Hotter than Helen (The Bobby's Diner Series)

by Wingate, Susan

  He smiled good and long at her which made her shift in her chair again. “Willy, I still need to get to the diner. Come on, now. Get serious.”

  “Why didn’t you call?”

  “Willy. Can we talk about that some other time?”

  “When, Georgie? You never return my calls. I can’t be seen hanging around your diner anymore. What did you tell me? It’ll drive customers away? Wasn’t that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, why is it that I can’t talk to you any more. Why can’t we at least talk?”

  “Willy.” She shook her head then stopped before speaking. “Okay. You want to do this now? For crying out loud. Okay. Okay. I don’t know why, Willy. Oh, maybe because it had only been a year since Bobby died and then only four months after Vanessa passed. Goodness, Willy! I was still trying to figure things out.”

  “You agreed to dinner, what about that? Didn’t you have fun?”

  “I had a…” she looked down at her lap. She had subconsciously locked her hands together and intertwined her fingers, “…a lovely time,” she finished.

  Her voice softened and deepened as she remembered how soft his lips felt when he kissed her on the neck, goodnight, at her car, pressing his body against hers, pinning her back against the vehicle. He felt strong. She remembered the heat coming off of him as he buried his mouth in the bend of her neck. “A lovely time,” she repeated and then gave a small cough.

  She looked up. His mouth had turned into a half grin and something else more virile and even less professional than before.

  “Look, Willy, please. Can we get on with this?”

  “Only if you promise.”

  “Promise what?” She nearly begged and rolled her eyes but smiled.

  “Promise that, after all this is over, you’ll return the favor.”

  “What favor?”

  “Well, Georgette, darn…” His eyes detected movement past her, behind her, through the window into the office. When she turned to look and saw Mark ending a phone call and looking at them through the office window. It looked like he intended to come in.

  “What, Willy?”

  “Have me over for one of your lovely gourmet meals.” He spoke fast and held up his hand to Mark outside the room, making him pause, she figured, outside the door. “You owe me a dinner.”

  “I owe you now, do I?”

  “Come on, George. Just say yes. Don’t make me get on my knees. After all this is said and done, you’re not getting back with him, are you?”

  Looking down at her hands, now free of the fake ring, she didn’t know what to think anymore. She agreed just to change the subject back to business.

  “Okay, Willy. Okay.”

  He smiled like he’d won a blue ribbon and waved Mark inside.

  “Mrs. Carlisle,” Willard spoke again. “You know detective Mark Dannon.” When she made a face, like ‘of course,’ he responded, “Sorry, Mrs. Carlisle… a formality is all.”

  “Detective.” Georgette tipped her head and half stood to shake his hand.

  “Mrs. Carlisle.” He took his hand back and pulled out a chair next to Willard.

  “How have you been, Mark?” Georgette’s face went red as she tried to cover her composure.

  “The Missus is about to pop.”

  “Another baby, Mark? Oh, well, congratulations!”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Carlisle.”

  But Willy broke in, “Okay, enough of the niceties. How about we go over a couple of things?”

  “Okay,” she responded, nervously again when they returned to the issue of Helen’s murder.

  “The sheets.” Willard referred to his notes.

  “Yes.” Georgette unhooked her hands, setting them onto the table and scooting her chair completely under.

  “You say these were your sheets. Is that right, Mrs. Carlisle?”

  “Yes. That’s right. They were on Helen’s bed. Helen Wellen had been staying with me until she could find a place of her own.”

  “So, these sheets were on the bed that Helen was using at your home. Correct?”

  “Correct.” She re-confirmed.

  His eyes looked completely serious now. “Tell me what happened with the sheets.”

  “Well…” Her voice drifted off as her mind spun back to the day she found Helen with Hawthorne. “Oh boy. This is embarrassing.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Carlisle.” Detective Mark chimed in this time. “We just want to understand how these sheets came to be used in the murder of Ms. Wellen. We’re not here to judge you, Georgette.”

