Money Matters: A Helen Wiels Mystery, #2

By Rebecca A. Engel

A new city. A new job. A new threat to her life?

Helen Wiels has moved to San Francisco for her new job with a private society. She's still having trouble living up to the mispronounciation of her surname, which makes it sound as if she's 'Hell-on Wheels.' The reticent librarian hasn't been able to completely adopt that persona yet, but at times her alter-ego, the forthright and outspoken 'Hell-on,' has come in handy.

Life in the city on the bay was not turning out the way Helen had expected. What seemed like a generous salary was proving to be less than adequate, even though she'd rented an apartment almost too small for one person. The dank, dark basement space where she has to work would make even a coal minor wary.

Helen feels she has no choice but to put up with it all; she needs the job and she's signed a lease. Then she discovers a dead body in her workspace... and unfortunately soon learns that won't be the worst thing to happen to her in San Francisco.

This cozy mystery with a romantic twist is the second book in the Helen Wiels Mystery series.

Books in the Helen Wiels Mystery series:

Past Matters, Book 1

Money Matters, Book 2

Life Matters, Book 3

Relative Matters, Book 4

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebecca A. Engel
• Release date: Nov 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519985187

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Helen Wiels’ hand shook as she wrote the check for the first and last months’ rent and the security deposit. It seemed like that sum would have paid for an entire year’s room and board at the rooming house she’d lived in during her short tenure at the library in Hinckley, Wisconsin. She wasn’t sure that was true, but her anxiety over writing such a large check made it impossible for her to do the math in her head at the moment.

She’d been so excited to be offered this job in San Francisco that she hadn’t thought to check what living expenses were like in this city. What she’d thought was a very generous salary appeared to be barely adequate. And that was when she was only considering paying the rent. What were food and utilities going to cost here?

Standing at the kitchen counter – if the scant eighteen inches or so of cheap laminate could be elevated to that status – Helen surveyed the apartment that was to be her home for the next year. It had been advertised as a 1-1/2, a designation she hadn’t been familiar with. Apparently in local real estate jargon, the small alcove at the rear of the space, large enough to hold a full-size bed and nothing else, counted as a half-room and gave the dwelling a higher ranking than that of a studio apartment. Tiny and cramped as it was, Helen knew she was lucky to find this place. The housing market was tight in this city. According to what she’d learned since arriving in San Francisco, certain ordinances gave renters more rights than the building owners, and some landlords had decided they’d rather have unoccupied apartments than risk getting a tenant who might take years to evict if any problems arose. Helen had been getting fearful that if she didn’t find an apartment soon, she’d end up living in her car; the rate at the decidedly inelegant motel where she was staying was so high, her savings were being depleted at an alarming speed.

Helen felt a start of guilt. She wouldn’t have any savings if it hadn’t been for the generosity of her last employer, Jackson Wagner, a business tycoon she’d never heard of before she got the job cataloging the library in his home. And what a home it was! Hidden away outside a small Wisconsin town, it had been built over a hundred years earlier by Jackson’s great-grandfather, and had been vaguely modeled on Blenheim Palace to appease the New York socialite Jackson’s great-grandfather had married at the end of the nineteenth century.

Helen shook her head. She didn’t want to think of what she had found out about that woman while working in that mansion. Instead, she looked at the check she’d written and had to hand over to the realtor, who was impatiently tapping her foot as she waited for Helen to do that. Slowly, Helen tore the check from the checkbook. She had to mentally force herself to hold it out to the realtor.

The realtor snatched it up, then looked at it sourly. This isn’t from a local bank, she complained. It will take at least three days for it to clear. I doubt the landlord will be willing to let you move in until it does.

Helen’s heart sank. That meant three more nights at that motel. It wasn’t so much that she minded it was little more than a few steps above some fleabag flophouse, it was that it cost, in her mind at least, almost as much as the exclusive spa hotels she had read about in guidebooks as she tried to familiarize herself with the city.

But she was being ridiculous. Those places could cost thousands a night. She had to keep things in perspective. At least she knew her check was good. Jackson had expected her job cataloging his library to take a year, but what he’d actually wanted was simple organization, and that had taken her a fraction of that time. Jackson was a generous man, she had quickly learned, and he had insisted on paying her the entire year’s salary, and added to that by buying her a car since hers had been on the verge of a complete breakdown. He’d let her keep the cell phone and laptop she’d used while working for him. Without him doing all that for her, the realtor and the potential landlord might have had good reason to wait for her check to clear, and it was highly doubtful it would have come close to clearing.

