by Gin Jones
Art was most of the way up those stairs before he noticed her hesitation. "Aren't you coming? The cat's room is up here. I found where she was getting out before and blocked it up. She won't get out again."
The cat jumped a few inches into the air, taking the canvas bag with it and almost oversetting both the box and Helen. The only thing that saved her was that she'd already taken hold of the sturdy wooden banister, and even that wouldn't have been enough if she'd been in the middle of taking a step when the cat made its sudden move.
Helen gently pushed the cat and bag back down into the box. She stayed at the base of the stairs, uttering soothing nonsense for a few seconds, until the cat settled down enough for her to risk heading up to the second floor.
She was almost at the top when Art spoke again. "I set up the travel cage in the first room to the right."
The cat jumped again, and Helen's heart did at least as high a leap inside her chest. She clutched the banister and the box, steadying the cat and herself before taking the final step.
Only when she was safely on a level surface again did she look to see where Art wanted her to go. There was a large bedroom, empty except for a cage large enough to fit a Saint Bernard. Inside the cage were filled food and water bowls and a fresh litter box.
Art took a few steps past the door and spoke softly. "You'll have to lock the cat up, since it can get out of there otherwise. I'll stay out here in the hallway so I don't spook it."
Helen set the bagged cat inside the cage and locked the metal door before removing the bungee cord. The cat crawled out to glare at the wall as if it could see through the studs and plaster to where Art was standing in the hallway.
Helen checked to make sure the cage door was secure. Then she went out to the hallway and made sure the wood door closed securely behind her. "Before I go, I was wondering if you could tell me something."
"Of course," Art said. "I owe you for catching Broadway."
"You said the cat has stolen things. Do you still have any of those items, and would you mind if I took a look at them?"
"Whatever for? I mean, you're welcome to, but it's just a bunch of random stuff."
"It might help the police catch Vic's killer."
"If you say so." Art nodded toward the other end of what looked like a mile-long hall. "I've been keeping everything in another bedroom until I had time to look for the owners. Just follow me."
Young folks took physical activity so much for granted, Helen thought. Art looked down the hall and saw a short jog to the far end of the sprawling mansion. Thanks to her fatigue and the ache in her hip, what she saw was a marathon. And she didn't even have her cane. Helen wandered around her own cottage without it all the time, but her home was so small that she was seldom more than an arm's length from some sturdy piece of furniture she could lean on if her hip betrayed her. The lengthy hallway was wide and empty, with absolutely nothing for her to grab if she felt herself unbalancing. Her hip wasn't reliable on the best of days, and she'd been through a whole slew of days that weren't anywhere near her best.
Still, she needed to see the items the cat had stolen. Stevie's future might depend on convincing the police to investigate Freddie. Detective Peterson wouldn't rummage through the cat's booty simply because she asked him to, not unless she could tell exactly what stolen items she'd seen there. She had to risk the trek to the far end of the mansion.
Helen was relieved to find that the hallway wasn't as long as it appeared, her hip didn't give out on her, and she made it to the storage room without any incidents that would have required leaning on her cane.
Art waited patiently, holding the bedroom door open. The room was easily four times the size of the bedroom in her cottage. It was painted in primary colors to go with the Thomas the Tank Engine wallpaper border that chugged around the room at chair-rail height. There was no furniture, just boxes and storage bins.
Art pointed at a row of three large blue Rubbermaid bins directly across from the doorway. "That's Broadway's stash." He looked down at the phone in his hand, which was apparently set to vibrate instead of ringing. "Sorry. I've got to call this person back. I'm going to step out into the hallway, but I won't be too far if you need anything."
"Thanks." Helen knelt with her back to the doorway and pulled the lids off the three bins. Inside was a collection of designer jeans, handbags with the same logo as the leather ones from Freddie's garage, and even a couple of bagged sets of expensive cosmetics.
In the background, she could hear the sound of Art's voice. She couldn't catch any of the words, but his tone was calm, so it couldn't have been too big an emergency. Of course, a calm disposition was probably a prerequisite for a personal assistant, especially one who worked with a celebrity who had an abrasive public persona. The only thing that had ever pierced Art's facade was seeing Vic's corpse, and only a psychopath would have been unaffected by that.
Helen focused on the contents of the bin. They were, as Art had said, mostly just clothes. They were new, though, and still had tags on them from a variety of high-end stores. Definitely nothing that could possibly have the sentimental value that Freddie had claimed.
Helen laid out a sampling of the cat's stash on the floor and pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket to photograph it. While she put the items back into the bins, she debated where she should send the pictures. Detective Peterson wouldn't believe any theory that Helen proposed, but Detective Almeida, with her recent experience with shoplifting and no experience with Helen, might be more amenable. At a minimum, Almeida would recognize the items as highly black-marketable merchandise, not the sorts of things that a single mother of four boys could afford in these quantities.
Would that be enough for a search warrant of Freddie's house? Unfortunately the cat hadn't taken anything that had been prepared for selling online so that it had information on it that could definitively be traced back to Freddie. Helen supposed the cat couldn't be expected to do all the police work any more than she herself could. It would be up to Detective Almeida to do the rest.