  Willard grabbed her hands in his. They felt warm and kind but suddenly turned inappropriate when Mark looked at them. She nodded slowly, pulling her hands out of Willard’s grip and continued. “I found them together,” she glanced quickly to Willy, “They were, um, you know.”

  Willy crooked his head and squinted as if he couldn’t believe what she was telling them. Then she looked back to Mark. “Helen and Hawthorne, that is.” Mark sat back in his chair, lifted one foot onto his knee and folded his arms around the other knee.

  “Go on,” he said in a tone that sounded like judgment to Georgette.

  “Well, I kicked Helen out that day. She left within an hour, I’d say, yes, about an hour later she left the house. I heard her drive away.”

  “Did she take the sheets with her?” Willard asked next.

  “No. No.”

  “So, how do you believe they got wrapped around Helen?”

  “Well, Willy—, um, Police Chief, this is what happened. I was angry with Hawthorne, as you can imagine,” her eyebrows lifted, “so I stripped the bed and put them into a plastic grocery bag. I took them to the diner to fry them in hot oil or something, to burn them, when, quite unexpectedly, he showed up…”

  “He?”

  “Hawthorne. He came by to check on my. I wasn’t about to return his calls.” She looked at Willard, who looked down, understanding somehow. “So he came by. He wanted to patch things up. That’s when I threw the damn bag at him.”

  Willy put a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh that he made sound like a cough.

  Detective Mark interrupted her. “The bag with the sheets inside?”

  “Yes. The plastic bag with the sheets inside.” She looked at him, waiting.

  “Go on.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well. He wanted to atone. I didn’t feel like a priest right then and there,” Georgette’s drawl was beginning to sound more and more accentuated, “so, I told him to take his rotten penance out my door and for him to go and deal with those soiled sheets. I told him to get rid of them for starters on his path to atonement.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “He left… but, Mark. I’m sorry. I mean, Detective…”

  He cut her off. “Did you hear from him after that?”

  “Well. We didn’t talk. He tried to contact me. But I was still refusing his calls.” Again, she looked at Willy and cocked her head at him as if apologizing and he diverted his eyes down to his notes again. Mark looked between the two of them, noticing something else was going on but as he was looking at Willy, Willy intercepted it.

  “Continue, detective.”

  “So you were refusing his calls. Did he leave messages?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still have these messages?”

  “He left two. I deleted one but saved the other.” She tried again, “But, he couldn’t have…”

  Again, Mark cut her off mid-sentence. “Great. We’ll need to hear that recording and get records of incoming and outgoing calls from the phone company.” He was talking more to Willy than to Georgette by then.

  She nodded and forced out a smile.

  “So, one more question, Mrs. Carlisle.” She noticed the shift in formality. “You’re sure you gave these sheets to Hawthorne Biggs?”

  “Why, yes, detective. Quite sure. But, he couldn’t have done this. He couldn’t have killed or raped Helen.”

  Both men looked at each other rea
lizing Roberta revealed the lust crime part of their theory. Mark stood, shook Willy’s hand and walked out of the room. There was some sort of unspoken conversation happening between them. When Mark left, Willy turned to her.

  “Did Roberta tell you about that?”

  She hadn’t realized the information wasn’t common knowledge or that it might only be internal to the department. “Damn.” She slumped back against her chair.

  “Answer me, George.”

  “No. One thing I know is that I don’t have to answer any of your questions, Police Chief. That I’m here out of duty. I’m not a suspect am I?” She glowered at him.

  “No. You’re not a suspect.” He dropped the point and they spent a few beats of clumsy silence staring at each other.

  “Well, it really doesn’t matter. Since you already know about that, you must know that we found zero DNA evidence, you know, semen.”

  But she didn’t know.

  “Well. That creates some trouble for you, now, doesn’t it?”

  He tipped his head. He didn’t seem to be expecting that response.

