Good, Clean Murder (16 page)

Jane slipped her hand out of his.
 

“I knew you would hate it. Never mind.” Isaac tipped
her chin up with his knuckle so she had to make eye contact.

“I know I should be flattered.”
Jane stared into his eyes—those beautiful hazel eyes.

“Just forget about it, Jane. I’m sorry.”
 

“What difference will a few months make…to us?” Jane
had difficulty getting the words out. On the one hand, he wanted to date her
now, and in her heart, she agreed. She didn’t want to wait twelve weeks either,
when she knew—what did she know?

She dropped her eyes. All she could say for sure was
that she really
could
love him, if she had the chance. On the other
hand, he wanted her to drop out of college for him, and that was completely out
of the question.
She lifted her eyes to his
again. She was too old to let her feelings for a boy she just met direct her
decisions.

“You should transfer to university, Jane. You are so
smart.” His eyes were mesmerizing, ringed in thick black eyelashes. “You could
take the credits you have now and transfer. My one class wouldn’t make any
difference at all.”

Transfer. University. Hazel eyes. Her head was
swimming. She had avoided boys for two years. Studiously avoided them.
University wasn’t waiting, the mission field was.

He was so close now that she could feel his warm
breath in the frosty air. “Just think about it?” His voice was low and quiet.
 One hand was on the back of her neck, his fingers
laced though her long, straight hair.

Jane found herself nodding, against her better
judgment.
 

She closed her eyes and he kissed her, with firm,
gentle lips. It was just a moment, and then he hovered away from her lips, ever
so slightly. She leaned in and found his lips again. Her whole body trembled.
 

Isaac pulled away again, just a few inches. “I shouldn’t
have done that.” His nose bumped hers as he spoke. “I’m sorry.”
 

Jane bit her lip. She shouldn’t have done it either,
but she was glad she had. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll think about it. I
just don’t know.”
 

“Please forget I said it. I was impatient. You are
worth the wait.”
 

“How do you feel about the mission field? I mean truly
feel.”
 

“It is very, very far away.” Isaac smiled while he
said it. “It’s going to take me at least another year to finish my PhD. Maybe
two.” His fingers were still entwined in her hair. “If you were to be on the
mission field while I was here I would say it was very far away.”

Jane nodded, her chin trembling. It was a non-answer
and she knew it.

For a long moment all that could be heard was the
rustling of the leaves above them and the crackling of the dying fire.

“It was just an idea.” Isaac turned to the fire,
pulling her into the crook of his arm.

Jane rested her head against his shoulder. Night air
that enveloped her smelled of moist earth, campfire smoke, and Isaac’s crisp,
button down shirt. She stared at the flames, breathing deeply, trying to
memorize everything about the moment.

Transferring to university was just an idea. An idea
just like everyone else’s idea for her life.

The troubling thing was, when Isaac said it, she liked
the idea.

Oh Lord
, she prayed in her heart,
help me
stay true to your plan, and be only guided by your Holy Spirit
. She
listened, but no leading whisper responded with the answer to her unspoken
questions.

“How do you kids put out these fires?” Isaac asked.

Jane straightened up, pulling herself away from his
arm that held her. “Last year we kept a bucket of water, but I don’t see it.”
She walked around the fire looking for the bucket her old friends had kept
handy. She found a shovel. “I guess we just bury it.”

“Good thing it’s been raining.” Isaac took the shovel
from Jane. He turned the dying fire over onto itself. He buried the still
glowing embers under shovelfuls of damp earth. When he had finished he stood
next to the ring of rocks with his shovel balanced on the pile of earth. “Did I
ruin this, Jane?”

The night was dark without the fire, but she could
still see the whisper of steam from the wet soil. “No. You didn’t ruin it.” She
watched the steam slowly fade away. The fire was banked, for now. “We were
supposed to put it out. Those are the rules.”

Isaac held her hand as they walked out of the little
woods behind the school, but as the chapel came into sight, he dropped it. He
paused by the door to the girls’ dorm, where she needed to collect her things.
“I’ll see you on Monday? For class?” He smiled, his brows lifted, looking
hopeful.

Jane nodded. She didn’t want him to know how close she
was to tears, and her voice would betray her if she tried to speak.

Isaac quickly looked around. Then he kissed her on the
cheek, lingering close to her ear. “Until May, Jane. I can wait until May.” He
left before she could say anything.

Jane watched him walk to his car, his steps light and
happy, but they would be, because he didn’t have to choose between his plans
for the future and what was beginning to feel a lot like love.

,

Sunday came but the sun was nowhere to be seen. Jane
pulled her comforter over her head. She had managed to clean all Saturday without
interruption. She especially didn’t stop to think about the fireside
conversation, at least not too much.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She had thought about the
fireside conversation the whole day, nonstop. She thought about dropping out of
school while she made breakfast for Jake. She thought about dropping out of
school while washing her laundry. She thought about eloping with Isaac while
she went grocery shopping, even though that hadn’t been one of her options.

