To Helen Back (9 page)

Chapter 18

H
ELEN PARKED HER
Chevy on the graveled road in front of the gingerbread Victorian, the car knocking back several times as she turned off the ignition.

Felicity had called her earlier in the afternoon, asking if she’d mind taking a trip into Wal-Mart. She needed to replace some of her gardening tools, she’d said. As Helen hadn’t been engaged in anything more pressing than the Sunday morning crossword, she agreed to drive and immediately grabbed her purse.

They’d stayed in Jerseyville but an hour or so, leisurely rolling a cart up and down Wal-Mart’s aisles, which Helen found caused her to end up buying half a dozen things she didn’t know she needed until she saw them.

All the ever-practical Felicity had purchased was what she’d gone there to get in the first place: a new shovel. It was nestled in the trunk of the car alongside Helen’s three bags full of various gadgets, cleaners, shampoos, and curtain rods.

“Let me carry this for you,” Helen offered as she popped the trunk and removed the heavy spade.

But Felicity merely threw back her thin shoulders and told her, “Nonsense! I’m strong as an ox, which you well know. I’ve only a year on you besides, so, if you’d hand it over . . .”

“Here you go,” Helen said, though she was tempted to utter
Yes, sir!
and salute. Felicity seemed full of vim and vigor again, as though losing her ornery next door neighbor had given her a second wind.

“Come along,” Felicity trilled, and slung the shovel over her shoulder. “I’ll fix us each a cuppa if you’d like to join me.”

“Love to.”

From beneath her hat brim, Felicity smiled. Her finely lined skin crinkled merrily. “After all,” she remarked, “we’ve something to celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” Helen pushed down the trunk and leaned on it as she looked up at Felicity. She saw her friend glance across the way toward the Grone house, the grin tightening on her mouth, and then she understood.

“Maybe now I’ll have some peace,” Felicity said, her voice hushed, contemplative. “Shotsie’s loss is my blessing.”

Helen sighed, “Felicity—”

“No, Helen, don’t look at me so. The man was a bloody ogre, and you know it. If only Gerald had done as he promised and left all his land to the town, then his son might never have come back. Then he’d never have bothered any of us.”

“Wishing doesn’t change anything,” Helen reminded her.

Her eyes still on the house beyond the fence, Felicity frowned. “To think Milton sold that gorgeous patch of valley and bluff to a water park. Pah,” she spat. “They might as well build a shopping mall as well.”

Helen couldn’t help smiling. “You’d better not say that too loud or Shotsie might hold out for a shopping mall, too.”

“Good heavens!” Felicity grabbed the handle of the shovel, the price tag dangling from it as she ambled up the cobbled path to her front porch.

Helen followed, watching as her friend leaned the shovel against the porch wall. Then she went up the steps and pulled open the screened door.

At the crunch of approaching tires on the gravel, Helen turned to see the dusty black-and-white that belonged to Sheriff Biddle rolling up the road toward Felicity’s house.

Felicity let the door drop and stood on the steps, watching the car’s progress.

Helen heard her friend sigh as the sheriff’s car passed Felicity’s Victorian, coming to a stop in front of the Grones’ dented mailbox. Biddle emerged from the driver’s side, hiking up his pants after he got out. Doc emerged from the passenger’s side and lent a hand to Fanny, who scrambled out of the back.

“Sheriff!” Helen called, waving as she scurried toward Felicity’s gate. “What’s going on?” she asked, approaching the trio standing on the edge of the Grones’ weed-infested yard.

Amos and Fanny looked at the sheriff then back at each other, seemingly unwilling to spill the beans. Frank Biddle hooked his thumbs in his holster and stepped forward. “Well, it’s like this, ma’am,” he said, clearing his throat. “Doc just got a call from his friend at the county M.E.. Dr. Drake ran some additional tests on Mr. Grone.”

“And?” Helen prodded. Her eyes went to Amos. “It wasn’t a heart attack, was it?”

Amos pursed his lips, giving her a funny look.

“Looks that way, ma’am,” was all Biddle would tell her.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Fanny said with a sniff. “It was his head, not his heart. He didn’t strike that rock when he fell, like Amos initially thought. Somebody hit him hard with a blunt object. Whoever did it must’ve moved the body and put Milton there with his skull on the stone.”

“What?” A cold wave washed over Helen. She hugged her arms, shaking her head. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “It simply can’t be true. No one in this town is capable of”—she swallowed, unable to say it—“that.”