  “Are we finished, Willy? I really have to go.”

  “Yes. We’re finished, but I have to tell you this, officially, George.”

  “What’s that?” She was standing to leave. “You can’t leave town. Okay?”

  “I was planning a cruise right before Helen turned up dead. I postponed it.”

  “Good. Just stay here. Stay available. The less you appear guilty, the better.”

  “Guilty! Good lord, Willy. What are you talking about?” He stood up slowly in front of her and tried to calm her. She had forgotten how attractive he was. He looked so manly in his official dark gray dress suit.

  “Shh, George. No one really thinks you had anything to do with this but you can’t deny the love triangle aspect of this whole mess.”

  She rubbed both hands over her head and, in doing so, pulled her eyes open. Then, closing them again, she dropped her arms to her sides and blew out a long worried puff of air. “Oh. My. Goodness. This is simply tragic.”

  When her eyes opened again, he was looking at her.

  His brown eyes remained soft and bounced from hers down to her mouth and back up to her eyes again.

  “Willy. Of course I’ll stay in Sunnydale. I want Helen’s murderer brought to justice too.”

  “I know, George.” He walked around the end of the table and over to her. He pulled her into him and hugged her. “I know, George. This has been a terrible, terrible time for you.”

  He pushed her back just inches from his chest. His pelvis and stomach smashed into her gut. He stood about five inches taller than she did. Her breasts bulged out through her tee shirt and he seemed to examine every part of her with his eyes and with his body.

  “When I can, I’ll try to keep you informed as much as I can. Okay?”

  She nodded, enjoying their closeness and, laying her head against his chest, she looked up at him.

  He placed his warm lips on her forehead and kissed her for longer than what she thought would appear appropriate, especially in the office. She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy it.

  Then his closeness become something different, something desperate.

  “Oh no.”She felt his penis tense for the briefest second.

  “Shh. Don’t move.” She felt him draw in a deep breath, trying to strangle off his growing erection. With his breath tight in his chest, he pulled away from her slowly and, thankfully, without an erection.

  28

  His wavy, ash hair looked gelled flat. Roberta was surprised he showed up. She couldn’t believe his gall. He flagged her from the table where he sat eating a late dinner.

  Her cell phone went off inside the pocket of her jacket. Busy-ness was always like that, in spurts. The diner was either busy or dead. Roberta now wished she hadn’t agreed to Georgette taking off early but she had been called into the police station regarding evidence surrounding Helen’s death and simply couldn’t stay to help with the dinner crowd.

  She put a finger up to him, pulled her phone out and showed it to him, then flipped it open and answered it. Leaning to one side, she spoke into the receiver.

  “Yes?... Hi, sweetheart… You’ll be home, when, next Saturday?... I’ll do something special …” She turned around and whispered to Rick, implying a promise of romance upon his return. “Okay, love you too. Bye.” She flipped the phone closed and turned around then cashed out a waitress who had come up with someone’s bill. Roberta eyed Tanner as she counted out the change onto the tip tray. “There you go.” She slammed shut the cash register and Tanner connected with her and waved her over, again.

  As she crossed over thirty steps or so and watched him as he wiped his mouth on a napkin, sliding on the booth over to the wall, making room for her on his side. Roberta sat across from him.

  “Hi Martin. What’s going on? I’m a little surprised to see you.”

  “Why is that, Roberta? I get hungry too.” His dark brown eyes, the color of compost, looked dead of emotion.

  “Yes, but, well,” then she stopped before saying too much. “What can I help you with?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen Hawthorne around lately and wondered if Georgette has spoken with him. I want to talk to Helen. Haven’t spoken with her either since the four of us went to Chavelo’s.” He smiled. She couldn’t read him.

  “So you don’t know?”

  “Don’t know what, Roberta?” The inflection of his words sounded practiced and Roberta wondered why someone might go to this much trouble putting themselves in a direct line of suspicion if they were culpable of any wrongdoing.

