Not a Chance in Helen

by Susan McBride

She found herself hoping Eleanora had left the obnoxious man little, if anything, in her will. Unfortunately, she realized, he was the only Duncan left, the only surviving family.

  Poor Eleanora, she thought. What else had the woman had to put up with that Helen hadn’t known about? Who else besides Stanley Duncan had wanted something from the old girl?

  Stop it, she told herself. Eleanora wouldn’t want your pity.

  Still, Helen suddenly wasn’t in the mood to do any more of her crossword. She set down the paper and pen alongside her spectacles then cleared her dishes from the porch. After putting her dirty plate and glass in the sink, she gathered up her purse and headed off for the corner market.

  Just as Helen was approaching the doors leading into the store, she ran smack into Jemima Winthrop, who rushed out like the place was on fire.

  “My, but you’re in a hurry,” Helen said, rubbing her arm where Jemima had bumped it.

  Jemima mumbled an apology but didn’t pause. She tightly clutched the small brown sack in her hands and dashed off.

  Helen watched her go, striding away up the sidewalk in her khaki pants and pale sweater, shoulders stiff and back ramrod straight. Jemima was much like her father had been, feisty and determined, quick to speak and as quick to act. The family had once held a fortune nearly as big as the Duncans’ before there had been some sort of trouble, and Reginald Winthrop had ended up practically giving away his granary to Marvin Duncan in some type of bankruptcy auction. Old Mr. Winthrop had taken to drinking and had died not long after, leaving behind his wife and unmarried daughter. Jemima, headstrong girl that she was, had plunged into volunteer work, taking over the reins of the local library, doing her damnedest to make it something to be proud of.

  Maybe she had urgent library business that had sent her scurrying off. Certainly Jemima hadn’t meant to give her the brush-­off? Helen shrugged. No matter, she thought and shoved open the glass door to the market.

  Half an hour later, she pushed her cart up to the counter, unloading her goodies one by one so the ponytailed checkout girl could ring her up.

  A display of Splat near the register reminded Helen she was out of the stuff, and she quickly added a bottle to the rest.

  “Ants must be bad this year,” the teenager said, noting the purchase. “ ’Cause I’ve sold, like, a hundred bottles of the stuff this week alone. Miss Winthrop just bought her second batch in two days, would you believe.”

  “All I know is I’ve got an army of ants in my kitchen,” Helen told her, writing a check for the total as the girl packed the groceries into two recyclable bags.

  “Good luck with the Splat,” the checker said, waving as Helen left.

  By the time she’d walked home, Helen’s arms were dead tired. She’d barely set the bags down on the kitchen counter when the phone shrilly rang. She hurried to catch it. Whatever happened to that nice jingly-­ring landlines used to have? she wondered as she scooped up the receiver and uttered a brisk “Hello?”

  “Helen, it’s Jean,” said the excited voice on the other end.

  “Jean? For goodness’ sake, where’ve you been?” Helen started in. “I’ve been trying to reach you since last evening. I’ve left several messages on your voice mail. I even went by your place this morning after the LCIL meeting, but you weren’t around.” She paused to take a breath, which allowed Jean to jump in and explain.

  “Did you leave a message? I haven’t checked them yet. I had to go into St. Louis late last night and ended up staying with a friend. You won’t believe what’s happened . . . “

  “No, dear, I think it’s you who’ll be surprised to hear what’s been going on.”

  “Listen, Helen . . . “

  “No, you listen, my friend . . . “

  Jean burst in before Helen could finish. “If you come over right now, I’ll explain everything. Will you do it?”

  “Of course,” Helen told her. How could she refuse, when her curiosity was on overload? “Give me about half an hour,” she said then hung up.

  She got the groceries unpacked in record time. After a quick pit stop, she was off, heading back toward Bluff Street, thinking that all of this walking would no doubt mean going to sleep tonight with her nose filled with the smell of Bengay.

  Jean came out of the house as soon as Helen turned into the driveway.

  “I’ve got wonderful news,” Jean said as she took Helen’s arm and walked with her up to the house. Jean’s eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She looked every bit as excited as she’d sounded on the phone. “Something good has finally happened to me, and it’s about time, don’t you think?”

