Half-Price Homicide (21 page)

Tarragon’s eyes lit up. “We may be able to recover some of that million on your behalf.”

“He’s spent it,” Helen said. “I mean, he’s probably spent it. That man runs through money the way you use legal pads. Anyway, he came into Marcella’s money after our divorce.”

“Oh,” Tarragon said. “We might still be able to recover your share of the house-sale funds. Can you think of another way to contact him?”

“He stayed in touch with my mother,” Helen said. “But Mom just died. Her funeral is tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” Tarragon said. “Will Rob be at the funeral?” “Definitely not,” Helen said.

She was picking her way carefully through the nuggets of truth, as if crossing a stream by leaping from one slippery rock to another.

“We can publish legal notices here in St. Louis and in Fort Lauderdale,” Tarragon said. “Rob will have sixty days to respond. I just hope your ex won’t show up.”

“I can almost guarantee that,” Helen said. “Based on his past behavior,” she added quickly. Her heart was beating and she hoped no one could read her guilty thoughts.

“Then I’m free?” Helen asked her lawyer.

“You’re free now,” Tarragon said. “But if your ex-husband doesn’t respond to our petition, your legal problem with the court will go away.”

“That’s wonderful news,” Phil said, and hugged Helen. Helen tried to feel relieved, but she felt numb. Her rescue had come too late.

“Anything else?” Tarragon said.

“Yes, I want my name legally changed to Helen Hawthorne. It’s the name I’ve been using for more than two years.”

“Easy. I can do that online,” the lawyer said. “Or you can.” “I’d rather you did it,” Helen said.

Helen answered the questions on the form. No, she was not changing her name for fraudulent reasons, to avoid a civil judgment, or debts. Not anymore, she thought.

She felt slightly queasy about answering, “Have you ever committed a felony?” Well, she hadn’t actually killed Rob. It was an accident.

“Next we’ll file a demand letter with the small-claims court in Broward County, where you live now,” the lawyer said. “Here’s your case number. Call this phone number to find out when the change is completed. It should be less than thirty days.”

“I’ll need a legal driver’s license, too,” Helen said.

“You can get that in Florida,” the lawyer said. “Did you file taxes while you were on the run, Ms. Hawthorne?”

“No,” Helen said. “That’s another thing I need to get straightened out.”

“You were a CPA, correct?” Tarragon asked. Helen nodded.

“Then you’re going to need a good lawyer. The IRS has some amnesty programs. You may qualify for one. Do you need the name of a tax lawyer?”

“I’ve made an appointment with Drake Upton,” Phil said.

“He’s the best,” Tarragon said. “You’ll be in good hands. Good luck.” She shook hands with Helen and Phil.

While they waited for the elevator, Helen asked, “When is the appointment with Drake?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, after your mother’s funeral,” Phil said. “The only other appointment was in two weeks. Is that okay with you?”

“Death and taxes,” Helen said. “We can’t avoid either.”

Candle wax, lemon polish and incense. The comforting scents of Helen’s old church greeted her at the wide wooden door. Stained-glass windows cast colorful shadows on the soberly dressed congregation.

Red votive candles burned before the statue of the Virgin Mary. This Virgin was a joyous young mother, cradling her fat baby son. Helen had left a bouquet at Mary’s feet when she’d married Rob. That day, she’d felt as happy as the innocent Mother of God looked.

Now Helen was returning after nearly twenty years, burdened with sorrow and a secret too deadly to tell Father Rafferty. The priest had grayed considerably since Helen was a bride. Helen was glad she’d fought to bring her mother’s body home for this final ceremony. Dolores would be proud of her grandson. Tommy wore a blue shirt and a clip-on tie. His shirttail had escaped his khaki pants.

Tommy read a passage from the Old Testament in a singsong voice: “But the souls of the just are in the hands of God and no torment shall touch them.” He’d chosen the passage himself from the approved list of readings. Helen heard it as an apology to Allison, who was too young to attend her grandmother’s funeral.

“They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead, and their passing away was thought an”—Tommy struggled with the next word—”affli-affilic-affliction!” he finished triumphantly. “And their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace.”

