Grime and Punishment: A Jane Jeffry Mystery (14 page)

A knock at the kitchen door startled her. She suddenly remembered that, in spite of her resolve, she had failed to lock it. Uncle Jim was right. She had ridiculously careless habits. Peering through the curtains, she saw with relief that it was Shelley.

“Come in. I thought you had errands to do."

“I do, but I couldn't do them for thinking about all this," Shelley admitted. "I was supposed to pick up the dog, but I just couldn't face having him hang on my pant cuffs. I'm going to leave him at the kennel till the kids get home. Jane, I want this settled so the kids
can
come home. I miss them, but I won't have them back until I know we're all safe — at least from whoever killed that woman. Jane, I've got to get all that stuff out of the refrigerator and the dishes back to people. Come help me clean it out, will you?"

“Sure. Let me get my keys." As she was reaching for her purse, the phone rang and she grabbed it. "Hello?"

“Mrs. Jeffry? This is Karen from the Specialty Siding Company. We have a crew in your neighborhood giving estimates this week. You do own your own home there at—"

“Do you?"

"Do I what?"

“Do you own your own home?”

There was the usual baffled silence at the other end of the line. Jane smiled smugly. It always worked.

“I — well, that is to say, I don't quite understand—"

“You're trying to tell me it's none of my business, aren't you?" Jane interrupted warmly. "Well, it's none of your business either. Goodbye."

“Roofing and siding?" Shelley asked. "That's clever. I usually just lie and tell them I rent.”

“That works?"

“Yup. They only want to talk to somebody who can commit their very own thousands of dollars to covering up the outside of the house. I like yours better. It gets closer to the heart of why those calls make me so mad."

“Do you suppose most people tell them the truth without a fight?" Jane asked as they went outside. She locked the kitchen door and tested it to make sure it latched.

“They must or they wouldn't keep asking."

“I've been thinking about it… As they went to Shelley's house, Jane told her about the Donahue show. "We're being conditioned to tell anybody who asks us anything they want to know. Like the so-called survey calls that ask you one stupid question about a television show, then your age and income, and proceed to try to sell you four thousand magazines you don't want for twice what it would normally cost. But at the same time most people are spill- ing their guts to anybody who asks, some people are hoarding pretty awful secrets.”

They sat down at the kitchen table. Shelley had been clipping grocery store coupons and started gathering them up and putting them into the small cardboard file she kept in her purse. "Here's one for cat food I saved for you," she said.

Jane folded it and stuffed it in her jeans pocket. She was still brooding over secrets told and secrets kept. "Do you have any awful secrets, Shelley? I don't mean I'm asking what they are, just if you have any."

“You know them all," Shelley said. "Except for some stupid, embarrassing things, most of which I've mercifully forgotten."

“My secrets are petty in the world's scheme of things," Jane said. "Once I forgot to pay for a loaf of bread at a market in France, and deliberately didn't go back to pay when I realized it. My worst was chipping a tiny flake of rock off one of the stones at Stonehenge. I was dared on a school outing. I felt horrible about it for months, and tried to figure out how I could send it back, but I was only twelve and I was scared that they'd get my fingerprints off the envelope and trace me to my father and he'd lose his job in the State Department for having such a wicked daughter."

“My worst was shoplifting a bikini. I must have been about sixteen, and of course my mother wouldn't give me the money to buy a thing like that, so, in desperation, I stole it. Of course, then I was faced not only with the guilt,but with the knowledge that I didn't ever dare wear it."

“But Shelley, those are stupid things that all kids do in some variation. Not grown-up, horrible secrets."

“Well, you do have one grown-up, horrible secret. .

“You mean about Steve and whoever the bitch was? Even that doesn't really qualify. I couldn't be blackmailed about it. It's not something awful I did. Just something that would make me feel embarrassed if people knew. I certainly wouldn't kill anybody to keep it quiet.”

Shelley's phone rang. "Yes? Oh, hello, Detective VanDyne. Yes, that would be fine. Yes, she's right here with me. I'll ask. Jane, could you stay here for a while? Yes, that's fine. Ten minutes, then.”

