Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont #25)(54)

The door was opened by a cherubic-looking little old lady with a ready smile and a halo of curly white hair. Appropriately dressed for the holiday season, she wore a bright red outfit trimmed with white fur. Somewhere in the background, I caught the aroma of freshly baked cookies.

“Mrs. Santa Claus, I presume?” I asked.

“That’s me,” she answered with a smile before glancing at her watch. “My granddaughter runs a day care,” she explained. “My cookies and I are due to make an appearance there in about an hour’s time, just before the kids go home. May I help you?”

I extracted a business card from my pocket and handed it over. “My name is J. P. Beaumont,” I told her. “I’m from Seattle, and I’m here investigating the 2006 disappearance of Danitza Adams’s then-boyfriend, Christopher Danielson. May I come in? This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“Of course,” she said, “but as I said, we can’t be long. I’ll need to leave soon.”

Over the course of my career, I’ve encountered some pretty dilapidated mobile homes, many of them so derelict as to be barely habitable. That was not the case here. Helen Sinclair’s home was tastefully decorated and neat as a pin, without a hint of dust anywhere in sight. Todd’s information on Helen had included the notation that she was a widow. Prominently displayed on the wall over the couch was a framed wedding picture. From the clothing and hairdos, I estimated that the wedding must have occurred sometime in the fifties. The sweetly smiling young bride barely came to the groom’s shoulders, and she couldn’t have been a day over eighteen.

“You and your husband?” I asked.

Helen nodded. “Michael and I were married forty-six years before he passed. He was a firefighter here in town. He was already in ill health and had been forced to retire when 9/11 happened. I think having to sit here day after day and watch those smoldering buildings on TV really got to him. I believe his not being able to do a single thing to help broke his heart. He passed away in his sleep in February of 2002.”

As I took a seat on the sofa, I did some quick math in my head and arrived at the conclusion that this sprightly Mrs. Santa Claus, who had to be somewhere in her early eighties, appeared to be far more healthy and vital than her former boss, the much younger Roger Adams.

“So what would you like to know about Chris Danielson?” she asked, settling into a worn recliner. “I knew of him, of course, but I never met the boy in person.”

Those were almost the same words Shelley Adams had used.

“But you did know Danitza?” I asked.

“And still do,” she replied. “I met Nitz almost as soon as she was born, while she and her mother were still in the hospital.”

“You’ve known the family that long?”

Helen nodded. “I went to work for Roger Adams when he was still single, fresh out of law school, and just opening his practice. I actually attended his and Eileen’s wedding. As for Danitza, I couldn’t have loved that girl more if she’d been my own grandchild.”

“So when the whole estrangement thing happened between Nitz and her parents, that must have bothered you.”

“It bothered me, all right,” Helen agreed. “I was really disappointed that Roger and Eileen treated Nitz as an outcast. She’s certainly not the only young woman in Homer to become pregnant out of wedlock. I thought Roger and Eileen should have done what the rest of us do under those circumstances, namely take their medicine and make the best of it, but they didn’t. As a friend of the family who also happened to be an employee, I had to keep those opinions to myself.”

“From what I’ve been able to learn, Roger was infuriated by Nitz’s pregnancy, and I have reason to believe that Roger might have been behind Chris’s disappearance.”

“I don’t doubt that a bit,” Helen agreed. “I believe Roger handed Chris a fistful of cash and suggested he go elsewhere.”

“You don’t think Roger might have done something more permanent?” I asked.

“As in kill him?” Helen asked. “Is that what you mean?”

I nodded.

“Absolutely not,” Helen declared. “Roger Adams may be an exceptionally stubborn and unforgiving man, but there’s not a murderous bone in his body. Roger has defended a killer or two over the years, but he could never be one.”

“So a bribe yes, but murder no?” I asked.

“That’s how I see it,” Helen said. “And you can’t really blame him. As far as husband and father material, Chris wasn’t a very likely prospect, and I’m sure Roger did what he felt was necessary in hopes of keeping his child from making what he regarded as a stupid, life-changing mistake.”

“You don’t fault Roger for that?”

“For shutting Nitz out his life?” Helen asked. “I certainly blame him for that, but when it comes to his having sent Chris packing, I don’t begrudge him that at all. Under similar circumstances, had I been in a position to pay the piper, I might have done the same thing.”

“Let’s talk about Danitza for a moment,” I said, changing the subject. “I understand you went to see her not long ago.”

“I did,” Helen said with a nod. “I felt as though she needed to be aware of what’s going on with her father.”