Mew is for Murder

by Clea Simon

  That was tomorrow. I felt like I’d begun to know her. “Yeah, I will,” I called back to Violet as I drained my glass. “Maybe we can talk after?” That might not have been her in the house this morning. Still, I had the feeling she didn’t take my admonition to leave the place alone any more seriously than a cat would. I didn’t like losing Lillian just as I’d found her, and I didn’t want to lose Violet too.

  “Sure. I’m going to try to get some people over to the shelter afterward, too. You know that Lillian’s cats are up for adoption today?” I nodded. How could I have forgotten? The clock had started running on those beautiful beasts, and if we could place some of them with sympathetic friends, it would be an afternoon well spent.

  On this day, however, work took first priority. With the energy from my run and the latte’s healthy shot of espresso, I cranked out a draft of the bookshelf story. There were only a few “TKs”—“to comes” in newspaper parlance—to fill in. I left a message for one contractor, reminding him that he’d promised to give me his price range for the story, and logged onto the Home You Go supply store web site to get their prices for do-it-yourself materials that would provide the budget option in my story. Then, because the sun was now over the yardarm, I made the calls I needed for the Jamaica Plain café story. Musetta was sleeping on the old corduroy easy chair beside my desk, and I could have kept going, cranked that one out too, had my stomach not started rumbling loud enough to almost wake her. I’d forgotten how hungry exercise made me, but I’d earned a break and a little more fresh air. There was a greasy spoon three blocks away that served breakfast all day, a survivor from when much of the neighborhood worked all shifts at the candy factory. Somewhere in there a cook had a plate of eggs with my name on them. Careful not to wake the sleeping kitten, I slipped out the door.

  Wiping up the last of the runny egg yolk and Tabasco mixture with the end of my well-buttered whole wheat toast, I surveyed the damage. I’d had the eggs poached instead of fried, and congratulated myself on that. But the stiffness that kicked in as I was walking down my front stairs reminded me that my exercise regimen was going to have to become a lot more regular. At least I’d gotten a good chunk of work done already. The bookshelf piece I’d hold till Monday, then read through again to catch the glaring errors and silly phrases that become clear after a few nights’ sleep. I’d still be sending it in ahead of deadline. The café piece left me more room to play, and I let my mind wander, wondering which quote to make my lead or if I should start with a description of the layout or the music.

  Thinking about the night led me to thoughts of Bill, Detective Sherman. He’d been a surprise, stepping down from his kindly Officer Friendly role to show up just like a neighborhood guy. If I hadn’t met him in his cop guise, I’d be wondering about him as a man. I laughed, startling the cook, who looked up from his grill, then quickly looked away. I left a couple of bills on the check and hit the street, limping only slightly. Who was I fooling? Bill Sherman was a cute guy, smart and nice, too. At least from what I’d seen. Up close he was probably morbid, always poring over photos of his unsolved homicides. Or a neat freak, picking up hairs and stray fibers to store in little plastic bags like evidence. He’d said he wasn’t coupled; he’d been eating alone at least on Wednesday. And that reference to a former girlfriend made me pretty sure he wasn’t gay. But I’d been wrong before. I did a few stretches before attempting the stairs to my apartment and was greeted by a wide-awake kitten who scooted out the door to sniff my neighbor’s door mat.

  “Enough of that now.” I scooped her back up. Lord, she was getting plump! I set her on the sofa. “Now, who called us?” Musetta sat up and batted at my hand. She didn’t care; she wanted to play. “Business first.” I reached for a piece of paper, something to crumple up into a toy, and hit the button.

  “Damn, woman! You are hard to reach.” My hand froze. It was Connor, sounding deliciously sleepy. I could easily imagine those blue eyes half-lidded and that black hair mussed. “Well, we’re just waking up here at Casa de Ralph, so maybe you’re sleeping in, too.” Musetta batted at me again, aware that she’d lost my attention. “What say we meet at the Casbah tomorrow? Let’s make it early-ish, say eight. We can have dinner. Make a night out of it. I’ll be looking for you.” He didn’t ask me to call him back, but that was fine with me. I knew that he was staying with Ralph, and I didn’t want any third party tagging along either.

