Come Helen High Water

by Susan McBride

  “This all belongs to the Historical Society?” she found herself asking. It looked like someone had robbed all the guests on a season’s worth of Antiques Roadshows.

  “What you see downstairs in the cases is just a fraction of the collection,” Clara told her. “There isn’t room to show off everything. Luann found dozens of moving boxes left behind by the previous director that had never been opened. I told her she needed to bring in some help, like real help, someone who knows what these things are worth, maybe the curator from a museum. But she said she didn’t want anyone else poking around her things. She was afraid they’d steal pieces from under her nose.”

  Helen thought of what Sarah Biddle had said, about Luann finding something valuable, though she couldn’t imagine who’d want to steal pottery or a two-headed doll. But what did she know? Oh, sure, she could tell a Queen Anne chair from a Windsor, but she was hardly an expert in antiquities.

  “Perhaps Agnes could assist her? Everyone trusts Agnes.”

  “If Luann discussed priceless relics with anyone, I’d hardly be the wiser. She most definitely did not share her secrets with me.” Clara wiggled an arm at a particular table loaded with rubber-banded stacks of photos. “Now, let’s get going on the sorting, or we’ll be here all day and all night just to get through this latest batch.”

  Helen did as advised, picking one of the cushioned folding chairs on either side of the table that Clara had indicated. Clara pulled a particular stack her way and pushed another toward Helen.

  “Those are from about twenty years back,” Clara told her. “So you and Joe would have lived here for thirty years by then. See if you recognize anyone or anything. Separate the photos of folks you can identify and write a name or location on the back with acid-free ink. Then place it in this green bin,” Clara said, pointing to a plastic cubby to Helen’s right. “If you don’t see anyone or any particular place that resonates, place it in the red bin.” That one was to Helen’s left.

  “Got it,” she said. “What’s in your pile, might I ask?”

  “Since I was born in River Bend, Luann has me going through photos dating back sixty years or more.” She shook her head. “It’s a revelation, let me tell you. Some of them take my breath away, reminding me of moments I’d forgotten.” Again, sadness crept into her face.

  Helen took the opportunity to say, “What’s going on with you, hon? Something isn’t right. I can tell.”

  Her old friend hesitated, pursing her lips. The distressed expression was suddenly replaced by anger.

  “Dang it, Helen, I know you’ve probably heard that Bernie’s not well, but it’s worse than that,” she finally admitted, referring to her brother-in-law. “Poor Betty is at wit’s end. I know it’s death to the person going through Alzheimer’s. I do understand that. I can’t even imagine watching my mind slip away. But it’s murder for the caretaker and the family, too. It breaks my heart to pieces, particularly when Bernie says something hurtful to Betty or Ellen. Even if he doesn’t mean to . . .”

  Clara choked up and couldn’t finish.

  Helen reached for her hand, seeing the tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wish there was something I could to do help.”

  “I know,” Clara said and sniffled. “But it seems like now it’s just a waiting game, and not a very pleasant one at that.” She slipped her hand away from Helen’s and wiped away her tears. “Good Lord, I hate being maudlin,” she said and quickly patted her gray pin curls. “That’s why I like having work to do. So let’s try to get something done around here, even if the Society’s director has snubbed us to gallivant about with a mystery man.”

  Helen hoped that was actually the case and Sarah Biddle’s fears weren’t warranted.

  “Oh, I did bring us something to nibble when we need a break.”

  Helen smiled. Her friend had always had a taste for sweets. But then, who didn’t, she thought and smoothed a hand over her own lumpy belly.

  “When I worry, I bake.” Clara reached into her tote bag to pull out a Ziploc bag filled with muffins. “Banana chocolate chip,” she said, “made fresh this morning.”

  There was still steam clinging to the inside of the baggie. Helen nearly swooned when Clara opened it up and the aroma of muffins filled the air.

  “Do we really have to wait?” Helen asked.

  Clara chuckled. “What the heck! Let’s have one now. It’ll give us more energy, won’t it?”

  “Oh, it certainly will.”