  “Helen. You don’t know what happened?”

  “Roberta, I just told you I haven’t spoken with her in days.” He added for his alibi.

  Roberta looked down and then leaning over the table, making Tanner lean in too, she spoke in a whisper. “Helen, um, Martin.” He nodded, trying to look as sincere as he could. “Helen, is, , I’m afraid, Martin. Well, Helen has died.”

  He pulled back leaning against the wall. Still staring at Roberta, putting on a good show. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m sorry, Martin. It’s been a shock to all of us.”

  “Holy crap. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “I’m afraid I am.” She sat back against the booth as well and clutched the edge of the table. Her thumbs and fingers pinched the thickness of the table.

  “I think I’ve lost my appetite.” He pushed the plate away from him. It wasn’t exactly what Roberta expected him to say but then again, Helen and Martin, as far as she knew had not yet been intimate. Then, he followed his show with the appropriate question. “What happened, Roberta?”

  “We’re not sure yet.” She wasn’t about to tell him anything more.

  “What does that mean? Was it a heart attack, an accident? What?”

  “Like I said, we’re not sure but, Martin, I’m the mayor. I really can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”

  “So it’s being investigated.”

  “Martin, like I said. Until we know exactly what happened, I cannot comment further.”

  “Of course. I understand.”

  “So, let me ask you, Martin. Have you seen Hawthorne lately?”

  He tucked in his chin, acting surprised by the question. “Like I said, not since the night the four of us went out. Why do you ask?” he said, stopping at the obvious.

  “Georgette hasn’t spoken with him either in a couple of days.” She wasn’t going to mention the affair if Tanner didn’t already know.

  “Oh. That’s odd. No, I haven’t seen Hawthorne. Haven’t spoken with him. We’re not that close.”

  Roberta cocked her head and squinted. She remembered them talking about good old college days at the engagement party. “But, I thought you and he…”

  “College, you mean?” She nodded. “Yeah, well, we kind of went our separate ways. We only recently hooked up when we met each other again at th
e golf club here. I moved close to Sunnydale, about twenty miles southeast of here. Sunnydale’s the only decent golf course for miles. Anyway, within a week or two so did Hawthorne. Kismet. It works in mysterious ways.” She ignored the mix of clichés and agreed, nodding again and looking down at her hands that were turning red with tension.

  When she looked back up again, he was staring at her with what she could only describe as bile and hatred. She slid to the edge of the booth to get back to work and to get away from him.

  “Sorry to have to tell you like this.”

  “It’s awful, Roberta. Just awful.”

  “Yes, well, um, good night, Martin.”

  “Night, Roberta.” He scooted his plate of food back in front of him. Roberta walked back to the cash register to help Cammy who had taken over for her. When she got behind to the machine, she glanced back at Tanner. She noticed is appetite had returned. In fact, he looked ravenous.

  29

  Roberta’s mind was still on closing the diner when she pulled her car into the Safeway parking lot. She wanted a bottle of cabernet plus she wanted to pick up a box of scented salts for her bath tonight. She needed to unwind.

  Several high security lights beamed high above the cars casting off what looked like misty ghosts around them. The lot was brightest closest to the concrete curb of the store. She angled her white SUV into a diagonal spot in between two other vehicles. The twenty-four-hour store always seemed busy, even this late after work. As she set the gear handle into park, Roberta looked up and noted the wavy flaxen hair, tall build and broad shoulders of a man moving through the cars. Martin Tanner had just stepped off the curb onto the pavement and was heading toward the cars. He looked both ways as he crossed the lane between the parking spaces and the store.

  She slipped down into her seat so he couldn’t spot her. The engine still idled in park but with cars pulling in and out she didn’t worry about her car making too much noise. Angling the rearview mirror to follow him, she watched him as he got into a nondescript cream-colored four-door sedan. The lights flicked on, signaling to her that he started his engine. He began to back out.