Biddle pushed at his sheriff’s hat. “We don’t know that it’s someone from River Bend,” he told her. “It could well have been a stranger.”

“Oh, please!” Fanny snorted. “Name one person in this town who
didn’t
want to kill Milton Grone. I’ll wager you can’t think of one.”

“Fanny,” Amos said disapprovingly.

“Well, it’s true,” his wife countered.

“Let’s take things down a notch, shall we?” Doc’s tangled eyebrows knitted as he fixed her with a warning glare. “We don’t need to stir the pot any further.”

His wife rolled her eyes. “I’d say Milton Grone stirred the pot plenty all by himself.”

“Has Shotsie heard?” Helen asked.

“We’re on our way to see her,” the sheriff said. “I’ve asked Doc to help me break the news in case she takes it hard.” He tugged at his holster, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “I’m afraid she’ll get hysterical like she did the other night.”

“Of course, Doc should be there,” Helen agreed, remembering the distraught woman she’d found crying alone in the kitchen only two days ago. “I can only imagine how upset the whole town’s going to be when they get wind of this.”

“Murder isn’t something we get a lot of in River Bend,” the sheriff agreed, turning to face the Grone house.

Fanny harrumphed, adding, “I wonder if the good citizens of this town won’t care much about finding the guilty party—”

Abruptly, Doc’s wife stopped gabbing.

Helen glanced up at the Grones’ front porch and saw exactly what had shut her up, or rather,
who
.

Shotsie stood with hands on hips, eyeing the group that had gathered on her lawn. Her hair was a tangled mess and she wore faded jeans, her feet stuffed inside pink slippers. She tugged her oversized cardigan closed, the sleeves hanging down so they nearly obscured her small hands altogether.

“You havin’ some kind of meeting in my front yard?” she called out at their sudden silence, and descended the paint-peeled front steps toward them. “Anyone want to tell me why you’re here?”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Grone,” Amos Melville said solemnly.

“Ma’am,” the sheriff mumbled, and tugged the beak of his hat.

Squinting as she came closer, Shotsie fixed her arms over her breasts and tipped her frazzled head. “I don’t suppose you’re hangin’ around here for kicks. So spit it out,” she said, giving each of them a suspicious glance. “Sheriff?” She singled out Frank Biddle, who shifted on his feet and cleared his throat as if buying time. “This has to do with Miltie, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am, it does.” Biddle took off his hat and began turning it round and round in his hands. “I’m not sure how to put this. Maybe we should go inside,” he suggested, but Shotsie would have none of it.

She vigorously shook her head and screeched, “I don’t want to go inside! Just say what you have to say then bug off! I’m on my last nerve, and you’re steppin’ on it!”

“Um, Doc, you want to take this?” Biddle asked, swallowing so hard the lump of his Adam’s apple jerked.

Amos didn’t look any more eager to share the news than the sheriff.

“Geez, would somebody spill?” Shotsie howled, and waved her arms, looking ready to come apart at the seams.

“It’s just that I, um, made a mistake. I, uh, jumped the gun, so to speak,” Amos muttered, though the words seemed to trigger a sudden coughing fit. He turned away, wheezing into his hand while Fanny patted his back.

Shotsie’s face turned purple. “What’s wrong with you people? What’s so terrible that you can’t even say it? Milton’s already dead. What’s more awful than that? C’mon, Mrs. Evans, give it to me straight. You’re one of the few in this town who doesn’t treat me like a leper.”

“Oh, dear.” Helen didn’t know what to say. She’d only just learned the truth herself. Gazing into Shotsie’s weary face, she felt oddly helpless. “It’s just that Milton wasn’t—well, he didn’t—” She couldn’t help stammering. “Ah, it seems that how he died isn’t what we first believed.”

Doc’s coughing fit subsided, and he touched Helen’s arm, letting her off the hook. “I made a mistake,” he said, and the sheriff nodded, tucking his hat back on his head. “I jumped to a conclusion that was erroneous. I’m so very sorry.”

“What exactly does that mean?” Shotsie asked, grabbing Doc’s arm. “Miltie had a heart attack. You said so yourself.”

The doctor put his hand over hers. “More tests were done to make sure nothing was missed,” he explained. “That evidence doesn’t support a natural death. It appears that Milton was hit in the head. It’s the blow that killed him, not his heart as I’d suspected.”

“No, you’re wrong!” Shotsie backed up and tugged her hand away. “That can’t be true. You’re telling me Milt was
murdered
?”

