Good, Clean Murder (19 page)

Isaac lingered
in the door for a moment before he shut it. He kept close to her car the whole
drive back to town.

Back at the
Crawfords’ house Jane slammed her car door shut. She let herself into the
mudroom and slammed that door shut too. She stomped her way up the back stairs
to the servants’ quarters she called home and slammed her bedroom door shut.
Isaac was like a stalker, following her home, making her break the rules,
getting her kicked out of school and being happy about it.

Maybe he had
killed the Crawfords. From the way Jake talked, Isaac had been an outsider in
the neighborhood, a kid the other kids didn’t like. Jane kicked her shoes off.
They landed by the closet with a thud. He was obsessed with religion. On the
one hand this was a good thing, but it did tend to be a quality psychopaths had
in common with regular old believers. He was awfully young to be in a PhD
program, and high intellect seemed to be another quirk of the successful serial
killer.

Did he, or did
he not like hamburgers? She couldn’t remember.

He had access,
since he had every reason to be in the neighborhood whenever he wanted to be.
He had motive, what with being picked on—ooh! And Phoebe seemed to hold him in
high regard. Maybe she had seduced him and convinced him to kill her parents
for her.

Jane flopped
down on her bed.

It could also be
that Isaac was a really nice, really smart boy who loved Jesus, liked her, and
honestly didn’t see the big deal about not having to take the last class at
Harvest.

Or he could be a
killer.

Jane rolled
over. She squeezed her pillow to her chest. Of course, Pastor Barnes had taken
time to personally remind her of the school rules, so whether Isaac was a
killer or not, she had only gotten what was coming to her.

She pressed the
pillow against her face, biting at the side of her cheeks. Getting kicked out
of Bible school for kissing the teacher was a sure sign that she wasn’t ready
for the big time yet, no matter how badly she wished she was.

A rustling noise
woke Jane. She rolled over in her bed towards the noise and blinked her eyes to
clear them.

Jake was sitting
on the floor, reading the newspaper. “Good morning.” He didn’t look up.

Jane pulled the
blanket over her head.

“Have you read
this article, the one by that putz Needles?” Jake shook the paper, making it
rustle loudly again. “Well, of course you wouldn’t have, since it’s this
morning’s paper and you are still in bed. Why are you still in bed, Jane?”

Jane pulled her
blanket down just far enough to read her clock. It said
6:30
.

“Aren’t you
usually up way before this? I went downstairs and there wasn’t even any coffee
yet.”

Jane pulled the
blanket back over her head again.

“Needles thinks
he’s done some sort of exposé. He’s got Phoebe’s time at the center in here,
and that one time when I had to spend the night in juvee—which, by the way, was
not at all my fault.”

Jane slumped
forward and stared at Jake. “Why are you in my room? Why?”

“Why does
Needles say ‘the Crawford Family Corporation which employs over a hundred
people in the Portland area is on the cusp of bankruptcy’? It’s not true, for
one thing, and it’s irritating for another. Do you think Rose of Sharon fed him
lines? Because I do.”

Jane pressed the
heel of her hand against her forehead. “Jake. Please leave my room.”

“I think Rose of
Sharon may have been behind my parents’ deaths, don’t you? Who else has as many
reasons to destroy us?”

“Jake—I just
want some privacy to get dressed. Give me five minutes and I will be downstairs
making your coffee and solving your problems, I promise.”

Before Jake
could respond, the sound of a motor filled the room.

Jane dropped her
head into her hands. Whatever it was it sounded like it was right outside her
door, and that couldn’t be a good thing.

“It’s the floor
cleaners!” Jake shouted over the noise. “They called me last night so I set
them up to come first thing.”

The floors.
Called Jake. Whatever.
She tried to care, but the machine was already going
so what did it matter? So long as they were done stripping and waxing the
floors in time for the tables and chairs it didn’t matter to her.

When she joined
Jake in the kitchen the coffee pot was already brewing.

“Aunty did it,”
Jake said.

He sat in his
usual stool at the kitchen island. “Now that you have granted us the privilege
of your company, do you care to share your opinion on the Needles article?”

Jane found a mug
and filled it with hot coffee. “You say he dragged up your sister’s medical
history?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And your own
history?” Jane took a drink. It burned her tongue.

“Yes, and I’m
deeply insulted by his insinuations. I was out after curfew. Period.”

Jane nodded.
It’s
always the small infractions that come back to bite us.
“And what does he
say about the bankruptcy?”

