A Draw of Death Read online

  It would have been easier if Helen could have concentrated exclusively on where she was putting her feet, but she also needed to keep an eye on her surroundings. The library's side yard provided a popular gathering spot for the half-dozen or so homeless persons living in Wharton. The side yard was colorfully landscaped, with luxurious plantings maintained by volunteers from the local garden club, according to the little signs stuck in among the frost-covered mums. Benches were strategically located to provide a spot for library patrons to sit and read among the flowers. Most of the time, though, and especially once the weather became too chilly to sit outside comfortably, the benches were more often occupied by the homeless population than by the typically middle-class library patrons. There had been some talk among the local government officials about replacing the benches, since they were old enough to lack the modern design "features" which discouraged homeless people from sleeping on them, or even sitting there for long.

  Helen thought the money would be better spent on fixing the crumbling sidewalk. That was more of a hazard to library patrons than the homeless people who used the benches. The troubled people who gathered outside the library had always seemed harmless to her. They appeared confused or depressed rather than angry or confrontational. They seldom even intruded so far as to ask for a handout, restricting their activities to napping and having conversations with themselves. Occasionally one would carry a sign to announce the end of the world or a governmental conspiracy that Helen knew for an absolute fact was far too convoluted for any politician, even her quite brilliant ex-husband, to carry out successfully.

  Today, the only person hanging out near the annex entrance was someone Helen had never seen before. The woman was short like her, but with a much sturdier build, even after discounting the five or six layers of dingy, ragged clothes that protected her from the frigid November air. Her face looked rough and sunburned, although the color was more likely to be from the wind and the cold than from the sun, given the overcast skies that had persisted since the middle of October. At least her feet had to be warm, encased in scuffed but otherwise intact construction boots. She carried a backpack that was almost as big as she was and wore a messenger bag stuffed to capacity. Her thick wool gloves with the fingertips worn through looked like a sad parody of the trendy versions that smartphone users relied on to keep their hands warm while they were texting or surfing. This woman didn't have a smartphone, and she would probably have preferred gloves that completely covered the chapped tips of her fingers.

  Helen stubbed her toe on a chunk of concrete, and the sudden pain in her hip caused her to drop her purse. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, waiting for the pain to subside. When she opened her eyes again, the homeless woman was standing in front of her, holding out the dropped purse.

  "I know who y'are." The woman spoke so fast, the words ran together, making the simple sentences somewhat difficult to parse. "Helen Faria. First Lady o' Massachusetts."

  "I used to be, but now I'm Helen Binney, private citizen." Helen accepted the purse, grateful that she didn't have to bend to get it. She might not have been able to straighten up again. "And you are?"

  The woman peered at her suspiciously. "Why ya'wanna know?"

  "Just being polite," Helen said.

  "You a Lennia?"

  "A what?"

  "A Lennia," the woman said. "You know. The people who're gonna cause the 'pocalypse."

  Tate might think Helen could cause enough trouble to ruin both her life and his, but even he didn't worry about her destroying the entire planet. "I certainly don't mean to cause an apocalypse."

  "Wh'about your husband?" the woman said. "He a Lennia?"

  "Ex-husband. But he's a good man. He's doing the best he can to keep the world from ending. Or at least this state. The rest of the world will probably have to take care of itself."

  "A'right then," she said. "I'm Marianne."

  "Nice to meet you, Marianne." Helen glanced at the annex door. She'd arrived an hour before the speech was scheduled, but she still needed to make sure everything was ready for the demanding Vic Rezendes and reassure the president of the Friends of the Wharton Library that nothing was going to go wrong with the biggest event the group had ever hosted. "I really need to go inside now. Terri Greene is waiting for me."

  "Tha's good," Marianne said. "Terri's okay. Not a Lennia. Don't trust anyone else."

  "I'll be careful," Helen said. "But it would help if I knew how to identify a Lennia. Could you give me a hint or two?"

  "They're pretty. And sly. After you've seen one, you'll know 'em all." Marianne squinted in the direction of the street. "They're everywhere."

  Helen turned to see a mail carrier on the sidewalk heading for the main entrance to the library. "Is he a Lennia?"

  Marianne was already picking up her backpack and scurrying away, so there was no answer.

  How sad. The poor woman obviously suffered from some form of mental illness that included paranoia. Helen found her recent memory lapses annoying, but she had a long way to go before she ended up as confused as Marianne. Even if Helen did completely lose her mind someday, she was fortunate that there was no way she'd end up living on the streets, not with her financial resources and her nieces' occasionally irritating but well-intentioned supervision. Still, the frustrations that Helen had felt over her nieces' over-protectiveness helped her to understand how Marianne might prefer the risks of the street to being locked up. Helen wasn't sure she'd go that far, but she certainly understood the feeling of being smothered by people who thought they knew what was best for her when she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She wasn't anywhere near as old or feeble as everyone seemed to think she was. And her recent memory lapses were both temporary and relatively minor compared to the delusions of poor Marianne.

