Hotter than Helen (The "Bobby's Diner" Series) (13 page)

“Beth here will…”

“Hi, girls.” Beth said again, smiling and acknowledging both women.

Hayes went on, “Beth’ll notarize everyone’s signature.” Roberta spoke low and nodded to Georgette, “You go first.”

“Chicken.” She chuckled and picked up one of the pens lying next to the contract.

“Shut up,” Roberta chided back, but smiled and picked up the other pen.

“You will owe me one thing though.” Georgette flipped sheets as she spoke initially and signing where indicated.

“What’s that?” Roberta signed and initialled too.

“If anything does happen to me, you have to promise to take care of Gangster.”

Roberta chuckled, “I will. Did you even have to worry?”

Georgette grinned as she continued to initial the pages of the document and as she got lost in thoughts of how this is what family did, they lived near each other and they made something great together.

27

Willard Cleary had been appointed to Police Chief a couple years back after he’d done such bang-up detective work discovering the killer of former Sunnydale mayor, Harold Pyle. He carried himself taller somehow. When he walked into the meeting room, Georgette felt the urge to stand and pushed her chair back to do so.

“Sit, please, Mrs. Carlisle.” Hearing him refer to her by her proper name reminded Georgette that Willy intended the meeting to formal. He fingered the pencil he had stuck above his ear before closing the door and turning to her.

“Oh, thank you,” she paused, wondering how she should address him again and feeling Police Chief was too awkward to get out, she said, “your honor.”

He looked at her as he pulled a chair from under the table to sit. A glint in his eyes showed her he thought the comment was funny.

“Crap, Willard, right. Sorry, Willy. I just should have stayed with Police Chief, right?”

“Georgette. Relax. Call me Willard for now. This is preliminary. If anyone else needs to be in the room with us, then call me Police Chief.”

“Willy. Okay. Great. Thanks.”

Her green eyes flashed at him. He squinted, smiling back at her.

“Your freckles match the color of your hair.”

Georgette didn’t know how to respond. She tugged at her pony tail and ground her rump down in to the hard wood seat of the chair, then she wiped her hands across her face from the bridge of her nose to the edge of her cheeks. “Well…” is all she managed to get out as she shook her head nervously and paused. But recovering she said, “Look, Willard. Like Roberta told you. Hawthorne couldn’t have done this.”

“On with business, huh, George? Sorry. Still. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many freckles.”

“Willy. At a time like this? I can’t believe you want to talk with me about my freckles.” A soft frown made her eyes flash a brighter green.

He smiled good and long at her which made her shift in her chair again. “Willy, I still need to get to the diner. Come on, now. Get serious.”

“Why didn’t you call?”

“Willy. Can we talk about that some other time?”

“When, Georgie? You never return my calls. I can’t be seen hanging around your diner anymore. What did you tell me? It’ll drive customers away? Wasn’t that it?”

“Yes.”

“So, why is it that I can’t talk to you any more. Why can’t we at least talk?”

“Willy.” She shook her head then stopped before speaking. “Okay. You want to do this now? For crying out loud. Okay. Okay. I don’t know why, Willy. Oh, maybe because it had only been a year since Bobby died and then only four months after Vanessa passed. Goodness, Willy! I was still trying to figure things out.”

“You agreed to dinner, what about that? Didn’t you have fun?”

“I had a…” she looked down at her lap. She had subconsciously locked her hands together and intertwined her fingers, “…a lovely time,” she finished.

Her voice softened and deepened as she remembered how soft his lips felt when he kissed her on the neck, goodnight, at her car, pressing his body against hers, pinning her back against the vehicle. He felt strong. She remembered the heat coming off of him as he buried his mouth in the bend of her neck. “A lovely time,” she repeated and then gave a small cough.

She looked up. His mouth had turned into a half grin and something else more virile and even less professional than before.

“Look, Willy, please. Can we get on with this?”

“Only if you promise.”

“Promise what?” She nearly begged and rolled her eyes but smiled.

“Promise that, after all this is over, you’ll return the favor.”

“What favor?”

“Well, Georgette, darn…” His eyes detected movement past her, behind her, through the window into the office. When she turned to look and saw Mark ending a phone call and looking at them through the office window. It looked like he intended to come in.

“What, Willy?”

“Have me over for one of your lovely gourmet meals.” He spoke fast and held up his hand to Mark outside the room, making him pause, she figured, outside the door. “You owe me a dinner.”

“I owe you now, do I?”

“Come on, George. Just say yes. Don’t make me get on my knees. After all this is said and done, you’re not getting back with him, are you?”

Looking down at her hands, now free of the fake ring, she didn’t know what to think anymore. She agreed just to change the subject back to business.

“Okay, Willy. Okay.”

He smiled like he’d won a blue ribbon and waved Mark inside.

“Mrs. Carlisle,” Willard spoke again. “You know detective Mark Dannon.” When she made a face, like ‘of course,’ he responded, “Sorry, Mrs. Carlisle… a formality is all.”

“Detective.” Georgette tipped her head and half stood to shake his hand.

“Mrs. Carlisle.” He took his hand back and pulled out a chair next to Willard.

“How have you been, Mark?” Georgette’s face went red as she tried to cover her composure.

“The Missus is about to pop.”

“Another baby, Mark? Oh, well, congratulations!”

“Thanks, Mrs. Carlisle.”

But Willy broke in, “Okay, enough of the niceties. How about we go over a couple of things?”

“Okay,” she responded, nervously again when they returned to the issue of Helen’s murder.

“The sheets.” Willard referred to his notes.

“Yes.” Georgette unhooked her hands, setting them onto the table and scooting her chair completely under.