  “Jean, wait.” Helen stopped walking.

  Jean let go of her arm and stared at her, puzzled. “Whatever’s the matter with you? You’re acting as if I’ve done something wrong.”

  “You did hear about Eleanora?”

  Jean’s sunny face clouded. “I told you last night that I don’t want to have a thing to do with her anymore. So if you’ve got some sob story about her falling and breaking a hip, I don’t want to hear it, not even after Zelma’s histrionics in the diner last night.”

  “Oh, I think you might,” Helen insisted.

  “You make it sound serious. Should I sit down for this?”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  Jean nodded and went over to the steps, settling on the stoop. “Okay, shoot,” she said once she was off her feet.

  Helen went to sit beside her. “All right, here goes,” she said and dove right in. “Eleanora’s dead.” There was no easy way to put it. “She was having convulsions then stopped breathing. That’s why Zelma came after the sheriff. By the time help arrived, it was too late. I’m sorry.”

  Jean set her arms across her knees and looked away. “Well, she was nearly eighty-­one. She had to go sometime.”

  Helen stared at her, speechless for once in her life. Such a coldhearted reply wasn’t like the Jean Duncan she knew at all. But then, Eleanora had hardly been a loving mother-­in-­law to the woman. Still, she’d expected shock or sympathy, something more than this. Instead, she heard only indifference.

  She studied Jean’s profile and saw no softness; just the hard set of her jaw and the frown on her mouth. “Aren’t you even the least bit curious as to how she died?” Helen quietly asked.

  Jean replied with a cool “No, I can’t say that I am.”

  “It so happens they took her body to the morgue for . . . “

  “Helen, stop,” Jean said and got to her feet. “I don’t want to talk about Eleanora, not now or ever.” She offered Helen her hand. “Now, do you want to come inside and have some coffee so I can fill you in on my first official job as a caterer?”

  Helen realized that pursuing the subject of Eleanora Duncan was fighting a losing battle. “All right, you win.” She got up and brushed off the back of her sweatpants.

  Jean pulled the screen door wide, waving an arm. “After you,” she said, and her eyes lit up again. She smiled brightly, as though Helen had never even made mention of Eleanora’s death.

  Helen stepped into the kitchen and sat at a table cluttered with cookbooks and handwritten recipe cards.

  Jean poured them each a mug of coffee smelling deliciously of cinnamon. She passed Helen’s over then pulled out the chair beside Helen’s.

  “Hmm, were should I start?” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Okay, last night after you left me stranded at the diner, I had Erma pack me up a meat loaf sandwich and brought it home. The phone was ringing just as I walked in. Turns out it was a friend of mine from college who’d moved to St. Louis about a week before and looked me up. Seems she’s with a public relations firm that’s putting on a fancy brouhaha for some clients, and their caterer bailed at the last minute. She said the company was in a panic, and did I know any good ­people, since she was new to the city and all. When I mentioned I
’d started up a catering business myself, she asked if I’d consider working their party. Only thing was, they had to hire someone by this morning. So I hightailed it over to her place and spent most of the night working on menus and bouncing ideas off her until I had something really good put together.”

  “Does that mean you got the job?” Helen asked while Jean drew in a much needed breath.

  “Yes!” Her scarf-­tied ponytail swayed as she announced with a squeal, “I got it, Helen! I went into work with her this morning, showed them my stuff, and they told me the job was mine. Can you even believe it? I’m still on cloud nine.”

  Helen hardly knew what to say.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

  “Of course I am. Congratulations,” Helen said and reached for her hand, squeezing it warmly. She summoned up a smile, genuinely glad for her friend. “I’m thrilled,” she said. “And you do deserve it. This past year’s been so hard.”

  “I’m determined to put it behind me.”

  “When’s this party? I only hope it won’t interfere with the LCIL luncheon.”

  “Oh, my God, the luncheon,” Jean repeated, and she raised her eyebrows. “Oh, Helen, don’t tell me that I got the gig?” Her hands went to her heart. “Is it possible?”