Helen found Almeida's phone number in her contacts list and sent the pictures with a note explaining that Vic's cat had stolen them from Freddie Ware, and suggesting that perhaps Freddie and her boys were part of a shoplifting ring. She then clicked the tops of the bins in place and backed out of the room, closing the door securely to make sure that the cat couldn't steal the items a second time.
She turned to see if Art was finished with his phone call so she could tell him he'd probably get a call from Detective Almeida. Art was at the top of the stairs, still talking into his phone.
Wait, that wasn't right. He had the phone in his hand, but he wasn't talking into it. And there was another voice, one that she hadn't heard from inside the bedroom. It came, not through the phone, but from somewhere down the stairs.
She couldn't see who was speaking, but it only took a moment before she recognized the voice. She knew exactly who it was, although it took a conscious effort to come up with the name. What was the mnemonic? GLasses, ENergetic, ANnoying. Glennon. Donald Glennon.
What on earth was a rabid opponent of gambling doing in the home of a gambling advocate?
Whatever the reason, it couldn't be good. Perhaps she'd been right when she'd theorized that Donald and Nora could have teamed up to kill Vic. Was Donald so far gone with his hatred that now he would kill Art simply for working for a poker player?
Art didn't seem alarmed. It was his job to remain calm when everything around him was in chaos, but no one could be that calm when facing a killer.
Unless the killer was working for him.
Perhaps it was the adrenaline of panic or the caffeine finally kicking in, but Helen's fog lifted just long enough for her to realize how much trouble she'd gotten herself into this time. With her mind clear, it was so obvious what had happened to Vic.
Freddie hadn't killed Vic to protect her shoplifting ring, although she might have rejoiced over his death. And it hadn't been Nora and Don
ald working together to kill Vic.
It had been a team, though. Two killers, each with an alibi for only part of the relevant timeframe. Donald was part of the team, but the leader wasn't Nora. It was the unflappable young Wharton native, Art, who'd been the mastermind behind the brutal death of his boss.
She should have figured it out when Marianne told her about two Lennias meeting near the library and talking about murder. Donald worked at the radio station across the street from the library. The co-conspirators wouldn't have wanted any phone records to give away their collusion, so they must have met in person. The library's grounds would have been a convenient location. If they were seen together, they could have claimed it was a random occurrence. Except Marianne had gotten close enough to hear what they were saying, and when they'd realized it, they'd tried to get rid of her. Marianne had put up a fight—her steel-toed construction boots probably explained why Donald had been limping when he came to confront Vic's fans. Marianne had been lucky. Art and Donald must have let her go, believing she wasn't a real risk to them, since no one would believe a crazy homeless woman. No one except Helen.
She might not be as delusional as Marianne, but Helen still couldn't entirely trust her brain or her ability to make a logical argument about why she thought Donald and Art were responsible for Vic's death. She needed some solid evidence, something to convince both herself and the police that she was right.
She pushed through the returning mental fog to come up with a plan to get the killers to incriminate each other, but her brain refused to cooperate. The best she could do for now was pretend she hadn't realized the truth and go home to tell Tate what she'd seen. His brain wasn't messed up. He could find a way to prove that Art and Donald were the killers.
Helen pretended not to have realized there was another person in the house and called out, "I'm done, Art. I even sent pictures to Detective Almeida. She'll want to see the contents of the bins. I'm pretty sure she can prove it's stolen merchandise. No wonder Freddie hated Vic moving in here so much. He probably figured out what she was doing."
Art held a hand out toward the stairs, indicating Donald should stay out of sight. "You think Freddie killed Mr. Rezendes?"
Helen shrugged. "It's possible. The police will have to figure it out, though. It's not my job. I was just looking for your cat."
Art frowned. "You weren't trying to solve the murder? I heard you like to meddle in police investigations."
Oops. Now Art looked suspicious. Maybe she'd oversold the "don't mind me, I'm just a silly, nosy woman" act.
She tried to look insulted. "I gave up meddling for Lent."
"Lent ended six months ago." Art dropped the hand that had been keeping Donald out of sight and nodded toward Helen.
Limping footsteps sounded on the marble stairs, and a moment later Donald came into view. Same old glasses, same old heavy sweater, down vest, and corduroy pants. But where was the restless energy that had been part of the mnemonic for remembering his name? He seemed subdued today.
"Hello, Donald," she said brightly. For once, she didn't mind appearing slow-witted.
"Hello, Ms. Binney."
"I was just going to call you," she lied. "There's an open slot in the library's speaker schedule in two weeks. Unless that's too short of a notice for you?"
"I can be there," Donald said, his voice slurred.
Had he been drinking? Perhaps regretting what he'd done to Vic?
"Don't be stupid, Donald," Art said. "She isn't going to schedule you to speak. She knows what you did. I tried to help you, and you messed it all up. You were supposed to talk to Mr. Rezendes, not kill him."
Donald blinked and shook his head. "Not me. You. I just talked to him."
