A Dawn of Death

by Gin Jones

  A few minutes later, Cory came down the hallway, escorting a young couple out with a promise that he'd find the perfect starter home for them. Once the door had shut behind them, his face lit up with what appeared to be pleasure at seeing Helen, something that Tate's poker face never did. "I wasn't sure you'd remember. Come on back with me."

  "I thought we were going to the golf course."

  His smile widened. "We are. Trust me." He led her down the hallway, popped into his office just long enough to grab two clubs, and then continued to a rear exit. He held the door open for her.

  The sudden brightness blinded her for a moment. As her pupils adjusted, a miniature golf course came into focus. It stretched along the entire length of the back of the strip mall and consisted of meandering greens that wove among playhouse-sized buildings that were reproductions of town landmarks like the town hall, nursing home, and courthouse. There was even a little rotary at the end that served to turn players around to return to the beginning. It looked like an addition was in the works, with a second exit off the rotary that would lead to another parallel run of greens, doubling the already substantial size. The first new hole had been started with three buildings already framed in. The shapes seemed familiar, but she couldn't place them without their finished exteriors.

  "You have your own miniature golf course?"

  "It's a work in progress," Cory said. "It was only supposed to be a putting green, but I got a little carried away."

  "You built all this?"

  He shrugged modestly. "It keeps me busy and out of trouble."

  Helen pointed at the tiny laundry line, complete with little green T-shirts, strung between two of the town hall windows. "Is that Dale's office?"

  "I couldn't resist." Cory nodded toward the far end of the course. "Check out the new hole I'm working on. It's based on Wharton Meadows."

  Of course. Helen had thought the buildings looked familiar. How could she have not recognized the proportionately massive flagpole in front of the administrative building? Even just roughed in without their brick exteriors, it should have been obvious.

  Cory continued. "I was planning to include the community garden too, but I figured I'd better wait until there's a final vote on what to do with the land. I've just got a temporary display there now."

  Sure enough, across the street from the scaled-down Wharton Meadows was a toy bulldozer with half-inch-wide police tape around it.

  Either Cory had an unhealthy fascination with crime scenes or he was a stickler for details in his work. She didn't know him well enough yet to ask him. Besides, learning more about him personally wasn't why she was here today, so she stuck to the real reason for her visit. "You should know what the garden's fate is going to be already. You've got the deciding vote."

  "Perhaps." Cory opened a door in the back of the town hall building, which served as a storage shed. He withdrew a bucket of balls. "Votes are a lot like chickens though. It's best not to count them until they hatch."

  Helen took the club he offered her, glad she didn't have to juggle both it and her cane. "I haven't played since I was a kid."

  "Doesn't matter," he said, handing her a golf ball. "If you were good at softball, you must have solid eye-hand coordination. That's the most important thing. The rest will come back to you."

  She accepted the ball. "Where do we start?"

  "Wherever you want."

  Helen studied the course, aware that she didn't really know what she was looking for but confident that she'd play better with a little preparation than if she just dropped the ball at random.

  She must have put on a convincing show because Cory said with exaggerated dismay, "You're going to beat me, aren't you? At my own game, on my own course, even. Does Dale know how tough you are?"

  "I hope not." Helen decided that the circular driveway of the miniature nursing home was as good a starting point as any. She gestured for him to go first, though, so she could watch him before she tried to play herself. "I'm afraid of what she'll want me to do if she does figure it out."

  "Better you than me," he said, dropping his ball in front of the nursing home. He took a couple of practice swings and then tapped the club on the ground before hitting the ball down the green and up a little hill in front of the court house. "I'm just a simple guy. I could never keep up with either one of you."

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  "I overdid the self-deprecating thing, huh?"

  "A little." She dropped her ball and managed to hit it, but it didn't go where she'd intended. Instead of staying on the green, it bounced off the courthouse and landed in a little river. So much for her supposed eye-hand coordination.

  Helen went over to see if the ball had drowned. "I did my research last night. You may be an underachiever, but you're no fool. Not with a Yale undergraduate degree and an RISD degree in architecture. I did wonder why you didn't open an architecture firm, but it looks like you had another use for your skills."

  "This is just a hobby." Cory followed Helen over to the miniature river and handed her a replacement ball so neither of them had to go wading. "Being a licensed architect is work. Hard work that doesn't leave any time for play."

  Helen knew how that was. She hadn't had much time for anything that wasn't work in some form or another while she'd been in the Governor's Mansion. Even going to the theater or a concert tended to be as much about networking as it was about the cultural experience. "I heard that you're going to inherit Sheryl's construction company. What will you do with a second business to run?"

  "I don't know." He returned to where his ball had ended up. "I'm not as driven as Sheryl was, but having access to her crew would come in handy for expanding my golf course. Maybe I can hire a manager for the day-to-day stuff."

  "Like Marty Drumm?"

  Cory concentrated on lining up his next shot. "I'm not sure he's cut out for management."

  "He does seem a bit overwhelmed. And there's a rumor that he's a drinker."