“Take it easy, Mrs. Grone,” the sheriff said in a firm but soft tone, as one would use with a tantrum-prone child. “I understand how hard this must be for you to digest.”

Shotsie’s chest heaved. “Hard to digest?” she shrieked. “Are you kidding me? This is crazy! It can’t be true, none of it! Murder doesn’t happen in a one-horse town like this!”

“It doesn’t,” Biddle agreed. “Not in the usual scheme of things, but anywhere you have people who butt heads there’s the potential for—”

“Who did it?” Shotsie asked, cutting him off. “Who clobbered my Miltie?”

“I don’t know that yet,” Biddle told her, rubbing his hands on his thighs. “We haven’t got much to go on. Only that whatever was used to hit him had some rust and dirt on it. Oh, and fertilizer. The kind used by gardeners.”

“Fertilizer?” Shotsie repeated, her round face turning such a mottled shade of purple that Helen thought the woman might pass out. But then Shotsie reared her head, and Helen saw the wild look to her eyes.

Without another word, Shotsie stomped through the high grass toward the split-rail fence, pausing there to stare at something on the other side.

Helen stuck her hands in her jacket pockets. She felt totally unsettled by the turn of events. This latest revelation had hit Shotsie hard, and she’d already had more than enough to endure.

“Fertilizer . . . dirt . . . rust,” Helen heard Shotsie muttering as she went closer.

“Please, my dear, let’s go inside the house, and I’ll make a fresh pot of—”

Helen hadn’t even finished the sentence when Shotsie ducked down, slipping between the fence rails and crashing through the raspberry bushes on the other side.

“Mrs. Grone!” Helen called after her, because all she could see beyond the fence was Felicity, standing still on her porch, her wide-brimmed hat seeming enormous atop her small but sturdy frame.

“What’s she doing?” Biddle asked, coming up behind Helen.

But Helen had already sprung into action.

She bent down as Shotsie had, forcing her less agile body through the split rails, and skirted the shrubs that Shotsie had trampled. Calling out, “Mrs. Grone, don’t!” she rushed across the manicured lawn.

The sheriff shouted after her, but Helen kept going. She didn’t stop until she reached the steps and paused with her hand on her racing heart, trying hard to catch her breath.

“Mrs. Grone,” she called again as she neared the porch, but Shotsie didn’t turn around.

With her pink-slippered feet set apart, Shotsie cornered Felicity, who’d backed against a porch post. Her hands curled to fists, Shotsie let out a string of curses, her voice raised to megaphone loudness, clear enough for every neighbor to hear within a block.

“I saw you arguing with him that morning,” she ranted, “I watched it all from the bedroom window. You shook your watering can at him and looked fit to kill! You hated my Miltie, maybe more than anyone in this podunk town! I’ll bet you did it, you old biddy! Well,
didn’t you
?”

“Mrs. Grone, stop it!” Helen shouted, having heard quite enough.

The interruption seemed to throw Shotsie off for a moment.

Enough so that, with a yelp, Felicity scrambled for the door.

But Shotsie sprung back to life and lunged at her, knocking the hat from her head, baring the cropped gray hair, the ashen face and fear-filled eyes. Felicity grabbed for the shovel tipped up against the wall and raised it above her shoulder as she faced her attacker.

“Don’t come near me,” she warned in a tremulous warble. “Stay away, I said!”

Shotsie rambled on, “You did it, just like that, didn’t you? Took your shovel and
smack
!”

The sheriff ran up to the steps, Amos and Fanny right behind him. He brushed past Helen and grabbed Shotsie by the shoulders. “Mrs. Grone, come with me, please, and you, Miss Timmons, put the shovel down.”

Felicity glanced over at Helen but didn’t lower the shovel. It shook in her hands so that the price tag shivered like a flag in the wind.

Despite the sheriff’s hands on her arms, Shotsie kept screaming as loud as she could, “You did it! YOU MURDERED MY HUSBAND!”

Felicity swayed, and her fingers lost their grip on the shovel. It fell to the porch with a
clang
. Then her eyes rolled up into her head and down she went as well, crumpling up like a rag doll.

Chapter 19

H
ELEN WALKED BRISKLY
away from Felicity’s after having finally gotten her friend to down a cup of chamomile tea along with some aspirin. Felicity was so disturbed by Shotsie’s accusations that she’d trembled and wept on and off for nearly an hour. Finally, Helen had calmed her down enough to convince her to lie down.

