Deadly Deceptions. Linda Miller Lael

messy. The carpet looked clean, and there was no dust on top of the TV, which was muted but on, or beer cans on the coffee table. An electric picture of Jesus and the apostles in a boat filled most of one wall, but the plug was pulled.

      “That belonged to my mother,” Helen said fondly, having followed my gaze. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

      Before, I’d just felt sorry for Helen Erland. Now I began to like her. But I wasn’t stupid enough to dis a picture of Jesus, even if it did light up.

      “Mom treasured it,” Helen went on when I didn’t comment. “I keep it around because it reminds me of her.”

      I nodded. I barely remembered my own mother, since she’d died when I was small, but I’d just lost Lillian, and her ratty old chenille bathrobe was hanging in my closet at the apartment. I had her tarot cards, too.

      I understood about keeping things.

      “You want a beer or a soda or something?” Helen asked. She was a little nervous. Putting me on the trail of Gillian’s killer had probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I figured she was having second thoughts.

      “Diet cola, if you have it,” I said.

      Helen got up and pigeon-toed it into the kitchen. Her toenails glowed neon-pink.

      Gillian and I exchanged looks again.

      I signaled for her to leave the room.

      She shook her head and sat tight in the little rocker.

      “Tell me about your husband,” I said when Helen came back and handed me a cold can of soda. “I understand he was arrested for solicitation of a minor.”

      “That was before I met him,” Helen said. “And he said she came on to him, that girl.”

      I decided I’d never get the straight story on that from Helen, and made a mental note to look elsewhere. Like straight into Vince Erland’s eyes, when and if I got to speak to him. I did say, “Men sometimes lie about things like that.”

      Helen flushed. “Vince didn’t do it,” she reiterated. “He didn’t proposition a teenage girl, and he sure as hell didn’t kill Gillian.”

      “Let’s go back even further,” I said moderately, popping the top on the diet cola. Gillian’s last name was Pellway, not Erland, so there must have been an ex-husband or a boyfriend in the picture. “You were married before, right?”

      Helen tested her toenails for dryness and pulled the blue foam cushions out. Set them carefully on the end table beside the old leather recliner and sat down. A dull flush rose under her ears. “Yes,” she said. “To Benny Pellway. He’s doing twenty to life in the state pen for armed robbery.”

      I didn’t need to take notes. The Damn Fool’s Guide to a Photographic Memory. “He’s Gillian’s biological father?” I asked.

      Helen lifted her ponytail off her neck and fixed it to the top of her head with a pink squeeze-clip. “Yes,” she said.

      “Are there any other children in the family?”

      Helen shook her head, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “No,” she replied. “Vince and I were talking about having a baby, though.”

      “Where does Vince work?” I was miles behind the police, I knew, but I could still ask his fellow employees what kind of man he was. And it was always possible that Tucker and the others might have missed something.

      “He was between jobs,” Helen said. Her chin jutted out a little way, as though she expected me to denounce Vince Erland as a bum, and she was prepared to defend him.

      “How far between?” I asked.

      “He worked for a furniture company, delivering couches and stuff, until about six months ago,” she said. “Then he got downsized.”

      “Do you have any family pictures or albums or anything?” Except for Jesus and the disciples, the paneled walls were bare.

      Helen sniffled, got up out of the chair and opened the cabinet under the TV. Brought out several framed school photos of Gillian, along with a couple of thick albums.