Helens-of-Troy (37 page)

“And that would be?”

“A royal pain in the ass.” She grabbed
the broom from the corner of the railing and began to sweep some of
the snow away. If the snowplows didn’t make it out tonight, it was
going to be a tough commute for everyone in the morning. “I see
Roy’s cruiser coming down the street. Are you ready to tell him
about what you saw in your vision?”

“As ready as I ever will be, I
suppose,” Helen admitted. “I guess it helps that you have this
understanding with him. You know, the whole Fourth of July thing.”
Helen hoped it would save a lot of time and frustration, not having
to convince him that her visions were real.

“Maybe after this is all over he’ll
introduce you to the Dayton boys.”

“Mother, I don’t think I’m ready for a
new relationship right now, thanks anyway.”

“You never know, Helen. The best ones
come when you’re not looking. And like I told you, being a police
officer predisposes them to the fragility of human nature. I find
that comes in handy.”

“You would.”

“They’re good looking. They have a
steady job. You can take your pick between them.”

“I’ll think about it,” Helen said, in
an effort to end the conversation.

Roy parked the car behind Helena’s
Mustang and walked towards the LaRose women. “Do I need pepper
spray?” he asked Helen.

“Look, I’m sorry about that whole you,
me, the punch to the head thing. I promise not to do it again,” she
said sheepishly. Secretly, she was still pretty amazed at the
beating she was able to lay on him.

“That would be a good thing,” he
replied, rubbing his neck. “So what’s up? Your mother said you had
some information for me in regards to the whereabouts of the
Clarks?”

“I don’t really know where to begin,”
Helen admitted. “I know you might think this is a little
crazy…”

“She’s had a vision,” Helena said
calmly.

“A vision?” He leaned on the porch
railing and eyed Helena suspiciously. “Like mother, like daughter.
Expect the unexpected.”

“Hear her out, Roy. It’s not easy for
her.”

“Okay,” Roy sighed. “Let’s just assume
for the moment that I buy the whole ‘vision’ thing. I don’t need to
know your whole back history, Helen. Just get to the point you want
to make, then I’ll decide if I want to hear more.”

“I saw a white truck, with two dead
people in it. The truck had been run off the road and it’s lying
overturned in a ditch.”

“It does sound like the Clark’s,”
Helena insisted. “She’s trying to describe the cliff out by the ski
hill.”

“How do you know, Helena? Did you have
a vision too?” He wished she would let her daughter tell the story
on her own.

“No, she just did a better job
explaining it to me earlier. Before you got here. She’s nervous
now.”

Roy wondered how anyone who had managed
to knock him unconscious could suddenly have a case of the nerves.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning,
Helen.”

Helen subconsciously twisted her pony
tail around her fingers. It hung in a loose curl when she released
it. “Roy, I know this sounds crazy. It all started with a terrible
migraine that I had earlier. It happens when I get a
vision.”

“It does,” Helena interrupted. “You
have to see her to believe it. Her forehead goes all
wrinkly.”

“Go on…” he replied, his voice
indicating suspicion. He raised his hand to Helena. “I mean, go on
Helen.”

“I could see the white truck travelling
back towards town,” Helen continued. “A man was driving, and there
was a woman in the front with him. I think they’d been out shopping
because the rear seat was full of groceries. He was a stocky guy
with red hair and she…she was just… plain,” Helen shrugged. There
was nothing particularly outstanding about the woman’s
features.

“Tell me more,” Roy said, now with
interest. It did sound like the Clarks.

“This car came up from behind them and
smashed into them. The red haired guy in the truck tried to steer
back onto the highway, but the car hit him again. They were
deliberate hits. The white truck had no where to go. It went over
the embankment.”

“The car that hit the white truck, can
you describe it? Roy asked.

“It was a Hummer. Black. Not a fully
decked out one or anything,” she said, trying to focus in on the
vehicle in her subconscious. “An older model. I don’t think it’s
worth a lot anymore.”

“What about the truck?” Roy asked.
“Anything about it stick out in your memory?”

“I can see the license plate on the
truck, it says ACEMAN1.”

“Yeah, that’s the Clarks,” Roy sighed,
clearly disturbed. “He’s a big poker player.” He studied Helen’s
face. Whether her story was true or not he didn’t know. But he
believed, that she believed, that it was.

“I think I’ve seen a Hummer just like
that around town,” Helena remembered. “Or maybe I’m thinking of a
Jeep. I don’t know. I used to be able to tell them apart, but now
they’re making the Jeeps bigger and the Hummer’s smaller. It’s
confusing the hell out of me.”

Roy took his phone from his pocket,
began to call Purdy, and then reconsidered. If he didn’t have to
involve any of the officers with Helen’s information, it might be
the best thing for all concerned. Roy knew there was a Hummer like
that in town. And he knew who it belonged to. “Okay, Helen,” he
said. “I’ll head out on the highway to take a look. But if you’re
wrong about this, you owe your mother and me dinner at Delphine’s.
I eat a lot. You should know that.”

“All right,” Helen conceded. “Thanks,
Roy… for at least hearing me out.”

“
No problem,” he replied.
“That’s what I do. But if you don’t mind, before I go, I just need
to talk to your mother about…about…about the upcoming tea party for
the senior’s centre next Wednesday. There’s a problem with the
seating arrangements, and she knows better than anyone who to put
with whom.”

“That sounds too thrilling for me,”
Helen replied, happy for the excuse to leave. “I’m cold anyway.
I’ll go inside and start some laundry.”

“Don’t you dare put my white peek-a-boo
blouse in with Ellie’s mud soaked jeans,” Helena begged. She looked
at Roy. “I’ll tell you about the angora sweater incident some other
time.”

