Red Sky In Mourning: A Helen Bradley Mystery (Helen Bradley Mysteries Book 3)

by Patricia H. Rushford

  "Well, I wish you luck," Hank said. "Poor kid. She's had a rough life with her old man dyin' and her mom taking off like she did. Now with Chuck gone, she needs somebody to look after her. Doesn't look like Mandrel's going to be much help."

  "I just hope Scott ain't involved." Bill folded his sinewy brown arms and leaned on the table. "Shells don't need any more heartache."

  Shells came back with coffee and a large bowl of soup for Hank. "Here you go. Yours will be right up, Bill."

  When she'd gone again, Bill leaned back and twisted slightly in his chair. "You said you wanted to ask us something?"

  "Yes. I'm wondering what you can tell me about one of the men who was on Mike Trenton's boat yesterday morning. Earl Wilson. He had dinner with you here the night before. His brother-in-law is the man who admitted to detonating the bomb"

  "Yeah, we know Earl." Hank shoveled a spoonful of clam chowder into his mouth. A small amount dribbled onto his beard, and he paused to wipe at it with the back of his hand. "Earl went out with us to check our catch. He's EPA. Why do you ask?"

  "Just curious," Helen said.

  Bill's eyes narrowed into thin slits. "You don't think Earl had anything to do with Chuck's death? Cause if he did..."

  "I just find the connection rather interesting, that's all."

  Bill settled back in his chair. "I like the way you think, Mrs. Bradley. It does seem kind of strange that Earl and his buddies charter out and one of them just happens to be a bomber. I guess just 'cause he's with the EPA don't necessarily mean he's inno­cent, huh?"

  "That's true enough," Helen agreed.

  "Maybe we could check him out."

  "That might be better left to the sheriff. You can best help by keeping your eyes open and reporting any suspicious activity to the authorities." Helen stood. "In the meantime, I'd better be going. I'd like to talk to the two of you later, if you don't mind.

  "No problem." Bill stood and ducked slightly in what could have passed for a bow. "Might see you at Bubba's later."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Helen was on her way out for the second time when Shells whizzed past her and landed in the arms of the man coming through the door.

  "Scott!" Her voice was muffled as she buried her face in his shoulder. "Thank God. Dan said he was going to arrest you. What happened?"

  Scott held her against him, kissing her before he spoke. "My lawyer said they didn't have enough to hold me." He glanced toward Helen, then back to Shells. "I didn't do it, babe. I didn't kill Chuck."

  "I know." Shells took hold of his hand and pulled him forward. "You remember Mrs. Bradley."

  "Of course. You were with Lieutenant Jorgenson." He gave Shells a what's-going-on look.

  "Helen said she'd help us prove you didn't have anything to do with Chuck's death."

  "I thought you were working with Adam," Scott said. "He sure isn't interested in saving my skin."

  Helen shook her head. "I'm not officially working with anyone. Shells, you make me sound like a miracle worker. I only said I'd look into it."

  Shells' lower lip quivered. "I know. But with your help I'm sure we'll be able to find out who really hired Steve, or at least prove Scott is innocent."

  Helen wished she shared Shells' confidence. Though she may not have been as quick to accuse Scott as Adam and Dan had been, Helen wasn't by any means ready to eliminate him as a suspect. Once again she bid Shells and the others adieu and set off for the docks.

  Helen's timing proved perfect as she arrived on the boat dock just in time to watch Mike Trenton pull into his slip. She took several photographs, then helped him tie up.

  "How was the fishing today?" she asked when Mike jumped onto the dock and set up portable steps for his passengers.

  "Not bad. Everybody caught something."

  One of the women joined Helen on the dock. "It was wonderful. I got a sturgeon just under six feet."

  Mike lifted the lid on the fish box and hauled out a giant fish that looked like a throwback to prehistoric times.

  "Would you mind posing with it?" Helen asked. "I'd like to get some photos."

  "I'd love it. Will you send me a copy?"

  "Be happy to." Helen spent the next half hour acting as the trip photographer, getting release forms signed and writing down names and addresses of Mike's eight delightful fishermen, and women, as the case may be.

