Her words took me by surprise. I hadn’t been aware of Sheila observing my behavior around the children and recognizing me as a devoted mom. I wasn’t a stepmother myself so I couldn’t relate to the complex emotions within that relationship, but she’d said Ben was just a baby when she came on the scene and that his biological mother wasn’t around. Was that really so different from adoption? There was an implied lack of bonding between her and nine-year-old Ben that bothered me deeply.
“Now that Roger no longer has Helen in his life,” Sheila continued calmly, “he’ll probably just find some other woman.”
“Sheila, I don’t know Roger well at all, but I did get to know Helen somewhat. Well enough at least to be positive that she wouldn’t have been having an affair with your husband.”
“What makes you say so? Because they were so different?”
“Well, yes, there’s that, but ....” As my attorney, everything I told her was probably privileged information, and she might need to know that Helen Raleigh was a man to best represent my interests. But I wasn’t absolutely certain I wanted Sheila to represent me. More to the point, I didn’t feel I should be the one to break this news to my neighbors.
Sheila was watching me so intently that I continued, “She just...wasn’t the sort to have an affair.” Sheila’s stare made me uncomfortable. What if she’d hired Simon to find out if her suspicions about her husband and Helen were correct? Come to think of it, Sheila had a motive for murder. “Did you like Helen?”
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason.” I chuckled nervously. “It’s not as though you shot Helen in a fit of jealousy, after all.”
Sheila stiffened. “I was in court at the time of the shooting. I have at least a hundred witnesses to my whereabouts.”
“Of course. I was kidding. But inappropriately, and I’m terribly sorry.” I rose. “I hope you and Roger work out your differences.”
Our conversation had struck me as so bizarre, I left quickly, wanting to put some distance between us. Why had Sheila shared this private information with me about her troubles with Roger? What had he and Mr. Helen really been up to?
When I returned to my parents’ house, my mom was reading in a chair situated suspiciously close to the front door. She gave me a forced smile and asked, “Did everything go okay at the lawyer’s?”
I nodded and saw my own reflection in her eyes. However much I might be inclined to worry about her as she aged, from her perspective, I was forever her child. And I knew precisely how it felt to be concerned about your child’s safety. The words, “You poor old dear,” ran through my thoughts, but, fortunately, didn’t reach my tongue, for Mom would’ve belted me on the spot.
“Tell you what, Mom. Let’s go get some coffee at the mall.”
“Coffee? But...” She gazed around her house as if it were filled with ready-made cappuccinos. Finally, she slowly smiled and met my eyes. “What the heck. We’ll do something unusual and have coffee out. After all, what could possibly happen?”
Chapter 7
Turning a New leaf
The Carlton Mall was a massive expanse of parquet floors, accentuated with large, built-in white tile planters that children gravitated toward, to walk along tight-rope style. There were full-grown trees in some of the planters, perhaps the lone survivors of the forest that occupied this piece of land during my childhood.
My mother and I strolled over to the nearest “You Are Here” map to locate The Beanery. I knew it was upstairs, but the place was not close enough to allow us to simply’ follow our noses. The restaurant was indeed on the second floor, at the precise opposite end of the mall. We decided to check out the current displays in the open space on the first level before going upstairs.
The sales topic du jour was apparently hotel art—paintings you’d normally expect to find in your hotel room, since they were too ugly to tempt anyone to steal them. My mother and I scanned the artwork as we ambled past.
Near a limestone sculpture, which looked like an enormous oval sponge that was being wrung out for all eternity, was a young woman seated on a director’s chair next to a portable easel, doing caricatures of passersby. The artist looked to be in her late teens or early twenties.
Her hair was in a zillion braids of haphazard lengths, and she wore loose-fitting black shorts and tank top.
My mom looked at the artist and muttered to me, “If a woman doesn’t want to wear a bra or shave under her arms, she should at least wear sleeves.”
