Come Helen High Water Read online

  “If you’ll excuse me, Helen, I’ll be off,” Agnes murmured, departing with a backhanded wave.

  “Yes, of course,” she replied as Agnes hurried across the street.

  She watched the trim figure in navy-blue dress and matching pumps make a beeline for the diner. Then Helen turned her attention back to Clara and Sarah. She gave a tug to her warm-up jacket before resuming her trek up the sidewalk, catching bits and pieces of conversation as she headed toward them.

  “. . . and I just can’t imagine that she’d do such a thing,” Sarah was saying. “It isn’t like her to be so rash.”

  “Maybe she needed a break,” Clara responded, clutching a large tote bag to her breasts. “Everyone gets the itch to run away once in a while.”

  “Without warning?”

  “Why would she need to warn anyone? She’s of age.”

  Helen cleared her throat. “Good morning, ladies,” she said, greeting them with a tentative smile.

  “Good morning,” Clara said, absent any smile in return.

  “I don’t know about good, but it’s a curious morning, anyway,” Sarah piped up, frowning. Her left eye did a nervous tic. “We were chatting, Clara and I, about Luann. I didn’t know if you heard that she . . .”

  “Oh, yes, I heard you from a block away,” Helen cut her off, exaggerating only a bit. “Perhaps we could move the conversation inside the building so we don’t take up the sidewalk?”

  Clara glanced at Sarah Biddle. “If only we could, but apparently we cannot.” She sighed and rolled her eyes behind her wire-rim spectacles.

  Helen scrunched up her brow. “Am I missing something?”

  “That’s what we’re debating.” Clara glared at the sheriff’s wife. “Are we missing something, Sarah, or did this something wander off on its own two legs? You said her car was gone . . .”

  “Just because the Fiat’s not here, doesn’t mean she went of her own free will,” Sarah insisted, cheeks inflamed. “For all we know, she was drugged and put in the trunk.”

  “In the trunk of a Fiat?” Clara’s eyes widened and she let out a coarse laugh. She waggled her bulging tote before her. “I doubt you could even fit a bag of groceries in the back of that car. It’s no bigger than a toy. Although I’m sure it could hold plenty of clowns.”

  “This isn’t funny!” The sheriff’s wife tightened hands to fists.

  “Okay, stop this, the both of you,” Helen said, stepping into the argument. She was about ready to strangle them both. “Will one of you tell me what the heck is going on?” She looked at her old friend Clara, who hugged her bag again defensively, then at the sheriff’s wife, hoping one of them would spit it out.

  “It’s Luann,” Sarah said and stuck out her chin. “I thought she’d be here—that her message was a joke—but apparently I was wrong. The door is locked, and she’s not answering the bell or her phone. We can’t get in. Frank thinks the mayor might have another key to the building, so he’s gone off to fetch it.”

  “Luann isn’t here?” Helen repeated, looking from one woman to the other. “What message? Did she go pick up coffee at the diner? I don’t understand.”

  “Luann isn’t at the diner. She isn’t anywhere in River Bend,” Sarah blurted out then hesitated. Her oversize teeth bit her lip before she finished with a breathless “Oh, Helen! It looks like Luann is gone for good!”

  Chapter 4

  “Gone for good?” Helen repeated. Seeing the distress in Sarah’s face, she couldn’t help but ask, “Is she dead?”

  “Dead?” Clara nearly choked on the word. Her neck wobbled as she declared, “Nothing’s wrong with Luann Dupree except a midlife crisis.”

  “We don’t know that nothing’s wrong,” Sarah said, seemingly on the verge of tears. “At the very least, she’s taken off with a virtual stranger. At worst, she’s been kidnapped and dragged off God knows where!”

  “Good Lord, but you’re being dramatic.” Clara rolled her eyes. “You told me she sent you a text this morning. So she’s clearly alive and well.”

  “If that was her,” Sarah retorted, flipping back mousy brown hair. “You never know these days. She could have had her phone stolen or hacked.”

  “Baloney!” Clara snapped. “What she’s done is run off with a man. That’s the gist of it, anyway, and you know it.”

