The Happy Housewife (Samantha Sherman Book 1) (18 page)

“It’s a hard choice.” Sam made herself stop. She could not, would not fix this for Helen. It was none of her business anyway.

Once it was settled that Helen was leaving Sam’s house, the rest of the morning went smoothly, and Sam relaxed even further. Helen went upstairs to pack her bag, and Sam busied herself tidying up downstairs. Everything was clean already, but she didn’t feel like doing anything new at the moment. She quickly finished the living room and kitchen and then moved into the family room and readjusted the couch pillows. She grabbed a towel and did some dusting, again completely unnecessary, but it kept her occupied. As she dusted the coffee table in the family room, she saw a paper peaking out from under one of the couches. Sam bent down and pulled it out. It was a picture of Helen’s husband and child, which must have slipped out of her album while they were talking the other day. Sam looked under the couch fully and found two more of Helen’s photos. She sat on the couch and looked at them for a minute. As she heard Helen coming down the stairs, she slipped them back under the couch.

Sam got up and went over to the bottom of the stairs. Helen was only half way down with her bag so Sam grabbed it from her. It occurred to Sam that Helen might not have help anymore. After all, if the police were talking to her friends and they got mad at her, who would help her get groceries and run other errands?

As they made their way out to the car, Sam couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Helen, how much longer do you have in your recovery? Your friends might be upset with you after yesterday. Do you have someone to help you run errands?”

Helen sighed, “Things will sort themselves out, I suspect. To be honest, I probably could have started driving two weeks ago. I have taken longer with my recovery than I needed to. I was planning on telling you Sunday that I no longer needed Communion brought to my house, but when Dan showed up I forgot. So there, I told you! I am supposed to do more walking at this point. I should be fine to start the school year, in fact. Actually, the teachers go back today to start prepping for school to begin. I completely forgot. Gosh, if I move they’ll have to find a replacement. It’s kind of last minute at this point. They’ve really been so supportive of me at the school with my surgery and just generally. I would feel terrible.”

“Well, if something comes up and you need help, please give me a call. It would be no trouble to pick up groceries for you when I do my regular run. In fact, why don’t we get you whatever perishables you need right now so that you won’t have to go to the store right away when you get home?”

Helen didn’t respond immediately as she was focusing on getting into Sam’s car. Sam got in on the driver’s side and started the engine. She wanted to get the air-conditioning going as fast as possible.

Once she was settled in, Helen turned to Sam and said, “You know, I think I’ll be fine. I need to start driving anyway. Maybe I’ll even try and make it over to the school today. But thank you and thanks for everything.”

Sam smiled back and nodded her agreement. She then backed out of her driveway and headed for Helen’s house.

Both women were quiet on the way over to Helen’s. Sam wasn’t sure if it was the comfortable silence of two people who know each other well or if both of them were just weary of each other from the events of the week and didn’t have the energy or care to have a conversation.

After she dropped Helen off at her house, Sam decided it was the latter. She was pleased Helen had moved back to her own home. She was even glad that she wouldn’t see her next Sunday. Sam felt as though things were finished with Helen. She could not wait to get back to her house and have it to herself for awhile. She started to make a mental list of what she wanted to get done before picking up Lindsey.

At home she cleaned out the guest bedroom and did the laundry. She also called Doug and left him a message to tell him that Helen was gone. For all his anger, Sam knew he was just concerned about the safety of his family.

Time passed quickly as it usually did when Sam was enjoying herself. When the phone rang, Sam assumed it was Doug calling back on a break from his meetings. She was surprised to find Don Vitriola on the other end of the line. Sam braced herself for a fatherly lecture.

“Hey, Sam. How’s it going?”

“Things are going well. If you’re looking for Helen, she went back to her place. Sorry, I should have called you. I forgot.”

“No need to apologize. You’ve been a big help to us. Nathan said your information and your help with Helen were terrific yesterday.” Did he? Sam found that hard to believe. Don was probably just putting the best spin possible on Nathan’s report. Don continued, “Besides, we were aware that she left.” He didn’t explain and Sam didn’t ask how the police knew. Maybe Helen had checked in with them.