Something rose up inside her at the unfairness of having to wait for a perfectly good check to clear. She recognized what was happening at once: her alter-ego was trying to make herself known. Helen’s German immigrant parents had not realized that their surname of Wiels, which was correctly pronounced Veals, would generally be mispronounced as Wheels in the United States. This made it sound as if her name was ‘Hell-on Wheels.’ It was not a pun that went well with Helen’s naturally reticent personality; she was well-suited to her chosen profession of librarian, being quiet and studious. Yet Helen had found there was also something in herself that disliked her inherent meekness, and sometimes wanted to rebel against it. That was when she let what she thought of as her alter-ego, Hell-on Wheels, come to the forefront and surprise herself and those around her with her sudden assertiveness.

Hell-on was taking over. She reached out and plucked the check from the realtor’s hand. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable having a landlord who does not find me trustworthy, she said coolly. She – or make that Hell-on – was a little tempted to add more drama to the scene by ripping up the check. But the more sensible and pragmatic Helen was reluctant to waste a check in that manner, especially if she got her desired outcome from her less-than-compliant attitude, and the check would be accepted without a waiting period. She settled for dropping the small slip of paper into her purse.

Helen looked up in time to see the expression on the realtor’s face, a combination of regret and longing, as the check disappeared. Her commission for renting this apartment, such a sure thing moments ago, was rapidly flying out the window. Helen experienced a moment of pity for the realtor, but not so much pity that she retrieved the check from her purse and handed it over again.

Perhaps I can speak to the landlord, the realtor said. She’s a reasonable woman. She might decide to waive making you wait to move in.

Then why don’t you do that, Helen said, her voice cool. She reached into her purse and brought out, not the check, but the cell phone Jackson had given her. It was the kind of cell phone she’d never buy for herself, and capable of doing more things than Helen could possibly imagine. She flicked her finger across the screen to bring up the Internet. If I’m not going to rent this place, there are some other places I saw listed. I should call their agents.

I’ll be right back, the realtor said as she hurried out the apartment door.

Apparently, Helen noted, she was deemed trustworthy enough to be left alone in the apartment while the realtor sought out the landlord. It was a furnished apartment, with the most basic of furniture, and some accoutrements in the kitchen. Why wasn’t the realtor more concerned that she might open the kitchen drawers and steal the silverware? Helen took a half-step – the kitchen wasn’t that large of an area – and was at what she figured was the silverware drawer. She pulled it open and found she was right. The badly beaten-up utensils residing in the drawer looked like they might have been stolen from some run-down greasy spoon and then run over by a couple trucks before they’d arrived in this apartment. That could be why her trustworthiness wasn’t being called into question now.

Helen had a sudden revelation. This could be the kind of situation she had heard rumors about, something that usually happened when someone was buying a new car or some large appliance. If the shopper had the audacity to try to bargain for a better price, the salesperson, or so the story went, often disappeared into a back room to discuss the possible reduced price with the manager. Rumor mills insisted, however, that the manager didn’t exist, that the salesperson simply stayed out of sight long enough to convince his customer that he had fought a valiant battle on the customer’s behalf.

Was something like that going on? Was her realtor not on the top floor talking to the landlady, but lingering in the hallway, or outside smoking a cigarette – Helen thought she’d detected the scent of tobacco on the realtor’s clothing – while Helen was supposed to believe she was convincing the landlord to let her move in before her check cleared? Or was she doing something eminently more sensible, like calling the Wisconsin bank where Helen had her funds to see for herself if the check was good?

That would mean, of course, the realtor would have had to memorize the name of the bank and its location in the brief moments she’d had the check in her hand. Helen supposed such a thing was possible, though she wasn’t sure if she herself could do that.

Good news! The realtor was wearing a beaming smile as she came through the door. It was fine with her! You can move in today if you want – rent free, no less! she trilled. There are two more days until the start of the new month, and she’d rather have someone in the place than let it stand empty. You should count yourself as lucky!

Helen glanced at her watch. She would do that if she could get back to her motel to check out before she’d be charged for another day. But there was one more matter to attend to first. What about parking? she asked. Is there a space available in the garage?

The building rose three stories high, and was long and narrow. As a tenant, Helen was going to be sharing the ground floor with the building’s garage. Each of the two floors above her was comprised of one apartment. Each of those apartments was far more spacious than her own, since more than half her floor was ceded to the garage and hallway. The realtor had already mentioned that the second-floor apartment was occupied by ‘a sweet little old lady’ who rarely left the house, so Helen doubted she had a car. In order to reach her own apartment Helen had to walk down a long hallway to the back half of the building. The garage was on the other side of that hallway. While the garage was a little more than the width of one car, it ran the length of the house. It should be long enough to hold at least two cars if they were parked in tandem.

Oh, I’m sorry, the realtor said without sounding the least bit sincere. The landlady uses both parking spaces herself.

