The Happy Housewife (Samantha Sherman Book 1) (21 page)

Sam waved back. She felt that familiar paralysis; what should she do? She didn’t want to alert Helen that something was awry by staying outside after showing up at her house. But, she knew Nathan would be furious at her for not waiting. Suddenly Sam felt tired and then … and then she felt sick of feeling tired. She visibly straightened her back from its slouched over position and decided to make a choice. Since she had nothing to fear from Helen, she would go in and chat with her until Nathan arrived.

Sam gathered her purse, turned off her car and hopped out. Helen was no longer in the doorway and it looked like the door might be closed.
Argh, it’s going to be hot in there
, thought Sam. She reached the door, too quickly
,
and noted that the kitchen door was indeed shut. Sam opened the screen and knocked softly. Helen must be right on the other side.

Helen opened the door after about thirty seconds. She had a small smile on her face. “Hi, hon. How are you? I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“I was stopping by to check on you.”

“How nice. I’m doing very well. I’m feeling so much better. In fact, you almost missed me. I was just about to leave.”

Helen had the door halfway open but hadn’t moved back to let Sam in. Sam could feel cool air from inside. Was that air-conditioning? She was so surprised she blurted out, “Do you have your air-conditioning on?”

“Yes, it’s kind of warm today. I try not to use it a lot.”

You can say that again
, thought Sam. She got her bearings and said, “I’m glad you’re doing well and I won’t keep you from getting out of here. I just had something of yours to return.”

Helen was still smiling but did not open the door. “I’m so sorry, what did I leave?”

It was obvious that Helen did not want Sam to come inside. Normal politeness would have caused Sam to turn over the pictures and be on her way but this was different. She smiled right back at Helen and replied, “Do you mind if I come in? I’ll only be a minute.”

Helen’s smile was looking a little fake as she responded, “Come on in. I guess I can spare a couple of minutes. I just get a little anxious when I know I have to do something I don’t want to. You see, I’m not really looking forward to driving again, but it’s something I have to get over.”

Sam moved past Helen into the cool air and glanced around the kitchen. “So you are going go to the school?”

“Yes, and then if I’m feeling ambitious I’m going to the grocery store on the way back. We’ll see though how things go with my first stop. I’m going to take things one step at a time.”

Sam nodded as she continued to look around. Nothing seemed out of order. It was the usual sparkling clean. The wide counters were cleared of clutter and shone, that is, if Formica can shine. Even though Sam was neat, a white glove kitchen like this was beyond her abilities. Why, she had a toaster oven that was permanently brown in several spots from burns … Sam furrowed her brow. “Toaster oven.”

Helen was looking at her questioningly. “I’m sorry, what, hon?”

“Where are your appliances? Sorry, I was just looking around at how clean you keep everything and realized all your appliances are gone, your kitchen counters are clear.”

Helen paused and then said, somewhat slowly, “They’re in the cupboards. I try to put them away when I’m done using them. I guess when you were over they were out.”

Sam nodded and tried to look embarrassed.
But they were out every time I was over, Helen
, she thought. “Right, sure. Sorry, I’m staring at your place. Do you need any help loading your school supplies? I could help you with that.” She headed towards the door to the garage and Helen’s car.

“No, Sam,” Helen said swiftly, and then slower, “I’m all set here. I don’t have much to bring over to the school and it’s already in my car. Anyway, you said I left something at your house?”

This really reminded Sam of Helen’s attempt to usher her out of her house last Sunday. She responded, “I found a couple of your pictures in my living room.” She pulled them out of her purse as she spoke. “I know how important your album is to you so I wanted to get them back to you right away.”

Helen reached out and took the pictures from Sam. “Thanks so much. I would have missed these.”

“I actually tried to stop by the school yesterday to get these to you. The secretary in the administrative offices didn’t know where you were. Actually, neither did Marjorie.”

Helen looked startled, “You spoke with Marjorie?”

“Yes, we had a nice chat.”

“Well, great. She’s a nice person.”

Before Sam could respond, Helen continued, with a trace of impatience in her tone, “I actually do need to get going. My goodness, the work day is going to be over before I get there.” She gave a little laugh and smiled. “Not good to completely miss the day. I really do appreciate your stopping by.”

