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Dead Man Talking

Daniels Casey (EN)

“He collected coins.”

As if she’d touched an electric line, Helen shot up in her chair. “My goodness! I’d almost forgotten. How on earth-”

“It must have been mentioned in one of those newspaper articles I read,” I told her.

“Well, they were right. Though it wasn’t a lifelong interest or anything. That was the thing about Jeff.” Her expression softened and a smile touched her lips. “He’d get it in his head to get a new hobby every once in a while. It was coins for a couple years, then model trains. I think he tried stamp collecting when he was a boy, too. I bet I still have some of the coins packed away in the attic. Not that they’re valuable or anything. At least not that I know of. A couple wheat pe

I didn’t, and even if I did, I didn’t want to explain about the coin at the grave. For all I knew, my team was guilty of something for not only digging up the coin, but for not turning it over to whoever we should have turned it over to before it got stolen.

“Just trying to get a sense of what kind of person he was,” I said. “You didn’t ever do things like… oh, I don’t know… like leave coins at his grave or anything, did you?” Helen laughed. “Good heavens, no! Jeff wouldn’t have liked that. He wasn’t cheap, but he was careful with our money. He would have called that a waste. And he wouldn’t have been happy about me visiting his grave, either. Not in that area of town. I did for a while, but…”

I knew what she was imagining: the beat-up neighborhood, the trash, the crime.

“I’m glad to hear you’re fixing the place up.” Helen rose, and I figured our interview was over, so I got up, too. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help. If there’s anything else I can do…”

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. If only I knew how to take her up on it. As I gathered my things, a thought occurred and I pounced on it.

“You said there were people who were jealous of your husband. Do you think-”

“That they’d arrange anything as elaborate as framing him for murder?” She cocked her head, thinking. “That would take a special kind of evil, wouldn’t it?”

“But you don’t think it’s totally impossible.”

She shook away whatever she was thinking and led me to the steps. “Sometimes my imagination runs away with me. But believe me, if I thought Le

It was the first she’d mentioned a name, and I wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass. “Le

“The assistant warden at Central State when Jeff was in charge. Le

This was interesting, and though it wasn’t likely I’d forget, I made a note of it on my legal pad. “I can’t say it would do any good, but I don’t think it would hurt to go talk to this Le

The news hit me like a punch to the stomach. “You mean, if I wanted to see him, I’d have to visit the prison to do it?”

Helen laughed. Maybe she wasn’t used to seeing anyone go instantly green at the mention of prison. She put a hand on my shoulder. “Not to worry,” she said. “I heard that Le

As I walked away and got back in my car, I breathed a sigh of relief. Sure I’d ended up with more questions than I did answers from my little talk with Helen Lamar, but was that such a bad thing? I had one more person to talk to, plus I’d dodged the prison bullet.

To my way of thinking, that made it a successful afternoon.

Helen laughed. “Good heavens, no! Jeff wouldn’t have liked that. He wasn’t cheap, but he was careful with our money. He would have called that a waste. And he wouldn’t have been happy about me visiting his grave, either. Not in that area of town. I did for a while, but…”