One person has two cars? Helen asked.

That’s right, the realtor said cheerfully. She’s a widow, and one of the cars belonged to her late husband. She’s keeping it strictly for sentimental reasons.

Helen didn’t want to think about what that might imply when a car was concerned, especially if she were to discover the car dated back to the landlady’s younger years.

There is street parking, though there could be times when it’s a little hard to find a space. The realtor was apparently willing to admit that because she knew that the deal was going through. But you’re lucky in a way. This neighborhood doesn’t use that system where you park on one side of the street on certain days. If you get a good space and don’t need to take your car out for anything, you can leave it where it is for days on end. And didn’t you tell me that you work in this area?

That’s right, Helen said. My job’s not that far, not quite a mile. I’ll be able to walk there easily from here.

So this place is perfect for you! the realtor said with a big phony grin. She held out her hand. Your check, please. Helen took it from her purse, handed it over, and received the keys to the apartment in exchange. Do you need a ride back to my office?

Helen suppressed an eye roll. Considering she had left her car at the realtor’s office and ridden here with the realtor, being forced to listen once again to her never-ending font of San Francisco trivia, of course she needed a ride back; why had the woman asked? Yes, thank you.

The realtor wasted no time in driving them back to her office, and Helen did the same on the brief drive from there to her motel. She’d been living, literally, out of her suitcases, so getting packed took moments. She got to the office to settle her bill a full fifteen minutes before check-out time, congratulating herself on saving another night’s charge.

Leaving us so soon? the clerk asked without expectation of a reply. She didn’t look at Helen, but at the room number embossed on the tag on her key. There seemed to be a heavy turnover at this motel, and since Helen suspected that at least some rooms were rented on an hourly basis, she was glad to be leaving sooner rather than later.

The motel didn’t take checks, so she paid her bill with a large portion of what was left of her cash on hand. She had to find a bank near her new place and get her funds transferred from Wisconsin soon.

What else did she need to do? Helen wondered as the clerk seemed to take an extraordinarily long time to finish the paperwork. She’d have to inventory what the apartment came with and see what she would have to add to it. More expenses, she thought, cringing inwardly.

Finally the clerk gave her a receipt and wished her a nice day. Helen headed to the parking lot and her car, which never failed to make her think of Jackson. She got in and started it, then pulled out onto the street, hoping she could remember the route that her realtor had taken when they went to look at the apartment. A street map was another thing she’d have to get; the map of San Francisco in the atlas she’d used to drive from Wisconsin to California wasn’t detailed enough.

She found her way to her new street, and found a parking spot two houses down from her new home. She parked, and remembered to turn her wheels toward the curb on the sloping street. She’d read in a brochure she’d picked up at the realtor’s office that to not do that could earn her a ticket and a fine. That, at least, was one expense she could avoid.

Helen got out of her car and got one of her suitcases out of the trunk, deciding to take her luggage inside in two trips. It would be easier on her back that way. Outside her new home, she stood on the sidewalk and looked up. The building was, technically, three stories high, but because it was built on a hill, a portion of the ground floor was at street level, while the area of the building where the garage was located was partially underground, with a downward-sloping short driveway leading to its door. While riding in the realtor’s car heading back to her office, Helen had asked about the date of construction of this house. The realtor had confirmed that it had been built shortly before the start of the twentieth century, which made it about the same age as Jackson’s home, but that was all that they had in common.

Jackson’s home resembled a palace, built of stone with a cathedral-like front door, and wings spreading out from either side of the structure. There had been spacious grounds, lovely gardens, a maze, and a private lake. This building was narrow and constructed of utilitarian clapboard. It had nondescript windows with no sign of the stained or leaded glass many homes of its era displayed. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, one of the lovely Victorian houses that graced this city. As Helen looked at the stairs that led to the second and third floors, she was suddenly glad she was going to reside on the ground level. The stairs appeared rickety, at best, as if they might shake and sway dangerously if you climbed them. It might not be her age but the condition of the stairs that kept the old lady who lived above her from leaving her home often.

Helen figured out which key opened the outer ground floor door by a trial-and-error method. When she discovered which key worked, she knew she’d be going through the process again for the apartment door, since all the keys looked alike. She remembered reading you could mark keys with nail polish to distinguish which was which. But she didn’t want to have to buy three different colors since she wasn’t all that fond of wearing nail polish, and multiple bottles would be useless to her. Then she realized she could buy one bottle and use a different number of dots on the keys to distinguish them from each other.

Helen dragged her suitcase down the long hall toward her apartment’s front door. The hallway smelled faintly of exhaust fumes and gasoline. At least she hadn’t noticed that smell when she was inside the apartment earlier. Were the walls not fully insulated along this hallway, and had the landlady used her car in Helen’s absence? That might be why she could smell that noxious odor here.

