A Denial of Death

by Gin Jones

  "Why would you need a private investigator?" Helen came up with the answer while they were trying to decide which of them should explain. Betty and Josie were famous within the nursing home, and probably throughout all of Wharton, for knowing the best gossip, most of which was nothing more than wild conjecture based on their observations of the nursing home residents and their visitors. Their stories were generally considered to be better than anything on television or in the movie theaters, and their audience could never get enough of them. "Wait. I'm not going to spy on people and report back to you about their romantic escapades."

  "We don't need you for that." Josie absently undid the knot at the top of the purple blob Helen had spent two weeks making. "We're good at ferreting out romances and feuds all by ourselves."

  "We've got something bigger for you to investigate," Betty said. "We want you to look into a possible murder."

  "We're hoping it's just a missing person case." Josie tugged at the end of the purple yarn and began wrapping the unraveled yarn around her fingers to make a ball. "Angie might still be alive."

  "Have you talked to the police?"

  "Of course we did. Hank Peterson was here visiting his uncle." Josie paused in her ball-making. "I can't remember. Have you met Hank?"

  Helen nodded. Detective Hank Peterson had been in charge of investigating the murder of Helen's visiting nurse four months ago.

  "Then you probably have a good idea of how he reacted when we told him we were worried about Angie," Josie said. "He kept patting Betty's hand and making condescending comments about interfering old biddies until she stabbed him with one of her needles."

  "I just wish it hadn't been a big plastic one," Betty said. "Barely got his attention. One of my sharp brass needles for knitting lace would have made much more of an impression on him."

  It helped a little to know that Helen wasn't the only person the detective had underestimated. She'd had the satisfaction of proving him wrong by catching her nurse's killer while he'd been off chasing the wrong suspect. Betty and Josie deserved the same vindication. That didn't mean Helen was the right person to help them, though.

  "What about asking Geoff Loring to look into your friend's disappearance?" Helen had met the Wharton Times reporter at the courthouse a few months ago, when he'd thought a tell-all interview with the governor's ex-wife was his ticket to a career in investigative journalism. "He could ask around for you."

  "He doesn't do hard news any more," Betty said. "He sticks to writing personal-interest stories now. He's pretty good at it, actually, better than he ever was at hard news."

  "We did think about suggesting he interview Angie about her volunteer work, hoping he'd go see her, and then we'd know if she was missing or not," Josie said. "We decided it wouldn't be fair to send him into the lion's den unprepared. If Angie's really missing, then he could stumble into a dangerous story. Even if she's not missing, it could be scary. She'd be mean to him, and then he'd be too afraid to interview anyone ever again, and he'd be out of a job, and it would be our fault. None of that would be a problem for you. You're strong enough—mentally and emotionally, that is—to deal with anything Angie throws at you."

  Helen was curious now. "Who is this Angie?"

  "Angie Decker," Betty said. "She's been coming to our Charity Caps Days for at least a year. She makes preemie caps mostly, and they're exquisite. Perfectly even little stitches in the softest yarn you've ever touched."

  "Pretty pastel colors, too," Josie said. "Newborns, especially preemies, can't handle bright colors, you know."

  "I've heard that." Helen's younger niece, Laura, couldn't talk about much other than babies these days, while she was trying to get pregnant. "But why do you think she's been murdered?"

  "She hadn't missed a single Charity Caps Day in at least a year," Betty said. "Then, three weeks ago, she didn't show up, and she didn't call or text or email or anything. Not then or the next week. We were hoping she'd be here today, but since she isn't, well, it's worrisome."

  "Maybe she's just been busy," Helen said, thinking of her friends' propensity for fabricating wildly improbable stories out of the least little thing. "Or out of town."

  "That's what Detective Peterson said," Betty said irritably. "We're not fools, and you know it. Something's wrong, and we're worried about Angie."

  Even if the two women did tend to exaggerate events, they always had some evidence for their stories. "Just the facts, ladies. Is there anything other than her absence that's suspicious?"