  Helen had heard enough. “Run off with what man?” she demanded. “What the heck is going on here?”

  Not that she was privy to everyone’s deep, dark secrets, but Helen was pretty well versed on the comings and goings of the regulars in River Bend. Still, she hadn’t realized Luann Dupree was seriously involved with anyone, and she was feeling more than a little frustrated by the piecemeal—and argumentative—way this story was unraveling.

  “For heaven’s sake, will one of you explain?” she said. “Is Luann in some kind of trouble?”

  “You tell her, Sarah. You’re the Runaway Bride’s BFF,” Clara said and crossed her arms, glancing impatiently at the Historical Society’s front door.

  Runaway Bride?

  “Has Luann eloped?” Helen asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Sarah said quickly then shrugged. “Well, at least not yet.” She drew in a deep breath as she seemed to gather her thoughts. “Lu kept the relationship pretty quiet after she met him online a while back. She told me they clicked from the start and that he appreciated her and loved hearing about her work with the Historical Society. I’m not sure when it got so serious but I guess it must have.”

  Sarah stopped to pull her smartphone from her pocket. She began scrolling through messages on the small screen. “I got a text from her before breakfast. She must have left River Bend sometime yesterday. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Helen nudged the bridge of her glasses up her nose before looking at the exchange Sarah pointed out.

  I think I’m in love. We’re going on a real adventure. Yolo!!!

  “What’s Yolo?” she asked.

  She wasn’t big on texting, so she didn’t know all the shorthand. She still preferred to talk on the phone or, better yet, face-to-face. She owned a flip phone, for goodness’ sake. She didn’t need anything smarter, or maybe she just didn’t want a gadget that made her act dumber. She’d seen too many folks walk into walls or drive through stop signs because they couldn’t put down their cellies.

  “It means you only live once,” Sarah Biddle told her and slipped her phone back in her pocket. Her shoulders slumped. “Lu had been alone for so long, and I know she liked this guy. She told me that he got her, that he actually listened when she discussed her work. They had their first real date in Grafton on Saturday night.”

  “So you hadn’t met him?”

  “No. She didn’t even tell me his name. She just called him Mr. Maybe.” Sarah shifted on her Crocs. “I even showed Lu’s picture to the bartender at the Loading Dock, where she met her date, asking if he remembered her.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes.”

  Helen prodded. “What about Mr. Maybe? Did the bartender recall him?”

  “Just that he looked like an average guy,” Sarah replied solemnly. “Average height, average weight, and a full beard that was mostly brown with a little gray, so I’m guessing he’s middle-aged.”

  “I hate beards,” Clara mumbled.

  “Doesn’t give you much to go on, does it?” Helen admitted.

  “Why should it matter?” Clara injected. “Who cares what Luann’s mystery man looks like if he hasn’t committed a crime?”

  “How do we know that he hasn’t?” Sarah narrowed her eyes. “Why would Lu take off on the spur of the moment with someone she’d just met in person for the first time? She’s not impulsive like that.”

  “Could be she decided he was as close to Mr. Right as she was going to get,” Clara said with a sniff. “She was impulsive enough to get involved in an online romance. What happened to being introduced to gentlemen by friends, or getting to know someone at church?” Her voice hummed with dis
approval. “If Luann was that desperate, what makes you think she wouldn’t go away with him, especially if she was smitten? Love makes people daft.”

  Helen wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to wince. If Luann Dupree’s impetuous decision to take off had been driven by her heart, it would hardly be surprising. Helen had done her share of silly things in the name of love.

  But clearly the sheriff’s wife wasn’t buying it.

  “I don’t get the timing.” Sarah continued gnawing on her lip. “Luann wouldn’t have left now. She was so excited about her latest project. She mentioned finding something that could be extremely valuable in the boxes she cleared out of the attic for the renovation. She said she needed to do some research to be sure of what she had, maybe get a second opinion from an expert, but she had a gut feeling it was authentic—”

  “Extremely valuable?” Clara interrupted with a snort. “I’ll bet she found another carton of musty old pictures, as if there aren’t enough of them to sort through already.”