She found the front door key on her second try and threw the door open triumphantly. She stepped inside and immediately tried not to feel claustrophobic. The apartment hadn’t seemed quite this small when she first looked at it. Did it seem smaller now because she had been thinking of Jackson’s home and the suite he had given her as her accommodation there? Why, her bathroom alone had been larger than this whole apartment. That might have been because it had been a bedroom transformed into a bathroom, or at least that was what she had surmised when she saw how spacious it was.

Helen dragged the suitcase to the sleeping alcove. There was no place to put it but on the bed. The mattress itself was new; it was wrapped in plastic. That had been one of the realtor’s selling points, that she would be the first person to have slept on this bed. Helen, raised by parents who had always looked for the storm clouds rather than their silver lining, had wondered why the previous mattress had to be replaced. She certainly hoped it wasn’t because of a bedbug infestation. She’d read a lot about them and knew that replacing a mattress wouldn’t be enough to be rid of them. They could hide in baseboards and crevices, staying dormant for ages, and coming out when there was new prey to be had. She didn’t want to experience that.

Helen shook her head to rid it of that thought. She was determined to break away from the pessimism of her upbringing. Instead of worrying about what nasty little things might lurk in this apartment, she’d start to execute her plan of taking an inventory to determine what she was going to need to live comfortably here, then prioritize the items so as to not break her budget in one fell swoop.

First things first. She couldn’t sleep on the plastic wrap on the mattress. Did sheets or any kind of bed coverings come with this apartment? She hadn’t thought to ask. At the rooming house where she’d lived in Wisconsin during her first job, sheets and towels had been included with her board. At Jackson’s manor, the bed was already made up when she was taken to her suite on her arrival, and the cleaning crew, as inefficient as they had turned out to be, had changed her bed during their visits. She hadn’t given sheets, pillows, or towels a thought since she’d finished graduate school. Whatever had happened to the ones she’d had then? Although it hadn’t been that long ago, it took her a moment to remember that she had sold them to the girl who was going to take over her spot in the apartment she’d shared with three other girls during grad school. A bit of regret filled her. She’d sold the bedding for a small amount, she recalled, far, far less than she was going to have to pay to replace it.

Unless she didn’t have to do that. There was a door outside the tiny bathroom; when she opened it, she could find a completely stocked linen closet.

No such luck; its shelves were bare. Helen went to her purse to get the small notebook she kept in it, and a pen, and jotted down sheets, towels, pillows, blanket. A comforter or bedspread would be nice, but that could wait. It wasn’t as if she knew anybody in this city; she wouldn’t be bringing home anyone who would see her lack of amenities and think her parsimonious.

By the time she finished her inventory, Helen was glad the apartment was so small. Despite its miniscule size, her list was pretty horrifying when she looked at it in terms of what all this stuff was going to cost. There’d been very little here, a few plates and that beat-up silverware, one pot, one frying pan, and one badly chipped glass. Had the realtor said this apartment’s furnishings were such that it was essentially a turn-key unit, or had that been some other apartment, one of the many that had been completely out of her price range? Barely furnished described this apartment more accurately. The living area was so small, it held a love seat rather than a couch, and one additional chair, which was none-too-sturdy looking. The corner of the room that served as a kitchen had a dinette set barely big enough for two to sit at, so her lack of friends in this city could be a good thing. The bedroom – make that the sleeping alcove – was too small for anything other than the bed, and had neither lamp nor ceiling fixture to illuminate the space. Helen also discovered that the one lamp in the living area had been denuded of its bulb by the previous tenant.

For a moment, she thought about stopping payment on her check and finding some other place to live. But she’d been looking all week, and this was the best place she’d seen in her price range. Had her tenure at Jackson’s palatial home spoiled her for the real world that quickly? The suite she’d had at Jackson’s home had been larger than the entire floor of this house, including the garage and that hallway. But she had no need for that much space here. She’d be at work most of the time anyway.

Work. She didn’t want to think about that. What she needed to do was bring in her other suitcase so she could fill the car with whatever she deemed most necessary to buy today. And she’d better get a move on, so she could get her shopping done before people started coming home from their weekend outings and started filling up all the parking spaces on the block.

Helen remembered the realtor driving by a shopping plaza on the way to show her this apartment. She found it after a few wrong turns, and was happy to note that the plaza had a national chain store that was known for being reasonably priced. It had the added advantage of selling food along with clothing and household items. One-stop shopping meant she might be done sooner than she hoped.

