Come Helen High Water

by Susan McBride

  “No,” Helen replied truthfully. Clara had never mentioned it.

  “Those girls sure went through the wringer when they lost their father. Their mother married a rough sort who drank a lot more than he worked. Betty left right after high school, and Clara gained so much weight. She just seemed so sad and closed off. I’m not sure if she missed her dad or her big sister more.”

  Helen thought of the photograph she’d found at the Historical Society, of Clara’s family, all of them looking rather grim. “Was Clara mistreated by her stepfather?” she dared ask, since Agnes was a friend and not as prone to gossip as some.

  Agnes pursed her lips, seeming to weigh her answer before she said, “I don’t know what happened inside that house, but I do remember how Clara changed, and it wasn’t just her figure. She missed curfews a lot, even ran away from home, and her mother didn’t know what to do with her. I honestly think she was relieved when Clara went to stay with Betty and Bernie.”

  “Clara must have been hurting.”

  “She was. But I figure the time away was good for her,” Agnes said, nodding. “When she came back to River Bend after a year gone, she seemed her old self again. She was happier, lighter somehow.”

  “Perhaps she needed time with her sister so she could heal.”

  “Perhaps,” Agnes agreed, but there was something in her face, something that suggested she wasn’t sharing all she recalled about Clara’s sad home life way back when.

  “I should go,” Helen said, though Agnes caught her arm.

  “I ran into Sarah Biddle yesterday, and she seemed more convinced than ever that Luann Dupree isn’t gallivanting across the country with her mystery man. I’ve been hoping to get word from Luann myself, and now that new director, John Danielson, has been by asking questions about Luann and if she left anything with me that belongs to the Historical Society.” Agnes shrugged. “I really don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t have any more news about Luann,” Helen told her earnestly, because she wasn’t big on passing off fiction as facts. “I’m sorry, but I’m as in the dark as you.”

  “I just don’t know if I feel like I can trust Mr. Danielson.”

  “Trust him with what?”

  “He’s asked on several occasions what certain items are worth, and I’ve told him that it doesn’t matter, as none of the current exhibits or additional items donated to the Historical Society are for sale.”

  “Does he want to sell things?” Helen asked. “Or is he just trying to gauge what’s there, because he’s responsible for it all now? Maybe he needs appraisals for insurance purposes.”

  “I hope it’s the latter,” Agnes said and screwed up her face. “I hope he takes as much care with the collections as Luann did, that’s all.” She patted Helen’s arm. “I’ve got to get back to my coffee cake. Do tell Clara and Betty that they have my heartfelt sympathy, and I’ll be dropping by in the morning.”

  “I will.” Helen touched her friend’s hand before she let go.

  As she walked up the sidewalk toward the Winstons’ place, she heard voices and the creak of the porch swing.

  When she climbed the front steps, she saw Ellen and Sawyer.

  Though Ellen’s eyes looked puffy and red, she wasn’t crying now. The swing moved back and forth gently as she engaged in silly chatter with her preteen daughter. Sawyer stuck out her tongue, then Ellen stuck out her tongue, and Sawyer shook her head, laughing.

  Helen stopped on the porch and said, “That’s a lovely sound to hear today.”

  The swing ceased its gentle swaying.

  Ellen looked up. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Evans. Sawyer challenged me to roll my tongue, which I proudly admit I can do even though my offspring can’t.” She grinned. “Guess you didn’t inherit that trick, sweetie.”

  “Aunt Clara can do it,” Sawyer announced, “but Grandma can’t.”

  “Ah, that’s good to know,” Helen said, smiling at the child before she fixed her gaze on Ellen. “How’s everyone doing?”

  “About as well as you’d imagine,” Ellen said, and the light left her eyes. “I know we’ve all been gearing up for this day, considering Dad’s been going downhill lately, but it’s still a shock when it happens.”

  “I’m glad Betty has you,” Helen told her. “And you, too, Sawyer.”

  “Grandpa’s in heaven now,” the child said matter-of-factly. “I woke up last night, and I saw him with the angels.”

