Helen West is a minor character in HITMAN™ 2. She's a professional baker in Whittleton Creek, appearing in the missions Another Life and A Bitter Pill.
Helen is the widow of Roger West, with who she had two sons, Herbert and Jed. Her maiden name is unknown.
About[]
Helen West is beloved throughout Whittleton Creek as the sweet old lady who runs a Helen's Muffin Kitchen, a small baking business that provides free muffins every Saturday. In truth, she's secretly had a callous obsession with poisons all her life and is barely containing her self-proclaimed 'true nature' as a killer, being already responsible for the death of Frank Schmidt. She is a close friend with her next door neighbor Janus, even doing him the favor of touching up the sewing of his Ark Society robe. Despite their friendship, Janus' frequent phone calls often irritate Helen for interrupting her workflow, especially since he only calls her landline instead of her mobile phone.
Helen maintains an amateur toxicology laboratory in her basement, where she works to mix poisonous chemicals into her baking in a way that will have predictable, controlled effects. The room features a large incinerator and is stocked with a mix of food and medical supplies, including a human skull and several preserved brains. Among the compounds, she has a bottle of emetic pills and another of lethal pills. She apparently has a sedative too, but has lost it among the disorganized clutter.
Background[]
Helen has always had a sadistic side and an interest in poisons. As a child, she would experiment on her brother's pets and derive enjoyment from their mother blaming him for their deaths. In college, she progressed to human subjects, slipping chemicals into boys' drinks just to see the effects. After an incident where one fell from a window and broke his back, she tried to suppress her behavior. This lasted until she was arrested - likely for tax fraud - and sent to prison for a year. With the stressful situation having made her old tendencies resurface, she began mixing chemicals into the baked goods she gives to the public. This has resulted in the death of Frank Schmidt, something Helen didn't expect but feels no remorse for, being far more interested in trying to predictably replicate the chemical reaction.
Schedule[]
Helen loops between baking in her kitchen and experimenting in her basement lab. She also has three important calls she needs to make; after being in her basement, she'll head into her garage to use her phone as long as she still hasn't finished them all. Her routine is broken up by visits from the mailman and a campaigning politician as well as random calls by Janus on the landline phone in her kitchen.
Helen starts in the kitchen with James - one of her employees - who tells her about a customer eating a lot of the free samples and asking if she'd like to join in tending the stand. She declines due to all the work she needs to do, especially some sewing for Janus. After James leaves, Helen descends to her basement to consider tweaks to her formula. As she ponders whether the local plumber would have an allergic reaction similar to Frank Schmidt's, her doorbell is rung by Dale Anderson. Once the two have a small chat, Helen goes to her garage to call her accountant before she returns to her baking. Her doorbell is rung again, this time by Charles Blake III. He expresses admiration for her burgeoning business and promises to help it expand if elected, which intrigues Helen. After he leaves, she momentarily looks in her basement for a sedative, then returns to her garage to check in with her probation officer. After a bit more baking, she'll have another look around the basement only to be dismayed at how cluttered she's let it get. Her final business call for the day is with a 'Mr. Freeman,' discussing her reluctance to accept his offer of a live appearance on national television, due to the attention it'd put on her. When she next goes into the basement after this, she darkly monologues about how her formula is almost ready and how eager she is to stop hiding who she really is.
Helen spends the rest of the day baking and checking her basement for the sedative.
Gallery[]
The Envy Contention[]
She also appeared in Mendoza as one of the featured targets in the 7 Deadly Sins escalation The Envy Contention in level 3.
Trivia[]
- It's implied that at least some of her muffins contain mild amounts of toxic chemicals so Helen can study the effects on consumers.
- Helen handles all the baking herself, only makes a single kind of muffin recipe, and has a weekly free giveaway within her own neighborhood; this allows her full control of dosing measurements, eliminates variation from different ingredients and baking times, and provides a large pool of easily-observed subjects.
- She is still on probation after spending a year in prison, likely for tax evasion.
- She is also featured in the Ectoplasmic challenge in A Bitter Pill, where her body must be dragged to Galen Vholes's office.
- She has a unique pistol called Rude Ruby under her pillow. Though presumably for self-protection, she won't retrieve the gun if alerted.
- It is possible Helen was engaged in an affair with Schmidt since she has a key to his bedroom in her basement.
- In conversations with Charles Blake III, she reveals that she's appeared on Vermont television.
- Helen seems a bit unfamiliar with modern technology, expressing surprise at how quickly someone receives an email that she sent earlier the same morning.