She was, but mostly because she kept careful track of what she was putting in her cart so she wouldn’t end up in the embarrassing situation of telling the checkout clerk she’d have to take some items off her bill. She did have to find a bank and soon, as this trip would almost decimate her cash.

When she’d walked into the store, an employee urged her to ‘sign up today’ for a store credit card which would give her a discount on every purchase she made from then on. That had made her ears perk up, but when Helen discovered the discount was minuscule, she declined the offer. Saving fifty cents on every ten dollars she spent wasn’t worth the risk of spending carelessly because of the ease of using a credit card. And being careful with money was one of the few things from her upbringing which she wanted to maintain.

Helen wasn’t quite as lucky with parking when she returned to her new street. At least she was on her block, but at the far end of it. It took two trips to transfer everything from her car to her apartment. Soon all her purchases covered every available surface in the room. As she looked at everything, she knew she should wash her new sheets and towels before she used them – but where was there a laundromat? Why hadn’t she thought to ask the realtor about that?

Her cell phone chirped. She’d set a special ring tone for Jackson, so she knew it wasn’t him. She dug the phone out of her pocket and looked at the caller ID. It was a local number, she saw from the area code. Someone must have misdialed because she didn’t know anyone in this area.

It turned out she’d forgotten that she did know someone: her realtor. Are you going to be in for a little bit? I’d like to stop by to drop off your copy of the lease and some other papers.

I’ll be here. And I’ll have some questions for you about where to find things when you get here.

When the realtor arrived, they took care of the paperwork first. What did you want to know about?

I need a laundromat, Helen said.

The other woman laughed. Why would you need one of those?

I’ve been shopping, Helen said with a nod toward the bags sitting on the plastic-encased mattress. I want to wash the sheets and towels I bought.

The realtor gave her forehead a mock slap. I guess I forgot to tell you. Follow me – but I’ll need your keys. She led Helen to the door in the back of the apartment, the door Helen assumed led to the building’s minuscule back yard. But it didn’t; it led to a tiny rear foyer that had a door leading to the outside. That door had a window in it. There was also a second door, windowless, on the wall perpendicular to the outside door. No wonder there had been so many keys on that ring. Helen had assumed the extra keys were duplicates, but the realtor used one of them to open the solid door to reveal a laundry room with a single washer and dryer.

You’re lucky, the realtor told her. The landlady and the other tenant have to carry their laundry down the back stairs to use these machines. It’ll take you a few steps to get there, and you don’t have to go outside at all.

Was this laundry room part of the garage at one time? Helen asked. The drywall that partitioned the room from the garage was unpainted. The room had cheap-looking self-stick tiles on the floor. The machines, she noticed, were coin-operated, like those in a laundromat.

It certainly looks that way.

But you can’t get into the garage from here, Helen observed. There was no door in the drywall leading into the garage.

That’s right. The access to the garage is via the garage door. No one but the owner has a key to that door. She handed the key ring back to Helen.

Helen looked at the keys, then started counting them off. Outside front and back doors, apartment front and back doors, laundry room door. There’s one more key here. What’s that for?

The realtor reacted with another mock slap to her forehead. I was remiss with you, wasn’t I? Come on, I’ll show you.

She led Helen back into her apartment, out its front door, and into the long hall. There were three doors in the wall opposite the garage wall; Helen had paid scant attention to them earlier. Each apartment has its own storage closet here, she said. This one’s yours. She indicated the door closest to Helen’s apartment door. Extra storage like this is almost unheard of in this town. I can’t believe I didn’t tell you about it. She tried keys until she found the right one, and threw open the door. The closet was about twice as wide as its door, and it appeared deep, although it was almost too dark inside to tell.

No light? Helen asked.

No, but you could use a flashlight or put a lamp on an extension cord and bring it into the hall to help you see inside, the realtor suggested. Was there anything else?

Helen asked about the location of grocery stores – the chain store where she’d shopped did sell food, but their selection wasn’t extensive – and gas stations, the post office and a dry cleaner. She also asked the names of her landlady and the upstairs tenant.

The owner is Rita Hanover. The old lady – I know her first name’s Lydia, but her last name escapes me. It’s probably on her mailbox.

Where are the mailboxes?

On the landing one floor up. It isn’t a full flight because the stairs are on the high end of the building, she said, referring to the way the house was situated on a hill. There was no place to put the mailboxes at street level. I’m sure you won’t find that problematic, a young girl like you. A flight of stairs is nothing to someone your age.

Helen half-smiled. It was true the stairs wouldn’t be a problem, but Helen was sure she was being patronized.

If there’s nothing else... the realtor said in a tone that implied she hoped there wouldn’t be.

No.

I hope you enjoy the place, the realtor said as she headed for the front door.