  “Musetta, we’ve got a date!” Something about the tone of my voice put her ears back, or maybe it was the volume. No matter. I ran into the bedroom and pulled the belt off my terrycloth robe. Trailing it behind me, I limped and skipped up and down the hallway, letting the crazed kitten leap and pounce on my trailing tail until both of us were exhausted.

  mmm

  I told myself I was getting back to work, but it was really still play when I logged back onto the Internet and began to poke around. In all fairness, I did a few cursory searches for references to the Wednesday night happening, but I trusted Carole when she said nobody else had written about it yet. Instead, I went back to those clippings I had bookmarked, the ones covering the fire and embezzlement at Greenleaf House. Many of the best stories—the follow-up ones exposing the money stolen and the employee who’d gone missing—were written by the same Northurst Eagle staffer, though I spotted a few more by Ethan, too, including a long interview with Dougie and the halfway house staff. This must have been the biggest story to hit the town in years. No wonder Ethan had felt like he needed a break. I’d have to nudge him to send some clippings to Tim. But now it was time to put the freelancer’s most powerful weapon to work. I reached for the phone.

  “Northurst. Massachusetts. I’d like the number for the Northurst Eagle, please. Editorial, news department if you have it.”

  The paper was small enough so that one number sufficed for everyone who didn’t handle advertising. Small enough, too, that a real human answered the phone and I could ask for Jim Brett, the staffer who’d authored those first Greenleaf House stories. If my instincts were correct, he covered the local mental health beat, or at least had some understanding of the issues.

  Rather to my surprise, a real person answered his extension.

  “Brett here.”

  “Hi, I’m Theda Krakow.” I introduced myself as a freelancer, although I left out that I wrote features, and explained that I was doing some follow up on the Greenleaf House crimes.

  “That was bad.” He remembered it immediately. “The state subsidizes the home, and everyone there is on disability. There’s not a lot of spare cash floating around at the best of times. A lot of people volunteer their time—including the lawyer who was supposed to be overseeing the handling of money, the conservatorships, and such—but everyone is kind of stretched. This really set them back.”

  Brett, it turned out, was a general assignment reporter on the staff of the small daily. He’d originally picked up the story on the police scanners in the newsroom, when the first reports of the fire came in. But he also had a particular interest in mental illness. “I have a cousin with schizophrenia,” he explained, and quickly outlined how such group houses work. Eight residents lived together along with two full-time counselors. All the residents were seriously, chronically mentally ill; all were on some form of medication, but the house wasn’t a locked ward. It was, in fact, a nice suburban home, with a yard that the residents kept mowed and neat and a simple sign-in system that allowed the residents to visit friends or relatives, even spend weekends away. The counselors, Brett explained, weren’t medical professionals, though usually they had some interest in the field. They were there to make sure everyone stayed on their meds, basically, and to keep track of everyone’s progress. Illnesses like schizophrenia were often cyclical. If someone wasn’t getting out of bed in the morning, the counselors were there to ask why and, if necessary, call the doctors. Beyond that, they handled administration of the house, from posting rosters of chores to be done to making sure prescriptions were refilled. They
also did a lot of the routine paperwork, both for the Social Security disability insurance and for the household upkeep. That’s where the trouble had hit.

  “It’s really a pity. They’d had no problems for years,” Brett was saying. “A couple of the residents worked, but most just went to day programs, group therapy and the like. They’re mostly back to normal now.” He paused. “As normal as they can be, I guess. But it caused a stir. Alarmed a couple of the neighbors who hadn’t realized there was a group home nearby. And it really threw some of the residents for a loop. A few had to go back into the hospital to be restabilized.”

  He’d led me right up to the question I’d wanted to ask.

  “Was one of those folks Doug Helmhold?” I heard a pause on the line. Of course, confidentiality was an issue. But I was a fellow journalist, and if it was a matter of public record….