She wanted nothing more than to stay in bed all day,
but it wasn’t happening. Not at the Crawford house. The next best thing to
hiding under her blankets all day was driving far, far away. Heading back to
Harvest for church in the little school chapel fit the bill perfectly. She got
ready for church in a haze, but attempted to pull herself together so she
wouldn’t die in a fiery car wreck on the way there.

She hadn’t anticipated seeing Isaac. She had no reason
to think he would attend services at the school where he taught night classes
part-time, but when he sat next to her on the old wooden pew she felt waves of
relief wash over her, as though in fact, she had only come to Harvest to see
him after all.

When Pastor Barnes took his place at the podium Jane
was painfully aware of how close Isaac was sitting next to her. The chapel was
packed with students and the couple of dozen families that also called Harvest
their church home, but it was obvious that Isaac was sitting close to Jane, and
that he was glad about it.

He put his arm around the back of the pew and leaned
over to whisper to her. “Glad you came today. I really didn’t expect to see
you. Hoped I would of course, or I wouldn’t have come.”

“Me, too.” Jane gave him a half smile. From behind her
she could hear Trinity and Mina whispering, probably about them.

Pastor Barnes began a sermon that was sure to be
unpopular with the fresh-from-the-nest eighteen-year-olds who made up his
school. It must have been an annual tradition because Jane remembered it as
basically the same last year. “Honor Your Parents Even though You Don’t Live
with Them Anymore.”

Jane tuned it out and commenced exchanging a lengthy
string of notes with Isaac. It felt scandalous, but he had started it with
questions about how the Crawfords were doing.

Suspicious death
. Jane scratched on her
bulletin.
Don’t know how to prove it.

Do you have to?
Isaac responded.
Aren’t the
police looking into it?

The autopsy report didn’t indicate they were
.
Jane felt Pastor Barnes’s eyes on her as she scribbled ‘indicate.’

What did it say?

Maybe small fight. Heart attacks. Should I keep
looking into this?
It was much easier talking about the deaths with Isaac
than about her future, or their future.

You pray. I’ll pray. God knows.
Isaac’s answer
was a bit theology-student for her. She wanted his personal opinion on it, as
time was running out. She wasn’t sure what her role in the Crawford household
would be after the funeral.

I won’t stop praying.
Jane passed the note.

Wait—listen to this.
Isaac passed the note, and
then nodded at the pastor.

Jane frowned. What was Pastor Barnes saying that was
so important?

“The gift our parents give us is grace—and you know
it, you remember your teenage years, if your parents are giving you anything at
all right now, it’s a gift of grace—that gift of grace is their wisdom.”

The congregation chuckled in response.

“We’re all adults here, some of us young adults, some
of us young adults at heart,” the congregation responded with another little
laugh, “and we don’t technically have to obey our parents any longer.”

A young male voice popped out an “Amen,” followed by
more chuckling.

“Obedience isn’t the only way to honor our parents.
Our parents are offering us their wisdom. Wisdom gleaned from years of hard
experience and bad mistakes. If we are so lucky as to still have parents—”

Jane’s heart hurt for Jake and Phoebe at those words.
They were so young to be facing the world without their parents.

“If we are so
blessed
as to still have our
parents, we should listen to them. Don’t just nod and smile, but listen. Open
your hearts and your ears. When they give you advice, and so long as it doesn’t
contradict God’s word, consider taking it.”

While the bulk of the congregation fidgeted at these
words, Isaac nodded along with the sermon like the old folks in the room. It
must have been the home-schooled-relates-well-to-adults thing he had going.

Jane felt awkward. She hadn’t been listening to her
parents lately, and wasn’t planning on it. She wanted to honor them though, and
listening did sound easier than obeying.

Isaac passed her another note.
 The answer, maybe?
What do your parents say you should do?

Jane knew exactly what her parents said she should do.
She folded the note in half and tucked it between the pages of her Bible.

Around the closing song, Jane found herself holding
hands with Isaac. She gave his hand a squeeze before they stood up, and then
made a quick exit. She didn’t want to face Pastor Barnes after their obvious
flirting during his service. She made her way back to her temporary home,
determined to bury the nagging issue of listening to her parents under a whole
load of housework and murder solving.

,
 

By Monday morning Jane had thoroughly put aside the
honoring-her-parents issue. She was immersed in housework. The funeral was just
five days away now. Jane had finished the last of the extra tasks on her list,
only to be thrown a whole new litany of tasks.

“All of the silver, Jane. We need it all for the
reception. Even if we don’t use it, it is heirloom and we want it out with the
buffet. See me immediately when you finish the silver.” Marjory hadn’t looked
up from her computer as she spoke.