Helen – or was it Hell-on? – noted that there was no suggestion that Helen call the realtor if she ran into any problems with the apartment, but then Helen guessed that would fall under the landlady’s jurisdiction. She wondered when she would meet that woman.

~ ~ ~

Helen was exhausted as she walked to work the next morning.

It wasn’t that her new bed was uncomfortable or that the apartment made her feel claustrophobic. It had been the strangeness of the surroundings and the unaccustomed noises, from both inside and outside the building, that had kept her up most of the night. At least after her almost sleepless night, she could probably look forward to a good night’s sleep tonight, simply because she’d be too tired for any noises to bother her.

But before that could happen, she had to get through today.

This marked the start of her second week on the job. Her new employers had been eager for her to start, and she had accommodated them, starting her job before she’d found a permanent place to live.

At least she wasn’t heading off to the first day on a new job feeling as if she’d be able to curl up and fall asleep in a nanosecond. And at least she knew what was expected of her, and she knew, too, that she was able to do it.

Then why were her footsteps getting slower the closer she got to her workplace?

The building she worked in was spectacular. Although it currently housed the Descendants of the 49ers Society, it had once been a mansion – not as large or as wonderfully appointed as Jackson’s, but quite remarkable. It was constructed of a dark gray stone and took up most of a city block. It was filled with architectural treasures – Tiffany glass windows, vaulted ceilings with hand-carved corbels and support beams, inlaid floors in both wood and marble. Going there each day should have been a pleasure.

It wasn’t.

The men she worked for were all nice, and treated her with respect and kindness. They were also as old as the hills. She didn’t have to worry about any kind of sexual harassment from them or other inappropriate behavior, though she was the sole female on the premises.

The work she was doing wasn’t all that appreciably different than what she had done in Jackson’s library. A society member had died earlier in the year, and his will had specified that his collection of books was to go to the society. Her job was to catalog and shelve those books. She was perfectly capable of doing that, though, by the roughest estimate, there could be as many as fifty-thousand books in that collection.

The society, however, didn’t plan on keeping them all. They hoped the collection would contain a substantial number of books related to California history, and especially books about the Gold Rush. Their plan was to form a specialized library within the society building devoted to that subject. The rest of the books would either be sold or donated to some charity. Helen knew she could handle doing that too.

What she couldn’t handle was where they had her working: in a dank, perpetually chilly basement. The basement seemed to have more than its fair share of spiders, along with rustling noises that might indicate the presence of some kind of rodents. She hoped they were mice, because the idea that they might be rats was too terrifying to consider.

Helen hated that basement.

In Jackson’s library she had spent each day with a view of his lovely landscaping and gardens. And often, working on those grounds and in that garden was the equally lovely landscaper, Nicholas Conner, who had turned out to be a second half-cousin to Jackson due to some previously unknown family permutations far in the past. Conner was down and out the handsomest man Helen had seen, on the screen or in person.

There was no such compensation in her current working quarters.

When she’d started working at Jackson’s, Helen had been diligent at reminding herself she might never work in such surroundings again. Besides the beautiful house and the suite she’d been provided to live in as a perquisite of the job, the grounds contained a private lake which Helen, as an avid rower, had used with great regularity. She hadn’t expected to find such amenities in her next job, or in any future job she might hold.

But she also hadn’t expected to work in a modern-day equivalent of a coal mine: dark, dank, and scary.

Finding that was what she was doing made her feel as if taking the job in San Francisco had been a terrible mistake. She’d been so anxious to find work that she hadn’t given this job the minimum due diligence: she hadn’t made sure the salary was sufficient for the cost of living in the area, or ascertained that the conditions under which she would work were acceptable to her.

She was paying the price for that neglect. Dread overwhelmed her as she approached her workplace. As she once again took in the building’s facade, she had to admit that it was an astonishing place. It was also amazing that not once in her life but twice she was working in a mansion. Although this building wasn’t anywhere near as large as Jackson’s, Jackson’s was built way out in the country where obtaining enough land to build that faux palace was not a problem. This home had been built in a city – or it probably wasn’t exactly in the city at the time it had been built, but back then, obtaining the land for the building probably hadn’t been a minor thing.

Helen grinned at her unintended pun. It had been a ‘miner’ thing, because the man who’d built it was one of the miners who’d struck it rich at Sutter’s Mill. Helen didn’t know much more about the California Gold Rush than what had been in her grade school history books, but it was astonishing to think that both Jackson’s great-grandfather and the builder of this San Francisco mansion had made their fortunes from a product available through nature – trees for Jackson’s great-grandfather, and gold for the miner. It was also equally astonishing that those fortunes had been so vast that they were to this day providing income for their descendants.