  “You did?” Helen glanced at Ellen, who put an arm around Sawyer’s shoulders.

  The child nodded. “It was very dark, but I could see them. They looked all flowy, kind of like ghosts.”

  “That’s reassuring, isn’t it,” Helen said, “to know your grandpa wasn’t alone in the end?”

  “That’s what my mom thought, too.”

  “It’s true,” Ellen remarked, her voice catching. She ruffled her daughter’s hair. “Thanks for coming by, Mrs. Evans. My mother and aunt are inside. Feel free to go on in. Sawyer and I are going to hang out here for a while. The fresh air is doing me good.”

  “I’ll bet it is.”

  Helen started for the door as the pair began pushing at the porch floor again with their feet, setting the swing to swaying, its chains creaking mournfully.

  As Ellen suggested, she let herself in. Quickly, she shucked her damp boots on the interior mat. Hearing Clara’s voice arguing with Betty, she headed toward the noise.

  “You need to lie down,” Clara was saying. “Bernie would want you to take care of yourself. He wouldn’t want you to punish yourself.”

  “I have to do something . . .”

  “I can wash Bernie’s bedclothes. It’s not like anyone’s coming by tonight, checking for dirty laundry . . .”

  “Hello?” Helen said as she padded down the hallway in stocking feet. She peered through the door into a bedroom, spotting the two sisters at the foot of a double bed.

  “There you are,” she said, and they swung about, wide-eyed. “I ran into Ellen outside, and she told me to come in.”

  Clara glanced at Betty then hurried over to Helen. “Of course!” she chirped. “You’re welcome anytime. We’re just setting things to rights. Betty’s ready to strip Bernie’s bed, and I told her to go rest.”

  “How about if I strip the bed, and you both go sit down,” Helen volunteered, waving away Clara’s protests. “It’s no problem. I’d like to make myself useful.”

  Betty said nothing. Her face appeared pinched, her eyes glazed.

  “If you’re sure it’s all right,” Clara said, taking Betty by the arm. Her sister didn’t seem so inclined to go. “Helen’s on our side, Betts.”

  Betty stood and watched for a moment as Helen set about pulling bed linens down. She folded back the comforter first and then yanked out the top sheet.

  “I’ll be done in a jiffy,” Helen said over her shoulder. “I’ve done this, oh, about a million or so times.”

  She hummed while wrestling with the fitted sheet, which had been tucked tightly under the mattress. When she got it off and turned around, the sisters were gone.

  She bundled the sheets together, dropping them into a pile on the floor. Then she reached for the nearest pillow and started to remove the case. She paused, noting delicate stitching within the end band. Someone had embroidered half a dozen butterflies in pretty spring colors. Was that Betty’s handiwork?

  Helen’s chest tightened, imagining Bernie falling asleep on such a lovely pillowcase last night, only to awaken for whatever reason and wander outside.

  Her gaze drawn to the door across the room, she held the pillow to her chest and went nearer. Through the open blinds that covered inset glass, she could see the back deck. Was this how Bernie had gotten out? Had someone left it unlocked, or had Bernie managed to unlock it himself?

  Squinting out, she spotted the back lawn, or where grass would have been if it weren’t underwater. She envisioned Bernie fumbling his way to the outdoors, confused by a dream or by his own tortured brain. Had h
e waded into the creek without knowing what he was doing? Had the current tugged him off his feet? Had he not remembered how to swim?

  It was no wonder Betty was punishing herself, as Helen had heard Clara remark. The poor woman probably felt like it was her fault that Bernie had gone outside in the dark while the whole house slept.

  Helen had felt as guilty when Joe had died, even though there wasn’t a dad-blamed thing she could have done to keep his heart from giving out.

  She had relived that nightmare in her head at least a million times since, always trying to imagine what she could have done to make things come out differently.

  In the end, it didn’t matter.

  Dead was dead.

  And not even a million what-ifs could change it.

  Chapter 26

  The sheriff spent a good forty-five minutes with the officer from the Alton PD who’d found Luann Dupree’s abandoned Fiat. Despite the car’s red paint, he could barely see it. The missing tires left the body sinking in sodden earth and buried in the knee-high weeds that surrounded it. What a great spot to ditch a vehicle, he thought, close to the highway and the Amtrak station but almost invisible.

