Chapter 31
The sun was shining in Helen’s eyes. Someone had his hand clapped over her mouth. Then Helen realized it wasn’t a hand. It felt hard, like plastic. She tried to pull away from the thing over her mouth and sit up.
Strong hands pushed her back down. A woman’s voice said, “Take deep breaths now. Steady . . . steady . . . relax. You’re going to be fine. You’re breathing nice and easy. Another deep breath and I’ll take off the oxygen mask. Do you understand? Nod your head yes.”
Helen nodded. That wasn’t sun in her eyes. It was overhead lights. She was in a hospital emergency room, lying on a narrow gurney.
The oxygen mask was removed. Helen’s lungs hurt. Her mouth was dry and ashy. She couldn’t get rid of the taste of smoke. Her clothes and hair smelled like a fireplace. She would never eat barbecue again.
“What’s your name?” the doctor asked.
Helen almost giggled. The doctor’s name was Curlee, and she had wild frizzy brown hair pulled into an unruly ponytail. She sounded brisk and competent.
“Helen Hawthorne.”
“What day is it?” Dr. Curlee said.
“Saturday,” Helen said. “Wait. It’s after midnight. It must be Sunday.”
“Who is president?”
“That bozo neither one of us voted for,” a loud voice said. “She’s fine.”
It was Helen’s landlady, Margery. She was wearing another purple shorts set. This one was turned inside out, with the tag in front. Margery must have dressed in a hurry.
“I’ve come to get her out of here,” Margery said. “Hospitals are full of sick people. She’ll catch an infection.”
“Are you next of kin?” the doctor asked.
“I’m her aunt,” Margery said. Helen stared. Her landlady lied without a qualm. “And I’m paying her ER bill.”
“No, I have money,” Helen said.
“So do I,” Margery said. “And don’t argue with me, young woman, or I’ll tell your mother.”
That was the only threat that could quiet Helen. She shut up about the bill.
“She’s suffering from smoke inhalation,” Dr. Curlee said. “Helen does not appear to be burned or injured except for a cut on her arm. Luckily, it won’t require stitches.
“We’re doing some basic lab work to make sure she’s OK, and we’ll check her electrolytes. We need to keep her for observation for awhile. Then, if everything is all right, she can go home.”
“How much longer will it be?” Margery said.
“Another three or four hours, if all her tests go right.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Margery said.
The doctor’s beeper went off, and she left Margery and Helen alone in the curtained cubicle.
“Is Cal with you?” Helen said.
“Cal? Why would Cal be here?” Margery said.
“Because he pulled me out of that burning apartment. I thought he might have come along with you. I wanted to thank him for saving me.”
“Cal didn’t rescue you,” Margery said. “Phil did.”
“The invisible pothead? I finally saw him and I don’t remember?”
“I wish you’d quit calling him that,” Margery said, testily. “I see that boy all the time.”
Helen felt groggy and thickheaded. “I saw something else, too,” she said. “These weird white lights or letters spelling out ‘Clapton Is God.’ It was like a vision.”
“Vision, my sweet Aunt Fanny,” Margery said. “You saw Phil’s favorite T-shirt. It’s black with white letters. He got it from Ed Seelig, a guy who sold Clapton some of his guitars. It’s his prized possession. I’m surprised Phil risked it to save you.”
Helen put her head down on the thin pillow and tried to remember. She recalled Phil’s hands, calloused and strong. But she could not see a face above that T-shirt.
She also remembered the boiling smoke and the bed with sheets of flame. Her funky little apartment was gone. Helen felt a sharp stab of regret. The funny boomerang table and the exuberant Barcalounger were ruined. The squeaky bed was no big loss.
“Oh, Margery. Your beautiful apartment. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Margery said. “The fire marshal thinks it was arson.”
“Arson!”
“Somebody wanted to burn you alive,” Margery said. The landlady’s shrewd old eyes bored into her, and Helen felt like she was in the sixth grade and had been caught smoking in the girl’s bathroom.
“Now, you better tell me what you’ve been up to. All of it. Because it’s no longer your own private business. They set fire to my apartment building. It’s my business now.”
For the next two hours, the two women stayed in the chilly, uncomfortable cubicle while Helen talked about Juliana’s: the blackmail, the drugs, the illegal maids, even the banned biopolymer injections. She finished with the reappearance of Thumbs, the dead woman’s six-toed cat.
Margery had something of her own to add. “A police detective, Karen Grace I think her name was, came by yesterday, asking where you were the weekend Christina was murdered,” Margery told her. “I said you went on a date with Cal Saturday night, moped around the place Sunday, and went to work on Monday like always. Peggy and Cal told her same thing.”
“Did she talk with Phil?”
“He didn’t answer his door. And he had the good sense not to light up while she was there.”
Occasionally someone would come in and stick Helen with a needle or make her breathe into a machine. But mostly the two women were alone. They talked until Helen ran out of things to say.
“Now, who do you think set fire to my apartment?” Margery said.
“Brittney,” Helen said, without hesitation.
“You don’t think it could be a drug dealer? Or Joe?”
“They would have just killed me. They wouldn’t fool around trying to burn me. It was Brittney. She never denied killing Christina. She knew that was a mistake, and I’d talk. She had to shut me up. The timing is right, too. Brittney followed me home, then came back and started the fire.”
“Are you going to the police?”
“And tell them what? That a rich, well-connected woman tried to kill me because I saw her cat? I haven’t a shred of evidence.”
“It’s their job to get the evidence,” Margery said. “You should tell them.”
“I tried that once,” Helen said. “Dwight Hansel acted like we were a bunch of bimbos. He thinks only men are smart enough to murder.”
“You can’t pretend nothing happened,” Margery said.
“I’m going to search those CD towers again. Then I’ll try to prove that cat was Christina’s. I found a way. At least, I thought I did. I had this magazine story about how some police are using cat DNA to solve crimes. But now it’s burned up with everything else.”
“I don’t think so,” Margery said. “You had a magazine clutched in your hand when you were carried out. In fact, it was the only thing you saved.”
“Terrific. I left my purse and good clothes in the fire and saved a magazine.”
“Your clothes are fine. They smell like smoke, that’s all. The insurance company told me where to send them