  Helen chuckled as her friend unearthed napkins from her bag and then doled out a treat for each. “A muffin a day keeps the doctor away. Isn’t that how it goes?”

  “If it doesn’t, it should!”

  Now, this was the Clara she knew and loved, Helen thought, glad to see the old Clara back for now. They fell into an amiable silence as they nibbled on the muffins and began sorting through the dozens of black-and-white photographs from River Bend’s past.

  Chapter 5

  Jackson Lee sat in his car, parked catty-corner from the two-story Victorian house with the wraparound porch.

  He feigned talking on his phone, gesticulating as though he were in a heated discussion, when an occasional car or dog walker passed. The trick to stalking a client was acting like he wasn’t paying attention to anything at all. If someone had knocked on the glass and asked what he was doing, Jackson would have pointed to his phone and said, “Trying to figure out how I got so darned lost.”

  It worked every time.

  But no one had disturbed him in the ten minutes he’d been patiently waiting. He checked the clock on his phone, figuring he didn’t have much longer to go.

  Still, it was frustrating, not being able to just head up the paver path, knock on the door, and say, “Hey, Bernie, remember me? I’ve got the deal of a lifetime that you’ll want to get in on before it’s too late.”

  He just needed to get the old man to scribble on the dotted line, no matter how illegible, then Jackson could grab a check—signed or not, so long as it had the bank account and routing numbers, it was good as gold—and then the deal would be done.

  With a sigh, he squinted through his Ray-Bans at the Victorian, giving it a critical once-over. The peeling clapboards could have used a new coat of paint and the overgrown grass a good mowing, but he ventured to guess the place was worth a bundle, even if it needed a bit of sprucing up. He’d done business with enough of the senior citizens who populated River Bend to understand that the town was a gold mine for guys like him: hungry independent contractors well versed in fiscal seduction. Jackson had a background in the theater and knew how to play to his audience. It didn’t hurt that he had a great head of hair, perfect teeth, and blue eyes that could charm the pants off any heterosexual woman with a pulse, something he’d done a time or ten, which was probably why he’d never married. Romance could be very profitable, particularly if he found the right mark, and he had, more often than not.

  “You remind me of someone, hon,” Erma, his regular waitress at the diner, had said to him the other morning. “Oh, I know!” Her rumpled face had lit up. “Who’s that Irish actor that played James Bond?”

  “Do you mean Pierce Brosnan?” Jackson had replied, because he’d heard that comparison often enough. He’d puffed out his chest and tugged at the knot of his silk tie—yes, he still dressed for work, a lost art in a world ruled by Casual Fridays.

  Erma had pursed her lips, thinking for a moment. “No, that’s not who I’m talking about. You know, it’s the fellow that was only in one movie before they canned him.”

  Jackson had sighed. “Timothy Dalton?”

  “Nope.”

  “George Lazenby?”

  The woman had brightened up instantly. “Yep! That’s him!”

  “He was Australian,” Jackson told her. “Not Irish.”

  “Really?” Erma’s penciled-in eyebrows arched. “I guess I just get confused by the accents. They’re tricky sometimes,” she remarked in her flat Midwestern drawl.
/>   “Oh, yes, so tricky,” he had said and smiled tolerantly, thinking the Lazenby comparison didn’t bode well for the day ahead, did it?

  If there was one thing he wasn’t, Jackson mused, it was a one-hit wonder.

  No salesman worth his salt could survive unless he kept getting hit after hit. If there were an award for success in this game—beyond a score—he surely would have won it.

  So he tried to put Erma’s comment out of his head, focusing on the house and what had brought him here on this fine afternoon.

  He was well acquainted with the owner: Bernie Winston was his name. Jackson had done business with Bernie several times in the past. The old guy had shown up like clockwork every Sunday morning at the Jerseyville Country Club to play a round of golf with a quartet of gray-hairs who had all been willing targets. Jackson liked to hit them up at the coffee shop, when they were hanging out after banging that little white ball around for hours, blessedly free of their nosy wives.

