A Draw of Death (Helen Binney Mysteries Book 3) (16 page)

Donald shook his head, and a hint of doubt mingled with the determination in his face.

"I think they would have told you to wait for a better time," Helen said. "And I'm sure your mother wouldn't have wanted you to harass people who are in mourning. Think about how you'd have felt if Vic Rezendes had come to your mother's home or her funeral."

"But I was told—" He broke off, and this time he did push off from the tailgate, but not to go confront the fans. He turned around to help Helen down. "Never mind. I didn't mean any harm. Just wanted people to listen and not make the same mistakes I did. They need to know the warning signs before it's too late, like it was for me with my mother. But you're right. This isn't the place to do it."

"The library is a much better place." Helen slid off the tailgate, careful to take her weight on her left leg so as not to irritate her troublesome right hip. "I assume your phone number is on the brochures. I'll call to set up a time for you to speak. Meanwhile, I'd appreciate it if you'd move your truck, so Jack and I can leave. I've got people waiting for me elsewhere."

Donald nodded and climbed into the cab.

Jack raced Helen to the car, which wasn't much of a challenge for him. He had the engine running and the heater on full blast before she even reached the passenger side door. At least he hadn't gotten so brazen with his unasked-for assistance that he'd opened the passenger side door and held it for her. Then she really would have had to fire him.

Much as it irritated Helen, sometimes she did need to ask for help. Carrying anything that required two hands was beyond her capabilities as long as one of her hands gripped her cane. She had to get Jack to bring the box of yarn into the nursing home for her.

Helen signed them both in at the front desk and followed Jack into the activity room. He set the box down between Betty's and Josie's wingback chairs. Betty had either finished the yellow scarf she'd been working on or set it aside and was making a chemo cap in a faded red, green, and white variegated yarn. Josie, for once, was making something in a dull gray, which seemed particularly lifeless against the hot pink of her sweatshirt and the lime green of her pants.

"Oooh." Josie peered at the name on side of the box at her feet. "I haven't been to Cottage Fibers in for
ever
. Is this really for us?"

"For Charity Caps Day." While Jack opened the box, Helen dragged another wingback chair over to face the fireplace, farther away than the two older women so she wouldn't get roasted.

Jack waved and headed out to wait in the car where he much preferred playing games on his phone to stitching and bitching.

Josie glanced from the dull gray yarn in her lap to the rainbow in the box. "Christmas came early this year."

"For us and for the people who will receive the caps," Betty said. "Thank you."

"I'm happy to do it." Helen dropped into her chair. "I can consider myself a patron of the arts now, supplying you with yarn and Tate with exotic wood."

"How is Tate, anyway?" Josie dove into the box of yarn and pulled out several neon-bright skeins to study the labels. "And when are we going to meet him?"

"Tate is a bit busy right now, with his niece at the top of the suspect list in Vic's murder."

Josie brushed the soft yarn against her cheek. "On the plus side, he's going to need you to help him find whoever really killed Vic. You'll be spending lots of time together. Maybe a late night in his office, and you're both a little tired, and your inhibitions have dropped, and he's desperate for something to remind him that life isn't always grim, and he suddenly realizes that you're right there next to him, so he turns and kisses you. A long, passionate, finally-found-my-soul mate kind of kiss."

"You've been watching too many soap operas." Betty continued doggedly working with faded yarn, peeking only occasionally at the new supplies. "It doesn't happen like that in real life."

"It could." Josie threw one of the neon-colored skeins at her friend. "Especially if Helen is paying attention and makes it happen."

"One husband, even if it's an ex, is enough for me. I'm not making anything happen with Tate, except to help him keep his niece from being charged with a murder she didn't commit."

"Are you sure she didn't do it?" Betty tossed the bright yarn back into the box and continued adding rows to her faded red, green, and white cap. "I'm sure she's a good person and all, but from what I've heard, she did have a temper, and she was fiercely protective of her crew, so she might have gotten angry if Vic threatened one of her employees."

"I might have believed it if she'd hauled off and punched him on the spot, but I can't see her sitting on the anger until four in the morning." Helen dug in her yarn bag for the green chemo cap she was working on. "The only reason Hank Peterson wants to blame her for it is that she's an easy choice of suspect since she found the body, and the murder weapon could have been one of her tools. That's pretty flimsy evidence if you ask me. Especially since they haven't even found the murder weapon."