"Then why'd you go to such lengths to avoid being seen on the way here Saturday night?" Art said. "You rode your bike in the dirt on the far side of the road, away from Freddie's cameras."
"You told me to do that," Donald said. "And you gave me the spiked Gatorade for Rezendes to drink so I could make sure he'd sit still and listen to me."
"Oh, right," Art said derisively. "I had my own boss killed? You went to all that effort to sneak into the mansion just to talk to him? I suppose you have to drug people and tie them up to get them to listen to your stupid lectures about the dangers of gambling."
"They're not stupid," Donald said. "I save lives, warning people about casinos."
Art looked at Helen. "I bet you think you're doing important work too. I heard about the other crimes you solved. The cops never even got close to the real suspects."
"Detective Peterson would have figured it out eventually." Helen almost choked on the words.
"No way." Art shook his head. "But I knew you were trouble, and we'd need to keep an eye on you. See, Donald? I was watching out for you. I guess I owe the stupid cat thanks for bringing the meddling Ms. Binney here for you to take care of."
She couldn't believe she'd been that gullible enough to fall for Art's fake concern for his boss's pet. "Does the cat even have a health condition?"
"That much was true," Art said. "But now that we've got you, I don't much care what happens to it. I'm not sure the heirs even know there is a cat, and if they ever ask I'll come up with a sad story about how it went into a decline, pining for its owner. There are plenty of sob stories like that on the Internet if I need some inspiration."
Donald shook his head as if he had water in his ears or, like Helen, needed to clear a foggy brain. She wanted to tell him the shaking wouldn't help. She'd tried it, and all it had done was to give her a sore neck. Perhaps it was just as well—looking like a bobblehead doll wouldn't do anything for getting people to take her seriously.
"Now what?" Donald asked his partner in crime.
"Now we get rid of her," Art said. "Here's the story we tell the cops. She was here, carrying the cat to its room when it did something to cause her to lose her balance and she fell down the stairs."
"I thought the cat was locked up in its cage," Donald said.
"It is," Art said patiently. "But I'll let it out as soon as she's dead and I've called the police."
"What if the fall doesn't kill her?"
"We'll do it again," Art said with what sounded to Helen like anticipation. "Again and again until she is dead."
"I don't know," Donald said. "I didn't even want Rezendes to die, and I hated him for what he and his cronies did to my mother. Ms. Binney hasn't done anything bad."
"Mr. Rezendes's death was necessary when you failed to convince him to stop luring innocents like your mother into the quicksand of addiction. He had to be stopped."
"We could have just, I don't know, kept him at home and sabotaged his video feeds."
"Not for long," Art said. "Trust me. We did the only thing we could have done."
Donald looked like he was falling into line behind his leader. That didn't bode well for Helen. She needed to keep Donald from trusting Art.
"He's lying to you," she told Donald. "I'm not sure why Art wanted his boss dead, but it had nothing to do with helping you or the Compulsive Gambling Recovery Group. He was just using that as an excuse. I bet he even planned to blame you if the police ever suspected him."
Art smiled. "You really are good, Ms. Binney. But Donald knows who's on his side. I helped him get into the mansion to talk to Mr. Rezendes by shorting out the gates' security and leaving the house security system off when I left on Saturday night. What did you ever do for him? You didn't even give him a chance to speak at the library. And if I remember right, your husband supported legalizing casinos in this state. You probably agreed with him."
Donald blinked. "Did you?"
Helen was distracted briefly by the sound of a clink and then a thump in the room where the cat was caged. The poor creature was probably trying to escape. It had probably sensed all along that Art didn't have its best interests in mind. Too bad humans didn't have such good insights into the true intentions of the people around them.
"Well?" Donald said.
Helen couldn't remember what he'd asked before, but he wasn't the one she needed to outmaneuver anyway. The real risk was Art. He was still trying to pretend he wasn't the leader of the team, but Helen wasn't buying it.
"How are you going to get rid of Donald once you dispose of me?" Helen said.
Art glanced at Donald. "She's just messing with you. We're a team, you and me."
"You heard Art try to convince me you were the killer," Helen told Donald. "He doesn't need you any longer. He'll probably tell the police you came here today to kill him as part of your crusade against the gaming industry, and he killed you in self-defense."
The flash of anger in Art's eyes told her she'd guessed right. "Ignore her. She'll say anything so you'll forget that she's hurt as many people as her husband and Mr. Rezendes did."
"Ex-husband," Helen said to Donald. "It's not me, but Art, who is hurting people. I bet he came up with the whole scheme and didn't even warn you what he was planning to do at the end. The only thing I'm not sure about is why he wanted his boss dead. Did he tell you?"
Donald shook his head slowly. His eyes had a glazed look to them, as if he were in shock. Or perhaps drugged. Had Art given him the same sedative that Donald had given Vic? How was Art going to explain that if the police arrived to find Donald's dead body alongside hers? Some story about Donald following Helen to the mansion, killing her for figuring out he'd murdered Vic and then killing himself with an overdose? She could see Peterson swallowing that explanation.