“Oh, well good.”

“I just wanted to thank you again for taking Helen in and influencing her to do the right thing. We talked to her friends this morning and have made an arrest. The prints we found on the fire poker were Pete’s. He has pretty much confessed to the whole thing. Although, given his mental state, I can’t see him serving hard time. I imagine he will successfully plead insanity.”

“Congratulations, Mr. Vitriola. That’s wonderful news. Do you know why he did it? Helen really thought he was harmless and he hasn’t been violent since his time in the movement.”

“Yeah, Helen tends to think the best of her ‘friends.’ They don’t seem to have that same loyalty towards her. Pete still thinks he’s in the movement. He was railing against capitalism and the need for revolution. He was firmly convinced that Dan’s moving was his way of abandoning the movement. He thought Dan was going to go to the police. He kept calling Dan a ‘rat bastard’ and repeating ‘he had to go, he had to go.’ Anyway, your run in with him and your observations of him led us to approach him with suspicion. Your information steered us in the right direction.”

Sam didn’t really believe that her comments had been that helpful. The police would have gotten there with or without her, and if Pete did this, it really emphasized how dumb she was to go talk to him by herself. Sam knew Don was being kind to her so she simply said thank you and asked how Helen was doing.

“I think she was quite devastated by it, actually. I think she feels really guilty. After all, she’s the one who brought Pete down from New York and helped him get a job around kids. I think she’ll manage though. She mentioned wanting to move to Chicago and get back to her ‘roots.’ I imagine it would be hard to stay in her house and to work with the people at school who know about her past, or will figure it out with Pete’s arrest and trial.”

Funny, Sam didn’t feel that sorry for Helen hearing all this. She was, at the very least, guilty of being naïve and she did put those kids in danger by vouching for someone who was unstable, even if it came from a caring place. Sam hesitated, but then plunged ahead with a question she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to. “So, the fingerprints that came back on Dan, did they reveal his past history with the movement?”

“Yeah, he was arrested in San Francisco back in the late 60s for resisting arrest in some kind of sit-in. His last name was Hoxton.”

Sam had been walking around the first floor of her house when Don told her this news. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath and was tensed up until Don finished his sentence. So Nathan was right. She was just gumming up the works. The police would have found out about Dan’s past with or without her. She sank down on the couch, held the phone to her ear with one hand and hunched over her knees, supporting her head on her other hand with her elbow on her knee. She made the appropriate noises in response to Don’s comments and accepted more praise from him. It almost got annoying at the end. She didn’t want to be lauded to make her feel good about herself. She only wanted honest compliments, which she didn’t deserve in this case
.

They finished their telephone conversation after making a promise that they and their spouses would all have to get together and include Sam’s parents too. Sam’s depressed feeling quickly turned to frustration. She decided to go for a run. It was ridiculously hot out and running during the heat of the day was not smart, but she didn’t care. For goodness sakes, she wasn’t that far over thirty. She could take a little heat. Besides, she needed to sweat out all this drama.

Sam hurriedly changed clothes and set out on her favorite jog that led her over several tough hills and around the local public elementary school, Canterbury Woods. As the sweat poured off of her, she found that wonderful release that endorphins provide. It felt like she was cleansing herself of the week, of her mistakes. She finished her three mile loop and still had energy so she headed for an unusual second loop. She did great until the last mile when she finally felt her body start to rebel. Sam rarely went for six mile runs anymore.

As she turned onto her street, she was barely jogging. She slowed to a walk and started thinking about all the water she would consume when she got home. She was so intent on getting to her house and hydrating that she didn’t see Pat Walters outside his house. She was startled when she heard her name called.

“Sam, hey, how’s it going?”

Sam managed to muster a smile as she tried to breathe normally, “It’s hot out here! I’m afraid I over did it on the running.”

It looked like Pat was straightening up his yard, although he still hadn’t done anything about the overgrown grass. He propped the ladder he was moving against the side of the house and walked down the driveway towards Sam.