“Of course, I’ll let you get going.” Sam didn’t move despite her words. She was worried that Helen might leave before Nathan arrived. Then Nathan could just go over to the school, Sam, she reminded herself. But what about the appliances? Instead of moving towards the door, she spoke, “You know, there is something I don’t quite understand about Pete. What I haven’t wrapped my brain around is how did he meet William?”

Helen’s smile drooped ever so slightly and then returned. Sam continued, “I just haven’t figured it out. How does someone like Pete get to know a popular student like William? I mean, let’s face it; we both know Pete’s not good with strangers. And he didn’t teach any classes. Most high school kids don’t take the time to get to know their high school janitor that well. Besides, since Pete was so concerned with losing his job, it seems like he would have avoided contact with the kids. If he had been talking to the kids then, given his paranoia, there probably already would have been some kind of complaint about him. Don’t you think?”

Helen’s eyes narrowed as her smile faded and she paused before responding, “I am pretty sure William was in Marjorie’s and Clint’s classes. Perhaps Pete stopped by their rooms at some point, I really don’t know. You would need to ask Marjorie and Clint.” She was starting to look slightly exasperated but then stopped and said in an almost little girl voice, “I really don’t know. It’s been such a long week.”

“Of course it has been a long week for you and maybe Marjorie or Clint did introduce Pete to William. But William was in your class too, right? Marjorie said that you all taught English but different years, so all of you had William at some point? I thought you said you didn’t know the Walters boys?”

“I don’t remember saying that but if I did I must have misspoke. I didn’t know them well. And I know I didn’t introduce William to Pete, so of course I wouldn’t include myself with Marjorie and Clint. Sam, is there something you wanted to ask me? Your questions are kind of strange.”

Sam wasn’t sure how far to go with this. She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. Helen was right, her questions were kind of strange but it had only been about fifteen minutes since she spoke with Nathan. Time was really going slow. If Nathan ran into any traffic, a common occurrence in Northern Virginia, he could still be more than five minutes away. Maybe she should just let Helen head over to the school. Sam just had a bad feeling about those appliances.

After what seemed to be an eternity with Helen looking at her expectantly, she concluded that she needed to keep going and said, “I couldn’t quite figure things out. You see, it all started with the hair dye, your hair dye.”

Helen stared at Sam intently and didn’t say anything. Sam continued, “When I spoke with Marjorie I couldn’t help but notice how pretty she is. I’ll admit I was mentally making her over, and one of the things I thought of was how good she would look if she covered her gray streaks. Anyway, this morning I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and thought about Marjorie and her looks, which led me to think about the hair dye I saw in your bathroom the morning after Dan was killed. When I was packing your stuff I immediately saw your makeup bag and toothbrush on the counter, but I still looked under the sink to see if there was anything else I should bring. There was hair dye under there with your cleaning supplies. I had only seen part of the title but I looked at the local drugstore today and its gray hair dye. Clairol has a line called Glorious Grays. You dye your hair gray, right?” Sam paused and chewed her lip. What would Helen do?

“Sam, I really don’t know what you are getting at. I have no idea why the condition of my hair is important.” Helen paused and gave a patient sigh, “Look, I know I brought you into something awful this past week. I turned your world upside down and brought chaos to your ordered life. It is natural then for you to have some … maybe a little … paranoia? I don’t mean that in a nasty way, but you must admit you don’t get a lot of adrenaline rushes as a housewife. Maybe you miss the excitement from the Coast Guard and are, perhaps, creating some drama where none exists?”

Instead of being put off, as she usually would be, by Helen’s ‘you’re just a bored housewife’ commentary, Sam felt validated.
If I wasn’t on to something, she wouldn’t be trying to embarrass me into stopping.
It’s not going to work, Helen.
Sam responded, “Maybe, but you didn’t answer the question. I think you dye your hair gray. Am I right? That’s something that can be checked, Helen.”

Helen let out a horrified little gasp. “Really, Sam. Are you going to tell the police that I’ve committed the crime of dying my hair? They’re going to think you’re nuts.”

Sam had never heard Helen use sarcasm before. Sam ignored it and pushed forward, “So you do dye your hair gray and I never mentioned the police, Helen.”

“Sam, this is getting very personal. I appreciate your help the past couple of days but this interrogation needs to stop. You’re being rude to me.”