  Frank wondered if it had been stolen in the first place, as Bingham had suggested, or if Sarah was right that it had been hidden by Luann’s abductor—her supposed online boyfriend—while he’d sent text messages and e-mails pretending to be Lu.

  Had the fellow been after Luann’s money? Why else would he take her? And why take her car, too? Maybe he’d arranged to meet her at some predetermined destination, like Penny Tuttle’s house, which made sense if the alleged perpetrator was really Penny’s son. Had he put something in her drink and drugged her, then held her captive and stored her car in the garage until he could decide what to do with it?

  From what Sarah had told him about Mrs. Tuttle—and what the neighbor had implied—the woman was pretty much out of it. Her son, Jackie, held the reins.

  Had he kept Luann in Mrs. Tuttle’s house right under her nose?

  But, again, what was the motive?

  Sarah had blathered on about there being some kind of monumental discovery that Luann had made during the Historical Society’s renovation. But when Frank had pressed her, his wife admitted it was merely a guess. Was there truly a rare object that Luann had unearthed?

  Or was it all just a wild-goose chase?

  For all Frank knew, Luann was having a ball with her lover, road-tripping across the country and not giving a second thought to anyone back in River Bend. The mayor and town council thought as much. No one seemed to question the e-mail allegedly sent by Luann telling them she’d resigned and asking that her last paycheck be electronically deposited.

  So why should Frank question it?

  Except that his wife’s instincts said otherwise. And as much as he wanted to discount female intuition, Frank had learned the hard way that it was often right.

  “. . . with the highway a hop, skip, and jump away, I figure he brought the car here, stripped the parts he wanted, and had a buddy pick him up,” Officer Bingham was saying as Frank brought his head back into the game. “Or he could have picked off the car from the Amtrak lot. Could be that’s where Ms. Dupree departed for her open-ended trip?”

  “Sounds plausible enough,” Biddle said, because it was, although he suspected things may have gone down a bit differently. “This might seem out of left field, but are you familiar at all with a man named Jackson Lee?”

  Officer Bingham smiled tightly. “So you’ve met Jack, have you?”

  “No, not yet,” Frank told him. “But I thought I’d drop by his address after I leave here. It would appear he’s been hanging around River Bend, trying to make a buck off some of our older folk.”

  Bingham shook his head. “He’s a piece of work. He calls himself a salesman, but he’s a con man. You’re right that he likes to target the white-hairs. We’ve brought him in a couple times after complaints that he deposited checks that weren’t signed. He called ’em ‘demand drafts,’ said they were perfectly legit because he had signed contracts.” The officer shrugged. “When he produced the paperwork and the signatures were verified, we didn’t have much to go on. It was a lot of ‘he said/he said,’ which is torture to prosecute.”

  “He might have done the same to a man named Bernie Winston who had Alzheimer’s,” Frank said.

  Bingham grunted. “Is the fellow fit to press charges?”

  “At this point he’s not fit for anything,” Biddle explained. “He’s dead.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” the officer said. “You figure Jack was involved somehow? I mean, he’s a huckster, for sure, but I don’t peg him as the violent type.”

  “It looks like Winston drowned in floodwaters, but the decedent’s wife said she saw Mr. Lee’s car parked out front last night when her husband disappeared, and an item purportedly belonging to Mr. Lee was found in the victim’s pocket. So I figured I’d talk to Mr. Lee about it.”

  “You need assistance?” Bingham asked.

  “Not necessary, but thanks for the offer.” Frank touched the bill of his cap and tipped it appreciatively.

  As he departed, the officer pressed his card into Frank’s palm, reminding him, “Give me a shout when you hear from Ms. Dupree. We’ll hold her car at the impound lot until she turns up.”

  “Will do.”

  Frank hoped that would be soon, if only to settle a lot of unanswered questions and get his wife to stick closer to home again.