  “You’re not taking this seriously,” Sarah scolded.

  “And you’re taking this way too seriously,” Clara retorted. “I’d wager your suspicious nature is a side effect of being wed to law enforcement, or else you’re watching too many crime shows on TV.”

  “Now, now, Clara,” Helen said quietly. “You can’t blame Sarah for being concerned about a friend.”

  “I have enough family troubles to worry about without wasting a moment fretting over Luann Dupree,” Clara replied. “She’s a grown woman. If she decided to ditch this tiny town to rendezvous with her lover, then, I say, good for her. Life is too short, and sometimes even when it’s long it’s no fairy tale.”

  Helen stared at Clara, hearing the pain in her voice as clearly as she saw it in her face. Yes, Clara had been cranky lately and not her usual vivacious self. But this went beyond “having a bad day.” Something was clearly not right with her. Helen aimed to find out what it was once they had some privacy, not while they were standing on the street, fretting over Luann Dupree.

  “You don’t have to be snarky,” the sheriff’s wife said with a frown.

  Clara scowled.

  “Can’t we all just get along?” Helen said and looked beseechingly at both women. “We could go grab some coffee and a doughnut at the diner and wait there until the sheriff turns up with a key . . .”

  As if on cue, a male voice called out, “Hey, ladies! I got it!”

  Helen glanced past Sarah to see Sheriff Biddle huffing and puffing toward them. He shook a silver key ring in his raised fist.

  “It’s not the key to the city,” he announced, once he’d caught his breath. “But it’ll get us into the Historical Society, piece of cake.”

  The sheriff’s wife looked fit to pop. “You took long enough,” she groused before snatching the key from his hand.

  While he blushed sheepishly and mumbled an apology about having to wake up the town’s ninety-one-year-old mayor, Sarah stabbed the key in the lock and pushed open the door.

  “Hey, honey bun, maybe I should go in first, just in case,” Sheriff Biddle was saying, though his wife ignored him and rushed inside.

  Helen watched Sarah head up the staircase, calling out, “Luann? Lu, are you here?” while she, Clara, and the sheriff entered into the building behind her.

  For a moment the three stood in the anteroom and said nothing, cocking heads, listening to Sarah’s footsteps on the creaky floors above, the only noise interrupting the quiet.

  “Um, should we be looking for something?” Helen asked, rubbing palms on the sides of her warm-up pants.

  “Are you buying into Sarah’s paranoia?” Clara muttered. “You think we’ll find a trail of blood?” She clicked tongue against teeth. “More like we’ll find skid marks, the woman took off so quickly with her Internet Romeo. Otherwise, what did she have to look forward to but a life of spinsterhood with lots of crusty old relics to keep her company?”

  Does anyone even use the word spinster anymore? Helen wondered.

  “Sarah was right. You are being snarky. Care to tell me what’s up?”

  Clara looked at her and opened her mouth, as if to explain, but the sheriff interrupted.

  “Why don’t you gals stay put for a minute,” he said, tipping his hat back on his forehead. “I’ll be right back,” he told them before he went around switching on ceiling lights and illuminating artifact-filled glass cases. He ambled up the hallway, disappearing into one room and then another, shouting over his shoulder, “All clear,” each time he emerged, until he’d hit them all.

  “Did you find anything out of order?” Helen asked when he returned.

  “There’s nothing besides a puddle of water in the back room. It’s coming in beneath the door,” he said and rubbed his bulldog-like jowls. “The creek’s pretty high already. As attached as Ms. Dupree is to this Historical Society, it does seem odd that she’d leave town without sandbagging first, although Sarah said she must have left in a hurry.”

  “Hmm,” Helen murmured. She tended to agree with him, knowing how Luann had championed funding for the building and its renovation the past ten years. Would she run off with a man and leave all her prized relics at the mercy of the rising floodwaters?

  “What I find odd,” Clara argued, “is that we’re standing around debating the actions of an adult female whose brain is most certainly muddled by hormones. C’mon, Helen,” she said and gave Helen’s arm a tug. “Let’s get to work going through those photographs. They’re not going to sort themselves.”

