sounds,” Biddle explained from his seat at the kitchen table. “The lawyers tell me everything’s set up on a bunch of conditions. It pretty much goes like this.” He cleared his throat. “As long as Lady Godiva’s being cared for, Zelma can stay in the house just like always. She’ll get a salary to keep up the place, much as she did when old Mrs. Duncan was alive and kicking.”

“So Stanley doesn’t inherit a penny?” Helen asked.

“Not a red cent.”

“I still can’t believe it,” Helen said as she filled the teakettle and put it on the stove to boil. “I just can’t believe she’d do this to Zelma. The poor dear has given her life to Eleanora and her family. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

For once, Biddle appeared at a loss for words. He met her eyes, shaking his head. “No, ma’am,” he said, “it doesn’t.”

Oh, Eleanora! Helen couldn’t help thinking. How could you have done this to Zelma, and her so devoted? Helen could only imagine how devastated Zelma must be, how crushed to find that her Miss Nora placed a cat in higher esteem than a whole life of service.

The teakettle whistled, the shrill noise cutting through Helen’s thoughts. She quickly pushed them aside, fixing up three cups of Earl Grey.

She added a sugar bowl and spoons to a tray and carried it over to the table, handing one cup to Biddle and setting the others out for herself and for Zelma, though the housekeeper had still not reappeared.

Helen sighed, settling into a chair across from the sheriff and warming her hands on the teacup. “So where does that leave you?” she asked, looking up. “As far as the investigation goes, I mean?”

Biddle toyed with his tea, stirring in a heaping spoonful of sugar, the steam rising like a veil before his face. “I think it leaves me where I started. So far as I’m aware, no one but the lawyers knew about the terms of Eleanor’s will. So money’s still a motive and, of course, good old-fashioned hate.” He looked Helen straight in the eye. “Both seem to support a case against Jean Duncan.”

She stared at him. “You can’t mean it?”

“I do.”

Helen squared her shoulders and glared at him. “I don’t believe it,” she told him, “and neither will a jury of her peers.”

He raised a hand to quiet her. “Consider the facts,” he said.

“The facts as you see them,” Helen murmured and pushed aside her tea, feeling the strain of this morning—and of the days before it—wearing her patience paper-thin.

“Think about the evidence,” Biddle went on, rising to his feet. He stepped away from the table and paced around it, slapping one hand on the other for emphasis. “It pointed to her from the beginning. My gut told me she did it. If you think about it, everything fits.” He paused across from her and planted his palms on the table, the resolution plain in his face. “Her fingerprints were on the container of pâté.”

“As were Zelma’s prints,” Helen reminded him, “and Eleanora’s.”

“Jean admitted to putting the containers in the refrigerator. She had Splat in her kitchen at home. No one would’ve been the wiser if things had gone according to plan, if Zelma hadn’t panicked when Eleanora was having spasms and come after me.”

She had certainly panicked, Helen thought, remembering how agitated Eleanora’s housekeeper had been the night she’d shown up at the diner. She’d been positively broken up. It was such a stark contrast to her subdued reaction when the sheriff had divulged that Lady Godiva was the beneficiary of Eleanora’s assets.

Zelma had acted like a zombie, not saying a word during the drive from town hall in Biddle’s car. Compared to her histrionics at Eleanora’s “goodbye party”—for want of a better description—Zelma had taken the news about the will stoically. It was almost as if she’d already known.

“Ma’am?”

She glanced up to find the sheriff watching her. He’d tugged his hat on his head and looked ready to go.

“I asked if you’d like a ride home.”

Helen couldn’t leave Zelma just yet. “No, I’ll stay a bit,” she told him.

He seemed relieved when she turned him down.

“I am sorry how things turned out,” he apologized, “but I’m just doing my job.”

Helen imagined that was what Judas told himself, but she bit her tongue. She sat at the table with the teacup in her hands, feeling completely ineffectual as Biddle shrugged and headed out of the house. He was probably on his way to arrest Jean.