  He appreciated Bernie for what he was: a frustrated retiree who’d been forced out of a career he’d loved and hadn’t known what to do with himself when it was gone. He was exactly the type of man who was Jackson’s bread and butter. They needed to feel important, particularly after they’d lost the one thing that made them feel like they truly mattered: their job title. Jackson knew all the right words to say. He usually warmed them up with a slap on the back and a little brownnosing along the lines of “It’s clear that you’ve got smarts in spades. I’ll bet you recognize a good thing when you see it.”

  Then Jackson would ease into a soft sell of whatever investment he was pitching: an East Texas oil well, a condo complex in the Ozarks, or a stake in a commercial property, say, a new restaurant in downtown Alton. He’d act like it was the best thing since sliced bread but also untenable. “Oh, man, I wish I could get you in on it, but I think every share is sold out.”

  Then, of course, they’d insist on getting in. Jackson made them feel like it was their idea to give him money, not his. He made sure they got a little profit by robbing Peter to pay Paul, which guaranteed they’d want in the next time, figuring they’d make even more.

  When last he’d encountered Bernie, he’d hooked him on a parcel of land for sale downriver. He told good old Bern that there was interest from a casino (but what he hadn’t shared was that the land had some kind of environmental contamination). Bernie had gone for that one like a hot potato.

  He hadn’t heard from Bernie in a while, a long while. So he’d asked around at the club this past week, and he’d been told Bernie’s brain had been slip-sliding away. “Poor guy doesn’t know if he’s coming or going,” a former golfing pal had said with a shake of his head.

  But Jackson didn’t pity him. He didn’t pity anyone.

  What he believed in, beyond the almighty dollar, was Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. Some folks thrived, while others withered. If you were a frail little mouse, you were apt to be eaten by a mighty hawk, right? That was just how it went, the ubiquitous circle of life.

  Jackson’s first thought at learning Bernie Winston had gone daft was nothing short of gratitude. Because if he’d reeled Bernie in when he had some of his marbles, imagine what he could do with a marbleless Bernie!

  Yep, old Bern was the perfect patsy.

  Jackson had another pitch lined up: an investment in an old flour mill on the riverfront targeted for renovation into elegant lofts. He had a contract ready, tucked in his inside pocket.

  Now, if only Bernie’s wife would take off in her gray Chevy Malibu, which she usually did around this time every Monday at lunchtime. She left Bernie at home all by his lonesome and headed out on the River Road into Alton to do her weekly grocery shopping. Jackson had drunk a lot of coffee at the diner in weeks past, planning for his conquest, mostly while he’d gathered intel via eavesdropping and from an unsuspecting Erma. He’d also put in some time doing drive-by surveillance to confirm the facts.

  He was nothing if not thorough.

  A low noise rent the air, like the faraway rumble of a jet.

  Jackson shifted in his seat, watching as the garage door rolled up and the gray sedan backed out. He ducked his head, putting his phone up to his left ear as the car’s back end bumped into the street. Tires popping over gravel, the Malibu shifted into Drive and headed away, kicking up dust in its tracks.

  “It’s about time,” he grumbled.

  He took one last look at himself in the mirror. After smoothing a hand over the sticky pomade in his hair, he winked.

  “You’ve still got it, Jackson Lee,” he said, giving himself a pep talk. “Now go get ’em!”

  He popped open the door of his beloved DeVille, sidled out onto the street, and sauntered toward the Victorian’s brick-paved path. When he reached the front porch, he buttoned his blazer, clearing his throat before he laid a few sound knocks on the door.

  “You there, Bernie, old friend?” he called out, peering through the panes of glass on either side of the threshold. “It’s me, your buddy Jackson Lee!”

  He knew there was the possibility that Bernie wouldn’t come to the door. Heck, the old guy might not even know how to unlock it. Jack had heard that the missus had taken away Bernie’s car keys, and he’d had a feeling the same thing had happened to Bernie’s cell phone, which Jackson had futilely tried calling in the recent past. He just hoped old Bern still kept his checkbook in that painted secretary in the living room.

