The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(61)

How was I going to keep him talking? I could see Kurt giving me a baleful look, but I wasn’t finished yet. He was just going to have to wait his turn to yell at me.

“You don’t want anyone to think that you had something to do with whatever happens to her next, do you?” I asked.

“I didn’t do anything!” he said, his tone strained.

“Of course you didn’t. But that’s not how it might look to others, especially if she gets into trouble. Do you know if she was involved with drugs? Or if she had financial problems?” I was racking my brain, trying to think of reasons that Carrie was behaving this way, and at the same time trying to make sure Will didn’t hang up.

“I didn’t see any drugs while she was here, but she claimed she didn’t have a credit card and she didn’t bring any money. Like I said, she was all about what she needed from me.”

“Did she tell you anything that might be useful in trying to track her down and make sure she isn’t hurt?”

“She didn’t tell me anything that wasn’t a lie, or so it sounds like from what you’re saying. She wasn’t anything like she seemed online. She was always wanting to stay inside, keeping blinds closed, and refusing to talk.”

“You met her online? How long have you known her?”

“About two years, I guess,” he said.

And how much of that did Jared Helm know about? Did that affect the way he’d reacted when she asked him to drop her off at the bus station? Was that the reason he hadn’t let her take anything with him? Had he forced her to cut herself off from her daughter?

I kept hearing Alex Helm’s voice in my ears, the word “whore” echoing. If she’d had a relationship with another man while she was married, it might not matter to him whether or not it involved actual physical sex.

“Did you meet in person before she came to stay with you?” I asked.

“A few times,” he said.

So. There it was. This was who Carrie had become, or maybe who she had always been. I wouldn’t call her a whore, but I hated the thought that Alex Helm might have seen some truth about her that I had not.

She was alive, I kept telling myself. That was the important thing. But it seemed that Jared was more and more the wronged husband here, just as he had always claimed.

“And she left recently?” I asked.

“Last night. And I really don’t want to talk to the police about this. Or her husband.”

Of course he didn’t.

I thanked him briefly, made no promises, and hung up. The cell phone beeped at me that its battery was low again, and I went upstairs to plug it in.

When I came back down, Kurt was waiting for me in the kitchen with some lemonade. “You know we have to tell the police what you found out. They need to know where she’s been all this time,” he said. “And that she’s not in danger. Her parents need to know.”

“It will only make it look worse for Carrie,” I said.

“You mean like Jared looks right now?” said Kurt.

I thought about it, but in the end, it was the image of Kelly’s face that decided me. It was Kelly who was the most vulnerable. Carrie was an adult, or at least she ought to be one. After what I’d found out, I couldn’t see her as the victim.

“She isn’t there anymore,” I said. “In Las Vegas.”

“But she was there? Since she disappeared?” said Kurt.

I nodded. “It sounded like she went to him as soon as she got off the bus.” Though I hadn’t asked Will that directly.

“Then we have to tell the police. We have to give them the cell phone you found. Where did you find it, by the way?” said Kurt. His eyes narrowed.

“In the basement of the Helm home when I went over there yesterday. All her things have been bagged up,” I said. And somehow the police hadn’t found it. Had they not been looking very hard?

“Hmm,” said Kurt. “That makes it trickier. The police might not be able to use it as evidence if it was stolen.”

Irrationally, I was annoyed with Kurt. Why did he have to take my victory away from me? “I’ll take it back,” I said. “And after that video footage of Carrie getting on the bus, no one thinks she is dead anymore.”

“What about her parents?”

“I’ll call them,” I said. “Just give me a little time.”

“All right, Linda. You know I trust you,” he said, and I was glad he didn’t add the proviso, “most of the time,” which I was sure he must be thinking.

He went to bed, and seemed to expect that I’d do what he said on Thursday. But I didn’t. I kept the phone and I didn’t call the Westons. Not yet. I just felt this niggling sense that things weren’t quite what they seemed to be. Or maybe it was that I wanted Carrie to be better than she was. She’d been a good mother, I thought, and she’d been an interesting thinker. I hated to imagine that I had been so duped, and it was worse somehow to be duped by another woman than by a man.


FRIDAY MORNING, WHILE Kurt was at work, I watched the news. It was a rather lurid report, late-breaking, with innuendos and nasty laughter from the reporters. Jared Helm had been cleared of any wrongdoing in his wife’s disappearance, and Carrie Helm had been with a lover in Las Vegas. After this revelation, which had had nothing to do with me or Carrie’s cell phone, the police were no longer actively searching for her or information about her.