  “Dougie. He’s a good kid.” Brett laughed. “Kid! He’s my age, but so shy and trusting you’d think he was much younger. Yeah, he was pretty shaken up by it all, by the fire and everything. Dougie was very attached to one of the counselors, too, the guy who took off. The cops were looking at him for the embezzlement, but I haven’t heard any developments on that front. It’s possible that the work just got to be too much for him. Much of what the counselors do is baby-sitting. The pay’s lousy and there’s an extremely high burn-out rate.”

  I heard the rustle of papers over the phone line and knew he’d anticipated my next question.

  “You know who you should really talk to? Anna Nussbein. She’s one of the counselors with a real interest in the work. She’s been there pretty much since the house was established and has been working toward her doctorate at the university out here for probably as long. If anyone can give you the lowdown on any of the residents, she can.”

  He gave me the number and we rang off. My luck wasn’t completely on: I had to leave a message for Ms. Nussbein, but I was encouraged. Heading back to my computer, I figured out the lead for the café story and was just reading through my notes when the phone rang again.

  “Ms. Krakow? This is Anna Nussbein here.” A faint German accent clipped her tones, and for a moment I had a horrible vision of a bad World War II movie. “How can I help you?”

  I identified myself as a stringer for the Boston Morning Mail, as I had on my message. It was the literal truth, even if I wasn’t on assignment. “I’m calling because I’m doing a story on Lillian Helmhold. She lived in Cambridge.”

  “Oh, I know all about her. Dougie used to talk about his mom all the time.” The warmth in her voice melted my image of a Nazi nurse and replaced it with a warm, grandmotherly type. “Such a pity, it is. But I guess she was as old as my nana, my grandmother.” So much for stereotypes.

  “So, they were close?” It seemed a silly question, but I had to ask it.

  “Close? Well, you have to understand.” She paused, not sure how much to explain. “With Dougie’s sickness, he can’t—he doesn’t like being too close. Especially to family. It’s too much stress for him. She would visit him and every now and then he’d go visit her, just take off and catch the bus. Not too often, but he loved her, yes he did. He loved knowing she was there, a hundred miles away.”

  “You’re speaking about him in the past tense. Is he still living at Greenleaf House?”

  “Oh yes. He had an incident, but he’s back now.” I wondered about the severity of the “incident.” I also wondered if he’d made one of his impromptu visits to Cambridge that last Monday, but her tone made it clear that no details would be forthcoming. From her, anyway. I took a chance.

  “Is it possible for me to speak to Dougie?”

  “Sure. If he wants to, that is. He’ll be in your neck of the woods tomorrow.”

  The memorial, of course! Anna answered a few more questions I had, and we rang off. I checked the clock. It wasn’t quite four. If I hurried I could make it.

  Much to my amazement, I found a meter right in front of the hulking brick courthouse that holds most of Cambridge’s important records. Feeding in quarters, I gave silent thanks to Eric, the actor-slash-lawyer who had initiated me into the mysteries of probate and public records. A good friend of Bunny’s, we’d bonded over community theater, which I occasionally wrote about, and he, in turn, helped me get my feature-writer brain around some legal terms that had come up when my parents had passed away eight years earlier. Without his know-how, I would probably have been too intimidated to ever return to the huge building, which loomed like a red-brick monument to paperwork and bureaucracy over the eastern edge of the city, and I would have lost access to a valuable resource. Inside, as I dashed across the worn linoleum and up the huge, curving staircase, I still felt cowed by the weight of centuries of jurisprudence. What was it about a courthouse that could make me feel eight years old? No matter, I knew what I was looking for, even if I felt like a child. Four-ten: I noted the second hand on the plain hallway clock ticking by. I pushed open the heavy wood and glass door marked Probate and dived into the records.