“Who said I was doing your laundry?”
Helen laughed as she headed inside. The door stuck as she tried to
close it. “We should get some new weather stripping at the hardware
store tomorrow while we’re at it,” she noted.

“Good plan,” Helena acknowledged,
pulling the door firmly shut.

“Okay, Helena. What’s going on around
here?” Roy asked when they were finally alone.

“What do you mean?” Helena asked,
feigning innocence.

“First, there was Brooke Quinlan. It
was the darndest thing. I got a call from the coroner saying she
had no blood in that tiny little body of hers beyond what clung to
her body tissues when they did the autopsy. Then Kevin Clark gets
murdered. And you know what? The coroner calls me again, and guess
what he says?”

“What?” Helena winced.

“He can’t figure out why Kevin Clark is
down a half a body of blood! He said he found two puncture wounds
on his ankle. Wounds that under normal circumstances would bleed a
like a paper cut and then stop.”

“Well, not if he was dead.”

“Or, if there was some other force that
had time to suck some of the blood out of him.”

“Like what? Really, Roy. Aren’t you
jumping to conclusions that are pretty far out there?” she said
sheepishly.

“You tell me. It’s your daughter having
the visions. And your granddaughter who had the weird dream. What
does that all mean? Do we need to re-visit your infamous Fourth of
July party, Helena?”

“Let’s not.”

“Oh, I think we will. Purdy and I had
an incident with Stan Lachey the other night. We left him alone in
the back seat of the cruiser when we were dealing with the
situation out at the Wildman’s farm. When we finally got to leave,
we found a teenager by the car, giving Stan some serious grief.
When we approached him, the teenager laughed at us. And I couldn’t
help thinking I had heard that laugh before. But where? It’s been
driving me crazy the past few hours. And then I remembered. Your
party.”

Helena took her fingers to her temples
and began to rub them. “I have had enough of that day to last a
lifetime.”

“I remember turning around in your
backyard, to see who was laughing manically at us from across the
lawn. I knew I was going to have to do a thorough job of covering
your tracks that day, and obviously someone else besides you, Mr.
Wagner, Betty Lachey, Marita Harbinger, and myself, had seen the
whole thing happen. And I’m not referring to the brief appearance
of the Exorcist. There was a teenaged boy standing there as well,
taking it all in. I went to approach him, but he vanished. In the
blink of an eye, he was gone. I went looking for him, but he never
turned up again. You know me, Helena. I don’t like leaving loose
ends around.”

“It was a hot, crazy, July day,” Helena
offered. “But it’s over now.”

“I don’t think it is, Helena. The laugh
I heard last night was the same. The boy was the same. And he was
at the scene of Kevin Clark’s murder. I need to find that boy,
Helena. Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Helena said
honestly.

“Well, you think about that,” Roy said
knowingly. “And when you do know, you call me.” He turned his back
on Helena and walked slowly to his car.

“This is all getting very complicated,”
Helena admitted to herself. “There is a tornado spinning around my
house, and I don’t know how to make it stop.” She put the broom
back in its spot on the corner of the verandah and went inside her
home. Maybe it was time to start to come clean with Helen about
what was really going on. She had to figure out a way to delicately
broach the subject. It might be best to get Helen mad about
something else and then divert her to the conversation she really
wanted to have. Blindside her. She went down to the laundry room in
the basement to find her and give it a try. Helen was sitting on
top of the vibrating washer.

“Um, what are you doing?” Helena
asked.

Helen was red-faced.
“Nothing.”

“You are more like me than you are
willing to admit,” her mother laughed.

“Change the subject, please,” Helen
begged.

“About Ellie’s father…” Helena
began.

“Change it back, please,” Helen wished.
“I’m getting my jollies from the spin cycle, okay? Let’s talk about
how wrong that is.”

“Too late. Tell me about
him.”

“Julian? You want to know about
Julian?”

“Julian?” Helena questioned, tilting
her head ever so slightly. “I thought his name was
Jules.”

“You’re losing it, Mother.”

“I don’t think so, Helen. If you don’t
remember her father’s name, or if you don’t know her father’s name,
you should just admit it.”

“His name was Julian,” Helen said
adamantly. “What about him?”

“I’m just very sorry about everything
you went through at the time of his death. I’m sorry I didn’t get
to know him. What was he like?

“He was tall, dark and handsome. And
smart. And funny. He was everything I ever wanted.”

“He sounds perfect.”

“No,” Helen said softly. “He was far
from that. But he was mine. At least for a little
while.”

“It takes a long time to get over the
loss of someone you love,” Helena admitted. There had been times in
her life when she had felt just like she assumed Helen must have
then. More so when she was younger, when love’s betrayal somehow
meant so much more.

“It takes forever,” Helen replied
solemnly.

“You moved on,” her mother reminded
her.

“I did,” Helen agreed. “But it wasn’t
easy. I still keep comparing every man I’m with to him. Maybe
that’s why it never works out.”

“It’s hard for a man to compete with a
memory,” Helena said. “You need to let go.”

“It’s not that easy. I feel like he’s
always around.”

“Helen?” her mother said, noticing her
daughter had drifted off somewhere.

Helen realized she might have said too
much. “You’re right. I need to let go. It’s just hard, that’s all.”
She reminded herself that she was going to have to be more careful
around the subject if she didn’t want to raise
suspicions.

“So what’s next in the life of Helen?”
her mother asked. Something in Helen’s demeanor indicated she was
being unusually coy about the whole issue. She hoped it wasn’t
because her daughter wanted to return to Tony.

“The Daytons,” Helen laughed. “Would
that make you happy?”

“Yes, actually. It just might. You
should see them. I think there’s a picture of them in last week’s
paper, I’ll go get it.” Helena said with satisfaction.