  Helen continued on to the annex. Had she really sunk so low that she was actually telling herself how fortunate she was to not be a homeless person with a mental disorder? She did have a lot to be grateful for, but she didn't usually go around dwelling on her good luck or anticipating a day when it would run out. That sort of thing led to giving up, and she wasn't giving up on anything any time soon.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The community meeting room was a big, blank box like the exterior of the library. Just a wide-open room with off-white walls, bland gray commercial carpeting, and a massive white board on the far wall, which doubled as a projection screen. A few under-sized windows dotted the only exterior wall but were insufficient to light the room even when the skies weren't overcast. The overhead fluorescent fixtures were on and improved visibility just enough so that no one was likely to trip over anything. The cold light did nothing to make the room feel more welcoming, though. That would have to be her job.

  The president of the Friends of the Library, Terri Greene, was carrying a long, wood-topped folding table to the front of the room. When Terri wasn't volunteering at the library, she was a local high school teacher and soccer coach. She was at least six feet tall when wearing flats, and built like a wrestler. Anyone else would have needed help carrying the plywood-topped table, but Terri carried it in one hand as if it were lightweight plastic children's furniture, leaving her other hand free to balance a large cardboard box on her hip. She'd already dragged the two rolling carts full of collapsed folding chairs into the middle of the room.

  Helen had met Terri a few months ago and initially thought the woman was bald, like the Clary clan. A closer look had revealed that Terri's thick blonde hair had been buzzed into near invisibility for the summer. Since then, it had been allowed to grow out a little, especially on top where it was gelled into a flattop. Terri wore an old pair of gray sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt with the local high school's mascot printed on the front and Coach on the back.

  Terri set up the table and turned to acknowledge Helen. "We've got all the basics, but I can't help thinking we've forgotten something."

  "I know that feeling," Helen said. "But
I'm sure it's nothing important. I put all of the things Mr. Rezendes asked for in the box you just brought in."

  "Even the purple M&M's?" Terri said. "I didn't think they came in a single color like that."

  "You can get just about anything online." Helen might not have her Rolodex any longer, but the Internet was proving almost as useful. "Everything's going to be just fine. If you'll take the box into the room where Mr. Rezendes will wait until it's time for him to speak, I'll start setting up the chairs in here."

  "Do you think we'll have enough seating?" Terri looked more anxious than Helen had ever seen her, even more than when she was on the sideline for one of her teams' matches and there was a close score. Of course, Terri had a decade of experience with coaching and another decade of being on athletic teams; whereas she had never been responsible for an event like today's.

  There was a lot riding on how things played out today for both Terri and Helen. It was the kickoff for a whole year of planned events. If it was successful, the others were likely to be even more so as the word spread, bringing in visitors from the surrounding communities and establishing the Wharton library's reputation as the premier host of cultural and educational events in the area. With that reputation, Helen expected to see financial rewards for the library too. Everyone liked to support a winner. If it failed…

  No. That wasn't going to happen.

  "I think everything's going to be perfect," Helen said, just as she'd done a thousand times before when her ex-husband had last-minute jitters before a major fundraiser or other political event.

  Her ex-husband had always believed her reassurances, but Terri wasn't as accommodating. "I think you've underestimated the potential for disaster."

  * * *

  Despite Terri's pessimism, everything was set up in both rooms by 1:30, half an hour before the event was due to start, and Terri had changed into a Fair Isle sweater and green wool pants to greet the early arrivals.

  It was starting to look like the room would be filled to capacity, possibly even beyond, so it made Helen a bit nervous to see Detective Hank Peterson in the stream of people entering the meeting room. She wasn't his favorite person since she'd made the police department generally, and him in particular, look incompetent for focusing on the wrong suspects in two criminal investigations, while she caught the real culprits. Peterson didn't like being shown up by an amateur, and if he knew this event was Helen's doing, he wasn't above a little petty revenge, shutting down the event if there was even a hint of justification based on safety issues.

  It would be better if she stayed out of his sight as long as possible, so she ducked into the restroom before he could notice her. As long as she was there, she took advantage of the full-length mirror to check for sawdust on her dark pants. After brushing off the last few bits of wood, and making sure that Peterson was safely inside the meeting room, she went out to the lobby of the annex to watch for the guest speaker's arrival.

  One of the many special requests Rezendes's personal assistant had forwarded was that there had to be a greenroom, like in television studios—although in this case it would be more accurate to call it the "purple room"—where Mr. Rezendes could collect himself before speaking. Helen suspected the real reason was that it allowed him to make a grand entrance after the audience was fully assembled.

  At a quarter to two, a black luxury sedan parked beside the path to the library annex. Helen recognized the discreet sticker in the front passenger side window, identifying the vehicle as belonging to the limo company Jack Clary used to work for. Presumably her guest speaker was inside, since she'd hired the company to pick him up.

  As Helen went outside to greet Mr. Rezendes, she noticed that the homeless woman with the conspiracy theory hadn't returned, but a couple of other regulars were lounging on the benches, despite the chilly, gray weather. The mail carrier, who might or might not be one of the dreaded Lennia, was on the other side of the street, delivering packages to the bank building.