Except the builder of this mansion had no more descendants, which was why his last descendant had left it to the Descendants of the 49ers Society. From what Helen had garnered from her encounters thus far with the group of men who ran the society as an avocation, the number of descendants from the original miners was rapidly diminishing. This was due in large part to many of the descendants remaining life-long bachelors or spinsters. Cynically, Helen wondered if the remaining descendants’ eventual deaths would perpetuate a scramble of people trying to make claims on their estates and fortunes as heretofore unknown or unacknowledged illegitimate descendants of the long-deceased gold miners.

Helen sighed as she climbed the steps leading to the mansion’s entry. She had been rather surprised that they had so readily given her a key to the building when she started working last week. Jackson had also given her keys to his home right away, but she was going to be living on the premises and needed the keys so she wouldn’t be a prisoner within its walls during her non-working hours. But when she had worked at the Hinckley library, getting a key was unheard of. Mrs. Cummings, the head librarian and her immediate supervisor, had looked like she was going to pass out when Helen inquired about getting a key after she had arrived at the library before anyone else for three days in a row, and was unable to get inside.

She didn’t have that problem here since she had keys. It was clear from the darkness behind the leaded glass of the front door that no lights were on inside the building, and she was once again the first to arrive. She pulled out the keys and let herself in. Helen locked the door behind her. There was no sense in leaving it unlocked when she was here alone; she had her own personal safety to watch out for. When the men arrived, they usually left the door unlocked, and they dealt with anyone who saw the plaque on the building and wandered inside to see what this building contained.

Helen headed toward the back of the house where the stairs to the basement were located. She didn’t like going down to that basement but found it was best to treat it the way you did when taking off a Band-Aid, by doing it quickly to get it over with.

She flipped the switch for the basement light before she opened the oak six-paneled door. That light, however, illuminated the stairs and nothing else. It was too bad there wasn’t a switch by the door that would light up the whole basement at once. Instead, it had to be done in a piecemeal fashion, with each section having its own separate light switch. As she headed down the stairs, she looked out into the darkness beyond the stairway light, wondering if she’d ever get used to working down there.

She was halfway down the flight before she looked toward the foot of the stairs. When she did, she froze mid-step.

At the bottom of the stairs lay a crumpled body.

CHAPTER TWO

Helen’s cell phone rang. She knew by the ring tone who it was. Hi, Jackson, she said. There was no use being coy by pretending she didn’t know it was him; he’d given her the phone and he knew what kind of features it had.

Hey, Helen, how was the start of your second week on the job?

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Helen said with a sigh as she settled into a corner of the love seat in her living area, then got up almost immediately and moved to one of the chairs of the dinette set. The love seat might turn out to be comfortable, but in sitting on it for that brief moment, she knew the upholstery was filthy. It would be another added expense she could ill afford, but she’d have to look into renting equipment that cleaned upholstery. That would be her project for this coming weekend. She’d try to find equipment that could clean both rugs and upholstery, she decided as she looked down doubtfully at the carpet beneath her feet; it was clearly in need of cleaning too.

Are you there? Jackson queried.

Sorry, I got distracted for a minute.

So what happened today?

I got to the building early, Helen started.

Jackson chuckled. That’s my girl. You were always eager to get to work when you were here, and worked far later than you should have.

Not anymore, and not in that basement, Helen thought grimly. The books I’m working on are stored in the basement. I started to go down there— Helen drew in a shuddering breath, and there was Mr. Harrison, dead at the bottom of the stairs.

Helen shivered as she remembered the sight. It was one of those instances where you see something, but can’t quite comprehend what you’re seeing. She hadn’t known who it was at first, because he’d landed in a way that didn’t show his face. She’d seen a white shirt, dark pants, white hair, and blood pooled around his head. She’d dropped her purse and raced down the stairs. One of his arms was flung outwards and she pressed two fingers against his wrist, feeling for a pulse. There was no warmth in his skin, and no life pulsing through his veins. She ran half-way up the stairs to get her purse, and dug through it for her cell. As she pulled it out, she suddenly couldn’t remember whether, when she dialed 9-1-1, it would call emergency services locally or if it would ring someplace back in Wisconsin. She continued up the stairs. There was a phone extension in the kitchen, and she called for help from there. Not that paramedics would be able to do Mr. Harrison any good. She had no medical training herself, but she was pretty sure he was beyond the help of the most advanced form of modern medicine.

She was proven right. The paramedics checked him, and apparently were confident enough about their findings to take Mr. Harrison out of the building in a body bag. The ambulance had driven off with no lights flashing or siren blaring, and at a sedate speed; there was no reason for them to rush.