Good heavens.

She grabbed her phone out of her purse and dialed Jean’s number, cursing under her breath when she only got voice mail.

Where was Jean? Surely she couldn’t still be at town hall?

Helen left a message—“The sheriff’s not budging, I’m afraid, so you might want to get a lawyer on the horn”—then she hung up, realizing there was little Jean could do beyond that except to stay out of Biddle’s reach for a while. It wasn’t as if she could run off to Brazil.

Helen tried to convince herself that everything would work out, that it would be all right. She had always been so convincing when she’d said it to her kids and grandkids. So why didn’t she believe it now?

She thought of going home and reading a book or doing a crossword puzzle, anything to take her mind off this befuddling case.

But first she needed to find Zelma, who seemed to have disappeared since their arrival back at the Duncan house. Had she decided to lie down?

She went left from the hallway out of the kitchen, passing a laundry room and finding the door to the housekeeper’s room half opened. The bed was neatly made, the bureau top devoid of objects, and the floor perfectly swept. The attached bathroom was small but tidy.

It was as though no one really lived there.

On a whim, Helen tugged at the top dresser drawer, pulling it toward her.

It was empty.

She pushed it closed and opened the second drawer, then the third after that. All were bare save for the faded floral liner at the bottom.

Her heart thudding, she checked the small closet. A dozen wire hangers littered the floor. There were no shoes, no suitcase stored above. Nothing.

Had Zelma cleared her things out even before the party? Had she been planning to take off before Biddle even found whoever had killed Eleanora?

Helen stared at her own puzzled reflection in the mirror, and something hit her.

Oh, no. No, that couldn’t be right.

Thoughts began to race through her brain, connecting bits and pieces that she hadn’t been able to string together until that very moment.

Jean’s fingerprints were the only ones found on the container besides Eleanora’s and Zelma’s. But Zelma had told the sheriff Jean had put away the food herself.

The housekeeper had taken the news about Eleanora’s will without expression, as though it had come as no great shock. Had she known about Eleanora’s plans to leave her estate to the cat?

“Oh, Zelma,” Helen whispered to the mirror, frowning at herself. Was it possible? Had she been so intent on rooting out Eleanora’s enemies that she’d overlooked someone very, very close?

There was only one way to find out.

Helen stepped out into the hallway and began to walk. “Zelma?” she called out as she hurried through each of the rooms downstairs, not finding the housekeeper in any one of them.

Despite feeling worn down by the past few days, Helen made herself trudge up the stairs and peered into each of the bedrooms. But still there was no sign of the missing housekeeper. Up to the third floor she went, doing the same as before, having no luck there either.By the time she’d explored all the rooms, her clothes felt sticky against her skin. She wiped a sleeve against her damp brow, wondering where on earth Zelma could be.

Helen hadn’t heard a car start. Even still, she headed downstairs to check the garage. Beside an older-model Mercedes that had once belonged to Marvin, there was a brown four-door sedan that Helen realized must belong to Zelma.

She went up to the car and peered through the windows.

Lo and behold, a small suitcase lay on the backseat with a smaller tote bag set in the well. Helen leaned her head against the glass, feeling defeated.

Could Zelma truly have killed her mistress? Why else would she be packed and ready to run?

Helen backed away from the dark brown Ford but stopped at the sight of the grill. Before her eyes flashed an image of the car that nearly ran Eleanora down.

Could it have been Zelma?

Miss Nora hired me when I was just sixteen.

Zelma had never married, had never had a life of her own apart from the one Eleanora Duncan had given her. She’d devoted herself to Eleanora’s family. Had she grown to resent her mistress after so much time? Especially when she’d learned that Eleanora had left her nothing but her regular salary so long as she cared for Lady Godiva? Zelma had given up everything for Eleanora, and Eleanora had given her so little in return.

So money’s still a motive and, of course, good old-fashioned hate.

Biddle’s words returned to haunt her.

And Helen realized that he might just be right after all.