  He sent his ball down the exact middle of the green before he responded. "Sheryl could drive anyone to drink. She was my cousin, and I liked her more than most people did, but she wasn't easy to be around."

  "I'm sorry for your loss."

  "Thanks." He waited for her to hit her replacement ball, and this time, she managed to keep it on the green and on the path she'd intended. Her eye-hand coordination wasn't completely gone. On the other hand, her physical weakness was showing since the ball only rolled about two feet.

  "I did warn you it had been a long time since I played."

  "Don't worry. It's just a game," Cory said. "Besides, I didn't invite you here just to play golf. I wanted to ask you a favor, and I thought it would be too soon the last time you were here."

  Helen's husband had always conducted business over golf, but she'd never expected to do it herself. "What is it?"

  "I've done my homework too. I know how you've helped the police with some previous investigations." Cory was so smooth he didn't even hesitate over his polite description of her past run-ins with the police.

  "That's one way to put it."

  Cory was looking down at his ball when he said, "Would you consider getting involved in another case?" He swung his club, and the ball went off to the right and rolled into the river. He shook his head ruefully. "Guess I'm not as steady as usual today."

  He turned to focus on Helen. "Here's the thing. I'm not supposed to know, but the OSHA investigator concluded that Sheryl's head injury was inconsistent with an accident. He thinks someone pulled her out of the dozer's cab, causing her to hit her head on that stump in the garden. He also thinks someone moved the dozer afterwards to make it look like an accident."

  Helen didn't feel much like playing games any longer. She picked up her ball. "I'm not a professional investigator, you know."

  "I do know." Cory didn't seem interested in finishing the round of golf either. He turned back toward the miniature town hall. "But I also know you've been more successful than the local
professionals lately. I didn't always get along with Sheryl, but I owe it to her to make sure her killer doesn't get away with it. Besides, it's not good for the town's reputation if there are unsolved murders."

  Always the politician. And that was the problem. Despite his willingness to express his emotions, she couldn't read his thoughts completely. Cory could simply be trying to manipulate her, thinking that by asking for help in catching the killer, he would make himself look innocent. Or he could be truly committed to doing the right thing for his cousin. She needed to be more sure of him before she promised him anything.

  "Who do you think might have wanted her dead?"

  He snorted. "Pretty much the whole town, at one point or another. Not all at once, of course, and a lot of local residents actually benefitted from her work, but she did have a way of raising people's hackles."

  Cory might be a politician sidestepping unpleasant confrontations, but Helen no longer had that limitation. She could be as blunt as she wanted. It saved time and energy, and sometimes it even surprised the truth out of people, especially those who weren't used to straight talk. "What about you? Did you want her dead? You'll be inheriting her business, and I'm guessing it's worth a fair bit."

  "I'll also be inheriting the hassle. Not what I wanted."

  Helen dropped her ball into the bucket. While Cory returned the bucket to its spot inside the miniature town hall, she glanced around the painstakingly built course. She knew what Tate would say—if he were still her lawyer and if he weren't indulging in a totally unwarranted fit of jealousy—that her gut reaction wasn't the sort of evidence that could be presented to a jury. Nevertheless, she was convinced that Cory cared far more about this golf course than he did about money. Especially money that would take him away from what he enjoyed. He hadn't killed his cousin for the inheritance, and there didn't seem to be any other motive for him to have done it.

  "So if I do help to catch the killer," Helen asked him, "what do I get out of it?"

  "The satisfaction of doing the right thing?"

  Helen laughed. "Seriously? You're good, but not even you can pull off that line."

  "Okay, okay." He paused outside the back entrance to his office space and thought for a moment. Then with a grin, he gestured toward the golf course and its painstakingly recreated local buildings. "How about a key to the town? It's just a miniature key, but, hey, it's a lot easier to carry around than those big gilded ones they usually hand out."

  She hadn't really wanted anything of value, just some indication of how serious he was about finding Sheryl's killer. Given Cory's obvious passion for the golf course, offering her a key meant he was definitely serious.

  "Deal."

  It wasn't until a few minutes later as she was heading toward her car that she realized Tate might not like the idea that she had carte blanche in Cory's little world.

  She didn't regret the decision to pursue a personal relationship with Tate, but life had been a great deal simpler when they were nothing more than lawyer and client. In the relatively short time since separating from her ex-husband, she'd grown accustomed to being able to make decisions without thinking about how they would affect anyone else.

  Helen wasn't sure she was ready to give up that freedom just yet.

  * * *

  Helen continued across the parking lot to the far row of cars where Jack was waiting for her. The skies had completely cleared while Helen had been playing miniature golf, just like the forecast had promised. It ought to be safe enough to go check on her peas now.

  She'd almost reached her car when Marty's bright blue truck zoomed into the lot, cutting her off. He hadn't come close to hitting her, but after the near miss the other day, she was starting to feel like a target.

  Jack jumped out of the Subaru, his Clary temper getting the worst of him as he shouted a few choice words at Marty, who was in the process of parking a few spaces away.

  Jack turned to Helen. "Are you all right? You need to be more careful."