  He sidled into his black-and-white and drove a short distance to a small house not far from downtown Alton that Jackson Lee had listed as his residence on his driver’s license. His rental was the second floor. Frank had looked it up on Zillow, so he knew the place the moment he saw it. It was a one-bed, one-bath, no-pets, and no-amenities kind of deal. But at four hundred bucks a month, he hadn’t expected the Taj Mahal.

  An older-model black DeVille sat out front by the curb, so Frank figured he was in luck. It looked like Jackson was home.

  The sheriff climbed the steps to knock on the upstairs unit designated 1B, hardly surprised when he saw the curtains part in a nearby window. A face peered out, remaining just long enough to get a good look at him before the curtains swayed closed.

  He waited, but nothing happened.

  “Mr. Lee, please open up,” Frank said, leaning nearer the door. “It’s Sheriff Biddle from River Bend. I’d like to talk to you about Bernie Winston.”

  More silence followed.

  “Mr. Winston died sometime between last night and this morning, and his wife thinks you had something to do with his death,” the sheriff added loudly enough so the man could have heard him from any of the tiny rooms within. Heck, the tenant downstairs had probably heard him.

  Quickly enough, the door came open, though Biddle was hardly invited in.

  Instead Jackson Lee stood firmly between door and jamb. “Are you here to arrest me, Sheriff?”

  “No, sir,” Biddle told him. “I just have a few questions.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that Bernie’s dead,” Jackson said. Beneath shoe polish–black hair, his brow wrinkled. “Why would that battle-ax wife of his think I had something to do with it?”

  “She claims your car was parked outside their house last night, and something of yours was found in Bernie’s pajama pocket.” Frank had brought the pen with him, zipped up in the baggie Doc had handed over this morning. He plucked it from his trouser pocket and unfurled it so Jackson could see.

  The man looked about to have a heart attack. “Hallelujah! It’s my Cartier pen. I’ve been dying to get that baby back.” He reached for it, but Frank jerked it away. He rolled up the baggie and tucked it back into his pants pocket. “C’mon, now, Sheriff, don’t be that way. Can I have it, please?”

  “Nope.”

  “But it’s my lucky pen.”

  “Maybe it’s not that lucky,” Frank told him, “since it ended up in the pocket of a dead man. How’d he get it?”

  Jack
son sighed. “I may have left it behind when I was over at the house a while back. Bernie used it to sign a contract to invest in a piece of land . . .”

  “He had end-stage Alzheimer’s. What made you think he even knew what he was doing?”

  “I’m not a doctor. I don’t diagnose people before I do business with them.”

  “You didn’t need a medical degree to know Bernie Winston was mentally impaired,” Frank said, trying hard to rein in his temper.

  “Look”—Jackson licked his lips—“I’d just like my pen back. I’ll rip up the damned contract if that’s what that witch wants. But I wasn’t anywhere near River Bend last night, and I’ve got the witnesses to prove it.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I was at my usual Tuesday-night poker game with the boys. It was at Fred Birdsong’s place up on the bluff.” When he didn’t seem to get the reaction he wanted, Jackson sniffed. “C’mon, Sheriff, everyone in a fifty-mile radius has heard the commercials.” He cleared his throat and sang, “You Can’t Go Wrong with Birdsong. Yes, that Fred Birdsong. He owns the biggest used-car dealership in Jerseyville. I was there until dawn, drinking and shooting the bull. You can ask him yourself.”

  “I’ll do that,” Biddle said, though he’d dealt with enough used-car salesmen in his day—professionally and otherwise—to know they were a smooth-talking bunch. So he had a feeling Jackson’s alibi would be confirmed. Whether it was true or not was another matter entirely.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to Bernie?” Jackson said.

  “He was found in the creek,” was all the sheriff would let on. “Cause of death is still up in the air until Doc Melville looks him over and signs off.”

  “So he drowned?” Jackson shook his head. “What a sad way to go.”

  “Aren’t they all,” Biddle remarked. Then he asked a question that had nothing to do with Bernie Winston, but fishing was one of his favorite sports. So he gave it a shot. “You know a woman named Luann Dupree?”