  Jackson knew if he could get to Bernie without a woman in the way, he’d find exactly what he needed. It didn’t even matter if Bernie was only semilucid or even delusional. If he could hold a pen, he could make his mark on the contract. Then he could stand aside while Jackson located a blank check and forget that he ever saw him, which was pretty much guaranteed.

  It sounded so easy.

  “Hey, Bern, open up!” After another round of fist pounding and a few leans on the doorbell, sure enough, Jackson spied his target ambling toward him.

  He heard some fumbling that lasted far too long before the door swung inward, and Jackson found himself facing Bernie Winston in the flesh.

  “Hey, bud, how’re you doing?” he said and slapped him companionably on the shoulder, while Bernie blinked at him, clearly trying to size him up. “You’re looking good for a guy who hasn’t hit the golf course in a coon’s age.”

  Which was a total lie.

  Bernie didn’t look good at all. He looked stoop-shouldered and wild-eyed. His skin had a vaguely ashy tone and was mottled with brown spots. His white hair seemed sparser than ever and showed plenty of his pale, freckled scalp.

  But Jackson didn’t let on his shock. That was where his acting chops came in handy.

  “Do I know you?” Bernie asked, standing dumbly before him like a roadblock. “Are you with Human Resources?”

  “Oh, it’s better than that. We’re business partners,” Jackson said, trying to nudge the old man aside so he could enter and shut the door behind them. He didn’t want any neighbors spying him at the door and thinking something was wrong.

  “We’re business partners,” Bernie repeated.

  “Yep, I’m going to help you get rich, pal, and you’re lucky I came today ’cause I’ve got the hottest ticket in town. It’s an old mill on the river, and it’s ripe for development—”

  “A mill?” Bernie interrupted. “Are you with Peabody?” His caterpillar-white eyebrows knitted. “We only deal in mines.”

  “You’re right. It’s a coal mine. Silly me! How about we go inside and talk about it.” Jackson finally managed to get past the old coot, sidling into the living room.

  There were signs tacked everywhere—big, bold, black letters written on white paper stuck to various items. On the phone: Don’t answer! Above the thermostat: Don’t touch! On the back of the door: Don’t let anyone in!

  Thank goodness Bernie had ignored the latter, or maybe he couldn’t read too well anymore.

  “Do I know you?” the old man asked again, coming up be
hind him.

  So Jackson went through the whole rigmarole all over again. “It’s me, Jackson Lee. I’m your pal. We go way back. I’ve got an investment for you that you won’t want to miss.”

  “We’re pals?”

  “Yes, sir, from way back.” Jackson unbuttoned his jacket and reached for the paperwork he’d brought with him. “Don’t worry about finding a pen. I’ve got one!” He plucked his lucky Cartier Roadster ballpoint from his breast pocket—lucky ’cause he’d won it off his car-dealer buddy in last week’s poker game—and he tapped the final page of the contract he’d laid out on the sofa table. “I just need your John Hancock right here, my friend. And if you’ll allow me to locate your checkbook, I’ll handle the transaction without you having to lift a finger . . .”

  “Did you say you were from Peabody?” Bernie interrupted, shuffling toward him. “Am I getting a raise?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jackson told him, motioning him nearer, “a big one. All you have to do is sign right here, then let’s find your checkbook, and we’ll get squared away.”

  He pushed the pen into Bernie’s right hand. He saw the old man’s fingers tremble as he fiddled with it, turning it around and around before he seemed to recall how to hold it properly.

  “Your signature, my friend, that’s all that’s standing in the way between you and your windfall.”

  Jackson held his breath as Bernie touched the ballpoint to the paper. His shaky hand jerked, starting a wiggly line that looked vaguely more legible through a squint.

  “That’s it . . . That’s great,” Jackson cooed as he headed toward the tall secretary painted with lotus blossoms or something vaguely Asian in origin. He reached for the lid over the desk and pulled it wide. He spied a red box that surely contained the checks he was looking for, only to stop cold at the sound of a voice from behind him.