Some of the board members who came to the mansion on a daily basis arrived while the paramedics were there. Helen had the unwelcome task of telling them of Mr. Harrison’s demise. They were saddened by the news, and surprised, but at their ages – Helen knew her estimations were probably off, but she thought they ranged from seventy to close to a hundred – losing one of their contemporaries was nothing new to them.

Not long after the paramedics left, a police detective showed up. Helen had the honor of being the first person he wanted to interview.

Not that he knew her by name. She had been the one to answer the door since the board members were in the study and apparently had not heard the doorbell. Helen opened the door to a man in a dark suit. He had a jaw line similar to that of a former late night talk show host, and wore a very serious expression. He flashed a gold shield at her too quickly for her to get a good look at it and said, Detective August Burns, S.F.P.D. I understand there was a suspicious death here this morning.

Had the paramedics called the police about it, or was that automatically done when she made the call to 9-1-1? Or could this be some kind of scam? Were there people who listened to emergency scanners, or followed any handy ambulance to see what they might get out of it? Had this man seen the body bag leave the building and correctly assumed there had been a death here? Was he here to see if, in any resultant confusion from the death, he might find something to pilfer? Helen didn’t know whether it was she or Hell-on who had asked, coolly, May I see your badge again, and some other form of identification?

Helen wasn’t quite sure if the look he shot her was that of respect or surprise. He made no protest at her request, but handed over his gold shield without hesitation, then reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his wallet and extracted his driver’s license.

Helen didn’t know what a S.F.P.D. detective’s badge was supposed to look like, but this one seemed genuine enough. It was fashioned out of a substantial piece of metal, certainly not something he got out of a gumball machine or bought in a toy store. She made a mental note of the badge number which was easy enough to do since all the numbers save one were the same. She handed the badge back and took the proffered license. The likeness it bore matched that of the man in front of her. Of course, if it were a fake, wouldn’t it do that anyway?

What precinct are you with? Helen asked. He gave her a number but it had been a foolish question; she didn’t know anything about police precincts in San Francisco, not if they went by numbers or by some naming system.

At least she wasn’t alone in the building. If there were some problem, all she had to do was shout. The old men might not offer much in the way of physical protection but they were all capable of using a phone to call 9-1-1 if need be.

Helen handed back the license. Who did you wish to talk to?

I’ll start with whoever found the body.

That would be me.

He gave her a once-over. You don’t look too upset by the experience.

I’ve had some time to adjust, Helen said.

Tell me what happened.

Helen did as asked.

Can I see the scene? It sounded more like a command than a request.

Helen led him through the house to the kitchen. I was going downstairs to work, she said, flipping the switch before opening the basement door, and Mr. Harrison was at the bottom of the stairs.

You work down there? Detective Burns asked, peering down the stairs. What are you, the laundress or something?

I’m a librarian, Helen said tightly.

They’ve got a library in the basement?

They have a great number of donated books down there. I’m cataloging them.

Sounds like fun, he said in a snarky tone.

About as much fun as chasing after dead bodies, I’m sure, Hell-on said before Helen could stop her. What if he took offense at those words? What kind of trouble could she get in for saying something like that?

But Detective Burns laughed, and said, Touché. Mind if I go downstairs and take a look around?

Helen didn’t think he needed her permission to do that, and he didn’t wait for her answer before heading down the stairs. Helen wasn’t quite in the mood to visit the place of Mr. Harrison’s death, so she stayed at the top of the stairs.

What was the old guy doing down here? Burns called up to her.

I have no idea.

He didn’t ask anything else, but Helen could hear him moving around down in the basement. She debated going down there to see what he was doing, but didn’t want to. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go down there again, ever. It had been bad enough with the dank and the darkness, the spiders, and those rustling sounds that could be rodents, but it was now also tainted with the memory of Mr. Harrison’s body at the bottom of the stairs.

She heard the detective coming up the stairs. When he reached the top, he said, So you’re cataloging those books, you said? Helen confirmed that with a nod. Doesn’t look like you got too far with it. There are a lot of boxes down there.

I started last week. Helen tried hard to keep any defensiveness out of her voice.

You didn’t know the deceased that well then?

I hardly knew him at all. He seemed like a pleasant-enough man, but I spend most of my time down in that basement, working by myself.

You don’t sound like you’re from around here, he commented.

I’m not, Helen said. I lived in Wisconsin before I moved here for this job.

He took that in with a slow nod. Is there anybody else around here for me to talk to?

The board members are in the study.

The board members of... he said leadingly.

The society that’s headquartered here. It’s officially called the Society of Descendants of the 49ers, she supplied.

I don’t suppose that refers to the football team. His grin transformed his somber face into something much more appealing.

Not at all. Helen found she was smiling too. Do you want me to see if they’re free to talk to you?

If you would, please.

Helen went