HELEN SET DOWN the saucer heaped with the contents of a can of Liver ‘n’ Chicken. Her oversized yellow tom took a single sniff before shaking his tail at her and glancing up with pleading eyes, as if to say, Isn’t there something better than this?
“No,” she told him, trying hard to be firm. “You’re getting too finicky in your old age, Amber. This was your favorite last week, remember?”
But apparently he’d forgotten.
He mewed at her in a sharp tone not unlike a child back-talking. Then he padded out of the kitchen, tail straight in the air as if to let her know he wasn’t happy in the least with her decision.
Good grief, she thought, shaking her head as she watched him go. No wonder there were plenty of folks who preferred dogs to felines. A pup ate whatever he was given and seemed glad for it, slobbering happily when he was done. Cats balked when you accidently fed them the same kind of canned food twice in a row. It was the fault of the Egyptians, she decided, wiping off her hands on her sweatpants. She couldn’t blame the furry creatures for expecting a lot. She would, too, if she’d once been worshipped as a god by the likes of Cleopatra.
She smiled, figuring Amber was spoiled almost as much as that. And to think she’d very nearly missed out on having a cat altogether.
In all the years she and Joe had been married—all the while their kids had been growing up—he’d been dead set against having an animal of any sort. “They’re dirty,” he’d said, “they shed like mad, and they stink.”
Helen shook her head even now at the memory.
When their children had moved away and started raising families of their own, Joe had broken down and agreed—though not without grumbling—to let her adopt a stray that their granddaughter, Nancy, had found one summer years ago. She’d named the cat Amber because of the color of his eyes. No dummy he, Amber had instantly attached himself to Joe, crawling into his lap whenever it was empty, rubbing against his calves, sleeping near his feet atop the bedspread. Pretty soon it was Joe who’d woken up to feed Amber in the mornings, who’d cleaned up the bunny guts Amber had left on the porch. So when Joe had died three years ago, Helen knew she wasn’t the only one who’d mourned his absence. Amber hadn’t been himself for months after.
Helen sighed and pushed up her sleeves. She turned on the tap at the sink, the pipes squealing as the water gushed out. She stuck her hands beneath, soaping them up to erase the smell of Liver ‘n’ Chicken. She glanced down at the rejected saucer of cat food and clicked tongue against teeth, thinking some humans probably didn’t eat so well as her spoiled tomcat. Though Helen was hardly undernourished herself, she realized she hadn’t had a bite since breakfast, save for the cheese ball she’d snatched at Jean’s earlier in the day, so just about anything sounded good to her at the moment.
She averted her eyes from Amber’s untouched dinner and opened the refrigerator door. There wasn’t much to look at inside beyond half a cantaloupe, a doggy bag from the Denny’s in Alton, and a nearly expired carton of milk.
When was the last time she’d gotten to the grocery store?
She’d had so many bridge games lately, not to mention the planning sessions of the Ladies Civic Improvement League and a smattering of other causes entailing lunches and dinners out, that she’d put off making a supermarket run.
She retrieved several slices of American cheese that, upon close inspection, hadn’t yet hardened around the edges. She scrounged up the remnants of a tub of butter and two slices of bread—a little hard, but no mold—deciding a grilled cheese would have to do.
The phone rang, and she dropped her stash on the countertop, hurrying to hush the darned thing before it whistled again like a demented bird.
“Hello?”
Jean Duncan’s voice filled her ear. “Helen? Have you eaten yet?”
She recalled the smell of Jean’s kitchen, the taste of the olive-stuffed cheese puff, and her stomach growled. “No, not yet,” she told her, praying some kind of invitation was forthcoming.
“How’d you like to meet me at the diner for one of Erma’s meat loaf sandwiches? After working in the kitchen half the day, I’m tired of the sight of anything even remotely gourmet.”
Well, Helen mused, meat loaf at the diner wasn’t exactly what she’d hoped for, but it would do in a pinch. “Five minutes, okay?”
Jean laughed. “Are you gonna fly there or walk?”
Helen grinned, switching the receiver to her other ear. “See you shortly,” she said and hung up at Jean’s “All right.”