When Felicity had eventually drifted off, Helen tucked an afghan around her, then slipped out of the house, careful not to slam the screen door.

She paused now at the stone bridge that led to the chapel. She looked up at the steeple with its whitewashed clapboard, thinking of Milton’s funeral service and all who’d attended it. One among them, she realized, could be his killer.

She shuddered, finding it impossible to believe that Milton was murdered in cold blood by someone who lived in quiet River Bend.

You did it . . . you murdered my husband!

Shotsie’s words to Felicity rattled through her brain, and Helen pressed her fingers to her temples, willing them to go away.

Her friend had not done it, of that she felt absolutely sure. Yes, Felicity had lived in fear of Milton, but she could not have harmed the man, any more than she herself could have.

But what of Felicity’s missing shovel? she suddenly wondered. Could Shotsie be right about one thing at least, that it was the murder weapon?

Oh, dear.

Helen sighed. Perhaps it was merely coincidence. Felicity’s shovel had likely been swiped by the bored adolescents who rode their bikes up and down the River Road on weekends and invaded River Bend in small packs like prepubescent Hell’s Angels.

As she walked alongside the creek that ran through the chapel grounds, the squeal of a swing on the nearby playground caught her attention. She turned toward the sound and saw Madeline Fister on the swing, her dark hair limp in her face, her feet listlessly scraping the dirt. The girl vaguely moved to and fro, the motion slow, even mournful when coupled with the sporadic moan of the chains as they stretched back and forth.

Helen raised a hand to wave, but Madeline didn’t look up. She continued to push at the ground with the tips of her toes.

Was it wise for Maddy to be out of bed so soon after she’d miscarried? Helen was tempted to scold her and send her home. But the pastor’s daughter looked so sad and lonely, like she needed a hand to hold, not a chastising.

Helen crossed the bridge over the creek and entered the playground. It seemed that Madeline must not have heard her approach. The girl didn’t look up, her head bowed even as Helen said, “Hello, Madeline.”

But Maddy just continued her dispirited swaying.

“My, that looks like fun,” Helen tried instead. “Why, I don’t think I’ve done this since . . . well, I can’t rightly remember.” She lowered herself onto the swing next to Madeline’s. As soon as she pressed her sneakers into the dirt to propel herself forward, the girl brought her own swing to a dead stop.

Helen dragged her heels and came to a standstill beside her.

“Madeline, honey,” she said, forcing herself to smile despite the girl’s frown. “Would you like to talk?”

The girl snorted and stared off in the distance.

“Are you all right? I’m concerned—”

“Don’t be, ’cause I’m great, okay?” Madeline snapped, with so much anger that Helen was hardly fooled by her declaration. “Can’t you just leave me alone?” she muttered, and dropped her chin, avoiding Helen’s gaze.

“Are you sure you should be up and about so soon?” Helen said softly. “Your body went through something awful.”

“Whatever.” Madeline rolled her eyes.

“I know you’re young and strong, but it might be best not to push it—” Helen stopped herself, biting off the lecture she’d been about to give the girl, deciding it wasn’t her place to do so. She wasn’t her mother or even her grandma. “Look, you can’t blame me for worrying, not after I saw you in such pain. And I know your father’s sick over what happened. I wouldn’t doubt that he’s wondering where you are right now.”

“Right,” Madeline snapped, her chin jerking up. Her dark eyes crackled with emotion. “My father’s only concerned about himself and how other people see him. He should have minded his own business. He ruined everything for me.”

“How do you mean he ruined everything?” Helen held onto the chains and leaned forward, watching Maddy. “Your father didn’t cause you to lose the baby. What happened to you was simply”—she shrugged—“God’s way.”

“God’s way!” Madeline cursed under her breath. “You sound just like him. All I ever hear from his mouth is what God’s way should be. What about my way, huh? Don’t I have any say in how I live?”

“I think you must,” Helen told her, speaking softly. though her tone was firm enough. “Or else you wouldn’t have found yourself pregnant.”

Maddy stared at her, her mouth hanging open, as though she couldn’t believe Helen had just said what she did. Then she pressed her lips together and started to stand. Only her legs wobbled so much she sat back down again.

“Have you told your young man?” Helen dared to ask.

“My young man,” Maddy repeated, and laughed, shaking her head.

“Your father said you were involved in a serious relationship, one with an older boy . . .”

“Oh, my God!” The girl turned beet red. “He
told
you that? Can’t anything I do in this town be private?”