“Needles claims
that our business is on the brink of ruin. Do you know what that could do to
our upcoming sale thingy, Jane? Put the kibosh on it, that’s what.”

“Help me see
this straight.” Jane took the seat next to Jake. “Were your parents converting
the restaurants, selling the restaurants, merging the restaurants or what?”

“Your guess is
as good as mine.”

“That’s not
true, Jake. Every now and then you let slip that you are aware of what is going
on and capable of understanding it.”

Jake spun his
coffee mug on the counter. “He was buying. He was buying the name Yo-Heaven and
converting his restaurants. If we smell like failures, we won’t get the loans
we need to make that happen.”

“I knew you knew
what was going on.” Jane drummed her fingers on her mug. It had to cool a
little before she could drink more. “What does Needles have against the Crawford
family?”

“It’s about the
newspaper sales and the awards from his peers. He wants to uncover something
big so he can sell papers and win awards. We are the unlucky victims.”

“You have to
call your lawyer, I guess. Sue him for slandering your business.”

“That would be
stupid. I expect better of you, being Isaac’s girl.”

Jane felt her
face turn red. She moved away so he wouldn’t see her blush.

“Trouble in
paradise?”

Jane opened the
freezer. The blast of cold air cooled her cheeks. She pulled out a box of
microwave breakfast sandwiches.

“Always more
fish in the sea. Hey, are those for me?”

“Sure.” Jane put
three sandwiches on a plate and tossed them in the microwave. “Do you want me
to talk to Marjory about the lawyer?”

“It’s kind of
complicated. Look at it this way: If I sue Needles and win he has to retract
his misstatements and stuff. But then the lawsuit would be news, and the
retractment itself would repeat the items in question.”

Jane watched the
plate of sausage and egg biscuits spin. She was doing her best to care about
what Jake was saying, but it was hard.

“For Phoebe’s
sake, if nothing else, I don’t want these things repeated. Can you imagine what
would happen if it went viral and then someone overheard her say she hated mom?
It could end in a murder trial.”

“But if you
don’t sue, he could just as well keep saying these things over and over again.
At least if you sue you are defending yourself.”

“We’d be
defending ourselves over the issue of our business solvency. We couldn’t deny
that Phoebe spent time in the loony bin.”

“You need to
stop calling her crazy and saying things like ‘loony bin.’” The microwave
beeped. Jane took the plate out. She set it in the middle of the kitchen
island, but didn’t take one.

“If you can’t
laugh at your hardships…” Jake popped the cellophane wrapper on one of the
sandwiches.

“It’s not your
hardship.”

“Ah. There is
that.” Jake took a big bite of the steaming sandwich.

“If you are
concerned about the business reputation you need to have the Roly Burger lawyer
sue Needles. If you are concerned about Phoebe’s reputation you have to start
being respectful. Spending time in rehab doesn’t have the stigma it used to.”

“It wasn’t
rehab, Jane. It was a mental health institution. Tell me that doesn’t have a
stigma.”

“How you all react
to the news getting leaked is how the city will react. If you have respect for
your sister, so will the city. Period.”

Jake put the
rest of the sandwich in his mouth.

While he chewed,
Jane bit an apple. The sweet, juicy flesh was like ashes in her mouth. How was
she going to tell her parents she had been kicked out of school?

“I’ve just got
to keep Phoebe quiet until summer when she can go off on her soccer tour
thing.”

“How do you plan
on doing that?” Jane managed to swallow her apple, but didn’t take another
bite.

“If you’re done
with that weird Daniels kid already, she seemed pretty in to him. I could maybe
make something happen there. Having a new boy to toy with could distract her
from wishful thoughts of matricide.”

Blood rushed out
of Jane’s head. She leaned back on the counter.

“You are done
with him, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.”
She wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t. Unless he was the killer, of course.

“If you could
decide, it would help the family. We’re all in this together, after all.”

“How well did
your parents know the Daniels family?”

“Not too well.
Never even appeared before the old judge in court.” Jake popped open another
bagged sandwich.

“Did you see a
lot of Isaac growing up? I mean, I know you didn’t like him, but did you see
him much?”

“Sure. Don’t you
remember him from the company picnics?” Jake stuffed most of the sandwich in
his mouth, but had to bite off a small part to make it fit.

“No.” Jane
grimaced as Jake chewed like a cow.