“Is this sage mother-daughter advice? I’d better write it down before I forget;”
The artist noticed our glances in her direction and called out to my mom to ask if she’d be interested in having her caricature drawn.
Mom, who rarely even allows her picture to be taken, abruptly said no. The artist then turned her hopeful eyes to me. I smiled but said no. Few things strike me as less tempting to hang on my wall than a drawing that looks like me, only more so. Nonetheless, I stopped to appraise her work, for, as a cartoonist myself, I’m always interested in scouting the competition.
She had a couple of dozen pictures on easels and propped against the cement stand that supported the crescent sculpture. She used a felt-tipped pen and drew with crisp, confident lines. Her work, for the most part, seemed quite good, though that was hard to judge without the subject in front of me. Then one of her pictures caught my eye. It was a drawing of Roger Lillydale mounted on a sheet of red matt board. I picked it up off its stand.
My mother, who had been studiously keeping her back to the cartoonist lest the young woman capture Mom’s likeness without her consent, peered over my shoulder. “He’s certainly a handsome man.”
The artist rose and glanced over my other shoulder. “Yeah, that guy was a difficult subject. He had such well-proportioned features, there wasn’t much to exaggerate. I’ll sell it to you for half price.”
“Did you do this one recently?” I asked, setting it down.
“About half an hour ago. He was just biding his time, sitting on the bench over there. I did it on spec, but he told me he didn’t like it.”
“Do you know him?” my mother asked me.
I nodded, confused. Half an hour ago? Just an hour or so ago, his wife had claimed he was out of town. Sheila had also said she’d called him, so that pretty much eliminated the possibility of Roger having lied to his wife about his whereabouts. The Lillydales must have separated or something, and Sheila was covering up out of embarrassment. “He’s my neighbor. I’ve been wanting to talk to him.”
The artist pointed with her chin toward JC Penney. “I think he went that-a-way.”
“Thank you.” I grinned at my mom and started off in the direction the artist had indicated. “Come on, Mom. The game’s afoot.”
“Uh-oh.” She followed me in a halfhearted, glue-foot gait. “What game?” With her long legs, she could out stride me whenever she wanted to. She just needed to be encouraged.
“We’re going to take a slight detour through the department store.”
Mom promptly pulled up short a few feet from the entrance to JCPenney. “Aren’t we going to The Beanery for a cup of coffee?”
“We are, afterward. This is important. This man was Helen Raleigh’s closest friend in the neighborhood. If I can find him, I might be able to help Tommy Newton learn Helen’s ...” Oops. I’d spoken too quickly and there was no way out of this sentence without divulging some of the information Tommy had asked me not to reveal. “Real identity,” I mumbled.
“Real identity? You mean, the woman who was killed in your yard wasn’t your former home owner?”
“It was the former owner, but her name wasn’t really Helen Raleigh. That was a pseudonym.”
Mom hadn’t moved her feet and was now scanning my face with her lips pursed. Rats. This was like trying to convince my children to taste broiled eggplant. “You’ve seen Roger’s likeness, so you can help me find him. Let’s split up, circle the store, and meet back here at the entrance.”
“And what do I do if I find him? Latch onto him and drag him to the entrance till you get there?”
“No, just say, ‘Hi, there. Aren’t you Roger Lillydale? My daughter has something important to speak to you about, and she’ll be here momentarily.”
With a heavy sigh, my mom shuffled off, muttering to herself about how my sister Bethany never requested things like this of her. Which was true, but then, Bethany was an efficiency expert who lived in Chicago. Were she here, she would no doubt suggest that we have Roger paged. That would have been more efficient, but less fun and harder to explain to Roger, if we managed to locate him.
My half of the store yielded no Rogers, and Mom took so long to return to the entrance that I started to get hopeful she had located him. Moments later I spotted her heading in my direction. She gave me a happy little wave. She was carrying. a shopping bag. I then realized I’d made the tactical error of assigning the children’s section to Mom’s half of the store. Indeed, she had bought a wide-brimmed sun hat for Karen and a one-size-fits-all New York Mets cap for Nathan.