  “The gig is yours,” Helen said, grinning, tickled by the look of surprise on Jean’s face. “Well, it’s yours if you want it.”

  Jean breathed a soft “Oh, my.”

  Helen took a sip of coffee, glad she set the cup down when she did, or it would’ve splattered across her sweatshirt when Jean hopped out of her chair and caught her in a hug.

  “You did it, didn’t you? Probably forced me down their throats,” she was saying. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  Helen laughed. “For heaven’s sake, I was doing myself a favor. I couldn’t bear the thought of having the Catfish Barn cater again this year. My intestines would never forgive me.”

  The doorbell rang, and Jean let Helen go. Jean straightened up, tucking her blouse tighter inside her blue jeans.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Helen asked.

  Jean shrugged. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  The bell chimed again.

  “I’m coming!” Jean shouted. Assuring Helen she’d be back in a flash, she left the kitchen, the tap of her flat-­soled shoes audible even after she was out of sight.

  Helen listened as the front door opened and she heard a man’s voice, one she recognized well.

  She got out of her chair and retraced Jean’s steps, walking into the foyer to see Frank Biddle standing in the doorway, his hat in his hands.

  Jean turned to her with cheeks pale as chalk. “Oh, God, Helen,” she said, a warble in her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me the whole story? Eleanora didn’t just die, she was murdered.”

  Chapter Ten

  “ELEANORA WAS MURDERED?” Helen repeated, walking up to Jean and taking her arm. Her friend looked like she might faint. Helen didn’t feel very steady on her feet either. “So it’s for certain then? It wasn’t natural causes?”

  “No, ma’am, it was poison,” Biddle told them. He spun his hat round and round in his hands. He didn’t seem any more at ease with the answer than she or Jean. “Doc said it was sodium tetraborate.”

  “Oh, no,” Jean breathed and swayed against Helen, who kept an arm around her waist to steady her. “Oh, no, this can’t be happening.”

  “Sodium tetra . . . what?” Helen asked the sheriff. Her chest tightened at the thought of such violence in River Bend, of all places.

  “Sodium tetraborate,” Frank Biddle repeated, enunciating each syllable. “It’s a form of boric acid.” He glanced at Helen then Jean and back again. “It’s mostly used in insecticides.”

  “Are you sure it was intentional?” Helen asked, wondering if the sheriff and Jean could hear the overloud beat of her heart. Her ears pounded with the noise of it. “Maybe it was an accident.” At Biddle’s lift of eyebrows, she added, “It has been known to happen.”

  “The evidence is pretty forthright, ma’am.” The sheriff cleared his throat and inclined his head toward Jean, who stared at the floor, eyes unblinking, as though in shock. “Forensics tested what remained of the goose liver old Mrs. Duncan had been eating, and, from the concentration in what was left, they figured there was probably at least a teaspoon mixed in. It was more than enough to kill someone. It’s relatively odorless, you know. Doc said that since our senses dull with age, she probably didn’t even taste it.”

  Helen nodded. Her mouth was too dry to form words. She found herself thinking of the car that had nearly hit Eleanora yesterday morning and wondered if the person behind the wheel had been the one to put poison in the goose liver. Suddenly she didn’t feel at all well.

  Oh, boy.

  She wet her lips and forced herself to ask, “This goose liver that had poison, was it something that . . .”

  That Jean had delivered earlier that same day, she left unfinished.

  “It was in a plastic deli-­type dish with a lid that had The Catery printed on it,” the sheriff answered. “It had Mrs. Duncan’s phone number and website, too. This Mrs. Duncan,” he added, nodding at Jean. “As I explained to her a moment ago, that’s the reason I’m here. I need to ask her some questions.”

  “But, Sheriff, I had nothing to do with it.” Jean eyes were as wide as a child’s. “I-­I didn’t put p-­poison in the pâté,” she stammered and gestured helplessly. “You can’t believe it was me? But you must, or you wouldn’t have shown up on my doorstep.”

