A Darling of Death

by Gin Jones

  This time Tate didn't bother to hide his confusion. His eyebrows rose considerably higher. "Car accident?"

  Helen reached for the bag of sandwiches to cover her huff of irritation, this time with herself. Tate had told her often enough not to volunteer information during an interrogation. She'd never thought to apply that advice to discussions with him, but she probably should have.

  She tossed him a sandwich. "You mean there's something else bothering you that we need to discuss? Something worse than a car accident or a dead body?"

  "I thought so, but I should have known you'd find a way to top it." He set his sandwich down on the wooden trencher in front of him. "Did you get me a pickle?"

  "Of course." Helen dug in the bottom of the bag and pulled out the kosher dill. "So what did you want to talk about?"

  "It's not that important." He unwrapped the pickle and set it next to his sandwich. "Why don't you start by telling me about the accident? Are you sure no one was hurt?"

  "I'm pretty well acquainted with aches and pains. I'd notice if there were any new ones. Jack might be a little sore, but he didn't think there was anything seriously wrong."

  "Good." Tate took a bite of his pickle and chewed as if the process required his full concentration. He ate as if he'd heard Mia's lectures on staying in the now of the Tai Chi movements, letting go of distractions. It was probably good advice that should be applied to everything a person did, but most of the time, Tate was a master of multi-tasking.

  Helen picked at her sandwich, no longer as hungry as when she'd left the Zubov House of Sambo. What was it that Tate had wanted to talk about that was so important he'd even take a break from his woodworking? And why wasn't he saying anything now?

  She couldn't stand the suspense. "Are you going to tell me to stay out of the police investigation into Danica Darling's death?"

  He shook his head as he swallowed. "For once, I'm going to assume that you're a grown woman and know enough to stay out of trouble."

  "Seriously?" She had come to find his lectures endearing, knowing that they were as close as he would ever get to romantic declarations. "No dire warnings about how you're not my lawyer any longer, and you're not bailing me out if I get arrested?"

  He shrugged. "No need. You know my position already."

  Helen peered at him suspiciously, but she couldn't read his expression this time. Had he given up on her? No, Tate wasn't a quitter. He'd stuck with his legal practice for many years after he'd grown disenchanted with the work, so he could meet his commitments and then have a comfortable retirement doing work he enjoyed but that didn't provide much of an income. He wouldn't give up on her in the normal course of events, but she might have pushed him away with her persistent bad mood.

  "What if I start asking you questions about the crime scene?" she asked, to see how far he would go with his supposed disinterest in her possibly investigating another murder. "Are you going to answer them?"

  "As long as you don't ask for an actual legal opinion." He picked up his sandwich and took a large bite.

  She decided to worry about why he was behaving strangely later. For now, she might as well take advantage of his being so amenable in order to get his reaction to what had struck her as odd about the body in the shower. She hadn't been able to figure out what had bothered her about the crime scene while she'd been talking to Almeida, but it had come to her on the drive home. She'd had plenty of time to ponder the question without interruption, since Jack had been too busy listening for any sounds that might indicate hidden damage to the car to want to chat with her.

  "What do you know about slip-and-fall accidents?"

  "I've represented a few people in civil cases when they slipped on ice. This type of case can be hard to win, although it got a little easier a few years ago with a groundbreaking Supreme Judicial Court decision that shifted the burden of proof a bit." He reached for the second takeout bag and retrieved a bottle of iced tea. "So the woman died from a simple slip and fall?"

  "That's what Detective Peterson thinks."

  She waited for Tate to comment on how that should be the end of it as far as she was concerned. Instead, he looked down at his sandwich again, as if eating required more of his formidable mental skills than investigating a murder scene would. She wasn't sure, what with his superhuman ability to school his features into nonchalance, but she thought he was struggling to remain silent.

  When it was obvious he wasn't going to give her the expected warning, she added, "I'm pretty sure Peterson's wrong about the death being an accident. I've had a bit of experience with falling, and if I've tripped over something, I fall forward, but if I slip, I go backward, landing on my butt."

  Tate nodded. "Generally the victim of a slip falls backwards. Sometimes to the side. Never forward."

  "That's why I don't think Danica slipped," Helen said. "If she had, she'd have been on her back, but I found her lying face down."

  "That doesn't mean it was murder," Tate said. "She could have tripped."

  "I don't think so. There was nothing on the floor of the shower anywhere near her feet that could have caused her to stumble. Just a towel near her face. As far as I could tell, the only way for her to have ended up on the floor, unless she was pushed, was as a result of a slip. But then she'd have been on her back, not face-down. And if she'd fallen backwards initially and somehow managed to roll over before she died, then her scalp would have been all bloody, not her forehead."

  "Sometimes people trip over their own feet."

  "Not people like Danica Darling," Helen said. "She's a gifted athlete, according to Kolya. She does Sambo at competition level. From what I saw, she doesn't even get tossed onto the mat very often. At least not by her sparring partner, although Kolya was able to pin her. She must have known how to take a fall. So if she did trip over something that I missed, then why didn't she just tuck and roll with the momentum? Or even use her hands to catch herself, like you're not really supposed to? Breaking a wrist would have been better than landing on her head."