Josie sat back from rummaging through the box of yarn and tossed a deep forest green skein at Betty. "You need to make a hat out of this. Much prettier than the yarn you're using now, and still seasonal."

"After I finish this one. It may not be all that pretty, but it will still be warm. And you know how I hate having unfinished projects." Betty tucked the new skein into her yarn bag. "Has Hank looked into Vic's ties to the gaming industry? That ought to lead to some other suspects."

"I don't know if Peterson is looking into it, but I talked to one person who definitely hated Vic because of his role in promoting poker. Donald Glennon blames everyone in the gaming industry, including Vic, for his mother's death."

"Donald's a little too close to the subject," Betty said, "but he's not entirely wrong. The gaming industry knows that retired people are particularly susceptible to the allure of gambling. Unlike younger people, seniors tend to have a lot of free time to go to casinos, and many of them never really planned for what they'd do during retirement, so they don't have any hobbies or other activities they really enjoy. A lot of them are living without a spouse for the first time ever, and their kids have left the nest, so they're feeling a bit lonely and marginalized. That makes them easy pickings when the gaming industry comes along and offers to fill the void in their lives."

"You make it sound like seniors are all feeble-minded." The over-protectiveness Helen experienced was bad enough now, when she was on the downhill side of her forties. She hated to think how people might treat her in another twenty years. "Like, the first little temptation, and they're immediately and irrevocably on the path to ruin."

"Not feeble-minded," Betty said. "Just at risk. Josie and I are lucky. We've got each other to lean on. Not everyone has that."

"BFFs to the end," Josie said.

"We've also got activities we enjoy." Betty raised her knitting needles as proof. "Not everyone is that fortunate. And the gaming industry really has an unfair advantage. There's a good number of seniors who have a mild, undiagnosed form of dementia that makes them particularly susceptible to temptation. There's also research to suggest that any pleasurable activity, including gambling, can be as addictive as cocaine. It makes the elderly person feel young again, and takes her mind off her aches and pains, at least while she's at the casino. And then she comes home to her dull life, and of course it's tempting to go back, even if it means spending all her savings."

Helen knew she too was luckier than most. She had substantial financial resources, interesting activities to explore, and people who cared enough to watch for warning signs of trouble.

"What's the point of having money if you can't spend it?" Josie held up a variegated purple skein. "I'd rather buy yarn than poker chips, but not everyone appreciates a ball of organic cotton the way we do."

"Of course people should be allowed to spend their own money and make their own choices," Betty said, "but it's troubling the way seniors are targeted with incentive programs and advertising gimmicks that appeal specifically to the most vulnerable retirees."

Josie finally settled on a hot pink skein of yarn that matched her sweatshirt, abandoning her dull gray creation to start a new cap. She didn't seem to have any problem with unfinished projects. "
Everyone's
targeted with incentive programs and advertising gimmicks these days. Even Cottage Fibers has a customer loyalty program and special sales. They're trying to make everyone into compulsive needleworkers. That's not so different from compulsive gambling."

"Whether or not the gaming industry is taking advantage of anyone, it's got a motive to get rid of Vic," Helen said. "He didn't exactly make the gaming industry happy with his antics at the library event. They could have hired someone to shut him up. Permanently." Someone like Nora Manning, PR adviser
cum
assassin.

"Don't forget Freddie Wade if you're making a list of suspects," Josie said. "She really couldn't stand him."

"Can you blame her?" Betty said. "Freddie was predisposed to dislike anyone who moved in next door to her, since she absolutely doted on the previous owners, Abbie and Walt Howard, and the newcomer would be a constant reminder that they were gone
.
She even came to visit them at least once a week during the six months they were here. Then she got stuck with Vic Rezendes as her neighbor, and to make it worse, he was setting up a gaming hall right next to where she was bringing up four impressionable boys. I would completely understand it if she finally lost her patience with the legal system and took care of him herself. Might even consider it self-defense if she was trying to keep her sons out of his poker-proselytizing clutches."