“I probably should do a bit of running myself.” He said it with a smile as he approached her but then his smile dropped and he added, “That was pretty awful on Wednesday,
huh
?”

Sam nodded. Pat almost looked as though he felt guilty, perhaps because his child lived? “It was pretty terrible. It’s hard to even contemplate what losing a child would mean. It made me not want Lindsey to go anywhere. But I guess we have to live our lives, right?” Sam smiled encouragingly to Pat who tried to smile back.

“I guess we do. Hey, thanks again for the casserole. We had it last night. It was delicious.”

“I’m so glad. Is Dwayne still coming home tomorrow?”

“It looks like it. He has made such great progress in only a day! He wants to come home immediately. I’m headed back over to the hospital around dinner time so we may know tonight what his schedule will be. The doctor said it was likely that he wouldn’t make a final decision until the morning, however.”

“That’s great news. I’ll check back with you before I bring her over, but I’m sure Lindsey would love to visit him while he’s convalescing at home. If he’s up to it, of course.”

“That would be really nice, Sam. We’ll see what the doctor says, but Dwayne seems restless and ready to move on, so I bet he’ll be eager for visitors. And young kids can cheer up anybody.”

Sam didn’t want to ask about William. She could hear Doug’s voice in her head telling her it was none of her business, so she made a move as though she would keep walking, “Well, good luck tomorrow.”

Pat reached out his hand slightly and said swiftly, “They’ve arrested William.”

Sam couldn’t believe he was telling her this. Maybe he just needed to talk. “Oh my goodness. He still won’t say who he was with?”

“Actually, he confessed to being responsible for what happened. Apparently we didn’t know everything he was involved in. As of last night he still wouldn’t say who was with him at the party so I came home and went through his room. I didn’t know what I was looking for but I wound up hunting around his computer and found that he was regularly on the ELF and ALF websites and boards. There were also e-mails to some kids at his school that indicated they were tangled up in the same mess as William. When I confronted him he broke down and confessed to everything. The only good thing was that I was able to get him a lawyer and we went to the police first, before they figured it out for themselves. Detective Barrett thinks that will look good for him later at his sentencing. After all, he’s eighteen so he is facing adult jail time.”

Sam truly did not know what to say so she relied on the old “I’m so sorry.” There was a pause and then she added, “I just don’t see William being enmeshed in something like that.”

“Yeah, we didn’t see it coming either. He did well in school, graduated near the top of his class, has lots of friends …”

“Does Dwayne know?”

“Not yet. William is going to the hospital to tell him. Detective Barrett said he would take him over there so Dwayne would hear it directly from him. Celine is inside waiting for them to call. I couldn’t sit still so I came out here. There’s always something to do with the yard.”

“Yeah, I’ve been about to get to mine all week. The only time I can muster the energy to work on it in this heat is in the morning. This time of day is brutal.” Small talk seemed inappropriate so Sam switched back to William’s situation. “Pat, I’m so sorry. This is all so hard to believe. Was William the leader of these kids? I mean, did he get the idea to do this from the Internet?”

“Unfortunately, I think he might have been the leader. I just don’t get how he would have gotten turned on to all this stuff in the first place. I mean, we’re not political people at all. Sure, William cared about the environment but lots of people care about the environment. It doesn’t mean they get involved in criminal activities.”

“I thought I knew William’s friends. Up until now they have been mostly clean cut people he met through sports. I only found out after talking to him that the names I found on his computer were people who went to his high school. The e-mails show, unfortunately, that it was his idea to do an ‘action.’ He referred to it as the ‘mission.’ It’s pretty well laid out in what he wrote. You know, even though he feels terrible about Dwayne, he still won’t talk about anyone else who was involved. I’ve never seen him so stubborn. I think he might actually believe in this stuff—how could he still believe after what he did to Evelyn and Dwayne?”

Pat’s last statement sounded desperate. The Walters were such good people, Sam thought. How could one of their kids do something like this and the other turn out so well? “Pat, if there is anything I can do, really, just tell me. This must be wrenching for you. I’m just so sorry.”