  When the group finally left, Mike Trenton joined her on the dock. Helen found herself thinking he'd be an attractive man if he smiled more. His troubled countenance remained in place while he thanked her for giving his customers the added bonus of pictures.

  "Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" He rubbed the back of his head, then adjusted his Trenton Charters baseball cap.

  The man obviously had something on his mind, and though Helen had other things on her agenda, she agreed. They walked up to the small deli near the dock entrance, ordered, and took their drinks outside. The clouds had lifted, and Mike led the way to a table on the sun porch.

  "Turning out to be a nice day," Helen said.

  "Not bad." He put the Styrofoam cup to his mouth, sipped, and grimaced. "You ready to try your hand at fishing again? I got an opening on Friday."

  "That's kind of you," Helen murmured. "I appreciate the offer, but..."

  "Seeing as how you didn't get to do any fishing yesterday I figure I owe you."

  Did she really want to go out again? Helen sucked in a deep breath and took a sip of coffee, then shuddered. No wonder Mike had made a face. The stuff was strong enough to stand a spoon in. "Maybe I will go," she said.

  "Good. That EPA guy wants to go out again too. Guess he's bringing his buddies, except for the one that admitted to detonating the bomb on Chuck's boat."

  "Doesn't it worry you to take them out?"

  "What for? Earl told me he felt real bad about the whole thing. Didn't know his brother-in-law was having such a hard time. Said he knew the guy was upset, but never expected anything like that." Mike reached up and pulled the bill of his cap down. "Guy must have been pretty desperate to let Mandrel talk him into killing somebody."

  "Sounds like you think Scott was behind it."

  He nodded. "Who else would it be? From what Dan said, the guy's got motive, means, and opportunity. 'Course it was pretty stupid to be on board when it blew. Sure not something I'd do."

  "How well do you know Scott?"

  "Not well enough by the looks of things. Glad we found out now, though. It'll be tough for Shells, but not so much now as if she'd married him. Just wish we'd known sooner." He paused to clear his throat and look down toward the docks. "Chuck might still be alive."

  "I take it you and Chuck were good friends."

  "The best. We went to school together. Chuck, me, Dan, Hank, and Bill. Did everything together."

  Grief seemed to take its toll on the big fisherman. He hunched over the table and didn't appear to notice when she stood.

  "I'd best be going." Helen sensed his desire to be alone. "I want to climb McKenzie Head before dark."

  "Better hurry." He looked to the west where the colors of sunset were already painting the late afternoon sky. "You only got about an hour and a half of daylight left."

  It was nearly five when she parked her car in the small lot near the trail head. She'd almost talked herself out of going, but the promise of a spectacular sunset lured her on. Besides, she wouldn't be meeting Emily at Bubba's until seven, and the caffeine from the coffee she'd downed was not about to let her sit around doing nothing. Helen ignored the niggling voice in her head urging her not to go. It was the voice of fear, she decided. She glanced around, assuring herself she had nothing to be afraid of. You're the only person around, Helen reminded herself. You've hiked dozens of trails alone.

  It would take her only fifteen minutes to hike up the half- mile trail and probably ten to jog back down. That left her more than half an hour to explore. She tossed a fresh water bottle into her pack along with two new rolls of film. The flashlight, first aid kit,
and camera were already in.

  Upset with herself for vacillating, Helen slipped the straps of her backpack onto her shoulders, locked the door, pocketed the keys, and set off.

  Moments later she was glad she'd made the decision to come. The path was easy, clear and beautiful as it wound through the trees and occasionally afforded a view of the ocean. She hurried along the path, dwelling not on murders and murderers, but on how she would describe the hike in the guidebook.