  "Good points." Tate stared at the remainder of his sandwich before apparently deciding he wasn't hungry any longer. He wrapped it back up and tucked it into the takeout bag before leaning back to look at Helen thoughtfully.

  He had something serious on his mind. She just knew it. Perhaps he'd gotten tired of putting up with her increased irritability since she'd returned from Boston. She couldn't really blame him; she was tired of it herself. Or perhaps he'd finally understood what it meant to have a relationship with someone who had a chronic illness. She wasn't always a lot of fun to be around. There were doctors' appointments and nurses' visits and hospitalizations that were likely to get more frequent with time, rather than less frequent, and there was no guarantee she would ever get better. All the things that made her cranky were bound to make anyone who cared about her cranky too. Even someone as generally stoic as Tate was.

  She knew Tate cared about her, even if he hardly ever said so. He wasn't a Hallmark card kind of person. He didn't express his feelings, except in extreme situations, but she'd learned that he did have strong, deeply buried emotions. He was sensitive to other people's feelings too, so if he was getting ready to withdraw from their relationship, he was probably worried about upsetting her. That was the only explanation she could come up with for why he didn't just tell her straight out whatever was on his mind.

  "You can tell me whatever you're thinking," she said. "You've never shied away from being blunt with me before."

  He thought for another moment and then said, "It can wait. I've got work to do, and I'm sure you have things to do too." He packed up the remains of her lunch, along with his, and went over to stuff them into a dorm-sized fridge tucked beneath his workbench. "You've got enough to deal with right now, between the car accident and your latest murder investigation."

  She might not be tough physically, but she was tough in other ways. She could handle whatever Tate might have to say. In fact, his bluntness was one of the things she'd
always liked about him. She wasn't so sure how she felt about his trying to be considerate and watching his words.

  And yet, what was she supposed to say? Stop being so nice and considerate? Or perhaps go ahead; ruin my day?

  Tate was already preparing to resume his woodworking, picking up his eye and ear protection in a clear signal that lunchtime was over, as far as he was concerned. She wasn't going to get any answers out of him now, about either the crime scene or whatever he'd initially planned to talk to her about.

  Helen rose to her feet and headed for the exit. She grabbed the doorknob, tugging harder than necessary to vent some of her frustration, only to be stymied when the door didn't budge. The wood was swollen with the humidity again, which probably explained why Tate had left it ajar. She should have followed suit, but she'd thought it had been fixed. The door had begun sticking before she'd gone to Boston for her medical appointments, and Tate had insisted that he would take care of it—he certainly had enough woodworking tools and expertise—so she shouldn't hire someone to plane it down. He'd planned to do it while she was in Boston for her medical testing, but apparently he hadn't gotten around to it.

  Tate wasn't ignoring her as much as he'd been pretending, since he noticed right away that she was having trouble and came over to help her get the door unstuck. She hated having to depend on his help, especially when she wanted to shake him with more force than he was using on the door, but she didn't have much choice. Not yet, not after just one Tai Chi lesson. Soon, though, she was going to be stronger. Tate wouldn't have to feel like he had to tiptoe around her, and she'd be able to open her own damn doors.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Whatever Tate was refusing to tell her couldn't possibly be as bad as the uncertainty of not knowing what was wrong with him. Helen needed a distraction, or she'd go crazy worrying about what he was worrying about. That sort of relationship angst had been fun, in a masochistic sort of way, when she was a teen. Now, it was just a waste of her limited energy.

  Visiting Betty Seese and Josie Todd at the Wharton Nursing Home usually cheered Helen up—something she definitely needed after her lunch with Tate.

  With her car in for repairs and Jack probably a bit sore from the accident, Helen opted to call a cab. Half an hour later, she was dropped off at the base of the stairs to the nursing home, a converted early-twentieth-century mansion. The lobby and activity room on the first floor remained as opulent as ever, with the original woodwork, marble floors, and high ceilings. Unfortunately, while they looked stunning, they lacked some modern amenities, like air conditioning that was part of an integrated HVAC design. The retrofitted system struggled to maintain a comfortable room temperature even on moderately warm days. During a heat wave like the current one, about all it could do was remove some of the humidity from the air. As a result, the air temperature inside was pushing ninety today and felt even hotter.

  Helen headed for the activity room where she could usually find her friends seated in wingback chairs next to a fireplace—unlit today, of course—working on their knit or crochet hats for charity. They weren't in their usual spot, though. Instead, they were over at the massive front windows where patients in wheelchairs were lined up to watch the comings and goings at the main entrance. The heat made them move even more sluggishly than usual, and about half of them were dozing.

  Josie had her back to the doors of the activity room. She was the older of the two women, in her eighties and short and thin, but even in the heat, she was as full of energy as the sunshine that her bright yellow T-shirt and capris mimicked. The man who'd been drowsily listening to her talk tapped her on the hand and pointed at Helen.