  The first person to emerge from the luxury sedan was a tall and elegant dark-haired woman dressed in black trousers and a matching blazer that was perfectly tailored but lacked any sense of style whatsoever. For some women, the lack of distinguishing details would have been a sign of frugality; the clothes wouldn't have looked out of place any time in the past ten years or ten years into the future. The woman wasn't cheap, though, as demonstrated by the expensive, hand-painted red and orange silk scarf, folded to offer only the tiniest bit of color to her outfit. Rather, Helen thought the unremarkable outfit served as camouflage, deflecting attention from her to whomever she was standing near.

  Helen almost looked past her until it dawned on her that they'd met. It had been a few years ago when she'd gone along on some guided tours at successful casinos when her ex-husband was being wooed by the gaming industry to endorse the pending legislation to legalize gambling in Massachusetts. The woman who'd just emerged from the car, Nora Manning, had represented the gaming industry during those tours, making sure that any negative impressions were immediately over-written with positive ones. She'd dressed much the same then, in a nondescript suit enlivened only by a small splash of color in the form of a silk scarf tied in ways that would make a champion origami artist jealous.

  Next, out popped an athletic young man in a much more eye-catching version of Nora's suit. It was a little too fussy for Helen's own taste, but it probably had some famous designer's label inside and would look dated next year, if not sooner. He carried a shiny, wafer-thin, top-of-the-line laptop. He wasn't old enough to be the professional poker player and was more likely to be his personal assistant, Art Hendricks.

  Finally, a tall man in his late fifties emerged, enveloped in a ground-sweeping cape in a shockingly bright purple. He led the little group along the uneven path, his purple sneakers a better choice for walking on the crumbling concrete than either Nora's high heels or the assistant's shiny wingtips.

  Helen opened the annex door for him. "You must be Victor Rezendes. I'm Helen Binney. We're so pleased you could be here today."

  "Call me Vic." He swept the cape back in order to shake Helen's hand.

  Nora's face had gone from startled recognition of Helen, to confusion over the new last name, and then back to a professional, bland mask. "Mr. Rezendes is delighted to share his expertise with his new home community. I don't know if you remember me. I'm Nora Manning." "Of course," Helen said before turning to Rezendes. "We've got a quiet space set up for you to wait until it's time to speak, just as you requested."

  "Whatever." Vic followed Helen into the library with the rest of his little entourage trailing behind him.

  The greenroom was stocked with the requested M&Ms, a cooler full of Fierce Grape Gatorade, and three sets of KEM brand 100% plastic playing cards. At least there hadn't been a demand that the cards be purple. They'd been expensive enough in standard colors, and her only consolation was that if Vic would autograph the boxes before he left, then she could raffle them off for more than the purchase price to benefit the library. Unless, of course, Vic planned to take them home to stock his new poker room. His assistant hadn't said what they were for, just that they were an absolute precondition to Vic's appearance today.

  Vic, however, didn't seem to notice any of Helen's preparations. He tossed his dramatic cape onto a chair, revealing his massive stomach and skinny legs. He wore purple denim jeans with a matching purple sweatshirt over a lavender turtleneck. Even Laura, at the peak of her pre-teen, pink-and-purple phase, would have thought the outfit was a bit too much of a good thing.

  "How big's the audience?" he asked.

  "It's still early, and I left before more than a handful of people had arrived." Helen pushed the door open. "I can go get a head count, though, if you'd like."

  "Doesn't really matter." Vic wandered over to the table where the refreshments—all purple, of course—were laid out. At least he wouldn't have to worry about the grape drink leaving stains on his equally grape-colored shirt.


  A voice called out from the open doorway. "Mr. Rezendes, I'm Geoff Loring. With the Wharton Times. I've been trying to contact you to set up an interview ever since you bought a house here."

  Geoff was blond and still baby-faced as he approached the age of thirty. He'd once had Pulitzer aspirations, but after his arm was broken last spring by thugs trying to discourage him from investigating the murder of Helen's first visiting nurse, he'd focused exclusively on human-interest pieces, leaving the investigative reporting and other potentially dangerous investigations to other reporters. Interviewing a minor celebrity whose most dangerous trait was his obsession with the color purple was right up Geoff's alley.

  Then Helen noticed the tension on Nora's face. What was it that she and her employers were so afraid that Vic might do or say to Geoff? And how would poor Geoff react if he blundered into an unexpected confrontation?

  "Happy to be interviewed. After the speech, though." Vic looked up from the bowl of M&Ms he'd been studying, as if trying to decide which of the identical little pieces he wanted and which ones were somehow not as desirable. "I don't suppose you play?"

  Helen let out the breath she'd been holding in unison with Nora.

  "Sorry," Geoff said. "Never got the hang of card games."

  Vic nodded absently and went back to studying the M&Ms while Geoff accepted his dismissal and left to get a seat in the meeting room.

  Vic carried his Gatorade and bowl of M&Ms over to the table with the stack of card sets. He opened one box, pulled out a deck, and began shuffling the cards.

  His assistant glanced at Nora, as if for permission, and then hustled Helen over to a corner. He spoke just above a whisper. "Don't worry. He's going to be fine today. Shuffling the cards helps him to relax."