A Draw of Death (Helen Binney Mysteries Book 3) (24 page)

She might not be as delusional as Marianne, but Helen still couldn't entirely trust her brain or her ability to make a logical argument about why she thought Donald and Art were responsible for Vic's death. She needed some solid evidence, something to convince both herself and the police that she was right.

She pushed through the returning mental fog to come up with a plan to get the killers to incriminate each other, but her brain refused to cooperate. The best she could do for now was pretend she hadn't realized the truth and go home to tell Tate what she'd seen. His brain wasn't messed up. He could find a way to prove that Art and Donald were the killers.

Helen pretended not to have realized there was another person in the house and called out, "I'm done, Art. I even sent pictures to Detective Almeida. She'll want to see the contents of the bins. I'm pretty sure she can prove it's stolen merchandise. No wonder Freddie hated Vic moving in here so much. He probably figured out what she was doing."

Art held a hand out toward the stairs, indicating Donald should stay out of sight. "You think Freddie killed Mr. Rezendes?"

Helen shrugged. "It's possible. The police will have to figure it out, though. It's not my job. I was just looking for your cat."

Art frowned. "You weren't trying to solve the murder? I heard you like to meddle in police investigations."

Oops. Now Art looked suspicious. Maybe she'd oversold the "don't mind me, I'm just a silly, nosy woman" act.

She tried to look insulted. "I gave up meddling for Lent."

"Lent ended six months ago." Art dropped the hand that had been keeping Donald out of sight and nodded toward Helen.

Limping footsteps sounded on the marble stairs, and a moment later Donald came into view. Same old glasses, same old heavy sweater, down vest, and corduroy pants. But where was the restless energy that had been part of the mnemonic for remembering his name? He seemed subdued today.

"Hello, Donald," she said brightly. For once, she didn't mind appearing slow-witted.

"Hello, Ms. Binney."

"I was just going to call you," she lied. "There's an open slot in the library's speaker schedule in two weeks. Unless that's too short of a notice for you?"

"I can be there," Donald said, his voice slurred.

Had he been drinking? Perhaps regretting what he'd done to Vic?

"Don't be stupid, Donald," Art said. "She isn't going to schedule you to speak. She knows what you did. I tried to help you, and you messed it all up. You were supposed to talk to Mr. Rezendes, not kill him."

Donald blinked and shook his head. "Not me. You. I just talked to him."

"Then why'd you go to such lengths to avoid being seen on the way here Saturday night?" Art said. "You rode your bike in the dirt on the far side of the road, away from Freddie's cameras."

"You told me to do that," Donald said. "And you gave me the spiked Gatorade for Rezendes to drink so I could make sure he'd sit still and listen to me."

"Oh, right," Art said derisively. "I had my own boss killed? You went to all that effort to sneak into the mansion just to talk to him? I suppose you have to drug people and tie them up to get them to listen to your stupid lectures about the dangers of gambling."

"They're not stupid," Donald said. "I save lives, warning people about casinos."

Art looked at Helen. "I bet you think you're doing important work too. I heard about the other crimes you solved. The cops never even got close to the real suspects."

"Detective Peterson would have figured it out eventually." Helen almost choked on the words.

"No way." Art shook his head. "But I knew you were trouble, and we'd need to keep an eye on you. See, Donald? I was watching out for you. I guess I owe the stupid cat thanks for bringing the meddling Ms. Binney here for you to take care of."

She couldn't believe she'd been that gullible enough to fall for Art's fake concern for his boss's pet. "Does the cat even have a health condition?"

"That much was true," Art said. "But now that we've got you, I don't much care what happens to it. I'm not sure the heirs even know there is a cat, and if they ever ask I'll come up with a sad story about how it went into a decline, pining for its owner. There are plenty of sob stories like that on the Internet if I need some inspiration."

Donald shook his head as if he had water in his ears or, like Helen, needed to clear a foggy brain. She wanted to tell him the shaking wouldn't help. She'd tried it, and all it had done was to give her a sore neck. Perhaps it was just as well—looking like a bobblehead doll wouldn't do anything for getting people to take her seriously.

"Now what?" Donald asked his partner in crime.

"Now we get rid of her," Art said. "Here's the story we tell the cops. She was here, carrying the cat to its room when it did something to cause her to lose her balance and she fell down the stairs."

"I thought the cat was locked up in its cage," Donald said.

"It is," Art said patiently. "But I'll let it out as soon as she's dead and I've called the police."

"What if the fall doesn't kill her?"

"We'll do it again," Art said with what sounded to Helen like anticipation. "Again and again until she
is
dead."

"I don't know," Donald said. "I didn't even want Rezendes to die, and I hated him for what he and his cronies did to my mother. Ms. Binney hasn't done anything bad."

"Mr. Rezendes's death was necessary when you failed to convince him to stop luring innocents like your mother into the quicksand of addiction. He had to be stopped."

"We could have just, I don't know, kept him at home and sabotaged his video feeds."

"Not for long," Art said. "Trust me. We did the only thing we could have done."

Donald looked like he was falling into line behind his leader. That didn't bode well for Helen. She needed to keep Donald from trusting Art.

"He's lying to you," she told Donald. "I'm not sure why Art wanted his boss dead, but it had nothing to do with helping you or the Compulsive Gambling Recovery Group. He was just using that as an excuse. I bet he even planned to blame you if the police ever suspected him."

Art smiled. "You really are good, Ms. Binney. But Donald knows who's on his side. I helped him get into the mansion to talk to Mr. Rezendes by shorting out the gates' security and leaving the house security system off when I left on Saturday night. What did you ever do for him? You didn't even give him a chance to speak at the library. And if I remember right, your husband supported legalizing casinos in this state. You probably agreed with him."