  Josie nodded. "Her husband. He's been bringing us a couple preemie caps every week, claiming she made them but had other commitments that kept her from coming herself."

  "He sounds like a nice man."

  "He's a beautiful hunk of a man," Josie said. "But the pretty ones are always guilty of something."

  "You don't understand." Betty picked up the donation basket that held the tiny finished caps intended for preemies instead of adults and rummaged through it until she found the two examples she wanted, one in hot pink and the other in lime green. "He brought these today."

  Helen didn't see what the women found so odd. "So?"

  "So there's no way Angie made these," Betty said.

  Josie explained, "For one thing, they're bright colors, not her usual pastels. And for another, the knitting tension is uneven. It looks like a beginner's work." She glanced down at the remains of the purple cap Helen had spent two weeks creating and that had, in a matter of minutes, been almost completely unraveled. "Sorry. No offense intended. Everyone has to start somewhere. But Angie wasn't a beginner."

  Helen tried to see what the women were saying about the craftswomanship, but the cap looked perfectly fine to her. "Are you sure she didn't make these? Perhaps she just had a bad day or something?"

  Betty shook her head. "Even on a bad day, Angie's work would never look like this. It's hard to explain, but to a serious knitter, a person's stitching is as unique as a fingerprint. I could pick Angie's work out of a line-up if I had to. And this isn't it."

  "Who made it, then?"

  "I can't tell you that," Betty said. "All I know is it's not one of the regulars here."

  "I still can't believe Ralph would hurt Angie," Josie said. "He's too pretty for his own good, but he always seemed like a good guy. Way too nice for Angie. I sometimes think she makes the preemie caps as penance for all the mean things she does. Sort of like one stitch for every nasty thought she has, and a whole row for every time she yells at someone. Except she wouldn't have enough time in her day to do that much knitting."

  "She is a prissy, bossy little thing," Betty said. "And she's downright mean to poor Ralph."

  "They had their twentieth anniversary recently," Josie said. "Poor Ralph. I hope she wasn't miserable to him the whole time. I'd like to think they were madly in love once. Maybe she's only turned mean in the last few years, and he sees her through the lens of the memories of good times."

  "Until he killed her," Betty said, obviously relishing the thought. "If he finally saw her for what she really is, it must have come as a shock. That's probably why he did it."

  "You think he snapped and killed her?" Helen was mildly disappointed by their theory. It was such a cliché, the basic plot of countless novels and movies. It might have been reasonably fresh when Hitchcock did Rear Window, but it wasn't up to the two women's usual standards of gossip. "I suppose he buried her in the back yard and told everyone she'd gone to visit family?"

  "Something like that," Betty said. "We can't imagine why else he'd be trying to hide the fact that she's gone. Detective Peterson said there hasn't been a missing persons report filed, so there's nothing the police can do. He just laughed when we said we'd be willing to file the missing persons report if Ralph won't do it. He told us to mind our own business and go back to making doilies."

  "As if," Josie said with disdain. "I've crocheted just about everything it's possible to crochet, from caps to parking-meter cozies, but I've never, ever, ever so much as thought
about making a doily."

  "Not that there's anything wrong with doilies." Betty nodded toward a woman hunched over a lacy, fine-thread creation who was taking advantage of the light from the huge front windows. "Donna over there makes the most beautiful tatted doilies you could ever imagine. Sells them on Etsy for a pittance, but it pays for her supplies, and she's just glad to find someone who appreciates her work."

  "We'd do the investigation into Angie's disappearance ourselves," Josie said, "but it would take too long to get permission to leave the nursing home. You don't have that problem."

  "Will you do it for us?" Betty said.

  "I'm really not qualified to investigate a missing person," Helen said, although she was intrigued by the idea. She understood how helpless the two women felt, completely dependent on others to get the answers they wanted, and unable to convince anyone to take them seriously. If Helen turned them down, she'd be acting as dismissively as Detective Peterson. They were probably just imagining a problem, but it would be easy enough to set their fears at rest. A brief visit to Angie's house should confirm she was alive and well and simply too busy to do her usual charity work.