“Zelma!” Helen tried again once she was back inside the house. Finally she opened the door to the basement, the one place she hadn’t looked.

Helen detected a dim light filtering from a basement room below the sharp descent of wooden steps. She stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, listening, certain that she’d heard movement.

“Zelma! It’s Helen Evans,” she called out and started down. “I just want to know that you’re okay.”

The steps creaked relentlessly beneath her feet as she went down into the unfinished space. Heavy beams and ductwork passed over her head as she made her way toward the glow of light, ending up in a big room with a bare bulb dangling from above. Metal shelves piled high with tools and boxes filled the walls. Sheet-draped furniture had been pushed into the nooks and crannies.

“Zelma, is that you?” she asked, warily approaching another doorway. She was sure she heard shuffling feet and someone grunting. And it sounded like liquid being sloshed around. Helen’s first thought was that Zelma was mopping.

Until she inhaled the pungent odor of gasoline.

When she peered into the room, her eyes widened.

“Good God, what’s going on?”

For an instant, the face turned toward her. Light glinted off the thick, round glasses. Tufts of hair in disarray framed anguished features. The blue polyester dress Zelma had worn to town hall was smeared with dirt and dust.

“You shouldn’t be down here,” Zelma said. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Helen stood where she was, too surprised to do much of anything except watch, suddenly understanding what Zelma was up to.

Wooden shelves lining the walls were filled with old cans of paint and thinners. Stacks of twine-bound newspapers littered the concrete floor, along with old blankets and rags, everything damp from the gasoline Zelma had emptied atop them from the nozzle of a rusty-looking container.

“Zelma, don’t do this,” Helen found her voice to plead. “You’ll make everything worse.”

“It can’t get any worse!” the housekeeper shouted and tossed the empty gas can at Helen. It clattered on the concrete floor, landing inches from her feet. “Go away and leave me be,” Zelma cried, fumbling in the pockets of her dress. “This is my mess, not yours.”

“You killed her, didn’t you?” Helen said, and the smell of the gasoline filled her nose, making her head hurt. “You put the poison in Jean’s pâté, knowing she’d be blamed if it came down to it. Everyone in River Bend knew of the feud between them. No one in their right mind would’ve suspected you, not the woman who’d cared for Eleanora all these years, who’d given her life to the Duncans.”

“You couldn’t begin to understand,” Zelma shouted back. “You have no idea how I felt. How I feel.”

“You saw her will, didn’t you? Had she changed it recently?”

Zelma hesitated, hands crammed in her pockets. Her shoulders shook as she said, “Miss Nora kept the papers lying around on her desk for a week, long enough for me to read every last word. She even had me deliver them to her lawyers.” Her voice quivered unmercifully. “I nearly tore them up and threw them out.”

Helen wondered how it had come down to this. How could Eleanora have placed so little value on the one person who’d never left her side? “No, you didn’t destroy Eleanora’s will. You poisoned her instead.”

“I don’t want to talk about it! It’s over and done, and I can’t change what happened!” With trembling fingers, Zelma drew a pack of matches from her pocket, nearly dropping them before she got them open.

Helen couldn’t believe the woman really meant to burn the house down. Her blood pounded in her head so that she could hardly hear her own voice. “Miss Nora let you down, I know, but I can’t honestly believe you hate her so much to burn this house—”

“Hate her?” Zelma’s red-splotched face turned toward Helen. The light danced off her glasses so that she looked like a woman gone mad. “I never hated Miss Nora! I loved her with all my heart. It was that stupid cat I hated. I meant to put the Splat in the cat food, but I put it in the wrong container.” Tears swam down her cheeks. “If only the cat had died, Miss Nora would have needed me again. But my eyes are so bad I mixed things up!”

“You made a mistake,” Helen said, and something bubbled up in her chest; relief, perhaps, at not having been so wrong about Zelma after all. She could well understand Zelma mixing up the gourmet cat food for the pâté in the container marked The Catery.