He swallowed
most of it before he spoke again. “Sure you do. Weird kid. Glasses. Spiky hair.
Always playing his Gameboy. Didn’t even have a DS, poor sap.”

Immediately Jane
pictured the weird, spikey-haired kid who hung around the peripheral of the
Roly Burger family picnics. “That wasn’t Isaac, was it?”

“Of course it
was. Mom made me bring him to have someone to play with. She and Isaac’s mom
were in a golf foursome together.”

Jane closed her
eyes and tried to remember everything she could about the weird spikey-haired
kid with the wire-rim glasses. He hadn’t seemed miserable at the company
picnics, just distracted. “But wait, Jake, if that was Isaac how come he didn’t
recognize Phoebe when he was her coach?”

“Would you have
recognized her? She used to be so fat.”

Jane closed her
mouth. Phoebe had been a very fat kid. She could see not recognizing her now if
the last you had seen of her was when she was still a chubby butterball.

“For the record,
Jane, I did not torment Isaac so that he went crazy and murdered my parents. He
didn’t like playing with me anymore than I liked him. If you recall, I stopped
bringing him to the parties around the same time you got really good looking.”

“So you don’t
think he is a likely suspect?”

“He doesn’t have
the kahunas, to be frank. He’d never even play tackle football with the rest of
us.”

Jane took
another bite of her apple. Isaac was her least likely suspect, which came as a
relief.

“Unless keeping
him on your suspect list means I can use him to distract Phoebe. Please say I
can use him to distract Phoebe.”

“Honestly, I
don’t think he is interested in being a distraction for your sister.” Isaac was
interested in
her
, and now that she was conveniently out of school he
could date her.

Jane coughed on
her apple. It was convenient, wasn’t it? Had Pastor Barnes suggested this
alternative to Isaac before he spoke with her? Had the two men high-fived when
they came up with a great solution that could give them everything they wanted?
Happy school, happy Isaac, happy Jane? If either man thought that taking the
full blame for the kissing incident made her happy, they were fools.
Jesus
took the full blame, you know.
She shoved the thought aside. It clearly
wasn’t the same. Isaac had kissed
her
, after all. The rule was meant to
prevent the men in position of authority from violating the students. Jane
stared down at the apple in her hand.
The snake told me to eat it.

Fine.
It
didn’t matter why or how, she had to accept her own role. She hadn’t needed to
hold his hand at church, or pass notes, or kiss him by the fireside. She
deserved a good, solid, punishment for breaking a clear rule, despite having
been warned once.

“Earth to Jane.”

“What?” she
snapped at him.

“Is there any
more orange juice? I’m parched.”

Jane threw her
apple in the garbage can. “I guess you’ll have to walk all the way around the
kitchen island and open the refrigerator door to find out. Good luck with
that.” Jane stormed out of the kitchen and ran all the way back to her room.

An idea had
occurred to her while she fumed downstairs. She had earned disciplinary action,
but that didn’t necessarily mean she had to be kicked out of school.

She got Glenda
from the Harvest School of the Bible of the phone. “What classes are going on
this term that
Mr. Daniels
isn’t teaching?”

“Oh, Jane, don’t
go making more trouble for yourself.”

“Please, humor
me.” Jane took a seat on the edge of her bed.

“Mornings on
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the kids are taking New Testament Survey and
Tuesday and Thursday mornings they have Jesus and the Law of Moses.”

“Who’s
teaching?”

“Pastor Barnes
is doing the Jesus class, and Simcox is doing the New Testament Survey.”

“Can I please
talk to Pastor Barnes? Is he free?”

“He is, but
you’ve already had Jesus and the Law.”

“Nope, I didn’t.
Last year you all offered Jesus in the Minor Prophets. May I
please
talk
to Pastor?”

“But, honey, you
already have all of your Old Testament credits.”

“Is there a
better time to call back?”

“Isaac is such a
nice kid, Jane. I don’t know why you are doing this.”

Jane gritted her
teeth and kicked the edge of the bed. “I didn’t come to Harvest to meet a man.”
She took a deep breath. “May I please speak to the pastor?”

“Hold a moment.
I’ll transfer you.” Glenda’s voice sounded tired.

“Pastor Barnes
speaking.”

“Pastor, this is
Jane Adler, please listen to my idea and consider it.”

“Slow down. What
do you need?”

“I am so sorry,
and so ashamed of my bad decision. I appreciate that you want to let me walk
with the class anyway, but I just can’t be kicked out. Please.”