I thanked her and assured her the kids would love them, then asked, “No sign of Roger Lillydale?”
“Well, I didn’t get much farther than the children’s clothing section. I do hope Bethany has a baby soon. They have the most adorable baby items here.”
“Let’s at least let her find someone she likes to date before we start talking babies.” My sister had gone through a painful divorce last year, the first one in our extended family. She had joked recently that her poor choice in husbands had cost our family a shot at a stint on television. “Entire Family Without a Single Divorce! Now coming to our new reality show entitled: Let’s Split ‘em Up!”
My mother was so clearly not into the spirit, I decided to give up my Roger search. We went upstairs.
The Beanery was a combination coffee-paraphernalia shop and restaurant. Until recently, the place had been something of a local hangout for teenagers who lingered over solo cups of plain coffee and the fresh-baked muffins. Over the past several months, however, the restaurant had grown more upscale, no doubt in an attempt to discourage the younger crowd. They had doubled their beverage prices and struck the muffins in favor of scones. In. fact, they had gone so European that nearly everything on the menu ended in a vowel.
Taking in the delicious aroma, we entered the restaurant and Mom headed toward an empty table at the back. I started to follow, then froze. Roger Lillydale was seated at a booth along the wall. He was alone.
“Roger, what a pleasant surprise,” I said as I strolled up to his table. It generally was a pleasant experience to see Roger; however, from his hangdog expression as our eyes met, the pleasure was all mine. Why was everyone on my cul-de-sac treating me like an oversized canker sore?
Mom had doubled back. I grabbed her arm, hoping Roger would at least be happy to meet her . People generally liked Mom. “This is my mother, Linda Peterson.”
He stared at me blankly, then rose a little and gave a weak smile to my mom as he shook her hand. “Hello. Uh, Roger Lillydale. Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
“Call me Linda.”
Roger had classic even features, dark eyes, and seemed to have a perpetual five-o’ clock shadow, which only served to increase his brooding good looks. His physical appearance hadn’t gone unnoticed by my mother. During her greeting, her voice had been a little more enthusiastic and her smile a bit wider than usual. Mom, a habitual matchmaker, was probably thinking about what gorgeous grandchildren he and my pretty younger sister would have were they ever to meet, fall in love, and marry.
His eyes were still so blank when he looked back at me that I finally figured out he didn’t recognize me, which was odd considering we’d spoken at least a dozen times in the last few weeks. “Molly Masters. I live across the street from you. Moved into Helen Raleigh’s house a couple of months ago.”
“Of course.” He shook his head good-naturedly. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. It’s been a tough week at work. Would you care to join me?”
“Thank. you.” I ignored my mother’s clearing of her throat that meant she’d rather we sit elsewhere. “We’d love to.” I plopped down across from Roger and slid over so Mom could sit next to me. I felt a tad guilty about bringing her out on a mother-daughter jaunt only to join someone she didn’t know, but this wouldn’t take long. Roger had his check in front of him and his oversized cup was on its last dregs. He glanced at his watch.
“Were you waiting for someone?” I asked.
He looked up, a startled expression on his face, as if he’d already forgotten that I was sitting at his table. “Oh. No. Not anymore.” He smiled wanly at me, then my mother.
The poor guy was really out of it. He was a salesman and normally had the typical outgoing, energetic “buy-from-me!” personality. Now he was all but staring into space and wringing his hands. His usually neat hair was slightly unkempt, his silk tie had a spot that looked suspiciously like ketchup, and, most telling, his brown eyes had lost their sparkle. He appeared to be a man trying to hide his broken heart.
“Did you hear about what happened yesterday?” I asked him.
Roger nodded. “You were home at the time?”
“Yes, I was downstairs, heard the gunshot, and ran out.”