  It wasn't like Helen had anything else that urgent to do this week. The world would probably be a better place if she did not make another chemo cap. "I'll think about it and let you know when I bring in my next chemo cap."

  The two women exchanged a glance before Betty said, "We were sort of hoping you'd do the investigating instead of crocheting."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Helen emerged from the nursing home’s barely adequate air conditioning, into the stifling heat, to find the Papa Bear vehicle she'd arrived in rolling to a stop in front of her. She didn't how Jack did it, but he could appear completely immersed in a game on his smartphone, oblivious to the world, and then, before she herself knew she was ready to leave, he'd be putting the car into gear to pick her up.

  Jack had the ridiculous stepladder set up next to the front passenger door by the time she'd reached the bottom of the nursing home's stairs. She knew he would have preferred her to sit in the rear, the way a proper passenger would do, but he also preferred to work for her rather than the limo company, so he didn't complain. At least not to her. He was as much of a gossip as Betty and Josie, which sometimes came in handy. Unlike Helen, Jack had lived in Wharton all his life, so he was related to half the residents, knew the other half, and could fill her in on all the secrets of Wharton.

  "Back to the cottage, Ms. Binney?"

  "For now." Helen struggled up the stepladder, which, like crocheting, promised not to get any easier for her with practice. She waited until they'd left the nursing home's grounds before asking, "Do you know Ralph and Angie Decker?"

  "Everyone in town knows them," Jack said. "Ralph's an insurance agent. Sells all sorts of policies, but he's known for his expertise with life insurance. You aren't fretting about people trying to kill you again, are you?"

  "No, of course not." But getting a quote on life insurance might be a good cover story if she decided to look into Angie's purported disappearance. "I was just thinking it never hurts to be prepared. What else do you know about the Deckers?"

  "Ralph is the nicest guy," Jack said. "Women all think he's good looking, but he doesn't let it go to his head. Everyone likes him."

  "What about his wife?"

  "She gets under people's skin." Jack checked for traffic before moving into the left lane to turn onto Helen's street. "She's always been a traditional sort of homemaker, even though they don't have kids. She's completely dependent on Ralph, and yet she has to be in charge, and she thinks she knows everything. Like, she never learned to drive, never so much as applied for a driver's license, but she's the absolutely most intrusive backseat driver I've ever met, expecting to be obeyed as if she were a licensed driving instructor. I only drove her once when I worked for the limo company, and that was enough."

  "What did you do to get even?"

  "Nothing," Jack said defensively. "It was back before I started taking revenge on my rotten passengers. I probably wouldn't have done anything anyway, out of respect for Ralph. It wasn't his fault she was a jerk, and he did tip really well to make up for it. If anyone could tempt me back into old habits, though, it would be Angie."

  "You promised you'd stay out of trouble with the law."

  "I will, Ms. Binney. I've completely given up my criminal past. I'm too busy making my clay figures, anyway."

  "I'm glad you've found something to keep you out of trouble," Helen said, convinced he had, indeed, kicked his retaliatory, petty-mischief habit.

  She envied him his new passion. She'd tried a few different hobbies herself, looking for a distraction from her lupus flare-ups, but she hadn't found anything that really appealed to her. With each failure her frustration had grown. Everyone else seemed to find their creative passion without any false starts.

  Take Jack, for example. He'd quickly established a name for himself, making clay avatars inspired by his clientele's gaming avatars. It was the perfect hobby for him—he was as good with a pottery wheel as he was with a steering wheel, there were no back-seat drivers to deal with, and he could draw on his knowledge of computer games to design the little figures. In another year or two, he might be too busy to drive her, even for the few hours a week she left her little cottage in the woods.

  "I hope I'm not keeping you from your other work."