  “Ma’am, I just . . . “

  “Really, Sheriff, you can’t honestly think Jean killed her own mother-­in-­law,” Helen butted in, still digesting the fact that Eleanora had been murdered and it was Jean’s goose liver that had done her in. She stared at Frank Biddle in his tan uniform, his brown tie stained with ketchup. Through the open door beyond his shoulder, she saw his black-­and-­white parked at the curb. “For heaven’s sake, you haven’t come to arrest her?” she asked, the severity of the whole situation sinking in.

  “Oh, no,” Jean murmured again, and Helen felt her sway.

  The sheriff tucked his hat under his arm and shifted on his feet. “Look, I didn’t come to arrest anyone. I just need to ask Mrs. Duncan some questions. So if you don’t mind, Mrs. Evans, I’d like to talk to Jean,” he said.

  “Of course,” Helen said and tightened her arm around Jean. “Come on, dear,” she said, leading her out of the foyer.

  “Um, where do you think you’re going?” Biddle called after her.

  Without missing a step, Helen tossed over her shoulder, “To the den, Sheriff. Are you coming or not?”

  She heard the door as he closed—­or, rather, slammed—­it and the clomp of his boots as he crossed the tiled floor.

  Helen had Jean settled beside her on the chintz-­covered sofa by the time he walked into the den and dropped his hat onto the glass-­topped coffee table. He plunked down with a grunt into a nearby overstuffed chair.

  “Would you like a glass of water?” Helen asked Jean, but her friend shook her head, telling Helen in a voice so soft that Helen had to strain to hear, “Don’t leave me alone with him, please.”

  Helen patted her arm. “As long as you need me, I’ll be here.”

  The sheriff loudly cleared his throat. “Do you mind, ma’am?” he said, and Helen glanced up to find his eyes on her. He pulled a small notepad from his shirt pocket, slipped a pencil from its spine, and flipped the cover back to reveal a blank page. “Okay if I start?”

  Helen turned to Jean. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

  Her friend answered with a quick jerk of her chin. She clasped her hands in her lap and held her jaw square. She seemed over the shock of hearing about Eleanora and more pulled together than Helen would have been.

  “All
right, Sheriff,” Jean said, her voice remarkably steady. “What is it you want to know? Did I get along with my mother-­in-­law?” she started in before Biddle could speak up. “Well, the answer is no, though I’m sure I don’t have to convince you. The whole town knows how Eleanora treated me since the accident.” She hesitated, drawing in a sharp breath, though she didn’t drop her guard, not an inch. “She was horrible to me, really horrible. But did I hate her enough to kill her?” Her chin fell, as did her voice. “Maybe I thought about it, maybe I wished her dead a few times, but”—­she raised her eyes—­“I didn’t do it. I pitied her more than anything. She had lost all that was dear to her. I couldn’t blame her for hardening her heart.”

  “The goose liver,” Biddle said after scribbling furiously on his notepad, “how’d it end up with old Mrs. Duncan? When you didn’t like her, I mean.”

  “Well, I can tell you that much, Sheriff,” Helen interjected, leaning forward in her seat, but the sheriff waved his pencil in the air.

  “I’d like to hear it from Mrs. Duncan, please.”

  Helen settled back against the cushion, frowning, feeling a bit like a child who’d been told to wait her turn.

  Jean sighed. “I was whipping up some appetizers yesterday morning. Samples of hors d’oeuvres and dips that I could drop off around town with some of the women’s groups and committees. Helen came around while I was making up the pâté.”

  “It’s true, I did,” Helen said and nodded, adding with unfettered sarcasm, “and I certainly never saw her add even a teaspoon of poison to anything.”

  Sheriff Biddle stopped writing. His mouth turned down. “That’s all very interesting, Mrs. Evans, but if you could just keep quiet until I finish with Mrs. Duncan, I might have a few questions for you as well.”

  “I’m only trying to help—­“

  The sheriff cut her off. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind not helping for another few minutes, I’d appreciate it, ma’am.”

  Helen didn’t respond. She merely pressed her mouth tightly shut, though it wouldn’t be easy to sit quietly through this, not when his questions all seemed to intimate that Jean was involved in Eleanora’s death.