  Helen glanced at the sheriff, who shrugged. “I don’t know any reason you folks can’t do your volunteer work. I’ll go check on Sarah,” he added and hitched up his khaki pants, which, despite the belt, sagged below his oversized belly.

  Before he’d gone halfway up, Sarah appeared, stairs creaking as she made her way down. She held something in her hand. Whatever it was, she looked relieved.

  The sheriff said nothing until they’d both reached the ground floor.

  “What did you find?” he asked as his wife wriggled an object in his face.

  Helen noticed it was a small and very slim dark blue book.

  “It’s her passport,” Sarah replied breathlessly. “If she left it behind, she can’t mean to travel too far, right? Her suitcase is gone and some clothes were strewn about like she packed quickly.” She paused to remark, “I picked them up, of course. I’d hate for things to be a mess when she got back. Surely she won’t be gone for long.”

  “So I was right.” Clara harrumphed. “She did go looking for Mr. Goodbar, or traveling with Mr. Goodbar, anyway.”

  “Stop it,” Helen said under her breath, nudging her friend as Sarah Biddle gave Clara the stink eye.

  The sheriff patted his wife’s back. “Yep, I’ll bet she’s back soon enough. Try not to worry,” he advised, though Sarah merely bit her lower lip, looking a little like a frightened bunny. “How about we go and leave Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Foley to their volunteer work, unless you’d like to stay and help them?”

  Before Sarah could open her mouth to reply, Clara raised a hand, like a traffic cop making a stop in the middle of the street.

  “No, no! You go on,” she directed. “I know exactly what to do. Thanks for letting us in, Sheriff. We would have been sitting on the curb otherwise.”

  He tipped his hat at her then turned to Helen. “Would you lock up when you leave, ma’am? Then could you come by to drop off the spare?” he asked, handing over the key ring he’d obtained from the mayor. “I’d like to keep those in my desk until Ms. Dupree returns.”

  “Will do, Sheriff,” she told him, taking the keys and pocketing them. They made a good-sized lump in her warm-up jacket but didn’t appear at risk for falling out.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now I think I’d best talk to the town council about getting some volunteers to sandbag out back. We’ve got to get a serious effort going now. Don’t want the water to catch us unawares. Ma’am,” he added, touching his cap
as he nodded at Helen and Clara.

  When the town’s sole law enforcement officer guided his wife out the front door, Clara let loose a big sigh.

  “Thank goodness that’s over. How about we go upstairs?” Clara suggested, hefting her tote bag onto her shoulder. “Luann has a table set up in the storage area. That was easier for her than moving all the boxes downstairs. We’ve wasted enough time as it is squabbling over that silly woman’s whereabouts. I always thought she was a bit daffy.”

  Helen wasn’t sure what to say to that. She’d had only brief conversations with Luann Dupree at various town functions, mostly along the lines of “How are you? Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?” She had attended several of Luann’s town hall lectures about the Mississippi River Valley, the roots of their tiny village, local legends like the Piasa Bird, and the possibility of Lewis and Clark setting foot in River Bend. But Helen didn’t know her well, not personally, and she hadn’t been volunteering at the Historical Society for years, like Clara. She had found Luann very credible and hardly daffy when it came to her work, anyway. But she’d known plenty of folks with lots of brains and little common sense. Maybe that was the case with Luann.

  As Clara had remarked, love did seem to alter one’s brain chemistry. Even those with a good head on their shoulders could lose it when their hearts got in the way, she decided as they climbed the steps to the second-floor landing.

  “Don’t get distracted by what’s around us,” Clara said, ushering Helen into a vast room with big windows. “It’s a bit like stumbling upon the greatest garage sale you’ve ever seen. Only nothing has a price tag and, according to Luann, everything is priceless.”

  Even before Clara hit the light switch, Helen could see what she was talking about.

  While the area was mostly devoid of furniture—save for a dozen card tables and chairs—there were plenty of boxes. They were piled high on one side of the room. On the other there were more boxes, these opened, with contents lined up on card tables set in a row. Helen wandered nearer to see pieces of regional pottery, old glass bottles, even a handmade purple two-headed doll with lace hair.