“Helen, do you dye your hair gray so people will think you’re older than you are? How old are you?”

Helen looked like Sam had slapped her. “Sam, I don’t know what’s gotten in to you but I think it’s time for you to go. I don’t get what you are implying even. What would your husband say?”

“Suddenly, you think I should be worried about whether my husband approves of what I’m doing? C’mon, are you going to answer my question?”

Helen responded in a tight voice, “Sam, why don’t you just come out and tell me whatever theory you’ve obviously come up with?”

“All right, I will. Here it goes. I think you dye your hair gray. Now some women do dye their hair gray, but it tends to be women who are very concerned with fashion and want their hair to be fashionably gray. No offense, but you do not seem concerned with fashion at all. So why would you dye your hair? Why you do that is an important question.”

Helen had her arms folded across her chest and was staring straight on at Sam, “I’ll bet you have an answer to your own question. Don’t you?”

“Yes, Helen, I do. I think you dye your hair to make people think you’re older than you really are. You come across like a grandmother in her eighties, but if you do the math, you’re fifteen to twenty years younger than that. You’re Detective Vitriola’s age. Once I got thinking about that this morning, it led me to other oddities. For example, your entire house is ridiculously neat but your photo album is messy, the pictures aren’t even secured in it. And here’s another weird thing; you claim that you want to keep your background hidden but you left photos of your radical days inside the album. Along that line, you say you wanted to keep your friends and past a secret, but you talked to me for so long that I met Dan on my way out Sunday, and Clint and Marjorie this week.

Helen had started to look openly irritated. She said, “Sam, this is so painful. I had no idea that you could be so vicious. So I dye my hair, why would you point that out and then make these leaps from there? What is your point?”

“It goes back to my question, who introduced William to Pete? Along with that is the question who was leading this local ELF group? I find it impossible to believe that William could have done his ‘action’ alone or that Pete could lead anyone. What I think is that you might be involved, that you haven’t given up your revolution quite yet. You dye your hair so that people think you are older and feebler than you really are. My opinion is that you are still active in the movement. Maybe Dan found out and wanted you to stop or maybe Pete was right, that Dan was still involved too and trying to leave the group. It’s also possible that Dan discovered what was going to happen or did happen in Loudoun County and threatened to tell the police. Regardless, you got him to visit and now he’s dead.”

“You’ve got quite an imagination. Sam, what is wrong with you?” Helen’s voice was still pretty even toned but obviously angry and sputtering ever so slightly. The hurt little girl voice was gone.

Sam continued on, not even acknowledging Helen’s chastising. “You see, my belief is that your husband’s and child’s deaths didn’t bring you back to normal society but that the deaths made you more extreme. I believe that you’ve moved around the country all right, but I think you’ve done it because of your activities, not because of contrition or restitution. Your teaching job is perfect for recruiting teenagers who are angry or don’t fit in or who are looking for something to believe in. You can get them to do ‘actions’ and then, when you feel that too much attention is starting to fall on you, you move on. You started getting Communion at home right as the summer started. You said it was because of hip replacement surgery but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe that was a lie and you were instead looking for someone to protect you, an advocate, if things went wrong after Dan was dead. You knew me from church prior to your supposed surgery and specifically asked me to bring you Communion. Starting in the summer meant that you never had to tell the school about your surgery. When I went by the school yesterday, the secretary never mentioned that you had surgery and might not be in; she was expecting you.”

Helen didn’t say anything so Sam took a breath and continued, “If I were your planned advocate, it would explain why you knocked your messy album down and made sure I met Dan. You knew I was a curious person and yes, that I wanted an adventure. So you made one up for me and got me to protect you from the police in the process. I got you out of here the first day and stopped the police from asking too many questions and allowing them to unravel things too quickly. I’m the one who removed the album, the only place you kept pictures from your radical days. I protected you from your friends by ‘discovering’ your background and ‘forcing’ you to tell the police which, of course, led the police and me to Pete. You made sure that I would have a weird encounter with him to back up their suspicions. Why would you and I need to warn Pete when Clint already said he was going to warn him that the police were going to be involved? I also helped paint a picture of you to the police as old and weak, someone who wouldn’t even remotely be involved in something like this. I’ve unknowingly helped you move through this entire process unscathed.”