I hope so, Mom, Helen thought.

Dolores’s casket had been covered with a pall and blessed by Father Rafferty. Inside, Dolores was wearing her pearls. Helen had checked before it was closed. She didn’t trust Larry.

Helen recognized many of her mother’s friends—and a few of Larry’s admirers—in the “memorial choir,” the kind name for the church’s second-string singers. Their voices wobbled in and out of key, but no pros sang with such sincerity. These women served their church faithfully.

Over the quavery choir, Helen heard the chunk and growl of the cement mixer as the floor was poured in the new church hall. Another burial was going on.

“Hurry up, dammit!” a man’s voice yelled outside.

A fitting send-off for Rob, Helen thought, then felt guilty for her meanness. Rob would soon rest under rock and concrete.

Give him eternal rest, Lord, Helen prayed. Permanent rest, so Rob doesn’t surface until that last trumpet, when Tommy and I are long forgotten.

Tommy had no clue he’d killed his uncle Rob. Helen hoped the boy never found out. At least Rob is buried in the church, she thought. A mad giggle rose in her throat. Helen strangled the sound and tried to turn it into a sob. Phil patted her hand in sympathy.

Helen and Phil, Kathy, Tom Senior and Tommy took the left front pew. Larry, the new widower, sat on the right. Mrs. Raines, front-runner for the next Lawn Boy Larry consort, positioned herself close to keep her eye on her prize. The other widows clustered behind her, eyeing Larry like hungry lionesses at a watering hole.

At the Offertory, Tom Senior and Kathy brought up the wafers and wine. Tommy carried a basket of items that had been important to Dolores. Helen glimpsed family photos, a much-thumbed
Betty Crocker Cookbook
with a red-checked cover and a red racing car. Helen knew the story behind that toy. Two-year-old Tommy had insisted it be part of the manger scene under the Christmas tree because “Baby Jesus will like it.” His grandma adored this historical inaccuracy. The red car, parked next to the Wise Men, became a family holiday tradition.

At last, the service ended. The memorial choir sang “May the angels lead you into paradise” and the pallbearers, priest and servers escorted Dolores’s body down the aisle. The family followed behind the casket.

The undertaker’s black limo doors opened, and Helen, Phil, Kathy, Tom and Tommy Junior slid inside. Lawn Boy Larry followed in his own car, accompanied by Mrs. Raines.

“Cool limo,” Tommy said, obviously enjoying his first ride in the massive vehicle.

“You did a good job with the reading for your grandmother,” Helen said.

“Proud of you, son,” Tom said, and patted his boy’s shoulder.

“After the burial, Larry is having a funeral lunch in the church basement,” Kathy said. “I wanted the lunch at my house, but he said this would be better.”

“Which means cheaper,” Helen said.

“Probably,” Kathy said. “But I’d fought with him so much, I let him have this victory. Mom knew all the church ladies, and I think she would have wanted it. He said he’d make a small donation to the sodality. Knowing Larry, it will be small. We’ll have dinner at our house tonight, if your plans permit.”

“We see the tax lawyer at two,” Helen said. “We have to return our rental car and catch the first flight to Fort Lauderdale by eight tonight. But we have time for an early dinner with you.”

Phil nodded agreement.

“It will be quick,” Kathy said. “I can’t figure out why sitting around a funeral home makes me feel like I’ve been digging ditches.” Kathy blushed when she realized she had indeed been digging a ditch—to bury Rob.

Only Helen noticed Kathy’s heightened color. Tom Senior sat there like a sweet, baggy-faced basset, patting his wife’s hand.

“I want you both with us when we open the special gifts Grandma left the family,” Kathy said.

The funeral procession entered the ornate wrought-iron gates of Calvary Cemetery. The limo drove past weeping stone angels, gray granite crosses and grand mausoleums with stained-glass windows their occupants never saw. The trees were a cool canopy over lush green grass.

“As cemeteries go, this one is a beauty,” Phil said.

“Tennessee Williams is buried here,” Tom said. “And Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman and other famous people.” Like many St. Louisans, Tom was proud of his city’s history.