  Helen was tired of being careful. She didn't need to watch her every step any longer. It was such a nice change to not be exhausted after every little bit of exercise. She'd almost forgotten what it was like to be able to be as active as she wanted to be.

  "I'm fine," she said, waving Jack off as she went over to the blue truck. "I wanted to talk to Marty anyway."

  By then, Marty had slid out of the driver's seat and was standing with his left hand on the handle, prepared for a quick getaway. His gaze flitted in every direction before finally settling on Helen's face. "What do you want to talk to me about?"

  Helen hadn't prepared a polite way to ask about his drunk and disorderly arrest, and as much as she preferred being blunt, she didn't think he'd respond well to her demanding to know whether he was drinking to mourn his boss's death or to celebrate getting away with her murder.

  He raised his right hand, palm out as if directing one of his fellow construction vehicle drivers to stop. "Never mind. You don't have to tell me. It's the same thing everyone's been asking me about today. Last night's arrest." He shook his head. "I'm such an idiot sometimes."

  "Everyone makes mistakes," Helen said. "What happened?"

  Marty let go of the door handle and slumped down onto the running board. "I'm not much of a drinker, but I went out with some of the crew last night to have a sort of informal memorial for Sheryl, and after they left, I kind of lost track of how many beers I'd had."

  She still couldn't tell if he'd been drinking out of grief or guilt, but if she kept him talking long enough, she might get a better insight into his true feelings. "You've been under a lot of pressure lately."

  "That's kind of you to say." He looked down at his construction boots. "Especially after what I told the cops about you when they brought me to the station."

  "About me?"

  "Yeah, you know. About how you're meddling in the investigation, and now we'll never know what happened to Sheryl." He looked up, a pleading expression on his face. "I didn't really mean it. I was drunk and saying stupid things."

  In Helen's experience, people did generally mean what they said when they were inebriated. Alcohol didn't put ideas in a person's head; all it did was lower inhibitions so that ideas were released from the quarantine that common sense usually imposed.

  Marty went on, seemingly desperate to explain himself. "It's just that I'm trying my best to keep the company going, and now I'm responsible for making sure Sheryl gets justice on top of everything else. The thing is, I don't know what I'm doing with either running the company or overseeing a murder investigation, so I keep making mistakes. All these people are depending on me. I'm not used to this sort of responsibility and stress. I want things to go back to the way they were. With a boss who knows what she's doing."

  "What about Cory?" Helen said. "Can he help with the management?"

  "That's what I'm here to find out." Marty glanced guiltily at the windows of the real estate office and then all around the parking lot. "Cory told me I could do the job, and he had confidence in me, but that was before last night's incident. I'm afraid that might have been the last straw for him, and now he's going to sell off all the assets and shut down the business. He's just looking for an excuse to do it. With all that money, he can play with his golf course twenty-four seven. Maybe the police should be looking at where he was when Sheryl died."

  "I'm sure Detective Peterson will consider every angle." It was a lie, but it would be better for everyone if Marty believed it.

  "Thanks for not being upset with me," he said, finally standing and coming out from between his truck and the adjoining car. "I'm really doing the best I can in the circumstances. In fact, I'd better go talk to Cory now. I need to get it over with so I can go back to the work site before anything else can go wrong."

  Helen let Marty go. She wasn't going to get anything more out of him, and she had her peas to check on.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Helen was startled to find that the entire garden was enco
mpassed by police tape now. It hadn't done much to keep out the gardeners, though, or even the stealth weeder, Richard Avery Sr. He was in the far right corner where loose ends of police tape fluttered between two stakes. He was crawling around on his hands and knees while RJ was obviously trying to coax him back home, occasionally glancing fretfully at the tape his father must have torn while getting into the garden.

  Paul Young hadn't needed to damage the police tape to get into the garden. His long legs would have let him simply step over it. He was kneeling in the path next to Helen's plot, leaning over her pea plants. Beside him was his little cart with some empty six-cell seed starters and several hand tools.

  Helen stepped off the sidewalk onto the beginning of the garden path but stopped on the safe side of the police tape. Detective Peterson would just love to catch her crossing that line, and without Tate's legal assistance, she could end up in jail for the entire gardening season. Even from that distance, she could tell that another seedling was gone.

  "What happened this time?" she asked.

  Paul started, and his head turned fast enough to give him whiplash. "Miss Binney. I did not hear you arrive."

  "Isn't it great? Just a few months ago, you could hear my joints creak from a mile away."

  "I am sure that is not true." The guilty expression on his face gave way to amusement.

  She wondered what he'd been feeling guilty about and whether it was the same thing that had him so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed her approach. It seemed unlikely that he'd be that upset about the loss of another of her pea seedlings. It didn't bother her that much, but she was new to growing things. One thing she'd learned from the magazines that Dale had given her was that dedicated gardeners took the well-being of their plants pretty seriously.

  "So," she asked him, "what's your verdict?"

  He blinked. "The medical examiner will have to determine that. I believe Sheryl's autopsy has already been done, and the police have the preliminary report."