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For nearly three months Helen's family and friends -- and for that matter, a good portion of the rest of San Francisco -- have tried to find some reason for her senseless death. No reason has wanted to be found.
More than 500 people gathered at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church on Brotherhood Way to memorialize Helen Menicou. A great many of them were San Franciscans whom she'd served in the restaurant, and they flowed past her casket showing immeasurable and genuine grief. When Helen left Holy Trinity, she had a police escort to the cemetery.
"It struck me, here's someone who didn't come from a famous background with an escort to the cemetery," remembers Father Anthony Kosturos. "She had come here from Cyprus a young lady, and through all her years here managed to touch so many people.
"She was famous in her own right."
The California Assembly adjourned in honor of her memory on July 28. The calls and letters and cards have been constant and from every corner -- a poem from an unknown child, a call from a Saudi prince, notes from all over the country. Every day there are invitations for lunch or dinner. But the attention paid to Helen's death is not all motivated by kindness. The tale of the "poached egg killing" has spread all the way to a supermarket tabloid.
Peter, the scientist, finds some comfort in reviewing a friend's note about the relationship between logic, time, and feelings. His sons are devastated, bitter with the knowledge that their mother's grandchildren will never know her. It's been a tediously painful few months.
"I lost the sunshine half of my life," Menicou says, sitting at his kitchen table. "She cared for me so deeply. She stood by my side every time. She was going to take care of me in my old age. That dream is gone.
"I don't know why this man did this to me. The man I considered a friend. A man I helped repeatedly."
Behind him, the address and phone number to the Pinecrest still hangs on the wall, next to the phone. Photographs of Helen and various other people decorate the refrigerator. Her perfume still sits on a tray in the bathroom.
Whatever personal demons made Hashem brutally murder his friend and co-worker are, at the least, unique. In fact, the best predictor of violent behavior, according to psychiatric experts, is previous violent behavior, something seemingly absent in this case.
"The poached egg issue could be a stressor, but there has to be more underlying issues that would make it go from that stressor to that reaction," says Mark Leary, deputy chief of psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital.
"It's clearly a very extreme reaction. The fact that he would wait for the police suggests that he knew what the consequences would be and felt hopeless enough about the future that that would not dissuade him," Leary observes. "It's almost a passive suicide attempt."
Just yet, Hashem Zayed is not telling the world why he shot Helen Menicou to death in front of numerous witnesses. He sent word back to the Tenderloin that he did not want visitors in the San Francisco County Jail, where he awaits a trial that is scheduled to begin in January. He did not want friends to see him there.
He has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge he faces, likely the signal of an insanity defense. Public Defender Steven Rosen, who is representing Hashem, refused to discuss the case.
Sometime toward the end of July, however, Hashem called Clarke, the hotel manager, and arranged for someone to collect his belongings.
"He was sobbing on the phone," Clarke remembers. "He said he was sorry that he'd embarrassed us like this."
"I can't believe this happened. I can't believe he did this bad thing," she says. "It made me second-guess myself. It made me realize that every one of us could be someone different tomorrow.
"I didn't even know he had a gun."
The Pinecrest is the same warm greasy spoon it's always been, unless you know better. And in that case, it's entirely different.
The smells are still there, the pallets of eggs remain stacked in the kitchen. The menu hasn't changed (poached eggs still are not served), and the folks are still nice, though some of the faces are new. People don't talk about the murder much anymore, unless someone asks about the woman in the photograph hanging on the wall in the middle of the restaurant. And then it becomes apparent that a bit of light is missing from the Pinecrest.