“We took a field trip to Calvary for school,” Tommy said.

“To see the graves of the famous people?” Helen asked.

“No, cooler than that,” Tommy Junior said. “Calvary Cemetery has some of the last prairie in the whole USA. It’s being preserved and everything.”

“Weird but true,” Tom Senior said. “North America used to have a million square miles of prairie. One of the last known chunks survived in the city of St. Louis in the cemetery. The Catholic archdiocese has agreed to keep it intact for at least a hundred years.”

“Grandma’s in a famous place,” Tommy said. “Where the buffalo roamed and the cowboys rode.”

The black hearse stopped before a white tent sheltering rows of folding chairs. The burial ceremony was mercifully short. Kathy had brought a bouquet of pink carnations, their mother’s favorite flower. She handed carnations to her family. They gently dropped flowers and symbolic clods of dirt onto the coffin. Helen hated the soft sound the clay soil made on the lid.

Larry tossed in a single limp rose.

Dolores shared a gray granite headstone with her first husband. Her death date would be engraved on it soon. Helen paused for a moment at the grave of her father, left a spray of red roses, then walked back toward the limo with Phil through the forest of granite headstones.

Larry, Mrs. Raines at his side, greeted the mourners at the funeral luncheon in the church basement. Kathy and Tom got a frosty smile. Larry managed a stingy nod for Phil and ignored Helen.

They ate slightly stale ham sandwiches, boiled coffee and sheet cake lovingly served by Dolores’s friends. These women worked hard, but had no authority, one reason Helen had parted from the Church.

“Are we going to the reading of the will?” Helen asked Kathy.

“No. I don’t want my son to know his grandmother cut him out for that jackass,” Kathy whispered. “We’ll open the things I swiped from Mom’s house and tell the kids they were gifts from Grandma. I took things Larry will never miss. None of them had price tags yet.”

“Will Tommy mention the gifts to Lawn Boy?” Helen said.

“Tommy never talks to that man unless he has to,” Kathy said. “There’s no reason now.”

Helen and Phil thanked the church ladies, and Phil slipped Mrs. Hurbert, head church lady and archenemy of Lawn Boy Larry, a fifty-dollar donation. They left the church basement covered in lipstick kisses and flowery perfume.

On the way to their car, Helen checked out the new church-hall foundation. The basement floor was smooth and wet. No corpse stuck out of the concrete.

“We need to hurry to make the appointment with the tax lawyer,” Phil said. Helen drove them to another glass office tower.

Drake Upton had a long aristocratic face, a lantern jaw and iron gray hair. His advice was short and no-nonsense.

“As a CPA, Miss Hawthorne, you will be held to a higher standard, so it will be difficult for you to avoid penalties,” he said. “Since you apparently made less than twenty thousand dollars annually during the years you were … gone… you may not have had to file taxes. That does not excuse what you did. You know better.”

“I did and I’m sorry,” Helen said. “I don’t have much paperwork from that time. I do have the forms from when I worked at the Superior Club. I made eleven dollars an hour, the most money I earned during that time.”

“But you can’t prove that,” Drake said.

“No. I took cash under the table for those other jobs,” Helen said. “At least three of the seven companies are gone, and the rest are small businesses. I’m willing to pay the price, but I don’t want the business owners to suffer because they did me a favor. I do have some money—three hundred thousand dollars left over from the sale of the house.”

“The house was sold before your divorce, correct?”

Helen nodded.

“Did your ex-husband pay capital gains on that sale?”

“I can almost guarantee he didn’t,” Helen said.

“Then you are responsible for that, too. Here’s what I recommend: Let’s file returns for the real amounts of income. We will not over- or underestimate what you made. That would make it look worse. Then we’ll wait for the audit notice that will most surely arrive. When that happens, you will go to the IRS with an attorney. It can be me, if you want to come back to St. Louis, or I can recommend a colleague in Fort Lauderdale. You and your attorney will tell the IRS about your emotional state, your small income, show proof of where the three hundred thousand dollars came from and give them information about your lifestyle, including all assets.”