  "I don't mind, Ms. Binney," he said. "I could take you to Ralph's insurance agency now, if you'd like. I put a batch of figures into the kiln this morning, and it'll be tomorrow before I can unload them. They're prototypes for a new line I'm offering, and I want to see how the first ones come out before I start any more like them."

  "I don't have time for a detour today. Rebecca rescheduled her morning visit to this afternoon. If I'm not there, she'll report it to my nieces, and they'll worry," Helen said. "Once you drop me off at the cottage, you can return this vehicle to the lot. I really don't think it's right for me."

  "Are you sure?" Jack's voice reflected his disappointment as he glanced at the onboard infotainment system. It must have lived up to the hype.

  "I'm sure." It was going to be her car, after all. She didn't want to make his job harder, but he could always bring a laptop if he needed more gaming options than his smartphone provided. "I understand this particular model gets really poor mileage."

  "I'll see what else Ed has that might suit you and bring it by for you to test ride tomorrow."

  Part of her wanted to insist on having more input into the choice of her very first car. She couldn't just ignore Jack's advice, though. He knew a great deal more about cars than she did. All she had to do was keep trying out the different vehicles he recommended until she found the one that was just right.

  "Let's aim for something a bit smaller," Helen said. "Something that doesn't require a ladder for me to get into it."

  * * *

  The SUV glided over the ruts in Helen's long, gravel driveway, but at least Jack refrained from saying "I told you so." The cottage was set back several hundred yards from the road, in the middle of a clearing in otherwise wooded acreage. She loved the privacy, although it sometimes worked against her. She could never see who was lurking in her driveway until it was too late to turn around.

  This afternoon, there were two cars parked between the cottage and the detached garage. One belonged to Tate—his first name was Ambrose, but no one had called him by anything other than his last name since his first day in kindergarten when he'd refused to respond to anything else—a retired lawyer who rented the garage for use as a woodworking studio. Helen didn't mind his presence. In fact, she ought to talk to him before she made a decision about investigating Angie's disappearance. He had twenty-five years' experience with criminal defense work and was her best source of information on both criminal and anti-criminal behavior. He would know how the professionals went about investigating a missing person, and maybe she could use some of their tactics to find Angie. Assu
ming the woman wasn't safely at home, blissfully unaware of Betty's and Josie's worries.

  Before she could talk to Tate, Helen had to deal with the owner of the other vehicle waiting for her: Rebecca Grainger. Her visiting nurse.

  Helen rushed to get out of the huge SUV and down the stepladder before Rebecca could come over and help. The only time the shy young woman ever developed a backbone was when she thought her patient might hurt herself, and then she was implacable in foisting her assistance, wanted or not, on the hapless patient.

  It was a close race, but Helen was on the ground, her cane in hand, before the nurse could interfere. Once Rebecca saw her patient was stable, she leaned against the SUV to catch her breath. She was a short, redheaded woman, and despite being in her mid-twenties, her forehead was already etched with permanent worry lines.

  "Let's get this over with." Helen grabbed her yarn bag and followed the path leading to her front door. The increased pain in her hip confirmed that climbing that horrible stepladder on a regular basis would not be a good idea. "You can check my blood pressure, I'll tell you I feel fine, and then we're done for the day."

  "You're limping more than usual," Rebecca said with a faintly accusing tone. "Did you fall again?"

  "I've been climbing ladders." As she spoke, Helen could hear the oversized SUV leaving. "I'm not planning to do it ever again. It was a one-time experiment."

  "All right," Rebecca said uncertainly. "Why don't you rest in the recliner for a few minutes, and then I'll take your blood pressure."

  Helen considered it while she unlocked the front door and let them both inside. It was almost time for Tate to leave for the day, and she was hoping to speak to him before he left. She didn't have time for Rebecca's fussing. "I don't need to rest. Go ahead and cuff me. My blood pressure is fine. Or it was before you started fussing over me."

  "The numbers are likely to be high right now, just from getting out of the SUV and walking to the cottage," Rebecca said. "But if you want to risk it, we can."