Good, Clean Murder (11 page)

“Hey, it’s okay,
Jane. Don’t let Barnes bother you.”

Jane looked up at
Isaac. His eyebrows were lifted in a warm, reassuring, way.

“You didn’t happen
to see what I did with that envelope, did you?”

He held it out to
her with a smile.

Jane tried to take
it nonchalantly.

“I see your ride
is gone. Can I give you a lift?”

“Is that allowed?”
Jane looked back at the church building.

“It’s carpooling.
It’s the right thing to do.”

Jane had a fair
amount of certainty in her heart that it was not the right thing to do, but it
would save her the expense of a taxi.

“You’re not going
to get kicked out of Bible school for letting me drive you home. Don’t worry.”

“What about you?”
Jane asked as she clicked her seatbelt. “Could they dismiss you?”

“I hope not.”
Isaac pulled onto the open highway that led back to town. “I kind of need this
job.”

“I totally get
it.” Jane stared at the passing fields of hops and wheat. The freshly planted
earth was black with fertilizer and rain while the old vines were still brown
from their winter. “So…you’re only twenty-two? How did you get this gig?”

“My PhD advisor
over at Western hooked me up.”

“And how did you
get a PhD advisor at your age?”

“Home-schooling,
of course. I finished everything early.” Isaac dropped one hand from the
steering wheel and let it rest next to Jane’s. “But I’m not weird or
antisocial.”

“Of course not.”

“What about you?
Where did you go to school?”

“Presbyterian
Prep.” Jane let her fingers slowly connect with his until they were holding
hands again. “But I’m not an elitist snob.”

“Obviously not.”

“So…about Saturday.”

“Yeah.” Isaac
didn’t sound happy.

“We’d better put
that off.” Jane looked at their fingers and smiled.

“Reschedule?”

“Indeed.”

“When’s
graduation?” Isaac squeezed her hand.

“May 24
^th
.”

“Are you free May
25
^th
?”

“As it happens,
Mr. Daniels, I am free May 25
^th
.”

“Then it’s a
date.”

Jane turned on the
radio.
Dancing on the Minefields
was playing. The minefields analogy
seemed entirely too appropriate.

Once they hit town
Jane directed Isaac to her old apartment so she could collect her Rabbit.

“What’s this?”
Isaac appraised the car, with his head tilted.

“It’s a Rabbit. A
Volkswagen.”

“Ha, ha. What’s
wrong with your tire?” He knelt down next her car and stuck a finger into a
tire that looked very flat.

“What?” Jane
dropped down to take a closer look.

“Someone slashed
your tire.”

Jane poked her
finger into the deep gash. She pictured her mom saying, ‘I told you so.’
Getting a roommate from Craigslist had been a very bad idea. She checked the
time on her phone. The morning had sped by. It was almost two hours later than
she had wanted to leave for the Medical Examiner’s.

“I bet I can guess
who did it.” Jane’s stomach turned at the thought.

“My first thought
is your old roommate.”

“My thought
exactly.” Jane stood up and scanned the parking lot for people who might have
seen something. She and Isaac were alone.

“That’s just my
first thought. My second thought is: how many people know you were the one who
found the bodies?”

“Bob and Marjory?”

“Yeah. How many
people know you found them, or know that you are involved with the family?”

“I don’t know. The
family. Some folks with the restaurant business. Who knows how far the word has
spread.” Jane itched to put her spare tire on and get moving. She just needed
Isaac to tell her how.

“Have you run
across anything you shouldn’t have? Any info that could make you unsafe?”

“Not yet, but I’m
supposed to go to the ME’s today and pick up their personal effects and the
autopsy report with Jake. Do you think someone wants to keep us from seeing the
report?”

“Who knows you are
picking it up?”

“Jake and Marjory
know we are going for the personal effects, but they’d hardly try and stop me,
especially since Marjory is the one who told me to go. But I did talk about it
last night at dinner…maybe the protestors at Roly Burger, or the staff heard
me.”

Jane explained the
situation at the restaurant the night before and how the employees and the
protesters could have listened in on her conversation with Jake.