Jane had stationed herself in the mudroom. The first batch
of the silver service was laid out on the marble counter next to the utility
sink. She hadn’t polished silver in at least a year. Each piece took twice as
long as she anticipated. While she worked she plotted the paper she would write
for Isaac’s class. Now, more then ever, she was determined not to shirk her
class work. For this paper, she thought a review of her weeks of practical
experience tied to pertinent articles in the journals would do. If she could
spend a couple of hours at the school library, she should have a top-notch
piece to turn in.

Jane set an elaborate salad spoon covered in deeply carved
grapes on the “polished” side of the counter.

She could hear voices in the kitchen, but had been trying
to ignore them as she worked. She could tell that Phoebe and Jake were arguing.
Their voices had risen in anger, and now couldn’t be ignored.

“You need to stop saying that you hate mom. It looks bad,”
Jake said.

“It’s the truth and I don’t care who knows. You don’t even
know how awful she was.”

“Pheebs, I know more than you think, but you can’t keep
saying it, okay? It will get out.”

“What if it does? The truth shall set us free. It said so
in that one movie and they said it at Prez Prep, too.”

“It’s from the Bible, Phoebe. It means Jesus, not your
irrational hate for your mother.”

“If you had seen what I saw, you wouldn’t say it was
irrational.”

“What you saw, when? What could you have seen to make you
so mad? You don’t even live here.” Jake’s voice faded away a little, as though
he had stepped out of the room.

“That’s
why
I don’t live here. She was hateful.”

“You’ll regret this, someday, when you realize that she’s
never coming back. When you realize you can’t make up from whatever fight you
two had. Then you’ll wish that the whole city hadn’t heard you say you hate
mom.” Jake’s voice rose again. He was yelling, and close to the mudroom door.

“I didn’t use to
hate
mom.”

“Not until she locked you up.”

“She didn’t lock me up. I went because I needed to.”
Phoebe’s voice was closer now as well. Jane hoped they wouldn’t come into the
mudroom. She just wanted to finish the silver and get out.

“They did everything for you, Phoebe. You can’t go around
saying you hated them.”

“I never said I hated
them
,
Jake, and don’t
forget it. Dad was a saint.”

“No, he wasn’t. He was difficult. He was overbearing. He
ruled mom to within an inch of her life. Why else would she and Aunt Marjy
spend so much time in
Europe
?”

“Because mom was the most selfish person on Earth. You
know it’s true.”

“I don’t know anything.” Jane barely heard the last line,
as Jake’s voice dropped to a whisper. She could tell he was still near her door
though.

“I left because I needed help, Jake, and I needed help
because mom was a monster. I didn’t know it then, but I do now.”

“Phoebe…Phoebe. I will give you five thousand dollars if
you promise to stop saying you hate mom. Keep whatever you think you know to
yourself, and the money is yours.”

Jane gasped. What did Jake and Phoebe know that was worth
five thousand dollars?

The door popped open. “Jeeze, Jane, didn’t anyone ever
teach you not to eavesdrop?”

“I’m just working, I swear.” Jane kept her eyes on the
silver.

Jake pulled the door shut. “Phoebe spent a month at the
hospital—inpatient therapy to deal with the family-crazy thing she has going,
and now she thinks she’s a martyr.”

Jane rubbed the grape leaves on the cake sever. She
nodded.

“I need her to keep her crazy to herself until the loss of
our parents stops being a news item. You understand, don’t you?”

Jane nodded again. What could she say? She was embarrassed
for Jake. She had assumed he had been exaggerating just how badly imbalanced
his sister was, but from the sounds of the fight, she had serious issues. “Is
there anything I can do to help?”

“Force-feed her her pills? I swear she’s fine when she’s
medicated and working out. Soccer has always been great medicine for her, but
this stress has really rocked her. After the funeral I’m going to see if she
might like to go back to the facility, just to rest.”

Jane tried to keep the shock off her face. Mental illness
was foreign to her—more than foreign. She was trained in counter-culture
outreach, not in mental illness.

Jake chewed on his lip. “I hate to say this, but I think
you should know. Rich people tend toward crazy. It’s the inbreeding. I’d stick
with the upper-middle class, if I were you.” His joke sounded forced.

Jane moved the cake server to the polished pile. “What do
you think she saw, Jake? Could she have seen your parents fighting the night
before they died?”

“She could have seen anything, I suppose.”

“She really hates her mom right now. If she saw the fight
she might think your mom was responsible for their deaths.”

“It sounds like that’s what Phoebe thinks, but I couldn’t
tell you why.”

“I heard you offer her money to stay silent. Don’t you
think it would be a better investment to pay her to go to a counselor? A
professional could help her work out what she saw, help her understand it, and
feel better about it.”

“It’ll take more than a week to work that out. I’ll buy a
week of silence, and then she can get the help she needs. Don’t let it worry
your pretty little head.” Jake let himself out the back door before she could
reply.

One question nagged at Jane as she scrubbed polish into
the handle of a silver serving tray.
What if Phoebe wasn’t crazy? What if
she really did see something?