  One of my last questions to Anna Nussbein had been about the legal status of Dougie Helmhold. Was he competent, in a legal sense? And if not, who handled property matters for him? The answer, as I’d begun to suspect, was complicated by time and loss. Officially, his mother had been his guardian until her death. Now the lawyers who handled affairs for Greenleaf House would probably take charge, to some extent, untangling the initial legal knots. Anna wasn’t sure, but she thought they’d been appointed to limited conservatorships, which would enable them to kick-start the transfer of Lillian’s property. Still, the Greenleaf House lawyers wouldn’t be out here, handling the day-to-day of settling taxes and selling assets. For that, they’d probably have to hire someone to administer the estate. Someone local. I rifled through files that smelled faintly of mildew. Behind me a door slammed: the employee’s exit. The large clock over the file cabinets clicked a minute closer to four-thirty: closing time. I was being silly. Probate moves with a snail’s pace, as Eric had taught me. Probably nothing would be decided or even filed for weeks yet. Then I saw it. Name of decedent: Lillian Helmhold. Application for Administration. I skimmed the legalese. “The petitioner(s) hereby certify….” And there it was: Patricia Wright, realtor and notary public, had requested the court’s permission to be named the administrator of Lillian’s estate.

  Chapter Ten

  This didn’t look good. I sat on the hood of my Toyota reading over the copy of the paper I had made. Trying not to jump to conclusions, especially not to Violet’s conclusion of murder for some kind of profit, I began to list the possibilities. Why would Patti Wright want to control Lillian’s estate? The air was beginning to cool and the damp wind smelled of rain, but I was thinking too hard to drive just yet.

  I knew she didn’t like Lillian’s cats. She probably didn’t like Lillian, either, if she’d ever bothered to talk to her. And her few comments about Dougie hadn’t made it sound like she would be concerned with his interests particularly, so it wasn’t neighborly concern that was at work here.

  What was she after? If what Sally Hudson had said could be trusted, she wanted to sell her place. Needed to, in order to regain the life that she’d once had, and I gathered that the rundown property abutting hers, especially with all those cats, was scaring away buyers. Patti had told me herself that she wanted the listing for the Helmhold property, and I’d read—and written—enough about the local real estate scene to know that two lots side by side in the middle of Cambridge could mean a fortune to the right developer. I saw that old house as a shabby queen. She probably had images of luxury condos dancing in her head, if that neat, tight coif had room for them.

  But if she administered the property, what was the advantage to her? I wasn’t sure of the details, but from what the clerk in the probate office had been able to tell me, it did limit her options. It probably meant she wouldn’t be able to act as the realtor for it. Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t covertly control it, maybe pass it along to
a colleague—a confederate who’d split the fees and profits with her down the line. She’d certainly get to exercise some say over who ended up with the grand old house and its considerable yard. Direct profit aside, she’d be able to shape the neighborhood in her image, I realized. She’d be able to unload her own house, and maybe change the character of the neighborhood. I thought of how taxes and rents would rise, of families priced out of the homes they’d inhabited for generations. They would matter little to the realtors who’d start flocking, looking for a share in the millions that were already changing hands in my lovely little city. And Cambridgeport—right by the river, closet to the university—was the city’s heart, a diamond in the rough.

  Or maybe it was all innocent, a concerned neighbor doing what she could to help out, and Sally Hudson’s gossip just that. I knew I was working up a head of steam, that I was creating fiendish scenarios out of only the tiniest shred of information. Violet must be rubbing off on me, or else conspiracy theories were as contagious as spring fever. I smiled at the thought of my upcoming date, and folded the form to slide into my pocket. I needed to think about this, to see what else I could find out. I heard the five o’clock bell of a nearby church and pondered knocking off for the day. Just one more stop, I promised myself, and ducked back through the gathering traffic toward my own neighborhood.

  Patti Wright wasn’t in when I rang her bell. Or wasn’t answering anyway. Up on tiptoe, I tried to peek through the tiny windows inset into her door. This was becoming ridiculous. Still, one brief chat with her might clear everything up. Dismounting her mosaic-inlaid steps, I followed a slate path around back, stepping gingerly and trying to look casual.

  “Patti? Patti Wright, are you working back there?” I knew I was talking too loudly and that my fake friendliness wouldn’t fool anyone, but I kept it up anyway. “Yoo-hoo, Patti?” The back of her house was as neat as the front and just as deserted, its two flowerbeds bare and hemmed in by white stone borders. Even her side of the lilac hedge appeared to have been tamed, trimmed back to make a flat wall that nearly concealed Lillian’s house up to the second floor. I looked over the hedge, my eyes traveling up the peeling clapboard wall. Could this house really be a motive for murder?