Before she left, she ran a brush through her wiry gray hair, taming it as best she could. She did a quick tooth-brushing, rinsing out her mouth and patting it dry. She put on a dab of pink lipstick then grabbed up her purse and left.
Between the craggy bluffs on the town’s either side, she could see the vague purple ribbons of sunset fading from the sky as twilight moved in, giving the stars a dark background to wink against.
The streetlights had come on, lending an orange glow to the sidewalk as she strode ahead past picket fences and neatly kept lawns. Tulip bulbs planted before the first freeze last November now sprouted upward, their colorful buds about ready to pop.
A dog barked from a screened-in porch, the high-pitched yips soon joined by mournful baying from another backyard.
Helen picked up her steps, her Keds crunching over the stray gravel kicked onto the sidewalk by cars rolling up and down Jersey en route to Main Street.
She inhaled deeply as she walked, breathing in fresh air tinged by the muddy odor of the river dead ahead. Lights shone through the windows of the houses she passed, and she spied more than a few heads bent over kitchen tables between parted curtains. At lunchtime, the streets seemed similarly empty when the carillon in the chapel’s steeple played its programmed tunes over loudspeakers and everyone within earshot scattered, heading home or to the diner for a sandwich.
Despite the changes that had come over River Bend in recent years, much had remained as it was almost fifty years ago when she and Joe had settled here. It was one of the main reasons Helen had never moved away. Maybe it was her age, but she’d come to like knowing what each day brought. She liked the familiarity of faces, the languid pace. All the changes she wanted to see were those wrought by the seasons. She loved the starkness of winter when ice clung to eaves and branches and snow blanketed rooftops and roads. The summers seemed at times like a photograph overexposed, the sun so bright the air looked yellow. Dust from the roads covered shrubs and boats filled the river, drawing skiers across the brown waters. In the fall, the trees turned every shade of red and gold imaginable, and cars came from across the river—St. Louis and beyond—just to witness the unbearable beauty of the bluffs.
Helen decided she liked spring best of all except for the years when the rains fell too fast and the river rose too quickly, flooding the town and making a canoe the favored mode of transportation, River Bend seemed at its best dressed in green. It took away her breath to see the foliage on the bluffs so verdant against the chalky façades. Cicadas hummed their nightly tune from unseen places. Owls hooted plaintively, and whippoorwills joined the chorus. There was just a hint of a chill in the night air.
Why, she wondered, would anyone want to live anywhere else?
Downtown, the parallel rows of shops that ran barely two blocks were fronted with barrels bursting with pansies and petunias, signs of the Ladies Civic Improvement League in action.
There was the drugstore and corner grocery, the one-pump gas station, the stationery store, and the sheriff’s office next door to Agnes March’s antiques shop. All were dark save for the diner. Its plate glass window spilled light onto the sidewalk.
The door jingled as she entered, leaving the stillness of the night for the swell of voices.
“Helen! Over here!”
She looked across the crowded room to see Jean waving from a booth in the far corner.
Others bid her hello as well, and she paused to exchange quick greetings with each. Erma swept past in her checkerboard pink uniform, five hot plates balanced on her arms. Still, she managed a grin and a friendly, “Hey, there, Helen, be right with ya.”
Erma had been at the diner for as long as Helen could remember and never seemed to have a bit of trouble doing two things at once.
Sheriff Frank Biddle swiveled about on a stool at the counter and ceased filling his mouth with French fries long enough to nod at Helen. His wife, Sarah, was out of town for a day or two, visiting her mother in Springfield. Helen didn’t doubt that Erma would feed the town’s sole lawman morning, noon, and dusk while his better half was gone.
“You’re right on time,” Jean remarked as Helen sat down.
“And I’m starving,” Helen confessed.
Her friend sipped coffee, a plastic-coated menu at her left elbow. Helen snagged it before slipping glasses from her purse. Once she had her specs perched on her nose, she opened the menu to study the taped-on note about the day’s specials.
“You get a chance to see Eleanora?” she asked and peered over the menu as a frown erased the smile from Jean’s mouth.
“She wouldn’t let me past the kitchen,” Jean admitted and set her coffee down, keeping her hands around the mug as if to warm them. “Nothing’s changed as far as she’s concerned, the old bat.”
“Now Jean,” Helen softly scolded.
