Authors: Susan Wingate
She re-zipped his luggage and put
it back into the darkest corner of the closet and was about to turn off the
light and close the door when she decided to take the piece of luggage back out
and store it in the garage where it would
take up less space. She decided she would put it on a high shelf inside
one of the storage bins
where Harold
kept his fishing gear.
She lugged the piece out of the
bedroom through the hall through the kitchen through the laundry room and out
into the garage. She flicked on the light switch and saw only her car. She had
insisted on something nice this time, she didn’t want to buy used, she wanted a
new car and had to fight Harold to get it. Her last winning pitch was the
argument that a mayor’s wife should reflect
his success. Harold allowed her to buy the Land Rover four years back.
Helen smiled. She’d fought and
won. Then, she thought how many times she could’ve won if she’d only been
stronger, fought harder and then she thought how many things she’d wanted and
hadn’t fought for at all.
Her smile dissipated and she
moved through the door
toward the
storage bin and placed the piece of paisley luggage on the floor to get a step
ladder.
After unlocking the bin, she
opened and angled the ladder into place, picked up the empty
bag and carried it up the stairs arm-down.
She hoisted the bag up onto her shoulder and again up to the top shelf inside
the bin and slid it back, but, it stopped short not allowing enough room to
close the doors. It hung over the edge a good three inches she suspected.
She pulled the bag out and held
it in her hand. A good twelve inches shorter than the uppermost top of the
cabinet, Helen popped up onto her toes and moved her hand to feel around to
feel for whatever had blocked Harold’s bag.
She blindly patted until she felt something she
could make out as a thin flat item.
Pulling the thing forward, she inched
it forward with the tips of her
fingertips until she finally got it to a point where she could
slide it out far enough onto the ledge to
lift it by pinching it between her index finger and thumb.
As she pulled it closer to her
head, she saw it was a black attaché with the insignia CII.
She pulled it off and then replaced
the luggage she’d been holding, into its spot. It fit nicely now.
When she got down from the ladder
she closed and locked the bin once again. And, walked back into her
house looking at the latched attaché she’d
found.
***
Vanessa and I drove to Helen’s
together. When we got there we were all sad smiles and baked goods. I brought
a
pie
and Van brought lasagna, we both brought sympathy cards and wanted to
sit with her and console her the best we
knew how. But, Helen was beyond consoling. She was
beyond everything. She seemed distant and
cold. This woman who had once been our friend now treated us like her and
Harold’s constituency, mere voters. She said, standing in the doorway, she
didn’t have a lot of time that day, she had to organize the memorial service,
answer a few phone calls and although she said that she “appreciated the
gesture,” she said that the day was running short and she’d have to ask us over
again on another day, soon. We took it that she was grieving differently than
how we might have expected and when she closed the door, we turned and stared
at each other briefly and walked back to the car and left.
***
After the initial jolt of finding
Harold’s incriminating documents, Helen was enraged. Her name would be mud
around Sunnydale, she’d be the laughing stalk of the community along with
Harold, but with Harold he could hide deep in the confines deep inside the
earth. She’d have to bear his misconduct the underhandedness of his ambition
the ensuing damage upon people and property, the lies, deceit, and crime
involved. She’d feel the brunt of his burden. By then it was late in the
afternoon and as the sun began its decline in the western sky she’d settled
into her fourth scotch and kept the bottle close at hand for her fifth and
possibly sixth if she could withstand the
imminent delirium brought about by the alcohol. She’d not
have her name slandered. She’d refuse the
attack from media attention. She’d not come forth until the police forced her
hand if that at all was to be. This was Harold’s doing not hers and she’d
act as surprised at their findings as they
would be.
Helen stumbled out to the back
patio by the fire pit with the documents in hand. She teetered to a stack of logs
and found kindling and layered it on the bottom of the pit’s screen then added
one single mesquite log to burn. She ignited the kindling after spritzing it
with lighter fluid kept
with the
built-in barbecue. The building glow of the burning wood felt too hot in the
warm evening air and she stepped
back to
the table under the umbrella where she’d left her drink and the guilty
documents—contracts
between
Chariot International Incorporated all signed by a Zach Pinzer. Why
hadn’t she ever heard of this man before? But, she knew all too
well the answer to her question, her
questions. She wondered why he’d had such a sudden increase of generosity, the
jewelry and gifts—guilt gifts, blood money—all of it. The log had
become fully engulfed in fire and popped into
submission. Bits
of hot ash were spit
from it as all its life was being burnt out. She pulled off the top page of the
first document from the attaché and crumpled it into a ball in her fist. She
walked slowly and deliberately toward the burning pit. Her future was now on
the line. She wondered if she could flee before the fall of the axe, run, hide.
Helen thought of Seattle where no one knew her. Could she hide from the
widespreading arms of the media? She turned back to the table and walked over
quickly and grabbed her drink and slugged back the sharp tonic, wiped her lips
with her arm and coughed bitterly. She turned now, stronger than before with
her sweaty palm still tightly gripping the crumpled paper and walked steadily
this time back to the fire.
CHAPTER 30
It was late in the evening just
after the last party had left the diner. I was locking the door when I noticed
a darkened car sitting alone in the front parking lot of the restaurant. I
quickly turned the lock to secure the door. That’s when a woman exited the
vehicle and I realized who it was. After unbolting the lock I opened the door
for her.
