Gin Jones - Helen Binney 01 - A Dose of Death by Gin Jones Page B

that the nurse would, at any minute, jump up and yell, “gotcha!” Oddly enough, she almost wished that would happen.
    The dispatcher said, “Are you still there?”
    “ Yes.” Helen could hear sirens in the distance. “She’s not breathing.”
    “ What about a pulse?”
    Helen knelt beside Melissa and placed two fingers on the woman ‘s neck. She felt nothing except cold—too cold—skin. Maybe Helen had missed the artery, though. She wasn’t a nurse, after all, and she couldn’t exactly ask Melissa how to find a pulse.
    Helen moved her fingers around the woman ‘s neck, searching for signs of life and finding nothing. A sharp pain in her hip forced her to change position. As she straightened, she realized the material of her pants was wet where she’d been kneeling on the grass. She glanced at her knee, and it took a moment to comprehend the reason for the damp red stain.
    Helen backed away from the body, absolutely convinced now that it was a body and not a person any longer.
    “There’s no way she has a pulse,” she told the operator. “I’m not a doctor, but I think she’d need a lot more blood inside her and a lot less of it soaked into the ground in order for her heart to beat.”                           

C HAPTER FOUR
     
    Confident there was nothing more she could do for Melissa, Helen retreated to her front porch steps and waited for the emergency personnel to arrive.
    All considered, it didn ‘t take long. Her cottage was on the farthest outskirts of the town, the entrance to the private road hid among dense trees, and the narrow gravel driveway offered a challenge even to a compact car.
    At the moment, there were two patrol cars and a fire truck all idling in Helen ‘s front yard, and the ambulance was rolling to a stop. The cottage hadn’t seen this many people all at once since the summer ten years ago when her ex-husband and most of his entourage had joined her here for a week. If Melissa’s spirit was lingering, it was probably gloating over her posthumous success in ensuring that Helen had plenty of visitors.
    Two men from the fire department still knelt beside Melissa ‘s body, although they seemed to have reached the same conclusion Helen had, and weren’t bothering with chest compressions or any other sort of first aid. When the ambulance crew arrived with a stretcher, they exchanged a few words with the firemen, punctuated by a lot of nods, a few head-shakes and several shrugs. Apparently in agreement that Melissa was beyond any help they could give, the firemen returned to their truck. The ambulance crew consulted with the police officers, presumably getting permission to remove the body.
    With this confirmation that Melissa was truly gone, there was no reason for Helen to stay outside, gawking at the crime scene. No one seemed interested in what she had to say, and if they did want to talk to her, they knew where to find her.
    As Helen got to her feet, she heard an additional vehicle coming up the gravel driveway. A car, not a truck. Rubberneckers, probably. As predictable as the political groupies and busybodies she’d endured as the governor’s wife. She’d come to feel sorry for them—their own lives were so empty that they had to live vicariously through other people’s traumas—but now that she was retired, living on private property, she didn’t have to put up with them.
    Helen made her way over to the closest uniformed police officer. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, observing the removal of the body. The officer wasn ‘t much taller than her 5′ 6″ ex-husband, although he was a bit stockier. His nametag read “H. Peterson.”
    Helen planted herself in front of him. “Excuse me.”
    “ You need to stand back,” he said. “This is a crime scene.”
    “ It’s also my yard.”
    “ You should still step back a ways, ma’am. I’ll come with you.” He took her elbow and started to lead her back toward her front