File M For Murder

Helen Louise shrugged. “Anything is possible. Ralph does have a temper. He tried to beat up one of Magda’s boyfriends once. Didn’t work out too well for him, though, because the guy was a jock and hurt Ralph enough to put him in the hospital.”

“If they have a history like that, then I reckon Kanesha must know all about it.” That thought cheered me. With two loons like that to consider, the deputy ought to look at Laura as a much less serious suspect.

“They’re well known to both the police and the sheriff’s departments,” Helen Louise said. “Not to mention their neighbors. I’d sure hate to live next door to them.”

“Why do people involve themselves with such obviously toxic relationships?” I was still puzzling over that. I just couldn’t understand it.

“Beats me.” Helen Louise massaged the sides of her neck with both hands. “Sorry, neck and shoulders are a bit tired.”

“No wonder, with all the baking you do.” She worked very hard, six days a week, plus long hours that started at five A.M. and didn’t end until seven in the evening when the bakery closed. “You need more help.”

“I know.” She sighed. “I keep meaning to advertise for someone, but there never seems to be enough time to get to it.”

“Plus finding someone who can meet your exacting standards.” I smiled at her.

“Some people do.” She smiled, a distinct twinkle in her eyes.

“The added benefit of having more help here and more time off means you could spend more time with friends, you know.”

Helen Louise nodded. “I do know. That’s certainly a powerful inducement.” She paused for a moment. “It sure would be nice to have something remotely resembling a personal life for the first time in years.”

I leaned forward and grasped her right hand. The strong, capable fingers rested lightly in my palm. “I couldn’t agree more.”

A faint flush appeared in Helen Louise’s cheeks, and she squeezed my hand. She started to speak, but the voice of her part-time helper interrupted. “Miz Brady, there’s something wrong with the cappuccino machine.”

I glanced to my left to see Debbie, an adenoidal high school senior, staring avidly at her boss’s hand, still in mine.

Helen Louise flashed me a wry grin and pulled her hand away as she stood. “All right, Debbie, I’ll come take a look at it.”

I stood also. “I’d better pick out dessert for tonight and head back home. They’ll all be wondering where I am.”

“Debbie, help Mr. Harris.”

The girl nodded at Helen Louise’s command. “Yes, ma’am. What would you like?” She headed behind the counter to the display case.

I walked over and stared at the contents for a moment, then pointed out one of the two remaining chocolate cakes. “I’ll take that one.”

While Debbie extracted the cake and prepared it for me to carry home, I watched Helen Louise fiddle with her cappuccino maker. “I’ll see you soon, I hope,” I said.

She turned to smile at me. “Definitely. And before I go to bed tonight, I’m going to have an ad ready to run in the paper.”

“Good.” We grinned at each other until Debbie called out to me that my cake was ready to go. I went to the cash register to pay and was soon on my way out the door, with one last glance back at Helen Louise. She was once again absorbed in her task while Debbie lounged at the cash register and stared into space.

On the brief drive home, I thought mostly about Helen Louise. We had known each other since childhood, and through high school and college she had been a good friend to both my late wife, Jackie, and me. We gradually lost touch when Helen Louise moved east to attend law school and Jackie and I married and moved to Texas for me to enter library school. The letters and cards dwindled to a trickle over the years, and on the increasingly infrequent occasions when I brought my family home to visit we never seemed to have the time to connect with many of our classmates. Helen Louise spent some of those years in Paris, and, with few family members of her own still in Athena, she’d rarely visited either.

She came back permanently and opened her bakery about three years before Jackie and my aunt Dottie died and I decided to move back myself. Getting to know her again after so many years helped ease some of the pains of transition into my new life, but I never expected our friendship to develop into something more. Sean and Laura appeared to be happy that I was seeing Helen Louise, and somehow I thought Jackie would be happy for me, too.

I woke from my happy daze as the car turned into my driveway. I blinked. I had driven home on autopilot, I supposed. My stomach did a little flip at the thought of what I might have done in my distracted state, but fortunately the traffic in Athena was never heavy in the late afternoon. I resolved to be more careful as I parked in the garage.