“But you didn’t see the shooter?”
“No, I didn’t see a thing. Did you know Helen fairly well?” In the corner of my eye, I could see my mother trying to signal the waitress across the room.
Roger shrugged. “Not really, but better than most, from what I could tell. Last year, I broke my leg and took nearly a month off work. I’m an insurance salesman and couldn’t get around to make my sales calls.” He smiled at my mother and said, “As you can imagine, it makes people nervous to have somebody in a cast trying to sell them liability insurance. They’re afraid you’ll slip off their porch and sue ‘em.” Mom chuckled politely, and he returned his gaze to me. “Anyway, Helen wasn’t working then either and we got to visiting with each other during that period. I felt sorry for her. She was something of a difficult personality to get along with. Always angry. She seemed like such an outcast.”
“I don’t know why this restaurant is so popular,” Mom interjected. “The service is—Oh, look!” Mom cried with delight. “My friend’s back from vacation.”
Mom waved at her old friend who had just entered the store with another woman I didn’t know, roughly my mother’s age. The two women came over, and my mom greeted them warmly, then immediately announced, “I’m sure my daughter and this young man would rather be alone with each other than have little old me with them.” At five-feet-eleven, my mother is certainly not “little,” doesn’t act or look “old,” but she does know how to embarrass her daughter. On that note, Mom excused herself, nabbed the waitress as she tried to pass by, and moved with her friends to the far corner of the restaurant.
Roger now bore the anxious countenance of a man being hit on by a floozie. “How’s your husband?” he asked the instant my mother was out of earshot.
“Jim’s fine. So’s our marriage. Don’t worry. That’s just my mother’s way. She wanted to talk to her friends and didn’t want me to feel bad, since I was the one who invited her out for coffee.”
Roger settled back into his seat with a relieved sigh. “Sheila tells me the police were trying to dig up something in your yard and made quite a mess of things. Did they unbury anything, other than the poodle?”
“You knew there was a poodle buried in the yard?” I cried in surprise. “Everyone told me she never owned a dog.”
For the first time, Roger laughed, though it was justjust a sad chuckle. “She didn’t own the dog. I just happened to see it barking on her porch one day, trying to get in. So I rang the doorbell. Helen told me it belonged to her brother.”
“Helen had a brother?”
“Yeah, though I never met him.” He shook his head. “That afternoon, I came over and she was burying the dog. She was in tears.
Seems she’d run over the unfortunate thing when she thought it was inside and didn’t see it in her driveway.”
The waitress arrived with my tea, and Roger declined a refill. After she’d left, I asked, “So you never actually met this brother, but you saw him over there visiting her?”
“No, just his poodle, that one time.”
I felt on edge, as if I was right on the verge of getting at some major clue to Helen’s identity. But I did my best to hide this behind my motions of squeezing out my tea bag and taking a sip. “Did she show you any pictures of him?”
“Ah, no.” Roger’s expression implied he thought my question had been absurd.
“Did you see the brother’s car, at least? Or any unfamiliar cars parked by her house in the past three years?”
“No, she never seemed to have any friends over or anything. That’s what led me to realize how lonely she was. After her husband left her and everything.”
I blew on the surface of my tea and took another sip. “She told you about the circumstances of her divorce?”
“She told me that her husband left her for a younger woman. That’s all.”
“She never told you where her ex lives, or whether she got alimony payments, or where they used to live?”
“No, she didn’t. You seem to have taken quite a personal interest in all of this. Are you a private investigator or something?”
“No, I write greeting cards.” I had obviously been coming on a bit strong with the questions about Helen, so I decided to back off for a while. “I create eCards, usually, but I freelance cartoons as well. I used to work for a company in Boulder, Colorado, till, we moved here for my husband’s job. You have a lovely home, by the way. I was over there today, talking to your wife.”
His features tensed. “Did she tell you that I’ve left her?”
Death of a Gardener (Book 3 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 8