“I wouldn’t have called it in if I’d done it,” he said.
“But you discovered the body?”
“Yes.”
“And what were you doing here?” She pulled a small notebook and pen from her coat pocket, just like on TV.
“Helen and I were old friends.”
The pen paused over the page. “What’s that even mean?”
He’d been thinking it would be a nice change, not having to avoid the issue, not having to come up with a reasonable explanation for why he knew what he knew, dancing around the truth that he’d known Helen almost her entire life, even though he looked only thirty years old. Hardin knew what he was. But those half-truths he’d always used to explain himself were harder to abandon than he expected.
With any other detective, he’d have said that Helen was a friend of his grandfather’s whom he checked in on from time to time and helped with repairs around the house. But Detective Hardin wouldn’t believe that.
“We met in 1947 and stayed friends.”
Hardin narrowed a thoughtful gaze. “Just so that I’m clear on this, in 1947 she was what, twenty? Twenty-five? And you were—exactly as you are now?”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed friends with her all this time.”
“You say it like you think that’s strange.”
“It’s just not what I expect from the stories.”
She was no doubt building a picture in her mind: Rick and a twenty-five-year-old Helen would have made a striking couple. But Rick and the ninety-year-old Helen?
“Maybe you should stick to the standard questions,” Rick said.
“All right. Tell me what you found when you got here. About what time was it?”
He told her, explaining how the lights were out and the place seemed abandoned. How he’d known right away that something was wrong, and so wasn’t surprised to find her in the kitchen.
“She called me earlier today. I wasn’t available but she left a message. She sounded worried but wouldn’t say why. I came over as soon as I could.”
“She knew something was wrong, then. She expected something to happen.”
“I think so.”
“Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill an old woman like this?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
ONE NIGHT SHE CAME INTO THE BAR LATE DURING HIS SHIFT. THEY HADN’T set up a date so he was surprised, and then he was worried. Gasping for breath, her eyes pink, she ran up to him, crashing into the bar, hanging
on to it as if she might fall over without the support. She’d been crying.
He took up her hands and squeezed. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Rick! I’m in so much trouble. He’s going to kill me, I’m dead, I’m—”
“Helen! Calm down. Take a breath—what’s the matter?”
She gulped down a couple of breaths, steadying herself. Straightening, squeezing Rick’s hands in return, she was able to speak. “I need someplace to hide. I need to get out of sight for a little while.”
She could have been in any kind of trouble. Some small-town relative come to track her down and bring home the runaway. Or she could have been something far different from the fresh-faced city girl she presented herself as. He’d known from the moment he met her that she was hiding something—she never talked about her past.