“You say these were your sheets. Is that right, Mrs. Carlisle?”

“Yes. That’s right. They were on Helen’s bed. Helen Wellen had been staying with me until she could find a place of her own.”

“So, these sheets were on the bed that Helen was using at your home. Correct?”

“Correct.” She re-confirmed.

His eyes looked completely serious now. “Tell me what happened with the sheets.”

“Well…” Her voice drifted off as her mind spun back to the day she found Helen with Hawthorne. “Oh boy. This is embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Carlisle.” Detective Mark chimed in this time. “We just want to understand how these sheets came to be used in the murder of Ms. Wellen. We’re not here to judge you, Georgette.”

Willard grabbed her hands in his. They felt warm and kind but suddenly turned inappropriate when Mark looked at them. She nodded slowly, pulling her hands out of Willard’s grip and continued. “I found them together,” she glanced quickly to Willy, “They were, um, you know.”

Willy crooked his head and squinted as if he couldn’t believe what she was telling them. Then she looked back to Mark. “Helen and Hawthorne, that is.” Mark sat back in his chair, lifted one foot onto his knee and folded his arms around the other knee.

“Go on,” he said in a tone that sounded like judgment to Georgette.

“Well, I kicked Helen out that day. She left within an hour, I’d say, yes, about an hour later she left the house. I heard her drive away.”

“Did she take the sheets with her?” Willard asked next.

“No. No.”

“So, how do you believe they got wrapped around Helen?”

“Well, Willy—, um, Police Chief, this is what happened. I was angry with Hawthorne, as you can imagine,” her eyebrows lifted, “so I stripped the bed and put them into a plastic grocery bag. I took them to the diner to fry them in hot oil or something, to burn them, when, quite unexpectedly, he showed up…”

“He?”

“Hawthorne. He came by to check on my. I wasn’t about to return his calls.” She looked at Willard, who looked down, understanding somehow. “So he came by. He wanted to patch things up. That’s when I threw the damn bag at him.”

Willy put a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh that he made sound like a cough.

Detective Mark interrupted her. “The bag with the sheets inside?”

“Yes. The plastic bag with the sheets inside.” She looked at him, waiting.

“Go on.”

“Oh. Okay. Well. He wanted to atone. I didn’t feel like a priest right then and there,” Georgette’s drawl was beginning to sound more and more accentuated, “so, I told him to take his rotten penance out my door and for him to go and deal with those soiled sheets. I told him to get rid of them for starters on his path to atonement.”

“What happened after that?”

“He left… but, Mark. I’m sorry. I mean, Detective…”

He cut her off. “Did you hear from him after that?”

“Well. We didn’t talk. He tried to contact me. But I was still refusing his calls.” Again, she looked at Willy and cocked her head at him as if apologizing and he diverted his eyes down to his notes again. Mark looked between the two of them, noticing something else was going on but as he was looking at Willy, Willy intercepted it.

“Continue, detective.”

“So you were refusing his calls. Did he leave messages?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still have these messages?”

“He left two. I deleted one but saved the other.” She tried again, “But, he couldn’t have…”

Again, Mark cut her off mid-sentence. “Great. We’ll need to hear that recording and get records of incoming and outgoing calls from the phone company.” He was talking more to Willy than to Georgette by then.

She nodded and forced out a smile.

“So, one more question, Mrs. Carlisle.” She noticed the shift in formality. “You’re sure you gave these sheets to Hawthorne Biggs?”

“Why, yes, detective. Quite sure. But, he couldn’t have done this. He couldn’t have killed or raped Helen.”

Both men looked at each other realizing Roberta revealed the lust crime part of their theory. Mark stood, shook Willy’s hand and walked out of the room. There was some sort of unspoken conversation happening between them. When Mark left, Willy turned to her.

“Did Roberta tell you about that?”

She hadn’t realized the information wasn’t common knowledge or that it might only be internal to the department. “Damn.” She slumped back against her chair.

“Answer me, George.”

“No. One thing I know is that I don’t have to answer any of your questions, Police Chief. That I’m here out of duty. I’m not a suspect am I?” She glowered at him.

“No. You’re not a suspect.” He dropped the point and they spent a few beats of clumsy silence staring at each other.

“Well, it really doesn’t matter. Since you already know about that, you must know that we found zero DNA evidence, you know, semen.”

But she didn’t know.

“Well. That creates some trouble for you, now, doesn’t it?”

He tipped his head. He didn’t seem to be expecting that response.

“Are we finished, Willy? I really have to go.”

“Yes. We’re finished, but I have to tell you this, officially, George.”

“What’s that?” She was standing to leave. “You can’t leave town. Okay?”

“I was planning a cruise right before Helen turned up dead. I postponed it.”

“Good. Just stay here. Stay available. The less you appear guilty, the better.”

“Guilty! Good lord, Willy. What are you talking about?” He stood up slowly in front of her and tried to calm her. She had forgotten how attractive he was. He looked so manly in his official dark gray dress suit.

“Shh, George. No one really thinks you had anything to do with this but you can’t deny the love triangle aspect of this whole mess.”

She rubbed both hands over her head and, in doing so, pulled her eyes open. Then, closing them again, she dropped her arms to her sides and blew out a long worried puff of air. “Oh. My. Goodness. This is simply tragic.”

When her eyes opened again, he was looking at her.

His brown eyes remained soft and bounced from hers down to her mouth and back up to her eyes again.

“Willy. Of course I’ll stay in Sunnydale. I want Helen’s murderer brought to justice too.”

“I know, George.” He walked around the end of the table and over to her. He pulled her into him and hugged her. “I know, George. This has been a terrible, terrible time for you.”