Thinking it might be Hurley, I head for the front yard at a fast clip and nearly trip over a white blur that runs into my feet as I round the corner of the house.
“Oh, my, I’m sorry,” says a female voice. “I didn’t know you were there.”
The white blur has materialized into a small dog—some type of poodle-looking thing—and I see that the female voice belongs to an older woman with brown eyes and a gray Joan of Are hairdo.
Hoover sits dutifully at my feet at first, watching the white fuzzy dog approach him. Seconds later he is desperately trying to stick his nose in the little dog’s butt, while the little dog yips and barks and bounces around like it’s on meth.
“Antoinette!” the woman yells, tugging on her leash. Unfortunately, the efforts of the two dogs have resulted in their leashes becoming intertwined and wrapped around my legs, so I nearly fall when the woman keeps pulling.
“Could you please ease up?” I say, trying to hop on my one good foot. The woman finally seems to realize what’s happening and she drops her leash completely. I do the same hoping to make the untangling process a little easier. But the fuzzy white wonder keeps darting in and out between my legs, nipping at Hoover’s heels and making a general pest of herself. As Hoover tries to avoid her bites and sniff her butt instead, he starts running between my legs, too. Finally, in desperation, I reach down and unhook him from the leash completely. Sensing his newfound freedom, he immediately takes off for a nearby bush. Antoinette follows and I manage to get her leash unwrapped from my ankle in the nick of time.
“What are you doing here?” the woman asks, narrowing her eyes at me.
“I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Helen Baxter.”
The name rings no bells so I start to do my own introduction. “I’m Mattie Win—”
“I know who you are,” Helen says, cutting me off. “You’re that nurse who works at the ME’s office now, right?”
I nod, not surprised she knows me. My face along with other more delicate parts of my anatomy recently appeared on the cover of a national tabloid thanks to a rather high-profile case our office handled. That, combined with the fact that I live in a small town where the only thing that moves faster than good news is bad news, has made it hard for me to remain anonymous.
“What are you doing here?” Helen asks again.
“I’m trying to investigate—”
“You’re looking into Harold’s death, aren’t you?” she says. “I live over on the next block and I saw you there at Harold’s house with that cop the other night, and now I see there’s crime tape up on his door. Was Harold murdered, because it wouldn’t surprise me if he was. There have been some very strange things going on in this neighborhood lately.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, getting the distinct impression that Helen doesn’t miss much of what goes on in the area.
But rather than answer me, she yells, “Stop it, you little slut!”
I’m about to be offended when I realize it’s her dog she’s yelling at, not me. Hoover is sitting next to a bush trembling, his eyes big and round. Mere inches in front of him, facing away from Hoover with her shoulders on the ground and her butt stuck up in the air, is Antoinette. Her knobby little tail is twitching back and forth, back and forth, as she whimpers. Helen walks over and scoops Antoinette off the ground, giving me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Antoinette is in heat and I’m afraid she’s rather desperate to compromise herself.”
I think of Hurley and empathize with Antoinette. Hoover looks up at me with an expression of sad yearning while Antoinette squirms in Helen’s arms, desperate to get down. Helen tightens her grip and says to me, “I’m a nurse. I used to work at Mercy.”
“Really? I don’t recall ever seeing you there.”
“You wouldn’t. I’ve been retired for nearly twenty years, and I’d imagine that was before your time.”
“What department did you work in?”
“I used to be the Director of Nurses, before that odd job took over.”
The odd job she is referring to is Nancy Molinaro, a short, stout, hirsute woman who was recruited from outside the hospital to head the nursing department. It’s rumored she used to be a former mob hit woman—though some think she used to be a man—who entered the witness protection program. It’s easy to see how the rumors got started. The woman talks with a whispered lisp, has spies peppered throughout the facility, and eliminates employees she doesn’t like with frightening efficiency. Plus there is the acronym derived from the Director of Nursing title: DON.
“Anyway,” Helen goes on, “ever since my husband, George, died, it’s just me and Antoinette here. I kind of keep an eye on things in the neighborhood, especially during the day when most of the other folks are gone.”
“Did you know Mr. Minniver?”
“We chatted every week or so. As the two old folks on the street, we had a pact of sorts to watch out for one another, you know? When you get to be our age, things can happen.”
“Did you see Mr. Minniver on the day he died?”
She nods. “I didn’t speak to him, but I saw him fetch his mail that morning when Antoinette and I were out on our walk. I take her out twice a day every day and walk a circuit of several blocks. Keeps me young, you know. That’s how I spotted that strange man.”
“What strange man?”
“The one who kept parking a black sedan around the neighborhood, different time and place every day. Sometimes he was on this street, sometimes on our street, sometimes he was on a side street, but he was here every day for the better part of a week.”
I frown.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Helen says with a sneer. “Crazy old woman gets paranoid about some guy parking on the street.”
I don’t respond because she’s right; that’s exactly what I’m thinking. “What did this guy look like?”
She shrugs. “I never got a good look at his face. He was always wearing one of those hooded things the kids like so much these days. I was going to call the police about him but then he disappeared. Do you think I still should?”
“I don’t think it will do much good since he isn’t here anymore,” I tell her, wishing she had called them sooner. “Black sedans are a dime a dozen. They won’t have any way of finding him.”
“Even if I give them a license plate number?”
It takes me a couple of beats to register what she just said. “Do you
“I do. I wrote it down in the pad I carry with me whenever I walk, in case I need to leave a note for someone. Like the time I left a note for Mr. Abbott saying I needed a plumber and wondering if he’d give me the name and number of the one I’d seen coming to his house twice a week for the past two months.” She gives me a wink. “The Abbotts don’t live here anymore,” she says drily. She bends over and sets Antoinette down, then fishes in her slacks pocket, pulling out a small spiral notebook. “Let’s see,” she says, flipping pages. “Here you go.” She rips the page out of the notebook and hands it to me.
“It was an Illinois plate?” I say, reading what she wrote.
“Yep, one of them damned flatlanders. That alone was reason enough to find him suspicious if you ask me.”
“Thanks, Helen. I’ll have the police run this and see what we come up with.” I tuck the slip of paper in my pocket and turn to look for Hoover. Antoinette has dashed back to the bushes and Hoover is there tentatively sniffing her nether regions. Antoinette drops herself down so that she is flat on her belly on the ground, her legs extended straight out behind her, her tail standing at attention. “I think your poodle has a crush on my dog,” I tell Helen.
“Antoinette is not a poodle,” Helen says, all indignant. “She’s a purebred bichon frise.”
“A bitch on what?”
Helen gives me a look that rivals my mother’s. It must be one of those things that improves with age. “I think you and your mutt had better leave now,” she says, making a face like she just tasted dog shit. “If he gets my Antoinette pregnant, there will be hell to pay.”