  When Helen reached the concrete bunkers Adam had described, she bypassed the long dark tunnel which led to living quarters that had been home to dozens of soldiers over the years. She planned to walk through the bunker on her way back. Helen scrambled up the short, narrow trail and emerged at the summit. The clearing offered a panoramic view of the coastline north and south. Below her stretched Benson Beach. She took several photos, then concentrated on the circular concrete hole where artillery guns had once protected the shoreline. The gun placement, similar in size to those near the Interpretive Center, was about six feet deep and eight feet across. To her right was another concrete building—a square lookout with narrow openings across the top. Helen climbed inside, fancying herself a soldier keeping watch in a fort completely hidden from enemy eyes. Thrilled with her find, Helen took the steep, eroded, slip­pery path to the top of the lookout. The view was even more spectacular from there. Helen sat cross-legged near the edge, looking down at the steep incline to the beach far below.

  If someone wanted to get rid of her, this would be the place to do it. One push and gravity would do the rest. She shuddered. "Helen Bradley, what an imagination you have."

  She glanced around, reassuring herself she was still very much alone. After taking more photos and watching the sun turn the sky into a vivid canvas of color, Helen rose, stretched her arms to the sky, and started back. She still had time to walk through the tunnel and make it back to her car before it turned completely dark.

  Pausing at the entrance to the first bunker, Helen pulled out her flashlight, then stepped inside. The temperature dropped immediately. It smelled musty and dank. She trained the flash­light beam on the floor and over the walls. Just a short distance in was a small room, then another. As she walked through the maze of tunnels stopping to examine each room, Helen tried to imagine what it might have been like new. Soldiers talking to one another, lonely, showing each other pictures of girlfriends, wives, children, and parents.

  She stopped at a hallway leading to a room that must have served as a lockup of sorts. A metal door stood at an angle slightly ajar. That one she'd skip. She moved faster now, stepping carefully over puddles of muddy water toward the opening at the other end of the tunnel.

  This was not a safe place, even in daylight, and she chided herself for coming alone. Unfortunately, even at her age, curiosity sometimes won out over common sense.

  Helen heard a scraping noise behind her. She whirled and aimed the flashlight's beam toward the direction of the sound. A small gray mouse skittered across the floor. She covered her mouth but a yelp escaped just the same. Her cry bounced off the walls and echoed back at her. She took deep breaths to settle her racing pulse.

  Fear pounded in her ears and raced through her veins. The sound she'd heard had not come from a mouse. Something or someone was in the tunnel with her.

  "Who's there?" She took a step forward, jerking the flashlight back and forth.

  Something hit her from behind. Helen pitched forward. The light at the end of the tunnel disappeared.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "Where ..." Helen moaned. Her head hurt, and not just from the baseball-sized lump on the back of her skull. She felt fuzzy and disoriented, as if she were waking up from surgery. She opened her eyes hoping the hard, damp floor, the drip-drip-dripping on her forehead, and the total darkness were only the lingering effects of a dream gone bad.

  Opening her eyes made matters even worse and seemed to heighten her awareness of the cold floor and the smell, musty mold, decaying leaves. Helen rose to her knees and tried to ori­ent herself. Lights exploded behind her eyes as a wave of pain tore through her head. She wove her hands through her hair, wincing as she touched the lump.

  "Oh, dear God." Her whimper echoed in the darkness. "Where am I?"

  When the pain and accompanying nausea subsided, she crawled forward, feeling for a wall, something stable she could lean against when she tried to stand. The last thing she remem­bered was watching the sky turn rose from the top of a hill. She couldn't recall the name. She'd started back and... Flashlight. She'd had a flashlight and her backpack. along with and matches and drinking water. Where were they?

  Her memory came back in snatches. She'd been exploring a bunker, part of the old army barracks. Had she fallen? She remembered pitching forward, but the hit had come from behind. Had something, a piece of concrete perhaps dropped from the ceiling? "Too much force for that," she murmured. Someone had hit her. But why? Had she come upon a vagrant?

  Or had Chuck and Isabelle's killer struck again?

  Her hand connected with an object and sent it skittering across the concrete floor. Her heart careened into overdrive. "It's okay," she gasped. "Probably a discarded aluminum can." She needed to calm down and be rational. She'd been in worse situations—like the prison in Mexico where she'd gone undercover for the DEA. There she'd shared her quarters with rats. Here at least there was a way out. An open doorway at both ends. She just had to find one of them and hope her attacker wasn't still there.