She hung up and said, "He wants to tell me how things are coming along and double check with you about the times you saw people coming and going. He'll be right over.

“Oh, God! I look like I've been pulled through a knothole!"

“I thought you didn't like him?"

“I didn't like him thinking I was a frumpy housewife and I'm sitting here the living proof of it!"

“You've got time to run home. Put on that cherry sweater you bought last week."

“Not the green one with the navy trim?”

Shelley paused a moment, then grinned. "Jane, I wouldn't be your friend if I continued to keep this from you. That green sweater makes you look like you just gave six quarts of blood.”

Jane laughed. "That must be why people are always so solicitous when I wear it. Always asking how I feel.”

She made it just moments before the detective, and was sitting calmly at the kitchen table wearing the cherry sweater and crisp, black slacks when his MG purred to a stop in the driveway. Shelley had been on the phone when she returned and was still talking. Jane had the impression she was talking to Paul, but wasn't sure. As the doorbell rang, Shelley said, "Right, honey. Thanks for telling me. I
was
worried. Bye-bye." She hung up and said quickly, "Jane, don't mention those pearls to VanDyne. I know who took them."

“Who—?"

“Please, come in," Shelley was saying to the detective.

Jane studied him as Shelley invited him in and fixed him a cup of coffee and a plate of cookies. He was just as good-looking as Jane remembered. He was probably a few years younger than she, but, according to the gossip columns, that didn't matter these days. She wondered briefly what sort of money he made, but then quickly reminded herself she wasn't looking for someone to marry, just someone to date occasionally.

Maybe.

She hadn't been on a date since she met Steve. Eighteen years ago! What did people do on dates these days? She was pretty sure the old kiss-on-the-third-date rule didn't apply, but did everybody just hop into bed with everyone now? Oh, dear. That would put her at a real disadvantage. She'd be a Victorian in a time warp. Imagine letting someone you hadn't known intimately for years see your stretch marks. Horrors! Besides, if she ever did go out with somebody like this, the fun of it would be in being seen with him. And then there were the kids to consider..

“Mrs. Jeffry?”

She had the feeling he'd spoken to her more than once. "Sorry, I was just thinking about — something."

“I know this must be very upsetting to you both," he said.

Let him think it was murder on her mind, not sex. "Of course. But you must call me Jane. 'Mrs. Jeffry' makes me feel very old."

“Okay," he said with a charming smile, but he didn't offer his first name. "And you're Shelley, aren't you?"

“Yes," Shelley answered, but the look in her eyes said, "Mrs. Nowack to you, buddy.”

Oh, dear. If Shelley had taken a dislike to him, Jane figured she'd better give up on him. It wouldn't be a bit of fun giggling girlishly over a conquest that your friend didn't approve of. "Now, what did you want to talk to me about?" she asked him.

“First, I wanted to fill Mrs. Nowack in on what we've learned.”

So he had caught that expression and duly noted it. Good for him.

“Mrs. Jeffry suggested that the regular cleaning woman probably was the intended target. That's simply a theory, of course. She has no proof. But it is something to consider and discard—"

“Discard!" Jane exclaimed. "You know perfectly well there's absolutely nothing questionable about Mrs. Thurgood's past. Unless you're lying to us and the newspapers about her. Are you?"

“Why would we need to do that?"

“And you know by now what mixed reviews Edith gets," she went on.

“Mixed reviews?"

“Some of our friends who are very good housekeepers think the world of her," Shelley explained, "and others who are… well, slobs, to be honest, didn't think she did a very good job."

“And which are you, Mrs. Nowack?"

“She's only worked for me once and I didn't think she did a very good job."

“And you?" he asked Jane. "I understand she was at your house the day after the murder."

“I'm one of the slobs who didn't think she did a terribly good job," Jane replied honestly. "I mean, she did the minimum well enough, but no more." He hadn't admitted that her theory had any merit, but at least he was asking questions about Edith. Certainly that meant he was coming around to her way of thinking.