“I hate to sound
paranoid. Call it the result of growing up with a legal family, but this could
have been an attempt to keep you from finding out how the Crawfords died.”

Jane swallowed
hard. “Or, it could have just been a mad ex-roommate who wanted to get even
with me for not giving her the cash.”

“Yeah.” Isaac
kicked a tire. “That’s most likely.”

“So what do I do now?
I hate to admit it, but I’ve never been in this position before. Do I have to
make a police report?” Jane asked.

“Well,” Isaac
paused in thought, “we don’t have any evidence to indicate who might have done
this. If I’ve learned anything from
The Judge
, it’s that you need
evidence. Do you have a spare?”

“Yes. I hate to
sound like a helpless female, but could you help me change it? I’m in kind of a
hurry.”

“Of course.” Isaac
got to work on the tire.

“So, no police?”

“What would we
tell them?”

“I suppose I
shouldn’t call and tell them that I let some guy I’ve never met before, who may
in fact be a neo-Nazi, break into an apartment I have no legal right to be in
to collect things that the landlord technically owns and that I then refused to
pay him so he slashed my tire.”

“Agreed, you can’t
call them and say that. This spare is in sorry shape.” Isaac shoved the flat
tire into the back of the Rabbit. “I’d like to follow you back to your place,
just to be sure you make it.”

Jane looked at the
small wheel on the back of her car. “Thanks. I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

They connected
again at the front door of the Crawford house.

“You know, my
parents live just a couple of blocks away.” He patted the pocket of his
button-down shirt. “Do you have a pen?”

“There’s one
inside.” Jane opened the heavy front door and led Isaac into the kitchen.

She opened the
drawer of the kitchen desk and rummaged for a pen and paper.

“Coach?!” The
voice that said this was vaguely familiar, with a panicked note at the end of
the drawn-out word.

“Phoebe?” Isaac
responded with a matching note of surprise.

Jane jerked
herself up to see what was going on and knocked her head on the cupboard.

“Crawford. Phoebe
Crawford. How did I not put this together?”

“You know each
other?” Jane rubbed the sore spot on top of her head.

“From soccer
camp.” Phoebe made her way into the kitchen, her hips swinging. Her tall, curvy
form was wrapped in a pair of tight, skinny jeans and a t-shirt with a deep
v-cut neckline.

Isaac met her in
the middle of the kitchen. He offered her an awkward side hug. “How are you
holding up? I am so sorry about your parents.”

Phoebe slung both
her arms around Isaac’s neck and squeezed him. “Oh, Coach, I’m a complete
wreck.”

Isaac hit his hip
on the granite counter with a thud, as he disentangled himself from Phoebe’s
arms. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

The golf pencil
Jane had found slipped through her fingers. Phoebe. Eighteen year-old college
freshman. Soccer star. Grieving orphan. That definitely topped slashed tires and
a promise not to flirt or date for two more months.

“I really need to
get out of this house. What are you doing? Will you go run some drills with
me?” Phoebe lowered her eyes and then looked up at him again, through her long,
thickly mascara-ed eyelashes.

Isaac caught
Jane’s eye. He shook his head. “I can’t kiddo. I’ve got a project to take care
of, but if there is something else I can do to help later you can let Jane
know. She knows how to get a hold of me. I mean, if there is anything that we
can do to help, we will.”

Jane’s mouth
quivered into a half smile. He said ‘we.’

“Did you find a
pen?”

Jane held out the
pencil and a scrap of paper.

Isaac wrote a note
and folded it in half. “I’ve go to run.”

Jane followed him
to the door.

He leaned down to
kiss her cheek goodbye but stopped. “Ah. Sorry. Rules, right?”

“Yes, right.”

He waved and ran
down the many concrete steps to his car.

Jane shut the
door. She needed to have a conversation with Phoebe.

Jane prayed for
wisdom as she walked down the hall, back to the kitchen. The family needed
Phoebe, and as much as Jane would have liked to ignore the existence of the
beautiful, athletic young woman who had just smeared herself all over Isaac,
she had to try to convince her to stay.

Jane went straight
to the coffee pot. “Can I pour you a cup?”

“Are you sleeping
with Coach
and
Jake?”