  Josie turned to wave at Helen and point at their usual hangout, the wingback chairs near the fireplace. Helen headed over there while Josie went to collect Betty and then drummed her fingers restlessly on the back of a wheelchair until her friend finished her conversation. Josie never could be still without a crochet project in her hands.

  Betty was about ten years younger than her friend, but dressed in darker shades—a navy V-necked top with matching loose cotton pants—and moved at half the older woman's speed. Her slowness had nothing to do with Betty's health, or even the twenty or thirty pounds of extra weight she carried. It was just her nature. She was deliberate and cautious in everything she did, from placing her feet in front of each other to designing her knit chemo caps.

  Helen drew up a third chair near the two that held Betty's and Josie's yarn bags and settled in to resume work on her own project, a crocheted chemo cap in a heathery shade of purple.

  Josie arrived at the wingback chairs first with Betty bringing up the rear.

  "Something big is going on." Josie picked up her turquoise crochet project before throwing herself into her seat. "Not as big as finding a dead body in a shower, but, hey, considering how dull this place usually is, it's been pretty exciting here lately."

  Helen let her hands fall into her lap. She'd gotten better at making even stitches, but she still hadn't mastered the knack of crocheting and talking at the same time. "You heard about what happened at Kolya's gym?"

  Betty finished settling into her chair and began casting on the stitches for her latest chemo cap. The yarn was the same bright turquoise as her friend's project, a contrast to her usual preference for more sedate colors. She probably hadn't exactly chosen it, but was working with yarn donated for their charitable endeavors. "Hank Peterson's uncle couldn't wait to tell everyone. He said it was an accident, but we wanted to hear what you thought."

  "I think it's none of my business." Helen realized she was starting to sound more like Tate than he did. Something was definitely wrong with him, but she was supposed to be getting distracted from that puzzle, not dwelling on it. "So, what's happening here that's so exciting?"

  "We don't really know," Josie admitted. "But there were a bunch of meetings in the nursing home director's office on Saturday. He never works on the weekends, especially in the summer when he could be golfing. He makes Martha Waddell cover all the weekends. And we've never seen members of the board of selectmen come here to talk to him before. He usually takes them out to lunch or plays golf with them when he wants to network."

  The Wharton Nursing Home was owned by the town, so it wasn't surprising that its director would be working closely with town officials. He would need them to authorize his proposed budgets and major contracts.

  Helen had a sudden worrisome thought. The director also needed the selectmen to support the facility's continued existence. She couldn't imagine that the place would ever be shut down, but it might be sold. Back when Helen had been the state's First Lady, she'd been aware of a number of municipalities who'd chosen to sell their nursing homes to private companies to save money. Could that be what the director was considering now?

  She didn't want to worry the residents unnecessarily, so she'd have to get some facts before she mentioned the possibility of privatization. "Is that all you've noticed? More of the formal meetings and less of the golf?"

  "I'm afraid so," Betty said. "They realized we'd noticed that something was going on, so now they're getting together at the Wharton B&B where we can't spy on them. There are some conference rooms there that the town sometimes rents for private meetings."

  Josie snorted. "Like they can hide from us. One of my old students works in the kitchen there. She said they'd ordered enough lunches today for the entire board of selectmen along with half the administrative staff of the nursing home. And there'd still be leftovers."

  That didn't sound good. A routine approval of a contract or even the annual budget wouldn't require that many people to get together in advance of the official meeting. It also didn't sound legal. If the whole board was getting together in private, it had to be a violation of open meeting laws. She'd have to ask Tate if that would be grounds to get a decision to sell the nursing home overturned if that was what came out of the meeting.

  Helen wasn't in a rush to ask Tate for any favors at the moment, th
ough, when there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for the various meetings. Wharton officials had always protected the nursing home in the past. A lot of retired municipal employees ended up here, after all, including ex-selectmen. Even if the nursing home was losing money, it was in the politicians' best interest to make up any budgetary shortfalls and keep the place running smoothly in case they might need its services someday.

  At least, they'd apparently thought so in the past. Helen had given up paying close attention to politics when she'd divorced the state's governor, so she didn't know what the local selectmen were up to these days. She'd met the board chair, Cory O'Keefe, a few months ago, and he hadn't seemed interested in selling off town assets, but not everyone had agreed with him. At least some of the selectmen had been more interested in short-term concerns like trimming the current budget to keep real estate taxes low, than long-term investments like the community garden and the nursing home.

  Of course, it was also possible that Betty and Josie were completely wrong, and there was nothing out of the ordinary happening. They did tend to let their imaginations run away with them. Mostly, it happened when they were making up romantic stories like Kolya's supposed secret, doomed love affair, but sometimes it happened with other subjects. Like murders, missing persons, and local politics.

  "I hope there's some innocuous explanation for the meetings," Helen said. Both the residents and the staff were well cared-for the way the nursing home was currently run. Even if the new management would eventually make it even better, in the short term a sale would be extremely disruptive and potentially life-threatening for the more seriously ill residents. "If you want, I'll ask around."

  "Are you sure you'll have time?" Josie asked. "What with investigating that woman's death, I mean."