Donald blinked. "Did you?"

Helen was distracted briefly by the sound of a clink and then a thump in the room where the cat was caged. The poor creature was probably trying to escape. It had probably sensed all along that Art didn't have its best interests in mind. Too bad humans didn't have such good insights into the true intentions of the people around them.

"Well?" Donald said.

Helen couldn't remember what he'd asked before, but he wasn't the one she needed to outmaneuver anyway. The real risk was Art. He was still trying to pretend he wasn't the leader of the team, but Helen wasn't buying it.

"How are you going to get rid of Donald once you dispose of me?" Helen said.

Art glanced at Donald. "She's just messing with you. We're a team, you and me."

"You heard Art try to convince me you were the killer," Helen told Donald. "He doesn't need you any longer. He'll probably tell the police you came here today to kill him as part of your crusade against the gaming industry, and he killed you in self-defense."

The flash of anger in Art's eyes told her she'd guessed right. "Ignore her. She'll say anything so you'll forget that she's hurt as many people as her husband and Mr. Rezendes did."

"Ex-husband," Helen said to Donald. "It's not me, but Art, who is hurting people. I bet he came up with the whole scheme and didn't even warn you what he was planning to do at the end. The only thing I'm not sure about is why he wanted his boss dead. Did he tell you?"

Donald shook his head slowly. His eyes had a glazed look to them, as if he were in shock. Or perhaps drugged. Had Art given him the same sedative that Donald had given Vic? How was Art going to explain that if the police arrived to find Donald's dead body alongside hers? Some story about Donald following Helen to the mansion, killing her for figuring out he'd murdered Vic and then killing himself with an overdose? She could see Peterson swallowing that explanation.

"No one wanted anyone dead," Donald said. "It was just about convincing Rezendes to do the right thing. Art said it would be easy for me to get in while Nora was staying here. Rezendes couldn't remember the security system password to let Nora in and out, and he didn't trust anyone except Art with access to it, so while Nora was staying here, the system had to be offline."

"Did Art tell you he was going to blame Nora if anything went wrong?" It was just a guess, but it made sense.

Donald didn't answer. He wavered from side to side before grabbing at the railing. He missed catching it on the first two attempts, and Helen thought he was going to topple over, tumbling down the long, hard flight of stairs. On the third try, he caught the railing and slumped down to sit and lean against the balusters. His eyes closed, and he began snoring lightly.

Art didn't seem surprised by the inappropriate nap. "Now that Donald's out, I don't mind telling you that Nora was my back-up plan in case framing Stevie didn't work. It would have been perfect if I could have framed Nora for killing you too. I even got one of her scarves to strangle you with, but then those stupid hick detectives showed up."

Detective Peterson had saved her life, and neither of them had realized it.

Helen supposed that was one bright light at the end of the tunnel she was facing: if she died now, she wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that she was indebted to Hank Peterson. On the other hand, she wasn't ready to give up yet, even if it meant she'd have to be nice to Detective Peterson in the future.

"In retrospect," Art said, "I'm glad we were interrupted by the cops. If I'd gone ahead and killed you then, it would have been a rush job, over too quickly. Now I can take my time and really savor the experience like I did with Vic."

"Is that why you did it?" she said. "For the thrill?"

"Mostly," Art said. "I thought working for a celebrity would be exciting, but it was pretty much like any other job. I did get to meet some interesting people, so it wasn't too bad while we lived in Reno and LA, but then Rezendes got the diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to fool anyone for long. He figured if he moved to some far away place, he could hide his failing memory by controlling his environment. I couldn't believe it when he said he'd chosen Wharton. The least exciting place on the planet. I couldn't wait to get out of here when I turned eighteen, and he had to go and drag me back here."

"You could have looked for another employer. Someone on the west coast."

"I tried," Art said. "But celebrities always have at least a hundred qualified people begging to work for them, so they don't generally bother to steal an employee from anyone in their social circles. Not unless the assistant has something special on his resume, and I didn't. Not then. I do now, though. Someone's going to take advantage of the publicity surrounding my boss's death and hire me just so they can say they took me in after the tragedy. All I need is a chance, and they'll see that they can't live without me."

"Or else you'll make sure they
don't
live without you."

"I can't kill a whole bunch of employers," Art said derisively. "They'd figure it out if all my bosses ended up dead."

"You might still get caught for Vic's murder. Especially if you kill me. Everyone is going to take a closer look if a second person dies here."

He shrugged. "At least I'd be famous, like other killers of celebrities. But I won't get caught, because everyone except for you thinks I'm harmless and sweet. Just look at how worried I was about my boss's cat, when there was no reward or anything. I didn't even get anything from the will."

"That wasn't very good planning," Helen said. "Shouldn't you have waited until you could convince him to change his will to leave you a little something? It couldn't have been hard to do, with his memory issues and all."

Art waved a hand dismissively. "That would have been too suspicious. And someone would have contested the will once the Alzheimer's diagnosis was known. I've got enough to tide me over until I find a new boss anyway. With Vic's failing memory, it was easy enough to convince him he hadn't paid some of the renovation invoices and get him to sign a blank check to cover them."

There was a thump against the door of the room where the cat was caged. Or, more accurately, where the cat was no longer caged. Perhaps Helen could use that as a distraction. "Vic's cat is going to escape again. You wouldn't want it going next door and having an alibi on Freddie's cameras at the time I go tumbling down the stairs."

"Stupid cat." Art hesitated, uncertain whether to move forward toward Helen, or backward to the door where the thumps were increasing in frequency.