“Well, it’s true.”
“You didn’t give her the food you’d made?”
Jean fiddled with the scarf tied round her ponytail. “I put everything in Mother-in-law Dearest’s fridge. Though, let me tell you, I was tempted to just turn around and bring it home.”
“You did the right thing,” Helen said and reached out to pat her friend’s hand. But Jean wouldn’t meet her eyes.
The noise of a throat being cleared drew Helen’s attention up, and she removed her specs to find herself staring into the weathered face of Frank Biddle.
“Sheriff,” she said, noting the ketchup at the corner of his mouth and the spot on his brown tie as well.
“Hello, Frank,” Jean greeted him.
“Mrs. Duncan,” he said as the ceiling lamps glanced off the thinning spot atop his hatless head.
“Uh, Mrs. Evans,” he said, meeting Helen’s gaze directly. He set a palm on the table and leaned over. “I heard you were witness to an accident this morning.”
“What accident?” Helen set the menu down.
“Mrs. Duncan,” he told her, looking at Jean for an instant. His cheeks flushed. “No, I mean, old Mrs. Duncan.”
Jean stared into her coffee.
Helen wished he hadn’t brought the subject up. “It wasn’t an accident exactly, Sheriff,” she said, hoping to clear things up quickly as Jean was looking decidedly uncomfortable. “Eleanora stepped off the curb and a car narrowly missed her, but no one was hurt.” Helen tapped her fingers on the table. “She was rather frightened though.”
Biddle straightened up and scratched at his jaw. His wide brow wrinkled as though he’d contemplated her answer and found it lacking. “You see the driver, ma’am?” he asked. “Did you get the plate numbers? How about the make and model of the car?”
Helen laughed. “Sheriff, it happened so fast, I didn’t have a chance to do much but pull Eleanora out of harm’s way.”
“Did you notice the color, ma’am?”
She exhaled slowly. “It was filthy, that’s all I do remember. What with the rains we’ve had, everything’s kind of muddy.”
“And?” he prodded.
“Well, it might have been blue,” she said.
He nodded.
“Or it could have been brown.”
He raised his eyebrows.
Helen felt as if she’d failed a test. His face seemed so filled with disappointment. She looked across the table at Jean, who’d paled considerably in the past minute or two. “Look, Sheriff, I don’t know any more except that maybe it was an older model sedan.”
He crossed his arms above his belly, which hung low over his gun belt and strained the buttons on his tan uniform shirt. “That doesn’t narrow it down much, Mrs. Evans, since it probably describes most of the cars around town.”
“Sorry.”
He ducked his chin, muttering, “Ma’am,” which Helen knew was meant to encompass them both. Then he sauntered back to his stool, his hat marking his space on the counter. He settled back down and resumed his attack on the French fries.
Helen turned to Jean and reached across the table. “Don’t let it get to you, all right? We’re here for supper, aren’t we?”
Jean sighed. “I know I shouldn’t let anything about Eleanora bother me anymore, but still it’s . . . “
The door flew open, pushed so wide it banged the wall. The bells above it jangled violently.
“Sheriff!” a voice cried out. “Sheriff Biddle!”
Helen glanced across the room to where Zelma Burdine stood with her hands at her breasts, panting, as if she’d run to the diner without stopping.
“Sheriff!” she shouted again, her owlish eyes looking this way and that, as if unable to make out Frank Biddle at the counter.
He hopped down abruptly, knocking over his glass and sending Erma darting in his direction with a towel. He shrugged away her ministrations and, thumbs hooked in his belt, strode over to the trembling Zelma.
“What seems to be the trouble, ma’am?” he asked, and Helen noticed the silence that hung in the air, as she waited along with the rest of the diner to hear Zelma’s response.
The woman hugged her arms around her middle and choked out between tears, “Something’s happened . . . oh, my . . . something awful.”
“What’s that, ma’am?” the sheriff asked.
“Miss Nora,” she cried, wringing her hands, “She isn’t moving. Please, you’ve got to help.”
Helen turned to Jean, but her friend didn’t meet her gaze. She acted as if she hadn’t even heard Zelma’s pleas. Instead, she raised her cup of coffee to her mouth and took a long, slow sip.