“What conclusions do you draw from this discrepancy?" he asked.

“What an odd question," Shelley said. "Why should our conclusions matter? It's yours that count. What do you think — or aren't you allowed to say?”

That put him in an obviously uncomfortableposition. He stirred his coffee, cocking his head at her as if considering how much he ought to say. The silence grew longer, and Shelley's original animosity seemed to be growing.

Jane — wisely or not — took matters in her own hands. "I can't speak for anybody, but I think she was blackmailing customers — or ex-customers. I haven't figured out which."

“Why do you think that?" His tone was pleasant. Almost amused. Or did Jane just imagine a patronizing tone?

“Because the one time she did work for me, I believe she broke into a locked drawer in a room I asked her not to go into.”

She was rewarded with a smile. A genuine, dimple-flashing smile. She nearly slipped off her chair.

“Tell me more about it," he said.

Jane did. She tried to go easy on the domestic aspects of glasses repair kits and files of report cards and envelopes with baby teeth the tooth fairy had brought. He listened in silence.

“So nothing was missing, but you're sure the contents were disturbed?"

“Fairly sure. But there's no proof."

“We could fingerprint the drawer, but you probably smudged any that might have been there."

“Sorry," Jane said automatically.

“It's all right. It wouldn't have proved anything anyway. Just confirmation of your suspicion. By the way, you might be interested in knowing that Edith isn't doing any of her jobs this week. She called in and said she was having a bad spell with a wisdom tooth."

“Ahh, so you think she's figured the same thing and is scared?" Jane asked.

He acted as if he hadn't heard the question. Turning his attention back to Shelley, who'd started tapping her spoon lightly on the table while staring thoughtfully out the kitchen door, he said, "We've checked on all the service vehicles seen that day in the neighborhood. All were legitimate. Furniture deliveries, plumbing repairs, and so forth. There were also three people seen walking the block that we know of. One was a woman collecting for charity, another was an insurance adjuster working a fire-damage claim, and the third was a paper boy home from school with chicken pox, but out making his collections. All of them were exactly what they claimed to be. The only other people known to be near this house were the ladies who brought the food.”

He left it at that for the moment, giving them time to draw the obvious conclusion.

In an intellectual way, Jane was gratified to have her own suspicions confirmed. At the same time, she felt her heart constrict. It was one thing to jabber about something like this with Shelley; it was altogether a different matter when an officer of the law all but told them one of their acquaintances was a potential murderer. She wanted badly to go back to the old wandering-maniac theory.

In spite of the cherry sweater and the bright shaft of sunlight coming through Shelley's sparkling windows, Jane began to shiver. This wasn't a game and it didn't matter if VanDyneliked them or not. He had to know the truth. "Shelley, tell him about the pearls."

“No, Jane."

“What pearls?" VanDyne asked.

“Shelley had a strand of pearls that were stolen," Jane said. "She didn't want you to know because she didn't want her husband to know they were gone."

“Jane, I wish you hadn't said that. I told you I knew who took the pearls."

“Who?"

“Paul.”

Fourteen

"Your husband stole your pearls?" VanDyne asked.

“Technically, they are his and no, he didn't steal them. He took them — to be cleaned and appraised," Shelley explained. She was actually blushing, something Jane had never seen happen. "I told Jane earlier I was supposed to have put them in the safe-deposit box and I didn't. I discovered after the murder that they were missing, and I didn't want my husband to know I hadn't taken care of them."

“That's why you didn't tell me when I asked if anything was missing?" VanDyne asked. He was a little curt. Almost disgusted.

“Because of that and because I had no idea when they disappeared. They could have been gone for a year. Jane, that's what Paul was calling about a few minutes ago. I guess I kept staring at that drawer, and he noticed. He called to tell me not to worry."

“Were they real?" Jane asked.

“No. High-grade fakes, though. With some value just because they're good antique imitations."

“I beg your pardon, ladies. But is this really pertinent?" VanDyne asked.

“It is to me," Shelley replied sharply.