"I know you like Freddie and thought she was being kind when she came to visit the Howards," Josie said, "but there's something off about the whole Ware family. The Howards didn't seem all that happy to see Freddie. And the way those boys behave? It's just not normal. Trust me. I was a teacher for forty years. Kids that age never sit still like they did. Not without something seriously wrong in their heads."

"Just because Freddie drilled some good behavior into her boys doesn't make her into some sort of child abuser." Betty looked at Helen. "Those boys are so polite. You'd have to see it to believe it. They would go around this whole room, introducing themselves, asking if there's anything they can do to help. Always said, 'yes, sir' or 'yes, ma'am' to everyone. Not the sort of behavior you see every day, especially with boys being raised by a single mother."

"I'm telling you," Josie said, more serious than her friend for once, "there's something off about them."

Betty shrugged. "You may be right. We only saw them a few minutes a week. Hard to really know anything about them."

"The Howards saw them all the time," Josie insisted. "They called the kids hooligans. Said the boys were always skulking around in the trees between the two properties. Abbie said they were afraid to let their cat outside, convinced the boys would abuse it."

Helen wondered if Art knew about that risk. If he did, it was no wonder he was frantic over Vic's cat being outside.

Betty shook her head skeptically. "The Howards were old fuddy-duddies, practically blind and deaf. They were always chatting up other residents' IV poles, mistaking them for a staff member. They wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between a deer grazing on their lawn and the Wade boys chasing after an escaped soccer ball."

"They might not have had the best vision or hearing, but they weren't crazy," Josie said. "Besides, even crazy people sometimes get it right."

Helen thought of Marianne and her conspiracy theories. Could there be something to her fears? "Do you two know a homeless woman named Marianne?"

Betty and Josie looked at each other blankly and then shook their heads in unison.

Helen made a mental note, for all the good it would do her, to ask Geoff if he knew anything about Marianne. It was just the sort of story he would be interested in, except for the apparent lack of a happy ending. Perhaps a little media coverage would get Marianne some help.

"I don't suppose you two ever make gloves, do you? Marianne lost hers recently, and it's shaping up to be a particularly cold winter."

"I'd be glad to," Betty said. "As soon as I finish this cap."

"I know just the right yarn for it," Josie said. "I've been saving a single skein of some heavy wool for just the right special project."

"I hope your Marianne likes bright colors," Betty said.

Helen remembered the homeless woman's clothes, faded from whatever their original colors were to a grayish blue. "As far as I know, she's not all that particular about her wardrobe."

*   *   *

Geoff Loring was at the other end of the activity room, looking for a story or possibly just hanging out with friends. It was hard to tell the difference with him.

As Helen approached him, Detective Peterson's uncle, who had been a police officer for thirty years and was frequently treated as if he were still on the force, rolled his wheelchair over next to Geoff and said, "Have you heard the latest?"

"About what?"

"The poker guy's murder."

Geoff jumped to his feet. "Oh, no. I don't do crime stories. Tell it to someone who likes that sort of thing." He half-turned and saw Helen. "Tell her your story. I want nothing to do with it."

"Okay." Peterson's uncle adjusted his wheelchair to face Helen. "Vic was drugged before he was killed. Hours before. Probably around midnight."

Geoff covered his ears with his hands and started walking away. "La la la, I can't hear you."

The uncle grinned smugly, looking exactly like his nephew, and then wheeled off to share what was presumably confidential information with everyone in the room.

"You can stop singing now," Helen told Geoff. "Mr. Peterson has left for more receptive audiences."

Geoff cautiously lowered his hands and looked around, relaxing slightly when he saw Peterson's uncle at the far end of the room telling his story to Betty and Josie. Geoff raised his voice, so everyone who'd remembered to wear their hearing aids could hear. "I don't know anything about the murder, and I am definitely not talking to you about it. All I know about Vic Rezendes is his reputation as a poker player. I only know about his living, not his dying."

"So tell me about Vic Rezendes, the living legend." No one else had been able to give Helen an objective opinion about whether there was anyone in the gaming industry who wanted Vic dead. The fans thought everyone loved Vic, but Art thought a lot of people hated his boss and so did Nora. Unless, of course, they were just trying to perpetuate Vic's bad reputation for the same reasons that it had originally been fabricated: to keep people talking about him, on the theory that all publicity was good publicity. "Was he really as much of a jerk as he appeared to be?"