by a sullen, uncommunicative woman. That had all changed one morning when Helen breezed into the kitchen. “Bobby and I are going to the swap meet. See if they have any good deals. Want to come?”
Bobby? Stunned, Pat had swallowed her misgivings along with her coffee and accompanied Helen to the swap meet. Her sister had taken to bargaining like a card counter to green felt. A week later she had her own booth up and running and was holding her own against thrifty customers and encroaching vendors. Pushed aside by Helen’s new obsession, Pat returned to Phoenix, where she reestablished her life and tried not to think of the brilliant and beautiful sister she had lost.
Officer Fine came back on the phone. “Mrs. Henderson?”
“What’s going on?”
“Your sister’s next-door neighbor was murdered. We recovered some evidence on Helen’s property, so we think she might have seen something, but we haven’t had much luck getting a statement. I know you’re in Phoenix, but could you possibly come to Las Vegas? We could sure use some help.”
Murder! Evidence on her property! What had Helen gotten herself into now? Dealing with her screwball sister was never easy, and Pat knew if she didn’t take charge of the situation, no one would. “What has she told you?”
“Well . . .” Fine paused, obviously uncomfortable talking with Helen standing there. “She says she remembers something, but can’t remember what.”
Pat closed her eyes. Classic Helen. “I don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes things come back to her and she’ll tell you everything in excruciating detail, but other times she won’t remember anything. If you could just send somebody by her house after a day or so, she’ll probably remember.” The long pause that followed gave her time to consider other scenarios, all of them bad, all of them requiring a trip to Las Vegas.
“Mrs. Henderson, this is a very high-profile case. We need to pursue every possible lead with due diligence. Unless Helen gives us a statement, we’ll have no choice but to keep her in protective custody.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Pat said, horrified by the thought of her sister caged like an animal. “She has to get to the swap meet. It’s the only thing that keeps her sane.” She took a deep breath. “Put her back on the phone.”
A muffled conversation, Fine pleading and then ordering, and finally Helen’s familiar contralto mangling the words to a song she considered her very own.
“. . . there’s somebody keepin’ time
and I see Bobby handin’ wine
I’ll fade into tomorrow . . . ”
“Helen? Helen? It’s me, Pat . . . I mean Cleo . . . your sister.” But she knew it was a waste of breath. Once Helen started humming or singing the world would be on hold until her brain could reboot.
Finally, after a few more misquoted verses, Officer Fine came back on the line. “This doesn’t seem to be working.” The woman sounded surprised, as if she expected Pat to reach through the phone and switch Helen to normal.
“Okay, I’ll drive up. Maybe she’ll talk to me in person.”
After arranging to be at the police station at nine the next morning, Pat hung up, dreading what she had to do next. The thought of taking time off during the busiest season of the year made her cringe. She would have to turn over the entire production of the new catalog to her assistant, a competent woman but young and inexperienced. Even worse, Wyatt was leaving Monday for a convention, so she would have to take the boys with her. She swallowed a curse and punched in the preset for her husband’s cell.
He picked up on the first ring. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Helen.”
His answering groan said it all: regret, understanding, frustration.
Chapter Four
As Helen’s footsteps echoed off the steel lockers, she slowed to read a new splotch of graffiti scrawled across the metal doors:
Don’t Tell. Don’t Forget.
The words glowed with neon intensity the sign of a true message. Then the letters dissolved into indecipherable hieroglyphics. She hurried toward the teachers’ lounge, wanting to avoid the adolescent stampede that was about to explode into the empty corridor. She turned the corner and caught up to Bobby, matching her steps to his.
He waved a hand with a melodramatic flourish. “Hark! What glass through yonder window breaks? Is it the dons, or the homies from the east? Or, in the words of remedial English, ‘How you drama class be today?’”
Helen gave his arm a playful swat. “The kids were great. Now if I could just get you to stop butchering the Bard. Any trouble with your ESL class?”
English as a Second Language was Bobby’s pet peeve, and he grimaced before hitching the strap of his leather backpack higher onto his shoulder. “Some of the kids were into it. Miguel blew through the reading segment in about five minutes, and then spent the rest of the time tutoring the two cutest girls. I asked the office if he could be moved up to your class, but they insist he finish the ESL program. What a waste. I’d like to use all that red tape to strangle the numb-nut bureaucrats who think they know how to teach.”
Helen nodded sympathetically as the child at her side grabbed her hand, skipping to keep up. “Who’s this?” The boy couldn’t have been more than four years old. “He’s not from any of my classes.”
Bobby glanced down at their small companion. “You remember.”
“I don’t.” She understood from Bobby’s expression that the child was important, someone she should know, but didn’t. “Who is he?”
The bell rang before Bobby could answer and the air instantly filled with adolescent chatter as a mass of bodies surged into the corridor, lockers banging open and shut. The sounds faded as a heavy metallic door crashed open.
Helen sat up, the dream blending into the cement walls and barred front gate of the holding area. A guard ushered two thoroughly intoxicated women into the cell. Dressed in neon-bright clothes, the women stumbled toward the wide steel bench, laughing and chattering.
“We weren’t hurtin’ nobody,” the large black woman complained as she sank onto the bench. Her psychedelic dress hiked up, the thigh-high split exposing all of her leg and most of her butt.
Her companion, a roly-poly red-haired Latina with basketball breasts encased in a sausage-tight green dress, waved her hands in emphasis. “We just wanted to sing. It’s a karaoke bar.”
The guard’s lips twisted in a wry grin. “You took the microphone to your car. The bar called us because you wouldn’t give it back.” Officer Maria must have gone home. This guard’s name tag read S. Tona.
The redhead frowned and staggered toward the bench. “That’s gratitude for you. We were buyin’ beers for the house.”
The black woman broke into song. “Goin’ down to Fremont Street and . . . ”
Recognizing the lyrics, Helen joined in. “Get somebody ma-a-arried . . . ”
The