“What?” Jane swung
around to face Phoebe, the coffee sloshing over her feet.

“Because that
hardly seems fair. Jake’s my brother, so it makes the most sense for you to
stick with him and leave Coach for me.”

Jane set the
coffee pot on the counter and counted to fifteen. She dropped the dishcloth
from the sink into the puddle of coffee. While she swished the dishcloth back
and forth on the floor with her foot, she prayed again for wisdom. With all of
her heart she wanted to slap Phoebe across the face.

“It was nice of
you to bring him by though, knowing that I’d need someone to comfort me during
this trying time. To be honest, I had completely forgotten about him, But
whooo—he’s cute right? And fit. You should see him in a tank top.”

“I’m not sleeping
with anyone, Phoebe.” Jane’s jaw hurt from clenching it.

“Jake won’t stand
that for long, I imagine.” Phoebe took an apple out of the bowl. She turned it
over in her hand, the kitchen lights making its waxed red skin shine. She took
a bite. The crunch seemed to echo in the kitchen. “He is paying your room and
board, Jane. You should show your gratitude.”

Jane dropped to
the ground. She mopped up the coffee with firm, angry strokes. Nothing good
could come of this conversation. She repeated it to herself again. Nothing good
could come from this conversation. She stood up and wrung the sopping rag out
in the sink.

“I’m glad you
came.” It was hard to pull out the words, and they felt like a lie, but for
better or worse, it seemed like Phoebe needed her aunt and brother as much as
they needed her. It was right, even if it wasn’t comfortable, for her to be
back at the house. “Are you planning on staying through the funeral? Maybe
afterward as well? At least for a while?”

Phoebe crunched
her apple again. “Depends. Is it a double funeral?”

“Of course.”
Now
,
Jane wondered,
why would her staying depend on that?

Phoebe chewed on
her apple for a while. “Then, no. I wouldn’t go to a funeral for my mother if
my inheritance depended on it.”

The sound of sock
feet padding into the kitchen made Jane turn around.

“That’s because
you are a big, fat, brat,” Jake said. He pulled a stool up to the kitchen
island. “Did you stand me up, Jane, or is it earlier than I think?”

“I was delayed
this morning.” Jane turned on the water to rinse her dishcloth. She had
forgotten the personal effects again.

“She was out with
Coach.” Phoebe set her half-eaten apple on the counter and rolled it back and
forth. “They came in together this morning, but don’t worry. Jane says she’s
not sleeping with him either.”

“Good.” Jake laid
his head on his arms. He was dressed in his boxer shorts and sweat socks. His
arms and back were covered in goose pimples. “Coffee? Please?” Jake sat up
again. “Who is this ‘Coach’?”

“From summer
soccer camp.” Phoebe rolled the apple to her brother. He rolled it back. The
apple left a sticky trail on the black granite every time it rolled.

“Name?” Jake said.

Phoebe shrugged.
“How should I know? He’s just some camp coach, but he does look fine in a tank
top. And his calves? Yummy. The boy runs, that much is obvious.”

“Jane? Enlighten
me. What specimen did you drag into my lair this morning?”

Jane rubbed her
eyes, exhausted already. “Isaac Daniels. My teacher.”

Jake looked
unimpressed.

“Ahh!” Jane
remembered what Isaac had mentioned earlier, about where his parents lived.
That should put things in perspective. “His dad is your neighbor, Judge
Daniels.”

“That puts a
different spin on things.” Jake sat up, and stretched his arms, his skinny,  bare
chest exposed.

“Neighbor like
they have money?” Phoebe crunched her apple again.

“Neighbor like
those weird Daniels kids who didn’t go to school. I think you could do better,
Jane. You’ve got a pretty face, a nice figure. You could definitely do better
than that weirdo Daniels kid.”

Jane let her
dishrag fall into the sink with a wet plop. “Just get dressed, Jake. Your aunt
wants the stuff from the Medical Examiner’s office ASAP.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jake
laid his head back on the counter.

Phoebe tossed her
half-eaten apple in the sink. “I don’t care if he is weird. You can bring Coach
back here any time you want.”