  Helen moved ahead, crawling on all fours again. Her hand grazed a ledge and plunged elbow deep into a water-filled hole. "Ugh." She touched something slimy and jerked her hand back. She dried it on the front of her jacket. Panic surged through her like an electric shock. She sat back on her legs. "It's just water," she reminded herself.

  She stopped and took several deep breaths. Complete darkness had always frightened her. She wasn't sure why. Perhaps something had happened to her as a child. As she often did when fear assailed her, Helen began to recite the Twenty-third Psalm. "The Lord is my shepherd...." When she finished she repeated her favorite line for emphasis. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." Believing that had brought her through more trials than she cared to remember. God had been with her through them all and there was no reason He'd quit now.

  Inch by inch, Helen continued to move ahead and nearly cheered when she butted her head against a wall. She cautiously eased herself into an upright position. Dizziness and pain made it next to impossible to concentrate on her task. After a few minutes she regained her equilibrium. Using the wall for support, she crept alongside it. When she reached a corner, she whispered a short thank-you and turned to exit the cubicle she'd been dumped in. Helen stepped forward and moaned in despair. Her hands closed around the rusting iron bars, and she knew exactly where she was. Whoever had attacked her had dragged her into the brig. She was trapped.

  When the terror subsided again, Helen struggled against the tide of emotions to bring herself back to rational thought. She'd only gotten a brief look at the iron bars, but it seemed unlikely that they'd still have a working lock after all this time. The barred door had been standing open when she looked at it earlier. Perhaps it still was and all she had to do was maneuver around it. She reached for the bars again. They swung away, screeching on rusty hinges.

  Free of her imagined prison, Helen felt her way along another wall until she reached what she hoped was the main walkway through the tunnel. A gust of wind whistled through, rustling up dry leaves and chilling her to the bone. Helen found the wall again and followed it. When it didn't give way to another room, she knew she was on the west wall, the solid one that would lead her to freedom.

  Helen emerged from the tunnel and sank to her knees thankful and exhausted. She hoped the moon would provide enough light to guide her back down the trail.

  Voices splintered the cold, clear night. Someone was calling her name.

  "Hele
n!" It was Emily.

  Another voice joined in—maybe Dan or Adam. "Helen! Are you up here?"

  "I'm here!" She waved as if they could see her. "Up by the bunkers."

  Several beams of light flickered through the trees. Voices stilled and footsteps thundered.

  Suddenly they were standing around her, lanterns and flashlights creating a bright circle of light. Emily, Hank, Bill, Adam, and Dan.

  "My goodness gracious, child," Emily said. "What happened to you?"

  "I was exploring the tunnel and someone knocked me out. My pack and flashlight are missing—might still be in there. And my camera." She patted her pocket and groaned. "He got my keys."

  "Your keys are in your car." Dan looked as though he wanted to lecture her on that point but apparently thought better of it. "Could be the other stuff is there, too, but we'll have a look here first." He directed his flashlight around the group and added, "Hank, why don't you and Bill help Mrs. Bradley down to the road. I'll radio ahead for an ambulance. Adam and I'll have a look around and catch up."

  Helen would have liked to search the bunkers, too, but her head hurt and she could barely stand. She'd have to question Adam and Dan later. Hank and Bill made a makeshift chair by clasping their hands together and carried Helen between them. Emily walked just ahead lighting the way.

  As promised, an ambulance was parked at the trail head. Two EMTs stood beside a stretcher, which they pushed toward the rescue party when they emerged from the woods.

  "I don't really need an ambulance," Helen protested. At her insistence Hank and Bill put her down.

  "Thanks for all your help," she began.

  "Are you sure you can drive?"

  "I'm fine." As soon as I sit down, she added to herself. She took one step and the nausea returned. Another step and the lights started spinning. On her next step, someone caught her as she went down.

  When Helen next awoke, her headache was nearly gone. The mattress was almost as hard as the concrete she'd been lying on earlier. It was still dark outside. Helen lifted her arm to look at her watch. The small numbers blurred.