“Helen. What are you doing here?
I didn’t recognize your car.”
“Is Vanessa here?”
“Yes. What’s goin’ on?” I opened
the door for her to enter and she walked in.
“I need to talk to the both of
you.”
“Oh, Helen, about the other
night. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t give it a second thought.
Now, go get Vanessa, okay?”
She seemed firmer than the Helen
I knew from before.
Of course, her husband had just
died and she was still in mourning. I went to the office where Vanessa was
doing the books.
“Van?”
“Mm hmm.”
“Helen’s here.” Van looked up
when I spoke and pulled her readers from the bridge of her nose and let them
drop from the chain that held them around her neck.
“What’s she want?”
“I don’t know but she said she
needs to speak with the both of us.”
“Would you like a glass of wine
Helen?”
“I think I’d better not. Not
until after I’ve said what I have to say to you.”
“Okay, shoot, Helen.” Vanessa
seemed overly curt to me. She hadn’t liked the way Helen had treated us when we
tried to visit her.
We both slid into the booth
opposite her. She looked out the window and was holding a hanky in her hands
and she was twining it over and over again. She rubbed just under her nose with
a finger and I could see her hands were shaking.
“What’s going on, Helen? You seem
upset.” Vanessa must have seen her shaking too.
“Well, Vanessa, I am upset. I
don’t know where to begin.” We both looked on without saying anything and she
started to unfold in front of us. “Oh god , what am I going to do?”
“Helen, how can we help if you
don’t tell us what’s eatin’ you?” She looked squarely into my eyes and
spoke
very methodically like she’d
practiced it over and over in the mirror.
“I don’t think Harold’s accident
was an accident at all. I think something underhanded was at play. I also think
Harold had something to do with the vandalism down the strip and here and the
shooting.” She sucked in a pocket of air and held her hands to her mouth.
Vanessa leaned forward upon
Helen’s confession.
“You think it was Harold?”
Helen shook her head and then
spoke, “No, not
Harold. Someone he was involved
with?”
“Who?”
“I’m not willing to say at this
point, Vanessa, ’cause
I’m not sure.”
“My daughter almost died and
you’re not willing to say?” I sank back into the corner of the booth when I
felt Vanessa’s rage and Helen leaned against the back of
hers.
“You don’t understand. I’m not
sure how Harold was involved I just have a stinking sensation he was in deep, and
completely out of his element.”
“Helen, I have a question.”
Vanessa leaned back and let me talk. “What’s led you to believe Harold was involved?”
“See, that’s just it, Georgette.
I was going through his things and by chance happened onto some documents, contracts.
He’d hidden them on the top shelf of a storage cabinet in our garage. Well,
these documents were all concerning land and businesses and buildings and such
here, around Sunnydale. I know,
for a fact, Harold had other business interests, he told me so. He just didn’t
say what they were. And, honestly, when he brought home the deposit slip from
his first commission check and it was over fifty thousand dollars, I was
thrilled. I didn’t realize it came from a shady deal.”
“Where are these documents?”
Vanessa was trying to contain her fury.
“They’re still at the house. I
thought, maybe we could go over them together, the three of us. I’m not very
business-minded and really need to know what you both think about them. Would
you want to come over to my place? Tonight?”
***
The living room had papers all
over the floor— contracts,
credit card
statements and corresponding receipts, pay stubs, deposit slips, and phone
logs, all strewn across the floor albeit in an orderly fashion— we all stood
looking in from under the archway leading to the dining room.
“It’s all there, all that I could
find at the house, that is.
Who knows if there’s more at his
office. I haven’t been
by to pick up his
things yet, they’re letting me grieve.” She rolled her eyes. “I was hoping you
both could take a look at everything. I’ve organized all of it in date order.
It seemed the most logical thing
to do. The contract lingo has me a little befuddled though. Would you mind?”
Vanessa and I
entered the room like we
had just found the Holy Grail, slowly, methodically, stepping over items carefully,
staring at the volume of it all.
“I’ll make some tea. Would tea be
okay?”
Bold, brave Vanessa chimed in.
“Honey, this is gonna take something stronger than tea.”
Without a second thought, “Scotch
it is.” Helen had it close at hand. In the kitchen we could hear ice drop into
a
tumbler, then another, then another
and the gurgling sound of liquid coming out of the bottle, the bottom of each
glass set back onto the counter and then Helen’s
footsteps back toward us. By the time she
returned, we were on the living room floor kneeling and reading the documents
situated furthest to the left of the room. Like a book we were reading a
history of meetings and monies exchanged for services provided by the mayor to
Chariot International Incorporated and all signed by Harold Pyle and a Zach
Pinzer.
Vanessa reached for a glass with
her gaze pasted onto the documents. I watched her as she read aloud.
“‘Pursuant to this agreement, the
aforementioned Purchaser upon title exchanged for said Land will remit to the
Intermediary Party a commission in the amount of $51,323.43’—Jesus, that’s a
bunch of money. The land is the
property
just behind the diner, the town of Sunnydale has
been keeping that land preserved I thought.
This doesn’t
seem
right. I don’t know how Harold could’ve
pulled this off without an uproar from the people here.”