Helen didn’t want Madeline to get the wrong impression, so she clarified, “Oh, sweetheart, no, your father didn’t spread gossip about you. He was so worried. What he said to me was in the strictest confidence. Besides,” she went on, “if anyone’s given River Bend something to gossip about, it’s not him, it’s you.”

Didn’t teenagers realize that there were consequences for their actions? Helen couldn’t help wondering, especially when it was the seventeen-year-old preacher’s daughter who’d gotten herself in quite a pickle.

Madeline said through gritted teeth, “Why don’t you lay off, okay? I have to take enough crap from my dad. I don’t need it from someone I’m not even related to.”

“Fair enough,” Helen said, and let go of the chains. She wiped her hands on her pants and got up. “I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.” She took one last look at Maddy’s angry face and turned away.

“No, wait!”

Helen hesitated, surprised at the girl’s reaction.

“You don’t have to go,” Maddy called out to her. “You can stay. I mean, it’s a free country. You can do what you want.”

“Okay,” Helen said, and returned to the swing. But she didn’t say anything more to Maddy. She figured it was the girl’s turn to speak.

“Look, Mrs. Evans, it’s not you I’m angry with, all right?” Madeline said with a sigh. “It’s my father.”

Helen kept quiet, knowing how difficult it was for the girl to even say that much. She put her hands in her lap and waited.

“I did have, um, something serious going on,” Maddy tried to explain, her voice shaky. “But it doesn’t matter anymore because it was over almost as fast as it started. Daddy saw to that when he found out. He told the guy that if he didn’t back off, he’d report him to the police.”

The police? Yes, Helen recalled Fister saying that he should have called the sheriff about Maddy’s affair. But wasn’t that going to extremes? Was this “older” guy not an older teenager, as Helen had first suspected? Was he a full-grown man, living in River Bend? If that was the case, it was no wonder the pastor was beside himself.

Maddy blinked to fight back tears. Those that slipped past her lashes, she wiped away with her sleeve. “I thought I was in love, isn’t that stupid? Maybe I’m just messed up because I haven’t had a mom in so long. I don’t know.” She stared down at her lap. “He said sweet things to me, told me I was pretty and smart. No boys at school even give me the time of day.”

“It’s nice to feel loved,” Helen told her, trying to keep the pity from her voice. Lack of self-esteem made young girls so vulnerable, so apt to do crazy things. “Did he know you were pregnant, Maddy?” she asked as kindly as she could. “Did he offer to take responsibility?”

“How could he?” Madeline lifted her chin, and the tears started rolling again, splashing unheeded down her cheeks. “He was married, okay?”

The girl’s lover was older
and
married?

Heavens to Betsy!

Helen grabbed the chains on her either side to keep from falling off her seat. She kept her shock to herself, and because Maddy hadn’t answered her question, asked again, “Did he know about the baby?”

“Yes,” Maddy said, and nodded. Her voice sounded so small, lacking its earlier rebelliousness. “I thought he’d be glad, that it’d give him a reason to leave his wife. Only he didn’t. He wasn’t going to.”

The girl paused for a moment, sniffling, and Helen reached for her hand. She half expected Madeline to pull away but she didn’t.

“I thought he loved me,” the girl whispered, “that he wanted to take care of me. I told myself he’d change his mind if I gave him some space. But it doesn’t matter now anyway. It’s too late.”

Helen sighed. What a mess! She wished she could get the fellow’s name and go wring his neck! Why would a grown man do this to such a fragile child? What could he have been thinking? But that was the problem, she realized. He hadn’t been thinking at all, at least not with his head.

She squeezed Madeline’s hand. “I know this sounds ridiculous at the moment when everything’s so painful, but maybe it’s for the best. I truly believe things happen for a reason.”

The girl stiffened. “That’s just what my father said.”

“He loves you so much, you know,” Helen told her. “Maybe you should listen to him.”

“Right.” Maddy tugged her hand free of Helen’s and stood so quickly the chains on the swing rattled. “What happened is my father’s fault, and I’ll blame him for it till the day I die, I swear I will!”

Then she took off running.

Helen could hear her sobs as she crossed the playground and raced over the bridge.

Oh, boy.

Helen sat on the swing, dumbfounded. What had just happened? Heck, what was happening to River Bend? First, Milton Grone’s death, which had turned into murder, and now Madeline Fister admitting to having had an affair with an older, married man.

With a sigh, Helen rose from the swing and brushed off her pants, thinking that her cozy hometown was coming to resemble Peyton Place far too closely for anyone’s comfort.